The Modfather: My Life with Paul Weller

by David Lines

  ‘All right, man.’

  ‘All right, Linesy.’

  ‘Yeah, safe.’

  He was trying not to sway too much but it wasn’t working very well. ‘Went to the Miner’s with Robin and Baker. It got messy.’

  ‘So I see.’ I’d walked away from this crowd so it was inevitable I wouldn’t get invited for a while. Still, it hurt. No matter – I’d made a choice to start a new life.

  ‘I’m just having a drink with Lizzie, but I got distracted.’

  ‘Is that something to do with the bog roll wrapped around your head?’

  ‘Yeah, something like that.’

  Over his shoulder I could see Kate coming in. ‘Look, I’ll see you later. There’s something I’ve got to do …’

  Kate went through to the main bar with Mandy Berry and Jane Dean. She was wearing pinstriped jeans tucked into brown suede pixie boots, a white grandad shirt and a man’s waistcoat. She looked like a drama student straight out of central casting.

  Deep breath. ‘Hello, Kate.’

  ‘Hi, darling! How are you?’ She air-kissed me on both cheeks and tossed back her hair. She was perfect; her eyes all sixties eyeshadow, her breasts rising and falling in time with my beating heart. God, she was lovely.

  ‘I’m well, thanks. And student life certainly suits you.’

  ‘God, thanks, angel. How’s the sixth?’

  ‘No idea – I’ve left.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve left, I’m working in a university bookshop, at Austick’s in Leeds.’

  ‘Fuck – that’s amazing! Do you like it?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s great, I’m surrounded by thousands of books all day long.’

  ‘That’s really … good.’

  ‘You bet. Listen, have you got a moment … in private?’

  She stood on one leg and raised an eyebrow, sucked on her Silk Cut and said, ‘Sure. What’s up?’

  I steered her by her arm, away from her friends and into the doorway of the pub. I unzipped my jacket and took out her present.

  ‘This is for you.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a present. For you. Go on, open it.’

  She took the slender parcel from me, peeled open the paper and studied the book’s cover. She didn’t know what to say, so she opened it, flicked through it and found the inscription. Kate read it out loud and smiled at me, shaking her head. ‘God, thanks. I don’t know what to … look, can you give me a moment? I need a minute to myself, if that’s all right. God, I mean, I had no …’

  ‘Kate, it’s just a book, you know. Look, if you want me, I’ll be slumped at the bar with my mates. It’s really nice to see you, you know.’

  She kissed me on my forehead and I slunk back inside. She was lost for words and so was I.

  I was trying to talk to Rik about work, but Baker was banging on about how girls with tanned ankles are an easy lay. I wouldn’t know, I still hadn’t had one – a lay or a tanned ankle, come to think about it. It was nearly closing time and I was ready for home. Suddenly, Kate was at my side. She had my book in one hand and a Campari in the other. ‘I think we need to get your head seen to – it’s bleeding. Walk me home?’ I didn’t need asking twice.

  * * *

  We were in her parents’ kitchen, giggling like children, trying not to make too much noise. Kate took two red mugs from the cupboard, spooned coffee into each and flicked the kettle on.

  ‘Sugar?’

  ‘Yes, honey?’

  She laughed and her eyes lit up and for a moment, she looked like the little girl on the fridge door. She took a step forward and took my face in her hands. They were soft and warm and smelled of strawberries. She drew me closer, she put her lips to mine, closed her eyes and then, then she kissed me longingly, tenderly on my lips. They tingled with passion, my whole body tingled, even my brain tingled and as her tongue snaked inside my mouth I felt as if I’d died and gone to heaven. Kate moaned softly and we kissed, rocking against each other, her hand stroking my face. We both naturally fell back onto the kitchen floor. I slipped my knee between her legs and she pushed against me, circling my knee with herself. Kate ran her nails up and down my back, panting, and I was growing, desperate to feel her. Was this really going to be my first time? With the Kate Blyton? She peeled off her shirt to reveal a cream, lace bra containing those spectacular breasts.

  She nibbled my ear and then as I kissed her soft, flat stomach she unbuttoned her jeans and groaned as I slipped my fingers inside her knickers to find her hot, wet mound. She licked my chest as I explored between her legs and I could taste the charged atmosphere in the room. I undid my 501s whilst we kissed more passionately and as she gently took me in her hand and sighed in my ear, as if on cue, the telephone on the kitchen wall began to ring.

