"Oh, all right, I guess I'll have to do it."
"Hero," comments Heidi, giving him a peck on the cheek.
"As long as Craig comes."
"Whassat?" mumbles Craig, who's been deeply occupied with his Pratchett novel.
"Come on, Spalding," says Heidi, cheekily kicking at one of his trainers. "Remember, you're in a rock band? Yeah? About to play to, ooh ... fifty thousand people?"
"It's a bloody good book," he sighs, sticking his bookmark in and mooching off with Martin.
"Uh, I'll go too," adds Petra, following Heidi out, understandably not wishing to breathe in the poisonous atmosphere remaining between the two drunk boys.
For a good while neither you nor Dan say a thing; you're too busy nursing your glass of Jack, and Dan his rum, while absentmindedly plucking at his acoustic bass. But suddenly Dan looks up, frowns, and speaks with a comically slow slur.
"Oh ... shit. I forgot ... to tell you. Per ... seph ... on ... ee ... she called. Earlier. On the phone."
"Uh?"
"You know. Per ... seph-on-ee. Gloria's ... sister."
"Who ... whose ph-phone?"
"Yours."
You actually do own a mobile phone, a lumbering, bricklike device which doesn't fit into any of your pockets, so you tend not to carry it around. You haven't even looked at it since yesterday evening. You drag yourself up off the sofa and stagger to where you dumped your bag. The conversation proceeds with all the energy of two dying criminals at the end of a Tarantino film.
"D-did she ... s-say ... anyth-thing?"
"Yeah ... to call ... back."
"Nothing ... else?"
"Er ... no."
The sheer incongruity of the phone call is what shakes you from your stupor. The last time Persephone Amhurst communicated with you was through a solicitor, when you were curtly instructed not to even attempt making contact with Gloria again, or legal proceedings, restraining orders and all manner of other seriousness would ensue. To now be called directly, on your mobile phone, on the day of your biggest British gig in years, seems alarmingly peculiar to say the very least. You open your bag and extract the stout black gadget. You're sure there's a function somewhere for seeing who called last, but it's hard to locate even at the soberest of times.
"Thanks ... Dan ..." you splutter, heading out the door.
"Yeah," he murmurs.
John the security chap still patiently waits where he's been all evening, now puffing on a cigarette in the rapidly fading light.
"Off out, Lance?"
"Yeah ... need to m-make a ... phone call."
"Oooh, dear, you'd better take it easy on the old booze, hadn't you? Big show coming up and all ..."
"Don't w-worry about m-me," you drawl. "I was probably more p-pissed than this the last t-time you saw us."
"Hmm," John thinks, as you begin to dial Persephone's number. "That would've been Langley Park, ninety-three. I was working on the sound desk, as I recall-"
"Sorry, s'cuse me."
You duck behind one of the tents while the phone rings. That's the trouble with being friendly to the staff: then they think they're your mate, and ...
"Hello?"
"Persephone."
"Ah. It's you."
She's always referred to you as "you," even for the brief five minutes back in 1985 when you were both making a strained effort to like each other.
"Yes. How ... are you?"
"Look," she snaps. "I'm not going to pretend this is anything other than a message service ... Frankly, I've no interest in how you you are, so I can't believe you've any concern for my well-being. Had a telegram from Rosamund. She's had a car accident in Russia. She's recovering but she's lost the baby. She requested that the family tell you, so that's what I'm doing." are, so I can't believe you've any concern for my well-being. Had a telegram from Rosamund. She's had a car accident in Russia. She's recovering but she's lost the baby. She requested that the family tell you, so that's what I'm doing."
She hangs up without waiting for a response.
Which is just as well, really, for it's another ten minutes before you regain the ability to form a sentence, and this time it has nothing to do with the alcohol.
