Julia Gets a Life

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  I recall what he’d said in Cardiff. ‘Liggers and sycophants and slappers.’

  ‘Dead right. Only worse, in some ways. Everyone wants to know you once you’re successful in the music business. Everyone wants to be seen with you. And you get a bit twitched about people’s motives, you know? At least, I do. I’ve never been that gregarious – apart from on stage, of course – I’m happiest with the mates I always had. And with girls…’

  ‘They must queue up.’

  ‘Exactly! It’s fucking awful. I mean, I’m a bloke, right, so I make the most of the better than average pulling power Kite’s given me. Course I do. We all do. But it gets mindless after a while. That’s why with you it’s so good. You know? You couldn’t give a stuff who I was. I was just work, you know?’

  ‘Not strictly true. I was very excited at having the opportunity to hob-nob with pop stars. But it never even occurred to me that I’d end up in bed with one.’

  ‘Precisely. So when you realised you were attracted to me it was because it was me, an ordinary bloke. Not some Pop Idol. Trouble with most girls I’ve met is that they know so much about me before I know anything about them. It’s creepy.’

  ‘You’re not ordinary. And I don’t feel I really know anything about you. That’s what makes it exciting.’

  I kick off my shoes, then walk over to him. My feet feel like they’re crossing a sea of mini-trampolines. I kneel down beside him. On a low chrome table just by where we are sitting, there is a cluster of photos in plastic frames. The face in one is familiar.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘My old man.’ Craig stabs a finger at the photograph. ‘He’s another one. Couldn’t give a damn when I was growing up. Treated us both like shit. And my Mum just put up with it because she was worried about me not having a Dad around. Didn’t throw him out until a couple of years back. He’s all about now, though. Now his son’s rich and famous. Surprise, surprise.’

  ‘You’ve got his photo here. You can’t hate him that much.’

  ‘Oh, that’s Mum. She’s very sentimental about that sort of crap. Family really matters to her. Hence the little gallery. But no, I don’t hate him. I’m just sad I can’t have any sort of functional relationship with him. I tell you, when I have kids I’m going to make damn sure I’m around for them.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll make a great Dad.’ Then I laugh. ‘Listen to me! I sound like your Mother!’

  He leans across and says, ‘Believe me, you are nothing like my mother.’

  Then he kisses me, slowly and gently and softly, and the undergrowth carpet pile rises to meet us.

  *

  ‘So I’m going to play it for you again now. Plus lyrics.’

  ‘These lyrics.’

  ‘Those lyrics. I’m sorry it’s not, you know, a love song or anything, but Jonathan can listen to exactly the same melody I do, and while I’m thinking angst, loss, depression or something, he could be just as likely to think ‘seize the day’.

  He reaches for an acoustic guitar. His favourite, he says when he’s playing with tunes. We are in his bedroom now. The sun is just setting and through the west facing windows the treetops are burnished and the sky looks like it has been tipped upside down and dipped in blue ink.

  I sit up, cross legged, to read the hand-written lines.

  ‘Ah, but you wrote this music. You probably had some sort of idea in your mind as you created it.’

  ‘Not consciously. My thoughts are more along the lines of ‘Yes! An A flat there’s fucking brilliant!’ Anyway. It’s about war. Listen for the great chord change in the middle.’

  So Craig begins playing and sings me my song.

  Which is about an old man who lives on his own with a cat and a bunch of tarnished war medals and gets his tea from meals on wheels. And all the local kids call him names and terrorise the cat. The irony being, of course, that at their age he was fighting a war and killing Germans. And watching his friends being killed. Craig thought about calling it Fin de siècle, but then decided that Fin de siècle would make a brilliant title for their next album, so the song is called Killing Games instead.

  It’s hardly romantic, but particularly special. My Grandad was killed at Ypres.

  The sound of the guitar fills the lofty space above us, and seems suspended there for some minutes after he plays the last chord. I realise I’m in the presence of someone completely self contained, and infinitely more complex that I’d ever have thought.

