The Best a Man Can Get

by John O'Farrell

  ‘Well, nothing will happen unless we get up and do it. Going to the NFT won’t just happen to us, we’d have to go down to the South Bank, buy the tickets, go in and sit down. So do you fancy going to the NFT?’ asked Paul again, adding, ‘or something?’ as an affected nonchalant afterthought.

  ‘Well, let’s just see how the day shakes down.’

  ‘The day can’t shake down! The day is passive! The day is not going to turn up with a taxi and four tickets to see The Maltese fucking Falcon,’ Paul would finally scream. And then Jim would say, All right, keep your hair on, and we’d all tell him to cool it and chill out and we’re just hanging out, all right, and he’d storm off and come back an hour later with all the household groceries, including pretzels, olives and fancy Czech lager, which he knew we all really liked.

  It really wasn’t fair that everyone liked Jim and nobody liked Paul. Paul was a teacher in a tough London school; overworked, underpaid and undervalued. Jim was an idle, privileged Trustafarian, living off inherited money and doing nothing with the huge head start that life had given him. But despite this, I still preferred Jim to Paul, because the rich layabout had a sense of humour and the impoverished public servant did not. Jim made me laugh, and shamefully this was enough to make me forgive him anything. If I had been born in fifteenth-century Wallachia, I probably would have defended Vlad the Impaler on the grounds that he was quite witty on occasion. ‘All right, I grant you, he does impale quite a lot of peasants, but you can’t help liking the bloke. I mean, getting the carpenter who makes his sharpened stakes to do one extra spike “as a surprise for someone” and then impaling him on it, OK, you could argue it was a bit mean, but hats off, it was a great gag.’

  Within the complex dynamics of the household was the added musical alliance between Jim and me. We had quite similar tastes in music, although he had this slightly irritating affectation that he liked jazz. I had no time for jazz. Music is a journey; jazz is getting lost. Jim’s laziness hadn’t prevented him from becoming a rather accomplished guitar player, and the two of us had combined to form our very own super-group, pooled from the enormous wealth of musical talent that was available to us within the four walls of the top flat, 140 Balham High Road, London SW12.

  One day, Jim had said, a new rock pilgrimage would be added to the hallowed destinations of Graceland and the Cavern. Rocks fans will flock to this legendary address and stop in quiet contemplation, for it was here, in those early days, that two musicians struggled against the odds to create what became known the world over as ‘the sound of Balham’.

  It was, of course, many years since I had truly believed I was ever going to make it as a pop star. Two things are certain in the world of rock music. One is that image is more important than talent, and the other is that in the year 2525 they will re-release the single ‘In the Year 2525’. I was now approaching my mid-thirties and my girth was expanding as fast as my hair was receding. It was hard to imagine anyone who looked less like Kylie Minogue. I knew the pop industry wouldn’t be interested in a fat old dad like me, so Jim and I recorded songs together just for the fun of it. There was no sense in which we hoped our tracks would ever be released as singles; they were laid down for our own amusement, just for fun. Although, since I had some reasonable recording equipment, I thought we might as well post them off to the odd record company occasionally just for the hell of it. I mean, I knew they were never going to offer us a contract, but there was nothing to lose by sending them off for a laugh. In fact, only that morning a tape had been returned with a note that it wasn’t the sort of thing that particular label was looking for at the moment, and that was fine, that was what we expected. Bastards.

  Although my ambition had faded I still had a recurring daydream that I was sitting at my keyboard one day when I suddenly got a phone call from some top A & R man.

  ‘Is that Michael Adams, the Michael Adams, composer of the Cheesey Dunkers jingle?’ he says.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I work for EMI, and I think that riff has all the makings of a number-one hit. If we could just change the lyrics from that Chinaman saying, “Very cheesey if you please-ee,” to a young girl singing, “I want to feel your sex in my sex; right now, give me sex,” I think we’ve got an instant smash, no mistake.’

