The Boy Who Hit Play Read online

  For everyone I love

  without whom I’d be

  sunk, many, many times.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Pause

  Elvis

  Fast Forward

  Freeze

  A Name

  George Lucas

  Thinking Is All

  Skip

  OK?

  Unlocking

  Ready?

  Go

  Up

  Downer

  Hamsters in Wheels

  Plan 1: The Surprise

  Surprise!

  Plan 2: The Newspaper

  Going In

  Tomatoes

  Hard Things and Secrets

  Plan 3: Dad: the actual surprise

  Reasons

  Sorry

  A Key

  Stuck

  Think

  Hedgehog Lover

  Shadows

  The Tiger City

  Complicated

  About Lloyd Partington

  Roll Over

  Brain Scuttle

  Creepy Feeling

  Dots to the Left Mean You’re a Procrastinator

  Off

  Can’t Things Be Nice for Once?

  Who I’d Be Without You

  Happy?

  Troll

  Empty?

  Sorry

  Tick Tick Tick

  Unfairness

  Shadows

  Pod

  Head Hunter

  Moon Flashes

  Revenge and Fairness

  Run!

  Remington to the Rescue

  Connections

  Magic Magic Siri

  Hmmmn

  Boldness

  Help?

  Shadow Hands

  Do It!

  Brothers

  Flat

  Close

  Magic Hands

  Guessing and Surprises

  Cold and Empty

  Belonging

  Don’t Look Back

  Her

  Going Backwards

  Falling

  Waiting

  In

  Hurry

  The Truth and Not the Truth

  Forget It

  Reaching Out

  Home

  Voices

  You?

  Aghh

  It’s Time

  Away

  Happy?

  Sperm Whales Can Swallow Whole Boats

  Messed Up

  Say It

  Go

  Wipe Out

  Sucker Punch

  What Happened

  Sync

  Now

  Twins

  The Bit That Changes Everything

  A Face

  Home

  The Unknown

  How I See It

  Jessie Garon Presley

  What If …

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  Prologue

  What if it is the 25th of June 2005 and it’s sunny, and in Brymont on Sea, down Minton Street, opposite the Happy Shopper there is a zoo? And what if in that zoo there is a man in a large hat? What if the man looks at the screech owls, walks past the monkeys, slips a lost hedgehog into his pocket and is about to sit on a bench? But stops.

  Because there is a newspaper on this bench. A wriggly one.

  What if this man lifts up the paper and underneath is a baby and on the front of the wriggly baby’s vest is a message in big black letters that says:

  And what if the hedgehog-pocketing, owl-watching man picks the baby up and puts it in his hat and walks away quietly, ’cos that is his style, ’cos he has a Stetson which is nice and roomy and just the right size for a baby, ’cos he is a doing a country-and-western gig in aid of the hospice and he is excellent, ’cos he is George Arthur Lucas and that baby is me and this is how I begin.

  Pause

  Into a space that is blank and buzzy and alive with possibilities, with expectation, the kind of space where anything can happen

  the space to crawl

  to walk

  to talk

  to grow

  to live

  to become

  someone

  me

  Elvis

  Crampton

  Lucas.

  Hello.

  Hi.

  Yes you.

  Howdy.

  I am Elvis Crampton Lucas, soundsmith and YouTuber. Welcome to my world.

  Elvis

  Elvis Presley came from Tupelo, Mississippi.

  He was great at dancing and singing and looking cool.

  People thought he was the coolest.

  He sold six hundred million records.

  Won three Grammy awards.

  By forty-two, he was very ugly and rich and unhappy.

  And died on the toilet eating cheeseburgers.*

  I am not that Elvis.

  * kind of

  Fast Forward

  It is the 25th of June 2017. It is actually my discovery day but we call it my birthday because we don’t know when my birthday is, because of the bench and the zoo and the newspaper. But we sing happy birthday, ’cos happy discovery day doesn’t flow so well and I record this on my phone on top of the cupboard, ’cos sounds are better when they float.

  Right now I am standing in front of the candles on my triple-decker Oreo chunk cake, which is on the plate with hand-drawn eyeballs on, which is on the tablecloth with hand-drawn song lyrics on, in front of the sofa with Aunty Ima, Lulu, Lloyd and Next-Door-Duncan on, with Dad’s hand on my shoulder, the shoulder with my new home-knit birthday jumper from Aunty Ima on, when it happens.

  Aunty Ima, Dad, Duncan and Lloyd have finished singing happy birthday (but not Lulu as she is a cat and can only yowl) and are clapping and saying, ‘Make a wish, make a wish,’ and Next-Door-Duncan is saying, ‘Make a with,’ because of his braces, and Dad pulls something out of his pocket and says, ‘This is for you.’ He hands it over. It’s smooth and round. I click the top and look down into the swinging needle of a compass. ‘It was my dad’s and his dad’s and his,’ he says. ‘It’s a father-son thing.’

  ‘OK.’

  I think about the bench.

  I think about Dad’s dad and his dad and his.

