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He knew there were better ways to do it; he wasn’t that stupid. He could’ve searched on Twitter, found her, sent a message, started a conversation. That would’ve been the easy route, the route of least resistance. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t take it. Instead, he’d gone through countless old clubbing mates and neighborhood friends, getting a number from someone who gave him another number who gave him another number, each step counting down a degree of separation.
A lot of them said they remembered him and reminisced on a shared memory, and most of them wanted to meet up, if only to get an autograph. He said maybe because he didn’t like disappointing people.
Finally he reached someone he’d never met personally but had apparently been close with her, and gotten an address.
She was living down in South London, apparently, which was good for her. Or, so he assumed. He couldn’t be sure.
He took the tube down even though they were set to fly to California in the morning, and a cab to the address, and it was past ten but he still walked up the flights of stairs to her flat and knocked at what he’d been told was the right door.
He waited, swaying on his feet just slightly. He wasn’t drunk; he wouldn’t drink before going and doing something like this, it was too important. The E’s had mostly worn off, too. He was actually about as close to clean as he got these days, which was saying a lot. Just stadol. Maybe a lot of stadol, but it wasn’t that bad. His tolerance was really high anyway.
He knocked again, and wondered if it was pathetic, what he was doing. But it wasn’t, really, was it? He wasn’t trying to get with her. No, it was just that he couldn’t deal with the band right now, and in all his forty years she was the only other person he’d made a connection with of his own accord. So maybe it was pathetic. That sounded pretty bloody pathetic. He didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t know why he was here.
From behind the door, her voice: “Marlene, I swear to god, if that’s you fucking faffing about out there-” She pulled the door open, and fell silent.
She looked older. She had bits of grey in her hair. A lot of grey, actually. And she wasn’t wearing any makeup; maybe she’d been about to go to bed.
“Who’s Marlene?” he asked.
“Girlfriend from the shop,” she replied.
“Girlfriend, like-”
“Like friend.” She hooked a thumb through the belt loop of her jeans and looked at his chest instead of his face. “What happened, has someone died?”
“What?”
“I just don’t know why you’re here.” She shrugged, shaking her head. “What’s it been, twenty years? Twenty- christ. Yeah, I don’t know. Or- no, I- is it a sort of charity thing? Like, what’ve I done to deserve a visit from the bloody golden boy, you know? Have you got a cameraman down the hall or something?”
She sounded like Murdoc, sort of. She talked like Murdoc would talk, and he wondered if she always had, and he wondered if that had anything to do with why he asked her out that day in the shop.
“No,” he said, quiet. “I don’t know. I just wanted to check up. Or- in. Wanted to check in.”
She was staring at his chin now. “Do you want a cup of tea, Stuart?”
“Isn’t it late for tea?”
“I have, uh… I think I’ve got some herbal. That’s what you like anyway, isn’t it?”
He nodded, and he didn’t mean to smile but he was smiling.
“Yeah, come in.” She stepped aside, jerking her head back into the flat to motion him in.
They sat at a small, cheap table that was made of plastic disguised as wood, cups of tea letting off steam between them. The flat was mostly dark, but the harsh, fluorescent light in the kitchen corner bled out to reach them.
After a few minutes of silence during which she lit a cigarette, she asked, “So why am I being graced?”
“I dunno, Pauls. I missed you.” That was a lie; he seldom thought of her at all now. “No, I mean, I mean- I don’t know.”
“I read about Niccals getting banged up.” She snorted. “Serves him right, that cunt. I even had some reporter bugger come round for a quote, you know. I guess he tracked me down because that writer you hired for that stupid book you lot put out gave me a bit part.”
“Did you do it?”
“What?”
“The quote for the reporter.” He leaned over and breathed in the steam rising from his cup, and propped his head up with a hand.
“Yeah, course I did. Milked it for all it was worth.”
“Yeah, course,” he echoed. He reckoned he should laugh, so he did.
“You’re not gonna tell me why you’re here, are you.” She eyed him.
