sleep?’ the man asked him.
‘No, not really,’ said Keys. ‘I was just saying. It’s… bijou.’
‘That some fancy slang for shit-hole?’
‘Not that I’m aware, no.’
‘Fine. I’ll leave you to settle in, then.’ The man moved aside to allow them entry. ‘Your first set is from eight till nine…’
‘Early night then,’ said Ben.
‘… and your second’s from nine-thirty till two.’
The band exchanged tired glances. Ben looked at their host. ‘What time do we eat?’ he asked.
‘I’ll let you know after I hear you play.’
The band filed into the room. Vid stopped by the man before he entered. ‘Do you know someone called Harry?’ he asked.
‘Might do,’ the man replied vaguely.
‘Well Sheila said to tell him she was taking off at twelve.’
This caused a splutter. ‘Did she now?’ the man choked. ‘That young strumpet’s getting far too big for her boobs.’
Vid considered this, it didn’t really seem possible from the way the woman had appeared to him. Perhaps he’d misheard.
‘Does she work for you, then?’ he asked casually as he rolled into the room.
‘What if she did? There ain’t no law against it.’
‘No. I suppose not.’ The robot turned and closed the door behind him.
With the room fully occupied, there was little room for the band to organise themselves. Riff and Ben sat facing each other from opposite bunks, whilst Keys hovered over by the instruments. Vid, turning from the door to face his colleagues, displayed a gloomy expression, small rain-clouds drifting across his screen.
‘It’s a bit of a tip,’ he said.
Keys seemed to view the situation more philosophically. ‘Well, we knew it wasn’t going to be luxurious.’
Ben adjusted his position on his mattress uncertainly. He wasn’t sure how much weight the rickety beds could take. ‘Does comfort matter that much to you guys?’ he asked.
‘Not as such, no,’ Vid conceded. ‘It’s just… imagine what the stage will be like.’
‘It’ll be a wooden platform in a club. What more do you expect?’
‘Yes, but it’ll be a dodgy wooden platform in a dodgy club with the kind of dodgy clientele who have other things in mind than music. We’d have been better off staying on the ship. We might even have got a gig there.’
‘Getting delusions of grandeur are we? I thought it was the music that mattered to you?’
‘It’s not grandeur,’ Vid snapped.
‘No? Then what is it?’
‘It’s… Look what was wrong with The Turret? Or Café Igneous? I know you thought they were too small to fit your ego, but every time we’ve moved we’ve found ourselves somewhere worse than the place we left. Where are we going to end up?’
‘We’re just paying our dues,’ said Ben. ‘Give us a year or two of bringing in the numbers and Tony will have us in the stadiums.’
‘Over my deactivated body,’ snapped Riff.
Ben looked at Riff sharply. ‘Who pulled your plug?’
‘I’m not going down that road.’
‘Why not? Don’t you want to be famous?’
‘I don’t want to be part of some massive stadium gig where the music is secondary to the merchandising,’ said Riff. ‘You’ve seen those pop bands – they go on stage, play a half-hearted run through of their greatest hits and then watch all the mugs go and buy shirts and hats with their picture on.’
‘At least they’ve had hits,’ Ben snapped. ‘We haven’t even had a record, and I don’t want to spend my whole life as some nobody who just has a following. I mean, look at this place. You can see why they call the music underground, can’t you?’
‘At least we’re playing.’
‘Yeah, to a bunch of trolls.’
‘Perhaps that’s what you’re suited to.’
‘Speak for yourself.’ Ben dropped from the bed and stormed out of the room, pushing Vid roughly to one side as he left.
Keys shook his head sadly. ‘I think he’d have been happier in a pop band, you know,’ he said.
‘I doubt it,’ said Vid.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I’ve met people like him. They’re the ones who come into the shop wanting the latest thing but without a clue as to what makes it better. They always have to be the first on the block.’
‘Yeah, well, the block fills up quickly when you’ve got nothing to keep you ahead of the herd,’ said Riff. ‘You know he’s even given up trying to play the harmonica now? How can you possibly be a successful musician if you can’t play an instrument?’
‘He’ll come round,’ said Keys.
‘Maybe. Maybe he won’t even come back.’ It wasn’t clear from Riff’s tone whether this was a good or a bad thing.
