Muskie's Big Break

It was so early in the morning that the only creatures awake on
Euston Road were the pigeons, the trench-coated traffic wardens, and a
small group of Japanese tourists who had misunderstood the time
difference between Osaka and London Heathrow. Standing now in total
bewilderment on the frosty pavement, they rubbed the backs of their
hands to keep them from turning blue and made futile attempts to
button-up wholly inadequate overcoats that were already as tightly
buttoned-up as they would go.

Muskie spread out his blanket under the poster that had come to
dominate his thoughts in recent weeks: ten feet tall and twenty long,
the image of the most beautiful girl in the world straddled the full
width of the steel archway above the northern entrance to Euston
Underground. Reclining on the grass amid a tumult of multi-coloured
flowers, her long straight raven-black hair poured over her bare
shoulders with a calculated casualness. Her soft, vulnerable, totally
adorable dark brown eyes peered down at him with an expression of
tenderness and a willingness to please that made his knees buckle if he
looked at her face for more than a few seconds. Her flimsy yellow dress
offered only a token concealment to the perfection of the curves that
formed her flawless slim figure. This was Muskie's goddess, the earthly
manifestation of the cosmic principle of beauty itself. It made his
heart ache to remember that in the distant past he had many times held
her in his arms, and she had satisfied the full hurricane of his
passion throughout endless blissful nights of soft endearments and
sweaty copulation. Who would ever believe it now? He was not sure that
he believed it himself. And yet it had happened.

Beneath the picture Muskie stepped out into the street to read for the
millionth time the words: "Clare Hanson's new album 'Songs of
Innocence' - Available in shops from October 15th - Clare Hanson's UK
tour begins October 19th - see her in London, Manchester,
Newcastle&;#8230;" the list went on and on, and in small print
beside each venue was a set of dates. London occupied the third week of
November, which started in two day's time.

Turning around and forcing his gaze away from the poster, nodding to
the shivering tourists who were still loitering uncertainly near the
station exit, he carefully positioned the upturned trilby hat on the
pavement beside him and pulled the cloth cover off his guitar. He had
staked out his position for the morning. After blowing into his fists
with a breath rendered perfectly visible by the frosty air, he
performed his ritual cold-weather finger-exercise which involved
bending and flexing every joint in a rhythmic, wave-like pattern to get
the blood flowing. Content that he was receiving some neural feedback
from these extremities he struck-up his first tune of the day. Muskie
never planned his programme of songs, he just let his fingers choose,
or at least that was the explanation he always gave if anybody asked.
This time his fingers chose a rather depressing Appalachian folk song
of doomed love. He let the story seep into his thoughts, the faultless
beauty of the young girl, the tenderness and purity of the love he bore
her, followed by the disbelief at her cruel betrayal:

Way down in yonder shady grove
A man of high degree
Conversing with my Flora there -
It seemed so strange to me.
And the answer that she gave to him it sore did me oppress
I was betrayed by Flora -
The lily of the West&;#8230;

He didn't make it to the knife-play, the trial and the love that still
persisted as the doomed man brooded in the condemned cell. Muskie's
eyes filled with tears. He stopped playing and leaned the guitar on the
wall beside him. Two of the Japanese tourists applauded politely.
Stupid fingers, he thought, imagine choosing something like that.

The first trickle of early-morning commuters began to spill out of the
station exit. One or two of them cast him odd sidewise glances as they
passed. Muskie dried his eyes discreetly on the backs of his hands,
rubbed his fingers together briskly to bring them back to life, and
retrieved the guitar. This time his fingers had the good sense to
choose something more distanced from his personal situation. It was the
solo guitar version of "California Dreaming".

As the flow of early commuters from the station increased slightly he
continued through the more cheerful part of his repertoire, never
daring to settle on anything by Leonard Cohen or the younger Paul
Simon, and most definitely nothing that he had written himself since
the ghost of his poster-girl haunted all of those. John Lennon's
"Imagine" was the most sentimental number that he was willing to risk.
Before too long he had completely regained his composure and prised his
mind off the past. Now all that he was experiencing was the familiar
illusion of invisibility as the endless line of shop and office workers
hurried by seemingly oblivious of his existence. The hat remained
stubbornly empty.