“I don’t know.” He didn’t want to say that in his head, she had been so happy to see him, and so grateful he’d come round. He’d been thinking of it as doing something nice for her just by showing up, which, once he considered it, wasn’t good form at all. “What with Murdoc gone everyone listens to me. I’m like the proper… the proper head of the band now.”
“Alright, and?”
“You ever listen to any of it?”
She scoffed. “No. You’re not really my style. Used to be, a little more. Sometimes your new stuff comes on the radio at the shop, and- I’m sorry, Stu, but it’s right shit. Since when are you doing pop? I thought your whole deal was-”
“That was Murdoc’s deal, alright? And fuck your stupid- your stupid style, whatever that is now.” He looked down at his cup, stringing words together in his head. “Why’d you even say that? ‘Cos last time I checked I’m the one with the world famous band and you’re the one who didn’t even make the bloody cut, so.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” She didn’t look angry, not really.
“Maybe that I finally learned how to stand up for myself, maybe. Go figure you wouldn’t like that.” He was grinding his teeth.
“That’s not you standing up for yourself, that’s you being totally mental,” she said. “What are you on right now?”
“Nothing.”
“What are you fucking on?”
“Stadol, that’s it.”
“Why’re you flipping on me like a bloody lightswitch? What’s your problem?” She sounded almost worried.
He shrugged. There was a problem. There’d been a problem since Murdoc left. It was like he couldn’t stabilize. He didn’t know what was wrong. “I didn’t mean to talk to you that way.”
“I don’t really care about that, that’s- standard talk, for me. I'd just like you to tell me if you need me to drive you to a hospital.”
“Hospital?”
“And check you into a looney ward, yeah.”
It made him smile. That, of all things. He sipped his tea and felt things start to settle. Another thought occurred to him: maybe the reason he came was to get snapped at. He was so fucking tired of everyone in the band treating him like porcelain without Murdoc around. “I’m still sorry, I dunno why I said it. Like, I guess it’s just that I’m proud of it. The music, I mean. And it’s really- hard. I don’t know.”
“Hard?” She shook her head, but he could tell she was relaxing a bit. “Trying to make rent on bloody shop wages, that’s hard. Want to swap places?”
“Yeah. Please. Let’s.” He nodded, and buried his hands in his hair. “I can’t believe you haven’t kicked me out.”
“You think you’re the craziest bloke I’ve had come through here?” She glanced around the flat. “Yeah, not by a longshot, babe.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t usually yell and stuff.”
“You weren’t yelling.”
“It felt like I was.”
“You weren’t.”
He drank his tea, and, after a minute, said, “I’m really mixed up, I think, Pauls. Paula.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” She raised her eyebrows. “Is it to do with Murdoc?”
“You look so good,” he said, because the question sparked a panic spiral in his mind. “Like, really, really beautiful. I’m so happy to see you.” He didn’t know what he was feeling, really.
She frowned. “Right. I’m gonna light you a fag. Unless you’ve quit; have you?”
He shook his head.
She tapped one out of her carton and passed it to him. Then she reached over the table to light it before sitting back. She coughed, and rubbed at the skin beneath her eye. “What do you even want?”
He smoked half the cigarette in a minute or so, pulling drags in like air. “I dunno, do I.” He didn’t know anything. The world had gone upside down, of late.
“Fucking help you are. Christ.” She snorted.
“Yeah, I know.” And, again, he wanted to curl up inside the way she didn’t safety-proof herself to talk to him. Straight talk, aggressive talk, felt nicer than the overly nice talk Russel and Noodle had been laying on him ever since Murdoc got arrested. He wondered if it was a bad thing that he craved being cursed out. Maybe he was just sick of being babied.
They sat there in silence finishing their cigarettes.
He remembered then, under that gaze of hers that had only gotten harsher with age, that he was crushingly lonely. Was that strange? People were being nicer than ever to him now, and always inviting him along for everything, and no one was stopping him from spending time with whoever he wanted. And he was still so, so lonely.
