Time to find a new home maybe?
My bag is checked in to fly to Dublin; I either fly with it or I stay in Britain. If I stay, should I tell them I’m not flying? They’ll have to take my bag off. Do I want to go through all that – telling them I’ve changed my mind? There’s nothing in the bag that I’d miss. Walk away; disappear – last seen checking his bag in to fly to Dublin? There’s something appealing in simply disappearing, though the first time I use my credit card anyone would know where to find me. But who would care?
I could go to Cambridge, meet up with the professor and his daughters. There are worse places to be. Or I could check the departures board, and choose a destination – out of Europe this time, and further even than North Africa. Really travel, see some different cultures – India, maybe, South America? But nowhere will ever be home unless I settle there and learn the language, find some work and get involved – be a part of somewhere. And even then – is there anywhere that’s really far enough away?
I know I’m not getting on that plane to Dublin. I like the idea that they’ll have to search for my bag – get that cunt from Immigration to do it. I’m so sorry – I changed my mind.
Brighton sounds okay to me – it’s as good a place as any.
I buy a ticket for the Stanstead to London Express. I have plenty of time to reflect on my decision as I sit on the train. The effect of the two pints of Guinness starts to wear off and I hit a mid-afternoon slump. I rarely drink these days and this is the reason why, but I enjoyed the pints so I think, what the hell. There’s also the tiredness from travelling; this may sound silly given the distances I’ve covered in the past three years, but there’s always a catch-up time after your body has been in motion. The break in Stanstead was long enough for this to kick in and, of course, it’s been a while since I’ve travelled by plane. Now I’m on the move again, and it’s like my body has to crank itself back up into travelling mode. At least it’s by train, by far my favourite means of travel.
It’s hard to switch off though. I’m used to being able to go brain-dead whenever I choose, but I can’t stop tuning into that fucking English language. I have to change carriages at one point – there’s a little girl playing peek-a-boo with two male students in the seat behind. The little girl is beautiful and has an infectious laugh that has everybody falling in love with her. I have to change carriages I feel so sick.
When the train pulls into Liverpool Street, I’m still considering my options. Brighton was a whim but, like a lot of things, my whimsy doesn’t make as much sense now I’m no longer on the Continent. A few weeks earlier I diverted to Assisi on a whim, and that had worked. I’d even stayed a few days longer than I’d planned; not that there was so much to see, but because it was such a nice place to be.
And nobody knew where I was – was that it? Nobody knows I’m here, or that I intend to go on to Brighton. If it’s anonymity I’m after, perhaps I should stay here in London? Or is it the flimsiness of my reason for choosing Brighton – a flimsy whimsy? That I think I saw the address on a woman’s piece of luggage? As I said – it seems a long way from Stanstead to Brighton when they’re so much closer to Gatwick.
I think about London as I step from the train. As ever, I have to consciously stop myself from walking at a faster pace along the platform – what is it about London that makes you do that?
I like London; I may be from the North, but I know a good city when I see one, and London has just about everything. Nobody will find me here, if staying lost is what I want. If I know anyone in London – and I have to think if I still might – they certainly don’t know I’m here. I’ve as much chance of running into someone I know in London as I had in Assisi, and if I do, then I can simply disappear again. All the lonely people – it has to be the best place in the world, or the worst place in the world, to be on your own.
I check out the Tube map. I guess trains to Brighton still go from Victoria, and even if they don’t, it doesn’t matter – having a destination is what matters. Coming into the east of the city is what helps decide against staying in London; too many memories of flying into City airport from Dublin to join Siobhan at some gig or other, or just to be with her. Having to make my way from this end of the city into town is too close a replica of journeys in my past. So I make up my mind – Brighton it is. I buy a ticket to Victoria and decide to stick with my whim.
It was Siobhan who first came looking for me. She arrived part way through the launch of my second book in Dublin and I immediately picked up on a completely different vibe in the room. Book launches are generally dull affairs and really mean anything only to the author and a few close friends. I was too little known to deserve much press coverage, or to attract the larger crowd of a much talked-about author – just another writer with just another book. Friends were over from England and this was an opportunity to catch up, an excuse for a party, and pretty soon we could all go round the corner for a few drinks – nothing too wild since everybody but myself was either in work the next day or else travelling back to England.
But then I looked up and I saw Siobhan McGovern, trying to appear anonymous but failing miserably. She was about the only person in the room deliberately focussing her attention on me; everybody else had that special buzz about them when they know that a real star, a genuine celebrity, has walked into the room. It was impossible to fight it and I think I made some jokey reference to her as I finished off my little speech, thanking any rock stars that had happened to come along to the launch.
