Page 42 of When We Were Young

Liv

Today I brought Chloe with me to the Baileys’ house to help me with the archive.

I made her wear smart clothes, and when I introduced her to Mrs Bailey as my ‘colleague’, Chloe had a coughing fit.

She’s not helping much, though. I haven’t done nearly as much as I usually do.

She keeps picking up the guitars and pretending to play them like a heavy metal guitarist. We’re cracking up every five minutes, then shushing each other in case Mrs Bailey realises she has two schoolgirls rummaging through her son’s precious belongings.

I’ve been here every Saturday for the last three weeks.

Mum and Dad think I’m working at Amplify , but that doesn’t start until the summer holidays.

Tumi didn’t think we needed to bother Paul with it, but she insisted on getting my parents’ permission so I suggested we print a permission slip like they do at school.

I forged Dad’s signature and sent it back to her the next day.

Before I started, I googled what equipment I’d need and Mary got everything on my list, from fireproof and waterproof boxes to acid-free plastic sleeves for storing paper documents and photographs.

I’m not sure if what I’m doing is right, but it’s got to be better than leaving this stuff in flight cases to rot.

I show Chloe my system of adding stuff to a spreadsheet and how to use the scanner I borrowed from the Amplify office. She’s humming an annoying tune as she unpacks a box onto the trestle table we have set up for sorting.

‘Is this your mum?’ she says after a while, examining something under the light.

She hands me a photograph. It’s a girl laughing at the camera, wearing nothing but a man’s blazer. There’s a lot of leg on show and a little cleavage, but all the important bits are covered.

‘Oh God,’ I say, embarrassed. ‘Yeah, that’s her.’

Neat handwriting curls along the bottom border of the Polaroid: Don’t forget me. Milly x 20/05/96.

‘That’s around the same time as the first letter he sent her.’ I grab my phone and scroll through the photographs of all the letters I found in the loft. It takes a while to find the one I’m looking for. I need to put these on the laptop in date order so I can follow the conversation.

Dear Milly,

I miss you already, and it’s only been two weeks. What will I be like in five months? A quivering, miserable, horny wreck. I can’t stop thinking about you. We’re always waiting around, but have no time to actually do anything, no time to make a call, no time to see the sights. No days off.

The ink changes – he must have written this later.

It was so good to hear your voice yesterday and I was gutted I couldn’t talk for longer. I didn’t know it would be this hard to get to talk to you. Anyway, you want me to be more positive and I said I’d write about everything, so here goes…

We were shitting ourselves before the first gig – we kept peeking through to the auditorium as it filled up.

You know what Reu’s like – he threw up twice before the show.

And when we went out on stage, the noise from the crowd was deafening.

They didn’t even know who we were and hadn’t heard anything yet, but it was the most amazing feeling.

I can’t wait for the day when that noise is for us, not Paradigm.

American crowds are much noisier than British ones.

The venue last night had a capacity of two thousand, tonight it’s five thousand. I can’t wait to hear it.

I have someone to look after my guitars – his name’s Kev, he’s my guitar slave. He hands them to me when I’m on stage and replaces broken strings. He loves my guitars more than I do. He polishes them and if I play them too hard, he tuts and sulks.

The tour bus is a disgusting can of stale farts. Mostly supplied by Matty. Paradigm travel separately but we have a bunch of their surplus entourage travelling with us. I think they’re responsible for some of the farts, too.

Brett Lewis is an absolute arsehole, by the way. You think he’s sexy, but he’s a twat. Even though we got introduced when we arrived, he keeps forgetting my name. The rest of Paradigm are good fun though.

I have the worst hangover today. Matty and Reu want to party all the time. Reu went missing for four hours the other night. We found him passed out in an alleyway. Matty’s always getting kicked out of bars. I swear to God – it’s like I’m their babysitter.

If we’re lucky we get two hotel rooms between the three of us.

Which means I’m stuck with Matty who snores like a foghorn.

You’d never guess, but Reu’s a big hit with the ladies!

Reu has a room to himself so he can bring his ‘friends’ back.

There were two girls in his room last night.

