by David Lines
‘Look, Davey, you’re eighteen years old – you’ve got a long time to decide what you’re going to do with your life. Just don’t rush anything, that’s all I ask.’
‘Dad, I’m seventeen.’
‘Are you really? It all seems much longer than that …’ And he passed me back my cigarette and walked slowly inside. I smoked mine and sat and thought and the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced I was doing the right thing. Mum stood on the step up to the back door and gave me a little wave. I waved back and she came and sat next to me.
I loved my dad and I hoped and I prayed that he knew it. I’d decided to prove myself to him by making it all by myself in the outside world. I told her this and she snuggled up next to me and took hold of my hand. ‘Your father loves you very, very much and don’t you ever think otherwise. We all do, we all love you, it’s just that you always seem to go overboard. You don’t just want to leave school, you want to be a writer. It’s not normal behaviour, don’t get me wrong, I happen to think that starting off in a bookshop’s a very sensible place to begin, but your father, he wanted more for you than working in a shop. You can see that, can’t you, love?’ She squeezed my hand and I squeezed hers back.
‘I do see that, of course I do, but I wish that Dad would see the bigger picture, see that me wanting to work in a bookshop’ll lead to bigger and better things.’
Mum stood up. ‘Right, then – it looks like we need to find you a job …’
The Yorkshire Post’s recruitment section comes out every Thursday. For five weeks on the trot we all pored over the different positions and then, under the heading marked ‘General Vacancies’, we found one which might as well have read ‘David Lines – Apply for this Position – Now!’ It was Chris who spotted it first – a position at Austick’s University Bookshop, in Leeds, with good rates of pay and the chance of becoming a trainee buyer. I showed it to Mum and Dad and they told me to go for it.
With The Style Council, Paul had begun to show his lighter side, constantly taking the piss out of himself, presenting an air of irony hitherto unseen. But the music press didn’t get it; the NME didn’t do irony, they probably thought it was like coppery. When Weller took the piss out of himself, by prancing through summer poppy fields holding hands with Mick, colluding with the Cappuccino Kid on flowery sleeve notes, coming out with statements like ‘I think that French boys are the most beautiful in the world’, showing his feminine side and posing for pictures, not in front of the Union Flag, but with France’s tricolour as a backdrop, he got up the wrong people’s noses. Some magazine said ‘Weller’s not a visionary – he’s a hod carrier.’ Whatever, with Paul as my guide and mentor I’d taken to becoming more pretentious than ever: cigarette holder, slicked-back hair, cravat, the works. And at my interview, I excelled at being a fop and a ponce like my life depended on it.
Ten days later, after I’d been invited to interview, I sat on the top deck of a bus, the 164 from Garforth to Leeds. My appointment was three hours away and my journey would take thirty minutes at most. I looked out of the upstairs window and took in the graveyard below, the breaker’s yard, the dairy yard and the tank factory. There were washing lines in Colton and they stretched from one side of the street to the other. I closed my eyes tight shut, and as I did, I pictured myself riding the bus, up above the clouds, looking down on the rows and rows of houses, soaring over the rooftops and sailing away to a promised land littered with literature and peppered with sparkling, colourful conversation. I was heady at the idea, excited by the thought that this great, shining chance could bring me a new and challenging life. Just for a moment I had to steady myself against the back of the seat in front of mine on which someone had scrawled, in bright green marker pen, ‘Shaz Fucks Kev and Gaz’.
In Leeds with time to kill, I embraced The Style Council’s love of café society and took time to prepare myself, to get into character for the interview in a coffee house in the Merrion Centre. The Andromeda was a fabulous place. All life was there; behind the counter a fat Greek operated a Gaggia machine, just like the one on the sleeve of ‘Money-Go-Round’. It whirled out piping hot, frothy milk to cover tiny cups of dark, sticky coffee. A foreign gentleman in a corner booth was having an imaginary argument with an invisible foe about damage to the nearside wing of his Austin Cambridge and behind him, a one-armed Irishman fended off a hag selling bunches of lucky heather and she told him his children would be barren whilst he sucked out the innards from a Walnut Whip. I loved it there and ordered more cappuccino, just to sit back and simply take in all that this new theatre could bring.
