Get Into The Light: Chapter Twenty- Why do Famous Dance Acts Never Suffer with Toilet Problems?

The day of the gig was upon us. Carl had developed severe toilet problems. And I had tried several times to knock myself out on the corner of the kitchen cupboard. Worse than both of these things together, Miss Ellen had finally spoken to Carl and told him she was leaving the band and joining Zarzar. Zarzar were more professional, they took their performances seriously, they rehearsed (three times a week) and had offered her a role writing lyrics for the band which meant she could now express herself in a more meaningful manner (‘I mean you have to admit the line ‘Get Into The Light’ is a bit of cliché no?’ she had said just before saying farewell). And it was hard to be bitter because had I been in the same position, I would have done the same thing (especially as we hadn’t really let her play a pivotal role in the first video and had criticised her costume ideas). But Miss Ellen was different to me because she was one of those unique individuals who would probably end up being world famous. She wasn’t worried about upsetting people or moving on when the time came. In contrast we lived in the hope that things would just fall together when it mattered- we didn’t buy into the idea of rehearsing and taking things seriously, perhaps partly because the moment we started trying too be professional, it soon became evident that the act didn’t hang together. There was no overarching theme when it came to Cyberia- no one idea or insight- instead it was a bit like watching a bunch of individuals fight their way out of a giant paper bag.

‘It’s really the last thing we needed,’ Carl said on his seventh visit to the bathroom that morning.
‘Maybe Lynette can sing instead?’ I said.
‘Are you insane?’ he said pacing up and down the tiny box-like apartment, ‘ You’ll have to do it.’
‘I can’t!’ I said, ‘I can just about manage to speak but sing? It’ll never work. I’ll be a disaster.’
‘Well we’ll have to think of something. We can’t back out now,’ Carl said, ‘And what’s that big lump on your forehead?’
‘I knocked it on the cupboard.’
‘It looks like a giant boil.’
‘You’re not making me feel good about myself.’
‘Sorry. I’m just nervous. I want it to all go smoothly and it seems like everything is conspiring against us right now.’

I’d never seen Carl in this state of anxiety before. He was usually pretty calm- the type of person that rolled with the punches. Of course during my insanity side-project, he’d been tense but that was normal. What person wouldn’t get stressed if their girlfriend was delusional and didn’t let them sleep through the night? I studied the lump in the mirror. It looked like a small mouse was growing out of my forehead. Maybe if I just drew some whiskers on it I’d get away with it. But my image was the last thing I had to worry about- the idea of singing in front of an audience of people was terrifying. I had to just put it out of my mind for now and try to breath steadily, take each moment at a time. That was easier said than done.
‘I don’t feel well,’ I said, patting more concealer onto my head.
Instead of making it less obvious, it enhanced the lump, making it luminescent.
‘There isn’t room for any sickness today,’ Carl said, heading towards the bathroom, ‘I’ve got a lot on my hands and just won’t hear of it.’
He walked rapidly back to the bathroom and I turned the radio up to cover up the horrible gurgling sounds that came from behind the door. Selecting one of Carl’s paisley neckties from the back of the door, I tied it round my forehead. It didn’t work. I took it off again and engineered my fringe so it swooped over one eye so as long as I didn’t move my head, things would be fine. Bobby chose this moment to drop a small parcel of grey poo on my shoulder. Luckily I hadn’t changed into my outfit yet and the dressing gown was covered in the stuff anyway. I wiped it away with the back of my hand and lit a cigarette. THE MARCANTI PLAZA. I thought about ringing Miss Ellen and begging her to re-join the band. We hadn’t even had a proper farewell gig – surely it made sense for her to have a big send off rather than popping up with no proper closure, as Zarzar’s new singer. And what about Zarzar’s current singer? How did she feel about Miss Ellen suddenly joining the band? Perhaps I could stir things up a bit if I could just get her contact details. And I couldn’t help thinking that it wasn’t only Bob van Veen who was involved in this development. Wasn’t it peculiar that Pete had started a ‘heavy flirtation’ with Miss Ellen and wouldn’t it be a good way of getting back at Lynette if she was made to look a complete tool in front of thousands of people? I hated Pete and had no idea why I’d sat and listened to him, sympathised with him, even tried to suggest to Lynette that it would be better for them to get back together. He hadn’t changed. He was a vengeful loser who deserved to be permanently sewn into a penguin suit and never set free.
‘Lola- Lola. Can you go to the chemist and get some Rennie’s?’ Carl shouted breaking through the different ways I wanted to torture Pete and pay him back for this awful betrayal.

