The Singer

by Cathi Unsworth

  ‘Me and Robin missed all of this, of course, we was still dicking around in the basement with the Germans. First we knew was some guy appearing in the doorway saying the filth were on their way and if we had any gear we’d better get rid of it fast. So we go upstairs to find Helen putting an ice-pack on Lynton’s head, Stevens all red in the face and fuming and Sylvana completely disappeared. Which, of course, sent Robin off the deep end.’

  ‘We calmed him down enough to get him back to their flat,’ said Helen, ‘and of course, she wasn’t there. I had her passport and everything back at my house, so I went home, hoping she’d turn up there, while those two spent the whole night driving round, trying to find her. It’s a miracle you didn’t get arrested for drunk driving.’ She took Allie’s fingers in her own.

  ‘Aye.’ He nodded. ‘Or driving under the influence of a fucking maniac. I’d seen Robin’s moods before, but Jesus Christ, I’d never seen anything like he was that night. I probably shouldae just handed him in at Broadmoor there and then.’

  ‘Sylvie was right though, he did suspect something,’ Helen said. ‘Didn’t he keep saying to you, “I knew it! I knew it!”?’

  ‘Aye, he did. And then he started threatening Helen. Things between us two went downhill pretty quick after that.’

  ‘But you must have seen her again, otherwise how did she get to Paris with Vince?’ I asked.

  ‘After a week, that poor Lynton turned up to my stall in Ken Market,’ said Helen. ‘He told me that Sylvie was with Vince in some hotel somewhere, that she was safe and happy and that they planned to elope to France. She didn’t want anyone to know, because by then Donna had told Robin what she’d seen, and he was going round threatening death to them both. And, of course, if she was too scared to face her parents about Robin, she didn’t want them to know that she was about to run off with another bloke; they would have put a stop to that right there and then. But she wanted me to know that she would always be thankful to me for trying to help her and for being her best friend…’

  Helen choked again then and had to spend a few minutes wiping away more tears.

  ‘So, eventually, after a lot of sneaking around, I met up with Lynton at a fabric shop in Berwick Street and handed him the suitcase and all her things. We knew Robin had gone mad and was following us all around in case we’d lead him to her, so it was the only thing I could think of. I always went to that shop for my fabric, and I always came back with bolts of stuff in a suitcase.’

  ‘God, how horrible,’ I said. I decided then not to tell them about Robin threatening me. They’d been through enough of his debased behaviour for them to have to worry that even now he might be spying on them with field glasses from a nearby tree.

  Eerily, Allie appeared to be reading my mind.

  ‘You better hope he doesnae find out about you writing this book, eh?’ he said.

  ‘Do you know where he is now?’ I asked, a tad hastily.

  ‘No, thank Christ. Like I said, we cut our losses with London and moved out here as soon as we possibly could. We didn’t realise, but Helen was four weeks pregnant with Luke at the time we went to that party. If old Lynton hadn’t got in the way of Donna, things couldae ended up immeasurably worse. We didnae tell anyone in the music business what we were doing, no one knew but our families but we couldnae have our first child growing up with all that madness around us.’

  ‘God, so it was all over, just like that?’ I said, remembering Louise and her suitcase.

  ‘More or less.’ Helen had recovered her composure. ‘I never did see poor Sylvie again. The last I heard from her was the week before she died. She called me from Paris totally distraught because her grandma had died. I think that was why she did what she did. I think that just pushed her over the edge. ‘Cos from everything we saw and heard about Vince Smith after she died, I think her knight in shining armour was a very dark prince indeed. She just went out of the frying pan into the fire. I suppose the grimmest irony was that Donna had spent all those years chasing after Sylvie’s cash, and lover boy just waltzed off with the lot. Not that it ended up doing him any good. I like to think he came to a very unpleasant end. I like to think of him in a cold, dark, unmarked grave…’

  ‘And that,’ Allie, ‘is where the story ends.’

  I took the hint and switched the tape recorder off. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much for talking to me, both of you. It can’t have been easy and I really appreciate it.’

