A Holiday! For the first time in what seems like many time I actually feel like I'm on holiday, able to relax. I have drank more wine than seems decent for a dinner party of two, one of whom has been in bed for two hours. I watched the last episode of Parky, laughed (for the first time in my life) at something Peter "I'm fat and Northern, can I have a career please?" Kay said, realised that a special era in British culture will soon be gone and nothing worthwhile is really replacing it. For all we "modern" people mock the likes of The Two Ronnies, Morecombe and Wise et al, the modern British landscape was formed by them and their ilk. The age of the Royal Variety Show is passing. I rarely watched it. Beyond the odd M/W Christmas special (doing all the right jokes, just not necessarily in the right order) and Channel 4 reminding us of Del-Boy falling through a bar, as if we were ever able to forget, I saw in the paper "Frankie Howerd Special" and watched something else. I still quote Up Pompeii. "All the right notes" and "4 candles" are as eponymous as "an ex-parrot". It was reassuring and comforting, in the way that a log fire is reassuring and comforting even when you have central heating, to know that not only were the reruns being rerun but that every once in a while all these names got together and made us laugh in a 1965 family around the TV after dinner kind of way. Soon it'll all be gone. Am I the only one to find this sad. Should I complain to my Grandfather, denounce him for taping and showing me Open All Hours? The Two Ronnies? My entire sense of humour (and those who have spent enough time with me will recognise the truth of this) was shaped by these formative moments laughing at Compo hurtling down a hill in a bathtub, learning puns at the knee of Spike (Are you a spy? No, I'm a shepherd? AH! Shepherd Spy!). And since my sense of humour was shaped by this, I feel I can argue that a significant portion of the blame for my personality can be directly laid at the feet of Ronnie Barker, H-ancock and The Famous Eccles.
Anyway this is all by the by.
Apart from a few hours covering for the Janny (if you're not Scottish, work it out) on Wednesday, I'm now off until at least 14th January. Weirdly, I already feel like writing. Work stifling creativity? I feel a grant application coming on.
I dug out this weird thingy of a prose piece and since none of you seem to ever check out my writing blog (at least no one has yet owned up to such a thing) I'm going to post it here. The idea (which began as more cinematic than prosaic) is skipping through the minds of various people in a bar over the course of a night, influenced by Jack Kerouac had he been a member of Arab Strap (which, arguably, he was).
One Good Turn.
Life and death, that’s what we’re talking about tonight, topic of conversation #401 after football, women, politics, religion, art, women, whose round it is and how much time should be allowed to elapse between your arse leaving the seat and someone else planting theirs. It’s been one of those nights. You know the kind I mean. It starts with two guys having a pint after work. They need a quick beer to relax the muscles, get the brain working again. Blow the cobwebs away as the cliché has it. But the first always goes too fast. Thirst taking over motor functions, lifting the arm. I know a guy who would always order a pint of orange juice as his first drink. The idea was it would quench his thirst and fill his stomach, so his drinking would slow to a more manageable, healthy level. I never liked orange juice.
So, these two guys have a couple beers, relaxing. A bit hungry so maybe a burger which, in this bar, comes with a pint for only 50p extra. Can’t turn down a bargain like that, says I. And a beer to help digest. So we’re four down, chilled out and up for some fun. Ideas are bandied about like After Eights at Xmas. Cinema, anything good on? Video? Back to the flat and play the X-Box? You for another? Why not, it’s still early.
The plan is still to leave at some point and do something else. This is simply filling time while an idea waits to settle. Have you got credit on your phone? Aye? Give Steve a call; see what he’s up to. Steve’s in the flat watching Celebrity Big Brother and scratching. He’s on his way.
Well you can’t leave no because Steve’s coming so another round, whose is it? Steve takes his time but eventually pushes through the door, hands pocketed. The door doesn’t close. Fraser’s there as well. Bumped into him in the street. Was sitting on the bench watching the arses go by. Good day for it? Sweet little student all combats and ironic t-shirt. Steve gets a round in, good man. Cheers clink clink. So what’s the plan? Dunno, any ideas? Gig on at Sleazy’s later, can’t mind the name. On Rock Action or Chemikal Underground, one of those. Local. About 6 quid, starts at 9. Supports that guy that was in that band we saw in the Art School mind?
