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

by Viv Albertine

  The thought of giving up Vincent is unbearable. But this isn’t the shocking bit. The shocking bit, I realise, is that it isn’t Vincent I’ll be giving up, but myself. He’s helping to feed and water the old me so she can blossom and flourish again. But I’m not even a bud yet. Just a tiny green shoot poking out of the ground into the light. I’m not ready to let go of the only person who is part of this rebirth. I don’t think I can make it happen on my own. My eyes have been opened, I can’t go back, but I feel too unsure of myself to go forward alone.

  Later that night, I’m in the bathroom cleaning my teeth, Husband is in the bedroom getting ready for bed. I call out to him, through a mouth full of toothpaste, ‘I’m not going to be in touch with Vincent Gallo any more, it doesn’t feel right.’

  He comes up behind me. I turn round and look at him, toothpaste on my chin. I feel ashamed, I got carried away. He’s been a good husband. Stuck with me through difficult times. We’ve shared everything, every thought. He doesn’t deserve this. I’ll tell him the truth, even though it’s a bit embarrassing to say in case I’m imagining things, no one’s given me a second glance for years as far as I’m aware.

  ‘And I get the feeling he may be coming on to me.’

  He comes back immediately: ‘Not unless he wants to fuck his mother,’ and with that, climbs into bed.

  I turn on the tap and catch some water in my cupped hands, pressing them hard together so I have a little pink pool quivering in my palms. I lift them up carefully and splash my face. I feel so still. So cold inside. Not shivery cold. Cold like steel.

  I have a wry little laugh to myself as I pull the bedcovers over me, switch off the light and turn my back on my husband. He’s five years younger than Vincent Gallo.

  16 THE YEAR OF SAYING YES

  2008

  I’ve decided not to let go of Vincent just yet. I’m in a full spin now, like a kamikaze pilot. I’m going to see where it takes me.

  I have two voices in my head. A rational daytime voice: You’ve sacrificed yourself for this dream of domestic perfection. It was your choice to do it this way. Your decision. Don’t go and mess it up now, you’re too far down the road. But at night another voice slinks in. It snaps and snarls like a wild dog. Go on, it growls. Take it all the way. Dive. I dare you. I can’t believe that the loving mother and committed wife I was just a matter of weeks ago is turning into a selfish monster, putting herself ahead of all others. I lie next to my sleeping husband, my eyes wide open, staring into the darkness, terrified, ashamed and exhilarated.

  On Christmas Day Vincent writes that he loves me. I’m furious.

  Each morning I get up exhausted, my cheeks hollower, my body thinner. The weight is dropping off me. I imagine lumps of flesh left behind in the bed. I’m becoming deranged from sleep deprivation. You can fool some of yourself some of the time, but you can’t fool all of yourself all of the time.

  I’m tidying up when my mobile rings and for once it isn’t my mother or my daughter’s school, it’s Tessa Pollitt, the Slits’ bass player, asking me to meet a female journalist who’s thinking of writing a book about the Slits. My heart sinks. Who would want to write about a band that was happening twenty-five years ago? I can just imagine what she’s like: one of those people who lives in the past, probably dresses all punk and retro with a couple of face piercings. No, got to stop thinking these negative thoughts. Since Vince, I’ve decided that this is going to be the Year of Saying Yes. My natural inclination is to say no to everything; I over-filter. Well, I’m going to give it one year of saying yes to everything (except sex with anyone but my husband). If it all goes horribly wrong, and I make a complete fool of myself, I’ll stop saying yes and go back to saying no. I don’t have to think about any decisions any more. I just have to say yes.

  I drive to Hastings Station with a heavy heart to meet ‘Zoë the Journalist’, expecting an ageing goth with holey fishnet tights, pink hair and a ring through her nose. This is how I imagine Slits fans must look. I’ve become narrow-minded and judgemental living out here in the sticks. I lean against the barrier outside the station, scanning the emerging passengers, looking for a ‘punk’. There aren’t any. What appears is a beautiful, fresh-faced, bright-eyed girl in a red coat, heading towards me smiling. This is Zoë Street Howe. Zoë is writing the book. Zoë is not any old girl, she emanates light and health and intelligence. I can’t believe such a gorgeous creature is interested in the Slits. I keep asking her Why? Why? Why? It’s quite simple, she says, she loves the music, thinks it’s still relevant. Loves the look. Loves the attitude. ‘But that was twenty-five years ago,’ I say. She tells me lots of young people like the band. And the message is still as potent today as it was back then. I’m astounded. Then she comes out with another bombshell. Tessa wants to know if I’ll reconsider joining the New Slits.

