Touchstone Season One- Complete Box Set

by Andy Conway

  “Yeah,” she said. “Really good.”

  “Oh, thanks,” he said.

  “Lorna’s a big fan.”

  “Shurrup.”

  “She is, though. You used to know each other, didn’t you?”

  Martyn squinted at Lorna. She raised her head and looked him in the eye, blushing. He skimmed through years of memory banks and came up blank.

  “Lorna Foster,” said Lorna.

  A faint flash of recognition in his eyes, like a lonely beacon across an ocean of fog.

  “We were kids then,” she said.

  “Bloody hell. Lorna,” he said, with just the barest suggestion of a smile. “Haven’t seen you since you were in pigtails.”

  “You were in shorts.”

  “Not seen you for years.”

  “We moved to Winson Green,” she said.

  “Right,” he said, faltering now, running out of conversation.

  “You’re going to see Ultravox?” Rachel chimed in.

  “Oh. Yeah. Just got tickets.”

  “We’re going too,” said Lorna. “We’ll see you there?”

  Rachel cringed. That was something you said when the conversation was over. She needed to keep it going.

  “Oh, yeah, right,” said Martyn, already turning to walk off.

  “We should meet up beforehand or some—’ Rachel stammered.

  “You know what?” said Martyn. “I’m having a bit of a bad day. My head’s not right. I’ve gotta go. Sorry.”

  He half waved with what seemed like embarrassment, and was off down the hill.

  They stood rooted, staring after him, and Rachel was scared to look at Lorna’s face because she knew what she’d see there: the death of all hope.

  — 14 —

  HIS DREAM ABOUT AMY in 1959. He needed to think about that.

  Danny stood gazing up at the boarded up façade of the Kingsway cinema. It had closed down some time recently because the hoarding still showed the last films featured: The Bermuda Triangle and Encounter with Disaster.

  Kings Heath’s daytime shoppers flitted around him. His clothes were inappropriate. Not too out of place. But he needed better. And he was hungry. The hunger was making him angry.

  Hi-Tide fish and chip shop behind him, still there, looking exactly the same as it did in 2014, was wafting out the beautiful odour of fish and vinegar. It made his belly growl.

  The building next door to the Kingsway was intriguing. He’d always known it as the base of Ambassador Cars upstairs and some kind of discount electrical goods store on the ground floor, always a row of fridge freezers standing up in the car park outside.

  But it wasn’t any of that in 1980.

  It was the Birmingham Municipal Bank.

  Hunger rumbled in his guts. And anger too.

  He stood, poised, and ignored the human traffic flow around him. He was above it all, above them all, the pawns, the mortals. A god amongst men. Waiting, watching. They had no idea. They had no conception of the fury about to be unleashed.

  His fingers found the old brooch in his pocket and it felt strangely comforting.

  He strode across the ten yards of tarmac car park and pushed into the bank. It had a musty smell. There was no reassuring chloroform of oak and leather. This was all polyester and pine. It wanted to be modern, but it came across as tacky.

  His dream about Amy in 1959. He needed to think about that.

  Amy, waiting in the graveyard. Turning to him. That beautiful moment when her eyes fell on him and he saw a concerto of emotions dance across her face: joy, fear, guilt, desire.

  What was she afraid of?

  He aimed the thought at the cameras sitting in the corners of the room like mechanical spiders. Their lenses cracked and they flew off their brackets as cleanly as if they’d been shot.

  What made her guilty?

  A hurricane gust tore through the room and every customer fell to the floor.

  An old security guard with a row of pips at his chest flew back and hit the wall and slumped in a heap.

  In a few seconds, Danny had torn the place to shreds. He was the calm at the centre of the hurricane. The eye of the storm.

  Amy’s face. Wanting him.

  A cashier, a young woman, fear dancing in her face, reached for a button under the counter. The screens shattered and fell like clothes that had lost their owner. She screamed and disappeared under the counter.

  He took a running jump and cleared the counter, skidding over broken glass.

