The Singer (15 page)

I was starting to get the picture.

‘Now I know that is youze number,’ he continued, ‘an’ I know what youze look like. Soon enough I’ll know where you live.
Ah’m pretty sure you wouldnae want me to be makin’ regular visits, eh?’

I stood up, heart hammering, red fog coming down. I wanted to pound this prick into the pavement right then and there, but that was probably exactly what he wanted. He did look like he thrived on pain.

‘You know, Robin,’ I said to him instead, ‘everyone told me you were a fuck-up and a nutter but I thought no, I’m not going
to take their word for it, I’m sure he has his own story and it’s a story worth hearing. Well, how wrong I was. You are a nutter. God, what a fucking nightmare it must be, living in your head.’ I grimaced sarcastically. ‘Tatty bye then, Robin. Let me know if you ever make it back to the real world.’

Before I slammed out of the door, I looked over at Christophe who had moved closer to our table,
obviously noting things weren’t turning out well. He caught my eye and nodded.

Outside I walked up Kentish Town Road as fast as my legs would carry me. My hands were clenching and unclenching and I was grinding my teeth, hissing a stream of expletives under my breath. Fear and rage combined – rage that I had been duped so easily by such a lowlife; fear that he would carry out his home invasion
threat and Louise would get caught in the crossfire.

I wondered if this was part of the prick’s plan too, get me to leave in a huff and lead him straight back to my door. A C2 bus was pulling into the stop in front of me. Without looking back to check, I made a dash for it and swung myself on board.

As I moved down the aisle I looked out of the window just in time to clock us passing Robin Leith,
halfway between the pub and the bus stop. For a second our eyes met and I feverishly hoped he’d noted I was going in the direction of Hampstead Heath.

A few paces back, Christophe was walking behind him.

Jesus Christ, I thought, falling into a seat. This was supposed to be easy. A few lunches with some middle-aged musicians, how much trouble can that get you into?

I rode the C2 all the way
up to the Heath, where I got off and headed up into the wilds, stomping against the wind through the thick grass until I was on top of the hill from where you can see the whole of London spread out before you. Horrible day though it was, there were still people up there, jolly Hampstead types flying kites with their kids and walking their Weimaraners, so I didn’t bother to take in the panorama, just
kept on walking, getting as far away from them as possible. The weather matched my mood: a dismal symphony of thundering grey storm clouds whipped across the sky by a spiteful north-easterly wind.

I must have spent a couple of hours up there, trying to work out what the fuck I was going to tell Louise if that nutter ever did turn up on our doorstep, when my mobile started vibrating in my pocket,
pulling me back to reality.

I took care of that thing for you
the text read and I smiled. Christophe was using our
Goodfellas
code.
I’m in the Stanley now if you fancy a decent drink
.

This was more heartening still. I made my way back to civilisation and grabbed the first cab I could find.

October 1977

‘I hear you’ve got yourself a band, Stevie. A punk band, am I right?’ Don Dawson smiled across his desk, revealing a row of pointed teeth that reminded Stevie of a shark. A shark with a lot of gold fillings.

‘Well, aye, I have,’ Stevie shrugged. ‘But we’ve only been goin’ a few months. We’ve only just got ourselves a singer…’

Dawson chuckled, relaxing back
into his leather chair. ‘Thought that was what it were all about, Stevie lad, just pick up some instruments and gerron a stage. You don’t need to practise owt, do you? I didn’t think you young ’uns cared if it sounded shite? I thought—’ he blew three smoke rings out of his cigar and firmly eyeballed his youthful charge ‘—it were all about the attitude.’

This room was all about the attitude all
right. This was Dawson’s inner sanctum, the room at the top of Hull’s biggest nightclub, the Ocean Rooms, and everything about it spoke of the man’s progress in the world.

Dawson sat behind a heavy mahogany desk, on which were
placed a giant table lighter, a cigar humidifier and some kind of sculpture-cum-ashtray that was supposed to give off a whiff of high culture. His throne was a big, black
leather upholstered armchair that swivelled around, facing another set of black leather chairs that had no such facility, so that his associates could feel comfortable but know their place at the same time. To Old King Hull’s right was a teak cocktail cabinet on which crystal decanters full of Scotch and brandy stood on a little turntable that spun gently around and played a dinky tune when you
took out the stoppers.

