Cathy: John was being a total pain. Huffing and puffing while I talked to my sister on the phone, as if he wasn’t the one who’d invaded my workspace.
Zak: AJ had the day off. Maggie knew how badly he slept after shows so she usually arranged for him to have the next dayfree if possible. We woke in the bus at about ten, and it stank of sweat and stale beer and smoke. I wanted to be at home, in a proper bed in a proper house, but as soon as I thought that, I felt guilty. Pea. I wanted to be with Pea, too. Someone from the crew went to get us some breakfast. I think we had bacon sandwiches. AJ was in a foul mood. I’d hoped he would have slept it off but it seemed not. He kept saying that the whole trip had been a shitshow and it was all down to John. He really had it in for the guy. And I get it, John had made some mistakes, but AJ was brutal. I think if it hadn’t been John, it would have been someone else. AJ said he was going to go and find John and tell him that it needed to improve, if he wanted the rest of the money that had been promised to him. I said, ‘Yeah,promised, AJ, you can’t just threaten to take it away,’ and he said, ‘I can do whatever the fuck I like. Just because you’ve got this thing going with his daughter.’ I told him it was nothing to do with that. He had this wild look in his eyes, and when he pulled open the door of the bus, I knew I should follow him.
John: AJ strode into the office, looking like death warmed up. Zak was a few steps behind him. I thought,Here we go. I wasn’t in the mood for it, I really wasn’t. He started jabbing the air with his finger, saying nothing had been good enough, that we needed to get our shit together.
Cathy: I was shocked, honestly. I’d thought things were back on a pretty even keel. Zak was looking sheepish, not making eye contact, and AJ was just ranting about everything that had apparently gone wrong since his arrival. When he brought up the delay with the showers, John was quick to point out that that was Maggie’s error and not ours. But he wasn’t really in a place to be reasoned with, I don’t think. He was agitated and looking for someone to blame, and John and I were there.
Zak: It was embarrassing. First off, there had been a few small problems, but AJ was making out like everything had been terrible, blaming them for things they’d had nothing to do with. And remember, these were the parents of the girl I was falling in love with. The last thing I wanted to do was get on the wrong side of them. But I’d known AJ his whole life and I knew that when he was in this kind of mood, there was no changing it. You just had to ride it out. He knew he could get away with as much bad behaviour as he wanted to.
John: After a while, I said I wasn’t listening to any more of it. I wasn’t going to be told off like that by a jumped-up little kid. He lunged for me, then. I really think he would have punched me in the face if I hadn’t ducked out of the way. He roared, ‘Who are you calling a jumped-up little kid?’ I folded my arms, said I would have thought that was obvious. Zak came forward then and caught AJ’s arms, stopped him going for me again. Wise move. I wasthisclose to throwing a few punches myself.
Cathy: John was so red in the face I thought he was going to have a heart attack.
John: Zak told AJ he needed to calm down and sort of manhandled him towards the door. But just as they were about to leave, AJ turned back and said, ‘If you think you’re getting all of the money, you’re very much mistaken.’ It’s a good job he left then, I’m telling you, because I felt this rage start to build in me and I didn’t feel in control of it. Everything we’d done, everything I’d sacrificed, for this. The loan shark was already on my back about the rollercoaster money, and I’d given him some of it when we’d got the second instalment, but honestly, there were a queue of people I owed money to and he wasn’t at the front. The very idea of not getting the rest put the fear of God into me. It would be the end of everything. When they’d gone,I turned to Cathy and she said she thought we all needed a few minutes to calm down. I said I was going to speak to Maggie or Lou, and she said perhaps it would be best if she did that. I had to admit, she was calmer than I was. But I wanted to be there too, to make sure we got our points across.
Cathy: We found Maggie outside, striding up and down, looking at her mobile phone and muttering about the lack of reception. I touched John’s arm, asked if we should maybe come back later, but he said no, we needed to get this sorted. I knew nothing good was going to come of it.
