“Because!” I have to make sense of my not-too-well-thought-out plan. “Once I have proof that he’s with someone, I can ask more questions and track her down and let her know her boyfriend is an arse.”
“I think you may have lost the plot, Jess…”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I just think she has a right to know.”
“This whole Tom mission is a major distraction from your work.”
I let out a pfft and she volleys it back with a matronly look that would put hairs on your chest. She has a point. Since Edinburgh, I’ve been losing more than I’ve been winning when it comes to my career. As if reading my mind, she dips into my brain and offers a way out.
“My advice, for what it’s worth, is that you should forget about all of this. Maybe get away for a couple of days. Throw yourself into your work. Perform. Write. Perform. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.”
“I told you, I’m seeing Dean tomorrow. Maybe get off my back when it comes to the work, yeah?” Using the prearranged meeting with our agent gives me the upper hand. Julia and I don’t really fight. We argue, about a great many things, but we don’t fight. Yet for some reason, tonight I’m pushing for it. I’m not seeing it from her point of view. I’m questioning her motives and it’s riling her.
“Look. All I’m offering is my advice. You’ll do you, Jess. As you should.”
“I’m not doing it for me. I’m doing it for her. This girl who’s being screwed over. I thought you’d be supportive.”
She grabs the book she’s been reading and tucks it under her arm. Ready to depart.
“Stop kidding yourself, Jess. This whole plan isn’t to see her. It’s to see him. At least be honest with yourself about that.”
She doesn’t mean it as cold as it comes out. I’ve just used up all the goodwill I have on this subject and she’s reached breaking point. I have no comeback to the truth. As soon as she leaves the room, I open up the email window again and read through the absolute bucket of crazy I’ve written. Without knowing why, I hit SEND.
May 20, 2016
Dean’s proposal has everything Julia recommended, just to the nth degree. It will mean absolutely throwing myself into work and it gets me away for more than a couple of days. I’d have to write new material on a deadline—something that weirdly benefits my work—and there’d be nine thousand miles between me and all of this Tom idiocy. My hot shame for actually sending the email had me up most of the night.
“You don’t have to give me an answer now,” Dean tells me.
I repeat the offer back to him. “Australia? Four weeks?”
He nods. “Sleep on it. It’s a big ask. You wouldn’t be earning mega-money either, but it’s a great place to make a name for yourself. The comedy scene there’s phenomenal.”
“And Julia?”
He shakes his head. “They only want straight stand-up. No double acts. No experimental stuff.”
I genuinely don’t know what he means by that. But then Dean’s only been to our show once. I don’t think it would be a huge leap to suggest he selected us for representation from our headshots alone. He’s young, early thirties, but his dad was a big-time agent before him. Mainly film stars. Rumor has it, he repped David Niven and Deborah Kerr at the end of their careers. Little Dean wanted to step out from under his father’s wing, but only so far. He went for comedy. He’s OK, as far as agents go—let’s face it, he’s all we’ve ever known—but he’s absolutely about the commerce and not the art.
“If you do say yes,” he says tentatively, “we should have a chat about the direction you want to go.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, no one really knows who you are right now. A four-week tour is a pretty good opportunity to try on some new faces. See what sticks.”
My face, I think to myself. Mine is the one that sticks. He reads my reaction and tries to clarify his take.
“I’m just saying, the silly songs, the impressions, they’re all great, but is that what you want to be known for? Without Julia to bounce off, some of the sketches will have to be dropped anyway.”
“What about the Edinburgh stuff I did?”
He shakes his head, like an exasperated parent who’s had the same argument about lending his seventeen-year-old his car a million times before. “We’ve been over this.”
I protest. “It worked in the room.”
“And it didn’t make it to the edit. You had an opportunity to do some decent material and get it on national TV.”
“Digital.”
“Whatever! Instead of getting five minutes of fame and exposure you made fifty people laugh and got less than thirty seconds’ air time.”
I don’t regret a thing about that night. I was more me on that stage than I’ve ever been before or since. And it worked. If I’d carried on with the material that wasn’t working, the rest of the night wouldn’t have panned out the way it did. Until it went wrong, that night was right and it started there. With me being me.
Tom’s words again. “You should be you. I like you.”
Dean leans back in his chair for the conclusion of his argument. “You’re funny, Jess. But if you don’t play the game, you’ll be funny to fifty people for the rest of your life.”
* * *
—
Back at home, Julia is ecstatic at the news of my possible Antipodean excursion. She jumps around the room like I’ve been invited to open for Beyoncé. When I tell her I’m not sure whether I want to go, she dismisses the idea as ridiculous, telling me this is the sort of opportunity that makes people’s careers. Having had one fight with her last night, I don’t fancy round two and so I simply nod and smile. Borrowing her enthusiasm to get me through. She squeals with joy for me, before announcing she’s off to get some cheap fizz to help us celebrate.
