TRACK ONE

Summer in England – which is relevant only to reflect the unchanging aspects of a music business that serves up a relentless tide of sparkly sunshine teenage pop. It’s where the money is in every era the ‘music biz’ has existed in. So many 10-minute-star boy bands, girl bands, invariably referring to themselves as ‘artists’ but in reality often no more than invented trends. Young fans go mad for them, then grow up to be embarrassed by their youthful taste in music while mourning their lost waistlines, ever-descending nipples and long forgotten virginity. And that’s just the men.

Alora Trinity had invented herself, after a fashion. That was not the name she was born with but from the age of sixteen it was the name she would spend the rest of her life with. So far as her music career was concerned she took her first steps up the worm-ridden ladder courtesy of her manager, Chalk Rivers – a massive but now forgotten star whose reign lasted from the 1960s to the 1980s – but he doesn’t give a shit about being remembered because he’s stonking rich and thoroughly aware of how ballsed up the music business can be and what a stinking mess the stars so often make of their lives. Looking for something else to do when he got bored and allowed his entertainment career to whimper out in the 1980s, he drifted into working for a management company for several years before making good use of his spare millions to forge his own business and a very decent income off the back of his roster of a handful of teenage popsters gathered in from the toilet circuit, all of whom had blossomed into international stars over their time under his management and practically looked after themselves. Now he was thinking of getting out of it but still had the desire for one last hurrah before emulating the majority of his surviving fellow ilk by melting away into village life.

His first sight and sound of Alora was a girl with an amazing voice singing her very attractive young head off on the badly lit and soon to be condemned stage in the Brown Boater pub just off Commercial Road in east London, fronting a group of utterly useless prawns whose idea of musicianship was so deeply flawed as to make the Mariana Trench look like a soap dish. Dressed in boots, black lycra leggings and a frizzy wool rollneck, pretty and with a glint in her eyes that indicated she was already manipulative, she was very aware but also rather naive in her obvious eagerness. Leaning on the bar sucking back a poor imitation pint of cheap, crappy mass-produced piss, Chalk formed a fair idea of what sort of person she was. However, his keen music biz nose alerted him to the sweaty teenybopper armpit smell of potential.

“A looker at least. Hmm, the pub flyer says she’s fourteen... the bullshit starts early with this one; she’s at least sixteen” muttered Chalk with expert shrewdness. “Wavy blond hair. Sounds great and a very photogenic little tyke if she can maintain the figure.” Such were Chalk’s first thoughts as he took in her face and figure and as ungracious as they were, he’d been very happily married for 25 years and had no inclination whatsoever to flush himself round the peado u-bend.

“This boozer really needs to up its underage game, she’s definitely knocking back a sherbert. But she’s got a voice and it looks like she’s got an ‘it’ thing I could develop.” This is what had made Chalk’s mind twitch over the years – the business. Rearing a music hero, pulling the strings, conniving and convincing the names in his Big Bollocks Bible to take his protogė of the moment just that little bit further, then further still. His BBB was a masterwork of influencers, label execs, promoters, TV people, pretty much everyone in the music business world, many of whom would be happy to not hear from him except for the fact that Chalk somehow always managed to bring something or someone useful to the party. He made sure to keep his contact list up to date.

He had a pretty clear idea which of those names would gain his attention for the Alora package that was already confidently beginning to take shape in his noggin.

He ordered another pint of imitation ale, edged his way over to the rotting stage front through the massive audience of five pissed locals banned from every other pub in the area and waited for Alora and the wankers to finish their rendition of These Boots to have a word with her.

“Can I have a word with you when your set’s finished?”

“Depends. If you’re a fucking old perv after chompin’ me knickers you can fuck right off now and I’ll tell the coppers.”

“That’s the spirit love. No, my teeth and your knickers are destined to remain strangers. It’s your dreams of the future I’m interested in.”

“Gawd, that really sounds like old perv bullshit.” However Alora’s curiosity won out. “Okay mate, see you at the bar in half hour but any funny business and I’ll stab you through the zipper.”

“Fine, but only you.” While not being entirely tactless, Chalk had little tolerance for low talent and besides, they just looked wrong. “Lose the band, they’re useless.” At this witty point in the conversation the drummer felt maligned. Moist-eyed, he stalked off the stage leaving Alora with guitar and bass, both of whom instantly believed their loyalty in the face of this insulting old fucker would be rewarded with a lascivious end to their day. As so often happens with teenage boys, Alora completely ignored them after the set and they quietly vanished with their anticipatory beliefs wilted.

Alora was mighty pissed off at being turned into a strings-only group but bravely carried on amid sniggers from the pissed audience, now reduced to four while the fifth powdered up his hooter in the gents.

Half an hour later Alora and Chalk got their head-to-head started at the bar, one wary of the ‘old perv’ and the other contemplating the effects of the chain-pub piss he’d been drinking but nonetheless willing to begin the process of offering this acid-tongued teenybopper a possible path from darkness to light.

Giving vent to her idea of controlling a situation, Alora attempted a haughty know-it-all viciousness before Chalk could say anything. “Thanks for fucking my drummer off. So what do you want perv, as if I couldn’t guess.” She glanced along the bar to make sure someone was within eye-catching distance, but the lone barman had noticed that one of the drunks had gone missing, found him in the toilet and was dragging him across the pub to drop his powdered face nose down into the dog shitted kerb outside.

Chalk was unaffected by the slur, opting for an honest introduction. “I visit these places every once in a while for the open mic and band nights on the off chance of spotting someone. I think you’ve got the voice, the looks and the spark to get somewhere. By the way my name isn’t perv, it’s Chalk Rivers. In all modesty I used to be a big star decades before you were born and nowadays I run an umm, artist management company, Chalk Rivers Management or CRM if you like.” Chalk almost choked while saying the word ‘artist’, he always did as the word conjured up images of something quite different from the hopeful sprogs who regarded themselves as ‘artists’. Even at the height of this own fame he’d only ever thought of himself as lucky enough to get away with it, but never an artist. “Here’s my card, all above board. I doubt you’ve ever heard of me but your mum might have. I’m a realist about fame, especially when it comes to my own – you can take this as lesson number one, fame is a fickle shit and it lasts only until they forget you. But it can be extremely rewarding while it does last if you don’t fuck it up.”

Alora slipped Chalk’s business card into her back pocket. “So you’re an agent stealing all the money. Doesn’t mean you’re not a perv, whatever.” But Alora’s instincts, young as she was, were telling her that here was an opportunity and maybe the only opportunity she would ever get. “So what’s the deal?”

Again Chalk was unruffled. Accusations, greed and name calling are par for the course in the music business. “It’s simple really. I offer you a standard contract which you’re free to get a lawyer to read through and I use my people skills and contacts to put you in line of sight of the general public, the press and characters such as promoters, writers, execs and so on who will, with a lot of effort, become important to you provided you do what’s required, do what you’re told and behave appropriately. You might stay on the British scene, you might do better in other countries, you might even be a global star if everything works out, who knows right now? No-one, but not calling me a pervert would be a good start. As for stealing the money, like it will say in the contract I take twenty percent of gross which is actually a really good deal. What happens between me and any record label that picks you up – or if – is mine and their business, not yours. Could be that nothing happens and you end up back in shitholes like this one. Just being honest.”

Alora exercised her ankles to unstick the soles of her charity shop boots from the Brown Boater’s gooey floorboards which may have subconciously influenced her decision. “Okay mister Chalk, why the fuck not. I’ll give it a go provided the contract and prospects make sense. When can I see it?”

Not a ‘thank you’ in sight, thought Chalk, nor any queries or comments about what will happen and definitely no delight at being offered such a fantastic  opportunity. Average for these unseasoned youths to believe success is their right, hoping I’ll come over all flushed at their overwhelming qualities instead of realising what a massive and expensive favour I’m offering them.

The barman had returned and was wiping the bar with same rag he used for everything else. The next screechers were on stage pretending they were musically advanced enough to carry out a soundcheck to be as good as possible for the remaining drunks and the bored barman. Chalk was hoping to leave as soon as possible, his work was nearly done and the chain-pub piss was doing other things.

“Give me an address to deliver it to, we do real paper for this part. Take it to a real lawyer, not idiot friends who reckon they ‘know about these things’.”

“You going to pay for the lawyer? Where am I supposed to get the money for that?”

“Nope, you’ll have to find it. You can consider that lesson number two out of about a gazillion lessons. Invest in yourself – you need this, I don’t.” With the powerful implication of turning his back on her before even getting started, Chalk was in control and if Alora couldn’t sort herself out there was no reason for Chalk to get involved any further. “Do you want it addressed to this personage called Alora Trinity or your real name? Yes, I can guess it’s fake. And if this goes ahead, then if you really are fourteen which I doubt very much, legally I’ll need you to bring one of your parents or a guardian to our next meeting.”

“I tell everyone I’m fourteen, like on the pub leaflet, but I really am sixteen. Anyway Alora Trinity will do... don’t ask me about the name and don’t try to make me change it either. I don’t have anything to do with my parents, and I don’t need a fucking guardian. Got a pen? I’ll write down an address.” Alora knew exactly what she had to do to raise the lawyer’s fee, or get the lawyer to work without charging her.

“Well I hadn’t got around to worrying about your name. It sounds fine so what the hell, let’s see what happens.” 

And with that, the establishment of Alora Trinity began.

Seven months later spring arrived with the surprise for Chalk that his efforts in the last half year or so were not entirely in vain despite having to constantly steer Alora away from indulging her prickly nature. After negotiating with promoters to set Alora on to a higher level club circuit – the 100 Cub, Scala, a couple of O2’s and various other event spaces, keeping her away from dog kennels like the Brown Boater – she went down well singing covers and an occasional original that Chalk prepared for her. Alora’s voice and her looks were working in her favour and Chalk had the next steps prepared. In reality, the ‘originals’ were from Chalk’s old but prodigious back catalogue of rearranged B sides and unrecorded songs, fillers for the backside of a 45 in the old days when B sides didn’t matter. But he didn’t tell Alora that; he was experimenting with her ability to get a previously unheard song into her head and make something of it on stage. He’d done the same thing with the other singers on his roster and they’d swiftly set to writing their own material and gone on to be roaring successes all over Europe. Chalk knew this system was a bit of a private vanity kick for him, but then he did have a lot of unheard old pop songs from his golden days and not having to pay a real writer did save a shitload of money at this unbalanced stage in Alora’s career. Plus he owned his own copyrights under the genderless pseudonym of C. Ryder – the name being a bit of an in-joke. Most of the musicians in her sometimes-changing backing band had figured out the score but kept their mouths shut. They were pragmatic about their more or less constant employment working with Chalk’s talent roster around Europe and they’d already got the message that Alora was a bit of a handful sometimes.

Lounging in the Walthamstow office of CRM one morning in a meeting with Chalk, Alora thought the new songs ‘written for her’ had a rather old-fashioned tone with the lyrics and arrangements. She hadn’t met the writer yet but went with the flow anyway, making the songs work because she was getting attention. And some money, reasonable money sometimes and at this stage she was grateful.

So grateful as to ask “Chalk, this stuff is fucking shit, who wrote this cobblers?”

Seveteen with a bullet, thought Chalk with an internal sigh, broadly condemning ungrateful teenagers the world over. “The name for credit is C. Ryder, but that person prefers anonymity. Very experienced but doesn’t like the limelight. You only think it’s shit because you’re more used to singing popular covers.” However a little verbal fluffing wouldn’t hurt. “You’re doing really well with making the songs yours though, you’re acting them out on stage with feeling. The audiences are loving it. Long way from the shithole I found you in, eh?”

“Yeah I’ll give you that.” Alora knew that was true enough. It had taken her less than a week to raise enough money to pay a real lawyer who determined that Chalk’s contract was good. She’d decided this was important enough to get a professional opinion and after all, it cost her only three screws with ugly old men and she even had change left over. There would’ve been more dosh but she’d had to administer a good kicking to the rough old bastard who’d bruised her ego and other parts while trying to shove his filthy old gorge up her arse without a condom or permission. Chalk, being in the music business since forever, could have guessed how she’d paid for the lawyer but she never told him and he thought it imprudent to ask. Discomfiture from unnecessary facts neatly avoided all round.

“I want you to get used to singing the new songs then we can produce a demo album, just five tracks will do. I’ve potentially got some label interest,” Chalk said, telling a true lie. “So we need to start ramping it up.”

The previous night had been her most successful concert yet, in front of one thousand plus actual paying music fans in Scala. The thrill of being paid a remarkable (for her) amount of money meant she’d convinced herself they were there specially for her, not the headline band. At the mention of label interest Alora was practically spitting with excitement. “Which label? Where are they? Were they there last night? And you didn’t fucking well tell me?”

Chalk knew all about this response, it was pretty much always the same. Obssesive eagerness and over the bloody top at any hint of the slightest mention of the words ‘record label’. Not totally a lie, rather ‘telling the truth early’ as he preferred to think of it, just to gauge his talent’s responses. This ‘forward truth’ was a useful tool and he felt gratified that Alora was no exception; her reaction meant that the plan was working. And he really had been slogging hard behind the scenes as well as gradually releasing Alora to the public eye through decent venues and the social networks. He had the Alora Trinity package worked out to present to the two most likely labels, Polyversal and Columbine and unknown to Alora, had already talked with them. Both major labels with international reputations and Chalk knew he had some heavy‑duty work cut out for himself, but in this case he felt that Alora, likely to be his final act, justified the extra effort to bypass the independents. Now it was just a case of setting a few more cogs to the wheel and getting the demo out. Yes, it was all going according to plan.

No good would come from raising her hopes any higher than he had already. “I said ‘potentially’, love. That means I’ve still got a shitload of work to do and it’s not just about you – I have a clean, expert reputation and well-managed relationships with nearly all of the labels, big and small, so hold your horses. We’re getting to the stage where you’ll need to listen to me and fit the pattern that’s been evolved for you. You can still be you, just a slightly different you when it’s necessary.”

“Fit what fucking pattern? I’m always going to be me, it’s what the fans know and what they want to see.”

“Alora, you’re jumping the gun. We’ve had some moderate success to this point but no-one actually knows you. I hate to tell you this but apart from one or two loonies your ‘fans’ don’t exist outside of being in the same place you’re appearing in. Secondly, they’re seeing only what they’re allowed to see and you are a party to that, are you not? We haven’t yet reached the apogee of hundreds, or preferably thousands, of teary teenage girls and the odd wet teenage boy deliberately coming to see and hear you. But, if you follow my lead, that will happen. We’re on the right road and I can feel it.”

“But Chalk, it’s been over half a year and nothing’s happened, I can’t see anyth-”

Chalk cut her off. “Jeez girl, not five minutes ago you agreed that you’d come a long way under my management. What can’t you see? You can certainly see where you are now compared to last summer in the Brown Boater. The future? No-one can see that for sure. You know we’ve got a plan in place so chill and enjoy what you’re doing until I can arrange what happens next.”

