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The Complete Fic Directory
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- Fine Time To Lose Your Mind - Jack McManus
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- Flat Tyres And Palm Prints [Birth]
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- Midnight Sun
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- Months Go By [Months]
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- Muddied Stars [Brown]
- Not Enough
- Of Peacocks
- On The Subject Of Angels [Orange]
- Playing House [Parents]
- The Price Of Friendship
- The Prize
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- Stage Fright
- Stay (Oh Darlin')
- Study In Motion
- Summertime Feeling - S Club 7
- Sunrise
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- Teammates
- That Night In Amsterdam/Do You Love Me? [Part Two]
- This
- Three Sets Of Three
- Twenty-Nine (And A Half)
- Under A Colourless Sky [Colourless]
- We Found Something That Belongs To You [Outsides]
- We Were Strangers Once [Strangers]
- Weeks
- What Did You Say This Time?
- What Will The Papers Say? [Purple]
- White Out [White]
- The Wordsmith/Breathe In
- Years
- Yellow
- Yesterday's Promise
- 3-0 Defeats
- Barlow's Music Shop Series
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- OT3, OT4 & OT5
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Not Enough
It was one of those late-summer evenings, when the air was dense and cool and the sky was tinged with streaks of smoky pink. Something about it seemed to make the city move in slow motion; everything felt heavy, and the usually frantic pace of London seemed, for a little while at least, to be dulled. As Howard leant against the railing, he lifted a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the dwindling sunlight, taking a moment to breathe in the unusually crisp air. In the distance a siren hollered, but as the sound died away he was surprised by how peaceful everything seemed; it made him tense.
Behind him he heard the creak of door being opened and shut and the shuffling of feet. He simply glanced down into his mug, tipping it slightly and watching as the dregs of his coffee dribbled slowly to the other side. Then he felt something lean beside him on the railing.
‘I thought I might find you up here.’ Howard smiled a tired, lazy smile, closing his eyes for a moment and dropping his head.
‘Because there’s just so many other places I could’ve been hiding?’ he shot back dryly.
‘Because you had that “leave me alone” look on your face all afternoon and we’ve all known each other too long to bother taking hints anymore.’ Howard opened his eyes and looked over, letting out a sigh that was almost a laugh as he was met with the unapologetically kind face of Mark Owen; there was a light in Mark’s eyes that couldn’t just be put down to the dwindling sunlight, something twinkling and knowing which lingered there and forced another small smile out of Howard.
‘You know as well as I do: if I start talking about it, I won’t be able to stop. And when I don’t stop, I get emotional. And when I get emotional, I’m a complete idiot. So seriously, don’t worry about me. Go back to lecturing Gaz on the finer points of wearing hats onstage or whatever it was your pair were getting into it over when I left.’ Mark smiled, letting out a small, rough laugh and shaking his head. He glanced out at the city, leaning a little more of his weight on the railing in order to raise onto his tiptoes and peer down at the street below.
‘You know me though, Howard,’ he mused idly, tucking a strand of hair back behind his ear before executing a neat turn on his heel. There was a gravelly scratch as the sole of his shoe scraped the tatty ground below and a slight squeak as he leant his back against the railing. He glanced back up at Howard, still smiling. ‘I’ve never know when to say “enough” really,’ he added with a shrug. Howard narrowed his eyes at him, also turning his back to the city as he pointed an accusing finger in Mark’s direction.
‘That’s not funny – and it doesn’t change my mind.’ Mark’s smile twisted up a little more in one corner and he looked down at the ground, scuffing it lightly with his shoe.
For a moment the two men fell into silence. The best thing, Howard often thought, about being with the band was that silences could never be awkward; they’d been through too many highs and fights and too-late nights to be uncomfortable in each other’s presence, and they all knew each other too well to be scared of a little wordless space. In the streets below, buses screeched and motorbikes growled and fragments of conversation danced in the thick city air, wafting up to them every now and again.
‘I miss him too, you know,’ Mark murmured, the words almost lost amidst the London rumble around them. Howard tensed slightly, looking back over his shoulder and taking a sudden, intense interest in the path of an elderly man in a fluorescent jacket as he excited a building, awkwardly manoeuvring his bicycle down the steps with him. Slowly Howard blew out a breath he hadn’t noticed himself holding.
‘I dunno, Mark – one minute I’ll be sitting there and I keep thinking: this is the best life in the world and I’m so lucky and so happy to be here. And then someone will say something or I’ll notice something or…or even, I’ll just look to my left to make some stupid comment and suddenly I can’t work out what we’re even doing here, carrying on like he was never here to begin with.’
‘We all have those moments, you know? We’ve grown up together, us four – even more than with Rob, in a way. Jay’s been there for everything. It’s weird experiencing anything without him, because it’s not something we’ve ever had to do before.’
