William the Conqueror at the Old Duke, 3/6/17 (one sentence review)
What might be an especially bony knee, or possibly a recklessly angled elbow, wedges into my back in the packed-out Old Duke in Bristol, an awkwardly-shaped pub where the jazz greats peer down from the frames on the wall to witness William the Conqueror doing their thing: a rootsy grunge-folk that significantly amps up the nagging melodies of singer/guitarist Ruarri Joseph's solo work and the pitch-perfect harmonies from bassist Naomi Holmes and drummer Harry Harding; meanwhile, I forgive the niggle of the personal space invasion as the elbow/knee's owner belts out Cold Ontario's call-and-response "So they say" in fine voice, and most of the crowd are joining in by the end (including the majority that had never heard the song before now), their cheers growing louder for highlights like Tend to the Thorns and new single In my Dreams; the end comes too soon (my unspoken request for their stunning Sunny is the Style remaining unfulfilled) through the crescendo of the title track from their forthcoming album, Proud Disturbers of the Peace: it's something of a mission statement for the band, whose raucous recent tunes blow the cobwebs from the sleepier venues they sometimes play, but in the boozy Old Duke tonight they're more like proud upholders of the ruckus.
I wrote a new story for http://sfswap.org, which is “a thing for giving people who want to write stories a kick up the arse so they can get writing. It’s also a way for them to shit out their unused ideas and see what other people make of them. People submit story ideas, which are then shuffled and given back to the submitters to prompt stories. These stories then go up on a website for people to read” (more here: http://sfswap.org/sfswap-the-plan-from-here/).
Check out the other stories - there are some seriously great ones. And then there’s mine…
PROMPT PROVIDER: @alexwattsesq
AUTHOR: @danielmbase
PROMPT: People make ends meet by renting out their brains as computing power for companies while they sleep.
That’s twice now; once more might set the alarms off. I tighten my rucksack’s left strap to shift its weight. The doors won’t open for me, but my face in their mirrored glass reminds me that the security drones are only disabled for another ten minutes. I try to pull the balaclava lower, although the damn thing is made of wool and is too warm even in these climate-controlled offices. I can still see my chin and beard but I shouldn’t be identifiable.
Her pass got me into the reception area but no further. If I can’t get into the labs, there’s only one place it can go. Sorry, lady, but at least I might make it out of here this way.
*****
Time to wake up, Lottie!
Ugh, piss off.
The time is now 7.30am, Lottie.
Yeah, I know!
Start your day with Shreddies to keep hunger locked up ‘til lunch!
What? I open my eyes. I’m meant to be on the ad-free version! I tear out the BrainShare electrodes and let them drop onto my pillow. My face prickles with warm irritation and my stomach rumbles. Still, there should be time for some Shreddies before work.
*****
Before I can work out how to break the ice, another customer leaves without a kind word. Work is so dull I’d pimp out my spare brainpower while I’m here as well if they’d let me.
Opposite the clinic there are fewer protesters again today, and the fancy tents are all gone; just a handful of bedraggled ones remain. They still wouldn’t look at me when I passed them on the way in – not that I should talk to them anyway. I do like to read their placards, although their jokey tone – Down with this sort of thing! – has given way to something more desperate: It’s nearly too late to repent was new today.
The doors to the labs and offices hiss open; hopefully it’s the scientist who held the door for me this morning – good thing, as I’d forgotten my pass. At least she must have recognised me, albeit without saying a word, and she might be up for a conversation now.
Nope – instead, Karen enters and perches on the corner of my desk, not even looking up from her notes. “Lottie, we’ve had a complaint from a customer – he says you’re looking a little rough today.”
You what? “What’s that to do with him?”
“Your face is the first thing people see, Lottie. When they walk in, you are Youth Decay, and you are looking very tired.”
“Yeah, sorry, I had an unsettled night.”
“Are you sure BrainShare isn’t tiring you out?”
I wouldn’t need to use BrainShare if this place offered me regular hours. “Nah, it’s all these mad dreams I keep having. In fact, I think I dreamed I was here last night. Any chance I can get overtime for that?!” Karen doesn’t even look up. “But yeah, BrainShare doesn’t tire me out at all – it just uses my spare processing power while I sleep.”
“Which project are you helping with? The protein-folding one or the big bang simulator?”
“Ha, no, I use CP-YOU, which just rents out my brain to whichever company will bid most for it that night,” I shrug. “It pays more than the ones that actually, you know, try to further humanity!” I look for a smile but still get nothing.
“Well I need you to make more of an effort, Lottie.” She slides off the desk and marches way, turning back to me as she swipes her access card. “Pull yourself together, yeah?”
That was the first proper conversation I’ve had with anyone for four days.
*****
My whole body tenses as I press the only button on the ramshackle device. It doesn’t explode; red numbers flicker onto the screen – 36:00:00 – and start to silently count down. It works!
There is nothing but her desk in this vast white reception area. I move her chair aside and duct tape the device underneath her desk drawers.
I swipe her pass and exit into the humid night, heading for our camp over the road. I squeeze into my supposedly two-man tent – not that anyone else has ever been inside – for my last night here. Before I plug in my BrainShare wires for the night, I check out the damage to my face in my phone’s front camera. Keith socked me good, the bastard: my right eye is swollen shut. Well, we’ll see who’s the tough guy in a day and a half.
*****
Time to wake up, Lottie!
Yeah, sure. I skip the coffee and Shreddies to spend some time getting my make-up just so, but I don’t look any more alive than yesterday thanks to more mental dreams about bombs in my office.
I get an earlier tram than usual and get off a few stops early for a walk. By the time I get to work I’m sweating heavily, as well as being too haggard to be seen behind a reception desk.
There’s a commotion in the protesters’ camp as two bearded men are dragged away from each other. Ha! This could be worth a closer look …
I sneak over, but one of them laughs and points at me. “Hey, Stu, is that your collateral damage?”
“You’re the receptionist at Youth Decay, yeah?” pants the other. “You might want to take the day off work, lady.”
He – Stu, I suppose – sports a gnarly black eye. It’s him!
*****
The explosion is just a dull thud from the café, breaking the silence that followed hours of talking.
“What now?” I ask Stu.
“I didn’t think I’d still be alive today, but I should probably make myself scarce,” he says, patting his tent. “Do you want to come with me?”
Sirens yelp into life somewhere outside. A few miles away, my tiny flat lies empty and silent as always.
What is the worst thing about being stuck in a dystopia? You can never find a decent cup of coffee. Either I end up in some ecologically-ravaged last days of capitalism where real crops refuse to grow any more, or humanity is down to its last few survivors and I am lucky to even find clean water to drink. Heck, give me a half-baked noir thriller any day – at least I can get my caffeine fix while everyone around me smokes and looks moody.
This world is very much in the post-apocalypse mould; so far I have found a deserted city centre, endless queues of abandoned cars and hundreds of improbably beautiful corpses everywhere. The bodies all seem peaceful and perfectly preserved, which is the first sign this place might take some real work. Where is the death we can believe in – the smells, the carrion, the insects and the viscera?
My notes tell me that this is my sixth dystopia in a row, so they must be in right now. I cannot quite work out what went down here yet: no sign of zombies, no nuclear wasteland, no quarantine zones and no dire headlines on newspapers blown through the streets.
There was no weather at all when I arrived, just a blank white ceiling, so I conjured the only kind that fits an abandoned city landscape like this: an endless blue sky and a large, relentless sun. The result: now I need some water. I break into a looted café that stands out among the surrounding non-descript buildings thanks to its broken glass and over-use of red in its furniture and decorations. As the writer has actually bothered to sketch in physical details, you know something will be going down here at some point.
I try a tap, but of course it does not work. I suppose I will just have to scrabble for sustenance in the dirt with whatever survivors there are. I could simply decide that the city's water supply works after all and it would be thus; however, that might contradict some previous storyline here, and there is nothing worse than an inconsistent narrative.
I hear voices approaching: teenage, American, hatefully enthusiastic. I crouch behind the counter to observe unseen as they sit in a booth. One girl, two boys, all with that Botox look you get when 20-something actors play late-teen characters, not letting their faces move in case it reveals any sign of decrepitude. The boys both vie for her attention with their clean-cut yet competitive banter; this has Young Adult novel written all over it. I am going to have a lot of work to do here.
As Blonde Hunk #1 teases #2 about his longer hair (“Hey, Josh, I bet you spend longer in the bathroom than Roberta!”), I shuffle silently along the floor to get a better look. All three are breathtakingly well-groomed for apocalypse survivors, but the girl is almost featureless: a classic your-face-here protagonist for the reader. The boys are identically chiselled, the only difference being their hair length.
I get to work, leaving #1's appearance as it is but making #2 shorter, more hirsute and hung like a kraken, although I do not intend to let him use it in a story aimed at impressionable youngsters. I remove a significant amount of weight, cleanliness and sartorial elegance from all three – much better.
As for Roberta, well, I make her look like me. Why not?
I consider tweaking their sexual preferences to make things really interesting but decide that is an alteration too far (not on moral grounds, of course; I just want to avoid conflicts with the rest of the story). After what happened with Jack, I avoid adjusting major characters too much.
Back in the real world, the author will be wondering why her hit novel is slowly transforming before her eyes. She ought to be grateful.
* * *
Cheap stock characters never scream when you kill them – they die easily and quickly fade away.
This doofus found me eating from a stricken vending machine and contemplating my next move. He practically skipped over and squealed, “My God, I thought I was the only one left!” He pulled a hammy concerned face and clapped his hands together. “Where did you come from? Oh, please tell me there are others too!”
I decided to throw him some hope, as so many dystopias are joyless slogs. “There are entire settlements left, and some have even got power grids up, the internet, clean pants – everything.”
“Wow, that's great!” His face turned wistful with unrealistic haste. “You know, if the government hadn't made everyone have those inoculations, none of this would have happened. And if it wasn't for the corporations breeding those...”
“Yes, thanks for the exposition,” I snap. Some backstory is always useful, but you cannot just throw in a character to baldly explain the story like that!
He ignored the barb. “We really should of seen it coming, that's all I'm saying.”
Should of? “No, I would have phrased that differently. You mean 'should have'. Now say your line again, but properly.” I do still get to correct people’s grammar, which I have always loved; local flavour and colloquialisms are no substitution for sentences that just MAKE SENSE.
He pushed my shoulder playfully. “Oh, you are such a tease!” he lisped, channelling the campness of every gay supporting actor from every 90s chick-flick. I have little time for characters that exist just to fill in the plot, but stereotypes are the last refuge of the lazy scoundrel. There was an easy way to test if he was a character worth keeping or a half-formed homophobic afterthought.
“What is your name, son?”
He blinked twice and began, “You know, if the government hadn't made everyone have those inoculations—”
I was not having that. I seized his throat and pushed my thumbs into his windpipe. His knees crumpled almost instantly, and I fell to the floor, losing my grip on his neck and cracking my kneecaps on the ground. I scrambled to my feet, nearly slipping on the dusty scree, but our nameless extra was on his back, still and expressionless.