  I could fly, he thought. I should learn how to do that. Swooping like a bird of prey.

  His eyes darted around the room.

  An old man in a flared suit and a comb-over held his hands up and couldn’t understand why no gun was being pointed at him. Danny sent him hurtling to the far wall anyway, where his head cracked open and he landed, moaning.

  Amy, beautiful and scared: wanting him.

  One look at the row of drawers under the counter and they flew open, banknotes flying out in clouds.

  He grabbed a small red duffel bag sitting by a desk and emptied it; make-up, keys, a wrapped sandwich falling out. He snatched handfuls of notes, stuffing them inside. Three of the tills were enough to fill the bag.

  He needed no more than that. He was over the counter and out of the door before anyone got to their knees.

  As he walked calmly down the high street, he considered some counter-intuitive action: perhaps walk into the nearest café and take a table, or go sit in the library right next to the police station. They would expect him to be the person who was running, trying to put as much distance between himself and the bank as possible.

  The thought of watching the police arrive, from a window seat as he tucked into lunch, amused him. But they would come and question him at some point, being a witness.

  Half way down the busy street, weaving his way through shoppers, he heard the alarm bell ringing behind him.

  The police station, just across the road. Would they come screaming out now?

  A black cab sailed towards him, its yellow light on. He waved curtly. It winked and sidled up to him. He was inside, clutching the duffel bag on his lap as police cars hurtled out of the police station car park.

  “City centre, please,” he said.

  “Righto,” said the taxi driver.

  The cab rattled its comforting diesel hum and was gliding away from the high street chaos in moments.

  — 15 —

  MARTYN FOUND THE BAND at their usual table, on the raised level of the upper slope, in the Pot of Beer, the lunch-time traffic thickening at the long bar.

  Glen and Paul were poring over some drawings and barely nodded in recognition. Mark grinned and gave him a thumbs up. He bought a pint of Mild, wincing at the 50p charge, and listened to a couple of students moaning about Thatcher’s destruction of British industry.

  He felt irritation burn in his throat and salved it with a mouthful of Mild. It wasn’t because they were wrong. They were right. She was destroying British industry and he hated her, just like everyone he knew hated her. But he felt irritated because these students had never been in a factory. It was abstract for them. They didn’t know what it felt like to work at a place like Smith’s Forgings seven till four, heating the metal in the blazing furnace, feeling it burn the eyebrows off your face, feeding the hammer. The stamper and his absurd pride for his status: pulling a rope to drop a 35-hundredweight hammer on some hot metal to make a coupling that ended up in an articulated lorry somewhere. Breathing in the smoke and dust all day, the deafening roar of the furnaces, the pounding of the hammers, your whole body covered in its grime, and stinking of Swarfega when you walked out.

  And the uneasy macho camaraderie. His former workmates at Smiths had thought him a bit weird, but his physique and his rugby playing had put them off the scent. If they’d known he was playing bass in a New Romantic band, they’d have put him under one of the presses. If they’d seen him with the likes of Glen and Paul, they’d have thrown him in t
he furnace.

  He hated it, and was glad to get his redundancy and see the factory close. But he was sad too, because it was another piece of Britain gone forever, casting a bunch of blokes on the dole. They weren’t so bad, most of them.

  He joined the band, trying to plaster on a fake smile.

  He wondered if he should just come out and tell them Esther wouldn’t be coming. They’d ask him why not and he’d have to tell them they’d had an argument, but he didn’t know how to explain what had happened, because he didn’t understand it himself.

  Maybe he’d just leave it. They could wait and she wouldn’t show up and he’d feign innocence, and that would be it. As long as none of the band ever bumped into her again, he’d be in the clear.

  But of what? He hadn’t done anything!

  Some hippies on the next table were talking about a bank robbery in Kings Heath.

  “What’s this?” he said, nodding at the drawings.

  “Designs,” said Glen. He showed a page of logos.

  Martyn was surprised they weren’t designs for the band. They were all variations on Glen’s name.

