Chapter Ten
The next day Theo took a bus to Paradise Garage in Bristol. He needed something new to wear for the Steal Guitars gig at Moles, which was now less than a week away.
Paradise Garage was situated near the bus station, in a subterranean shopping arcade sandwiched between a dry cleaners and a branch of W H Smiths. There never seemed to be any other customers in the shop when Theo visited, which unnerved him. How did this place stay open? But the female sales assistants were always friendly, unlike the staff at Flip.
The clothes here were new and tended to be expensive - brothel creepers, leather trousers, cheesecloth shirts, mohair jumpers, teddy-boy suits. Theo wasn't interested in (and couldn't afford) anything like that. But he was always on the look-out for a decent shirt or t-shirt to add to his collection.
He perused the rails. Lots of punky stuff and band t-shirts. He liked the look of a t-shirt with a large photo of John Lydon on but then saw a white t-shirt with a Japanese rising sun on it. The shirt had its sleeves already cut off. Theo instantly liked it. He checked the size: it was Large. Theo was traditionally a Medium, and knew that this would be too big. But there didn't seem to be a medium on show. He could ask the shop assistant if there was a medium in stock of course, but what if she said no? That would be that. No new t-shirt. Far better to try the Large on.
As predicted, it was too big. But surely you could alter a t-shirts' shape in the same way you can turn flares into drainpipes? All it would take was a pair of scissors and a needle and white thread. So he bought the t-shirt for £9.99. It would be perfect for the Steal Guitars gig at Moles, once he had got the top of his arms brown.
-
Theo's plan for the following Monday, the first day of the summer holiday - this estate agent-ing, sketching, drum-playing summer holiday - was to get up at 7am, cycle out to the country (taking his sleeveless white t-shirt with him in order to get the tops of his arms brown should it be sunny), sketch scenes of rural life until lunchtime, come back home, have lunch and then practice the Steal Guitars set list in the afternoon.
He thought about Martine constantly throughout the weekend. He had looked up her number in the telephone directory as soon as he got home on Friday night: K Walker, College Road Atworth, just as she said it would be. The K in question being her rather stern-looking father Theo presumed. He resisted the urge to phone her straight away.
Instead he played his drums, saw his friends, ate his food, drank his beer, but always one very large part of his brain was thinking of that short heavy-set girl with the undeniably pretty face. The urge to phone her persisted over the weekend, but he told himself he had to wait until Monday night, which seemed to be just the right amount of time since their last meeting.
On Sunday evening he set his alarm for 7am. The forecast for the next day was for sun, and he planned a route out towards nearby Monkton Farleigh where he knew there to be several working farms. Plus the countryside out there was "rolling", offering plenty of opportunity for landscapes should he fall short on the rural labour front.
He lay in bed leafing through his various Van Gogh books. Such vivid colours in those oil paintings! Then he looked at the earlier drawings. These were set in the bleak, flat landscape of rural Holland and featured peasants on their hands and knees, working the fields. Did farm workers get on their hands and knees these days? Theo wasn't sure. Everything would be automated surely? Maybe a drawing of a combine harvester ploughing the fields was more likely.
Van Gogh's landscapes seemed different in style to his later paintings, less intricate. They almost looked like they could be woodcuts - thick swirling black lines against white paper, with almost no shading whatsoever. This style was different to Theo's more photographic sketching style, but he resolved to try and copy it, to see if it would free him up creatively.
Once he had leafed through the Van Gogh sketches, he had a quick look at the volleyball-playing women of The Observer magazine, then put Side A of Eddie Cochran's Greatest Hits on his bedside turntable and turned out the light.
The alarm woke him at 7am. He put a hand out to turn it off, and at the same time turned on his bedside radio. Mike Smith was introducing the first record of the day on his Radio 1 breakfast show. It was Don't Try To Stop It by Roman Holiday. Fantastic! An upbeat song, and a perfect way to start the day. But the next thing he heard was Simon Bates introducing Our Tune, which meant that he had fallen back to sleep and it was now eleven o'clock. Good God, what a waste of a morning! But if he got up now, he could...
Then the Newsbeat music woke him up again at twelve thirty. It was now the afternoon on the first day of this summer holiday. His eyes felt hot, his lids heavy. He was miserable, and disappointed with himself. Why on earth couldn't he get up? He did it for school without problem. He finally managed to get out of bed and made his way solemnly through the silent house to the kitchen, where he made himself a lunch of egg on toast. Once finished he got dressed, and not even in the mood to play the drums, wandered down to the fountain where he found Pete and a few of his other friends. He was quiet and sullen and spent most of his time in silent contemplation of Martine and the impending phone call. But the day was sunny, so at least he managed to get some colour on his upper arms.
