Asturias (11 page)

21

GUERNICA

“The slimy fat creep!”

Alex is angry. He storms about the kitchen, slamming cups and plates onto the surface as if they, and not the General Manager of CTT Australia, are his mortal enemies.

From his chair by the window, his grandfather watches the performance.

“He can do this thing he threatens? To Marco?”

“He can do just about anything he bloody wants. Why he needs to get involved at all, I don't know. It's not
his
project, it's Max's. But he's just got to stick his nose in.”

The kettle starts to whistle, and the boy pours the boiling water over the noodles in two bowls. Abuelito watches, and wrinkles his nose, but he knows better than to say anything. Alex gets angry only rarely, but when he reaches ignition-point, it is a brave man who throws petrol on the flames.

“But … why he would do this? Band is successful, yes? Why —?”

“Because he wants us to
stay
successful, make lots of profits for the bloody company. There's overseas deals in the air, and he doesn't want to sour them with rumours of personnel problems in the band.”

“But Marco's mother, she is …”

“Yeah, she is … But you don't expect Symonds to give a flying fart about that, do you? He left his sympathy in his other pants.”

He stirs the contents of one of the bowls with a fork, stabbing in frustration at the lumps of noodles which have refused to separate and soften. Then he continues: “The scary thing is that he could actually get away with it. If he thinks there's profit in it, Marco is history. It's been done before.”

The fork drops to the floor. He picks it up, and hurls it into the sink, where it hits something breakable with an ominous crash. He doesn't react. Perhaps he doesn't hear it. He is still talking, and the old man begins to realise that he is not really the focus of the boy's words. Alex is working things out in his own mind, and what he is discovering is not comforting.

“The Beatles dumped their original drummer just before they hit it big, the Stones replaced Brian Jones, and he killed himself a few weeks later, and AC/DC had to find a new lead-singer when they lost Bon Scott. The Eagles managed to bring in Joe Walsh after three or four huge albums, and they survived. Sell it right, and you can commit murder on stage in front of twenty thousand screaming fans, and it will actually increase sales.”

The bowl arrives on the table and the old man rises and makes his way to the seat at which his place has been set.

“Poor kid's only fifteen. And apart from us, he's totally alone. How the hell is he going to react when she does die? Especially if Symonds has taken away the only other thing that has any meaning for him. He's barely holding it together now …”

The old man pauses before eating, recalling the young drummer's face.

Marco …

Though there is little that is similar about his looks, something in the youngster's manner reminds the old man of another young boy. A boy who died alone, a lifetime before, in an enemy fortress. Who died, the rumours claimed, cursing his torturers and their bloody leader — the dwarf with the bloated eyes, who had allowed the destruction of an entire Spanish town. As a favour to a German madman …

28 April 1937
Consuegra

There is a movement at the back of the house, and the three women freeze, as one. It is late and the town is quiet. Probably it is just one of the dogs, chasing a rat
…

Again, the noise.

No dog or rat is that big. Or that noisy.

Footsteps on the boards at the back door.

No one is breathing. Conchita looks for something to use as a weapon, Juana stands facing the door.

Then someone knocks. One long, three short, two long. The Lorca group signal. Juana looks at the others, before moving across and opening the door.

“Ramón!”

The boy is breathing heavily, as if he has been running. His face is flushed and dirty, and he looks as if he has been crying. And when he speaks, the words are rasping and hoarse.

“I went to Ardillo's house, but there was no one there.”

“No.” As she speaks, she leads him to a chair beside the kitchen table. Conchita is already pouring a glass of wine. “They have been on an assignment to Segovia. Manuel called me on the radio last night from Mendez's safe house in Madrid. They will be back sometime tonight. Ramon, what is it? What's the matter?”

For a moment the boy cannot speak. His mouth opens, then quivers shut. He sips his wine, and tries again.

