Chapter 10
The first week had flown by and Alex was at a loose end for the weekend. She had considered heading home, but decided against it. She chose instead to explore the area and catch up on her reading. Holed up in her room at the pub on Sunday afternoon, rain lashing the windows, a book in her hand, she took a phone call from her friend Carol. They hadn’t spoken since they got back from their week in the sun. The holiday had been Carol’s idea. She had hoped it would take Alex’s mind off her recent break-up.
‘Hey, how are you?’ said Alex.
‘I’m okay, mate. How about you? How’s it going?’
‘Good so far. The pub’s really nice, good food, good beer, cosy room. Home from home.’
‘Just as well, the length of time you’re going to be stuck there.’
‘Yeah, well, I don’t mind being out of town just now.’
‘No other job has ever taken you away for so long. I miss you.’
‘I’ll be back next weekend. We’ll do something then.’
‘I bumped into your Dave on Friday night. He and the slapper have split up.’
‘He’s not my Dave. And I hope the bitch gave him a dose of the clap.’ Alex massaged her temples. ‘How’s Jim?’ she asked, keen to change the subject.
She heard Carol scowl. ‘Dumped.’
‘You’ve dumped the elevator man?’
Carol giggled. ‘Going down,’ she intoned in a mock serious voice. ‘I got bored. I met a guy called Eddie in Tangerine.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Okay. Not as adventurous as I’d like, but not bad. He has potential.’
‘Well, I hope he can stand the pace.’
‘I’m being gentle with him for now. Time will tell.’
***
On Monday afternoon, Alex was back at Johnny’s house. He had been away for the weekend and had just got back that morning.
‘Our first London band was a three-piece; or, as we liked to think, a power trio,’ he was telling her. ‘We called ourselves Smokestack Lightning after the Howlin’ Wolf song. The drummer was a mate of my cousin Steve and we croaked the vocals out between us. We still did mainly covers,
Little Red Rooster
,
Spoonful
,
You Need Love
, that kind of thing, but we were writing our own songs, too. We lasted from late ’68 until the summer of 1970, when the pressure the drummer was under from his girlfriend and his parents to get a proper job became too much for the poor lad to bear. He was fed up with being broke, too. Christ, we all were. We were working part-time jobs, normally in bars or clubs, fitting the hours around gigs. We seemed to graft and get nowhere. But our musicianship improved. It was a great grounding for us.
‘The next band we put together was called Purple Helix; God knows why, I suppose we thought it was cool. The line-up was me and Tom with Chris Preston on vocals and Cormac Boyd on drums. We played our first gig on Halloween 1970 and that line-up lasted about a year. Chris left when he got a better offer from a band called Stargazer. You might remember them, they had some chart success in the mid-’70s.
‘So there we were, a vocalist shy of a band. Cormac said he had seen an outfit in Richmond who had a singer that was too good for them. That was enough for us; we found out when their next gig was and headed off to Richmond to check him out.’
***
Tom strode into the bar like a gunslinger; it was his latest look, he was working hard on it. He was wearing black jeans with a bullet belt, a black shirt and a black cowboy hat. Johnny and Cormac followed him in, trying not to laugh out loud.
The pub was your basic spit and sawdust affair, trying some music out midweek to try to attract a young crowd. The lads got a round in and sat down to wait. There was a small raised area that served as a stage. It sported a drum kit, a couple of mic stands, monitors, and amps on top of apparently home-made speaker cabinets with a couple of guitars propped up against them. Tom checked his watch, not for the first time. It was a quarter to nine and the band had been due on at half past eight.
‘Easy, Texas.’ Cormac grinned at him. ‘This kid’s worth waiting for. Have another shot of red eye. Set a spell.’
The curtain behind the stage area twitched open and spilled out a tall lad, about six foot four, Johnny reckoned, with blonde hair that hung down past his shoulders. ‘Fucking hell,’ exclaimed Tom, ‘it’s Legolas.’ The tall guy turned out to be the singer. He took up his position stage front and his bandmates sorted themselves out behind him. There was the usual intro of bass drum beats, tuning guitars and cymbal crashes, then with a ‘One, two, three, four!’ they launched into a passable rendition of the Stones’
Satisfaction
. That was followed by Cream’s
Sunshine of Your Love
, the Doors’
Love Her Madly
, and then Zeppelin’s
Communication Breakdown
.
