Scabby Queen

by Kirstin Innes

  She pulled all the papers out, trying to stack them in what felt like an order – invoices on one side, bills and writs from the housing association on the other. She didn’t want to risk any other seemingly innocuous-looking letterheads, any more unexpected outpourings. She wondered how a person could exist in the world with such minimal family. Didn’t everyone have a cloud of blood relatives who would bustle in and know intrinsically what to do, how to go about this? She imagined her own sister managing her death, imagined the paperwork being processed, her mother consoled, every important person on her Facebook notified swiftly and beautifully, within the hour. But Clio had seemed to shed connections as she’d got older, really. There had been friends who adored her and were always there and spoken about, and then they were never heard of again. Over by the fireplace, a couple of photo albums had been stacked, and Ruth pounced upon them, sat down cross-legged on the floor. Only the first few pages had been stuck down, of course, the rest over-full of loose photos which slipped out as she tilted the album towards her. A very much younger Clio than Ruth had ever known, surrounded by faces she’d never seen before, grainy shots, half-remembered. There was no way of tracing these people and why would they even care? Because they once sat in a bar and put their arm round this woman’s neck while someone shone a flash at them? Just write down some fucking phone numbers, Clio, Ruth shouted to the emptiness, then realized that she was holding a wedding picture.

  Glasgow, 2007

  It was one of those things that made Ruth feel old, even at twenty-eight. The name had been announced at Ben’s Monday meeting and there had been a stark divide in the open-plan office space; the people her own age or older who had nodded in acknowledgement or even looked excited, versus the two or three blank-faced younger ones.

  ‘Who’s that, then?’ Keeley hissed over the desk, pulling a face.

  ‘Scottish pop star from the early Nineties,’ Ruth said, and Keeley nodded, went back to her screen, leaving Ruth feeling like she should have explained better.

  Ben continued on, enthusing just as much as he always did about the new signing. ‘Something really bold and new that’s going to open up multiple markets for us: the folk dimension, people attracted in by her name, and hopefully also a much younger audience – I mean, she’s talking about bringing in grime artists on this. That’s going to have huge youth appeal. We could cross-promote it to schools as a teaching aid. It all just seems like a really good idea.’

  Ruth had always loved this in him, the sweet excitement over every new project, the way he could always be totally convinced by an artist with a bit of passion to hoof off into a commitment that numerous other record companies would have already passed on. It usually meant a nightmarish web of his printed-off emails to untangle in order to make the thing actually happen, but that was her job, and she was good at it. She’d always enjoyed bringing order to chaos and Ben Vey’s shambling folk-music label had been a swamp of dust when she’d taken over the admin side of things a few years ago. He was waiting for her at his desk after the meeting, loose sheets stuffed haphazardly into the poly pockets she’d patiently taught him to use if he had to keep a paper trail for everything.

  ‘So, Clio Campbell then?’ she’d asked as she perched on his desk, trying to sound casual. She’d felt a little prickling of excitement when she’d first seen the name down in his diary but hadn’t wanted to enquire too obviously. She liked to let Ben do his thing out there. It was why they worked well together.

  ‘Were you aware of her before this? You would have been a child, no? A teenager? Sorry. I’m never sure what sort of reach people have to the younger generation.’

  ‘I was twelve, when she was famous. And yeah, I was a bit of a fan.’

  Aware of her. Seven years ago, when she’d come out to Becca, one of her oldest friends from school, Becca had laughed over her pint and said, ‘Well, yeah. There was that Clio Campbell thing, wasn’t there. I mean, you were obsessed. I think I knew from round about then, really.’