“Fuckin’ hell Chalk, you don’t have to lecture me, I know I’ve done well… we’ve done well. But it’s time for the rest of it to happen! I’m an artist!”

Chalk leaned back in his chair wondering just how soon he could take retirement.

“Part of the plan is taking the time to get you and others involved with you used to working with each other.” He pointed out of his window at the Walthamstow skyline. “And getting your image out there. Maybe when you write your own songs you’ll be an artist.”

An honest self-appraisal is never going to happen with these youngsters, he thought. The internet and lack of caning earlier in their lives has killed off teenagers’ ability to reason. So different from my day when we knew we were kinda shit pop stars but secretly enjoyed playing along with the plans our managers and labels made for us anyway. And, the occasional drug or alcohol induced death aside, it really was much more fun.

“At the moment you’re a singer and bloody good at it. Anyway some of it is happening, the demo album for instance. I’ll have the songs for that ready later today, you can collect the vocal guide CD I whipped up in my home studio and the printouts at four o’clock. The arrangements have gone out to the band already and all you need do is get your head and heart into the songs. I’m booking you into a studio next Wednesday.”

“I can’t do Wednesday.”

“I’m booking you into a studio next Wednesday. This isn’t play, Alora, it’s work and in a way you’re paying for it as much as I am – I’m using my twenty percent of your earnings to cover the bill. The band are pretty much on my payroll anyway so they’re taken care of but Wednesday is when they are all together in the same place and so are you. And I guarantee you can do all five songs in that one day! I’ve seen you work often enough to know that.”

“Fuck it Chalk, alright I’ll be there but that’s a fucking heavy day, doing the whole thing and I haven’t even seen the words yet!”

“This is the music business Alora, some things rock fast and other things roll slow. Now let me get on, see you at four.”

Ushering Alora out of his office Chalk reflected on his pep talk and decided he needed some alcoholic mouthwash, or maybe she did, there tended to be a lot of fuckin’ this and fuckin’ that with this girl. He still didn’t really know her background and to be honest he didn’t really care. So long as he could get her to toe the line – hopefully within parameters that he’d let her get away with – then unless something really horrible reared up, nuts to whatever went before. Besides he couldn’t dwell on that, he had others on his roster to provide backup for, not just babysit Alora.

As Alora walked to the bus stop she wondered if Chalk would keep his promises. Apart from holding up his end of the contract he hadn’t actually made any explicit promises as such but naturally, in her wanton mind, he had and he was one hundred percent responsible for everything and why was he holding her back? She didn’t like being ordered around either. Muttering “I’ve got bugger all to do next Wednesday but fuck it, what am I – his employee or something?” She was incapable of understanding just how close to the truth she really was at this stage of her career. At seventeen Alora was still raw and fighting to keep a grip on what was happening now, let alone planning out the rest of her life. She knew only that she didn’t want someone else controlling it like her parents had tried to do. They hated pop music, said her singing all the time was annoying, sometimes even locked her in her room and always banged on about sending her away for a proper education.

Then one day in her fourteenth year she was hit in the face, hard, by real life and instantly hit the road to find someone, anyone, she could wind round her little finger to get the shelter she needed and everything she wanted. Along the way Alora found several people but also discovered that little-finger-winding came with a price, one that she paid with a self-hypnotic stoicism. She learned swiftly how to stay off the grid but still survive. At sixteen she’d finger-wound her way into a nice little squat in Ilford. The building’s owner wasn’t overly picky about tenants so long as they kept the place in vaguely working order and paid in some fashion, preferably with money. He was mostly absent anyway.

Alora’s rise under Chalk’s management skills brought her to a better place physically and financially but she retained the emotional and mental wasteland from those first experiences of so-called freedom. Allowing herself to be used in order to attain what she wanted had become normal. Chalk was the first man she’d come to know who didn’t see her as a toy to fuck, but even then she still had no genuine respect for him; in spite of everything he’d achieved for her he was only a manager wasn’t he? A sponger. Just another way of being fucked. The fact – and Alora’s experiences blinded her to it – was that she couldn’t control him in her usual manner. There had been a boy way back whom she’d controlled for a few minutes of her own pleasure, the briefest of moments which had given her the idea for her name. A fleeting moment to gain a permanent name to hide behind.

Once Chalk had gained some confidence in this particular pub-spawned choice, he’d formed a company for her as Alora Trinity Ltd and opened a bank account. Felt like ‘control’ to Alora, but she realised this was about money and knew there had to be an occasional compromise with a society she was forced by birth to inhabit.

Alora was late arriving back at Chalk’s office – no reason, just being ornery.

Chalk handed her an envelope. He’d had the songs and CD ready before their morning meeting, but was attempting to get Alora used to the idea of a daily grind. “Five isn’t four Alora, anyway here are the songs.” Chalk reckoned a little more smarmyness wouldn’t hurt. “You’ll learn them in no time, definitely ready to put your special feeling into them next Wednesday. However, I’m really sorry but I won’t be there. Someone’s thrown a sicky and I have to be at the Albert Hall in Manchester for a couple of days to oversee a concert setup for the weekend and I won’t be back in London until Thursday night.”

“Well fucking thanks. If you cared you’d be in that studio with me.”

Chalk kept his relief to himself as she left; given his early career, spending whole days or even weeks in recording studios was definitely not his favourite passtime anymore. The Manchester visit was a fairly late arrangement but he really did need to be there.

When she played the guide CD at home Alora was surprised at the quality of Chalk’s voice, he still had something there. That following Wednesday, in spite of her natural grousy personality, she arrived early at the recording studio where the band were already warming up with a jam session. Feeling playful, she said hello to them in a very friendly, cheerfully un-Alora manor, raising instant suspicion and distrust in the band which is pretty much a musician’s default state anyway. They trusted Chalk as he was their bread and butter and he’d told them to get along with her for the entire day. They normally got along for an hour or two of stage time but this could be a different patience-testing ball game.

The only real fly in the ointment was the producer who seemed jumpy and when anyone got a nose up close they knew why. While Alora stood in a corner making sure she had the songs right in her head, the guitarist rang Chalk who rang the producer and generously offered him a day off at half pay followed by a week off with no pay to get straight or else. A frantic call to another of his freelancers and producer number two arrived half an hour later – Babs, sober, with her brainwaves unmolested by all too easily available awareness enhancers and already known to the band members through previous sessions as an up-front, all-business and respected professional. When Alora emerged from her internal rehearsal with herself she expressed mild surprise at finding a woman in the control room.

“Fuckin’ hell, a bint! Are you lost sweetie?” Alora, still pissed off about Chalk’s absence; seventeen, adorable and obnoxious.

Naturally in what is still regarded as a man’s world Babs was used to this sort of treatment and, having been warned about this Alora Trinity person by Chalk, invoked a sarcastic, contemptuous tone. “Oh, kitten! My name is Babs and I know exactly where I am but thank you for noticing. Have you got a grown-up with you or did you manage to cross the road all on your own? Well don’t worry baby girl, I’ll hold your hand as you tire yourself out on me during this day. Are you ready to start or do you need to suck some warm milk from my nipples first? Eight hours is long time for babies to stay awake.”

Alora narrowed her eyes and gave every appearance of pressurised fuming, then released a witchy cackle. “Babs is it. Well you know what BitchBabs? I fucking well like you!” In the back of her mind Alora realised that here was a person who knows she has a job to do and has the confidence to do it properly. However those praiseworthy thoughts stayed in the back of her mind, unwilling                 to communicate to the front where they might be apparent and give the game away. “Okay boys, I’m ready if you are. Ready to twiddle all those knobs BitchBabs?”

“Twiddle your own knobs. From what Chalk told me about you I’m hoping my job will be slick. Let’s get on with it, we have to clear the studio by seven. And that likely means no time for playbacks, you’ll just have to trust yourself, the band and me.”

The band wiped the smirks off their faces and they all got on with it. By six that evening five pints of water had been drunk, all the complementary Mars bars were gone, five songs had been rapidly recorded with only two needing to go round twice, they were all in the can and amazingly there hadn’t been any rancour. Chalk’s musicians were pros, knew their stuff and were very much on the ball. Alora sang every song like she meant it and impressed everyone including Babs with her voice and the devotion she applied to Chalk’s old writings. Somehow they didn’t sound dated anymore; the band members were pretty sure they were left-overs but Babs didn’t and Alora remained completely in the dark about their genesis, still thinking they were freshly written for her. It had been a good, productive day.

However Alora wasn’t about to leave a pleasant atmosphere floating around, so just to taint it she delivered her usual verbal fart value. “Well then BitchBabs, what do you think? Have I done good or should I return to charging old men a hundred notes to fuck me?”

Babs, who didn’t mind being called BitchBabs – in fact she thought it was strangely cute coming from this foul-mouthed young twit – had ended the day in a better mood than at first she thought although she could do without the little girl stupidity. “Okay Chalk was right about you. Everything was on the button. We were right on the levels all day, I don’t think there’s much post to do at all, which is a good thing as this is speedy production. It’ll certainly be good enough for the demo purpose. Maybe a little tweaking here and there but your voice held up to the end. Who wrote the songs? They’re quite good.”

Alora naturally ignored the compliment. “I don’t know, Chalk says someone called Ryder. It feels a bit weird singing this stuff not knowing anything about whoever that is. I want to hear what we’ve done today.”

Babs considered the time involved. “We have to be outta here soon. I’ve got work to do and I like to present a finished product so, day after tomorrow. Trust me. I’ll send the final tracks to Chalk’s office.”

Of course Alora wasn’t happy about that, she wanted to hear everything now. She didn’t really care that BitchBabs had work to do or the studio time was up, but frustratingly allowed it to slide until Friday. The band had more patience born of experience, they knew they’d done a good job. They packed up their gear and politely said goodnight which also pissed Alora off because she wanted to celebrate, but for their part the band didn’t want to risk spending any more time than necessary with Alora. They could revel in professional abuse from their peers elsewhere.

Alora said “see ya BitchBabs” and left for her Ilford squat, which she funded mostly with money these days. Left on her own in the now quiet control room Babs decided that from now on she wanted her girlfriend to call her BitchBabs when they played owner and slave.

Friday rose to sun and fell to rain. Chalk looked over the wet wonders of Walthamstow from his office window, wondering how many rainy mornings had passed through his life. The clouds looked like grey velvet… might get a song out of that. ‘Some Velvet Morning’ hmm nah, been done.

Babs had left a giggly message on his voicemail saying that the the final mixes for Alora’s album were on the way. Chalk didn’t know what was so funny but had ‘phoned Alora and an eager teenage soon-to-be pop sensation was on a bus, arriving at the CRM office shortly after Bab’s messenger delivered the CD. Downloading from the server is fine, but sometimes Chalk liked the physical reality of actually getting hold of something. Ah, for tape and vinyl.

Alora ran up the stairs and threw open Chalk’s office door. “Where is it, where is it?” Then she turned her nose up. “By the way glad you were in Manchester, I didn’t need you.”

There were times when even the tiniest acid drop from Alora caused Chalk to know what he needed and decided on several single malts later. “It’s right here girl. Plug ‘n’ play time, we’ll both hear this album for the first time together. Remember this is going direct to one of the the boss record labels, I’m bypassing the independents – we’re going direct to Polyversal. If they don’t sign you up, there’s Columbine. I have a meeting booked for after the weekend… assuming you can make it.”

“You actually got a meeting? Of course I can make it, have I ever let you down since you tore me away from a life of grubbiness and prostitution?”

Chalk closed his eyes and ran a hand across his brow. “Umm yes well, keep that to yourself. Okay I’ve known the big cheese at Polyversal for a long time, he’s the one with whom I arranged this meeting. However, you will be seeing the A&R team, that’s Dawn and Branden. You need to impress them with maturity and personality as well as ability… they are meeting you because of me, remember. Fuck yourself up and you fuck me up, which won’t be good for either of us, most especially you so best behaviour next week. Right, here we go…” Chalk ran the songs for Alora’s debut album.

An hour later Alora had decided to call her album The Love Space. Chalk choked back the vomit wondering if the title could be changed later, but for now the girl was happy and so was he. This five-song mini album had a real catch to it and Chalk recognised it as being right up there with the best pop stuff that always fills halls. He’d written the songs after all. He’d told Babs what order to lay them in so a story was told across the five tracks; he reckoned correctly that Alora’s inexperience would inhibit logic and she wouldn’t have known to do that properly. He knew this would be a winner once released across the socials and run into the radio stations over the weekend. A second life for some of his old B songs that never made it, brought to a sparkling second life by the unaware Alora… he was betting his bottom fiver against anyone realising who C. Ryder was after all these decades. He’d got away with it so far because his other stars had started writing their own stuff early, they didn’t know that their first, now hidden away, demos were Chalk’s own material either. Alora’s album was the first time that he was taking a real chance but then, he had been doing this for a long time. He was ready to put his feet up and to spend more time with his family after what he was now certain would be his final success.

Tuesday morning saw a bristly Alora and a confident Chalk Rivers meet up in Soho Square, pushing through the brass and glass doors of the building in which the top two floors were Polyversal. Reluctantly Alora had obeyed Chalk’s instructions and dialled herself down and tidied herself up, replacing her usual seven-days-a-week Doc Martens – which she never seemed to clean – with a new pair of slightly more demure pink trainers and an actual dress which she’d bought from a charity shop instead of her customary sweatshirt and leggings which were by now – in spite of being frequently washed – leaning towards skanky. New things cost money; you can wipe the girl off the street but it takes time to wipe the street off the girl.

Waiting for the lift Chalk said “you actually turned into a girl today! With your pretty face surrounded by that blond hair and your figure it’s a great look, well done. And what’s that smell – ah, perfume. Positively coquetish!”

“Going all out today Chalk and fuck you for that. I’m suspicious about this being a done deal. You talk like it is.”

Entering the lift Chalk wasn’t surprised. Thanks to his influence and trust the deal was already done verbally, but he wasn’t going to tell Alora that just in case. “No deal is ever done until the fat lady warbles and the contract is signed. The people we’re visiting heard The Love Space, as you’re calling it for now, over the weekend and it seems the A&Rs are impressed, not only with your sound but the way it’s been received over the networks in the last few days. By the way as you’re seventeen now I told them your real age, they’d get worried about a fourteen-year-old and you are going to have to jack in the little girl shit anyway. Keep the eagerness in check, think before you talk but it’s okay to be nervous.”

“Controlling me again Chalk? Still reshaping me to fit the mould?”

“Yes. You want a career in music, my knowledge and experience has to be your guide. Basically you're being interviewed for a job on my recommendation. What's happening today doesn't happen very often at all, thanks to me you're being treated as a special case. Looking like a teenage Stevie Nicks certainly helps."

"Steve who?"

A mirthless chuckle from Chalk. "Hahahaha."

