

### Gang Of Losers

Chris Lynton

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 Chris Lynton

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Epilogue

# Chapter One

Lyncombe, Wiltshire. Summer 1983

Theo put his drumsticks down and looked at his watch. It was 8pm. If he practised any longer, his older brother - whose bedroom was directly below his - would start to complain. So he extricated himself from behind his large, ramshackle drum kit and went downstairs.

He found his parents in the living room and told them he was going out. His father looked up from his newspaper.

"Homework done?"

"Didn't have any, just revision," replied Theo.

"Fair enough. Going anywhere nice?"

"Just for a walk."

"We'll come with you if you like, keep you company."

"Ummm..." Theo wasn't sure if his dad was joking or not.

His mum came to his rescue: "Pay no attention dear, he's just being silly. Have a nice time."

He crammed his keys, money and inhaler into the front pockets of his drainpipe Wrangler jeans and left the house. The walk had no firm purpose, other than getting him out of the house and into the warm night air. But now that he thought of it, he might drop by the fountain in case Pete and the others were there.

As he walked, the inhaler rubbed uncomfortably against his thigh. He normally kept it in a jacket pocket, but the lining of his beloved Harrington had recently disintegrated, and he was now jacketless. The easiest solution would be to buy a second-hand denim or leather from one of the markets in nearby Bath. But leathers tended to be stiff and uncomfortable, and denims limited your choice of leg wear - after all, only a Status Quo fan would be happy with the double-denim look.

No, he wanted something different, something unique. Recently he'd seen a fantastic jacket in a book about the Second World War. There was a chapter about the war in the Pacific, and one of the photos featured a group of smiling GIs sat in a jeep. One soldier in particular had caught Theo's eye, the one in the driving seat. This GI was a symphony of effortless cool: one arm draped over the steering wheel, blond hair in a buzz cut, sunglasses, chinos, white T-shirt and _that_ jacket. It was green, the same cut as his Harrington, and seemed to be made from the same shiny material as his school parka from several winters ago. It looked thick and heavy, the sort of jacket that would bulk you up and make you feel invincible.

Theo resolved to seek one out. First off, he would try Millets in Bath. They often had old military gear in stock, but it tended to be British army not American - musty knee-length Great coats, itchy against the skin and as stiff as cardboard. After that he would try the second-hand shops at the top of town, and if they came up empty, it would have to be another trip to London's King's Road, home of Flip Clothing - the epicentre of the vintage American clothing world.

His last trip to Flip had been a month ago, when he'd come away with his Wranglers, a short-sleeved pink shirt and a nifty blue woollen tie. But train tickets to London were expensive, and the prospect of travelling up there on the off-chance that they had the jacket seemed risky, even for him. Maybe he could phone them up - he seemed to remember there being a phone number on the plastic bag he brought his last purchase home in. Yes, that was the thing to do. He'd check the bag when he got back home.

After five minutes he'd reached the High Street. The fountain stood in a pedestrianized section at the far end of the street, just outside the Guildhall. The fountain had a large circular stone surround that you could sit on and watch the world pass by, and this was where people his own age tended to congregate in lieu of anything else to do. Its proximity to popular under-age drinking spot The White Hart added to its popularity.

Approaching the fountain was always problematic if you were on your own. What if there were people there who you only vaguely knew? Should you stop and say hi, or just walk past pretending that you hadn't seen them? What if all your friends were there? This would mean that they hadn't invited you and were quite happy without you. And if the fountain was empty, did you sit there by yourself and wait for someone else to come along?

He needed the ammunition of cigarettes. Having something to do with his hands made him feel less self-conscious in situations like this. He made a detour towards the newsagents and bought his usual: ten Consulate and a box of matches. His friends often teased him about his fondness for menthol cigarettes, but Theo didn't care, he liked the stylish green and white packet (so much more elegant than the brutal red and white of Marlboro), and they had a distinct old world charm to them - matinee idols smoked cigarettes like these. But perhaps more importantly, menthol cigarettes made him feel less ill than regular ones. Theo could only handle full-strength ciggies after a couple of pints, but the weaker menthols suited him just fine. So he continued his walk to the fountain and just before he came into its catchment area, he sparked up.

As it turned out, there was no-one there. He sat at the fountain and waited for signs of life as he smoked. When he reached the filter, he threw the butt in the fountain and stood up to begin the walk home. He looked towards the White Hart before setting off and saw Bill, the pub's landlord, exiting the pub with a beer barrel in one hand and a bright pink piece of paper in the other.

Theo watched as he placed the barrel on the floor and expertly rolled it along the pavement with his foot. He stopped after a few paces, next to a notice board on the wall. He unclipped a keychain from his belt and used one of the keys to open its glass front. He then pinned the bright pink sheet of paper to the notice board's cork surface and relocked it. His task complete, he continued to roll the barrel round to the back of the pub.

It had been a while since there had been a decent band at the pub, so Theo's hopes weren't high as he approached the new flyer. The bright pink sheet of A4 featured a crudely drawn rocket, with a long haired semi-naked girl astride it. Below, in a chunky sans serif typeface was the band's name - THE NEW ENGLAND PLANETS.

Theo clenched his fist and whispered " _Yes!_ "

"All right young 'un?"

Theo span around. It was Bill, now barrel-less. He nodded towards the poster. "Good are they?"

Theo felt his face redden. "Oh, hi Bill. Umm, yeah. I like them. Not your cup of tea though, not very bluesy. More punk really."

"Doesn't bother me, as long as they bring a good crowd in."

"They should do yeah, I saw them at the Viaduct a few weeks ago and it was packed. Lots of girls - the guitarist is really good-looking. I mean apparently..." He trailed off, his blush intensifying.

Bill eyed him quizzically. "Whatever you say. The usual time Sunday then?"

"Yep, usual time," replied Theo.

The White Hart was the town's main music venue. Back in the seventies, it was known for its blues nights, but with the rise of pub rock and then punk, the blues had dropped in popularity and now Bill let pretty much anyone play. He kept the blues connection going by booking local band Blues Train every Sunday lunchtime. Theo was the youngest member by about twenty five years. He didn't much care for the music (it all sounded the same), but the practise was invaluable, and he readily took advantage of the pub's lax view on licensing laws.

He turned his attention back to the poster and scanned it for a date. It was a Friday, a couple of weeks away. This was definitely something to look forward to. The Planets might not be the most original band (half their set was cover versions) but they played wild frenetic rock songs and had real talent.

The band was made up of pupils from the nearby Catholic school, and they were all in the same year as Theo. The singer was called Andy Ross, but the one you tended to watch more was the lead guitarist, August Wells. Wells looked how a rock star should look in Theo's opinion: dyed black hair, thin angular face, constantly tanned skin, green eyes and dazzling white teeth. He smiled readily and chatted to everyone. As well as playing the guitar, he sang some of the songs and was more of a natural at stage banter than Ross, which led people to think of him as the leader. But in fact Ross had formed the Planets and did most of the songwriting.

Wells always wore the same thing: a lumberjack shirt with buttons undone, a white vest underneath, a pair of black, skintight jeans and Doc Martin boots. Halfway through a performance he would take the shirt off, revealing thin but muscular arms. He often got an appreciative whoop from the girls in the crowd as he did this.

As far as he could recall, he had _heard_ Wells before setting eyes on him: Theo had been at the fountain one Friday evening when a roar of laughter cut through the general hub-bub. Theo looked around and saw a slim, lumberjack-shirted figure with his arm round a pretty bleached-blond girl. He grappled the girl to the edge of the fountain and dipped her hair in the water. The girl shrieked and responded by splashing him. Wells then backed off, still laughing, while the girl filled an empty pint glass with water from the fountain and followed him slowly through the crowd. They came his way, and Wells brushed Theo's arm as he passed. "Sorry pal" he said, and broke into a run just as the girl hurled the water at him.

Transfixed, Theo made enquiries. One of his friends had an older brother at the same school. "New kid," said the brother, "plays the guitar. Dad's in the government or something." Theo kept watching; the new kid and the girl now re-united, arms round each other, kissing.

He envisaged that his life would be somehow better if Wells was part of it. His manner was so positive, so playful, so _jubilant_ , that Theo saw him as the perfect antidote to his own rather downbeat demeanour. Maybe some of Wells' easy manner would rub off on him. Maybe he too could smile readily and chat to everybody.

So, this evening stroll had been a success: a new Planets gig to look forward to; a new chance to court Wells. He drummed out a beat on his trouser pockets, a habit of his when he got excited. The inhaler in his left pocket was the snare drum, and the empty right pocket the bass drum. _Dum-chack, dum-chack, dum-de-dum-de dum-chack!_ The night air was beginning to turn cold, so he walked home as quickly as he could, breaking into a run as he reached his road.

When he arrived, he told his parents that he was back and headed upstairs to his bedroom. Theo lived in a large Edwardian House on one of the main thoroughfares of Lyncombe. His room was at the front of the house on the second floor. He had recently painted the walls a smoky orange colour and liked it so much that he felt no need for posters or other distractions. The only adornments were on the mantelpiece over the long-defunct fireplace. Here were three framed prints: in the middle a colour reproduction of a Van Gogh self-portrait; to the left a black and white photo of Eddie Cochran; and to the right a black and white photo of a young Elvis Presley smoking a cigarette.

Two of the images meant a great deal to Theo and one not so much. Van Gogh and Eddie Cochran were his two idols, the two greats whose achievements he wished to celebrate. But when he arranged the two photos on the mantel, he didn't like the way they looked - no matter how he placed them, the eye was always drawn towards the vibrant colour of the Van Gogh reproduction. Poor Eddie didn't stand a chance. He felt that a third black and white image was needed to balance things out. So he put the colour Van Gogh in the middle, the Cochran to the left and then picked Elvis photo more or less at random from a selection of postcards he'd bought on a recent visit to Forever People in Bristol.

The only other item on the mantel was a burnt-out joss stick in a dust-covered jam jar. Theo didn't necessarily like their scent, but they served the purpose of hiding the rather _musty_ smell that seemed to permeate his bedroom. He wasn't sure if the smell was his fault or the room's, but it was potent enough to require constant attention. In the summer this meant leaving the window open, and in the winter burning the joss stick before friends or girls came round.

He sat on the drum stool, wishing it was earlier in the day so he could play. Then he remembered his dream jacket - he needed the number for Flip. He retrieved the plastic bag from its current resting place in the bottom drawer of his desk and checked the pristine white façade. He was mistaken. There was no telephone number, just the words 'Vintage American Clothing' underneath the red checkerboard logo. Now what was he meant to do? He pondered this as he put the bag back into the drawer. Just then he noticed a scrap of paper on his desk.

In his brother's handwriting were the words:

'Call Lee Heritage ASAP on 0249 701___'

Theo felt gravity leave him. Lee Heritage was the lead singer with Steal Guitars, a rockabilly band from Chippenham with a huge local following. They had been mentioned in the NME and the local paper had called them 'Britain's answer to the Stray Cats'. People actually _paid_ to see them.

The call could mean only one thing: Steal Guitars needed a new drummer.

# Chapter Two

It was 9.30 pm on a Wednesday, presumably not too late to phone the lead singer of a rockabilly band (and the note had said 'ASAP' - he assumed his brother had quoted directly).

The phone was in the downstairs corridor, two floors below Theo's room. It could be a private place to chat as long as the door to the living room was closed and there was no one in the kitchen or on any of the landings. These elements seemed to be in place so Theo bounded down the stairs three at a time. He made it as far as the first floor landing when his older brother Jon emerged from his room, holding an empty mug and plate. Theo slowed so as not to crash into him, and Jon took the opportunity to move to the flight of stairs leading to the ground floor. Once there, he began to descend at a snail's pace. Theo tried desperately to pass, but Jon made it impossible, his elbows jutting out theatrically, mug in one hand, plate in the other.

"Sorry old boy, are you in a rush?" Jon asked.

"Can I just get to the phone? That message you left was—"

"Careful now" his brother interrupted. "Do you know how many people are injured every year by falling down the stairs? We wouldn't want that to happen to _you_ now would we? What if you were to break an arm, or worse a leg? Imagine that! No bass drum pounding above my head day and night, no drumming along to _Never Mind the Bollocks_ when I'm trying to revise for my finals. I'd be able to hear myself think, or possibly listen to _my_ music if I fancied. How dull life would be!"

"Sarky sod" replied Theo. "At least I don't..." But then he tapered off, unable to think of anything annoying that his brother actually did, so he had to finish the sentence with the lacklustre "get in people's way."

"I wouldn't be so sure," came the reply.

By now they had reached the downstairs corridor, and much to Theo's annoyance, Jon made his way to the phone and picked up the receiver. Theo stared at him.

"Yes?" Jon's voice was dripping with disdain.

"I was hoping to make a call."

"Me too, and it would appear that I was here first."

Theo knew there was no point in arguing, so he traipsed back upstairs and sat outside his room, waiting for his brother to finish. After ten agonizing minutes, the call came to an end, so again he bounded down the stairs three at a time and got to the phone before anyone else picked it up.

He chose not to think about what he would say when the phone was answered, far better to wing it and sound casual than to parrot some pre-rehearsed script. But after dialling, he was not ushered through to a cosy chat with Wiltshire's great rock 'n roll hope, instead he was met by the blunt, shrill repetition of the engaged tone - the tone that told him _someone else_ was currently talking to Lee Heritage. He listened on and on, willing the beep to suddenly reset itself as a ring, but it stubbornly refused to. And so began a frantic five minutes of dialling and redialling, until finally, joyfully, he was met with the luxurious purr of the ring tone. Before he could compose himself, it was answered.

"Hello?" A gruff, lazy drawl on the other end.

"Hi there," said Theo, suddenly aware of how posh his own voice sounded. "This is Theo Hanlon. You left a message for me to phone you. Hope it's not too late."

"No, it's fine." Lee's voice warmed slightly. "We need a drummer. We have a gig at Moles club in a month. Are you available?"

"Of course, of course!" He tried to keep his voice steady.

"We're holding auditions on Saturday. Could you make it at... three o'clock?"

Theo's optimism sagged. So this wasn't a done deal - there was an _audition_ to get through. It made sense of course; a band this big wouldn't just offer him the job without trying him out first.

"Sure!" Theo replied, trying to sound casual.

"The auditions are in the rehearsal room below Sounds International in Chippenham. We're just gonna play 'Brand New Cadillac' by The Clash to see how you sound. There will be a drum kit there so no need to bring your own."

The call came to an end and Theo hung up. He ran back upstairs to his room, and too excited to do anything practical, leant out the window and sparked up a Consulate. _This could be big_ he told himself. _This band has record company interest!_ And a gig at Moles - the Bath nightclub that had played host to pretty much every important British band of the last five years.

But first there was the damned audition to get through. This, and the cloying taste of one too many menthols, snapped him out of his reverie. He stubbed the cigarette out halfway through and tried to focus. There was some planning to be done. He needed to master 'Brand New Cadillac', and he needed to choose an outfit for the audition.

Steal Guitars (originally called We Steal Guitars) was led by two brothers, Lee and Mark Heritage. Both boys had gone to Theo's school but had left years ago (the younger brother Mark had been expelled for throwing a chair at a teacher). They were 21 and 19 respectively, so older than Theo's 16 years. Both Heritage boys once had reputations as troublemakers, but they had mellowed over the years and now put all their energy into music. As well as rockabilly, the brothers were heavily into The Clash, and Lee based his performing style on lead singer Joe Strummer.

The choice of song for the audition pleased Theo no end. The Clash's drummer Topper Headon was a favourite of his and he regularly drummed along to their old hit 'White Man in Hammersmith Palais' for practise. 'Brand New Cadillac' was on the album _London Calling_ which Theo did not own, but Jon might - he would have to sneak into his bedroom tomorrow to find out. In the meantime he leafed through his singles and found 'White Man'. He lined it up on his Panasonic Music Centre and listened.

The drumming was perfection: crisp hi-hat and snare, deep bass drum, and the occasional boom of thunderous concert toms. Nothing too complicated, just solid, precise drumming. That was what made Topper so great - he gave each song exactly what it needed. There were no unnecessary fills or breaks. They called him "the human metronome", and that was the key: to keep that metronomic beat going.

The music calmed him after the excitement of the last few minutes. He tried to imagine what the audition would be like. He knew the location for the rehearsal - the music shop Sounds International - because he had had drum lessons there a few years ago. The shop had a kit permanently set up in the basement and rented the space out for band practises when there were no lessons. It was cramped and dingy, and he wasn't even sure that a band with a double bass player could fit in it.

The Heritage brothers were striking to look at: tall, slim, bleached hair in razor-sharp quiffs, and eyeliner to add a touch of Bowie-esque androgyny. Their stage gear was vintage rock 'n roll: luminous Teddy Boy jackets, white shirts with bootlace ties, and black drainpipes. The double bass player was a comedic counterfoil: short, podgy and old. Theo had even heard a rumour that he was married with kids.

Steal Guitars live performances were raucous affairs, with the brothers throwing themselves around the stage or leaping into the audience, where they would be manhandled back on to the stage by appreciative fans. Teeo knew that the audition would be more subdued than a Steal Guitars performance, and that the brothers would not be in their stage gear, but even so, these were stylish guys and he wanted to make an impression.

So what should he wear? The only rockabilly clothing he owned was a pair of blue brothel creepers bought at great expense from Paradise Garage in Bristol, but they were difficult to drum in (the thick soles meant you couldn't feel the bass drum pedal) so he discounted them for now. He decided to keep it simple: a white T-shirt and jeans along with his blue Rucanor baseball boots.

But then he thought again. Wasn't the jeans/T-shirt combo just a little bit... _safe_? He wanted to look distinctive somehow, to impress his prospective bandmates. Determined to find something suitable, he rummaged through his drawers and wardrobe and came across a long-forgotten blue neckerchief. Maybe he could wear this to add a bit of rockabilly cred? He changed into the white T-shirt, tied the neckerchief on and looked in the mirror. Not bad, but the thin ends of the neckerchief were creased and wouldn't sit where he wanted them to. No matter how he tied it, they kept sticking upwards and tickling his cheeks when he turned his head. He took it off.

Next he turned his attention to the T-shirt itself. He'd seen loads of guys wearing them with the arms cut off. He liked this look and was pretty sure that _his_ arms were muscly enough to carry it off. So he fetched a blade from his art bin and set about removing them. Once finished he put the T-shirt back on and checked the mirror again. It looked good; the only problem was that his upper arms - which had so far been hidden from the sun this summer - were a striking white next to his tanned lower arms. Now what should he do? He couldn't sew the arms back on, and he doubted if he could get another white T-shirt in time for Saturday. _Bollocks_. He should have just left it. Maybe he'd be able to get some sun on his upper arms tomorrow or Friday so by Saturday he'd be tanned all the way up to his shoulders. This was do-able - the past few days had been sunny so maybe tomorrow would be too.

It was getting late and he could hear his parents coming up to bed, but his heart was pounding way too hard to even _think_ about sleep. Not knowing what else to do, he sat at his kit again, but playing was out of the question. Another walk perhaps? Another Consulate? No, he was still feeling the effects of the last one. He leaned out the window and waited until ten cars passed. Still not tired. Then he looked through his record collection again - maybe just listening to some music for a while would do the trick.

His record collection consisted of approximately one hundred singles and a dozen or so albums. The singles were a mixture of hits from the seventies and more recent punk or new wave offerings. As far as he could tell, he didn't have a particular _style_ of music that he preferred over all others. If anyone asked him what he was into, he replied "Anything, as long as it's melodic."

When it came to the albums, practically all of them were 'Best Ofs' and borrowed from (and yet to be returned to) his parents: The Best of Cliff and The Shadows, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Frank Sinatra, The Hollies, Phil Spector and of course Eddie Cochran.

The Eddie Cochran album was placed at the front of his album collection, facing out into the room. He was by far the best-looking artist in the collection. It was an episode of Top of The Pops that first introduced Theo to Eddie. Tony Blackburn announced Sid Vicious' new single 'C'mon Everybody'. When the song started, Theo's father Roger peered over the top of his newspaper and exclaimed "Oh how marvellous!" He then called out to Theo's mum Sylvie, who was in the kitchen: "Darling! The Sex Pistols have done a version of 'C'mon Everybody'! Ha! It's almost as good as the original! How funny!" He then proceeded to tap his foot and sing along with Sid.

When the song finished, Roger asked Theo if he had ever heard of Eddie Cochran. When Theo said that he hadn't, Roger told him the sad story of how Eddie's life came to an end in a car crash just a couple of miles up the road. He was only twenty one at the time. So young. So much promise.

His dad lent him his _Best Of Eddie Cochran_ that evening. Theo listened to the original of 'C'mon Everybody' first. He instantly loved the trebly bass intro and the chunky acoustic guitar. He'd never heard anything like it. And when Eddie started to sing - well - _C'mon Everybody!_ He sounded so young, so full of energy. So much livelier than the dark, almost operatic warblings of Elvis. _This_ was the sound of being young! The rest of the album was just as good: 'Twenty Flight Rock', 'Something Else', 'Three Steps to Heaven'. Each song a two-minute nugget of pop perfection.

Some evenings, when he was particularly stressed, or just needed to be soothed by something familiar, he would play the album on his bedside record player, and let each song wash over him until he dozed off. Then the recurring _thunk!_ of the needle as the record revolved around it would wake him up in the middle of the night, and he would have to reach out of bed and switch the player off at the wall.

But on this evening, he did not wake up in the middle of the night - the _thunk_! was still there when the alarm went off the next morning.

# 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.

# 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.

# Chapter Five

Theo ran all the way and got home at two twenty. His dad was in the kitchen (thank God for that!).

"Dad, can you give me a lift to Chippenham? I've just been asked to audition for a band."

Roger was used to short notice and filling his Volvo with drums, so he put his coffee down and said he'd meet Theo out the front. Meanwhile, Theo ran to his room taking the stairs three at a time, and set about dismantling the kit. He folded down the cymbal stands and stuffed them into an old brown suitcase. The cymbals themselves were wrapped in bed sheets and the drums stacked up in twos so as to be easily transportable down the stairs. Once he'd done this Roger came up and helped him lug everything down to the car. In ten minutes they were ready to go. But by now Theo was drenched in sweat, and looking down at his armpits he realised that he had forgotten to put deodorant on this morning. There were big dark patches under his arms. The checked shirt would have to go. But he couldn't just wear the cropped t-shirt due to the tanning issue, so a new outfit was needed.

An image came into his mind of one of his favourite drummers - Clem Burke from Blondie. Clem always wore a black suit, with a white shirt and black tie. It was a look that Theo liked and he wondered if it might work for him now. He didn't own a black suit but he _did_ have a white shirt and a black tie. He fetched the shirt from his drawer. It needed an iron. Another look at his watch: two thirty. Five minutes of ironing, then they'd be away. The trip to Chippenham would only take fifteen minutes so in theory he could still make it for three o'clock. He ran to the ground floor and retrieved the ironing board from the cupboard under the stairs. The iron needed water so Theo rushed to the kitchen, the plug rattling along the floor behind him.

Once the shirt was ironed he rushed up to the bathroom, put some deodorant on and then put the shirt and black tie on. He checked the look in the mirror and was happy with what he saw. Now he felt ready, if a little flustered. But before leaving he grabbed his school rucksack, emptied it of all its contents and put his new drumsticks in it. He'd be needing the rucksack later.

Finally ready for his audition, he rushed down to the car where his dad waited patiently.

"Looking sharp buster."

"Thanks dad."

The roads were quiet and as they approached Chippenham. Roger made small talk, asking about the band. Theo told him the name: "Steal Guitars. Not 'steel' as in the type of metal but 'steal' as in 'to nick'". His dad liked it but wondered if the meaning would be lost on people unless they saw it written down. But then again, both spellings worked, Roger concluded. As they approached Sounds International, Theo turned to his dad:

"Dad, would you mind not calling me Buster or Sunshine in front of the others?"

His dad smiled. "Of course not. Are you still going to call me sport though?"

"Yup."

They arrived outside the music shop at five minutes to three. Perfect. He asked his dad to wait in the car and told him he just needed to check that he'd got the time right (in fact he didn't want his father to know that his trip was probably in vain). When he entered the shop it was empty apart from a group of goth-y looking girls admiring the guitars and laughing amongst themselves. The shop owner sat behind his desk and said hello as Theo walked in. The group of girls looked around and Theo could feel his face turning red.

Now he wasn't sure what to do. The audition was downstairs, and he could see the stairway leading downwards at the side of the shop. But should he just walk down or should he announce his intentions to the shop owner? He decided on the latter. But not quite sure how to phrase his question he just said "Umm, audition? Downstairs?" The shop keeper nodded in agreement and said "Good luck".

His heart began to race - this was it. Once he walked down those stairs he would set in to motion a chain of events that would either end with him drumming for one of the biggest bands in the area, or in crushing disappointment.

As he took the stairs down, the air began to fill with smoke. This didn't bode well as Theo wasn't great in enclosed smoky conditions - he needed fresh air with his cigarettes. He could hear chatter and the occasional guitar chord. He finally got to the bottom of the stairs and walked in to the cramped rehearsal space.

Both Heritage brothers towered over Theo's five foot eight frame. Lee wore a white shirt, black braces and a green cravat. Mark, the younger brother wore a white t-shirt and black Levi 501s, with a pack of Marlboros rolled up in the sleeve. Theo was pleased with his last minute decision to wear his own black and white outfit as it closely mirrored what the brothers were wearing. Mark was the first to see him:

"Are you Theo?"

Theo nodded eagerly, his most accommodating smile on his face. Mark introduced him to Lee and the fourth member of the band: the chubby double bass player, who Theo now learned was called Danny. He wore a denim jacket and dark jeans with thick turn-ups - no worries about the Status Quo look here. He held on to his double bass with both hands and nodded in Theo's direction.

Lee turned to his brother and said "He's a bit young isn't he?"

Mark turned to Theo and said "I dunno, are you?"

Theo told them that he was sixteen, which seemed to appease them.

Theo looked around the practice room. As he originally suspected, there was a drum kit already set up. Now he needed to let his dad know that he was surplus to requirements.

"Um, excuse me," Theo said, "I've just got to go and tell someone something." He ran up the stairs and out of the shop to his father's parked car. He told Roger that he wouldn't be needing the drums after all and that it would have been nice if the band had told him that there was a kit already here, to which Roger rolled his eyes in agreement. Theo told him not to wait; he wanted to go into Chippenham centre after the audition to have a look around the shops and would get the bus back.

He ran back across the road, into the shop (disturbing the goth girls again as he did so), down the stairs and into the cramped rehearsal room. He apologized for his momentary absence, took his rucksack off and sat on the drum stool. The kit in front of him was an old Gretch 4-piece comprising a 20-inch bass drum with a single tom-tom mounted on it, a floor tom and a snare. The heads of the drums were dirty and knobbled, clearly on the verge of breaking through. The cymbals were old, their logos long faded. Theo guessed they were Paiste by their shape and colour. He quickly adjusted he heights and locations of various parts of the kit, gave the snare a quick _TAP TAP_ with his new nylon tipped sticks and awaited further instructions.

