by Magnus Mills
‘Can you inform the others?’ said James. ‘I’ll have to see about altering the notice.’
Once we’d resolved the issue, a secondary thought occurred to me.
‘I’m surprised that bloke in the long, leather coat never turned up,’ I said. ‘He seemed quite keen.’
‘Well,’ James replied, ‘I told you it would be a test of his commitment.’
‘Maybe he’ll come next week.’
‘Yes, maybe.’
We were about to leave the pub when Mike approached us, apparently seeking reassurance. He had a very earnest expression on his face.
‘My records were alright, were they?’ he asked.
‘They were fine,’ I answered. ‘An interesting selection.’
‘Not too short?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Nobody said anything.’
‘They wouldn’t,’ attested James. ‘Comments and judgements aren’t allowed.’
Mike hesitated a few seconds before speaking again.
‘So how do I know if they’re any good?’
Now his expression was deadly serious. It was almost as if he feared being arrested by some dark agency over his choice of music. Obviously the spiky exterior masked a brittle shell.
‘Doesn’t really matter,’ said James. ‘As long as you like it, you can play whatever you like.’
I had to admit I was rather impressed by James’s response to these enquiries. Very impressed indeed. Lately I’d become concerned about his increasing intolerance during meetings of the Forensic Records Society. The way he enforced the rules verged on the despotic, yet here he was trying patiently to allay Mike’s doubts and worries. In that instant I realised James was a true believer. His message was clear: people could listen to anything they chose, provided they listened properly.
Tonight, however, it was George’s turn to be intolerant.
‘Come on you lot!’ he barked. ‘Out!’
We all said goodbye and went our separate ways.
Towards the end of the week I received an item of mail in the post. Inside the envelope was a leaflet:
CONFESSIONAL RECORDS SOCIETY
MEETS EVERY TUESDAY
9PM
HALF MOON
BRING A RECORD OF YOUR CHOICE AND CONFESS!
As I read the words I felt a cold chill running through me. This threatened to undermine all that James and I had achieved, and I wondered who could have been behind it. There was no covering letter or return address; nor did I recognise the handwriting on the envelope. Yet the term ‘confessional’ sounded vaguely familiar, and I spent a while sifting through my memory trying to locate it. Eventually, though, I gave up and went round to see James instead. It transpired that he’d received an identical leaflet.
‘Nothing to be concerned about,’ he remarked. ‘Plainly a total fraud.’
‘You mean it’s a joke?’ I enquired.
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I think they’re quite sincere, but these meetings are run by deluded individuals who attract similarly deluded newcomers.’
James went on to explain that ‘confessional’ gatherings originated in the United States, where they were fairly widespread. People sat in groups playing records, then each participant revealed to the others why they chose them. It seemed the events were often highly charged emotional affairs.
‘But they don’t listen properly,’ James concluded. ‘It’s all a fake.’
Even so, the Confessional Records Society had now arrived on our doorstep, a development which I for one found most unsettling. Furthermore, it could hardly have been a coincidence that the first meeting was scheduled to take place in the Half Moon.
‘Yes, it is rather close to home,’ said James. ‘Fortunately it’s fixed for Tuesday, so it shouldn’t impinge on us.’
‘Won’t it affect our membership?’ I asked.
‘Probably not,’ he replied. ‘This “confessionalism” appeals to a different kind of person altogether.’
‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine having to explain some of my choices: “Leggo Skanga”, for example, or “Cockney Translation”.’
‘They’re beyond words,’ said James.
‘Precisely.’
He told me he was just about to put the kettle on, so we went through to the kitchen and sat down at the table.
‘Been busy?’ I ventured.
‘Yes, I have actually,’ he said. ‘I’ve been engaged all morning on a side-project of mine.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘About a month ago I decided to play my entire collection in strict alphabetical order. Obviously I can only do it when I’ve got a moment to spare. I’ve just started working my way through the D’s.’
‘Still a long way to go then?’
