by Steve Low
I had this friend for a while. He lived farther along Nile Street, the son of a prominent lawyer. Oliver his name was, and we used to walk to school together. Although there was a school in our street, our respective parents had elected to send us to a ‘better’ school, quite a few blocks away. At first it was by accident that Oliver and I walked in company. We might find ourselves in close proximity, somewhere along the way. As time went by our friendship began to firm, such that at 8.20 each school day, I came to expect his quiet tap on the front door. When school was released we would dawdle home, often stopping by at the sports-field, to kick a rugby ball about, or to shoot for goal over the rickety posts.
Yes, that same rickety goal post that had provoked my recollection. The time that I remembered would have been in the winter. Even so, on the day in question, it was rather warm and sunny. At three o’clock, as all the children streamed out of the school, Oliver and I diverted down to the sports-field, carrying with us his leather rugby ball. We ran over to the goal posts, three lengths of gnarly manuka, nailed together and dug into the ground. The crossbar was not quite level. In fact the whole arrangement appeared rather skewed. As we dropped our bags at the base of a post, I noticed that the short sprint across the field had left Oliver out of breath. He lay on his back for a while, until the heaving of his chest subsided. When he had recovered, we went to opposite sides of the goalpost and began our game – drop kicks and place kicks at goal. After ten minutes had passed he walked towards me with the ball. “I’m not feeling well,” he said. “I think I’ll go home. But you can stay and use the ball if you like.” I shook my head as I came up to him. He was always a pale looking kid, but that day his face was even more washed out.
We walked home in silence. Halfway home he stopped, his eyes blinking, as if to shut out the afternoon light. “Can you carry my bag?” he said. I was bemused by this request – a kid so sick that that he couldn’t carry his own bag. I began to formulate a response, to make fun of his forlorn plea. But I noted the glazed appearance of his eyes, the quiet dyspnoea. These observations silenced the partly formed jest. I took his bag from him, and we carried on, he with his head bowed, as if to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. We got to my house first. I volunteered to keep going – to carry the bag right along to his house. He contrived a weak smile and said no, he would manage. I watched as he set off along the pavement, his bag almost touching the ground, his flannelette school shirt half falling out at the back.
Naturally I didn’t think about him again that day. I became quickly distracted by the prospect of Julia’s afternoon tea. The scent of recently poured tea, the sound of the Archers on the radio, and the sight of fresh baking – that was my expectation. And Julia’s facial expression, lightening with pleasure at my return home.
The next day I awoke bathed in sweat, hot and nauseated. I called out to Julia and she was instantly attentive to my needs. She brought me a cold flannel to soothe my brow and a bowl of warm soapy water to bathe my sweating torso. A tall glass of freshly squeezed lemon juice appeared on my bedside table. A transistor radio, tuned to the local radio station was set down beside the juice. She buffed up my pillows and I lay back like a prince. Graham breezed in but seemed unconcerned about my fever. He made some quip about it being an easy way out of a bit of hard work. Soon there was the closing sound of the front door, as the surgeon departed brusquely for work.
Some times when I was unwell I would panic at the thought of losing Julia. “You’re going to live forever, aren’t you Mum?” I’d ask.
“Of course darling,” she would reply. But I knew it was a lie.
I lay listening to the radio. In the morning it was hard going. The shopping program with Eileen – wonderful cosmetics here – a bargain pullover there. The voice grated. I asked for the toy box and got it. I wasn’t feeling too bad. A sore mashed up head and a foul taste in my mouth. It didn’t stop Julia planting kisses all over my face. I took all the miniature aeroplanes (collected from cereal packets) and flew them about my head, making the appropriate sounds out the side of my mouth. They were all turboprops then – no jets to speak of. There were Viscounts, Fokker Friendships, Lockheed Electras . . . Close to midday I was getting tired of being ill. I stood up rather shakily and went to the doorway. There was no sound in the house and I wondered if Julia was out in the washhouse. Assuming that to be the case, I went gingerly down the stairs to the lower hallway, in search of more exciting toys. I was about to enter the living room when the phone rang. Frozen to the spot, I waited for something to happen. I heard Julia’s footsteps coming through a back doorway that led into the kitchen. She picked up the phone, showing herself to be immediately familiar with the person to whom she spoke. A respectable acquaintance I guessed. I could tell by the accentuations of her voice. She was quite adept at shoving half a plum into her voice box if required.