  ‘Jesus!’ Kate scrambled for it and urgently whispered, ‘Hello?’

  She looked at me in disbelief. She looked horrified. Upstairs, someone was stirring, woken by the phone. The moment was gone. ‘Yes, that’s right. He’s here – with me.’ Kate scrambled back into her shirt as we heard a footstep on the stair. ‘What on earth possessed him to stay out so late? I couldn’t possibly say, Mrs Lines. Yes, I’ll tell him. Goodnight.’ And she slammed the phone down with such force that the thing almost came off the wall.

  I just sat there, head in my hands, gently rocking from side to side. ‘Oh, God – no.’

  ‘Oh, God – yes. That, David, was your mother … and she’s woken the whole house up.’

  ‘My mother?’

  ‘Yes. She was worried where you’d got to, called some friend of yours called Bowerstein or something, he said you left the pub with me, she got the number out of the book and told me to remind you that you’ve got work tomorrow so please go home to bed.’

  ‘I don’t suppose we could –’

  ‘No, we most certainly couldn’t. Now scurry on home to your mother, there’s a good little boy.’

  ‘Oh, fuck, I’m sorry – I don’t know what got into her.’

  ‘Well, neither do I. Goodnight.’

  I tried to make light of it. ‘I know what didn’t get into you.’

  You utter prat, Lines. It was a line unworthy of the desperate situation and I regretted it as soon as I’d opened my mouth. I couldn’t stop myself, it was crass and Kate was undeserving of my glib schoolboy-shit joke.

  ‘Get out. Now.’

  ‘How about tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m busy. Goodbye.’

  I walked home, my adolescent bubble of sexual tension seeping out into my underwear.

  * * *

  Before I went inside, I sat outside on the low garden wall and smoked a last cigarette underneath the amber glow of the street light. I was beyond furious. I was out to work, I was an adult and my mother had just gone and ruined what could have been the best night of my life simply by picking up the fucking telephone. I ground the fag out under my heel and stormed in through the back door. Mum was in the kitchen. She looked nervous. ‘There you are at last, finally home. Here, I’ve made you a nice milky cocoa. You can take that up with you once we’ve had a little chat, it’ll help you sleep.’

  I took it from her and poured it straight down the sink. She looked hurt and I didn’t care.

  ‘David, there’s something I want to talk to you about …’

  ‘Goodnight, Mother.’

  And then I went to bed. The next day came far too soon. Far, far too soon.

  I got home from work to find the house empty, although the back door was unlocked. Inside, I called out, and from upstairs came Dad’s voice. ‘Up here, lad.’ I walked up the stairs and into their room and there he was, sitting on the bed. Dad looked very old and very tired and his grey-blue, watery eyes stared out at me from his face which he wore like a mask.

  ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘They’ve gone for a walk round the block. I thought we might need some time alone, together, to have a little talk.’

  ‘If it’s about last night, I
’m very cross with her. She ruined my evening.’

  ‘Lad, it’s not your mother. It’s about me.’

  ‘Why, what’s up? Are you going to have a go as well?’

  ‘You’re not listening, Davey. It’s not about you this time, it’s about me.’

  I didn’t understand, and I told him so. He stared at some faraway place out of the window. His eyes filled up and he started to tremble, his hands shook and then his whole body shook and he stood bolt upright off the bed and he fixed me with his bright, moist eyes and they begged me to ask him the question. ‘What is it, Dad? Tell me what’s wrong.’

  He distracted himself by winding up his wristwatch and then he checked it against the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was as if he was seeing how much time he had left. Then Dad looked me in the eye and wrestled with himself to get the words out. ‘Two weeks ago I went to hospital and I had a chest X-ray. They found a shadow on my lung.’

  From nowhere a giant wrecking ball appeared and smacked me in the face at a thousand miles an hour. The impact threw me against the wall and I waited for it to swing back and hit me again.

  ‘I’ve had some tests carried out and they are positive. I have lung cancer and there isn’t much time.’

