by Louise Voss
I couldn’t imagine ever feeling that happy again.
There was a strange silence in the house. At first I welcomed it, since it indicated that my stalker had gone to the garden center, or on a day trip to Hastings, or whatever it was that stalkers did in their spare time. Then I realized that it was the prolonged absence of the sound of my own voice. Since Mum had returned to New Jersey five days earlier, I had not spoken once. She had left several messages, beginning with a sarky “Thank you for checking that I landed safely,” working up to a stroppy “For heaven’s sake, Helena, pick up the telephone,” but I’d ignored them all. I decided to talk to her only when she started sounding actively panicked.
Now that I was alone, I no longer even had to pretend to be coping. Plus the more time passed, the harder it got to cope. The adrenaline of mere survival had finally dissolved altogether, dissipating into the air around me like the smell of my mother’s hairspray. Only a teeth-gritting determination to finish the manuscript prevented me from giving up completely.
I knew I should try to snap out of it, but I didn’t have the energy to do anything further than glance at the psychotherapist’s phone number, which my mother had left on a Post-it note, stuck prominantly to the top of my computer.
I had refused to see Dr. Bedford again after leaving hospital, much to Mum’s chagrin. I was all in favor of the concept of therapy—I’d just found it too damn difficult, and, in my case, irrelevant. After a few bedside talk sessions, I decided that it was a waste of time for me to concentrate on any kind of long-term recovery.
I peeled off the Post-it and flicked it into the corner of the room, where it lay forgotten behind my dusty bass.
I didn’t need therapy, but I did need a rest, so I decamped to my TV room and lay down on the squashy leather sofa. Remote in one hand and can of Coke in the other, I embarked on a marathon of daytime television. I started with the breakfast programs and post-breakfast chat shows, the tame English versions of Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake. Instead of “My Son Is Having Sex with My Mother,” the subjects were “Am I Doing Too Much Gardening?” and “Help! I’ve Got a Crush on My Dental Hygienist.”
Then I moved on to the children’s programs. Teletubbies. Noddy. Someone called Kipper the Dog and his friend Tiger. Lurid, unlikely representations of humanity in all shapes and sizes. What did toddlers make of those fake beings, those Day-Glo–padded mutant creatures who talked baby talk and danced? I wondered. Did it make them believe that they might see Dipsy or Laa-Laa strolling down the high street, doing a spot of shopping?
I thought of Ruby, little proud Ruby with her twangy curls and fake fur coat, her inexhaustible capacity for cuteness and her sad eyes. I wondered how she was and then realized this probably depended on how her parents were.
Through a lunchtime quiz show, I daydreamed about Toby. How he had gotten me through those weeks in hospital simply by treating me like a normal, whole, appealing person. God, that was more than most men ever did when I was whole and relatively appealing. Suddenly I missed him. Why, with his wife unconscious down the corridor, had he kissed me and flirted with me, and then gone cold?
I supposed, over the one o’clock news, that there were a few possible reasons. He could be some kind of groupie, clinging on to an idea of Helena Nicholls from a long time ago—perhaps he’d collected my records, masturbated to my poster, featured me in his own private porn movie. Then again, maybe he’d just been trying to prove something to his wife. Happily married people whose spouses were in a coma didn’t, on balance, start affairs with other patients in the same hospital.
Or he really was in love with me.
I dismissed all of the above. The groupie scenario because Toby was about my age, and unless he’d been a fan in the early days, he would have been a bit old for all that adolescent fantasy stuff. Besides, he’d never come across as starstruck, or even particularly as a fan. The “proving something to Kate” theory was also unlikely, because it was a nasty thing to do, and Toby wasn’t a nasty person. Plus he’d obviously felt guilty about it. Which left the last option: Toby in love with me. Well, this was also unlikely, despite his professing that he’d fallen for me at first sight. He’d only kissed me twice, and had not tried to contact me since our argument in hospital.