After the particularly demanding virtuoso ending of "House of the
Rising Sun" he paused and indulged in a moment of self-pity. He was
getting too old for this kind of thing, he told himself, it wasn't
working out. It was high time he did something with his life.
Something. But what?

As he thought these thoughts with bowed head he became aware that he
was staring down at a particularly well-polished pair of black leather
business-shoes, above which the legs of a very clean and
elegantly-tailored pair of dark blue trousers rose upwards and out of
shot. He lifted his head and found that he was looking into the face of
a Man of Importance. You could tell that he was important from the fact
that his shirt was light blue and clean and crisp and his tie
coordinated with it perfectly in a tasteful pattern of interlocking
blue and grey chevrons. From the fact that he had dark well-tended
sideburns and a tiny goatee beard at the bottom of his immaculately
shaved chin you could tell that he had half-formed Bohemian aspirations
and was almost certainly connected in some way with the entertainment
industry. He was staring at Muskie in a way that was difficult to
interpret. It seemed to contain elements of curiosity, disgust, and
most notably, superiority. He met Muskie's eyes for a substantial
fraction of a minute before he said anything.

"Are you the one they call the Musk-Rat?" he inquired, obviously trying
hard to conceal his distaste.

"Friends call me Muskie."

"Indeed. I have a communication for you." The man took a sealed letter
from his inside jacket pocket and flicked it casually into Muskie's
empty hat. The contempt contained in the gesture was not lost on
Muskie. "I suggest you read it&;#8230;" he was obviously about to
add "If you can read" but thought better of it. "You might find
something in it to your advantage."

Without another word the man turned and disappeared back into Euston
Underground. Muskie watched him out of sight before he lifted the hat
and its contents. He lowered himself into a seated position on the
blanket and picked up the envelope. It was a delicate pastel yellow in
colour, and to his considerable surprise it appeared to be scented. The
scent was familiar, but he hadn't smelled it for a very long
time.

ooOoo

Muskie hovered nervously along with the wives, girlfriends and children
in the anteroom to the prison-visiting suite. He seemed to be the only
adult male visitor in the group. It made him feel conspicuous and
started him worrying about whether or not he was respectably dressed.
Muskie possessed two pairs of jeans, one pair of grey trousers, two
long-sleeved T-shirts and two short-sleeved ones, so he did not have a
wide choice of apparel for the more formal occasions. The room was
over-heated by a large old-fashioned steel radiator and lacked
ventilation so that little rivulets of condensed moisture ran down the
insides of the windows and obscured the fields outside. The air smelled
stale and carried traces of a mixture of perfumes and ill-concealed
body odours. He was pleased when the metal inner door was opened by a
stern-faced uniformed guard.

"You've got forty minutes," he announced without emotion, "you will be
told when the last five minutes begins. Please leave the visiting area
promptly when requested to do so."

They filed in and Muskie took his place where an enormous overweight
man with perfectly round brass-rimmed spectacles and a stubbly blond
beard perched uncomfortably on the edge of a metal chair too small to
hold him. He waved his hand in salute as Muskie came up to the grille.
"Muskie, man, good to see you!"

"Good to see you too, Elk, How've you been keeping?"

"Okay. Putting on a bit of weight. Keeping my contacts active. Trying
to hold the business together from in here. It ain't easy, you know,
Muskie."

"No, I don't suppose it is," Muskie mused.

"Have you brought me anything, Muskie?" he asked in a more subdued
tone.

"Sort of," Muskie confided, taking a printed flyer out of his coat
pocket and carefully unfolding it. He took it over to the window where
the guard sat and asked him to hand it along to the Elk, which he did.
The Elk looked down at it and his eyes seemed to mist over. "Remember
Angel?" Muskie asked softly.

"Remember Angel? Are you kidding? What do you think goes through my
head all the time in here? Do I remember Angel!" He looked at the
picture and read the words on the little pamphlet. "Holy cow! She's as
beautiful as ever, isn't she Muskie?"

"She'll always be beautiful. It comes from inside."

"Wise words, Muskie, wise words. I'd give a lot to get to one of those
concerts, you know that? A lot."

"I know. But I think it's going to be a bit difficult, don't you? If I
get to talk to her I'll make your apologies, tell her you had a
previous engagement."

The Elk looked serious. "You might get to talk to her? Gee! That would
be really something. Really something." His expression became serious.
"Muskie, I hope you didn't feel bad about the nights Angel spent with
me. It didn't mean that she loved you any less, you know that, don't
you? She just had&;#8230; carnal needs. That was it. Unusual carnal
needs."