"Just having you on Chalk." Alora had heard the name but was shaky on exactly who Steve Nix might be, no way she was going to let him know that. Look up the name later.

The meeting with the A&R team went exactly as Chalk had predicted to himself. He knew Branden and Dawn fairly well. The work he’d put into the whole package paid off and Alora put on the act as instructed, in fact she almost convinced Chalk that she was a different person. They asked questions about future ambitions and sponged their way through assessing her commitment. They listened to a couple of the songs, commenting on Alora’s depth of feeling in her singing. Golden Throne on the fourth floor had encouraged the team to make their minds up and they talked of setting aside another meeting or two for pounding out a creative path forward. Chalk already knew there wouldn’t be too many questions fired at her so he felt they were on fairly safe ground although he was ready to jump in if necessary but he wasn’t needed, Alora made all the right noises.

As they all settled into Polyversal’s cosy little world he reflected that it wasn’t so difficult when he already knew who to contact in the first place thanks to his regular attention to socialising and the assiduous upkeep of his Big Bollocks Bible, plus his reputation for putting a quality product on the table could always be relied upon. After a sly mention of Columbine Records and pending review, Alora’s initial Polyversal paperwork was set underway. As was his own paperwork, a set of contracts quietly setting in motion the payment of a finder’s fee and continuous percentage sums from sales and concerts to the benefit of his bank account. Not to mention C. Ryder’s royalty contributions.

The meeting finished at midday. Chalk felt like celebrating, walking Alora through Soho Square for a drink in The Nellie Dean. 

"I'm on the way to lots of number one million-selling hits then?"

"Ambitious aren’t we. Well maybe something like that, in today's way of doing things." Chalk switched into old-boy mode. "Would've been more sales and easier once. One of my biggest regrets is that the music business doesn't work like that anymore... in my day we had to work hard at it but we had tangible assets supporting pretty much everything we did. Things we could see, things we could touch... real record players and real records made of vinyl that real people bought in real record shops. Ah, in those days the tours were the icing on the cake, nowadays they're the main earner. Gawd knows what the insurance on a private 747 is these days, let alone pilot and staff wages."

Meanwhile Alora had stopped listening to Chalk’s golden oldie tale. She didn’t know whether to be moved by her morning’s experience or not. “So was that it? Couldn’t any wanker do that?”

Chalk returned to the here and now as he showed her through the Nellie’s door. “So why couldn’t you? Don’t answer that, we’ve been through it before. Nowheresville without connected management believing in your talent and you know it. Hi there, large whisky for me, ice on the side and what would you like Alora?”

“Lager, pint. I’m curious, so what happens to you?”

“Line manager. The label will call the shots, using me to implement any plans revolving around you unless I know better than they, but Branden and Dawn know their stuff. You’re in for a far bigger trip now so, again, do not mess up! I’ll be getting out of this business in a few years and I’d like to go out without a bang, thank you very much.”

“I won’t fuck it up, I promise. Not deliberately anyhow. Wait, what! You’re going to leave me?”

Wondering if Alora’s promise had a disintegrating lifespan, he said “Not right now! But at some point, yes you and the others. It’s what happens, people move on. Remember you moved on from your previous life whatever that was and you’re going to move a whole lot further away from it now.” Chalk knocked back half his drink while Alora squirmed, plucking at her dress to make it more comfortable. A silent thoughtful whisky-glow minute went by and idly speculating about her unknown past, her unknown parents and way of life before he extricated her from the Brown Boater, he asked “Will you miss anything from before?”

“Fuck all. What’s to miss?”

TRACK TWO

Sometimes triumph itself contains its own defeat.

Five years of a genuinely rollercoaster ride through fame, some fortune – and infamy. A new home, a real flat of her own – well, rented. BitchBabs had become Alora’s permanent producer. The recordings they made sold healthily through streaming sites and one gold-coloured vinyl disc in a multi-page presentation sleeve sold over 200,000 copies at £15 each… less materials, production costs, wages, taxes and all manner of other expenses, of course. Her PR was fitting her up for a mini-tour of New York and Los Angeles.

But as with so many throughout the entire history of entertainment, the incorporeal presence of self-implosion is always waiting off-stage with tasty blood additives, a stick of metaphorical dynamite and a box of self-igniting matches. In Alora’s case however it wasn’t booze or drugs, it was about her hectic schedule, the recreation of her life to a pattern guided by Chalk and the label, being influenced in ways she could do nothing about.

What could modestly be referred to as an astonishing appearance on Saturday morning children’s television slammed her upwardly mobile career to its knees, very nearly gave Chalk a coronary and made Polyversal Records very twitchy indeed.

Things had built up, a lot of good with respect to her career and some bad inside where no-one could see. She wanted to write her own songs but Polyversal wasn’t having it. The plain fact was that her own songs weren’t yet up to scratch and her A&R team’s advice hadn’t changed substatially from when she’d signed the contract.

From the beginning, all her material had been written on the back of a beermat by a nameless and tragically unhappy Polyversal lackey, the last working member of their scribble factory, nowadays a high-functioning alcoholic inspired by ethyl and with no other choices left to him. A lost character. Chalk’s, or rather C. Ryder’s contributions, had been filtered out and he’d got away with his anonymity (and the income) outright.

The label was still reticent to let her own writings out. “You’ll get your own stuff out there soon – a little bit more experience Alora!” 

Not good enough in her mind. “Always marching to the tom-tom beat of another's tune. I’m an artist, not a machine wheeled out mouthing someone else’s words for every git who wants a piece!” She complained loudly and somewhat out of context to Chalk who certainly earned his line-manager wedge when he wasn’t available for his few remaining charges. By the time Alora was twenty he’d moved four of his roster up the ladder and had only two mature singers who were no worry at all and one Alora whom he worried about all the time.

Saturday…

There she was, four years into her bright new future and after numerous short, swift but glowing walk-on appearances in various media, Alora had been booked to appear on KidTalk, a Saturday morning TV show aimed squarely at teenagers with a live audience and tens of thousands of young viewers.

She’d barely been to sleep after delivering a raving headline concert at the Palladium on Friday night and she was definitely off-colour after what felt like years of bouncing around night after night and in the studio day after day working at her business. She’d raised a laugh a few weeks earlier by confusing Leeds with Liverpool on stage which had undermined her performance on the night and embarrassed her. That relatively unimportant mistake was still burning inside.

However with her A&R team and Chalk’s guidance the KidTalk interview got off to a good start. Alora was introduced and sang her latest release with all her effort, once again showing how well she could carry off this pop stuff peddled out by Polyversal’s scribbler.

But Alora was very tired from her country-wide tour, her throat was painful after the previous show and made worse now. She was a long way from calm, her biggest worry being that she could feel herself drifting off, fading out and fading back in again every so often. It felt like she was missing one breath in three. The bright lights were doing things behind her eyes. The morning and people in general were grating on her nerves.

The biggest grate was the excitable interviewer, Peter Walsh, barely out of school uniform himself and projecting all the eagerness and metrosexual chutzpah he could muster, reading a jaunty ad-lib script prepared by a couple of older knowalls on the production team. He’d asked all sorts of daft questions about Alora’s songs and what they meant. This Alora found very difficult and irritating; they were not her songs, just silly pop songs written by someone else but still she tried to mentally grit her teeth and answer appropriately. She was beginning to wish she was anywhere but in this hot seat, physically hot. The lights were digging in. Peter Walsh tried to dig into her her personal life, but was met with barriers.

“So Alora, hahahaha, where were you born, everyone wants to know hahahha?”

“Planet Earth, northern hemisphere, Britain.”

“Oh, is that hahahaha all we’re going to get hahaha?”

“Yep. I don’t think that’s important, surely it’s what I’m doing and where I’m headed that matters... haha.”

Young as he was, Peter smelt the hand-off. “Well you know, if you don’t tell us, someone else is bound to find out hahaha! Anyway, one thing that really interests me though is your name, Alora Trinity haha – surely that’s not what your parents named you?”

The drift-away was beginning again. More tired than just a few minutes earlier. “My word, you’re a jocular type aren’t you Peter.” Alora’s face was whitening as the blood drained from her face. In her mind she could feel something slippery slithering around a brilliant white spotlight. She thought “This boy’s a manufactured tart. Just like me. This infantile crap programme and the haha weirdo boy is a real piss-off.”

Standing off-set with Dawn and Branden, Alora calling Peter Walsh jocular gave Chalk and the team the first twinge of something being slightly off.

Branden leaned over, whispered in his ear, “Jocular? Sounds a bit harsh.”

“She knows what she’s doing, we coached her well.” Chalk twitched. “It’s nothing to worry about.” He hoped.

Unfortunately it was. Alora was losing track of what was happening, slipping. Her stream of conciousness gabbled away to itself. The workload and the after parties, they were using her up. She felt so tired. She didn’t drink much, hardly anything. Let everyone else get pissed legless, she wasn’t going to let go. She couldn’t. Under stress, pushed, pushing herself, beginning to sicken of her seemingly forever teenybopper pop image and its small, enclosed, bracketed, meaningless little world the order of which came from everyone except herself. No-one else had noticed there was something wrong.

“You want know about my name? What’s wrong with my fucking name?” Her voice changed to Jackanory mode as she leaned forward in her seat. “I’ll tell you then. It started when I was a teenager. You see, one day I experimented with a boy, just for me. I pushed his head down and made him nuzzle his spotty little face into my mattress stuffing and he mumbled “woo, ’at’s alora cunt”. Made him do it three times that day. So, Alora Trinity is my name…”

Several things happened at more or less the same time…

The youthful Peter Walsh, suddenly very much older than his years and with an hysterical forced grin on his face, attempted a gurgling halt by loudly talking any old bullshit at top speed while the floor manager shouted “CUT, fuckin’ cut!” into his mic and waving his arms at the control booth like a demented windmill. The cameramen, while knowing that disaster procedure demands that cameras should be pointed anywhere else, floor or ceiling or blank wall, decided to blame their slow reactions on shock and filmed as much as possible.

The hung-over producer in the TV studio control booth woke up from his bloodshot eyes-open, brain-off nap daydreaming he was back on an old Channel 4 Friday night gig and was overwhelmed by what he knew instinctively was a bloody good blow-out when he saw one and pulled the broadcast technician away from the delay control – in his sleepy state completely and utterly forgetting that this was Saturday morning children’s telly and not Friday night drunkshit telly.

Meanwhile:

Thoroughly alarmed about his own sudden lack of future, Peter stopped gurgling and tried ushering himself between the girl he saw as his instant downfall and the teen audience. Suddenly he was sweating from crown to toe. “Alora, this is KidTalk, a children’s show! HahahahaHAHAHA…”

“Yes I know this fucking programme is called ‘KidTalk’ on Saturday morning telly but surely you want me to be honest...”

“But shit shit splutter fuck shut up…”

“Oh come on Pete baby, your viewers are any age from ten to eighteen. Believe me, they know all about mug-rumming. Hey, that purple faced man over there screaming CUT needs to chill out. Hang on, he did say ‘cut’ didn’t he?”

Chalk was standing at the end of a rider-laden tressle table off-camera, but not for long. Witnessing Alora’s extremely public announcement about her name originating from fannyface activities he’d thrown his hands up to cover his own face hoping the sudden darkness would equally suddenly give way to the light of heaven and his last moment on Earth. But no, he was still alive and realising instantly the reality of the situation and the impact it would have, his knees went wonky as he fainted, throwing his arms down to lean on the tressle table and landing on the end beyond the leg supports, thus catapulting sticky buns, gooey chocolate delicacies, unwanted fruit, tepid coffee and water over the set. Peter Walsh’s face intersected the trajectory of the sticky chocolate fondants long melted in the studio warmth.

Meanwhile:

In the control room, the producer became aware of the purple twisted face of the floor manager who was frantically criss-crossing his arms, jumping up and down and shouting into his mic. “CUT! CUT! Stop the show for fuck’s sake pull the fuckity fucking plug!” Waking up enough to realise that he’d ballsed up royally and was producing television for children instead of the usual pissed adults, he mustered enough strength of character to punch the button and Saturday morning’s teenage KidTalk show was automatically replaced with the figures of splendidly gifted middle-aged ladies advertising pee pads.

After several seconds of stunned attention the boys and girls in the teenage studio audience, living proof of Alora’s claim of sexual awareness, scrambled for their mobile phones and went berserk with laughter, whooping and clapping, some making V signs on their faces with their fingers, sticking out their wriggly tongues and they all had a whale of a time.

The adults didn’t.

When Chalk came round he found he was the target of vilification. Seems rather unreasonable, he thought as the people trying to lift him to his feet were at the same time bellowing in his ears.

“This all your fault you old turd!” Peter Walsh bubbled through a dribbly mask of creamy chocolate, gasping for breath. “I’ve got fucking asthma!” He looked ridiculous to Chalk who, still in never-never land, started giggling.

Alora, temporarily ignored, expressionless and still sitting in the guest chair, somehow regained control of herself and retrospectively ‘saw’ what she’d done, playing like a film inside the front of her skull. Sweating and with her heart pounding, horrified at herself, the tears came. She spotted Chalk half-fainted but giggling, being shouted at by Peter Walsh while in the grip of a cameraman. She thought Chalk’d had a stroke! Wiping her face Alora stumbled from the set, pushed the cameraman and Peter away and crying profusely, held Chalk in her arms, saying “sorry sorry sorry sorry!” over and over again. The purple floor manager stood over the pair and growled “that’s your life then, isn’t it – couldn’t be any more sorry than it is right now.”

As he regained some of his wits and hugged her back in wonderment at this unexpected caring moment from a normally emotionally unsophisticated Alora, Chalk’s professional mien took over even though he wasn’t altogether sure of what he was saying. “Don’t worry girl, I’m okay. We’ll get this sorted out.” Dizzily he looked round for Branden and Dawn in the hope of extra support but somehow wasn’t surprised their space in this particular well of woe had been vacated. “Fucking brilliant!”

While the quick-thinking floor manager asserted his adult authority over the teenage audience by commanding them to have some respect for a person who’d obviously fallen into a crisis, the teens ignored what they saw as an old fart and began rabidly posting on social media. The effects, if not the actual event, of Alora’s meltdown went viral in no time with a hundred different versions of what had happened. The general rule about audiences not being allowed to use their mobiles while on set meant the main talking point in a great deal of video posts was about the slapstick of the studio getting drenched with snacks and drinks courtesy of Chalk’s arbalistic faint.

In the immediacy of the moment Chalk’s only grain of hope for not being recognised in this awful situation was that while the children were waving their mobiles around videoing everything with immense glee, his features were hidden by the lack of light off-set and Alora making sure to turn their backs to the audience, station staff and cameras as she helped him totter through the room behind the set and out the emergency exit. The repercussions of this day would have to wait.

