#Zero

by Neil McCormick

  ‘How did you do that?’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ker-ching!’ I said. Beasley and Lamont looked puzzled, as if they had missed a punchline.

  A disembodied voice boomed, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats in the main ballroom, the show will commence in five minutes.’

  ‘I want to go look at the backstage studio,’ I announced, then casually, to Mindy, ‘Want to come backstage?’

  ‘We should take our seats,’ suggested Kilo.

  ‘We’ve got time,’ I said. ‘When did these things ever go to schedule?’ The entourage started to move with me. ‘Everybody doesn’t need to fucking come,’ I snapped, then glanced guiltily over to make sure my display of temper hadn’t shocked Mindy. But I could have pistol-whipped a paraplegic fan and she would have stood there, smiling. Kilo flashed his Access-All-Areas pass at security, I flashed my famous face, and Mindy held on to my arm as we waltzed beyond the cordon. Behind us the ballroom lights were dimming.

  Technicians milled around backstage, clutching clipboards and walkie-talkies. Willard Meeks was shadow-boxing in a corner, talking to himself out loud, building up for his performance, while a girl in a black baseball cap struggled to adjust his radio mic, pleading, ‘Mr Meeks, Mr Meeks, can you just stay still?’

  ‘I’ll stop when I’m dead, bitch,’ said Meeks, then yukked loudly. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean that. I thought I was talking to my mama. I’ll stop when I’m dead, Ms. Is that better? Ms Be-yatch!’ Yuk, yuk, yuk.

  We were directed down a hotel corridor, where another team of people hovered at a door, indicating that we should be quiet, yet excited enough by my arrival to softly open up and usher us inside. I nodded for Kilo to wait behind.

  In an ordinary hotel room, where you might expect to find a bed, blonde bombshell Cadence Butterscotch stood in front of an elegant Brauner VM1 microphone, surrounded by portable bafflers, eyes shut, ears encased in giant headphones, belting out a chorus of ‘Motherless Child’. A bearded, balding producer smiled beneficently while his young, hollow-cheeked assistant watched a digital display on a Powerbook. That’s modern recording for you. It lacks a certain romance. An MTV crew had set up in one corner to capture performances for posterity, while behind them a couple of what were presumably Cadence’s people studied their iPhones. Cadence opened her eyes, taking a moment to come back from whatever musical zone she had lost herself in, then registered another famous face and waved. ‘Hi, Zero, wow, are you up next? Awesome. Wait’ll you hear what Softzone have done. Totally, like, inspirational.’

  ‘I just wanted to take a look,’ I said, shaking hands with the production team. ‘I’ll come back later. What’s through here?’ I indicated an open door. They shrugged. I led Mindy into an adjoining room, a mirror image of the other, except it contained a bed. I shut the door behind us and gently turned the lock. She giggled. Nothing needed to be said. We kissed hungrily, my hands ran up her thighs, underneath her dress, sliding beneath the silky fabric of her underwear. She groaned. We sank onto the bed, and I buried my face in her state-of-the-art breasts, while she struggled to get the strap of her dress down, and I wrestled to release one breast from its constraint, finally being rewarded with the emergence of a nipple, which I licked and nuzzled and …

  … do I need to go on? Reader, I fucked her. I even used a condom, at her insistence, which was helpfully supplied as part of the hotel’s standard guest amenities range in a basket above the minibar. And then we opened the bottle of minibar champagne, and drank that, and I sank into her, and I lost myself, I lost myself, which is all I ever wanted, and stars streamed across my vision, and bells rang in my ears, and I expelled myself from myself, until I was empty, and panting, collapsed in an entanglement of sticky flesh, but the bells were still ringing, and she was saying, ‘Someone’s at the door,’ and grabbing her clothes, half on, half off, and stumbling towards the bathroom, where she locked herself inside. I pulled up my pants and peeked through the spyhole, to be greeted by the vision of Kilo waving my mobile, which he always carried with him.

  I opened the door. ‘This better be—’

  ‘It’s Penelope,’ he said. And handed me the phone.

  I lurched several paces back to sit down on the rumpled bed. ‘Hi, babe,’ I said, weakly. I could hear my own voice echo back, hollow and deceitful.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ said Penelope, or at least an electronic approximation of her voice. ‘Poor baby, what must you have been going through today?’

