The Game

1

END OF THE BEGINNING

Monday

The supersized TV threw kaleidoscopic light around the unlit cavern of a room. Eerie figures leapt across the walls like the shadows of Japanese bunraku puppets. The high ceilings and wooden floor made a perfect echo chamber for the rhythmic thunder exploding from the two stacks of Marshall speakers balanced precariously to either side of the ageing back projection screen.

‘And now, it’s the band you’ve been waiting for … here with their latest smash, it’s Klein, with Don’t Go There.’

It was a decades-old rerun of Top of the Pops. The bespectacled figure of Mike Read, everyone’s favourite DJ at the time, stood centre-screen in Studio Two of BBC Television Centre in White City. He’d perched on that flimsy metal bridge, flickering with multicoloured lights as it hung over what was possibly the most famous stage in Britain, the raised platform on which hundreds of major league pop and rock stars from the UK and beyond had performed alongside equal numbers of wannabes, whose dreams and ambitions would ultimately never survive the dog-eat-dog cruelty of the music business, Eighties payola and the hunting packs of managers and agents always so keen to pull you apart and fit you back together, Frankenstein like, in their own frustrated pop-star image.

Guitar chords boomed and a sequencer kicked in, creating that perfect synth sound of the Eighties, a classy combo of Trevor Horn’s ABC and the jangly guitar cool of Lenny Kravitz.

The mesmerising figure of Johnny Klein sauntered to the mic, the cameras closing in, manoeuvring sensually around him as he struck pure magic from his Gibson Gold Top, the sea of girls moving to the front rhythmically, like a shockwave from a tsunami.

He was an instantly eye-catching figure, clad in a pristine white Katharine Hamnett parachute shirt, a bullet belt from Camden Market slung low on his narrow waist, and a pair of shiny leather jeans, which fell perfectly onto his black studded Seditionaries boots, an ensemble that harked straight back to teenage days spent hanging out on the King’s Road outside Malcolm and Vivienne’s uber-famous punk landmark shop, SEX, with its giant, backwards-spinning clock. All of that energy and rebellion was written deep into his trim, well-muscled form and pale, insolent features, not to mention those piercing blue eyes under that sharp, jet-black fringe.

His looks were ‘angelic’, someone in the music press had written, ‘but not quite, because there’s something devilish there too’.

The teenage girls of the nation would be swooning already, even though Johnny hadn’t sung a word yet. With a flamboyant flourish he launched himself into a song familiar throughout the land. It wasn’t just a hit with every radio station; you couldn’t stand in a queue without hearing the person next to you humming it, couldn’t walk through a supermarket or stand in a lift, or even wander the streets of your town without Johnny’s voice caressing you from some open car window; a voice that wasn’t great (by his own admission!) but which was easily good enough for rock and roll.

‘Christ,’ the man in front of the giant-sized screen grunted to himself.

He was slumped in a bulging, black leather La-Z-Boy, his bleary eyes locked on these visions of the distant past, as he took another long, tired drag on his Marlboro.

It had never just been about his voice. The Johnny Klein of the Eighties was the complete package, his look, his sound, his musical ability, his natural charisma, his knack for seizing the moment – all combining in a made-to-measure pop star. Even then, it was a rare alignment. So it was little wonder that his wolfish smile adorned teenagers’ bedroom walls from London to Aberdeen, that he regularly featured on the front of Smash Hits, Record Mirror and even The Face. He was an establishment-friendly blend of Elvis, Marlon Brando and David Bowie, a record company’s dream, a man who men wanted to be, and who women wanted to be with, and a regular, not just on Top of the Pops, but on weekend music shows like Saturday Superstore. He even hit the prime time, and made the absolute most of it, when he used his interview on Parkinson to tell the world that he was seeing Laura Hall, the glamorous TV presenter, whom every red-blooded male in the country wanted as their girlfriend, and that they were engaged to be married. Naturally it sent his record company into a spin, fearing that married life, and maybe fatherhood to follow, would dull some of that lustre, but like everything else Johnny touched at that time, it turned to gold, winning him even more reams of frenzied tabloid discussion.