The Marcanti Plaza did not look quite how I’d expected. I’d never really been to a super-club before, hadn’t sampled nightlife in Ibiza and was used to intriguing, relatively small and quirky types of spaces; not a venue that looked like a nineteen seventies sports centre. There were no lights outside (this wasn’t unusual of course as many clubs were pretty anonymous from the outside) but there wasn’t even a poster announcing the fact that one of the most momentous gigs in Dutch dance history was to take place inside the grey, concrete walls. Wasn’t Forest supposed to be doing publicity for this gig? It didn’t seem out of the realms of possibility that Zarzar wouldn’t bother showing if there was no audience to play to and we’d end up looking like total losers – the one, amateur dance act with no credible singer who played to an audience consisting of a barman and a cleaning lady. But things started to improve once we got inside. Forest was at the door waiting for us and it was obvious, preparations were taking place - there were crates of water being stacked up behind the bar, smoke machines being wheeled into the main room (which was quadruple the size of the Paradiso) and assorted roadies tinkling with equipment on stage.
‘Have we got our own roadies now?’ I said with amazement.
‘Not really. Charles and Eddie are going to sort that out,’ Forest said, ‘It’s better that they do it anyway. Otherwise we might be the victim of sabotage.’
‘Do you really think Zarzar would sink that low?’ I said.
‘I’m not ruling it out. It’s a very tense atmosphere. Can’t you feel it? It’s going to be one of those rare evenings where we finally witness another Dutch renaissance. I’m so excited I’ve barely slept for days!’
Forest licked his lips, wrapped one arm round my shoulders and squeezed.
‘What’s that thing on your forehead?’ he said peering down.
I flicked my fringe back over to one side.

The dressing room was a bit cramped and smelt like talcum powder and old men’s socks. But on the bright side, it was OUR OWN DRESSING ROOM. It even had our name stuck on the door (written in biro on a piece of paper but who cared?) There wasn’t any catering but someone had provided a few peanuts in a bowl (never eat these unless you’ve washed all the hands that have foraged in there yourself) and some mineral water.
Forest was at the bar organising drinks. Lynette and the others had arrived (Lynette looking even more drained) and we could hear the excitable voices of Zarzar’s dancer’s coming from the dressing room adjacent to ours. Next we heard a voice we all recognised- it was Miss Ellen, doing her vocal warm ups. How had she even had time to learn all of Zarzar’s songs?
‘What happened to their old singer?’ I said to Forest as Carl held a bath towel up so I could get changed behind it.
‘She moved to London. It was rather fortunate timing. They needed someone to step in immediately and obviously Miss Ellen didn’t hesitate.’
‘Well we don’t know that. She was pretty apologetic on the phone,’ Carl said, ‘I think she found it a tough decision.’
‘Nonsense,’ Eddie said rolling his eyes, ‘We should never have hired her. There are hundreds of great singers in Amsterdam and we gave her an amazing opportunity and she literally threw it in our faces.’
‘Zarzar are a more prestigious act,’ Forest said, ‘I heard that Underworld even name-checked them in an interview. That’s pretty incredible.’
Eddie shrugged his shoulders.
‘I hope she realises her mistake when we go straight into the Top Twenty Dance Charts at number one and stay there for three months.’
‘We’re already at number fifteen so don’t think we can go in at number one Eddie,’ Carl said.
‘Well that’s pretty good,’ I said pulling the T-shirt over my head and wondering why I had such terrible misgivings about my outfit.
It had looked pretty good back at the flat but here, with all these bright lights and the unforgiving mirrors, I just looked silly. Just like the band, it had no coherent theme. But perhaps that was the idea- you needed to not over-think everything and go with your gut. But even my gut said that I looked silly and should have bought an alternative with me.
‘Has anyone seen where the toilet is?’ Carl shouted into the hallway, slamming the door behind him.
‘We should have practiced,’ I said, ‘I still don’t know how to sing properly.’
‘At least you know the words,’ Eddie said, ‘Right I’m going to check that Charles has got all the stuff set up okay.’
He disappeared down the hall. Just thinking about what awaited us upstairs was unbearable. And Zarzar (from the sound of it) had a whole warm up routine in place.
‘We should probably do some limbering up before we go on,’ I said bending my elbow behind my head.
This made my T-shirt ride up so you could basically see a pair of shattered black tights just about covering the girth of my Discus thrower’s thighs. I looked over at Lynette who so far hadn’t moved and was sitting in an office chair facing the wall. I went over to see if she was okay, at least to cheer her up with my outfit, show her that yet again, she’d look more fantastic than me but it didn’t work and she just stared impassively straight ahead. Eventually she rooted through her bag and started to pull out some sparkly leggings and a pair of platforms but then put them back inside again.
‘I don’t see the point,’ she said.
Joost had turned up separately to Lynette and was lurking in the opposite corner sipping on a beer. I couldn’t quite understand what he was doing here except Forest said he was taking photographs for an interview that hadn’t been commissioned but would happen as soon as we finished this gig and our names went into the dance history books. At the moment he was a bit higher in my estimation than Pete but that didn’t mean much as I’d come to the conclusion that Pete was the real reason the gig was going to be a disaster. In fact as soon as I saw him, I would tell him my real feelings and from now on I’d do whatever I could do actively discourage Lynette from getting back together with him.

