Beginning of the End - page 2

We knock. The door opens. He barely acknowledges me, and is unnecessarily frosty with my manager. For all his idiosyncrasies, my manager is still a better man, not least because, unlike Mr Um and Aah here, he does not support Liverpool, wear the same navy macintosh every time I see him or look like Ricky Martin. My manager has also pronounced my first name perfectly from the first time we met, unlike Mr Um and aah, who has only just mastered its correct pronunciation in the last week, and will probably never understand the concept of the silent t. You know there’s a flaw in the perfect plan when a man is talking about making ten albums with you but will avoid saying your name at all costs. (I believe it’s called a one night stand with a stranger in some circles.) From here on in, Mr Um and Aah deems it necessary to assume the role of extremely pissed off headmaster to the very very naughty child. Except that this doesn’t work, because he and I both know that one of us was further up the queue when intelligence was being handed out, but neither of us admit this, so I allow him the temporary and wholly illusory contentment of seeing me cowed.

I do my best. He is apoplectic with self important rage and when this happens, Mr Um and Aah goes very red and his ears stick out a little, which makes him look even more like Ricky Martin but with a Mickey Mouse quality. I marvel at this strangeness for a moment, and then remember that I must try harder to look upset and be more of a snivelling, uncontrollable, and wait for it, DIFFICULT ARTIST.

I am there, I have reached the pantheon of the gods, finally, my moment awaits, ah, ah, it’s coming...

“ssnivel...ssnivel...it’s just so hard.....I mean, I feel like such a failure....ssnivel....I’ve let you all down and I was just angry with myself.....but I took it out on you....snnniivel...and...”

wait for it, here comes the biggy,

“we always take it out on the people we care about most.”

I know this will work, because our friend here has been sent on a plethora of poncey exec. training conventions where they learn the words “proactive” “micro manage” “the bigger picture” “positioning”, and so on, and he is always keen to slide these little gems of de rigeur psycho babble into any and every conversation one has with him. It’s working, he’s softening, I’m doing the crying thing really really well, my manager is doing the “she’s just a young, silly thing really” face, by now my freshly applied mascara should be running nicely, and I am convinced I have missed my calling and it’s an Oscar, not a Grammy, I should be aiming for. I do the gulping thing. (Gulping, not swallowing, let there be no confusion as to the nature of our relationship here. If I had, that marketing budget might have been like the lottery jackpot, but I have my limits, and I know enough A&R jokes to believe all the punch lines.)

I tilt my head at that angle that all my boyfriends have found sufficiently endearing in mid argument to sweep me up into their arms. My lips part in a faint, pouty, but not too sexy pouty, way. I draw my finger to said mouth. I sigh. I look up.

And damn me if the fucker doesn’t kick off with round two, which is really just a recapitulation of round one, except louder and with fewer syllables, which means he is actually pretty pissed off. With certain types of people, no matter how articulate or well versed in the bullshit lingo of whichever field it is they operate in, you can tell if they’re for real or not when they’re in full flow. Mr Um and Aaah has thrown all caution to the wind, there’s another f-word, oops, and another, and another, and I do believe that was the c-word. (Oh,no sorry, that’s me, muttering it under my breath.) You get the picture. I feel like telling him to calm down, a nice cup of tea will make it all better, and mummy will do her best to find diddums his favourite toy just as soon as he stops trying to strangle her. I resume the crying, this time attempting the odd wail here and there, adjusting the frequency according to the levity of the particular swear word hurtling in my direction. This goes on for what seems an eternity, and once he is sated, we three sit in the spare, IKEA catalogue office, strangely silent, while Marvin and Van look on. I swear they wink conspiratorially at me, now that I am finally privy to the burden of secret knowledge that comes with being well and truly shafted up the nether regions by a recording corporation.

We stand up, have a go at the “we’re all friends again” routine, do the “no bad feelings” fake bear hug, and my manager and I depart, incredulous that I have not (yet) been dropped and neither of us has sustained any visible injury. The drive back is slow and silent, and when I arrive at the Scala, I am grateful for the cold, damp, Kings Cross night and the stiff brandy awaiting me in the VIP bar. I remind myself, while hobnobbing with a particular household name that night, that for all his bravado, Mr Um and Aah will never be cool and will never be admitted in the dressing room I so freely circulate, except begrudgingly and in the hope of more tour support money. This is because I am an artist, no matter how bedraggled, hopeless or unrecouped. I am an artist.

Still, that night I go home, and this time I cry for real. I cry because I don’t know what else to do, and nothing else seems to make it feel better. I cry for that young dumb naive kid I was all those years ago, for all those falsely confident compliments so triumphantly whispered in my eager little ears;  for all those radio promo trips to stations in the middle of nowhere who knew they would never play my record but made me do stupid Christmas jingle voice overs (“just in case, you never know”), and those trips to the record store with my mates when we bought multiple copies of my album with cash. I cry for my mum and dad who scoured newspapers and internet search engines for a mention of their kid, who read vitriolic reviews of their daughter’s work, hurt as much as I did for them, but still told me to “keep going, you can do it.” But most of all I cry, because my immediate future lies in the hands of someone for whom I have no respect or love, and that is a sad and frightening thing.

<< page 1