‘Yes, there’s about nine hundred all told.’
James added that this was a valuable pastime because he could combine research with recreation. He’d already picked out several suitable contenders for our next visit to the Half Moon. James planned to continue his side-project during the afternoon, and I ended up ‘sitting in’ on the session for several hours. It was a gruelling process because a few of his ‘E’ records had begun to sound rather dated (we both agreed about that), but we pressed on all the same and I think he was thankful for my support. By the time I departed, we’d made good progress into the F’s.
‘Don’t forget,’ he said, ‘we meet an hour early on Monday.’
‘No, alright,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you then.’
On the appointed evening I arrived at five to eight and discovered Chris, Dave and Barry huddled in a group around the corner table. They each gave me a nod as I came in, then continued talking while I ordered a drink at the bar. The pub was relatively quiet, and I overheard part of their conversation.
‘He’s either that,’ murmured Chris, ‘or sort of, like, you know, he thinks, ‘‘I’ll be groovy”, you know.’
I glanced across at them and they all began to look rather sheepish.
‘Who are they talking about?’ said George. ‘You or me?’
Evidently he’d overheard them too.
‘Neither,’ I replied. ‘It’s a highly obscure reference, known only to a small circle of followers.’
George shook his head.
‘They’ve been waiting here since seven o’clock,’ he said. ‘Haven’t they got anything better to do?’
‘Probably not,’ I replied.
At that moment the pub door swung open and Mike marched in. When he saw me he came straight over.
‘Hey!’ he said, waving a record in my face. ‘You didn’t tell me about this!’
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘“Eight Miles High”,’ he proclaimed. ‘Three minutes thirty-five seconds.’
I put my finger to my lips and drew him aside.
‘Yes, well, I should keep it to myself if I were you,’ I said, in an undertone. ‘We never know who might be listening.’
It was eight o’clock, so I hustled him into the back room where James had just finished setting up. We were swiftly pursued by Chris, Dave and Barry. There was also a newcomer, a guy I’d noticed loitering near the bar with a telltale package in his hand. His name was Rupert, and we all did our best to make him feel welcome. Vaguely I noted that once again the man in the long, leather coat had failed to appear, but after that he faded from my mind.
The additional hour afforded by the early start seemed to create an expansive mood amongst the seven of us. A promising evening lay ahead, and as we awaited the first record an air of anticipation filled the room. It was customary for new recruits to begin proceedings, and Rupert’s opening selection was ‘Conscious Man’. He looked slightly bemused when nobody showed any reaction to it, but was soon reconciled once James had explained the rules. Dave came next with ‘On the Road Again’, then Barry chose ‘Born To Be Wild’, while my offering was ‘Mr Brightside’. As we moved around the table towards Mike I noticed he was becoming incre
asingly tense, as if impatient to present his first choice. He remained visibly agitated until ‘Eight Miles High’ was laid on the deck and the needle sank into the groove, after which he loosened up considerably. Chris followed this up nicely with ‘Get Me to the World on Time’, then James completed the opening round by playing ‘Waterloo Sunset’. We listened closely until the final notes dwindled into oblivion and the record ceased turning. Eventually, Chris broke our silent reverie:
‘“Terry and Julie cross over the river, where they feel safe and sound.”’
James nodded his head but said nothing, and it struck me as rather odd that he allowed Chris these weekly utterances. The rules clearly stated that there were to be no comments or judgements, yet Chris regularly flouted the convention without censure. On the other hand I suppose it could be argued that quoting directly from a song infringed neither category, and I have to admit that personally I harboured no objection to the practice. Chris had a very gentle voice and his delivery was barely intrusive. Moreover, he had an extraordinary ability to distil the essence of a song into a single line. Whenever he spoke, we all understood exactly what he meant. Well, most of us did anyway.
Mike pondered the words for a moment or two, and then asked, ‘Who’s Terry and Julie?’
Nobody even tried to explain.
‘If you weren’t there,’ said Barry, ‘you wouldn’t know.’