‘Hello!’
At that moment, Miss Ellen span into the room, wearing a long, green velvet cape, mustard coloured hat, jodhpurs, thigh high boots and an eye mask. Lynette turned in her chair to face her.
‘You look like a fat Robin Hood,’ she said.
Carl appeared and stood in the doorway.
‘What are you doing here?’ he said.
He had a sheen of sweat on his face. I only hoped he hadn’t taken E. Already his stomach was completely ruined. There was no way we’d get through a forty minute performance without him having to run off to the bathroom again.
Miss Ellen laughed.
‘What are you dressed as?’ she said looking at my extremely ill-chosen Debbie Harry inspired outfit.
‘Don’t have a go at Lola,’ Forest said, ‘You’re not even part of this band anymore.’
‘I was actually going to say something nice. I think you look great. Finally you’re getting your own style together instead of doing whatever she tells you to do,’ Miss Ellen pointed at Lynette, ‘You’re going to be fine if you carry on with that attitude.’
‘Why don’t you go back to your own dressing room?’ Lynette said.
‘I just wanted to wish you all luck.’
Lynette scowled at Miss Ellen and I knew what was coming next could only be bad because the whole gig was jinxed and pre-destined to go wrong. The fact that we’d made a single in the first place was incredible. We should have quit whilst we were ahead. Now we just had to figure out how to leave the venue without anyone noticing and go home whilst we still had our dignity intact. I was happy being a cleaner. At least as a cleaner you could shut yourself away from drama like this. There was nothing I fancied doing more right now than cleaning a dirty toilet, taking my cash and then going home to watch Turner & Hooch.
‘I thought you might like to say ‘Hi’ to Pete,’ Miss Ellen said pulling her hat down and examining her reflection in the full-length mirror.
‘What’s Pete doing in your dressing room?’ Lynette said.
‘He’s probably just doing some promotional work,’ I said starting to pack up my things and wondering whether to bother changing or if I could get away with going home on the tram with a coat over the top.
‘Didn’t you know we’re going out together?’ Miss Ellen said.
Joost left the room. This was just confirmation of what an unbelievable chicken he was. Carl raised his eyebrows and also left. Forest starred at the two women waiting to see what would happen next. I couldn’t quite believe that Carl had gone but at least he seemed to be reacting normally (rather than telling everyone how much we really loved one another) and we could have a regular evening rather than me having to wait hours until he came back to Earth and transformed back into the Carl I liked. Was it ‘liked’? Wasn’t it supposed to be ‘loved’? I couldn’t think about that right now.
‘Pete wouldn’t go out with you. You’re a monster,’ Lynette said, her voice trembling.
Eddie popped his head round the door.
‘Charles has almost got everything set up. We’re going on right after ‘Dragon Seven’. It’s already getting busy out there!’
Everyone ignored him and he had the common sense to duck back out again and disappear. I took a hair clip and secured my fringe in place so there was no way the lump was coming out. I wondered if the organisers would be angry if we failed to perform. Then I wondered if I could remember any of the words to the songs Miss Ellen used to sing. Even though I’d written them myself, they’d been written in a fug and were never ideas that I truly believed in- words were simply selected because they rhymed with one another- I didn’t care if we danced in a trance or wanted romance. I certainly didn’t mind if we had the will to sit still and take a pill. Perhaps this was another reason why we’d never be successful like Zarzar. I bet they had a proper lyricist who really put some thought into their lyrics. My lump started to pulsate. Miss Ellen was still staring at her reflection. Lynette hadn’t moved. Nobody was speaking. Eventually a sniffling sound came from Lynette, followed by a low wail. I’d been so distracted by the performance that I’d forgotten the human drama unfolding here in the room. Why couldn’t I use this to inspire lyrics that really meant something? Why couldn’t I just be authentic and real? I went over to Lynette, knelt next to the chair and put my arms around her. She smelt sour like she hadn’t washed the party of two weeks ago off. Of course Lynette was upset about Miss Ellen and Pete. It wasn’t entirely unreasonable that Pete had found someone else but he was still a traitor and playing a game, trying to split the band up and get back at Lynette in the most obvious way possible. And Lynette had just been on the cusp of trying to fix things with Pete, hadn’t even considered the possibility that Pete might have moved on to someone else. She’d simply expected to go back to Pete with no problems and resume where they’d left off. Miss Ellen turned on her heel and left. Why had she chosen this moment, right before we went on stage to break the news of her relationship with Pete? She was somewhere higher than Joost and still above Pete because she’d paid me a compliment and said I looked good in my outfit but she was certainly creating unnecessary heat and drama at the worst possible time. So despite everything, I hoped that her career with Zarzar was a short one and she’d hopefully trip over her cape and fall head first into the crowd, who would immediately separate when they saw her and she’d land head first on the concrete floor.

