Zero History

“This is very secret brand,” the woman said. “I cannot help you.”
“But you have,” Hollis said, “thank you,” suddenly wanting to be out of the beautifully
spare little shop, the musky pong of indigo, “thank you very much.” She pulled her coat
on, over the Gabriel Hounds jacket. “Thank you. Goodbye.”
Outside, in Upper James Street, a boy was hurrying past, a hemisphere of thin black
wool pulled down level with his eyes. All black, save for his white, blotchily unshaven
face and the pavement-smudged white sole-edges of his black shoes.
“Clammy,” she said, reflexively, as he passed her.
“Fucking hell,” hissed Clammy, in his recently and somewhat oddly acquired West
Hollywood American, and shuddered, as if from some sudden massive release of coiled
tension. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for denim,” she said, then had to point back at the shop, having no idea what
it was called, discovering simultaneously that it apparently had no sign. “Gabriel Hounds.
They don’t have any.”
Clammy’s eyebrows might have gone up, beneath his black beanie.
“Like this,” she said, tugging at the unbuttoned denim jacket beneath her coat.
His eyes narrowed. “Where’d you get that?”
“A friend.”
“Next to fucking impossible to find,” pronounced Clammy, gravely. As if suddenly
taking her, to her amazement and for the first time, seriously.
“Time for a coffee?”
Clammy shivered. “I’m fucking ill,” he said, and sniffled noisily. “Had to get out of the
studio.”
“Herbal tea. And something I have for your immune system.”
“Were you Reg’s girl, in the band? My mate says you were.”
“Never,” she said, firmly. “Neither symbolically nor biblically.”
Blank.
“They always think the singer must be fucking the guitarist,” she clarified.
Clammy smirked, through his cold. “Tabloids said that about me ’n’ Arfur.”
“Exactly,” she said. “A Canadian-made, ginseng-based patent medicine. Herbal tea
chaser. Can’t hurt.”
Clammy, snuffling, nodded his consent.
>>>
She hoped he really did have a virus. Otherwise, he was in the early onset of heroin
withdrawal. But probably a cold, plus the very considerable stress inherent in working in
the studio with Inchmale.
She’d gotten him to swallow five capsules of Cold-FX, taking three herself as a
prophylactic measure. It usually didn’t seem to do anything, once symptoms were