‘Like starting all over again,’ Howard mumbled, looking down.
‘I don’t know if it’s that scary. But I know we all feel the same,’ Mark reminded him gently, and Howard’s lips twitched up ever-so-slightly in an almost-smile.
‘Sometimes it feels like Gaz doesn’t.’ He drummed his fingers on his mug and looked off into the middle-distance. There was an edginess about him that Mark recognised a guilt; Howard hated bad-mouthing anyone, especially Gary, and even the mildest of criticisms made him edgy. ‘You know, he’ll say stuff, like “This is the best thing we’ve ever done” or “I can’t remember giving a better show”…we’ll be talking in an interview about Jay and he’ll cut in with some joke or offhand comment that changes the subject and it just feels…wrong. Like he’s trying to brush it aside that we’ve gone from being the four of us to being just us three.’
‘We’re a good three though,’ Mark put in lightly and Howard chuckled, meeting his gaze for a moment.
‘No arguments from me on that score,’ he assured him softly, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. ‘You’re my best mates and my brothers and you know that’s something that’s never going to change.’ He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking back down at the ground for a long moment. ‘But Jay is family too. And I don’t want that to change. But sometimes…I feel like it’s going to. Especially when it feels like Gaz is just acting like he was never even here.’
‘Go easy on him. You know what he’s like: when things are rough he feels like he has to keep it together. He’s always been the same. He needs a project all the time so that when bad stuff happens he can bury himself in it and just-’
‘Plough on through,’ Howard finished over the top of Mark and the two of them exchanged a glance, chuckling softly and shaking their heads. Howard nodded slowly and looked away. ‘I know,’ he said after a beat. ‘Sometimes it just gets me down. I don’t know why.’
‘Because you were built to mope?’ Mark suggested slyly and Howard elbowed him lightly, biting back a small laugh.
‘No.’ He huffed out a breath. ‘I just don’t do well with things ending or things changing and I hate having to say goodbye to stuff I’ve gotten used to.’ Mark nodded slightly beside him and Howard sighed. ‘I don’t like knowing there’s something’s broken that I’m never going to be able to fix.’ Mark stilled then, staring – sadly but firmly – at the ground.
‘Jay was broken a long time ago, you know. I think Nigel did the damage before we even realized Jay could be broken. Jay talks like that’s how it happened but he’s never really told me all of it I don’t think. Rob knows…Gaz knows…’
‘Nigel was a bastard to all of us, but he always really had it in for Jay,’ Howard said in a low, half-whisper, his face fixed into a distant frown as he concentrated on the ghosts of memories which seemed to dance for a moment in the humid air. ‘I’m happy he’s so happy now. And I know, when it comes down to it, that’s all that counts for anything and it’s selfish to wish he’d get over it and come back when I swear I haven’t seen him smile as wide as he does now in years. But-’ Howard stopped abruptly, shaking his head, his frown deepening. ‘I still have moments, when I’m really enjoying a show or having a laugh at some photoshoot…and I feel like I’m…like it’s betraying something…some memory or…’ He tipped his head back then, taking a moment to feel the warmth of the fading sunlight across his face. ‘There’s a part of me that’s just a selfish bastard who wants him to come back instead of trying so hard to be anonymous. And then there’s another part of me who’s just a heartless arse, enjoying every minute of what we’ve done this part year, hardly noticing we’ve done it without him there.’
‘Oh, give over – your heart’s bigger than most people’s homes! You’re the soppiest bloke I know, and Jay would back me up on that.’
‘That’s the saddest part though,’ Howard said, looking over at Mark and meeting his gaze, ‘Jay would be the first one to say it doesn’t matter.’
For a moment Mark’s smile faltered, and the two of them lapsed once more into silence. Mark toed at a loose stone. It rolled out of his reach and Howard offered him a small, lopsided smile, kicking the stone back in his direction. Mark trapped it under his shoe with a smirk.
‘I’ll take the salt and all the weight of your tears, all of your fears I’m going to take them away…’ he intoned in a solemn, distant voice. Howard’s brow furrowed and he looked over at Mark curiously.
‘Are you quoting our own lyrics back or is that from something else?’ Mark simply shrugged, his lips twisting into a dismissive smile.
‘It’s silly really. I just remember you and me working over that song…but I don’t think we ever really talked about-’
‘About who we were really talking about,’ Howard cut in, finishing Mark’s sentence for him with a bittersweet smile. He rubbed a hand over his cheek and sighed, looking away thoughtfully and giving a slight shake of his head. ‘I think all three of us are guilty of doing that when we’re writing. “Oh, another Take That lovesong” – maybe if we keep telling ourselves that enough times it’ll become true.’ Mark gave his shoulder a small nudge that Howard suspected was meant to be taken as a reprimand, but he kept his gaze trained firmly on a point in the distance.
