The Singer

by Cathi Unsworth

  Dawson sat behind a heavy mahogany desk, on which were placed a giant table lighter, a cigar humidifier and some kind of sculpture-cum-ashtray that was supposed to give off a whiff of high culture. His throne was a big, black leather upholstered armchair that swivelled around, facing another set of black leather chairs that had no such facility, so that his associates could feel comfortable but know their place at the same time. To Old King Hull’s right was a teak cocktail cabinet on which crystal decanters full of Scotch and brandy stood on a little turntable that spun gently around and played a dinky tune when you took out the stoppers.

  To his left was a rack of pool cues. Seeing as there was no actual pool table in the office, it didn’t take much imagination to work out what they were there for. On the wall above the desk hung a portrait of Mrs Pauline Dawson as the youthful beauty queen she had been when they’d first met in the sixties, a tiara resting on her black, bouffanted hair, a blue sash around an elegant white cocktail dress. The frame was ornate, dull gold rococo and likely as not the safe was hidden behind it.

  There were other framed photographs around the walls, Don meeting various celebrities at his clubs – Bernard Manning, Joe Bugner, Harvey Smith, Brian Jacks, Julie Goodyear, Hurricane Higgins. These were more discreetly done, as if to say, I know them, aye, but I don’t have to boast about it.

  Stevie had been summoned here this Saturday morning by a message relayed to his brother Connor by Terry and Barry. Don wanted to pick Stevie’s brains, they’d said, which had made them all laugh. As if he had any.

  But Don had counted the takings for that night at The Outlook and confirmed his suspicions about where the future lay. Lately he’d been filling his clubs with concerts by more of these punk types. Gen X. The Damned. The Buzzcocks over from Manchester. It were starting to look like a licence to print money.

  Stevie mulled over this last question before answering.

  Since Vince had joined the band, Blood Truth’s progress hadn’t simply been about getting a useable live set together. They’d had other, personal stuff to sort out first.

  Going back to school had put a bit of strain on things. Gary Dunton had caused havoc with Kevin, accusing him of all sorts and threatening him with a kicking for getting out of line. Actually, Stevie suspected Kev had taken one hiding already, although he hadn’t said owt. He were all for settling the cunt once and for all, but Kevin had to live next to Dunton and pleaded with Stevie to leave it. At the moment, they were getting away with using Kevin’s ‘orchestra’ night as an excuse, but sooner or later it were obvious that would fall apart.

  Most nights, Lynton and Stevie rehearsed together, working out songs and trying out new ideas. Just as he’d picked up the bass so quickly, Lynton was getting pretty handy on drums too, so they could shift instruments around when they wanted. If they weren’t playing their own music they’d be listening to John Peel or playing Stevie’s latest pickings from Sidney Scarborough’s. Lynton’s folks didn’t seem to mind Stevie being round their house the whole time, which were a bonus, considering he didn’t want to be anywhere near his own.

  Then, at weekends, Vince’s girlfriend Rachel would bring him down in her horrible orange and white Citroen Diane and he’d have more lyrics to put to their budding creations.

  That Rachel were a weird one, Stevie thought. She obviously came from a rich family, had that look about her that she’d never wanted for owt. She looked too clean, her clothes too well cut, however skinny and arty she was. With clear, almost translucent skin and dyed black hair, she was willowy and remote, always hiding behind sunglasses and never speaking. Not that she hung around much any road, just dropped Vince off and then picked him up later, fuck knows what she got up to in between. Maybe she joined Pauline Dawson in the beauty parlour, getting her hair done by experts.

  Now that it had been a few weeks, even Stevie had noticed an air of tension afflict Lynton whenever Vince walked through the door. He’d go all stiff-legged and prickly, like a cat with its hackles up, which were funny really, ’cos Vince always seemed to go out of his way to be nice to him, asking him loads of questions about them old jazzers Lynton liked so much. And Lynton always answered him politely but he never let things roll into an actual conversation. Stevie couldn’t quite work out why, but something told him not to bring it up when they were on their own. Everyone had things they didn’t want to talk about.

