How I Left the National Grid (10 page)

‘But I can’t miss this opportunity.’

‘You’re still doing this, despite what I think. If you go into her trap, you’re making a choice to completely ignore me, Sam,’ she said. ‘You don’t think she has ulterior motives?’

‘I doubt she’s trying to get me into bed!’

Just at that moment Bonny laughed in the distance. It was the joyous sound of someone thoroughly in control.

‘You know she works for him. That he’ll have her wrapped around her finger.’

‘It’s just a chat.’

She fixed her eyes on Sam for a moment, and Sam sipped. Sensing the impasse, she blew her hair off her face, and sighed. ‘I have to get on,’ she said, shaking her head as she moved away.

The cut of her dress, and the way it held her body transfixed him as she departed. I should have told her that, he thought.

Elsa was engaged in an effusive conversation with Holding when Sam returned, a hurriedly filled rucksack lopped over his shoulder. Sam felt sure that when he did leave with Bonny, Elsa didn’t even notice.

Elsa had been following his movements with the corners of her eyes, and her glassy smile dropped the moment she saw Sam slip out.

‘Is everything alright, my dear?’ Malcolm asked, placing his hand on her shoulder.

The cold breeze from the outside world chilled her shoulders. Malcolm’s aftershave offered an unexpected balm.

‘It was a triumph,’ Malcolm said, his aloofness lessened by the exchange of money. His hands seemed keen to go anywhere.

She was surprised by his proximity, but the combination of wine and relief left her open to it. Malcolm somehow appeared ten years younger.

‘You really thought so? I was worried that the Qatar set wouldn’t sell.’

‘Oh yes, that one requires a really dedicated lover of art.’

Malcolm leaned in.

‘It was your powers of persuasion that sold it, Elsa.’

To her surprise, she found herself able to absorb the remark. Despite her tight evening dress she no longer felt self-conscious, but empowered. Sam was gone. The evening had suddenly opened, like an orchid.

‘I’ll always be grateful for the shot you gave me tonight, Malcolm,’ she said.

‘All this,’ Malcolm said, gesturing around him, ‘can wait until
tomorrow. I have a rather bracing bottle of Moët at my house, which I have been saving for an occasion just as this. Would you care to join me?’

Elsa didn’t answer. But she felt surprised by the lack of revulsion within her as she allowed herself to be led towards his car.

When I went missing, people thought I must have planned it all out. But it doesn’t work like that.

It was a game I’d been playing with myself, as things got worse. Whenever Bonny gave me cash for something, I put it in a locked box under my bed. If I got hold of an item of clothing people had never seen me wear, I put it in there too.

I’ll never do it, I told myself.

Then one night, three months after they put the album out, something snapped. That morning I’d got a letter from Cunningham saying he was suing me, for the expenses of re-recording the album.

Just two days ago he had said he would reconsider it.

How cowardly is that, to give you false hope?

I went for a quiet drink off Oldham Street, with Simon and Nicola. The War Committee. No Frankie. Despite what she’d promised in her wedding vows, she made herself scarce when it got difficult.

In the pub there was the same bloke in the grey mac. He was sitting at the jukebox, by himself when I walked in. As I waited for the bar man he called out to me. ‘Out for a quiet pint?’ he shouted. I turned and faced him. ‘Here’s to some alone time!’ he roared.

I gritted my teeth, looked at the optics. Kept gritting them. Until Simon arrived.

Soon he came, flapping his hands against his coat. Nicola behind him, looking as if she’d pulled out her curlers at the last minute. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘The bloke by the jukebox,’ I said. ‘He’s been following me.’

Simon turned. ‘There is no bloke at the jukebox. What are you drinking?’

‘Guinness.’

He waved a crumpled fiver at the barmaid. She had on velvet gloves up to her elbows.

‘Must be tricky washing the pint glasses with those gloves.’ She
smiled. ‘I miss the old jukebox,’ he said. ‘No one gives a shit about these new haircut bands.’

I could leave all this behind, I thought.

