Goodnight Steve McQueen (33 page)

“Well, now you’ve found me,” she says, looking at the floor.

“You seemed a bit quiet.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah, before. You didn’t even say what you thought of the gig.”

“I thought it was good.”

“Good?”

“Yeah. I thought it was OK.”

“What do you mean?” I say, getting agitated. “It was more than OK, wasn’t it? Vince reckons it was the best gig we’ve ever done.”

She sighs and rolls her eyes at the ceiling.

“What is it?” I say, trying to work out what she’s thinking. “Are you saying that you thought we were crap?”

“No, of course not. You weren’t crap.”

“Well, what then? Are you saying you didn’t think we were very good?”

“I don’t know, Danny,” she says, pushing her hair off

her face. “I mean, there are dozens of bands at your level, aren’t there?”

“Yeah, I suppose. So what?”

“Well, they’re all doing the same thing, aren’t they? Trudging round the country for years on end, doing no-mark gigs and pointless tours… and every so often one of them gets offered a poxy little deal. It was bound to happen to you sooner or later.”

I’m speechless. She carries on.

“It won’t come to anything, Danny,” she says, standing up. “It never does. You’ll put out your EP and slog your guts out on one toilet tour after another and before you know it you’ll be right back where you started.”

I want to ask her what makes her such an expert on the music business all of a sudden, but I find I’m still having trouble getting my jaw to move.

“It’s a waste of time,” she says, taking a small swig of her beer. “I’m not sure I can put up with it any more.”

“Put up with what?”

“With this. I’m not sure I can sit around and watch you waste your life like this.”

“What do you mean?” I say angrily. “How am I wasting my life?”

“It’s a fantasy, Danny. It always has been. The only reason you keep doing it year after year is because you’re too shit scared to do anything else.”

That’s it. That did it. That was the final straw.

“Why don’t you say it, Alison?” I say, standing up and slamming my hand into the wall. “Why don’t you stop fucking around and say what you mean?”

“What are you talking about?” she says, trying not to cry. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Tell me what you think, what you’ve always thought. Tell me to my face that you think I’m a loser.”

“OK then,” she says, staring straight at me. “You’re right, Danny. Maybe I do.”

I don’t say another word. I watch as she goes back into the dressing room to look for Ruth and Bob and I stand by the door and watch them leave. She turns to look at me when she reaches the end of the corridor. And then she walks away.

The after-show party continues back at Scarface’s hotel. I convince Matty and Vince that Alison wasn’t feeling well and the three of us decide to get royally wasted. It doesn’t take us very long. By one o’clock in the morning we’re splayed out over the hotel armchairs in a semi-catatonic stupor, and Vince is suggesting we all get rooms.

“Yeah, come on,” he says, topping up our glasses with whisky, ‘let’s get one each. We’ve still got the rest of the kitty money left, haven’t we? I reckon we should spunk it on some rooms.”

I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking that he might be able to persuade Liz to stay the night. He’s thinking that he might be able to persuade her to have hotel sex with him.

“No,” he says thoughtfully, ‘it’s not that. I mean, it is that, yeah, but I was actually thinking more of you and Matty, as it goes.”

“Were you?”

“Yeah. Of course I was. I mean, Alison ain’t going to be too happy if you roll home pissed out of your skull at four o’clock in the morning, is she, and as for Matty…”

“What about Matty?”

“Well, he’s going to need somewhere safe to kip, isn’t he? After he’s given Kate the big heave-ho.”

It’s decided, then. We get rooms. We get three single rooms and another bottle of Scotch and we stay up for four more hours getting drunk. I have a wonderful time. I get pissed with Woolfy and talk over old times. I get pissed with Scarf ace and

‘commiserate with them over the terrible feedback problems ‘

they were having all the way through tonight’s gig. I don’t I

think about Alison once. She doesn’t even cross my mind. I’m * not even thinking about phoning her up. And I’m certainly not planning on ordering myself a minicab and going back home .< to the flat.

“Wait up, Danny. Where are you going?”

“Home, Matty,” I say decisively. “It’s definitely time to J

go home.” “*

“But you can’t.”

“Oh yes I can.” “But Dan’ Look you see that cab outside?”

“Yeah.”

“The one with eight doors?”