Maggie: The first I knew about the problem was John and Cathy waiting for me to finish my call. I was trying to talk to the Glasgow venue about merchandise sales, I think. Some supplier had messed up and they only had T-shirts with the latest album cover on in extra-large. I’d been trying to say that there weren’t too many extra-large teenage girls and they needed to sort it before we got there in two weeks’ time when I lost cell coverage. I was feeling all hot and bothered, and John started launching into a tirade about AJ and how he’d said they weren’t getting all their money. Cathy shouted him down, reminded him he’d promised to let her do the talking, and I thought – though it was nothing to do with the matter in hand – that their marriage was in trouble. There was no fondness in either of their eyes when they looked at each other. I thought it would probably be over between them within a year or two. Cathy said, ‘Look, we’re sorry to bombard you like this, we’re just a bit concerned because AJ’s been in the office throwing accusations around and saying we won’t get the amount that was agreed…’ I cut her off. I said, ‘You leave AJ to me.’
Zak: Maggie was not happy. She usually dealt with AJ quite well but I think she’d had enough. It can’t have been easy, lookingafter him. He was always throwing tantrums, like some kind of oversized toddler. She started telling him he had no right to interfere in the business side of things, that he should have come to her if he had a problem. AJ just flipped, then. He said that she wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for him, that he could replace her ‘like that’. He clicked his fingers. I was sick of all of it. I walked out.
Maggie: Christ knows what had gotten into AJ. He’d always had his moments but that day I really felt, for the first time, like he wasn’t coping with all of it. Like maybe he was being pushed too hard, too fast. I thought that when this tour was over, we should probably sit down and talk about what he wanted and needed. Because he was just a kid, at the end of the day. He was a fucking nightmare, but he was a kid, too.
Zak: When I went back, the bus was empty. I walked around the park for a bit, looking for AJ. I smoked a couple of cigarettes, had a hotdog. I couldn’t find him. I felt lost. What was I doing in the middle of an English theme park on my own? It just all felt wrong, like I’d mis-stepped and ended up in the wrong life, somehow. I thought about going to Mum and saying that I wanted to live with Dad for a while, but I knew she’d take it personally, see it as an abandonment. The only thing that made sense to me in my whole goddamned life was Pea. And she lived so damn far away.
John: I couldn’t settle to anything in the office after that confrontation, so I went out into the park to check on a few things. As usual, all the staff were standing by the rides, doing precisely nothing. I hated to see that, but AJ had insisted, of course. I talked to a few of them, tried to get their spirits up a bit. It’s disheartening, doing nothing. Even if you’re being paid to do it. I distinctly remember going past the 360. It was being lookedafter by this guy, Simon, who’d been with us for about a year. He was a good worker, always where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there. He called me over as I went past.
Danny: Meet Simon.
Simon: I’d been stewing on something since arriving that morning. When we first heard about this whole AJ Silver thing, we all thought we were onto a good thing, that we’d be being paid for doing very little. Then John laid us all off temporarily, then he took us back on, and since then, we’d learned that days doing nothing are long as hell. My girlfriend was pregnant and her three-month scan was that day, and we’d got the date through too late for me to book leave. But it was hard to stand there doing fuck all when I knew she was on her own and needed my support. I even thought about sneaking off – I’m not sure anyone would have known. Some days AJ and his brother and Pea came down and went on a few rides, but some days they didn’t. And then I saw John, and without thinking about it too much I called him over, and he came.
John: I could see he had a bee in his bonnet about something. That’s what it’s like, when you’re the boss. There’s always someone who’s unhappy about something. But I was having enough trouble with AJ to deal with other people’s concerns. He launched into this story, about how his girlfriend was having a baby, how she was having a scan that afternoon. He wanted the afternoon off, is the bottom line. But I just couldn’t risk being understaffed when AJ was already on the warpath and he’d kicked off about that previously. I said I was sorry, but there was nothing I could do.
Simon: When he’d gone, I kicked the gate where people were supposed to queue up. Where precisely no one was queueingup, and probably no one would all day. I thought about Mary. We’d lost one baby, got to the scan and found that there was nothing there, no heartbeat. We’d been devastated, but after a few months we’d started trying again. The previous night, she’d reached for my hand in the dark and said she was scared. Said, ‘What if it happens again?’ What could I say? I couldn’t tell her it wouldn’t, could I? I looked at my watch, saw that it was coming up for midday. The scan was at two. I remember realising that I could walk out. It would be the end of my job, for sure, but I could get another one without too much trouble. At least, I thought I could. But then, it was a risk, wasn’t it, with the baby coming. What if I couldn’t find something else? What if I couldn’t support them?
