Despite the fact that there is nothing whatsoever wrong with his legs, and every sign that the medication the hospital gave him after his angina attack is working, my father has taken to walking with a cane.
My father being my father, of course, this is not just any old walking stick. Oh no. This…monstrosity is a glossy black thing, topped with a solid silver dragon whose tail winds down and round the top half of the cane. (“Custom-made by an old artist friend,” he tells anyone who stands still long enough to hear.) This is equal parts blessing and curse: on the hard floors of a hotel lobby, the brisk click of his cane hitting the ground is a useful warning that we all need to look busy before he comes around the corner and actually sees any of us; however, it has also given him something with which to gesture.
“That picture needs moving…” POINT.
“If we move this table over here…” SWOOSH.
“Right down the end of that corridor…” JAB.
After an hour yesterday helping him supervise the traders’ room set-up, Bede came back muttering about giving him a whole new place to keep his cane.
“That’s my dad you’re talking about, you know.”
“And the fact he’s your dad is the only reason I haven’t snapped already and broken the fecking thing in half over his head.”
“Not because he’s your boss, then?”
“Shut up, Lexi.”
So here we are. Last convention of the year, and it’s the big one. Halloween.
(Except that because Halloween has inconveniently chosen to happen midweek, it’s an almost-Halloween convention this year. But as long as we’re all pretending – which we are – it’ll be fine.)
October has always been Dad’s favourite convention – growing up I used to think that was because it meant everything was in place and winding down, and he even got a holiday afterwards; a couple of weeks to just…stop. (He never did, of course – hence: angina!) And I know he’s still excited about it this year, but things are suddenly different, and not necessarily in a bad way. And it’s all because of Bea. I was afraid she would interfere, that she would take my place in some weird way – but that’s not it at all. She’s still away a lot, but when she’s around Dad laughs, and they cook actual meals together (no more reheated takeaways) and she rolls her eyes when Dad interrupts dinner with yet another convention idea, and somehow it’s okay. It feels right. It feels almost like she’s just filling the space that was always there for her and we never knew it.
That’s not to say there’s any less work – not for this convention anyway. I thought I knew tired. I did – but now I think Tired and I might just have been waving at each other from opposite ends of the street. Three days a week, I’ve been getting up and checking the convention emails, having a shower, having breakfast, answering yesterday’s emails on the bus to college, trying not to fall asleep in my classes, answering my morning’s emails on the bus on the way home, doing my coursework, eating dinner (or pretending to, if Bea’s away and Dad’s taken it upon himself to make something), and then going through everything with Dad to make sure I’m not doing something horrendous which will stain the family’s name and honour for the next seven generations, before I fall into bed.
On the other four days it’s pretty much exactly the same – except there’s no college and I don’t have to try and type on a bumpy bus. (My spelling is much better those days.)
And best of all, it works – better than it has done before.
With one small problem: I can’t stop thinking about Aidan.
It feels like more than months since I saw him; it feels like years. Since Dad’s little…hiccup, I’ve had time – made time – to talk to Aidan again, to pick up the phone and call him and stop hiding behind my laptop keyboard. Even when I didn’t mean to, it was him I called, like he’s somehow taken up residence inside my brain and there’s no shifting him now. He’s moved in. And slowly, it’s started to feel like we’ve found our way back to where we were. But courage or not, I still haven’t been able to ask him about those photos Andy mentioned, and I definitely, definitely haven’t been brave enough to look for them. He hasn’t brought them up, and I just…can’t. Maybe if I leave it long enough, I won’t have to?
Baby steps.
Brave little baby steps.
“I think I’m jet-lagged.” I balance on the edge of the freebie table, holding one end of a long string of paper ghosts against the wall. “Where’s the Blu-Tack?”
“Sam took it to do the decorations in the lobby. Here – have mine.” Nadiya climbs out from behind the registration desk and half-passes, half-throws a large ball of it at me. “And you can’t be jet-lagged from flying to Edinburgh from London.”
“Only Dad and Bea flew. I got the train,” I groan.
“The train?” Nadiya’s voice rises in shock and she stares at me, totally ignoring the lovely couple in matching Star Wars T-shirts trying to pick up their membership lanyards. “Why?”