Lee Heritage looked at him, taking a long drag from his cigarette. "So, what music you into then?"

"The Clash, Eddie Cochran, some punk stuff, rock n roll," Theo replied. "Anything really, as long as it's melodic. And loud." He hoped his name-checking of The Clash wasn't seen as a too-obvious attempt to ingratiate himself.

"A-ha!" said Mark, looking at his older brother "an Eddie Cochran fan!"

Lee stubbed his cigarette out on the pub-style carpet. "Right then" he said, "Brand New Cadillac. Again."

He began the Duane Eddie-style guitar, and then the rest of the band, Theo included, joined in

BAM!

BAM BAM!

BAM!

BAM BAM!

This was it. The new nylon-tipped sticks gave Theo's drumming a nice crisp sound, especially on the ride cymbal. He felt right at home. Steal Guitars were a tight unit; the double bass player provided intricate, rambling bass lines over which the Heritage brothers' guitars sounded sharp and precise. Lee's vocal was as close to Joe Strummer as you could get. The song was over before he knew it.

Mark looked his way. "Fuck you're loud," he said.

Tthanks," Theo replied, although he wasn't sure if this was a compliment or not. He looked down at the kit and noticed that there was a fresh rip in the snare drum skin.

He watched as Mark took off his guitar, walked over to Lee and whispered in his ear. He was pretty sure he heard the words "by far." Lee half-shrugged, half nodded.

Mark turned to Theo:

"You've got the gig. You were miles better than anyone else."

A broad grin spread across his face and he thanked his new band mates for the opportunity. Mark asked if he'd mind staying a while longer to jam along to a couple of their own songs. Theo said sure. The songs were standard rockabilly stomps that required a simple train beat which Theo performed with aplomb. The rip in the snare drum got gradually bigger, and he had to use the smallest tom in its place.

When the session finished, Mark told Theo that he would call him soon to arrange rehearsal details, and to give Theo a tape of all their songs. There would be several band rehearsals before the Moles gig. Luckily these rehearsals would take place in the evenings as the other members of the band had day jobs, so Theo didn't have to worry about missing school.

He thanked Mark and Lee again and left them to pack up their gear. As he left the shop, he looked around for the goth-y girls, hoping they might have been there to witness his triumph, but they had gone. He looked at the guitars they had been admiring. He didn't understand how people could get so excited about guitars. No way were they as much fun to play as the drums. As he left, he wondered if he should offer to pay for the torn snare skin, but thought better of it in case the owner said yes.

Although he had told his dad that he was going to go into Chippenham town centre to wander around the shops, that wasn't his intention. Instead he headed towards an off-licence by the train station that served under-age drinkers. He had been going there for about a year now. He bought a four-pack of Holsten Pils and twenty Consulates. Once out of the shop, he put the fags and booze into his rucksack, and caught the bus back home.

# Chapter Six

Before opening the front door, Theo stashed the booze and fag-laden rucksack in the bush in the front garden. He then quietly opened the door and checked for inhabitants. There didn't seem to be anyone between him and his room on the second floor, so he retrieved the rucksack and ran up the stairs as quickly as he could and hid it underneath his bed. His parents knew he drank (and probably smoked, although he wasn't sure about that), but he thought it was best to keep these things out of sight if at all possible.

Once he'd secured the bag safely, he went down to the ground floor where he assumed everyone would be. His mum, dad and brother Jon were just sitting down to a dinner of homemade pizza.

"Oh dear, you don't look too chipper. How did the audition go?" his father asked.

Theo often got told he looked miserable, even though he wasn't. He ignored the comment and treated his family to as large a grin as he could muster.

"It went well actually dad, they offered me the job there and then."

Both parents congratulated him wholeheartedly, and his brother looked up from his food.

"Who you playing for?"

"Steal Guitars"

"No way! I thought they broke up?" When it became clear that they had not, he continued: "Well done! So all those years of your noise pollution have finally paid off?"

"Yup" Theo replied

"Cool. I'll buy you a beer later. You going to the White Hart?" Theo nodded that he was and both brothers tucked into their pizzas.

After dinner, Theo phoned his best friend Pete and found out that most people were meeting at the fountain at eight o'clock. Pete asked if Theo would he like to come round to his for a few beers first, but he declined saying that he had a couple of things to do first.

It was now seven o'clock. Time to get ready to go out. For Theo this meant two things: music and alcohol. He went up to his room and reached under the bed for the four-pack of Holsten Pils. But before he opened the first can, he wanted to get his outfit for the evening sorted, so that he could relax with the beer. He decided to keep his white shirt from the audition on but lose the black tie. The jeans would be fine too, and he opted to bring the Harrington out of retirement despite its potentially uncomfortable nature. Feeling that the outfit needed a bit more colour, he put on the blue neckerchief that he'd tried the other day and found that if he tucked the ends in to his unbuttoned white shirt they would not stick up and annoy him.

Pleased with the look, he reached for a beer. He made a coughing sound as he opened the can, in case one of his parents was walking past his room at that particular moment. He took a long gulp and winced as the sharp, bubbly liquid made its way down his throat. Now to choose some music. His current favourite (and most recent purchase) was 'China Girl' by David Bowie. He lined the single up on the Panasonic Music centre and turned the bass up as far as it would go. He took another long swig as the guitar intro started. Then then the song kicked in proper - he could not quite believe the drum sound on this record. It was so... _chunky_. Was this a special type of drum kit, or had something been done to the sound in the studio?

He followed China Girl with another great drum track: Ant Music by Adam and The Ants. The rumbling _Drr-rum-dum de dum de dum dum de dum de de dum_ of the massed tom-toms on the chorus was one of Theo's favourite things in the whole world. He sang along to the chorus and took swigs from the can during the verses. He had now finished the first can, so he reached under the bed for the second. Again he coughed to cover up the _psst!_ of the ring pull. After another swig, he began playing singles randomly: 'Echo Beach', 'Hit me With Your Rhythm Stick', 'Memphis Tennessee', 'Tiger Feet', 'Just Can't Get Enough', 'Strange Little Girl', 'Bye Bye Baby', 'Do You Remember Rock n Roll Radio'...

Once can number four was emptied, he turned off the music centre, hid the empties under the bed (he would have to dispose of them later) and told his parents he was going out. He relayed this information by shouting at them from the corridor as opposed to entering the living room where they were watching TV. This method ensured they were unable to smell the alcohol on his breath, and he was less likely to slur his words at shouting volume. Once he'd heard their response of "have a nice time" he left the house and walked towards the fountain, this time without the aid of cigarettes (the four cans of Holsten Pils having emboldened him enough).

When he arrived, none of his friends were there. He assumed this would be the case; they would not have waited for him and would have made their way to the White Hart by now.

He found everyone at the pub, and explained his no-show at the fountain by saying that he was celebrating with his family. When they asked what he was celebrating, he told them that he was now the drummer for Steal Guitars. His friend's response was disbelief followed by congratulations and he accepted pats on the back and pints of lager all round. Once beer had been bought, they moved to the back room to watch the band - a heavy metal outfit from Trowbridge called Crowd Pleazer.

While the band was playing, he looked around the packed venue. The pub attracted all age groups, and it wasn't unusual to see school friends, school teachers, and parents of friends all here at the same time. None of his crowd had come with their girlfriends this evening, so he was in an all-male group. This always annoyed him, as he loved the excitement of having girls around. He hoped there might be some other girls here that he knew, perhaps even his ex, Janet. It might be kind of cool to tell her about his Steal Guitars triumph.

After the band had finished, Theo and Pete headed outside to get some fresh air. Theo was lighting up a Consulate when he noticed the tall equine figure of August Wells heading towards him, accompanied by Justin, the New England Planets' drummer. Theo's heart pounded, causing him to blush. If August noticed, he was too polite to say anything.

"I just heard about the Steal Guitars! Congrats man!"

Theo smiled and thanked him. But before he could say anything else, Justin interjected:

"What do you want to play for those assholes for?"

"Jesus Justin, don't be a twat" August said, a look of admonishment on his face. He turned to Theo: "Don't mind him; he's just a bit pissed and a bit jealous. Anyway can I buy you a pint?"

Theo looked at his pint, which was about two thirds full.

"No thanks, I'm fine"

"Oh, okay, no worries. You haven't seen my girlfriend around anywhere have you?"

Theo wasn't aware that August had a girlfriend at the moment, and felt a stab of jealousy. He said that he hadn't. With that, August patted him on the shoulder, congratulated him again and wandered off with Justin.

A sudden bolt of incredulation came over him: he had just turned down the offer of a pint from August Wells. _For fuck's sake!_ What was he thinking? That pint could have led to him and August hanging out together for the entire evening! Theo would have offered him a pint in return, so that would have been _at least_ an hour they could have been together. How many times had Theo wished that he and August would strike up a conversation? And when it happened, Theo turned him away!

Now he was annoyed. He'd spoilt his night of triumph by being his usual slow-thinking, unsociable self. And now he came to think of it, what did Justin mean about Steal Guitars being wankers? Or was it assholes? Lee might have been a bit stand-offish, but Mark seemed okay. Theo hoped that Justin's rudeness might have annoyed August enough for him to start looking for another drummer. Imagine that: if Theo got offered the job as the New England Planet's drummer as well! What would he do? Would he rather play for the Planets or the Guitars?

This reverie restored his previous good mood and Theo left his friends to go for a wander. He often went off on his own, preferring not to be constrained by whatever conversation his friends were having. But when he didn't see anyone he knew, he went to the bar to get another pint. As he queued up (two rows of drinkers in front of him) he thought about Janet. He hadn't thought about her for a while. For weeks after their break-up he did nothing else _except_ think of her. He could have found a cure for cancer with the amount of brain cells he wasted thinking about her, he mused as he edged his way forward.

Janet had been a friend of Pete's last girlfriend. Theo traditionally tended to go out with girls whom he had some sort of established link to. He dreaded the notion of _chatting up a girl_ from scratch, so he tended to migrate towards girls who already knew him in some context. This ploy worked well, but once you had made your way through your existing social network you were left with few options. You had to make new friends to get new girlfriends.

The problem with chatting girls up wasn't necessarily having the nerve to do it, but having anything to actually _say_ beyond the initial "hello, my name's Theo, how are you?" He didn't seem to possess (or thought he didn't possess) the necessary easy manner to just make up small talk as he went along. He tended to panic, saying too much too quickly and then stammered to a halt.

He knew August Wells would never have this trouble. August seemed to be able to talk to anyone. But wasn't that one of the advantages of being good-looking? That people are more likely to be responsive to what you are saying? _Oh how Theo longed to be good-looking!_ How easy life must be! You could walk into any room and instantly be the centre of attention. You wouldn't have to say anything interesting, or anything at all for that matter. People would just gravitate towards you, and smile readily at you, willing you to engage them in conversation.

Maybe that's why Theo had such trouble with chatting up. He believed that his looks on their own weren't enough to make up for his conversational stumblings. Even now, with the four cans of Pils from his at-home drinking session, and several pints at the pub, Theo didn't feel suitably courageous to chat up one of the many girls here tonight. So now he stood at the bar, alone. And soon it would be closing time. If he was going to meet anyone it would have to be now or not at all.

The White Hart seemed to have an extra-ordinarily large catchment area - people would come from as far as Bath, Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge to watch the bands and drink. So you often saw girls here that you never saw walking around Lyncombe. Theo caught site of a couple of such girls now, standing by the ladies toilets, one of them lighting up a cigarette and the other putting a stick of chewing gum in her mouth. The girl with the chewing gum looked a bit younger than Theo and was short and heavy-set. She had cropped hair and a pretty face, tanned skin and wore a loose-knit electric blue mohair jumper over a white vest. When her friend was putting her cigarette packet back in her bag, the girl looked over at Theo and he held her gaze for as long as he could, his face reddening as he did so. She stared back, but was it a look of defiance or interest? He looked away, unsure what to do next. After a minute or so (and after he could feel the heat in his face diminishing) he looked back at her. She was talking to her friend, but kept looking his way. He was pretty sure she was interested.

He decided to just finish this pint and then go over and introduce himself. He'd worry about the small-talk when he got there. But just as he downed the pint, a middle-aged man wearing green cords and a brown jacket walked up to the two girls. The smoker hastily put out her cigarette and smiled apologetically at the man. After some heated exchanges, the chewing gum girl said goodbye to her friend and left with him. Her father, Theo assumed. Why didn't he move earlier? He could have got her phone number by now. He was too sodding busy staring.

But this girl was undeniably pretty, and perhaps it _wasn't_ too late. He put his pint down and ran out of the pub on to the High Street. He looked around and saw her getting into the back seat of a large estate car. Her father closed the door for her and got into the driver's seat. As the car chugged to life, Theo stood in the road and watched it head down the High Street. The girl looked back through the rear window. Not knowing what to do, he blew her a kiss. She blew one back and smiled. She really did have a very pretty face.

The kiss (albeit a remote one) filled him with indescribable joy. Too excited to do anything else, he ran all the way home, thinking in equal measure about the chewing gum girl and August Wells.

# Chapter Seven

Theo didn't get hangovers. He woke up at ten o'clock the next morning perfectly refreshed and went downstairs to the living room. Both parents were reading sections of The Observer, and he could hear low-level music coming from Jon's room: Stevie Wonder's _Songs in the Key of Life_.

He made himself a breakfast of cornflakes followed by toast with marmalade and a cup of tea. So; on the agenda today was a lunchtime gig for Blues Train, followed by a wander down into Box valley to scope it out as a possible location for his art A-level coursework. In the meantime, he had Sunday morning to get through. This was his least favourite part of the weekend. Time seemed to stand still. And it was so... _quiet_.

When he had finished his breakfast he took the colour supplement of The Observer back to his room. He sat at his desk sipping his tea and leafing through the magazine. There was an article on women's volleyball. The article featured lots of photographs of women in their outfits. One photo was an action shot of a woman smashing the volleyball over the net. Her short skirt was raised up revealing muscly tanned legs and black knickers. The girl was stocky but pretty. She reminded him of the chewing gum girl from last night. He took the magazine to the bathroom and thought about her some more.

Shortly after, the phone rang. It was Mark Heritage. He wanted to give Theo a tape of the Steal Guitars set list for the upcoming gig at Moles. They arranged to meet at the White Hart later - Mark would come along and watch Blues Train and then hand over the cassette. The gig at Moles was on a Thursday four weeks from now. The band intended to practice twice-weekly until then, to get the set list as tight as possible. Steal Guitars were using this gig as a calling card to get a record deal - they had arranged for a film crew to record the gig (made up of students from the nearby art school) and had sent sent out invites to A&R men from all the major and minor record labels they could think of. The gig was being fly-postered heavily around Bath, Bristol, Chippenham, Lyncombe and the surrounding area.

At noon, Roger gave Theo a lift to the White Hart and helped him unload the drum kit from the car to the pub's stage. Theo always enjoyed being in the pub before 'the general public'- it gave him an enormous feeling of importance. He set up the kit the way he liked it - with each drum as far apart from the next as it could be. Theo felt that this offered more of a spectacle for the audience - to see Theo's sticks whizz from one drum to the next and then smashing into the too-high cymbals. He hated it when drummers just sat there immobile; with only the occasional cymbal wobble to remind you that they were there. Far better for the drummer to be a blaze of activity, spurring the other musicians and the crowd to move along with the music.

Once the kit was in place, he watched as the other musicians set about tuning their instruments. Drinks were ordered at the bar but Theo declined - he only liked to drink if he didn't have anything else to do for the rest of the day, and drumming required all his concentration. He treated himself to a Consulate though, watching the white smoke (much whiter than the smoke from regular cigarettes) waft up to the White Hart's darkly stained ceiling.

The Blues Train set list consisted of standards from blues greats like Stevie Ray Vaughan, BB King and Buddy Guy, as well as more accessible songs from Derek & The Dominoes, Led Zep and Steely Dan

Like most blues bands, the standard of musicianship was high, and each song had long complex solos from either Tim on lead guitar, Bob on keyboards or Geoff on bass. Theo had resisted all calls for him to do his own solos though - he found drum solos to be rather tedious and besides, he often got muddled and lost his footing when he tried them. Instead he made do with complex fills and rolls that broke at key moments in the other musicians' solos. At the end of the gig he always got a pleasingly loud cheer from the crowd when he was introduced.

But Theo had a problem, and it was one that was worrying him now. Although he knew himself to be an excellent drummer, he often had difficulty knowing exactly when to _stop_ drumming. Especially in the long, meandering numbers that Blues Train specialized in. When Theo had first joined the band, he would keep the beat going when all the other players were slowing down towards the song's end. So a system had to be devised: Geoff, the bass player, would turn to look at Theo and nod at him as the final couple of bars began. Theo could then begin to wind the song down. Clearly he didn't want to keep the beat going when Mark Heritage was watching, so he double-checked with Geoff to be sure to nod his way when the songs were ending.

By 1pm the pub had started to fill nicely. The gig began with the traditional opener - Dust My Broom by Elmore James. Theo could see the odd disgruntled punter annoyed at having his peace shattered, but by and large the audience was appreciative. He played at half power, knowing that if he were to hit the drums at full whack there would be complaints to the landlord. But as the set progressed, the band got steadily louder until by encore time, they were blaring on all cylinders.

Another good thing about playing the drums was that you could sit there and just people-watch. As he played, Theo stared out at the scene in front of him: the lunchtime booze-hounds at the bar, the couples and their Sunday roasts, the loners nodding along, and of course his bandmates. He marvelled at their middle-aged forms: the paunchy stomachs, the balding heads, the scruffy facial hair. All wrapped up in corduroy trousers and short-sleeved shirts from Marks and Sparks. No way would he ever let this happen to him.

About half way through the gig, Theo spotted a leather-jacketed figure arrive and make its way towards the bar. Mark Heritage. He was holding hands with a girl in a flowing white dress and long blonde hair. The girl seemed quite hippy-ish, which surprised him.

He watched as Mark ordered himself and his girlfriend a drink, at which point Geoff looked back at him with a stern look on his face - he had started to play faster without realizing it. Once he had recovered, he felt confident enough to try some even more daring fills than usual and was gratified when he saw Mark look his way and raise his pint glass in appreciation.

After the gig Theo made his way to the bar where Mark was waiting for him. His ethereal girlfriend seemingly gone, at least for the moment.

"Nice set man."

"Cheers" replied Theo.

"There were some great numbers in there. We should do more bluesy stuff really, but it's just not that popular at the moment. I mean among _our_ fans, they want stuff you can pogo to."

Theo smiled and nodded in agreement but couldn't think of anything to say.

Mark sparked up a Marlboro and reached in his jacket pocket and brought out a couple of cassettes. He held up one: "This one has got our set list on. The other..." he held up the other tape, "just has the drum parts which we recorded at a four-track studio recently." Theo took the tapes and thanked him. Mark finished off his pint and told Theo again how much he enjoyed the gig. As he left he said "Thanks again for helping us out."

"No problem." Theo watched him all the way to the exit.

So the afternoon trip to Box valley would have to go on hold - he had some drumming to listen to. Theo took the two tapes home and played them on the Panasonic music centre. Some of the songs were cover versions ( _Kansas City, Get Off my Cloud, Brown Eyed Handsome Man_ ) but most of them were original songs with names like _Freight Train Blues, Denim Baby, Bar Room Brawlers_ and _Rocket Girl_. Par for the course for Rockabilly songs, Theo guessed. The music was straight-forward compared to the Blues Train set: each song had the same fast tempo and consisted of an intro, a verse, a chorus, a second verse, a second chorus, a middle-eight (usually a guitar solo), a third verse and then an outro. Most songs came in at just over two minutes.

Because the formula for these songs was so simple, Theo was certain that he'd be able to follow them through all the way to the end and know exactly when to stop. None the less, he listened to the songs several times throughout the afternoon until he knew each one back to front. He even learned (and wrote down) the lyrics so he'd know when the first and second verses were being sung. Although the musicianship was perhaps inferior to the Blues Train standard, these guys certainly knew how to get the best out of their instruments: the double-bass had a wonderfully _boingy_ sound to it, as if it were being played underwater; the guitars had a real clarity and there seemed to be no effect pedals of any type to embellish the sound (in fact the guitar playing reminded him of Eddie Cochran's style). The drumming seemed fairly workman-like; a train beat pounding away on bass drum, snare drum and the occasional ride cymbal.

Next Theo listened to the drum-only tape. It started with a metronome ticking away and then the drum beat began. It sounded strange just hearing the drumming alone - you kept expecting the other instruments to join in at any time, but none did. The beat kept going - _thump-di-whack, thump-di-whack, thump-di-whack_ \- regular as could be. Topper Headon would have been impressed. After eight bars a new sound joined the snare drum. At first Theo assumed it was a tambourine, as this would have been a standard embellishment when the chorus began, but the more he listened, the less convinced he became that it was a tambourine. The sound was familiar, but Theo was certain that it wasn't a standard percussion instrument. He listened to more of the drum-only tracks, and there again in pretty much every song was the same sound. Like a tambourine but not a tambourine.

He sat at his kit pondering the strange sound - _Chink Chink_ \- what _was_ that? And then it came to him; so blindingly obvious! Any drummer would know that sound! It was a hand tapping loose change in a pocket! How many hours had Theo spent tapping out rhythms using coin-filled pockets as substitute snare drums? And now someone was actually using that sound on a record (or a demo at any rate). How cool! Theo was filled with admiration for the ex-Steal Guitars drummer, and wondered for the first time what had actually happened to him.

Given the Heritage's reputation for brawling, Theo wondered if there had been a fight that ended with the ex-drummer battered and bruised in a pub car park somewhere. Is that why Justin had asked why he wanted to drum for "those assholes"? Maybe everyone knew that Steal Guitars were notorious drummer beaters!

But even if this were the case, it didn't trouble Theo. He knew that he would never get into a fight, not with the Heritage brothers or anyone else for that matter. Trouble of that nature seemed to avoid him. His friends constantly told him of beatings by older kids, either at school or on the weekends, or scraps with youths from the various council estates peppered around Lyncombe. But Theo had never even _seen_ a fight, let alone been involved in one. In fact, Theo almost believed that such things didn't happen. Once, a year ago, he'd been threatened by a notorious local youth with tattoos on his hands and face. The youth demanded money and Theo responded that he didn't have any, holding the youth's gaze as he did so. All his friends assumed that Theo would get a smack in the face but instead he just said "Well make sure you have some next time I see you". Theo said okay, turned his back and walked away. And that was that. Since then, Theo assumed that physical violence would simply pass him by.

Besides, Mark seemed to genuinely like him. He had been pally at their lunchtime meet - congratulating him on the gig and saying hi to the rest of the band. He was a charming young man. Lee was a little more aloof, but Theo imagined that some unspoken brotherly bond would mean that Lee wouldn't rough up someone that Mark liked.

# Chapter Eight

Theo had been playing the drums since he was twelve years old. One day, his brother had brought a pair of drumsticks home from school. The second they were left unattended, Theo picked them up. They immediately felt like a natural extension of his hands. It seemed to Theo that as soon as you held a drumstick in your hand, _everything_ was a potential instrument: chairs, pillows, floors, pots, walls, anything at all. Drumsticks seemed to be a passport to an unlimited rampage of _hitting stuff._

He created a drum kit of pillows arranged on the living room three-seater sofa. He used the left arm of the sofa as a hi-hat and placed a pillow on the sofa seat directly in front of him to act as the snare. He put a further two pillows on the top of the backrest to act as the tom toms. He would sit kneeling on the sofa hitting the pillows for hours on end, plumes of dust rising into the air. After several weeks of this (Theo's brother never did get the sticks back), the pattern on the sofa had faded to nothing, and it was completely dust-free. If he wasn't hitting the sofa, he was tapping out rhythms on his bedroom desk, his angle-poise lamp, his window sill.

When it became clear that he wasn't going to stop, his parents embraced the drumming fully and encouraged him as much as they could. First his mother made makeshift drums by pulling grease-proof paper over saucepans, keeping the paper in place with rubber bands. Then, a practice pad was bought - a tapered block of wood with a six-inch wide rubber circle in its middle that had the same rebound as an actual snare drum. An enquiry to the school's music department established that drum lessons were available. Theo enrolled and was soon being marked 11/10 by his ex-military bandsman tutor. From then on, birthdays and Christmases brought more drums and cymbals until the kit was complete. The various drums had been different colours originally but Theo had painted them all matt black as he bought them, and unless you looked closely, the kit looked homogenous.

Perhaps a psychiatrist might have had something to say about a musical instrument that built a wall between the player and the rest of the world. But Theo did not think of the kit as something to hide behind. To him it was like sitting at the controls of an aircraft or space ship. The drum kit was his vehicle, and only he knew how to power it. Here he constructed the framework that the music was built around. It annoyed him when people described drummers as not real musicians. _We are the most real_ , he would think to himself. We provide the _beat_. We are the _source_! Everything is built around _us_!

-

By the time the first Steal Guitars rehearsal came around, Theo knew the material inside out. He decided to replicate the 'pocket of change' sound by adding a tambourine to his hi-hat. He worried that his kit was starting to look a bit shabby, so he bought new Remo heads for a couple of his toms and gave the whole kit a wash down and the stands a polish until the kit gleamed like it was in a music shop window.

Theo enjoyed rehearsals even more than gigs. He liked the relaxed atmosphere, and the improvisation - trying out new songs or jamming established songs in new ways. The Blues Train rehearsals took place on a Tuesday evening and were Theo's favourite part of the week. The venue for the rehearsals was Tim Grattan's garage on one of the more well-to-do estates built on the outskirts of Lyncombe in the early 1970s. The garage was adjoined to the main house by a door through to the kitchen and it felt like a natural extension of the house. The garage was permanently vehicle-free; the family's car being consigned to the driveway. Instead the garage was home to a cacophony of Marshall amps, music stands, guitars, keyboards and a couple of square metres of thick shag-pile carpet for Theo to set his drum kit up on. The walls were plastered with posters advertising long-past gigs: Eric Clapton at Finsbury Park, Dr Feelgood at the Colston Hall. There was even an original poster from 1970 advertising the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music with Led Zepellin and Pink Floyd on the bill.

In one corner lived the family freezer, and next to it an ancient fridge filled with wine and lager. Tim's wife often joked that the rehearsals were just an excuse for Tim and his buddies to sit around and drink. After all, they knew these songs like the back of their hand. Tim responded that they needed to practice for Theo's sake - someone so young couldn't possibly be versed in the blues and needed all the help he could get. Theo was happy to be the brunt of this particular joke, the role of being the youngest was one that he was well used to.

The age gap between him and the rest of Steal Guitars was much narrower, which meant he'd be less likely to be pandered to. This worried Theo slightly as he was terrible at communicating adequately with new people of his own age. His shyness meant that he often came across as aloof and snobbish. He decided to counter his natural inability to make conversation by just being as polite as he possibly could. He knew politeness went down well, no matter where you came from.

