BEDSIDE MANNERS & SEASIDE FRIENDS
Paolo Bendini had been a junior chess ace when he was at school. Stalemate with Spassky. But Dr Demetrius was springing a whole new set of openers on him.
‘Eees no possible. Eees no possible,’ he kept saying.
‘Nonsense,’ said Demetrius. ‘You booked Nico for a tour and here she is.’
‘No! No! No! No! No! No! No! I say on the telephone, maybe, perhaps – No ees … definite … Why you are here?’
Why? Because Dr Demetrius needed a holiday where the food was beautiful and the girls delicious.
We were walled up in an ancient hotel in a small north Italian town called Ivrea. The place was a great decaying torta naziale with nineteenth-century plumbing that shook the plaster off the bathroom walls. Maybe it had once been grand and busy, but now it was well off the trade route. We’d been there over a week and we were the only guests. The landlady had given up asking for money and just gave us sour looks whenever we came out of the lift.
Demetrius had finally come to an unavoidable conclusion – why bother with the music? Just have the tour. Paolo Bendini, a young Italian promoter, had ventured to hint at the possibility of some forthcoming Nico concerts in the distant future. That was enough for Demetrius. Immediately he hired a van from R & O and filled it with every Girophile he knew.
Toby and Raincoat had come out loaded with crates of Nico T-shirts as insurance. Raincoat had already offloaded dozens of them on to the landlady’s family, softening her up with his Esperaincoat, explaining that they were collectors’ items: ‘Mucho valubile.’
The tour was a stalemate – Demetrius insisting that we’d been booked, Bendini categorically refusing to believe what was happening to him. A vanload of itinerant musos dumped on his doorstep. It was another link in a chain of bad luck he’d been dragging along since he started out. Bendini had ventured into concert promotion through a genuine love of the music. First mistake. He’d just done a Neil Young concert which had bombed out – the middle of July in Rome, 75,000-seater stadium, and it rained. Only for one day, but very specifically and very hard. Paolo was just a small, sweet guy, with pimples and brainbox lenses, an office at home in his bedroom and his mother’s ravioli. Now this. Demetrius bullied, cajoled, coerced and confused him until the Bendini head was spinning – figures were floating, contracts were waving. Demetrius had him in check. Bendini would go back to his mum’s and try and work something out.
We sat it out for the best part of another week. Nico had a nice little bag of Manchester scag in her pouch, plus her little Joey, Le Kid. They only ever appeared at mealtimes, scuttling back to their room to get loaded. Demetrius hinted at incest, as they shared the same bed – but then they shared the same everything.
It was decided to put on a private concert for the landlady and her family in the hotel basement to keep them all sweet. Demetrius had dropped words like bel canto and coloratura. The Signora was expecting a few arias from Rigoletto.
There was a strange old uncle, deathly thin, with a hat and a walking cane, who haunted the upstairs landings and looked straight through you when you spoke to him. I stayed in my room as much as possible. I’d found a porno cartoon mag on top of the wardrobe: Leonora the Leopard Lady. She provided some solace and companionship throughout those interminable siesta hours. Neither waking nor sleeping, I could hear Uncle Morbido creeping about outside. Sometimes I’d notice the handle turn on my door. Maybe Leonora was already spoken for.
Demetrius had commandeered a microphone and a box amp. The harmonium was taken out of its native soil and placed under the one single lightbulb. The cellar looked, appropriately enough, like a torture chamber. Luckily it was to be an exclusive solo performance, for one afternoon only.
It was a packed house. The whole dynasty … kids running around like puppies, all wearing Nico T-shirts. Grandma was magnificent, spreading her sombre influence like a black widow spider from the corner of the room.
‘Per me,’ she sighed, ‘la bella vita finira presto.’
Our good landlady and Nico came in arm in arm. Le Kid, high on his mother’s dope, followed behind; then the good Doctor and finally old Morbido, who just walked past everybody to the other side of the room and leant against the wall, leaning on his walking stick.
The Signora said a few words about ‘what an honour it was’, etc, etc, and then Nico began.
‘I want to begin with ‘The End’. This song was Jim Morrison’s favourite song.’
