I caught up with Robbie at the in-house bakery. He was having a sniff. "I can smell the nutmeg." He said with an air of achievement. "How can you tell it apart?" I asked. He chuckled his signature chuckle and looked over to the toilet roll aisle. "Let's just say I used to smell it a lot." He turned and locked his eyes onto mine. "Come."
I'd been working for Sainsbury's for a couple of months by this point. I suddenly had a realisation while buying oranges that using the self-service machines trained me to be a checkout attendant. In fact, it made me realise that I was natural and that this was my dream career. At least for the next few weeks. I tried to limit the time I thought about how self-service machines might make everyone think they were made for checkouts, or that they virtually eliminate the need for more attendants. I picked up an application form, and within a matter of days I was part of the team.
Robbie walked through the shop patting various items like he was praising a faithful dog. Eventually we got to the frozen food aisle and he stopped at the ice-cream, placed both hands on the freezer and leaned in to smell the cold. "It's my last day," he said "and I'm not sad. Well, I'll miss the people. You, and Sally who sleeps in the toilet roll... We fucked of course." I nodded.
" Where are you going?"
" TT asked me back; Wasn't working without the Rob meister."
" Really? I thought Take That were already making a really successful comeback?" He looked at me like I didn't know what Heat Magazine was.
"They were doing alright, but they were missing out on approximately 44% of our original fan base."
It was the evening shift. I was doing time away from the checkouts and we basically had to stock shelves until 11. Robbie told me that he usually did the late night shifts to avoid any confrontations with fans. Sometimes it was fun he said, but there's only so many times you can take someone screaming 'I love you'.
He started to walk again, urging me to follow him. We obviously weren't doing any work, but we seemed to be getting away with it. When I was with Robbie it was as if everyone was working for him, even the customers. 9:30pm on a Tuesday isn't the busiest of times, and most people were convincing themselves they hadn't just been passed by two major cultural figureheads of the mid nineties wearing blue and orange fleeces. We stopped again in the meat aisle.
"Have you ever punched a man with a slab of beef?" asked Robbie. He said it like I might have, but I think he had mistaken me for someone else. I told him no, but he had already become disinterested and was staring at a packet of salmon.
He threw it over the shelf and again we moved away. He toured us through most of the store asking me questions about Kettle Chips and avocados. He slowed as we got to the soft drinks aisle, and seemed calmer. He grabbed a two litre bottle of Lucozade off the shelf and started to drink it. His first gulp drained at least half a litre. His relaxed state was even more prominent now, so he sat on the floor and beckoned me to join him.
"Grab a Lucozade." he demanded. I took a smaller bottle from the shelf.
"I don't think we're allowed to drink the stock, are we?"
"Get a bigger one and stop being a pussy."
"Ok, but I only need a small one."
"Fine...I suppose I often forget how much a normal person drinks." He gave me a look from the corner of his eye that heavily suggested that he wanted me to ask him what he meant.
"Do you drink a lot th-"
"-Fuckloads. Not so much now though. Used to do ten to twenty litres a day. Anyway, do you want to know why I'm getting back with those losers or not?"
I didn't.
"Um, yeah I thought you and Gary had some sort of feud.”
Robbie sighed and looked at the floor. Then he took another swig of Lucozade.
“Yes.”
“Over song writing or something?”
“It wasn’t about that!” Robbie threw the almost empty bottle of drink at the opposite shelf. “I’ll tell you what really happened, if you think you can take it.”
I did. “It’s pretty far out.” He looked at me, then around to check no one was looking. Then he said the words that were the last I had expected.
“We were abducted.” I stayed silent. Now I was interested. I wanted to give him some space to elaborate. “It was January 3rd 1996. By this point we were at the height of our fame. I felt like Jesus….maybe I was. We’d been drinking. Hadn’t stopped since new years eve really. Gary and I had just been chucked out of a club we’d been at with the rest of the band. I think we got removed for showing our cocks too many times. Anyway, we were walking down the street arm in arm like. It wasn’t gay. We were just holding each other up. Then we felt this light behind us. Felt it before even seeing it. It was so bright and hot, but gentle at the same time, like a subtle fire. By the time we managed to look around it had consumed us and knocked us arse over tit onto the pavement. As everything went dark I looked over to Gary and he mouthed the words ‘We're so fucked.’
When we woke up we were in a bright clean room. I think most of it was Ikea stuff. All the surfaces were covered in pulsing lights. I was tied to a chair and this tall figure was looking at me from across the room. It walked over to me and became more in focus. It was a beautiful man. Almost exactly like a human but sort of godly. Had bigger features and this glow. Big eyes too. In fact, it looked like Simon Cowell would look after you'd been tripping on nutmeg."
"Which I assume you were doing."
"Um, no I don't think so, not that night. Anyway, I was looking at this thing and it said to me 'we've selected you as two of the most influential people on earth.' I heard this cackle and realised that Gary was tied to a different chair and we were sitting back to back. I'd sobered up pretty sharpish by this point, but he still seemed off his Britney. 'We want to take you to our planet' it said. Told us that basically they didn't have music on their planet, and if we came with them we'd get treated like kings as long as we made great tunes. At this point I hadn't even written Angels. Kings! It's everything I'd always wanted plus more, which is what I'd always wanted. More...."
"So why are you working at Sainsburys?"
"Because my stupid psychiatrist said I had to get back in touch with real life and real people. Some bullshit about mistaking the things in my head for the real world, as if it isn't. 'You forget what you think, Robbie'. I mean, what the fuck?"
"No, I mean why are you still on this planet?"
"Well, they said they wanted something in return you see...the Crown Jewels. Of course, I said that was fine. We'd get them nicked and be back within a few days. Gary was a bit quiet about it but I just assumed he was still pissed. So anyway, they probed us and played with our balls a bit and we left. The next morning I woke near where we'd been taken up near some bins, but I didn't care about that, or the hangover or the sore arse, because I was so excited. Then..." Robbie looked up at the fluorescent lights, trying not to cry.
"I told the boys immediately. I was going to need them for the crime bit after all. But then Gary turned up and started moaning 'Oh we were drunk, was probably just something we imagined, we probably just got bummed by some tramps.' blah blah fucking blah. He properly dicked up everything ‘cos they started to believe him and not me. This was when it all started to go downhill and Gary and I had a lot of arguments...then I left...And became a fucking superstar of course."
Robbie seemed a whole lot calmer now. He had downed another two bottles of Lucozade by this point, and it looked like an emotional weight had been lifted.
"I couldn't say anything about that night for years, it made me too angry. I started getting into U.F.Os, and I told people about that as you may know, but now I have a master plan. Gary and I made up - I did some lying. Now we're a super group again we're gonna infiltrate the Monarchy without Gary or the other boys even realising what I'm doing. First the Royal Variety, then Wills and Kate's wedding. I'll have the Crown Jewels soon, mark my words. Then I'll go back to that alley in Soho."
“Do you think you’ll ever come back to earth?” I asked.
“Probably not. Depends on whether they offer to make me king here. And we both know how likely that is.”
Robbie stood up and held his head and his stomach, then burped for what seemed like an eternity at a colossal volume. I asked him whether being back in Take That might keep him on the straight and narrow again, and help limit the nutmeg and Lucozade he consumed. He popped open a bag of prawn cocktail crisps, stuffed a handful into his mouth and nodded. Spitting crisps everywhere he mumbled "Definitely."
But we all saw him on The X-Factor.