“Er—’

“Well, as soon as this bastard revolving door stops revolving I’m getting in it.”

“But it’s not a revolving door, Danny.”

“Isn’t it?” I say, amazed.

“No, it’s not.”

“Well then, never mind that now. It’s time I was getting off. Lots of things to be getting on with. Plenty of things to be sorting out.”

“But you can’t go,” he says, tugging at my shoulder. “I need you to stay.”

“Just watch me,” I say, lurching towards the door.

“No,” he says urgently, “I mean it, Danny. I’m in ten different flavours of shit. Please, I really need your help.”

Right, then,” I say, sitting down next to Matty and attempting %

to sober up. “Let me get this straight. Claire is tex ting you $

from Newcastle every five minutes, Kate is demanding to know what’s going on, you’ve got two teenage groupies chasing you round the hotel lobby, and there’s another one

that you slept with in Birmingham waiting for you upstairs outside your room.”

“Yeah,” says Matty, scratching his head. “And I don’t know what to do. I mean, I didn’t ask her to come down or nothing. I think she must have got the wrong idea.”

“Matty?”

“Yes.”

“Did you explain to her that it was a one-night stand when you slept with her?”

“No.”

“Did you tell any of them that it was a one-night stand?”

“No. I didn’t want to upset none of them. I sort of said they could come and visit me in London some time but… you know, I was just being nice. I didn’t mean now. I didn’t mean today.”

“Hard luck, mate,” I say, trying to stand up. “I’m still going home.”

“Please, Danny,” he says as I crumble back into my chair. “Just go upstairs and distract her. Just for a second. Just until I can get into my room with Kate. I don’t want her finding out like this. I want to tell her myself. Come on, Danny. I’ll owe you a big one.”

“Why can’t you ask Vince?” I say, realising that it’s hopeless.

“I can’t,” he says. “Vince has already gone upstairs with Liz.”

Well, what was I supposed to do? He’s my mate. He’d have done the same for me.

“Hey, Matty,” I say, waving the cab-driver away and staggering towards the lift. “How will I know it’s her? How will I know I’ve got the right one?”

“Easy,” he says, toasting me with his bottle of vodka. “Her name’s Elodi. She’s got a funny accent. I think she might be French or something.”

“French!”

“Yeah. Didn’t I tell you? She’s from Paris. That’s in France,

isn’t it? Anyway, you’ll definitely know it’s her. She’s got dark brown hair and light green eyes and bazookas the size of Wales.”

God help me.

I’d like to tell you that I didn’t end up sleeping with Elodi last night. But I did.

I’d like to say the sex was crap. But it wasn’t. Not at all.

I’d like to say it didn’t mean anything. And I can. Because it didn’t. At least not to me.

She leaves first thing in the morning and I make sure I do the decent thing. I get up and walk her to the lift. I make sure she’s got enough money to get home and I tell her that I won’t be seeing her again. She doesn’t seem to mind. She’s not quite as beautiful as I thought she was last night but she’s still pretty attractive. Especially compared to me. I’ve never felt uglier in my life.

The lift door closes and I crawl back to my room on all fours. I’m not very well. My head feels like a china pot that’s been shattered into a thousand pieces and stuck back together with flour-and-water glue. By a chimpanzee. With no thumbs. I’m having trouble seeing. I’m having trouble opening my eyes. That’s why I don’t notice her at first. Until I’m almost outside Matty’s room. Until I’m almost next to her. Arms folded. Lips pursed. A look of vindictive delight on her overly made-up face.

“Kate,” I say pathetically, ‘it’s not what it looks like.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, not exactly. I mean, it almost is … but not quite.”

I have the distinct feeling that my brain is haemorrhaging. My face is filling up with blood. Of all the people to catch me at a moment like this, Kate has to be the worst possible candidate.

She can’t believe her good fortune. She can’t believe she

has a chance to pay me back for rejecting her. She has other grievances as well. She blames me for Matty breaking up with her last night; she holds me personally responsible for his behaviour on tour. She still believes in honesty at all costs, she says. She doesn’t want to get drawn into my lies.

“Look, Kate,” I say, getting desperate, “I know you believe in all this karmic bollocks, but please… don’t tell Alison about this.”

“Why not?” she says.

“Because it’ll only hurt her. It was a mistake. It was just a drunken fuck.”