  The single had been everywhere right at the time when Ruth was starting to be aware of music, and seeing Clio being so young and red-coloured and brilliantly disobedient on Top of the Pops – something Ruth hadn’t even realized it was possible to disobey until then – had really cemented it. She wrote it on the insides of jotters – PEOPLE GOTTA RISE UP! – daubed it on her schoolbag in Tippex where other girls were drawing the Bros logo. In amongst the stuff her mum had handed over when they’d moved out of the old house was a box containing every magazine interview Clio had ever done, from Smash Hits to Q, meticulously clipped with the kitchen scissors, hidden under her bed and layers of dust for at least a decade. Each one had seemed so shockingly familiar, the design, the placement of the pictures on the page sparking off little pulses in Ruth’s brain. She realized she still knew some of them off by heart; she’d copied Clio’s quotes about wanting to be an astronaut out into a little notebook she found at the bottom of the box, remembered pacing about her bedroom with her T-shirt knotted up over her belly button reciting it, a hand moving expansively through the air as she tried to imagine how Clio Campbell would have looked when she’d said it.

  Ruth had wondered, going into that first meeting with Ben and Linda, how she’d feel. Would meeting the person who had been her first crush, who she’d gravitated to before she’d even realized that she liked girls, unlock something in her, as that box of magazine cuttings had done for a while? Would she get the shakes, or blush, or be unable to stop the attraction coming back? She felt dizzy with the anticipation as she paused at the door of the meeting room, knowing who was in there, but it was just a woman. A woman with a very familiar face, but just a woman. As with every other artist she dealt with, she often found herself talking maternally, calmly, down the phone, and the thrill of that voice being on the other end, saying ‘Ruth! Ruth, it’s Clio. There’s been a bit of a fuck-up …’ had faded by the third or fourth time it had happened.

  Ruth had gone down to London to make sure everything ran smoothly on recording sessions for The Northern Lass; she’d done all the sums and the cost of transporting and housing Clio and the number of London-based musicians she’d wanted to bring in on the album up to Glasgow far outweighed the more expensive studio rental. Donald Bain, who Clio had referred to as ‘Uncle Donald even though he’s not really my uncle’, was staying across the hall from her in the cheapy hovel she’d mistakenly chosen for them on Clapham Common; they’d worked together in the past as he was often in demand as a backing musician on other Vey Records albums, but their interactions had only ever been over the phone. She enjoyed his usually quiet but always pleasant company over breakfast time, where they learned early on not to order the watery, sloppy scrambled eggs. They were also very similar in their ways of dealing with Clio, her threats and strops, the high emotions of her. Ruth noticed early on into the recording that Clio craved reassurance from one or the other of them at any little jolt or snag in the process, almost like a child careening between parents. If something wasn’t quite right with the music, some aspect of the sound, Clio would fret herself anxiously around Donald who would speak calming words to her, rub her shoulder, go off to intervene with the album producer on her behalf; for everything else in her life there was Ruth. It seemed very strange behaviour for a woman of almost forty, particularly one who spoke often about how she’d always really been a lone wolf, providing for herself.

  That fretful, twitchy side of Clio was completely hidden whenever the guest musicians came into the studio, though; the shoulders would pull themselves back, the dimple in her left cheek would wink away at all comers, and she’d be tactile, adult, fully in control, her persona grown to fill the room and charm the newcomers. These were usually young men, cockney, loud and flustered, unsure of what to do, and Ruth and Donald watched their girl ease them into the situation with the same arm-patting and stroking they’d been using on her maybe half an hour earlier.

  Decorating the wall of the studio for the duration of their s
tay there was a huge A1 poster, Robert Burns’s face repeated in smudgy pop-art neons, occasionally wearing Ray-Bans. Ruth had spotted the image on a book cover, presented the cardboard tube to Clio on the first day of recording.

  ‘A little gift from all of us at Vey,’ she’d said (even though it was really just a little gift from her) and watched the delight in Clio’s face, her beaming insistence that it had to hang on the wall, and felt totally fulfilled in that second. She’d noticed Donald watching her, with what she thought was a tiny smile of approval or something like it, on his face.

  The reviews, when they’d come in, had been more or less brutal. Ben had called Ruth through to the meeting room on the second one.

  ‘It all seems a bit extreme, doesn’t it? I genuinely don’t think it’s as bad an album as all that. I mean, of course, there are places where the experiment doesn’t, maybe, work, but this –’ he held up a copy of the Scotsman ‘– this is pure vitriol here.’

