Subpoena Colada

by Mark Dawson

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I say, glad to change the subject, although I’d prefer it to be something else, something that my hot cheeks wouldn’t betray me with. ‘I’m going to meet Brian’s manager now, actually.’

  ‘Excellent. Keep me informed.’

  The bell chimes as the lift reaches the ground floor, and I follow him out.

  ‘Keep up the good work.’ He smiles sagely, and heads towards the conference suite.

  BEEF ENCOUNTER

  Vanessa Feltz and Dale Winton are waiting in reception with their agents. Some new TV show we’re giving advice on. Davey is there too. He looks dapper in his black pencil tie, white shirt, camel-hair overcoat and winkle-pickers. His fat cheeks are flushed from the cold outside.

  He asks how my evening with Brian went. I tell him it was very enjoyable. It doesn’t sound as if Brian has divulged the conclusion of our proceedings, and maybe Davey hasn’t seen the papers, so I follow Brian’s lead and omit the details. Davey doesn’t appear to have noticed the protrusion on the side of my head, or else he’s keeping his own counsel to spare my blushes.

  He asks if I’d like a bite to eat. I accept.

  We get a taxi and Davey takes me to one of the trendy new media hang-outs in Covent Garden, an upmarket steakhouse called, ridiculously, Beef Encounter. Decor: whitewashed walls and sterile lighting. Floor: untreated concrete. Long metal-framed mirrors hang on the walls, with tiny bull’s-eye spotlights aimed into them. Tables and chairs made from chunky aluminum. Plates of plain white china. Single red roses in aluminum holders shaped like test-tubes. Knives and forks like surgical instruments. The waiters are dressed in black suits and shirts, no ties.

  The maitre d’ glides ahead of us to a table that, if not quite front of house, is close enough to offer a good view of the stars. Courtney Cox is talking with Maria Kelsey, ultra-thin, uber-trendy, super-agent to the stars. Matthew Perry is sitting with a glam blonde.

  The maitre d’ raises a haughty eyebrow as I sit down.

  I feel like a charlatan: he can see right through me. Beyond all reasonable doubt, I don’t belong in a place like this.

  I wonder if Davey is making a point.

  The menu is examined. The prices are stratospheric. ‘The fettuccini’s great,’ Davey says, ‘but don’t let me influence you. And don’t worry about the price. I’m paying.’

  The soundtrack here is deliberately kitsch. Lift Muzak versions of camp seventies tracks. Abba’s ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme’ is playing over the sound system right now. I assume every reference in the place is some sort of deeply ironic gesture. If so, most of them are whistling right over my head.

  A waiter - six foot plus, swarthy, thick hair, male-model-stroke-resting-actor - impassively takes my order.

  Fifteen minutes of excruciating small talk follows during which we both tiptoe around the fact that we’re obviously here to talk about something else.

  The waiter returns with our starters. The portions are minuscule, artistic. The satisfaction of appetite is secondary in this sort of restaurant. This is self-advertising. Image. You’re paying for exposure.

  Davey says we need a frank discussion as I pick lamely at my starter: a stringy spinach ravioli. It looks vaguely intestinal splayed out on my plate. He didn’t want to have this discussion over the telephone, he says, and when he says ‘discuss’ I know he means chastise. This isn’t promising.

  ‘It’s like this. I’m - no, we - we’re worried about how the case’s going. I was told Brian’s defence was good. I know you can’t guarantee success in these things, I mean we knew there was a risk of not settling with them before, but we never thought it’d pan out this way. It’s looking like a disaster from where I’m sitting right now.’

  ‘Like you say, you can’t predict how litigation’s going to turn out.’

