by Tom Watson
But that’s not why he is still feeling like crap. Just because the story has gone away doesn’t mean he won’t have to talk to Lefiami about what happened at Glastonbury; her investigation is ongoing. And Jay’s father, Sabal, shouldn’t read what Owen has to say in a report. There’s something Owen can do about that, at least.
He digs out Lefiami’s business card from his wallet and dials her number.
Chapter 31
Tuesday 15 March 2022
Sabal Dewan lives in a solid Victorian terrace on the edge of Hampstead Heath.
He opens the door and says something Owen doesn’t catch. Then he leads Owen through the hall and into the sitting room. The bay window is thick with branches in their spring green bright in the early morning light. High ceilings lined with bookshelves, studded with art and above the fireplace a porcelain Ganesh, the elephant God, with a saucer for offerings in front of him. Above him is a double portrait of Jay and his older sister taken in their mid-twenties. It’s a cheesy, ‘portrait studio session for Mum’s birthday’ sort of thing. It breaks Owen’s heart to look at it.
Chloe Lefiami is waiting for them and she stands as Owen comes in.
‘Thank you for arranging this,’ Owen says, ‘And for letting me come to see you, Sabal.’
‘I am glad you asked to come, Owen,’ Sabal replies as Owen chooses a seat that puts him opposite Jay’s photograph and the steady regard of Ganesh. Sabal has the trace of an accent still, a slight cadence to the words. ‘You look exactly the same, I think, as when my late wife and I visited with you and Jay, and Philip and Georgina in happy times.’
‘I was sorry to learn your wife is no longer with us,’ Owen replies. ‘I know Jay loved her very much.’
Sabal accepts this with a nod.
‘I’ve told Mr Dewan what I know, Mr McKenna,’ Chloe says. ‘Jay made mistakes and attracted the hostility of some important people, including Kieron Hyde. In a misguided attempt to shield him from that hostility, you helped blacklist him as a candidate for the upcoming election. Is that fair?’
‘Yes,’ Owen replies. So there we are. One of his biggest regrets summarised in what, twenty words? He turns towards Sabal.
‘I’m here to apologise, Sabal. I let Jay down. If I had been wiser, more observant, just a better friend, I would have seen the state he was in and I might have been able to help. I should have tried a lot harder than I did, and I’ve been avoiding admitting that for a long time.’
Sabal bends forward and covers his face with his hands. Owen waits.
‘Thank you,’ he says at last. His voice sounds suddenly raw and rusty. ‘You were not the only person to fail Jay. We did too. I had no idea he had ever taken drugs. He did not even tell us he had been dismissed from his employment.’
Owen chooses his words carefully. ‘He was only an occasional user of drugs, Sabal, though I wish he had never taken any at all. And I do believe, though he was going through a bad time, he would have come out the other side of it in the end.’
Sabal nods.
‘I’m also here to tell you about Glastonbury,’ Owen goes on, ‘what I saw, and how I remember it. If that is what you want.’
Sabal lifts his head, looks at him.
‘Yes. I want to know, Owen.’
Chapter 32
Friday 26 June to Saturday 27 June 2009
Georgina will have her own tent. The boys – Phil, Jay and Owen – will share. It will be tight, but none of them are expecting to spend much time sleeping.
Phil seems to be the most excited of them all. For the first time since Owen has known him, he doesn’t want to talk about politics.
Dragging their gear behind him on a bouncing trolley from the car park to the site, Owen realises Phil hasn’t wanted to talk much in depth about policy stuff for a few weeks now. It’s weird.
Owen looks over his shoulder. Jay is walking next to Georgina, and it looks like they are arguing about something. She says something to him then puts her phone to her ear. As always. Now she’s certain of the Coventry East seat and has handed in her notice at the Union, it is permanently clamped to her ear.
Jay has gone from hostile and defensive to morose as his phone calls go unanswered, his applications for available seats ignored. And now, since he was ‘let go’ by the Treasury team due to ‘internal restructuring’, he’s drinking too much, staying out late in the Westminster hangouts claiming he was fired because of the whisper campaign against him. Phil keeps trying to jolly him up at the house, suggesting other jobs. Jay is not receptive. Owen finds it hard to look at him; every time he does he feels sick with guilt and confusion. He tells himself things will change. Jay will get a new job and be in a better position for a seat next time for having been out in the world a bit. If only he would stop making everything worse.