  It’s because she’s a woman, Ruth wanted to point out to his big, well-meaning, confused face. Clio would call up every time a new blow hit now, needing Ruth to tell her the same thing over and over.

  ‘They can’t handle this much divergence from the norm, Clio. That’s all it is. The Scottish ones are taking it personally because they think their precious Burns is sacred, the English ones are making fun of it because they find any sort of Scottish culture funny these days. That’s all it is. You’re caught in the middle, but I have faith that once we get you on the road, get people actually hearing it, things will pick up. Your average member of the public hasn’t got time for this sort of tribalism. They just want to hear good music and—’

  Ruth had the speech down rote. ‘Just stop taking the calls. She’ll learn to deal,’ Linda said. Ruth didn’t feel she could. It did seem unjust. Sure, the album was rough around the edges in places, but this, this seemed to be a needless, jeering pile-on. The tour was proving even harder to organize; not only trying to arrange times for the various guest musicians to make it up, but even just booking slots and finding venues seemed to be difficult. Clio caught the overnight bus up from London for interviews, stayed on Ruth’s sofa (after Linda suggested their original marketing fund for the album might be better distributed towards covering the various guest fees), and Ruth ran through the various refusals she’d had while they finished a takeaway and a second bottle of wine.

  ‘The Big Rock Festival – that one was a surprise; actually all the Mansfield Music venues as well.’

  Clio laughed, harshly, showily.

  ‘That’s not a surprise at all, darlin. Ha. You know who runs the Big Rock Festival? Mr Mansfield Music himself? My ex-husband. Yeah. He’s not going to do anything so kind as give me a break, the petty vindictive fuck. Some men just can’t cope with being dumped, can they? Not even – God, what was it? Fifteen years ago.’

  ‘Fucksake!’ said Ruth, topping up Clio’s glass sympathetically. ‘What an arsehole. I did think it was a bit weird – we usually do manage to get most of our acts on at the folk stage at Big Rock, at least.’

  Clio put on an American accent, a bruised, bold Lauren Bacall.

  ‘That’s men for you, sweetheart.’ And she took a long drink, smacked her lips.

  Glasgow, 23 January 2018

  Donald Bain. Of course he should know. Ruth scrolled back through her email, found something in there from 2009, with a landline phone number, lengthy Highland area code. Then she sat and looked at it for a while. Then she decided to open all the windows – the living room, the tiny, grimy bathroom, the overstuffed bedroom with its faint tang of unwashed sheets and female sweat; the hot dead fruit of the kitchen where she registered the plates and cutlery stacked in the drying rack by an empty sink thankfully, then stopped herself. You’re giving thanks, she thought, that in the middle of this horrible thing this woman has visited on you, you don’t also have to do her dirty dishes? You flaccid great doormat.

  She wanted to leave, get another expensive taxi back to Alison’s and sleep and sleep, but had a nagging feeling that she needed to do something more. She crashed back into the armchair, suddenly exhausted, and noticed that wedding photo, lying on the floor. Clio pale and young and lovely, tiny against the background of that big cathedral in Edinburgh; the husband seeming much larger, more present, with a very Nineties goatee beard and datedly baggy suit. There we go.

  ‘Hello, Mansfield Music, Francesca speaking.’

  ‘Hello, my name’s Ruth Jones. I need to speak to Mr Mansfield on a very urgent personal matter. It concerns his ex-wife, Clio Campbell. I have some bad news. I understand this is irregular, but do you think you could put me through straight away?’

  She hadn’t expected that to work; had assumed there would be a finely honed machine of secretarial protocol preventing access to The Man. But here he was on the end of the phone, sounding irritated and busy and possibly a bit scared.

  ‘Dan Mansfield speaking.’

  ‘Mr Mansfield – you possibly don’t remember me. I’m a friend of Clio’s – I used to work for Vey Records, but I’m not sure if we ever – no, just email probably. Sorry.’

  Pull it together, Ruth.

  ‘Uh-huh. Go on.’

  ‘Well. Clio – Clio’s dead. Suicide. Yesterday, while I was at work. She was staying with me. She hasn’t left an address book or anything, and I wasn’t sure whether – well, I know the two of you didn’t have the best relationship but it just seemed as though – I just thought you should know. Sorry. Sorry that you have to find out like this.’