I’m normally quite good at these things. I can handle being the centre of attention; I know I’m going to be nervous but understand that it will all soon be over. I don’t mind talking to a crowd, so long as I have something prepared, and I can put on a credible front of being relaxed and of enjoying myself. But as my publisher rounded off the formal part of the evening, I couldn’t get over the fact of Siobhan McGovern being at my launch – or worse, that she was about to leave without my having had the chance to speak to her. But I needn’t have worried; she was the first in line to get a copy of my book signed. She told me later that she didn’t want to distract the attention away from myself any more than she had to, that it was best if she just got what she came for and left. She was used to the effect her celebrity might have on a crowd of people gathered together in a room.
“I enjoyed your book,” she said. “Or books – I liked this one even more than the first.”
“Thank you.” I could sense everybody watching my every expression, particularly my best friend Danny from across the room. They weren’t making this any easier. “So you’ve read this one already? Wow!”
“Oh yes, and like I said, I thought it was even better than the other one. Not that I didn’t enjoy that one too.” She blushed.
Siobhan McGovern was flustered at meeting me. I looked at the copy she was holding; it was new and unread.
“And you’re buying another copy?” I asked. “You really do have it bad, don’t you?”
“Well, we artists have to support one another, don’t you think?”
She held out the book and I took it from her. Her hand was shaking.
“Is this for yourself,” I asked, “or would you like it made out to someone else?”
“For myself – please.”
“And what’s your name?” I looked around – thank God my friends laughed and broke the awkwardness of the situation.
“Siobhan,” she said and smiled. “If you could make it out to Siobhan.”
“To Siobhan,” I wrote. “I wish I had more time to think of the right thing to say.” I handed the book back to her.
“Thank you,” she said without looking at the inscription, and turned to leave.
“We’re going for a few drinks, if you’d like to join us.”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“You’d be very welcome. Just around the corner in The Duke.”
“Maybe,” she said, in a way that I knew meant she wouldn’t. “It’s not so easy,
being out in Dublin.” As I say, she was more than aware of her celebrity.
“We have a private room,” I added, trying hard to keep the desperation out my voice.
“Maybe,” she said again. “I’ll see.” She turned away and left the launch.
My friends couldn’t wait to have a go at me.
“We have a private room,” Danny said. “Please come, please.”
The crazy thing is: she did. And when she walked into the room upstairs at The Duke, I think I already knew – however impossible it seemed at the time – that we were meant to have something together.
Too many people have described Siobhan elsewhere for me to make yet another attempt here. Vulnerable is the word most often used; ‘tiny but tough’ as I wrote in one of my books, though I wasn’t writing about Siobhan at the time. And always – a reference to that face!
That she could be so famous and still look nervous about coming into a bar full of people she didn’t know – I think that says a lot about her.
“Jesus,” Danny said, “she came.”
I walked over. It’s funny how your life can change so quickly.
“I can stay for one drink,” she said. She put her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.
“What would you like that one drink to be?”
“Oh, a glass of Guinness, I think, seeing as how I’m in my home town.”
It seemed like an age for the Guinness to be poured and to settle.
“Dublin is still home for you, then?” I asked.
“It’s home, but it’s not where I live.”
“So where’s that – England, or America? You’re not going to go all Hollywood on us, are you?”
“No, not yet,” she said. “England, I’d say, is where I spend most of my time – well, when I’m ever in one place that is. We have a house outside London, with a recording studio that we escape to whenever we can. I seem to spend most of my time on tour these days, though, or at least travelling from one country to another. A lot of time in hotels, you know?”
“Yeah, that sounds just like my life too.”
“Really?”
“No, not really.” I picked up our drinks. “Who do you mean when you say ‘we’?”
“The band, I mean. My band; myself and my band.”
For a second I thought she was about to tell me she sang in a rock and roll band.
“Do you ever get sick of each other’s company?”
“Oh yes, and that’s when I come back home to Ireland. But that’s not why I’m here at the moment,” she added, as though I was about to run to the music press with more Siobhan gossip.
“It’s okay, your secret’s safe with me.” I looked over towards Danny and the others. “Would you like to meet some of my friends?” I asked Siobhan. “Not that you have much choice in the matter – if you don’t, I shall be a dead man when you leave.”
It worked quite well, with Danny being as cool as you like and thankfully knowing a whole lot more about Siobhan than I would ever have guessed. I wanted to speak to her alone, to ask her all the obvious questions, such as why did she like my books and what was it about me me me that convinced her to come at all. I hoped she might stay on, but she finished her drink too quickly and said she had to get going. I felt so stupid, wishing I could somehow get to see her again, but I couldn’t help it - I really did.
“When do you go back to England?” I asked.
“Tomorrow; early.”
I was close to running out on my own party. If she’d asked me there and then, I’d have left without hesitation.
“We have a gig on this weekend,” she explained.
I stood there like a fool.
“So I have to get back.”
“To the band?”
“Yes.”
“Well –”
“You could come if you like.”
“What – now?”
“To the gig – on Saturday, in London. I could send you a ticket.”
“I’d like that.”
“Would you come?”
“You came to my gig, didn’t you? It’s the least I can do.”
