by Alice Oseman
I know it’s not real. The details, anyway. But I like to imagine.
I like to hope.
I like to feel happy.
I have had a lot of bad days (I know, shocking, right?), but today really is making a strong case to join The Day I Had a Panic Attack at Children in Need, The Day I Passed Out at a Meet-and-Greet, and The Day I Fell Off the Stage at the London Palladium, as all-time worst days of my life.
These probably don’t sound very bad but they were bad. Please take my word for it.
During the drive into London, I contemplate the strong possibility that someone was able to break into our apartment and take a photo of me while I was asleep, meaning that literally anyone could break in at any time and do … anything. It could be anyone. A deluded fan who’d do anything to see us. A journalist wanting to uncover our deepest secrets. A transphobe who just wants me to die. God knows there are people like that out there.
Cecily makes five different phone calls throughout the journey, each one pestering a different person about how this photo made international news, but she just seems to get angrier each time. She ends the final phone call with a heavy groan and a shake of the head at Rowan and me.
Looks like not even Cecily has the answers this time.
The fans don’t seem to think anything’s wrong. The only thing they’re talking about in my Twitter notifications is that they all think ‘Jowan is real’. It makes me feel sort of sad for them. They’re only going to be disappointed, one way or another.
When Rowan reveals he has a girlfriend, maybe.
Bliss Lai.
The girlfriend who’s stayed a secret for the past two years.
‘You’ve got that look on your face,’ says Rowan, midway through the journey. He’s sitting opposite me in the car, like he had been on the way to the WCMAs, and for a moment I feel like we’re back there, before I remember we’re already five thousand miles away.
‘What look?’ I say.
‘The constipated look. The sweaty palms look.’
I rub my forehead. ‘Someone’s going to break into our apartment and kill me.’
Rowan sighs and pats me on the knee. ‘Come on, Jimjam, don’t think stuff like that.’
‘We could hire a full-time bodyguard?’ says Lister, who is sitting next to me sipping from a Starbucks cup.
Somehow the idea of having a huge suited person loitering in our apartment 24/7 makes me feel even worse.
Cecily glances up at me from her phone. ‘Why don’t you just focus on the important stuff this week, huh, babe? We’ve got the final show on Thursday and then the contract signing on Friday.’
‘Do you think if we hired a full-time bodyguard they’d do the hoovering for us?’ asks Lister.
Rowan turns his head slowly towards Lister. ‘If you can name me one occasion that you have ever hoovered our apartment, I will give you five hundred quid right now.’
Lister opens his mouth, then freezes, then closes it again, and we all laugh at him, and for a few moments I stop thinking about being murdered.
Cecily only tells us that we have an interview with Rolling Stone today when the car pulls up at a fancy hotel and Lister asks, ‘Why the fuck are we here?’
None of us are particularly surprised. We’re used to just being told where to go and what to do.
‘It’s the Bliss thing,’ she says with a sigh. ‘I’ve promised Rolling Stone an interview with you so they don’t run the Bliss story.’
I shoot a glance at Rowan. He looks a little sick.
We sprawl ourselves around one of the hotel’s conference rooms and a few hair and make-up people arrive to make us look less dead. This thankfully includes Alex, who is one of my favourite hair and make-up people because he treats me like I’m a real human being and not one of those posters you pull out of a magazine.
He gives me a pat on the shoulder after he finishes doing my hair.
‘You looked tired today, Jimmy.’
I chuckle. ‘Sorry.’
‘You getting enough sleep?’
‘What counts as enough sleep?’
‘I dunno … six-to-eight hours a night?’
I just laugh at him.
Across the room, Rowan is reading the copy of our new record contract that Cecily’s just given him. He’s frowning deeply, which is not a good sign.
‘It’s different,’ says Cecily, while standing at the sink, handing Lister another cup of water. I think the water is just making Lister, who has passed drunkenness and has entered a full-on middle-of-the-day hangover, feel worse.
