You open your mouth.
You don’t even need to look at the lyric sheet.
You’re inside the sleek world of paranoia and high rises that you’ve created in your head.
Your voice gives out for the final chorus, but Vicente is still jumping at the end. ‘That was what we needed,’ he shouts.
Bonny comes on the intercom. ‘We happy?’
Jack nods enthusiastically. Theo agrees, glad no one noticed his mistake in the third bridge. Simon looks to you.
‘Rob?’
‘I kept sitting under the note in the chorus,’ you say. ‘Sounded like a flat tyre.’
‘Nah, you didn’t.’
Vicente catches your comment on the intercom. ‘Very well, he says. ‘We’ll go again. Until you happy, Robert.’
Before the track begins again you just catch Bonny whispering in Vicente’s ear. ‘What was wrong with that?’ she asks him.
‘Nothing,’ he says.
3
Sam drove with his body close to the wheel until he found the junction for the A40, gasping open amongst the grey backdrop.
He fiddled with the stereo; irritated that Elsa wasn’t with him to share in this moment. Joy Division’s ‘Disorder’ reverberated around the car’s interior, the hard surfaces of the city replaced now by the hard surfaces of the song.
He knew Elsa’s mind would automatically look for cracks in his story. At that moment he missed the Elsa he had first met.
During his first year in halls Elsa had lived at the end of his corridor. Sam had spent that time feeling intoxicated by the idea that he could become a music journalist. Few people in the halls seemed to share his artistic preoccupations, preferring instead to dress up variously as gladiators, schoolgirls and sperm, for the rag week. The only students who were interested in serious subjects carried around copies of Sartre and pinned up pictures of Bobby Sands in their rooms. But Sam couldn’t bring himself to speak to them.
It was a relief when a girl in the flat opposite invited him and a friend over for a Halloween party. As they both sat amongst the broken fairy lights and charred cupcakes, Sam noticed a girl on the windowsill, her arms around her knees. She had blonde, almost white hair held back by a glittering red clip. Her face was whitened with powder and her eyes blackened, both accentuating her smudged scarlet lipstick. She looked straight at Sam.
During the party everyone delivered fragments of their past as though they were unbearably precious. It seemed to be the only skill people learnt at university, a technique that real life would stifle the use of. An American girl was passionately talking about the effect Kennedy getting shot had on the US. ‘The bullet symbolised a society who will no longer raise celebrities above ideas,’ she said. Elsa took a cap gun from the table and mimed blowing her head off. She acted out imaginary streams of blood pouring onto the floor.
At the end of the party Sam found himself stooped over her guitar in her kitchen. She made him teach her the chords to David Bowie’s ‘Starman’.
The journey from the ruined kitchen to her bedroom remained smeared in his memory. It seemed inevitable even as it happened, like watching a curious object lap its way to the shore. As she sat opposite him on the bed, under a Marc Bolan poster, she flicked through her journal. His eyes caught mentions of flirtations, sequins, and nightclubs. He wished that he could be sat behind her, feasting on the details. She didn’t meet his eye as she closed the book and put it back in a drawer. In the weeks that followed Sam became familiar with the aching morning light of her bedroom, and the snatched sentiments within that book. One day, she swore, she’d shape them into songs.
A thin sheet of rain peppered the car window, and Sam bolted to attention. He thought how Elsa had changed over the years. In the early days that journal had represented a fertile ground between them, which he had hoped would one day open into an artistic life. Was it his fault that that vision hadn’t ever been realized?
A little further north he signalled off for Knutsford Services, just before the looming J19. He parked outside the Burger King.
Just entering the complex, Sam felt that he had entered the kind of urban wilderness which Wardner had probably vanished into. His songs were full of tower blocks and cityscapes, and Sam had no doubt that he might well have retreated into such a hinterland. At that moment he understood the pull of them too, the dark thrill of leaving your identity at the car and joining the drifting bodies. Surely such abandonment was the first stage in creating a new identity?
He sluiced water across his face in the toilets. His reflection in the mirror was distorted by the warped glass. These places restyle us, he thought. Wardner could look completely different by now, if he took their lead.
Outside, as he queued at Burger King, a man ordering food at the counter caught Sam’s attention. There was something about his forward lean that evoked Wardner. A chill arose on the back of Sam’s neck and he found himself tensing, waiting furiously for the man to turn.
But the man wouldn’t let Sam see his face. He remained stiffly upright, facing straight ahead, sidestepping once he had his food to a table by the counter, where he kept his back to Sam.
Sam ate his own food with his eyes trained on the man’s back. Why did he remind him of Wardner so much? It can’t be him, Sam thought.
Sam focused on his limp sandwich, and when he rose a few minutes later he was frustrated to see the man had gone. He wiped his mouth, shoved the tray into a rack and made his way back to his car.
