Bright Stars Page 6

  First to audition was a Welsh lad with a mullet and Rambo muscles shown off by his wife-beater vest and red dragon tattoo acquired after a bar crawl in Carmarthen. Billy was excitable as a kid, fidgeting and whooping, and I actually wondered if he was all there. But Hyper (as we’d know him from now on) could play the piano, Grade 8, classical, jazz, with gigs in restaurants and weddings to his credit.

  Then in walked two guys I recognised from the other night. The Shards, minus the feeble, foppish frontman. So basically the drummer, Dave, and the bassist, Carl.

  ‘You come to check out the competition?’ Tommo asked, as laid back as he could manage.

  ‘Something like that,’ Carl said.

  ‘The Shards are no longer,’ Dave said.

  Tommo sat up straight. ‘Musical differences?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Carl said.

  ‘Richie was crap,’ Dave said.

  ‘I know.’ Tommo gathered himself. ‘So far we’ve got Hyper, fantastic pianist. And me.’

  ‘You?’ Carl and Dave both said.

  ‘Me and my guitar and my enormous aura.’

  While Bex and I continued to play our game of Racing Demon, they blethered on about Fenders and The Fall and the NME, moving on to debate which bar to go to.

  But then in walked Christie.

  Every one of those lads straightened up and smiled like kids. Except for Tommo. Tommo stayed where he was, sitting on the table. He laid down his guitar, folded his arms, casual gestures maybe, but I could see the stiltedness behind them. I could see through his actions, right through to his cold, dark heart. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said.

  ‘Your ad didn’t specify only men need apply, ’cause that would be sexual discrimination, right?’

  ‘Right, no, I didn’t mean anything like that, I just didn’t think you’d be interested in my band.’ He was faltering, aware that the others were staring with their gobs open, ogling the cleavage-show popping out of her baby-pink cashmere jumper. ‘Are you here about the band?’

  ‘Sure, I’m here about the band.’ She smiled her toothy smile. ‘You’re going to need a manager.’

  ‘We are?’

  ‘You’d be stupid to miss this opportunity. Give me twenty per cent of your fees and I’ll get you far more than you could ever manage on your own.’

  ‘Okay,’ the others chanted in unison. (Which was one of the few times they ever agreed on anything.)

  ‘Woah, hang on a minute.’ Tommo put his hands up, Canute trying to control the waves. ‘We haven’t even jammed.’

  Christie ignored him, whipped out her yuppy Filofax. ‘Let’s book the first band practice. I need to see what I’m dealing with.’

  Tommo stood there, silent, staring. Then he pulled himself together, trying to impersonate a man in charge.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But fifteen per cent.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said, like she was expecting him to say exactly this. And she shoved her hand towards him and he had no option but to shake it.

  Bex persuaded me to go along with her to band practice, for a laugh, like a pair of groupies, to see what they sounded like, if there was any potential or if it was a non-starter. We left it a while, had a few games of pool in the JCR, before heading up to the music department.

  We could hear the jangly guitar and funky drummer beat from down the corridor as there was no soundproofing and the amp was cranked up. A porter was sure to come along soon and put a stop to the racket. They needed a proper practice room and Christie was on the case.

  Bex opened the door and stuck her head round. No one noticed so she beckoned me to follow and we crept in, hunkering down in a corner, amongst the guitar cases and discarded denim jackets, shuffling to get comfy, trying not to be noticed.

  The ‘band’, as yet unnamed, moved onto a cover of Teenage Kicks. Dave and Carl were good musicians. Hyper was really good on the keyboard. But Tommo… well, Tommo… he was something else.

  Bex knew it too. Her eyes were wide and her mouth open.

  Tommo winked at her.

  She smiled back.

  I felt sick.

  Then the door swung open and the rhythm of the music stumbled, went to pieces, slurred into a mess of noise and discordant notes that grated and brought Les Dawson to mind.

  ‘Guys, guys, what the hell was that?’ Christie stood there, arms spread wide in a gesture of despair. ‘Get it together or there’s no way you’ll be ready for a gig. I’ve only got till June remember, then I’m back home.’