Muskie considered the theory. "Yeah. Guess so. It wasn't so much that
the needs themselves were unusual, she just seemed to have more of them
than a lot of other people."

"Yeah. That's it. I'm glad you don't feel bad about it. You shouldn't,
you know. She wasn't just banging me, that would have been infidelity.
She was banging her two flatmates, the TV repair guy, the grocery clerk
at the end of the road, the Asian guy in the petrol-filling
station&;#8230;"

"Yeah, yeah, you don't have to go on. I know all that. It didn't bother
me. Not really. But when she became the mascot for that Canadian hockey
team and wanted to spend the winter in Calgary, well I began to think,
is this really a meaningful relationship that I've got with this lady?
I mean, that was pushing the envelope a bit, don't you think?"

"Oh yeah. Those guys. I remember them. The trainer didn't want her to
go, you know. Said the guys were getting exhausted and skipping
training. Last I heard they were still sending her free season-tickets
every year&;#8230;"

"Elk, I don't want to go over all that again. It still hurts a bit, you
know? I want to get your advice about something else."

The Elk looked serious, and, in so far as he was able, paternal.

"Any time, Muskie, what can I do for you?"

Muskie took Angel's letter out of the same coat pocket and handed it to
the guard. "I'm supposed to read this before I pass it on," the guard
announced with an air of mild boredom.

"Can if you like," Muskie replied in a similar tone. It was the right
answer. The guard instantly passed the letter down to the Elk, who read
it avidly.

"That's bloody brilliant!" the Elk declared, "bloody brilliant! You're
one lucky son-of-a-bitch!"

"You think I should go then?"

"You're kidding me! Of course you should go! Why on earth would you not
go?"

"Well, I don't know, Elk. It could open up a lot of old wounds. I mean,
I never stopped&;#8230; thinking about her&;#8230;and feeling
things for her&;#8230; I don't know how I would be if I had to meet
her again and talk to her&;#8230;"

"Muskie, you're crazy! This is your big break. It might never happen
again. You've got an interview on national radio, a chance to sing two
songs (both of which you will be paid for) a chance to get your name
publicly linked with Clare Hanson&;#8230; Do you know how many
copies her albums sell?"

"Yeah. I guess. But you know me better than anybody else, Elk. Do you
think I can do it? Do you think I have enough control not to break down
in a situation like that? Be honest."

The Elk looked him squarely in the eyes. "Muskie, you and me, life
hasn't treated us all that well, has it? We've tried, real hard. We've
been kicked down and we've fought our way up again, because there was
nothing else for us to do. But every time we get kicked down it's just
that little bit harder to stand up again, ain't it? You know what I
mean? Of course you do. But now you've been given a chance. A real,
solid chance to make something of yourself. National radio. TV people
listening. Clare Hanson's agent and guys from her recording company
sitting right there in the studio listening to every note you play. And
you want to know if you should go through with it? Muskie, this is it.
This is your moment. You have to give it every last thing that you've
got, and then some. I'm going to be listening, Muskie, and I want you
to make me proud of you. Will you do that for me?"

ooOoo

Muskie had polished his black shoes and attempted, with limited
success, to iron his only pair of grey trousers. He wore his best
long-sleeved T-shirt, the blue one with the trendy circular
collar-hole, covered-up at present by the heavy black waterproof jacket
he had obtained for a fraction of its original price in a Stamford Hill
charity-shop. He had showered, shaved, and splashed on to his face some
perfumed astringent that he had been given as a Christmas present in
his late teens. The guitar's carrying-case had been washed in
Fairy-liquid and was now a lighter shade of blue than it had ever been
in the years that he had owned it. He felt elegant and presentable. He
also felt like throwing-up with blind terror.

"Can I help you, Sir?" the chillingly efficient-looking receptionist
inquired from behind her gleaming chromium-and-glass battlements.

"The Musk-Rat," he whispered feebly.

"I beg your pardon, Sir?"

"Muskie!" came a warm and familiar voice from behind him, "You look
fantastic!"

