The Ruins

by Mat Osman

  When I had a version of it — not the spun gold of my dream-song, but I’ve learnt not to expect that — I tried the simplest, four-on-the-floor beat behind it. Too insistent. I rolled the treble off, until it was something heard at a great distance, from behind thick walls. Once it was suitably amniotic I sang snatches of lines I’d written in my notebook. HEAD SHOTS. ONE FOR SORROW. DEAD BEATS. Phrases snagged on certain rhythms and unravelled, changing chords coloured the words, stories peeked out from nowhere. I sang and edited. Cut a section that didn’t work. I took a break, had a line, a drink, and then laid it down in one take. I’d listen properly tomorrow.

  Downstairs. The lobby was empty bar a be-headphoned cleaner pushing a hoover about. I waited at reception with the tune rattling around my head until I got someone’s attention; a crewcut Indian guy in a too-tight waistcoat.

  “Can you recommend a good pub nearby?”

  He looked at his watch. “The bar here will be open in half an hour.”

  Together we looked at the drab section of lobby that was designated “bar”. Four stools in front of a long cupboard with a locked, roll-top blind covering it. Three screens showing daytime TV.

  “I don’t think so, do you?”

  He pursed his lips. “Plenty of pubs around here.” He considered them. “All the same.”

  I only phoned Kaspar to ask if he knew of a decent place to drink in the area, but the pleasure that my call appeared to give him sent an idea spinning.

  “Mr Kussgarten. Lovely to have your company last night. I’ve been thinking about what you were saying about Hockney and Warhol all morning.”

  A good concierge is like a good hooker — technique trumps sincerity — but Kaspar seemed to have both. I must have been wrecked last night to try to talk about art though.

  “Are you well?” he asked.

  “Yes, fine. I was wondering whether Kimi’s apartment is going to be free after she leaves?”

  I could hear music playing in the background.

  “It is yes, she’s got one more morning here, might you be joining us?” The guy was good. The note of hope in his voice sounded almost genuine.

  “I am, it’s a beautiful space.”

  “And for how long would you be interested in?”

  I needed to see Saul and Baxter. That would be a couple of days. And the other thing. I’d need a gun, some watching time, a certain kind of man. “A fortnight I think.”

  He didn’t pause. “That’s certainly possible, would you like me to hold it for you?” He sounded positively giddy at the thought.

  “Please, how much is it a night?”

  “A fortnight would be £11,000.”

  Fucking London. Think of a number then double it. I tried to sound unconcerned. “Good, OK.”

  “Do you want me to send the car for you and your luggage?”

  I had so much to do. “I’m not sure I have the time to do the move,” I told him.

  “You don’t need to be around for the heavy lifting.”

  I laughed. “That’s the story of my life Kaspar.”

  I was keen to keep moving — downhill, downhill — but my emails to Saul had gone unanswered and he had no truck with mobile phones. I texted Kimi to see if she had a way of reaching him but she’d never needed to get hold of him in a hurry. One bit of news though. When I told her that I was taking her old room she said I could hang on to the recording gear that she’d had installed there.

  “I had a guy coming round to pick it up today but it’d just go into storage until we’re back. You could use it for your ‘comeback record’.”

  It ought to be impossible to make a software-created voice drip with sarcasm but she did a pretty good job of it.

  So I went shopping. Twenty years in California had led to me letting my sartorial standards slip a bit. My rule in Remote/Control was written on every band communique: NFS. No. Fucking. Sportswear. It offended me to see those fucking tubs of lard sweating about the place in their Nike trainers as if the uniform did the work for you. I used to tell Baxter, who had had a penchant for shell-top trainers and all that three-stripe nonsense, “If I see you dressed in that gear doing anything but jogging then you’re out of the band. (Pause). And if I see you jogging then you’re out of the band anyway.”

