by Chloe Rayban
When the music was under way I asked, ‘Is this what I think it is?’
‘What does it look like?’ asked Dom.
‘Well, not exactly Capital Radio.’
‘I hope not.’
‘But won’t you get caught …?’
‘Not if we can help it. When the tracker vans start sniffing round, we just up and move on. All this stuff is port-able man …’ said Dom.
Brillo had come back from the other room. Now he was snapping ring-pulls off cans of Coke. He handed one to me.
‘All this stuff. Where does it come from?’ I said, indicating the equipment.
‘It’s like we’re testing it out. Any day now we might upgrade and it’ll all go back where it came from. Things left around gather dust. Dust is bad for equipment — causes static. Equipment needs careful storing or it seizes up. Like I see it, you shouldn’t leave stuff idle when you could be greasing the wheels …’
‘And we’ve like found a transmitter that got itself lost down the lift shaft,’ said Brillo. ‘Someone really careless must’ve left it down there. Like previous tenants?’
‘But what about the Council? Don’t they check up?’
‘How often do you spot a maintenance crew in an estate like this?’
‘Yeah … Guess you’ve got a point there.’
I cleared a pile of vinyl off a chair and sat down. The place had most certainly been declared a vacuum-free area. Odd bits of unwashed clothing lay around. Boy, what a tip!
Brillo arranged himself on the floor next to me and put his feet up on my chair.
‘How’s it going with the Neighbourhood Watch?’ he asked.
‘You were way out of line, man.’
‘Oh, ease up.’ Brillo shot a glance over his shoulder to Dom. ‘Come on. Give the guy something to relax to.’
‘Yeah, I got just the thing.’
Dom turned back to the mike and spoke into it. ‘I’m putting this on for a new face at the place -“The Hex”’.
He switched off the mike and turned to me. ‘This one’s for you, man.’
The deep sweet beat of Durassic flooded the room. Suddenly I was sitting bolt upright. Dom was playing my compilation. They must’ve made a copy while they had it in their possession — the sneaky bastards. It sounded good. Very good.
He grinned at me. That guy had wicked dimples.
‘Hows about some repeat fees?’ I asked.
‘Tight bastard …’ said Dom.
‘So what’s all this “The Hex” business?’ I asked.
‘I reckon if you’re gonna work with us, you’ve gotta have a handle,’ said Dom.
‘Work with you?’
Dom and Brillo exchanged glances. Brillo nodded briefly.
‘Now you’re on to us — you’re in, man,’ said Dom. ‘Only way we can trust you.’
Work with them. This was all moving too fast for me. Did I really want to get mixed up in this?
‘Why “The Hex”?’ I asked again, stalling for time.
‘Must be your evil grin,’ said Dom.
In the next hour or so, I got a taste of Dom’s collection. He was vamping it up on the mike, going berserk. Some of the stuff he came out with was a real laugh, some was kind of weird — but he gave me free rein to go through the pile of vinyl on the floor. There were some thicker discs — heavier, hand-written labels, looking so damn esoteric I knew they were special.
‘What are these?’
‘Dub tracks. First pressings from the plates — stuff we’re sent to trial for audience response.’
Dub tracks, I should’ve known. They were really in there. But the way he said it, he wasn’t putting me down. Dom was cool that way.
It got even better. The pile in the first room was like the tip of the iceberg. Next door they had a whole room more. It was full of records stacked in piles around the walls. I took a look through a couple of the piles — he must’ve been collecting like all his life. I reckon he had over four thousand records in there. Made my little hoard in Stroud seem pretty pathetic.
Almost before I knew it, Dom was signing off. It was five a.m. and he was closing the station down.
‘Be back in the Electric Chair next week if you wanna get fired up — Flashpoint, Friday midnight through to five a.m. 472.98 FM. So here’s the last rotation of those Wheels of Steel.’ And he put a final number on.
As the last chords died, I stared out through the grimy curtainless window. The dawn was warming the sky. Below was a lost panorama — a no-mans land of warehousing, tangled railway tracks and, on the other side of those, a refuse depot flanked by a deserted carpark. But at that moment the view seemed, as Dom would say: ‘pos-i-tive-ly pict-ur-esque’. Best view on this whole goddamn earth. Guess that’s the power of music, man.
Walking back that morning in the milky dawn, I was like inches off the pavement. I’d found mates — a whole new music scene. I even had a handle. “The Hex” — and a reputation for an evil grin. I could live with that.
By the time I reached Frensham Avenue the sun was well and truly up. Looked like it was going to be an alltime perfect day.
The house-martins dipped and swung and whistled overhead. They were still feeding young on the sunny side — the Babe’s side of the street. I paused in front of my house, watching them. You could see the heads of the young birds poking out of that crumbling old mud nest of theirs. The Babe’s window was open and the curtains weren’t drawn. The sun must be flooding in. For a moment I thought of her sleeping there, with the sun on her body. Nice!
And then I thought of Zalia and wondered where she’d got to last night.
Boy, what a contrast!
Chapter Ten
I’d barely got to sleep that Saturday morning before Dom and Brillo turned up. Not getting an answer from banging on the front door, they managed to let themselves in through the kitchen door at the back, and came stomping through the house looking for me.
‘Jeez, thought you were burglars,’ I said, grabbing at my sleeping bag as the two of them tried to shake me out by hauling at the foot end.
‘What you doin’ sleeping? We got a party tonight.’
‘Don’t you two ever sleep?’
‘Only when absolutely necessary. Waste of time,’ said Dom.
‘Look, cool it. I gotta wash — clean my teeth.’
‘What for?’ said Brillo, grabbing a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from my pile of dirty washing.
‘You got a cash card?’ asked Dom.
‘I’ve got about thirty quid in my account and that’s it,’ I said.
‘OK, so we’ll chip in.’
‘Isn’t everyone bringing bottles?’
‘Yeah, but we gotta have some bevvy in to like get-the-party-going.’
Before I could object further, the two of them had practically frog-marched me down to the van. Actually, in the clear light of day I could now see that it wasn’t so much a van — it was more a work of art. It had these huge evil psychedelic plant-animal things painted on the side. They had stems like plants and what looked like cars for heads with open mouths with teeth, like some alien form of Venus fly-trap.
We all climbed in. I was feeling seriously the worse for wear — unwashed, unshaven, wearing filthy clothes and a mouth like the inside of a bear’s armpit. Still, I was only going to a supermarket so who cared?
Soon as we got to the booze racks, Brillo peeled a can off a six-pack and cracked it open.
‘Breakfast!’ he said with a grin and took a long draught.
A man who was scrutinising the French wines gave us a withering look. I was glad this wasn’t Stroud. Jeez, the thought of being seen in present company by the old biddies from down our street! Or Mum and Dad even, in my present state and with said company.
Having piled a trolley with a lot more booze than I thought we could afford, I suggested we stocked up on some snacks. We were just heading that way when we came face to face with … the Babe from over the road.
That morning she had
that kind of pale, cool Kate Moss look, like vulnerable — made my heart do an odd sort of double-thump when I saw her. She was trailing behind a trolley pushed by a guy who, by the look of it, could only be her dad.
That’s when Brillo caught up with an old mate of his. This guy was dressed in a supermarket overall and stacking bottles of pale sweet British sherry on to the shelves. He must’ve been a pretty good mate because Brillo reckoned he owed him fifty quid — and claimed. surprisingly enough, the guy had recently been trying to avoid him. Anyway, Brillo had him by the lapels and we were all in line for being marched out of the supermarket for causing a riot, when this stacker guy pointed out, reasonably enough, that if he was caught having a fight in his place of employment, he’d be out of a job — and then Brillo wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting his fifty quid back. So Brillo let go of him and went off muttering to himself and spraying lager from his can over everyone.
We were just rounding the top of an aisle full of deodorants and bubble bath — which made me well and truly confront the fact that I hadn’t been allowed time to wash that morning — when we were caught up in a snarl of trolleys. And yes, there was the Babe again. We were face-to-face, or to put it more accurately, practically armpit-to-nose. I was feeling so rough. Naturally, the Babe kind of tried to ignore me. Well, I didn’t blame her. I looked like a vagrant and Brillo was being dead embarrassing. He was raising his can of lager to her in what must’ve appeared like a drunken toast.
I just muttered ‘Hi’ and gave Brillo a shove which meant he spilled even more lager, but we got out ourselves out of the trolley jam.
‘Nice. You two like — acquainted?’ asked Brillo.
‘Not really — she lives in my street,’ I muttered.
‘Very nice …’ agreed Dom, twisting round to get a look at her back view. Very nice indeed,’ he added. ‘So why aren’t you in there, man?’
I directed his gaze towards her dad. ‘Looks like she’s well protected from guys like us …’
‘Yeah, looks like she needs to get a life, man. Why don’t we invite her over tonight?’ said Brillo. ‘Party-y-y, you know.’
‘I don’t even know her.’
‘So this is your chance …’ Brillo wouldn’t let the matter go.
‘I kind of have the impression she wouldn’t want to come.’
Brillo kept the pressure on while I was stocking up on family packs of snacks. Dom was threatening to go over and invite her himself. We were still arguing about it when we got to the check-out.
That’s when I heard his voice. Her dad’s voice. Where had I heard that voice before? He was standing with his back to us at the Customer Service desk ranting on at the supermarket manager about something — getting really het up. Oh Jeesus! … I remember now. That was the voice of the busy-body who’d given me a dressing-down through the front door. And I’d given him an earful back …
The Babe was standing with their trolley, staring into space, looking as if she wished herself a million miles away.
‘See! Her life could do with some livening up,’ whispered Dom.
‘Yeah, man,’ said Brillo. ‘That girl needs a good seeing-to.’
I didn’t like Brillo’s tone.
I shot her a glance. Just for a split second her eyes rested on mine. Her blue eyes — they were so blue. Her hazy, lazy blue eyes. The electricity between us. It was like a pure adrenalin rush going through my body. I mean, you know instinctively when a girl fancies you. And this was definitely one of those looks. At least I think it was … Or maybe she was just staring into space … Or trying to see what time it was on the supermarket clock … Maybe she was short-sighted as hell. I don’t know. Jeez! I can never tell with girls.
‘Did you see that? She was giving me the eye,’ said Brillo once we’d paid and were proceeding out to the carpark.
I stared at him. Maybe he wasn’t that bad-looking. Maybe it was him she’d been looking at.
But Dom gave him a kick to bring him back to reality. ‘In your dreams Brill!’ he said.
Chapter Eleven
You want to know what the party was like? Don’t ask!
Yeah, well it started out kind of OK. Once Dom and Brillo had dumped me and the booze, they’d gone off to fetch the sound equipment. They came back with enough to service a rave. My heart sank as they carried in the speakers. They were vast. But I told myself, innocently, you didn’t have to play the stuff full volume, did you?
There were one or two things to fix up before we could have music — like finding a supply of electricity, which Dom said would be no problem. So we left him to sort out the electrics while Brillo and I did a bit of DIY Brillo’s idea of carpentry was to stuff a cushion in the gap where the stair was missing and add a big artistic sign saying: ‘Mind how you go folks.’ I managed to fix a padlock on to the door of the bedroom with the missing floorboards. We didn’t want to risk any nasty accidents.
As I made my way downstairs, a deafening blast of sound announced the fact that Dom had found a neat way to tap into the National Grid.
After that Dom went off and got a ton or so of ice from somewhere and we filled the bath with icecubes and chucked in as many cans as it would take. We’d got some girly stuff too — white wine and orange juice. That’s when I suddenly realised there wasn’t anything to drink it out of, so I made a dash to the newsagents for some plastic beakers.
I got back to find that the two of them had been busy testing the booze to check whether we had any duff cans. I restrained myself. I reckoned I’d probably get more than enough to drink once the party started. So I went round sweeping up, making the place look less of a dump. After my efforts it didn’t look that much better so I decided to subdue the lighting. I raided the builders stash of candles again and started to create atmosphere by positioning candles and bags of nibbles in strategic places, like I used to with parties back home — loads of paint lids for ashtrays, all that kind of stuff.
I was just standing back to admire my handiwork when I heard a movement behind me.
Dom had been watching me. He was standing there with a can of lager in his hand and this kind of bemused half-grin on his face.
‘What you doing?’
‘What does it look like? Making it look like we’re actually giving a party, man.’
‘Haven’t you forgotten the flow-wers?’
Dom was sending me up.
‘Oh yeah, sure. Interflora should be here any minute now.’
‘OK we’d better make a move. Be back later.’ Brillo had appeared in the doorway. He slapped Dom on the back to get him going and made a dodge for the door, trying to disguise the armful of cans he was leaving with.
We’d asked people for around nine-thirty. I felt pretty nervous as a matter of fact. I mean, apart from Dom and Brillo and Zalia, I barely knew anyone’s name. Might not even recognise them if they turned up wearing different gear, specially the girls — total chameleons most of them.
It got dark outside and I kept checking my watch for count-down. At about nine twenty-five, I put on the first of my selection of music. Even with the sound turned down practically to minimum, the level was deafening. I paced up and down the empty rooms but kept heading back to check the front door — I mean with sound like this I wouldn’t hear if anyone arrived.
By ten o’clock still nobody had. I became convinced that people must have come and knocked and gone away. So I turned the music off and sat in miserable silence, waiting.
Where on earth had Dom and Brillo got to? By ten-thirty I was suffering from serious paranoia. It was clear absolutely no-one was coming. Or if they did, they would be the kind of social outcasts that didn’t have anything else to do on a Saturday night. And there’d be so few of them that they’d stand around in twos and threes trying to make pathetic conversation and the whole scene would make me look like a total loser.
At eleven o’clock I went and stared at the bath full of booze. The ice was already starting to melt. What a goddam waste.
&
nbsp; I cracked a lager can open and was about to take a sip.
As if the sound of the ring-pull had been a starter’s gun, immediately there was an urgent hammering on the front door. I opened it — and this stream of people I’d never set eyes on in my life strode past me as if I’d become invisible.
A few of them, very few, came armed with bottles or cans, but most just started demanding where the bevvy was. One chap, a guy with a red beard, set off up the stairs with an intent look on his face. He located the bathroom in no time and shouted down that he’d found it and a sort of chain gang of people was set up, passing beers down the line through the hall. The line went straight past me and on outside and through the front garden — practically out into the street.
I’d finished my beer by now, so I forced my way upstairs to claim another while there was some going. But by the time I reached the bathroom door, I was greeted by the sight of the bath with nothing left in it but melting ice.
When I regained the ground floor, the party had moved up a notch or two on the Richter scale. Someone had turned the music up full blast and the room was filling with cigarette smoke. The double room, the kitchen and the bathroom were already fuller than a rush-hour tube train and people were still flooding through the front door. The action quickly spread upwards and filled the upper floors until even the staircase had become a strangely-angled dance-floor.
I found a free stair and got trapped there. Decibels pounded through my head. The house was so packed no-one could move to dance. A girl who wanted to leave was being passed hand over hand above everyone’s heads down the stairs. From my vantage point, all I could see was people standing and waving any available free part of their body to the music — arms mainly. The sea of arms gave the eerie impression that the whole house was rocking on its foundations. Boy, this was some party. Only thing was — I didn’t know a soul.
I started gingerly to edge my way down the stairs by squeezing and sliding myself down against the bannisters. All the way down I peered into the gloom in search of Brillo or Dom. Or maybe Zalia — that was a thought. Had Zalia bothered to turn up? I forced my way against the flood of people in the direction of the kitchen.