Chapter Three
Theo resolved not to tell anyone about the Steal Guitars audition. Better to tell people he was their new drummer if it went well. And if it didn't, he would just keep it to himself.
Today would be a perfect day to get his upper arms tanned. Thursdays were quiet at school, with only double history in the morning and study periods in the afternoon. He planned to sneak home at lunchtime, sunbathe during the hottest part of the day and then practise 'Brand New Cadillac' before tea. A quick visit to his brother's room while he was having breakfast confirmed that there was indeed a copy of London Calling in the house.
Theo was in the sixth form of the local all-boys comprehensive. After surprising his form tutor and careers advisor by getting five 0-levels, he decided to stay on and take A-levels. This was more of a delaying tactic than anything else as he didn't have the remotest idea of what he wanted to do. He was taking history, geography and art. This meant he really only had two A-levels to study for, the art being mostly coursework. Compared to his friends' workloads, he had it easy.
Of the three A-levels, it was art he was the most interested in. Along with playing the drums, drawing was the one thing he considered himself to be good at. He would spend hours meticulously copying images from books, or creating still lifes from objects lying around the house and garden. But even though he had a profound love of drawing, he found most art - the stuff you saw in museums and galleries - rather uninspiring. He disliked the darkness of the renaissance masters, and the cartoon-like brightness of modern art went too far the other way. But then he discovered The Impressionists, and in particular Vincent Van Gogh.
The first Van Gogh painting he saw was 'Sunflowers', during an O-level art class on modernism. The teacher spoke of the expressive brush strokes, the vivid colour, the brutalist, almost childlike composition. Van Gogh's paintings seemed alive to Theo; they swirled and danced and vibrated. These were the works of a man who saw the world around him with an impassioned and romantic intensity. Theo too wanted to feel that intensity, to transform the mundane to the magical. And when Theo saw a photograph of the young Van Gogh - an awkward-looking boy with blondish wavy hair, a thickset brow and large nose and lips - he felt an instant affinity.
But the problem that Theo faced was that he was not a very able painter. He could use pencils with a high degree of accuracy, but he felt anchorless with the gloopy mess of oils. So he decided to do what Van Gogh had done: start by mastering drawing first, and then move on to oils when the time was right. And when he had to choose a subject for his A-level coursework, he again copied Van Gogh: he would sketch the working poor. Luckily, Lyncombe was surrounded on all sides by farms, smallholdings and quarries. It was a hotbed of rural labour.
So A-levels had been good to Theo. But if Steal Guitars offered him the job and the band took off, he assumed he would have to leave. If this happened, he would miss school - he had made good friends and fitted in well. And he particularly liked the grown-up feel of sixth form: the record player in the common room, the study periods, the rich kids with cars, the occasional trip to the pub on Friday lunchtime.
He left the school grounds when the lunchtime bell rang and was home by twelve thirty. The sun was beating down, so after a hurried lunch of poached egg on toast, he set his mind to sunbathing. The back garden got the sun all afternoon, so he reckoned he could get a good couple of hours in and still have time for a drum session before the rest of the family arrived home from work.
But what was the best way to get his upper arms brown without getting the lower parts even browner? He needed to cover them up somehow. An image of his old school rugby socks came to mind. Yes! He could place these on his lower arms, keeping them in shade, while his upper arms took the full force of the midday sun. So he ran up to his room and rooted around his sock drawer until he found them, right at the back, musty and dusty and reassuringly thick. He undressed to his pants and made his way down to the bathroom where the suntan lotion was kept. He applied factor 4 to his legs and torso, factor 2 to his face and decided to keep the upper arms lotion-free. Then he pulled the rugby socks on. At their full length they stretched a little further up his arms than the tan line, so he pulled them down until the end of the sock met brown skin.
After wrestling with the bathroom doorknob for a moment or two, he made it out onto the landing to be met by his mother, who was walking up the stairs.
"Oh! Hello dear!" Her expression careened from surprise to alarm, as she took in the sight of her practically naked son and the thick, black socks he seemed to be wearing on his arms.
"Um, hello." He forgot that his mum sometimes came back for lunch. His face flushed red. He looked down at his black arms. "I was going to sunbathe, but I... er...didn't want to ... umm..." He petered out.
Sylvie smiled "Oh Theo." She continued upstairs, giving him a reassuring kiss on the forehead as she did so. Too embarrassed to continue with his original plan, he took the socks off and added some factor 2 to the upper arms.
He fetched a towel from the airing cupboard and took the radio from the kitchen. He retuned it from his mum's Radio 2 to his Radio 1, and then headed out into the sunshine. He located the area of lawn least likely to be troubled by shadows, laid on the towel and closed his eyes.
It was one o'clock. Newsbeat had just finished and Andy Peebles was on. Theo found Peebles a bit bland and was already looking forward to the quirkier Steve Wright at two o'clock. Peebles introduced 'Gold' by Spandau Ballet. Theo found Tony Hadley's voice a bit too overpowering to be enjoyable, and he was relieved when the song came to an end. Next up was 'Come Dancing' by The Kinks. He didn't like this one either. But then Ray Davies gave way to Carmel with 'More, More, More', and this was followed by 'Everything Counts' by Depeche Mode. Two corkers in a row! Surely he wouldn't get lucky again? Yes! Next was 'The First Picture Of You' by The Lotus Eaters. He was brought back down to earth with a rather dull song by Shalamar (Theo just didn't get soul music) and then the music stopped for a phone-in quiz.
By the time Steve Wright came on he was getting bored. The sun went behind a large cloud so he took this as a cue to go inside to look at his arms. Once his eyes had adjusted to the dark he could see that little had changed in terms of skin colour. He decided to give it another hour, but this time without sun cream. When he got back outside, Steve Wright was introducing "Give it Some Emotion" by Tracie. This was not to Theo's liking either. Song followed song... The Eurythmics, The Thompson Twins, George Benson. Bland followed by dull.
It was now three thirty - time to stop sunbathing and start drumming. He checked his tanning progress again and saw that his newly exposed upper arms were now a pinkish colour. Definitely a move in the right direction. He reckoned that by this time tomorrow the pink would give way to a nice even brown. He went up to his bedroom and tried on the T-shirt again. Yes, once the brown arms were in place this was definitely the look for the audition.
Now to attack 'Brand New Cadillac'. He retrieved London Calling from his brother's room, carefully removed album one from its gatefold sleeve and put it on the turntable. 'Brand New Cadillac' was the second track, but he lined the needle up on the album's opener, the eponymous 'London Calling'. He turned the volume up as high as it went and sat at his kit as the song began. He warmed up by doing fills up and down the tom toms, and paradiddles on the snare drum.
'London Calling' came to an end and 'Brand New Cadillac' began. Theo drummed along, following Topper Headon as closely as he could. He played the song four more times, until he was certain he knew every fill, every open hi-hat, every bass drum beat. He was ready. And the sleeveless T-shirt felt great, keeping his arms free and showing off his drummer's muscles to maximum effect.