How I Left the National Grid

by Guy Mankowski

  A new ritual emerged. As soon as she came back from work, before she’d eaten, she would come through the door and pick up her guitar. It was up to me to join her, sit and listen. To stop whatever odd activity I was caught up in, and be an audience. On the occasions I didn’t, when my head was stuck somewhere, she’d stop after a few verses and it would be hard to get her to speak again.

  I realized then that I was playing an essential role for her. One that she would probably die without. I was her inner audience. As she played, flat city light filtering through the blinds of her bedroom, I could imagine whole arrangements for these songs. I told her what I thought, in a low voice after the final note ended. She’d look up at me, excited and expectant, and I had to get my verdict right, otherwise her mouth would twist into disdain. But if I was accurate in my assessment she’d nod, or say ‘Oh god, yes,’ and make notes in the margins of her notebooks.

  In the end there were four of them, lined up on the small shelf above her bed. Four albums. Her future legacy, stacked in a space that took up less room than an average tea-set. ‘Those notebooks there,’ I’d say. ‘Will outlast anything I’ll do.’

  There’s this misconception that artists should create their own mythologies, through how they live. Not true. They should create their own mythologies through their work. In whatever styles, textures and approaches they choose to use.

  In return for this intimate tutorage Nataly shopped, cooked and fed me. She never asked why I couldn’t do these tasks myself. She knew that if she didn’t I’d grow thin, and waste away. Sometimes I thought she didn’t want me to learn how. If I did, it would be the first step towards me leaving.

  When night fell, we’d listen to records. Lying on the floor of her front room, under low lamp-light. Seeing how reverently she chose tracks made me remember why I had even wanted to be a musician. Not out of anger, or some weird need to be famous. But because I truly believed that these sounds created whole worlds that, unlike the world outside our window, endured. I remember watching Nataly, kneeling in paint-flecked shorts and a vest top, tugging this lock of hair from her eyes as she studied the sleeve to Kate Bush’s Never Forever. One of her favourites was The Cure’s ‘Charlotte Sometimes’ and at night I’d dream of her lilting voice, absently singing it as she cooked. We never talked about the unusual way we were communing with one another, through songs.

  Other nights we’d drink a glass of red wine while The Cocteau Twins’ Lullabies built a spider’s web around us. The woody, scarlet world depicted in the cover art the same texture, in my mind, as Nataly’s world. I realized that records were living spaces, and that if you allowed yourself to you could exist in their architecture. Even if they were cold and foreboding places, like mine. Full of twisted metal, and out-of-control machines.

  One day, Nataly came home from work and gave me a blank notebook of my own. ‘What’s this for?’ I asked.

  ‘What do you think?’ she said. ‘Take your time.’

  I only wrote one, slow, shifting song. Thumbing chord after chord, a few phrases leaking in. When I played it back to her, Nataly said, ‘Oh, Robert. That’s one of mine.’ And she opened up her notebook, and showed me.

  When that didn’t work she tried this different approach. One day I came back from my walk to see a Nikon camera on my bed. This bulky one, I could imagine some journalist taking to Beirut.

  That afternoon she finished work early, and insisted we walk around Spitalfield market while it was busy and vibrant. Nataly wore a red anorak, and as she browsed delicatessen stalls I took photos of this beguiling, dark-haired woman playing the character of a rich heiress, with her hands. She laughed and joked with the market traders, and when one juggled two cherries to make her laugh the sound reverberated around me, like a beautiful ocean wave. The photos I took were of a new woman. Less a strained ballerina, and more a glamorous damsel from a murder mystery. Her tousled, dark hair sticking to her nylon dress, and a touch of colour reddening her lips. I saw then how I was shaping her too with my lens, in the moments I captured her. Styling her for a future that I was perhaps imagining. We were both at the age were such thoughts seemed important. When the world still felt like a playground. When we believed that what we did was significant, a debt paid to the future.

  There’s this one picture of Nataly that I took that afternoon that I still take everywhere I go. We took it in a Victorian tearoom that she dragged me to.

  In the shot she’s standing next to a vase of roses at the counter. Behind her are plump cakes in glass domes. Nataly is looking just off-centre, smiling. Her hair has fallen over one eye and the other is smeared with glittering eye shadow. In this picture I can smell the fresh sponge cake, the rich scent of brewed coffee.

  The Nataly depicted in it was never fully realized. She never completely embodied that mellow, satisfied Nataly, whose face portrayed thoughts about the future. When I look at that picture I think how I would do anything to will that Nataly into existence. I knew even then that one day I would trail around London, looking for traces of that afternoon. For a remnant, a hint, anything, that recalled the Nataly that fleeted in and out of reckoning that day. That afternoon a shard of an imagined future had fallen into our hands, and at that point we hadn’t yet squeezed it so tight that it drew blood.

