Deity

by Matt Wesolowski

  —Why was that?

  —I think, by twenty years old, Zach, with the help of James, was starting to want more. He was always arguing for a higher place on the bills, for better facilities backstage, that sort of thing. James would act as his PA, sometimes his manager, always in a suit, demanding things, playing the charmer while Zach was the spoiled brat. The act worked.

  —And James was still crushing on you?

  —Always. He never stopped. Ever. It was exhausting, and he was so close to Zach by then, I could never do anything about it, I could never fire him. I just put up with it, until one night, when I just … snapped.

  Naomi says she doesn’t know what brought it on. There was no big incident. Another bunch of flowers, another handwritten poem, perhaps? Whatever it was, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  —I made it clear to James that it was never going to happen for us. Not ever. I told him straight. I thought that would make him leave us alone, leave Zach alone too. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. In fact, it was probably the worst decision I made.

  The story took a darker turn after this incident. James Cryer, having been shunned by Naomi, began using his charm to bring girls backstage to meet Zach. And by default, him too.

  —It was like he was doing it on purpose to piss me off, to make me uncomfortable. I saw him and Zach in compromising situations far too many times than was healthy. Far too many. It was awful. I think that was on purpose too.

  It all culminated at a gig back in Barlheath. Zach and James were just gone. I was doing everything, all the prep for the show, laying out the clothes, everything, and they were out.

  —Did you know what they were doing?

  —I knew. I always knew. It was easier just to let Zach do what he wanted – let the baby have his bottle. It was when they came back that I lost my rag. I got really cross.

  We heard some of this story last episode. From Naomi’s perspective, it’s a lot darker. Zach and James came back to the gig with four young girls in tow. Teenagers. Naomi was shocked. They looked really young, more like children.

  —James was giving them booze. They were all screeching and laughing, they were all over Zach. It was … I was just so uncomfortable with it all. I told them to stop. I kicked them all out of the dressing room. I told Zach that this wouldn’t be happening, not again. No way. I told him to go and take them back home to their parents. I thought James was going to protest, but he didn’t. He didn’t dare. Zach came crawling back … eventually. He said sorry. He asked if we could never speak of it again, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt. When James wasn’t there, he was my brother, he was Zach again.

  —Did you ever ask Zach why on earth he’d brought such young girls backstage?

  —I did. I told him to be straight with me. I told him I wouldn’t be mad. And of course, he said it wasn’t him. No way. It was all James. I actually believed him as well.

  According to Zach, it was always James who wanted to bring girls backstage. Naomi told Zach she thought James was using him and would help him get rid of James if he wanted. She notes that then, she saw something in her brother, a struggle.

  —The thing was Zach had never been told ‘no’. About anything. He was our parents’ favourite. If anything went wrong, it was my fault. If Zach wanted anything, he knew how to get it from them. Maybe he was just better at reading them. That’s what I tell myself anyway. Maybe he’d watched me fail with them and worked out how to get what he wanted.

  —Did the two of you ever discuss what must have felt so unfair to you when it came to your parents?

  —I wish we could have. I really do. We didn’t have that kind of relationship. People thought we were close, but really, we weren’t. It was … professional I suppose. There was always someone else there, someone interfering.

  —Like James Cryer?

  —Right. James was the nail in the coffin, the final wedge between Zach and I. That night, after the gig, Zach told me he was going solo. I knew James had a hand in it somewhere, and I was relieved. I was so sick of being in the spotlight, being scrutinised and judged everywhere I went. I was sick of fans and long drives in the middle of the night, costumes and stage lights. I wanted rid of it all. I told Zach I was happy for him, and I was. Look what he became.

  We all know the rest: Zach Crystal’s ascent to mega-stardom via Skexxixx. When I reveal to her what Skexxixx told me about writing the majority of Zach’s songs, Naomi tells me she’s not surprised. As Skexxixx did, she tells me that she wrote the majority of The Crystal Twins’ songs herself, and actually thought Zach had his solo songs written for him by professional songwriters at the label. That was quite common practice. Regardless, she was happy to stand back and watch as her brother became a pop star.

  —It’s what he always wanted – the fame, the glory. The only thing I was uncomfortable with was James Cryer being there. I knew what he was.

  —And what was he?

  —An opportunist, a leech. I knew why he was with Zach – for his own desires, to be able to live that life without having to do anything. He became Zach’s ‘sin-eater’, surrounding them with yes men and legal sharks. He built a wall around him and Zach that no one could penetrate. And no one ever stopped to ask if that was a good thing. Me included.

  Like everyone else, Naomi says she too was seduced by fame and money. Zach bought her a house, and she never had to work again.

  —You didn’t seek celebrity though, did you? You never wanted a slice of it?

  —Never. I’d been too close. I saw how rotten it was inside. Money talks in that world, over values, over integrity, over everything. No one cares, so long as they get paid. I just wanted to live a quiet life.

  —You visited Crystal Forest regularly though. That’s right isn’t it?