  ‘There,’ he says. ‘Could make a single, you reckon?’

  I nod. ‘Without a doubt. It’s brilliant. Well, I’m my opinion, anyway. But I’m not sure I’m really the best judge of such things.’

  ‘Your opinion is good enough for me, Mrs Potter.’ He grins. ‘ I need a beer. How about you?’

  He gets up and places the guitar carefully back on its stand. ‘Switch the telly on, will you?’

  He throws me the remote and pads off down the stairs.

  In my twenties, I once read a book called The Diceman. By a man called Luke Rheinhart – a psychiatrist, I think I recall, rather appropriately – it was based on the concept of abdicating responsibility for your life and of having no control over choices and events. Its hero decides (though I can’t recall why) that he will run his life according to the throw of a die. So for every decision he makes, from that moment, he must number six options and then roll for his choice. Both the concept and the book were so utterly fixating that having read it (in one marathon session, on holiday) I spent several weeks drawing up endless lists (nothing new there) concerning people and things I felt strongly about.

  Switching on Craig James’s Television that evening is, I recognise immediately, a moment like that.

  There’s some sort of documentary about the completion of some sort of building project. I’m not really watching it until a coloured strip covers the base of the screen with the words Peter Fielden – Fielden, Jones and Potter on top. As he speaks, the camera pans around the familiar dirty grey of Cardiff Bay – I note the water level, pick out the church. The Pierhead Building. And then the hotel itself. Then the reporter thanks Peter Fielden, turns and smiled, and even before the new name comes on screen, I know what was coming next.

  ‘Richard Potter,’ he says, ‘You must be breathing a sigh of relief. It’s now been five years of delays and controversy. And you’ve taken your fair share of flak…..’

  Richard clears his throat and puts a slightly nervous hand to his chin. He’s wearing his least favourite suit. The one with the mark on the side of the lapel. And the tie with Mickey mouse on that Max had chosen for him the Christmas before last. I even recognise the shirt as being the one with the two bottom buttons missing and a small tear in the back. He wouldn’t let me throw it away – being frugal, and also fond of it – but only wore it on days when he’d stay in his jacket.

  ‘I’m extremely pleased,’ he’s saying. ‘This is good news for the consortium. And validates the position we’ve always maintained.’

  Craig returns at this point and sits down on the bed beside me. He hands me a bottle and gestures toward the screen.

  ‘Good?’

  ‘That’s my husband,’

  ‘You’re kidding! But, Yeah, I see it. Potter. So. That’s Mr P, eh?’

  Richard’s face looks lined and sallow. Like he’s just stepped off a long haul flight. Which he can’t have.

  ‘What’s this all about then?’ asks Craig.

  ‘It’s a hotel they’re building in the bay. Er… almost have built. Plus theatre, plus community arts centre. Richard is project manager. He’s been living this for oh, over six years now, and there’s been a lot of debate and argument over the cost, and whether Cardiff was even the right place for a five star two thousand room hotel, let alone all the rest. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Are there even that many people in Wales?’ He laughs. ‘No, you don’t have to answer that.’

  ‘But it’s a valid point.
It all pre-supposes a huge population growth, long term, and in the short term that the area is going to become economically much more important than it is now. And some people feel something like this will become a sort of rich businessman’s ghetto. Nothing to do with the community at all. But it will bring with it – has already brought with it – hundreds, if not thousands of jobs. And it’s such an amazing building, and the concept….’

  I point towards the screen.

  ‘Every one of the two thousand rooms in the hotel is going to relate to a year – and will have a plaque detailing the important events of that year. And then there are ten separate conference areas – you know, rooms plus suites plus facilities etc., and those are going to be themed to reflect each of the ten decades this century. It’s an amazing place. I’ve seen all the plans. It’s quite something.’

  ‘Sounds like you took a degree in it! So they’ve just won something, have they?’

  ‘I think they must have secured some more major funding. To finish it. There’s been lots of delays because of money.’

  The bar leaves the screen and the camera swings in an arc around the harbour. A knot of people are gathered. I recognise a local MP. Then,

  ‘Good God, there’s the kids!’