‘I can’t believe Pete is going out with her. Did you know about this?’ Lynette said looking up into my face.
I turned and noticed that everyone had left. They were all relying on me to sort this mess out. Didn’t they realise I was secretly planning the quickest route home? My face must have shown that I’d had an inkling of what was going on because Lynette gasped, pushed me away and rushed out, almost knocking over Carl who was standing, sweaty in the hallway. Where was Pete now? Was he happy now that Lynette was completely devastated? And why couldn’t I remember the song that I was supposed to speak out loud? I’d done it a hundred times in my head before but now each time I tried to recall how it went, I instead heard the music from the Benny Hill show when the films speeded up and he runs after naked women, then pats the old, bald man on the head.

‘Come on Lynette. Come out. We have to be on stage in ten minutes.’
Lynette had locked herself in the toilet.
The music from the first band was pounding through the ceiling from the stage upstairs. They sounded better than us. Why hadn’t I left when I had the chance? I adjusted the hair clip again because the lump was peaking out. If I just lay down on the floor, would people believe I had a proper concussion and couldn’t go on stage?
‘I can’t believe Pete is going out with that PIG!’ she shouted through the door.
‘You’re not even dressed properly Lynette. You don’t want her to see you like this do you? The best thing you could do right now is wash your face, go into the dressing room, get ready and then do the best performance of your life. Imagine how she’ll feel then? And Pete- he’ll be gutted too when he realises what he’s sacrificed.’
‘You knew and you didn’t say anything.’
I thought again about the concussion option. I started to crouch and then put my cheek up against the cool floor tiles. It was easy enough to just lie down now.
‘I wasn’t sure, I said, ‘I thought perhaps they’d swapped numbers. I had no idea they were actually going out.’
‘But she’s so fat,’ Lynette said sobbing.
‘Lynette. Fat people are still attractive,’ I said lying down properly now, ‘It’s not a crime that she’s over a size ten.’
‘It’s disgusting. Pete’s lost his mind. He always loved my figure. All his girlfriends have been skinny. He said you were fat when he first met you.’
Pete was now on my list of truly heinous dictators, murderers and abusers. I’d actually tried to be nice to him! Everyone was conspiring against me. If I hadn’t sampled insanity so recently, I would have flirted with it now. Any minute now we were going on stage- performing at THE MARCANTI PLAZA. And Lynette wasn’t in her outfit and I was lying with my face smooched up against dirty shoe prints and pee stains.
‘What about Joost?’ I said, ‘You slept with him first. What did you expect Pete to do? Forgive you and take you back?’
The thought of the pee stains and what not was making me feel queasy so I pushed myself up, walked into the cubicle next-door, climbed up on the toilet and peered down. Lynette was sitting, knickers round her ankles. She was sniffing white powder off the back of her hand. She wasn’t crying. She was taking drugs.
‘Lynette come out!’ I said.
She looked up and she really did look terrible, like she’d been embalmed.
‘But I love Pete so much!’ she wailed, wiping her nose again.
I looked up at the ceiling in despair. Carl suddenly appeared and told us we had to be on stage in two minutes. He did nothing to make that happen and seemed to expect me to work some sort of miracle on Lynette (and myself because let’s face it I was thinking of running away too). I tried the next tactic. Emotional blackmail.
‘Please Lynette. Please come out. I’ve been relying so much on this one gig. It’s the one thing that’s going right at the moment after all the madness and being so ill. I don’t know what I’ll do if it doesn’t happen.’