‘Different,’ says Rowan, raising his eyebrows. ‘It’s, like, ten times more work than we normally do. They want us to do a two-year-long world tour? Two full years? Why didn’t you mention that earlier?’
‘We don’t have to talk about this now,’ says Cecily, holding up her phone and tapping on it.
‘We’ve only got three days left before we sign, though,’ says Rowan. He points at a page. ‘I just … this is a lot more than we normally do, publicity-wise. More interviews, more appearances, more collabs. I don’t know whether we’re even gonna be able to deal with all this.’
‘Babe, don’t worry about it. We’ll talk about it after today.’
Lister leans over the sink and dry-heaves, then drools a bit.
‘If you throw up,’ says Cecily, ‘I will actually smack you.’
‘Can’t we just go home?’ Lister mumbles.
‘No,’ she says.
‘Jimmy, turn your head to the left a bit? That’s it.’
The camera flashes. Pretty sure I blinked.
Our stylists are magic. They transformed the three of us from greasy and sleep-deprived lads into pop icons in under an hour. The bags under Rowan’s eyes have disappeared entirely. Lister looks positively healthy. I barely recognise myself in the mirror.
And we’re wearing outrageously beautiful designer clothes. That always makes me feel like magic.
The camera flashes again. I wonder what the time is. Not even sure whether it’s the morning or afternoon.
‘Jimmy, just look at the camera, now. That’s it.’
It’s a good thing everyone likes the ‘dead behind the eyes’ look.
‘Rowan, can we get you in the middle now?’
Rowan stands next to me. He’s been scarily quiet since he started flicking through the contract. Normally he’d be the one trying to cheer us up when we’re all tired, making sarcastic comments or messing around, distracting us when we were trying to pull serious expressions.
But he’s too lost in thought today. We all are, a bit.
‘Rowan, can you just put your arms round Jimmy and Lister, for me?’
He does, and the camera flashes.
‘Hold on, just pause for a sec, please.’ The woman directing the shoot calls at the photographer to pause. ‘Lister, you all right? You need to break for a minute?’
Rowan and I turn to Lister.
Lister’s eyes are watering and his skin is pale white.
‘Er, yeah, just need to go to the loo,’ he mumbles, and then walks swiftly out of the room. Rowan and I follow him immediately, like there’s a string attaching us, just in time to hear him run into the nearest bathroom and throw up in a toilet.
We enter the bathroom. Lister tells us to go away, but Rowan just walks up to him and starts rubbing his back as he throws up again. I don’t really know what to do, there’s not much I can do, so I just sit down on a radiator and wait.
There’s a big window on one side of the bathroom. Big enough to climb out, probably. We’re on the ground floor. We could just climb out and run. Get up and go.
‘So, lads.’
We’re with the interviewer, now, back in the hotel conference room. He’s white, middle-aged, balding, and his name is Dave. Dave looks evil.
He has put a Dictaphone on the table between us, and it is recording everything we say.
He nods at us slowly.
‘The Ark has always had something sp
ecial,’ he begins, as if he’s already writing the article in his head. ‘YouTube success. Then chart success. And you’re a strong example for the diversity everyone craves in today’s media –’ he gestures at Rowan – ‘a young man, born to two Nigerian immigrants, in the height of success and fame –’ he gestures at Lister – ‘a young man who grew up in a single-parent, working-class family on benefits, only to make himself a millionaire before he turned eighteen –’ he gestures at me – ‘and a transgender guy of both Indian and Italian heritage, proving to the world that being transgender is just one tiny part of you.’
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Being trans has been a pretty big part of my life so far, thanks, but that shouldn’t be particularly relevant here, in an interview about our music. Younger interviewers usually like to chat about music and fans, but older interviewers, like Dave, are always obsessed with how many adjectives they can put before our names.
‘And now a European tour, huh? Started from the bottom, now we’re here? How does it feel to be at the absolute top of your game?’
Lister, having thrown up several times, looks once again like a god, and begins his We Are So Lucky to Be Here and We Love Our Fans spiel.
The interviewer nods along, like they usually do.
