The Thrill of It All

by Joseph O'Connor

  ‘We’ll get you a pukkah suit,’ he’d say to Fran. ‘Gonna degrease Robbie next and introduce him to soap.’

  ‘I’m one fucker you won’t Modify,’ Fran would shoot back at Seán. ‘You dress like a Mormon pimp.’

  ‘We’ll see about that, mate. We’ll see. Don’t be jealous.’

  ‘Pill-taker.’

  ‘Junkie.’

  ‘Soul-boy.’

  ‘Tramp.’

  ‘Rev up your Vespa and bugger off to Brighton.’

  ‘That dandruff or coke on your shades?’

  It became their affectionate language, a code you had to understand. Feigned dislike was their form of closeness.

  He turns to me, laughing, as the two young women walk away.

  ‘All right, mate?’

  ‘Bit nervous.’

  ‘It’s only a gig. All the same in the end. Pub or a stadium, don’t matter. Main thing is face forward and try to look interested. And get yourself a shirt. And some shoes.’

  ‘But Seán—’

  ‘Ain’t nothing to worry about. Everything’s rosy. Trust me. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  SEÁN

  I was worried bloody sick, love. But I didn’t want to say. Venue like that – yeah, it’s only a thousand seats the way we’ve set it up – but you want everyone in the band with their mind on the gig. And Robbie was too in his head.

  Know what I mean? Gone into himself. It’s a thing he does sometimes. Drives me spazz. And Robbie’s a guy with a lot of head to go into. It’s big in Robbie’s head. Massive. Vast. Throw-a-boomerang-massive. There’s an echo. Lady Gaga and Justin bloody Bieber could play a gig in Robbie’s head and there’d still be room for Riverdance. You know the way the Aboriginals down in Australia have to go on walkabout every now and again? That’s what Rob does. In his head. Big mountains in there. Ayers bloody Rocks. Uluru, I’m telling you. He’s walking about, looking. And you may as well tell your dog to go whistling Leonard Cohen as talk to Rob when he gets like that. Wasting your time, mate. He ain’t gonna listen. It’s like digging a hole in a lake.

  And I’m having a shufti around, trying not to let on, and wondering how bad things can get. Rob-wise. You know. Things ain’t looking too clever. It’s like you’re thinking of stuff to say to him and running out of words. And the Olympics is kicking off on the telly tonight, with every banger ever cut a record in the history of the world on the bill. McCartney, the Arctic Monkeys, Dizzee Rascal – that’s a gig. You can see it for gratis on the telly-box tonight, sitting at home with the missus. Quite fancy it myself. Who wouldn’t? So are the punters gonna show? Say if it rains? And we ain’t played in so long. It’s all on your mind. Might be a case of ‘everyone spread out and look like a crowd’. Ain’t the vibe you want for a gig like this. Ain’t the vibe at all.

  We’re under-rehearsed. Fuck-all’s agreed. I’s worried about the sound. It’s doing me in. Vicar Street’s a lovely club but they’ve a balcony there, seats up above you, all round. You’re bottom of a bowl. Punters upstairs, roaring down. Like putting your face in the well of a jet. I wanted Chloé Nagle or Ciarán Byrne, best sound engineers in Ireland as far as I’m concerned – no disrespect to the rest – but Chloé was working in Galway with Scullion, and Ciarán was down in China. The geezer we got was all right but he weren’t no Chloé. ‘The Prof’ they called him. Good ears on the boy, don’t go getting me wrong. But your sound-hog’s an essential part of the show. And things’ve changed since the old days. Like, the young bands now, they don’t have a monitor on stage. It’s earpieces now, but Rob didn’t want that. So we need to score monitors nobody’s booked. Arse-ache, you know. It’s a hassle. A gig is two hundred decisions all need to be right. Else the whole thing’s gone Pete Tong. One fuse gets blown, one input packs in, you’re up there naked as the day you was born but a fuck of a lot more hairy. It ain’t ‘put on a show in the barn’ no more. It’s a lot more professional now.

  Tell the truth, I hadn’t slept. Too many hassles. Lists needing checking and they’re swirling all night. And Trez ain’t no help. So it’s you on your tod. We’ve these brilliant surprise guests pitching up but we can’t put the names out. Nowadays, you’ve guests on a bill, that’s the way it goes. See, they might be gigging next week in the same city, same venue. So their manager won’t let you announce ’em.

