Billy Liar

by Keith Waterhouse

  ‘Let's go for a walk,’ I said.

  ‘Soon,’ said Liz, mocking me.

  Downstairs the drums rolled and Arthur came to the microphone, lifting his hands to quell the faint suggestion of applause. He put his face close to the mike and, in his half-American accent, began the smooth talk that went down so well.

  ‘Lazengenelmen, are we all happy? Thank you, madam. Next week at the Roxy we have another all-pop night, feat'ring the Rockets, that golden songstress Jeannie Lewis – Jeannie Lewis, I'm not saying she's fat but she's the only girl I know who when she has a chest complaint, she gets her treatment wholesale – and by popular request, yours truly. Success! Lazengenelmen, when I came to Stradhoughton I only had one clog. Now I ride around in taxis. I have to take a taxi I've only got one clog.’

  There were waves of relaxed laughter for Arthur, a cabaret sort of atmosphere that suited him perfectly. Jeannie Lewis, the singer, was sitting on a cane chair by the band, heaving her sequined bosom. Arthur waited for silence, clicking his fingers and smiling confidently.

  ‘And now a special treat for us all. I want to continue the dance with a little number which I wrote in conjunction with my very good friend Billy Fisher. Where are you, Billy?’ The spotlight played hopefully about the floor, while the Rockets' drummer made a facetious clacking on the kettle-drum.

  ‘That's you!’ said Liz excitedly.

  ‘I'm all right,’ I muttered, hiding my face.

  ‘Well I know he's out there somewhere,’ said Arthur. ‘Maybe he's celebrating the big news, because I know you'll all be glad to know that Billy has just landed himself a big job in London, writing scripts for that verywellknown comedian Danny Boon! I'm sure we wish him all the best in the world.’

  ‘You stupid cow!’ I hissed. There was a bit of desultory applause, and one or two of the people on the balcony who knew me slightly looked at me curiously. In spite of it all, I tried to look reasonably famous.

  ‘Now on with the dance with the little number by Billy Fisher and yours truly – “Can't get along without you”!’ He said it in the coy way that television disc jockeys have, putting the eye on a random girl when he pronounced this soft word ‘you’.

  ‘I wish he'd stop calling himself yours truly,’ I said through my teeth.

  ‘Shush,’ said Liz. ‘I want to hear your song.’

  The band struck up far too slowly for the number and Arthur, the wry creases in his forehead, began to sing.

  ‘Soon you will be saying good-bye,

  Just let me mention that I

  Can't get along without you.

  You seem to have changed with the moon,

  Now my heart beats out of tune,

  Can't get along without you.’

  I squinted craftily at Liz, hoping she would think the song was dedicated to her. Then I looked down over the balcony at the people dancing below. Nobody seemed to be taking much notice of the song, and in fact Arthur's American accent had become so pronounced that it was difficult to understand what he was singing about. Shadrack and the girl Mavis had vanished, and so had Rita. Stamp was loitering on the brass-rimmed edge of the dance floor, obviously trying to find some way of sabotaging the number. I thought Arthur was doing that effectively himself.

  ‘I want to discover

  If I'm to blame,

  Because as a lover

  You're not the same so tell me why.’

  ‘He's singing it all wrong,’ I muttered, getting up. ‘Anyway, I suppose I'd better go and congratulate him.’ Liz wrinkled her nose at me, and I ran self-consciously down the stairs, keeping my eyes peeled for people who might want to see me.

  ‘Please tell me why we must part,

  Darling it's breaking my heart,

  Can't get along without you.’

  I reached the bandstand as Arthur, his arms outstretched, touched the last note. The Rockets went straight into ‘American Patrol’ and he jumped down, flexing his shoulders and waving to his friends.

  ‘And then I wrote –’ I began, striking a dramatic pose for the beginning of our song-writing routine.

  ‘Ah yes, and do you remember the little tune that went something like this,’ said Arthur, clutching his heart with one hand and cupping the other to his car.

  ‘You made me love you, I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to do it,’ I sang dutifully in the cracked phonograph voice.

  ‘To think I wrote that song on the back of a menu in a fish restaurant –’

  ‘– and today that menu is worth hundreds of pounds.’

