Page 6 of The Next Chapter

I make a movement that feels something like a shrug.

My shoulders are up by my ears at any rate.

I’m once again confronted by the thought that my birth mum is riddled with some sort of disease.

That’s what always happens. People get told they’re going to die, and they want to write it all down.

Make sure there’s something left behind.

‘Could quitting the band have had something to do with you?’ Seb wonders out loud. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence, timing wise, don’t you think? And no one knows about you, do they?’

I shake my head.

‘Definitely not. No one knew that Lola was pregnant. Her management put out a statement to say that she was in rehab. It’s in one of the articles speculating on where she went. Here.’

I pick up the article I’m talking about. It has a big picture of Lola in her tight orange dress down the side. ‘Here,’ I read aloud.

Lola Starr, lead singer of Beyond Baton Rouge and all-round megastar, has seemingly disappeared off the face of the planet.

Lola, known for her amazing voice, didn’t make a scheduled appearance in Vegas, much to the disappointment of lots of Beyond Baton Rouge fans.

We can’t help but wonder where she’s gone!

Lola’s no stranger to stints in rehab – her management confirmed she was there just last year.

Is that what’s happened here? Who knows?

But if you’re reading this, Lola, come back! We love you.

‘The shit these people write… honestly. Maybe she’d just had enough of them,’ he says.

I laugh. ‘Maybe. Either way, I don’t know that me being born did have anything to do with Lola quitting. Because if she quit because of me, why didn’t she answer any of my letters, or try harder to get in touch?’

‘Well, this is all interesting, very interesting.’ Seb drums his fingers on his wine glass. ‘I mean, it’ll make a great memoirs. No doubt about that. But could you stand to write it, even if we got the gig?’

I have another drink, to buy myself some thinking time.

‘I don’t love the thought of the story getting out. What if she tells them that she had a baby that she just dumped? Everyone will know she didn’t want me then.’

I look down at Lola’s address again and blink a couple of times when the words start to swim in front of me.

‘Have you ever been to the Isle of Skye?’ I ask Seb.

‘Fuck no. It’s like, a million miles away. You know that I loathe the outdoors.’

‘This is going really well.’ I sniff. ‘How are you with water sports, then?’ I ask him.

‘Don’t try to change the subject, Lily Brown! But since you asked, I’m not that kinky. For the right man, perhaps I’d give it a go…’

‘Not that kind of water sports, idiot. Lola’s hotel is by a lake, there’s water sports there.’

‘I see. Well, I don’t have any desire to jet-ski. I did used to be a Boy Scout, though.’

‘Of course you did.’

‘But you’re the one who’s always exercising.’

‘I’m not always exercising.’

‘Last weekend, you did yoga for six hours straight.’

‘That was a sponsored event. I told you, Chantelle, Sarah’s best friend’s cousin, is raising money for the polar bears of Nunavut.’

I do so many of these sponsored events that Seb keeps complaining I’m sending him into insolvency.

‘Whatever, babe. All I’m saying is that you’re much more likely to pull off Sporty Spice than me.’

He has a point. I’ve never even seen him in trainers.

‘So, what, you think we just go up to this island in the middle of nowhere,’ I ask, my heart racing hummingbird wing levels of fast, ‘and announce that I’m her long-lost daughter who just happens to work for a business that would quite like to ghost-write her memoirs?’

I ask it like it’s a question but at the same time, I’m dismissing the whole thing.

It’s a stupid idea. I might not know Lola, but I know what she’s like.

It’s there in print. She’s a famous singer who parties hard.

She’s the woman who left me as a baby, called once in thirty years and didn’t answer any of my letters. She will not want to know me.

And then, if I march on up to Scotland and she rejects me as an adult too, well, that would be all sorts of nightmarish. I’d be in therapy for the rest of my life.

And yet, this image I have of Lola… well, I never would have put that Lola somewhere like the Isle of Skye. Somewhere so quiet. In every single YouTube clip of her she’s surrounded by noise. Music, fans, paparazzi. She’s always smiling, too, like she liked it, all the noise.

It never made sense why she just up and quit like she did.

Deep down, I assumed she disappeared so that I wouldn’t ever find her.

‘Or,’ Seb says, shuffling closer to me on the couch. ‘We go up there, pretend we’re on holiday, plead ignorance about knowing that Lola wants her memoirs writing and just play it off as a coincidence. If none of the other agencies even know where she lives, we’d have a massive advantage.’

