I Was Born for This
Page 13
I head out of my room and make my way to the kitchen, passing Lister’s bedroom on the way, which is closed and silent. The living room is dark, even though the sun hasn’t fully set. On the kitchen counter is our new record contract, open from where I’d been reading it earlier. Is that our future? Is that my future? We’re supposed to be signing it in two days.
Don’t want to think about that either.
I fill up a glass of water and drink the whole thing, then fill it up again and walk over to the window. The rain doesn’t relax me in the way it normally does. It feels like it’s trying to get in. Flood the room.
I look down at the street below. We live in a residential part of London but there are always people walking around. If I could choose where to live, I’d choose a house in the Lake District. A solitary building without another man-made object within fifty miles.
I want to go outside.
About a year ago, Cecily told us to stop going outside without a bodyguard. Rowan, Lister and I had tried to go to the cinema. Just us three, after a meeting at Fort Records. We were going to walk there – there was an Odeon just round the corner. But there were so many people wanting to meet us in the street that we didn’t even make it there. There were so many people, such a huge crowd, that I’d started to panic, and Rowan had to be very rude and start shoving people out of the way, and someone grabbed Lister to stop him from leaving.
After that, we stopped going outside without a bodyguard.
I open the window and stick my arm out, just to feel the rain for a bit. Cool air rushes inside. I take a deep breath. Hadn’t even noticed how stuffy it was in here.
What if I just … went outside?
Just for a minute. If I wear a hoodie or a cap or something, I’d probably be fine. Just want to stand out there for a minute. Fresh air.
I grab a hoodie and a cap, just for good measure, and I open the apartment door, walk down the corridor, and get in the lift. My stomach drops as the lift goes down, like it does on rollercoasters. It feels freeing.
As soon as the lift door opens, I’m running. Run out of the building, through the door, down the steps, and – there. Fresh air. Light. It’s so light. The rain is cool and clean and pure. The rain isn’t going to hurt me.
‘Mr Kaga-Ricci!’
The sound of a voice makes my heart hammer in my chest and I spin round – but it’s only Ernest, one of our apartment block’s doormen. He’s hurrying towards me down the steps outside our building as fast as he can, which isn’t very fast, because he is eighty-two years old.
‘Mr Kaga-Ricci, should you be outside by yourself?’
I blink very slowly as he approaches. ‘What?’
Ernest produces an umbrella and holds it above my head.
‘You should come back inside, sir, it’s pouring. And you shouldn’t be outside on your own.’
I hate it when Ernest calls us ‘sir’. He’s over four times our age. He’s witnessed the Second World War.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ he frowns at me. ‘What’s all that blood doing on your shorts?’
I glance down. Oh. Shit. There’s still blood all over my shorts.
‘I … er … cut my hand. On a mug.’ I vaguely wave my bandaged hand.
‘Well, you rather look like you’ve had a bit of a rough and tumble, if you ask me.’ Ernest chuckles. ‘Not fighting with your friends, are you?’
‘No,’ I say, which is much easier than attempting to explain the truth.
Ernest sighs heavily. He reminds me so much of Grandad. And a bit of David Attenborough. Both are reasons why I befriended him in the first place.
‘What are you doing out here, eh?’ he asks.
‘I wanted to go for a walk.’
‘In the pouring rain?’
‘… yeah.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea without a bodyguard, sir.’
‘… I know.’ I look at him. He’s gazing at me sympathetically. I wish I could give him a hug. ‘Can you come with me?’
Ernest chuckles. ‘I’m not allowed to leave the building, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh.’ I shove my hands into my pockets. ‘I’ll just go on my own, then.’
‘Sir, I really don’t think—’
‘I’ll just walk around the park. I’ll only be ten minutes.’
‘But if someone recognises you—’
I’ve already stepped out from underneath his umbrella and started walking away. ‘I’ll be fine.’
I don’t care. Ernest’s voice fades away into the rain.
I open the gate into the park. It’s not really a park, it’s just a long strip of grass, trees and flowers in between the rows of apartment blocks. You’re only supposed to enter if you’re a local resident, so I should be fine. Plus, it’s getting dark now. Not that there’s any level of sunset visible through the thick grey rainclouds.
There’s no one around.
I sit down on a bench, pull back my hood and take my cap off. The rain patters against my skin, against my forehead and cheeks and knees. It’s therapeutic. I rub my face, washing it with the rain, getting the sleep out of my eyes. I run a hand through my hair, which is soaked and soft. I look at my hands. My body feels like it’s mine again.
A squirrel darts through the grass in front of me and clambers up a tree. It climbs all the way up to the top, then disappears. I smile.
Then I see someone approaching.
Fuck. No. What do I do? Run? Should I go? Should I hide? Are they going to recognise me? Probably. I shouldn’t really be seen looking like this. They might guess where I live. Call other people. Everyone will know. Everyone will—
‘Have you seen those gloriosa daisies?’
I snap my head up. I must have been panicking for longer than I thought.
But it’s just an old woman, walking with a Zimmer frame. She looks very, very old. Older than Ernest. And Grandad. Her skin looks so worn and wrinkled, her hair wispy and white. She’s wearing a big purple raincoat, and her glasses are so thick that her eyes are huge. She’s walking about four times more slowly than most people.
