‘Definitely,’ Craig said.
‘Yes,’ Adam agreed. ‘Great. It’s very good of you to invite us.’
Joel threw an arm around Adam. ‘Of course, brother,’ he said. Then: ‘Family.’
This, too, was standard procedure at the power-hang. People you’d spent all of ten minutes with, and would probably never contact you again, abruptly referring to you as family.
After letting go of Adam, Joel headed back towards the door. ‘Feel free to look around the rest of the house, boys,’ he said. ‘I better go check on the girls.’
And with that, he departed.
‘Fuck me,’ Adam said, peering at the Rolexes again.
‘Whatever you do, don’t give him any drugs,’ Craig said.
‘What are you so worried about?’ Adam asked him.
‘My boss. Told him I was coming up here tonight. He’s friends with Joel. Told me under no circumstances was I to take drugs into this house.’
‘Aha,’ Adam said. ‘I always forget you have a boss.’
‘Fuck off,’ Craig said. ‘Let’s find somewhere to do a line. I’m almost fucking sober myself.’
A corridor beyond the living room led to the open door of a generously proportioned bedroom. Adam was about to suggest they’d found the right spot, when they saw a pair of slim, pretty feet with painted nails poking out from under the bed. Whoever they belonged to groaned when she heard them coming in.
Back in the corridor, they glanced at each other. ‘Weird,’ Adam said.
‘Fucked,’ Craig agreed. ‘Pool house? Think I saw a side entrance from the house.’
Sure enough, they found a door in the place they’d expected. Craig opened it slowly. Inside, an old lady was lying on a bed watching a huge TV, her bare feet – comparing unfavourably to those in the bedroom – raised on a pile of pillows.
‘I’m his mom,’ she said, without looking at them. ‘When you see him, can you ask him to confirm he will take me back to the desert on Saturday? I’m tired of this.’
‘Sure,’ Adam said.
Craig closed the door on her.
‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘Bathroom.’
After they’d locked themselves in, Adam looked at the painting above the toilet while Craig carved out the lines.
‘We need to be quick,’ Craig said.
‘I’ve never seen you so flustered,’ Adam replied. The painting was quite erotic, he decided, but in a very regretful way. He opened the bathroom cabinet. Inside were rows and rows of medication in small tubs, most of them with warnings about controlled substances on them.
‘Holy shit,’ Adam said. ‘This guy is a fucking basket case.’
Beside the medication was a saline nasal spray – the cokehead’s best friend.
‘Here,’ Craig said. Adam snorted his line, and they high-fived.
‘Christ,’ Craig muttered. ‘Worse than being in a bar, trying to get high in here.’
When Adam opened the door, Joel was standing directly outside it. His smile, beneath the jet-black shades, was by now quite frightening.
‘What’s up, guys?’ he said.
* * *
Three hours later, a hard core of them were in Joel’s bedroom. The woman who’d been under the bed had now emerged. She was very pale and thin. A small Star of David was tattooed on her inner right wrist, and she’d only spoken to tell them she had a headache.
Just then, she was leaning over a large mirror in the centre of the bed and snorting a line of cocaine.
Adam looked at his watch. It was 12.30 in the morning.
Joel was leaning against the headboard, holding court, telling a story about one of his artists pulling a gun on a festival promoter.
The loopy girl from the pool was lying across the foot of the bed, wearing only her bikini top and a towel, saying ‘oh my God’ to Joel’s story. Lynx, standing by the open window, was smoking, and the other pool girl was cupping her cell phone to her ear, ordering more drugs.
Craig, seated by the dressing table, had gone quite pale.
Adam looked at his phone. He appeared to have several notifications from Instagram, and he opened the app to view them. One, a message from Angelina, made his overworked heart beat even faster.
‘Hey playa!’ it said. ‘We should meet up next week.’
She had liked the photo of him standing by a pool with his arm around a super-agent, the Hollywood Hills rising pinkly behind them in the sunset.
