When We Were Young Read online

  I flopped down onto the sofa and let out a long, deep sigh.

  A week had passed since the conversation with Dad about me moving out. It was clear that he and Mum weren’t backing down this time, so unless I wanted today to feature my birthday celebrations followed by my eviction, I was going to have to do something drastic.

  “Mum and Dad are actually serious about kicking me out,” I said. “So they’ve left me with no other choice.” I couldn’t resist a dramatic pause. “I’m going to have to sue them.”

  Alice’s response was just to look at me unblinkingly, a tactic she employs when she wants me to realize just how absurd what I’ve said is.

  I folded my arms defensively, but as usual my little sister was right.

  “Okay, fine, I’m obviously not actually going to sue them,” I said. I pictured their little faces in court. It’d be like telling Paddington Bear he’d developed an allergy to marmalade.

  “Good,” Alice said. “So now that we’ve quashed that idea, do you not think that this could finally be a bit of a wake-up call?”

  “How so?” I asked, as innocently as possible.

  “Well, you’ve just turned thirty . . . and you live in a shed. I’m not a life coach or anything, but I’d suggest that means you’re not exactly flourishing. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that—no offense—but you seem to be completely wasting your life, consumed in a cocoon of self-absorption and pointless vendettas.”

  “Right,” I said. “Normally I think you’re supposed to say ‘None taken’ when someone prefaces a criticism with ‘no offense,’ but, to be honest, there was quite a lot of offense taken there.”

  I’d managed to sidestep the truth of what Alice had said, deliberately bogging things down in semantics, which had become something of my forte of late.

  “But aren’t you bored out of your mind here?” Alice asked, not to be dissuaded. “I mean, don’t you want to see the world? Not to put too fine a point on it, but not all of us have the luxury of stress-free, go-wherever-the-fuck-you-want exploring that you do.”

  Guilt washed over me at this, and I looked away. There had been a time after Alice’s accident where I’d made myself promise I’d never leave her behind. She’d practically had to beg me to go off to uni when I’d tried telling her I wasn’t going to go. That might have been a noble gesture at the time, but these days the idea that I was sticking around because of Alice was something that—to my shame—I was hiding behind. Because the truth was, the idea of leaving home again terrified me. I could pretend all I wanted that I was being forced to curtail my dreams of traveling, or my grand plans to make a difference in the world, or even climbing to the top somewhere and making a load of money. But, in actual fact, my ambitions stretched as far as seeing how many sausages I could eat in a single sitting, and the idea of having to face reality again by leaving home was about as appealing as nailing my face to a windmill.

  It was only in the last couple of months, as I approached the thirty milestone, that a nagging voice at the back of my head forced me to take stock of my life. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that when I summed everything up, it didn’t make for pretty reading, especially in the form of an early 2000s MSN questionnaire:

  Name: Theo Hern. BA Hons.

  Age: Urgh. Thirty.

  Relationship status: Single. A mutual decision. Definitely mutual. Incontrovertibly. Okay, 60–40 her decision. 70–30 tops.

  Appearance: The love child of Screech from Saved by the Bell and a disinterested court bailiff in a true crime documentary.

  Interests: The writings of Søren Kierkegaard, impressionism, chess, the music of Chopin and Stravinsky, opera, calligraphy, tae kwon do, geocaching, glassblowing, powerlifting, millinery, volunteering.

  Actual interests: Accidentally on purpose positioning myself on trains so I can read people’s texts.

  Main strengths: Being really good at guessing the time. Remembering jingles from early 1990s TV adverts. Good hair (2009–2012).

  Main weaknesses: Soft hands. Catastrophizing.

  Things I would ban if I were to become emperor of the world: Fracking. Street performers.

  Occupation: Social media manager for a budget burger chain.

  It was the last thing on the list that was proving the most demoralizing.

