How I Left the National Grid (22 page)

Around them young couples whispered, paused to sip cocktails and drew from cigarettes. They then tilted their heads back, blowing jets of smoke up at the shimmering blue sky.

He moved to greet her. Sam noticed that her bare shoulders had begun to tan, ringlets from her pinned-up hair playing on her neck as he sat opposite.

‘It’s so good to see you,’ she said, her lips pursing around a straw.

A tightness seemed to have gone from underneath her eyes. He imagined her in a basement room in Paris, singing along to an old vinyl as rain teased the window. In her own private world.

‘How are you?’

‘I’m good, Sam. In fact, I have some news.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘I’ve left Mason House.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘Sam! Because of your book!’

‘I didn’t cause you to lose your job?’

‘No, you didn’t ‘cause me to lose my job’. You caused me to get offered a new one!’

Sam waved over a waiter, and ordered a San Miguel. Camille kept smiling. The buttery scent from her exposed skin enticed him.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

‘Martin canned the book, Sam. He thought it was damaging
his reputation. There’s nothing he cares about more, except perhaps the welfare of Siberian snow leopards.’

‘I guessed that already. He gave me a day to find Wardner, and we’ve not spoken since.’

‘Sam, I’m sorry.’ She reached for her sunglasses but decided to leave them. ‘The controversy was too much for him. But there’s more.’ She placed her hand on his arm. ‘I’ve been offered a job at Harder and Wells. A bigger publisher, where I have much more influence. Working for someone who actually appreciates my rare gift for…’

‘Appreciating overlooked bands from the eighties?’

‘Exactly.’

‘So how does this affect me?’

‘Very greatly, Sam. Because my first order of business is to take on your new book.’

‘No.’

‘And pay you the advance you are well overdue.’

Behind him a couple laughed. He wanted to join them, toast the news. The sky seemed to bloom with exuberance. The waiter returned, Camille leaning in to ensure she didn’t miss any of Sam’s reaction as his beer was placed. Sam smiled, looking down at the golden bubbles. Watching them mingle and dance. She seemed to be following his reaction so carefully.

‘It’s as simple as that? I can’t believe it.’

‘It’s never completely simple, Sam.’

‘Go on.’

‘They don’t want a straight quest book, like a journalist would tell. They want something more creative.’

‘Which would require an interview with Wardner?’

‘No,’ she laughed. ‘Don’t worry about that. They have agreed to commission a book about your journey to track him down, regardless of if you found him. The controversy you’ve courted is enough to guarantee book sales. But to put a fresh twist on the biography format they suggested having part of it written as if
from Wardner’s perspective.’

‘What, like his journal?’

‘Will that be too difficult?’

‘Well, there was something I never told Elsa during our whole relationship. I knew it was weird, and I thought it would freak her out.’

‘What?’

‘When I was younger….when I was a bit too obsessed… I tried to do just that. Write Wardner’s account of his own disappearance. An autobiography in his absence.’

‘Shut up.’

‘It’s true.’

She sipped. ‘You could finish it then. I’m sure that we can find a way to make it work. Isn’t it great news?’

He took it all in. The sound of the piano keys through the open door, the seductive margin of sun around rustling plants.

‘I can’t believe you quit over my book.’

‘I’d have been fired soon anyway. Martin’s been threatening to employ only vegans for ages. And the book wasn’t his idea.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I found out when I quit that it was Theo who got in touch with Mason House. Suggested getting someone to track down Wardner. Perhaps it was he who leaked your address to the fans?’

‘No wonder he wouldn’t tell me where Wardner was. He wanted me to show him.’

‘I think Theo was hoping to drum up some excitement about the band. Push Wardner to reform it, given all the speculation that would create.’

‘I wonder if Bonny was in cahoots with him. It looked that way at his gig. I think perhaps she wanted to get me even more immersed in the mythology around Robert. She wouldn’t have minded me raising her profile and helping her sell her art, either.’

‘Would she go to such effort just to do that?’

‘You didn’t get to talk to her like I did. It was pretty clear that
she felt Robert took her career off her. Made her start afresh. I think, one way or another, she was pretty keen to finally make good on her investment in him.’

