He passed me a vodka. ‘Well, I want my band to be up there being shouted at by some dick.’ He turned his back to the bar. ‘It’ll never happen,’ he said. ‘I’m stuck forever, man, and only when you’re out like this …’
He looked at me.
‘What’s going on, Tully?’
‘I’m still glad I came. Manchester. Me, you, and the boys. That’s it. Nothing was going to stop me.’
‘Mate …’
He just bent his head towards the bar and said it loud enough for me to hear. ‘My da had a heart attack on Wednesday.’
‘This Wednesday?’
‘Aye. A minor heart attack. But he’s young for that.’
‘Jesus, Tully.’
‘It was like an omen, a few months ago – burying those light bulbs in the garden. His health is all over the place, and his mind.’
‘You don’t think you should be up the road, at home?’
‘Why you saying that? That’s exactly what I don’t think. Don’t tell me you find that hard to understand?’ He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘He’s fine.’ And with that he lunged back into the sway of bodies. He swallowed his drink in one gulp and threw the plastic tumbler in the air.
I drifted away towards the tables near the back wall and there was soon another voice at my shoulder. ‘That’s entertainment,’ it said.
It was Dr Clogs, and as I turned a green laser cut diagonally across his face. He held a pint. ‘You might put in a special request,’ he said. ‘I believe they do a most excellent “Cherish the Love”, or whatever it’s called, by Kool & the Gang, a rallying call for the Yorkshire miners.’ It occurred to me that though Clogs was young – he couldn’t have been more than twenty-two – I thought of him as old, the way he leaned to one side, and smoked his cigarette like someone taking particular measures against pain.
I saw Limbo combing through a thicket of small tables, rescuing drinks. He spotted us up the back and soon arrived with a tray of specimens. ‘Taboo and lemonade? Mirage and ginger?’ He gestured to the tray with a flowing hand, as if presenting the finest silks of Arabia, and raised an eyebrow. He was a natural actor, Limbo, and he held us for a moment with his cavorting eyes and his impersonation, before letting out this great cackle that made his whole body shake.
‘Those drinks are absurd,’ I said. ‘Can’t you make it your business to steal alcohol worth drinking?’
‘What? I beg your pardon. Let me understand you clearly,’ Limbo said. ‘You’re saying no to Taboo and Mirage?’
Just then, the beautiful girl came past. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, leaning out from the group in a sudden upswing of romantic confidence, ‘could I offer you an unspeakable drink?’ She stopped for a second and was smiling at my daftness and I had to be quick. ‘Which one are you, Taboo or Mirage?’ I asked.
She inclined her head, like people do when speaking to an idiot. I’d completely and absolutely, without a doubt, fucked it. She put a finger to her lips and I thought she was pausing before issuing the put-down of the century.
‘Em,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen the ads. I know who I am – Mirage.’ She plucked the drink from Limbo’s sordid tray and walked off, just turning, as if by the magic of cinema, to wink in my direction before she disappeared.
‘Jesus Christ,’ I said, ‘I need some air.’
‘It’s overrated,’ Limbo said. ‘Stop pestering women and giving away my booze. She was nice all the same, so you can be rewarded with a Bols Blue and ice. Come on, you little tease, I know you want it.’
Limbo drank several of his mad drinks and dropped the tumblers onto the carpet. For reasons impossible to fathom, he raised his eyebrow again and adopted the voice of Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. ‘You’d jolly better had,’ he said. ‘I can tell you I’ve had fourteen Beziques and I feel bloody marvellous.’
The band were struggling with a poor amp. Or several poor amps. ‘Pure fuckan mince by the way!’ Tully was shouting. The singer was trying to see where the bombardment was coming from (and why, no doubt) as she twisted the mic away from her mouth after ‘Home Again’. She swayed with composed embarrassment, the sort of embarrassment all members of small independent bands had then, a form of shyness, or stage absence, that seemed to go well with their accidentally perfect tunes.
‘That was pish!’ Tully shouted.
‘I think that boy’s had too many beers,’ the singer said. Then the drums thumped again and the band were off on another spree.
