Radio Silence

MADE IT

The bouncer at the door didn’t question the driver’s licence I presented to him, which belonged to Raine’s older sister Rita, despite the fact that Rita is Indian and has cropped, straight hair. I wasn’t sure how anyone could mistake an Indian girl for a British-Ethiopian girl, but there it is.

Johnny’s entry was free as it was before 11pm, which was good news for me, because I hate spending money on things I don’t actually want to do.

I followed my friends inside.

It was exactly what I expected.

Drunk people. Flashing lights. Loud music. Clichés.

“Mate, you coming for more drinks?” Raine shouted at me from fifteen centimetres away.

I shook my head. “Feeling a bit sick.”

Maya heard me and laughed. “Aw, Frances! Bless your heart. Come on, just one more little shot!”

“I think I’m gonna go to the loo, actually.”

But Maya had already started talking to someone else.

“D’you want me to come with you?” asked Raine.

I shook my head. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Raine grabbed my arm and pointed at somewhere indiscernible on the other side of the room. “The loo’s over there! Come meet us at the bar, yeah?”

I nodded.

I had absolutely no intention of going to the loo.

Raine waved at me and wandered away.

I was going to find Aled Last.

As soon as I was sure that my friends were sufficiently distracted by the bar, I headed upstairs. They were playing indie rock on this floor, and it was a lot quieter too, which I was glad of, because the dubstep was starting to make me feel a bit panicked, like it was the theme music for an action film and I had ten seconds to save myself from an explosion.

And then Aled Last was literally right next to me.

I hadn’t planned to go and find him before he’d quoted Universe City. But that— that couldn’t have been a coincidence, could it? He’d quoted it exactly. Word for word. With the exact enunciation, the hiss of the ‘s’ in ‘somebody’ and the slight gap between ‘list’ and ‘ening’ and the smile after the second full stop …

Did he listen to it too?

I’d never met anyone else who’d even heard of it.

It was quite amazing that Aled hadn’t been chucked out of the club, because he’d passed out. Or he was asleep. He was sat on the floor anyway, leaning against the wall in a way that made it obvious that someone had put him there. Probably Daniel. Which was surprising, since Daniel was usually kind of protective of Aled. Or so I’d heard. Maybe it was the other way round.

I crouched down in front of him. The wall he was leaning against was all wet from the condensation in the room. I shook him by the arm and shouted over the music:

“Aled?”

I shook him again. He looked nice asleep, the club lights flashing red and orange over his face. He looked like a child.

“Don’t be dead. That would really ruin my day.”

He jerked awake, flying forwards off the wall and headbutting me square in the forehead.

It hurt so much that I couldn’t even say anything except a soft “Motherfuck,” a single tear emerging from the corner of my left eye.

While I was curling myself into a ball to try to minimise the pain, Aled shouted:

“Frances Janvier!”

And he pronounced my surname correctly.

He continued, “Did I just hit you in the face?”

“Hit is an understatement,” I shouted back, uncurling myself.

I thought he would laugh, but his eyes were all wide and he was quite clearly still drunk, and he just said, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” And then, because he was drunk, he just brought his hand up to my forehead and gave it a little pat, like he was trying to magic the pain away.

“I’m so sorry,” he said again, his expression genuinely concerned. “Are you crying? Oh, wow, I sound like Wendy from Peter Pan.” His eyes unfocused momentarily before looking at me again. “Girl, why are you crying?”

“I’m not …” I said. “Well, on the inside, maybe.”

That’s when he started to laugh. There was something about it that made me want to laugh as well, so that’s what I did. He rolled his head back against the wall and brought his hand up to cover his mouth while he laughed. He was so drunk and my head was pulsating and the place was disgusting, but just for a few seconds everything was absolutely hilarious.

Once he’d finished, he grabbed my denim jacket and used my shoulder to push himself off the ground. He instantly slapped a hand against the wall to stop himself falling over. I stood up too, not quite sure what I was supposed to do now. I didn’t even know Aled got like this. Then again, it’s not like I knew much about him anyway. It’s not like I had a reason to care.

“Have you seen Dan?” he asked me, his hand flopping back on to my shoulder and leaning in, squinting.

“Who’s— oh, Daniel.” Everybody I knew called him Daniel. “No, sorry.”

“Oh …” He looked down at his shoes, and he seemed very much like a child again, his longish hair more appropriate for a fourteen-year-old, his jeans and his jumper just looking kind of odd on him. He just looked so … I didn’t know what it was.