And now it was over.

The man in the La-Z-Boy stared unseeing at the TV, the smoke from his Marlboro curling up his arm, up through his shaggy salt-and-pepper grey hair. He took another drag, scratching at his stubbled chin. With a sniff, he raised the whisky glass to lips cracked by dehydration, draining the dregs. The phantasmagoric images reflected in a pair of eyes, once ice-blue, but now dulled, their whites tinged red. He was a shadow of what he’d been, a Jacob Marley’s ghost of rock and roll yet to come.

While the fairy-tale froth on the screen played to itself, the viewer’s blurry gaze focused instead on the clunky old VHS located beneath it, specifically on the word PLAYING, as it winked on and off in fluorescent green.

God, I was fucking good, he thought.

Then a shrill, protracted buzz pierced his consciousness, an electronic calling card demanding immediate attention, breaking him from his reverie. He didn’t move, not straight away. It was too much trouble. Instead, he slouched there, insulated in this last enclosed bubble of a former existence, the heavy black blinds on the windows repelling even the midday sunlight. The front doorbell buzzed again. For longer this time, more aggressive, the finger pressing the button refusing to budge. It sounded more like a drill as it bored into senses he’d successfully numbed over the years.

Johnny had no urge to respond to it. And he’d never been one to give up. In a battle of wills, he could always hold his own, keep an argument going for days, weeks, months, indefinitely, even if he knew he was completely in the wrong. It was a mule-like stubborn streak that had served him often. But this was different. Cornered in this fucking rat-hole, slouching inert like a lump of useless jelly, was hardly going to help.

He hit the remote switch and his earlier incarnation, that mesmeric figure, that angel who was also a demon, surrounded by a forest of upthrust hands, winked into blackness.

Just for a moment it was beautiful, that blackness, the blissful silence.

Turning his head to one side, Johnny stretched the tendons in his neck which audibly cracked.

He fingered another button, and motors commenced whirring, daylight shafting in as the electric blinds folded upwards, glimmering through the billions of dust particles floating over the empty bottles of Jack Daniels, the overflowing ashtrays and odorous scatter of pizza boxes and chop suey cartons. Wearier than words could describe, his very bones creaking, Johnny ran nicotine-brown fingers through his greying mop before slowly and heavily levering himself upright. He tottered for a second, then trudged to the panoramic window with its stunning view of the extensive front garden and winding gravel drive.

The lawns had seen better days, and the Venus de Milo fountain on the right stood dry. Her waters had ceased to flow years ago, thanks to blocked and corroded pipes, leaving her shapely form cracked and clotted with moss.

At the end of the drive, a pair of tall, black wrought-iron gates, intimidating enough to keep the fans at bay when they’d flocked here from all over the country, were cluttered with the rain-wet rags of hundreds of handwritten notes declaring their everlasting adoration for Johnny Klein.

However, more relevant today was the white van sitting on the other side, not to mention the large chubby guy in the thick sheepskin coat and tweed flat cap who stood by the intercom. Even as Johnny watched, the caller pressed the buzzer again insistently.

Johnny moved to the intercom monitor and saw a face distorted to near-comical girth by the fisheye lens. He hit the talk button. ‘Yeah?’

‘That you, Johnny?’ asked a gruff northern voice. ‘We’re here. It’s twelve … well, it’s after twelve, actually. But we agreed midday with the estate agent, d’you remember?’

Johnny glanced through the window again. A thick-set bottle-blonde had emerged from the van as well, wearing a large puffer jacket on top of a shiny pink tracksuit. Her hair hung in a ponytail that looked more like a chunk of rope.

‘You there, Johnny?’ the man asked, starting to sound frustrated.

Johnny blew out a long stale breath. ‘Bollocks.’

He hit the entry button. Outside, the gates clanked and clattered as they swung inward. He didn’t bother looking out again, his tired eyes roving across the last few things he owned: his command centre, which had never looked so dusty and dented, and a few raggedy boxes, badly duct-taped together, a couple of gold records poking out of them.

