“Why have you just written ‘Charlie Mingus before Cunnilingus’?”
“Do you think ‘Jazz before Jizz’ works better?”
“Why is your mind always in the gutter, Jess?”
“But, Julia,” I say, affecting the poshest voice imaginable, “I’m looking at the stars!”
I drumroll in perfect synchronicity to the end of the song and I feel a little freaked out considering I’ve literally only ever heard it once before. The DJ on the radio starts to applaud, before announcing, “That was The Friedmann Equation with ‘Three’—the third track on their new EP, due for release on Kayak Records next Friday. Look out for that one. It’s called Nitrous Oxide Makes Me Wannabe Your Lover. Good title.”
My heart skips a beat and a tidal wave of guilt crashes into me as I feel the thrill of hearing the title. It’s so weirdly specific. Like something only me and that paramedic would have any memory of. Why has he done that?
“Bastard!” I yell and the whole café turns to look at me.
Julia offers a nervous smile to our fellow diners and whispers through gritted teeth, “You’re going to get us chucked out of here.”
“That title, Nitrous Oxide Makes Me Wannabe Your Lover!”
Julia offers a look that says “And?”
“It’s a joke from our night together. He sang the Spice Girls while high on Entonox. It’s like a weird, flirty message over the airwaves.”
She puts her hand on top of mine, but I pull it away, too angry for comforting.
“Jess. You need to calm down, mate. It’s been nine months. I know this guy hurt you, but you’ve got to let it go. There are millions of arseholes out there. They don’t deserve your time and neither does he. It’s a little more important that you think about your work right now. Your career. Ever since that night you’ve had this massive distraction weighing over you. Talking about him. Moaning about him.”
I stand, grab my notepad and coat. “I’ve gotta go,” I tell her. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Her face is the picture of baffled. “Where are you going?”
“To confront him.”
“What?”
“Someone needs to look out for this girl he’s with. I’m gonna be the one to tell him you can’t send the music equivalent of dick pics behind your girlfriend’s back.”
Julia blusters, unable to conjure up a response that might get through to me. She doesn’t attempt to stop me as I run out into the street. A second later, I pop back into the café and point to the owner with a wink. “You’re all right, Mr. Café Owner. You’re all right!”
13
Columbo
Tom
Elliot Street, Edinburgh
May 20, 2016
On the bus to Scott’s, I listen to the record for the hundredth time. It’s out and getting plenty of play on the radio. With this moderate success, invitations have followed to play in locations with unfamiliar postcodes and more than a few interviews. They seem to like the idea of us having a former singer who’s gone on to be a pop star while we’ve been doing our thing. I can’t say I’m not a little in love with the picture it paints of us fighting the good fight. All of this is great, but what I really want is for the record to reach one particular person. And so far, it hasn’t.
Granted, naming a record after a shared moment might not be the best way to seek forgiveness, but surely there’s no harm in letting someone know you’re thinking about them? There’s a slim outside chance Jess will pick up on it…isn’t there?
Truthfully, what am I really hoping for with this strategy? That she’ll hear me on the radio and forget the whole Do you have a girlfriend? / No, of course not / Oh wait, that’s not what your best friend said teen angst of it all? That she’ll track me down and come running, arms outstretched, because I named an EP after a moment in a night we had nine months ago? Ultimately, in the cold, harsh light of day I can see what this really is. Just more avoidance. Pine after someone who probably won’t ever forgive you and then you never have to worry about making an emotional attachment to anyone ever again. Classic Tom.
When Scott’s dad left his mum, his mum got this house. A tiny two-up, two-down terrace. After Scott’s mum hooked up with Scott’s “Uncle” Steve (in name only, thank God) and she moved out, the house pretty much became Scott’s.
When you’re in your late teens and early twenties, a house to yourself is pretty much the greatest thing of all time. We’d have parties. We’d drink. We’d lie about all day watching movies. The doorbell still lets out that same ice-cream-van jingle it always has. I’m here today because Scott sent a text saying that he and Holly have “something really cool to share.”
He opens the front door and greets me with the same winning smile that’s been written on all of our faces since the EP got its first radio play. He wraps his arms around me—not easy when I’m almost twice his size—and pulls me in close.
Inside, the scene is set up like an IKEA catalog come to life. Holly made this place theirs, as opposed to just his, after a couple of months of moving in. Out went the moldy, hot-rocked recliners. In came a duck-egg-blue sofa and a city’s worth of cushions. And while they still have the framed poster of the Death in Vegas gig we went to in 2011, said poster sits next to a rather arty transit map and a far bigger than necessary canvas picture of their tabby cat, Skittles. A canvas picture I happen to know Scott detests. Compromise has been a bedrock of their “new” relationship after years of antagonism endlessly pulled them apart and back together. Truth be told, he’s a stronger man than me.
“So. What’s the rumpus? Is this about the band?” I ask.
“Nope,” is Scott’s quick reply as Holly shakes her head next to him.
I ignore their weird beaming as I notice their bookshelf, overflowing with titles I know I should have read but haven’t.
