Perfect Timing

by Owen Nicholls

  His rationale makes sense but does little to quell my self-recrimination.

  “I don’t want to talk about me. I know all about me. I want to hear about my little brother and his lengthy hiatus from the real world.”

  “Ah, the real world. Now there’s a concept!”

  Mum reenters with another tea, even though I’ve still got half a cup from earlier.

  “So, what have I missed, Jess? Is he a big hippie now?”

  “Sounds like it,” I reply.

  “And what about the ladies? Has he been waiting until I’m out of the room to tell you about all the shagging he’s done?” Dom goes a particular shade of red reserved for when parents talk about sex in any context. “Tell me truthfully, Dominic, am I a nanna to a hundred little kids in faraway lands?”

  “Mum!” Dom cries. “Jess, make her stop.”

  “Don’t ask your sister to help. It’s not like I’m getting my first grandchild out of her anytime soon!”

  She doesn’t mean it to, but her “joke” is a little too on the money. It sends me thinking of everything in my life that’s off. It’s difficult to say what comes first, the thought of Tom or the text from him that pops up on my phone.

  Hey. Really wanted you to know that we’ve got our last few gigs coming up this week. First Manchester. Followed by London. Then a really small run in Scotland.

  If you can make either let me know and I’ll have tickets waiting for you. And a plus one. If you need it.

  Tom x

  Dom sees my face light up, smiles, and makes some pop at Mum about “grandkids” that I only half register. I’m too busy scrambling to write back my response. A response that says London would be perfect.

  I turn to Dom. “Once you’ve caught up with your friends and got bored of Sheffield, do you fancy coming to London for the weekend?”

  36

  Someone Special

  Tom

  Lower Mosley Street, Manchester

  June 4, 2018

  Setting up the Farewell to Friedmann tour was easier than it should have been. When the label heard of our on-air decision to quit they were ecstatic, calling it “brilliant marketing.” They happily helped us organize the final dates under the illusion that we’d re-form in a few years and cash in again. For them, the quick money to be made this tax year from a well-publicized breakup tour was worth not having an album to put out this year.

  We tried telling them that this really was the end, but they just kept winking and saying things like “Exactly” and “That’s the answer you give if anyone asks.” If I didn’t know better, if I didn’t know this was exactly how their cynical minds worked, I would have said they were in denial. Even with less than a handful of dates to go, I’m still certain something is going to sweep in and change the minds of Scott, Brandon, and Colin. That at the eleventh hour they’ll have a change of heart and this will be a joke that we reference for years to come. Remember that time we nearly split up?

  This denial still fights with the depression and I blame them both for my drinking of late. It just seems that everything is easier to deal with after half a bottle of something expensive with a high ABV. As we come off the stage in Manchester, I can already feel the call to get blackout drunk. With it will go the memories of these so-called unforgettable nights. But with it too goes the feeling of fear and the pain of inadequacy. It’s worth the trade-off.

  “That was orgasmic!” cries Colin as we enter the backstage area. A small group of record company people and well-wishers are already waiting. They’ve opened the rider and are drinking at its teat.

  Scott rushes in front of me and grabs two beers, then offers me one.

  “Here you go, bud.”

  I decline and wrap my fingers around the neck of a 70cl bottle of Maker’s Mark.

  His face registers his sadness and I take the beer too.

  “Tom’s party trick!” yells out Brandon.

  I oblige, of course, draining the little can of all of its liquid in under five seconds. Everyone cheers. Except Scott. Scott has the look of a doctor about to deliver bad news or a teacher who’s about to tell you you’re not achieving your full potential. He’s not angry that I’m drinking more. He’s just disappointed.

  “Cheer up,” I tell him. “We’re nearly there.”

  As he watches my glass get fuller and fuller, he says my name short and sharp.

  I look him in the eye directly. “Not tonight, mate.”

