Get Into The Light: Chapter Sixteen- Some Men Want to Hold Hands And Others Clearly Don't

The next day Carl and I cycled to the studio. It was so delicious to be outside and feel the wind on my face. The frosty Spring air had dissipated and it finally felt like it was getting towards something called Summer. I’d forgotten how good exercise felt- exercise that wasn’t just shuffling from the bed to the toilet and then back to bed. The new regime was paying off and already my thoughts were more balanced. The medication had succeeded in penetrating the faulty neurones. I was still paranoid but the idea that Prince or anyone famous was interested in my daily life now seemed ludicrous. But there was a lot of internal cringing to be done before I could even look my friends in the eye. It wasn’t just a drunken night where I’d vomited on someone’s favourite jacket. On a personal level, I wanted to push the experiences of the past few weeks far far away. The type of craziness I’d suffered from was not the type that could be harnessed and made into great art. There was nothing glamorous about conversing with soap suds in the shower or talking aloud to dead nuns. This whole episode needed to be stamped out with a giant fist and filed under ‘DO NOT ENTER THIS SPACE AGAIN.’ There are plenty of types of insanity that CAN inspire and lead to genius and creativity but this one had left me tired, sad and broken. My chutzpah had melted down to a piddle of wax. I wanted to forget. I wasn’t Keith Richards, didn’t possess the same type of ridiculous resilience and needed to take care of myself from now on. Drugs were now out of the question. I’d really enjoyed those moments of utter abandon and would never reach the same state with positive thinking and energy drinks. But I didn’t want to risk something more permanent (and who knew, maybe this was permanent or maybe it would return some time in the future when I was bringing up children or doing some DIY and I’d start babbling again). But now there were lots of distractions, things to be getting on with and the record was doing well. We were going to watch the revised edit of the video together. The video would help remind me what I was good at. It would remind me of my own in-built talents. When you’re going through a paranoid episode, it’s just about survival- you lose your identity- most of the time I barely recognised my own reflection but this would signal a new beginning. Yet all the time Carl seemed nervous about showing it to me, just like Lynette it seemed like he wasn’t keen that I should see it.
‘Is it really bad?’ I asked as we locked our bikes up outside the studio.
‘I’m just hoping that Joost’s made the changes I wanted,’ he said ominously.
‘What changes?’
‘There was a couple of things I wasn’t happy with.’
‘But I thought it had already been shown on MTV- are we going to have two versions?’
‘It wasn’t quite right. It’s no big deal,’ he said, ‘I’m sure they’ll accept a new one especially if it looks even better than the first.’
As we made our way up the stairs I could just make out some music coming from the top room. It seemed to be getting faster with each step. Eddie’s head poked out as we reached the middle landing. He looked anxious. I hadn’t anticipated that people would treat me differently now but they did. They looked at me like I might lunge at them with a pair of scissors and stab them in the chest.
‘Are you OK?’ he said staring somewhere near my feet.
I wondered if he knew everything. I couldn’t imagine that Carl had told him all the details but Amsterdam was small and nothing much happened so it wasn’t surprising if people were talking about this. And things had probably been exaggerated even more for dramatic effect. I couldn’t trust Lynette not to spread the word either. So really it wasn’t that surprising that Eddie was shaking ever so slightly and mentally mapping out the nearest escape route.
‘I’m on the mend,’ I said, ‘I’m not mad anymore.’
Eddie smiled and looked back at the floor.
‘Charles is upstairs with Forest. And I think Joost and Lynette are on their way,’ he said and disappeared back inside the studio, closing the door behind him.
‘Why don’t you go upstairs?’ Carl said opening the door and following Eddie in. They obviously had business to discuss. Carl had been working hard on new tracks and had brought some of them over for Eddie to listen to. The madness had had a positive influence on his creativity and he seemed to be spending every spare minute on the computer coming up with new songs. The stairs were covered in dust. I visited the loo and there was no toilet paper and a black stain on the floor that looked like mould. In the kitchen cupboards there were no teabags or coffee filters and there was nothing in the fridge but a two litre bottle of Cola. At least I’d made sure the fridge was full up with yoghurt and dairy products. Dutch people can’t survive without them so it was no wonder that Eddie was looking so pale and sickly. There was a rank smell of festering takeaway food mixed with cigarettes and stale beer. The bin was overflowing with rubbish and there was a yellow stain next to the sink which told me the men had been peeing in there again. If they were in the midst of a track and someone was in the loo, this wasn’t unusual at all. The difference was that usually I came along and wiped all the pee away again. It had been a few weeks since I’d last cleaned. I wondered when I would be able to start again. Did I really want to do it now I was a flourishing artist? We hadn’t really spoken about it since I’d been playing more of a role in the band but I enjoyed the physical task of keeping the studio ship-shape. I would talk to Eddie about it later perhaps.

