#Zero

by Neil McCormick

  So that’s what we did, although the elevator only took us as far as the Pilgrim’s forty-fourth floor, then we had to walk up several steep flights. I took the stairs two at a time, laughing to see my so-called bodyguards hauling their sumo blubber after me. Bursting onto the roof terrace, the view was spectacular, a 360-degree looping vista of craggy towers poking into the blue. I ran whooping to the edge, while Flavia sternly admonished me to slow down and the sumos puffed to keep up, then I leaned over the balcony and spat my chewing gum out into the wind, imagining it flying through the air to attach itself to the head of one of the unwitting ants hustling across the streets below.

  Bruno Gil started shooting as soon as he got close. I threw my arms out against the balcony and leaned back like a Hollywood starlet, laughing with childish glee at this absurd moment of near freedom. ‘Top of the world, Ma!’ I shouted. ‘Top of the world!’

  ‘That’s nice, that’s nice,’ the photographer murmured, issuing a steady stream of come-ons, like he was seducing a model. My bodyguards stationed themselves far enough away not to intrude but close enough to intervene if Bruno should go psycho and try and tip me over the edge. Kelly and Linzi hovered discreetly, occasionally intervening to adjust a hair or tuck in a stray bit of clothing. Flavia and her midgets occupied Queen Bitch. Kilo was talking to a hotel manager. Spooks McGrath and his digiman recorded zero24seven footage while a late-arriving MTV crew set up to shoot the photo shoot. You are never alone with an entourage.

  ‘Where you from, man?’ asked Bruno. He was just keeping up the patter, I know, holding my attention, but it was a stupid question, everybody knows where I’m from, don’t they?

  ‘Ireland,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t look Irish.’

  Like I didn’t know that. I look like a fucking alien. ‘My mother was Colombian,’ I said.

  He seemed pretty excited by this. ‘Yeah? Mine too! What I mean is I’m Colombian – mother, father, the whole works, es un mundo pequeño, eh?’

  ‘I don’t speak the language,’ I admitted.

  ‘Really, why not?’

  ‘We spoke English at home.’

  ‘They speak English in Ireland?’

  ‘They speak English everywhere, don’t they?’ I snorted. ‘They probably speak English in fucking Colombia. You speak English pretty good.’

  ‘What part of Colombia she from?’ he persisted.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I was starting to regret granting him ten minutes.

  ‘You don’t know where your mama’s from?’

  ‘She’s dead.’ That was always a surefire conversation stopper. But not this time.

  ‘I’m sorry, man, I’m so sorry. My mama too, God rest her soul, before I came here. Life’s hard down there, siempre duro …’

  ‘La Esperanza,’ I said suddenly, surprising myself.

  ‘What’s that, man?’

  ‘That’s where she was from. La Esperanza.’

  ‘I don’t know it.’

  ‘I don’t even know how I know that.’

  ‘It’s in your blood, man. You got relatives?’

  ‘In Ireland.’

  ‘Colombia, man, your mama’s family?’

  ‘No. I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know much, man.’

  Who the fuck was this guy? I tried to catch Flavia’s eye. It was time to wrap it up.

  ‘My family’s from MedellÍn,’ he continued. ‘It’s not good what’s happening down there, with the orphans.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’ I started clicking my fingers, trying to signal to someone to pull me out. Fucking people watch you like a hawk all day, then the moment you need them they are all cooing over the view.

  ‘People don’t protect their own kids, you know their soul is in trouble,’ said Bruno, snapping away. ‘The kids got nothing, they homeless, fucking death squads running around treating them like vermin. That country’s gone to shit, man. I never go back there, never. It’s good what you’re doing with the record, man, giving something back, I admire that …’

  How the fuck did he know about the charity record? Could nobody keep a secret round here?

  Kilo had finally woken up, and stepped in with a phone, saying I had to take a call, we had to keep moving. Bruno accepted his fate graciously. ‘Thanks, man, el Dios esté con usted,’ he said, putting the camera down.

  ‘Yeah, God be with you too,’ I said.

  ‘I thought you didn’t speak the language, man?’ Bruno grinned.

  ‘I don’t speak the language,’ I said.