And I wanted to ask him about Universe City.

“Let’s go outside for a sec,” I said, but I don’t think Aled heard me. I put my arm round his shoulder and started pulling him through the crowds, through the low bass and the sweat, through the people and towards the stairs.

“Aled!”

I halted in my tracks, Aled resting most of his weight against me, and turned to face the voice. Daniel was barging through the dancers to get to us, a full cup of water in one hand.

“Oh,” he said, looking at me like I was a pile of dirty plates. “I didn’t know you were out tonight.”

What was his damage? “You literally called me on the phone, Daniel.”

“I called you because Aled said he wanted to talk to you.”

“Aled said you were trying to prank call me.”

“Why would I do that? I’m not twelve.”

“Well, why would Aled want to talk to me? I don’t even know him.”

“Why the hell would I know?”

“Because you’re his best friend and you’ve been hanging out with him tonight?”

Daniel didn’t say anything to that.

“Or I guess you haven’t,” I continued. “Yes, I was just rescuing Aled from the floor.”

“What?”

I laughed a little. “Did you just leave your best friend passed out on the floor in a club, Daniel?”

“No!” He held up the cup of water. “I was getting him water. I’m not a complete dick.”

This was news to me, but it felt a step too far to tell him that.

Instead, I turned to Aled, who was swaying slightly against me. “Why did you call me?”

He frowned at me, and then bopped me gently on the nose with one finger and said, “I like you.”

I started to laugh, thinking he was joking, but Aled didn’t join in. He let go of me and slung his other arm round Daniel, who staggered backwards a little in surprise, bringing up his other hand to steady the water.

“Isn’t it weird,” said Aled, his face literally millimetres from Daniel’s, “that I was the taller one for, like, sixteen years, but now you’re suddenly taller?”

“Yeah, that’s so weird,” replied Daniel, with the closest thing to a smile I’d seen from him in several months. Aled rested his head on Daniel’s shoulder and closed his eyes, and Daniel patted Aled gently on the chest. He murmured something to Aled I couldn’t quite hear, and then handed him the water. Aled took it without saying anything and started drinking.

I glanced between the pair, and then Daniel seemed to remember I was there.

“Are you going home now?” he said. “Can you take him home?”

I put my hands in my pockets. I didn’t really want to be here anyway. “Yeah, sure.”

“I didn’t just leave him on the floor,” he said. “I was getting him water.”

“You already said that.”

“Yeah, I just didn’t think you believed me.”

I just shrugged.

Daniel moved Aled over to me, where he immediately clung round my shoulders again and spilt a bit of water on my sleeve.

“Shouldn’t really have brought him here anyway,” said Daniel, but he was saying it to himself, I think, and I could honestly see a bit of regret or something in his eyes as he gazed at Aled, who was on the verge of falling asleep in my arms, the club lights flashing on his skin.

“What …” Aled mumbled as we stepped into the street. “Where’s Dan?”

“He said I had to take you home,” I said. I wondered how exactly I was going to explain this to my friends. I made a mental note to text Raine once we got to the train station.

“Okay.”

I glanced at him, because he’d suddenly sounded so much like the shy Aled I’d spoken to on parents evening – the Aled with the whispery voice and the shifty eyes.

“You get my train,” he continued, as we started walking down the empty high street.

“Yep,” I said.

“You and Carys sit— sat together.”

My heart did a little jump at Carys’s name.

“Yes,” I said.

“She liked you,” said Aled, “more than … erm …”

He seemed to lose his train of thought. I didn’t want to talk about Carys so I didn’t press him.

“Aled, do you listen to Universe City?” I said.

He stopped walking instantly, and my arm fell from his shoulder.

“What?” he said, the streetlamps bronzing him and the Johnny R’s neon sign flashing softly behind him.

I blinked. Why did I ask that?

“Universe City?” he said, his eyes droopy and his voice loud like we were still inside the club. “Why?”

I looked away. Obviously he didn’t then. At least he wouldn’t remember this conversation. “Doesn’t matter.”

“No,” he said, stumbling off the kerb and almost falling on to me again. His eyes were wide. “Why did you ask me that?”

I stared. “Er …”

He waited.

“You just … I thought I heard you quote it. I might have been wrong …”

“You listen to Universe City?”

“Er, yeah,” I said.

