A Possible Life

by Sebastian Faulks

  I had my hands poised for the barrelhouse piano of ‘Run Me Crazy’ and I didn’t know what to do. But I recognised the chords she was ripping out on her jangly twelve-string. It was the song she’d written leaning over my shoulder in the farmhouse. I hadn’t heard it from that day to this and thought she’d given up on it. She’d changed the words, though, and while it was still a lively song, it wasn’t comic any more. ‘Hold me, you brown-eyed stranger,/Don’t let me go/There’s a mighty road to travel/And some dangers I don’t know.’ It was the closest thing she’d written to a pop song, with a catchy falling melody and a shuffling beat and those little internal rhymes she liked.

  But just then I wasn’t thinking about rhymes. I was watching this absurdly talented young woman leaning forward to the microphone, striking rich chords and singing. I was picturing the weeks ahead.

  We stayed drinking and talking till about two, then walked back through the cool night. Most of the old guys in the Bowery had stopped screaming at the dark and had slumped down in the doorways, but there were still a couple of hopeful hookers on 2nd Avenue. Anya was holding my arm as she always did on this walk back. We turned on to Seventh Street, and I had no sense of the big paving slabs beneath my feet, didn’t see the fire hydrants or the iron braces on the kerb. I stuck the key in the lock and we reached the third floor slightly out of breath. We’d hardly spoken on the way back. She just held my arm. There wasn’t much to say.

  ‘You want a drink, Freddy? Scotch?’

  ‘OK.’

  She poured two tumblers and handed one to me. Neither of us liked Scotch. We clinked glasses and drank. I put mine down on the square table where she left the ruin of her breakfast things. I put my hands on her shoulders.

  ‘You were good,’ I said.

  ‘I was OK. You were perfect.’

  She reached up and kissed me on the mouth. I felt the shock go through my spine. We kissed again and she began to breathe quickly.

  After a minute, she said, ‘Wait. I’ll call you in a moment.’

  She went into her room, where I could hear her draw the curtains and light matches for candles. The bar of electric light under the door disappeared.

  ‘You can come in now,’ she said.

  She’d taken off all her clothes and thrown them on the chair. I was still fully dressed as she came into my arms and kissed me again. I let my hands feel the softness of her skin, on her back, down over her hips.

  ‘Anya—’

  She silenced me with her tongue. After a minute she said, ‘You going to take your clothes off now, mister?’

  ‘Sure.’

  My hands were shaking as she shut the door behind us.

  ‘I can’t believe we—’

  ‘I know, Freddy, I know. Just hold me. Hold me, you brown-eyed stranger.’

  I laughed, but winced a little too.

  Then she put her lips against my ear, pressed her body hard against mine and whispered, ‘Now just fuck me, you beautiful, beautiful man.’

  ‘Ask me nicely.’

  ‘Please, Freddy. Please fuck me. I think you’ll like it. Please, please, please.’

  A few days later, we were on the plane. Anya was at the window, looking at the yellowish slabs of Missouri or maybe Kansas underneath. She was holding my hand in her lap while her other hand was swizzling the little plastic stick in her vodka and tonic.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘is that Devils Lake?’

  ‘Looks a little too populated. Anyway, Devils Lake’s way up north.’

  ‘I know. I was just teasing.’

  ‘Well, stop teasing.’ She leaned over and kissed me chastely on the lips, but immediately there was a charge and I had to pull my head away.

  ‘So,’ I said, clearing my throat. ‘Let’s make that final list of songs.’

  ‘How many we aiming for?’

  ‘I think we should record twelve. They may want to bring it down to ten. I guess we’re aiming at not more than twenty minutes a side. Maybe less for a first record.’

  ‘We get to choose which two we drop?’

  ‘Sure. Unless there’s some sure-fire hit they insist on keeping.’

  ‘Well, I guess we’re safe there.’

  The definites at this stage were ‘Genevieve’, ‘Julie in the Court of Dreams’, ‘You Next Time’, ‘Ready to Fly’ and ‘Hold Me’. That was one side of the record. There were about fifteen other contenders, and this was where the hard work would be. Anya wanted ‘Reservation Town’ and ‘Run Me Crazy, Run Me Wild’, though I thought her reasons were personal, not musical. The first one reminded her of travelling to Chicago for the first time at the age of eighteen and the second of the great evenings we’d just lived through in New York. I thought she had several stronger songs, but I decided to wait and see what emerged in the studio.

