Stories We Could Tell

by Tony Parsons

  ‘Well, well, well. Little Ruby Potter. As I live and breathe.’

  There was a half-eaten chocolate doughnut in front of Ruby. The youth in the capped T-shirt plucked it up and popped it in his mouth.

  ‘Oy, you mucky pup!’ said Judy, punching his pale, hairless arm. The youth made a great show of enjoying the doughnut, smacking his lips and rubbing his flat belly.

  ‘You suck,’ Judy said.

  ‘You blow,’ snarled the youth.

  ‘You wish,’ said Judy.

  ‘I know,’ said the youth.

  ‘Ignore him, Judy, and he’ll go away,’ said Ruby, all imperious.

  The youth laughed, and leaned closer to Ruby.

  ‘Where’s Steve tonight then?’ he said in a stage whisper.

  Ruby took a small round mirror from her handbag and made a great show of staring into it and rearranging a few strands of hair. ‘Don’t know, don’t care,’ she said.

  The youth chuckled, as if he knew the awful truth. Leon smiled weakly. The bozo had not even bothered to acknowledge his existence.

  ‘You want a lift back?’ the youth said. ‘We got the Escort outside.’ He leaned on the table, leering in her face, oozing phoney sympathy. ‘Don’t worry – Steve will understand.’

  ‘I don’t care what Steve understands!’ Ruby said, her voice rising.

  Leon felt like crying. I should have known. Steve. Probably all the really good ones have a boyfriend called Steve who can kick your head in.

  ‘Who’s we?’ Judy said. Leon could tell she was quite interested in the prospect of a lift home.

  ‘You know,’ the youth said. ‘Ron. Alfie. Lurch.’ Ruby and Judy rolled their eyes at each other. ‘Those creeps,’ Judy said.

  ‘We don’t need a ride,’ Ruby said. ‘We got one already.’

  Leon realised she was smiling sweetly at him. He wondered what it could possibly mean. Panic fluttered inside him. She didn’t think he owned a car, did she?

  ‘Suit yourself, darling,’ said the youth, still cocky, although Leon could tell he was disappointed. ‘We’re right outside if you change your mind.’

  He eased himself off the table, still acting as though Leon was invisible. And Leon thought – why is she surrounded by all these horrible people? I must save her. They show her no respect, they do not cherish her the way she deserves to be cherished.

  ‘He’ll tell Steve he saw you,’ Judy warned darkly.

  Ruby laughed, her eyes sly. ‘He can tell Steve what he likes, can’t he?’

  Judy was all doom and gloom. ‘Steve will go crazy…you down the Goldmine on your own…’ A knowing look at Leon here. ‘Having a good time…’

  ‘Do him good,’ Ruby said, and Leon saw that she was capable of being ruthless. The beautiful must be like that, he thought. They do what they want.

  Then he was scrambling after the girls as they traipsed out into the street where a canary yellow Ford Escort was parked right outside Dunkin’ Donuts. There were four youths inside, all of them wearing capped-sleeve T-shirts, all leaning out of the windows and grinning. None of them had cut their hair yet. Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ was turned up on the radio. Leon quickly checked the street for Dagenham Dogs. But they had gone, no doubt off to join the mayhem at the Western World. There was an abandoned dustbin lid in the middle of the road.

  ‘Oooh, it’s so good, it’s so good, it’s so good, it’s so…’

  ‘Any more fares, please,’ the tallest one shouted. ‘Ding-ding!’ He had to be Lurch. Judy leaned her head into the window but Ruby held back, waiting for Leon to say something. He stared at her helplessly.

  ‘Where’s your motor?’ Ruby asked him.

  He spread his arms. ‘I don’t – I haven’t…’

  Judy turned on him, hands on hips, icy fragments of doughnut still on her lips. ‘You haven’t got a car? Then how are we meant to get home?’

  He turned to Ruby, his head spinning. He would probably never see her again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  Judy was already climbing into the back of the yellow Escort, squeezing herself between the two youths on the back seat. They all cheered. Donna Summer came closer to orgasm.

  ‘Come on, Ruby,’ Judy shouted.