Chalk, with more nous than he frankly expected of himself under the circumstances, got Alora holed up under a different name in a B&B not far from the TV station, both of them having shuffled out quickly enough to stay in front of the shit tsunami that was undoubtedly following. Still with bits of food scattering off her, she rushed into the bedroom, threw herself under the duvet and curled up wishing she was dead. “Chalk, what happened? I went clear out. I could hardly breathe. Then when I woke up…”

Even though still a bit on the giddy side, Chalk’s mind was racing forward, encouraged by years of experience. He knew a little bit of positive managerial bullshit would be good for her. And himself. “Bugger bugger bugger. Okay look, shit happens, rest for now. We’ll sort something out and eventually, somehow you’ll get out of this rosier than a, umm, well a rose. Just you wait and see, in the future this fuck up will slip into the past.” Well that sounded bloody stupid, he realised. “Come on, we all know it’s not unusual in our business for a crackup, so don’t be so hard on yourself. Look, really sorry but I have to leave you for a while to sort things out with those deserter gits Dawn and Branden but I’ll be back. I’ll try to find someone to look after you in the meantime.”

From under the duvet, “come back soon, please.” The first genuine sign of need, noted Chalk. And it took a fucking disaster to bring it out.

Saturday squirmed into a miserable afternoon as the blue-tinged spectre of police involvement scampered around the edges of Alora’s ‘incident’. Naturally as a first step towards finding out what the hell had been going on they wanted statements from everyone. Good luck with that, the teenage neo-citizens had scampered off with their videos a long time back so the adults would have to do. Reluctantly Chalk had returned to the TV station; he knew he had to, but kept his distance from the crew and especially Peter Walsh. The mess had been cleaned up and at least Peter didn’t look like a walking chocolate roulade anymore.

After giving his statement, he asked the policeman in charge to install a cop in the B&B room to keep an eye on Alora. When they got back there she was asleep – Chalk made sure that was all – and left the cop on watch duty. In this tatty dump no-one had cause to question who came and went or why, but still he placated the duty manager who, working so close to a TV studio knew about brainfarted celebrities, with a handful of notes. He cadged a lift in the police car to Soho Square as the police wanted statements from the A&R team who’d rapidly slunk out of the TV station. That pair had raced for the office after a really shitty phone call from Polyversal’s Golden Throne who’d gone from happily watching the telly that morning to thinking he was about to have multiple heart attacks.

Early afternoon sitting at the round table in Polyversal’s A&R office after the police had left Chalk was face down in his arms. The silent telly was on the news but they were all trying not to look. Mumbling through his elbow Chalk tried to make the best of the legal angle. “I’ve spoken to the copper in charge. Because it’s obvious she went bonkers the police want to tread lightly, they don’t really want to be in this thing. There’s a copper in her hotel room to look after her just in case she has some sort of episode… you know what I mean.” He looked up: “And – you shits! What the fuck happened to you two sodding cowards?”

“We got a call from above to get back here immediately and set this straight or else.” Dawn had found the director angrily pacing the foyer while Branden hung back taking his time paying the taxi driver; he’d spotted the boss’s car parked on the Square and decided Dawn’s femininity was best suited for whatever happened in the next few minutes. He counted the taxi driver’s money slowly enough to ensure Dawn and the boss were out of the way before heading for the third floor himself.

Dawn had been escorted to the Golden Throne on the fourth floor and given a brief to minimise the damage In Any Way Necessary. Re-inventing a problem in a different way and forward thinking have solved many a crisis in the music business. She parked a nervous bottom on a chair next to Branden.

“It’s the music business. Everyone knows people go tits up sometimes but this time he mentioned about dropping her from the label. Bloody hell, why couldn’t it have been nothing more then a bog-standard drugs bust or sex scandal. Well, this Black Saturday has been a real bitch so we need to work out how far we need to distance ourselves, or even if we should? She’s going to be ostracised and have to apologise profusely and weep publicly. There’s nothing we can do about the socials or the news, that’s just tough titty.” She worked up the balls to look at the television. “Oh god, it’s all over Sky News! It’ll be headlined on the BBC later when they wake up. This has completely fucked up our efforts to get her a break in the US before we’ve even got started! So, what about wheeling out our normal scenarios – overwork, emotional problems, get her into rehab? Branden, any ideas occur to you while you left me to take the shit just now?”

Branden did his best to look thoughtful for a moment. “Well, I dunno – some form of rehab? She doesn’t really drink and for some reason doesn’t even smoke weed so far as we know. Or could we make all of that up, that way we get to use one of our standard ‘regret actions’ scripts. Might be easier that way. By the way, she did say ‘there times that day’ didn’t she?”

“Yes, shut up.” Dawn was thinking of lesser investments as a way of sidelining the bigger issue for a few minutes. “We'll have to pull the marketing and the merch. Good job we generate a lot of it to order, but we're still left holding stock."

"Yeah true but we'll need it again, hopefully. We’re keeping the Alora socials active? We need to get on that asap. If we’re going to carry on, then keeping her in the public eye should be part of the plan. She can’t just disappear unless we drop her. Which is very definitely an attractive option.”

Chalk suddenly sat up. He was on Alora’s side, plus his mind was chomping its way through a notion; the art of mercenary management was yet far from dead. It had come to him that the ‘incident’ could be the perfect catalyst, a launch pad for Alora to renew herself, become genuinely creative and ready to break away from the staff writer to finally write her own meaningful work. Yes, Alora’s gory moment of fate may possibly, just possibly have dealt them all a scheme that could give them all a reason to carry on. Maybe there really isn’t any such thing as bad publicity... turn this round and she’ll end up a real star… and get the whole mending process on film to release later… also he wanted to rescue his final chapter.

“No! No ready-made bullshit and no dropping her! We don’t bugger about with this one, not this time. She’s been pushed too hard by everyone. Some of ‘em love it and can take it, some of ‘em hate it and crash out. Alora seems to be a little more delicate or maybe something else is going on, maybe something triggered that fuck up, I don’t know yet, although she does bang on about being controlled sometimes. Well, we came up short this time, especially me. Let’s try to tell the fucking truth for a change, when we find out what the truth is; give her a break, a few months’ retreat in the country like the old days. We’ll make the apologies for her – err, well Polyversal will, I’ll stick to back-office duties thanks. Alora can go through all the shit later after it’s been watered down and we can take our time. She’s definitely had a massive meltdown and what we need to give the general public is the why, if at all possible, along with a truckload of contrition.”

A startled Branden glanced at Dawn, “Jeez, do you know how bad that would make us look? We made a girl go mad, that’s what they’ll say! I can’t believe it could work as he says. A few apologies and hide her away for a few months… okay fine but where? The usual rehab centres cost a fucking fortune. I know what you’re thinking Chalk, about the drill from the old days but we don’t have country mansions on tap anymore, can’t just pick ‘em out of a hat!”

“We don’t need to find a mansion,” said Chalk. “What the fuck do you think I live in? We all bought country piles back in the old days, they were draughty, shitty old hovels and cheap as chips. Anyway at the other end of my little bit of land is a barn conversion I’ve kept in good nick. And I don’t want any of that legal nonsense about guardianship or whatever, it’ll just be me keeping an eye on her. Well me and wifey, Anne’s a caring person.”

“I understand what Chalk’s getting at, Branden. Golden Throne dude said In Any Way Necessary. A good old-fashioned country seclusion eh? A wee bit different from how we’d normally do things now. Yeah… in six months she could be back and strong, we can work on that and this fucked up day will become a memory. We’ll need one of our video makers on hand for those months as well, this could make a great documentary. I’ll clear it with the brass. Yes, I’m glad we thought of it.”

Smartypants Dawn the mind-reader. Pretty much everything Chalk was thinking of. “Really, Dawn? Bloody hell, never mind. I’m glad we thought of it too.” He got up and headed for the door. “I have to get back to Alora, I can’t leave her in the state she’s in any longer. We’re never gonna forget this day are we. Well, it certainly is a fucking black day.”

The policeman was deep in a crossword when Chalk got back to the hotel room, but instantly alert when Chalk reappeared. “How is she, anything new?”

“No, quiet as a mouse. I looked in a couple of times but she seems flat out. From what I’ve heard about today it’s a wonder she can sleep at all. We’ll want a statement when she’s up to it.”

“She’s exhausted, I didn’t see it coming. I must be losing my grip. I’ve been doing this job for donkey’s years, how could I not see the signs? I’ll make sure you get something from her later. Do you need to stay – I’d rather be the only one here when she wakes up.”

While the policeman was confirming the situation over the radio, Chalk looked round the bedroom door and sure enough there was an Alora-shaped mound under the duvet with her face just about showing, spark out. The cop said he’d be off but Chalk would have to let them know when he and Alora left the hotel and where they would be going.

Chalk flopped down in the armchair but couldn’t get a wink of sleep, his mind was too occupied with working up the minor details for protecting Alora, Polyversal and himself from the possible outcomes of today’s horror show. No way to minimise what happened though. By midnight he was more or less settled and dropped into a cramped sleep.

Sunday…

“…Chalk, Chalk, wake up! How can you sleep at a time like this?” Alora’s voice got through eventually, helped along with a lot of rib poking.

“Wha… Gah, how can YOU sleep at a time like this?? Aaaargh! This bloody chair, it’s done me back in! What time is it?”

“Nearly seven… so what’s going to happen then. No don’t tell me, I’m finished aren’t I. No-one’s going to want to deal with me ever again.”

Rubbing his eyes with one hand and rubbing the other into his back, which he was sure had been permanently dislodged by the hotel armchair, Chalk decided that her depressingly pragmatic point of view would have to become the stepping stone for repairs. She needed to know that the end is not nigh, just a different beginning given to her by a little hiccup. Well, a bloody large public, highly newsworthy hiccup one hundred percent on the side of improper and given the tender age of the audience, a never to be forgotten hiccup. Disgraced.

But nonetheless only a hiccup, if squinted at through dark glasses from another universe.

“Yes it was a diabolical ballsup which I should have known to deal with a long time before it began, but I’m as much an idiot as anybody else. No-one’s infallible including you, as you found out yesterday. That may be harsh, but don’t you worry too much. Unless you turn out to be a real complete nut – and funnily enough I don’t think you are – I’ve got a plan that will make you a real hot property in six months or so I hope. Let’s get out of this roachery. I’m going to throw my spine against a bollard to set it back in place after what that bloody armchair did to it and I’ll see you home. Then I and the chickenshit runaway twins in the office will put pen to paper so to speak and clue you in on Monday. By the way, you’ve got to give the coppers a few minutes of your time. Let’s get that done now.”

“What???”

“Honest, it’s just protocol. You’re not being arrested, so far as I know no-one has filed any charges –” not yet, he thought “– but you need to get the essence on official paperwork. You’re going to be haunted by what’s happened but you’ve got friends. Seen it all before darlin’.” Well sort of, but not quite like this; Chalk hoped his confidence was up to the challenge.

Once the visit to the copshop was out of the way – a very matter-of-fact process, helped along by Alora’s obvious state of mind and Chalk’s tempered ministrations – Chalk hailed a taxi. “Right, home for you, rest up until you hear from me… and for god’s sake, for whatever peace of mind you possess right now, please, please do NOT turn the telly on or read any newspapers.”

“Yeah okay. Oh shit, the newspapers and telly… I know it’s that bad. Doesn’t matter what you, Dawn and Branden or anybody does, I’m finished. You should’ve left me in the Brown Boater.”

Remorse, a mostly alien concept to Alora until recent events, seemed like something she should feel. If self-doubt and self-hatred count towards experiencing remorse then she'd got it by the ton.

“I’ve let everyone down. Let down the rest of my life.” She had a problem reconciling what her natural societal disconnection regarded as some sort of flake-out with what it really was; a full-blown overwhelming cascade of distress. “It was like a big white light was whispering to me, distracting me and pulling me upwards."

“Whispering? You mean like voices? Anything like this happen before?”

“Hell no, not voices, it wasn’t really a voice. Was it me, a different me? I don’t know. Hope to fuck it never happens again!”

“Then this may be a work related one-off but I’m pretty sure you’ll have to see a shrink. It’s a sort of unwritten rule in the music business. Anyway all the best people do, you can join the club.”

In spite of how hard it would be to live down this truly shit situation, Chalk did expect to engineer a better outcome than Alora expected. Now the wheel turns.

“Change your thinking girl. You’re famous now!”

“Infamous you mean.”

Aftermath…

Sales of The Love Space, which had gone flat, started climbing again. Pre-owned copies of the vinyl record became hot property on auction sites. The studio audience videos gained hundreds of thousands of views.

The young audience went home to understandably shocked parents who were even more shocked when their not so innocent teenage darlings started interpreting Alora’s confession in a myriad of fun ways just to get up their parents’ noses.

A studio cameraman’s film of Alora’s crying face as she’d run to Chalk had been released to the news channels. Any talk of legal action was shelved as no-one wanted to be nasty to a young woman who’d had an awful breakdown in the most public way.

The TV channel found itself smothered in a public uproar and came under significant pressure to revise its guest policies to incorporate on-the-day psych and health evaluations and extend its three-second broadcast delay to thirty seconds. The only mitigating factor was that Alora had very clearly suffered a badly-timed breakdown – not the channel’s fault and not the first time something like that had happened. But in front of thousands of teenage viewers? KidTalk was put on hiatus.

The channel’s internal investigation found the producer guilty of dereliction of duty and not stopping the transmission when ordered to by the floor manager and physically preventing the tech from throwing in the delay. He was fired, sold his house in Tottenham and moved to a bedsit in north Wales where, being English, he met the permanent silent treatment.

The floor manager was asked to refrain in future from yelling “fuckityfuck” on childrens’ telly and had a life-size picture of the producer made so he could shout “fuckityfuck you” while throwing darts at it any time he liked.

Erstwhile interviewer Peter Walsh shrugged off his TV disaster and, bravely using the KidTalk incident as part of his portfolio, left England for Hollywood and became a vogue comic foil film actor winning a BAFTA award. On a drunken day off from filming he accidentally became the first and quite possibly only caucasian Englishman to buy a property in West Adams, Los Angeles after a vodka-fueled conversation with a grifter.

TRACK THREE

Chalk’s Hertfordshire home took up only a moderate acreage. Although doing pretty much the same thing as his peers back in the day, he’d decided not to risk his income on a massive money-pit estate that he wouldn’t have a clue how to run. Essentially it was a large house, not really a mansion, with a quarter-mile long area allowed to run wild. At the far end was the barn conversion which he gave to Alora as her second home while she recovered herself and he and the label recovered the bad press. Keeping her under his watch meant he could control the situation, or at least prevent anything else from happening. No-one could get to her without his knowing about it and if Alora didn’t like this sort of control, she’d just bloody well have to learn to live with it for the time being.

He showed her around and gave a duplicate key for the front door. “This is a really nice pad, Chalk. Cosy. Feels like a little world I can wrap myself up in.”

