Asturias (8 page)

14

A QUESTION OF STYLE

ALEX'S STORY

Six weeks later we were up and running.

As soon as we had a name, the publicity machine kicked in and began cranking out the pre-release hype for the first single. They chose to begin with a whispering campaign.

“What is Asturias?”. “Asturias is coming.”

The usual garbage.

I don't think any of us were really happy with it, but they reckon the most annoying advertising is also the most effective. Besides, we weren't the marketing experts. So we settled for a few words in Max's ear, and let them get on with their job.

Max called in a few favours from people he knew in the industry, and on the day that the single was released we had high-rotation exposure and give-aways on three of the FM stations and a couple of the AMs. It was a good start.

He'd even organised a blitz on the evening request lines, to add a little momentum, and a campaign of buying up copies of the single in the stores that the key stations used for their survey stats. By the middle of the first week of September the other stations had picked it up and we were on our way.

In the end, we'd chosen to go with “Falling into the Sun” as our debut. It was a song I'd written with Chrissie a couple of months before, and it was a bit of a showcase. Not too fast or raunchy, but a really nice melody line and a couple of “killer chords” — and some pretty impressive harmonies.

And the video-clip was a knockout. A blend of live action and computer animation, with lots of close-ups and switches between black and white and colour. Natassia looked sensational. I remembered the scene in the lift a few short months before and I could hardly believe it was the same girl.

The single began climbing as soon as they started screening the video, and we were top-twenty in less than a fortnight. Max was smiling, so Symonds must have been happy — or as near to happy as that miserable creep ever got. Thank God we didn't have much to do with him directly. It didn't stop what happened later, of course. But all that was in the future.

What mattered at that moment was the song and how to sell it.

The publicity profiles and “scoops” were all prepared, and the movers-and-shakers at CTT knew just how to release them: a little at a time; build up the audience awareness, stimulate the demand. It was all pretty cold and clinical. And it was more than a little disturbing watching the way we were being positioned, but what the hell?

In the end, it was the music that counted.

I kept telling myself that. The crap was a means to an end; nothing more. The music industry was just that. An industry. A business. And we were the product to be sold.

But if the music was no good, if we didn't cut it, no amount of publicity, no amount of manipulation was going to sell us.

That's what I told myself.

And at times I even believed it.

But other times I had my doubts. When I heard the way they twisted our life stories around, so that we hardly recognised the events of our own lives …

It wasn't as if they actually printed lies about us; lies are too easy to disprove, and the last thing you need is a controversy — at least, not one you haven't carefully planned.

It was more the
way
they told the truth. How they left out certain things; the turn of phrase that suggested something that wasn't true, without actually saying it outright.

They made a lot out of Tasha being plucked from obscurity — from the dress-shop to the recording studio; from oblivion to every girl's dream.

“Tasha K.” they called her. No last name. The mystery girl. Keep them guessing.

Tasha was easy, of course. It was the fairy-tale — and it just happened to be true. And it didn't hurt that she looked like an angel.

I guess Marco's story was true, too. As far as it went. And I suppose his was just as much the fairy-tale. It was just … They made him sound like a street-kid-made-good — polishing his skills on the pavements and in the parks of the cold, heartless city, while people threw him their spare change. It was all accurate, of course. As far as it went. But it left the impression that he'd been sleeping in charity clothes bins and surviving from minute to minute in the realm of the pushers and the children of the dark, only to be rescued by his talent and a stroke of fate.

Of course, there was no mention of the fact that he went home every night to a mother who loved him — even if she was too sick to look after him the way most fourteen-year-olds are expected to be looked after.

And there wasn't a word about his straight-A average — at least, not at first. That story leaked out later on, when one of the magazines “dropped by” to interview his ex-schoolmates. But by then the image was in place, and the “heartbeat” of our band was already the “heart-throb” of a hundred thousand girls under the age of fifteen, and whatever they printed about him was going to be seen in its best light.

He no longer had time to go to a normal school, of course, but he was keeping up his average with a private tutor, paid for by CTT.

