Tim Thornton

by The Alternative Hero (v5)

  All in all, quite a good thing.

  And that’s not all, folks.

  When I finally return home—via, of course, the off-licence (well, I’ve got something to be happy about now, haven’t I?)—I treat myself to a round of the “Best of” game. This is a game where you close your eyes and stand in front of your CDs or records, letting your index finger search freely, and whatever album it eventually arrives at, you have to play the best song—in the picker’s opinion—of that artist or band. Playing this game at Alan’s is amazing because of the size of both his speakers and music collection; at my place it’s a bit limited, but I crack open a beer and shortly find myself listening blissfully to Beck’s “Sissyneck,” the Foo Fighters’ “For All the Cows,” REM’s “Orange Crush” (their best song is actually “Sweetness Follows” but I decided to bend the rules a bit in the interest of keeping things happy), The Cardigans’ “Been It,” Senseless Things’ “Easy to Smile,” Radiohead’s “Talk Show Host,” Thieving Magpies’ “Little House on the Flight Path,” Blur’s “Blue Jeans,” ABBA’s “Hole in Your Soul,” Drugstore’s “El President,” Beef’s “Lazen Hags,” The Beatles’ “Lady Madonna,” The Mission’s “Tower of Strength,” Pop Will Eat Itself’s “Inside You” and finally “Walk-In Disaster” from Lance Webster’s solo album. After this I get Magpies-centric and also play “A Good Time Was Had by None” and the live version of “Zeitgeist Man”—a relentless, charging stomp of a number, which finds me leaping around my room as if at the gig itself. I catch my reflection in the window and wonder what on earth Lance would think if he could see me now, merely hours after asking which band he once belonged to, bouncing to his records with such verve that I actually whack my head on my standard lamp and spill some beer on my laptop.

  I notch the volume down a tad and mop my long-suffering computer with an old T-shirt, then decide to make sure everything’s still working by checking my emails. Imagine my surprise when there’s one sitting there from a certain “William F”—which turns out to be this:

  From: WILLIAM F (wroyalebf3791@billyflushing.com)

  Sent: 5 May 2007 09:54:34 -0500

  To: cliveberesford@hotmail.com

  Subject: RE: the geeks shall inherit the earth

  Dear Clive

  What?? I can’t believe you’re not a completely bitter 33-year-old drunken mess. You should know that’s the minimum prerequisite for anyone who went to our school. Have you gone the route of obese and balding? I’m working on it.

  So, that Clive Beresford, eh? I’m mentally flicking through all the Clive Beresfords I know. If you’re writing to me about Alternative Heroes then you must be—wait! The former editor of Vorsprung Durch Peanut! Well, well. Sorry about Spike Island, eh? You bloody well should be. It may be seventeen (fuck!) years ago, but you’ll still be hearing from my solicitors. Yes, I remember Alan Potter. Tell you the truth, I always thought he was a bit of a dullard, but there you go. If you’re thinking about that incident you must be feeling nostalgic yourself. Yes, that was me sticking the sticker up. How amazing that you saw it! I sold a flat in Farringdon recently and when I cleared out one of the bedrooms I found a whole load of stuff like that. After a few drinks I decided to have a bit of a trip down memory lane, got a friend to drive me up there, and to the Garage and even past Camden Palace (nice to see they’ve changed its name to something sensible … what the fuck is Koko??!!), while listening to this brill compilation tape I also found (Carter, New FADs, Cardiacs, Kitchens of Distinction, Sandkings, Eat). A lot of it sounds much better than I thought it would.

  So what are you doing nowadays? Still writing? I found a lot of stuff on forum pages that seems to be written by you, and your Amazon review section is awesome, they should start paying you. Yes, life’s rumbling on for me and there’s a lot to be happy about, I must admit. I got passable A-levels before ending up at Bristol University, which was a riot (come to think of it, I think I caused a few). After Bristol I did some commercial graphic design, screwed that up and worked for a bank (similar to working with zombies, but with better pay), and then finally packed it all in to do my own art and comic stuff. Haven’t looked back since and am having a ball writing and drawing, running a little company and even occasionally being a newspaper and magazine critic—I can’t believe people trust the opinion of a lunatic like me!