  After university—and following a disastrous failure to make it as a comedian after something of an “incident” at the Edinburgh Festival—I’d moved to London with the girl I loved, determined to move on. I threw myself into a series of marketing jobs, eventually landing a copywriting gig, in which I progressed steadily, managing to find enough ways to be creative day to day to make up for the more soul-crushingly corporate parts of the work. So far, so sensible. But then I began to develop a bit of an itch. Had I been too quick to throw everything away? I had been utterly obsessed with making it in the world of TV comedy since I was a little boy—and now here I was: a total sellout. But then something happened which I managed to convince myself was clearly A BIG SIGN. One of my clients in the communications team at Sky had apparently found some of my copywriting so (and I quote) “hilarious” that he’d decided to pass it on to his friend in the comedy department there. The friend, Bryan, offered to meet me for a coffee. He hadn’t been the whip-smart laconic creator I’d expected (and I was put off to some extent by his T-shirt bearing the slogan “i-Pooed”), but after our meeting he told me I was welcome to come to the writers’ room for a new pilot he was working on. “That would be cool,” I said, shortly before clenching a sachet of ketchup so hard it burst all over my T-shirt, as if I’d been shot by a sniper. I floated home that evening, celebrating with a pint in every pub I passed on the way. And when I got in, I fired up my laptop, opened my emails and informed my boss that Theo Hern was no longer a slave to the corporate pigs in copywriting—he was going to be a proper writer.

  I might have been all right if I’d not handed in my notice with such convincing vitriol. But when it turned out that Bryan had made something of a mistake, and that I wouldn’t actually be allowed to sit in with him on the pilot, and in fact he was probably quitting to retrain as an actuary because he was broke and living in a narrow boat with no windows, my former boss decided they’d rather not take me back on.

  And so began the chain of events that led to me returning home from London two years ago: jobless, friendless, with a broken heart and an ugly, misshapen scar by my right elbow, the origins of which make me cringe to the point it’s more painful than the injury itself.

  When it came to finding employment again, given that the chances of a glowing reference seemed slim, there weren’t that many options left for me. In the end, I’d somehow lucked my way into the job of running the official Twitter account for a budget burger chain called Captain Beefy that inexplicably has over a hundred thousand followers. My job, my brain-numbing nine-to-five, is to tweet out stupid jokes and puns and interact with followers. And if it’s a national holiday or something newsworthy is trending, then I’m supposed to relate it to that. I do try my best to match the enthusiasm of my kind, zany boss, Jake, but the other day he asked why I hadn’t tweeted something about the joys of “being English on St. George’s Day,” and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth, which was that all I could think of when it came to “being English on St. George’s Day” was a single shoe on top of a bus shelter. In the rain.

  “Oi, are you listening to me?” Alice launched a pistachio shell at my head.

  “What?” I said.

  “I was in the middle of telling you how much you’re wasting your life.”

  “I do apologize. By the way, you know about the guests who’ve invited themselves over for my birthday drinks at Mum and Dad’s later?” (I’d realized I had another distraction up my sleeve.)

  Alice narrowed her eyes. “Guests? What guests?”

  “Why, our delightful neigh
bors, of course. Beverley and Roger.”

  “Oh god,” Alice groaned. “The most boring people in the world. What time is it? Actually, I don’t care. I need to start drinking now if I’m going to get through a conversation with those two later. You sit and think about your dreadful life while I go and find some booze.”

  I watched Alice maneuver herself to the kitchen—struggling as I always did with whether to offer to help and risk seeming patronizing or not offer and seem unhelpful. I felt a huge rush of affection for my sister. Despite her rather brutal bedside manner, I knew she only had my best interests at heart. That went for Mum and Dad, too. Really, I was stupidly lucky that they were my family. They were the best kind of safety net a person could ask for, and I loved them all dearly. Truthfully, sitting with them in the garden on a nice day, having a cup of tea, was when I was at my happiest. I don’t care how boring or sad that makes me sound, because it’s those times when my worries melt away, even if Dad chooses that moment to scale the roof in his slippers to adjust the TV aerial while thunder rumbles in the distance. The problem was that they had all decided that I should get back out into the world no matter how much I tried to explain that I’d been there and done that and it really wasn’t for me.