The lock turned and the door started to open. And in the end, there was no time for Lynette to change her clothes and no time for me to run away (well there was but I couldn’t, I had to see this out, there was no escape now, I knew that much). There was just enough time to grab her arm and drag her up the stairs. I wiped underneath her eyes with the bottom of my shirt and adjusted her hood top so it hung of one shoulder.

We both looked like we were ready for a rehearsal but not the real thing.

The crowd went silent. The stage was black. I clutched Lynette’s sweaty hand. The drugs had turned her mood into stony anger. In another half an hour she would be back to crying. Not for me the anesthetising effect of drugs or alcohol. This was pure and unadulterated fear- like how you’d feel just before you got your head gnawed off by a wild bear or ran into the road and saw a tram one metres away pressing down on you or when you were just about to sing for the first time and you couldn’t remember any of the words you’d written because they didn’t have any meaning. And on top of it all I could see Bob van Veen and Zarzar watching with the guy from Underworld. If I wasn’t mistaken they were smaning already. Well, at least when we failed we would do it in one swoop and there would be no way of entertaining silly ideas about being a revolutionary Dutch dance act again. No promoters would book us. Forest would have to cancel the record deal and all the singles would be recalled and put into storage in a fish finger factory.

The first chords of ‘I Call Upon’ started. I couldn’t get the Benny Hill tune out of my head. Why was this happening? I didn’t even like the Benny Hill show. There were professional dancers poised on podia ready to go the moment the song really kicked in. I made my way to the microphone, pulling Lynette onto the stage and looking behind to check that Charles, Eddie and Carl were all there. Forest was right at the front, licking his teeth compulsively. All he wanted was for us to be fantastic. He’d worked hard to try and make it happen. So had Carl. So had Charles and Eddie. A cheer went up as I took the mike from the stand and held it up to my mouth. I closed my eyes and started speaking the words which had somehow managed to fly back into my consciousness, chasing the Benny Hill tune away and I was actually speaking quite calmly, taking proper breaths in- between each line so I didn’t collapse, I then managed to walk to the front of the stage and look down at some of the people in the front row, that started my heart hammering and I remembered the middle point of the crowd, to look right to the back so I could forget they were there, then when my eyes came back to the crowd and I actually looked at them, I realised they were dancing and some of them were clapping. They were dancing and clapping!

Slowly the fear, nerves, sickness lessened a bit. They were still there somewhere but there were other emotions more distracting right now. As the song went into a long instrumental bit, I looked over at Lynette who was dancing in a completely new way that I’d never seen before. Gone was the floaty, hippie nonsense, the flipping of the hair from side to side –replaced with pure aggression and anger. It was pretty mesmerising. Carl was enthusiastically banging away at the keyboards- he hadn’t run off stage to go to the toilet. Charles and Eddie were both hunched over the various machines that made the noise (yes my knowledge really was that basic. I had no idea where the music was coming from or how it happened. In fact Forest might have even said it was just a DAT machine playing again like before and the rest of the equipment was just for show). I closed my eyes and danced in my own sweet way, forgetting what the Zarzar dancers did or what I’d seen on MTV. I felt myself being carried away. I looked again at the audience. Okay they were all completely out of it but they were still dancing and hadn’t shuffled off to get a pint of water or empty their bowels.