Charles was playing Tetris when I walked in. He must have been at it for some time because the music was really frenetic - the squares dropping at a heart thumping rate.
‘What level are you on?’ I said.
‘Sixteen,’ he replied without looking up.
I fell onto the sofa next to him. Eddie’s cheeks reddened ever so slightly. Forest was on the phone in the corner. He looked anxious. Did they really expect me to jump out the window or attack them? I wanted to say something reassuring but wasn’t quite sure what. Instead I grabbed the controls from Eddie’s hands and took over the game. Usually this would have resulted in a howl of protest and boxed ears but in this new climate of cautiousness and awkwardness, he said nothing and merely started to issue rapid fire instructions.
‘Get into the left column. Now watch the middle- there’s a couple coming on fast now. That’s it.’
I played along for a while but couldn’t keep up, had never got to such a high level and passed the controls back after hitting pause.
‘There’s some blues in the corner there. Look,’ I said, pointing.
‘Hi!’ Lynette’s voice broke through the interminable beeping, ‘I think I must be coming down with something. My head hurts. I feel terrible.’
‘You poor thing,’ Forest said putting the phone down and sitting a chair near the TV, motioning for Lynette to sit on his lap. Lynette swerved to avoid his suggested seat and sat down on the other side of Eddie. We all stared at the screen. The noise was sickening and the vein in the side of Eddie’s head was pulsating like his head was about to explode.
‘Are you feeling better now?’ Forest asked looking in my direction.
I nodded.
‘Much better thanks.’
‘What went wrong? Do you think it was the band? Was it too much pressure? Did you feel like you were outside of your comfort zone? What was it?’
‘I can’t cope with having too much fun,’ I said.
‘I hope you’re not going to get all boring now,’ Lynette said lighting a cigarette, ‘I’ve lost count of the number of people who start eating grated carrot all day and going to bed whilst it’s still light outside. I understand you need a balance but you don’t have to become a monk.’
‘I can’t risk it anymore,’ I said and I wasn’t being dramatic.
I was simply telling it as it was.
‘You could try some of my smart drugs,’ Forest said, ‘They’d probably help re-build some of the damage. I’ll have a look in my catalogue. They’re expensive but they as long as you’re taking the right combination, it mitigates the ill effects of the recreational drugs. I really believe in them or otherwise I would have lost it already.’
The noise of the Tetris grew louder still. There was no way I was trying smart drugs. Just the name itself made it sound devious. I wasn’t going to get all evangelical either. I could still have fun- go out- drink- whatever- it wasn’t the end. It would feel good to be sober even if I had to work harder to have a good time especially as none of my friends were shocked enough to stop doing drugs themselves. Lynette sighed like all of this was signalling the end of a fun-filled era. She actually made me feel guilty- like I’d come in and turned the light on whilst she was snogging the most attractive man at the party. It was times like these when I really questioned the type of friend she was. Sure she’d taken me to the hospital and she’d visited the flat when I was ill but then there’d been the comment about madness being some sort of contagious illness and now she was annoyed because I was getting more attention than her and she couldn’t compete because she’d never be as mad as I’d been in those couple of weeks. Why were we always competing? Why couldn’t she actually be concerned and actively encourage me to continue my health kick (it wasn’t even a health kick anyway- I was still smoking like a trooper and drinking Grolsch every day as soon as it got past three pm). Joost trudged into the room. Carl and Charles followed.