  ‘It’s the damages. Look at them! I mean, fuck me Daniel, there’s no way on earth Brian’ll be able to pay the money the court Wants him to pay. No way. The label can take a small hit, we’re standing behind him to an extent like you know, but we thought this was going to be a minor problem and then Brian’s free to get on with the rest of his life. Make some music. Sell some records. Do what he’s good at. This is taking so long. Too long-’

  ‘Maybe we should set up a proper meeting to dis-’

  ‘-and all we seem to be doing’s bailing water. We never set the agenda. I want to be positive, go out there and make proposals, settle things, get all this shit over and done with. I want proactive, not reactive. And I’m not getting it-’

  DAVEY HITS HIS STRIDE

  ‘-and it’s really upsetting Brian. I know he plays it pretty cool and you’d never really know it, but it is bothering him. He’s a delicate character. He likes stability. Typical bloody artist, yeah, I know, but what can you do?’ Davey leans over and lowers his voice conspiratorially, worried perhaps that what he’s about to say might be overheard by Matthew or Courtney. ‘The rehearsals for the tour have been just terrible, between you and me. Fucking awful. He doesn’t seem able to concentrate on the music. His voice isn’t the same - too tense. And now he needs a gram to even get out of bed, which’s even more expense apart from anything else. And, yes, I suppose we ought to be thinking about his health and well-being too, especially given his history, but when that’s the only way to get him going and into the studio what else are we supposed to do? And it’s all the distraction of the court stuff that’s doing this to him, I know it is. So I need you to get it out of the way.’

  He slices open a parcel of pasta with the point of his knife. Pesto sauce seeps out. I’m expected to offer something in response here, but my mind is an empty white space.

  So he keeps going: ‘The label’s concerned. There’s no blank cheque here, Daniel, there’s no money tree at the bottom of the garden. The directors want an urgent review. We heard the band had his cars and furniture seized yesterday, by the way. That doesn’t help things. When will this all end - that’s the question?’

  I’ve finished my ravioli. It’s had no effect on my hangover. If anything, it’s made me feel even worse. This makes my answer maybe too abrupt.

  ‘When Brian pays over £900,000, like the court ordered.’

  Davey laughs edgily. ‘We both know that won’t happen. He doesn’t have that kind of cash. And the label won’t pay it.’

  ‘Then the band will just execute the judgment on whatever else they can get their hands on.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning the band could sell Brian’s flat in London and his villa in France. They could divide his rights in the Dahlias’ back catalogue between them, choke off his entitlement to any future royalties. They could tell his banks to pay the contents of his accounts over to them. They could bankrupt him and investigate his private life with a fine-tooth comb. And if he refuses to cooperate with them they could commit him for contempt of court, arrest him and have him locked up. That’s just for starters.’

  He looks shell-shocked. ‘Then let’s appeal.’

  ‘Too late,’ I say. ‘We’re way out of time.’

  ‘Why didn’t we do it before?’

  ‘Because we would’ve lost,’ I say. ‘It wouldn’t have been worth the time or the effort. And it would’ve been very expensive.’

  (Let’s not mention it was because my girlfriend binned me around then and I forgot the deadline for filing the application at court and I’ve been a negligence suit waiting to happen ever since and my once-glittering reputation is in danger of being irreparably tarnished and… )

  ‘I can’t believe this, Daniel,’ he says in a low, tight voice. A nervous tic just above the left corner of his upper lip has started to vibrate. I watch it tremble. ‘I’m not happy about this at all. The communication between us can’t have been up to scratch because I’ve had too many nasty surprises.’

  I expect a stronger rebuke, but none comes. He just hunkers down around his plate, scowling.

  He finishes a mouthful. ‘You know how much I’ve got riding on Brian?’ he ask
s bluntly.

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  ‘I gave up a lot for the chance to manage him. You know that new punk band everyone’s talking about? The young lads? Monster Munch?’

  ‘I’m… familiar with their work.’

  ‘That was my project. I put them together.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘You don’t think they’re a proper band, do you? They think they’re the new Sex Pistols but they’re more like the Spice Girls. Think S Club 7 with guitars and nose rings. Or Steps with nasty attitudes and profanity. Except it’s all fake, of course. Manufactured, they’re manufactured and fake and they’re making a shitload of wedge for someone else.’ He takes a bitter sip from his glass. ‘You want to know something about those boys? They’re all good as gold. Mooch - his real name’s Stephen - he’s at this Catholic boys’ school when he comes to the audition. Scooter - Colin - was working at Sainsbury’s. And Bam Bam - Richard was recommended to me by a mate setting up a boy band who turned him down ‘cause he couldn’t dance for toffee. None of them can play their instruments and all their songs have been written for them. All they’re good at is sneering and swearing, and that’s only ‘cause we taught them how. They’re puppets, Danny; talentless, half-witted mannequins.’