Interview time. I was in a stuffy, mouldy, musty old office above Blenheim Terrace smack in the middle of the university campus. Below me was the bookshop, and ahead lay my future. It was October, new term time, and outside, through the grubby, cracked window I saw the pavements crammed with trestle tables set out by the countless banks all jostling for business, all scrabbling to secure accounts opened by freshers with grant cheques burning holes in the pockets of their grandfathers’ trenchcoats. From up there the boys looked like countless mini Morrisseys and the girls looked lovely in black leggings and lace. The place had a carnival atmosphere to it; there were banks to the bookshop’s left, a trendy stationer’s to the right and a wine merchant reclined at the end of the row – I liked the feel of the place a lot.
Around the room pile upon pile of antiquarian books were stacked up high, some piles were covered in dust sheets and some just piled thick with dust. It felt more like a storeroom than the manager’s office. Beams of sunshine poured in like searchlights, tracing their way through the breaks in the tattered blinds. I was confident, cool and composed and I crossed my legs and straightened the tassel on my burgundy loafer – that was better; now my interview could begin.
The manager’s name was Clive Luhrs and he looked like Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s elder and cleverer brother. He appeared almost seven feet tall and he didn’t look comfortable with it – like he was stretching himself just being him. Almost forty years old, I guessed, and that number pretty much tallied with the amount of hairs left remaining on his gigantic, ostrich egg of a head. I could see his thunderous brain pumping away, like a beating heart held in a tightened fist as he scrutinised each and every word of my CV – it contained more fiction on those two pages than was in the entire bookshop. A ripple of fear passed through me. Oh, God – I was going to be found out. ‘Tell me, David, I’m fascinated – how exactly do you pronounce your surname?’
Oh no. I knew all along that it was a mistake applying under Linés. Why, David, couldn’t you just be David Lines? Always with the someone else thing – and now look where it got you. I panicked, and for a second I was lost and then I remembered why Paul split The Jam and how he took on a new direction, a different image and how it got him where he was. I took strength from his irony and his self-belief and I straightened my knitted tie, and replied. ‘It’s pronounced Lin-ay.’ I really wasn’t expecting that as his opener. Still, I told myself to stay with it.
‘Right, and where does that come from?’
‘It’s of French descent, as I am.’
‘I thought so. I like names – mine’s of Belgian origin. We seem to be spread quite thinly over here. There’s a Luhrs in Lowestoft that I know of, but he will not answer my calls nor will he respond to my letters and the only others I have details for are in Luxembourg and they’re next on my list. It says here that you’re a trained classical pianist, conversational in Attic Greek and an excellent steeplechaser?’
Idiot boy. ‘That’s correct.’
‘Marvellous – so where do you find the time to fit in the paragliding?’
‘Oh, it’s not too difficult – I alternate between that and the freshwater mussel diving.’
‘Of course, of course. And what are you reading at the moment?’
I’m glad he asked me that. I’d rehearsed the answer. ‘My bedside table positively creaks at the moment. The poor thing struggles under the we
ight of Orwell’s Keep The Aspidistra Flying, The Collected Socialist Poems Of Hugh MacDiarmid, Elizabeth David’s An Omelette And A Glass Of Wine, an enchanting retrospective of the works to date of Helmut Newman whose title temporarily escapes me, Second From Last In The Sack Race and then there’s Brideshead Revisited which I’m revisiting for the second time due to the fact that the first time I visited I couldn’t cope with that tiresome teddy bear.’
Luhrs looked absolutely stunned. I must have done it – I’d only gone and pulled it off. ‘Aloysius?’
‘Bless you.’
He slowly shook his massive head and gestured towards the door. I got up, extended my hand and shook his, stuck my beret on my head and left. I thought I’d impressed – fingers crossed. Looking back, I’d got too close to myself to see it, but without realising it, I’d only gone and turned into a cross between Paul Weller and Quentin Crisp.