Hang on, though, I thought to myself over another can of Coke and the weather forecast; how did I know he hadn’t tried to get in touch? I toyed with the idea of calling the hospital to see if he might have asked Grace or Catriona for my telephone number, but then decided against it. I realized that since I’d put the fear of God into the nursing staff about guarding my privacy, they were unlikely to have handed out my home number to the first person who requested it.
In the sudden vain hope that the postman might just have brought a passionate epistle from Toby, I hauled myself off the sofa, swaddled my head in a huge woolly scarf (despite the temperature being a sunny seventy-two), and ventured outside for the first time in five days to inspect the contents of the mailbox by the front gate.
Seven takeaway menus representing the cuisine of four continents, three free property newspapers, a plethora of leaflets advertising the services of local handymen and gardeners, five assorted envelopes from banks and credit-card companies, and one flimsy blue airmail letter with American stamps on it were jammed into the box. The return address on the airmal letter was smudged and illegible, but it was postmarked Freehold, so I suspected a sugary note from one of my mother’s bridge friends. Nothing at all that might conceivably be from Toby.
Just as well, I thought as I trudged back into the house again, heading TV-wards. It was good that he hadn’t gotten in touch, however much I missed him. I had to look at the big picture, the limited future. The reason I’d picked a fight with Toby in hospital still stood: What was the point of pursuing a new friendship, let alone a relationship? I wasn’t going to be around after the show.
Ensconced on the sofa, in the indentation left by my morning’s viewing, I ripped open the American letter and extracted two tissue-thin wisps of writing paper and a photograph of two strange children (as in unfamiliar children—although all children look pretty strange to me, with the exception of Ruby, who is gorgeous).
June 1998
Dear Helena,
I know it’s been years and years since we last talked, but I always wished you well, and followed your progress as much as I could in the papers. I felt so proud that we were once friends. I had a feeling that great things would happen in your life. You always had that air about you. I remember when you first came to our Bible study meeting, you were kind of heavy, and so shy and nervous—but at the same time you still had this sort of inner confidence. I don’t know what it was, but I remember watching it grow and grow, once you joined the choir and started writing songs. You just got more and more beautiful, inside and out. It was a lovely thing to see. I guess it was a kind of power, that you could do anything you wanted.
Margie said you’d been feeling kind of down since your accident, which is understandable. I thought it may perhaps make you feel a little better to know that an old friend is thinking of you. I don’t want to preach or anything, but please try not to let this ruin your life. You still have so much to offer in so many ways. Jesus will take care of you, if you let Him.
Mary Ellen Randall! Well, well. I snorted with derision at the notion that I still had so much to offer. Thanks, hon, I feel so much better now.
I couldn’t summon up the energy to read on, and instead turned back to the TV. An old Ealing Studios matinee had just begun on Channel 4, and I watched a violent but very gentlemanly murder take place in a frightfully well-coiffed lady’s front parlor, but somehow my attention kept drifting back to Mary Ellen’s loopy writing.
I don’t know if it’s of any interest at all to you, but I run a program here in Freehold that organizes missionary trips to Africa. Don’t be misled by the name “missionary”—they aren’t colonial dictators, trying to brainwash the natives into their way of thinking. Thes
e days they are more like volunteers who go to remote villages to live with the locals to help them with basic health and education issues. Some of the people who go out there aren’t overly Christian, although obviously it helps if you believe in God! It depends more on the type of person than how religious they are.
Anyways, I just wondered if you were looking for a change, or a break of some kind? It might appeal, and I’m sure you’d be great at it. I’m always looking for good new people who don’t have too many ties at home (Margie said you weren’t married, but she didn’t know if you were in a relationship or not). If you are interested, let me know and I’d be happy to send you some literature. But please don’t think that I’m trying to coerce you into anything. What’s that expression: A change is as good as a rest? Well, the work sure isn’t particularly restful most of the time, but I have known other folk who’ve gone out there after a big personal tragedy, and they certainly say it helped.
