Page 53 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

We get ready at mine. Vintage dresses, sparkly eyes and red lipstick. In our heads we look like Charlie’s Angels, but probably we look more like the Sanderson Sisters in Hocus Pocus.

Before the gig even starts, near the train station, in the surrounding pubs and the whole area there is an energy. A buzz. Everyone is there, all the cool people who snow-leopard-creep out of hibernation for only the coolest stuff. The BMXers, kids from school. Christopher gives me an awkward wave; hey, it’s like a bloody reunion! TRUE LOVE are low down on the line up but it’s still quite surreal even seeing their name in a blocky font officially typed onto posters. Bianca is already drunk, chatting away to some guys with her handbag strap hoisted between her perfect boobs. Meanwhile my mouth tastes like paracetamol.

We buy beer in plastic cups and down the first two pints fast. The knots in my gut have loosened but one more beer and I could easily cry. And then I spot Rachel, with all the other cool girlfriends in their whatever girl-next-door jeans, like it’s no big deal. I’m as overdressed as a toffee apple. I get a text from Nile: Hey, how’s it going? Miss you! x

I slide my phone back into my bag.

When the roar of a guitar strikes, the retching snatch of feedback squawks and an amp jars in that punk screech you hear on those documentaries my dad used to make me stay up to record on VHS for him about The Clash. People behind me whoop. And I feel scared. What was I about to see? I’m not ready to know how amazing he is, not ready to share.

The band walk on without ego, take their places; the lights come up. Everyone rams to the front and my stupid shoe is caught in a plastic pint cup. Fuck, it scrapes across the floor like an embarrassing boot. And Eeesh. Someone’s cigarette burns my arm. Oww. The smell of my flesh barbecues in the darkness; this is not going well. Lowe wraps his hand around the mic – a beat of time – he holds us like this in the palm of his hand. And I realize that even though True Love are bottom of the bill, everyone in this room is here to see them. And it’s the most bittersweet feeling ever.

Lowe sings like he has nothing to prove. He doesn’t play the showman whatsoever, not turning it up for the crowd. He’s wearing the clothes he always wears, nothing special, beaten up Reebok Classics and a scruffy t-shirt, like a shoplifter or one of those boys who works the waltzers. So unvain. So human. He’s understated. Completely original and unique and yet it’s like he’s been doing this all his life. He’s an artist. A musician. How the hell did this happen? He plays into the guitar, turns to his band, up close, pressing into the bassist; knuckles grind. He nods at the drummer. It’s like we don’t exist. He’s playing at home, alone, to the mirror. And that makes us want to be noticed by him even more. I am desperate to be seen. He is so cool. His face screwed up, mouth lax, jaw clenches, then slack, wrists and fingers – controlled, yet relaxed, locked in, fixated and-then-comes-the-sweat, oh boy, I am not ready. He looks fucking phenomenal. I am fascinated by the apple in his throat. He swigs his bottle of beer, pours some in his hands and fingers it through his hair like gel. Gross. Fit. I see the needy painted fingernails of girls trying to nab the bottle. And I find myself anxiously making sure he’ll have something else to drink nearby if they do. What if his throat dries? What if he loses his voice? Wait, where’s his inhaler? The girls squabble over the set list taped to the floor, picking at the gaffer tape. Who are these people? These strangers lionizing my friend. And at the same time, I so understand their reaching fingers. Aoife, Bianca and I don’t talk at all throughout the short set. We’re too stunned. We just feel the raging tempest around us. Hearing the lyrics being bellowed by kids from Lowe’s college, words we don’t know. We get burnt by more cigarettes; we get warm beer thrown in our hair. I want to cry.

True Love are suddenly playing everywhere, all the time. ‘Come and see my friends’ band,’ I invite the world. I’m stuffing flyers into hands like a jolly foot-solider, canvassing, spreading the good word to be supportive. I’m doing it again, aren’t I? Protecting myself by doubling down; if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, as Mum would say. It’s a cover-up, a veil. Just like I did when we were young, when I set Lowe up with Bianca but this time I’m setting him up with fans: Dominque, Nile, other friends from college. Always Aoife and Bianca. Each gig is ceremonious. A party. An event.

And Nile’s obviously their overnight number one fan. He can’t believe how good they are. ‘They’re ace,’ he says. ACE. ‘Thanks for introducing me to their music!’ Like it’s a cult. When I have no other choice: I have to invite Nile so that it’s OK for me to go to these shows, for it not feel like I’m perving on Lowe. I just LOVE the music. As the price for tickets and venue capacities creep up, there are more shows in musty, cramped, squished up venues, deep dark dank basement clubs with sole-kissing floors. Rachel’s always there, watching from the back with all the other girlfriends, nodding along with her plastic glass of red wine. Bleugh. And I’m up front, pressed against the metal barriers like cattle, wishing my secret sorry love story didn’t sound like the inspiration behind Avril Lavigne’s ‘Sk8er Boi’, or thrust against the throbbing vibration of the amp with the groupies, because Nile just loves Lowe’s band SO MUCH (FUCK MY LIFE!). He wants to stand at the front and sing every song, word-perfect, lyrics I can’t stand because I feel them so badly, like they’ve been scratched on my skin with a razorblade. The ones I think are about me even though I know they aren’t. And I mosh in the pit like a seal does tricks for a treat, balancing beach balls on my nose, with the other hardcore fans, getting knocked and shoved, feeling like a nobody.

