Stardust

by Ray Connolly

  And so the months passed. And every day Jim drew further back into a world governed by Mandrax, speed, acid and cocaine, relying on them far more than when he’d worked as a rock star, while Mike went happily about the management of affairs, more contented than at any time during his life. Sometimes he would play football in the courtyard with the workmen, his skill impeded somewhat by his crippled leg, but most of the time he would spend on mountain walks with Rover. He had never known he could become so attached to anything and it was all a new experience for him.

  But as his affection for the dog increased, so Jim’s resentment grew apace.

  ‘That thing should be kept outside in a kennel,’ said Jim angrily at dinner one night, livid with the way Mike kept tossing Rover odd morsels of meat.

  ‘Not in her condition,’ said Mike.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘She’s with child,’

  He raised his glass of wine ironically: ‘Congratulations. Your first?’

  ‘Think so,’ said Mike, ignoring Jim’s expression. ‘All my other mistakes got flushed away with yours.’

  Jim gave him a sharp look. Mike knew so much about him it was frightening: ‘Well, that’s all we need-the whole place full of puppies pissing everywhere …’ He went back to his meal and Mike continued throwing Rover pieces of meat. ‘What about tonight then?’ asked Jim at last.

  Mike shrugged: ‘You’re king of the castle. We could have a party.’

  ‘And invite all those clapped-out whores you keep bringing up here?’

  Mike paused for reflection. Jim’s mood had, of late, been increasingly irksome. ‘Okay, if we can’t have a party, let’s have a fight. Ali versus Frazier again. I’ll be Ali.’

  Jim looked up smiling at the prospect. ‘I’ll cripple you even worse than you’re crippled already.’

  In all the time they’d been together this was the first occasion that Jim had made fun of Mike’s twisted leg. Mike felt no hurt or anger, just sheer hate towards this arrogant waste of humanity, hiding like a monk inside his white robe. ‘Ten o’clock in the courtyard,’ he said.

  For the first time Jim realized he was serious. ‘What about gloves?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll get them … I’ll get everything,’ said Mike sharply.

  The workmen on the castle regarded the fight of champions with something approaching carnival spirit. As Mike returned to the castle with the local schoolteacher and two pairs of boxing gloves later that night they loitered around the turrets and ramparts overlooking the courtyard waiting for the spectacle to begin, drinking cheap wine from litre bottles and taking bets among themselves as to which of the two contestants would fall over his own feet first. They had indeed a low opinion of their employers’ fighting prowess.

  Mike, however, was not taking it as a joke. With a piece of chalk he marked out the four sides of the ring and lighting the courtyard by half a dozen huge rosy braziers, he brought out a couple of stools and buckets of water for between-round comforts. Seconds, he decided, wouldn’t be necessary. At last the preparations were completed and Jim, still in his white robe, and Mike were summoned by the schoolmaster-now-referee to the middle of the ring.

  ‘And now for the championship of the world …’ announced the referee proudly in Spanish, having been told his lines by Mike during the drive up to the castle. ‘On my right at nine kilos is champion Joe Frazier, while on my left, the challenger, Muhammad Ali, weighing nine and a quarter kilos. I, Señor Rodriguez Soy, will be the referee and single judge. I want no low punching, no butting and no talking. When I say “break!” - break cleanly. Now go to your corners and when the bell goes come out fighting.’

  Smirking, Jim walked back to his corner while Mike went into an exaggerated Ali shuffle routine, impeded by his bad leg. Suddenly the referee blew a whistle (no bell being available) and the two fighters faced each other, Mike moving around the ring, flicking out lefts and generally keeping out of trouble and Jim happily walking after him. After a few sorties Jim caught Mike in a corner and with a quick jab gave him quite a vicious blow against the shoulder sending him stepping backwards outside the ring in surprise. Jim smiled at him with satisfaction. You bastard, thought Mike, and barging straight back in, punched Jim hard on the nose. The effect was instant and dramatic. Like an unplugged fountain a red gusher of blood suddenly shot from Jim’s nose right down his white gown. In surprise they both stopped and stared at the mess. Jim sat down on his stool, and since the round wasn’t over the referee began to count him out.