A missionary! Me! If the idea hadn’t been so preposterous, I’d have found it hilarious. Idly, I wondered how the well-coiffed Ealing lady, who by now had been taken hostage by the murderer, managed to go to the toilet, since she’d been held in her parlor for over twelve hours. This reminded me of my own need for a wee, so I peeled myself off the sofa and staggered into the downstairs loo, still clutching the letter. I sat on the loo and read on.
Also enclosed is a snapshot of my family: my husband, Scott (he’s a PT instructor); Scotty Jr., who’s six, and Cathey, four. My little angels!
I do hope you don’t mind me writing to you—Margie gave me your address. I know I could have gotten it from your mom when she still lived in Freehold, but, truth is, once you got real famous I just thought that you’d be too busy to want to hear from me, or else that you might think I was only sucking up because you were so big and successful!
It would be real nice to hear back from you, even if you think the missionary idea is dumb.… Next time you visit your folks (I hear their new house is beautiful), please do take a drive over to Freehold and visit us, I would love to see you again.
Take care and God bless,
Your friend,
Mary Ellen Applebaum
P.S. Oh yes! I nearly forgot: I don’t know if you knew this, but I married my neighbor Scott, after he got back from the Marines. He always brags to folk that he got your career started when you bought his bass guitar! I feel kind of silly, almost, telling you—do you remember we used to think his family was so weird? (Well, his mom kind of was, but she died ten years ago. Not an easy woman to get along with, may she rest in peace!) Scotty’s sister Janeane turned out real well, though. Sells real estate in town. x
Even in the depths of my doldrums, I couldn’t resist a chuckle at the memory of the absent Scott and his Clampitt-esque family. Life was certainly full of surprises.
I flushed the toilet and trailed back into the TV room to reinstate myself in front of the box. There were now a lot of 1950s cars driving slowly around Piccadilly Circus, with pedestrians in hats and long overcoats striding past the statue of Eros. One of them looked like Toby, or perhaps Toby’s grandfather as a young man. I tried to get back into the plot but, annoyingly, my mind kept wandering back to the letter.
After a couple of years of living in America, I’d ceased to notice the Yankness of the place, but as soon as I left, it jumped out at me like a cowboy from behind a saloon door. My first thought after reading Mary Ellen’s letter was, How American. Everything about it: her hoopy American cursive, her name, her phrasing, her Scotty Jr. The photograph gave out the same message: Scotty Jr. in a baseball mitt and cap. Cathey in Kmart frills, with real ringlets. Scott in the background tending to a barbecue, on a deck. The fact that it made me cringe slightly indicated to me that America was another country I’d never really belonged in. It was merely a place going past outside the tour bus windows, or expectant faces in stadiums, or airport concourses and baggage carousels.
I sighed. It was nice to hear from Mary Ellen nonetheless. I reread the letter, paying more attention to the part about missionaries: “Some of the people … aren’t overly Christian … I’m sure you’d be great at it.” What did she know? She hadn’t seen me since I was sixteen. I wasn’t sure if I even still believed in God.
For a few moments, I wondered whether it could be an alternative. If I couldn’t face going through with the Plan, perhaps I could “disappear” from public view for a few years and become a missionary?
Immediately, however, I foresaw a few logistical problems. One, I hated hot climates. Two, I’d been known to throw a wobbly if my hotel suite didn’t have a spa bath and chilled champagne waiting for me. The notion of actually living somewhere without flushing toilets, air-conditioning, shopping by phone, or chocolate Hobnobs was too horrific to contemplate. I thought that I really would rather be dead. Three, I had extremely sensitive, and succulent, skin. A mosquito in a room full of three hundred people would always make a beeline right for me, sampling at least twenty-seven different parts of my body before declaring itself sated. Whenever we toured in hot, humid climates, I used to walk around practically shrouded in mosquito nets.