“Guernica …” he manages, then takes a deep breath. And when he speaks again, the words come in a rush. “They bombed Guernica. Two days ago. Our man in Marquena radioed us. They waited until the market was nearly over, and they came … For nearly three hours, they bombed and bombed … The whole town. Then they dropped the incendiaries to burn it to the ground. Now they are saying … They are trying to tell the world that the Basques set fire to their own town
…”

The boy's words trail off with a sob. Guernica is his home, and the women know it. His father and mother and three sisters live in a house just off the market square, at the centre of the town … The horror of what the boy is saying begins to sink in. He empties the glass, and places it onto the table. His hand is shaking, and the glass rattles slightly against the wood, as he continues.

“Why? There was nothing there. No soldiers … Just farmers … and
…”

A short pause. His body seems to relax slightly, and when he speaks again, his voice is … different.

“They come to the market from miles around to trade their milk and cheese and donkeys.” He sounds far away, as if the horror of what he is describing is forgotten, and he is reliving the days of his childhood. And the calm in his voice is somehow more chilling than anything he has yet revealed.

“Ramon?” Conchita kneels beside him and takes his face gently in her hands, but for once, his eyes look beyond her.

“And after the market,” he continues, as if she has said nothing, “they sit around and drink wine, singing songs and playing cards. I used to sit by the front door, and watch them
…”

The eyes close, and a shudder runs over him.

“There is nothing left, everyone is
…”

Again his words trail off, and a single tear escapes, running down his grimy cheek and leaving a clean trail behind it.

Suddenly he is back, and she can see the pain in his face.

As she reaches out to enfold him in her arms the sobs begin, and the young freedom-fighter is once again the child he might have been allowed to remain in another time. In another place
…

“When we arrive later that night, Ramon is asleep in Juana's bed.”

Abuelito sips his coffee and stares at his grandson, who holds his own cup forgotten in his hands. Sometimes he wonders how many young people would take the time to listen to an old man's rememberings. But he shows nothing of the thought, as he continues.

“Later, we find out that all his family are dead. Where his house is once, now is only a big hole in the ground, maybe fifteen metres across.”

“But why did they do it, Abuelito? If there was nothing there, why …?”

“Why?” The old man shakes his head. “Ask Hitler. Ask the dwarf. Was German planes bombed Guernica. Ardillo, he say later they just want to practise for war of their own. Franco,
he
just want to break the Basques. And I guess it works. How you fight planes that come out of the sky and bomb a peaceful town?”

“And Ramon?” Alex shifts slightly in his seat, and sips his drink. It is cold.

“Next day he is quiet. Says nothing to anyone except to Conchita. But he is change. He never smile. Mendez he contact us, few days later. Say Ramon should stay. Be part of our cell. Mendez is too busy to look after the boy, I think. So, Ramon stays …”

The old man pauses.

“And?” Alex prompts.

“And … he stays. And later he comes with us to Ávila …”

22

STRESS FRACTURES

MAX'S STORY

“Smiling Underwater” had enough advance-sales to put it at number twenty on the album charts in its first week of release. “Simple Minds”, the first single we lifted from it, had done its job. In three weeks it was Top Ten and rising, but we didn't wait for it to peak before we began moving the album.

It was weeks ahead of the original schedule, but Symonds and the marketing gurus were anxious to get the whole thing up and running, because there were big things in the offing.

In March Sonja Vegas was hitting the country on the last leg of her world mega-tour. Tickets to all the original stadium concerts and a number of hastily arranged extra gigs had been sold out for months, but the organisation had hit a major snag.

When the contracts had been signed, the support band they had chosen for the Australian leg was Slipstream, but as of December Slipstream had effectively ceased to exist as a band. Tony Rio, the band's bass-player, had discovered a sudden urge to fly, using his fully imported Trans-Am instead of a plane, and by the time they cut him, his girlfriend and Ricky Trainer, the band's keyboard wizard, out of the wreckage, there was an opening for a new support group for the Down-Under leg of the Sonia Vegas tour.

A successful release of “Smiling Underwater”, they decided, would give Asturias the inside running, and a huge opportunity to make waves that might get them noticed o.s.

And the strategy worked. Within a couple of weeks, the airplay and the reviews made it clear that the second album was destined to outdo even “Asturias”, and a couple of days' negotiation with Sonja Vegas's people was enough to cement the deal.

