Gang Of Losers

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Theo woke with a start. It was still dark, and the alarm hadn't gone off. Then he remembered the dream. No crashing waves this time, just a single static abstract image. At first Theo could not figure out what it was. But then the shape started to come into clear focus: a small orange rectangle surrounded by what at first Theo took to be a large blue sail. But a sail wasn't right: he could see stitching and rivets. It was something on a much smaller scale - the fabric of a pair of jeans. The orange rectangle was the Levi's tab. He had dreamed of the rear pocket of a pair of Levis. The dream baffled him and he stayed awake for ten minutes or so, staring at the ceiling trying to figure it out.

  -

  He arrived ten minutes early for work the next day and had to wait on a bench in the Abbey Churchyard for his co-workers to arrive. He then waited an additional forty minutes for Rick to arrive, during which time he sat in the office studying the same flyers as yesterday, or staring at the Michael English paintings. Time seemed to go very slowly. This was what worried Theo about the world of work.

  Rick arrived and apologised for his lateness. He had three viewings lined up for the morning, and one in the afternoon. The three morning viewings were all situated within walking distance of the office, so after Rick had drunk a hastily made coffee, they set off. Of the three appointments, only one actually turned up. "This happens a lot," explained Rick, "You can spend most of the day stood around on sodding street corners waiting for the bastards to turn up."

  The one punter who did keep their appointment was a first year student at the university whose parents were buying her a flat in the city centre. The property they showed was a cramped fourth floor attic space in St James Square. Rick talked her through the pros and cons of "the space". Its generous skylight was enthused about - how it added a real feeling of light and space to the whole flat. Rick continued, pointing out how the compact floor plan meant that housekeeping would be minimal ("After all, who wants a bloody big bathroom if you've got to spend your whole weekend cleaning the thing?") On he went, hardly pausing for breath. Yes, the location was far from the university, but on the plus side it was within easy crawling distance of the best pubs in town and there was a launderette opposite. What more could a student ask for? Theo kept quiet, assimilating the spiel and trying to imagine saying it himself.

  At lunchtime, Theo checked out the second-hand markets at the top of town, as well as Millets and Oswald Bailey, but no one seemed to have the dream jacket, in either green or blue. It may well be time for another trip to Flip of Covent Garden, Theo mused. Possibly as early as this coming Saturday.

  The afternoon viewing was at a farmhouse at the very top of Lansdown Hill. Theo and Rick walked to Victoria Park where the firm's car was parked. They then began the long uphill drive out of town. The property they were showing came with three acres of land and several small barns that already had planning permission to convert into dwellings. As they drove, Theo attempted small talk: "How did you end up being an estate agent?"

  Rick laughed. "Sins of a former life I guess. Well, like most things, it happened by accident. Back in the early seventies I was left a large house on Lyncombe Hill when an aunt died. I moved in and converted the attic area into a small flat for me and I converted the rest of the house into two separate flats. Took an absolute age to get planning permission I'll tell you. Anyway, once they were done, I sold them off, including the flat I was living in, and then did the same thing again with a couple of similar properties. You could buy a decent house in Bath back then for next to nothing, especially the ones down in Widcombe near the river - they were all blackened and decrepit, but once I cleaned them up - with grants from the council - they looked good as new. The estate agent who I used to sell the flats asked if I wanted to join the firm, I didn't really want to so I said only if you make me a partner. And to my surprise he did."

  Rick then went on to list the various occupations he had had prior to being an estate agent. These included DJing at the first Isle of Wight festival, lead singer of a rock n roll band that once opened for Shakin' Stevens at the Bath Theatre Royal, copywriter for an advertising agency in Bristol, and owner of a Bath tour guide business where the guides dressed up in Georgian dress as they took visitors around the city's many attractions.

  By now they had reached the top of Lansdown Hill and the road began to level out. They passed the turning for the racecourse and took the next right, which took them down a narrow country lane. After a while they took another turning into a gravel courtyard, a large Bath stone farmhouse standing in front of them. To the left and right were smaller buildings, presumably once stables, but now derelict. A white Porsche was parked in front of the main house.

  Rick got out of the car and pulled a large set of keys from his pocket. Theo got out of his side of the car just as the passenger door of the Porche opened, and out came a woman with long blonde hair and a fighter-pilot style leather jacket.

  "Mrs Hughes?" asked Rick, heading towards the woman with a hand outstretched. Theo followed just as a man - presumably Mr Hughes - walked out from one of the derelict stables.

  "Afternoon Rick," said the man, who was in his mid-forties and had receding shoulder length blond hair. John Lennon-style glasses were perched on his nose and he wore an open-necked white shirt and a pair of khakis.

  "Ah, Simon," said Rick, "Thanks so much for coming out to see the place."

  "Pleasure's all mine."

