Beneath the Blonde

by Stella Duffy

  “So they could make their own decisions about the Child Support Agency?”

  “I’m nothing if not politically correct. Further, I’ve proved one cheating wife and disproved one cheating husband.”

  “None of which involved a mystery caller who may or may not be dangerous.”

  “May or may not be a member of the same band. Very juicy.”

  “Very risky.”

  Saz sighed, “Moll, I like my job. I know you’re worried for me, but this feels good. I’m enjoying it.”

  “You just said it was frustrating.”

  “Don’t be such a pedant, it’s meant to be frustrating. It’s work. And yes, I am still a bit scared. But it’s bad enough living every day with the scars, I’m not going to let what happened in the fire make me give up. You fell in love with a woman who had a life; you’ve just accustomed yourself to living with an invalid. You have to learn to trust the old Saz, not the needy burnt one.”

  Saz knelt up and pulled Molly down to her, kissing her hard. Then she drew away and turned to look at the television. Elizabeth Taylor was simpering sweetly on her death bed.

  Saz laughed, “See, Molly. Now that’s what I call a burns victim. This one however,” she added, pointing to herself, “this one, is risen again and in control. Now pass me those tissues and get ready to sob.”

  She rewound the tape and they watched the movie in silence, Molly’s hand occasionally and gently stroking the scars on Saz’s bare leg.

  ELEVEN

  Making the bouquet happen can be quite an art. I liked choosing the flowers. It gave me satisfaction. I would go to a flower shop or stall, far from her, and choose them one by one. Pick each perfect yellow rose, one by one. It can be hard to find twenty-one flawless yellow roses. Sometimes I would have to go to three, even four shops in one morning. It was like work. Like having a job. It was my mission. I wore gloves. For my safety, you understand. Thorns. Fingerprints. The fingerprints of bloody, pricked fingers are a double giveaway, double bind. When the Prince finally hacked his way through to Sleeping Beauty he must have been scratched to ribbons. Maybe he liked it. Maybe it was a Jesus thing. Perhaps he’d left his own crown behind. Anyway, I wear gloves. I’m careful with my hands. I’m an artist.

  Having gathered my rosebuds, cut their stems, water sprinkled the petals, I would take them to another shop, the gift wrapping shop where the nice lady with the sweet soft smile and the sweet soft hands would take such care to get the paper just right. Painstaking. She was taking pains. She liked me, she said I was a sweetheart. Perhaps I am. I am charming. Lots of people have said so. And then back to my car and laying them down so softly on the back seat. Laying down on the back seat. The delivery of course was my coup de grâce.

  I would take them into the city and find myself a vagrant. Not hard to find, it’s true. A homeless person, a dirty, city-encrusted baby. I’d give them cash to get the flowers to her. I know she received some of them. Some of the flowers, some of the time. Maybe not all. I don’t mind, the money went to a good cause. It was ideal really, touching her and doing a little charity work into the bargain. I’m very philanthropic at heart. Underneath this tough exterior lies a heart of pure mush. Honest.

  But then, aren’t we all something else really? Underneath?

  TWELVE

  Saz took the morning off from work at the office, lying to Siobhan about following up a lead with the flowers so that Siobhan could lie to Peta about why Saz wasn’t coming in, so that Saz could go to visit Kevin the ex-tour manager. The series of untruths were rather more convoluted than the directions to Kevin’s home. Kevin hadn’t gone back to Liverpool. In fact, Kevin was living just a mile or so from Siobhan in a tired first floor bedsit in Camden, not yet elevated to the lofty heights of “studio flat” by the simple landlord strategy of stripping the floorboards and putting up blinds instead of faded red curtains.

