Less strange but more threatening were the score or so of photographers with bands of equipment strapped to them, some of them standing on boxes to get a sterling view of what looked like a brick wall.
Although Dad was as surprised by all this as Gabriel, it pleased him, too.
‘This was what it was like in the old days, boy.’ They were approaching. ‘Everywhere we went, crowds of people waving and shouting and wanting to touch us.’
‘Even you?’
‘Even me, I’m afraid, you bloody idiot. I was successful too young. At twenty-five I had everything a kid could use, and a lot a kid couldn’t.’
Gabriel and his father hesitated at the edge of the crowd. The photographers turned and stared at Gabriel’s father, Nikons and Canons raised, lenses protruding.
‘Excuse me,’ said Dad.
No one moved. There was a puzzled pause.
‘Is he anyone?’ a voice asked.
‘Is he? Is he?’ said other people.
‘No, no one,’ was the authoritative reply, at last.
‘No one,’ someone echoed.
‘No, no one,’
A sigh of disappointment fluttered through the gathering.
‘We are someone.’ Dad put his hand on Gabriel’s arm. He whispered, ‘If anyone asks us anything … say “No comment”. Right?’
‘No comment,’ repeated Gabriel.
‘That’s it. And when we actually see him … Lester —’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t say too much.’
‘Don’t talk?’
‘Well, a bit.’ Dad’s skin was bubbling with sweat like the walls of his room. ‘Oh God,’ he moaned. ‘It’s been a long, long time!’
‘Is this the hotel?’
Gabriel saw only a long, dark, high wall with a green door set into it. The brass knocker was in the shape of a monkey’s head.
‘Of course it is.’
They passed through the crowd. Gabriel noticed that the fans had Lester’s face, slightly remodelled, as if Lester had bequeathed them his old faces, having no more use for them.
‘No comment,’ Dad intoned.
‘No comment,’ Gabriel murmured.
No one had asked them a question.
The door opened, a man in grey holding it for them.
‘Harold Steptoe?’ said Dad.
‘Harold is waiting,’ said the man.
Dad whispered to Gabriel, ‘That’s the name Lester always uses in hotels.’
They were taken across the threshold and the door closed behind them.
Gabriel, with his father beside him, found himself standing in an almost empty space.
There was a deep hush in the hotel; the place was so stylish that there appeared to be nothing to disfigure the exquisite austerity of nothing piled on nothing, apart from — on an invisible shelf — a white vase containing a single white flower.
In the distance, little figures in charcoal pyjamas and slippers started to unbend slowly, like Chinese mandarins coming out of hypnosis.
One of these, a young girl, began to move towards them.
‘Lester is waiting for you,’ she said, arriving pale, slightly out of breath and older than when she had started out. ‘This way.’
As they followed, Gabriel thought how easy it would be to disappear into such an expanse of nullity until he realized she made her way by following a line of little grey pebbles on the ground. Approaching a plain white wall, she turned left suddenly and went through an arch, treading along a corridor where occasionally they saw bodyguards in black, protecting Lester from madmen who wanted him to be a god.
The girl rapped on a door and was gone.
Lester opened it himself, wearing a green silk kimono.
He and Rex embraced.
‘How’s the ankle?’ Lester took them into the room. He turned to Gabriel. ‘Did Rex tell you how it happened?’
‘Many times.’
Dad started to hop up and down on one leg. ‘All mended! Strong as a giraffe! Look! I’m ready to tour again!’
Gabriel took Dad’s hand to calm him.
‘Good,’ said Lester. ‘I’m not!’
His face was as sharp and bright as a blade; he had one brown eye and one blue, with yellow flashes across it.
Gabriel saw, in another room, a young, bare-legged woman sitting at a mirror having her hair caressed by two men in orange sarongs, their mouths filled with clips.
Lester directed Dad to a table in the corner.
‘Let me pick your long-living brain, maestro,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to do some kind of memoir. The freaks I’ve had in here from the past, doing my remembering for me! Now …’
They talked over old times and Lester made notes. Gabriel took out his sketchbook and continued to work on the picture of his father he had started the previous night.
He kept looking at Lester, secretly and not so secretly.
How could he write songs that people the world over knew the words to? Why did people continue to buy his records? Why, when he played live, did people queue through the night to see him? How did people acquire such powers? Was it in Lester’s hair, which was certainly magnificent and dyed ruby red? Or was the magic located in his white, long thin fingers with their round, clean nails?
Meanwhile Lester listened to Dad’s reminiscences, leaning forward at first, and then further and further backwards. Dad had started out on a story about a night in a Northern town that involved someone vomiting in their own suitcase. Lester, who seemed to be erupting inwardly himself, was looking for inspiration.
‘Hey! Hey!’ he said suddenly. ‘Listen Rex. You know, I’ve just finished a new record. I think it’s my best one in years.’
‘I know all your stuff. Can’t wait to hear this one,’ said Dad.
‘Do you want to hear it right now?’
Dad looked confused. ‘Not before you’re ready. Anyway,’ he continued. ‘Plucky, Twang the guitarist and I had just checked into this bed-and-breakfast and a big consignment of supernova grass had been delivered —’
Lester said, ‘I’ve never been readier. I’ve got a tape of it — right here!’ He popped the tape into a small machine on the table. ‘There’s no track list.’ He grabbed a piece of paper. ‘I know what: I’ll write down the song title and you jot your thoughts down underneath.’
‘Great idea.’
Dad was starting to get annoyed but what could he do?
Lester left Dad sitting beside the tape sucking the end of a pencil, and made his way across to Gabriel. This was not straightforward, as the floor was almost concealed by different-sized sheets of paper covered with scribbles, drawings, doodles, and poems in many colours.
Gabriel remembered, from talking to his father, that Lester had been a painter before he’d been a pop star, and had continued to paint and exhibit.
‘Tables aren’t big enough for me,’ said Lester. ‘I prefer floors, where I can get to things.’ Gabriel felt Lester’s different-coloured eyes on him. ‘What were you going to say?’
Gabriel blushed. ‘I’m thinking that it reminds me of a kid’s bedroom.’
He expected Lester to be offended. Across the room, Gabriel saw his father’s face twist in embarrassment and fear.
Lester laughed. ‘Yes, I was brought up to be neat, but I was able to teach myself to be messy and disorganized, noisy and loud. It took some learning! Good boys achieve nothing! This is what I do for a living — cover bits of paper. Look, look!’ Lester got onto his knees and indicated a sheet of paper. ‘I found these new crayons. This is what I was doing last night.’
Gabriel said, ‘But that’s what I do.’
‘What do you mean?’
Gabriel jumped up and fetched his sketchbook from where he had put it down. ‘See.’
Lester looked at the picture. ‘What else do you have there?’
Gabriel handed him the book. Lester went through it, page by page.
Gabriel explained, ‘Like you, I’ve been writing on the pictures. Some of them are photographs.’ He showed a page to Lester. ‘I drew these daffodils for Dad and put them next to the photographs. Then I wrote daffodil poems across them in different colours so that Dad would know what I meant. It all went together in my mind —’