The Interview

    Brian heard the deep voice and the footsteps and didn’t get up. He only wished he would have put something on the stereo to calm his mind. Out of the corner of his eye he saw John Caselman stop in the doorway, and his heart pounded, but he didn’t care what Caselman thought of him now. He’d lost much of the innocence of twelve years ago, when Caselman had first interviewed him; that and aging had hardened his face, and his mind. Twelve years ago he had been a friendly, quiet, if awkward—really shy—young man, willing to answer any questions, soaking up any and all attention. He loathed that attention now. And yet here he was inviting it into his home.

    Caselman crossed the threshold of the lounge and stepped across the red carpet. “Hello Brian. Don’t get up.”

“Not a problem,” Brian said, standing. Caselman paused. He wore a plain suit and tie and carried a notebook under one arm. He was calm; this was just another interview for him.

Brian motioned to the armchair across from the sofa. “Please sit.”

    “Thank you.”

    “Drink?”

    “Water, please.”

    Brian called for the maid, who was close by in case Caselman needed to be escorted out. 

“Thank you for being willing to chat,” Caselman said as Brian sat back down. Brian nodded. “It’s been nearly twelve years since we’ve last talked seriously, hasn’t it?”

    “Yeah. Lifetime ago.”

Caselman had interviewed him on occasion at press conferences and things of that nature, but not since that day in seventy-two had he sat down and questioned Brian in-depth. And certainly not about this. Whatever this was. Brian still wasn’t sure himself what his and Glen’s relationship really was. But Caselman said he’d tell the truth.

“You don’t appear any different,” Caselman said.

    Brian sipped his tea. “Bit older.”

    “Aren’t we all?”

    Brian smiled.

    “It’s been a while since the world has heard from you,” Caselman said.

    “They will soon. I’ve an idea for an album, as I’m sure you know—” Caselman nodded; entertainment reporters at the Times kept tabs on all artist’s activities, “—but I’m still playing around with things. Expect I’ll be in the studio by April.” 

    “Nearly three years it’s been, is that right?” Caselman asked. 

    Brian nodded. He had finished his last tour and faded without a word into the wonderful world of creativity. The maid set a pitcher of water on the coffee table and Brian poured two glasses.

    Caselman asked, “Do you still drink?”

    “Sometimes.” Alcohol had never been as much of a problem as drugs. They were why he quit the entertainment social scene eight years ago. Heroin, cocaine, some leftover LSD from the underground days; Brian had done them all, with a penchant for coke, but after five years of it and with Glen’s help, had gone clean. And he had stayed clean. He had Glen to thank for that as well.  

    “This is a very nice place.” Caselman motioned to the rich gold curtains, the stereo in the corner, the walls. “All yours?”

    “Yeah, mine and Glen’s. We have joint ownership.”

    John froze, and Brian almost smiled. Everyone thought the house was his. But no one ever asked about Glen Burke, of course. Blimey, what he gotten himself into?

    “He still around?”

    “Oh yeah. Not here at the moment. I kicked him out.”

    “Kicked him out?” The notebook was pulled out, pen taken between fingers. Brian prepared himself. He wanted to tell the truth; he wanted people to understand. He had agreed to this, even practised what to say. But he couldn’t predict Caselman’s questions.

    “Yeah, to the supermarket. And the post office.” Brian smiled at the coffee table. “He had some songs to mail. He don’t like reporters around, anyway.”

    “Ah.” Caselman nodded. “Is this a typical day off for you?”

    Bloody hell, if only he could get to the real questions. “Near about,” Brian said.

    “Anything in particular you do to relax?”

    “Listen to records.” Brian shrugged. “Swim. Take walks.”

    “Did you have the pool put in after you bought the place?”

    “Yeah, a year after.” That had been six years ago. He’d never have imagined having a pool while living in that drafty flat in Lambeth, trying to get noticed by record companies.

    “You walk on the property?”

    “Yeah. Lots of space. Woods, paths, birds to watch.”

    “How many acres?”

    “Eighty-five.”

    “You out here for the rest of the winter, then?”

    “Yeah, until I go into the studio, then I’ll be back in London.”

    Caselman scribbled notes, then sipped his water. Neither man spoke.