Phil is trying to read the festival guide as he walks and keeps shouting band names over his shoulder at Jay, seeing if he can get a spark of interest out of him. Nothing. Owen is betting on time. Jay just needs time.
Phil finds them a site – they are among the later arrivals and it’s way at the edge of the field, then getting the tents up takes a while. It would have taken even longer if not for help from a bloke in the neighbouring tent, an ex-squaddie who watched them for five minutes then put them out of their misery and took command over the squabbling.
Owen gives him a beer from their stash, and the guy’s stories from Helmand manage to draw Jay out of his shell for twenty minutes. Turns out Jay has a second cousin who was out serving at the same time. Owen hates war stories. Not that they aren’t interesting or important, but he can’t deal with being reminded about the war in Afghanistan. Not when he can see the battles he’s going to have to fight himself coming up.
The squaddie shakes their hands, making an elaborate show of kissing Georgina’s fingertips, then heads off. Owen’s hungry and Jay volunteers that he fancies a death burger. Georgina and Phil want to find the cider bus.
And for a while it looks like it’s going to be OK. During a rain shower on Friday night they hear Michael Jackson has died and Jay sounds like his old self for a bit, rating each album, each track. Owen thinks he might have taken something, but if it makes him happy for a while Owen isn’t going to argue. Then on Saturday morning Jay and Georgina have a massive fight about her relationship with Kieron Hyde that ends up with her storming off in tears saying she wishes to God he’d go home. Owen and Phil stay with Jay.
‘Jay! Leave her alone. It’s not up to you who she falls for.’
Around them the constant cabaret of Glastonbury rolls on: a guy on an old upright piano he has strapped on a rolling platform so he can play and pedal at the same time; stilt walkers and Morris men mix with witches and Disney princesses.
‘She hasn’t fallen for him!’ Jay spits out. ‘I think it’s just politics. And that’s disgusting.’
‘Steady on,’ Phil says. ‘This is Georgie you’re talking about!’
Jay lifts his hands. ‘I know! And no, no I won’t stop talking about it. Not till you listen to me! The way that Kieron Hyde treats women. I’ve heard some stories, I tell you. Since people realised he has it in for me, they’ve talked to me. I don’t know why the papers aren’t on it.’
‘Jay, you’ve got to stop saying stuff like this, it doesn’t help,’ Phil tries.
‘I have names, guys! Chapter and verse. Debra Brooks is just the latest in a long line, that’s what I’m hearing.’
It’s too much for Owen. ‘For fuck’s sake, Jay! Leave it, for God’s sake. If you make an arse of yourself going to the newspapers with vague rumours about the next general secretary of the biggest union in the country, you’ll never get into parliament.’
‘People should know what a shit he is.’
Owen feels the frustration and guilt rising in his gorge.
‘Jay, stop it!’
‘You never listen, Owen! You never bloody listen!’
And he walks off into the crowd. Owen lets him go.
Geor
gina is all sunshine a couple of hours later. They all try Jay’s phone through the afternoon without success. Georgina doesn’t seem worried, but Owen feels gradually worse. Bloody Jay. His ticket cost him over a hundred quid and the weekend feels sullied.
Phil comes back from a cider run and reports spotting Jay heading towards Shangri-La after Dizzee Rascal’s set.
‘I saw him from the queue. He was with some people,’ Phil adds. ‘Looked like he was having a good time.’
‘We’ve got to go and talk to him,’ Owen says. They are sitting on the grass as the darkness thickens around them and the site is lit by washes of colour from the sound stages and the neon signs of the stalls and side gigs.
‘Oh, let him dance it out of his system,’ Georgina replies. ‘Shangri-La is too trippy for me anyway.’
‘Na, Georgie,’ Phil says. ‘Owen’s right. Let’s go and make friends again.’
‘Maybe he’s just gone home,’ she says hopefully. ‘We’ll probably just find a note in the tent.’
‘He didn’t look like he was thinking of leaving when I saw him,’ Phil replies and Georgina shrugs.
‘I guess we’ll find out,’ Owen says. They finish their drinks, Georgina takes forever over her cider. Then he gets up, puts out her hand and hauls her to her feet.