  Theo was introduced to everyone and shook hands. He did his absolute best to remember their names this time. Rick fiddled with the keys and opened the solid oak front door. He held it open for Mr and Mrs Hughes and then followed them in. The interior was dark and looked like it hadn't been decorated since the 1950s. As they walked around, Mr Hughes did most of the talking - a direct contrast to the morning's viewing. He didn't really seem too concerned about the state the house was in but instead discussed the feasibility of converting various aspects of the property, a subject that Rick was an expert on. Once a tour of the house and grounds had been completed, Mr Hughes asked his wife what she thought. "I think it will be perfect darling," she replied. Then Mr Hughes turned to Theo and asked him what he thought.

  "Well if you don't buy it, I will." he replied. Mr and Mrs Hughes laughed; Theo looked over at Rick, who laughed as well.

  Mr Hughes made further positive noises to Rick and the meeting came to an end. On the way back down Lansdown Hill Rick sparked up a fag whilst driving and offered one to Theo, who declined. Smoking a full-strength Marlboro in a car would make him feel sick for the rest of the day. He wound down his window in readiness.

  "You handled yourself well back there my friend, I think they liked you," Rick said. Theo smiled and thanked him. "That 'If you don't buy it I will' line was cute but as a general rule, try to stay away from being glib. He is thinking about spending a helluva lot of money after all, so it's best to keep the wisecracks to a minimum. But don't worry; it was your first time. The important thing is that you were able to communicate well with them and you weren't intimidated."

  Theo took the criticisms and nodded. But he had been wondering about something as they had showed the Hughes' around that rambling old property: "How do you know that he wasn't just wasting your time? I mean presumably anyone can just phone you up and ask to see a place?"

  "True, true. You do get your share of FTWs - fucking time wasters - and you can usually tell them straight off, so you spend as little time showing them around as you can. Some guys however, you look at and you know they either have millions in the bank or owe millions to the bank. With this guy I happen to know it's the former."

  "How's that?" asked Theo.

  "That was Simon Hughes, the record producer."

  Theo's eyes lit up "A record producer? Really?"

  "Yep, he produced loads of soundtracks to West End musicals, and I think he's had a few of his songs recorded by Barry Manilow, Bette Midler, people like that."

  "Wow." said Theo.

/>   "Wow indeed. That guy's got the cash. And the thing is, he'll probably spend more on doing up the place than the quarter of a mil it will cost to buy it."

  -

  The second Theo saw Laura at that evening's guitar lesson, he went bright red. Suddenly his dream of the previous night made sense. That ethereal jeans pocket was Laura's. This once gangly and awkward girl had clearly made an impression on his subconscious mind. He thought back to that first guitar lesson when he watched her lean over to retrieve her father's study notes. That shard of pale skin between her Levis and T-shirt...

  Now he could do nothing but stare at her. Was he imagining it or had she not looked at him once all evening? At one point during the lesson she left the room to go to the toilet, and Theo was able to watch her without her father noticing. The orange tab wobbled from side to side as she walked, Theo noting the pleasingly oval nature of her behind until it disappeared out of view.

  Now that his brain had told him to think about Laura, he couldn't stop. As a strategic measure, after the guitar lesson had finished he'd left a plectrum in the dining room. This would provide him with a pretext for calling on her, if he could summon the nerve. He assumed Tim was at work all day and that there was a good chance of catching Laura at home since she too would be on her summer holiday.

  Now that almost two weeks had passed since any correspondence with Martine, Theo had to assume that that particular relationship had come to an end. He was able to process this information with little emotion as he was already thinking ahead to a possible new liaison with Laura. He wrote a song about her that evening and called it 'Jeans Girl'. Again, he was appalled at the standard of the lyrics and imagined that Don McLean would be pointing his firmly thumb down if he dared to look at the American Pie album cover. But he managed to find a melody easily enough and he hummed the tune into the tape recorder (now in permanent residence in his bedroom) and hid the Maxwell C-30 tape back in his t-shirt drawer.

  He tried one more attempt at songwriting that evening. Having remembered his conversation with his dad about Warhol painting what he loved (a dollar bill), Theo thought it might be a good idea to write a song on the subject. Apart from Money by The Flying Lizards, he couldn't think of any money-related songs off-hand. His mind wandered to a recent economics lesson at school where the class had been discussing the distribution of wealth in capitalist societies, and one of his classmates commented "I don't care if I don't have much money. As long as I've got enough for a couple of pints and some change for the pool table, I'm happy." Theo admired this attitude and thought 'Enough Money' was a good title for a song.

  By the end of that evening he had three completed songs - 'Something Happened', 'Jeans Girl' and 'Enough Money' - as well as the untitled dream music that he had yet to write words for. But the songs felt unfocused and random: 'Something Happened' was bluesy and slow, and the other two were upbeat rock 'n roll numbers. And the instrumental was just a heavy metal-style riff repeating itself. He had no direction, no anger or outrage to fuel his songwriting. Where did August Wells get it from?