  It was as if someone had pulled a pin out of a grenade and I waited for the enormous explosion, lost forever in the silence before the blast. I had no words. I don’t even know if I understood him correctly. The pause hung in the air and I was still waiting for the grenade to go off at any second, but the seconds, they just kept on ticking and ticking, deafening me. We were both left hanging in suspended animation.

  Dad tried to regain some composure and I stood up and held him. I could feel his ribs. We just stood there, holding each other. After a while he said, ‘We didn’t want to tell you straightaway, thought we’d wait till the tests came back.’

  ‘I understand. When will we tell Chris and Phil?’

  ‘Oh, they know they’d found the shadow. We didn’t want to upset you, what with starting your new job and everything …’

  I was enraged, blind with fury at being kept from this terrible, evil secret that the whole house had shared without me. I wasn’t just cross with Dad, I was boiling with rage with all of them for keeping me out of it. I couldn’t bear to see anyone so I told Dad that I needed some time on my own to take it all in. He understood, we hugged again, for ages, we cried together and then I put on my boating blazer and went out to the pub to get well and truly blind fucking hammered.

  I didn’t go to the Bird, I just wandered aimlessly down Main Street and the first one that I came to was the Gascoigne. My head was a tangled mess of emotions and even though I knew I should be at home with my family I simply could not bring myself to be there. Instead, I stood at the bar and I drank and drank until the pain began to numb. I was vaguely aware of a woman, much, much older than me, in her late thirties, maybe even her early forties. She’d been sitting on her own all evening, occasionally brushing past me as she went back to order more gin from the bar. I’d been aware of her looking my way every now and then and when I looked back at her she’d smile a little, then look away. I ordered another drink and she got up and came and stood next to me.

  She looked like a barmaid on her night off, white blouse with a black bra visible through it, short black skirt, stockings, cheap heels and no fingernails, cheap make-up but a warm smile. I asked her if she’d like a drink, she said she’d love one and we drank and smoked together. Her cheap perfume turned me on and I wasn’t embarrassed by the bulge in my Levi’s. We sat down and she rubbed me with her knee under the table.

  It was all very straightforward, she knew what I wanted and I knew what she wanted. She wasn’t unattractive, in a tarty sort of a way, and when she asked me if I wanted to go home with her and have a nightcap, I didn’t hesitate. I’m not proud of it, but I went home with her to her horrid terrace house and I took her, over the sink in full view of the unwashed pots. It was over in minutes. I never asked her her name. I went home immediately after I’d pulled out of her and felt more alive than I’d ever done. On the way out of the door I saw a copy of The Jam’s Setting Sons album on top of the stereo. I couldn’t believe it. ‘You like The Jam?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘my eldest lad does.’

  * * *

  Mum and Dad had taken Phil to feed the ducks at Fairburn Ings and Chris and I had offered to do a bit of gardening, nothing special, just a bit of mowing, a spot of tidying up here and there. Breakfast had been the first time I’d seen them all since Dad had broken the news to me and although I was still feeling very much left out, the previous night had distracted me enough to view things through fresh eyes. I had lost my virginity and I felt like a man. The way in which I did it, compared to the way I had almost done it the previous night, was devoid of any romance or love or an ounce of respect. It didn’t repulse me at all, even though I thought it would when I woke up. It didn’t; if anything it had the opposite effect – it empowered me.

  Chris and I hadn’t yet spoken about Dad’s illness and I was glad that we had the opportunity to talk about it on our own, man to man. We spent the first hour working solidly on the garden with nothing other than a few words about who was hoeing and who was mowing and how much we should lop off the top of the Michaelmas daisies. We took a break and I said I’d make some coffee; when it had brewed I took it out onto the patio along with a Penguin biscuit each. ‘The garden looks good, bro.’

  ‘Yeah, it needed it. We haven’t been doing much with it since we found out about Dad. He hasn’t felt up to it, you know?’

  I could feel my hackles rising and I watched as Chris unwrapped his Penguin and scraped his teeth down through the surface of the chocolate coating, leaving a pair of wobbly grooves like uncertain skis in old, brown snow. I thought for a minute about how it came to be that I’d been left out, kept clear of the family secret, and I asked if there was anything else I should know. Chris swallowed the rest of his biscuit, thought hard and studied his fingernails. They were scraggly from being bitten and he sat on his hands to hide them. He blew air out through his puffed-up cheeks and went on. ‘Last night, Dad wanted to go to the bathroom, but he couldn’t manage the climb. I had to help haul him up but by the time we’d got to the little landing halfway it was, you know, too late.’