Sunday again, they sat around the same table, drinking the usual. Iain and Stuart were on the Guinness, Kate on jack and diet coke. Iain swept his hair back, feeling it greasy between his fingers. He sighed.
“Thank fuck that’s over with. I thought you were gonnae kill Angela”.
Stuart rolled his eyes at the mention of the name, while Kate crunched an ice cube with all the violence of the Titanic.
“I was that close.” Kate held her thumb and index an inch apart, then reached for the cigarettes which they were all sharing. “I should’ve lamped her”.
“That’d be funny” Stuart said, gazing at the TV and smiling at the thought.
“Until you got fired” Iain put in.
“Nah. She’d get suspended on full pay while they had an inquiry. Like that Polish guy. Bart.”
Stuart drummed on the empty glasses with two stirrers, humming to himself. Kate pulled her black suede jacket closer, lest any part of her uniform be seen by the rest of the bar. An exorcist-green tabard, size 22, and blue tracksuit bottoms a good four inches too short ware not the kind of things she wanted to be seen in.
Emma tried to run away. She only got as far as the street where Steve found her leaning against the bonnet of a Volkswagon. Her long white skirt ruffled in the slight breeze. She pushed a strand of jet black hair behind her ear and watched Steve cross the tarmac.
She knew his suit was new, and pretty expensive, yet he still looked like a child in rumpled school uniform: the jacket bulking his body until it was out of proportion with his head, the tie too short and the knot squint. His hair, heavily gelled into a peak, didn’t even quiver as the wind suddenly blasted them. She liked Steve, he was sweet, he just wasn’t her type.
Steve didn’t know if he was doing the right thing by following her. She’d said she was going to the bathroom but then just walked outside. He’d stayed at the table, trying to act as if nothing had happened, trying to play it cool, but in the end he had to get up. He had to do something, say something. Try to make it alright again. He didn’t know what he’d say but he couldn’t just leave things like this.
Why had he said it? Emma thought. Did he think she wasn’t aware of his crush – and that’s all it was despite the words he’d used? And here of all places.
She knew this weekend was a bad idea from the start. Her stomach had tightened the moment Glen had uttered the phrase ‘team building’. With the sole exception of Steve they’d all been working together for two years; the team was as built as it was going to get. It was that bloody course he’d been on, those ‘new management strategies’ he’d come back from Reading full of.
The phone goes and it’s the bird, out with friends, just round the corner in Ashton Lane. Aye come on down, the more the merrier as Christ was heard to say. So a new table, one of the big ones with the sofas and the second your arse hits the soft leather you know that’s it, you’re here for the night, your budgets fucked and the only thing for it is to fire on into the beers and hope you don’t say anything stupid.
The cool thing about carrier pigeons is they have no memory you hear from the girl next to you and that’s it, the cue to move, finally the motivation is overwhelming: pressure on your bladder, Pop Idol shite on the video juke box, the ned on the pool table shouting ‘watch this ya bam’ before every shot, the fact that Fraser’s looking first at you, then at his empty glass, then at you, and with each glance he looks more and more like a puppy that really needs to be tied up in a bag and thrown off a bridge. So you ease out the sofa mumbling ‘everyone’s on the same aye?’ as you walk away, ignoring the ‘hang on I was wanting a’ push the door to the bathroom almost concussing the guy coming the other way, stupid design, unzip and play chase the fag end around the urinal for what seems like an eternity then it’s back out and up to the bar, a round in, phone Steve ‘get up here and help you lazy fucker’, he appears, you hand him some glasses and he almost drops the lot. You give him your ‘twat’ look as beer collects around his feet. You point at a half empty glass ‘that’s yours’ but I wanted a JD and coke. Tough. Fine. Who’s the red thing for? That yank bird, she said she could drink us all under the table. What is it? No idea, ask the barman. I said, there’s this yank bird who thinks she can drink us under the table. Can you make her something that’ll shut her up?
So time passes by, alcohol passes lips and urine just passes. The yank has been escorted from the premises and was last sighted sitting on the stairs covered in her own deep red vomit. The barman has been bought a few drinks. Fraser is trying to crack onto some random at the bar, not realizing her 6’5” boyfriend is playing pool and therefore is armed and dangerous. Everyone keeps saying someone should go over and tell him but no one moves. The conversations have flowed over, under and around the topics mentioned. And now we are at life and death.