  But Ruby shook her head and turned away, her arms folded across her chest. They waited for a moment, making sure she really meant it, and then the Escort took off in a blur of burned rubber and ‘I Feel Love’. Leon caught a glimpse of Judy on the back seat, giving him a two-fingered salute.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Ruby said. ‘How am I going to get back?’ And then she noticed his bruise for the first time. ‘What happened to your face?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, touching his cheekbone. ‘I got this on Saturday. Down at Lewisham. You know – the riot.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Lewisham. Yeah, my dad was there too. Protesting and that. He feels strongly about these things. Just like you.’

  And Leon didn’t dare ask. He didn’t dare ask the most beautiful girl in the world which side her dad was on.

  Nothing. Not a thing.

  Just nostrils caked with crushed Pro-Plus and nerves clattering with caffeine. Terry and Peter stared at Sally and Kishor on the other side of the glass, swapping reels of tape, the pair of them as busy as dockers with a ship in.

  ‘It’s all been done before, anyway,’ Peter said.

  Terry looked at him. What was he going on about?

  ‘All this new music,’ Peter said. ‘All this blank generation bollocks. The Stooges and MC5 did it first. Even before that. On the first Hendrix album. “I Don’t Live Today” – that’s about as blank as it gets. And then he died. Jimi died.’ Peter took a swig of flat Tizer and warm gin. ‘What these bands are doing – it’s all been done before.’

  Terry exploded.

  ‘Not by us! Not by me! Fuck! I hate it when people say that!’ He was on his feet. He was tired of hearing this stuff. He was tired of being told that everything was shit and nothing had happened since the Sixties. He wasn’t young ten years’ ago – he was a kid. And he wouldn’t be young in ten years’ time – he would be an old man. This was his time. Now. Tonight. Right here. And it felt like some fucker was always trying to spoil it.

  ‘I’m sick of having to bow down to all these old bastards in their thirties! You think Johnny Rotten’s going to live to see forty? You think Rotten’s going to turn into Des O’Connor? It doesn’t matter what anybody else has done – we haven’t done it!’

  Peter snorted. ‘Tell you what – shall we nick some gin?’ he said.

  Terry only had to think about it for a moment. ‘Yeah, all right. Let’s nick some gin.’

  There were always odd bottles of gin stashed at the bottom of desks in the office. It was the only thing to steal in the factory. Terry and Peter wandered through darkened rooms trying desk drawers until they found something. It was already half-empty. Some poor little clerk wiping himself out at elevenses. Peter unscrewed the cap on the bottle and took a long pull.

  ‘Got any Tizer left?’ Terry said.

  Peter shook his head, taking a swig from the bottle, and grimacing with disgust. ‘I hate this stuff,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Terry said, taking the bottle. ‘Worst drink in the world.’

  Leon stood outside the locked doors of the Red Cow, quietly cursing, and hours late for Leni and the Riefenstahls.

  ‘It looks shut,’ Ruby called from the back of the black cab.

  Leon peered through the dusty glass of the Red Cow, knowing it was pointless. He had missed the gig. Because of a girl. Because he was dancing.

  And he knew this was serious. As long as the cleaners or the straights at Country Matters didn’t see you, nobody cared what you did at The Paper. Kevin White didn’t care if you shot up with Keith Richards, shared a spliff with Peter Tosh, or snorted sulphate with Sid Vicious. Nobody cared – as long as you did the work.

  But whatever drug was in your system, and whatever rock star was turning blue in your bedsit, White
and the older guys expected you to get your copy in on time. Among the chaos and chemical excess of The Paper, a steady work ethic endured. Clean copy, the correct length and on time. The only things they took seriously at The Paper were music and deadlines.

  ‘You getting out or what, mate?’ said the taxi driver.

  But the good thing is, thought Leon, I already know what I think about Leni and the Riefenstahls. I don’t really need to see the silly cow strutting about in her jackboots to know I don’t like her. So what’s to stop me writing about an event that I didn’t actually see? It’s just as true – isn’t it? I know what I am going to write before I even start writing.

  Leon turned back to the cab and Ruby’s perfect face, happy again, and feeling like he was becoming a real journalist at last.

  The big problem was Dag Wood’s penis.

  Terry had seen it – an enormous, barnacle-encrusted todger that would not have been out of place in a porn movie. That giant knob haunted Terry’s dreams, and filled his Pro-Plus reverie with anxiety and dread.