  6

  We rode the people carrier all of a hundred metres to the back of the Enlightenment, pulling into the rear, where I was escorted through kitchens and corridors, all the time talking to some DJ on a West Coast radio show. ‘What’s the weather like in New York?’ he wanted to know. They always ask about the fucking weather, like it makes any fucking difference to me as I am transported by luxury vehicles from one air-conditioned room to another, from Timbuktu to Reykjavik.

  ‘It’s hot,’ I said, gazing at people in shorts and shirtsleeves. ‘It’s hot everywhere. That’s why they call it global warming. Here is the weather forecast for the next hundred years: hot and getting hotter.’

  ‘It’s snowing in LA,’ he said, cheerfully.

  ‘I bet it’s hot snow,’ I said.

  I liked that image, I could use it for something. I thought I ought to write it down but the phone was plucked from my hand and I was led into another overlit ballroom to applause from massed ranks of journalists, seated on row after row of fold-up chairs, leaning forward, notebooks in hand, ready, willing and eager to record my every inanity. And there was going to be some inanity spouted this afternoon. I sat behind a raised table bristling with microphones, smiled graciously and prepared to answer the most stupid questions I would hear all day.

  International press conferences really are the bottom of the barrel of global communications, a room packed with stringers from every second-rate media outlet in every corner of the globe, intent on reducing the burning issues of the hour to its parochial essence so they can go back to their editors with at least one line of provincially relevant copy. And so it began.

  ‘Hi, I am Sumiko from Asahi Shimbun. You have many fans in Japan who share your concern for the future of young people on the planet Earth. What is special relevance in your song “Never Young” for people of Japan?’

  Yeah, how about stop dressing your hookers up as schoolgirls, that would be a start. There is no pornography in the world more disturbing than Japanese porn, and I should know, I’ve whacked off to enough of it. And while we’re at it, how about you leave the whales alone? What have whales ever done to you? In fact, we’ve got to talk about this whole sushi business. Haven’t you heard the seas are going to be fished out by the middle of the century? What are you going to eat then? Cucumber rolls?

  I didn’t say that, of course. I said, ‘I love Japan, Sumiko. Tokyo is one of my favourite cities in the world. It feels like the future is already here, and when I’m gazing up at that awesome skyline I think maybe, just maybe, there is hope for us all.’

  ‘Hello, Zero. Jouko from Helsingin Sanomat. Is there a special reason why you chose Finland to launch the European leg of your tour?’

  Yeah, because it’s the middle of fucking nowhere, the weather is shit, the transport links are terrible, the media won’t be busting a gut to get there and it’s nice to get a show under the belt before we hit a major capital. That’s the truth. But what I said was: ‘Hi, Jouko. Finland is a very special place. I once played a midsummer festival there with The Zero Sums, which was weird, all these kids trashed out of their minds on that local moonshine, stumbling about under the midnight sun, it was like a post-apocalypse teenage zombie party, which seemed absolutely right for this record. And I always find Finnish audiences to be very appreciative. They really give you a great reception.’ I didn’t
add the obvious point that they should fucking appreciate it because no other major star ever goes and plays there, it’s such a fucking dump. Next question.

  ‘Bonjour, Zero, Thierry Grizard, Agence France-Presse. You play the Stade De France, two dates, your biggest shows in mainland Europe – do you have a special relationship with the French people?’

  I don’t know, Thierry, I’ve fucked a couple of French hotties in my time but the waiters are kind of rude, non? Wrong answer. ‘Paris is one of the great cities, it’s one of the only places I ever visited outside Ireland before … well, before all this, did you know that? I went on a school trip, spent a day on a coach and a ferry, to see some exhibition about the European Union, which was kind of boring to be honest, but we took in all the sites: Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sacré-Coeur, the hookers on Montmartre.’ This got a laugh, which is a dangerous thing, because it only encourages me. ‘A couple of us bunked off and spent an afternoon trying to find the grave of Jim Morrison but we just got lost and had to be brought back to the hotel by the gendarmes. My teachers were not amused, I can tell you. I took a beating for France, that day.’

