‘Hello.’ Her serious tone is far removed from the natural friendliness of our previous encounters.
‘How are you?’
‘Yes, OK.’
Her good-natured little dog, tail wagging furiously, jumps up to greet me. She tells me it is a border terrier, a bitch called Queenie.
‘Hello Queenie, aren’t you lovely.’ I cradle the dog's head as it tries to lick my face like an ice cream.
‘I’m walking this way, if that’s alright.’ Sofia nods her head towards the main road.
‘Yeah, that’s fine.’
This is a different Sofia. Everything about this scene ought to be ideal... perhaps with the exception of the gravestones and the buried corpses. It is a pleasant, crisp winter's day, and I am walking alongside this beautiful girl and her friendly dog. However, the reality is very different, and it is about to hit even harder. We leave the church grounds, and she delivers the information with the emotion of somebody buying a loaf from the Co-op.
'I'm back with Danny, and we're getting engaged.'
'Good.'
Good? It is a curious thing to say, ostensibly at odds with how I feel. Not only is she back with him, but they are going to marry. Yet at one level, my reaction is spot on. I do not need to comprehend the 'whys' or consider the 'what might have beens'. It is over. My mind is at least clear. I can now move on.
We make the long walk down Meols Drive. There is intermittent talk, though nothing of great significance. It is the conversation of two relative strangers, sourcing just enough common ground to stop things grinding to a halt. When we get to the junction of Leas Hay, I feel Queenie snuggling up against my leg.
Sofia says, ‘I have to go now.' There is a slight softening discernible in her voice.
'Fair enough,' I sigh.
I hold out my right hand. It seems I am still acting like Les from Electricals ready to clinch the deal. We shake.
'Goodbye Tom.'
‘Goodbye Sofia and good luck.’
I watch her disappear down the road with the ever-enthusiastic Queenie. I turn to head home, sad, disconsolate but crucially, the confusion has left me.
*
The next evening we are in my front room for a meeting of the band at the request of Brian. It transpires that after spending the night in custody, the police released him and Pothead the next morning with just a caution. He now wants to explain things. Julian arrived five minutes ago, but we are still waiting for Ged and for Brian.
There is a knock at the front door. I answer it to find Ged standing there. He looks like an imbecile.
'Bloody hell, what's with the Dave Hill?'
Ged has a new haircut, seemingly inspired by the porridge bowl style of Slade's lead guitarist.
'Fuck off soft lad.'
Even the contained Julian cannot contain himself. 'My word old man, that's erm... quite a look.'
'You can fuck off too Jules.' Ged has not quite adjusted to his new, minimalistic fringe and force of habit sees him straightening an imaginary centre part.
'I assume you've done that yourself.'
'Like fuck Tom, had it done at the hairdressers.'
'At the hairdressers?' Julian and I respond harmoniously with the same words and the same level of incredulity.
'I was with Brenda at her sister's salon, so she cut it for me.'
I cannot believe it. 'Amanda cut it?'
'No, Brenda did.'
That explains it. Brenda evidently does not have the hairdressing gene, but I already know to my own cost that she has a highly developed sense of humour. Ged appears hurt by our reaction, because he is looking worryingly at his reflection in the mirror.
I put ‘Muswell Hillbillies’ by The Kinks on the Ferguson stereogram. A few minutes into '20th Century Man’, the raspberry boom of Brian's van shakes the house, its exhaust evidently playing up again. Out of the window, I see the hippy emerge from the vehicle, smoking what looks like the Mersey Tunnel ventilation shaft. I have never seen such a big contraption.
He greets me with his trademark 'Peace man,' but the two-fingered salute is the wrong way round.
When I point this out, he lowers his index finger to leave the slightly more offensive one-digit version. I inwardly sigh. He hands me his Afghan coat, beneath which he is wearing a long-sleeved tee shirt emblazoned with 'Asimov for President'. I escort him through to the front room.
His first words are to Ged. 'Hey man, love the hair.'
'Oh shit!' exclaims our lead guitarist. The endorsement from Brian has confirmed his worst suspicions. 'Hey Tom lad, have you got a hat?'