  He backs off with his hands in the surrender pose. It’s not like I don’t know what the most pathetic part of this is. Jess asking for a plus-one to the gig has brought back old feelings of anxiety that I thought I’d put to bed. The pit in my stomach at the thought of her—in her own words—“introducing me to someone special” has me bent double. It could be anyone, I know. A new agent. A celebrity friend. But at three in the morning, when I can’t control my thoughts, the person I conjure up is always the new love of her life. The person she’s been waiting for all this time.

  Since LA she’s had zero media presence, social or otherwise. I see her on a few TV repeats, but updates on how she is, who she’s with—I guess tomorrow I’ll find out.

  I open my phone and reread the last message she sent.

  I can’t wait. x

  Knowing that in less than twenty-four hours I’ll be saying something, finally making it clear how I feel, has turned me into the frightened boy I used to be. The one I thought I was done with. The solution of alcohol as an anesthetic is as stupid as it is a cliché. Yet my hand still goes for the bottle.

  37

  Little Miss Poo Fingers

  Jess

  Between Charing Cross and Embankment

  June 5, 2018

  Dom’s nervous on the Underground. But me, I’m a complete mess. It’s a toss-up between the fear of seeing Tom at his gig later and being out in public for the first time in forever. On the latter, I’m sitting waiting for every eye to discover me, to know me, to judge me. For people to, above all things, laugh at me. The one thing I used to want more than anything has become a daily nightmare scenario.

  The last three months of hiding have done little to help. My career is in hibernation and I’ve no idea whether I want to wake it up or not. What little impact my appearance on The Clive Charles Show made in the news cycle has moved on, but there’s still a subsection of Twitter’s darkest warriors who hate me for jokes I’ve made in the past. Those that are unwilling to forgive and forget. I know of at least one who’s started a “Where’s the B Jess Henson?” page chronicling the “movements of an expletive deleted.”

  “And. That’s. OK,” I try and tell myself. But right now, it’s not working. In an hour I’ll see Tom and I just want it to be OK. Instead, my hands are clammy as I clutch the gift I should have given him a year and a half ago. His grandfather’s diary, still in its wrapping paper from New Year’s Day 2017. The thought of me keeping it secret for so long brings forth new waves of self-hatred.

  I look up and see Dom’s leg bouncing. His eyes darting around the carriage.

  “We’re not far from the venue,” I tell him. “We can walk the last bit if you like?”

  He nods and we jump out.

  The Queen’s Walk, London

  Fifteen minutes later

  It’s a beautiful June day in London as me and my long-gone brother walk the South Bank. All I want is to enjoy this moment. To forget about the past and focus on the present. I try and lose myself in conversation with Dom, but wind up asking questions about his travels I’ve already asked before. He’s smart enough to know something’s up and so he asks me outright.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” I lie. “I’m fine.”

  “Jess?”

  I stop and make my way over to the edge of the Thames. Behind us the sound of teenagers skating unde
r the Queen Elizabeth Hall bounces off the concrete.

  “I’m just feeling like…what’s that song?” I ask. “King Midas in reverse?”

  “Like instead of everything you touch turning to gold…you’re Little Miss Poo Fingers?” Dom nudges me with his elbow. “Come on, sis. It’s not that bad, is it? You’ve got your friends.”

  “Friend, singular. Julia is one of the few who still cares for me and she’s been away a lot recently working on some coproduction. I hardly ever see her.”

  “You’ve got me and Mum.”

  He’s trying and, in a way, he’s right. I am luckier than most, but I can’t deny the fact that I’ve made some pretty shitty decisions of late. Through my actions and my words, I’ve alienated myself. Pissed people off. Put on a mask and taken the money. Like a crap highwayman.

  “I feel like…This will sound so lame, but…when you have a dream, when you think your life is set out on a path, it’s such a crushing disappointment when you get there and the path is lined with…I don’t know…lined with shite. And what’s worse is…I know it’s my fault. I was the one throwing shite on my own path!”

