Jay:
I can't hide the money, can I? Robin has always understood that I'm pretty comfortable in that department but I can't hide the prize money if we're trying to live in the absence of sin and truly grasp immaculateness.
"Robin, I have something to tell you, my love." I say as we rise together, sitting up in bed and grasping at each other's hands. Robin listens with widening eyes as I explain that whilst I have already received a ten thousand pound cash injection, this is a relatively small amount of money to me because not only have I been well-paid in my early career roles, I have also benefitted enormously from the generosity of my parents and grandparents who have all been part of the industry I now find myself embroiled in.
Yes, there is some nepotism happening here, of course, but I also work hard to earn a good living and bring value to the people that employ me or that I care about.
"Oh my god, 10k," Robin's saying, stuck on the immediacy of that number. I've never asked Robin about how writing as a career works financially, but from what I can figure out I must have received nearly a year's writing wages just with that award-win.
"Money is a bit like alcohol, Robin, it can feel great and it can feel terrible. It's a mood enhancer and enabler; whatever you're feeling, cash is just going to amplify it… that being said. I want to give it to you. If you give me your bank account details, I will transfer you ten thousand pounds right now. And an extra four quid for a coffee next time I disappear to do stupid work stuff."
I'm not sure what I was expecting, or why I even offered this up in the first place, but Robin's reaction floors me anyway. Chubby tears swim out of both of our eyes because this isn't about money it's about love. We hug, share a kiss, and then Robin says no.
"I won't take your award win, Jay, I can't do that. It's yours and you earned it."
"I neither want or need it, and I just thought if I gave it to you, you could. You know," I can't help but gesture to the rest of the little studio with it's piles of clothes, obvious wear and tear and general lack of nice things. "Treat yourself."
What Robin says next surprises me.
"I tell you what, Jay. I won't lie to you and say I don't want it or that it wouldn't help because I absolutely do and it absolutely would, but here's a counter offer: let's share it. Half each. And I'll tell you what I plan to do with it, and as I get more opportunities to earn more or enjoy any windfalls, I will share them with you. We can share. What do you say?"
"I say I think you're pretty amazing to meet me in the middle like that. I feel like most people would either flat out reject it or greedily snatch it up. You've floored me, Robin."
Robin leaps on top of me with such vigour that we both tumble out of bed onto the floor.
"We've floored each other!"
***
Robin:
My soul's mate is a good egg.
A blood good egg.
The money is already in my account, and my balance sits at over ten times what it was before. I've been quietly quite frightened that if mum and dad stop paying the rent on this place suddenly, I'd get thrown out, as there's no way I could afford even this modern rent.
Jay and I don't yet understand each other financially, but that will come with time, and for now, we have a great opportunity to learn about what counts as a treat for each other.
My phone starts to ring: it's Badger.
Terrified he might mention our conversation yesterday, I don't immediately put him on loudspeaker, but he's demands to be put on anyway so I maximise the screen and the volume and prop my phone up on the side of the bed so Jay can see him and he can see us.
"Oh, I hope I wasn't interrupting anything!" he says, his cheeks becoming nearly as red as ours.
"All good Badger, you ok?" Jay says, and it's nice to see them interact with each other. It's felt a bit like Badger's been "mine" and Fox hers, with poor old Stoat and Ferret forgotten about sometimes.
"Well, I'm a little cold because I… we-" he says, turning on his own camera to show that he's stood outside on the streets of London with the rest of them.
"We're in town!" They all yell, and it's amazing.
"Want to hang out?" They ask, and we leap out of bed to get changed and ready as we shout yes, yes, yes, yes!
"Excellent. Oxford Street – we've got something we want to show you, but first, let's do some shopping! You guys haven't spent any of the significant daily expenses budget we all have access to, and you need to help us pick out some new scarves.
"Wait what, an expense budget?" I ask trying to contain the excitement "How much is it?!"
"300 pounds, 350 euros or 400 dollars. Per day." He says, matter of factly.
"You can also make requests for bigger expenses you just have to justify it and somebody somewhere will sign it off if it seems reasonable."
"Robin," Jay is saying, pulling at the sleeve of the shirt I've just put on.
"Robin this feels like a test, we need to be careful."
But my head is already in a bathtub full of money.
***
Jay:
Robin is conflicted. Many religious people believe Greed to be a parent-sin that begets conflict and leads to calamity, but we need to be clear that the desire to simply have access to some money is not the same as having greed or being greedy generally. Chaucer called Greed the root of all evil, but ancient wisdom is more around forsaking things like your spirit and love in the pursuit of acquiring vast amounts of whatever currency we're looking at; could be money, things, time.
Any currency like that is a life-enabler that we should all have a base level of, but not everyone does get to enjoy the privileges that even Robin did, and it will be interesting to see how not only the new money, but the promise of more new money changes or fails to change things.
