Gang Of Losers

  Chapter Four

  Theo took his drumsticks with him to school the next day. Having them close seemed vital, like revision for some exam. On the way home he held the sticks in his hand as he walked. He tried to twirl them round his fingers, but this was something that he had never quite managed to master. He could only manage one twirl before he had to re-set his fingers and start again. He thought it was naff when drummers twirled their sticks anyway.

  But looking at them now he realised that the sticks were worn and chipped. There might be a risk of breakage. A new pair was needed. Perhaps he could combine buying new sticks with the hunt for his dream jacket. So that was Saturday morning taken care of. By the time he got back home it would be time for lunch and then off to the audition.

  On Friday evenings Theo and his friends usually hung out at the fountain, or at The White Hart if there was a decent band on. But this evening, he didn't want to get drunk and run the risk of being hung-over for the audition.

  He couldn't remember the last time he had stayed in on a Friday night, unless he counted nights in with girlfriends. The house was quiet: his brother was out; his dad was in the upstairs sitting room listening to classical music and his mum was watching TV. He sat with her for a while but he couldn't sit still or get interested in the episode of Nationwide she was watching.

  Then he remembered the tanning issue and went to check the colour of his arms in his bedroom mirror. Disappointingly, the upper arms seemed to have reverted to their previous white state. Damn! He would have to revise his audition outfit. He was confident that the jeans and baseball boot element of the outfit was okay, so he just needed to worry about the upper half. He had an old blue Levis checked shirt which might work, if he wore it unbuttoned, with the white t-shirt underneath. This would lend the outfit a bit of rockabilly cred. Once he'd checked this new look to his satisfaction it was nearing nine o'clock. He felt strangely grown-up to be still sober at this time on a Friday, as if his normal weekend nights of beer and joints were somehow immature.

  Not knowing what else to do, he wandered downstairs to the first floor sitting room, his father's place of refuge and tranquillity. He knocked on the door and entered, Bach playing quietly on the music centre. His dad looked up from the Victorian novel he was reading. "Not going out tonight sunshine?"

  His dad tended to call him 'sunshine' or 'buster'. Theo didn't really mind. In response he called his dad 'sport'.

  "Not tonight sport."

  Not being great at small talk, Roger usually just waited for Theo to get round to asking for whatever it was he wanted, normally to borrow money. But tonight Theo didn't want anything in particular, other than to kill some time until tomorrow came. When no conversation from Theo was forthcoming, Roger took the initiative:

  "No girlfriends on the horizon then?"

  Theo rolled his eyes. It had been Easter since his last serious relationship, a six-monther with a local girl called Janet. It ended when she chucked him to go out with a guy from St Patrick's. Theo was devastated for weeks but he was over it now.

  "Too much like hard work."

  "You're not wrong buster."

  Roger Hanlon worked for the MOD, at a large military base nearby. He readily admitted that the work was dull but loved the convenience of the job (he could walk to work), the benefits (which he explained to Theo included excellent pension, four weeks holiday a year, free access to all MOD facilities - sporting and otherwise - and Luncheon Vouchers), and the pay. Theo had asked on more than one occasion what his father did exactly, and Roger had replied with a detailed account, but Theo never seemed to be able to retain the information. He knew it was a desk job, but other than that his recollection was hazy. Something to do with 'admin' he was pretty sure. Was that short for 'administration'? Theo guessed it was. While Roger seemed quite happy with this job, to Theo the thought of having to sit at the same desk for an entire eight hours a day was terrifying. At least in school you get to change desks a few times each day.

  "Ooh, while I think of it" Roger exclaimed, eager to dispel the silence that had risen between them "We're coming to the White Hart on Sunday."

  "That's good news; I might even buy you a pint," replied Theo.

  He liked it when his parents came to watch him play. Once the set had finished, he would sit with them and have a pint before last orders were called.

  It was thanks to Roger that Theo got the job as drummer for Blues Train: Roger worked with Tim Gratton, Blues Train's founder, singer and guitarist. Years ago when Roger told him that his son was learning the drums, Tim suggested that he come round to his house to jam with him. Shortly after that, Tim formed the band and asked Theo to be the drummer.

  As this was an evening filled with new things, he decided to try another: reading the paperback edition of The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh that he had bought after the break-up with Janet. He'd thought that reading about the suffering of the world's greatest artist might ease his own heartache, and although his own suffering was very real to him, it didn't quite spur him on enough to pick up the rather dense-looking book.

  But now his motivation was distraction, not consolation so he took the book to bed, lining up Eddie on his record player before starting to read. He skipped the introduction and biographical notes and went straight for the letters themselves. They were not quite what he was expecting. Detailed accounts of the weather in Antwerp, a list of callers to the family home, sermons he had recently attended. Still, early days yet, Theo assumed. He isn't even an artist yet, tortured or otherwise.