  Kevin Hogan, tall, stooped and unshaven, was not exactly Beneath The Blonde’s Number One Fan. He and Siobhan had known each other at school—the kind of knowing that Saz suspected involved at least a fumble of early sex. He’d moved to London around the same time as she had, they’d shared friends, shared a squat for a few months one summer and then when she’d joined the band, he had too. He’d gone along to rehearsals first just as Siobhan’s mate and, once they’d managed to finally get a few gigs, he went along as driver. The fact that Kevin’s big brother loaned them his old PA and Kevin himself had access to a van that could fit the dodgy gear and the rest of the band—at an extremely tight squeeze—meant that he was very valuable to them. Over the years his value increased in direct proportion to his growing knowledge of the music scene. Eventually, however, with the band’s greater success, the status of their relationship changed until rather than the band needing him, Kevin was the one who needed the band. Not that he expressed the situation in quite those terms. Drawing heavily on his third cigarette since letting her in, he exhaled his bitterness at Saz, “Fucking cunts used me for years. Took advantage of my generosity and all my hard bloody work and then the minute things started to go really well for them, it was over. Goodbye, matey, thanks but we don’t need you anymore.”

  Saz had introduced herself as a journalist doing a background story on the band and had no problem getting Kevin to talk. For a start, he was drinking cheap whisky in his instant morning coffee and secondly, he was hugely bitter about being left out of Beneath The Blonde’s success and perfectly happy to tell Saz anything she wanted to know—as long as it was likely to make the band look bad. And it did. Kevin detailed the early years of rehearsing in Alex’s squat, the dreary South London pub gigs, the signing on and working at rubbish jobs to get the money to pour back into the band. He told it all in glorious shades of drab squalor. “I don’t suppose you know about Dan’s early career either?”

  Saz shook her head.

  “Yeah well, Mr Petty Poof hasn’t always been so bloody clean. Spent most of his teens in and out of care getting done for petty theft and burglary. You know, videos, TVs and the like. They’ve managed to keep that out of the press so far. That one’s too fucking groovy by half if you ask me—doesn’t care if the whole world knows he’s queer but got to keep the criminal record hushed up at all costs.”

  Saz bit her tongue and offered a noncommittal shrug, “What about Steve?”

  “Nah, Steve’s all right. Bit of an odd job boy until the band started to make money. He’s big, strong. I offered him work as a bouncer once—I used to do a bit of work at a mate’s club—but he’d rather hump sideboards up staircases for three quid an hour for his dad than run the risk of getting himself messed up. Steve would always shag anything in a skirt and he didn’t want to ruin his future chances with a bent nose. Spends hours down the gym, that one. Very proud of his body—all his own work, apparently.”

  “Apparently?”

  “Nah, you’ll not get me having a go at Steve, luv. He’s the only one I’d trust out of the whole lot of them. Let’s just whisper steroids and leave it at that, yeah?”

  Kevin looked at the dirty clock on the kitchen wall and then at Saz’s jacket hanging on the back of her chair. “You got any cash in those fancy leather pockets of yours?”

  “Some.”

  “Good. Because the pub’s about to open and I haven’t hardly started on what I’ve got to tell you.”

  Saz spent the next three hours with Kevin in a smoky pub off Camden High Street. Kevin bitterly attacked Siobhan for deserting him, sacking the only old friend she had. According to Kevin, she didn’t see any of their Liverpool friends these days—”Not since she’s become the poncey blonde one. Course, we all remember when she had puppy fat and brown hair and bad skin.” He raved for about half an hour about Greg, not that there was anything particularly bad to say about Greg, in fact that was Kevin’s main problem with him—”The guy’s a bore. All he cares about is music and the band and Siobhan. In that order. Now if Siobhan was mine, I’d put her right at the top of the list.”

 
“Even now?”

  Kevin grinned a lopsided, half drunk smile, “Yeah, even now. I’ve always fancied her. More than fancied her. Ever since we first met when we were fourteen. I’ve always fancied girls with guts and Siobhan’s got that—in truckloads.”

  “So you think Greg’s not good enough for her?”

  “Oh no, he’s good enough. I know he loves her. And she loves him, it’s just she had more balls when she was single.”

  “She seems pretty strong to me.”

  “She is. But she used to be more. Stronger, faster.” He shook his head, “There just used to be more to Siobhan before it all became about making her look as if she was tough, instead of just letting her be her own staunch self.”

  “It could just be age, couldn’t it? It is fairly normal to tone it down a bit as you get older.”

