First Time Solo

by Iain Maloney

Joe raised his hand. Then he raised his other hand. I thought it was a bad name, but I didn’t want my name to be used, so I voted for Joe. ‘And votes for the second.’

  Terry and Doug raised their hands. ‘A draw.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Joe. ‘He’s no even in the band.’

  ‘But the name was his idea,’ said Terry.

  ‘What do we do now?’ said Doug.

  ‘Ask her,’ said Terry turning to the woman. ‘Should we be called The Joe Robertson Trio or The Devine Trio?’

  ‘Which one of you is Joe Robertson?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘And is one of you divine?’

  ‘I am,’ I said.

  ‘You are that, love,’ she said with a salacious wink.

  ‘Vote cast,’ said Terry, as I turned bright red. ‘The Devine Trio it is, at least for tonight.’

  ‘Fucking democracy,’ said Joe.

  Only three of us, so there was nowhere to hide. I was way over at the edge of the stage, space between me and them. I thought back to the club in London, to those GIs. They were relaxed, didn’t even look like they knew the crowd was there. It was them and the music. Maybe that was the trick. Ignore them. I closed my eyes. Stepped closer to centre stage. I was back in the big field, sitting on the thickest branch of the oak tree, sun setting after the day’s work. The birds, the beasts, the distant sounds of Dod cleaning his boots, smacking them off a rock to dislodge the dirt. Thwack. Thwack. One, two, one two three four. G G G G, G G D, keep it simple, keep it basic.

  Hot ginger and dynamite. One note, the next. First verse, chorus, verse, chorus, instrumental, verse, chorus, verse, chorus. End. That noise. I’d never heard it before, not rushing at me like that. Applause. I opened my eyes. Looked back at Joe. Next song. He winked, one, two, one two three four. Middle C, F, A. The dots in my head, the lines and clefs, the time signatures. Followed them with my mind, followed Joe and Terry with my instinct. Eyes closed again, concentrated on the music, lived inside it, wrapped myself in it. This, Jack, fucking this. Over too fast, four songs, twenty minutes, Straighten Up and Fly Right. Time for the next turn. The crowd were disappointed. We bowed, they cheered. We were a hit. There was much back-slapping backstage. No idea who was on next. Didn’t listen. We didn’t care. More whisky. The ATA girls had come and Terry and Joe got stuck straight into chatting them up. I should have gone and talked to Rose, she stood like a spare next to Doug and Mavis, but I wanted to be alone, to bask in my memories. I’d done it, a gig. I’d played jazz on stage, in front of real people. I found space against the wall, sat on the ground with my trumpet in one hand and the whisky in the other. We went out after, the eight of us. So they told me.

  Sunday, zero nine-hundred hours, standing at the start line, hungover.

  ‘Well Terry? Thought of anything?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  We’d gone a mile and I’d been sick twice. The other runners had disappeared into the distance. Terry was looking for somewhere we could hide, keep out of sight until they came back and we could rejoin them, when a mechanical scream knocked us to the ground.

  Eighteen bombers, three groups of six flying low. Guns going and it was just like before, everyone was thinking it. But they roared off overhead and we could breathe again. Relax a little. A truck stopped. Jimmy, face white. ‘Get in. Bombed the church. A tip and run raid. The dirty fucking…’ He was choking up, the anger in him. ‘The church.’

  The church. Sunday. Too far. Too fucking far. The church down in rubble, gone, just the tower standing, the steeple, and around it all these people, crying, screaming. We rolled up and were straight in to help with clearing the rubble. There were people under there. Kids. Kids under there. Fucking Sunday school, wasn’t it? Right in the middle of Sunday school. Some were alive. The feeling. Rocks pulled back, what was once a pew, shards of glass, and there was this little girl, no more than seven, and she was fine, a bit dirty, crying, but not a scratch on her. The feeling of it, the energy it gave me to keep digging, to keep moving masonry. But it wasn’t all like that. There were bodies, course there were. Carrying a comrade’s body back was one thing, a grown man, a volunteer, no matter how he died, but that? A wee boy, a wee girl, life smashed out of them, body broken, soul gone, and you knew somewhere behind you there were parents waiting for news, hoping and praying, watching other families reunited, and you knew you’d got to carry this little bundle that used to be a future out to them, that was the hardest, that was the thing, the thing that hardened you, the thing that made you want to get straight out there and find Jerry and get revenge. But there was this voice, this thing inside that nudged you, saying this is what it’s about, Jack, this is what you’re training to do. Would you do it, Jack, in a Lancaster over Dresden, over Frankfurt, indiscriminate bombing? A Sunday school in Leipzig? Would you, Jack?