Then he says, ‘Now, guys. I know you know you’re very fortunate people. You’ve won several prestigious British and European music awards. Gone gold on two albums. A sell-out European tour.’ He leans forward onto his elbows, like he’s the CEO and we’re three underperforming interns. ‘But I want to know the real Ark. I want to know your highs –’ he gestures vaguely towards the ceiling – ‘and your lows.’ He points at the ground and narrows his eyes. ‘I want to dig into your hearts and your minds. I want you to tell me what it’s really like being a famous boy band.’
None of us say anything.
‘Why don’t we start at the start, huh?’ Dave continues. ‘I’ve heard it from Wikipedia but I want to hear it from you. How did you meet?’
I wait for either of the others to speak, but Rowan still seems distracted after reading the new contract, and Lister looks a little like he didn’t understand the question.
I smile widely at Dave and begin the story of how Rowan and I met at primary school, and when we were thirteen we wanted to start a band. We needed a drummer, so we got Lister to join, after some persuading. He didn’t want to hang around with two music nerds, but he was the only person we knew who could play drums.
‘Must seem like a world away now, huh?’ Dave chips in. ‘Three schoolboys starting a band.’ I don’t really know whether to continue the story, but then Dave holds up his palms and says, ‘Sorry! I interrupted. Carry on.’
‘When we were thirteen, we starting uploading our songs to YouTube. A year and two hundred thousand views later, Cecily Wills from Thunder Management found us and took us straight to Fort Records, and that was that.’
‘Ah, the power of the internet,’ says Dave after I’ve finished. There might be something sinister about the way he says it, or I might be imagining it.
We talk for a while more about the formation of The Ark. I do most of the talking, which is a little unusual, but Lister keeps fidgeting – he probably still feels a bit ill – and Rowan is still acting weird and silent.
‘Now, I want to delve a little bit into your relationship with your fans,’ says Dave. ‘Particularly your online fans.’
Here we go.
‘The Ark has a well-established online fan base. Perhaps one of the biggest in the world. You’ve got people watching and analysing your every move, perhaps even invading your privacy, in certain areas.’
He pauses, so I nod at him.
‘In particular, The Ark’s online fan base is famous for its conspiracies and overanalyses.’ He leans back in his chair. ‘How does stuff like that make you feel?’
None of us say anything.
Cecily watches on from the corner of the room.
‘A difficult question, I suppose,’ continues Dave, unfazed by our silence. ‘Let’s look at it a different way. I’m a journalist. I write serious articles, and, yes, I hope that they affect people, in a similar way your music does. I hope that they change people’s way of thinking. Teach them something. Make them feel something.’ He crosses his legs. ‘But at the same time, I am, for the lack of a better phrase, a “normal person”. I send off my article to my editor, go home from the office, and nobody cares.’ He holds up his hands and laughs. ‘Nobody cares! And there’s freedom in that. But you three – you don’t have that freedom any more. You don’t have the freedom that normal people have. You barely even had the chance to experience it at all.’
There’s another pause.
‘And I want to know how that makes you feel,’ says Dave.
Rowan sits up in his chair.
‘We love our fans,’ he says, but it sounds wrong. It sounds like he’s lying. ‘Everything they do, they do out of love, and we love them back for that.’
Dave nods, smiling. He knows.
‘Love is a strong word for people you’ve never met,’ he says. ‘For people that watch your every move, that talk about you behind your backs, that formulate their own opinions of your personalities and relationships and behaviour, all without having spoken to you, or often even seen you, in real life.’
Rowan doesn’t drop eye contact. ‘Appreciate, then. We appreciate our fans. We wouldn’t be here without our fans.’ It sounds like he’s reading from a script.
Dave waits.
Rowan says nothing.
‘And that’s all you have to say about your fans?’ says Dave.
Lister leans forward and laughs, though it’s obviously fake, trying to diffuse the tension. ‘Look, mate, what are you trying to get us to say?’
Dave laughs back at him. ‘I just want to hear some honesty. That’s sort of what I do.’