Chalk thought reality was the better of whatever fantasy she might be brewing up. “You’re welcome, but don’t get too cosy. It’s only yours while we sort out this fuck up and your problems. Now get yourself unpacked and settled in. And remember who’s paid six months’ rent, in advance I might add, on your flat while you’re here so be polite. My missus, Anne, is coming down the path later to introduce herself. You’re in good hands, she’s had to put up with all sorts of dingbat doings since marrying me.”

Controlled again, she thought, but stifled the desire to spit out a comment this time because she knew that for the first time in her life she was being helped by someone who seemed to care what happened to her, even though Chalk was being blunt about her ‘problem’ and making noises about the cost.

“I’ll make an appointment to get a shrink up here, say a week on Friday with any luck, that gives you ten days or so to come to terms. Don’t look at me like that, Polyversal and I have a duty of care not only to you but to provide proof of progress to anyone involved in Saturday’s train crash from the legal end, should there be one. Sorry, but that’s the way of it. Trust me, as I said before this will all work out. Oh, err, one little bit of nonsense you’re not going to like – a fair bit of your recovery is going to be on video for posterity.” She gave him a glaring look. “Think of it as a promotional activity. Or whatever gets you through. It’ll be an important part of the new future. Alora, as soon as you come to terms why not start writing your own material again, meaningful material this time, motivated by what you went through – teach the world how it feels.”

“What do you mean ‘this time’? Anyway Polyversal don’t want me to write my own songs.”

“Oh hun, I think they’ll let you from now on.” Chalk started to move away but turned back, resting a hand on Alora’s arm. “By the way, thanks for pulling the TV crew off me and dragging me out of the studio. You kept them off me. There are plenty who wouldn’t have bothered and two who certainly didn’t.”

“Think nothing of it matey. My fault.”

“Okay I won’t! But still, thanks. You weren’t at fault, don’t think that. Something happened, there are reasons and we’ll get to the bottom of them together. Kettle and tea bags are over there, a bit stale, they’ve been around for a while. Anne’ll get some fresh supplies.”

Several days later the world had reasserted its authority and the normal run-of-the-mill wars, celebrity peculiarities and political scandals had reclaimed Alora’s place in the redtop headlines.

Back at Polyversal, Chalk was keeping the A&R team in the loop. Dawn had just finished a meeting with one of Polyversal's bands but Brendan was absent. "Where's your colleague?"

Dawn's face contorted from smile to disgust. "It was his birthday yesterday, so I have no doubt he's whores du combat. The dirty little bugger enjoys uncomplicated relations."

“His birthday, great. We’re in the middle of a hoot of a problem and he’s prioritising Percy Penis.”

“Let him have it, Chalk. Nothing against his choice of company, just that I personally find it a bit icky. Or it might be him I find icky! Anyway he only indulges once a year on his birthday.” Whether that was true Dawn knew not but just this once, why not spread a stupid story. It’s that kind of month.

“I did wonder about him. Once a year eh, what manful resistance to the urge. Okay I’ll let him off. Right then, Alora is ensconced in a good old-fashioned country setting while she mends, with my wife swivelling an eye in her direction. I’ve also told her we’ll be filming it, I reckon only when she can cope with a camera in her face. Documentary style. It’ll be part apology to the world and part plea for forgiveness, great coverage I reckon. Not to mention giving her the opportunity to recover, rebuild and start creating her own stuff, good songs I hope. I have no doubt she’ll get an album out of this and before you start, I told her the label will indulge her own writing from now on instead of your resident ginsock. It’ll work, trust me.”

“Hmm, okay I’ll run that past the Golden Throne. He and the ‘ginsock’ as you call him, are old friends but I get your train of thought.”

“GT’ll go for it, we’ve been very aware of each other for a lot longer than you know. Now then, about getting a shrink for Alora – I believe you still deal with Dr Martin on occasion? Give him a call for me would you and make an appointment for him to come out to my place when he can. House calls may be pricey but I think this instance is worth it, in many ways.”

Two weeks after Black Saturday Dr Martin stopped off at Chalk’s main house to have a chat prior to taking his session with Alora. “I’m fairly well up on this, it wasn’t difficult to research given the public nature of the incident. Normally I’d like to ask if there’s anything else I should know but at this stage I’m trying not to form any more opinions than I have already. Alora’s in the house down the path, your old barn? Good, leave us alone while we’re chatting, I’ll fill you in when we’ve finished.”

Anything I’m allowed to know, thought Chalk.

Down in the barn, Dr Martin got straight to the point. “Hello Alora, I’m Dr Martin. I must say, this is a rather nice place to grab some getaway time. Barn conversion isn’t it? I’d love a cuppa if there’s one going, it was a fair old drive out here.”

“If you must, I’ll put the kettle on. You can try to be amusing and friendly if it suits you but I don’t think that’ll work at the moment. You must know what happened, I was plastered all over the papers and the fucking internet. Two weeks later, I’m glad for all the bad shit in the rest of the world. At least the TV and papers have moved on to real disasters.”

“True, true. I have a reasonable grasp of the err, incident. Do you feel regret Alora? Oh, six sugars please.”

“Six? Gee willickers, how fat is your sweet tooth? Sorry, I haven’t met anyone who’d prefer a mug of sugar with a dash of tea. You don’t need to drop questions into meaningless sentences, just come right out with it.”

“My apologies. In the end it’s all part of my hope to form a working, trusting relationship with you. You understand this is entirely confidential. And I know all about my weakness for sugar, I started out as an MD! Most psychiatrists do y’know.

"Okay then, I’ll be blunt. Fact is you used the c-word and f-word on a children's TV show, which has since been cancelled. But what really did the damage was the context! Oh, no-one's fooling themselves that their children don't know about it, but parents would much rather believe their innocent little dears are angels forever. Professionally speaking, you might yet have to let Alora Trinity slide into history, or adopt a different name, maybe even your real name… whatever that is?"

"Not bloody likely! No-one will ever know my child name. Alora Trinity IS my real name."

Sounds like she’s accepted what happened, so that test passed, thought the doctor. “Well if you’re happy enough to talk to me I’d like to know about your history in relation to the incident – what sort of symptoms, for instance anything that began years ago or has it started just recently?”

“I don’t really want to tell anybody anything but it seems I have very little choice. To answer your half-hidden question, you bet I feel regret! But I don’t really feel it about me – I feel bad about Chalk and Polyversal. Professionally I think I’m finished, they don’t, especially Chalk who seems to believe I’m going to come out all singing and dancing in a few months… I’m going to let him down again and I really don’t want to. Ah, sorry yes, my symptoms. I have felt a bit weird sometimes. Just a stress buildup I suppose. I’ve always known what I wanted to do more or less but, well, things kept me down. Parents mostly. Yes I know you’ll get around to them so we might as well have it out.”

“Your parents yes, quite right Alora, but I want to stay on a more medical tack for a while if that’s okay. Thanks for the tea, I saw you drop a seventh sugar in there. Fighting back eh?” For Dr Martin, these little retaliations against his person were a normal part of his professional life.

Alora made a bah-humbug face. “Medically, the lowdown is that I’ve never been on any medications, never suffered anything like that fucking horrible episode before. I feel a bit high every now and again when I’ve been doing a lot of physical stuff, but that’s just hard breathing same as anybody else. We’re all hoping it was a one-off and now I know what to look out for, that’s exactly what it’ll be. History.”

“No allergies? Ever been hospitalised?”

“Never been hospitalised. Allergic to being controlled. My parents wanted to control me, everyone I had to deal with before Chalk came along wanted to exercise – umm – well, personal dominion over me, so to speak, but I more or less got the practicalities I needed from those encounters. The label won’t let me write my own songs. Chalk tries to exert some control over me but I know he’s on my side. I really don’t know why, there’s nothing yukky going on between us.”

“Do you hear voices? Was that the only time – yes, he told me what you said in the hotel.”

Alora looked Dr Martin straight in the eyes. “He got that wrong. It wasn’t a voice, it was like a bright light with some sort of existence all its own. Nope, never before that Saturday morning and not since. I may be a bit on the mad side but I’m not completely mental!”

Dr Martin winced a little at that, but figured he was on track. “No voices, okay. You don’t have any suicidal or even homicidal feelings?”

“No. Beyond the notion that some of the people I’ve met are oxygen thieves I don’t have any desire to off myself or anybody else. Not even after that shit sandwich on KidTalk.”

“You seem to be getting support from Chalk and the label and as far as I can see you appear very capable in yourself. You said you think you’re finished professionally but I’m not sure I agree with that. You had goals. Do you think you can still attain them, however far down the road they may seem to be now?”

“Maybe they’re unattainable. Whatever my goals are, I mean the ones I know about, I still feel I want to work towards them. Even if I do allow ‘goals’ to be created – or maybe I mean enhanced – by Chalk and the label, assuming I’m allowed to stay with them.”

“Well, the essential element of goals is striving for the unattainable. And hopefully getting there.”

Dr Martin ran through some routine questions. Alora calmly answered him about anxiety, depression, childhood traumas, sleeping soundly or insomnia, any family history of psychiatric care. “Only my parents telling me to do what they wanted and locking me away!”

Ah. The doctor filed that comment for the moment.

In fact, Alora’s reasonable and natural answers along with the doc’s friendly involvement was beginning to make her feel better about herself, being asked questions that she should’ve known to ask herself. So that’s what psychiatry is all about.

Dr Martin was relatively happy with the session as far it had gone. “Actually, even with evidence of a few acid drops I believe you’re not so badly off. A strong person. Apart from the KidTalk episode that is, which I believe is explained by a work/life balance burnout, you seem pretty much okay on the surface. However – yes, now’s the time – let’s have a conversation about your parents…”

Alora knew that now was a make or break moment for her. Well bollocks, she thought, it was bound to come around sometime. Aloud, she said “all confidential, yes? No leaks to anyone including Chalk Rivers or Polyversal? Or anyfuckingone?”

“Cross my heart and hope to meet god with my licence unsullied.”

The doc and Alora had been sitting at the kitchen table. She got up, moved to the other side of the large room and made herself comfortable on a sofa that looked as old as the house. After a second Dr Martin followed to perch himself opposite on an old armchair, the sofa suite’s partner.

Alora thought “shit, I’ve moved to the sofa… this won’t take long but suddenly I wanted to be a drama queen? Oh well.” She looked over at the doc, saying “anything specific or do you just want me to ramble on?”

“The beginning’s a good place to start but not too far. You were born, I see that. Tell me about home.”

Alora sat silent for a few moments, gathering her childhood anchors into a catalogue in her head. “I’ll give you the salient points. I won’t tell you their names. They are not me, I am me and I am very different. The girl from back then no longer exists, she’s gone.

“I don’t know about now but back then the house sat in its own grounds, a couple of acres protected by CCTV and various expensive alarm systems. The house was quite big, but still they hated me singing whichever room I was in. I sang all the time. I’d hear a song and there it was, word for word in my head. I’ve got that sort of memory I suppose, or rather I did back then when there was nothing to worry me except being told to shut up. I was generally noisy, flouncy actually, dancing and singing all round the house. I thought of them as rather strict and I have to say, I enjoyed pissing them off. Dad would drive me to school when he was home to make sure I got there instead of bumping off. They got fed up with getting letters from the school about my absences they were paying for.”

Dr Martin interrupted. “Was your dad away a lot? And this was a private school?”

“Yes. When dad was away mum was as bad as him. To me, it seemed neither of them saw anything in me, nothing they wanted anyhow. The net result of my schoolgirl treachery was I got expelled and yes it was a private school, very expensive. My parents were well-off, in fact very wealthy. Even before my expulsion – I’d just turned fourteen then – they wanted to pack me off to America as soon as they could, to a relative for private tuition followed by getting me into math and science at Thomas Jefferson, on to Harvard – then toe a corporate line organised by dad in the US. I was to become an American citizen, all paid for by my parents. See, they had it all worked out.

“Dad was often away on business, mostly for weeks. All his absences did to mum was make her double up on me with the yakkity-yak and locking me in my room when she had err, I’ll call them guests, in the house.”

Dr Martin was taken aback. Playing hookey was something he’d expected, but wealth… and whatever she meant by ‘guests’. “Why was your dad away for so long each time?”

Alora girded herself for what she was about to disclose. “Again doctor, abslolute confidence, yes? No telling.”

“Of course.”

A couple of seconds silence while Alora wavered. She was about to reveal what she knew about her parents and the reason she ran away. She gave in to finishing her story.

“I tell people I ran away because they were so strict and wanted to stop me singing. Well here’s part one. I remember dad telling mum that money is a weapon, a financial WMD. One day I got into the safe and discovered he was a wealthy money mover. There were lots of files. I got the impression that he supplied money for all kinds of people and training in the best way to use it. There were lots of papers with long numbers. I read all about it in one go and although I didn’t understand completely at the time, the sense of what I read that day became clearer to me as time passed.”

Dr Martin had sunk into the back of the chair, not sure if this was a tall tale or not. The thing is, his intuition told him it was the truth, at least as she saw it. “Well that wasn’t what I was expecting. Okay, why rebel and run away from what sounds like a financially secure life even if they were strict with you? Did you actually have moral objections?”

“Come on, that must’ve been dodgy! But that wasn’t what made me run away.” Here it comes. “Part two, the real reason. I found a box file in that safe, full of discs and photos of mum and dad and a lot of their friends, the friends that used to come round when I got locked in my room. Photos taken with children in private. They were not family friendly photos. I played the discs on mum’s laptop. They were not family friendly films. They were horrible and the children were – being used.”

Doctor Martin went wide-eyed. “Children? You mean… did they ever touch you?”

“No, they never touched me. Some of their friends got close… amounted to nothing really. The only good thing my parents did was keep them away from me. I guess their reason for being strict and wanting to move me abroad was to help them keep me away from what was going on.”

“Riiiight. Ah… how did you break into their safe to get at this, err, stuff?”

“Oh yeah, sorry. One day they were both out and I was left alone. It was an underfloor safe; what they didn’t figure on was a tiny child’s ability to lurk in unseen corners, watching and memorising things. I knew the combinations years before! By the time I was fourteen I’d worked up the balls to investigate, I thought playing safecracker would be a laugh. It wasn’t. That’s when I found the sick photos and discs along with everything to do with dad’s business. I read everything in there and that’s when I packed a change of knickers into my Shaun the Sheep backpack and headed for the hills.”

The doc felt a personal problem creeping up. Truth or lie, he wondered if he could, or should, talk to the police, find out anything about her and still keep their confidentiality. Even though he still knew nothing about her really. “You know nothing more? Some years have passed now.”

As if reading his mind Alora squirmed on the sofa, afraid for everything she’d become. “Do nothing! I sneaked back for a looksee a couple of weeks later but the place had been abandoned. Did they worry about me? I don’t know or care. Maybe after I ran away someone dobbed them in to the cops and they fled. They couldn’t dare officially report me missing, any investigation would’ve turned on them. So I’m just another unknown runaway. My appearance has changed a lot, after all I’ve grown up and out since they last saw me. If they’ve seen Alora Trinity somehow, it’s possible they’d suspect who I am, but even if they do I’m sure they’ll leave me alone.”