Even now it was hard to believe that this spacious and yet depressingly empty room had once been the cockpit of his fast-moving life, the beating heart of his and Laura’s happiness. How many birthdays, Christmases and Number One records had they celebrated in here? It was large enough to host their wedding reception, and indeed it had done, not to mention the riotous party it had descended into, ‘space cookies’ being dished out alongside rivers of champagne, even his own parents, conservatives with a small ‘c’, finishing up in the fountain, swearing that it was one of the best days of their lives.

Thank God his mum and dad weren’t around to see him now, though deep down, he so desperately wished they were. But all that aside, it struck him again how much he’d taken his success for granted. The folly and fearlessness of youth had prevented him even considering that it might all come crashing down eventually. Why would he have? It was never his job to check royalty statements, to keep a beady eye on outgoings, incomings, office bills, staff bills, mortgages or even the multimillion-pound insurance policy his press team had taken out on his hands as a hugely expensive PR stunt. He’d had people for all that.

He’d had people for everything.

That was one of the things that had driven Laura out.

Well, that and the other stuff.

A hefty thudding sounded from the front door.

As Johnny slowly made his way out there, his elbow caught a white glass vase displayed on a clear Perspex plinth. He didn’t react even as it toppled from side to side, watching instead, interested to see if his luck could get any worse. Which it did. As the vase fell to the parquet floor, slowly turning in the air like a prima ballerina pirouetting in perfect motion, before disintegrating into thousands of glittering shards, a key was inserted into the front door, and a craggy hangdog face edged around it, breaking into a nervous grin on seeing the former occupant.

‘Ah, Johnny … I mean Mr Klein.’ That northern accent again. A pudgy hand appeared, a shiny new key swinging from it. ‘Sorry, but, erm … the estate agent gave me the keys. Sorry, she wasn’t sure whether you’d still be here or not.’

Johnny studied him for a long moment, then, a showman to the end, spread his arms wide. ‘Sure, no problem. It’s all yours, man. Lock, stock and two smoking barrels!’

The man’s smile broadened. ‘Call me Dave, please.’

He opened the door properly, shuffling inside, his large physique rendered bulkier still by his sheepskin coat. Rather awkwardly, he adjusted his Peaky Blinders-style cap. Bling jewellery glinted on his fingers and wrists. He glanced down, observing the heap of newly shattered glass, bit his lip but didn’t comment. Instead, he slid the remains aside with his brown suede loafer.

‘Have you got everything you need?’ he asked, presumably puzzled as to why Johnny was still here. ‘It’s nearly one o’clock, you know?’

The situation felt surreal. There was a time was when Johnny Klein had been wanted everywhere, sometimes earning a tidy sum just to show up at a premiere or to endorse some brand he had absolutely no interest in with a smile, a handshake, a ‘thank you very much and goodbye’. Now he was being kicked out of his own gaff.

‘Sure,’ he said again. ‘I’ll grab my stuff and leave you to it.’

Johnny trekked down the hall, then up the flight of stairs to the first landing and through the double doors leading to his bedroom. Inside, mirrored side tables framed a giant unmade bed, its sheets of white Egyptian cotton so rumpled and stained you’d have thought Tracey Emin had spent days, maybe weeks, assembling them. A small canvas holdall sat on the end of the white chaise longue. Johnny paused in the stillness of the moment.

There were often good memories attached to bedrooms; however the one that was seared into his brain was anything but and he could have done without it invading his mind. He relived it again nonetheless, picturing the moment he’d walked in and found Laura packing the last of her things into a designer carpet bag. She’d had enough. Enough of the booze, the drugs, the hangovers, the suspicions and rumours, the half-truths, the out-and-out lies.

She was sick to the back teeth, she said, of reading about his exploits in the Sunday papers. She wasn’t just some rock and roll doormat.

