The Singer (12 page)

The function room was obviously where they had the bands.
Thickly carpeted and smelling vaguely of stale biscuits, it was a drab little hole, where I imagined the not-even-hopefuls of the bar downstairs went through the motions, dreaming of days gone by.

Kevin Holme was perched on a barstool, leaning against the deserted counter, reading a paper and sipping his fizzy water thoughtfully. He was shorter than I’d imagined, and still wearing
the sort of
thing he always had on in his press shots – black leather jacket, black jeans, pointy boots and a white shirt with purple stripes. A small pair of wire glasses rested on the top of his nose, and he still sported a bit of a mullet, though the face, when he looked up, was thankfully less battle-scarred than the undead downstairs.

He looked like a middle-aged pixie.

‘Hello,’ I put my pint down
and extended my hand to him. ‘Eddie Bracknell.’

‘All right, Eddie,’ Kevin said. He sounded like a pixie too, or Willie Carson. He looked over my shoulder as he spoke, and his hand felt small, dry and delicate, not what you’d expect from a drummer.

‘Gavin not with you then?’

‘No, I’m afraid he had to go on a shoot at the last minute. In New York. I hope you don’t mind him not being here.’

‘Not at all,’ Kevin looked almost relieved and ushered me onto the nearest barstool. As I rummaged my dictaphone out of my bag, he carefully folded up his paper and said: ‘Gavin was Vince’s friend, really. He took some good pictures of us, but we didn’t talk much.’

He sounded quite sad and suddenly I felt sorry for him. He looked so easy to pick on.

‘Is it all right to turn this on?’ I asked,
placing the dictaphone between us.

‘Yeah, sure,’ Kevin looked like he hadn’t seen one of those in a long time, if ever. ‘It’s a bit strange, somebody wanting to talk to me about Blood Truth. After all this time. It feels a bit like a different world.’

‘I’ve read a lot about the band,’ I told him, ‘but there never seems to be very much about you.’

‘Well, there wouldn’t be, would there?’ he laughed
to himself softly. ‘Do you mind if I ask you, why are you doing this book?’

‘It’s Gavin’s fault,’ I shrugged. ‘He played me a video of one of
your gigs. That was enough to get me hooked. Then, the more I found out about the band, the more I thought, God, here’s a story that needs to be told. It’s amazing that people have forgotten about you.’

Kevin nodded thoughtfully, then looked me straight
in the eye. ‘You’re not going to try and find Vince, are you?’

I barked out an unconvincing laugh. ‘Well, I’d obviously like to try and find out what happened to him…’

Kevin was shaking his head.

‘I don’t think you could,’ he said. ‘Or, maybe I don’t think you should. He’s better off lost…’ he blinked and almost whispered, ‘and forgotten.’

Then he seemed to shake himself out of it. ‘Look,
sorry, Eddie, this isn’t a very good beginning. I don’t mind answering your questions, but I think I should be honest with you about one thing, ’cos no one else will. They’ll all idolise him and lionise him, the way your friend Gavin does. But take it from one who was actually there and actually sober – Vince Smith was a very bad bastard. Right from the start…’

Then Kevin Holme started to tell
me his sad, bad tale.

August 1977

Stevie was having a nightmare about cheese. He was in a desert of melting cheddar, surrounded by big holey mountains of edam, all of it going rank and sweaty in the relentless heat. He was trying to move but his feet were stuck in bubbling gunge and the smell of it all was unbearable. ‘Uughhh!’ He shook himself awake, but the hideous smell still lingered.

And no wonder. A long pair of feet, encased in filthy, sweaty socks was propped right under his nose. They protruded from the end of his bedcovers, from where they joined a long, angular ridge under the sheets that led right along to a shock of black, greasy hair spilling out of the bedstead. Bleary from sleep as he struggled up to his elbows, Stevie tried to remember how he’d ended up in bed with
Sid Vicious.

The events of the night before came back in a rush as he stumbled out of the twisted sheets, his T-shirt, Y-fronts and socks clinging to his clammy skin. Oh aye, he thought, my new friend Vince. Stevie went over to inspect him.

‘Uughhh,’ he repeated, examining the congealed gash on
sleeping beauty’s forehead, the great clumps of blood stuck in his already matted black hair.

The
room smelled worse than a docker’s drawers, so Steve staggered to the window, pulled back his blackout curtains and, wincing in the bright light of 10 a.m., pushed the sash window up and open.

He leaned out to breathe in the fresh air, take in the panorama of the rooftops stretching towards the big refineries on the docks. The bains were already at their football in the street below, racing up
and down the street with their big orange ball.

