For the second time in my life, a school decided to wash its hands of me. Atherton quietly decided that, despite my on-par exam results, it would be best if I looked for another school to attend sixth form. I got a place at a college on the other side of the county because Mum was friends with someone on the board there. While the other kids my age spent their summer holidays lazing in the park or mucking about down by the river, I was doing my community service, which involved a high-vis jacket and picking up rubbish on the side of the road. Every time I squeezed the litter picker, the latest scabs on my knuckles opened up. I almost relished the pain. As morale destroying as it all was, I still preferred it to the counselor I’d been sent to. Alan, an oddly thin, gray-faced man—like a haunted pipe cleaner—would ask me how I was doing, and I would say I was fine, and he would say he didn’t think I was, actually . . . and then we’d sit in silence while he waited for me to talk about how I was really feeling, which I didn’t do, so it all felt completely pointless.
Even though I’d barely talked to anyone since the accident, I was aware of the rumors that were going around. The story of the party had mutated so much by now that the accepted theory involved me deliberately running my friend’s sister over after an argument about a girl. I didn’t care what people thought about me—I deserved everything I got. But it broke my heart to know that Alice would never walk again and that Theo and his family would be hurting so much. I called Theo every day for six weeks. He never picked up. One day I got drunk by myself and went to his house, but I wasn’t brave enough to knock on the door.
I hadn’t seen Amber, either. We texted every day since the accident, and then she told me she wanted to meet up. At first I felt it was too much of a betrayal of Theo. But then, the more days that passed, the more I felt myself losing control. I was so consumed with self-loathing that it scared me to think what I might do, and I knew that seeing Amber was the only thing that would stop me feeling like that.
We agreed to meet at her house when her parents were out for the day. When she opened the door, I almost didn’t recognize her. She’d dyed her hair a messy white-blond and her nails were painted black. But that wasn’t the only thing that had changed. We didn’t feel like the same two people who’d shared those stolen moments underneath the trampoline. It was like we’d both shed our skins.
Amber led me into the living room and came back with some white wine, which she unscrewed and poured into two thin-stemmed, expensive-looking glasses. I felt absurd holding the wineglass, sitting on the pristine white sofa, like we were pretending to be grown-ups. We drank the wine like it was water. I felt a little calmer then. It was easier to talk.
“I’m not really sleeping at the moment,” I confessed.
“Me neither,” Amber said. “I keep seeing Alice’s face, just as we . . .” She trailed off and pulled her knees into her chest. “And all I keep thinking is that if only Tom’s stupid brother hadn’t brought his car, then none of it would have happened. Jesus, I mean, I nearly didn’t go to the party in the first place because Mum got wind and tried to stop me. If I’d just done as she’d asked, then none of this would have happened.” She started to cry then, restrained at first—using her fingers to blot the tears—but then a sob seemed to ripple up through her, and she fell against me.
At first I sat there, stiff and unresponsive. I think it was because the last time we’d held each other had been in Chrissy’s garden. It felt wrong somehow. But then I put my arms around her, pulled her close, breathed in the smell of her hair, which was like woodsmoke.
“I still can’t believe it,” she said, her voice muffled by my neck. “I still can’t believe what you . . .”
I tried to speak, but Amber put her hands on the sides of my face, and the words died in my mouth. Our foreheads were touching, our breathing synced. We stayed like that for a while, just being still in each other’s orbits. I don’t really know who kissed who first. All I knew was that, for as long as we stayed in this moment, I didn’t have to think about the party, or Mike, or anything else. We stumbled upstairs to Amber’s bedroom, our breathing ragged, stopping every few moments to kiss.
Afterward, we lay on her bed, facing each other, listening to the rain falling gently against the window.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes,” Amber said. “That was, you know, unexpected.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. Then, after a moment: “You know I didn’t come here with that in mind, right?”
“I know,” Amber said. “That’s not what I meant. I thought that we maybe would, one day. But I just pictured it differently. There’d probably have been some stupid song playing, candles or whatever. But I’m glad it wasn’t like that.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said.
I shifted onto my back and Amber wriggled down and rested her head on my chest.
As I ran my hand through her hair, I realized how calm I felt—how right this felt, the weight of Amber’s head on my chest, the warmth of her. It was like up until that moment I’d been trying to walk with a piece of jagged glass in the bottom of my foot, and now it was finally gone.
“I can’t wait until I can move away from here,” Amber said. I didn’t reply at first. We’d talked before about not wanting to be in Kemble all our lives, but it felt serious now—not just a throwaway comment where we tried to outdo each other with our rebelliousness.
“Right, yeah. Is that the plan, then? You know, for definite?”
“Yeah. I’m set on drama school. A London one, if I can get in.”
“You will,” I said. “You definitely will.”
We were quiet for a moment. The unanswered question hanging in the air. London. It could be a new start for both of us. Maybe the only option I had left was to leave everything behind.