Sam tilted his head back. ‘So the fans know Theo was responsible for the effort to find Wardner. Not me?’

‘They do now. So they’ll blame Theo for pushing him back into hiding, not you.’

‘That could explain why whoever was threatening me has stopped. I think it was Wardner’s cousin. I can see how he might have got hold of my address now, too.’

‘Did the police take any finger prints?’

‘Yes, but since the grief has stopped I haven’t followed it up.’

‘He must have been genuinely scared that you’d find Robert.’

Sam took a deep draught.

‘Camille, I have something to tell you.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve been wondering during this whole conversation if I should tell you. But I did find Wardner.’

She dropped the straw, and grasped his hand. It was slender, and cool, and Sam had to focus on not reacting to it.

‘What?’

He nodded. ‘I’m telling you, I met Wardner. Living in seclusion, somewhere in the hills. But I was sworn to secrecy about exactly where…’

‘Oh my God.’

‘And I’m not going to break that promise.’

‘You met Wardner? My goodness. What was he like? What happened?’

Sam held the beer, and in a reckless moment decided to act on impulse.

‘How about we discuss it over dinner?’

Camille leant back and laughed. Looked over the teeming city. Then back at Sam.

‘Only way you’ll find out, Camille.’

‘Okay, you’ve twisted my arm, Sam. But bear in mind, any man could have offered that and I’d have said yes.’

‘I’ll take what I’m given.’

Her eyes widened with disbelief.

‘You sure you don’t want to use it for the book?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘There are so many ways round it though,’ she said, flapping her hands in excitement. ‘You could change the names and destinations. Obscure the details. Persuade a ghost-writer to tell your story as if it is fiction.’

‘Yes, boss.’

She laughed.

Sam followed the sound of it as it faded, into the warmth that emanated from the terrace. This evening now seemed greater than the sum of its parts, an expansive atmosphere that was open for Sam to explore. He closed his eyes. Thought of Elsa, of the threats, of the deserted house and the draining silences. All behind him. All part of a story he could now contain on the page.

When he looked up Camille was smiling to herself.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘The band will be about to start.’

He was glad the band didn’t embarrass him, having persuaded Camille to cross the road to the Star And Garter. It was a young group who wore shirts spray-painted with slogans like ‘Destroy Culture’ and ‘Disconnect Yourself’. They threw themselves recklessly around the tiny stage, expressing themselves through a barrage of sound. Although Sam didn’t know their songs he knew their shapes, their anger, well in advance.

During their final song Camille decided to dance and she pulled Sam to the front of the packed basement. They were almost close enough to the band to be hit by flailing fret boards. The younger punters greeted his enthusiasm with a smile, and for once Sam didn’t feel self-conscious. Every time the main riff of the song came around Camille piled her now loosened thick,
dark hair on top of her head and let it fall in time to the song. The act transfixed Sam. She seemed to know it.

After the band had left a DJ began to play some records and everyone rushed onto the makeshift dance floor. It was Sam who pulled Camille onto it, when the catchy opening to ‘Commuter Belt’ prised everyone from tattered seats and into the throng.

The room danced, with their hands above their head. ‘We’re all part of the same cult now’, they sang. A strange chorus line of dark leather, hairspray and nail varnish.

These people are made of the same awkward substance as me, Sam thought. People like us never quite adjust to the world, only fully understand it through the records we live through.

Even though The National Grid wouldn’t reform Sam realized then how their music endured. In under-attended discos, late night parties and, perhaps most importantly, in private reflections. Sam suspected he would soon turn to their music again, to help him take on a world that had finally begun to open.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Lynette Rasco for the cover photo. This book was written and researched over the course of three years as part of a Creative Writing PhD at Northumbria University. I am grateful to have had the time afforded by a studentship, for a year and a half, to work on it. I am hugely indebted to my PhD supervisors for their kind and enduring support. During the course of researching this book I was fortunate to interview various post-punk artists. Thank you especially to Jehnny Beth and Julie Campbell. Thank you also to Hanna and Lyn for your support, and to Norah Perkins at Curtis Brown. I was fortunate to benefit from the insight of such a great range of authors, editors, musicians and agents. This book is dedicated to my wife, Bethany.