Runaway (29 page)

Dr Robert jumped down on to the tarmac and leaned back in, grinning at us. ‘This is where the Beatles record, you know.’ And then he laughed at the expressions on our faces. ‘It’s a bit of a Tardis inside.’

He ran up the steps and into what looked just like a large suburban villa. Anything less like a recording studio would be hard to imagine, at least from the outside. But when I think back on it now, that zebra crossing we passed must have been the one that appeared in 1969 on the cover of the second-to-last Beatles’ album,
Abbey Road
, the four Beatles crossing in single file, Paul’s barefoot appearance giving rise to all kinds of rumours, including one that he was dead.

Dr Robert re-emerged clutching several tape boxes, and we headed south to Circus Road, then east towards Wellington Road.

As we crossed Cavendish Avenue, Dr Robert said, ‘McCartney’s in the process of buying a house here at number seven. Less than ten minutes’ walk from the studio. Forty grand, he told me it’s going to set him back, and probably as much again for the renovations.’

Rachel said, with a kind of hushed awe, ‘You know Paul McCartney?’

His smile was a smug affirmation of our naivety. ‘I know lots of people.’

It took us another half-hour to get out to Bethnal Green. The Victoria Hall was to be found, appropriately enough, in Albert Square, and stood in a small patch of neglected gardens surrounded by high-rise council flats. It was a curiously impressive building of black and red brick, built on four levels, with tall arched windows on the first floor and a roof terrace with commanding views of the surrounding area south of the gardens towards the railway. The first leaves were appearing on winter-dead creeper that was gradually spreading its tendrils across the walls, and a green sheen shimmered around towering trees in early bud in the neighbouring gardens. Large, white-lettered graffiti on the wall urged
NUTTERS OUT!
While another scrawl proclaimed
SHIT RULES
.

Dr Robert said, ‘The Victoria Hall experiment is not very popular with the locals.’

He led us through the main doors and upstairs to the hall itself. Early-spring sunlight lay in patches across its wooden floor. A drum kit and amplifiers were set up on a low stage at one end, electric guitar and bass leaning against a single manual Vox Continental organ with its distinctive red top, and white sharps on black keys.

At the other end, a door led into what the doctor described as the common room. ‘Everyone eats here,’ he said.

I noticed a small kitchen opening off one side. There was no one around, but I could hear voices drifting through the building. Someone was singing. Two, or maybe three, voices were involved in some kind of animated conversation. The air was heavy with the sour perfume of body odour, and something else. Something distinctly unpleasant. I noticed huge coloured candles sitting in pools of molten wax all around the floor and on almost every laying surface.

Dr Robert went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. ‘Make yourself at home,’ he said. ‘Or take a wander around. JP should be down shortly, once he’s finished his morning consultations.’

Maurie and Jeff went off to examine the group equipment at the far end of the hall, and Luke sat himself down at the table to light a cigarette. He looked distinctly unhappy.

‘Want to take a look around?’ I asked Rachel.

‘Sure,’ she said.

And we headed off hand in hand to explore the building.

I had found it almost impossible to keep the smile from my face, or my eyes from hers, all morning. From time to time she had caught me looking at her, and laughed, shaking her head.

‘You’re like a love-struck puppy dog,’ she whispered in my ear in the VW.

And I suppose that’s exactly what I was. No doubt, either, who the pack leader was. In contrast to Luke, I couldn’t have been happier. The crap of the last few days had receded into obscure corners of my memory, and my whole being was filled and consumed by the presence of Rachel in my life.

We wandered along dark corridors, doors opening off into offices or bedrooms. On one landing, the walls were covered with crudely painted figures, and the place was stinking.

I screwed up my nose. ‘What
is
that smell?’

Rachel sniffed the wall and recoiled as if she’d been struck in the face. ‘Jesus! That’s not paint, it’s shit!’

We hurried away in search of fresh air, up narrow stairways, through burned-out pools of light from unexpected windows on dusty landings, until we emerged, blinking, into full sunlight on the roof. A low wall surrounded its black bitumen surface. There were some tattered deckchairs set out around a half-rotten slatted wooden table, and the roof was littered with plastic cups, discarded food wrappings and a thousand cigarette ends.

A figure in a cream robe sat cross-legged on the wall looking out over the garden, upturned hands resting open in his lap, thumbs and middle fingers lightly touching. We couldn’t see who it was until he turned at the sound of our voices. Simon Flet. I felt Rachel’s hand tightening around mine at the excitement of seeing him. Her reaction stirred feelings of jealousy deep inside me, in spite of Dave’s assertions that he was ‘queer’.

He was less than pleased to see us. ‘What do you want?’ His voice was terse, verging on hostile. ‘I came up here for some peace and quiet, if you don’t mind.’

Rachel said, ‘Sorry to interrupt.’

He glared at us. ‘You’re those kids that Cliff brought to the house. I hope you’re not staying long. You’re not wanted.’

And he turned away again to resume his meditation. Although what kind of inner peace could ever be attained by such a troubled personality I could not imagine. Rachel pulled a face at me, and it was clear that her infatuation with celebrity had been short-lived. We went back downstairs to the common room and the mugs of hot tea that sat awaiting us on the table.

We arrived almost at the same moment as J. P. Walker. He shuffled in after us, hands sunk deep in his pockets, apparently unaware that there was even anyone there.

‘Johnny, these are the kids I told you about on the phone last night,’ Dr Robert said.

JP emerged from his private reverie as if someone had just turned on a light in a dark room. His face became immediately animated and his smile was oddly seductive. He stepped forward to shake all our hands.

