Read Nico for Free Online

mean-hearted. They were crowding into Fagin’s, the fantasy palace of the Wicked Lady and the Snowball, where the drinks were as sweet as the perfume, but less alcoholic. Echo and I looked at the girls. That’s where we wanted to be, leaning against the wall, standing in the shadows of love, watching them dance around their handbags. The sexiest sight in the world.
    Demetrius came back with a paper bag full of disposable syringes. (‘It’s a beautiful thing, but I can’t use it,’ said Nico the day before, handing him back a giant stainless-steel surgical hypodermic.) It was an instant ‘open-sesame’ having the title Doctor on his cheque book, people were always ready to ingratiate themselves.
    â€˜I’m tired out.’ He sagged, breathless, into the driver’s seat and started up the engine.
    Echo and I blew kisses to the angels in the rain. They were yelling rendezvous to each other across the street, stamping their white stilettos impatiently, bare white legs blue veined with cold.
    â€˜They’re not bothered about the weather,’ said Echo, ‘they’re used to it. Everyone knows it’s always rainin’ in Manchester.’ He curled up in the corner of the seat and wrapped himself in a dirty old blanket Nico used to protect her harmonium.
    We turned into Piccadilly.
    â€˜Bloody night,’ said Demetrius. ‘Windscreen wipers on the blink again … Toby, get in the back with Jim and Echo. And give the screen a wipe while you’re out there, would you?’
    Toby grabbed the cloth perfunctorily. ‘’Ow come it’s always yours truly that gets the soggy end of the rag?’
    â€˜Because you’re a drummer,’ said Demetrius. ‘Drummers are another primitive life-form, of little use except as beasts of burden.’
    She looked sad and incongruous, standing there in the rain.
    â€˜Why didn’t you wait in the reception?’ asked Demetrius.
    â€˜I just wanted to get out of that place. That guy was an aaasshole.’ She threw a half-smoked Marlboro into the gutter and immediately lit another.
    â€˜I mean, why do they even pretend to be interested? … We could talk about something else … Always the same old shit … Berlin … The Velvet Underground … Who fucking cares? I don’t.’
    Demetrius hummed along to the cassette.
    â€˜Please turn that shit off.’ Nico blew her cigarette smoke in his face. Demetrius coughed and switched off the cassette.
    â€˜Always the Velvet Underground … I want to talk about my records.’
    â€˜No one buys your records,’ said Demetrius.
    â€˜That’s because no one plays them!’
    â€˜Not many people are that depressed.’
    â€˜You’ve got some nerve, fixing me an interview with a moron like that … Do you know the kind of music he plays? Disco.’
    Demetrius went into a mock-Yiddish routine:
    â€˜She don’t like da Disco music. She don’t like da Country & Western. I fix her an interview vid a nice young Goy … She don’t like da interview … Vat’s da matta mit chew? … I tell her, da Radio 3 people, dey’re busy, dey already booked an interview vid Beethoven … I say to dem “But he’s deaf” … “So vot?” day say, “Nobody listens to good music no more anyway.”’
    â€˜Cra-a-zy,’ said Nico, shaking her head.
    We swung into Sunnyview Crescent. Demetrius put his arm around her a little earnestly, like a lover might do, and saw her to the step. They exchanged a few words and, as he gave her a kiss goodnight, he slipped something into her hand. She smiled. Everything would be all right again.
    On the way back into town, Dr Demetrius yawned. Every day a new plan and a new problem.
    â€˜Anyone else fancy driving for a bit?’ The only other driver was Echo and he was nodding out on the back seat.
    Demetrius clocked him in the