Nowhere: Volume II of the Collected Short Stories and Novellas of Ian R. MacLeod

by Ian R. MacLeod

  But 1966. There was something then, the light had a sharp edge. Not just acid and grass although that was part of it. A girl with ribbons came up to me along Tottenham Court Road. Gave me a dogeared postcard of a white foreign beach, a blue sea. Told me she’d been there that very morning, just held it to her eyes in the dark. She kissed me cheek and she said she wanted to pass the blessing on.

  Well, the Doctor has never been much of a dreamer, but he could feel the surf of that beach through his toes as he dodged the traffic. He knew there were easier ways of getting there than closing yer eyes. So I took all me money and I bought me a ticket and I took a plane to Spain, la, la. Seemed like everyone was heading that way then, drifting in some warm current from the sun.

  Lived on Formentera for sunbaked years I couldn’t count. It was a sweet way of life, bumming this, bumming that, me and the Walrus walking hand in hand, counting the sand. Sheltering under a fig tree in the rain, I met this welsh girl who called herself Morwenna.

  We all had strange names then. She took me to a house made of driftwood and canvas washed up on the shore. She had bells between her breasts and they tinkled as we made love. When the clouds had cleared we bought fish fresh from the nets in the whitewashed harbour. Then we talked in firelight and the dolphins sang to the lobsters as the waves advanced. She told me under the stars that she knew other places, other worlds. There’s another John at your shoulder, she said. He’s so like you I can’t understand what’s different.

  But Formentera was a long way from anything. It was so timeless we knew it couldn’t last. The tourists, the government, the locals, the police—every Snodgrass in the universe—moved in. Turned out Morwenna’s parents had money so it was all just fine and dandy for the cunt, leaving me one morning before the sun was up, taking a little boat to the airport on Ibiza, then all the way back to bloody Cardiff. The clouds greyed over the Med and the Doctor stayed on too long. Shot the wrong shit, scored the wrong deals.

  Somehow, I ended up in Paris, sleeping in a box and not speaking a bloody word of the lingo. Then somewhere else. The whole thing is a haze. Another time, I was sobbing on Mimi’s doorstep in pebbledash Menlove Avenue and the dog next door was barking and Mendips looked just the same. The porch where I used to play me guitar. Wallpaper and cooking smells inside. She gave me egg and chips and tea in thick white china, just like the old days when she used to go on about me drainpipes.

  So I stayed on a while in Liverpool, slept in me old bed with me feet sticking out the bottom. Mimi had taken down all me Bridget Bardot posters but nothing else had changed. I could almost believe that me mate Paul was gonna come around on the wag from the Inny and we’d spend the afternoon with our guitars and pickle sandwiches, re-writing Buddy Holly and dreaming of the days to come.

  The songs never came out the way we meant and the gigs at the Casbah were a mess. But things were possible, then, yer know?

  I roused meself from bed after a few weeks and Mimi nagged me down the Jobbie. Then I had to give up kidding meself that time had stood still. Did yer know all the docks have gone? I’ve never seen anything so empty. God knows what the people do with themselves when they’re not getting pissed. I couldn’t even find the fucking Cavern, or Eppy’s old record shop where he used to sell that Sibelius crap until he chanced upon us rough lads.

  When I got back to Mendips I suddenly saw how old Mimi had got. Mimi, I said, yer’re a senior citizen. I should be looking after you. She just laughed that off, of course; Mimi was sweet and sour as ever. Wagged her finger at me and put something tasty on the stove. When Mimi’s around, I’m still just a kid, can’t help it. And she couldn’t resist saying, I told you all this guitar stuff would get you nowhere, John. But at least she said it with a smile and hug. I guess I could have stayed there forever, but that’s not the Doctor’s way. Like Mimi says, he’s got ants in his pants. Just like his poor dead Mum. So I started to worry that things were getting too cosy, that maybe it was time to dump everything and start again, again.

  What finally happened was that I met this bloke one day on me way back from the Jobbie. The original Snodgrass, no less—the one I used to sneer at during calligraphy in Art School. In them days I was James Dean and Elvis combined with me drainpipes and me duck’s arse quiff. A one man revolution—Cynthia the rest of the class were so hip they were trying to look like Kenny Ball and his Sodding Jazzmen. This kid Snodgrass couldn’t even manage that, probably dug Frank Ifield. He had spots on his neck, a green sports jacket that looked like his Mum had knitted it. Christ knows what his real name was. Of course, Doctor Winston used to take the piss something rancid, specially when he’d sunk a few pints of black velvet down at Ye Cracke. Anyway, twenty years on and the Doctor was watching ye seagulls on Paradise Street and waiting for the lights to change, when this sports car shaped like a dildo slides up and a window purrs down.

