by Alice Oseman
Carys Last didn’t seem to smile, or feel the need to smile uncomfortably like I was doing. I was extremely impressed by this.
Aled wasn’t with her. This didn’t strike me as odd at the time. After this incident, I noticed that they sat in different carriages. That didn’t strike me as odd either. I didn’t know him, so I didn’t care.
“Don’t you normally sit in the back carriage?” she asked me in the tone of a middle-aged businessman.
“Erm, yeah.”
She raised her eyebrows at me.
“You live in the village, don’t you?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Opposite me?”
“I think so.”
Carys nodded. She kept an unnaturally straight face, which was weird because everyone I knew always tried so hard to smile at you all the time. Her composure made her look significantly older than she was and admirably classy.
She rested her hands on the table and I noticed that they had tiny burn scars all over them.
“I like your jumper,” she said.
I was wearing a jumper that had a computer with a sad face on it underneath my school blazer.
I looked down because I’d forgotten what I was wearing. It was early January and it was freezing, which was why I was wearing an extra jumper over my school jumper. This particular jumper was one of the many items of clothing that I bought but never wore around my friends because I thought they’d laugh at me. My personal fashion choices remained at home.
“D-do you?” I stammered, wondering if I’d misheard.
Carys chuckled. “Yes?”
“Thanks,” I said, shaking my head slightly. I looked down at my hands, and then out the window. The train moved suddenly and we set off out of the village station.
“So why’d you sit in this carriage today?” she said.
I looked at her again, properly this time. Until this point she’d only ever been a girl with dyed blonde hair who sat at the other end of the village train station every morning. But now we were talking and here she was – she was wearing makeup even though she was still in lower school so it was against the Code of Conduct, she was large and soft and somehow powerful, how did she manage to be this nice but not smile at all? She looked like she could probably murder someone if she had to; she looked like she always knew exactly what she was doing. Somehow I knew this wouldn’t be the only time we would ever talk. God, I didn’t have a clue what was going to happen.
“I don’t know,” I said.
SOMEBODY IS LISTENING
Another hour passed before it was the acceptable time to move to Johnny R’s, and I was trying to stay calm and trying not to Facebook message my mum and tell her to come pick me up because that would be lame. I knew I was lame, but no one else was supposed to know that.
We all stood up to head over to Johnny R’s. I was feeling a bit light-headed and like I wasn’t really controlling my legs, but I still heard Raine say, “This is nice,” and point at my top, which was just a very plain chiffon shirt that I picked out because it looked like something Maya would wear.
I almost completely forgot about Aled, but then as we were walking down the street, my phone started to ring. I took it out of my pocket and looked at the screen. Daniel Jun was calling me.
Daniel Jun had my number only because, being head boy and girl, we ran a lot of school events together. He’d never called me, and only texted me four or five times with mundane school-event-related things such as ‘are you setting up the cake stand or am I’ and ‘you collect tickets at the door and I’ll direct people in from the school gate’. This, added to the fact that Daniel disliked me, meant that I had no idea why he was calling me.
But I was drunk. So I answered the phone.
F: Hello?
Daniel: (muffled voices and loud dubstep)
F: Hello? Daniel?
D: Hello? (laughter) shut up shut up— hello?
F: Daniel? Why are you calling me?
D: (laughter) (more dubstep)
F: Daniel?
D: (hangs up)
I looked at my phone.
“Okay,” I said, out loud, but nobody heard me.
A group of lads barged past me, and my foot slid off the kerb and I was walking in the road. I didn’t want to be here. I needed to be doing work, revising essay questions, writing up some maths notes, rereading my message from Radio, drawing some sketch ideas for the videos – I had a mountain of stuff to do and being here was, to be honest, a complete waste of my time.
My phone rang again.
F: Daniel, I swear to god––
Aled: Frances? Is this Frances?
F: Aled?
A: Franceeeeees! (dubstep)
I barely knew Aled. I’d barely spoken to him before this week.
Why …
What?
F: Er, why are you calling me?
A: Oh … Dan— Dan tried to prank call you, I think … I don’t think it worked …
F: … Okay.
A: …
F: Where are you? Is Daniel with you?
A: Oh, we’re at Johnny’s … that’s so weird I don’t even know who Johnny is … Dan’s … (laughter, muffled voices)
F: … Are you okay?
A: I’m fine … sorry … Daniel called you again and then he gave me the phone … I don’t really know what happened. I don’t know why I’m talking to you! Haha …
I walked a bit faster so I didn’t lose my friends completely.
F: Aled, if Daniel’s with you then I’m just gonna go …
A: Yeah, sorry … erm … yeah.
I felt pretty bad for him. I didn’t get why he was friends with Daniel – I wondered whether Daniel bossed him around at all. Daniel bossed a lot of people around.
F: It’s okay.
A: I don’t really like it here.
I frowned.
A: Frances?
F: Yeah?
A: I don’t really like it here.
F: … Where?
A: Do you like it here?
F: Where?
There was silence for a moment – well, silence except for the tinny dance music and the voices and laughter.