This is the end,
Beautiful friend,
This is the end,
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end …
It was the perfect family portrait, frozen in time. No one moved. Mouths hung open.
Old Morbido was the first to crack. He began to sway from side to side. Then the dog began to whine. Grandma had seen a glimpse of the Other Side and didn’t like it. Some of the younger kids were a bit frightened by the strange lady in black with the man’s voice, but the teenies were biting their tongues in an effort to suppress their laughter. Uncle Morbido started to wander around with his stick, banging into things, like he was drunk, blind or delirious. The Signora got a grip of him and marched him off to his familiar haunts upstairs.
Nico called it quits after the one song, and everyone relaxed again. Cakes and Fanta were handed out for the kids and grappa for the adults. Nico didn’t seem too put out by the brevity of her recital as she still remained the glamorous centre of attention. What everyone really wanted was a party. So we had one, there in the basement.
Le Kid had taken a fancy to the landlord’s beautiful daughter.
‘I ’ave ’eard zeese Italian guerrls are good for ze sex.’
‘Oh, aye,’ said Toby, ‘they think of nowt’ else. Bred like pedigrees they are.’
‘Do you sink I could fuck ’er?’
‘With your irresistible Gallic charm, no problem.’
When everyone had loosened up on the grappa, Grannie suggested it was time for more music. It was Raincoat’s turn to do a song, and I had to accompany him on the harmonium.
My funny Valentine,
Sweet comic Valentine,
You make me smile with my heart.
Your looks are laughable,
Unphotographable,
But you’re my favourite work of art.
He tilted into the full Sinatra croon. Smooching up to the Signora and Grandma. Then he sidled up to Nico and, astoundingly, she took up the final verse. Then together they sang the last lines.
But don’t change a hair for me,
Not if you care for me,
Stay, little Valentine, stay –
Each day is Valentine’s day.
The basement went bananas. They wanted more! But we didn’t have any more. So it was back to whacking off in our rooms.
It was the best gig we’d ever played.
Down in reception Demetrius was working the Signora’s phone to death, pestering Bendini. The bills still hadn’t been paid, so we all took to Nico’s routine of creeping out of our rooms at the exact moment the evening meal appeared and then disappearing again like ghosts.
Demetrius took me to one side. ‘James. I think I’m going to have to close down operations here. No doubt the chaps will be disappointed. But at least they’ve had a good trip out.’
‘So … no tour?’
‘Wee-eell … it might be advisable for one of us to stay on here with Nico, just to await developments.’ And then he tipped me a wink. ‘Who knows?’ he continued, ‘it might prove to be quite a profitable experience …’
‘But what about Raincoat and Toby?’
‘They seem to have become imbued with the entrepreneurial spirit and intend to make their fortunes selling Nico T-shirts on the Italian Riviera. They’ll rendezvous with you a little later in Milan.’
‘And … Le Kid?’
‘Er …’
‘You mean Le Kid comes too?’
‘Er …’
‘You know what happens … he burns into her stuff and then it’s La Grande Tragédie.’
‘They’re inseparable,’ said Demetrius. ‘Like you say … a kangaroo and her Joey hopping round the corner for a fix!’ He started hopping like a kangaroo. The Signora glared up from her accounts book.
That night Bendini telephoned to confirm some dates. Short-notice affairs – hard to tell how they’d turn out.
‘We’ll take it.’
There might not be much money.
‘We’ll take it.’
Maybe nothing at all after hotels and fuel.
‘We’ll take it.’
Demetrius clicked down the phone with a broad beam. Checkmate.
Demetrius had some pressing business to attend to back in Manchester but he’d pop back to collect us at the end of the tour.
‘Toodle-pip!’
The hotel went deathly quiet after Demetrius’s departure. My only human contact was with Nico and Le Kid at feeding time, where they chorused their woes and grievances. Demetrius the Deceiver, Demetrius the Dreamer, Demetrius the Deflowerer of Catholic Virgins.
Lonely, I started to haunt the corridors along with Uncle Morbido. Then Franco showed up.