  —I did. To see Zach – as much as one could see Zach. He was still my brother, and I loved him. I was worried about him, as were my parents. There was this … distance between us all that had just sort of crept up on us. He’d become this enigma, not just to the fans, to the public, but to us too. That’s the thing – people wonder if I have this amazing insight into him, but really, no. He was hard to speak to. It often felt like I had to make an appointment to see him. And always, James Cryer was there, behind it all. A puppet master.

  —Did he really have that much control?

  —As far as I know, yes. Zach’s image, his brief, elusive and carefully choreographed interviews, all of it. That was down to James.

  —Why?

  —I think it worked in two ways. Zach was most comfortable being told what to do and James was power mad. Zach Crystal, what he eventually became, was James Cryer’s creation. I wish … I just wish the two of them had never met. I blame myself, for being me, for becoming the object of Cryer’s affection. Maybe if I’d just said yes, then all this wouldn’t have happened.

  It’s truly horrifying that Naomi Crystal blames herself like this, that it’s become easier to blame everyone around the powerful, rather than the powerful themselves. It’s soul-destroying how that mentality purveys society. Look at Crystal’s victims – being judged for their choices when they were troubled children.

  Now seems the right time for us to enter into that really dark place. I have to ask Naomi about what she believes occurred at Crystal Forest and what she actually saw happening. A part of me doesn’t want to hear her answers, yet I know we must. The truth hurts sometimes but that pain is essential. Speaking the truth is the cleansing burn of antiseptic on a deep, sometimes unhealed wound.

  I tell her this is where we’re going and Naomi sighs. It’s hard to read her expression behind the sunglasses. Now I think I know why they’re there: protection. They act as Naomi’s armour. No one can see in. But there’s vulnerability behind them, and my heart aches for her.

  With a deep breath, Naomi eventually speaks.

  —I visited Crystal Forest many times. I said it before, and it’s true – I felt like I had to make an appointment to see Zach and i
t was always through James.

  —First off, Naomi, what was your initial opinion of the place? Lots of people think it strange that Zach would move somewhere so remote.

  —Not me. He’d been talking about a place like this since we were kids, as if he had seen it in his future or something. He always wanted some kind of vast tree house to live in. It was probably all those books we used to read, under the bedclothes – the Highland folk tales and the Enid Blytons. I always thought that Crystal Forest was like something out of The Magic Faraway Tree, the tree house on the top, a sort of Famous Five, Secret Seven Clubhouse.

  —Zach invited many young people to come and stay there, didn’t he?

  —That’s true, and I just wish that I had been brave enough to object more than I did. But I’d had a lifetime of being beaten down, of being some sort of accessory to Zach that I just … couldn’t. It sounds so pathetic, doesn’t it? That’s partly the reason why I’m here, with you, right now. If I go on TV and make a statement, it’ll be thrown back at me: ‘Zach Crystal’s sister now angling to get money, destroying her brother now he’s dead.’ That’s how it’ll be framed.

  But no, I wasn’t comfortable with any of it. The place was full of teenage girls running amuck. I was far too scared, even then, to speak out, to say anything. Any dissenting voice, even mine, would have been taken down. There would have been no mercy. James had seen to that. You see, the thing is, it was never Zach I wanted to speak up against. Not at first.

  —It was James Cryer, right?

  —I was seduced. I never knew it until now, but I was. As much as I resisted it, he’d seduced me. It wasn’t the flowers this time, the aftershave, the hair gel. It was the same way he seduced everyone else in the world.

  —I don’t follow.

  —Not him as such, but the money, the fame, the spectacle of it. Because it was all so carefully choreographed. James had learned from my parents how to make Zach into what he was. And it all spilled over to me – money, fame. Zach only ever appeared in a mask or a veil and hardly ever spoke from his heart. That was James’s idea. He said it would turn Zach into an ‘enigma’. So who was offered ridiculous money to speak to the press? Me. I was his sister after all.

  James had made himself untouchable. Without James, there was no Zach Crystal. Without Zach Crystal, I didn’t have a beautiful house, a blessed life. Luxury for nothing. That’s how I was seduced. Disgusting, isn’t it?

  But that all changed in 2006 when I had my daughter. They say having kids changes your brain, changes your perspective. It’s true. The cliché is real. When Bonnie was born, I began to look at things differently.

  Naomi tells me that Bonnie’s father was, as I’ve been told, just a normal guy. No one famous. He’s not relevant in our story. Naomi had previously tried living the celebrity lifestyle for a bit, which culminated in her briefly dating Skexxixx.

  —He was good to me, Leonard was. He treated me well. I even asked him to see if he could talk to Zach. He had no luck. Ultimately, it just didn’t work out for us. I couldn’t bear being in the spotlight anymore. I hated being judged for how I looked, what I was wearing. I’d been through that so much when I was young, I couldn’t do it again. So I tried to do things normally. A man, a baby. I even considered working for a living. Becoming a song-writer, maybe.

  —What changed in you, when Bonnie was born?

  —It’s hard to say, specifically. I looked back at my own childhood, probably for the first time. I’d been running from it for so long. I just didn’t want to look back.