  The winner,’ shouted the referee to the Spanish workmen, ‘by a technical knock-out is Muhammad Ali.’ The workmen went into a heckling applause, while bowing gracefully the referee bade the contestants good night and walked stiffly away across the courtyard, an unbelievable one thousand pesetas the richer.

  ‘I knew you’d be mesmerized by my Ali-shuffle,’ joked Mike happily to Jim, who was still sitting slumped on his stool, and holding his sleeve against his bloodied nose.

  ‘Piss off,’ Jim hissed sullenly. He hadn’t taken defeat very gracefully. With a worldly shrug of his shoulders, Mike picked up his bucket and stool and made his way back into the castle. The workmen, sensing instantly that the party had turned sour, made a silent way back to their quarters.

  For some moments Jim sat there swimming in his own indignation and hurt pride. A couple of times Rover approach him to play only to be repelled, but on her third attempt Jim changed his mind and standing up gently, coaxed her towards him. ‘Come on, girl. Come on. See what I’ve got for you. Come on.’ And with her tail wagging the big friendly dog trotted to his side.

  It was some hours later that Jim heard the results of his action. Lying fitfully on his bed he was fully awakened by the sound of howling: a terrified dog’s howl that went on and on. Smiling to himself he made his way out and on to the balcony. There in the courtyard Rover was going through a series of convulsions while Mike tried desperately and unsuccessfully to console her. And all the time the terrified howling went on, while the dog tore in torment around the square, hurling itself against arches and then turning to snap and bite at Mike whenever he tried to get within reach.

  For some time Jim stood on the balcony, listening unmoved to the petrified howling of Rover and gloating as Mike, near to tears, tried to hold down the dog. Until at last, tiring of his spectator sport, Jim took a few Man-draxes and retired to his bleached-out dreams.

  When he woke again it was the early evening of the next day. Slowly the events of the night returned to him and beginning to feel a little guilty, he padded off in his sandalled feet in search of Mike. He found him sitting curled round Rover’s basket in his room. It was the first time Jim had ever been inside and he was shocked at the sparcity of the fittings. Mike owned half the castle, owned half of everything that Jim owned, but he Was living here in a bare little cell, not much bigger than his old caravan, where the only decorations were photographs of Muhammad Ali torn out of magazines and pinned to the walls, and the only books a collection on dog keeping and dog breeding.

  Rover lay sleeping, curled up in her basket, while around the floor lay a couple of Mike’s shirts swamped in blood.

  ‘All right?’ Jim could hardly face Mike.

  ‘She’ll be okay now … not pregnant any more, either … works better than a hot bath and gin.’

  ‘Honest Mike. I’d no idea. I didn’t know … it was just a little tab of acid. It’s never done anything like that to me.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Jim tried a joke: ‘Just a bad trip really, you could say.’

  ‘Forget it!’ Mike shouted back angrily.

  Jim loitered by the door for a minute, unsure of whether to leave or not: ‘That makes us even then.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Danielle … you didn’t have to, you know.’

  Slowly and sadly Mike stroked Rover’s head: ‘We deserve each other.’

  Porter Lee was having less success with the Stray Cats as
a separate group than he might have hoped. Truly Kevin had a good voice but voices weren’t everything, as evidenced by Jim Maclaine’s enormous popularity, and though they’d had a few tracks in the Top 100 on Billboard’s chart the new monsters had failed to mature to the desired stature. And so it was after eighteen months of repeated failure with the Stray Cats that he decided the time had come to pay Jim Maclaine a visit. Surely by now he must have recovered from his desire to behave like a recluse. Even McCartney was recording again following his sojourn in Scotland. If Maclaine didn’t make his come-back bid soon it would be too late.

  Although he had had fairly regular reports from Mike about the castle and the condition of their star he was in no way prepared for either of them. For a start the drive from Grenada nearly killed him, with its hairpin bends and dead dogs everywhere and as he was passing through the village, the horror of seeing a pig slaughtered before a group of children and women with babies was too much for him and he found himself throwing up for the first time in years. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said to Hoffman, ‘we’re in the ass-hole of the world.’

