Nick's Blues (12 page)

“Yes, probably.”

“Is that why you don't like her?”

“I told you before, I do like her.”

“You don't like me seeing her though, do you?”

“Are you buttering that toast or not? These eggs are almost ready.”

“You don't, do you?”

“What you do's up to you.”

“Your face when I walked in from seeing her, it was all you could do not to burst out crying.”

Dawn lifted the pan off the gas. “That wasn't anything to do with Charlie, you daft sod, that was you, waltzing in here with a guitar in your hand like you were him, years younger.”

“My dad?”

“Of course, your dad. You look just like him. Now pass those plates over here and sit yourself down. I didn't make this to see it get cold.”

For as long as it took them to clear their plates, neither spoke much beyond “Pass the salt,” and “Pass the sauce.”

Done, Dawn pushed her plate away and leaned back in her chair. “Make us a cup of tea, there's a love.”

“I'll put the kettle on.”

“Don't strain yourself.”

Nick ran the water too fast, splashing it everywhere.

“Go careful.”

“It's only water.”

“That's not the point.”

What is then, Nick thought? “Charlie and my dad,” he said, “was it before you were seeing him or, you know, during?”

“God! What does it matter? After all this time.”

“It matters if I'm going to see her again, Charlie.”

“And are you?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“What for?”

“The guitar, she said she'd teach me.”

Dawn laughed. “From what I just heard, somebody should.”

“Give us a chance.”

“I suppose I thought it might have come naturally. In the genes.”

The kettle started to boil and Dawn got to her feet. “Come on, shift out of there and let me do that.”

“I know how to make tea, you know.”

“Suit yourself. I'll just rinse these things.”

“That pan wants soaking.”

“That your professional opinion?”

“If you like.”

Dawn squirted washing-up liquid into the bowl and turned on both taps. “For what it's worth, I think anything between Les and Charlie was over well before he took up with me.”

“He carried on seeing her though.”

“They worked together, that's why. And they were friends. It is possible. Even if you've fancied one another.” Filling the small saucepan with water, she set it to one side. “It's not all sex, you know.”

“I know.”

“Speaking of which…”

Nick looked at her warily, wondering what was coming.

“Mrs Rice, she said she saw you talking to this girl…”

“Which girl?”

“I don't know. Wearing a black beret, I think she said.”

Nick could feel himself going red.

“Struck a chord, have I?”

“Shut it!”

Dawn laughed. “Who is she then?”

“Nobody.”

“That why you've gone the colour of beetroot?”

“Mum, for God's sake, leave it out.”

Dawn grinned. “You see you do the same. Or else be careful.”

“Christ! All we've done is talk.”

“Yes, well. If it comes down to it, use a condom, that's all I'm saying.”

“I know what you're saying.”

“Good, now pour that tea before it gets stewed.”

Nick sighed and reached for the pot. If it comes down to it. Chance, he thought, would be a fine thing.

***

An hour later, Nick was sprawled across the settee, trying to concentrate on his book, when his mum appeared in the doorway in the orange overall she wore at work.

“I'm off.”

Nick grunted okay.

“That girl, the one with the beret, what did you say her name was?”

“Ellen.”

“Ellen. Hm, nice name. Don't study too hard.”

“Bye, mum.”

The door closed and Nick pushed himself up and crossed towards the TV. There was just so much of the Depression you could take in one go.

“Okay,” Charlie said, “that's right. Index finger on the third string, the G, and the next two fingers on the fourth and fifth. A fret lower, that's it. The D and the A. Now press down hard. Harder. Try and get your fingers close up behind the fret. Yes. Good thing you've got short nails, at least. All right, now bring the fingers of your other hand down across the strings. Don't be afraid of it. There, you see. E major. You're on your way.”

“God,” Nick said, moving his left hand away and giving it a shake.

“Don't worry,” Charlie said. “It'll toughen up.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Now let's do something about the way you're sitting. Here, relax your shoulders, that's right. And bring this arm round so that your fingers — there — are more at less at right angles to the neck. Okay, don't flatten them. Don't flatten them. Good. Remember the positions? No, no. Yes, that's it. Good. Now — look, let me show you — there. That's it. Try for an even rhythm, count with me: one, two, three, four. Right, again. Yes, fine. You've got it. That's good. Now, still strumming, lift that finger from the D string — no, the D — right, and you've got E seventh. Hear the difference?”

***

When Nick had arrived at Charlie's house, carrying his guitar, she had been sitting on the front steps in a faded Fairport Convention t-shirt and a pair of baggy cords, repotting geraniums and fuschias.

“I should have done this weeks ago, but you know how it is. You put things off and you put things off.”

The pots stood on either side of the steps, orange terracotta, the flowers pink, purple, white and brick red, petals opening.

Charlie brushed the loose soil onto the scrap of garden beneath her window, picked up her trowel and green and white bag of multi-purpose compost and ushered Nick indoors.

“So,” she said, rinsing her hands beneath the tap. “You really want to learn.”

“I think so.”

Charlie shook her head. “Think so won't get it done. It takes time, effort, patience. Above all, patience. You think you've got that?”

Nick wasn't sure. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I think so.”

“Good. Because otherwise you'll be wasting both our times, your and mine.”

Nick nodded. Why was she making it so hard? Hadn't it been her idea, after all?

“And you want to learn to play blues?” Charlie said.

“I suppose so,” Nick said, and then, hastily, intercepting her look, “I mean, yes, yes, I do.”

“Good.”

***

After close to an hour, Nick had the first three basic positions down. E major, E minor, E seventh. What he couldn't quite manage while concentrating on that was to maintain a regular rhythm back and forth across the strings with his other hand, the basic boom-de, boom-de, boom-de, boom-de, four beats to the bar.

Tried and lost it.