Franco had been a test driver for Fiat in Turin and a medium-level racing driver. Now he was a ‘Records [sic] producer’, whatever that meant. He was also a pal of Bendini’s, in his mid-thirties, greying, handsome, half Yugoslav, half Italian, and he liked speed (i.e. rapid motion). You’d never have guessed, though, because he talked really slowly and had a quiet, slightly pained, old-world courtesy.
He picked us up in a stripped-down, souped-up old Peugeot Pimpmobile. The kind of thing the Brigate Rosse wire up with a dead judge in the boot. He explained there was going to be a lot of driving, so he just wanted to ride the car to death.
Franco dropped the Signora a wad of lire out of his own pocket. Nico and Le Kid snuggled down in the back, sharing each other’s joys and woes. We tore off down the autostrada, making it to Milan in ‘Records producer’ time.
I knew it was a mistake the moment we arrived at the station. I remembered Echo had warned me about the place before. We were parked illegally at the foot of the steps, looking hopelessly conspicuous. Nico had gone to the WC for a shot. Raincoat and Toby were late. We were three guys in black leather jackets, all smoking, and looking furtively around us for a miracle in Milan.
There was a thump on the roof, then the side doors ripped open and suddenly I was dragged out of the car and told to assume the position while four rifle-toting cops frisked us individually.
‘Stiamo aspetiando degli amici [We’re waiting for some friends],’ said Franco.
‘Zitto [Shut it].’
They finished feeling us up and down and then they started on the car. That wouldn’t take long, there wasn’t much to pull apart. One of them watched us while the other three tossed our gear on to the pavement. My bag fell open and out leapt Leonora the Leopard Lady.
‘Depravato!’ our guard sneered. I blushed guiltily.
‘Maman!’ shouted Le Kid.
Maman was hovering at the back of the crowd.
‘Vieni qui,’ said one of the cops. ‘Passaporto?’
They looked in her bag … Stephen King, a lemon, a bottle of grappa, a Nico T-shirt – and that was just the first layer, there was at least a decade of ring-growth to get through. Luckily she had her works and dope in her knickers and I assume they didn’t fancy a frisk. To my knowledge she hadn’t taken a bath since the last time she was in Milan.
Incredibly, they let us go. Maybe they realised we were just too conspicuously stupid to be a serious terrorist threat.
The beggars, hookers and hustlers all fell back into place.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Nico.
‘What about Raincoat and Toby?’ I ventured.
‘Fuck them … Franco – presto!’
It felt best and perhaps appropriate to bid farewell to the Leopard Lady there, on the steps of Milan station.
We were on the overnight ferry from Civitavecchia to Sardinia. Bendini had fixed us up with an open air concert in Cagliari. Franco had other business. It was just me, Nico and Le Kid. We’d been talking about her modelling days, about how ‘My Funny Valentine’ was one of the first songs she ever learnt as a professional singer, and of a cover shot she did for an album by Bill Evans, the jazz pianist, called Moonbeams. I told her I couldn’t really imagine her in those days, having to get up on time, keeping a fastidious diet. (For the last couple of months back in Manchester her sole diet had been custard. ‘So cheap – and not like eating at all.’)
‘I can see myself just the same then as I am now.’
She was fortunate in this respect. A lot of ex-models find it hard, after living exclusively on their looks, to be suddenly asked to develop a character. One could only ever imagine Nico as a constant, unchanging entity. She wasn’t quick on the uptake or particularly fast on the putdown, but she was consistent. It was like she’d always been there in our lives. One couldn’t imagine the landscape without her. Sullen, sour, monumental, yet powerful. The solid granite power of an inflexible will. Those boots, those heavy peasant bones, the foghorn voice. Here she comes: Estradella and her Dog of Doom.
The captain announced we were passing the island of Elba, Bonaparte’s Alcatraz.
‘They were saaadists …’ she said.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked.
‘The English … that they should bring him here. From the woorld to a rock.’
Le Kid puffed on his spindly joint. ‘Do you sink zey broat ’im guerrls?’
‘Probably,’ I said, ‘along with Le Figaro and the latest copy of Elle magazine.’
His lips puckered tighter than a tomcat’s asshole. I was not being ‘sérieux’. Le Kid had inherited his mother’s sense of humour.