  “You talk about life like a child who’s tried an olive for the first time,” Mum once said, in a rare moment when her frustration with me got the better of her. But as hard as it was to feel like I was disappointing her, and Dad and Alice, too, I still felt too fragile to try out the real world again. I’d just have to find a less mental course of action than taking them to court to make them forget about the eviction for another year.

  As Alice handed me a glass of wine, she accidentally nudged the remote on the sofa with her elbow and the TV sprang to life. The final scene of a repeat of that week’s episode of The Tooth Hurts, BBC One’s smash-hit sitcom, was in full flow. Alice and I had watched the entire thing in stony silence the night before, and here we were again, looking on without the hint of a smile as the show’s lovable protagonist, played by Amber Crossley, fell backward into a wedding cake and the studio audience erupted with laughter.

  “The worst yet,” I said.

  “Pitiful,” Alice agreed, and I felt a guilty stab of pleasure, as I always did when I stoked Alice’s anger enough for her to direct her ire at the screen.

  “Shall we?” I said.

  Alice nodded.

  “Wait for it . . . wait for it . . .”

  The credits began to scroll, and we waited until we saw the name flashing across the screen before we rolled out our catchphrase in unison:

  “Joel fucking Thompson.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Joel

  Kemble’s one claim to fame is marked by a small, vaguely embarrassed monument and a jumble of stones a couple of fields away from the station. The spot denotes the source of the River Thames and the start of the Thames Path, a 184-mile trail that ends at the Thames Barrier in east London. I’m always struck by how there’s no mention of this anywhere at Kemble station, particularly given how happy we usually are to shout about the most minor of local attractions: “Alight here for the Uttoxeter Bread Museum and changes for London St. Pancras and onward journeys to Paris.” Maybe Kemble hiding its light under a bushel is part of its charm. And even though I’m an irregular visitor these days, from what I remember of growing up here, it can be very charming. The fields are lush in the summer but do winter well, too, when they’re capped with frost. As a teenager, I celebrated the bucolic beauty of the place largely by throwing stones at it.

  As I came out of the station, I felt the violent assault of the past. The hedgerows were alive with birdsong, combine harvesters hummed away in the distance. The perfect August Saturday in England. Awareness of my surroundings isn’t my strong suit. I tend to walk with my head down. But recently I’d found myself trying to take as many mental snapshots as I could. And today everything was pure gold.

  I paused, wanting to take it all in—though, if I was being truly honest with myself, my lingering might have had more to do with why I was here and who I had come to see. I had resolved to let all the guilt and regret I had for what happened slowly drain away, but now I couldn’t rely on time to heal old wounds. If I was going to try to make up for things, to try to make things right, then I was going to have to do it now.

  As I approached the bottom of Theo Hern’s driveway, I took steadying breaths. I remembered the many nights I’d stop at the end of this drive and look back—thinking about the warmth and love enclosed behind that front door, and dreading what was waiting for me at home. It was jarring to feel that same sense of trepidation here.

  I walked toward the door, rehearsing my opening gambit. “I was passing through and I remembered it was your birthday,” I’d say. “I just thought I’d come to say hello.” As I reached toward the doorbell, heart pounding in my chest, I allowed myself a smile at the irony of that. Because even though I wasn’t going to tell Theo this, if anything, I’d actually come to say good-bye.

  After the second time ringing the doorbell with no response, I felt relief mingling with my disappointment. Maybe I’d got the date wrong. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the curtain in the living room window move. Someone was definitely there. I tried the doorbell again. Still nothing.