  He was breathing down the line, in, out, very controlled.

  ‘Right. Right. OK. Thank you – thank you for letting me know. Does anyone else know yet – I mean, the media, have they got hold of it?’

  ‘Um. I don’t think so? I don’t see how – it’s just me and the police who’ve been involved so far.’

  A dry half-laugh.

  ‘So it won’t be long till the press are on it. I’ll get the girls in the office ready. Sorry. And you – did you find her? The body.’

  She took a couple of those breaths herself, swallowed the collapse back down. ‘I did.’

  ‘That must have been very hard for you. I’m sorry. Listen, someone will need to let her mother know.’

  ‘Her mother?’

  Ruth was blindsided. She’d never formally asked, but she had heard Clio refer to herself as an orphan on a number of different occasions. Sometimes with mocking laughter in the bright light of a pub, sometimes maudlin at the end of a night. Knowing of the father’s death, the way it had fed into The Northern Lass and some of the press had tried to focus on it, she’d made assumptions.

  ‘I just – I thought—’

  ‘Well, they’re estranged. Don’t talk much. Didn’t. Before – Eileen was diagnosed with vascular dementia, about four, five years ago. Shockingly early, she’s really not that old. But, no other family left, and Clio is of course barely able to support herself, so she came to me. Eileen’s in a care home in Ayr – it’s nowhere fancy, but I wasn’t going to leave her to rot. I always had a soft spot for Eileen. She explains a lot about who Clio is. Who she was. Jesus.’

  Ruth’s head swam with the information, with the almost-too-personal things this man, who she’d only ever encountered as a symbol, a power within her own industry, was telling her.

  ‘Anyway. I’ll get you the details. I’m not – I’m not going to go there myself. I think it would be too confusing for Eileen. I’ve been once; she jumps about in time, she’s come unstuck. She’d need to hear this from a stranger, I think.’

  DANNY

  Cumbria, 1993

  He couldn’t get over how conscious he was of her. It was like the first wild days of attraction on tour all over again, the leaning into each other, trying to find ways to touch, always aware of where she was in the room even when he couldn’t see her. Not sexual this time; something just as primal rising in him. He found himself scanning the street that they were walking down for potential hazard
s

  ‘Are you OK? Do you want my coat?’ he asked again, as the wind hit his face, and he tried to position himself in front of her, like a shield. ‘This is too cold out – look, let’s just get you inside, shall we?’

  She moved her head, nodded as he ushered her into the pub they’d spotted from the car. She’d been quiet for the whole walk, he realized, just listening to him talk through the issue with that arsehole Adam and the bookings for Edwyn’s tour, until she’d asked if they could turn around and go back, and he’d felt immediately guilty that he was making her go out and exert herself when she should have her feet up. They’d been badly prepared for the walk anyway; both in their Converse, picking around the puddles and shivering. He’d thought it would be a good wholesome thing to do: drive to the Lakes, see some countryside, really spend some time together. Making plans, dreaming up the future, not in a city.

  Wherever they went at home, people knew them, whether it was idiots who recognized Clio ‘from off the telly, aren’t you’ or scenester kids in bands anxious to get Danny to book them. In the city, they were too visible. It was always something he’d loved, the way heads would turn as they walked into a bar, the way shy girls in band T-shirts or Beatle-haired boys would approach Clio, supplicant, while he stood just behind her, stroking secret messages into the small of her back. His wife was not ordinary.

  She kept her hair huge and curly even though the fashion was for short and boyish, decked herself in sparkling Lurex and old fur scavenged from second-hand shops while every other girl zipped her chest into tatty Adidas. She painted her eyelids and fingernails silver, and the shimmery powders coated their bedroom carpet, the bathroom, the walls, never quite washed out. She managed to pull focus to herself even in the crowd at someone else’s gig; in a dimly lit nightclub a spotlight could always locate her, a bold streak of scarlet in a world increasingly brown. But since they’d found out, he’d found himself irritated at other people’s insistence on sharing her.