  ‘Nae bother.’ Allie got to his feet. ‘Shall I run you back to the station now?’

  ‘Thank you, that would be great.’

  Helen stood up and offered me another of her bone-crushing handshakes. ‘Just remember,’ she said, ‘to tell it like it was. Tell the truth about her for once. That’s the least she deserves.’

  Conversation was muted as we drove back over that tranquil, leafy landscape, gilded by the slowly sinking sun. Now I really understood why they loved it so much here. It was a sanctuary, a place to bury the past and bring up a better, cleaner future.

  ‘So,’ Allie finally said, as we approached the outskirts of St Albans. ‘Are you going to talk to Donna then?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said honestly, not relishing tangling with a female equivalent of Robin. ‘Part of me thinks I should. I mean, today has been great, I’m really thankful to you and Helen ‘cos I wouldn’t have got to the truth any other way. So I kind of feel that for the sake of the book I should meet her. On the other hand, Ray said that if I did, I might end up not being able to get rid of her.’

  ‘Well,’ Allie frowned. ‘If you want my advice, I’d stay the hell away. Her and Robin are the last two people you want knowing where you live.’

  ‘Was she really that bad? If she looked after your band for all those years…’

  ‘Whatever madness got uncorked that night,’ Allie said solemnly, ‘it never got put back into the bottle. Donna was all right up until that point. Helen never liked her, true enough, but I never saw the harm in her, she always did the most for our career that she possibly could. But after that night, forget about it – she showed her claws, she was as mad as Robin. And her whole world crumbled without Mood Violet. She lost her main band and without that, the rest of her business went up the Swanee pretty quickly. She ended up with nothing after being the virtual Queen Bee of that scene for so long. If you were to meet her now, I’d say you’d meet the most viciously bitter woman alive.’

  By now we had reached the train station car park. ‘Well,’ said Allie. ‘Whatever you decide, good luck to you, man. You’ll no doubt need it.’

  He raised a comical eyebrow, but I think he was deadly serious.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, unlocking my seatbelt. ‘And tell Helen, I won’t let her down.’

  ‘Aye. Well. Safe home, Eddie.’

  It was still a beautiful, warm evening, but I felt a little shiver as the genial Scotsman drove away. I felt that my supposedly inspirational story of a band who never got their due was starting to get hijacked by dark forces of insanity and obsession. All was not as it had seemed in the shiny new world of post-punk. Should I delve into it, head first, do a real exposé on what the music business did to people? Or should I just stick with what I had, take the safe route away from any other ghouls I might dig up from their long sleep?

  ‘Youz goes proddin’ around amongst the deed like this an’ don’ be surprised a what springs up outta the coffin,’ mad Robin Leith had warned me. Could this Donna be even worse than him? And what was I – a man or a mouse?

  ‘Safe home, Eddie.’

  Safe home…

  24

  The Flowers of Romance

  January 1981

  ‘I am lost,’ she told him. ‘I shouldn’t be here and I don’t know how to get out of it now.’

  The words just fell out of her mouth and for a moment she was shocked she had uttered them to a complete stranger. Although there was something familiar about this man. She had the strangest feeling she had met him before
and that it was perfectly logical she should talk to him this way. Either that or she had made him up in a dream. Whatever it was, she felt that she already knew him.

  ‘Well, that’s no good then, is it?’ he said. He had a deep voice, with some of the Northern inflection she had caught in Lynton’s. As he spoke, she put two and two together. She had seen him before, or at least his picture. On the pages of Sounds, NME and Melody Maker.

  ‘Are you the singer in Blood Truth?’ she asked.

  ‘Vincent Smith, at your service.’ He stuck out a hand and she took it. It was cool and strong. ‘And I know who you are. You’re Sylvana.’

  His eyes were an incredible colour. Fringed with long, dark lashes, they seemed to dip from deep blue to violet as he turned his head in the light. Her favourite colours; the colours of twilight; the colours she had named her band for. The hideous spectral din emanating from the jukebox seemed to dim in his presence.

