by Tim Roux
In darker moods, I feel that I just cling onto Jade because I would be lonely otherwise and at least she is willing to be with me, and that sooner or later we will split. She will find somebody more her own age and I will hole myself up in some dingy pad somewhere writing and playing music until I dry out like a prune. Thank God she saves me from that.
If I am honest, Jade doesn’t feel as permanent as Cathy did. Maybe she will when the baby is born and we are a complete family. We still feel very demarcated as individuals to me, like squatters sharing a house until the raid comes.
Jade and my musical tastes are radically different except that she does genuinely seem to like my stuff which Cathy never really did. However, Cathy and I did tend to like the same things including some of the people I hang around with. Edwina Hayes is one of Cathy’s favourites. Edwina is a wonderful artist and incredibly supportive of lesser talents such as mine, perhaps because she spends a lot of time in Nashville where there is a real musical community going on. Over here, artists tend to rip each other to pieces. Edwina is really against that, which is great.
Chapter 11
Grimsby.
Worse, Grimsby with Jerry as a headliner and in frantic womanising mood.
Worse still, Jade has given tonight a miss. She has exhausted herself finally.
What is it with Jerry? He has spent his whole life chasing skirt. He then met Mary and decided to settle down with her, and now he is off chasing skirt again, and compromising all his friends into the bargain.
He has locked like an Exocet missile into these two giggling birds standing at the bar. He is jigging around and telling jokes and doing snatches of songs. It is a better-rehearsed routine than the one he does on stage and it knocks them off their feet.
The trouble is that Jerry and I are sharing a hotel room tonight and I have been caught like this once before and don’t want it to happen again. No way. It wrecked my life last time.
Jerry is shameless and he is now starting to drag me into it - one each, sort of thing. They are certainly attractive enough, Bel and Nancy, and if I were a single man perhaps I would be in there for the ride, but no way, mate.
Luckily, I am on in a couple of minutes, so it’s about time to grab my guitar and to give my voice a moment or two of exercise. My fan club hasn’t made it as far as Grimsby so I am more nervous than usual.
“Good evening, everyone. It’s great to be back in Grimsby. As a starter, here is my song for world peace. It’s called ‘We’re All Gay’” (I’m really pushing it in Grimsby).
We’re all gay,
We’re all straight,
We all love,
And we all hate.
We’re all black,
We’re all white,
We’re all wrong,
And we’re alright!!
They build our borders,
To dissect and divide.
We spend a lifetime,
Trying to squeeze ourselves inside.
But if we’re different,
Then surely that should be
Celebrated,
Not a threat to liberty.
Divide and conquer,
That’s how power works.
They know exactly,
Where to hit until we hurt.
And they can break us,
If they take us one by one,
But not together,
Cos together we are strong.
We’re all gay,
We’re all straight,
We all love,
And we all hate.
We’re all black,
We’re all white,
We’re all wrong,
And we’re alright!!
We’re all rich,
We’re all poor,
We’re all certain,
And unsure.
We all laugh,
And we all cry,
We all live,
And we all die.
We’re all this,
And we’re all that,
And we could take that power back!
We’re all black,
And we’re all white,
We’re all wrong,
And we’re alright!!!
I am hoping that nobody out there takes the song at face value. I may be reading the place wrong, but somehow I don’t get the impression that Grimsby is the San Francisco of the East Coast of Britain, the hothouse of pink culture. If I’m unlucky, I’ll get a good kicking in the car park afterwards. Still, it should get me off the hook with Jerry’s lovelies who are eyeing me very oddly. They are probably wondering if Jerry is gay too.
* * *
The last week has been hell. I haven’t managed to dissuade Harry from coming round. Kind of the opposite. I think he is moving in, especially as Jade is in such a good mood that she has decided to make her peace with him. She even took him off to a bar the other night to meet her friends. How can women change their minds so completely on a whim - months and months of hating him and now she is virtually going out with him.
In the meantime, I am virtually going out with Cathy over the phone. She is ringing up almost daily and insisting on talking with me for about an hour or, in one case, an hour and a half. It is really awkward because while I don’t mind saying anything in front of Harry (he is the guy who muscled in after all, into Priory Grove and here) I cannot appear too pally with Cathy in front of Jade nor do I want to sound too distant if there is a chance of our being at least civil to each other again, for the children’s sakes. So I drag the telephone and cord into our bedroom and speak with her from there. All week she has been going on about how she and Harry are in their death throes and how she wishes we had not broken up in the first place and what a mess it is, especially now that Jade is pregnant, and how the children miss me, and what am I going to do about it?
What am I going to do about it?
