Kiss Heaven Goodbye (17 page)

Miles was putting a brave face on it, but it was a body blow. He had always assumed that he would be welcomed into all the establishment institutions with open arms – he was Miles Ashford, after all! – but then maybe that was the problem. He may have been a popular figure at Eton and king of the hill at Danehurst, but Jonathon was right: anyone who dared to stick their head above the parapet risked making enemies. And one of those wankers had blackballed him from the Carrington.

‘I shouldn’t worry too much. It’s probably not about you anyway.’

‘What do you mean?’

Jonathon shrugged and sauntered towards the door. ‘Oh, you know how it is with the Carrie. It’s not who you are, it’s who your family is.’

‘Fucking snobs,’ spat Miles after Jonathon had left the room.

Of course he had both suffered and benefited from his father’s status as one of the country’s most prominent businessmen over the years. People knew who he was, they knew he was rich, but at Eton, it counted for nothing. At Eton, the seat of kings, it wasn’t money that was important, it was
heritage.
Of course money was important to the aristocracy, but a title always trumped a bank balance and the offspring of self-made men were seen as second-class citizens. Miles had risen above it, scrabbling his way to the top by sheer force of personality. Until it had all gone to his head and he had overstepped the mark, stupidly leaving his hash, tobacco and jumbo Rizlas out in an ashtray by his bed for anyone to see. Even he could see that his ego had got the better of him that time, and he had sworn it wouldn’t happen again.

Grabbing his cigarettes, he stalked out of the building and into the college grounds. They were unusually empty for such a sunny day. Normally there would be groups of students sitting around on the grass, smoking and chatting, but it was approaching exam time; most people were probably in their rooms studying. Where I should be, thought Miles. If he was honest, his studies at Oxford weren’t exactly going to plan. He’d already had a frank discussion with his tutor about his scant attendance and the late arrival of a number of essays, not to mention their somewhat sketchy content.

He marched angrily towards the river. Someone shouted his name, but he ignored them, not wanting to speak to anyone at that moment. He increased his pace and walked on through the water meadows until he came to a white-painted wooden bridge that looked like it would have been more at home in Amsterdam. Stopping in the middle, he leant on the railings and looked down at the placid green waters.

Once he had calmed down a little, Miles tried to trace the source of his anger. In theory, he agreed with everything he had said to Jonathon about the Carrington: it was an old-fashioned manifestation of the British class system, which, while still thriving out here in little pockets of Oxford, was swiftly dying. But still. The truth was, Miles Ashford wanted to be a Carrington man. He wanted the status and position his father would never enjoy; he wanted to be part of an elite only a few were ever asked to join. But it was more than that. Miles wanted to be seen as an individual, someone with his own achievements and persona, not just as the son of ‘x’, the friend of ‘y’. He wanted to be looked up to because he was Miles Ashford. Pure and simple.

And then he had a sudden moment of clarity.
They were threatened by him.
Miles Ashford represented the new guard, a fusion of his father’s new money and his mother’s old-fashioned British class. He was too good for the Carrington, too good, in fact, for this whole dried-up cap-doffing university. He turned and ran back the way he came, sprinting all the way to his room.

When Jonathon knocked on his door four hours later, he was surprised to find Miles hard at work.

‘Rue and Tig and the rest are all going to the White Hart. We wondered if you wanted to ...’ he began, but trailed off, disconcerted by the strange spectacle of Miles Ashford bent over a book, scribbling intently away. ‘Are you OK, Miles?’ he asked.

Finally Miles looked up. ‘Yes, why do you ask?’

Jonathon gestured vaguely at Miles’ desk. ‘Don’t think I’ve ever seen you hitting the books before. Finally panicking about exams?’

Miles frowned, then shook his head. ‘Oh no,’ he said, smiling slowly. ‘Something much better. I’m starting my own club.’

16

August 1991

‘Are we there yet?’ Gavin popped his head around the driver’s seat hopefully.

‘No,’ snapped Jez, turning his head from the steering wheel. ‘And if Alex stopped looking at those tits, we might have more of an idea where we were.’

‘Actually, I was just reading about that coup going on in Russia,’ said Alex, hastily folding up his copy of the
Sun
and picking up the tatty road atlas.

