‘Ali?’ Cass said, worried now, because her friend was staring at her phone in a most uncharacteristic manner, and she didn’t answer, but was gone, temporarily: lost, somehow.
‘C’mon, talk to me,’ Cass said, and switched off Maybelle. ‘What you looking at?’
Ali still didn’t speak, but because they’d stopped at a red light, she tilted the screen so that Cass could see.
‘Mmm, nice,’ she said. ‘Right up my alley. Great stubble. Who is he?’
‘He was Daniel,’ Ali said.
‘Dan now, evidently. What’s that?’ She pointed. ‘WTID? Is that some kind of code? Does it mean anything?’
‘Yes,’ Ali said. ‘It means Wednesday Till I Die.’
‘Wednesday? Why Wednesday, why not any other day of the week?’
‘Football team,’ Ali said. ‘Soccer.’
‘English guy?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Right on,’ Cass said, leaning over for a better look. ‘Oh yes, keep on stirring, baby, till it hits the spot.’
4
SHEFFIELD,
23 DECEMBER 1978
The music throbbed through the floor from the room below, and a muffled hubbub of raucous voices – singing, shouting, laughter – rolled about the house like a secondary soundtrack, pressing itself up the stairs and through the cracks around closed doors. Alison and Daniel were in a small bedroom at the back of Kev’s house: a box room really, a place where useless things were stored and immediately forgotten. There were ragged stacks of newspapers and magazines on the floor, an obsolete Bush television set, a hamster’s cage, a suitcase with a rusted, busted lock, a cardboard box filled with ruined paintbrushes, a roll of pebble-print lino and a roughly folded heap of thick orange curtains, although there were none at the window, so the room was lit sodium yellow by the street lamp on the pavement outside. She was lying on her back, in his arms, on a pile of coats, on a single bed. He held her gingerly, as if she could break, and actually, she was afraid that she might. She felt insubstantial, a tissue-thin girl. Back there, on the dance floor downstairs, she’d felt so complete, so sure of herself, and she’d known Daniel was watching her, and she’d known how good she looked; but now she had no idea what was expected of her: no idea what Daniel expected her to do. She felt foolish, and fragile, and at a loss.
Daniel knew what to do – certainly he knew what he’d like to do – but he felt her tremble with each in-breath, and she was holding her limbs very, very still, like a person waiting for news and expecting the worst. She closed her eyes and gave a shivering sigh and he said, ‘Are you OK?’ and when she opened them, she didn’t answer, but her eyes looked directly into his, because he was hanging over her now, studying her face, propping himself up on one elbow while his other arm formed a loose circle around her body. She nodded, and he lowered himself to kiss her. This, she could do; this, she’d done before. Her lips were warm and dry against his, and he was careful not to press too hard, or to appear too hungry, too desperate, so he moved away from her mouth and kissed her face, again and again, and when she closed her eyes, he kissed her eyelids. Finally, now, she moved towards him, making a half-turn so that their bodies were pressed alongside each other, and, encouraged by this, he kept her busy with kisses as he ran a hand through her hair, down the side of her face, along her neck, over her shoulder. Her shirt slipped and slid under his palm, and he found the opening, and then skin, and the curve of her breast. Which is when she sat up, and it all stopped.
‘What?’ he said, dazed with lust, sitting up next to her with some effort.
‘Nothing.’
‘What’s up, though?’
‘I don’t know. I just …’ She petered out, and shook her head sharply, as if she was exasperated with herself. She wouldn’t look at him, but when he reached out for her shoulder and pushed her gently back down on to the bed, she acquiesced and lay there passively, staring up at him. He stared back, taking her in.
‘Alison Connor,’ he said.
‘Daniel Lawrence.’
‘Look at you.’
‘What?’
‘You’re bloody lovely.’
She smiled.
‘That’s the first time you’ve smiled all night,’ he said.
‘Sorry,’ she said. She reached up, cupped his neck in her right hand and pulled him towards her, and they kissed again, but when that ended he drew away to remove any sense of pressure, and just lay down next to her, holding her hand, and they both stared up at the ceiling. There was an ugly jagged line in the Artex plasterwork, as if the room was trying to split in two.