‘Pleased to meet you, boys.’ Then, as he spotted Rachel, ‘Oh, and girl.’

He wore only a pair of jeans ripped at the knee, and an open-necked, collarless white shirt hanging out at the waist. He was barefoot, a slight man in his middle thirties, with long, thinning brown hair, and the most hypnotic hazel eyes I think I have ever seen. If he looked directly at you, you felt trapped and held by their gaze. It was quite disconcerting. His personality completely overshadowed his modest stature. But there was something about the familiarity of his soft-spoken Glasgow accent that was strangely comforting and removed any sense of intimidation.

Dr Robert said, ‘Look, I’ve got to go. You can get the tube back, boys, whenever you’re done here. Central Line to Holborn, Piccadilly to South Ken.’ He grinned. ‘Have fun.’ And he was gone.

JP beamed at us. ‘Cliff’s probably told you all about us, and what it is I’m looking for.’

‘Some kind of improvised theatre,’ I said.

He turned smiling eyes of surprise on me. ‘Scottish?’

I nodded. ‘From Glasgow.’

‘Never! I grew up in Shawlands.’

‘That’s where my dad was born.’

He shook his head. ‘What a small bloody world it is. You know, I might have taken up a musical career myself if things had been a little different. Got to Grade Eight on piano at the Ommer School of Music.’

It was my turn to be astonished. ‘You’re kidding! I went to the Ommer School. In Dixon Avenue.’

‘You’re not serious!’ Those hypnotic eyes opened wide to completely encompass me. He shook my hand again, grasping it in both of his. ‘The Ommer School. Man, those sisters were some girls! And it’s good to hear the sound of home. I’ve been away far too long. We’ll have to chew the cud sometime, you and me.’ He stood back then to survey us all, and his smile faded a little. ‘Cliff says you’ve run away from home.’

We all nodded, and exchanged sheepish glances.

‘Do your folks know where you are?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Well, the least you need to do is call them and let them know you’re safe. Promise me you’ll do that.’

I glanced at Rachel. ‘We will.’

‘Why did you do it?’

‘Do what?’

‘Run away.’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Listening is what I do for a living.’ He grinned.

And we all sat around the table then and told him the whole sordid tale. My being expelled from school, deciding to run away as a group, being robbed on the first night, and rescuing Rachel from her boyfriend the next.

He listened in grave silence. When we had finished, he said, ‘Well, you’re getting your education, anyway. Ambition is all very well, but you know, boys, you get nothing for nothing in this world, and people are not always what they seem. You’re lucky you landed here, and if things work out I’ll be happy to have you help at the hall for as long as you like.’

His eyes raked around the table like searchlights on a dark night, casting a piercing light into hidden places. But then he brought his own darkness to the conversation.

‘Word to the wise, though. Your benefactor . . . Dr Robert. He has his virtues, and his uses. But if you take my advice, you’ll keep your distance.’ Then he smiled again, just as suddenly. ‘You can put on a wee show for us tonight. I’ll brief you on that later. Meantime, you’d better stay for lunch.’

_II

Lunch was weird. One by one the patients and doctors began assembling in the common room. And Dr Robert was right, it was almost impossible to tell which was which. They were universally dishevelled, most of the men with long hair or beards, or both, shabbily dressed and often unwashed. I noticed fingernails bitten to the quick, and others that were long, broken and dirty.

According to a rota pinned on the wall, they took it in turns to prepare the food, but a glance into the kitchen revealed that the rules of hygiene were not necessarily being observed. We were hungry, but we didn’t eat much that day.

There was almost an equal number of men and women, ranging in age, I’d say, from early twenties to somewhere in their fifties. Some introduced themselves, some didn’t. Some gawped at us with naked curiosity, others ignored us.

Much of the conversation around the table seemed to me to be gibberish, and I was afraid to catch the eye of Rachel or any of the others in case I would start laughing. Which is shocking, when I think back on it now. These were poor souls, most of them, and we should have been counting our blessings.

One middle-aged man held an animated conversation with no one that we could see, gesticulating wildly, voice rising and falling as if in argument. ‘Now mathematicians have been debating this for centuries,’ he argued. ‘Temperance, that’s the symbol. Temperance, whether reading in the house or not. And I don’t care what you say, but it’s the way of the world. It is. Yes, it is. It is. It is.’

Like the needle stuck in a record, he repeated this assertion until it became almost unbearable. And yet nobody else even seemed to hear him. A large man with a full black beard caught my eye, and smiled and winked, and I wondered if he was one of the doctors.

JP himself sat at the end of the table, locked away in some distant inner thoughts, and paid no attention whatsoever to what was going on around him. We might all have been invisible to him, or he to us.

After lunch the residents began clearing the table and washing the dishes and we went into the hall to examine the equipment on the stage. It was good gear. Whoever was financing this group from Bethnal Green had spared no expense.

The hum and crackle of valve-driven amplifiers filled the hall as we powered up, tuning the guitars and shouting at Jeff to shut up as he tried out the kit. In all my years of playing music, drummers were always the noisiest, most annoying and inattentive members of any band. And when they had no kit in front of them, their fingers would tap on any surface to hand, incessantly, as if some inner urge to communicate drove them to beat out a constant, demented tattoo. I can remember being at Jeff’s house for dinner with his family when the meal was repeatedly punctuated by Jeff’s father, whose almost unconscious admonition to ‘Stop tapping, Jeff’ was nearly as irritating as the tapping itself.