Authors: Jonathan Coe
‘Do I gather that you won’t be coming tomorrow night, then?’
Bill spread his hands in apology. ‘This has got to be sorted out, love. We’ll have a proposal on the table from the management tomorrow morning. We’ve got to get together to discuss it, and we’ve got to decide what we’re going to do about Slater. Disciplinary action.’ He wiped his mouth with a piece of kitchen towel. ‘It’s a bugger, I know, but what can I do?’ More softly, as if to himself, he repeated: ‘What can I do?’
Irene looked at him for a few seconds, the light in her eyes warm but oddly inscrutable. She stood up and kissed him, gently, on the top of his head. ‘You’re a slave to the cause, Bill,’ she murmured, and drew the curtains against the thickening night.
5
On the morning after the parent-teachers meeting, Chase came into their form room, threw his briefcase down beside his desk, went over to the window where Benjamin was sitting and made a dramatic announcement.
‘I’m going to come to dinner round at your house.’
Benjamin looked up from his book of French verbs (they had a test later that day) and said: ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘My parents are going to dinner at your parents’,’ Chase said, pleased with himself. ‘And I’m coming too.’
‘When?’
‘Next Saturday. Didn’t they tell you about it?’
Benjamin was quietly indignant at not having been consulted or even informed about this startling proposal. He quizzed his mother about it that evening, as soon as he got home, and found out that everything had been arranged the night before, at King William’s, where Chase’s parents and his own had met for the first time.
Benjamin had, incidentally, been nursing fond hopes for this particular parent-teachers session. Not because he expected to receive glowing reports from the masters, but because it meant his mother and father would be out for most of the evening, and there was every possibility that Benjamin might have the living room – and more importantly, the television – all to himself for some of that time. This was a fantastic stroke of luck, because there was a film on BBC 2 at nine o’clock that evening, made in France and billed as a ‘tender and erotic love story’, which was almost certain to contain some nudity. Benjamin could hardly believe his good fortune. By dint of reasoned argument and persuasion – backed up, as always, by the threat of physical violence – Paul could easily be packed off to bed by 8.30 at the latest. His parents would not be back until ten o’clock. That allowed a whole hour in which one – surely, at least one – of the three lovely young actresses featured in this ‘intense, provocative and revealing study of
amour fou’
(Philip Jenkinson in the
Radio Times
) would have the opportunity to strip off for the cameras. It was almost too good to be true.
And Lois? Lois was going to be out. Lois was doing what she did every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday night. She was having a date with the Hairy Guy.
They had been going steady now for almost three months. His name was Malcolm, and although he had rarely been allowed by Lois to cross the threshold of the Trotters’ home, her mother had seen enough of him to form a distinct impression, and found him shy, courteous and appealing. He kept his thick, vinyl-black hair at a respectable length, his beard was well trimmed and his wardrobe ran to nothing more outlandish than a rust-coloured corduroy jacket worn over a fawn cheesecloth shirt and flared denim loons. He called her ‘Mrs Trotter’ and his intentions towards her daughter seemed entirely honourable. To the best of her knowledge (and the best of Benjamin’s), her daughter’s dates with Malcolm comprised nothing more racy than a few hours down at The Gun Barrels or The Rose and Crown, huddled in smoky conversation over pints of Brew and halves of bitter shandy. Very occasionally, they would branch out by attending musical events to which Malcolm referred – indecipherably, at first – as ‘gigs’, and which sometimes conjured up, to Sheila’s worried mind, images of pot-crazed teenagers gyrating to the thrashings of hirsute guitarists and drummers in an atmosphere thick with sexual abandon. But her daughter seemed to return from these fancied orgies well before midnight, and looking none the worse for wear.
The sing-song chime of the doorbell announced Malcolm’s arrival shortly after seven o’clock. Lois was running late, detained in the bathroom by the mysterious ablutions which invariably occupied the three-quarters of an hour before one of her dates, and her parents were busy too, smartening themselves up for their visit to King William’s. It fell to Benjamin, therefore, to entertain the hopeful suitor as he hovered awkwardly by the living-room fireplace.
They nodded at each other, and Malcolm’s muted greeting – ‘All right, mate?’ – was accompanied by a reassuring smile. A fair start, on the whole. But Benjamin still couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘Who’s the axeman?’ Malcolm asked. He pointed at the nylonstring guitar which had been left leaning up against one of the dining chairs. It was Benjamin’s, a birthday present: his mother had bought it two years ago, for nine pounds.