And now he is dead, almost translucent already. Honestly, if your character cannot withstand that, he does not deserve the space on the page! I suppose I could have just conjured him out of existence, but is it really murder if you kill something without a soul? I think not!
Although there will soon be no body to move, Roberta might need to know these snippets of backstory. I suppose I had better replace him with something more subtle; after all, the first rule of writing fiction is show, not tell! But what to change? Roberta having a flashback to uncovering diabolical experiments on a school trip at Generic Evil Corporation Ltd? One of the boys having to hack off an arm after his inoculation scar throbs and begins to spread its poison through his body? If I find our wet protagonists, I can piece together the history of this grey hell and start cleaning it up.
* * *
I have not found my way home since my first “kill”, if you can really call it that. Before then, I would plough through the shoddy first drafts that landed on my desk, stamping out irregularities until the story was fixed. My powers increased until not even the authors could change things back once I was done, leading to angry phone calls and desperate threats. I stopped reading emails from Oakley Publishing, and they stopped sending me work, as if that would stop me.
I turned my attention from hesitant first drafts to over-hyped best-sellers, barely staying home between each book for long enough to hear the authors’ piteous bleats of outrage. I added colour to bland landscapes, fleshed out lazy characters, quashed inconsistencies, spiced up insipid dialogue, beefed up thin plots and defeated all traces of obscenity. Every time I came home, the real world seemed flatter than the modified ones I left behind; proof that reality cannot compete with an imagination as fertile as mine.
The Scottish novel felt different immediately, as if the author had lived here: its bitter coffee, rank smells and rough textures were almost more vivid than home. Alas, its authenticity extended to unnecessary swearing and gratuitous sex. Oh, so much sex.
I tried to censor it as best I could, erasing whole pages of contentious dialogue, deleting violent fight scenes, and even just trying to convince the characters that it takes far more imagination to express yourself without resorting to vulgarity. Some books are less flexible than others, however, and this one fought back at every turn, its bloody-minded characters getting into more outrageous and profane scrapes to replace those I cleansed from the record.
I intervened as Jack, the filthy-yet-apparently-magnetic protagonist, copulated with some strumpet in public. As they did their business against a tree in a litter-blasted park, I resisted the temptation to spray them with a hose like the filthy curs they were; instead, I just removed her from the scene. Jack soon found her again, though, this time taking her to – and in – a church, thankfully empty for renovations. I had followed them there and sneaked in around the back, through scaffolding and rubble. At some point I must have picked up the screwdriver.
I found them already going at it, his buttocks bouncing hairily as she giggled beneath him. Whatever semblance of plot there had been before was gone: the story was just trying to offend, and I did not know how to stop it. I wondered if there was there any way of starting again. Jack looked up and spotted me, started to say something. I did not want to hear it, so interrupted: “Get off her!”
His obscene grin, his unashamed refusal to cover that horrible nakedness, his casual besmirching of a church; it was too much. “What’s wrong doll? Want to join in?” he asked.
No, Jack, I did not want to join in; I just wanted to fix your sordid story. I put the screwdriver through his eye, and he screamed at a pitch unbecoming of a male protagonist. To make it stop, I plunged him again and again, not even sure of where I was striking.
As he twitched his last, I dropped the screwdriver, and the world flickered and faded into a soothing grey. A new landscape slowly materialised: not the usual sight of my cosy home office, but instead a sterile bedroom, a blindfolded naked woman and a man in an expensive suit. I got to work.
* * *
I crouch behind a shiny yellow 4x4 on a trashed pedestrianised high street as Roberta and the boys burst out of a clothes shop over the road, laughing and laden with shopping bags. It took me no time at all to track them down – they are making no effort to hide from me or anyone else. Surely there must be a corrupt government, band of mutants or bloodthirsty faction of survivors hunting them somewhere? I always wonder what kind of writer would make each of these worlds, but there is nothing here to go on.
Shoot! Roberta looks up and hurries towards me – she has spotted me! “Will, Josh – look! A Jeep Renegade!”
Will and Josh scurry after her, and I swear the car shimmers. The boys stand back to admire the Jeep, but Roberta heads round to the driver’s side and sees me.
“Oh, HI!”
I clamber to my feet. “Hi, Roberta.”
If knowing her name has shaken her, she does not show it. “Is this your Jeep?”
“No.”
“Mind if I take it?”
“Well, no…”
“Great! I love Jeeps!”
“I hear this one's the best yet,” pipes up Will.
“Jeeps are built for pioneers,” says Josh. “Every trip is another chance for adventure!”
Okay, that is quite enough product placement for one book. Still, cutting it out and getting this story back on track will be easy. “Come on, Roberta, you should not be shopping and drooling over cars! Should you not be hunting for survivors or finding out what is going on here?”
“Sure, sure,” she says, opening the driver-side door and turning to me with a saleswoman's smile, “but what better way to do it than in a brand new Renegade?”
“It can handle any terrain!” adds Will.
“That is enough!” I ease Roberta aside and slam the door. “If you could just—”
Roberta crashes into me, and the pavement hits me hard in the back of the head. I try to sit up but cannot get enough air into my lungs, so I sink back onto my elbows. Roberta is back on her feet, towering over me with nothing written on her face. How is she so strong?
Never mind – why try to overpower her anyway? There is a much cleaner way to fix this. I close my eyes and picture the Jeep so I can vanish the fucking accursed thing, but it stays, burned into my mind's eye like an afterimage of the sun. A flash of brain-freeze hits so hard I taste bile. I open my eyes, and the pain drops away.
Fine; the car can sit here gleaming all it wants as long as it stays out of the story. I focus on Roberta's obsession with the car and decide to replace it with—
“Stop it,” Roberta says, tossing her immaculately straight blonde hair.
She tackled me to the floor thirty seconds ago but still has that flawless photo-shoot look, despite no detectable makeup. “Why are you so … why is your face so symmetrical?”
“I don't know, lady,” she signs. “How about yours?”
“I ...” I made her look like me.
Roberta shakes her head, opens the door and climbs into the driver's seat; Will and Josh are already sat in the back. The engine roars loudly, but I refuse to be impressed. They pull away, and I am left with the ghost of a migraine and the stench of exhaust fumes.
* * *
They did not get far. I soon find the car parked diagonally across a road outside an Apple Store. Could I straighten it up first? There is nothing worse than ugly parking, but the ache at the front of my forehead reminds me to just get on with it.
Inside the shop, Josh is behind the checkout, filling bags with dozens of boxed gadgets that Roberta and Will are piling on the counter. I unzip my looted rucksack, place it on the floor next to the Jeep's back wheel and crouch out of sight. I open the petrol cap and cram in a T-shirt that I soaked in fuel, trying not to get my hands too wet. The head of the first match breaks off as I try to light it with shaking hands, and the second is smothered as I press it to the rag. I pinch matches three and four together and strike them; the rag flares, so I turn and run.
A dozen or so paces away, I gag, pushing an intensifying chemical taste up to the back of my throat. I spin round and fall off the edge of the kerb. There is a click, a flash of light, an intense heat, a roar ...
* * *
Something rasps against my cheek, waking me. The last thing I saw in Parts Unknown is branded on the edge of my vision: the Jeep, totally unharmed. I open my eyes, face down on a rough carpet. There is a wooden table leg in front of me – is that my desk?
As I adjust to the light streaming in through the window, the details of my office become distinct: its perfectly square shape, white walls, pine furniture, beige carpet and everything in its right place. I am home! I haul myself to my feet and head for the huge window; after so long traipsing through other people’s limp imaginations, it will be nice to see the real world again.
Eleven stories below, nameless pound shops, bookies, charity shops and fast food joints stretch into the featureless infinity of Mittenham’s high street. The air is still and the streets are deserted. As I look for life in a cloudless sky-blue sky, a wind begins to gust, scuttling fast food cartons across the road, and I notice the street is crowded with shopping families. How did I miss them?
I have a cafetière in the kitchen – I could really do with my first real drink in ... well, however long it has been. I catch my own eye in the huge mirrored wall in my living room and step towards it. Wow, she is pretty, you would think if you saw my face, before instantly forgetting it forever. Eyes should be the window to the soul, they say; mine are blue-grey portholes into a gaping void. I try screwing up my eyes and tilting my face, but Roberta's reflection about my symmetry still nags. She was not wrong: I am as ageless and featureless as any of the rent-a-heroines I have been whipping into shape.
Oh no. Wait …
I pull my shirt and bra over my head, tug down my trousers and underpants and take a pace back from the mirror: I knew it! My glossy catalogue body and inoffensive Barbie privates were clearly the product of a male with no idea of how to write women! He is probably the kind of sad sack that went to an all-boys school and has panic attacks on trains about whether giving his seat up for a woman is gentlemanly or patronising. Come on, Mr Writer, rule number one is “write what you know” – hands up if you have never taken a creative writing class!
I dismiss my reflection with a wave – and the whole darn mirror vanishes, exposing the bare white wall behind it. I stare at it and picture a gaping hole in the wall instead, which duly appears. Whatever I am, at least I can edit this blank canvas world and write a better story. I slowly widen the hole and approach it, but with a flicker of the lights and a tremor through my flat, the cavity shrinks to nothing and the mirror pops back into place.
“Stop it,” I say aloud. You think you can thwart me, Mr Writer? Well how about—
The metallic flap of the letterbox interrupts me. I fling the front door open, but the hallway is empty. Ha, of course it is! There is a letter on the floor that will no doubt offer some sort of plastic redemption. I tear it open, and Oakley Publishing's ornate letterhead announces itself for the first time in a while.
It offers me a contract to write a novel of my own: the old critic becomes creator chestnut. No, this will not do; Mr Writer may have painted us into a corner, but we deserve better than a deus ex machina. I know what I have to do and start by vanishing all the furniture in one fell swoop.
The floor rumbles harder this time and the flat goes dark; Mr Writer is starting to panic. Good.
I will the lights back on, but he smothers them out. “Look, if I know that this story needs to be shut down, you must know it too! Give me a proper third act or let me fix this!”
After a pause, the room lights up.
* * *
I wandered his streets, trying to find anything worth saving, whitewashing anything too bland to bear; at first one piece at a time, then getting more reckless, taking out swathes at a time.
A high street coffee shop: gone.
A payday loan shop: gone!
Rows of vanilla yuppie flats: gone.
Countless smiling families: gone.
A street, a block, a district: gone.
A lifeless sky: gone.
Now my block of flats is all that is left. I climb the identical stairwells to my home, let myself in and make one more cup of coffee. It is time to finish the job, so I take a sip of my brew and – piss! – it is seriously hot. “You made me feel something!” I tell the ceiling. “Well done!”
If he is still here, he chooses not to respond. I add more milk to my drink and blow on it. “Look, I am sorry about your creation. You can start again now if you like.”
I sit down and sip at my coffee, waiting for a profound final line to come to me, and let the end slowly wash through the room.
Strange Horizons is a free weekly online magazine devoted to publishing high-quality speculative fiction, poetry, art, and related nonfiction.