He made no attempt to deny it. At home, he was a boy, a literal man-child, mothered by Laura, who would kiss his cheek at night when he moaned in his sleep, or stroke his head when he laid it on her lap and told her he’d always love her, that he never wanted to lose her. But when he climbed aboard the tour bus, sometimes only minutes after leaving the motorway pick-up point where she’d dropped him, he was a rock god all over again, a dark and reckless force, a beast of varied, voracious appetites, ready and eager to take it to the extreme, just as so many of his rock idols had done before him.

He turned his eyes to the bedroom window. At the far end of the drive, instead of the white rental van and the big guy called Dave and his peroxide-blonde missus, he remembered Laura and Chelsea hand in hand, his daughter wiping her eyes as they climbed into the waiting taxi.

‘Johnny?’ a soft voice intruded into his thoughts.

Mona stood in the bedroom doorway. As always, she looked far younger than her thirty-five years. Something to do with her miniskirt, knee-high leather boots and tasselled leather biker jacket, but also her slight, girlish build and natural beauty. She had perfect skin, huge dark eyes, long black lashes, her jet-black hair currently styled in a short pixie bob.

‘The guy downstairs?’ she ventured.

Johnny was still distracted. ‘Downstairs? Oh yeah, Dave.’

‘Dave?’

‘Big fella. Silly hat, sheepie.’

‘Yeah, that’s him.’ She regarded him worriedly. ‘Think he wants you out. This is his place now.’

‘Yeah.’

Mona worked for Classic Rock, which made her a journalist on one of the last few music mags still in existence since the internet ran its great scythe through most of them. Being around Mona made Johnny feel a bit better about himself; her energy, her vitality, her intelligence, all gave him a shot of adrenaline that he didn’t get from anything else. It had taken him a while to get his head around it, but Mona was something he hadn’t had for a while – a friend.

Though at the moment, even Mona’s presence was failing to work its usual spell.

He grabbed the canvas bag. It was dishearteningly light, containing only a couple of pairs of socks and underpants, an Alice Cooper T-shirt and a pair of black Levi’s once reserved for weddings, funerals and the odd Goth gig.

‘Seriously, Johnny,’ she asked. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’ve had better days.’

She looked him over, visibly affected by the sight of his old 501s hanging tattered at the knees and his black silk shirt, now crumpled and sour with sweat. ‘Johnny, I’m so sorry about all this.’

She’d obviously wanted to come here in a spirit of moral support, but he could tell the sight of his meagre belongings thrown into a few bags and boxes was challenging her positivity. He shrugged again, but his once-handsome face was a mask of pain. ‘Good things never last, Mona. Got to enjoy them while you can.’

‘What about your gold discs?’

Johnny thought about Dave, the new resident, already making himself at home downstairs in his command chair. ‘Let him have them, he’s bought this place as a job lot. That means everything in here, so, there’s no point whining about it. Time to move on.’

‘It’s not over, you know. I’m sure it’s not.’

‘Can you look at me and keep a straight face while you say that?’

She barely missed a beat. ‘Hey, people’s luck can change, but talent doesn’t. You’ll get back on the right track somehow.’

He took his khaki army jacket from a peg. ‘What is the right track, Mona?’

‘Well, to start with, you’re not finishing up in some crap-hole flophouse with roaches in the walls and rats under the bed.’ She folded her arms, giving him a no-arguments look.

He glanced at her, puzzled. ‘I’ve spoken to my uncle,’ she said. ‘He wants you to stay with us in Brick Lane, above the restaurant. Till you get yourself sorted. He was a massive fan of yours, you know.’

‘Mona …’ The offer felt more like a kick in the nuts. ‘That just makes it worse.’

‘It’s only temporary,’ she added quickly. ‘Consider it a new start. Don’t think about what you’re losing, think about the possibilities. You’ve been stuck inside this mausoleum for too long.’

‘Yeah, well …’ He yanked open the top bedside drawer and scraped out the handful of cash left in there – a couple of hundred quid, tops – and shoved it into his back pocket.

