Chapter 6 #2
Zak: Maggie was not happy. She usually dealt with AJ quite well but I think she’d had enough.
It can’t have been easy, looking after him.
He was always throwing tantrums, like some kind of oversized toddler.
She started telling him he had no right to interfere in the business side of things, that he should have come to her if he had a problem.
AJ just flipped, then. He said that she wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for him, that he could replace her ‘like that’.
He clicked his fingers. I was sick of all of it. I walked out.
Maggie: Christ knows what had gotten into AJ.
He’d always had his moments but that day I really felt, for the first time, like he wasn’t coping with all of it.
Like maybe he was being pushed too hard, too fast. I thought that when this tour was over, we should probably sit down and talk about what he wanted and needed.
Because he was just a kid, at the end of the day.
He was a fucking nightmare, but he was a kid, too.
Zak: When I went back, the bus was empty.
I walked around the park for a bit, looking for AJ.
I smoked a couple of cigarettes, had a hotdog.
I couldn’t find him. I felt lost. What was I doing in the middle of an English theme park on my own?
It just all felt wrong, like I’d mis-stepped and ended up in the wrong life, somehow.
I thought about going to Mum and saying that I wanted to live with Dad for a while, but I knew she’d take it personally, see it as an abandonment.
The only thing that made sense to me in my whole goddamned life was Pea. And she lived so damn far away.
John: I couldn’t settle to anything in the office after that confrontation, so I went out into the park to check on a few things.
As usual, all the staff were standing by the rides, doing precisely nothing.
I hated to see that, but AJ had insisted, of course.
I talked to a few of them, tried to get their spirits up a bit.
It’s disheartening, doing nothing. Even if you’re being paid to do it.
I distinctly remember going past the 360.
It was being looked after by this guy, Simon, who’d been with us for about a year.
He was a good worker, always where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there. He called me over as I went past.
Danny: Meet Simon.
Simon: I’d been stewing on something since arriving that morning.
When we first heard about this whole AJ Silver thing, we all thought we were onto a good thing, that we’d be being paid for doing very little.
Then John laid us all off temporarily, then he took us back on, and since then, we’d learned that days doing nothing are long as hell.
My girlfriend was pregnant and her three-month scan was that day, and we’d got the date through too late for me to book leave.
But it was hard to stand there doing fuck all when I knew she was on her own and needed my support.
I even thought about sneaking off – I’m not sure anyone would have known.
Some days AJ and his brother and Pea came down and went on a few rides, but some days they didn’t.
And then I saw John, and without thinking about it too much I called him over, and he came.
John: I could see he had a bee in his bonnet about something.
That’s what it’s like, when you’re the boss.
There’s always someone who’s unhappy about something.
But I was having enough trouble with AJ to deal with other people’s concerns.
He launched into this story, about how his girlfriend was having a baby, how she was having a scan that afternoon.
He wanted the afternoon off, is the bottom line.
But I just couldn’t risk being understaffed when AJ was already on the warpath and he’d kicked off about that previously.
I said I was sorry, but there was nothing I could do.
Simon: When he’d gone, I kicked the gate where people were supposed to queue up.
Where precisely no one was queueing up, and probably no one would all day.
I thought about Mary. We’d lost one baby, got to the scan and found that there was nothing there, no heartbeat.
We’d been devastated, but after a few months we’d started trying again.
The previous night, she’d reached for my hand in the dark and said she was scared.
Said, ‘What if it happens again?’ What could I say?
I couldn’t tell her it wouldn’t, could I?
I looked at my watch, saw that it was coming up for midday.
The scan was at two. I remember realising that I could walk out.
It would be the end of my job, for sure, but I could get another one without too much trouble.
At least, I thought I could. But then, it was a risk, wasn’t it, with the baby coming.
What if I couldn’t find something else? What if I couldn’t support them?
Sebastian: I was in the kitchen when Dad came in muttering something about Simon wanting to take off for a hospital appointment with zero notice.
I asked what ride he was on, and Dad said the 360.
And I offered to look after it while Simon went to the hospital.
Dad did this sort of double take, which I think was supposed to be funny, because I never offered to help out in the park.
But he’d insisted on training me on all the rides, and I wasn’t doing anything that day, so why not?
He asked whether I might be changing my mind about taking over the place, and I told him for the thousandth time that I wasn’t.
We didn’t argue but I was fuming as I walked away. He just didn’t listen.
Danny: Why is Sebastian being so helpful all of a sudden? And what were Zak and AJ up to at this point?
Zak: AJ found me and we went down to the lake.
It was a real stunner of a day, and we lay there with our hands clasped beneath our heads, and I felt like I was falling asleep.
When I heard AJ’s question, I couldn’t quite work out how to answer it, so there was a delay while I dragged myself back to consciousness.
He’d asked whether I ever thought about putting an end to it all.
I said, ‘What, my life?’ He didn’t answer so I turned on my side and propped myself up with one arm.
‘What do you mean, AJ?’ He said, ‘All of it. It’s all just so much shit, it feels like.
Sometimes I just don’t want to be here.’ I shivered, and I felt cold right to my bones.
I said, ‘AJ, you’ve got the whole fucking world at your feet.
If you don’t like something about your life, you can change it.
You can stop doing the music thing or you can take it in a different direction or you can do anything.
There are literally no limits on you.’ I meant it to sound supportive, but looking back, I worry that it might have sounded like a criticism.
Like what the hell do you have to worry about?
I know more about mental health, now. I know that having it all doesn’t mean shit if you feel like you’re drowning.
He was quiet for a bit and I asked if he wanted a smoke, or a walk, and it was clear that he didn’t know what he wanted.
He was lost. And I hadn’t seen him quite like that before.
Suddenly all the cocky front was gone and he was like a scared little boy.
I had this memory of this time we’d lost him for a bit in a supermarket.
He must have been about three or four. Mum and I had raced around the shop, holding hands, and when we’d found him, his feet were rooted to the spot and his eyes were full of fear.
And that’s exactly how he looked that day at Wildworld.
There were tears in my eyes, and I saw him noticing. He didn’t say anything. It felt like we were standing on opposite sides of a train track, in full sight of each other but unable to touch.
The next show wasn’t for a few days, but rehearsals were back on the next day.
Maybe that’s what he needed, I thought. Maybe he wasn’t good with free time.
I wasn’t either, to be fair. It made me think too much about what I could or should have been doing instead.
I thought he’d go back to rehearsals the next day and everything would be fine.
I didn’t know – I couldn’t – that nothing would ever be fine again.
Pea: When school finished, I waited for Alex to appear under the tree where we always met.
I hadn’t seen him at break, but then I didn’t always, depending on which classrooms we’d been in just before it.
And at lunch I’d had rehearsals for this end-of-year show some of us were putting on.
I was sure he would have calmed down by now.
He could be hot-headed sometimes, but he never held a grudge.
When he appeared, he was with a girl called Sophie who we weren’t really friends with.
I watched him kiss her on the cheek and then head in my direction.
Alex: I’d been thinking for a while that it was time Pea and I broadened our horizons a bit, when it came to friendship.
I had French with Sophie and she was kind of funny.
Things between Pea and me were so intense.
This whole thing with Zak had shown me how precarious it was, putting all your faith in one other person for friendship.
I was widening the net. But I wasn’t looking to ruffle any feathers.
Pea looked so ridiculously hurt, though.
Pea: I wasn’t hurt, exactly, just surprised.
Alex: I said I was sorry for earlier and she forgave me. But then she asked me what it had all been about, and I said, ‘Isn’t that obvious? You’ve barely got time for me these days.’