Too Little Too Late

Chapter Five - The Ultracheese

Chapter Five

The Ultracheese

March 2018

There was nothing like coming home to bring you back down to earth. In London and LA, massive machines were working, preparing for the release of Tranquillity Base Hotel and Casino, and the world tour that was going to support it, but all that currently felt a million miles away.

Things had got so bad with Taylor since Scooter died last month, that she had Alex couldn't bear to be in the same room. Very few people grasped how a dog could be like a child, holding a couple together; but he had been. Alex felt his loss deeply, and this, along with the resentment he felt towards Taylor, and the crippling fear and anxiety he felt about how the album was going to be received, was enough to send him scuttling home to Sheffield for a while.

Back home in Sheffield he was just Alex, David and Penny Turner's boy. The elderly people in the road where he'd grown up knew he was famous and a very wealthy young man, but that meant little to them in the real world; and when Mrs Rook, the old lady two doors down needed someone to give her a lift to the precinct so she could get a present for her grandson's birthday, Penny volunteered Alex. She felt he'd been shut up in his room for too long.

The Precinct was a row of shops about ten minutes from the Turner house. It was where people went if they couldn't be bothered to go into town. Indeed, Alex and the other Monkeys had hung around the Precinct as kids after school, and kids still gathered there. He was glad it was the middle of the day and they would be at school.

There was a small car park round the back of the precinct, and Alex waited for Mrs Rook while she went to Poundland and Wilko, and the various charity shops. She also promised to go into the Sainsburys Local and get Alex a bag of jam donuts to thank him for being a good boy, which he was looking forward to more than he would care to admit.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and saw it was a message from a mutual friend of his and Miles called Jack. It was Miles' birthday next week and Alex wanted to send him a card or gift, some sort of olive branch. They hadn't spoken for five months and it felt like an eternity. Alex had heard on the grapevine that Miles had left LA, but had no idea where he'd gone. He had been so wrapped up with finishing the album and planning the tour that he hadn't had the chance – or the courage – to try and speak to him and explain everything.

The message read;

Miles is in Liverpool. He has a flat in a development called Palm Court near the Docks. Sorry, don't have the house number.

Alex's heart started to race a little. Miles was in Liverpool. He was sixty miles away, hardly anything. They had to clear the air before the tour started. Miles was going to be performing with them in July at TRNSMT in Scotland in, then Rockwave in Greece, then the O2 in September. Alex had had no say in the dates, they had been arranged between their management, and Miles' lawyers. Alex got the feeling he was dead to Miles, and he couldn't blame him, But Miles also had to give Alex the chance to put his side of the story.

Alex was still on antidepressants, and the one thing they did help with, was that he could now think more clearly without over-worrying about everything. He had even got better at making decisions. Like right now, he wanted to get Miles a birthday present, and once upon a time, he would have bitten his nails and smoked a hundred cigarettes, and weighed up the pros and cons, going over all the outcomes. But that no longer happened. With a clarity he wished he'd had all his life, he thought how Miles was one of his oldest friends. They had stopped talking over a misunderstanding, a nothingness, and it was ridiculous. Alex was still determined TBHC was going to be the last album, and he had no idea what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. But he was determined that Miles was going to be a part of it.