The Singer (25 page)

‘Sure, man, go ahead.’ Lynton was standing up now, ready to see us out, picking up his cigarettes and putting them back into his pocket.

‘Do you know whatever happened to Don Dawson?’

All afternoon we’d been talking about some pretty heavy things – heroin addiction, racism, Bible-bashing
fundamentalist Yanks – and Lynton had answered all my questions with good grace and what seemed like genuine honesty. But for the first time then, I saw something flicker over the bass player’s smooth countenance, a storm cloud, a flinching in his eyes, like somebody had just stood on his foot. A little trace of pain.

‘Yeah I do, poor bastard,’ he said quietly. ‘He died, just over two years ago,
on Christmas Day, as it goes. In a nursing home, back in Hull.’

Lynton stared past me, out of the tinted windows and beyond. ‘He had Alzheimer’s, they reckoned. He’d been slowly losing it for years. Big Bad Don, the Cock of the North, he was nothing but a tiny shell, in the end. It was kind of hard to believe…’

I don’t think Gavin had caught any of this part of the conversation, because he came
up to Lynton at that point, with his coat back on and his bag over his shoulder, right hand outstretched.

‘Thanks again, mate, I’ll send you the contacts for these,’ he said. ‘If you want any printed up, just let me know.’

Lynton came back to reality sharpish, grabbed hold of Gavin’s palm and shook on it.

‘That’d be great, Gavin, and I’ll get you a copy of the new CD, once I’ve finished polishing
it. You know it’s gonna be—’ they shared what was obviously an old joke, finishing the sentence together ‘—the shit!’

They fell about then, slapping each other on the back.

‘Oh, and Stevie’s definitely back next week,’ Lynton added, like he’d only just remembered. ‘I’ve got to put the bastard up for a week. So I’ll make sure he spares a bit of time for you, make sure you get your story. Eddie,’
he turned to me, ‘it was a pleasure meeting you. Good luck stitching this all together, mate, and even better luck selling it.’

I realised this was officially the end of proceedings now and shook his outstretched hand vigorously. ‘Thanks, Lynton, that’s really great. Thanks for being so open.’

As if by magic, the lovely Shanice appeared at the exit door, beckoning us very politely to leave.

Out into the cold, dim twilight, the streetlights blinking on as we left the enclave and started back up Oxford Gardens. Lights switched on behind the net curtains of the little houses too, shadowy figures moving inside. Still no one out on the street itself, nothing to give the game away.

Gavin clapped his hands together, a great big grin all over his face. He was clearly delighted at having
seen his old friend.

‘Got time for a quick one, mate?’

I had promised Louise that I wouldn’t be back late. But now there was a dull ache inside my stomach, the knowledge that I’d never get to meet one of the people I’d really wanted to talk to for the book. A knot that twisted with the knowledge that Gavin had inadvertently cut short something really interesting that Lynton was about to say.

Only one way to untie it.

‘That sounds like a plan to me.’

It was a plan that cost me. I did get a cab home that night, even
though by eleven o’clock the lure of Gavin’s sofa and another rummage through his video collection was considerably stronger. I was greeted with a plate of incinerated pizza, left poignantly on top of the oven and a shut bedroom door that Louise had wedged the sideboard
up against from the inside. When I tried to get in, gentle words drifted through the woodwork: ‘Fuck off, Eddie.’

Back on the sofa again, so soon.

It took about a week to put that one right, a bloody expensive week. I ended up forking sixty quid for a pair of black suede stiletto boots and then another ton on a meal in some poncy Japanese restaurant in Fitzrovia after taking milady for a trip
to the cinema.

As a result of which I didn’t get the time to go through my Lynton tapes before Gavin was ringing up to say that we were meeting Steve Mullin.

Gavin was really excited about this next interview. I don’t think the two of them had seen each other since that album of re-releases five years ago. He wanted me to come over the night before so we could go over everything I was going
to say, watch the old videos again, and go through all our cuttings.

This time I told Lou I would probably be out for a couple of days.

‘Why don’t you just move straight into Arlington House and cut out the middle man?’ was her reply.