The night seemed to last forever and there was nothing to regret and no direction home. My head was full of Tully’s news, but I knew him: he didn’t want to deal with it tonight. As the set progressed and the energy lifted off we walked to the front and all stood together by the stage. Tibbs leaned over and handed the fuzzy-haired bass player a CND badge. She pinned it to her jacket and tossed her hair before they went into a cover of Motörhead’s ‘Ace of Spades’. Limbo was rocking, all his lanterns lit. He was good at being young. The flashy drinks had brought Las Vegas into his face.
‘Roll me on,’ he said. He turned to us, all portly. ‘Onto the stage. Roll me.’ Martyr for tunes, vampire for drink, Lincoln McCafferty crossed his arms over his chest and we rolled him towards the guitarist’s fashionably buckled legs. In the universe of small humiliations, there can surely be few more effective for the guitar hero than the arrival at his feet of a rotund little Scottish guy high on Taboo. The guitarist, disturbed mid-song, shuffled and kicked as Limbo gripped on to his legs. I say gripped, I mean hugged, Limbo nodding in time to the music and gnawing the guy’s jeans.
The Shop Assistants ended their set in a soft meltdown of confidence. That was the habit of the day, the vital register, with those bands. Scattered applause and an air of depletion went with a squeal of departing feedback, immediately giving way to the beat of the Ramones and a huddle on the dancefloor.
Tully and I wandered over towards an open door at the back of the venue. We stood for a moment by a group of shining beer kegs and I gave him water. His hair was stuck to his forehead. His eyes were glassy. His voice was low. He took out half a spliff from an inside pocket. ‘I can’t believe we saw the Smiths in their Roller,’ he said, ‘and now this lot. And we’ve still got tomorrow. I never want to go home, Noods.’
‘Of course you do.’
‘Let’s not talk about it.’ He drew really deep on the spliff, he always did that, and I thought it was a sign of confusion – he was dulling himself. He drank like that, too: as if oblivion was a perfect place to be by yourself.
‘It’s been a blinder already,’ I said.
‘Totally.’ He blew out the withheld smoke. ‘Like all the old boys watching you score at Ibrox and the cheer going up.’
Then he was gone again. He stood up and spun round and made the hall come to him as he mounted a raid on the dancefloor.
*
Exhausted, I found a table in the corner and took out the fanzine I’d bought at Piccadilly Records. When I looked up I saw the girl again and she came over. ‘I’m bored as a week in Bradford,’ she said. ‘Is this seat free?’
‘I’d be honoured,’ I said, already in love with her eyes.
‘So you’re the guy who reads at gigs?’
Her name was Angie. We talked about derelict housing blocks. She was the first black girl I’d ever met who wanted to talk to me, and she used the word ‘street’ as an adjective. Everything was street. She was from Hulme and knew all the members of A Certain Ratio. She wanted to know where we’d been that day and I told her all about it – the bus down and Spudulike, the carry-on at the Britannia Hotel.
‘Just living it up,’ she said.
‘With no digs.’
‘That’s crazy,’ she said. ‘Street urchins.’
She asked me what I was into. I named a whole lot of things. She nodded along to what I was saying. She had the slimmest hands. I didn’t know what to say, so I said I loved James Baldwin. ‘Well, you’re sweet, darling.’ She swallowed my vodka in a single g
o and kissed me bang on the lips.
‘Let’s run away to Paris,’ I said instantly. I’m sure my eyes were dewy. I had twenty-three quid and a bit of loose change.
‘Cute,’ she said, smiling like a superstar. We spoke about Soviet dissidents. ‘Maybe you’ll write a book,’ she said, ‘like your friend James Baldwin.’
‘I’m sorry for saying that.’
‘Don’t be soft,’ she said, tapping me on the nose. ‘We’re on the same side. For now.’ There wasn’t a phone in her flat, she said, but she’d be at G-Mex the next day.
‘Do you think this is a bad period for dancing?’ she said, looking at the action on the floor. ‘Like there was the Sixties – tick. There was disco – tick. But what’s this?’ People were sort of chickening their way round the floor or bowing down towards each other in a slow way. ‘Know what I mean?’
‘Bad period for dancing, good period for self-consciousness.’ She giggled and I’d never seen so much life in a giggle.
‘I’m going to like you,’ she said. ‘Wait there.’ She strode off and returned in the company of a man with a strong head and painted Doc Martens. He was the editor of the fanzine I’d been reading and was in a band called the Speechwriters.