F: Aled, please just tell me whether Daniel is there so I can continue with my evening and not worry about you.
A: I don’t know where Daniel is …
F: D’you want me to come and take you home or something?
A: Hey … you know … it sounds like you’re on the radio …
My mind went instantly to Universe City and Radio Silence.
F: God, you’re so drunk.
A: (laughs) Hello. I hope somebody is listening …
He hung up. I felt my stomach drop at his final words.
“Hello. I hope somebody is listening,” I said, under my breath.
Words I’d spent the last two years listening to over and over, words I’d sketched again and again inside speech bubbles and on my bedroom wall. Words I’d heard in a male voice and a female voice, changing every few weeks, always in that classic World-War-II old-time radio accent.
The opening line of every Universe City episode:
“Hello. I hope somebody is listening.”
MADE IT
The bouncer at the door didn’t question the driver’s licence I presented to him, which belonged to Raine’s older sister Rita, despite the fact that Rita is Indian and has cropped, straight hair. I wasn’t sure how anyone could mistake an Indian girl for a British-Ethiopian girl, but there it is.
Johnny’s entry was free as it was before 11pm, which was good news for me, because I hate spending money on things I don’t actually want to do.
I followed my friends inside.
It was exactly what I expected.
Drunk people. Flashing lights. Loud music. Clichés.
“Mate, you coming for more drinks?” Raine shouted at me from fifteen centimetres away.
I shook my head. “Feeling a bit sick.”
Maya heard me and laughed. �
��Aw, Frances! Bless your heart. Come on, just one more little shot!”
“I think I’m gonna go to the loo, actually.”
But Maya had already started talking to someone else.
“D’you want me to come with you?” asked Raine.
I shook my head. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Okay.” Raine grabbed my arm and pointed at somewhere indiscernible on the other side of the room. “The loo’s over there! Come meet us at the bar, yeah?”
I nodded.
I had absolutely no intention of going to the loo.
Raine waved at me and wandered away.
I was going to find Aled Last.
As soon as I was sure that my friends were sufficiently distracted by the bar, I headed upstairs. They were playing indie rock on this floor, and it was a lot quieter too, which I was glad of, because the dubstep was starting to make me feel a bit panicked, like it was the theme music for an action film and I had ten seconds to save myself from an explosion.
And then Aled Last was literally right next to me.
I hadn’t planned to go and find him before he’d quoted Universe City. But that— that couldn’t have been a coincidence, could it? He’d quoted it exactly. Word for word. With the exact enunciation, the hiss of the ‘s’ in ‘somebody’ and the slight gap between ‘list’ and ‘ening’ and the smile after the second full stop …
Did he listen to it too?
I’d never met anyone else who’d even heard of it.
It was quite amazing that Aled hadn’t been chucked out of the club, because he’d passed out. Or he was asleep. He was sat on the floor anyway, leaning against the wall in a way that made it obvious that someone had put him there. Probably Daniel. Which was surprising, since Daniel was usually kind of protective of Aled. Or so I’d heard. Maybe it was the other way round.
I crouched down in front of him. The wall he was leaning against was all wet from the condensation in the room. I shook him by the arm and shouted over the music:
“Aled?”
I shook him again. He looked nice asleep, the club lights flashing red and orange over his face. He looked like a child.
“Don’t be dead. That would really ruin my day.”
He jerked awake, flying forwards off the wall and headbutting me square in the forehead.
It hurt so much that I couldn’t even say anything except a soft “Motherfuck,” a single tear emerging from the corner of my left eye.
While I was curling myself into a ball to try to minimise the pain, Aled shouted:
“Frances Janvier!”
And he pronounced my surname correctly.
He continued, “Did I just hit you in the face?”
“Hit is an understatement,” I shouted back, uncurling myself.
I thought he would laugh, but his eyes were all wide and he was quite clearly still drunk, and he just said, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” And then, because he was drunk, he just brought his hand up to my forehead and gave it a little pat, like he was trying to magic the pain away.
“I’m so sorry,” he said again, his expression genuinely concerned. “Are you crying? Oh, wow, I sound like Wendy from Peter Pan.” His eyes unfocused momentarily before looking at me again. “Girl, why are you crying?”
“I’m not …” I said. “Well, on the inside, maybe.”
That’s when he started to laugh. There was something about it that made me want to laugh as well, so that’s what I did. He rolled his head back against the wall and brought his hand up to cover his mouth while he laughed. He was so drunk and my head was pulsating and the place was disgusting, but just for a few seconds everything was absolutely hilarious.
Once he’d finished, he grabbed my denim jacket and used my shoulder to push himself off the ground. He instantly slapped a hand against the wall to stop himself falling over. I stood up too, not quite sure what I was supposed to do now. I didn’t even know Aled got like this. Then again, it’s not like I knew much about him anyway. It’s not like I had a reason to care.
“Have you seen Dan?” he asked me, his hand flopping back on to my shoulder and leaning in, squinting.
“Who’s— oh, Daniel.” Everybody I knew called him Daniel. “No, sorry.”
