Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.

by Viv Albertine

  We talk about very bourgeois things like house prices and good neighbourhoods. I tell him about my flat in Balham, which I paid for with the money I’ve earned teaching aerobics. Malcolm’s looking for somewhere to buy but can’t decide on the area. ‘Not Notting Hill. Maybe northwest? Regent’s Park? What do you think, Viv?’ And, ‘Why does everyone like Queen Anne furniture?’

  Then we get on to love. Talking to Malcolm McLaren about love, how lovely. He’s good on the subject too, interesting and insightful. He tells me that when he first went to LA, Lauren Hutton made a play for him and he completely fell for her. Head over heels. He didn’t know you could feel like that. It shocked him. He says he felt very sexual with her, she made a man of him. They were together for a while, then she dumped him – in that way that famous Americans make you feel the centre of the universe for five minutes, then get bored and turn their beam on someone else. It’s shocking the first time you encounter it, but once you’ve seen it happen, you never fall for it again. She broke his heart. He speaks very honestly about the pain; he doesn’t hate her, he loves her: they’re still friends. He says Debra Winger made a play for him too but he wasn’t interested. She wouldn’t give up though; so bold, these American women.

  The last time I see him is when he calls me up and asks me to meet him at Hazlitt’s, a little hotel he likes to stay at in Soho. I wait in the lobby for an hour, he’s always really late, but this time I’ve had enough – there’s something so unmasculine about a man who’s always very late – so I give up and go home. Later that night Malcolm gets his mate to call me and take the blame. ‘It’s all my fault, Viv,’ he rambles, ‘please come back, we’re here now, Malcolm’s very upset, it’s really not his fault.’ Nah, can’t be bothered, thanks for calling though. I’ve never regretted letting someone go who was taking the piss, although sometimes I miss them for a couple of months. I think you can get a bit addicted to people and often these piss-takers are good fun to hang around with. In the end, the ‘relationship’ isn’t worth the damage that’s done to your self-respect, though.

  I keep on with the pact, but after most dates I can’t wait to get back home and shut the door. Thank god that’s over. I think fondly of my lovely empty bed, my faithful friend, as I race up the stairs.

  One night I arrange to meet a bunch of people in the bar at the ICA on the Mall. I tell them, ‘Ask a guy, any guy.’ My old boyfriend Olly, from college, is there (I’ve forgiven him for getting a first). One of the group, Emma, says, ‘My friend’s coming later, oh, here he is!’

  I look up and ambling down the long white corridor towards us, almost in slow motion – a real movie-star type of entrance – is a young guy in black leather motorcycling jeans and jacket, swinging a crash helmet; he has tousled blond hair and a clear, happy face. He’s too good-looking for me. Out of my league, is my first thought. He has a wide smile and rosy country-boy cheeks. He doesn’t try and act cool, he’s friendly and interested in everyone. As he’s listening to someone talk, he turns to the side and I sneak a look at his profile. He has a nice big nose and full sensual mouth but he looks sad, his green eyes cloud over, he drops the happy mask for a second; now I really like him. We all go on to Groucho’s, he rides his motorbike (turquoise Harley) and I drive everyone else in my car (black Ford Capri). I ask Emma what he’s like. ‘A bit mercenary. He’s an illustrator, he’ll do any job for money, no scruples.’ That’s interesting, I think, he looks so scruffy and unkempt but he’s into earning money. I like those contradictions. He’s a survivor, a realist, good for him.

  The Biker and I sit next to each other on a banquette in Groucho’s bar and he tells me about a flat he’s just bought in Ladbroke Grove, which he’s moving into in a couple of months’ time. His voice has a slight west-country burr which is mellow and comforting. He draws the layout of his new flat on a napkin. I envy his girlfriend, such a nice uncomplicated guy. Emma tells him I was in the Slits, his eyes light up, he becomes more interested in me, says he used to have a poster of us on his bedroom wall. I’m a bit suspicious that he perks up when he hears I was in the Slits; I make a point of not mentioning it nowadays, I like to see if people are interested in me without knowing about that. I like him though, so I decide to sow a seed; I tell Emma that I fancy the Biker, and to let him know. I’m not going to make a move because he’s got a girlfriend, but you never know, I’ll just keep casting my net and then get on with life. Take each day as it comes and give it my best shot.