Even though I am proud of Lowe – of course I am – it kills me, eats me up from the inside to attend. Lowe’s evolved into this confident edible front man without me even realizing. He’s got it all and he’s still so normal.

The bigger the show, the harder it gets. The distance, amplified. It’s like Lowe doesn’t know me and I don’t know him, not even when I take photos with my disposable camera because I should play the proud aunty. My thumb winding back on the plastic reel, wishing I could wind back to a time before this. Knowing I’ll never get the reel developed because it will hurt too much. My eye behind the small square window, only there, with my face hidden. Can I let it be known how much I wish things could be different? How I long to be the cool girlfriend instead. But I’m caught in a trap. And snap, I steal the freeze-frame.

‘HEY! Take a photo of me!’ Nile shouts, posing in front of the band, big cheesy grin, thumbs up. I love seeing him happy, of course I do, but PLEASE be cool, Nile, not a bloody tourist. Professional journalists and their expensive cameras elbow me out of the way; my pathetic little disposable Kodak might as well get struck out of my hand and stomped on. Until I lose Nile to a crowd-surf and I’m glad the music is so loud so no one can hear a heart break like mine. But, oh, there goes Nile sailing past Lowe’s eyeline like an inflatable dinghy!

‘THIS IS AWESOME!’

He makes that rock sign with his hands.

Of course Nile wants to meet the whole entire band and stay for drinks after and would he like to come backstage for a glass of whisky?

‘YES, PLEASE, ARE YOU FOR REAL?’ he says, eyes pinging out of his skull like he’s been invited to Santa’s Grotto.

He can hardly believe his fortune. He’s taken down the backstage corridors with the AAA pass strapped eagerly to his chest, looking back at me in disbelief, grinning, wanting more photos – it’s so cute but it’s also so … uncool. In the green room, which isn’t green but dark and dingy where the sofas have seen the unthinkable, full of posters of the Sex Pistols and X-Ray Spex, Nile takes it in turns to talk one-on-one with Lowe’s band members about how incredible they all are, which are his favourite parts. He wants to talk lyrics with Lowe: what is he saying? He wants to show off to everybody that I’m Lowe’s oldest friend; he lovingly brags about it with pride and they all love him. They all adore Nile. He’s so pure and uninhibited. They give him a True Love t-shirt. Oh, for fu— He’ll be wearing that now non-stop now, won’t he? Toodling around his bedroom with nothing on his bottom half probably like Donald Duck – and a poster, is this necessary? He rolls it up proudly, like a Star Wars fan with a toy lightsaber and I can’t help but cringe when he asks the band to sign his jeans with a permanent marker. Really, does he HAVE to? On your jeans, Nile? Are you sure? Please don’t. Ick. And I find myself thanking Lowe’s band, how a mum might when the local fire brigade let her five-year-old son hold the hosepipe and sit up front in the driver’s seat. Aren’t you a lucky boy? They are all so happy that I’m going out with somebody who is so lovely, so difficult to dislike. It’s what they’d want for me. I don’t want Lowe to be happy for me, I want him to catch fire with jealousy. I feel patronized.

At the same time I’m envious of Nile’s security and confidence, that he isn’t threatened in the slightest of my friendship with Lowe, how some partners might be. He never asks if we had a thing in the past. He never hesitates to point out how cool Lowe is. He’s only celebratory and generous with his kind words and energy, revving up their gigs for them. Nile really is lovely. He’s free. I’m the lucky one.

I see Lowe step out, wrap his arms around Rachel from behind and kiss her swan neck. Her arms go up to hold him in; she smiles. They’re the perfect couple. I’m so happy for you, Lowe, I really am.

If I’m so happy, why do I feel myself wilt like the Beauty and the Beast rose under the glass? We’re both in love – just with other people. Maybe it is possible to be in love with more than one person at once? Maybe Lowe’s really actually in love and I’m not and I’m just pretending and I’ll never be set free from this curse and I’m not so happy at all. It’s really fucking sad actually.

Night, we say, night.

That evening, Nile and I lie, heads touching in his bed. I ask, ‘When college ends, what will you do?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ he says, ‘but one thing’s for sure, I’m never going back to Devon. I want to stay here in London with you. Go to drama school, get a role in a great play, then a film, then win a BAFTA.’ How beautifully delusional and great. ‘Then maybe you’ll marry me?’

I hear his smile.

I smile too, because it’s so sweet how he says it.

And in the darkness I can just about see Lowe’s face on the True Love poster already taped to Nile’s wall, with all the other posters of the ‘rockstars’ we look up to who have no clue we even exist.

Chapter 23

Nile does well. He gets callbacks at most of the best drama schools and courses in the UK. He works hard. Too hard. He doesn’t want to do anything else except rehearse his monologues. ‘Test my lines again,’ he orders, over and over. He gets impatient with me if he fluffs them. Like it’s my fault. Whilst he rehearses, I write some monologues myself in my notebook, I enjoy it, stepping into a characters’ shoes for a page. Only, the closer Nile gets to a place at drama school the more anxious he becomes. He punishes himself and it’s horrible to see. He hangs around theatre box offices to get the cheapest seats and lurks around after to chat to directors. He pulls all-nighters – reading plays and watching films – and this makes him irritable. I say, ‘You’re making yourself ill, Nile; they shouldn’t be making you feel like you need to put so much pressure on yourself. You’ll be paying for this course, after all; it’s only drama school.’

He talks about getting braces, closing the Madonna gap in between his front teeth.

‘Are you for real?’ I ask. ‘Your lovely hippo teeth are one of my favourite things about you.’

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