Cormac was right: the singer outclassed the rest of them. Tom grinned at his bandmates. ‘My friends,’ he said, ‘I think we’ve found ourselves a singer.’
With the exception of a group of teenagers who had pulled a couple of tables together and applauded each number enthusiastically, cheering and whooping and urging the band on, the audience had been lukewarm. When the first set was finished, the musicians wandered over for a break. Pints stood ready on the table for them and the small crowd squashed up to make room. The lanky singer draped his arm around an achingly beautiful young woman with huge brown eyes and a cloud of fluffy brown hair.
‘Shit,’ said Tom. ‘I had my eye on her.’ He brightened. ‘Mind, if we get him in the band, she can cry on my shoulder when they finish. I‘ll be well in.’
‘Shut up, you tosser. Come on, let’s get the beers in.’ Cormac headed for the bar.
The second set was shorter than the first. Johnny got the impression that they had simply run out of songs. The singer tried his best, but he couldn’t warm the crowd up. He was good, though, no doubt about it.
After the gig, while the gear was being stripped down and carted out, Johnny manoeuvred himself between the singer and his mates, then herded him, sheepdog style, towards Tom and Cormac.
‘Tough crowd tonight,’ he said as he walked him round.
The lad nodded. ‘Hard work. Still, this is only the second time we’ve played here. They haven’t had many bands on yet.’
‘You sounded all right, mind.’
‘Thanks.’
Johnny stuck his hand out. ‘I’m Johnny Burns. This is Tom Watson and Cormac Boyd. Our outfit is Purple Helix.’
‘I know, I’ve seen you. Andy Airey.’ They shook hands.
‘Thing is, Andy, we’re short of a singer. Our guy has moved on to pastures new.’
‘Yeah?’
‘You interested?’
‘Me?’ Andy grinned. ‘Well … yeah.’
‘Great.’ Johnny handed him a piece of paper with his and Tom’s address on it. ‘Come round to the flat tomorrow afternoon. We’ll have a chat and try a few songs out.’
‘Okay, but can we make it about four-ish? Otherwise I’ll have to sneak out of school.’
‘School,’ Tom exclaimed. ‘You’re in school?’
‘Sixth form, yeah.’
‘How old are you, Andy?’
‘Sixteen. Nearly seventeen, actually. Why, is that a problem?’
‘No, not at all,’ said Johnny, shutting Tom up with a look. ‘We’ll see you tomorrow, mate.’
‘He’s too fucking tall to be a schoolboy,’ muttered Tom on the way out. Johnny said nothing. He was remembering the girls he and Tom had attracted at Andy’s age and feeling more than a little jealous.
Next day, Andy turned up as arranged. He had his girlfriend with him and introduced her as Tiffany Barclay. They were both still in school uniform. Tom gawped openly at Tiffany; she crossed her legs and tugged at the hem of her skirt, wrapped herself in her blazer. Johnny nudged him with the toe of his boot and shot him a look.
If things seemed a bit odd due to the way Andy Airey was dressed, any doubts anyone might have entertained were blown away when they tried a few songs together. By the time he and Tiffany left the flat, Andy was a fully-fledged member of Purple Helix.
Chapter 11
‘Although what Andy and Tiff must have thought when they heard the racket Tom made as they went downstairs I fear to think,’ Johnny told Alex. ‘He was lying on his back, howling at the ceiling. He wanted to pay Tiffany to wear her school uniform to gigs. He reckoned that if anything could spur him on to greater things, that was it.
‘We put
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
into the set to shut Tom up and then practised with Andy for a couple of weeks before we got back into gigging. We sounded so much better with him in the line-up that we were all glad that Chris Preston had left, even though there was nothing wrong with his voice. Andy was more intuitive in his interpretation of lyrics, though, and he had a hell of a range. It made a real difference.
‘We played a lot of gigs, pulled a lot of pints, washed a lot of dishes and busked a lot of street corners and tube stations. We had good times, bad times, and we had some really, truly awful times. In fact, it was around that time that I got my heart broken for the first time.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Erica Lawson. Blonde, corkscrew curls and big blue eyes. Sweetest smile you ever saw. I was twenty-one, I thought I was so grown up and sophisticated, living in London, playing in a band. Erica was eighteen.’ Johnny rubbed his eyes. ‘Fancy a coffee?’ Alex nodded and he got up to put the kettle on.
