by Nick Hornby
“It’s OK, really.”
It’s all forgotten, though, with her next question. All my life I have been waiting for this moment, and when it comes I can hardly believe it: I feel unprepared, caught short.
“What are your five favorite records of all time?” she says.
“Pardon?”
“What are your all-time top five records? Your desert island discs, minus—how many? Three?”
“Minus three what?”
“It’s eight on Desert Island Discs, isn’t it? So eight minus five is three, right?”
“Yeah. Plus three, though. Not minus three.”
“No, I just said…anyway. Your all-time top five records.”
“What, in the club, or at home?”
“Is there a difference?”
“OF COURSE…” Too shrill. I pretend I’ve got something in my throat, clear it, and start again. “Well, yeah, a bit. There’s my top five dance records of all time, and then there’s my top five records of all time. See, one of my favorite-ever records is ‘Sin City’ by the Flying Burrito Brothers, but I wouldn’t play that at the club. It’s a country-rock ballad. Everyone would go home.”
“Never mind. Any five. So four more.”
“What d’you mean, four more?”
“Well, if one of them is this ‘Sin City’ thing, that leaves four more.”
“NO!” This time I make no attempt to disguise the panic. “I didn’t say it was in my top five! I just said it was one of my favorites! It might turn out to be number six or seven!”
I’m making a bit of a fool of myself, but I can’t help it: this is too important, and I’ve waited for it too long. But where have they gone, all these records I’ve had in my head for years, just in case Roy Plomley or Michael Parkinson or Sue Lawley or whoever used to do My Top Twelve on Radio One contacted me and asked me in as a late and admittedly unknown replacement for someone famous? For some reason I can think of hardly any record at all apart from “Respect,” and that’s definitely not my favorite Aretha song.
“Can I go home and work it out and let you know? In a week or so?”
“Look, if you can’t think of anything, it doesn’t matter. I’ll do one. My five favorites from the old Groucho Club or something.”
She’ll do one! She’ll rob me of my one and only chance to make a list for publication in a magazine! I don’t think so!
“Oh, I’m sure I can manage something.”
“A Horse with No Name.” “Beep Beep.” “Ma Baker.” “My Boomerang Won’t Come Back.” My head is suddenly flooded with the titles of terrible records, and I’m almost hyperventilating.
“OK, put ‘Sin City’ down.” There must be one other good record in the entire history of pop.
“‘Baby Let’s Play House’!”
“Who’s that by?”
“Elvis Presley.”
“Oh. Of course.”
“And…” Aretha. Think Aretha.
“‘Think’ by Aretha. Franklin.”
Boring, but it’ll do. Three down. Two left. Come on, Rob.
“‘Louie, Louie’ by the Kingsmen. ‘Little Red Corvette’ by Prince.”
“Fine. That’s great.”
“Is that it?”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind a quick chat, if you’ve got time.”
“Sure. But is that it for the list?”
“That’s five. Do you want to change anything?”
“Did I say ‘Stir It Up’? Bob Marley?”
“No.”
“I’d better have that in.”
“What do you want to leave out?”
“Prince.”
“No problem.”
“And I’ll have ‘Angel’ instead of ‘Think.’”
“Right.” She looks at her watch. “I’d better ask you a couple of questions before I get back. Why did you want to start it up again?”
“It was a friend’s idea really.” A friend. Pathetic. “She organized it without telling me, as a sort of birthday present. I’d better have a James Brown in there, too, I think. ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.’ Instead of the Elvis.”
I watch her carefully while she does the necessary crossing out and writing in.
“Nice friend.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s her name?”
“Umm…Laura.”
“Surname?
“Just…Lydon.”
“And that motto, ‘Dance Music for Old People.’ Is that yours?”
“Laura’s.”
“What does it mean?”
“Look, I’m sorry about this, but I’d like ‘Family Affair’ by Sly and the Family Stone in there. Instead of ‘Sin City.’”
She crosses out and scribbles again.
“‘Dance Music for Old People’?”
“Oh, you know…a lot of people aren’t too old for clubs, but they’re too old for acid jazz and garage and ambient and all that. They want to hear a bit of Motown and vintage funk and Stax and a bit of new stuff and so on all jumbled together, and there’s nowhere for them.”
“Fair enough. That’ll do me, I think.” She drains her orange juice. “Cheers. I’m looking forward to next Friday. I used to love the music you played.”
“I’ll make you a tape, if you want.”
“Would you? Really? I could have my own Groucho Club at home.”
“No problem. I love making tapes.”
I know that I’ll do it, tonight, probably, and I also know that when I’m peeling the wrapper off the cassette box and press the pause button, it will feel like a betrayal.
“I don’t believe it,” says Laura when I tell her about Caroline. “How could you?”
“What?”
“Ever since I’ve known you you’ve told me that ‘Let’s Get It On’ by Marvin Gaye was the greatest record of all time, and now it doesn’t even make your top five.”
“Shit. Fuck. Bollocks. I knew I’d…”
“And what happened to Al Green? And the Clash? And Chuck Berry? And that man we had the argument about? Solomon somebody?”
Jesus.
