The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  Cal’s wrapped up in a rug on the sofa, smoking a joint and watching Home and Away. She jumps up when she sees me in the hall like she thought I was dead already.

  “Look, Cal,” I say. “I really wanted this job, but yer wouldn’t get Adolf Hitler to do what they asked, God rest his soul. There were all these little puppies in cages and I was supposed to push knitting needles down into their eyes. Jesus, it was—”

  “Just shaddup for one minute will you, John!”

  “I’ll get the rent somehow, Cal, I—”

  “—Paul McCartney was here!”

  “Who the hell’s Paul McCartney?”

  “Be serious for a minute, John. He was here. There was a car the size of a tank parked outside the house. You should have seen the curtains twitch.”

  Cal hands me the joint. I take a pull, but I really need something stronger. And I still don’t believe what she’s saying. “And why the fuck should Macca come here?”

  “To see you, John. He said he’d used a private detective to trace you here. Somehow got the address through your wife Cynthia. I didn’t even know you were married, John. And a kid named Julian who’s nearly thirty. He’s married too, he’s—”

  “—What else did that bastard tell yer?”

  “Look, we just talked. He was very charming.”

  Charming. That figures. Now I’m beginning to believe.

  “I thought you told me you used to be best mates.”

  “Too bloody right. Then he nicked me band. It was John Lennon and the Quarrymen. I should never have let the bastard join. Then Johnny and the Moondogs. Then Long John and the Silver Beatles. It was my name, my idea to shorten it to just the Beatles. They all said it was daft, but they went along with it because it was my fucking band.”

  “Look, nobody doubts that, John. But what’s the point in being bitter? Paul just wanted to know how you were.”

  “Oh, it’s Paul now is it? Did yer let him shag yer, did yer put out for free, ask him to autograph yer fanny?”

  “Come on, John. Climb down off the bloody wall. It didn’t happen, you’re not rich and famous. It’s like not winning the pools, happens to everyone you meet. After all, the Beatles were just another rock band. It’s not like they were the Stones.”

  “Oh, no. The Stones weren’t crap for a start. Bang bang Maxwell’s Silver bloody Hammer. Give me Cliff any day.”

  “You never want to talk about it, do you? You just let it stay inside you, boiling up. Look, why will you never believe that people care? I care. Will you accept that for a start? Do you think I put up with you here for the sodding rent which incidentally I never get anyway? You’re old enough to be my bloody father, John. So stop acting like a kid.” Her face starts to go wet. I hate these kind of scenes. “You could be my father, John. Seeing as I didn’t have one, you’d do fine. Just believe in yourself for a change.”

  “At least yer had a bloody mother,” I growl. But I can’t keep the nasty up. Open me arms and she’s trembling like a rabbit, smelling of salt and grass. All these years, all these bloody years. Why is it you can never leave anything behind?

  Cal sniffs and steps back and pulls these bits of paper from her pocket. “He gave me these. Two tickets for tonight’s show, and a pass for the do afterwards.”

  I look around at chez nous. The air smells of old stew that I can never remember eating. I mean, who the hell cooks stew? And Macca was here. Did them feet in ancient whathaveyou.

  Cal plonks the tickets on the telly and brews some tea. She’s humming in the kitchen, it’s her big day, a famous rock star has come on down. I wonder if I should tear ye tickets up now, but decide to leave it for later. Something to look forward to for a change. All these years, all these bloody years. There was a journalist caught up with Dr. Winston a while back. Oh Mr. Lennon, I’m doing background. We’ll pay yer of course, and perhaps we could have lunch? Which we did, and I can reveal exclusively for the first time that the Doctor got well and truly rat-arsed. And then the cheque came and the Doctor saw it all in black and white, serialised in the Sunday bloody Excess. A sad and bitter man, it said. So it’s in the papers and I know it’s true.

  Cal clears a space for the mugs on the carpet and plonks them down. “I know you don’t mean to go tonight,” she says. “I’m not going to argue about it now.”

  She sits down on the sofa and lets me put an arm around her waist. We get warm and cosy. It’s nice sometimes with Cal. You don’t have to argue or explain.

  “You know, John,” she murmurs. “The secret of happiness is not trying.”

  “And you’re the world expert? Happiness sure ain’t living on the Giro in bloody Birmingham.”

  “Birmingham isn’t the end of the world.”

