by Anna Maxted
“My two favorites!” I sigh, linking arms with both of them.
“You big wuss,” says Tony, not unkindly. He hands me a fifty to buy the Bollinger, and I hurry back from the bar to apprehend any conflict. It’s a relief to hear Tony say: “So he’s authorizing these regular petty-cash withdrawals, it’s going on for months, people trotting in asking for ‘money for a shirt for a party’ and the guy can’t figure out why these shirts are always costing sixty quid!”
Chris laughs so hard he turns mauve. “Reminds me of when I went to, er, Soho House with the guys from Uranus”—I see Tony twitch at mention of a rival label—“We all chuck our credit cards on the table at the end of the meal, and there’s a blue cotton tablecloth, right, and, for a laugh, yeah, I swipe everyone’s credit card across it and, I’m telling you, man, every card left a faint white line!”
I look nervously at Tony, but he chortles and says, “You’re having me on, mate, I heard the same tale from one of our lads—”
I glance at Chris and notice a deep red flush creeping up his neck, so I say, “The show’s starting in a minute, maybe we should go and sit down?”
We file into the faded blue and gold grandeur of the auditorium, the polite buzz of chat floating in the air like dandelion spores, the muted dress of the audience punctuated here and there by a child in a tiara and an elegant woman in emeralds and velvet, the rustle of programs and the bustle of people jumping up to let others squeeze past to their seats. A smart voice courteously requests that all mobile phones be turned off. Tony and Chris look horrified.
The lights dim, a hush descends, and as the orchestra strikes up, Chris whispers, “So how long does this malarkey go on for?” Five minutes later Tony declares confusion at the plot. I feel like a nanny juggling delinquent twins.
“It’s simple,” I whisper. “Dr. Coppelius is a toymaker, Coppélia is his mechanical doll—”
“Ooh, er,” says Tony, “sounds a bit suss.”
And when I say to Chris, “What do you think of Mel pretending to be Coppélia?” he replies, “No offense—I think her dancing’s wooden!”
Both men perk up briefly during the interval. Tony, gasping for caffeine, whistles at the usherette rather than walk two steps to the front row, and Chris chirps, “How much padding did that gay ballerina have in his pants, it’s like he stuck a pillow down there!”
He doesn’t leave early to help his band set up, because he falls asleep at the start of Act III and remains unconscious until the curtain.
“I told Mel we’d meet her just inside the stage door,” I say. “Will the band be okay without you?” I add as I see Chris glance at his watch.
“Oh yeah,” he replies. “They’re pros, they sound-checked earlier, and they know I’m meet—er, I thought we’d take my motor, you know, if Tony wants to have a few drinks. How much longer is Mel gonna be?”
“Here she is now,” I say as the star of the show scampers toward us in tottery pink heels and a silver minidress. Tony’s eyes bulge.
“Hello, Tony!” she cries. “Hello, Natalie, oh! and who are you? How was I? I thought I was terrible! But Oskar was more terrible! Did you see him fail on that lift?”
“This is Chris, remember?” I say hastily. “It’s his band we’re going to see. And don’t be silly, you were great. You were fabulous, and the show was fabulous!”
Chris smiles at Mel—who is sucking up the praise like a whirlwind in a church—and says under his breath, “It was two and a half hours of rivetless entertainment.”
Mel claps her hands and says, “Oh goody, did you love it, Tony?”
Tony cries, “You were stormin’, darlin’, you were wicked, you were massive!”
“I was…massive?” repeats Mel in an incredulous tone.
“He means you were wonderful, Mel,” I squeak, before I have a situation on my hands, “not large in the physical sense.”
“Are we off then?” says Chris.
Five minutes later we are standing in front of a large battered Volvo, burgundy except for a single panel that is beige. Chris tugs open the back door, winks at me, and says in a mockney drawl, “Laydeez.” I scramble in and Mel follows. “Should be a great gig tonight,” he declares to Tony, revving up. The New Musical Express was talking about a feature on the band, and some of the A&R boys said they’d come down—”
“Some of the A&R boys?” says Tony. “They’re like a flock of sheep, mate, it’s all or nothing with that lot.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but between you and me, three majors are interested but I’m playing it cool—”
“This noise is horrid, Chris, it’s so loud I can’t bear it, it’s giving me a migraine, please turn it off!”
