Altar Ego (25 page)

‘Have you spoken to Kate?’ I enquired tentatively. ‘Is that why you’re ringing?’

‘I’m ringing because I’ve been doing a bit of checking up on my former client, Mr Rotterman and his spectacularly untalented protégé. Lover boy’s mentor
has
very close connections to the New York drug barons. There’s even some suggestion that he’s under investigation in the States for racketeering. Why do you think Rotterman brought the band to Britain? This is serious stuff, Rebecca. One of his former associates is wanted for murder in the first degree.’

‘Oh, Jules …’

‘Becky, the man’s business address is a
wharf
. And do you know, it was Rotterman himself who lodged the obscenity complaint with Scotland Yard. For the publicity, of course.’

‘Then why don’t you tell the authorities?’

‘Because it would be a breach of lawyer-client confidentiality. The one professional obligation I dare not break, even after the client’s death, which will, I hope, be soon.’

‘Hello? Earth to Julian. This is
me
you’re talking to. I know you’re making this up.’

‘For your own good, promise me you’ll keep away from him. Swear you will, Becky … Unlike a wedding vow
this must actually count
.’

‘How’s the cancer?’ I asked harshly.

‘Fine.’ His voice went cold. ‘Find out the hard way then.’ He hung up.

I shrugged off his caution. Hell. I had a one-way ticket to Hedonism Valhalla. And I was going to take it. Besides, finding out the hard way was what I did best. In my book, you never know what you’re incapable of until you try.

26
The Dark Side Of The Tune

THE REASON ROCK
and roll bands tour is because no one knows what a non-entity they are back home, and no one back home knows what a non-entity they are on tour.

Despite Zachary’s Best-Newcomer award, the tour Rotterman had booked for him consisted of hotels with beds rejected by the Salvation Army as being too uncomfortable, gigs in clubs that were nothing more than urinals with feedback and guest appearances on cable chat shows in between ads for halitosis cures and hair transplants.

For all of November we criss-crossed the British Isles via a double helix of roundabouts. After spending what seemed like an entire week on one seven-lane sub-orbital ring road, everyone on the bus was starting to resemble a passenger on the
Raft of the Medusa
.

Sprouting a haemorrhoid the size of Helmut Kohl, I was missing Julian’s fan-warmed Saab more than I liked to admit. But whenever I got off the bloody tour bus, I was very quickly desperate to get back
on
again. In Manchester the decrepit hotel we were staying in made sleeping under the Cornish pasty van at rock festivals feel like the ritz. Although ‘sleep’ is too optimistic a word. It was impossible to get any rest. Mainly because some insect was always blinking it’s 9,000,624,439,002 eyes at me in the dark.

The thrilling highlight of each day was if no one flushed the toilet while I was in the shower. What with three-course meals of vending-machine food and watching television repeats of badminton matches between Romanians and North Koreans I’d never heard of, the time just raced by as though it were only
a year or two
.

But no matter how great my detestation, I couldn’t leave. Having been hired on the spurious pretext of media liaison, the delectable Celestia was proving to be more adept at private than public relations. With this groupie on board the bus, it was a case of Meals on Wheels.

When Zack opted to return to me at nights, Celestia decided to bring the party to him. After a dreary gig in Bristol she bounded into our hotel room, beaming like an over-refreshed game-show hostess, an entourage of hangers-on and the hangers on’s hangers-on at her heels.

‘Um, occupancy of this hotel room by more than 200 people is not only dangerous but probably unlawful,’ I said to no one in particular as Celestia, wearing a dress that revealed parts of her only an obstetrician should see, started dancing.

Rotterman rolled his eyes. The more I nagged and ragged, the more Rotty spoon-fed Zack’s ego. He’d been chopping up little nourishing press morsels and presenting them decoratively on a plate. He’d been taste-testing every interview. He’d cuddled and mollycoddled. And Zachary was starting to get an appetite for the attention.

‘I told yer that a girlfriend on tour is bad luck, Zack,’ he exulted. ‘I mean, how can yer trust anythin’ that bleeds for five days and doesn’t like,
die
…?’

Retreating to the dreary lobby, I checked my watch. Even though it wasn’t yet six a.m., I rang Anouska.

‘Really?’ she yawned down the line. ‘You haven’t been to bed yet? You must be having the most glamorous time, doll!’