‘Oh. I play, a little bit.’
‘Classical?’
‘Rock, mainly,’ said Benjamin. Then added, hoping that it would sound impressive: ‘Blues, as well.’
Malcolm chuckled at this. ‘You don’t look much like B. B. King. Are you a Clapton fan?’
Benjamin shrugged. ‘He’s all right. He was one of my early influences.’
‘I see. You’ve gone past that, have you?’
Benjamin remembered something he had read in
Sounds,
a quote from some willowy prog-rocker. ‘I want to push back the boundaries of the three-chord song,’ he said. He didn’t know why he was suddenly confiding in this person, sharing ideas about music which he normally kept under close wraps. ‘I’m writing a sort of suite. A rock symphony.’
Malcolm smiled again, but said, without condescension: ‘This is the right time for it. The scene’s wide open.’ He sat on the sofa, his hands clasping at the knees of his loons. ‘You’re right about Clapton, though. No real ideas of his own. Apparently he’s doing Bob Marley covers now. That’s pure cultural appropriation, if you ask me. Neo-colonialism in a musical setting.’
Benjamin nodded, trying not to appear baffled.
‘Are you in a band?’ Malcolm asked.
‘Not yet. I want to be.’
‘If you’re serious about this,’ said Malcolm, ‘I could lend you some records. There’s some pretty far-out stuff being laid down out there. Freaky times on the event horizon.’
Benjamin nodded again, more and more fascinated the less he understood.
‘That would be great,’ he managed.
‘There’s a guitarist called Fred Frith,’ Malcolm continued. ‘Plays with a band called Henry Cow. Does amazing things with a fuzz-box. Imagine The Yardbirds getting into bed with Ligeti in the smoking rubble of divided Berlin.’
Benjamin, who had no experience of The Yardbirds, Ligeti or indeed the smoking rubble of divided Berlin, might well have found his imagination taxed to the limit by this task; but Lois now arrived to rescue him.
‘Blimey, love,’ said Malcolm, rising promptly to his feet. ‘You look cracking.’ He seemed to be able to switch between these different modes with some agility.
They kissed on the cheek, and Malcolm said, ‘Happy Valentine’s Day,’ handing her a box of Cadbury’s Milk Tray, in a plain brown newsagents’ wrapper. When she opened it, Lois’s face glowed, incandescent with pleasure and gratitude. Benjamin, who tended to watch his sister more closely than he realized, noticed her reaction and shared in it, so that for a moment a flame rose between the three of them, and Benjamin felt a sudden, unexpected surge of fondness for the man who could bring such happiness into their household. He and Malcolm exchanged tiny, conspiratorial smiles.
‘Remember,’ said Malcolm, as he helped Lois with her coat. ‘Henry Cow: I’ll bring it round next time.’
‘Yes,’ said Benjamin, ‘please do.’
Lois looked at them both, fleetingly puzzled. Then she shouted goodbye to Sheila, and they were gone.
Benjamin went up to his brother’s bedroom, intending to lay down some early ground rules about how their evening together should develop, and found Paul sitting by the window, overlooking their scrappy front garden and the street beyond. From this vantage point, they could see Malcolm and Lois waiting at the bus stop, she clinging to the lapels of his greatcoat, her face tilted towards him, the two of them wrapped in a haze of intimacy, haloed by the amber streetlamps. The two brothers watched this scene with equal concentration: Benjamin, perhaps, because, it crystallized some ideal of romantic fulfilment for which he, too, was beginning to yearn; Paul, for more prosaic reasons.
‘What do you think?’ he said.
Benjamin surfaced. ‘Mm?’
‘Have they, or haven’t they?’
‘Haven’t they what?’
Paul spelled it out, slowly, as if to a younger, more dimwitted sibling. ‘Have they had sexual intercourse yet?’
Benjamin drew back in horror. ‘Do you mind?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘You’re a filthy little pervert, do you know that? You’re not to speak about your sister that way.’
Paul sniggered delightedly. ‘I’ll say what I want.’
Benjamin made for the door. There was no point in arguing with this little monster. ‘I want you in bed by eight-thirty tonight,’ he said, ‘or I’ll mash your willy with a rolling pin.’
