The Lonely Heart Attack Club - Project VIP

by J. C. Williams

  Emma tried to explain. “When we expanded the coffee shops from one to four, we deliberately went for property that had a generous second floor to house the clubs,” she told Pete. “But of course greater floorspace comes at greater expense. The charity had raised a lot of money from previous events so that even if we didn’t get too much subscription money from the members, then we could subsidise it for years if need be. Without this money, the rent still needs to be paid.”

  “And how are…?” Pete started to say.

  “We’re paying it at the moment, Pete. But I’m not sure how much longer we can afford to do it. Not long, I expect. We’ve a mortgage, a son, bills, and….” Emma began. But she had to stop momentarily, getting her money’s worth from the napkin in her hands. “We’ve even had to pay for fifty iPads that Jack ordered for Project VIP,” she continued. “Pete, it’s all gone wrong. We’re going to have to see if we can cancel the lease agreements on all of the properties. And if we can’t… well then we’ll also be at risk of losing our business, and who knows, maybe even our home.”

  “Surely there must be something the charity can do to get the money back? Is there no recourse…?” asked Pete.

  “It’s gone,” said Emma. “Every penny. Everything he’s stolen, both from us and others, it’s already gone. He’s spent all of it, so there’s nothing left to recover,” she explained. “Bastard,” she added, with, coming from Emma, a rarely uttered expletive. “We’ve probably got about four weeks to sort something out, or I hate to say it, but—”

  “Hang on, what about the ballroom-dancing world record attempt?” Pete cut in. “That’ll bring some money!” he suggested, with cheery optimism. “Ow, ow. Sorry,” he added, rubbing the sore muscles of his thighs. He’d gotten excited when offering this last bit of encouragement, risen up in his seat slightly, and then gotten an immediate unpleasant reminder of recent over-exertions.

  Emma sighed. “No. I mean, it’ll help, I hope,” she said. “But what we raise from that will only cover Project VIP and getting tablet computers and internet access into people’s homes. Even then, when we budgeted for the waltz project, we saw that it was likely we’d fall short on it financially, so we were going to make up the shortfall from the charity’s reserves. That’s all gone now. Somehow, we need to get the money back that we’ve lost, or…. that’s it. Game over.”

  “Bastard,” said Pete, as both a general statement and also in reference to the thieving accountant. “If the charity collapses, it’s horrendous news for all the members. And it’s horrendous news for the Isle of Man, all around, as well. Now, what about the other clubs in the UK? How do they factor in?”

  “They only pay a small fee to use the name. We don’t own any of them, so at least they’ll be fine,” Emma explained. “Look, Pete. Will you go and see Jack at some point?” she added. “I just think it’d be good for him to have his friends around and give him the chance to speak to someone other than me about this entire mess. He respects you, Pete. He won’t thank me for telling you this, but I think he’s suffering from depression. He won’t go to the doctors at my suggestion, refuses to go, and I’m just worried that he’ll self-destruct.”

  Emma sighed once again, but then she allowed herself at least the flicker of a smile. Pete took this as an encouraging sign. “What is it?” he asked her.

  “Well, Grandad and Ray have been brainstorming fundraising campaign ideas,” Emma answered. “So far for suggestions, we’ve had nude calendar, Full Monty-style cabaret act, and… well, the other ones I don’t remember off the top of my head. But I do recall that they all somehow or other involved either nakedness or various stages of undress. I think the two of them just wanted an excuse to be naked, to be honest,” she told Pete, giving a little chuckle.

  “Hmm, if they weren’t so long in the tooth, I’d say that was a good idea, but…” said Pete, not really finishing his thought, as he didn’t want to go on thinking about seeing Ray and Grandad naked, actually.

  “Yes, and now they’re actually working on something,” Emma revealed. “They’ve been hiding away all week working on it, but they won’t tell me what it is.”

  “Still something nudity-related?” asked Pete. He was of the opinion that this would not be a good idea, but couldn’t help having a bit of morbid curiosity nonetheless at the prospect.