"Dark Star might just be a legend of humanity's end, rather than an origin story. It could even be taken as an environmental parable, ending on a warning about the consequences of wanton consumption. Whatever its message, it avoids clumsy directness, making it all the more intriguing.”
I've reviewed Oliver Langmead’s Dark Star, a (deep breath) sci-fi-noir-detective-epic-poem-thriller for Strange Horizons, an online speculative fiction magazine. Check it out!
Shitehawk and the Shitweasels – Shitehawk and the Shitweasels
Reviewed by Johnny Quest
I expect a magazine like Vice will have reviewed this debut album by getting one of their “journalists” to take a load of ketamine (or some other wanker's drug) and live-tweet it from up his own arse by now, which tells you all you need to know about that publication and the kind of people that listen to vapid pop like this.
My review copy came on a cassette in a welded shut Sony Walkman doomed to play only this album for the rest of its life. One can only assume that said Walkman was Hitler in a previous life to be handed this fate. Then again, I've been forced to listen to it to earn my clutch of pennies this week, so I must have at least been Stalin.
Needless to say, dear readers, I've given the fast-forward button a bit of a caning this evening. The opening twenty seconds of each song has been more than enough to confirm my suspicions: this is disposable hipster trash; the musical equivalent of a pop-up cafe that only serves Pot Noodles.
As a bona fide Music Professional, I've forced myself to listen to some of each and every track on this wretched record. It's just what you'd expect: 80s synths mixed with 90s drum n bass and pretentious flashes of nonsense: a prog time-signature change here, knowingly camp hand-claps there and even a clarinet solo at one point. Then there's Shitehawk's preposterous vocals, which sound like Nick Cave grimly trying to get through a hip-hop karaoke set while on fire.
The entire album feels like they raided their dads' record collections, ripped it off and then acted like they invented it. Boys (and possibly a girl as well, although it's hard to tell from their pictures, as it looks like they think they invented androgyny too), you need to know this: nothing you can think of is new. Ironic names? Stupid clothes? Haircuts that give me a headache to look at? It's been done before. And better.
Anyway, forget the music, some things are so universally true that you don't even need to check them, so here's what I just instinctively know about The Shits: their drummer's dad owns the record label, and his dear childhood friend called Charlie, whose horse lived in the next stable, signed them.
Meanwhile, if there were a Johnny Quest Junior, he'd have no chance of making it in today's music industry, nor the arts at all. No son of a proper journalist could afford to rack up the student debt, learn the right Masonic handshakes and then work for free for several months. So where's this next generation's poet going to come from? How could a Millennial Dylan, Lennon, Rotten or even Cobain afford to make it in Cameron's Britain? Hell, where's the next Johnny Quest going to come from?
I consider launching the Walkman from my window, but what if some unsuspecting citizen were to find it on the filthy streets below? For what am I if not an arbiter of taste, consuming this nonsense so you don't have to? I mean, this is the kind of thing teenage girls would listen to, ferchristsake.
Yeah, so it's only taken me 10 minutes to review these entitled cunts – so what? It's going to take me many more hours of work to wash this filth from my brain and get some of those melodies out of my head. Where's my overtime for that? I'm off to the pub – if you see me in there, don't talk to me.
Quest out.
No stars ever out of 10.
*****
Nobody must ever read this.
I shut my laptop lid and text Davey, my editor: “Mate, I just re-read my Shitehawk review and it's going to need some changes. Mind if I send you a new copy this evening? Whatever you do, don't post that first draft!”
As it sends, I spot Davey's message from last night again: “Mate, just got your Shitweasels review, another Quest classic! This'll drive the message board mad, split ’em right down the middle! Best content you've written since you rated each of Pussy Riot on shaggability!”
*****
And that was the first thing she said to me last night: “I read your piece on Pussy Riot, Johhny Quest – not very tasteful.”
“I was being ironic,” I snapped, not looking up from my phone.
“Hey, I'm Kelly Weasel,” she said, and so she was: the tentatively female one from Shitehawk and the Shitweasels' promo polaroids that came with their album.
Kelly's still in bed; fair play, she can sleep prodigiously. I haven't been able to sleep past 8am in years, however late I've stayed out.
I can leave her to snooze while I sort out this review, then we'll be all good for a fry up and an afternoon session in the pub.
Right then – just need to decide what to write. Maybe I can just change the old one a bit. I pick a sentence:
The opening twenty seconds of each song has been more than enough to confirm my suspicions: this is disposable hipster trash; the musical equivalent of a pop-up café that only serves Pot Noodles.
Maybe this ain't gonna be so easy.
My phone buzzes, so I snatch it off the table. It's Davey: “Quest. Look, if you need to change a few adjectives then fair enough, but I'm relying on you for a brutal slagging here. You've got until midday before I post this.”
*****
Tell me about how the band formed.
Well, for me at least, it was all Steve...uh, Shitehawk, really. He'd been writing songs and honing the sound for years. I had my own band that played the dive-bar scene in North London. One night he was there, at one of our gigs, front row and dead still. He told me to ditch my band and play bass for him, even though I was more of a singer/guitarist. I laughed at him, but he gave me a business card, of all things, with his number and a link to this website with all his songs on it. I gave them a listen the next day, sacked off the band and gave him a call.
And thus you became a “Shitweasel”?
That's what I thought. He invited me to this practice room, but there was this queue of rock chicks waiting – turned out it was only an audition! Eventually, I played him this old song of mine on his keyboard. Halfway through, he pulled the plug on it, shut the door on the queue of girls and told me I was in.
So what are your influences?
Ha, um, well, tonight I'm mostly under the influence of rum and a cheeky wee dab of MDMA!
Very droll. Now, there's been some debate about what genre you fit into. What's your take?
Johnny ... are ... are you interviewing me?
So I am. Old habits and all that.
*****
I have been trying to write a new review all morning, the album blasting through my headphones. I keep checking the time and that Kelly hasn't walked in, deleting lines as quickly as I can write them, refreshing my Twitter timeline every few minutes, looking for any inspiration I can find. I come across a recent interview they've done but get distracted by their picture at the top. Damn, Shitehawk looks much older than the rest of the band. I check out my intro:
I could churn out my requisite 500 words by telling you about where Shitehawk and the Shitweasels come from, why they chose that ridiculous moniker or whom they name-check as influences...
Who the fuck wrote this empty nonsense? I delete the lot, but it's nearly half eleven already, so I need to get something sent before they post that from last night. I open a new email to Davey and start typing.
*****
On the way out of the pub, Kelly grabbed my hand, the coldness of hers soothing on my overheated skin. I made sure we went out the long way round, past Jamo behind the bar. Yeah, he saw us alright, the jealous prick; might be a while now before he rubs it in my face with his stories of feeling up the young lasses working for him.
I spied my reflection in a massive, ornate mirror by the exit, eyes puffy and hair askew, but my shirt still tucked faithfully into my jeans. I realised I'd left my suit jacket behind but then saw Kelly was wearing it. Although it was creased and marked with what might have been chalk dust on the back, we looked like a pretty dapper pair. “We could be a Hollywood couple,” I said, gesturing at the mirror, trying to come up with a celebrity portmanteau of our names. Jolly? Kenny? Maybe not.
“A young woman with an older man on her arm? True.” Nonetheless, she pouted and struck a starlet pose, hand on hip. An inch or two taller than me, rake-thin, the same coiffed bowl haircut I rocked in the early 90s – you know, Kelly isn't my usual type at all.
I sneaked another glance at the mirror, twisting my head to the right to show my best side. I quickly rearranged the old bottle-black hair to cover the thinning sides and thought I glimpsed some geezer watching me from the entrance to the loos.
“Come on, Quest!” said Kelly, grabbing my arm and pulling me out into the cold.
*****
Well it’s 11.58 now, and I’ve typed and retyped countless versions of this piss-weak review, getting rid of anything too bossy or opinionated. This will have to do; I send it to Davey then give it another read:
So what does this sound like, Quest? Well it sounds like some very talented people raided their dads' music collections, pilfered all the best bits from the last 30 years (the late 80s indie, the punk, the drum n bass and the acid house) and made it their own.
Not great, Quest, but it'll have to do if you want—
Bzzzzzz. Thank fuck, another text from Davey – he got it in time.“ We're not running this, mate, we're going with the proper one you sent us last night. Posting it now.”
Shite! I load up the site and it's already too late: there's my gaunt by-line picture and last night's bilious rant. There are two comments already, both saying “First!”
*****
If you invite someone in for “coffee” and they don't immediately make a move on you once they get inside, what are you supposed to do then? With no better ideas, I opted to make coffee, although I never drink the stuff after midday.
“How d'you like it?” I yelled over the noisily boiling kettle.
“Bitter!” Kelly replied from the lounge with a chuckle. I heard her play some familiar piano chords that triggered a twinge of guilt; just a few hours ago, I'd been monstering the song they came from.
She came into the kitchen as I finished making the drinks. “You play keyboards, Quest?”
“Ah, not really – I just dabble every now and then.”
“Fancy playing me something?”
“No!”
Kelly took a sip of her coffee. “Yum. Instant.” She put the mug back down and looked at me: your move, Quest.
I fumbled my lines: “We could, uh, go and, well...” I pointed to the bedroom door.
Kelly barely repressed a snorted laugh. “Okay, Quest, after you.”
You can do this, Johnny, I told myself as we headed to my room – it had been a while, that was all. I decided I'd better not let her know that, though. “I reckon I could teach you a thing or two,” I told her as she shrugged off my jacket.
*****
I log into the site, and head to the edit page for my article. The first time I saw this page was eight years ago when I changed my description of the Klaxons from “a band somewhat bereft of real ideas” to “Day-Glo abortions” – our traffic went through the roof and Davey started paying me a weekly wage.
I type a few new sentences over the top and read it back again. I can't post this – I'll be finished as a music hack by closing time.
“Morning, Quest, says Kelly from the doorway. “What's for breakfast?” Her hair is tufted up on the side she's slept on and she's wearing my original The Queen is Dead T-shirt, stretching it beyond repair as she pulls it down to cover her weasel. “What are you working on?” she asks, walking over.
I click Accept changes, and a loading bar appears as Kelly pushes down my laptop's lid. “Nothing much.”
*****
Fair play, Kelly ran rings around me last night.
Round one
Kelly had slipped of her clothes and pinned me to the bed before I'd had chance to finish undressing, her mouth on mine. I must have looked ridiculous in just my socks, like a confused granddad who's been found sleep-walking on the landing.
The softness of her skin made me wonder what mine must feel like to her. While she writhed on top of me, I wondered in a panic if I'd feel wrinkly to her, like a man-shaped, greying ball-bag. I reached over to turn off the bedside lamp, but Kelly produced a condom from somewhere and handed it to me, sighing with impatience as I unfurled it and put it on.
