Nico

by James Young

  Cale, by contrast, sprang on to the stage and straight into his repertoire, barely pausing between songs. You’d hear him in his dressing-room, practising right up to the last minute some tricky little guitar figure. Alone with his piano or a simple guitar accompaniment, he personified total confidence and mastery of his material. He seemed to have got his act under control at last – the bellicose self-indulgence burnt out earlier in the day on the squash court.

  As the tour progressed Cale distanced himself further and further from the drifting derelicts of his past. Every day he’d work out on the squash court: super-concentrated, super-confident, for the evening’s work ahead.

  We took the bullet train to Osaka. Cale refused to sit with Nico and me. He thought smokers should wear plague bells. I had alcohol poisoning from a misguided attempt to outdrink Grief in a sake bar the night before. Cale was delighted, it meant he could crow, as the freshly converted do, about the merits of clean living.

  At the evening meal he enthused about the sushi. ‘Mmmm – this raw dolphin is re-a-lly de-e-licious … want a slice, James?’

  (At an earlier gastronomic encounter the waitress brought a bowl of clear broth to the table, then added a few vegetables and some prawns. We assumed the prawns were dead, but one of them leapt out of the boiling liquid. The waitress held it under with a pair of chopsticks. Nico fled outside to throw up.)

  After the Osaka show an angel stood outside Cale’s dressing-room, clutching an exquisitely wrapped parcel. Cale was her personal god. But, like a lot of gods, he was hard to get in touch with, and had insisted on a dressing-room at the opposite end of the corridor from Nico and her etceteras. He did not wish to be distracted from his purity of purpose by anyone. I recalled Raincoat’s dictum of yesteryear, ‘It’s only pop.’ On behalf of our Nico-tine-stained retinue I demanded admittance.

  ‘The girl’s been waiting all her life,’ I explained. ‘She’s got type-outs of all your lyrics. She’s more than a fan, she’s a true believer.’ I gained an audience for the trembling disciple.

  The girl is shy, word-panicked, mute. Her eyes glance briefly at the face of the slimmed-down bard of the three-minute-forty-second psychodrama, then down to the floor again in sonkei (respect). She has a specially-prepared speech she’d like to make, if possible.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. Get on with it,’ says Cale.

  The girl reads from her notes: ‘John Cale. I thank you for your beautiful music. Please accept this gift in sincere appreciation of your gift.’

  Once more her gaze tentatively touches the image of the performer-priest-king, before being lowered again in veneration.

  Cale takes the parcel, snatches at the butterfly-ribboned bow and tears open the lovingly-wrapped package. Inside the silk-lined box is a porcelain presentation bottle of vintage sake, in the shape of a Kabuki demon mask. Fierce red eyes, diabolical black beard, death-white skin. Grotesquely beautiful and stunningly expensive.

  ‘I don’t drink,’ says Cale, and hands the flask of demon alcohol back to her.

  The girl puts her humble offering for the god down on the altar of his guitar-case and leaves in tears.

  Osaka star dressing-room

  Girl cries

  Cherry blossom falls.

  Hotel Osaka Grand

  Late afternoon. Upper-class schoolgirls, thoroughbred daughters of Mr Sony and Mr Mitsubishi cycling across the bridge in dark navy sailor tops, long pleated skirts and smog-masks.

  At night you enter a forest of neon, there are no addresses and no sensible way of finding anywhere, even the neon is transient. Architecture as advertising space.

  Cale: ‘When you’re playing Northern California they come up to you out of the past and say, “Remember that blowjob I gave you in’Frisco in’67?” What are you supposed to say? What do they want?’

  On the TV there are constant newsflashes about a teenage pop-star’s suicide. Close-ups of the Tokyo hotel window she jumped from and the bloodstained ground she pulped on. She’d been dropped by her record company on her seventeenth birthday, because she was seventeen. So she dropped herself. The boys back in Artist & Repertoire want the quintessence of adolescence, 13–16, after that the Pinkku’s all used up.