He turned around and there she was, stepping out of the lift in a long,
flowing low-cut yellow dress like the one she had worn the first day he
had laid eyes on her. Behind her stood goatee-beard-man, sneering.
Muskie's knees weakened. She didn't look a day older. Her eyes had
exactly the same irresistible vulnerable softness. Her beauty was
beyond description. He just wanted to take her in his arms&;#8230;
He did.

ooOoo

"Muskie," she urged, dabbing at his eyes with a piece of tissue that
goatee-beard-man had supplied, as the lift whisked them silently
upwards towards the studio, "You've got to stop crying. You can't do a
broadcast in this state."

"I'm fine," he mumbled, "absolutely fine. It was just&;#8230; seeing
you again like that&;#8230;"

"I know, Muskie. I've missed you too. I've thought about you a lot. We
had good times together, didn't we?"

"Good times?" He thought about the phrase. It seemed inadequate. "It
wasn't just good times. You were&;#8230; the best thing that ever
happened to me, Angel&;#8230;" Goatee-beard-man's sneer
intensified.

"Are you sure the format of this interview is going to work?" he asked
with an air of detached superiority.

"It'll be just fine," Angel assured him. "Muskie, you've got to be
clear what's going to come up here. You've got to listen to Ambrose.
Okay?"

"Ambrose? Is that really his name? Ambrose?"

"Yes," the other curtly confirmed, "now here's what we're going to do."
The lift had reached the correct floor and the door slid silently open.
Angel and Ambrose got out and started to stroll towards a door marked
"Studio 9 Pre-Production". Ambrose continued to talk as they pushed the
door open and lowered themselves into the soft and comfortable chairs
that had been arranged around a coffee table.

"The interview has been completely agreed with regard to format. It
won't be scripted, we won't know exactly how each question is going to
be phrased, but we will know exactly the territory that's going to be
covered. I've sorted it out with Molly Ray, the woman who will be
asking the questions. The interview won't be live so there will be a
chance to edit out any major clangers or inaccuracies, but we won't
have direct control over the editing. If you were to say
something&;#8230; inappropriate, it is possible that the producer
could leave it in, despite our objections. At the end of the day, this
isn't our interview. We don't have editorial control. Do I make myself
clear?"

"Sort of," Muskie ventured hesitantly.

"What Ambrose is trying to say," Angel explained patiently, "is that
making the right impression on the audience is very important. You
understand that in professional show-business, performers have to be
careful about what image they project. Of course you do, you're a
performer too. Now my album is called "Songs of Innocence", and that's
how I've got to come across. Innocent. Pure. Okay?"

Muskie considered this notion. "Innocent. Pure. Like an angel."

"Like a virgin," Ambrose put in more bluntly.

"A virgin? You want people to think you're a virgin?"

"What Miss Hanson and I are saying," Ambrose tried to explain, "is that
references to any alleged sexual history that you and she may have had
together, or to any other alleged episodes of a sexual nature in Miss
Hanson's early life, would be highly inappropriate. Is that completely
clear?"

"Well, yes, but it doesn't leave very much to talk about, does it?" For
the first time ever Muskie thought that Angel seemed to show the
faintest trace of embarrassment. "Don't worry, Angel," he assured her,
"I won't say the wrong thing. Scout's honour."

She smiled and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "You're sweet," she
whispered. Muskie reached out and tried to hold her face against his
for as long as he possibly could. Sweet. Was that how he wanted her to
think of him? His head was reeling. He was becoming less and less sure
that he could carry off this interview.

"Suppose I totally screw-up," he whispered, "I mean totally?"

"Don't be silly, Muskie, "she assured him, "you're not going to do
that. And if you did, we could cancel the whole thing, couldn't we
Ambrose? Back out of the contract?"

"As a last resort. It wouldn't be cheap. There's a nasty penalty
clause. Don't even think about it."

ooOoo

Like so many things in life, the reality of the interview was nowhere
near as traumatic as the anticipation. Molly Ray turned out to be a
perfectly charming and mild-mannered motherly sort of woman in early
middle age whose interviewing style was to take a back seat, provide
the necessary jumping-off points to get a conversation going and then
keep out of it until her input seemed to be needed again. For most of
the time, Muskie and Angel talked to one another as though there was
nobody else present. They explained how they had met, leaving out the
fact that Angel had sought-out Muskie in order to get an introduction
to the local LSD dealer, and told Molly that the first song that Angel
had ever performed in public had been a duet with Muskie at the bottom
of the escalator in Paddington Underground Station. Molly asked if they
could remember what it was. This was a planted question. Muskie and
Angel had already rehearsed the song, "Wayfaring Stranger", and gave a
flawless fake impromptu performance accompanied by Muskie on his
faithful guitar. Angel's voice and delivery were even better than he
had remembered them. She was so good, he reflected, that she actually
made him sound good, far better than he really was. If only he could be
as good a musician without Angel as he was with her. For he knew in his
heart of hearts that it would be a long time before he would sing
another duet with the world-renowned Clare Hanson.

