Necrophenia

  Toby shrugged. ‘Because you are silly?’ he suggested.

  ‘I am going next door for a beer,’ said Mr Ishmael. ‘After you have done your sound check, you might care to join me.’

  And off went Mr Ishmael, leaving us behind.

  And I looked at Toby once again.

  And he looked back at me.

  ‘What is a soundcheck?’ I asked Toby. ‘I’m sure I did know, but I think I must have forgotten.’

  ‘It’s a check,’ said Toby, authoritatively, ‘to see whether all the walls are sound. Whether they are all right to take the vibrations of our instruments. You know nothing, you.’

  I bowed to his superior knowledge. ‘So I’ll leave that to you, then,’ I suggested.

  ‘Where do I set up my drums?’ Neil asked. ‘I can’t find the stage.’

  So I had to show him and sigh at his amateurism.

  And as the ladyboy from Venus Envy was still hanging around, I made certain enquiries of him regarding, in particular, where the PA system, bass and rhythm-guitar amps and speakers that we had been promised happened to be.

  And the birdie-bloke just laughed. ‘We’re all in the same boat here, sweetie,’ he/she said. ‘It’s row like a big boy or bail out like a girl.’ And then he/she giggled foolishly, which put my teeth on edge.

  Toby, now with his Gibson EB3 bass out and nowhere to plug it in, waggled the jack-plug in my direction. ‘I have a really bad feeling about his,’ he said.

  ‘Listen,’ said I. And I shrugged. ‘We’re top of the bill. Venus Envy can hardly play without a PA, amps and speakers. We’ll bide our time. Play it cool.’

  And so Toby played it cool. And Neil played it cool. And I played it cool. And we stood about, playing it cool and waiting for something to happen and for someone to turn up.

  And so things came to pass.

  It was about ten of the evening clock when the first nightclubbers arrived. I say first, although we didn’t see Mr Ishmael again that night. He never came back from the bar next door. And when we did eventually go looking for him, his limo had gone and he had clearly gone with it.

  But folk were arriving. Although they didn’t look to me to be your typical clubbers, as it were. And certainly not the class of audience I had been hoping for. Nightclubs are known as the haunts of the young and trendy. These clubbers were old and far from trendy and they smelled rather strongly of meths and cider and looked like the sort of folk who would probably appreciate a joke about a ******.

  I engaged the guy/gal from Venus Envy once more in conversation. ‘Still no amps or speakers,’ I said. ‘And a bunch of winos have turned up, several of whom I recognise as residents of Cider Island. I’ll give it ten more minutes, then if things do not correct themselves, myself and my colleagues will be taking our leave.’ Which was quite an eloquent little speech, really.

  And it seemed to get the job jobbed.

  The blokey-bird fluttered her/his eyelids and jigged all about in a fluster. ‘Oh, please don’t go,’ wailed and whimpered this person. ‘It is so important to the club that you perform. The equipment will be here shortly. Oh look - here it is.’

  And it was.

  Giant ladies now entered the club. Ladies with high heels and higher hair. And that is one of the things that I have always liked so much about transsexuals and female impersonators: the sheer scale of them. I mean, your average man is about five-nine, five-ten, but put a pompadour wig on him and a pair of five-inch stiletto heels and he’s going to be hitting near to the seven-foot mark.

  Pretty impressive.

  And so these giant lady-men, the lad/lassies of Venus Envy, hauled their gear into the club. I do have to say that they didn’t haul in much gear. And what there was of it looked pretty rough.

  ‘You can’t imagine how much it cost to make the gear look like that,’ I was told.

  But I didn’t answer at this time as I was fighting off a bag lady who was trying to go through my pockets.

  ‘You won’t need to do a soundcheck, will you?’ asked a giant lady-fella, who looked to me to be one of Cinderella’s ugly sisters from panto. Possibly played by Les Dawson, who would, in a few short years, become the most famous female impersonator in the country.

  And certainly one of the most convincing.

  ‘Actually, we did the soundcheck before you got here,’ I told this colourful personage, which must have impressed them a lot.