I remembered doing an MTV interview in the Dominican Republic, during the rainy season. I had bought a new, natural mosquito repellent made from tea tree oil and citronella, and had smeared it on every exposed inch of skin I could reach. It hadn’t smelled too bad in the tube, but somehow it reacted with the heat of my body, and within minutes of my leaving the hotel room, people were behaving as if I had appalling body odor. The interviewer, a beautiful, haughty Cherokee Indian girl, had moved gradually further and further away from me, and eventually began to snigger so hard that the interview had to be suspended. I found out later that Justin had whispered to her beforehand that, although I had good fashion sense, I had the most hideous taste in perfume, and insisted on wearing the cheapest, most disgusting brands, which I thought were divine.…
Which led on to four: I was the most squeamish person in the world. It wouldn’t just be mosquitoes, would it? There were all manner of creepy crawlies: scorpions, hornets, blood-sucking flies and poisonous spiders … urgh. And as for crapping in holes and having to kill my own food—forget it.
It obviously wasn’t such a good idea after all. My squeamishness also meant that the actual suicide was, technically speaking, going to be a bit of a dilemma. I knew there was no way I’d be able to blow my brains out, which was a shame really, since that would have the biggest impact, thus creating the maximum of publicity for the manuscript, and the best prospects for my future place in rock history.
Slitting my wrists would be too messy, as well. There were no bathtubs or showers at New World. So that left pills and booze. The best way to go, I supposed, if not the most dramatic. I’d just have to lock myself into my studio and do it.
God, this was all such hard work. It was tempting just to stay in my house for the rest of my life. The TV could be my friend. I’d be safe. I could get everything I needed delivered via the phone and Internet.
But then I realized I’d never be remembered. Nobody would hear my story, or Sam’s. I felt I owed it to Sam for people to read about our friendship and how brave she had been.
It would have to be the original Plan, then. I’d treat today as a day off before knuckling back down to the manuscript tomorrow. Settling into the sofa again, I channel-hopped until alighting on Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook, grateful to Ainsley Harriott for reminding me that life really wasn’t worth living.…
Robert Wyatt.
SHIPBUILDING
TWO YEARS LATER BLUE IDEA PLAYED NEW YORK AGAIN, THIS TIME at the Academy on Forty-seventh Street. It was five times the size of the venue Sam had seen us at, and there was no question of us hanging out at the bar before the show, or of having to load our own gear into the van. We had two roadies to do that for us now, and Troy, rather unnecessarily, had a walkie-talkie to coordinate them. There were fans hanging around the stage door after the gig, and a limo to take us to and from the
hotel.
I hadn’t seen Sam for ages, apart from a long weekend we’d had in Paris together the year before, which I’d organized as a birthday treat for her. She was well into her law degree in London, working in the holidays, too, so the days of her being able to accompany us on tour were long gone.
She had returned home after her abortive round-the-world trip not speaking to Justin because he’d given her crabs, but otherwise having had a fantastic time, she assured me. After four months of her continuous company (except when she was off shagging Justin somewhere—a casual but apparently mutually satisfying relationship), I missed her even more than when we’d first moved to New Jersey, but I was too busy to indulge the hollow ache of her absence. Four days in two years felt unbearably meager to both of us, but we coped with it by speaking weekly on the phone.
The Academy show went pretty well, although I couldn’t really remember it that clearly. With a few exceptions, our gigs had all blurred together over time.
Aunt Sandi had come to the gig and partied with us afterward. On a drunken whim, and to her delight, we invited ourselves back to her place to crash that night. It was a lot less comfortable than our suites at the Royalton, but we felt quite sentimental about Sandi’s apartment, the epicenter of the action when we were first signed. Plus the appeal of hotel accommodation, however smart, wore very thin after a few weeks of a tour.
I remembered waking up, staring at the orange flowery wallpaper of the spare room, and feeling rather queasy. It had probably been way past four by the time we’d finished at the party Ringside had thrown for us after the gig, and the limo had driven us over the vast glittering peaks of the Brooklyn Bridge. In the end, Sandi had had to accommodate only Joe, David, and me, since Justin had left with a pretty student he’d met at the party; he was such a cliché—on average he went through two groupies per month.