Now all we had to do was keep the wheels from falling off. Which we just about managed to do. Though by the end of January, they were looking decidedly wobbly …

CLAIRE'S STORY

The human body is made up mostly of water. I learned that in school.

I also learned that if you put enough pressure on a quantity of water, you can raise it to a temperature much higher than boiling point, without it actually boiling. That's how the radiator in your car works. Which is fine until the whole thing starts to crack. Then, it begins to leak steam and the pressure can become deadly. And if you're not careful, it can blow up in your face.

First it was Marco's problems.

Then Tim started to get difficult. I guess it should have been obvious that it might happen, especially given the sheltered sort of upbringing he'd had. He was just eighteen, after all, and suddenly all these girls were falling over themselves to occupy the same space as him. Girls who would never have looked twice at him before.

So, it went to his head. Or whatever it was he was using to think with.

He never actually missed a rehearsal — I don't think he was late for anything in his life — but he was burning the candle pretty severely, and it began to show. Not only did he look hung-over and wasted most of the time, but overnight he seemed to develop a “hair-trigger”. One word and he was just as likely to fly at you. Even Chrissie had trouble keeping him in line, and small stories began appearing in the newspapers and fan-mags about a juicy “sighting” or an incident at some club or other.

It wasn't Jekyll and Hyde territory — not quite — but it
was
a worry. It was creating extra unnecessary pressure, when there was enough being piled on from outside.

I was afraid he might have been experimenting with something stronger than willing girls and seven-year-old bourbon, even though he denied it angrily when Chrissie fronted him about it.

I couldn't front him myself because I was in an awkward situation. Even though I'd been there from the very start, I wasn't technically a part of the group. If Asturias was a family, I was … I don't know. The sister-in-law, maybe?

Whatever. It didn't give me the authority to step in and give my opinion when things were really tense.

I was having enough trouble communicating with Alex.

He worried about everything.

From a guy who just lived for his music and stuff-all else, he had suddenly become assistant den-mother to a bunch of increasingly troublesome brats. And he was trying desperately to keep ahead of the business angle of the game as well.

He didn't trust Symonds, and he sensed that things could go from “just great” to disastrous at the same speed that everything else had been happening.

Chrissie and Max had assumed the main parenting roles when it came to the other kids, but Alex worried enough for both of them.

Especially about Tim.

Maybe it was just the normal adolescent stuff erupting a little late, but with the sudden success, and the stories, our keyboard genius was doing his best to become a twentieth-century version of the young Mozart.

He moved out of home and set himself up in a unit overlooking the harbour. It was a rebellion against the strictness of his upbringing, I suppose, but it was also a result of the fact that he was now much wealthier than his parents.

If they'd never had money, I don't suppose it would have created the same sort of tensions, but until a few years before, they'd had it all. Success, position. The kind of understated power that only money brings.

It wasn't as if Tim wouldn't have given them the world — at least at the beginning. It was just that they … or rather
Mr
Henderson, just wasn't willing to accept handouts from his son. He had his pride, and it created a wall between them that nothing else ever had.

I guess if you were looking for a single cause for the change in Tim, you might come back to that. I'm sure his father would see it differently. Maybe even Tim would. But being an outsider sometimes gives you a clearer perspective.

The sudden disillusionment with his safe and predictable family left him looking for other things to hold on to. And when you have the sort of profile that Asturias had given him, there are always plenty of people ready and willing to hold out their hands …

TIM'S STORY

The thing about being a bloody idiot is that while you're in the process of being it, you can't see that you are.

If you could see it, you wouldn't be it, would you?

And, of course, no one can tell you what an idiot you're being, because what would they know? Everything's under control, you have more friends than you've ever had in your life, and every day's one big party.

I didn't touch the hard stuff. I know Chrissie and Claire — and probably everyone else—thought I did, but I guess something in my conditioning held true, even if the rest of my life was out of control. Hell, I did enough damage to myself without screwing around with powders and pills. And I'd always had a healthy phobia when it came to needles.

