The story had prompted an instant investigation by the university. The colleges traditionally turned a blind eye to the raucous behaviour at the elite clubs – clubs like the Carrington had only been suspended a handful of times in their history – but this was in another league entirely. They had no choice but to come down hard on Miles, despite the lack of much real evidence. Miles had been briefed extensively by the Ashford lawyers and knew what to say: the Youngbloods were not a registered university club and the party had not been held on university property; there was nothing to formally link them to the college at all. Moreover, there was nothing beyond hearsay to link Miles to the solicitation of prostitutes or the procurement of drugs – not even the Chronicle had been able to find a female party guest willing to admit she had been paid for sex. On paper, Miles had simply organised a party that had got out of control. But that didn’t cut any ice with the ancient dons staring down at him.
Miles slowly began to concentrate on what they were saying.
‘Aside from the newspaper allegations, Mr Ashford, the quality of your work has been considerably below the required level for this university,’ said Professor Stewart, a particularly severe-looking senior tutor. ‘Add to that your endless missed tutorials, a sub-standard tutorial report and a woeful history of penal collections. Under the circumstances, I feel we have been particularly lenient when we recommend that you rusticate for a period of one year.’
Miles closed his eyes. Rustication: temporary expulsion from the university. It was one better than being sent down, but still . . .
‘Fuck you,’ he said.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr Ashford,’ said the Dean, peering over the top of his half-moon glasses.
‘I said “Fuck you”,’ repeated Miles, enunciating the words as clearly as he could.
The dons exploded: ‘What’s the meaning of this . . .’ ‘How dare you? . . .’ ‘I’ve a good mind to . . .’ Just as predictable as ever, thought Miles. Holding his head high, he strolled out of the chambers and into the street, where he leant against the wall, breathing in fresh air, desperate to get the fusty smell of Oxford from his nose.
‘Bollocks to rustication,’ he muttered to himself as he lit a cigarette, sheltering in a stone archway.
He blew the smoke up towards the grey sky. Since he had been inside, it had started raining. A thin, chilling drizzle that was soaking straight through his Savile Row suit.
A cyclist, his college scarf flying behind him, rode through a big puddle, splashing Miles’ trousers, the damp fabric sticking to his legs like cold jelly.
‘This place is a shit-hole,’ he observed. ‘A fucking shit-hole.’
He turned and walked back up the high street. Oxford was over for Miles. It was time to get to where he belonged.
20
May 1992
‘Where are the gold lilos?’ shouted the photographer. ‘And where is that bloody unicorn?’
The entire area surrounding the pool at Hartfield Hall was in chaos. The view from the Berkshire country house hotel was obscured by huge lights, a camera on some sort of crane and a fog machine blowing smoke across the water. An army of extras dressed up as fairies were queuing for make-up and in between all of it ran innumerable men and women wearing baseball caps and carrying walkie-talkies.
‘It’s only a bloody album cover shoot,’ said Year Zero’s bassist Gavin, staring at the scene from the door of the hotel bar. ‘You’d think they were storming the beaches at Normandy.’
For once, the whole band was in a good mood, finally convinced that the record company believed in them, that they were getting somewhere. For the last year they had felt anything but: slogging around the toilet circuit, struggling for any sort of recognition in the music press, releasing a four-track EP that had gone down like a frozen turkey. The biggest blow for Alex was when they had moved down to London. He had always imagined that when he had a record contract, he would be living in a waterside apartment with a Porsche on the drive, but instead, he and Emma shared a mould-ridden Camden Town bedsit where one morning Alex had found a mouse in the toaster. Some days, he had felt like that was a metaphor for his career.
But not any more. Since Year Zero had recorded their debut album The Long March, things were changing; suddenly everyone was excited. ‘Don’t Talk’, their first single from the album, had just been released and industry buzz around it suggested that it would go in high when the charts were announced later that day. On top of all that, the record company had employed a team of radio pluggers to get them airplay and the band had even been interviewed on TV. Now they were shooting the album cover with legendary rock photographer Anton Jones. Finally it was all coming together.
‘Excuse me, guys?’ A girl carrying a clipboard walked into the bar and looked around at the band nervously.
‘Can I speak to your manager?’ She glanced down at the board. ‘Nathan Fox, is it?’
Jez immediately switched into PR mode. ‘He’s not here, lovely.’ He smiled wolfishly. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’
‘Oh, well we just need someone to sign off on the car,’ she said.
‘What car?’ said Alex.
‘The Rolls-Royce,’ said the girl as Jez signed something on her clipboard with a flourish.
‘What Rolls-Royce?’ said Alex.
‘The Roller I’m going to drive straight into that pool!’ said Jez happily, taking a swig from a bottle of Bacardi.
