by Simon Clark
‘Long time no see, Kid Kennedy.’
I’d forgotten the nickname my older brother had given me way back when, before I could even walk. Now Stephen Kennedy, the brother I’d not clapped eyes on in five years, had just appeared with all the suddenness of the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Chapter 6
And that’s how my brother, Stephen John Kennedy, came back into my life after five whole years. Simple as that. One moment he was no more than a heap of hazy memories and a photo on the dining room wall. (It was one of those glossy showbiz pics: blow-dried hair, a yard of dazzling teeth, twinkling eyes. With a huge scribbled signature in red felt-tip that somehow turned the looping ‘y’ in Kennedy into a happy-smiley face; the TV station must have pumped them out to fans by the hundred.) The next minute he was there in Ben Cavellero’s garden.
I know I must have gawped. Seeing him in the flesh after so long was nearer to shock than surprise. He was long and lean and incredibly handsome. He walked with such a lithe, springing step you’d swear he had bedsprings tied to his five-hundred-dollar trainers. And, Christ, yes, he turned heads. You couldn’t miss the way the girls at the party actually stretched their necks (I swear, no kidding) to twice their natural length.
My big brother. Five years older. And, no doubt about it, larger than life. He wore this orange silk shirt, speckled green in a kind of spattered-paint effect. The jeans seemed to have grown over his long legs like a newly evolved epidermis. And the teeth, the hair, the smile and the eyes looked as if they’d been taken to the jewellers where they’d been carefully polished until they outshone the garden lanterns.
Ohhh baby…one glance at him and you knew that here was a man who was handsome, athletic, witty, charming, articulate, who radiated confidence, was wealthy, successful and owned an adoring public. He could have been someone you could easily hate; but instead of coming across as ultra-smooth and arrogant there was an air of ruggedness about him and a modest twinkle in the eye that said, ‘Hey, buddy, don’t take all this showbiz good looks too seriously; really, I’m just one of the guys.’
‘Hey, long time no see, kid brother.’ Stephen actually hugged me. Not a traditional way for Yorkshire men to greet one another, no matter how long they’d been separated. I blushed. Howard Sparkman laughed, slapped me on the back.
For a moment we were the centre of a crowd of people asking Stephen what life was like in the States, which TV station he worked for—that kind of thing. Then they drifted back into their own groups. It was the polite thing to do. They left us alone to get reacquainted. Immediately there was a rapport; we laughed as we talked and Stephen would keep patting my arm or throwing a gentle play-punch at my shoulder. I realized he was as moved by all this as I was and just wanted the physical reassurance I was really there.
‘It was Ben’s idea to spring this on you,’ Stephen said with a grin.
‘I take it everyone else was in on the conspiracy?’
‘Sure. Here, grab a beer. I’d been telephoning Howard all week to make sure you were still going to the party.’
‘So the reason for the party was—’
‘Was a big reunion bash. I didn’t want to phone you and say I was coming because in all honesty I didn’t have a clue I could definitely make it. All last week the station had been threatening to fly me out to LA to cover some music awards ceremony. I told them no. The awards weren’t particularly prestigious. They said yes. I said no freaking way…to cut a long, long ball-breaking story short I swapped assignments with Jeff Koerner who hosts the late shift. He owes me for bailing him out of some deep shit he’d got into with an Apache girl who claims she’s having his baby. Uh, Apache’s a dance troupe, I should clarify, not part of our Red Indian Nation. Trouble is, I’ll probably end up covering some pop fest in Bolivia or somewhere. Christ, what am I talking about me for? I’m here, that’s what matters. How’s the Kid, then?’
‘Well, in the last five years I grew up.’
‘Hell, you did. Look at that…you must be nearly as tall as me!’
‘Taller.’
Stephen laughed and playfully punched my arm again. ‘No, I’m the big brother. Even if you grow another foot you’ve always got to pretend I’m taller than you. Pity my poor ego, man.’
‘You’ve not gone and got yourself married, then?’
‘No way. Anyway, I’d have to bring any girl home first for Mom’s approval. By the way, how is she?’
‘Last I heard, fine. You knew she’s been brought in by an agricultural college in Italy to lecture?’