  “Hi, John! Bet you don’t remember me.”

  All I can smell is leather and aftershave. I squint and lean forward to see. The guy’s got red-rimmed glasses on. A grin like a slab of marble.

  “Yeah,” I say, although I really don’t know how I know. “You’re the prat from college. The one with the spotty neck.”

  “I got into advertising,” he said. “My own company now. You were in that band, weren’t you John? Left just before they made it. You always did talk big.”

  “Fuck off Snodgrass,” I tell him, and head across the road. Nearly walk straight into a bus.

  Somehow, it’s the last straw. I saunter down to Lime Street, get me a platform ticket and take the first Intercity that comes in, la, la. They throw me off at Brum, which I swear to Jesus God is the only reason why I’m here. Oh, yeah. I let Mimi know what had happened after a few weeks when me conscience got too heavy. She must have told Cyn. Maybe they send each other Crimble cards.

  Damn.

  Cal’s gone.

  Cold. The sofa. How can anyone sleep on this thing? Hurts me old bones just to sit on it. The sun is fading at the window. Must be late afternoon. No sign of Cal. Probably has to do the biz with some Arab our Kev’s found for her. Now seems as good a time as any to sort out Macca’s tickets, but when I look on top ye telly they’ve done a runner. The cunt’s gone and hidden them, la, la.

  Kevin’s back. I can hear him farting and snoring upstairs in Cal’s room. I shift the dead begonia off ye sideboard and rummage in the cigar box behind. Juicy stuff, near on sixty quid. Cal hides her money somewhere different about once a fortnight, and she don’t think the Doctor has worked out where she’s put it this time. Me, I’ve known for ages, was just saving for ye rainy day. Which is now.

  So yer thought yer could get Doctor Winston O’Boogie to go and see Stu and Paulie just by hiding the tickets did yer? The fucking NEC! Ah-ha. The Doctor’s got other ideas. He pulls on ye jacket, his best and only shoes. Checks himself in the hall mirror. Puts on glasses. Looks like Age Concern. Takes them off again. Heads out. Pulls the door quiet in case Kev should stir. The air outside is grainy, smells of diesel. The sky is pink and all the street lights that work are coming on. The kids are still playing, busy breaking the ariel off a car. They’re too absorbed to look up at ye passing Doctor, which is somehow worse than being taunted. I recognise the cracks in ye pavement. This one looks like a moon buggy. This one looks like me Mum’s face after the car hit her outside Mendips. Not that I saw, but still, yer dream, don’t yer? You still dream. And maybe things were getting a bit too cosy here with Cal anyway, starting to feel sorry for her instead of meself. Too cosy. And the Doctor’s not sure if he’s ever coming back.

  I walk ye streets. Sixty quid, so which pub’s it gonna be? But it turns out the boozers are still all shut anyway. It don’t feel early, but it is—children’s hour on the telly, just the time of year for smoke and darkness.

  End up on the hill on top of the High Street. See the rooftops from here, cars crawling, all them paper warriors on the way home, Tracy doing lipstick on the bus, dreaming of her boyfriend’s busy hands
and the night to come. Whole of Birmingham’s pouring with light. A few more right turns in the Sierra to where the avenues drip sweet evening and Snodgrass says I’m home darling. Deep in the sea arms of love and bolognese for tea. Streets of Solihull and Sutton Coldfield where the kids know how to work a computer instead of just nick one, wear ye uniform at school, places where the grass is velvet and there are magic fountains amid the fairy trees.

  The buses drift by on sails on exhaust and the sky is the colour of Ribena. Soon the stars will come. I can feel the whole night pouring in, humming words I can never quite find. Jesus, does everyone feel this way? Does Snodgrass carry this around when he’s watching Tracy’s legs, on holy Sunday before the Big Match polishing the GL badge on his fucking Sierra? Does he dream of the dark tide, seaweed combers of the ocean parting like the lips he never touched?

