Julia Gets a Life (44 page)

            I sit up, cross legged, to read the hand-written lines.

            ‘Ah, but
you
wrote this music. You probably had some sort of idea in your mind as you created it.’

            ‘Not consciously. My thoughts are more along the lines of ‘Yes! An A flat there’s fucking brilliant!’ Anyway. It’s about war. Listen for the great chord change in the middle.’

            So Craig begins playing and sings me my song.

            Which is about an old man who lives on his own with a cat and a bunch of tarnished war medals and gets his tea from meals on wheels. And all the local kids call him names and terrorise the cat. The irony being, of course, that at their age he was fighting a war and killing Germans. And watching his friends being killed. Craig thought about calling it
Fin de siècle,
but then decided that
Fin de siècle
would make a brilliant title for their next album, so the song is called
Killing Games
instead.

            It’s hardly romantic, but particularly special. My Grandad was killed at Ypres.

            The sound of the guitar fills the lofty space above us, and seems suspended there for some minutes after he plays the last chord. I realise I’m in the presence of someone completely self contained, and infinitely more complex that I’d ever have thought.

            ‘There,’ he says. ‘Could make a single, you reckon?’

            I nod. ‘Without a doubt. It’s brilliant. Well, I’m my opinion, anyway. But I’m not sure I’m really the best judge of such things.’

            ‘Your opinion is good enough for me, Mrs Potter.’ He grins. ‘ I need a beer. How about you?’

            He gets up and places the guitar carefully back on its stand.       ‘Switch the telly on, will you?’

            He throws me the remote and pads off down the stairs.

            In my twenties, I once read a book called
The Diceman
. By a man called Luke Rheinhart - a psychiatrist, I think I recall, rather appropriately - it was based on the concept of abdicating responsibility for your life and of having no control over choices and events. Its hero decides (though I can’t recall why) that he will run his life according to the throw of a die. So for every decision he makes, from that moment, he must number six options and then roll for his choice. Both the concept and the book were so utterly fixating that having read it (in one marathon session, on holiday) I spent several weeks drawing up endless lists (nothing new there) concerning people and things I felt strongly about.

            Switching on Craig James’s Television that evening is, I recognise immediately, a moment like that.

            There’s some sort of documentary about the completion of some sort of building project. I’m not really watching it until a coloured strip covers the base of the screen with the words
Peter Fielden - Fielden, Jones and Potter
on top. As he speaks, the camera pans around the familiar dirty grey of Cardiff Bay - I note the water level, pick out the church. The Pierhead Building. And then the hotel itself. Then the reporter thanks Peter Fielden, turns and smiled, and even before the new name comes on screen, I know what was coming next.

            ‘Richard Potter,’ he says, ‘You must be breathing a sigh of relief. It’s now been five years of delays and controversy. And you’ve taken your fair share of flak.....’

            Richard clears his throat and puts a slightly nervous hand to his chin. He’s wearing his least favourite suit. The one with the mark on the side of the lapel. And the tie with Mickey mouse on that Max had chosen for him the Christmas before last. I even recognise the shirt as being the one with the two bottom buttons missing and a small tear in the back. He wouldn’t let me throw it away - being frugal, and also fond of it - but only wore it on days when he’d stay in his jacket.

            ‘I’m extremely pleased,’ he’s saying. ‘This is good news for the consortium. And validates the position we’ve always maintained.’

            Craig returns at this point and sits down on the bed beside me. He hands me a bottle and gestures toward the screen.

            ‘Good?’

            ‘That’s my husband,’

            ‘You’re kidding! But, Yeah, I see it.
Potter
. So. That’s
Mr
P, eh?’

            Richard’s face looks lined and sallow. Like he’s just stepped off a long haul flight. Which he can’t have.

            ‘What’s this all about then?’ asks Craig.

            ‘It’s a hotel they’re building in the bay. Er… almost
have
built. Plus theatre, plus community arts centre. Richard is project manager. He’s been living this for oh, over six years now, and there’s been a lot of debate and argument over the cost, and whether Cardiff was even the right place for a five star two thousand room hotel, let alone all the rest. That sort of thing.’

            ‘Are there even that many
people
in Wales?’ He laughs. ‘No, you don’t have to answer that.’

            ‘But it’s a valid point. It all pre-supposes a huge population growth, long term, and in the short term that the area is going to become economically much more important than it is now. And some people feel something like this will become a sort of rich businessman’s ghetto. Nothing to do with the community at all. But it will bring with it - has already brought with it - hundreds, if not thousands of jobs. And it’s such an amazing building, and the concept....’

            I point towards the screen.

