Hello You

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Miles couldn't sleep. There was so much going on in his head, there was no way he was ever going to relax enough to drift off.

Why had Giorgio gone to Italy? Why couldn't he have stayed here in England and be the person Miles was stuck with? Everything would have been so uncomplicated then. They could have spent their days in bed having great sex, or while Miles wrote his songs, Giorgio could be in the kitchen cooking delicious food. Instead he was stuck with an emotionally immature genius with a persecution complex who would need constant nannying.

Who was he trying to kid? No amount of therapy was ever going to get rid of that part of his psyche that loved Alex Turner. It was in his DNA, like his love of music and his inability to quit smoking and his fascination with all things Italian. But just because he loved him, it didn't mean he necessarily wanted him around. The most painful experience of his life had been when Alex had chosen Louise and the straight life, over him, despite always telling him he was the love of his life. Well, nothing had changed. Louise was still around, and Alex had no intention of coming out of the closet. The love of Alex's life was Arctic Monkeys and always would be, and everything he did was for them.

Alex clearly couldn't sleep, either. He was pacing around his room, constantly stepping on the squeaky floorboard in the corner of the room. Knowing Alex, it was probably songwriting keeping him awake – lyrics that had come to him and he was trying to form into a song. Miles wished he had the same problem. His well was dry.

One of the only fully formed songs he had was See Ya When I See Ya. He had written it two days after La Cigale, and he remembered how cathartic it had been to write a diss track that wasn't full of pain like the songs on Coup de Grace. The pain had eased just long enough for the anger to come through, so he could write about Alex and his ridiculous double life and how it would come and bite him on the bum one day. Then there was Tears Are Falling, that was written after a therapy session when he came out feeling like a fucking idiot for everything he'd put up with over the years.

There was another one that was very old. It went for ages without a title, but he'd written as a sort of apology to Hannah when he'd dumped her to be with Alex,. Then one night he'd dreamt of a little girlfriend he'd had at junior school called Caroline O'Hara. He once let down after promising to go to Southport with her and her family, but he couldn't go because he'd fallen asleep after staying up late the night before watching the 1994 World Cup Final between Brazil and Italy. He always felt bad about that, especially seeing as Caroline never spoke to him again - even when they went to High School. So he used her name for the song because it sounded better than Hannah. He hoped one day Caroline O'Hara would hear it. He could tell her that choosing sexy men over girls was something he'd carried on doing.

Alex finally went quiet, but Miles still couldn't sleep. In the end he smoked the rest of a spliff that had been sitting in the ashtray at the side of his bed for several days, and that knocked him out.

When he next awoke, the room was light and he could hear the shower running. He was desperate for a piss, and once upon a time he would have thought nothing of going into the bathroom when Alex was in there, but it didn't seem right now. He didn't even want to think about Alex in the shower...

Feeling like a dirty pig, he emptied his bladder into an old Coke bottle he found in the wastepaper basket in the corner of his room. He then put on his shorts and t-shirt and went for a run.

He ran as far as the Olympic Park, which was between Hackney Wick and Stratford. It was quite a long run but he needed to clear his head. The world looked a different place, with nobody on the streets, and all the shops closed. Miles knew if he was Alex, he would be taking inspiration from this Dystopian shit, but instead Miles found it depressing. Life to him was about having a laugh with your mates and enjoying yourself. The coming weeks were going to be torture.