Naked

by Kevin Brooks

  And I think that was partly because William and I had previously decided that it’d be best if we didn’t act like a couple when we were in the studio. So although we talked to each other a lot, and we didn’t try to hide the fact that we were together, we didn’t go round holding hands or hugging each other or anything.

  But Curtis played his part in keeping things professional too. He stayed relatively sober, not drinking at all during the day, and – as far as I could tell – he didn’t take anything apart from speed throughout the whole four days. This was his dream, after all – recording his songs, making records – and whatever faults Curtis had, there was never any doubting his commitment to his music, his energy, his passion, his unerring determination. All he really cared about when we were in the studio was getting it done, getting it right, getting it perfect.

  And personal issues just didn’t come into it.

  So, in that sense, there was no need to be anxious after all.

  Which meant that the only thing left for me to worry about was the simple fact that we were in a recording studio, we were surrounded by people who were used to working with professional musicians – sound engineers, technicians, producers – and although my bass playing had improved quite dramatically over the last twelve months or so, and I was fairly confident that I was at least reasonably competent, I knew that I was still a long way from being proficient. I was a proficient pianist, yes. But as a bass player I was still a beginner.

  And maybe that shouldn’t have worried me. We were a punk band, weren’t we? Punk bands weren’t supposed to care about musical ability …

  Well, to be honest, I’m not sure if that sentiment was ever really true, because although a lot of punk bands might have started off without knowing how to play, most of them soon learned. You had to learn. Because if you can’t play … well, you can’t play. And, also, while you might just about get away with not being able to play on stage, you can never get away with it in a recording studio.

  So, yes, I was a bit worried when we first started recording.

  But, again, as it turned out, I needn’t have been.

  Our producer was a man called Edwyn James. He was quite young then, in his early twenties, and although he’d go on to become one of the most sought-after record producers in the business, at that time he was still virtually unknown. But he’d made a few records with other Polydor artists, which Polydor were really impressed with, and so they’d brought him in to work with us.

  And he really was incredibly good.

  He spent ages just talking to us, getting to know us, asking us what we wanted to do, what kind of sound we wanted, what kind of feel … and then he asked us to play through the songs we were going to record, and it was obvious that he really loved them, and he told us how great they were, and how great we were – both as a band and individually – and although I guessed he probably said that to every band he worked with, I had no doubt that – in this case – he really meant it. So from that point on, instead of worrying about whether or not I was a good enough bass player, I just got on with it.

  Before we started any actual recording, Edwyn spent a long time working with us to get the right sound – the right guitar sound, the right drum sound, the right bass sound – and it really did take a long time. Trying this, trying that – different amps, different speakers, different mikes, different settings – I mean, we must have spent a good hour or two working on the drums alone – moving them around the studio, padding them out a bit, removing the padding …

  It was actually quite tedious at times.

  But, despite that, I still found it absolutely fascinating.

  And when we finally got round to the recording process itself, I really enjoyed that too. The way Edwyn worked was really simple. Once he was happy with the overall sound, he’d just start the tape and tell us to play. We’d then play through whatever song we were working on (which on that first day was ‘Naked’), in exactly the same way as if we were playing it live, and Edwyn would record it. Then he’d tell us how good it was, and make a few suggestions about how to make it even better, and we’d go through it again. And then he’d make a few more suggestions, and we’d do it again …

  And again …

  And again …

  And again.

  Until, eventually, after one of the takes – it could be the fifth or sixth … or the eleventh or twelfth – he’d suddenly jump up and shout, ‘That’s it! That’s the one!’

  And then we’d start working on what Edwyn called ‘the fun stuff’, which basically meant adding all the overdubs to the basic track – extra guitars, backing vocals, harmonies, maybe a bit of accordion here, a little guitar break there … I even got to put some keyboards down on a couple of tracks. We didn’t go overboard or anything because we wanted to keep the basic sound quite raw, but Edwyn knew exactly what he was doing, and at the end of that first day, at just gone midnight, when he finally played us a roughly mixed version of ‘Naked’ … well, I remember quite vividly the looks on our faces as we sat there listening to it. We were like four little kids on Christmas morning who’d just opened their presents and not only got exactly what they’d always wanted, but much much more … we just couldn’t stop smiling at each other, grinning stupidly … like four little children, drunk on sheer delight.

  It was just so fantastic.

  Over the next three days, we recorded ‘Heaven Hill’ and a new song that Curtis had written called ‘Every Moon’, which I thought was one of the best things he’d ever done. A slowish song, and quite long – almost five minutes – it consisted entirely of the same simple refrain, played over and over again, with a hauntingly hypnotic bass and drum rhythm that gradually grew into a great crashing maelstrom of noise at the end. The vocal line, which Curtis sang beautifully, was a really dark melody that meandered around the heart of the song like a lost soul, and the words themselves were – if anything – even darker.