    “Well, get to it,” Brian said. “I know what you’re here for.”

    John nearly choked on his water. “You agreed to talk.”

    A smile ghosted Brian’s lips. “If you print the truth.”

    The pen hovered over the page.

#

    “I’m not trying to be a gossip reporter, Brian,” Caselman had said over the phone when he had called. “I’m trying to get answers to the public’s questions. Questions that have lingered for a long time.”

    Yes, they had. But no one chose to believe Brian’s answers. “I’ve told the truth,” he said.

    “Yes, but the public needs clarity.”

    They didn’t believe him, was what Caselman meant, but Brian knew he was right. And Brian wanted to clarify, to expand on those early comments: “We’re sharing a flat,” “We get a lot of work done living together.” Otherwise the rumours would continue on indefinitely, maybe even become true. But you couldn’t force people to understand.

    “John Caselman,” Brian had said after the call, “wants to ask about—us.”

    Glen, leaning on the kitchen counter watching the garden, remained expressionless. It was his greatest skill, besides songwriting. He had come downstairs from writing, curious, when the phone conversation had lasted over five minutes. “Rumours have come to a head, have they?”

    “I don’t know. He hasn’t wanted to do an interview in years. Says he wants the truth.”

    Glen looked at Brian. They both grinned at the same time, resigned. “It’s what you told them, all those times. They have it.”

    “Right. And the same thing might happen this time.”

    But Brian did want to tell the truth, the whole truth, because it was a wonderful thing. He had tried, in those early years, to say it, but he never had the chance to explain and the papers had twisted his words, implied things that weren’t there. He got smart and shut up about it. All these years later he’d give nearly anything for people to stop wondering. The gossip papers printed pages consistently, a few times a year. “Brian Hemmel: has he finally met the girl of his dreams?” pairing him with some nice lady he had met at a dinner in Kensington, was the latest. Most people wouldn’t understand, including reporters. Brian himself barely understood. But he needed to speak the truth, if only to shut everybody up. And Caselman was giving him the perfect opportunity.

    “What do you think?” Brian asked, staring at the tile floor. 

    Glen was silent. Brian just waited. He needed those words like he needed water. The papers painted him as Brian Hemmel, the independent, melodically brilliant artist who played piano with the soul and emotion of Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles, harmonica reminiscent of the great Chicago bluesmen, and sang like no one else. He was all that, sure. (He played guitar, too, though apparently his piano skills eclipsed that.) But he needed advice more often than he didn’t, in his early days and now, from someone he could really trust. And when he needed help he always went to Glen.

    “What’s wrong? Why does this feel all wrong?” he had asked after that party, back in seventy-two—exhausted from socialising and yet only wanting to get higher, to party, to fit in—when he had found Glen sitting long-faced in his bedroom, alone with a bottle of Fuller’s. 

    “Do you want to spend your life with her?” Glen had said.

    Glen knew the heart of things, even Brian’s issues, when Brian had no clue.

    “Do you want to?” Glen asked, breaking Brian’s gaze from the kitchen tiles.

    Brian sighed. All he ever knew for sure—all he had ever known—was he wanted to play music and sing. Everything else was a haze, the iceberg beneath the surface.

    “I want to set the record straight, yeah.”

    Glen shifted to face Brian. “Caselman’s always seemed objective.”

Brain nodded. He certainly wasn’t a tabloid reporter.

     “So you call him back, agree to it, but only if he tells it straight.”

    Brian had to grin. Glen, despite his gentleness (and he could be a damn pushover, a real softie) could be incredibly confident. And that conviction in his eyes, that trust—in Brian—was what helped Brian make every decision he had ever made since nineteen sixty-nine.

    “Are you all right with it?” he asked Glen.

“Oh, fine. Just don’t drag me through the muck.” Glen grinned and ducked out of the kitchen.

So Brian had agreed to the interview under those terms. Of course he couldn’t trust Caselman to tell the truth, but at least he was a Times reporter.

    Now, in the lounge with John bloody Caselman, Brian cursed himself for ever agreeing to this. Any reporter would just manipulate his words.

    “Let’s start from the beginning,” Caselman said, sitting up straighter in his pressed suit. Brian crossed his legs. “You met Glen in nineteen sixty-nine in London, correct?”

