High society

by Ben Elton

  THE BRIT AWARDS, DOCKLANDS ARENA

  Hey, Tony, what’s going on? I mean, what the fook is going on? That were a copper, man! A policeman! I’m carrying about a ton of charlie and you bring a copper into my space! I mean, what was all that about, man?’

  ‘Tom, Tom, calm down, man, it’s cool, it’s cool.’

  ‘It’s not fookin’ cool! It in’t remotely cool. That were a copper!’

  ‘He’s a cool copper. Very hip. Besides, you said you wanted to see him, Tom, you said to set it up. It’s all on your schedule, look…’

  ‘You know I don’t read the fookin’ schedule. Why d’ya think I have a fookin’ entourage? Why d’ya think I have people? They in’t there just to drink my booze, you know! I have people to read my schedule!’

  ‘I swear, Tom, you told me to bring the bastards to the Brits! It was Emily who put you on to him.’

  ‘Fookin’ Emily. What’s she got to do with it? I dropped her.’

  ‘Don’t you remember her telling you about that bill in Parliament? Peter Paget the MP and that batty copper who wants to legalize drugs! He’s been in all the papers, you know: PC Pothead! She’s mad for all that is Emily, it’s her crusade.’

  ‘Course she is, she’s a coke’ead, she’s worse than me. ‘Course she wants to legalize it, silly cow, like it’s difficult to get anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, well, she got you all wound up that night we were at Soho House. You must remember, you said you wanted to meet PC Pothead.’

  ST HILDA’S CHURCH HALL, SOHO

  Well, then I did remember. Emily had got all evangelical about it, told me I had to get involved, help this campaign and all that, give it a public profile. Yeah, right. Great idea, that. Why don’t I completely destroy my career in about ten seconds by getting on some nutter’s bandwagon what he’s probably only doing for his own career anyway? Hey, listen, we all do drugs, you know that. Fookin’—’ell, Prince Harry’s a pothead by all accounts. Everyone knows I do ‘em and I don’t mind, to be quite frank. Publicity-wise, drugs have not done me any harm at all, quite the opposite in fact. All my ‘drug help’s and trips to rehab have been very colourfully reported as I’m sure you’re aware, and incidentally made me look right fookin’ hard when I was still trying to shake the pretty boy thing after I done Pop Hero. People expect a bit of drug hell from their celebs, don’t they? But whereas nobody minds you doing drugs, you can do as many as you like, and you can talk about it as much as you like, you have to remember one thing: drugs are evil and whenever anybody asks, you say so, that they’re evil and you’ve kicked ‘em, or you’re trying to kick ‘em, because you only took refuge in ‘em because of your demons anyway. And any kid that does ‘em is mad and needs help and counselling and the whole thing’s a wicked shame which you deeply regret. As long as you remember to say all that, you can stick the gross national product of Bolivia up your nose every night of the fookin’ week and people will see it for what it is, right? A laugh. Having it large. No ‘arm done.’

  THE BRIT AWARDS, DOCKLANDS ARENA

  Listen, Tommy, forget about the copper, he’s gone. I made it sweet, I gave him some merchandise and all that, but look, something’s happened. I wouldn’t tell you till after the ceremony, but there’s that many press around they might get onto it and I don’t want you to hear it from them.’

  ‘What? What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s bad.’

  ‘Robbie Williams ain’t cracked America, has he?’

  ‘Tom, it’s your auntie. Someone done her flat in. She was there, she got worked over.’

  ST HILDA’S CHURCH HALL, SOHO

  You see, this is where Peter Paget and PC Pothead have got it all wrong. I mean, it’s all very well for them to be going on about legalizing all drugs an’ that, but there’s a lot of evil drug addicts out there that should be locked up. Like the bastard that did over my auntie’s house in Salford, for instance. I expect you saw it in the papers. That was all going on while I was on me way to the Brits, except the press didn’t make the connection until after ‘cos it’s my mum’s sister, so it’s a different name. I love my auntie, we’re a very close family us Hansons, and this fooked-up smack head whacked her. That’s the evil side of drugs, mate, I can tell you, an’ as far as I’m concerned they should cut the bastard’s bollocks off.’

