saucepan of hot pasta sauce and it had splashed onto her leg, making her yelp in pain. Used to getting up at dawn to be at her desk by seven thirty, her idea of a late night at home was being in bed at half eleven watching the late movie. The people who lived downstairs were similarly quiet and it was only Mad Malc himself, who had wooden floors, bad taste in music and a constantly barking Pekinese, who disturbed the peace. Neighbours. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate without a nutter living above her.
The club was hot, sweaty and already full of Density fans when she got there. Her name was on the guest list and she slipped past the queue near the backstage area.
Backstage, long-haired roadies humped equipment around, biceps glinting with sweat in the hothouse club environment. They ignored her completely. Sam had no idea where she was going and had no intention of asking.
She blindly followed a winding corridor and found herself in a big cool room where tables, plastic chairs and two kegs of beer were positioned. Two record company people were sitting in a corner, drinking beer from cans and chatting to a skinny young bloke with a shaved head.
She didn’t know the Titus people very well yet but at least she recognized these two. Darius was a handsome, upper-class sort of boy in his late twenties from Artists and Repertoire, commonly known as A & R. Normally young, musical and deeply hip people, A & R staff trawled clubs and venues spotting talent. They worked on the road and were rarely in their offices before half ten, arriving with tired eyes and demo CDs people had pressed on them the night before. A & R people sometimes resented people like Sam, whom they saw as ‘suits’ who screwed up their wonderful signings and who refused to sign up avant garde stuff the A & R people were passionate about. Sam had heard that Darius was brilliant at his job and had a fantastic ear for music; vital in a job which involved working closely with bands, songwriters and producers.
The other Titus person was a publicity woman whom Lydia had said was nicknamed Cher because she looked exactly like the American singer as a thirty-year-old and loved wearing Seventies hippie clothes to emphasize the effect. Sam couldn’t for the life of her remember Cher’s real name.
‘Hi guys,’ she said, pulling a chair up. ‘You been in to see the band yet?’
‘They don’t like seeing people before a gig,’ said Cher severely. ‘Except Steve,’ she added reverently, as if Steve Parris was God. Steve certainly thought so, Sam thought ruefully.
‘Is Steve here yet?’ she asked, knowing she’d have to stand beside him during the gig.
‘No, he’s delayed,’ said Darius. ‘Would you like a cigarette?’ he added politely, proffering a pack.
Sam momentarily wished she still smoked. Everyone else was dragging deeply on full-strength cigarettes. At least it gave you something to do.
‘Given up,’ she said. ‘But thanks.’
What she could have killed for was a cup of tea to soothe her throat. There was a huge hot water urn in one corner complete with teabags, plastic cups and sugar but in this beer ’n’ fags atmosphere, Sam felt it would mark her for ever as a dorky ‘suit’ if she had tea now.
After fifteen minutes of chat, the support band went on and the room cleared while everyone went to stand backstage and look at them. The noise was terrible. Like the sound of two wrestlers having a fight in a saucepan factory. Sam managed to look interested for two songs, then sloped back to the hospitality room and made herself a cup of tea. Who gave a damn who saw her. She wasn’t a kid who had to pretend to be cool, she was probably fifteen years older than most of the people backstage and if she wanted tea, then she was going to have tea. Age had to have some compensations.
When the support band were mercifully finished, she rejoined the others at the side of the stage and waited for Density. Finally, after ten minutes of screaming and clapping from the fans, they appeared, none of them looking over the age of twenty-one, all lanky young guys with weird haircuts, mad clothes and strange piercings. Their music wasn’t her scene but she could sense the raw intensity of it. She only hoped that the people who bought CDs agreed with her.
Steve appeared, deep in conversation with the band’s manager, so Sam was able to just nod hello to them. She’d have to speak to them both later and say how wonderful the band had been, but for now, she wanted to listen and not have to make polite small talk.
After half an hour, she decided to go down into the club itself and watch the band from the audience’s point of view. She liked doing that: seeing how the fans reacted was one of the essential litmus tests for a band. Seeing if people bought their album was the other, more important one.
Telling the backstage bouncers that she’d be back, Sam slipped out into the crowd and was hit immediately by the scent of young bodies, sweat mingling with perfume and the tang of dope. She stood at the back and breathed in a waft of what smelled like l’Air du Temps.
The smell of floral perfume at gigs always astonished her. There she was, surrounded by gyrating young bodies, a mass of humanity in leather jackets, hipster trousers and death-defying heels with hard young eyes staring at her arrogantly. Then she smelled the fresh scents of their perfume rising in the heat: floral bouquets from their mums’ dressing tables mixing with the fresh scent of carefully applied deodorant, innocence meets sexy. Suddenly they weren’t tough little cookies any more, but vulnerable young girls anxious before they went out, hopeful that they were wearing the right clothes, yelling that ‘Honestly, Dad…’ they wouldn’t be home late as they blasted themselves with a spritz of something suitable for a wood nymph.
They were all so young really; trying hard to be grown up. And she felt so old. Sam rubbed her temples tiredly. What was wrong with her? She’d been feeling so old and worn out all day: too old to be standing at a heavy rock gig trying to get it. She didn’t want to get it any more, she didn’t want to have to stand in a smoky club and tap her foot to some incomprehensible beat.
She wanted to be sitting at home, drinking a nice glass of red wine, perhaps listening to some mellow Nina Simone and feeling relaxed.
Sam closed her eyes and gave herself a mental pinch. Get a grip! she told herself. You’re a working woman, so work. She went looking for Steve to tell him he’d signed the band of the century.
The following morning, the flu hit her like a ten-tonne truck. She woke at half past five, bathed in a cold sweat with her head aching and her throat the consistency of rough gravel. Moaning as she dragged herself out of bed, Sam stumbled into the kitchen and boiled the kettle. Hot lemon and honey might help. So much for the anti-flu stuff she’d gulped down the night before.
Enveloped in her big navy towelling dressing gown, she slumped in front of the television with her hot lemon and flicked through the channels.
‘Useless rubbish,’ she muttered as she discovered that the breakfast television shows hadn’t started yet and the only alternative was Open University or news. After half an hour watching a programme about mountain gorillas, Sam still felt physically sick but mentally much improved. She never read anything any more apart from marketing reports and Music Week, and her daily culture came in the bio yoghurt she tried to eat most mornings. She really must learn more stuff. It was terrible to be uninformed, capable only of discussing sales, royalties, budgets and the marketing spend per unit of the latest hot CD. She dimly remembered a time, fifteen years ago, when she went to museums and galleries; when she had a bit of a life.
She went into the bathroom and showered, determined to make herself feel ready for work. Calling