Abruptly though I experienced a chill. It was Julia‘s sudden exclamation. “What!” she cried.
There was an eerie silence as the other person elaborated on the news. I knew that ‘what!’ It was the hallmark of astonishing news. Almost certainly bad – at worst a death.
“He was such a sweet boy,” Julia said, her voice tremulous.
I fled then. It was a death and I knew damn well who it was. I raced up the stairs and slid between the sheets, curling into a fetal position. Not being absolutely sure about the content of the news, I went into a defensive mind state. Surely it wasn’t Oliver who had died.
Shortly afterwards Julia appeared in my room. She said nothing about the phone call, but her demeanour had changed; there was no doubt about that. I could see the fear in her eyes as she ran a hand across my forehead and asked me if I was feeling alright. Then she ran off down the stairs and I heard the kitchen door closing. I had no doubt she was using the telephone again. I lay in a trance, staring at the shapes of light on the ceiling. I was waiting for something to happen. An hour must have past before the front door flew open. The event I was waiting for was close at hand. Graham’s footfalls resounded in the hall before he also disappeared behind the closed kitchen door. I could vaguely discern muted conversation emanating from their kitchen retreat. Shortly they appeared in my room, Graham in front with Julia half hidden behind him.
“Gerry . . . I’m sorry to have to say this to you. . . . Your friend . . . Oliver . . . He died today. . . . He got very sick and died in hospital.”
I nodded. I remained composed, because I already knew. In a way it was a relief to have it confirmed. Oliver White was dead. I would never see him again.
It was meningitis that got him. That night I had carried home his bag, he had gone into the hospital. By morning he was dead. I could imagine how he would have looked, lying there dead, as the cool light of dawn seeped through his hospital window. His face fixed and waxy, the mouth half open – his flaxen hair falling back onto the pillow. His mother would have kissed his forehead shortly after death, taking away with her forever that soapy Oliver smell.
When Graham came to tell me the bad news, he also announced that I was to receive a prophylactic dose of penicillin. The injections were in my backside, and I yelled out, screwing my face into the pillow. All afternoon, Julia kept coming in to see me, enquiring of my symptoms. Did I have a headache? Was it painful to look at bright light? Was my neck stiff and sore?
By nightfall my fever had subsided. Out of danger, I was left to dwell on the day’s events. There would no longer be that quiet tap on the front door before school anymore. My stomach hollowed as I contemplated the fragility of life. The presence of my friend was with me one day, and gone forever the next. I stared at the angles of my room, my mind stalking a meaning for death. Over and over I considered the bald facts. Oliver White is dead. Oliver White is dead. Anyone can die anytime. A child can die. I can die.
Eventually I fell asleep. In my dream his death was a falsity. I dreamed that school was out – we were goal kicking again. He hadn’t died at all. I was excited about that. It seemed only fair tha
t he had been granted life again. It was shocking to wake up and reabsorb the truth. He really was dead.
I lay all day in silence, numbed by the turn of events. By the end of the day I was ready to seek diversion. I turned on the radio, happening onto ‘the top ten at five.’ I felt a stirring of spirit at the prospect. I was beginning to get affected by music at the time. Up until then, music had been something Graham inflicted on us, usually on a wet Sunday. Mostly he listened to classical or opera music. He could play a few popular jazz tunes on the piano but I’m sure he thought they were a bit of inoffensive fun and that the classics were the music for a man of his intellect.
Graham might have forbidden ‘the top ten at five.’ However, he seldom got home from work until six o’clock. I found myself becoming addicted to the style of 1965. My heart would jam in my throat if the sound was right. The right sounds were Ticket to Ride, Five O’clock World, Groovy kind of Love, California Girls, Mothers little Helper, Walk away Renee, Mr Tambourine Man . . .
The latter song became a potent trigger. It is impossible to know precisely why that particular group of voices, why that type of production (with the electric twelve string) got inside me and took possession. Like any embryonic obsession, its onset would have been insidious, growing and reinforced by repetitive exposure.
Like any child of my generation, the new musical experience started with the Beatles. Isobel had rushed into my room one day after school. “Come through to my room,” she said. “I’ve got a copy of Help!”
“Eh? You’ve got what?”
“I’ve got a Beatle’s record, dummy!”