Lost it and tried again.

“Take a break,” Charlie said.

“No, it's okay.”

“Nick, lighten up.”

“I thought you wanted me to take it seriously?”

“I do. But even Robert Johnson didn't learn it all in a day. No matter what they say about him selling his soul at the crossroads.”

Charlie knew she was letting him start off easy, no sense in pushing things too fast. Next time they'd cover A major and B seventh and Nick would be able to play a very basic twelve bar blues.

After a further ten minutes, Nick shook his head and laid the instrument aside. “It's hard.”

“Of course it is.”

Nick was looking at the reddening indentations on his hand. “Isn't there something you can do?"

“What? You mean like wearing gloves? Baking them in the oven like conkers?”

Charlie made coffee and they sat close to the open window, one of the cats curled into a tight ball on the chair at Nick's back, two more book-ending the newly-filled flower box on the outside sill.

“That person you mentioned before,” Nick said. “Robert Johnson? Special favourite of my dad's, was he?”

“Robert Johnson? Les liked him, of course. You'd have to. Anyone interested in the blues. Mississippi Delta blues especially. Country blues. Leadbelly. Blind Lemon Jefferson. Son House. But no, the ones your dad favoured were quieter, more subtle somehow, softer. Leroy Carr. Mississippi John Hurt. Skip James.

“Go into any decent record store nowadays and the racks are full of them. Cheap, too. But in those days, when these musicians were just being rediscovered, you could scarcely get hold of recordings for love or money. Dobells in Charing Cross Road, that was one place we used to go, fighting over anything decent, anything new. But then someone told Les about the record library at the American Embassy and he used to go along there, Grosvenor Square. Listen to all this Library of Congress stuff, American labels like Folkways.

“I think if things are more difficult to come by, like that, they seem more important. They were important to him, certainly. Some of the rest of us, we were just playing at it. Not Les.”

She picked up her mug of coffee with both hands.

Stuttering, the sounds of traffic travelling along Camberwell Road filtered across the square.

“You and my dad,” Nick began.

“What about us?”

“Were you, you know…?”

“An item?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Charlie smiled, remembering. “For a while, yes. A spell. He was beautiful, your dad. At least, I thought so.” She stared out across the street, a memory of Nick's father reflected against the trees. “Of course, I wasn't the only one. But, I don't know, that time, when we were together. Six months it might have been, all told. They were special.”

She turned her head away so that he couldn't see her face.

Two kids went by on skateboards, heading for the park.

“I'll say one thing, though,” Charlie said, “once he'd met your mum, once he'd met Dawn, that was it. He never looked at anyone else after that.” And then she laughed, a raw deep laugh. “That's a lie, of course. I mean, he was a man, wasn't he? He looked. Wouldn't have been human if he didn't. Looked but didn't touch.”

“You're not just saying that?” Nick asked.

“And whyever would I do that?”

Nick shrugged. “I don't know. Make me feel better, maybe. About him. Or you.”

Charlie shook her head. “No, you could ask anyone. He really loved your mum. He really did. You too. You'd walk across the room, little more than three or four, and I could see his eyes following you.”

Nick set down his cup. “Wasn't enough though, was it. Just wasn't bloody enough.”

Eyes smarting, he hurried from the room.

“Sometimes loving other people isn't enough, Nick,” Charlie said. “You have to love yourself as well.”

If he heard her, she wasn't sure.

***

Alone in the other room, Nick picked up the guitar. First position, second, third, first, second, third. Four beats to the bar.

There were seven Steves on the estate and during the course of twenty-four hours police officers spoke to them all. Of course, as Jackie Ferris well knew, the fact that Victoria Coleman had been attacked and robbed on the edge of the estate didn't necessarily mean that was where the perpetrators lived. For some, the old adage, don't mess on your own doorstep still held true. The criminals could have come from one of those nearby streets where flats were routinely bought and sold at prices in excess of three hundred thousand pounds and a family home cost upward of a million — the kind of street where Victoria Coleman herself lived and to which Jackie Ferris could never aspire.

Young offenders did come from those homes, but in Ferris's experience their crimes were more likely to involve drugs, drink, shoplifting, driving under the minimum age, driving without a licence, and a variety of offences under the Public Order Act of 1986. She even knew of one fourteen year old, whose father was a highly reputable barrister and whose mother was a successful civil liberties activist, who, after a number of ducks and swans had been found dead or dying on a local pond, had been arrested for — as the old law put it — cruelty to animals and for possession of parts of a crossbow which together (and without any other parts) could be assembled to form a crossbow capable of discharging a missile.

Not too many of the kids from those streets took to mugging strangers as a way of increasing their income or passing the time.

Whereas, in Jackie Ferris's eyes, the stereotype of the urban mugger was unfortunately close to the truth. Black or white, most street crime in the area was carried out by youngsters living on or within a half-mile radius of the estate. This estate and the many others like it. Don't mess on your own doorstep did not apply.

Of the seven Steves, three were already known to the police.

Of those, two had alibis for the evening in question.

Steve Johnson had been playing pool with his elder brother, Lawrence, his uncle Ryan and his uncle's friend, Pete. At around the time Victoria Coleman had found herself surrounded near the railway bridge, Steve had been failing to make a difficult shot off the cushion into the baulk pocket and earning a clip round the ear from his brother.

Steve Zephania had been grudgingly present at a special service at the Baptist church in Wood Green where his family worshipped.

Which left Steve Rawlings, sullen, cocky, so far in Ferris's face it was all she could do to keep her hands to herself. The two uniformed officers with her likewise.

“That woman got mugged, that's what this is about, i'n'it? Should've known better, shouldn't she? Walking through there. Stupid, i'n'it? Askin' for it.”

“And where were you, Steve?” Ferris asked, after counting slowly to ten inside her head.