‘Well, I wasn’t,’ replied Mike, ‘so I don’t.’
It was time for the next round of music, and Rupert’s second contribution was ‘Pressure Drop’. Dave followed this with ‘Seven Seas’, and Barry chose ‘Into the Valley’. The evening was beginning to flow very smoothly and I was impressed by the wide variety of sounds we were sharing with one another. As a consequence the hours drifted by wholly unobserved. There was a brief wobble in proceedings when Mike announced that he wished to present ‘Eight Miles High’ for each of his three turns (he’d actually brought no other records with him), but after due consideration James gave his consent.
‘We’ll let it go just this once,’ he informed Mike. ‘Next week please try to bring three different choices.’
Soon we moved on to the final round, and Rupert handed James a copy of ‘Long Shot Kick the Bucket’. After that came ‘The Story of the Blues’, and while it was playing I happened to glance towards the door, which I noticed was slightly ajar. Presumably it had slipped off its latch. Or maybe not. Outside in the darkened passageway stood a slender young woman cautiously peeping in at us. When she caught my gaze she moved back into the shadows a little. A few seconds later she peeped in again, so I tapped James on the arm and alerted him to her presence. He continued listening until the record had faded away, and then he spoke.
‘We appear to have an eavesdropper,’ he said. ‘Close the door, will you?’
The instruction was directed at me (as usual) so I rose from my chair and went across to the doorway. The girl’s eyes met mine as I approached, and I saw them flash with anger when I shut her out. I heard the clatter of enraged footsteps retreating down the passageway, then I returned to my place at the table feeling rather remorseful.
‘She’ll have to come back next week,’ remarked James, before turning his attention once again to the red portable.
When the session ended we found to our amazement that it was almost eleven o’clock. Quickly we packed everything away and headed into the bar for a well-earned pint (or hopefully two). Immediately we saw that during the evening a new poster had been put up on the wall beside ours.
CONFESSIONAL RECORDS SOCIETY
MEETS HERE EVERY TUESDAY
9PM
BRING A RECORD OF YOUR CHOICE AND CONFESS!
‘Oh yes,’ said Dave when he saw it, ‘I meant to tell you, I got a leaflet in the post from them.’
‘Me too,’ said Barry.
According to George, somebody had turned up about ten o’clock to make arrangements.
‘By the way,’ he added, ‘they want to know if it’s alright to borrow your record player.’
‘Certainly not,’ replied James with irritation. ‘They can bring their own.’
‘It’ll save you having to move yours,’ George pointed out.
‘I don’t care,’ said James. ‘They’re not borrowing it and that’s that.’
‘Suit yourself.’
This meant, of course, that James had to find somewhere to put the red portable until the following Monday. Understandably, George was reluctant to get involved any further, and only after much gentle persuasion was he prevailed upon to make space for it in the cellar.
‘Be careful when you’re going down the steps,’ he told James. ‘They’re very steep and the light’s not very bright.’
James was gone a good while, and when eventually he emerged he had a question for George.
‘Who was it who was asking anyway?’
‘I didn’t catch his name,’ George replied. ‘He only comes in occasionally. You know him: it’s the chap who wears the long, leather coat.’
‘We don’t really know him,’ I said. ‘We’ve only met him once.’
George rang the bell for eleven o’clock, then carried on serving drinks.
‘I’ve come to a decision,’ he announced. ‘There’s no business for me if you all disappear into the back room for hours on end, so I’m going to open up the little bar on Monday evenings.’
‘Oh, right,’ said James. ‘Thanks.’
‘I’ve asked Alice to take charge.’
‘Who’s Alice?’ I enquired.
‘She’s the new barmaid,’ said George. ‘She was only meant to work Fridays and Saturdays but now she’s agreed to help out Mondays too.’
‘Ah.’
‘Comes highly recommended.’
‘Really?’
‘I told her to pop in and say hello this evening. I was busy and didn’t have time for a formal introduction.’
James glanced at me but made no comment.
‘What about Tuesdays?’ said Barry. ‘Are the “confessionals” getting their own special bar as well?’
‘Too soon to say,’ George answered. ‘They’re only a one-man-band at present, so we’ll have to wait and see how they develop.’
‘Anybody shown any interest?’
‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘Like I told you: I was busy.’
When I got home that night I went straight to my turntable and played ‘Baby, You’re a Rich Man’. As I sat and listened my thoughts went back to the day I bought the single all those years ago. The other side was supposed to have been recorded during a ‘live’ world television transmission, though everybody knew it hadn’t been really. Everybody, that is, except me: I always believed what it said on the label, and anyway I’d seen the live broadcast with my own eyes. On that first day I played ‘Baby, You’re a Rich Man’ sixteen times in succession before my dad came in and told me enough was enough. As the memory subsided I wondered if this counted as a ‘confession’. Could I take it to the Confessional Records Society and ‘confess’ to my misdemeanour?
Or perhaps I’d misunderstood the concept entirely. Maybe people were forced to sit in an interrogation chair with a record playing repeatedly until they ‘confessed’ to enjoying it. Probably not. More likely the society appealed to sentimental types who were easily reduced to tears, and who selected songs like ‘If You Leave Me Now’ or ‘Can’t Live Without You’. Either that, or they were expected to share with all and sundry some excruciating detail of their personal life which a particular record reminded them of. It all sounded a very morbid prospect to me.
Nevertheless I was highly tempted to spy on the first meeting just to find out exactly what happened in there. Conceivably I could lurk in the passageway of the Half Moon and eavesdrop on proceedings.
While I was pondering all this ‘Baby, You’re a Rich Man’ finished and the turntable clicked off. At the same instant I realised that the word ‘eavesdrop’ had made me feel rather queasy. For a moment I couldn’t think why,
and then I remembered the girl outside the door and the way her eyes had flashed with anger when I shut her out. I’d since discovered that her name was Alice; and it seemed I would have to face her the following Monday.
Until then, I decided, the best course of action was to steer clear of the Half Moon. This of course ruled out any idea of ‘spying’ on the Confessional Records Society. Furthermore, when I considered the matter in detail, it struck me that rather than mock our rivals we should try and look to ourselves. After all, the Forensic Records Society was far from perfect. To start with I still had certain reservations about the rules, especially the prohibition on comments and judgements. It was all very well for James to apply the rigorous letter of the law, but I’d already noticed sporadic signs of resistance. In truth it was only with great restraint that Dave, Barry and Mike had suppressed their desire to speak. As I mentioned before, an exception was occasionally allowed when Chris repeated lines from various songs, yet this acted as little more than a safety valve on a simmering problem. Ultimately I feared that the whole operation might disintegrate under the pressure. Besides, I doubted if the term ‘forensic’ was wholly appropriate if we weren’t permitted to examine any of the records in detail. All we did was play them and put them away again. For James and me this arrangement had always been quite satisfactory, but I questioned how long the others would accept the situation. Finally there was the unexplained problem of the missing hours and minutes: despite our attempts to keep a close rein on the process, we persistently ran out of time. Obviously these were all concerns that I kept to myself, and I had no intention of raising them at subsequent meetings. Even so, they continued to hover in the background.
As it transpired, however, events were about to take an altogether different and unexpected turn.
I arrived at the Half Moon the following Monday and knew at once that something was amiss. Chris, Dave and Barry were gathered at their usual table in the corner, all peering earnestly at a fourth man who was standing talking to them. Their brows were furrowed, and then I saw that the newcomer was holding in his hands a bunch of long-playing records. He looked extremely disappointed, presumably because he’d just found out his journey had been wasted. The Forensic Records Society didn’t cater for LPs and I guessed the other three had already broken the news to him. Judging by his forlorn expression he’d taken it rather badly. They were plainly in need of moral support, and when Barry spotted me he left the table and sauntered over.