by David Lines
Rik asked me if I fancied another coffee and a frame or two of snooker. I said yes to the coffee but no to the snooks on the grounds of me having to stand up. If I did, there’d be absolutely no way of disguising my raging hard-on. I sipped my Mellow Birds and concentrated all my thoughts on Alison Moyet till my prick finally calmed down.
Wearing a beret, cooking snails and eating croissants just wasn’t enough for me. I needed to take my Frenchness one stage further. I always have done, you know, wanted to take everything one stage further, go that little bit extra. I never know when to stop, and back then, especially back then, I always ended up looking like a monumental unit. I was allowed, though. I was, after all, that most self-aware yet unaware of creatures – I was a teenager.
No, I wasn’t content just with the records and the style and the sleeve notes and the ever changing haircuts – I’d decided to do something much more drastic. I decided to change my name. By simply placing a stylish accent over the letter ‘e’ in Lines, I could transform myself overnight from plain old David Lines to DJ Linés – pronounced Lin-ay. What a master stroke! I asked Dad what he thought before going to see my form tutor, Miss Rose. I wanted her to circulate the news throughout the school that I’d changed my name, and I’d made an appointment to see her the following day. I thought I’d just run it by Mum and Dad first, just to see what they thought.
We were out in the garden, early evening. Dad was in his deck chair studying the ‘Spot the Ball’ competition in the Evening Post. We’d both got cups of coffee and were having a nice cigarette each after tea. Mum was washing up and Phil and Chris were inside watching Blockbusters. A blackbird chirruped from the fence and Dad passed me the paper. ‘What do you think? I reckon the ball’s about an inch above the crossbar, just next to that weirdo’s head.’
‘What, the guy who looks like Howard Jones?’
‘Who’s Howard Jones?’
‘He’s a tit with terrible hair. And a bald mate who dances around like a cretin.’
‘Sounds about right. I’m sticking a cross right smack bang in the centre of Howard Jones’s forehead, lad.’
‘Good choice. Dad?’
‘What?’
‘What do you know about our background?’
‘Right now, it’s an overgrown hollyhock in front of a peeling garden fence which your mother keeps nagging me to sand down and paint.’
‘No, I mean, like, what do you know about our family heritage?’
Dad coughed as he drew on his cigarette and clutched his chest. His eyes rolled back in astonishment and he just about managed to splutter out, ‘What are you on about?’
‘I just thought that there might be some hidden heritage to our surname. It’s something we were talking about at school, you know, like where our names might come from and someone said that Lines was probably foreign and, quite possibly, French.’
Dad sucked on his cigarette with such tremendous force I feared that he might actually swallow the damn thing. He crinkled his eyes and cleared his throat and he shook his head slowly. ‘You do come out with some shit, son.’
‘What?’
‘French? If I didn’t know you as well as I do, it’d be laughable. But it isn’t, lad, it’s just sad.’ He flicked his fag end into the forsythia and seconds later it sent little smoke signals back.
‘I don’t know what you mean, Dad. I was just wondering if we could be from France originally and that we might have been the Linés from Lyon.’
He lit another cigarette and it burned and blazed almost in anger and with one almighty suck the thin, white cylinder was reduced by almost half. ‘The Linés from Lyon?’
Smoke tornadoed out of his nose and there was so much of it Dad’s head was instantly replaced by a grey, fluffy cloud. Through the fog came his voice. ‘Have you ever wondered what it is that makes you so unhappy being yourself? All you do is want not to be you. That’s it, from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to bed you spend all day thinking about being someone else. In fact I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you dreamt of being someone else. If it’s not that wanker Weller then it’s some doddery love-struck pensioner in that ruddy awful play. And now you want to be French. What’s wrong with you, lad?’
‘Nothing, Dad. I just –’
‘Don’t nothing me. Have you any idea how it makes me and your mum feel?’
‘Dad, I’m sorry, I really am but I don’t know what you mean. Please don’t be cross with me.’
