Gang Of Losers

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next morning, Sylvie woke Theo up with the now traditional breakfast in bed. There were several things on his mind, including: Crass; being the drummer in a punk rock band; August Wells; Martine; learning the guitar; logo design; a man called Penny; the demise of the Wallflowers; and Martine again.

  "It's a lovely morning dear, perfect for sketching!" his mother said whilst opening the curtains.

  Sketching was the one thing that was not on his mind - or Van Gogh for that matter. But he didn't want to disappoint his parents, and he knew that the money they'd given him was payment for him sticking to his promised plan of sketching on a daily basis, and attending the work experience at Cabot Farr at a later date.

  "Yep, I was just thinking the same thing" Theo chimed in, trying to sound enthusiastic, "I'm gonna cycle out to the quarry near Hartham Park and see if I can get some sketches of people working there, I'd quite like to sketch the machinery they use, some of those cranes are massive, and I think the sheer scale of the machines and how they dwarf their human users could be really interesting."

  He hoped the specific nature of this monologue would convince his mum that he was still committed to the art project. And in truth, it wasn't that he had gone off the idea, it was just that so many other things seemed to be happening. How could he have predicted that August Wells would ask him to be in a band, or that Martine would look his way, or that he might want to learn the guitar? All these things now seemed to be pushing art to the periphery.

  "That's fine dear" replied Sylvie "Just as long as you get into the swing of it. Before you know it, the summer will be over." With that she leant over and kissed him on the forehead. "There's no time like the present you know."

  "I know mum."

  Theo watched her as she straightened up and checked her hair in the small mirror on his desk. Before she left he asked her: "Mum, have you ever heard of Crass?"

  "I don't think so dear. Are they a rock band?"

  "Yeah, well a punk rock band actually. They're opposed to nuclear weapons. I saw them last night with August."

  "Well good for them. We could use more pop groups - I mean punk groups like that. I'm glad you and August are taking an interest" With that she smiled and blew him a kiss goodbye.

  Although his art studies no longer seemed quite so important, sketching would be a good way of killing time until this evening, when Martine was due back from her Outward Bound weekend and had promised to phone him. So after breakfast, he got his sketching kit together and headed out on his bike towards Hartham.

  The area around Lyncombe was rich in limestone deposits, and had been mined extensively for the past four centuries. The grand houses of nearby Bath were built largely with stone from this area, but due to the diminishing supply of stone and the cost of extracting it, the quarrying industry had all but disappeared. Only a couple of local sites remained and it was to one of these that Theo now headed.

  Hartham Park was a Georgian country house in extensive grounds. There was a small clutter of cottages on its outskirts, and next to the cottages stood the entrance to the quarry. But from the road, there wasn't that much to see, just an open mesh-iron gate behind which a dusty track disappeared around a tree-lined corner. Only the sign on the gate 'Hartham Quarry' gave anything away.

  Not feeling bold enough to wander down the track, he looked around for a possible vantage point from which to view the quarry from above. He saw a copse of trees on top of a nearby hill - a perfect shady vantage point to sketch from - so he got back on the bike and climbed towards it. The road only went part of the way up, so he left his bike leaning against a stone wall and walked the rest of the way on foot. When he got to the edge of the copse, he looked back and surveyed the view. He could see fields, farmhouses, woodland, the eastern edge of Lyncombe, but nothing of the quarry, which was hidden in a small depression and surrounded by birch trees and scraggly bushes. Only a corrugated iron roof and a parked lorry were visible. It would be difficult to create a compelling portrait of rural labour from here.

  Disheartened, he made his way down to his bike and cycled back to the quarry entrance. He leaned his bike next to the large gate and walked slowly past it onto the track leading to the quarry proper. He was certain that he did not have the courage to go all the way in however, and his decision to turn back was made easier for him when he heard the sound of a car coming from the quarry towards him. He turned around and walked quickly back and managed to make it out on to the main road just as the car came in to view. Theo made his way to his bike and pretended to check the tire pressure as the car came to a halt at the junction to the main road. Despite there being no traffic, the car did not progress on to the road, so Theo looked over. A man in sunglasses and a short sleeved shirt was looking back at him from the driver's seat of a pickup truck.

  "Are you all right there son?" The man said. "Were you looking for someone?"

  "No no." replied Theo, "I was just wondering where this road went."

  "It's a quarry pal, nothing exciting I'm afraid."

  "Oh right, thanks."

  "Have a nice day." The man smiled and the pickup drove off. Theo could see the words 'Hartham Quarry' painted on its side, along with a telephone number. The man obviously worked there, and he couldn't have been friendlier. Why didn't Theo just ask him if he could nip down and do a bit of sketching?

  Now he was annoyed with himself, and he suddenly became aware that there was a stopwatch somewhere, counting down the seconds to the end of the summer holiday, a stopwatch that took into account possible rainy days and other excuses for not actually doing any work. A stopwatch that was careening towards zero at an alarming rate. And he remembered his mother's blown kiss from this morning and her faith in his improvised discourse. He had to draw something.