  Hyper actually apologised, blushing up to his mullet, Dave and Carl stood like scolded schoolboys, but Tommo’s eyes darkened and sparked and Christie held his gaze all the while till he put down his guitar, turned away and shrugged on his leather jacket. Then he lit up a fag, which hung out of his mouth while he zipped up his case and left the room. Not a word. Not a look in Bex’s direction. The door slammed.

  ‘What’s eating him?’ Christie asked innocently. ‘Right, guys, show us what you’ve got. And you there.’

  ‘Carl.’

  ‘Carl, quit with the slap bass. You sound like a jerk.’

  Fylde bar. Bex dragged me along with her to find Tommo, knowing we’d probably locate him in his habitual spot and yes, she was right, there he was, leaning back against the counter, a pint in one hand, roll-up in the other, two packets of crisps already demolished and scrunched up in front of him. ‘Drink?’ he asked, trying to be cool, barely glancing at us.

  ‘Half a shandy, ta,’ I said.

  ‘Pint of bitter, Ron, and whatever this beautiful woman wants.’ He twitched his quiff at Bex.

  ‘She’ll have a pint of bitter too,’ said Bex, torn between having a go and accepting a compliment.

  For some reason, Ron, the grumpiest barman known to mankind, didn’t mind Tommo. After all, he was not only Ron’s best paying customer, but he never threw up on the carpet. A win-win situation even if Tommo was a spoilt southerner.

  I, on the other hand, could stand at a bar for an age waiting to be served, barmaid after barmaid studiously ignoring me as if I were an inspector or the taxman. Ron occasionally took pity, deigning to take my order but, seeing as how I drank shandy, what did I expect?

  ‘Sometimes Christie can be a right cow,’ Tommo whined. ‘We didn’t take her on as manager to have a say in our music.’

  ‘Then why did you take her on?’ Bex was trying to sound neutral, an arbitrator, but I could tell she was getting irritated with Tommo.

  ‘We took her on to book gigs and that. To negotiate our fees.’ He shook his head. ‘Not to get involved with the music.’

  ‘Stop stressing. Just go with it.’ Bex was cajoling him now, the big bairn that he was. Stick a dummy in his gob and suck on that. Tommo, ten years of age, not getting his own way with the au pair. ‘For some mad reason, she believes in you.’ Bex glugged back her pint, froth round her burgundy lips.

  I remember thinking how far away London was from Edinburgh. How far I was away from Edinburgh. How I longed to be back. How I longed to be with Bex. Tommo was cool. Tommo had money. Tommo was a spoilt English bastard.

  I made my excuses.

  ‘Sorry, Cameron?’

  ‘I said I’m going to have a game of darts.’

  ‘Okay, you do that,’ Tommo said. He didn’t look at me. Nor did Bex. They gazed at each other with doleful eyes and she took Tommo’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze.

  Edinburgh, November 2013

  Deaf

  I wake with dead legs. Myrtle has somehow opened my door, scaled my bed and sprawled herself across my shins. She barks good morning to me, growls when I try to shift her so I give her a helping nudge down the cliff face of the bed. She scuttles off.

  Dad appears in the doorway a few moments later. ‘Morning, son. I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’ He holds it aloft, as if I don’t believe him, his favourite ‘Blood Doesn’t Show on a Maroon Jersey’ mug, puts it on my bedside table then sits down, to catch his breath, on Mum’s wicker chair
. No bedtime stories. No Jackanory. No Ladybird Readers. But a copy of the Scotsman.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says.

  ‘Sounds serious.’

  ‘Aye, it’s been bothering me.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering whether to maybe get one of those electric collar things for Myrtle. I’ve tried all that positive rewarding. It’s just making her fat.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, what do you think? Her barking’s playing havoc with my ears.’

  ‘I don’t know. Seems a bit drastic.’

  ‘You don’t have to live with her. Well, now you do. Maybe you’ll change your mind.’ He shakes his head. ‘I have tinnitus. Just like Barbara. I’m lucky I don’t have to rely on my voice. She’s a saint the way she carries on.’

  ‘Saint Barbara of the Two Ronnies?’