‘You shouldn’t forget the sentiment, though. Everything that was done, it was done out of love, you know. Him going, us staying, us letting him go, him making us stay…’ Mark trailed off, turning slowly back to look at the skyline. He rested his forearms on the railing and squinted into the sunlight.
He remembered another the day that had ended like this: the coolness of the air, the sunset from the roof, the dull ache and the oddly calm silence. Jason had come clean in summer. And they had admitted defeat like a team five-nil down at the final whistle, slumped but unsurprised. They’d laughed and joked right up to the moment he’d left the room – Mark’s clearest memory was of the door shutting behind him and the room suddenly being still. He swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘We told him it was his decision because we love him enough to know this life – the whole thing, the pressure, the fame – was killing him slowly. Goodbye doesn’t mean letting go, they’re not the same thing, you know? Loving him enough to know he needed to go is all that matters in the end of it.’ He gave Howard another small nudge and he looked up, meeting his eyes at once. ‘Jay knows. And Jay loves us too – he knows we live for it, he knows it’s in our bones. He was never going to tell us “No” just because he was done being that bloke.’
From the pained expression on Howard’s face, Mark knew that it was something else that was really bothering him. Missing Jason was something which came over them from nowhere sometimes and they’d all had their moments where they’d wished for things to have worked out a different way – the sadness of it carried less weight than it had, and though the ache was still there, it didn’t tend to stop them in their tracks anymore. It had become a part of them – the way loss often did – and they had grown more used to crying only when the occasion truly called for deep reflection and introspection (such as the end of the tour when Howard had, as was traditional, cried all over them and promptly slipped out of arena without hardly muttering a single goodbye.) The point was, this was a different sort of sadness, something that seemed to lurk in the blue of Howard’s eyes like a storm cloud over an ocean.
‘Have you ever sat down at the end of the show and wondered if it was enough to make Jay change his mind?’ Howard interrupted Mark’s thoughts suddenly.
‘When he came to see the show, a part of me thought he wouldn’t be able to stop himself getting up on the stage, you know?’
‘Pray,’ Howard nodded with a wry smile, meeting Mark’s gaze and letting out a soft laugh when he nodded. ‘You thought a bit of a dance would break him?’
‘Maybe a part of me hoped.’
‘Yeah, but you see, even when I hoped, a part of me knew. None of it was enough.’
‘Enough for what?’
‘For Jay.’ Howard smiled sadly and shrugged. ‘Some people, they look at the three of us on stage and go “This is amazing. Imagine what it would be like with Jason.” There are people who would have listened to our album and said the exact same thing. There are people who probably think it’s not even the same without him at all – “stuff amazing, this is crap, where’s Jay?” We wrote an album that we love that came, at least partly, from missing him. We put together a show and we made sure there were parts of it that – for us – were a tribute to his part in this band, and left out other stuff that we knew belonged to his part in this band. We perform and we go out there and we do all this stuff, hoping he’ll notice one day and turn around and realise he is important and deserving of his place on that stage.’ Howard sighed and closed his eyes. ‘But in his head, none of it is enough.’ He looked over at Mark then, shrugging somewhat helplessly. ‘Stuff crappy journos and paparazzi and so-called comedians who think a cheap-shot at some blokes who dicked about in the nineties is still funny even if the whole significance of who-does-what has changed. It all just added to the picture in his own head that none of us could ever change.’ Mark closed his eyes and turned his face into the sun, trying to hide a wince. ‘Jay’s own worst critic was always Jay. Didn’t matter how proud I was every time he got up on his own on stage on the Beautiful World tour. How many times Gaz said he loved some lyrics or Rob said he owned some stage. It won’t matter if we call our next album “Jay You’re Amazing” – in Jay’s head, he doesn’t belong on that stage or in that studio. And that’s the saddest thing to me and I can’t quite get over it. It’s not enough for the one bloke who counts. None of it is. And it never will be.’
Mark didn’t have an answer. He’d always been blessed with a natural openness and a wide smile, but somehow they failed him now. He wanted to curl in on himself and think. Jason always carried a sadness in his bones – Mark could understand that all too well. But somehow he’d always thought of Jason as braver than him, and the realisation that he’d never told Jason that suddenly hit hard. Howard was right, it would’ve made no difference, but it would have something, some light in the darkness at the very least. Beside him Howard stood up little straighter, patting Mark gently on the shoulder before downing the long-cold remains of his coffee. He grimaced at the taste. ‘And now I’ve brought us both down,’ he muttered. Mark offered him a sad smile.
‘Sometimes it’s nice to have a little think about something sad. Makes you appreciate the good a bit more.’ Howard chuckled.
‘You’re my favourite person sometimes, Mark, you know that?’ Mark simply smiled and looked down at the ground. The two of them stood still together and listened to the rumble of the traffic below.