  ‘Oh.’ Sylvana had no idea he might have been reading the same papers as she did or would even be interested if he had. ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘So were you not invited then?’ he said. ‘Did you sneak your way in to take a look at the pop stars?’

  The way he said it, she couldn’t help but laugh. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said, playing along. ‘And I was so disappointed in them, that now I want to leave. Although I did like the bass player from your band. He’s somewhere over there, if you want to find him.’

  Sylvana reluctantly dragged her eyes away and cast them around the room. Lynton seemed to have been absorbed into the throng of bodies around the tables of food and drink; she couldn’t see him at all, although her new companion was that much taller he probably had a better view.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Vince followed her gaze, caught sight of Lynton ensnared in conversation with Paul King, and smiled. He’d heard enough of their publisher’s travellers tales to know the bassist wouldn’t be back here in a hurry. ‘I see enough of him as it is. I’d rather find out why you don’t want to be here.’

  Those words brought her back to earth with a bump. Robin, after all, was in this house somewhere, only metres away from where they stood. Helen would probably be back any minute as well, to keep her under house arrest until she could ship her back to bloody Glo who would probably ground her in New Jersey for the rest of her life. No, that was so unfair to Helen, she was trying her best to help, but what use would going back home really be? Whichever way it went, she would be trapped somewhere against her will.

  Sylvana felt a wave of panic rising within her. What was she doing, talking to this guy as if there was a chance of her being able to date him, or leave with him, or do anything normal whatsoever with him? What was she doing entertaining such thoughts when she was about to be forced into the most monumental decision of her life?

  ‘Oh God.’ She tried to say something more, but the tears welled up in her eyes, tears of exasperation, fear and rage, tears of the perennially put-upon who had buried her real feelings too deep too long.

  ‘Hey,’ Vince put a gentle finger on her cheek and caught the hot drop in the end of it. ‘I thought you were supposed to be some kind of ice maiden. But you’re not, are you? Are things really that bad?’

  His eyes were so concerned, his voice so soft, she wanted to break down right there and then. She nodded, not daring to say anything more.

  ‘Well, I know what you mean.’ His eyes did one more scan around the room. ‘I can’t see anything but a load of arseholes and hangers-on in this room, stuffing themselves with Anthony’s free booze like pigs round a trough. No doubt the rest of the house is the same.’

  He paused. ‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’

  Sylvana looked up at him sharply. There was no trace of mockery in his eyes; rather, he was inclining his head towards the door, one eyebrow raised in suggestion.

  He couldn’t have said more magical words.

  She could do it, couldn’t she? She could just walk out of here right here and now while Robin and Helen were looking the other way, go someplace else, someplace they wouldn’t know about. Then she wouldn’t have to catch that plane tomorrow. She wouldn’t have to go home with Robin and suffer another night of his insane rage. She could get away and work out what to do from a safe distance.

  With the help of this beautiful stranger.

  ‘Yeah,’ she whispered and at last her heart felt free. Yeah, that’s what she was gonna do.

  ‘Right,’ Vince enveloped her in his right arm. ‘Come with me.’

  The journey from the kitchen to the front door felt like the most perilous voyage she’d ever been on. There were so many people to wade through she was sure that at any moment she’d feel a hand on her collar and get hauled out of Vince’s arms. But he held onto her tight and pushed his way through, ignoring a couple of people who called out his name. Sylvana’s heart was hammering as he opened the front door. She had made it. She had actually made it.

  It was as if he knew what was going on inside her mind. They stood on top of the front steps for a moment as Vince looked left and right up Blomfield Road, seeing if the coast was clear. Then he whispered in her ear: ‘Let’s scarper!’ and they ran down the steps, out of the gate and up the road, not stopping until they had reached the end of it and stood panting on the bridge over the canal.