  Twenty one futures snuffed out. Three Sunday school teachers. And when everyone was accounted for, good or not, and we were washing the dirt and the blood off our hands, then more news. And we didn’t want to hear it, not more news, but it was Jerry. One of them clipped the steeple of the Catholic church, flying too low, and crashed into the town.

  Running. Running so hard and fast to get there, to get him, to get hold of him and rip him apart then drag him to see his handiwork, to see those little bundles and to look at the mothers and fathers, to make him apologise, to make him beg for forgiveness and to refuse to grant it, to send him straight to hell with the curses of humanity, but of course, when we got there he was dead. They were all dead, and revenge would have to wait. We left their bodies for the townsfolk to deal with. As we rode in the truck back to the base no-one spoke. No-one could. What could we say? When we got back others wanted news, they wanted stories, was it true? Kids? And one crashed? But no-one could talk. Only one thing to do. We were dismissed, told to get ourselves cleaned up. Terry had another bottle of whisky and we went down the beach, threw off the unclean uniforms, the dirt and dust. Blood. Naked and clutching the bottle we walked into the sea, waves washed it away, whisky washed it away, in silence we got drunk, tried to forget.

  We each locked ourselves away. Days passed. Weeks rolled on. Clouds thinned. Days passed and no-one really noticed. Maybe the town was cursed. All that carnage in such a short time. Heads down. Books. Marching. PT. Just didn’t think about it. All we could do. Life went on, though no-one knew how. News said aircrew deaths to date. Axis: 18031. Allies: 9906. We were winning but it wasn’t enough. Statistics and rage. Different worlds.

  Storms break. Fog shifts. Mists lift. We moved out of minor keys, let brief motifs of light in. The odd joke, a smile. The fire within each of us was rekindling. Fiercer now, but warmer too. We made it back to the heat.

  A long queue outside the greengrocers.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked a woman near the front.

  ‘Oranges, love. They’ve just got some oranges in.’

  ‘Oranges? Really? I haven’t seen an orange for years.’

  ‘None of us have, love, but a shipment got through and Albert here got hold of some. Listen, why don’t you go in ahead of me and get some?’

  ‘Oh no, no, I’m all right.’

  ‘No, lad, I remember you. You were at the church. You can go on ahead.’

  ‘No, you’ve as much right to an orange as anyone else.’ The people behind nodded, friendly, gestured for me to go forwards. The uniform was useful for getting drinks in pubs, that kind of thing, but this was different. I backed off, thanking the woman, but she wouldn’t hear it. Manhandled through the door, pushed up to the counter, emerged with four oranges, all against my will. I couldn’t eat them. I tried to think of a way to send them home, let Lizzie and my folks taste them. Maybe they’d go off, or get lost. In the end I gave the lot to the woman who ran the hotel as a thank you for letting us play music in the hall. Terry disagreed.

  ‘You did what? You got four oranges and you gave them away, just like that? Have you gone soft in the head?’

  ‘Why? What was I goin
g to do with four oranges? I get enough to eat in the mess. They don’t.’

  ‘That’s not the point. Do you know how much they’re worth? We could’ve given them to the girls. Dear God, we’d have been right in with those. Give the girls an exotic present like that and you’ll be behind the bike-sheds before you can say “knee-trembler”. Use your loaf.’

  ‘Life isn’t all about getting behind the bike sheds.’

  ‘Not for you. If I don’t get any off Winnie, I’m blaming you!’

  Exam time. The four of us studied together, no longer me helping Joe, all of us helping the others, being helped in return. I tested myself. Theory of flight. Air movement, lift, updraft, downdraft. Drag. One force meeting another force, the contortion of space by the movement of the aircraft through it.

  Meteorology. Fluid mechanics. Weather systems. The movement of air. On a farm, the ebb and flow of life is controlled by the climate, the seasons. Knowing exactly when the weather will break, when to plant, when to harvest, when to take the beasts inside, when to shear. A day too late and the crop was ruined; a week too early and you’d run out of feed. In Scotland there’s only one thing you can say about the weather: it’s changeable.

  Navigation.

  Aerodynamics.

  The hours. I studied for forty-five minutes, took fifteen to smoke, stretch, then back to it. Start with the difficult, identify problems, move onto the easier, back to recheck the difficult. Do it again. And again.