‘You knew about this?’
‘Knew about it? It was my idea! Think of it, all the rock iconography – Keith Moon, Marc Bolan, Bon Scott carking it in a car – it’s all there.’
‘This shoot is costing a bloody fortune in unicorns as it is.’
Jez threw his arm around Alex’s shoulder and breathed rum fumes into his face. ‘It’s basic common sense: if the label wants to spend a fortune on our album cover, you don’t stop them. You want it to look as mental as possible.’
Alex wriggled free and pushed Jez back. ‘And who’s paying for this, Jez?’ he said.
‘How the fuck do I know?’ said Jez, annoyed.
‘We are, you moron! Everything comes out of our advance.’
‘Wow, do you two always fight like this?’ They both turned to see Liz Gold eyeing them with interest. The Melody Maker journalist was at the shoot to get ‘some colour’ for a four-page story the paper was running on the band. Alex noticed with a sinking feeling that the red light on the journalist’s dictaphone machine was on.
‘Fight? Nah, we’re just hamming it up for the press,’ said Jez, squeezing Alex’s shoulders. ‘Like brothers, aren’t we, Al?’
Alex smiled weakly.
Liz nodded, looking from one to the other as if she didn’t believe a word. She was right of course. Alex’s relationship with Jez had gone from bad to worse lately after Jez had demanded a share of the songwriting credits, threatening to quit unless it happened. The upshot was that Alex had been presented with an impossible decision: agree to Jez’s demands, give him equal billing on the songs and let him take credit for all Alex’s talent and hard work, not to mention a cut of the publishing royalties, or walk away from a band with a record contract and start again. In the end he had no choice: he caved in, but it did nothing for inter-band morale.
‘Listen, I’m just going up to your room where it’s quieter,’ said Liz, touching Jez flirtatiously on the shoulder. ‘Why don’t you come up when you’re ready and we can do our part of the interview?’
‘I’m in there,’ said Jez matter-of-factly, when Liz had gone.
‘Jez, don’t screw up the article by getting frisky with her.’
‘What do you care? Anyway, look, your missus is calling you,’ said Jez sarcastically. ‘The mini music mogul at work.’
Across the pool Emma was waving at them. Thanks to a tip-off from their manager Nathan, Emma had landed a job as a marketing assistant at EMG, Argent’s parent company, which had given her the excuse to attend the album shoot. Her new job meant they hardly sa
w each other these days, but Alex was genuinely glad she was doing so well in her career; in fact they both shared a dream that one day they would end up in New York ruling the rock industry: she running a major label, him a reclusive musician, occasionally emerging for a huge televised concert at Madison Square Garden or somewhere. And to think this was the girl who used to bang on the floor whenever they turned the music on in the flat downstairs.
‘Still looking hot, though,’ said Jez, giving Alex a complicit slap on the back. ‘Still pretty foxy. You’re lucky I gave her to you.’
Alex glared at him. ‘You gave her to me?’
‘Yeah, like after I’d finished with her. Warmed her up for you, didn’t I?’
Emma had always denied going near Jez Harrison when they had all lived in the big house in Fallowfield, but Jez was always making sly suggestions that they had slept together.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ whispered Jez. ‘Our little secret, eh?’
‘Piss off and do your interview, Jez,’ said Alex, walking out of the bar. ‘And try not to be a total cock this time.’
Emma was waiting for him by the pool. ‘I’m off,’ she said, kissing him. ‘Phone me the second you hear about the chart.’ She looked at him and frowned. ‘What’s up with you?’
Alex groaned. ‘Sorry, it’s Jez. All this time I’ve known him and I still can’t work out what drives him. Apart from spite, of course.’
‘You do know he’s jealous of you?’ Emma smiled, lighting a cigarette and looking at Alex sideways.
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Alex.
‘All right, he feels threatened, then,’ said Emma. ‘You’re a better singer, musician and songwriter, plus you get more attention from the girls.’
‘I do not!’ he protested.
‘Hey, I didn’t say you took them up on it, did I?’ She grinned.
‘Well, I can’t help it, can I?’ said Alex. ‘Am I supposed to wear a mask?’
‘Absolutely not. I’m not having my very gorgeous boyfriend hiding away from anyone.’
He paused for a moment. ‘Can I ask you something?’
Emma glanced at her watch. ‘I was supposed to be in London an hour ago. But seeing as it’s you . . .’
‘Did you ever shag him?’
She looked at him with confusion. ‘Shag who?’
‘Jez, of course,’ he said, annoyed.
Her face started to cloud with anger. ‘Alex, I’ve told you a dozen times I didn’t.’
‘It’s just that on the night I first met you, Gavin said he’d slept with one of the girls upstairs ...’
‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation, Alex. It was so long ago.’
‘So you did sleep with him?’
‘No, I didn’t. I told you.’ She shook her head in frustration. ‘You’re an idiot, d’you know that? It’s the biggest bloody day of your career so far and what are you doing? Arguing like children with Jez Harrison. Well, get over it, Alex, because Jez is part of the band. Yes, he’s a wanker, but he’s a bloody good frontman, and without a frontman there is no Year Zero.’
‘I can’t believe you’re siding with him!’ said Alex petulantly.
‘I’m not siding with him!’ cried Emma, throwing her hands up in the air. ‘Are you even listening to the point I’m trying to make here? This isn’t about me and Jez, it’s about you and your insecurities.’
‘You said you were late,’ he said sulkily, refusing to meet her gaze. ‘Hadn’t you better go?’
‘Yes, I think I should,’ she said, pointedly throwing her cigarette into the pool with a fizz and stalking off to her waiting car.
Despite the nagging guilt over his argument with Emma, Alex had to admit he had actually quite enjoyed the rest of the day’s shoot, especially the part where Jez drove them both into the pool. Alex had insisted on riding shotgun in the Rolls, reasoning that he was paying for at least a quarter of it and should get at least half the fun. It had been bloody freezing in the water, though, so he had come up to the band’s day room to strip off his wet clothes and have a shower. Opening the bathroom door in a cloud of steam, he padded out into the room with a fluffy white hotel towel wrapped around his waist.
‘Oh bugger,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’
Liz Gold was sitting at the table hunched over a notebook.
‘Come to keep me company?’ She smiled mischievously.
‘Uh, no. Just come to get my jeans,’ he said, nodding behind her where they had been drying on the radiator. As he leant over her to get them, she reached out and pulled at his towel, her hand stroking his limp cock.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he snapped, recoiling from her.
‘Doing what every rock and roll star would want doing in this situation,’ said Liz, completely unruffled.
‘I have a girlfriend,’ he stuttered.
‘You and every other musician on the circuit,’ she said, laughing.
‘But if you’re going to get anywhere in this business, you have to learn that you need to keep certain people onside.’
Shocked and embarrassed, Alex grabbed the rest of his clothes and stumbled out into the corridor, hastily pulling them on. Jesus, what was all that about?
The truth was, as a teenager he had fantasised about something like that happening when he became a rock star – it was why you got into a band in the first place, wasn’t it? Maybe I need to loosen up a bit, he told himself. I have been getting too uptight about everything, letting Jez get to me, taking it out on Emma. As he reached the door leading to the pool, he could see the band standing by the deep end, all looking up towards the hotel.
‘Alex! Get yourself over here!’ screamed Gavin.
‘What is it?’ he called, sprinting across the grass.
Gavin pointed to the hotel, where they could see Nathan Fox through an open window.‘He’s got the record company on the blower.’
‘The chart position?’ said Alex nervously.
Pete nodded, putting a nervous hand on Alex’s shoulder.
Through the window, they could see Nathan put the phone down and turn towards them, his face stony.
‘You’re not going to like this, lads,’ he said mournfully, then his face broke out into a Cheshire Cat grin. ‘Number fucking nine!’ he shouted.
Jez screamed and dragged one of the fairies into the swimming pool with a splash.
‘Yessss!’ yelled Alex. ‘Fucking yessss!’
Nathan came running out of the hotel holding a magnum of champagne then shaking it up and spraying the sticky foam over everyone, Formula One-style.
‘Top ten, Alex!’ he laughed, pulling him into a bear hug. ‘You’re on your way now!’
‘Oh shit!’ said Alex, suddenly thinking of his promise. ‘I’ve got to make a call,’ he added, running back to the bar and grabbing the phone at the end of the counter. He dialled the Camden flat and Emma picked up immediately.
‘Hello?’ she said.
‘You’re home.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Number nine!’ yelled Alex. ‘Number bloody nine!’
‘I knew it!’ she screamed. ‘I just knew it. I never doubted it for a minute.’
‘And I never doubted you either,’ he replied, wondering how they could possibly have argued earlier.
‘Oh, I love you, Alex,’ she said.
‘I love you too,’ he said, suddenly realising it was the first time he had ever said it to her. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’
Hanging up, he bounced back outside, where he sank on to the grass and smiled. Champagne fizzed in his belly, the sun was warming his face; he felt like he’d just finished a very long race and – to his surprise – had actually won. Across the grass, he watched as Jez climbed out of the water, stripped off his wet clothes and, naked, began to chase the unicorn across the lawn, whooping, ‘Number nine, horsey! Number nine!’ And for once, all Alex could do was chuckle.
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