  ‘What, yours?’

  ‘Yes! There! That’s Max, and just there – you see? Partly behind that guy with the hat? That’s Emma!’

  Craig leans closer to see.

  ‘She looks like you, doesn’t she?’

  ‘She’d be mortified to hear that. Mind you, that is my jacket she’s wearing.’

  The camera moves back to the reporter it started with and then on to a report about lead pipes in some school. I feel strange.

  Craig says,

  ‘Hi-profile family, eh? Cardiff aristocracy almost. Bet you’ll get a suite okay, once the place opens.’ He smiles. He is not being flippant or sarcastic. He is, I realise, just quietly impressed. And why wouldn’t he be?

  Then he says,

  ‘So that’s the bastard, is it? Seems like an okay sort of a guy on the surface.’

  I nod and take a sip of my beer. Then sigh.

  ‘That’s because he is okay. All the way through.’

  Chapter 28

  Clear headed

  Decisive

  Intuitive

  Bright

  Logical

  All these attributes have been linked with the name Julia Potter at some point or other over the years. Which proves two important points. A) that you can put all sorts of rubbish on a CV and get away with it, and B) that other people (personnel officers and kindly GPs providing personal references etc, especially) either haven’t the first clue what sort of person you are, or are completely taken in by the garbage your careers officer at school/college suggested you draw attention to in said CV. What I actually am (for the purposes of making manifestly serious life choices, at least) is muddle headed, indecisive, devoid of insight, and stupid. If you par-boiled my brain it would probably work better. Which is great. Just great.

  And I don’t have any dice.

  But there’s no getting way from the truth. That I wish I was home, that I wish I had been there to support Richard, that I was with the kids, that I had sewed the buttons back on that shirt. That I suddenly feel horribly like I have slipped into someone else’s life by accident. That I am experiencing all sorts of ambivalent feelings; about Craig (passion/empathy/butterflies, still, big time), about Richard (compassion/some kind of love still/regret), and about me (bloody hell/what’s going on here?) That everything is simply not fair.

  And I have developed a lurch. Bing! just like that. The sort of feeling that someone more poetic (or up themselves) than me would describe as a kind of tugging at one’s heart strings. But it’s really just a plain old lurch. I noticed it straight away. Right after the piece on the hotel finished. Craig said,

  ‘Did you never really consider forgiving him?’ in such a level, measured, relatively light-hearted tone that it was impossible to get a handle on why he asked it. Was he just curious? Could he sense something had suddenly changed in my manner? Did he feel sorry for the guy? What?

  I said (quite truthfully), ‘I would have if he’d only done it once. But he did it twice. Which is a whole different ball game. Involving deceit and pre-meditation. Which were vastly more important than the sex itself.’

  Then he said, ‘Hmmm. Fair point. ’ And my heart went lurch.

  And has been doing so ever since. I now have in place a rather unsatisfactory flush/lurch combo. The sort of thing I recall someone describing once to me. Like a panic attack that got arrested mid-panic. Like the floor is rushing up to meet me even as I stand.

  Except that I’m sitting. As if a three course meal involving veloutes, reductions, béarnaise and hollandaise and all that sort of food-to-expire-by wasn’t enough, the plan was to go out for a curry with Nigel and Jacinta. So we duly, (him pensive, me busy flushing and lurching) got the car round and sped off to the Viceroy of Bengal (Like the lunch place, a venue beloved of the stars and with men on the doors who would only admit you if you were famous, blue-blooded or on somebody’s list). Not that I care.

  But we’re barely into the Puris when Jacinta announces,

  ‘Did Colin have a chance to run the book by you yet?’

  ‘Book?’

  ‘I’ve been commissioned to write a book for the noughties. A sort of post-millennial music and culture round up for the beginning of the new century. Some of the pix will be archive sourced, of course, but the bulk of it’s going to be new stuff. I’m going to be doing a lot of interviews, gig reports and so on. I thought you might like to be involved and he said he’d ask you.’