  Still, once they got playing they didn’t need words. They were just brilliant. They’d all loved ‘New Rose’ so much they’d decided it needed to be in the set, although they’d ditched ‘Anarchy’ ’cos Vince didn’t want to sing it. What he did love, though, was Link Wray’s ‘Rumble’, a tune Stevie had picked up from Terry and Barry’s tapes. They’d told him it were the original punk rock, the first record to get banned for starting knife fights in the States – and there weren’t even any words. Not only had Link invented distortion, he was also a Red Indian and looked like Crazy Horse with a quiff. That made him a fucking hero in Stevie’s book.

  Vince had never heard of Link but he loved the slow menace of his signature tune so much that he’d suggested it be the first number in their set, priming the audience before Vince made an entrance. They were gonna try and segue it into another tune they’d been working on, which Vince had the words for but no title and the two had started to fuse into one seething mass which Stevie dubbed ‘Grumble’.

  So they had a start and they had an end, but in-between it were all a bit sketchy. Though Dawson had a point, that weren’t supposed to matter.

  ‘Why?’ he cocked his head to one side and smiled back at the club manager. ‘What you after?’

  ‘That’s my boy,’ Dawson grinned. ‘My lad on the inside. I’ve seen the future, Stevie, as well as you have. The money that these bands make…’ He watched another smoke ring drift up towards the ceiling, then looked Stevie straight in the eye. ‘I’m looking to expand my business interests, lad. I’ve done right nice putting these punk bands on at my clubs, right nice indeed. Made a lot of interesting contacts and all. Makes sense to build on that. Tek a leaf out of that McLaren’s book, eh? So, what I need is some raw, home-grown talent…’

  ‘What you saying?’ Stevie wanted to get this clear. ‘You want to be our manager or summat?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Dawson nodded. ‘I knew you weren’t daft.’

  ‘But you’ve not heard owt.’

  ‘I don’t need to,’ Dawson leaned forward across his desk. ‘I know it’s not Frank Sinatra, son, and that’s as far as my musical appreciation extends. Punk rock, funk rock, heavy metal – it’s all the same racket to me. But I saw you and that coloured lad at Sex Pistols show. You know what it’s all about, what kids want,’ he nodded meaningfully and continued.

  ‘Stevie lad, I couldn’t give two shakes of a pygmy’s ballbag what you sound like, but I do trust your judgement. You be the ears of this operation and I’ll be the brains.’

  He let that one sink in for a minute, enjoying the huge, shit-eating grin that slowly stole across Stevie’s face.

  ‘So when you’ve had enough time to get your little act together, come back and see us, all of you.’ Dawson made a bit of a show about fishing his business card out of the inside pocket of his jacket and handing it over. It was gold with black writing and a little DD emblem with a pair of dice underneath it.

  ‘Only don’t take too long, eh?’

  Dawson had them sign the contract the night they played the gig. It was 31 October, Halloween, and two days after the Pistols had released Never Mind the Bollocks to another firestorm of media outrage. Dawson had watched that record shop being closed down for stocking ‘obscene material’ on the news and chuckled to himself at fate’s providence. The tickets for Blood Truth’s debut gig at the Ocean Rooms had already sold out. They had a lot of friends, them Mullinses.

  Just so that Stevie felt a true measure of his power, he’d had the lad help with the fly-postering campaign, running round the city centre after dark with a roll of
the posters that Rachel had designed, a bucket of paste and a ladder. Copper had caught him halfway up his steps outside Sidney Scarborough’s.

  ‘What’s that there, lad?’ he’d said.

  ‘Fuck,’ Stevie had replied.

  The copper had made a long show of studying the poster, making sarcastic comments as he did so, like: ‘One of those punk rockers are you? Flamin’ puff rock if you ask me.’ Finally, he’d squinted at the bit that mentioned the Ocean Rooms.

  ‘One of Don’s, is it?’ He leered up at Stevie, still wobbling on his perch.

  Not trusting his own mouth, Stevie just nodded.

  ‘All right then, son,’ copper said. ‘I’ll pretend this never happened. But don’t let me catch you again, like.’

  Stevie had fled into the night. The copper and Dawson had a right laugh about that later, over a whisky in Don’s office.

