Fear of Killing Nick Cave
by Ros Barber (Brighton)
A friend of a friend wanted a seafront flat for a Nick Cave photoshoot. My friend’s mum had recently died so hers was empty. We stayed up all night cleaning it: the hallway, the toilets, the kitchen, trying to make it nice for this wonderful songwriter.
We found all this stuff in the freezer. We couldn’t see the dates on packets; it was all so old. We decided to cook all this stuff up and see if any of it was any good to eat. Maybe we could serve it up the next day, we ought to provide something surely?
We tried the samosas tentatively, not really sure if they tasted okay. What if we killed Nick by mistake? We got more hysterical the tireder we got. What if we kill Nick? became How will we kill Nick? Will it be the samosa or will it be the bagel?
How dark, brooding and serious he is. We were giggly, ridiculous. I hid in the kitchen, jumping out as he left. He dashed out looking scared. Then had to return for his suit, quite perturbed. We didn’t kill Nick – I’m glad - but we died of embarrassment.
What Ros Barber says about Fear of Killing Nick Cave:
Liz Edwards presents a show on Radio Reverb, Brighton’s community radio station. The full story as told was wonderfully rich and it’s a shame to have lost so much of the detail here. “Lots of people in Brighton have Nick Cave stories” says Liz, but she seemed to have special talent for bumping into him, first in the Lanes, then repeatedly on the seafront. “It was embarrassing to be so close to someone who feels so familiar, but who doesn’t know you, but who will know from the look on your face that you know who they are.” She described how she and a friend hung back at Will Self’s book signing and Nick Cave and his friend did too. “Shall we form an orderly queue?” he said. She describes him as friendly, and “a nice and astute person” who was clearly bemused, and eventually slightly disturbed, by the odd behaviour brought on by a combination of star-struck anxiety and having stayed up all night cleaning.