I followed her across the passage. On her bed was a flat square object wrapped in brown paper. “I haven’t unwrapped it yet,” she said. She put an arm around my slight shoulders and adopted a benevolent expression. “I saved it so you can watch.”
We jumped up onto her bed, to sit cross legged either side of the parcel. She looked at me, head to one side, closed mouth smile, as she picked up the record. I was clearly about to witness something really important. She ran a fingernail under the sellotape at one end of the parcel. With the flap released, she began to slip the white record sleeve out onto the palm of a hand. When it was fully out, she passed it straight over to me. “Are your hands clean?” she asked.
I didn’t answer. I stared at the figures conducting semaphore poses on the front cover.
“That’s George, that’s John, that’s Paul and that’s Ringo,” she said, indicating each individual with an outstretched finger. “Look there’s photos of them on the back. She forced the sleeve over against my resisting grasp.
“That one looks like Margo,” I said, pointing at a photo. Isobel frowned. It was a close up of Ringo apparently. She grabbed the sleeve away from me and let the circular disc slide out of its plastic bag. At the sight of the black vinyl, I reached out to touch the etched groove in its facing surface.
She whipped the disc away, up behind her head. “Fingers!” she admonished. She showed me how to hold the disc by its edge. I held it between two sets of outstretched fingers, rocking it back and forth to see how the light reflected off the grooves. The blue label had a symbol on it, like the one for the English pound. Salivation began to take hold - I was forced to swallow. “Right, now we’ve got to ask mum if we can play it.” Isobel said.
“Well . . . better to play it now, while your father is at work,” Julia said, when we accosted her in the kitchen. “Where did you get it?” she asked, her brow furrowed.
“I saved up for it,” Isobel said. “Everyone at school’s got it.”
Isobel was not very familiar with the gramophone. Julia showed her how to play the record. I pulled over a chair to stand on, in order to peer into the cabinet interior. I waited impatiently for the turntable to rotate. At last the stylus arm clicked and whirred, veering across to the edge of the disc. There was a crackling sound as the stylus lodged onto the smooth surface of the edge, before skidding into the groove. The opening chorus thrust into the room like a punch. Julia’s eyes danced in their sockets, her mouth half ajar with mock horror.
Help, I need somebody,
Help, not just anybody,
Help, you know I need someone,
Help!
Isobel and I looked at each other. It was an affecting moment, the power of the new sound and the exchanged glance. Isobel’s face appeared oedematous, her skin flushed with an orange-pink hue. She smiled and sucked in one corner of her mouth, as if she had been rendered childlike by being a captive of the music. Her upper torso began to gently rock back and forth and her eyes glazed over. Julia started to mouth something then stopped. She looked at both of us as if for an answer. I constructed what I believed to be a calming smile – a nine year old in touch with the new vibe.
The first track ended. I watched the stylus move through the low density area that led into the second song – The Night Before. Isobel came out of her trance as the electric piano introduction hit our ears. It seemed like the most sophisticated phenomenon one could conceive of. I felt important and worldly. Julia remained bemused, shaking her head as left the room. “What an earth will Graham think,” she said as she departed.
“Let’s dance,” Isobel said. She pulled me off the chair onto the carpet. Holding my hands, she swung me about at arms length. During the slower You’ve got to hide your love away, she held me in close, right up against her warm body. I felt her nuzzling into the top of my head. I put my hands right around her waist and buried my face into her adolescent cleavage. The skin was soft, moist and salty. I breathed in deeply, savouring her to the full.
The last track on the first side was Ticket to ride. It was instantly familiar, a testament to our developing radio listening habits. Isobel threw back her head, mouth open – as if she was trying to swallow the sky. Hands on hips, legs ajar, she swayed on the spot. I stopped where I was and watched; fascinated by the way she seemed to be possessed by the music.
“Good Heavens” A tall figure came striding into the room. I watched him with consternation. He whipped open the front of the cabinet and halved the output of the machine with a twist of the volume knob. “Where did this come from?” Graham asked, scooping up the record sleeve. “Look at that,” he said, shaking his head at the picture of the Beatles on the sleeve. “What a terrible cacophony,” he said gesturing to the sound speaker.
Isobel’s face was red. But her lips were pale, almost transparent. She looked over at Graham with almost a contemptuous expression. “I suppose you want us to listen to Fiddler on the roof,” she said.