  So he resolved to go to where the view could not be bettered, where no artist could fail. Did it matter if there were no signs of rural labour from on top of that famous vantage point? So what if rolling hill fed in to rolling hill like something from a Thomas Hardy novel? He was going to sketch the view from the top of Box Hill, and make it his own, a testimony to the overpowering beauty of nature. Yes, that was what he was going to do.

  He made his way along the A4 to the top of the hill. Once there, he found a dry stone wall overlooking the valley and got his sketching kit ready. Before commencing, he rolled up the sleeves of his t-shirt to his shoulders to make the most of the sunshine

  Then he set to work, first drawing the outlines of what lay in front of him with an HB pencil, then once he was happy with the dimensions, he used coloured pencils to bring the fields, trees, hedgerows and isolated farmhouses to life. After an hour or so, he held his work at arm's length and squinted to get an overall sense of the finished piece. He was pleased with what he had achieved, and was sure that his mum would approve, even if it was slightly off-brief.

  He was on the verge of signing and dating his work when he realised he'd left out the notorious Colerne water tower. Built in the 1960s, the water tower stood over forty metres high, and due to its brutal design and position on the Box valley skyline, had been the subject of anger and resentment ever since. Its inverted cone shape was about as aesthetically unpleasing as you could get. Theo wasn't sure if it was possible to build an aesthetically pleasing water tower, and this question was clearly something that hadn't troubled the creators of this one.

  But his dilemma was this: should he leave the water tower out and let his picture remain a quiet bucolic reverie, or should be try to be truthful to what was in front of him and include it? He decided that he needed more truth in his life at this juncture so set about including it. As the tower was made entirely of concrete, the most sensible option was to use a non-coloured pencil, perhaps an HB or 2B. He decided to go for the 2B, but unused to its softer charcoal after the relatively hard colour pencils, he pressed down on the sketch pad too hard and created a vertical line much too dark. He cursed and looked at the line. It was far too pro
minent, but instead of rubbing it out, in a fit of pique he supplemented it - more thick black expressive vertical lines jutting out into his peaceful blue sky. Then he sketched the inverted cone of the tower on top of these jutting lines; an upturned triangle resting on a gigantic plinth of charcoal. Thick with angry shading, this new addition to the drawing was more like the expressive style of the Van Gogh drawings he had originally hoped to emulate.

  Looking at it now, he realised that he had drawn the tower far too big, perhaps twice as big as it should be. Bollocks. But it reminded him of something, this charcoal mess; something he had seen recently... Of course! The monochrome H-bomb from last night's Crass film! Feeling that he had ruined his picture anyway, he set about transforming the ugly water tower into something much more devastating. The upturned triangle became the billowing mushroom cloud of a nuclear strike, dwarfing the genteel countryside below it.

  Next he looked to the drawing's vanishing point, where he had placed a setting sun (even though its real-life counterpart was still high in the sky). Using the 2B pencil he replaced the hazy yellow half-sphere with the brutalist Crass logo; its curves, crosses and hungry snakes creating a hellish flipside to its predecessor.

  Looking at his work again, he was struck with the feeling that he had created something entirely new. And it was as far removed from the type of art he was hoping to create as possible. It almost felt as if another artist had given it to him and was asking for feedback. He did not know what to say, other than it was very... interesting. But he decided that he liked it, and that there was some value to it. He wanted to show it to his art teacher: maybe he could say it represented the way that the threat of nuclear war was a constant shadow looming over all our lives, and that it was thanks to committed people like Crass that we did not forget about it.

  Maybe this is how great art is created, thought Theo, by accident.

  He felt that the drawing was the peak of his creative day, so he might as well go home. Plus it was lunchtime and he was starting to feel hungry.

  -

  For lunch he fixed himself poached egg on toast followed by a vanilla Ski yoghurt, and ate whilst listening to Radio 1.

  It was Summer Roadshow time, and Mike Smith was broadcasting live from Bournemouth Beach. Normally, Theo couldn't stand these Roadshows, but it happened to be the 'Bits And Pieces' segment, where a member of the crowd had to name as many songs as possible after hearing only two second-long snippets welded together. Theo listened as the songs were played, and shouted out the answers to the radio: "Sugar Sugar by The Archies... Waterloo by Abba... Don't know this one... The Hollies The Air That I breathe... Don't know this one...Don't know this one... Flashdance, dunno who by... I.O.U. by ummm...Freeez!.. Paul Young Wherever I lay my Hat...don't know this one... China Girl by Bowie (he'd recognise that drum sound anywhere)...

  He scored more than the contestant on the radio, which pleased him immensely.

  Once he finished his lunch, he reached for his sketch pad and looked at his drawing from earlier on. It really did have a strange sort of power: the black Crass sun and the looming mushroom cloud had transformed his pleasing landscape into a graffitied portent of doom.