‘What? Oh yes. I’ve made three triple scores in Scrabble and won Park Lane from myself eighty-six times.’

‘The hotels must be to diiiie for, though, aren’t they?’

‘Well I’m standing by the foyer windows, drinking in a splendid view of the toxic waste dump site as we speak.’

‘You’re just playing it down to make me feel better. On tour! God. It must be
sooooo
exciting.’

‘If you call “exciting” the band’s foreskin rings setting off the metal detectors at a local television station in front of a Girl Guide Troupe, then yes. But why do you need cheering up?’ I fed more coins into the slot. ‘Has Darius admitted he’s gay yet?’

‘His new best friend is a male flight attendant. He’s doing everything but flower arranging.’

‘Divorce him then.’

‘Can’t, doll. He wants palimony. Both of us made a mistake, but only one of us is going to pay for it. I hate to admit it, but you and Kate were so right about him.’

‘Speaking of Kate, could you go into the ICA occasionally and mess up my office for me? You know, put coffee cups on my desk, turn off my light at six p.m., make it look as though I’m turning up occasionally? I did say I’d only be gone for a couple of weeks …’

My money cut out. ‘Annie?’ I’d been about to tell her how much I missed her. I listened to the dismal dial tone. Through the double-glazed hotel windows the December sky was breaking into a weak, wan light. I watched the wind-whipped pedestrians struggling up the pavement to the station, men in pinstriped suits. Just like Julian’s. My lover was leaving me for far too many hours on my own, hours in which I could dwell on my husband. I was tempting to get some more change and ring Jules, just to make sure it really was nothing more serious than an anal fissure. I wanted to let him know I was worrying about him,
without
rekindling his expectations. But how? I decided to send him some bran muffins. As a get-well present. It was impossible to read romance into bran muffins.

Numb with fatigue, I trudged back to my room. I was so tired I’d have to hire someone to have orgasms for me. Opening the door, I snapped off the music and peeled Celestia out of my bed.

‘I don’t know how to tell you this, Celestia, but oral sex is not a spectator sport. Any groupies still here in two minutes will be towed away at the owner’s expense,’ I commanded, forcing open the bathroom door. Skunk was slouched on the floor. Rotty was sprawled across the closed lid of the loo, a McDonald’s carton spread open on his knees. It was packed with packets of white powder. ‘Now that’s what I call a “happy meal”.’

‘It’s to cure a goddamn affliction of mine, wise ass,’ Rotterman snarled.

‘What? – Reality?’

‘Nasal diabetes,’ he said smugly, before gesturing at Skunk. ‘We both got it bad, ain’t we, buddy?’

Before Rotterman kicked the door shut in my face, I caught sight of the teenager drummer’s arm which was tourniqueted tightly, a needle puncturing his patchy, purply skin.

‘I want all you people – whoever you are – out of my room,’ I shouted. ‘Right now.’

‘Don’t you just love a woman who speaks her
mind
…’ Celestia said sarcastically to the snickering band.

‘That’s because I’ve got one,’ I snapped, glaring at her as she rustled venomously away.

Zack appeared with fresh supplies of cigarettes just as the last human dregs leaked out into the hallway. ‘Tell me, with your goddamn diplomacy skills, have you ever, like, considered a career in hostage negotiation?’

‘I can’t stand it any more, Zack. Look at me! A diet of stale kebabs and hotel-fridge peanuts and my skin is taking on the pallor of a long-term prisoner. I haven’t seen daylight for weeks. I’m about to start hanging upside down to go to sleep.’

Zack laughed. ‘Come on. It ain’t
all
bad on the road. At least we’ve learnt some stuff. You know, like, that cat food is the basis of all English roadside curries,’ he grinned. ‘Let’s go get breakfast.’

He led me over the road to a dockside greasy café whose taupe walls were tragically plastered with yellowing photos of exotic places. As we waited for meatballs they must have been flying in from Naples, I tried to manufacture a smile that aborted, halfway through, into a long-suffering sigh.

‘So what’s eating you, ’zackly?’

I gestured around me. ‘This never-ending barf buffet for one thing. Backstage I have seen things done to other things on crackers that will haunt me in my nightmares. Crummy hotel rooms with nylon sheets – my
pubes
have been standing on end for weeks. The fart-fog surrounding the tour bus. We’re talking gale-force farts. Especially Rotterman. Not to mention the
band
…’

Zack’s yellow-flecked eyes, the eyes of a stray cat, fixed me defiantly. ‘They’re okay.’