She grins crookedly at me. ‘Aren’t they lovely, eh?’ She points shakily at a big bunch of yellow flowers growing in one corner of the park. ‘They’ll be bringing butterflies and bees here once this rain clears up.’
I don’t say anything.
She laughs. She sounds so happy.
‘Beautiful,’ she says. ‘What a world we live in!’
And then she walks away.
The sky gets darker and darker, and then it’s night-time. I didn’t bring my phone so I have no idea what the time is. Streetlamps shine into the park between gaps in the trees, giving the whole area a dim yellowish glow, the rain blurring everything, lights sparkling off the water, and when I next open my eyes, nothing seems very real any more, just dark and melting, everything’s just melting into yellow slush, and I stand up, my knees aching a little from sitting for so long, and walk out of the park, mud sticking to the soles of my shoes. It’s not cool now, it’s just cold, and I don’t want to be here any more. I want to be warm and dry and I want nobody to talk to me, ever—
‘Oh my God, is that—’
Fuck. Don’t look. Pretend you didn’t hear.
‘Jimmy! Jimmy Kaga-Ricci!’
I glance to one side and – there they are. Across the street. The girls. Our girls.
They run up to me. ‘Jimmy! Oh my God, oh my God.’ It’s hard to register who is talking. There’s four of them. All talking at once. One of them has started shaking very visibly. Another is just making squealing noises.
‘Hi,’ I say, though it’s not much more than a croak.
‘I honestly love you so much,’ says one of them. ‘You’ve kept me going, like, throughout all of secondary school.’
They don’t love me. They don’t know me.
‘Can I get a selfie?’ says another girl.
‘Would it …’ I start to ask if it would be okay if we didn’t, but she’s
already turned round and taken a picture of herself next to me on her phone.
‘Oh my God, what did you do to your hand?’ one asks.
‘I broke a mug and cut it by accident,’ I say.
‘Awww,’ one says.
‘Okay, I’ve got to go now,’ I say in a tone I hope isn’t as rude as it probably is. The panic is rising in my chest, my breath shortening.
‘Wait, wait,’ says a girl. ‘I just want you to know, like, how much you’ve changed my life. I really, really love you, and you’ve helped me through so much personal stuff over the past few years. So, thank you.’
I blink at her. I am so tired.
‘How can you love me when you don’t know me?’ I ask.
And suddenly they all stop talking at once.
‘We-we do know you,’ says one, and another says, ‘We do love you.’
‘Not real love, though,’ I say.
‘It is real!’
‘How can you love someone you’ve never even met in real life?’
‘This is real life,’ one says.
‘I meant before that. All until now. When I was just a photo on the computer.’
None of them knows what to say.
‘I’m glad I helped you,’ I say, and then I walk away before they can stop me, before they start grabbing me, before they call their friends and they all get together and mob me, because they ‘love’ me.
‘We do know you, Jimmy! And we love you!’ they call after me, but even though they meant it in a nice way, it still terrifies me; it terrifies me that they all believe that what they feel for me is love. God, what have I done? What have I done to them? By the time I get back to our apartment, sit down on the floor with my back against the front door, I’m actually having a panic attack. I can’t breathe, shaking, probably going to die, something’s going to kill me, someone’s going to kill me, how am I going to save myself? How am I going to save myself? How am I going to save myself?
‘Jimmy.’
Maybe it would be better if some fan stalker just killed me while I was asleep, made all this stop—
‘Jimmy, look at me.’
God, please, please help me, please let me be happy—
‘You’re having a panic attack. Look at me.’
Yeah, no shit. I focus. Rowan is sitting in front of me.
‘Breathe with me,’ he says, and then breathes in deeply. ‘Breathe in –’
I try to take a deep breath in but it just turns into three very quick, shallow breaths, like I’m drowning. I think I’m gonna throw up.
‘Breathe out.’
Another three quick breaths. I can’t do it. Everything is wrong. Bad. Everything is bad.
‘Breathe in.’
I try again, but it’s still too quick, too shaky, too shallow.
‘Breathe out.’
Rowan repeats it more times than I can count. I don’t know how long it’s been when I can finally breathe properly again, and Rowan manages to persuade me to stand up and walk over to the sofas. He brings me a towel, because I’m drenched in both rain and sweat, and a glass of water. It splashes around when I hold it. My hands are still shaking.
‘We don’t live in the real world any more,’ I say.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ says Rowan.
‘No,’ I say.
But God, I do. I always do.
‘i am not afraid; i was born to do this.’
– Joan of Arc
Today I am going to meet The Ark.
I was in my thirteenth year when I first heard an Ark song. I was tucked up in bed one evening near December and I was on another routine spiral through the endless abyss of YouTube. And I found their first YouTube video.
It only had a couple of thousand views back then.
They were all around my age. Thirteen and fourteen. Jimmy’s hair was a messy brown mop back then. Rowan still had dorky rimless glasses. Lister’s jeans were always too short.
A musical explosion in a family garage.