‘That guy!’ Phil says, pointing to a boy in shorts and neon rainbow braces. ‘Jay was with him.’
They are deep in Shangri-La. A blade-runner, disco-dystopia vibe. Above them on the main stage, pyrotechnic torches bubble with flame in time to the beat. Dancers, their faces slashed with fluorescent bands of colour, strike pose after pose, like animated hieroglyphs. Owen leads the way, peering over the top of the crowd.
‘Watch it, petal!’ The man checking him is wearing a horse-head mask.
‘Sorry, mate.’
The Horse makes the peace sign. Owen bears right, and, catching a glimpse of the neon braces again, reaches through the crowd stumbling on the uneven ground, makes the connection.
Neon Braces turns and offers them a wide and unfocused smile. Some of his teeth are painted silver.
‘Do you know where Jay went?’ Owen says, shouting against the music. Neon Braces leans closer and points at his ear.
‘Jay! Asian guy? He was wearing a Ramones T-shirt. He’s our friend, we’ve lost him.’
Neon Braces lifts up his arms. ‘Yeah! Jay! He was here, like a second ago.’
‘Where is he now?’
A girl with Minnie Mouse ears and fluorescent lipstick slips her arms around Neon Braces’ waist, slow dancing with him while he shifts his hips to the trance beat. It seems to work for them.
‘He said he was going back to his tent,’ she shouts. ‘Looked like he’d had a bad pill or something,’ she adds.
‘Oh yeah! That dude. No, his pills were good. It was his inhaler!’ Neon Braces pauses to whoop as the beat changes. The dancers spell out the secrets of the universe. Some of the crowds, arms raised and swaying, look like they are getting the message. ‘Yeah, he said his inhaler was out – going back to get his spare, he said.’
‘Who had the bad pill then?’ Lipstick asks.
‘You did, baby. Yesterday.’ She brightens, then looks at Owen again.
‘Tell him to come back to Shangri-La. He’s hot.’
‘Slut,’ Neon Braces says affectionately and kisses her.
Owen promises to pass it on and works his way sideways through the press of dancers. The horse heads are everywhere. The UV lights pick out dark tattoos, and his vision trembles with glow sticks and strobe lights.
‘Here!’
Phil is waiting for him where the crowd thins. The noise dies quickly in the open air but Owen’s ears are ringing. He tells Phil what Minnie Mouse and Neon Braces told him.
‘His reliever inhaler was out?’ Phil says. ‘If he uses it more than three times a week, he’s supposed to go to the doctor. Shit. Have you heard him moving around at night, back home?’
‘Couple of times,’ Owen says. ‘But I’ve been at Christine’s most evenings.’
‘That’s bad. And he’s on pills? Idiot.’
Georgina rocks up out of the dark. Someone has put a garland of flowers in her hair.
‘I almost got picked up by a unicorn!’ she says and doubles over with laughter. ‘I told him I wasn’t a virgin, but he said that was cool. I was so wrong – this place is amazing. Come on! Let’s dance!’
‘I’m going to check on Jay,’ Owen says. ‘Georgina, those two said his inhaler was out. He went back to the tent.’
Georgina slumps forward. ‘But that’s miles away!’
‘Why didn’t he just go to one of the first-aid stations?’ Phil asks.
‘Maybe he did.’ Georgina is playing it up. ‘He’ll be back in a minute probably. Do we have to go, Daddy? I’m having fun.’
Owen shakes his head. ‘You can stay and flirt with the unicorns if you like, but I’m going to go and check. Does he even have a torch?’
‘He’s probably got a glow stick and he has an excellent sense of direction,’ Georgina pouts.
‘Come on, Georgie,’ Phil says and put his arm round her shoulders. ‘They said he’s on pills too. He could be in trouble.’
She steps back. ‘If he’s got pills, I’m not going anywhere near him!’
Phil shakes his head. ‘I want to check on Jay. Stay if you want.’
‘Fine!’ she says. The outsized dungarees help with the whole ‘thwarted little girl’ act. Owen is suddenly glad Christine isn’t here. Glastonbury is Not Her Thing. Still, he can feel her rolling her eyes at Georgina from three-hundred-odd miles away.