At dinner, his parents asked him how the first day of the holiday had been. Unable to lie, but also too ashamed to tell the truth fully, he said he had felt incredibly tired and must have been suffering from some sort of summer cold, and that he slept it off and felt much better now. His parents seemed to accept this version of events. Sylvie offered to check on him in the morning, but Theo said there would be no need, he was feeling much better now.
He decided that seven thirty pm would be the optimum time to call Martine - most families would have eaten dinner by then, plus his brother would more than likely be out, and his parents would be safely ensconced in front of the television. So to kill time until then he went to work on the rising sun t-shirt. He used scissors to cut the seams from the waist to below the armpits, then cut about an inch of material from each side and sewed it back up again. The t-shirt bunched slightly under the arms, but not so much that you'd notice. The only problem now was length - it came down to his crotch and he preferred his t-shirts to come just below the waist. He knew he didn't possess the necessary skills to create a new hem, so he just cut as straight as he could, knowing eventually that the fabric would unravel. This gave the t-shirt a punky, homemade look that he quite liked.
He looked in the mirror and was pleased with the results. So much so that the bad mood that had been with him since his abortive attempts to get out of bed this morning had now disappeared. He checked his watch: seven twenty five. Now would be a good time to phone Martine.
Would she like to come to the Steal Guitar gig at Moles? That would be a good question to ask her when she answered the phone. But she wouldn't answer the phone would she? It would be answered by a mum or a dad or an older sister. They would ask "Who is it?" and he would say "Theo from the other night" and he would hear them shout out "Martine! It's Theo from the other night!" and he would hear a distant "Oh God, not him" and then a long wait as she took the receiver in her hand. "Yes?" she would say in a clipped, annoyed voice.
But hang on a minute, she asked him to phone her. So that was something...
He looked in the phone book again. K Walker, 56 College Road, Atworth, 0249 701___. Would Martine even be allowed out on a Thursday? Theo had no idea how old she was. Fifteen? Sixteen?
He dialled the number. It started to ring and he knew he was locked into another forward chain of events. The easiest thing to do would be to hang up, then there would be no forward chain, and he could go back to thinking how perfect the last time he saw her was. But maybe the forward chain would be just as perfect. So he let the ringing continue. Ring ring, ring ring! He was prepared to give it three more rings, and then hang up. The third ring came to an end. There was clearly no one home.
But then of course the phone was answered:
/>
"Hello Atworth 701___?" A man's voice.
"Hello", Theo replied, trying to sound older than his sixteen years, "can I speak with Martine please?"
"Who is it?"
"This is Theo from the other night."
He heard the man shout out: "Martine! It's Theo from the other night"
But then a derivation from the imagined script. He heard a faint and upbeat "Coming!" followed by a sort of thumpa-thumpa-thumpa which he imagined to be the sound of a rather heavy-set teenage girl running down stairs.
"Hello?" Her voice on the other end of the phone.
"Hi, it's Theo from the other night." The more relaxed "Hi" deviated slightly from the more formal "Hello" that he imagined he would begin with, which he took as a sign that things were going well.
He continued: "Um, how are you?"
"I'm okay!" A giggle. Theo imagined holding her hot sweaty hand.
"Cool. Um, I'm playing at Moles on Thursday evening with Steal Guitars and I wondered if you might like to come along?"
Theo heard Martine shouting out: "Dad, can you drive me to Moles on Thursday?... Yes, it will be finished by eleven... I'm tidying my room now... his parents are really nice..." And then to Theo: "Yeah, why not?"
They arranged to meet at Moles at 8pm. Theo would wait for her outside the venue and get her in on the guest list. Martine's dad would then pick her up at ten thirty.
So it happened! A date with Martine! The undeniably pretty girl in the black PVC raincoat was meeting him on Thursday! Now that he was seeing her on the same night as the gig, he felt less worried about the actual gig itself; it was almost as if it was something that he had to sit through (literally) until he could be with her afterwards, drinking at the bar.
