Sick On You Page 9
His shining moment with Love Affair was when they played a mid-afternoon show at Holloway Prison for Women. There’s a photo of them traipsing in and smiling, huge stone walls behind them, with guitars in hand, wherein Eunan was instructed to avert his gaze and stare at the wall so as to fool their adoring public into thinking he was an original member. There it is, in the Daily Express: four grinning dorks, the other one staring at a wall. What a joke.*
And here we are, trying to turn him into a six-stringed storm trooper.
We rehearse the boy, shake him up, slap him into shape, put him through jackboot camp. Slowly, he begins to repay us for our lack of confidence. He works hard to get up to speed, which is good because the Café gig looms.
VIII
A Monday night in November, Lou and I are sprawled on the couch, Ewen is sunk into the armchair, and all six of our eyes are glued to Colditz on the Beeb. Robert Wagner, David McCallum, huge greatcoats and coarse wool scarves, furtive looks, scheming schemes, trying every week to thwart the dastardly Nazis and get out of this castle prison. The three of us are locked into the plot, hanging on every word, every meaningful glance, every nuance involved in the positioning and repositioning of the Kommandant’s monocle.
A knock on the door intrudes upon our evening. And not just a knock, a loud knock. And not three knocks as per the polite norm, but five knocks of ever-increasing force and volume. I am closest and so reluctantly I uncoil myself from the couch and head for the door, never taking my eyes off the TV screen. Before I can traverse the twelve feet or so to the door, the knocking escalates to pounding and doesn’t stop at five, but continues to an unheard of eight.
I open the door and a huge hand shoots out and grabs me by the throat, shoving me backward until my head smashes into the wall behind me. Half-a-dozen hulks of men burst through the door behind the hand that is crushing my throat, and following them are a dozen more. Some carry clubs and cricket bats, some have bottles and knives; all are yelling and swearing. They are baying for blood, and it turns out that the blood they are baying for courses through my veins. At least, that which isn’t coursing down the wall behind me from the cut on my head.
All is a terrifying, painful blur. A hall lamp smashes to the floor. I am punched in the face and stomach. Thankfully, the foyer is a small, confined space, so the Neanderthals are prevented from getting at me all at once. Only the thugs at the front can effectively get their kicks and punches in. Through the white hurt and terror of the beating I can hear them screaming out things like “fucking bastard” and “fucking poofter” and “kill the fucker.” This does not bode well for a peaceful outcome.
Existing, as I momentarily do, in the gouged eye of the storm, one thought occurs clearly. I’m about to be dead. I don’t understand why. I don’t know who these murderers are, but I bet some of them have tankards with their names on them.
I am choking, can’t grab a breath, can’t peel this ape’s calloused mitt from around my throat, and punches are raining into my ribs. I am kicking out, trying to knee the brutes, but I’m a goner and I know it. And then a bugle sounds, and from a most unexpected source the cavalry arrives.
From nowhere, well, actually from the armchair, a denim dervish intervenes. Yelling and clawing his way into the fray, Ewen, of all the soya-sucking, ban-the-bomb, joss-stick-burning, love-beads-wearing tossers, fights until he has forced his way into this heart of darkness and stands, his back to my chest, between me and the bloodthirsty mob. But this is a Ewen nobody has seen before. He is forceful, dynamic, commanding, and insistent—as steely calm as Clint Eastwood and loud as Mussolini.
“Stop! Everybody, stop it! What’s going on?”
The mob yells all at once. Ewen holds up his hands, palms outward. “Stop it. Just stop. What’s going on here, in my home?”
Behind him I’m bleeding, gasping for air, and inwardly praying that Ewen stays right where he is for the rest of time. Somewhere in my peripheral, off to the right, I see Lou. He is no longer watching Colditz.
The thugs at the front snarl.
“He’s a fucking bastard.”
“Give us the cunt.”
“Fucking poofter.”
“Kill the bastard.”
Despite the bad press, Ewen continues his inquiry. “What? What’s going on? What did Andrew do?”
