Page 67 of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

‘Winding down for the summer, thank God,’ he says.

‘Of course,’ I say listlessly. ‘Lucky.’

Jonah’s lengthy school holidays used to turn Freddie green with envy, even though he knew perfectly well that much of Jonah’s time was spent catching up on paperwork and doing lesson prep.

‘That’s kind of what I want to talk to you about,’ he says. ‘I’m going away for a while.’

Here we go, I think. He’s going to tell me that he and Dee are going to spend the summer in Wales, see if it feels like a place he could put down roots.

‘It’s okay, I already know,’ I say. ‘Dee told me about Wales.’

He puts his coffee down on the table and rubs his hands over his face. ‘I’m not going to Wales.’

‘You’re not?’

He shakes his head slowly, looking at a spot on the rug. ‘It’s over, me and Dee,’ he says. ‘We called it last night. Or, rather, I did.’

‘Oh,’ I sigh, lost for words now because I’m not entirely sure where this is leading. ‘But I thought …’ I trail off.

‘She wants to live in Wales,’ he says. ‘Closer to her family.’

‘She said,’ I say. ‘I think she was hoping you might go with her.’

Jonah screws his nose up. ‘I don’t know what I want, Lyds. I’m restless, but not for Wales. Me and Dee … we weren’t at that stage, you know? I don’t think she thought so either, to be honest, but she’s landed a permanent post in a school out there so …’ He shrugs. ‘So she’s going anyway. I guess she thought if I went too we could try to make a proper go of things.’

‘I’m sorry …’ I say, and I mean it. ‘I thought you two might go the distance.’

‘Yeah,’ he says, resigned. ‘I thought so too for a while. I feel like a twat for letting it go on for so long, she deserved better.’ He drinks his coffee, pensive, and I get the sense there’s more to come, that he hasn’t come here to tell me it’s over with Dee.

‘I’m going to LA for the summer.’

Whoa, hang on a minute.

‘LA?’ I hear the incredulous note in my higher than usual voice. Of all the places in the world I can imagine Jonah going for the summer, LA isn’t one of them. Peru, maybe. Island-hopping off the beaten track around the Greek Islands, sure. But LA? I just can’t picture him amongst the rollerblading, buff-bodied Hollywood glitterati. Yes, I know, that’s a horrible, sweeping generalization, but this is Jonah Jones.

‘I’ve been writing again,’ he says. ‘Since the accident.’

Another unexpected revelation. When we were younger, Jonah entertained the idea of becoming a journalist, but in the end he decided chasing down deadlines wasn’t the life for him. He turned instead to writing other things – songs and music – and he dabbled in novels and scripts too. He’s creative by nature, which is probably why he makes such an excellent teacher.

‘That’s good,’ I say. I don’t know how the threads of this conversation come together yet. Is he going on a writing retreat in LA? ‘What sort of stuff are you writing?’

‘That’s the thing, Lyds,’ he says, and then he stops and looks at me, really studies my face. ‘I’ve written this script and I sent it to a few agents and, to be honest, things have moved a lot faster than I could have imagined.’

His bitty delivery isn’t making a great deal of sense yet. I get the feeling there’s still more to his news.

‘Wow, Jonah,’ I laugh, blindsided. ‘This is exciting stuff.’

‘It’s pretty mad.’ He laughs too, self-conscious, and in that second I see that this matters a great deal to him.

‘So you’re going to LA to …?’

‘Three production companies are interested,’ he says, making a bad job of playing it down. ‘I’m meeting up with them, hearing what their ideas might be for it, that kind of stuff.’

‘Three studios want to make your script into a movie? Are they fighting over you?’

I’m imagining a low-calorie, no-carbs Hollywood bun fight on the sun-drenched terrace of some achingly cool restaurant.

Jonah laughs again. ‘No, it’s not like that. My agent just thinks it’s a good idea to get a feel for them, see what feels right. Who feels right, really.’

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