Mothers and Daughters (16 page)

‘The selfish, thoughtless girl. She is shaming us all!’ Su sighed into her cup.

‘Susan, she’s young and impatient to spread her wings. Let her be. She’ll be back soon enough.’

‘Do we want her back, I am thinking.’

‘She is family and you are the only one she has. Think of Daedalus and his son, Icarus, who flew too high with his waxed wings. Youth has its own way of doing things. She has to learn maybe the hard way.’

Su smiled. Jacob was a good man. He had a way of seeing things. ‘You see the good in everyone.’

‘That is because I have no close ties to pick fault with.’

‘I’m sorry, I forget …’ She knew how much he
missed his homeland. ‘But you wouldn’t want the Winstanleys. We’re a handful at the best of times. Look at the mess we make of things,’ Su added.

‘That’s better, you smile again,’ Jacob replied. ‘I think you Winstanleys are a force to be reckoned with. They brought you halfway across the world; you’ll bring Connie back in line one way or another. Now I must go. Let me know if I can do anything.’

‘I’ll pay you the money back,’ Su shouted after him.

‘Connie will do that. She has a good heart.’

Susan sat back smiling. If only all the other guests were as wise and kind as Jacob Friedmann.

Connie sat in the back of the Ford Transit, her heart thumping, leaning on the rucksack, trying to take in what she had just done: sneaking out of the house in the dark, meeting up at Jack’s place and driving south through the night. Now Jack, in his pork-pie hat, was blowing on his harmonica as if they were extras in the
Summer Holiday
film. His girlfriend, Sandy, was asleep over his lap, her eye make-up blotched round her eyes. Lorne Dobson was blotto already, smoking that stupid joint.

Marty and Des O’Malley were up front sharing the driving, while she was tucked up in a corner over the back wheels trying not to feel sick.

‘You’ve done it! Bye, school … bye bye, Grimbleton …
au revoir
, Winstanleys. No one can stop me now, she thought. Connie’s big adventure had begun and she’d no regrets. She was trying to stay cool but
Lorne’s joint was getting to her. It always made her feel sick. They were on the A6 in Derbyshire somewhere. Looking for an all-night transport café.

Tony Amos was joining them in London. He’d arranged a special recording session in a top studio and she was part of the roadie team. This beat History A level Part I.

She felt mean, leaning on Dr Friedmann for some cash and getting him to find her passport. It had been part of the deal after Mama died that she became a Winstanley proper and she’d insisted on having a proper ten-year passport, not a visitor’s card.

All her market stall savings were drawn out of the Post Office. There was just about enough to pay her share until the band got paid. Everyone was used to sharing food, cigs, sleeping bags. She’d roughed it enough in the Guides at Auntie Lee’s camps to know how to keep clean. There was a letter in the post to Division Street, asking them not to worry and explaining why she must have this chance now.

She shared her sleeping bag with Marty but they hadn’t done much but the usual petting in the back of the van. He was very careful round her and she wondered if Gran’s warning was true that he’d prefer her to be a Catholic.

When he was on stage she watched other girls screaming at him and begging him to come to them. It made her feel so proud that he’d chosen her. When the screams died down she was the one to keep his
bed warm. Now she was living her dream, even if her bones shook. This was the freedom of the open road, their own Route 66 across America, and Jack Kerouac, her beat hero, would be proud, even if this was only the A6 to London. They were living the dream: Rick Romero and the Rollercoasters, beat merchants in leathers, were on the road to fame. She looked around at the motley bunch, not sure what to make of them.

Jacko and Sandra were now a steady item. Lorne and Des took on the girls after the gigs and played the field. They liked a pint or five before a gig and came on smelling like a brewery.

Marty got short with them. ‘You’d better not mess up at the session. This is the big one, guys. You can get as high as you like afterwards.’

‘Yes, boss,’ they mocked.

Connie saw red. Didn’t they realise how rubbish they were after a skinful – slurring voices, silly antics on stage and losing the key? Why did they have to get so tanked up to perform? She’d tried the spliffs and the pills but couldn’t see the point. None of them was the better for them.

Des and Marty had to stay awake all night so Des produced a tin of Benzies to keep them alert. Then Marty wouldn’t sleep and needed some of Jack’s mum’s Valium for the jitters. Connie was too excited to need anything, just so grateful to be part of the gang. Wrapping her faithful old duffel round herself like a blanket, she tried to sleep. It was going to be
a long night’s ride … what a good title for a song. She let the words float inside her head, found a pencil stub and her little jotting pad.

