Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. (46 page)

With Mick, the Rotten Hill Gang, Zoë and Dylan after recording ‘Confessions of a MILF’

We record it a week later. I wear a black skirt and my Vivienne Westwood boots. Mick has asked the Rotten Hill Gang along to play on my track. I’m so touched that all these guys – plus Dylan Howe – have turned up to play on my song for nothing. We go through the track a couple of times before we start recording. This is one of the best days of my life and it all happens because of Mick. He was always very generous about my music.

28 THE MIDFIELD GENERAL

2010

Better that she had kept her thoughts on a chain, For now she’s alone again and all in pain …

Stevie Smith, ‘Marriage, I Think’

My daughter and I move back to London. She goes to a comprehensive school. Like I did. I’m not ashamed of myself any more, or worried that she will be like me. She fits in at the school and I fit in with the parents. Now I’ve got to get out and about, go to anything I’m asked to, build a social life. There’s a party at Gaz’s club tonight. I haven’t been to a club for years. I go with a friend. Mick Jones is there and quite a few other people from West London that I’ve started to see again. It’s not so bad. I can be single.

I’m wedged between a couple of guys I vaguely know, just about finding enough things to talk about. Give it ten more minutes and I’ll go home. I’ve done my duty, gone out to Soho for the evening and survived. That’s how out of practice I am, to get through an evening is like an assault course.

The guy to my left, long hair, shades, says he and a few friends are going back to someone’s house in a minute, do I want to come?

I say, ‘No thank you, I’ve got to get home.’

‘Go on,’ he says. ‘We’re going to do the midfield general.’

Should I know what that is? At the risk of sounding completely naïve, I ask him what the midfield general is.

‘It’s a mixture of MDMA, ket and coke, and my friend, Dave,’ he points to an out-of-shape, middle-aged bloke next to him, ‘chops it up and blows it in your arse with a straw. It’s fantastic. Goes straight into your bloodstream.’

I decline. He tries again. ‘Last time we did it, all these girls’, he gestures towards three dyed-blonde West London posh girls of a certain age, ‘knelt down in a row with their pants down, arses in the air, and Dave went along with the straw doing one after the other.’ I must look horrified because he says, ‘Oh, don’t worry, he’s like a doctor, he doesn’t check you out, he does it all the time.’

I say it’s really not my thing, I don’t take drugs, but thanks anyway, I must be going.

He gets annoyed. ‘Oh, you don’t drink and you don’t take drugs? Yeah great, you’ll die a beautiful corpse, but you’ll be lonely. And you’ll never meet a guy. Only queers don’t drink.’

I can’t wait to get outside onto Oxford Street and catch the bus home.

Touring France. I translated all my song titles into French – this is ‘Never Come’. Still in the 1977 Vivienne Westwood boots. Jacket Vivienne Westwood, 2011

29 BEAUTIFUL PSYCHO

2010

I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength.

Bram Stoker,
Dracula

I play a show one frosty February night in Camden Town. After the gig I’m hanging out with a bunch of mates in the downstairs bar. I’m buzzing, not on drink or drugs, just happy. I look across the crowded room and see this face, and I think,
That’s my kind of face
. Not because it’s a handsome face, because it’s a
familiar
face. The Mediterranean skin, the dark eyes, a slight innocence to the expression, the shape of the chin and the brow. Maybe he reminds me of my dad. I try not to look at him again. I just get on with enjoying the evening.

My friends are giving me a lift home in their truck and they keep texting me, they’re waiting outside and are impatient to leave – so I pick up my guitar and make my way through the crowd to the exit. My gait stiffens slightly as I pass the nice-looking guy and I try to look nonchalant. To my amazement he looks me straight in the eye as I pass and says in a gentle voice, ‘Goodbye.’ This is no ordinary goodbye. It’s a meaningful goodbye.

Outside I rush up to Trace and complain, ‘It’s not fair. No nice guy like that would ever approach me at a show and ask me out. They’re too shy and respectful.’

She says, ‘Go back in and give him your phone number.’

I’m appalled. ‘No way. I can’t possibly do that. He might have a girlfriend. It’s embarrassing.’ Then I think, he did
kind of
make a move. I turn to my friend Barry who’s standing next to us and say, ‘You do it.’

Giggling away together and trying not to be noticed, Barry and I peer through the pub window to make sure he approaches the right guy. ‘Him in the black jacket,’ I point and then duck below the window. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Barry goes in with my number scribbled on a piece of paper. And I go home.

The next day I get a text from the guy at the bar and we arrange to meet at a tearoom in Camden. I’ve never done this before – well, not since I was sixteen. Have I lost my marbles completely? Am I in a divorce-induced hysteria? But I really don’t want to sink into a man-free solo existence: must get back on the horse.

I dress down and opt for a V-neck slate-grey Donna Karan jumper, jeans and boots. I’m feeling a bit nervous as I walk past Sainsbury’s … better stop at the cash machine and get some money out. Can’t expect him to pay, a bit presumptuous.

I walk into the tearoom. A young guy is standing at the counter, wearing a V-necked dark blue jumper, jeans and boots. He looks at me questioningly. I panic and look wildly round the room.
This can’t be him. For god’s sake, Viv, what were you thinking? He’s gorgeous
.

But it
is
him. We sit down with a pot of tea between us and start to talk, I like his voice, he’s from New York. How many warning signs does a girl need before she backs away? Well, post-divorce, a bit green and lacking in confidence, quite a few.

