Chapter 6
I peek into the gift bag. There’s a chunky parcel wrapped in plain brown paper, and a crisp white envelope nestling beside it. ‘Read that first,’ Pam tells me. ‘It’ll make more sense that way.’ Obediently, I hand the bag to Shane and open the envelope, pulling out what looks to be a letter.
Dear Josie and Shane,
it starts, in Ravi’s large, loopy handwriting that was once as familiar to me as my own.
The sheet of paper is shaking. This, I realise, is because my hands are shaking.
Pam has stepped back as if to allow me a little space to read it.
However, Shane is standing so close, he must be able to hear my heart thumping.
Well, this is something, isn’t it? Me writing to you after all these years. I hope life has been good to you both. It hasn’t been so great to me lately, but I’m trying to sort things out and organise everything as best I can. Haven’t changed much, have I! Wanting everything my way.
I glance briefly at Shane. We are reading it together, excruciatingly. Standing together like two ill-matched schoolkids being forced to share a script for the school play.
I hope you’ll forgive me, because I’m making a load of assumptions here.
I’m assuming, for one thing, that Mum and Dad will want to have a big fuck-off party for me.
I know what they’re like! It’ll be all ‘do NOT wear black – this is a celebration, not a wake!’ I also know Mum will be cooking for days and bossing Dad into making the flower borders look amazing, as if it’s one of those open garden days and people will be inspecting every— well, I was going to mention a flower by name, particularly one that flowers in the late spring.
Which is when I think I will be ‘passing’.
Don’t you hate that word? Just say it like it is. Dying. Anyway, I’ve never bothered to learn any flower names haha. Too late now. Also too late to get through that big bottle of Jo Malone Mimosa & Cardamom that cost me ￡120!
Imagine if by some miracle I manage to hang on until September and mentioned a spring-flowering flower instead of an autumn-flowering one?
The SHAME. Anyway, enough about that. My other assumption is that, if this party goes ahead, then you will not only get to hear about it but also COME. And if all that happens… well!
Here I am, taking charge of things for one last time. Please do this one thing for me, the two of you.
I stop, willing my blurry vision to clear. Don’t cry, I tell myself. Don’t start plopping tears onto the paper! I turn to Shane, and his mouth twists and I see that his eyes are moist too. ‘You okay?’ I ask, and he nods grimly. ‘Yeah.’ He clears his throat and I read on:
Remember how things had started to take off for us? Neither of you really wanted to do the tour but I pushed you into it. Why? Because I knew we could do great things. You wanted that too. Remember how we talked about all that, endlessly? How we hated our crappy jobs and wanted more?
In fact, Ravi’s ‘crappy job’ was just an aside. At twenty – after a few misfires, college-wise – she was doing a foundation course and hoped to go on to art college in Leeds. But Shane and I were flailing, working variously in cafés and pubs.
That photo of the three of us, on stage at the Scout hall, burns brightly in my mind. We had dreams back then that somehow, the three of us would miraculously end up living together, in a house in London because that’s where everything happened. Not around here.
To do that we had to move forward. And that meant doing the tour.
Remember how I’d been bombarding record company people with letters and cassettes?
I’d persuaded that guy to come, some A&R guy – I can’t remember his name now.
But we never did it. We didn’t play that last gig and he never got to see us.
You might think this is mad, the two of you. But I can’t help thinking, what if?
What if we’d finished the tour? How would our lives have turned out?
I know there’s no answer to that. But right now, with everything turned to shit, I can’t stop thinking about it. That we should have played all five dates. That we should never have let all the stuff that happened ruin it all.
It did ruin it, didn’t it? Forever. I’m so sad about that.
So I’m asking you, Josie and Shane, to do the tour together.
Not to play, I don’t mean that (unless you have a burning desire to!).
I just mean to retrace our route and stay a night in all of the towns we played in.
And in the one we didn’t. The one right at the end.
On the back of this letter, you’ll find our original itinerary.
I’ve also left something to help you document every step of your journey.
So no wriggling out of it! Mum and Dad will be expecting photographic evidence – of the venues, ideally, if they’re still standing.
I imagine they’ll be making some kind of memory book for me so the photos can go in there. To finish our story, if you like.
This sounds mad, I know. I am mad these days. Mad at everything my family is going through and also fucking furious about that Jo Malone perfume! Note to self: should have gone for the 30ml.
Anyway, my dear friends, I do hope you’re here together, getting drunkenly stuck into Mum’s fantastic party buffet, and that you’ll do this one last thing for me.
All my love, Ravi xx