“How are you, though?” he asked, coming off so long a silence it was impossible not to sound awkward. He’d just realized he hadn’t asked anything like that since showing up.
“Oh, yeah, fine. Fine, me.” She was lighting another cigarette. “Nothing’s got me overly chuffed or nothing, but it’s alright. The shop’s gonna kill me, but that’s life, you know?”
He didn’t know. He’d never had to do any of that, and couldn’t imagine doing it now. “Do you still play?”
She laughed. “Yeah, actually. I’ve got this super fit boyfriend who’s started this fantastic rock band, and I’m lead guitar.”
“Really? That’s-”
“I’m joking, Stu.” She regarded her cigarette. “I don’t play anymore, no. I charity shopped my guitar about fifteen years ago, actually. I was short on rent.”
“Oh.” He didn’t know how to feel.
“You look like I’ve just shot your dog.”
“I don’t have a dog.”
“Yeah, didn’t think so.” She sighed and ran a hand back through her hair. It was shorter now than the last time he’d seen her. “It’s late.”
He pulled out his phone and checked the time, ignoring the message notifications from Noodle. “When did you become the sort that half eleven’s late for?”
“When I have to open the shop at five,” she replied.
“If it’s-” There was no tactful way to say this. “You don’t sound happy there; if it’s about money-”
“Fucking christ, Stu, shut up or I’ll knock another one of your teeth out.” She rubbed at her hairline, looking down, and added, “For fuck’s sake.”
He picked his empty cup up and set it down again, feeling bad. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like- like, I didn’t mean for it to be-”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Still, fucking check yourself, babe, seriously. You don’t just say that.”
He thumbed at the corner of his mouth. “I am sorry, though.”
“I said I know.” She leaned over and grabbed his cup, along with her own, and brought them over to the sink. Then she turned, looking back at him. “Stuart.”
He leaned his head on a hand. “Paula.”
“You don’t hate me, do you.”
“No. Sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry for every bleedin’ thing.”
“Alright.” And the thing was, he didn’t hate her. It was so long ago, the last time they’d seen one another, and he’d been doused in so many drugs and traumas since then that it seemed blurry and unimportant. The flat was cold, and the overhead light was giving him a headache. He didn’t know her anymore and her tea wasn’t good, and he still wanted to stay here with her forever. That might make things make sense, maybe, even though it was a fantasy at best.
“I’ve got to kick you out now. I’m knackered and I’ve got work in the morning.” She crossed her arms and nodded to herself, looking off at something further into the flat. “We can…” She sighed. “We can do it again sometime.”
“I’m flying to Los Angeles,” he told her, and he got up and pushed his chair in. It made a low scraping sound against the lino.
“When’s that?”
“In the morning.”
“Oh, so- yeah, alright.”
“But I can- give me your number, and I’ll, like- I’ll call you, or-”
“I’m not giving you my number.” She looked miffed, but pitying. “We’re not going there.”
“Okay.” He felt the wrong shape and size for her flat, the table looking short, the ceiling looking close. He went over to her, awkward, slow. “Thanks for letting me in, and thanks for talking. It was really, really nice.” He wasn’t sure if that was true; he didn’t know what it had been. He loved the way she talked to him.
“Yeah.” It sounded like she might’ve just been saying it because it was convention.
He wondered if she really thought it had been nice; he couldn’t imagine she did. Who knows, though. He didn’t really know her anymore. “I’ll go. I’ll see you later, maybe.”
“You have a good time in Los Angeles, Stu.”
He stood, fidgeting, for a moment, and then bent to hug her. She was warm; and that unearthed memories from decades ago, him - always cold due to poor circulation - sticking to her in bed for warmth, waking her up. It felt like a whole different life now, that.
She gave him a pat on the back and then pushed him off.
It wasn’t gentle, but it was so comforting. It was communication in a language he understood rather than the horrible, patronizing way everyone else walked on eggshells around him.
He told her goodbye by the door, and she yawned and said it back.
Then he was in a cab, and then on the tube, and then on a flight.
Everything moved so fast.