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OK, Liam is a bit spacey but, more than that, he's dreamy. One night we had a little snog

Emma Forrest
Friday 20 September 1996 23:02 BST
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Liam Gallagher is growing wings. He will live with me until they are fully developed. At the moment they are just blushes beside each shoulder blade. They are coming to the surface, slowly but surely. It was the itching of the nascent buds that drove him mad and made Oasis cancel the American tour. It will only be a few weeks before the wings burst through his cagoule and unfurl above his head.

I invited him to room with me because I have my wisdom teeth coming through at the moment. I know what he's going through and I thought that we could whine and complain and knock back Ibuprofen together. Patsy will come over whenever she can to comfort us, but at the moment she's filming in LA. She's an excellent mother and very sweet, a real girl's girl. She doesn't mind her fiance living with another woman. She knows that these are not wings of desire. I don't want him to be my fella, I just want to see his feathers.

While we wait for the wings to sprout, I've been playing him lots of records, anything and everything but The Beatles. He complained at first, stuck his fingers in his ears and refused to listen. Now he's mad for Blondie and really getting into the Seventies singer-songwriters. He's going to talk it over with the rest of the band, but it looks likely that the new record will be very Carly Simon influenced. James Taylor and Dr John are helping us write songs at the moment.

Still, I know he misses the Fabs. Sometimes, when I come home, I can hear Abbey Road floating down the stairs. I walk into the kitchen and catch him fixing a steak sandwich to the strains of "Polythene Pam". So we've agreed a deal whereby he only listens to George Harrison's songs until the wings are fully formed. Apart from that, it's all non- Beatles. I don't want to stunt Liam's wing capacity by only feeding him one thing. He's a good boy. He is also a naturally melancholy boy. I mean, yes, he's a madhead, but he also feels this incredible nostalgia, this yearning, for a music and time that he never experienced in the first place. He meets all these starry A-list types, and he gets excited, but even while he's sharing his drugs with them, he often feels very lonely.

I make sure we play a game every day. Liam has an incredible imagination and we have a lot of make-believe fantasies about being in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I don't have a big wardrobe in my house, so he hides behind curtains and in the linen cupboard and I put on silvery make- up and try to scare him. I think we click so well because we have both been accused of being space cadets when, in fact, we just have radically short attention spans. OK, Liam is a little bit spacey but, more than that, he's dreamy. One night we had a little snog and he was the most amazing kisser. His mouth moved so softly and simply, as if he were thinking about Lennon and The Lion and chips and Marlon Brando and nothing at all.

Everything in his head is unrelated. He knows he loves Patsy, he knows he loves the band and Noel and his Mam, but he doesn't put it all together. He loves them with all his heart, but, apart from his Mam, they remain disconnected from him.

We've talked it over and Liam feels bad about the bust-up with Noel and ducking out of their concerts for the rest of the year. But he's sick of being a pop star. He has decided to concentrate his efforts on becoming a better human being. This is the re-birth, not the re-union. Liam is only 23. He is not the saviour of the British music industry. He is The Saviour. I'm living with The Saviour.

When the feathers first began to peep through, I wondered if he could carry it off. They were so downy and soft, so pale. They caught all the light in the room and made his shoulders glow a soft champagne colour. I worried he would think they were too giddy. In fact, they have become very imposing and majestic. As he's calmed down, the wings have fully developed. They're beautiful. Liam has blow dried them into a mod feather cut. He's standing out on the balcony now, ready to take flight. You've never seen anything like it. He is, however, threatening to revert to type. If he flies over Damon from Blur, Damon had better not look up.

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