With these arrangements in place, Theo felt that things were back on track. He was sure he'd be able to spring out of bed tomorrow morning get a good day's sketching done. But to be on the safe side, he decided to place his alarm clock as far away from the bed as possible, so that he would have to physically get out of bed to turn it off. Once out of bed, there would be no point in getting back in.
The alarm went off at 7am the next morning. He got out of bed, turned it off, got back into bed and went back to sleep. His mum came in to check on him at 8am - she opened the curtains and kissed him on the forehead, after which he fell straight back to sleep. He woke again when a chink of sunlight fell across his face. He looked at the distant alarm clock: ten thirty. Jesus, not again! He turned the radio on: an oldie from Abba. Then he fell back to sleep again, woke up to Our Tune, then fell back to sleep, then woke to the new Kim Wilde song, then fell back to sleep. Then he heard the Newsbeat music and it was lunchtime again.
Filled with self-loathing, he managed to get out of bed and walk downstairs to the empty kitchen. Beans on toast. Another wasted day. His eyes again felt hot and heavy, his limbs slow and lethargic. Is this what too much sleep does to you?
Once dressed he grabbed an A3 sketch pad and pencil set, but too miserable to contemplate a trip to the countryside, he walked instead to the bottom of the garden. He looked back at the house - tall, elegant, creaking with ivy, an apple tree in front of it, a blue sky behind it. Bath stone gleaming in the sunlight. Not a bad view. He spent an hour and a half drawing the house and was pleased with the results. Now that he'd got into the spirit of drawing, he wanted to do more. He was sure that he would be able to get up early tomorrow and make it out in to the country.
At dinner, before the final Steal Guitars practice session, his parents once again asked him how his day went. Unable to lie even slightly this time, he told them of his complete inability to get out of bed. His parents sympathised and Sylvie said she would make absolutely sure he was awake before she left for work the next morning.
With his upper arms now appearing to be the same shade of brown as his lower arms, Theo proudly wore the rising sun t-shirt to the Steal Guitars band practice later that evening. After a final run-through of the set-list, the Heritage brothers went through the timetable for the upcoming gig on the Thursday. When asked what he was going to wear, Theo said "this!" which caused the brothers to look at each other with frowns on their faces. Mark politely noted that the t-shirt was more punk than rockabilly, and would it be okay if he just wore the white shirt and black tie he had worn to the first audition? Theo was disappointed now that his arms were finally ready, but he said he would.
The next morning, Theo's alarm clock (now back at its original bedside location) went off at 7am. He turned it off, put the radio on and went back to sleep. At 8am, Sylvie entered with a breakfast tray consisting of a cup of tea, a bowl of cereal and two slices of white toast with butter and marmite. She placed the tray by her son's bed, opened the curtains, opened the window, said "rise and shine", kissed him on the forehead and left for work. Although slightly dazed, Theo was able to sit himself up in bed and eat the breakfast. Once he'd finished it, he was ready to get up.
In a day's time, he'd be performing in front of a paying audience, at a gig which could lead to his band possibly landing a record contract. He felt a certain forward trajectory taking over, almost as if he were in the back seat of a car driven by someone else. Needing to regain control he checked the drum kit. He re-tuned the skins and gave the kit quick wipe down to make sure it gleamed as much as was possible.
Once this had been done, he decided that now really was the time to get out into the country and sketch. He assembled his art kit: Derwent pencils ranging from HB for preliminary outlining to 4B for shading (he assumed he'd be making heavy use of this one to emulate Van Gogh's woodcut style); Staedtler rubber; Stanley knife for sharpening; and sketching paper. Traditionally he used an A3 sketch pad, but this did not fit in his backpack, which was problematic as he was planning to travel to the countryside by bike. Not possessing an A4 pad, he took pages from the A3 pad, and folded them in half, then placed the paper between two bits of cardboard, and placed it into his backpack.
He retrieved his old ten-speed bike from the garage and set off towards nearby Monkton Farleigh. After twenty minutes of mostly uphill cycling, he found himself on the hills above the small hamlet. Theo soon realised that signs of activity on a farm are difficult to spot, at least from a distance. He cycled past field after field but could see no workers - on their hands and knees or otherwise. Or any combine harvesters for that matter.
Perhaps the thing to do would be to cycle to a farm house and ask if it would be possible to sketch the activity within. But Theo wasn't the sort of person who felt he could ask questions. What if they were to say "No!" and laugh as he walked away? What if they were to say "yes" but then stand behind him and watch as he sketched? How did Van Gogh resolve these problems? He assumed Van Gogh was shy like him, but to be an artist takes a certain amount of ...guts. You've got to stand there and say "I am an artist. This is what I do!" But now, standing here on the sunny slopes looking out over the valley below him, he didn't feel much like making any sort of statement. Perhaps he could just do some landscape drawing instead.
