The Singer

by Cathi Unsworth

  Helen hated to hear these things. She felt terrible for extracting Allie’s secrets, even worse for the sort of childhood Robin had suffered. But at the same time, she felt terribly afraid at what this was all leading up to.

  When they left school, Allie and Robin had both served apprenticeships to become electronic engineers. They stayed close; their spare time spent travelling to Edinburgh to see bands, reading music papers and buying singles, listening to John Peel every night for tips. When punk dawned, with it came the realisation that maybe they could try their hand at it too.

  But that wasn’t the real reason they left Scotland in a hurry. Allie sighed as he let this information out, looked at the floor, too ashamed to meet his wife’s eye. Then he plunged on, willing her to understand why.

  The real reason was because Robin had been in a spot of bother. He’d started seeing a girl, his first ever girlfriend, and he was really happy about it. Only, after a couple of months she’d wanted to break up with him. She was fed up with his mood swings, as most people got to be, after they’d known Robin a while.

  Robin hadn’t taken the news very well. He started stalking the wee lass, who was still only a schoolgirl, from the gates of the playground to her house every day. Hung around outside, staring up at her window, making calls from the phone box over the road at ten-minute intervals, that kind of mad stuff. Of course it wasn’t long before her Da, who was also a miner and knew Robin’s Da by reputation, got thoroughly pissed off with the situation. He’d come out to threaten Robin with a beating if he didn’t leave his daughter alone.

  Robin had just smirked at him. He disappeared that day, but sure enough, was back the next, ready to start the charade all over again. The Da, though, was cleverer than Robin. He told Robin’s old man what was going on, probably reckoning that what Robin would suffer next would be worse than anything he could mete out.

  He was right. Leith Senior was feared even by the hard men he worked beside because of his unpredictable, hair-trigger temper. That time he outdid himself. Robin had to have his jaw wired back together after he’d finished. He had bootmarks on him that took months to fade. It was from his hospital bed that they’d hatched their scheme to run away, because Allie was fearful of what would happen to Robin if they stayed.

  Allie’s boss had a brother who’d moved down south. He helped sort them out some work and digs before they jumped on that train in the summer of ’77. And Robin had flourished here, away from the madness of his previous life. He’d been happy and outgoing in a way Allie had never seen before. Of course, both of them were delirious to be at the hub of punk’s revolution, to see the bands they’d read about night after night, to take those ideas and start to form their own music out of it. When they’d met Helen and Sylvana it had seemed like the icing on the cake.

  ‘So,’ Helen said tentatively at that point. ‘Sylvana’s only his second girlfriend?’

  ‘There were a couple of others before her,’ Allie said. ‘Nothin’ serious though. Nae one ever lasted the course with him before. Nae one ever clicked with him like she did.’

  Helen hated herself for pushing it, but she had to ask: ‘Did he follow anyone else around like that in London?’

  Allie shook his head. ‘Not that I know of, and believe me, I wouldae known if he had. I thought he had sorted his shit out, put it all behind him. But…’ his voice caught in his throat and he had to look away for a second. ‘But,’ he continued, scrabbling for Helen’s hand. ‘But…Aw, Jesus Christ, I shouldae told you when it first began. It was that first tour without you, the first night an’ all. Sylvana got upset about Blair Peach. When we first heard it on the radio, she thought it was Ray who got his head kicked in.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Helen frowned, casting her mind back, remembering only how sad she had been that she’d had to stay behind without Allie.

  ‘You remember that guy, Blair Peach, who got killed by the cops on that anti-fascist rally? Yeah, well, apparently Ray had gone on that march too, and Sylvana was really upset about it. I could see her point well enough, but Robin couldnae. I could see it startin’ right then. I could see his imagination runnin’ away with hisself. I tried to talk him out of it an’ all. Christ, Ray was Donna’s boyfriend, and he’d done us a lotta favours hisself, the poor lass was only worried about him. I thought I had brought Robin round…But I can see now, that was the start of it. Things have been different since then.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Helen gripped his hand tightly.

  ‘I’ve tried to ignore it, I admit I have. But nae one’s been the same since that tour. He’s got more and more of a control freak – over the music, and over her. He won’t let her out of his sight, he makes her practise over and over while he fucks around tryin’ to get one tiny portion of the sound perfect. They never come out, do they? They never come round here, there’s always some excuse. It’s studio, home, studio, home, every fuckin’ day. I’ve been so happy with you that I’ve pushed it to one side. I didnae want to worry you, didnae want nae conflict. But the cat’s outae the bag now, eh? Donna’s seen it right enough, and I shouldae faced up to it long ago. I shouldae told you, hen, I really shouldae. But I was just hopin’ if I kept my head in the sand long enough it would all go away, eh?’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ Helen had tears in her eyes now. Poor Sylvana, was all she could think. While we’ve been so happy, what has he been doing to her?

  Eventually, when they were both so tired they had to go to bed, Helen had decided on a course of action. She was going to spend more time with Sylvana. She was going to come on as many dates of that tour as she could afford – she had a trusted assistant who could mind the stall for her when she needed. She wasn’t going to say anything, but she was going to make sure she was there and Sylvana knew she was there, if she needed her. Making money, being a happening designer or whatever she was supposed to be, was nothing compared to what her friend was going through. She should have acted on her fears before.