Graham roared with laughter in response. “You’re a cheeky devil,” he said. “But you’re absolutely right. Let’s put it on.” He crossed to the gramophone and pressed the button which resulted in retraction of the needle arm from the record.
Isobel raced across to do battle at the gramophone but Graham fended her off in rugby style with the palm of a hand. Isobel entered into the spirit of things and stepped backward enacting a dramatic collapse. She crashed to the floor, coming to lie face down, pulling at the carpet with mock angry frustrated fingers.
“This isn’t music,” Graham said. He picked up the sleeve and slipped the Help disc inside. He looked at the pictures on the back cover. “They look like girls,” he said. He put Fiddler on the roof on to the turn-table mat..
When he had left the room, I got down on the floor and crawled over to Isobel, the annoyance in her face slowly seeping away. I lay beside her, my body pressed up against hers. She half turned her face away from mine, sighing deeply. I buried my nose into the body of her hair, drawing comfort from the familiarity of its fragrance. I put an arm up over her back, my fingers kneading into the far away axilla. After a time she rolled to face me, her uppermost arm lying up the centre of my back, her lips pressed against my forehead, singing softly. We lay there together, as the room darkened. Cold seeped into the room, an invisible tide that brought me to push in closer; seeking more of this feminine envelop, to escape the chill
and the sense of frustration. Why were parents so afraid of the new music?
From a distant recess came the sound of raised voices – Julia and Graham. Both Isobel and I stopped breathing, inclining our heads to try and hear all the better. Graham’s tirade against a new youth culture was easily discernible. Of Julia‘s response, I could only pick up occasional words. The majority of her discourse was muffled by the intervening walls. Graham’s speech must have become more personally directed. He must have said something significant – a barb of much potency. For the response was swift and disturbing. There was a retort, and a sound of smashing china. There was a muffled oath, and a door slammed, followed by quiet throughout the house. All I could hear was the gentle movement of air, in and out of Isobel’s mouth and nose. I had never before been witness to Julia showing such emotion, and I was disturbed by the violence of her antagonism. What did it all mean? Clearly she had been defending our right to the new music, but even a child could deduce that there was more behind the vehemence of her response than the issue of generational differences in taste
Later, there was contrition. Julia appeared in Isobel’s room. I was lying on her floor, staring at marks on the ceiling. “Your father says you can have the record back,” Julia said. Isobel, who lay with her back to Julia, said nothing. Julia cleared her throat. “And you’re going to have your own record player. You will be able to listen to music in your room – without disturbing your father.”
“Our own record player,” I said, jumping into the air. “Wow.”
Isobel took longer to warm up. She rolled towards us, onto her back. She put her arms up behind her head. “He was mean,” she said.
Julia looked at Isobel without speaking for a few moments. She yawned and then spoke. “Your father is a bit old fashioned,” she said. “But he means well. He has much to carry in his head.”
I had no idea what this last sentence meant. I’m sure Isobel didn’t either. I knew my father had an important and busy job. But I had seen other important fathers as well. Some of them seemed quite accommodating of the new youth culture.
When Julia had gone, Isobel jumped off the bed. She grabbed me by the shoulders. Stridently she whispered. “Yes!”
In the spring, there was a family reunion in Wellington. Graham’s parents had been married for fifty years. His brothers and sisters gathered from all parts of the country to celebrate the occasion. The function was to take place in a small hotel on The Terrace. Most of the extended family had accommodation in the hotel. Graham however, had elected for the family to stay in a separate motel elsewhere in the city.
An evening wind rattled the windows as the family dressed for the big occasion. Richard appeared from his room, seemingly a carbon copy of Graham. It was the slicked back hair, jet black, neatly parted to the side – the dark sports coat and grey trousers. Graham had his Australasian College of Surgeon’s tie knotted at his neck, while Richard wore the navy and sky blue stripes of Nelson College. Julia had an emerald coloured below knee dress, her neck bedecked with a cluster of pearls. As for myself, I felt a real turkey in my Sunday school clothes – grey shirt, grey shorts and grey socks. How could I avoid a grey personality? I knew enough of my vivacious cousins to be certain that the Nelson Davenports were going to look very staid. For Isobel the anguish was even more acute. As an adolescent caught up in the sweep of Beatlemania, she was desperate not to appear out of touch. Isobel was far from happy in her navy skirt and white blouse. Her initial choice of clothes, inclusive of a miniskirt, had been immediately rejected. Returned to our bedroom to change, her face pulsed with anger. “Why have we been given such an uncool father?” she lamented. She ripped off the skirt and smacked it down on a bed.