  I went around to the garden. At first the glare from the sun meant I couldn’t work out what was happening on the other side of the French doors, but as I got closer, I realized that there were people in the living room crouching down, facing away from me. As I spotted Theo’s parents, and then Alice, I felt the breath catching in my chest. Theo was at the far end of the room, peeking out under the curtains—the twitch I’d seen earlier. Just the sight of his mad bird’s nest of hair gave me a rush of nostalgia that hit like a punch to the stomach. As I got a little closer, my heartbeat quickening, I realized that Theo and his family were hiding from me. That didn’t exactly bode well.

  Eventually, I had no choice but to tap politely on the glass door.

  Even as I saw Theo turn slowly around, his face contorting with shock and anger, I couldn’t help but smile. He might have just turned thirty, but he hadn’t changed much. For one thing, he was wearing a T-shirt I swore I recognized from our school days. How I longed for him to throw open the door, a grin on his face, laughing as he asked me what the fuck I was doing here.

  As he marched toward me and wrenched the door open, he said the words I’d wanted him to, except they were delivered with pure venom.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  The hatred in his eyes actually made me take a step back.

  “H-hi,” I stammered. I cleared my throat, suddenly unsure of what to do with my hands. Clasping them behind my back seemed too solemn. Putting them in my pockets too casual. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to shock you like that. I was just passing by, you know?” I could hear how absurd this attempt to sound casual was, but it was too late to go off-script. “Thought I’d come and say hello, and happy birthday, of course.”

  “You what . . . ?” Theo was staring at me, baffled now, like I was a stranger who’d just asked him for directions in a foreign language. “You were just . . . passing by,” he repeated.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “On the way to . . . ?”

  “Oh, you know.”

  “Ummm, no,” Theo said. “Not really.”

  “Maybe we could have a quick word in private?” I said, aware of the others’ eyes on me.

  Theo let out a strange sort of yelp, a derisive bark of laughter, perhaps, which under other circumstances might have made me laugh, but that feeling was quickly dampened when I saw the now truly murderous look in his eye.

  “Sorry, not really up for a chin-wag. But thanks ever so much for dropping by—you know, unannounced, uninvited, unwelcome—but if there isn’t anything else, then perhaps you’d kindly like to fuck off.”
>
  I paused for a moment, gathering myself.

  “Well, actually there is something else,” I said. “Something important. I know we’ve not spoken for a very long time . . .”

  “With good reason.”

  “. . . and that this must be a bit of a shock, but please . . . just hear me out? You’ll want to listen to what I’ve got to say, I promise.”

  Theo pretended to think about it.

  “Umm. Nah, I’m all right, thanks.”

  He went to shut the door, but I stuck my foot in the way. We both looked with surprise at my squashed foot.

  “Please,” I said, “it won’t take long. Twenty minutes, that’s all I’m asking for.”

  As I looked into Theo’s eyes, I could tell he was conflicted. He obviously wasn’t glad to see me, but he was curious to find out what this was about, I was sure of it.

  At last he pulled the door open, releasing my foot. He stomped back into the house and returned a few moments later with his coat under his arm.

  “Okay. Fine,” he said. “But ten minutes, not twenty. And definitely not here.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Theo

  As Joel carried our pints back to the table, I realized that this could well have been us in another life. Here, in our teenage local, on Christmas Eve, perhaps—casting judgment over all the old lot from school sitting around us, remembering the stupid nicknames and the apocryphal stories that got more absurd every time we told them.

  I made an exaggerated show of drinking half of my beer in one go. I’d left my coat draped over my shoulders, too, rather than taking it off properly, to show him I wasn’t getting settled. I still hadn’t even begun to process that Joel—Joel fucking Thompson—was actually here in the flesh. I’d not known quite what to do when I saw him outside. Which might explain why I’d panicked and just told everyone to hide. I’m not sure whether they thought there were Jehovah’s Witnesses outside, or aliens about to attack, or perhaps this was a new parlor game I’d invented for my birthday, but there was clearly enough authority in my voice for them to do as I asked without questioning it.