His milky grey eyes emerged out of the fug and they showed not that he was cross, but something much, much worse. They pitied me. ‘Your grandfather, my father, he was an orphan. Rejected as a tiny wee baby and left with strangers and he went on to become something, to be someone, to build a business, to protect others in need during the war and to find a wife. He made me, and me and your mother made you and your brothers and we try, me and your mum, to give you everything that we can. We moved here, to Leeds, to give you a better life, a better start and what do you do? You become obsessed with some stupid bloody group, you dress like them, cut your hair like them and now you want to turn your back not only on us, but on Grampa Lines as well. Is this family such a bloody pain to you that you constantly want to be someone else?’
I said nothing and Dad got up and went inside. I was stunned – it felt as if he hadn’t said that much to me in years.
13
Le Depart
KATE CAME HOME from college. She was back from Bretton Hall for the weekend; I knew that she was home because Suzanne Tappin, Kate’s friend, told me. We had walked back from sixth form together the previous Wednesday and she slyly dropped it into conversation on the way. ‘Are you going to the Bird on Saturday?’
‘Dunno. Why?’
‘Oh, Kate’s back, that’s all – just thought you might like to know …’
It was Saturday morning and the house was empty – everyone else was at the supermarket. Since that day in the garden, with Dad, I’d got the impression that maybe he was speaking not just for himself, but for Mum, Chris and Phil too and it sat uneasily with me. I wasn’t purposefully being a pain – it was just something which seemed to come naturally.
I called Kate – it was my ideal and opportune moment. I sat on the stairs on the second to bottom step and sipped my piping hot cup of freshly ground coffee and sucked on my Gitanes as the telephone rang and rang and rang … Before me lay the letterbox and, as the postman’s sinister silhouette approached the glass door and the post plopped through it, not for one moment did I bother to look up. I’d given up sending my poetry to Paul the day that The Jam died.
The phone rang for what seemed like an age, and then she answered, her voice sounded warm and snuggly, like she had just woken up.
‘Hello, Kate – it’s David.’
‘Huh? David who?’
‘It’s me – David. David Lines.’
‘Oh. Oh, hi.’
‘Yeah … hi.’ I could hear her exhaling her Silk Cut. Actually, I could picture her exhaling her Silk Cut. ‘Sorry, David – was there something? It’s lovely to hear from you and all that, but I’ve got a bath running.’
‘Oh, God, sorry – look, I know you’re just going to be running around like mad and everything and probably seeing hundreds of people this weekend, but I was just ringing to see if you’d like to meet up for a drink or something.’
‘Darling, that would be utterly lovely, but I’m afraid my time’s not mine for a moment this weekend, not for a second is it mine. On top of seeing absolutely everyone, I’ve got a piano lesson, I have to have tea with my aunt, I’ve got an essay to write and I’ve got to get my hair done. Sorry, sweetheart – maybe next time.’
‘I didn’t know that you played piano.’ Jesus Christ – was there no end to this woman’s talents?
‘I don’t, not properly, I’m just sort of learning. Playing the piano has always been an ambition of mine – I think it’s just the most amazing thing to be able to do. When I see a man play the piano, play his big
, broad fingers over those black and white keys it sends a shiver down my shoulders, right down my spine and in-between my legs. Seriously, sugar – it’s better than sex, you know?’
Dear God in heaven. ‘Yeah, Kate – I know just what you mean. That’s exactly the reason why I took it up – it feels the same for me – exactly the same.’
Wait a minute, you ponce, what are you on about?
I heard her catch her breath three estates and two miles away. She was impressed. ‘I had no idea. Well, well, David – you are a dark horse. Are you terribly good at it?’
I had never been near one of the things before. ‘Now you come to mention it, I’ve just got my grade eight.’
I could feel the electricity coming down the phone. The hairs on my neck stood up like a Christmas jumper rubbed by a New Year’s party balloon.
‘Oh, you clever, clever man.’