“Well, we asked you here—” Scott begins before I cut him off.
“That book I lent you, Holly, the one about the tiger and the boat. Have you finished it? I promised it to a friend.”
They look at each other, buzzing. Scott rises and takes the book I asked for off the shelf and another one too. He presents me with both and says, “We’ve only been reading this one lately.” He theatrically points to the cover showing a couple of baby feet poking out from a blanket. Holly laughs.
I want in on their little joke and so I scan the title. YOUR BABY, DAY-BY-DAY.
I still don’t get it.
“I don’t get it,” I say.
“Wow,” says Holly. “I didn’t realize we were being that subtle.”
“We’re having a baby, Tom,” Scott explains. “Not a Baby Tom, although who knows, right?” Holly shakes her head at the thought of naming her first child after me, as it finally hits me like a truck what this means.
“This is a wind-up, right?” I ask. “An April Fool’s joke one month too late?”
“Congratulations is usually what people say in this situation,” Holly offers drily.
“What about the band?” I squeal, reaching a pitch reserved for very upset dogs and dolphins.
“I. Told. You,” Holly lets out in a singsong manner, evoking a prime look of hostility from Scott.
The illusion of the dream couple with the dream house and the dream setup is shattered in a moment, and I wonder if I’m about to play a crucial role in another of their ups and downs.
“It’s fine,” Scott attempts to remedy. “There are loads of musicians with children. In fact, I can’t think of many who don’t.”
“Not at twenty-five!”
“I’m twenty-six. And yes, quite a few people, in many, many occupations, have kids when they’re in their mid-twenties!”
My head begins to hurt and I start to tap my left foot. I was not ready for this news today. Not by a long shot. Can I dig deep enough to not be a total arsehole?
Can I think of my two friends and their feelings first? As my next utterance slips from my loose lips the answer to those questions is clearly a pretty hefty no.
“Will the baby be coming on tour with us, Scott? Maybe it could be our roadie, Holly?”
They roll their eyes in synchronicity.
“You’re being a dick, Tom,” Scott tells me, matter-of-fact.
“Am I a dick?” I ask. “Am I a dick? Am I a dick? Am I dick? Am I dick?” The phrase repeats, stuck on a loop, my silly little mantra echoing around until both Scott and the lovely mother of his unborn baby are suddenly doubled over with laughter. Their laughter snaps me out of it and I utter, “I am. Aren’t I? I am a dick.”
The reply is two nodding heads. I let out a loud, cleansing profanity that makes Skittles shoot across the floor.
“I’m sorry. I just. I can’t get my head around it.”
“We could draw you a picture?” Holly offers, playing the room perfectly.
A nervous gurgle comes from deep within the pit of my stomach.
“Hungry?” Scott jokes, unaware that through no fault of his, my insides are turning to mush as the plans we made are scattered to the winds.
Touring. That’s the big one that I can’t see him doing. Not when the baby is due. Not when it’s sick with measles or whatever. Not when it means going to Europe for weeks on end. But then there’s the time-swallower this thing will be. Rehearsals every other day will become rehearsals every other week. Money that he would spend on demos and new instruments and transport will now go on nappies and onesies and chew toys. Shit. Shit. Shit. Keep positive, I tell myself as Scott leads us into the kitchen. Don’t crumble under this.
“Cheese and ham?” Scott offers in a faux-Welsh accent, repeating a joke from a stand-up routine we’d first heard half a decade ago. Back when we were young and carefree. Is that an oxymoron? Didn’t we care more than anything when we were younger? I’d argue the older I get the more I stop giving a damn. Except about this. This was supposed to be our dream and now…now it feels over.
As this last thought enters my head, my knees begin to buckle. All the blood rushes out of my head and ends up God knows where. It’s fine, I tell myself. I’m fine. And I almost believe what I’m saying as—on my way down to Scott and Holly’s kitchen floor—I take a loaf of Kingsmill and the bread board with me.
* * *
—
I don’t quite know if I made it to the sofa myself or if Scott dragged me. But here I am. Looking up at two very concerned parental types.
“You all right, mate?” Scott asks, wary of the reply, as Holly passes me a glass of water.
I sit up a little. “Yeah. That was weird.”
“You just blacked out.”
“Really?”
“That ever happened before?”
“Errr. No,” I lie. “Don’t think so.”
The dishonesty is back between us for the first time since the “Sarah” fiasco. Holly, smarter than most, eyes my last remark with the appropriate amount of suspicion. She glances at Scott and makes an excuse to get out of the house. To leave us alone. Before she goes, I repeat as honestly and passionately as I can how happy I am for them and their news.
After she’s gone, Scott and I sit in silence for a while. He lets out a big sigh and stands.
“You want another water?”
I shake my head. “I’m good.”
“I tell you what, it’ll be a relief to be able to tell other people about the baby now.”
