“No. That’s not what I meant. I’m not trying to blame anyone. I’ve never hated myself more than I do right at this moment, but you’ve got to believe me … I was hurt. You said some pretty harsh things that night.”
“So that’s it, then, you did it out of spite?”
“No,” I say hopelessly. “It wasn’t out of spite … I was… I wasn’t thinking straight … I thought we were over … I thought you didn’t care about me any more and … I don’t know, Alison … I was devastated.”
“Well,” she says coldly, ‘at least you know how it feels.”
It’s almost daylight when she picks up her wineglass and walks towards the bedroom door. We’ve both been silent for a long time. Neither of us could think of anything else to say. I watch her cross the room: her face streaked with make-up and salt, her legs creased red from sitting still for so long. She looks like she’s been kicked. And she has. And there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.
“Alison,” I say, standing up and walking towards her, ‘is
there any way we can get through this? I’ll do anything, I don’t care what it is.”
“No,” she says, closing the door on me, “I’m not sure that there is.”
I’m waiting for Vince in one of the greasy spoons on Park Road and the scent of hot pig fat is filling up my nostrils and making me heave. I order tea and a couple of slices of dry white toast; wash down a couple of aspirin with a slug of Pepto-Bismol and try to work out how I’m going to tell him. It’s been three days since the gig at Shepherd’s Bush and I still haven’t managed a decent night’s sleep. I’m tired and regretful and completely talked out and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to find the words.
Vince is oblivious. He strolls in, orders himself breakfast A with extra fried bread, nicks one of my Marlboro Lights and sits down opposite me with a wide grin on his face.
He’s looking particularly dapper this afternoon: two-tone, suede leather belt; purple wide-collared shirt with snow covered Matterhorns on the front and a giant pair of charity shop glasses that he picked up from the local Oxfam for a pound. He looks slightly demented: part rock star, part retard, part cheapskate Eastern Bloc pimp.
“You look like shit,” he says, unbuttoning his shirt and rolling up his sleeves.
“Thanks very much,” I say, pushing away my toast and taking a small mouthful of tea. “You look like an Austrian bag lady.”
“Well, you’ve got to make the effort,” he says, straightening the collar on his shirt. “I mean, now that we’ve got ourselves a deal. Now that we’re full-time recording artistes. So what’s up, then? You sounded pretty wound up over the phone.”
“Vince,” I say, putting down my tea, ‘there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”
Vince wipes a piece of fried bread round the pool of egg yolk that’s spilled out on to his plate. It repulses me and makes me feel hungry at the same time.
“Well, then,” he says mid-wipe, “I think you should just get on and do it.”
“You don’t think I should try and get her to stay?”
“Look, Danny,” he says, already resigned to the situation, “I don’t see what else you can do. If this is the only way of saving your and Alison’s relationship then I think you should bite the bullet and go. And anyway,” he says, pausing to put some bread in his mouth, ‘it doesn’t sound like she’s gonna give you another chance if you don’t.”
I feel like shit. Vince has invested more than a decade in this band. In me. Why should I be ruining the best chance he’s ever had just because my relationship with Alison is in crisis?
“Maybe I’ll have a word with her,” I say, taking a small bite of my toast. “See if she might change her mind.”
“No, mate,” he says, “I don’t think you should. Alison is right. It’ll do you both good to get away. I’ll give Matty a ring this afternoon. Let him know what’s been going on.”
“You don’t have to do that, Vince,” I say glumly. “I’d rather he heard it from me.”
Vince stares down at his plate and starts digging into a piece of bacon like it’s still alive. I always knew he was a great friend but I never realised quite how selfless he is until this second. He hasn’t even asked me why I did it. I doubt the question even crossed his mind. He hasn’t given me a moment’s grief for being stupid because he knows right away there’s no point. He doesn’t try to persuade me to stay. Even though he knows it’s going to fuck everything up for him if I go.
“Cheer up, you wanker,” he says, noticing the look on my face, ‘you never know, we might even make it without you. You was always a shit guitarist anyway. We’ll get someone better. Someone who looks good in flared trousers. Someone
who doesn’t cack his fucking pants every time he has to get up onstage.”
I smile. I can’t help smiling.