  Then we were over the Rockies and Anya had fallen asleep with her head on my shoulder. As soon as she was unconscious, I thought of Lowri, back on the other side of the country. I pictured her mountains, the Catskills, and her weather, which would be getting cold. I’d call her from the hotel. The odd thing was that I only thought of Lowri when Anya was asleep. When Anya was awake I lived in her eyes and nowhere else existed. I nodded off, too, somewhere over the desert, and was awoken by the attendant telling me to fasten my seat belt for landing.

  We took a cab from LAX and I felt what I always did arriving in this strange place and driving up Sepulveda. How Spanish, how low and spreadeagled it was compared to New York. It was a different continent. It must have been just as hard, in fact harder, to build a city here, where they didn’t even have water. America always made you feel in awe of what previous generations had done. All these spaced-out people on the street, but someone strong had come before and done the work.

  The Hotel Pasadena Star was on one of the dingier parts of Sunset. The reception desk was kicked and scuffed. It had a heavy dial telephone and there was a slow fan overhead that stirred the leaves of a potted palm.

  The desk clerk looked like a sickly Sammy Davis, Jr. ‘I have two rooms for you,’ he said, holding out a pair of keys with heavy metal fobs. ‘That’s 274 at the front here. That’s a premier room with a view over Hollywood, and 289 is in back overlooking our Japanese garden. You have a mini-bar in the room. The room charges are all taken care of, but not the extras.’

  ‘Are the rooms near each other?’ said Anya.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. They’re right across the hall.’

  ‘Can we get something to eat?’

  ‘We don’t have a restaurant, ma’am, but there’s a sandwich menu in your room. I can get something sent up. You also have a kitchenette in 274 if you’d care to make yourself a snack.’

  ‘Is there a grocery store nearby?’

  ‘I guess you’d need to take a cab. I’ll get the bellhop to take your bags and I’ll find out for you.’

  The bellhop, a burly man who looked to me like Sam Cooke, tried to take Anya’s guitar and found himself told not to touch it. Three other guitars had been shipped direct to the studio, but this one had had to fly with us as carry-on.

  We took the elevator together. It was a squash and I could tell by the way she turned her face to the wall that Anya was trying not to laugh.

  The rooms were drab, with 1950s furnishings. Number 274 at the front had that cracked grout in the bathroom that always made me think of cockroaches. There was no air conditioning, but when you opened the window you were hit by the traffic noise from Sunset. Number 289, overlooking the Japanese garden (a yard with pea-shingle in place of a lawn), was north-facing and dark, but much quieter.

  I fumbled for a tip. I hadn’t travelled for a while, and I’d forgotten the endless roll of ones you needed. Sam Cooke seemed happy enough as he left us.

  Anya burst out laughing. ‘Does everyone in LA look like a singer?’

  ‘I know. And the other guy.’

  ‘It’s Sammy Davis. They should play together.’

  ‘What do you think of the rooms?’

 
Anya pursed her lips. We were in 289, the back one. ‘Let’s sleep in here. We can use the other one for cooking and maybe rehearsing.’

  ‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘At least this one’s quiet.’

  ‘We can make it comfortable’ said Anya. ‘I’ll make it OK for us. My God, look at this mini-bar. My God.’ She’d started laughing helplessly again. The ‘mini-bar’ was a wicker basket with a bottle of Four Roses and a pint of gin. There was a bag of potato chips, some Schweppes tonic and a Hershey bar.

  ‘Where are we going to eat?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know. Where do you think Sammy Davis eats?’

  ‘He probably does what you do – fills up in the morning then he doesn’t have to eat till he gets home to Mom’s cooking in Burbank.’

  ‘Let’s have some gin,’ said Anya, trying out the bed. ‘Did you see an ice machine down the hall?’

  ‘No. D’you want to go and see?’

  ‘I’m scared. There’s a touch of “Psycho” about this place. You look, Freddy.’

  I walked up and down the corridor, but there was nothing. Back in the room, I rang down to the front desk and ordered some sandwiches and ice.

