by Steve Low
Her set list was quite refined, each song instantly recognisable – a clever tactic in a foreign country if you wanted to be re-employed. So far there had been Harvest, It’s all over now Baby Blue, Free man in Paris, You’ve got a Friend, Fire and Rain, Tracks of my tears, Love one another, Bird on a wire ,and A Horse with no Name. It helped her cause that the audience was partly English speaking There were a few British (the closest such country to Le Havre), Americans of course, and a few each of Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders. Occasionally I’d hear a phrase of French, an exclamation in German, or some other language of which I had no knowledge.
Clearly not all the patrons of Cafe de la Mer were staying in the associated Pension Le Havre, for there was a steady movement of people to and from the street. There was a certain similarity about these mobile patrons. They were all young (mostly in their twenties), mostly wearing stone-washed jeans and in the main sporting long straggly hair.
I kept my eyes on the singer. She was dressed in the prescribed uniform plus jean-jacket, and there were dozens of bangles swinging on her arms, clattering as she strummed the guitar. Her hair was a tawny colour underneath, with an overlay of sun-bleached strands falling about her face and neck. She began to sing Goin back, a Goffin-King song that the Byrds had covered on Notorious.
“This is a Byrds song, isn’t it?” Isobel said, humouring my fixation. She held her chin in the cupped palms of her hands, elbows on the table-top.
I nodded. In my mind, I was recalling the times I too had sung in noisy bars. The hum of the amplifiers, the curtains of cigarette smoke, the crumpled set list at my feet – the thrill of the moment, as my strummed chords rang out through the room.
The singer paused for a break. She was sitting on a high stool at the bar, toying with a glass of wine, conversing with a barman. I turned to Isobel. “I’m just going to ask her something,” I said, gesturing towards the bar.
I came up beside the singer, complementing her on the music, following up with questions about her gig – how she got it, why France –that sort of thing. I was anxious to avoid giving the impression of being some drunken suitor. She turned to face me, with a smile of flashing pearly teeth. Her face exuded warmth and self confidence and I felt a tightening in my belly –a symptom of envy perhaps.
“Do you play?” she asked
“Well, yeah, I have done,” I said. “I’m more into trying to write songs at the moment.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Wow I’d love to be able to do that,” she said.
I went into a mode of self-deprecation, making it clear I wasn’t getting anywhere in the industry.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “As long as you’re having a go - that’s the main thing.. I’d love to hear some of your stuff.”
She was saying all the right things to leave me with a good feeling.
“I reckon your choice of material is so good,” I said. “It’s just right for this place.”
“Can you play lead?” she asked. “I’ve got a Telecaster as well as my Ovation. You can join me if you like.”
I went back to tell Isobel the good news. She looked pleased for me. The trip to France meant I could be with her day and night for 2 weeks and help wean her off the addictive drugs – eventually all drugs. I knew I was possibly foolish trying to handle it myself but once again I couldn’t bring myself to shop her in to the authorities against her wishes. I could imagine Melanie’s raised eyes if she knew of my actions –or rather my lack of action.
“I’ll go up to the room soon,” she said. She was tired – and this tiredness was aided by a liberal inhalation of dope. This was all part of my plan to slowly get her off drugs. I felt continuing to use cannabis, which was relatively non addictive, would keep her calm as the more addictive dugs like the opiates and valium were weaned. The methadone maintenance program we just carried on with – as prescribed by the drug clinic. It was a weaning program as well.
I touched her on a shoulder and walked away towards the small stage.
“I’m Joanna, by the way,” the singer said, as I climbed up beside her.
I strapped on the Telecaster, my musical companion announcing the new guitarist, all the way from Nouvelle Zelande. She launched into Help me, the Joni Mitchell staple, and I came in behind her, picking away Clarence White style, a technique fashionable during the Californian country-rock experiment. She gave me that look of approval, a nod with the eyebrows raised. Next she did Ticket to Ride and I sang a harmony line on the chorus, unamplified, but enough to catch her ear. She gestured that I should go over to share her microphone, to stand beside her, she on a high stool, our voices blending in third and fifth intervals. Later she said, “Why don’t you do a song?” and I did Mr Tambourine Man, ecstatic as she sang the high harmony over the top.
When it was over, we retreated to the bar, myself flushed with well being, Joanna perhaps untouched, just another night in the cafes of Europe. She pushed her hair back off her face and spoke. “When my berry picking job is over at the end of the month, I’ll move on – probably to Zurich. I’ve got a friend who lives there – her partner lectures at the University.” It sounded more interesting than my imminent return to Ashford. I felt another surge of envy. I admired her self-assurance, And immediately I envied anybody who would be with her. “Why don’t you play me some of your tunes?” she said. “We can take a guitar to my room. I’ve rolled a couple of joints.”