  It’s like a bucket of warm custard to smooth over my turbulent feelings. Until Craig says, ‘Great! That’ll be really great, Julia. Keep you busy till I get back from the states.’

  We made love again (again) when we got back from the restaurant, and afterwards Craig fell immediately asleep. I spent a good hour lying beside him, just looking. Not believing my luck. Not believing its end. When I did finally sleep, I dreamed a long, thoughtful dream. There were doors; doors ahead of Craig, opening before him, and doors after me, shutting softly behind. I kept running back and propping them all open with my Mother’s faux-vegetable doorstops, so I could still see where I came from. So I could still see an exit. Then the final door opened and Craig stepped on through it. Not Disney this time, but impenetrable white light. Craig beckoned, but I didn’t want to come with him, because this door was too heavy and it wouldn’t stay open – even with a half-ton of clay propped against it. And there was a sign. It said ‘one way only’. So if I went through, there would be no going back.

  *

  Laughable in the morning (we both laughed, of course). Chapter one in every volume of every dream book ever written. But that’s because it’s a universal feeling, I guess. But I found I still couldn’t quite get a handle on the bottom line, decisions wise, so I did the very best thing one can do in such circumstances. I didn’t make a list, or make some dice out of sugar lumps. Instead, I arranged to meet my mother for lunch.

  *

  The deal is that we meet at the front of the Doc Shop. Even my mother cannot fail to find a shop that sells nothing but four floors of stout leather boots. But when I get there I find it isn’t that any more. It’s now a branch of a funky ‘yoof’ apparel emporium. But there’s footwear in the window, and she’s stepped inside anyway. I find her inspecting a pair of girls’ biker boots with buckles, and wondering loudly why young women today don’t appreciate how feminine a little peep toe always looks. With a lavvy-pan heel. And a nice pair of stockings. And a skirt that isn’t trailing along in the gutter, or exposing their buttocks.

  Richard, ironically, gets his name dropped into the conversation only moments after we sit down. Mother starts rustling. I’m used to my mother’s rustling, of course. There cannot be a cinema in the South East that hasn’t a
t some time projected its offerings to the low but insistent accompaniment of drink carton drainage, the opening of sweet wrappers or the search for the hankie she just knows she put somewhere. Today, however, her rustling is purposeful rather than an opinion on a film. She produces two items which she helpfully identifies as vases.

  ‘When he came to pick the children up he admired several of my pieces, and I thought what a shame it was that he didn’t have any for himself.’ This last bit is accompanied by one of my mothers ‘smiles’ – the ones she uses in place of a ‘you cow’ suffix.

  ‘So you made him these.’

  ‘So I made him these. He told me his flat is mainly magnolia so I had complete artistic freedom with colour, which was nice.’

  Listening to my mother throw expressions like artistic freedom into the conversation is deeply disconcerting. I fear she may be consorting with the man with the phallus.

  ‘So you plumped for this pinky-greeny-magenta type combo. Very nice…’

  ‘Doesn’t it say ‘Chinese rug’ to you? I’ve always felt Richard appreciated a more traditional style.’

  What?

  ‘Hmmm. So what are you going to eat?’

  ‘Do any of these dishes have a nice bit of steak in them? I can’t make head nor tail of the menu.’

  ‘There’s a stroganoff here. That’s got meat and gravy.’

  ‘Or a pie. I’ve not had a pie for a while.’

  ‘The only pie is a filo one with ricotta and truffles. I don’t think you’d like that.’

  ‘For pudding perhaps.’

  *

  Here we go then.

  I leave my Mother at Victoria Station, with her rail-card, her rainhood and around of tongue sandwiches, and promise to call just as soon as I’m back. Then I tube it to Paddington, grab a tea and a paper, and find my seat on the train for the long journey home.

  I don’t have the faintest idea what I’m going to do when I get there. I’m going to go to Richard’s, of course, to make suitable noises about his exciting news, give him his vases (sic) and gather up the children, but that done I don’t have any kind of a plan.