  “No, but yer can see it from here.”

  Cal smiles. I love it when she smiles. She leans over and lights more blow from somewhere. She puts it to my lips. I breathe it in. The smoke. Tastes like harvest bonfires. We’re snug as two bunnies. “Think of when you were happy,” she whispers. “There must have been a time.”

  Oh, yeah: 1966, after I’d recorded the five singles that made up the entire creative output of the Nowhere Men and some git at the record company was given the job of saying, Well, John, we don’t feel we can give yer act the attention it deserves. And let’s be honest the Beatles link isn’t really bankable any more is it? Walking out into the London traffic, it was just a huge load off me back. John, yer don’t have to be a rock star after all. No more backs of vans. No more Watford Gap Sizzlers for breakfast. No more chord changes. No more launches and re-launches. No more telling the bloody bass player how to use his instrument. Of course, there was Cyn and little Julian back in Liverpool, but let’s face it I was always a bastard when it came to family. I kidded meself they were better off without me.

  But 1966. There was something then, the light had a sharp edge. Not just acid and grass although that was part of it. A girl with ribbons came up to me along Tottenham Court Road. Gave me a dogeared postcard of a white foreign beach, a blue sea. Told me she’d been there that very morning, just held it to her eyes in the dark. She kissed me cheek and she said she wanted to pass the blessing on. Well, the Doctor has never been much of a dreamer, but he could feel the surf of that beach through his toes as he dodged the traffic. He knew there were easier ways of getting there than closing yer eyes. So I took all me money and I bought me a ticket and I took a plane to Spain, la, la. Seemed like everyone was heading that way then, drifting in some warm current from the sun.

  Lived on Formentera for sunbaked years I couldn’t count. It was a sweet way of life, bumming this, bumming that, me and the Walrus walking hand in hand, counting the sand. Sheltering under a fig tree in the rain, I met this Welsh girl who called herself Morwenna. We all had strange names then. She took me to a house made of driftwood and canvas washed up on the shore. She had bells between her breasts and they tinkled as we made love. When the clouds had cleared we bought fish fresh from the nets in the whitewashed harbour. Then we talked in firelight and the dolphins sang to the lobsters as the waves advanced. She told me under the stars that she knew other places, other worlds. There’s another John at your shoulder, she said. He’s so like you I can’t understand what’s different.

  But Formentera was a long way from anything. It was so timeless we knew it couldn’t last. The tourists, the government, the locals, the police—every Snodgrass in the universe—moved in. Turned out Morwenna’s parents had money so it was all just fine and dandy for the cunt, leaving me one morning before the sun was up, taking a little boat to the airport on Ibiza, then all the way back to bloody Cardiff. The clouds greyed over the Med and the Doctor stayed on too long. Shot the wrong shit, scored the wrong deals. Somehow, I ended up in Paris, sleeping in a box and not speaking a bloody word of the lingo. Then somewhere else. The whole thing is a haze. Another time, I was sobbing on Mimi’s doorstep in pebbledash Menlove Avenue and the dog next door was barking and Mendips looked just the same. The porch wher
e I used to play me guitar. Wallpaper and cooking smells inside. She gave me egg and chips and tea in thick white china, just like the old days when she used to go on about me drainpipes.

  So I stayed on a while in Liverpool, slept in me old bed with me feet sticking out the bottom. Mimi had taken down all me Brigitte Bardot posters but nothing else had changed. I could almost believe that me mate Paul was gonna come around on the wag from the Inny and we’d spend the afternoon with our guitars and pickle sandwiches, rewriting Buddy Holly and dreaming of the days to come. The songs never came out the way we meant and the gigs at the Casbah were a mess. But things were possible, then, yer know?

  I roused meself from bed after a few weeks and Mimi nagged me down the Jobbie. Then I had to give up kidding meself that time had stood still. Did yer know all the docks have gone? I’ve never seen anything so empty. God knows what the people do with themselves when they’re not getting pissed. I couldn’t even find the fucking Cavern, or Eppy’s old record shop where he used to sell that Sibelius crap until he chanced upon us rough lads.