  I suppose I shouldn’t really be surprised by this news.

  ‘I dropped them as soon as Brian got chucked out of the Dahlias. I thought he was the better bet. So much for going with your gut.’

  ‘What, then Trish Parkes picked them up?’

  ‘Yeah. And now look at them. Selling albums by the bucketload. Lucky bitch - and I don’t get a penny out of them.’ He dead-eyes me, switches back to Brian again. ‘Thing is, Danny, I had to put a lot of my own money down just to get Brian’s bloody album finished. The label got nervous the fifth time he had to lay it down and they wanted out. It was costing them a bomb. They were ready to write the whole thing off, and that would’ve been the end of his career. Finished. So I paid for the last month in the studio and the mix. I thought it’d just be a short-term loan thing, six months tops until his new album started to shift copies then we’d all start raking it in. So now you can see why I’m upset this isn’t going like I want it to. The show’s gotta go on because I personally haven’t got any money left. If Brian goes down the toilet that’s my career in the music business done and all my money pissed up the wall. So you’ve got to sort this thing out, see?’

  I’m not sure what to say. We finish our meal in awkward silence. To drown out my discomfiture and guilt, I accelerate my consumption of the excellent red the sommelier recommended for my very bloody steak. Matthew Perry and his date are replaced by Jude Law and Ewan McGregor.

  This really is an excellent restaurant. I should leave business cards behind, maybe snare some passing trade. When the sweets arrive, I push the boat out and order a bottle of dessert wine. After all, Davey’s paying. And if my hangover won’t quit, then I’m just going to drown it in more alcohol. Hair of the dog.

  Davey’s grim expression gradually gets grimmer.

  PANIC

  ‘Where’s that briefing note?’ I ask Elizabeth when I return to the office. I’m running late for the meeting. My head is heavy from the wine.

  ‘I put it on your desk like you asked me.’ I scour the desk a second time.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Elizabeth comes in and looks for herself.

  ‘I put it right there,’ she says, pointing. Save the jumbled pile of papers that usually litter my desk, there’s nothing.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Could you print me off another copy?’

  She goes back outside to her station. It’s 3.10: already ten minutes late for the meeting downstairs. I pace impatiently, waiting for the sound of the printer firing up. It doesn’t happen.

  ‘It’s disappeared.’

  I join her outside. ‘What do you mean?’

  She scrolls through the files on the server directory. ‘It was right here,’ she says, indicating the location with a stab of the cursor. ‘Right between these two files. It’s just vanished.’

  ‘Files don’t just vanish, Elizabeth.’

  ‘I know, but…’ She falters. ‘Maybe I could call IT?’

  ‘No time for that,’ I say. ‘I’ll just have to do without it.’

  I head downstairs and sheepishly open the conference room door, edging in. Renwick is talking to Rolf Harris. I apologize and back out.

  I ring Elizabeth to check where the meeting is supposed to be, and she rings Wilson’s secretary. Elizabeth calls back: the location changed just after lunch. The band is shooting a video before they fly out, and they wanted us to come over to them.

  No one told me anything about this. I sprint outside and flag down a cab. Wilson will gut me for this.

  VIDEO SHOOT

  By the time we get to the derelict warehouse where the shoot is taking place I’m forty minutes late and jumpy with nerves.

  I have to negotiate my way past the security guards keeping out the twenty or so anxious girls gathered around the entrance. I can hear muffled music coming from the inside of the building and then it stops. I walk inside and follow open stairs down into a basement with a half-collapsed ceiling, patches of damp on the walls and pools of brown scummy water all over the floor. I pause at the bottom of the stairs, as Scooter - the singer - is talking to a guy I guess is the director, and Mooch is having make-up applied. Bam Bam is alternating between a can of Red Stripe in one hand and a spliff in the other. His drum kit is set up in the room and two guitars are propped against Marshall amps. I move inside, stepping over the wires and cables and monitors and spotlights.

