by John Metcalf
The soft blues ended.
The audience broke into applause.
Basie appeared in a spotlight.
Slipped onto the piano bench.
Nodded three/four and the band blasted into his signature The Kid from Red Bank. Then into the quiet following the band’s initial statement, buoyed by the driving guitar and bass, Basie’s right hand pinking single percussive notes, space round the notes, blue space, jabbing notes that were the distillation, the spare essence of the stride tradition from which he’d grown, each note carrying all the weight of all the notes he wasn’t playing. Then the horns and reeds smashing in ShowTimeTime’sSquareVegasCasino, an assault of sound, glitter-wave-upon-wave.
They were stunned by the sound, the precision.
Stunned, too, by Basie’s piano revealing itself in dots, spots, dabs and jabs of sound, bright and sharp, driving the band relentlessly and then rising from the reed section, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis ripping into improvised solos raw, savage.
“The charts,” Charlie Denton whispered, “they’re all Neal Hefti and Jimmy Mundy.”
“Shss!” hissed Stanley.
Flight of Foo Birds, Splanky, Lil’ Darlin’, Moonlight Becomes You, In the Evening, Whirly Bird, Corner Pocket, Shiny Stockings, Double-O, the slow, slow blues After Supper, Midnite Blue, The Late, Late Show, Alright, Okay You Win…
Rob was beginning to feel he could absorb no more.
He could feel he was sweating.
He couldn’t draw deep breath.
Stan, with shut eyes, had clasped his arms about himself.
The band ended with a rocking version of April in Paris.
In the last notes, Basie stood, inclined his head as applause started, then turned to the band and shouted,
“One more, once!”
and the current switched on again, and like a shining steel machine the band slid into a reprise of the final choruses, driving, swinging mightily, Sonny Payne high above the band laughing at Eddie Jones and bouncing sticks off the skin and catching them out of the air, the band swinging into the crowd’s hubbub, Basie standing then again, small smile, stretching out his hand towards the band, head travelling the theatre stalls and gods, inviting pandemonium, stomping, whistles, cheers, the clapping steady, programmes fluttering up white into the rising house lights.
In the Bristol Nails, no band playing that night, they sat lowering beer, not talking, Charlie his usual pineapple juice and soda water.
Rob felt drained.
“Fuck me,” said Pete into their reflective silence.
They nodded. It somehow seemed to sum the evening up.
“I mean,” said Pete, “a flute.”
“So?” said Rob. “What do you think, Stan?”
Stan had had nothing much to say. He sipped beer and smiled, somewhere separate. He looked about him now as if waking. Then looked into their faces in turn.
“They…”
Then broke off and started running his finger round the crown of the fedora hanging off his knee.
Shook his head.
“The Atomic Mr. Basie,” said Charlie, “was a reissue, in part, of an earlier album called E=mc2 and—”
“For Christ’s sake, Charlie!”
“Stan?”
Stan set down his pint.
Spoke at his hat.
“Man,” he said, “they does be my dream.”
Bar sounds, the cash-register, a bottle clack back on a glass shelf, a woman’s voice, a voice suddenly quite distinct, saying… made of pears.
A loud group came in.
A voice coming towards them.
“Stanley! Stanley, you old wanker!”
A girl, Molly, an acquaintance from jazz evenings at the Nails.
“I thought you were in prison! When did they let you out!”
“This morning,” said Stanley.
“Really, really? Well, I’ll have to buy you a drink to celebrate. Three scotch and a pineapple, right?” she said.
“Won the pools or something?” said Pete.
“Sort of,” she said.
She hefted up onto her shoulder again a huge bag that looked as if it was made of carpet, a big rose on the side of it in sort of raffia stuff and rope handles.
“What the hell’s in that?” said Rob. “The kitchen sink?”
“Just about,” she said.
They all quite liked Molly, a bit fluff-brained, keener on dancing than listening, but jolly and easy to be with. She ran a poky little Sub-Post Office, a counter in a booth behind a grill in a corner of a chemist’s shop.
