Page 75 of When We Were Young

‘Sorry,’ he said, rejecting the call. It was only Matty – he’d call him back.

A few seconds later, his phone dinged.

Matty had left a voicemail.

He switched it to silent and put it back in his pocket.

Rust-coloured ferns curled over the edge of the path as it wound its way through a grove, birdsong echoing in the trees above and sweet chestnut cases crunching underfoot.

‘Are we lost?’ she asked after a while.

‘I was following you.’

‘How big is this place?’

‘Big.’

‘Will we ever see our families again?’

‘Unlikely.’

He took her hand to help her over a fallen tree, and she didn’t let go.

‘Shall we sit?’ He pointed to a bench beside a little pond.

She nodded, her cheeks pink from the cold.

A breeze scattered sparkles across the surface of the water. He stretched his arm along the bench behind her and, as the wind picked up, he gathered her in. When she rested her head on his shoulder, he suddenly forgot how to breathe.

Will’s mobile phone buzzed in his pocket.

‘It’s Matty again,’ said Will. ‘I better see what he wants.’

‘Have you seen theNME?’ asked Matty, not waiting for a ‘hello’.

‘No––’

‘Buy a copy and ring me back.’ Matty hung up.

They parked by Richmond station and found a newsagent in the forecourt. He paid for a copy of the music paper and stood outside, flicking through it.

‘I don’t even know what I’m looking for,’ he told Emily as they scoured the pages together.

Then he saw it.

A half-page picture of himself on stage at the Dublin Castle yelling into the microphone, a spotlight flooding him with blue light.

‘That’s you!’ cried Emily.

The headline said:When the support act steals the show. Words jumped off the page as Will skimmed the article: ‘haunting power’, ‘voice of a generation’, and ‘sky-scraping vocals’.

The last line read:There’s no doubt about it; Will Bailey is onto something big.

Chapter 36

March 1996

Will was sofa surfing while he saved for a deposit to rent a flat, which meant there was no money for nights out. Emily had just paid hers, so she was skint, too. She’d be moving into her new place in Balham soon, but in the meantime, she didn’t want to introduce him to her parents. They were just getting used to her split from Aidan and she was reluctant to tell them she was seeing his brother so soon after.