  Terry had gazed upon the great beast, its helmet with the appearance of a monstrous lychee, not long after meeting Dag for the first time. The great man had been at the head of a long table at a restaurant in West Berlin. He was doodling on the linen tablecloth with a black felt-tip.

  After being introduced to Terry, Dag had challenged him to a race through the streets of Berlin. Terry stared at him, wondering if he was serious. And when he realised that Dag was dead serious, he accepted. He knew he had no choice. So the pair of them left everyone else at the restaurant and ran through the empty streets at midnight. They ran as fast as they could, but halfway to the Hilton, Dag told Terry it was okay – they didn’t have to run any more, and Terry knew he had passed some sort of test.

  Then Dag asked Terry about the new music, what was happening in London, what he could expect and what the audiences would expect from him. It was only later, when Terry was a bit older, that he realised Dag Wood had been frightened – afraid he would not be able to live up to all those great expectations, afraid he would disappoint all those feral children waiting for him in London and Glasgow and Liverpool.

  ‘Must be great though,’ Peter said, staring into the gin bottle. It was almost empty. ‘Hanging out with rock stars…’

  Terry and Peter were sitting on the desks of the tiny office, watching Sally and Kishor work, listlessly passing the bottle between them. Elvis was on the radio, threatening sudden violence. It was the one about being a hard man. Trouble.

  Maybe it was true, Terry thought. Maybe there was nothing new under the sun, and every generation dressed up and struck poses and thought they were too cool for school, but in reality it had all been done before.

  ‘Free records, free gigs,’ Peter said. ‘What a life you lead, Tel.’

  Terry laughed bitterly. ‘You’re better off here, mate.’

  Peter glared at him. ‘Oh, bollocks.’ He stood up, swayed and slurred. Pushed his face into Terry’s so that he could smell the metallic stink of the gin. ‘Great big hairy bollocks.’

  ‘The truth is,’ Terry said, knowing it was the last thing he wanted to admit and the last thing Peter wanted to hear, ‘the truth is, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.’ He took the bottle, swigged, felt his stomach rise and wondered if he was going to throw up. ‘These rock stars – they pretend they’re your friends.’ He thought of Billy Blitzen taking him to one side at the sound check in Newcastle. He thought of other good ones – Joe Strummer, Johnny Thunders, Phil Lynott. ‘Maybe one or two really are – if you’re lucky. But mostly they just…they use you. They want to be in The Paper. That’s all. What do we sell? A quarter-million every week? Of course they’re fucking nice to us! But it’s all bullshit. And you think they’re happy? The musicians? The bands? They’re all terrified! The young ones are afraid they’re never going to make it, and the old ones are afraid it’s all going to end.’

  The lead guitarist and main songwriter of Land of Mordor looked devastated.

  ‘Then it’s all…rubbish,’ Peter said finally, taking the gin bottle and tipping what was left down his throat. When he saw it was all gone, he contemplated the empty green bottle for a moment and then hurled it at the glass that separated the office from the computer room. Sally and Kishor jumped back in alarm as the glass collapsed, and Elvis sang on, jittery with joy.

  Peter had someone’s thermos flask in his hand, and was hammering at the remaining glass panels until they broke, collapsed, shattered. Terry was chuckling with disbelief, Sally was shouting Peter’s name and Kishor looked on the edge of tears.

  Then Peter was in the computer room, ripping off spools and throwing them through the smashed windows, the streamers of shiny brown tape trailing behind them like toilet rolls at a football match, lashing out at the great white obelisks with his sandals, making Terry laugh harder as he hobbled with pain.

  Sally had her arms around Peter’s waist, trying to drag him away from the computer, while she shouted at Terry to stop him.

  ‘We’ll all lose our jobs!’

  Kishor was in the office, babbling something about the step up to programming, the step that he was never going to make now, and Terry stopped laughing because suddenly it was all over, and the storm inside Peter had blown itself out, and he was lashing out at the monolithic tape stacks and only hurting himself, and it wasn’t as funny as it had been before. And he couldn’t stand to see Sally that upset. Then PJ was standing in the doorway, blinking in his pyjamas, a broom in his hands.

  ‘You stupid, stupid little bastards,’ he said. ‘You better get this cleared by morning, or you’re all out on your earholes.’