  A SLICE OF MOON, A SLICE OF HEART

  BROKEN

  A SICK MAN’S PRAYERS

  OF DOGS AND LIGHTS AND BLOODY THORNS

  OF LOVERS’ HEARTS AND WHORES

  IN CHAINS AND BURNING CAGES

  I AM FUCKED UP AND DEAD

  AT EVERY MOON …

  Neither Polydor nor Edwyn thought that it was the right song for us to record at the time. I think they appreciated that, as a piece of music, it was really quite astonishing, but they weren’t really looking for an astonishing piece of music, they were looking for a three-minute song that might possibly make the charts.

  But Curtis was adamant that we record ‘Every Moon’, even going so far as to suggest that if we didn’t, then maybe we wouldn’t record anything for Polydor, which – given the fact that we’d only just signed with them and hadn’t actually released anything yet – was a pretty risky, and possibly pretty stupid, thing to do. But, in the end, Polydor took the easy way out: they let us record ‘Every Moon’, knowing full well that when the time came to decide which tracks would appear on the single, they’d go for the other two.

  So, anyway, by the end of Sunday night we’d recorded the three songs – ‘Naked’, ‘Heaven Hill’, and ‘Every Moon’ – and everyone was happy with the result. Edwyn still had to do the final mixing, and there were all kinds of other bits and pieces to sort out – sleeve design, promotion, printing, publicity – but Polydor had already set a provisional release date of Friday 24 September, so if everything went well, our first single would be in the shops in just under three weeks.

  It was hard to believe that it was really happening.

  It was also hard to believe – as I left the studio that night and got into the back of a waiting taxi – that it was already Monday morning, 6 September, and that in a little over seven hours’ time I’d be on my way back to school.

  33

  It felt really strange going back to school
again after everything that had happened that summer, and as I walked through the gates at quarter to nine the next morning, I wondered why I was bothering. I didn’t have much interest in schoolwork any more, and although I was perfectly aware that – as William had said – the band could easily sink without trace, there wasn’t anything else that I particularly wanted to do with my life just then, so what was the point of studying hard, taking my A levels, and going on to university?

  Why not just leave school right now?

  Just turn round, walk away, and go home.

  I knew that Mum wouldn’t mind. She’d probably pretend that she did, because she’d think that was how she ought to react, but I knew that her heart wouldn’t be in it. Five minutes after I’d told her, she’d be asking me if I wanted to go shopping.

  So if Mum didn’t mind, and I didn’t care … why was I bothering?

  I didn’t really know, to be honest. All I knew was that I didn’t turn round and walk away, I didn’t go home, I just carried on through the school gates and made my way to the sixth-form common room.

  I thought I was going to find all the usual back-to-school gossip really boring – you know, the ‘where did you go/what did you do in the holidays?’ kind of stuff – and, in one sense, I was right. II did find it really boring. Holiday romances, arguments with parents, boyfriends dumped, getting drunk … it all seemed so dull and predictable. But then, after a while, to my surprise, I began to realize that I was actually quite enjoying it all. Which, at first, I didn’t understand. It hadn’t suddenly become not dull and boring, so what was there to enjoy? But then it gradually dawned on me that the reason I was enjoying it was precisely because it was dull and boring. It was ordinary. It was normal. It had nothing to do with the IRA, nothing to do with record contracts, nothing to do with sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll …

  And I think I’d kind of missed that.

  But while I was quite happy to just hang around and listen to all the gossip – who’s going out with who, who’s finished with who, who’s done what with who – I did everything I could to avoid being part of it. I just didn’t want to talk about my summer, I didn’t want to talk about the band, about Curtis, about William … but it was difficult not to. Although Curtis had left school almost a year ago, he was still something of a legend to a lot of people, and because most of the kids in my year knew about our relationship, I was always going to get asked about him. And I did.

  How’s Curtis?

  Is he famous yet?

  Are you still in his band?

  Are you still going out with him?

  I kept my answers as vague as possible.

  No, we broke up …

  No reason, really … it just didn’t work out.

  Yeah, I’m still in the band.

  It wasn’t that difficult to avoid talking about the band, because most of the kids at school were fairly straight and either didn’t know anything about punk or didn’t want to know anything about it. They were still into Bowie, or Roxy Music, or Led Zeppelin, or Status Quo … which was fine with me. There were a couple of girls in my year who were kind of punky, and they’d been to a few of our gigs, so they had a lot of questions about Naked … but that was kind of OK. I still didn’t tell them much, just that we were doing all right, it was going really well, everything was fine …

  I didn’t tell them anything about the record deal.

  I’m not sure why … I mean, it wasn’t meant to be a secret or anything. I just didn’t feel like talking about it.

  Funnily enough, I just happened to be with one of these punky girls when I left school that afternoon. Her name was Mo. I’d bumped into her on my way out of the main building, and she’d started talking to me, and we’d just kind of ended up walking across the playground together, heading for the gates. And it was Mo who first spotted William.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘that’s the guy from your band, isn’t it?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Over there, by the gates.’