It took a whole week for Clive Luhrs to make up his mind. Maybe he thought we were both European brothers in it together, maybe he just didn’t have anyone else to fill the position, whatever, but when the phone rang during the break in Coronation Street, you could have knocked me down with a feather from one of Jack’s prize racing pigeons. That night, Dad disappeared into the Welsh dresser and came out with a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream – we opened it in celebration of my stepping out of school and making my way in the world and as we all raised our glasses, Dad proposed a toast, ‘To Davey, let’s hope he doesn’t mess it up.’
The very next day was to be my last day at school. It was a Thursday, and if I got the correct paperwork dealt with by all the various tutors I could walk out of there and never, ever have to go back. I was almost eighteen, and if everything had gone to plan I’d have been there for another eight months and leaving with A levels, not leaving early without even taking them. But things hadn’t just gone to plan – they’d gone much, much better.
Instead of toiling away at something I hated I was going to enter a profession – and get paid for it! I was going to work in a university bookshop and have intellectual conversations with arty students and sexy lecturers and learn about great French writers and save up my wages and buy a scooter and get my jeans tailored just like Paul’s and take girls out to dinner and become a real-life working man. I got a kiss from Mum and a handshake from Dad and I set off to school behind Chris and Phil with a skip in my step and hope in my heart like I’d never known before. That feeling, it was amazing – someone wanted me to work for them, to give me money to be around them. I loved the feeling and I wasn’t being smug, I was just enjoying being wanted.
What I did know was that I didn’t want to make a big thing of it in front of people at school. I didn’t want drinks down the Bird and I didn’t want a party or a present or even a card. I just wanted to slip quietly away. Not out of any desire to be mysterious and enigmatic, but because to some I’d be seen as a stupid failure. But not in my eyes, no. In my eyes I was about to throw free the shackles of Garforth Comprehensive and dive headlong into the glamorous world of Leeds University and its campus bookshop – and I couldn’t wait.
I’d got it all planned, how to get out of school with as little disruption as possible. All that I had to do was to go to Mr Johnson’s office and tell him the good news, that I’d been given this amazing opportunity and that I wanted to take it. Then, I had to go to the administration office, get my release form and get him to sign it. Mr Johnson wasn’t surprised, in fact he positively encouraged me to take my chance. ‘Well, David, if I’m honest with you, it’s a hell of a break. There are graduates coming out of Leeds University who’d kill for that job. Go on, take it, get out of here – and good luck.’ We shook hands and I went and got my form, took it back and he signed it with a flourish. I cleared out my locker, took down the pictures of The Style Council, put them in my bag and I walked swiftly down the main corridor, down the school steps and out into the bright sunshine. I skipped down the path, ran out onto the freshly mown playing fields and in my head The Style Council’s ‘Headstart To Happiness’ began to play. The sun hit my face as the golden strings struck up. I broke into a sprint and I sang along at the top of my voice until I was out, away over the fields and onto the main road home. I stopped at the fence and looked back, over my shoulder at the school. Without a second glance I lit a Gitanes and set off on my path to a fresh and brave new world.
Rik rang me that night to ask where I was and I told him then that I’d left for good. I saw most of my friends the next night in the Bird and I was bought a few drinks and had my back slapped a few times and I could tell from the phone call that Rik wasn’t convinced I was doing the right thing but I didn’t care – I knew that I was.
15
Walls Come Tumbling Down
WHAT AN OPENING line to a pop song! This excellent, blistering, vibrant single from The Style Council was the first thing that I bought with my first ever wage packet. ‘Walls Come Tumbling Down’ opens with a soulful organ, almost like a wedding march, and then blaring horns pipe in and Weller sneers down his microphone with his biting lyrics denouncing consumerism and Thatcher and telling us we are all responsible for our own destiny. When I heard it for the first time it was like Paul was giving me his approval for my decision to go my own way, just like he did when he had the almighty balls to split The Jam. Again, Paul spoke to me and me alone.
