“So, then, mate. Ask away. It’s you who’s paid the piper.”
Chase firmly resolved that this pint would be his last. “All right, then. What did happen to Nemo Skagg? Last I heard, you still had some of your millions and a house in Kensington, whence sounds of debauchery issued throughout the night.”
“You got it right all along, mate. It was sex, drugs and alcohol that brought about me ruin. We’ll say bloody nothing about scheming managers and crooked recording studios. Now, then. You’ve got the whole soddin’ story.”
“Not very original.” Chase wondered whether he should finish his scrumpy.
“Life is never original,” Nemo observed. The rush of alcohol and nicotine had vastly improved his demeanor. Take away the dirt and shabby clothes, and he might well look like any other dissipated man in his sixties, although that must be about twice his actual age. He was alert enough not to be gauging Chase for prospects of further largess.
“Of course, that’s not truly the reason.”
“Was it a woman?” asked Chase. The scrumpy was making him maudlin.
“Which woman would it have been? Here, drink up, mate. Give us tube fare to Ken High Street, and I’ll show you how it happened.”
At this point Ryan Chase should have put down his unfinished pint, excused himself, and made his way back to his hotel. Instead he drank up, stumbled along to the Holborn tube station, and found himself being bounced about the train beside a decidedly deranged Nemo Skagg. Caught up in the adventure of the moment, Chase told himself that he was on a sort of quest—a quest for truth, for the truth that lies behind the masks of faces.
The carriage shook and swayed as it plummeted through subterranean darkness, yanking to a halt at each jostling platform. Chase dropped onto a seat as the passengers rushed out and swarmed in. Lurid posters faced him from the platform walls. Bodies mashed close about him, crushing closer than the sooty tunnel walls, briefly glimpsed in flashes of passing trains and bright bursts of sparks. Faces, looking nowhere, talking in tight bundles, crowded in. Sensory overload.
Nemo’s face leered down. He was clutching a railing. “You all right, mate?”
“Gotta take a piss.”
“Could go for a slash myself. This stop will do.”
So they got off at Notting Hill Gate instead of changing for High Street Kensington; and this was good, because they could walk down Kensington Church Street, which was for a miracle all downhill, toward Kensington High Street. The walk and the fresh air revived Chase from his claustrophobic experience. Bladder relieved, he found himself pausing before the windows of the numerous antique shops that they passed. Hideous Victorian atrocities and baroque horrors from the continent lurked imprisoned behind shop windows. A few paintings beckoned from the farther darkness. Chase was tempted to enter.
But each time Nemo caught at his arm. “You don’t want to look at any of that shit, mate. It’s all just a lot of dead shit. Let’s sink us a pint first.”
By now Chase had resigned himself to having bank-rolled a pub crawl. They stopped at The Catherine Wheel, and Chase fetched pints of lager while Nemo Skagg commandeered a bench around the corner on Holland Street. From this relative eddy, they watched the crowd stroll past on Kensington Church Street. Chase smelled the curry and chili from within the pub, wondering how to break this off. He really should eat something.
“I don’t believe you told me your name.” Nemo Skagg was growing measurably more alert, and that seemed to make his condition all the more tragic.
“I’m Ryan Chase.” Chase, who was growing increasingly pissed, no longer regarded the fallen rock star as an object of pity: he now revered him as a crippled hero of the wars in the fast lane.
“Pleased to meet you, Ryan.” Nemo Skagg extended a taloned hand. “Where in the States are you from?”
“Well, I live in Connecticut. I have a studio there.”
“I’d reckoned you for an artist. And clearly not a starving garret sort. What do you do?”
“Portraits, mostly. Gallery work. I get by.” Chase could not fail to notice the other’s empty pint. Sighing, he arose to attend to the matter.
When he returned, Chase said, with some effort at firmness: “Now then. Here we are in Kensington. What is all this leading to?”
“You really are a fan, then?”
The lager inclined Chase toward an effusive and reckless mood. “Needle was the cutting edge of punk rock. Your first album, Excessive Bodily Fluids, set the standard for a generation. Your second album, The Coppery Taste of Blood, remains one of the ten best rock albums ever recorded. When I die, these go into the vault with me.”
“You serious?”