He cycled for a further ten minutes until he found a vantage point that had an interesting enough view for a study. But when he started to sketch, he found it difficult to emulate the stark, woodcut-like style of Van Gogh. It was so alien to Theo's own precise, realistic style. He found it difficult to transform the complexity of what he saw into Van Gogh's chunky black lines. He looked down at his effort so far. Although it bore no relation to what he'd hoped to achieve, he was cautiously satisfied. He dated the drawing: 3rd August 1983. He started to feel hungry and set off for home.
The house was empty when he got there. He fixed himself a lunch of beans on toast and listened to Radio 1 while he ate. Afterwards, he was about the head upstairs to his bedroom to peruse the now well-thumbed Observer magazine article on women's volleyball when the phone rang.
"Hello 701___"
"Is that Theo?"
Theo's heart pounded. A girl's voice.
"Yes."
"Hi, it's Martin
e."
His eyes widened and his cheeks flushed. Martine! Phoning him in the daytime! Theo didn't remember giving her his number. Maybe he mentioned his surname and she just looked him up in the book. She took the time to look him up!
"How are you?" he managed to say in response.
"Do you want to come over to my place?"
Of course! Of course! "Sure!"
She told him how to get to her house in Atworth: take the number 72 bus from the Newlands Road stop in Lyncombe and get off when you see the church in Atworth. Martine's house was in the cul-de-sac opposite, number 56. She told him that the buses went on the half hour.
He looked at his watch, it was now quarter past one, and so he said he'd try to get on the one thirty. He quickly washed his armpits and groin, applied some deodorant, changed into his rising sun t-shirt, grabbed some money from the top drawer of his desk, put some Black & White through his hair and ran out the door, making sure he had his house key in his jeans pocket.
Theo disliked buses, and avoided them whenever he could. Their smell and motion made him feel sick. He much preferred to walk. Martine had said that Atworth was about four miles away - walkable, but Theo did not know in which direction, so for this journey he would have to rely on the bus. It was twenty-five past by the time he got to the bus stop, and he checked the timetable. But the 72 did not go to Atworth, it went to Devizes instead. Oh. Maybe Martine was playing a trick on him. He felt flustered, but looked at the timetable again in case he'd got it wrong. This time noticed that there were the names of other towns printed in a less prominent typeface before the main destination listed on the right of the timetable. So the bus stopped at these places before it got to the final destination - Theo understood it now! He looked again for Atworth and found it on the route. He had never looked at a bus timetable before - the only buses he ever got were to Bath or Chippenham, and he's been getting on these with his parents or older brother since he was small.
Five minutes later the number 72 arrived. He got on and asked for a single to Atworth. He decided against the return ticket as he wanted to walk back, and anyway, he didn't want his afternoon to be dictated by the timetable of a bus. He sat near the back (but not too near the back in case some rough kids got on) and looked out the window as the bus began its journey. But instead of heading out of town, it spent ten minutes trawling around the housing estates of Lyncombe picking up the occasional pensioner or mother with pram. He'd been on the bus for fifteen minutes before it even left the town limits. But once away from the estates, the view out the window became much more pleasing: wheat and barley fields; distant copses of trees; farmhouses. As he rode, his mind wandered and he started to think of scenarios that may await him when he arrived at Martine's: she would be there with her family and they would all sit down to lunch; there would be friends of hers there that he didn't know; they would sit in the front room and watch TV; they would play Monopoly. He thought on and on, dispelling older brothers and giggling sisters as he went.
But then his mind meandered back to the bus journey and the fact that he did not actually know where he was going. All he knew was that Atworth was about four miles from Lyncombe and had a church in the town centre where the bus stopped. Judging from the bus timetable, Atworth was about half way to Devizes. But Theo did not make a note of when the bus was meant to arrive at Atworth, so he had no way of knowing where he was on the journey. Had he just passed through a town? He thought so. Was there a church? He couldn't remember. He looked behind him and saw a hamlet disappearing from view. Was it Atworth? He kept looking back, hoping to pass a "Welcome to Atworth" sign, but there wasn't one.
