Page 107 of Going Solo

“I’m fine.”

Jocasta leaned over the desk and kissed me on both cheeks. “Sorry, I gotta run. But… he misses you, you know.”

And with that, she disappeared.

Nick’s voice came through my cans. “Tobes, have you checked your socials in the last fifteen?”

I caught his eye through the glass and shook my head. I pressed the button to speak to him. “Course not, babes, I was interviewing Jocasta.”

“Check your phone.”

I pulled my headphones down around my neck and grabbed my mobile. A message from Nick linked through to Instagram. A video started to play automatically. Cole Kennedy was shirtless, dressed only in his pants. My heart skipped at the sight of his muscular body. He was backstage somewhere, and in floods of tears. I pumped up the volume as loud as I could.

“I can’t do it,” he said. “Please, don’t make me do it.”

“Do it for the fans,” said Fiona’s voice. The footage cut to a crowded auditorium, fans stamping their feet and screaming “We want Cole!” The audio of Cole and Fiona’s conversation continued over the top.

“I can’t.”

“You can. Say it with me: Happiness is always available to me.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You do. You know you do. You’ll feel better if you do.”

“I don’t want to feel better. I want to die.”

“You don’t want to die.”

The video cut back to Cole. “I’ve lost him forever this time.” Cole cried in a choking, mournful wail. I burst into tears. He was crying aboutme. This must have been filmed in Stockholm, right after we broke up. I felt intense, searing guilt—and so much regret. The video showed Cole hugging Fiona, his eyes puffy, his face a mess of stage make-up.

“What you’re missing is his love, and that’s OK,” Fiona said. “I know it’s not the same, but there are twenty thousand people out there who love you too. If you want to feel loved, then go out there and give them a show. Can you do that for me?”

Cole sobbed but slowly nodded. “OK.”

The camera cut to Cole sitting at his cello, bow in hand. A voice told him they were ready. Cole’s shoulders started bouncing up and down as more tears came, but he collected himself, took a deep breath, put his shoulders back, lifted his bow, and struck the first note of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” A wall of screaming fans. Then it cut to Cole rising up through the centre of the stage, thrashing at his guitar, tears streaming down his face. A montage played out under the song, running through the highs and lows of Cole’s long year since going solo. Newspaper headlines flashed up, showing all Cole’s controversies, then footage of him pacing around a hotel room and smacking a newspaper against a table, then at the farm, with his family. The music switched to “The Flame,” and the video showed me interviewing Cole in the outside broadcast van, Cole meeting fans in the street, Cole and me backstage somewhere sitting opposite each other on a couch, laughing and looking longingly at each other. Where had they got that footage? It cut to a shot of Cole and me lying in the grass at Hetty Pegler’s Tump. Who’d filmed that? Mitch?

“Toby wasn’t ‘marriage material boy’ to me; he was simply… marriage material,” Cole’s voice-over said. “And I lost him because of the circus that book created.”

The video cut to us dancing around in the dairy together, singing and laughing and joking. Andy must have filmed that. Or maybe Tully. There was footage of us kissing, looking very much in love in the summer sunshine, completely oblivious to the camera. I should have been angry. I should have felt violated. But my heart ached. This felt like a love letter to our relationship, and I missed Cole so much it hurt.

The music transitioned to “Reborn,” and Cole was on a plane, graphics showing a cartoon jet landing in New Zealand and Istanbul, then footage of Cole hugging a couple of women I took to be his mother and grandmother.

“I’ve felt lost my whole life,” Cole said in the voice-over. “All my life I’ve been searching for something. My music is how I process it, make sense of it. My music is my gift to the world. But this is, now, a gift to me. I know who I am, finally. I know what I want. It’s time to take control of my narrative. It’s time to tellmystory.”

As a fully orchestrated version of “Reborn” hit its soaring heights, Cole stood in the spotlight on a darkened stage, taking his applause, arms raised in the air, hands in fists of defiance, sweat dripping off him, his face a beaming smile. He looked triumphant, reborn. The video cut to a black screen, then the wordsA Fire Inside Meappeared, followed byThe Real Cole Kennedy Story, then the WebFlix logo and “all episodes, April 16.”

The door to the studio burst open, and Tarneesha looked at me with eyes of fury.

“Will you put your bloody cans on, we’re on in fifteen seconds. The chatline and switchboard are in absolute meltdown.” She disappeared back out the door into the production booth. I scrambled to put my headphones on.

The promo finished playing out: “Taking. Pop.Seriously.”

Tap. My microphone was live. It took a second for the words to come, and when they came, I sounded shell-shocked.

“This is the last everPop Review, I’m Tobias Lyngstad, and thank you for being with me. Let’s take a quick look at the chatline before we get to the fresh new track from Swedish wunderkind Felix Sandman.”

The chatline was still spinning, so I hit the space bar to pause it. Always dangerous, going live without pre-reading the messages—but I was flying by the seat of my pants, and it was the best I could do.

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