He waves his arms around in a nervous manner: Keith Richards, Nick Kent and Captain Jack Sparrow come to mind. A sort of druggy twitchiness. He tells me he was a junkie in the past. But that was a long time ago.
I admire his honesty
.

He calls homosexuals ‘fags’.
Must just be a New York thing
.

As he walks me home, he tells me it’s important never to give way to oncoming pedestrians, he sees it as a jungle out there, ‘You’ve got to establish your dominance.’
He must have grown up in a tough neighbourhood, poor thing
.

He would like to see me again. ‘Don’t make it too long,’ he says softly.

OK, a couple of things about him are a bit weird, but I can handle weird, can’t I? Wasn’t I in the Slits? Didn’t I hang out with Sid Vicious? I’ve known all sorts of weird people. That’s who I was, and that’s who I’m trying to find again, so this must be what I’m supposed to be doing: reconnecting with the sort of creative, interesting people I hung out with back then. Right?

We go on lots of dates. He’s funny and has precise and discerning musical taste, which matters to me. I take it slow, try to be sensible, we don’t kiss or touch for ages, months. He’s on best behaviour, and eventually I start to relax and we get physical. But things in the bedroom are turning out to be a bit strange.

I can feel he’s holding himself back sexually. Controlling himself. It crosses my mind that maybe he’s holding back because if he lets go, he’ll get violent. He keeps trying to put off sexual encounters. Says he’s almost ready, can I give him another fifteen minutes? Is he on medication? Viagra? Why won’t he talk to me about it? I’ve told him all my problems, it’s not like I’m in a hundred per cent working order myself. He can’t come. He can keep an erection but he can’t ejaculate. I’m totally confused. Is this what men are like nowadays? Is it an age thing? I’m so new to the dating scene that I don’t know what to expect, what’s normal. Eventually one night he does come, but he has to rub himself so hard against my dry stomach that I fear his penis is going to split open. Is this the result of years of masturbating? Maybe he can’t come inside a vagina because it isn’t tight enough. I don’t think I’m too bad inside, I had a Caesarean, but there’s no way he’ll get the kind of pressure he can get from rubbing
that
hard (inside anyone’s front bottom anyway).

As he relaxes with me, he starts to show his aggression more. He shouts and throws things, flies into a rage if I remark that one of his stories doesn’t add up or contradicts his previous version, he can’t leave the house without getting into an argument with somebody on the street. And there are more warning signs.

He has no friends. Not one. ‘Oh, they’ve all settled down and moved away,’ he explains.
Well, I suppose this can happen, everyone pairing off, having kids, moving to the country. At the same time
.

When I’m not there, he doesn’t sleep at night. ‘I can’t bear the thoughts in my head.’ He stays awake until four or five in the morning and then curls up on the floor and falls asleep in front of the electric fire.
How cute, like a little wild animal
.

We have a play fight, but he can’t control himself and presses his fist hard against my throat. It hurts for about three days. When I ask him about it he’s shocked and upset that I would even consider that he did it on purpose.
He seems so sincere, I must have imagined it
.

We do have some good times, he cooks for me a lot – he only has one plate, one knife and one fork, but I like that he doesn’t care about possessions and he lets me have them whilst he uses a bowl and a spoon. He’s got loads of great vintage guitar pedals, he’s techy, a geek. I love that in a guy. Also, I can turn up on his doorstep, any time day or night, and he’s happy to see me. This is good: sometimes I work strange hours and not many men can cope with it.

But I’m crying a lot. This isn’t what was supposed to happen. I didn’t leave my marriage to be upset all the time. What kind of role model will I be for my daughter if I’m in an unhappy, un stable relationship? I want her to be strong and have self-esteem. She hasn’t seen me upset about this guy yet, and I don’t intend to let her. I’d better sort myself out. A couple of times I end it, but the day after an outburst he’s always so calm, intelligent and rational, so loving, I think I’ve imagined the whole thing and I go back. I’m so insecure about my ability to attract someone, so desperate to prove that I wasn’t the one in the marriage who was difficult to get along with, that I’m in denial. He’s quite clearly insane.

Eventually I face up to the facts and tell him calmly one evening that I’m very sorry, I can’t go on, it’s not working, I wish him well, and head for the door.
Quite grown up and civilised
, I think to myself proudly – I could easily have ranted and raved and had a blazing row about his peculiar behaviour, but instinctively I feel it’s better not to rile him.

He starts hissing at me to be quiet, not to make a noise. ‘The guy upstairs will think I’m attacking you.’

Eh? Where did that come from?
I ignore him and collect my stuff.

‘I’m begging you to be quiet, Viv.’

The guy’s really losing the plot here; or is it me? Am I going insane? No, keep a grip on reality, you haven’t raised your voice
. He says it
again. Christ! If he’s that worried about noise, I’ll give him something to fret about
. I purposely bang the front door open as I struggle out with my suitcase.

That bang is like a starting pistol. He’s straight off the blocks and flying at me with a demented expression, eyes blazing with furious hatred, arms outstretched, hands in a strangling position. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Not on any murderer in any movie. They don’t come close. Not a patch on the real thing.

Before I’ve even blinked, he’s snatched both my wrists, gripping them tightly together whilst dragging me back into the room. With his free hand he grabs a clump of hair at the back of my head and forces me to the floor, down onto my knees, pushing my face hard into the carpet, somehow he’s twisted my hands behind my back. All this happens in a second. He has the superhuman strength of a crack addict, the speed of a commando and the reflexes of a pretty boy who’s been in the nick and had to watch his arse – which he’s hinted to me has happened to him.