The Alternative Hero

by Tim Thornton

  “No …”

  “Madison fucking Square Garden! Guaran-teed. People in the States, and in Europe, they remember. But I’m telling you, the British press sends out a warped fucking viewpoint on culture, man. What’s big and what isn’t. Particularly for music. Dunno why. And when I say Britain, I really mean England, and perhaps Wales. Scotland and Ireland, they’re fucking on the continent by comparison. You’ve no idea. England’s a weirdhole. Thank fuck I left.”

  I remember the Irish girls who accosted Lance outside the art gallery. Goddammit, the man might be right.

  “But Clive … this is all just the gravy. Why you’re sitting here still thinking about all this shit is beyond me. You’re thirty-three years old, boy. The only way you can get ahead in your life is to forget all that shit, and get on with what you want to do. You want to meet this guy? You want to finally get that story out of him? You’ve fucking got to go for it. You email him back, demand he tells you what you want to hear. Make sure you lay it on really thick, all the guilt tactics, tell him you stuck your neck out for him, back in the day, tell him he owes you, then drag those fucking sordid details out, whatever the hell they are … and then you move… the… fuck… on! You want to write for somebody? Come to New York, I’ll hook you up. You want to sit around on your arse dreaming of 1990? Stay right here.”

  Stay right here.

  We stay right there for another hour, blethering about this and that, returning to our main subject every so often. We put away a delicious brunch, have a few more drinks, then the natural time to go approaches and Billy calls for the bill. I’m not quite sure why, but I’m a little taken aback when it arrives and, having captained the entire experience—drinks, conversation and meal, right down to ordering my own food for me (“I know the best stuff they have here, dude”)—Billy announces, “So we’ll split it, yeah? It’s eighty-two quid, so that’s forty-one each, plus tip is forty-five … forty-five pounds and ten pence each.”

  “Er … sorry,” I splutter. “I haven’t … um, I’ve only brought twenty along with me …”

  “Oh,” he frowns. “Damn. Well, there’s a cash machine up the street.”

  “Ah, right,” I nod, and put my jacket on. “Well, I’ll be back in five minutes, then.”

  “Yeah,” he grunts, already starting to text somebody.

  Billy waits until I’m almost through the terrace door, then howls with laughter.

  “Ha ha haaa!! You goon! Of course I’m paying for the whole thing!”

  “Wha … uh?”

  “This isn’t even a proper bill,” he continues, scrunching it up. “I don’t get bills here, man! I own half the bloody club. Ha ha haa!! Your face was so classic!”

  “Okay,” I smile, dripping with embarrassment. “You got me.”

  Suddenly Billy’s smile vanishes, he reaches out and shakes my hand with startling firmness.

  “Now that was for Spike fucking Island.”

  Fair enough.

  And so I leave the cosseted world of the extremely successful and mooch off into the warm, sleepy Soho Sunday afternoon. As usual at these junctures, the temptation to install myself at a nearby pub, phone a friend and let the rest of the day take its long, boozy course, is compelling. But Billy’s pro active words are ringing loudly in my ears and I’m driven by some invisible energy back up to Oxford Street and straight onto the bus. By the time we hit King’s Cross I’ve mentally composed three-quarters of my missive to Webster, and even consider jumping off somewhere to get it done in an Internet café before I forget. But I stay on, repeating “You owe me” like a mantra as we lurch up the Essex Road.

  Once at the flat, I storm through the kitchen (where Polly is drinking Pimms, wearing a bikini and midway through a jigsaw), settle myself down and begin to write what feels like the email of my life. And oh, it’s a good one. It’s beautifully written, sincere but not too cheesy, impassioned but steering clear of the stalkerish vernacular which doubtless screwed up my previous effort, well-argued, well-intentioned (I only say “you owe me” once, and make plenty of references to it being for his own good), there are even a few laughs (I think) and, crucially—for this is a bad habit of mine—not too long. I finish it, step outside for some air, come back and edit thoroughly, remembering to add appropriate heartfelt apologies for having misled and repeatedly lied to him. It takes me the better part of four hours, no further alcohol touches my lips (but our kettle works overtime), and then, just when I’m scanning one last time before guiding my mouse to the send button, my computer dies.