Charles paused his game and the new edit was put into the player. It seemed so long ago that we’d filmed the whole thing and I could barely remember what we’d done or what the song even sounded like.
‘How’s about we have a Tetris tournament first?’ Lynette said suddenly, ‘Girls against boys.’
‘I want to watch the video,’ I said, ‘I haven’t even seen it and it’s already been on TV. I can’t wait to send my Mum and Dad a copy. They’ll be flabbergasted.’
‘It’s only been on once- it’s not like you missed the whole thing,’ Lynette said,
‘Still- I’d like to see it now.’
‘I don’t even know if we can send a new edit to MTV,’ Joost said, ‘Is that even possible?’ he looked at Forest who shrugged in reply.
‘I think we should try,’ Carl said.

The words Cyberia flashed onto the screen. A strobe effect. And then a small glittery bum appeared. The video cut to lustrous, brown hair swept against a backdrop of vibrant tulips. The bum appeared for a few seconds. There seemed to be a lot of this bum in the video. And the bum wasn’t mine. Already we were about thirty seconds in and I hadn’t really seen anything else. There was another cut to the lighthouse. Down to the legs and back up to the bum again. It was like an advert for Sloggi pants. There was absolutely nothing in this video that actually related to the song. Even the singer (or speaker – whatever) was absent. I just about glimpsed a second of my elbow when we got to two and a half minutes – right near the end. It was obvious why Lynette had been reluctant to watch this with me sitting in the same room. And obvious why Carl had demanded an edit.

And this was the edit! This was the improved version!

The room was silent for a bit. I wondered if anyone was actually going to say something or whether we were going to pretend the video was okay. Lynette looked shiftily at her feet. Forest licked his front teeth. Joost fidgeted in his back pocket and pulled out a tissue, played with it and then stuffed it back where he’d found it. Carl sighed angrily.
I felt like I’d made a real effort with the video shoot - I knew I wasn’t a natural, found it incredibly difficult to look like I was having fun but surely there’d been some footage that they could have actually used. What was the point of going to the shoot in the first place? We should have just made the decision to film Lynette on her own. We were just like all those other desperate house acts that got a model to mime the words because the singer was too fat and unattractive. And where was Miss Ellen? Surely she deserved a moment in the sunshine too?

‘It’s great don’t you think?’ Forest said leaning forward.
‘It’s not great. It looks exactly the same as it did before. Where is the footage of Lola? Why is it still the same?’ Carl said pulling the tape violently out of the machine. He walked over to the window, opened it and threw it out into the street below.
I’d never seen this side of Carl before. I’d expected him to be a little annoyed but nothing like this. This was more than just defending me and making me feel good. It was the same anger I’d seen after the gig with Miss Ellen. This wasn’t the vision he had for the band. It wasn’t what he wanted. Joost looked at the floor. It wasn’t a bad video. In fact it was actually pretty good –in fact it was uncommon to have anything that was shot outside a studio in these types of videos and at least it didn’t have the monotonous graphics of most dance videos – it was memorable- arty - but it would have been nice to have a bit more balance.
‘It’s Lola’s song. Why is she not in the video?’ Carl said.
‘I’m not in the video either,’ Charles said and he rebooted the computer game again.
Carl walked out and slammed the door behind him.
‘You haven’t even put the brain machine in there,’ Charles continued as the game started up again, ‘that was the best bit.’
He shook his head.
‘You didn’t mention anything when it was on MTV,’ Joost said.
‘I guess I didn’t notice until Carl pointed it out,’ he continued.
‘Well I think the video is great. Sure there’s a couple of issues perhaps but we can get these resolved,’ Forest said.
‘How?’ Eddie said.
‘We just need to put more footage of Lola in there. Does that footage actually exist?’ Forest said raising his eyebrows at Joost.
‘Sort of.’
‘What do you mean? It either exists or it doesn’t’
‘I already put some of her in this time- the bit with the elbow actually- that’s her elbow. I added that in after Carl went mad last time.’
‘I hardly think an elbow is sufficient,’ Forest said.
I felt like crying. Was I really so heinous and disgusting that only my elbow was permissible? Why did Joost hate me so much? And how come my friends had failed to stop this from happening in the first place? All along I’d been struggling, literally losing my marbles and in the interim this video had gone out and there was nothing I could do- I didn’t even exist in the band. In fact it probably made sense if Lynette just mimed all the songs from now on. Why were videos all about being superficial these days? And why did girls all look the same – shaking their butts in the camera like feminism never even happened? Mum would be appalled by the ode to the tiny butt. I’d never bother showing it to her. I’d thought this band was different. Perhaps instead I was simply regarded as the Yoko Ono figure in all of this - they couldn’t wait to get me out of the picture. To think that I’d even considered buying these guys dairy products and cleaning up their pee! In fact the timing had been pretty fortuitous for them. Perhaps I should have made the video myself.
The Tetris noise whined on. I was too embarrassed to just stand up and walk out. I was embarrassed to make a fuss and embarrassed to do nothing. I just wanted to crawl under the desk and watch comedy films till it all went away.
‘Let’s not overreact,’ Forest said which was odd because no one was doing anything, in fact we were all sitting completely motionless whilst Eddie worked his way past level seventeen and up.
‘You knew I wasn’t in it,’ I said turning to face Lynette, ‘You saw it and you knew. I can’t believe that you would do this to me.’
‘Lord don’t be so dramatic. It’s just a video,’ she said.
Joost got up and left the room. I hoped he was going down to talk to Carl and find some way to make the necessary changes. I didn’t feel like I was being a prima donna here- this wasn’t about having the exact same time on screen but still- more than an elbow? I deserved more than that.
‘The video was really important. It was my song. I wrote it. I’ve never written a song before. I don’t think I’ll ever have the courage to speak or sing on one again.’
‘Joost didn’t do anything on purpose. Like he said - he even added some extra bits in. Didn’t you see the strands of hair right towards the end? They were blonde! They were yours!’
‘Joost can re-edit it some more,’ Forest said, ‘The stuff is there. Carl could sit with him. It won’t take long.’