  He pulls me in for a hug before releasing me and saying, “You’re not even thirty, Jess. That path, shit-littered or not, you can clean that up in no time.”

  Dom turns, his back to the water, his eyes on the skaters. I look up at him and it’s hard to see the little brother I once knew. He’s changed a lot over the last few years. Matured. It only makes my backward walk all the more obvious. I need to do something about it. I need to start taking some steps forward. I need to clean that path.

  “When did you get so chuffing wise?” I ask.

  He grins a big goofy grin, with a faraway look in his eye. Like his trip has given him the answers to life, the universe, and everything.

  Finally, he asks, “Are we going in, or what?”

  38

  The Full Friedmann Experience

  Tom

  South Bank, London

  June 5, 2018

  She walks into the room on the arm of a man I’ve never seen before. As far as I’m aware he is no celebrity friend and he doesn’t look much like an agent. My heart is crushed. The ending I had planned for the show is now sitting at the bottom of some great lake. Gallons of water smashing it into irrelevance. I fix my face with a smile so fake I could be arrested for forgery, an impossible imitation of a happy man, and walk over to them.

  “Hello!” she says, sashaying across the room, finger pointed at me. “It’s Tom, right, Tom Delaney?”

  I summon up just enough joy from her mere presence to join in on the joke. “Jessica Henson, as I live and breathe.” She turns to the mystery man beside her and explains the joke.

  “Tom. I’d like you to meet my brother, Dom. Dom, Tom. Tom, Dom. That sounds like the Jaws theme.”

  “Your brother!” I exclaim in a way that is so painfully uncool and obvious to everyone in the room it makes me want to die. But then I’m so thrilled that her plus-one is a relative I grab him by the shoulder and don’t stop shaking his hand. He doesn’t seem the least bit freaked out by my behavior, mainly because his eyes are squarely fixed on Jenny Helen, the very attractive lead singer of our support band, A Wolf in Unix. Jess doesn’t miss a beat to tease her younger brother.

  “All right, Dom. Take a picture of her. It’ll last longer and be slightly less creepy.”

  He flusters easily. “Sorry, sorry. Was that kind of obvious? Do you think she saw?”

  “Be cool, brother!” Jess warns him, running her hand a few inches in front of his face like a hypnotist. Dom’s uncontrollable horn seems to have hidden my earlier outburst. To make sure it has, I swiftly move the conversation along.

  “Are you gonna watch the show from the side of the stage?”

  “No way. Got to give Dom the full Friedmann experience—standing among the mopey men, wallowing in their divorced-dad misery.”

  My cheeks hurt with how much I’m smiling. Her younger brother looks at me like I’m high and I try to introduce him into what’s becoming a very two-sided three-way conversation.

  “Was she always like this?” I ask him. “Growing up?”

  In between glances at Jenny, Dom studies his sister for the right thing to say. She interrupts with a self-effacing putdown. “Growing up suggests growth and…” She shrugs as if to suggest there’s nothing to see here.

  I want to ask if she’s OK, she seems different. A little down. But just as I open my mouth to ask, Brandon hollers my name from the other side of the room. I look at the time.

  “Oh, shit. I really best be getting ready.”

  “Yeah,” Jess offers drily. “You can’t stand here all day talking to your many fans.”

  “You’re coming back, though, after the show, yeah?” I ask.

  Dom scans the room and sees the beautiful people within it—present company excepted. He nods so enthusiastically I think his head might fall off. And then he checks with his sister.

  “I mean, if that’s OK. I’d love to. Jess?”

  She shrugs. “Sure.”

  Dom disappears from my vision as I center my eyes on Jess.

  “See you after the show.”

  “See you after the encores,” Dom says.

  “No,” Jess jumps in. “They don’t do encores.”

  I don’t want to correct her but I know I have to. I can’t have her leave before the end.

  “Actually, tonight, we are.”