  Neil appeared with a troubled face. ‘A gigantic woman wants to play my drums,’ he said.

  ‘Give and take,’ I said philosophically. ‘It’s swings and roundabouts, live with it.’

  ‘And another of them is retuning your Strat.’

  ‘No she’s ruddy not.’

  But she did. Or rather he/she did. Well, they were fearsome, those Venus Envys. Big high heels and big high hair and great big eyelashes, too. They fair scared the bejabbers out of us and I am not ashamed to say so. Because they were fearsome.

  ‘What is the “Key of La”?’ Toby asked me.

  ‘There is no such key,’ I said.

  ‘That’s what I said, but that great Amazon who’s got my bass says she’s retuning it to the “Key of La”.’

  ‘And who’s to argue at that?’ I said. ‘The Key of La it is.’

  It must have been around eleven-thirty when Venus Envy took to the area of floor that had been designated ‘the stage’. It was lucky, really, that there wasn’t a raised stage as they would certainly not have been able to stand upright if there had been. Apart from the short one. And he/she was sitting down anyway. And I couldn’t really tell which one, if any of them, was Vain Glory. But I don’t think it mattered because whoever was doing what and playing what, they were complete and utter rubbish.

  Which somewhat surprised me, I’ll tell you.

  Neil and Toby were shaking their heads. ‘I thought you said that they were famous,’ Neil shouted into my ear, ‘and that their songs had meaningful lyrics.’

  ‘That’s what it said in Teenage She-Male Today magazine.’

  ‘But not in the NME or Melody Maker,’ shouted Neil. ‘To my knowledge, and my knowledge in these matters is considerable, they have never received even a paragraph in either of these esteemed organs.’

  ‘Organs?’ I said, fearing another ****** reference.

  ‘As in organs of public information. Newspapers.’

  ‘No mention at all?’ said I.

  ‘Nix,’ shouted Neil. ‘Zilch. Nothing. Not one bit.’

  ‘How queer.’ And I shrugged.

  And eventually Venus Envy concluded their set.

  And we clapped politely. Because although clapping is uncool, getting beaten up by a bunch of giant trannies for not clapping would have been uncooler.

  Clap-clap-clap, we went.

  And Neil even whistled.

  ‘I wish Mr Ishmael was here,’ I said to Neil. ‘I feel strangely vulnerable, amongst this crowd of weirdos.’

  ‘We could just grab our gear and run.’

  ‘Do you think they would let us?’

  Neil eyed up Venus Envy and concluded, ‘They do look rather burly and “useful”, don’t they?’

  And I agreed that they did.

  But at least they were smiling.

  At us.

  ‘I think we’re on,’ said Neil. And we were.

  Toby and I were handed our guitars and did our very best to deretune the retunings.

  Neil worried at this drum kit. ‘How can anyone put a drum kit out of tune?’ he asked.

  But in a whispery voice. And close to my ear.

  ‘We’ll show them,’ I said. ‘We’ll rock the house, right?’ And I made a soul-fist at Toby, who responded with something resembling a frown. And very resembling it, too!

  ‘Are you ready to rock ’n’ roll?’ I asked Toby and Neil.

  And they made faces at me.

  ‘Are you ready to rock ’n’ roll?’ I bawled into the microphone. Eliciting some hearty attention-grabbing feedback.

  One
or two winos gave me the thumbs-up with their sherry bottles and I counted in the first number.

  And then we played that rock ’n’ roll.

  Like the True Rock Gods we were.

  13

  We played an absolute blinder that night.

  Even with the ropy old PA popping away and the ancient amplifiers fizzing and crackling and a variety of distortion coming out of the speakers the likes of which would not be heard again until nineteen sixty-seven, when, in the Summer of Love and hallucinogenics, everyone would be trying to capture that exact sound.

  And I was very proud of the lads - they played a professional set. Neil thrashed those drums and Toby did things to his bass guitar that were probably illegal, but certainly got a cheer from the audience.

  And it was a big audience now.