  ‘Let the lad know who’s in charge here,’ Dawson had said. ‘Just in case he gets any big ideas when money starts rolling in.’

  He looked at them now, eagerly scrawling their names across the papers he’d had his lawyer draw up in the name of his latest company, Dawsongs. Papers that gave Dawson fifty per cent of anything the band were likely to ever earn. They could have said anything, mind. But they were too keen to even read the large print, the lot of ’em. Well, who else was gonna take this lot seriously? Who else was gonna nurture their teenage dreams?

  He looked at Stevie, big and hard and Irish, with that rogue’s smile and wandering eyes. He had brains enough but wore his longings so transparently on his sleeve it wouldn’t be hard to keep him happy. Lynton, long thin and nervous, rolling his huge eyes up and down, too shy to hold a gaze for a second. Would be no trouble from that one either – long as they kept him away from British Legion, like. Little drummer, what were his name, might have a problem convincing people he was legally old enough. The only one of them who caused a slight flicker of doubt to momentarily cross Don’s cash register of a mind was Vince Smith.

  Terry and Barry despised him, but that were their lookout. He was just a thug who fancied himself as far as Dawson could see, sprawled out on his chair with his great clodhopping zebra skin brothel creepers hovering annoyingly close to the corner of his desk.

  Vince Smith wore dark shades so you couldn’t look him in the eye. His hair was thick with what looked like boot polish and he had a dog chain padlocked around his neck. He smoked endless cigarettes and dropped ash on the floor; he were a lout with no manners but that didn’t worry Don. What actually made him uncomfortable was the girl he brought with him and made stand at the back of the room while they all did the business.

  Tall, skinny wraith in a stripy black and white top, she looked more like a beatnik than a punk. Dawson caught the unmistakable undernote of money in the way that her hair had been cut – his Pauline often lectured him on how you could tell the difference between a good cut and Choppy Chops on the High Street, and this one looked like she’d been sheared by Vidal Sasoon himself. She were wearing shades an’ all, but Don had caught a glimpse of something underneath as she’d meekly bowed her head down and tried to turn away rather than shake his hand and greet him. A purple streak, under her left eye. Could have just been her make-up like, but Don’s instinct told him it was what he thought it was. His impression was backed up by the way lass stood meekly up against the wall, head bowed, obviously not wanting to be there but taking her orders nonetheless. He watched Vince slash his name across the paper in a big, spidery scrawl and thought: I’ve got a live one here.

  Not that he let any of it filter through his smile, mind.

  ‘Right, lads, that’s that sorted out,’ he said, standing to shake each one of the weird-looking tykes by the hand. ‘Now, I believe it’s showtime.’

  Lynton stared out between the gap in the curtain at the side of the stage, across their assembled equipment: the drumkit, the mic stands, the wall of amps and the monitors on the front of the stage to the audience beyond. It gave him a rush, halfway between ecstasy and sphincter-clenching fear to see how many there were of them. He’d no idea there were this many weirdos in Hull.

  The ones near the bar at the back looked older, the seasoned gig-goers nonchalantly swilling their pints, friends of Stevie’s brother in their leathers and greased-back hair. There were still some hippy types in there too, but assembled around the front looked to be the entire audience from the Sex Pistols gig transplanted into the Ocean Rooms. They brought with them the hum of expectation and chatter, those ripples of excitement he had felt so keenly in Donny. Only this time, it wasn’t going to be Johnny Rotten up there on stage. This time it was gonna be him.

  They’d worked it all out so many times now, and closing his eyes for a moment, Lynton recalled the exact chord sequences he needed to play to. His bass was slung over his shoulder, its thick neck a comfort to his nervous fingers, as he silently plucked out the trusted notes. Lynton was going on stage first.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘All right, Lynt?’ Stevie sounded calmer than he felt, but his eyes were wired, sparkling pinpricks as he surveyed their impatient audience. ‘What a fucking turn out.’

  ‘I know,’ Lynton nodded. ‘It’s unreal.’

  ‘You ready to do this?’

  They locked eyes. ‘I’m ready, thank you for this, man.’

