Chapter Twenty-One The Song Remains the Same
Julian looked strange in his room, the one in his father’s house.
His father’s house had, for so long, seemed irreconcilable with Julian’s world.
When he was in Leeds, South London seemed like a half-remembered dream, too good to be true and too fanciful to be real.
Leeds felt real. It was dull and disappointing, like reality ought to be.
The fact that Julian was here now was like seeing a dream figure in the waking world.
A centaur in a carpark. A fairy at Tesco’s.
“Is this a closet?” Julian asked, opening the door to what was clearly a closet. “Mental,” he said with awe as he closed it. Rahul knew Julian had never seen a home with a closet instead of a wardrobe before, but took effort to bite back a mocking jibe.
Rahul had to keep chastising himself for little mental slights against his friend.
He had been waiting on pins and needles for weeks in advance of Julian’s arrival.
That morning he’d been so sick with nerves he hadn’t even been able to stomach any breakfast. But now that he was actually here, Rahul couldn’t quite quell a small but irritatingly persistent disappointment.
Even though he’d made numerous vows and promises of epic feeling, he had not, in fact, managed to return to London on his breaks.
Not even for bank holiday weekends. It turned out that university was hard.
There were many classes with a frankly unfair bit of homework and ridiculous exams and final term papers that kept him awake well into the wee hours of the morning.
And when he wasn’t being tormented by school, he was being tormented by his job.
Because it turned out that when his father said he’d have to “help out at the shop” while he was in school, he meant “do full shifts at the till five days out of the week like an honest to God employee.”
When Christmas and Easter had come round, he’d been so knackered he’d slept through the entirety of each break.
He’d written to Julian, of course. He’d written a great deal to Julian in between his many horrible responsibilities.
He’d told Julian about how unfair it all was and how much he wished he’d just chosen not to go to university at all.
Julian would write back in astonishingly poor penmanship that Rahul would have regretted it if he hadn’t and that he was sure he’d get through it, even if he did miss him terribly.
Then he’d fill up the rest of the page with caricatures of him and Rahul doing things like fishing cans of beans out of a rainbow lake or flying on Queen-faced turtles (both the band and the monarch).
As insane as the doodles were, they were getting markedly better, so clearly the art education was paying off.
When Rahul had written that he wouldn’t be able to make it back down for even the summer holiday (his dad needed him to help with inventory and there was a summer play being put on that he’d agreed to lend a hand with), Julian had written that enough was enough and he was coming up there to visit.
Rahul had been beside himself giddy, but he’d hidden it as best he could.
He’d asked his father if it’d be all right if his mate from London came up to stay for a few days.
His father hadn’t even spared a glance from behind his newspaper at the table.
He’d only made a single hum of agreement before turning the page. That was all Rahul needed.
But now that Julian was actually here, it was…
not bad, but different. Julian seemed lesser somehow.
In the year they’d been apart, Rahul had thought of him with such frequency and fervour that he must’ve built his old school friend up in his mind into some larger-than-life mythical figure.
He was the Colossus of Dalston. But here in his bedroom, he was just a skinny, fidgety boy with big, wild eyes.
His pointed features, which had been as familiar to Rahul as his own, seemed foreign now, putting all their shapes into even harsher relief.
He was all sharp angles, stark lines. Who was this jagged stranger?
Why was he so dull when the boy Rahul remembered was so vibrant?
“You’re sure this is all right? Me being here?” Julian asked for the third time, misreading Rahul’s silence. “Like, with your dad and everything?”
Had Julian’s teeth always been that big? Or had his face become more gaunt? It might be that he’d lost all the tan from days spent out on the football pitch. Being an indoor artist had bleached his skin until it was as delicate and white as the petals of a daisy.
“Yeah. Fine,” said Rahul laconically, fumbling the Led Zeppelin record out of its sleeve and onto the turntable.
He hoped he’d made the right musical choice.
He’d wrestled with it for well over an hour the day prior.
