Пит Таунсенд - The Age of Anxiety

“How are you feeling?” I didn’t want to feed into any anxiety he might have about the show, which was a massive endeavor by anyone’s measure. “Hanson and Crow are worried about you.”

Walter looked up from something he was writing. “I’m worried about them,” he said with a laugh. “They have much more to do than me in this show. My father has written some very difficult music. My role is just singing, mostly along with the choral parts.”

“Were they hard to get on board, Hanson and Crow?”

“Crow surprised me, I didn’t think he would get involved, but Hanson has always been really positive. And rather bullish.” He laughed again, not entirely without irony.

Hanson had always spoken to Walter as though he were a beloved rich uncle or senior trustee rather than an old bandmate. Money and success had joined many of the dots that had been evident in Hanson’s character back in the Dingwalls days. He’d always been made for a grand position in the music business and the arts and was entirely comfortable with who he had become, even if the pinnacle of his career had passed.

“About eight weeks ago,” Walter explained, “Steve chose a date for this soundscapes show at Hyde Park and started trying to persuade Crow to do it. He was convinced we had plenty of time to get it right and was certain it would be amazing. He loved what my dad and I have done.”

I knew that eight weeks earlier Walter would have been in a pretty bad place: Selena had seduced him, he believed that Floss had been unfaithful.

“Did he ask if you wanted to do it?”

“He called. I was on my way to Ireland to see Siobhan. I told him I was in a strange place, and could I get back to him.”

Hanson had agreed to give Walter some time, but in the background Frank Lovelace had insinuated himself into the scheme, seeing both an adventure and an opportunity. He knew precisely how to stage the event. Hanson and Frank had then pushed ahead. Tickets were to go on sale the second Walter agreed. As Walter related all this he looked pained.

I heard later that Crow and Hanson had of course conspired, despite Crow’s apparent reticence. Crow had always wanted his old band back, and if he was honest he was sick of trying to make ends meet with gigs in various pubs and clubs around Europe. He had performed a few times in the USA, mainly around New York, but his fans felt themselves part of an exclusive cult and weren’t too keen to share him. Despite a website that had thousands of hits every day, Crow knew that his fan base was small.

Also Crow liked the idea of making a “comeback” that would promise one thing and deliver another. The old fans of the Stand, and certainly all the current fans of Hero Ground Zero, even those going back to the days of Nik Andréevich, would go into shock when they heard Walter’s latest compositions—if you could call them that. He felt sure there would be songs at Hyde Park, new ones perhaps, but old ones too.

The entire soundscapes idea might be pretentious, but if it was dark then so be it. No doubt Crow believed that in the end he would be able to persuade Walter to play the harmonica solo of his life, the crowd would go nuts, and Walter would be unable to restrain himself. He’d run with the adrenaline and endorphins and would relent and do his “stand.”

“Crow,” said Walter, and he smiled and shook his head. Almost sixteen years had passed and really nothing had changed in Crow’s world. Why would it?

Crow, Steve, Patty, and Walter all knew this was going to be one of the biggest reunions in rock history.

Walter turned back to the writing he’d been occupied with when I entered the dressing room. He passed me two sheets to read.

“What d’you think?”

“Beautiful, Walter,” I said, meaning it. “But surely you’re not suffering all that badly from anxiety about the concert?”

Yet I could see he was in an anxious, darkening mood. How would the audience respond to their grand project, his soundscapes realized by his father, the additional songs and story provided by Steve and Patty Hanson—and the occasional burst of R&B energy that Crow had managed to squeeze into the otherwise serious and arty program?

Just then, with three hours to go before the first of the audience would be allowed onto the green and two hours before showtime, Floss came into Walter’s dressing room. She looked magnificent. She was wearing some very fancy dress, Gucci or Balenciaga, overly embroidered with sequins, that had obviously cost a fortune, and was looking happy.

“Oh, darling,” she said sympathetically. “Are you feeling down?” She sat next to him and held his hand.

“I need to speak to you, Floss,” Walter said. He suddenly turned pale.

“I’ll give you two some privacy,” I said, getting up to leave.

“No,” Walter said firmly. “Uncle Louis, I need you to stay, and I want Floss to have your support if she needs it too. After I’ve said what I have to say.”

“Fucking hell, Walt,” said Floss, reddening and suddenly quite angry. “What can be so important that you need to speak about it now?”

Walter motioned for us both to sit down, but then he got up and paced up and down in the dressing room, looking at himself in the huge floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

“I have to tell you, my darling,” he stuttered. “I betrayed you. When Selena said you and Ronnie were lovers… she and I had sex. I’m so, so sorry. Louis knows all this.”

Floss looked down and her eyes filled with tears.

“You have done nothing wrong,” said Walter, facing her and appealing to her. “My actions were wrong; you never had an affair with Ronnie. I feel so ashamed.”

Floss suddenly burst into profound and open tears. Walter was distraught too. She was waving both her hands in the air, as she had always done at such times, as though shooing flies away, or dust; she was dismissing him while he tried to apologize repeatedly. I put my hand gently on her arm but she brushed it away.

I wanted to be anywhere else but there at that moment.

Then.

Walter started to say something, but Floss suddenly took control.

“Shut up, Walter! Both of you, listen.”

She was almost shouting, and Walter and I both realized this was something different, that she was not crying over his sex with Selena.

“What?” Walter was confused, and so was I.

“Walter, darling.” She spoke to Walter but was looking at me, as though it were vital that as witness I should be on her side as well as Walter’s. “There’s something I’ve never told you.”

Walter turned to look at me. I suspected that he regretted having asked me to be present; he had planned only to unload his own guilt. Having endured the paranoia and uncertainty around the supposed affair between his wife and Ronnie Hobson, what could this new revelation be? Infidelity was what sprang to mind. If not Ronnie, who had Floss cheated on him with? If not an affair, what could it be? Financial collapse? Bankruptcy? Simply that his wife was bored with him? Was she leaving him as Siobhan had done? It occurred to me that if she had something to say about what Walter had told me was their rather sporadic sex life, then I was sure he would prefer I was not present to hear it.

Floss was shaking, very slightly. Neither Walter nor I moved to console her. At any other time we would have done so. I stood up and broke the silence.

“Floss.” I was almost stammering. “Walter wanted me to be here to hear his confession to you. But I can leave now. Surely I should leave?”