  “I can’t decide which is best,” said Glen. “Grey with an E, or Gray with an A?”

  “Which one looks most electronic?” said Mark.

  Martyn pored over the designs, trying not to laugh. He’d written it as Glen Gray, Glen Grey, Glen Graey, Glen Graye, Glen Gr[a]ey, Glen Grae and finally Glen Gr[a]e.

  He took a velvet cushioned stool, supped at his pint and said, “Why are you writing your name as a logo?”

  “You’ve got to think about these things, Martyn. See if it looks cool. You think David Bowie doesn’t think about every little thing like this?”

  “I bet he does,” said Paul.

  “Yeah, but he’s David Bowie. He’s a solo artist. You’re just some guy in a band.”

  Glen winced and shook his head a little so his fringe flounced. “I didn’t think you’d get it.”

  “The band’s called Tango Decade, by the way,” said Martyn. “You know, the band we’re in, that needs a logo.”

  Glen and Paul exchanged a look.

  “We’ve been thinking we might need to change that,” said Glen.

  “We’re not sure it’s right for us,” Paul added.

  We. What the hell was this? “Did I miss a band meeting?” asked Martyn.

  “I think one word band names are better, anyway,” said Glen. “More iconic. Visage. Ultravox...”

  “Simple Minds,” said Martyn.

  “Or Japan,” said Glen, sitting back with a smug smile, as if he’d just slapped down a royal flush.

  “Here we go again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just want us to be a clone of Japan now. Last year it was Simple Minds.” Martyn looked to the other two for support.

  Paul looked at his feet. Mark screwed his face up and shuffled his body with discomfort. They both knew Glen talked a lot of rubbish most times but neither were ever going to challenge him.

  “Japan are a great band,” said Glen, from under his David Sylvian fringe.

  “Korea.”

  “What?”

  “We could change our name to Korea,” said Martyn. He took a draught of Mild, sucked it back, pleasantly bitter, and tried not to smirk.

  Glen considered it, as if it was a serious suggestion. He really was dense sometimes.

  “I’m not sure it works, but something like that, yes.”

  “Is it electronic, though?” asked Mark.

  “Does Japan sound electronic, Mark?” Paul sneered.

  Mark thought about it. A 40 watt light bulb pinged in his brain and lit up his face. “Electronic!”

  Glen and Paul shared a smirk. Martyn noticed they’d been doing that a lot together lately.

  “I mean as a band name. Electronic.”

  Glen stopped smirking. His lip curled in that bitter twist he always showed when someone had a better idea than him.

  “That’s actually quite good,” said Martyn.

  “Electronic,” said Glen, rolling it round his mouth, wanting to spit it out.

  “I like it,” said Paul.

  “We’ll think about it,” said Glen.

  We. Who was we? “You could draw up a logo,” said Martyn. “See what it looks like.”

  He saw Esther walk in the top entrance, scanning the bar for them, and felt sudden fear kick him right in the guts.

  She was half way down the few steps to the lower level when she saw him.

  She was going to slap him. She was going to march over and shout at him and slap him. She’d get the barman to call the police. He’d be barred. Arrested and barred. He’d done something unspeakable. Everyone knew it.

  A smile lit up her face as she walked towards him.

  He found himself checking her hands, to see if she had a knife or some other weapon.

  “Hi!” she beamed. Her hand went to his face and her lips were on his.

  His fear turned to something else. He wasn’t sure what it was but it made him feel sort of funny inside. “Esther,” he said.

  She turned to the others and sang, “Hi guys!”

  Was this her twin sister? Or an exact robot replica?

  Glen turned his sneer into a polite smile. He would have said something bitchy if Esther wasn’t someone who was about to help out the band.

  She wasn’t dressed like a vampire countess anymore but was wearing a russet jumpsuit, its sleeves rolled up her slender arms, a blue velvet choker at her throat. She’d pinned her blonde hair back so it looked short, but with a sort of quiff. She was tottering on stilettos and looked like a rock star’s model girlfriend.

