The Secret Life...

18

Junior and Liyah were so welcoming to me when I got to London. I'd never been made to feel so welcome anywhere I'd been in my life, not even in the good foster homes. Even though we'd only just met, it felt like we'd known each other for years. Junior had a chill attitude like me. He liked to kick back with music, and sometimes a smoke, but his weed was mild, different to what I was used to. Liyah didn't smoke but she loved music too and she was always singing and dancing around the apartment they lived in. They lived in a 2nd floor apartment building. It was pretty new so things still seemed shiny and unused, which was nice to see. It was a world away from the peeling walls of my apartment block back home. The rent though was a killer, I soon found out, and I felt guilty for not contributing any money while I stayed with them. As the days went on, I felt more and more like a bum while they went out to work.

Junior was in recruitment, helping source people to job opportunities, while Liyah worked two jobs, a part-time receptionist and a part-time model. Sometimes they were like passing ships when they were working opposite shifts. It was when Liyah was on a modelling job one evening that I got to find out about Junior's side hustle. I'd been out, first just for a walk around the city, but then I found myself in a bar, no money to my name but I'd sat with one drink and got chatting to a girl or two. It didn't go anywhere but it gave me something to do, and I'd always enjoyed the thrill of the chase.

When I got back to the apartment and let myself in, I could hear music playing, which I soon realised was coming from Junior's room. I knew straight away that it wasn't a song playing as I could hear the familiar stops and starts, like when I was making music back home. I didn't want to stop his flow so I stood for a minute outside the bedroom door which was slightly ajar, listening to a chink of piano keys and then, a voice singing. I stood for a second, intrigued, but I must have moved onto a creaky part of flooring because the music stopped and Junior's voice called out my name.

"Ty?"

"Yeah." I confirmed, stepping closer to the opening in the door and pushing it slightly open.

"Shit, I didn't hear you come in," he laughed, a little spooked.

"Sorry," I l aughed."I didn't wanna interrupt your flow."

"Nah, come in," he beckoned, and I stepped into the room, seeing him now sat at a small keyboard.

"You sing, Bro?" I asked, moving towards him and perching on the end of his bed.

"Yeah, I guess I do," he laughed, scratching the side of his face uncomfortably.

"You kept that quiet."

"Yeah. We both do, me and Liyah, I write, she sings, usually."

"Fuck," I laughed, taken aback by the admission.

"So you the next Sonny and Cher, or?"

Junior errupted into laughter and punched me playfully. "Fuck off," he said in jest.

"Nah seriously, it's a hard business so I thought maybe I'd be better off trying to songwrite rather than sing, you know? Write for other artists."

"Wow," I nodded."That's dope."

"You think?" he asked, putting down the pen he was writing with onto the small notepad beside him.

"For sure."

Junior turned away from the keyboard then.

"So what you been up to today?" he asked. I proceeded to tell him about my day, where I'd walked to, who I'd met, how I'd managed not to get lost on the way back to the apartment, a first, since the time I'd been there. We moved to the kitchen and he started to make us a drink, pulling two glasses out of the cupboard above him.

"So you write music too, right? I remember you saying when we were talking on the phone," Junior said, pouring what was probably a double measure of vodka into the glasses.

"Yeah, I dabble," I admitted. "I don't sing though. I rap."

That night, we drank and listened to music. When Liyah got home, we drank some more and she started to sing, then Junior started to sing, and as I listened and cheered them on, I was left with this feeling that somehow, we needed to do something with music. It felt like the elastic band that was holding us all together, the thing that we all shared in common, the thing that kept us all sane. I was a foster kid who nobody loved but music had always been there for me. Music kept Junior and Liyah wanting to aim higher than a 9-5 and an expensive apartment in London. It was going to save us, somehow.