‘My chest is hurting,’ the loopy girl said.
‘Don’t worry, baby, eventually you just go to sleep,’ the pale woman – apparently Joel’s significant other – told her, sniffing.
‘No,’ Lynx said from the window. ‘Eventually you die.’
No one, apart from Adam, appeared to find this comment remarkable.
‘Hey Adam,’ Joel said, grinning at him like a hungry vampire.
‘Yes?’
‘Your drink’s empty, man. C’mon, let’s get you a refill.’
Joel leapt off the bed and put his arm around Adam, leading him out of the bedroom and through the lounge doors towards the bar, which stood in silence now beyond the gleaming pool. The water was very still, the angle of the external lights making its surface appear pure white, as though it was filled with milk.
‘What’re you having?’ Joel asked. His voice, post-cocaine, had gone a little gravelly. It really was quite pleasing on the ear.
‘Whisky, please.’ Adam scanned the bar for Scotch, and once again failed to see any. ‘On the rocks.’
Joel picked up a bottle of bourbon and poured him the drink, moving around the bar like a professional mixologist.
‘What are you having?’ Adam asked him.
‘I’m sticking to the Diet Coke for now, man,’ Joel said, his grin a touch rueful now. ‘Already kinda fucked up on one resolution.’
‘Well,’ Adam said. ‘Everyone needs a blowout every now and again. Everything in moderation.’
Joel stopped moving and looked Adam in the eye – or, at least, aimed the shades directly at him. ‘Thank you, man,’ he said.
Adam nodded awkwardly.
‘So, you guys, your label. What do you do again? It’s, like, indie rock, right?’
‘Not so much any more, actually. We’re focusing on more commercial electronic stuff, especially here.’
‘Right,’ Joel nodded vaguely. ‘What kinda thing? Anyone I’d know?’
‘Falconz, perhaps?’ Adam said. ‘They’re our biggest artist now.’
Joel frowned. ‘Right, yeah… Those guys are coming back?’
‘They sure are,’ Adam told him, trying to sound bright. ‘Bigger than ever. They’re the Coldplay of EDM.’
When they reached the bedroom door, Joel turned to face Adam.
‘You’re a good guy, man,’ he said. ‘I’ll remember what you said.’
Before Adam had a chance to ask him which part of what he’d said, Joel was back in the bedroom, arms raised.
‘What’s up?’ he asked his assembled guests.
Adam resumed his place in the corner and sipped his whisky. Craig was snorting a line of coke. The remainder of the tableau was much as it had been.
After a minute or so, a strange mood came over him, and he excused himself to go to the toilet. Once inside, he locked the door, and slumped down on the seat to pee. He resisted the urge to take his phone out of his pocket. Fuck you, he thought, regarding Angelina. The sentiment immediately struck him as a little unfair. Searching for something more positive, he thought of Erica.
Saturday. Less than two days from now. Less time than it took to recover from the sort of hangover he was working towards. Before he had time to question the decision he’d abruptly made, he sprayed half a bottle of Joel’s saline spray into his nostrils and crept out of the bathroom, then the house. He had to walk a fair way down the hill before his phone found a signal again, and when it had he ordered an Uber. It was 1 a.m. It could have been worse.
Erica, he thought. I want to go on anoth
er date with Erica. I want to feel clean and good and I want to be with her.
‘Long night?’ the driver asked Adam, glancing at him in his rearview mirror.
‘Could’ve been,’ he said. ‘But I escaped.’
16
Friday morning didn’t start as badly as he’d feared. He woke with his alarm and spent a few minutes lying still, trying to gauge his hangover on his personal Richter scale. Six, he thought. Maybe, just maybe, a five – though he hadn’t moved his head very much just yet.
By the time he’d drunk three cups of coffee, showered and eaten a banana, he decided it was hovering around four. Not bad, considering.