I call Caroline the next morning. She’s not there. I leave a message. She doesn’t call back. I ring again. I leave another message. It’s getting kind of embarrassing, but there’s no way “Let’s Get It On” isn’t going in that top five. The third time I try I get through to her, and she sounds embarrassed but apologetic, and when she realizes that I’m only calling to change the list she relaxes.
“OK. Definitive top five. Number one, ‘Let’s Get It On,’ by Marvin Gaye. Number two, ‘This Is the House That Jack Built,’ by Aretha Franklin. Number three, ‘Back in the USA,’ by Chuck Berry. Number four, ‘White Man in the Hammersmith Palais,’ by the Clash. And the last one, last but not least, ha ha, ‘So Tired of Being Alone,’ by Al Green.”
“I can’t change it again, you know. That’s it.”
“Fine.”
“But I was thinking that maybe it would make sense to do your five favorite club records. The editor likes the story, by the way, the Laura stuff.”
“Oh.”
“Is it possible to get a quick list of floor-fillers off you, or is that too much to ask?”
“No. I know what they are.” I spell it all out for her (although when the article appears it says “In the Ghetto,” like the Elvis song, a mistake that Barry pretends is due to my ignorance).
“I’ve nearly finished your tape.”
“Have you? That’s really sweet of you.”
“Shall I send it to you? Or do you fancy a drink?”
“Umm…A drink would be great. I’d like to buy you one to thank you.”
“Great.”
Tapes, eh? They work every time.
“Who’s it for?” Laura asks when she sees me fiddling around with fades and running orders and levels.
“Oh, just that woman who interviewed me for the free paper. Carol? Caroline? Something like that. She said it would be easier, you know, if she had a feel for t
he kind of music we play.” But I can’t say it without blushing and staring intently at the cassette deck, and I know she doesn’t really believe me. She of all people knows what compilation tapes represent.
The day before I’m supposed to be meeting Caroline for a drink, I develop all the textbook symptoms of a crush: nervous stomach, long periods spent daydreaming, an inability to remember what she looks like. I can bring back the dress and the boots, and I can see her bangs, but her face is a blank, and I fill it in with some anonymous rent-a-cracker details—pouty red lips, even though it was her well-scrubbed English clever-girl look that attracted me to her in the first place; almond-shaped eyes, even though she was wearing sunglasses most of the time; pale, perfect skin, even though I know she’s quite freckly. When I meet her I know there’ll be an initial twinge of disappointment—this is what all that internal fuss was about?—and then I’ll find something to get excited about again: the fact that she’s turned up at all, a sexy voice, intelligence, wit, something. And between the second and the third meeting a whole new set of myths will be born.
This time, something different happens, though. It’s the daydreaming that does it. I’m doing the usual thing—imagining in tiny detail the entire course of the relationship, from first kiss, to bed, to moving in together, to getting married (in the past I have even organized the track listing of the party tapes), to how pretty she’ll look when she’s pregnant, to names of children—until suddenly I realize that there’s nothing left to actually, like, happen. I’ve done it all, lived through the whole relationship in my head. I’ve watched the film on fast-forward; I know the whole plot, the ending, all the good bit. Now I’ve got to rewind and watch it all over again in real time, and where’s the fun in that?
And fucking…when’s it all going to fucking stop? I’m going to jump from rock to rock for the rest of my life until there aren’t any rocks left? I’m going to run each time I get itchy feet? Because I get them about once a quarter, along with the utilities bills. More than that, even, during British Summer Time. I’ve been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.
I know what’s wrong with Laura. What’s wrong with Laura is that I’ll never see her for the first or second or third time again. I’ll never spend two or three days in a sweat trying to remember what she looks like, never again will I get to a pub half an hour early to meet her, staring at the same article in a magazine and looking at my watch every thirty seconds, never again will thinking about her set something off in me like “Let’s Get It On” sets something off in me. And sure, I love her and like her and have good conversations, nice sex and intense rows with her, and she looks after me and worries about me and arranges the Groucho for me, but what does all that count for, when someone with bare arms, a nice smile, and a pair of Doc Martens comes into the shop and says she wants to interview me? Nothing, that’s what, but maybe it should count for a bit more.
Fuck it. I’ll post the fucking tape. Probably.
THIRTY-FOUR
SHE’S quarter of an hour late, which means I’ve been in the pub staring at the same article in a magazine for forty-five minutes. She’s apologetic, although not enthusiastically apologetic, considering; but I don’t say anything to her about it. Today’s not the right day.
“Cheers,” she says, and clinks her spritzer against my bottle of Sol. Some of her makeup has sweated off in the heat of the day, and her cheeks are pink; she looks lovely. “This is a nice surprise.”
I don’t say anything. I’m too nervous.
“Are you worried about tomorrow night?”
“Not really.” I concentrate on shoving the bit of lime down the neck of the bottle.
“Are you going to talk to me, or shall I get my paper out?”
“I’m going to talk to you.”
“Right.”
I swish the beer around so it’ll get really limey.
“What are you going to talk to me about?”
“I’m going to talk to you about whether you want to get married or not. To me.”