‘And what about telling her who I am?’

‘You don’t have to tell her. That’s the beauty of it.’ Seb has what I’d describe as his evil genius face on. An eyebrow is arched. ‘You can get to know her a bit, incognito.’

‘That’s a lot of lying to my birth mother.’

‘She did dump you as a baby.’

It’s not a terrible idea. It’s actually far from terrible.

My hands are working my phone, hitting keys with more force than is strictly necessary for a touch screen, as I pull up the booking form for the hotel.

I could finally get some answers. I could see her and maybe hear her side of things without ever having to confront her. I avoid any and all confrontation as a general rule. I could save the business.

I love saving things.

It’s my favourite pastime.

‘If we did go, we’d have to stay a couple of days.

’ I scroll. ‘There’re two cottages in the gardens of the hotel.

One is booked up all summer, but the other one is free for most of it.

We could spend a few nights there and let the memoirs thing just come up naturally while we’re having a chinwag with Lola.

’ I look up at Seb. He’s smirking. ‘This is a terrible idea, isn’t it? ’

‘Sorry, I was just thrown by someone under eighty using the word chinwag. Yes, it’s a terrible idea. But now that we know where she is, can you imagine not going? Could you let someone else go and write this?’

I sit with the question for a second. I mean, I’m fine now.

Totally fine. I have lots of friends. I have Seb.

I have Elton. I only cry in the dark max one or two nights a week.

And yes, there’s the time I spend crying at Mum and Dad’s bench to consider, but that has to be normal.

So, I’m fine. I just thought I had time to deal with Lola at some other (far off in the future) point.

But if she’s planning to sell her memoirs now… well, that changes things.

Plus… that’s what I thought about Mum and Dad, and Daisy Flanaghan, isn’t it? I thought I’d have more time.

How would I feel if Lola is sick, and I didn’t get chance to at least see her with my own eyes? To have one single memory that is real.

‘I think I’d regret it,’ I admit.

‘Regret gives you wrinkles,’ Seb says. ‘And you never know, you might decide you quite like her and you want to tell her who you are. We could get Davina McCall involved.’ He sits up straighter.

‘Oh, I know, we could get a balloon thing like people use for those awful gender reveals. Or the cannons, the cannon ones are the best. We could fill it with a banner which says, “I am your daughter!” And fire it at her.’

Seb catches my eye.

‘Or we could not do any of that.’

I take a deep breath.

‘We’re really doing this, then?’

Seb is gazing out of the window towards his car parked on the street. He loves that car. ‘Maybe I’ll finally find my lumberjack on the Isle of Skye.’

I know way too much about Seb’s lumberjack fantasy to be within the parameters of a normal friendship.

‘Thank you,’ I tell him through glassy eyes. ‘It means a lot. Not that it’s about me. It’s about the business. Obviously.’

He throws back the last of his drink. ‘Obviously. Wow, I can’t believe I’m going to meet Lola Starr. I grew up listening to Beyond Baton Rouge. I’m going to ask for her autograph.’

I throw a tassel cushion at him.

‘Right, that’s all the emotion I can take for now,’ he says, throwing it back. ‘For god’s sake, book the cottage and put Bake Off on.’

‘I’ll have to ask Mr Cains next door to watch Elton and water the plants.’

‘He won’t mind,’ Seb answers. ‘He loves that cat.’

The hotel website keeps crashing. It takes an awful lot of jabbing at it to get the booking page to load and stay loaded.

‘They have availability in two weeks.’ I cross reference with my social calendar. ‘I’m meant to be on a hen do then.’

‘You’re always on a hen do, they’re all you do aside from the exercise thing. And then there was that time you did exercise on a hen do. Awful.’

I ignore him. ‘I could cancel. I’ve only met the bride once.’

The thought sends an illicit thrill through me. I never cancel. Ever. Finding out about my long-lost Lola has sent me wild.

‘Why the hell are you going on her hen do then…? You know what, forget it. Just cancel and book the bloody hotel. Time is of the essence anyway if Kitty is already putting the feelers out.’

After another crash and reload, I click on the blue BOOK button, my confidence in the plan waning almost immediately.

Oh sweet Jesus, what have I agreed to?

‘What have I done?’ I ask Seb, wide-eyed.

‘You’re going to have an adventure, Lily Brown. And it’s about fucking time.’