  ‘Yes, the price of fish rose steeply between the wars,’ said Arthur, finishing the routine. But it was not the usual thing between me and him; this time he was talking loudly, addressing an audience, the admiring girls who stood around the band giggling and doing little solo jigs.

  ‘And then I wrote –’ he said, looking round. I drew him on one side.

  ‘Bloody good, man,’ I said. ‘How did you manage to persuade them to let you sing it?’

  ‘In your honour,’ said Arthur, and now that we had dropped the routine I thought that he was talking in a curiously formal sort of voice.

  ‘Bloody good. Wish you hadn't announced that bit about Danny Boon, though.’

  ‘Why not. It's all fixed up, isn't it?’ For the first time, I noticed the slight glint of malice in his eye and the corner of his lower lip twitching.

  ‘Yes, course it is. Only I just didn't want anyone to know just yet, that's all. We ought to get that song recorded and send it up to a publisher.’

  ‘We're going to do it,’ said Arthur, meaning him and the Rockets, and also meaning without any help from me.

  ‘Only one thing,’ I said in the light voice. ‘You want to sing it with a bit less of an American accent.’

  Arthur turned to me full-face, and I got the whole effect of the studied, indifferent approach.

  ‘I'll sing it with a Yorkshire accent if you like.’

  I flared up. ‘I don't want you to sing it with any flaming accent. Just sing it as it's flaming well written, that's all.’

  ‘Listen, boy, if I sang that song the way you wrote it it'd clear the bleeding hall. You've still got a lot to learn, cocker.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ sake –’

  Arthur nodded his chin. ‘Yes, I can see them taking you down a peg or two when you get to London. If you get to London, I should say. Anyway, don't tell me how to sing, matey. Anyone'd think you were going to work for bleeding Glenn Miller.’

  ‘Oh, it's like that, is it?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, it's like that. And another thing. I don't know what bloody crap you've been telling my mother about the Witch being this bloody sister of yours, but she's been doing her nut all afternoon. So bloody lay off, for Christ sake.’

  He strode back to the bandstand, grabbing the microphone and switching on the American voice. ‘And now folks, by request – the Hokey-Cokey!’ I turned away, miserable and depressed.

  I had almost reached the stairs to the balcony when I saw Stamp leering over the banisters, beckoning his grimy fingers at me. I swung back abruptly and made for the cafeteria under the balcony, at the side of the dance floor. I meant to lose myself for a few minutes among the squealing girls scoffing cream buns and spilling lemonade down their dresses. I hurried through the rows of enamelled tables towards the dark corner by the band's changing-room, and it was only when I was in the middle of it that I realized what kind of bear-pit I had walked into down here. Immediately in front of me stood the Witch in a revolting green blouse and tartan skirt. She was confronting Rita, and Rita's vivid red dress seemed to have been designed especially to set off the miniature silver cross on its silver chain round her neck, and the engagement ring that she brandished on her finger.

  ‘That's my cross,’ I heard the Witch say in her loud, clear voice.

  My heart, familiar with its duty on occasions such as this, did a full cartwheel. I dodged behind a sort of Corinthian column that was holding the balcony up, but too late to av
oid the cold eye of the Witch.

  ‘Talk of the devil,’ she said coolly.

  Rita turned round. ‘Oo, look what's jumped out of the corned beef,’ she said in her grating voice. She looked flushed and bewildered.

  I said faintly: ‘What's this - a deputation?’ I skimmed through my mind, more or less in despair, to see if I could find a piece of skilful double-talk, aimed at their different intellectual levels, that would succeed in fooling them both. I opened my mouth to speak but felt the yawn welling up in my throat and I finished up standing there with my mouth open, gaping at them. ‘What's up with him, is he catching flies or summat?’ said Rita. It was obviously too late for the academic niceties, anyway.

  ‘May I ask why you gave my cross to this – girl?’ asked the Witch without any preamble.

  My first thought was: ‘May I ask why you said you'd given it back to your cousin?’ But I still hankered after the subtle approach. ‘Yes, it is very similar, isn't it?’ I said.

  ‘It's my cross. It's got the tooth-mark on it where you bit it that day when you made that ridiculous scene.’