He drove out of the car park, easing onto the slip road. He was just looking down the motorway for a gap when a white transit van loomed into his rear view mirror. It was bearing down on him, fast. Sam expected him to brake. But the driver clearly had no intention of slowing. It was going to smash into him. Panicking, Sam released the clutch and pumped the accelerator. His car skidded away. But the van kept coming, and Sam had to speed onto the motorway. But he’d been pushed in front of a huge articulated lorry. It blasted its hooter as it towered over Sam, dwarfing his car as he felt himself disappear under it. Sam floored the accelerator, the car jerking madly to one side. But the lorry driver kept his hooter down, and Sam was barely able to grip the wheel as he tried to get away. Awkwardly, he overtook two cars before slowing, easing onto the hard shoulder and putting his head on the wheel.
It took a very long time for his racing heart to stop. For the dark chill in his veins to settle.
But it wasn’t the near-collision that had started him shaking. When he’d looked in the mirror to catch a glimpse of the van driver, he was sure it was Robert Wardner that was staring back at him.
ROBERT WARDNER
I charged out of the chair and with one lunge grabbed Cunningham by the neck and pinned him to the wall.
‘Robert,’ Bonny shouted, getting up.
‘You won’t win behaving like this,’ Cunningham said, smiling as he wriggled about. I could feel the muscles tighten in his neck.
‘You southerners love the sound of your own voices don’t you?’ I said, looking into his eyes. ‘But you just can’t tell when enough’s enough.’
‘Rob,’ Bonny repeated, putting her hand on my shoulder. ‘Put him down.’
‘Better do what your babysitter says,’ Cunningham whispered.
After a few more seconds of letting him squirm I released him from my grip, watching him pretend not to be shaken as he waddled back to his chair.
His solicitor went over to check on him. ‘Are you alright?’
Cunningham nodded.
‘So we can add attempted assaulted to the crib sheet then,’ he said.
‘What do expect?’ Bonny snapped. ‘You’re threatening to steal music off four working class men from Manchester, who’ve been busting a gut trying to make a record for you. You expect things not to get nasty?’
‘I expect them to understand that what I say goes.’
‘I know you don’t care what people think of you, Andrew. I can tell that from your waistcoat. But don’t you think yo
u could offer a little leeway? You’ve driven them to this point.’
We’d been deadlocked with the label for months. The clever dicks had decided that today’s negotiations should ideally take place in an airless boardroom, until everyone was so knackered they could barely breathe. All I could hear was overhead fans, distant lifts.
All eyes were on me as I moved back to my seat at the end of the table. Simon was next to me, head in his hands. Next to us was our lawyer, who seemed to have done nothing but tot up numbers and what have you. Probably calculating what we owed him, again and again. Reckon he was just running down the clock.
At the other end of the table was Andrew Cunningham, head of the label. A bloated man with a thatch of grey hair, his belly spewing over his large-buckled belt. Bonny once described him as ‘Perfect for the eighties, because if he was only more concerned with himself he’d grow a shell.’ I’d soon learnt that the chief weapon in his armoury was pretending we weren’t getting to him. It drove me to new heights of anger. His solicitor sat on his left, looking portly and smug as a grocer surveying a fresh table of produce.
Before I lost it we’d been debating the release of our debut album. It had been recorded five times, in various studios with brilliant reputations and useless producers. I’d wanted our tracks to capture on record a futuristic world. A world that seemed enticing at first, but that was chaotic when you scratched the surface. I wanted us to make a debut album that woke people up to the realities of modern life. I wanted to be like the lunatic in Times Square, wearing a placard, shouting ‘The end of the world is nigh.’
My ambitions were pretty straightforward. On side one of the album I wanted to dismantle the modern world. On side two I wanted to rebuild it again.
But not one of the five college dropout producers Exit Discs had given us had been able to help us do it. They all seemed to be called Todd, and they all seemed to be unable to stay away from their birds for long enough to turn in a decent shift. Even Vicente didn’t cut it.
After four recordings of the album we were no closer to getting the sounds in my head and were way over budget. This was when Cunningham called and told us they were going to release an album out of the recorded sessions whether we liked it or not. Unless we consented to an album release they would sue us for the recording costs. They appointed their lawyers, and I had to start convincing the bank to give us a loan so we could have one. Theirs had read so many books that he’d started to believe some of them. Mine was a mate of my Dad’s.
It was then that the late-night wrangling started.
We had been cooped up in that long, dimly-lit conference room for six bloody hours before I went for him. It had got the point where Cunningham’s solicitor was trying to wear me down, again and again making exaggerated statements and then saying ‘Can you refute that?’
I looked over at Bonny, wanting our lioness of a manager to spring. But her eyes were like pissholes in the snow.
I kept clenching my fists.
The grocer motioned at me, with hands like hams. Cunningham looked up and in a low voice said ‘He’s too stupid to refute anything.’
Until that point I had, in a perverse way, been enjoying the tension. As a kid, when a situation turned nasty, I used to train myself to think that I wanted it to be that way. I’d try and believe that the more negative it got the more exciting I found it. But this was too much. Cunningham’s insult prompted me to act.
I hadn’t thought it was possible for the atmosphere to get any worse. Cunningham nursing his neck like a kicked cat, his solicitor now having a whole new set of numbers to work with. Neither Bonny nor Simon even able to look at me. Our lawyer had gone mute. Always did, when it got tough.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ their solicitor said, standing up. ‘Neither side will back down.’