‘I’m seeing a giant Toblerone,’ Daniel said, and Alison said, ‘It’s too irregular for that, more like, oh, maybe a streak of lightning,’ and they solemnly regarded the crack, considering its possibilities. Through the filter of the floorboards and carpet, Blondie was seeping into the room: ‘Picture This’ again. The party tape must be on its second loop, thought Alison. She sang along, very quietly.
‘You can sing,’ he said, and she blushed and said, ‘Oh, sort of.’
‘No, you can, that was nice, sing some more,’ but although she laughed, and was pleased, she wouldn’t, not on request like that, not a chance. ‘OK, let’s dance,’ he said.
She turned her head to look at him. ‘Downstairs?’ she asked doubtfully. She didn’t want to go back into the melee, where Stu Watson would leer at her and Tracey Clarke’s knowing eyes would make assumptions when Alison and Daniel came back into the room.
‘No, in here,’ Daniel said. ‘On our own.’
Alison looked at the room, the floor, the discarded junk. ‘Is there space?’
‘Course there is. Come on, you like this one.’
‘How would you know?’ She narrowed her eyes, and he winked at her.
‘Educated guess. Come on,’ he said again.
He sprang off the bed, vaulting over her on to the floor, then held out a hand with a flourish. She laughed, and took it, and they stood among the detritus, holding on to each other, and danced together: a sweet, incompetent, improvised jive.
Whole swathes of Attercliffe were being demolished around the people who lived there, and when Daniel walked alongside Alison through the streets after the party, they could’ve been in a war zone, passing rows of bombed-out houses, bricks and mortar turned to rubble, homes reduced to dust. This part of the city was a far cry from Daniel’s home in Nether Edge, and when in the past he’d thought about Attercliffe at all, he’d thought: What a shithole, doomed and degraded, the death row of Sheffield. But now it turned out that Attercliffe contained Alison Connor, and she seemed like such a wonderful treasure that all he was fully aware of was the way she couldn’t quite match her stride to his, and the slenderness of her shoulders beneath his arm, and the fresh, clean smell of her hair. She hadn’t wanted him to get on the bus with her after the party, she’d tried to insist they say goodbye at the bus stop, but he didn’t want to send her away into the darkness on her own, and she’d had to concede it was nice being together, more than nice, it was lovely, so yes, it made sense to be together for just a while longer, before Christmas kept them housebound. She’d found her voice now; he could barely get a word in edgeways. She knew her music, knew what she liked: post-punk, mostly, Costello, Blondie, the Buzzcocks, and a new band, with a new sound, the Human League, Sheffield lads. Daniel knew them, he and Kev and Rob had seen them play plenty of times, they were sort of on speaking terms with Martyn Ware, and he managed to get that in, but now she was talking about Christmas and how much she hated it – the bogus bonhomie and crass commercialism – and he considered how he’d never said ‘bonhomie’ in his life, or heard anyone else say it either. He wondered if she was too clever for him, and then he wondered if a snog would be out of the question. He really, badly, wanted to stop walking and press her against a wall, and kiss her until the sun came up. Instead he said, ‘Well, Christmas is the reason Kev Carter had a party, so there’s that to be grateful for.’
She l
aughed, and it was like music to him, and he thought, Christ Almighty, what’s happening to me?
‘Stu Watson’s such a creep,’ she said. ‘But he was the only person other than you that I knew there.’
‘You should pity him,’ Daniel said. ‘He fancies you. Everybody does.’
She stopped walking, abruptly. ‘What?’
‘It’s true. You’ve got a right army of admirers out there.’
‘Oh yeah, since when?’
He shrugged. He couldn’t quite read her tone; she might be genuinely puzzled, she might be furious, she might be flattered.
‘It’s just,’ she said, ‘I’ve lived here all my life, seen you on the bus maybe four times a week for the past five years, and you never looked twice at me till last week.’
They were still stationary in the street, facing each other, and now she’d folded her arms. OK, he thought. She’s pissed off.