  I’ve lost contact too with just about everyone from school. I did get a mail from Ben Simons actually—surprisingly I didn’t immediately write back with, “Ah, my old friend!!”

  So, want to meet up for a beer soon to thrash out the highs and lows of the last sixteen years? Let me know and I’ll give you a shout when I’m next in London, probably in a couple of weeks.

  Cheers

  Billy

  Thoughts that immediately strike me:

  There appear to be no hard feelings. Or maybe life is just too damn good now for him to care.

  Clearly he no longer lives in London; I wonder if he works out of his firm’s New York office?

  He “sold a flat in Farringdon”? The “a” would suggest it’s one of many. Hmm. How the other half live.

  Seems to be a funny blend of modesty about his business and artistic achievements with a David Brent-style pretend modesty regarding his personality (the comments about the riots and being a lunatic). Generally he sounds levelheaded, though.

  He’s right. Amazon should start paying me.

  He’s also right about Alan. I love him dearly but a dullard he certainly is.

  But really—how interesting. I wonder what he’s like in person. I know it shouldn’t affect the way I think, but it seems funny that someone so obviously successful could be … normal. I suppose I’ll be finding out in a few weeks when he jets in.

  Billy Flushing. Good grief, Charlie Brown.

  And after that, something quite strange happens. Although it’s just past ten o’clock on a Saturday night, and I’ve had no more than three drinks today, a bizarre wave of tiredness engulfs me and I decide to go to bed. I stick on something mellow (Elliott Smith’s XO) and settle down to an unusually satisfied and worry-free sleep from which I don’t stir for the entire night, apart from when Polly crashes in around three to ask if I’ve got any spare condoms.

  For once, a chapter ends on a happy note.

  But don’t you worry.

  I’m sure I’ll fuck it all up somehow.

  SUGGESTED LISTENING: The Cardiacs, BBC Sessions EP (Strange Fruit, 1988)

  Lance!

  You know what it’s like on one of those days.

  One of those days when it’s like you’ve got a million things to do. So many things that you actually make a list, as your mother used to tell you to do, although her lists are more likely to consist of things like “pick up beef from butcher’s, have hair done, order flowers” rather than the fascinating contents of the following:

  get suit from dry cleaner’s

  buy laces

  buy stain remover for Polly

  iron shirt

  (breakfast!!)

  pay council tax

  ring housing-benefit office

  ring bank re: extending overdraft limit

  Put more credit on phone!!—charge battery

  ring sister re: lunch on sunday

  finish application form

  finish JSA report

  check shoes—if dirty, polish

  take:

  (job centre) JSA book

  (job meeting) passport, NI number, pen/paper

  (webster meeting) laptop, printouts, polly’s mr men books

  take out cash

  money on oystercard

  10 a.m. sign on

  11 a.m. new fetter lane EC4 (james brandish)

  1 p.m. geoff W, no. 3A

  So, you’re up on time, jeans and T-shirt, cup of tea and straight outside, cursing at the pissing rain, leg it to the dry cleaner’s to collect your suit, grab the laces and Polly’s stain remover (don’t ask), and belt back home before everything gets drenched. Yo
u’re the world’s worst shirt ironer but it starts to look wearable after about ten minutes, so you sling in some toast and settle down at the kitchen table for the first of your phone calls.

  The council tax one is without hitch, but when you ring the housing-benefit office you get put in a calling queue for about twenty minutes. You clutch your mobile between your ear and shoulder and continue with your tasks: buttering and eating toast, cleaning and polishing shoes. Halfway through relacing them you finally reach the front of the queue and a wonderfully circular conversation ensues:

  “We don’t seem to have your claim on our system.”