The second thing that I spent my new money on was a present for Kate. I saw her sister, briefly, on the bus and she told me she was home that weekend and was going to be in the Bird on Friday night. I’d bought her, from work, a copy of a paperback book entitled An Everyday Guide To Modern Theatre. If I handed in my receipt at the end of the month I’d get a third of the money it cost me back, which was £3.99. I’d put a lot of thought into which book to buy her, and in my lunch hour I walked up Blenheim Terrace, past the banks with their lemon-coloured stone walls in the white light of the October sun and bought some fancy wrapping paper from the studenty card shop. Inside the book I wrote, in my best handwriting, ‘To Kate – of whom these days I see far too little, but whose friendship in times both happy and sad has been a source of never-failing joy.’
That Friday night I spent ages getting ready, I listened to both sides of Café Bleu whilst doing my hair and deciding what to wear. I eventually went for white Levi’s 501s, black espadrilles, black Fred Perry shirt and my red Harrington jacket. I walked to the pub through the Meadow’s estate, past the trim front lawns with the garden sprinklers drifting out watery mists which caught the evening sunshine and threw off moving, mobile, mini rainbows all chimney orange, fiery red and purple and yellow and blue.
In the distance, the good people of Garforth rang out the bells of St Mary’s at the back of me, just down from Church Lane. They carried clear and true, high above the cricket pitch and the broad beans in the allotments, over the beck and out across the school playing fields. Each pull of the campanologists’ ropes tugged tighter on my heartstrings and I was suddenly touched by the wonder of it all. Garforth could be a right shit-hole at times, but very occasionally it shone bright and full of Yorkshire glory. That night, it managed to deliver.
The pub was packed and it wasn’t even half-past eight. Thankfully, my hair had decided to behave itself. I’d got Kate’s book inside my jacket and my back pocket had twenty quid in it to see me through the night. I was at the bar with a Pernod and black, fag on the go, and I checked around to see who was in. I felt older that night. I wasn’t part of the college crowd any more, I was removed from them. I was a worker – an independent boy about town who could easily paint it red if I liked. But I didn’t want to; I was just going to have a few drinks, chat to a few people, give Kate her present and then leave. I was a professional now, and I was going to behave like one.
I downed my drink, got another and then headed for the jukebox. The hum of conversation acted as white noise, but I wanted to hear Weller, I wanted him to give me confidence about giving Kate her book – I don’t know exactly why, but I wa
s nervous about doing so. In went twenty pence and out came ‘You’re The Best Thing’ – the perfect choice.
There was a sharp dig in my ribs and I turned around to find Lizzie Marlow at my side. ‘Hello, Mr Lines. If you’ve got a moment, I’d like a little word or two with you …’
I knew exactly what the word or two was, so I got us drinks and we moved through into the snug. Walking in there was like stepping inside a lung. The once-white walls dripped with nicotine and the carpet was so sticky from all the ale sloshed on it over the years that walking to our seat was like wading through mires of mud. I was fearful of Lizzie’s forthcoming rebuke. ‘So, tell me, Liz. How’s it all going?’
We sat down and she sparked up a Silk Cut. ‘Oh, you know, not so bad – considering that my writing partner just upped and left me for a new life in a bookshop.’
‘I know, and I’m sorry. But look, just because I’m not at the sixth any longer it doesn’t mean that we can’t still write together. In fact, if anything, it’ll be better because there won’t be any homework to distract me, and I’ll have more material – there’s this coffee shop in town that I’ve been going to where the people are just so colourful, where everyday stuff just takes on new meaning, we’ll be inspired – look, why don’t I take you there? We could take pads and pens and see what we come up with. What do you think? Come on, it’ll be fun.’
Lizzie smiled and rubbed my knee. She looked happier. ‘Deal.’ And then her eyes widened in abject horror and she shouted at me to duck but I didn’t, because I didn’t know what she was on about, and a dart bounced off the wire, whistled through the air and landed on top of my head, before dropping into the ashtray.
‘Excuse me, Lizzie – I really do need to try and stem this bloodflow …’
I came out of the toilets with loo paper stuck to my wound. Rik was in the corridor with a pint of bitter in one hand and a pint of mild in the other.