  ‘It’s been hard,’ I said. And my voice came back to me. It’s. Been. Hard.

  ‘I heard about the story. We are going to sue them, we are going to take those jerks to the cleaners. Troy’s people are on it and they’re the best.’

  ‘How is Troy?’ How. Is. Troy?

  ‘You know I would never do something like that to you, don’t you? Troy is a dear friend and a trusted colleague. You love me, don’t you? You trust me, like I—’ The line fizzed and crackled. Her voice took on a robotic timbre. Trust you, I suppose she said. Like I trust you. Mindy’s silk underpants lay on the floor. I picked them up and tossed them to Kilo.

  ‘I read the script, babe, remember? There’s no sex scenes.’ It was hard to talk through the echo, my words bouncing back like accusations. Kilo rapped softly on the bathroom door. When Mindy opened it, he handed her the underwear. ‘Thank you,’ she said, disappearing back inside.

  ‘We’ve been adding and improvising, there’s rewrites every day, it is the most intense and revelatory experience …’ Crackle, fizz. ‘… you know what Marcus is like, God, the man is a genius, I swear, he’s bringing things out of me I didn’t even know were there …’ Crackle, fizz.

  ‘You never call me.’ You. Never. Call. Me. Even I thought I sounded pathetic.

  Crackle. Fizz. ‘… up the Amazon on a boat, can you imagine that, a whole film crew going places Western civilisation has rarely ventured, the people here, they are so innocent yet so wise …’ Crackle, fizz. ‘… life-altering experience …’ Crackle, fizz.

  ‘Why don’t you come back, babe? Just come up to New York for the opening night. It would mean a lot.’

  Mindy slipped out of the bathroom, looking radiant, looking untouched by human hands. She smiled at Kilo without a trace of embarrassment, blew me a kiss and let herself out the room. Kilo’s face was a mask.

  ‘I can’t do that. Please don’t ask me to. I’m an actress and this is my life, this is my work …’ Crackle. Fizz. ‘… crucial stage. It is changing me, it is changing me in ways I would never have imagined possible.’

  ‘I don’t want you to change,’ I said. And my voice said it back to me, but it didn’t sound like I meant it.

  ‘Zero, sweetheart, we have to talk when this is over, when I am finished shooting and you’ve got your tour out of the way. Maybe this break has been a good thing …’ Crackle. Fizz.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ I knew what she meant by that. Everybody knows what it means when your lover suggests a break might be a good thing.

  ‘You’re so young, you’ve got so much to learn. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. I’m old enough to be your mother …’

  ‘You’re not my mother.’ You. Are. Not. My. Mother.

  ‘Troy says …’ Crackle. Fizz.

  ‘Let’s leave Troy out of this,’ I snapped. But there was no echo this time. The line was dead. I would never find out what Troy said.

  9

  ‘Fuck,’ I said, handing the phone back to Kilo. ‘See if you can get her back.’

  ‘She called us,’ he said. ‘It’s a satellite thing. There was a twenty-minute window, apparently.’ He looked away, not wishing to confront me directly. ‘I was looking for you for ten minutes.’

  ‘Just fucking try,’ I ordered, shocked by the harshness of my own voice. ‘I’m sorry. Please try.’ And I realised I was crying again, tears rolling down my cheeks, for the third time today, or was it the fourth? I was losing count.

  Kil
o looked uncomfortable. ‘You are due to pick up your first award any minute. Come on, guy. You have to get it together.’

  ‘Have you got that coke?’

  ‘You’re first up, we are not even going to hear them call your name back here,’ said Kilo.

  ‘Just give me the coke,’ I insisted.

  He started to fumble with the plastic bag that contained his stash. His walkie-talkie crackled. ‘I’ve got him, we’re on our way,’ he announced. I grabbed the bag out of his hand, poured some powder on the bedside table and started to chop it with my Amex Black, the only item of financial transaction I ever carried. I didn’t even have a banknote to snort with. Kilo handed me a rolled-up hundred and I knelt down and worshipped at the shrine of the Great God of Oblivion. I felt like I was sliding downhill backwards, gathering speed as I pitched into the abyss.