  Back at the Ropongi Prince in Tokyo the pool just steamed, all by itself, lifeless and empty. Cale wouldn’t because he was too tight, and Nico couldn’t because she didn’t swim. Then a bunch of guys arrived from George Michael’s true faith world tour – they were all wearing identical leather flying jackets, emblazoned with George the Greek’s tour logo. G.M. himself was staying at the Tokyo Hilton, away from prying paparazzi, in his own private floating world of geisha satori. Soon his minions were splashing about in the pool. ‘More health freaks,’ said Nico.

  Crowds are different in Japan, they’re more self-controlled. Coming out of the Shibuya subway the traffic stops for the crowds to cross the square from all sides, in perfect black and white symmetry, like an Op Art kaleidoscope. Then it’s the traffic’s turn. While you’re waiting to cross, high above the square a giant video advertising screen, the size of a tennis court, sells you pieces of techno heaven. There’s no such thing as dead time in Tokyo. As you walk up the hill towards Parco, the crowds don’t saunter untidily as in the West, but seem organised by a hidden common purpose. No one touches, but all are linked by an invisible thread of meaning. Roundeyes walks alone.

  The last show was in the Seibu Theatre in the Parco store complex. Somewhat akin to having the Wigmore Hall in the middle of Harrods. The Japanese are a little more honest about these matters than we are and see no contradiction between art and commerce.

  Cale complained that we had to share a dressing-room. Immediately a no-smoking zone came into being. The shows were early and he wanted to go on first in order to do some last-minute shopping.

  Dids, Henry and I did the Velvet Underground stuff with him, came off, and then went on again to do Nico’s set. Our reappearance took the wind out of Nico’s sails and the polite, but lifeless, applause at the end left her despondent. Compared with her last tour of Japan, which had been successful both in audience rapport and in financial terms, this was a half-hearted affair. They’d seen Nico the year before, but this was Cale’s first trip to Japan and so there was more of a novelty value attached to his appearances. Novelty is intrinsic to success in Japan.

  ‘Famous not popular,’ was the verdict on Nico from Mr Hidaka, Yuki’s boss.

  As for Cale, Yuki advised us to come to some financial agreement with him, as he’d been paid for a group and we’d accompanied him on every show.

  ‘Let’s have a breakfast meeting and discuss it then,’ said Cale, hurrying off to thread up at Yamamoto.

  I booked an alarm call for 9.00 a.m. and made it to the coffee and bun for the first time in a while. Henry and Dids were waiting, scowling.

  ‘Am I late?’ I asked.

  ‘Ow yez. You might as well ’ave stayed in bayed,’ said Dids. ‘Cant’s done a runner!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry, ‘I think it’s jolly bad form.’

  Cale had taken the six-o’clock morning flight out, to the surprise of the fastidiously polite, quietly furious promoters. Yuki was astonished at such peremptory rudeness.

  On the way to Narita Airport Nico rummaged inside her bag.

  ‘Look! John left me a present … and I thought he hated me.’

  She opened the parcel. Why, it was a presentation bottle of vintage sake in the shape of a Kabuki demon mask.

  ‘Jesus …’ She recoiled in disgust. ‘It’s horrible.’

  She passed the bad magic on to Grief, who drank the lot down.

  ‘I’m never sharing a bill with that aaasshole again!’

  *

  Wrong. Three weeks later she had to share a double bill with the tightest coracle in Rock’n’roll at the Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels. The show had been booked by Demetrius.

  Demetrius had turned up with the whole of Didsbury, in the shape of Eric Random and his Bedlamites, who thought the
y were the star turn. Nico, Dids, Henry and I had flown in earlier.

  ‘I’ve brought along my fellow free spirits who wish to share the camaraderie of the open road.’ Demetrius was in a semi-ecstatic state.

  He’d just come out of hospital after two months’ incapacitation due to a broken leg. He’d jumped off a garage roof. No one knew exactly why he’d climbed up there in the first place. There was talk that his unrequited love for Nico had finally driven him over the edge. There was also the suggestion that the good Doctor had become involved in certain curious nocturnal practices. His demeanour was certainly different. He now walked with a limp and carried a stick, which he jabbed at the ground to underline his pronouncements.

  ‘I have knelt before the shining gates of Heaven, and I have crawled beneath the gaping jaws of Hell … and believe me, James, though, in truth, we live upon a dungheap covered in flies, I draw comfort from the close consolation of the human reek.’

