“You knew what I was like when I was eighteen. You don’t know what I’m like now, bad luck.” Where did that ‘bad luck’—childish, taunting, petulant—come from? Oh, I know where, really. It came from straight out of 1973.
“He’s much tidier than me,” says Laura, simply and gravely. I’ve heard this sentence about ten times, with exactly the same intonation, ever since I was forced to bring Laura here for the first time.
“Oh, he’s a good lad, really. I just wish he’d sort himself out.”
“He will.” And they both look at me fondly. So, yes, I’ve been rubbished and patronized and worried over, but there’s a glow in the kitchen now, genuine three-way affection, where previously there might have been simply mutual antagonism, ending with my mum’s tears and me slamming the door. I do prefer it this way, really; I’m happy Laura’s here.
Thirty-two
Fly posters. I’m for them. The only creative idea I have ever had in my life was for an exhibition of fly poster photographs. It would take two or three decades to get enough stuff, but it would look really good when it was finished. There are important historical documents on the window of the boarded-up shop opposite mine: posters advertising a Frank Bruno fight, and an Anti-Nazi rally, and the new Prince single, and a West Indian comedian, and loads of gigs, and in a couple of weeks they will be gone, covered over by the shifting sands of time, or at least, an advert for the new U2 album. You get a sense of the spirit of the age, right? (I’ll let you into a secret: I actually started on the project. In 1988 I took about three pictures on my Instamatic of an empty shop on the Holloway Road, but then they let the shop, and I kind of lost enthusiasm. The photos came out OK—OKish, anyway—but no one’s going to let you exhibit three photos, are they?)
Anyway, every now and then I test myself: I stare at the shop-front to make sure that I’ve heard of the bands with gigs coming up, but the sad truth is that I’m losing touch. I used to know everyone, every single name, however stupid, whatever the size of the venue the band was playing. And then, three or four years ago, when I stopped devouring every single word in the music papers, I began to notice that I no longer recognized the names playing some of the pubs and smaller clubs; last year, there were a couple of bands playing at the Forum who meant absolutely nothing to me. The Forum! A fifteen-hundred-capacity venue! One thousand five hundred people going to see a band I’d never heard of! The first time it happened I was depressed for the entire evening, probably because I made the mistake of confessing my ignorance to Dick and Barry. (Barry almost exploded with derision; Dick stared into his drink, too embarrassed for me even to meet my eye.)
Anyway, again. I’m doing my spot-check (Prince is there, at least, so I don’t score nul points—one day I’m going to score nul points, and then I’ll hang myself) and I notice a familiar-looking poster. “by popular demand!” it says. “the return of the GROUCHO club!” And then, underneath, “every friday from 20TH july, the dog and pheasant.” I stand there looking at it for ages, with my mouth open. It’s the same size and color as ours used to be, and they’ve even had the cheek to copy our design and our logo—the Groucho Marx glasses and moustache in the second ‘o’ of ‘Groucho,’ and the cigar coming out of the bumcrack (that’s probably not the correct technical term, but that’s what we used to call it) in the ‘b’ at the end of ‘club.’
On our old posters, there used to be a line at the bottom listing the type of music I played; I used to stick the name of the brilliant, gifted DJ at the end, in the doomed hope of creating a cult following for him. You can’t see the bottom of this one because some band has plastered a load of little flyers over it; so I peel them off, and there it is: ‘STAX ATLANTIC MOTOWN R&B SKA MERSEYBEAT AND THE OCCASIONAL MADONNA SINGLE—DANCE MUSIC FOR OLD PEOPLE—DJ ROB FLEMING.’ It’s nice to see I’m still doing it after all these years.
What’s going on? There are only three possibilities, really: a) this poster has been there since 1986, and fly poster archaeologists have just discovered it; b) I decided to restart the club, got the posters done, put them up, and then suffered a pretty comprehensive attack of amnesia; c) someone else has decided to restart the club for me. I reckon that explanation ‘c’ is the best bet, and go home to wait for Laura.
“It’s a late birthday present. I had the idea when I was living with Ray, and it was such a good one that I was really annoyed that we weren’t together anymore. Maybe that’s why I came back. Are you pleased?” she says. She’s been out with a couple of people for a drink after work, and she’s a bit squiffy.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but I am pleased. Nervous and daunted—all those records to dig out, all that equipment to get hold of—but pleased. Thrilled, really.
“You had no right,” I tell her. “Supposing … ” What?
“Supposing I was doing something that couldn’t be canceled?”
“What do you ever do that can’t be canceled?”
“That’s not the point.” I don’t know why I have to be like this, all stern and sulky and what-business-is-it-of-yours. I should be bursting into tears of love and gratitude, not sulking.
She sighs, slumps back on the sofa, and kicks her shoes off.
“Well, tough. You’re doing it.”
“Maybe.”
One day, when something like this happens, I’m just going to go, thanks, that’s great, how thoughtful, I’m really looking forward to it. Not yet, though.
“You know we’re doing a set in the middle?” says Barry.
“Like fuck you are.”
“Laura said we could. If I helped out with the posters and all that.”
“Jesus. You’re not going to take her up on it?”
“ ’Course we are.”
“I’ll give you ten percent of the door if you don’t play.”
“We’re getting that anyway.”
“What’s she fucking playing at? OK, twenty percent.”
“No. We need the gig.”
“One hundred and ten percent. That’s my final offer.”
He laughs.
“I’m not kidding. If we get one hundred people paying a fiver a throw, I’ll give you five hundred and fifty pounds. That’s how much it means to me not to hear you play.”
“We’re not as bad as you think, Rob.”
“You couldn’t be. Look, Barry. There’s going to be people from Laura’s work there, people who own dogs and babies and Tina Turner albums. How are you going to cope with them?”
“How are they going to cope with us, more like. We’re not called Barrytown anymore, by the way. They got sick of the Barry/Barrytown thing. We’re called SDM. Sonic Death Monkey.”
“ ‘Sonic Death Monkey.’ ”
“What do you think? Dick likes it.”
“Barry, you’re over thirty years old. You owe it to yourself and to your friends and to your mum and dad not to sing in a group called Sonic Death Monkey.”
“I owe it to myself to go out on the edge, Rob, and this group really does go out on the edge. Over it, in fact.”
“You’ll be going fucking right over it if you come anywhere near me next Friday night.”
“That’s what we want. Reaction. And if Laura’s bourgeois lawyer friends can’t take it, then fuck ’em. Let ’em riot, we can handle it. We’ll be ready.” He gives what he fondly imagines to be a demonic, drug-crazed chuckle.
Some people would relish all this. They’d make an anecdote out of it, they’d be getting the phrasing right in their heads even as the pub was being torn apart, even as weeping lawyers with bleeding eardrums were heading for the exits. I am not one of those people. I just gather it all up into a hard ball of nervous anxiety and put it in my gut, somewhere between the belly button and the arsehole, for safe keeping. Even Laura doesn’t seem to be that worried.
“It’s only the first one. And I’ve told them they can’t go on for longer than half an hour. And OK, you might lose a couple of my friends, but they won’t be able to get baby-sitters every week, anyway.”