This wasn't through any kind-heartedness on Sy-mond's part; it was the law. No tutor, no Marco. I guess Mindy's salary was small-change, in the scheme of things.

Mindy was the tutor, and she was still young enough to be excited by the whole thing. She was also one reason Marco continued doing so well; apart from the fact she was a damned good teacher, she was also fun to be with, and in spite of the long hours he was working, he did his best to impress her. I think the kid had a crush on her, but he was too “cool” to talk to anyone about it.

In the long run it didn't matter. Within a couple of months he was getting so much fan-mail and attention from girls that there was no time. For a “crush” or anything else.

That left Chrissie, Tim and me.

They made a lot of our backgrounds; of the fact that we could play just about anything; that we were all classically trained. It was a good selling point. It gave us authority — as long as we didn't actually go ahead and play any of the stuff in public; at least, not in its original form.

That was one of Max's master-strokes. It gave the kids something to knock their olds over the head with whenever there was any criticism of the music they wanted to listen to. At the same time it gave the parents a reason to accept us. No matter what we played they could always convince themselves that we could at least play “real” music if we wanted to.

We were designed to be everything to everyone: respectable, with the hint of a ‘past', and an edge that promised rebellion; looks and talent; rock ‘n' pop, with a few touches from left-field. But nothing that would actually offend anyone. No matter what their age was.

Chrissie found it harder to take than the rest of us. She was older (in spite of what the publicity
didn't
say) and I guess the image thing was a little harder for her to accept without question. She didn't refuse to go along with it or anything, but you could tell by some of the things she'd say.

Like once when Max was discussing the next week's publicity strategy. She wasn't all that keen on some of what he was saying, and when he mentioned being ‘a bit radical', she couldn't hold it in.

“Radical
!” She threw the hair back from her face and laughed. “You wouldn't know ‘radical' if it jumped up and bit you on the tit. If we were any more middle-of-the-road, they'd have to paint a dotted line down our backs.”

She watched him. He wasn't sure what to make of her words. She wasn't angry, or frustrated or anything. She was just letting him know that he didn't need to try the bullshit out on us first. That we knew what was going on.

“I didn't —” he began, but she wasn't finished.

“Look, Max,” she interrupted. “If you want me to dress in a black leather G-string and wear a safety-pin through my nose, just say the word. If you want me to wear a blond wig and do an Abba imitation, just tell me when. But don't talk about “radical”. Come with me tonight and I'll show you radical. But you won't like it, and neither will Mr ‘Maximise-the-Bottom-Line', Herr Feuhrer Symonds. We're a bloody pop band, Max. Forget ‘radical'.”

I got the impression that there was a secret agenda going on between them that none of us knew about. Max backed off a little.

“Okay. Maybe ‘radical' wasn't the word I was looking for. But we've got the first live gig in a month and we've got to settle on a look. We can't go on stage with an image like a dog's breakfast. This isn't about the music. It's about style …”

And so it went on.

Personally, I switched off. It wasn't my area. I'd just as soon have gone on stage in jeans and an LA Lakers top, but I knew they'd work out something for me to wear that I'd never dream of myself, so there wasn't much point in getting involved in the discussion.

Tim seemed to have the same attitude. And Marco threw in a few suggestions, but he might just have been stirring the pot. With Marco you could never be sure.

Nats didn't say much, but she was thinking. After a few minutes she left the room, and I could see her on the phone in the next office.

A while later she came back in smiling.

“I've called the cavalry.” She sat on the desk as she spoke, and swung her legs. “Anyone like to break for lunch until she arrives?”

I didn't ask who “she” was. I'd been waiting for something to eat since breakfast.

Chrissie obviously had a slower metabolism.

“ ‘She' who?”

“ ‘She' who knows more about design than any of us. She'll be here in about half an hour.”

Chrissie was about to ask more questions, but Max cut in.

“Half an hour it is. We're getting nowhere here, and if Tasha's friend can't help, we're going to have to bring in the worldwide resources of CTT anyway. So who's hungry?”

“Who's doing the shouting?”

Marco, the practical.