  I knew it looked like a long shot, but I wasn’t able to completely give up hope, so I wrote the songs and Jim wrote the lyrics and we recorded them in my bedroom and the history of rock and roll remained unchanged. Particularly since the task of getting down to recording our definitive demo tape kept getting put back by more important things, like watching daytime television or changing the screen saver on Jim’s laptop. I had managed to team up with someone who was even less motivated than I was. Jim wasn’t driven, he was parked.

  However, the night before we had agreed that today we would lay down our two new songs, so at the end of the day we finally set about doing a day’s work. While Jim tuned his guitar, I did my best to convert my room from a bedroom to a recording studio, picking up socks, turning on amplifiers, folding up the sofa bed, adjusting microphone stands.

  ‘What are you called?’ said Simon, hovering by my doorway, hoping he might be allowed to jump on board.

  ‘We haven’t really settled on a name yet,’ said Jim. ‘Have you got any ideas?’

  Alarm bells went off in my head. Oh no, I thought, we’re heading towards that debate again: the eternal what-shall-we-call-our-band? discussion. It’s one of those perilous lobster-pot conversations that you must never, ever get into. For once you have ventured in there is no way out again; the fatal words ‘What shall we call our band?’ when said in this order actually form an incredible magic spell that can make a whole afternoon disappear.

  ‘Oh come on,’ I said, ‘let’s get this demo recorded. Once we start talking about band names we’ll never get any work done.’

  There was a general nodding and responsible acceptance of my suggestion, then Jim, who was just writing the label for the DAT, chipped in, ‘OK, but what shall I put on the label in the meantime?’

  ‘Well, I still quite like the Extractors.’

  ‘The Extractors? No, it sounds too punky. Like the Vibrators or the Stranglers.’

  ‘Ah ah ah,’ I said, laughing. ‘No way. We’re not getting into this again. Just put our surnames, for the time being. Adams and Oates.’

  ‘Sounds like Hall and Oates,’ said Paul, who had wandered in trying to pretend he wasn’t fascinated by the process of laying down our first single.

  ‘People will think, Oh, wow! Oates has split up with Hall and got a new partner, and then they’ll realize that it’s a different Oates and chuck the tape in the bin.’

  ‘All right, our first names then: Michael and Jimmy.’

  ‘Sounds like two of the Osmonds.’

  ‘Stop, stop. We’re getting into that conversation again.’

  Everyone agreed and I switched on the gear and plugged in Jim’s guitar. There was a brief silence while the equipment was firing up and, as an afterthought, I added, ‘Just put band untitled for the time being.’ The moment I said it I knew it was a mistake. I closed my eyes in weary anticipation.

  ‘Band Untitled. I quite like that,’ said Jim. There was a murmur of agreement around the room and I tried to say nothing, but it was impossible.

  ‘No. I meant put “band untitled”, meaning our band doesn’t have a name yet, not here’s a demo from a new group called Band Untitled.’

  ‘Band Untitled. It’s got a ring to it, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s catchy, isn’t it.’

  I had to nip this in the bud. ‘I’m sorry, but there is no way that we are calling ourselves Band Untitled. It’s the worst name I’ve ever heard.’

  Simon had a worse one.

  ‘What about Plus Support?’ he said.

  There was a groan from Jim and me who, as experienced musos, knew that every band in the world had at one time or another thought that it would be incredibly wacky and or
iginal to call themselves Plus Support.

  Simon’s enthusiasm was undimmed. ‘Because, you see, whenever you see a poster for a gig, it already has your name on it. You could turn up and tell the organizers, We’re Plus Support. See, our name’s on the poster!’

  ‘Yeah, and when you get famous the posters will say Plus Support plus support,’ said Paul, ‘and you’d have to play twice.’ He laughed.

  Throughout all this Jim and I were shaking our heads like wise old sages.

  ‘Yeah, but what if you develop any sort of fan base?’ Jim butted in. ‘They see “Plus Support” on the poster and go along to see you, only to find that not only have you apparently changed all your songs, but also every single member of the band has moved on. Either that or they see your name on the poster and presume it’s not Plus Support, but some other band plus support. It’s the worst possible name for a band in the history of rock music ever.’

  ‘Apart from Chicory Tip,’ I volunteered.

  ‘Oh yeah. Apart from Chicory Tip.’