She brought the drinks over on a tray.
“Doubles!” said Pete. “Christ!”
“Here’s to Stanley,” she said, “getting out of clink.”
She downed the scotch in two gulps, brrr shuddered, and her eyes started to water.
“Bloody hell!” said Charlie.
“Drink your pineapple,” she said, “and mind your own beeswax.”
“Hoity-toity,” said Charlie.
“Hoity bollocks, Charlie Denton! Drink your little, little bottle.”
“Children, children,” said Rob.
“Really though,” said Pete, “come into an inheritance?”
“You at Basie?” said Rob.
“Wow!” she said, “wow! Jesus! wow! What?”
“That rather ably sums it up,” said Charlie.
Difficult to tell if he was being snarky, difficult to tell with Charlie.
“I’ll get some more Scotch,” she said, squawking her chair back, “and a tiny-tots pineapple” patting Charlie’s cheek, “no, no, really, it’s all right, I’ve got lots.”
They watched her behind as she walked past the dark platform stage to the bar.
“Wonder what’s up with her,” said Pete.
When she came back, they touched glasses, sipped.
“Funny,” she said. “Stanley’s just got out and I’ll be going in, Monday, I suspect.”
“In where?”
“In the clink.”
“What are you talking about?”
She bent down fiddling with the carpet bag, pulled the sides apart.
Rob leaned over and looked down.
The bag held a considerable number of rubber-banded packages of bank notes.
Rob stared then looked up into her flushed face.
“Molly!” he said. “Molly. What did you do?”
“It’s from the Post Office,” she said. “I just didn’t put it in the safe.”
Pete sat back down again.
Charlie looked stricken.
“Fee-fi-fo-fum,” said Stanley.
Pete stared at Stanley then at Molly.
“Can you put it back?” said Rob.
Molly shook her head.
“Why not?”
“I gave a wad of it to Susan, she’s my cousin, I don’t think you’ve met her—”
“Molly!”
“And I’ve bought me mum things. And I gave our Brian some towards a bike.”
She looked at their faces.
“And I buried some for later near the rhubarb in a Huntley’s tin. Royal Assortment.”
“Oh, god!” said Charlie.
“Well?” she said.
“We’re just thinking…” said Rob.
“Well,” she said, “I’m just tired of it all. I mean, I’m not married or anything and it’s all just selling stamps and stamping savings books and being nice to biddies and old geezers, can I borrow your sticky tape, will it hold together without string, how long does a letter take to get there? but what if it’s going to Glasgow? and what exactly is a custom’s label? I’m not going abroad, you know, oh, but I can’t write what’s in it on a label because it’s for my grandson’s birthday and if I
wrote on the label what’s in it, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it? And he’d miss the excitement of wondering what it might be… so I don’t think I should fill in a label, though it was kind of you to ask, but, no I think…
“Well!
“What if I’d be doing that when I’m thirty, forty even? What if I was going bald? So I thought, pardon my French, fuck it, I thought. And speaking of that and such,” she said, leaning over the table, staring at him, “I really ought to shag you, Stanley. In the circumstances. Always did fancy you more than a bit.”
Stanley smiled at her.
“Fo-fum,” he said.
The publican clanging his bloody brass bell.
Time, please.
Time gentlemen, please.
“In elementary school,” said Molly, “all in white, funny the things you think about, all in white clothes, I was a Snowflake.”
*
She was house-sitting for her sister and brother-in-law, who lived up towards Clifton and who were on holiday in Malaga. She’d parked his car somewhere near the Colston Hall. She walked ahead of them arm-in-arm with Stanley.
“We can’t let her drive,” said Charlie.
“No, you.”
“You’ve got to admire his stamina,” said Pete.
“What?”
“Well, this afternoon. Charlotte.”
“It’s red,” Molly called back. “Look for a red one on a bit of a hill.”