I fetch him a woollen one with a bobble, and he sits down at one end of the settee, tucking the longer hair from the sides of his face into his new headgear like a Rastafarian. He is unusually quiet.
When everyone is sitting down, Julian asks Brian to explain the events of last Sunday.
'Thanks guys. I really appreciate this.' Brian picks up his giant pipe and puffs on it.
We exchange a few glances. He seems to have forgotten where he is.
Julian offers some encouragement, bringing him back to the moment. 'So Brian, what happened to you and Pothead?'
'Well man, we met this dude who was selling some shit at a phantasmagorical price. Pothead had a hookah in his haversack, so we bought some and found a quiet corner for a smoke. But man, it was seriously bad shit, one strong son-of-a-bitch compound. Too heavy man, far too heavy. Next thing, we're both on this bad trip.' He takes another puff on his monster appliance.
'Brian, don't you think it's time to lay off the... you know...' says Julian, taking on the role of counsellor.
'Don't worry man, my drug taking days are over. I've given up.'
He has another big inhale, and we stare at one another in disbelief.
'Then why the fuck are you sucking on a bloody chimney from Windscale?' Our man in the bobble hat is regaining his normal self.
'This is no shit man; this is an herbal mixture'
We shrug our shoulders. Brian finally sees the irony of him apologising while smoking a giant herbal concoction. He puts it down on the grate.
'OK Guys, that's it... no shit, no herbs. I want to say sorry for the other night. I let you down.'
Ged stands up to speak. Jules and I brace ourselves.
'Look Brian lad, I'm the one that should be saying sorry. The way I laid into you was totally wrong.'
I am thinking the bobble hat has a power over him, in a positive way, a bit like Bobby's Boots from the Scorcher comic.
'No man, I deserved it.'
'No you didn't you daft get. I shared a bit of that bad shit myself with Brenda, and it made me angry.'
'You took some as well?' I cannot hide a slight sanctimonious tone.
'OK Mary Whitehouse, keep your hair on.'
'That's what you should have done when Brenda had the clippers in her hand.' It is a rare shaft of quick wit from Julian.
'Fuck off.'
We are laughing again and ready to talk about the band. We accept Brian's remorseful pleas and start looking ahead to the weekend's gig. Plain Truth will perform at Saturday night’s 21st birthday party as a four piece. With Brian on board, that makes it £25 each rather than £33. Jimmy Jet would not approve.
'Hey guys, I've got a surprise,' says Brian.
Brian is not the most spontaneous of people, so saying he has a surprise is a surprise in itself. He exits the house to return to the van. We congregate in the vestibule and watch in amazement as a stern looking woman gets out of the back wearing a brown fur coat and matching Russian Cossack hat. Her unsmiling face cannot hide impressive cheekbones that support striking looks. She briefly nods, and we respond with a variety of waves and hellos, before she breezes past in the manner of Elizabeth Taylor at the Oscars, automatically turning left and disappearing into the front room.
‘Who’s that?’ I whisper like Bob Harris from The Old Grey Whistle Test.
‘Ludmilla,’ says Brian, unable to hide a smug expression
, ‘my new chick.’
A perplexed Ged pulls down his bobble hat a touch. ‘Fuck me Timothy Leary; you’re punching above your weight, aren’t you?’ If this was meant on a literal basis, that would be some weight.
She appears old enough to be Brian’s mother but is undeniably an attractive woman. Christ knows what she sees in the pot-bellied Science Fiction fan with a thatch of half-ironed pubic hair on his head.
‘Guess where I met her guys?’
‘In the Police Cells?’ I suggest.
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
My joke has discovered the truth. This is becoming a bit surreal. We return to the front room and join Ludmilla. She has already sat down with her hat on her lap and is glancing around the room in obvious distaste. Given the clash of the gaudy Christmas decorations with the shit coloured chairs and settee, this is entirely understandable. Her eyes rest on a small Eduardo nude in the left recess of the chimneybreast. She squints, adopting an expression of seeing something for the first time. The feminine beauty within this hanging masterpiece has a Mark Spitz moustache, tits like a clown’s hat, and the back of Tito Jackson’s afro nestled in her groin.