  I think it was then that I realized we were deep into the conversation of no return. I had been unable to prevent it. Like one of the good fairies in Sleeping Beauty, I had shouted and forewarned in vain as they walked trancelike towards the spindle.

  ‘Band names are easy,’ said Jim, despite all the evidence. ‘Just read something out of the paper.’

  ‘Euro-commissioners renew demands for GATT inquiry.’

  ‘Hmm, catchy!’

  ‘Just pick out a phrase.’

  ‘Nordic Biker Feud.’

  ‘I like it.’

  ‘Sounds like some God-awful heavy-metal outfit. Like Viking Blitzkrieg or Titan’s Anvil.’

  ‘The Beatles,’ announced Simon cheerfully.

  ‘What?’ said the rest of the room in disbelief.

  ‘You said just read something out of the paper. There’s an article here about the Beatles.’

  ‘Why don’t you call yourselves Aardvark, then you’ll be the very first entry in the NME Book of Rock,’ suggested the English teacher.

  ‘Or Al,’ said Simon, ‘just to be doubly sure.’

  ‘Al? People will keep ringing us to order a cab.’

  ‘What about the Acid Test?’

  ‘Oh God, no,’ I said. ‘It reminds me of that crappy band the Truth Test who used to support us in Godalming. They’ve still got my bloody mike stand.’

  Then the conversation moved on to the next stage, as it always did – the quick-fire round when hundreds of names were put up and knocked down in record time.

  ‘The Smell of Red.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Elite Republican Guard.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bigger Than Jesus.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Charlie Don’t Surf.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come Dancing.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Buster Hymen and the Penetrations.’

  ‘No, Simon.’

  ‘Dead on Arrival.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who’s Billy Shears?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Things Fall Apart.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Caution: May Contain Nuts.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Let Fish Swim.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The Detritus Twins.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Big Bird.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The Man Whose Head Expanded.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Little Fat Belgian Bastards.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The Sound of Music.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Semi-detached.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mind the Gap.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The Rest.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The Carpet Mites.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Chain Gang.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ayatollah and the Shi’ites.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The Snakepit Strollers.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Twenty-four Minutes From Tulse Hill.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, I mean, Ow! I just got a splinter off this chair.’

  After a while your brain becomes numb from continually searching for an original combination of two or three syllables, and through mental exhaustion you end up just mumbling incomprehensible noises. ‘The blub-blub-blah-blahs.’

  ‘What about something sort of royal?’

  ‘They’ve all been done. There’s been Queen, King, Prince, Princess; there’s only the Duchess of Kent left. You can’t name a cutting-edge rock band after some posh bird whose only claim to fame is getting free tickets to Wimbledon.’

  ‘I know,’ said Simon excitedly, unjustifiably getting our hopes up, ‘what about Hey!’

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘No, not Hey? Not Hey with a question mark. Hey! with an exclamation mark. You know, like Wham! Sort of attention grabbing.’

  Nobody ever actually took the trouble to reject this idea; it was too mediocre a suggestion to warrant a response. Instead it was simply ignored to death, and Simon looked rather hurt when he realized that everyone had just carried on suggesting other names without even bothering to acknowledge his. For another hour or so, endless suggestions were released like clay pigeons, and then blown to smithereens by one of us. We rejected, the Scuds, Go to Jail, Rocktober and unsurprisingly St Joan and the Heavy Heavy Dandruff Conspiracy. Until, with a certain gravitas that comes from knowing you finally have the right answer, Jim said, ‘Lust for Life.’

  ‘Lust for Life,’ I repeated with impressed contemplation.

  ‘It’s an Iggy Pop track,’ said Paul.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And a film about Van Gogh.’

  ‘I know’

  Paul pompously put up these objections only to be disappointed to learn they were not objections. We said it a few more times and agreed that Lust for Life it was. Two and a half hours it had taken us, but finally we could do some work. I switched on the mike and adopted the persona of the announcer at the Hollywood Bowl.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, tonight playing the first gig of their sell-out US tour; they’re number one all over the world, all the way from Balham, England, it’s Lust for Life.’