I didn’t really see the point, to tell you the truth – as in, where was this going to get me? But I’d have taken anything at that point just to maintain some form of contact with her. I gave her my publisher’s address in Dublin.
“I’ll have it sent over,” she said, “so you should have it by Thursday. Will you really come?”
“Yes,” I said. I thought I might too. “What else would I be doing?”
“You could sell the ticket on E-Bay and make a fortune.”
“I’ll be there,” I said, “I promise. But can I be really cheeky and ask you to send two tickets? For Danny, I mean,” I added, in case she thought there might be someone else.
“So you really are going to sell the tickets?” She laughed and I was lost. “Daren’t you come alone?”
“It’ll be more fun with Danny.”
“I came here alone, didn’t I?” she asked. “I’ll be there on Saturday night – isn’t that enough for you?”
“You and about fifty thousand other people.”
I knew she was playing with me, but this only made it better.
“Okay,” she said, relenting. “I’ll send you over two tickets. Your Danny can meet my Danny. Thank you for such a nice evening, and thank you again for the book.”
She put her hand on my upper arm and leant up to kiss me on the cheek. She had to stand on her toes to do so.
Siobhan’s Danny was the guy who wrote all her songs, the guitarist in her band. When I told my Danny, he was delighted, but he was even more delighted on the Thursday when the tickets arrived. Also included were flights into London City, which was unnecessary because the first thing I’d done was to make sure I could get there and Danny had changed his return flight from Manchester to London. Also included was voucher for us to stay in a hotel close by, and a pair of VIP Access All Areas passes for the night of the gig.
“What’s going on?” Danny asked.
“I don’t know. I think she likes me.”
“She doesn’t even know you.”
“Maybe she wants to get to know me?”
“She could ask me,” Danny said. “I could tell her all about you.”
“All the good stuff?”
“That wouldn’t take so long.”
I have a choice of trains from Victoria to Brighton, some faster than others, but I go for whichever one leaves the soonest. I can no more stay in London than I could have travelled on to Dublin. Take me down to Brighton where all I know is mods and rockers fighting it out on the beach, and that the beach isn’t a beach but full of pebbles. Oh, and the IRA – trying but failing to blow up Margaret Thatcher in the Grand Hotel.
Siobhan must have sung in Brighton at some time or other – it’s too much that type of place for her not to have done – but I was never there with her. The train crosses the river and, even though there’s the whole of south London still to travel through, I feel like I’m leaving behind the London we knew together.
When I first met Siobhan, I had an apartment that I’d once shared with Danny. It was a great apartment – in Smithfield, the old Smithfield – but the mail often went missing and this was the reason I asked Siobhan to send the tickets on to my publishers. I rented the apartment off Danny, who was staying with me for a few days before he went back to work in Manchester. It suited him to have me as a tenant; the value of his property was rising so quickly it didn’t matter that he received so little in rent. If I could have afforded it, he might well have sold it to me at a good price, but no mortgage company was going near a wannabe writer in his late thirties. In truth, I spent as much of my time in those days in Manchester, combining my writing with renovation work on Danny’s large Victorian house in Salford. It would be fair to say that of the two of us, Danny had made more of a financial success of his life since we left college together.
Danny viewed the trip across to London
for the concert as a bit of fun; he didn’t carry the weight of hope that I had for the weekend. One of my clearest memories of the trip is of him hopping from one side of the VIP line to the other.
“I’m allowed here,” he said to the bouncer, “and I’m allowed here. Here . . . and here.”
“Not for much longer, mate, if you keep that up,” the bouncer said. “I’ll boot you out so hard you’ll go from here . . . all the way back to whatever Paddywackery place you crawled out from.”
“I’m allowed here . . . and –”
“Danny,” I said. “Stop fucking around,” though I knew he had the bouncer in his pocket. This was before the gig had even started. I’d never been backstage at a concert before – why would I have done? So I had no idea what the set-up was. All of a sudden, the band appeared from what was presumably a dressing room; the three guys first and Siobhan a few steps behind. There was a huge push towards Siobhan and then a similar surge back as the security protected the band. Danny and I were obviously amateurs when it came to life backstage. A few blokes with cameras were plucked from the scrum and thrown out a side door. I hadn’t even seen any cameras while we were waiting.
“Leeches,” our bouncer said.
I caught a brief glimpse of Siobhan as she was ushered through. She looked calm, even as she was being jostled to one side. I couldn’t understand why these people were allowed backstage if they were going to behave like this as soon as the band appeared.
“They always find a way to get in,” the bouncer said when he saw the look on my face, “but never fail blow their cover. It’ll be different after the gig is over.” We must have looked so innocent to him that he took pity on us.
“Can we go through there?” Danny asked. The gig was about to start and we didn’t really know where we should go – if we should go back out front to watch the band and come backstage again once it was over.
“My friend,” the bouncer said, “so long as you behave, you can go wherever you please.”
Dancing to the End of Love Page 3