Another beautiful day, he noted with some poignancy. Summer holidays were almost over now. No more days spent practising in Lynton’s garage. No more nights humping gear.

He had a flashback to Steve Jones in his underpants and his face cracked into a wild grin. Now, that – that had been a moment in a lifetime.

‘Nurrrghhhhh,’ came a sound from the
bed. Underneath the black hair, something stirred.

‘Nurrrghhhh, am I?’ it seemed to say.

‘You’re in Hull, mate,’ replied Stevie.

‘In Hell?’ Vince Smith emerged from the covers, eyes screwed up against the sunlight. ‘How did I get here?’

‘You stowed a lift in our van, remember?’ Stevie watched with some amusement as his companion tried to focus.

‘Can we have a bit less daylight?’ frowning
Vince asked. He sounded much posher than he had the night before.

‘Why, does it turn you to dust?’ quipped Stevie, thinking, aye, and he doesn’t half look like a vampire and all.

Vince put his hand to his forehead and instantly recoiled. ‘Ow! Jesus, what have you done to me?’

‘I’ve not done owt,’ Stevie shrugged. ‘Sid Vicious did that to you. You were right pleased with it at the time.’

A
sudden grin lit up Vince’s face. ‘Sid! Oh yeah, I remember – I communed with him!’

‘He cut your head open with his bass,’ Stevie nodded. ‘Do you feel all right? S’pose I should have took you to the hospital. But it were hard enough stopping Terry and Barry from throwing you out of van.’

‘Ah, it’s all coming back,’ Vince began shakily to stumble to his feet, one hand clutching the bedpost, the
other gingerly examining his skull. ‘Shit, you saved my life last night. And I don’t even remember your name.’

‘It’s Stevie. Stevie Mullin. And I didn’t really save your life – unless you count stopping Barry from givin’ you a batterin’.’

‘Stevie,’ Vince extended his hand, the one with the eyeball ring, took Stevie’s and shook it with a strength that belied his skinny frame. ‘Believe me, you
did save my life. You got me away from Rachel for the night. If she’d seen state of this…’ He eyeballed himself in the mirror on Stevie’s wardrobe.

‘I won’t ask,’ mumbled Stevie. ‘D’you want to get cleaned up? Then we’d best get out of here. The old man’s due back off boats today and if he finds you in here, he’ll think I’ve gone queer. Believe me, no one will be able to save your life then.’

Vince started to laugh, sending stars shooting through his eyeballs. He clutched his wounded skull, muttering: ‘Maybe I’m dead already.’

Stevie hung round the top of the stairs nervously while Vince was in the bathroom. Downstairs the telly was on full blast and he could hear little Gracie and his youngest brother Milo laughing to
The Banana Splits
. His mum was hoovering and the smell of breakfast
bacon still lingered on the air. Stevie was starving but he couldn’t risk it. Getting Vince in in the middle of the night was one thing. Smuggling him back out unnoticed would be a whole lot harder and the thought of his dad barging in on them sharing a bed was already causing his stomach to turn somersaults.

‘Hurry up, hurry up,’ he muttered nervously to the locked bathroom door, his fingers
drumming on the banisters. Vince was taking ages. Stevie himself had pulled on new underwear,
last night’s peg leg trousers and a white T-shirt, fluorescent yellow socks and his brothel creepers. He’d rubbed some of the toothpaste he kept to do his hair with around his teeth, sprayed on some deodorant and figured he could save a bath for later. But obviously, when sober, Vince was a little more
fussy about his appearance.

The bains outside smashed their football against the front door, causing the dog to erupt. Stevie thought he was going to have a heart attack.

‘Will you shut up!’ his mother yelled, turning off the hoover.

For one second there was silence in the Mullin home, and that was the moment Vince pushed open the bathroom door, and stood framed in the doorway in all his splendour.
His hair stood up on end again and the skin all red and shiny around the two-inch scab that was forming on the centre of his forehead. His T-shirt was ripped and covered in dried blood. On his left shoulder, Stevie hadn’t noticed the night before, was a tattoo of a naked lady sitting in a cocktail glass. On his right shoulder was the Virgin Mary.

If Stevie’s dad saw that…

‘Is that you up, son?’
Mrs Mullin’s voice came.

‘Uh-oh, yeah, Ma,’ Stevie winced. ‘Top of the morning.’

‘D’you want something cooking?’

Stevie and Vince stared wide-eyed at each other across the top of the stairs.

‘You’re all right, Ma, I’m late as it is. I’ll get summat out.’