Isobel had disappeared up to our room so the invitation was easy to accept. It was a small room, painted with loose brush-strokes in a creamy-apricot colour. There was a print of The Room on one wall. And cut into the other wall, was a window with dilapidated joinery. Outside on a broad sill there was a potted flower plant.
She sat on the single bed, unearthing two joints from a pencil case. “OK, you gotta play now,” she said, holding a flaming match to the first cigarette. I took up the Ovation, hugging the rounded body to my belly. I strummed an E-minor chord and sang . . .
A love hate affair
Without a hand to hold
Dressed with desire
You read me like a novel
Bemused by your ego
And careful sense of poise
You are legendary
And should be carved in stone
You’ve got the best of both worlds
And you know it baby
You got the best of both worlds
And you know it baby
The seeds of rebellion
Fuel an empty climax
Got to have two passports
To bust the border guards
My life and I
A small conspiracy
Like your co-respondent
I’m waiting up all night
“That’s great,” she said, blowing out a plume of smoke.
Best of both worlds had been inspired by my relationship with Flesh whom I had eventually found to be two-timing me – just as I had been deceiving Eleanor.
“I love hearing something creative like that,” Joanna said. “It says so much about the person.”
I ploughed on through my songs; War of words, You’re Easy, Heart of Stone . . .“They all seem to be about deceit,” she said. She was sitting across the bed, her back resting against the wall. “Are you the deceiver – or have you been deceived?”
I flicked the guitar strap over my head, placing the instrument into its case. “Well, both I guess. It’s hard to get it right, isn’t it.” The joint had permeated my system and I began to laugh.
She too began to laugh, and she grappled with the duvet in an effort to lever herself across to the edge of the bed. “Come and do some deceiving with me then,” she said.
I was ready of course for this advance, even though I’d been consumed by the presentation of my oeuvre. Here I was with this beautiful seductive woman – of course I’d thought about being with her. The pit of my belly fell away with visceral contraction. She was young and free, alone in Europe; nobody in the background poised to make
judgement. Perhaps she merely wanted someone to hold her, to rock her like a baby for the night. But I didn’t have to think it over. I was free myself now. I didn’t even hesitate. I was across to the bedside, kneeling before the long legged Canadian, her hair falling all around my face, as my lips found hers. The unexpected scent of her skin, the musky scent of her breath, jolted me in the short transition to intimacy.
“You want me don’t you,” she teased, falling onto her back, so that I came to lie on top of her. Her face was framed by the two currents of hair, glistening upper teeth half bared beneath a soft curve of upper lip. She was watching my eyes, her gaze unflinching - all the while freeing herself of clothes, in serpent like movements. By mutual consent, or rather an unspoken understanding; the initial vicious rate of climb was soon circumscribed, a slackening of rhythm and pressure. There were hours to go until morning - no hurry to return to our given lives - we both wanted to float, to ride this unexpected sea of pleasure, buoyed by the gentle thrust of waves, the swirling grip of current. I was in rhythm with the rise of the sun, the pull of the moon, the flow of the tides. Through the small window, the heart of Le Havre pulsed, and I was its epicentre - the axis about which all revolved. I knew all too well I was reaching a rare state of Nirvana – a complete symbiosis of spirit, philosophy and loving. I began to watch the clock. I didn’t want it all to finish and neither it appeared did she. Isobel and I had a Ferry to catch in the morning – our two weeks of rehab were over. Through the window, the metallic sky was softened by a watery hue of pink, evidence that the grim reality of the new day would soon have to be swallowed, gulped down through a dry constricted oesophagus. We moved apart slightly - still touching in a loose kind of way, but no longer clinging – as if preparing for the coming departure.
“I love the freedom of travelling alone,” she said, propping up onto an elbow. “But it can be so sad. You are touched by people . . . And then, they are gone. You may never see them again.” She sat up, using both hands to scoop her hair behind her shoulders. “You must keep writing music,” she said. “You’re lucky you can do that . . . I know it’s almost impossible to get a break, but who knows . . . One day it might happen for you.”
As the arms of the clock-face slid around towards 7 a.m, I buried my face into her neck, taking bleak comfort in the delightful blend of scents – skin, perfume and sweat – and absorbing the rise and fall of her chest; the pulse wave in her neck – the palpable signs of a beautiful life. And when it was time, I reluctantly backed out of the room, my talk abruptly monosyllabic, matter of fact. Joanna looked at me quizzically, warily – whether out of awareness of my affected state, or by dint of an embryonic emotion of her own, I could not tell. She scribbled down her Vancouver address, a last minute gesture – untidy handwriting on a ripped off corner of an envelope.