  I’ve spent a lot of time down the years backstage at a venue, coiling flexes, noodling about, you know, vibing up. You talk to the roadies, give a bit of respect. They’re doing a job. It’s important. To me, that’s my workplace. That’s how I feel. I’m happy back there. Want to know what’s going on. But this wasn’t no happy morning. Something ain’t right. It’s like smelling rain. Get your pac-a-mac.

  Then in comes Roberta, looking nervous and grim, like a kiddie afraid of the circus. And he’s smoking and looking about, at the lampies and the techies. Pillock’s got blood pressure. He’s smoking. And he’s yapping away about the tool-belts they’re wearing. Spectating, you know? Not preparing. You want him talking about this song, that song, the harmonies he’s got. Bit of smartness, you know? Chop chop. Turn up to the match, mate. Put the shirt on, okay? Lot of people would give their eyes to be wearing that shirt. You’re playing for Chelsea. Look lively. But there was bugger all of that. Nerk’s absent. I mean nada. You’re looking in his eyes, it’s like staring out a window. Asks me have I brought my naffing drumsticks like that’s a surprise. No, I was thinking of playing the drums with me cock, mate.

  Being fair: can’t be easy, when he ain’t played in twenty years or whatever it is. But he’s focusing on the past, every story’s about Fran. Stuck in Memory Lane. Which ain’t where you want him. I’ve a very bad feeling. Not a happy camper. I’m feeling intensely dischuffed. I’m at the game long enough to know when Numpty’s in his head. Grand Canyon between his earholes. Ain’t kidding. And it wouldn’t be unusual for the twat just to scarper. Blow the gig, sod the punters, I’m off, John. Done it once to us in Denver. Four thousand punters. Five minutes before the gig he’s said he’s nipping out to buy fags. Didn’t come back. Not nice. You wouldn’t think the quiet one’s the walker in any band. But Robbie’s a walker. Don’t be fooled. Littlest aggravation or something wrong in his head, off he’ll sod without shutting the door. He’s essentially a twat. Which I mean very nicely. He’s Olympics material for walking.

  To distract him, I got him to help me do my set-up and prep. Then these girls come in, I hadn’t a breeze who they was. Two nice kids from the box office. Just messing about. And that seemed to cheer him up a bit, he’s come out of himself. So we’ve had a bit of a laugh with them and then they went away. But I can see he’s all fingers and thumbs.

  Trez wasn’t about. She’d more sense, cunning mare. Tell a lie, she was at our auntie’s, in Donnycarney, north of Dublin. Tucking into the Irish bacon sarnie. My auntie Carmel’s idea of health food is fourteen kinds of cholesterol washed down with Holy Water and a grand auld cuppa tay. Nice old girl. Trez’s gone up to visit. So that’s where she was on the morning of the show. See, she’d never roll up to the venue ten hours before the gig. Bad luck and trouble. Mighty superstitious, our Trez. Had these routines and ways of doing things, the day of a show. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.

  Nah, it was just she had her ways. A lot of musos do. You see it all the way back, in the blues and that. The black-cat bone and the mojo hand. I don’t go for all the malarkey but Trez’s a spiritual gal, straight up. She used to tell us ‘Every time you play music for money, you lose a bit of your gift. So play it for something else.’ That ain’t the way I see money myself, never was. Give us the vig, mate. I earned it. But that’s Trez. Another planet. See, musicians are spacers. Whatever gets you through the night. I don’t judge.

  And one thing she’s right about. A show can be cursed. Stuff gone missing. Rig’s on the blink. Amp you tested all day, it’s gone tits up in the water. You might think I’m talking bullshit but a show can get the hex. And that’s the feeling
coming over me that morning in Dublin. Bad Moon Rising. You know?

  Like someone was out there, not wanting it to happen. And I knew who the someone was.

  Seán and I went around to a café on Francis Street and got tweaking the set-list. He’d done his best with what was available. The opener would be ‘Insulting Your Mother’, a thing I wrote in our first winter in New York, having overdosed on Talking Heads. After that, ‘Billy Fought Baz’ and ‘Nine Days Without You’. ‘Ash’ from our debut cassette was one of my babies. I found it hard to sing live, but we left it on the menu. Then, Trez’s ‘Send it High’, and her ‘Boy Marked by Winter’. I wasn’t sure about doing ‘Boy’ so early in the night, since it would be a bit like marrying the audience before taking them out to dinner. I felt we should pace, maybe save it for an encore. Seán’s cool kicked in. ‘Throw it,’ he said.