  I’m just about to say no way, like I did when Ari asked me a couple of years ago, then I remember my New Year’s resolution: Just say yes. I don’t have to think about it, I don’t have to wonder about whether it’s right or cool or practical. I just have to say yes. At least give it a go. When will I ever again in my life be asked to join a band?

  Tessa is thrilled to hear I’m considering being part of the band again, and asks me to come to New York to see them play an actress’s party. She says it’s the only show they’re playing this year, if I come it’ll help me decide if I want to join.

  ‘Who’s the actress?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t know, Chloë something.’

  ‘Not Chloë Sevigny?’

  ‘Yes, that sounds familiar.’

  ‘Tess! She’s fantastic! OK, I’ll come.’

  Just keep saying yes. See where it leads.

  And of course I’m thinking, I might see Vincent. Chloe was in his film The Brown Bunny. Maybe he’ll come to her show. I’ve only got a few days to arrange the trip, which is good because if I overthink it, I won’t go. My friend Lindsay says, ‘If you wax your legs, I’ll know you’re thinking of sleeping with Vincent.’ Of course I’m waxing my legs. And having a pedicure. You don’t go to New York without a little grooming. But I won’t be sleeping with Vincent. I email him to say I’ll be in New York for a couple of days. He replies that he’ll try and get there to meet me, he’s filming in LA. I don’t expect him to turn up. I sort out the tickets and hotel, then tell my husband I’m going to see the New Slits in New York, and I may meet Vincent whilst I’m there. I’m not going to lie. He must know I won’t sleep with the guy, I’ve been faithful for sixteen years. Affairs are for people who haven’t the courage to terminate the relationship they’re in, or the imagination to go out and entertain themselves in a more creative way. And I shudder at the thought of anyone except my husband putting their hands on me or seeing me naked. I ask my friend Kate to come with me, she’s always wanted to go to New York and she’s great company. I can’t face it alone.

  I haven’t slept for four months. Not one night. I’m in a highly nervous state. Thin as a stick. Not terribly attractive actually. Shame, I would like to look my best, but I can’t do anything about it. No matter what I eat I just keep losing weight. My face is so gaunt, I can’t bear to look in the mirror any more. My arms are like twigs. My breasts are empty and sexless. My bum is flat and square (on the plus side, I look great in jeans). And my labia … well, is this what all very thin girls look like? I ask a couple of beauty therapists. Yep, it’s not just me. Extremely underweight girls have floppy fanny flaps (FFFs). No wonder so many more girls are getting ‘ripped and snipped’ as they say in the cosmetic-surgery business, what with the fashion for thinness and no pubic hair, there’s nowhere left to hide.

  This is the most spontaneous thing I’ve done for a long time – it’s my first trip away from my daughter in all her seven years. Until recently I’ve accepted that my own life is over. As my husband said, ‘You’ve had your life, now it’s her turn.’ (I’m forty-eight.) And a part of me sees motherhood like that. My own mother martyred herself for her children. A lot
of the mothers around me seem to be just living for their families, and maybe a bit for the dog: their lives revolve around family, food, dogs, tennis, dinner parties and charities. These are very rich women, career wives; if their marriages broke down, I don’t know what they’d do. They’ve put everything into these arrangements – although one confesses to me over a cup of herbal tea, ‘Marriage is a crock.’

  At last there is an unknown element back in my life. This is how it used to be. This is how I used to do things before the eighties and jobs and money and careers and Thatcher and marriage and mortgages. I was spontaneous, free, even reckless. Things often didn’t work out, but I felt alive. Painfully alive. For the last few years I’ve been feeling painfully dead. That drive, that lust for life that everyone expects you to have after surviving cancer, well it took ten years to arrive, but here it is. I don’t care what anyone thinks of me any more, I’m going to live life to the full, starting with New York.