  I headed to Mayfair to reinvigorate my tainted-by-the-Yanks wardrobe. People say that we don’t have a service culture in Britain, that only in the States do you get genuine warmth and interest from your retail drones. That might be true in fucking Uniqlo, but if you look like you might drop a couple of G on a pair of shoes you’ll get all the lickspittlery you could desire. I went to St James for the bespoke costumiers with their discreet crests above the door, and the bell-pulls to get in and chauffeurs idling their Maybachs on double yellows while the kid played Angry Birds in the back seat. I spent the afternoon being measured and calibrated and came home with the promise of a whole new wardrobe by the end of the week. (The usual three-to-four month waiting list is, like everything, just a matter of how silly you want to be with your money.) I paid for everything with cash. You can’t beat the physical act of handing over your money — seeing it depleted brings home the alternative ways it could have been spent. Next month’s Tahoe mortgage money didn’t even cover the price of one shoe at Lobbs. The money Rae and I had put aside for finally having the roof fixed almost paid for a bespoke jacket. When the world is coming to an end you have to get your priorities straight.

  Kaspar texted: the room was ready. It took the cabbie three goes to find the hotel again, it didn’t seem to register on the sat-nav. Kaspar was in the lobby when I returned. “I’ve had a bath drawn in your room and it should still be a good temperature. If it’s not I’ll send Toni up. No messages for you. We’d normally do your room acclimatisation straight away but it can wait until tomorrow if you’d prefer.”

  This sounded like some weapons-grade nonsense. “Room acclimatisation?”

  “Yes. Digital availability profiles. Atmospheric texturing, scent and sound. Privacy gradients. It sounds like bullshit I know but I promise it’s worth it.”

  “You’re the boss. Give me an hour and come knocking.”

  The bath was fine: a sunken thing the size of a paddling pool beneath a skylight illuminated with that particular blend of blue and black that London does so well. I had a Scotch from the bar and worked my way through a couple of ciggies. I’d only been in my bathrobe a minute when I heard a knock. I trailed footprints on the parquet and let him in.

  “Right, first things first, the bar. What brands do you like?”

  The forest of bottles was that colour palette that sets an alcoholic heart aflutter: smoky green through tawny amber with the occasional rare gem of a ruby or emerald.

  “It’s fine as is Kas. I’m going to enjoy exploring your choices.”

  “OK. Room service is bespoke so you can’t really go off-menu. If there’s something that you think might be hard to get out of hours then try to let us know during the day. Anything you have a taste for?”

  He had that British art of making almost everything he said sound slightly filthy.

  “I haven’t had a decent curry for what, twenty years? Could I get a proper curry-house chicken dhansak in for this evening please.”

  “Of course. Poppadums? Cobra?”

  “Yeah, the works. I want to be able to smell the flock wallpaper on it.”

  “I know just the place.”

  He waited. He knew there would be more.

  “Other diversions?” I wondered if my reputation had preceded me at all.

  “We have an in-house doctor for anything you might need a prescription for, anything stronger is off limits however.” He smiled. “But on a completely unrelated topic a gentleman called Jay may pop by later. He’s certainly worth knowing. As for company, there’s nothing we could do in-house of course but the room phone is run via an outside algorithm. You may find something of interest there. Now, privacy. Who are you at home for?”

  “If they
call?”

  “Yes, who gets passed on, who gets your mobile number, who gets told we’ve never even heard of you?”

  “It’s been twenty years Kas, anyone who wants to talk to me, that’s fine. Give it a couple of days and I’m sure that’ll change.” There was plenty of time to make new enemies.

  “What about environmental controls?”

  “Like what? Air con?”

  “No, we leave that to you, though it’s set to Californian resident as a default. These are more specific aural environments designed to enhance your personal spaces.” This was his catalogue voice.

  “Rainforests and seashores and shit?” I might as well have stayed in California if this was the kind of new-age tat that had infected London.

  “They do that kind of thing, if you like, but generally those things are too… too intrusive. Try this.” He pushed at a button and dialled something in.

  Nothing happened. Or at least it didn’t seem to. Then I caught a low buzz and what might have been wind.

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  “That is…” he read from the control, “the moss garden at Kyoto, recording starting at 8am.”

  “Does it get more exciting?”