Not being the brightest bulb, I ask him to elaborate. Once he does, I immediately wish he hadn’t. He tells me how he wanted his best friend to be one of the first to know and I feel an overwhelming urge to start crying. It’s partly because he’s never said anything like that to me before and partly because I feel so much guilt for not reciprocating his friendship with actions. Or words. But now—now I feel ready. Finally. I feel like I can say it.
“Scott,” I say, pretty dramatically. “I need to tell you something. It’s about Sarah…”
Scott goes quiet and his entire forehead wrinkles. Before I can say it, he finishes my sentence for me.
“She never existed, did she? You made her up?”
The stomach-falling-through-my-arse moment I was expecting doesn’t occur. It’s replaced by a fascination with how he knew. And for how long.
“When you were going out, I didn’t have a clue. But when you broke up and said so nonchalantly you were still gonna be mates, alarm bells started ringing.”
I don’t fully get his Columbo deduction. “Huh?”
“You wear your heart on your sleeve, Tom. Like right on it. That this breakup, from a woman you seemed pretty keen on, hardly affected you, was just…nah, mate. I wasn’t having it.”
He elaborates. “At first I just took you at your word. Like, why would you lie about being with someone? Then I started to think back to other moments. That time at the hospital with…”
“Jess.” Saying her name physically hurts.
“Yeah. I could never believe my mate would be with someone the way you were with her—drugs or no drugs—behind his partner’s back. It’s just not you.”
I manage to fight back the tears. Fainting, admitting you made up a girlfriend, and having a good cry, all on the same day, might just be a step too far. Instead, I start telling Scott things I never have before. Why I made up Sarah. Who Jess was and what she meant to me, even after just one night. I don’t have it in me to talk about some other stuff. The panic I feel. The way I get so lonely sometimes. The fact that I’ve been using alcohol a bit too often to fight all of the above. He’s gonna be a dad soon. He doesn’t need some man-baby bothering him now. I don’t need to burden him with any of that. I just need him to know that I’ll be honest with him from now on.
“So,” he announces, after I’m done with the telling of my tales. “What are you gonna do about this random funny lady, then?”
“Aside from obscurely naming records in the hope she might hear one and think of me?”
“Yeah, Tom, aside from that awful, awful plan. Have you got a number?”
“I did. She wrote it on my arm in eye makeup, before SarahGate. Then in one fairly violent move she smudged it off. I’ve looked her up online, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Scott says. “Can’t you just send her an email? Say sorry. Explain the situation, without the plans and schemes.”
I want to tell him it’s the plans and schemes that protect me. As long as I have them, I can keep myself locked up, away from the possibility of pain. But he’s my best friend. And he knows this already.
14
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Jess
Cemetery Road, Sheffield
May 19, 2016
Back at the flat, I switch my laptop on, mimicking the familiar bing-bong. I type in The Friedmann Equation and their website comes up. Part of me has decided the whole thing is a mix-up, that the song just sounds like one I’ve heard before and the “Wannabe…Nitrous Oxide” thing is a massive coincidence brought on by the headfuck of that night. The complete confusion of thinking you know someone, only to have the rug yanked from under your feet.
Despite it being 2016, they’ve purposefully designed their website to look like a relic from the past. Nineties-era dial-up screeches from the speakers as the screen “loads,” aping an old printer, creating the homepage line by line, pixel by pixel. It triggers a flashback to a time before high-speed broadband, when things seemed slower. When life was—cliché alert—simpler. As the website fully loads, I think how many people they’ll have lost with this gimmick and am even more convinced I’m in the right place. It has Tom’s fingerprints all over it. From our very brief encounter, Tom struck me as someone who’d rather have ten fans that “got it” than a million who didn’t. As with everything Tom-related, I have to f
ight the urge not to like it. Remember he’s a rat. Remember he’s a rat. Remember he’s a rat.
The site is minimal, a few bars of color with four dropdown menus at the top. MUSIC. TOUR. ABOUT. CONTACT. I click TOUR and see there’s a handful of upcoming gigs. When I see he’s coming to Sheffield in two weeks’ time, a plan begins to form.
I click on CONTACT and begin to draft the strangest email I’ve ever written. In it, I say I’m a freelance journalist from a pretty well-known music website looking to write a piece on bands and relationships. It’s a think-piece, I write, speaking to people within the music industry about how they make a relationship work when their other half is touring. I say we’d like to interview both the band and their partners to ask what they make of the “sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle” in the twenty-first century. Is it harder for the one left at home or the one being tempted on the road? I have no idea if he’ll bite, but it’s all I have.
As my finger hovers over the SEND button, I ask myself, is this the behavior of a crazy person? Or is it me doing my bit for a woman who needs help? I genuinely do not know the answer to this as I hear Julia’s key in the lock.
* * *
—
Once I’ve finished explaining my plan to Julia, she looks at me like I’ve lost it.
“This is weird, Jess. Like, next-level weird.”
I try for breezy. “It’s fine. I’m FINE! If you were seeing someone and someone else knew they were being unfaithful, you’d want to know, right?”
“Sorry, how does pretending to be a journalist help her?”
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