  ‘Clear it up?’ Sally said. ‘How can we clear it up, you silly old sod?’ She threw a broken spool at PJ, and glossy brown tape spilled out behind it. ‘He’s smashed the place up! Look at it!’

  Peter came back into the office, using the door – although there was no need to, he could have stepped right through where the glass used to be. He looked sweaty and shocked.

  ‘Well,’ Terry said, jumping off the desk and taking the broom from PJ, ‘let’s get cracking.’ They all stared at him.

  Sally laughed, shaking her head. ‘You can’t come back here just because your new life hasn’t worked out. Don’t you know that?’ She placed her hand on Kishor’s shoulder. ‘Don’t cry, Kish. We’ll tell them – well, I don’t know what we’ll tell them. Burglars did it. Vandals.’

  ‘But they’ll never believe it!’ Kishor said, wringing his hands. ‘They’ll know it’s us!’

  Peter sat on the floor and covered his face.

  Sally gently prised the broom from Terry’s fingers. ‘You should go now,’ she said.

  Chapter Eleven

  The meat market froze Terrys bones.

  All around the great roaring cavern men in white coats smeared with blood loaded slabs of meat on to two-wheeled carts that looked like rickshaws and, with their breath steaming, transported their loads out to the waiting caravan of lorries and vans lining the perimeter of Smithfield with their engines idling. The freezing air was ripe with profanities as the men roundly swore at life and each other. It was hard work, and a long night. Terry’s head reeled at the fact that his father had worked here since leaving school at fourteen.

  He turned up the collar of his Oxfam jacket and stuffed his hands deep inside his pockets. The cold air made his eyes fill with tears and his breath come in short cloudy gasps. He walked down the central aisle, looking for his dad.

  Terry found him hauling a giant side of beef on to his back, a great carcass of meat and bone that made his knees buckle for a moment before he recovered and staggered upright, face contorting like a weightlifter.

  ‘My boy’s here,’ he gasped, his sweat-smeared face cracking into a smile at the sight of his son. He was wearing a hat that made him look like he was in the French Foreign Legion – a canvas cap with an expanse of white material coming out of the back, as if to keep off the desert sun.
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  ‘Help you with that, Dad?’

  The old man laughed. ‘That’ll be the day.’

  Terry followed him through all the men in their bloody white coats and out of the market, the old man bow-legged with the burden on his back. Shuffling behind him, all Terry could see of his father were the grubby tails of his white coat and the worn-out heels of his boots. When he had deposited the meat in the back of a refrigerated lorry, he wiped his hands on his sleeves before slapping Terry on the back.

  ‘My boy’s here!’ he shouted to no one in particular. ‘He goes all over the world, interviewing film stars!’

  ‘Dad,’ Terry protested. ‘They’re not film stars.’

  ‘Look at you,’ the old man said happily. ‘You’re all skin and bone. You hardly touched your tea, did you? Let’s get you something to eat.’

  Even at these hours in the dead part of the night, the pubs around Smithfield meat market were doing good business. In fact, trade was picking up now that the porters were nearing the end of their graveyard shift.

  Behind foggy glass windows, red-faced men in white knocked back pints of brown ale and drenched freshly made pies in HP sauce or sucked hungrily on cigarettes. Terry’s dad ordered pies and pints and found them seats at a table surrounded by loud, exhausted-looking men. Terry was the only one not wearing a white coat.

  ‘My boy,’ Terrys dad explained. ‘Goes all over the world interviewing these showbiz types.’ His barrel-like chest expanded with a pride that made Terry blush. ‘You could say he’s a bit like Michael Parkinson, I suppose.’

  The men looked moderately impressed. ‘Who you interviewed, then?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Well,’ Terry said, taking a mouthful of beef-and-onion pie. He paused, his stomach recoiling from the taste of hot food. When was the last time he had eaten? He remembered being on the plane back from Berlin, pushing away a foil tray of something that may have been chicken. And, with a stab of guilt, he remembered being unable to make a dent in the special meal that his mother had cooked for Misty. Take enough speed and your appetite seemed to fade away. ‘I just interviewed Dag Wood,’ he said, putting down his knife and fork. Blank faces around the table. ‘And I’ve interviewed Grace Fury.’