  Kilo hauled me to my feet and we started walking, picking up the pace as we approached the ballroom entrance. The lights were blinding, my pupils must have been like saucers. ‘I’ve dropped my sunglasses,’ I said, panicking.

  Kilo fished in his jacket to pull out a pair of Bulgari prototypes. He always kept a spare set for emergencies.

  As we entered the ballroom, Bono was onstage, pulling a card out of an envelope and theatrically pausing as he read the contents. ‘You know, this is not an award I could ever win, and for that I’m grateful, cause, you see, I’ve got a band, the greatest rock-and-roll band in the world, and whatever happens, I’ve got my friends to stand beside me, we share the glory and we take the blows, together, there’s strength in numbers. But this guy is out on his own, he sings, he dances, he plays every instrument you could imagine and some you might not imagine. I have it on very good authority he’s a dab hand on an accordion, I kid you not, he can play a mean jig and a reel, cause he’s a fellow Irishman, and I’m proud of him …’ There was a cheer as the crowd acknowledged that he was talking about me. ‘But when he goes out there with his music, he goes out solo, he doesn’t have a band to share the burden, he doesn’t have friends to lighten the load, and some of you, particularly some of you in the media, have been giving him a hard time today, of all days, you’ve been hitting below the belt. There’s been some very underhand stories about the love of his life, a lady we all know and admire, Penelope Nazareth …’ There was a big cheer. ‘But he’s still standing, he’s not letting it get to him, he’s here tonight, because he is all about the music, this guy, and what music, these are anthems for our times, he was never young, may he never get old, the winner of Best Male Solo Artist is—’

  The anticipatory roar of the crowd drowned out my name. Cameras circled around the table where I was supposed to be sitting, spotlights darted across the room, alighting on my empty chair, then moving off, in a panicky search action. On the big screen, I caught a glimpse of Beasley’s face, looking like thunder. Then a camera found me, as I made my entrance from the side of the stage, fist aloft, bounding up the stairs. Bono hugged me, Willard Meeks hugged me, there was always a lot of hugging at these things, like we actually knew each other, like we actually cared. A pretty woman I hadn’t even noticed stepped forward and I hugged her, whoever she was, while she pressed a coiled silver object in my hand covered in baffling hieroglyphics. I think it was supposed to represent an electrical generator but it looked more like an old bed spring. I waved it aloft anyway, and stared into the lights, and blinked behind my shades, and felt the whole world grind to a halt. The noise of the room faded into the background, all I could hear was a tidal wave of blood rushing in my ears, the boom-bang-a-bang of my heart pounding fit to burst. After Bono’s introduction, I had to say something profound or funny, I had to say something, for fuck’s sake, I’d had all week to work it out. I was due to pick up four awards tonight and Flavia’s people had drafted a selection of speeches but when I opened my mouth there was nothing there, just my sandpaper tongue and a row of tombstones that might have been my teeth. Somewhere beyond the blinding light spreading across my vision I could sense dark eyes, weighing me up, judging me, and beyond them a black hole of vampiric desire, sucking me in, eager to swallow me whole and lick my bones dry. Then Bono patted me on the back and the bubble burst and the words, ‘This one’s for Penelope!’ exploded out of me like a belch.

  I was led backstage for photos with Bono in front of a Generator logo. Journalists shouted questions I couldn’t understand. Bono filled the empty space with some spiel about ‘Motherless Child’ and finally I was released into the care of Kilo and Tiny Tony Mahoney, who led me back through the ballroom. Attention had mercifully shifted to the stage and a Willard Meeks routine for the female artist award. ‘Do girl groups all get premenstrual at the same time? Don’t pretend to be shocked, you know you always wanted to ask that.’ Yuk yuk yuk ‘Why you think they always in such a hurry to go solo?’

  There were high fives and congratulations as I reached my table but there was no mistaking the cold undercurrent of Beasley’s stare. ‘There’s three more of these things to go. I think I’ll save the big speech for the end,’ I said, sliding in next to Carlton.

  ‘I thought for a minute I was going to have to go up and accept on your behalf,’ grinned my musical director.