‘I’ve got to play you The Cure’s last record, Rob. They’re starting to do it. Make soundscapes with keyboards. All the things we’ve talked about.’

‘We never found an end-point when we did that. Soundscapes, keyboard drones. We’ll end up like Yes. You remember The Smiths at The Hacienda? That’s the future. Building a connection, one-by-one, with every member of the audience. Being a different band for each one of them.’

‘I can’t see you with gladioli down your trousers, Rob.’

‘I’ve got bigger fish to fry at the moment, mate.’

‘Cunningham won’t really sue you,’ Simon said, his Guinness settling. ‘Think about it, Rob, how the hell would that work? They paid you an advance, agreed to fund you making the record, then went back on it and forced one out. How can he sue you for that? He’s just pissed off about the car.’

‘At least I got to him,’ I said.

‘You got to him too much though. His car was his pride and joy. So now he’s thinking, what’s Robert’s? His music. But he’s chucking about threats he can’t back up.’

‘What do we know about solicitors though? We’re just a couple of dickheads with synthesisers. I can’t fight him by myself.’

Nicola looked at Simon, nodded encouragingly. ‘What?’ Simon said.

‘Tell him.’

Simon looked at me, hands deep in pockets. ‘We’ll stick with you, mate. We’ve got a bit saved. We’ll use it to fight them.’

‘Why would you do that?’

Nicola crossed her legs. Sequins, dimly sparkling under the bar lights.

‘Well what options have this lot got without you, Rob? Theo will end up as a male hairdresser. Or worse, a full-time DJ. We didn’t form your band because we had too many options.’

‘You wouldn’t know it, from how Theo and Jack are carrying on,’ I said.

‘They’re not really quitting the band,’ Simon said. ‘They just said that because of that stuff with Cunningham’s car. Personally, I’m glad you smashed his shit motor. It’s proper rock star behaviour, that. We’ll make another record.’

‘But the album, Si. We put years into it. It could have really been good.’

Touched a nerve there.

‘Well, what can I say, Rob?’

‘You thought Vicente cracked it, didn’t you? You thought it was done?’

‘Let’s not get into it. Let’s get smashed.’

‘Nah. Not tonight.’

After that, Simon would barely leave my side. I must have looked a right mess.

‘Where’s Frankie?’ Nicola asked. ‘I was hoping we would get to catch up.’

‘Don’t want to talk about it.’

‘You had a falling out?’

‘Worse.’

I forced myself to stay in their company. However much I drank, my thinking was that if I was with others then it wasn’t too bad. Nicola kept saying ‘Are you alright?’ and I’d nod, but the light had gone out. When the two of them left me alone at the bar I felt crushed. No Frankie, no band, no money, no future.

I remember looking at the glass, forgetting how to drink from it. How many gulps you took in one go. How to even hold it.

Simon and Nicola walked part of the way home with me, and at the end of my street watched me move into the horizon.

I remember as I took the last few steps, I had this funny feeling. I could imagine Simon looking at the back of my head and taking in details he never had before. About how I walked, what I wore.

Saving what I looked like, trying to hold onto it.

That was the moment all the ambitions of our youth were left behind. I could imagine Nicola pulling him back home, telling him I’d be fine.

At that moment our world was being silently torn open. In the twenty five years that followed the tear got bigger, letting in everything dark and twisted the universe had to offer.

I was a few paces from my door when I turned and saw the man in the grey mac stood there. Smoking.

Now he knew where I lived.

I ran the rest of the way.

When I got inside, there was a court summons waiting for me.

That was when I decided. I had to get out of there. Leave a gap where I once was.

I had the place to myself. I had a bit of room to work out what to do.

I pulled the box out from under the bed, put on the clothes in it and stashed the notes in my pockets. Went to the pub next door, ordered a taxi from outside a house a few streets away. It was November, and winter had muscled in quickly. It was starting to get icy cold, but that just made me act faster. I had to make it look as if perhaps I hadn’t made it home so I didn’t take photos, toothbrushes, food. Just those few things people didn’t know I owned. And Nataly’s phone number, on that receipt.