We were meeting Steve in the Earl of Lonsdale on Portobello Road at lunchtime on a Thursday. By midnight on Wednesday we were listening to
Butcher’s Brew
for
about the sixth time. I had become fixated on one track in particular, probably because Lynton had mentioned it as epitomising the height of his skag experimentalism – he had been playing his bass while he was out of it and had stumbled across this rhythm that had actually made him feel seasick, as if the notes were propelling his stomach up and down on waves. It had something to do with how low the
notes were as well as what order they were played
in. He became obsessed with reproducing it on the album; he wanted to make a song that could possibly induce the listener to vomit, so that they could appreciate where Lynton was coming from while he had created it.

Vince, naturally, had loved this idea, and, having shared the same batch that had caused Lynton’s revelation, understood exactly
the comment his bassist was trying to make. They had just come off a disastrous tour of the States, where they’d nearly got lynched by Klansmen in Birmingham, Alabama, and the singer chanelled his own sick disgust at them into Lynton’s nauseous rhythm.

They called the song ‘Retch’ in the end, though they had toyed with ‘Kan the Klan’. It had just been the two of them on the finished track – Lynton
had added some loose percussion that sounded like random, muffled thumping, like someone being beaten up in a room up the stairs, then fashioned an eerie motif to recall the Deep South on a Dobro guitar he had just been learning to master.

It was fucking brilliant.

I went to sleep with Vince’s plaintive wail echoing round in my head:
‘Spelt your name in beer on a bar in ’Bam/Sign of a Southern
gentleman/Who waits until dark to come out and creep/Fat and afraid wrapped up in a sheet/Flames in the night light a slug’s trail/Safety in numbers for the mentally frail/I’ll show you the light of my purifying fire/Burn your pork flesh on my funeral pyre/Retch you wretch/Die, die!’

I dreamed about men with pig’s heads marching round holding flaming crosses and woke to the smell of frying bacon.

Gavin was humming away to himself in the kitchen, brewing up coffee and piling a ginormous fry-up onto two plates when I staggered in, feeling pretty wretched myself.

‘Do you ever have a hangover?’ I enquired, wedging myself into a chair round the table and reaching for the orange juice.

‘Not in living memory.’ Mine host slapped down a plate full
of bangers, bacon, fried bread, eggs and beans
in front of me. ‘But you know what they say – the devil looks after his own. Get that down you, you’ll soon be right.’

He was correct about the restorative qualities of our breakfast, but I couldn’t help but wonder as I ate, why it was that his would go straight through him as if it never touched the sides, while mine would immediately convert into another layer of flab. When I thought about
it, Gavin didn’t eat much that wasn’t just meat and didn’t drink much that wasn’t alcoholbased. Maybe he just was the Atkins Diet in action.

‘Fill your boots, mate,’ he encouraged me. ‘If I know Steve, we probably won’t be getting any more solids today.’

When we stepped outside, it was one of those bright, mild February days that holds out the promise of spring just when you have given up hope
that winter will ever end. Crocus and narcissi were poking themselves out of the ground in people’s front gardens, reminding me of mother’s carefully tended plot and how pleased she always was with the first bulbs of the year.

On Portobello Road, mobile phone shops and coffee bars were proliferating in just the same manner, pushing out the shops that had amused previous generations – the comix
shop Fantastic Store, the goth boutique run by that tall, fit bird with long black hair that used to be next to the tattooists. I wondered what Steve Mullin would make of it all.

It wasn’t long before I found out precisely.

We found him in the big lounge room at the back of the Lonsdale, which had recently been made over from its original wooden tables and chairs into a lounging area with numerous
ill-matching sofas and what appeared to be half a dead tree festooned with fairy lights hanging from the centre of the ceiling.

Steve was standing with his back to us, pint in hand, examining a
Pulp Fiction
film poster. That was about as trendy as the Lonsdale got, thank Christ. It was about the only pub
on Portobello that still was a pub, as opposed to a trendy Trustafarian bar.

‘Steven,’ said
Gavin in a mock-grave tone.

The guitarist wheeled round.

I was quite shocked. Steve Mullin had not aged anywhere near as well has his former bass player. He always had had a battered look about him, but years of heavy drinking appeared to have taken a Mike Tyson-like toll on his face. All his features had coarsened; he had a double chin, a bulbous nose verging dangerously on the strawberry and
eyes like slits with puffy lids. The unruly hair was still thick, dyed and spiked to attention, and he hadn’t changed his wardrobe much either, it was just that his stomach now hung over the belt of his black drainpipe jeans almost obscenely. He was obviously one of those guys who only put on weight in one place, and what a concentration there was there – he almost looked pregnant.