  -

  He woke early the next day. After a hurried breakfast of cornflakes and toast he took a bus into Bath. It was a double-decker. Theo loved double-deckers. He knew it was childish, but they afforded the best views across the Box valley as you travelled from Lyncombe towards Bath. His dad had told him that the view across the valley from the top of Box Hill was one of the best in the country. Rolling farmland diminished to a misty vanishing point somewhere beyond Bath. Only the Colerne water tower on the right horizon stopped the view from being perfect.

  To the casual observer, Box valley seems to be nothing but green pasture, but if you studied the view more closely you could see scores of farmhouses spread out across it. Theo had counted fifteen of them recently. Perhaps Box valley would be a good place to go and sketch scenes of rural life for his art A-Level. He'd never actually walked down in to the valley before and wasn't even sure if such a thing was possible - looking at it from the vantage point of the bus, the bed of the valley looked overgrown and wild. Maybe he'd take a stroll down there tomorrow to find out.

  He arrived at the Bath bus station shortly after 9 o'clock and walked the short distance south across the river to Assembly Music in Widcombe where he bought a pair of chunky Zildjian hickory sticks with nylon tip. He'd never tried nylon tips before but assumed they were good, as everyone else seemed to be using them these days.

  Now he had plenty of time to look for his dream jacket. First he tried Millets, but as predicted they only had stock of old British army gear. Next he tried Pink Inc, but the only jackets they had there were sports jackets, leathers and denims. Finally he browsed the indoor flea market at the top of Bartlett Street. Nothing there either. He looked for a white t-shirt to replace the one he had vandalised, but could only find ones with slogans or pictures on them. On a whim he bought a silver sleeper for his ear at one of the market stalls and then decided it was probably best to get back, he didn't want to run the risk of missing the bus.

  He got home just before noon and ate a lunch of poached egg on toast followed by a strawberry Ski. One more practice session and then it was time to get his audition outfit on. It was another hot day but he'd already decided that he was going to wear both a t-shirt and a shirt. Luckily the shirt was so old that it had worn thin, and Theo was sure that if he wore it unbuttoned he wouldn't get too hot in the basement rehearsal space. Once dressed, he inserted the newly bought silver sleeper into his left ear and styled his hair into an
Eddie Cochran quiff using his Black & White styling grease. He checked his look in the mirror, decided to roll his jeans up twice to show off his bright red socks, grabbed his new sticks, told his parents that he was going out and set off.

  He decided to walk to the audition. He felt the walk would help him clear his head and focus. It would take him about an hour he reckoned. The quickest way from Lyncombe to Chippenham was to walk along the A4, but he didn't like this route as it meant walking along the side of a pavement-less main road. He preferred a longer way that took him through small villages and down country lanes.

  Theo's theory on rendezvous of any sort was that something unexpected always happened. So if you thought of as many undesirable outcomes for the rendezvous as possible, those outcomes could not come true. So Theo thought of disaster after disaster: he'd got the time wrong; he'd got the day wrong; the audition was cancelled; he couldn't keep time and got asked to leave; there were queues of drummers stretching out the door when he arrived. He thought on and on, happy to be dispelling so many potential catastrophes.

  But then he stopped dead. What if Lee hadn't said "There will be a drum kit there so no need to bring your own." What if he had said "There won't be a drum kit there so you will need to bring your own"? He was pretty sure Lee had said the former, but what if it were the latter? What if he turned up to a drum audition with no drum kit armed only with a pair of sticks? He would never live it down.

  He started to panic. Why did this always happen? Theo had a frustrating habit of losing concentration when people were talking to him. He felt self-conscious, and spent his energy trying to hide his awkwardness, which resulted in him not actually listening to what was being said. Phone calls didn't normally present this problem, but the enormity of the conversation with Lee must have flustered him, and he'd spent the whole time trying to sound casual. His brain clearly took the same approach.

  No, he was panicking unnecessarily: he was sure there was a practise kit at Sounds International - after all, he had had lessons there himself, albeit a couple of years ago. But what if the setup had changed since then? What if the old kit had finally collapsed?

  He looked at his watch: ten past two. He was in a narrow country lane, hedgerow on both sides. He could hear traffic from the distant main road but apart from that, all was quiet. He had walked about a half mile already. There was still fifty minutes until the audition was due to begin. A new plan presented itself: he would run back home and ask his mum or dad to give him a lift to the audition with the kit in the car. This was definitely do-able. Was his drum kit assembled or unassembled? It was assembled. Bollocks. It would take ten minutes just to take it down. Maybe his dad would help. Yes, this was the thing to do, he couldn't risk turning up without a kit. And if there was one there, he would just ask mum or dad to wait in the car.

  He was sure they had nothing better to do.