  Her face lights up. “This really is a night of firsts. You’re in for a treat, little brother.”

  I fix my eyes on Jess again. Trying not to beg, but making my words as crystal clear as I can. “So, please. Don’t go early.”

  39

  Encores

  Jess

  South Bank, London

  June 5, 2018

  “I won’t go early,” I vowed to Tom. But I’ve no idea if I can stick to that promise. Even as the support act comes to a close, I’m itching to run. Lest I contaminate Tom with my crap.

  “We’ve been A Wolf in Unix!” Jenny yells from the stage. “Thank you!” As they leave the platform, the crowd filters out for refills. I nudge Dom, the pixie figure of Jenny Helen still burning into his retinas, and find us a quiet spot near the dormant speakers.

  “You a fan, then?” I say, enjoying the opportunity to tease my brother at length for the first time in a long while.

  He scoffs and returns fire. “You’re one to talk.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “You don’t follow?” he says, incredulous. “You and Tom? You were doing your trademark I like you so I’ll insult you thing.”

  “I don’t do that.”

  “You do do that. What’s going on between you two?”

  I look down into my warm can of eight-quid beer. “Nothing.”

  “Are you kidding me? That guy’s crazy about you! When I walked in, he gave me the biggest evil eye I’ve ever had in my life. Then when you said I was your brother, I thought he was going to rip my arm off with glee.”

  “Shut up!” I say it as a joke, but I genuinely mean it.

  Shut up, Dom. I can’t. Not today. Not now. I can’t.

  He studies my face. “All teasing aside, was there, is there something going on?”

  I don’t know where to start and so I start at the beginning. At Edinburgh. We move swiftly through to the airport and Australia, the podcast and the TV taping. All the while, I replay the almost-moments. The could-have-beens. I tell him that yes, I love him. Or at least, I’m as in love with him as anyone I’ve never actually been with. And then I tell Dom the clincher. That nothing can happen. That right now is not for us.

  “I don’t get it,” Dom says.

  “I feel like I’m getting further away from the person I should be. You saw him in there. He’
s assured. Together. But that’s not who he’s always been. At times he’s paper-thin. If I latch on to him now, with all my aimlessness, all my problems, I could end up really hurting him and that’s the last thing I want to do.”

  Dom wears a puzzled frown and I can see that maybe he’s not as grown-up as I thought he might be.

  “But if you like him…”

  “Then I want what’s best for him. And right now, that’s not me.”

  “Maybe he can help?”

  “I don’t want him to help. I don’t want anyone to fix me, but me.”

  He shakes his head one last time and drains his drink.

  “I don’t know, sis, helping doesn’t always mean fixing.”

  I know he means well, but again my brain is telling him to shut up. It’s unjustified and, what’s worse, he may have a point. But still it cries, Shut up, Dom! Coming here was hard enough. I need resolve for this. Not romanticism.

  * * *

  —

  An hour and a half later and the place is electric. Hair-on-the-back-of-your-arms electric. I’m saying this as a fan, but it genuinely feels like every single person in this room will have an “I was there” story to tell about tonight. The set closer is their first single. A reworking of the song I heard in Edinburgh. The finished product I heard in a café in Sheffield with Julia years ago. The one that momentarily brought Tom and me back together.

  They leave the stage to thunderous applause but they’re not gone long. The four members return to take another bow, and Tom makes his way to a piano, a microphone by its side. I see Scott grin to him from across the stage.

  “Hello,” Tom begins. “This is very un-us, making speeches, encores and such, but it’s the second-to-last show, so jettisoning any mystique we’ve built up is fine right now. You all know Scott…” The audience holler as Scott raises his hand. “Don’t you just. And Colin and Brandon. It’s only been a couple of years that we’ve been doing this in front of people. But we did it for years before, trying to get here. Seems a wee bit mad that we’re stopping now. But sometimes it’s for the best.”