The Singer

by Cathi Unsworth

  When the phone suddenly sparked to life, I nearly dropped the whole damn thing on the floor. I was halfway through the bottle by then, halfway through pouring another glass.

  ‘Hello, Eddie,’ her voice was steady, flat.

  By now it was ten-thirty. I guessed this was another test for me to go through.

  ‘Hi, Louise,’ I tried to keep my voice on an even keel.

  ‘So you can stay in on a Friday night then?’

  ‘I’ve been working,’ I said. ‘As I have been all week.’

  I should have been remorseful, but something about the coldness of her tone, coupled with the mental imagery of my successor ignited a little flame of rage in my head.

  ‘And as you didn’t give me the chance to explain a single thing to you last week,’ I went on, ‘I just thought you would like to know that I have now completed a quarter of the book. That interview I did last week was probably the most important thing I had to do to make the whole thing work. That was why I had to stay out longer than I promised…’

  ‘OK, Eddie,’ she cut me off. ‘It might come as a shock to you, but this is what life is like for most of us. Working for a living. Anyway, we need to talk, don’t we, so let’s try to be civilized about it.’

  That sounded ominous. The spark snuffed itself out. Fear crawled into its place.

  ‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this week,’ she said. ‘I am aware that I may not have been all that fair on you last week, but the build-up to this has been going on for years, rather than months. The trouble is, we’re both stuck in the habit of being together, aren’t we? Sharing a flat, getting by.’

  ‘Well, I know I haven’t been the ideal boyfriend in the past, but I was trying to make amends for that, you know that,’ I started, nauseously aware that my voice was starting to whine. ‘And I honestly have been working my arse off on this, you know.’

  ‘The trouble is,’ she said, and even she sounded pained, ‘it’s all a bit too little too late.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Eddie,’ she said and sighed. ‘Eddie, I’m sorry. I should have done this long ago, but I didn’t have the courage. Now I think I’ve found it. I want something different from my life and I’ve only got one chance to go out and get it. Obviously we’re going to have to get together and sort out all the details, the rent, our possessions and so on, but the bottom line is…I’m not coming back.’

  Her voice caught then, like it had taken all her energy to say her piece.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I repeated, like an automaton.

  ‘I’m not coming back to you, Eddie,’ she said, and I could hear her start to cry. ‘It’s over…’ she whispered.

  ‘No!’ I cried. ‘No, Lou-Lou, you can’t do this! I was going to take you to Paris and propose to you there. We could get married and put down money on our own place and have everything you wanted…’

  ‘Please don’t, Eddie,’ she said.

  ‘But that’s what you said you wanted! To get married, be stable – well that’s what we’ll do, I promise you Lou-Lou, I’ll be a new man, the best you’ve ever seen…’

  ‘I can’t go on,’ she croaked. ‘I’ll call you in a couple of days, we’ll sort something out. But there’s nothing you can say to change my mind.’

  ‘No! Lou-Lou no! Don’t do this to me!’

  But the line went dead.

  And so did my heart.

  20

  1-2 Crush OnYou

  August 1980

  Donna didn’t have to wait long before she saw her sudden object of desire again.

  Six-thirty the next evening, when nearly everyone else had gone home and Tracey, the receptionist, was just about to, a call buzzed through to Donna’s office. ‘Some bloke’s just turned up to see you, Donna.’ Tracey sounded somewhat harassed. ‘His name’s Vince Smith. He didn’t have an appointment or nothing, but he said you’d want to see him. Shall I tell him to piss off before I go? Your taxi’ll be here in five minutes.’

  Donna had just been about to put her own coat on in readiness to go and stand over Mood Violet’s last TOTP rehearsal. She was intending to take Tone’s advice and spend as much time with Sylvana as possible. Make sure nothing could get out of hand.

  But all it took were those two little words and suddenly she was rooted to the spot, a strange feeling washing over her. It was as if someone had just waved a magnet over her brain and erased every important thing that was previously on her mind.

  ‘No, it’s OK, Tracey,’ she heard herself say, ‘you can let him through.’

