I Was Born for This(30)

‘Has something happened?’

I shake my head. ‘No, nothing’s happened.’

‘Then what’s going on, Jim-Bob?’

‘I think I’m lying to everyone … and I don’t want to lie to anyone any more.’

Grandad sighs again. ‘Oh, Jimmy. You don’t lie to me, do you?’

‘… no.’

‘Then that’s not everyone, is it? What’s this about?’

I wipe my eyes. ‘I don’t know who I am. Everything I do feels like a lie. I wake up every day and I have to be Jimmy Kaga-Ricci, this famous guy, and I have to smile at the camera and say hi to people but … I don’t even know who I am underneath that.’

Grandad chuckles. ‘Jimmy … you’re young. You’re only just starting to figure that out, lad.’

‘I hate myself.’

‘Why would you do that?’

‘Whoever I am … it’s bad.’

‘Why would you say that?’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. I just am. I’m lying.’

‘But what are you lying about?’

I reach inside my jacket and take out Grandad’s knife. It has my great-grandad’s name on it – Angelo Ricci. Holding it makes me feel real. It reminds me that I was born. That my life is something other than this birdcage I’m trapped in. Isn’t it? Isn’t it?

‘Everywhere I go, everything I do … I’m lying. I’m pretending. And everyone’s watching me … waiting for me to get it wrong.’

‘Jim-Bob … that’s normal. You put on acts for people. Everyone does that. It’s not a bad thing. It’s protection, son. You’ve got to protect what’s important to you. Especially when you’re someone like you.’

‘It makes me feel horrible.’

‘That’s the life you’ve got, my boy.’

This makes my eyes water again.

‘I don’t want it, then.’

‘Don’t say that, Jimmy.’

‘I don’t want it.’

‘Jimmy. Are you drunk?’

‘… no.’

‘Now there’s a real lie, boyo. Is Rowan there?’

‘No.’

Grandad huffs. ‘Jimmy …’

‘I can’t do it by myself.’

‘You’re going to have to one day, Jim-Bob. I’m eighty-four years old. We all have to do this by ourselves eventually.’

‘I can’t. When you’re gone … I don’t want to be here any more.’

‘You’ll be all right,’ says Grandad. ‘You’ll be all right, Jimmy. Are you listening to me? Jimmy? You’ll be all right, son. Come on, don’t cry. Shh. I’m still here. Come on, boyo. Shh. Grandad’s here. You’ll be all right. Everything’s going to be all right.’





‘god forgive us: we have burned a saint.’



– a soldier after the execution of Joan of Arc





There’s nothing quite like being woken up by a Twitter direct message that reads: It was you

Despite having not read who it’s from, nor having any idea who it’s from, the sinister nature of the message makes my heart jump so hard that I’m immediately fully awake, and I jolt upright, in a fashion not dissimilar from yesterday morning’s Jowan revelation. I rub my eyes and focus in on my phone and read the name above the message.

Bliss Lai

Okay. So. What the fuck?

I read the full message.

Bliss Lai

It was you, wasn’t it. You told them.

What was me? What have I done?

Juliet’s bedroom door creaks open, and I whip my head round. Juliet is standing there, dressed and ready for the day.

When I hauled myself out of bed to pray at dawn, Juliet was in bed next to me, asleep. I hadn’t heard her come in, but it was a relief to know she didn’t sleep in Mac’s bed. Still, when I got back into bed afterwards, I couldn’t fall back to sleep for a whole hour.

She looks at me and holds up her phone in front of her so that the screen is shining at me through the dim light.

‘Rowan’s got a girlfriend,’ she says.

She sounds like someone’s died.

I laugh at her. ‘Shut up.’

‘Angel,’ she says, snapping, like she’s angry. Then, remarkably, her eyes tear up, and her lips wobble. ‘This isn’t a joke.’ She wipes her eye with one hand.

‘I don’t understand,’ I say.

I don’t want to understand. I don’t want any of this to be happening. I want to go back to when everything in my mind was real. When I could read a story and it would be real and real life didn’t matter, real life was inferior.

Real life has arrived to punch us all in the face. Maybe I’m at that age now.

‘Everything from yesterday …’ she says. ‘Jowan. It wasn’t true.’

Juliet walks over to me and shows me some pictures, and they’re all of Rowan Omondi, and his girlfriend, Bliss Lai.





‘My girlfriend’s being attacked by paps in the fucking street on her way into work and you want me to fucking calm down?!’ Rowan screams at Lister so loudly that Lister actually recoils. ‘Fuck off, thinking you can help us, thinking you have any fucking understanding of what it means to care about someone, you fucking sex addict!’