‘So this is where you’ve both been hiding!’ Mark and Howard both jumped as Gary Barlow’s crystal-clear voce cut through the thick silence between them. They hadn’t even noticed the door opening, and it was a shock to suddenly find Gary descending on them, his smile cheerful and his mug newly-filled. There was a lightness to his demeanour that was somehow incongruous in the dense evening air and Mark and Howard stared at him dumbly for a moment as he crossed over to join them at the railing. ‘Blimey, you pair know how to make a bloke feel welcome – why the long faces?’ he asked. Mark was the first to break a smile.
‘Oh, you know. We’ve just been talking…thinking…’ He trailed off, waving a hand vaguely. There were enough years in their friendship for Gary to grasp at the words unspoken, and Jason’s name ghosted out into the hazy evening air, hovering between them briefly.
‘Well, there’s a first time for everything, I suppose,’ Gary joked with an incline of his head. ‘Don’t strain those brain-cells too much though, lads, coz we’ve not finished downstairs just yet.’ Howard smiled slightly and flicked Gary a half-hearted glare.
‘You do know you just admitted your own brain-cells aren’t up to the job by themselves, right?’ he pointed out. Gary raised one eyebrow.
‘Is that really what I was saying?’ he remarked dryly. ‘It’s funny that, because I thought I was making a point about being abandoned by my own bandmates.’
‘Aw, were you lonely, Gaz?’ Mark asked with a chuckle.
‘I was lost without you, Marko,’ Gary intoned as solemnly as he could manage, a slight smile curving his lips.
‘Charming,’ Howard laughed, turning to rest his arms on the railing as Gary took up the space beside him.
‘Eh, you were the one insulting my brain-cells,’ Gary shot back with a warm smile. ‘So, come on…enlighten me: what are we talking about?’
Gary didn’t really need to ask, but he thought it was right to at least give Howard and Mark the option of changing the subject, in case they didn’t want to dwell on it any longer.
‘You just want to know if we was slagging you off,’ Howard said with a sly smile and Gary chuckled.
‘If you were slagging me off you’d do it to my face, we all know that,’ he replied with a kind smile.
The thing they had come to learn over the past year was that three didn’t fill the same space as four or five, it didn’t make as much racket and it sometimes had to find different ways to harmonise in a chorus. But strangely the silences were just as full – perhaps even a little fuller.
‘It don’t feel like a year sometimes,’ Mark commented quietly, his voice low and soft but not sad. ‘Feels like ten sometimes, feels like ten minutes others, but it definitely don’t feel like a year.’ He regarded Gary out of the corner of his eye. ‘Is that why you always cut us off in interviews? You don’t want to talk about it anymore?’ When Gary’s eyebrows raised in surprise Mark smiled slightly, raking a hand through his hair and giving a shrug. ‘It was Howard who noticed – I’m just asking you direct.’ Gary chuckled, nodding slowly and looking off into the distance.
‘It’s a good questions, I’ll give you that, lads.’ He blew out a breath and gave himself a moment to think. Beside him Howard had turned his gaze down to his hands, his brow furrowed as he concentrated that bit too hard on his empty mug. On the other side, Mark was watching him thoughtfully, one eye closed against the sun. He was old enough to have smile-lines these days and Gary thought, for a moment, just how well he wore them. ‘You know, Jay was the first one out of all of you lot to ever call me out on any of the stuff that happened back in the day. He was the only one to sit down and go “Your experience wasn’t the same experience as the rest of us and here is what it looked like from the other side.” Without having that conversation, I’m not sure any of this would’ve been possible – I don’t know if I would have ever got to the place where I could look at it all and put the pieces together in my head and make sense of the good as well as the bad. So, I owe Jay my second chance, in a way. I owe him my second chance at music, at the band, at all these opportunities that have come from getting the band back together. It all goes back to him just sitting down and talking to me one day.’ Gary shrugged somewhat helplessly. ‘I want to protect him.’
‘From what?’ Howard asked gently. Gary smiled.
‘From being known? From having his name in the papers. From having any attention brought on him when all he wants is for people to forget he was ever here.’ Gary sighed, smiling wryly. ‘I’ve never understood how the biggest show-off I’ve ever met could also be the shyest bloke I’ve ever known. But that’s the way it goes, I guess.’
Mark reached across, giving Gary’s arm a slight squeeze, and Gary looked over at him, giving a smile which seemed light on the surface, but Mark knew him well enough to detect a certain frustration there too. It was hard to be the frontman sometimes – it was why neither he nor Howard had even considered taking on the role themselves, even now their number was down to three.
‘I don’t think I’d change it. This past year, I mean.’ Howard and Gary both looked at him with a mixture of surprise and curiosity; Mark kept his eyes trained on the skyline, watching as a cluster of pigeons abruptly dispersed from a neighbouring rooftop in a flutter of noise. ‘It’s just another phase of the story. And…the power of three has been fun, you know? Different. But I like it.’