When we arrived in Cagliari the local promoter picked us up in his 2CV. He was sweet, a fan. That meant he probably didn’t know what he was doing. Nico stole his shades. Bendini turned up; he brought with him his assistant Mario and his secretary Marina. My God, maybe it was the heat, but she had a definite look of Leonora the Leopard Lady. Le Kid broke into a sweat. Instantly he wanted to mate with her and started spraying his scent … ‘I am Nico’s son … I was een ze Factory wiz Andee War’ol.’ She was going to drive us all crazy.
The hotel had a private beach. We all scuttled down there like nesting turtles. Marina did her stuff – the whole Birth of Aphrodite routine. Only Bendini remained free of the ‘libidinous waves’. She jiggled her tits in his face, but the little fellow was so myopic he missed it. The rest of us just ached and dug ourselves deep into the ‘pagan sands’.
Maybe fifty people showed up at the gig. A girl in a day-glo swimsuit asked me if I was Nico.
We did a couple more Club 18-30 Nostalgia Nights. Le Kid was petulant and pouting.
‘Ze Carnegie ’All … ze Carnegie ’All … my muzzere should play ze Carnegie ’All.’
Bendini was running around the island sticking up fly posters. They slithered down again before you could read them.
It was the height of Michael Jackson Thriller fever. At Klub Kinky the cruel disco heat burnt and blistered our pale Northern European skin. Kids were circling round us, body popping and moonwalking. The lights went down to reveal: Death at the Heart of the Disco. We lasted about ten minutes. They just played a 12-inch megamix of ‘Billy Jean’ over what we were doing and faded us out.
I got the feeling Bendini had simply phoned up his friends, any friend, who might possess a Nico album, and asked them if they wanted to do some shows. Klub Kinky, Cagliari, was as far away as Nico could ever get from ‘Ze Carnegie ’All’. Kidnappers, bandits, donkeys, tourist villages, glazed terracotta tiles, handwoven peasant blankets, coloured rugs, baskets, sun, blue sea, white rocks, sand they had a-plenty, but Billy Jean was not my love. Le Kid was not my son.
Civitavecchia
The harmonium was swaddled in its old blanket, like a refugee’s sad bundle. It was Nico’s only real possession. Without it she had nothing to trade – even though its bronchial wheeze spelt instant death to the disco children. Nico’s songs of mortality and decay were not compatible with the dominant rhythm of the eighties, especially not for honeymoon couples and resort developers.
A swarm of ants was teeming about their insane and remorseless duty at my feet. It was 3.00 p.m. Siesta. The cicadas were chattering and telegraphing their nervous messages to one another. Our backsides were burning on a hot stone bench. Nothing of human intent or design was moving on Civitavecchia station. Except a single, silent tear down the side of Nico’s face.
‘I guess I’m through,’ she said.
I stared down at the ants.
‘They want disco music now.’
I put my arm around her shoulder. She was sweating and shuddering. She looked up at the sky, trying to keep back the tears that were brimming in her eyes. This wasn’t the familiar withdrawal hysteria I’d seen all too often before. Certainly the smack wasn’t coating every nerve and cushioning reality; instead what she was seeing was more than just her misery, what she was feeling was more than her self-pity.
‘What can I do? I can’t do anything else.’
‘You’ve still got your voice,’ I said. ‘Can’t you write some more songs? You need to make a record – get your face about a bit. It’s no good busking around discos hoping to pick up pennies to score. People have got to want to see you.’
‘I know. I know,’ she sighed, weary at the prospect of having to rebuild her derelict career.
‘But look,’ I said, trying to reassure her, ‘it’s not like you have to start from nowhere. People don’t need to be convinced. It’s just …’ How to put it? ‘… It’s just that, well … you’re bone idle.’
She looked at me, curiously, then laughed. ‘I guess you’re right … Aaandy always said I was laaazy.’
‘You should make a record, Nico – then the tours’ll have some meaning. You won’t need to play seaside discos.’
Le Kid was endlessly making and remaking his one silly little joint with a few meagre crumbs of hash. ‘My muzzerre should play –’
I came in on the chorus. ‘Don’t tell me – ‘Ze Carnegie ’All.’