She laughs a lot. “Ha ha ha. Hoo hoo hoo.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“Oh, well thanks a fucking bunch.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. But two days ago you were in love with that woman who interviewed you for the local paper, weren’t you?”
“Not in love exactly, but…”
“Well, forgive me if I don’t feel that you’re the world’s safest bet.”
“Would you marry me if I was?”
“No, I shouldn’t think so.”
“Right. OK, then. Shall we go home?”
“Don’t sulk. What’s brought all this on?”
“I don’t know.”
“Very persuasive.”
“Are you persuadable?”
“No. I don’t think so. I’m just curious about how one goes from making tapes for one person to marriage proposals to another in two days. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough.”
“So?”
“I’m just sick of thinking about it all the time.”
“All what?”
“This stuff. Love and marriage. I want to think about something else.”
“I’ve changed my mind. That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. I do. I will.”
“Shut up. I’m only trying to explain.”
“Sorry. Carry on.”
“See, I’ve always been afraid of marriage because of, you know, ball and chain, I want my freedom, all that. But when I was thinking about that stupid girl I suddenly saw it was the opposite: that if you got married to someone you know you love, and you sort yourself out, it frees you up for other things. I know you don’t know how you feel about me, but I do know how I feel about you. I know I want to stay with you and I keep pretending otherwise, to myself and you, and we just limp on and on. It’s like we sign a new contract every few weeks or so, and I don’t want that anymore. And I know that if we got married I’d take it seriously, and I wouldn’t want to mess about.”
“And you can make a decision about it just like that, can you? In cold blood, bang bang, if I do that, then this will happen? I’m not sure that it works like that.”
“But it does, you see. Just because it’s a relationship, and it’s based on soppy stuff, it doesn’t mean you can’t make intellectual decisions about it. Sometimes you just have to, otherwise you’ll never get anywhere. That’s where I’ve been going wrong. I’ve been letting the weather and my stomach muscles and a great chord change in a Pretenders single make up my mind for me, and I want to do it for myself.”
“Maybe.”
“What d’you mean, maybe?”
“I mean, maybe you’re right. But that doesn’t help me, does it? You’re always like this. You work something out and everyone else has to fall into line. Were you really expecting me to say yes?”
“Dunno. Didn’t think about it, really. It was the asking that was the important thing.”
“Well, you’ve asked.” But she says it sweetly, as if she knows that what I’ve asked is a nice thing, that it has some sort of meaning, even though she’s not interested. “Thank you.”
THIRTY-FIVE
BEFORE the band comes on, everything’s brilliant. It used to take a bit of time to warm people up, but tonight they’re up for it straightaway. This is partly because most of the crowd here tonight are a few years older than they were a few years ago, if you see what I mean—in other words, this is exactly the same lot, not their 1994 equivalents—and they don’t want to wait until half-twelve or one before they get going: they’re too tired for that now, and anyway, some of them have to go home to relieve baby-sitters. But mostly it’s because there’s a real party atmosphere, a genuine make-hay-while-the-sun-shines air of celebration, as though this were a wedding reception or a birthday party, rather than a club that will be here next week and maybe even t
he week after that.
But I have to say that I’m fucking good, that I haven’t lost any of the old magic. One sequence—the O’Jays (“Back Stabbers”), Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes (“Satisfaction Guaranteed”), Madonna (“Holiday”), “The Ghetto” (which gets a cheer, as if it’s my song rather than Donny Hathaway’s) and “Nelson Mandela” by the Specials—has them begging for mercy. And then it’s time for the band.
I’ve been told to introduce them; Barry has even written down what I’m supposed to say: “Ladies and gentlemen, be afraid. Be very afraid. Here comes…SONIC DEATH MONKEY!” But bollocks to that, and in the end I just sort of mumble the name of the group into the microphone.
They’re wearing suits and skinny ties, and when they plug in there’s a terrible feedback whine which for a moment I fear is their opening number. But Sonic Death Monkey are no longer what they once were. They are no longer, in fact, Sonic Death Monkey.
“We’re not called Sonic Death Monkey anymore,” Barry says when he gets to the mike. “We might be on the verge of becoming the Futuristics, but we haven’t decided yet. Tonight, though, we’re Backbeat. One two three…WELL SHAKE IT UP BABY…” And they launch into “Twist and Shout,” note perfect, and everyone in the place goes mad.
And Barry can sing.
They play “Route 66” and “Long Tall Sally” and “Money” and “Do You Love Me?” and they encore with “In the Midnight Hour” and “La Bamba.” Every song, in short, is naff and recognizable, and guaranteed to please a crowd of thirty-somethings who think that hip-hop is something their children do in music-and-movement classes. The crowd is so pleased, in fact, that they sit out the songs I have lined up to get them going again after Sonic Death Monkey has frightened and confused them.
“What was all that about?” I ask Barry when he comes up to the deck, sweaty and half dead and pleased with himself.
“Was that all right?”
“It was better than what I was expecting.”
“Laura said we could only play if we learned some proper songs for the evening. But we loved it. The boys are talking about packing up the pop star thing and playing at silver wedding anniversaries.”