As the noise in question is Blue Fiend’s demo tape (I’ve heard it forty times in the last fortnight so I know), I shrink in my seat. Chris pokes his finger at the Eject button, as if it were Mel’s eye, and it spits out the tape. He stuffs it into his pocket.
“Thank Christ for that,” says Tony. “Talk about dad rock. Who the fuck were they? Whoever they are they won’t sell a fucking unit.”
“Er, no one really, bunch of chancers, what with the buzz around Blue V—Blue Fiend, word’s got round and they want me to manage them. Yeah, right!”
“So,” I say, “the place will be packed tonight. How exciting!”
“Oh, Natalie, that reminds me, all those free tickets you gave me for the concert tonight, I’ve still got them in my bag, I did ask people but they didn’t like the sound of the band, Blue Veined Fiend, it sounds so rude!”
A silence ensues, alleviated only by the piteous sound of the Volvo’s engine fighting for breath. Tony bursts into a harsh laugh. “Mel,” he says, “I like you a lot. Will you marry me?”
Mel giggles. “That depends,” she replies, “on whether you promise to obey.” Tony turns around and grins at her. “You bring the whip, I’ll bring the handcuffs, darlin’,” he says.
Mel squirms in delight. “That’s not what I meant, you naughty boy,” she says. “Oh, Natalie, your brother is outrageous!”
“Here we are,” says Chris suddenly. “My word, I mean bleedin’ hell, will you look at those crowds! The birds—ten deep—pushing! Like the last days of Rome! And—snappers!”
There is indeed a scrum of fans and photographers barging and Chris is so shocked he nearly swerves into them. Tony looks at Chris with sudden respect.
“Seems like you’ve got a bit of an organic buzz going here,” he says casually. Pause. “Street level, of course.”
Chris—dizzy with visions of Learjets and desperate to park the Volvo—burbles, “I knew it! I knew this’d be the breakthrough gig! They’re it, man, I’m telling ya—everyone loves ’em—kids into metal, frilly shirt fans, anyone under fifty who doesn’t work in a bank, skateboarders, I tell you, they’ve got a cracking tune for their first single, you’ll hear it—once it’s out the box it’s really gonna go off, and they’re visual, goddammit they’re pure theater, I gotta think about the press photos, I’m seeing gritty, grainy, black-n-white, the boys in front of a derelict building, or maybe grouped in a stairwell looking up, no, I’ve got it, the guys spaced out in a field, Tarqy, the frontman, close to camera, and a cow, a goat! no a cow, yeah a cow—Jersey! Holstein? Jersey! Holstein’s a cliché, in the background, and the vid, I thought, the boys, in the Mexican desert, red Cadillac, MTV’ll love it—”
I am speechless with joy on his behalf, which isn’t a problem as he doesn’t stop talking until the Volvo is parked and we are battling with the peasants outside the Monarch.
Chris pushes through the glut, plops out in front of the doorman, and says, “All right, mate, Chris Pomeroy, the guys’ manager, yeah?”
The doorman—a primate in a tux—murmurs, “Guest list closed.”
Chris cries, “It can’t be, I’m the manager!”
The doorman’s right nostril lifts. “You manage the Manic Street Preachers.” He isn’t asking.
Chris’s mouth drops like a trapd
oor and he stammers, “The Muh…Muh…The Manics?”
Seven minutes later, after a text message to the right person on Tony’s mobile, my brother, Mel, Chris, and I access the Monarch, where one of the biggest rock acts on the planet are staging an impromptu set—a secret warm-up gig before their one huge UK arena date tomorrow night—and where Blue Fiend were shunted on ninety minutes early before their core fan base (i.e., their mums) arrived and ignored by an elite audience until they slunk off twenty minutes later.
Tony instantly spies ten “good friends” and vanishes into the crowd, clutching Mel to him. He’s so well built and she’s so bijou, they look like a very glamorous Laurel and Hardy. I sigh. The picosecond Tony discovered that the furor was in honor of the Manics, Chris dropped off his radar like a pebble off a cliff. I hunch my shoulders in a pointless attempt to protect my eardrums and light a cigarette, though the air is so choked with smoke I hardly need to. All my internal organs are rattling to the beat like pans in a drawer and I’m concerned a kidney might come loose.
