White City Blue
Through the door a tall, clean-shaven man with blond hair appears. As in his photograph, he is astonishingly good-looking, like something out of a Gap ad, young and lithe, although he is clearly in his forties. His clothes are all immaculately pressed. His jeans, disturbingly, have a crease down the front. A smile which is easy, constant, unforced. The only note of affectation is that he wears no shoes or socks beneath the jeans. His shirt is a surfer short-sleeve, and he is deeply tanned.
When he speaks, I can hear that the traces of his Brummie accent are still identifiable, but submerged under a generic mid-American burr. His voice is resonant enough to carry without the microphone, so he switches it off. Thank you, John Jeremy. Welcome to Kensington Town Hall, and thank you for taking the trouble to attend. I hope I’ll make it worth the visit. At only five bucks a ticket, I should say I’ve got a fair chance.
There is laughter. Crowley makes a large gesture with his hand towards the crowd.
I’m going to talk today about myths and symbols and how they shape our reality. But first, please bear with me. I want to do a little experiment and you’re going to be my guinea pigs.
He gives a big, wide, game-show-host smile.
Does anyone have a five-pound note?
A good number of hands go up from the audience, including Veronica’s. I feel for my own wallet and discover a fiver poking up from the worn pockets. I raise my hand too. Tony puts his hand up and, sotto voce, says to me, I like magic shows.
His voice is slightly slurred but audible. By now, there are about thirty hands up and, smiling all the time, Crowley passes about the audience, taking five-pound notes from outstretched hands, placing them in a little metal container about the size of a small waste-paper basket. When he comes to take our five-pound notes, he leans close to me. He smells of ocean. It is strangely pleasant.
After five minutes, Crowley has gathered up a good handful, amounting to what must be close on £150. He returns to the stage and sits down, placing the metal container in front of him. Then he slowly takes out a box of matches, strikes one and throws it on top of the notes. Very quickly, they ignite. Flames and smoke billow out of the container. A few people gasp, but slowly a number of the audience began to clap, delighted by the audacity of the act.
What have you just witnessed? says Crowley, very quietly but still audibly, having not moved an inch out of his chair.
Daylight fucking robbery, says Tony, to my left, not really under his breath.
Crowley continues, now standing and addressing the audience, hands clasped in front of him. He takes a jug of water and pours it into the smoking bowl.
What you have just witnessed is the destruction of a symbol. And the emotion that you felt subsequently – whether laughter or anger – is the power that that symbol holds over us.
Everything – and I mean everything – is a symbol. Everything is a network of meanings that we ourselves create, then impart value upon. The meanings in fact are the values.
I feel Tony shifting on his chair next to me, clearly irritated. I can hear him muttering threateningly, What sort of magic trick is that?
Money, to Tony, is sacred. Which, I suppose, is the point that Crowley is trying to make.
Crowley continues. I kind of like the flourish he has just executed, but at the same time he has a smugness that is irritating. Also, I don’t buy the John Denver, Rocky Mountain High, molasses and corn dogs intonation of his voice especially when there’s a good 20 per cent of Jasper Carrott mixed in.
What is money? It is a piece of paper, an agreed codification of value. It is congealed energy. It is the most sacred emblem that our society possesses. But it has no meaning except that which we bestow upon it. Nothing is anything except that which we say it is. The world simply is. But we embroider it, pump it full of colour, tear it apart and put it together again.
Crowley continues in this vein for fifteen minutes or so. To be quite honest, it is very interesting, despite the annoying crease in his jeans. What he seems to be trying to say is that we know fuck nothing, so we make stuff up to put into the empty space. The stuff we make up doesn’t make very much sense, but for that very reason we believe in it with a passion. Because if we acknowledge that it doesn’t make sense, we risk going nuts. Or something like that.
I am becoming quite absorbed in the whole thing, and am only vaguely aware of Tony breathing heavily in the chair next to me. The next thing I know, Crowley turns to the audience, as if finishing his speech, and says. Any questions so far?
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tony’s hand shoot up. He is rigid in his chair. Crowley clocks him, gives an easy smile.