  Me, I’m Snodgrass, Kevin, Tracy, fat Doris in her print dress. I’m every bit part player in the whole bloody horrorshow. Everyone except John Lennon. Oh Jesus Mary Joseph and Winston, I dreamed I could circle the world with me arms, take the crowd with me guitar, stomp the beat on dirty floors so it would never end, whisper the dream for every kid under the starch sheets of radio nights. Show them how to shine.

  Christ, I need a drink. Find me way easily, growl at dogs and passers by, but Dave the barman’s a mate. Everything’s deep red in here and tastes of old booze and cigs and the dodgy Gents, just like swimming though me own blood. Dave is wiping the counter with a filthy rag and it’s Getting pissed tonight are we John? Yer bet, wac. Notice two rastas in the corner. Give em the old comic Livipud accent.

  Ken Dodd and his Diddymen. Makes em smile. I hate it when they don’t smile. Ansells and a chaser. Even got change for the jukebox. Not a Beatles song in sight. No Yesterday, no C Moon, no Mull of Kinbloodytyre. Hey, me shout at ye rastas, Now Bob Marley, he was the biz, reet? At least he had to sense to die. Like Jimi, Jim, Janis, all the good ones who kept the anger and the dream. The Rastas say something unintelligible back. Rock and roll, lets. The rastas and Winston, we’re on the same wavelength. Buy em a drink. Clap their backs. They’re exchanging grins like they think I don’t notice. Man, will you look at this sad old git? But he’s buying. Yeah I’m buying thanks to Cal. By the way lads, these Rothmans taste like shit, now surely you guys must have something a little stronger?

  The evening starts to fill out. I can see everything happening even before it does. Maybe the Doctor will have a little puke round about eight to make room for a greasy chippy. Oh, yeah, and plenty of time for more booze and then maybe a bit of bother later. Rock and roll. The rastas have got their mates with them now and they’re saying Hey man, how much money you got there? I wave it in their faces. Wipe yer arse on this, Sambo. Hey, Dave, yer serving or what? Drinky here, drinky there. The good Doctor give drinky everywhere. Jukebox is pounding. Arms in arms, I’m singing words I don’t know. Dave he tell me, Take it easy now, John. And I tell him exactly what to stuff, and precisely where. Oh, yeah. Need to sit down. There’s an arm on me shoulder. I push it off. The arm comes again. The Doctor’s ready to lash out, so maybe the bother is coming earlier than expected. Well, that’s just fine and me turn to face ye foe.

  It’s Cal.

  “John, you just can’t hold your booze any longer.”

  She’s leading me out ye door. I wave me Rastas an ocean wave. The bar waves back.

  The night air hits me like a truncheon. “How the fuck did yer find me?”

  “Not very difficult. How many pubs are there around here?”

  “I’ve never counted.” No, seriously. “Just dump me here Cal. Don’t give me another chance to piss yer around. Look.” I fumble me pockets. Twenty pee. Turns out I’m skint again. “I nicked all yer money. Behind the begonia.”

  “On the sideboard? That’s not mine, it’s Kevin’s. After last time do you think I’m stupid enough to leave money around where you could find it?”

  “Ah-ha!” I point at her in triumph. “You called him Kevin.”

  “Just get in the bloody car.”

  I get in the bloody car. Some geezer in the front says Okay guv, and off we zoom. It’s a big car. Smells like a new camera. I do me royal wave past Kwicksave. I tell the driver, Hey me man, just step on it and follow that car.

  “Plenty of time, Sir,” he tells me. He looks like a chauffeur. He’s wearing a bloody cap.

  Time for what?

  And Jesus, we’re heading to Solihull. I’ve got me glasses on somehow. Trees and a big dual carriageway, the sort you never see from a bus.

  The Doctor does the interior a favour. Says, Stop the car. Do a spastic sprint across ye lay by and yawn me guts out over the verge. The stars stop spinning. I wipe me face. The Sierras are swishing by. There’s a road sign the size of the Liverpool Empire over me head. Says NEC, 2 miles. So that’s it.

  Rock and roll. NEC. I’ve been here and seen Simply Red on Cal’s free tickets, all them pretty tunes with their balls lopped off at birth. Knew what to expect. The place is all car park, like a bloody airport but less fun. Cal says Hi to the staff at the big doors, twilight workers in Butlin’s blazers. Got any jobs on here Cal? asks the pretty girl with the pretty programmes. It’s Max Bygraves next week. Cal just smiles. The Doctor toys with a witty riposte about how she gets more dough lying with her legs open but decides not to. But Jesus, this is Snodgrass city. I’ve never seen so many casual suits.

