“Believe me, that shit feels weird to me, too. Occasionally, people will stop me, ask for a photo and stuff. Some days I can handle that, brace myself for the hugging thing, you know? Sometimes, I just need to say, ‘sorry, not today’.” He looked away as he said that, focused on the view of buildings we were passing. He sounded sad. I wondered why.
“Seriously, though, why have I never seen a famous person in the freezer aisle if you’re all so ‘normal’, huh?” I needed to lighten the mood, bring the smile back to his face. “Never once have I been rummaging through the chicken nuggets, looked up, and been all, ‘oh, hey, Robbie Williams! Y’alright, mate?’”
“Move to St John’s Wood. Richmond Hill. Holland Park. We’re everywhere; like rats,” he said, chuckling. “Nice guy is Rob, by the way.”
“Stop it.” I slapped his arm. “You do not know Robbie Williams.” Of course he knew Robbie Williams.
Again, a look of melancholy melted his smile. “I miss that. That buzz you have right now. Remember when we were young and we’d stay up all night listening to our favourite songs, the latest bands and the classics from before we were even born. There was so much wonder there. Those artists…they were fucking gods to us.”
My eyes closed briefly, taking me back to those moments. “I remember.” I still felt that way. If I did bump into Robbie Williams by the chicken nuggets, I felt pretty certain I would choke on awkwardness before slipping on my own drool and crash landing into the freezer.
“It wears off. That magic. Being a part of the industry, getting to know some of these people, knowing how all this shit works…it ruins it. As a listener, I mean. I don’t see gods anymore, just regular, flawed people. There’s something about someone being inaccessible to us, forbidden, that makes it so much more thrilling. So, yeah, I miss that.”
I found that quite sad. Hugo had lived for music his whole life. Some days, back in our teens, I was convinced it’d been the only thing that had kept him living at all. If all he’d just said was true, I found small comfort in the knowledge he would never get to meet his biggest idol. He’d discovered Freddie Mercury through my mum’s love of Queen and, by age twelve, could play every Queen and Freddie song ever recorded on the old guitar that had once belonged to my grandad. Hugo had worshipped Freddie. When I started getting into fashion and design, I’d create outfits based on Freddie’s style for him. They weren’t brilliant, looking back, but we loved them at the time. Hugo would dress up in my room, his persona revolutionising, and perform concerts at the foot of my bed.
“You’ll always have Freddie.”
“Ah, hell yeah I will,” he agreed, voice saturated with awe. “Ain’t nobody can take that magic away.”
“You sound different now. Did you know that?”
He gave me a funny look, arched an eyebrow. “How d’you mean?”
“Your accent. It’s still there, sort of, but you’ve got this weird twang mixed in there. Can’t even say it sounds American. Honestly, I don’t know what the hell it is.”
“Uh…okay.” He blew out a bemused chuckle. “As long as it doesn’t show up when I’m singing, I can roll with that.”
“Oh no way.” I raised my hands, shook my head. “I always said you were brilliant, and you were. Now…now you’re phenomenal.”
He seemed to like that answer, shot me a modest smile while reaching for my hand. I wove my fingers into his, stroked my thumb over his knuckles. We didn’t talk much the rest of the way. My ears still felt a tad stuffy from the noise and I assumed Hugo had to have been exhausted. He’d said he didn’t live far from the arena, but we’d been driving for over an hour before the car pulled to a stop on one of the poshest looking streets I’d ever seen in my life.
Hugo got out first and jogged to my side before opening my door. “My, my! Chivalry looks good on you,” I teased, swinging my feet onto the pavement.” I followed him through a set of gates and down a short driveway to the four-storey semi-detached Victorian house. It looked stunning in the darkness, the white exterior glowing from the streetlights.
The footsteps of Hugo’s driver pattered behind us, following us up the stone steps that led to the front door, and I wondered why he hadn’t really spoken yet. We’d been alone with him for ages and he’d barely said a word.
“Cheers, Ezra,” Hugo said, clapping the driver on the back. He was a big guy. Muscular. That was evident even through the black suit. “See you Tuesday, yeah?”
“You know where I am if you need me before.” I could tell, simply by this stranger’s words, that he and Hugo were close. That Ezra, despite the ominous frown, cared deeply for my friend. “Unless you switch your cell off again, in which case I’ll be on your ass faster than a fly on shit.”