  Two or three nights a week we’d pack it in early, play some music. At the weekends we’d go drinking. Sometimes we’d see the ATA girls, sometimes not. Terry was smitten, Joe always up for it. Doug and I sometimes went along, sometimes cried off, walked along the cliffs instead. It was a beautiful summer, but the beach had been spoiled for us. No-one could enjoy swimming without looking towards France, keeping an eye out for those black dots. We were nearing the end of our time in Babbacombe. When our training was done at the end of July we’d be off to flight school, an actual airfield with actual aircraft – if we passed. The news, the final confirmation sharpened everyone’s motivation. Complaints about the workload ceased altogether, tiredness was worthwhile if it meant getting into the air. This was what we’d been after all along. One evening, a couple of weeks before we were due to leave, as we were going over our Air Force Law notes in the hotel bar, the owner, Mr Sutton, came over. ‘Sorry to interrupt, lads, but I was wondering if you could spare a moment?’

  Doug shifted over so Mr Sutton could pull up a chair. ‘The wife and I,’ he said, ‘we’ve had this idea, you see, and wondered if you would we be at all interested, of course there would be no money in it, what with the RAF in our hotel, money is hard to come by, I’m sure you understood that, but the bar would be put at your disposal, as long as you are reasonable with your, ahem, consumption, but if you are agreeable with these terms then would you mind awfully providing the music for a dance?’

  ‘A free bar?’ said Joe.

  ‘A dance?’ said Terry. ‘With girls?’

  ‘Yes, and yes,’ said Mr Sutton. ‘Though both within reason.’

  ‘We’d love to play,’ said Terry. ‘Thank you for asking, and thank you for letting us practice here. Playing at your dance is the least we could do.’

  ‘When?’ I said. ‘Only we have exams coming up.’

  ‘Oh, I know. When do they finish?’

  ‘July twenty-second is the last exam,’ said Doug. ‘We get posted on the twenty-sixth.’

  ‘Let’s say the twenty-fourth, then. The Saturday night?’

  ‘Perfect,’ said Joe.

  ‘Mister Sutton,’ I said. ‘It’s only been three weeks since… the church. Are you sure it wouldn’t be… insensitive to have a dance?’

  ‘It’s good of you to consider the town like that, son, but trust us. It’s just what everybody needs.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure. The last thing any of us want to do is offend anyone here.’

  ‘Good. It’s settled then,’ said Mr Sutton. ‘I’ll set about promoting it.’

  ‘Make sure you promote it in the St Vincent’s,’ said Terry. ‘It won’t be much of a dance if there are only RAF lads here.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Some of the local girls will be sure to come as well. It’s been a while since we had a proper dance in this town.’

  ‘Local girls?’ I said. ‘We’d better get practising.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Joe. ‘And we need tae get word tae those ATA girls, get them over.’

  ‘They’ll be there,’ said Terry. ‘If only we had some fruit to tempt them with.’

  Classes stopped. We studied all day, practiced in the evening. Word got around. Everyone was talking about it. Anticipation and excitement filled the Babbacombe air for the first time in months. ENSA was all very well, but this was special. Although it would be full of military people, it wasn’t a military event: There was a fair chance it wouldn’t be awful. Our four-song set needed to be much bigger. We set about rehearsing any song we could think of, including some of Terry’s own tunes. Terry spent his free time in front of the mirror practicing his crooning look. I’d been thinking a lot about the kind of jazz we heard at the club in London. I had no idea what it was called, but that faster, more complex style attracted me. I tried to recreate it but it was like trying to describe a dream. It was never on the radio and there was no-one in Babbacombe to teach me. Still, I could feel my style changing slightly. I loosened my grip on the trumpet, relaxed my body. Stopped picturing the notation in my mind. They were barriers, frontiers, prison bars. The main thing I remembered from London was the fluid way the saxophonist and the clarinettist approached the rhythm. They seemed to slide around the beat, notes drifting. I’d always imagined the beat like hitting a nail with a hammer: if you’re not bang on, you’re going to break something. But what if the groove came from relaxing that strictness?

  The exams were much harder this time. We’d learned more and needed to prove it. Four days of papers and practicals, Monday to Thursday. By Thursday night we were nervous wrecks, the stress of the exams, the dance. We walked out of the last exam and straight into the pub. I was legless in under two hours, pouring the stuff down my throat, had to be carried home. Friday I wanted to die. Vomit. Headache. Never again. After parade, the results. Joe, Terry, Doug and I all passed. Doug and I got pretty good grades, Terry good enough, Joe just made it. On Monday we’d be off to No. 29 EFTS Cliffe Pypard, Wiltshire for our basic flight training. Flight. We’d made it.

