Trust - Page 107

Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I shot him a text. Just a heart. He’d know what I meant.

The Epilogue

GRAHAM

The last day of the trial felt like the longest day of my life. Well, the whole trial had taken almost three years. Three bloody years I’d never get back.

Had it been worth it? Sometimes I wondered. Because any outcome would always have been bittersweet.

We lost Cam on a bleak winter’s day as he finally gave up his fight. Turns out no lawsuit in the world could save you when your lungs just simply wouldn’t play ball. The five of us carrying his coffin down the aisle of a cold, empty church, the press outside waiting like hungry hyenas as we stood around staring at a photograph in a frame. A photo of a man that looked nothing like the boy I’d once known. The guy the world would remember as Cork from Blitz, when he’d been nothing but Cam all along. A man called Cam.

Me? I stood there and tried to make sense of the last decade.

I didn’t want to cry, but I had. Held his mother’s hand as she said her goodbyes.

Life was cruel. Cold. Bleak. I still didn’t understand it.

I tried to remember the good times, because there had been so many good times. Highs that now blended into lows. Times when I had laughed more than I’d ever laughed.

Pride.

There had been a lot of that too. Things we’d done. The small things. And of course, the big ones.

You win some. You lose some. But we’d seemingly won them all. Until we hadn’t. Things weren’t supposed to end like this.

Cork, What the fuck, Cork? Those were the only words I could think as I placed my palm on the hard wood of his coffin, wondering if he’d ever known how cool I’d always thought he was. Had he been happy at the end? Or had he felt sad? Had he felt the same anger I did? Because this wasn’t fair. He said he’d made his peace. How many people had lived the life we all had? It didn’t matter now. He’d lived. Hard and fast. At full speed, always.

No lawsuit could change that. No more platinum-selling albums. No money in the world.

A year later, we were back in another cold room. A packed courtroom, wearing the same fancy suits. My hair was tied back in a tidy ponytail as a judge read out the verdict. The people in the dock were just people. People whose lives had been ripped apart just as ours had been.

I had no more anger. No more tears. Barely any feelings standing there between Josh and Lee. A more grown-up Lee with a beard growing on his chin. We’d never been allowed facial hair, not when we were still a band. We were a different kind of band now. Musa, Josh, Bash, Lee and me.

And still, life rolled on.

Ups and downs. Highs and lows. Learning how to separate The Dieter from who I really was. He didn’t really exist, but I did. We all did.

Had I grown up? I smiled, standing there. I doubted it. In a way, perhaps yes. Life did that to you.

I’d said it, and Reuben had agreed. If we’d learnt anything in our stupid lives, it was that whatever happened today, it wouldn’t change a thing. We’d still go back home. Make dinner. Fall into bed. And in the morning, we’d make a cup of tea and simply move on.

It helped thinking like that. Keeping things small and simple. Not worrying too much.

Which was easier said than done when you were me.

Perhaps standing here smiling wasn’t quite the done thing, but when I looked over at Musa, he was smiling too. He turned to me and mouthed the words I knew he would say.

For Cam.

For Cam, I mouthed back. Because who else would it be for? Would a massive win here change my life? No. Not really. Would it bring grief? I doubted any win or even payout would help Cam’s mum feel any better about anything. It wouldn’t help me feel any better either. It might just bring more fear, more anguish, more things I honestly couldn’t be bothered to understand.

I was just me. A man. A husband. A father. A son. Someone who did a bit of acting, nothing that had won me any life-changing awards, but I had worked pretty steadily. I also wrote songs, and the five of us had somehow found a way back to where we could cooperate. Working together, doing what we did best. Creating greatness. My lyrics were still stupid. Josh’s beats were still weird. Lee’s songs were still too dark. So was his sense of humour, but we’d made our peace. Had it out. I’d let him hurl abuse at me and I’d taken it like a man. Stood there until we were both just laughing. Now we wrote and produced new artists, put songs out for tender. Josh and I flew out to the States a few times a year, wrote songs for some big names. Mostly wrote songs for small ones. Catchy little backwards tunes that made me happy.

I still couldn’t play an instrument, but Lee wrote the best bridges. Musa had written a musical. He still insisted on playing his creations to me, over and over, asking for my advice and opinion. Churning over small words that would never make a difference. Small things that would never be important.

I still cringed hearing our old songs on the radio. Simple tunes with lyrics I would never understand, and I’d written them. God knows what I’d been thinking back then. They still made me smile.

But nothing made me smile more than glancing back to the galleries, where Reuben was stood, wearing the suit that I loved him in. The one that showed off his shoulders. The shade of grey that just brought out his eyes. My Reuben.