I feel impelled to explain to Ludmilla. ‘It’s my dad.’
‘Zat iz your dad!’
‘No, no... He’s the painter.’ Perhaps I should say artist, but painter seems more apt. ‘I don’t know who she... or it is.’
Ged has picked up my acoustic and is finger-picking in one corner of the room, while Jules and I look on uncomfortably at Brian staring in adoration at his Soviet beauty.
I decide to be the courteous host. ‘Ludmilla, there was no need to wait in the van.’
‘I not Yoko Ono. I don't want to zpleet ze band’
'Would you like a drink? A cup of tea perhaps?'
'Wodka.'
'Wod..?'
'Wodka!'
'Sorry, we haven't got any wodka.'
She dismisses the talk of a drink with a regal wave of her right hand.
Ged plays 'Greensleeves' and things remain awkward until Julian says, ‘May I ask what you do for a living?’
‘You may.’ She eyes Jules up and down. ‘I am proztitute.’
Julian instinctively covers his crotch; Ged breaks a string on the acoustic, ironically the ‘G’ string, while Brian maintains an expression of unwavering enchantment with his lady of the night. If love is blind, Brian is Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder rolled into one. I do not have to glance at the faces of the other guys to know that they think the same.
Then Ludmilla's severe façade is broken. She starts to giggle, pointing at my trousers. If dressed in my two-tone corduroy split knee loons, I could understand it, but I am wearing a pair of black trousers more sober than a nineteenth-century Presbyterian. She continues to laugh and point, and as I look down, I see why. My flies are open.
'He iz like de Benny Hill. He iz very funny.'
Brian joins in with the laughter, though Ged and Jules remain justifiably impassive, as I pull up my zip.
All of a sudden, Ludmilla sits bolt upright. 'Zat's it,' she says. ‘I zought I knew you.'
'Eh?'
‘Talent Aplenty... trouzers on fire... funny guy.'
Bloody hell... was anyone not at the Town Hall that night?
16. ABC
There is no date tonight at St John's. It is the Social Club's Christmas Party, the time of year when the committee hires a second rate Joe Dolan or Tony Christie for the evening's entertainment. The resident bread and butter artist enjoys the privilege of an unpaid night off. I guess that is show business for you. We have, however, managed to organise an additional practice session at the room above the ABC cinema, the venue for tomorrow night’s gig. Following the anti-climax of the Cavern event, we all want Saturday to go well, reinvigorating our hunger for success. A full-blown rehearsal can only help.
It is 7.30pm, and we are outside the cinema, which tonight is showing a film called The Poseidon Adventure. We access a door at the side of the cinema's foyer and are soon lugging our gear up a flight of stairs to the function room. I am behind Ged who has found himself another hat, a green Chairman Mao field cap with the blue shield insignia of the Chinese People's Liberation Army on its front. It is very much in keeping with the austerity of the concrete beneath our feet and the metal hand rail on either side. This stairway seems more like a fire escape.
However, when I push open the door to the venue with my right foot, I am surprised at the lushness of the place. The red carpet is sumptuous and the seats a rich, brown leather. It is not quite Liscard's answer to the Garrett Club, but relatively speaking, this is posh. The room is smaller than I expected, oval shaped with tables around the perimeter, a small dance floor in the centre, and a stage raised about one foot from the floor, half way down on the right hand side. There is barely enough space for the amps and the drums, so there is every chance that we are going to look more like commuters on a busy London tube than a performing band.
I roughly count the number of chairs. The place will only cater for about forty or fifty guests, which begs the question as to why the gig's fee is the princely sum of £100? Even with Brian back on board, dividing the spoils for the night gives me the equivalent of two weeks’ wages with overtime from Strathconas. This is the first gig where I have thought of earnings from the band and compared them directly with the day job, which makes it some kind of watershed. This is either the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.