After a while, Amber fell asleep. I looked up at the ceiling. There was a cluster of white stars stuck to the wallpaper. As the light outside faded, they began to glow. And for the first time in a long time, I felt a faint stirring of hope.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Theo
I woke feeling groggy and disoriented. I swung my legs out of bed, and as my foot reached the floor, I felt something underneath it. I reached down and picked up a piece of paper, swearing when I realized it was a note from Joel. I must have dislodged it from the bed when I’d come in.
Theo,
I’m sorry about all this. You were a great friend to me, and I will never forget that. I shouldn’t have got angry. It’s not your fault.
Joel
PS I’ve sent the full script on to Jane Green at the BBC, just in case things change.
PPS I’ve left the bike round the back. Not sure I could get it on the train to London.
PPPS I’m sorry about the damage on the wall. Bill me for it. Flat 4, 121 Prospect House, Peckham Rye.
It took me a moment to spot what he was talking about—then I saw the fist-sized dent in the cheap plasterboard wall that separated the bedroom from the bathroom. I crossed the room to inspect it closer, imagining Joel so consumed with anger that he’d lashed out like that. I stood there for a long time, listening to the city hum, wishing I could rewind everything. Instead of Joel writing that letter with a bruised and bleeding hand, he could have been explaining to me what the weeks ahead held in store while I did my best to reassure him.
What the fuck had I done?
I explained about the damage to the indifferent receptionist as I checked out. I fetched the bike and wheeled it down to the river, calling Alice as I went. I wasn’t sure what I was going to tell her yet—I just wanted to hear her voice. She didn’t pick up, but she messaged me soon after:
Soz, Patrick Leigh Wanker, can’t talk. Out for brunch with someone.
I looked at the tandem, which I’d leaned down on the grass. It was such an absurd thing even when there were two of you to ride it, but now it was just me, it looked tragic. I
t was like the thing was cursed—Bob the ice-cream man was now finally free, and I’d have to find the next innocent fool to pass it on to.
Alice messaged me again:
Okay fine you’ve wangled the truth out of me with your ceaseless interrogating. Yes it is Dan Bisley. I am annoyingly nervous.
I typed a reply, feeling numb, like I was on autopilot.
Don’t be nervous—you’ll be great.
Yes I’m well aware of that, Theo. Something odd about this, though. Think it’s because he seems very “nice.” Bit disconcerting. Might throw a sausage at his head, just to check he’s not a robot.
Maybe don’t do that, I replied.
Too late. He’s on his way back from the toilet. I’m lobbing a Cumberland at him in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
Well, good for her, I thought, reflecting on the fact, maybe, just maybe, Alice not having my constant presence to deal with meant she’d actually found the time and headspace to do something for herself.
I watched as a rower cut through the water, so serenely that he barely disturbed it. I edged closer to the bank—the water looked black and filthy with oil, too murky to see the riverbed below.
With some difficulty, I climbed onto the front seat of the tandem, horribly aware of the empty seat behind me. I noticed a sign a short way along that signaled London ahead of me, Kemble behind. I had no idea which way to go. I reached into my pocket and took out Joel’s note. Behind me I heard a shout—a strangled sort of yell, growing louder as the source of it neared me. For one ridiculous moment I thought it was Joel—that this had all been an elaborate prank that I’d be furious about for a very long time before I started to see the funny side. But then something hard connected with my side, the note flew from my hand onto the bank, and before I knew it, I was toppling toward the putrid, oily water, bringing the bike and my bag with me. I had just enough time to see my assailant fleeing before I plunged into the water.
It was Colin.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Joel
I woke in Peckham at dawn, pulling the curtains open to reveal a cloudless sky, brilliant sunshine gilding the leaves of the trees that lined the edge of the park. I wondered what Theo was doing. He’d be headed home to the cozy embrace of his family, I expected—coming up with a story about why we’d decided to end the walk early. In a way, I was grateful to him for how he’d behaved. It made me realize that trying to salve the blisters of the past was a fool’s errand—I should have been concentrating on filling my dwindling future with something more worthwhile. As I stood at the window, I watched a passenger plane arc overhead, its undercarriage glinting in the sun. And then I remembered my bucket list.
I spent the rest of the morning on my laptop bouncing from website to website, giddy due to my self-imposed rule that money was no object—that this was all about packing in as much fun and luxury as I could. Then I called Mum.
“Joel! I’ve been so worried. Are you okay?”
“I am, but we’ve had to cut the walk short.”
“That’s . . . a shame,” Mum said, not entirely convincingly.
“But I’ve got something much more exciting planned,” I said.
“Exciting? Oh, now, come on, really, that’s the last thing you should—”
That was when I started playing fado music from my laptop and held my phone up to the speaker. After a while I brought the phone back to my ear.
“Well, that’s rather stopped me in my tracks,” Mum said.
