How I Left the National Grid

by Guy Mankowski

  ‘Malcolm,’ she said, ‘I’m not saying I don’t want that. It is wonderful, what you’ve set up here. Come on, look at how wonderful this setting is.’

  He cast his eye, moodily, around the expansive hotel room. The suite large enough to have its own self-enclosed living room, complete with chandelier, glass tables and silk curtains. A fountain, that bubbled languorously though the bay windows. The child in him, she could see, was reluctant to leave. When had Sam ever offered this, she thought? This is a new world for me. She stepped closer to him.

  ‘All I’m saying is that it’s too soon for us to share a room together, as a couple. I’ve only just bought a house with Sam, and I can’t blow all that away overnight. You have to give me time!’

  ‘Right,’ he said, smoothing his hair distractedly. ‘So you’re okay with the amenities, but don’t want me to go near you while you enjoy them?’

  ‘It’s not that.’

  He clenched his hands. ‘When are you going to see, Elsa? Sam is an utterly pathetic loser.’ He threw down the lid of the suitcase. ‘Just take one look at him. He’s never succeeded at anything in his life yet you’ve already wasted your best years on him. And yet still you spurn all this!’

  ‘My best years? Malcolm, please.’

  ‘No,’ he said, seizing the case as sleeves flapped around the edges. ‘You know, I intended for us to become business partners someday, Elsa. But you instead want to loaf around with that retarded adolescent.’

  ‘Malcolm, stop it now.’

  ‘I will see you at work on Monday morning.’ He grasped the suitcase against him, and then turned and slammed the door.

  She went to the lobby. Elsa saw through the window that Malcolm had left, the space where his BMW had sat now replaced by a silver Jaguar. At the reception, a sheikh received instructions from a concierge, who steered him into The Maple Suite. If Malcolm had stayed, Elsa thought, tonight I would have been in there too. Mingling with rich and influential buyers, and becoming a part of something enterprising.

  I should not have come here in the first place, she decided. Last night was a mistake. Now I’m stuck in a hotel that only the spoilt can understand, with no way of getting home, and a phone with only a fleeting signal.

  She stayed in the lobby, resending a carefully worded text to Sam until satisfied it would have reached him.

  The concierge craned over her, and asked if he could help. As Elsa looked past him she recognised one or two faces from the Gavin Holding launch around her. They nodded in her direction, and Elsa wondered what they would make of her presence here. How do they remember me, she thought? For a moment she wondered if Bonny would soon appear amongst them.

  ‘The pool is now open again madam, if you’re interested?’

  It was almost midnight by the time Elsa made her way down to the pool. The darkened room was empty, the low lights on the walls somehow disconsolate. She felt dirty, lost and desperate. I’ll stay in here, she thought, until the water has cleansed every inch of Malcolm from me.

  At the edge of the pool, Elsa dropped her gown. She caught a glimpse of her long, taut frame, clad only a bikini, in the sauna window opposite. Just before it was obscured by steam. But as she kept looking at her reflection she could not make out any of her features. The heat removed the image from that distant screen. It was as if Elsa had just vanished.

  The water passed sleekly around her body and after a few long strokes she lay there, just under the surface of the water, her hair splayed in a white, ghostly swirl. She hung for as long as she could hold her breath. As she bobbed she felt glad to have shed her own movements, her own mannerisms, for a few moments. Breaking to the surface Elsa exhaled, placing her hands gently behind her head as she closed her eyes. She imagined the heat opening her pores. Cleansing her of her guilt.

  The National Grid, Hulme Warehouse

  14th September 1981

  ‘Everything is falling apart,’ Robert Wardner intones. A cymbal is dashed to the floor. Nerves are shredding. The band are throwing looks as sharp as cut glass at one another. The audience is willing the band through every moment. Lady Luck, it appears, is not.

  The National Grid’s final show of this tour is not at the Alexandra Palace. Or even at London Astoria. It is at Manchester’s Hulme Warehouse. Despite the band’s tattered emblem hanging defiantly behind them throughout, this is not the triumphant homecoming finale we all dreamed of.