‘Not true,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking twice at you for a long, long time. I was just too much of a half-wit to do anything about it.’
She opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind, stepped towards him and put both her hands around his neck, and kissed him, for a long time. Daniel thought: She’s so fucking beautiful. It was all he could think, the only thought in his head. She’d flooded his mind.
When she stopped, she stepped away and smiled, all sunshine again.
‘I’ll walk myself home from here,’ she said.
Now he was totally thrown. ‘What?’ He just couldn’t keep up with this girl; she was like quicksilver.
‘Seriously, that was a goodnight kiss. I’m not far from here. This is where we part company – I’m only round the corner.’
He had no idea where she lived, and felt panic at the thought of her striking out, alone, in these black streets. ‘But I want to see you walk into the house,’ he said.
‘No need.’
She started to move away from him, backwards, so that he could still see her face.
‘Alison!’
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It’s fine.’
‘It’s not fine with me,’ Daniel said, and started to follow her, and she held out a flat palm.
‘Please,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Please don’t,’ and something in her manner compelled him to stand still; then she turned away from him, and ran.
Peter opened the door before she knocked, and Alison smiled at him with relief. She was out of breath from running home, and it was much further than she’d told Daniel, but she was here now.
‘Is she still up?’ she said.
He nodded and rolled his eyes. ‘She’s got him round.’ Her brother was wearing his steel-toecapped boots and a donkey jacket.
‘Are you just in, or just off?’ Alison asked.
‘Just off.’
Her heart sank. ‘Funny time to be going to work.’
‘They sent a lad to get me. Two fellas injured or summat.’ He saw her face and said, ‘It’s extra money.’
‘No, I know.’
‘Sorry. Just go straight up, she dunt even know you’re in. Was it good?’
‘Oh, yeah, y’know …’
‘I do know. Pissed dickheads doing “Tiger Feet”.’
She laughed, then clapped her hand over her mouth. Down the narrow hallway, her mother’s voice, unsteady, reedy, called out, ‘That you, Alison?’ and Peter grimaced at her.
‘Got to go, kid,’ he said, and he left the house. She listened to the sound of his boots on the pavement, listened to them until they faded entirely, then she walked down the hall and pushed open the door to the living room, where Catherine Connor was sitting at a tilt on the settee, leaning into a bulky, bull-headed man with a can of Tetley’s Bitter in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Martin Baxter. Martin Bastard, Peter called him. There were empty cans on the floor, a greasy newspaper bundle from the chippy, and Catherine’s face had that sour, pugnacious look she got when she’d had too much to drink and she knew it. Her lips were pursed and thin, and Alison knew she was having to concentrate to speak; when she did, she did so slowly, and with a slur.
‘Where were you, were you at work?’
‘No, I was at that party.’
‘Oh, with that lad. Where is he? I wanted a look at him.’
Martin grinned, teeth stained a delicate brown, and said, ‘Oh aye? Who is it, then?’
‘Nobody you’d know,’ Alison said.
‘Try me.’
Alison ignored him. She was still at the door, poised for flight, but her mother patted the sofa cushion on the other side of her.
‘Sit,’ she said. ‘What you stood there for?’
The room stank: a miasma of smoke from the fags and the fire, beer, chip fat, fish. Alison longed to be upstairs, alone, with her books and her records and her thoughts, but she sat down to avoid a scene, and Catherine immediately – although not without effort – leaned away from Martin and into Alison instead. Her shoulder was sharp; she was skin and bone these days. She looked down at Alison’s Wranglers and tutted.
‘Always in trousers.’
‘Jeans,’ Alison said.
‘Same difference. Put a skirt on, show the boys your legs.’
Martin belched, then said, ‘Lads like a lass in a skirt.’
For a few minutes, no one spoke. Martin swilled the beer in its can and stared at the fire. Catherine’s eyes were closed and her breathing was slow, as if she might be falling asleep. Alison bided her time then said, ‘Right, well, it’s late, I’m going up to bed.’
Her mother’s eyes snapped open. ‘Where’s Peter gone?’ she asked in a plaintive voice, looking about her as if he’d been there until a moment ago, as if his absence was hurtful, and surprising.