“Well, we do have a family vault. I’ve always fancied stocking it with a few favorite items. Like the ancient Egyptians. I mean, being dead has to get boring.”
“Then, do you believe in an afterlife?”
“Doesn’t really matter whether I do or I don’t, does it? Still, it can’t hurt to allow for eventualities.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s all bollocks anyway.” Nemo Skagg’s eyes had cleared, and Chase found their gaze penetrating and disturbing. He was glad when Nemo stared past him to watch the passersby.
Chase belched and glanced at his watch. “Yes. Well. Here we are in Kensington.” He had begun the afternoon’s adventure hoping that Nemo Skagg intended to point out to him his former house near here, perhaps entertain him with anecdotes of past extravagances committed on the grounds, maybe even introduce him to some of his whilom friends and colleagues. Nothing more than a bad hangover now seemed the probable outcome.
“Right.” Nemo stood up, rather steadier now than Chase. “Let’s make our move. I said I’d show you.”
Chase finished his lager and followed Nemo down Kensington Church Street, past the church on the corner, and into Ken High Street, where, with some difficulty, they crossed over. The pavement was extremely crowded now, as they lurched along. Tattooed girls in black leather miniskirts flashed suspender belts and stiletto heels. Plaid-clad tourists swayed under burdens of cameras and cellulite. Lads with pierced faces and fenestrated jeans modeled motorcycle jackets laden with chrome. Bored shopworkers trudged unseeingly through it all.
Nemo Skagg turned into the main doorway of Kensington Market. He turned to Chase. “Here’s your fucking afterlife.”
Chase was rather more interested in finding the loo, but he followed his Virgil. Ken Market was some three floors of cramped shops and tiny stalls—records and jewelry, T-shirts and tattoos, punk fashions from skinhead kicker boots to latex minidresses. You could get your nipples pierced, try on a new pair of handcuffs, or buy a heavy-metal biker jacket that would deflect a tank shell. Chase, who remembered Swinging London of the Beatles era, fondly thought of Ken Market as Carnaby Street Goes to Hell.
“Tell me again,” he called after Nemo Skagg. “Why are we here?”
“Because you wanted to know.” Nemo pushed forward through the claustrophobic passageways, half dragging Chase and pointing at the merchandise on display. “Observe, my dear Watson.”
Ken Market was a labyrinth of well over a hundred vendors, tucked away into tiny cells like funnel spiders waiting in webs. A henna-haired girl in black PVC stared at them incuriously from behind a counter of studded leather accessories. A Pakistani shuffled stacks of T-shirts, mounted on cardboard and sealed in cellophane. An emaciated speedfreak in leather harness guarded her stock of records—empty albums on display, their vinyl souls hidden away. An aging Teddy boy arranged his display of postcards—some of which would never clear the postal inspectors. Two skinheads glared out of the twilight of a tattoo parlor: OF COURSE IT HURTS read the signboard above the opening. Bikers in leather studied massive belts and buckles memorializing Vincent, BSA, Triumph, Norton, Ariel, AJS—no Jap rice mills served here.
“What do you see?” Nemo whispered conspiratorially.
“Lots of weird people buying and selling weird things?” Chase had always wanted to own a Vincent.
“They’re all dead things. Even the motorcycles.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t see. Follow and learn.”
Nemo Skagg paused before a display of posters. He pointed. “James Dean. Jim Morrison. Jimi Hendrix. All dead.”
He turned to a rack of postcards. “Elvis Presley. Judy Garland. John Lennon. Marilyn Monroe. All dead.”
And to a wall of T-shirts. “Sid Vicious. Keith Moon. Janis Joplin. Brian Jones. All dead.”
Nemo Skagg whirled to point at a teenager wearing a Roy Orbison T-shirt. Her friend had James Dean badges all across her jacket. They were looking at a poster of Nick Drake. Nemo shouted at them “They’re all dead! Your heroes are ghosts!”
It took some doing to attract attention in Ken Market, but Nemo Skagg was managing to do so. Chase took his arm. “Come on, mate. We’ve seen enough, and I fancy a pint.”