  Glen’s eyes blazed with jealousy. She was the kind of girl a lead singer should have on his arm, not a bass player.

  She had her arm linked in Martyn’s, like she was his girlfriend or something; like she was a woman who liked him as a human being; like she was a woman who didn’t think he might be the Yorkshire Ripper.

  He smiled and sort of leaned against her a little. She didn’t shrink back, or slap him, which he viewed as a good sign.

  “Do you want a drink?”

  “Can’t stay,” she said. “Gotta go see my Mum. Driving too. You guys want to see this rehearsal space, yes?”

  “Oh, right.” He shuffled awkwardly, stared at his full pint.

  “Leave it,” said Glen. “It’ll probably be here when you get back.”

  “Ooh, what’s this?” she cooed, grabbing Glen’s sheet of paper.

  “Glen’s working on his stage name,” said Martyn, taking a massive hit of Mild and trying not to choke.

  She looked it over, nodding to herself, like an art critic, and pointed to Glen Gr[a]e. “That one. Definitely.”

  “You think?” said Glen.

  “It’s very modern. Very...”

  “Electronic?”

  “Futuristic. The use of typography. Very tomorrow.”

  Martyn cringed. It was the kind of pretentious thing Glen would say. He didn’t want her to be as pretentious as Glen. But she winked at him and he got that funny feeling inside again. Was she stringing Glen along?

  “Come on then, boys!” she said in a singsong, like they were her nursery class.

  Martyn gulped down what he could and left his pint half full on the table, hoping it would be there when he got back. Once they’d crossed the road to the smaller pub, the Sacks of Potatoes, he thought he should have taken the pint with him. It was a kind of rock ’n’ roll thing to do, walk into a potential new rehearsal space with a beer in your hand.

  “It’s here,” she said, indicating the white building next to the pub with a flourish, like an estate agent presenting a mansion.

  “Fancy,” said Paul.

  “It looks Greek,” said Mark.

  “Greek?” sneered Glen.

  “Yeah, Roman, like.”

  “Greco-Roman,” said Esther. “Doric columns.”

  To Martyn, it looked more like an old 1930s c
inema, like the one in Kings Heath, but half the size and all white.

  “I thought this was part of the Arts Lab,” he said.

  “It is,” said Esther. “But the cinema’s round the back. This is the rehearsal space.”

  She climbed the four steps and pushed through the doors. They followed her inside to a large open room. Chairs lined the walls and a couple of broken microphone stands stood disconsolately.

  “This is Room One.”

  She led them through a side door and up the stairs. They doubled back into an open corridor, grey carpeted, and she opened a cupboard door.

  “Equipment storage.”

  They peered inside. A giant jumble of old tables, chairs, music stands, an acoustic guitar, a cello case, a drum kit.

  “If you set up a regular booking, you could store your equipment here.”

  “No more hauling it around.”

  “I could leave my drum kit here!”

  “Or use that one.”

  She led them on to the upper room, another large open space directly above the one they’d entered. The front windows looked out onto the triangle of grass before the Student Union building, students sitting out there drinking, debating.

  “This is brilliant,” said Martyn.

  Glen nodded. There was no way he could say no. “How much?”

  “How often do you rehearse?”

  “Twice a week,” said Glen. “Either six till midnight or eleven till three a.m.”

  She nodded. “Fiver a month.”

  They looked at each other, trying to hide their disbelief. It was what Glen’s work had charged them per session.

  “To be honest,” she said. “It’s not being used and the committee don’t want a white elephant on their hands. Might not be for very long, if events start happening here, but the place is pretty much yours if you want it.”

  “Brilliant,” said Glen. He exchanged a glance with all the others. They each nodded in turn. “We’ll take it.”

  He was grinning. It was the first time Martyn had seen an open smile on his face in months — a smile that wasn’t based on someone else’s misfortune. And he’d checked with them all first before saying yes. He wasn’t so bad sometimes.