The film’s OK, better than I thought it would be—it’s about this woman who’s sent off to live with this guy, and he’s already got loads of wives, so it’s about how he gets on with her rivals, and it all goes horribly wrong. Of course. But Penny’s got one of these special film critic pens that have a light in the end of them (even though she’s not a film critic, just a BBC radio journalist) and people keep looking round at her and nudging each other, and I feel a bit of a berk sitting there with her. (I have to say, although it is ungallant, that she looks funny, anyway, even without the special film critic pen: she always was a girl for sensible clothes, but what she’s wearing tonight—a big floral dress, a beige raincoat—pushes sensible over the edge toward death. “What’s that cool guy in the leather jacket doing with Virginia Bottomley’s elder sister?” the audience is thinking. Probably.)
We go to this Italian place she knows, and they know her, too, and they do vulgar things with the pepper grinder that seem to amuse her. It’s often the way that people who take their work seriously laugh at stupid jokes; it’s as if they are under-humored and, as a consequence, suffer from premature laugh-ejaculation. But she’s OK, really. She’s a good sort, a good sport, and it’s easy to talk about Chris Thomson and knobbing. I just launch into it, with no real explanation.
I try to tell the story in a lighthearted, self-deprecatory way (it’s about me, not him and her), but she’s appalled, really disgusted: she puts her knife and fork down and looks away, and I can see that she’s close to tears.
“Bastard,” she says. “I wish you hadn’t told me that.”
“I’m sorry. I just thought, you know, long time ago and all that.”
“Well, it obviously doesn’t seem that long ago to you.”
Fair point.
“No. But I just thought I was weird.”
“Why this sudden need to tell me about it, anyway?”
I shrug. “Dunno. Just … ”
And then I show her that, on the contrary, I do know: I tell her about Laura and Ian (although I don’t tell her about Marie or money or abortions or pain-in-the-arse Rosie) and about Charlie, maybe more about Charlie than she wants to know; and I try to explain to her that I feel like the Rejection Man, and that Charlie wanted to sleep with Marco and not me, and Laura wanted to sleep with Ian and not me, and Alison Ashworth, even all those years ago, wanted to snog with Kevin Bannister and not me (although I do share with her my recent discovery about the invincibility of fate), and that as she, Penny, wanted to sleep with Chris Thomson and not me, perhaps she would be able to help me understand why it kept happening, why I was apparently doomed to be left.
And she tells me, with great force, with venom, frankly speaking, about what she remembers: that she was mad about me, that she wanted to sleep with me, one day, but not when she was sixteen, and that when I packed her in—“When you packed me in,” she repeats, furiously, “because I was, to use your charming expression, ‘tight,’ I cried and cried, and I hated you. And then that little shitbag asked me out, and I was too tired to fight him off, and it wasn’t rape, because I said OK, but it wasn’t far off. And I didn’t have sex with anyone else until after university because I hated it so much. And now you want to have a chat about rejection. Well, fuck you, Rob.”
So that’s another one I don’t have to worry about. I should have done this years ago.
Eighteen
Sellotaped to the inside of the shop door is a handwritten notice, yellowed and faded with age. It reads as follows:
HIP YOUNG SINGERS WANTED (BASS, DRUMS GUITAR) FOR NEW BAND. MUST BE INTO REM, PRIMAL SCREAM, FANCLUB ETC. CONTACT BARRY IN THE SHOP.
The advertisement used to end with the intimidating postscript ‘no slackers please,’ but after a disappointing response during the first couple of years of the recruitment drive, Barry decided that slackers were welcome after all, to no noticeable effect; perhaps they couldn’t get it together to walk from the door to the counter. A while back, a guy with a set of drums made inquiries, and though this minimalist vocal/drums two-piece did rehearse a few times (no tapes survive, sadly), Barry eventually and perhaps wisely decided that he needed a fuller sound.
Since then, though, nothing … until today. Dick sees him first, he nudges me, and we watch fascinated as this guy stares at the notice, although when he turns round to see which of us might be Barry, we quickly get on with what we were doing. He’s neither hip, nor young—he looks more like a Status Quo roadie than a Smash Hits cover star hopeful. He has long, lank dark hair tied back in a ponytail and a stomach that has wriggled over his belt to give itself a bit more room. Eventually he comes up to the counter and gestures back toward the door.
“Is this Barry geezer around?”
“I’ll get him for you.”
I go into the stockroom, where Barry is having a lie-down.
“Oi, Barry. There’s someone come to see you about your ad.”
“What ad?”
“For the band.”
He opens his eyes and looks at me. “Fuck off.”
“Seriously. He wants to talk to you.”
He gets to his feet and walks through to the shop.
“Yeah?”
“You put that ad up?”
“That’s right.”
“What can you play?”
“Nothing.” Barry’s all-consuming desire to play at Madison Square Garden has never driven him to do anything as mundane as learn an instrument.
“But you can sing, right?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re looking for a singer.”
“What sort of stuff are you into?”
“Yeah, the kind of stuff you, you know, mentioned. But we want to be a bit more experimental than that. We want to retain our pop sensibilities, but kind of stretch them a bit.”
God help us.
“Sounds great.”
“We haven’t got any gigs or anything. We’ve only just got together. For a laugh, like. But we’ll see how we go, yeah?”
“Fine.”
The Quo roadie jots down an address, shakes Barry’s hand, and leaves. Dick and I gape at his back view, just in case he self-combusts, or disappears, or sprouts angel’s wings; Barry just tucks the address into his jeans pocket and looks for a record to put on, as if what has just happened—a mysterious stranger walking in and granting him one of his dearest wishes—were not the kind of little miracle that most of us wait for in vain.
“What?” he says. “What’s up with you two? It’s just a poxy little garage band. Nothing special.”
Jackie lives in Pinner, not far from where we grew up, with my friend Phil, of course. When I call her, she knows who I am straightaway, presumably because I’m the only Other Man in her whole life, and at first she sounds guarded, suspicious, as if I want to go through the whole thing again. I tell her that my mum and dad are OK, that I have my own shop, that I’m not married and have no children, at which point the suspicion turns to sympathy, and maybe a touch of guilt (Is this my fault? you can hear her thinking. Did his love life just stop dead in 1975, when I got back together with Phil?); she tells me that they have two children and a small house, that they both work, and that she never went to college, just as she feared she wouldn’t. To end the brief silence that occurs after this resume, she invites me to their house for supper, and in the brief silence that occurs after the invitation, I accept.
Jackie has gray streaks in her hair but otherwise still looks pretty and friendly and sensible and all the other things she used to be; I kiss her and offer Phil my hand. Phil is now a man, with a moustache and shirtsleeves and a bald patch and a loosened tie, but he makes a big show of pausing before he returns the gesture—he wants me to realize that this is a symbolic moment, that he is forgiving me for my misdemeanors of all those years ago. Jesus, I think, it’s supposed to be elephants that never forget, not British Telecom customer service people. But then, what am I doing here, if not to meddle around with things that most people would have forgotten about years ago?