  ‘You wish, Carlton,’ I snipped, picking up a glass of champagne, cue for everyone at the table to pick up glasses and clink them together. I ignored them and guzzled mine down so quickly that liquid fizzed up my nose and spilled on my chin. Kelly jumped up to dab me. I looked around the table, at all the faces so familiar yet so alien, like bodysnatchers in human guise. Who were these people, my people? What did they do before they met me? Where did they grow up, what were their families like, what did they believe, who did they love, and, let’s cut to the chase here, what did they really, really think of me, me, me? I knew nothing about any of them, nothing substantial, nothing personal, certainly nothing nice, nothing you could say at a funeral to make their mother feel better, if they had mothers, or to offer solace to their children, if they had children, except to point out that they were professionals. Oh yes, they were all very professional. They did a good job. They were, dare I say it, the best in their field, though to be perfectly honest I wasn’t even sure which field we were wallowing about in. My mind was suddenly filled with the image of the crocodile on TV and I started to laugh, so everybody else started to laugh, and I wondered if somebody had said something amusing. It’s called a symbiotic relationship. You see, I did learn some things at school, Ms Pruitt. It takes a whole flock of Egyptian plover birds but just one croc, and it didn’t take a film crew from National Geographic to work out who was the big beast here. ‘Do I look like a crocodile to you?’ I asked Carlton. And he laughed, just in case I was making a joke. Poor Carlton Wick, so eager to take credit for my inspiration because he was bereft of any of his own. But he was, let’s be fair, very professional.

  A winner must have been announced because everyone was cheering, like they actually cared which underdressed autotuned aerobicised stage-school graduate was this year’s designated best female. Jan Duran was slapping her hands together like an overexcited seal. The rest of the band were ensconced somewhere else in the building, probably eating with the TV crew, certainly not invited to join the feast, but Jan had been given a place at the table as reward for all her anonymous work as my understudy. At least she looked like she was enjoying herself, dreaming that someday all of this would be hers. And she was welcome to it. She’d just have to lose a few pounds, get some liposuction and breast implants, wear a wig and pretend she was hetero. The world was her oyster.

  Next to her sat Kelly and Linzi, make-up and wardrobe, so interchangeable I suspect even they got each other mixed up. And there was Cornelius – how many pictures had he taken of me? How long had he stared at my face, looking for a way to capture an exposure of my soul, if it existed, if it wasn’t already hurled into eternal damnation like Father McGinty promised. And when I looked back at Cornelius what did I see? A lens.

  Next to him sat Spooks McGrath,
my ghost, whose job it was to translate my thoughts into witty tweets and posts so perfectly nuanced even I couldn’t tell which bits were me and which were him. Maybe he couldn’t tell either, maybe he had forgotten what his own opinions were, become so absorbed in the minutiae of my life that he had lost the sound of his own authentic voice. He once told me he dreamed of Kilrock, even though he grew up in Belfast.

  Flavia was a dry stick, her sole visible emotion a kind of quiet pride. She was all about the client and offered a poker face to the rest of the world. She was working now, as always, absorbed in mutual iPhone tapping with one of her identikit underlings, whose names I could never remember. Next to them sat Kitty Queenan. Who the fuck had invited her to the table? I felt a stab of shame as she looked up and smiled. Was that sympathy? I didn’t need anyone’s pity. It was a relief when she turned her head to continue talking to Tiny Tony Mahoney, who had obviously drawn the short straw, the small hard man offering nothing but a tight smile as her words wafted over him. He wouldn’t touch his food, wouldn’t take a drink, he was working too, scanning the crowd for danger, in case Sting or Elton, outraged at being passed over for Best Male Solo Artist, should suddenly launch an attack armed with hotel cutlery.

  Kilo drummed his fingers on the table, almost as coked as me and probably as bored, my little shadow. Did Kilo actually have a life? He was there when I woke up in the morning, there when I retired at night – when did he fit in his own life? What did he do for thrills? What did he do for love? Did he slip away for secret assignations with handsome men he met on his travels, and if so, what would he do if his beeper started flashing because I urgently needed an iced mocha caffè latte with an extra shot? Would he zip up, make his excuses and leave? I would expect nothing less.