The Steal Guitars auditions were to take place in St Michael's church hall on the outskirts of Chippenham every Wednesday and Friday evening. Theo disliked church halls; they always smelt musty and were always cold. As ever, Roger helped Theo unload his kit from the car into the venue, making sure not to use any pet names for his son in company. They were to practice in one of the ante rooms at the side of the church proper. The room was used for coffee mornings and playgroups during the day and was decorated with murals depicting stories from the bible. There was a small kitchen in one corner, stacks of chairs and tables along one side of the room, and blue multi-stained carpet covering the floor. In the evenings the room was lit by harsh strip lighting hung from long wires attached to the high vaulted ceiling.

Once Theo and the rest of the band were ready they kicked off the rehearsal with 'Brand new Cadillac'. The acoustics were not as good as at the Sounds International rehearsal space, and everything sounded angular and sparse. Theo's drums seemed too high in the mix, and he saw Lee glaring in his direction a couple of times as they played. When the song finished, Mark took off his guitar and left the room. He came back holding two dark red cushions, presumably taken from the pews in the main church. He laid one inside Theo's bass drum and then unzipped the other one, took out the padding and gave the cover to Theo.

"Put this on the snare" he said. Theo did as he was told.

"Okay, let's try it again," said Mark. With the padding, Theo's drums weren't nearly as loud. The acoustics were still pretty awful but at least now all the instruments were the same volume. They worked their way through the set list in the same order that it appeared on the cassette that Mark had given Theo. The simple intro/ verse/chorus/ verse/ chorus/ middle-eight/ chorus/ outro format gave Theo no problems and he finished each song exactly on cue. In between tracks he pulled his bass drum back into position and gave the nod to Mark that he was ready for the next song. No nonsense, just 1-2-3-4 rock n roll, played with precision and speed.

Unlike the Blues Train rehearsals, Steal Guitars rehearsals didn't have much of a social aspect to them. There was very little chat between songs, and there seemed to be no variation in the way the songs were played, with no improvisation in solos or vocals. Maybe because the band was headed by two brothers who knew each other so well, conversation was not needed. But perhaps more surprisingly, none of the band members drank or smoked the whole time. This amazed Theo. With their reputation, he was expecting crates of beer and joints to accompany the sessions.

With the songs being so short, the rehearsal was over in no time. The band packed their kit away and lugged it out to the front of the church. The Heritage brothers had a white van and they loaded theirs and Danny's amps into the back. Once the loading was complete, Lee got into the front of the van while Mark stayed at the rear. He put on his leather jacket and sparked up a cigarette. He offered one to Theo who accepted; even though he knew it would make him feel sick later (the strip lighting in the church had already given him the beginnings of a headache). Mark congratulated him on the session, saying he played well. Theo thanked him profusely in return, saying how strong he considered the material to be. Mark thanked him again and took a long drag from his cigarette. Mark said nothing further so Theo made an exception to his usual rule and started a conversation himself.

"Hey, I listened to that drum track you gave me. Really good drumming. I was trying to figure out what that sound was on the choruses. It's not coins is it?"

Mark's eyebrows popped up. "You noticed that did you? Ha! Yeah, our drummer didn't have a tambourine and we couldn't afford to buy one, so when he was laying down his track I just stood next to the mic and tapped my pocket. Works well doesn't it? We might use it when we make the record."

"Cool" Theo said. He wanted to ask what had happened to his predecessor but was afraid that he might hear an answer he didn't like, so he kept quiet. Mark stubbed out his cigarette and said that he had to get going. He offered to give Theo a lift but Theo said that his dad would be along soon.

"Okay, see you same time Friday". With that, Mark got into the passenger seat of the van. Theo stubbed out his barely-smoked Marlborough and tapped out a rhythm on his trouser pockets as the van drove off.

# Chapter Nine

The school term started to wind down. Study periods and mock exams, quizzes and visits to local businesses. Afternoon lessons were skipped in favour of bus rides to Bath to hang out in the cafes at the top of town and gawp at the High School girls.

The Steal Guitars band practices continued every Wednesday and Friday, the atmosphere lightening slightly from the first session, but still very business-like compared to the Blues Train sessions. Did the Heritage brothers actually _like_ each other, Theo wondered? But then again, Theo didn't exactly talk that much to his own brother. Maybe all brothers were like this.

Theo thought of the chewing gum girl constantly and hoped he would see her on one of his frequent visits to the Fountain in the evenings. Then, two weeks after first seeing her at the White Hart, he got his chance: he was walking towards town as a bus pulled up at a stop in front of him. He passed the bus as the passengers got off, and he was sure he saw the flash of an electric blue mohair jumper bounding down the stairs from the top deck. His neck refused to turn however, and he kept walking, too panic-stricken to look back. Then he could hear footsteps very close behind him, and they sounded like they could belong to a rather heavy-set teenage girl. He was sure it was her. Why couldn't he just turn to look? And if it _was_ her, say "Hi, remember me from the other night?" And that would be that - he and the chewing gum girl would be an item.

The footsteps followed him for what felt like an age, but he just did not have it in him to turn. Then, when he finally got to the safety of his friends at the fountain and _did_ look, she had gone, if indeed it was her at all.

Apart from the beginning of the summer holidays, Theo was looking forward to the twin peaks of his debut gig as drummer for Steal Guitars at Moles, and the New England Planets gig at the White Hart. The Planets' gig was on the same day as the last day of school term, and Theo and his friends had already arranged a pre-pub session round at Pete's where bottles of Holsten Pils would be consumed, along with a quarter of red Leb - as long as Pete's older brother could come through on his promise. Theo and his friends had each contributed a fiver towards it.

Theo hadn't seen August Wells since the Saturday a couple of weeks ago when August congratulated him on becoming Steal Guitars' drummer. August had been absent from the Fountain too, possibly he was revising - he had heard a rumour that Wells was sitting the Oxford entrance exam. Theo felt a stab of jealousy when he heard this. How dare Wells start planning for a life outside of Lyncombe! But it also made Theo acutely aware of his own indecision about what to do once his A-levels had been sat.

He had had meetings with the schools' careers adviser, but these meetings always ended with the advisor trying to steer Theo away from trying for University on the grounds that his grades probably wouldn't be good enough. In his most recent meeting Theo floated the idea of studying to become an architect - a career path that had caught his eye in a recent careers tutorial - but the advisor had warned that a science or maths A-level would be required. Clearly this would be a problem as Theo was only studying art, history and geography. But he _did_ have maths and technical drawing O-levels; surely that would be enough? The careers advisor didn't seem to think so. The teacher had tried to suggest alternate careers or other ways that a person could be involved with buildings, if that was what interested him.

"Like what?" asked Theo.

The careers advisor thought about it. "Well, people are always going to buy and sell houses, so there will always be a need for estate agents. Especially around here with all the excellent housing stock in Bath."

Theo had never heard houses referred to as "stock" before, and the phrase intrigued him. The good thing about estate agency as a profession, the careers advisor told him, was that he would have more than enough qualifications, once his A-levels had been completed.

Theo mentioned the conversation with the careers advisor to his father when he got home that day. Roger's eyes seemed to light up when he mentioned it. One of Roger's old friends from the sixties was now a successful estate agent in Bath. He had been to the house a few times when Theo was little, but they had lost contact, as friends tend to when careers and families come along. If Theo wanted, Roger was pretty sure he could get him some work experience at his firm. Theo thought about it. His chat with the careers advisor hadn't really gone into that much detail about what estate agent's did, other than help people buy and sell a house. But what would the job actually entail? Theo assumed it would be a nine-to-five job, which alarmed him, but on the other hand, he _also_ assumed that a fair amount of that time would be spent showing people around houses. So you'd be out of the office for large chunks of the day. Theo decided that he was interested.

His dad made the call to his old friend, and a week's work experience was tentatively booked in for some time in the summer holiday. With this in place, his parents asked him what he was hoping to do with the rest of the holiday. He told them that he was really keen to work on his sketching and get a decent portfolio of drawings together for his art A-level. He felt the need to get out into nature and draw, whether that be scenes of people at work, or just landscapes. "And then, once I've mastered drawing, I'll be able to make the move to oils." His parents had looked at each other with raised eyebrows, but had agreed that a summer of artistic pursuits wouldn't be a bad thing. They'd be happy to provide for him financially over the holiday as long as he was serious about the artwork and attended the estate agent work experience.

Theo had worked in part-time jobs in one form or another since he was twelve. First a Sunday morning paper round to help pay for the blossoming drum addiction, and then evening jobs in local restaurants. Because of his proven track record as a worker, and his continued good grades at school (not to mention the fact he wouldn't be going on an expensive foreign holiday during the break), this financially-backed summer of sketching was something that his parents felt he deserved. A sum of £150 was discussed to see him through to September. As long as he didn't buy any expensive clothes, or new drums, this should be more than adequate.

The final day of the summer term started with a school assembly followed a double form lesson in which reading lists for next year's classes were handed out. By eleven o'clock the requirements of the day had been met. Some people left early but others - Theo and his friends included - stayed in the common room playing music and chatting until the canteen opened for lunch. The sixth formers took it in turns to play music on the record player: new releases from Pink Floyd, New Order, Aztec Camera, Echo & The Bunnymen. Theo had brought his Eddie Cochran _Best Of_ album in, and put 'Three Steps to Heaven' on the turntable when 'The Cutter' by Echo & The Bunnymen came to an end. The second the song started he knew it was the wrong thing to do. There were groans around the common room as the decidedly old-fashioned song began, and suddenly Theo felt embarrassed. He loved this music, but compared to the songs that had been playing up until this point, his choice felt totally out of place. Everyone had old favourites in their collection, but now wasn't the time to air them - this music session was about what was popular _now_. His awkwardness lasted for as long as the song itself and he breathed an inward sigh of relief when it finally came to an end. Several of his fellow students cheered. He responded by saying "Yeah yeah, you'll all be listening to this one day".

"Whatever you say granddad, whatever you say." one of his fellow pupils replied.

After his final school dinner of the school term, Theo briefly returned to his home room to say goodbye to his form teacher. His plan for the afternoon was to go to Bart's Bazaar in Bath to see if he could find a new jacket; something a bit smarter than his usual style (he had given up hope of finding the GI jacket, at least for now). As he walked through the empty corridors, he spotted his careers advisor, Mr Lordham, packing up his things in an empty classroom. Feeling sociable he popped his head around the corner.

"Hello sir!"

Mr Lordham looked up."Oh, hello" he replied, clearly unsure to whom he was speaking.

"It's Theo Hanlon, we spoke about a career in estate agency".

"Oh yes!"

"Well I spoke to my dad about it and he has a friend who works for an estate agent in Bath, and they've sorted me out with a placement over the summer."

"That's excellent news Hanlon, well done! Which agency is it?"

Theo wasn't exactly sure. "Um, Farout and something."

"You mean Cabot Farr?"

Theo nodded that he did.

"Well that's a result," continued Mr Lordham, "a very high-end firm that; they sell a lot of the Georgian town houses in Bath. Well done again!"

This encouragement bolstered his already good mood and he hoped to continue it with a successful shopping trip. The afternoon was hot, so he stopped off at home first and changed out of his school clothes into his Wranglers and a Siouxsie & The Banshees t-shirt. He took some money from the top drawer of his desk and took the bus to Bath.

Bart's Bazaar had just received an arrival of new stock in time for the weekend. Rows of second-hand suit jackets were squeezed onto rails in the crammed market place. Theo rifled through; lots of large checked jackets in lurid blue or red, or black dinner jackets with satin lapels. But then he came across a lovely beige sports jacket, made from linen with narrow lapels, a breast pocket and satin lining. The price tag said £4.99. Expensive for a second-hand jacket, but this one was in pristine condition and Theo knew it would be gone by tomorrow. The fit was perfect, so he bought it and found a white Fruit Of The Loom t-shirt, to make up for the one previously vandalized.

On the way back through town towards the bus station he stopped in the Abbey churchyard to look in the window of Cabot Farr. Mr Lordham was right - all the houses for sale did seem to be pretty "high-end": Royal Crescent flats, or large stone farmhouses set in acres of land. Most of the properties commanded high five-figure sums. Theo looked into the office beyond the window to see if he could make out anyone who might be his dad's friend. But he could only see a middle-aged woman (a secretary perhaps?) and a man in a shiny suit laughing into a telephone.

-

There was no booze in the house that evening so Theo had to get ready without it. He didn't put any music on, as he wasn't intending to hang around in his room for long. He quickly put on the new jacket over his Banshees t-shirt from this afternoon (after rolling fresh deodorant on his armpits), ran some more Black & White through his hair and left the house one hour before he was due to be at Pete's for the pre-pub drinking session.

He walked to the centre of Lyncombe to look in the windows of the town's two estate agents. The 'stock' on offer wasn't up to the standards of that seen earlier in the offices of Cabot Farr. These were modern two-storey houses commanding lowly prices in the fifteen-to-twenty thousand pounds bracket. There were some nicer houses for sale in the outlying villages and these seemed to go for nearer forty grand. He tried to get an idea of what his own house might be worth. Judging from the prices he'd seen this evening, he assumed it would be worth about thirty. A stone-built, three storey house near to the town centre? That's got to be worth a few bob. Maybe he'd ask his parents what they paid for it.

Once he'd exhausted the windows of the estate agents, he started walking slowly towards Pete's. His friend lived in a similar house to his own, on one of the main roads in and out of town. As he walked he looked out for 'for sale' signs, and was surprised how many of them there were. Were there always this many, or was this a popular time of year to buy or sell houses?

He arrived at Pete's at ten to seven. Pete's mum answered the door and told him that Pete was up in the attic room and several of his friends had already arrived, along with Pete's older brother and some of his friends. Theo climbed the stairs up to the third floor. Pete's room was on the second floor, but the house had a large converted attic area that was used as a general chill-out area by Pete and his siblings. As he approached the doorway to this attic space he could hear music pumping away - Stiff Little Fingers he was pretty certain. He opened the door and was greeted warmly by his friends and Pete's brother, who was playing a game of snooker on the half-size table with a guy that Theo didn't know.

He took a can of Hofmeister from a cardboard box in the middle of the room and sat on the floor, his back against the wall. He chatted easily with his friends, discussing plans for the summer and taking turns to put music on the stereo (he made sure to keep his choices contemporary this time). Cigarettes were smoked and the windows opened to allow the resulting fumes to waft into the night. After half an hour or so, Pete's older brother left the room and returned a couple of minutes later.

"Right, they've gone," he said, and reached inside the pocket of his leather jacket to pull out a small dark lump wrapped in cellophane. He unwrapped it to reveal a perfect brick of red Leb. He cleared a space on a glass-topped coffee table and set about rolling a couple of three-skinned joints. Someone put _Metal Box_ by Public Image Ltd on the stereo, and the joints were passed around.

Theo had tried various drugs in his sixteen years - coke, speed, amyl nitrate, weed. He enjoyed them all, but nothing made him feel as relaxed, as jovial, or as _cosy_ as alcohol, preferably in the form of a four pack of Holsten Pils or a litre of white wine. But everyone else seemed to rate this marijuana stuff, so he thought he would give it another go. One of the joints came his way, passed to him by an older girl with thick black eyeliner and a trilby perched on her head. He thanked her and took a long drag, holding it in for as long as he could. The drag felt smooth, which meant that he'd taken a big hit of the Leb itself. He took one more drag, this one more tobacco-heavy, and passed the joint on. Once he exhaled, he took another gulp from the tin of Hofmeister. He remembered one of his friends telling him that smoking weed and drinking at the same time was like "pissing into the wind", but Theo didn't see why he couldn't do both at the same time. No drug was good enough to make him abandon alcohol.

The music continued, the bass line making the speakers of the stereo rattle. He finished his can and got up to take another. He was glad to sit back down again; the hit of tobacco from his last drag had made him feel slightly ill. More joints came his way, and he inhaled from them all, some with the harsh kick of tobacco, some with a smooth caress of Leb. When half of the nugget has been consumed, Pete's brother wrapped it back up in the cellophane and put it back in his jacket pocket.

He looked to his left and saw trilby girl smiling at him. It looked as if she was waiting for him to say something. "Excuse me" he said, "Did you say something?"

"I was just wondering if you...."

_So she is speaking to me!_ thought Theo. This pleased him enormously. An older girl, talking to him! But whilst he processed this information, he forgot to listen to the rest of her sentence. And then she was laughing; her head tipping back so her trilby lifted off her head as its rim touched the wall. This reminded Theo of something he had once seen in a Laurel and Hardy film and he supressed a giggle. Did she finish her sentence? Theo wasn't sure so he nodded his head enthusiastically and said something back to her. But what did he say? All he could remember was the final word of the sentence: "stock", which he seemed to have said in an enquiring manner, as he could see a question mark in his head. Did he really speak or did he just think he did? If so, what was the rest of the sentence? Stock. He couldn't remember. He thought about asking the trilby girl if he had said anything, but she seemed to have disappeared. Theo was feeling confused. It was quite funny though, so he laughed some more.

He heard talk about making a move to the pub, the time now being eight o'clock. Theo wasn't sure if this information was being told to him direct, or if he was just picking up from other people's conversations. He looked around and saw Pete putting his jacket on. Oh right! It _is_ time to leave! Where did he put his new jacket? _Did I actually take it off_ , he wondered? He looked at his arm to establish that he was still wearing it. That's one less chore, he thought. But now his head felt incredibly heavy, like it had been filled with lead through the earholes. The effort of keeping it above his shoulders was proving to be too much to take. He needed to be horizontal, _now_. He saw an unused beanbag in the corner of the room, and with much effort managed to make it off the hard floor and onto the horizontal world of the beanbag. His friends asked if he was okay.

"Fine, fine," he answered "Just need relax. You chap ahead, I'll follow minute". Pete said this was cool and asked him to make sure he closed the front door behind him on the way out. He listened as his friends walked down the stairs, their chat and laughter gradually diminishing as they reached the ground floor. "See you in a bit then," he said to the now empty room. Then he heard the front door slam and he was totally alone. "See you in a bit".

Maybe the Leb and the booze wasn't such a good idea after all. He lay as far back on the beanbag as he could and looked at the ceiling. The PIL album had finished, thank God. He found it a bit dark and sinister and it wasn't helping his mood at all. To redress the balance he started singing Three Steps to Heaven quietly to himself.

The lightness of the melody banished the discordant PIL album from his mind. His singing gave way to simple humming. This seemed to help keep the nausea at bay. He sat alone in silence for five minutes or so, the molten lead gradually oozing from his ears. Once his head felt its natural weight again, he lifted himself out of the beanbag and stumbled towards the record collection to find something to listen to as he readied himself to join the others in the pub. Most of the records were rock or heavy metal - Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy, ZZ Top, Rush, Genesis, Kiss. But there was some punk stuff too, including _No More Heroes_ by The Stranglers. Jon had this album and Theo really liked it. He picked it up and looked at the track listing: 'I Feel Like A Wog', 'Bitching', 'Dagenham Dave', 'English Towns'...

He remembered particularly liking 'English Towns', so he lined up the song on the stereo and helped himself to the last can of Hofmeister. The effects of the Red Leb had more or less worn off, and he was relieved to have his thirst for lager back again. He turned the volume up to full and glugged from the can. A single muffled snare drum beat filled the room and then the song began: juddering bass line, roaming keyboards - melodic and fearsome at the same time. And then Hugh Cornwell started to growl. He couldn't quite make out what he was singing about, presumably how boring life in English towns could be. The song ended with the refrain _No love in a thousand girls_ repeated again and again.

A thousand girls. That seemed an awful lot, even for a rock band. How Theo would love to be with a thousand girls! But would he even _talk_ to that many girls in his entire life? He doubted it, the way he was going.

The song came to an end. He lifted the needle off the record, finished the can of Hofmeister and ran down the three flights of stairs and out into the warm night air, forgetting to close the front door behind him.

-

By the time he reached the White Hart he felt remarkably sober. Maybe this was what was meant by "pissing in the wind" - the weed and the alcohol cancelled each other out. But he was happy to start at zero again, now that the second part of the evening was about to begin. Conscious of the fact that he'd been drinking other people's booze all evening he found his friends and offered to buy a round. After taking orders, he fought his way to the bar and ordered six pints, which he managed to ferry from the bar to his friends' table in two shifts. The bands usually came on stage at 9.30pm, so after the first round had been drunk, Theo and his friends made their way to the backroom where the gigs took place.

When they got to there, a dozen or so girls were sat cross-legged in front of the stage. More people stood in groups, drinking and waiting for the band to start. Instruments were already in place on the small stage, a sound-check having been performed an hour or so ago. Andy Ross was the first to climb on to the stage. He picked up his guitar and tuned it, not stopping to acknowledge the audience in any way. Low-level applause came from elements of the crowd. Then the drummer and bassist jumped up onto the stage and busied themselves with their instruments. Then, with a cigarette in one hand and a pint of lager in the other, August Wells took to the stage. He was wearing his traditional checked-shirt/drainpipe jeans combo. His hair looked a little more unkempt than normal, but he greeted his fellow band-mates with a warm smile and then spoke into the mic:

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen". There were some wolf-whistles and jeers from the crowd, along with some random shouting and laughter from the back of the room.

August continued: "We are The New England Planets. Right then, let's proceed in a swift and orderly manner, so we can all get home by 11 o'clock to watch The Guns of Navarone on ITV."

There was laughter from the crowd, mainly from the female contingent. "This is a new one, written by Andy. It's called Paradise".

August nodded at the drummer, who clicked his sticks together four times and off they went. The song was loud and fast, and like with most songs when you hear them for the first time, Theo couldn't really make out much of a melody. The song was over quickly and was received with not over-enthusiastic applause. The Planets continued, mixing cover versions with their own songs. The originals tended to be tentative and mid-paced, with long intros and guitar solos. Cover versions included 'The Logical Song' by Supertramp and a ten-minute long version of 'Sloop John B' by The Beach Boys. They also played some more up-to-date covers including recent chart hits by Big Country and U2.

The band was a tight unit, and the guitar playing by both Andy and August was exceptional in Theo's opinion. But he wasn't so impressed by the rhythm section - there seemed to be little spark coming from either bassist or drummer. The bassist spend much of his time with his back to the audience, his head hunched over so he could better see the fretboard of his too-big bass. And the drummer just sat there - no expression on his face and no movement at all. How dull! You don't have to act like Animal from The Muppets, but at least move _a little bit_ , let the audience know how much fun you are having. Theo was sure he'd do a better job of drumming for the Planets than the damp squib that was Justin.

After they'd been playing for about thirty minutes or so, they took a short break, taking gulps from pint glasses and sparking up cigarettes, whilst some of the audience went to the bar. Theo had about half a pint left, but he accepted the offer of another one. He asked Pete to get some crisps while he was at it, as he was feeling unusually hungry.

Pete came back with two pints and six packets of Nick Naks; three Worcester sauce flavour and three cheesy. They tucked in to the crisps with venom as the band readied themselves to continue. August took to the mic again: "This next song is by one of my favourite bands. We haven't played it before, I hope you like it."

Off mic he shouted out "1-2-3-4" and then a barrage of sound hit the room. Descending power chords blared out, backed up by snare and cymbal assaults. Over the top, August's high-pitched lead guitar chimed the same descending notes as Andy's rhythm guitar. Theo recognised this powerhouse of a song immediately, but what was it? A punk classic surely, by someone like The Undertones, or The Ruts.

Then Wells started to sing: _Oh you silly thing..._

Of course! It was Silly Thing by The Sex Pistols! Theo had this on single; it was one of his favourites. The song was originally on _The Great Rock n Roll Swindle,_ and had been released as a single by Steve Jones and Paul Cook after the Pistols broke up.

Theo couldn't believe that this was one of August's favourite songs too! It was one of the Pistols best songs in his opinion, and it seemed to have been all but forgotten. Trust August Wells to give it the credit it deserved! Another verse and another chorus flew by and then the song moved into its middle eight. This part of the song was spoken rather than sung and Wells stopped playing his guitar and pushed it onto his back. He knelt down by the side of the mic stand, holding on to it with one hand. Theo had seen Iggy Pop do something similar on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Wells was now at the same level as some of the girls in the front row, some of whom screamed or pretended to faint. He continued to speak the lyrics whilst eying the girls and occasionally leaning out into the audience to high-five an admirer.

After the middle eight, the song exploded into the same power chords as the intro, and Wells brought the guitar back round and riffed over the top; a siren filling the packed room. Sweat poured from him, and he appeared to be wrapped entirely in his own world, his eyes closed, his fingers communing effortlessly with the fretboard _. Oh to be on that stage! Oh to be August Wells!_

The song came to an end and Andy took the mic and said "Thanks for that", unplugged his guitar and walked off.

Wells and the rest of the band accepted the generous applause and took swigs from their drinks, as the house lights came up.

"They were pretty good tonight" Pete said, watching the crowd slowly dissipating.

Theo nodded his head in agreement, too star-struck to comment further. He gathered his thoughts and offered to go to the bar, saying he'd pick up a few more packets of the strangely addictive Nik Nacks while he was at it.

He made his way through the crowded room. And there she was, in front of him at the bar. Of course she'd be here tonight. Of course, of course. Chewing gum girl is here tonight, of course, of course.

She wore a black plastic mac and a black beret, and she was (or appeared to be) alone. Theo watched as she looked to her left and right, presumably searching for her friend from the other night. She then looked around and her eyes met Theo's. She looked away too quickly, the trace of a smile on her face. And Theo knew that he might be in with a chance.

There was movement at the bar; punters got served and spaces presented themselves. Chewing gum girl took her place at the bar. Another space became available next to her. Theo had no option but to take it. He moved up to the bar and stood next to her. He could smell the PVC of her black raincoat. He moved his head cautiously to the left to look at her, ready to smile if need be, trembling inside, but she was looking the other way. Next he heard "Yes mate?"

The barman was looking at him. "Um, I think she was first" he said, nodding towards chewing gum girl.

"Yes love?" said the barman. Chewing gum girl looked round at him briefly before placing her order.

"Pint of lager shandy please."

She's a drinker, _thank God!_

"Are you over eighteen?" asked the barman.

"Yes."

He looked unconvinced. Chewing gum girl held his gaze. Theo saw an opportunity to strike:

"She is. She's in the same year as me."

Then he realised that he's just admitted that they were both at school, and therefore more than likely under age.

The barman looked at them both and smiled. He went away shaking his head. Theo thought he had well and truly blown it, but then the barman started to pull a pint.

"Ha!" said Theo, not knowing what else to do.

Chewing gum girl smiled in a resigned fashion and looked away.

He _had_ to talk now, or he never would. Luckily, the music in the pub was loud, so if he projected his voice just right, only chewing gum girl alone will hear his feeble efforts, and not the rest of the pub: "So do you live around here?"

She looked at him. "Atworth."

Theo had never heard of it. It could be in Yorkshire for all he knew.

"Oh, right. That's near here yeah?"

"About four miles away."

"Oh right."

This was how things usually went for Theo - the girl faced a barrage of mundane questions and then wandered off to talk to someone else.

