The Curtain

Twelve years ago.

After Virginia’s outburst on the floor of The Roundhouse, Sam went to the bar to get her a glass of water. The crowd was thick and dense, such as it would be in the interval between bands. But the time apart was probably good for both himself and Virginia. They’d been crammed in their tiny hotel room, the most they could afford, for going on a week now. Sharing a single bed for a full week in a far-off city after having barely ever slept at each other’s houses. Never being out of each other’s sight, except for trips to the bathroom. Virginia dragging him relentlessly from place to place: monuments, museums, ancient churches, random park benches with blue plaques claiming that a poet once sat there. And now her drunken declaration of love. They could both use the break, he figured.

Nevertheless, he could also use a much shorter bar line. He stood on his tip-toes to see over the top of it. At least a dozen people ahead of him. Might as well be a thousand, the speed with which these bartenders moved. There had to be a better option.

That’s when he spotted it: a small, separate bar, back and to the side, in an alcove. Fully stocked, a smiling besuited man stood behind it, and nobody seemed to notice. What? He awkwardly shimmied and murmured apologies until he reached it. Or, until he tripped on the velvet rope that fully surrounded it. “Shiiiitt!” Down he went, his feet sliding out from under him, his head falling straight toward the bar. He threw his hand out and caught himself in the nick of time, his knees hitting the floor, the metal poles and rope crashing loudly under him. A couple cries of wheeyyyy! echoed from the crowd behind him as he clambered to his feet.

“Gorgeous and graceful, sort of a double threat, love.” A sultry voice from behind him: British, and dry as the Sahara. “That’s my bar you’ve nearly killed yourself on, by the way.” He spun around and was face to face, or rather face to chest, with his maligner.

“Shit. Sorry, I didn’t see the ropes.”

“Ah, Christ.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I thought you were still kneeling. That’s just your height, yeah? And you’re American. Which I suppose explains why you thought this special private bar was for you.”

“Sorry, I was just… I…” He stared at the woman, who must’ve been six feet tall. Shining silver blouse, bright red blazer, long black hair parted into curtains, with a nose ring and a vacant expression. “I’m Sam.”

“Sam, I’ll let you in on a secret.” She leaned closer, her voice husky and collusive. Though she was inches from his face, her eyes were unfocused, staring out over the crowd. “I’m hiding.” The whisper in his ear, the sharp tap of her fingers on the bar, the intoxicating scent of lavender and gin, conspired to trace a shiver up his spine. “Same again please, and he’ll have one as well.” The bartender nodded and started to work mixing drinks.

“Thank you.” Sam smiled up at her. She rolled her eyes and waved a dismissive hand. “Who are you hiding from?”

“The future, Sam. I’m hiding from the future.” She pulled her lips together and exhaled sharply. The bartender slid two fresh gin & tonics across the bar. “But alas. I have to go upstairs.” Her mouth curled into the faintest of smiles as her finger traced a slow line from her chin down her neck, coming to rest on her top button. The material of her blouse was a dance floor for the coloured stage lights, a spectacle that held him mesmerised as light and shadow danced with every breath she took. In the flashes of the white strobes she became a silhouette, an outline of otherworldly radiance.

“You alright, love? Nothing broken?” She looked down at him and her gaze locked to his, pinning him down.

“I’ll live.” His pulse quickened as her smile grew wider.

“Sam… do you fancy a little adventure? I could use some company.”

He felt lightheaded. He desperately hoped he wasn’t making a goofy face. “Sure.”

She nodded. “Right, lovely. Okay. Bring those both, will you?” His chest tightened as she broke their gaze. She disappeared through a black curtained door just next to the bar, barely visible unless you were looking for it.

The bartender chuckled. “You’re having quite the night.”

Sam picked up the drinks, his gaze darting between the bartender and the black drape. “Who is that?”

“That, is Gemma Thomson.”

Immediately behind the black curtain, Sam ran into a security guard who waved him through. It was a parallel world: yellow-and-gold patterned carpet, framed photos of a hundred famous artists, a honeycomb of staircases and side rooms. It all existed just outside the bounds of what mere mortals ever experienced. The chaos of the crowd, punters shouting drink orders, spilled beers, sweaty moshing, roadies doing sound checks, it was all but a muffled echo here. The curtain was a portal, and Gemma the wicked fey who pulled you through.

“Bless your short legs, keep up love.” Her voice called down from the top of some nearby stairs. He looked up and saw her head leaned over a railing. She smiled and gave a quick nod.