“Worked out better for college,” I say, pressing a wodge of tack against the wall. It falls straight off and lands on the carpet. “Naaaaadiyyyaaa…”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” She picks it up and gives it back to me. “But the train’s got to be, like…”
“Eight hours, forty-five minutes.”
“No! It can’t be that long?”
“It is when you get told the train you’re booked on suddenly won’t be going to Edinburgh any more and you get diverted and have to change at Leeds and get the super-packed slooooow train that stops everywhere. There’s fluff all over this tack now.”
“That’s all I’ve got.” She sits back down again behind the desk. “Eight hours. Wow. What did you do?”
“Mostly wish I was dead?”
That’s not entirely true; somewhere around Berwick-upon-Tweed, I was fairly sure I was already dead and in hell. Mostly because my seat was right next to the toilet. And it was a busy train.
The rest of the time…well, the rest of the time I was thinking. Thinking about being brave, and what a braver Lexi could do.
Thinking about who I am, what I want, what comes next. (And fine, sure; maybe who I want.)
Back in April, I wasn’t expecting to have an existential crisis by the end of the season; but then I wasn’t expecting my dad to get married – or to have a heart attack. Well, a nearly-heart-attack anyway. I wasn’t expecting to meet Aidan either. I wasn’t expecting anything. Everything in my life was laid out in neat little columns: conventions, college, Dad, friends…
And now?
Now I don’t know. I don’t know what comes after this. It’s a blank page, ready to be written on.
The surprises keep coming too: two days ago, Control Freak Dad passed me a pile of CVs and said, “Take a look.”
“Yes. This one’s used the word ‘passionate’ four times in eight lines. What am I now, a proofreader?”
“I’m hiring an assistant.”
“You have an assistant. His name’s Davey, remember? He works in the events office and you ring him up to shout at him a couple of times a day – which, by the way, makes you a terrible boss.” He glared at me, so I added, “Which I would know absolutely nothing about because personally I find working with you a complete joy.”
“Not for the main business. For the conventions.”
“You’re hiring a me?”
“Hopefully, I’m hiring someone who will give me significantly less backchat than you – but otherwise, yes.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know how I was meant to feel about that. “You’re replacing me?”
“Lexi.” He took the CV I was holding out of my hands. “As my daughter, you are irreplaceable. But I’ve been thinking. You need to have your own life. Your own space. You need to do what you want – not just what I want.”
“Have you been talking to Mum?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” I tried not to laugh.
“You have your exams coming up, and then there’s your whole future. Have you thought some more about going to university?”
“Daaaaaaad…”
“Whatever decision you make, that needs to be your focus. I’ve been unfair and asked too much of you. So, I’ll get a convention assistant and you can dip in and out of the planning when you have time…and we’ll talk again. Maybe you could come back and work for the company full-time after you graduated?”
“But if I went to university, that’s” – I counted in my head – “four years away!”
He smiled and nudged me. “You’re my daughter, Lexi. I’ve seen what you can do in four days. Just imagine what you could do in four years.”
Four years.
That’s, like, 1,460 days.
That’s a lot of time.
That’s a lot of me to make up…
Still, whatever happens, we have one more convention to take care of this season and I’m going to enjoy it. Just as soon as I get these ridiculous ghosts stuck to the wall.
The walkie-talkie on the table squawks, and Nadiya picks it up. It’s Dad.
“Lexi, can you come over to the ops room, please?”
My table wobbles dangerously. “Tell him I’m busy,” I hiss at Nadiya.
She tries.
He doesn’t listen. “Nadiya, can you tell my daughter it’s about a pineapple?”
“Shit.”
The walkie goes dead, and Nadiya frowns at it – then at me. “Pineapple?”
“I’d better go,” I say. “We’ve probably got a ghost running amok or someone’s turned into a pumpkin or something.” My head feels like somebody stuffed it with soup. “Are you sure you can’t get jet lag from a train?”
Nadiya just blinks at me. She has a very expressive face, Nadiya.