  Being presented with such an out of the blue, graphic visual image of a raw secret revealed like that was nothing less than a fist in the forehead for me. I had no idea that Dad couldn’t climb stairs – he used to go up them three at a time like a mountain goat just to get me to turn my music down. I didn’t know what to say next so I just sat there, swimming around in the sea of stars in front of my eyes, lost in a galaxy of gloom. Eventually, ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘No, brother – you have absolutely no idea. Didn’t you even notice he’d stopped smoking? Hadn’t you heard that fucking cough?’

  ‘I just thought he had a bad cold, that’s all.’

  ‘The only thing you’d notice around here is if we’d run out of shampoo and your hairdryer had blown a fuse.’

  ‘That’s far from fair.’

  ‘Maybe, but it’s bang on the nail. No, David, you have no idea because you’re so wrapped up in your own little Weller World. You didn’t see it, and to be truthful you don’t see anything. We only kept it from you till we were sure what it was because it made it easier on us. He begins chemotherapy next week and he’s terrified all his hair will fall out.’

  I was being shut out, information was being kept from me by my own family. What was I all of a sudden – the enemy? ‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that Dad was so bad?’ A fat tear sploshed down onto my khaki desert boot and I was grateful for that last spray of Scotchguard. The thought wasn’t lost on me that whilst Chris was chastising me for being so selfish and overly dramatic, I was thinking about footwear.

  ‘Because you’d just have gone and made it seem so much worse.’

  Where the hell did that come from? ‘
Chris, man, how could I have possibly made things worse? What in the name of sweet Jesus are you talking about?’

  I’d got an idea where the conversation was going, and from there, it looked like it was heading for a fight.

  ‘By just being you! You’re such a sodding great drama queen, the last thing that this house needed was to be deluged with non-stop deliveries of baskets of exotic fruit and endless bouquets of stupid flowers dripping in sentimental “Get Well Soon” cards. You are the master of the grand gesture and, frankly, we didn’t need it then and we don’t need it now. What we do need, is calm – and you just don’t do calm …’

  I got the feeling that there might be more where that came from, but for the moment that was it. For a second I felt incredibly small. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. What shall we do now?’

  ‘Let’s get the shears on that cottoneaster. The thing’s out of control – before we know it, it’ll have taken over the entire garden and it’ll be eating its way into next door’s. Then there’ll be trouble …’

  ‘Whatever you say. Shall I get the stepladder?’

  ‘Yeah, but hold on a minute – I’ve got an idea …’

  Ten minutes later we were up in the family bathroom, standing next to each other in front of the mirror. We looked back at our reflections; Chris’s face was like a startled rabbit staring at me in abject horror at what was about to happen. He could not escape even if he wanted to, such was the fear which froze him to the lino. I raised my right hand and into view in the mirror came the cut-throat razor, the blade shimmering a twinkly silver.

  I gently placed the salmon pink hand towel around my brother’s shoulders, motioned to him to sit down on the side of the bath and he did so, entirely at my mercy and compliant to the last. I could feel the fear through the towel. His words took their first, faltering steps from his lips, wary of what they might bump into. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

  ‘I told you, it’s a show of strength from us to Dad. It’s to show him that we’re with him all the way, right the way through this. If his hair’s going to fall out with chemotherapy then we’ll all go bald, too. Now, put your head down, there’s a good lad.’ I raised the razor to the top of his head and the words bounced off the bathroom mirror, ricocheted right back and slapped me hard in the face. I looked up, and there was my father. Christ, I even sounded like him. ‘Now, put your head down, there’s a good lad …’ I didn’t know who was the more scared – Chris for being confronted with a big brother gone mad, or me for almost butchering my brother. I tried to brush it off, make light of it. ‘Mate, it’s a stupid idea! You’re right. Tell you what, you nip downstairs and stick the kettle on and I’ll be down in a sec after I’ve had a quick pee.’ Chris walked, trembling and shaking, out onto the landing. He was in shock and so was I. Was I really going to go through with it and scalp him?