‘Work, y’silly cow,’ Martin said, and Catherine laughed and flapped a hand.
‘Oh yeah,’ she said.
Her face was pinched with alcohol and fatigue. There were spoiled traces of the make-up she’d applied before Martin arrived: a smudge of blue on her eyelids, a spot of pink on her cheekbones. Alison eased herself away from the place where her mother’s shoulder had her pinned, and as she did, Catherine fell sideways, in slow motion, into the arm of the settee, and started to laugh helplessly. Alison stood and walked to the door, and Martin said, ‘Ey, get back, who said you could go?’ but the challenge was half-hearted, and she didn’t even turn around as she left the room.
5
EDINBURGH,
1 NOVEMBER 2012
Dan and Katelin, Duncan and Rose-Ann: on Thursday nights, they were Show of Strength, top of the league at Gordon Fuller’s weekly pub quiz. It was Duncan who’d got them all into it. Duncan Lomax with his collector’s habits and magpie mind, filing away facts just as he filed LPs in his record shop; there was nothing he liked better than the opportunity to showcase his quizzing prowess. He absolutely needed the other three, though; he could be wrong when he was certain he was right, and Rose-Ann never let him hold the pencil, because he wouldn’t consult. He wasn’t collaborative, she said; he was a quiz autocrat.
The two couples arrived at the same time from their different directions, rushing to get through the door to beat the incipient rain. Katelin and Rose-Ann hugged as if they hadn’t just seen each other yesterday for lunch at a Victoria Street café. They’d met, originally, through the men, but had a friendship now that had a life of its own. Sisters under the skin, Rose-Ann said, but she hailed from Santa Monica so was always coming out with stuff like that. The women took their usual seats – back of the room, tucked into an alcove, a small wooden settle, just room for the two of them – and chatted while they waited for their drinks to arrive. At the bar, Dan and Duncan ordered two pints of bitter and two glasses of red. Astral Weeks was playing through the sound system, and this was one of the reasons they came to Gordon’s place; the guy had impeccable taste. Gordon didn’t care about upbeat, unless upbeat was what he wanted. He’d play only what he wished to hear, and if it was Van Morrison’s anguish, then so
be it. If anyone complained at his choice, he only turned it up louder.
‘This album should be compulsory,’ Duncan said as they waited.
‘Yeah, too right, they should hand it out with the polio jab.’
‘Great idea! The government taking responsibility for every child’s musical judgement.’
Dan laughed. ‘I think we’re on to something. Astral Weeks and Abbey Road, just to be on the safe side.’
‘Look,’ Duncan said, glancing over his shoulder at the women, as if he thought Rose-Ann might overhear and shut him up, ‘I got an idea,’ and, like a man with only one shot at the big time, he rapidly pitched a scheme to start a record label, an indie-folk/rock outfit, under which he could gather his rapidly growing collection of brilliant misfit introverts. He wanted Dan on board.
‘An investment opportunity,’ he said. ‘Ten grand should do it.’
‘Do what?’ Dan asked.
‘Get us up and running.’
‘So, five grand apiece, you mean?’
Duncan winced. ‘Och, man, you know how skint I am, and I can’t spend Rose-Ann’s dosh on something like this.’
‘Right. So, ten grand from me, nothing from you.’
‘Nothing but my bottomless talent and energy and remarkable ear,’ Duncan said. ‘And that’s gold bullion, my friend.’
Dan laughed. ‘My ten grand would be wasted,’ he said. ‘Money down the drain. What you could do is cherry-pick from your East Neuk artists, then get them gigs, create a buzz. That’s what you could do.’
‘And you, too.’
‘You don’t need me to do that.’
‘Ahh, but Dan, to start a label …’
‘… would be a one-way ticket to being screwed over by somebody bigger and richer than we are.’
‘OK,’ Duncan said. ‘OK. Let’s do the other thing then.’
Gordon’s daughter Meredith plonked two pints on the bar in front of them, sloshing beer on to the polished wood, then swivelled away to find the red.
‘That’s fifty-pence-worth she just spilled,’ Duncan said.
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