The Singer

by Cathi Unsworth

  And, as much as I tried to keep such thoughts from my head, you could tell what she must have once been like – a bit naughty, a bit dirty, a wink and a promise on those arched eyebrows like she could do you like you’d never been done before.

  But after we’d spent three hours reliving all the highs of her youth, I knew that we were heading towards the inevitable low, the unhappy ending, at speed. When we’d got to the point when she realised Sylvana was getting beaten up by Robin on a regular basis, her demeanour changed, the light slowly drained out of her face, and she played with her rings and ruffled her spiky head continually.

  ‘Bad times,’ she said, staring off into space. I thought I was going to lose her then, but she made an effort, pulled herself back from it.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘do you want another drink?’ She obviously needed to do something with her hands. ‘Another coffee? Or do you want a beer or something? Sun’s over the yard arm now, Eddie.’

  Why not, I thought, I could do with a bit of Dutch courage myself now. She seemed a lot happier when I accepted her offer, brought a cold bottle of Grolsch back from her fridge and watched me pour it into a glass with an expression of near contentment.

  ‘I only keep the good stuff in, Eddie. I’ve always tried to live that way,’ she said and then sighed. ‘I suppose you know how it all went for me, did Ray tell you?’

  ‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,’ I said, giving her my most sympathetic eyes, while desperately hoping she’d still spill.

  She ruffled her hair again, tucked her legs up underneath her and hugged her knees. ‘There ain’t a lot to say, really. My band split up, my business went to the wall, I ended up in a psychiatric unit for six months and then in and out of them places for the next five years. No one wanted to know me then, I can assure you. Ray’s the only person from them years what did anything for me in the bad times.’ She couldn’t stop the bitterness from giving her voice an edge as she said this. She blinked hard, turning her head to look out of the window for a moment, before turning back to me.

  ‘And as you can see, the medication they put me on ain’t done wonders for my looks over the years. It keeps you calm but it bloats you out at the same time – so, you get your mind back, but not your body, not your face. I think it horrifies people to see that, you know. Too much of a reminder of their own mortality, I s’pose. I was beautiful once, Eddie. You probably wouldn’t credit it to look at me now…’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ I said, and actually I meant it. ‘You’ve done one helluva lot better than some of the people I’ve met—’ I stopped myself then, just before the words came tumbling out that would have thrown mine and Ray’s carefully constructed plan into jeopardy ‘—doing this feature,’ I finished.

  ‘Yeah well,’ Donna shrugged, ‘I expect most of them got that way doing illegal drugs. I’m the only one who was forced to take legal ones. Ironic, ain’t it?’

  ‘Considering how much you did achieve, though,’ I said, trying to wing the conversation round from anything else that might slip me up, ‘weren’t you ever tempted to go back in to management, or PR or something?’

  She gave me a look as if I was the one on medication.

  ‘Management? PR? I was a punk, Eddie, for fack’s sake. Not some big business flunky. It did use to mean something, then… But by the time I was finally well enough to face the world again, it weren’t a place I understood no more. You think about it – and you can shove this in your piece, it’ll give you some perspective – it only took ten years from Johnny Rotten singing ‘God Save The Queen’ to them load of rock star ponces doing facking Live Aid. I mean,’ she rolled her eyes, ‘Bob facking Geldof. Do you know what I mean? From the shittest Johnny-come-lately punk band there ever was to the Jesus of the Jet Set. What a player. What a rotter. What a facking cahnt.’

  The way she said it made me laugh so hard I had tears in my eyes. Donna liked this. I could tell by the way she twirled a few more insults in Geldof’s direction, delivering them like an outtake from Derek & Clive Ad Nauseam.

  ‘More tea, vicar?’ she asked, picking up my empty bottle.

