Page 90 of Going Solo

“Orla?”

“Mum. You. My birth parents. We had a lot to say. Maybe we should have said some of those things to each other many years ago. But I…” Cole drifted off. I squeezed him tight. He turned his head, looking up at the ceiling. I kissed his ear and his jaw, the stubble of the day’s beard prickling my lips.

“But he was fine with it?” I asked. “He’s OK with you meeting your birth mum?”

“He said he always knew the day would come.” Cole turned to face me, his soulful eyes glistening with water. “And he was glad that day was finally here, and he hoped it would fill the hole in my heart and answer all my questions. But he said to remember that no matter what I might discover, I’d always be a Kennedy, this would always be my home.” Cole deepened his voice and pretended to be his father: “Remember, son, we are family, and we always will be. Every soul under this roof loves the bones of you, and always will. And don’t you bloody forget it.”

A lonely tear ran down Cole’s cheek, and as I wiped it away with my thumb, it occurred to me that I had been a soul under that roof when Andy had spoken those words. I smiled to myself. Whether he knew it or not, Andy had been speaking for me too.

Secret ex-lover to dish dirt on pop king Cole in tell-all memoir

Cole Kennedy’s top-secret gay lover during his Go Tos heyday has written a scathing, no-holds-barred memoir about his eighteen-month relationship with the one-time hellraiser.

Jasper Horner, 32, was the band’s costume designer at the height of Kennedy’s drunken, drug-fuelled rabble-rousing period, which saw the one-time teen heart-throb fall from grace. It was during this period that Kennedy and Horner carried out their illicit affair.

A statement from Horner’s publishers said: “There’s a dark side to Britain’s prince of pop, and the world deserves to know about it. The real Cole Kennedy is not the fun-loving boy bander the Kenneddicts think he is. In this gripping, breathtakingly candid memoir, we hear first-hand from the man who knows Kennedy better than anybody else—the man who loved him, lived with him, worked with him, travelled with him, and secretly shared his bed for a year and a half. You think you know the story of Cole Kennedy. ‘Dirty Little Secret’ will shatter those illusions.”

It turns out pop king Cole was a dirty old Cole, and a dirty old Cole was he!

“Dirty Little Secret”is out later this month and will be serialised in The Bulletin in the week leading up to publication.

ChapterThirty-Six

Iwoke to a fist banging angrily against the bedroom door.

“Fucksake, Cole, don’t you answer your texts anymore?” It was Fiona, and she sounded mad.

We got up and scrambled for our clothes. We were at Cole’s London house, on a hill near Hampstead Heath. It was a Sunday—the morning of the last of Cole’s three shows at the capital’s famous Millennium Dome. Cole and I had spent a full, glorious week together, hanging out whenever we could, sneaking around on the down-low in both Leeds and London. We did normal, couple-y stuff. We watched TV on the couch. I cooked him my grandmother’s traditional Swedish meatballs. He showed me seven new ways to find my prostate. The press hadn’t cottoned on to our affair and didn’t seem to suspect a thing.

Fiona pounded at the door. “Cole, let me in.”

“I’m coming. Geez.” He muttered something under his breath. “Is this about the Go Tos knocking us off number one?” he called out. “I was thinking about that. Should we bring forward the release of?—”

“It’s not about the bloody Go Tos. Open up!”

On his way to the door, Cole slapped me on the arse and clicked his tongue, like he was geeing up a horse. The moment the door handle was down, Fiona burst into the room, absolutely raging mad. She held out her phone, and we read the headline.

“Jasper can write?” Cole said.

“It’s not funny,” Fiona said. “It’s a big fucking problem.”

“Should I…” I pointed a thumb at the door.

“No, stay,” Cole said, grabbing my hand. He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled me down beside him. Fiona started reading the article aloud. With every sentence, Cole shrunk a little, his happiness leaving him in column inches.

“Why would he do this?” Cole asked, his head in his hands.

“I’m no Sherlock, but money seems like an obvious motive,” Fiona said. “Revenge, maybe? Attention? A spot onCelebrity Dorm Room, who knows?”

Those last words popped like a bubble, and an awkward silence fell between us all.

“Sorry, Tobes,” Fiona said. “I wasn’t thinking. You were in a completely different situation.”

Was I, though? I was an ex who used his connection to Cole for profit. That’s exactly what Jasper was doing. What conversations had Fiona and Cole had about me back then? Cole rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands.

“But Jasper already got a ton of money.”

“Be real, Cole.” Fiona was pacing around the room. “He’ll have blown through all that on drugs or rent boys ages ago. What didn’t go up his nose will have gone up his arse.”

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