Yes. Over there. In the smart suit.
Tony flexes a bit, pulls up his collar.
Can you give us my five pounds back?
Veronica glances across sharply at Tony, then at me. I lean over and whisper in her ear.
Don’t worry. Tony always likes to make a theatrical gesture.
Veronica doesn’t look convinced. Nor should she be. All the rows in front are craning their necks to see who has spoken. Tony clearly doesn’t care. I know him in this mood. The shit is going to hit the fan. Or possibly the other way round. He is standing up now, staring at the ashes of the banknotes on the stage.
I’m sorry?
I said I want my money back.
Very calm and controlled. Polite. Crowley beams Tony a smile that radiates inner peace and serenity. He gives a faint, fatal shake of the head. I want to shout out to him, no, no. Give him his money back. But I know it won’t do any good.
I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, Mr… Mr…
Diamonte. Anthony Diamonte.
Tony gives an almighty sniff in a final, unsuccessful attempt to clear his running nose. He is coked up to, and beyond, his eyeballs.
Mr Diamonte. I am sorry if I have angered you, or disappointed you. I had no wish to do so. Everybody’s angry. There’s a lot in this world to be angry about, after all. But what is it? What is anger? Nothing more than fear, surely.
Christopher Crowley raises a tanned arm and beckons generously to Tony.
Would you like to come down from the audience? Sit with me a while. This gathering, after all, isn’t only about me. Perhaps we could talk together.
He beckons again, like a customer to a waitress.
Tony pushes past Veronica and out into the aisle. He’s totally lary. Immediately, the audience begins to clap. Veronica hisses and looks round desperately. Worried, I tug at Tony’s jacket as he pushes past.
Tony. Come on. I’ll give you the fiver.
That misses the point, Francis. ’Scuse, Veronica. Got your tools from the chopping shop with you, by the way? I might have a client for you.
Then he moves down the aisle towards the stage. As he reaches the podium, Crowley stands up to greet him and reaches out a hand, which Tony takes and give’s a short shake. The audience applauds more loudly than ever. I can just about hear Tony speak over the sound of the swelling applause.
Are you going to give me my fiver back? Or what?
Crowley shakes his head again, sadly, smiling ruefully. Then he sits down on the floor, crosses his legs and calmly addresses the audience.
One day, after Chuang Tzu’s wife had just died, a disciple came upon the old Zen master at home, singing and beating time on a pot, whereas he had expected to find Chuang Tzu dressed in the white of mourning. He demanded to know why the philosopher was behaving in so unseemly a manner. Not to shed a tear over a dead woman’s body was bad enough. But to make merry and sing and shout when she lay dead, was that not blasphemy and disrespect of the dead? No, the bereaved husband said. His wife had died and he had felt the loss. Now she was dead, passing from one aspect to another, like the seasons go from summer to autumn to winter to spring. If he were to weep and cry, he would show his ignorance of those laws.
Tony looks momentarily bewildered.
What does that mean?
Crowley looks faintly pained, but compassionate.
br />
It means whatever you want it to mean.
Tony wrinkles his brow in a crude imitation of genuine curiosity.
What do you want it to mean?
Crowley breathes out, as if struggling with the whole firmament of human ignorance and stubbornness in the face of plain truth, and then says softly, Does anything in the end finally mean anything?
Tony nods thoughtfully, as if he is overtaken with a sense of profundity.
Now there’s a thought, says Tony. He gives a big double coke sniff and rubs a line of snot away from the bottom of his nose. But what I’m trying to say, Mr Crowley, is what does it mean with respect to my five-spot?
Crowley gives a weak smile.
It means your five-pound note has gone. It means the symbol has been stripped of its power.
Tony nods again, more vigorously now, as if at last understanding a deep philosophical paradox.
It means, leave it behind. Move beyond it. But what have you really lost? continues Crowley blithely. You have lost a pattern of meaning. Now all you have to do is lose your attachment to it. Do you understand?
Tony stops nodding and says evenly, I do. Yes. Thank you.
There is a ripple in the audience. Crowley nods, gives a big, long knowing blink.