  Everyone wanted to play, but Dr Demetrius’s circus of free spirits wouldn’t fit on to the stage. Random was sulking and combing his hair furiously. He’d missed out on Japan, having been there the first time round. In Tokyo were his chosen handmaidens, awaiting their annual dose of Tantric Love Juice.

  Cale had checked himself into a separate hotel and had ensured that he was given a private dressing-room in another part of the theatre building. ‘He thinks he’s Von Karajan,’ said Nico. ‘More cheese sandwiches for us,’ said Demetrius.

  Nico and I did a version of ‘My Funny Valentine’ which, apart from that time in the Signora’s basement, was probably the best we could ever do with that song. We just emptied it out into a bare piano waltz for the emotionally crippled.

  Amazingly, Cale allowed Nico to duet with him on one of his songs, a setting of Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales. Nico fluffed her lines halfway through, blushed and went shy, but he prompted and carried her to the end, bringing the show to a rapturous close. Later he did his usual disappearing trick and vanished to his hotel the moment he was paid.

  Back at our hotel in the Place Roger, Random and I noticed a furtive Dr Demetrius hobbling off down the street. At that time of night, and in the teeming rain, he could only be up to one thing. We followed him. Round the block was a whole street of bordellos. Demetrius was window shopping. He stopped outside one, peered momentarily inside to check the merchandise, then pressed the bell. A few minutes later Random and I followed his example and slipped discreetly into the red velvet night.

  June ’88:

  LOST IN THE STARS

  Nico’s attic flat, perched high above Prestwich, was immaculately tidy. She sat crosslegged on the bed, typewriter at her knees, working on her autobiography, her life and her house in order. Once a week she’d nip to the local chemist to get her methadone prescription filled and pop it in her bicycle basket along with her groceries, like a Gothic hausfrau. But she still disturbed the neighbours. Though she smiled now as she chatted about the pleasures of cycling and the benefits of a healthy diet, the silver skulls on her black leather bracelet, the small ivory death’s-head hanging from her neck and the ineradicable needle scars all over her hands and arms suggested a less conventional history.

  The relentless desire for self-degradation had abated and the all-enshrouding cloak of her addiction had lifted. She was now the middle-aged spinster lady who lived next door, the one with the interesting past.

  Although Demetrius had found Nico the flat and had got her on to the methadone programme, now that she was tidying everything up she felt his substantial frame took up an unnecessary amount of room in her life. Though her existence appeared outwardly normal Nico remained devoid of conventional notions of loyalty. Friendship, in the traditional sense, imposed too much upon her privacy. There were those, however, who remained steadfastly loyal to her, despite her lack of sentimentality.

  Lutz Ulbrich had been Nico’s companion from ’74 to ’78, when they lived together in the Chelsea Hotel. He’d accompanied her on guitar at her concerts throughout that period. It was also at this time that she’d become addicted to heroin. Lutz chose to break free of the drug scene and so they split up. He became an independent musician, involved in performance projects in Berlin. One such project was a music festival called Fata Morgana he was organising at the Berlin Planetarium. He commissioned Nico to perform a specially written piece and suggested that she do it in tandem with me.

  Demetrius still saw himself as Nico’s manager, but unfortunately Nico didn’t, and she saw no reason why she should pay him a percentage of an independent commission.

  My phone never stopped ringing with accusations from Demetrius of disloyalty and subterfuge, but I kept reminding myself of the ‘missing millions’ from his Behind the Iron Curtain neo-bootleg. I was just pleased that my fee had suddenly increased from £100 to £300.

  As ever, Nico only had a few sketches, so we recruited Henry and Dids to lend substance. Nico grew bored with even the idea of a rehearsal and so we were left working much of it out in the soundcheck.

  Without Demetrius and the old team there, the whole thing assumed an air of workmanlike quasi-professionalism, something I’d only experienced before in Japan, but without its dazzling disorientation. In other words – dull.

  Nico’s new positivism also implied a more self-conscious awareness of the music and it affected me to the degree that, for the first time in a long while, we were both paralysed with stage-fright.

  ‘I think I’m going to have a heart attaack,’ she said.