“Oh …” He looked down at his shoes, and he seemed very much like a child again, his longish hair more appropriate for a fourteen-year-old, his jeans and his jumper just looking kind of odd on him. He just looked so … I didn’t know what it was.
And I wanted to ask him about Universe City.
“Let’s go outside for a sec,” I said, but I don’t think Aled heard me. I put my arm round his shoulder and started pulling him through the crowds, through the low bass and the sweat, through the people and towards the stairs.
“Aled!”
I halted in my tracks, Aled resting most of his weight against me, and turned to face the voice. Daniel was barging through the dancers to get to us, a full cup of water in one hand.
“Oh,” he said, looking at me like I was a pile of dirty plates. “I didn’t know you were out tonight.”
What was his damage? “You literally called me on the phone, Daniel.”
“I called you because Aled said he wanted to talk to you.”
“Aled said you were trying to prank call me.”
“Why would I do that? I’m not twelve.”
“Well, why would Aled want to talk to me? I don’t even know him.”
“Why the hell would I know?”
“Because you’re his best friend and you’ve been hanging out with him tonight?”
Daniel didn’t say anything to that.
“Or I guess you haven’t,” I continued. “Yes, I was just rescuing Aled from the floor.”
“What?”
I laughed a little. “Did you just leave your best friend passed out on the floor in a club, Daniel?”
“No!” He held up the cup of water. “I was getting him water. I’m not a complete dick.”
This was news to me, but it felt a step too far to tell him that.
Instead, I turned to Aled, who was swaying slightly against me. “Why did you call me?”
He frowned at me, and then bopped me gently on the nose with one finger and said, “I like you.”
I started to laugh, thinking he was joking, but Aled didn’t join in. He let go of me and slung his other arm round Daniel, who staggered backwards a little in surprise, bringing up his other hand to steady the water.
“Isn’t it weird,” said Aled, his face literally millimetres from Daniel’s, “that I was the taller one for, like, sixteen years, but now you’re suddenly taller?”
“Yeah, that’s so weird,” replied Daniel, with the closest thing to a smile I’d seen from him in several months. Aled rested his head on Daniel’s shoulder and closed his eyes, and Daniel patted Aled gently on the chest. He murmured something to Aled I couldn’t quite hear, and then handed him the water. Aled took it without saying anything and started drinking.
I glanced between the pair, and then Daniel seemed to remember I was there.
“Are you going home now?” he said. “Can you take him home?”
I put my hands in my pockets. I didn’t really want to be here anyway. “Yeah, sure.”
“I didn’t just leave him on the floor,” he said. “I was getting him water.”
“You already said that.”
“Yeah, I just didn’t think you believed me.”
I just shrugged.
Daniel moved Aled over to me, where he immediately clung round my shoulders again and spilt a bit of water on my sleeve.
“Shouldn’t really have brought him here anyway,” said Daniel, but he was saying it to himself, I think, and I could honestly see a bit of regret or something in his eyes as he gazed at Aled, who was on the verge of falling asleep in my arms, the club lights flashing on his skin.
“What …” Aled mumbled as we stepped into the street. “Where’s Dan?”
“He said I had to take you hom
e,” I said. I wondered how exactly I was going to explain this to my friends. I made a mental note to text Raine once we got to the train station.
“Okay.”
I glanced at him, because he’d suddenly sounded so much like the shy Aled I’d spoken to on parents evening – the Aled with the whispery voice and the shifty eyes.
“You get my train,” he continued, as we started walking down the empty high street.
“Yep,” I said.
“You and Carys sit— sat together.”
My heart did a little jump at Carys’s name.
“Yes,” I said.
“She liked you,” said Aled, “more than … erm …”
He seemed to lose his train of thought. I didn’t want to talk about Carys so I didn’t press him.
“Aled, do you listen to Universe City?” I said.
He stopped walking instantly, and my arm fell from his shoulder.
“What?” he said, the streetlamps bronzing him and the Johnny R’s neon sign flashing softly behind him.
I blinked. Why did I ask that?
“Universe City?” he said, his eyes droopy and his voice loud like we were still inside the club. “Why?”
I looked away. Obviously he didn’t then. At least he wouldn’t remember this conversation. “Doesn’t matter.”
“No,” he said, stumbling off the kerb and almost falling on to me again. His eyes were wide. “Why did you ask me that?”
I stared. “Er …”
He waited.
“You just … I thought I heard you quote it. I might have been wrong …”
“You listen to Universe City?”
“Er, yeah,” I said.
“That’s so … unlikely. I haven’t even got 50,000 subscribers yet.”
Wait.
“What?”
Aled stepped forward. “How did you know? Dan said no one would work it out.”
“What?” I said, this time with more force. “Work what out?”
Aled said nothing; he just started to grin.
“Do you listen to Universe City?” I said, though by this point I’d forgotten why I was asking, whether it was because the idea that someone else loved it as much as I did made me feel less completely weird, or whether I just wanted Aled to say what he was seemingly refusing to say.
“I am Universe City,” he said. And I stood there.