  Packed very tight. And not smelling as sweetly as did Mr Ishmael. But we had a full house for certain. They just kept packing in, brushing the snow from their shoulders and rubbing their mittened mits together.

  ‘We’d like to play a song now that’s a bit of a departure for us. Slow the mood down a little with a bit of a ballad.’ And they cheered this. Loudly. ‘I wrote this number with Frank Sinatra in mind. It is called “The Smell in the Gents’ is Still the Same”.’

  And as I said in the last chapter that I’d give you a sample of my lyrics, here is that sample now. You have to picture it being sung by Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, probably on stage at the Stardust casino in Las Vegas. It goes something like this. Oh, and please bear with the spellings of the place names - I was young then and had not perhaps taken the best possible advantage of the education I was offered.

  THE SMELL IN THE GENTS’ IS STILL THE SAME

  I’ve been to Shanghai

  Pagodas hang high

  Upon the Shaolin plain.

  But no matter where I roam

  Over land or over foam

  The smell in the gents’ is still the same.

  It’s quite a mystery

  How come can this be?

  I’ve smelled it time and again

  In Trinidad and Tobago

  Or Tierra del Fuego -

  The smell in the gents’ is still the same.

  [Middle eight]

  If you’re caught short in Kioto

  Rangoon or Minisoto

  In Cuba or Toledo

  In Mexico or Rio

  Hawaiee or Tahiti

  New Zealand or Wai-Ke-Kee

  You’ll sniff this curiosity

  This nasal atrocity.

  I pose the question

  Take all suggestion

  To fill this void in my brain.

  How can it be

  From Irish Sea

  To some Tibettan Monastery,

  From any pub in Brentford

  To the distant shores of Tripoli,

  From John o Groats

  To God knows where

  This frightful perfume

  Fills the air.

  This sordid stench, this acrid pong

  It lingers loud and lewd and long.

  This wretched wang, this pooey niff

  You really can’t but take a sniff.

  The smell in the gents’ is still the same

  Oh baby

  The smell in the gents’ is still the same.

  Fade out.

  Applause.

  And they really loved us.

  In between ‘The Smell in the Gents” and ‘What’s That On Your Shoe, Young Man, Please Don’t Tread It Into the Carpet’, I whispered to Toby, who still had not retuned his retuned bass to his personal preference.

  ‘It’s tuned to the Key of Doh,’ said he.

  ‘They love us,’ I whispered to Toby. ‘If there were any teenage girls here, clean ones who didn’t smell of old kippers, I bet we’d get off with them.’

  Toby muttered something. But I didn’t hear what.

  But we were on our way to greatness, I just knew it. And Toby knew it, too, I knew that he did. Even if he wasn’t letting on.

  We ran through all our numbers that night.

  All six of them.

  And when the crowd called out for an encore, we did ‘It Will Never Get Well If You Pick At It’ once again. Because that involved us each getting an instrumental solo.

  And there it was. We were done.

  We came off that bit of bare flooring that had served as a stage as the true stars we were. There was no doubt that we had triumphed. That we did have our foot on the ladder. And several rungs up, at least.

  We did that thing known as the ‘high five’ to each other and Neil even threw his drumsticks into the audience.

  ‘You were absolutely brilliant,’ said a gigantic womanish creature.

  ‘It has been an honour to have shared the same floorboards as you.’

  ‘Well, thanks very much,’ I said. ‘I appreciate that.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ said the tottering gargantuan, ‘me and the other girly-boys of the band would be really honoured if you would join us for a drink. At our expense, of course.’

  ‘Well . . .’ I said. And, I confess, with a degree of hesitation.

  ‘It would mean so much to us,’ this being continued. ‘You wouldn’t want to let us down, would you? That wouldn’t be very rock ’n’ roll, would it?’

  And I agreed that it would not.

  And I went to tell the guys the good news.

  ‘I’m not leaving my gear in here,’ said Neil. ‘It will all be gone by the time we get back.’

  ‘Good point,’ I said. ‘Good point indeed.’