‘Friendly Mancunians,’ I said.
‘We’re all friendly about ’ere,’ he said.
‘Not if today’s anything to go by,’ I said. ‘We’ve been to a few places today where they told us to shut our daft faces.’
‘That seems about right,’ Angie said. She tapped me on the nose again and began putting on her coat.
‘Can I definitely see you tomorrow?’ I blurted out.
‘Look out for me,’ she said. ‘It’s a test.’
She stood for a minute more. The place was emptying out and staff were collecting plastic glasses. By now, Tully and Hogg were snogging two girls over at the bar while Limbo and Tibbs were crashed out on a banquette. I liked the way Angie hovered. She said the word ‘darling’ to a few girls drifting by with their coats, like she knew everybody and knew how to be friendly and familiar and the opposite of uptight.
Clogs came over with his hands in his pockets. ‘This is Bobby,’ I said to the fanzine guy.
‘I’m Frank,’ he said back. Clogs shook his hand in a grown-up way, like they each deserved respect.
‘I confess to a certain amount of uncertainty about where we might sleep,’ Clogs said. ‘Do you have any advice, sir? We are a meagre group of four. It appears two of our group have apprehended some eyelashes.’
‘I’m sure there’s more to them than that, Clogs.’ I said it glancing at Angie. ‘Women aren’t merely eyelashes.’
‘It’s a rhetorical device,’ our future host said. (I had a feeling that exact burden would fall to him, English grammarian or not.) ‘They call it synecdoche, or metonymy. I’m never sure of the difference. The part for the whole.’
‘It reduces them,’ I said, warming up. ‘Women certainly have eyelashes. But I’m sure they have brains, too, and possibly souls.’ I was giving Angie the entire de Beauvoir. She did a little starburst of ‘bye’ with her fingers and was about to turn.
‘I’m going to like you,’ she repeated.
‘Tomorrow!’ I said.
‘That’s what it’s called.’
I wanted to shout some sort of poem as she left.
‘You’re gone,’ Clogs said.
‘Angie’s a complete star,’ said the fanzine editor. I felt for a second he must know where all the broken hearts were buried.
Clogs turned to logistics. ‘These nurses, the two over there with our pals. They have a flat over in St Mary’s Hospital. Ah, here comes one of the dashing swains.’
Tully sloped up, plastered. ‘We’re away,’ he said. He looked like a man who’d won the pools but was too depressed to spend it. ‘The girls said me and Hogg can sleep on their floor but you lot are getting the heave-ho.’ While walking away his spirits recovered and he did a wee Michael Jackson shuffle next to some goths.
‘Ten in the morning at the Peterloo Café,’ I shouted. ‘The corner of Albert Square.’
‘I hear you, Bubbles.’
He did a double pirouette, ending on his toes.
9
In the taxi Limbo babbled all the way while Tibbs replayed the whole of the Falklands War, bastard by bastard and ship by ship, until he fell into a coma. Then we drove through the streets in a temporary state of peace. ‘Looks like Alex Ferguson’s for United,’ the driver said. ‘That’s what they’re saying anyhow.’
‘On the radio?’ our friend asked. It occurred to me he should have called his fanzine Frank – he was totally Frank. Not like Frank Sidebottom or Frank Chickens, but an ordinary, workaday Frank who was all Manchester.
‘I can’t see it,’ said the driver. ‘There are too many Jocks down here already.’ Frank laughed. I think the term I’d use now is ‘good-naturedly’. Limbo grunted in his sleep and spoke phrases that might have involved nuns or policemen.
‘What did he say?’ Frank asked. His face told us he was unoffendable. He was taking us to the flat in West Didsbury where they did the fanzine.
The city gave out to rows of houses. Heaps of bricks. Not quite suburbia, but a certain ambience, a ghostly, ruined feeling; we passed tall, smokeless chimneys, and dark waste grounds edged in yellow light. Tibbs was snoring.
‘We bumped into the Smiths,’ I said, ‘at the Britannia Hotel.’
‘All of them?’ Frank asked.
‘All four, and the new bloke. We didn’t say much.’ I was still dealing with the image of Tully licking the windscreen of their Rolls.