But then the barman came back with her pint. And she did not wander off. Theo ordered himself a pint and sparked up a Consulate. He offered her one but she shook her head no. A smoker _and_ a drinker would have been too much to hope for. Theo asked her name; "Martine" came the reply. Theo asked where her friend from the other night was "Over there with some bloke," she said, her eyes rolling as she spoke.

Now he had nothing to say. _Really_ nothing to say. He felt his silence projecting towards her, a force that was bound to repel her, but she stood her ground. Not only that but she _smiled_ at him. The smile was generous and true and full of expectation. She really was undeniably pretty underneath that black beret. She took a sip from her drink.

"Would you like to go outside?" She asked.

Theo was not sure about outside. There was no music out there. All mistakes get amplified. He'd rather be in here with the noise and the cigarette smoke and the music and the chat. But then again; outside with _her_ , with chewing gum girl - that's got to be worth trying.

"Sure."

So they went outside to the fountain and sat on its stone surround. There was faint music coming from the pub, enabling Theo to relax a bit. They sat in silence for what felt like an age, and then Martine hocked some phlegm into her mouth and spat it into the fountain. Theo was impressed by her trajectory. He did the same. They had a spitting competition to see who could spit the furthest. Martine won.

"Can I have a cigarette now?"

_This girl gets better and better_ thought Theo. He gave her a Consulate and took one himself. She put her hand in his. It was warm and clammy. Blood rushed to his groin.

They finished their drinks and cigarettes.

"Do you have a pen?"

"No."

"Well my dad's number is in the book. It's K Walker, College Road Atworth."

She looked down the road. There was a car coming. She pecked him on the cheek.

"Here comes dad. See you soon."

With that she walked towards the car. Theo watched as she got in to the rear seat. The car turned around and drove off, but she didn't look out the rear window this time.

# Chapter Ten

The next day Theo took a bus to Paradise Garage in Bristol. He needed something new to wear for the Steal Guitars gig at Moles, which was now less than a week away.

Paradise Garage was situated near the bus station, in a subterranean shopping arcade sandwiched between a dry cleaners and a branch of W H Smiths. There never seemed to be any other customers in the shop when Theo visited, which unnerved him. How did this place stay open? But the female sales assistants were always friendly, unlike the staff at Flip.

The clothes here were new and tended to be expensive - brothel creepers, leather trousers, cheesecloth shirts, mohair jumpers, teddy-boy suits. Theo wasn't interested in (and couldn't afford) anything like that. But he was always on the look-out for a decent shirt or t-shirt to add to his collection.

He perused the rails. Lots of punky stuff and band t-shirts. He liked the look of a t-shirt with a large photo of John Lydon on but then saw a white t-shirt with a Japanese rising sun on it. The shirt had its sleeves already cut off. Theo instantly liked it. He checked the size: it was Large. Theo was traditionally a Medium, and knew that this would be too big. But there didn't seem to be a medium on show. He could ask the shop assistant if there was a medium in stock of course, but what if she said no? That would be that. No new t-shirt. Far better to try the Large on.

As predicted, it was too big. But surely you could alter a t-shirts' shape in the same way you can turn flares into drainpipes? All it would take was a pair of scissors and a needle and white thread. So he bought the t-shirt for £9.99. It would be perfect for the Steal Guitars gig at Moles, once he had got the top of his arms brown.

-

Theo's plan for the following Monday, the first day of the summer holiday - this estate agent-ing, sketching, drum-playing summer holiday - was to get up at 7am, cycle out to the country (taking his sleeveless white t-shirt with him in order to get the tops of his arms brown should it be sunny), sketch scenes of rural life until lunchtime, come back home, have lunch and then practice the Steal Guitars set list in the afternoon.

He thought about Martine constantly throughout the weekend. He had looked up her number in the telephone directory as soon as he got home on Friday night: K Walker, College Road Atworth, just as she said it would be. The K in question being her rather stern-looking father Theo presumed. He resisted the urge to phone her straight away.

Instead he played his drums, saw his friends, ate his food, drank his beer, but always one very large part of his brain was thinking of that short heavy-set girl with the undeniably pretty face. The urge to phone her persisted over the weekend, but he told himself he had to wait until Monday night, which seemed to be just the right amount of time since their last meeting.

On Sunday evening he set his alarm for 7am. The forecast for the next day was for sun, and he planned a route out towards nearby Monkton Farleigh where he knew there to be several working farms. Plus the countryside out there was "rolling", offering plenty of opportunity for landscapes should he fall short on the rural labour front.

He lay in bed leafing through his various Van Gogh books. Such vivid colours in those oil paintings! Then he looked at the earlier drawings. These were set in the bleak, flat landscape of rural Holland and featured peasants on their hands and knees, working the fields. Did farm workers get on their hands and knees these days? Theo wasn't sure. Everything would be automated surely? Maybe a drawing of a combine harvester ploughing the fields was more likely.

Van Gogh's landscapes seemed different in style to his later paintings, less intricate. They almost looked like they could be woodcuts - thick swirling black lines against white paper, with almost no shading whatsoever. This style was different to Theo's more photographic sketching style, but he resolved to try and copy it, to see if it would free him up creatively.

Once he had leafed through the Van Gogh sketches, he had a quick look at the volleyball-playing women of The Observer magazine, then put Side A of Eddie Cochran's Greatest Hits on his bedside turntable and turned out the light.

The alarm woke him at 7am. He put a hand out to turn it off, and at the same time turned on his bedside radio. Mike Smith was introducing the first record of the day on his Radio 1 breakfast show. It was _Don't Try To Stop It_ by Roman Holiday. Fantastic! An upbeat song, and a perfect way to start the day. But the next thing he heard was Simon Bates introducing Our Tune, which meant that he had fallen back to sleep and it was now eleven o'clock. Good God, what a waste of a morning! But if he got up now, he could...

Then the Newsbeat music woke him up again at twelve thirty. It was now the _afternoon_ on the first day of this summer holiday. His eyes felt hot, his lids heavy. He was miserable, and disappointed with himself. Why on earth couldn't he get up? He did it for school without problem. He finally managed to get out of bed and made his way solemnly through the silent house to the kitchen, where he made himself a lunch of egg on toast. Once finished he got dressed, and not even in the mood to play the drums, wandered down to the fountain where he found Pete and a few of his other friends. He was quiet and sullen and spent most of his time in silent contemplation of Martine and the impending phone call. But the day was sunny, so at least he managed to get some colour on his upper arms.

At dinner, his parents asked him how the first day of the holiday had been. Unable to lie, but also too ashamed to tell the truth fully, he said he had felt incredibly tired and must have been suffering from some sort of summer cold, and that he slept it off and felt much better now. His parents seemed to accept this version of events. Sylvie offered to check on him in the morning, but Theo said there would be no need, he was feeling much better now.

He decided that seven thirty pm would be the optimum time to call Martine - most families would have eaten dinner by then, plus his brother would more than likely be out, and his parents would be safely ensconced in front of the television. So to kill time until then he went to work on the rising sun t-shirt. He used scissors to cut the seams from the waist to below the armpits, then cut about an inch of material from each side and sewed it back up again. The t-shirt bunched slightly under the arms, but not so much that you'd notice. The only problem now was length - it came down to his crotch and he preferred his t-shirts to come just below the waist. He knew he didn't possess the necessary skills to create a new hem, so he just cut as straight as he could, knowing eventually that the fabric would unravel. This gave the t-shirt a punky, homemade look that he quite liked.

He looked in the mirror and was pleased with the results. So much so that the bad mood that had been with him since his abortive attempts to get out of bed this morning had now disappeared. He checked his watch: seven twenty five. Now would be a good time to phone Martine.

Would she like to come to the Steal Guitar gig at Moles? That would be a good question to ask her when she answered the phone. But she wouldn't answer the phone would she? It would be answered by a mum or a dad or an older sister. They would ask "Who is it?" and he would say "Theo from the other night" and he would hear them shout out "Martine! It's Theo from the other night!" and he would hear a distant "Oh God, not _him_ " and then a long wait as she took the receiver in her hand. " _Yes_?" she would say in a clipped, annoyed voice.

But hang on a minute, she asked _him_ to phone _her_. So that was something...

He looked in the phone book again. K Walker, 56 College Road, Atworth, 0249 701___. Would Martine even be allowed out on a Thursday? Theo had no idea how old she was. Fifteen? Sixteen?

He dialled the number. It started to ring and he knew he was locked into another forward chain of events. The easiest thing to do would be to hang up, then there would be no forward chain, and he could go back to thinking how perfect the last time he saw her was. But maybe the forward chain would be just as perfect. So he let the ringing continue. _Ring ring, ring ring!_ He was prepared to give it three more rings, and then hang up. The third ring came to an end. There was clearly no one home.

But then of course the phone was answered:

"Hello Atworth 701___?" A man's voice.

"Hello", Theo replied, trying to sound older than his sixteen years, "can I speak with Martine please?"

"Who is it?"

"This is Theo from the other night."

He heard the man shout out: "Martine! It's Theo from the other night"

But then a derivation from the imagined script. He heard a faint and upbeat "Coming!" followed by a sort of _thumpa-thumpa-thumpa_ which he imagined to be the sound of a rather heavy-set teenage girl running down stairs.

"Hello?" Her voice on the other end of the phone.

"Hi, it's Theo from the other night." The more relaxed "Hi" deviated slightly from the more formal "Hello" that he imagined he would begin with, which he took as a sign that things were going well.

He continued: "Um, how are you?"

"I'm okay!" A giggle. Theo imagined holding her hot sweaty hand.

"Cool. Um, I'm playing at Moles on Thursday evening with Steal Guitars and I wondered if you might like to come along?"

Theo heard Martine shouting out: "Dad, can you drive me to Moles on Thursday?... Yes, it will be finished by eleven... I'm tidying my room now... his parents are really nice..." And then to Theo: "Yeah, why not?"

They arranged to meet at Moles at 8pm. Theo would wait for her outside the venue and get her in on the guest list. Martine's dad would then pick her up at ten thirty.

So it happened! A date with Martine! The undeniably pretty girl in the black PVC raincoat was meeting him on Thursday! Now that he was seeing her on the same night as the gig, he felt less worried about the actual gig itself; it was almost as if it was something that he had to sit through (literally) until he could be with her afterwards, drinking at the bar.

With these arrangements in place, Theo felt that things were back on track. He was sure he'd be able to spring out of bed tomorrow morning get a good day's sketching done. But to be on the safe side, he decided to place his alarm clock as far away from the bed as possible, so that he would have to physically get out of bed to turn it off. Once out of bed, there would be no point in getting back in.

The alarm went off at 7am the next morning. He got out of bed, turned it off, got back into bed and went back to sleep. His mum came in to check on him at 8am - she opened the curtains and kissed him on the forehead, after which he fell straight back to sleep. He woke again when a chink of sunlight fell across his face. He looked at the distant alarm clock: ten thirty. Jesus, not again! He turned the radio on: an oldie from Abba. Then he fell back to sleep again, woke up to Our Tune, then fell back to sleep, then woke to the new Kim Wilde song, then fell back to sleep. Then he heard the Newsbeat music and it was lunchtime again.

Filled with self-loathing, he managed to get out of bed and walk downstairs to the empty kitchen. Beans on toast. Another wasted day. His eyes again felt hot and heavy, his limbs slow and lethargic. Is this what too much sleep does to you?

Once dressed he grabbed an A3 sketch pad and pencil set, but too miserable to contemplate a trip to the countryside, he walked instead to the bottom of the garden. He looked back at the house - tall, elegant, creaking with ivy, an apple tree in front of it, a blue sky behind it. Bath stone gleaming in the sunlight. Not a bad view. He spent an hour and a half drawing the house and was pleased with the results. Now that he'd got into the spirit of drawing, he wanted to do more. He was sure that he would be able to get up early tomorrow and make it out in to the country.

At dinner, before the final Steal Guitars practice session, his parents once again asked him how his day went. Unable to lie even slightly this time, he told them of his complete inability to get out of bed. His parents sympathised and Sylvie said she would make absolutely sure he was awake before she left for work the next morning.

With his upper arms now appearing to be the same shade of brown as his lower arms, Theo proudly wore the rising sun t-shirt to the Steal Guitars band practice later that evening. After a final run-through of the set-list, the Heritage brothers went through the timetable for the upcoming gig on the Thursday. When asked what he was going to wear, Theo said "this!" which caused the brothers to look at each other with frowns on their faces. Mark politely noted that the t-shirt was more punk than rockabilly, and would it be okay if he just wore the white shirt and black tie he had worn to the first audition? Theo was disappointed now that his arms were finally ready, but he said he would.

The next morning, Theo's alarm clock (now back at its original bedside location) went off at 7am. He turned it off, put the radio on and went back to sleep. At 8am, Sylvie entered with a breakfast tray consisting of a cup of tea, a bowl of cereal and two slices of white toast with butter and marmite. She placed the tray by her son's bed, opened the curtains, opened the window, said "rise and shine", kissed him on the forehead and left for work. Although slightly dazed, Theo was able to sit himself up in bed and eat the breakfast. Once he'd finished it, he was ready to get up.

In a day's time, he'd be performing in front of a _paying_ audience, at a gig which could lead to _his_ band possibly landing a record contract. He felt a certain forward trajectory taking over, almost as if he were in the back seat of a car driven by someone else. Needing to regain control he checked the drum kit. He re-tuned the skins and gave the kit quick wipe down to make sure it gleamed as much as was possible.

Once this had been done, he decided that now really was the time to get out into the country and sketch. He assembled his art kit: Derwent pencils ranging from HB for preliminary outlining to 4B for shading (he assumed he'd be making heavy use of this one to emulate Van Gogh's woodcut style); Staedtler rubber; Stanley knife for sharpening; and sketching paper. Traditionally he used an A3 sketch pad, but this did not fit in his backpack, which was problematic as he was planning to travel to the countryside by bike. Not possessing an A4 pad, he took pages from the A3 pad, and folded them in half, then placed the paper between two bits of cardboard, and placed it into his backpack.

He retrieved his old ten-speed bike from the garage and set off towards nearby Monkton Farleigh. After twenty minutes of mostly uphill cycling, he found himself on the hills above the small hamlet. Theo soon realised that signs of activity on a farm are difficult to spot, at least from a distance. He cycled past field after field but could see no workers - on their hands and knees or otherwise. Or any combine harvesters for that matter.

Perhaps the thing to do would be to cycle to a farm house and ask if it would be possible to sketch the activity within. But Theo wasn't the sort of person who felt he could _ask questions_. What if they were to say "No!" and laugh as he walked away? What if they were to say "yes" but then stand behind him and watch as he sketched? How did Van Gogh resolve these problems? He assumed Van Gogh was shy like him, but to be an artist takes a certain amount of ...guts. You've got to stand there and say "I am an _artist_. _This_ is what I do!" But now, standing here on the sunny slopes looking out over the valley below him, he didn't feel much like making any sort of statement. Perhaps he could just do some landscape drawing instead.

He cycled for a further ten minutes until he found a vantage point that had an interesting enough view for a study. But when he started to sketch, he found it difficult to emulate the stark, woodcut-like style of Van Gogh. It was so alien to Theo's own precise, realistic style. He found it difficult to transform the complexity of what he saw into Van Gogh's chunky black lines. He looked down at his effort so far. Although it bore no relation to what he'd hoped to achieve, he was cautiously satisfied. He dated the drawing: 3rd August 1983. He started to feel hungry and set off for home.

The house was empty when he got there. He fixed himself a lunch of beans on toast and listened to Radio 1 while he ate. Afterwards, he was about the head upstairs to his bedroom to peruse the now well-thumbed Observer magazine article on women's volleyball when the phone rang.

"Hello 701___"

"Is that Theo?"

Theo's heart pounded. A girl's voice.

"Yes."

"Hi, it's Martine."

His eyes widened and his cheeks flushed. Martine! Phoning him in the _daytime_! Theo didn't remember giving her his number. Maybe he mentioned his surname and she just looked him up in the book. She took the time to look him up!

"How are you?" he managed to say in response.

"Do you want to come over to my place?"

Of course! Of course! "Sure!"

She told him how to get to her house in Atworth: take the number 72 bus from the Newlands Road stop in Lyncombe and get off when you see the church in Atworth. Martine's house was in the cul-de-sac opposite, number 56. She told him that the buses went on the half hour.

He looked at his watch, it was now quarter past one, and so he said he'd try to get on the one thirty. He quickly washed his armpits and groin, applied some deodorant, changed into his rising sun t-shirt, grabbed some money from the top drawer of his desk, put some Black & White through his hair and ran out the door, making sure he had his house key in his jeans pocket.

Theo disliked buses, and avoided them whenever he could. Their smell and motion made him feel sick. He much preferred to walk. Martine had said that Atworth was about four miles away - walkable, but Theo did not know in which direction, so for this journey he would have to rely on the bus. It was twenty-five past by the time he got to the bus stop, and he checked the timetable. But the 72 did not go to Atworth, it went to Devizes instead. _Oh_. Maybe Martine was playing a trick on him. He felt flustered, but looked at the timetable again in case he'd got it wrong. This time noticed that there were the names of other towns printed in a less prominent typeface before the main destination listed on the right of the timetable. So the bus stopped at these places _before_ it got to the final destination - Theo understood it now! He looked again for Atworth and found it on the route. He had never looked at a bus timetable before - the only buses he ever got were to Bath or Chippenham, and he's been getting on these with his parents or older brother since he was small.

Five minutes later the number 72 arrived. He got on and asked for a single to Atworth. He decided against the return ticket as he wanted to walk back, and anyway, he didn't want his afternoon to be dictated by the timetable of a bus. He sat near the back (but not too near the back in case some rough kids got on) and looked out the window as the bus began its journey. But instead of heading out of town, it spent ten minutes trawling around the housing estates of Lyncombe picking up the occasional pensioner or mother with pram. He'd been on the bus for fifteen minutes before it even left the town limits. But once away from the estates, the view out the window became much more pleasing: wheat and barley fields; distant copses of trees; farmhouses. As he rode, his mind wandered and he started to think of scenarios that may await him when he arrived at Martine's: she would be there with her family and they would all sit down to lunch; there would be friends of hers there that he didn't know; they would sit in the front room and watch TV; they would play Monopoly. He thought on and on, dispelling older brothers and giggling sisters as he went.

But then his mind meandered back to the bus journey and the fact that he did not actually know where he was going. All he knew was that Atworth was about four miles from Lyncombe and had a church in the town centre where the bus stopped. Judging from the bus timetable, Atworth was about half way to Devizes. But Theo did not make a note of when the bus was meant to arrive at Atworth, so he had no way of knowing where he was on the journey. Had he just passed through a town? He thought so. Was there a church? He couldn't remember. He looked behind him and saw a hamlet disappearing from view. Was it Atworth? He kept looking back, hoping to pass a "Welcome to Atworth" sign, but there wasn't one.

The bus was now back on a main road and starting to speed up. Theo took this as a sign that it would be a while before they entered another town. _Why does this always happen_? He asked himself. Why can't I just _pay attention?_ He clenched his fist and jolted his head forward as if to head-butt the back of the seat in front. This sudden jolt must have caught the eye of the bus driver who shouted out "Atworth wasn't it?"

"Er, yes" Theo replied, his face reddening.

"We just passed it."

"Oh right, thanks." Theo sighed. What would he do now? How long would it be before the next stop? Would he have to pay more? But then the bus slowed down and came to a stop at the side of the road. The few passengers left on the bus turned to look at him.

"Do you want to get off then?" the bus driver asked.

"Oh, right. Yes please" replied Theo, his face now burning brightly. He skulked past the driver and thanked him without daring to meet his eye.

He ran all the way back to Atworth and found the church easily enough. Opposite there was indeed a cul-de-sac called College Road. He walked up it looking for number 56. It was right at the end, older than the other houses in the street. It looked like it may have been an old rectory. There was no car in the driveway, which Theo took as a good sign. He walked up the path to the front door and rang the bell. He heard a dog bark and scamper towards him. Then a girl's voice "Down Blackie, sit _down_!" The door opened and there was Martine, holding a large black Labrador by the collar.

"Come in."

She was wearing a dark green roll-neck jumper, a pleated skirt, black socks and a pair of daps. It almost looked as if she were wearing some sort of school uniform. Certainly very different from the clothes he had seen her wear previously. Theo walked into the cool hallway and followed as she shepherded the dog towards the kitchen at the back of the house. He could hear no other voices in the house, so he relaxed a little, now that he knew they were here alone.

Martine opened the rear door to the back garden and let the dog out. She then walked towards Theo, took his hand and walked him up the stairs. The touch of her hand against his led to a sudden rush of blood to his groin and he found it uncomfortable to walk. His heart was pounding, and he felt light-headed. At the top of the stairs she let go of his hand and he followed her into her bedroom. Like his room, there were hardly any pictures or posters on the wall. Unlike his room however, there were plenty of pastel coloured cushions and a colour TV set. Theo couldn't see a record player, which made him feel uncomfortable again. No radio either. Martine turned the TV on and waited for it to warm up. Once a picture appeared, she flicked through the channels until she found something she seemed to approve of - an episode of The Sullivans.

She sat on her bed and watched the TV. Not knowing what else to do, Theo sat next to her. The blood was pumping to his crotch again.

"This programme really is very boring," she said. "Do you ever watch it?"

"Sometimes" he replied. "But I agree, nothing ever seems to happen."

He put his hand in hers, and she turned his way, her eyes fixed on his. He moved forward to kiss her and their mouths met. Her small tongue poked against his, and his groin pounded even harder. He dared to open his eyes and saw that hers were firmly closed. He shifted his weight to relieve a pain in his shoulder, which Martine took as a sign that they should relocate. She moved away from him so that her back was resting on the wall at the side of her bed, and Theo sat next to her. She put her arms around his neck and they kissed again, more darting tongues and saliva. And then Theo felt her hand on his crotch. He opened his eyes wide in surprise, but Martine's were still closed, so he closed his again. She started to move her hand up and down against his jeans, following the line of his erect member. Wanting to reciprocate, he moved a hand towards her pleated skirt, but she pushed it away. Theo opened his eyes again, and again hers were closed. Her hand kept its momentum, up and down, up and down, until Theo felt the inevitable warm jets pump into his underwear. He groaned and opened his eyes again. This time, she was looking back at him.

She kissed him and said "My turn." With that, she moved his hand towards her crutch and worked herself against it, until a minute later she was gasping with pleasure. He kept his hand there as she juddered against it. They kissed some more as her breathing returned to normal. Then she looked at him and said:

"Shall we go and walk the dog?"

That sounded like a good idea, but he was worried about the state of his underwear.

"Sure. Um, where's the bathroom?"

She gave him directions and he excused himself. Once locked in the toilet he looked down at his jeans - luckily there was no wet patch yet. He took them off, and then carefully peeled his underwear down his legs and stepped out of them. Not sure what else to do, he folded them as neatly as he could, ensuring that the wet part was folded inwards, and then placed the folded underwear in his jeans back pocket, and then put his jeans back on.

He went back to the bedroom to find it empty. He walked to the window and looked down at the garden below. There he saw Martine and the black Labrador, tumbling and wrestling on the grass.

# Chapter Eleven

When Sylvie woke him up with breakfast in bed the next morning, Theo could hear rain tapping against the window. No sketching this morning then.

He was still in a state of shock from yesterday's visit to Martine's house. What she did to him! What he did to _her_! The blood rushed to his groin again just thinking about it. And their flesh had barely touched. Imagine being _naked_ with her. Imagine _that_!

He ate his breakfast wide-eyed, images of that pretty, chunky girl in her roll-neck sweater and skirt. And then he thought of the back garden and the lucky black Labrador, lying on its back in the garden, Martine tickling its tummy. Then his mind wandered back to today, and more specifically, this evening and his gig at Moles with The Steal Guitars.

The plan was to be outside his house with the kit at three pm exactly. He would then be driven to Bath in the back of the van, making sure the kit did not come to any harm. He spent the morning tinkering with the kit and studying The Observer magazine. He ate a solitary lunch in front of the test match on TV and then lugged his kit into the front garden at one pm, a full two hours before the Heritage brothers were due to pick him up.

Not knowing what to do and not wanting to leave the kit unattended, he went to get his sketch pad. He started to doodle new logos for The Steal Guitars: lettering in the shape of a guitar; a silhouette of a guitar with lettering around it; an empty guitar case with 'Steal Guitars' written in Sex Pistol-style ransom lettering. He filled several pages with designs, until he ran out of ideas and started to sketch the house opposite. It was now two pm. He went inside and changed into his gig clothes. He put some more Black & White in his hair and noticed that his hands were shaking as he did so. Finally, he picked up three pairs of drumsticks and went back outside to wait.

The van turned up at two fifty. The brothers helped him load the kit into the back. Once in, he sat next to the kit opposite Danny the bass player, who was immersed in the NME crossword puzzle. He barely looked up as Theo got in.

Without windows to look out of, the journey to Bath seemed to take ages. There was heavy traffic on the approach roads to Bath, so the van took a detour over Swainswick, which involved steep hills and sharp turns, all of which made Theo feel queasy. When the van finally stopped outside Moles on George Street, he was glad to get his feet on the ground and breathe in the fresh summer air.

They unloaded their equipment on to the pavement outside the club as quickly as they could, as the van was parked on double yellows. The entrance to Moles was situated a couple of steps down from street level, as the club itself was in a space originally used as cellars for the buildings on the raised pavement above. The band lugged the heavy equipment through the entrance and placed it on the small stage area. They took instructions from a sound engineer as to where to set the various instruments and amps, and once everything was in the correct place, all the instruments were plugged into the PA, and Theo's kit was fitted with pickup microphones. He watched with interest as the sound engineer trailed leads from his kit to a power supply at the side of the stage.

Then sound levels were taken, which involved Theo hitting each drum and cymbal individually until the engineer was pleased with the results. The band then jammed for fifteen minutes or so, before setting their instruments down and sparking up cigarettes.

Feeling awkward in the presence of his older band mates, Theo checked with Mark if it was okay for him to take a wander into town. Mark said they wouldn't need him for an hour or so. Realising that he was hungry, and that he wouldn't be having tea anywhere, he went to the Wimpy on Westgate Street and ate a cheeseburger and chips. He then tried his luck at an off licence and was able to secure a couple of cans of Holsten Pils. He sat in Queens Square and drank them, before walking the short distance back up Gay Street to Moles. When he arrived, Mark and the rest of the band were just leaving.

"We're going to get fish and chips. Fancy some?" said Mark.

"Um, I'm fine" replied Theo, wishing he hadn't eaten by himself now. "I think I'll go and check the kit one more time".