I got up and ran down the stairs. Joost and Carl were having a conversation in the studio. I stood in the doorway listening in. Carl was telling Joost to make the changes immediately. Joost was saying that MTV probably wouldn’t play a re-edited version as they already had the original. Carl asked if we could use a different mix instead and then add the new footage in. Joost said probably not. I couldn’t help thinking that he was being supremely unhelpful. Almost like he didn’t want to make any changes. But eventually he made a suggestion.
‘Maybe I can shoot some more with just Lola on her own?’
‘I don’t think that’s a great idea. She looks terrible right now. She’s lost weight. She’s got dark circles under her eyes. She’s not well. I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.’
I sat on one of the steps and got my cigarettes out. It was reassuring to hear that my boyfriend thought I’d disintegrated into a real mess. Just when I’d started to feel better too. But I was getting ahead of myself because really I was still a mess. No wonder Lynette had become the face of this band. I dropped cigarette ash on the floor. Who cared if this place never got cleaned again? I hoped the mice arrived and started leaving disease everywhere and then people would die and finally they’d realise how important I was. Eventually Carl appeared and sat next to me.
‘Don’t worry. It’ll be OK’ he said, ‘Joost can do some more filming. It will look better. It can all be fixed.’
‘Do I really look that bad?’
‘I didn’t mean it like that- were you listening? It’s just that you’ve been ill- you look better each day but I’m cross that he doesn’t seem to have shot enough material. I don’t understand what happened.’
‘He’s in love with Lynette. That’s what happened.’
‘I feel bad. It’s probably my fault. This wasn’t a good idea. We should have had a different Director.’

In the end the situation was sorted. Joost would shoot some more footage and this would be edited in with a different music track. This could then be sent to MTV as a remixed version. The new clip would no longer be a tribute to Lynette’s elegant arse.

A couple of days later Lynette and I were sitting in Weesperplein sharing some Japanese food – she’d asked me to come out and Carl had thought it was a good idea to try going out on my own. Part of me was still mad but then it was also difficult to stay angry with her for long. There was something so child-like about her that it was hard to believe she did these hurtful things on purpose. And she always seemed to be miserable about her circumstances so you couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. She spent much of the meal talking about Joost and how the relationship wasn’t working out quite how she wanted it to.
‘It’s changing Lola,’ she said, ‘It’s like after we have sex, he’ll just jump up and rush into the shower. Like he wants to wash me off him. Like he can’t stand to be with me another moment. And he actually turned me down last night. He’s never done that before.’
‘You can’t carry on like a honeymoon couple forever. It’s nothing to worry about,’ I said.