  “I don’t think so,” Emma assured him. “I believe I’ve talked them out of that, or at least I hope I have. But whatever it is, I think a few of the other club members have also got involved as well, though I’ve no idea what the lot of them are up to,” she said. “But at least it’s taking their mind off things. They’re all just as upset, Pete,” she told him. “The club is more than just a, well, a club to them. It’s friendship, family, support. A place where they all feel they belong. I’m worried for Jack if it all goes pair-shaped, but I’m even more worried about what’ll happen to all of the club members.”

  Pete offered up some more consoling pats of the hand — between taking bites of carrot cake — to Emma. There was really little else (besides taking bites of delicious carrot cake) he could do at this point.

  Back at the Lonely Heart Attack Club, Douglas branch, Grandad poked his head cautiously around the broom closet door for a sneaky peek into the large room of the coffee shop’s second floor that the club called home. “We’re on in a minute, lads,” he said, turning back to the other three figures squashed into the confined space behind him. Grandad placed his hands together, closed his eyes, and began his vocal warm-up.

  “Mah!-Meh!-Me!-Mo!-Moo!” Grandad sang, giving his tongue, lips, and vocal cords a good limbering up. “Join in, you lot!” he said, throwing an accusing eye at his bandmates. “I’m not doing these alone, boys! Right, now all together…”

  Ray tried to move forward a pace, to free up his lung capacity, but it was like they were temporarily trapped inside a sardine tin, packed close together, and any progress was thus rendered impossible. “You know, I think these trousers you’ve had us all wear are a touch too tight, Geoffrey, by the way,” Ray protested. “I can feel a pulse in my leg, and my foot has gone to sleep!”

  Grandad dismissed Ray’s concerns with another rendition of his mah-meh-me scale. He was going to be prepared, Grandad decided, even if the others weren’t. “Right. Now just remember your lines out there, everyone…” he said at the conclusion of his vocal warm-up operation, addressing them all now in a short, enthusiastic little pep talk in preparation for the coming battle. “… and we’ve totally got this!”

  The others may have been more interested in being able to take a proper breath again once outside of the cramped broom cupboard, but Grandad, being closest to the exit, pressed his ear against the door in anxious anticipation of when it would be their turn to do their bit. He went silent for a moment to listen to the song that was presently being butchered by their most esteemed competition. “Bloody hell, I don’t know what Billy and Helen are doing to that song,” he observed, “but that does not sound like Kylie whatserface and Jason whotsisname. Anyway, sounds like we’re up soon, lads. Get ready.”

  After ruling the idea of a naked calendar as being, quite sadly, commercially unviable, it was Ray who’d actually hit upon the genius idea of a fundraising music video. It would have been a great idea, too, if anyone in their local chapter of the club could either sing or was capable of making a music video. Still, they had enthusiasm, and that was to be congratulated. It was an X-Factor style audition, this day’s affair, with four judges selected amongst them having the official casting votes, although those four judges could easily have their opinions swayed by the fifteen or so club members currently sat behind them serving themselves up as the audience for the day and brutally heckling those acts they didn’t like (which had so far been all of them), rather like Romans at the Colosseum. There’d been seven acts so far, and based on the quality of the acts, the fact that most of the audience had limited hearing range could certainly have been considered a benefit or at least a blessin
g of sorts.

  Presently, Helen and Billy were bringing their rendition of “Especially for You” to a very welcome conclusion. Once this was done, Florence, on piano, offered a polite, rather faint round of applause, as did the four judges. Beyond this limited smattering of half-hearted clapping, there was nothing else to be heard by way of appreciation beyond crickets chirping.

  “Next up…” said Isobelle, compère for the day, glancing down at her notepad and clearly enjoying her moment in the spotlight, as there was little else to enjoy up to this point. “Next up we’ve got a group of sprightly young things,” she told the audience. “And ladies, they’ve informed me of their request that knicker-throwing should please be kept to a minimum for the duration of the performance, but that after the performance no such restrictions shall apply.” Isobelle looked rather embarrassed as she’d said this, as if she hadn’t read this bit beforehand before actually speaking the words aloud. “Ahem,” she said, soldiering on like a true professional. “And so without further ado, then, I’m honoured to present to you… The Arthritic Limbs.”