  Kevin almost conceded with a slight incline of his head, “Maybe, it hasn’t slowed Alex down any.”

  “Do you blame him?”

  “For getting me sacked? Yeah, I do. It’s all down to him. Even in the beginning he didn’t really want me around.”

  “Is it to do with Siobhan?”

  Kevin frowned, “Why? What?”

  “Maybe he fancies Siobhan too. If he knew you did …”

  “Nah. He doesn’t fancy Siobhan. He fancies himself. He fancies themselves. The famous fucking five.” Kevin finished his pint, “Get me another one, love, and a whisky chaser.”

  Saz obediently went to the bar where she also ordered a fourth diet Coke for herself and a couple of bags of crisps in an attempt to keep Kevin on the coherent side of sobriety.

  He downed his whisky in one and launched back into his tale, “Alex is only interested in the band. Always has been. Can’t keep a girlfriend, doesn’t have any friends outside the band …”

  “It doesn’t look as though they’re exactly best of mates inside the band either.”

  “Don’t let the act fool you. They love it. All of them, but Alex most of all. They like being the chosen ones, the élite little crew. They’ll fight and argue and scream at each other, but let some poor bugger from outside try and come in to sort things out and they’re all over him.”

  “Like you?”

  “Exactly like me. I was with them for seven years, then just when things are getting really good, I’m out on my ear. I got too close, see? And Alex didn’t like it and Siobhan didn’t like it either—not that she’d ever say as much—and so I was gone. Why do you think they went with a manager that doesn’t even live in the fucking country?”

  “I assumed it was because Cal’s good.”

  “Yeah, well, he is. But they could have found someone good in England too. It’s easier for them that way, they stick together and get to keep all the outsiders out. I worked for them—with them—for all that time and I still never got to be an insider. There’s just Beneath The Blonde and the rest of us. I mean, they’re doing bloody well and the only real staff they have is Alex’s sister—how’s that for keeping it in the family? Everyone else is just hired in for the current gig or tour or whatever or comes from the record company. They wouldn’t give you the time of day if the management didn’t force them to talk to outsiders occasionally for the publicity and all. It’s sick, I reckon. Five grown people all living in each other’s pockets like that. What they need is someone to get in there and shake things up a bit”.

  Kevin was just getting into the stride of his rant when Beneath The Blonde’s first major hit came on the juke box. “Oh, fuck this. I’m out of here. I can’t listen to this shit.”

  He downed the rest of his pint and struggled up from the low table, looking down at Saz, eyes bleary with alcohol and reminiscence, “Ok sweetheart, I’m off. Now how much are you getting paid for this article?”

  Saz, lost in thought about Kevin’s fury at the band, didn’t quite understand his question, “I’m sorry?”

  “My fee, love. What am I getting? There’s no pension scheme for sacked roadies, you know.”

  “Oh yeah, sure.” Saz reached for her coat and fumbled in her pockets, “Um, fifty quid do you? I’m freelance. I haven’t exactly been commissioned for the piece yet.”

  Kevin took the proffered cash and stuffed it in his back pocket. “That’s cool. We’re all doing what we can.”

  He turned to leave the pub, calling over his shoulder as he went, “Give my love to Siobhan if you see her.”

  Saz thought she probably wouldn’t bother. But she would keep an eye on Kev.

  THIRTEEN

  Saz returned to the office late that afternoon determined to make some headway with the band. An hour after dropping her bag by the desk and doing her best to look efficient for Peta’s benefit, she went downstairs to make their coffee and managed to corner Greg in the kitchen, where she forced a conversation from him while he chopped onions, garlic and shallots for the sinus clearing soup they would eat before rehearsing that afternoon. He answered all her questions about how they had formed the band, his friendship with Alex whom he’d met one night in a pub and how Siobhan had been first his flatmate, then the band’s singer and then his lover. He told her a little about their several false starts, the time when he and Siobhan had already booked a trip to New York when the offer for their first real gig came up and about the huge fight between Alex and Siobhan when Siobhan insisted she and Greg go to New York anyway. He further explained that Siobhan’s temperament—”hot and cold running egocentricity”, as he described it—meant that even now their schedules were subject to change at a moment’s notice.

