Chapter Fourteen: A Bullet from Disco Danny
Chapter Fifteen: Embracing the Enemy
Chapter Nineteen: Being Ronnie
Chapter Twenty: A Bigger Splash
LONDON, 27 JANUARY 1999
There are moments in life when your entire confidence depends on the coordination between you and an inanimate object. Symbolically, and actually, the problem was a noose around my neck. Every time I knotted my tie the pointy bit was either above or below my waistband—too long and I felt like an accountant, too short and I resembled a Soho bartender. I rip it off again, wipe the back of my hand across my forehead and try to steady myself before another attempt. I’d earlier decided to go for the pink Turnbull and Asser shirt, freshly depinned, but I’d changed my mind and broke sweat struggling to remove my cufflinks in order to change into the more sober, white one. Pink had looked too presumptuous; a little cocksure. I don’t want to give that impression.
Unfortunately clothes had always been an obsession. As a boy there had been my snake belt and Trackers, with their compass-in-the-heel bonus, then tears spilt over desired Ben Shermans and Budgie jackets; two-tones; brogues; toppers; the thrill of my first Bowie loons; cheesecloth; plastic sandals; mohair jumpers; Smiths; straights; high-tops; GI chic; loafers; kilts; Annello & Davide ballet pumps, and all the madness that was the eighties dressing-up box. The event determines the clothes, but the execution of putting them on prepares you for it, and right now I’m suffering from nerves and in a bit of a state about the length of my tie.
I struggle with the knot in the mirror and wonder if any of this really matters. What the hell am I thinking about! My hair’s freshly trimmed but my face looks tired and drawn from lack of sleep. Last night I’d woken again to play out potential moments from the trial in my head and had not slept since 4 a.m. God, this isn’t working! A flush of insecurity pours into my chest and I feel sick down to my knees, but the doorbell rings (was that it earlier?) and I pull up the heart-shaped knot, throw on my jacket and coat and head downstairs. My tie will have to do. So, I hope, will my truth.
Ian Mill fills the room. Not just physically—he has a large, well-stocked frame, a picture of his own success—but also in terms of his character—a Pickwickian presence born of public-school confidence and class. ‘Spy’ should have drawn him for a Victorian issue of Vanity Fair. He picks up a handful of folders from his aching desk, buries them into his obediently open briefcase and, with a swipe of his hand, clears his barrister’s wig from the table, places it on the top of the folders and closes his case with a snap.
‘Gentlemen?’
I wonder if he’d put the tonal question mark after ‘Gentlemen’ for other, more suspicious reasons. Here, in the theatre of law, stands the last bastion of the class system. Accents are prepared and nurtured, polished and loaded, before being sent out to pronounce judgement upon the fools of the world. I gaze through the window on to the redbricked Inns of Court, survivors of the Great Fire of London and the Blitz, serving as historic reminders of the eternity of order. I find a certain comfort in all of this, and a genetically encoded forelock is being pulled as Steve Dagger and I follow Ian and our team out of the chambers and into the cold bright day that lights the Inns with a nostalgic beauty. As we walk towards the court I feel myself locked into a crashing inevitability and envy the otherness of passing people, on their way to meetings, coffee, loved ones. But Ian bestrides the Strand and it’s all I can do to keep up. We are about to enter his arena.
The Gothic, grey-stone edifice that is the Royal Courts of Justice could be the grand entrance to Oz, overdressed with multiple arches and varied ornate carvings, with a dark spire that points its righteous finger to heaven. But people don’t come here to ask for a heart or courage, just judgement, and, of course, some money. Outside, a pack of media jostle for a statement and some pictures, and I submit myself to the hungry lenses, suddenly relieved that I hadn’t gone for the pink.
We pass through security, and make our way to Court 59. I dread my first meeting with the others. Will it all seem ridiculous when it happens? Will they drop the whole thing on seeing me and realise how preposterous it all is? We arrive at a tiny anteroom and Ian vanishes, leaving Dagger and me, and my two young lawyers, feeling temporarily rudderless. He returns dressed for his performance: wig pressed snugly over his boyish blond waves; white barrister bands tight around his pink neck, and a flowing, long black gown. I feel sick again and wish I’d never read Bleak House.
He resettles his wig; it seems to be focusing his mind. ‘Try to sit at the front. Good to be seen clearly by the judge.’
Our Queen’s Counsel, Barbara Dohmann, arrives—a small, middleaged German woman whom I’m glad to hear is referred to in the business as ‘Doberman’—and we shuffle into the aesthetically neutered courtroom. I’m relieved to see that the others aren’t here yet and, following Ian’s thrusting finger, we slide on to the front bench. Dagger squashes up to my right. This is the man who’d helped to create Spandau Ballet; who has lived, breathed and dreamt it as much any one of us. The rejection he has suffered would have been just as painful, the accusations worse.
He prods me, and with a nod points out their barrister, our adversary, Andrew Sutcliffe. Sharp and feral, his thin nose hovers importantly over his opening statement and I wonder how much pleasure he anticipates from my destruction. Beyond him, in the public seats, I notice some familiar faces—long-term followers of the band: fans. They look excited as they settle into their spaces and arrange their bags between their legs. Next to them are members of the press, notebooks and pens appearing from mucky pockets, and I can feel them begin to scrutinise me and I wonder how you look when you’re about to be sued out of your home.
The courtroom door opens; a sudden hush of voices from outside, and, turning, I catch my first sight of what they call the plaintiffs, the men who’ve brought me here, the same men that I’d known as boys, that I’d embraced a thousand times, that I’d lived a young man’s dream with: John Keeble, Steve Norman, Tony Hadley—men who had been my friends. I want to say hello—it feels ridiculous not to, we’ve known each other since school—but they avoid my gaze as they sideways-step into the bench at the back of the room. I’m surprised by John’s rock-‘n’roll-flavoured peroxide hair, a recent statement of his commitment to the cause. I was probably closer to him than to any other throughout the whole extraordinary ride. I manage to catch his eye but he rejects it and sits between Steve and Tony. The press start to scribble. They can sense fear. To them, we must have the distressed look of people who’ve swum too far out to sea.
The fifth member of the band is missing—my brother. Only recently recovered from two brain operations to remove benign tumours, he is now—thankfully—forging a career as a successful TV star and has rightly chosen to avoid the court. But I have with me, in my heart, his blessing.
Two young clerks with over-gelled hair and oversized tie-knots arrive with trolleys teetering with box-files. Wheeling them to the front of the courtroom,