Storms (40 page)

Too stunned to even cry out, I struggled to my feet and with halting footsteps followed him out onto the driveway. Lindsey was already seated in his car staring at me with a look of rage on his face. I was reeling in disbelief over what had just happened. And it felt as though I'd just been thrown into someone else's reality—for this just wasn't,
just couldn't
, be mine.

Without conscious thought, I ran toward him and leaned next to the car window, screaming, “Lindsey, what are you
doing?
You said that you were glad I was at Christine's! Why are you so angry?
Why?
I didn't do anything wrong—” Before I could say another word, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and floored the gas. Jerked forward, I desperately tried to hold onto the car door as I was dragged by the hair down Christine's driveway. I could hear her screaming, “Lindsey,
stop the car!
Stop!
Stop!”
over the sound of Lindsey's voice muttering unintelligible words as I stumbled to my knees, still trying to hold on.

Then I was falling as Lindsey finally let go and the gray of pavement filled my vision as I hit the ground. And suddenly it was quiet. I felt hands helping me to my feet and through blurred eyes I saw Christine's startled face as she asked me over and over if I was OK. I couldn't speak. I didn't cry. I was too shell-shocked to do either. There was a burning sensation in my scalp and I raised my hand to my head and it came away sticky, smeared with blood. I didn't feel anything else. I didn't feel pain, I didn't feel hysterical. I felt numb. And I welcomed it.

Strangely proud that I was able to walk, I turned and slowly made my way back upstairs and found my purse, a now-silent, white-faced Christine following behind. Mumbling an apology to her and goodbye, I used the wall for support as I went back down the stairs and out to my car.

I drove to the Century Plaza Hotel in Beverly Hills—a hotel that Lindsey and I often stayed at when we wanted to get away for a night—and shakily walked to the front desk. The manager took one look at my face and my bloody hair and asked in a shocked tone, “Ms. Harris, can I help? Do you need a doctor?”

“Please, just a room. I just need a room”, I answered as I struggled to keep it together in front of him as he slid a hotel key across the desk. Walking unsteadily to the elevator, I slipped inside and shrank back into a corner as it rose to my floor. Closing the door of the room behind me, I walked slowly to the bed and almost collapsed onto it. And I cried. I cried for what felt like hours. My heart was breaking. I felt so lost and so alone and my mind kept going back to an image of Lindsey's face as he grabbed my hair and wrapped it in his fist …

The room had grown dark as I lay curled on the bed and the sound of laughter in the hallway brought me out of the semi-trance that I'd fallen into. I wearily rose and stumbled into the bathroom and turned on the light. I had to grip the sink as I stared at my face in shock. There were streaks of dried blood across a face so white that it seemed carved from alabaster. Haunted eyes stared back at me from the mirror, and I had to turn away from my reflection as I felt nausea course through me. Turning on the taps of the bathtub, I stripped off my clothes and climbed carefully into the bath … staring at nothing as the water gently rose around me.

My knees began to sting from the cuts and abrasions that laced across them and I winced in pain as I carefully soaped off the dried blood. My body ached and I had to force myself to slip down and soak my scalp—I tried to brace myself for the pain, but I gasped as my head started to burn in the warm water. Sitting up, I ran my fingers carefully through my hair and was stunned to see that my hands were full of strands of blonde hair that had obviously been torn from my head on Chris's driveway. And the sight of it, the
impossibility
of it, threatened to send me into hysterics. Taking deep breaths, I forced myself to remain calm.
You're OK, Carol, you're OK
, I
kept saying over and over as I stepped out of the bath and wrapped myself in the large white hotel towels folded neatly on a wire rack.

I walked slowly back to the bed, pulled back the covers, and slipped in.
It's the album … the pressure has just made him crazy, that's all… It's just like after the Elvis Costello show
, I said to myself as I lay in the dark.
I didn't do anything wrong
…
I spoke to him several times while I was at Christine's and he seemed happy that I was there … and I know he didn't mean to hurt me. Lindsey loves me—he loves me and I know that he didn't mean it… that wasn't my Lindsey today … it just wasn't. I'll try harder to make it better for him … because this has to be my fault … I don't know how it is, but he wouldn't just do this without a reason, would he? Would he?
I forced the thoughts out of my head, too tired now to do anything but sleep.

The next day I stayed in bed, listlessly watching television, doing my best not to think of Lindsey or what had happened the day before. I felt detached from it—and just like after the night of the Elvis Costello show, I was glad to be numb.

At eight the next morning, there was a soft knock on the door. It was Lindsey. I opened the door and he took me into his arms, murmuring over and over that he loved me. He led me back to bed and climbed in beside me. Gently stroking my hair, he clung to me as I lay in his arms. There would be no apology—no explanation for what happened at Christine's. Only soft words of love and caring touches that made it hard to believe that any of it had ever happened. And I clung to the sound of his voice and the touch of his hand, as I told myself over and over that it would never ever happen again—for it was obvious that I was loved … wasn't it? I assured myself that I was and fell asleep in the dark, dark room.