  “Not really.” He scrolled through. “It’s popular though. Technically it’s sonically interesting because the moss makes for a very specific kind of aural decay; it’s like being in a park if the park had shagpile carpeting. You sometimes hear water — I think it’s carp going for the water boatmen — and the monks do some Buddhist chant thing but that’s a good eight hours away.”

  “It’s not a loop then?”

  “No, well, it repeats after twenty-four hours. You can synchronise it to GMT if you want.”

  I couldn’t hear anything from the speakers but there was a new calm to the room.

  “What else?”

  “They’re not all so subtle,” he said, flicking the wheel. “I love this one.”

  We were instantly, unmistakably in a train station. Announcements, wheels on cobbles, hushed hubbub. I felt my heart beat a little faster. “That might be a bit much Kas.”

  He nodded. “You might like this one.”

  The air in the room seemed to tense up. Familiar and alien at the same time. “Yeah, leave that one on, what is it?”

  “Deckert’s apartment from Blade Runner.”

  Once he’d gone I got to work on Kimi’s recording gear. I tried adding some vocals to “The First Footprint in Fresh Snow” but everything sounded top-heavy. Fuck it. I’d call it a mood piece, stick it at the beginning of the record. Because now I have a plan. I have a place and I have a plan. I’ll make a record and someone will die.

  The phone was an old rotary thing with words where the numbers would usually be. It was the old magpie rhyme: the finger hole where the 1 would be read SORROW, the next JOY, and so on.

  I dialled 1. It was the weather forecast, a prerecorded thing. I switched it off after the phrase “Amber Weather Warning”. Spring in fucking London.

  I dialled 3. A woman’s voice: colourless, international. “Hello sir, how can we help you?”

  “You know, I’m not quite sure, what would you suggest?”

  “Well Taylor is very popular, and if you’ve been away for a few years she has a lovely British accent.”

  I laughed. Kaspar was quick.

  “Surprise me.” I thought for a bit. “No blondes.”

  “As you wish. In two hours.”

  Jay arrived while I was drawing on the music room floor. He had one of those unplaceable urban faces. His hair was short at the sides and militantly slicked back but still retained a cartoonish kink and green eyes popped against the suede of his skin. A spatter of freckles made him look young, a bob-a-job drug dealer. His accent was straight-up London wideboy: that lazy, sub-patois code as much a badge of his profession as the drawl adopted by airline pilots. I got him a Diet Coke while he pulled up a screen on his phone.

  “OK, your obvious stuff — brown, white, pills — can be here in an hour. Same with any kind of puff. And the TLAs we’re getting are off the hook.”

  I’m always interested in advances in pharmacology. “TLA? New to me.”

  He grinned. “Kind of an arms race between the chemists and five-oh. Our guys tweak MDMA until the molecules are different enough to make ’em legal again. Police find ’em, check ’em and illegalise them. We do some more tinkering. It’s evolution yeah? The thing is, they all have these initials: AAX, AAY, ADJ and I can never remember them.” He gave me an expectant look.

  “So?”

  “So, TLAs — three-letter abbreviations.” He snapped his fingers triumphantly.

  I gave a polite smile. “Well it’d be rude not to. Can I ask what they actually do?”

  “Different stuff. Euphoria mainly, plus some oil on the old mental gears. This lot is interesting though.” He pulled out a plastic tub and rattled it.

  “New batch. Supposed to be quite clubby, y’know, but it kind of amplifies beauty. Had a client who spent two hours just looking at the same flower. Music is fucking nuts on it. Don’t go to an art gallery, you’ll pass out.”

  Dealers rival estate agents for overselling their wares but what the hell. I took the tub. I had a ton of sleuthing work to find Saul. “How about Adderall?”

  “Sure, coupla hours though, is that OK?”

  “Yeah, I don’t need to concentrate yet.”

  He laughed and stepped into the other room to make a couple of calls.

  Business completed, he relaxed a little, taking in the place around him. “Bare nice fam, first time I’ve been in this suite. Kimi said that it was pretty nice but it’s even better than I expected. What do you do then?” He looked at the stacks of books and drawings. “Writer, yeah?”