  As she sashayed back off to her fridge, I found I could hardly keep my eyes off her arse. Pull yourself together, Eddie! I told myself. This woman looks like an old, shaved lesbian. You can’t possibly fancy her. Think of England! I managed to think of another question by the time she returned. ‘But haven’t you noticed how fashionable early eighties music is nowadays? Every time I turn on Jools Holland he’s got some new bunch of palefaced twats with Mohicans sounding like a cross between Gang of Four, The Cure and The Bunnymen. Weren’t you ever tempted to re-release the Mood Violet back catalogue on CD? Surely you could make a fortune off of that nowadays.’

  Donna sat back on the sofa with a huge sigh, rubbing her forehead. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘You would think so, wouldn’t you? But it ain’t that easy. That band were facking cursed, Eddie. They curse me to this day.’

  It was like a sudden stormcloud had descended into the middle of that sunny evening. Donna shook her head, stood up and walked over to the window.

  I was bewildered. ‘What do you mean?’ I said, following her.

  She stood with her back to me, gazing down on West London, her fingers twisting over her silver rings. ‘Thing is,’ she said without turning round. ‘I don’t actually own the rights to Mood Violet’s back catalogue. I had a secret business partner, you see. He fronted me the money and in return, he got to earn a certain percentage back from their records, whereas I just got a cut off the tour and the swag.’

  She turned around and her black eyes were strained, fearful. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, Eddie. Even Ray don’t know nuffink about it. Talking about old times has loosened my tongue and that ain’t good.’ She shivered despite the heat, wrapped her arms around herself.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’ll turn off the tape recorder. I doubt it’s even caught any of this conversation from here, but you can rest assured, I won’t put anything into this feature you don’t want. You’ve been very kind to give me so much of your time today as it is. If you want me to go now, I fully understand.’

  ‘Nah, nah, it’s not that. Please, don’t take offence, Eddie. Sit down and finish your beer. Only, if you don’t mind,’ she nodded towards my dictaphone, ‘keep that thing off for now.’

  She came and sat back down again, but she was still agitated. I could have called it a day then and left with a bit of character for the book that it would have been the poorer without. But I didn’t want to stop there. I wanted to know why she was in that photograph with Vince and I had a feeling we might be teetering on the verge of it. Something else too. I had started to care about what had happened to Donna. Despite what everyone had said about her, I had started to like her.

  ‘I shouldn’t do this,’ she said. ‘But could I ponce one of your fags?’

  ‘Of course.’ I passed the packet over and she took one out, lit it hurriedly and inhaled as if her life depended on it. Then she started coughing, ended up laughing.

  ‘Facking hell,’ she said. ‘You’re bringing out all of my dark side, Eddie.’ She looked me up and down slyly. ‘It’s ‘cos you look too much like Dave Vanian. I used to fancy him something rotten.’

  Whatever it takes, I thought, although I had to admit, I was still getting a bit of an embarrassing stir myself. ‘Did you ever make his acquaintance?’ I asked, raising one eyebrow in the Roger Moore fashion that Louise had once amused me with.

  She laughed a bit more, then shook her head, stubbing the half-smoked fag out in the ashtray so hard it snapped in half. ‘Nah,’ she said. ‘More’s the pity, he was a proper gent by all accounts, was Vanian. Nah. Muggins here ended up with the booby prize to end ‘em all. Not that I thought so at the time, of course. I thought I’d snagged the facking Prince of Darkness, I did. Thought he was a facking prince an’ all. Trouble was, so did everyone else.’

  I did my best to look puzzled.

  ‘A
s you probably know from your punk studies,’ she said, ‘Mood Violet fucked up because my singer, dear little Sylvana, ran off with big bad Vincent Smith.’

  I nodded, trying to keep the excitement from shining through into my eyes.

  ‘Yeah? Well, what you don’t know was that at the time that happened, for my sins, I was facking the wanker myself. What a facking carve-up that was.’ She shook her head, then looked me straight in the eye and said: ‘If you want a real facking story, Eddie, you should write something about him. You could write a whole book about his exploits.’

  The next second seemed to take a million years. I could feel a lump rising in my throat and a slight loosening at the other end of my abdomen while those black eyes held mine in a steady, unblinking gaze.