  It’s something darker.

  Greeted with devoted cheers, frontman Robert Wardner skulks around the drum kit, refusing to move to the front of the stage, or even look at the audience. When he does come forward hands reach out to touch him, but he looks at them as if they are images on a screen. On record he sings to us from another world, imparting concerns about hooded figures and bizarre rituals that we can barely comprehend. He is a man whose eyes have witnessed a thousand car crashes, but who remains too fragile to stand in front of traffic and demand it all stop. When he begins to sing into the micro-phone it is as if he is finally cracking under the burden of these songs. Each one requires nothing less than a total immersion of the self. But tonight the gods are raining down their bitterness upon him, denying him the opportunity.

  During the opening number the drums never find their stride. Sticks slice at thin air as the bass drum goes awry. Cymbals seem out of reach, and are left static. Vital propulsive moments in ‘We, The Workforce’ are missed, and the keyboards, normally such a thick layer of sound, are left reedy by an amp that blows, with a heartrending ‘phut’, during the first verse.

  Only a genius can force the audience to play a role in their performance. Rock music is most thrilling when we, the crowd, urge the musician to express what we cannot.

  So it is tonight. Wardner has a light grip of his talent at the best of times, cowed by a responsibility to convey the otherworldly. Tonight we tear our throats raw with encouragement.

  But Wardner is a doomed man. For him the moment has passed, and the stakes are too high. Only he can see the whole bargain, and he cannot convey the details to us, mere blips on his monitor.

  ‘We’ve only got one working amp left,’ guitarist Simon hisses into his mike. Theo’s bass is slung too low for him, and our minds use that as justification for his muted notes. In ‘Teleport’, Simon slashes with such ferocity that he breaks two strings, tearing open the skin on his arms with the flailing wires. There are no guitars left intact from the tour and he kicks at Theo’s amp in disgust. For a moment, all sound dies.

  Wardner grasps the microphone, a pilot making one last announcement to the passengers before the plane plummets. ‘Everything is falling apart,’ he says, the reverb on his voice making this an infinite statement.

  The bass amp makes a constant sawing plea from then on, panning from speaker to speaker, but there is life in it yet. It’s the last Spitfire in the hangar. The gods of misfortune and hellfire have entered this desolate factory space in Greater Manchester, and we all swear our defiance to them. We are bound on a journey with these four leather-clad men, exchanging harsh glances, determined to churn through the rest of the set. Their clenched bodies indicate that they will see this night through.

  ‘Any requests?’ Wardner asks, his voice drenched in an echo that can’t be removed. In moments to come it will give his singing an almost biblical splendour.

  ‘The Garden!’ someone shouts.

  Wardner nods. After a shattering cacophony of cymbals and drums a sheet metal guitar quickens the heart. ‘We all wait in line,’ Wardner sings. ‘A procession of no value.’

  It’s as if he is delivering his last will and testament. Apt, given the vivid line from Hamlet apparent on his arm, ‘More in sorrow than in anger’. Even as Simon avoids certain notes, and drum links are missed, the baritone remains resolute. But the bass amp cuts out again, and the song winks into silence. ‘Everything is disintegrating,’ Robert says, and then the final indignity. Over the tannoy comes the information none of us were waiting for. ‘Could the owner of a Red
Ford Cortina please move it, as it’s blocking the driveway?’

  ‘Give it to us!’ someone shouts to our trapped protagonists. We long for Wardner to express resolve, draw his band together with a solvent glance. But the four of them remain trapped in their separate wastelands. ‘Whitewashed,’ Wardner announces, to angry applause.

  It is to be the band’s swansong. Devoid of his armoury, Jack has to play the song in half-time, slowing the song to a funereal pace. The keyboards have discovered a different language in which to speak. Each note loops back on itself, forcing keyboardist Rick Howard to create a sparse atmosphere. Simon limits himself to the few strings he has left, creating a gentle arpeggio that drives the song forward. Theo, it seems, has left one note for himself, the bass nearly mute in his arms.