I jump down from the table – it’s more of an elegant fall really, but who’s checking? – and drag myself along the corridor. A couple of the event rooms are along the way, their doors standing open – and there, right through the windows, is the castle perched up on its hill. Last year, one of the panel moderators actually asked if we could close the blinds in their event room, because everyone was too busy staring at the castle illuminated against the dusk to actually watch the panellists…
Suddenly, I feel a pang of jealousy. I don’t want to share this – let alone with a stranger. A replacement me. I’ve always known how much I love all this, how much it matters to me…but I’ve never actually thought about how much I’d miss it if I stopped.
I’d miss the corridors, the running (so much running!). I’d miss the ever-changing wallpaper of hotels – but maybe not the hotels’ wallpaper. I’d miss Bede’s moaning and Nadiya’s frowns and even the late nights – and that particular, breathless silence of the ops room before breakfast. I’d even miss the inevitable, infamous “rubber chicken” of the banquets. Probably.
I’d miss this world, because it’s mine.
Everything else feels like I have to share it, but this…even though there are hundreds of other people here, most of them know exactly who I am. This is my place, my home, my family.
It’s mine.
It’s me.
But maybe it doesn’t have to be all of me?
Behind the frosted glass of the ops room door, I can see figures moving around – and given how many people are in there, it must be one hell of a crisis.
Right, then. Brace yourself.
I shoulder the door open – and there’s Dad and Sam. Both of them look serious.
And then they step apart, and behind them is a suntanned face and a mop of black hair that’s even curlier and less under control than it was last time I saw it.
Aidan.
“You’re here!”
Well done, Lexi. Always good to state the obvious in case people haven’t noticed…
“I said I’d be at this one, didn’t I?”
“But…not till tomorrow!”
“I came up early.” He grins and slips out from between Dad and Sam and pulls me into a hug – and there’s the smell of him, the smell I’ve missed so badly late at night that it’s hurt, and I realize that for weeks all I’ve wanted to do is touch him; feel the warmth of his skin under my fingers, run my hands through his hair, breathe him in, drown in him.
About those photos, whispers a voice in my head. I ignore it. Later. It’s waited this long, and now he’s here…
Dad taps his cane against the floor, and I pull away, embarrassed, and look up into Aidan’s eyes.
They are all I can see.
“You, umm, didn’t come up by train, did you?”
“No. Are you crazy – why would I do that?”
“Oh, no reason.” All my concentration is spent on not reaching for him again, not drawing closer and closer until our edges blur and we overlap. So I could be saying anything. I probably am.
Pay attention, Lexi.
“You need to come get your lanyard. I didn’t bring it with me because I didn’t know you were here because if I’d known you were here I would have brought it but I didn’t so you really need to come get it.”
Yes, Lexi. That’s so much better. Bravo.
Is it hot in here all of a sudden, or is it me?
Aidan actually has the nerve to look smug as he yanks the membership lanyard out from under his shirt. “This lanyard, you mean?”
Sam shuffles her feet. “Sorry. That was me – I knew he was coming up early so I snuck it out of the box. You might want to, umm, tick it off your list?”
No wonder she’s been avoiding me all day. I thought I’d done something to upset her…but it turns out she just remembered how awful she is at keeping anything a secret. And she thinks I’m annoyed with her for actually managing to.
I pull away from Aidan and hug my best friend, feeling her relax as I do.
“So…you’re not pissed off?”
“Why would I be? It’s an amazing surprise! I didn’t think he would—”
“Not Aidan. Obviously. I meant me messing up the membership box. I was only going to take his lanyard out, but then I had the box resting on the back of the chair and Bede—”
“Wait. Messing up the membership box?”
“I dropped it. I thought you’d realized…” She slips out of my grasp, safely out of reach.
“You. Dropped. It.”
“And then you were coming right round the corner so I kind of shoved all the envelopes back in really quickly, and I think they’re a bit…jumbled?” Her voice gets quieter and smaller with every word.
“I left Nadiya on her own at reg.”
Sam’s wide eyes meet mine, and she says it at exactly the same time I do.
“Shit.”
When we round the corner back to the registration desk, the membership queue stretches all the way to the hotel’s front door.
“You.” I point at Sam. “Fix this.”
She nods meekly and slides behind the table alongside Nadiya – barely even flinching when Nadiya cuffs her around the back of the head.
