Page 9 of The Next Chapter

‘Maybe. I think so. We might not even get the contract, might we?’

Seb has another drink. Shakes his head. I think he’s quite stressed. A couple of strands of gelled dark hair have fallen forward on his forehead.

‘I already thought of that. The world and his wife will be pitching for this. If it’s really her.’

We fall silent after that. I’m trying to picture how I’ll feel, seeing Lola’s memoirs on a shelf somewhere in a couple of years’ time. Reading in black and white how she gave me up. Or maybe she’ll leave it out. Maybe she doesn’t even think of me as part of her story.

‘There’s one thing we know that the other companies don’t, though,’ I say, my voice louder than I expect it to be.

‘What’s that, then?’ Seb asks.

‘We can find out where Lola is.’

Seb laughs. ‘What, so we can go pitch to her in person?’

‘Exactly.’ I smile. Possibly, I look demented.

‘I’ll go get my Lola folder and we can start from there.’ I jump up from the couch and jog up the stairs faster than you could say, ‘terrible idea’.

In contrast to the rest of the house, my bedroom is a haven of calm and order. The walls are white, and I’ve embraced the concept of minimalism with open arms. Every item has a place, which is why it takes me next to no time to locate the little manilla folder I have tucked away in my wardrobe.

It’s impossible not to think about how weird this all is.

That I’m here, a year after Dad died, about to read his last message to me. Maybe that’s why I’ve been putting it off. I’ve been delaying the ending. Lola and her bloody memoirs have forced my hand.

I slide out the folder and carry it carefully to the front room, feeling like a parent about to show off their newborn to a crowd. Except instead of a group of doting relatives, I have Seb and Elton.

‘Here it is.’ I inject some cheer into my voice for Seb, who is partway through taking a big drink of the wine, resting back against Dad’s couch.

I sit at the other end of the couch from Seb and slide the folder onto the rusty, antique trunk that Dad used for a coffee table.

Seb leans forward. If he notices that my hands are shaking, he doesn’t let on.

I slip open the folder and the letter’s right there, resting on top of my adoption papers and my birth certificate. Plus, there’s a bunch of magazine clippings, because that’s what happens when you’re a megastar who suddenly disappears from the face of the planet.

Which is exactly what happened to Lola Starr.

When I was younger, I was obsessed with Lola, with every article ever written about her. The ones from when she was in the band. By all accounts she was your archetypal mega rock star. Drink. Drugs. So many drugs. Glamour. YouTube clips of them playing in Madison Square Gardens to thousands of people, pictures of her stumbling drunk out of some LA club, in an orange dress so short you can see her black knickers underneath, the (uninventive in my humble opinion) headline, ‘Is Lola Losing it?’

And then there are the ones from after she disappeared. All speculating about what might have happened to her.

I mean, could it be true that Lola became a leading scientologist? Or maybe she really did open an Ashtanga yoga retreat in the Himalayas. LA people are different to the rest of us, aren’t they? In LA, it’s perfectly normal to go from lead singer in a hugely successful band to Mongolian goat herder. No one questions these things out there.

I know all of the theories. I’d collected anything and everything that was written about her, gathering it all and storing it away in my manilla folder like a magpie with a sad little pile of treasure.

What hurts the most is that as a child I’d written to her every year on my birthday. Mum and Dad had encouraged it. I’d tell her stupid stuff about what I’d been up to that year and Mum and Dad had passed the letters on to the adoption agency to forward to Lola.

She’d never written back.

My curiosity had waned over the years. From journalists too. I guess they assumed that Lola really did not want to be found. I just figured that Lola wanted nothing to do with me. And then Mum went and died so I didn’t want Lola anyway. I wanted my mum back.

It’s not about the clippings or any of that stuff now, though. Now, my hands are moving towards Dad’s letter, the white envelope with ‘Lily’ scrawled across the front.

I pick it up and rest it on my lap.

Look at it.

‘No time like the present,’ I say to Seb. He’s been watching me this whole time. Waiting while I do a slow mo (and very dramatic) removal of the letter.