  Each word of Wardner’s is now fully absorbed by the crowd. Poetry over a dying machine. ‘You said you wanted to escape,’ he sings. ‘But I never meant to bring you here.’ The song hisses and flutters. In passages it sparkles, creates an autumnal glade amongst the shattered glass. We cherish Wardner’s postcards from a distant star.

  In moments like this the band have a Wagnerian splendour. Crushed by ill-luck and cursed fate they have an impact that is almost elemental. We are all transfixed by this dying sun. Wardner’s words spin out amongst every tensed body. As the microphone too begins to fail, Wardner whispers his final words. We can see in his eyes that there is only one statement he wants to make, the last one we want to hear from him.

  ‘I take full responsibility, for everything,’ he says. ‘You are looking at a man who’s failed.’

  With that, the sinking ship submerges. Wardner has gone down with it. This night is over. A night in which we are all reminded of what, at its rawest, music can be.

  Salvation against all odds.

  Samuel Forbes

  13

  Sam opened the laptop in the bedroom. With Elsa’s phone seemingly still off, he felt desperate for anything to distract him. She’d never been out of contact for so long, he thought. How would she would be able to resist coming home? She had been so feverishly excited about the house. Given it was her pride and joy it had felt wrong to text her about the smashed window. Sam wondered if she was staying away to give him the chance to make the place pleasant and welcoming for her return.

  Somehow, he was comforted by the familiar rubric of Google’s homepage. Like a family photograph, portraying the less significant members.

  Amongst the new emails there was only one relating to The National Grid. It was from a Nataly Callis.

  Dear Sam. It was interesting to be able to put a face to a name. Unlike some other National Grid fans, I wanted to offer my support towards your book. Perhaps I shouldn’t class myself as a fan. I think Robert would agree that I’ve always been more than that. I knew Robert very well during the band days. I have some information that you need. There’s things that urgently need to be said before this situation escalates further. Could you come to my home in Brighton to talk? Nataly Callis

  He replied in the affirmative, offering to come straight to hers. I’ll pack, and then plan until Elsa calls, he thought.

  Sam was surprised how many interview cassettes were gathered in the car. He emptied them from his bag, and stacked them in a neat pile on the desk. They looked shabby and adolescent, next to Elise’s pristine postcards of Paris.

  He took his shoes off and lay on the bed. Then closed his eyes and tried to order questions in his head.

  He was awoken in the morning by the sound of the air conditioning. Throughout the night it had been working overtime, trying to warm the house given the heat leaking out of the smashed window.

  He checked the phone on Elsa’s pillow, hoping he had slept through a phone call. But the phone sat mute, blinking. He hated the feeling that came with having an arc of hope completed. She was in Northumberland, not Ethiopia. He wondered if he should call again. Would her phone show up all ten missed calls?

  Nataly had replied in the night, offering to speak to him as soon as he could make it, and giving her address. He remembered the street she listed from his trips to indie clubs as a student. He was sure her house overlooked the sea, but somehow Sam couldn’t imagine that pale, delicate woman amongst Brighton’s vivid colours.

  He threw his notepad, mobile and pen into a bag and made his way into the kitchen. Sunlight was blasting over the communal patio visible through the back windows.

  As he poured himself a glass of orange juice, he could hear on the patio some young families making their rambunctious way onto it, enjoying the early morning sun. A young girl was being held aloft by her father, who smiled from behind designer shades. Sam was surprised to see families joining together so early in the day, but the elegant plaza had been designed to offer some communal room. It was protected by a high wall at the back of it, and Sam realized there would be few such places around. He could hear clattering from the front of the house too; no doubt he was being hemmed in on all sides by other people’s happiness.

  He drained the glass, before rushing outside.

  But the moment he unshackled the bolt at the front of the yard he was surprised to see his car window open. He forced his bag through the gap, onto the passenger seat. It was only then that he realized the clattering at the front hadn’t been a family, perhaps going down the path between the houses to the patio. The door to the neighbouring front yard had been kicked open. Sam knew he’d bolted his gate shut as he’d made his way in, but theirs had clearly looked looser. Someone had kicked it wide open, pulling off the area around the lock. The door swung ominously in the wind, exposing the still sleeping house. They have kids, Sam thought. Someone has broken in during the night.