  17 FAIRYTALE IN NEW YORK

  February 2008

  I feel as if I have been through something very exciting and rather terrible, and it was just over; and yet nothing particular has happened.

  Mole, The Wind in the Willows,

  Kenneth Grahame

  On the plane I feel as if a magnet in my chest has grown so strong that I can’t resist the tug any more. Like I’m being pulled on a rope towards Vincent, and the discomfort won’t go away until I’ve seen him. I stare out of the window at the clouds, daydreaming about the conversations we might have and the things we might do – I have such innocent daydreams about him. He doesn’t seem to get it. ‘If you aren’t imagining me fucking you, what are you imagining?’ he asks me.

  What am I imagining? That we will sit together on a sofa and talk for hours. That we’ll arm-wrestle or he’ll cook me a meal, and afterwards we’ll throw stones at tin cans like we’re in Badlands or Bonnie and Clyde. If he knew what I was imagining he’d think I was a simpleton. I think I might be sexually retarded. Or I’ve been hanging out with children for too long. I really must get round to watching some porn.

  As the plane begins its descent, it occurs to me: I’ll be asked by New Yorkers what I do.

  ‘Kate, what on earth can I say to Americans when they ask me what I do?’

  ‘Say you were the guitarist in the Slits.’

  ‘But that was years ago. What can I say I’m doing now?’

  ‘Say you’re a sculptor or a ceramicist.’

  ‘They’ll want to know about galleries and shows.’

  ‘Then say you’re a full-time mother.’

  ‘Oh god.’

  Kate and I dump our stuff at the Washington Square Hotel, and I get the subway to Ari’s flat in Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn College. Not trendy Brooklyn, Brooklyn College is at the end of the 2 and 5 lines. The very last stop. As instructed, I wait on a corner for someone to come and meet me. It’s night but no one bothers me. I know how to stand, how to look relaxed. I’ve done this kind of thing before, albeit twenty-five years ago. It comes back to me in a flash; you never forget how to be streetwise once you’ve learnt it.

  I’m met by a sweet girl called Maria, who I think is some kind of assistant to Ari. Maria chatters away as she walks me to Ari’s place. I haven’t seen Ari for twenty-one years. She opens the door to her small apartment. It’s got a council-flat vibe. She’s wearing a yellow scarf round her head as a turban, keeping her waist-length locks in place, a yellow mini skirt, yellow and green T-shirt, fancy trainers. She looks good. Tanned, strong. A couple of people are scattered around the living room – Adele, the guitarist in the New Slits smiles shyly; sitting next to her are a pretty young Jamaican cousin of Ari’s and a guy. I’m not nervous, but Ari is. She’s awkward and self-conscious with me, so twitchy she can barely look at me. I don’t understand why. I’m confused. She’s also very stressed. She’s constantly on the phone, trying to arrange flights and rehearsals for the New Slits’ show in two days’ time. She’s doing what I used to do and she’s copying the tetchy way I used to do it. I can see my mannerisms and expressions in her.

  I remember a New Yorker in the music business telling me that when he met Ari a couple of years ago, she told him that I was the scariest person she’d ever known. Ari scared of anyone is incredible enough, but scared of me? Still, it explains a lot. How she acted towards me in the past. It might explain her wariness tonight.

  A cool-looking guy who works with Lee Perry arrives, Ari introduces us. He’s very pleased to meet me, he knows of me, compliments my guitar playing. I can’t believe it, I’m nothing in my own eyes. Ari starts to twirl and dance in the middle of the room, just like old times. I thought we’d have a nice chat together and bond, but she’s performing. I’m tired, so I order a taxi and leave, say I’ll see her tomorrow at the show. I hang about outside the building and when my cab eventually arrives, the driver doesn’t know the way to Manhattan. It takes us hours to find our way to the West Village, but we chat and have a laugh along the way. Just a couple of hours in New York, and I feel more alive than I’ve felt for years in England.