Hang on, hang on, I should be saying, you are the one who kicked me out and who wouldn’t listen to one word of my entirely innocent explanation. You are the one who took off with this toy boy whizz-kid of yours. I didn’t even write any mean songs about you. And now here you are asking what I am doing about it. Nothing. There is nothing I can do about it even if I wanted to and, for the kids’ sakes, I definitely would want to. I can’t look into their beautiful little faces without burning up inside with guilt and sadness. What have I done to them? What have you done to them, Cathy, that’s more to the point? I haven’t deliberately done anything to them. I was just helping out a mate and got trapped in a lie and then you massively over-reacted and kicked me out. That is how you destroy young lives. That is how you have destroyed our kids’ young lives, then you look to me to fix it, which I can’t or I’ll be doing exactly the same thing the other way around except this time I will have done it deliberately. I cannot leave Jade and our unborn child to return to my children and I cannot cut myself in two, however much I would like to. I am stuck here, my legs spread like the Humber Bridge with you, Cathy, relentlessly booting me in the nuts. I love it that we are getting on better again. I would love to live with Josh and Sam again. I wouldn’t even mind living with you. I am still madly in love with you but I also remember all the shit times, not least the last two years of hell that you have put me through. I could forgive you all that, but I couldn’t forgive myself if I walked out on Jade.
* * *
Which doesn’t explain in any way what I am doing now, buried five inches (or whatever it is since I last measured it as a thirteen year old) into Bel. Ten minutes ago it was Nancy but there seems to have been an unstated agreement that we would do all-change at half time.
Jerry is on the other bed trying to drive Nancy into the floor below - all hairy back and pinched bum, like a randy gorilla in your hotel room, King Kong in the flesh ravishing Naomi Watts (I have just shot my load into a Naomi Watts lookalike, and she is too).
Hold up. I had better concentrate here or I will be getting complaints.
OK, job done.
God t
his place is depressing - both striped and patterned wallpaper that looks as if it has soaked up twenty years of grease and dust, lamp shades that haven’t been dusted in years never mind washed, a hide-everything carpet and twin beds that look like they come straight from the flea market, fleas included.
I must be out of my fucking mind. I’m not even going to get a decent night’s kip.
Used to be I was so sure of myself,
I knew what I was fighting for.
But lately I find I’m in need of some help
I don’t know what I want anymore.
“Quit with the blues you’ve got nothing to lose.
What the hell are you waiting for?”
But what use are choices if you cannot choose?
I don’t know what I want anymore.
I don’t know what I want anymore.
Any? More?
I don’t know what I want anymore.
You made your move ‘cos you’d something to prove,
Like a soldier who wanted a war.
You say that “Victory comes if you stick to your guns”
But I don’t know what I want anymore.
It’s all just a mess of emotions I guess,
It was always much better before.
And that door slams so fast you get locked in the past,
I don’t know what I want anymore.
Chapter 12
Lesley phones me on my mobile. I don’t give out the number to many people as there is a Sods’ Law tendency for everybody to phone me during showings. Lesley phones me during a particularly upmarket showing of a palatial pile near Cottingham being viewed by a couple of stupidly tetchy people in their fifties who, if they didn’t invent the word ‘pernickety’, certainly hold significant shares in the global rights alongside a bunch of other people it has been my pleasure to entertain like a sultan’s eunuch since I got this job. The trouble is that they don’t think they are merely human and they don’t think that I am a fully-functioning human being either. They treat me like I am some seedy dolt sent along by the agency to mess up their day by speaking when I am not being spoken to, being on the phone when they want to talk to me, and not knowing all the details of the house off by heart when I have never seen the bloody place before.
“Jake Pembleton …..”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Lesley demands.
“I am sorry. I am afraid that I am in the middle of a viewing with some very important clients. Could you please give me your number and I will call you back later.”
“Fuckwit. God you know how to mess up, you and Jerry. Anyway, I am just ringing to tell you that I have those two bimbos covered, I hope, and that you owe me big-time.” She clicks off.
“I’ll just take down that number. 07 845 62 34 79. Is that right? OK, Mrs. Windlesham, I’ll call you back in about an hour.”
The shareholders in Pernickety plc are scowling at me. They want to know when the wooden floor in Bedroom 5 was last replaced, and I doubt that they’ll take ‘don’t know’ for an answer.
* * *
Hull.
I have lived here all my life. Born in 1973 in Hessle. My mum and dad are still there, as is my grandma who lives with them. Granddad died twenty years ago.
I suppose I could go on about my childhood and school days and what happened and my grievances and therefore why I feel compelled to write music all the time, but that bores me so it will certainly bore you. Hessle was not a traumatic place to be brought up in, my family was not a traumatic family to be brought up in. Nobody in my family has ever been particularly musical so I was regarded as something of a prodigy the first time I picked up a recorder and breathed harmonics down it as every kid does. It went on from there. Nobody encouraged me to learn music and nobody tried to put me off. I got a guitar quite late on when I was fourteen (“Knock ‘em dead!”, Dad said) which is probably why I am only an adequate guitar player. I used to sit in my bedroom strumming away. I might have applied myself more than most kids of my age, preferring my guitar to a girlfriend; perhaps knowing that playing a guitar might be the key to bagging the right girlfriend later on.
I started writing music immediately, messing about with the guitar. I never really had lessons but I learnt the chords and played around with them. For a long time composing songs was hard work. They sounded incredibly forced and flat and discordant. I obviously learnt to play all the classics of the early ‘90s, more rock music than folk. I didn’t really like folk very much. That came along later. To this day, even though my style is more folky, it is really rooted in rock so I see myself as something of a rock star even if I hardly ever play electric. Generally you either like acoustic guitars or electric guitars and I prefer to play rock with an acoustic guitar which comes out something like folk.
