What Abi Did

Pete: "(Carl) phoned me last week but he hung up. He texted me to say 'Sorry, I bottled it. I'll try later.' Then I got a letter. It was quite nice. It had a poem in it and some quotes from (jazz trumpeter) Chet Baker. Y"know, I'm proud of him. Over the years he's changed a lot. He's got a lot more confident. I'm really proud of him and I love his bones."

Interviewer: So how do you feel about your new single 'Don't look back into the sun'? It seems The Libertines music comes second to the bands scandal at the minute.

Pete: "It's a beautiful song. When we wrote it me and Carl knew it was a special song and we both fucking love it. I've heard him singing it in his sleep."

Peter: (Carl came to Barcelona) with a guitar on his back….a big step for him, and for our relationship. We talked late into the night, and embraced, and reunited in an infinite Arcadian reverie…an Arcadian celebration. Yes, it seems to have existed forever, perfectly. 

Carl: I knew that I had to go see Peter, the friend that I love and that I missed, to know if this friend, and this friendship, still existed. It was just him and me. And our guitars, the streets… I was pretty nervous because I did not know what I would find. When a relationship ends, we build an image to protect ourselves…by pushing aside all the wonderful things that we used to do together. It was terrifying, but all of this has disappeared, has melted, and I have been able to see things as they were, in all their beauty.

Carl: There is a magical alchemy that only we can unlock. Playing songs with the person with whom they were written, it is incomparable, it is another dimension, it is so powerful, touching, and beautiful.

Peter: When Carl looked me in the eye and actually believed me when I said I was going to give it a fucking go, it was like a miracle. Everything else was forgotten.

Peter: (A new album) seems to me the thing to do, but I would never guess that he would want to. I’m really very happy that’s the case. And a little surprised. Honored, to be honest. And surprised, surprised and flattered. There is a part of me who will always be this 16 year old kid who doesn’t know how to play the guitar, and there is this guy, a little older, who my sister thinks is attractive, who knows how to play the guitar and who has this song called, ‘France’.

Peter: We reminisce with each other about the past, hysterically, and we remember, how this is all strange and fantastic. At times, there is no one else who I connect with at this level. Carl, I know that…there are things that no one else can give, a certain level of understanding, a way of remembering things, because, at a certain age, we viewed everything in the same way, a way no one else shared…It’s strange, but he really knows me. I forgot that there was someone else on this planet who could understand me in this way, it is mysterious, but it is comforting and beautiful.

Peter: The opening song (at Glasgow Barrowland) was Vertigo. I couldn’t really get into it. My hand was shaking so violently. Awful. I felt as though I was ballsing it up bad, and that the lads were angry. “Pete’s ballsing it up again” etc. Turns out that they thought we played a blinder and me in particular.

Peter being obvious.

I feel sad now about Carl and his apparent hearthache at The Sun article. It’s his birthday today and I know I won’t see him again for a while. He whirls himself away somewhere into his mind, away from me and the hateful hurtful worlds he can imagine. I love him and I wish I could tell him so, and wish him to believe it to be so.

I live for this