By evening it didn’t matter whether Ben’s absence was good or bad, it was reality. The band filed through the narrow corridor to the club, Riff carrying a guitar under each arm. They found Nutter and Tony at the bar; the pair were watching another band practising on the rickety pile of wooden crates that served as a stage. The band’s performance could probably, at a stretch, be described as music. It wasn’t necessarily the first noun that would come to mind.
‘What’s all the racket?’ Keys almost had to yell to make Tony hear him. Fortunately, it wasn’t loud enough for the producers of the racket to do likewise.
‘It’s called dense alloy,’ said Tony.
‘Dense alloy?’ said Riff, looking at the motley crew in their leather outfits. ‘Which one’s Dense?’
‘I think it must be him,’ said Vid, ‘nodding toward the singer. Sounds like someone’s murdering him. What’s the king of clubs got to do with anything anyway? Is he singing about a card game?’
‘Talking of cards,’ said Tony. ‘Where is young Ben this evening?’
Keys shrugged. ‘No idea,’ he said.
‘Are you expecting him? You’ve only got ten minutes before you set up. It won’t look good if we cancel on the first night.’
‘We can do the gig without him, surely,’ said Vid.
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘But Keys can sing better than he can anyway.’
Tony shook his head. ‘I’m sorry gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Fadora might be a liberal place, but nobody would pay good money to see a band of performing robots, no matter how well they can sing.’
‘Falistians,’ Riff muttered to himself.
Vid sidled over to Nutter, who was nursing a drink. ‘Where have you guys been all day?’ he asked.
‘Dunno,’ said Nutter. ‘We went out to meet a few friends of Tony’s, but it only seems like a couple of hours ago. I dunno where the day’s gone.’
‘Have you been drinking?’
‘This is my second, why?’
‘Your voice. You aren’t stammering.’
Nutter shrugged. ‘The drinks must be doing me good.’
‘I wouldn’t bank on that. Just be careful - we don’t want you to miss the drums.’
He was suddenly aware of the fact that he was shouting and, looking round, he saw that the dense alloy band had finished their session. The drummer, a long-haired human in a ragged black t-shirt, strode over and looked him up and down.
‘Wow man,’ he said. ‘You’re like totally metal.’
‘Mostly,’ said Vid. ‘Why, is that relevant?’
‘What do you play, man?’
‘Bass, man,’ Vid informed him, finding himself automatically appending the same mode of expression without really knowing why.
‘Cool,’ the drummer replied. He turned round, looked momentarily confused by the fact his band-mates had disappeared, then he wandered off in vaguely the same direction.
‘Nice chap,’ said Keys.
‘Shame about the brain,’ said Vid. He looked over to where Riff was wiring up their instruments onstage. ‘You think it’s worth setting up? I mean, Ben-’
 
; ‘Just walked in,’ said Riff.
Vid turned. Ben was leaning in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, looking quietly nonchalant. ‘You’re back, then?’ said the robot.
‘You miss me?’
‘Only when I threw stuff.’ He rolled over to Riff. ‘You think he did it all for effect?’ he muttered.
Riff shrugged. ‘Who knows? All that matters is that he’s here now and we can do the show.’
The two robots began setting up the drums. They paused when a loud crash drew their attention in the direction of the bar. Nutter was lying face first on the floor. As they watched, he pulled himself to his feet and shook his head.
‘Are you alright?’ asked Vid.
‘Fine,’ said Nutter. ‘I just slipped, that’s all. This floor’s very…’ He looked down at the smooth concrete. ‘Even,’ he finished.
Riff and Vid exchanged a glance, but they returned to their labours.
‘What are we opening with?’ asked Keys.
Riff looked around at the venue. The stage was basically a wooden dais raised a foot or so above the floor. There was a gap of about six feet between them and the rest of the room, which comprised a number of battered looking tables surrounded by a motley assortment of patched up chairs. The walls were painted haphazardly in a deep grey, patchy where the occasional stain had been painted over. The overall effect was that of a cheap remake of the bar on the ship.
‘I don’t think we can do a big production number here,’ Riff mused. ‘We’ll have to just run through a few numbers and see how it goes.’
He turned to see Ben adjusting his mike stand. ‘So you’ve deigned to join us, have you?’ he remarked.
‘You’d rather I didn’t?’ Ben replied acidly.
‘My opinion doesn’t come into it.’
‘Fine,’ said Ben. ‘Then I’ll play.’
36
It is often said that even the best of us