‘Chauffeurs don’t have names, liebchen.’
Then she leads you out to the Bentley.
The girls outside, they don’t like Anita. They offer her dark glances. Does Anita have one of those metaphysical backstage passes, the kind marked ‘All Areas’? No, you don’t think so, and it seems to annoy her. For all her power, all her obvious allure, she lacks that final ticket of admission.
So you’re driving through the silent streets, getting further and further away from your story, and she’s spread across the back seat. The windows are open and her hair is flying across her face. She’s singing the same notes over and over.
‘Ooo-ooo; ooo-ooo.’
She asks you what they sound like.
‘A train,’ you yell into the wind. ‘You know, the whistle blowing.’
She smiles. ‘You’re a romantic.’
‘Well, if it’s not a train, what is it?’
She sits upright, slides forward so her head is just behind yours. ‘Banshees,’ she says quietly. ‘They’re banshees.’ Her mouth is close to your ear. ‘Ooo-ooo,’ she goes. Then she sits back.
You ask her where you’re supposed to be going, but she’s not listening. You end up driving along the Embankment, thinking maybe she wants dropping off at Cheyne Walk, but she doesn’t even recognise the place. A couple of taxis are pulling away from the Houses of Parliament: end of a late-night debate. There’s a police car parked at the entrance to Downing Street. You wrote a piece about the government for one of the Sunday papers. Nobody paid much attention. When the tramp back at the studio wrote about JFK’s assassination for Playboy, they paid him five thousand dollars. And he got to spend the day at Hefner’s mansion. You’re sure the band have been there, too. Anita probably wasn’t invited.
‘Christ!’ she shrieks, so that you flinch at the steering-wheel. ‘I’ve had the most amazing idea!’
She’s ordering you to turn the car round, cursing you for taking her so far from the studio. You don’t even know whose car it is. But you bend to her urgency, take the Bentley up on to a pavement as you swing back in the direction you’ve just come. Back to the studio, where Anita flies into the recording room.
And now she’s back again, gathering everyone together. Even the writer wakes to her spell. There’s a French director there, too – Godard, isn’t it? He has a film crew with him. He tried to talk to you about anarchy yesterday, but his English and your French conspired against the dialogue. A circle is forming around the microphone. You’ve all got headphones on, and finally, after instructions from Anita, the track begins to play. Anita leads you all in the dance. Percussion, then the lead vocal with piano accompaniment. On the periphery, you can see the band. They’re in the production suite with the engineer. They look tired, indulgent. Maybe just drunk. Then Anita raises her hand. It’s just about time.
‘Ooo-ooo! Ooo-ooo!’
‘Ooo-ooo! Ooo-ooo!’
And you’re the banshee in a rock and roll band…
Where is this party? The tall windows are draped with black velvet. Candles; red lightbulbs; batik scarves thrown over lampshades. Sweet herbal fug in the air. Drug cocktails a speciality de la maison. The host – you’ve barely spoken with him – is minor aristocracy according to one of your sources, dabbles in the stock market according to another. The food has mostly gone. Guests have been folding up multiple slices of smoked salmon and cramming them into already bloated cheeks.
It’s hard to tell because of the lighting, but nobody looks really well. Faces are pierrot white, or would be in daylight, in sunshine. Is there sunshine outside? Watches are being removed at the door, taken away and hidden by the host. No clocks. No telephones, radio, TV.
‘We’re out of time,’ he’d said, smiling. ‘This party does not exist in time. And we keep on partying till nineteen-seventy. ’
You’d felt like asking him how anyone would know when nineteen-seventy arrived, but then someone had passed you a joint and you hadn’t asked any questions after that for quite a while.
What was it? Not just hash: hash you can handle. Some altogether weightier matter: a touch of heroin in the mix? A well-toked speedball? There’s music playing, and bodies strewn over the floor and the sofas and the scatter-cushions. You were brought here by two of your subjects – you’ve begun to think of them as ‘subjects’, not that you’re their master, quite the reverse – but now you can’t see anyone you know. Jeff the Nose has been and gone. Klein was invited apparently, but no way would he show: rumours of contract difficulties, of money owed. A Beatle… did a blessed Beatle drift past your eyeline an hour or more ago? And did he look too mortal?
Kenneth Anger was in town, but declined your request for an interview. He had conversations with your subjects behind closed doors. Some people think Anger is a magus. You know who he wants to cast in his next film, Lucifer Rising. You know who he thinks would make the perfect Lucifer, the preterperfect Beelzebub.
Everyone knows.
You’ve been reading a book, The Master and Margarita. Marianne gave it to Mick. Bulgakov’s novel gave him notions; hardened up ‘Tea and Sympathy’, turned it into something stranger and more wonderful. You wonder if it’ll get airtime. You didn’t just sing backing vocals on that song, you became part of something bigger.
Something you’ve so far failed to put into words.
A woman is handing you a joint. Her eyelashes are thickened to spider legs. Her long straw-coloured hair has been braided and piled atop her head, looking like coiled snakes.
‘Medusa,’ you intone. ‘Will you turn me to stone?’
She ignores the question, asks you something about Clapton, and you’re shaking your head as you inhale.
‘Bailey?’ she tries. You shake your head again and she moves away, her snakes writhing, but that’s all right, because inside your head you can hear percussion and jungle vocals.
Primaclass="underline" that’s the word you’ve been searching for… And now you have it, you don’t know what to do with it.
The party is carried along by its own momentum. Guests come and go, but the core group stays, becoming stronger. Then suddenly a decision is made and everyone’s groping for jackets and scarves, flouncing out of the flat and down the stairs. It’s evening, and the fresh air feels like nothing you’ve ever experienced. You suck it in, and listen to the traffic. Cars and taxi cabs, everyone’s heading somewhere and you’re part of the flow. A ten-minute ride, and you’re spilling out of the vehicles, scurrying back indoors. A nightclub this time, the Vesuvio. You’ve been here before, but never in such exalted company.
There’s someone tugging at your sleeve. You’re wearing the ruffled white shirt which you’ve been told makes you ‘ever so slightly Byronic’. An arm around your shoulder, lips pressed to your ear.
‘From now on, sweetcakes,’ you hear, ‘everything’s strictly off the record. Deal?’
Of course it’s a deal. And you’re in.
Is that McCartney over there? Gifts are being unwrapped: it’s Mick’s twenty-sixth. Hard to believe, all the history he’s made. Christ, anything’s possible. It’s 1968 and everything’s spinning, the world reaching out. Godard – you’re sure now it’s him – has his arms outstretched. A painted woman falls into them. Is she really naked, or does she just look that way? You’re seeing everything through a lens. You’re hearing everything in glorious stereophonic. You’re ceasing to see the world in terms of words, except when they’re lyrics.
The DJ announces something very special. That percussive opening again, really cranked up this time. Hairs begin to rise on your arms. People invade the dance floor. They writhe, they squirm. The wine is blood-red and warm. Your knees are refusing to lock. They send you down on to all fours, the glass tumbling and smashing.