“Yeah, I know, it didn’t mean anything, right?”

“No. It didn’t.”

“That’s crap, Danny. You’re going to have to come up with something way better than that. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call Alison and tell her everything right now.”

“Because I love her, Kate.”

“Yeah,” she says, walking towards the lift, ‘that’s the sad thing, Danny. I think you probably do.”

Guilt is a funny thing. There are moments when you don’t feel anything at all. There are moments when you almost feel elated. There are moments when you’re stoic and moments when you’re calm and moments when you remember what you’ve done.

I’ve just remembered what I’ve done. It’s exactly the same. Every time. I could be listening to a record or reading a book but it always hits me in the same way. It lurches through my stomach like curdled milk. It fills up my chest like a city. It scuttles through my head like a bucket full of wasps and escapes through my mouth with a groan. It’s audible. My guilt is audible. I’m pretty sure I’ll be hearing it for the rest of my life.

I know precisely why I did it. It wasn’t because I was drunk. It was because she was sexy and beautiful and careless and young and she had no way of knowing what I’m like. She hadn’t made up her mind yet. It was wonderful. For one night it meant that I hadn’t either.

The problem is, Alison is right. I am scared. I’ve been scared my whole life. Scared of doing badly, scared of doing well, scared of making a move without Vince being there to guide me, and scared of running out of places to hide. So I did what I’ve always done. I entered a race I couldn’t win. What safer place is there than that?

I don’t blame her for not getting excited. There’s not much to be excited about. Diablo were the only record company to contact us after the gig on Saturday and it turns out they’re even less well funded than I thought. It would be a small miracle if we ended up making any money. It’s unlikely we’d

ever make a bean. It’s just another way of putting off the inevitable. Another reason to blame the world when it doesn’t work out.

It’s getting late. Alison went back to Ruth and Bob’s last night and I still haven’t been able to get hold of her. I wonder if Kate’s told her what happened yet. I wonder if Ruth’s told her how many times I’ve phoned. I just want to hear her voice, that’s all. I’m pretty sure things will be all right again if I can just hear her voice.

“Danny, it’s me. Something awful has happened.”

The drive to the police station seems to take for ever but it probably takes less than half an hour. Alison is sat in the waiting room, slumped down on one of the hard wooden benches with a cup of cold tea in her hand. She looks fragile. And tired. Like her frustration has drained every last drop of her strength.

“How long have they had him in there?” I say, sitting down next to her.

“Hours,” she says angrily. “They won’t even let me see him. They’re saying he’s been violent and abusive but they’re lying. Rufus wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Alison’s brother has been arrested. He was picked up for causing a bit of a ruckus outside a theme pub in Camden Town, and at first they just thought that he was drunk. It took them two hours to work out that he might be schizophrenic. Two more to work out what to do. And then they phoned Alison. And now they want him sectioned.

“He doesn’t need to be sectioned,” she says scornfully. “He just needs to be taken home. He probably missed his last hospital appointment, he’s probably been neglecting his medication this week. It’s a balancing act, Danny,” she says bitterly. “It doesn’t always work.”

She looks upset. She’s worried about him being alone in the holding cell. She’s worried he’ll become depressed and she’s worried that he’s frightened and she doesn’t know why no one will take any notice of her. They’ve been waiting for the police surgeon to come down and assess him for hours, and Alison doubts anyone will arrive until morning now. She doesn’t want him to spend all night alone in there. She just wants to be allowed to take him home.

“Where’s Ruth and Bob?” I say, wondering if I should put my arm round her.

“They’ve gone,” she says. “I told them to go. Ruth just started getting upset and Bob got abusive with the duty sergeant. I think they ended up doing more harm than good.”

“I’m glad you called me,” I say, wrapping my arm round her shoulder.

“I’m glad you came,” she says, leaning into my chest.

The duty sergeant is a wretched, humourless human being. He’s chewing on a pen lid and slurping on a cup of coffee, and at first he has no interest in what I have to say. I can see how someone like Bob would have annoyed him. With his cut-glass accent and his Hugo Boss suit, and I bet it wasn’t long before he was waving his tiny fists about and threatening him with his job. He was equally unimpressed by Ruth and Alison. He probably wrote them off as hysterics the moment they walked in the door. I doubt he has much time for women; men like him never do.