  No. It really dies.

  It quite literally does nothing. It’s like it has suddenly refused to accept electricity into any of its circuits any longer.

  “Polly!”

  I am so pissed off, so knackered, so unable to even consider writing the whole thing out again from memory, that I grab Polly’s laptop, open up my email page, hit reply to Webster’s original message and simply type this:

  From: CLIVE BERESFORD (cliveberesford@hotmail.com)

  Sent: 3 June 2007 20:02:31

  To: geoff@gwebmusic.com

  Subject: (no subject)

  Dear Lance

  I’ll gladly help you bury the past as long as you tell me everything about the night of 12 August 1995. I think you owe me.

  Clive

  p.s. sorry I lied to you

  I add my mobile number to the bottom of the email, hit send and watch the little dial go round and round in the corner of the screen, counting down the milliseconds I have to stop the thing from leaving. I exhale as the confirmation page appears, shut the machine down and join Polly in the kitchen for a large Pimms. The email vacates my head for the rest of the evening, not returning until I’m halfway to work next morning, at which point I chuckle heartily at life, with all the funny twists and turns that propel one to send abrupt emails to ex-pop stars on random Sunday evenings in June. But the even funnier thing is—it works.

  SUGGESTED LISTENING: Pop Will Eat Itself, This Is the Day, This Is the Hour, This Is This (RCA, 1989)

  It’s my life, so I’ve never

  found any of it particularly

  enthralling

  It happens on a Thursday morning.

  Thankfully, as it turns out. For several reasons.

  But we’ll get to that.

  It’s the usually underwhelming arrival of a text message that kicks it all off, while I’m engaged in that noblest of activities: taking my recycling to the recycling bank (I say “my” and not “our” because Polly decided some months back it was all claptrap and now throws everything rather ostentatiously into the council litter bins). I ping the last of the green bottles through the black plastic brush thingies, wipe the remnants of stale beer on the back of my suit trousers and stride over to the bus stop feeling rather pleased with myself. Then the phone bleeps and my world, frankly, stops.

  Ok you little shit you win. I’m at Heathrow terminal 3 for the next 4 hours, after that I won’t be in the country for a very long time. Come and get it. L

  Not acquainted with anyone else whose name begins with L and who’d send me something like this, my heart starts thumping and I frantically review my options. There aren’t any. I make a breathless phone call to my office (despite being a crap liar I am the world heavyweight champion at pulling sickies) and race over to the other bus stop, the one that goes to the tube station. I’m still panting with anticipation, pinching myself and, more cynically, congratulating Webster on abandoning this “Geoff” nonsense (though that is his real name, the poor man), when the karma comes hurtling back at me and my phone bleeps again.

  P.S. I’m beyond security so you’ll have to buy a ticket somewhere

  “Buy a ticket somewhere? What the fuck do you mean, ‘buy a ticket somewhere’? Are you fucking out of your mind? Where? Where does terminal three go? Do you think I actually have money?”

  I’m so incensed, all of the above is said out loud to the assorted bods gathered around the stop. With beer on my suit and pr
ofanities on my tongue, I’m one can of Carlsberg Special Brew away from the kind of nutter everyone moves away from. Lacking further bright ideas, I hurry off in the direction of home.

  “I don’t understand,” ponders Polly five minutes later, in between drags of her cigarette. “Why would he be on the other side of security?”

  “God knows! He’s fucking with me!”

  “Mmm … maybe he’s on a massive stopover?”

  “From where?”

  “I dunno,” she frowns. “Like he’s flying from Mexico City to … um, Warsaw?”

  “Ah, yes. That commonly travelled route.”

  “Well, anywhere you have to change in London, really.”

  “Why would he be doing that? He’s from London.”

  “Clive, I really don’t know. Sometimes people make odd trips. Might be work-related.”

  “But he’d be able to leave security … wouldn’t he? I mean, he’s British.”

  “I don’t suppose you fancy texting back to ask why?”

