“Good.” Lapointe is now anxious to conclude the visit; there are several other aspiring procreators sitting in the waiting room.
“And then?” Viviane has no intention of ending proceedings until she’s received assurances on all points.
“Then the pre-embryos are transferred into the uterus with a catheter.” Yes, Lapointe has most certainly had enough, by now he’s struggling to conceal it. “Two or three days after the pickup.”
“And there are three pre-embryos, on average.” Viviane scrutinizes him, ready to underline or correct what she’s written in the notebook in her round and regular script.
Lapointe nods. “The tendency is not to transfer any more than that, to reduce the risk of twin pregnancies.”
“Which still exists?” Milena Migliari has to ask at least this, even though she already knows the answer, they’ve already talked about it.
“That is correct. But it’s possible, as we’ve said, to minimize it.” Lapointe writes something on his prescription pad, to underline that the time available to them has now run out.
Milena Migliari imagines finding herself with two or three alien beings in her belly, sucking the life out of her: more horror movie than science fiction.
“Okay.” Viviane considers the topic closed, but still doesn’t want to let the doctor go. “Side effects of the ‘embryo transfer’?”
“None.” Lapointe shakes his head, no longer deigning to make eye contact. “The only precaution is to stay home from work for four or five days, not lift heavy weights or exercise, not go running up and down stairs or anything like that.”
“Our house is all stairs.” Milena’s tone is hopeful, as if she expects to hear him reply that in that case they’re better off scrapping the whole procedure, that it’s no longer even worth talking about. “We only have one room per floor. From the kitchen to the living room to the bedroom to the bathroom to the study to the patio, you need stairs to get anywhere.”
“Just don’t overdo it. It’s a question of common sense.” Lapointe displays one of his condescending smiles, without looking at her.
“Of course. Then it’ll take a couple of weeks to get confirmation of the pregnancy, correct?” Viviane puts away the pen, closes the beige-covered notebook with the elastic.
“Yes.” Lapointe signs the prescription. “We’ll do the checkups here at the center. Pregnancy test with blood sample, ultrasound two weeks later to examine the amniotic sac.”
Milena Migliari thinks that it’s terms such as “amniotic sac” that make her cringe. But why give so much importance to a name, however ugly or vulgar it is? For what it describes, for the implications it carries with it? Is her instinctive refusal to be a breeder something to hold up with pride, or be ashamed of?
“Perfect.” Viviane is already on her feet. She looks at her watch with a gesture almost identical to Dr. Lapointe’s, for almost identical reasons. She too has patients waiting for her, in her studio in Draguignan; this trip to Grasse will end up costing her a good three hours of work, which she’ll have to recoup later on.
Lapointe accompanies them to the door, shakes both their hands. “As we’ve already said, the chances of success on the first attempt are about forty percent. So just cross your fingers, and if necessary be ready to try again.”
“Of course.” Viviane waves good-bye, her chin raised.
“Sure.” Milena Migliari nods as well.
Viviane presses a hand into her back, practically pushing her down the stairs.
And how ought this to be interpreted? Is it a display of protectiveness, or bullying? Will the fact that the gelateria still isn’t in the black and that Viviane will have to pay the entire ten thousand euros for the procedure and the trip to Spain have the effect of further accentuating their division of roles? Too many questions, maybe? With the risk of getting lost in a jungle of conjectures and counterconjectures, of never getting out? Wouldn’t it be better to abandon her doubts once and for all, and dedicate herself trustingly to their common plan? But aren’t things like this supposed to happen spontaneously, on a wave of shared enthusiasm? Is what she’s feeling only fear, as Viviane claims, or is it justifiable alarm, which she’d do better to listen to?
SIXTEEN
NICK CRUICKSHANK USUALLY doesn’t let anyone into his studio, except for Annette, the cleaning lady, when it’s absolutely necessary. An inner door connects the two rooms, the smaller one containing a desk, a chair, and the Provençal couch that survived Aileen’s radical furniture makeover. In the more spacious of the two are the tailed Steinway, the acoustic and electric guitars, and other string instruments on their stands, the microphones on theirs, the speakers, the monitor, the mixer. It’s the only truly private place he has in the house, where he can shut himself off and think and write and play at any hour of the day or night, when he can’t sleep or doesn’t want to see someone or gets the inspiration for a song. Here’s yet another one of the paradoxes of his life: the bigger the house you buy, the smaller the space in which you’re truly protected from intrusions.