But, Mr Crowley –
Chris.
Chris. I want to ask you. Do you understand?
I groan, knowing by now exactly what is going to happen. Tony pulls himself up to his full height. Crowley is still smiling away happily.
Do I understand what, Tony?
Do you understand, Chris, that you are dead, you fucking thieving cunt?
It is now that he grabs both of Crowley’s shoulders, steadies himself on the podium, and head-butts him, bam, on the bridge of the nose. Crowley goes down like a log, claret spurting immediately. He gasps and his legs give way. Suddenly, he’s shouting, but his mid-American accent has disappeared completely. Instead, thick, gasping Brummie vowels fill the hall.
Yow fooker. I’ll fooking ’ave yow, mate.
With that he swings out at Tony, but misses completely. Tony gives him a kick in the ribs, then bends down towards him. I’m on my feet, running to the stage to restrain Tony. By now he’s reaching down towards Crowley and grabbing his shirt. The audience is screaming and shouting.
I can hear Tony saying, Calm down, Mystic Meg. This is just, you know. A Symbolic thingy. A pattern of whatchamacallits.
He thumps him on the bridge of the nose, making Crowley whimper loudly.
This only means what you make it mean.
Another kick. Then he pushes Crowley back down on the floor. This time he stays there. I pull Tony away. He shouts back at Crowley:
Get over it, maaan.
The room is in total chaos. I look around the room for Veronica, but she’s disappeared entirely. I drag Tony towards an exit, worrying that someone might have called the police. He flings his arms around me. I realize that he is very, very drunk. I strain to understand what he’s saying, then, once I’ve succeeded, regret that I made the effort.
Frankie, you’re my best mate. My mucker. Don’t get married, Frankie. Stay with the boys. Have a laugh. You’ve got years left in you. And you’re giving it all up. For a bit of regular gash.
His breath pours out into my face, beer and Hula Hoops. Even though I think he barely knows what he’s saying, I feel shocked.
That’s not why I’m doing it.
Why then? What other reason would you want to do it for?
Why? I’m doing it because I want to… I stop, stumped for a moment… Because I want to… connect. I want to stop being just myself and start being a bit of something… of someone… else.
I can hear police sirens in the distance now. I drag Tony by the collar out into the corridor and he staggers behind me, holding on to my shirt.
Tony brings his lips inwards, looks up at the blank white ceiling with wheeling eyes, then turns to me with a voice that is empty, strangely sober.
You’re a pretentious twat, Frankie. And what’s more, you’re wrong. Let me tell you something. You’re always alone. Whoever you fuck, however many times you fuck them, whoever you marry or don’t marry. You’re on your own. Just you, your brain and your cock; walking around, walking around. Believing anything else is just Walt Disney, it’s just Steven fucking Spielberg, it’s just, you know… you know.
I’ve got Tony out in the street now and I’m trying to drag him as far away from the building as possible. His suit is covered in dust and street dirt. There is a fine film of white powder under his nose – another reason it’s important he doesn’t get hauled in front of the filth. Tony finally hawks up the word he’s been looking for.
A… a myth. Like what that Brummie cunt was saying.
That’s not true, Tone. I don’t believe that. I know it’s not Walt Disney. But I just want to be normal. I want to fit in. I don’t expect happy ever after. I just want a change.
The siren turns out to be an ambulance rather than a police car. I’m still propelling Tony along the street. I don’t think he’s heard a word I’ve said. In the distance, I can see Crowley being helped out of a rear exit door. I let go of Tony and he collapses slowly to the ground. He’s drunk enough for me to forgive him.
You’re a vicious bastard, Tony, I find myself saying softly.
But I’ve known that since the beginning, and it’s never made any difference to him being my mate. In fact, it was his cruelty that brought us together in the first place.
Chapter Ten: Diamond Tony’s Big Sting
If Colin was my first best friend, chronologically, I suppose Tony was my second. He supplanted and eclipsed and, in a sense, destroyed Colin, or at least froze him, stunted him, cut off his potential to become more than what he was. With my help, of course.