Ged has soon set up his guitar and is playing a few scales with heavy distortion from his fuzz box. His colourful tank top and cords seem a shade inappropriate next to the Chinese hat, but I guess this is infinitely preferable to putting the haircut from hell on show.
'Nice tone tonight Ged,' I say.
'Yeah, I thought so myself.' He glances down at his clothes and nods to himself.
'Not your outfit, the guitar.'
'Oh yeah, I thought erm...'
I am starting to believe that like Samson shorn of his hair, the cutting of Ged's fringe has taken away his chutzpah.
‘Hey Jules, who’s the stupid fucker paying us a hundred smacks to play in a place the size of cat’s fart?’ The chutzpah is back.
‘It was just some dude at the Cavern. He liked our sound,’ says Julian.
‘Probably some fucking rich kid with money to burn and a Ford Capri in the garage.’
Our bass player polishes his bass with a J-cloth. ‘I suppose if he is willing to pay £100, we shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds us.’
When everything is ready, we go back downstairs to the foyer to buy a few drinks and sweets, not that we are particularly hungry or thirsty. This has as much to do with reliving our childhoods as anything else. The ABC Minor’s Club occupied every Saturday morning when we were young. The building evokes a wave of nostalgia and a compulsion for an Everlasting Strip and drink of Tizer. Although she does not remember me, I recognise the woman serving behind the sweet counter with her steel grey hair and face of white powder. It is Joan, the mother of George the Down Syndrome guy, and she is preoccupied reading the climax of her Mills & Boon novel, ‘Love The Physician’. She is probably just reading the bit where Nurse Humble is drawn into the strong muscular arms of Doctor Savage and surrenders to his overpowering, masculine charms.
Joan tells us that she does not like serving when the main feature is on, but we ignore her gripe and order some goodies. Reluctantly putting down her book, her face cracks like a meringue on Gas Mark 4, and she gets up to deal with the demands of a group of young men who have regressed to the age of about seven.
Then just as she is handing out the confectionary, we hear the sound of jeering and catcalls coming from the auditorium, followed by the heavy thud of footsteps. A man dressed in shirtsleeves and a peaked cap appears at the foot of the staircase, followed by a guy in a dark suit and matching bow tie who emerges from a side door to our left. It seems that tonight’s projectionist and the cinema's manager are about to come to blows.
/> ‘What the hell’s happening up there?’ The manager fumes.
‘It’s some kind electrical problem,’ says the projectionist. He is in a bit of a flap. ‘I’ve no supply to the equipment.’
‘Can’t you just change the bloody fuse?’
‘It's not as simple as that. It could take over an hour to get things sorted.’
‘Bloody hell. What are we going to do? I’ve got a few hundred customers who’ve paid good money to see tonight’s film and they’re going to want their cash back!’ The manager is fiddling with his bow tie while doing a passable Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army.
Julian addresses the manager and comes to the rescue.
‘Excuse me my good man, may I have a brief word.’
The two instantly stop bickering and give my friend a sceptical stare. Joan has resumed the reading of her book, undoubtedly now absorbing like a sponge the marriage proposal from Doctor Savage and the weeping acceptance from the fragile Nurse Humble.
‘I have an idea to help you out of this unfortunate predicament.’ Julian's dialect free accent immediately gets the manager's attention.
Everyone, including Ged, Brian, and me are in the dark as to what this idea might be.
We hear more jeering, and the manager presses Julian. ‘What idea? Come on, tell me, what idea?’
‘Do you think your cinema goers would like to hear a bit of live rock and roll, while you try and fix your electrics?’
‘What do you mean live rock and roll?'
'We're a band.' Jules points to the rest of us sucking on toffee bars and drinking pop.
'You don't look exactly like The Beatles.'
'Don't worry, we're good.'
'And pray tell me, where’s your musical equipment?’
‘Upstairs,’ I answer, buoyed by the thought of a performance at one of the landmarks of my youth. I have seen everything from Bugs Bunny to The Sound of Music here. ‘It’ll only take us about a quarter of an hour to set up the gear.’