I Was Born for This(59)

‘Jimmy,’ Rowan heaves out, coming to a halt in the doorway. ‘What the fuck are you doing? We’re on in, like, thirty seconds!’

I turn to him and say, ‘It’s gone.’

‘What’s gone?’ He looks around the bathroom. ‘Wait, is this … is this where you were?’

Don’t cry. God, please, don’t let me cry. I don’t want to cry again.

‘It’s … she must have it,’ I say. Yes, Angel must have taken it; she was the only one in here. She must have taken it as a memento. The day she met Jimmy Kaga-Ricci and he had a meltdown.

Rowan holds out a hand. ‘Jimmy, we haven’t got time for this.’

I take his hand and stand up.

‘Sorry,’ I say.

‘What have you lost?’ he asks.

Everything, I want to say.





They rise out of the stage like they’re here to guide us into Paradise.

They are immediately everything. The centre point of the world. They dispel air and light and the fans flock to it, reaching out, pleading.

The Ark are here.

Jimmy and Rowan jump down from their platform, leaving Lister alone on there, where he clambers onto his drum stool and holds both of his drumsticks in the air, pointing upwards. I look up, but nothing is there. The lights turn bright white, and then orange, illuminating the dry ice and shrouding the trio in a glowing mist. One long, low electronic bass note vibrates around the arena.

Jowan walk up and down the front of the stage. Jimmy skips and smiles, but now that I’ve seen the other Jimmy it doesn’t seem real any more. Rowan wanders, nodding, staring down the crowd. He knows they are the kings of the world.

The bass note continues.

Jimmy’s black wing feathers are sewn across his hoodie. Rowan’s got a small but visible plaster on his forehead, but he still looks exceptional. He’s wearing a dress. I love him, I love him. Lister stands on his drum stool, very still, watching, waiting. The light illuminates his hair. A halo.

They climb back up to the top platform where all their instruments are. Lister picks Jimmy up by his thighs, holding him up to the light, and Jimmy stretches out his wings. Fans around me are crying, screeching, begging.

I’m weighed down by what I know.

How can they just carry on after what happened today?

Which is the real Ark? This one or the one I met in the bathroom?

I want to believe in this one, but I think it might be a lie.

The stage doubles up as an LED screen. An image of Joan of Arc wielding her sword flashes on and off, like a strobe.

‘London,’ says Lister, then, in his low voice, and it echoes around. London screams back at him but it doesn’t have the same magic.

The bass continues and then comes the voice that always begins their show.

I am not afraid, said Noah

The flashing lights and spotlights that have been moving around the crowd all stop at once. One of them stops directly on me. I hold my hand up, blocking the light from my eyes.

I was born for this

The Ark have taken up their positions by their instruments, staying very still, dreamlike through the orange mist. I strain to see Jimmy’s expression, but he’s just a winged smudge in the light.

Born to survive the storm

Born to survive the flood

I get the urge to cry again.

Why do I feel like he’s died when he’s right there in front of me?

Believe in me

Said Noah to the animals

Though they’re near-invisible now, it’s impossible to miss Rowan raise a hand and pat Jimmy on the shoulder. Jimmy doesn’t move. They love each other. At least that belief of mine is real … right? Please, God, please, I want to believe. I want it to be real more than I want to be alive.

Somehow, I expect that most of my beliefs were fantasies.

And two-by-two, they ascended

Onto the ark

I turn round and look back at the arena. Phones are dotted lights in the darkness like stars. I can’t see any faces.

They start playing the opening bars of ‘Joan of Arc’. I feel nothing. I just turn back and stare up at them, waiting, praying for something good to happen, something good to make me feel okay again, just as it always has until today.

But I don’t feel anything.





I thought something would be different but the show is normal and I can smile fine and of course, of course, nothing changes. I don’t forget any lyrics or chords or anything. Lister doesn’t even forget the set-list order. That’s just how it is, isn’t it? Everything carries on as normal.

We’re midway through ‘Joan of Arc’ when I spot her.

Angel.

I’ve dropped down to the lowest platform on the stage. The closest I can get to the fans. Smudgy blobs become real faces of real people, some of them smiling, some of them crying, some of them singing along with me. For a second I forget everything again and smile with them.

Then I see her.

A glint of light on a shiny headscarf.

She is not singing. She is not singing or crying or even smiling.

I almost stop singing. Almost.

I could go for it right now. I could jump into the audience and grab her by the arms and beg her to give me my knife back, tell her I’m sorry, I’m sorry she had to see who I really am. I could call out to her right now in front of twenty thousand people.