I Was Born for This(80)

‘And you have yourself,’ she says. ‘Fereshteh. My—’

The call suddenly ends. I whip my phone from my ear and look at the screen, only to find that the signal bars have gone.

‘Hey, Angel.’

A voice makes me look up from the ground.

Metres away from me is none other than Bliss Lai. She’s wearing the same jeans as she was in on Wednesday, her sleek hair kept mostly dry by a huge umbrella.

‘Having a meltdown in the rain?’ she says, and grins at me. ‘How very relatable.’

‘How … why … what …’

‘I know,’ she says. ‘I have that effect on people.’

She sits down on the pavement next to me, holding the umbrella over both of our heads.

‘So what’s up with you?’ she asks.

‘Having a crisis,’ I say.

‘Same,’ she says.

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘At home. Hadn’t been outside since Wednesday. The paparazzi have been loitering around my house.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘Thought it was time to come out of hiding,’ she says. ‘And sort out the mess that is my fucking life. Rowan messaged me saying you’d all be here.’ She chuckles. ‘Not that I replied to his message.’

‘Oh.’

‘And why are you here? Bit random. You’re not stalking Jimmy, are you? Because that would be weird and I thought you were cool.’

I open my mouth to try to explain, but close it again. Impossible. I just shake my head at her.

‘Cool,’ says Bliss, and we sit there, under the umbrella, while I get out the rest of my tears.





Grandad puts a property show on the TV as if watching a middle-aged man talk about house prices is going to calm anyone down. None of us are calm at all. Lister is pacing around the room, staring hard at the floor. Rowan has seated himself firmly in an armchair and has folded his arms. I sit down on the sofa and start fiddling with my collar.

How am I going to explain anything I’m thinking?

‘Now,’ says Grandad, ‘I’m going to go and make everyone a cup of tea. And you’re not allowed to start talking about anything that has happened until I get back. All right? I think the three of you just need a few minutes to sit and think.’

Rowan starts to protest but Grandad leaves before he can say a full sentence, so he just slumps back into the chair and taps his foot.

I can see the questions burning in his eyes. Why did I do this? Why do I want to leave The Ark? Do I hate him and Lister? How could I do this to them? What’s wrong with you? Don’t you enjoy the fame and money? Can’t you just put up with it for a bit longer?

They’re all questions I’ve already asked myself.

‘Can you please stop pacing,’ snaps Rowan in Lister’s direction after a couple of minutes.

Lister doesn’t even argue. He just stops and stands very still.

Then he says, ‘D’you remember Jimmy’s fourteenth birthday party?’

Both Rowan and I turn to look at him.

Lister nods, looking up at the ceiling. ‘It was just us three that year in here. Joan baked us that huge cake and we all had those little bottles of blue WKD, which Joan thought was just some kind of fruit squash. Not that we got drunk. We all pretended we were drunk but we really weren’t.’

Neither Rowan nor I speak.

‘And then,’ Lister continues, ‘we’d been planning to watch the Lord of the Rings films back to back, but instead we spent four hours in the garage coming up with our own electro version of “Happy Birthday”. And Joan and Piero came and watched and clapped.’ He grins suddenly, manically. ‘Oh, man. Jimmy, does Piero still have the old drum kit in the garage?’

He doesn’t wait for an answer from me, he just walks straight out the door and into the kitchen, calling for Grandad. ‘Hey, Piero, d’you still have my old drum kit, by any chance?’

Rowan leaps up, following him, spluttering some sort of protest.

I get up and follow them too, to find Grandad standing in the kitchen, perplexed, holding a teabag in one hand.

‘Oh yes,’ he says, ‘well, I didn’t really know what else to do with it, so it’s still there.’

‘Sick.’ Lister practically bounces down the hallway and swings the door to the garage open, Rowan and I following in silence now, baffled. Lister turns to look at us and gestures towards the garage. ‘Come on, lads. Band reunion tour starts here at Tiny Miscellaneous Village in the north Kent marshes.’

Rowan sighs, but the agitation in his voice has dissipated. ‘Lister … what the fuck are you doing?’

Lister doesn’t answer, so we follow him into the garage. He turns the light on and there it is, our original band set-up, the place we used to write music, rehearse and record all our first YouTube videos. A rusty old drum kit stands at the back, the stool ripped and faded. Two painfully plastic keyboards are propped up to one side, and there’s even our old spare acoustic guitar, complete with My Chemical Romance stickers and an engraving (by Lister) of a hand sticking its middle finger up.

Lister immediately skips over to the drum kit and sits down, rummaging around his feet until he finds the drumsticks. He taps on the drums tentatively, and I feel like I’ve gone back in time. I remember the sound. I’m fourteen again.