  And with that he stepped beyond the curtain, out onto the stage, the only black man in the room. He daren’t even look at them, but he heard a cheer go up and his blood rushed to his ears. Nimbly, he plugged his bass into the monitor, hit the strings and felt the roar of noise amplified louder than anything they’d ever gone near in rehearsal. Felt that surge of power again as his fingers formed the chord and he started to play the undulating rhythm. At first he kept his eyes shut as he swayed on the spot, letting the music take him. Then, when he heard Kevin come in behind him and touch the drums with his brushes he opened them.

  The whole crowd was swaying along with him.

  It was a blur of colour and heat, their eyes all turned towards him not in mockery or hatred, but in what looked like awe. The great slabs of noise he was generating were holding them there, in the palm of his hand.

  Miles, he thought, this is what you knew. This is what you were trying to tell me.

  Then suddenly Stevie was beside him and another cheer came up from the throng as his fingers skidded across the guitar sending great screes of sound shrieking through the atmosphere. Stevie looked like he had swelled to twice his size, buoyed up on adrenalin and excitement. The punks down the front started pogoing, someone shouting: ‘Go on, Stevie!’

  Stevie’s Link Ray bastardisation sounded brilliant – cacophonous, discordant, wild as its original author had intended. If ‘Grumble’ had sounded good in rehearsal with their tinny amps and the reverb from the garage walls, it sounded completely awesome to the band’s ears now.

  Then, like a thin black streak, Vince slunk out of the sidelines, his hands raised above his head, palms outwards, fingers splayed. Reaching the centre of the stage, he lurched at his mic, pulled it off the stand and coiled the lead around his fist. Putting his right foot up onto the monitor, he leaned out over the crowd like the deranged preacher of his vivid imagination. His lips touched the mic and he began to whoop and holler: ‘Whoooo! Whooooo! Do you believe?’

  The effect was electrifying.

  Hands reached out from the audience, punching the air, some trying to grab at his T-shirt. The girls in the crowd looked as if they were witnessing the arrival of the Messiah; Lynton could see their eyes widen as they took in this spectacle, this raggedy, ravenhaired king.

  ‘Do you believe?’ demanded Vince.

  ‘We believe!’ one punk shouted back.

  ‘Do you believe?’ Vince pointed his skinny finger out accusatorily around the room.

  ‘Fuck yeah!’ someone screamed. Then the rest joined in. Fists flew towards the ceiling. The throng around the front of the stage took one form, became one amorphous being, s
waying under Vince’s imaginary pulpit.

  It was as if an aura of power formed around his long, skinny frame. He stepped down from the monitor, began intoning the lyrics he’d had scrawled down in his little girl’s notebook, pacing the stage in circles like a panther in captivity, coiled and ready for attack. Lynton and Stevie shot each other a glance that said: Is this really happening?

  Then, from out of the corner of his eye, Lynton saw something coming from the side of the bar. A flash of red hair, frizzed up into a ludicrous ball around a wide, ugly, all-too familiar face.

  Oh no, he thought. Not him.

  But it was.

  A face contorted in anger, a mouth forming vile words, a sausage finger jabbing the air, pointing towards him.

  Gary Dunton, surrounded by Barney Lee and the Brothers Grim, Malc and Martin Carver. All standing at the bar, wearing their hooligan uniform of flared jeans, denim jackets and Leeds United shirts. It didn’t look like they’d stopped in to buy a drink either. They were here for one reason and one reason only:

  Trouble.

  Lynton’s eyes flicked over to Kevin. Absorbed in his playing, he was looking down his sticks; he hadn’t noticed yet.

  Stevie was grinding away next to him; he hadn’t noticed either. Lynton felt the cold chills running down his spine. He couldn’t drag his eyes away. Dunton appeared to have worked his way into a thermonuclear rage. Everything about him was red – his hair, his face, the whites of his eyes. He looked like a slab of raw steak sizzling on a spit. For a moment or two, he and his cronies argued amongst themselves. Maybe they weren’t too sure of themselves in present company, maybe even they realised that here it was them who were out of place.

  Whatever their beef was, Dunton wasn’t standing for it long. He turned away from them, gesticulating with his arm that they should follow, and began pushing his way through the crowd.