Kept my hood up in the taxi. ‘Bit late to be going to the station, isn’t it?’

They always want to know your story, taxi drivers. It helps them to carry on being right about everything.

‘Got an early morning meeting,’ I said.

‘Meeting?’

I could see him look me over in the mirror.

In that state of mind, you don’t want people asking you questions. You try and mind your own business and everyone wants to know what you had for breakfast. But when you’re crying out for someone to turn to, no one wants to know.

All the way there I fingered the receipt.

At Piccadilly I called the number. ‘Nataly,’ I said. ‘It’s me.’

She sounded unbelievably tired. I pictured her scribbling away in her room. ‘Robert? How you doing, you alright?’

‘I’m coming to London.’

‘Tomorrow night?’

‘Tonight.’

‘Everything alright with you and Francesca?’

I watched the football crowd spill out the pub opposite. They threw their arms around each other and cheered. ‘She doesn’t know I’m coming.’

Nataly sighed.

‘I don’t want to get involved, Robert.’

‘No one knows I’m coming to you. And you won’t tell anyone. Will you, Nataly?’

What if Nataly said that in fact she would, I thought. What if she said, don’t do this, Rob. I don’t want to say it, but go back to your wife. Go back to your career. It’s not too bad, you’ve got a record in the shops. They paid you some money, a decent deal for people new on the scene. People round town know your face. You’ve made something out of this ridiculous circus. Don’t blow it.

What would happen if you were at your lowest ebb, and the person you’d decided would be there told you to forget it?

It’s the river for you, if that happens.

‘No, I won’t,’ she said, quietly.

‘Good. Because I’ve got nowhere else to go. You’re not going to let me down, are you?’

‘Don’t worry, Robert, I’m here.’

‘That had better be true. Is there someone there?’

‘No. There’s no one here. When are you getting in?’

I wouldn’t see Frankie again. I wouldn’t get to be the husband she deserved. Build a life as a normal man. I wouldn’t press my body against her any more.

‘I don’t know. Can we meet tomorrow morning?’

‘Course. I’m working from eleven. But I can get you set up before then. I’ll be home again for you in the evening.’

Silence.

‘The train’s here.’

I had until tomorrow to get as far as I could. By midday, Bonny would be making calls. My parents. Simon, Nicola. Why did you let him drink, if he was like that?

It was a quiet pint, Simon would say.

Well, where is he? She’d ask around.

Nataly’s number wouldn’t be on her list.

I got on the train, found a quiet carriage, with only a couple of men in oil rig uniforms, dozing.

The reflection in the window gave an uncensored version of myself. I was unable to meet my eye, ashamed of what it would give off.

Thought about what I was going to do when I got to London.

Whether Nataly could really offer me a way out.

I only managed a couple of hours’ kip. I felt a bit better for every minute I travelled, knowing I was inching further away. I looked out at cold, grey England and thought about the life I’d left, in some corner of the North.

I thought of the days spent kicking footballs against walls, waiting for my Mum to warn me Dad was on his way home. I thought of desolate teenage wastelands, played out in cubicles and against sinks. I thought of Simon and me clambering up rubble, looking for the future on building sites. Dancing in nightclubs, skirting portals that looked into the meaning of the city. The first time I showed Simon some lyrics in his bedroom. The first cigarette Frankie and I shared, tucking the stub from the pictures inside my sock after. Just knowing. I thought of when I proposed to her, as we shared a bag of chips and watched the cranes rebuild our city. The sparkle in her eyes as she said yes, before she hugged me.

I pressed my face against the sticky glass. Closed my eyes. Tried not to think about it all.

In London I found a hotel for the night, turfing thoughts out my mind with all my remaining energy. I had dreams about swimming in a dark
channel, grey sludge pouring in my mouth. Woke up covered in sweat, feeling cornered. In the morning the past clamoured to get in with the winter sun.