  I told Nataly that one day I’d pay her back for everything, that it was all a loan. But she just said she needed me to stay with her. Said she needed me around for when her life grew dark, for next time she crashed. The rituals changed. Instead of playing records together, she’d lug her gramophone out onto the thin exile of her balcony, and close it behind her. Singing to herself as she smoked a Malboro Light, with her mum’s brown fur coat wrapped around her shoulders. She’d gaze at a fixed point in the distance, blowing smoke carefully out at the blue horizon. Sometimes I wondered if she chose that spot because she knew it faced Canada.

  Not long after that I started to want to move on. She was beginning to sculpt me into the boyfriend she no longer had. Got me wearing his coats. I felt myself getting sucked in. I had to get out.

  I went to the nearest passport office. Introduced myself as ‘Mike’. Told them I’d lost my passport, and they issued me with a temporary one.

  7

  The view of the city from the window was very different to the one Elsa was accustomed to. The houses outside reflected a gentler light than the sodium glare of the quayside. Elsa took a deep breath and made an effort to absorb the opulent feeling that emanated from the cool surfaces, shimmering off the piano, and the carefully mounted pictures.

  ‘These are all the paintings I have felt unable to sell,’ Malcolm said, moving over to the fridge. Elsa placed her coat around a black wicker chair.

  ‘I remember us getting a few large offers for that one,’ Elsa remarked, looking up at the glacial block of blue that commanded the central wall. ‘You’ve kept that one to yourself.’

  She took a sip of the offered wine, and felt a secret rhythm inside herself adjust. She was used to adopting a dismissive, flighty rhythm with Sam. But the distant city lights in the window, and the strong scent of the wine made her internally slow, to a more measured pace. She felt something bloom inside herself, and she hoped Malcolm would be sensitive enough to handle it.

  Malcolm seemed concerned by a thought, but he then set his glass down and moved over to her. That scent grew stronger. ‘Art like that will soon be a part of your life too,’ he said, his voice lower. ‘I have no doubt of it.’

  Almost mocking the situation that was unfolding, Elsa raised her chin to him. With a small swallow, Malcolm took the tip of it between his thumb and forefinger and leant in. Elsa felt a sharp pang of guilt as he kissed her, both of their mouths remaining closed. Then, with an almost theatrical step, he moved even closer. His hand nested in her hair, and the kiss gradually gained intensity.

  ‘It is far too late for you to get a taxi home,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Elsa replied, feeling suddenly very weak.

  ROBE
RT WARDNER

  I remember sitting in a café at the ferry terminal in Dover. Having a scalding cup of coffee and a limp sausage roll. The stain it made on the napkin as I watched the cars come off my ferry. Asking myself if I was really going to do this. Leave England. Taking in the weird lullabies of this land, that throbbed out of the fruit machines. Gulls circling outside the window, swooping on abandoned chips in the car park.

  Sleepwalking onto the ferry.

  Sitting on the upper deck in the stinging wind and thinking, it starts here. The realization hit me like a truck.

  After that, Europe is almost a blank.

  From what I can piece together I hitchhiked south from Calais. Must have got a lift from a lorry driver who took me as far as Lyon. I’ve got this distant memory of waking up soaking wet, on a patch of grass behind an office block. Unable to find a way off the industrial estate, that seemed to go on forever. Trying to find a shop to buy food. Trying to push through even when the wheels had come off.

  I can remember eventually finding a hotel from a phonebook at a kiosk. Convincing the owner to accept English money. Soaking wet, starving, and deprived of sleep. Crashing out in that tiny, dim room, then waking up in a panic. Running out into the night.

  From then on I struggle to piece it together. I ended up in Amsterdam and a British fan, on holiday with her boyfriend, recognised me. I must have been a state by then. From what was later said, that fan wanted to help me but the boyfriend had no interest in being a footnote in some minor rock biography. She set me up in a hostel for a few days where I did nothing but sleep. She got in touch with people back home. With Bonny, who called Frankie.

  I can’t remember the woman’s name. Only her dark, moist curls hanging over her face, and her voice as she kept asking me to remember a phone number. Any phone number.

  Fever set in, and I couldn’t give her what she wanted.

  8

  It was two in the morning when Sam got back from the cocktail with Bonny. The complex seemed deserted, the young family that had moved in next door silent for the first time. Bonny had insisted on Bloody Mary after Bloody Mary, but they hadn’t encouraged her to open up. The drunker she got the more obtuse and wilfully enigmatic she became. Her one useful contribution was the invite she handed him for her exhibition, as she said goodbye. It was described as ‘a unique performance of The National Grid’s music’, and was to take place tomorrow. Her National Grid pictures featured heavily on the embossed piece of card, which didn’t specify what form the performance would take. The wording suggested that the band members would be involved.

  There was a pile of post for Sam, and with a sinking heart he saw that two of the letters were addressed to him.

  Why had Elsa not opened her post when she got back from the exhibition, he wondered? Where was she? The pink suitcase she had kept in the hallway was gone, along with her long overcoat. A navy blue Karen Millen number he had felt unconvinced she could afford.

  He tore open the small brown envelope, and pulled out a single white postcard.

  If you encroach upon someone else’s life, expect them to encroach upon yours. Starting from now.