That was music to my ears. ‘Actually, I’ve been working on a title composition of my own. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I was calling you – I wanted to let you know it’s almost finished … and it’s about you, Kate.’
What was I saying? Yet again I took it spectacularly beyond what I needed to. Prat!
Deadly silence, then, ‘David, I’m flattered. You are talented.’
Exactly what was I talented in? Digging holes so deep I needed the fire brigade to help me out of them?
‘Nonsense – it’s nothing really.’
‘Nothing? Rubbish. You sweet, sweet thing. I demand to hear it as soon as possible.’
Oh, no. Oh, bollocks – I’d really gone and done it, Linesy, you cretin. It was going way too fast – and it was time to bail out.
‘Well, maybe one day. The piece is all about how I feel every time that I see you and then how painful it is when we part. The first section deals with how happy I am when I see you and the second addresses how sad I am when you leave.’
More silence, then, ‘Oh, look what you’ve gone and done – you’ve only made me go and cry.’
‘Please don’t cry, Kate. Save your tears till you’ve heard it – it’s far from brilliant.’
Dickhead. She’ll want to hear it. Why didn’t I think, man?
‘Then I demand to hear this composition. I demand to hear it right away and I’ve just had the most delicious of ideas, my angel!’
Oh, Christ. ‘What?’
‘Come round to the house tonight. Mum and Dad are going out to play bridge and we can have the place to ourselves. You can give me my own private recital; how thrilling! Who knows what might happen …’
Prat. Arse. Wanker. Loon. Idiot. Moron. Spacker. Spaz. Tosser. Fuckwit. Spunkhead. When, oh, when, would I ever learn? Christ, cue Batsignal – I didn’t know one end of a piano from the other – what was I gonna do? Wait a minute – what was that above my head? It was only a bloody great light bulb …
‘That’s a very tempting offer, Kate, but to spare my blushes – I’m a very nervous performer – would you mind if I played it to you down the phone?’
I could feel the warmth of her breath as she sighed, ‘God, how romantic – please do …’ I took the phone into the living room and was into the records like a flash. Out came the A Paris EP and on went ‘Le Depart’. I switched to the phone in the lounge and began the charade.
The vinyl was out of the sleeve and straight onto the turntable in one second flat. I cued up the track and down went the needle. ‘Kate, just give me a moment to compose myself.’ I turned down the volume and dropped the needle into the play-in groove. My hand shook so much it took all my concentration not to scratch the thing to buggery. Jesus, I had to stay calm. The horror of her having maybe heard it somewhere before, on the radio or at a friend’s place only added to the terror with which I watched the needle ride the groove. The possibility of me appearing to be a class A idiot was all too real. I froze with fear. The needle was almost there. I turned the volume back up and then positioned the phone midway between the two speakers at a distance of about five feet. I took a deep breath.
The haunting, melancholic opening bars of The Style Council’s moody, grieving piano piece slid off the record, out of the Wharfedales and down the phone line to the girl of my dreams. The music conjured up images of such loss, of such remorse and regret, of Paris streets soaked in rain, of too many cigarettes and too many tears, of wandering aimlessly from café to bar, wondering when I’d see her once more, of empty nights spent trying to forget. The crashing, dashing crescendo went as quickly as it came, with its final, plodding notes echoing away like footsteps in the distance.
I just about managed to get the volume back down before the needle ran headlong into the run-out groove and the static from the almighty, horrific collision gave the game away. I waited a heartbeat and put the phone up to my ear. I could hear Kate fighting back the tears.
Dear God, what had I gone and done? ‘Hello? Kate?’
The ignition sound of a lighter and I could almost taste the blue plume as she exhaled.
‘David, my love, that was beautiful. A work of pure, shimmering beauty. Thank you so much.’
I hated it, I was a fraud and I deserved to be flogged for making her cry. ‘Thanks, but really, it was nothing.’ I was virtually crushed under the crippling weight that was my own false modesty.
