Cacophonous cheering charges the Oregon auditorium as you come to the end of White Wedding, one of the four major songs they came to see (they came over the mountains, over the ocean and through the Redwood forests to see this and Rebel Yell – they exploded when you played that, didn’t they, Billy?) and you thrust your mic into the air as if you were spearing a swooping harpy.
They loved you, Billy. Give yourself a bloody good round of applause when you get back to the changing room.
Just like the old days, except with extra crashing guitars and thumping, coruscating bass (you really will have to have a word – you ain’t metal – you’re a melody act. You write songs…)
You scream like a banshee and thank the audience; you thank Oregon, your werewolf roar inspiring the squealing crowds to greater heights. Sweat drips down your naked chest in salty, adrenal rivulets. You jump high in the air and watch the throng at the front do the same, but you do it better, Billy, you are the master at the bounce. And the sneer. A master of the sneer. You throw a sneer in for good measure at the zenith of the jump, the very peak.
The band congregates at the front. Bassist. Keyboards. Lead. Drums. You link arms. It has been a magnificent gig, and the crowd loves you, just like they used to thirty-one years ago. When you were just a kid starting out. The smells are of blood, sweat and tears. Nothing else. You are hyper, mainlining on adrenalin, and part of you wants to go back onstage and play – you have the material, you have the sounds – Pretty Vacant, maybe, a homage to how it started, all of it, a tribute, but the house lights start to irradiate and out the corner of your eye you see the sound-man gesture across his throat from behind his PA.
It’s over.
Not like the old days, is it, Billy? When the theatre was yours and you could do three hours of encores if you liked. If you felt it necessary. To squeeze the last dregs of juice from the pip. Not now. Health and Safety. The modern world.
Just as you are about to leave the stage, just as you etch the imprint of the vast horde standing before you onto your fevered consciousness, you spot her sitting there.
Clapping politely. English clapping.
From below the shoulders. One leg (in faded blue jeans, jet black high heels, impossibly black, no black has ever been so infinite, the outline of the shoe like its own galaxy with the stars individually snuffed out between the fingertips of the Gods), crossed over the other.
Clapping.
English clapping. (Bravo. Well done.)
They could have drained the blood from your body, piped it into a tube, placed it in a bucket of ice and then transfused it back.
Your sweat turns Arctic. And then you are dragged off stage.
They queue up in the winding corridor. The backstage gang. The meet and greets. Groupies. Roadies. Friends of the band. Liggers. More old people. You don’t recognise their faces.
All you see is her.
English clapping. (Bravo. Well done.)
Each of them takes a slice of you.
Once, you basked in this. You relished it. You slathered it on your ego like warm ketchup but now, it’s all over.
(Bravo.)
Rock on, Billy. Now that’s what I call a bloody SHOW! King Rocker! King Rocker! You’re the best, Billy.
Amazingamazingamazing
BillyBillyBillyBillyBillyBillyBillyBillyBillyBilly
YOU SLAYED THEM BILLY. SLAYED THEM!!! Sign this, Billy, sign this. Here, here, here, Billy.
Security drags you past the collective adoration like a hunk of meat on a rack. You smile automatically, and you say thanks, and you say cheers, and you shake, and you air kiss the lines of backstage panjandra who only want to tell you the good things, but it’s all distant now, like listening to your neighbour’s telly through the wall of your house.
You stop for a second, speak to Mick, the security guard in front. Big Mick, rock-hard Mick. You want to tell him to take you straight past your dressing room and straight to the backstage doors because you know who’s waiting for you in there, and you know what she’s going to say, what she has come to see you about, but though you want to say this, you can’t. You can’t speak.
A girl kisses you on the cheek. She’s young enough to be your granddaughter, and she’s dressed like Siouxie. She’s a bit of alright.
Siouxie. Nineteen Seventy five. Richmond Park.
You sign her programme. She says sign it to Brooklyn, and you do. Then you realise that you have nothing left to say to Mick anyway, and you carry on walking until you meet the stairs to the old-school dressing room in this old-school theatre.
She’s waiting for you.
You know that before you open the door. You tell Mick and Panda that you don’t want to be disturbed by anyone – and you mean anyone – until you say so.
You open the door.
And there she is. Yes. There she is.
Zoe.
Hello, William, she says languorously, the slightest of smiles on her flawless face as she does so. She cups her chin with her left hand, covered in silver rings, her wrist draped in festival bands, twenty, thirty of them. Her shoes are next to the armchair and her legs are wrapped underneath her as if she was back home watching Pop Idol with her folks in the front room. Your eyes meet, and the connection makes you feel lightheaded. She smells of blackcurrants. No, strawberries. You know why she’s here. You didn’t think it was time, but it must be. She is wearing the same aquamarine and cream Eater vest she wore the first time you met.
Yeh. Hello, Zoe.
Great gig.
Thanks.
You’ve still got it, she says brightly, cheerily. They love you out there. Your American legion.
Cheers, you say. The changing room smells of oranges, and deodorant, and incense, and a million cigarettes, some from eighty years ago (Vaudeville, repertory, one night shows, tears, joy angst, ego and fears), embedded and ingrained into the leather and the studded walls, the timber frames – engraved into the paint of the dressing room itself.
Bloody good gig, to be honest, you continue, towelling yourself down in front of the mirror. One of the best so far.
Totally, William. It was a great gig. Your absolute best so far, she says.
You’ve seen others?
OMG yes. I’ve seen them all, she says, enigmatically. I’ve not missed a single second of your comeback. Ohio was very good. I loved that. It was hard not to like Ohio. You were in incredible form. Just like when we first started…