  He swats my legs with the Scotsman but I have no feeling from the waist down thanks to his wee dog.

  ‘There’s porridge downstairs if you want it,’ he says.

  Dad has been trying to get me to eat porridge all my life. I hate porridge. It makes me gag. This can be emasculating for a Scot. I used to decant it from my bowl to my trouser pockets when Granny Spark was visiting, scooping it in with a teaspoon when her back was turned so I wouldn’t let her down. And while Mum complained about the sludgy mess in the laundry, trouser legs stuck together like they’d been Superglued, she never let on to Granny.

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Dad. I’ll get some cornflakes then take Myrtle for a walk if you want.’ I feel guilty about the Saint Barbara comment.

  ‘She’s already been out with me to fetch the paper but she won’t turn you down,’ he says, softening. ‘Just make sure you put on her coat. It’s cold today and she feels it.’

  Myrtle gets to have a coat. We don’t get to have the heating. Not until tomorrow, 1 December. Unfortunately Myrtle’s coat is tartan. I have to walk the streets of my home, a place where I was teased and ridiculed for being weak and feeble and prone to tears, wielding a tartan sausage dog who cocks her leg and barks at anything that moves. Even anything that doesn’t move. She’s not particular. All fur coat and no knickers, as Granny Brown would say.

  I keep my head down and slink into the café. The same waitress serves me. She’s actually quite friendly once you get over the menacing metallic battle dress. She’s called Gina and she is the granddaughter of Massimo who owns the place. She tells me she’s doing a PhD in some kind of Italian literature, a reminder not to judge someone by their looks.

  Once she’s delivered my cappuccino, a heart etched on the froth, I check my emails, Myrtle warm and heavy on my feet, snoring. There’s one from work which I’ll get to later. And there’s one from a certain P. Dulac.

  Tommo has replied.

  I hear Jeremy urging me to open it, to face my past. But I can’t. Not just yet. I’ll get to that later too.

  Dad is at work at the kitchen table amongst a pile of newsletters and envelopes, three half-drunk mugs of tea and an ashtray of stinking butts.

  ‘Ah, you’re back,’ he says, taking off Myrtle’s lead and defrocking her. She makes for the dog bowl, splashing water all over the discoloured lino. ‘Give us a hand with these envelopes. It’s taking an age to stuff them.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘If I can put the heating on.’

  ‘It’s the middle of the day.’ He sounds outraged and appalled.

  ‘I’ll fetch another jumper then, shall I?’

  ‘Now you’re talking. Fetch another jumper.’

  He sighs but I sit down next to him, keeping on my coat and scarf, and flick through the newsletter. Barbara’s latest adventures. Tour dates. New CD. Fan features.

  ‘Emailing this lot out would save you so much time.’

  ‘What do I need time for?’

  Dad is in one of his philosophical moods, I see. So I decide to ask him a question that I have wanted to ask in a long time. ‘Have you considered maybe downsizing?’

  ‘Aye, I have considered downsizing.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I like it here. It’s my home.’

  ‘But it’s so expensive, Dad. It needs money spending on it. Wouldn’t you like to free up some capital? Go on holiday maybe?’

  He looks at me blankly. A holiday to him is a week in Orkney at Granny Spark’s croft. Or a Barbara Dickson convention. He wouldn’t swap either of those for all the cruises in the world. ‘I can’t leave. Not after everything you did.’

  ‘Is that what’s stopping you?’

  ‘Well, you sacrificed a lot for me. And then there’s your mum. I couldn’t leave her here.’

  ‘She’s not here, Dad. I don’t know where she is, but it’s not here. And I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.’

  ‘It’s not ghosts,’ he says. ‘It’s memories.’

  ‘Your memories follow you wherever you go.’

  Dad ignores my own attempt at philosophy. ‘And you live here now.’

  ‘Temporarily.’

  ‘Hopefully.’

  ‘What do you mean “hopefully”?’