    “Yeah. February. I was doing session work at Dorian Studios and Glen showed up, responding to an advert for songwriters. You know all that.” 

    “Right, I do. You liked his songs. He liked your music.”

    “Yeah.” Brian found Glen one day hanging around the studio, the same bloke he’d seen before trying to peddle his lyrics, and asked to look at them. Brian had been trying to write songs of his own, and had never read lyrics like Glen’s before. Vulnerable, memorable. Lines of cherry sparks, like candy spreading thin / Faces a symphony, expressions on strings, halting to begin. Bloody poetry. They weren’t only about love; they were about alienation, loneliness, a summer’s day, memory, family, the state of the world. “I could look at his lyrics, hear chords, music. He got what I was trying to do, how I’d expand on his melodies. He’d even write lyrics to fit a mood.”

    “Were you friends, then, right away, or was it all business?”

    “It was both. Saw him and just—knew he had written those lyrics, all that pain, imagery, emotion—saw it in his eyes. Something special.” Brian still couldn’t describe it. He had felt Glen’s soul, in some way, in his quiet demeanour, his slouching stance, his gentle, perceptive eyes. “We were both alone. I didn’t much like session work, wanted to do my own songs, and he wasn’t satisfied with shopping songs around and being a delivery driver. We met up to collaborate, you know—” mostly Glen giving his melody ideas, Brian putting music to the words and seeing how Glen liked it, in those days, and then he had mentioned an idea for a bridge melody and Glen’s eyes lit up, and then they tossed words and melodies back and forth like some music hall act “—then we started sitting around afterwards, drinking, talking.” They barely had to talk. The lyrics and music revealed themselves to each other.

    “Where did you meet up? Studio, flat?”

    Brian paused. “My flat. Wanted some place he could play me the melodies, what he had in mind. He brought his guitar, and I had a piano. I listened, mostly, at first. Then started adding stuff in, or creating my own melodies.” Brian had been so lonely. So alive, playing music and living in London finally, loads better than the dreary grey skies and blocks of Birmingham—but every night the empty flat reminded him the price he’d paid. “Got so he’d bring over his guitar and a couple Fuller’s, and we’d work, and then get takeaway or go to the local.” Glorious days, those: meeting up after work, tired but anxious for the real job to begin, two minds opening up and bouncing ideas back and forth, feeling the music, the rhythm of the words, volleying like tennis players on the same team. Laughing about the hypocrisy of some artists, the executives, the music industry in general; watching the telly late into the evening; dreaming of the future. “I can see myself doing this in five years,” Glen had said one night, slouched on the sofa next to Brian in his favourite dark red jumper and jeans, near-empty glass in his hand, the moonlight through the window lighting up his thin, bony face.

    “But would you like it,” Brian asked.

    “Hell yes. Never been able to look five years into the future before.”

    “Quite a connection early on, then?”

    Brian blinked, and John Caselman’s upright, suited form across the room came back to him. “Yes. Hell yes. Electric, it was.”

    Caselman raised his eyebrows for the briefest second imaginable. “Professionally, or personally?”

    “Both,” Brian said, staring straight at him, trying to control the fire in his chest. Caselman wasn’t like those tabloid reporters. “We were friends before we really knew we were.”

    “Right. So—” Caselman wrote, “—what then? By the time I interviewed you you were in a flat together, weren’t you?”

    Here it came. Brian sipped some water. “Got a flat together after I got a contract with Pelatron. March of seventy. We got along, needed to save money, and we were working on songs for the album all the time. We figured if we couldn’t stand each other we could move out after; it was a cheap place, basement flat, barely any heat. Then I made the album, put it out, it exploded. I went on tour and he came along.”

    “For what?”

    Brian tried not to frown. Everyone thought Glen was no more than a solitary songwriter, an antisocial poet, mercurial, useless otherwise. But that was all they knew of him. “Companionship, mostly, and help. He wanted to come along. Was my assistant, basically. He made sure things were set up, hotel had the right room, that sort of thing. Got paid a bit, and got to travel.”

    “Did he know much about stage setup and all that?”