“And anyway,” he says, getting serious again, ‘at the end of the day, Alison is more important than the poxy band, ain’t she?”
“Is she?” I say, wondering if I’ve heard him right.
“Yeah,” he says, ‘she is. I realised that the other night when I had cheap and nasty hotel reunion sex with Liz.”
“You’re not back together with her, are you?”
“No,” he snorts, ‘no chance. But we did end up having a nice little chat. And I’ll tell you what, mate, she’s a right miserable sod. Made me realise that I never really liked her all that much in the first place. I mean, all that stuff about me having a pessimistic nature and that, I don’t even think that it’s true. I reckon I’m a pretty optimistic bloke, as it goes. It was just that I was always being negative around her.”
“Because you never loved her that much, you mean?”
“Yeah, that and because she’s got fucking lousy taste in shoes.
“And anyway,” he says, pushing his plate away and wiping his mouth with his serviette, ‘it’s like I said before. When you think about it, Danny, you’re a very lucky bloke. I’ve never had anything close to what you and Alison have got. You’ve found someone you love, someone you want to have a go at sharing your life with. And you can’t say fairer than that, can you?”
The waitress collects our plates and deposits a clean ashtray with the bill. We smoke another couple of cigarettes in silence. Neither of us is quite sure what to say.
“It probably would have been shit anyway,” I say, stubbing out my cigarette and watching it smoulder in the ashtray. “I mean, we’d probably have ended up hating each other, wouldn’t we? Or we’d all have become coke heads like Ike. It would have fucked us up in the end, wouldn’t it? The fame
and the money and that? It would definitely have fucked us both up?”
“No, mate,” says Vince, pocketing the last of his change. “I ain’t gonna lie to you. I think it would have been great.”
We stand outside the cafe for a long while, both of us wondering where to go now. Vince doesn’t fancy going for a drink that much and I decide I’m going to head on back to the flat.
“Hey, Vince,” I say as he turns round to walk away. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”
“Danny,” he says, turning back to face me for a second, “I think you already know the answer to that question.”
And he’s right, of course. I already do.
Winter has been especially greedy this year. By mid-November it’s eaten almost every leaf. The skies have been pissing down sheets of pin-sharp rain for the best part of a month now and I’m almost glad to be leaving. The flat looks bare. Like a body stripped of its clothes. Four years of memories packed into a dozen cardboard boxes. The flesh of our relationship reduced to bones.
But Vince is right. I’m a very lucky man. No matter that I’m moving to Belgium at the end of the week; no matter that I’m leaving all my friends. The important thing is that Alison wants to work things out, and that she’s agreed to give me another chance. I know she’s not that happy about renewing her contract in Belgium but I don’t think I gave her much choice. The only way she was prepared to stay with me was if we both got away from London for a while. Away from all the distractions. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere she could learn to trust me all over again.
I should be grateful. I’ve even managed to find myself a job. I’m going to edit music for a brand-new Internet company based on an industrial estate in Ghent. It’s going to be excellent. And not at all boring. Because Belgian music is very up and coming these days. Apparently.
I think Kostas is more upset about me leaving than he’s letting on. He’s genuinely sad to see me go. He gave me a boxed set of Telly Savalas films as a parting gift to remember him by, and told me I’d been like the son he never had. The errant one. The clumsy one. The one he would happily have swapped for a couple of half-decent donkeys and a few bald hectares in Larnaca given the chance.
He doesn’t really see what all the fuss is about. A man is supposed to cheat on his wife. It’s expected. It’s inevitable. He’s never heard such nonsense in all his life. A woman telling the mans what’s to do. A man who isn’t kings of his own castle. And then he went home to Mrs. Kostas. Who he’s never cheated on in his life. But he could. If he wanted to. If he thought he could get away with it. If he thought Mrs. Kostas would let him live.
I think Sheila was the most upset out of everyone. She couldn’t quite believe what I’d done. I went round to see her just after it happened and she knew immediately that something was wrong.
“Now, Daniel,” she said, searching around for her glasses, ‘you don’t seem your usual self today, you seem a little off colour to me. Am I right?”
I knew there was no point in lying to her so I said, “Yeah, Sheila, you’re right.”
“Oh, Daniel,” she said after I’d told her, ‘what a shame. What a dreadful shame.”