  I nick a programme from the pile when no one’s looking. Got so much gloss on it, feels like a sheet of glass. The Greatest Hits Tour. Two photos of the Fab Foursome, then and now. George still looks like his Mum, and Ringo’s Ringo. Stu is wasted, but he always was. And Macca is Cliff on steroids.

  “Stop muttering, John,” Cal says, and takes me arm.

  We go into this aircraft hanger. Half an hour later, we’ve got to our seat. It’s right at the bloody front of what I presume must be the stage. Looks more like Apollo Nine. Another small step backwards for mankind. Oh, yeah. I know what a stage should look like. Like the bloody Indra in Hamburg where we took turns between the striptease. A stage is a place where yer stand and fight against the booze and the boredom and the sodding silence. A place where yer make people listen. Like the Cavern too before all the Tracys got their lunchtime jollies by screaming over the music. Magic days where I could feel the power through me Rickenbacker. And that guitar cost me a fortune and where the bloody hell did it get to? Vanished with every other dream.

  Lights go down. A smoothie in a pink suit runs up to a mike and says ladeeez and gennnlemen, Paul McCartney, Stuart Sutcliffe, George Harrison, Ringo Starr—The Beatles! Hey, rock and roll. Everyone cheers as they run on stage. Seems like there’s about ten of them nowadays, not counting the background chicks. They’re all tiny up on that launch pad, but I manage to recognise Paul from the photies. He says Hello (pause) Birrrmingham just like he’s Mick Hucknall and shakes his mop top that’s still kinda cut the way Astrid did all them years back in Hamburg. Ringo’s about half a mile back hidden behind the drums but that’s okay cos there’s some session guy up there too. George is looking down at his guitar like he’s Bert Weedon. And there’s Stu almost as far back as Ringo, still having difficulty playing the bass after all these bloody years. Should have stuck with the painting, me lad, something yer were good at. And Jesus, I don’t believe it, Paul shoots Stu an exasperated glance as they kick into to riff for Long Tall Sally and he comes in two bars late. Jesus, has anything changed.

  Yeah, John Lennon’s not up there. Would never have lasted this long with the Doctor anyway. I mean, thirty years. That’s as bad as Status Quo, and at least they know how to rock, even if they’ve only learnt the one tune.

  Days in me life. Number one in a series of one. Collect the fucking set. It’s 1962. Eppy’s sent us rough lads a telegram from down the Smoke. Great news boys. A contract. This is just when we’re all starting to wonder, and Stu in particular is pining for Astrid back in Hamburg. But we’re all giving it a go and the Doctor’s even a
greed to that stupid haircut that never quite caught on and to sacking Pete Best and getting Ringo in and the bloody suit with the bloody collar and the bloody fucking tie. So down to London it is. And then ta ran ta rah! A real single, a real recording studio! We meet this producer dude in a suit called Martin. He and Eppy get on like old buddies, upper crust and all that and me wonders out loud if he’s a queer jew too, but Paul says Can it John we can’t afford to blow this.

  So we gets in ye studio which is like a rabbit hutch. Do a roll Ringo, Martin says through the mike. So Ringo gets down on the mat and turns over. We all piss ourselves over that and all the time there’s Mister Producer looking schoolmasterish. Me, I say, Hey, did yer really produce the Goons, Meester Martin. I got the Ying Tong Song note perfect. They all think I’m kidding. Let’s get on with it, John, Eppy says, and oils a grin through the glass, giving me the doe eyes. And don’t yer believe it, John knows exactly what he wants. Oh, yeah. Like, did Colonel Parker fancy Elvis? Wow. So this is rock and roll.

  Me and Paul, we got it all worked out. Hit the charts with Love Me Do, by Lennon and McCartney, the credits on the record label just the way we agreed years back in the front parlour of his Dad’s house even though we’ve always done our own stuff separately. It’s Macca’s song, but we’re democratic, right? And what really makes it is me harmonica riff. So that’s what we play and we’re all nervous as shit but even Stu manages to get the bass part right just the way Paul’s shown him.

  Silence. The amps are humming. Okay, says Mister Martin, putting on a voice, That was just great lads. An interesting song. Interesting? Never one to beat about the proverbial, I say, yer mean it was shit, right? Just cos we wrote it ourselves and don’t live down Tin Pan bloody Alley. But he says, I think we’re looking at a B side for that one lads. Now, listen to this.