The day slips away, time stretching and concertinaing like it does at every convention, and instead of heading to one of the parties in the evening, we all collapse into a booth in the hotel bar – where Bede takes it upon himself to induct Aidan into the world of convention staff, even though I’ve repeatedly asked him to shut up.
“What you see before you, Aidan, is a perfect cross section of your typical late-night convention tribes.” Bede, standing on the red velvet seat of the booth, waves an arm around the bar. “Most of the membership are either in the late-night panels they have paid to attend – or in bed, because they’re losers. These? These are the convention hardcore.”
“Bede!” I yank him back down to a sitting position. “Shhh. You’ll annoy everyone!”
“No, I want to hear this,” Aidan laughs, looking around the bar. “Go on?”
Bede gives a grin of triumph as Sam groans, Nadiya puts her head on the table and I pretend I’m very busy checking emails. If I protest any more it’ll only encourage him. He pokes his head up over the top of the booth and nods at the table closest to the door. “Over there, in the black T-shirts? With the beards? Those are the Old-Timey Sci-Fi Bros. They don’t go to any of the panels or readings because they hate all the programming – but they’ve been to every convention since the Stone Age and they’re not about to break the habit of a lifetime. They only read science fiction by dead white dudes – bonus points if said dead dudes hated women and were a little bit racist.”
“A little bit?” chorus Sam and Nadiya.
Now it’s Bede’s turn to shush them – mostly because several of the group he was just describing have turned to look at him. He ducks right down again.
“Okay, so that’s one,” says Aidan. “What about them?” He points to a smaller table, this one surrounded by people tapping away on their phones.
“Easy. Agents.”
“And that one?” Another, near-identical table a few metres away.
“Oh, they’re the Hollywood lot.”
“But they look just like the agents!”
“Nope.” Bede shakes his head. “Look closer, youngling. The agents – as you will see – have a variety of empty cocktail glasses on their table. The Hollywooders? Mineral water.”
Aidan snorts into his drink. I elbow him sharply in the ribs and he pulls a face of mock-indignation. “What? It’s funny because it’s true.”
There’s a shriek of laughter from a lively table near the bar. “The YA writers,” Bede says with a knowing look. “And that massive group over there?” He indicates a table littered with empty wine bottles, so completely surrounded by chairs that anyone trying to get in or out is having to climb over everyone else. “They’re the crime and horror writers. Nice bunch. Make me nervous, though – how can anybody who writes stuff like that be a well-adjusted human being?” We all turn to watch as a tall blonde woman clambers out from the middle of the group, laughing. “Nope. I don’t trust them at all.”
“And what about them? The ones next to the staff table?”
“How do you know that’s the staff table?” Bede asks.
Aidan shrugs. “They all look knackered.”
“He’s lying,” I say to the others with a laugh. “Although it’s a pretty good rule of thumb that con staff always look knackered. But actually he can see my dad in the middle.”
Aidan sighs dramatically. “Thanks, Lexi. There goes my reputation as someone with a keenly observant eye.”
“You had one of those?”
“Reputation, or keenly observant eye?”
I’m about to snap back with a witty answer, but Bede’s started making fake retching sounds so I let it go.
“They’re the newbies. First time at a convention,” I say, looking over at the little group of members clustered around the small table. “They don’t know many people yet, so they kind of gravitate towards each other. Usually they’ll end up sticking together.” I stand up and wave at them. Two of them look over at me and smile back, while the others just look terrified. “Do you want to come over here?” I call. “There’s loads of room!” I point at the booth. Bede immediately, magically, expands to take up twice as much room as he normally does. Sam pokes him in the side of the neck, and Nadiya groans from face down on the table. “Not more people. No more people.”
Most of the newbies head our way, bringing their drinks with them. Two obviously decide that a table of slightly grouchy convention staff is not their idea of fun and wander off towards tonight’s big event – the film-soundtrack karaoke party we’re studiously avoiding – but the others shuffle into the spare seats in the booth and pull up chairs and smile at each other and at us.
“So, how’s your convention going?” I ask. Nadiya makes a noise that sounds a little like a sob. “Ignore her,” I add.