  That was Eileen and me, what a day that was – we made love in a park under the shadow of a national monument, ate crêpes and drank café au lait down by the river, then ran off without paying, laughing like lunatics, which is how come the gendarmes got involved. I hadn’t thought about that in a very long time, and the way it opened up before me now I felt like I could just fall into the past, go tumbling back to a bridge across the Seine, where I couldn’t quite believe I was standing in the sunshine with the prettiest girl from Kilrock, and I loved her and she loved me, and I was happy, I was happy, I was really fucking happy. I blinked hard, snapping back to the present and all those expectant faces. ‘Vive la France!’ I shouted, stupidly.

  ‘Hi, Zero, Kay Darling from the Sun …’ announced a startling figure beneath an enormous mane of black hair. She was dressed like she was auditioning for the role of high priestess at a black mass, with the kind of plunging décolletage you could hurl yourself into from an Olympic high diving board and survive the fall.

  ‘Hello, Darling, what’s your question?’ I knew Kay well, Darling by name but not by nature, poison princess of British gossip, the so-called ‘celebrities’ friend’, she would dazzle you with cleavage while stabbing her six-inch stiletto heels through your heart.

  ‘Given that your fiancée has opted to Carry On Up the Amazon with Troy Anthony rather than joining you in New York for Weekend Zero, I was wondering what advice you would give to any of my readers who may have already gone to the expense of purchasing wedding gifts? Should they hold on to their receipts?’

  You had to watch out for the Brits at these things, they prided themselves on the art of provocation. ‘You can tell your readers Penelope has all the cutlery she needs, thank you, Kay. So why not claim a refund and send the money to the MedellÍn orphan’s appeal?’

  ‘So are we to take it wedding plans are on hold?’ she persisted.

  ‘One question each, Kay, you know the rules,’ interrupted Flavia. ‘There are a lot of territories to get through.’

  ‘We haven’t set a date but when we do, you’ll be the last to know,’ I snapped. ‘Why does anyone still think this is an interesting story? Famous actress on location with famous actor. Love scenes thought to be involved.’ There was a smattering of laughter and applause. Oh, don’t encourage me. ‘I knew what I was getting in for when I got together with Penelope. I’ve got the director’s cut of Suicide Blonde.’ More laughter. ‘You should see the pre-nup her lawyers handed me. She reserves the right to send a body double on honeymoon.’ I was lapping it up now. ‘If we ever split, she gets to keep the five houses, I get the tent up the Amazon with Troy.’

  I should have known better than to goad a hack.

  ‘So I take it you haven’t seen the evening edition of the New York Post?’ smirked Kay Darling. ‘I believe they’re running a series of shots of Penelope and Troy in what used to be known as compromising positions.’

  Fuck that bitch. I wasn’t going to give her the pleasure of seeing me flinch. ‘Compromising Positions? Isn’t that the name of Troy’s new movie? You should see if they’ve got a part for you. I think it ends with a ritual sacrifice of the truth. You’d be perfect for it.’

  Someone else had the microphone now. ‘Hi, it’s Sven from Sweden. Last year you had the biggest selling album in Sweden, your Stockholm show has sold out in under ten minutes – what do you think is the source of your special connection with the Swedish people?’

  Thank fuck for Sven from Sweden. ‘I love Sweden,’ I said with feeling. ‘Abba, The Cardigans, I grew up on Swedish pop music …’ Blah de fucking blah. I just wanted to get out of there, but I had another thirty territories of foreign cock to suck.

  Afterwards, I posed and grinned like a model on MDMA for a photocall in front of logos of our tour sponsors, then I was led out front, pressing flesh with a screaming crowd before hurling myself into the back of the limo, where I slumped across a leather couch to be transported to rehearsals in Queens, mirror shades pulled down over tired eyes. I gave Kilo the cutthroat signal. Minions and media could ride coach, I needed a moment alone. Well, when I say alone, there was Kilo, Beasley, Flavia, Eugenie and Cornelius, which is about as alone as I ever got. Oh and Tiny Tony and the driver up front.

  Beasley and Flavia dived straight into forensic analysis of the press conference, but I wasn’t listening. Too many stray thoughts and images were chasing each other around my head, knotting together in ever more complex permutations, circles and loops of memory and projection, Eileen fucking Troy fucking Penelope stabbing Kay Darling with cheap cutlery while fucking orphans cried for their mothers, Jesus fucking Christ, I was tired, I was tired, I was so fucking tired, I needed drugs, I needed sleep, New York framed in the limo window, endless faces, cars, buildings, everything passing by in an unfocused blur, deli, record shop, news vendor … ‘Stop the car!’ I yelped. ‘Stop the fucking car! Just stop. Stop right fucking now!’

