Page 12 of The Next Chapter

‘Your birth dad,’ he clarifies.

‘Nope.’ I leaf gently through the stack of papers, pulling out my birth certificate and showing Seb the blank space where a dad’s name should be. It’s a space that I felt a lot when we did genetics in biology, or a couple of years ago when the GP asked me, ‘any family history of…’ and I had to shrug and admit that I had no idea. It’s not helpful to be thinking about that right now, though.

‘Mum and Dad suspected her bandmate. The guitar player, Ashton Vain. According to the papers, they were very much on again, off again. I think he was from Scotland, too, so maybe that’s why Lola is here. I always assumed she was in America. Plus, look.’ I hold up the investigators’ report. ‘Lola took his name, his surname, I mean. Vain. It must have been him.’

Seb nods. ‘At least he’s still alive. I had a poster of him on my bedroom wall when I was a teenager. How weird is that?’

‘Too weird to think about. He’s been in various bands over the years. Smaller ones. Even now he seems to spend his life permanently on tour.’

‘I didn’t like his solo stuff as much.’

I have another drink and carry on.

‘Lola was twenty-one when she had me. Maybe Ashton just wasn’t interested or whatever, but she was obviously on her own. I guess she thought that she’d have to quit the band if she kept me and go back to being poor. Giving me up for adoption was the right thing to do, if you think about it rationally.’

I try out a smile. Yikes, bad idea. I stare down at the unevenly tiled floor instead.

‘Hard to be rational about being dumped as a baby.’

I roll my eyes. ‘I wasn’t dumped as a baby, it’s not like she left me in the bin. She went through the proper channels, and I got so lucky. You know how great Mum and Dad were.’

Seb raises his glass. ‘To the Browns.’

I cheers, swallowing past the lump in my throat.

Seb looks at the papers I’ve spread across the rusty coffee table trunk.

‘So much of it doesn’t make sense,’ he says, rifling a bit. ‘Why did she leave the band? If, like you say, she put you up for adoption because of the fame thing, why did she quit it a couple of months later? Right after they had their biggest, and best, single. It doesn’t make any sense.’

I shrug. ‘That’s the mystery. No one knows why she quit.’

‘And why would she want to go over it all? Why get someone to ghost-write her memoirs now?’

I make a movement that feels something like a shrug. My shoulders are up by my ears at any rate. I’m once again confronted by the thought that my birth mum is riddled with some sort of disease. That’s what always happens. People get told they’re going to die, and they want to write it all down. Make sure there’s something left behind.

‘Could quitting the band have had something to do with you?’ Seb wonders out loud. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence, timing wise, don’t you think? And no one knows about you, do they?’

I shake my head.

‘Definitely not. No one knew that Lola was pregnant. Her management put out a statement to say that she was in rehab. It’s in one of the articles speculating on where she went. Here.’

I pick up the article I’m talking about. It has a big picture of Lola in her tight orange dress down the side. ‘Here,’ I read aloud.

* * *

Lola Starr, lead singer of Beyond Baton Rouge and all-round megastar, has seemingly disappeared off the face of the planet. Lola, known for her amazing voice, didn’t make a scheduled appearance in Vegas, much to the disappointment of lots of Beyond Baton Rouge fans. We can’t help but wonder where she’s gone! Lola’s no stranger to stints in rehab – her management confirmed she was there just last year. Is that what’s happened here? Who knows? But if you’re reading this, Lola, come back! We love you.

* * *

‘The shit these people write… honestly. Maybe she’d just had enough of them,’ he says.

I laugh. ‘Maybe. Either way, I don’t know that me being born did have anything to do with Lola quitting. Because if she quit because of me, why didn’t she answer any of my letters, or try harder to get in touch?’

‘Well, this is all interesting, very interesting.’ Seb drums his fingers on his wine glass. ‘I mean, it’ll make a great memoirs. No doubt about that. But could you stand to write it, even if we got the gig?’

I have another drink, to buy myself some thinking time.

‘I don’t love the thought of the story getting out. What if she tells them that she had a baby that she just dumped? Everyone will know she didn’t want me then.’