Nico by James Young

and lighting crew. They showed him the mixing desk: twenty-four channels, each with different EQs, a stack of effects – reverb, delays, a hundred different ways of taking a sound and placing it anywhere.
    Raincoat shook his head: ‘Nah, can’t work with that lot, mate – pots ’n’ pans, no good ter me. I’ve only ever used Trojan mixers … mucho regretto.’
    The Italians were mortified. This equipment was the best in Milan. What was this Trojan stuff? ‘Trojan?’ ‘Trojan?’ They kept passing the word around like a hot pizza.
    Demetrius loomed up. ‘Does there seem to be a problem, gentleman?’
    â€˜â€™Ee say ’ee only work weeth Trojan equeepment,’ complained the Italians in an Anvil Chorus.
    â€˜Trojan?’ queried Demetrius. ‘Do I know them? Are they by any chance related to Stag and Featherlite?’
    â€˜Eh?’ Raincoat blanked him. ‘No … yer know … Tro-jan. Built by Trond Jansson, Swedish … They’re the tip-top of the tree, beautiful Scandinavian teak finish. This stuff’s pots ’n’ pans.’
    A sudden rage shadowed Demetrius’s face.
    â€˜My dear Raincoat, although the minutiae of public address systems are a matter of deep indifference to me, I am however aware that they operate on universal principles … Must I therefore construe that you are, in fact, an impostor?’
    Raincoat shuffled from one foot to another. ‘It’s only pop,’ he said.
    Demetrius’s eyes blackened over. Nero in a Lone Ranger mask.
    â€˜Listen, mate.’ Raincoat’s voice was dry, and insinuating. He smiled, a lizard on a hot rock. ‘ Listen , she’s the singer an’ she can’t sing; they’re’ – he pointed at me – ‘the musicians an’ they can’t play; you’re the road manager an’ yer can’t travel; I’m the sound engineer an’ I can’t fix me girlfriend’s’i-fi … What’s the bleedin’ diff’rence?’
    5.00 p.m. : Echo was trying to assemble Nico’s harmonium. Raincoat was twiddling randomly with the knobs on the mixing desk. Toby practised relentless paradiddles on a bar stool. Demetrius had gone to the bordello across the road to calm his nerves.
    The dressing-room measured about thirteen foot by seven. A minimalist paradise. Wall-to-wall white tiles, buzzing strip-light, smoked glass and chrome coffee-table, black wire-mesh foldout chairs facing a wall-length mirror … cosy.
    Nico sat there alone, her eyes closed, head resting back against the wall. A splash of blood laced across the white enamel sink, her signature.
    Softly I closed the door and went to buy a postcard. Wish you were here.
    8.00 p.m. : ‘Sorry, can’t eat.’ My stomach was a twist of gristle. Demetrius took my plate and scooped the contents on to his own.
    â€˜Waste is a symbol of decadence,’ he said.
    â€˜So is being faaat,’ said Nico. ‘Eat. Eat. Eat. What else do you do with my money?’
    â€˜I go a-whorin’, ma’am, as befits the custom of an English gentleman.’
    â€˜Toooorist!’ said Nico.
    10.00 p.m. : There were fifteen, maybe more, in the dressing-room. Pasquale, Titz, some bespectacled dwarf with a dictaphone recording everything Nico said, a couple of Versaces and an Armani with cameras and clinging girlfriends, an acne-ridden psycho babbling nonsense in Nico’s other ear, and three people nobody knew at all, sitting on our chairs.
    The dwarf asked each of us in turn our musical pedigree. Nico’s of course was the hippest, then Echo and Toby. Eventually he got to me.
    â€˜An’ wheech grups have you played een?’
    â€˜I … well … er …’
    â€˜Jim plays in a Palm Court Orchestra,’ butted in Echo.
    â€˜Napalm Court Orchestra? Eees Trash Metal?’
    â€˜Pure scrapyard,’ I answered. He seemed