  “I sent the form in ten days ago.”

  “Sometimes it takes up to three weeks to be put onto our claiming system.”

  “So where is it now?”

  “In our queuing system.”

  “How do I know it’s definitely been received?”

  “You could speak to the queuing department, but you’ll need a claim number for them to be able to find your form.”

  “Can I get a claim number?”

  “Not until the form gets put onto our claiming system.”

  And so on. You hang up and proceed to what should be a more straightforward experience: ringing your bank. Wrong. Straight onto another queuing system, and with the clock nearing quarter past nine there’s no choice but to continue your chores with your phone still wedged under your ear, your head cocked at a neck-cricking angle. Finally you speak to a human being and—after surprisingly little persuasion—your wish of a few extra hundred quid is granted. You’re just reaching for your to-do list to get the next item, when one of the items decides to get you.

  “Hello?”

  “Clive! It’s Maggie!”

  You dispense with your sister as swiftly as you can without having an argument, then continue your way down the list. Pretty good idea, really, this list. Those parents, eh? Occasionally they have a point.

  Quarter to ten and you’re on the bus, one of those disorienting rainy bus journeys where you can never see where the hell you are. Finally the Job Centre appears through the steamed-up and splattered windows; you dash through the rain to catch your ten minutes of hearing about all the exciting data-entry vacancies north London has to offer. Then it’s back on the bus for more wet public travel, and this time you’re not so lucky: there’s something happening at Angel so the bus has to go some crazy route which not only takes you miles in the wrong direction, but the added traffic is horrendous. Ten minutes of trying to circulate the Old Street roundabout and you’re getting your sweat on in your woollen suit, toying with the idea of bus hopping, but it’s so hard when you can’t see where the fuck you are—and would a different bus necessarily be any quicker? Suddenly a picture appears in your head of Mr. James Brandish (a City recruitment consultant you’ve been hooked up with via an old university friend) tapping his watch as it nears five past eleven, mentally crossing off the many human-resources departments who simply wouldn’t accept this lateness. You stand up and stumble to the back of the bus, leaning over to wipe a peephole in the condensation so you can see if any potential connecting bus is behind. A glance at your watch (10:46), a final flash of James Brandish—and you belt down the stairs, beg the driver to let you off and race through the rain to catch another bus just as its doors are closing.

  10:58 and you’re pelting down Hatton Garden (past the jewellery shop where you considered buying an engagement ring five years ago), nearly enjoying a collision with a bike as you hurtle round Holborn Circus and finally coming to a halt outside the office in question. You’re dripping with sweat and your hair’s all over the place, but you decide this can be more easily explained than lateness of even a minute, so you tuck in your shirt and firmly press the intercom.

  It’s important to reflect on the circumstances which sometimes guide us in a slightly curious direction. London is not an easy city: its size, expense, weather and transport system are often enough to drive one potty, and this has so far been, in a number of ways, a fairly typical London morning. The next fifty minutes, in a very different way, are also highly representative of the kind of minutes one can experience in London when knowing the right people. An old university friend is often the best of references; the sort of connection which can turn “sorry,” “nothing at the moment,” “not the sort of skill-set we can place” and “goodbye” into “excellent,” “inundated with opportunities,” “should find you something by the end of the week” and “see you soon.” Certainly, they will not be the sort of jobs you crave, but needs must when Satan gobs in your wallet and blows his nose on your career-development plan. A brisk handshake, a promise of a phone call on Thursday morning, a last glug of Marks & Spencer’s organic coffee later and you are back on New Fetter Lane in the drizzle.

  You stroll as casually as you can back up Hatton Garden, chewing over the prospect of health and colour returning to your bank balance, but lamenting the immediate shrinkage of your free daytime. It’s been a while since you’ve had a real nine-to-five; you gallingly recall how deadening a schedule it is, week in, week out. But hey. It’s only Tuesday. You’ve got almost a week before any potential job could start, and an hour before you’re due at Webster’s. It’s been a tough morning, but you’ve achieved everything on your list. And there, across Clerkenwell Road, as if by magic, is the Duke of York. And what’s the time? Midday.