  Our nerves weren’t helped by the fact that the dressing-room was in an annexe of the main Planetarium building. We had to climb out of a back window, through a fire exit and then walk down a corridor which ran round the building’s circumference. We spun on to the stage.

  There were two shows. The first was an audience victory. What’s great and terrible about the Germans is that they believe in what they do, even when they’re just listening. We were unnerved and outfaced. Because the building was a dome the sound kept whirling round the walls so everything would get repeated by a delayed echo. I didn’t know who was playing, me or my shadow.

  By the second show we’d figured out the way from the dressing-room. We turned up the volume and gave it a go. The Planetarium people switched on the universe and we all got cosmic. It wobbled out of time and Nico wailed out of tune and the asteroid showers could be a little disconcerting, nevertheless the audience could tell we were giving it our best shot.

  They demanded an encore. Nico asked me what I wanted to hear and she sang my favourite of all her songs,

  When I remember what to say

  When I remember what to say

  You will know me again

  You do not seem to be listening

  You do not seem to be listening

  The high tide is taking everything

  And you forget to answer.

  (‘You Forget to Answer’)

  It was the last song she ever performed.

  THE HOT CLUB

  Someone dies and you immediately start to flick back through the snaps. Hunting down the clues. The last time you saw that person on the step of an Italian restaurant in Berlin. The last embrace.

  I thought she’d see us all out. Tougher than the leather of her boots. I could see her at eighty, a terrifying old bat in a black cloak, swooping down on her latest victim.

  Demetrius called me to say Nico had died while on holiday in Ibiza. She’d fallen off her bike, he didn’t know the details.

  The funeral would be in Berlin. Lutz Ulbrich would arrange to have Nico’s body flown from Ibiza to Berlin, where she would be cremated. He’d found an entry in her diary which said, ‘I want to be burnt,’ next to a handwritten copy of Blake’s ‘The Tyger’.

  Demetrius felt it was an injustice to bury her ashes in Berlin, when she’d expressed a desire for her remains to be buried on the moors above Manchester. He had a pal, Mike, who was the vicar of a church up there. Mike was neither a pious cleric nor s
ome trendy priest with an electric guitar. He looked more like a stonemason, with his beard and craggy hands – you could picture him heaving granite blocks into place on a drystone wall, rather than reading the lesson in front of a threadbare congregation of high Tory matriarchs.

  Demetrius really wanted his own Nico wake. He was her manager, he’d handled her career for the past seven years, so he’d choreograph her funeral. He informed the Melody Maker that there would be a memorial service for a grieving nation up at Mike’s church. There, Demetrius read poetry to a captive congregation of me, Eric Random, a couple of Goths and a fellwalker in an anorak and bobble-hat.

  While I was up in Manchester I called in on Echo to gauge his reactions to Nico’s death. He now lived in a house divided between saints and sinners. He and Clarke lived in the front room while Faith and the children occupied the rest of the flat. Echo had brought all his bric-à-brac in there with him – the Venus of the Fireplace, the broken guitars and religious ephemera. He lay on his sofa wrapped in a blanket, angry that Demetrius had only just informed him of Nico’s death with a curt and anonymous note through the door, saying merely, ‘C. Paffgen, deceased 18/7/88.’ He also resented Demetrius for having encouraged Nico to go on the methadone programme.

  ‘She might ’ave bin ’appier, but it still killed ’er when she came off the gear. ’Appens all the time ter junkies, the scag keeps yer young, makes yer ’air look nice ’n’ shiny.’

  Echo’s reasoning remained centred around heroin.

  ‘It keeps yer under control … y’know, the sex business. If yer need ter fuck then yer’ll never be ’appy. Yer see, Jim, women’re above us, they’ave ter be. Yer’ve got yer ’Oly Family, then yer saints ’n’ angels, an then yer’ve got women takin’ care of it all down ’ere. They’re the ’ighest form of life. So what we do to ’em as geezers’as got ter be beastly, ant it? Nico knew all about that first ’and, an’ she wanted out of it. If yer take gear then all the guilt just disappears.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Yer don’t ’ave ter want or remember. An’ yer learn ter treat women with the respect they deserve.’