But Nemo broke away as Chase steered him past a stall selling vintage rock recordings. Album jackets of Sid and Elvis and Jim and Jimi hung in state from the back of the stall. The bored girl in a black latex bra looked at Nemo distastefully from behind her counter. Either her face had been badly beaten the night before, or she had been reckless with her eyeshadow.
“Anything by Needle?” Nemo asked.
“Nah. You might try Dez and Sheila upstairs. I think they had a copy of Vampire Serial Killer some weeks back. Probably still have it.”
“Why don’t you stock Needle?”
“Who wants Needle? They’re naff.”
“I mean, the early albums. With Nemo Skagg.”
“Who’s he?”
“Someone who isn’t dead yet.”
“That’s his problem then, isn’t it.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes. You’re a piss artist. Now bugger off.”
Chase caught Nemo Skagg’s arm and tugged hard. “Come on, mate. There’s nothing here.”
And they slunk out, past life-size posters of James Dean, mesmerizing walls of John Lennon T-shirts, kaleidoscopic racks of Marilyn Monroe postcards. Elvis lipsynched to them from the backs of leather jackets. Betty Page stared wide-eyed and ball-gagged from Xotique’s window of fetish chic. Jim Morrison was being born again in tattoo across the ample breast of a spike-haired blonde. A punker couple with matching Sid and Nancy T-shirts displayed matching forearms of needle tracks. Someone was loudly playing Buddy Holly from the stall that offered painless ear piercing. A blazing skull grinned at them from the back of the biker who lounged at the exit, peddling his skinny ass in stained leather jeans.
Outside it was still a pleasant September late afternoon, and even the exhaust-clogged air of Ken High Street felt fresh and clear to Chase’s lungs. Nemo Skagg was muttering under his breath, and the shakes seemed to have returned. Chase steered him across traffic and back toward the relative quiet of Ken Church Street.
“Off-license. Just ahead.” Nemo was acting now on reflex. He drew Chase into the off-license shop and silently dug out two four-packs of Tennant’s Super. Chase added some sandwiches of unknown composition to the counter, paid for the lot, and they left.
“Just here,” said Nemo, turning into an iron gate at the back of the church at the corner of Ken Church and Ken High Street. There was an enclosed churchyard within—a quiet garden with late roses, a leafy bower of some vine, walkways and benches. A few sarcophagi of eroded stone made grey shapes above the trimmed grass. Occasional tombstones leaned as barely decipherable monuments here and there; others were incorporated into the brick of the church walls. Soot-colored robins explored wormy crab apples, and hopeful sparrows and pigeons converged upon the two men as they sat down. The traffic of Kensington seemed hushed and distant, although only a glance away. Chase was familiar with this area of Kensington, but he had never known that this churchyard was here. He remembered that Nemo Skagg had once owned a house somewhere in the borough. Possibly he had sat here often, seeking silence.
Nemo listlessly popped a can of Tennant’s, sucked on it, ignored the proffered sandwich. Chase munched on cress and cucumber, anxious to get any sort of food into his stomach. Savoring the respite, he sipped on his can of lager and waited.
Nemo Skagg was on his second can before he spoke. “So then, mate. Now you know.”
Chase had already decided to find a cab once the evening rush hour let up. He was certain he could not manage the tube after the afternoon’s booze-up. “I’m sorry?” he said.
“You’ve got to be dead. All their heroes are ghosts. They only worship the dead. The music, the posters, the T-shirts. All of it. They only want to love dead things. So easy to be loyal to dead things. The dead never change. Never grow old. Never fade away. Better to drop dead than to fade away.”
“Hey, come on.” Chase thought he had it sussed. “Sure the place has its obligatory showcase of dead superstars. That’s nostalgia, mate. Consider that there were ten or twenty times as many new faces, new groups, new stars.”
“Oi. You come back in a year’s time, and I promise you that ninety per cent of your new faces will be missing and well forgotten, replaced by another bloody lot of bloody new sods. But you’ll still find your bloody James Dean posters and your bloody Elvis jackets and your bloody Doors CD’s and your bloody John Lennon T-shirts, bullet holes three quid extra.
“Listen, mate. They only want the dead. The dead never change. They’re always there, at your service, never a skip. You want to wank off on James Dean? There he is, pretty as the day he snuffed it. Want head from Marilyn Monroe? Just pump up your inflatable doll.