“Raining again” Stuart said, peering through the only section of window not covered with drinks promotions. “5.37 and pitch dark. Fucking city”.
“Bet you wish you were still in Sydney” said Iain.
“God yeah. Anywhere but here. Anywhen but now”.
Kate’s phone beeped, and instantly she flicked it open.
“Paul?” said Iain.
“Yeah. Maybe coming down.”
“Anyone got any plans for tonight?”.
“A few options”, said Stuart. “Big party at Optimo, and at Barfly. Depends what George’s doing.”
It all started with Fraser’s imminent demise at the end of a cheap pool cue. Someone asked the how would you like to go question to a table full of drunks and got the expected response: sarcasm, bad puns, general sickness and the odd attempt at profundity. My own personal favourite was being hit by a white rolls Royce traveling at 60 so you could spread your finite remains over the paintwork do you know how hard that shit is to get out?
Steve is talking about his grandfather’s funeral. It was the first he’d been to, the first family member to die. He was 17 and therefore eligible for the dubious honour of being a poll-pall-paul?-bearer. The church was built in a natural dip with the entrance at the top and the altar at the bottom so they had to carry the box down this steep incline. Steve couldn’t cope with the emotion and so had smoked a bit before hand. He couldn’t stop himself giggling as he imagined the box slipping from their hands and bouncing end over end before settling vertical against the altar, the door slowly creaking open and his grandfather appearing before the congregation like Bella Legosi’s last stand.
No one is sure if they can laugh.
Instead you ask the what three songs you’d have played at your funeral. You get the obvious; The End by The Doors, See You Later Alligator by that guy what’s his name? Burn Baby Burn, Disco Inferno by whoever did it. Yours are Miserere by Allegri, Find The River by REM and Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven. Everyone looks at you. Then changes the subject. Your head’s swimming, the heating in here is too high, with no open windows or doors. You’ve drunk a hell of a lot and part of you just wants to go to sleep. You drunkenly scan the table and are momentarily surprised to see your girlfriend, you’d forgotten she was here. She’s talking to a friend of hers, Anna, or Anne, or Anya or something. You look at her, your girlfriend, all blonde and made up and you think if you didn’t know her you’d really want to shag her. But you do. And you don’t. You know it’s time to call it a day but the thought fills your legs with cement and your stomach with frogs. And you’re clairvoyant, you can predict the future. Tonight you’ll go home via the chip shop on Dumbarton Road, talking across each other if you talk at all. Then either in the street or the second you’re through the door you begin arguing about the price of cheese in Denmark which will go on all night until one of you falls asleep then you’ll wake up, have sleepy morning sex where both of you are dreaming of someone else, get up, shower and go spend your days in a life separate from each other.
It’s enough to make you go up the M8 and wait for a white Roll Royce.
She’d been weak, distracted, and so easily coerced into agreeing. It couldn’t be team building if the team was incomplete, now could it? But she’d known it would end in disaster, and if she’d thought more about it, she’d have put money on it being Steve declaring his undying love over liqueurs.
She opened her pointlessly small bag and fought to extract her cigarettes and lighter. When Steve reached her she was smoking with apparent non-chalence.
“Hey” Steve said, “they’re asking after you in there.”
Emma exhaled, said nothing, just raised one eyebrow, exhaled and flicked ash.
Steve looked at his feet. “I shouldn’t have done that”, he said, “I’m sorry. I just thought that…”
“You thought I might feel the same? You don’t know me very well do you? I’m sorry Steve, I don’t.”
Steve visibly sank. His already small, slight frame seemed to fold in on itself. His head fell forward and his shoulders curved in. For the first time that night his tie reached his waistband. Emma bit off a laugh, turned it into a cough.
She felt sorry for him. It had obviously taken a lot of courage to say what he had, but she had to stop him in his tracks before it got too messy. She thought about suggesting he give Donna a try, she was always up for a bit of extra-curricular, but she knew he wouldn’t take it the way she meant.
“Look”, she said, “You go back inside and get a drink. I’ll finish this and follow you. I’ll have a large G&T. Very large.”