  That night had been the first time she’d seen Sylvana in weeks. The first time she’d really seen through the weight loss, the tiredness in her friend’s eyes. Through those two long hours as they waited for Donna, she became uncomfortably aware of everything Allie had said and how blindingly obvious it all was now those words had come out.

  Robin did nothing but niggle and criticise Sylvana and she did nothing to defend herself, just meekly said sorry and tried to do better, while he stared on, an expression of scorn on his face.

  It had been fifteen months since that tour without her, Helen realised. Fifteen months. Sylvana had been worn down completely. She had no defences left.

  Donna didn’t even meet Helen’s eye as she came through the door. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said breezily. ‘I got caught up in some tour business…’

  As she continued to gabble out her excuses, Helen got to her feet. ‘So I see,’ she said, staring pointedly at the red lipstick smeared halfway across Donna’s cheek. ‘Well I hope he was worth it.’

  Donna’s mouth dropped open and for the first time in Helen’s knowledge, she didn’t have a smart word to say.

  ‘You want us to run through this for you one more time?’ said Robin through his curled upper lip. ‘Only I reckon by now we could just about do this in our sleep.’

  Donna nodded quickly and sat down.

  But as the first swirling chords of ‘Cherry Coma’ rose through the room, it seemed like Sylvana was the only person left in the room oblivious to the static in the air, the only one who still could get lost inside a song.

  21

  Jumping Someone Else’s Train

  April 2002

  The next four weeks of my life passed in a hideous blur of alcohol, pleading and self-recrimination, one long lost weekend so smudged around the edges I hardly know where to begin.

  Louise wanted to discuss our separation ‘like adults’. At first, she came back to the flat, even though I knew she didn’t want to. But I told her I just couldn’t face mee
ting ‘on neutral ground’ as she suggested, and pleaded and pleaded until she eventually gave in.

  It didn’t go very well. I had spent two days trying to keep it together without resorting to the malicious decimation of the rest of her wine collection, pacing up and down, trying to work out in my head a way to bring her round. When she got there, I just ended up begging.

  ‘Please give me another chance, Lou, please let’s just call this a trial separation and I’ll finish this book and show you I really can get my shit together.’ That sort of thing.

  She just sat there, shaking her head, tears slowly rolling down her face without any sound coming out. She had to look so fucking perfect, even in despair.

  So then I lost it and got sarcastic with her, mocking her boo hoo hoo, demanding to know who she was really leaving me for.

  ‘Myself,’ she said, getting up to go.

  I grabbed hold of her, tried to force her to stay. Ripped her fucking coat as she pulled away, both of us yelling and screaming then, years worth of unsaid hurts and tenderly nursed slights let loose like a hail of poison bullets.

  Words said that unmade everything and every chance I ever had of getting back what we’d once had. Words that left me howling in the doorway at her disappearing back, the sound of her heels clattering heavily on the stairs resounding through my brain for hours after.

  It was over. Done. Finito. Once I knew it, I went down like a dog.

  I spent a month moving from one pub to another, with Christophe, with Gavin, with anyone who’d let me try and drink those words out of my head. Actually, it was mainly Gavin. He had the kind of sympathetic ear I needed right then. Gavin had always travelled light, as he put it, never got entangled within the treacherous roots of domesticity. Like the musicians he’d spent his life alongside, he still saw himself on a perpetual open road. It was the kind of philosophy I needed to hear right then, over and over again, particularly when coupled with an outlaw soundtrack of Johnny Cash, Lee Hazlewood, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings or, even better, David Allen Coe, all night over at his place.

  Christophe, on the other hand, was busy getting his feet under the table at la Maison Française. I think he felt a bit guilty about that, as if he was letting down a friend in need, ‘cos he kept trying to compensate by bringing me more stacks of old music papers and magazines from his mate at Vintage every time we did meet. He had the good grace not to even mention Paris, though.

  The worst time was when Louise arranged to come and fetch her belongings. We, or rather she, had decided that I could stay on at the Camden flat while she would sort out somewhere else to live. I had just enough money to keep going until the next payment from the publishers, though I really couldn’t think ahead more than a week, let alone a couple of months. But she was adamant that she didn’t want to see me again after our last encounter, and I sure as hell couldn’t face seeing half of my life carted out of the flat in one afternoon.

  The last conversation we had comprised a few short sentences, mainly consisting of me promising not to be there.

  The night before I knew it was happening, I went out with Gavin to see some alt country singer songwriter at the 12 Bar Club in Tin Pan Alley. Some creepy guy from America who looked like a trailer-dwelling geek but sounded like the spirit of Leadbelly had somehow lodged into his soul. Just what I needed to hear.

  After that, we moved along with some mates of his through the drinking clubs of Soho, ate breakfast at Balons on Old Compton Street – well, if you can call a Bloody Mary and some crisps a breakfast. I stayed for two days in the same clothes on Gavin’s sofa afterwards. He knew I didn’t want to go back and face it. So he came back with me, in a taxi, on a Monday morning. Said that the best way to deal with it was sober and in daylight.