‘Yeah, she wrote me just last week.’
‘How’s Dad?’
The smile died a little. ‘He got married. Again.’
‘To that student in New York?’
‘Mandy? That was her name, wasn’t it?’
‘Maggie, I thought.’
‘Maggie, Mandy, Wendy, it doesn’t really matter. No, he hitched up with a lawyer from North Carolina.’
‘Young?’
‘Twenty-six.’
‘Christ.’
‘That’s Dad for you. There’s some life in the old dog yet.’
We’d tried to keep the talk about Dad as light-hearted banter but something cold and grey was slipping into the conversation so Stephen punched me lightly on the jaw, took a swig of his beer, grinned broadly again and said, ‘What’s all this Howard’s been telling me? That you’ve quit the day job and started a band?’
‘The man’s not wrong. I’m working my week’s notice, then we’re hitting the road.’
‘That’s amazing. Congratulations.’ Stephen was genuinely enthusiastic. ‘Come on, tell big brother everything. Every detail. What are you calling yourselves?’
We didn’t even notice what was happening anywhere else; we were head-to-head, talking as thick as thieves who were planning the heist of the century.
You’ll gather Dad wasn’t flavour of the month. In his way he had done his best to give us everything we needed, financially, morally and sometimes parentally, but he never seemed a fully paid-up member of Family Kennedy.
When I was born Stephen was six and Family Kennedy were living in a timber house on the outskirts of Edmonton in Canada. We lived there until I was three. The only thing I remember about it was the fact that the house seemed as big as an aircraft hangar. It was painted white and there was a moose head hung on the study wall. I’d spend hours searching the house for the rest of the body. Dad was a troubleshooter for a big agricultural resources company. He’d be sent all over the world to advise farmers. His speciality was teasing productive crops out of crappy soil. We moved around a lot. So, three years in Canada, two in the United States. Then brief stays in Italy, Spain, Morocco, Malta, Kenya, then finally back to Britain where we moved to Fairburn just a few miles outside Leeds in West Yorkshire.
For years Dad would have phone calls from different women. Stephen told me these were his girlfriends. I though it was just some kind of joke told by older brothers. But when I was nine Mum and Dad split. We were given a choice. Either we could live with Mum or live with Dad who opted for a teaching post in the States. The simple outcome was that Stephen, then fifteen, left with Dad; I stayed with Mum.
Ben ambled up, smiling, blue eyes twinkling with a quiet mischief. ‘Gentlemen. Everything is ready for you now, if you’ll kindly step this way.’ He gave a gentlemanly bow.
I groaned and turned to Stephen. ‘Oh no, they’ve got something planned for us, haven’t they?’
‘Got it in one. Come on. Time to face the music.’
‘What music?’ I shook my head, grinning.
‘Don’t worry, you’re not expected to play an impromptu concerto for electric guitar. Nothing like that.’
The other party-goers had gathered on the patio; they had filled their glasses and sat on chairs as if they were going to watch a show. Then I realized that’s just what it was going to be.
Someone had set up a camcorder on a tripod facing two straight-backed dining room chairs.
&nbs
p; ‘Uh-oh,’ I said under my breath to Stephen, ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’
‘If you’re going to be a professional performer this comes with the territory,’ he whispered back. ‘Wherever you go, even social occasions like this, you’ll be expected to perform; it can get boring, and it can get embarrassing if you’re at a friend’s funeral. I kid you not, sunbeam, it’s happened to me.’
We were shown to seats in front of the camcorder and while Dean Skilton fiddled with the machine’s battery pack Stephen leaned sideways to whisper, ‘It’s OK, I helped set this up. It’ll get the bit where we have to sing for our supper out of everyone’s system. Besides…’ He gently punched my shoulder. ‘I want to take a memento back to the States with me.’
‘But what the Hell are they going to do?’ As I whispered I caught Howard’s eye; he grinned and gave a thumbs-up.
Stephen smiled. ‘OK, Rick, I’ll apologize in advance. This’ll suck. But do your big brother a favour: humour me, OK?’