  ‘I think we did it,’ Vince said, looking back down the road to make sure no one had followed. Sylvana followed his gaze, then her eyes dropped to the scene below. Away from the pressure and the noise and the hellish forced conviviality of that house, the night was a different world. On each side of the canal were moored a line of barges, painted up like gypsy caravans, a whole separate community living under the noses of the big mansions that lined the street. Some of them were having their own New Year’s celebrations and they had decked out their craft with fairy lights to add to their magical presence, so that they looked like little floating grottoes that cast dancing reflections across the surface of the water. People stood on deck drinking and the blur of their laughter and conversation spilled out into the night air, along with a decidedly different tune to what had been playing at Tony’s – the shiny pop of ABBA’s ‘Super Trouper’. Something about the purity of those girls’ voices gave Sylvana hope.

  Vince smiled at her. ‘Come on,’ he said, grabbing hold of her hand. ‘We’re not safe yet.’

  He led her across the bridge and down the other side, past a pub on the corner where more revellers were singing along boisterously to ‘Start’ by The Jam, and down a little side road that came out to a sudden roar of traffic by the side of the Westway.

  They stood on the corner by the traffic lights, blinking in the sudden shift from pretty Little Venice to the heart of the concrete basin. Above their heads, the vast arch of the flyover blocked off the view to Paddington beyond. It was the point where West London was cut in half.

  ‘It’s pretty easy to get a cab from here,’ said Vince. ‘We can go anywhere you like. So where do you fancy?’

  Sylvana’s heart danced. She was leaving her old life behind; she had a right to celebrate that as much as all these other people were celebrating the start of 1981. Not only the right, but also the means. Although both of them had agreed that Helen should keep hold of her passport for safety, Sylvana had decided to keep her chequebook and bank card on her, and still had them, in the black velvet bag she carried, its bootlace straps wrapped around her wrist.

  There was plenty of money in that bank account. It was time for a revolution.

  ‘Do you think they still have a room at the Ritz?’ she asked him.

  His mouth dropped open. ‘The Ritz?’

  ‘Or Claridges. Or the Hilton. Anywhere with a bit of class, anywhere those music business scumbags don’t hang out. Don’t worry; I can pay for it. So long as you’ve got some money for a cab, I can take care of the rest.’

  A broad grin spread across Vince’s face.

  ‘Yo
u really weren’t joking about being disappointed with Anthony’s party, were you?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve had enough of that whole scene. As from now,’ she felt a rush of liberation as strong as the feelings of despair she’d had at the party, ‘I quit my band. Mood Violet is over and I’m hereby emancipated. You want to celebrate that with me?’

  Vince looked both astonished and delighted. ‘Well,’ he said, catching sight of a yellow light gliding towards them and sticking his arm out as he did so, ‘like I said, I’m at your service.’

  ‘Good,’ Sylvana smiled as the cab pulled over. ‘Then let’s get lost.’

  The cabbie decided their venue for them. The centre of London was closed off to traffic; they’d have to get out and walk through the celebrating hordes if they wanted to try their luck at Claridges or the Ritz. But he could get them to the Hilton on the other side of Hyde Park.

  The cabbie had his radio on and somewhere between Paddington and Park Lane, they heard the countdown to midnight begin. Sylvana and Vince stared at each other, smiling like naughty children who’d given their parents the slip. Then, as the announcer yelled ‘Happy Noooooo Year!’ like some Butlin’s bingo caller and the banging of fireworks filled the air, suddenly they were kissing. The longest, tenderest kiss Sylvana had ever known. The diametric opposite to Robin with his urgent tongue-grinding and clumsy, needy caresses. Kissing Vince was like kissing an angel, tender and beautiful and erotic, like swimming in a turquoise sea in a pink and golden sunset.

  When she opened her eyes he was staring back at her with what looked like awe.

  ‘Park Lane Hilton,’ said the cabbie.

  Wherever this new confidence that bloomed within her had come from, it completely energised Sylvana. Things she would never have dreamed she could do before suddenly became the merest trifles – almost, she realised, as if she had somehow tapped into her mother’s persuasive powers and knew how to get exactly what she wanted.