In the weeks and months that follow, you'll come to realise that all is not quite as it seems. With her usual blend of stupidity and arrogance, Persephone has managed to both under- and overestimate your relationship with Gloria, and the true details of her crash will eventually emerge. But for now, the multilayered news hits you so hard, it's like you've been kicked. Four times. In the balls, the stomach, the heart and the head. By someone with very strong legs. Just, presumably, as the Amhurst family intended. They could equally have sent someone round to beat you up; but then, they'd hardly consider that a respectable respectable form of terror. You cling onto a guy rope in the darkness and reacquaint the contents of your stomach with the outside world: a deliberately violent action with all the follow-through you can muster. You feel such utter, desperate, rock-bottom loathing for yourself and your stupid, worthless little life that you strongly consider lying down and rolling around in the vomit, soaking your hair, soiling your pants and then impaling yourself with an industrial tent pole. There are only two factors which stop you from doing this. One is that there's now comparatively less alcohol inside you and, ironically, you've started to sober up a bit. The other thing is more complicated, but goes something like this: you created another human life, which brings with it certain responsibilities, none of which you've been able to fulfil. Now you believe that life is over, and you suppose the spirit of that life can probably witness your every action, so-put simply-what would it think if it could see you rolling around in your own vomit? Would it be proud of its father? Then you'd have failed it in death as well as life. Years later, you'll come to recognise this moment as the genesis of the paternal instinct that grew so profoundly over the next decade, but right now all it means is you keep your hair and clothes clean. You've also got a show to perform. Although absurd and perverse at this juncture, you suddenly feel a rush of enthusiasm. Yes. This is what I can do. I've fucked up everything else, but I can at least play guitar and sing rather well. Remember that? form of terror. You cling onto a guy rope in the darkness and reacquaint the contents of your stomach with the outside world: a deliberately violent action with all the follow-through you can muster. You feel such utter, desperate, rock-bottom loathing for yourself and your stupid, worthless little life that you strongly consider lying down and rolling around in the vomit, soaking your hair, soiling your pants and then impaling yourself with an industrial tent pole. There are only two factors which stop you from doing this. One is that there's now comparatively less alcohol inside you and, ironically, you've started to sober up a bit. The other thing is more complicated, but goes something like this: you created another human life, which brings with it certain responsibilities, none of which you've been able to fulfil. Now you believe that life is over, and you suppose the spirit of that life can probably witness your every action, so-put simply-what would it think if it could see you rolling around in your own vomit? Would it be proud of its father? Then you'd have failed it in death as well as life. Years later, you'll come to recognise this moment as the genesis of the paternal instinct that grew so profoundly over the next decade, but right now all it means is you keep your hair and clothes clean. You've also got a show to perform. Although absurd and perverse at this juncture, you suddenly feel a rush of enthusiasm. Yes. This is what I can do. I've fucked up everything else, but I can at least play guitar and sing rather well. Remember that?
You'll also look back in days to come and speculate that everything would've been okay from then on-had Dan not decided to lock the dressing room door.
"Dan, are you in there?"
More knocking.
"Dan! Have you locked this?"
"He closed it five minutes ago," John the guard tells you. "Didn't hear him lock it, but there you go, he must have."
"Have you got another key?"
"No, I'm afraid they don't give us the keys. The organisers will have a spare, but I'm not sure where you'll find them right now."
"Can't you radio them?" you shout, whacking the door with your fist.
"No, we're on different circuits. You see-"
"Oh, for fuck's sake. Dan! Dan, can you hear me?"
You hear a faint groaning.
"Aw, fuck it, he's bloody passed out."
You stomp along the length of the hut, seeing if you can climb through the window, but the gap is too small. You shout through it instead.
"Dan, open the fucking door, you dick! We're bloody playing in twenty minutes!"
Silence.
"Well, this is a right old mess, eh?" chuckles John, lighting a fag.
"We could barge the door down," you think aloud.
"As I've got you here for a moment, Lance, I thought you might be interested to know ... I was was offered some cash a little while back." offered some cash a little while back."
"You were?"
"Yeah. Fella came up about two hours ago, bloke in one of them striped shirts, offered me twenty quid to let him into your room."
"Really?"
"Yeah, but I told him to stick it, y'see."
"John," you assert, grasping him by both his shoulders. "You've got to tell me who this guy is! I need to know." know."
"I told him to stick it," John continues, unflinching, "because I'm an honest man, you see, Lance."
"Good! Great! But-"
"I'm honest, I work hard, and I don't complain. But what I do do ask ..." ask ..."
"Yes?"
"... is that I get treated with a little respect when I'm only doing my job properly."
You frown at him.
"What are you saying, John?"
"Nice young lady of yours, earlier ... I bet she she wouldn't strike a man who was only doing his job properly." wouldn't strike a man who was only doing his job properly."
"What ... ?"
"I was off work for two weeks after that ... from stress ... two weeks, with no pay, and I've got mouths to feed, Lance."
"John, I have no no idea what you're fucking talking about," you shout, turning around and hammering on the door again. "Dan!" idea what you're fucking talking about," you shout, turning around and hammering on the door again. "Dan!"
"Your blonde-haired tart at the Langley Park gig," John goes on, his voice rising, "she laid into me when I stopped her entering the sound desk ... She insulted insulted me, called me names I won't even mention, then did me, called me names I won't even mention, then did this." this."
He brandishes a Polaroid of himself with a beaten-up face. It looks pretty bad, but ...
"Fuck off, she could never never do that to you!" do that to you!"
"Kicked me when I was down, she did."
"Just shut your mouth, John ... you're talking shit!"
"It's amazing what someone can do when they're that jealous ... jealous of the good-looker on the video screen you were diddling. I bet that really really stung her, knowing she looked like such a freak ..." stung her, knowing she looked like such a freak ..."
In that one nanosecond, you decide you can either punch him or break down the dressing room door. Wisely you choose the latter. Dan wakes up from his drunken snooze on the sofa and coughs.
"Whassappenin'?"
"Wake up, you idiot, and don't lock that fucking door again."