“Ah… so ultimately their original actions toward you could have been construed as protective.”

Alora had figured that out for herself. “I don’t know, but I can guess, probably.”

Wow. Dr Martin was having trouble taking this in. Part of him still thought it was fiction. “Someone turned them in? This is an ongoing investigation?”

“I don’t think so. Does it matter?”

Personal problem solved. If it isn’t still being investigated, his hands would be happily tied. He certainly couldn’t break his promised confidentiality… but what a story. Sadly, there are too many under-age grooming cases and if someone was well placed enough, it could be possible to keep their conviction lost in the general confusion and serve their sentence quietly.

“Err, right – practicalities. What about your parent’s house? Evidence of your existence? Siblings?”

“I was an only child. About the house, don’t know, don’t care. Shit memories. My birth certificate was in that safe, I burned it. I burned everything to do with me, everything with my name on it including my National Insurance number. And some real family photos which I burned along with everything else to do with that girl and left the rest for someone else to discover. The neighbours, the school, the police – no-one found out what happened to me and I want it to stay that way. I found safety in time passing and natural change. I’m Alora Trinity. Yes it is a nutty name and yes, I did invent it after that boy thing, but it’s as far from the truth as anything else and it makes me an entirely different person.”

Dr Martin leaped on the sex angle. “The boy thing as you put it, is true?”

“Yes, the boy thing as I put it, is true except that he volunteered. I think he was around seventeen or eighteen actually… I admit I wanted it. Before you ask me anything else about sex, I have used myself to get what I needed. But all on my terms, not like those little children. Completely up front with myself, it seemed to work for me.”

“Perhaps. Hmm, you’re a public figure, or at least you’re likely to stay that way for a while even if you stay out of the public eye – does that worry you in light of your earlier life?”

“Of course it fucking does! My life would be a million times worse if my Alora alter ego fails – this pop star business puts my head above the wall!”

Eureka.

“But you still want to succeed.” Dr Martin, no stranger to plucking out weird confessions, knew that he’d opened up Alora’s problem, for her as much as for his own methods of working this case. Publicity and the potential for her past to rear up and bite – not exactly original, except that she wasn’t guilty of anything.

“I think that’s what happened to you on the TV show… I believe you heard a cry from your subconcious. However people do change – and who you are now is real, you’re sitting right here in front of me. Alora Trinity has a life. Your childhood discovery had nothing to do with you at all – how can you be guilty for something you’re completely innocent of?”

Alora stared at him. The way the doc had stuffed that part of her life into a few words sounded so rational and… almost ordinary. She’d been too wrapped up in the detail.

“I want you to have a full medical examination –”

“No thanks, that would mean revealing that child again. I’m fine.”

“Will you at least consider it? There are ways of maintaining anonymity.”

“There would still be a chance of re-existing. Nah.”

Not much one can do about personal choices. He finished off his cold tea. “I think we can call it a day. Here’s a very simple question: how do you feel?”

Talking about a past, no not a past, just events that’d happened to someone else – and according to Dr Martin her participation was zero – had brought a different perspective to bear. “Now? Fine. Really, more… I don’t know, does ‘rounded’ sound right? Funny really, but much better than when someone set the fuzz onto mum and dad.”

“I think ’rounded’ carries more or less the right frame of mind but I’ll see you again next week for a follow-up.”

Dr Martin got as far as the door, stopped short and span round to stare as Alora’s last sentence registered. “It was you!”

Once the doctor was back at the main house, he obviously couldn’t say diddly squat without breaking his vows. It was a fantastical story anyhow! “A splash of paranoia but nothing horrendous, I think she’ll be okay. I will prescribe medication, only very mild, more a sedative than anything else. A few good nights’ sleep always helps. I’m pretty sure it was a one-time scream against her world, she’s quite vibrant mentally. People suffer trauma in many ways and it doesn’t always mean permanent doom and gloom, sometimes just one big shout and done. In essence I think, she’s just a young woman who’d stored up a bellyfull of overload. What you’re doing here is more or less as right for her as any other decent environment would be. I understand you’re making a ‘recovery’ documentary with a view to Alora maintaining her future in entertainment; I would advise keeping to her schedule when she feels like it, don’t interfere when she needs to be left alone. Not that she’s fragile, thick-skinned I reckon, just be careful. Whatever you do, don’t forget that all she needs is time, so be mindful. Well, I must be off but I’ll be back next week.”

Chalk’s wife Anne set off to the barn with a present and veggies for Alora ostensibly to top up their guest’s food supply, but really to get to know her better and take her mind off matters.

Anne returned some time later and said “Boots!!”

“Err, what?”

“Boots! Alora’s nickname for Dr Martin!”

Not much you can say to that.

Chalk invited himself into the barn and started on a speech. “Look, I'm not going to ask what the shrink said, it’s none of my business.”

Alora was in a good mood. “You don’t have to check up on me every five minutes, I’m fine. In fact I feel better now than I have done for a very long time. It was nice chatting to Anne. Believe it or not, I’ve never really had a chat with another girl about complete shit before! Oh, not that she talked shit, I mean…”

Chalk laughed. “I know what you mean, she’s a diamond. I would’ve been a bigger twat than I am now if it wasn’t for her pushing me back in line.”

“Hey, Anne told me you’ve got a son living in America! Keeping secrets from me?”

“Good grief, I hadn’t mentioned him before? I must have! He’d be pissed off, thinking I’d forgotten him. Yeah, Ray Rivers, a smart cookie. Anne decided on calling him Ray, she liked the sound of his initals being RR. You positive I’ve never told you? Mind you he has been over there for a few years, that’s probably why I haven’t said anything. Out of sight out of mind.”

“I bet he’d just love to hear you say that! Absolutely, not a word about him from you.”

“Blimey, must be age. Well you will deffo have to meet him when you break the US… umm, well, the label was thinking that way before, uh, the thing.” Chalk shivered a little, it was never going away.

Alora shuffled her feet, not wishing to draw on that. “The US won’t like me now. We can but see what happens though, eh.”

Dr Martin had helped enormously for some reason she either couldn’t pin down or didn’t want to think about and with Chalk and Anne in close proximity in what amounted to a shielded place, she felt safe and comfortable. But she knew it would last only as long it lasted, then back on the ol’ bucking bronco. She felt less worried about that than previously, at the very least she’d get the opportunity to write her own material and put it out on the label. A small cog in the mill of life, but important to her. Making decisions about her future with input from others, instead of the other way round. She remembered vividly being told, when you’ve got a bit more life experience. I’ve bloody well got it now, she thought.

Time for a rapid subject change, Chalk remembered Anne’s present. “What did my wife get you?”

“A hot water bottle in case I get chilly!”

“A hot water bottle! That’s nice. Don’t look at me like that, I’m not being sarcastic, we like to look after our guests.”

“It’s a nice thought. It’ll definitely get used.”

Chalk wanted to share a decision he’d made over the last couple of weeks. “Listen Alora, it’s occurred to me that I might be getting a bit long in the tooth for this business sooner than I expected. I’m shaken up that I didn’t see what was happening. But I’m the selfish type, I want to see you back up there, stronger than before with a real future, maybe in a year, who knows… then that’ll be it for me, bong and slippers time.”

“Yeah right! You really think you can walk away from the music biz? You’ll be bored shitless in a month! Hang on, bong? I didn’t know you indulged.”

“I don’t, I just said it to be silly. I might try fishing. On second thoughts perhaps not, I want to spend more time with Anne. Nope, the thing is I reckon I’ve reached a natural end to my life in music. I’ve done everything I wanted to do, made a few pennies… just an old git now but I still know how to end a song. I won’t fade away!” Chalk drummed his arms up and down. “Drum roll at the end and boom tish, out the door! Right, I’m gonna leave you to relax.”

With a glint in her eye she said “Well, before you go, I’ll let you into a little secret – Boots, Doctor Martin I mean, suggested I might have to stop being Alora Trinity, even use my real name – ”

Suddenly Chalk could see a whole new terrible future. One in which everything they’d done woud be crushed. One which he knew instinctively would require a lot of explaining. One which brought on palpitations. “Aargh stop! Don't tell me, I don’t want to know!”

“Don’t worry, I told him no chance.”

“Jeez, good, I’m trying to avoid heart attacks! Who you are now is the person I know and like! Blimey, I’m off to the house where Anne can worry about me downing a half pint of whiskey before you decide to cripple me with revelations. Your sense of humour might just kill me.”

As she watched Chalk march back up the path from the kitchen window Alora wondered what would happen if she did tell him the truth. “I've dragged him through the shit since the Brown Boater and we’re still a team. Nope, not chancing it.” Her mind went wobbly at the thought. He might stop caring. Is that what friendship is? Alora didn't know; she’d never had a friend before Chalk turned up.

Over the next three months, the so-called documentary film proved to be an excellent antidote to Black Saturday, with five-minute snippets released by the label once a week on Alora’s social networks. She started off with profuse apologies which she meant from the heart. The news channels once again picked up on her and that bad, bad day, going over the gory details, discussing how her mental health seemed to be now. Thousands of views on the socials with a largely positive response. Polyversal’s team were happy that the publicity was meandering more or less in the right direction and the streams were still active, but in a guarded way waiting to see who jumped where. There were still no legal attacks.

The mild medication Dr Martin prescribed was discontinued after a month as he wanted to see how she’d react to this wraparound world, as he called it, without any artificial props. He’d been to see her twice since his knee-knocking first visit. The media had got wind of him treating Alora but he remained resolutely close-mouthed. Eventually they lost interest in him, knowing full well he couldn’t breach confidentiality. He had upheld his vows and left her parents to their fate, not that he had any idea who they were anyhow.

As the weeks passed Alora found the apology to masses of people excrutiating but also freeing, relieving the burden. She was still worried about her previous life cropping up but, feeling protected as she was, that secret part of her became less of her life as it sank deeper and deeper. The worst thing at this time was the renewed interest and footage of Black Saturday, however Dr Martin was correct in his summation, that Alora had a thick skin. The weeks went by and the video snippets gradually morphed into demonstrating a healing and creative process mixed with a good helping of set pieces such as sitting in the field looking imaginative while making song notes, pottering around the barn conversion, one-liners to camera – clean ones – making breakfast, cleaning… all the normal things people do every day. She found herself in a far better frame of mind although pensive about returning to proper work.

Branden had to say it. “Over the top and so transparently fake and bullshitty, it makes me cringe every time I see an episode. Sorry, but I work here and I’m allowed an opinion.”

“It’s tried and tested Branden and you knew this is what we’d be doing. You and Dawn agreed and so did Golden Throne upstairs.” Chalk stated, plain and simple. They were in Soho Square once more preparing a future for a member of Polyversal’s roster, namely Alora… again.

Dawn put on a drawl. “You can always seek employment elsewhere darling, somewhere you can feel all warm and loved and cuddled,” dripping the thick brown gravy of sarcasm that women are so well practiced with, “you don’t have to go through this oh so terrible experience of promoting one of our artists by actually, well, doing your fucking job.”

Chalk snorted. “You sounded just like Margaret Thatcher at the end there.”

“Thanks, I try. Stay on board or jump ship Branden. Although having said that yes I agree, you are entitled to an opinion, just so long as it’s ours unless you’re sitting on the bog, hopefully in private, at home. Anything constructive to say?”

“Yes. As much as I hate the videos, I can see them working and a couple of stills from them will make great covers for vinyl releases, which I think we should be prepared for, as well as digital promo use. Take that look off your face Dawn, yes making a real record is expensive but look how the last one went down; there was money made and I think our target market will soak up another, especially after all this video bullshit they seem to enjoy. And we’ve still got merch hanging around. In the future I can see the video snippets edited together so we can supply a finished product to TV companies.”

“Okay, I see your points. Let’s keep those options on the table. Chalk, any more from you – we’re still selling, she’s doing well on the socials, we’ve been on top of them and the news is taking a less horrific tack, but how does that relate to reality?”

Chalk sat upright to stretch his back. He was sure he could still feel that hotel armchair. “Already on it with the video being turned into a TV programme, I had a word with the controller at ArtsTV. He wants a proposal.”

Branden jumped in. “As I don’t ‘feel’ the thing, I’m the logical choice for that. I might like that better than these thirty-second pieces. I can get a proposal done by the end of the week but we shouldn’t be too quick with it until we know the ending, so to speak, besides their schedule is probably made up for the rest of the year. Okay Chalk?”

“Pretty much. I dare say the channel will let us know after your submission. As to the ending, I am confident on that score. Alora’s in a far better frame of mind, looks like the shrink and the location have had a good effect. A little bit nervous about returning to the spotlight but I should think that’s a normal reaction under the circumstances.”

Dawn brought the meeting to a close. “Okay then, let’s get back on the horse.”

Alora’s stay at Chalk’s country pad came to an end a few weeks later. Dr Martin pronounced her clear and ready for work but suggested that Chalk kept it down to a reasonable level for now. The film aired on ArtsTV a few months later to critical acclaim and generally good reviews from the viewing public, although points were pushed down slightly thanks to one or two parents with harsh memories. Branden was happy, that’s to say smug, after wrangling a role as associate editor and getting his name in the credits.

Polyversal Records agreed to Alora writing her own material. Nevertheless, her contract called for one more song under the current set-up so they put her in Abbey Road studios to record her latest – and last – flash-and-forget girlpop song from the company scribbler. It was perceived as nothing more than a moderate programme filler but Alora was kind of expecting that.

She had a raft of songs in her mind. She would certainly get an album out of Black Saturday and the months after; would that be a good title? Maybe not, no need to get the public or the media worked up again.

Utilising its contacts and issuing promises of good behaviour, Polyversal’s New York office had finally secured the delayed two-city tour in the United States.

Alora Trinity, a young woman with a hated and unwanted childhood, formerly convinced of her ‘artistic’ value, was to become more popular – or famous, or infamous – than she could have once believed. Her commercial ‘artistic’ value was still being pasted daily on to her character but that’s the business, she knew it now and went with it. She refused interviews with British media with good grace and had been invited to appear on reality shows but she readily accepted Chalk’s and her A&R advice against doing such ridiculous things in light of the upcoming tour.

Pastures new beckoned.

TRACK FOUR

The mini tour of Los Angeles and New York clubs had provided Alora with some of the best experiences of her life, but she did wonder if people were there only on the offchance of seeing her go mentally tits up on stage again. It didn’t happen; ten nightspots over two weeks went like a dream, her interactions with the audiences made her approachable and likeable. The songs were her own and the critics’ reports were friendly. Alora had begun the career path to becoming a true entertainer. As Chalk Rivers had once said, “change your thinking girl” and now she was doing just that, sliding her ‘pop’ status to one side.