  6 NAB THE BIKER

  1990

  The next time I meet the Biker it’s six months later, and he gatecrashes my birthday party, which I hold at my friend Jane Ashley’s house in Fulham. I’ve forgotten all about him. Jane and I dress the garden with candles wrapped in coloured tissue paper. Flickering orange, pink and red cornets dangle from the trees and bushes, lighting the guests’ way down the stone path to the open front door. It looks like fairyland.

  After doing the pact for six months, I’m starting to put men into perspective – no more fantasising about some perfect un attainable guy, I’m cured of that nonsense – and when Mr Ordinary rocks up, he looks like a god. Ordinary is godlike actually. An ordinary guy is a blessing and a very rare thing.

  The Biker has two cheap gold necklaces with him that he bought from a guy with a suitcase on Oxford Street. He lifts his arms up to fasten them round my neck. ‘Happy birthday,’ he says. He’s soaking wet from dancing, all sweaty under his arms. As I lift the hair off the nape of my neck for him to fasten the necklaces, he closes in. Well, this is it, make or break, if I don’t like his smell, this is going nowhere. He smells of good honest sweat, no poncy deodorant for him. He’s a vegetarian so it’s not a meaty, kebabby smell, not overpowering, but strong enough to let me know, here is a man. I like it.

  The stereo breaks down. The Biker squats down and rewires it. I see the waistband of his black Calvin Klein pants poking out from the top of his jeans, his strong back, smooth, tanned skin. He mends things. He’s handsome and funny and works hard … and he mends things. Doesn’t get much better than that.

  Later in the evening, the Biker walks towards me purposefully with a lustful look in his eyes; I think, Better not take it any further, Viv, he’s just split up with his girlfriend, should give it some time, he won’t be ready … then another, quite strident voice cuts in: If you don’t take him, someone else will.

  We start to dance, our bodies clamp together, the sexual chemistry is intoxicating. Jane whispers to a bystander, ‘Who’s that embarrassing couple practically doing it in the corner?’

  I know everyone says never sleep with a guy the first time you meet him, but I did. And I married him. So bollocks to that.

  My eighties look: silk top from Whistles, skirt from Vivienne Westwood’s shop, Nostalgia of Mud, 1983

  7 THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF WORK

  1987–1995

  Work’s going well. Life’s going well. Me and the Biker are going out together, we’ve said the L word, but more significantly, he’s bought me an expensive black Arai crash helmet, so I think he might be serious. We’ve been on holiday together – camping in Ireland, riding round on his Harley; a minor upset when I mentioned I might need to have a baby soon, seeing as I was thirty-six. He said he wasn’t ready, he’s twenty-seven. Oh well, plenty of time to bring it up again later. At least it’s been said.

  I’ve had some good jobs. First I work as a freelance second assistant on commercials. Most of the set-ups are the same, what’s termed in the industry ‘Two Cs in a K’ (two cunts in a kitchen), but I earn good money. Next I’m given my own office at 01 for London, a listings magazine on TV – I nearly ran out into the main office and said to the producer, ‘No! No! There must be some mistake!’ – and worked with a great team of people there, intelligent, fun. The office was in Denmark Street, right in the middle of Soho. I had to think on my feet and improvise, guerrilla filmmaking, four or five locations a day, in and out of a van with a small crew, meeting interesting people, Anthony Burgess,
Roald Dahl, Spike Milligan, up and coming bands like the Cranberries, the Black Crowes and the Black-Eyed Peas.

  Next I write and direct the short film Coping with Cupid for the BFI, and another for Channel 4 – Rachel’s Dream (1992), starring Kate Beckinsale and Christopher Eccleston in their first film roles – and do a stint directing at the BBC, using actors to reconstruct crimes that have happened recently. It’s difficult, coming into contact with victims of crime, especially when they are the parents of murdered children. I keep going over the crimes in my head, Why has it happened to them? What is the common thread? All I can come up with in the cases of the murdered or abducted children is that the majority of them were either too young to say no to an adult or brought up to respect adults too much. I promise myself that if I ever have children, I will make sure they are not in awe of people in authority. I’ll bring them up to understand that sometimes you have to speak up and tell an adult to fuck off, and know that even if you’re wrong, your mum will back you up every time. One of my colleagues had to make a film about paedophiles. She interviewed one of them in prison – she said she felt like Clarice Starling faced with Hannibal Lecter. She asked him, ‘What can parents do to keep their children safe?’ He said, ‘Never take your eyes off them.’