Theo sat at his kit and looked out over the empty club. The sound engineer was talking to the barman, who was re-stocking the shelves with Holsten Pils. Not wanting to disturb anyone, he chose not to play the drums and instead went into the dressing room. In a previous life, the cramped space may have been a wine cellar or other storage facility. It was low-ceilinged, with whitewashed stone arches providing minimal space. The only furnishings were a small desk and a mirror on the wall. A smell of bleach came from the unisex toilet to one side of the main room. Theo suddenly felt cold now that he was out of the sunshine, and a little drunk. He was beginning to wish he hadn't broken his rule of not drinking before a gig. Still, too late now. He made use of the toilet and as he stood there, he read the graffiti in front of him. Someone had written 'Bunnymen June 1981' in red biro. Then it occurred to him that it was probably _one of the Bunnymen_ who had written it, maybe even _Ian McCullogh_ himself! And now Theo Hanlon was playing the very same venue! The thought filled him first with immense satisfaction and then with immense panic as he realised the enormity of the situation he was in. To calm himself, he headed to the bar where he plucked up courage to ask the barman for a drink. Even though the bar wasn't officially open, he let Theo have a bottle of Holsten on the house.

It was now seven pm, and the rest of the band returned, joining Theo at the bar. Shortly after, 'the public' started to arrive, and the Heritage brothers greeted their friends and fans as they filed into the cramped club. They also shook hands and chatted enthusiastically with a couple of older, suit-wearing guys - record company execs, Theo guessed. By eight pm the place was full. But she was still not here. Theo stood by the front door waiting. And then, at ten past, black pvc shining under the harsh entrance lighting, Martine arrived. Theo told the doorman that she was with him, and he let her through without paying. He couldn't remember ever feeling so important. But if Martine was impressed, she didn't let it show. They went to the upstairs bar and he ordered drinks. Although the place was packed, they managed to find a small candle-lit table. Theo took out his Consulates and offered her one but she declined. He lit his up using the candle on the table. She put her hand on his leg and the blood rushed to his groin once more.

This was the first time that they had exchanged any real information. He talked of drumming, Van Gogh, his friends, The White Hart, Blues Train, art, cricket, favourite singles, trips to Flip, O-levels, architecture, estate agents, 'housing stock'. She talked of Blackie, her father the doctor, older sisters, boredom in Atworth, O-levels taken when she was fourteen, plans for A-levels, short-lists of universities, favourite singles (none matched his), David Bowie.

And then a tap on the shoulder: It was Mark.

"We're on in ten."

Theo had momentarily forgotten about the gig part of the evening. His eyes widened, gravity left him. This was what he had been yearning for and dreading in equal measure. He smiled nervously at her, hoping for words of encouragement.

"Go on then," said Martine, "don't worry about me. I'll be in the front row."

With that, Theo followed Mark downstairs, the guitarist nodding hello at virtually everyone they passed. They made slow progress through the packed subterranean club and into the even-more-packed dressing room. The once cold and silent cellar was now filled with girls applying hairspray, teddy boys smoking, and his band mates, all talking and nodding together. Condensation dripped off the whitewash walls into puddles on the floor. Theo found a can of lager and opened it. He rummaged in his jacket for another Consulate and went to ask Mark for a light, but before he could, Mark said:

"Fuck, this is it"

And from the club, Theo heard a voice over the PA:

"From Chippenham England, via Nashville, Memphis and Alabamaaaaaa, please welcome Steeeeeaaaaal Geeeetarzzzz!!!

A huge roar filled the club. Theo watched as the brothers filed out of the changing room. Danny followed, expertly manoeuvring his double bass out of the cramped space. Now it was Theo's turn. Should he put his can of lager down? No. He wanted to take it with him. Now all he needed was his drumsticks.

Drumsticks.

Fuck! _What had he done with them?_ He looked around frantically but they failed to materialize. He tried to recall the last time he had them, but his mind was so frenzied that he couldn't think straight. He wanted to ask Mark if he'd seen them, but Mark was already on stage plugging in his guitar. _Jesus_ , _Not now!_ Tears started to form in his eyes as he imagined the humiliation of not having his sticks, having to go out on stage in front of all those people and say "Umm, I don't seem to be able to..." but then he remembered and breathed a huge sigh of relief - they were resting on the snare drum! With a further two spare pairs on the bass drum. _Thank fuck for that!_

He walked out on to the stage, the brightness of the lights momentarily destabilizing him. He made his way to his gleaming kit, sat on the drum stool and picked up the sticks. For a second he felt homesick for the comfort of Blues Train and The White Hart. But then he took a glug from his lager. _This is just another stage, just another band and just another gig_. To steady himself further he hit the snare drum - _b-b-b-b-b-b-rattt!_ Fuck, that was loud. But this was what he did and he had nothing to fear.

Mark introduced himself and the band to the audience, and received a huge roar in response. Theo had never witnessed anything like this down at the White Hart. Then Mark began the first song, a cover of Chuck Berry's 'Brown Eyed Handsome Man. His guitar intro was precise and loud. The rest of the band knew when to come in, but Theo could not resist clicking his sticks together four times to count them in in the final bar of the intro. When the rest of the band _did_ kick in, he could not believe the sound they made. The audience went wild, pogo-ing and pushing into each other as if they were in some kind of pub brawl. Danny and the two brothers kept formation in front of him, their heads nodding to the beat. Theo saw them in smoke-softened silhouette, their outlines defined by the frenetic movement coming from the audience. The song was over before Theo knew it. The crowd cheered and yelled their approval. This was _fun!_ Next up was 'Denim Baby', and then the very apt 'Bar Room Brawlers', each song counted in with barely a pause for breath. During 'Bar Room Brawlers' Lee Heritage lunged off the small stage, and landed in the crowd. He slowly fell to the floor as the audience parted, still playing his guitar as he went. The crowd helped him to his feet and slapped him on the back as he made it back on to the stage.

Throughout this madness, Theo kept a solid beat, the framework on which everything else was built. His drums were amplified more than he was used to - each cymbal smash sounding like white noise in his ears. The band played on, two-minute blast followed by two-minute blast, until the set list was completed. Mark thanked the crowd and left the stage to rapturous applause. Theo followed his bandmates into the small dressing room.

The two brothers took off their guitars and looked at each other: "So far so good" Lee said to Mark. Danny lit up a fag, and Theo, needing something to do with his hands, reached for a nearby can of lager and drank its warm contents. A sharp taste told him that there may be cigarette ash in the can, but no one seemed to notice as he put it back down. The general noise from the crowd morphed into a slow clap, demanding that the band return to the stage. It was agreed that the encore should consist of three songs: 'Guitar Man', then 'Rocket Girl' - a Heritage original, and then a bluesy version of 'I Walk The Line' by Johnny Cash. Theo had practiced these songs with the band, but not to the same extent as the main set list, the feeling being that by this stage of the gig they could afford to loosen up a bit.

The brothers picked up their guitars and headed back to the stage, followed by Danny and then Theo. The audience burst into loud applause and cheers as they arrived, and Theo put his sticks in the air to acknowledge them. Mark began the familiar "1-2-3-4" and off they went, straight into 'Guitar Man'. Theo accompanied the guitar intro with intricate cymbal work and then used his full might on the snare drum when the rest of the band kicked in.

Tiring of just using the snare and hi-hat, Theo improvised, using the tom toms on alternate beats, and then firing off a salvo of five-drum rolls during the song's guitar solo. Mark looked back at him with an enthusiastic smile on his face and nodded his head in approval, sweat dripping from his quiff. The song finished to more applause and another stage dive, this time from Danny, but without his double bass.

'Rocket Girl' and the bluesy 'I Walk The Line' closed the set, Theo making the most of the skills he'd learnt drumming for Blues Train. Once the last chord had been chimed, the brothers thanked the audience once more and left the stage for the final time. The applause continued as Theo made his way to the dressing room. He looked into the crowd and saw people clapping _at him_. He raised his drumsticks in the air again and heard a wolf-whistle come from somewhere in front of him. _Was that meant for me?_

When he reached the dressing room, he got a pat on the back from Lee, and Mark shook him by the hand and said "We couldn't have done it without you". Then he turned to Lee and said "Are they still here?"

"Yep, think so" Lee replied.

"Good, good". Both brothers grabbed beers and cigarettes and nervously watched the entrance to the dressing room. After a couple of minutes, the two suits came in and headed straight for the brothers, shaking them by the hand and complimenting them on the gig. A few words were exchanged, and Theo managed to make out "Is there somewhere we can talk" coming from one of the men, to which Lee replied "Sure, let's get a booth upstairs". They passed Theo as they made their way out of the changing room. As he passed, Mark said "Thanks again, I'll call you tomorrow."

"Cheers Mark" Theo watched as they left. So tomorrow, Steal Guitars might be signed by a major label. _I might be signed by a major label._ He looked back at the changing room: no one he knew, and everyone much older than him. But there were eight cans of lager on the table and Theo helped himself to one before sparking up a Consulate.

Now his thoughts turned to Martine. He left the changing room, walked across the stage, and then stepped down into the still-crowded club, where he received pats on the back and the occasional "Nice drumming man". He looked from face to face for Martine, but couldn't see her anywhere. He tried the downstairs bar, and then headed upstairs. He saw the Heritage brothers talking to the two A & R men in one of the booths, but still no Martine. He moved towards the bar area, and as he entered, he heard a girl's voice:

"K Walker, College Road Atworth."

Surprised, he looked round to see Martine, talking to a guy with bleached hair and a stone-washed denim jacket.

Then she turned and looked at him: "Hi! How was it?"

# Chapter Twelve

Theo woke with a start early the next morning. There was an unfamiliar sound in his ears: white noise gently ebbing and flowing. He assumed it was the result of the volume levels at last night's gig. Then he remembered a dream he had been having: a gigantic wave was perpetually on the point of breaking, but before it did, it looped back to the beginning, and the process of swelling started again.

But the unusual thing about this dream was that there was a _soundtrack_ accompanying it. The soundtrack comprised of a repeated melody played out on a fuzzy lead guitar. Theo didn't recognise the melody, but it was the type of thing that a heavy metal band like Black Sabbath or Judas Priest might play. Theo imagined the melody on a loop with drums slowly building beneath it - snare and floor tom getting louder, and then a smash on the cymbals and the rest of the band kicks in. The melody was a real stomper. He shook his head from side to side to try to get rid of the white noise, but it seemed to persist. _Better get used to this_ , he thought.

Mark Heritage said he would phone him in the morning, presumably to let him know how the meeting with the A & R men went. But would he? He imagined that Mark would have a lot on his plate today, and he doubted whether he would rise before midday after a night like that. It was now 8am, so Theo could have a long morning of waiting ahead of him.

He had invited Martine round this evening, so after breakfast he tidied his room and made sure that that there was nothing untoward on show. Even though it was raining, he opened the window wide in the hope of getting rid of that _musty_ smell. He opened his bedroom door to its full extent also, using a dictionary to prop it open so there was no chance of him missing the phone if it rang. Not wanting to leave the house, he stayed in his room and read the Van Gogh diaries.

After an hour or so, he had migrated downstairs and was listening to Radio 1 in the kitchen when the phone rang. His eyes widened and gravity left him again. He ran to the phone and picked it up on the fourth ring.

"Hello 701___"

"Is Theo there please?"

_It's him!_ "This is me speaking. Hi Mark"

"Hi, how are you? Just wanted to say thanks again for all your help."

"That's okay" replied Theo, thinking that this turn of phrase sounded rather... _final_. "So how did the meeting with the A & R men go?"

"Oh that. Yeah, they're pretty interested, we've got to go up to meet them in London and do a couple of showcase gigs."

London. Showcase. Gigs.

"Yeah, hopefully something will come of it" continued Mark. "So listen, thanks again, and if we need a replacement drummer again, you'll be the first to know. That stuff you did during Guitar Man was awesome; I'll have to see if Keith can do something like that."

Replacement drummer? Keith?

"Wha... What do you mean?" Theo's voice faded to nothing.

"Lee told you, right? That we only needed a drummer for the one gig? Keith was inside for two months for selling stolen goods, and we couldn't move the gig date so we had to find a replacement straight away?"

Suddenly Theo felt very heavy. "No." was all he managed to say.

"That wanker. I'm really sorry pal, I thought you knew. You're certainly good enough, but we've got to stick with Keith 'cos he's been with us from the start. Oh, and the A & R men thought you looked a bit... _young_."

Theo listened as Mark apologised again, and he managed to say something conciliatory in response before the conversation ended. As he put the phone in its cradle, his hands and lips were already beginning to shake and tears welled in his eyes. He walked steadily upstairs, making sure not to think too closely about what had happened for fear of his tears turning into full-scale sobbing. He made it to his room and attempted to slam the door behind him, but the makeshift dictionary-cum-doorstop halted it in its tracks. So he kicked the dictionary out the way and pushed the door again, this time with both hands. The whole house shuddered as the door made contact with its frame. Now Theo needed something to punch, but nothing seemed solid or sturdy enough. He looked at the un-postered orange wall, and before he could think any more about it, he plunged his fist into it, leaving a dent in the plasterwork. He looked down at his hand - there were jagged strips of white flesh on the knuckles. Not satisfied that he had done enough damage, he put his fist back on the wall, pushed it hard into the cracked plasterwork and scrapped it downwards, leaving three trails of blood as he did so.

" _FUCK_!" he screamed at the top of his voice, partly in pain, and partly in pure anger, before the tears really did come. He sat on the bed, cradling his bloodied hand. His throat closed up and his shoulders heaved. Through watery eyes he saw his knuckles and wiped them on his clean bedspread. Then, inexplicably, an image of Janet, his ex-girlfriend, came to him. Why Janet? Why now? He hadn't thought about her for _months_. But then he remembered that feeling of rejection, of abandonment, that had consumed him in the weeks after their break-up. He was feeling the same way now: he felt _left behind_.

Steal Guitars have left Theo Hanlon behind. It was so unfair, so _very_ unfair. When this Keith was back behind the kit, would they ever even remember that Theo had drummed for them on the night they got their recording contract? He doubted it. No, Theo did not like being left behind. And on top of that, he was already beginning to miss Mark Heritage. He thought they were _friends_. Maybe he could phone Mark and get him to change his mind? After all, Mark did say that he was good enough. In fact he said he'd like it if Keith drummed like _him_! And who's to say that Keith won't end up back in prison? Yes, phoning Mark was a good idea. But then he realised that he didn't have his phone number, he only had Lee's, and there was no way he was going to phone _that_ wanker.

Now his fist was beginning to throb - the knuckles were swollen and bruised, with more blood bubbling from where the skin had been. But the blood and the pain served some purpose: they stopped him from thinking any further about the phone call. Yes, he needed to sort out his hand, and there was no room in his brain to process any other information. He went to the bathroom and blotted the bloodied knuckles with toilet paper. Then he dampened some more paper and wiped the blood trails from the bedroom wall. How was he going to explain all this to his mum and dad, to Martine, to his ever-inquisitive brother? He would just have to say that he slipped when he was carrying the bass drum out of Moles and scrapped his hand against a wall. That sounded feasible enough.

Once he'd covered his knuckles in plasters, he methodically assembled his drum kit in his bedroom. This was no mean feat with his newly-injured hand, and he was beginning to worry that he might have broken a bone or possibly two. Once finished, he sat on the stool and tapped each drum half-heartedly. He no longer felt like he was sat at a musical hub, a power station that fuelled each song. Suddenly he felt very _replaceable_. The kid at the back of the stage. He put the sticks back down and left the room.

That afternoon Theo grabbed his rucksack and took the bus to Chippenham. At the off-licence by the train station he bought a litre bottle of white wine, a four-pack of Holsten Pils and twenty Consulate. He placed the booze and fags in the rucksack and took the bus back home.

At tea that evening Theo managed to deflect questions about the Steal Guitars gig with one-syllable answers that his parents were more than used to. The topic of his fist was raised - his mum looked rather concerned when she saw his bandaged hand reaching for the bowl of tuna bake on the table - but the bass drum story was believed as far as Theo could tell. His anger from earlier had abated somewhat. He just wanted to forget about it now, and maybe concentrate more on the Blues Train gigs. Perhaps he could suggest some new songs for the set list, or perhaps find some more gigs for them other than the regular Sunday stint at the White Hart.

Once tea was over, Theo tidied his bedroom and lit a joss-stick just to ensure that the musty smell had been banished, at least for the time being. Then he reached under his bed for a Holsten Pils. He coughed as he opened the can in case his parents were on the landing, and drank it leaning out of the window. He wondered how to tell his friends about the Steal Guitars disaster. Should he just skirt over the issue like he had with his parents, or should he tell the truth? His inclination was to tell the truth. But there was always a problem with the truth; and that problem was that Theo tended to cry rather easily if he talked about something that upset him. This was a problem that he'd had since junior school, and it had at times made his formative school years difficult. He decided on a partly truthful option where he admitted that the gig was a one-off but that he had known about it for the past couple of weeks and had just forgotten to mention it to anyone.

Satisfied with this plan, his mind then started to wander to something his mum had said during dinner. His parents were chatting and Theo had overheard Sylvie saying "She's not quite as pretty as Rachel; in fact she's a bit of a wallflower to be honest." Theo did not know who Rachel was and had never heard the phrase 'wallflower' before. It intrigued him. A pleasing image of a sun-dappled flower sprouting through the cracks in a limestone wall filled his mind. But obviously there was another less literal meaning to this phrase. _She's not quite as pretty as Rachel; in fact she's a bit of a wallflower_. Presumably a wallflower isn't as dramatic or showy as a standard flower (Theo assumed the proximity to the wall meant they would get less sun). The wallflower was the _underdog_ flower therefore, the one that didn't have the natural advantages of the garden-dwelling variety. Theo felt an affinity with this wallflower, and it then struck him what a fantastic name for a band The Wallflowers would be. Self-effacing and poetic at the same time. But is 'Wallflowers' one word or two? Never having seen the word written down, he wasn't sure.

He looked the word up in the dictionary (it was one word): "A southern European plant with fragrant flowers that bloom in early spring". Oh. So they're not flowers that grow out of cracks in walls then. No matter, Theo still liked the sound of the word and the associations it brought. And he was right about its less literal meaning: "A shy or excluded person at a dance or party, especially a girl without a partner." In his current state of self-pity, the wallflower seemed like a very attractive plant indeed. And then his mind alighted on the perfect typeface for the band logo: the style of Van Gogh's signature as it appeared on his oil paintings. He imagined the "W" of Wallflowers in the same looping brush work as Van Gogh's "V", and the following letters all written out methodically and precisely by paintbrush, perhaps on a slight downward slant.

And then Theo imagined the two members of this new band: himself and August Wells. He imagined the two of them standing side by side, each with a guitar in hand, staring straight ahead at the camera. August was wearing his trademark checked shirt, and so too, it seemed, was Theo. But what was this photograph being taken for? A gig poster? A record sleeve? The cover of a magazine? Maybe all three, in exactly that order. It surprised Theo that he was not holding a pair of drumsticks in this imagined photo, but rather he and Jones appeared as equals: two spearheads of a collaborative musical venture.

_But I am a drummer_ thought Theo, _not a guitarist_. Then he remembered all those times during breaks in Blues Train rehearsals where he had absent-mindedly picked up Tim's guitar (much to his initial annoyance) and attempted to strum out some chords. After a while, Tim had showed him all the major chords, and how to play a standard 12-bar progression. Then Tim had showed him a couple of songs - 'Smoke on the Water', 'Sweet Jane', so yes, maybe Theo _was_ a guitarist, or at least have the potential to _become_ one.

Now he thought of it, he enjoyed the intricacy of the guitar: shifting his fingers from one chord to another, whilst methodically strumming the strings. And then to hear the resultant music wafting from the amp: that was pleasure indeed! And with August's prowess on lead guitar, all that would be required of Theo would be the most rudimentary level of rhythm guitar. Maybe guitars weren't so boring after all.

This reverie continued until Theo heard the sound of a car heading up the street. It was Martine's. _Here she is!_ His disappointment and upset from earlier in the day seemed to have disappeared in the anticipation of seeing her. Theo watched the car stop outside and Martine exit the passenger seat. She was wearing the black pvc raincoat and beret again. He watched as she said goodbye to her dad and slammed the car door. She looked up at him, and on the spur of the moment he shouted out "I'll be right down."

# Chapter Thirteen

Theo told his parents that he'd be back in about half an hour and closed the front door behind him.

He met Martine outside and asked if she fancied taking a stroll to the fountain to meet his friends. Somehow, being outside seemed to be even more appealing than the prospect of Martine lying on his bed. Early evening in high summer \- always his favourite time of year.

Theo wanted to know two things: was Martine impressed by his drumming for Steal Guitars; and why was she talking to the stone-wash denim guy in the upstairs bar. But asking direct questions was not something that Theo did, in case he received an answer that he didn't like. So he tried to put the two thoughts out of his mind as they started to walk.

Martine put her hand in his. She didn't say anything however, so Theo attempted small-talk:

"There might not be anyone there tonight of course. We could always just go back to my place later if you like. I've got some wine or beer if you prefer."

"I'm fine, let's just have a walk. You were really good by the way."

"You think so?" So that's one question answered already. Amazing what small talk can do! "What about the encore? Were you in the audience for the encore? Mark said he thought my drumming was really good during Guitar Man?"

"Oh, maybe, I'm not sure; I nipped up to the loo and bumped into someone I went to junior school with."

And that's question number two answered! Perfectly innocent! It was just an old school friend she was talking to. He decided not to probe further, and although her answer was ringing some alarm bells (the guy looked a good couple of years older than Martine for a start, and wasn't the first thing she said to him "Hi, how did it go?"), he thought it might be best to quit while he was ahead. Maybe the stone-wash denim guy had a brother in a younger year, which could explain the age discrepancy, and he just asked her where she was living these days and she'd blurted out her address in response. Yes, that sequence of events could have happened.

He decided to change the subject and try out the half-lie about his sacking from Steal Guitars to see if he could get through it without blubbing:

"Well, that was the first and last time I'll be playing with _them_. They only needed me for the one gig, and I was happy to help out as Mark's an old friend of mine."

Theo said it without the slightest catch in his voice, or sudden tear in the eye. Now on a roll, he went on to mention the accident that led to the bandaged knuckles, but Martine didn't seem to have heard him, and she started to talk about something else.

As they approached the fountain, Theo placed his bandaged hand in his pocket. To his relief, Pete and the rest of his school friends were there.

"There he is!" shouted Pete, and they all looked round and cheered as Theo and Martine approached. "How did it go then?"

Theo talked about the packed audience, the A & R men, the incredible noise, the Guitar Man improv work, the pats on the back, and finally the fact that it was all just a one-off now that Keith was out of prison.

"Oh. I didn't realize that." Pete looked crest-fallen.

"Yeah, I forgot to mention it. Still no biggie, me and Mark are still good buddies, and we might set up some sort of side project after Christmas. This is Martine by the way."

Martine smiled and Theo's friends nodded her way.

Pete continued "Seems to be a lot of it about."

"A lot of what about?" responded Theo.

"Getting booted out of bands. You didn't hear about Wells then?"

Theo's eyes widened. "No, what?"

"He and Andy had a massive bust-up after the last gig. Andy was fed up with Wells' show-boating and chucked him out. Dunno if the Planets are still going; no one's seen Andy or Wells since."

"No way!" Theo responded, but already his mind started to picture posters for his and Wells' new band The Wallflowers plastered all around town.

He needed to talk to August _now_! What if he was busy assembling a new band _right now_? He must let August know that he's available; August won't have heard yet that Theo was no longer in Steal Guitars.

He had to get home in order to be able to phone Wells. He made his excuses to his friends and said he and Martine were going for a drink. As they left the fountain, Theo explained to Martine that he needed to make a phone call related to the Blues Train gig on Sunday. When they arrived at his house they went up to his room, with Theo running ahead on the stairs to ensure that everything in his bedroom was okay. He lit the joss-stick as Martine walked in. She complimented him on the colour of the walls and looked at the three photos on the mantelpiece.

"I love Elvis," she said, before sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of Theo's record collection.

"Feel free to put anything you like on, I'll just pop down and make that call. Do you want a beer or anything?"

Martine replied that she was fine and Theo ran down the stairs, taking two or three at a time until he reached the downstairs corridor and the phone. Next to it was the Chippenham, Melksham and Lyncombe phone book. Theo didn't know August's phone number, or exactly where he lived, but it should be in the book. How many Wells' could there be in the local phone book?

The answer was fifteen. Theo looked quickly down the list, checking the addresses and discounting any that weren't in Lyncombe. But that left none, so he went down the list one more time, this time looking at each place name more thoroughly. There were Wells' in Melksham, Chippenham, Trowbridge and Box. He knew that Wells did not live in any of these places. But there were some smaller places he'd never heard of: Middlewick, Chapel Knapp, Wadswick. These places had postcodes similar to his. Maybe theywere just outside town. After all, Theo knew that Well's didn't live in Lyncombe proper, but in a large house on its periphery.

Not wanting to think too much about what he was going to say to Wells, he made the most of the empty corridor and rang the first likely number in the book. It rang and rang. He hung up and tried the next number. The phone was answered after four rings.

"Hello?"

"Hello, can I speak to August please?"

"Can you speak to _August_? What, the _month_?"

He put the receiver back down. Concerned that he'd left Martine on her own for too long, he ran back upstairs and found her sat cross-legged on the bed leafing through one of Theo's books of Van Gogh reproductions.

"Love this one!" She said, holding up Starry Night.

"Oh cool" Theo replied. "Um, forgot something. Back in a minute."

He rushed downstairs again and worked his way through the rest of the list. A couple more unanswered rings, a couple more confused responses. Now he was getting to the end and his optimism began to wane. He dialled the final number, which rang and rang. _Three more rings then I'm hanging up_. But on the second ring, an answer:

"Hello Wadswick 3822". A jovial woman's voice.

"Hi, umm can I speak to August please?"

"He's not here at the moment I'm afraid, he's staying over at Sophie's tonight. Can I take a message?"

"Oh, not to worry, it's not important. I'll try him tomorrow. Bye."

After he hung up he wondered why he didn't just say "Can you tell him Theo Hanlon rang." At least that way August would know that he was looking for him. On the plus side, he now had Wells' number, and he could call again tomorrow.

So, Wells was at his girlfriend's house. This allowed Theo to relax a bit as he guessed that no band-building would be taking place tonight. Maybe Wells was taking consolation in the arms of his girlfriend. Maybe Theo should too.

When he got back to his room, Martine was lying stomach-down on the bed, with her feet (which Theo noticed to his great excitement were bare) swaying in the air. When she heard him enter, she flipped to her previous sitting position.

"Shall we then?" She looked at him with eyebrows raised.

"Theo guessed what she might be referring to. "Yes."

"Do you have any johnnies?"

"No."

"Looks like we'll just have to do everything else then."

Theo made absolutely sure that the door was closed behind him and walked towards the bed.

-

When he woke up the next morning, Theo immediately began reflecting on what 'everything else' had entailed. His eyes widened and blood rushed to his groin just thinking about it. Although he had already done pretty much everything he and Martine did, he had never done it completely naked before, and certainly not with a girl as _enthusiastic_ as Martine. That her skin could feel so hot next to his was a revelation. Was Martine's body temperature higher than most girls? Did her metabolism operate above the standard thirty seven degrees? Or was it simply that her thirty seven degrees added to _his_ thirty seven degrees added up to a scorching seventy four degrees? The smooth plains of her body against his was something that he wished to experience again very soon. Sadly however, Martine had told him before leaving last night that she was spending the weekend on an Outward Bound trip but would phone him when she got back on Monday night.