‘And you wrote that – for me?’
‘I did, Kate, I wrote it just for you …’
‘I was lost for words. Tell me, what’s it called?’
‘Um, it’s called “Departure”. And I’m just glad that you liked it.’
‘Like it? I adore it! You really are the most brilliant boy. I’m so touched.’
That was my chance. At the moment when I was about to confess my undying love for her, Mum burst through the front door, dumped down two bags of shopping and screamed at the top of her voice, ‘Thank God you’ve turned that bloody depressing drivel off! It makes me want to kill myself! People can hear it in the street you had it turned up so loud – and they’re happily throwing themselves in front of cars!’
I couldn’t get my hand over the mouthpiece quickly enough.
14
Shout To The Top!
SCHOOL WAS GETTING me nowhere fast. It was no good for me at all; education was making me physically sick. I was tired and bored beyond belief with my studies and I’d just sit and stare for hour after hour at pages of textbooks, my revision notes and study timetables; all amounted to nothing. It was depressing me. I had to get out of school for good – I had to get out for the good of my health.
Then The Style Council released ‘Shout To The Top!’, and the first time I heard it I knew what I had to do. This song so reminded me of The Jam’s passion and bite, it inspired me to do something about my situation. It made me get up off my backside and take control of my destiny. It may have taken me a while to get to this point, but when Paul Weller split The Jam he taught me one massive lesson: he taught me to never be afraid of walking away from something you’re not happy with. The fury and anger seeped through this single. Paul had taken an uplifting melody, dripped strings all over it and married together the catchiest tune with the bitterest of lyrics. It came out of the ring punching and dancing and forceful and it drove me to make my mind up; I was going to walk out of school as quickly as I could. I hated Paul Weller’s guts when he walked out of The Jam, but once I’d come to my decision I couldn’t thank him enough. I’d seen how being free of it had helped him blossom as a writer and stretch him as a musician and that he’d moved on to something more, something fresh and exciting – which was just what I needed.
If I was one day going to stay true to my dream and try and be a writer, then I needed to surround myself with books. Once I’d decided that, the answer was clear – I would try and get a job in a bookshop. The next step was to tell Mum and Dad …
I think, looking back, that it was more of a disappointment than they let on at the time. Dad was less happy than Mum, and at first I think he felt that I’d let him down again, this time by not seein
g something through to the end. Dad had left school without anything to write home about and it was only natural he wanted me to take myself further than he had. Our conversations always took place outside, and now, writing about them, I can see why: it was because if we had them inside we had nowhere to run to when they got heated.
We were sitting next to the rockery, drinking tea on a Tuesday evening. Dad had been to see the doctor about a cough and cold he couldn’t seem to shift and so was home earlier than normal. He looked drained, washed out. It wasn’t the best time to talk to him about leaving school, but I wanted to make my peace and not justify myself to him. ‘Dad, I’m only doing this because I want to try and make something of my life and not just fester away at school. I want to get out there and have a go at life, you know?’ He looked at the sky and then at his shoes and then he looked at me. His pale eyes creased and he scratched his chin. It had a heavy shadow on it, his eyes had bags under them and he seemed saddened by the thought of me turning in my studies.
‘And you do this by leaving school to work in a shop?’
‘Not just any shop, Dad, a bookshop.’
‘A shop is a shop is a shop, believe me, lad, I know. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling Shakespeare or a short back and sides – what you’re doing is just that: shop work.’
‘I can’t believe you just said that.’
‘Why ever not? It’s perfectly true.’
‘Think about it, Dad. Grampa Lines was the best barber in Bridgford, if not the entire Midlands, and you were the second best. By calling it just shop work you’re saying that what Grampa Lines did amounted to no more than what some kid does as a Saturday job on a till in Tesco’s, right?’
My father hung his head and searched his pockets for a fag. He hadn’t any on him. ‘Have one of mine,’ I said, and he took it and stared at it and for a moment I thought he was going to cry.