Tender (A britpop era fiction)

There's No Other Way

Yet again, I sit in our living room, a mug in hand and sip on my coffee as I watch the filming crew preparing their equipment and let the make up assistant do her work on my face. God knows I need it. The dark shadows under my eyes betray me: Everything may look just like a few weeks ago when I was interviewed the last time, but it seems to me that the whole world has changed since then.

Matt brings his notes in order and fumbles around with his tablet, but I can still feel him giving me the side eye from time to time. Finally, when the make-up assistant has left us alone, he looks up and smiles at me.

"How are you doing?" he asks. He lowered his voice and though he smiles, his eyes look slightly worried. I stop myself from the usual bullshitty lies, I'm fine, I'm doing great and shrug my shoulders.

"Could be better. Could be worse."

"I, ehm..." Matt clears his throat. "I followed the news a bit over the last weeks and-" He pauses. "I really don't know what to say."

"You don't have to" I answer and I sound just as exhausted as I feel. It's been three very long weeks. "In fact, just don't. I'm tired of explaining myself."

"No, It wasn't my intent to make you talk about it. I just wanted to tell you how much this whole thing - this whole article upset me. It was a garbage piece of writing, doesn't derserve to be called journalism. It's a disgrace, shame on the Rolling Stone for even publishing it. And I think you're absolutely in the right to stand up against that kind of thing."

"Thank you" I mumble. I look down to the coffee in my mug. "I gotta confess something to you."

"Yes?"

"Almost cancelled on you. On all of this. It sparked quite a fuss in my family." In fact, my determination to carry on with these interviews was opposed not only by Dylan, who I fought with about this matter nearly every day, but also by Damon, by Paul, Graham and even my mother called me and gave me the advice to think it over.

"I know you wanna set things straight, darling" she said and I could hear the clear worry in her voice. "But make no mistake, in the end they'll find a way to turn it against you."

As if they won't do that anyway. Since the news broke that with Daves help I decided to take legal action against David Cramer and additionally against the Rolling Stone for defamation, the press seems to entirely have lost their shit. Every day, articles, news reports and even a segment in main news. The hashtag #gallaghergate has trended on Twitter. Countless of my friends and colleagues have spoken up on my behalf, defending me in radio shows, tweets and official statements. The fact that many musicians and people working in the industry have reached out to me, especially women and declared their solidarity or shared their own stories has given me a lot of strength, strength that helped to carry me through the past weeks.

Because everything in my life seems to have turned upside down. Although it has already cooled down again, the amount of press people camping in front of our house in the first week after my official statement that I would take legal actions, reached a new high. In fact, I can't remember to be chased down by so many journos since the heyday of Britpop, when they would follow my brothers and me everywhere.

As if that wasn't enough, we helplessly watched as Dylan went off the rails more and more. After she just disappeared that one dreadful evening without a word and I stayed awake all night, calling each and everyone I know to find out where she was, she stumbled back into the living room where I layed on the sofa, overtired and shaken by concern for her. Within a second I was on my feet, hugging her against her resistance, noticing the smell of lager and her obviously drunken behaviour. She wouldn't answer me where she had been and before I knew, we shouted at each other, so much that Damon woke up and came downstairs. Since then, Dylan often disappeared in the evening and almost every day we woke up to the news that she was seen with various people partying.