‘At least it was my mausoleum.’

2

GRACELAND

Monday

Mona had been sent from Bangladesh as a young child to live with her uncle in the UK. The reasons for this had never been fully explained to her, just that her parents felt that it would be a better life for her in Britain. Her Uncle Rishi, who was already over here, was a legend in his own right. He and his wife, Aahana, opened the first Indian restaurant on Wilmslow Road in Manchester, which later became the world-famous Curry Mile. When Rishi was widowed at an unexpectedly young age he found the associations of that place too painful to stay there, and so moved his business to London, specifically Brick Lane in the East End, the beautiful cultural melting pot where the shadows of Dickensian London met the empire’s mid-twentieth-century diaspora. By the time Mona arrived, it was the heart of the Tower Hamlets Bangladeshi community, famous for its long parade of restaurants, most of which had sprung up to cater for the global influx of workers. And it was in this vibrant, colourful world that she’d grown up.

She drove Johnny there in her uncle’s small blue delivery van, the name of his restaurant, Graceland, emblazoned down its flanks in flowing golden letters.

From Mill Hill to Brick Lane was only a ten-mile journey, but the two locations might have been worlds apart. The broad leafy avenues of Hampstead and Islington gave way to narrower and noisier streets, the open sky becoming a latticework of thin overhead strips as they hit the East End and penetrated deeper into a maze of warehouses, most now gentrified into trendy bars and hipster apartment blocks, far from the teetering rookeries they had been when Jack the Ripper roamed the streets of Spitalfields. From Hackney, the blue van weaved its way through the logjammed traffic on Bethnal Green Road, throwing a right at the Truman’s brewery, and heading into Brick Lane itself.

As usual, it was thronging both with visitors and residents. Brick Lane never slept, as Johnny recalled. Not from mid-morning, when the first maître d’ adjusted his bowtie and stepped outside to commence enticing passers-by to lunch, right through to the wee small hours, when the dustcarts trundled through. Now, at lunchtime on a Friday, he was assailed by an atmosphere hazy with rich aromas: herbs and spices, bhajis sizzling in fryers, chickens roasting in tandoori clay ovens.

Mona chattered away merrily, occasionally honking her horn and shouting in broad cockney at some vehicle or cyclist who was getting in her way.

Johnny had first met her a decade ago, when she’d come to his Mill Hill mansion to interview him, and they’d got on like a house on fire. Mona had been delighted that he’d consented to the interview, especially as he’d been going through one of his reclusive periods at the time. For his part, Johnny found her honesty and wide-eyed innocence refreshing. They’d discovered that they shared a sense of irreverent humour, not to mention a fascination for those earlier days of rock and pop music. Of course, from Johnny’s perspective, it hadn’t hurt that Mona was a bombshell, and he was under no illusions that, when she’d first got to know him, there’d been more than a little bit of fan-girl in her fascination for him and his glamorous lifestyle that he could easily have exploited. Despite prior form in that regard, he’d found her youth endearing rather than tempting at that point in his life. In the years that followed, and especially once he’d become estranged from Laura, they’d settled into an uneven friendship, Mona always seemingly on hand whenever he was in a hole. Thinking about it now, Johnny still wasn’t sure what was in it for her.

‘You know one of my uncle’s favourite sayings?’ Mona said cheerfully. ‘The future is only a heartbeat away. You should think about that, Johnny. You’ve got loads of time to turn things round.’

He glanced at her as she drove. ‘The future’s only a … isn’t that in a song too?’

‘Probably.’ She nodded brightly. ‘I told you, he’s obsessed with contemporary music. Listen, you’ll love him.’

‘Leo Sayer, yeah? It’s from When I Need You.’ Mona nodded again. ‘Your uncle brought you up on the Bible according to Leo?’

‘Leo came into the restaurant for dinner about ten years ago. My uncle never forgets stuff like that … getting a visit from a Seventies icon. Anyway, we’re here. Guess which building’s his?’