Max smiled. “Lunch is on me.”

Marco stood up and crossed the floor to face him. Then with a straight face, he looked down.

“Judging by that tie, breakfast is on you, too,” he said, and led the way out, leaving Max looking down with embarrassment at a stain you'd never have noticed if he'd been wearing his Bugs Bunny neck-restraint.

TASHA'S STORY

Penny was waiting for us when we got back. Max's secretary had shown her in, and she was standing staring at the autographed pictures on the walls, her mouth open and a cup of coffee forgotten in her hand.

“You
met
k.d.lang?”

The words were addressed to Max, who just nodded.

“In
person
?”

He smiled. “In person.”

Penny was impressed.

She put the cup down on the desk and sat down. Her eyes drifted back to the photograph, but she shook her head and forced herself to get down to business.

“Tash tells me you're looking for an image …”

It's amazing how the same people who were sitting there like sheep half an hour earlier could come up with so many ideas as soon as someone with a bit of know-how got involved. Even Alex put in his two-bits — which was more of a surprise than Marco actually shutting up.

You could tell that Max was impressed. Here was Penny, no older than us, but she had her finger right on the problems. After less than an hour she was on her way. Max gave her three days to come up with something.

She did it in two.

It may be the music that counts in the end, but looking right never hurt. By the time Penny's designs were made up we looked like … well, like us.

And we were ready.

15

SEGOVIA

ABUELITO

“We are ready …”

The old man stubs out the latest in a chain of cigarettes. The boy watches his grandfather's face, fascinated. When the past speaks through him, there is new life in those ancient eyes. He waits, and the old man goes on.

“The radio we have hidden behind a cupboard in the kitchen of Conchita's house. It is her mother's idea. Conchita, she live there with her mother and Juana, and no one would take
them
for members of the Brigades, she say. Consuegra belong still to the Republic, of course, but in those days …” He shakes his head sadly. “Trust was a thing too expensive to give away.”

Coughing from deep in his chest, he reaches for another cigarette, but the packet is empty. For a moment he looks towards the kitchen, but decides against asking Alex for the favour, knowing how the boy feels about the things. He settles for picking up a spent matchstick and chewing the end, continuing his story with the stick still hanging from his mouth.

“Our cell is part of the Lorca group. It is named for the poet Federico García Lorca. He was murdered by the Fascists in nineteen and thirty-six.” The old man smiles. “You carry his name too, boy. Was your grandmother's idea.”

This much, the boy knows. He smiles back, but says nothing, willing his grandfather to go on.

After a few seconds he does.

“We don't know who is the leader of our group. Nobody knows this. And nobody knows who is in the other cells. Too many betrayals have made the Brigades careful. Every night, one of us calls in for instructions. Most nights is nothing, but sometimes there are orders …”

22 April 1937
Segovia

Two donkeys stand grazing in the grass on the banks of the Eresma River. The current flows strongly, swollen by the spring rains funnelling down into the valley from high in the Sierras.

Dressed in the rags of a wandering
gitano,
Ardillo holds his hand up to his eyes, shading them from the sun as he stares up at the walls of the old city.

For eight hundred years those walls have dominated the surrounding lands, and later the newer parts of the city which have grown up around them and their eighty-six stone towers. But now his mind is on other things than history.

Before the war, the
turista
followed their guides around the streets of the old city, marvelling at the huge stone fortress, the Alcazar, and staring up at the old cathedral with its soaring domed tower. But now there are no
turista.
Only armed soldiers move through the gate; in and out, among the people of the town.

He watches the gate, trying to show nothing of the nervousness he is feeling.

And as he watches he sees his brothers returning. Francisco comes first, leading his animal, with Manuel walking a few steps behind. Their disguise is effective; even knowing them for who they are he sees only a pair of gypsies. Manuel still limps slightly. In the weeks since the celebrations at Guadalajara he has had little time to rest his twisted knee, but he refuses to be left behind.

“Someone must be there to control the boy,” he says. And it is true. Ardillo smiles. Francisco was always more scared of Manuel than he was of his oldest brother.