  Vincent makes it to New York. Not just because of me, I suspect, but because it’s Fashion Week, which he attends every year. I ask Kate to be with me when I meet him: I’m weak from lack of sleep and need to protect myself from doing something stupid. I have to be very careful. My whole life, everything I’ve built – my marriage, my lovely safe home, a haven after years of uncertainty and illness, my daughter’s security – will be blown apart in an instant if I don’t control myself. Vincent’s a free agent, he can do what he likes, have fun, but I’ve made my choices and I’ve worked hard for this life I’ve built. I’m not going to throw it all away on an impulse, a quick fling. If that’s even what he wants. I don’t know what he wants; he’s evasive. My friend Traci says he’s like a burglar who breaks into your house but doesn’t steal anything, just shits on the bed.

  A knock at the hotel-room door. My knees are so weak I’m not sure I can stand up and open it. And there he is.

  Vincent Gallo. Well, you would, wouldn’t you

  Standing in the doorway, framed by the dark brown architrave, bathed in golden light like a Caravaggio, he smiles. I swear light bounces off him and zings all around the room. On the day that you were born the angels got together … His greased hair is just past his ears and pushed back from his face. He has stubble. He has cheekbones. A pink felt Homburg-style hat. Soft brown velvety top with a little white mark on the right shoulder (did he dribble in his sleep on the plane?), a beautifully cut black wool three-quarter-length coat (Gucci: I check the label later when he’s not looking. I smell it too, but rather disappointingly it doesn’t smell of anything) … and decided to create a dream come true. He’s everything I like all rolled up in one beautiful bundle. All my girlhood fantasies come true. So they sprinkled moondust in your hair and golden starlight in your eyes of blue … (Except the blue eyes, I prefer brown, but hey, who’s going to complain about one little detail? That would be churlish.) Just for a few delicious moments, I will let myself be attracted to another man. I haven’t thought of, or looked at another man this way for years – just let me enjoy it for a couple of seconds, god. I promise I won’t do anything. Except maybe vomit with excitement.

  Get a bloody grip, Viv. Say something.

  ‘Oh my god, you’re so handsome.’

  May as well tell the truth, I’m probably gaping open-mouthed at him anyway. He thinks I’m teasing him and flips me the finger. I ask Kate to go, I want him all to myself. I’ve waited a long time for this moment and I’m going to make the most of it. I’ve got myself under control, I’m not going to collapse into his arms.

  I make a point of sitting as far away from Vincent as possible, to signal there will be no physical contact. He looks confused. The sexual tension just sort of hangs there in the air between us. He flops backwards onto the bed and stretches his arms above his head. I can see the top of his grey Calvin Klein underwear peeping out from under his trousers. I can s
ee a line of hair leading from his navel to … I know what’s down there. I’ve seen it on film. Kind of weird to know what a man’s thing looks like before you’ve ever met him.

  Vincent paces around as we talk. He’s not all nice and friendly like he was on the phone. He seems a bit cross. He slides his back down the wall and sits on the floor, drawing his knees up to his chest. He says he’s cold and pulls a blanket off the bed, wrapping it around himself. Then he starts to shake. His whole body trembles. I look at him coldly. What’s he up to? I like him, but I don’t trust him. I talk to him in my head. Stop it, Vincent. Then his eyes start rolling back like he’s having a fit. He says he’s got a type of narcolepsy. I don’t believe a word of it. I think he’s trying to make me go over to him. I don’t know if I’m right, but that’s what I think. I ain’t going. If this is something real, it will wait.

  We get out of the hotel and walk along the streets of New York to a restaurant. Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near … Girls keep coming up to him. ‘I just want to say I really love your work.’ Yeah, right. Back off, girlie. Today he’s mine. A band plays on a doorstep. He makes a cynical comment. A flurry of spring snow is followed by sun. I feel like I’m on the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

  My senses are heightened from lack of sleep and the newness of the situation; I try to read every little bit of body language he emits. Data scrolls behind my eyes, like the Terminator. I’m on red alert.

  He looks over at me, unsmiling.

  ‘We’re never going to have sex, because you’re married.’ He says the word ‘married’ like he’s just stepped in dog shit and is trying to shake it off his expensive shoe.

  We walk a few more steps.

  ‘Do you know the Dusty Springfield song “Some of Your Lovin’”?’ he asks.