  Shit, she can’t know, I told myself furiously. How could she know? Keep that smile on your face Eddie, prove to her you’re a stand-up guy.

  Then she shook her head and laughed. ‘Nah, scratch that. It wouldn’t be a very smart idea to go sniffing down that alley.’

  ‘Oh,’ I tried to regain my composure, ‘why is that then?’

  ‘Because,’ Donna leaned back in her seat, ‘everyone who’s ever got near him is either mad, lost or dead and in some people’s cases probably all three. Like Robin. I mean, as I said to you before, I don’t even know where he ended up and I suppose I was lucky in comparison – at least I had proper psychiatric care’, she pronounced the last two words with deep sarcasm. ‘But he had that effect on people, did Vince. He really was in a league of his own.’

  ‘So how come you fell for him?’ I ventured.

  ‘It’s took me a long time to work that out,’ she said, playing with one of her rings. ‘But what I finally realised was, Vince was the ultimate addiction. ‘Cos I didn’t have any before I met him – I was careful not to. But he worked out what my weakness was without me even knowing that I had one. Then, over a period of months, he exploited it, until I was totally dependent on it. When he knew I was, he took it away. With most people, it was drugs. That was what he worked on his band, his hangers-on, silly little Sylvana. But with me, Eddie, with me it was love.’

  She looked so vulnerable when she said it, so little and alone, I felt a real stab of pity for her.

  ‘I would have followed that wanker to the ends of the earth,’ she went on, ‘despite the fact he’d ruined my whole life for me, as casual as you like. The first time they let me out of that funny farm, I was probably more mad than when I went in. See all these white patches here?’ She pointed to the sides of her head. ‘That’s from pulling all my hair out when he ran off with Sylvana. I had to learn to curb that sort of behaviour or they never would have let me see daylight again. So the first thing I learned was be sneaky. I needed to be an’ all, I’d made so many enemies by then. But I found out where he was. With Sylvana gone, I stupidly thought I could get him to come back to me. You’d have thought I’d have learned my lesson by then, wouldn’t you? But nah. I had to go to Paris incognito in a stupid blonde wig and make a right fool of myself all over again. He done a bunk after that, did his disappearing act what you’ve probably heard about. But Vince was too much of an arsehole to leave it like that with me.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Eddie, I’m ranting, nasty habit of mine I will admit up to. D’you want another beer?’

  By then I would have agreed to anything. Anything to keep her on this story. Anything to get her to the end of it. I tried to stop my left foot from bouncing up and down as she went back to the fridge. Looked at the nuclear sunset instead. The Trustafari were right, you got a fucking amazing view from the Trellick. All of West London disappearing in a molten haze of orange and red. Skies like you wouldn’t believe.

  ‘What were we supposed to be talking about?’ she asked as she came back.

  ‘I’m not sure myself,’ I laughed. ‘Blimey, Donna. It’s like an acid trip, that sunset.’ I knew I was talking shit, but I thought if I did, she might get bored and go back to the story.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said, ‘I’ve never done one.’

  ‘Neither have I,’ I admitted, ‘but that’s how I’d imagine it to be.’

  And I wasn’t imagining her sitting down a bit closer to me.

  ‘Ah, that wanker Vince. Nah, you don’t wanna know about him.’ She shook her head and I knocked back half the beer virtually in one, forgetting even to pour it in the glass. My head was starting to swim. Donna looked at me with that glint in her eye again, like she’d had at the front door.

  ‘Do you know how I cured myself, Eddie?’ she asked. I shook my head, wiped my lips with my cuff. ‘There was only two things I was ever good at, you know, and I realised I’d have to use at least one of them to survive on me own. First one was hairdressing. Well, why would I bother to do that, I was bored to tears with it as a teenager. Silly cows coming in with their little pictures of Farrah Fawcett-Majors or Debbie Harry, thinking you could do their face for ’em while you were at it. Then getting all upset afterwards when they still looked ugly. Fack that for a game of soldiers. I just do me own hair now, clip it all off like a man. I can’t kid myself I’ll ever be beautiful again, and after all, a fat lot of good it did me in the first place.’