  Her voice sounded calm and businesslike. Nothing like she felt inside.

  Through the frosted glass between her room and the next, she could see his outline. Tall. Lean. Dark. Dangerous.

  ‘You sure? You never mentioned nothing about this before…’ Tracey’s voice squawked through the spell.

  ‘I’m positive, Tracey, let him through and you can go home. I can manage to lock up behind me, you know.’

  ‘What about your taxi, though?’

  God, she could be annoying. ‘I’m still getting my taxi, you don’t have to worry. Now off you go.’

  She watched the outline of Tracey put the phone down, shrug and gesticulate to the shadow of Vince, which formed a kind of indolent question mark as it lounged against the doorframe.

  By now Donna’s heart was hammering, her palms sweaty against the receiver. A decade’s worth of the ice that had held her heart together was starting to melt. Her eyes flicked across to the mirror on the wall opposite. Donna prided herself that she looked perfect at all times, but suddenly she was worried. She ran a hand through her hair, smoothed down the front of her black lace blouse, her mind running away with lurid possibilities of what could happen next.

  Then the door opened, and there he was, in that black leather coat but without the Elvis shades, giving her the full benefit of those iridescent violet eyes. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Is this the hub of your punk empire then?’

  His eyebrows twitched with mocking humour.

  Donna rose slowly from her chair, subconsciously winding a coil of her hair around her index finger. ‘How did you find me?’ she asked, her head full of static, blanking out everything but the heady desire she felt in his presence.

  Vince smiled, turned his head and watched as Tracey went out of the front door, shooting him a filthy look as she closed it behind her. His own smile deepened. ‘I can always track down what I really want,’ he said, turning back to fix Donna with a stare that burned her down to her core.

  She walked towards him, as if in a trance. For a moment, everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Then his lips touched hers and it was like a roman candle going off inside her. The next thing she knew he was ripping open that lacy blouse she had taken such pride in keeping neat, was pulling up her tight pencil skirt and grunting like some hungry animal at what lay beneath – the tight basque, the fishnet stockings that were elemental to her uniform. His hot mouth was on hers and she was letting go for the first time in her life, swooning, delirious. Seconds later he was inside her, his long and hard in her wet and hot, pushing her up against her desk, frantic, the phone falling off and crashing onto the floor. He fucked her sideways, lengthways, widthways, all over the office, while somewhere in the distance a taxi sounded its horn. Nothing else mattered but the feel of him and the frenzy that brought them together.

  Donna screamed as she came, over and over, while outside, the disgruntled cabbie put his light back on and drove away.

  Then they collapsed onto the floor, a tangle of ripped clothes and high heels, red lipstick smeared up the side of her face, hair plastered to her skull with sweat.

  They lay, panting, in each other’s arms. Donna looked up through her tangled mane with the expression of a woman who has wandered long and far through a desert before finally being given a glass of ice-cold beer.

  Vince smiled back down at her, lascivious. His left hand groped for his discarded coat and pulled it towards them. H
e fished out a packet of cigarettes, pulled out two, lit them and passed one over.

  Donna had never smoked before. Until that moment it had disgusted her, reminded her of her dad and all his furtive, greasy, ugly friends. But that gesture of Vince’s seemed so romantic to her then, that she took it gratefully in her shaking hands.

  Vince watched her puff and not inhale, an amused expression on his face.

  ‘I take it you liked our album then?’ he finally said.

  Donna burst out coughing and laughing at the same time. She hadn’t taken it out of its wrapper. ‘You were right. It’s up there with The Village People,’ she said.

  He took the cigarette out of her hands and crushed it on the floor. Her beautiful, black floor.

  ‘Do you know what you get for being cheeky?’ he said, and with one lean but immensely strong arm flipped her over on her stomach and started slapping her bare arse.