  Sam had a faint memory of seeing online postcards Robert had also sent his fans, not so long ago. Could Robert have sent this?

  He wished Elsa was around.

  It was a struggle to push himself up to the bedroom. Elsa had now emptied some of the boxes, and hung one or two pictures up. She couldn’t be much longer, he thought, reaching for his laptop. He was sure he wouldn’t sleep until she’d returned.

  Sam was only able to find online one or two images of postcards Robert sent to his fans. One had been reasonably well photographed. It contained the words, ‘Looking forward to seeing you all in Hamburg. Best, Robert.’

  Sam pulled out the latest threatening postcard. The sloping handwriting was similar to that of the image on the internet. Maybe they were from Robert. But on the image Robert had looped the tail of the ‘g’ in an ornate way. On the word ‘warning’ from the new postcard the ‘g’ was not looped at all. But how did Sam know for sure that the postcards online were genuine? He wished he had remembered where he’d put the first letter. That, at least, would allow for a more reliable comparison.

  He closed the screen and was about to pull the sheets around him when a great crashing sound filled his right ear.

  Sam threw himself onto the floor. For a moment he lay hunched there, expecting a further onslaught of noise. But there was nothing.

  Nothing but a powerful silence.

  He felt as if his heart might tear free from his moorings.

  Sam stayed hidden, trying not to make a sound or move until the heave in his chest began to subside. But every breath seemed deafening, every movement enormous and clumsy.

  Tentatively, he approached the window.

  It had been torn open by half a brick, now lying on the carpet. The jagged hole was lit for a moment by the headlights of a passing car. The two spotlights blinded him, sawed over the wall, and faded.

  Sam approached the window gradually, searching for a retreating figure. But there was none. Only the blue leaves of the trees opposite the house.

  He only realized he had fallen asleep when the phone by the bed blazed to life. The sheets next to him were untouched, and the early morning sun darted aggressively through the jagged gash in the window. He tore off the handset.

  ‘Elsa?’

  ‘It’s Camille,’ the voice said.

  He breathed out. ‘Camille? Oh. Right.’ He consciously softened his voice. ‘How are you?’

  ‘It’s a bit early for me to call, I know.’

  Her accent sounded slightly exaggerated.

  ‘It’s okay. Just getting my head together.’

  ‘Not a great night’s sleep?’

  ‘You could say that. Just moved into a new place.’

  ‘How lovely.’

  ‘Not really. We got the biggest mortgage it’s possible to get. From a company who’re yet to play their part in the intimate relationship they promised we’d have with them.’

  ‘Oh right. So you’re in debt to them?’

  ‘Unless Comrade Brown offers me some free social housing.’

  He picked up the invitation to Bonny’s exhibition, and fingered it.

  ‘Plus I’ve had some threatening letters, and last night a brick was thrown through my window.’

  ‘Oh. Who would do this?’

  ‘Fans, I think. Not of me, of the band.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Trying to persuade me to leave Robert alone.’

  ‘Oh my. Well, it’s not been great here either.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well… Martin is just the least supportive boss ever. He doesn’t seem to understand what it’s like to be new to England. It’s not like in the movies at all.’

  Sam laughed, wiping his eyes. ‘Well, yeah. He should be sympathetic. Help you to settle in. I can’t imagine what’s it’s like to start again in a new country. It’s hard enough trying to start a career again.’

  ‘Sure. When he employed me it was all about how he liked my love of music. But now he mocks that. You know, ‘You thought you’d be having tea with Sting every Wednesday, didn’t you, Camille?’’

  ‘The twat.’

  ‘I know, I don’t even like Sting.’

  ‘Who does? I always preferred The Police.’

  ‘Sam, he wants me to give you a push about finding Wardner. Mason House have had some hate mail off fans and he’s worried that if they turn, the company will lose all its credibility. He takes that very seriously, you know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, he has no talent. This fictional idea of his street cred is very important to him. London’s like Paris. You lose this quality and you’re…’

  ‘Toast?’

  She laughed, as he sat up.

  ‘He’s ridiculous,’ she said, dropping her voice. ‘He shouted at a cleaner today for using bleach in the building
, said it was terrible for our environment. But I see him driving through central London in a Land Rover all the time.’

  ‘A Chelsea Tractor, we call it.’

  ‘His wife’s a counsellor. Her main ambition is to start a commune to ‘protect us all from the psychological enslavement of living in a society’, apparently.’

  ‘You are joking.’

  ‘No. Straight up. As Londoners say. So are you getting any closer to finding Wardner, then?’

  ‘I got to interview Bonny yesterday and…’

  ‘No way! I used to try and copy her fringe with blunt scissors.’

  ‘Why didn’t you use sharp ones?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He crouched down on the floor. ‘It was crazy.’

  ‘I have to hear it. Say you taped it.’

  ‘Of course. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life. She certainly knows more about Wardner than she’s letting on.’

  ‘God. I envy you, Sam, meeting people like that.’

  ‘Have you heard about this exhibition of Bonny’s paintings?’

  ‘I read an article about it just now. Is her work any good?’