We negotiated our way through the big city traffic to The Terrace. At the wheel of the Vanguard, Graham missed a couple of turns and at one point we found ourselves driving down a narrow one way street the wrong way. I was wedged in between Isobel and Richard on the back seat. Isobel was sighing and raising her eyes to the ceiling – mortified by the inept provincial father who didn’t know his way around the capital city. In contrast, Richard’s face betrayed no emotion. He looked out his side window at the passing cityscape, his facial expression unchanging, his hands clasp together upon his lap.
We found a park close to the hotel. I gazed up at its four stories in wonder. In my home town, a four story block was revolutionary. In the foyer, the beer soaked carpet pricked my imagination. Entering a lair of socialites and boozers, I felt worldly and important. And who should we run into first but Cousin Annabel. Long blonde hair, Beatle’s fringe, dress boots and jeans – she was right in our faces. Annabel Davenport – wow! Isobel’s mouth was half open as she followed Annabel’s every word.
“Hey, it’s grous to see you all again,” Annabel said with a lop sided smile. She embraced Julia in a big hug. “Wow hasn’t Isobel grown up,” she continued, committing Isobel to a deep crimson flush. Richard stood erect, like a new private on parade. He was older than Annabel, but light-years behind in street sophistication. He was as cold as a slab of granite – almost inanimate. Annabel seemed unaffected by our inertia. She crushed me with her embrace. “You’re still a blondie,” she said. Turning to the others she said, “Isn’t it amazing, all the hair colours. Richard is so dark; Isobel is brunette, and Gerry almost white!” A fragrance similar to incense surrounded me as she sped off. Other relatives to fete had begun appearing off the street and we left the foyer and climbed the stairs to the first floor. French doors led into a function room. Graham’s father appeared. His name was Baring Davenport. Tall, upright and hairless, he pumped Graham’s hand in a white knuckle clasp. “The lad’s in the fifteen,” he grunted – half query, half statement.
“Yes,” Graham said. “They gave Collegiate a pasting.”
Baring looked beyond Graham to find Julia. “How’s my delightful lady?” he asked. He rubbed the back of an offered hand against her fine cheekbones. Julia grinned and I could tell she liked the old man. Baring had slipped an arm around Julia’s narrow waist. He half turned away from her – facing into the centre of the room. “Now where’s Winnie? She’s dying to see you.” he said.
A gaggle of teenaged girls arrived to titillate Isobel. Surrounded, she seemed to forget about her unfashionable attire. Soon she was shouting and carousing with the best of them. It seemed that Isobel could escape her provincial cloak with little effort.
I hung around Julia’s skirt for much of the early part of the evening. The throng of excited and voluble strangers had me red faced and vocally paralysed. My mouth was pulled shut by jaw muscles under high tension. I responded to questions with a meek yes or no, heat flashing through my face each time. Eventually Julia realised that she would have to be brutal, to save me from myself. She paired me off with cousin Peter, a year older in age, but several rungs up the ladder of self assurance. He had naturally curly hair, a posh accent and apparently no self-doubt. “I was first in class last term,” he said. He wore his prep-school blazer and a pair of highly polished black shoes. “And I’m in the A rugby team,” he continued.
“I’m in the B’s,” I said. He nodded his head, as though that was entirely to be expected. We went to inspect the dinner table which straddled the centre of the room beneath two large chandeliers. There was seating for fifty. I wondered who I would have to sit next to. My stomach shrank at the prospect – all that time and nothing to say.
We inspected the big gramophone player. It was housed in a lightly varnished cabinet with one large speaker covered in a cream Hessian cloth. Light jazz music emanated, barely penetrating the front rank of guests. “There’s going to be pop music later,” Peter said with an air of conspiracy. “My big sister’s got lots of records.”
“Isobel’s got Help,” I said with a rush.
“Really,” he said. He looked a little annoyed. “We’ve got A Hard Days Night as well as Help.”