Charlie moved the seat back, adjusted the rear-view mirror. Molly delved into the carpet bag and came up with a bottle of Dimple Haig, swigged, passed it round.
“We really ought to address the problem in hand,” said Rob.
“Oh, shut up!” said Molly.
Nearing Clifton, she insisted they drive onto the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
“Engineered,” said Charlie, “by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.”
“Stop talking cobblers,” said Molly, “and stop here so we can look down.”
Lights from the bridge speared and rippled over the river’s expanse. A tugboat-looking thing, lit by just its running lights, travelling fast downriver towards the sea. The breeze off the water was blowing Molly’s hair onto her face. They watched the tug.
“Where’s he going?” shouted Molly.
“New York,” said Pete.
“Patagonia,” said Charley.
“Cardiff,” said Rob.
Molly took another swig of Dimple and reached down again into the bag and worked the rubber band off a block of notes, riffled, loosening then, riffled again, then ungainly hurled them into the air, a fluttering lifting, falling, a swirl, blowing away into the dark.
Stanley started laughing.
He picked up another block, riffled, splayed, shouted,
One more, Once!
Consigned them to the wind.
Another.
One more, Once!
Intermezzo
Before going through the arch into the yelling surges of the asphalt quadrangle, they paused, looking back down over the extensive lawns towards the distant Custodian’s Lodge and the high surrounding brick walls topped by angled barbed wire.
“I’m very partial to this view,” said Uncle Arthur, “very nice it is, very pastoral.”
Far below them, a figure trudged the lawns, stabbing up litter and scraping it off his spike into a yellow sack.
“He’s working late,” said Rob.
“It’s more like a what-you-call-it, a ritual,” said Uncle Arthur. “Part of his routine, you might say, and routine saves lives, as the Service quickly teaches. Litter, for the Old Man, it’s like a glass of warm milk, as it might be, at bedtime.”
The figure passed out of sight into a clump of rhododendrons.
“You mean,” said Rob, and paused, “do you mean that that’s the Old Man?”
“You haven’t phoned him, have you?” said Uncle Arthur. “Announced your presence? In any way?”
“No. Should I have? Just the Lodge.”
“Chain of command,” said Uncle Arthur, “Any communication with the Old Man—it proceeds through me. I most earnestly advise you, Mr. Forde. I could not answer for the consequences else.”
“Oh, OK,” said Rob.
“Better, wiser, if you follow my drift, to wait for morning.”
“Right,” said Rob. “Mid-morning,” added Uncle Arthur.
He tapped his finger against the side of his nose.
“A nod’s as good as a wink,” he said.
“Oh, absolutely,” agreed Rob, who was baffled entirely by Uncle Arthur’s enigmatic conversation, its feints and sallies, this tubby little man in a frayed sweater pullover who was, apparently, Senior House Father, “right,” added Rob, “got you.”
“The ravelled sleeve of care,” added Uncle Arthur.
“Yes, quite,” said Rob, “absolutely.”
“The best induction into our communal procedures, into what I think of—call me fanciful, Mr. Forde, call me fanciful, but what I think of as the Eastmill Family—the wife and I were not blessed with issue, Mr. Forde, so every last lad in Eastmill we think of as our lad.”
Rob nodded.
Vigorously.
“So if you’ll accompany me, Mr. Forde, on Evening Rounds, your task will be to observe, to observe and, as the Good Book says, inwardly digest. But before we start we’ll just pop into Churchill here and I’ll show you the whereabouts of the Staff Room.”
He followed Uncle Arthur along disinfectant-and-polish-smelling corridors, door after door unlocked and relocked with keys on Uncle Arthur’s bunched ring. Uncle Arthur in ceaseless flow, coffee laid on in the mornings, tea, the redoubtable Doris, elevenses, comestibles, condiments, the Mug Policy, Mr. Austyn’s administration of the Biscuit Fund, oh yes, many a convivial evening, up a sounding steel staircase pong-pong-pong and here we are, presenting with mock-flourish, a door, our Home Away From Home, our Refuge, as we might say, our Haven from Life’s Storms.