He’d had little to choose from amongst his Coltrane, Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday records that would appeal to what he remembered of Julian’s tastes.
He hazarded a look over at the boy before setting down the needle.
Seeing him still unconvinced, he added, “He’s gone up to York on some business trip. Won’t be back till Monday.”
Julian grinned, obviously thrilled at the prospect of having the entire house to themselves for the weekend.
Rahul neglected to mention that his father had left town on the understanding that Rahul would mind the shop for him.
He’d instead closed up early and would be keeping the shop closed until Monday morning.
Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, or so Rahul had heard.
He’d never done anything naughty enough to test out the old saying, but he would soon find out.
“And, uh, I got these.” Rahul held up one of three cases of beer he’d acquired from the storeroom for the occasion. Rambling electric guitars kicked in just as Julian’s face lit up like Christmas and Rahul’s heart did a familiar twist. There it was. Not gone after all, eh?
Three or four beers and half a Houses of the Holy later, Rahul couldn’t recall ever having been disappointed, or ever having found his friend alien.
This was Julian. Jules. The best. The one and only.
The Dickensian moppet. He’ll come at you with a shiv, he’ll pinch a Sherbet Lemon off you.
He’s a rascal. He’s Oliver Twist with a mullet.
Well, not as much of a mullet as it used to be.
Now it was just long all the way around.
Julian swallowed what was left in his bottle and tossed it aside, just narrowly making it into the bin.
He was scrutinising his reflection in Rahul’s desk-top mirror.
Put a mirror in a room and sooner or later Julian would find it.
He shook his hair up, flipped it from one side to the other, let it fall in his face.
Rahul came up behind him until he could see himself in the mirror over Julian’s shoulder.
He looked gangly and awkward next to him.
His own hair was getting a little shaggy, in need of a trim.
And his mouth had that pinched look about it that it always did, like he’d been sucking on lemons.
He was thinking of growing a moustache. Standing this close to Julian, he was able to pick up his scent.
Lavender and fresh laundry. It reminded him painfully of home. His real home.
“D’you like it?” Julian asked, pointing to his own hair.
Rahul knew what he meant. At some point during their time apart, Julian had bleached his hair in daft random blond stripes.
He looked like an escaped lunatic, if Rahul was being honest. But Julian had a way of making that look…
sexy. Rahul immediately looked away. He couldn’t maintain eye contact when thinking “sexy” in Julian’s vicinity.
When Rahul didn’t answer right away, Julian was happy to carry on. “Thinking of dying it all red when I get back. Whaddya reckon?”
Rahul tried to picture him with phonebox-red hair but failed.
Julian seemed just as happy not to receive an answer so Rahul held his tongue.
As Julian began rummaging through the tat scattered across his desk, Rahul thought wistfully that he rather missed Julian’s old hair.
It was still there, amongst the white-blond stripes.
A rich, honey-brown with the memory of gold still fresh in its strands.
He could still recall, all these years later, what it had felt like, slipping through his fingers like silk.
He’d never imagined a boy’s hair could be so soft…
“What’s all this then?” Julian asked, startling Rahul out of his beer-induced reverie. Rahul was quite alarmed to find that he’d popped open every compartment on his makeup box.
“It’s my stage makeup,” he explained, trying to pull it away from Julian. It had been rather expensive and he didn’t think his father would approve paying for a second box considering how reluctant he’d been to pay for the first, even after he’d explained it was for school.
“Right! I forget, actors are always all made up, aren’t they?
” Julian said, still dabbing experimentally at different colours and, to Rahul’s dismay, not wiping his fingers off before moving to other colours.
“That’s brilliant. It’s like paint sets, innit?
We got those at art college. Only this is better ‘cause it goes on your face. I think everything’s better if people can see it on you as you’re walking about.
Hardly ever you’re walking around and people say, ‘Hey, do you paint? Fancy showing me some of your paintings?’ Get lost!
But if you got a flower painted on your face, everybody’s all ‘look at that! He’s got a flower on! ’”