Soon he had followed her through a small door which belied the massive size of the room beyond. A whole separate venue existed in here, complete with its own bar, its own stage, and its own crowd of a couple dozen people. A few of them spun round as Gemma entered, one clapping, another throwing their hands up in exasperation.

“Christ, there you are.” He quickly closed the gap. “Lucky for you they’re about an hour behind setting this toy up.”

Gemma spun round and took her drink off Sam, then downed it in a gulp. “Are you serious? I hoped I’d missed it. Look at this sad fucking affair. Limp fish flopping about. I hate industry gigs.”

“Right. Who is this strapping lad in your shadow?”

“Right. Sam, Eamon Whitechapel, head of A&R. Eamon, Sam, some guy from America.”

“Nice to meet you, Sam.” Eamon smiled. Sam gave a nod and took a sip of his gin. “Does he speak?”

“Can’t recall,” Gemma replied.

“Lovely,” Eamon said. “I’ll leave you both to it. Gemma, one hour, okay? Stay close. The old man’s a no-show…”

“…obviously…”

“…but I hear Rebecca Prue might be personally in attendance.”

Gemma scoffed. “Cunt.” She shook her head and walked away, then leaned against the bar at the very back of the room.

Sam took in the scene. A crew of roadies, all clad in black, were hooking up a load of equipment on the stage at the front of the room. A rat’s nest of cables snaked back to a huge black fly case packed with whirring rack-mounted servers.

“Psst.” Gemma whispered in Sam’s direction. “Come ‘ere.” He quickly obeyed and was handed a fresh gin for his trouble. “Don’t get pulled in by all this. It’s not cool. And none of these people are our friends. This might as well be a funeral for a friend of ours and those are the people who murdered her.”

They spent the hour draining a bottle of Hendrick’s mostly in silence, the din of chatter from everyone else as a backdrop. They gave up on the mixers by the third drink. The floor rumbled with the bass of the band playing in the main hall. The more pressing concern was how the room spun when Sam closed his eyes, which he resolved to stop doing.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” came a voice from the speakers, followed by a couple of loud pops and ringing. “Thank you all for coming to this very special demonstration of Project Vonnegut. I’m Tobias, head of Special Projects at UMG, and I’m joined by a few friends from Magenta.” After some applause, a woman from Magenta confidently strode onto the stage with a microphone and a smart jacket, t-shirt and jeans combination.

“Hi everyone! I’m Sandra, a Product Manager at Magenta. So. We all remember our first concert, right? I know I do! But this isn’t a story about my first concert. It’s a story about what was supposed to be my first concert. I had begged my parents for months before the tickets finally went on sale. I had listened to the album so many times with my girlfriends, and we all knew every lyric. We were an unstoppable girl squad, with unbreakable girl bonds.” She had a huge smile on her face, and made broad, sweeping gestures with her hands as she spoke. Her movements seemed calculated, even as her speech pattern was an unnatural staccato. “The day came, and of course, my parents had relented… I was a persuasive kid… and they got me the tickets.” Behind her on a projector played a slideshow. Lovely old photos, presumably of her, illustrating each step of her childhood outing to her first concert.

“Ugh,” came the barely audible groan from Gemma.

“But there was just one problem. My girlfriends and I were in this together, right? Wrong. Two of them just weren’t able to get tickets. What? They were devastated. I was devastated! The six of us would never get to stand there, arms around each other, scream-singing our lungs out. The four of us sold our tickets, and we all stayed home that night. And the worst part: it turned out the group would never tour again. Never again!” She made a huge sad face, pouted her lip out, and pretended to cry.

A man, clearly also from Magenta given his outfit, then strode onto the stage. “Sandra, what if that dream didn’t have to die? What if your favourite artists could perform as many shows as they wanted, for as long as they wanted? What if they could play a gig every night, in every major city in America? That’s the promise of Project Vonnegut. The artists you love, in the clubs near you.”

“Pbbbbbttt” was Gemma’s quiet reply. She leaned down and whispered to Sam: “grim spectacle, isn’t it?” The sound of her voice sent chills through Sam’s body. He blinked and tried to focus on a few pressing concerns, such as where he was, and what the hell was going on.

“We’re aiming for a single venue trial,” the man continued, “expanding to Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, London and Munich if successful. Training our state-of-the-art holographic and algorithmic technology with your stable of legendary artists and songs. Minimal setup, works in almost any existing venue, low maintenance overhead, and a variety of royalty- or buyout-based licensing schemes available.”