I nodded good-naturedly as he leaned forward to squeeze my forearm in his big hand. I didn’t mind anything that night. The whole world and everyone in it was beautiful and everyone was my friend. Already, I’d pushed to the back of my mind what had happened earlier that evening. Losing an hour? Big deal. I had just been overworking, that was all. And the big grey face floating there in the darkness? Trick of the light; or a patch of fungus on a tree. Yeah, that’d be it. I could go back in the morning, I decided, and find a dirty great toadstool growing out of some tree trunk. Something yours truly misinterpreted in the gloom. Then yours truly had tripped over a bramble or something and knocked what little sense he had out of his tired old brain.
Sorted. The whole experience was well and truly sorted and forgotten.
Chapter 7
Stephen darted away to the booze table on those spring-assisted feet and bounced back with a couple of glasses.
‘Rick…drink this. It’s tequila.’
‘I don’t usually—’
‘Come on, trust me, bro, call this a taste of show business. Drink it down in one…wait for it, wait for it…when I tell you. Then in about five minutes you’ll get the tequila rush; you’ll feel on top of the world and that’s when you put the audience where they belong. At your feet.’
Dean had stopped fiddling with the camcorder. He gave a frantic wave to Ben who, with a broad smile, approached us.
‘OK, Rick. Drink up.’
We both downed the tequila in one. Stephen smiled. I nearly gagged as the spirit blazed a trail down my throat, hit my stomach, then threatened to roar all the way back mouthwards again to burst out through my teeth like seawater through a whale’s blowhole.
I gritted my teeth, swallowed, coughed. It stayed down. Through watering eyes I saw Ben approach with this amused kind of bobbing walk as if he was going to throw a bucket of water over us. Then he stopped.
‘Ladies and gentlemen. Your attention, please.’
All went quiet. All eyes fixed on us. I caught sight of Kate in the audience. She was smiling.
Ben continued. ‘Stephen Kennedy. Rick Kennedy. These are your lives.’
Someone—somewhere—hit a button: music played on cue.
Normally anything like that would have embarrassed the hell out of me. But that night it was OK. Oddly, I felt as if a part of me had been missing for a major part of my life. Now it had come back. I felt whole again. Stephen was enjoying every moment, laughing good-naturedly when Howard brought out huge blow-ups of photographs of Stephen and I as children. Even the obligatory bare-arsed shots of us on a Canadian bear rug.
In his quiet voice Ben Cavellero said, ‘Why don’t you introduce yourself, Stephen? You’ll do a far better job than I ever could.’
Stephen bounced effortlessly to his feet. I watched in something like awe as he switched on the professional persona and talked to camera like he was reading from an autocue. ‘Good evening. My name is Stephen Kennedy. Just three weeks ago I had my birthday. I am now a full one-quarter of a century old. I host a music show on KSTV which is a new-ish terrestrial TV station based in Seattle. Video jock is how my role is best described. And this ugly mush is inflicted on Seattle’s young and innocent Tuesday to Friday every week from six till eight. Hobbies…hobbies, let’s see…ah, painting the town red, driving way too fast, dating girls, dating more girls…and, you know, for some reason…I just can’t stop playing pool. Why? I don’t know. It’s such a dumb-assed game, but it’s become an addiction with me. Stupid, stupid, stupid but I’m in love with the game. So, please, please, if there’s any known cure for pool, tell me, please…I’ll be your friend for life.’
It was typical DJ chatter but I could see he had the ability to project this warmth, so that the audience fell for him lock, stock and barrel.
Now Stephen was playing the audience like an expert angler landing a trout. ‘People tell me I must be dumb if all I do for a living is stand in front of a camera saying, ‘That was a video by REM; this is a video from Oasis; after that a new video from Armana. No. I do have genuinely intellectual pursuits. Last year I wrote a serious medical book.’ He scanned the audience. He had them in his hand. ‘A very, very serious medical text book. It’s a self-help guide about premature ejaculation. I’ve got a few copies with me tonight but they’re in short supply so I’m afraid it’s a case of first come, first served.’
The laughter came freely. I looked at the faces of my friends and I saw a bunch of people totally relaxed and enjoying themselves. Occasionally Ben would drop in the odd question to me to ease the evening back from becoming completely a one-man show.
‘Rick. What’s your earliest memory?’
‘Being shot.’
‘Shot?’