Eventually he took me up to his family’s apartment on the third floor. We clo
sed the door and hurled a black rubber ball at each other for an hour until big sister Annabel came up and ushered us down to dinner. On the way down the stairs Peter had a thought. “My Mum says Uncle P.J got the job your dad always wanted.”
“Ssh, don’t be rude Peter,” Annabel said.
In the dining room, all the younger children were being seated down one end of the long table, well away from Baring and Winifred, the aged celebrities. Now that we were back amongst the crowd, Peter lost interest in me. He and the other big city kids bantered freely while I sat silently chewing on a slice of tough meat. Isobel was two or three seats away across the table. Occasionally she glanced at me, but without a flicker of recognition. She was probably ashamed to have such a mute younger brother – and a mute older brother as well, for that matter.
Squirming inside, I was relieved when Uncle P.J stood up and called for silence. It was time to pay tribute to the half century of marital bliss. How they loved to talk, those big city doctors and lawyers. They all said what a great guy Baring was. And behind the great man, was the great woman – Winifred. The wives didn’t make any speeches. But the more outspoken ones chipped in with comments like, ‘get on with it then,’ and ‘he loves the sound of his own voice.’
The right of reply fell on Baring’s shoulders. He claimed to be a simple man with not much ability. It seemed his success was indeed attributable to the great woman. However, none of us believed him and we never got to hear the other side of the coin from old ‘Winnie.’ She sat there smiling benignly through the whole proceedings. We all got to stand and drink a toast to ‘Winnie and Baring,’ after which the Uncles burst into a rendition of ‘They’re such jolly good fellows,’ followed by ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ As the voices faded away, the youngest and most energetic of Barings’ sons, Uncle James, strode over to the gramophone. The jaunty ‘In the mood’ filled the room, and all the Uncles scurried around the table edge to offer hands to their respective wives. Together they joined Winnie and Baring for a jolly romp on the dance floor.
After a while the ‘oldies’ ran out of steam and retired to a drawing room. Annabel didn’t waste any time. The opening chord of A Hard Day’s Night tore through the air like a rifle-shot. All the teenagers began twisting and shaking across the carpet. Myself, I was halted by the power of the music. I clung to the vibrant noise in a state of suspended animation – only my eardrums were active. During the quieter numbers, the teens talked and drank like real adults. I was impressed by their style. I hoped that one day; I too would be similarly cultured. Even Richard was beginning to say things like, ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ and to nod and shake his head. With Annabel around, one had little choice. She could open up the most resistant of beings – a well oiled opener battling a rusty can of baked beans.
Drunk with sophistication, I circled the dancers to get closer to the gramophone. I had never before heard music so loud. I watched the speaker cloth flapping in and out. I watched the stylus running along the record groove. It was running through the last track of A Hard Day’s Night. As the last cymbal crashed, and the final ringing of guitar strings faded away, Annabel came over to change the disc. She smiled broadly, her teeth glistening. “Do you like the Beatles?” she asked. Apparently not expecting an answer, she replaced A Hard Day’s Night with another disc and activated the play lever. The chiming guitar of the introduction was instantly familiar to me, the blueprint of Mr Tambourine man now well laid down from repeated exposure to radio airplay. Being a recent number one hit song, Mr Tambourine Man galvanised the teens back onto the dance floor. I noticed that this time, the dancers had attained a dream-like quality. They floated about the room independently, like gulls in a midday thermal. Their eyes were glazed and their arms were spread out like wings. It was a preview of the hippie years that were soon to follow. As the song faded out and was replaced by its successor, the dancers depleted in numbers. I however, remained fully alert to the music. The fact that it was emerging from a gramophone of some depth and thrust, added to the wonderment – I was transformed. Song after song came forth, with the same jingle-jangle guitar and distinctive vocal harmonies. The layers of musical notes seemed to enter my gut, to bind with my soul – each new song a reinforcement of the moment produced by its predecessor.
I picked up the record sleeve. The cover was black with a centrally placed shiny sphere. Distorted within the sphere were the five band members, tall, long legged, wearing high heeled boots and left of centre attire. On the back cover was a long typed exposition beneath a black and white photograph of the band at play. On the top left corner were the words, ‘Annabel Davenport.’ She went right to the top of the charts as far as I was concerned. Annabel! She was the sophistocat of them all. She was the conduit for this intoxicating sound, The Byrds!