‘Never a dull moment,’ Gary conceded with an amused smile.
‘Easy for you pair to say, you’ve not had to sit on the other side of the room during one of your “Fade Out versus Full Stop Ending” debates,’ Howard put in with a roll of the eyes that didn’t convince. The three of them laughed together, shaking their heads as they watched the skyline wordlessly – a glassy calm washed over them and for five minutes it was almost as if nothing had ever changed.
The last year had been so busy, and yet it was the moments like this Howard remembered with the most clarity; when it was just the three of them, laughing, happy and missing Jason. Empty and full all at once – it wasn’t enough, perhaps, but somehow everything was perfectly ok.
Behind him he heard the creak of door being opened and shut and the shuffling of feet. He simply glanced down into his mug, tipping it slightly and watching as the dregs of his coffee dribbled slowly to the other side. Then he felt something lean beside him on the railing.
‘I thought I might find you up here.’ Howard smiled a tired, lazy smile, closing his eyes for a moment and dropping his head.
‘Because there’s just so many other places I could’ve been hiding?’ he shot back dryly.
‘Because you had that “leave me alone” look on your face all afternoon and we’ve all known each other too long to bother taking hints anymore.’ Howard opened his eyes and looked over, letting out a sigh that was almost a laugh as he was met with the unapologetically kind face of Mark Owen; there was a light in Mark’s eyes that couldn’t just be put down to the dwindling sunlight, something twinkling and knowing which lingered there and forced another small smile out of Howard.
‘You know as well as I do: if I start talking about it, I won’t be able to stop. And when I don’t stop, I get emotional. And when I get emotional, I’m a complete idiot. So seriously, don’t worry about me. Go back to lecturing Gaz on the finer points of wearing hats onstage or whatever it was your pair were getting into it over when I left.’ Mark smiled, letting out a small, rough laugh and shaking his head. He glanced out at the city, leaning a little more of his weight on the railing in order to raise onto his tiptoes and peer down at the street below.
‘You know me though, Howard,’ he mused idly, tucking a strand of hair back behind his ear before executing a neat turn on his heel. There was a gravelly scratch as the sole of his shoe scraped the tatty ground below and a slight squeak as he leant his back against the railing. He glanced back up at Howard, still smiling. ‘I’ve never know when to say “enough” really,’ he added with a shrug. Howard narrowed his eyes at him, also turning his back to the city as he pointed an accusing finger in Mark’s direction.
‘That’s not funny – and it doesn’t change my mind.’ Mark’s smile twisted up a little more in one corner and he looked down at the ground, scuffing it lightly with his shoe.
For a moment the two men fell into silence. The best thing, Howard often thought, about being with the band was that silences could never be awkward; they’d been through too many highs and fights and too-late nights to be uncomfortable in each other’s presence, and they all knew each other too well to be scared of a little wordless space. In the streets below, buses screeched and motorbikes growled and fragments of conversation danced in the thick city air, wafting up to them every now and again.
‘I miss him too, you know,’ Mark murmured, the words almost lost amidst the London rumble around them. Howard tensed slightly, looking back over his shoulder and taking a sudden, intense interest in the path of an elderly man in a fluorescent jacket as he excited a building, awkwardly manoeuvring his bicycle down the steps with him. Slowly Howard blew out a breath he hadn’t noticed himself holding.
‘I dunno, Mark – one minute I’ll be sitting there and I keep thinking: this is the best life in the world and I’m so lucky and so happy to be here. And then someone will say something or I’ll notice something or…or even, I’ll just look to my left to make some stupid comment and suddenly I can’t work out what we’re even doing here, carrying on like he was never here to begin with.’
‘We all have those moments, you know? We’ve grown up together, us four – even more than with Rob, in a way. Jay’s been there for everything. It’s weird experiencing anything without him, because it’s not something we’ve ever had to do before.’
‘Like starting all over again,’ Howard mumbled, looking down.
‘I don’t know if it’s that scary. But I know we all feel the same,’ Mark reminded him gently, and Howard’s lips twitched up ever-so-slightly in an almost-smile.
‘Sometimes it feels like Gaz doesn’t.’ He drummed his fingers on his mug and looked off into the middle-distance. There was an edginess about him that Mark recognised a guilt; Howard hated bad-mouthing anyone, especially Gary, and even the mildest of criticisms made him edgy. ‘You know, he’ll say stuff, like “This is the best thing we’ve ever done” or “I can’t remember giving a better show”…we’ll be talking in an interview about Jay and he’ll cut in with some joke or offhand comment that changes the subject and it just feels…wrong. Like he’s trying to brush it aside that we’ve gone from being the four of us to being just us three.’