After studying The Observer magazine fully, his thoughts turned next to August Wells, who presumably had enjoyed an evening not unlike Theo's. At what time was it acceptable to phone someone in the morning? It was now 8am, surely late enough to call, but would Wells be there? If he was staying over at his girlfriend's house, he'd hardly rush home early for breakfast. He decided that there was no point calling before ten am.

The weather had turned cold overnight, so after briefly airing the room he closed the window. After breakfast he returned to his bedroom and retrieved his sketch pad. Copying the lettering style of Van Gogh's signature from one of his paintings, Theo sketched out the words "the Wallflowers" on a deliberately sloping line. He decided to keep the "t" of "the" in a lower case so that the only upper case letter was the swooping first "W" of Wallflowers. But he was not happy with the results - there were too many letters in one line. The logo needed to be broken up, so he tried again, this time as

the

Wallflowers

This was better but he still wasn't happy. It needed colour - vivid Van Gogh colour. So he dug around in his art bin and retrieved some pots of gouache. He then found an A4-sized piece of cardboard and applied thick strokes of blue, green and red to it. Once the paint had dried, he wrote out the same logo as before in white paint. Once finished, he dated the piece in the style of Van Gogh, writing "1983" in as small lettering as he could manage in the bottom right corner.

He put the piece of card on the mantelpiece and stood back to admire it. He could imagine this artwork as a single cover, with the title of the song running along the top. But what would be the name of the song, and who would write it?

Realising that he was running low on art supplies, he contemplated a trip into Bath to check out F J Harris Art Supplies on Green Street, but he was loathe to leave the house in case August called. He could always take the phone number with him and call from a phone box, but he thought that might smack of desperation. Still unsure what to do, he reached into the bottom drawer of his desk, where he kept his money. His parents had given him just over half the agreed £150, and he counted it now: from the original £80, there only seemed to be thirty left. Strange, and a little worrying. Theo could not figure out what he had spent it on. Sure, there was a fair amount of booze bought from the off-licence in Chippenham, plus he had been out a few times, and he spent a fair whack on Martine at Moles, but £50? And the summer holiday had only just started! But there was the jacket from Bart's, and the rising sun t-shirt as well, although Theo remembered that he had bought that with money he had left over before his parents coughed up the holiday dough. Shaking his head, he decided that he needed to keep a tighter lid on his spending.

By now it was 10am so he phoned the Wells household again. The same jolly female voice answered the phone, and informed him that August still wasn't back from Sophie's. This time however, he had the presence of mind to leave his name and number, along with a polite request for August to phone him if he had a spare moment.

Deciding that he had done all he could for now, he phoned Pete and arranged to take the bus into Bath to wander round the clothes shops, visit the art supplies shop and have a coffee at the top of town. He took August's number with him and attempted to call from phone boxes in the city but the phone just rang and rang. After lunch, he and Pete headed back to Lyncombe and spent the rest of the afternoon at Pete's house listening to records and downing tins of Holsten. He got home just in time for tea and eagerly enquired if there had been any calls for him. There had not been.

After tea, he tried Wells' number again but there was still no sign of him. Frustrated and at a loose end, he went up to his bedroom and sat at the drum kit with a can of warm Holsten in his hand. He listened to _London Calling_ by The Clash, but didn't have the heart to drum along. The first can of Holsten led smoothly to the next and before he knew it, Theo was in his regular Saturday night pre-pub routine of listening to his favourite singles at full volume.

He was nodding along to 'Turn It On Again' by Genesis while finishing his fourth can when he heard the front door slam shut. Theo assumed it was his brother leaving for the evening. But then he heard a couple of voices - his mum's and someone else's, another female perhaps? And then some laughter, but this sounded like male laughter, not female. Then he heard the _dum-dum-dum_ sound of someone running up the stairs towards his room. Maybe it was Pete and the lads, but he hadn't arranged to meet them. Unsure what to do, he sat transfixed on the drum stool as the _dum-dum-dum_ got louder until finally the door opened.

The tall, loping figure of August Wells entered the room, and seeing Theo sat at the drum kit said:

"A-ha! The Hanlon in its natural habitat!"

# Chapter Fourteen

The first thing that Theo noticed about Wells was that he was not wearing his trademark vest underneath a colourful checked shirt. In fact he was wearing no colour at all. He was dressed head to toe in black: black Dr Martens, black drainpipes, black leather jacket, and underneath the jacket a black t-shirt with a gigantic circle with a cross in the middle of it - the unmistakeable logo of anarchist punk group Crass. Since when had August Wells been into Crass?

The second thing to go through his mind, once he had taken in Wells' appearance, was the state (and smell) of his room. The window had been closed since this morning, and as he had spent much of the day here, he was sure that the _musty_ smell had returned. This was confirmed for him when a female form appeared behind Wells whose face turned to wide-eyed shock as she entered.

"Hope you don't mind us calling in unannounced" said Wells, "This is my girlfriend Sophie. Can we have a quick chat?"

"Of course, come in," replied Theo, "Please take a seat on the er... bed."

It was then that Theo realised that the bed had remained unmade all day, and he could see tell-tale tissues from the morning's studying of The Observer magazine on it. He leapt up from the drum stool and quickly pulled the bed sheets up towards the pillow, grabbing the crusty tissues as he did so. To his relief, August and Sophie didn't seemed to have noticed.

Once the bed had been made, August and Sophie sat down and looked around the room. Like Wells, Sophie was dressed head to toe in black, the only colour coming from her bleached blond hair, the tips of which had been died blue. Theo had the feeling that he had seen her before. She seemed older than Wells. Then it struck him: she had gone out with Jon, his brother a while back.

"Can I offer you a drink of anything?" Theo managed to say, a slight quaver in his voice.

"Sure" replied Wells, "What do you have?"

Theo looked at the empty beer cans on the floor by his drum stool. "Er, white wine?"

"Sounds great" replied Wells, and Sophie nodded in agreement.

"Cool. I'll just nip down and get some glasses. Make yourself at home."

With that Theo left the room and took the stairs three at a time until he reached the kitchen, where he grabbed three tumblers of differing sizes and ran back up the stairs two at a time.

When he got back to his room, Wells was studying the Wallflowers logo Theo had done earlier. "This is nice, what is it?"

Theo went bright red, and managed to stammer out a quickly invented response "Oh, just something I'm working on for art class." How he dearly would have loved to say _This is the name of our new band August. You and me, you and me_...

Instead he put the three glasses down on his desk. The bottle of wine was under the bed, the exact location of which was currently guarded by Sophie's legs. Not quite sure how to relay this information to his guests, he moved towards her, pointing at her legs and saying "Can I just..."

Sophie looked panicked and turned to Wells for reassurance. "Er, can you just _what_?"

"Sorry, it's just that the wine is, um, under my bed..."

"Oh right." Sophie lifted her legs up, and Theo reached under the bed to retrieve the bottle. He unscrewed it and handed out the glasses.

"Sorry if it's a bit warm" he said as he filled their glasses.

"Doesn't matter pal, booze is booze. What happened to your hand?"

"Oh, just scraped my knuckles carrying the drums the other day."

"At the Steal Guitars gig? I heard about that. Shame. Still one door closes and another door opens"

Theo's heart began to race.

"So listen" Wells continued "Dunno if you heard or not, but I left New England Planets. Andy was starting to get on my wick, and we hadn't seen eye to eye musically for a long time. He got really shitty with me after the last gig so I told him to go fuck himself. So I'm forming a new band. Are you interested?"

"What, as drummer?"

"Of course as drummer. You're the best one around. Steal Guitars' loss is my gain."

"Of course August, of course!" replied Theo.

"Brilliant" August stood up and held out his glass "Cheers!"

Theo and Sophie both chinked his glass and they all sat back down again, August and Sophie on the bed, Theo at his desk.

Wells continued "Have you heard of The Subhumans?"

Theo had indeed heard of The Subhumans - they were a local punk band who had a massive live following and had released records that had made it into the Indie charts. It was quite a common sight to see punks walking around with the logo painted on the back of their leather jackets, the name divided into three blocks of letters, each block with a white border around it: SUB HUM ANS.

But why was August mentioning them now?

"I've been really getting into them recently. I saw them over at The Viaduct a few weeks ago and they were phenomenal. Real power, real energy, and real _anger_. Made me realise how poppy and bland the music The Planets were playing was. I managed to sneak in a Pistols song at the last gig - their most poppy one probably - but apart from that I just couldn't get on with the set list"

_I liked that set list_ , thought Theo. _That ten-minute version of Sloop John B was really good!_ But he said nothing and kept nodding.

"So yeah, seeing The Subhumans really put things in focus for me, and made me realise the sort of music I wanted to play. Sophie is going to be the joint vocalist with me, and I'm in the process of getting other musicians involved who feel the same way. You were the first one I tried to contact. I reckon you're _that_ good. As soon as I heard about you not playing for the Guitars anymore I looked in the phone book for your address. You're the only Hanlon in there by the way. I've been writing songs like crazy, and I reckon there is some pretty decent stuff there already."

He then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cassette.

"I recorded some Subhumans stuff, and there's a bit of Crass on there too, to give you an idea of the sort of direction I'm heading in." He handed the tape to Theo, who wasn't sure if he was meant to listen to it now or not.

"Have a listen later maybe. It's a bit heavy \- we won't be able to hear ourselves think. Ha ha!"

Once Wells had finished his wine, he reached for his jacket and pulled out a tobacco tin.

"Mind if I roll up a joint or two?"

"Be my guest"

"Your parents won't mind?"

Theo hadn't thought about that. "Er maybe I should open a window just to be on the safe side."

"Good idea" said Sophie.

Theo offered more wine, but Wells and Sophie declined on the basis that they were about to smoke. Theo topped himself up and went over to the record collection to find a replacement for the Genesis single. He put _London Calling_ back on, feeling that the Clash album would be half way between Theo's 'anything as long as it's melodic' policy and Wells' newly-found hard core punk sensibility. As the record began, Theo felt a momentary echo of yesterday's post-Steal Guitars misery, but the prospect of playing with Wells soon banished it. Joe Strummer sang away as Wells outlined his vision for his new musical venture.

"So are you in? I know the music will be different to what you're used to, but I really think this is going to be the future, all that poppy stuff is starting to sound really old."

Theo nodded in agreement and drank his wine. "So do you have a name for the band?" He asked, guessing that 'the Wallflowers' probably wouldn't be quite right.

"Sure, I thought we'd call ourselves 'Extradition', but it won't be spelt 'extradition' in the traditional sense; it will be spelt 'capital X, then a hyphen, then Tradition."

Oh great, after 'Steal Guitars' comes another confusingly spelt band name. Would you look under "E" or "X" in the record shop?

"Yeah, it kind of has a dual meaning" Wells continued: "Extradition obviously means when someone is forcibly removed from one country to another, and that kind of ties in with the way I feel about this country right now; that it's become this new Thatcher-ite state that I have no say in. It's like I've been expelled from the country I grew up in. And the second meaning of the name is that we are 'ex-tradition' i.e. we are turning our backs on all traditions and creating a new sound, a new movement."

Wells leaned back and inhaled deeply from the joint and passed it to Sophie.

"Oh, I see, that makes sense" was all Theo could think to say.

So he had started the day dreaming of being in a band called the Wallflowers with August Wells, and he ended the day being in a band called X-Tradition with August Wells. Could be worse, Theo concluded.

They continued to chat until Wells and Sophie finished their joint and side one of _London Calling_ came to an end. Wells reached for his jacket.

"Well pal, we'd better get going, got things to do, people to see. I'm hoping to do auditions over the next few days at my house, but I've already got some songs together so I was wondering if you'd like to come over and jam sometime soon, maybe tomorrow?"

Theo said that he had the Blues Train gig at lunchtime, but was available after that. They arranged it so that Wells would come to the White Hart after the gig and take Theo and the kit back to his place for an afternoon jam session.

Once they had left, Theo took the extinguished joint from the ashtray and smoked it down to the roach, while finishing off the litre bottle of wine.

# Chapter Fifteen

Once Theo had set his kit up at the White Hart in readiness for the lunchtime gig, he wandered over to Tim who was reading the paper and sipping a pint of ale at the bar.

"Hi Tim."

Tim responded by smiling and placing his paper down on the bar.

"I was thinking about expanding my repertoire and maybe taking up the guitar. You know, just to compliment the drumming, and in case I ever wanted to write my own songs or something..."

"Well that's where the money is." Replied Tim

"Where?"

"Songwriting. Get a song on the radio and you're laughing."

Theo hadn't really thought about that. "Yeah, I suppose so. So anyway, as I say I was thinking of taking up the guitar and you know how you've shown me a few chords in the past? Well I was wondering if maybe you could teach me a bit more, just basic stuff, nothing fancy..."

"Do you have a guitar?"

"Er no." Theo had imagined making a trip to the junk shops in Bath to pick up a cheap second-hand one.

"Well I'd be happy to loan you one, I've got a fair few as you know. Thinking about it, I've got one that would be just right for you, with a nice easy action. As for lessons..." he inhaled sharply, "Weeeeeell, I could do Tuesday evenings after band practice if that's any good for you?"

"That would be fantastic. Thank you."

"Great! Learn the guitar and you've got a friend for life."

-

Once the lunchtime gig had finished, there was no sign of Wells, so Theo dismantled his drum kit and lugged it outside and piled it on the pavement. After ten minutes of waiting, an ancient green 2CV came creaking down the road. It stopped outside the pub and Wells unfolded himself from the driver's seat.

Theo looked through the car's rear window. "I don't think we're going to get it all in there."

"Course we will! Positive mental attitude dear boy." replied Wells.

They spent the next ten minutes loading, unloading, and then reloading all the drums, cymbals and stands until they found a combination that worked. With each failed combination, Wells and Theo giggled a little bit more, until by the time they had successfully loaded the drums, they were both in hysterics. Even with all the loading and unloading, the only combination that worked involved Theo sitting with the floor tom on his lap in the front passenger seat, and the boot being left ajar to accommodate the suitcase filled with stands.

They drove carefully down the High Street and turned right onto Theo's road. He glanced up at his bedroom window as they passed and noticed that today at least he'd had the good sense to leave it open.

They continued their journey along the A4 towards Bath for another couple of minutes and then Wells slowed dramatically to take a sharp right down a narrow lane. The lane led past the occasional dwelling and eventually became a dirt track. They nudged along the track for another minute and then came to a large stone-built farmhouse with a front garden made up entirely of vegetable beds. A wheelbarrow filled with recently uprooted carrots stood by the front door, a pair of gardening gloves lying on top.

August parked the car in a gravelled area to the right of the house and the two teenagers unloaded the drums from the 2CV. Wells motioned towards the top floor:

"I've knocked up a practice area in the attic space, it's a bit basic I'm afraid, but the acoustics are actually pretty good. Only problem is that it's at the top of the house. Ha!"

With that, an elderly man appeared at the front door. He looked at the pair and said "Is my Sunday afternoon peace about to be shattered?"

"'Fraid so dad" replied Wells, "This is Theo, my first recruit."

The elderly man walked slowly towards Theo and shook him by the hand. His handshake was crushingly strong. "Welcome, I've heard a lot about you."

"Really?" replied Theo, feeling both surprised and flattered. His cheeks began to redden.

The elderly man walked back towards the wheelbarrow, put his gloves on and nodded towards the drum kit and said "You two are on your own with that lot I'm afraid. Have a good session."

With that, Theo and Wells lugged the kit through the house and up to the attic. The further up the house they went, the less homely it felt. The ground floor had an impressive tiled hallway that led off to rooms with coir carpets, crammed bookshelves and saggy leather chairs. But the first floor seemed sparse by comparison, with unvarnished bare wood floors and whitewash walls. By the time they reached the second floor the interior looked practically derelict. Theo assumed that the enthusiasm for renovating this old pile had disappeared somewhere between the ground and first floor.

The attic room was big but low ceilinged. It had a thick brown shag-pile carpet on the floor and flattened cardboard boxes or egg cartons attached to the walls. At the far end of the room, a large white bed sheet had been attached to the curtain rail above the room's largest window. On it Wells had spray-painted 'X-tradition' in black capital letters. The lettering had no curves, giving the logo an almost Egyptian feel, which didn't seem quite right to Theo.

Deciding that the room was too dark and gloomy for a summer afternoon jam, Wells took the bed sheet down and folded it up. Thinking on his feet, Theo said "Perhaps I could have a go at creating a logo, you know, in case you're not happy with umm... what you've already got..."

"That would be great, cheers. This one is pretty ropey, just something I knocked up on the spur of the moment. Art's not really my thing." replied Wells as he started to roll a joint. "Fancy one?"

"I'm fine thanks" replied Theo.

He assembled his kit while Wells rolled and smoked a small single-paper joint. Once he'd finished he strapped on his guitar and plugged it into a small Marshall amp. He then twiddled with some knobs on a bright orange effects pedal, retrieved a plectrum from its resting place between three strings on his fretboard and strummed out a few basic chords to check that the guitar was in tune.

Satisfied that it was, he turned to Theo: "Okay. Well as I said, I've written a ton of stuff, lyrics mainly, and I've also got some melodies but I haven't actually got round to marrying any of them together. I'm hoping for something a bit more freeform than the Planets, you know, more of a democracy and not just one or two members dictating the musical direction. Anyway, I'll just start riffing some of the melodies I've come up with and you join in and we'll see how it goes."

With that Wells started to play. Theo hadn't actually listened to the tape Wells had given him the previous night but he couldn't imagine that Crass or The Subhumans sounded anything like this. The music he was playing was slow, melodic - almost classical in its structure. There was no obvious time signature and one melody seemed to segue into another. Theo wasn't quite sure what to do, or how to contribute. But then he noticed that all Wells' melodies featured extreme shifts from low to high notes, almost like a siren perpetually shifting from one key to another. It felt to Theo that there was middle ground that needed to be filled, and the best way to do that was to counteract the treble screech of the guitar with bass notes, so he started to play along, populating Wells melodies with floor toms, bass drum, and the occasional snap of the snare. Once he had established a beat, Wells looked at him and nodded his approval.

After ten minutes or so, Wells stopped playing and rolled another joint. Once finished, he grabbed a microphone stand that had been out of sight in a dark corner. He added a mic and plugged its lead into the Marshall amp.

"Right, might as well try an actual song, seeing as we're here" he said, strapping the guitar back on. "This one's about the Falklands 'war' and what a sham it was, which is bound to go down well in an army town like Lyncombe ha ha!"

Wells stabbed at the guitar, and this time it did sound like what he imagined Crass or the Subhumans to sound like - fast, brutal, in straightforward four-four time. After a couple of bars, Theo joined in, trying to imagine what Topper Headon would do if Strummer and Jones presented him with this tune. He kept it simple, similar to the drumming on 'Brand New Cadillac'. Wells seemed to appreciate his efforts and he started to move his head and body in an angular fashion. Then he started to sing:

What are we really fighting for?

Or is it that you need another war?

To take our minds of the hurt and the pain

To cover up your evil reign?

Then a quick guitar break and another verse:

Soldiers are your pride and joy

You treat them like a fucking toy

You tell them that their cause is true

But it's either that or the dole queue

And then a key shift and a subtle change of tune, so presumably the chorus:

The wishes of the islanders are paramount

But is that what you really care about?

You want to keep the poor in their place

Kept away from your master race.

The song continued, but Theo was unable to make out many more of the words, especially in the middle eight section, which seemed to involve a lot of shouting. After a protracted guitar solo, Wells sang the chorus once more and the song came to an end. Theo managed to halt at exactly the right point, which seemed to impress Wells.

August took off his guitar and sparked up a fag. "Phew, what do you think?"

"Yeah, I like it, real energy" Theo replied, sounding as positive as he could.

"Nice one. So you don't mind being in a band that has views that might be potentially unpopular with 'the mainstream'?"

"It's all about the music August." replied Theo. This was the first time he had called his new bandmate by his given name.

"Cool. I mean it's fairly obvious that the Falklands belonged to Argentina, so it was no great shock when they tried to take them back."

It _had_ been a shock to Theo however, but only because he thought the Falkland Islands were off the coast of Scotland. Once he realised they were in the south Pacific - right next to Argentina - it made a little more sense to him.

"So a lot of the songs I've written so far are in a similar vein, you know, snapshots of modern Britain, highlighting some of the injustices that people have to suffer."

Theo nodded in agreement but couldn't think of anything intelligent to say.

Wells sat down on the floor with his back against the wall even though there were a couple of comfy-looking chairs in the room. He started to roll another joint but then stopped mid-flow and looked up at Theo.

"Shit, what day is it?"

"Um, Sunday" replied Theo.

"No I mean the date: what is the date?"

"Er, I'm not sure, the 30th maybe, or the 31st. Why"

"Shit" With that, Wells quickly got to his feet. "Back in a minute."

He ran out of the room and down the stairs. Theo waited for a few seconds until he heard a door slam and then Wells running back up the stairs. When he re-entered the room he had a couple of tickets in his hand. "I knew there was something I'd forgotten! Crass tonight at the Trinity in Bristol. I've got two tickets. Fancy it?"

Crass. In concert. The thought terrified Theo. He knew a little bit about the band: that they lived on a commune, that they were pacifists, that they had a small but devoted following. They were anti-Thatcher and anti-nuclear. But everything about them seemed so _ugly_ to Theo - the shocking black and white imagery, the slogans, the brutalist logo. It was so confrontational, completely the opposite of Theo's easy-going, romantic outlook. And on another level, the thought of being at a Crass concert made him fear for his physical safety. Weren't they anarchists? Didn't they believe that property was theft? Did that mean he might get mugged?

The offer didn't really appeal at all. What he really wanted to do was go home and watch the Antiques Roadshow with his mum and dad, but this was an opportunity for a night out with August Wells, so he said "Sure, that sounds great."

Wells went on to explain that he had bought the tickets a while back and had completely forgotten about them. The second ticket was meant for Sophie but she had gone to visit an elderly relative and wouldn't be able to make it back in time. He looked at his watch - it was now seven pm and the concert was due to start at eight. "Shit, we better get a move on; I'll see if dad can give us a lift to the station. Do you want to phone your parents?"

They both headed downstairs, Theo to use the phone and August to chat to his dad. After much debate, August's father agreed to take them, once he had finished his dinner. With five minutes or so to kill, they both headed back upstairs where Wells began to roll a succession of joints. Theo looked down at what he was wearing: white baseball boots, drainpipe Wrangler jeans and a plain yellow t-shirt. Suddenly he felt very _unpunk_.

"Do you think I'll be all right like this? I mean wearing these clothes? Maybe we could stop off at my house and I could change into something else?"

"It doesn't matter what you look like pal, but if you want to wear something else, I've got a pile of t-shirts in my room and you're welcome to borrow one." With that, Wells motioned for Theo to follow him and they headed downstairs to August's room on the next floor down. It was larger than Theo's, with two huge sash windows looking out on to the rambling back garden. The windows were closed, but the room still managed to smell fresh, Theo noticed with some annoyance. Each window sill was lined with books and papers, with more on the floor below them. Two guitars - one acoustic and one electric - stood against one wall, with a large double bed in the middle of the room. The bed didn't seem to have any legs though - it was lying directly on the floor, which struck Theo as odd. Where did he hide his booze? The room was painted white, and was very bright even at this hour. Theo was pleased to see that Wells also eschewed posters, the only wall decoration being a small A4-sized picture of Karl Marx with a slogan beneath it which was too small for Theo to read. Wells made his way over to a chest of drawers and pulled out some t-shirts.

"Right, what do you fancy? I have this Crass logo one, or there's this Amebix one, or this Dead Kennedy's one." The Dead Kennedy's t-shirt featured the bands 'DK' logo which Theo quite liked so he asked if he could have that one. "Sure." Wells threw it over to Theo.

Not sure what to do, Theo put the t-shirt down on the bed. But then he realised that Wells was expecting him to change where he was, so he waited until he was looking away and then took his yellow t-shirt off and quickly replaced it with the Dead Kennedy's one. It smelt wonderful.

Wells then headed towards the door and said "back in a sec, I'm just going to get some provisions." Whilst he was gone, Theo had a sudden urge to rifle through Wells' clothing to see if he could find his stash of checked shirts. _If he's not wearing them anymore, I will_ , Instead, he wandered over to the Karl Marx poster to read the quote underneath: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Theo chose not to attempt to process the meaning of this statement, assuming it was something to do with philosophy, which he had never been able to get on with at school.

Then he migrated towards the window and saw that a lot of the papers he'd spotted when he first entered the room contained handwritten song lyrics, each one written in capital letters, and each one containing scored-through lines and arrows pointing to additional text in the margins. He could only make out a couple of titles: 'Green Unpleasant Land' and 'Wishes of the Islanders', which Theo assumed was the song they had jammed earlier. He heard the door open and turned round to see August entering the room with a bottle in one hand and a big smile on his face.

"This should do us." The bottle was old and dusty, the sort of thing that his dad might break out at Christmas.

"Oh right, what is it?" He asked.

"Port old boy, port. Dad's got a crate of it in the cellar, I'm sure he won't miss one bottle." With that, Wells grabbed a canvas rucksack from the back of his chair and stuffed the bottle inside, first wrapping it up in a couple of the t-shirts that he had previously offered to Theo. Now that they were ready to go, they bounded down the stairs to the hallway where August's dad was waiting for them, keys jangling impatiently in his hand.

The drive to Chippenham train station passed mostly without words. It was not an uncomfortable silence however, as both August and his father filled the car with leg tapping and classical humming respectively. Theo spent the time looking out the window, watching the countryside fly past. Once they arrived at the station, August thanked his dad and told him that they would get a taxi back home. Theo thanked Mr Wells too, who responded with "No problem boys, enjoy yourselves and be careful."

The advice to _be careful_ was unwelcome, as Theo was already anticipating all sorts of terrifying scenarios involving punks, skinheads, knives and knuckle-dusters. What did Mr Wells know? Had he read about violence at Crass concerts in the papers? If so, why did he let his son attend? But on the other hand, maybe he just meant "be careful" in the broadest sense, in acknowledgement that the world could be a risky place.

The two teenagers made it to the train platform with only a minute to spare and found an empty four-seater table in the Second Class carriage. They both took a seat by the window and looked out of it as the train departed. Once they were underway, Wells looked around to make sure there was nobody looking and took the port bottle from his rucksack. "Chances are the cops will search this bag, so we better make some headway."

"Cops?" Replied Theo.

"Yeah, nothing to worry about. There are often cops at Crass gigs, but there's never any trouble."

This response soothed and alarmed him in equal measure. "Never any trouble" was good news clearly, but it also filled Theo with guilt that he now belonged to a section of society that needed _policing_.

Wells took a long glug from the bottle and passed it to Theo. The black liquid tasted almost like vinegar, but realising that the choices were either this or sobriety, he glugged deeply and passed the bottle back to Wells.

Emboldened by the port, Theo asked about August's plans for the future, post-school.