Joost came into my field of vision. He held his camera up and took a photo. Later I would look at this photo and realise what he’d been trying to get out of me all along. Before I’d been too self-conscious, too inside my own head but that photograph captured me in the moment (and I would probably never experience it again). Whatever his faults, Joost managed to see that and I was grateful to him for giving me something to preserve that moment. But I was getting too complacent and distracted because the next song had started now – Get Into The Light- the one that Miss Ellen was so superb at singing and I had to at least try and sing… so I did. If this was a corny movie then this would be the bit when I open my mouth and a voice issues forth which is entirely wonderful, totally unexpected and the audience goes wild and bellows their support. But of course that didn’t happen. I’d done a pretty good job of the talking one but the singing one was a whole, different animal. Okay I remembered the words but I’d made a fundamental mistake and started in a very high key, even standing on tip toes, even with my neck projected as far forward as possible, it was difficult, nigh on impossible to maintain the same pitch. So I started the next verse an octave lower to see if that worked instead. Luckily the music was so loud, it was probably impossible to hear my voice anyway. And I was so side tracked, trying to get my voice the right pitch, I didn’t have time to be nervous. In fact even in these photographs, I look composed (as composed as can be expected on tip toes with a neck fully extended and then hunched over low as I realised it was now too low, much lower than any notes I could hope to reach). But again, people were responding, they were dancing and it wasn’t just the paid dancers it was all the others crammed up at the front and waiting to see Zarzar and Underworld. If Prince had been there, then he probably would have spotted my mistake and told me to start singing somewhere in the middle range instead. But I didn’t need Prince’s support because he had no idea who I was and probably never would (we were good but I had no delusions that we would ever be THAT famous). The surprising thing was I was sober, not running away and truly facing up to something terrifying. It was in fact nothing short of a miracle. Hildegard would have been proud too.

Luckily there wasn’t much singing after that. We had three or four instrumental songs and Lynette and I danced. I tried to mimic her moves but in the end, let her go to the front of the stage and was relieved to just shuffle about in my usual manner with most of the attention deflected onto her. When we finished, the crowd jumped up and down and as I looked to the side, I saw Bob Van Veen’s face flash with disappointment. We couldn’t have been bad at all.

‘I haven’t seen anything like that since Golden Earring in 75,’ Forest said back in the dressing room.
‘We were amazing!’ Carl shouted.
‘We gave Zarzar a hard act to follow,’ Eddie said.
‘I don’t think they’ll struggle but at least we didn’t embarrass ourselves,’ Charles said.
‘Did you enjoy it?’ Lynette asked looking at me.
She still had the same angry expression on her face.
‘I never thought I’d say this,’ I said, ‘But I actually did.’

Zarzar played well that night too. Miss Ellen gave the impression that she’d been in the band forever- there was not a note or a word wrong. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on our part but there seemed to be something missing. Now we looked at them with different eyes and could see the tiny errors that no one else noticed. Perhaps we even looked at them as one professional looks at another.
‘To Cyberia,’ Forest shouted as we opened the fifth bottle of champagne, ‘And here’s to finally becoming the best dance act in the NETHERLANDS!’
Pete tried to get into our dressing room and later seemed to be lurking around whenever we went out into the club to watch the other acts. I imagined that he was gutted that his plan to wreck the band had backfired so badly. If anything we’d flourished without Miss Ellen.

‘We’re pop stars now,’ I said drunkenly to Lynette in the toilet, ‘You can forget about all the men stuff. You were really good. I’ve never seen anyone dance like that. You forget yourself.’
Lynette didn’t reply. Despite our triumph, she still seemed subdued. She started to cry. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders. I could feel tears welling up in my own eyes – it was probably just the champagne, too much drink always made me maudlin.
‘How can you not be happy?’ I said, ‘What needs to happen for you to realise how lucky we are?’