Personally, I'm very excited to see Robin get a whole new wardrobe. The baggy hoodies are not the most flattering. Better coffee too, no more cheap shit. Quality of life I guess for both of us is about to jump up.
We meet the band on the busiest street in London and there are no shortage of Little Leaves out, queuing up outside a closed off department store that is undergoing some heavy refurbishment. Rather than their headdresses, the band are wearing hard hats and high visibility jackets, and they hand us some as we arrive.
A team of security have cordoned off the entrance to the store, and usher us through past hundreds of screaming Little Leaves. Some of them shout our names, and others reach out trying to touch us. We reach back, but I feel a bit weird about it. I'm not special.
The band greet us with hugs and questions and excitement, but Badger tells them there'll be plenty of time for catching up at the next stop we can't stay here long as they've stopped the builders and decorators working to show us around.
I think I know what's coming, but Robin is definitely in dazed and confused territory. It's super bright inside the building and there's dangerous detritus everywhere, along with the sounds of power tools and workers.
Badger leads us out of the large open area as dust falls around us into a small side room where racks and racks of items are covered in a heavy plastic sheets.
"You ready for this?" he asks with a wicked glint in his eyes, before pulling off the sheets for the big reveal.
"Oh damn," Stoat says.
"Wicked," Fox.
"Sweet, I fucken love MERCH," Ferret says, rushing forward to bury his face in racks of beanies, scarves, jackets, shirts, shorts and more.
Most are green but some are black or a deep purple, and the Whispersong logo has had a professional facelift, becoming a stylised WS. Most of the items have #WSJRT and #Whispersong emblazoned on them.
"Incredible," Robin says, as Badger hands her a new hooded jacket that incorporates all of the colours and branding.
"Had this one made, it's unique like you. Take it, and whatever you want from here. These are all just display models, but the official Whispersong merch range is coming soon and you can both model it for us if you want."
We're both speechless.
"You like it right?" he asks.
We're both nodding vociferously as we try on our new gear.
"Good, but you ain't seen nothing yet!" he says, and his eyes seem to glow with a golden light for just a moment.
***
Robin:
"Guys, meet Ava Ritia," Badger says, gesturing towards a beautiful, tattooed woman with what could only be described as heavy piercings. Even peering over the high bar I can see that she looks both
"She's going to be the land lady of - you guessed it – the very first Whispersong pub and café!"
He flourishes dramatically whilst the band smile at us, and Ava purrs that it's nice to meet us whilst Jay and I stare at her.
"I know," Ferret whispers to us, eyes on Ava as she pours drinks for us. "She's magnificent isn't she. I found her. She's going to be in our second generation of Whispersong Band Campers – working title – but don't worry you're our focus right now."
A pang of envy rises in my chest at the thought of Jay and I forgotten, but I crush it down with a wave of gratitude; Whispersong will be helping people long after we've moved on. This can't last forever. I try to scan Jay's face for a reaction to this but find none.
Badger is already recapturing our attention, drawing it to the rest of the pub. There's a small stage for open mics, wooden chairs and tables, comfortable-looking sofas and even a jukebox, not to mention the bar, which is fully stocked with American drinks of alcoholic and non-alcoholic varieties.
"We make great coffee too," Ava says, to which we all make a little squeak of acknowledgement, trying to keep our eyes off her jeans.
"We want this to be a place for both Little Leaves and Frowners to be able to enjoy affordable, comfortable relaxation with great music and company. We were also thinking we could sometimes crash here when we're in town visiting you guys!" Badger explains and reignites my hope that we won't be forgotten at all.
"It'll mainly be for Little Leaves," Stoat says quietly, but Badger shoots him a look that tells me there's something more to this. Are the band still taking orders…?
I pick up a pint from the bar, passing it to Jay with a cheers. Before I know it, Ava is has us all on the tequila slammers and we're laughing, hugging each other and declaring a love for each other that is rooted in companionship and respect, whilst we still look at Ava in a way that demonstrates it is better she stay behind the bar. Even Fox, who normally only has eyes for Jay, is drawn to her olive skin and emerald nose piercing that twinkles with the forest green light of Little Leaves around the world.
"Guys," Jay asks, capturing our attention the same way Badger does in an authoritative and frankly quite sexy moment. "Why are you doing all this?"
"You didn't see?" Ferret asks. "We hit three billion followers! Have you even checked your own counts?"
"We've been a little busy," Jay and I tell them with reddening cheeks.
"Go ahead, check."
"Oh my god," we exclaim, having arrived a combined figure of nearly four hundred million.
As the shock is still fresh, Fox does a huge burp that has us all in fits of laughter and I'm so happy we've made this memory together. Badger slaps him on the back and says "come on, one last thing to show them."
As he leads up behind the bar and to a door that leads seemingly to a cellar or some other back room, Ava tells us to kick some ass and I have no idea what she means, but she's already clearing up after us and putting glasses into a tiny dishwasher next to the sink under the bar.