They love his ringlets and his accent. He’s a god!

I saw the proofs of the EP today – your artwork is stunning, especially the twelve-inch vinyl version. Your name is on the back. I’ll get them to send you some copies. Thanks for letting us use it. It’s perfect.

We have a tour manager – Ed. He’s actually Paradigm’s tour manager, but we share him.

Ed gives us a schedule in the morning. Every second of the entire day is planned out.

If it’s not on the schedule, it’s not happening.

You practically need permission to take a shit.

Ed has tagged us onto all the promotion that Paradigm are doing.

We have nothing to promote – the EP’s not even released yet – but apparently, we have to promote ‘ourselves’.

If Paradigm are doing an interview with a local radio station, we are too.

But shorter and with more boring questions.

If I get asked how we met one more time, I’ll scream.

Matty has invented a game where we need to insert a specific word into our interview answers. Yesterday, I got the word ‘haemorrhoids’ into the conversation. The journalist didn’t even bat an eyelid.

Please come over at the end of term. I need to see you. We’ll still be on the east coast then. I can get Ed to organise flights for you and we’ll get you picked up from the airport.

I can’t wait to see you. I miss you so much.

Love,

W

x

Mrs Bailey pops in from the kitchen. ‘Girls, will you have a toasted cheese sandwich?’

‘Yes, please,’ I say. Her toasties are the best.

‘No thanks,’ says Chloe.

Mrs Bailey’s eyes narrow. ‘What will you have then? Ham, tuna, chicken?’

‘Oh, nothing thanks. I’m not hungry.’

Mrs Bailey retreats into the kitchen, offended.

When she returns with my sandwich, I ask her about Matty and Reu.

‘They were Will’s bandmates,’ she says, putting my plate on the wooden crate. ‘Matty played bass guitar, and Reuben played the drums. Will and Matty were friends since they were little.’

‘Would he talk to us? About Will and his music?’

‘I’m sure he’d love to.’

After lunch, Chloe and I go through more boxes. At the bottom of the first box I look in, I find a cassette. Handwritten on the label, it says 28/07/99 in marker pen.

‘How do we listen to it?’ asks Chloe.

‘Will must have had something to play it on. Maybe it’s around here somewhere.’

I bag up the tape, make a note of it on the spreadsheet, and carry on.

A while later, Chloe says, ‘Can we play that tape on this?’

She pulls a machine out of a box and places it on the trestle table. It has a cassette-shaped compartment at the top.

‘Maybe, if it still works.’

We find a power socket and plug it in. I put the tape into the compartment and when I press the play button, it almost swallows my finger. The tape whirs and the circles in the centre turn.

‘It works!’ I say, delighted.

The machine emits the muffled, tinny sound of faraway music.

‘Where’s the volume?’ asks Chloe.

I fiddle with all the dials, but nothing happens.

Then I notice a cable dangling out of the back of the machine.

‘There must be separate speakers,’ I say.

Chloe and I empty the entire box and find two small speakers at the bottom. We connect them to the cables, and when I press play this time, the music plays at the perfect volume. We crouch over the speakers and rewind the tape back to the beginning.

‘I’ll record it,’ I say, setting my phone close to the speakers.

The music is haunting. It begins with a simple melody on an acoustic guitar and builds in layers. After a long, winding intro, Will Bailey sings and the sound of his voice gives me chills. Our eyes meet – Chloe feels it, too.

I’ve looked up every Will Bailey song there is, but I’ve never heard this one.

‘Does his family know about this song? Should we tell Mrs Bailey?’ asks Chloe.

‘Not yet,’ I say. I want to keep it to ourselves for now.

If I can’t hear

your voice in my ear

Your laughter and your tears

Your secret hopes and fears

If I can’t hear

you talk about your goals,

Your thoughts and your ideas

Little pieces of your soul

Then I can’t go on

Although I’m afraid

This pain will stop

When the music fades

‘Wait,’ I say. ‘What was the date on the cassette?’

Chloe ejects it and reads: ‘The 28th of July 1999.’

‘Are you sure?’ I reach for the tape. ‘That’s the day before he died.’