  And a thought bubbles out of my body and into my brain before I can stop it. I try to keep it in. I do try. But it is too quick and the wish is on my tongue and out.

  ‘I wish I knew why?’ I say, and everything stops.

  Freeze

  Like music where the drumbeats go on beating but time stops ticking and you’re waiting for the rhythm to kick in, to beef itself back up, for everything to start. The drums drum and the bass is thumping and you’re waiting and I’m waiting and …

  I can’t believe I wished it but I have

  and I try and make a new wish up

  but it is no good, it’s just too

  late.

  Everyone has gone quiet. Lulu jumps off the sofa and goes into the kitchen. Lloyd puts his hands over his ears. Dad is staring out of the window. Aunty Ima serves out some cake slices. And even though the triple-decker Oreo-chunk cake is delicious, all I’m tasting is guilt and worry and a feeling of weirdness.

  A Name

  Twelve years ago, George Lucas took me home off the bench and put his hand to his vinyl collection. He picked out the first three albums his fingers came to and named me after them.

  Elvis Presley – by Elvis Presley

  The Cramps – A Date with Elvis

  Tonight – David Bowie

  Elvis

  Cramp


  Ton

  Lucas after George Arthur Lucas.

  Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be

  Thomas

  or

  Christopher

  or

  James.

  But I am not.

  Sometimes I wonder if names are like clothes that someone else has picked.

  Do you grow into them?

  Or do they never really fit?

  George Lucas

  George Lucas is my dad. Not that George Lucas, not the Star Wars/Indiana Jones one, not the one with the Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio, California. George Lucas in a three-storey terrace on Brymont on Sea, with a basement full of rescued hedgehogs and a large collection of fridge magnets. The baby-in-a-Stetson George Lucas, with a moustache like a goalpost and froth hair. George Lucas, musician and NHS call-centre worker on the side. Times are hard for musicians. I think maybe they’re always hard.

  I love George Lucas, even though he plays ‘Blue Moon’ on his trumpet in the evenings and shreds my mini Weetabix boxes and toilet-roll collection for the hedgehog bedding. He is the best George Lucas anyone could ever have. He has been my George Lucas for as long as I know. Forever.

  Right now, he’s sitting on my bed, on the Arsenal duvet. I don’t support Arsenal. Or like football. It’s a present from Aunty Ima. Sometimes her taste is a bit

  off.

  But I don’t say it.

  I’ve burst the balloons.

  Everyone’s gone home.

  It’s just us.

  We cut the silence with our night-time ‘guess that tune’ game.

  Dad pulls some castanets out of his jeans. He always wears jeans. He calls it his home uniform. It’s kind of his work one too. He diagnoses illnesses behind plastic call-centre screens, so technically, he says, he could be wearing boxers. No one would know.

  He clacks tunes out and I guess.

  ‘“Funky Town”.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘“I Want to Break Free” …’

  ‘Yes.’ Dad’s castanets stop mid clack.

  ‘Thanks for this, Dad,’ I say, and hold up the compass.

  ‘It was what your grandad would have wanted.’

  ‘I thought Grandad was a carpet fitter?’ I flip it open.

  ‘He was. His dad’s dad’s dad’s dad was a sailor.’

  ‘OK.’ I look at the dials. ‘Dad.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s time, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘For …

  It.

  Me.

  You.

  Us.

  The bench.

  The zoo.

  The question.

  Why?’

  I look up. ‘Who put me there? It’s time to find the answer.’

  ‘You know, Elvis –’ he shuffles up the bed on to the Gunners’ gun – ‘of all the things that can pop out of a hat …’ he says.

  ‘Rabbits?’ I say.

  ‘Mice?’

  ‘Doves?’

  ‘Budgies?’ he says and we both shrug. ‘I’m glad it was you.’

  ‘Of all the people who could have picked me up and put me in a hat …’ I put the castanets on Arsene Wenger’s eyes.

  ‘That’s probably not many,’ he says. ‘It’s hard to get a good Stetson these days.’

  ‘I’m glad it was you.’

  ‘Me too,’ he says and ruffles my hair.

  ‘Team on?’ I say and tap his knuckles.

  ‘Team on,’ he says and taps back.

  ‘With Lloyd Partington!’ And Lloyd, Dad’s best-friend-apple-buff-and-window-cleaner Partington, climbs in through the window with two Braeburns bulging in the pockets of his holey tracksuit bottoms and and attacks Dad with a blown-up paper bag for an added element of surprise.

  BANG.

  Dad bursts the bag.

  It lies on the floor.

  And we salute one another because this is how things are done and this is how it all begins.

  Thinking Is All

  Dad goes downstairs and Lloyd goes back out the window.

  I switch on my detective brain.

  Detective work is really a matter of making a list and crossing everything off it till you’re left with the answer. But first, to get to the list you must ask lots of questions and this requires thinking.

  Thinking is the difference between darkness and discovery.

  Thinking

  is

  all.