  —What started that introspection, do you think?

  —It was funny, really. It was my dad. He told me that I needed to set a date for Bonnie’s christening. It was that control again, and it all just suddenly crashed into me, all of the past. Mum was talking about how they were looking forward to looking after her, and I just thought … no. No way are you two going anywhere near her. I had this sudden surge of protection. And the worst thing about it, probably the reason we split up in the end, was that her father told me I was just suffering from postnatal depression. ‘What parent doesn’t want their kid to see their grandparents?’ he said. He knew all about it, everything that had happened when Zach and I were young, and still, it was my fault. Still, it was me who was doing something wrong. I just decided that no one was going to treat her the way they treated me. No one. That was that.

  —What about Zach?

  —I wanted Bonnie to have a relationship with her uncle. I really did. But I didn’t want James anywhere near her. That was the battle I had, raging inside me.

  —Did you explain it to Zach?

  —Not overtly. I just told him I wanted to spend time, just the three of us. Me, Bonnie and Zach. I was one hundred percent committed to Bonnie, and I just blocked all the Zach stuff out – all the rumours, the allegations. I just buried my head in the sand. And there was money coming in for Bonnie too. I’m guilty of letting that blind me. And James was clever, he kept things pouring in for her – the best of everything: clothes, shoes, riding lessons. Everything. I wanted to give her everything. I grew up with nothing and James Cryer knew that. He knew how to keep me quiet.

  Naomi was happy to let the years go by – leave her brother alone in his mansion in the forest, concentrate on being a mother. However, in 2009, when Bonnie was three years old, something changed yet again.

  —Zach had begun dating Zadie Farrow. That confirmed it to me – that he was normal. That’s all it took, because that’s what I wanted to believe. I began letting Mum and Dad see more of Bonnie too. Only when I was there too – I wouldn’t let them see her alone. Then they passed away.

  —How difficult was it for you, at that time?

  —More than I thought it would be. There was a side of me that couldn’t forgive myself for not forgiving them, for not patching things up. There was another side of me that was glad they were gone. Those two sides collided and messed me up. I couldn’t cope with it.

  —It had a profound effect on Zach too, right?

  —I feel like I lost him utterly. Mum and Dad meant so much to him, you know? He was the apple of their eye. When they passed, he was bereft. He stayed up there, at Crystal Forest. Never coming out. He and Zadie broke up. He’d got these strange ideas in his head. Ghosts in the forest, premonitions.

  —What was your take on all that?

  —It made me sad. It reminded me of when we were children. Zach used those stories to hide in, to block out reality with. It felt like he was retreating into a childlike state – regressing, that’s the word. All this talk of a ghost in the forest. And you know what? James Cryer enabled that too – he actively encouraged it.

  —Why was that, do you think?

  —I only found out later. It all made sense. I’ll come to it in a while.

  —I’ve heard some strange allegations; that Zach had a room dedicated to your mother’s things – he called it ‘the memorial room’.

  —Yeah. I saw it. It was weird. I was worried. Zach idolised our parents like they idolised him. I hated that room. It was sinister, cold; like our mother, really. All her belongings were there, like she was still alive.

  —Do you think it was his way of coping with the death of your parents?

  —I think that’s interesting. Death was something Zach couldn’t control. I think he wanted to though. I think he’d had James Cryer in his ear, making him think he should or he could have control, even over death.

  But again, I was raising my daughter. It was so difficult to see Zach. I took Bonnie to his concerts, they hung out a bit. He used to take her for walks up in Crystal Forest or they’d spend time in that tree house. But he was always so distant, there were always people around, aides and yes men; we never got to spend time, just the three of us.

  I feel like Naomi knows as much as anyone else. She has very little insight into her brother. Zach Crystal, the real person, had been lost, hidden behind a veneer of eccentricity, elusiveness. Truly, he had become the enigma he always wante
d to be.

  Also, I’m aware there’s a huge contradiction between what Naomi tells me about her presence and influence at Crystal Forest and the accounts of others who stayed or worked there, who say Naomi brought a semblance of order to the place and had a commanding presence there. I draw Naomi’s attention to this.

  —I wish that was true. I tried my best over the years, I wanted that control, but Zach and James were always one step ahead of me. I was sensitive at first, always trying to talk to James, get him to back off. I used to argue with him a lot, always out of sight of Zach – usually in the forest.

  I imagine it was one of these discussions Marie Owen was witness to when she and Kirsty were asked to leave Crystal Forest.

  2017 eventually rolled around and the internet was beginning to become rife with speculation about and allegations against Crystal. Naomi became extremely concerned about her brother.

  —I’d spent so many years not getting anywhere with him. But when it began to affect Bonnie, that galvanised me into trying a different approach. People at her school knew who she was, of course, and she was beginning to get bullied. People were saying her uncle was a paedophile, that sort of thing. I wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.

  —What did you think about those accusations?

  —I didn’t know. I really didn’t know. But I also didn’t believe these women were after money. I was reminded of how I felt at thirteen, when I was onstage, when I was being objectified, when I had James Cryer following me around.