‘We’re a good three though,’ Mark put in lightly and Howard chuckled, meeting his gaze for a moment.
‘No arguments from me on that score,’ he assured him softly, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. ‘You’re my best mates and my brothers and you know that’s something that’s never going to change.’ He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking back down at the ground for a long moment. ‘But Jay is family too. And I don’t want that to change. But sometimes…I feel like it’s going to. Especially when it feels like Gaz is just acting like he was never even here.’
‘Go easy on him. You know what he’s like: when things are rough he feels like he has to keep it together. He’s always been the same. He needs a project all the time so that when bad stuff happens he can bury himself in it and just-’
‘Plough on through,’ Howard finished over the top of Mark and the two of them exchanged a glance, chuckling softly and shaking their heads. Howard nodded slowly and looked away. ‘I know,’ he said after a beat. ‘Sometimes it just gets me down. I don’t know why.’
‘Because you were built to mope?’ Mark suggested slyly and Howard elbowed him lightly, biting back a small laugh.
‘No.’ He huffed out a breath. ‘I just don’t do well with things ending or things changing and I hate having to say goodbye to stuff I’ve gotten used to.’ Mark nodded slightly beside him and Howard sighed. ‘I don’t like knowing there’s something’s broken that I’m never going to be able to fix.’ Mark stilled then, staring – sadly but firmly – at the ground.
‘Jay was broken a long time ago, you know. I think Nigel did the damage before we even realized Jay could be broken. Jay talks like that’s how it happened but he’s never really told me all of it I don’t think. Rob knows…Gaz knows…’
‘Nigel was a bastard to all of us, but he always really had it in for Jay,’ Howard said in a low, half-whisper, his face fixed into a distant frown as he concentrated on the ghosts of memories which seemed to dance for a moment in the humid air. ‘I’m happy he’s so happy now. And I know, when it comes down to it, that’s all that counts for anything and it’s selfish to wish he’d get over it and come back when I swear I haven’t seen him smile as wide as he does now in years. But-’ Howard stopped abruptly, shaking his head, his frown deepening. ‘I still have moments, when I’m really enjoying a show or having a laugh at some photoshoot…and I feel like I’m…like it’s betraying something…some memory or…’ He tipped his head back then, taking a moment to feel the warmth of the fading sunlight across his face. ‘There’s a part of me that’s just a selfish bastard who wants him to come back instead of trying so hard to be anonymous. And then there’s another part of me who’s just a heartless arse, enjoying every minute of what we’ve done this part year, hardly noticing we’ve done it without him there.’
‘Oh, give over – your heart’s bigger than most people’s homes! You’re the soppiest bloke I know, and Jay would back me up on that.’
‘That’s the saddest part though,’ Howard said, looking over at Mark and meeting his gaze, ‘Jay would be the first one to say it doesn’t matter.’
For a moment Mark’s smile faltered, and the two of them lapsed once more into silence. Mark toed at a loose stone. It rolled out of his reach and Howard offered him a small, lopsided smile, kicking the stone back in his direction. Mark trapped it under his shoe with a smirk.
‘I’ll take the salt and all the weight of your tears, all of your fears I’m going to take them away…’ he intoned in a solemn, distant voice. Howard’s brow furrowed and he looked over at Mark curiously.
‘Are you quoting our own lyrics back or is that from something else?’ Mark simply shrugged, his lips twisting into a dismissive smile.
‘It’s silly really. I just remember you and me working over that song…but I don’t think we ever really talked about-’
‘About who we were really talking about,’ Howard cut in, finishing Mark’s sentence for him with a bittersweet smile. He rubbed a hand over his cheek and sighed, looking away thoughtfully and giving a slight shake of his head. ‘I think all three of us are guilty of doing that when we’re writing. “Oh, another Take That lovesong” – maybe if we keep telling ourselves that enough times it’ll become true.’ Mark gave his shoulder a small nudge that Howard suspected was meant to be taken as a reprimand, but he kept his gaze trained firmly on a point in the distance.
‘You shouldn’t forget the sentiment, though. Everything that was done, it was done out of love, you know. Him going, us staying, us letting him go, him making us stay…’ Mark trailed off, turning slowly back to look at the skyline. He rested his forearms on the railing and squinted into the sunlight.
He remembered another the day that had ended like this: the coolness of the air, the sunset from the roof, the dull ache and the oddly calm silence. Jason had come clean in summer. And they had admitted defeat like a team five-nil down at the final whistle, slumped but unsurprised. They’d laughed and joked right up to the moment he’d left the room – Mark’s clearest memory was of the door shutting behind him and the room suddenly being still. He swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘We told him it was his decision because we love him enough to know this life – the whole thing, the pressure, the fame – was killing him slowly. Goodbye doesn’t mean letting go, they’re not the same thing, you know? Loving him enough to know he needed to go is all that matters in the end of it.’ He gave Howard another small nudge and he looked up, meeting his eyes at once. ‘Jay knows. And Jay loves us too – he knows we live for it, he knows it’s in our bones. He was never going to tell us “No” just because he was done being that bloke.’