            ‘Every one of the two thousand rooms in the hotel is going to relate to a year - and will have a plaque detailing the important events of that year. And then there are ten separate conference areas - you know, rooms plus suites plus facilities etc., and those are going to be themed to reflect each of the ten decades this century. It’s an amazing place. I’ve seen all the plans. It’s quite something.’

            ‘Sounds like you took a degree in it! So they’ve just won something, have they?’

            ‘I think they must have secured some more major funding. To finish it. There’s been lots of delays because of money.’

            The bar leaves the screen and the camera swings in an arc around the harbour. A knot of people are gathered. I recognise a local MP. Then,

            ‘Good God, there’s the kids!’

            ‘What,
yours
?’

            ‘Yes! There! That’s Max, and just there - you see? Partly behind that guy with the hat? That’s Emma!’

            Craig leans closer to see.

            ‘She looks like you, doesn’t she?’

            ‘She’d be mortified to hear that. Mind you, that
is
my jacket she’s wearing.’

            The camera moves back to the reporter it started with and then on to a report about lead pipes in some school. I feel strange.

            Craig says,

            ‘Hi-profile family, eh? Cardiff aristocracy almost. Bet you’ll get a suite okay, once the place opens.’ He smiles. He is not being flippant or sarcastic. He is, I realise, just quietly impressed. And why wouldn’t he be?

            Then he says,

            ‘So that’s the bastard, is it? Seems like an okay sort of a guy on the surface.’

            I nod and take a sip of my beer. Then sigh.

            ‘That’s because he
is
okay. All the way through.’

Chapter
28

            Clear headed

            Decisive

            Intuitive

            Bright

            Logical

            All these attributes have been linked with the name Julia Potter at some point or other over the years. Which proves two important points. A) that you can put all sorts of rubbish on a CV and get away with it, and B) that other people (personnel officers and kindly GPs providing personal references etc, especially) either haven’t the first clue what sort of person you are, or are completely taken in by the garbage your careers officer at school/college suggested you draw attention to in said CV. What I
actually
am (for the purposes of making manifestly
serious
life choices, at least) is muddle headed, indecisive, devoid of insight, and stupid. If you par-boiled my brain it would probably work better. Which is great. Just great.

            And I don’t have any dice.

            But there’s no getting way from the truth. That I wish I was home, that I wish I had been there to support Richard, that I was with the kids, that I had sewed the buttons back on that shirt. That I suddenly feel horribly like I have slipped into someone else’s life by accident. That I am experiencing all sorts of ambivalent feelings; about Craig (passion/empathy/
butterflies
, still,
big time
), about Richard (compassion/
some
kind of love still/regret), and about me (bloody
hell
/what’s going on here?) That everything is simply
not fair
.

            And I have developed a lurch. Bing! just like that. The sort of feeling that someone more poetic (or up themselves) than me would describe as a kind of tugging at one’s heart strings. But it’s really just a plain old lurch. I noticed it straight away. Right after the piece on the hotel finished. Craig said,

            ‘Did you never really consider forgiving him?’ in such a level, measured, relatively light-hearted tone that it was impossible to get a handle on why he asked it. Was he just curious? Could he sense something had suddenly changed in my manner? Did he feel sorry for the guy? What?

             I said (quite truthfully), ‘I would have if he’d only done it once. But he did it twice. Which is a whole different ball game. Involving deceit and pre-meditation. Which were vastly more important than the sex itself.’

            Then he said, ‘Hmmm. Fair point. ’ And my heart went
lurch
.

            And has been doing so ever since. I now have in place a rather unsatisfactory flush/lurch combo. The sort of thing I recall someone describing once to me. Like a panic attack that got arrested mid-panic. Like the floor is rushing up to meet me even as I stand.

            Except that I’m sitting. As if a three course meal involving veloutes, reductions, béarnaise and hollandaise and all that sort of food-to-expire-by wasn’t enough, the plan was to go out for a curry with Nigel and Jacinta. So we duly, (him pensive, me busy flushing and lurching) got the car round and sped off to the Viceroy of Bengal (Like the lunch place, a venue beloved of the stars and with men on the doors who would only admit you if you were famous, blue-blooded or on somebody’s list). Not that I care.

            But we’re barely into the Puris when Jacinta announces,

            ‘Did Colin have a chance to run the book by you yet?’

            ‘Book?’

            ‘I’ve been commissioned to write a book for the noughties. A sort of post-millennial music and culture round up for the beginning of the new century. Some of the pix will be archive sourced, of course, but the bulk of it’s going to be new stuff. I’m going to be doing a lot of interviews, gig reports and so on. I thought you might like to be involved and he said he’d ask you.’

            It’s like a bucket of warm custard to smooth over my turbulent feelings. Until Craig says, ‘Great! That’ll be really great, Julia. Keep you busy till I get back from the states.’