  Her eyes were fierce now and my knees were turning to jelly. Her left breast was perilously close to the side of my face and the room was far too hot.

  ‘So what do you do?’ I uttered weakly.

  ‘I put on a wig,’ she said, ‘strap myself into a corset and beat the living shit out of silly little men,’

  That should have been enough to see me out of the door and out of that tower like a streak of greased weasel shit. But as the words left Donna’s mouth, I found myself with an enormous hardon. The next thing I knew, her hand was on top of it, and she was leaning over me saying, ‘Thing is, Eddie, I kind of miss having a normal fuck. Especially with a man what looks like Dave Vanian.’

  And all those months of loneliness, all those nights of crying over Louise, all those stories of Vince and Sylvana and Steve and Donna and Helen and Allie, they all swirled round in my head like a rush of mad voodoo and all I wanted was her mouth over mine and my cock inside her and her huge tits right in my face and her huge arse right on top of me, grinding me into her red leather sofa while the sun set in a blaze behind us, all of West London aflame, coming into the lava flow of that sky and her thighs.

  And then I must have passed out because the next thing I knew the room was dark and I was lying on the sofa with my flies open and a horrible cold mess congealing on my belly. Donna was sitting next to me, calmly smoking one of my cigarettes.

  ‘You all right now, love?’ she said as she saw me open my eyes. ‘The bathroom’s back through the hallway, on the left. I think you probably need to clean up a bit.’

  My head was hammering like I’d downed a vat of beer, not just three, or was it four bottles? I tried to piece together what terrible spell she must have cast over me for it to end up like this as I staggered to my feet and made tenuous steps towards her bathroom. All I could think was, thank God she didn’t turn the light on, as I really, really didn’t want to see what I had just done.

  Her bathroom was as stark as the front room. Everything chrome, everything spotless. In her mirror, my face looked a hundred years old. I tried not to heave as I patted down the mess on my shirt with some toilet paper, shoved everything back where it properly belonged. I splashed more cold water on my face, tried to bring myself back to my senses, knowing only now that the main thing was to get out of here.

  Donna had put a low wattage lamp on when I finally picked my way back to the front room. It cast her in a better light than I had expected.

  ‘I’ve called you a cab,’ she said kindly. ‘My usual firm, they won’t be long and they won’t charge you much either.’

  I felt a wave of nausea as she said the word ‘charge’, but I fought it down, I really didn’t want to piss her off now. Though on the contrary, Donna was looking pretty pleased with herself.

 
‘I remembered what we were supposed to be talking about,’ she said, as I gingerly sat back down, noting that my dicataphone was still where I had left it and my bag didn’t appear to have been disturbed.

  ‘Oh?’ I said, doing my best to smile.

  ‘You wanted to know about Vince, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘I was telling you how he wouldn’t let it finish with me, weren’t I?’

  I just nodded. I had no idea now where she would go next.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘After he did his big disappearing act, he kept sending me postcards. Just so as he could keep me under his thumb, just so I could never keep my head straight. First it was from Marseilles. Then it was Tangiers. Travelled around a bit, I can tell you, but he always wanted me to know how well he was doing for himself, how happy he was that I wasn’t with him.’

  She was smiling a strange, glassy smile. I wondered if her medication was starting to wear off, but perhaps she really was just grateful for a clumsy fuck with someone who reminded her of her youthful crush.

  ‘Seville was the next place,’ she went on. ‘He thought he had it good there for a while. But then it all went quiet for a few years so I thought he must have got nicked or something, ‘bout facking time an’ all. But that weren’t it. Nah. He found a better place. A place where no one knew him from Adam; a place where he could run things without the law bothering him or nuffink. A place,’ she snapped her fingers and her bangles jangled at her wrist, ‘where they do all their living by night. Do you want to know where that place is, Eddie? All them people think he’s been dead all this time, but he ain’t. If only they knew.’