You grab your acoustic guitar and two bottles of red wine, and storm straight out again.
"You've just lost your fucking job, John," you spit, as you pass. "Well done. I'm getting out of this fucking place."
But the only safe place left to go is the side of the main stage, now a hive of activity as The Boo Radleys' gear is wheeled off and your own crew pushes the Magpies' larger stage set into place. On the road in a strange city, this familiar, almost homely routine conducted by a group of people you trust can usually liven whatever sour spirits you've got yourself into, but not today. Today you're no longer certain what planet you're on. You settle yourself by the monitor desk, open the wine and tune your acoustic: a ritual you perform before every show, normally helping to keep your feet on the ground, but this evening you're suspended a hundred feet in the air with acute vertigo. Bob Grant passes, evidently glad to see that you're at least alive. Stan the roadie passes and tussles your hair. A minute later Doug does the same thing. A nice gesture, but right now you don't understand what nice is.
"All right, L?" asks Pete, the tubby monitor engineer, as he readies his equipment.
"Yep," you respond, swigging from one of the bottles. But of course, you're not. You're in a galaxy far, far away from all right, sinking back into your previous alcoholic fog.
Gradually the others assemble. You abandoned anything as crap as a group hug weeks ago (in Berlin, actually, when Dan and Craig had a fight before the show), so the interband ceremony that precedes this largest of British comeback gigs is practically non existent. The front-of-house music gets louder (you managed to insist they play the Wilco album), the crowd gets wilder, then ... hey. It's showtime.
"Ready?" grunts Martin.
"Yeah," you murmur.
And that's just about all you can clearly remember. You know the first song went okay and that you tried to be funny in the next one, but no one seemed to get the joke. You seem to recall singing an Oasis song, for a laugh, then trying to chuck out some of the audience, but the people you wanted to eject outnumbered those you wanted to stay, which was a little surprising. You drank some more, sang some more, then you spotted that idiot in the red tracksuit down the front and did the "wanker" signal at him. But it all seemed fairly cheerful; a couple of insults, but no more than a Thieving Magpies audience is used to. Then Dan and Martin started to take it all too seriously. What's the matter with these people? Always fucking complaining. In those rare moments you sit down to think about it, it really pisses you off that you spent your whole career dragging them along by their manky ponytails, writing them some of the best songs they'd ever had the pleasure of playing-and, of course, made them a shitload of money-but they've never never been grateful. And Martin, in the end, didn't even need to admit to the others he wanted to leave the band; he just sat back, happily watching everything collapse as you took the heat. And all you were doing was trying to hold it together. Dan even announced over the microphone been grateful. And Martin, in the end, didn't even need to admit to the others he wanted to leave the band; he just sat back, happily watching everything collapse as you took the heat. And all you were doing was trying to hold it together. Dan even announced over the microphone (over the bloody microphone! (over the bloody microphone!) that you were "being a cock tonight," when all you were doing was defending them! them! Oh yeah, and you saw that knobhead security bloke, what's-his-name ... John ... also down the front, probably not even Oh yeah, and you saw that knobhead security bloke, what's-his-name ... John ... also down the front, probably not even working working, folding his arms over his fucking beer belly and pointing at you. So you showed him. If Gloria could punch him, so could you. Fucker, I bet he deserved it that time, too. And then suddenly there were loads of people, all shouting, screaming, arguing, pulling you this way and that ... everyone so serious serious. When all you were really doing was trying to be funny. That was it! But no one was laughing. You looked really hard, all around you, to see who was laughing. But no one was. And that's when they took you away.
SUGGESTED LISTENING: The Wonder Stuff, Hup Hup (Polydor, 1989) (Polydor, 1989) No one likes a grown-up pop star I've got to hand it to this Lance Webster bloke. He may be a rubbish drinker, a former womaniser, occasionally arrogant, selfish and frequently nasty to his audiences, but he's really jolly good at making Clive Beresford cry. That's four times in twenty years now, a record unmatched by anyone, even my first girlfriend.
Fortunately, unlike my performance in the toy museum, I do manage to control myself. We are in a major international airport, after all. It's limited to a few tears leaking out and a couple of fulsome blows of my nose, and, to be fair, Webster is doing much the same. Then he scruffs up his hair, lets out a quick laugh and claps his hands.
"Yes, yes," he sighs. "All the cliches. [Hollywood hero voice] 'The day my world collapsed ... I watched in terror, as my whole life caved in before my eyes.' Fuck, man, I almost feel like a drink ..."
"Well ..."
"I said 'almost,' Clive. The sun is not not over the yardarm." over the yardarm."
In truth, the thought of a drink doesn't thrill me either, after all that. I study my notes, which are largely unintelligible, but I've a feeling I'm not going to forget much of what he's said.
"You should get a Dictaphone," he comments.
"I've got one. I just can't find a shop that sells the tapes."
"Tapes! Come on, Clive. Twenty-first century."