‘Late for what?’ Stevie’s mum appeared in the hallway, looking up at him in puzzlement, one hand around the dog’s collar, the other still
trailing the Hoover lead. ‘I thought you were working last night?’

Vince shrank back into the bathroom. Stevie dropped his gaze just in time.

‘For band practice, Ma. We’ve not got many days left now.’

‘Well, it’s not like you not to want your breakfast.’

She eyeballed him suspiciously.

‘I know, but it’s ’cos I had a late night,’ Stevie said the first thing that came into his head. ‘I’ve slept
in and now I’m gonna be late. Don’t worry, Ma, I’ll be all right.’

She shook her head. ‘Well I don’t know.’ She shrugged, and made to turn away. ‘All right, son, I’ve got enough on my plate as it is. Your dad’ll be home any minute and I’m not halfway through the cleaning. You carry on. Go on and have a good time.’

Her voice resounded with sarcasm, but Stevie didn’t rise to it. Instead he smiled
sweetly. ‘All right then, Ma, see you later.’

She scowled at him and disappeared from view, turned the Hoover back on. It was now or never.

Stevie threw Vince’s leather jacket at him. ‘Come on!’ he hissed. ‘Let’s get out of here!’

They ran down the stairs, shot out of the front door before Stevie’s mum could finish asking: ‘Stevie? Have you got someone with…’ and were halfway down Hessle Road
before they stopped running and started laughing.

‘Did you just say—’ ventured Vince, clutching his sides and trying to get his breath back ‘—you’ve got a band?’

‘Aye,’ nodded Stevie. ‘We’re not bad neither. We’ve been practising all summer. Only trouble is, we’ve not got a singer.’

‘Well,’ smiled Vince, ‘you have now.’

Lynton and Kevin reviewed this new prospect with a mixture of horror and
awe. Lynton couldn’t quite believe the mad bastard was still with Stevie. He agreed with Terry and Barry – Vince should have been deposited in a lay-by somewhere far from here. That bloody face and all his gibbering about Elvis Presley had made Lynton shudder. The last thing he expected was to see this vision of mad badness swaggering into their rehearsal room, laughing and joking with Stevie with
an ease that suggested the two of them had been friends for years.

With his finely tuned instinct for personal danger, Kevin regarded Vince with mute terror. Vince said he was eighteen and had left school already, but he looked much older than they did, much more knowing. And the way he had passed his eyes over the little drummer reminded Kevin too much of the expression on Dunton’s face when
a new boy turned up at school. Like he couldn’t wait to get on with the torture.

From the moment they’d assembled in the garage, on Stevie’s orders later that afternoon, it was as if Vince had taken over, assumed the gig was his before he’d even sung a note. Worse still, Stevie didn’t even seem to have noticed.

Instead he was boasting to his new friend about how they’d taught themselves a few
cover versions over the summer – ‘Anarchy’, ‘New Rose’ by The Damned and Link Wray’s instrumental ‘Rumble’. Vince decided instantly that demolishing Dave Vanian would be the best way of demonstrating his skill.

Doesn’t want to measure himself up against Johnny, thought Lynton, tuning up his bass. Kevin was so nervous it had taken him forever to set up his kit, crashing around all fingers and
thumbs, dropping cymbals left, right and centre. Lynton had helped him in the end, then sullenly wired up their only vocal mic, while Vince and Stevie jawed on about the gig last night, oblivious to their discomfort.

‘All right, you ready?’ Stevie slung his guitar around his neck.

‘Yeah,’ Kevin’s voice came out high and shrill, making Vince snigger.

Lynton just nodded. I’ll show that freak,
he thought. Bet he knows nothing about music.

‘New Rose’ had an explosive intro anyhow, drums, bass and guitar all crashing in together, and the moment the three of them got going it was like a shower of sparks went up. Stevie nailed that subverted rockabilly riff the way a surfer catches a wave. Kevin drummed faster than he’d ever managed before,
drummed like his life depended on it. Lynton
felt hairs standing up on the back of his neck as his fingers flew up the fretboard, finding the notes as if of their own volition.

Then Vince grabbed hold of the mic, swung it backwards and let rip a deep, almost yowling voice. That it wasn’t entirely pleasant on the ear wasn’t the point. From the moment his fingers touched the mic, Vince Smith looked like a star. He moved that microphone back
and forth with a louche magnificence, like a hellbound punk Gene Vincent, already caught in the spotlight’s glare. It didn’t seem like he knew most of the words, or maybe he was just making up couplets that amused him more. But there was an aura about him that was electrifying. You couldn’t stop staring at him.