As I’d expected, she cycled through all the reasons she couldn’t go to Lisbon—she didn’t want me spending money on her, she had book group, the plants needed watering. But I knew I’d hooked her with the music. I could feel her resolve weakening as I mentioned the sea, the music, the food . . . It may have been a decade later than promised, but I was finally taking her away.
* * *
Two years had passed since Alice’s accident. Despite our reconciliation of sorts at the Thames Head, Theo and I had drifted apart. We did meet up a couple of times afterward, but the damage felt irreversible, and it seemed to be a question of which of us would pull the plug first. One evening when I knew Mike would be out, I invited Theo over to watch a new sitcom that was starting that night. But the first scene featured a car crash that was played for laughs. We sat there in excruciating silence as the studio audience howled. The episode ended, I turned the TV off and Theo said he should probably be getting home. There were no big speeches, no eulogies for our friendship. We both said “See you soon” but we knew neither of us meant it.
A few weeks later I saw him pushing Alice in her wheelchair in town and I crossed the road to avoid them, feeling guilty and ashamed. I watched them making their way along the high street. The idea of being in their lives as if nothing had happened was fanciful. I didn’t see Theo—even in passing—for a long time after that.
Given that our friendship had fallen by the wayside, that also meant the end for our writing. Coming up with stuff on my own was uncharted territory, but I’d found myself wanting to, even if just to distract myself. I’d been spending every free minute I had with Amber. We’d sit at opposite ends of the sofa and she would devour every word written about acting and theater while I wrote scripts, even sending a few sketches on spec to shows on the air. It was freeing, to have complete creative control—although I concede that sounds preposterously lofty given that I was mainly coming up with jokes about badgers and jam.
Looking for further tips to improve, I went on the BBC Writers’ Room website and discovered a new talent competition that they were running, which came with the chance of winning a place in the writers’ room for Get in the Van!, a sketch show they were trialing on a new digital channel. With Amber’s encouragement, I threw myself into it, working whenever I had free time from college coursework, honing a script I’d started about a rural battle-of-the-bands competition, and sent it off.
I’d thought nothing more about it until the morning of my eighteenth birthday in July, when I got an email from someone called Jane Green at the BBC, congratulating me rather brusquely for winning the competition, telling me that I should report to her in London at the start of October for my monthlong stint in the writers’ room. By then Amber had been auditioning for drama school, and that day she was down in London for her fourth tryout at Mountview. I decided not to message her in case she’d not had good news herself. Instead I went to the Thames Head for a solo celebratory pint, trying to ignore how strange it felt to be taking that rite of passage without Theo.
A few more legal pints later, now pleasingly woozy, I got a call from Amber—she’d got in to Mountview. I celebrated so loudly in the pub that all the locals swiveled on their barstools and fixed me with murderous looks for spoiling the morose atmosphere. But I was too proud of Amber to care.
That evening we went to the golf course that overlooked the village. Amber brought a tent and blankets and we drank cheap cider under the stars to toast our success.
“Have you told your mum about London?” Amber asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“How did she take it?”
“Oh, you know, about how you’d expect.” The truth was I’d told Mum about the month I’d be spending in London in the writers’ room, but she didn’t know that Amber and I were setting up there permanently—which, of course, meant leaving her on her own . . .
Ever since Mike had stumped up the compensation money for Alice, the hold that he had over us seemed to placate him in some way. It was all about power, I think. In the last few weeks, he’d started making me go on a few jobs with him—hauling equipment around, going out to get him lunch—all unpaid, obviously, but then I owed him, so I couldn’t refuse. But now I had the chance to get away from him for good.
When I finally screwed up the courage to tell Mum that I was moving permanently, she immediately burst into tears. But as I tried to apologize, saying I wouldn’t go aft
er all—that I’d come back as soon as my placement was done—she stopped me.
“No—that’s not why I’m . . . I’m just so proud of you.” She cupped my face in her hands.
Just then Mike’s van crunched into the driveway. Mum and I exchanged a look. How was he going to react? I saw a flicker of fear in Mum’s eye.
“Mum,” I said, taking her hands in mine. “Why don’t you come to London? You don’t have to stay here. We could get away from him—both of us.”
But before Mum had time to answer, Mike appeared, slamming the front door with such force that the house seemed to shake.
“That Bulgarian wanker has stitched me up on two jobs today with his quotes” was how he announced himself as he stomped into the kitchen.
Mum and I stood there just looking at him—seeming, I knew, guilty. We may as well have had escape plans stretched out on the kitchen table.
“What’s going on?” Mike said, tossing his keys onto the counter, where they fell like smashed glass.
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
Mike looked at me, then Mum, eyes darting back and forth between us.
“Come on,” he said. “Out with it.”
I looked at Mum. “Didn’t you say you needed a lie-down? Why don’t you go upstairs for a bit?”
“I . . . well, I . . .”
“Come on, it’s okay,” I said, forcing a smile. I ushered Mum into the hall and hurried her up the stairs, following on behind her.
When We Were Young Page 17