From the pained expression on Howard’s face, Mark knew that it was something else that was really bothering him. Missing Jason was something which came over them from nowhere sometimes and they’d all had their moments where they’d wished for things to have worked out a different way – the sadness of it carried less weight than it had, and though the ache was still there, it didn’t tend to stop them in their tracks anymore. It had become a part of them – the way loss often did – and they had grown more used to crying only when the occasion truly called for deep reflection and introspection (such as the end of the tour when Howard had, as was traditional, cried all over them and promptly slipped out of arena without hardly muttering a single goodbye.) The point was, this was a different sort of sadness, something that seemed to lurk in the blue of Howard’s eyes like a storm cloud over an ocean.
‘Have you ever sat down at the end of the show and wondered if it was enough to make Jay change his mind?’ Howard interrupted Mark’s thoughts suddenly.
‘When he came to see the show, a part of me thought he wouldn’t be able to stop himself getting up on the stage, you know?’
‘Pray,’ Howard nodded with a wry smile, meeting Mark’s gaze and letting out a soft laugh when he nodded. ‘You thought a bit of a dance would break him?’
‘Maybe a part of me hoped.’
‘Yeah, but you see, even when I hoped, a part of me knew. None of it was enough.’
‘Enough for what?’
‘For Jay.’ Howard smiled sadly and shrugged. ‘Some people, they look at the three of us on stage and go “This is amazing. Imagine what it would be like with Jason.” There are people who would have listened to our album and said the exact same thing. There are people who probably think it’s not even the same without him at all – “stuff amazing, this is crap, where’s Jay?” We wrote an album that we love that came, at least partly, from missing him. We put together a show and we made sure there were parts of it that – for us – were a tribute to his part in this band, and left out other stuff that we knew belonged to his part in this band. We perform and we go out there and we do all this stuff, hoping he’ll notice one day and turn around and realise he is important and deserving of his place on that stage.’ Howard sighed and closed his eyes. ‘But in his head, none of it is enough.’ He looked over at Mark then, shrugging somewhat helplessly. ‘Stuff crappy journos and paparazzi and so-called comedians who think a cheap-shot at some blokes who dicked about in the nineties is still funny even if the whole significance of who-does-what has changed. It all just added to the picture in his own head that none of us could ever change.’ Mark closed his eyes and turned his face into the sun, trying to hide a wince. ‘Jay’s own worst critic was always Jay. Didn’t matter how proud I was every time he got up on his own on stage on the Beautiful World tour. How many times Gaz said he loved some lyrics or Rob said he owned some stage. It won’t matter if we call our next album “Jay You’re Amazing” – in Jay’s head, he doesn’t belong on that stage or in that studio. And that’s the saddest thing to me and I can’t quite get over it. It’s not enough for the one bloke who counts. None of it is. And it never will be.’
Mark didn’t have an answer. He’d always been blessed with a natural openness and a wide smile, but somehow they failed him now. He wanted to curl in on himself and think. Jason always carried a sadness in his bones – Mark could understand that all too well. But somehow he’d always thought of Jason as braver than him, and the realisation that he’d never told Jason that suddenly hit hard. Howard was right, it would’ve made no difference, but it would have something, some light in the darkness at the very least. Beside him Howard stood up little straighter, patting Mark gently on the shoulder before downing the long-cold remains of his coffee. He grimaced at the taste. ‘And now I’ve brought us both down,’ he muttered. Mark offered him a sad smile.
‘Sometimes it’s nice to have a little think about something sad. Makes you appreciate the good a bit more.’ Howard chuckled.
‘You’re my favourite person sometimes, Mark, you know that?’ Mark simply smiled and looked down at the ground. The two of them stood still together and listened to the rumble of the traffic below.
‘So this is where you’ve both been hiding!’ Mark and Howard both jumped as Gary Barlow’s crystal-clear voce cut through the thick silence between them. They hadn’t even noticed the door opening, and it was a shock to suddenly find Gary descending on them, his smile cheerful and his mug newly-filled. There was a lightness to his demeanour that was somehow incongruous in the dense evening air and Mark and Howard stared at him dumbly for a moment as he crossed over to join them at the railing. ‘Blimey, you pair know how to make a bloke feel welcome – why the long faces?’ he asked. Mark was the first to break a smile.
‘Oh, you know. We’ve just been talking…thinking…’ He trailed off, waving a hand vaguely. There were enough years in their friendship for Gary to grasp at the words unspoken, and Jason’s name ghosted out into the hazy evening air, hovering between them briefly.