  I consider this for a second, but any of the phrases I might use (“Is there any particular reason you can’t meet me in the public area?”) sound pretty pathetic in the face of what he’s offering me. Polly pulls her dressing gown around her and exhales elegantly, producing a plume of smoke that hovers above our kitchen table for almost half a minute. We both stare, as if it’s about to morph into a genie. Which would be quite useful, in fact. Instead, Polly bangs her coffee cup down on the fridge and strides off to fetch the next best thing: her laptop. She plonks it on the table and starts looking at the Heathrow website.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’ve expended too much energy on this bilge to bugger it up now,” she mutters.

  “And?”

  “So I’m finding out where terminal three goes, and we’re going to get you in there.”

  “But Polly, I haven’t got any—”

  “Clive, be silent. I’ve had quite enough of this cocking about.”

  “But you can’t seriously be suggesting we buy a whole airline ticket just to get me the other side of—”

  “Shush! Here we go. Terminal three. Canada. China. Air India. American Airlines. Mauritius.”

  “Nice of him to pick the budget one.”

  “New Zealand, Emirates, Egypt, Japan …”

  “Maybe we could just do it over the phone?”

  “Balls,” Polly counters. “Malaysia … lots of Middle Eastern places … Korea … ah, here you are … Turkey … Scandinavia. That’s better.”

  But the day-of-travel ticket prices are all astronomical. A couple of one-way tickets to Stockholm and Copenhagen for seventy-ish look promising, until we notice they go at ten o’clock (just over ninety minutes away and I’m still at the wrong end of the Piccadilly line). Later this afternoon the fares shoot up to two sixty.

  “This is fucking ridiculous,” Polly yells at her machine. “Why isn’t there a flight to Guernsey or somewhere?”

  Time is racing on and I’m pacing up and down the kitchen; the best bet seems to be Stavanger in Norway for two twenty-five, but then Polly has a brainwave.

  “Air India fly to JFK,” she remembers, hammering on her keyboard. “I bet they’re … yes! Look! Two hundred!”

  “You mean New York?”

  “What other fucking JFKs do you know?” she snaps, pulling her purse from her handbag.

  “Um … New York’s a bit far, isn’t it?”

  “You’re not bloody going there, Clive, you moron. There you go, two hundred including everything. Not bad. Who’d have thought?”

  “Okay,” I sigh. “Let’s do it.”

  Polly whips out her credit card and a few moments later I am heading back out the door. I turn round and give her a smile. She’s a mad old fish but she has her moments. On Thursday she works from home, you see. At least, that’s what she tells her employers.

  “Any plans for today, then?” I ask.

  “Jamie’s coming round in an hour, there’s a bottle of Stoli in the freezer and my legs need waxing,” she shrugs.

  “Sounds like fun. Thanks, Polly.”

  “Go on,” she nods. “Fuck off.”

  ˙ ˙ ˙

  Of course, going to Heathrow on the tube is a journey longer than most flights, so there’s plenty of time to review this incredibly odd place at which I’ve arrived. Exactly what’s come over the man, I really cannot guess. As the train trundles past the familiar stops-King’s Cross, Green Park, South Kensington, Earl’s Court, Hammersmith, Acton Town—I become more confused and more nervous. It’s pretty far from how I imagined I’d feel, on the way to receive this most precious of explanations. At Northfields I start worrying it’ll be the anticlimax Billy Flushing suspected: simply a bad day, too much booze and the distinct impression his career was heading toilet-wards. I require nothing short of Armageddon: at least four deaths of close family members, perhaps the revelation that Gloria Feathers had been male all along, and an alien visiting him in his dressing room before the show. Deep inside, I know I’m going to be disappointed. I’m also wondering how much of this “burying the past” I’m obliged to help him with in return, and what it could possibly entail in a Heathrow departure lounge. As the train halts between Boston Manor and Osterley I look at my watch and realise that, whatever it is, we haven’t got long to do it: a little less than two and a half hours. At Hounslow East I’m starting to sweat, and another text arrives.

  Are you fucking coming or not?