To his left was a rack of pool cues. Seeing as there was no actual pool table in the office, it didn’t take much imagination to work out what they were there for. On the wall above the desk hung a portrait of Mrs Pauline Dawson as the youthful beauty queen she had been when they’d first met in the sixties, a tiara resting on her black, bouffanted hair, a blue sash around
an elegant white cocktail dress. The frame was ornate, dull gold rococo and likely as not the safe was hidden behind it.

There were other framed photographs around the walls, Don meeting various celebrities at his clubs – Bernard Manning, Joe Bugner, Harvey Smith, Brian Jacks, Julie Goodyear, Hurricane Higgins. These were more discreetly done, as if to say, I know them, aye, but I don’t have
to boast about it.

Stevie had been summoned here this Saturday morning by a message relayed to his brother Connor by Terry and Barry. Don wanted to pick Stevie’s brains, they’d said, which had made them all laugh. As if he had any.

But Don had counted the takings for that night at The Outlook and confirmed his suspicions about where the future lay. Lately he’d been filling his clubs with concerts
by more of these punk types. Gen X. The Damned. The Buzzcocks over from Manchester. It were starting to look like a licence to print money.

Stevie mulled over this last question before answering.

Since Vince had joined the band, Blood Truth’s progress hadn’t
simply been about getting a useable live set together. They’d had other, personal stuff to sort out first.

Going back to school had put
a bit of strain on things. Gary Dunton had caused havoc with Kevin, accusing him of all sorts and threatening him with a kicking for getting out of line. Actually, Stevie suspected Kev had taken one hiding already, although he hadn’t said owt. He were all for settling the cunt once and for all, but Kevin had to live next to Dunton and pleaded with Stevie to leave it. At the moment, they were getting
away with using Kevin’s ‘orchestra’ night as an excuse, but sooner or later it were obvious that would fall apart.

Most nights, Lynton and Stevie rehearsed together, working out songs and trying out new ideas. Just as he’d picked up the bass so quickly, Lynton was getting pretty handy on drums too, so they could shift instruments around when they wanted. If they weren’t playing their own music
they’d be listening to John Peel or playing Stevie’s latest pickings from Sidney Scarborough’s. Lynton’s folks didn’t seem to mind Stevie being round their house the whole time, which were a bonus, considering he didn’t want to be anywhere near his own.

Then, at weekends, Vince’s girlfriend Rachel would bring him down in her horrible orange and white Citroen Diane and he’d have more lyrics to
put to their budding creations.

That Rachel were a weird one, Stevie thought. She obviously came from a rich family, had that look about her that she’d never wanted for owt. She looked too clean, her clothes too well cut, however skinny and arty she was. With clear, almost translucent skin and dyed black hair, she was willowy and remote, always hiding behind sunglasses and never speaking. Not
that she hung around much any road, just dropped Vince off and then picked him up later, fuck knows what she got up to in between. Maybe she joined Pauline Dawson in the beauty parlour, getting her hair done by experts.

Now that it had been a few weeks, even Stevie had noticed
an air of tension afflict Lynton whenever Vince walked through the door. He’d go all stiff-legged and prickly, like a
cat with its hackles up, which were funny really, ’cos Vince always seemed to go out of his way to be nice to him, asking him loads of questions about them old jazzers Lynton liked so much. And Lynton always answered him politely but he never let things roll into an actual conversation. Stevie couldn’t quite work out why, but something told him not to bring it up when they were on their own. Everyone
had things they didn’t want to talk about.

Still, once they got playing they didn’t need words. They were just brilliant. They’d all loved ‘New Rose’ so much they’d decided it needed to be in the set, although they’d ditched ‘Anarchy’ ’cos Vince didn’t want to sing it. What he did love, though, was Link Wray’s ‘Rumble’, a tune Stevie had picked up from Terry and Barry’s tapes. They’d told him
it were the original punk rock, the first record to get banned for starting knife fights in the States – and there weren’t even any words. Not only had Link invented distortion, he was also a Red Indian and looked like Crazy Horse with a quiff. That made him a fucking hero in Stevie’s book.

Vince had never heard of Link but he loved the slow menace of his signature tune so much that he’d suggested
it be the first number in their set, priming the audience before Vince made an entrance. They were gonna try and segue it into another tune they’d been working on, which Vince had the words for but no title and the two had started to fuse into one seething mass which Stevie dubbed ‘Grumble’.