Next, he ran the Shit Report. This was his regular, psychological debrief after a heavy bout of drinking, during which he cast his mind back over the night before for any embarrassments, failures, indiscretions or general bad things. The Shit Report often involved him talking to himself – mainly internally, but sometimes, on very bad days, out loud.
Today’s list was far from his worst. Cocaine, obviously. The blight of his adult life. A departure from a party without saying his farewells. No biggie. An Irish goodbye, as the Americans called it. Craig was quite partial to those himself, so he’d doubtless understand. Plus, they’d all be feeling too guilty and awful themselves to worry about Adam.
Knocking a super-agent off the wagon? Not a shred of guilt there, he found. It would make a good story. And anyway, it had been Craig’s fault really.
It was a relief to have been only a side note in the night’s story, rather than its headline. Things were not too bad. The hangover was even developing into the other, rarer variety he experienced, characterized by a sense of warm benevolence, freedom from care, and a desire to be generous and kind to his fellow men.
It was in the spirit of this optimism that he decided to call his sister Elizabeth. It would be late in Kuala Lumpur, but she was a night owl.
She took a long while to answer, but sounded fully awake when she did.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘This is a surprise.’
‘Hi,’ Adam said, brightly. ‘Yes, thought we were overdue a catch-up.’
‘Nothing terrible’s happened then?’ she said. Her speech was brisk and firm, a touch sardonic.
‘No. Not that I know of.’
‘What time is it there?’
‘8.45,’ he said. ‘In the morning.’
‘Coming up to midnight here,’ she said.
‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to hear from you.’
To Adam’s relief, she sounded as though she meant it.
‘Have you spoken to Mum?’ he asked her.
‘Two days ago. Didn’t seem to be any change.’
‘Yes, same when I spoke to her.’
‘When was that?’
‘Hmm,’ Adam said. ‘Ten days ago.’
‘Weird. She didn’t mention you’d called her.’
Adam chose not to correct this small misassumption. ‘Well, that’s hardly surprising…’
‘Suppose so,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Though she’s weirdly good at remembering who she’s spoken to. What did she say?’
‘She asked when I was coming back.’
‘To visit, or permanently?’
‘Both.’
‘She asked me the same,’ Elizabeth said.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I’d be back for Christmas.’
‘And what about the permanently part?’ Adam asked her.
‘Not sure. I’ve had a job offer actually,’ she said.
‘Really? Where?’
‘Russia again. There’s a growing demand.’
‘I bet,’ Adam said. ‘Everyone’s terrified that Putin’ll sabotage their election, or invade the Balkans.’
‘The Baltics,’ his sister said. ‘Thankfully for the Balkans, they’re short on geopolitical significance.’
Adam flushed with shame. He’d known this very well, but the fear he felt of making himself seem stupid to his sister was, as ever, self-fulfilling.
‘It also remains unclear how Putin is able to physically prevent US presidential candidates from visiting swing states,’ his sister said. ‘Perhaps I’ll get the scoop.’
‘Maybe you will,’ Adam said, too chastened to attempt to spar. ‘Well, congratulations.’
‘And you?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘I told Mum I’d be here a while longer.’
‘You don’t sound very happy about it.’
‘Don’t I?’ he said, surprised.
‘No.’
‘Well, I’m not really enjoying my work very much.’
‘Right,’ Elizabeth said. ‘That’s different to sounding happy about being where you are, though.’
‘Yes,’ he said, frowning.
‘And what’s happening at work?’
‘I think that, essentially, I don’t really like the music very much any more.’
‘Hmm,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Well, it is a business after all. But I know you’ve always found that side of things very boring.’
Adam didn’t say anything.
‘You know, I was quite envious of you when you started this job. You loved it so much. I’ve never experienced that, to be honest.’
The idea of his sister’s envying him had never occurred to Adam. He wished she’d told him at the time.
‘Well, sadly things have changed a bit now,’ he said.
‘Perhaps you should seize the chance to do something else,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I assume you’re talented at it, and now with all that under your belt…’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve been wondering about it. What about you? Will you take the job in Russia?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I reckon so.’