As she closes the door behind her, I grab my laptop and open up the fake account I made to send the message to Tom. VeronicaFreelance all one word with a Yahoo address. I type in the password. L0ve_R@t. There’s one unopened email.
Re: Article on Bands and Relationships
To Veronica,
Scott is in a long-term relationship. As is Brandon. Colin and myself have been single since the band’s inception. Nobody would like to talk about their partners (or lack thereof) as it’s nobody’s business. The music should speak for itself.
Tom Delaney
I don’t know what to make of this. But I do know that this obsession has to stop. I sign out of the account and delete it. Either he lied that night or he’s lying now. I’ll never know because I’m not going to follow it up. Even if he’d responded in the affirmative, I really don’t think I’d have had the balls to go through with it. After all, the truth will out. It always does. Good luck to Sarah is all I can say.
I put my laptop to one side and slope off to the kitchen to make myself a drink. All that’s in the fridge is Foster’s from a house party we had months ago. Maybe it’s a sign about the Australia offer. I crack it open and return to my computer, switching Grand Designs on in the background. I open my real email account and see that there too I have one unopened message sent around the same time.
It reads.
Subject: The Friedmann Equation
Hey.
I hope you don’t mind, I got your email address from an open reply you sent someone on Twitter. Weirdly stalkerish, I know. I totally understand if you want to delete this message before reading it. But me and the band are playing Sheffield soon. If you’re about (and would like to) I’d really like to meet up and explain a few things.
It’s Tom, by the way, from Edinburgh.
15
Everything to Tell
Tom
Manse Road, Edinburgh
May 20, 2016
Who would have thought it? My original sophisticated plan to name a record after a joke we shared h
ad yielded nothing, but then simply emailing her and asking if she’d be willing to see me had immediately brought a positive response.
OK, so, “positive” might be too strong a word, but a channel of communication has been opened. Jess has sent me a message. A one-word, abstract “Maybe” message, but a maybe is a million times better than a no. It offers possibility. It offers hope.
I email back immediately.
I can get you a backstage pass if you like?
As soon as I’ve sent it I realize how creepy it sounds and desperately want to hit the UNSEND button. But what if she’s already seen it, which she almost definitely has? What if she’s half-seen and then I undo it and, oh, here’s another message.
Smooth.
I deserve her ridicule and take it. I am a ridiculous person, sometimes.
That wasn’t supposed to sound so douchebaggy. So, do you think you can make it? This Wednesday, we’re playing the Leadmill. We could grab a drink in the Rutland Arms after, if you like?
I press SEND and wait. And I wait. I conjure up a billion replies from her. The ratio of no’s to maybe’s I invent is heavily geared to the former. There are no definitive yesses in my mind.
Five minutes later, her next missive arrives.
You know Sheffield pretty well, I take it? Your friend did say that’s where Sarah was from. Got a thing for Yorkshire girls, have you?
Whatever tone I choose to read this in, it’s a reminder of my up-mountain battle. Again, hope rears its tricky head and I think there’s a way through this. A way out.
If you come for a drink with me, I’ll explain the entirety of the Sarah thing. I promise.
I can’t say (or type) fairer than that. A more manipulative part of me thinks it’s a perfect setup. Who can refuse such a tantalizing piece of bait as an “explanation”? It clearly works because the next thing she types are words to the effect of Sod it, I’ll be there.
On a roll, I risk it for a biscuit.
Can I get your phone number? Again.
The pause is longer than the message Jess sends back.
No.
A quicker one appears.
But I will be there. I am a lady of my word. Unlike some people. See you on the 25th, Mr. Delaney. And this “explanation” you have better be bloody spectacular.
It’s rare I get to switch off my computer with a sense of hope. A sense of excitement. Usually it’s turned off after spending hours down rabbit holes, mindlessly scrolling through social media feeds, reading depressing news articles and opinion pieces. But today—today there’s hope. The 25th can’t come soon enough.
Cemetery Road, Sheffield
May 25, 2016
Our first two shows go great. The little underground venue in Manchester was tailor-made for our new type of heavier guitar sound. Where once there was melody and lyrics, now we specialize in the purity of beautiful noise. To have the cavern to literally bounce the sound off was glorious. Next was Newcastle and again, despite some early technical glitches, things went better than we could have hoped for. Brandon went to uni there, so, for him and his boyfriend, that was a real memorable one to tick off.
But for me, it’s all been about Sheffield. In the city of steel, with the connections I have, there’s something special in the air and someone very special I’ll be meeting after the show. Before that, though, I’ve come to see the other person in my life who means so much to me.
The cemetery is pretty empty. It’s an overcast day and threatening to chuck it down. I find Grandad and place a plectrum on his grave. When I first came here by myself, a year after he died, there were dozens of these triangular pieces of plastic. Fans would make the pilgrimage here from all over the world to place these little markers. I just sort of got sucked into the ritual. There are fewer of them these days.
