And then he has to explain that his name isn’t Sebastian like Clara had assumed. That he’s Giuseppe on his passport, that his dad used to call him Peppino or Peppe, that an unassuming ‘Sep’ was soon bastardised by the English kids at school into a name they could manage. Seb.
‘He’ll always be Peppino to me,’ Enzo says.
Although, of course, he isn’t. Seb was always going to be tall, with Helen for a mother, with a father who’d always beenfar broader than his peers.Corazziere, the fishermen would say, when Enzo was little but already not-so-little. Strapping chap. Seb is acorazzierelike his father, but without the personality to match. A pensive poet.Pensa un po. Seb stopped beingpeppinowhen he was barely a teenager, when the world showed all its cruelty to someone who should never have had to lose so much, so young. The broadest of shoulders would have struggled to bear Seb’s burden. Enzo is a glass-half-full person, and even he was almost shattered by it. There’s no picture of this, pinned on the fridge door for the whole family to reminisce over: Enzo standing outside a hospital ward, a thirteen-year-old Seb’s head buried in his chest.Occhio non vede, cuore non duole. In the years after, Seb spoke very little, and asked for even less. Enzo wanted to give Seb the world, but all he had was a fish-and-chip shop. In the end, they’d settled on a drum kit.
‘My strong boy,’ says Enzo, his hand on Seb’s shoulder, his eyes moist.
‘Dad,’ Seb says, and there’s a warning in his voice. Don’t bring it up. Don’t bring down the mood.
Clara glances from one of them to the other, unsure what to make of this. ‘You don’t seem like a Giuseppe,’ she says, eventually.
‘Well,’ Seb replies, before kissing her. ‘You can still call me Seb.’
Helen and Enzo share a look, remembering what it was like to be young and in love and unafraid to show it. To be aflush with all the possibilities of a thing, before everything else has weighed it down. The drums were an outlet, suggested by a therapist. Seb disappeared into noise, into the fury that camewith it. He got into fights at school, got caught skiving and smoking. Music was an escape, and he was never seen without his Discman, fringe hanging over his face and frayed black cable headphones hanging from his ears. Enzo had cried on Viraj’s shoulder, wondering what to do about him. Little did he know, Viraj’s son was already coming to the rescue. Nimesh, who suggested to some of the other boys that they form a band around Seb. Nimesh, who petitioned his father to keep his car at his restaurant so they could have a garage to practise in, a not-quite-soundproofed escape from the outside world. Nimesh, who accompanied Seb to every single Leicester game, even though Enzo suspects he’s never truly been that bothered about football. And that same Nimesh, all those years later, bringing a little dog home from work, pretending he didn’t know why he was bringing it, and whom he was bringing it to.
‘Seb can’t have the chippy, even if he wants it,’ Enzo is saying now. ‘I’m leaving it to Jasper.’
At this, the dog’s bat-like ears prick up, so Enzo leans down and scratches behind them. He feeds Jasper a slice of prosciutto, followed by a bruschetta laden with tomato and olive oil. When Enzo had first met Jasper, a scrawny little thing that looked and smelled like it had been left out in the rain, he’d cursed Nimesh for dumping the dog on them. But Seb had laid out newspaper and curled up beside the frightened creature in a dog bed far too small for acorazziere.And Helen and Enzo had known that their son wouldn’t always be alone.
Now Seb’s going to be in a film. Now Seb has a girlfriend, and he’s actually brought her home, and there’s a look in his eyes which suggests that even he knows this is something new,something different. When they put their heads together and talk quietly to each other, it occurs to Enzo that he has only ever seen his son talk like this to Nimesh. But his son does not look at Nimesh like this. It’s the same look he’d have when he was playing with the band, or when he’d put on his headphones and disappear into his music. Serenity, security. A look saved for Clara, who has arrived in this flat like a lit firework, who is now talking about Seb’s film with a passion so infectious that his parents can see why their son struggles to look away. They’ve always said that Seb is older than his years. Clara seems wiser than hers, like she’s already figured it all out, or is fighting her hardest to. Like she’s waiting for everyone else to catch up.
‘Right,’ Enzo says, slapping his thighs. ‘Who wants more?’