  I thought at first that she was talking about Curtis, and just for a moment I felt a brief flutter of panic, but when I looked over at the gates and saw that it was William, the panic quickly died. He was leaning nonchalantly against the wall, smoking a cigarette, and when he saw me looking at him, he smiled and raised his hand. I waved back at him.

  ‘He’s the one they call Billy the Kid, isn’t he?’ Mo said, as we carried on walking towards him.

  ‘Yeah.’

  She grinned at me. ‘He’s pretty cool.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose he is.’

  ‘And cute.’

  I looked at her. ‘You think he’s cute?’

  ‘Who doesn’t?’

  I smiled, looking over at William again.

  Mo said, ‘Are you and Billy …?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know …’

  I smiled at her. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, glancing at William and lowering her voice. ‘I mean, if you’re not, you know … and if he’s not, you know, with anyone else … well, I’m free at the moment, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Right …’ I said. ‘Well, I’ll let him know.’

  ‘Not right now, though,’ she whispered as we approached him.

  I nodded, my eyes on William now as we stopped in front of him. He put out his cigarette, smiled at me, then looked at Mo.

  ‘This is Mo,’ I told him.

  ‘All right, Mo?’ he said, nodding at her.

  ‘Yeah, yeah …’ she said, suddenly quite flustered. ‘Yeah … it’s really good, you know, to meet you and everything …’

  ‘Mo’s seen us play,’ I told William.

  He smiled at her.

  She just stared at him, suddenly unable to speak.

  I said, ‘Well, I’ll probably see you tomorrow then, Mo … OK?’

  ‘Uh …?’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh … yeah, right,’ she muttered. ‘Right, yeah …’ She glanced shyly at William again, mumbled, ‘See you then,’ and quickly walked away.

  I waited until she was out of earshot, then said to William, ‘She thinks you’re cool.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘And cute.’

  He grinned. ‘Well, you know …’

  ‘I had to tell her the truth, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That I’m not cute or cool?’

  ‘No, that you’re gay.’

  He smiled. ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘So,’ I said to him as we started walking back home. ‘What’s going on?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not much.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  He smiled at me. ‘I just thought I’d come and see you, that’s all.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I shook my head. ‘I know what you’re doing, William.’

  ‘I’m not doing anything. Like I said, I just thought –’

  ‘You’d come and see me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I looked at him. ‘And I suppose you thought that once you were here, you might as well come home with me and say hello to my mum.’

  ‘Well, now that you mention it –’

  ‘And because I didn’t know you were coming, I wouldn’t have time to think up another excuse to put you off.’

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ he said. ‘But if I had told you I was coming, you would have put me off again, wouldn’t you?’

  I shrugged. ‘Probably …’

  ‘I just want to see her, Lili,’ he said, taking my hand. ‘That’s all. I mean, I know she’s got problems, and I know it’s really hard for you, but she’s your mum, you know … she’s your mother. And if I’m going to be part of your life, I just think … I don’t know … I just think I ought to meet her, that’s all. I mean, she’s part of you …
’ He smiled at me. ‘That doesn’t really make any sense, does it?’

  ‘Yeah, it does,’ I said. ‘At least, I think it does.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about anything,’ he assured me. ‘If she’s too ill, or if she just doesn’t want to see me, or if it gets too difficult for you or anything … I’ll just go.’ He looked at me. ‘All right?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose … but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  When we got to the house and went inside, I knew straight away that something wasn’t right. There was a strong smell of fruit everywhere, a steamy hot smell, and I could hear the clanging of pots and pans from the kitchen.

  ‘What’s that she’s cooking?’ William asked, sniffing the air. ‘Fruit pies?’

  I shook my head. ‘Mum never cooks.’

  When we went into the kitchen, Mum was standing at the cooker, almost engulfed in a cloud of steam, frantically stirring at a bubbling saucepan with a big wooden spoon. She was wearing an apron and rubber gloves, but – to my utter dismay – that was all. Beneath the apron, she was completely naked … except, that is, for the six-inch stiletto heels on her feet.

  ‘Oh, God …’ I sighed.

  ‘It’s all right,’ William whispered to me. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  The whole kitchen was full of steam, the windows all misted up, and Mum was dripping with sweat. It was like a sauna in there. And everywhere I looked, all I could see was jam. Pans full of jam, pots full of jam, jars full of jam … there were jars all over the place. On the table, on the worktop, lined up on the shelf …

  ‘Mum?’ I said.

  She stopped stirring and turned round. ‘Lili!’ she said, her eyes lighting up. ‘I didn’t hear you come in …’ She looked at William. ‘And who’s this?’

  ‘This is William. He plays in the band.’

  ‘William! How lovely!’