She climbed back on board, and by the time I'd managed to hook a big toe into my left sock and pull it halfway off my foot, Kelly had manoeuvred me into her, gritting her teeth and gasping most pleasingly. She set an urgent rhythm, but I couldn't take my mind off that sock. I tried to finish removing it, over-stretching my hamstring, which cramped and made my left leg start to shake. Kelly pinched my side hard. “Not yet, Quest, just hold on another couple of minutes!”
I lasted long enough, if you know what I mean, then plummeted into an immediate sleep, spent ...
Round two:
… only to be woken back up some time later with a gentle couple of slaps to the face. I had dribbled onto the pillow, leaving behind several red wine coloured splodges. I still had both of my socks on.
“Quest! We're not done yet!”
I felt used. It was great.
Round 3
“You should come to one of our gigs some time.”
“And spend my evening surrounded by beer-chucking fuckwits, with some under-age armpit wedged into my face? No thanks.”
“Come on, Quest, you're only – what, 30-something? Stop acting like you’re past it!”
“I am past it. I can't remember the last time I stayed out past midnight.”
“How about tonight?”
“Well, yeah, but ...”
She kissed me, her skin lit by the unfamiliar dawn light. I didn't think I'd be able to get it up again but I guess she must have scared me into it.
Round 4: Four? Bollocks to that! I got up, put on some clothes and hid in the lounge, thinking I'd have another read of yesterday's review.
*****
My phone rings: Davey. Kelly starts to stir, so I switch it off before she hears the ringtone (Status Quo – it's ironic, alright?) and drape an arm over her.
*****
Shitehawk and the Shitweasels – Shitehawk and the Shitweasels
Reviewed by Johnny Quest
All you need to know is this: every generation has its own urgent stories it needs to tell, and sometimes you just need to shut up and let them.
But you shouldn't care what I think anyway: have a listen yourself and make up your own mind.
“The only thing Night after Night is haunted by is its own self-righteousness, at the expense of any sense of danger or awe.”
I wrote a review of Phil Rickman’s Night After Night, a ghost story based in Gloucestershire (where I live) for Strange Horizons, an online speculative fiction magazine. More pieces for Strange Horizons to come...
Everyone has a favourite band that should have made it but never quite did. Maybe they arrived at the wrong time or were cut down in their prime by tragedy. Perhaps they were signed to a record label that went under or split in a tumult of acrimony after the singer slept with the drummer’s mum.
Throwing the question to Twitter unveiled a diverse range of bands people missed and no two answers the same, although Reuben and Easyworld were two of the first that came to mind for me.
But what if there could be a second bite at the cherry? The Lost Music Club think there should be; Liam Nolan from the always intriguing 1p Album Club and Jack Clothier from the excellent Alcopop! Records have made it their mission to unearth forgotten, unreleased records and drag them blinking into the daylight.
They released the excellent misplaced debut of Britpop casualties Speedy earlier this year. Now they’ve dipped another toe into the past (albeit only five years back) to give The Cheek a second chance – a band who fell at the start of this uncertain musical decade.
Emerging from Woodbridge, Suffolk, the five-piece released a pair of singles and an EP under the ungainly name Cheeky Cheeky and The Nosebleeds. Signed by the behemoth A&M Records while still in their teens, they recorded Lovers’ Quarrel, releasing two singles, Hung Up and Just One Night.
Alas, with the album ready to go in 2010, A&M scaled back their roster as they tried to get used to a shifting musical landscape.
The band disappeared, yet now Lovers’ Quarrel has finally got its release.
Lovers’ Quarrel – the 2014 verdict
Do Nothing opens the record with disco hi-hats and filthy dance-floor bass. It sets the tone for the record: immensely catchy but with ambiguous lyrics (including some “la la la la las” in the chorus), that mean it ends before you ever really get a handle on it.
The nine songs that follow manage to be gripping and energetic, yet with barely a trace of aggression or darkness. The songs fly by with more of a glam stomp than a punk flurry, and plenty of very danceable moments.
The reference points aren’t easy to spot, but I’m going to point to a wee hint of 90s Britpop – more specifically, the disco down sound of Shed Seven.
The record’s highlight, Whole World, has an impatient thrust to it. Its confidence could only have come from a very young band, sounding sure of itself in tone and lyrics: “I’m just a boy and you’re the whole world”.
If leaving the listener wanting more is the litmus test of a great pop song, it passes comfortably: the first time I heard it, I ended up playing it another half dozen times, making me late for work. Thanks for that, The Cheek.
Elsewhere, singer Rory Cottam’s everyman vocals are easy to sing along to without getting too laddish. If you heard Just One Night or Find Her Tonight on the radio, you might not remember Cottam’s voice, but the choruses would stick with you
Hung Up gives especially good chorus, with a Sham 69-esque terrace chant in its bellow of “We’re gonna be restless tonight”.
My Biggest Mistake throws up the most leftfield moment of the record: from out of nowhere, [spoiler alert] a surprise saxophone solo! Allegedly it’s played by Roxy Music’s Andy Mackay, according to, er, Wikipedia; either way, it sounds great and changes the song’s pace nicely.
The album ends with a moment of accidental poignancy in Goodnight, Goodnight. Its mentions of “when the luck runs out” seem prescient considering what happened to the band next.
Some final thoughts
I was listening to the record for the third time in a row on a long lunchtime walk when What Goes On looped round again. It’s a muted song that brings something different to the rest, giving the record some light and shade.
Yet I’d heard the song several times already and couldn’t have told you much about it. Their strongest songs are the ones with swagger and enthusiasm; these have a breathless momentum, powering through to the end with indecent haste.
This means the record can easily pass you by, feeling like it’s over as quickly as it began. It’s possible that this is why they got lost in 2010, among a glut of countless (mostly inferior) indie bands, while guitar music was being written off as irrelevant.
The ones who were successful generally had a novelty single, an appearance on The Inbetweeners’ soundtrack or a frontman keen on jabbering good copy at the music press.
With single releases and the music press (as well as the record label that let them down) less relevant now, perhaps the time is right for a second go.
Despite the record’s brevity, it’s far from being throwaway – it’s infectious enough to demand repeat listens, with some outstanding songs: Whole World, My Biggest Mistake and Hung Up in particular.
The closest album to it this year is the excellent Catfish and the Bottlemen debut, which has done rather well, so here’s to hoping The Cheek can find the ears of some of their fans.
Even if it doesn’t lead to fame and world tours, this is a record that deserves to be released; thanks, then, to The Lost Music Club for making it happen – score one for the good guys!
You can buy Lovers’ Quarrel (and Speedy’s album too) from The Lost Music Club’s store.
If you’re not sure, download Do Nothing for free on Soundcloud, then make up your own damn mind.
Whether you’re in a band or kicking it solo, money infiltrates most aspects of life, and your musical career will be no exception. From musicians looking to their art purely as a way to make cash, to those who see money as mankind’s greatest evil, a combination of honesty and common sense should...
It’s our 100th show! After nearly six very enjoyable years at the crease we’ve reached our century! Join us, Captain Accident and the Disasters, Fight the Bear and Sam Green and the Midnight Heist while we hold our bats aloft in celebration and wave to the pavilion. Or something...
“There’s no protest music any more” – every washed up rock critic of the past 5 years.
Anyone whose music taste extends beyond the reach of the charts knows this is absolute tosh, and even the barren wasteland of the top 40 has the odd song with something to say. Essentially, it’s all about...
You can tell a lot about musicians from their record collections. Any band too obsessed with one style of music are likely to just remake what they love, like a shower of inbreds – a waste of everyone’s time. Even Noel Gallagher at least had a pretty wide-ranging taste (probably not too much hip hop though, bah), but the unimaginative wastes of carbon that tried to recreate Oasis’ sound ten years later – well, they gave an entire generation ear cancer.
Stressechoes, though, have a more eclectic combined taste than most mid-sized countries. They have taken a fairly restricted band format – vocals, drums, bass, acoustic guitars, occasional mandolin and harmonica – and poured in their myriad influences to create two albums of astonishing beauty.
Stressechoes were built around the songwriting axis of guitarists/vocalists Alex Petrie and Andy Corey, who have contributed a song each here. I remember seeing them back in 2009, kicking out a great cover of Fleet Foxes’ White Winter Hymnal, which I expect I ruined by singing along.
Since those days, they've added Steve Osmond, whose idiosyncratic bass lines flit between sturdily anchoring the songs and providing arresting melodic fills; Ben Hawling, a drummer capable of matching whatever style’s thrown at him; and Julie Davis – aka solo bluegrass sensation Juey – on vocals, mandolin and harmonica.
Petrie's songs have always shown off the band's range, swapping styles with ease – we've already seen Kinks-esque pop, flecks of reggae and Spanish guitar married to his storytelling lyrics. Hold On strides assuredly into unfamiliar territory, combining the band's usual weaponry with a warm motown feel and some more direct than usual lyrics.
The overall effect has left this hack grasping impotently for comparison points – the best I’ve got is that it sounds like it should be spinning comfortingly on my parents’ old record player in a childhood September. Impressively, evokes that while being streamed from the net as I’m at work worrying about mortgage interest rates.
Hold On relies on Petrie's songwriting rather than bastard-sized production; it has an understated start and adds layers, patiently building to a big old-fashioned climax – harmonies, call and response vocals and a rare electric guitar – with more drama than if an orchestra had joined in. Frankly, it’s Petrie’s best cut yet.
Corey's Lucy treads more established ground for Stressechoes. It’s sung to the eponymous Lucy in the second person and Corey’s typically blunt, confessional lyrics have me leaning in to listen closely, as he discloses, “I try to be a good man in spite of all my fears”. It’s built mostly around a delicate acoustic guitar, sparse bass and percussion, and Corey’s voice, but hits hardest with its moments of embellishment: the band’s trademark three-part harmonies and a haunting harmonica solo.
Assuming these two songs are a taste of what the new album might offer – and recent live performances suggest they are – it’ll be their strongest record thus far. If you like music to shout a brash chat-up line, bash you over the head, and drag you into the alley for a quick one, move along, there’s nothing for you here. If you’d rather be seduced by a band that whispers something you’ve never heard before, Stressechoes’ absorbing music is for you.
Pick up the new single here, at £2 for both songs. I can also recommend their first two albums, available here.
“We need to keep a low profile,” says Gibson. “These cyborg cops don’t take prisoners.”
“They’re mean mofos and that’s for sure,” I agree, checking that nobody is listening in and lowering my voice. “I heard the Robo-Emperor 5000 programmed each of them himself.”
Gibson winces at my use of the emperor’s pejorative nickname. “Speculation’s got us nowhere. We need to lie low, dammit, and work out what we actually know.”
“That won’t take long.”
“Indeed. Although …”
“Although what?”
“Well I do know one thing about them: apparently they can’t be destroyed.”
“Fuck.”
“To the bar?” I suggest.
The barmaid looks at us warily: she’s young, so whatever side she’s on, she’s not too used to seeing westerners. Her look is what used to be called punk, but her eyebrow, ear and neck piercings are taped up; her hair is coloured a bright purple, but is very neatly presented; and her black clothes are tidy, well-pressed and expensive. “What do you want?” she asks us in English.
