Maggie: I thought about booking a few hotel rooms for those two days, so we could shower there, but there were no hotels that close by and we didn’t want to take the buses in and out. Plus, we were trying to keep a low profile. Staying in the park, other than when we were travelling to the concerts, was part of the deal. When I thought I’d exhausted all other options, I went up to the house and knocked on the door.
Cathy: Maggie came to the door, told us about the problem with the showers. I said they could use the one in the house, no problem. John was pissed off, said afterwards that we should have held out for some extra money for the inconvenience and the hot water, but I told him he was being silly.
John: Cathy liked fixing problems. If someone came to her with an issue, whether it was a playground spat or a long-lost family member, she would wade in there and try to help. If I’d answered the door to Maggie, I would have held out a bit, seen what she was offering. These people had money, more money than we could ever dream of, and that’s the bit I think Cathy never fully grasped. The money they were paying us for the park was a drop in the ocean to them, and a life-changer for us, so why not try for a bit more?
Maggie: Cathy was kind, said we could use the shower in the house. We agreed some timings, because there were going to be a lot of us trying to use one bathroom. We wouldn’t go in until they were all up and ready for the day, that kind of thing. I was embarrassed about having to ask. It was unprofessional, but I didn’t see a way around it. I knew John wasn’t happy, but I didn’t care all that much.
Danny: So this is pretty mad, isn’t it? The world’s most famous pop star and his entourage all sharing a bathroom with a lower-middle-class English family inside a theme park. You honestly couldn’t make it up.
Zak: When Maggie came to find me and AJ to tell us about the situation, we were lying on the grass near this lake with pedal boats. It was a gorgeous early summer afternoon, no clouds. I knew from the way Maggie said AJ’s name that she hadn’t found a solution she was confident about. She filled us in, about using Pea’s family’s bathroom, and AJ just laughed. Said she’d better be joking. It was awkward, silent. Maggie asked what he suggested. He said she should get back to the company that were supplying the facilities and tell them they had an hour to get them to us or the whole deal was off. It was Maggie’s turn to laugh. She said, ‘But then we’ll just have nothing for the whole time we’re here. How will that help, exactly?’ She knew how to handle AJ. Where his weak spots were and when you could get away with teasing versus when you had to leave him the fuck alone. It was coming up for four so I left them arguing about it. I wanted to be at the entrance when Pea got home from school. I’d said in my last letter that I would be.
Pea: Honestly, the day was the length of five, but when it was finally over, I shoved everything in my school bag. All I cared about was getting home and seeing Zak. I was curious about AJ, too, of course. Alex caught up with me when I was just going out of the gates. He asked if he could come with me. I hesitated. I didn’t want him to, truthfully. I wanted to be alone with Zak. It had been months since I’d seen him. Surely he could understand that? I thought my silence probably spoke volumes, but he just laughed and said, ‘Earth to Pea? Are you in there?’ I was neververy good at saying what I meant if I knew it would upset someone, so I just said yes, and he fell into step beside me.
Alex: I knew Pea didn’t want me getting in the way of her and Zak, but I’m sorry, this was an opportunity I was not going to miss.
Zak: When I saw her approaching, I broke out in a grin, but then I saw Alex was with her and I was pissed with myself for not anticipating this. In my head, it had just been the two of us, walking around the park, sneaking off behind some trees to kiss and kiss and kiss. But this friend of hers was like an extra limb or something. Always around.
Pea: I said hello. I felt so shy. In our letters, we’d talked about all kinds of things. It was so much easier, when you were writing it down, to say what you really felt. But now he was in front of me and he looked even better than I remembered, his hair a little longer so that he kept having to brush it out of his eyes, and his skin tanned a golden brown. He said hi, and then went in for a hug, and it was amazing to feel his hard body against mine, but it was too chaste, like the kind of hug you’d give a grandparent. I felt it all slipping away. It might sound dramatic, but I’d put so much onto this. My expectations were sky high. I’d thought I would lose my virginity to this guy, and I’d been counting the days until his arrival, and now he was here and it was all wrong. Alex stood next to me, silent. I asked how their journey was and Zak said it was good. Then someone called his name and we all turned to look, and there was AJ Silver, this boy I’d seen on my TV screen and on magazine covers, and now he was walking over to where I was standing, a grimace on his pretty face.
Alex: AJ looked like a fucking angel or something. He had this aura, this glow. What was it? Fame? The weight of all thatadoration? I watched him lumber over, couldn’t have spoken if I’d wanted to. And I’m not known for keeping quiet. Zak introduced us and AJ said, ‘So this is the famous Pea?’ and Zak punched him playfully on the arm and I wanted to say,You can’t hit AJ Silver! You might bruise his perfect skin!But of course I didn’t. I stood there like a lemon, forgetting what words were and how conversation worked.