“That’s so … unlikely. I haven’t even got 50,000 subscribers yet.”

Wait.

“What?”

Aled stepped forward. “How did you know? Dan said no one would work it out.”

“What?” I said, this time with more force. “Work what out?”

Aled said nothing; he just started to grin.

“Do you listen to Universe City?” I said, though by this point I’d forgotten why I was asking, whether it was because the idea that someone else loved it as much as I did made me feel less completely weird, or whether I just wanted Aled to say what he was seemingly refusing to say.

“I am Universe City,” he said. And I stood there.

“What?” I said.

“I’m Radio,” he said. “I’m Radio Silence. I make Universe City.”

And I just stood there.

And we said nothing.

A gust of wind whipped round us. A group of girls laughed from a nearby pub. A car alarm was going off.

Aled looked away, as if there were someone standing next to us that he could see but I couldn’t.

Then he looked back, put a hand on my shoulder, leaned in, and asked, quite genuinely, “Are you all right?”

“It’s … er …” But I didn’t quite know how to say that I’d been obsessed for two years with a podcast show on YouTube about the adventures of an agender science fiction university student who always wears gloves and uses special powers and detective skills to solve mysteries around a city, the name of which is the stupidest pun I’d ever heard in my life, and I had thirty-seven sketchbooks in my room with drawings that I’d done of this specific show, and I’d never met anyone else in real life who’d even heard of it, and I’d never told any of my friends, and just now, outside Johnny R’s on the last school day before study leave, I’d found out that a person whose twin sister had been my temporary best friend and who’d lived opposite me my entire life, a person who never said anything when he was sober, was the person who had made it.

This tiny blond seventeen-year-old who never said anything, standing on a high street.

“I’ll listen,” said Aled, with a blurry smile. He was so drunk – did he know what he was talking about?

“It’d take hours to explain,” I said.

“I’d listen to you for hours,” he said.

1. SUMMER TERM (b)

ALED LAST IN MY BED

I don’t like other people inside my room because I’m terrified they’re going to uncover one of my secrets, like my fan art habits or my Internet history or the fact that I one hundred per cent still sleep with a teddy bear.

I particularly do not like other people in my bed, not since I was twelve and I had that nightmare about a Tamagotchi that spoke in a really deep voice while a friend was sleeping over. I punched her in the face and she got a nosebleed and cried. An accurate metaphor for most of my past friendships.

Despite this, that night, I ended up with Aled Last in my bed.

Haha.

No. Not like that.

When Aled and I got off the train – or in Aled’s case, fell off the train – and walked down the stone steps that joined the station to our countryside village, Aled announced that Daniel Jun had his keys, because Daniel was wearing his jacket, which had his keys inside them, and he couldn’t wake his mum up because she would “literally chop his head off”. The way he said it was pretty convincing, and his mum’s one of the Academy’s parent governors, so for a few seconds I actually believed him. I’ve always found Aled’s mum intimidating, like with one word she could probably shatter my self-esteem and feed it to her dog. Not that that’s very hard.

Anyway, yeah. So I was like, “What, d’you wanna sleep at mine or something?” obviously joking, but then he leaned all his weight on my shoulder and was like, “Well …” and I let out this laugh like I’d seen this coming from the moment Aled had crouched down in the middle of the road.

So I just said, “Fine. Fine.” He’d fall asleep straight away anyway, and I wasn’t one of those weird forty-year-olds who thought that boys and girls couldn’t platonically share a bed.

Aled came into my house and fell on to my bed without saying anything and when I came back from the bathroom where I’d changed into pyjamas, he was asleep, facing away from me, his chest moving slowly up and down. I turned off the light.

I wished I was a bit more drunk too, because it took me a good two hours to fall asleep, like it always does, and for the whole two hours, when I wasn’t playing games on my phone or scrolling through Tumblr, I had to stare at the back of his head in the soft blue light of my bedroom. The last time somebody had slept in my big double bed with me was Carys, when I was fifteen, a few nights before she ran away, and if I squinted a little, I could almost pretend that it was her, with the same blonde hair and elf ears. But when I opened my eyes again, it was quite clearly Aled, and not Carys, who was in my bed. For some reason I found that kind of reassuring. I don’t know.

Aled needed to cut his hair, and his jumper, I suddenly realised, belonged to Daniel.