Simon sighed.
‘Well. Won’t any of you even say anything?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ll say something. People like you,’ I jabbed my finger at Cunningham, and stood up, ‘are the reason this album needed to be written in the first place. When you’ve got your salary, and your cosy little ivory tower, you’re dead happy to spout off about artistic integrity and us getting there together. But the minute you’re asked to back your promises up with some strength of character, you come apart. You say you love good music, but you can’t listen to it that carefully if you treat people like this. We signed with you because you said you’d stick with us and help us make the album we know we have in us. Rush this thing out and it’ll all be over in weeks. Out of anyone in this room, a label head should be the one who knows what it takes to make a masterpiece.’
He smirked.
‘But that’s all you do, innit? Look away and smirk. Everything’s a joke to you. There’s no commitment. It’s just all about what you can do to speed up getting your pay cheque so you can get even fatter on your golf course, dressing like a shit cowboy.’
‘Robert,’ Bonny said, wearily.
‘It’s the decadent south, innit, Bon? They want to give up at forty-five. It’s people like you giving in, when they have the clout to make the world better, that are responsible for this mess. You’re laughing, but you’re Thatcher’s wet dream.’
‘Robert,’ Bonny said.
‘No Bonny, it winds me up. Bollocks to it, I’m not having my music put out by them.’
‘This is all we get,’ Cunningham said to his lawyer. ‘Speeches about the dying of the light, and the occasional burst of violence.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Simon said. ‘He can’t bring himself to agree to put this record out as it stands. No matter how much work he’s done. And believe me, you’ll never know how much blood and guts he’s put into this record. Put this LP out before he’s finished with it and you’ll be destroying ten years of his life.’
‘Then we’re in a stalemate,’ Cunningham said. ‘We’re going to have to release it without consent.’
I stood up. It was like I was sleepwalking as I moved over to the door. As I passed Simon I quickly nudged him on the shoulder. Bonny moved over to him, her eyes flashing up at me.
Cunningham looked up at me, bemused.
I wanted him to know I wasn’t messing about. That he’d gone too far.
His car keys were in front of him, next to a glass of water. I grabbed them.
‘What are you doing?’ He started laughing again.
I walked out of the conference room, clenching them in my fist. I had been staring out the windows at the basement car park when the arguments got boring, and now I walked down to it. I heard Cunningham following. The grocer grabbed his papers and joined him, along with the other suits.
As part of our record deal I was given the use of a long, silver Mercedes. Bonny had known that one way to convince me to sign with Exit Discs would be to get them to offer me a beautiful car, and it had worked. For all my idealism, I couldn’t resist. My Dad had never even touched one.
I could sense them all watching me in the doorway to the car park as I walked over to it. I slipped inside.
‘Give my keys back,’ he shouted.
I reversed out, turning the car to face them. Then I dangled his keys in the windscreen, before throwing them onto the front dashboard. I could see the sweat shining on his forehead as he stamped closer. I had his attention now.
I drove the car round so it faced the back wall of the car park. I activated the lights. They sprayed onto the far wall of the low-ceilinged car park. On each side, fading into the smear of the distance, were grey concrete pillars. There was no one else down here. Just the cars owned by everyone in the board-room, huddled, watching in the doorway.
Seeing how I would react. Curious about what I could actually do.
I decided to show them. Up there in the boardroom, they had power over me. Their contracts told them they were in charge. But down here, I held the reins. I was in charge of a great, glistening, saloon car.
When I was weak they trod me underfoot. Now I was going to resp
ond in a language they might understand. Cunningham negotiated only in terms of money and possessions. I was going to hit him where it hurt.
I pumped the accelerator and it sighed to life. Felt the blood pulse through my body and down to my legs. I made the engine exhale in pleasure. Slid into second, tyres squealing in excitement as I coursed through the car park.
They clamoured around the entrance. Even Cunningham not daring to walk further.
‘What is he doing?’ I heard him shout.
On my first circuit of the car park I went as close to the far wall as I could. Arced the car round with one sweep of the wheel. The engine didn’t miss a pulse as I levelled up, heading for the group of huddled suits in the doorway.
I’m going to kill him, I thought.
They spread out, Cunningham’s solicitor throwing papers into the air.
I roared nearer. Pushed the car until it was just a few feet from Cunningham, before something in me moved and I carved it sharply round. Like a knife drawing out of flesh. Pumped the accelerator and surged back towards the far wall.
What would Bonny and Simon be thinking?
The back wall drew closer again. I was getting addicted to that feeling I got at the last moment, avoiding the wall. I was driving round and round the car park in tight circles, round and round and round until that buzz was overwhelming. The thrill of freaking them out grew too strong to resist. I knew that I was too tired to play this risky game with steel and concrete much longer. I knew that soon steel and concrete would win. I would not stop but my body was ready to give out at any second. Collapse.
Reality was not a concern. All I cared about was this game, this knife-edge. As long as the game endured I had them. All the contracts were useless down here.
How I Left the National Grid Page 5