Our new-found friends are called Jen, Jenny, Amanda and Mandy (and as they introduce themselves I can almost hear the cogs in Aidan’s writer-brain starting to turn) and Craig and Daragh – two best friends who’ve come from Dublin especially for the convention. They introduce themselves and talk about what panels they’re seeing, and Daragh gets into a fact-off about pineapples – of all things – with Bede. (“Did you know that pineapples are traditionally served with ham because there’s an acid in them that dissolves meat? So when you eat pineapple, that tingling feeling on your tongue is the pineapple eating you back?” “And did you know that…” And on we go…) But Craig can’t seem to take his eyes off Aidan. This is fine – until Aidan notices.
“Hey there,” he says with a slightly uncomfortable smile.
Craig doesn’t say anything, but just keeps on staring.
“So…are you going to the Halloween ball thing tomorrow night? It, umm, looks fun, right?” Aidan mouths the words “Help me” at me. I smile and shake my head and am suddenly deeply interested in hearing Daragh explain how people used to rent pineapples for dinner parties.
And then, at long last, Craig speaks.
“You’re…”
Uh-oh.
“You’re Haydn Swift!”
“I am.”
“Would you sign my arm?” Craig pulls out a marker pen and starts rolling up the sleeve of the shirt he’s wearing.
Aidan shakes his head apologetically. “Sorry – I don’t really sign people, but if you… Oh.” He stops so suddenly that everyone – me, Sam, Bede, Nadiya and all the newbies – turn to see why.
Craig has rolled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of Aidan’s face on his arm. At least, I think it’s supposed to be Aidan – it’s a little lopsided and slightly squished. What makes me certain is when I recognize it as a copy of his head and shoulders from the notorious Glowy Ball photo shoot.
“Huh,” says Aidan in a high-pitched voice, while Bede is suddenly overwhelmed by a coughing fit.
“I was hoping if you signed underneath…?” Craig says hopefully, but Aidan shakes his head.
“Sorry. I’m not trying to be a dick, I just…you know?” Seeing how crestfallen Craig looks, he adds: “But if you’ve got anything else you want me to sign, I’m really happy to. As long as it’s not you, that’s all.”
“My copy of Piecekeepers is in my room – can I?”
“Sure. I’ll be right here.” Aidan’s smile is genuine and warm. As Craig pushes his chair back to go fetch his book, Aidan points to his arm. “And you know, that’s really cool. I’m honoured.”
Craig beams and hurries off.
The Jen-Jennys take this as their opportunity to say goodnight, while Mandy and Amanda murmur something about the karaoke. All four of them leave, while Bede is too busy flirting with Daragh to notice anything. Aidan slides closer to me.
“That was…quite a thing,” he says. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“He has your face tattooed on his arm. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“Oh really?” He raises an eyebrow. “You think you should get a say in where my face goes?”
I feel the blood rush to my face. “Stop it. He’s coming back.”
Craig is indeed back, holding out a dog-eared copy of Piecekeepers. “I’ve read it five times already,” he says proudly.
Aidan takes it from him and opens it out on the title page to sign. “You should talk to Lexi here. It sounds like you know it even better than she does. Am I making this out to you, or…?”
As Craig gives him detailed instructions on what to write (“Just to me – not, you know, ‘me’, but Craig – just Craig – only without the just”) I see part of myself in him. Admittedly, without the someone-else’s-face tattooed on my arm, but I see me, back in the spring. Reading that book, feeling like whoever wrote it had done it just for me, like it was the world I was meant to be in.
Craig feels the same way, and there’s something magical about that. He’s not stealing it from me, and nor is anyone else – how could they? It’s as much theirs as it is mine. We’re all part of Haydn’s little tribe.
And that’s when I realize: I will always have to share Haydn. Haydn goes on trips to Italy and Detroit and gets onstage and smiles and laughs and answers questions and signs copies of his books and has his photo taken. It’s Haydn that people approach in hotel bars and say “You’re Haydn Swift!” to.
Haydn, not Aidan.
It was Aidan, not Haydn, building towers out of pistachio shells under a table.
Aidan, not Haydn, sliding down a corridor on a tray and laughing.
Aidan, not Haydn, who makes me feel like the floor has tilted under me; like the world has tilted under me.
Aidan I get all to myself.
And I think that just maybe we are our own tribe.