Get Into The Light: Chapter Twenty Two- Not Everything Is About You

‘It says here that we are the Dutch answer to Snap!’ Forest said.
‘None of that stuff really matters right now,’ I said glaring back at him.
‘I can’t believe they’re referencing Snap. We’re better than Snap,’ Carl said pulling the copy newspaper from Forest’s grasp.
It seemed entirely inappropriate to have a band meeting in the Mr Pancake restaurant when Lynette was lying in intensive care and we had no idea whether she was going to survive or not, let alone re-join the band. But yes it was that cliché- life goes on and at the same time as we were discussing plans for the band, Charles and Eddie were at the studio remixing the twelve inch of our next release. Lynette was still being kept sedated and they were worried that the lump on the side of her head was showing no signs of getting smaller. And yet I felt strangely divorced from the whole experience as if this was happening to a character in a book and not my best friend, the one person who drove me mad most of the time but also knew how to make me laugh so much I’d get cramps.

I looked at the pancake. Now usually I love pancakes but this one looked like a giant slug full of goo. There was really no point in eating a pancake when my friend was in hospital and there was no point in discussing the band because we weren’t really a band anyway without Lynette. It had taken this accident for me to realise that.

‘So let’s talk about the ‘Lottery Show’,’ Forest said.
I pushed my fork into the slug and put the fork back down again.
‘Are you made of lead? Don’t you realise that Lynette is lying in hospital and all you can talk about is a stupid show?’
Forest’s career in the music industry had given him skin as thick as a leather roller blind so he simply gave me a sympathetic glance and then leant in closer to Carl and spoke in a low conspiratorial whisper so I could no longer hear anything he was saying. I picked up my fork again and contemplated my plate. It seemed miraculous to me that things just ticked on when something so awful and dramatic had just happened. There were still people throwing eggs into bowls of flour, still buck toothed impressarios thinking about world domination and I was ashamed to admit that there was still a small part of me that was thinking about what it would be like to sing in front of a TV audience. How could I even think about something so trivial?
Forest raised his voice again, ‘It’s going to be BIG - do you know how many people watch the Lottery? Only the ENTIRE population of the Netherlands. Pretty sure ‘Ace of Base’ haven’t landed a lottery show yet.
‘It’s not very fashionable though is it,’ Carl said, ‘I’m not sure it will give us much credibility.’
‘Who cares about that stuff? We need to get your profile up first. Don’t you realise how impossible it is for a Dutch band to make an impact? Do you realise you can list every famous Dutch band on one hand? ONE HAND!’
‘I know but Lola’s right. It’s bad timing. We can’t go and perform when Lynette’s in hospital and we have no idea whether she’s going to come out or not.’
‘Here here,’ I said shovelling a lump of cold pancake into my mouth.
It tasted good but was hard to swallow. The whole process of eating was ridiculous when life was so unpredictable. Why were we designed to chomp up and down on things – wasting all that time munching and swallowing when any moment life could be ripped away from you.
‘You alright?’ Carl said leaning over and ruffling my hair.
‘None of this feels right to me.’
‘This review here says you’ve got the vocal talent of Lemmy from Motorhead,’ Forest said stabbing at the newspaper with his finger.
Carl saw my expression, ‘I don’t think that was quite the effect Lola was hoping for. It’s the nerves. The nerves always dominate in the beginning. Soon she’ll get used to going up on stage and the vocal will flow more naturally, you won’t have to screech at the top of your voice.’
‘You’re a natural already,’ Forest said.
‘Don’t patronise me.’
‘I said exactly the same thing to Jim Kerr of Simple Minds when I interviewed him for my book.’
‘I’m not Jim Kerr and I seriously doubt that Jim Kerr would even consider doing a Lottery show.’
‘Maybe we should just go home for a while,’ Carl said, ‘Lola’s tired. Neither of us can rest till we know what’s happening with Lynette.’
The only small slither of something positive was that Carl and I were on more slightly more solid ground. We were trying to be nice to one another and steering clear from any dangerous themes.
‘But what doing a proper band practice before the show?’ Forest said.
‘I don’t think that’ll happen. We’ll see,’ Carl said.
‘I’m just trying to help you guys along. We can’t let this thing set us back. There is only really a tiny window of opportunity these days- especially in the world of dance music. Do you think anyone is going to remember 2Unlimited in ten years time? Or Ace of Base for that matter? I want this band to be different. I want to build a proper career for us. You’re all brilliant, ’ Forest said, carving up the last quarter of his pancake with the precision of a brain surgeon.
‘Today the ‘Dutch National Lottery Show’. Tommorow a world tour!’ he said, beaming.
I followed the lump as it migrated down his scrawny neck and then seemed to negotiate its way around the girth of his Adam’s apple.
But I could tell that the band weren’t going anywhere. We felt more disparate than ever.
We were never going to be Simple Minds. If Forest stopped taking all those smart drugs perhaps he’d see how deluded he’d become.