  This was a very difficult job. I couldn’t sleep properly for a year afterwards. I felt vulnerable and suspicious all the time because now I knew that crime doesn’t happen to other people, it happens to normal people, randomly.

  At least I’m functioning in the world, working and earning money. My face doesn’t crumple any more when I laugh. I can listen to music too; I love choosing obscure soundtracks for the films I make.

  Then I get a couple of duds. I’m hired to co-direct a film with a writer, he’s new to directing, and the producers want someone to oversee him. It’s not ideal but I haven’t been offered much work lately. The recession has hit film and television badly, so I accept the job.

  At the interview, the producers say to me, ‘He’s quite difficult to work with, do you think you can handle it?’

  ‘More difficult than Sid Vicious?’ I laugh. Yeah, of course I can handle it.

  On the first day of filming Writer says, ‘Hey, you weren’t wearing a wedding ring at the interview. Was that a ploy to get the job?’

  ‘No, my boyfriend proposed to me over the weekend and he bought a wedding band instead of an engagement ring, he’s quite naïve about those sorts of things.’

  Writer doesn’t believe me. Fucking women, I can see written all over his face, always trying to trick you. He takes me back to his house ‘to collect something’ and keeps putting his hands on me in front of his wife. I find out later she’s having an affair and has moved her lover into the house. I realise Writer was trying to make her jealous. Christ, the situations you walk into innocently, without knowing what’s going on.

  We set off in a car to do some location hunting out of London and get stuck in a snow storm on the motorway; the car is steaming up, it’s freezing outside and Writer’s hot air is clouding up the windows. He starts talking about rape, says there’s no such thing, and I should give him a sympathy fuck: ‘What’s the big deal anyway? Why are women so fucking mean about their bodies? It’s just a fuck.’ He snorts. ‘We’re going to have to get a hotel and share a room tonight, there’s not enough in the budget for two.’ I tell him I’ll pay for my own room, thanks. I act calm; it’s important not to appear scared. I look out of the car window and clock the road; because of the heavy snowfall, we’re not going very fast – I’ll throw myself out of the moving car into the road if it comes to it. I can do that. I’ll rely on the kindness of strangers to get me to a hospital. Hopefully they won’t be as bad as him. I’ll take my chances. There probably aren’t many people on the planet worse than this one. I think the only thing that stops him attacking me is the fear that he’ll get caught and go to prison.

  My next job is really interesting. I’m directing three episodes of a twelve-part kids’ sci-fiseries. There’s something odd about the producer though (I’ll call him ‘Anal’). He seems to be trying to mess with my mind; he lies, changes meeting times at the last minute so I’m late, takes me to meetings with the American producer but doesn’t brief me about what we’re going to be discussing so I have to scramble mentally to catch up. He’s definitely trying to undermine me and keep me off balance. Another one with an agenda. It transpires the US producers want me to direct the series, but Anal doesn’t, he wants to direct it himself, not have this ex-Slit girl do it. He’s resentful. The whole crew can’t stand him, but they need the work and go about their business with a lacklustre, uncommitted ennui. I want this series to be great, I’m constantly trying to motivate them, get them excited about the locations, the costumes, the casting, to infuse the series with style and creativity, but they can’t be bothered.

  I start bleeding heavily on the coach when we’re going to recce a location. That’s weird, it’s not my period, I never bleed in between periods. Something’s not right. I discreetly ask a girl if she has any tampons.

  Anal’s ears prick up: ‘What’s going on? What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’ve started my period,’ I say, to shut him up.