“But. And this is it, Ryan. Had James Dean learned to drive his Porsche, he’d by now be a corpulent old geezer with a hairpiece and three chins like Paul Newman or Marlon Brando. Marilyn Monroe would be a stupid old cow slapping your Beverly Hills cops around—when she wasn’t doing telly adverts for adult nappies and denture fixatives. Jim Morrison would be flogging a chain of vegetarian restaurants. Jimi Hendrix would be doing a golden oldies tour with Otis Redding. Elvis would be playing to fat old cunts in Las Vegas casinos. Buddy Holly would be selling used cars in Chattanooga. How many pictures of fat and fading fifty-year-old farts did you see in there, Ryan? Want to buy the latest Paul McCartney album?”
Chase decided that he would leave Nemo Skagg with the rest of the Tennant’s, which should keep him well through the night. “So, then. What you’re saying is that it’s best to die young, before your fans find someone new. So long, fame; I’ve had you. Not much future in it for you, is there, being a dead star?”
“Sometimes there’s no future in being a live one, after you’ve lost it.”
Chase, who had begun to grow impatient with Nemo Skagg, again changed his assessment of the man. There was more in this wreckage than a drunken has-been bitterly railing against the enduring fame of better musicians. Chase decided to pop another Tennant’s and listen.
“You said you’re an artist, right? Paint portraits?”
“Well, I rather like to think of them as something more than that . . .”
“And you reckon you’re quite good at it?”
“Some critics think so.”
“Right, then. What happens the day comes and they say you aren’t all that good: that your best work is behind you; that whatever it was you had once, you’ve lost it now? What happens when you come to realize they’ve got it right? When you know you’ve lost the spark forever, and all that’s left is to go through the motions? Reckon you’ll be well pleased with yourself, painting portraits of pompous old geezers to hang in their executive board rooms?”
“I hardly think it will come to that.” Chase was somewhat testy.
“No more than I did. No one ever does. You reckon that once you get to the top, you’ll stay on top. Maybe that happens for a few, but not for most of us. Sometimes the fans start to notice first; sometimes you do. You tell yourself that the fans are fickle, but after a while you know inside that it’s you what’s past it. Then you start to crumble. Then you start
to envy the ones what went out on top: they’re your moths in amber, held in time and in memory forever unchanging.”
The churchyard was filling with shadows, and Chase expected the sexton would soon be locking the gates. Dead leaves of late summer were softly rustling down upon the headstones. The scent of roses managed to pervade the still air.
“Look.” Chase was not the sort who liked touching, but he gave a quick pat to the other man’s shoulder. “We all go through low periods; we all have our slumps. That’s why they invented comebacks. You can still get it back together.”
“Nothing to put back together, mate. Don’t you get it? At one time I had it. Now I don’t.”
“But you can get help . . .”
“That’s the worst part, mate. It would be so good just to blame it all on the drugs and the booze. Tell yourself you can get back on your feet; few months in some trendy clinic, then you’re back on tour promoting that smash new album. Only that’s not the way it is. The drugs and the booze comes after you somehow know you’ve lost it. To kill the pain.”
Nemo Skagg sucked his Tennant’s dry and tossed the can at the nearest dustbin. He missed, and the can rattled hollowly along the walkway.
“Each one of us has only so much—so much of his best—that he can give. Some of us have more than the rest of us. Doesn’t matter. Once the best of you is gone, there’s no more you can give. You’re like a punch-drunk boxer hoping for the bell before you land hard on your arse. It’s over for you. No matter how much you want it. No matter how hard you try.
“There’s only so much inside you that’s positively the best. When that’s gone, you might as well be dead. And knowing that you’ve lost it—that’s the cruelest death of all.”
Ryan Chase sighed uncomfortably and noticed that they had somehow consumed all the cans of lager, that he was drunker than he liked to be, and that it was growing dark. Compounding his mistakes, he asked: “Is there someplace I can drop you off? I’m going for a cab. Must get back.”
Nemo Skagg shook his head, groping around for another can. “It’s all right, mate. My digs aren’t far from here. Fancy stopping in for a drink? Afraid I must again impose upon you for that.”
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