The bus was now back on a main road and starting to speed up. Theo took this as a sign that it would be a while before they entered another town. Why does this always happen? He asked himself. Why can't I just pay attention? He clenched his fist and jolted his head forward as if to head-butt the back of the seat in front. This sudden jolt must have caught the eye of the bus driver who shouted out "Atworth wasn't it?"
"Er, yes" Theo replied, his face reddening.
"We just passed it."
"Oh right, thanks." Theo sighed. What would he do now? How long would it be before the next stop? Would he have to pay more? But then the bus slowed down and came to a stop at the side of the road. The few passengers left on the bus turned to look at him.
"Do you want to get off then?" the bus driver asked.
"Oh, right. Yes please" replied Theo, his face now burning brightly. He skulked past the driver and thanked him without daring to meet his eye.
He ran all the way back to Atworth and found the church easily enough. Opposite there was indeed a cul-de-sac called College Road. He walked up it looking for number 56. It was right at the end, older than the other houses in the street. It looked like it may have been an old rectory. There was no car in the driveway, which Theo took as a good sign. He walked up the path to the front door and rang the bell. He heard a dog bark and scamper towards him. Then a girl's voice "Down Blackie, sit down!" The door opened and there was Martine, holding a large black Labrador by the collar.
"Come in."
She was wearing a dark green roll-neck jumper, a pleated skirt, black socks and a pair of daps. It almost looked as if she were wearing some sort of school uniform. Certainly very different from the clothes he had seen her wear previously. Theo walked into the cool hallway and followed as she shepherded the dog towards the kitchen at the back of the house. He could hear no other voices in the house, so he relaxed a little, now that he knew they were here alone.
Martine opened the rear door to the back garden and let the dog out. She then walked towards Theo, took his hand and walked him up the stairs. The touch of her hand against his led to a sudden rush of blood to his groin and he found it uncomfortable to walk. His heart was pounding, and he felt light-headed. At the top of the stairs she let go of his hand and he followed her into her bedroom. Like his room, there were hardly any pictures or posters on the wall. Unlike his room however, there were plenty of pastel coloured cushions and a colour TV set. Theo couldn't see a record player, which made him feel uncomfortable again. No radio either. Martine turned the TV on and waited for it to warm up. Once a picture appeared, she flicked through the channels until she found something she seemed to approve of - an episode of The Sullivans.
She sat on her bed and watched the TV. Not knowing what else to do, Theo sat next to her. The blood was pumping to his crotch again.
"This programme really is very boring," she said. "Do you ever watch it?"
"Sometimes" he replied. "But I agree, nothing ever seems to happen."
He put his hand in hers, and she turned his way, her eyes fixed on his. He moved forward to kiss her and their mouths met. Her small tongue poked against his, and his groin pounded even harder. He dared to open his eyes and saw that hers were firmly closed. He shifted his weight to relieve a pain in his shoulder, which Martine took as a sign that they should relocate. She moved away from him so that her back was resting on the wall at the side of her bed, and Theo sat next to her. She put her arms around his neck and they kissed again, more darting tongues and saliva. And then Theo felt her hand on his crotch. He opened his eyes wide in surprise, but Martine's were still closed, so he closed his again. She started to move her hand up and down against his jeans, following the line of his erect member. Wanting to reciprocate, he moved a hand towards her pleated skirt, but she pushed it away. Theo opened his eyes again, and again hers were closed. Her hand kept its momentum, up and down, up and down, until Theo felt the inevitable warm jets pump into his underwear. He groaned and opened his eyes again. This time, she was looking back at him.
She kissed him and said "My turn." With that, she moved his hand towards her crutch and worked herself against it, until a minute later she was gasping with pleasure. He kept his hand there as she juddered against it. They kissed some more as her breathing returned to normal. Then she looked at him and said:
"Shall we go
and walk the dog?"
That sounded like a good idea, but he was worried about the state of his underwear.
"Sure. Um, where's the bathroom?"
She gave him directions and he excused himself. Once locked in the toilet he looked down at his jeans - luckily there was no wet patch yet. He took them off, and then carefully peeled his underwear down his legs and stepped out of them. Not sure what else to do, he folded them as neatly as he could, ensuring that the wet part was folded inwards, and then placed the folded underwear in his jeans back pocket, and then put his jeans back on.
He went back to the bedroom to find it empty. He walked to the window and looked down at the garden below. There he saw Martine and the black Labrador, tumbling and wrestling on the grass.