  Sammy Davis read it back to me: ‘That’s a Swiss cheese on rye with salad and a club on toasted white with extra pickle. Ice cubes. Potato chips. You want ice cream?’

  ‘No thanks. But a lemon maybe?’

  ‘You want a lemon? OK, we’ll be with you in ten.’

  I put the phone down. ‘“We’ll be with you in ten,” he said. Who’s “we” I wonder?’

  ‘Maybe the Temptations.’

  ‘I’m half expecting the Four fucking Tops.’

  ‘Is that your London voice? Do some more.’

  ‘Blimey, love, ’oo d’ya think they’ll bleedin’ send up this time? Better tell the geezer when ’e gets ’ere you’re the old trouble and strife.’

  Anya was lying on the bed laughing. ‘Give me gin, Fred.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yup.’

  I poured some gin into a filmy tumbler. Anya sipped it and the tears stood in her eyes. ‘This is gross.’

  ‘I told you to wait.’

  ‘I’m going to soldier on.’

  I loved her at that minute, sitting cross-legged on the lumpy bed, still laughing through her gin grimaces.

  The next day was a Sunday. We explored the neighbourhood, found a grocery store only half an hour’s walk away, and went to Venice Beach to see the freaks. On Monday at ten o’clock we arrived at the studio.

  Larry Brecker had long mousy hair, prescription glasses in an aviator shape and a moustache that covered both lips. His flared jeans were a little too short and flapped round the ankles of his boots. He’d listened to Anya’s songs on a tape sent over by MPR and we began to discuss arrangements. He thought we should do ‘Genevieve’ first because it was a solo thing and would give her confidence. We had four session musicians lined up for later on – acoustic bass, percussion, sax and electric guitar. Brecker presumed Anya and I could cover any extra keyboards between us. There was an electric piano and a Hammond organ in the studio. They also had a girl singer on standby for backing vocals.

  For our second track, after we’d finished ‘Genevieve’, he thought we should try a song he’d really liked called ‘Boulevards of Snow’, but maybe with some organ fills.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said.

  ‘No chance,’ said Anya.

  ‘We can try it,’ I said. ‘We can always take the organ off again.’

  ‘It’s your call,’ said Brecker, going back behind the glass.

  I knew it would be a tough call to make because Anya would resist any additions to voice and one instrument. I could tell she was nervous, so we played a twelve-bar blues for a bit. Then she sang scales and a bit of Burt Bacharach to warm up while I got a feel of the piano, which was a much better instrument than I was used to. By three o’clock, after about fifty retunes and strings snapping, we’d got her guitar part on ‘Genevieve’ down in a way everyone was happy with. Brecker got his assistant, a kid called Russ, to order in some sandwiches and we sat around trying to relax. All this was new to Anya and I could see she was finding it a strain.

  When Brecker was back behind the glass, I asked Anya if she’d maybe like her usual midday glass of wine. She put her arms round my shoulders and whispered, ‘What I’d really like is my usual midday … this.’ She ran her hand over my fly.

  ‘Me too. I’ll get Russ to send out for wine. Red or white?’

  ‘Whichever. Red. I’m sorry, Fred. I’m doing my best.’ Her face was an inch from mine and she smelled of throat sweets.

  ‘You’re doing fine. It gets easier.’

  For the vocal, she had to go into a booth with cans on so she could hear her own accompaniment. She struggled for a long time. She even hit a wrong note, not something I’d ever heard her do before.

  We took a break and drank some herbal tea. Anya was close to tears. ‘I feel as though once I’ve recorded it I’ll have killed her off,’ she said. ‘She means so much to me. And this city. This heat. I can’t see Genevieve here.’

  I put my hands on her shoulders. ‘You know the words by heart, don’t you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘So don’t look at the paper. Shut your eyes. Think of winter. Make yourself shiver. Raise a hand when you’re ready. Then get inside that girl’s skin.’

  ‘I’ll try. For you.’ She kissed me. I’d never seen her this fragile.

  She stood with her hands on the headphones, clamping them to her head, while Brecker made ‘What’s going on?’ gestures through the glass and I was signalling him to hold fire. Finally, Anya raised her hand and I nodded to him to start the guitar playback.