Gibson replies in Japanese. “Four beers, please. Something local.”
“Whatever makes you happy.” She snaps open the lager bottles, her misgivings seemingly soothed slightly by Gibson’s confident use of her own language. As she puts the corkscrew down, her sleeve rides up to reveal a homemade tattooed symbol: a Japanese character that I know means ‘soul’ framed by a crude, hand-drawn red squircle, possibly a rising sun. We don’t react and she has frozen too. Slowly, she tugs her sleeve back down, looking each of us in the eye in turn as she does so. She forces a smile. “There’s a free booth in the corner there, if that pleases you. The song listings for the karaoke are in the table.”
The glass surface of the low table doubles as a waterproof touchscreen display, and we flick through the thousands of songs available on the karaoke, which nobody is singing yet. We debate whether we would sing some Pixies or some Ash if we ever gave it a go, manfully ignoring the matter at hand. I've only been in the country for a couple of hours, but despite our years on different continents, we're soon bickering like old, absorbed in a petty argument about who was to blame for some ancient night out disaster.
I glance up and – fuck! – jump with a thrill of surprise: two men in suits loom over our table, silent, waiting for us to notice them. They could almost be twins, I decide, hoping they really do look alike with a twinge of white guilt. “Evening, strangers,” says the left-most in English, and they sit down, uninvited.
Despite their aggressive confidence, they seem to be stone cold sober, fixing us with mute stares. “So are you guys regulars here?” I ask, aiming to fill the silence with a slice of solid gold small talk. “Seems like a nice place.”
“We were just deciding whether to sing something or not,” Gibson adds. “Have you had a go on the karaoke yet?”
The twins stare incredulously for a good ten seconds, before Leftie eventually answers, “No. No we’re not here to sing, buddy.”
“I’m not your buddy, pal,” Gibson mutters darkly.
I decide to rescue the situation, to get things turning back on a friendlier keel. “Well, singing or nay, it’s nice to chill out somewhere away from those Nazi robo-cun—”
SLAM! Our barmaid interrupts my faux pas by crashing down a couple of beers we didn't order, which fizz overboard onto the glass surface of the table. “Here are your beers, gentlemen,” she says, flashing me a warning look that tells me loud and clear: These are Robo-loyalists, so shut your damn mouth!
Whilst the majority of the population are too scared to start any resistance, I’m sure that most people are against the robot hegemony beneath their polite surfaces, aren't they? Either way, I've just stomped my massive Godzilla foot down onto the Tokyo of decorous conversation. I hear myself begin to babble: “Well ... uh ... this place has admirable table service, hasn't it? It certainly does ... ah ... but, well, I’m sure you know ...”
Leftie pulls a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wipes the spilled beer from the table. “I find it too …” he puts his handkerchief away and fixes his gaze on the barmaid, “personal.”
“Get out of my bar,” says the barmaid through clenched teeth.
Leftie looks at me. “If you come with us, things will be much easier for you. We’ll be waiting outside – you've got five minutes.” They swoop away from our table and out of the door.
After waiting for a moment with her eyes on the exit, the barmaid speaks. “You need to stop drawing attention to yourselves.” She swipes and jabs at the table-top, changing the display to show what passes for the news here these days: a smiling CGI man and woman's programmed banter spliced in between computer-generated recreations of the incidents they're reporting. As they silently jabber away in a language I don't understand anyway, I open my mouth to ask the barmaid what's going on, but then I see it: in a box in the top corner of the screen are Gibson and I staring out gauntly from behind some cartoony prison bars alongside the word ‘Wanted’ in some whimsical old wild west font.
“What the shit?” I blurt.
“Surely not …” says Gibson.
The news show cuts to a CGI re-enactment of Gibson and I – looking freakishly like ourselves, but moving in an unfamiliar, wooden way – by some docks at night, carrying a rolled up carpet. The docks, the carpet, the scenario: all are as new to me as the uncanny doppelgängers. Hell, I only arrived in the country two hours ago!
“What is this?”
“Shh!”
The hollow onscreen dæmons stumble and ‘Gibson’ drops his end of the carpet. The camera zooms in for a close-up as he slaps his head and exclaims what looks a lot like “D’oh!”, and then pans left to reveal the body of a young girl spilling out of the carpet.
“… the fuck?! Are these bastards framing us for something?”
“Sweet Jesus, this is worse than I thought!”
The barmaid slams her hand onto the table. “I’m not going to tell you again: keep it down!”
“So who were the guys at our table just now?” I ask. “Do you think they could help us?”
“Look,” says the barmaid, “those filthy greedheads don’t give a fraction of a damn about humanity; they’re just hell-bent on grabbing as much as they can by whatever foul, Machiavellian machinations they can muster. I say always try to steer clear of scumbags like that – if that doesn't work, seal them in a sturdy box and fling it into the sun.” She stomps back towards the bar in boots that wouldn't look out of place at a Hell's Angels convention.
“What does she mean by ‘greedheads’?” I ask.
“They're, um, collaborators, I guess, working for the robots and the police. The robo-emperor – may the gods spit on his foul circuitry – pays them for information. You get people like that in any war, profiting from the situation.”
“War?”
“Yeah.” Gibson shrugs. “Things are a lot worse here now than they're letting the outside world know.”
“I, uh, was beginning to get that impression …”
“What is the impression the rest of the world is getting at the moment?”
“Not much to be honest. At first we just heard they’d replaced your police force with robots, but details were sketchy otherwise; just speculation. Now, though, robo-Murdoch’s news sites and TV channels have suddenly started to sing the praises of ‘the brave new future of policing’.”
“Trust me: that’s the last thing you want.”
“It’s the last thing most people want. I don’t know if you've heard, but there have been loads of protests demanding the government bring back the NHS and an old-school state police force …”
Gibson ejaculates a bitter “Ha!” He clears his throat and gestures at our table screen. “Sorry. No. No, you saw the news: that sort of thing doesn't make it over here anymore.”
We both look down, and I’m momentarily distracted by the table-top TV. The ‘news’ seems to have finished, replaced by some sort of big-budget talent show: the audience clap along to the pre-recorded music that accompanies a well-choreographed, polished break-dance troupe. Once upon a time you could watch another country's TV and at least see something truly weird and other – at its best, maybe even an insight into their culture. The camera spends almost as much time in the audience, showing the family members that flesh out each contestant's tragic backstory. It picks out the front row in part of the crowd, and – holy shit! – there's a line of robots just like the ones I had my brush with earlier, but this time clapping along perfectly in sync rather than chasing me through Tokyo.
I shudder and turn back to Gibson. “So the protests back home have been getting more and more violent lately. The Corps had been repressing them with the usual violence, kettling, unlimited detention without trial and whatnot, but they were beginning to struggle. Some of their own people – especially the older guys, who used to be proper cops back in the day – had started to baulk at the level of viciousness expected of them. Some quit, and some even tried to go on strike! There were a few who downed tools and joined the protesters—”
“No way!”
“Yeah, they were all named and shamed on the news. Since then, almost all of them have shown up dead.”
Gibson nods. “Suicided?”
“No, they haven’t even gone to the usual effort to make it look like an accident – they’re being used as a warning to anyone else …”
“What did you mean by ‘almost all of them’?”
I pause; how much can I tell him? “There was one guy – I can’t say who – that got away. He came to me.”
“Why you? No offence…”
“Well, can you remember how long it took me to get the travel documents to leave the country? Even with a legitimate purpose to come out here: to visit you.”
“How did you sort that in the end? Didn't you have to prove that you had genuine personal reasons to visit?”
“They found our old Facebook accounts – apparently they’re still technically active – and saw we had been friends for years.”
“Bet they wish they hadn't let you come now.”
“Yeah. So since they don’t let many people go anywhere abroad outside the obvious colonies and resorts any more, our man on the run from the Corps came to me. While I’m here, he wanted me to find out what I could about the robocops.”
“Only, you looked a little too closely for their liking ...”
“Indeed.” After a few moments of silence, Gibson goes to say something, but I cut him off – something I usually hate doing to anyone. “Listen man: I know you have things good here, and I'm really sorry if I've fucked everything up for you. This isn't how things were meant to go – I only came here to catch up.”
“It's … Look, don't worry, man. We'll work this out. Another beer?”
The table screen zaps black for a second, interrupting the wallpaper of the talent show footage and grabbing my attention, before refreshing to show a familiar stage: the one at the far end of the bar. A bloke in his twenties in a dark grey fitted suit and a lip ring clambers onto the stage. I look up to confirm: yep, there he is in real time/space, adjusting the mic stand. Everyone else continues to watch on their screens, but I adjust my chair and sit back to watch him properly, although I’ll probably be fairly distracted by the giant screens each side of the stage; they carry the live footage as well as a name, Ryo, displayed at the top.
Four clicks count Ryo in, and he launches himself into the song: “Give it a rest, and then try it again with more soul.” I recognise this, but I haven't heard it in ages; oh yeah, it’s Around the Horn by the Bronx. His voice doesn't seem quite powerful enough, but his enthusiasm and love of the song carry it as the thrashes about on the stage; indeed, some startled members of the audience are shaken into actually watching him off-screen!
Some rare combination of the song's muscle and the performer’s gusto awakens something in me in me that I thought I'd had under control for years, and before I know it I've joined Gibson at the bar. Clearly the same thing has hit Gibson: his sharkish grin is accompanied by four beers and some tequila shots to boot. An androgynous barman takes Gibson's thumbprint for payment; our barmaid is serving a rambunctious shower of clumsily flirting businessmen. She catches my eye and offers a brief shake of her head: Don’t make a spectacle of yourselves. She’s right; I read her loud and clear. We throw back the tequila and retreat to our table with the beers.
The musical momentum soon grinds to a shuddering halt when someone takes the revivalism too far with the one-two punch Over My Shoulder and Crocodile Shoes. The audience are back to only watching on the screens again, some of them clapping along, and others even filming it to upload and watch later. By now the drink has taken hold and we’re flicking through the songs again.
“You heard what the lady said,” I slur. Wow, I sound way drunker than I feel! I try a slow sip of the beer to taste it properly: nope, it doesn't seem that strong. “We need to seriously hunker down somewhere, not get on a stage.”
“I know, it’s fine. I was just wondering what else they have on here. I've never seen so many songs!”
He's not wrong: there are hundreds of thousands of them, displayed by whatever criteria you could think of. I select ‘Hits of the 90s’, and we spend a few minutes basking in the safety of nostalgia, laughing at the songs that haven't aged well and revelling in the good ones.
But then I see it.
And I know that I should just flick past it, and pretend it’s not there.
But I don’t.
For some reason, even though neither of us was especially fond of it separately, it had become our song.
We HAVE to sing it.
Creep by Radiohead.
I look for an adult: where's our barmaid? There's nobody behind the bar at the moment, and the barman who gave us the tequila is collecting glasses. Gibson taps Creep on the screen, bringing up a dialog box:
PLEASE ENTER YOUR NAME
I shake my head, but he types in our terrible old band name of yore: ‘Hermaphrodite Sun’. His finger hovers over the enter button. “You press it, man.”