  ‘Pint to celebrate?’ said Joe.

  ‘Excuse me.’ I ran to the toilet.

  I felt much better on Saturday, but the nerves had multiplied. Four songs at ENSA was one thing, but this was us, all night. Terry got confirmation from Winnie that they’d be there. Before the guests even arrived we began to partake of our free bar, steady the nerves, relax the music muscles. No-one spoke.

  It was time. Doug gave me a pat, reassurance. Slow steps up to the stage. I kept my back to the crowd, focused on Joe’s kit. Mr Sutton announced us, The Devine Trio, and we were go, drum roll please, adrenaline, Joe tapping his sticks, one two three four, and we were off, all aboard the Chatanooga Choo Choo. Feet moving, bodies swaying, the dance was underway. This was music, jazz, life. Sweat pouring off us, refilling as often as we could, and in front of us the townspeople and the military presence danced like the end of the world was nigh. Our set was structured very simply, two fast, one slow, repeat. Build them up, bring them down, build them up again. Nagasaki upped the tempo. Body and Soul, Stardust, Honeysuckle Rose, Take the ‘A’-Train, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Rum and Coca Cola, Straighten Up and Fly Right. We finished the first half with Terry doing his best Glen Miller on Moonlight Cocktail and then it was a quick run to the toilet for all musicians, followed by a refill at the bar. We couldn’t believe the first half was over so fast. I’d only just blinked, drawn breath and it was half over. I was itching to get back up there but Joe and Terry were happy to have an interval. The girls had
come. ‘You guys are amazing,’ said Mary to Joe.

  ‘Ta very much,’ he said. ‘You’re no bad yourself.’

  ‘They need two bands,’ she said. ‘So you three can get a break and come for a dance.’

  ‘She’s got a point,’ Terry said. ‘We’re not going to get a dance at all.’

  ‘Jack and Joe can,’ said Doug. ‘Terry can accompany himself, give the lads a break.’

  ‘What about me?’ said Terry.

  ‘Well, just trumpet and drums won’t be much to dance to.’

  ‘Jack can manage that,’ said Joe. ‘Bit of Satchmo.’

  Just me and Joe. No Terry. Me centre stage. Alone. Drink.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Great,’ said Terry. ‘I’ll go first so you two can dance, then I’ll dance with Winnie here. We can rotate.’

  ‘You and Winnie can rotate?’ said Joe.

  ‘No, we can. We can take it in turns to have a break.’

  ‘Done.’

  And so we did. The night unfurled. The band got drunk; the dancers got drunker. While Terry was onstage alone, I danced with Rose, the feel of a body, her body, contact as we moved around the floor. Spinning, images twirling in me, Rose, the music, being on stage, the girls at The Windmill. My head on her shoulder, the smell of her hair. Something in me, like romance, some wave of something but what’s the point? Off soon. Contact is enough, alone, together. A tap on the shoulder, back onstage. Joe danced with Mary. I spotted Clive, clearly very drunk, crossing the dance floor. I caught Joe’s eye, nodded. Joe manoeuvred Mary into position, at just the right moment spun her with one hand and felled Clive with the other. He was dragged off the dance floor and thrown out the fire escape. We played more. We danced more. I got so drunk I could barely stand and blow at the same time so I sat on the edge of the stage, my legs hanging down. We exhausted our repetoire so went round again. I was in a different key from everyone for about ten seconds before I noticed and moved up half a tone. Terry disappeared out the fire escape with Winnie and came back with an ATA cap on. Eventually, we couldn’t play another note, did The King at speed, got off stage and topped up our already full alcohol tanks. Doug and I took Mavis and Rose onto the dance floor where we waltzed to imaginary music. I buried my head in Rose’s hair, held her close as we swayed around the room. Everything was spinning, the lights and the music, the kaleidoscope. Joe and Terry disappeared with Mary and Winnie. Clive came back demanding revenge, took a swing at Doug, missed and hit Paddy. Paddy hit him back so hard he upended a table covered in empty glasses, and a proper fight broke out. Punches were flying, officers got what was coming to them, glasses smashed, drink splashing. Doug and I, Mavis and Rose joined the other four at the fire escape. ‘Gentlemen,’ said Terry. ‘Our work here is done.’