Talking about their time together without mentioning or even hinting at
anything sexual made it a lot easier for Muskie to cope. He managed to
convey a picture of a brother-and-sister relationship, two penniless
musicians wandering the streets of London together, offering each other
support, encouragement, friendship and artistic inspiration. As the end
of the allotted time drew near, Muskie was proud of himself. He knew
that he had carried it off. His account had been engaging and
entertaining. He had said nothing that might reflect badly on himself
or any of his friends. Angel's virginity remained unchallenged. Even
Ambrose was smiling a very slightly superior smile through the
control-room window.

And now the final item was at hand. In response to another planted
question, Muskie replied that before they had parted he had written a
song about Clare, his Angel Clare as he always thought of her, and
their time together. On cue, Molly Ray asked if he could sing it for
them. His solo moment had arrived. Even Angel had never heard the song
before. There was an expectant hush in the studio as he lifted the
guitar back on to his lap. He played the lead-in and began to
sing:

I was strumming my blues in the subway
When an angel came down from the sky.
I was the one with the music
But she was the one who could fly.
Oh yes she was the one who could fly.

She said she would take me to Heaven,
If I promised I wouldn't ask why.
I was always the one with the questions
But she was the one who could fly.
Oh yes she was the one who could fly.

And Paradise lingered eternal
From April to early July,
I could have stayed on with my angel
But she just couldn't teach me to fly.
No she never could teach me to fly.

For angels have many commitments,
To love the whole world they must try:
I was the one with the theories
But she was the one who could fly.
Oh yes she was the one who could fly.

I asked far too much of my angel
I asked her to never more fly.
But angels must soar with the eagles
And the mortals who love them must cry.
Yes the mortals who love them must cry.

As the final chord died away Muskie could sense a change in the
atmosphere of the little studio. Everyone was looking at him but nobody
was saying anything. Was it incredibly good or incredibly bad? Muskie
had no idea.

At last a distorted voice from a loudspeaker broke the silence. It was
Ambrose talking through a microphone from the control-room next door.
"That can't go out," he said bluntly and firmly.

"That goes out," said Molly Ray, quietly but every bit as firmly, "or
this interview doesn't air."

ooOoo

The Elk sat up in his chair and waved to Muskie as he entered the
visitors' room.

"Hey! Man! Two visits in a row! That's pretty cool!"

Muskie sat down before he answered. "Needed to explain. About the
broadcast," he said conspiratorially.

The Elk's face grew serious. "Yeah? I wondered about it. They did
somebody else this week. I thought maybe they would put it out next
week."

"No, not next week. Not ever." Muskie quietly explained how everything
had gone perfectly up to that last song. And about the row the song had
caused between Angel's goon and Molly Ray.

The Elk shook his head. "You screwed-up again kid," he concluded
sadly.

"No, not really." Muskie was actually smiling. The Elk couldn't
understand why he seemed not to be upset.

"What do you mean? Did they pay you?"

"Only my travel expenses to Euston Tower."

"But you could walk to Euston Tower in ten minutes."

"Yeah. Right. I didn't put in a claim."

"So what do you mean you didn't screw-up."

Muskie drew a little closer to the grille. "The song, Elk. Angel loved
the song. When they had all gone she gave me a fantastic kiss and said
she loved the song." He raised his voice slightly. "And that's who it
was for really. That song wasn't for anybody else. It was for Angel.
And she loved it."

The Elk shook his head in exasperation. "What can anybody do with a guy
like you?" he asked hopelessly. "Didn't you get anything at all out of
it? Anything except a kiss?"

Muskie shrugged. "Two tickets to her Albert Hall concert tomorrow
night. Me and a friend. I thought I would take Shaggy Welsh, the guy
who plays the mouth-organ, and we could work the queue before we went
in. Should raise a pound or two that way."