In a sense, though, he merely completed a process that had already started long before. For me and Colin, things had already changed, had begun to fade, after we both arrived at secondary school. Many of my friends – the lesser-ranked ones, and they all fell short of Colin – had been cauterized, cut off. Condemned to the surly pit of Goldhawk High, what would nowadays be called a sink school: kids with dirty chops, vitamin deficiencies, calloused fists who said fucking in front of the teachers. Three-quarters of my friends went there, or to one of the other holding cells in the district – Clem Attlee Comp or, worst of all, St Bart’s, where they wore second-hand clothes and the bad boys fought to the blood every day.
But Colin and I were the cream, so called. There was a remaining grammar school in the area, and both our parents put us up for it. Typically, I sailed through, while he scraped in, on final appeal. Maybe he’d have been better at one of the other places; here he was assured of being at the bottom of the pile. But his handwriting and his extraordinary ability at maths and with computers got him in at the last gasp.
The grammar had smart uniforms, peaked caps, new buildings. Colin and me were scared at first, and stuck together, tried to hold on to what we had – the little enclosed world in which nothing much mattered except each other’s company, each other’s approving silence.
But tides and currents were seizing us; they come at you in life, I know now, from all directions, great irresistible waves, with indifferent, cruel crests. We were now part of something much larger than ourselves, and, moreover, something with a different set of rules from those we were accustomed to living by. I knew that I had to learn, and fast. Colin, though, I felt even then, was adopting a different, fatal strategy. He began to retreat, to hide. And you can’t hide. There’s nowhere to go.
We were still the tortoise and the hare. Somehow the new school defined more precisely and more boldly the animals that we were, each role a defence against the new powers ranged against us.
It was a Thursday afternoon when the hairline cracks that spidered across the dam we held against the rushing world opened and let the entire structure give way. I am allowing myself to remember it now, although in the past I have always
turned my mind’s eye away because of the emotions it evoked in me, a kind of putting fingers in my ears and whistling.
I think I have been terrified of weak people ever since Colin.
There was – of course – a bully in the class. It wasn’t what you would describe as a full-time post and it wasn’t as bad as it sounded. But the bully, of course, was Tony. Not named Diamond Tony then, not even Tony: just Anthony, Anthony Diamond. (He insisted on the anglicized version of his name.) Behind his back, I heard him called Tony the Spic or Spaghetti Boy. But only ever behind his back.
Tony, in truth, had no real need to bully anyone. He just hadn’t realized it yet. He was good looking, funny, clever. A tall, heavily built boy, with very short hair and those lazy eyes that moved very slowly around the room, pausing to assess. Olive skin. Big full lips. Languorous, slow and graceful. Eyes edged with frost behind their warmth. His uniform carefully customized – trousers taken in, blazer nipped and tucked, beautiful crisp linen shirts.
Quite apart from his elegance, there was something in Tony that was adult – a kind of standing back from the world, a larger gap between stimulus and response than the other children possessed. It gave him power, and, having it, he felt impelled to use it. Of course, nowadays he is more nakedly temperamental. But that has to do with all the booze down his throat and all the industrial quantities of bugle going up his nose.
He was the strongest boy in the class – not just physically, but in his ability to size up situations, to assess weaknesses, to think quickly. Even some teachers were nervous of him – he had a kind of talent for hurt, a guided-missile capability for finding out the vulnerable parts of each individual. This, of course, made him irresistible, and he soon developed a court, I suppose you might say a gang, although that suggests something more formal than it actually was.
I think I wanted – no, I am sure I wanted – to be part of that court, drawn as children are to the strong, the fearless, the ruthless. But I was identified with Colin, who by now had severe, disfiguring acne to add to the awkwardness and gentleness of his personality. And, of course, I had my own facial disfigurement, the raspberry-coloured patch, and my own mental disability, my cleverness. So I was consigned to Colin’s wilderness, although not so far, not so deep, because I was known to be tougher than my acne-ridden friend, and because I was good at games and because I could punch. Nevertheless, I did not quite qualify as a real person in the eyes of Tony and his retinue. But I was close enough to want it, and want it badly.