  Jim was not pleased to see him and one glance at Jim told Porter Lee that the sooner he got him away from his seclusion and back to New York the safer he’d be. The once round face was now sunken in and his pale blue eyes looked dull and watery. While Mike had become sunburnt and healthy, Jim looked quite sick.

  At dinner that night he broached the subject of Jim returning to New York but after being quickly and haughtily repulsed he tried another method. Maybe the best way was to seduce the bastard back to normality.

  ‘Okay, I tell you what. I know it isn’t necessary to come back into the business full time. I accept that. Maybe not even an album, but something. You really do owe the fans something. They need you.’

  At the far end of the table Mike scoffed derisively: ‘He won’t go back. You’d better forget it. He’s past it. His creative juices have dried up.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ stormed Porter Lee. It was also business heresy. The boy still had a lot of music and dollars to be milked out of him. He was sure of that.

  ‘You think so?’ Mike was grinning with self satisfaction. ‘Do you know he hasn’t played a single note in the whole eighteen months that we’ve lived here. He hasn’t done anything at all. Nothing. Lucky you milked him when you did. If I were you I’d go and look for some new, younger talent.’

  Porter Lee didn’t want to hear this kind of talk: ‘Look, Jim. Every artist goes through a bad patch … Dylan did, Beethoven, Orson Welles, Lennon … all of them.’

  ‘He’s scared stiff,’ said Mike.

  ‘Look, why don’t you just go take a walk?’ Porter Lee had had enough of Mike’s interruptions. Turning his attention back towards Jim he began again: ‘You know there’s really a great deal of interest in you at the moment, Jim. But I really don’t know how long we can keep it up by just issuing repackaged albums and singles from album tracks. I mean all the world is fascinated by a recluse. But that fascination can be a short-lived thing. Listen, what would you say to a television interview? Those television people would give anything to come out here just to talk.’

  Jim shook his head. ‘No, I couldn’t do that.’

  Mike snorted and climbing out of his chair, walked down to the end of the hall and began playing with a pin-ball machine. Rover lay contentedly at his feet. At a motion from Porter Lee, Hoffman silently followed.

  ‘Before you say “no”, just think about it, Jim. Another year and you may well be forgotten. There are new kids coming along, all the time. Maybe they’re not so talented as you, but your fans are growing older, too, and maybe they won’t be buying records soon. You know as well as I do that if you want to stay alive in this business you have to expose yourself every once in a while.’

  Over by the pin-ball table Hoffman watched Mike play: ‘What d’you think?’ he asked after a seemingly polite pause.

  Mike grinned. ‘I think there’s no way he won’t do it. He’s like a girl, he just needs talking into things a bit. He didn’t become what he is because he was that much more talented than anyone else. There’s a lot of balls talked about the talent around in rock and roll. He became a superstar because he wanted it more than anyone else. He really wanted to be more famous, to be bigger. He just wanted to make it. To see his name big everywhere he went. That’s all he ever wanted. And despite himself, he still does, that’s why we have these ridiculous film shows all the time.’

  Back at the table Porter Lee made one last attempt: ‘If for no other reason, Jim, do it for me.’

  Even the excessive amounts of Mandrax and Nembutol that Jim had now become used to taking weren’t sufficient to give him any relaxing sleep in the days before the planned interview. With Porter Lee’s precision for detail he had arranged everything, including a link-up between Spanish television, the BBC and NBC in New York, and Luther Eales, one of NBC’s top television interviewers was despatched to Spain to talk to the boy star. The interview would be carried live by Eurovision link-up to the BBC, while NBC were planning to transmit the tape the following evening. The BBC alone had been unwilling to foot the cost of the whole programme, despite their reputation for getting scoop interviews with the unavailable, but when Porter Lee had gone back to them with an American transmission deal sewn up, plus an extraordinarily good deal on the Spanish outside broadcast unit which was to actually televise the show, to refuse to carry it would have been like looking a gift horse in the mouth. And so, instead of insisting upon a filmed interview, which would then be conveyed to the people at some later date it was decided that the people would be, albeit by cable, carried to Jim Maclaine in his hideaway castle in Spain. By any standards it made remarkably good programme sense. Oh that the television companies should be so fortunate with Paul Getty and Howard Hughes.