Nobody said “That’s really good” to any of my songs as far as I can remember, nor did anybody ever say that I played a mean guitar. I didn’t and it was obvious but nonetheless as I was strumming away in various places (I used to carry my guitar around with me a lot and strum it when the silences became oppressive) people would sit around me and join in or make requests most of which I couldn’t play. And, even better, as I had predicted, most of the people in the circle around me were girls. So we all had a good laugh and I gradually got better at both playing and writing and then one or two of the girls would start saying “That’s really good” to a few of my songs, especially ‘Breakdown’ and ‘Holy Lonely’ which I am even asked for now by some geriatric thirty-five year old whom I used to know once who has ended up in one of my gigs sheltering from the cold East wind that tears down the Humber.
I think I have even forgotten my first gig. I am not sure I had one as such. I think I was in one of the Hessle pubs with my guitar and I started strumming for want of anything better to do and some friends asked me to keep playing, so I did five or six songs, and that was my first gig. Where was it? It was probably in Darley’s or somewhere embarrassing. I cannot remember. They should put up a plaque to remind me.
I have never made enough out of my music to be full-time professional but eventually I did start doing paid gigs and had the brass to ask for money saying that I would bring my mates along with me. Then a guy, called Guy, had some recording equipment and offered to help me make an album and we did that. Absolutely crap album. Looked crap. Sounded crap. Sold like crap. I persuaded a few friends to buy it but I think that the CDs ended up mostly as miniature Frisbees. Anyway, shamelessly, we carried on until I got my own recording equipment which everybody has more or less nowadays and started experimenting with basic arrangements which is where I still am today.
I’ve have only ever caused one fatality.
About a year after I started learning the guitar I began practising to give my granddad a concert because he was always very sceptical of my abilities. “I’ll show him,” I said to myself. Anyway, after careful preparation where I ended up note perfect, and with a bit of coaxing, I managed to persuade my granddad to settle in his habitual armchair or at least not to leave it.
“I’m going to play you a concert, Granddad,” I promised him.
“Fair dos,” he replied, “but don’t make it too long. I have to go off and bet on the dogs shortly.”
“Fifteen minutes, Granddad, that’s all,” I assured him.
He smiled. “Well that seems well short of eternity. Carry on.”
Well, everything went horribly wrong. I was so nervous that I don’t think I got a single note right, the guitar, which was only a cheap one in any case, slipped out of tune, and I got a frog stuck in my throat so every line was punctured by a loud “hhhhhuuuuhhhhmmmmm!” as I tried to clear it.
After ten minutes of this chaotic cacophony, Granddad held up his hand. “Jake, my dear boy, I think we had better take a break. I need a breather. Any more of this and I think you’ll be the death of me.”
“OK, Granddad. Thank you for listening.”
Granddad winked. “I’m proud of you, Jake, for trying. You were
probably just a bit nervous.”
He spidered his arms behind him to push himself out of his armchair which was very deep set and began to leverage himself up. About halfway his face went bright red and started to bulge. He collapsed back into the chair, clutched his chest and lost consciousness.
I was devastated. I leapt up and ran around the house screaming “I’ve just killed Granddad, I’ve just killed Granddad,” hysterically.
Everybody came rushing towards me and then towards Granddad. Grandma knelt beside him, checked him over and wept silently. Mum and Dad did what they could to console me.
“I’ve killed Granddad,” I repeated piteously.
“I don’t think so, Jake,” Mum assured me. “He has had heart trouble for years. The doctors said recently that he didn’t have much longer to live. And he is very lucky. He died in his favourite armchair with his favourite grandchild playing him some beautiful music.”
“It wasn’t beautiful, Mum, it was horrible. He asked me to stop.”
“Perhaps he knew that he was ready to die in peace.”
Grandma hobbled over to me. “Jake,” she said, “you mustn’t blame yourself. It was nothing to do with you.”
“But I killed him, Grandma.”
She gave me a huge hug (she could hug like an all-in wrestler in those days). “Jake, even if you did, I am sure that your granddad forgave you. He would have forgiven you anything, you know that.”
Despite this incident, or even because of it, in my family my music is a bit of a joke, albeit an affectionate joke. My dad keeps asking if I have sold a thousand albums yet and I’m not sure that I have. Mind you, he is amazing. He insists on buying every single one of them, even though I would give them to him for free, and he listens to them carefully, asking me detailed questions about the lyrics and saying which ones he likes. When you are starting out, it is brilliant to have a dad who shows real interest in what you are doing, and fifteen years later it still is. Mum appears to have listened to them too, but she delegates most of the conversation about them to dad as a father and son thing. She just makes sure I eat lots of cake to fatten me up while I remain as skinny as ever. She tries fattening Jade up too and I think she got quite a shock when Jade seemed to take off before she realised that Jade was pregnant. At least, that is how it was played. I would be amazed if Mum hadn’t realised immediately that Jade was pregnant. It’s the sort of thing mothers always look for.