As they pick their way back to the path and head out towards the campsite, Phil is worrying – Owen feels it coming off him in waves – and Georgina is still sulking and muttering about pills.
They reach the edge of the field. Even in the darkness they have a decent idea of where they are going by now. Solar torches show the path, and some of the tents are lit from within, making them look like Chinese lanterns scattered through the dark.
‘Do we shout for him?’ Phil says as they head towards the fringes where they pitched their tent.
Owen shakes his head. ‘No need to piss everyone off. Let’s just check. If he’s not there, we can start looking again.’
He hits redial on the phone. No answer.
‘He’s probably back at Shangri-La by now,’ Georgina says. ‘Probably run off with my unicorn.’
‘There.’ Their tent is still a hundred yards away in a more isolated part of the field, but they can see a faint glow within. Owen leads the way. He finds himself breaking into a jog.
‘Jay? Are you all right?’
He pulls back the unzipped flap. The tent looks like a bomb has hit it. Jay’s rucksack is on its side, spilling T-shirts and socks. One of the camping torches gives off a feeble light and casts shadowy monsters. Toiletries are scattered over the three sleeping bags. And Jay, dressed and curled knees to chest, is lying there, facing the watery blue nylon wall. He is not moving.
Chapter 33
‘Jay?’
No reaction.
‘Is he asleep?’ Phil asks, leaning in. ‘Fuck, why’s he been throwing his shit around?’ Owen crouches down and shakes Jay’s shoulder.
‘Come on, Jay.’
Jay tips onto his back. His lips are ashy. His inhaler drops from his loose fingers.
‘Jay? Jesus!’
Owen puts his fingers to Jay’s neck. Is that how you take a pulse?
Phil groans and stumbles into a half-crouch next to him.
Jesus. Jesus. Owen can’t feel anything under his fingers. Jay’s chest doesn’t seem to be moving. ‘Phil, call an ambulance!’
Phil falls backwards and Owen tries to think through his panic-blocked brain.
‘Nine-nine-nine, Phil! Now! He’s not breathing.’
Georgina crowds into the tent, sees Jay and screams; it’s an ugly, terrified sound but somehow it gets Owen’s brain working again.
&n
bsp; Owen did a first-aid course last year. A boring day in a windowless office when he had a million other things to be getting on with. DR something. ABC. Danger, Response. Airways, Breathing, Circulation. Shit. Shit. Shit.
He listens at Jay’s chest, checks his mouth, settles and bends over him, pinches his nose and breathes into his lungs, watching to see his chest rise. It does. Does it? It’s dark and Georgina is crying. He can hear Phil on the phone, giving directions. He puts one hand on top of the other, pushes down on Jay’s chest to the rhythm of ‘Stayin’ Alive’, eight times. Then another breath. He hates that song.
There is movement around him. Georgina crowding him, saying Jay’s name again and again.
Is he pushing too hard, or not hard enough? Is he in the right place? Phil asks him something, he replies and hears Phil repeating what he says to the voice on the phone.
‘Is this his spare inhaler? Or this one?’ Phil says. ‘Should I give it to him? Fuck, they are both empty. OK. OK.’ He turns to Owen. ‘She says just keep going. Medics are two minutes away.’
But that’s an eternity. ‘Fine. Georgina, what are you doing? Get out of the way!’
He breathes into Jay’s mouth again, trying to believe this is working. Georgina and Phil are moving around behind him, making the tent shake. Phil is still talking to the 999 operator, telling her where to send the medics.
‘Just get out! Both of you! Look for them coming!’
Did he feel a rib crack? Why can’t he see? He realises he’s crying too; he tries to wipe his eyes and nose without losing the rhythm, knocks his glasses sideways. It’s so hot, he’s sweating, yet Jay’s skin feels cold under his mouth.
He can hear Phil outside now, catches in the corner of his vision the light of his phone being waved back and forth.
‘Here! Over here!’
For God’s sake, please come. Wake up, Jay. Wake up.
Owen can still hear the music in the distance. Breathe. Then push again. He feels an arm on his shoulder. He tries to shake it off before he realises it’s a paramedic, a pale youngish bloke with too much product in his hair. The nylon of his jacket makes a swishing noise as he moves.