‘Russians?’ said Gavin. ‘They’d better not let the nukes loose. Not before we’ve had a proper sound check, anyway. That last gig was a disaster.’

‘Bollocks to Russia,’ said Jez, wrestling with the gear stick. ‘I’ll just be happy if we make it to Bath in one bloody piece.’

Ah, the glamour of rock and roll
, thought Alex to himself.

The last six months had gone by in a blur of exhaust fumes and ringing ears. Jez and Pete had graduated, and Gav had dropped out of his art course. From the night they had first met at The Boardwalk, every spare moment had been spent in the cellar practising until they were ready for their debut gig at the Queen of Hearts pub in Fallowfield. They had gone down a storm with the partisan indie crowd and Alex had felt twelve feet tall. The moment the lads had left college, they each put five hundred quid into the pot so they could buy a transit van. It was twelve years old, almost white and had ‘J. & H. Hall Window Cleaners’ written down the side in big blue letters. Fortunately it had been a warmish summer and they had been able to sleep in the van between tiny gigs where they would play to six or seven mildly uninterested drinkers then move on to the next place, hoping that this one would cover the cost of the petrol and the service-station pasties. It sounded horrible, but it had been the best few months of their lives. The band, Year Zero, were getting better, tighter with every performance and they all felt they were moving towards something big – whatever that was.

Alex switched on the radio and Bryan Adams’ ‘Everything I Do, I Do It For You’ blared out.

‘Is this still number one?’ groaned Jez, navigating the traffic. ‘Shit, what road are we looking for again?’

‘George Street, but the promoter said if we stay on the A4, it will bring us around to the venue.’

‘Well where is it then?’

‘I don’t know!’ said Alex, exasperated.

‘Come on now, children,’ said Pete from the back.

‘Piss off!’ said Alex and Jez in unison.

It was the same every time they came to a new city. The cameraderie of the road immediately disappeared, to be replaced by annoyance and anxiety; the romance blown away by the reality of rickety stages or playing to empty rooms. No one told you that breaking into the music business was like Dante’s Circles of Hell, where you had to suffer for an undetermined period at the first level before scrabbling your way to the next.

Tonight’s gig was exciting, because Bath Moles Club was a leap up from the working men’s clubs and venues where you were lucky to get fifty quid and a round of drinks to play. When you played Bath Moles, you were on your way up.

Alex hoped so. He had given up his job at Kwik Save and was signing on, and by joining the band he had put all his eggs in one basket; he had to make it work, there was no Plan B. He felt guilty he couldn’t give his mum her thirty pounds a week any more, but strangely, she seemed thrilled that he was giving his music a real go.

‘Is this it?’ asked Pete with disappointment as they finally parked and climbed out of the van. It was evident from their faces that the rest of the band were feeling the same way. The club entrance was a tiny door set into a wall just off the main road: no sign, no posters; it looked like a storage room.

Disconsolately they humped their heavy gear in through the tiny door and set it up on the stage, fitting it into whatever space they could find. The sound engineer, a standard-issue balding guy in a black band T-shirt, ran around plugging cables into sockets and fiddling with the knobs and sliders on an enormous mixing desk at the back of the room.

‘All right lads,’ he said finally. ‘Can you play us something to get the levels?’

‘Shall we do “Evermore”?’ said Jez. ‘I think we should close the set with that tonight.’

Alex frowned. ‘What about “Wonderland”?’ It was his strongest song and the one they usually ended with.

Jez looked at him dismissively. ‘I thought we should mix it up a bit tonight.’

Alex felt unsettled. What Year Zero were desperate for was to get noticed. And as no one really came to see the support band, the best way to do that was to put your good material near the end, where people turning up for the main act would hear it.

‘We’re ending with “Evermore”,’ said Jez with finality.

Alex sighed. It was hard to railroad Jez into anything once he had made his mind up. The band was his baby and he was the undisputed leader. He was the one who rang all the venues and charmed the promoters and designed the posters. Alex accepted that and had no intention of usurping him; he himself just wanted to play music. But Jez had obviously become threatened by Alex ever since he had begun to take over musically. It was the elephant in the room for the band: everyone knew Alex was the better songwriter, and even with their meagre audiences, his songs got by far the loudest cheers. Jez – or Jez’s ego – was predictably in denial about it, so Alex always had to tread carefully and had become a master of psychological manipulation.