‘I would call it an illusion,’ Clogs said. ‘Let’s say a derangement of enthusiasm. The boys had drunk quite a lot of the sauce. We were there and saw nothing of the sort. I’d wager the band in question did not appear, but were to be found hovering in a helicopter over Saddleworth Moor, ready for tomorrow’s gig.’
‘Not a chance,’ the fanzine editor said. ‘Take it from me. Steven Morrissey would never be caught dead in a helicopter. He’s much more likely to arrive on the 101 bus from Wythenshawe.’
We stopped at a house with a red-brick arch over the door and a wind chime in the garden. ‘It’s there to ward off evil spirits and the television licence people,’ Frank said. All the bulbs were out. We felt our way down the hall and ended up in a room with leather sofas. Using Limbo’s lighter, we saw tables covered in jars of stuck paintbrushes, cans of spray paint, guitar cases; there was a lovely scent of turpentine and glue. Frank could see in the dark. He put a record on the turntable and the glow from a candle lit a pot of ferns on the windowsill. There was a whole lot of Artex on the ceiling, a few bottles of Pils on the table, and a girl rolling a joint on a Go-Betweens LP as somebody told their life story. Frank brought in a camp stove to illuminate all the nonsense with its blue flame.
I felt a long way from home – in a good way, in a bad way – and when Tully was gone, the centre was elsewhere. That’s teenage love, isn’t it – when the party is less fun because your mate is the party? I was suddenly aware that I didn’t have enough money or directions and that I was every inch the young provincial. The big night would be the next one, and this was just a dosshouse and a piss-up, with no Tully to make it all alive and buzzing and part of the big story. I thought of the girl, Angie.
A vanload turned up from Hulme. One of them was about nineteen and he wore a hearing aid and blue National Health specs, one stem fixed with a plaster. He had a bunch of gladioli, a teddy bear, and many anxieties, a collection he all but wheeled into the living room in a tartan shopping trolley. I think they were all in a band, a fey ensemble, although there was a ginger ruffian who came gnashing at the rear and shook a tambourine in my face before emptying his bladder into a pint tumbler.
Now.
A tumbler of pee, even in a darkened squat, is like Chekhov’s gun: it must fulfil its promise to the audience. And just as a visible gun has to go off, a tumbler of pee, left on a fireplace in Act O
ne, is sure to be drunk by a wandering victim in Act Three. And so it was, as les misérables were contorting themselves to an acoustic guitar, and others were thinking aloud about the subtle genius of Kenneth Williams, that Limbo descended from his explorations of the upper floors and fell like carrion upon the wretched glass. I’m not saying he drank half of it before he realised, but it went beyond a single gulp.
‘Who’re your influences?’ asked the Morrissey clone. He’d got down beside me on the carpet and was twisting his hair. I think the standard response to that question, at the time, was ‘Shelagh Delaney, George Formby, the New York Dolls, and Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde’, but I didn’t get far into my list before Limbo came crashing down on the inquisitive student and knocked off his spectacles.
‘Got a light?’ Limbo asked.
‘Certainly not,’ said the boy, piecing his fragility back together. ‘The gum in cigarette papers is made from animal fat and that’s despicable.’
‘Can I ride you, then?’ inquired Limbo, before singeing his own hair. He was always doing it: a case of too much hairspray and a billowing Zippo. It was put out with a handful of cider and the young man scarpered.
I went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea. Finding a clean mug was an operation best imagined as a sort of journey to the interior, but eventually I brought the teabag to the mug and filled it with lukewarm water. I went back to the main room, where kids were beginning to fall asleep or get off with one another, the music mithering on the stereo. I watched the blue flame on the camp stove. The bluest part reminded me of Esso, the paraffin advert, and an old heater we used to have in the room where my father drank alone. I thought about Woodbine. I understood why Tully hadn’t stayed at home that weekend, but it revealed something cold in him, maybe a thing we had in common.
I got up and wandered through the house, bone tired, looking for a place to doss. I found a dark corner under the stairs, and lay down and went to take out my ticket. I wanted to go to sleep visualising tomorrow, the concert venue, the bands. Not Woodbine. Not parents or the ghosts of parents.
Mayflies Page 7