  Grandad emerged from the broom cupboard first, with a broad smile on his face, followed closely by Lionel, and then Vince, and then… no one.

  The band had dressed themselves in the cupboard, so this was the first opportunity for the judges or the audience to clap eyes on them. There was an audible intake of breath, in what was shock, some may say, while others may have equally described it as horror. Grandad’s leather trousers were at least two sizes too small, and the baseball cap he had on, worn in the reverse, virtually drowned his peanut-shaped head. The others, in their respective outfits, were no better.

  Grandad marched towards the stage with purpose, and with that stage merely being an ‘X’ marked on the floor by masking tape in indication of where the various acts were generally meant to position themselves. Geoffrey had clearly practised his entrance walk, and it was obviously intended to coincide with his choice of outfits for the performance. He adopted a dour expression on his mug and swaggered with the rhythm of someone desperately attempting to simulate some strange approximation of what he thought rhythm must look like, swinging his arms across his chest as he went, fingers splayed. It was meant to be impressive, one imagined, but it had rather more the appearance of an epileptic seizure in the end. Also, the group were meant to look like rappers, but it was painfully obvious that Grandad had not done an awful lot of research, as rappers did not generally wear tight leather trousers.

  Halfway to the stage, Geoffrey must have somehow had the sense that he was alone, because he turned ’round, realising no one was beside him. “Come on, lads! Em, that is, I mean… my homies,” he said, trying to not break character from his rapper-inspired persona.

  Lionel lifted up the front of his beanie hat and glanced back into the cupboard in search of their missing companion, and the reason for the others not following Grandad straight out. “The buttons on Ray’s trousers have burst,” Lionel informed Grandad. “Looks like we’ve got a situation.”

  “Are any of his bits showing that shouldn’t be showing?” enquired Grandad.

  Lionel strained his one good eye into the interior of the cupboard. “I don’t think so,” he reported. “I don’t see any offending bits. But it is pretty cold in there, so shrinkage could well be at play?”

  “Well tell him to get out here, then! We ain’t nothin’ if we ain’t all together! And we need to be sticking it to the man!” said Grandad, stamping his foot with gangsta-style irascibility. It was unclear who ‘the man’ referred to in this instance, or what kind of ‘sticking’ would be involved, but this did evoke a titter from one of the female members of the audience, at least, who in some way or another, despite all odds, managed to somehow be appreciative of Grandad’s rough-and-tumble bold-as-brass manly bravado on display.

  On the second time of asking by an indulgent yet increasingly impatient Isobelle, the group presented themselves in front of the judges, with all band members now in attendance and ready, more or less, for their performance.

  With the stilted delivery of an eight-year-old reading from a piece of paper at the school play, Grandad addressed both the judges and the crowd. “We are… The Arthritic Limbs,” he announced, introducing his bandmates with a wave of his hand. It was meant to be dramatic, the way he said it, only it wasn’t. Not really. And Isobelle had already said their name besides, only a minute or so before, so honestly it wasn’t much of a big reveal. But Grandad wasn’t about to let that stop him. “I’m Geoffrey,” he went on, but a quick slap on the arm from Lionel brought an immediate correction to his introduction. “Ehm… that is, I’m Knee Joint. But my friends call me K-Joint,” Grandad said.

  Lionel pivoted on his heel to turn his back on the audience, fidgeting and apparently not wanting what he was fidgeting with to be seen. When he spun back around a moment later, he had his glass eye held between his thumb and forefinger. “And I’m I-Ball,” he said in an artificially deep voice, holding aloft his glass eyeball.

  Next up was Vince, who stepped forward offering a friendly, cordial wave to all, forgetting for a moment he was meant to act like some sort of hooligan or other. “Right, And I’m LL One-Sock,” Vince announced, now crossing his arms across his chest in his finest gangsta rap styling as Geoffrey had shown him earlier.