Thereafter the day remained stillborn; an overcast sky, not thick or menacing, but enough to trap the penetrating light and create a landscape without shadows – an inflammatory fluorescence that gets in and burns behind the eyes. Isobel and I were quiet as we waited in the queue of cars, looking for the signal to drive aboard the channel-ferry. Isobel hadn’t questioned me much about my whereabouts in the night. She had awoken briefly at three, noticing my absence. I’m sure she guessed what had happened.
“I suppose you’re in love with that blonde girl,” she eventually said, bestowing an impressionable character upon me (and unknowingly enunciating the truth.
I nodded my head, looking out the window to the horizon of flat grey sea. Inside, my whole visceral being seemed to be in a vortex. The empty horizon, the dark grey seascape, the light grey sky . . . That type of view, destined forever to trigger within me a searing nostalgia – one of almost nauseating quality. The face of Joanna, the curves of her unclothed body – lying open – and her voice, soft and mischievous; ‘You’re desperate, aren’t you?’ Isobel slipped an arm around my shoulders and we leaned into each other, able to take comfort from each other so easily.
Yes I was desperate. Alone later, up on the top deck, taking in again the bleak horizon, I was slipping into the nightmare with ease. Behind me, the receding coastline of France, and one woman, her guitar case laid down beside her at the ticket office - perhaps a glassed off facade with a circular hole for shouting through. Deux billet par Zurich. Oui madame, oui madame, oui madame . . . How I envied that ticket seller his sixty seconds with Joanna. Would he stop for a half minute, after his encounter; to mourn the tragedy of her transient presence in his life?
To think that I might never see her again – the curves of her body, the scent of the skin, perfume and sweat, the glistening upper teeth beneath the soft curve of a lip, and yes, the soft and mischievous voice saying ‘you’re desperate aren’t you.’
I walked along the starboard rail of the ship, mesmerised by the foaming bow wave and its trailing wake. I recalled one thing she had said, that one day she might hear one of my songs on the radio. Wherever she was, I could reach out to her again with melody. I imagined such a song, played repeatedly on the radio stations of the Western world. And out there, somewhere in the North American night, a tall open faced woman (with intelligent teeth!) stops to listen, triggered by the melody, the harmony . . . The words provoke the memory of a long forgotten moment, in a French cafe. I liked the idea of those radio waves, transmitted around a suspended earth; half the globe in light, half in darkness . . . The melody played, all around the world.
As the ship began to rise and fall over a gentle swell, I had a hook for a song. Take this melody and play it around the world. I took out pen and paper from my top pocket and wrote it down. The arrival of these lines buoyed me a little – as though I had a part of Joanna to take away with me. That night, back in our hospital flat, with Isobel asleep in the bedroom, I took up my guitar and completed the song.
I once met a girl in a French Cafe
She sang with my guitar, sweet harmonies
We shared the moves till dawn, enchanted night
And together we wrote these words in song
So take this melody
And play it around the world, tonight
Take this melody and play it around the world
‘Cause the feeling inside
Is the one between the lines
Take this melody, and play it all around the workl
Introspective lines they cut no ice
Harmony is the trigger of the song
Somewhere in the night there’s a radio
Somewhere in the night there’s a love of mine
As was the case whenever I completed a new song, I became flushed with excitement about its prospects. I committed it to tape immediately, imbuing its production with my usual Byrdsian touches of high harmonies, droning guitars and counterpoint bass. However in 1987, this type of production was anachronistic. The fashions were ever changing from disco to west-coast to punk . . .
I sent it away, listening to its gentle impact inside countless letter boxes. And back it came, its homing instinct stronger than any racing pigeon. Take this melody had received short shift from the London music publishers. I was well used to this boomerang effect of my tapes. I’d sent out a steady stream of packages over my time in London and I was well accustomed to failure. Each defeat exacted a toll, perhaps even more so with the passage of time. Even my sole success, the uptake by a publisher of Best of both worlds had come to naught. In the end they hadn’t managed to place the song. Whenever the mailbox revealed its unwanted content, my heart would sink - the day would be wrecked, a black cloud enveloping and settling upon my tormented mind. The size and shape of the returned package would give the game away – the dreaded form of a packaged reel to reel tape. I would try to talk myself up, dreaming up a make-believe circumstance whereby, yes, a tape was returned; but accompanied by an acceptance letter – perhaps accompanied by a big wad of documents - a contract to take to my lawyer. But that scenario was illogical - why would they send the tape as well? Surely, if they loved it, the
y would want to keep it, to reproduce it, and thrust it upon some burgeoning singer. Always, my supposition was correct. The tape would be accompanied by a rejection letter.
“What are you looking so depressed about?” Isobel asked, closing the door behind her.
I explained the sense of failure I was feeling after the return of my song.
“You would choose the hardest market to crack.” We went through to the kitchen, scraping back two chairs to sit on.
Later, wreathed in the smoke of successive joints, she came across to me, lying her forearms across my shoulders, a cheek abutted against my forehead. “You can take me out,” she said. “I want to hear some music.”
