1 January 2001
After the bongs and ‘Auld Lang Syne’, my bloody mother has another surprise in store.
‘Let’s sing “Happy Birthday”.’
I look around the roomful of neighbours and London production people she’s invited to her soiree. For the first time in a decade, she’s turned down a live outside broadcast somewhere on the other side of the world to spend the New Year with her family – and, I realized too late, with all the people she wants to impress.
I wait for her to single out the poor sod who was born on New Year’s Day.
‘Today my gorgeous son Joel is one year old.’
No.
She’s beckoning me over; I look for an escape route but there isn’t one.
Mum puts her arm around me. ‘Now, I know he looks eighteen, but this time last year, my baby boy was floating somewhere between life and death. Fortunately for him, he came back to us, and so I like to think that every New Year, he’ll be celebrating an additional re-birthday.’
‘Happy rebirthday to you . . .’ she starts to sing, and the guests join in. Awkward is not the word. Ant gives me a sympathetic look, but even he mouths along.
When it’s over – I never knew a single verse of ‘Happy Birthday’ could last so long – Ant has already grabbed a bottle of Grey Goose. ‘I thought you might need this.’
‘I need more than that,’ I say. ‘Let’s go to the den.’
‘Fuck, telly people are full of themselves,’ Ant says as I shut the door behind us and he starts skinning up. He should have been working at the Arsehole but laid it on thick with his dad about being with me as I relived my trauma, so he was allowed to escape before midnight.
‘That’s why I could never work in TV.’ I’d been offered a couple of runner’s jobs through Dad’s production connections, but instead I help out at the cafe, shooting the shit with Ant, drinking espressos to try to cancel out the slow-mo effects of my daily dose of bisoprolol.
‘You gotta find something. You’re bored. And you’re getting fat. Like a great big baby.’ He lifts my T-shirt to reveal a softness and I pull it back down, ashamed. ‘Not so much Banana Man as doughnut man these days.’
‘Leave it.’
Ant shrugs, lights the joint. ‘I worry about you. Hard not to when I saw my best mate half-dead on the ground twelve months ago.’
‘Get it right. I was one hundred per cent dead, according to the papers. Mr Millennium Miracle, the second coming.’
‘Yeah.’ He takes a deep drag and smiles. ‘I saw Kerry the other day, you know. In the Co-op.’
I hate myself for what I did to Kerry but it was the only way. I finished it because I was angry, but the rage didn’t last. The final time she tried to persuade me to change my mind, I wanted to say yes, because she was the only thing I still cared about.
But I also knew she deserved better than me, a failed footballer with no future. As she stood in front of me, telling me everything would be OK, I knew she’d never give up on me and that would only drag both of us down.
So I had to say things I didn’t mean. Cruel to be kind, like the song.
‘Did she say how uni is going?’ I gesture for Ant to hand the joint over. I never smoked before June but it’s the only way I can sleep now.
‘She never went! Dunno why not, but she’s working for the ambulance now, answering 999 calls. Oh, and even bigger breaking news? She’s living with Tim.’
Sourness fills my mouth, so sharp I might throw up. ‘Tim?’
‘She swore they’re just flatmates, but that’s weird, right, her parents only live over the road. Has to be something going on, like we always thought. Nerd on nerd action!’
I can’t speak.
Ant hasn’t noticed. ‘You know, when Kerry kept visiting the hospital, I did wonder if she had a thing for you.’
‘She’s not my type.’
‘Yeah. Way too clever for you!’ Ant laughs. ‘But you need to get in the saddle again. Otherwise, what’s the point in being alive?’
I don’t tell him that I wonder about that every single day.