  Donna screamed and struggled, but really she was laughing, it was turning her on again. He pinned down her flailing arms with his spare hand, put his knee in the centre of her back as he leaned over her, shooting hot breath down her ear. Donna dimly realised this was all the wrong way around; that normally it was she who liked to dominate and inflict the pain. But at that moment she felt a deep, dark jolt of joy in letting go, submitting herself totally. For a second, she had the absurd thought that if she turned around she would see red horns poking out of Vince’s head, like the Devil himself was doing this to her and she never wanted him to stop. This was fucking dangerous, but she was about to come again at any second and she would have licked the cigarette ash up with her tongue if he’d asked her to.

  She squirmed and buckled under his grasp until she was spent and he let her go, let her roll over on her back, suddenly feeling somewhat immodest, pushing her skirt back down.

  She stared at him with glazed eyes. He was everything she wanted. And she had never wanted to want any other human being that much in her life. It was as if every cell in her body had been electrified, as if she had never been properly alive.

  Suddenly she couldn’t look at him for a moment longer. She scrabbled to her feet and turned to see the mirror’s harsh verdict, the vision of a wrecked, sated, lust-filled apparition she had never made the acquaintance of before.

  ‘God, what a fucking mess!’ she exclaimed.

  Casually, Vince got to his feet, tucked himself back inside his black jeans. ‘You look beautiful,’ he said, standing behind her, running a finger up her neck and round her jawline.

  With his fingers on her skin, Donna felt as if she was made of liquid and could melt and form new shapes around him. She wanted to attach herself to him so he could never cast her aside; actually become a part of him, breathing through his lungs, seeing through his eyes, feeling through his fingertips, tasting through his mouth…

  Then, with a sudden jolt, she realised that this thinking was insane. Her stomach dropped ten storeys as the static cleared from her brain and all too late those important matters she was supposed to have been attending to pushed their way back into stark relief. She saw her face flush bright red in the mirror and something like panic took over.

  ‘Never mind about that,’ she snapped, pushing him away. ‘I have to be somewhere. An hour ago.’

  ‘Really?’ He put his hand between her legs.

  Donna almost let go again.

  ‘Really!’ She pushed him away harder.

  He lifted his hands, palms outwards in submission, shrugged and moved away.

  Donna scrambled frantically around, trying to rearrange her clothes, her hair, find her handbag from where it had been kicked behind the desk. From hitting the heights of ecstasy only moments before, she suddenly felt close to despair. ‘Shit!’ she exploded.

  Vince was back inside his leather coat, looking as calm and collected as if he had only just walked in off the street. He lit a cigarette, inhaled slowly, picked a bit of stray tobacco off his bottom lip. ‘Where do you have to be?’ he asked

  ‘Rehearsal studio. Kensal Road. But now I’m gonna have to go home first and get changed. Shit! Shit! Shit!’ Donna’s voice was harsh but she was almost in tears.

  ‘Can I give you a lift?’ Vince asked calmly.

  Donna swung round. ‘You got a motor?’ she said. The thought of him driving a car almost astonished her.

  Vince winked. ‘No man with a good car needs to be justified,’ he said.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘It’s right outside,’ he continued. ‘Come on, I’ll get you there a lot quicker than some bastard cabbie. And after all,’ he put an arm around her shoulder, ‘I got you into this mess, so it’s only right I get you out again.’

  A comforting wave washed over Donna’s addled brain. Of course everything was going to be all right. They could wait an hour for her in their studio, God, it was practically their home from home. She’d just tell them there was a really important last-minute meeting with their tour manager – as actually, there had been earlier in the day. Vince could get her home in five minutes, she could get changed and ready in half an hour, then it was only ten minutes more up to the studio. It would be fine. The office could wait – she’d just get up early and sort that out before anyone else got in. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d got in before any of her staff, would it?

  ‘OK,’ she looked up at him, smiling. ‘Take me away.’

  Vince didn’t seem to want to leave her when they did get to her flat. He offered to wait around and take her back up the road. While she hurriedly showered, painted on a new face and threw on another outfit, he lounged in her front room, watching the telly. Donna tried to get her story straight in her head, but all the while a little pulse of excitement beat deep inside her. He was here. In her flat. This was the start of something. Something wild and secret. It filled her with a reckless joy.