  The nastier he is to me, the clumsier I become. I keep forgetting things, I’m absent-minded. It’s not like me, I’m usually very efficient. Maybe it’s because he’s watching me all the time, hoping I’ll fail. At the end of the first week’s shooting I feel I’ve done OK. Negotiated Anal’s weirdness, and – apart from a few shots that need to be picked up – I’ve got through the insanely packed schedule. Ringing round the next morning to find out where we’re all meeting to look at a new location, I can’t reach anyone. That’s funny, surely they’re not all sleeping in? The cameraman, the location guy, the costume designer and Anal himself are unavailable. It takes a while for me to get suspicious.

  ‘Do you think they’re avoiding me?’ I eventually say to the Biker.

  ‘No, of course not,’ he replies.

  Then I get a call from Anal, can I come in to the office for a chat? I dress quite sternly, a fitted jacket, white shirt, jeans and biker boots, I have the feeling I need to look strong. The Biker takes me in on his Harley and drops me outside the office.

  ‘I think you know what I’m going to say,’ says Anal, rubbing his bald head, like the weight of the world is crushing his skull (I wish).

  ‘No.’ I’m not going to make it easy for him.

  ‘I’m going to have to let you go.’

  I’ve never heard this expression before, it takes a few seconds for it to sink in that I’ve been sacked. He says he’ll pay me the full amount for the job, but I have to sign a confidentiality clause and never speak about what’s happened. It’s all right, no one’s died, I tell myself as I go reeling out into a wall of horns, cars and crowds, all mushed together into the big grey blur that is Tottenham Court Road.

  Anal got his wish and directed my part of the series. I watched the first one and a half episodes later that year and was happy to see he made a right pig’s ear of it.

  With Anal’s pay-off I buy my first computer, an Apple Mac, and the scriptwriting programme Final Draft and start to write a feature-film script about a girl gang in Scotland in the 1970s, based on my friend Traci’s upbringing. I call it Oil Rig Girls.

  I move in with the Biker. I sell my flat in Balham and go halves with him on his place in Ladbroke Grove. I’m living with a handsome, surfing, motorbike-riding illustrator. We’re getting married at Chelsea Register Office in June and when I go to the doctor about the bleeding, she tells me not to worry and to take it easy, I’m pregnant.

  8 BABY BLUES

  1991–1995

  I lose the baby. It starts to go wrong when I’m at my accountant’s. I have stomach cramps and feel wet between my legs, I say I need to go to the loo. Thick juicy slices of blood slither down my legs and onto the floor. I spend ages in there cleaning it up. I go to Self-ridges to look at hats to take my mind of
f it but it happens again. Blood everywhere. I run out onto Oxford Street and get a taxi home. The Biker calls the doctor and they send an ambulance. How embarrassing. I’ve never been in an ambulance before. As the paramedics wheel me into the red-brick Victorian hospital on Euston Road, a couple stop to let us pass. I look up from the stretcher and say, ‘Sorry.’

  The Biker stands by my hospital bed, he looks shocked. Tubes going into my arm, a tank of oxygen attached to my face with a clear plastic mask. ‘You’re so white,’ he says. I’m losing so much blood. It’s all draining out of me.

  Baby’s gone. Another baby gone. Not my fault this time. I’m determined to be positive. I will have a baby. Nature was just telling me this one wasn’t healthy. I get on with my Oil Rig Girls script. I’m also co-writing a girl-gang script with a writer called Lisa Brinkworth. We’ve actually been commissioned, paid money, to write it. I’m finding it hard to concentrate though because I still feel pregnant, like baby’s been left behind after the mis carriage. I don’t tell anyone; they’ll think I’m mad. I pop up the road to Boots and buy a pregnancy test. It’s positive. Must be a residue from the pregnancy, I think, probably happens after a miscarriage, still some of the pregnancy hormone left in your body. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Should I tell the doctor? I might just be mad or a bereft lunatic. Lisa is downstairs waiting for me to start work on our girl-gang script. I call the doctor quickly and tell her I’ve just done a test and it says I’m still pregnant. ‘Probably doesn’t mean anything, sorry to bother you,’ I say. Her voice goes very stern and steady and monotonous, like a Dalek: ‘Call a taxi and go to the hospital right now.’ ‘OK,’ I say. ‘No, I mean immediately, do not even pack a bag. Do you understand? Immediately.’ Now I’m scared.