“Did you get it?”

The question is addressed to Manuel as the two approach, but it is Francisco who answers.

“Did you doubt us? Troop movements, garrison strengths. The damned Fascists won't know what
—”

“Mendez will be waiting for them.” Manuel cuts across his brother's excitement. He takes his duty seriously, and his tone temporarily dampens the boy's enthusiasm.

Some information is too delicate for the Brigades to risk committing to the airwaves, even in code. Most of their work as a cell of the Lorca group is to act as couriers, carrying information out of Nationalist-controlled areas to the different Republican contact-points in the capital.

Where it goes from there, what use is made of the information they risk their lives to smuggle out, they will never know. It is not their role to ask questions, and information is never offered. The less that is known, the fewer who are privy to the wider plans, the less that can be extracted by the hammers and pliers and electrical currents of the
Caudillo's
interrogators.

Manuel removes a small package from inside his shirt, wraps it carefully in an old blue rag, and shoves it deep into one of the panniers slung across the back of the nearest grazing animal. The large baskets are filled with old clothes and rags, and oddments that might have been picked out of the refuse of any town. They are an important part of the disguise, especially at checkpoints.

Ardillo turns slowly around, a chill of premonition prickling the back of his neck. Instantly he freezes, and a single whispered word escapes his lips.

“Guardia!”

Moving towards them across the narrow fringe of riverside grass are five uniformed men. Two are Spaniards, swaggering in the uniform of Franco's para-military “police-force”. The others are Moors, brought across from Morocco, when the
Caudillo
and his henchmen first launched their rebellion. Their dark faces shine in the hot sun, and they watch the three “gypsies” with a detached disinterest. They are soldiers, and while they don't mind a spot of bullying, or worse, it lacks the adrenalin surge of battle, and garrison duty behind the walls of a city as “safe”as Segovia is beginning to pall. Especially as they must take their orders from idiots like the
guardia
sergeant, Hernandez.

“Do you smell something, Emilio?” Hernandez addresses his subordinate with an exaggerated wrinkling of the skin around his nose. He never talks to the Moors, except to issue instructions.

“Road swill,” the other answers, and begins to circle the grazing animals, his hand caressing the handle of his bolstered gun, his eyes flitting from one brother to the next, nervously.

Francisco is about to answer, but Ardillo silences him with a slight movement of his hand. The movement is enough to draw the
guardia
sergeant's attention. His next words are directed at the older brother.

“Well,
gitano.
What are you doing here? There is no market on for you to practise picking pockets, and no one in Segovia is interested in buying your stinking rags.”

No answer. Ardillo holds his gaze with what he hopes is the right amount of arrogance. A
gitano
attempting to simulate a subservience he does not feel.

“Well?” Hernandez' tone is becoming more impatient. Francisco moves up to stand beside his brother, almost touching him. Ardillo clears his throat.

“We were just passing through, Sergeant.” He pauses on the man's title, then continues, “The animals needed a rest. We are on our way to Ávila.”

He allows his eyes to wander nervously to the huge Roman aqueduct, which still supplies the old city with its water. He does not trust himself to hold the man's gaze, for in it he has seen the underlying cruelty. The sadistic streak which the war has awakened. Which lurks there, ready to pounce at the slightest provocation.

“Ávila?” Hernandez studies him. “Why Ávila?”

Ardillo hesitates momentarily, searching for a credible excuse. Any hesitation is dangerous and he knows it, but he is unprepared for the man's persistence.

“Our sister lives there.” Manuel speaks from beside the donkey, distracting the sergeant's attention. “She is married to a boot-maker. Jose Valasquez …”

Hernandez smiles. An expression without a trace of humour.

And I thought
gitanos
bred in the ditches, like pigs. A boot-maker, you say? And what does a boot-maker want with a
gitano
wife?”

Manuel holds his gaze.

“She is very beautiful. For a
gitana.”
The sergeant misses the trace of irony in his voice.

“And what is in the baskets? Wedding presents?” He laughs at what must have been an attempt at a joke, then his face sets hard. “Or weapons, maybe?”