‘Yeah, being shot.’
‘Where?’
‘In a wood in Italy.’
‘No, Rick, I mean in which part of the body were you shot?’
‘In the back of the head.’
‘Good God. Any serious damage?’
‘No,’ I laughed. ‘No serious damage. It was a BB gun.’
‘Now, Stephen.’ Ben turned to Stephen. ‘What’s one of your strongest memories?’
‘Uhm…’ He thought soberly for a moment, looking up at the stars. ‘That would have to be…shooting someone.’
‘Who?’
‘Him.’ Stephen, grinning, aimed an imaginary pistol at my head, pulled an imaginary trigger.
Ben turned back to me. ‘You’ve forgiven him by now for using you for target practice?’
I grinned. ‘Just about. But I remember it hurt like hell, and nearly gave my mother a heart attack when she found me in the kitchen. Do you remember?’
‘Hell, can I forget? You wore this Scooby Doo T-shirt. It was white. At least, it should have been white. All the back of it was drenched red with blood. I thought, ‘That’s it, I’ve murdered my brother. I’ll get life.’ And ten minutes later you sat watching a video with this huge bowl of ice cream on your knee smothered in strawberry candy strands.’
‘And as punishment you had to sweep leaves in the yard?’
‘Right. And the yard was so big you could have parked a dozen trucks in there.’
‘Rick,’ Ben said, ‘give us an idea of what makes you tick. What are your hobbies?’
‘Mainly, it’s music. If I’ve any free time it’s either practising the guitar at home, practising with the band in Leeds, or fixing up gigs.’
‘Anyone special in your life?’
I tried not to do it but I couldn’t help myself. I glanced at Kate Robinson. She was looking back at me with that direct, green-eyed gaze of hers; I tried to look cool but I heard myself stammer. ‘Sasha…if anyone doesn’t know by now that’s my guitar. It’s a Fender Stratocaster.’
‘Why Sasha?’
‘I bought it from this old lady in Huddersfield. It belonged to her son.’ I shrugged. ‘He’d just died and she told me he called the guitar Sasha. And that’s the way it stayed.’
I saw Stephen
give me a wink of approval.
‘And now you’ve formed a band?’
‘Yeah, Thunder Bud.’
‘But you’re no stranger to composing songs?’
I put my hands over my face in mock shame. ‘Oh no, Ben. You can’t do this to me. Tell me you won’t?’
‘Sorry, the Cavelleros have forefathers who were in the Inquisition. Play the song, Mr Sparkman.’
Somewhere Howard hit a button. Instantly a mushy disco beat pumped from the speakers in the trees.
‘Yes, Rick Kennedy. It’s that famous song, Kiss Crimson. As recorded by…where’s my list? Ah, here we are: Beat Girl, Jilly and Joe…’
Someone shouted good-naturedly, ‘Never heard of them.’
‘Neither have I,’ I replied. ‘And I wish I hadn’t heard their version of the song.’
‘Wait.’ Ben held up the sheet of paper. ‘There’s more. Claude Couer, Paris cabaret singer. A group called Blochet…another group called Cyber Funk Tha’ang, Spanish, wasn’t it?’
‘Nope, Greek. Castro Nostro were the Spanish punk band. This is the Cyber Funk Tha’ang’s version. Played in every beach disco from Corfu to Crete but not one place outside Greece’s territorial waters…so how the heck did you get this?’
Ben returned to the list. ‘Also versions by Mr Zee, Sarah Lee Suemann and the famous version by that Norwegian TV cop whose name no one can pronounce. Mr…?’
‘Mr Thing, I call him. I can’t pronounce it either.’
Stephen slapped me on the leg. Playfully I slapped him back. The tequila was getting a grip and we both started giggling like a duo of fools.
‘Come on, Rick,’ Stephen said wiping away the tears. ‘What’s the history of Kiss Crimson?’
‘Oh…pleeeeeeze…you don’t want to know.’
‘I get girls calling me up from Montana, Idaho, Chicago, Washington DC. Stephen, they say, tell us the history of Kiss Crimson. We want to know.’
‘All right, all right…’ I fought down the giggles. ‘Sixteen years old, right?’
‘You were sixteen?’