So I do.
YOU HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE QUEUE PLEASE STAND BY
There’s still nobody behind the bar, so we buy a couple more beers from one of the vending machines instead. Gibson tries to work out how to order whiskey on it, but he struggles; he must be better at speaking Japanese than reading it.
“AWOOOOOOOO-GA!” sounds a klaxon. Shit! The po-lice! I spin around with my hands in the air, but there are no armed robots. The screens on the stage are flashing:
NEXT UP: HERMAPHRODITE SUN
Gibson sees it too and shrugs. “Might as well do this. When in Rome ...”
“How shall we do it? Maybe take a verse and a chorus each, then both join in on the, uh—”
“Yeah.”
The stage is piercingly lit, so we can’t really see the audience. Still, this should make things easier, if anything. The opening notes sound, so I hurriedly grab one of the microphones in time to start the song: “When you were here before, couldn't look you in the eye.” The first note was way out, but I soon find my bearings and manage a borderline competent verse and chorus.
Gibson starts his verse, and he’s doing a better job than I did. Prick. As he starts the line, “I want you to notice when I’m not around,” the house lights all come up at once. Weird: I didn't think he was doing too badly.
My eyes adjust to the light. Oh no: a line of identical robots approach the stage, with one of them shouting something in Japanese through some kind of inbuilt megaphone. He then repeats it in English: “Anthony Oliver Roscoe, you are under arrest on suspicion of murder, sabotage and treason. Surrender immediately – lethal force will be employed if you fail to comply.” Each robot has a number displayed on a screen on its chest; I've got my glasses on, so notice that the one doing the talking is numbered ‘#75783’. Each robot is pointing some kind of gun I’ve never seen before at us, and both of our chests are dotted with red laser sights. Our barmaid – still nameless – is slumped in the rough grasp of one of the robots, handcuffed and bloodied.
For some reason the Radiohead backing track is still playing, the song just reaching the bridge or middle eight or whatever you call it. I turn to Gibson. “Man, I’m so sorry.”
“Fuck it – we might as well finish this.”
I close my eyes. We both wring the next line out of ourselves: “She's running out the door …” We never could quite hit those notes, and it sounds apocalyptically dreadful – even I can hear that – but we’re in this now and we have to see it through. Neither of us is singing purposely badly, but it's too enthusiastic; everything thrown in and nothing held back. And when you sing without any brakes, some notes are going to get mown down. By the time we hit the climactic few bellows of the word “RUNS”, my voice is raw and our singing sounds like dog torture. We're on completely different notes to each other – and indeed the original song – throughout, but despite the lack of harmony, it still feels like we're singing from the same hymn sheet; the shared sense of desperate purpose and exertion creates something that feels powerful.
The song peaks and then drops back down to its usual level plane, and I’m still alive, so I force myself to look up. The robots have half-lowered their guns, staring transfixed. On the periphery of my vision, I see a robot laying our barmaid gently on a table, checking for signs of life, but my attention is monopolised by the central robot in the line: his gun is pointed right at my face.
One by one, the other robots start to sit down, and Gibson glances over to me. “Shit, we might survive this!”
“Maybe not.” I nod towards the remaining armed automaton and notice that it's #75783, the one that seemed to be in charge earlier. My life hangs in the subtleties of his programming. The robot tending the barmaid wordlessly steps in front of the gun. A few hesitant seconds pass, then there's a small flash, a loud CRACK! and the sound of impacted metal. My robot shield sinks to the floor, his shoulder and upper torso a mess of torn plastic and metal. His head is bowed, but his lights remain on. The other robots are back on their feet now, each pointing their weapons at an unfazed #75783, who re-shoulders his weapon, aiming at me again.
Damn! I've just stood here gormlessly for the past few seconds; I should have tried to find cover when I could.
“Hey, fuck-face!” says Gibson. “What's your plan now? So you shoot Roscoe, your colleagues here shoot you, and then I get away? Great job, bro!”
#75783 wavers, training his weapon alternately on Gibson and I, eventually settling back on me. “Backup will be on its way presently,” he says in a voice that's almost human, but without inflection.
I look out at our seated audience: there's not a mobile phone or screen-gazer in sight, just forty-odd people all looking the same way, each of them streaked with the flaws that make them beautiful.
We stand at the door to The Barn (for the uninitiated, this is the fantastic, former corn storage barn that now serves as the main live music area for The Frog and Fiddle) with a welcoming smile, entrance wrist bands at the ready to greet people...
Ali had a right go at me last night about this reunion tomorrow. I don’t want to talk to her about my reservations, so I just kept my mouth shut and took the verbal kicking. She thinks the only reason I've agreed to go is to see Olly and Jay, but the thing is, I mostly only decided to go because she was so keen on it.
It will be great to see the guys again though – there's really no excuse for leaving it as long as we have. I'm pretty sure the last time I saw Olly must have been way back in the day: early in 2003, when I properly met Ali for the first time.
Let me try to set the scene for you – Ali’s always telling me that my stories never give any context, which is apparently really important if you want them to be meaningful in any way. It was 2003, so the economy was hardly in the news, Labour ran the country, and I still had dial-up Internet. Other than that, you’re probably asking the wrong guy – Alison could tell you a lot more than me. Frank Turner was still making post-hardcore music, Biffy Clyro were my favourite band, and camp, tongue-in-cheek seventies rock was starting to make a comeback. Oh, and it was the day that a million people marched against the war in Iraq.
So on a grey Saturday in February, we hopped into London on the train, meeting Olly at the Baker Street station. We spotted him on the street side of the turnstiles, holding up a paper sign that just said “Provincial wankers” on it and trying not to smile. Most of my mates who had gone away to uni had come back to Mittenham thinner and shabbier, with scruffy hair and tentative forays into the world of beards; in short, ripping off the look they had been taking the piss out of me for rocking for ages. If anything, though, Olly was more perfectly groomed and expensively fashionable than ever, in cream chinos, some new-looking loafers, and a navy blazer. The blonde streaks in his hair were new, too.
“Safe, Olly!” said Jay with puppy-dog enthusiasm.
“Yeah, ʻsafeʼ, Jay.” I could tell from his smirk that we had already lost him to condescending irony. Nonetheless, he allowed Jay a quick hug.
To Olly's disgust, most of his new friends were busy, having joined in with the Iraq protest. “I know they're students and they're idealistic, but they're studying business, not the fucking arts – they should be living in the real world,” he said.
I'd like to think I would have joined the protest myself, but I had forgotten it was that weekend, and didn't really know anyone else who was that bothered. Anyway, we saw remarkably little of it that day, as by the time we got there most of the protesters had already gone down to wherever it kicked off.
So what did the three of us do while a million people marched on the capital? Well I suggested we hit Camden for the afternoon, as it was just up the road, and was somewhere I'd always thought would be really cool and bohemian. Olly moaned, saying Camden wasn't really his scene, but I'm not sure where he thought we should be heading to at that age on a few quid – maybe down to Chelsea or somewhere, the spoiled yuppie!
Having said that, I wasn’t too impressed with Camden in the end. We went to the famous market by the lock, where I was hoping to find some rare CDs and bootlegs for the collection, but all I could find were shoddy knock-off versions of albums I had already, sold by the kind of pushy, mouthy cockney blokes that I’ve never quite worked out how to shake off. Seriously, nowadays nobody loves shopping online more than me. Kids don't know how lucky they are having a world of amazing music available at their fingertips, where the closest to a pushy salesman you get is a pop-up ad on the net.
I got stuck at one market stall where the proprietor tried to convince me to buy a ropey looking Mogwai live album that he had clearly made himself, the track listing scrawled on the disc itself in his squashed geezer-writing. Intriguingly it had several songs on it I had never heard of before, so I asked him to play it for me. I didn’t recognise who the band was, but it certainly wasn't Mogwai; it also sounded like it has been recorded on a 2003 mobile phone. Despite this, the seller still insisted that I should buy it: “They’re just rare songs, mate, that’s why you don’t know them – this is worth a fortune, it’s a bargain at twenty bar!”
I escaped his clutches and found Olly and Jay, who were chatting to two girls handing out flyers for a new bar called the Monkey's Paw. As they saw me approach, they wrapped up the flirting, Olly telling them, “We'll maybe see you in there later.”
I tried to steal a look at the flyer, but he put it away in his coat.
“Does it sound good?” I asked.
“Not a clue mate,” said Olly glancing back at the shivering girls, “but it looks pretty good!” He caught up with Jay a few paces ahead, the two of them conspiring quietly.
We spent an hour or so wandering around the market, its stalls repeating on a loop like the background in an old cartoon's chase scene: in this case cheaply-made Slipknot, Offspring and Green Day hoodies on a constant loop. All of the T-shirts were black, heavy cotton, shapeless affairs with surly catchphrases on them: “Doesn’t play well with others”; “Beware of the bitch”; “Don't piss me off: I'm running out of places to hide the bodies” – you know, that kind of bollocks. Jay bought a frail-looking rip-off Incubus T-shirt, which I doubt lasted more than a couple of washes. He hadn't worn it out that night, admitting later that he was saving it for the next dress-down day at work, as one of the girls there was a huge fan of the band.
We dumped our bags back at Olly’s room in the halls of residence he was living in. The room was smaller than expected, and the massive concrete tower block that housed it was way bigger than I expected – a far cry from his Mum's semi-detached house back home. The floor space was about the size of a single bed, so I wondered if it might get a bit cosy sleeping on the floor with Jay. Having said that, Olly and Jay had been so pally they might as well have just shared the bed. Olly wouldn't let us see the state of the kitchen, leaving Jay and I in his room while he sorted out the food and fetched drinks.
After a couple of tinnies and a microwaved ready meal – macaroni cheese, if I remember correctly – we had a look at the Student Union bar just over the road. Although the place wasn’t exactly full of people, I was pretty jealous at first glance, noting several pool tables, air hockey, cheap drinks, and a well-stocked jukebox – a rarity back when they were creaking mechanical beasts that played whatever CDs had been in it when it had been bought. There was even a decent stage in there, making me wonder for the first time if maybe I should have gone to uni. I mean, I know that all the best musicians are self-taught: Cobain and Hendrix didn't need to study popular music at a university; they just got out there and played it. Still, there would have been a much better music scene than Mittenham had and more of an audience too.
But then I saw a poster advertising the upcoming events for the rest of term: Timmy Mallet; a Jason Donovan DJ set; an Atomic Kitten tribute act; a cheesy, winking magician, and other assorted dross. That was my first taste of the lame, so-bad-it's-hilarious irony that made up a huge part of student culture back then, something that has spread to the mainstream now. It's the reason an attention-seeking brat that's been on a TV talent contest will get a billion times the media exposure and opportunities of, say, a hard-working folk songwriter. Even back then I was learning that most people would rather sneer at something knowingly terrible, or have their nostalgia tweaked by something retro, than take the risk on anything new.