  It was like being taken to a prison cell. Gavin hovered by the doorway as I took it all in.

  Oh, she’d left me most of the stuff we bought together, I’ll give her that. Obviously cutting her losses and running at that point was all she wanted; all she’d cared about doing, getting out clean.

  I still had the leather sofa, the widescreen TV, the Smeg fridge and Duellit toaster. My computer, scanner and printer gazing coldly from my office corner, my stainless-steel filing cabinet alongside.

  The bookcase had gone, though, and all her books with it. The fruit bowl and the coffee maker and all the black and white pottery she’d collected over the years, that she used to laugh about and say she was a housewife on valium because it was called Homemaker. The Art Deco wardrobe and all of her clothes, her one hundred and one pairs of shoes. The paintings we’d picked up cheap off Brick Lane that looked like lost Cubist masters. Hidden memories rose back to the surface as I took in the absence of all these things and what they represented, the times we’d spent, the bargains we’d gone home laughing about, the careful way she’d arranged everything. Everything that makes a house a home.

  On the kitchen table, she’d left me a cheque for another month’s rent, with a short note saying that she wished me the best. The sort of thing you’d write a distant aunt to thank her for a Christmas present you didn’t want.

  And her keys, where the fruit bowl used to be.

  And that Polaroid of us, ten years ago, still laughing down from the fridge door. Mocking me.

  ‘You got some coffee in the house?’ Gavin appeared behind me.

  ‘I, er…’ I fumbled to make sense of the request. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Let me have a look,’ he said gently, and began opening the cupboards.

  ‘Here we go.’ He brought out a jar of instant muck. ‘Let’s have a brew.’

  I stood and watched him fish out some cups from the back of another cupboard, the prim Tory blue ones Mother had given me as a moving-in present, the ones we’d laughed about and hid until the rare occasions she deigned to visit. I guessed there weren’t any other ones left.

  ‘Black coffee,’ he continued, filling the kettle and plugging it in. ‘That’s what we need right now.’

  He didn’t ask any stupid questions, didn’t try to offer any platitudes. He just made us strong black coffee and carried it into the lounge where we sat down on the sofa, sipping in silence. Or what passes for silence on Camden Road.

  ‘Ah, well,’ Gavin finally said as he placed his empty cup back down on the coffee table. ‘Not the best brew I’ve ever had. But not the worst either.’

  I still couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘Now mate,’ he said, gentle but firm. ‘There’s only two ways you can go on this. You can either go back down the bottle until you never come back up, or you can haul yourself out through that little bastard there.’ He nodded towards my computer.

  I followed his gaze. The tape recorder looked back at me from beside the keyboard. The next tapes to transcribe, with Lynton Powell’s interview on them, sat in a neat pile beside it, wearing a thin layer of dust.

  ‘See, we’ve still got a mission, you and me,’ Gavin went on. ‘We’ve made a bloody good start on it already, but we’re still only part the way there. We’ve gotta get you shipshape and start you moving again. It’s the only way, mate. The only way.’

  I dropped my gaze to the floor. ‘I know,’ I finally whispered.

  That disappeared singer and what was left of his band were my one hope left. Without them I was nothing but a failure. The drinks were lined up on the bar of the Last Chance Saloon all right.

  ‘Good bloke.’ Gavin put his hand briefly on my shoulder. ‘Now, what I suggest is a trip to the supermarket. In order to do what’s required of you, you’re gonna need some decent coffee…’

  Mother would have been proud of the way Gavin took charge of the provisions that day, making sure I had everything I needed in my fridge and my cupboards.

  ‘Bush Tucker Man!’ he said proudly as we stacked the last of it away. ‘Bringing the hard world of Outback survival into your home.’ He swung the door of the fridge shut in triumph.

  As he did so, he dislodged the Polaroid of Louise
and me, and it dropped to the floor like a stone. I swooped down to pick it up, held it for a moment in my palm.

  ‘You want my advice?’ said Gavin, looking over my shoulder. ‘Put it away, mate. Hide it somewhere.’

  ‘No,’ I said, suddenly filled with a sense of resolution. ‘No, I’m gonna keep it there. To prove to her what I am capable of doing.’

  ‘That’s my man!’ Gavin laughed and I joined him.

  I had to hand it to him. He fired me up. ‘Thanks, Gavin,’ I said. ‘I won’t forget this.’

  Although after he was gone, it was hard to keep hold of that sudden moment of calm and purpose I’d had there in the kitchen. I could feel the holes opening up again inside me as the day dissolved into dusk and the streetlights blinked on outside. Hard not to look at the spaces where her things had been for so long, in these rooms.

  Music. That was what I needed to keep me straight.

  Only I didn’t turn to any of the men-in-black for solace this time. Instead I picked up that Mood Violet record I’d found in the bargain bins of Inverness Street. I’d dismissed it as ethereal bollocks before, but something about the colours on the front cover, those twilight pinks and blues and the arc of gold light, like the edge of a lens caught by the sun, seemed to chime with the way I was feeling inside.