"Well my dad wants me to go to Oxford, to the same college he went to." Wells explained "But I think I'd rather go to Manchester - they have an excellent political science course there that I'm really interested in. The Oxford course is a bit staid by comparison. I had what they call a 'pre-interview' for Oxford the other week where you get interviewed by an ex- teacher who tells you if you would cut the mustard or not at an actual interview."

"And did you?"

"Apparently so. But like I say, I think I'd rather go to Manchester. How about you?"

Theo's week of work experience at an estate agents' in Bath now seemed rather paltry in comparison, and he decided on a course of wish-fulfilment rather than honesty: "I'm hoping to study architecture down in Brighton, assuming my grades are good enough of course. And if not, maybe just concentrate on the music side of things, you know, form a really good rock band or something..." _You and me August, you and me..._

August failed to take the bait and instead nodded absent-mindedly. "Right, right. How about girls? A good-looking chap like you must have a couple on the go?" Theo's eyes widened and he could feel his cheeks flush. It was the first time he had ever been called 'good-looking', and he liked it. Involuntarily, he pulled his face into a kind of grimace, trying to emulate Wells' chiselled cheek bones, but then relaxed them when he realized he couldn't actually talk like that. "Sure, I'm seeing this girl called Martine, she's—"

"Oh, from Atworth? Yeah, I know her. Umm, nice girl."

"Yyyeah, her." Wells' familiarity with his girlfriend knocked him off balance. Maybe it was a good thing that he knew Martine - it proved that she was someone worth knowing. But then an image of Martine talking to the older, blond-haired, stone-wash denim guy at the Steal Guitars gig came to mind, and he started to worry that maybe Martine knew _too many_ guys. Theo daren't ask August straight-out if he had slept with her, instead he concentrated on the bottle of port.

By the time the train drew in to Bristol Temple Meads, they had managed to down virtually all of the port, and they both felt unsteady on their feet as they made their way from the platform to street level. August had not actually been to the Trinity Theatre before; all he knew was that it was within walking distance of the train station. They took it in turns to ask passers-by for directions, but Wells was too stoned to remember what they said, and Theo had difficulty absorbing directions when sober, let alone after a half bottle of unfamiliar black alcohol. But by going in the general direction of the first pointed finger offered up by the people they asked, they managed to get to the Trinity by about eight thirty.

Of all the scenarios Theo had played out in his head, the one that presented itself to them as they arrived was of course unforeseen: that the venue seemed deserted and eerily quiet.

"Bollocks, hope I haven't got the date wrong" said Wells.

Theo on the other hand hoped that he _had_. But as they approached the old church building they saw a girl with spiky orange hair staggering out of the large front doors and attempt to light an already half-smoked joint.

"A-ha" looks like we're in the right place after all." Theo's heart sank. August called over to the girl: "Hiya, we're not too late for Crass are we?"

"Nah" replied the girl, "but you just missed the support act - some reggae band. You want some of this?" The girl held the spliff out towards them. Wells replied that he did and she handed it to him. She looked back towards the church. "They're serving food in there now."

"Really? Food?" said Theo. He was just thinking that he needed something to soak up all that port. That food might be available at a Crass gig was an outcome he had certainly failed to envisage.

"Sure" she replied. "It's all vegan mind."

"Do you want your ticket?" Wells asked? "I might just stay out here for a while?"

Theo took the ticket from Wells. His nervousness had dissipated now that food - even vegan food - was on offer, and he walked up the Trinity steps with a renewed optimism that the evening might not be as bad as he first thought. As he climbed the stone steps, the venue doors opened and a wave of punks in muted grey and green combat gear came towards him, chatting and laughing amongst themselves. This was not what Theo had expected Crass fans to be like. He noticed a couple of policemen standing to one side of the entrance chatting amiably to a couple of punks with huge mohicans and "The Exploited" written on the backs of their leather jackets.

After presenting his ticket to a heavy-set biker at the front door, he made his way into the venue proper, which was about as big as his assembly hall at school. The stage was at the far end, and was decked in white sheets with various spray-painted slogans on them. In front of it was an audience of approximately 200 people milling about and swigging from cans. This gave Theo hope that there might be booze on sale, but then he remembered his primary objective of food. He looked around and saw that to the left side of the hall was a recessed area with bright strip lighting illuminating what appeared to be a canteen. A group of punks were huddled around the entrance to this area. Theo headed towards the group and as he approached the familiar aroma of cooked rice greeted him.

He stood at what he assumed was the back of the queue and waited. It moved slowly but after a couple of minutes he could make out the food options available: there was a huge cauldron of rice surrounded by several smaller pans containing sauces ranging in colour from yellow to green to dark brown. There were also small flat loaves of bread, which Theo had never seen before. The girl in front of him was served and then it was Theo's turn. He wished he'd listened to what the girl had asked for, as he did not know what any of this stuff was called. A man wearing what looked like a green canvas waistcoat over a naked chest asked him what he wanted. Too shy to ask what the options were, he pointed to the one that looked the most like Bolognese sauce and said "Can I have that one please", to which the man replied "rice or pitta". Theo didn't know what pitta was so he asked for rice.

The man spooned rice onto a paper plate and then ladled over some of the sauce and handed it to Theo. He stood there waiting for the man to tell him how much he owed, but instead he served the person behind him. Unsure what to do, Theo looked around for a till but there didn't seem to be one. He grabbed a plastic fork from a nearby table and wandered back towards the rear of the hall and stood there while eating the apparently free food. He was certain that the sauce was not Bolognese, but other than that he had no idea what it was. As he ate, he could feel balance being restored to his body, the stodge banishing the bitter taste of the port.

He finished the food and was about to go outside to find August when the hall lights dimmed. A small cheer came from the audience but it was clear that the band were not coming on just yet, instead, a makeshift screen at the side of the stage lit up as classical music began to play over the PA system.

An image of an atom bomb exploding filled the screen.

_Oh God_ , thought Theo, _anything but this, anything but this_...

What Theo feared was an onslaught of images depicting the aftermath of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He knew these images well: Sylvie was membership secretary for the local CND branch, and the house was often filled with leaflets and flyers containing these terrible images: the buildings that were wiped out; the ones that remained standing. The shadows on the ground. The school children gone, the factory workers gone, the housewives gone, the hospitals gone. All gone in an instant.

The problem was, once Theo saw these images, he could not get them out of his head. Deformed babies in sample jars, or skinless victims on gurneys plagued his consciousness for days afterwards. How were you meant to enjoy yourself after witnessing this? So to avoid contaminating his brain, he headed back outside, just as another throng of people including Wells and the spliff girl poured into the hall. Seeing Theo, Wells shouted out "Hey, they're about to go on, where are you going?"

"Oh, I just need to get some fresh air" he replied. "I'll catch you up in a minute." With that, he made his way down the steps. He passed the two policemen again, one of whom said "You seem to be going against the tide pal!" Theo laughed in response but said nothing. He made it outside and stood on the grass unsure what to do next.

He heard a huge roar, which presumably signalled the end of the Hiroshima film and the start of the gig. So once again he made his way up the steps and past the two policemen, neither of whom noticed him this time. He opened the double doors to the hall proper at exactly the moment that Crass began their first song, and he was hit with a barrage of fierce fuzzy guitar and shouting. _This_ was what he expected Crass to sound like. He stayed at the back of the hall, enjoying the view this gave him, not only of the band but of the audience as well, who showed their appreciation by punching their fists in the air, or pushing those around them, or just dancing with their heads lolling from side to side.

He looked down at his feet and saw several cigarette butts strewn across the floor. He thought of picking one up but realised that he didn't have any matches. Then his mind turned to booze. Was there any on offer? He looked around but couldn't see a bar, and the canteen area now seemed to be abandoned. He scanned the floor again, and to his delight there were beer bottles and cans everywhere. He made sure that no one was watching and started to test cans for contents, and when he came across a heavy one he picked it up. He scrutinized the can as best he could for any signs of ash or fag butts and once he was certain that there were none, he began to drink.

He was now in his favourite state for watching live bands: alone and with a can in his hand. If he were accompanied by others, he would feel the need to make conversation, which was always tricky when the music was loud. He knew he was missing an opportunity to be with August, but he figured he'd catch up with him in a few songs time, so for now he was happy to just people-watch.

After a couple more songs, he secured himself another cast-off lager and made his way into the crowd. Now that the he was nearer to the band, he could feel the basslines pounding through his body, making the overall sound more forceful.

He studied the black and white banners behind the stage:

NO WAR

DESTROY POWER NOT PEOPLE

NO AUTHORITY BUT YOURSELF

But the thing that fascinated him most was the Crass logo itself, which loomed over the band from a huge sheet behind the drum kit. The closest approximation to it was the swastika, but Theo knew that Crass were not fascists, and that the swastika had originally been an ancient eastern symbol meaning peace or something similar. The logo was circular with a cross in the middle and an intersecting diagonal line on top of the cross. It was simple and brutal, the sort of logo that could lead armies. He had seen it on several school rucksacks and t-shirts, but never this big before. And now he saw that at the top and bottom of the cross, where the circle met it, were two snake heads, almost as if the logo were eating itself. What did _that_ mean, he wondered?

Then he studied the band themselves. Like their audience, Crass wore army fatigues and had spiky hair. They looked older than most bands that Theo had seen (apart from Blues Train of course) but had more energy than most, throwing themselves about the stage and leaning into the audience. The singer was wearing a canvas waistcoat similar to the guy who served Theo at the canteen. But looking at him now, Theo could see that this _was_ the guy who served him at the canteen. What was he doing on stage? Had he just leapt up and joined in? He guessed that this was the sort of thing that happened at Crass gigs.

He managed to find himself a virtually full can of Guinness and looked for August. He pushed his way through the crowd and found him with the orange haired spliff girl. August was leaning forward, his ear next to the girl's mouth. He was nodding enthusiastically at whatever it was she was saying. Not wanting to interrupt, he stood next to them and continued to watch the band, glugging occasionally from the can of Guinness. When the current song ended, the crowd cheered and Wells and the girl applauded, their hands high in the air. Wells looked around and noticed Theo. He gave him a hug and introduced him to the girl. He did not hear what her name was but he shook her hand anyway. Buoyed by the hug, he offered his can to Wells who drank heavily from it and passed it to spliff girl who then passed it back to Theo. The next song began and Wells and the girl started to dance, and Theo, now quite drunk, joined in.

When the spliff girl offered him her joint, he partook willingly, and then went off to find himself another discarded can. He spent the rest of the gig on his own, woozy with alcohol, sat on the floor at the side of the hall. He watched the audience, he watched the band. He watched people come and go. He watched Crass leave the stage to loud applause and he saw the lights come on. What time was it? Where was August? How was he going to get home?

He was happy to delay all these questions if he could just find himself another beer, but all the cans around him now seemed to be empty. Had he finished them all off? Realising he needed the toilet, he begrudgingly got to his feet and followed the exit signs. As he walked, he felt an arm around his left shoulder and another around his waist. He looked around and saw August to his right and the spliff girl to his left.

"Time to get you home pal." August said.

-

Theo felt a cool breeze against his face as they left the gig. August and the spliff girl walked ahead and Theo followed, taking deep breaths of the night air. Within twenty minutes they had reached Bristol Temple Meads. He watched as spliff girl wrote something on August's hand, then they kissed and she got into a taxi. Then he and August took the steps up to the train platform.

The air had now turned decidedly cold, and it had a sobering effect on Theo. He looked at August, his hands in his pockets, staring into the middle distance. "What happened to spliff girl?"

"You mean Michelle?" August replied crossly.

"Oh yeah, sorry. Michelle."

"She had to get back to her halls of residence. She's a nurse. You won't tell Sophie will you?"

"Of course not." Theo replied.

The train came and they got on. There didn't seem to be any other Crass fans on the train, or any other people of any kind for that matter. They took a table seat and watched the orange lights of Bristol recede into darkness.

"Fucking awesome weren't they?" Wells said, shaking his head in apparent disbelief.

"Yeah." Theo replied, trying to muster as much enthusiasm as he could. "Ooh! The bloke who served me at the canteen got on stage with them and sang along to some of the songs. I suppose he's a massive fan or something."

"That was Penny Rimbaud," replied August, "He co-founded the band and writes a lot of the lyrics. It's like a collective - they all help out where they can."

"Oh."

Theo felt foolish but comforted himself with the fact that he probably wouldn't remember any of this conversation in the morning. With nothing else to say, he kept quiet and thought of Martine. What would he tell her of the gig? Would he even mention it? He found it hard to describe events to people who weren't there, and often got tongue-tied. He doubted if she had even heard of Crass.

He looked out of the window but saw only August's reflection looking back at him.

Suddenly the carriage lit up with white light, and a terrific _CLACKA-CLACKA-CLACKA_ sound filled the air. Another train was passing on the adjacent track. The shock made both teenagers sit upright. August frowned and looked at Theo. Theo smiled back. August then reached into his rucksack and pulled out a folded sheet of paper and a pen. He unfolded the blank paper and laid it out on the table. He began to write. Theo watched as he inscribed four words across the top of the page in capital letters:

THE DEAD WHITE SKY

And then, underneath:

CHORUS (BEGIN WITH):

UNDER A DEAD WHITE SKY

I DON'T WANT TO DIE

WHAT KIND OF BOMB IS THIS

THAT TURNS A MAN TO MIST?

Theo couldn't make out the rest, but August continued, his writing steady and measured. Only occasionally did he look up for inspiration. He turned the page over and continued. After about five minutes he folded the sheet of paper back up and put it back in the rucksack.

Theo wanted to read the lyrics, and the booze had emboldened him: "Can I have a look?"

"Sure." August took the paper back out from the bag and handed it to Theo. He unfolded it and began to read, nodding his head as he did so. A question began to formulate in his mind. He looked up at Wells:

"Mind if I have a go at writing some music to this?"

August looked surprised "I didn't know you wrote music."

"Well I don't. I mean I haven't yet. But it's something I'd like to do, you know, to expand my repertoire and all that."

"Sure!" With that, Wells reached into the bag and pulled out another sheet of paper and handed it to Theo. "Would you mind copying them out first though, I don't really want to lose the original."

Wells handed the paper and the pen to Theo, who started to copy the lyrics on to the fresh sheet of paper using the same block capitols. He was conscious that his writing was not as neat as August's, and he found it difficult to keep on a straight line. Once the lyrics had been copied, he handed the original back to Wells.

"Let me know what you come up with." Wells said as he put the paper back in the rucksack.

The train began to slow down, and a voice came over the tannoy: "Chippenham. Chippenham is your next station stop".

There was a taxi rank outside the station. Wells walked towards it and Theo followed. They got in a cab and Wells gave directions, first to Theo's house and then to his.

"Been busy today?" asked August. Theo wondered why, as they'd spent practically the whole day together. But then the taxi driver answered:

"Dead quiet pal. I'm gonna call it a night after I drop you two off."

Was this what other people did? Make conversation with strangers? Or maybe August already knew the driver. Yes, that was the most likely explanation.

As the cab chugged to life Theo became aware that he hadn't offered to pay for the Crass ticket, or the taxi for that matter. He decided not to mention it.

When the cab pulled up outside Theo's house, August put his hand on Theo's knee and said "Thanks for coming. I'll give you a call in a day or so. I'm going to see Tom from Downward Spiral tomorrow, he might jump ship to play bass, and then we just need a rhythm guitarist and we're sorted."

Theo said goodbye and got out of the cab. He guessed the time at about midnight, and all the lights at home seemed to be off. He put his key in the front door as silently as he could and walked into the dark hallway. All was quiet inside so he made his way upstairs. He passed his parents' room and saw that their light was still on. He called out "It's only me. Goodnight." And when he heard a familiar "Goodnight dear," in response, continued to his bedroom.

He entered his room without putting the main light on. Instead he felt his way slowly to his desk and turned on the angle-poise lamp. He aimed the lamp at his record collection and sat down by the singles boxes. He craved the familiarity and the comfort that these songs would give him. In particular he needed their colour and their melody - two things sorely missing from the Crass gig. First he looked at the coloured vinyl collection, which he kept separate at the back of one of the boxes: the lime green of 'Jimmy Jimmy' by The Undertones, the orange of 'The Day The World Turned Dayglo' by X Ray Spex, the red of 'Furniture Music' by Bill Nelson. Then he looked through the rest of the collection: 'Planet Earth' by Duran Duran, 'Echo Beach' by Martha & The Muffins. He pulled out 'Kings of the Wild Frontier' by Adam & The Ants. On the cover, Adam Ant's face was tanned, with a white stripe across his nose and feathers in his hair. None of Crass were that brown. He put the single back and continued to look.

Next he pulled out 'See You' by Depeche Mode. No deficit of colour here! The cover featured a cartoon drawing of a man underneath a streetlight looking up at a girl in her room. It was hard to imagine imagery more far removed from what he had seen earlier this evening. He took the record out of its sleeve and placed it carefully on the bedside turntable. He made sure that the volume was set low and listened.

Synthesisers and drum machines waltzed along in perfect harmony, and a man not much older than Theo's sixteen years sang words of unrequited love.

He leant against the side of his bed and quietly sang along.

# Chapter Sixteen

The next morning, Sylvie woke Theo up with the now traditional breakfast in bed. There were several things on his mind, including: Crass; being the drummer in a punk rock band; August Wells; Martine; learning the guitar; logo design; a man called Penny; the demise of the Wallflowers; and Martine again.

"It's a lovely morning dear, perfect for sketching!" his mother said whilst opening the curtains.

Sketching was the one thing that was _not_ on his mind - or Van Gogh for that matter. But he didn't want to disappoint his parents, and he knew that the money they'd given him was payment for him sticking to his promised plan of sketching on a daily basis, and attending the work experience at Cabot Farr at a later date.

"Yep, I was just thinking the same thing" Theo chimed in, trying to sound enthusiastic, "I'm gonna cycle out to the quarry near Hartham Park and see if I can get some sketches of people working there, I'd quite like to sketch the machinery they use, some of those cranes are massive, and I think the sheer scale of the machines and how they dwarf their human users could be really interesting."

He hoped the specific nature of this monologue would convince his mum that he was still committed to the art project. And in truth, it wasn't that he had gone _off_ the idea, it was just that so many _other_ things seemed to be happening. How could he have predicted that August Wells would ask him to be in a band, or that Martine would look his way, or that he might want to learn the guitar? All these things now seemed to be pushing art to the periphery.

"That's fine dear" replied Sylvie "Just as long as you get into the swing of it. Before you know it, the summer will be over." With that she leant over and kissed him on the forehead. "There's no time like the present you know."

"I know mum."

Theo watched her as she straightened up and checked her hair in the small mirror on his desk. Before she left he asked her: "Mum, have you ever heard of Crass?"

"I don't think so dear. Are they a rock band?"

"Yeah, well a _punk_ rock band actually. They're opposed to nuclear weapons. I saw them last night with August."

"Well good for them. We could use more pop groups - I mean _punk_ groups like that. I'm glad you and August are taking an interest" With that she smiled and blew him a kiss goodbye.

Although his art studies no longer seemed quite so important, sketching would be a good way of killing time until this evening, when Martine was due back from her Outward Bound weekend and had promised to phone him. So after breakfast, he got his sketching kit together and headed out on his bike towards Hartham.

The area around Lyncombe was rich in limestone deposits, and had been mined extensively for the past four centuries. The grand houses of nearby Bath were built largely with stone from this area, but due to the diminishing supply of stone and the cost of extracting it, the quarrying industry had all but disappeared. Only a couple of local sites remained and it was to one of these that Theo now headed.

Hartham Park was a Georgian country house in extensive grounds. There was a small clutter of cottages on its outskirts, and next to the cottages stood the entrance to the quarry. But from the road, there wasn't that much to see, just an open mesh-iron gate behind which a dusty track disappeared around a tree-lined corner. Only the sign on the gate 'Hartham Quarry' gave anything away.

Not feeling bold enough to wander down the track, he looked around for a possible vantage point from which to view the quarry from above. He saw a copse of trees on top of a nearby hill - a perfect shady vantage point to sketch from - so he got back on the bike and climbed towards it. The road only went part of the way up, so he left his bike leaning against a stone wall and walked the rest of the way on foot. When he got to the edge of the copse, he looked back and surveyed the view. He could see fields, farmhouses, woodland, the eastern edge of Lyncombe, but nothing of the quarry, which was hidden in a small depression and surrounded by birch trees and scraggly bushes. Only a corrugated iron roof and a parked lorry were visible. It would be difficult to create a compelling portrait of rural labour from here.

Disheartened, he made his way down to his bike and cycled back to the quarry entrance. He leaned his bike next to the large gate and walked slowly past it onto the track leading to the quarry proper. He was certain that he did not have the courage to go all the way in however, and his decision to turn back was made easier for him when he heard the sound of a car coming from the quarry towards him. He turned around and walked quickly back and managed to make it out on to the main road just as the car came in to view. Theo made his way to his bike and pretended to check the tire pressure as the car came to a halt at the junction to the main road. Despite there being no traffic, the car did not progress on to the road, so Theo looked over. A man in sunglasses and a short sleeved shirt was looking back at him from the driver's seat of a pickup truck.

"Are you all right there son?" The man said. "Were you looking for someone?"

"No no." replied Theo, "I was just wondering where this road went."

"It's a quarry pal, nothing exciting I'm afraid."

"Oh right, thanks."

"Have a nice day." The man smiled and the pickup drove off. Theo could see the words 'Hartham Quarry' painted on its side, along with a telephone number. The man obviously worked there, and he couldn't have been friendlier. Why didn't Theo just ask him if he could nip down and do a bit of sketching?

Now he was annoyed with himself, and he suddenly became aware that there was a stopwatch somewhere, counting down the seconds to the end of the summer holiday, a stopwatch that took into account possible rainy days and other excuses for not actually doing any work. A stopwatch that was careening towards zero at an alarming rate. And he remembered his mother's blown kiss from this morning and her faith in his improvised discourse. He _had_ to draw _something_.

So he resolved to go to where the view could not be bettered, where no artist could fail. Did it matter if there were no signs of rural labour from on top of that famous vantage point? So what if rolling hill fed in to rolling hill like something from a Thomas Hardy novel? He was going to sketch the view from the top of Box Hill, and make it his own, a testimony to the overpowering beauty of nature. Yes, that was what he was going to do.

He made his way along the A4 to the top of the hill. Once there, he found a dry stone wall overlooking the valley and got his sketching kit ready. Before commencing, he rolled up the sleeves of his t-shirt to his shoulders to make the most of the sunshine

Then he set to work, first drawing the outlines of what lay in front of him with an HB pencil, then once he was happy with the dimensions, he used coloured pencils to bring the fields, trees, hedgerows and isolated farmhouses to life. After an hour or so, he held his work at arm's length and squinted to get an overall sense of the finished piece. He was pleased with what he had achieved, and was sure that his mum would approve, even if it was slightly off-brief.

He was on the verge of signing and dating his work when he realised he'd left out the notorious Colerne water tower. Built in the 1960s, the water tower stood over forty metres high, and due to its brutal design and position on the Box valley skyline, had been the subject of anger and resentment ever since. Its inverted cone shape was about as aesthetically unpleasing as you could get. Theo wasn't sure if it was possible to build an aesthetically _pleasing_ water tower, and this question was clearly something that hadn't troubled the creators of this one.

But his dilemma was this: should he leave the water tower out and let his picture remain a quiet bucolic reverie, or should be try to be truthful to what was in front of him and include it? He decided that he needed more truth in his life at this juncture so set about including it. As the tower was made entirely of concrete, the most sensible option was to use a non-coloured pencil, perhaps an HB or 2B. He decided to go for the 2B, but unused to its softer charcoal after the relatively hard colour pencils, he pressed down on the sketch pad too hard and created a vertical line much too dark. He cursed and looked at the line. It was far too prominent, but instead of rubbing it out, in a fit of pique he supplemented it - more thick black expressive vertical lines jutting out into his peaceful blue sky. Then he sketched the inverted cone of the tower on top of these jutting lines; an upturned triangle resting on a gigantic plinth of charcoal. Thick with angry shading, this new addition to the drawing was more like the expressive style of the Van Gogh drawings he had originally hoped to emulate.

Looking at it now, he realised that he had drawn the tower far too big, perhaps twice as big as it should be. _Bollocks_. But it reminded him of something, this charcoal mess; something he had seen recently... Of course! The monochrome H-bomb from last night's Crass film! Feeling that he had ruined his picture anyway, he set about transforming the ugly water tower into something much more devastating. The upturned triangle became the billowing mushroom cloud of a nuclear strike, dwarfing the genteel countryside below it.

Next he looked to the drawing's vanishing point, where he had placed a setting sun (even though its real-life counterpart was still high in the sky). Using the 2B pencil he replaced the hazy yellow half-sphere with the brutalist Crass logo; its curves, crosses and hungry snakes creating a hellish flipside to its predecessor.

Looking at his work again, he was struck with the feeling that he had created something entirely new. And it was as far removed from the type of art he was hoping to create as possible. It almost felt as if another artist had given it to him and was asking for feedback. He did not know what to say, other than it was very... _interesting_. But he decided that he liked it, and that there was some value to it. He wanted to show it to his art teacher: maybe he could say it represented the way that the threat of nuclear war was a constant shadow looming over all our lives, and that it was thanks to committed people like Crass that we did not forget about it.

_Maybe this is how great art is created_ , thought Theo, _by accident_.

He felt that the drawing was the peak of his creative day, so he might as well go home. Plus it was lunchtime and he was starting to feel hungry.

-

For lunch he fixed himself poached egg on toast followed by a vanilla Ski yoghurt, and ate whilst listening to Radio 1.

It was Summer Roadshow time, and Mike Smith was broadcasting live from Bournemouth Beach. Normally, Theo couldn't stand these Roadshows, but it happened to be the 'Bits And Pieces' segment, where a member of the crowd had to name as many songs as possible after hearing only two second-long snippets welded together. Theo listened as the songs were played, and shouted out the answers to the radio: "Sugar Sugar by The Archies... Waterloo by Abba... Don't know this one... The Hollies The Air That I breathe... Don't know this one...Don't know this one... Flashdance, dunno who by... I.O.U. by ummm...Freeez!.. Paul Young Wherever I lay my Hat...don't know this one... China Girl by Bowie (he'd recognise that drum sound anywhere)...

He scored more than the contestant on the radio, which pleased him immensely.

Once he finished his lunch, he reached for his sketch pad and looked at his drawing from earlier on. It really did have a strange sort of power: the black Crass sun and the looming mushroom cloud had transformed his pleasing landscape into a graffitied portent of doom.

As he studied the drawing he slowly became aware of the smell of stale lager. At first he wondered where it could be coming from, but then he had a flashback to last night and an image of him sitting on the Trinity Hall floor surrounded by empty beer cans. He must have sat in a puddle of it and was too drunk to notice. He stood up and looked around at his rear to see if his Wranglers were stained. They seemed fine but as he looked down he noticed the outline of something rectangular in the right rear pocket. He tended not to keep anything in his back pockets as this spoilt the way the trousers looked, so he was unsure what this might be. He pulled out a crumpled sheet of A4, unfolded it and read the words THE DEAD WHITE SKY.