Pea: AJ was cute. He was. I mean, I knew what he looked like already, didn’t I? But he definitely had something that drew you to him. Or maybe it just seemed like that, because we all knew he was this big star. I saw Zak noticing me noticing his brother. The thought of him being jealous made me smile this secret smile, because that would mean him thinking that something might actually happen between me and AJ Silver.
Zak: I hated it when girls I liked met AJ. For obvious reasons.
Pea: I hoped we’d get some time alone later. Alex would have to go home at some point. I would tell Zak that he was the only one I was interested in, and then hopefully he would kiss me, because I felt like if he didn’t, I would go insane.
Zak: AJ started in on the shower situation, and Pea looked confused, so we filled her in.
Pea: Zak explained that they were going to be showering in the house for a couple of days. In our house. Alex gave me a look and I could read his mind exactly. He was saying,Actual AJ Silver in your actual house! Naked!But I wasn’t thinking about AJ. I was thinking about Zak. About crossing on the landing wearing nothing more than a towel, about hair dripping onto shoulders, about sneaking into my room and him pressing me up against the door.
Zak: AJ was having a hissy fit about the whole thing but what could anyone do?
Pea: All day, I’d been willing time to move faster, and now I was standing here with the boy I’d been looking forward to seeing for months and I was still doing it, because it wasn’t enough to stand this close to him, to feel the heat from his body. I needed to be alone with him, for our skin to touch.
Zak: I asked Pea if she wanted to go for a walk, and she smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear and said yes. I meant just her, but it was clear that AJ and Alex were going to come with us. I thought about all the times I’d left AJ alone with girls he liked, all the many, many girls there had been since the start of this journey, and then I thought about this one time that he wouldn’t do the same for me.
Alex: Zak sort of steered Pea so they were in front, which left me walking beside AJ. I looked over and flashed him a quick smile, but he didn’t return it. He was still going on about the shower thing, though Zak was largely ignoring him. I asked whether they’d thought about booking a room in a hotel in town, trying to be helpful. AJ looked at me then, and it was like he was noticing me for the first time. He said it was hard to be out in public, that they wanted to lie as low as possible, and I said of course, as if I knew what that was like.
Pea: It was so frustrating, that walk. At some point, Zak grabbed my hand and it calmed me. I knew, then, that the things he’d said in his letters were true and that when we got some time on our own, if we ever did, we’d be together.
Alex: I stayed as long as I reasonably could and then went home. It was a Friday so I said to Pea that I’d see her tomorrow. She didn’t look thrilled.
Zak: Shortly after Alex left, Pea went home to eat dinner. I said I’d be over in an hour or so to wash the plane off me, and she smiled like she was kind of embarrassed, and I knew she was thinking about me showering. I liked that she was thinking about it.
Cathy: Over dinner, John and I told Pea what our rules were. No sneaking around, no visiting the tour buses after dinner, bedroom door to be kept open if Zak visited the house.
Pea: Oh my God, the rules. They were draconian. I couldn’t believe it even as they were saying them. I was sixteen by then. I wanted to say that it was legal for me to do whatever I wanted with my boyfriend, but I didn’t, because we’d never exactly been open about sex and I wasn’t about to start.
Zak: Yeah, Pea told me about her parents’ rules. Ironically, she told me that night after sneaking out to see me on the bus.
Pea: I hadn’t thought much about the fact that there would be absolutely no privacy. I didn’t want to take him to the house because I knew Mum would be watching us like a hawk and he was sharing the bus he was sleeping on with AJ. That first night, there was a lot of back and forth with everyone coming over to shower, and I stayed in my room for all of it, trying to work out the best way to see him. I waited until ten, when I heard Mum and Dad go to bed, and then I crept out. I’d never done anything like that before. Hadn’t had a reason to, I suppose.
Zak: I was wondering why I hadn’t seen her that evening when she knocked on the door of the bus a little after ten. I sawAJ rolling his eyes as I scrambled to let her in. We were both listening to music on our Discmans, lying on our beds, not talking. I pulled Pea inside and she gave me the lowdown, about the rules and her parents’ obvious distrust of me, or her, or maybe both of us. She sat down on my fold-out bed and I lay down next to her, then pulled her down next to me. She looked at me funny, I guess because we weren’t alone, but I kissed her anyway. I felt like I would die if I didn’t.
Pea: That first kiss after they arrived was something I’d thought about for so long and it didn’t measure up. It wasn’t the kiss itself, more the fact that I couldn’t relax into it, with his brother in the same small space as us. His brother, who was AJ Silver. I kept pulling away, and Zak told me we would work it out, that we’d find a way. I hoped he was right.
Zak: So that was the first day. Plans going awry, rules being broken. I remember thinking it could only get better. Yeah. Funny, huh?