‘How about we open with “Evermore”,’ said Alex in placating tones. ‘Everyone knows you start with your best song and end with the next best. You’re right that “Evermore” is the best thing we’ve got.’ He smiled to himself. It was textbook reverse psychology: let the alpha male think it was all his idea.

‘All right then,’ said Jez, waving a regal arm. ‘It’s only a support gig anyway, isn’t it?’

‘Oi!’

They all turned to see the sound engineer standing in the middle of the tiny dance floor, tapping his watch.

‘If you ladies are quite finished, I’d like to get this sound check done before the punters get here.’

‘Hey, aren’t you that big rock star?’

After they had finished the sound check, Alex had headed straight out of the venue, wanting to get as far away from Jez as possible. Jez had agreed to the change in the set list, but as punishment, kept stopping the songs to complain about Alex’s playing or to ask him to tune his guitar properly. Head down, mind full of fantasies of strangling the singer, Alex had walked straight past the girl leaning against the railings smoking a cigarette. He looked up in surprise, then beamed. It was Emma.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Aw shucks, if I’d known you were going to come over all romantic with me, I’d have been here sooner.’

They both laughed and Alex slipped his arm around her waist to pull her in for a kiss.

‘I hadn’t expected to see a friendly face in this whole city, let alone you.’

She wrapped herself around him. ‘Hitler giving you a hard time again?’

‘No more than usual.’

‘Well, we thought you might need some support, so we drove down from Manchester this morning.’

‘Who’s we?’

‘Jemma from my course. Her parents live just outside Bath. She says you can all stay tonight.’ She sniffed at his shirt. ‘If you spend one more night in that van, I think the health and safety people are going to be after you.’

‘You mean I smell?’

‘Horribly.’ She grinned.

‘Well I’m glad you’ve got me a bed for the night, then.’

‘If you play your cards right,’ said Emma, patting him on the bum playfully. ‘And you can start by buying me a drink.’

Alex smiled as they walked hand in hand towards the nearest pub. He was glad she was here. In fact, it wasn’t until he’d seen her standing there that he’d realised how much he’d missed her. From that first night in the Snoopy nightie, it had been quite obvious she liked him, so the next day he had gone up and knocked on her door, boldly asking her out for a drink. Six months later, they were still together. Stronger than ever.

They settled into a booth in the corner of a quiet old man’s pub.

‘Here,’ said Emma, licking her thumb and gently wiping it across his cheek. ‘Spot of dirt or something,’ she said. ‘You never know who’s going to be watching tonight.’

‘There ain’t going to be any record company scouts in Bath,’ said Alex wearily.

‘Well, journalists then. Even if you only get something in the local paper, it all counts, doesn’t it?’

Alex looked at her. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘What for?’

‘For, you know,’ he said clumsily. ‘For being here.’

‘Who would want to miss another performance by the great Alex Doyle?’ she teased. ‘Anyway, I think Jemma has ulterior motives letting you lot stay tonight.’

Alex raised his eyebrows. ‘Not Jez?’

Emma gave a wry smile. ‘Who else?’

‘Well tell her not to get too attached,’ said Alex, taking a sip of his pint.

‘Is he that bad?’

‘He’s not good, put it that way.’

‘How many women has he slept with?’ said Emma, running a finger around the rim of her glass.

‘Dunno. A lot.’

‘And how many women have you slept with?’

‘This year? One,’ said Alex. ‘But she wasn’t much cop.’

‘Hey!’ cried Emma, swatting him on the arm.

A sweep of affection for her caught him by surprise. She was easy to talk to and she made him laugh, but she was clever, too. She’d just missed out on getting a first and had ambitions to work in television. Life with Emma had settled into a comfortable routine. She had moved out of the big house in Fallowfield, and when Alex wasn’t on the road, they stayed in her bedsit in Withington, venturing out to a gig or to see a foreign film at the Cornerhouse, which – with her fluent French and working Italian – she seemed to enjoy more than he did. And she was always interested in his music, coming to every gig and listening to his demos.