I KNOW, RIGHT

I woke up first, at eleven-ish. Aled didn’t seem to have moved for the entire night, so I checked quickly to see whether he’d died (he hadn’t) before getting out of bed. I briefly went over last night’s decisions. They all seemed to match up to my expectations of myself – pushover, will put self in awkward positions to guarantee the safety of people I barely know, will ask awkward questions and deeply regret them later … Aled Last being in my bed really was a classic Frances thing to happen. What exactly was I going to say to him when he woke up?

Hey there, Aled. You’re in my bed. You probably don’t remember why. I promise I didn’t bring you here by force. By the way, you know that weird podcast thing you make for YouTube? Yeah, basically I’ve been obsessed with it for years.

I immediately went downstairs. Better break the news to my mum before she found him and assumed that her daughter had gained a small, blond, apologetic boyfriend without telling her about it first.

Mum was in the lounge in her unicorn onesie watching Game of Thrones. She looked up as I entered the room and slumped down next to her on the sofa.

“Hello there,” she said. She had a packet of dry Shreddies in one hand. She popped one into her mouth. “You look a bit sleepy.”

“Well,” I said, but wasn’t quite sure where to go from there.

“Did you have fun at the disco?” she asked, but she was grinning. Mum pretended to be clueless about anything twenty-first-century teenagers did. Along with being sarcastic to teachers, this was another thing she enjoyed. “Did you get down? Did you turn up?”

“Oh, yeah, we were jiving and everything,” I said, and did a little rendition of a jive.

“Good, good. That’ll get you laid.”

I laughed loudly, mostly at the idea of me ever ‘getting laid’ in any situation ever, but then with exaggerated slowness she pressed pause on the TV remote, cast aside the pack of Shreddies and stared into my eyes, linking her fingers together on her lap as a head teacher might do over their desk.

“Speaking of which,” she continued, “I was just wondering who exactly the lovely young chap sleeping in your bed is.”

Oh. Okay.

“Yeah,” I said with a laugh. “Yes. That lovely young chap.”

“I came into your room to get some washing and there he was.” Mum spread out her hands as if reliving the scene. “At first I thought he was some sort of giant teddy bear. Or one of those Japanese cartoon pillows that you were showing me on the Internet.”

“Yeah … no. He’s real. A real boy.”

“He was wearing clothes so I’m assuming there wasn’t any hanky-panky.”

“Mum, even when you use the phrase ‘hanky-panky’ ironically, it still makes me want to plug my ears with superglue.”

Mum didn’t say anything for a moment, and neither did I, and then we both heard a loud crash come from upstairs.

“It’s Aled Last,” I said. “Carys’s twin brother?”

“Your friend’s brother?” Mum cackled. “Oh, wow, we’re turning into a bit of a romantic comedy here, aren’t we?”

It was funny, but I didn’t laugh, and Mum’s expression turned serious.

“What’s going on, Frances? I thought you were going to stay out later with your friends. God knows you deserve some kind of end-of-term celebration before you get stuck into your exam revision.”

She looked at me sympathetically. Mum had always thought I cared too much about schoolwork. Mum was generally the opposite of what you’d expect any normal parent to be, but somehow she managed to be amazing anyway.

“Aled was drunk so I had to take him home. He forgot his keys and his mum’s a bit of a dickhead, apparently.”

“Oh, yes, Carol Last.” Mum pursed her lips. She gazed off, reliving a memory. “She always tries to talk to me at the post office.”

Another thump sounded from my room. Mum frowned and looked up. “You haven’t seriously wounded him, have you?”

“I think I’d better go check on him.”

“Yes, go and check on your man. He’s probably clambering out the window.”

“Come on now, Mother, my romantic partners wouldn’t ever want to clamber out of the window.”

She smiled that warm smile of hers that always made me think she knew something I didn’t. I stood up to leave.

“Don’t let him escape!” said Mum. “This could be your only chance at securing a spouse!”

Then I remembered the other thing that Mum should probably know about.

“Oh, by the way,” I said, turning in the doorway, “you know Universe City?”

Mum’s laugh dropped into an expression of confusion. “Er, yes?”

“Yeah, so, Aled made it.”

I realised then that Aled probably wasn’t going to remember having told me that he was the creator of Universe City. Great. Another awkward situation I was going to have to deal with.

“What?” said Mum. “What d’you mean?”

“He sent me that Twitter message. He’s the creator of Universe City. I found out yesterday.”

Mum just stared.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know, right.”