    A damn sight more than you, Brian wanted to say, but shrugged. “He knew some. I showed him what he didn’t know, and there were other blokes checking everything too. Most important was having someone backstage—someone at the hotel—someone on my side.”

    “What about George Jenkins?”

    “He’s a good manager, yeah, but it’s not quite the same. George is more on the business side. Glen—if George pushed something I wasn’t in shape to do, too much, you know, Glen would say, ‘Hey, think about it.’” He still did that now. “He’s outside the business, you know. Makes me think twice, not rush into things.”

    Caselman nodded, pursing his lips over his pen. Brian watched him out of the corner of his eye.

    “He’s remained in that role?”

    “Mostly. Sometimes he has to stay here, but he can write from anywhere, mail songs from anywhere, you know. And he gets good money, too, now.” Brian grinned. Glen hadn’t wanted more than minimum wage even when the money was pouring in.

    “So he’s comfortable with this arrangement? Does he still have time to write songs as much as he’d like?”

    “Oh yeah. Like I said, he can write from anywhere, and he’s got contacts, other artists who call him up and ask for songs.” 

    “If you don’t mind, may I ask a rather personal question?”

    “They’re all personal aren’t they?”

    That caught Caselman off guard. “Yes,” he said, with one of the most sheepish smiles Brian had ever seen. “I told you I would tell the truth. I’m not a disreputable man, Brian. You know that. I’m not out to sully your name.”

    Brian watched motes float diagonally down in the ray of sunlight from the window, disappearing at about the level of the red sofa across the table. He knew it had been coming, and yet, in this moment, everything in him screamed that he was throwing himself into the fire to get roasted alive. But he wanted to tell the truth. And Caselman had agreed. Whatever that was worth. Brian had to trust him.

“Yes. Go ahead.”     

    “How many bedrooms were in that flat, the first one?”

    Brian wanted to laugh, because he knew exactly where Caselman was going. “One.”

    “Did you have separate beds, then?”

    “One bed. He had the sofa.”

    “Did it stay that way?”

    “At first. Later we shared the bed.”

    “Why?”

    “The sofa was a bloody rock. Bed was much more comfortable. And big enough. I didn’t mind sharing it.” It had only been a natural transition from their late nights lounging on the sofa trying to finish a song, Brian leaning over Glen’s shoulder to watch him revise a lyric, Glen leaning in, eyes bright, hair brushing Brian’s cheek, sitting there next to Glen at the piano bench. They’d sometimes fall asleep on that sofa—highly uncomfortable, the thing was decades old—even before they moved into the flat on Birkmont Street together. It was awful. The first time it happened at the Birkmont flat, Brian woke up at three in the morning and shook Glen awake. “Come on.”

    “Come on what?” Glen could wake quickly, but he wasn’t quite catching Brian’s idea.

    “Bed. Come on.”

    “Nah, mate. It’s yours.” Glen was a polite bloke.

    “Ours now,” Brian had said. “Sofa’s bollocks. You’re going to have a bad back by thirty.”

    Glen had grumbled but not complained. Next night, they decided to share again. When it got cold Brian would wake to find Glen’s arm across his chest, or Glen’s head pressed against his shoulder, and it felt good. Like having a brother.

    “Nothing wrong with being a good mate. So,” Caselman scratched something out and wrote again, “did you ever get a second bed?”

    “No.”

    “So you kept sharing it?”

    “Yes. It was just nice. Like having a brother.”

    “Have you ever had a serious girlfriend, Brian?”

    Brian blinked, remembering. “Depends on what you consider serious. I dated Candace Sheeley for eight months. You may remember.” Candace had been serious to him: eight months of going out to dinner on weekends, sometimes to pubs or plays, and phone calls, and talking. She was a nice girl. But after that time—the longest he’d been with a girl before—he knew for sure dating wasn’t for him. He wanted his music; he wanted, if anything, collaboration with a friend, someone who understood.

    “Yes, I remember that.” Caselman nodded. “When did you two break up?”

    “Late seventy-two. November.” Brian knew now he had forced himself to go with her. Every man has a girl; get a girl. So he had. But he never wanted one.

    “It was amicable, if I recall.”

    “Yeah. She was upset, and I didn’t want to hurt her, you know. But she knew I wasn’t into it. Plenty of other blokes would treat her better.”