She did her best to cheer me up, which is good of her considering she’s got problems of her own. She hasn’t recovered from her fall quite as well as she’d hoped and she’s still having some trouble getting around. She only manages to come up to the video shop once a week these days so I’ve been dropping films off at her house as regularly as I can. I don’t mind. Now that I’m not rehearsing any more I’ve got plenty of free time.
“So when are you off, Daniel?” she says, offering me a plate of biscuits. “It must be fairly soon.”
“Yes, Sheila,” I say gloomily. “I’m driving down to Bruges at the end of next week.”
“Well then,” she says firmly, “I’m sure everything will work out for the best.”
We spend the next half-hour chatting about her daughter and her grandson, but I’m not paying as much attention as I
should. She pretends not to notice at first but she instinctively knows my mind is somewhere else. She opens up her giant biscuit tin, offers me another custard cream and taps me sharply on the hand.
“Now, Daniel,” she says, “I don’t want you to worry. These things have a way of sorting themselves out. If she truly loves you she’ll forgive you in time. We all make mistakes in our lives one way or another. It’s the way we behave afterwards that counts.”
“You’re right,” I say, kissing her on the cheek and making her giggle. “Thanks, Sheila, I’m sure that you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” she says ruefully. “Just wait until you get to be my age. Then you’ll know what’s what.”
We chat a while longer but she’s beginning to look tired so I make my excuses and get up to go.
“Hey, Sheila, I almost forgot,” I say, reaching into my carrier bag. “I’ve got you that video you ordered last week.”
“Has it got plenty of fighting bits in it?” she says seriously.
“Yes, Sheila,” I say, ‘it’s got quite a lot of them, I think.”
“Good,” she says. “Because it’s quite important, you see. I like the fighting bits the best.”
I finish up some more packing back at the flat and head up to the pub to catch up with Vince and Matty for a quick drink. I’ve seen a fair bit of them since I left the band but things aren’t quite the same between us as they were. They’ve decided to push on without me. They’re even considering pressing on with signing the deal. As soon as they can find themselves a new guitarist. As soon as they’ve taught him all the songs.
“So, how’s the packing going?” says Vince, tucking into his pint. “Still got you wrapping her knickers between three different layers of tissue paper, has she?”
“Very funny, Vince,” I say, sitting down and opening my crisps. “And where were you anyway? You said you were going to come up and give me a hand.”
“Yeah, well, sorry about that, mate. I’ve been pretty busy, as it goes.”
“How are the auditions going?” I say, changing the subject and letting him off the hook. “Have you managed to find someone decent yet?”
“No, mate,” says Vince, ‘we haven’t. You should see the sort of blokes that have replied to the ad. Useless. Every man-jack of ‘em. Bald, fat, crusty wankers. They got no idea, most of them. No idea at all.”
“Yeah,” says Matty, nodding into his vodka and Red Bull, ‘but Greg’s going to help us find someone good now, isn’t he? He said he had a couple of really cool people in mind.”
“Greg?” I say. “Who’s Greg?”
Vince shoots Matty a quick look before he answers.
“Yeah, well, I was going to tell you about that, Danny. He’s some sort of a manager or something. Nothing big, you know, just some bloke that Diablo put us in touch with.”
“Yeah,” says Matty enthusiastically, ‘he’s a really great guy, he knows everyone in the whole music business, doesn’t he, Vince? He manages some really mega bands. He reckons he can get us on another support tour no problem and maybe even a few dates in the US. He reckons we’re not far off getting features in the music press, doesn’t he? And a couple of big-cheese labels have already been asking questions about us and—’
“Matty.”
“Owl… sorry, Vince. I forgot.”
Vince and Matty exchange another private look and Matty carries on.
“I mean, yeah, it’s probably all bullshit, Danny. Coz managers are like that, aren’t they? All talk and that.”
“Exactly,” says Vince, removing his boot from Matty’s shin. “Chances are it won’t come to nothing. We haven’t even agreed to let him manage us yet.”
I’m not stupid. I can see exactly what’s going on. There’s
clearly some real interest developing about the band within the industry and Vince is doing his best to spare my feelings. He doesn’t want me to know that things are going as well as they are. He doesn’t want me feeling any worse than I already do.