Dismissed, Steve meekly nodded, turned and slowstepped dejectedly back to the hotel. She knew it would be fine, that she’d nipped it in the bud. He’d be awkward for a bit, but as long as she acted normal and never mentioned it, he’d get over it. The rest of them would know what had happened and gossip about it, but they’d do it behind his back, which was just fine. She sighed, flicked the fag into the bushes. At least he hadn’t asked for a reason.
Your songs came on the juke box but you were in the bathroom and only same out in time to catch The Shy Retirer by Arab Strap and as you sing along to ‘these people are your friends this cunted circus never ends’ you catch her eye and nothing but loathing passes between. We going to Sleazy’s you hear to your right. Yeah, let’s pile in a cab. What time is it? 10. Finish up, who’s coming? Out the door and into two cabs, Sleazy’s please mate, and with much swinging and swaying, random chat with the driver, you fall out across from the bar, walk in front of a bus and a twat on a bike, get to the bar and order a pint of your flattest Kronenborg please Mr. Barman. A bit of Belle and Sebastian on the juke box and all is good. You have no idea if she got in a taxi or went home. You think the girl you’re talking to is one of her friends but you have no proof other than a vague feeling you’ve seen her before. You think that the guy next to you is really sad, trying his hardest to look like the singer from Franz Ferdinand then you hear a stage whisper behind you that’s the singer from Franz Ferdinand.
It was starting to break up. Glen was halfway through his story about the time he’d had to address the Scottish Executive and had said clit instead of client – a sure sign that he was on his last legs – while Donna and Peter were in the last throws of the one-night-courtship ritual. Steve had already made his excuses and gone to bed, as had most of the others. Emma finished her chardonnay and tapped her rings on the table impatiently. For all she’d drunk – and tallying it up, it came to a lot – she felt irritatingly sober. She knew Glen would forget to close the bar tab and had every intention of taking full advantage of the fact. And besides, that barmaid had been eyeing her up all night.
Donna and Peter charged off, Donna hauling him by the hand, Peter having the decency to look a tad embarrassed. Glen fell back in his seat, laughing uproariously at his Freudian slip while spilling Macallan on his shirt. He downed the rest of it, wiped his moustache along the back of his hand, burped and sighed.
“Well, night night young Emma, don’t stay up too late, it’s an early start tomorrow” he slurred, pushed himself upright and lurched towards the lifts.
Emma walked over to the bar, slid into a stool and placed her cigarettes on the bar. The barmaid came over.
“What’ll it be?”
“Depends? Is the tab still open?”
“It is, yeah.”
“Right, I’ll have a triple gin and tonic, and something for yourself.”
“I’ll have the same.”
“Great. I’m Emma by the way.”
“Laura.”
Steve smacks your back you coming downstairs? Aye, course. Down you go past the posters and the drunks using two hands on the banisters, you hand over a tenner and get something back then into the darkness and noise.
You’ve missed that guy Chris that was in that band you saw at the Art School but the main band is just starting. Their name has something to do with monkeys. They are shit. Described on the flyer as post-rock, they sound like The Darkness without the irony. You ask the barmaid if she likes this shit and she says her boyfriend is the drummer. You shout go home between songs and someone tells you to shut the fuck up. Who does he think he is? The owner of the record label the shit monkey band are signed to apparently. Over a fiver for this shit. Bollocks. You go back upstairs answering if you leave you can’t come back with Good.
Upstairs you pump pounds into the juke box knowing that the bar will be closed before your songs come on. You go up to the bar, order a JD and Coke and try chatting up the barmaid. She’s kinda flirtatious but you quickly realize it doesn’t mean anything. You turn around and some short arsed bint is giving you daggers. You think she’s friends with your bird but she could just be a bitch. Fuck it.
The bar was empty, all in darkness save the bar itself where Emma and Laura sat facing, each with a foot on the other’s stool, legs intertwined. Emma could feel the alcohol now, that warm fuzzy aura around the head. She was looking at Laura in what she hoped was seductive charm, but feared was drunken paralysis, the gin-induced stroke-like expression her mother had mastered.
You walk out onto Sauchiehall Street, straight across the road and into a take away, stare randomly at the big lit menu until you find Steak Pie Supper. That’s for me. Then you stand out on the street eating, vaguely aware that you look like a HEBS advert but not really caring.