  Jim and Simon applauded and whistled, and then Simon held up his cigarette lighter. Paul struck a posture of unimpressed aloofness by just sitting there and reading Time Out.

  ‘Anyone fancy going to a gig tomorrow night?’ he said rather cryptically.

  ‘Why, who’s playing?’

  ‘I was thinking of going to the Half Moon in Putney.’ He waved the advert under our noses. ‘There’s a new band playing called Lust for Life.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Fucking bunch of plagiarists!’ spat Jim. ‘They’ve nicked our fucking name!’

  No music was recorded that night. At one point I did say, ‘Come on, guys, let’s work,’ but that was rejected as sounding too much like Men at Work. The worst moment had been halfway through the debate when my mobile had rung and I’d answered it to find Catherine on the other end.

  ‘What do you think of the name India?’ she’d said.

  ‘There’s already a band called India,’ I’d replied, confused. And then I’d tried to repeat the sentence, emphasizing the word ‘band’ as if to say, Well, there’s already a band called India, but that’s not to say you couldn’t call a baby India. It didn’t really matter because I knew the name suggestion was just an excuse to ring and make the first contact after our row.

  She made me miss home. My flatmates had been so infuriating all day that now I wanted to go back to Catherine again. With Paul’s stupid tantrums about the way Jim made tea or the way I didn’t cook dinner, Simon’s tedious questions and Jim’s impossible procrastination and a whole evening spent discussing bloody band names again, they were driving me mad. And t
hen a terrible realization struck me. It was something I hadn’t foreseen when I’d run away from my family to get a bit of sanity: that the surrogate family I’d adopted were just as unbearable as any other. That every time I got to that far-off field I would look back at where I’d just come from and it would suddenly seem far greener than when I’d left it. That wherever I was in my life I would always want to be somewhere else. That I had gone to all this trouble, deceived the woman I loved and got myself into debt, only to find that the things which annoyed and oppressed me followed me around. It wasn’t Catherine or the children that were the problem. It wasn’t even Jim, Paul and Simon. It was me.

  chapter five

  it’s good to talk

  I am fifteen years old and standing outside a theatre close to Piccadilly Circus. Sixty other fifth formers have just slunk off two coaches to see Hamlet by William Shakespeare. They look awkward and self-conscious in their jackets and ties. They have all given my English teacher a cheque from their parents, but they haven’t had to pay full price because my mother works at the theatre and can get us all discounted tickets. Well, that’s what I’d imagined and had carelessly told my English teacher. Actually, my mother only had a part-time job at the theatre, cleaning costumes, and couldn’t get us a discount at all. And so no tickets were ever booked.

  I’d wanted to be helpful. When he had said the name of the theatre, I’d recognized it, put up my hand and told him about Mum, and he had said, half joking, ‘Well, maybe she could get us all discounted tickets, Michael.’ And I’d said I was sure she could, and it had just snowballed from there. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything in the weeks before. I didn’t want to disappoint him, I suppose. I really liked Mr Stannard, and he seemed to like me. I didn’t tell him when he said, ‘Your mother has definitely booked these tickets, hasn’t she?’ That probably would have been a good time to tell him. I didn’t tell him as he was giving out the letters about the school trip for everyone to take home to their parents. And when he was doing a list of who was and wasn’t going to see Hamlet, I didn’t tell him that actually none of us were. I didn’t even tell him as everyone clambered onto the coaches.

  The two coach drivers took turns to overtake each other on the dual carriageway and all the children cheered. All the kids except me. Only I knew that we were all completely wasting our time and that it was all my fault and that my dreadful secret would soon be exposed. But still I didn’t say anything. When all sixty-four of us were standing in the foyer of the theatre and Mr Stannard was arguing with the lady in the ticket office and he turned to me and said, ‘Michael, you said your mother had definitely booked sixty-four tickets?’ I did tell him then. I adopted the air of someone who had meant to give him a message but had allowed it to completely slip my mind. ‘Oh, that’s right. Oh, I meant to say . . . um . . . she’s not entitled to a discount so I didn’t get her to book any.’