Marty drove through the garden suburbs at dawn and onto the golden stone of the city buildings. This was where it was all happening: the Beatles, Cliff and the Shadows, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. Move over, boys, he grinned to himself. Rick and the Rollercoasters will be the next big thing.

Even at this hour, he’d never seen so much traffic – taxis, red buses – and tall grey office blocks loomed above them. Where did all these people come from? He felt small, scared and excited all at the same time, but he wanted to savour every minute of their experience. The recording session, the chance to meet an agent who was interested in them, and then on to the Continent for the gig in Switzerland at some international student gathering. One of Jacko’s mates, Billy Froggatt, had fixed it up for them. Marty had a sinking feeling there’d not be much dosh in it, just travelling expenses. The cellars of Hamburg it was not, but he could put Continental tour on his billing.

‘Let’s find the Two Is coffee bar,’ yelled Sandy. ‘Has anyone got a map?’

‘Park up first. I need another slash!’ yelled Lorne, who smelled like a Moroccan hookah wallah.

The Two Is on the Kings Road was where Marty’s heroes had been discovered. The rock-and-roll manager, Larry Parnes – ‘Mr Parnes Shillings and Pence’ – was the top dude on everyone’s lips. He could make or break you with one sneer or one telephone call: Parlaphone, EMI, Decca, Columbia … all the big record companies were here. To get a chart hit, their record must get to the ear of the right manager. It was hard graft, luck and good connections. They had to pull together and make some luck happen

The whiff in the van was getting worse. There were just too many of them and all their equipment as well. Sandy was the latest of Jacko’s conquests, pretty in the dollybird sort of way, but she was a useless hanger on. She was here for the ride, not like young Connie, who was already a star. She shoved the map from her rucksack. ‘Be prepared,’ she laughed. She had a good voice too. He’d heard her rehearsing lyrics in the back; a special kid, but he wished she hadn’t skipped her exams to jump on board. Sometimes she looked at him as if he were some god, and called him Rick instead of Marty.

He was just another Lancashire lad hoping to make his name and fortune in the big bad city where hundreds of others were after the same crock of gold.
The Beatles had raised the bar with their hit songs and own special brand of music and lyrics. If only you could bottle that sort of success, he sighed. Bands had relied so long on covering American hits and climbing the charts. Now it was time to write your own or buy the best of British song-writing talent. They would need a top-brass manager and a good agent.

How could he match some of the instrumental stuff, Karl Denver’s version of ‘Wimoweh’ or the Shadows’ hits? There were no easy routes to success, but coming to London might just give them the edge and some professional criticism. The guys in the trade would assess his chances of success or send them back home to plaster walls for his dad.

Tony said he had talent and could go far, given the right songs and image. They’d all chucked in jobs and studies to come this far. He just hoped when the time came they wouldn’t let each other down and make a Horlicks of their bid for stardom.

Des was sound, Jacko was iffy and Lorne a piss artist at times, always humping some tart while they were setting up stage.

The only kid he could trust was Connie. She’d been the first serious girl he’d ever gone round with. She’d lost her mam and had no dad, and was so bright it scared him. She hung on his every word and that scared him too. Those intense blue eyes, like a bottle of Quink, and that magnificent mane of coppery gold
hair. She was striking in an odd sort of way. Yet she brought out the brother in him more than the lover, and that worried him. They’d made out a few times now but something stopped him when it came to full sex. Was it his mother’s voice warning, ‘What do you want with a half-Greek heathen? Be wary of those Winstanleys. I’ve heard some funny tales about them. She’s the sort to eat you alive, suck you dry and then spit you out.’

‘Mam, she’s a great kid and she’s clever.’

‘Then she’ll run rings round you. Clever girls are the worst. They’re not natural. They jump before you know you’ve shouted.’

‘Con’s not like that.’

‘All girls are like that when they’ve got their eye fixed in your direction. She’s not the one for you, Martin.’

‘I’m not looking for a wife. We just want to have some fun.’

‘That was not what you were brought up to believe. We mate for life, not here and there like some dog and bitch on heat. The Church is wiser than you.’

‘You’re so old-fashioned. This is the sixties, not the Victorian age,’ he argued, but his mother just shook her head.

‘You’ll learn, son … you’ll learn, and so’ll she. There’s a price to pay for everything. Promise me one thing, pet.’

Marty had paused from his packing. ‘Now what?’

‘Take your chance. Yer only young once. If a chance’s offered to you, go for it but don’t tie yourself down yet. You young ones have chances we never got. Plenty of time for girls. Don’t get side-tracked from your goal by a pretty face.’