In the half-light of Paul’s bedside lamp, it was hard to see whether he looked intimidated by this threat or not.
King William’s main assembly hall, known as Big School, had been radically transformed for the occasion, with all the benches removed and a number of beechwood desks placed at regular intervals throughout the echoing space. Behind these, the masters sat, awaiting the inquiries of anxious parents with expressions of trepidation, mild amusement or ferocious contempt, according to temperament. Long queues formed at some desks, either because of the perceived importance of the subject, or because of an inability on the part of some masters – Mr Fairchild (modern languages), for instance – to deliver their opinions in anything less than five or ten minutes. There were others – such as Mr. Grimshaw (divinity) – who couldn’t attract a crowd for love nor money. Conversation was loud, and the whole occasion seemed to be forever teetering on the verge of a benign chaos.
Clutching a list of masters’ names, Sheila led the way between the desks, the more hesitant Colin trailing behind her. Colin was looking around for a glimpse of Bill Anderton. More than half of the Longbridge plant was still closed down because of that stupid strike, and he had a good mind to take him to task for calling his men out over something so trivial. He had already rehearsed a few scathing lines to this effect, although in his heart, gloomily, he knew full well that he would never have the nerve to deliver them. It was beside the point, in any case: Bill was nowhere to be seen.
Sheila’s first call was on Mr Earle, the head of music, who racked his brains frantically when she confronted him about her son’s progress. The name ‘Trotter’ was familiar to him, vaguely, but he couldn’t match it to a face.
‘But you must know him,’ she insisted. ‘He’s ever so musical. He plays the guitar.’
‘Ah.’ This gave him a useful let-out. ‘Well, here at King William’s, you see, we don’t regard the guitar as a real instrument. Not a real classical instrument, that is.’
‘How ridiculous,’ said Sheila. She stomped away, pulling Colin with her, and they took their places behind five or six couples waiting to talk to Miles Plumb, the school’s head of art. ‘What does that mean, “Not a real instrument”? That’s the one thing I object to about this school. It doesn’t half give itself airs and graces.’
‘You’re right,’ said the woman in front of her, turning. ‘You know what really annoys me? The way they don’t let the boys play football. Only
rugby.’
(With a disdainful emphasis on the word.) ‘As if it was trying to be Eton or something.’
‘Our Philip was a cracking inside right, too,’ her husband added. ‘Broke his heart when he found out he wasn’t going to play for the school.’
‘It’s Sheila, isn’t it?’ said the woman, holding out her hand. ‘Barbara Chase. Your Ben and my Philip were both in the play last term. That dreadful Shakespearean thing.’
She was referring to Mr Fletcher’s crushingly lacklustre production of Ben Jonson’s
The Alchemist,
which had reduced successive audiences of doting parents to a state of glassy-eyed catatonia for three nights in a row shortly before Christmas. Sheila had kept her copy of the programme, however, and filed it away lovingly along with her son’s school reports. The names Chase and Trotter could be found at the bottom of the cast list: they had played two mutes.
Once this introduction had been made, the foursome rapidly divided along gender lines. Sam Chase noticed that there was nobody waiting to talk to the games master, so he and Colin went to take issue with him on the vexed issue of football vs. rugby. A lively, ill-tempered argument broke out at once. Meanwhile, Barbara and Sheila waited in line for their audience with Mr Plumb. His queue was moving slowly. Sheila looked ahead and was at once intrigued by his body language. He was addressing his remarks exclusively to the boys’ mothers, never making eye contact with the fathers and indeed barely seeming to acknowledge their existence. He was wearing a bottle-green corduroy jacket with leather patches at the elbows, over a cotton shirt with thick blue checks, the whole ensemble being set off by a brilliant cravat, in vermilion with greenish spots. A moustache of sorts drooped limply on either side of his lips, which were thin and dark as if wine-stained. When talking to the women in the queue, he held their gaze with an embarrassing directness, compelled them to return it. As for his voice, they were soon to discover that it was reedy and high, almost to the point of effeminacy.
‘My word,’ he exclaimed, when they appeared at the front of the queue. He was staring at them with the startled, fixed intensity of an electrified ferret. ‘And whom do I
now
have the pleasure – the most unexpected pleasure – of addressing?’
The two women looked at each other briefly, and giggled. ‘Well I’m Barbara, and this is my friend Sheila.’