But now he is the one who has encouraged the intrusion, because Baz Bennett has been asking him for months to let him hear the stuff he’s been working on, and at this point he too is interested in getting some feedback. But they had to come up with an excuse to come here, just the two of them, without Wally or Rodney or Todd trying to latch on.
Baz looks around, in a display of respect for the creative den of the artist, mixed with the anxiety of verifying whether the artist in question is working on something interesting or merely drifting aimlessly. He has been the Bebonkers’ manager for twenty years, ever since Stu Abrahams was found drowned in his hot tub in L.A.; he is the one who has sorted out their financial situation, kept them together through a thousand recurring crises, who handles the contracts, recordings, concerts. There’s no doubt that he’s had a decisive influence in making them all rich, and that thanks to them he in turn has become rich, but it must be recognized that his job is far from easy; very far.
Nick Cruickshank goes to turn on his Mac and the amp, fiddles around with Pro Tools, puts up on the monitor what he thinks is the most promising of the pieces he’s been working on. It’s a melody that came to him on octave mandolin rather than on the guitar or piano, appearing in the same mysterious way as his best songs. The problem is that it doesn’t have much in common with the Bebonkers’ repertoire, unless you go all the way back to the first two albums, when they were still experimenting with different sounds and instrumentation and weren’t afraid to make incursions into territories distant from their rock-blues base. Before they decided that it was better to simplify matters, concentrate on a few chords played with two electric guitars, bass and drums, and the occasional addition of piano and Hammond organ, seeing as they were so good at it and the vast majority of their fans loved it. Before they convinced themselves and others that this was simply a passion for their roots, when the real reason was that looking in other directions would have required more effort and almost certainly been less appreciated by the masses. Before they passed off this closure of horizons as an admirable choice. But then hasn’t everyone else done the same thing? What truly successful group doesn’t endlessly repeat the formula that works, that anyone can recognize after just a few notes (until they get sick of it)?
Baz takes a few steps around as he listens, hands in his pants pockets; he seems to be studying the wooden laths of the parquet with great attention.
Nick Cruickshank is perfectly aware that he’s always had a playful attitude toward what he does, at least more so than a bank manager or an engineer or a politician, and he’s certainly never been one to wallow publicly in his artistic angst. The problem is that people (including fans, including Baz, who should really know better) tend to think that his work is substantially fun, the wonderful and gratuitous fruit of inspiration. He sometimes wonders whether it wouldn’t be better for him to reveal more of the strenuous effort that goes into each and every song, even without go
ing so far as to construct an image of himself as a martyr to creativity, like some of his colleagues (generally the most mediocre of them, and who in any case have been doing so since the very beginning); but he always concludes that it would be such an uncool thing to do, something so unlike him.
The piece finishes; Baz clears his throat as if he wants to say something, but doesn’t.
Nick Cruickshank probes him with his eyes, across the silent space of the studio. “So?”
Baz Bennett raises his head, manages a thin smile. “Uh, interesting. Echoes of Irish folk, Delta blues, baroque influences, an ethnic-tribal backbone. And at the same time absolutely yours, clearly.”
“I don’t know. It just came to me this way.” Nick Cruickshank thinks that it’s not true at all that it just “came” to him: there are years of research behind this damn piece, years of listening, of experimentation, of trying things out.
“Very evocative.” Baz stares at him with his poker face, like an Egyptian sphinx.
“But?” Nick Cruickshank’s tone gets harsher, because it’s clear as day that there’s a but behind Baz’s words.
“What do you plan on doing with it?” Baz adopts an extra-calm tone; he’s well aware that at any moment he could be standing in front of a very belligerent version of his artist.
“What do I plan to do with it?” Nick Cruickshank senses a dangerous current rising within him but makes an effort to control it. “Finish writing the lyrics and record it in the studio for the next album. I’ve got four more in roughly the same vein.”