Johnny peered out. A colossal billboard, located above the nearest restaurant door, towered almost to the skyline. It was at least forty feet high and clad most of the upper section of the building’s front. The image on it, which, somewhat ingeniously, appeared to have been constructed from thousands of miniature plastic discs, all rotating in the wind, depicted Elvis Presley. It was not Elvis in his lean and youthful prime, but an older, tubbier version, the ‘Vegas Elvis’. His double chins wobbled as the October breeze set the discs spinning.

Over the top of the mural, the restaurant’s name, Graceland, had been painted in gigantic gold script. It dazzled, caught in the midday sun.

‘Fucking hell!’ Johnny exclaimed.

‘I knew you’d be impressed.’

‘Er … yeah.’

Mona pulled into a vacant staff-only bay in front of the entrance.

‘You sure he’s got room for me here?’ Johnny asked.

‘Course he’s got room.’ She applied the handbrake and turned the engine off.

She jumped out and bustled round to the back, opening the rear doors to get his bag.

Trying his best not to look too unhappy about this, Johnny climbed out of the van, gazing up again at the dramatic, technicolour hoarding.

All the reservations he’d harboured about the optics of a one-time rock and roll legend reduced to the status of attic lodger in an East End curry house – especially one like this, which it wouldn’t take the paparazzi long to find – were briefly forgotten as it struck him just how much of a music fan Mona’s uncle had to be. He ought to have realised sooner. Clearly, he had steered his niece along the same path.

‘We going in, then?’ Mona asked, clinging on to Johnny’s bag. When he reached out for it, she retreated a step. ‘No. You’re our guest, remember?’

‘Mona … look, you know I can’t do this.’

Her face fell. ‘Why not?’

‘It’s just … I’ve haven’t got two coppers to rub together. Does your uncle realise that?’

She smiled again. ‘That won’t matter, I promise you.’ She grabbed his arm. ‘Johnny, you’ve entertained us all for years. We’re just giving a bit back. Look … Leo Sayer accepted his free curry. Why can’t you accept a free bed?’

He had no answer to that, and sighed as she opened the restaurant door and ushered him in ahead of her.

‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you, it’s just till you get back on your feet.’

The moment they entered, they were greeted by the sound of live singing. At the far end of the dining area, Johnny was amazed to see a small stage, about a foot high, framed by two curtains made from crimson velvet. In the middle of it, a man gyrated about as he presented his very own version of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. He was murdering it, every note way off, while his dancing verged on the ludicrous, but under the UV lights his white Lycra rhinestone-studded jumpsuit crackled with static electricity. The diners occupying about eight of the twenty or so tables seemed to be enjoying it, clapping and cheering him on.

‘Our house superstar,’ Mona explained, returning a wave that the performer gave her. ‘Ravi Sharma, though, perhaps for obvious reasons, he prefers to be called Elvis.’

The restaurant itself was sumptuous, filled with red velour and with handsome blue glass chandeliers dangling overhead. On one side an ornate frieze portrayed a rural village, the river running through it lit by myriad tiny LEDs, which created the illusion of liquid motion. There was also a massive aquarium in which four sizeable lobsters sat with their claws taped together.

‘Quick warning,’ Mona said quietly, nodding at the tank. ‘My uncle’s pride and joy is his lobster balti. It’s delish, but it’s also the most expensive thing on the menu, so though you’ll be eating here for free, it’s probably best not to ask for that.’

Johnny bridled at the mere suggestion there was any dish, no matter how exquisite, that he couldn’t afford to eat three times a day, month after month if he wanted to, and all washed down with however many bottles of Bollinger he fancied. Then reality crashed in again, and he felt a rush of blood to his head, swaying on his feet. It was a frequent occurrence of late – it was literally like dying.

‘It’s Johnny Klein!’ someone shouted. ‘Can I get a selfie?’

A couple of guys had just paid their bill and were about to leave the restaurant, but one of them, the older of the two, had suddenly laid eyes on the new arrivals, and without being invited, had come blundering over, digging out his phone.

‘My ex-missus used to