  Sherlock Holmes smokes a pipe. Scooby and Shaggy eat Scooby Snacks while Thelma works it out. I make music. It’s the way my brain is wired. Before I could talk, I sang. Music moves through me, comes alive in my blood. I am a collector of sounds, my iPhone recorder by my side. Sounds soothe my soul – when I listen I’m somewhere else. Tuned out.

  I scratch out a samba with a biro and think.

  Rewind.

  To the zoo.

  To me. On a bench.

  Just a wriggly baby. Not going wah wah wah, but sleeping and possibly weeing itself ’cos that’s what babies do, right?

  If you have a problem with zoos and think it’s very cruel, you don’t need to worry ’cos it isn’t that sort of a zoo. But if you like, you could imagine a safari park or a nature reserve. But that’s not where it was. It was a zoo. And if you have a problem with newspapers you can imagine a box of tissues or a magazine or a tea towel. But it wasn’t in a safari park with a tea towel. It was at a zoo with a newspaper.

  List 1: What kind of people go to zoos?

  List 2: What kind of people have babies?

  List 3: What kind of people read newspapers?

  What kind of people leave babies?

  What kind of person left me?

  Why?

  KNOCK, KNOCK.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Cocoa calling.’

  It’s Aunty Ima.

  Aunty Ima moved in last year to help out with the rent. Food and knitting are her best things. She sells her stuff on Etsy in a shop called Once a Knitter Never a Quitter. I wonder how many pineapple tea cosies it took to buy my phone last year.

  She pours hot chocolate from a pan into the red reindeer mug. It is thick and dark and delicious. We sit together not saying anything and I click my phone and record:

  silence thoughtful

  (a hissy fuzzy, rain-on-the-window,

  fly-in-the-lampshade sound).

  ‘The past is a strange place,’ she says, ‘but sometimes it’s a place you need to visit.’

  Skip

  This is where it started.

  The train, the plane, the gun, the boat and the rest of my life.

  If life was like iPods, I could’ve fast-forwarded to see it.

  But it isn’t.

  And I couldn’t.

  Would I change it?

  No.

  I wouldn’t change a single minute.

  This is that story.

  This is how I’m here.

  On this jetty.

  Face to face with the future.

  See you in sixteen days.

  OK?

  Remember the newspaper.

  The title on it says:

  It isn’t from round here.

  It’s from the land of snow and ice and mountains like forever.

  I go downstairs in my pyjamas. Dad is feeding the hedgehogs in the basement. The walls are lined with wooden walkways and leaf piles and earth and hedgehog houses that look like wicker igloos.

  ‘Hey, Dad.’

  ‘Hey.’ He looks up. ‘Nice pyjamas.’

  ‘Cheers.’ They’re Christmas-tree ones. From Aunty Ima. He holds out the bag of Spikes Semi-moist nibbles and we put handfuls of it into the little metal trays. A hedgehog unrolls and waddles over and starts crunching.

  I hold the paper up. ‘We have to go here.’

  ‘I wish we could, son.’ Dad whistles. ‘But …’

  ‘What?’ I pick up a hedgehog. It snuggles into my elbow.

  ‘It’s the most expensive place on earth.’

 
‘I could sell my Lego.’ My hedgehog rubs its nose up my sleeve.

  Lloyd climbs in through the basement window. Our windows are like cat flaps for Lloyd. He comes when he wants. It’s always been like that. Dad says Lloyd just turned up in his life like a hedgehog.

  Lloyd dusts off his knees. ‘I’m paying,’ he says.

  ‘How?’ Dad clips the nibbles shut.

  ‘I’ll find a way.’ Lloyd bows his head. ‘It’s the least I can do.’

  ‘Nice!’ I high-five Lloyd. We’ve never been on holiday. We’ve never been anywhere. Call-centre wages are tricky and not very stretchy. The hedgehog grips.

  ‘George.’ Lloyd takes a deep breath. ‘Can we discuss matters?’ He looks at me. ‘In private.’

  I go outside and listen by the door.

  Dad opens it. ‘See you up in a minute,’ he says.

  I go upstairs.

  Dad and Lloyd discuss matters for ages and Dad comes up looking weird.

  ‘Elvis.’ His voice is squeaky. ‘Have you had a happy life?’

  I think back over everything. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It’s been the best.’

  ‘Good.’ He nods and looks like he’s going to be sick or cry or hit someone. ‘We’re going,’ he says. ‘We’re definitely definitely going.’ And hugs me and shuts the door.

  Weird.

  Unlocking

  We make plans.

  1 – My plan is the Aftenposten.

  2 – Lloyd’s plan is money.

  3 – Dad’s plan is suitcases and passports and Jet2.

  When Dad clicks on ‘BUY NOW’, I think about the money floating through the air out of the account and get this wobbly deep-down feeling.

  When I was a kid I used to think my parents were spies on a mission, at risk of death. Now I just don’t know. I have no photos or memories or anything.

  I have bits of me that might be like them.

  But I don’t know.

  I have no way of knowing.

  When I think about them it’s like music I can’t quite hear. Like I’m walking past a door and there’s sound coming out but it’s shut. And they’re on the other side.

  I wanna open it.