  Ray was next to step forward, but he couldn’t utilise his arms in a similar fashion as his hands were employed in ensuring his trousers didn’t fall down on account of his burst buttons. “I’m Hip G-Daddy,” he said, before shying away and returning to his bandmates quicker than a homesick mole.

  “That’s right. And, collectively, we’re The Arthritic Limbs, the rapping sensation,” said Grandad, picking up the reins once again, and reading from the virtual piece of paper in his mind’s eye. “And ain’t no homeboy going to touch us,” he concluded, and with a fair amount of relief washing over his face, despite his gangsta stylings he’d been going for, once he’d successfully delivered his introduction. Then, with a smart snap of the fingers from Geoffrey, Doris, at the ready on the music system, took this as her cue to fill the makeshift music hall with music, and with that music being the early 90’s smash hit “U Can’t Touch This” by one MC Hammer.

  Expectation was surprisingly high, but the performance was painful to watch. The audience were polite at first. Well, for about a minute or so. The image of four blokes nearing or over eighty, dressed like a group of Baltimore drug dealers (or at least their bizarre interpretation of what they imagined Baltimore drug dealers looked like) doing not much apart from raising their shoulders to the beat of the music while they sang, and sang badly, was going to get boring quickly. Even the promise of the chorus was underwhelming what with it being delivered at completely different times by each of them, and with I-Ball also, for whatever reason, appearing to think the lyrics were in actual fact, and bizarrely, “it’s my circus,” a phrase he insisted on repeating. Florence, who was still seated behind the piano, was politely clapping along to offer encouragement, but The Arthritic Limbs’ debut performance, sadly, could best be described as utter shit. And so it was that Doris was exceptionally pleased, willing, and eager to finally pull the plug on the last audition of the day, but not before Grandad fell down to one knee for his dramatic finale.

  “It’s my circus!” added I-Ball, trying to join Grandad on one knee, but his knee wasn’t bending as instructed, and so he just hovered there, in mid-air, with his strained leg shaking like a shitting dog.

  The judges were gracious, but there was a danger that too much positive feedback would encourage a repeat performance and possibly even give the indication that the group could and perhaps should be the focus of the club’s music video, which was an impression the judges definitely did not wish to give.

  “I’m not going to lie,” said Lenny, the self-appointed head judge, once it was his turn to speak. “It’s not quite what we’re looking for today, fellows,” he told them, politely, but pulling no punches. “I wish I coul
d have given you ten out of ten for effort, at least, but I’m afraid I just couldn’t because it really was dreadful.”

  It wasn’t a damning indictment, or at least not entirely, but the lads were left under no illusions that their musical talents, such as they were, would not be further required. The idea of a musical video to raise funds for the club was a fun one, but they had to face facts. All of them were completely useless and pretty much tone-deaf. Old Doris had heard enough, and was packing her CD player away as The Arthritic Limbs began their journey back to the changing room, and just as Ray’s trousers finally gave up the ghost, falling down ’round his ankles.

  “We could still do that naked calendar!” shouted a retreating Grandad, with Ray’s sudden loss of trousers putting the idea back in his head. “That’ll get a few quid into the kitty!” he said. But he’d already lost his crowd, who were packing up quick-smart, and likely thinking of a cup of something warm to take their minds away from what they’d just witnessed and heard, to their great lament, on this fateful afternoon.

  Timid as a church mouse, Florence cleared her throat. “I wrote a song,” she said, but with not one person lending her an ear, as they were currently gathering themselves up to leave. Undaunted, she pressed her fingers down on the piano keys. Her musical ability had only been challenged to provide backing music to some of the other acts up to this point, but now she had a composition of her own to offer.

  “I wrote a song about meeting you all and how it changed my life,” she added, and Florence began her song, softly at first, but then with increasing confidence as she lost herself in the music. The retreating audience stopped, turning on sixpence, as soon as they heard Florence start singing. Her voice was hypnotic, the emotion compelling. Not one person spoke. They just listened.

  I stroked your hand as I said a prayer

  I asked for you to slip away; never believe I didn’t care