Carl and I hadn’t been having sex for quite a long time. I guess seeing your girlfriend running round the flat with no make up, dishevelled hair and great sacks of dead matter under her eyes wasn’t that attractive. The truth was I could tell he was afraid. The relationship had shifted and he felt more like a parent than a partner. It seemed like everything he said now was a lecture. We rarely laughed unless we were watching some stupid film and he’d become so obsessive with his music, staying up late into the night with his headphones glued to his ears. And meanwhile I’d developed an intense friendship with the budgie, to the point where it wasn’t uncommon to barely speak to one another all day. I got up. Took the tea towel off Bobby’s cage, put the coffee on, then the TV and Carl stood right up and sat back at his computer, clamping the headphones on and then returning to the point that he’d left off the night before. When he wasn’t working he was telling me to keep the flat tidy (fair enough- I had little else to do but it was the hectoring tone that got me down) or he was telling me to stop smoking or to turn the TV off and read a book instead. I’d never really felt the age difference before. But now it was like living with a grumpy old man. He’d even turned down the request I’d made to let me start cleaning the studio again – even though it got me out of the house and doing something beyond staring out the window. So I wasn’t really listening whilst Lynette told the story of Joost’s waning passion.
‘Anyway last night I was lying there,’ she said and I started listening again, ‘And suddenly I remembered that Pete and I always used to fall asleep holding hands. I mean I don’t think Pete really enjoyed it but I always used to force my hand into his as he was falling asleep. And the things is when I woke up in the morning, every morning, his hand would still be there. Joost doesn’t do that.’
‘Joost’s a different person. They’re not going to behave exactly the same way.’
‘Yes but he doesn’t want to hold my hand. He doesn’t even like holding it in the street.’
‘Some men are like that. In fact Pete didn’t want to hold your hand in the street.’
‘But he held it in the bed.’
‘You kind of made him do that.’
‘No he kept it there. He wanted it there. The relationship was completely different.’
‘So why did you treat him so badly then?’
She looked up with half a noodle hanging out the corner of her mouth.
‘I didn’t. I loved Pete. We were a great couple together.’
‘So why did you start the relationship with Joost?’
‘I don’t know,’ she put her chopsticks down and lit a cigarette, ‘I’m asking myself the same question. I mean he’s good looking. He’s talented. He’s great in bed but do I really love him?’
‘I don’t know. Do you?’
‘Pete and I were like two children. We were growing up together. We shared everything. Pete never had a shower after making love.’
‘That’s a bit disgusting.’
‘Not right afterwards I mean.’
‘He criticised you a lot.’
‘I know but I liked that. I pretended that I didn’t but I did. Joost doesn’t seem to care what I do.’
‘You could try and get back together with Pete- it’s not too late,’ I said.
I didn’t mention that he was seeing Miss Ellen. I didn’t even know if they were still together. They seemed such an odd couple but then again I barely knew either of them. I actually really like Miss Ellen because she was herself and seemed to be fearless. I wished more than anything I could absorb some of her energy.
‘I’ve really screwed it up,’ Lynette said sticking one of the chopsticks into the back of her hand till it left a white mark behind.
We hadn’t even touched on the video or how upset I’d felt at being edited out (or perhaps not even filmed in the first place).
‘Where is he Lola? Do you think he’ll take me back?’

Sure I was unhappy to see Lynette suffer but it also felt like we were a bit more equal now. She’d edited me out of the video (perhaps she hadn’t done it on her own but I was convinced she’d had a role in it), stolen my the pitiful amount of thunder I had going for me and so deserved the bit of sadness travelling in her direction. And besides I was pretty sure she was inventing problems as she went along. Who complained when they had a good-looking boyfriend who worshipped the ground you walked on?

Who cared if he didn’t want to hold hands?