  ‘I mean hopefully you’ll work things out with your wife. She’s a great girl. Despite being English.’ Dad, oblivious to his sexist-racist comment, gets out his fag packet, stands by the open back door in a gesture of consideration, though when he turns to speak, the smoke blows inside, swathes me. He uselessly wafts, as if this will help, but it just serves to further smother me. ‘And Myrtle would hate to move,’ he says. ‘She’s very sensitive, you know.’

  ‘So you think electrocution is the way forward for a sensitive dog?’

  ‘It would only be a few volts. Nothing to make her jump out of her skin.’ He puffs and blows and wafts again. ‘So what did you do about your letter?’

  ‘I read it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I leave next Friday, for the weekend.’

  ‘Next Friday?’

  ‘Next Friday.’

  ‘London?’

  ‘London.’

  I take the invitation from my coat pocket and show him. He reads it. Is quiet a moment. ‘Be careful, son,’ he says.

  ‘I will, Dad. I will.’

  Dad tootles off to the Post Office with the newsletters. He used to be the hard man. Trade Union rep, football coach, brewer. Now he has one of those old lady shopping trolleys and dresses up his wee dog.

  At least I have the kitchen to myself so I can read that email.

  Dear Cameron

  I would be grateful if you could attend a meeting at 0900 on Thursday 5 December with myself and Fiona McCabe, the Human Resources Manager of Skeletours Inc. The purpose of the meeting will be to discuss a very serious complaint against you, lodged by a Mr Sanderson, of Guildford, Surrey, relating to an incident that took place on a history tour conducted and led by you on 14 November. If his allegations are true, this is clearly a serious matter and a breach of health and safety regulations with the potential to be of great embarrassment, and potential expense, to the company.

  I should warn you that the meeting will take place under our Disciplinary Procedure and that a range of sanctions are available to us if we find that your actions have fallen short of the expected standards of the company. Because of the seriousness of the allegation, you may, if you wish, bring along a friend or representative with you to the meeting.

  Yours sincerely,

  Daniel Cooper

  Assistant Director, Skeletours Inc.

  Well, Daniel Cooper, I did what I thought was right at the time. I was responsible for the tour. I was provoked.

  You’d better be ready for me, Daniel Cooper. I won’t be walked over by an Englishman ever again.

  Fee-fi-fo-fum

  I smell the blood of an Englishman.

  Be he alive or be he dead

  I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.*

  It was another of those stag parties. We all hate leading those tours. Things can kick off if you’re not quick-witted. These men, they
don’t take history seriously. They try to spook each other. They heckle and make a nuisance of themselves. We never let them on a tour if they are intoxicated but they sneak in their hipflasks of whisky bought on the Mile. Mix that with a dram of unbridled testosterone and the breathless atmosphere and it can go to your head, the dark, the ghosts, the energy. It only takes one of them to overstep the mark.

  I don’t often do the tours now but on this day we had two of our staff call in sick. I didn’t want to put Charlene through it – there was quite a queue snaking along by the skeleton key rings and plastic pencil sharpeners in the gift shop, where the tour starts and finishes. They were all men. I had images of being back at school, running up and down the football pitch, not a clue what was going on, trying to keep warm and out of trouble, dodging the mud and the jibes and the chants. Like I said, I’m dyspraxic. Clumsy. Especially in an awkward situation. I can panic if I’m bullied. This should be taken into account. What happened can partly be blamed on this and on my state of mind which wasn’t good at the time, having had a row with Amanda that morning. And there was Charlene. She was the only other person available but she’s young and pretty, a Kiwi backpacker who ended up here, and I just didn’t think it a good idea. So I stepped in. I put on a velvet cloak and knee breeches and I led them down the vaults and back in time.

  Jeremy says it’s important for me to write this all down so I can understand why I did what I did. He is of the opinion that I was out of line although of course he wouldn’t couch it in those terms, being a non-directive, non-judgemental counsellor. Jeremy says it’s important I get the facts clear in my head before I can move forward. But all I want is to go back. To my job. To my flat. To my wife.

  I don’t want to go back as far as he is making me but that is what I am doing.

  _________________________

  *Though I’d much prefer multi-seeded granary bread from that nice baker’s in Leith.

  Lancaster, Lent Term, January 1986

  Return