  The driver did as he was told, traffic behind beeping, everybody in the limo staring at me like I might be having a heart attack, Beasley demanding, ‘What’s the matter?’ as I threw open the door and made a beeline for a news stand.

  ‘The Post, gimme a Post,’ I demanded. A sad-eyed vendor handed over a newspaper then started yelling for his dollar fifty as I turned away, leafing through the pages. The orphans had bumped me off the front page again, a post-earthquake shot of carnage and desolation, but that’s not what I was looking for. There it was. Page five. A strip of grainy photos of my bride-to-be, naked from the waist up, kneeling in front of what looked a hell of a lot like Troy Anthony’s world-famous ass, and even with the wonders of pixilation there was no question where she was putting her beautiful mouth, dear God. Alongside it was a photo of Yours Truly stepping out of a helicopter giving a victory salute to the New York skyline. The headline was ‘LOVE MINUS ZERO As Popstar Boyfriend Takes Manhattan; Penelope Seeks Comfort With Troy’.

  ‘You’re him. You’re him, aintcha? You’re him.’ Some gangly, corn row black youth overwhelmed by outsize sports clothes was pointing at me. ‘Shit, dude, I know you’re him.’ Tiny Tony hit the sidewalk running and tried to get between us while the guy snarled, ‘Don’t put your hands on me, motherfucker, I know my rights.’ Smartphones were clicking, drivers were cheering. ‘Way to go, Zero!’ shouted a red-faced bruiser leaning out the passenger window of a battered delivery van. ‘You give Penny a shot for me!’ My own people poured onto the street. A scraggy homeless loon, all bug eyes and beard paced around, shouting, ‘Can I get some attention here? Can I get some attention?’ A birdlike oriental woman in a canary-yellow tracksuit demanded an autograph. ‘For my daughter,’ she kept saying, ‘For my daughter,’ and when I didn’t respond she started yelling, ‘What’s wrong with my daughter, you son of a bitch?’ Tiny Tony wrestled her away. In the people carrier access-all-fucking-areas Queen Bitch was li
cking her lipstick like the cat who got the cream. The news vendor was still yelling for his dough until Kilo slapped a ten-dollar bill in his hand. It felt like something was spitting in my face. Hot snow, maybe. I looked up but the sky was blue and clear, the blinding white orb of the sun peeking between skyscrapers, light bouncing off windows, my face was wet again, I was crying for the second time today. What the fuck was wrong with me? Tiny Tony led me back to the limo, the door shut behind us, and we started moving.

  Nobody said anything for a while. The newspaper lay on the floor, with my beloved in her adulterous nakedness for all to see. People would be poring over those very pictures right now, all over New York and the rest of the world too, downloading them, uploading them, turning them into funny little animated gifs to share with their friends on Spamchat and Snarkr. By Monday, they’d be selling them on T-shirts outside my gig. ‘Open the bottle of vodka,’ I instructed Kilo.

  ‘Is that wise?’ said Beasley, gravely.

  ‘No, it’s not fucking wise,’ I snapped back. ‘We’re way beyond wisdom here. I need a drink.’ Kilo was hesitating. ‘I would like a drink of vodka from my drinks cabinet, please,’ I announced, firmly. Beasley gave a subtle nod and Kilo unscrewed the lid of a bottle of Absolut Citron, took a glass from the cabinet and poured me a shot.

  I knocked it back swiftly, tasting the bitterness in my mouth, feeling the hot burn in my chest. ‘You can chop me a line of coke, now,’ I said. There were sharp intakes of breath. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ I groaned. ‘It’s rock and roll, not the fucking priesthood.’

  When Beasley gave another nod, Kilo took out his stash and started chopping white powder on the polished walnut of the limo sideboard. I accepted a rolled-up bill, bent down and inhaled deeply. Then I slumped back, heart crashing against my ribcage. ‘Go on,’ I waved expansively. ‘Help yourselves.’