“He’s fucking taken liberties with Julie, that’s what he fucking did.”
The rest of the choir sing backing vocals to the tune of, “Yeah, the fucking bastard.”
“He did what? Andrew, what’s going on?” Ewen turns to me and the mob closes in again. He turns right back around. “Get back. We’re not going to do this. In fact, get out of this house.” The mighty Ewen then pushes the first few of them in the chest and shoves them out through the door. But that’s as far as they go. They stay on the front step, swearing and snarling. Ewen then turns his attentions to me. “Andrew, what’s this all about? What’s this stuff about Julie?”
“Who’s Julie?” I splutter through a mouthful of blood.
This sets them off again, and in they surge with their poofters and bastards and knuckles. Ewen again holds them back. I yell, “I don’t know who Julie is and I’ve never taken liberties with anybody in my life. What the hell does that mean, anyway?”
Julie, it turns out, is the leftover tart from the party. Seems that when she sobered up she started telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty, of being taken advantage of when she was smashed, and all these tales star me in a leading role. Me, of all people. Not even me and Lou—just me.
The lovely Julie took her damning testimony straight to that court of fairness and equanimity, where magna hates carta and where all accused are presumed guilty: the Rifle Volunteer. There, a jury of my peers sank a few beers and came looking to lynch.
Ewen listens to my protestations of innocence, and though I’m not sure he believes me he does turn around and order all the engraved mugs to bugger off. They finally do, but not before uttering loud vulgar threats and promises along the lines of, “We’re going to fuckin’ do you, mate.” I believe them.
Ewen locks and bolts the door, sighs, shakes his head, and trudges upstairs with a look on his face that says, in future, considerably more care and attention will be paid when selecting a tenant.
Lou helps clean up the blood. We bandage my head like people inept at bandaging heads then sit around bug-eyed and terrified. That night we lie in bed wide awake, with the amps and PA columns stacked against the door for protection. The next day, Brill comes with the van. We toss our rags into our bags, load the gear, and scarper.
* * *
Homeless, nervous, and broke, Lou and I walk the streets of Watford and Bushey. Yonks ago, the highwayman Dick Turpin prowled these very roads, pistols primed and “stand and deliver” ready on his tongue. We are nowhere near as impressive but just as demanding. Come nightfall, we knock on doors and sleep on the floors of people we hardly know: Marquee girls, party girls, friends of friends. We borrow a quid here, a quid there. In shops we distract and pilfer. We stand outside Watford train station and sell our LPs to passersby. Lou is a natural, could have been a barrow boy or a carnival barker. He’s got the gift of the gab, convincing commuters that they absolutely must shell out a mere two quid for this barely played Gasoline Alley, a paltry fifty pence for this mildly scratched McCartney. The only record I won’t part with is Something Else.
We end up with nearly fifteen pounds. Food, pints, cigs for Lou, chocolates—we’re on easy street for a day or so.
One inspired, desperate night, fast running out of quasi-acquaintances, we remember Dick and his toupee and we track them both down to 93 Aldenham Road. From street level, what a dump. The building is four stories high, plonked atop a boarded-up fish ’n’ chip shop. Dick not only has a large room on the top floor, but he also has the pleasure of hearing his buzzer go at 10 p.m. one freezing, rainy night.
&nbs
p; The unsuspecting man takes us in and we sleep on his floor for a few days, snoozing under blankets until the afternoon. Dick arises early and bustles quietly about, boiling water for tea and brushing his teeth while we toss and turn in our bed on the floor, muttering darkly into our pillows at the disturbance.
While he’s away we eat his food, play his records (taking a couple of them for a walk to Watford station), enjoy his libation of choice, Newcastle Brown Ale, and lounge around watching his telly. Curiously, it’s not long before Dick starts to get the same look on his face that Ewen had when he went up the stairs that night. Our fabulous new life goes on for five glorious days, until one evening Dick comes home and announces that he has found us a room on the second floor of the building and, in fact, has paid the first week’s rent, £6.50. Well, ain’t that swell.