  Wilson is standing to one side, self-consciously, completely out of place here in her power suit and knowing it. I’m about to go over and face the music when the director calls for quiet and tells the band to take their places. They do, sullenly, and then the director checks the camera crew is rolling and, after counting in the band, shouts, ‘Action.’

  The video is basically Monster Munch playing straight to camera, with no storyline or fancy special effects. The director’s pitch was probably ‘gritty urban angst’, or something similarly post-modern and trite.

  The song plays out through the monitors and the band mimes to it, only Bam Bam actually playing - and he’s a couple of beats off the pace but not really giving a shit because he knows the soundtrack will be wiped when the film is edited.

  I don’t like their music. They’re loud and noisy: the aural equivalent of a mugging. I feel brutalized by their blitzing guitars and wrenching vocals. I wonder whether my inability to recognize talent within this cacophony is proof that I’m ageing, losing touch, that my tastes are becoming obsolete, just like the 28-inch-waist Levi’s in my wardrobe, and my Young Person’s Railcard. Still, after what Davey told me I feel my views have almost been vindicated.

  The band smash up their instruments, looking totally bored, driving them into the concrete floor and then flailing the ruined pieces around their heads. When the director calls for the cut, the broken bits of fret board and drum kit are thrown on top of a pile of other broken instruments and new ones are set up for the next take.

  These guys are so bogus even their ‘spontaneous’ instrument-trashing is faked.

  DOWN TO BUSINESS

  Trish Parkes - their gorgeous, super-important manager - spots that I’ve arrived and heads over to Wilson. I join them and we’re both shepherded outside to a luxury tour bus. The band follow slowly behind us. Inside, there are beds and a luxury bathroom, and the back has a small arcade stocked with vintage games cabinets and pinball machines. In fact, their bus looks like a much nicer place to live than my flat does. It’s certainly warmer.

  They slouch around a table in an office space halfway down the bus, ignoring the polite small talk passing between Wilson and Trish, and all of them eyeballing me sourly. They are dressed in an unkempt slacker style: T-shirts with skateboard logos, bandannas or reversed caps, chunky trainers,
cargo pants with wallet chains, lots of tattoos and piercings. You can’t help but feel aggrieved at their good fortune; their three-album deal pays each of them more than I’ll earn in five years. Still, it’s difficult to take them and their inane act seriously, knowing what Davey told me in the restaurant.

  Wilson gives me an evil glare.

  ‘Thanks for coming over,’ says Trish. ‘You know the boys, don’t you?’ Her current charges study Wilson and me with languid contempt.

  ‘Joke,’ Scooter says. ‘What’s the difference between a lawyer and a vampire?’

  Wilson smiles uncertainly. Trish glowers. ‘Vampires only suck blood at night.’

  ‘Lame,’ groans Bam Bam.

  Wilson manufactures a laugh. She’s adopted her client face. It is, I have to admit, very charming. But then the citizens of Pompeii probably thought Vesuvius was a picturesque sight before it went nuclear on them. ‘I wanted to talk through the details of the Japanese contracts we need,’ Trish continues. ‘I think there are two outstanding?’

  ‘Yes,’ Wilson says. ‘The recording contract and the marketing agreement. We haven’t finished them yet. It shouldn’t take much longer.’ Wilson gives me another eloquently evil glare.

  I find myself nodding even though I still have no real idea why we’re here save for talking about some kind of new contract they’ve landed. We could have done this over the telephone. Scooter leans all the way back in the chair and laces his fingers together behind his head. Slowly, deliberately, he puts both feet on the chair opposite him, reaches into his trousers and scrubs at his balls. Trish looks over at him in exasperation. He sneers back at her and slurpily starts to chew on a wad of gum.

  ‘I was hoping they’d be ready by now,’ she says. ‘But maybe it doesn’t matter - the circumstances have changed a little. You can amend your drafts.’

  ‘Why not just run through what you need?’ Wilson says. And then, to me, she adds brusquely, ‘Take a full note.’