  A SQUAT, SALFORD

  Everything in the room was at floor level — the mattress, the mould-filled coffee mugs, the rotting takeaway food cartons, the cigarette butts, and the people. There was virtually no furniture.

  ‘I was nearly out of there, man, but she come back from the shops. I was nearly out of there, two more minutes, but she come back, didn’t she? Come back and started screaming an’ all.’

  ‘Was there any money? Did you score yet, Jay?’

  The girl wasn’t listening to the boy; she was lost in her desperate craving.

  The boy wasn’t listening to the girl; he was back in the flat, beating the old woman.

  ‘I whacked her. What could I do? She was screaming, Natalie. I was stood standing in her living room with her video recorder under me arm and she was screaming. I fucking whacked her. But she was still screaming and I freaked out, Nat. I just freaked out. I punched her in the face and then grabbed this thing off the top of the telly and bashed her head with it. Then I just fucking ran.’

  ‘But you got the video, right? You stole some stuff? Have you got any smack, Jay? We need to score some smack.’

  ‘She was screaming, man.’

  ‘Jay…I’m totally strung out here. Have you got any — ’

  ‘Oh yeah, yeah, me too, yeah, sorry, I got it. Yeah, no worries. I’ll cook it up, yeah…’

  The crystals dissolved in the dirty spoon.

  ‘It’s just she was screaming, Nat, freaked me out…Get me works, will you? There was cash for sure. In a fucking biscuit tin. I got a video and it was weird, Nat, because she had these fucking…awards! Yeah, it was one of them that I whacked her with. I didn’t notice what it was at first but then I saw it all shiny with blood on it and there was all pictures of Tommy fucking Hanson on the wall. What’s all that about, eh?’

  ‘Maybe she’s a fan. He plays granny music now, anyway.’

  ‘I didn’t want to beat her up, Nat, but she came back and she was screaming an’ all…’

  ‘You had to do it, Jay, you had to…Come on, in’t it ready yet? Hit me up, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, beautiful…Give us your arm, then…She just wouldn’t shut up, Nat.’

  But Natalie’s arm had long since become a ruination. Jason had forgotten that for a moment. She pulled down her tracksuit bottoms and, raising a knee, presented her bruised and prick marked groin to Jason. She wore no knickers.

  ‘There’s some good ones up by me cunt…You had to do it, Jay. I were getting desperate, really strung out. Besides, we got to get some food…and nappies and stuff for Ricky. He’s had that one on all day.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did you get any while you was out?’

  ‘Nat! For fuck’s sake! I just done over a fuckin’ old lady’s flat and then I whacked her with an award! I ain’t been down fuckin’ Tesco’s for nappies! I just done the job, went round Zani’s, scored the smack and then come straight home.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, ‘course…Well, we’ll go out later, soon as you’ve hit me up. Oh yes, that is fucking fantasti…’

  ST HILDA’S CHURCH HALL, SOHO

  Look, I’m not proud of this, but after my new manager Tony told me about my auntie I decided that I really needed some brown. That was my way of dealing with it. I was just so angry. Some evil bastard had beaten up my aunt. That was all I knew at the time — that she’d been done over and was in hospital. He was robbing her flat, see, some poxy smack’ead for sure, it’s always fookin’ smack’eads round our way. Every other kid seems to be strung out these days. All the cops could see had been nicked was the video and that’s a sure sign of a smack’ead. All those pathetic fooks ever nick
is the video or whatever, just grab enough to flog for another hit and fook off. I was so angry I would ‘a killed the bastard if I could. Beating up a woman in her own home…Cowardly, pathetic bastard. I’ll tell you what: if PC Pothead, who wants to help drug addicts, had come back in right then and there I’d have told him to string ‘em up, every one of ‘em, the bastards. Cut their hands off! Beating up my auntie for a poxy VCR which he’d sell for a quarter of its value and then doing the whole thing again the next day. Fookin’ bastard.