  “I’m a musician. Well I was. Musician/actor/wastrel, at the moment leaning towards the wastrel portion of my oeuvre.”

  “I hear that. What kind of music, something I might have heard?”

  Even twenty years older and four shades whiter he wouldn’t have heard of Remote/Control.

  “Jazz,” I said. That usually killed this kind of conversation.

  “Maaaaate!” he drawled, flicking a fist towards me, “that’s my music fam. What kind? Bebop, Acid, Miles?”

  Hoist by my own petard. Time to shut this down.

  “Minimal ambient.”

  He nodded his head sagely. “Sounds intense. Who does your PR?”

  I gave him a look.

  “Because,” he continued, “I do all that shit. SEO, social stuff, game your presence, y’know, automated SoundCloud plays. Here’s my card.”

  A dealer with a business card — London, don’t ever change. I took it: Jay Scarlett in Edwardian script and about forty different channels on which to get hold of him. He looked around once more. “I’d love to play you some of my stuff, get your opinion some time.”

  I gave as neutral a nod as I could. He was up, admiring the turntable.

  “SRM Tech Athena. Proper.”

  He rifled through the collection and pulled out a Shuggie Otis record. “Nice.” He spun the disc between two fingers. “Not even the reissue. Loving your taste brah. Can I put this on?”

  “Another time Jay, I’ve got company coming over.”

  “Aw, you should have said.” He gave me a sly look. “Want something to help the party? Viagra? MDMA?”

  I wondered quite how old I looked to him.

  “No, I’m good Jay, thank you for your concern.”

  “Anytime, anytime.” He yawned and said, “Anywaaaaay,” as if I’d been keeping him there, “Better get on. Good to meet you.” His fist-bump was replaced with a handshake, possibly in respect to my advanced age, and in a slouch he was gone. Maybe I should have spoken to him about guns: where there are drugs there are guns, but that’s maybe more of a second-date kind of question.

  I fell asleep spreadeagled in the main bedroom but jet-lag shook me awake at 5am so I moved through to the other, smaller one so that I could w
atch the clouds through the skylight. London’s greys, the city’s fallback palette. Morning greys as soft as pigeon’s wings with a whisper of pink in the bass end. Evening grey’s off-off-white, the colour of a much-washed work shirt. The grubby midday grey that London timeshares with Tokyo. As many greys as the Eskimos have snows. The grey of tin tacks, the grey of washing-up water, the grey of old dog hair. Tarnished spoons, Seventies Jags, raw cement. I could have watched it all morning, but I had things to do.

  First, breakfast on the balcony, luxuriating in the wasteful luxury of hotel food: the perfect poached eggs in the microclimate of the cloche, the day-glo juice with its paper hat, individual jams. None of that seasonal, local, sustainable rubbish here, just the very best ingredients from around the world, hot-housed and air-freighted with the urgency of a donor kidney.

  The British newspapers were incomprehensible. Banks were failing or ailing as whole countries went bankrupt. Iceland, a nation that had a parliament before Anno Domini had got out of three figures, turned out to have been an elaborate Ponzi scheme run by fishermen with Ferraris. Greece, the homeland of the twentieth century’s two great growth industries — democracy and homosexuality — owed more than the whole of Europe had in reserve.

  Back in LA Rae had temped at Amazon for a while. The tangle of algorithms and programs that calculated prices were a patchwork of old and new code. Legacy systems from the Jurassic age of online retailing had been refurbished then forced to co-exist with sleek new beasts. Huge swathes of the code the business ran on were now incomprehensible to anyone working there. She said it was like mythical beast that was nine parts appendix. Often she’d arrive at the morning sales meeting to find certain prices swinging wildly between bargain and boom. Used paperbacks would rocket to a price of $71,000 before settling back at 40 cents, or long-out-of-print textbooks would top the “most popular” charts. These nauseous fluctuations were like the weather: something to be endured, not controlled. Imagine how fucked that was, and now imagine the vast digital ecosystem of the financial markets, with its caverns measureless to man, its predators and its plankton, the jungle of competing code. It was ungraspable.