Despite managing it last time I was here (and there being no soul around to hear me), I still can’t speak out loud. Instead I think of what he might say to the news that I’m touring, actually touring in venues that he might have once played. It’s usually easy to conjure his voice but today it isn’t working. I want to hear him say he’s “chuffed to bits” for me, to hear the word “proud,” even if it’s from my own head. But I can’t. I’m too distracted by her.
“Of course you are,” the voice interrupts, “as you should be.”
“All right, Grandad,” I reply. “We’re playing the Leadmill tonight.”
“Forget that, tell me more about this girl.”
“What’s there to tell?” I kick at a patch of mud by my foot, like a twelve-year-old with a crush.
“Everything, Tom. There’s everything to tell.”
I’m about to open my mouth and embrace the crazy when a couple I’ve seen before turn up. Bad weather be damned. Like always, they’re holding each other tight.
“That could be you one day soon,” the voice tells me, “minus the lost loved one, though.”
I allow him the morbid humor. In life he was pretty dark. And I guess he was in death, too. Racing along to the final post the way he did. The darkness becoming too much for him.
“Less of that,” he reprimands me. “Today is supposed to be a happy day.”
“A gig to come.”
“A girl to see.”
I can see him smiling.
“I know which I think is more important,” he tells me from beyond the grave.
Leadmill Road, Sheffield
Hours later
I don’t see her before the show and while we’re on stage I can’t even consider looking around. Our lighting setup is such that it really does feel as if we’re by ourselves until the last song. We don’t do encores, never have, never will, and so the only bit of crowd interaction is before and after we’ve played. I didn’t see her at the start.
But in the last email she sent, she said she was coming. I’m glad she declined the backstage pass. After all, backstage is basically a box room with some tatty seating and a crate of piss-warm beer. Meeting at the pub across the road after the show makes much more sense. During the set, Scott keeps telling me to slow down between numbers. Brandon’s sweating to keep up. It’s unprofessional, I know, but I just want to get to the last song as soon as I can. We’re halfway through the penultimate number.
I’ve told Scott about my after-show plans. And for the first time I told him about going to see my grandad too. How I’d visit him when I said I was seeing Sarah. The full extent of my “conversations” with him is still a secret and best kept so. After the fabricated girlfriend, I don’t need to tell him I fantasize conversations with dead people too. My fears that he’d see the visits as unmanly or weird were as ill-founded as I probably always knew, deep down, they would be.
We finish up to rousing applause and a few hollers. The knowledge that when we walk offstage we won’t be coming back has yet to filter down from our Edinburgh days. But today, more than ever, I’m glad our final number is our final number.
“Great stuff, everyone,” I say as I hurriedly put my coat on behind the curtain.
“In a rush, mate?” Colin asks.
I can’t shift the grin from my face. It’s been nine months and I’m finally going to see her again. To tell her the truth. To put things right and, with any luck, make up for lost time.
Shoreham Street, Sheffield
Two hours later
The staff in the pub have started to give me the pity look. The “he’s been stood up” sideways stare. Every time I glance up and see their lips moving, I convince myself they’re talking about me. Solipsistic arsehole that I am. One looks over her shoulder. She must be looking at me. They’re giggling now. That’s about me.
After another fifteen minutes of this—fifteen minutes of checking my phone, its signal, turning it off and on again—I want to scream the words “I’M JUST
MEETING A FRIEND” but there’s something very untrue about that. I’m sure she’ll be here any minute. It’s only after the twelfth time of checking my phone that I remember she only has my email. And that I turned notifications off on my emails years ago.
I open the mail app and there’s a message from her. Sent two hours ago. It reads:
I promise. I wasn’t trying to stand you up. I was going to be there. I really did want to hear what you have to say. I’m so sorry. Can you call me in the morning and we’ll arrange a time and a place. I really am sorry—Jess x
Reading her apology to me certainly isn’t the way I thought this evening would go. And then something else I really wasn’t expecting happens. A face walks through the door that I recognize. It’s one half of the double act I bumped into outside a curry house in Edinburgh nine months ago. One half of Jess and Julia. But for a reason I don’t fully understand, it’s the wrong half. Julia waves a half-hello and takes a seat across from me. I wonder what the joke is. But she doesn’t appear to be laughing.
16
Distractions
Jess
Park Grange Court, Sheffield
May 25, 2016
I pinball between hate and hope. I don’t know how Tom is going to explain himself, but I’m starting to believe he can. I want him to, desperately. Even after close to a year of feeling such contempt for the man, I want to believe there’s a reason behind it all.
I typically tell Mum everything that’s going on in my life but she doesn’t seem in a great place at the moment and I don’t want to rock her boat. My little brother Dom’s gap year has lasted over twenty months now. Last we heard he was somewhere near Fiji. I get why he’d want to be as far away from here as possible. Life wasn’t what you’d call easy for us growing up. Dom had it harder. I don’t think he could see that Mum gave us love. As John, George, Paul, and Ringo said, it’s all you need.
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