  When I got back to Mendips I suddenly saw how old Mimi had got. Mimi, I said, yer’re a senior citizen. I should be looking after you. She just laughed that off, of course; Mimi was sweet and sour as ever. Wagged her finger at me and put something tasty on the stove. When Mimi’s around, I’m still just a kid, can’t help it. And she couldn’t resist saying, I told you all this guitar stuff would get you nowhere, John. But at least she said it with a smile and hug. I guess I could have stayed there forever, but that’s not the Doctor’s way. Like Mimi says, he’s got ants in his pants. Just like his poor dead mum. So I started to worry that things were getting too cosy, that maybe it was time to dump everything and start again, again.

  What finally happened was that I met this bloke one day on me way back from the Jobbie. The original Snodgrass, no less—the one I used to sneer at during calligraphy in Art School. In them days I was James Dean and Elvis combined with me drainpipes and me duck’s arse quiff. A one man revolution—Cynthia, the rest of the class were so hip they were trying to look like Kenny Ball and his Sodding Jazzmen. This kid Snodgrass couldn’t even manage that, probably dug Frank Ifield. He had spots on his neck, a green sports jacket that looked like his mum had knitted it. Christ knows what his real name was. Of course, Dr. Winston used to take the piss something rancid, specially when he’d sunk a few pints of black velvet down at Ye Cracke. Anyway, twenty years on and the Doctor was watching ye seagulls on Paradise Street and waiting for the lights to change, when this sports car shaped like a dildo slides up and a window purrs down.

  “Hi, John! Bet you don’t remember me.”

  All I can smell is leather and aftershave. I squint and lean forward to see. The guy’s got red-rimmed glasses on. A grin like a slab of marble.

  “Yeah,” I say, although I really don’t know how I know. “You’re the prat from college. The one with the spotty neck.”

  “I got into advertising,” he said. “My own company now. You were in that band, weren’t you, John? Left just before they made it. You always did talk big.”

  “Fuck off, Snodgrass,” I tell him, and head across the road. Nearly walk straight into a bus.

  Somehow, it’s the last straw. I saunter down to Lime Street, get me a platform ticket and take the first Intercity that comes in, la, la. They throw me off at Brum, which I swear to Jesus God is the only reason why I’m here. Oh, yeah. I let Mimi know what had happened after a few weeks when me conscience got too heavy. She must have told Cyn. Maybe they send each other Crimble cards.

  * * *

  Damn.

  Cal’s gone.

  Cold. The sofa. How can anyone sleep on this thing? Hurts me old bones just to sit on it. The sun is fading at the window. Must be late afternoon. No sign of Cal. Probably has to do the biz with some Arab our Kev’s found for her. Now seems as good a time as any to sort out Macca’s tickets, but when I look on top ye telly they’ve done a runner. The cunt’s gone and hidden them, la, la.

  Kevin’s back. I can hear him farting and snoring upstairs in Cal’s room. I shift the dead begonia off ye sideboard and rummage in the cigar box behind. Juicy stuff, near on sixty quid. Cal hides her money somewhere different about once a fortnight, and she don’t think the Doctor has worked out where she’s put it this time. Me, I’ve known for ages, was just saving for ye rainy day. Which is now.

  So yer thought yer could get Dr. Winston O’Boogie to go and see Stu and Paulie just by hiding the tickets did yer? The fucking NEC! Ah-ha. The Doctor’s got other ideas. He pulls on ye jacket, his best and only shoes. Checks himself in the hall mirror. Puts on glasses. Looks like Age Concern. Takes them off again. Heads out. Pulls the door quiet in case Kev should stir. The air outside is grainy, smells of diesel. The sky is pink and all the street lights that work are coming on. The kids are still playing, busy breaking the aerial off a car. They’re too absorbed to look up at ye passing Doctor, which is somehow worse than being taunted. I recognise the cracks in ye pavement. This one looks like a moon buggy. This one looks like me mum’s face after the car hit her outside Mendips. Not that I saw, but still, yer dream, don’t yer? You still dream. And maybe things were getting a bit too cosy here with Cal anyway, starting to feel sorry for her instead of meself. Too cosy. And the Doctor’s not sure if he’s ever coming back.

  I walk ye streets. Sixty quid, so which pub’s it gonna be? But it turns out the boozers are still all shut anyway. It don’t feel early, but it is—children’s hour on the telly, just the time of year for smoke and darkness.