“The next Bebonkers album?” Baz is nodding slowly, but it’s like he’s saying no.
“Why? Does it seem so inconceivable to you that we might come up with something different from the usual?” Nick Cruickshank is on the verge of yelling or throwing some nearby object.
Baz opens his arms slightly, his expression still neutral. “Well, you might want to hear what the others think of it.”
“I want to know what you think of it!” There, he’s yelling. At whom, though? At Baz? At the others? At himself? “If the others aren’t interested in this type of music, I’ll do a solo album!”
Baz shrugs in a way that’s barely perceptible. “I told you, it’s very evocative. In fact, it’s gorgeous.”
Nick Cruickshank starts to yell something else, but surprisingly he’s overcome by a sense of futility that smothers his anger like a wet blanket. The fact is that he’s already tried taking the solo road, as the others have, and it didn’t work, for him or for them. Each was convinced that the Bebonkers’ popularity would transfer to its individual components. They thought they could free themselves of the band, temporarily or for good, dedicate themselves to the music that really interests them. And instead they discovered that the number of fans willing to follow them on their individual paths is only a small fraction of those that flock to them when they play together. People are interested in the Bebonkers, period; every attempt to stray from the group is regarded as a betrayal, an act of egocentrism at the very least, best-case scenario as a divertissement suitable for occupying the dead periods between the band’s albums and tours.
“I’m just trying to figure out what might or might not work for the Bebonkers, Nick.” Baz knows that he needn’t say more; fundamentally he’s a good manager precisely because he’s not a great person. Nick Cruickshank and the others took a while to figure out that it didn’t behoove them to look for a great friend to handle their ties with record labels and concert organizers. Just think of Tim Hotchinson, who worked so hard to get them their first gigs and drove them halfway around England in his old Ford van: he fell apart as soon as it was time to go head-to-head with the big boys. Or Stu Abrahams, whom they long considered a fifth member of the band: he was well on his way to leading them to rack and ruin in the friendliest possible way when he died. The truth is that they ought to thank Baz every day, even if complaining about him has become one of their leitmotifs. When you give Baz Bennett a percentage of every pound or euro or dollar you make with your music, you certainly can’t complain if he pushes you down the most well-traveled path there is. He does so with moderation, because he knows quite well that there are limits, that the Bebonkers have a reputation to uphold, the so-called artistic integrity their fans value so much. He knows quite well that if he wants to sell one of their songs for a commercial he needs to be very careful in pairing it with the product, to avoid having it boomerang disastrously. One brand of cars might work, another not at all; one chain of supermarkets yes, another no. It’s all a balancing act, in which the relationship between money and image has to be evaluated with extreme care, and Baz Bennett does it better than anybody else, it’s undeniable.
It’s also undeniable that the fundamental reason they’ve kept him around for twenty years is the money, even if it’s more pleasant to tell each other that their real priority is reaching the largest possible audience. And what, pray tell, might the goal be of reaching the largest possible audience? Ultimately it all translates into numbers of downloads and tickets sold, which translate into bank accounts, which translate into the number of bottles of vintage champagne Wally can guzzle like beer (after having religiously photographed and posted them on Instagram). Even Rodney has an authentic addiction to money, like he had for decades to sex and cocaine (which of course cost him handsomely); he couldn’t do without his Rolls and Bentleys and Ferraris, his boats, his clothes, his guitars with solid gold knobs and black pearl decorations. Even Todd, who is much more restrained than the others, who has probably never set foot in Monte Carlo, likes having spacious and beautiful homes, collecting valuable paintings, playing golf, wearing suits cut on Savile Row.