So they had a start and they had an end, but in-between it were all a bit sketchy. Though Dawson had a
point, that weren’t supposed to matter.

‘Why?’ he cocked his head to one side and smiled back at the club manager. ‘What you after?’

‘That’s my boy,’ Dawson grinned. ‘My lad on the inside. I’ve seen the future, Stevie, as well as you have. The money that these bands make…’ He watched another smoke ring drift up towards
the ceiling, then looked Stevie straight in the eye. ‘I’m looking to expand
my business interests, lad. I’ve done right nice putting these punk bands on at my clubs, right nice indeed. Made a lot of interesting contacts and all. Makes sense to build on that. Tek a leaf out of that McLaren’s book, eh? So, what I need is some raw, home-grown talent…’

‘What you saying?’ Stevie wanted to get this clear. ‘You want to be our manager or summat?’

‘That’s right,’ Dawson nodded.
‘I knew you weren’t daft.’

‘But you’ve not heard owt.’

‘I don’t need to,’ Dawson leaned forward across his desk. ‘I know it’s not Frank Sinatra, son, and that’s as far as my musical appreciation extends. Punk rock, funk rock, heavy metal – it’s all the same racket to me. But I saw you and that coloured lad at Sex Pistols show. You know what it’s all about, what kids want,’ he nodded meaningfully
and continued.

‘Stevie lad, I couldn’t give two shakes of a pygmy’s ballbag what you sound like, but I do trust your judgement. You be the ears of this operation and I’ll be the brains.’

He let that one sink in for a minute, enjoying the huge, shit-eating grin that slowly stole across Stevie’s face.

‘So when you’ve had enough time to get your little act together, come back and see us, all of
you.’ Dawson made a bit of a show about fishing his business card out of the inside pocket of his jacket and handing it over. It was gold with black writing and a little DD emblem with a pair of dice underneath it.

‘Only don’t take too long, eh?’

Dawson had them sign the contract the night they played the gig. It was 31 October, Halloween, and two days after the Pistols had released
Never Mind
the Bollocks
to another firestorm of media outrage. Dawson had watched that record shop being closed down for stocking ‘obscene material’ on the news and chuckled to himself at fate’s providence. The tickets for Blood Truth’s debut
gig at the Ocean Rooms had already sold out. They had a lot of friends, them Mullinses.

Just so that Stevie felt a true measure of his power, he’d had the lad help
with the fly-postering campaign, running round the city centre after dark with a roll of the posters that Rachel had designed, a bucket of paste and a ladder. Copper had caught him halfway up his steps outside Sidney Scarborough’s.

‘What’s that there, lad?’ he’d said.

‘Fuck,’ Stevie had replied.

The copper had made a long show of studying the poster, making sarcastic comments as he did so,
like: ‘One of those punk rockers are you? Flamin’ puff rock if you ask me.’ Finally, he’d squinted at the bit that mentioned the Ocean Rooms.

‘One of Don’s, is it?’ He leered up at Stevie, still wobbling on his perch.

Not trusting his own mouth, Stevie just nodded.

‘All right then, son,’ copper said. ‘I’ll pretend this never happened. But don’t let me catch you again, like.’

Stevie had fled
into the night. The copper and Dawson had a right laugh about that later, over a whisky in Don’s office.

‘Let the lad know who’s in charge here,’ Dawson had said. ‘Just in case he gets any big ideas when money starts rolling in.’

He looked at them now, eagerly scrawling their names across the papers he’d had his lawyer draw up in the name of his latest company, Dawsongs. Papers that gave Dawson
fifty per cent of anything the band were likely to ever earn. They could have said anything, mind. But they were too keen to even read the large print, the lot of ’em. Well, who else was gonna take this lot seriously? Who else was gonna nurture their teenage dreams?

He looked at Stevie, big and hard and Irish, with that rogue’s smile and wandering eyes. He had brains enough but wore his longings
so transparently on his sleeve it wouldn’t be hard to keep him happy. Lynton, long thin and nervous, rolling his huge eyes up and down, too shy to hold a gaze for a second. Would
be no trouble from that one either – long as they kept him away from British Legion, like. Little drummer, what were his name, might have a problem convincing people he was legally old enough. The only one of them who
caused a slight flicker of doubt to momentarily cross Don’s cash register of a mind was Vince Smith.