Page 44 of Last Christmas in London

‘Fair is fair,’ Josh agreed, and Megan once again made an ‘uh-huh’ noise without looking up from her phone.

‘Couldn’t I call that favour you owe me?’ Simon joked and Josh countered by saying he would simply ask again, so he had no choice.

Admitting defeat, Simon inhaled and sat up.

‘My mum passed away when I was eighteen,’ Simon began and immediately Josh flushed in embarrassment, which Simon was quick to remedy. ‘As I told you earlier,’ he said to me. ‘So, I was raised by Dad, who wasn’t a natural single parent, or parent in general. He’s always working. He works in media too, actually, so I kind of know what you mean about the long hours.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘I was sent to boarding school at thirteen, when I became a bit too teenager-y for him. School wasn’t bad but as you can guess of any highly paid education system, they valued academic subjects over creative ones, and I’ve never been interested in maths and English. Not in the way I was with music anyway.’

‘I feel like I see where this is going,’ Josh said, his ears pricking up.

‘Probably.’ Simon laughed darkly. ‘After mum passed, I told my dad I wanted to go to music college, and he downright refused to support me. Obviously, I did it anyway, but when I graduated at twenty-one, without a job and not much interest in getting one, he cut me off.’

‘And you’ve been busking ever since?’ Josh asked, surprised that that could sustain a person for so long.

Simon leaned back and ran his fingers through his hair, appearing surprised when a sudden cloud of glitter seemed to fall out of it. I brushed it off his shoulder for him.

‘The busking is relatively new. I mostly do it for charity.’

‘Mostly,’ I joked. Simon shrugged with his hands up in a mock ‘don’t shoot’ manner.

‘Sometimes I run a little short of cash, normally just before payday. But my actual job is in advertising.’

‘Advertising?’ I repeated in surprise. ‘You?’

‘Me,’ Simon said. ‘Why? Are you surprised?’

‘Very.’ I took on some of Josh’s non-subtlety. ‘Feels a bit too much like a job for the man. Too corporate for a musician.’

‘Well, you might be surprised…’ He seemed to be trying to stop himself from laughing.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘What is it?’

‘If I tell you my job title, you’ll laugh.’

‘Oh, no!’ I was unable to hold my anticipatory smile in.

‘Now you have to tell us,’ Josh said, leaning in and resting his chin on his shoulder.

Simon sighed, defeatedly. ‘I am my company’s Chief Jingle Writer.’

Josh and I fell to bits, we laughed into the table so much that Megan finally looked up from her phone and had to ask Simon to repeat himself, from which she joined me and Josh in our laughter.

The waitress that brought over our cocktails had to hand them all to Simon, since he was the only one capable of holding them steady.

‘Chief Jingle Writer,’ I repeated.

‘Yep, get it out.’ Simon smiled in good humour despite our overreaction.

‘It just seems like…’ I tried to catch my breath. ‘Not the job for you.’

‘It pays the bills.’ Simon lifted his beer to his lips. He was not a cocktail kind of guy.

‘You’re a… a…’ Josh couldn’t contain himself. ‘A jingler!’

‘Jingle writer,’ Simon corrected, a bit more sternly, although only in jest. He clearly understood that his job title was hilarious.

‘Oh, honey!’ Josh was wiping a tear from his eye and picking up his sex on the beach. ‘You and I should talk. Do you freelance?’

‘Josh designs retail Christmas displays,’ I explained quickly.