  By the night before the interview Jim was in a state of stark terror. The weeks of self-appraisal after the departure of Porter Lee had left nothing but questions in Jim’s mind and he stayed locked inside his room, drifting in and out of consciousness by way of whatever drugs he had available. He had never been a great dope freak in his early days, but now real fear on top of the stifling boredom which he had created for himself was driving him back into the recesses of his mind in search of solace. Sometimes he would find himself dreaming about Danielle, but always the beautiful, perfect face next to him on the pillow would turn into the grinning groupie who had robbed him of her, and he would find himself laid low with grief, his emotions crippled by self accusations.

  The night before the broadcast was such a night. It had been arranged that Porter Lee and Luther Eales, the interviewer, would arrive at the castle by helicopter at about the same time as the outside broadcast vans were due. But that was tomorrow: for tonight Mike had provided a whore, imported at some expense from a large hotel in Madrid.

  Sitting gazing at his reflection in the mirror over his dressing-table Jim heard behind him the sound of Mike tapping softly on the door. Without turning round he saw through the reflection as Mike led the whore in and pointed towards Jim.

  ‘Your lucky day,’ said Mike. The whore shrugged. She spoke only Spanish. ‘Okay Jim? Anything else?’ Mike was being unusually nice to him. And for the first time in months Jim began to feel the desperate need of a friend.

  Groping for words he turned towards Mike. ‘You were right that night, Mike. I have lost it … I know. After tomorrow everyone will know.’

  Smiling encouragingly Mike shook his head. ‘You’ve been dropping too much acid … things go better with Coke, you know.’

  Jim stared at him blankly. ‘I was just thinking. We had a lot of fun in the van, didn’t we? You know … gigging around …’

  Mike shook his head slowly. ‘Not really,’ he said. And walked out.

  For a moment the whore looked at Jim. And then went and lay down on the bed and waited.

  She was awakened the next morning by the sound of a helicopter circling round the castle. Jim was already a
t the turret window, and her first thought was one of surprise that the night had gone without him making any effort to touch her. She must eventually have fallen asleep when she grew too tired of waiting. A less professional girl might have considered it an insult to her femininity, but she was entirely businesslike. She had completed her half of the bargain … or at least been quite prepared to complete it. She didn’t doubt that she would be handsomely paid for the good deed she hadn’t had the opportunity to perform. She got up and joined Jim at the window. He hadn’t undressed all night and he didn’t look as though he had slept either. Together they watched the helicopter hovering over the spur of land to the north of the castle. Beneath them Mike was already arranging servants in a large circle into which the aircraft might descend. Jim turned to the whore, and shoving a hand in the pocket of his robe, found a large quantity of notes, and without bothering to count them shoved them towards her.

  ‘Thanks. Now go,’ he said. And picking up her coat she made a quiet exit from his room.

  Outside on the hillside Mike was confused. First the helicopter landed but instead of seeing Porter Lee and Luther Eales get out, only a film photographer dropped down and immediately the helicopter soared back into the sky. Then getting down on one knee the film cameraman began to shoot as the aircraft made a second landing. This was for real and as the cameraman moved forward for the close-ups the hatch opened again and Luther Eales got out, hair blowing in the gale created by the propeller, closely followed by Porter Lee, Hoffman, a research assistant and the programme’s producer.

  Meanwhile, in the village below the enormity of world communications had arrived in the shape of two pantechnicons of outside broadcast equipment, and a variety of cars carrying technicians, a Spanish director and journalists. Determined to cover every possible angle, Porter Lee had arranged a special Press junket, promising the journalists special private interviews with Maclaine. The villagers watched in fascination as the trucks and cars made their uncertain and clumsy way between the houses and up the steep incline towards the castle. And in the church the local priest said a couple of Hail Marys for the heathens who had besieged his village, before warning the fathers of young girls to be sure and watch out that none of them fell into the lascivious hands of Americans.