Marty smiled, knowing his mam was behind him in this quest. What chances had she forfeited to bring up the Gorman brood?

They found some waste ground to park up and wandered down the Kings Road, star struck, trying to look cool, yet feeling like country bumpkins. Marty sensed the creative energy of the place and the wealth; the clothes shops, the designer windows, girls sashaying down the street. Sandy and Connie stared in admiration at the fashions in the boutiques. If he made it, this is what he could expect too, Marty smiled to himself. This was where he belonged.

They dined on bacon butties and Coca-Cola. Everyone had to stay sober for the interview. He’d kill Lorne if he skived off and blew it.

The studio was in an old workshop in a backstreet, up some wooden steps. It was like a barn, divided up into sound booths and little units. There was a room for them to rehearse and set up their gear.

No one bothered with them or fussed over them, just took their particulars and checked their appointment. There was a group of folk singers doing their recording, and lights were flashing, warning everyone to keep out of the way. There was so much more than
strumming a tune in front of a mike to make a good tape: sound engineers, studio producers, assistants, session artists and background vocalists, managers, agents, a whole bevy of background boys were involved, and the Rollercoasters had none of them to hand. Marty felt small beer in this set-up.

They assembled their stall in silence, no one looking at the others much, tired from the journey, and hung over, and not a little overawed by the professionals around them.

‘I thought this was going to be some smart outfit. We could do this in Manchester for half the price,’ Lorne sneered staring round at the décor.

‘Tony said this was kosher … some fancy studios rip you off with promises. Their demo tapes are rubbish. We’ll get a decent tape out of this lot.’ Marty tried to sound confident.

‘What does that poofter know? We’ve been had!’ Lorne snapped.

‘Tony’s not like that,’ Marty argued.

‘What planet did you drop off? Tony Amos is out for all he can get – a bit of leg over, bit of a blow job, I saw the way he looks at you.’ Lorne laughed and then coughed on his cigarette. ‘You can be a right altar boy at times. He didn’t get anything from us so he’s just sent us on this wild-goose chase. He’s having you on.’

Marty felt sick. Why was Lorne winding him up? Getting him rattled so he’d belt out numbers with a
bit more aggression, letting the fury out on the guitar, or what? Now he was confused.

‘You’re a bowl of shit, Dobsy!’

‘Belt up, you two.’ Des jumped forward. ‘Lorne, give us a hand.’

‘Take no notice of him.’ Connie moved in. ‘He’s no room to talk. He’d have it off with half the audience, given a chance.’

‘I didn’t know Tony Amos was a powder puff.’

‘So what if he is?’ she replied. ‘It doesn’t stop him spotting talent.’

‘But to use boys for—’

‘Oh, come on. Half the film stars in Hollywood would never have made it to the screen … even I know about casting couches,’ Connie laughed.

‘I hate queers,’ Marty said.

‘No you don’t. They’re just the same as we are but love differently, that’s all.’

‘What do you know about queers in your grammar school?’

‘Enough to know they’re human beings. They eat, wash, pee. Work for a living … We all share the same planet.’

‘If he’d come on to me, I’d have battered him.’

‘And he sensed it so he leaves you alone.’

‘For a kid you know a bit more than you let on,’ he smiled, hugging her.

‘Let’s just say there’d be a few masterpieces, ballets, operas, sonatas, plays and ballads and hits that
wouldn’t be here but for “queers”, as you call them. I hate that word.’

‘So who do you know in that sort of world, then?’

‘My lips are sealed but they’re no better or worse than we are, so shut up!’

Mam was right, Connie was a bright button and generous with it. He was intrigued at her spirited defence of pervs. His own experience at the Salesian had put him off men like that for life.

Then it was time to warm up, rehearse and do their takes. One bit took five shots when Lorne kept fluffing his entry. They listened to the roughs. That was agony enough. In his heart Marty knew that although they were on beat, it was an ordinary song and a so-so sound. What they were missing was a killer song with a good riff. They were better than most, but not unique. Four men banging drums and guitars might be the fashion right now but they would never be the Beatles. But there were other groups doing well in the charts: the Springfields, the Seekers. Connie’s voice was ringing in the back of Marty’s head. What they needed was a girl on stage to brighten up the act.

‘No, I can’t … I can’t sing up front.’ Connie leaned away from him, against the wall of the van. The others had gone window-shopping.

‘But you’ve been a Silkie. You can do it,’ Marty insisted.

‘That was different. It was just me and my best friends …’