They played a cover of Eiffel 65’s ‘Blue’. In their own style of course, more rock-ish but with Jimmy playing all sorts of synth sounds on two different keyboards.
It went viral a few weeks after that.
I like knowing that I’ve been there since the beginning. I’m part of something. I’ve been part of this for five years. When I open Twitter and see photos of them performing in Manila, Jakarta, Tokyo, Sydney – I am part of that. I am one of the few that has seen them through this and been there every step of the way.
It doesn’t matter that they don’t know me.
Being a fan isn’t always about the thing you’re a fan of. Okay, well, it sort of is, but there is much more to it than just going online and screaming that you love something. Being a fan has given me people to talk to about the things that I like for the past five years. Being a fan has made me better friends online than I’ve ever encountered in real life; it has entered me into a community where people are joined in love and passion and hope and joy and escape. Being a fan has given me a reason to wake up, something always to look forward to, something to dream about while I’m trying to fall asleep.
And people sneer. Sure. I get it. Adults especially. They see all these teenage girls and they think it’s because we’re stupid. They only see the tiny percentage of fans who take it too far – the stalkers – and they think we’re all like that. They think we only love the band because of their looks; they think we only like their music because it’s relatable. They think all of us are girls. They think all of us are straight.
They think we’re dumb little girls who spend all our time screaming because we want to marry a musician.
They don’t understand half of it. Any of it. How could they? Adults don’t think teenagers can do anything, anyway.
But despite everything in the world being terrible, we choose to stand by The Ark. We choose hope, light, joy, friendship, faith, even when our lives aren’t perfect, or exciting, or fun, or special, like the boys from The Ark. I might be a disappointing student, without many close friends, with a life of mediocrity waiting for me back at home – an average degree from an average university, an average job and an average life – but I will always have this.
In an otherwise mediocre existence, we choose to feel passion.
‘Lister,’ says Rowan, sighing heavily as Lister walks out of his bedroom wearing a jumper that appears to be made of plastic. ‘Not that I’m not passionate about grunge, but you look like a bin bag.’
‘Looks good, though,’ I say. ‘I mean, if anyone could get away with wearing a bin bag, it’d be you.’
Rowan shoots me a ‘don’t encourage him’ look.
It’s 10 a.m. and our apartment has transformed into a clothes shop in the space of half an hour. This is the routine every time we do a show. Tasha and her crew of stylists have clothes delivered from a variety of designers, and then we choose what we want to wear. With some advice from the stylists of course. Right now, me, Rowan and Tasha are all sitting on the back of the sofa, watching Lister twirl like a kid in a party dress.
Lister puts his hands on his hips and lunges deeply. He’s wearing very tight jeans. Rowan puts a hand up to block the view.
‘So are we voting yes or no?’ Lister asks.
‘No,’ says Rowan.
‘Yes,’ I say, making the okay signal with my non-bandaged hand.
‘No, sweetie,’ says Tasha. Her American accent makes her feel almost motherly. ‘Come on, you look like trash. Where’s that bomber jacket I got you? The Vetements one! It’s from this year’s spring/summer collection!’
Lister sighs. ‘I just thought it’d make a change.’
‘This is the last tour stop. You can’t look like trash on your final show of the tour.’
Lister winks at us. ‘Come on, Tash, I never look like trash.’
Tasha chucks a shoe at him and he laughs and retreats into his bedroom.
‘Jimmy, have you chosen?’ asks one of Tasha’s team.
‘How about this?’ Tasha wanders over to one of the clothing racks and withdraws an oversized black hoodie with a black-and-white photo of Jake Gyllenhaal in Donnie Darko on it. On one sleeve the word ‘TRUTH’ stands out in white bold lettering, and on the other sleeve the word ‘LIE’.
‘That looks good,’ I say.
‘With some ripped black jeans?’
‘Yeah, definitely.’
Rowan suddenly appears, wearing only boxers. ‘Hey, Tash, you got that dress that I wanted to wear?’
‘Sure, hun, check the rack near the door. To go with the Metallica jumper, right?’
‘Yeah, that’s the one. D’you think black leggings or jeans?’
‘Leggings, I think.’
‘Sick.’
Lister reappears wearing what can only be described as a cape.
Tasha folds her arms. ‘Now you know I didn’t order whatever that is.’
Lister starts running around the lounge, cape billowing behind him, singing the Batman theme tune.
Tasha picks up a shoe and hurls it at him, and when she misses does it again. Lister shrieks and dodges, then runs towards us and throws the cape over me, so both of us are concealed under it. I can’t stop myself laughing, trapped under the cape, and I catch a glimpse of Lister grinning at me, a soft smile, one that reminds me of years ago, back when this was all new and exciting and fun, back when we really were children. Then he yanks the cape and skips away.
‘When I dump you all and start my solo career, I’m wearing all the capes I want,’ he calls.
‘You go ahead,’ Tasha calls back. ‘But that isn’t tonight, sweetie.’
Rowan’s bedroom door opens and he emerges wearing his concert outfit, which is a dress with leggings underneath. All in black, obviously. He looks like a saint.
He’s also holding a large cake with candles on it and is looking at me.