  ‘Do you mean that day at Ilkley, which I am sure Rita is anxious to hear about?’ I said, with the intention of embarrassing her.

  ‘It's my cross,’ said the Witch.

  ‘No it isn't,’ I said. ‘You gave yours back to your cousin. I just happen to have one similar. If you want to know, your cousin got it from me in the first place.’

  ‘Oh. So you make a practice of giving these things away, do you?’

  ‘No, I don't make a practice of it. I just happened to have half a dozen of them to spare. They're what Unitarians wear when they're dead,’ I said. It was only a matter of time before the Witch realized who was wearing her engagement ring, and I was beginning to gabble a bit.

  ‘And another thing,’ the Witch said. ‘Which one of us is supposed to be coming to tea at your house tomorrow?’

  ‘Well neither of you, I'm afraid,’ I said, giving them each the frank smile. ‘We did hope to have a sort of family party – there were a lot of people coming, including yourselves – only the old man's been called away to Harrogate and he won't be back until Monday.’

  ‘I suppose he's gone to a naval reunion,’ said the Witch with her heavy sarcasm. She turned to Rita. ‘You know his father's supposed to be a retired sea captain, don't you?’

  ‘Thought he was supposed to be a cobbler or summat,’ said Rita.

  They started chewing the fat about what the old man did for a living. The Witch, in her bottle-green blouse, stood there looking like the cub-mistress Stamp claimed to have ravished on passion pills. A happy thought struck me, the first happy thought of the evening. I felt in my pocket for the little black beads that were still spilled there. I scooped up a handful, about a dozen or fourteen of them. On the table nearest to us, next to the Witch's handbag and the pile of blood oranges that she had got in as a treat for herself, there was a cup of black coffee, untouched. I moved my hand behind me and, as the two of them got on to the subject of the imaginary budgerigar, I unloaded the fistful of passion pills into the Witch's coffee.

  ‘And now, if it's not too much to ask,’ said the Witch, ‘perhaps you'll tell us which one of us you invited to the Roxy tonight.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ I said. ‘Why don't you ask Rita why she's wearing your engagement ring?’ I strode rapidly away, leaving them both open-mouthed as though being filmed at the end of a comedy sequence. I charged through the cafeteria to the foot of the balcony stairs. Stamp, still clinging hold of the banisters, clawed at me as I passed. He was definitely drunk.

  ‘Piss off, Stamp,’ I said curtly.

  ‘You've had it,’ he said thickly, grabbing my sleeve. ‘You've had it.’

  ‘Keep your mucky hands to yourself.’

  ‘You've had it,’ drooled Stamp. ‘Just been talking to Shadrack. You've had it, Fisher.’

  I pulled his hand angrily off my sleeve. ‘Will you get your hands off my cowing, sodding, frigging sleeve!’

  ‘You've had it,’ he mumbled, sinking down on the stairs. I ran up two at a time and found Liz still sitting contentedly, looking over the balcony.

  ‘Sorry I was so long. Let's go for a walk.’

  She looked up and smiled. ‘You're looking het up.’

  ‘I'm feeling het up,’ I said. I edged over to where she was sitting to check that she could not have seen what had been going on. ‘I've just had an almighty barney with Arthur about the song. He finished up threatening to sing it with a Yorkshire accent.’

  ‘Well he could do worse,’ said Liz judiciously.

  I sat down, breathing deeply, glad of any opportunity for a bit of normal conversation. The band was playing a soft waltz and there was something soothing about the bobbing heads below us.

  ‘Don't say you're another of these Yorkshire fanatics,’ I said.

  ‘No. But there's lots of nice things in Yorkshire. Nice people. To name only one,’ she said, squeezing my hand.

  ‘Which is why you keep leaving it, I suppose?’

  ‘Could be.’

  To break the silence I said, ‘I was talking to that bloke who does the Man o' the Dales column in the Echo the other day –’

  ‘Who? Do you mean John Hardcastle?’ Liz broke in. ‘I know him.’ She knew everybody.