  As he studied the drawing he slowly became aware of the smell of stale lager. At first he wondered where it could be coming from, but then he had a flashback to last night and an image of him sitting on the Trinity Hall floor surrounded by empty beer cans. He must have sat in a puddle of it and was too drunk to notice. He stood up and looked around at his rear to see if his Wranglers were stained. They seemed fine but as he looked down he noticed the outline of something rectangular in the right rear pocket. He tended not to keep anything in his back pockets as this spoilt the way the trousers looked, so he was unsure what this might be. He pulled out a crumpled sheet of A4, unfolded it and read the words THE DEAD WHITE SKY.

  Of course! He'd asked August if he could have a go at writing some music to his lyrics. Jesus, what was I thinking! He couldn't believe he'd had the audacity to ask, but then again August had seemed happy enough for him to have a go (as far as he could remember), so maybe it was the right thing to do after all. As he stared down at his smudged, untidy handwriting he felt an unknown excitement come over him, as if doors to hidden rooms were opening in front of him.

  He read the lyrics that he had transcribed from August's original:

  You see the noise and hear the pain

  The sky it drowns with acid rain

  A blink of light that cracks the sky

  Leaves houses up but children die

  My skin begins to catch alight

  The last image in my eyesight

  Is a wave of people coming near

  All skeletons now, all disappeared

  CHORUS

  Under the dead White Sky

  I don't want to die

  What Kind of bomb is this

  That turns a man to mist?

  I am not at war with you

  Our countries fight I guess it's true

  But I am mother, daughter, son

  I never bludgeoned anyone

  But now you've raised the game of death

  Will mankind breathe its final breath?

  Heavy stuff, Theo thought, as he read on: another two verses in much the same vein. He had no idea where to start with regards to setting this to music, but he had a guitar lesson arranged with Tim after tomorrow evening's band practice, so he decided not to worry too much about it until then.

  He also remembered that he had promised to have a go at creating a better logo for X-Tradition, so he picked up his sketch pad and flipped the morning's landscape over to reveal a blank page. He reached for his pencil and began to doodle. His first effort was a blatant rip-off of the Subhumans logo: he drew a giant "X", and then below it, taking up the same amount of horizontal space, the letters "TRA", then below that "DIT" then below that "ION". But it looked awful and lacked the impact of the original. He liked the stand-alone "X" however, and using a military-style stencil typeface he created a logo that comprised a large X, then the letters "-TRADITION" following on, but in a smaller font and aligned to the top of the X. Below these letters he drew a ragged line in red. Then he shaded in the lettering in using his 2B pencil. It looked punky and solid. He could imagine it on the backs of leather jackets.

  Pleased with the logo, but aware that it shouldn't be in a sketch pad devoted to studies of rural life, he tore the page out and placed it in his desk drawer. Satisfied that the day had been productive enough, he phoned Pete and arranged to meet him at the fountain.

  -

  After tea, Theo sat in his room and felt his heart pounding. He had managed not to think about Martine's scheduled phone call for most of the day, but now that the evening was officially here, he could think of nothing else. It was seven pm, and he imagined that most families would have finished their tea by now, so between now and nine pm - which was generally regarded at the latest you could phone someone without the possibility of annoying their parents - was when she was most likely to call. Why hadn't he said that he'd phone her? Then there would be no question of the call not happening.

  When he was agitated like this, he couldn't divert himself by reading, watching TV or listening to music. The agitation overwhelmed everything. He started to feel hemmed in by the four walls of his room so he made his way downwards and found himself sitting on the stairs by the ground floor landing, the silent phone in plain view. He used to spend a lot of time sitting on these stairs when he was little. He liked watching the rest of the family passing below him as they moved from kitchen to front room. But sitting here now, he became aware of how uncomfortable it was. He guessed stairs were only sit-able up to a certain age.

  His father walked beneath him, taking his TV dinner tray to kitchen. "Keeping an eye on things for us are you buster?"

  "Something like that." he replied.

  His father smiled and continued to the kitchen. After five minute the phone rang, and gravity left him. He stood up qu
ickly and got to the phone on the second ring. But it was not Martine; it was somebody enquiring about joining CND, so he shouted out for his mum. The ensuing conversation seemed to take an age, during which Theo imagined that Martine could have tried to ring at least five times, and might possibly have given up all together.

  Dejected, he made his way back up to his room. And when he looked at his watch and saw that the time was now 8.30, tears began to form in his eyes. He looked around for something to break or hit when the phone rang again. His heart pounded and he stood motionless as the ringing continued. Was somebody going to answer it? Had anybody else even heard it? Maybe they were all in the front room watching TV with the volume turned up high. If he started running now, would he even get there in time?

  But then it stopped ringing. Theo walked cautiously to the landing and listened. He could hear his mum saying "Hold on a minute dear, I'll see if he's here..."

  Dear... she said dear...

  And then his mother's voice calling out: "Theo! It's Martine." And he bounded down the stairs three at a time.