And him? What is Nick Cruickshank’s relationship to material goods? Even if he’d rather not admit it to himself, he has become a serious investor, just like the others. It’s true that he often claims to value money only for the freedom it gives him, and to be able to do without 90 percent of what he has, but there are times when he has some doubts. Fortunately in his field what counts is the performance, and he’s so good at performing that people believe it, even when it’s contradicted by his actual life. People see the image he projects of himself onstage, pick up on the tone of his interviews, so well honed it sometimes risks turning him into a caricature. (Literally: last year Baz got a proposal from Universal to use a character based on him for a cartoon series and negotiated the deal for weeks before scrapping everything because they weren’t paying enough.) There seems to be a consensus on the fact that he continues to emanate high doses of so-called rebel spirit, whatever that means at this point; he’s yet to slip into the phase of desperately clinging to an unsustainable mask. All horrible false modesty aside, there aren’t too many lead singers, including those much younger than he is, capable of generating the same amount of emotion with the same intensity. Even looking at himself in the mirror of his most ruthless critical spirit, he doesn’t feel like his charisma has faded. His voice is still full, the tone hasn’t deteriorated, the volume hasn’t diminished. He still moves with the same degree of elasticity, and his endurance hasn’t waned: he can be up onstage for two hours and sing his heart out without fear of his voice cracking or seeming pathetic.
Sure, but the sense of continuing to do it? The so-called reasons? How convincing can songs like “Hard Hard Hard” or “One Push Too Far” or “On the Brink” still be if the listener isn’t preemptively won over to the cause? Don’t all those representations of adolescent mind-sets, ranging from sexual frustration to social intolerance to childish laments, sound ridiculous coming from an adult who’s been well compensated by a society against which he flung himself with iconoclastic rage in the beginning? How is an eighteen-year-old boy or girl supposed to take seriously his (generic) criticism of the status quo and his (equally generic) invitations to rebel? Yet it happens, incredibly. Is it perhaps a case of the same type of suspension of disbelief that occurs during pro-wrestling matches, where the crowd knows perfectly well that every blow
and fall and look of fury or pain is fake, yet they yell and stomp and clap and cry and are thrilled just the same?
But it isn’t that simple, because even if they’ve long since become a commercial machine, each time he and the other Bebonkers go onstage and start playing their songs of twenty or thirty or thirty-five years ago, they believe. Really. Maybe not at the first song, but by the second they do; or by the third. It’s a question of warming up, and the music drags out their original soul, with almost the same intensity they had back then: the restlessness, the indignation, the raging desire for a different world. Despite everything, despite what they’ve become, despite the infinitely weaker songs they’re writing now. When they play and sing their biggest hits, it isn’t just the crowd that believes; so do they. Maybe this is why for years their earlier songs have occupied increasing space on the set list, compared to the more recent stuff. The effect lasts for the duration of the concert, until the final applause; then it’s over, it’s back to real life.
Every now and then Nick Cruickshank asks himself if the Bebonkers couldn’t use the global spotlight they still enjoy to say something meaningful about what’s wrong with the world today, instead of endlessly rehashing the same generic rebellion from three decades ago. He asks himself if they could write songs with much more specific targets: corrupt and incapable politicians, fundamentalists of various religions, multinational corporations of online shopping, communications giants, oil and tobacco companies, weapons manufacturers, great banks that sequester the people’s money, conglomerates that devastate and sack the planet. Would they be able to achieve some concrete effect? To push their listeners to new forms of large-scale boycotting, of generalized dissociation from the accepted rules of the game?
He’s become very skilled at answering these types of questions, whether he’s asking them to himself or being asked by a longtime fan who has been allowed backstage or by journalists trying to avoid the stereotypes fashioned by hundreds of their colleagues before them. He naturally adopts an ironic tone, underlines how in today’s society rebelling against the rules has become impossible, because now the rules are flexible and transgression has become a product for consumption like all the rest, on sale on every damn computer or tablet or cell phone and on every supermarket shelf. In practice what he does is recognize his own irrelevance, even if he’s able to give the impression of making a social critique and present himself as a sort of social dissident, a voice in contrast with the mainstream. But for a long time now his voice and that of the Bebonkers have become a part of the mainstream, even if their fans refuse to admit it. When they recorded “Enough Isn’t Enough” it seemed almost like a hymn to revolution, to the point that the BBC refused to air it; today it’s a part of the collective soundtrack of people’s lives. A few months ago they even asked him for it for a television commercial for a brand of cookies and breakfast cereals!
Imperfect Delight Page 13