‘Well, there’s a first time for everything, I suppose,’ Gary joked with an incline of his head. ‘Don’t strain those brain-cells too much though, lads, coz we’ve not finished downstairs just yet.’ Howard smiled slightly and flicked Gary a half-hearted glare.
‘You do know you just admitted your own brain-cells aren’t up to the job by themselves, right?’ he pointed out. Gary raised one eyebrow.
‘Is that really what I was saying?’ he remarked dryly. ‘It’s funny that, because I thought I was making a point about being abandoned by my own bandmates.’
‘Aw, were you lonely, Gaz?’ Mark asked with a chuckle.
‘I was lost without you, Marko,’ Gary intoned as solemnly as he could manage, a slight smile curving his lips.
‘Charming,’ Howard laughed, turning to rest his arms on the railing as Gary took up the space beside him.
‘Eh, you were the one insulting my brain-cells,’ Gary shot back with a warm smile. ‘So, come on…enlighten me: what are we talking about?’
Gary didn’t really need to ask, but he thought it was right to at least give Howard and Mark the option of changing the subject, in case they didn’t want to dwell on it any longer.
‘You just want to know if we was slagging you off,’ Howard said with a sly smile and Gary chuckled.
‘If you were slagging me off you’d do it to my face, we all know that,’ he replied with a kind smile.
The thing they had come to learn over the past year was that three didn’t fill the same space as four or five, it didn’t make as much racket and it sometimes had to find different ways to harmonise in a chorus. But strangely the silences were just as full – perhaps even a little fuller.
‘It don’t feel like a year sometimes,’ Mark commented quietly, his voice low and soft but not sad. ‘Feels like ten sometimes, feels like ten minutes others, but it definitely don’t feel like a year.’ He regarded Gary out of the corner of his eye. ‘Is that why you always cut us off in interviews? You don’t want to talk about it anymore?’ When Gary’s eyebrows raised in surprise Mark smiled slightly, raking a hand through his hair and giving a shrug. ‘It was Howard who noticed – I’m just asking you direct.’ Gary chuckled, nodding slowly and looking off into the distance.
‘It’s a good questions, I’ll give you that, lads.’ He blew out a breath and gave himself a moment to think. Beside him Howard had turned his gaze down to his hands, his brow furrowed as he concentrated that bit too hard on his empty mug. On the other side, Mark was watching him thoughtfully, one eye closed against the sun. He was old enough to have smile-lines these days and Gary thought, for a moment, just how well he wore them. ‘You know, Jay was the first one out of all of you lot to ever call me out on any of the stuff that happened back in the day. He was the only one to sit down and go “Your experience wasn’t the same experience as the rest of us and here is what it looked like from the other side.” Without having that conversation, I’m not sure any of this would’ve been possible – I don’t know if I would have ever got to the place where I could look at it all and put the pieces together in my head and make sense of the good as well as the bad. So, I owe Jay my second chance, in a way. I owe him my second chance at music, at the band, at all these opportunities that have come from getting the band back together. It all goes back to him just sitting down and talking to me one day.’ Gary shrugged somewhat helplessly. ‘I want to protect him.’
‘From what?’ Howard asked gently. Gary smiled.
‘From being known? From having his name in the papers. From having any attention brought on him when all he wants is for people to forget he was ever here.’ Gary sighed, smiling wryly. ‘I’ve never understood how the biggest show-off I’ve ever met could also be the shyest bloke I’ve ever known. But that’s the way it goes, I guess.’
Mark reached across, giving Gary’s arm a slight squeeze, and Gary looked over at him, giving a smile which seemed light on the surface, but Mark knew him well enough to detect a certain frustration there too. It was hard to be the frontman sometimes – it was why neither he nor Howard had even considered taking on the role themselves, even now their number was down to three.
‘I don’t think I’d change it. This past year, I mean.’ Howard and Gary both looked at him with a mixture of surprise and curiosity; Mark kept his eyes trained on the skyline, watching as a cluster of pigeons abruptly dispersed from a neighbouring rooftop in a flutter of noise. ‘It’s just another phase of the story. And…the power of three has been fun, you know? Different. But I like it.’
‘Never a dull moment,’ Gary conceded with an amused smile.
‘Easy for you pair to say, you’ve not had to sit on the other side of the room during one of your “Fade Out versus Full Stop Ending” debates,’ Howard put in with a roll of the eyes that didn’t convince. The three of them laughed together, shaking their heads as they watched the skyline wordlessly – a glassy calm washed over them and for five minutes it was almost as if nothing had ever changed.
The last year had been so busy, and yet it was the moments like this Howard remembered with the most clarity; when it was just the three of them, laughing, happy and missing Jason. Empty and full all at once – it wasn’t enough, perhaps, but somehow everything was perfectly ok.