Having said that, even I played a cover of “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” by Kylie Minogue for a while. It seemed like a great idea at first, as it always went down really well, but once I realised that it was getting way more applause than my own songs I decided to retire it.
After a couple of 90 pence happy hour pints of pissy lager and a few winner-stays-on games of pool (Olly won every game), we caught the tube back up to Camden. I wanted to find the legendary Dublin Castle bar for at least a quick drink, but it was getting cold and I seriously needed a slash, so we hopped into the first decent looking pub we could find. When I got back from the toilets, I noticed there was some live music on: a guy in his early thirties with a guitar was playing in the corner. In my haste to find the toilet, I hadn't even noticed he was there.
I moved closer to listen for a few minutes – he played laid back acoustic songs with a slight Americana influence, like Evan Dando's solo stuff – before finding the other two. Olly was retreating from the crowded bar carrying two beers and a couple of luridly green alcopops.
“Oops, sorry mate,” said Olly, spotting me, “we thought you'd gone to get yourself a drink already.”
He handed a beer to Jay, who was standing with two girls about our age dressed as cartoonish parodies of geeky schoolgirls: they wore identical white shirts, red braces, short pleated skirts, thick black-framed glasses, and blonde hair tied into bunches. I had only wanted to catch up with Olly and to see a bit of London, but I knew Olly and Jay would be up for meeting some girls, and it hadn’t taken them long. At least in London, there might be some worldlier, interesting ladies to meet, I thought, rather than the shallow, plastic, boring, unadventurous, gum-chewing TV addicts back home.
“There you are, ladies,” said Olly, handing over the alcopops. “This is our mate Rich. Rich, this is Lisa and Lisa.”
They looked at me expectantly. I wasn’t great at talking to girls back then, but felt compelled to say something. “Hi. Are you having a good night?”
Jay rescued me from small talk hell by butting in. “The girls were telling us they’re celebrity-spotting tonight…”
“Camden’s supposed to be the place to go to see famous people,” said Lisa 1. “Who knows who we might bump into? Kate Moss, Pete Doherty, Liam Gallagher…”
“Oh cool. It’s our first time here – where’s good to go?” I asked.
“No idea – this is our first time here too,” said Lisa 1.
“We’re from Ickenham,” added Lisa 2, buffing a shiny apple on her skirt.
Brilliant, I thought, we come all the way to London and end up in a bar with a couple of star-struck wenches from the suburbs; we might as well be back in Mittenham. “What’s the apple for?” I asked.
“Oh, you know, it’s an apple for teacher? Part of the outfit, yeah?”
Was she asking me or telling me? Either way, I didn’t know how to reply. Olly caught my eye, and then held up three fingers on his left hand and two on his right. Loud and clear, mate, I thought: I was a fifth wheel ruining the two-on-two dynamic. Olly folded down one of his left fingers, leaving two on each hand, and nodded to me.
“I’m going to have another listen to him,” I told the Lisas, gesturing to the musician. “He’s not famous though, so you won’t be missing anything.”
I realised that my abilities as a wingman for the other two would be limited to disappearing on cue. I was miffed at being sent away, but equally impressed that Olly had managed it by sign language. I joined the back of about a dozen people watching the guy in the corner play, all crammed in close so they could hear him above the hubbub of everyone else in the bar, who were talking loudly over the music. He ended his set with a cover of “Old Man” by Neil Young.
I plucked up the courage to talk to him, and bought his CD. His name was Ben, if I remember correctly – I guess nothing ever came of his music career. He was impressed that an eighteen year old knew who Neil Young was and seemed genuinely interested in hearing my own music. He played in the bar every other Saturday evening, so asked if I would like to play a half hour set before him sometime in March – my first London gig!
Olly and Jay walked over with the Lisas in tow, leaving behind a table covered in empty shot glasses. Olly handed me a pint of still, bright orange cider. “Sorry for forgetting you earlier, mate.”
Lisa 1 walked right past Ben and started tapping on his microphone, which was switched off. “Excuse me Mister Singer, I want to have a go,” she said, almost knocking the microphone stand over as she turned to Ben.
“Careful with that mic, it’s expensive!” said Ben, taking it from her gently.
“It’s my turn to sing now! I’m going to sing some Shakira!” Lisa tried to snatch the microphone back, stumbling into Ben's guitar and knocking it over with a clang!
“Shit!” Ben knelt down to inspect the damage, cradling the instrument like a dying child while he checked that nothing had come loose.
Lisa 2 had received a text and waved her phone at her namesake. “Dave says he's waiting outside, Lis.”
“Cheers for the drinks, boys!” said Lisa 1, kissing Jay on the cheek. “The boyfriend's here to pick us up now though – have a good night!” They scampered off, and I took a moment to worry about Dave: to which Lisa did he belong? Was he dating both of them? Could he tell which was which?
“How's the guitar looking?” I asked Ben, as he put it back into its huge solid case, too late to protect it. I noticed a small chunk was missing out of the edge of the instrument's body near the neck. It wouldn't affect the sound, but still...
Ben didn't reply.
“Are we still on for March?”
Ben didn't reply.
“I'll write my number down for you, if you like?”
Ben didn't reply.
“Do you have a pen?”
Ben turned to unplug one of his speakers without reply, and Jay nodded to the bar. Wandering away, I realised I had somehow almost necked most of my cider already. I threw back the rest of the flat apple-piss, ordered some beers for the three of us, and explained to Jay and Olly how the Lisas had wrecked my chances of ever getting out of Mittenham.
Jay looked sorry, Olly less so. “You're a singer now are you? Huh. Let me know how that goes while I waste my time getting a qualification in Business Studies.”
After a couple more pints it was almost closing time; back in the dark ages before they changed the licensing laws, most pubs had to shut at eleven – and hey, there’s some historical context for you! Heading to a nightclub that early seems unthinkable now, but that was what we did, joining the back of a pointlessly slow queue for a concrete club further up the high street. Since half of London had arrived there at once after kicking out time in the pubs, we had to wait in the sobering cold for almost half an hour, cowed into near-silence by the cackling hen party behind us. The bride-to-be was propped up between two friends at the front of the group; as well as wearing the traditional pound shop veil, plastic L-plate and pink cowgirl hat, she also limply brandished a courgette, adding a unique flourish to her outfit. Her eyes were still open, but her night clearly didn’t have much more to give – while her friends chatted and squealed around her, she stared ahead, her eyes unfocused.
When we reached the door, the bouncer didn’t bother to turn to face us. “You’re not coming in here – we don’t take big groups of blokes.” I glanced down: no, it was okay, I was wearing smart shoes rather than trainers.
Olly shook his head and stepped out of the queue, but Jay wasn’t having any of it. “Why not?”
The bouncer sighed, counting out the reasons on his meaty fingers. “One, you’ll probably cause trouble; two, we don’t want a sausage-fest in there; and three, because I said so. Come back with at least three girls – then you can maybe come in. Now if you’ll step out of the way of the queue, you're in the way of the customers behind you.”
“But we’re customers!”
“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you – it’s not your night lads, so FUCK OFF!” He shoved Jay, who staggered backwards but kept his footing and lurched back towards the bouncer. Olly put an arm around Jay and steered him away.
The gaggle behind us pushed past me. The bouncer turned to them with a leer and put his paw on the bride’s bare shoulder, letting it slide down her back. “Evening ladies, come on in! Hope those silly pricks didn’t disturb you too much.”
I caught up with the other two. Olly had calmed down Jay, who was now perplexed rather than angry. “I don’t get it. So what he wants us to do is hit on random girls in the street to drag them into the club with us?”
“If they were a bit more welcoming, maybe they wouldn’t need us to find customers for them,” I offered.
“Well, we’ve got no chance of getting any girls on board with fanny-repellent Rich in tow,” said Olly. “No offence mate.”
Some taken. “Well, with girls or not, I don’t want to go there, and he doesn’t want to let us in. Let’s just find somewhere else.”
“How about here?” Jay pulled out the flyer for the Monkey’s Paw that he had picked up earlier. It had a crudely rendered map on the back of it, with a few places like McDonald’s and Starbucks shown to pinpoint where the bar was in relation to them. As depressing as it might be to navigate a town by such tacky landmarks, it worked; we soon found the bar.
“Alright then boys,” said Jay, throwing a non-inclusive wink at Olly, “Let’s go and finger-bang some slags!”
A huge bouncer asked us for some ID. I froze for a moment, still not used to being eighteen, before remembering that I was legal now. Once he had checked our ID, the bouncer cheerfully welcomed us inside. “Come on in boys – have a good one!”
His enthusiasm for our custom had made me think the place would be deserted, but no, some people are just nice: it was rammed full of people, mostly in their late twenties. Assuming the Monkey’s Paw has even survived the past decade, I can’t imagine it gets so busy any more, but back then people used to go out a lot more. It was long and fairly narrow, cosily lit with candles and fairy lights. It had a small token dance floor at the far end; I’m pretty sure that back then having a dance floor meant bars could be licensed to stay open late, for some reason. There weren’t many seats or tables, so most people stood around drinking and talking while a handful danced to “Harder, Better, Faster Stronger” by Daft Punk – one of those euphoric songs that puts an itch in me to dance in ways my body just can’t manage.
Luckily, there were enough girls present to meet Olly and Jay’s minimum requirements, so we decided to stay. I went for a quick slash and discovered that in swanky London the taps in the loos had hot running water; a fad that still hasn't reached Mittenham’s pubs to this day. Back at the bar the other two had split up – Jay was dancing to some Primal Scream with, or possibly just at, two girls around our age. Olly was talking to a cute girl with black hair who looked familiar, and he waved me over. She glanced up as I approached: she cut her hair, but I recognised her from school: Greg Ronald's girlfriend. “You're Alison Thomas!” I blurted. And she was.
“This is Rich Ramsey,” Olly explained. “He was in our year at Hillside.”
“Hi Rich,” she smiled, holding out her hand. I took it hesitantly, thinking she was expecting me to kiss it, but she shook my hand and said, “You were in my class for English, weren’t you?”
“Uh, yeah…” I looked around for Greg, but couldn't see him. There was a bloke keeping a close eye on us from a high stool a few feet behind her, though. He looked a few years older than me and was quite chunky with cropped blonde hair. He wore factory-faded jeans and a white, tablecloth-checked shirt open at the neck to show off a gold chain. His glare was unconvincing; it had a forced Behold, for I am glaring at you feel to it, rather than any genuine aggression.
“Well don’t worry if you don’t remember,” Ali continued, “I don’t think we ever really spoke. And it was a pretty big school.”
We indeed had never spoken, but I remembered her alright. I decided to change the subject. “So are you at uni in London?”
“No, afraid not – I’m just working an office job back in Mittenham at the moment. But I came down for the war protest today, and then met up with those guys.” She gestured at the girls on the dance floor, who by now definitely were dancing with Jay; one of them held her hand above his head with a finger pointing downwards, while he span like a record.