He indicates the nearest animal with a movement of his head, and watches his subordinate move across to check in the pannier.

The man reaches in and begins rummaging through the assortment of dirty rags. The smell of stale sweat and old clothing registers in the look of distaste that spreads over his face.

Hernandez watches for a moment, with an expression of pained tolerance. The Moors look on, uninterested.

Finally, the sergeant's patience runs out.

“Idiot!” He moves across and grasps the pannier, turning it over and shaking it so that the contents spill out in a pile on the grass. He kicks at them with his polished boot. “Nothing. Try the others.”

The other man nods to the Moors, who take hold of one basket each, pouring the contents over the riverside grass, and picking through the rags with their toes, as if unwilling to soil their hands.

Beside him, Ardillo can feel Francisco stiffen. Whether in anger or fear he cannot tell, but any reaction now spells danger.

In the pile nearest to the sergeant lies the small package which will, if discovered, mean interrogation and a firing squad for each of them, and there is nothing that they can do but hope that the forest is enough to hide a single leaf

He sees the blue of the rag that Manuel wrapped it in so carefully. No white paper shows through, even as the sergeant's offsider moves it with his foot, and he breathes a silent sigh of gratitude for his brother's attention to small details.

After a few more breathless seconds, Hernandez tires of the game. He draws a knife from the sheath on his belt and moves forward to stand a centimetre from Ardillo's face.

His breath smells of onions, and at close range, his face is pitted with tiny reminders of a childhood disease.

The blade is pressing into the skin beneath Ardillo's chin, not hard enough to draw blood, but painful just the same. Ardillo looks into his tormentor's eyes, and makes no move to step away. A
gitano
never shows fear, and he must maintain the act even if the skin breaks.

Then the knife is withdrawn and the sergeant gives a yellow smile.

“In half an hour,
gitano,
we will be back. And you will not be here. Pick up your shit and move on. The road to Ávila is behind you. If you are not on it and gone when we return, your sister will be waiting a very long time for her visitors.” He looks again at the piles of rags. “And for her wedding presents.”

He is laughing out loud as he turns away. Emilio, his subordinate, rolls his eyes and follows. The three Moors stand like statues for a moment longer, before turning as one and moving off in the direction of the city gate.

For a long time the brothers stand and watch them. The relief they feel is physical, and totally beyond words. Then Francisco begins to laugh out loud.

“A boot-maker? We have a sister married to a boot-maker?”

Manuel risks a grin.

“It was the first thing that came into my head. I was staring at the bastard's shiny boots, and it sort of came out …”

“Well, I'm glad it did, Mannie.” Ardillo bends down and begins gathering the first pile together, shoving the rags into the pannier. “I was afraid he was going to see through us. I had a mental block for a moment. I couldn't think of anything to tell him.”

Francisco begins to help him.

“I wish I had the chance to wipe that smile off his stupid face.”

“No, you don't.” Ardillo pauses and looks at the boy.
“By now we would be dead
—
or worse
—
if you'd tried. And the information in that basket would never get to Mendez. You're a soldier now, Francisco
—
even if you don't look like one in those rags. And a soldier follows orders. That's how he stays alive, and how he protects his comrades. If you had breathed wrong, that sergeant would have cut your throat and watched you bleed. Sometimes the hardest thing in the world is to do nothing.”

The boy nods and continues picking up the mess of material. Part of him understands, but he is hot-headed, and watching the two from a few metres distant, Manuel cannot help but notice how different his two brothers are …

“I hear your song on the radio this morning.” Abuelito has reminisced enough.

Alex waits, but nothing more is forthcoming. Vaguely he wonders what the old man was doing, listening to the kind of station that would be playing “Falling into the Sun”, but he asks no questions.

The boy looks at his watch.

“I have to go,
viejo.
Will you be alright till dad gets back?”

The old man laughs.

“Seventy-eight years, I look out for myself. Suddenly, I good for nothing? Just go. And tell that pretty girl of yours, she promises an old man a game of
damas.”

The boy smiles as he turns to leave.