We can’t very well refuse. Refuse? We have to feign gratitude. I leave that to Lou, he’s better at these things. But even Lou is having trouble with this one. The room in question is, frankly, disgusting. Twelve feet square, creeping mold on all four walls and the ceiling, small sink, hotplate, single bed, threadbare rug, garbage, papers, rancid foodstuffs and personal befoulments left by the previous tenants who, judging by this appalling level of squalor and stench, must have been junkies.
The bed is a stained divan with a slab of once-white, now-gray foam for a mattress. The hotplate is covered in a grime layer built up over years and baked-on brown stains. Long-dead insects, roaches prevalent and identifiable, lie encrusted and entombed in the grease like woolly mammoths in ancient tar sands.
Pinned by a red plastic dart to a small wardrobe is a yellowed newspaper clipping featuring a Page 3 girl, nipples accentuated with ballpoint pen. Inside the wardrobe is one bent hanger.
The sink is a putrid swamp, complete with algae and water running brown out of the tap, splashing over smashed dish shards and cigarette butts. The landlord’s a fat greaseball.
We move in. Lou gets the divan and I get the gray foam slab. We sleep in an L-formation. The loo is right outside our door and serves the entire building. This proximity is pointed out by Dick as a positive. Think of the convenience. All too soon we can think of little else. Every time one of the other tenants visits the toilet we get to hear every intimate detail. And the more we get to know our fellow tenants, the easier it is to picture them and the worse this proximity becomes.
* * *
The day of the Café des Artistes gig. For the first time, there is no piano on site, but the ever-resourceful Stein has clocked this problem and come up with a solution. He has bought an upright piano and a can of red paint. The piano is a fearsome weight and collectively we have a strictly limited amount of muscle. He lives on the third floor. Have you ever lifted an upright piano? Of course you haven’t.
Rog, Lou, Brill, and I show up at London Street, and next thing we know we are pressed into lugging this hulking stack of wood, wires, lead, and ivory, tacky with semidry red paint, down three flights of stairs. Thumping, cursing, down we go. Thumpety-thump, curse, times fifty, and repeat as necessary. By the time we arrive at street level we hate pianos and pianists.
Six o’clock at the Café des Artistes. Mal shows up, nervous and no eye contact, accompanied by two hulking Aussie mates. Bondi-Beach boys, preening and flexing, desperate for a Foster’s. The three of them stand around in a fugue of bad clothes and worse vowels.
We set up the gear. There’s no sign of Eunan. Seven o’clock comes and seven o’clock goes. Still no Irish guy. Eight o’clock, nothing, and we’re on at nine for the first of four sets. The owner, the swarthy guy, hovers in the background, puffing a stogie, muttering, second thoughts ricocheting around inside his skull. Still no bog-trotting Strat-man.
Half past eight and the joint starts to fill up. We poke our noses through the curtain of our offstage lair and check ’em out. What’s this crowd? What are these types? Never seen them before. The threads don’t check out, the hairdos are off the scale, the makeup looks courtesy of a hand grenade tossed into the Max Factory. They’re tourists: Americans, Japanese, all sorts. This could be interesting.
Five minutes to showtime and Eunan blasts through the curtain. Where’s he been? He has been in jail. Well, of course he has. Just got released an hour ago. Nicked selling women’s blouses, stolen of course, down the Portobello Road. Lovely chemise, madam, only a fiver.
Against all odds the gig goes all right. We get some stick from a few Yank louts but that’s to be expected. Hardly Wildean wits, any of them, so they’re easy to deal with. They get a bit stroppy, though. Not used to getting lip from a man in makeup. The dancers are leaping around six inches in front of my microphone and the place is stifling hot, not absolutely jammed but sweaty and stinking enough.
Then some drunken gyrating bird, undulating frenetically right in front of me, offers her hand, mid-song, as though I should kiss it like I’m some marquis in a French period drama. I’m game for a lark. I take her hand, lean over, and, instead of a peck on a knuckle, I give her fingers the merest lick. She squeals with delight. Well, who wouldn’t?