Olly decided he wanted in: since Jay’s goofiness had broken the ice, he could enter the fray as the cool half of their double act. “I might go and join them actually – I’ll catch you in a bit,” he said, leaving me and my limited small talk alone with Ali. He bopped me on the arm and flashed me a wink so un-sly that Ali, her friends and everyone else in London saw it. It felt pretty patronising, like he thought he was tossing me scraps from the main table; like a lion leaving a carcass for a hyena to polish off while he moved onto something tastier.
“They look vaguely familiar,” I said, gesturing to Ali’s friends on the dance floor as Olly approached them, shaking his head at Jay’s antics.
“That's Ellie and Lauren – you've probably seen them out and about back home, if you've ever been to a bar before.”
“Small world!”
“Small town. They work at my new office and keep dragging me out on these ridiculous nights out lately, so when they heard I was in London today, they insisted I join them for some drinks afterwards.”
“What about the big fella back there?” I tried to nod surreptitiously at Tablecloth Shirt behind her, but my subtlety had been drowned under half a dozen beers, and he glared back at me.
Alison grimaced. “Oh, he's just Darren, Lauren's older brother – he lives up the road in Edmonton. You'd think he would have friends his own age, but he keeps coming out with us lately, acting like a possessive alpha male any time a bloke talks to any of us.”
“Ah well, it must be useful to have him to keep the creeps away.”
“Like your mate Olly, you mean? Darren went outside to take a phone call a minute ago, and Olly was straight over with a cheesy chat-up line.” She smiled. “Naturally I shot him down, though.”
Ha! So Olly wasn't just leaving me with a girl he wasn't interested in out of pity: he’d crashed and burned. “I didn't realise people actually use chat up lines in real life.”
“Don't you have any?”
“Not really – I guess if I had to, I'd probably just try to subvert a classic. How about this: Did you fall from heaven? Because it looks like you landed on your face!”
Ali unleashed a noise somewhere between a snort and a yelp, causing me to start, but it was just a laugh. She steadied herself with a hand on my shoulder. “That's good! Okay, I've got one.” She put on a deep voice and cocky sneer, sounding like a pervy Elvis. “Hey baby – if I were to rearrange the alphabet, I'd get rid of 'K'. We already have 'C', so what's the point? Now that I've got that off my chest, d'you wanna come back to mine?”
“Yes! I mean, yes, that's perfect, nice one!” I tried another. “Hey there momma, you must be tired – 'cos you're looking pretty haggard there.”
“Not bad, not bad. Well congratulations, you've chatted me up. Can I get you a drink?”
“Yeah, great, thanks. Surprise me.”
As I watched her ordering at the bar, another hand, adorned with some chunky gold rings, gripped my shoulder: Darren. “Alright mate, enough sleazy lines from you. You’ve had your fun, but tonight’s not your night: it's time to leave her alone.”
“Look, man, if she wants me to leave her alone she'll tell me.”
“She's just broken up with her boyfriend, and the last thing she needs is some sleazy twat hitting on her. She needs someone to look after her.” Wait a minute, I thought, she's broken up with Greg?
“What I need, Darren, is a fun night out.” Alison slammed two amber drinks onto the table. “Now I'm going to have another drink with Rich here – I don't have one for you.”
Darren took the hint and skulked off, but only as far as his previous perch behind Ali.
“Date with the Night” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs was playing, giving me the perfect opportunity to change the subject. “Pretty apt song for your night, then,” I volunteered. She shrugged. Missing her indifference to the music, I asked if she fancied a dance, but she didn't seem keen. Instead she told me about what she had been up to since we finished school: she had found an admin job for an IT firm, and was living with her parents. Back at school, she had always got the best marks in English, so I asked why she hadn't gone to uni.
She took a breath, but changed her mind before answering, “Your round, Ramsey.”
I bought us another rum and ginger each, hoping Jay and Olly didn't spot me daring to drink something other than a pint. When I got back to Ali, her friends Ellie and Lauren had come over, and were explaining that they were heading to a club with two trainee fighter pilots they had met: a smirking Olly and Jay. Olly shot me an act like you don't know us warning look – somehow bossing me around with just a facial expression now – so I decided not to blow their dubious cover, and said nothing. I was curious: how would Olly and Jay deal with Darren's vigilance? I looked around, though, and was almost disappointed that he was nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe come and find us in a bit, said Lauren to Ali, with some scattergun air-kisses as she turned to leave. “We'll be playing with the boys!”
Jay saluted me smartly on his way out. I was shocked Ali’s friends had believed their pilot ruse – Jay once wet himself with fear on the cable cars at Alton Towers – but as the four of them headed for the door, Ellie turned back to us, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.
“So are they always such a pair of jokers?” asked Ali.
“Olly is, yeah, but Jay's only that much of a dick when the two of them are together.”
Ali nodded. “Some people change between personalities depending on the social situation.”
“Yeah.” Like Greg, I supposed. “Stacey – my ex – was like that.”
“I remember her – she was the girl with the really long orange hair, wasn't she? What's she up to now?”
“I don’t know – I assume she must have died of grief after we split up.”
Ali laughed. A panic-faced Darren appeared abruptly, like a thwarted cock-blocking genie. “What happened to Lauren?”
“These two pilot guys picked up her and Ellie,” said Ali, keeping an impressively straight face. “They just left.” Darren rushed into the corner furthest from the bar's huge speakers, and flipped open his phone.
“Wait a minute,” Ali said, putting her empty glass down and turning back to me, “before he ditched you, Olly said you were all staying at his place tonight. In fact, I think he said that if I wanted my mind blown, we'd have to go back to my hotel, unless I wanted a couple of snickering schoolboys watching.”
“Wow, after an offer like that I'm surprised you're still here.”
“Indeed.”
“Ah well, I'll be alright,” I said, pulling out some keys. “Olly left me these. Apparently they ruin the line of his jeans if he keeps them in his pockets.”
“Ha, what a ponce! Serves him right then.”
“True. I'd better find him at some point though.”
Ali checked Darren's location: he was texting furiously in the corner. “Okay, well how about now? I’ll come with you.”
“Alright.”
I threw back the rest of my drink and sneaked behind a square pillar halfway to the door. Ali squeezed in behind me with her lips fused together to suppress a giggle. Slowly, I looked around the pillar: Darren was marching right past, further into the bar, no doubt looking for us. Shit! I swung my head back round and started to get my breath back, but Ali gasped, “Now!”
We stole towards the door, increasing in pace as we approached freedom. We passed the bemused bouncer at a trot, and ran round the corner, not looking back to see if Darren was pursuing us. Ali was in good shape, so I was out of breath much quicker, and we slowed down after a couple of hundred yards.
“That was brilliant,” she said, linking her arm through mine: it felt nice. Emboldened, I felt the need to impress her; luckily I knew an absolute fail-safe.
“So, did you know that I'm a musician?”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah! I play guitar, write songs and sing.”
“Well done.” Come to think of it, she said that with sarcasm I didn't spot at the time. Thankfully I was interrupted before I could deepen my brag-hole, or offer to write her a song: we had joined the back of the club's queue just as the bouncer was shoving a bemused looking bloke, shouting, “Get lost, dickhead!”
We queued in silence, watching the squat, stone bald, goateed bouncer – who had the Aryan pallor and hulking muscle tone of a man who spent his daytimes inside a gym – let people in unsmilingly. He patted one girl on the arse as she passed, prompting Alison to deadpan, “Wow, what a charmer.” I winced and didn’t reply, but I don’t think he heard.
We got to the front, and without even a glance at us, the bouncer said, “Nah, I don’t like the look of you – you're not coming in.”
“What? Why?”
“Did you not hear me? It’s not your night, now PISS off!”
Not my night? What is it then? I remember thinking. This is my night, whether I spend it in the dive that employs you, or elsewhere. I bit my tongue, though, instead going with, “Okay, well just tell me why you won’t let us in.”
He grabbed both of my shoulders hard and manhandled me out of the queue. I noticed his hands for the first time: their veins looked stronger than my arms. He squared up to me, shoving his face up to mine. “Your eyes look weird! What are you on? What have you been taking?”
As he accused me of being on drugs, he twitched malevolently, no doubt the ghost of that morning's steroids. “Well, I've had a couple of beers—” I started, before he shoved me off the kerb and into the road.
He put his hand on Alison’s shoulder. “You can come in though, love.”
She shook him off, almost spitting with disgust, “Don't touch me, creep!” He shrugged scornfully and turned to the next customers.
As a kid I was constantly in trouble for breaking rules I didn't know existed and didn't understand. Rich, get down from there! Rich, you can't say that! Rich, you're not allowed in there! Rich, don't talk to the strange man! This felt the same, so I needed to know what I'd done wrong. I waited patiently to the side while the bouncer gruffly nodded the next few customers through, occasionally glaring my way. I took the opportunity to check for texts from Olly or Jay. They hadn't been in touch, though.
The queue stopped as a group of blokes debated whether they wanted to come in or try a house party instead. I took my opportunity to ask, “Sorry man, I am going to go elsewhere tonight, but would you mind telling me why you won't let me in?”
“Fuck off! And take your frigid bitch with you!” he said, pointing at Ali.
I stepped towards him and decided to show some chivalry, of sorts: “Alright, but just so you know, mate: I think you’re a cunt.”
He lunged at me, grabbed my head before I could react, and smacked it hard into the solid plastic corner of a vandalised phone box with a CRACK! My neck whiplashed back brutally, and my feet scrabbled for purchase on the pavement, tripping over the kerb. Doubled over, I was somehow still on my feet, and realised that he had me in a headlock, his left fist forcing my throat closed. My thwarted attempt to inhale brought on a burst of panic that gave me a spastic surge of strength I didn't know I had in me, and I managed to wrench him off me and stagger backwards.
My vision swam out of focus and back in again. An older bouncer with a ponytail and clipboard emerged from inside; he looked like he was in charge, so I hoped he might defuse the situation.
“Fuck off! Get out of here right now!” he yelled at me, unhelpfully.
Alison stepped between us “But… did you not see what just happened?”
“I tried—” I gasped.
“I do not care what you have to say, do not even talk to me!” He stepped towards me, but thought better of it when he spotted two cops watching the whole thing from just over the road.
Against my usual instincts, I decided to approach the police; surely they couldn't let these maniacs treat people like this? I took a step towards them, but the floor lurched up towards me and something dripped past my ear. Before I could even start, the taller blur of blue and fluorescent yellow said, “Look, clubs have no obligation to let you in. It's their call whom they choose to serve.”
Smelling a lost battle, Alison led me away before I could say anything and sat me down on a low wall under a streetlight. “Rich, are you alright?” she asked, sounding alarmed.
“I think so.” I touched my hand to my hair; it was pretty thick and curly, but was soaked through with blood, which I accidentally smeared across my forehead. “I think I’ve got a pretty gnarly cut on my head, though.” The light above was painfully bright, so I put my hand over my eyes.
Ali supported my head with her hands and moved in for a closer look, parting my hair and pulling my hand from my eyes. I snorted back a laugh, thinking she was going to kiss me. As her face came into focus, the darkness of the street behind her span once, twice, and I fell off the wall, out cold.
