Page 94 of Days You Were Mine

‘It’s because they’re burning up hydrogen at a much faster rate. They last half as long as all the other stars. Live fast, die young. To be fair, we’re talking millions of years rather than billions.’

‘Nice try. But it doesn’t help.’

‘I think it does. You lived so intensely, you two. You experienced more love and passion than most of us find in a lifetime.’

I don’t say anything, because I can’t, but I do hold Rick’s hand, I do drop a kiss on my sleeping baby’s head.

‘I can’t bring him back for you, Alice. I wish more than anything that I could. But you will always have me.’

Now

Luke

In my experience, adoptee and birth parent reunions go wrong more often than they go right. Sometimes catastrophically.

Who Am I? The Adoptee’s Hidden Traumaby Joel Harris

My mother is installed for her fourth and final week of childcare, and I have to admit she’s pretty good at it. She has somehow managed to get Samuel sleeping in his cot at night, and here’s the thing – both Hannah and I love it.

‘The freedom,’ she’ll say, unbuttoning her pyjama top while I watch from the bed.

‘Exactly,’ I’ll agree as she leaps on top of me, covering my naked body with her own.

My mother has also got Samuel to wake later each morning – seven instead of six – by bolstering his diet (how many mashed bananas can one boy eat?) and by putting him to bed an hour later each night, which means we have more time with him. We will miss her when she goes.

On Friday, once the paper has been put to bed, there’s a leaving party for Hannah at Le Pont de la Tour. Champagne and lobster for the whole of the Culture team, subs included. She’llcome back slightly pissed and tearful and I intend to wait up for her, to soothe away any regrets about leaving. With Reborn poised to sign to us – a big meeting this morning should clinch it – I’m glad it’s her giving up work rather than me, but I do feel guilty about it. I offered to cut back on my days, but Hannah refused, as I knew she would.

‘Good luck,’ she says, kissing me goodbye at the door. ‘I know you’ll nail it.’

She looks irresistible in her black Joseph trouser suit and boots, her curly hair tamed temporarily, an unaccustomed stripe of lipstick on her lovely mouth.

‘Hannah?’ I say, and she turns around, door half open, light from the street pouring in.

‘You’re amazing,’ I say, and she laughs.

‘You’re a sentimental fool, and that’s what I like about you.’

I dress carefully for the meeting with Reborn in my dark-grey Kenzo suit with a white T-shirt and my Reeboks. I know Michael will be in a suit instead of his jeans, a ploy he uses both to impress and to disarm; I’ll do the same. My mother is in the kitchen with Samuel, preparing our supper while he sits beside her on the floor banging a saucepan with a wooden spoon. It’s been nice seeing the calm, unhurried way in which she parents a small child, so I can imagine myself at the same age. Always there’s the piercing that is Alice, the painful recall of her brilliance with our boy, but I tell myself it was complicated. It’s not over, just on ice, a fraught mother–son relationship that can be rebuilt at any time. And this is how I sleep at night.

The band arrive early, and they’ve dressed up for the occasion too, the boys in shirts, the girls in dresses. Steven Harris – thank you, God, spirit being or whoever you are – is away on businessin LA. There are handshakes all round, no kisses or hugs, which underlines the sombreness of this meeting. But Michael is not the CEO of the biggest independent in the music business for nothing.

‘Great to have you here,’ he says, a small Mafioso figure in his black suit and shirt. ‘There’s breakfast in the meeting room; let’s get straight to it, shall we? And Janice?’ he adds to the receptionist as we pass. ‘Categorically no interruptions for the next two hours. Just take messages for us, please.’

The table is crammed with plates of croissants, pains au chocolat and Danish pastries. There’s a platter of beautifully chopped fruit: pineapples, peaches, a volcano of berries in its centre. None of this will be touched. Instead I pour everyone a coffee from the cafetière – pleased that my hands do not shake – and we begin.

I’ve been in this situation with Michael several times and I know that he doesn’t do small talk. He has zero tolerance for conversations about anything other than music.

‘I can’t tell you how glad we are that you are seriously considering signing to Spirit,’ he says. ‘You’ll know, of course, how passionate Luke is about your music, but the whole company, from distribution to the art department, is excited about your record. I know the decision will come down to money in the end and I wanted to assure you that we can come up with a significant deal.’

‘If I can jump straight in,’ Daniel says, ‘we’ve come to a decision.’

This is unexpected. My physiological response – heart banging, blood rushing – almost deafens me. I am straining to hear.

‘We’re going to sign to Spirit. We’re flattered by the interest from other labels, but you’re the best fit for us. We have a few conditions, though, and I’d like to set those out.’

My pulse is heart-attack fast as I listen to the band’s requirements – all of them reasonable – but I don’t really get beyond the first one.

‘We’d like Luke to A&R the record exclusively. We really feel he connects with what we’re doing in a way no one else has; in fact that’s the whole reason we want to sign to you.’

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