  ‘That's him,’ I said with the sinking feeling. ‘At least, I think it was him. One of the blokes on the Echo, anyway. We were going over all this satanic mills lark that he's always doing, and I said, Dark satanic mills I can put up with, they're part of the picture. But when it comes to dark satanic power stations, dark satanic housing estates, and dark satanic dance halls –’

  ‘That's good. You ought to use that.’

  ‘So he said, That's the trouble with you youngsters, you want –’

  ‘Youngsters? He's got a nerve! He's not much older than you are! Are you sure it was John Hardcastle?’

  ‘Oh, for God's sake,’ I said desperately. ‘A big chap with a moustache – is that him?’

  ‘That's right,’ said Liz calmly. ‘He's sitting over there.’ She nodded casually to a young man with a crowd of people three or four tables away, handlebar moustache and all. Why wasn't Man o' the Dales an old man? And why the handlebar moustache? He looked up, saw Liz and waved. I sat back, exhausted. By now I would not have been surprised to see Councillor Duxbury himself, dancing the Boston Two-Step down below and change out of fourpence.

  ‘Let's go for a walk,’ I said weakly.

  ‘Don't you want to have a chat with John?’

  Over the tannoy, breaking into the music, a crackling voice announced: ‘Mist’ William Fisher. Mist' William Fisher. Wanted on the telephone. Mist' William Fisher. Than' you.'

  ‘Mr William Fisher, wanted on the telephone,’ said Liz.

  My palms gritty with sweat, I gripped the balcony rail and peered into the bright depths of the dance floor. As in some maniac kaleidoscope I could see Arthur, looking belligerent, about to sing; the Witch striding purposefully out of the cafeteria with her handbag swinging on her shoulder; Rita, standing around looking dazed; to the left, Stamp, standing at the bottom of the staircase, and Shadrack brushing past him. I saw them, or thought I saw them, all in the same shrieking moment, and looking up, there was the youthful Man o' the Dales, glaring with what looked like suspicion at our table. I had a sudden histrionic urge to stand up on my chair and shout: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, here are my fountain pen and my suède shoes. Crucify me the modern way!’

  ‘Mist' William Fisher, wanted on the telephone.’

  ‘Let's go for a walk,’ I said. I felt a hand on the back of my chair. I looked up, and I was not surprised to see Shadrack bending over us, flashing his yellow teeth and breathing his bad breath.

  ‘Could I have a word with you, Fisher?’

  I stood up, feeling punchdrunk. ‘Next for shaving,’ I said hysterically.

  Shadrack turned solicitously to Liz. ‘You will excuse us for a moment?’ She smiled at him. He
took me over to the top of the stairs, holding my arm in an alarmingly friendly way.

  ‘Look, this is neither the time nor the place, of course,’ he began confidentially. ‘But I just thought I'd better have a word with you about our conversation this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ I said, swallowing.

  ‘Yes. The fact is, under the circ'stances we think it prob'ly a good idea if you didn't come in on Monday after all. Prob'ly if you didn't come in until we sent for you. I just thought I'd let you know.’

  ‘Oh. Does that mean –’

  ‘No, I'm vair much afraid it doesn't mean you've finished with us. Not by a long chalk. I'm afraid you've still got a lot of explaining to do, Fisher.’

  ‘Oh?’ I seemed to be beginning every sentence with ‘Oh’.

  ‘Yes, I'm afraid it's come to light that you've been carrying on in an alarming fashion for a vair lengthy period of time. An alarming fashion. To say the least of it. Anyway, the upshot is, we want you to regard yourself as being temp'rarily suspended until we can get it all cleared up.’

  He released my arm.

  ‘As I say, this is neither the time nor the place, we realize that. I don't want to stop you enjoying yourself tonight, far from it. But you've got a lot of vair serious explaining to do, sooner or later.’

  ‘“Have a good holiday, Jenkins, I've got some bad news for you when you get back,”’ I muttered.

  ‘Wha’? What's that?’

  ‘It was a cartoon,’ I said unhappily. ‘In the paper.’

  ‘Yes, I'm vair much afraid you think too much about cartoons,’ said Shadrack. He gave me a strange look and went off down the stairs. I watched the tail of his hacking jacket flapping after him, and murmured ‘Bastard’ under my breath.