Alora’s first interview outside Britain had been arranged in the hope that it would be less of trial (almost literally) for her and anyway this sort of thing was necessary to her new career. This first US interview was for an AC-TV talk show called Field Works with New York’s current television favourite brunette-turned-blond bombshell, Mary Field. She’d kept her interview on a lightweight level, letting Alora talk about the highlights of her latest shows, only interrupting to underline a point here and there.

There came a second’s silence in which Mary referred to her clipboard, always a dead giveaway of something really smelly about to be dropped onto the interviewee. “According to the reviews you’ve been a real hit over the last couple of weeks in Los Angeles and New York. But I think we’d all like to know a little more about that awful time on English television eighteen months ago, when you broke down in front of thousands of youngsters and used the c-word among others. How did you cope with that? What happened? Does it still worry you?”

Alora looked uncomfortable. Offstage Dawn and Chalk tensed up and almost melted into each other – they knew this would bounce back some day. Mary hadn't been specifically asked not to talk about Black Saturday, they just hoped she'd gloss over it.

Alora pursed her lips. Chalk’s netheryeh pursed itself.

Alora glanced at the cameras… her first face-to-face public mention of Black Saturday. And she was on TV again... but she knew she was up to it. She wanted to be open and spoke slowly to catch up with her thoughts on this sticky subject.

“Yes, that was atrocious, unforgiveable behaviour and I still hate myself for it. There were several reasons… I felt like I was on a roundabout that was spinning faster and faster, with me hanging on by my fingernails trying not to get thrown off – my body was still there but I kind of left myself and when I came back I was terrified of what I’d done. I think something like that happens to some entertainers, doesn’t it? Just not always on live TV. But I had help and I did get over it, mostly; I had friends like my manager who looked after me for months afterwards – and his lovely wife – and of course Polyversal stood by me. I’m sorry the show was cancelled and I’m damn sure there are a lot of people who will never forgive me which is something I have to live with and let me tell you, it’s not a good feeling at all. Everyone knows about it but the reality of it is done and gone, in the past now. You might not believe this, but I think that the guilt – and there was a lot of that, still is – made me a different person. I’ve learnt to be less cautious about what happens, less tense, more appreciative of guidance from everyone I work with and whatever else is happening around me and being done for me without me knowing probably. Not as scared of the unknown. I go with a situation, not against it. There is still the agony of what I did but I don't feel – well, outcast sounds right – I don’t feel like an outcast anymore."

The audience, with the herd instinct of an uncaged crowd freed from their day-to-day element, reacted with whooping noises, punching the air and shouting yeah! over and over. But this time, for the right reasons.

Mary set her clipboard aside, thanked Alora for appearing on her show and being so candid, then turned to the cameras and audience with a short laugh. “I think that's the longest I’ve ever gone without saying anything!”

The animated audience once again applauded and bayed with glee.

In the darkness beyond the action Dawn and Chalk looked at each other with wide eyes and phewed. Chalk’s rear end unclenched and no fainting this time, although Dawn was rubbing her arm where Chalk’s death grip had caused her no little pain, of which she was only now becoming aware.

“Her first live TV appearance since the ‘thang’ and it went quite well I think!” She tried to massage life back into her dead limb. “Hey, I'm not sure if what you've done to my arm doesn’t qualify as assault and battery.”

“Sorry, please don't sue me until we get back to Blighty where I can get out of it. Well, is this is a mature person we see before us?”

Alora had been escorted from the set responding with a cheery wave to the whoop-whoops and all three were being ushered into the green room. Facing her friends (Chalk that is, Alora still regarded Dawn on a level higher than good aquaintance but not quite best bud), she felt proud. “Don’t mock. Go on, tell me I was shit up there. Well I wasn’t, girl done good eh!”

“Brilliant, my little padawan!” said Chalk through a big grin.

Dawn was more practical. “I reckon you made some friends tonight. Good diplomacy with the guilt and feelings. They love that stuff over here.”

“Thanks! Padawan? When did I qualify for Star Trek?”

“…Uh, Star Wars. Never mind that, you put on a jolly good show.”

“Star Wars, okey dokey. When do I get paid for tonight? No, only joking! Chalk, you told me your son would be knocking around, where is he? It’s about time I met him.”

Chalk pointed to the back of the green room door. “Yeah why not. I didn’t spot him but he said he’d be up in the back row and stick around after, I’ll see if I can get someone to chase him down.”

While Chalk was running the search for Ray with the man outside the door, Dawn looked Alora in the eye with a touch of ice. “Before he comes back tell me, was that real in the interview or were you spinning the line just a little?”

The mood was temporarily suspended. “It was real Dawn. I understand your worries but don’t be afraid of me going off the rails, it won’t happen again. I’m not promising there won’t be some aggro in future but let’s just say it’ll be normal aggro! I’ve got a feeling that whatever happens my psyche is not at risk and neither is Polyversal’s investment. You’ve all looked after me and I feel a kind of ‘family’ thing with Chalk and Anne. I could say I’ll do my best not to fuck it all up again, but I inside myself I believe I don’t have to say it. You can make a happy report to Golden Throne, as you call him.”

“Thank fuck for that.” Dawn erased the cool fleck from her eyes and the happy mood regained traction.

For Alora though, this mention of the ‘family’ feeling she had for Chalk indeed felt far more real and secure than the child relationship she’d had with either of her terrible parents. She decisively and conciously dismissed any further connection with them. If they surfaced and the past came out, then so be it – what happened to them was nothing more than a distant, long-lost satellite in an even more distant orbit around a done-with life. “Balls to them. Nothing to do with me. I just don’t give a shit about it anymore!”

Chalk returned. “Ray’s on his way, the feller on the door actually knew who I was talking about! Been to one of his gigs in LA. Who’s a proud daddy then!” He was somewhat caught up in the general feel-good atmospere and not particular about what emerged from his mouth. Very unbusiness-like.

There was a knock on the door and Ray Rivers walked in, resplendantly decorated in flower power garb of just about every flavour. Chalk did a double-take at his son and wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cringe. He settled for parental sarcasm. “Hello son. Been an explosion in a paint factory?”

Ray caught his father in a shoulder hug. “Ha, I dressed like this in honour of you, dad! It’s been five years since I got here and only now you turn up for a visit, well at least you’ve brought someone worth knowing with you! Hi Alora, I’m Ray, very pleased to meet you. Been following your career off and on almost since dad kidnapped you from the Brown Boater. I like to know what’s happening with my inheritance so I do keep tabs on the old boy.”

“You can let go of me now son. Thanks for the age dig and all the nice things you said about me. I bet you were the most striking person in New York today.”

“I second that!” Alora looked Ray up and down, absorbing the make-up and rainbow of tie-dyed trends that had flourished decades before she was born. She liked his flambouyant attitude and he instantly came across to her as genuine. She could sense plenty of Chalk in there. They shook hands once Ray had worked his fingers loose of the shirt ruffles. “Nice to meet you too Ray. Is this really the only visit he’s made in all that time?”

Chalk jumped in. “Yes it is, but only because the business takes over everything. I wanted to be here every couple of months but it just wasn’t possible. I’ve missed seeing Ray do so well over here which is another reason for me to get out of the business, to spend a lot more time with my son.”

Ray gave his dad another squeeze. “Well what do y’know, sounds like you’re thinking about giving up and retiring, dad. Coming over here to live?”

“Nope, England’s home for me. But I – and especially your mum of course – would love to spend more time with you.” aside to Alora and Dawn, “Anne has been over a couple of times for a fortnight or so. That’s when I miss them both!”

“So mum’s not coming over this time?”

“Not this time Ray, but we’ll all be together in a couple of months.”

“Soppy sod!” Said Alora. “Look, can we get out of here and grab a nibble somewhere? I’m hungry and this TV studio grub isn’t hitting me where it should.”

Chalk’s eyeballs made a little swivel. The thought of people being hit with TV studio grub was still an unfortunate and piercing memory. Roll on old age and hopefully depleted faculties.

Ray had just the place. “Certainly, I had a good look around when I first arrived here before heading for Los Angeles and if it’s still open there’s a pub on east 18th, Old Town Bar. Fancy grog and dog dad?”

“Deffo grog and I’ll think about the dog. I was never convinced that American portions settled with me even back in the neon-lit calorie burning youth of my massive stardom. Come on ladies, Ray’s paying and we’ve all earned it.”

A cab ferried the foursome across the city to the bar, where Dawn recognised the scenery instantly. “Oh, I know it now, I’ve seen this place in music videos and films.”

“I thought you’d appreciate it,” said Ray, “we’re in good company. If no-one minds, I’ll take liberties with your guts and order our food and drink. Still nothing to eat yet dad? Okay, get ready to swallow some liquid hops instead.”

“Always ready for a decent pint Ray, make it a pale.”

Dawn’s face was serious but softened at the offer of a drink. “Same for me please Ray!”

Alora went with Ray to the bar, they were chatting happily. Chalk watched for a couple of seconds then turned to Dawn. “Those two look to be getting on well straight off the bat, I noticed they got jokey with each other in the taxi. Ray’s always been the positive type, almost a polar opposite of Alora in some ways. Maybe they’re clicking!” Then chalk’s expression changed. “I was watching you eyeing her on the way over and I know something’s up. Spill.”

“Tomorrow, when we get to the office.”

“Don’t keep secrets from me where my girl’s concerned. Now, please.”

His girl?? Dawn sighed, she knew this wouldn’t go well. “You won’t like it… it goes like this: now that she’s being promoted in the States, it’s her name. The marketing company called me earlier today, they want to change it because of the KidTalk fuck up.”

“What! You’re bloody joking!” Chalk said, way too loud. The other guests in the bar looked up; Alora and Ray turned round to see what was going on. Chalk laughed and said “Sorry folks, Dawn tells terrible jokes!”

“Sssh! It’s no joke, they tried to bullshit me that it sounds immature which was fine when she was still local, that’s to say only working in Britain, but now they think she needs a grown up name with a more international flavour.”

Chalk lowered his voice to a series of articulated grunts. “You’re right, it’s bullshit! I see what they’re doing, trying to erase that KidTalk fuckup and anything that might surface from her past before I met her. They don’t know about her childhood and neither do the rest of us and I for one am happy to stay completely ignorant. Besides, Alora Trinity is a name that could’ve come from anywhere! After all this time, after all the effort, after all the heartaches no fucking way are they changing anything! The marketing department can shove it up their arses, do they think we can just wave a magic wand and instantly come up with a brand new star? Alora will go berserk!” Chalk was almost spitting but couldn’t care less.

“I told them something along those lines would be the likely reaction. The conversation was bloody stupid. We want to know her real name, they said. That is her real name, I said. We need to change it, they said. There might be some resistance, I said. Try it on her anyway, they said. It’s a bad idea, I said. Tell her line manager to tell her, they said. You don’t understand real life do you, I said. Of course we don’t we’re marketing people, they said.”

Chalk calmed down. “Okay… okay. I don’t want you risking your job but I’m telling you straight it won’t happen.”

“What won’t happen?” Ray and Alora had returned from the bar with a tray of drinks in time to hear the last few words.

Chalk blurted out “Polyversal’s marketing people want to change your name.”

Dawn butted in. “Not Polyversal – the marketing people are an outside company on retainer. They’re trying to come up with a cover-up and they reckon you’ll need a buffer from, well you know.”

Alora’s face went stony and she looked down at Dawn who shrank a little. “It’s not me!” Dawn said in a little voice. Alora’s rejoinder was as stony as her face.

“No.”

“What’s wrong with Alora Trinity?” asked Ray. “It’s memorable. If you have to change anything, why not say it’s an ancient European name?”

Alora looked at Ray, took a long sip of her pint and – thinking of creating an even bigger chasm between her life now and her childhood – said “A foreign name. Yeah tell people I’m from Poland or something. The only fly in the ointment would be that KidTalk show… I went away from myself… the boy’s face in it and all that…” Alora stood very still, withdrawn, quiet and expressionless.

Dawn and Chalk held their breath and this time not just one, but a pair of netheryehs tightened their screws. Ray’s face had a quizzical look, he knew entertainers sometimes slipped a cog and knew about the ‘incident’ from reports at the time through a natural interest in his dad’s life but obviously wasn’t an involved party so not aquainted with the full story. 

But for Dawn and Chalk, waiting for the bomb to drop, this could be the end, again. Oh shit…

“BOO! Gotcha!”

Chalk thumped his chest. “Jesus Alora, if I’ve got a weak heart it’s down to you, you tit!”

All of a sudden Dawn was desperately uncomfortable. “That was very immature.” She stood up with her knees together. “Excuse me I need the ladies, where is it?”

Ray pointed to the other end of the bar as Dawn scuttled off then apologised to the onlookers for the second interruption. “Sorry folks, they’re actors from England, rehearsing for an episode of EastEnders when they all take a package vacation to America.”

Chalk got his breath back. “Bit of a cod accent there Ray. Been here five years and you still sound London.”

The barman had never heard of EastEnders, but being a New Yorker in a nice little a business, he smiled and urged them to enjoy their food when he brought it over. “We’re no strangers to actors in here but try to tone it down a little while we’re open to the public. I hope you like your food and don’t rush, we’re open ’til late.”

Alora and Ray sat down to get stuck in to the food. “That really was a bit on the childish side Alora.”

Alora screwed her face into a miserable parody of itself. “Yes sorry. I was testing myself. In spite of my confidence and everything I’ve claimed for myself I don’t know if whatever that… that thing was is gone or if it’ll come back again some day. There’s a tiny part of me that’s scared of the rest of me, or maye for me. Although I want to leave it behind it’s a part of my past life I can’t forget, I’m still working on it. Sorry.”

Ray tried not to be uncomfortable and almost succeeded. “I want to understand. Listen, we can talk anytime, you can talk to me about anything. But – right now, how about current affairs?”

Chalk rubbed the back of his head, he wanted to get back to the name issue as soon as Dawn sauntered back to the table. “Better? Good. Alora is staying Alora but Ray’s idea has merit because he’s my son so obviously more right than anybody else except me.” He dropped his head for a few seconds while he brought points together. “Anything Alora said on KidTalk doesn’t matter because the context can be manipulated.” Alora made eyes-up-to-heaven at the word ‘manipulated’. “The bods in marketing have overstepped their boundaries but they may have a technical point – we’ve become so into what we’ve been doing over the years that we all take the monicker Alora Trinity for granted. Alora, I know what you said but what do you think about this really?”

Alora looked distinctly but quietly and justifiably angered. “Fucking well pushed around again!” She growled. “I can go with suddenly becoming a generic European to a certain extent. A more exotic me. We all know that changing it completely to please the whadycallit, the marketing mob would mean starting all over again – no good for me. It may be a made-up name but it’s mine. Bloody hell, I was only sixteen when the name chose itself and now I’m stuck with it and I know it’s going to sound a bit silly as I get older, but bollocks I’ve done it now and I’m used to it.”