    “Did Glen have anything to do with the breakup?”

    The hair on Brian’s arms and neck stood up. Glen was the most innocent party in all of this. “No. We hadn’t decided we really wanted to live together long-term yet.”

    “Has Glen ever had a serious girlfriend?”

    “Before we met he had dated a girl for a bit. Sharon something.”

    “Has he dated since then?”

    “No.” And that was all he’d speak for Glen.

    “Why haven’t you gone out with any girls since seventy-two?”

    “Didn’t want to.” Brian shrugged. “Just don’t want to.”

    “Is that because you have Glen?”

    Brian felt his jaw clench and kept his gaze on his water glass. Caselman had said he wasn’t out to crucify him. “Yes and no. Yes because after he and I had been living together for a couple of years, I knew that I liked sharing a flat with him. That companionship with him was what I wanted, all I needed. But no, because I knew before that that I’d never really wanted a girl the way other blokes did. And because ours isn’t the same relationship obviously as with a bird—no kissing, etc.”

    “But you share a bed.”

“We’re not shagging each other.” Brian’s words came out too strong. He remembered all those bloody awful times the reporters, usually tabloid of course, had in very private moments asked, “You and Glen Burke seem very close—are you . . .?” At first Brian was confused, shocked into silence. Then he was furious, but he could never explain properly. So he stopped talking. It was a bit barmy, really: two blokes sharing a bed? But it was them.

    Caselman stared levelly at him, eyes incredibly calm. “You’ve denied you are in the past. But to many people, being that close entails a certain kind of attraction. It’s a very intimate thing, sharing a bed.”

    “Well, I don’t think it entails anything.” Brian tried to relax his tongue. “I’ve never thought of it that way.”

    “I’m only asking what the public is wondering, Brian. You know this is why all those rumours are out there. They see you and Glen, always together, and neither of you with girls, and what should they conclude?”

    Caselman’s voice was calm, not accusatory, not even baiting. “It’s not that way,” Brian said, trying to formulate his thoughts into sentences. “I don’t see sharing a bed as a sexual thing, and neither does he. I know it sounds mad, but I don’t see why blokes can’t do it, or girls. Glen and I are best friends, like brothers. We get on very well, have similar interests, music obviously, and nature and history, other things, he understands my music and I understand his lyrics. And we like living together. It makes it easier to collaborate, of course, and we also genuinely enjoy each other’s company. We don’t fight much. We figured out early on we were comfortable living together, and neither of us were much interested in dating. We were committed to the music, and it grew from there. We realised we didn’t want to live apart. It was just easier, and it’s nice to not live alone, you know? We were committed to each other, as songwriters and friends, and then as life partners too. We liked the idea. I didn’t want to be without him in five or ten years, and he didn’t want to be without me. And we have fun together, you know. I’ve never met a bloke who makes me laugh as much as he does, or who understands my sense of humour.”

    “Sorry to interrupt—when did you figure all that out?”

    “Over several years. Took us a while to even bloody talk about it.” Brian chuckled. They had both been so afraid of the conversation, afraid of the awkwardness, the emotions. As if they didn’t already know each other’s emotions day in and day out. But being raised as proper British men, they’d never been encouraged to express those emotions. And yet the conversations hadn’t been very awkward at all. “It was late one night, maybe early seventy-three, after I’d broken up with Candace. Had a bit of a crisis actually, about that—” which was a whole other story, “—not wanting a girl, you know, confused the hell out of me. So we’d been talking about that a lot, and about us living together, like, ‘Hey, I like this, good to have a flatmate to come home to,’ stuff like that. So we were lying on the bed listening to the radio, I think Free was playing, and he said, ‘No one says you have to get married. I like living with you. Let’s just keep doing it.’

    “‘Like, permanently?’ I said. He said, ‘Yeah’ and I said, ‘I’d like that. I like you better than anyone else I’ve ever met.’

    “And we had subsequent conversations, about how it was going to work, and if we weren’t crazy, etc. But that was it. We just liked being together. No point, trying to force ourselves to get girls. We just fell into a routine, and it worked.”

    Caselman was writing like a fiend. Brian paused, waiting for the next question.