‘Well, if you’re looking for some easy drama, you picked the wrong band, mate.’ Lister laughs some more. ‘We’ve nearly finished our second European tour. Let us fucking rest. I just want to fucking rest.’
‘Now that’s honesty.’ Dave points at Lister, and then looks back at me and Rowan. ‘I like him.’
Rowan scoffs and looks away.
‘Jimmy,’ says Dave. ‘How do you feel about your fans?’
The photograph flashes in my mind before I can stop it. A fangirl standing over Rowan and me asleep in my bedroom, eyes empty black pits, a grin with spiky shark-teeth.
‘I love the fans,’ I say in a robot voice.
‘You don’t feel irritated that they keep on insisting on knowing everything about your personal lives?’ Dave leans back. ‘I mean, take the photo that emerged on the internet today. You guys must have heard about that, right? How did that make you feel?’
I force the words out. ‘I … felt … anxious, because … people now think that … my and Rowan’s rela– friendship is something more than … friendship. It looks like we’re lying to our fans.’ My palms are actually sweating. ‘We’d never lie to our fans.’
‘Do you not blame your fans for overanalysing incidents like this?’
‘Why would we … blame our fans?’
‘Because it’s their fault,’ says Dave, raising his hands into the air in pretend innocence. ‘You can see it. I can see it. Your fans take any scraps of evidence they can for their wild theories – whether that’s “Jowan”, or anything else – and manipulate it into something they can’t not believe. They’re believing lies, Jimmy. Not just believing – putting hope in these lies, caring deeply about these lies. Doesn’t that bother you?’
My mouth has gone very dry. I glance at Cecily again. She is still looking at me.
‘Look, what do you wanna hear?’ says Rowan suddenly, interrupting. ‘Me and Jimmy are not in a relationship. We’re friends. No matter what the fucking fans say. They can do whatever they want. We can’t stop them. We know we’re telling the truth. That’s enough.’
‘Oh, I know that’s the
truth,’ says Dave. ‘Don’t you think I’d rather be publishing the truth?’
Everyone in the room is silent.
‘About Bliss Lai, I mean,’ he says. ‘Your girlfriend.’
‘Yeah, I got that,’ Rowan growls.
‘You Ark boys are getting yourself tangled up in this huge web of lies,’ says Dave, leaning back into his chair and smiling sadly at us. ‘And I just worry, I suppose, that the fans – all these hundreds of thousands of, let’s face it, impressionable teenage girls – are the ones who are going to suffer in the end. And I want to know how you all feel about that.’
‘We’ve done nothing,’ says Rowan. His voice is calm, but somehow, he’s never sounded so scary.
‘You’ve lied all this time. Lies by omission, lies by not telling the truth. About Bliss, and Jowan.’ Dave smiles, and looks directly at me. ‘Even Jimmy lied for a long time to his audience about what he was—’
And it all seems to happen in under a second. Lister shoves his chair back, stands up, and grabs Dave by the collar, hoisting him out of his seat, his free hand curling into a fist, Cecily jumping towards us and crying out at him to stop and Rowan standing too, shouting garbled swearwords and ‘How fucking dare you?’ and I sink further and further and further into my chair, hoping it might swallow me entirely, transport me to another dimension where none of this is happening, and Dave laughs and says again, ‘Now that’s honesty.’
Honestly, thank God today is a game-changing day in Jowan fandom history, because if it wasn’t, I would be having an awkward time, instead of a great time, which is what I’m definitely having, because it’s impossible to be unhappy knowing that Jimmy and Rowan are in love with each other.
The only plan for the day is The Ark fandom gathering at a Wetherspoon’s in Leicester Square tonight. Mac has been skulking around, talking to Juliet at every single opportunity. He talks all the way through us trying to rewatch last night’s WCMA performance. Then he talks all the way through us trying to watch some of their old YouTube videos.
But no. I’m not going to rise to it. I am not going to let Muliet ruin any of it.
I ask God to give me a bit of extra patience. Because every time Mac speaks, I sort of want to put an entire bag of cotton wool in his mouth.