‘We’d played our regular Thursday night spot at The Red House, we’d opened for Rogues and Rascals, I think it was.’ He laughed. ‘Their lead singer was permanently out of it. He fancied himself as David Bowie and he kept trying to get the right drug combo to make his pupils odd sizes.’
‘Didn’t David Bowie have an accident or something?’
Johnny nodded. ‘He told me it happened when he was scrapping with his mate over a girl, it isn’t anything to do with drugs. But back then this guy was having a lot of fun trying to get the look.’ He brought a couple of mugs and a
cafetière
over to the table and sat down again. ‘When we finished the set, me and Tom got chatted up by Erica and her sister Avril. They were twins, identical to look at but with very different personalities. Avril was the gobby one, she made a beeline for Tom. Erica was my girl.’ He grinned. ‘Christ, I adored her. Wrote her poems, would you believe. Then took her to the park and held her hand while I read them to her.’
Alex smiled, imagined him as a young man in love, courting his girl. It was a sweet image.
‘She must have thought I was daft as a brush. I was serious, though. I was thinking about asking her to get engaged. I didn’t think as far ahead as marriage, not then, but I thought we might live together. I was going to ask Tom how he felt about her moving into the flat.’ He pushed down the plunger on the
cafetière
and poured for them both.
‘What happened?’ asked Alex.
‘Her sister. She played a trick on me and I fell for it. It cost me my girl.’
Chapter 12
Summer, 1972
Tom and Johnny had a crowd round one Sunday following a lunchtime gig. The girls were in matching dresses, Avril’s blue and Erica’s pink. Johnny was on his way back to the kitchen, half-pissed, semi-stoned, when he was ambushed and pulled into his bedroom. The room was dim in the afternoon light, filtered as it was through thin curtains that Johnny rarely bothered to open. Someone had lit an incense stick; the air was cloyingly sweet. He saw Erica as if in a dream, saw the pink dress dance around her thighs as she pushed the door to behind them and covered his mouth with hers. Johnny responded automatically, kissing his girl and holding on to her for support.
‘Love?’ He knotted his fingers in her hair. ‘What …?’
‘Shhh.’ She put a finger to his lips, stood on tiptoe to breathe in his ear. ‘Don’t talk. Someone might hear.’ Then she kissed him again.
Johnny didn’t think it was likely anyone would hear, judging by the volume of the laughter and music coming from the living room, didn’t know why it would matter if they did, but he did as he was told. Everything was fuzzy, unclear and out of focus. He heard a cork pop followed by the clink of glass on glass as someone sorted drinks out in their grubby little kitchen. That’s what he was meant to be doing, he remembered, sorting drinks out.
Nimble fingers pulled his shirt open then busied themselves with the buttons on his jeans. She reached for him as she knelt down; his breath caught in his throat. Quiet, he remembered, I have to be quiet. Someone else is getting the drinks, my job is to be quiet. He put his head back and closed his eyes as she went to work, bit his lip and wondered when she’d learned to do what she was doing to him now. When he staggered, unsteady on his feet, she stood up and pushed him backwards onto his bed, climbed astride him and pulled the pink dress off over her head. It was all she was wearing; she dropped it on the floor. Looking into his eyes, she positioned herself and slowly pushed down onto him. She was ready for him, took him easily, closing her eyes at the last. He was in her and she was riding him, her hands pushing down onto his shoulders to support her weight, before Johnny managed even to be shocked; it wasn’t like Erica to behave like this. He found the way she’d taken charge, the enforced silence, the unexpected sex in a flat full of people, thrilling and erotic. His breathing was ragged; she came just before he did, her eyes closed and her mouth open, noiselessly calling for some god or other. Johnny was dizzy and disorientated, coming down, heart rate steadying, when she got his full attention.
‘For fuck’s sake, that hurts. What the hell are you doing?’
She smirked, cat-got-the-cream smug, as she carved into the flesh of his shoulder with a wickedly sharp frosted-pink fingernail. ‘Making my mark. “A” for “Avril”.’ She laughed, pleased with herself. ‘I persuaded Erica to swap dresses, like we did when we were kids. She never thought for one minute you’d be fooled into thinking I was her, she said you knew her too well.’ She shook her head. ‘I never doubted it. I knew I could have you if I wanted you.’ She took his face in her hands. ‘Or did you know it was me all along? You must have known I wasn’t Erica, she’d never do this. Did you want me, too?’