  He explained, as he added the chopped vegetables to the bubbling butter in a pan, onion tears running down his cheeks, “You see, Siobhan’s just so bloody contrary. The boys couldn’t stand it at first, didn’t know how to be with it. She takes some getting used to. But as we’ve become more successful—well, I guess we’ve all just resigned ourselves to the fact that you can’t ever completely plan anything with her around. Even our manager accepts it as artistic licence. Mind you, I reckon he’s probably more used to performers acting up than we are. Certainly Alex had never come across it until Siobhan. Alex prefers to be the only one to make a fuss, if you get what I mean.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Tells her off in no uncertain terms.” Greg shrugged, “Alex and Siobhan have a love-hate relationship. More hate than love at the moment.”

  “They’re not getting on right now?”

  “It’s always a bit fraught when we’re rehearsing—and Alex does bring out the best in her. She’ll fuck around for hours and then be brilliant just to spite him.”

  “And he knows that?”

  “We all know it. Even Siobhan.” Greg stirred vegetable stock into the pan, “Knowing what’s going on doesn’t stop us getting back into our roles though. It’s the family thing.”

  “Band as family’s a bit of a cliché, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe, but true. Siobhan knows that whenever she stays with her parents they’ll want her to go to church with them. She refuses. There’s a big fuss. Every time, regular as clockwork. It’s the same with Alex. We rehearse, she fucks around, Alex gets pissed off, they have a slanging match, she sings like an angel.”

  “Couldn’t she just sing like an angel anyway?”

  Greg laughed, “I don’t think it would be as much fun that way. It’s not just Alex. Siobhan gets off on her tantrums too. And we all get annoyed with her, she just gets to him the most. He also can’t stand it if she acts up outside the band, at gigs or whatever. He likes us to keep our little traumas to ourselves.”

  “You make it sound like Alex is Dad.”

  Greg shook his head, “No one’s in charge. Officially. Or maybe everyone is. I don’t doubt that Alex thinks he’s the boss though.”

  “Doesn’t that annoy you?”

  Greg grinned at Saz, “Well, I don’t want to sound too sexist here, but I just don’t think guys care about that stuff as much as girls. Like, Alex is my mate, you know, he’s a really good friend.”<
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  “But he’s horrible to your girlfriend.”

  “Yeah, I know. But um … well, it doesn’t really affect me. I just try not to get involved. As long as it doesn’t do the music any harm, Alex can think what he likes. If thinking he’s in charge makes him happy, I’m not going to tell him otherwise. I like an easy life wherever possible.”

  Greg’s reference to Alex was further underlined when the man himself arrived in the kitchen, grabbed Greg by the arm, allowing him time only to place a lid over the pan, and led him to the basement door. Alex called over his shoulder to Saz, “Whatever he’s been telling you, it’s all bullshit, darling. We’re just a pitiful foursome of satellites floating around the queen bee. She’s the one who’s really in charge of it all. Only, you see, Greg is a man blinded by lust.”

  At which Greg tried to protest his innocence but Alex shouted over him, “He always has been. Ever since he first laid eyes on her. Siobhan Forrester’s just a fancy pants who likes to do what she wants whenever she wants it. A right little bism, as my granny would say. If Granny hadn’t been rotting in her grave these past twenty years.”

  Alex stopped, as if knowing what Greg would say next, gave him just a moment to open his mouth and then added, “And no, Gregory, that’s not what I call artistic temperament, that’s just showing off.”

  He then pushed Greg out the door ahead of him and smiled sweetly at Saz, “And I do hope you don’t mind my saying, but are we really paying you to stand there and ask questions all day, or are you actually going to do some work? ‘Cos if it’s just a star-struck fan is all you are, then we can get half a dozen of them any time we like. For free. Or for fucks. Or better still, both. Off you go now. Petey’s waiting for you.”

  He then flicked his hand, shooing her out of the room and Saz heard him laughing as he went down the stairs to the basement, announcing to the rest of the band, “I just saved him, lads, the lovely lezzie had him in her clutches!”