"Woah," is all we can say as we descend into the huge cellar. There are barrels and barrels of lager, hundreds of bottles of spirits and a huge green door, painted like a tree trunk with the new WS logo on it.
"Very few people will ever see what you two are about to see," Badger tells us, "We've been a little…greedy, but we'll be sharing the results of our time in here." He says, reaching under his tshirt and retrieving a small green key, opening a door and revealing…
An even larger and better equipped studio than the one in France, it's incredible. I recognise one of the guitars and one of the drum kits.
"That's right, we had your kit collected and brought here whilst we were at the shop. We want you to write a song with us all together, and then we're sending you on the next challenge. Once you've completed that, you'll meet us back here and we'll write songs for each other instead of with each other, and you can show us everything that you've learned as we near the end of this journey."
"Yes, there's only Sloth left, right?" Jay asks.
"Kind of," Badger replies with a gleam of knowledge that makes me want to shake him, but I can't. I feel like I'm having an out of body experience, watching this unfold as if it is a film of my life rather than me living it.
Instinctively I walk over to the guitar and pick it up for only the second or third times. If Ava were a guitar, she'd be this one. Everything about it shines with beauty, and as I pick at the strings I see it's held tune perfectly.
I don't remember learning the chords, but I sit on one of the large green lounge chairs with the guitar in my lap and fingerpick variations of the G and D chord, with open notes in between. Everyone's watching but I don't care anymore. I want to write the new Bible. I want to write something that helps people and gives them hope and ways to cope and entertains them and makes them happy and…and it's so much pressure.
"You see what you need now, don't you Robin?" Badger asks, and I have no idea.
"To work?"
"The opposite," is his cryptic reply, and I don't understand in the slightest. I look at Jay for help, but the drumkits are more interesting than my mental plight.
***
Jay:
Robin'll be thinking about writing, and placing enormous pressure on the art of it. Wanting to create for the outcome of it, rather than the enjoyment of the process. I am a firm believer in process though, and my process will be… to smash the drums.
Fox is drinking the image of me folding out my electric set instead of any of the others with his eyes, scrutinising each move with an intensity that the old me would have shrunk from, but the new Jay rises back to in challenge.
As I go to plug in the headphones before I thrash out the first beats, his hand stops mine.
"Don't. Play it loud Jay," he says, before gently tracing a finger over one of my now toned biceps.
"You've been playing a lot," he says, with disbelief and possibly amazement.
"Yes, in the quiet moments. I don't think Robin's noticed because I use the headphones," I whisper back, and he's grinning revealing those sharp teeth I picture – and miss - sometimes.
"I could kiss you," he says, "but I won't," he adds quickly.
"You don't know how to write a song using a drumkit, but you don't need to know anything. Just feel the beat in your heart and the words of your brain will follow." He says, taking his hand off my arm and walking away. I didn't realize he'd been touching me the whole time, and I feel a little sad. Like I've hurt him somehow.
I cast a glance across the room to where Robin's playing the guitar, but the fretboard is more interesting than me. The band disperse to some instruments of their own, and form a circle around us, seemingly unaware of the distance between Robin and I in this moment…or understanding that music could bring us closer together.
God these guys are good. They know exactly what they're doing, and I can't tell how much of it is the acquired technical skill of a powerful and well equipped management team, and how much is the raw, natural talent of prodigies.
Just two minutes into Badger talking passionately about how they write country music, I can see that it is the rare intersection between those two aforementioned characteristics. These guys are the real deal, and I'm not surprised at least one of them think of their ability as a God-given gift, I can't say for sure I wouldn't think I don't deserve it either.
"You'll be familiar already with what a ballad is, verses, choruses etc. But country is more storytelling, with the message you want to get across as the most important; the music simply helps the words flow, and the guitar is important for enabling that with the drums acting as support, but even then you only need three or four chords. It's about knowing when you want melody, when you want rhythm. When to be soft and when to go hard, and ideally, call your song the last word of the last line in the chorus. Got that?" he asks, sassily, as if teaching children.
I'm sure there's a little bit of value in what he's saying, but he's holding back.
"You're holding back," I challenge him. "Why?"
"You're right Jay. We can't tell you what country is. You'll need to figure it out for yourselves… over the next three weeks at a five star all-inclusive resort in the Bahamas. You'll have access to your phones and your followers, but importantly, no access to us. Any attempt to contact either of us," he gestures to them all to emphasise the point "will result in failing the challenge and forfeiting everything we've all worked so hard for."
"WHAT?!" Robin erupts, standing abruptly and I fear the guitar will go flying, but see it has a beautiful, embroidered leather strap attached. A gift from Badger, no doubt… shut up, Jay.
"When do we leave?" I ask.
"Tomorrow," Badger says, "Which is why it's such a good thing we still have some of tonight left!"