But, drugs or not, I was on the down-hill slide, and the world is full of people with new and interesting ways to help you get up speed. Even if there are no off-ramps, and all that waits at the bottom of the ride is a bloody hard brick wall.

I don't think I'm a naturally egotistical person, but when enough people tell you how great you are, you begin to wonder if it might be true.

I know, it's the classic “believe-your-own-publicity” trip, but it happens. And it was the thing that came between Alex and me, even if he wasn't aware of it.

None of it was Alex's fault. Except for the fact that he was a genius.

I knew it, and so did everyone except Alex. We were all good at what we did, but he was the key. The songs were all “Rivera and …”. Chrissie wrote with him, I did, even Tasha and Marco got a couple of credits. But he was the backbone. Of everything.

People told me all the things they thought I'd like to hear, and at one level I believed them. But deep down, where the truth lives, I felt like an impostor. Because I knew the truth that they weren't close enough to see. You can put in the long hours, do your best, serve your purpose, do your part … whatever cliché you choose … but in the end, there is always that one person who does it better, and easier.

I never had a brother or a sister, but I've heard that it happens in families. Even successful ones. Everyone shines in their own way, but one child shines brighter. In our “family”, that one was Alex. And I got to the stage where I couldn't forgive him for it …

MAX'S STORY

Symonds rolled over all my objections like an express-train.

“I don't care. This is too big to let personalities stuff it up. They're a
product,
for Christ's sake! We made them, we can remake them.”

He wasn't about to let me object again. I stood up and moved across to the bar in the comer to mix myself a drink. I didn't offer him one — there was no arsenic in the cabinet.

He went on, staring out of the window and not bothering to look at me.

“As long as we have the Rivera kid, Chrissie Tieu — and Tasha, of course — the others are expendable. Even Chrissie can go, if push comes to shove. Rivera's the brains, and Tasha's the face. We can find other musicians.”

Finally I bit.

“It's not that simple, Ken, and you know it. There's a chemistry there, and I haven't spent the best part of the last two years working my tail off with them, just to let you —”

“You don't have a say in it, Max.” He cut me off like a junior assistant. “They may be your project, but you don't own them. I do. In this country, I am CTT. I don't have a contract with
Asturias,
I have five individual ones, with five individuals, and five carefully worded escape clauses. And as long as I have their contracts in my hot little hand, I can do whatever I want with your precious ‘chemistry'.”

I tried again.

“But don't you see? Change the mix, and Asturias ceases to exist. You'll create a whole different band —”

“With the same name, and an image that takes up where the last one left off. We're talking the US, Max, and no one outside of this country knows Asturias from a boil on the arse. If we're going to do radical surgery, now's the time. New York is interested, but I have to give them a product with a trouble-free growth potential. And I'm not going to let a couple of loose cannons affect the deal.”

He turned back from the window and stared at me. He was expecting a reaction. And he wasn't disappointed.

“Listen to yourself, man. These are people … Kids. They're not some ‘bottom line' on a sales-report. They've given everything they have for nearly two years, and I'm not going to be the one to tell any of them that they just didn't cut it, because the powers-that-be in the God-Almighty … boardroom of CTT don't like the way they behave outside the studio. I won't do it!”

He just looked at me. And I suddenly knew what it must be like to play chess against a grand master. There was a cold smile lurking behind his expression, and he moved across to sit behind his desk — the position of power — before he administered the checkmate.

“That's a pity, Max,” he whispered. “It would be a shame to let you go, after all the hard work you've put in.”

He shuffled a couple of files on his desk, to give the implied threat a chance to sink in. “I guess you'd better find a way to keep your charges in line then, hadn't you?” He reached across and pushed a button on the phone in front of him. “Mary, would you get me Zimmerman, please. I think he's in LA this week.”

I was dismissed. I turned to go, and his voice followed me to the door.

“And don't worry, Max. You can do it. We'd much prefer to keep the same line-up. Less expense than bringing in a new rhythm section.”

I didn't answer.

I slammed the door instead.