  Good as his word, he dropped her off outside the studios. ‘You’ll be all right now?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she assured him. Although now, when it had come to the point of leaving him, she felt an irrational fear that she’d never see him again, and hesitated before reaching to open the door.

  For a second she remembered the sad look in Tone’s eyes as Vince walked away. As if sensing this, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her hungrily, as if he was never going to stop. When finally he did, he put his finger on the end of her nose and said, ‘I’ll be seeing you again soon, First Lady.’

  ‘I hope so,’ she smiled, then frowned. ‘One thing though. Don’t tell Tone about any of this. I don’t think he’d like it.’

  ‘Anthony?’ Vince looked extremely amused for a moment, then assumed a grave expression that she couldn’t tell was sincere or not. ‘You don’t have to worry about him. You got my word on that. Now, get your sexy arse out of here and go and run your empire.’

  Donna tried not to, but she couldn’t help turn around and watch him drive away before she pushed the bell on the studio door. One strange thing struck her – that Northern accent he had had when she first met him seemed to completely disappear tonight. Tonight he had sounded…almost posh.

  She shrugged and pulled herself together. As he said – she had an empire to run.

  The sight of Donna staggering in nearly two hours late with lipstick smudged across her face came as something of a shock for the four people inside the studio. ‘Mein Kommendant’ as they referred to her behind her back had never ever been late before, and was always unduly harsh to those that were. The band had been diligently practising the song for so long now that all they really wanted to do was go home.

  Watching them, ostensibly just to offer an opinion, Helen had been sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair, getting more anxious by the minute. She had already had a drawn-out couple of days.

  After Donna had burst into her shop the day before and put into loud, demanding voice all her secret fears, she and Allie had spent the evening having a long, painful conversation.

  Helen loved and trusted her husban
d for being an honest, decent human being and she realised that for him to tell tales on his oldest friend was going to be difficult. She had shut her stall up early that day, so that she could spend an extra hour making his favourite lasagne, getting the flat tidy, opening a bottle of Chianti and generally easing him into the conversation.

  She had seen the trauma written right across his face as he slowly told her some unpalatable truths that he had been carrying around with him for years. It was a conflict of interests, a kind of betrayal for Allie all right. But also, a kind of relief.

  ‘What you have to understand, hen,’ he had begun. ‘Is that Robin didnae have a very good start in life.’

  He’d unravelled it to her then, starting from when they were five, and met on their first day at infants school. Robin got picked on from the start – he was ginger and scrawny and conspicuously poorer than all the other children. This wasn’t because his family had less money – just about everyone there had a Da who worked down the pit, it was the major industry in the region – but because Robin’s Da spent most of his at the miners’ social.

  Allie himself came from a big, close-knit, religious family, who always put the emphasis on doing as you would be done by. Big for his age, happy and good-natured, Allie was the opposite type of child from the scrawny misfit in their midst, the type that would never have an enemy in the world. He instinctively took it upon himself to be the Good Samaritan and look after Robin. As they got older, and the bond of trust grew between them, he realised the extent of what his friend was going through.

  Robin was a clever child but he didn’t get any help at home. He was brilliant at practical things, like woodwork and metal work, could get his head around maths and science better than most. But it was music that he most loved and that aptitude he had for figuring things out was effortlessly applied to learning new instruments. Allie could keep up with him, but only just. Robin had more pent-up feelings to let loose than he did. Because Robin had to watch his dad do terrible things to his mum. He didn’t tell Allie what they were but Allie could fairly surmise most of it. Sometimes Robin’s mum couldn’t leave the house for weeks on end. Sometimes she stood at the school gate with livid colours around her eyes, or walked with a hobble. Robin had to look after her most of the time, do the washing, cooking and cleaning. He spent a lot of time at Allie’s house, but a return invitation was never offered, and Allie knew better than to ask. As well as his friend’s talents, he had also witnessed the black moods that crippled him, the thin, angry red lines that appeared on his arms when he’d come back from a couple of day’s unexplained absence from school.