Kill Your Friends (30 page)

He nods eagerly and with utter conviction, the coked-up,
brain-dead fool.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about
but…it’s difficult. I…” I trail off.

“What?”

“Christ, I…”

“Come on, mate,” he says, his jaw is set at a mad gak-angle and
I am pretty sure he will believe anything I am about to tell
him.

“It’s just, when you were talking about how much you loved your
kids earlier…it got me thinking. Oh God…”

“Steven,” Woodham says, setting his drink down, putting a hand
on my shoulder, “what is it?”

I wait for a long time, looking like I’m really weighing it up,
before I say, “There’s this guy at work…”

I tell him.

He sits there for a long time. He looks very angry. Finally he
says, “Are you sure about this, Steven?”

“Pretty sure. Things he’s said, when he’s drunk.”

“Right. What’s his name?”

I spell it for him.

“I’m going to make a phone call. Right now.” he says, pulling
his mobile out.

“No phones in the club, Alan.”

“Oh, right.” He sways off towards reception, dialling as he
goes.

♦

Afternoon drinking blurs into evening drinking and I take
Woodham on a whirlwind blitz of the West End; from the Groucho to
Soho House to Black’s to the Two Brydges club before cabbing it up
to Hyde Park Corner, to the Met Bar. It’s Friday night and the
place is
rammed
. Scary Spice has a big corner table with a
gang of minders and shrieking drunken mates. Jay Kay from
Jamiroquai is on the dance floor, wheeling about like a fruit. For
some reason all the male members of the cast of
Friends
are
hunkered around one of the central banquettes. We elbow our way in
at the bar and Woodham stands there, bathed in the light from the
backlit spirits bottle—the golden glow of the Scotches, the emerald
of the gins, the platinum white of the vodkas—taking it all in,
astonished. “Shit,” he whispers out the corner of his mouth,
nudging me, “that’s James Dean Bradfield, from the Manic Street
Preachers.” I look down the bar to see that Bradfield is indeed
buying a round a few feet along from us.

“Oh yeah, you a fan then?” I say, cracking a credit card
down.

“God, not half.”

Jesus wept. Bradfield comes through the crush beside us, heading
for his table. “Hey James,” I say, extending my hand. He shakes it
and it takes him a couple of seconds.

“All right…Steve? How you doing, mate?”

“Good, thanks. Out on the town?”

“Ah, me and the Hedgemeister just came out for a couple.” He
indicates Mike Hedges across the room, the man-mountain who
produced the last Manics album. “Too middley,” Waters had said.
Waters’ tongue, the tongue he had used to say those senseless
words—and millions more—lying on the floor next to the Nick Hornby
novel. While Bradfield and I exchange pleasantries Woodham is
twitching and shuffling spastically, begging to be introduced.

“James, this is Alan.”

“All right mate?” Bradfield says, extending his hand to Woodham.
Woodham shakes it reverently and then he slurs the following. Oh
yes he does.

“It’s an honour to meet you, Mr Bradfield. I have to say, I
think you’re an amazing guitarist.”

I close my eyes but Bradfield just laughs it off. “Ah bollocks,”
he says. “Have a good night, lads.” And he’s off.

A sour-faced bumboy materialises behind the bar.

“What can I get you?”

Woodham dives in. “I’ll get this.”

“No, my treat tonight Alan.”

“No, you’ve been buying all the drinks. My turn.”

“OK. Double vodka and tonic.”

“Same for me please.”

The guy goes off to fix the drinks. Woodham leans into me and
says, “I suppose that wasn’t very cool, was it? With James just
then.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. I’m sure he gets it a lot.”

“I had to tell him.”

“Sure.”

“How do you know him?”

How did I know him? I didn’t really. “Oh, just from around, you
know.”

Woodham nods and says, “It’s another world.”

The virus carrier returns with the drinks, which come in huge,
heavy ice-packed tumblers. Woodham holds a tenner out and the
barman looks at him like he’s lost his fucking mind. Woodham
reaches into his wallet and upgrades to a twenty, which still isn’t
going to cut it. “I’ll be back in a minute,” I say and head for the
toilet for a bump, leaving the barman talking Woodham through the
bill.

When I come back ten minutes later Woodham is still blinking at
the receipt.

♦

It’s midnight when we get back to my place and Woodham is
hammered
.

We’re sat on high stools at the granite kitchen counter which
separates my kitchen area from the living room. On the worktop
between us is a CD case (
Give ‘Em Enough Rope
, which we are
listening to, Woodham’s choice) with a mound of gak on it, my Amex,
a rolled fifty, a bottle of Stoli, a bottle of tonic, a half-f
ice bucket, some sliced limes and two heavy crystal tumblers.
Woodham is getting a bit giggly now, possibly feeling the effect of
the half E I ground into his first drink almost an hour ago. (I
thought it best to slip him small and gradual doses.) “I
love
this song,” says Woodham, leaping off his stool and
stumbling over towards the massive speakers. He turns it up.

My mobile rings and I look at the screen. Rebecca. Bang on time.
“Hi there,” I drawl.

“Hello, sexy,” she giggles, “are you home yet?” It’s Rebecca’s
last night in London before she goes to Australia, to surprise her
parents on their anniversary. She wanted us to spend it together
but I told her I had a couple of gigs and a meeting. Why didn’t she
go out with the girls and we could meet up later at my place? Have
a late supper? She could stay the night and I’d drive her to
Heathrow in the morning. She thought this was very sweet of me.

“I’m a bit tipsy and feeling very naughty…” she giggles. She
sounds smashed beyond human belief. Sen-say-shunal. “Really?” I
say. “Get your arse in a cab then.”

“Do you need anything? What’s that racket?”

“Ah, I’ve got a mate here. He’ll be leaving soon. Oh, you could
get some champagne. That place on the Harrow Road will still be
open. I’ll pay you back when you get here.”

“Mmmm, lovely. OK, sweetie, see you in twenty. Big kiss,
Mwwah.”

I hang up and watch Woodham, who is swaying in the middle of the
room, eyes closed, as he plays air guitar along to the Clash. What
a fucking loser.

♦

Later, in the bedroom, I look up at Woodham and he looks back at
me. The look on his face is an incredible cocktail of expressions:
joy, terror, pleasure, embarrassment, confusion, shame, panic,
hilarity, disbelief…they’re all fighting for position. I look down,
at Rebecca’s naked rump, at my cock appearing then disappearing
into her, at the back of her head, her dirty-blonde hair bobbing as
it moves rapidly up and down over Woodham’s crotch. Rebecca is on
all fours on my bed with Woodham and I positioned at either end of
her in classic double-ender stylee.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy to pull this off. It took
two fucking hours
.

♦

Rebecca had been a little surprised when she toppled in the
door—pulling her little trolley-suitcase behind her, and carrying
two bottles of champagne (fucking Moet)—to see Woodham there. But
only a little. I’d mentioned a few times that I’d been seeing a bit
of him, and she knew I’d demoed his songs. Woodham, pilled up,
drunk, chang’d and randy, had been
delighted
to see
Rebecca.

The three of us did more coke. We had drinks and danced around
to disco records. After an hour or so of this I convinced both of
them that we should all do an E (“
it’s Friday night for fuck’s
sake!
”). I took an aspirin while Rebecca necked her first pill
and Woodham chucked a whole one back on top of the one and a half
I’d already slipped him.

More drinking, dancing and coke until, an hour later, the three
of us are stretched out on the big sofa, Rebecca in the middle.

“It’s…another fucking world,” Woodham says, gazing around at the
flat, his pupils like manholes as he takes in the gorgeous girl,
the drugs and empty champagne bottles, the evening meeting pop
stars. The kind of life he thought he might have when he was a
guitar-strumming nineteen-year-old? Woodham told me he lives in
Forest Gate with the hag and kids. I nodded, but I do not know
where Forest Gate is.

“Listen,” Rebecca says, taking Woodham’s hand, her jaw
juddering, “if Steven believes in your music then it’s got to be
good. He’s got the most
amazing
taste.”

I smile, allowing the compliment.

“I know,” Woodham says, looking like he might cry. “C’mere,
mate…” He lurches towards me. Oh Christ. Woodham hugs me
passionately. “I fucking love you,” he says into my neck.

“Hey,” says Rebecca, as she squeezes in and the three of us hug.
Woodham—almost delirious now—buries his face in her cleavage and
makes moaning noises. Rebecca shrieks delightedly. I leave them
rolling around on the sofa and tool over to the breakfast bar, to
the mirror where I’ve prepared three big, chunky lines. The three
lines are near identical, except for the fact that one of them is
simply cocaine while the other two are a brain-rupturing blend of
70 per cent pure ketamine and 30 per cent cocaine. I snuffle up the
coke-only line. “Here,” I say turning back to the sofa, holding out
the mirror.

A few moments later Rebecca is lying back in my lap, her
eyeballs vibrating gently. I’ve freed one of her breasts from her
dress and am slowly massaging the dark brown nipple while Woodham
watches stupefied. I mean, he’s foaming at the fucking mouth.

“Shall we adjourn?” I say thickly and I lead the two of them
into the bedroom, carefully stepping over the broken champagne
bottle which lies on the floor at the foot of the bed.

♦

So, here we are. The three of us are buckled and sweating and
exhausted in a heap on my bed, the detective constable having just
sprayed a goodly load all over my ‘fiancee’s’ breasts and chin. “Oh
God,” Rebecca says, giggling and dabbing at herself with a Kleenex,
“how did this happen?”

“Holy shit,” says Woodham.

“Go get us some more drinks, Alan,” I say.

“Uh, sure. Vodka and tonic?” I nod and he stumbles off, leaving
us alone.

“I love you,” Rebecca says.

“I love you too,” I say, before adding, casually, “could you
pass me up that glass of water?”

She crawls to the edge of the bed, hangs over the side and
reaches down. Somewhere down the hallway I can hear Woodham
clattering around in the kitchen. Music—fucking Radiohead now—hums
from the living room. “
Rain down
.”

I jump on top of Rebecca, pushing her down into the mattress,
grabbing her hair and pulling her head back. “Ooof! Gerrof!” she
giggles, thinking I’m fucking around.

Critical moment of will.

With my free hand, I bring the thick, jagged stump of the Dom
Perignon bottle up hard and plunge it into the base of her throat,
ripping it upwards towards her chin, feeling the flesh tear,
feeling her larynx come apart. There’s a terrible, flapping,
sucking sound as she gasps and breathes in, the breath going into
her body now through the fist-sized slash in her throat. It sounds
like when the waste disposal gets blocked. Then she breathes out
and a wash of syrupy blood sprays everywhere, all over the bed, the
seagrass carpeting and the twelve-hundred-quid cherrywood cabinets
from Heal’s.

I throw her forward—naked—into the pool of her own blood and she
writhes onto her back, kicking and thrashing, her hands scrabbling
at her throat, trying to get hold of the stump of the bottle, which
is jutting out of her neck like a mad, half-arsed tracheotomy.
Apart from a frothy gurgle she makes very little noise, I guess
because I’ve just slashed her voice box to pieces.

Hello, you
.

Very quickly—the whole thing has taken less than a minute—her
kicks start to subside, becoming little random jerks as her
staring, incredulous eyes begin to glaze over, and I take
off—running full pelt and blood-spattered down the corridor and
screaming, “
Oh Christ! Alan! Alan! Help!
”

∨
Kill Your Friends
∧

Big A
&
R buzz on Campag Velocet.
The Spice Girls LP is certified as the biggest selling American
release of the year. Nick Mander, an A
&
R guy at
Epic, signs a band called Headswim. He says, “We have been
developing a strong reputation for breaking exciting new acts.
Headswim can be the next one
.”

∨
Kill Your Friends
∧

“
I’m all in favour of the Conservative values of
personal responsibility, hard work and enjoying the fruits of your
success
.”

Geri Haliwell

L
ondon gets really
cold and I develop a major thing for Natalie Imbruglia, this Aussie
soap star whose debut single ‘Torn’ is all over the radio. Can she
be fucked? I wonder. She’s A
&
R’d by Mark Fox
over at BMG who I don’t really know. Cowell knows him though. Is it
worth calling Cowell and testing the water? Nigel Godrich has
worked with her. Is it worth giving him a bell? I think about the
ins and outs of it a lot.

‘Fully Grown’ by Songbirds has been N°1 on the club chart for
two weeks now. Demand filtering in from the shops is starting to
look huge and I’ve put the release date back to the week before
Christmas. It’s a gamble, but if it comes through…

I pull into the carpark early, around half ten. There are two
police cars parked close to the front door of our building. Two
uniformed coppers come out of the entrance; the first one is
carrying a computer monitor, the second has the keyboard balanced
on top of the hard drive. As I lock the Saab I watch them carefully
loading the stuff into the boot of one of the squad cars, overseen
by some older plain-clothes guy.