  It’s funny, his swear count has gone zooming up since he’s become Lance again. I fire an optimistic one back (“Yes, am ten minutes away”) and wonder what sort of moody ex-rock star awaits at the other end. As we creep through Hatton Cross I find myself worrying that perhaps this is all an elaborate and expensive windup (which I may well deserve), a punishment for stringing him along with the whole “Alan the writing coach” charade. At the very least, I suspect he’ll be a little cold and uncooperative. Finally we roll up at Heathrow 123. I pelt down the long corridor (the travolator is conveniently broken), sprint into the packed departure hall, a nice lady checks me in … and then I discover the most likely reason for Webster’s reluctance to come back out to the public area.

  The queue for security is of biblical proportions. It’s an epic. They’ve made entire Hollywood films about it. First I think it’s a joke, or they’re actually waiting for Richard Branson’s autograph, or something. But no. It starts from a point irritatingly close to the barriers, then loops around the entire building, presided over by incongruously smiley airport staff, until it returns to its original source. It winds past three airport information desks, several bureaux de change, countless check-in areas, umpteen shops and no less than twenty-five branches of Costa. Occasionally an announcement is made, along the lines of “If you’re on such-and-such a shortly departing flight, go to the front of the queue,” but as it’s only ten past ten and my flight doesn’t leave until after one, I’m not going anywhere. Once again my woollen suit is providing me with my own private sauna, and I’d kill for a coffee. Something must be done.

  I leave the queue (I’ve moved a whole two feet since joining it) and wander over to the barriers. It’s the usual bedlam of various airline employees ordering people about, arguments over the rules about carrying liquid, folks trying to push in and then being told to sod off by fluorescent-yellow-waistcoat-wearing Heathrow bods. I stick around for a moment to see exactly what occurs when passengers are legitimately allowed to barge through. A soon-to-leave Dubai flight is called, prompting a flurry of people flocking to the barrier from whatever distant corner of the terminal they’d reached. I watch carefully: a female airport official looks at the boarding pass of the first person, then unhooks part of the metal fence which holds the line of punters together, allowing the lucky few to walk down the side and straight past the hundreds of passengers shuffling along in the amusement-park-style internal queuing system until they reach the short line of people waiting their turn to put bags and jac
kets on the X-ray belt. The official at the gate only bothers to look at about one in three passes, whereas the bloke by the X-ray belt itself will look at every one of them, but by that stage in the process all he’ll care about is that your boarding pass is valid, not how soon your flight leaves. I glance at my watch, then at the terminal-straddling queue. By the time I reach the front, it’s certain that Lance Webster will be gone, up in the sky, off to wherever the hell he’s going, leaving me with no story, no two hundred pounds and, as Alan would probably say, no closure. It’s blatantly obvious what I should do.

  I nonchalantly amble away from the gate, pretending to be on the phone. The further away I get, the slower I walk. I’ve travelled fifty metres or so when a new announcement is made.

  A Virgin flight. To JFK.

  One out of two ain’t bad.

  I turn around. All along the queue, people are ducking out and marching up to the barrier. I dash up the outside and spy a suitably chaotic family by the gate: a dad, a mum, a teenage boy, a nine- or ten-year-old girl and a toddler of indeterminate gender. I take a deep breath and sandwich myself between the woman and the teenager, smiling cheerily.

  “Thank God for that, eh? Thought we were gonna miss it.”

  “Oh, it’s just madness,” replies the mum. “Daniel, look after your sister. Jason, stop pulling on that gentleman’s jacket!”

  “Flying with kids, eh?” I smile at the dad. “Nightmare.”

  “We tried to leave ’em at home.” He winks. “Rumbled at the last minute.”

  “Been to New York before?”

  And so, chatting away, we push our way along. As regular as clockwork, the airport official looks at mum and dad’s boarding passes. Then everyone gets distracted by the toddler. The mum rushes back to fetch him. The teenager shows his own pass, then the girl and I walk through together. Finally the mum returns carrying the toddler, apologising profusely to the official. I’m just a slightly older cousin, or maybe the mum’s much younger brother. But suddenly: