Stardust

by Ray Connolly

  Da-doo-ron-ron-ron, da-doo-ron-ron.

  In the audience academic boredom prevailed as a pretentious Students’ Union consciously determined to remain unmoved by the exhortations to sensuality being transmitted from the stage. It was not hip in 1964 for undergraduates to actually admit that they also enjoyed cheap eroticism in their pop music. Only the Beatles and their pandiatonic clusters and submediant key switches were then academically acceptable.

  But if the undergraduates of England were not impressed with the Femettes, Mike Menarry and Jim Maclaine were more than pleased. Standing in the wings they watched them lasciviously. Neither of them fancied the dark one up front doing most of the singing, but the blonde twins standing behind and adding the oohs and aahs and most of the sexual suggestiveness, were quite another proposition. Dressed in tiny tight red shorts and T-shirts cut away at the shoulders, and resembling randy schoolgirls (Form 5E) who had nipped off from the netball on a games day, they were expressing their libidinal urges in a most direct and precise way.

  Backing them on stage were J.D. on drums, Stevie and Alex on guitars, and a middle-aged saxophonist, whose wife had turned up in the audience just to make sure that he didn’t get any ideas below his belt. If the twins hadn’t been so basically physically attractive the whole performance would have been disastrous since the lead singer clearly had no future in that line of show-business, but it wasn’t the music that Jim and Mike were listening to.

  ‘A teamer?’ Jim stared at them calculatingly. ‘Or one each?’

  Mike looked at them: ‘One each.’ He didn’t want to go anywhere that Jim had been before.

  ‘Okay. Much chance?’

  ‘Every chance.’

  ‘Can you fix it?’

  ‘No problem.’

  The girls were ending their act and amidst a bored and hardly polite thin round of applause they began to leave the stage.

  ‘Be cool … you know, make them think we don’t care much either way …’ said Jim, and without turning to look at Mike, he walked arrogantly out on to the stage, meeting Johnny at that moment who had been wasting valuable pulling time trying his charms on a dashing young lady from Cheltenham with whom he was certainly going to have no chance.

  Passing Jim as they were coming off stage, one of the twins murmured something to the other. Mike couldn’t hear what it was but he could guess. Jim did look extraordinarily pretty tonight. This was going to be easier than he had expected.

  ‘Eh! You two, Thunderthighs!’ They looked at him and smiled. They both knew that he and Jim had spent the past fifteen minutes ogling them and they were ready for any invitation. ‘What about tonight then? Fancy a grind?’

  Mike had not misread the attitudes of the games girls. They giggled, looked at each other, one of them shrugged and the other nodded. It seemed almost too easy.

  The Stray Cats’ set went down well. By now they had attracted a small following and though their harmonies might not be up to those of Lennon and McCartney they were certainly a considerable step above most groups around. Johnny nearly mucked it up by continuing to pull from the stage and a Students’ Union was no place for that, but it was generally a good night and they were called back for an encore which was certainly an encouraging sign. Encores, however, were not exactly what Jim had in mind for this part of the night’s entertainment and the second they were finished, he rushed off the stage to find Mike.

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘No problem. They’re waiting over there.’ Jim looked towards the door and the two girls, now heavily wrapped in imitation furs, were waiting and smiling. Instantly he knew what to do. He turned back to Mike who was unfastening the leads between the amplifiers and speakers.

  ‘Tell you what. Better not keep them hanging around here. It might put them off. I’ll go with them in their van, and you come on after you’ve finished here. I’ll keep one warm for you.’

  And without waiting for Mike to answer, Jim winked at him and turning, strode back to the Femette twins and led them out into the night.

  Mike watched them go, a sudden dart of suspicion shooting across his mind. Johnny walked across to him.

  ‘Seen the other one … the dark one, Mike?’ His failure with the students had led him to seek fresh pastures.

  ‘She’s still in the dressing-room,’ said Mike. Then, suddenly realizing that he was in an urgent situation, he added: ‘Why don’t you give us a hand loading the van before you go after her? She’ll wait for you.’

  ‘Sorry Mike. Can’t take the risk. I would normally. You know that, don’t you?’ And Johnny quickly backed away and went in search of the lady singer.

  ‘No,’ said Mike. ‘I don’t know that.’

  It was, of course, to no avail. Both Johnny and Jim had neatly got out of doing any of the loading of the van and although J.D., Stevie and Alex invariably did their share and always worked as quickly as possible, Mike couldn’t help feeling some resentment towards the two work-shy heroes of the Stray Cats. And in the back of his mind he vaguely suspected Jim. Johnny’s attitude he had grown used to, and he hardly cared any more. He couldn’t stand the bloke anyway, so it was often a relief not to have him around. But Jim was different: Jim was supposedly his special friend, but now he had this nagging suspicion that that old selfishness which had always been the most predominant feature of Jim’s personality, might be about to show its ugly little skull.

  By half-past eleven the van was packed and the group were ready to leave the Students’ Union. Johnny was believed to be locked in a dressing-room with the leader of the Femettes and J.D., Stevie and Alex were thinking about going to a club.

  ‘Coming down the Blue Angel?’ Stevie asked Mike as they piled into the van.

  ‘No thanks. I’ve got my own blue angel.’ Mike was already revving the engine in his anxiety to be off. ‘Tell you what though. Do me a favour and drop me off at Harrap’s and then go on there after. I’ve got a date with Jim and the Thunderthighs.’

  The rest of the group made appropriate noises of goodwill and carnal envy. And with their best wishes Mike raced home, bounced through the open wrought-iron gates, skidded round the small ornamental fountain and thanking the boys for their understanding attitude, jumped down from the van, took a quick peep inside the parked Femettes’ mini-van and then shot inside the house.

  The hall and stairs were in complete darkness. Once he’d closed the front door behind him Mike stood and listened carefully. There was nothing to hear, so walking as softly as he could he climbed the open wooden stairs to the landing. Again he stopped to listen. There was no sound from anywhere. His worst doubts were beginning to become realities.

  The room he shared with Jim was by the top of the stairs: he crept noiselessly towards it across the mustard carpeting. Maybe they were all in there stark naked, waiting for him to come so that they could begin an orgy. Or maybe Jim had laid them on (so to speak) so that the minute Mike opened the door he would be beset by two naked raving nymphs. He somehow doubted both possibilities, which was just as well because the room was quite empty - as untidy as he had left it earlier that night. Neither Jim nor the Femettes had been in. Just to be sure, however, and in case he was being teased, he did pull back the sheets on his bed to see if his nubile lady was waiting there. She wasn’t.

  More curious now than suspicious he went back into the corridor and, walking the length of it, opened each door individually. First Johnny and Stevie’s room: again no sign of life, and then J.D. and Alex’s. Nothing. The last door on the landing was Harrap’s bedroom, a part of the house he’d never seen. Harrap always kept it locked. He tried the door. It was, as usual, locked. But as he allowed the handle to rest he heard a low giggling from inside. He tried it again. More giggling, followed by a shushing voice which he recognized as Jim’s. And then while he listened with his ear to the door he heard one of the girls whisper softly: ‘It’s all right, Polly. He’s gone,’ followed by more surreptitious whispering. For a moment he stared hard at the door. To say that he w
as either surprised or disappointed would be patently untrue. He wasn’t. He hadn’t in fact expected any more. Jim had always been as selfish as he was narcissistic. From inside the bedroom came the muffled sound of someone roaring. Mike listened more closely to the door, but then all he could hear were the two girls giggling. So without wishing to further humiliate himself by demanding his hundred pounds of flesh, he made his way back to his room and undressing, got into his blue and white striped pyjamas, turned on the radio and settled down to wait for the broadcast of the Liston/Clay fight from America. He wasn’t angry with Jim: not even frustrated. In fact he felt a curious sense of relief. Jim had been acting too much like a goody-goody for far too long so far as he was concerned and it was a healthy sign to discover that he was still the no-good bastard he had always been. Anyway, girls he could have any time, but Cassius Clay didn’t fight Sonny Liston every night. So counting his blessings, he waited for the broadcast to come through, crossing his fingers and forgetting all about the fun he might be missing in the other bedroom.

  There had been no idea of conspiracy in Jim’s mind when he left the Students’ Union but as he drove the twins back to Harrap’s house in their little mini-van he began quickly to get the idea that Mike’s presence might not be altogether necessary. He’d heard before about twins who were happy to share their boy friends, but had never come across the situation. But it wasn’t long before he realized that tonight he might have come across two of everything he most desired - and four of some things.

  They were a very pretty pair, though a bit washed-out and tatty looking from too many late nights, love bites and dirty tights, and they certainly knew how to make a man enjoy himself. It wasn’t so much that he purposely deserted Mike. Neither of the girls ever once mentioned him, and no sooner were they in the van than one had her hand on his thigh while the other, hanging over his shoulder from the back, had his shirt unbuttoned and was running icy, electric fingers around his breast. When he was older and wiser he thought back about this night and he decided that he’d been a victim of their lusts, but dashing through the lanes back to Harrap’s house on the night of February 25, 1964, his thoughts were on two things only.

  The twins didn’t say much. There wasn’t really a lot to say. Neither he nor they were remotely interested in each other beyond that interest which can be found when the light is out and the heat is on. And to Jim that night both the Femette twins, popularly known among contemporary travelling musicians as the blond Thunderthighs, seemed to be in simultaneous heat, grabbing him with gross indelicacy as they pulled him inside Harrap’s front door while he fiddled to get his key out of the keyhole safely. He had intended taking them both up to the room which he shared with Mike, but running ahead of him one of the twins, whom he afterwards found to be called Linda, discovered that Harrap’s door had been left open in the poor Washerwoman’s haste to get off to London. This intrigued Jim since he had never been inside Harrap’s room before and he was loathe to let this opportunity for exploration go by.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Linda as she turned on the light.

  Jim and the other girl, Polly, stood in equal awe. The whole room was decorated like a shrine to manliness, to virility. From the wall phallic elephant tusks jutted out aggressively; a deer’s antlers served as a coat-rack for five dressing-gowns, while over the ship’s cabin dressing-table was an enormous colour photograph of Ronald Harrap with gun wearing a big-game hunter’s outfit.

  ‘Christ,’ said Jim.

  ‘A four-poster bed,’ said Polly.

  ‘God’s teeth,’ said Jim. He’d never seen a four-poster bed before other than in a school visit to a stately home, and he was not unimpressed with Harrap’s show of wealth. Across the bed lay an enormous bear skin complete with head and bared teeth. Polly looked at it and then grabbed Jim in mock fear.

  ‘You Tarzan, We Janes,’ she said, and giggled. Linda lay down on the bed and hugged the bear.

  ‘I like a hairy man.’

  Jim felt uneasy, trespassing among Harrap’s secrets: ‘Let’s go into my room, shall we?’

  ‘I thought you said he was away,’ said Polly.

  ‘Well, he is.’

  ’Well …’ And without waiting for further argument she began to undress. Linda watched her and giggled. Jim watched her and waited. It didn’t take long. She wasn’t wearing much under her furs; just a mini skirt, tights, bra and pants, and without a backward glance she dropped everything around her and pulling aside the bear with a ‘move over Yogi’ she climbed into Harrap’s pristine, freshly launderetted sheets.

  Linda and Polly looked at Jim and then smiling to her sister, Polly went into a similarly straightforward striptease routine. Within seconds she had joined her sister in bed. There could be no arguing from Jim and turning out the light while he undressed since he felt somehow embarrassed to be confronted by an audience of two, he quickly joined them, taking care to lock the door first.

  He had, in fact, only just jumped into bed when he heard the sound of the Stray Cats’ van bringing Mike home, and the ribald comments as J.D., Stevie and Alex left him by the front door.

  ‘Quiet!’ he warned the twins. And so the three of them lay there and waited while Mike climbed the stairs and tried all the rooms, eventually ending up at Harrap’s door. Unfortunately the slow build-up of tension was too much for Polly. And as the door handle turned she began first to shake and then to giggle, sending the whole bed into vibrations of mirth, which, in the infectious nature of things, quickly set her sister off along a similar path, and who, imitating the action of the tiger, stiffened her sinews, and summoned up her blood, and lunged at Jim giving him the most enormous love bite just above his left nipple.

  ‘Well, that’s it,’ thought Jim, ‘Mike must have heard all that. He knows we’ve done the dirty on him now.’ So casting aside his regrets for his best friend he joined in the fray with an added gusto.

  Then came his doubts: which one should he have first?

  ‘Eenie, meenie, minie, moe …’ He said saucily, moving his hand from one girl to the other. His moving hand made the decision for him and he turned towards Polly. This was his first experience of this sort of situation and he was beginning to feel uncomfortable about it. For their part the two girls seemed quite at ease, almost as though they were enjoying his embarrassment, he thought.

  First then, he set about Polly. He had always had a fairly high regard for his own virility before, like most members of pop groups, but tonight … well he just didn’t feel all that confident. Try as he would to concentrate upon enjoying himself in this most delicious of fantasies the juices of delight just didn’t run right for him and although he did his best to satisfy one of the twins at least, pretty Polly with her peroxide hair and thick black pubes made clear her derision at his performance.

  ‘You haven’t finished, have you?’ She looked up at him quite scornfully when, quite spent, he lay panting on top of her.

  ‘Was that it?’ Linda was joining in the baiting. Jim rolled away from the girls and gasped for breath.

  ‘What’s he like, Pol?’

  ‘One in ten-for effort.’ Their bitchiness was lancing him.

  ‘It hardly seems worth my bothering, does it?’

  ‘You won’t have to bother,’ Polly was now being vicious. ‘He won’t be able to perform again tonight.’

  Jim stared at the two girls with a bewildered fear and hurt. He didn’t know why they should want to behave like this. If they hadn’t acted so domineeringly all the time he was sure he would have given a better account of himself. He wanted to stop them jeering and just show them how good he knew he could be. But at that moment he didn’t really feel up to showing them anything.

  And as he lay there considering his defeat the two girls climbed into each other’s arms and set about displaying their self sufficiency by making love to each other, while he, a transfixed spectator, gradually began to understand something of where he had gone wrong. And by and by Polly and Linda both worked ou
t their frustrations, and felt the better for it.

  By the fifth round Mike could hardly contain himself. Cassius Clay had confounded all the pundits by lasting so long, but now there seemed to be something wrong with him, something in his eyes and according to the radio commentator, he was running round the ring bellowing like a crazy man, not trying to land a blow on Liston but running all the time, trying to wipe his eyes. He couldn’t see, the commentator seemed to be saying, but still Liston couldn’t get to him.

  And then they were into the sixth round and Clay was back to clipping points off Liston by bouncing punches off those now swollen eyes. This was too much to have hoped for. Mike was virtually dancing with excitement in his bed as the commentator gabbled his surprise at the way the fight was going: ‘Clay is now throwing punches … a left, another left, a right … they’re coming from every angle. And the big man Liston doesn’t seem to know what to do … this is an amazing sight. An amazing fight. Who would have thought that Clay would have lasted this long, let alone be scoring freely off this dangerous big man … this man Clay has taunted repeatedly by calling him a ‘big ugly bear’ … and again Clay gets in with a couple of quick left jabs right to Liston’s puffed-up eyes. And while Clay dances round the ring like a featherweight, Liston seems to be mesmerized. Now Liston tries to clinch, but the referee is pulling them apart …’

  Unable to control his excitement Mike clambered out of bed and, fiddling with his radio, succeeded in losing the sound for a moment as he lost the station. The sixth round was over and the commentator was in the lead-in to the seventh before Mike had refound the station and retuned his radio to suitably satisfactory standards. He didn’t want to miss a word of this. And the commentary was made fuzzy by distance.

  ‘And now as we come up to the seventh Liston must be wondering just what he has to do to get to this young man Clay. There’s the bell and … something’s wrong. Liston isn’t coming out … there’s something wrong in the Liston corner … Liston isn’t coming out… he’s just sitting there. It’s all over … this is unbelievable … Cassius Clay is the new heavyweight champion of the world … I think they’re saying it’s a technical knock-out … but Liston has just given up …’