Sebastian: I was in the kitchen when Dad came in muttering something about Simon wanting to take off for a hospital appointment with zero notice. I asked what ride he was on, and Dad said the 360. And I offered to look after it while Simon went to the hospital. Dad did this sort of double take, which I think was supposed to be funny, because I never offered to help out in the park. But he’d insisted on training me on all the rides, and I wasn’t doing anything that day, so why not? He asked whether I might be changing my mind about taking over the place, and I told him for the thousandth time that I wasn’t. We didn’t argue but I was fuming as I walked away. He just didn’t listen.
Danny: Why is Sebastian being so helpful all of a sudden? And what were Zak and AJ up to at this point?
Zak: AJ found me and we went down to the lake. It was a real stunner of a day, and we lay there with our hands clasped beneath our heads, and I felt like I was falling asleep. When I heard AJ’s question, I couldn’t quite work out how to answer it, so there was a delay while I dragged myself back toconsciousness. He’d asked whether I ever thought about putting an end to it all. I said, ‘What, my life?’ He didn’t answer so I turned on my side and propped myself up with one arm. ‘What do you mean, AJ?’ He said, ‘All of it. It’s all just so much shit, it feels like. Sometimes I just don’t want to be here.’ I shivered, and I felt cold right to my bones. I said, ‘AJ, you’ve got the whole fucking world at your feet. If you don’t like something about your life, you can change it. You can stop doing the music thing or you can take it in a different direction or you can do anything. There are literally no limits on you.’ I meant it to sound supportive, but looking back, I worry that it might have sounded like a criticism. Like what the hell do you have to worry about? I know more about mental health, now. I know that having it all doesn’t mean shit if you feel like you’re drowning.
He was quiet for a bit and I asked if he wanted a smoke, or a walk, and it was clear that he didn’t know what he wanted. He was lost. And I hadn’t seen him quite like that before. Suddenly all the cocky front was gone and he was like a scared little boy. I had this memory of this time we’d lost him for a bit in a supermarket. He must have been about three or four. Mum and I had raced around the shop, holding hands, and when we’d found him, his feet were rooted to the spot and his eyes were full of fear. And that’s exactly how he looked that day at Wildworld.
There were tears in my eyes, and I saw him noticing. He didn’t say anything. It felt like we were standing on opposite sides of a train track, in full sight of each other but unable to touch.
The next show wasn’t for a few days, but rehearsals were back on the next day. Maybe that’s what he needed, I thought. Maybe he wasn’t good with free time. I wasn’t either, to be fair. It made me think too much about what I could or should have been doing instead. I thought he’d go back to rehearsals the next dayand everything would be fine. I didn’t know – I couldn’t – that nothing would ever be fine again.
Pea: When school finished, I waited for Alex to appear under the tree where we always met. I hadn’t seen him at break, but then I didn’t always, depending on which classrooms we’d been in just before it. And at lunch I’d had rehearsals for this end-of-year show some of us were putting on. I was sure he would have calmed down by now. He could be hot-headed sometimes, but he never held a grudge. When he appeared, he was with a girl called Sophie who we weren’t really friends with. I watched him kiss her on the cheek and then head in my direction.
Alex: I’d been thinking for a while that it was time Pea and I broadened our horizons a bit, when it came to friendship. I had French with Sophie and she was kind of funny. Things between Pea and me were so intense. This whole thing with Zak had shown me how precarious it was, putting all your faith in one other person for friendship. I was widening the net. But I wasn’t looking to ruffle any feathers. Pea looked so ridiculously hurt, though.
Pea: I wasn’t hurt, exactly, just surprised.
Alex: I said I was sorry for earlier and she forgave me. But then she asked me what it had all been about, and I said, ‘Isn’t that obvious? You’ve barely got time for me these days.’
Pea: It wasn’t fair. One of us was bound to have a boyfriend at some point, weren’t we? And it just happened to be me first. I was sure that if he’d fallen for someone, he would have done exactly the same as I had.
Alex: You see, that’s where she was wrong. I had fallen for someone, hadn’t I, and I hadn’t cast the friendship aside for it.But I couldn’t tell her that, because she didn’t know about AJ and me, and I didn’t want her to.