  Silence came in and sat at the table. We knew there was a hole in the evening and nothing to fill it. If you didn’t mind seeing the Mona Lisa with her entire face blacked out, we had just the right show to offer. What can you do? Onward we worked. He nodded judiciously as he looked over the completed list. ‘That’s a gig I’d wanna see. Some strong stuff there.’ And he paused the tiniest instant before adding, as an afterthought: ‘Punters don’t always want the hits.’

  He didn’t mean it to hurt, and actually it didn’t. But there was a mild, brief sting all the same.

  Thankfully, we’d somewhere for the conversation to go. We’d guests on the bill and we started into the sequence: who’d open, who’d sound-check, who wouldn’t. The nice kid doing Production Runner hurried into the caff. She had RTE Radio on the phone back at base. Would I taxi out to the studios for an interview?

  Look, there’s something on my mind. I’ve been asked to keep quiet. I’ll be honest and say it’s caused me concern. But on balance, I’m going to say my piece.

  A month before the gig, I didn’t want to do it. I was building up to telling Trez, when Jimmy emailed me to say Fran’s people had called the house and wanted ‘a chat’. My dear father advised caution, which is always his way when dealing with anyone who has ‘people’. I should get myself a lawyer, a representative of some sort. I’d gone down painful and expensive roads with Fran and his people, journeys that were hard to come home from.

  I called the number, which turned out to be Fran’s record company in New York. They directed me to another office, in LA. There I spoke with an individual I’d never met or even heard of, who showered me with pleasantries while clearly doing something else, perhaps having his toenails filed by an intern. Would I be prepared to fly to Dublin next morning and come out to Fran’s house in Howth? It was time ‘to clear the air’.

  They couriered me a ticket. A car would pick me up. Fran’s chauffeur’s name was Hakim. It would be appreciated if the summit remained confidential. Having sworn myself to Trappist secrecy, I hung up and immediately called Seán in California, telling him every last detail I’d noted.

  I remember silence down the line, a few watery echoes. ‘Up to badness,’ he said quietly. ‘I dunno. What’s his play?’

  I didn’t sleep that night. In the morning, I went to Dublin, on the flight that leaves Heathrow at quarter to six. It was dark when we took off, getting light when we landed, the moon like a sliver of broken fingernail over the Wicklow Hills, and a mother of a wind off the bay. Hakim was in Arrivals, holding a sign. He asked if I wanted breakfast. I didn’t.

  Dublin Airport to Howth is only ten miles, but an accident caused gridlock and the journey took an hour. The newspapers, Irish and English, tabloid and non, were arranged on the back seat beside me. I’ve been inside Kyoto cocktail lounges smaller than that Lexus and less comprehensively stocked with booze. Wi-fi, a television, iPod dock, Nintendo Wii. It was a car you could go to on your holidays.

  You may not know Howth, an old fishing village north of Dublin. Above the town is an enclave of mansions and hilly side-roads lined with wildflowers. Up several of the latter we purred, past many of the former, until we halted before a couple of black cast-iron gates the height of cathedral doors. A pictogram featured a snarling dog. Security cameras in cage boxes adjusted themselves in our direction. Hakim pointed a bleeper at a sensor on the pillar and the gates glided open like curtains.

  We drove a narrow rutted laneway for about half a mile, then it widened to a newly tarmacadamed road. On our right was a paddock containing seven horses, all black, on our left, far below us, the grey expanse of beach. In the distance I saw the lighthouse where Fran has his studio. We passed a tennis court, a ruined chapel, a helicopter pad. The castle appeared through trees. I counted a row of twenty windows along the uppermost storey. Battlements. A dovecot. A bell tower.

  A young woman in boot-cut jeans and an off-black T-shirt was waiting on the steps as though she’d practised that a lot. Her hair was blonde and braided, and she introduced herself as ‘Amelia’, shook my hand with professional conviviality. She had one of those spiderweb henna tattoos across her left wrist and wore expensive looking jewellery made to look cheap but failing to. Nice kid, she spoke in the throaty monotone of south Dublin’s expensive schools. Oddly, she seemed familiar – perhaps from a newspaper photo? I found myself wondering if she was famous for something.