Ensuing events took a turn, in an unexpected way. The term ‘Generation gap’ came into common parlance in the ensuing years, and that night I witnessed the phenomenon at close range. The Byrds had been replaced on the turntable by something quite different. The new long-player was called The Rolling Stones Now! The sound was much harder than the previous two records and the singer affected quite an air of derision. The dancers had returned to the floor in force. Their faces were set in an almost arrogant way and they danced together in a confrontational manner. Distracted I didn’t notice a tall figure standing beside me, staring at the cavorting figures. “This is astonishing, “he said, to no one in particular. “This isn’t music. It’s a soundtrack for the asinine. . . “
Presently we were joined by Uncle Bob, a short tubby fellow with a lively sense of humour. He had a keen eye for the ridiculous and Graham’s reaction in the banquet hall was right up his street. “The youth of today eh Graham!” he said. He made a sweep of the room with an outstretched arm. “Still, you can’t expect them to dance to some Viennese waltz. It’s not like in our day. They won’t follow along like sheep anymore I’m afraid.”
Graham picked up the sleeve of the offending record. He waved it in front of Bob’s face. “You can’t tell me that this stuff is good for them. It’s licensed anarchy, What on earth is a reputable company like Decca doing?
Back in Nelson, I badgered Julia constantly. I wanted Mr Tambourine Man. The problem was I had no money – not enough anyway. I hadn’t managed to scrape together a single pound yet. I saw an opportunity one day, as I hung close to her skirt in the supermarket. “Issy’s got two records,” I said. “I haven’t got a single one. ”I was way too young for a long player she reasoned. Isobel was a few years older. I held a trump card however. Julia had already sensed that I had an unusual affinity with music. At home there was a piano in the living room. Both Richard and Isobel had received lessons over the years. I often sat down at any time of day, and improvised with the keys. With some trial and error, I was able to pick out a tune by ear. Sometimes I would sense someone beyond the doorway listening. Maybe it was the drifting aroma from a hand held cup of coffee. Or through the crack in the door, I might see the pale blue of Julia’s dressing gown. She knew she had produced something special, a child with an innate ear for harmony. It was this curiosity of hers that enabled me to lead her to the frontage of a local record store. Stopped at the doorway, Julia looked at the window display, her eyebrows knitted. I’m sure she had never encroached upon such an establishment before. I looked up at her, feeling a little apprehensive myself. Her eyes shifted down upon me and her face softened. She took my hand and pulled me into the shop. Inside there was a bewildering array of shelves, crammed with record sleeves. Above on the walls, posters of the latest stars competed with a row of pinned up record covers. Julia approached the man behind the counter. Her son, she said, had his heart set on a record.
“What’s it called then boyo?” the man said, leaning forward over the counter.
I shrank behind the edge of Julia’s skirt. “Mr Tambourine Man,” I whispered.
The man’s eyebrows shot skyward. He left his sanctuary behind the till, and led us to the appropriate section of reco
rd bins. He flicked through some covers. I watched, my heart speeding. I saw the black cover appear. I tugged at Julia’s skirt. “That’s it,” I said. Julia was already clicking open her purse.
Back home Isobel wasn’t happy. “How come he just gets it bought for him,” Isobel protested. “Mr Tambourine Man – just like that. I was going to get that record.”
Julia said something about me not having money of my own and that I was going to do some jobs for her. This hadn’t actually been discussed with me, but I was astute enough to see that she was trying to placate the annoyed sister.
Once she had calmed, Isobel forgot about the ownership issue and led me up the staircase. It was time to employ her tiny record player – the one Julia had bought to keep the irritating pop music out of Graham’s hearing. I held my first record proudly. “No I want to put it on,” I said when Isobel reached out for the disc. She looked at me and frowned, but moved reluctantly to one side. I slid the disc out of its cover. The black vinyl was shiny and clean. I absorbed the distinctive orange CBS label as I threaded the centre hole over the turntable spike.
“Pull the arm to the side,” Isobel said in a waspish tone. I did so and the disc began to rotate around slowly, speeding up gradually until it settled at 33 revolutions per minute. “Set it down on the record,” Isobel said. There was a crackling sound as the primitive stylus ran in the groove. The twelve string introduction came forth and my heart filled. What a moment – an impressionable boy with his first record.
Chapter 5