“Love places like this!” Dad says, suddenly by my side with a bottle of beer.
“Really?”
He takes a swig. “This is real, no-frills entertainment, this sort of stuff. None of your autotuned fakers here.” He squeezes my shoulder. “Watch and learn!” he says, like maybe there’s any danger I want to go into show business, and this will somehow be an education.
He ambles over to a table near the front, just as Jack reappears.
“What’s the worst thing in the world?” Jack says.
“Orange juice with bits.”
He blinks at me. “Worse than that.”
“Polio?”
“What?” Jack screws his face up. “Can’t you just avoid the extremes, Nate? Go for something in the middle?”
I shrug. “Well, I don’t know, what’s the worst thing in the world then?”
“OK, well, I was about to make a little light-hearted remark, but now you’ve mentioned ‘polio’ you’ve kind of ruined it, so.” He sighs and shakes his head. “I was going to say urinals in men’s toilets.”
“I think there are worse things in the world, Jack. You know, that’s a very privileged thing to say.”
“Right. It was just a little observation about how awkward it is peeing next to other guys. What’s got into you anyway?”
I look away from him. “Nothing.”
“Are you pleased to see Elliot?”
“Buzzing,” I say.
“Well, try telling your face that, Nate!” Jack hisses.
I snap my eyes back to him. Is there anything more annoying than someone telling you to cheer up all the time? It’s like, get over it, this is me, I’m quite happy wallowing! I open my mouth to tell Jack precisely this, but—
“Don’t you dare, Nate!” Jack says. “Don’t you dare have a go at me! Elliot’s fun, you like Elliot, I arranged for us to see Elliot. I let you have all the duvet you desired, to keep the malicious ‘exposed limb spirits’ at bay.”
“It’s not a ‘spirit’, it’s a…” I stop myself.
“‘Monster’, whatever it is, Nate, whatever illogical nonsense is in your messed-up head, I acquiesced to your demands. Potentially putting my own limbs in danger, in the unlikely event the monster is real.”
I clamp my mouth firmly shut. He’s right. Annoying, but true.
“So I’m not the bad guy here, Nate,” Jack continues. “The bad guys are our exes, and, in the last twenty minutes, they have posted a pic of themselves wearing ‘his and his’ hoodies with hashtag ‘gifted’ in the caption. ‘Hashtag gifted’, Nate! Who has gifted them this? What company is giving these morally bankrupt liars free stuff?”
I think it over for a moment. “Has it occurred to you the liars might be lying? You know, like we are too?” I actually hope they are. If they feel they have something to prove, that might mean things aren’t going well for them – like, well … like me and Jack.
Jack breathes out through his nose. “Of course that’s occurred to me, they’re nothing if not sly! But that doesn’t matter. It’s what other people think that matters, and what they will think is that they’re popular and successful and being courted by fashion companies!”
I shrug. “Well, we’ll do it too, then.”
“Uh-huh?” Jack nods. “And what shall we say has been ‘hashtag gifted’ to us, Nate?”
He stares at me, wide-eyed, waiting for an answer. “My trainers?” I eventually suggest.
His eyes widen further. “I’m sorry?”
“My—”
“Your trainers? Your skanky, muddy, battered trainers? Who would have ‘hashtag gifted’ them to you? A tramp?!” He shakes his head. “Where’s your mum? I really need that Aperol spritz.”
And off he heads, towards the bar. When he’s out of sight, I allow myself to smile, because I’d forgotten how a genuinely vexed Jack is probably one of my favourite Jacks of all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JACK
They’ve put Elliot on last, which means they either think he’s brilliant and fit to end the show, or he’s the joke act that everyone will have a good laugh at. I really hope it’s the former. Elliot has lost none of his wide-eyed enthusiasm, and I can’t stand the thought of people laughing at him. But my fear is real, because there have been a number of very good acts so far, some of which could definitely take the top prize, if only because of the power of the sympathy vote. Clara Jenkins and Doris the Dancing Dog are obviously hot contenders, being as everyone (inexplicably) loves a dancing dog, although I don’t see the appeal myself. Clara and Doris even have panto in Worthing this year, so things are really looking exciting for them right now (in the words of the compère). Meanwhile, a group of fifteen children have just performed a street dance act which looks like every other street dance act you’ve ever seen, so they also stand a chance, especially since they dedicated their performance to someone’s dead aunt. Clever tactic.
And now it’s Elliot. He comes onstage wearing a duffel coat and scarf, even though it’s summer and really hot in here, and gets an instant laugh. When he gets his ukulele out, he gets another laugh, I guess because those things are automatically funny.
“This is dedicated to Carolyn,” he says into the microphone. “I loved Carolyn very much, but sadly, she is no longer with us.”
There’s an “ahhh” of sympathy from the crowd.
“Me and Carolyn shared many good times, and everyone at school would wonder why I loved Carolyn so much, and I would tell them, ‘She’s the air that I breathe, she gives me life, my everything.’” He nods at the audience. “Which is true, because Carolyn was my Ventolin inhaler for my asthma, when I was ten. And this is a song I wrote,