  The middle eight, on which the song turned from loss to hope, went:

  She puts her nickel in the phone

  Been six weeks since she called home

  Frozen hands rake through her hair

  In the doorways of despair

  As she steps past sleeping men

  Scribbles numbers with her pen

  Says the city nights are hard and strange

  But she knows this life is hers to change …

  Anya kept her eyes tight shut, breathing deep through her diaphragm; she seemed to let go and there it was at last – the voice like frost crystals forming on the glass between us.

  Over his console Brecker made a ‘Where did that come from?’ face. I felt proud of Anya, and I felt intense relief. Something of her talent was going to make itself known to the world.

  * * *

  God, those Sunset days. We’d get the cab to stop at the grocery store near the UCLA campus on the way home but were so tired when we got to the Pasadena Star that we barely had the energy to cook. Having so hated gin at first, Anya was now obsessed by it. ‘I’m gonna do this whole goddam album on gin and gin alone,’ she said woozily one night, stark naked on the bed, waving her greasy tumbler at me. When we went past the front desk, usually at about nine, Sammy Davis, Jr. would say ‘Good day in the studio, folks? You’d like a bucket of ice sent up with two fresh lemons, right?’

  We developed a patter with him. He’d call us the Newlyweds and Anya would ask him how the other Ratpackers were doing.

  ‘Seen much of Frank and Dino lately?’ she said one night. I held my breath, but he laughed like a coyote, so I guess people had pointed out the resemblance before and he liked it.

  We’d eat in the noisy front room and smoke some grass afterwards, then shift into 289 at the back, which we kept cool with the window open. I’d watch old cowboy films on the grainy black and white television while Anya lazed in the bathtub. By eleven we were fast asleep, naked, wrapped in one another’s arms.

  The album was coming together, and it wasn’t just a run of songs, it had a shape. Some of this was down to Larry Brecker. He took me to one side early on and said, ‘This chick sings like a fucking angel, man, but from where I’m sitting, you don’t want two sharp instruments, her and that guitar
, at the same time. We need bass notes, texture, some keyboards, whatever.’

  I’d always known this. But there was that fragility of girl and guitar that was crucial, especially on a first record. There had to be that minstrel thing: here she is – one lonely woman travelling from town to town. The high point of the singer-songwriter fashion was over, but I didn’t want Anya’s tracks to sound overproduced. I had to find a middle way, or maybe both ways at once, the purity and the richness.

  Another thing Brecker added was a conviction about certain songs. What to include was Anya’s and my choice, but Brecker made it clear that there were four songs we’d be insane to leave out. They were ‘Julie’, ‘Genevieve’ and two from the list of possibles – ‘The Need to be You’ and ‘I’m Not Falling’. The first, addressed to a lover, showed striking insight into a man’s weakness, and Brecker liked the second because it was an anti-love song, and as he put it, ‘They’re like hen’s teeth in this business.’

  The session men also helped. Anya had no problem with a string bass on some songs, and the bass player was a jazz veteran called Tommy Hawks. The sax she positively liked – an English guy called Stephen Lee, who was part of a prog-rock outfit who seemed to more or less live at the Hyatt House, renamed the Riot House by local wits. You had to remember to call him Stephen all the time because their bassist was called Steve. Apart from that, he was fine – one of those annoyingly talented people who could sight-read and play any instrument. Anya liked him because he didn’t offer suggestions; he just played the parts. The electric guitarist, Elliot Klein, had a rough ride, though; she kept insisting on pushing him back in the mix. The drummer was a quiet guy called Joe Aprahamian. He’d also started out in jazz and had a light touch, but boy did Anya give him a hard time. One day I swear I heard her refer to him as ‘Old Irongloves’. In the end, he was restricted to three tracks.

  One of the ways I convinced Anya to have backing musicians at all was by letting her have tracks that were hers alone. In my mind I divided the songs into those that were personal to her and those in which she reached out to others. Then I had a headache about how to order them on the record. I tried it about thirty different ways. Part of the headache was ‘sequencing’ – making that transition between the last note of one song and the first of another. But I was also trying to make the album a coherent emotional journey for the listener – probably a young woman but maybe a man – listening to the album alone for the first time.