  End up on the hill on top of the High Street. See the rooftops from here, cars crawling, all them paper warriors on the way home, Tracy doing lipstick on the bus, dreaming of her boyfriend’s busy hands and the night to come. Whole of Birmingham’s pouring with light. A few more right turns in the Sierra to where the avenues drip sweet evening and Snodgrass says I’m home darling. Deep in the sea arms of love and bolognese for tea. Streets of Solihull and Sutton Coldfield where the kids know how to work a computer instead of just nick one, wear ye uniform at school, places where the grass is velvet and there are magic fountains amid the fairy trees.

  The buses drift by on sails of exhaust and the sky is the colour of Ribena. Soon the stars will come. I can feel the whole night pouring in, humming words I can never quite find. Jesus, does everyone feel this way? Does Snodgrass carry this around when he’s watching Tracy’s legs, on holy Sunday before the Big Match polishing the GL badge on his fucking Sierra? Does he dream of the dark tide, seaweed combers of the ocean parting like the lips he never touched?

  Me, I’m Snodgrass, Kevin, Tracy, fat Doris in her print dress. I’m every bit part player in the whole bloody horrorshow. Everyone except John Lennon. Oh Jesus Mary Joseph and Winston, I dreamed I could circle the world with me arms, take the crowd with me guitar, stomp the beat on dirty floors so it would never end, whisper the dream for every kid under the starch sheets of radio nights. Show them how to shine.

  Christ, I need a drink. Find me way easily, growl at dogs and passers-by, but Dave the barman’s a mate. Everything’s deep red in here and tastes of old booze and cigs and the dodgy Gents, just like swimming through me own blood. Dave is wiping the counter with a filthy rag and it’s Getting pissed tonight are we, John? Yer bet, wac. Notice two rastas in the corner. Give em the old comic Livipud accent. Ken Dodd and his Diddymen. Makes em smile. I hate it when they don’t smile. Ansells and a chaser. Even got change for the juke-box. Not a Beatles song in sight. No “Yesterday,” no “C Moon,” no “Mull of Kinbloodytyre.” Hey, me shout at ye rastas, Now Bob Marley, he was the biz, reet? At least he had the sense to die. Like Jimi, Jim, Janis, all the good ones who kept the anger and the dream. The rastas say something unintelligible back. Rock and roll, lets. The rastas and Winston, we’re on the same wavelength. Buy em a drink. Clap their backs. They’re exchanging grins like they think I don’t notice. Man, will you look at this sad old git? But he’s buying. Yeah I’m buying thanks
to Cal. By the way lads, these Rothmans taste like shit, now surely you guys must have something a little stronger?

  The evening starts to fill out. I can see everything happening even before it does. Maybe the Doctor will have a little puke round about eight to make room for a greasy chippy. Oh, yeah, and plenty of time for more booze and then maybe a bit of bother later. Rock and roll. The rastas have got their mates with them now and they’re saying Hey man, how much money you got there? I wave it in their faces. Wipe yer arse on this, Sambo. Hey, Dave, yer serving or what? Drinky here, drinky there. The good Doctor give drinky everywhere.

  Juke-box is pounding. Arms in arms, I’m singing words I don’t know. Dave he tell me, Take it easy now, John. And I tell him exactly what to stuff, and precisely where. Oh, yeah. Need to sit down. There’s an arm on me shoulder. I push it off. The arm comes again. The Doctor’s ready to lash out, so maybe the bother is coming earlier than expected. Well, that’s just fine and me turn to face ye foe.

  It’s Cal.

  “John, you just can’t hold your booze any longer.”

  She’s leading me out ye door. I wave me rastas an ocean wave. The bar waves back.

  The night air hits me like a truncheon. “How the fuck did yer find me?”

  “Not very difficult. How many pubs are there around here?”

  “I’ve never counted.” No, seriously. “Just dump me here, Cal. Don’t give me another chance to piss yer around. Look.” I fumble me pockets. Twenty pee. Turns out I’m skint again. “I nicked all yer money. Behind the begonia.”

  “On the sideboard? That’s not mine, it’s Kevin’s. After last time do you think I’m stupid enough to leave money around where you could find it?”

  “Ah-ha!” I point at her in triumph. “You called him Kevin.”

  “Just get in the bloody car.”

  I get in the bloody car. Some geezer in the front says Okay guv, and off we zoom. It’s a big car. Smells like a new camera. I do me royal wave past Kwiksave. I tell the driver, Hey me man, just step on it and follow that car.