It was good to get out of the nagging wind and into a tube station. She clung to my arm like the truelove of lost John Riley. “I’ll get a Time Out,” I slurred, swinging her around towards a news-stand. We hovered under a fluorescent bulb, laughing uncontrollably as we leafed through the magazine.
“Lemme have a look,” she demanded, grappling with the loose pages. At last we found something suitable; The Rain Parade playing the Hammersmith Odeon.
There was a shout – the news-stand operator wanting money for the magazine. Isobel thrust it back into his grasp. “We don’t want it now,” she said.
On the tube-train, we carried on the frivolity. Isobel opened up to the silent audience caged in the flying carriage. I was watching the faces. Some were amused, others turned away in disgust. Most looked wary or bemused. I was happy to get out of the underground without an incident. Isobel in this mood was a liability. Up on the street it was cosmopolitan – groups of youths skylarking along the streets. There were plenty of New Zealand and Australian accents. Hammersmith was an Antipodean collection point.
In the Odeon, the front half of the floor was already packed with youths with their uniform of faded jeans, leather jackets and long straggly hair. We hung about at the back, smoking the joints and loosely dancing to the music blaring from the speaker stacks. As usual the roadies took an age to set up. Eventually the lights went down and a voice boomed out. ‘Would you welcome from Los Angeles California . . . The Rain Parade.’ We screamed and shrieked with the rest of them, Isobel pumping a fist to the sky. We didn’t know many of the songs, but the compositions were adventurous, and the sound was Byrdsian – garnering a huge tick from me. Isobel was far away. Her eyes were closed and her body swayed – as happy as I’d ever seen her. It made me realise that total distraction gave her some sense of equilibrium - by drugs, by music, by sex? On the way back I suggested she get into playing music herself. “It’s so therapeutic,” I said. Singing with a guitar – it always feels good. And you might get obsessed with it – take your mind off other things.” She agreed it was worth a try. She loved music. Perhaps the forced piano lessons of her youth had put her off.
One day we travelled to Kew, Isobel was looking better. We’d scaled the dope back to every second day and her methadone was similarly reducing. She was learning some chords with my guitar. She seemed pleased with these achievements. She was more like the childhood Isobel with the impish smile in the slightly plump face. I flashed back to the burnt sienna hair, the dash of freckles - preferable to the blonded straw and pallor of today.
We wandered off into the gardens, along winding pathways surrounded by splashes of bright colour. Presently Isobel led me to a patch of vibrant green mossy grass. We lay on our backs and gazed at the uncommonly blue sky.
“The weather Gods have been kind to us today,” I said.
I felt fingers digging into my proximal bicep. ”I love coming here, to this patch of grass. Do you know why? It reminds me of the Travers valley, the meadow where we often camped and played together as kids. It’s the smell of this grass I think, there’s something familiar about the smell.”
I inhaled deeply, drawing the fragrance deep into my lungs. “That’s amazing, ”I said. “I thought only I remembered that . . . It’s the moss in the grass,” I said.. “It’s got that peaty smell.” We lay in companionable silence for quite some time. The sun was warm. For a moment I felt I was back there in the valley, lying with the sister, the promise of life and love ahead, while around us a summer wind gently stroked the longer tussocks.
As if reading my thoughts, she produced her own summation of things. “You only get one chance at life. I haven’t made a very good fist of it really. I don’t know why, but I rebelled against everything when I was a teenager. It tends to happen anyway at that age but I just seemed to need to take it to its fullest extent. Maybe it was having a father like Graham. He was so over-bearing and seemed to represent all that was wrong with his generation.” She had rolled onto a side to face me, her head resting on a cupped hand, the supporting elbow buried in grass. Her face was relaxed, almost benevolent looking, as though she was quite at ease with herself. “It was so cool to be involved with drugs. We thought it was going to be a new way of living – drugs, peace, music . . . I was easy pickings for Junot. He just fed me the stuff and even though he was consuming as much or more than I was, I was the one who got addicted. How do you explain that?”
“I guess you were born that way. Ripe for physical and psychological addiction.”
We got up and walked hand in hand back to the train, through the hordes of tourists and Londoners, who like us, had enjoyed a sunny day in the park. “You got to never touch the stuff again – once you’ve had your last puff,” I said.
“It’s gonna be tough,” she said.
“You need a consuming interest,” I said. “Something to get out of bed for . . . maybe the music - or to be consumed by someone perhaps.”
“You’re lucky you have the music,” she said. “I hope I get hooked as well.”
“And I’ve got to give the music everything I’ve got for a while,” I announced. “And that means ditching this hospital job and living like a bohemian.”
Isobel laughed. “My God, what will Graham Davenport think of that?”
Chapter 3