After months of recording, the band hired Peter Beard (who was married to supermodel Cheryl Tiegs) to design and photograph the new album's inner sleeves. World famous for his photo-diary books and montages that focused mainly on elephants in Africa, he was, the band felt, the perfect man for the job, as the album had been named
Tusk.
To Fleetwood Mac it was a word that was regularly used in reference to a man's “male member” and every guy in the band unanimously accepted the album title. Stevie
hated it and even threatened to quit Fleetwood Mac if the album was called
Tusk
, but her threats fell on unhearing ears and when all was said and done, she accepted the inevitable and lived with the majority vote.

Peter was in the studio for two weeks, shooting mainly Polaroids of the band and the inner circle. Resembling Peter O'Toole in
Lawrence of Arabia
, he was funny and a blast to have around. At one point he whispered into my ear, “Carol, I'm going to make your picture the biggest shot on the inner sleeve—wouldn't that be fun?” As I blushed and murmured, “Yes!” he winked and gave me a hug.

When the album cover design was finished, I'd find that a Polaroid shot of me was indeed bigger than any of the pictures of the band that Peter had taken. I looked like a misbehaving twelve-year-old in the shot and Lindsey loved it. Peter seemed unfazed by the amount of drugs that were everywhere in the studio, and I got the feeling that he saw us as just another species of wild creature to capture in his camera's lens.

Even though sometimes it wasn't that much fun because of the tension, I was starting to once again really love being in the studio with Lindsey. I wanted to be there to support him and, of course, hear the almost-finished music that would be on what had now become a double album. After much debate, the members of Fleetwood Mac had decided that they just had too many great songs to leave
any
of them off
Tusk.
Twenty to be exact. There was concern coming from Warner Bros. about the high list price of a double album, but then again, after the astronomical success of
Rumours
, the record company wasn't really in a position to object. Fleetwood Mac could do what it wanted. And what the band wanted to do was a double album.

As I listened to the nearly finished tracks I couldn't believe how amazing the record was. Because of Lindsey's songs it was a cutting-edge album, and he was really happy with it. To say that Mick was still apprehensive was an understatement. He was freaking. Even now, with the record almost finished after a
year
in the studio, he was
still
trying to convince Lindsey to change his songs, to tone them down. He tried everything, from calm talks to bitter fights, in his efforts to convince Lindsey to infuse his songs with the more traditional Fleetwood Mac sound—and Lindsey adamantly refused, over and over again.

The irony of this would be obvious to every member of the Fleetwood Mac family. It was Mick who first dreamed up the drum riff for the song
“Tusk.” With Lindsey's screams, moans, and grunts over a jangled basic track, it was arguably the most radical cut on the album. And, with the
piece de resistance
of recording the University of Southern California Trojan Marching Band at Dodger Stadium, it screamed “cutting edge.”

With sound trucks full of recording equipment set up inside the perimeter of the stadium, the marching band, in full regalia, gave a brilliant performance on the field as it played along with the basic track and vocals to the playback of the studio-recorded “Tusk.” There was a video crew shooting the entire day to get live footage that would be turned into a promo video for the song, the first single taken from the album.

Mick Fleetwood at Dodger Stadium.

All of us were there except for John McVie. To represent him, the band had made a life-size cardboard cutout to stand in the middle of Dodger Stadium. Having completed his bass parts, John was sailing to Hawaii with three friends—a trip that caused a great deal of worry for some of the Fleetwood Mac family. The boat was as well supplied with party treats as it was with food and water. I, for one, shuddered to think of what could happen to its potentially inebriated crew.

We would find out days later that John and his friends were almost capsized in the middle of the Pacific Ocean by a whale. It was a very close call and the other band members were shocked at how close they came to losing their beloved bass player forever.

In between getting takes of the marching band, the film crew moved about the field with handheld video cameras, shooting Fleetwood Mac throughout the day: Lindsey and Christine in USC Trojan helmets goofing with the students, Stevie twirling a baton with aplomb—a hidden talent that surprised us all. That she had the energy was in itself a miracle. She'd
told me that she hadn't slept the night before the recording and video shoot and I watched in admiration as she breezed through the day—with, no doubt, a little help from the band's favorite energy booster.

Julie, Stevie, Robin Snyder, and I laced on roller skates around 3
P.M.
and spent over an hour skating the perfect circle of concrete hallways above the seats in the stadium. Celebration was in the air. Not only was this track turning out to be brilliant, the album was almost finished! There was still some post-production work to be done in the studio, but the recording of the actual tracks was almost complete. The band had spent close to $1 million during the year that it had taken to record
Tusk
, and that's without including the $1.4-million cost of building Studio D.

Warner Bros. had informed the band that
Tusk
would need sales of close to 500,000 just to break even. But no one was worried, and at this point the band didn't care about how much money the album cost to make. All they cared about right then was that it was almost done, and they were individually thrilled with how their own personal tracks sounded. Within the band there was still controversy over the new sound of the record, along with a lot of concern about how the public would respond to
Tusk
when it was released in September, not to mention what the Warner Bros. executives were going to think when they heard the finished album. For none of them had heard it yet. The band had stuck to its exclusive “no access” policy throughout the entire year.