“No, no, go on,” Caselman said, glancing up. “Very interesting.”

It felt so bloody good to be able to talk freely about it, to explain. Brian continued, “We moved into a bigger flat after that, in seventy-three, June or July I think, and we had separate bedrooms. We didn’t always share a bed. We still don’t.” Caselman’s hand flew, scratching across the page. “To be honest, I could live with a girl or bloke, I think. I never thought much about getting married. Always wanted a couple good friends, you know. A really good friend, a companion, maybe. And the music. Never thought about kissing or making out, or sex. Never understood all the blokes in school that were so into it. I thought they were exaggerating. I thought I’d find others who understood, but others wanted sex too. And then I met Glen, and he never really wanted it, either. I asked him about it once, ‘cause I was curious, he never seemed to go out, and he told me about Sharon and wanting the music more than anything. I thought I’d, like, found the damn gold at the end of the rainbow or something.” Brian laughed, remembering the joy of that moment, that someone else was like him. “But the touch, the human contact, you know—the sharing, the closeness—that’s what we like. That’s why we’re all we need.”

    Those hazel eyes, that face, that voice. Familiar and honest and home. The times Glen didn’t travel on tour with him, coming home was that much more a comfort, because Glen was there to greet him. Same hug, same voice, same, “Heya, mate.”

    “Being that close to each other—attraction has never been a problem?”

    “Attraction?” This time Brian had no idea what Caselman was getting at.

    “To each other.”

    Blimey, had Caselman not heard a word Brian said? “No, we’re not attracted to each other,” Brian said, matching eyes with Caselman. When did you start making assumptions, John? “It’s like—brothers. That’s it.”

Caselman nodded, barely. 

“We agreed to this only if you tell the facts. The truth.”

    “Of course,” Caselman said, ever the diplomat. Brian stared at him.

    “Don’t twist my words.”

    “No, no. I agreed to tell the truth, and that’s what I want to tell, Brian. I want the public to be well informed as much as you do.”

    “If you imply anything,” Brian leaned forward, and Caselman’s eyes widened, “anything, I will sue you, and the Times.”

    “I assure you, I report only facts.” Caselman sat straight, recovered.

Brian nodded and sat back. He’d have to trust him. 

“If I have any follow-up questions I’ll be in touch, but otherwise,” Caselman stood and extended his hand, “thank you very much for your time.”

    “You’re welcome,” Brian said, standing too. His hand was immoveable, a rock, and he nodded to Caselman with a slight smile. “Have a pleasant afternoon.” He escorted Caselman down the tiled hall to the front door of the home, and out. 

#

    Two weeks later, Brian opened the newspaper to finally have the knot inside his stomach jump into his throat.

    “Hey,” he called to Glen, who sat across the kitchen from him at the table, cup of tea in hand. “Here it is.”

    Glen got up and stopped behind Brian’s shoulder. They read.

    Caselman had told the truth.

    “That’s that,” Glen said. Brian felt as if he was floating on air. Caselman had actually done it: written well, written dispassionately and tastefully. The truth.

    “The public will still go crazy,” Brian said.

    “You think?”

    “Yeah.”

    The next day Brian opened a fan letter accusing him of denying who he really was. “This isn’t the 50s anymore,” it read in blocky print writing, “come out and say you’re gay.”

    Another read, “I don’t understand what you have against being gay. It’s not wrong. You might like it if you tried.”

    Still another, “What kind of a man are you, not being attracted to women? Did you never experience adolescence?”

    Not for the first time, Brian thought about paying others to read his mail. He’d always prided himself on reading most of it with his own two eyes, but it was getting harder to do.

    Still, John Caselman had told the truth. Who knew how it would affect Brian’s upcoming album’s sales. At least the truth was out, finally.

    Maybe in the future, when he was tired of touring, Brian would write a book. There was a lot more he could say. Maybe in ten or twenty years some people might understand. Then again, maybe not.

    “We’ve got time, want to take a holiday to Spain?” he asked Glen, leaning in Glen’s doorway.

    Glen, hunched over his desk, frowned. “That bad?”

    “Awful.”

    “Sure. Need some warmth this time of year.”

    Brian grinned and went back to his room to rip up the letters.