‘Who is this?’ I said, my tongue like a dry Weetabix.
The alarm glowed 3.45.
‘Lola,’ Pete’s voice said, ‘You have to come to the hospital.’
‘Huh?’
‘There’s nothing they can do. She’s been bleeding. Her brain’s been bleeding.’
Carl was now sitting up in bed with the bedside lamp on.
‘They’re keeping the machines on but they’re saying she won’t recover. You have to come over. Come over right away. I don’t know what to do. Her parents are here, it’s awful. I feel awful. ’
‘But she was getting better,’ I said, ‘She tried to open her eyes. She was just about to wake up. What’s gone wrong?’
‘Just get here as soon as you can. You’ll see what I mean once you’re here.’
We couldn’t afford a taxi right now so Carl and I walked to the tram stop, waited forty minutes for a tram to appear and then changed at Central Station and got on another one to the hospital. My mind kept churning over the facts. Lynette’s condition had got worse, so much worse that we were being summoned to say goodbye, that was what this was, this was the goodbye next to the bed, she wasn’t going to get better, she wasn’t going to join us on the Lottery show, she wasn’t going to cycle to Waterlooplein to buy old crap, she wasn’t going to make mushroom tea so strong it made you weep. She wasn’t going to wake up or speak or do anything anymore.

Pete must have called about forty people because the hospital reception was like the queue outside the Roxy on a Saturday night. Forest was sat on a plastic chair picking at his teeth with a toothpick. Charles was pulling dead skin off of his thumb. Eddie was next to him eyes shut, head leant back against the wall. And there were numerous girls that I’d seen out- the dancers from Zarzar, someone who worked in the cloak room and had massive false eyelashes. Even Bob van Veen – looking like he’d come straight from a club in silver trousers and a leather jacket. And Joost was standing on his own to one side
‘Have you heard anything?’ Joost asked as we walked past.
‘Pete said it’s looking really bad,’ Carl said and his face suddenly crumpled.
And seeing Carl like that, after the few days of horrible silence made me start to cry and then Joost started crying and I had to get away from him because he wasn’t to blame for what happened but it felt like he was somehow implicated. He’d created a fair bit of misery in Lynette’s last few days. In her ‘last few days’ – had I really just thought that? As we sat waiting in the crowded reception area, waiting for Pete to come down and tell us more news I kept thinking how this was exactly what I’d wished for. I’d wanted something to happen – for someone else to experience the consequence of all that hedonism- I’d wanted some sort of comeuppance. I felt like I’d been punished and everyone else had got away with it. Hadn’t I fantasised about Joost choking on his own vomit? Or dying in a cycling accident? Why had I even having those thoughts? Perhaps in some terrible cosmic way I was responsible for what had happened to Lynette. Perhaps there was a part of my brain that controlled events in the real world. Perhaps that part of my madness wasn’t madness at all. How many times had I felt envy towards Lynette? How many times had I wished that she’d been less attractive, unable to dance, less popular, not in the video, not on stage, not dancing next to me, not showing me up. But of course I knew it was ridiculous to think this way. This wasn’t about me at all. This was all about Lynette. Her life was coming to an end. I needed to stop thinking about me. I needed to really think about Lynette and her life coming to an end. That was what was happening and nothing else.

But it didn’t happen that day. And it didn’t happen the next either. After two days without any real sleep, we headed back home again and went straight to bed.

In my dream the building had glass windows giving a clear view for miles around. On one side stood a small clump of trees. On the other a railway track that cut through fields and valleys. I was quite high up. I usually hated heights but today I was distracted. A tiny figure was standing next to the railway crossing. I started to walk down the steps, looking up at this figure now and then. The stick figure was now crossing over the railway tracks.
My stomach was churning because I knew what was happening. I could see a train approaching in the distance. It was like a video game but it wasn’t because it was real life. I tried to get down the stairs more quickly but it was that classic feeling when you can’t run because your shoelaces are tied together or your feet are too heavy or you’re rooted in the spot and even in the dream I was thinking- I know this feeling- this is just a dream, this is the feeling when you can’t escape. Just wake yourself up. But then I saw the train getting quicker and quicker and the figure just standing there.
‘MOVE!’ I shouted.
Except I had the same feeling, the classic feeling again where your voice is like a scratchy whisper even though you’re shouting and I was thinking, this is a dream, I know this feeling, you’re just dreaming, this is the bit where you try to speak but you can’t and it has some sort of significant deeper meaning but I was too transfixed so that thought disappeared and it was real and the train was just about to hit the person because it was a person, not just a figure. This person waved their arms in the air. This person was a girl. I had to look away. I didn’t want to see it. I screamed but it was like a gust of wind flowing out of my mouth. When I woke up I was covered in sweat.
‘She’s died,’ I said to Carl as he got up to go the toilet.
‘We don’t know that yet. We have to try and stay hopeful. Why are you so negative?’
But I was right. Okay it wasn’t madness but I’d had some sort of premonition. Pete rang a few minutes later. Her family had been with her. She never woke up or said anything.