  ‘Look, I can see what you’re thinking, but I never beat anyone up to get a hit even before I had money. Well, I didn’t do that stuff then, just a few pills. Anyway, I were really upset and what with all the stuff I had swilling round my system I knew that I needed to chill. After all, I did have to do a number later, climax o’ the show, and ‘Let me be the tattoo on your thigh’ is a bloody long sentence if you’re totally out of your head. So I had to find a way to mellow out, and I’m here to tell you that there ain’t no better way to mellow out than H. So in a way it were medicinal. I were being professional, weren’t I?

  ‘Look, I don’t bother with heroin at all as a rule. Well, it’s all a bit heavy, in’t it? Like coke is just a laugh, I reckon, but smack is proper drugtaking. Serious big-boy stuff. You can’t be messin’ about wi’ it. I’ve only ever smoked it, anyway, so it’s not like taking it properly or anything, is it? But at the end o’ the day, I needed to chill out very badly. What with the coke paranoia and coppers barging into my dressing room and, if I’m honest, feeling a bit bad about kicking Emily out on her arse like that. And trying to shag Lulu, and whacking that A and R man in the face, then eating fruit off his bird and banging her on the coffee table, and then hearing about my auntie…I were feeling really, really not together at all. So I gave me man a bell and told him to get his arse in a car and bring some stuff over pronto and I’d have someone leave a security pass for him at the artists’ entrance.

  ‘Well, you’ll never believe it. Well, actually you will believe it, but I didn’t, not at the time. The bloke said, ‘Sorry, Tommy, I can’t get you any.’

  ‘Now that to me was unbe-fookin’—lievable. Because nobody and I mean nobody ever tells me I can’t have something when I say I want it. It just does not happen. I have people. I have a posse, a crew and every member of that posse knows I get what I want, when I want it. Like Oasis said, ‘All my people, right here, right now.’ That’s the rule: if you’re in my gang you jump when you’re told. Because let’s be honest, if you’ve sold fifteen million records in under two years then you deserve to get everything you want, and also never to be contradicted. Fifteen million albums means you get the lot, no questions asked, and I wanted some smack. ‘Listen, you dozy hippy!’ I said. ‘Get me some horse or you can forget hanging around with me and pullin’ the birds I don’t want.’

  ‘Well, he started telling me all about how it weren’t his fault, that the Thai police had been cracking down at Bangkok Airport. He said Thailand wanted the next Olympics or the next tour of Riverdance or whatever, and so they were papering over their druggy reputation. That don’t mean having a go at Mr Big or anything, no, just nicking a few of the donkeys who bring the heroin over stuffed up their arses or whatever.

  ‘Well, frankly, as far as I was concerned, who gave a fook.’

  ‘When you want some smack there’s only one short conversation to have, and that is have you got any or haven’t you? Everything else is an irrelevance. I was so angry. I bunged the mobile in the bog pan and tried to flush it, but it wouldn’t go, so I kicked the bog with my steel-capped Wannabes and cracked the bowl, then I pulled the cistern off the wall of the Portakabin and with a couple of gallons of water pouring over me I raised it up above me ‘ead. Then I bunged it through me dressing room mirror, cutting me ‘and on the glass and knocking the pisspoor little cardboard wall over right into the next dressing room, which contained some three-bird girl group stood there in their bras. Not sure who they were — they were white, so it might have been Atomic Kitten but maybe not.

  ‘Well, you’d ‘a thought they might have got arsey about a pissed-up wally crashing through their wall with half a bog in his ‘ands, but don’t forget I’m Tommy fookin’ Hanson, so for these birds Christmas had arrived early.

  ‘They shrieked and giggled and said stuff like, ‘Wild, Tommy. Mental. Top entrance. Big up!’ and for a split second I were that monged I thought, ‘I know what I’ll do, I’ll shag all three of ‘em. That’ll calm me down.’ So I gets up off the floor and says, ‘All right, girls, sorry to burst in on you in your shreddies,’ and they said, ‘These ain’t our shreddies, Tommy, we’re in costume,’ and it’s true, them bras and knickers was their stage costumes. Birds, eh? What must their mums think. So I said, ‘Well, how about getting out of costume, then, eh? Tits out for Tommy or what? I’ll show you me knob,’ and they all shrieked again and laughed and said I was ‘dead mental’, but I don’t know if they would have come across because then I just sort of collapsed. Literally. My legs gave way and when Tony came in with Christophe, my gofer, I was curled up on the sofa fookin’ sobbing me eyes out like some kid with these three stupid Scouser birds stood there wondering if it was a wind-up or what.

