“Oh right.” Somewhere in the kitchen, the kettle had probablyfinished boiling. “Massively successful, very cool, extremely rock ’n’ roll music festivals throw themselves together all the time.”
Baby Autumn started stirring in her sleep, and Bridge gently bounced her. “Raising money is what youdo. Besides, you know all sorts of people who can help you out with this kind of thing.”
“Not very cool, extremely rock ’n’ roll people.”
Unlulled by the bouncing, Autumn awoke and started making distinctly hungry baby noises, so Bridge hoicked up her top and let her latch on to a nipple. “First of all,” she said, “I’m offended. BecauseI’mvery cool and extremely rock ’n’ roll.”
I was about to suggest that she might not be quite the kind of very cool and extremely rock ’n’ roll I was after, but she looked so perilously close to serious I didn’t dare.
“Second of all, aren’t your parents both very cool and extremely rock ’n’ roll?”
They were. Of course they were. And my brain had been dancing around that thought for days while also politely pretending it wasn’t. “They are, but…my dad is a malignant narcissist who wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire unless he thought it’d make his dick look bigger, and my mum’s been out of the business for years.”
“Still, she must know people.”
This was going to places I didn’t like. Asking Mum for things was fine when it was, for example, “Can you look after the dog this Wednesday?” or “Can you ask Judy to lend me a field to hold a music-slash-toilet festival in?” but I drew the line at “Can I exploit the past you have an ambivalent relationship with and which you comprehensively left behind as a combined consequence of your having me and my dad treating you like total shit?”
So I said, “Not an option.”
“Okay but…does it have to be a full-on music festival music festival?”
“Which part of ‘very cool, extremely rock ’n’ roll’ are you not getting?”
Bridge nodded slightly more indulgently than I really liked my friends to nod. “Lots of things can be cool. And lots of things can be rock ’n’ roll too.”
She was right. She just might have been the wrongsortof right. “Remember this whole thing has an audience of one, and that one is a sixty-something punk with a peerage.”
“Because the counterculture of the 1970s had everything to do with music, and nothing to do with art, literature, or anything else.”
“Are you trying to get me to start some kind of movement?”
Baby Autumn was still happily feeding, and Bridge settled her more comfortably—or at least as comfortably as you could settle a tiny human who was attached to your nipple by their mouth. “As long as youlooklike youmightbe starting a movement, isn’t that all you need to do?”
“Okay, but doesn’t this just mean that as well as sourcing music from nowhere, I also now need to source art, literature, and whatever else from nowhereas well?”
Bridge was giving me anI honestly can’t believe you sometimeslook. “Because obviously you don’t know anybody who works in publishing or the art world, or have any friends who are professional caterers, or have any experience in raising money for things.”
“I can’t just…ask my mates to bail me out.”
“You can, Luc. That’s pretty much what mates are for.”
I squirmed. “But that’s…”
“Probably going to be a lot more fun than that time you asked us all round to clean your flat.”
I squirmed deeper. “I’m being crap again, aren’t I?”
“Nooo!” Bridge got even more emotion into the syllable by stretching it out. “You’ve just had a lot on your mind, that’s all.”
Wasn’t that the truth? I slumped onto the sofa, any thought oftea abandoned. Which meant I was now someone who went to their friends’ houses, complained about my problems, and wasted their electricity. “So much,” I agreed. “Between this and the fostering.”
I’dalsomentioned this in the group chat. Or rather Oliver had mentioned it because I’d known if I mentioned it, Priya wouldn’t have been able to resist reminding me how absurd it was for me to put myself forward as the kind of person who could provide a stable home to a troubled teenager.
“Oh yes,” said Bridge. “How’s that going?”
“Well,” I told her. “We’ve got a home visit later today.”
Bridge gave me anI have faith in you but have also met youlook. “Howmuchlater?”