The crowd quite likes it. However, her psycho body-builder boyfriend, whom I failed to notice, does not. He, in fact, takes umbrage, hauls her off, and punches me in the mouth. Curiously enough, that seems to settle the account as far as he’s concerned. Lick my chick’s hand, I’ll sock you one. Then he keeps on dancing.
Okay then. Sounds fair. Fine by me, Mr. Atlas. May I call you Charles? I rub my yap and keep on singing. Something weird is going on, though. One of my front teeth is now sharp and jagged. Bloody hell, he’s chipped my tooth.
Eunan turns out to be okay onstage, moving about a bit after I scream in his ear to shake it up baby, twist and pout. He is under-rehearsed and mimes some of the songs but the audience is none the wiser. During the second set he moves upstage to my right, cutting Mal out of the equation. After the first song I introduce the man from Dublin and tell the audience he just got out of jail. They eat it up. All in all, we pull it off.
Two sets later, it’s early in the morn, they’re escorting the stragglers to the door, and the owner hands over seventeen £1 notes. Better still, he invites us back for December 30, same money. We’ve never been invited back anywhere before.
Out in the street, we load the gear, including the bloody piano, into the van. The lads wedge themselves in among the equipment, wriggling and squirming like some eels I once knew. I turn around for Showdown at the Redcliffe Corral. Mal stands with his two blond beach bums behind him and sticks his trembling paw out for the seventeen quid. I counter with a short, sharp speech incorporating the words “extortion” and “ransom,” and finishing up with a three-word Anglo-Saxon phrase beginning with “so” and ending with “off.” I don’t cough up one thin shilling.
There is absolute silence then some yapping and baboon-style posturing. I slowly back away and they don’t follow, which is a relief because I’m bluffing. I’ve already been bopped once tonight and I don’t need another. I climb in the van and Brillo guns it out toward Brompton Road. Through the window I see the three Aussies still standing in the middle of the street. The biggest kahuna gives me the finger. I just smile. Fair dinkum, buddy.
* * *
One day, on a bored wander, we find a huge wooden radio by the side of the road, lug it home, plug it in, and, surprise, it works, bringing in stations from all over Europe. Now we get Kid Jensen, some drip named John Peel, and the rest playing music up and down the luminous green dial. The trouble is, the music coming out of the speaker is insufferable, repetitive rubbish. It seems all we hear is “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder and “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon. We’re sick to death of them.
We are always on the scrounge for shillings to put in the meter. If we don’t have one we get plunged into the Middle Ages, with no cooker, no radio, and no one-bar electric fire. Every day is a miners’ strike for us. We suffer a blackout every couple of hours.
Come nightfall, with enough money for one pint each, we walk to a nearby pub where all the denizens are giddy and flushed with Christmas cheer. Glasses around us are raised in toasts; not one is smashed into a face.
All too soon, pints nursed to death and sucking the froth of it all, we must head home. And when we do, when we arrive back at our scurvy slum, hope’s lesser graveyard, there are two bags of groceries waiting at our door. And in those bags are Cadbury’s chocolate bars, milk, cheddar cheese, bread, eggs, mushrooms, Jaffa Cakes, Tetley tea, instant coffee, Fairy Liquid, Smash, butter, sugar, bacon, mince pies, the lot.
And a note from Brillo, wishing us a very merry Christmas.
Makes you weep.
* * *
We play the Café on December 30. It’s better than last time, wilder, more confident. The cast—Roger, me, Stein, Lou, and Eunan, in order of appearance—could just be the lineup we’ve been waiting for. After the last note of the last song of the night, we dive offstage into our dressing hole and hear a strange sound. We’ve never heard this before. It is the crowd yelling and whistling for an encore. This is a first. However, Stein and I decided the first week we met that the band would never do an encore. It was Stein’s idea. He said, “Chuck Berry doesn’t do encores.” Ergo, neither will we.
It hasn’t exactly been much of a problem until now. The other lads stare at us as though we’re mad. But we just shake our heads and sit dripping sweat in our little cave behind the curtain, and let the audience yell.