Six shabby Parker-Knoll armchairs, a big central table, two coffee tables, a rack of pigeon-holes on one wall spewing papers and a sock. In one of the armchairs a bald head, and feet stretched out towards the electric fire, woolly tartan slippers. By the chair, a wooden crate of beer.
“Mr. Grendle,” said Uncle Arthur, “our metal-work teacher. Our new English teacher, Mr. Forde.”
Mr. Grendle remained motionless and did not reply.
The yellowing muslin curtains stirred in the breeze.
Portrait of the Queen.
“Well…” said Uncle Arthur.
Mr. Grendle belched.
“Coffee,” said Uncle Arthur, “tea,” pointing to an electric kettle beside the sink and some unwashed mugs.
Mr. Grendle tapped out his pipe on the arm of the chair, swept the ask and dottle onto the floor, wiped his palm on his cardigan.
“A scriber!” he said, staring into the imitation coals, “A scriber is the back. Or battered with a ball-peen hammer. That’s how I’ll end.”
Back out along the polished corridor, halting for locks, slam, locks, Uncle Arthur saying, “Yes, gets a bit low, sometimes, does Henry. Following the accident.”
“Accident?”
“That’s right,” said Uncle Arthur.
Pallid faces, cropped hair, army boots. Rob was the centre of much obvious speculation. He kept close to Uncle Arthur and tried to look bored, nodding casually at the faces that stared most openly. He followed Uncle Arthur up the steps of the North Building. Uncle Arthur blew a long blast on his whistle and all motion froze. His glance darted about the silent playground.
“Nothing like a routine,” he murmured, “to settle a lad down.”
Two blasts: four boys ran to stand beneath them, spacing themselves about ten feet apart.
“House captains,” murmured Uncle Art
hur.
Three blasts: the motionless boys churned into a mob and then shuffled themselves into four lines. He allowed a few seconds to pass as they dressed ranks and then blew one long blast.
Silence was rigid.
As each boy, House by House, called out Present, Uncle Arthur! in response to his surname, Uncle Arthur ticked the mimeographed sheet. When numbers were tallied and initialled, Churchill House and Windsor moved off first to the showers.
“Never initial anything,” said Uncle Arthur, “until you’ve double-checked personally. Best advice I can give you. I learned that in the Service and it’s stood me in good stead ever since.”
He bumped Rob with his shoulder and added, “No names, no pack drill.”
“Exactly,” said Rob, ever more mystified.
Stripped of their grey overalls, the boys looked even more horribly anonymous, buttocks, pubic hair, feet. Rob glanced down the line of naked bodies trying not to show embarrassment and distaste. He looked down at Uncle Arthur’s mauve socks in the brown, open-work sandals.
At the further end of the line, a mutter of conversation was rising.
Uncle Arthur’s whistle burbled, a sound almost meditative.
“Careful you don’t lose your pea, Uncle Arthur,” said one of the taller boys.
All the boys laughed.
“It won’t be me, son,” said Uncle Arthur, nodding slowly, ponderous work with his eyebrows, “It won’t be me as’ll be losing my pea.”
Rob recognized this as ritual joke.
The laughter grew wilder, ragged at the edges.
Order was restored by a single blast.
Uncle Arthur advanced to a position facing the middle of the line.
Into the silence, he said:
“Cleanliness, Mr. Forde, as the Good Book says, is next to Godliness. So at Eastmill here it’s three showers a day, every day. We get lads in here that come from home conditions you wouldn’t credit. Never had contact with soap and water, some of them. Last time some of this lot touched water was when they was christened. If they was christened. Sewed into their underclothes, some of them are. And dental decay? ‘Orrible! Turns the stomach, Mr. Forde. Athlete’s foot. Lice. Scabies and scales. Crabs of all variety. Crabs, Mr. Forde, of every stripe and hue.”