Remember how things had started to take off for us? Neither of you really wanted to do the tour but I pushed you into it. Why? Because I knew we could do great things. You wanted that too. Remember how we talked about all that, endlessly? How we hated our crappy jobs and wanted more?
In fact, Ravi’s ‘crappy job’ was just an aside. At twenty – after a few misfires, college-wise – she was doing a foundation course and hoped to go on to art college in Leeds. But Shane and I were flailing, working variously in cafés and pubs.
That photo of the three of us, on stage at the Scout hall, burns brightly in my mind. We had dreams back then that somehow, the three of us would miraculously end up living together, in a house in London because that’s where everything happened. Not around here.
To do that we had to move forward. And that meant doing the tour. Remember how I’d been bombarding record company people with letters and cassettes? I’d persuaded that guy to come, some A&R guy – I can’t remember his name now. But we never did it. We didn’t play that last gig and he never got to see us.
You might think this is mad, the two of you. But I can’t help thinking, what if?
What if we’d finished the tour? How would our lives have turned out?
I know there’s no answer to that. But right now, with everything turned to shit, I can’t stop thinking about it. That we should have played all five dates. That we should never have let all the stuff that happened ruin it all.
It did ruin it, didn’t it? Forever. I’m so sad about that. So I’m asking you, Josie and Shane, to do the tour together. Not to play, I don’t mean that (unless you have a burning desire to!). I just mean to retrace our route and stay a night in all of the towns we played in. And in the one we didn’t. The one right at the end.
On the back of this letter, you’ll find our original itinerary. I’ve also left something to help you document every step of your journey. So no wriggling out of it! Mum and Dad will be expecting photographic evidence – of the venues, ideally, if they’re still standing. I imagine they’ll be making some kind of memory book for me so the photos can go in there. To finish our story, if you like.
This sounds mad, I know. I am mad these days. Mad at everything my family is going through and also fucking furious about that Jo Malone perfume! Note to self: should have gone for the 30ml.
Anyway, my dear friends, I do hope you’re here together, getting drunkenly stuck into Mum’s fantastic party buffet, and that you’ll do this one last thing for me.
All my love, Ravi xx
7
I look up from the letter. People are wandering into the kitchen, chatting and loading their plates with more of Pam’s party food. It’s as if the volume has suddenly been cranked back up. As Pam drifts away, Shane lifts the parcel from the bag and looks at me. ‘You open it,’ I say. He hesitates, frowning, before unwrapping it carefully.
‘Wow,’ he says, cradling the Polaroid camera as if it were made from the thinnest glass. ‘Haven’t seen one of these for years.’
‘Me neither.’ I blink at it, not knowing what else to say.
‘So Ravi wanted us to…’ He tails off.
‘Document our journey,’ I murmur.
‘There’s film too,’ he says, delving into the bag. ‘She really thought this through, didn’t she?’
I nod, hardly able to focus as I turn the letter over. Here, a smaller piece of paper has been glued to the bigger sheet. It’s yellowed and looks as if it was badly crumpled, and Ravi had tried to iron it out.
It’s our original itinerary, I realise. A relic from 1988:
July 4 – Laughing Haddock, Grimsby
July 5 – Marine Hotel, Bridlington
July 6 – Cockles, Scarborough
July 7 – Black Bull, Pontefract
July 8 – REST DAY
July 9 – Mucky Duck, Huddersfield ROB JESSOP COALFISH RECORDS!!!
So this is it. This is the route she wanted us to ‘retrace.’ Not exactly ‘Hello Wembley!’ – but back then, it had seemed better than that. Because, whereas Wembley Stadium was unimaginable to us, these were the towns of family days out and visits to aunties; places we understood.
‘But where will we stay?’ I’d asked her. ‘And how can we afford to do this?’ Ravi assured us that we’d be paid for some of the gigs. However, as this would be barely enough to buy us a Sherbet Fountain, we’d mainly be kipping in the spare rooms and on the floors of relatives and friends of friends, supplemented by a couple of nights in cheap guest houses, which her parents – being the only ones with money – would pay for.
Most excitingly was this Rob Jessop from an actual record company. A small one, granted, but to the three of us, he might as well have been God.