‘Fookin’ hell,
Digger, I see you’ve not changed!’ he exclaimed. ‘Just as bastard well, everything else has round here. What’s happened to place? I just got chowed at by bastard Yanks for lightin’ up in a no smokin’ room – thought I’d got away from all that shite in LA.’

He frowned incredulously.

‘You’ve been in La La Land too long, mate,’ Gavin replied.

‘Fookin’ right I have.’ Stevie put his pint down on
a table and opened his arms. ‘How are you, any road?’

Gavin stepped into a hearty embrace.

‘I’m good, mate, yourself?’

‘I’m fookin’ confused I am, like. I went in bank this mornin’ and the bloke behind the counter had a fookin’ mohican – he only looked about twelve year old an’ all. Is there some kind of punk revival I’ve missed out on?’

‘Nah, that’ll be the David Beckham fan club,’ said Gavin.

‘David Beckham?’ Steve almost spat the word out. ‘Fookin’ ’ell. I think I need another pint. What you havin’, Digger?’

‘I’ll join you in a pint. This is Eddie, by the way.’

Steve looked at me for the first time. It was not a particularly friendly look.

I stepped forward and reached out my hand. ‘Good to meet you,’ I offered, encouragingly.

He belched loudly, then took my hand back and shook
it with a grip that made me wince. ‘You’re the one writin’ book, are you?’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ I tried to keep a smile in place through gritted teeth.

‘You want a drink?’ His expression didn’t change.

‘I’ll get them,’ I offered.

Steve nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Get us that one with the comedy German on the taps. Not the strong one, the other one – Knackerblitzen or Eidelweiss or summat.’

‘Ayingerbrau,’ said Gavin. ‘I’ll have the same. We’ll get a table, Eddie. Looks like we’ve got the room to ourselves at least.’

Hmmmm, I thought, that might be the only consolation of the day. No wonder Gavin had wanted me well briefed for this encounter. He obviously anticipated there could be trouble with this one. Still, I mused, as I handed the barman a tenner, I suppose I would be wary if
I was Steve. I’d want to suss me out too. Probably the hostility would wear off after a few jars, once he realised how seriously I was taking the book.

When the barman actually returned with some change I took it as a good omen.

Gavin and Steve were huddled in the far corner away from the sofas, sitting opposite each other across a table. Steve was mid-anecdote, a fag blazing in one hand, the
dregs of his previous pint in the other.

‘Billy kept goin’ on about this haunted corner, that he couldn’t play in there ’cos the vibes, man, were like really deadly for his mojo,’ he was saying, switching from Yorkshire into LA-speak midway through. ‘Well you know, there’s quite a few legends
about places in Hollywood bein’ haunted – Grauman’s Chinese Theatre for one, fookin’ Chateau Marmot for
another, anywhere these bastard actors have popped they clogs. ’Cos you know what they’re like, they can’t go on without an audience even when they’re dead.’

I put Steve’s new pint in front of him and he picked it up with a grunt that could have been ‘ta’ and carried straight on with his story.

‘So, after about a month of this shite, I found out from drummer, it weren’t a bastard ghost he were
worried about at all. It was this fookin’ sound booth where one of them poodlehaired glam metal wankers used to go an’ shag ’is groupies. Once I found that out, I were like, respect to you, mate, I wouldn’t want to touch it with a plastic one either.’

Gavin roared with laughter. I sat down beside him, wondering whether to get my tape recorder out of my bag or to let a couple of drinks go by first.

‘Cheers, Eddie,’ he picked up his pint and clinked it against mine.

Steve looked over resentfully.

‘Yeah, cheers,’ he said, then turned his eyes back to Gavin. ‘How’s your mate Mick, Digger? Where’s he got to these days?’

It carried on like this for another two hours. He must have sunk six pints before he even needed to go to the bog, by which time I was steaming.

‘Should I just go home and
forget about this?’ I asked Gavin, once his mate was safely out of earshot.

‘No, no,’ he put a hand on my arm. ‘Just stay cool, mate, he’s just sussing you out, he’s always like this when he meets new people.’