  ‘Pack it into your van,’ said the towering travesty of womanhood. ‘And perhaps you’d be kind enough to pack in our gear also. I don’t think we want to leave it in here. You’d be amazed how much it cost.’

  And so we packed all the gear into the Bedford. And the gear that belonged to Venus Envy also. And Toby locked up that van. Very tightly. And we checked the side doors and the rear doors also and assured ourselves that the van was well locked up.

  ‘And so,’ said I to the nearest she-creature that loomed above us, ‘where would we be having this drink?’

  ‘At our private club. It’s open all night and it’s just around the corner.’

  ‘Should we drive, do you think?’ I asked the colossus.

  ‘But we won’t all fit in, will we?’ it replied.

  Which was true. And so we walked.

  And it wasn’t really just around the corner. It was up the steps, past Ealing Broadway Station and along the Uxbridge Road, over Ealing Common and all the way to Acton Town. And then off a side road and into a rather sleazy-looking neighbourhood that was new to me. We might have all fitted into Mr Ishmael’s limo, but as I said, when we looked for him, he’d gone.

  ‘Go down the alleyway there and wait by the gate,’ said the largest of the large Venus Envys. ‘We have to sign you in at the front entrance. It’s a secret drinking club and you have to appear to be members.’ And he/she tapped at his/her nose with a mighty finger and Toby, Neil and I scuttled off down the alley, beating frantically at ourselves as we were now damn near frozen to death.

  And there we waited. In the falling snow. Up to our knees in the stuff and risking frostbite.

  ‘This is absurd,’ Neil said.

  ‘It’s rock ’n’ roll,’ said Toby. ‘And we deserve to be bought a drink - we were brilliant tonight.’

  And I agreed that we were.

  And we had a moment. We three. In that alleyway. A special moment. In our youth, being all young and eager and carefree and life being ours for the taking.

  And we even had a bit of a group hug.

  In a manly way, of course.

  And probably more in the spirit of survival than camaraderie.

  And we waited.

  And then we waited some more.

  And Neil sought to lighten the mood of this waiting by remarking that in my snow-capped green baize flare-trousered jumpsuit, I made for a passable Christmas tree.

&n
bsp; And at very great length, when we were all about to keel over and die from the cold, we did what we should have done earlier and beat upon the back gate with our fists and demanded entry.

  And presently someone came to answer our beatings.

  But not a nightclub bouncer or barman.

  A little old lady with a candle.

  ‘What do you want?’ quoth she. ‘Banging on my gate at this ungodly hour?’

  ‘We want to come into the club, we’re freezing.’

  ‘Club?’ went the old woman. ‘Club? There’s no club here. This is a private house.’

  And then it all sort of slotted together.

  All of it. Like the pieces of a jigsaw.

  And we looked at one another.

  And reached what is known as a consensus opinion.

  And we ran, fairly ran, all the way back to The Green Carnation Club. But there was no one there. No one. Just that door hanging off its hinge.

  And outside that door, a sort of patch of road that had less snow on it than the rest. A patch that corresponded exactly in area to that of our Bedford van. Which, dear reader, as you may well have guessed, was no longer there to be seen.

  14

  We trudged back, freezing and forlorn.

  To The Divine Trinity, where we had left our street clothes.

  We were glum and we were angry, too.

  We had been had, big time. Done up like a kipper. We had fallen prey to a most inspired piece of chicanery, it was true, and we could hardly have been expected to see it coming, but that didn’t make things any better. We had lost all of our instruments.

  And then we arrived at the allotments.

  And the allotment gates were wide open.

  And so was the door to The Divine Trinity. For it had been crowbarred from its hinges.

  And there were the tyre tracks of what must surely have been a lorry. And all of our amps and speakers and other expensive equipment—

  Had gone.

  15

  And so I became a private detective.

  Well, not quite as quickly as that and things are never that easy. I was very upset, I will tell you that. The more I thought about it, the more it became clear that this terrible happenstance was really all my fault. I did my best to deny this, of course, because it did seem logical at the time that there had to be someone to blame who wasn’t me.