“You supported the Manics!” I bawl at Chris, who has recovered from the doorman’s slight and is delirious.
“I can go to any agent,” he shrieks, “and tell ’em the boys have supported the Manics!”
Then he catches up with some A&R stragglers in the toilets. He leaves the gents’ as wretched as a cat in a bath.
“What?” I screech in a voice as loud as the Big Bang but rendered noiseless by the Manics’ sound system. It emerges that the A&Rs only made it in time to hear Blue Fiends’ last track. And their collective response to “Flawless Gems and Snarly Beasts” was not ideal. The most constructive comment: “Bands like that are so last century.” The less constructive: “Bands like that are going nowhere,” and the least constructive: “They look and sound like a warthog farting.”
I try to interpret this verdict positively, and fail.
10
MY MOTHER RINGS MY MOBILE THE NEXT MORNING at 7:30, apparently to inquire, “Juicy bolognese mint.”
“Pardon?” I say.
“To see how last night went!” she roars.
“Sorry,” I say, yawning and blinking myself awake. “The gig was quite loud. I’m still deaf.”
She advises me to syringe out my ears. “Where are you, dear? I rang you at home but you didn’t answer.”
“I’m, um, staying with Chris.”
There is a delicate silence. “You haven’t heard from Saul then. How did Tony get on with that girl? Funny little thing, she was, it was like shaking hands with thin air.”
“Very well indeed,” I say, grinning. “Very well.”
I glance at Chris, asleep beside me, and cover the mouthpiece. “He and Mel seem really taken with each other. Although it was a bit awkward with Chris, his band got depressed and threatened to quit because they didn’t go down very well with the A&Rs.”
My mother sniffs. “Oh, well, that lot,” she says dismissively. “They change their minds from one week to the next. Tell him not to worry. An identical act will get signed and then they’ll all come running. What are they? Funk metal? Death? Speed? Thrash?”
“Chris calls them Romo metal,” I say.
“That’s a new one on me,” she replies tartly. “Do they hammer on and pull off?”
“Mum, that’s quite a personal question, I mean—”
“Natalie, you are funny! Does their sound feature any Van Halen–style guitar solos?”
“Of course, er, no.”
“What amplification do they use?”
“Gosh, I’m not quite sure—”
“With metal you’ve got to use Marshalls, dear, you can’t use those old Vox AC30s, they feed back terribly.”
I smile grimly at Lenin, courtesy of an Andy Warhol print on Chris’s bedroom wall, and wonder if my mother involves herself too keenly in her son’s career. I wouldn’t mind, but last week she asked me if a pirouette was a puppet.
“How was Weight Watchers?” I ask, to change the subject.
“Fine, thank you, dear. I took off my chiffon scarf before I stood on the scales.” She stops, then adds, “Although I must say, it isn’t the same as it was. In the old days if you lost weight they’d ring a bell. They’d say how much you lost and everyone would give you a clap. Things have moved on a bit now. No one rings bells.”
“And, ah, how are you doing?” I inquire carefully.
“Not bad. I lost one and a half pounds last week. But I gained one the week before. One on, and one off. One on, and one off. Tony says it’s like listening to the football results.” Her high tinkling laughter sounds false, and when I join her, so does mine.
“Oh well,” I say, “easy come, easy go.”
“Easier come.”
“Have you spoken to Tony?”
“Natalie, I couldn’t call him at this time of the morning! He’d be fast asleep!” With that, my appetite for chat dwindles. I switch off my mobile. Then I lie back, and try to drift into sleep, but Chris’s nose whistles as he breathes. It’s like sharing a bed with a collie. If he was Saul I’d pinch it quiet, but like all bullies I’m a coward. (Chris hates being woken up and will happily string out a revenge sulk for twenty-four hours.)
Stealthily, I sit up. The only available reading matter is a pile of Metal Hammer magazines, a rhyming dictionary, and two books: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung and How to Write a Hit Song. I roll on my stomach and catch my reflection in the antique mirror headboard. It is smudged with girls’ fingerprints, and my hair is greasy. Great. Maybe a bath will wake me up. I tread over decaying shirts, creep to the bathroom, and softly turn on the Art Deco bath taps. I place a sponge under the gushing water to muffle it.