  ‘Basically, if you do as much shit as I do it’s about getting the mix right. The right amount of booze, the perfect proportion of charlie, maybe only half an E, or whatever. Quite frankly, in my experience the difference between a half and three-quarters can be the difference between a nice mellow chill and smashing up your dressing room and then bursting into tears on a girl-group’s sofa.’

  THE LEMAN HOUSEHOLD, DALSTON

  What, may I ask, are you doing up?’

  ‘Dad. I’m fifteen.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, Anna. Now, returning to my question, what are you doing up? It’s past midnight on a school day.’

  ‘Did you meet him?’

  ‘And again we return to the core of the issue, what are you do — ’

  ‘Dad! Shut up! Did you meet him?’

  ‘Meet who?’

  ‘Don’t be sad. It’s so sad the way you think you’re funny when you’re not.’

  ‘Yes, I met him.’

  ‘Unreal! Absolutely, totally unreal! You met him! I cannot believe you met him!’

  ‘Well, I did.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘He’s a stupid, arrogant, spoilt brat.’

  ‘No way! That is so not true.’

  ‘It so is true. I’ve met him.’

  ‘You were probably being a pain. Trying to be funny or something.’

  ‘I did not try to be funny.’

  ‘Well then, you’re just jealous because he’s the most fantastic person on earth and you’re a boring policeman.’

  ‘Well, put like that, who wouldn’t be jealous?’

  ‘Did you get his autograph and loads of stuff?’

  ‘Stuff?’

  ‘You know — hats, tour jackets, fleeces, T-shirts. Stuff, Dad. They give all that to people who meet them.’

  ‘Well, nobody gave me anything, I’m afraid.’

  Suddenly Anna was fighting back the tears. ‘You’re pathetic, Dad! Pathetic! I hate you! You were probably being all know-it all and pig-like! You probably put him off! I can’t believe it! My dad does one decent thing in his whole life by meeting Tommy Hanson and he doesn’t even get any stuff!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think.’

  ‘But I told you to get his autograph.’

  ‘And I said I would if it was appropriate and it wasn’t.’

  ‘It’s always appropriate to get Tommy’s autograph. He loves his fans, he says so. He loves us. He’ll never be too big to chill with his fans.’

  ‘That’s very commendable, but it really wasn’t the time for me to ask for an autograph…But I did get myself a nice new baseball cap, look, and a mug and a fleece, and a scarf and a programme. Sadly no tour jacket but everything has been pre-signed by Tommy. Mr Hanson’s tour manager assured me
so.’

  ‘Dad, that’s fantastic1. Give me!’

  ‘You want my stuff? Can’t I keep any of it?’

  ‘Dad!’

  ‘Oh, all right.’

  ‘Look, he’s signed everything!’

  ‘As I say, I didn’t see him do it.’

  ‘Yeah, right, like Tommy’s going to lie to his fans about a thing like that.’

  ‘No, absolutely. Of course not…Anna, do you think Tommy Hanson takes drugs?’

  ‘He did, everybody knows that, but he’s kicked it. It’s in his autobiography. He struggles with an addictive personality. He’s got demons. It’s very hard being Tommy.’

  ‘He hasn’t given up.’

  ‘He has. He said.’

  ‘When I met him he had cocaine all over his top lip.’

  ‘No! That is so cool I’

  Anna was halfway up the stairs when Commander Leman called her back.

  ‘Anna. You do think about what I told you, don’t you? Every day?’

  ‘Yes, Dad. God, how many more times?’

  ‘Every day, Anna. Every single day you have to remind yourself that I’ve made you a potential target. I couldn’t bear it if I thought you took the threat made against you lightly.’

  ‘I don’t, Dad, and you haven’t made me anything. You have to do your job. I’m proud of you.’

  ‘How many rape alarms do you have? Where are they as of this instant?’

  ‘Five. Schoolbag. Jacket pocket. Handbag. Under pillow. Gaffered to handlebars of bike.’

  ‘Under what circumstances would you set one off?’