  On the dot.

  Now, you’re fully aware that you’ve an afternoon of work, as defined by Mr. Geoffrey Webster, to get through: a collaborative and inventive burst of brainstorming for which full alertness and flowing creative juices are mandatory. But a quick pint won’t do any harm. On the contrary, given your previous record of being overanalytical, nervous and prone to weeping in public places, it’ll probably be just the ticket. You march in, order yourself a Stella and settle down by the window to watch the rainy traffic. They’re playing the first Killers album, so you cast aside the disappointing memory of seeing them live at Reading and enjoy the album for what it is.

  The first few gulps are just as refreshing as you expect them to be, and by the time a text message appears at five past twelve you’ve had a whole half. Never mind, always the way: the second half will be slower. You glance at your phone. Alan, of course: “HOWD IT GO” (no punctuation as usual). You hammer out the good news; then, already feeling a positive rush from the alcohol (and “Everything Will Be Alright” is the Killers song currently playing), you take a chance on adding the following:

  Meeting Webster later, prob going to 3 Kings after, turn up later if you want but make it look accidental

  You’ve decided this won’t be a problem. After all, how would Webster know Alan had driven from four suburbs away to accidentally bump into him? And Alan will hopefully behave himself—but even if he doesn’t, your brief friendship with Webster has just about run its course, with his impending departure to God knows where, so it won’t make an awful lot of difference if he thinks Alan’s a leering goon or, as Billy Flushing would have it, a dullard.

  You take a few more gulps. Everything will be all right. You’re just wondering to what sort of horrendous job Mr. Brandish will send you when another text arrives.

  Except it isn’t a text. It’s your phone telling you the battery’s running out. Shit! That was on the list too, giving it ten minutes on the charger! How could you have missed it? And this silly new phone of yours has a rubbish battery—two more of these alerts and it’s curtains. Pondering what to do about this, you drain your pint. Gah. The first pint is always so fast. But never mind.

  The second pint will be slower.

  By the time you’ve ordered it and returned to the window seat, your phone has spoken again. This time it really is a text.

  Great will do what time roughly

  No sooner has this appeared, it’s the low-battery noise once more. There’s no shutting this phone up. For the second time that day, beads of sweat appear on your brow. It’s vital that Alan should know what time to arri
ve; you don’t want him getting there just as you’re ordering food ’cos he’ll have nothing to do for the next forty minutes, and it will look like the whole thing was planned. But right now you’ve no way of knowing what time to tell him. Damn! Why the hell didn’t you charge the battery? Angrily you snatch your to-do list from the bottom of your bag. How in God’s name did you … Sister. Sister! It’s all the fault of your sister! You were meant to ring her after you put your phone on charge, but she rang you and jumped the queue! So you missed the bit about checking your battery and …

  … putting credit on your phone.

  Now this is getting stupid. You were down to your last couple of quid last night, and since then you’ve made those stupid long phone calls. Never having grasped the finer points of your phone’s tariff system, you’ve no clue how much credit will be left, only that it won’t be much. You could call the service that tells you how much is left, but then the battery will instantly die.

  Arse!

  But there must be something good in this pint, for after your next sip comes a brainwave: the sort of thought that simply doesn’t occur very often in 2007, although ten years ago it would be obvious. You drain your pint, gather up your belongings, bid farewell to the barman and, feeling that usual extra bright daylight after a daytime pub stop, look up and down the road for a pay phone.

  It’s years since you’ve had reason to be inside one of these things, and you haven’t missed them. Forty-pence minimum! You shove your pair of coins in the slot and wait as Alan’s phone rings … and rings. Voice mail. Actually, that’s better; you don’t have to waste time talking to him.