Ray looked quizzical again. “Sixteen? Do tell, what’ve I missed?”

“Genuinely, not the foggiest!” Chalk had his fingers in his ears.

Alora sniggered at the sight. “Maybe one day Ray, it’s complicated.”

Chalk took his fingers out of his ears and looked up. “I think what the marketing mob have done is nothing more than remembered” – he made quote fingers – “that bands and singers have reinvented themselves in the past to get over humps. Why the hell didn’t they approach Alora herself?”

“My guess is they knew what sort of answer they’d get!” Offered Ray.

“Bang on mate,” said Alora.

Dawn re-entered the conversation. “Nuts, I’ll tell them to get knotted. Golden Throne kinda left the ball in my court anyway. Fucked up our evening, but that’s the sort of thing that happens from time to time. Pointless.”

The following day Alora, Chalk and Dawn bade farewell to Ray and headed to JFK for their Heathrow flight. Dawn saluted America through the porthole as the ’plane coasted along the runway: “We’ll be back!”

“We’d better,” said Alora, “I might have collaborative plans for Ray.” Chalk was sitting in the middle aisle and didn’t hear that comment.

Alora and the team had been back in the UK to put several club events and a joint-headliner at the O2 Arena under her belt. It was a good income and a taste of success that she was still getting used to, however she had reservations about her fans’ responses and what the general public still thought of her. Ray had called her twice to let her know that she was still being talked about in a positive way in America. Alora held the suspicion that might have more to do with Ray chatting her up to his own friends in the business than anything she’d done while in the US.

Dawn, who’d been active in the background on a new US deal thanks to Alora’s previous success over there, broke some welcome news during a meeting with Alora and Chalk.

“I’ve had an offer to get you back to America. I had a call yesterday from our fixer in the New York office who wants to put you on a retainer for a six month contract to play one concert a week with an option to extend. Three months west coast and three east coast. What do you think as if I didn’t know?”

“What’s the offer?” asked Chalk quickly, anxious to get in before Alora, on the verge of a reply, could make any comment.

“Difficult to pin down, but in round figures the income could reach maybe £300,000-ish in real money. Remuneration depends on pull and, I forgot to mention, they want an album ready for distribution after the first three months – which they reckon they can sell easier than cocaine to Wall Street, so figure that into the daily grind. You’re going to be busy writing and recording when you aren’t performing. And a lot of travelling… Alora, I’ll be blunt. Keep it together, another KidTalk will finish you forever.” Dawn looked from one to the other expectantly. Alora looked at Chalk. Chalk looked at an invisible poker hand.

Alora didn’t like bing reminded that she had to keep it in check, whatever that ‘it’ was. But she was increasingly confident in herself that she wouldn’t go bananas again. And this was the opportunity to get her Black Saturday album made.

It was Alora’s decision to make but Chalk’s mind was made up. “Do you want to do it Alora? You’ll be spending pretty much all your time over there. Obviously I like it in career terms but it’s up to you. They love repententant people in America and your Mary Field interview created a lot of empathy. That and those concert dates where you showed an approachable side – I knew you had one. Just as importantly, your musicality fits in with what’s happening there right now. You’ll be like Celine Dion!”

Dawn chipped in again. “Yes, well not quite, you and Celine Dion are chalk and cheese but you're following a similar path, except you write your own material these days. Give it a little time to sink in and you’ll be making more money from publishing rights than anything else. A lot of organisations will want their fingers in your pie so let Polyversal’s suits get on with that, it’s what they're paid for more or less by you. You could become pretty well off, sometimes the higher you climb in this business the fewer money concerns you have. It’ll be up to you to make that ‘sometimes’ happen.”

“Fingers in my pie? You could’ve put that better. Of course I want to do it! Who the fuck wouldn’t? I felt accepted over there. Over here I feel like I’m still fighting that KidTalk horror, actually we all know that all of us are. Yeah shit, when do we leave!”

On her own later: “Oh the irony,” she mumbled to herself. “America. Where my parents wanted to send me anyway.”

TRACK FIVE

The United States. The land of opportunity, redemption and deserted, forgotten pasts. Chalk shared Alora’s obvious joy at being somewhere else, a place where events came and went like buses and were just as quickly dismissed from mind. Now Alora was here, quite likely for the majority of her public career. He almost shed a tear at his own memories of the 60s and 70s when he and his fellow Brits said “this is it!” with a sense of wonder the second they stepped down on the tarmac. Getting booked for concerts like the Isle of Wight was great, but Monterey, Woodstock… playing in them or just in the audience, those really were the days. Had a lucky miss with Altamont thankfully.

Polyversal had arranged rental of a small property in Baldwin Park. Alora choked when Dawn told her the rent was upwards of $3,000 a month. “Don’t worry, it’s only $18,000 for the duration of your contract and tax deductible! Besides, it’s being paid for through the label. Just don’t have any wild parties.”

“Parties, me? Like hell.” Looking around the bungalow, Alora wanted to know how this worked – as if she couldn’t guess. “So who’s really paying for it? Me or Polyversal?”

Dawn cleared her throat. “Well, you are. You’re the earner, Polyversal is the organiser, managing the whole shebang. The money flows into the label, they strip off their bit and pass the rest on to you, minus taxes of course so you don’t have to worry about that.” She decided to give up a relatively useful figure before being asked. “Based on projected gross income, about $75,000 roughly speaking to cover your stay, miscellaneous expenses et cetera. It might, err, vary a little. You can opt for Polyversal to continue administering your income or you can take the knocks of paying your own tax, but I wouldn’t recommend that…”

Alora understood that alright. Chalk had always kept her up to date with her accounts before and after signing with Polyversal – keeping a tax investigation at bay was a vital part of leaving her childhood where it was. She looked straight at Dawn. “Yes quite, I’ll follow the label way. I daresay I’ll still make a wedge.”

“Indeed. You’re well on your way!”

24 venues over six months. Sounds like a lot but only one a week and she knew she could manage that easily, plus a couple of days in the studio each week to make the promised post-tour Black Saturday album left spare days to plan her schedule. Alora and her team did their homework on the venues and planned ahead which kept her in control, she wasn't under any stress mentally or vocally.

Ray's happy-go-lucky lifestyle suited her perfectly. When he wasn't teaching guitar his band was playing nightclubs or making his own recordings but he still had time to enjoy with Alora and willingly accommodated her schedule with no complaints. He knew the score. There was however an awkward moment when he pointed out that Black Saturday would inevitably get abbreviated to BS.

“Oh fuck! You’re right!” Alora took a deep breath. “How could I have missed that! You know what, I don’t care. Besides, it’s kind of fitting.”

That aside, finally Alora felt that the time had arrived when she was on top of everything and her life was working out even though she was part of a plan made by multiple people working on her behalf. “Working for me, well fuck, that’s a peculiar feeling. Onward and upward.”

Alora’s re-creation had taken far longer than Chalk had hoped for, although in truth he’d enjoyed riding along on her coat tails. He had gradually diminished his role to friend and advisor, leaving business decisions to Polyversal and trusting Alora’s sense of what felt right to her. He was a comfortable, reassuring presence in her life, like having a real dad and Alora was happy to cough up his expenses and bung him a very large drink.

For his part Chalk was still gathering feathers from Alora’s wings into his bank account through his contracts with Polyversal, but he also knew that he was earning it and his steadying influence and experience was smoothing the road ahead for her, with the big plus of spending time with his son. He was well aware of Alora’s daughterly feelings about him but the time was right to snap out. Bouncing between England and America was far more knackering for him nowadays. It took almost as long to get from New York to Los Angeles as it did to get from London to New York. The excitement had withered and in his heart he wanted to go home and park his arse for a while.

Alora, Dawn, Branden and Chalk were sitting around a black desk in a white room in Polyversal’s New York office. All the rooms here were decorated in black and white. The London A&R team usually spent one month a year in the US co-ordinating with their stateside colleagues as physically getting together was so much more efficient than webchats when it came to business brainstorming.

Chalk had something to say. “This will be my last meeting with all of you. The thing is kiddies it’s been a decades-long ride for me and now that my final triumph is galloping up the hill under her own steam, this is the time for me to jump off the cart. You knew I’d be on my way soon, well today’s the day. I sent Golden Throne a note a few weeks ago.”

Alora knew it was going to happen, just not so suddenly. “Galloping? I’m a shire mare am I? Never mind. You’re gonna leave me with these two?”

“Well thanks!” Branden and Dawn in sync.

“No really I wish you’d change your mind. It won’t feel right.”

“Alora, I’m a spare lemon at a squeezing party nowadays. I’ve been easing myself out with less and less to do and it’s all under control with these two. Anyway I’m sure you’ll find time to spend with mini-me Ray while you’re living here! Anne and I will be back in the US soon as well, at least for a month next time, so you haven’t quite got rid of me… see you when I’m a civilian.”

Chalk got up to shake hands with Brendan and Dawn, walked round to Alora, gave her a cuddle and looked in her eyes for just the right amount of time. “Everyone hates long-winded goodbyes, so all the best girl. Boom-tish!”

And without a backward glance Chalk Rivers had left the building.

Alora Trinity’s life and career were hers. Well, hers and Polyversal’s.

The tour was a huge success both personally and critically. Demand looked to be stretching into a future she could never have imagined a few years ago.

The Black Saturday album had sold its way through the roof, Alora was pretty sure she couldn’t duplicate that success again and to be honest with herself she didn’t want to. The guilt that drove that album’s creation was something she would never be able to shake off. Through Polyversal she arranged to anonymously donate fifty percent of Black Saturday’s gross income spread across children’s charities back in England.

After Polyversal had arranged Alora’s solid entry into the US market and Chalk had left, his management style fell into the hands of Polyversal’s A&R who saw no reason to change and did their best to work within it. Over the years she’d come to realise what a great friend Chalk had really been. In the end it was like that scene in ‘The World Is Not Enough’ when out of the blue Q said “always have an escape plan” and simply dropped out of sight, although Q didn’t cuddle Bond. Maybe he should have. She was well aware that her awful appearance on KidTalk had been a bad time for him and the label, but even after that Chalk had given her friendship and sympathy and saw her through the months afterwards, doing what he could to re-ignite and re-engineer her career alongside her own efforts. A little control yes, but maybe necessary.

Alora’s team at Polyversal knew all about the psychological traumas musicians go through, attempting to scrub them away from the paths of their charges. They were more than grateful to Chalk Rivers for what he’d done and wished he was still there to troubleshoot the occasional blip across their roster but since retiring he’d been steadfast in not wanting to go anywhere near the music biz in any professional way ever again.

Chalk’s buddy-place in Alora’s life was largely filled by his son Ray, who somehow always managed to be around when she needed a leaning-post or a little advice on the local manners every now and again. Naturally Alora knew what was going through his mind and she gleefully led him on to the point where she began to wonder if, in the broader terms of her life, she was a user and controller now – was this a manifestation of selfishness? Well, things happen, she rolled with it, so did her team and Ray who was remarkably unselfish and had a lot of patience with her.

Somehow Chalk, with Dawn and Branden – well maybe not so much Branden – had convinced the label into doing things his way and she was forever grateful. Then Chalk was gone. One of the few people, if not the only one most of the time, who’d believed in her. And actually liked her just for being herself, fuck knows why. His son Ray was like his dad, a fun man although a bit more fun in a far different way to spend quality time with.

TRACK SIX

Alora was staying in her very underused London flat just before starting her third three-year contract at The Colosseum in Caesars Palace. Quite an achievement for an entertainer still in her thirties! She could barely believe how far she’d come or how much she’d changed as a person since that day in the East End when Chalk had collared her.

She’d taken a couple of breaks in London for a month or so between Caesars’ contracts to continue writing and recording, still under the aegis of Polyversal. By this time Dawn was Golden Throne at the label’s London office and Brendan had moved into film production. BitchBabs was still Alora’s favourite producer.

In spite of any claim by Chalk to the contrary, Alora would bet a year’s income on Chalk’s Big Bollocks Bible still existing and kept up to date just in case. Perhaps she’d take a shot at management herself some day and he’d let her borrow it. Through his visits to Ray she’d kept an eye on him, although due to various committments she hadn’t seen him as often she’d like when he and Anne visited the US.

She and Ray spent what free time they had together and she was looking forward to returning to the US to get back into her life, a life she finally enjoyed.

Right now though, having her eyes tested at an opticians in Kensington High Street, Alora was feeling embarrassed. “Glasses, really? I’m only thirty-five, well thirty-six in a couple of days.” The young optician said “You’re lucky, a lot of people are practically born with bad eyesight.” She told Alora to rest her forehead against the support and the gizmo flashed a puff of air into Alora’s eyes. As she faced the optician again she quipped “Now I’ll never get them off!”

“Get what off?” asked the gizmo operator.

“David Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth. His lenses were stuck on after the x-ray.” The optician gave her a blank look. “Hmmm, never mind, it doesn’t matter.” So much for that. Probably too young to have heard of David Bowie. Shit! Equipped to see the world a little sharper, she felt silly wearing glasses for the first time.

Back in her Kensington flat, she picked up the landline. “Okay, Ray Rivers – this is your lucky day. Late afternoon in California, I’ll give you a ring… hi Ray, it’s me! Just giving you a shout to let you know we’ve got things to do together when I get back. How about a duet? I’ve got some decent material stored up.”

“Yeah Alora, sounds great. I’ll pick you up at the airport, get you settled back in and set up some studio time. By the way, there’s a secret birthday party lined up for you by one of the clubs.”

“Nuts, you know I’m not a party girl. Sounds yuk, do I have to be there? Hey wait a mo, how did they know when my birthday is? No-one is supposed to know.”

“Err – yes, sorry… well think of it as publicity. I knew you’d hate it, although I let slip about your birthday this shindig wasn’t my idea so I figured you’d better be aware. Bit of a cash-in on their part I reckon.”

“Gawd, you nit, stand by for a slap! Okay Ray, thanks for the heads-up, see you in a few days.” Alora rang off. Birthday party, really? Very indiscreet of Ray, even though it was a date invented by her, moved a few weeks away from her real birthday… just in case of something like this happening. Well, never mind, she had some new material to add to her discography with Ray this time. Should be good fun.

“Chalk’s son, heh. There’s something in that bloodline, got very similar personalities. Reckon I might make plans for Ray Rivers.”

Looking forward to seeing Ray, returning to Las Vegas and even being forced to celebrate her thirty-sixth birthday, Alora decided to use her remaining London days for a rest. Feeling sleepy she yawned, tuned into a dopey film on the telly, stretched out on the sofa and fell asleep.

The autopsy on Alora’s body revealed a congenital faulty heart valve which, after nearly thirty-six years and creating only one bad time in her life, had suddenly failed completely causing instant death from loss of blood to her brain.