I sink into the cast-iron monster, squeeze a dot of Aveda shampoo on my hair (Chris has more beauty products than the Queen of Sheba), and rub it in. Then I rinse off the foam in the tub instead of using the showerhead, so as not to wake sir. I don’t pull the plug for the same reason. It’s only when I am patting myself dry with a towel that I notice. I stiffen and my hand freezes. I stare at the bath in disbelief. There’s a sudden tightness in my throat. I stoop until my face is an inch from the soapy water and I can hear the blood rush to my head in panic. What is this?
Hundreds of long blond hairs, floating like bodies, in the water. My hair. I stare for a moment longer, but the sight is obscene and I yank out the plug. Then, slowly, I raise my hand and gently pull. Five hairs. I pull again. Seven hairs. Again. Four hairs. Again. Eight hairs. Eight. My heart is bopping along to the Manics and I feel like a woman in a horror film come real. Oh god, if only this was a dream. (Except I know it isn’t, because when it is a dream, you never think, “oh god, if only this was a dream.”) I swirl around to the huge mirror, snap on the showbiz lights, and inspect my scalp. The white skin between the strands, sick milk-white skin…
“What are you doing, have you got nits?” says Chris, a grayish irritable ghost in the doorway.
“I’m going bald—my hair is falling out!”
Chris snorts and says, “Don’t be mad, women don’t go bald.”
“But look!” I shriek, pulling at my scalp. Three hairs obligingly come away in my hand.
“Well, of course it’ll come out if you pull it out,” he says. “Don’t pull it.”
“But look at the bath!” I plead.
Chris walks over to the bath as if it’s a long way and says, “Ur. You’re molting, princess.”
I start to twirl my hair—oh god, maybe that’s why—and stop.
“Could be stress,” adds Chris. “I reckon you’re due a sickie.”
A sickie! I don’t take sickies! I’m Employee of the Month, every month! (Well, if the GL Ballet was McDonald’s I would be.) I don’t do things like that, but then. I stare at the bath and think, what do I care? My hair is falling out, Babs says I can’t say no, she isn’t even speaking to me, I feel lost without her, I’m exhausted from the gig—or rather, from spending till 4 A.M. humoring Chris, who was up and down like a yo-yo—and
I don’t want to go into work. I carefully dry my hair with Chris’s huge stainless-steel hair dryer—it is powered like a jet engine and transforms me into Bonnie Tyler—and at 8:45 leave a message on Matt’s voice mail.
“Matt, I’m really sorry, but I think I’m seriously ill,” I whisper as Chris listens in, nodding, “I’ve got a terrible migraine, it’s making me sick, I’m staying at my mother’s, she’s looking after me.”
Chris makes a “stop” gesture, and cuts me off. “Princess. Too much yap, it’s a dead giveaway.”
I stare at him, aghast. “But I said that so he wouldn’t ring me at home and get suspicious when I wasn’t there,” I squeak.
Chris laughs. “I take it back then. You’re a pro,” he says, ruffling my Dallas meets Fright Night hair. I fight the urge to lurch away from his hand.
“Do you really think it’s stress?” I say, touching my hair, almost, softly, then away again, like it’s an ice sculpture.
“Yeah, man, it’s gotta be,” replies Chris. “Don’t think about it or you’ll make it worse.” I smile at him, he looks so thin and boyish in his boxer shorts. I’m desperate to believe him. But I keep seeing those hundreds of hairs gently swirling in the bath, every one a symbol of doom. I mustn’t worry. If I worry, it’ll come out in tufts and I’ll be bald in a month. I need to get away from myself. (Sometimes I see myself as others see me and I don’t like it—I feel it’s one problem I should never have to deal with.) But I’m stronger than my fears.
I size up Chris and say, “So, what shall we do today?” I want him to take me to bed and make me feel good again. After he’s cleaned his teeth, of course. The trouble is, he isn’t going to feel like it today, not after last night, he was off his head. Today—as I now know—is comedown day, a wretched no-fun snappy day, the burlesque beauty of yesterday faded to gray. I didn’t have any. I’ve gone off coke, ever since I sneezed and literally blew a hundred quid in one second. Also, I wanted it, so I knew I couldn’t have it. (I’ve decided I have an addictive personality. I’m not allergic to wheat or peanuts, I need something to make me special.)