  He crept closer. He could see no sign that someone had forced entry through their front door. But if the intruder hadn’t made his way into their house then that left only one alternative. They had either scaled the wall into the path, which would led only to the closed-off plaza at the back, or they had leapt over the walls between each house and got into Sam’s front yard when his back was turned.

  Sam rushed back to the house. The upper window to the front living room was flapping, banging in the wind with a force that Sam knew would have awoken him in the night.

  Someone was in his house.

  He threw his body against the front door and darted inside.

  Nothing.

  Sam cursed himself for leaving the phone on the upstairs bed, and his mobile in the car. Should he wedge the front door open, to have an escape route? Or trap himself inside with the intruder?

  He pulled the door shut behind him. ‘Who’s there?’ he shouted.

  An instant clatter in the kitchen.

  ‘What the hell do you want?’ he shouted. He grabbed Elsa’s statuette from the hallway table, and edged towards the kitchen. Sam caught a glimpse of a figure flashing across the kitchen doorway, to behind the door.

  Blood pounded in his veins, all the frustration welling up. ‘I’m calling the police,’ he shouted. ‘Get out of here now, or you’ll get battered.’

  His threat lacked a note of resolve. He knew it. The kitchen door slammed shut with a deafening bang. Sam gripped the statuette. Should he fight him or run? Fight or run?

  The intruder made the decision for him. A roar of shattering glass filled the air. He was breaking every pane of glass in the kitchen.

  The sound of children screaming filled the air. Sam could picture the families out the back, the young ones terrified. Shards thrown onto their bodies.

  He dropped the statuette and ran. He slipped on the carpet, his heart in his mouth as he heard the kitchen door open. A shadow fell over Sam. The distinct shape of a man with a baseball bat.

  Sam scrambled to his knees.

  The front door seemed miles away. He surged towards it, footsteps pounding closer to him. He grabbed the handle, tore the door open and then pushed it behind him, against a solid human form. Sam caught a glimpse of a black boot as the body crumpled behind the door. He s
lammed the door shut. ‘You’re fucking dead, Sam,’ shouted a gruff voice.

  Sam ran to the car. His fingers fumbled through his pockets for the key. For a moment he forgot where the button was, smearing his fingers all over the key until it unlocked with a flash.

  He glanced back. The front door began to open. Sam charged into the car, pushed the key into the ignition, and turned it. As the car squealed down the road he looked in the rear mirror, expecting to see the intruder run out. But no one was there. It was like he’d experienced a poltergeist.

  As Sam pulled into a layby he thanked God that Elsa had picked up the phone this time. She had seemed almost too shocked to even agree to stay away, her voice trembling.

  The policeman had been helpful. It had sounded as if he’d been eating until Sam told him that there was an intruder in his house.

  ‘Are you in there with him?’ he’d asked, the exchange slowing when Sam revealed he was speeding away in his car, to the station.

  He’d been there for two hours, giving evidence in a sparse room for a DCI Beckett, a heavy-set man with rings under his eyes. Beckett constantly nodded as he wrote, before the two policewomen who’d visited the house returned and took over. One seemed more in charge, a pale woman with a set, almost plastic face and a hard set of curls. ‘It looks like nothing was stolen, but some papers were spread out on the floor.’

  My notes on the interviews, Sam thought.

  ‘Probably someone chancing their arm, seeing if the new owners would be rich pickings,’ Beckett said.

  ‘Is there any reason someone would want to attack you?’ he asked, before Sam described the situation. ‘The National Grid,’ the police officer muttered, as he scratched out notes. ‘I used to like them.’

  Even knowing the man had left, Sam delayed his return to the house. It greeted him with the same, hollow hum as he edged down the hallway. Except this time it had a demented edge to it.

  Every glass panel in the kitchen had been smashed. The patio was deserted, plates and cups abandoned, covered with leftovers.