“I’ve tried to help him,” I spluttered. I admit to being slightly frightened of Crow.
“Why have you always tried to fill his head with all that New Age shit?” Crow was almost spitting.
“That is not what I’ve done,” I protested.
Crow wasn’t listening. He started to poke my chest with his index finger, and it hurt. He had powerful, bony, guitar player’s fingers. “This band is all I’ve got, Louis. Don’t fuck it up.”
Walter called him from the stage.
“I’ll speak to you again later,” said Crow as he turned to go onstage. “And I’ll kill fucking Frank as well. This band is not about money, or art, it’s about truth.”
Crow left me, still muttering, and stalked in his Doc Martens like an angry catwalk model to the stage and picked up his guitar.
Chapter 8
The last show at Dingwalls by Big Walter and His Stand would quickly pass into legend. I’d never heard the band play with such ferocity. They played their closing number, their Ford song, as though trying to smash it into the ground, to destroy it, to make it unusable.
A few thirty-plus women at the front pretended to be teenagers, aroused by the metaphors. They were perhaps imagining a man who might give them enough time to orgasm at least once, and half screamed.
Crow looked more and more livid and Frank started to look ill at ease; I’d told him Crow had said he would kill him, and as soon as the song ended Frank left discreetly.
I had found a table to one side of the stage and sat there with Selena. I couldn’t see Floss; she had been speaking to Frank most of the evening, and I suspected she had left with him, maybe meeting him outside.
I started to bang my glass on the table with such irritation that I cracked it. I was jealous!
Selena noticed and laughed. It was the right response to my absurdity, but how could she know what I was thinking?
As the band’s two crew members were putting away the guitars, Walter came to say goodbye. He stood uneasily as Selena tapped the empty chair beside her.
“Amazing show, Walter,” I said.
Walter nodded, not modestly, but agreeing and accepting the compliment.
Crow walked up. “Walter.” I could tell he was about to give an order. “Sit. I need to talk to you. We all need to talk.”
Walter sat, not meekly, but with respect, I think. Crow demanded it, and attention; I had personally never seen him in a rage, but his temper was legendary and it was clear he had something to say.
I made to stand to leave them to it.
“Please stay, Louis.” This was another order. He turned his fierce gaze to Selena. “Selena, you stay too.”
Before Crow could say anything more, Walter spoke. “You’re wrong about all this, Crow,” he said calmly. “This is not Louis’s fault. It’s true that ever since I was a kid he’s drummed into me how madness and art can be combined—but I never took any notice. I just thought he was a bit mad, and so were most of his clients.”
Crow opened his mouth to speak but Walter put up his hand. “Let me finish, Crow,” he said gently. “Whatever Louis has taught me, or tried to teach me, has never stopped me loving this band, or what we do. It’s as important to me as it is to you.”
Crow looked from me to Selena.
“Selena hasn’t affected my decision either,” he said, putting his hand on her arm. She shook her hair, got up, and walked away.
Crow and I both waited.
I broke the silence. “What decision?”
Walter shook his head. Then he nodded. “I need to tell you more about Frank’s deal. He’s sold one of my songs to Ford to use in a commercial for one of their huge trucks in the States. On the back of that he’s sold my entire catalog. So it’s a lot of money and Siobhan, well, she thinks if we have money I should leave the band—because we can afford it. But it’s not just about Frank’s deal and the money. I’ve been worrying for a long time now, and my mental health is not good.”
Crow looked grim. This was the end, he knew it was, he could read Walter well; after all, they were old friends. “Can you at least try to explain what’s happened,” he pleaded, some of his anger revolving briefly into petulance. “What do you plan to do? Are you really leaving the band? What’s the matter with your mental health? Just because you’ve got some cash you’re going to leave the fucking band? You just said it was important to you. Do you know what this all means to me?”
Crow gestured at the club, which was beginning to empty—at filthy black cables strewn over the floor, ashtrays, and empty bottles everywhere. The most precious place on earth.
“You know I met Paul Jackson,” Walter began.
“Andréevich!” Crow spluttered.
“Let me explain, Crow,” said Walter firmly. “You want to know. I want to explain.”
Crow sat back in his chair like a scowling teenager. The back of the chair cracked, for a brief second threatening to topple, but Crow didn’t flinch.
“Old Nik,” agreed Walter. “I met him, yes. Louis did arrange it, because he is his agent now, but I wanted to meet him. I’ve been a fan of Hero Ground Zero since I was a kid. And I was curious. Nik, as he calls himself now, had a breakdown. I feel I’m on the verge of something myself. The pressures I feel are out of all proportion with what is going on around me.”
Crow couldn’t help himself. “Pressure!” He was almost barking, leaning forward, the veins in his neck pulsating. “This isn’t a high-pressure job. It’s fun. It’s easy. We play pub rock while people get rat-arsed, and we get paid for it. We live well. Where’s the fucking pressure?”
“I don’t know, Crow,” Walter said, not rising to the bait. “It might not be coming from what we do here, it might be coming from inside me.”
“So what did fucking Andréevich have to say?” demanded Crow.
“He said something that helped,” replied Walter, but placed his hand on the table, palm down, a firm boundary. “But I don’t think telling you would help you to understand.”
“Fuck!” Crow was barking now. “You are going to stop playing music, aren’t you?”
Walter nodded. “I have to, for a while. My head is swimming at the moment. I feel I’m being taken over, sound, strange stuff.”
Crow stood up, finally really angry, and turned on me again. “You arranged the meeting,” he shouted. “What the fuck were you thinking? What could a washed-up old prog rock star who’s off his fucking head possibly say that would be useful to Walter? He needs a shrink, not another nutter. Jesus!”
Crow knocked his chair over as he stormed out.
Walter and I sat, watching the crew pack the last few mike stands into a flight case.
“I arranged the meeting with Old Nik because I thought it might help,” I said. “It doesn’t matter which path you take, Walter, but you do have to choose. Siobhan wants you to leave music behind you, to work with her on some grand intellectual project. Crow wants you here, playing what he tells you to play. I want to help you with this stuff you hear—because I believe it could lead you to a new level of creativity. I know what I’m talking about. I have seen it happen before with some of my clients.”
I was very shaken by the tense atmosphere Crow had stirred up. I tried to keep my voice low, and spoke into Walter’s ear. I was too rattled, though, to care much who heard what I said. A few stragglers left in the club were looking over at our table.
Walter turned to me. “Nik was up on Skiddaw for fifteen years, did you know that?”