  Buffets of wind came hard from the sea.

  ‘Such an honour to meet you, Rob. I hope I’m not gushing. You get that a lot, right?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Oh, you do,’ she insisted. ‘Robbie Goulding himself. Fantastic. You’ve been with us before?’

  She knew I hadn’t been there before but I didn’t mind her dissembling. Well, you don’t ask a person doing her job why she’s doing it. She asked if she could get a picture, which took me aback, but in a moment her i-Phone was out and she was selfieing the pair of us. Hakim remained in the car.

  ‘Cheers, Rob. That’s epic. Will we head into the observatory?’

  ‘The . . .?’

  ‘Observatory. You have so got to see it. It’s awesome.’

  I should resent how they talk, but for some reason I don’t. The way they use the word ‘like’ as noun, verb and comma gets me buzzed to the nth. It’s adorbs.

  ‘We got it renovated last year by this amazing designer. Badly needed it, too, break your heart, chintz and velvet. Like, this carpet on the walls. I’m like what? All he didn’t have in it was a piebald and a skip full of fridges, God forgive me.’ Here she laughed. ‘Follow me up the stairs, Rob? In we pop.’

  I did as requested. Her perfume was lovely. Suddenly we were on a long landing lined with paintings of screaming popes.

  The observatory turned out to be a vast room that didn’t actually feature a hole in the roof. But it did have a telescope-on-tripod in a wall-length bay window, and many murals of constellations and comets. Amelia began identifying them, I think for my benefit, using a plasticised card of the type you’d see in a gallery, but pausing every now and again to repeat that meeting me was a privilege. No seriously, I was ‘a legend’. She was ‘totally blown’. Accepting a compliment is a talent, one I’ve never had. I found myself wishing she’d stop.

  ‘Would you like something, Rob?’ I thought I’d better not say what I’d like. Instead I asked for a glass of water.

  ‘Fizzy or still? Oh, I think we’re out of fizzy.’

  ‘Tap would be grand,’ I managed.

  Well, off Amelia went, leaving me alone with Cassiopeia. At least, I think that’s what she said it was. It was pleasant having it to look at because the old heart was beginning to whomp. Many moons had waxed and waned since I’d last laid eyes on Fran. The prospect of doing so now was a little intense.

  It was quiet in the room. Indeed, the whole house seemed quiet, as though surrounded by several acres of snowfall. Money muffles facts. Money is anaesthetic. You can use it to buy peace or noise or insanity – believe me, I’ve bought my share of all three in my time – and Fran had used his to buy quiet.

  I drifted over to the telescope and
looked out at the bay. Sleet was falling. Two kids were fishing in a boat. I wondered why they didn’t row back.

  On the windowsill, among a stack of books, were two paperclipped sheets of A4 with a heading that took my attention.

  MAOMM

  INSTRUCTIONS FOR PUBLICISTS

  PRIVATE

  Who or what was MAOMM? A Death Metal band? One of Milton’s many names for Satan? I have those strange and unsettling pages in my hand as I write, for I stole them – yes – you wouldn’t have done so? Don’t read if your conscience prevents.

  When Mr and/or Mrs Mulvey (MAOMM) travel, it is always preferable to use private jet. When that is not possible, they travel First Class.

  ‘Business Class’ is not First Class.

  MAOMM, when travelling, are accompanied by three (3) staff: Mr Mulvey’s personal assistant, Mrs Mulvey’s personal assistant, and MAOMM’s personal security operative. MAOMM may also be accompanied by Mrs Mulvey’s parents. They are entitled to, and better receive, respect.

  No cabin crew will engage MAOMM in conversation other than that necessitated by professional duty. MAOMM do not drink alcohol and would prefer that it not be offered.

  The car conveying MAOMM to hotel to be unostentatious, e.g. jeep, SUV or saloon, never stretch limousine, but to have blacked-out windows and be private. Driver not to converse with, or look at, MAOMM.

  Hotel accommodation for MAOMM will be six-star, five-star (superior) at minimum. If five-star, the entire floor on which MAOMM are accommodated will be otherwise empty of guests.

  Michael Hakim Jamal, referred to above as MAOMM’s personal security operative, is a former Colonel of Special Forces, US Military, and is a credential-bearing Private Detective under US Federal Law, licensed to bear firearms in all states and protectorates of the US. He will be given access to all records at hotel so register of guests can be checked.