Sandra wore a calculated smirk, and her hands gestured more sweepingly than ever. “Think about it. No riders. No dozen-way revenue splits. No complex logistics, with all the headaches and carbon offsets. No problematic front-people. No cancellations from injuries, no personal emergencies. No refusing to play the hits. No social media scandals. And it’s indistinguishable from the real thing.”

“For some artists, even better than the real thing.”

“Fair enough,” the man added with a wink.

“So that’s phase one of Project Vonnegut,” Sandra finished at centre stage with her most impressive gesture yet. Applause rang through the room. “But of course, don’t take our word for it. Let’s get a few songs from my childhood favourite, the group I never got to see live all those years ago! Girls?” On cue, five girls in matching jumpers walked on stage to laughter and applause. They all waved then hopped down, taking their places just in front of the stage. The lights dimmed, and before their eyes, a boy band appeared to be taking the stage. They materialised from nothing, in a dark corner of the stage, baseball players emerging from the corn on the Field of Dreams. One by one they waved and smiled at the crowd. Sam stared and squinted. There was a definite shimmer, an uncanniness to them, maybe some sort of glow? But considering how close they were, it was surely impressive enough.

“Rubbish,” came Gemma’s shouted response. “I’ve fucking seen enough. This group stopped touring because they were shit, anyway. Think one of ‘em died in a toilet cubicle.” A few people near the back turned to see who’d said that, but lost interest and looked back at the stage. The music had started. The virtual boys danced, spun and gyrated. Their pitch-perfect performance blared from the stacks, delivered entirely via algorithm. The shimmering headsets atop their projected heads there purely for show, to complete the illusion. The crowd bopped and swayed to the beat as the group began improvising nonsensical lyrics about the people in the front row.

“Bloody hell, I can’t watch this,” Gemma groaned to Sam, who had also bopped along to the beat until he felt a flick on his head. “Oi!”

“Sorry, ma’am.” He rubbed his head and put on a sad face.

Gemma slipped her hand into Sam’s. She stalked away, pulling him in tow, through the door and back out into the hallway. She moved briskly down the stairs and hung a left where it should’ve been a right—away from the portal back to reality, instead going deeper into this bizarre realm. Her body slammed against the push bar on the fire door and they went through into the car park, swiftly passed row after row of very high-end vehicles, and finally arrived at a black Mercedes S-Class. The doors popped open and Gemma threw herself in the driver’s seat. She let out a massive sigh and fumbled for a cigarette from the compartment in the door.

Sam stood just outside the car, hands out like fins in a desperate attempt to stabilise himself. All the drink, or maybe the cardio, had caught up with him. Gemma took a long drag and exhaled, her hand visibly shaking. Sam held his breath as the cloud reached him.

“Sam, I appear to have absconded with you.” She laughed and rolled her head across her headrest, a wry smile on her face. “Christ, I don’t even know what I do for a living anymore.” Her eyes a deep red, the lids fluttering as tears ran down her face. She took another drag and exhaled a weary cloud, sinking into the seat as she deflated. “I really don’t know.”

“If it helps, I don’t know what you do either, ma’am.”

She opened her eyes and glanced at him. “That’s the both of us then, yeah? Shall we get a drink to toast the ignoble end of the infamous Gemma Thomson?” She tried to brush her tears off with her palms, smearing quite a bit of her eye shadow, her mascara already starting to run.

“Back…” he gestured toward the venue. “Back in?”

“No, can’t bear it I’m afraid. Can’t go back in there. Christ, look at me. No, tonight is a special night, and it calls for a special pub. I know just the place.”

A voice in Sam’s head managed to surface, until now having been drowned in a stew of gin and glamour. It screamed at him that this had gone too far. Virginia was waiting inside. The concert was waiting inside. He’d disappeared into this world for a little over an hour, an inexplicable diversion. But this was where he needed to thank her for an interesting aside, wish her well, and walk away. Back to his life.

“Sam, in you come.” Gemma’s lurid stare was almost enough to make him forget.

“I really need to get back to my…” He sought the strength to be honest, and failed to find it. “…concert.” His phone had been vibrating in his pocket for the past few minutes. He was in trouble.

“Pity. Burnt Pier? Posh nepo baby emo garbage.”

“Well, it’s not me, I’m…”

Gemma forced a smile as she slammed the car door. “Ta.”