The ager caught Walter Proud’s eye and waved vaguely. The producer sat back with satisfaction at having registered his identity and looked round for others to impress.
But the boppers of the Leaky Bucket manifested no interest in the media mogul; they were far too involved in their partners on the dance floor. This space was so small that, though most of Mixed Bathing’s music was up-tempo, the only possible dance was a close-contact pelvic wiggle. The dancers had all been there drinking for some time and their only interests were carnal. Their plans for the rest of the evening appeared to be to dance a bit more and then get their partners as quickly as possible on to beds, sofas or back seats of cars (according to domestic circumstances).
It was on to this schedule that Lennie Barber was imposed. Not ideal circumstances. Introducing cabaret (particularly comedy) into an evening’s entertainment is a difficult skill to master, but a comedian starts at a disadvantage if his appearance interferes with the customers’ eating, conversation or (in this case) foreplay. There was an old threat that used to be used by comperes of nude girlie shows to rowdy audiences, ‘If you don’t keep quiet, I’ll bring the comic back on again,’ and it was with this kind of resentment that Lennie Barber’s appearance was greeted.
Mixed Bathing concluded another of their musical demolition jobs and, while the room still shuddered in the shock-waves, the manager came to the microphone. After blowing into it and tapping it to see that it was working, he made an announcement. Over the grumbling of the couples who had to prise themselves apart, the noisy exit of the group and the vocal rush to the bar, the words ‘cabaret’, ‘great old comedian’ and ‘Barber’ could be heard by those who were trying hard. Without further ceremony, Lennie Barber came to the microphone.
He was wearing a dark blue dinner jacket with satin lapels and a light blue frilled shirt. A large navy velvet butterfly had settled on his throat. The image seemed wrong, an old mutton joint dressed as a Crown of Lamb. It gave no impression of the sharpness of his wit; he was just another gift-wrapped entertainer, with all the individuality of a stereo music centre.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ he bawled over the chaos. A diluted spotlight picked him out in the prevailing red murk. ‘I must say, before tonight I had never been to Sutton, but I’d heard about it. And I still came. Actually, as I came into the club tonight, I said to the doorman, I hear that Sutton is the arsehole of the world. Oh, says the doorman, and you’re just passing through?
‘Actually, I got here a bit early, had some time to kill. Feeling a bit randy I was. Met this old girl in the street. I said, hey, darling, where’s the night life of Sutton? She said, I am.
‘Mind you, the tarts here are nothing. Best tarts I know are in Manchester. Up there they crossed a tart with a gorilla. Got one who swings from lampposts and does it for peanuts.
‘Talking of tarts, bloke went to a prostitute and he said, look, I’m not going to pay you unless you guarantee that you’re going to give me a dose of clap. It’s all right, says the prostitute, you’re bound to get it — why, though? Are you trying to get even with your wife? No, says the bloke, but if she catches it, the milkman will catch it, which means that Mrs. Brown at Number 47 will catch it, which means that the grocer will catch it, which means that girl in the off license will catch it, which means Fred Smith’ll catch it — he’s the one I’m trying to get even with. .’
It was rapidly becoming apparent that, like most comedians, Lennie Barber kept a special blue act for the clubs. It was also apparent to Charles that the style suited him as badly as the costume. The individuality was gone and Lennie Barber was reduced to a stereotype of a club comedian.
But he was getting through to the audience. A few had left for carnal purposes as soon as he came on and his first few lines were almost drowned in catcalls and conversation, but he persevered, slamming his jokes down with sledgehammer subtlety, cowing the audience into submission with the force of his personality. That certainly came through, even with the inappropriate image and unwholesome material. Charles felt again what he had in Hunstanton, not that he was watching the greatest act in the world, but that the man’s potential was enormous. In the most uncongenial of circumstances, you had to watch him.
From being cowed, the audience began to be amused. The material remained unattractive, tales of sex and scatology, but it seemed to be what they wanted. Each punch line was greeted with the right shout of shocked laughter. More and more faces turned to the spotlit figure, sweaty faces with mouths slightly open in anticipation of the next crudity.
And, as he won the audience, Lennie Barber began to woo them, to force them to his rhythm rather than bending himself to theirs. He slowed down, stopped pile-driving his jokes, started to use silence and work with his face. Now that he had their attention, he let the audience see his full range of expression. His eyes popped lasciviously in the character of young men, fluttered with false sophistication for tarts, bleared rheumily as impotent dodderers and closed in obscene ecstasy for images of consummation.
But as his spell began to work, he started to dilute his material. Now that the audience was watching him, it no longer needed the hook of dirty words. His jokes became more whimsical, more attractive. Charles began to relax. He was in the presence of a master. Soon all the props of stereotype would be dropped and they would be watching the real Lennie Barber.
But the act never reached that point. In one of the pauses that the comedian was now daring to leave longer and longer, there was a harsh commotion from the bar. Voices were raised in anger. There was a sound of breaking glass.
Charles turned with the rest of the audience to see thrashing figures in the gloom. From the shimmer of their garments they seemed to be members of Mixed Bathing. Only two were actually fighting, while the rest of the group struggled to prise them apart.
There was a grunt, a curtailed scream and a guttural sound. As the overhead lights were switched on with sudden blinking intensity, Charles saw the silver-vested vocalist/guitarist back away from the drummer, who held a broken bottle. The vocalist turned to show the waterfall of blood that was his face, before he toppled forward onto the floor.
CHAPTER NINE
FEED: Do you talk to your wife while you are making love?
COMIC: Only if she telephones.
Mixed Bathing’s vocalist was not seriously hurt. In the sense that there was no damage to anything except his looks. He would go round for the rest of his life marked like a hockey ball and maybe he would have less success with pop-crazed teenage girls, but he was not seriously hurt.
The police had been called and, after taking brief statements from some of those present, they left with the drummer. The vocalist went off in an ambulance. Apparently the antagonism between them had been of long standing, brought to a head by an argument over a girl.
Most of the club’s clientele had left by the time the police arrived. Certainly there was no hope of recapturing the evening’s atmosphere, either the mounting eroticism of the dancing or the spell created by Lennie Barber. Anyway, it was after twelve when the fight happened and the club closed at one.
But people lingered and the manager didn’t take a lot of persuading to keep the bar open for Walter Proud’s party, Miffy Turtle, Chox Morton and a couple of the members of Mixed Bathing. Everyone needed a drink after the shock.
‘Trouble was,’ said Mixed Bathing’s rhythm guitarist, ‘they didn’t agree about the music neither. Nick always said we wanted really to get into punk in a big way and Phil thought we ought to appeal to a more teenybopper, bubble-gum market.’