The Bonamis are a greedy family. No one goes hungry here. After what they’d lost, they’d always kept their door wide open, a seat free at this very table for friends, family, family friends and cousins, so many cousins, scattered so far and wide. Now Clara is here, in that very seat, and she’s laughing, and Seb has never looked more relieved. It’s the start of something. It’s a good start.
the shopkeeper
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ says the tall man to his short companion.
Both their expressions are grave.
‘I’m sure,’ she says, finally. ‘I think it’s important for us.’
‘I just feel like there’s no going back from this.’
‘Don’t think about it like that,’ she says. ‘It’s a new beginning.’
A teenager in front of them buys a copy ofKerrang!, then they’re left on their own, deliberating in serious silence. The moment has more dramatic portent than you usually get at the one-stop newsagent next to Stockwell tube station, so the shopkeeper is appropriately enthralled. He stares at the couple over the top of the counter, standing in front of racks of Yorkie bars and McCoy’s crisps and endless variations of chewing gum, staring at what the woman holds in her hand. Slowly, purposefully, she places their purchase on the counter.
It’s a toothbrush.
‘Now you’ll always have one at mine,’ she says.
his friend’s new girlfriend
‘Who’s ready for the best fucking night of their lives?’ says the lead singer.
They don’t know the name of the band. Ryan says that most of the acts that play here are doomed to fail. Not to flame out spectacularly in a frenzy of smashed guitars and on-stage fist-fights, but to simply become another entry on a list of long-forgotten band names that were once yelled out from this stage. She suspects he’s bitter about the demise of his own band, but he might have a point. The lead singer has taken his top off and is leaping about with the microphone cord looped around his knuckles, but the maxed-out speakers make it hard to decipher the lyrics, and it’s difficult to see his face beneath the blaring spotlights. The guitars are going for it, though, and the bassline has a satisfying crunch. If it’s not the best fucking night of their lives, it should at least be a good one.
They’re at the usual place, coats and bags in their regular booth, crowded into that same Hoxton back room where all the gigs take place. Seb and Clara dance to the music, his face against her neck, one of his hands snaking around her ripped T-shirt and holding her close. Smudge sways next to themin a pair of neon-green shutter shades, dancing with himself. Nimesh and Ryan are arm in arm, attempting to sing along to a song they’ve never heard before. She’s behind them, because she actually wants to watch the show. She met Ryan in the Vans shop on Carnaby Street a couple of months ago. She was trying to sell him some shoes, and he was trying to woo her with a monologue about the MGMT tune playing over the stereo. Once he’d realised that she knew more about music than he did, she couldn’t get rid of him. She has a theory that you can tell everything you need to know about someone from their music taste. Ryan’s is as neurotic as the man himself, a self-conscious mix of unlistenable bands he thinks might be the next big thing. Nimesh’s, by contrast, is a carefree catalogue of upbeat indie. Smudge’s is filled to the brim with anxiety-inducing nu-rave glitch-pop that sounds like it was made for a Game Boy Color. Seb is harder to place. Tonight, his shirt bears the legend ‘Black Flag’, and she can’t help thinking that he looks like a young Henry Rollins.
‘We’ve been—’ says the lead singer from the stage, but she’s missed the name again because she’s halfway to the smoking area.
It’s freezing outside, and Clara seems cooler than ever, chewing the cords of her American Apparel hoodie as she talks about the tattoo design of hers that Seb has just had inked. An old statue, with its face melted off. Clara says she hates the taste of cigarettes, but loves smoking areas because she likes to talk, to hear people’s stories. Ryan’s girlfriend hasn’t known her long, and is already infatuated. Did you know that Clara works in films? That she’s making her own new short, and thatshe’s already enlisted a small army of amateurs for it, aspiring actors and would-be editors, hopeful composers and set stylists in-waiting? Seb might be laconic, but he’ll be the first to tell you these things. Their favourite topic is each other, and even now, Clara keeps steering the conversation back to her boyfriend. He’s in pre-production on a real, big-deal film. Clara has seen him in costume, in all the glory of his billowing shirtsleeves. What’s more, he can perfectly execute the saxophone solo in INXS’s ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ in mime. And he cries every time there’s an advert on TV with a dog in it.
‘He only drinks Guinness,’ Clara says. ‘Even at gigs. Out of a plastic cup.’ She mimes being sick.
The boys have come out to join them. Ryan kisses her, while Nimesh squeezes Clara by the shoulders. Smudge is still inside, in love with the sesh.