‘Is it Moscow?’
‘Yes.’
‘And after that?’
‘I might go home, you know.’
Adam felt an unexpected twinge of something like envy himself.
‘I’ve been thinking about Russia,’ he said. ‘When I came with Mum and Dad.’
‘And Sofia,’ Elizabeth said.
After he’d lost her, his sister hadn’t spoken to him for a month.
‘Yes. Remember Dad, drinking vodka shots with that ex-KGB guy, in the bar we all liked near your flat?’
His sister laughed. ‘Yes. Don’t think I’ll ever forget that. Nor will I forget Mum’s nagging at him: “Be careful, you’re not used to vodka.”’
‘He hated that,’ Adam laughed.
‘I know.’
‘He held his own, though. Mind you, I think it’s easier to drink vodka in large quantities than other spirits.’
‘I don’t agree with that at all,’ Elizabeth said.
These confident dismissals of Adam’s statements were his least favourite thing about his sister. They were put into sharper relief by his life in LA, where no one spoke to each other like this. His optimistic spirit dimming, he decided it was time to go to work.
‘Anyway, that sort of thing didn’t do him much good in the end, did it?’ Elizabeth said.
‘No,’ Adam replied. He closed his mind to the darkening memories, turning to the window and the bright sunshine outside. ‘You should come to LA,’ he said. ‘Come and visit.’
‘Yes,’ she said, neutrally. ‘Maybe when I’m settled back in Moscow.’
‘OK, sis. Bye for now,’ he said. ‘Stay in touch.’
* * *
The Friday feeling was restored somewhat by his saunter to work. The day was still cool, and a red-tailed hawk was flying low above Sunset, scattering the pigeons from their overhead cables. He paused several times to watch it, and to snap pictures on his phone.
His hangover, he knew, would worsen steeply after lunch. But for now at least, the world seemed imbued with a sweetly melancholic beauty. Presumably it was this delusion that could be witnessed in late-stage alcoholics as they became mawkish with drink. Still, it felt good to Adam as he strolled up the hill.
He’d just decided to go and make more coffee while his emails downloaded, when he noticed a large piece of paper standing in the centre of Scott’s desk, propped against the wall. It had been neatly printed in a flamboyant serif font, on the special cream cardstock that the company had used for The Suffering’s showcase invitations. Within an elegant, floral border, it read:
B (Broad appeal)
O (Originality)
S (Synch)
H (Hunger)
‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ Adam muttered, anger quickening his pulse. Scott, like a lovesick schoolboy, had printed out the Autodidact’s latest A & R decree and displayed it above his desk. As far as Adam was concerned, he might as well have declared war.
The entire company had been subjected to this recent dogma via an email to Global Team. No longer would signing artists be about gut instinct, the Autodidact had said. No longer would it be about excitement, fans among the staff, passion, or any other such strange and immeasurable concept. ‘Is it any good?’ he had declared, should be the last question you ask yourselves.
Going forward, A & R would be about BOSH.
Broad appeal: how wide was the market for any given project?
Originality: how fresh was the music this artist made?
Synch: would the music sell to advertisers?
Hunger: how badly did the artist want it?
This, to Scott, was apparently dynamite. A credo by which to live. Having put away the childish things he’d once professed to love, he was now a fully paid-up subscriber. Scott was a disciple, a true believer; a recruit to the Autodidact’s radical new cause.
As far as Adam was concerned, that made him a Judas. And besides, how on earth would they explain this to any visiting artist?
‘What’s that, guys?’ ‘Oh, it’s our A & R policy. We do the whole thing by box-ticking. How many can we cross off for you?’
Adam carefully picked up the manifesto, pulled down his trousers and underpants, and wiped it between his buttocks. The card was quite difficult to bend, but he put in the effort. Having only recently showered, his bottom was clean, which made the gesture merely symbolic. But it was the thought that counted.
The Edge Page 15