‘
Okay?
Their main entertainment is trying to pee in a pot plant through a key hole.’

‘You know, if you hate it so much, go back to London then,’ he said coolly.

‘Yeah,
right
.’ I sipped at a glass of apple juice that was warm enough to shave your legs in.

‘Just because you’re on tour with a woman who, whenever she walks into a room all the men get erections for the next three months, shouldn’t give me any reason to doubt your fidelity, I know, but if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll stay.’

Zachary leant back in his chair and gave his famous slow, honeyed smirk. ‘What? You think I’d cheat on you?’ he said in a smoky voice. The grey water beneath the dock made a carnal, sucking sound.

‘Zachary, my darling, you have a penis that is always ready to party.’

‘I don’t want
her
. Why would I want her when I have you?’ The naughty-boy mischief in his eyes teamed up with that crooked grin and ruffled hair – he was edible, at least more edible than the two plates of congealed spaghetti and meatballs which were plonked down before us. We stared at them dubiously.

‘Um, how would Madam like her dog balls?’ asked
Zack
, pronging a specimen and devouring it whole.

‘You do want her. Every time you see each other, you launch into a vigorous exchange of saliva.’

‘That don’t mean nuthin’… . Anything,’ he corrected. ‘It’s in our recordin’ contracts that we have to keep kissin’ each other. Kiss
ing
. And flirting. I’m nothing but a clit-tease,’ he laughed.

I cringed. ‘Another reason I can’t leave you. You’ll slip straight back into all your old linguistic crudities.’

‘Hey, leave my crude, indigenous ghetto speech patterns to me, okay?’ he said, a smile not quite masking the slight irritation in his eyes.

‘Besides, who’s going to do your thinking for you if I go?’

Zack bristled. ‘You’re my lover, not my owner, yer know what I mean? In my opinion …’

‘I hate the way you say “you know what I mean”, all the time … And if I want your opinion I’ll give it to you,
you know what I mean?
’ I prodded at a cold meatball with a plastic fork.

‘I’m getting sick of this crap,’ Zachary snapped. ‘Getting’ sick of these honky threads too.’ He tugged his Calvin Klein sweatshirt over his head. ‘I’m gonna have to wear a T-shirt that says “Dressed by Girlfriend”. Though technically you ain’t my girlfriend, but
the wife of some other dude
.’

‘
Ex
-girlfriend,’ I said, averting my eyes. Like looking at an eclipse, gazing at the warm, sleek skin of his torso was way too dangerous.

It was our first fight. So much for Hedonism Valhalla. Walking back to the hotel, I realized that the only way to survive a rock tour is to dread one second at a time.

Fortuitously, that very morning Celestia’s tongue stud got infected. She was in great pain and could put nothing in her mouth other than warm, salty water for the next four weeks, making it safe for me to abandon the tour.

Even though some synchronized swimming in a pool of each others’ sweat had reconciled us, on the train back to London I found myself having to subdue a sense of rising panic. I clung to the reassurance that I still loved
Zack
; I just didn’t love his lifestyle. Which was fine because as soon as he hit the Big Time I would never, ever have to see a complimentary miniature Cadbury’s chocolate on my pillow again as long as I lived.

But the rail tracks were fringed with rust-coloured pine needles. Opening the rain-splashed windows, the pungent effluvium of fallen leaves caused a fog of melancholy to steal in over me. I looked at the clouds churned by the bitter wind into a dull grey cream. As the train slammed into a tunnel, I realized with a jolt on what thin ice I was skating. And what dark waters lurked beneath. I heard the surface crack, but it was too late to go back. I skidded on.

27
Till Divorce Us Do Part

THE ICE BEGAN
to shatter sooner than I’d thought possible.

‘Where to first, doll?’ Anouska was driving me away from Waterloo Station through the Christmas rush hour in a not altogether successful combination of first gear and reverse.

‘A doctor.’

‘Good God. Are you ill?’

‘Yes. I have a terminal attack of everything a doctor will find plausible enough to write me a note saying I had to be off work for the last six weeks.’ My credibility with Kate was stretched to Twanging point.

I’d only been at my desk for five minutes when she tacked across Reception, as though into a gale. ‘Where the hell have you been? … I only gave you two weeks’ leave.’