Of course! He'd asked August if he could have a go at writing some music to his lyrics. _Jesus_ , w _hat was I thinking!_ He couldn't believe he'd had the audacity to ask, but then again August had seemed happy enough for him to have a go (as far as he could remember), so maybe it was the right thing to do after all. As he stared down at his smudged, untidy handwriting he felt an unknown excitement come over him, as if doors to hidden rooms were opening in front of him.

He read the lyrics that he had transcribed from August's original:

You see the noise and hear the pain

The sky it drowns with acid rain

A blink of light that cracks the sky

Leaves houses up but children die

My skin begins to catch alight

The last image in my eyesight

Is a wave of people coming near

All skeletons now, all disappeared

CHORUS

Under the dead White Sky

I don't want to die

What Kind of bomb is this

That turns a man to mist?

I am not at war with you

Our countries fight I guess it's true

But I am mother, daughter, son

I never bludgeoned anyone

But now you've raised the game of death

Will mankind breathe its final breath?

Heavy stuff, Theo thought, as he read on: another two verses in much the same vein. He had no idea where to start with regards to setting this to music, but he had a guitar lesson arranged with Tim after tomorrow evening's band practice, so he decided not to worry too much about it until then.

He also remembered that he had promised to have a go at creating a better logo for X-Tradition, so he picked up his sketch pad and flipped the morning's landscape over to reveal a blank page. He reached for his pencil and began to doodle. His first effort was a blatant rip-off of the Subhumans logo: he drew a giant "X", and then below it, taking up the same amount of horizontal space, the letters "TRA", then below that "DIT" then below that "ION". But it looked awful and lacked the impact of the original. He liked the stand-alone "X" however, and using a military-style stencil typeface he created a logo that comprised a large X, then the letters "-TRADITION" following on, but in a smaller font and aligned to the top of the X. Below these letters he drew a ragged line in red. Then he shaded in the lettering in using his 2B pencil. It looked punky and solid. He could imagine it on the backs of leather jackets.

Pleased with the logo, but aware that it shouldn't be in a sketch pad devoted to studies of rural life, he tore the page out and placed it in his desk drawer. Satisfied that the day had been productive enough, he phoned Pete and arranged to meet him at the fountain.

-

After tea, Theo sat in his room and felt his heart pounding. He had managed not to think about Martine's scheduled phone call for most of the day, but now that the evening was officially here, he could think of nothing else. It was seven pm, and he imagined that most families would have finished their tea by now, so between now and nine pm - which was generally regarded at the latest you could phone someone without the possibility of annoying their parents - was when she was most likely to call. Why hadn't he said that he'd phone _her_? Then there would be no question of the call not happening.

When he was agitated like this, he couldn't divert himself by reading, watching TV or listening to music. The agitation overwhelmed everything. He started to feel hemmed in by the four walls of his room so he made his way downwards and found himself sitting on the stairs by the ground floor landing, the silent phone in plain view. He used to spend a lot of time sitting on these stairs when he was little. He liked watching the rest of the family passing below him as they moved from kitchen to front room. But sitting here now, he became aware of how uncomfortable it was. He guessed stairs were only sit-able up to a certain age.

His father walked beneath him, taking his TV dinner tray to kitchen. "Keeping an eye on things for us are you buster?"

"Something like that." he replied.

His father smiled and continued to the kitchen. After five minute the phone rang, and gravity left him. He stood up quickly and got to the phone on the second ring. But it was not Martine; it was somebody enquiring about joining CND, so he shouted out for his mum. The ensuing conversation seemed to take an age, during which Theo imagined that Martine could have tried to ring at least five times, and might possibly have given up all together.

Dejected, he made his way back up to his room. And when he looked at his watch and saw that the time was now 8.30, tears began to form in his eyes. He looked around for something to break or hit when the phone rang again. His heart pounded and he stood motionless as the ringing continued. Was somebody going to answer it? Had anybody else even heard it? Maybe they were all in the front room watching TV with the volume turned up high. If he started running now, would he even get there in time?

But then it stopped ringing. Theo walked cautiously to the landing and listened. He could hear his mum saying "Hold on a minute dear, I'll see if he's here..."

Dear... she said dear...

And then his mother's voice calling out: "Theo! It's Martine." And he bounded down the stairs three at a time.

# Chapter Seventeen

The next morning's breakfast in bed came with the addition of a half of grapefruit, presumably in an attempt to get more vitamin C inside Theo. As always, his mum presented him with the breakfast, opened the curtains and commented on the weather, which today was similar to yesterdays.

Then came the question Theo had been dreading:

"How did you get on yesterday dear?"

"Well I...er..."

"Oh Theo..." Sylvie replied, her voice filled with reproachment.

"No no, I did do _something_ , it just wasn't what I planned. The quarry was shut so I had to improvise, so I went up to Box Hill, and..."

Instead of explaining further, he got out of bed and showed her the Box Hill drawing - the rolling countryside realised in meticulous coloured pencil, and then the looming water tower-cum-mushroom cloud, and the Crass logo-sun, its dark power catching the eye and refusing to let go.

His mother studied it for what felt like an age.

"It's very... _powerful_ dear. Is this how you feel? I mean about nuclear war, or the threat of it. I'm sorry if you find the CND stuff all a bit upsetting?"

"No honestly mum, it's fine." Although Sylvie had plenty of CND literature at home, she tried to keep it out of view of her squeamish youngest son, (as well as her civil servant husband). Theo viewed the threat of a nuclear war as an abstract one, believing that Mutually Assured Destruction would stop either side pressing the button. The drawing was more to do with how the Crass gig had made him feel, which until this moment he hadn't really thought about.

Not wanting to sound shallow, he improvised: "Well I guess it does worry me a bit yes. But I think it's really important that people like you and Crass draw people's attention to it - that's the Crass logo there by the way, where the sun is setting - and not sweep it under the carpet."

Feeling uncomfortable with being less than truthful to his mother, he changed the subject to today's itinerary, "So the quarry is open today and I'm going over there to do some sketching this morning, and maybe this afternoon I could go into Bath to the library to see if they have any books on umm...estate agents, or something on the different types of housing stock or..." He tapered off.

His mum smiled at him. "That sounds like a good idea." She kissed him on the forehead and left for work.

Last night's phone call with Martine had gone well: she'd had fun on her Outward Bound weekend and was looking forward to seeing him. She had suggested coming round to his this evening, but it was Theo's band practice night followed by his first guitar lesson, so that was a no-go. They had left it that she would come round tomorrow night. Only a day to wait until they were together again.

Once he had finished his breakfast and got dressed, he made his way back to Hartham Quarry on his ten-speed. He arrived just before nine to find the gate still locked. He assumed that the quarry would open any minute, so he decided to get back on his bike and ride around for ten minutes and then come back. But just as he was getting on his bike, he heard the sound of a car coming towards him. He looked up to see the pickup truck from yesterday coming to a halt outside the quarry gate. Not sure whether to get on the bike or not, he watched as the same man from yesterday got out of the truck and walked towards the gate, a bunch of keys ready in his hand.

"I saw you yesterday didn't I?" said the man, unlocking the padlocked gate.

"Um, yes." Theo replied. Plucking up courage, he continued, "I was wondering if it might be possible to do some drawing at the quarry. I'm a sixth-former at Lyncombe Comp and I'm doing a project on rural labour."

"Well I'm not sure how much labour you'll see in a dark quarry."

"Well it was more the men working with the stone once it had been mined." Theo replied.

"Ah. You're in luck then. We've got an order for a customer in Bath, chap building a neo-classical swimming pool or summut, so we'll be carving some stone a bit later on. You're welcome to come in and have a look around in the meantime. We don't have insurance though, so you'll have to keep well away from the actual cutting."

Theo agreed that he would and followed the man into the quarry on his bike. The quarry itself consisted of an open concreted area, about half an acre in size, with a Portakabin office at one corner and a large open-sided barn next to it. Slabs of stone lay around the place, some with spray-painted names or numbers on them. To his surprise, Theo could see a train track leading from the centre of the clearing towards what appeared to be a tunnel opening, which he assumed to be the quarry entrance.

The man parked his truck by the Portakabin and got out. Theo came to a stop next to him and dismounted. The man nodded towards large slabs of Bath stone in one corner of the yard. "There's about a million quid's worth of stone here, hence the security. Not that it's possible to nick much of it - too bloody heavy. I'm making a tea, would you like one?"

Theo nodded that he would. The man went into the Portakabin while Theo looked around. Clouds of dust rose as he walked and his blue Rucanor baseball boots were already practically white. He headed towards the quarry entrance, walking alongside the railway track. As he got nearer he could see that the entrance was a brick arch about fifteen feet high, with a metal padlocked door in its middle. The train track disappeared underneath the metal door. He looked back and saw the manager heading out of the Portakabin with two mugs of tea in his hand.

"There probably won't be much action for a while," the man said, "The mason isn't due for another hour or so, but you're welcome to draw whatever you see, or just come back later."

Conscious that he had wasted enough time this summer holiday already, Theo said that he'd like to sketch the quarry until the mason arrived, so the manager left him to it. He wandered over to the largest blocks of stone and found a couple perched on top of each other, each about five feet high with weeds growing between them. Theo liked the contradiction of the blunt stone next to the creeping complexity of the plants and thought that this could make an interesting study. He decided to draw the stone using standard 2B pencil and the weeds using colours. Pleased with the effect this created he sketched more stonework, gain using the 2B for the stone, and coloured pencils for everything else - the spray-painted codes, the buildings, the signs, the tools.

After an hour or so, the manager came over with another cup of tea. "Mind if I take a look?"

Theo didn't really feel that he could say no, so he passed him the sketch pad. The quarry manager leafed through them. As he did so, he gave out a snort of laughter. Theo felt wounded. "Sorry pal, didn't mean to laugh, it's just that these are really _really_ good. I used to draw as a young man but haven't done it for years. I should get back into it." He handed the pad back to Theo. "That's a real talent you've got there, keep it up."

Theo thanked the manager and watched him walk back to the Portakabin. Not sure what to sketch next, he set about drawing his dust-covered baseball boots, but then a van arrived. Theo watched as a man got out and walked to the van's rear and started to unload tools. The manager came out of the Portakabin, and walked up to the new arrival and they chatted for a few minutes. After that, the manager came up to Theo: "All fine. He's perfectly happy for you to sketch away, so knock yourself out. Oh, one thing: it's pretty bloody loud, so you might want to cover your eardrums somehow."

Theo watched as the mason walked around a selection of knee-high slabs laid out underneath the open sided barn. After looking in a notebook, the mason measured out and then marked the stones using a black piece of chalk. He then donned gloves, earmuffs, a visor and a facemask before revving up a circular saw. The manager was right: it was bloody loud. Theo reached into his jeans for a tissue and tore strips off and stuffed them into his ears.

The mason got to work. Once he started on a piece of stone, he was more or less motionless, the saw taking an age to make its way through the limestone. Perfect, thought Theo.

So now it was _his_ turn to get to work. This was the rural labour he had promised his parents he would capture over this summer holiday. Using the 2B pencil he drew the outline of the mason; his shoulders round, his arms thick, his head stooped. Then he filled in the mason's form: the black boots, the canvas workpants, the shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Then the mason's face - all of which was covered in one way or another. He drew the visor and filled it in with a 4B, giving the figure the appearance of a soulless automaton.

Now to sketch the surroundings. But there were no surroundings - the dust bellowing from the side of the saw obscured everything around to a distance of about five feet. Drawing these circling clouds felt futile to Theo, so he decided not to: instead leaving the space immediately around the mason completely blank, as if some exclusion order on the physical world existed. Then he began to bring in the background - the barn, the vehicles, the tools, the trees.

Theo looked at his work. The dead white paper around the mason looked like the flash of an explosion caught on camera. It gave the drawing a vibrancy that thrilled him. This picture was _dynamic_ , not the sleepy rural scenes he had imagined, but something much more vital. He knew his mum and dad would be pleased.

-

It was only when he got home that he realised that he did not thank or say goodbye to the quarry manager. The thought saddened him for a while but he soon managed to bury it beneath the growing excitement of the guitar lesson and more importantly seeing Martine tomorrow night.

Instead of the usual routine of packing the drum kit up and taking it over to Tim's on the Tuesday evening, Theo and his dad headed out to August's house to pick the kit up from there. August had dismantled the kit and it lay ready in the farmhouse's entrance hall when Theo and Roger arrived. As they loaded the kit into the car, Mr Wells walked from the back garden to greet them.

"Good heavens! Roger isn't it?"

Roger looked up to see August's father striding towards him, his hand outstretched. "Sir Terrence, pleasure to see you again!"

"Oh please just call me Terry, everybody does."

"Of course. Well, it seems our sons are in a rock group together."

"It does indeed seem that way. The world better watch out."

Both fathers laughed and continued to chat. Theo and August rolled their eyes.

Once they had got the kit into the car and were on the road, Theo asked his dad how he knew Mr Wells.

"Well, Sir Terrence - _Terry_ rather - is about as high up in the Civil Service as it's possible to get. He was a defence advisor under Callaghan I think, and was then stationed at Copenacre when Thatcher came in, which is where I met him. Very pleasant chap. I think he's a Knight of the Garter, or MBE or something. A Sir anyway. A good family to keep in with, that"

-

That evening's Blues Train practice session saw a couple of new songs by The Doors and Creedence Clearwater being sessioned to Tim's liking. Once the practice was over and the other members of Blues Train had packed up and left, Tim turned to Theo and said: "Right then young man. Guitar lesson number one coming up! Oh, and Laura has expressed an interest in learning as well, so she'll be joining us."

Theo felt like he should know who Laura was, but did not. Tim saw the confusion on his face and said "My daughter, Laura? She's been learning the piano and violin at school but fancies the guitar as well, which makes sense, her being my daughter and all."

Theo had not seen Laura for several months now. She was usually in her bedroom when the practice sessions took place but he had spotted her occasionally, running up and down the stairs in her school uniform. The only thing Theo could remember about her was that she had red hair.

"Okay, great." Said Theo, trying to sound enthusiastic. He would have preferred solo lessons though, so that he could target them specifically to what he wanted to know. Now that there was a second person taking the lessons, Theo assumed that they would have to take a more traditional approach.

"First things first," Tim continued. "You'll be needing a guitar. Follow me." They went through to the main house and into the dining room. One wall was filled completely with guitars.. Theo estimated that there must be about twenty in total. Tim turned on a light that shone directly on to the guitars and Theo could now see them properly; chrome and lacquered wood glinting at him.

Theo knew very little about guitars but recognised some of the shapes: A Les Paul; a Telecaster; a Stratocaster. The one that caught his eye was a sky blue Strat, and it caught his eye precisely because of the colour - it was the same shade of blue as his favourite Wrangler jeans. In his mind's eye he saw himself wearing the jeans with a white t-shirt, the guitar slung around his shoulder.

"Right, I was going to give you this Epiphone Les Paul," Tim continued, motioning towards a walnut-coloured guitar "but I noticed the other day that the neck had warped a bit which means it will be tricky to learn on. So..." Tim hovered near the sky blue Strat and Theo's heart raced. "... I thought _this_ one might be a good alternative." And yes, he did it: he took it off the wall "It's a Fender Stratocaster, circa 1962 I believe. Nice colour, you don't often see them in blue."

"Wow, this is really kind of you, thank you very much." Theo managed to say.

Tim sat on a chair with the guitar in his lap and strummed out a few basic chords. "It's got a nice easy action, so it's ideal to learn on, but the pickups might need replacing in a year or two. Now then..." Tim stopped strumming and looked at Theo sternly: "I can't really _give_ you this as it's quite valuable, but I'll let you have it on a permanent loan. So it's yours for all intents and purposes, but I might need to ask for it back at some stage. Unless you don't get on with it in which case just bring it back. Okay?" Theo nodded that it was. "Right, let's crack on with the lesson."

With that he handed the Strat to Theo and left the room and shouted for Laura to come down. Once more Theo heard the _thumpa-thumpa-thumpa_ of a teenage girl running down the stairs, this one not quite so heavy of foot as Martine.

When she walked into the room, Theo was surprised at how tall Laura was. She was probably taller than him. And her hair was a reddish-brown now, not the bright red he remembered. It was longer too, and straight - the frizziness that he recalled from the last time he saw her having presumably grown out. She was wearing a white XTC t-shirt and a pair of dark blue jeans.

"Theo, you remember Laura don't you?"

"Of course" Theo replied, blushing.

Laura smiled, revealing a mouth crammed with large white teeth.

"Okay." Tim continued "First things first: everybody sit yourselves down."

Theo and Laura did so, and Tim handed Laura another guitar from his collection. Then he handed them each a plectrum before sitting down himself and picking up his own guitar.

"Right. Probably the best thing to do is to see what you already know. Laura, you've never played before have you? But Theo you reckon you know the basics - a few chords and what not?"

"Correct" replied Theo.

"Okay, fire away then"

"Er, okay" Theo replied, blushing again. He took the plectrum in his right hand and moved his left hand to the end of the fretboard. He peered down at his fingers as he formed an open E chord and strummed. The resulting chord sounded strong and resonant. "Very good" said Tim. Next he formed an open G, strumming up and down, and then moved back to the E chord. "Nice, nice" continued Tim. Next Theo tried to make an open C, but this required a bit more concentration, so he studied his fingers as they tried to make the correct shape. He strummed again, but this time the chord sounded messy: he had hit the open low E string and the A string hadn't sounded at all.

"Oh dear." Theo said apologetically and laughed.

"Never mind, never mind. Keep trying" said Tim,

So he did, this time trying an A chord. But again he hit the lower strings and the chord sounded a mess.

"Eek. Sorry," said Theo.

"Not to worry lad. But it seems like you've picked up a few bad habits there. Your fingers are positioned right for the chords, but you need to move your thumb over the lower strings for the C and A chords so that they don't sound. Otherwise you won't be able to strum those chords properly without them being drowned out by the open E and A strings."

Tim showed him how to do this on his own guitar and Theo tried it. But it meant repositioning the hand in a way completely unnatural to him, and it made the muscles in his forearm hurt. Tim could see that Theo was getting frustrated, so he changed tack. "Okay boys and girls let's leave it there for a moment and let me show you what they call the three chord trick. This is your basic E A and B7 chords, which are used in countless rock n roll and blues songs. Loads of Beatles and Beach Boys songs use them, so they're a pretty useful three chords to know."

Tim set about showing his two students the chords and then gave a demo of how versatile they were by playing 409 by the Beach Boys followed by Hound Dog by Elvis followed by The Gambler by Kenny Rogers. Then Laura and Theo had a go, gingerly changing from one chord to the next. Both students had difficulty with the B7 chord, which Tim assured them was the trickiest of the three.

"Of course, there is another way to play these chords, and pretty much any other chord for that matter," Tim said in an off-hand manner. This piqued Theo's interest. Tim's phrase "or any other chord for that matter" implied to him that this other way may be a shortcut, an _easier_ way to play guitar.

"Oh really? What's that?" asked Theo.

"Oh just bar chords, or the Johnny Ramone chords as I like to call them. Basically, any note can be turned into a chord by just forming an E shaped chord and then placing your forefinger over all the strings on the fretboard one fret down." He illustrated what he was talking about and then strummed out a note. "That was an A played as a bar chord, but it essentially sounds the same as an open A." He then strummed an open A and they did indeed sound the same.

"A lot of the punk bands use them as they are easy to learn, but they don't have the same subtlety as the open chords. But it's a pretty useful trick to have up your sleeve. The Ramones have based their entire career on them. I remember once I was in Cruisin' Records in Bath and they had just got this new album in by this American band The Ramones. They were dressed up in leather jackets and ripped jeans on the front cover. Bob who worked there put it on and it was just this wall of noise. At first we all just laughed because we couldn't believe how basic it was. But after about twenty seconds I noticed that we had all stopped laughing and were nodding along. They were playing classic rock n roll, but just faster and louder. So that's why I call them the Johnny Ramone chords." And then by way of illustration, he played the opening of Blitzkrieg Bop.

Theo knew The Ramones and liked a lot of their stuff. If their songs were created just using this simple bar chord technique, then couldn't he do the same? He asked Tim to show him the chord again. Tim also showed him another bar chord, shaped like an A chord that was used to create any note higher than an open A string

Once Tim had shown Theo the chords, he put his guitar down and said "Okay, maybe we should leave it there for the night. Your fingers are probably getting sore anyway. But before you go, I printed out some song sheets for you to practice for next time. Laura, could you grab those sheets of paper on the table?"

Theo watched as Laura turned around on her chair and stretched over to the nearby dining table to retrieve some A4 sheets. A shard of pale skin appeared between the waist of her jeans and her white t-shirt. She turned back around and handed them to her father.

"Right" continued Tim, "I have written out tablature and lyrics for two of the songs we did tonight - 409 and Hound Dog - so maybe you can both practice these and we'll see how we get on next time. Okay?"

Laura nodded and Theo said "Sounds great!" as Tim handed out the sheets. He then looked at Theo and said "Oh, and one more thing" He then handed Theo a carry case for the guitar. "You will look after her for me won't you?"

"Of course" replied Theo. "Thanks for the lesson and the guitar and... everything."

"My pleasure" replied Tim.

-

Theo walked home, leaving the drum kit in Tim's garage. When he arrived he went down to the living room to show his parents the guitar. He passed it to his father, who looked at it, disbelief forming on his face.

"Fuck me!" he said.

This was the first time Theo had heard either of his parents swear. "I mean _Good Grief_!" Roger corrected himself quickly. "Sorry about that. But this is a Fender Stratocaster! It must be worth hundreds! He can't give you this. It's too much!"

"He didn't give it to me, it's a permanent loan." Theo replied, now feeling guilty for accepting guitar so readily.

"But even so." Roger looked at his watch. "What time is it? Ten o'clock. I need to phone Tim to talk about this. I mean what if you lose it? We can't afford to pay him back."

"He didn't seem worried about that dad."

"Oh Theo." With that Roger left the living room and went to the corridor and picked up the phone. After waiting ten seconds or so, he heard his father saying "Hi Tim, it's Roger, listen, thanks so much for loaning Theo that guitar but it's too much..."

The phone call continued with Roger first doing all the talking and then doing all the listening. Theo heard the occasional snippet of the conversation: "...what if it gets nicked... shall we insure it...bring it back whenever..." until the call finally came to a close with Roger saying "Well if you're sure. Thank you so much. Bye"

Roger re-entered the room.

"What did he say?" asked Theo.

"He said he's seen the way you look after your drum kit. He's not worried."

Theo said goodnight to his parents and took the guitar up to his room. He sat on the edge of his bed and tried the open chords he had learnt earlier, this time trying to arch his thumb over the lower strings on the C and A chords. But with his wrist in this position he still found it difficult to get his fingers right, and his forearm started to ache. He gave up and tried the bar chords. These he found easier, and practiced moving his left hand up and down the fretboard as he strummed.

Then he remembered the melody from his dream the morning after the Steal Guitars gig. He replayed the tune in his head, nodding along as he did so. Then he tried to find the opening note on the guitar. He decided it was probably the second fret on the D string. Then he went down to the A string to find the second note. Then back up to the D for the third. On he went, finding note after note until he was able to play the melody from beginning to end. He played it again and again, and before long he didn't even have to look at his fingers as he did so.

# Chapter Eighteen

The next morning Theo woke up early and reached for his guitar, which he'd left lying on the floor. Mindful of Tim's faith in his ability to take care of the valuable object, Theo set about creating a make-shift stand. He sellotaped a drum stick to the top left corner of his desk so it protruded about six inches. This provided a kind of cradle for the guitar to rest in without the tuning forks touching anything and running the risk of becoming de-tuned (Theo did not yet know how to tune the thing). The only problem with this arrangement was that he had to move the guitar if he needed to get into any of the desk's drawers. But as an interim solution, it would suffice.

After breakfast he cycled out to the quarry again, but this time without his sketching kit. He still felt bad that he had left the quarry without thanking the manager and wanted to make amends.

He arrived shortly after nine and cycled down the dirt track to the quarry and parked his bike next to the Portakabin. He knocked on the open door and heard a voice say "Come in." When he entered, the manager looked up and said "Oh hi! Back for more?"

"No no, I just happened to be passing. I just wanted to say thanks for yesterday, and maybe I could come back again one day to draw some more?"

"Of course, of course" the manager said. "Any time. Like I say, you've got some real talent there, so keep at it."

"Thanks, I will" Theo replied. He was about to leave when he plucked up some courage and retrieved a small piece of paper from his pocket. "I thought you might like this" he said, unfolding the paper and handing it to the manager. It was a sketch of the Portakabin, with a figure - the manager - walking towards it. The sketch was in grey pencil with a few colours thrown in to bring out the sky and surrounding trees. He had written 'Hartham Quarry August 1983' in the bottom right corner.

"Why thank you," said the man "I'm gonna frame this and put it on the wall. Might be worth something one day ha ha."

"You never know" Theo replied and said goodbye again.

He was relieved that the liaison with the manager had gone according to plan and cycled home as fast as he could. The plan for today was to travel to Colerne to look at the notorious water tower from close up, and maybe get some good compositions of the concrete goliath towering over its surroundings.

He wasn't thinking of August Wells at that precise moment, or the lyrics that he had asked to compose music for, but suddenly something began to form in his mind. He saw the words THE DEAD WHITE SKY underlined in August's meticulous capitals and imagined them as blunt weapons, each one spoken with a violent stab of drum and guitar behind it.

The Dead White Sky

And then the rest of the chorus came in a melody completely at odds with what came before:

I don't want to die

What kind of bomb is this

That turns a man to mist?

The melody for these last three lines was pure pop, like something The Hollies or the Beach Boys would come up with. Its cheerfulness completely at odds with the solemnity of the subject matter. But Theo liked this... what was the word? _Juxtaposition_. But now he started to worry: had he heard this tune somewhere else, or was it his alone? He tried to think, singing the tune over and over again. He didn't recognise it, _maybe it is mine!_ Now he wanted to get home as quickly as he could, before the melody evaporated. But would he be able to transcribe the tune on the guitar? Did he possess the ability to do that yet? He wasn't sure, but the important thing was to offload the melody somehow, to get it physically into the world. Then he remembered that his parents had a tape recorder tidied away somewhere. Maybe he could just sing the melody into the tape machine and then worry about the chords later on.

He cycled as fast as he could, reciting the tune in his head over and over, determined not to forget it. _I don't want to die... What kind of bomb is this... That turns a man to mist... I don't want to die... What kind of bomb is this... That turns a man to mist..._

He made it home and left the bike on its side in the front garden. He ran to the downstairs hallway, to the sideboard that the phone sat on - the last known resting place of the tape recorder. Luckily it was still there, right at the back covered by old copies of The Yellow Pages and Thompson's Locals. He took it up to his room, continuing to sing the melody to himself ... _I don't want to die... What kind of bomb is this_... But although he had a tape recorder, he had no tape. So he ran back down the stairs three at a time - _What kind of bomb is this_ \- to the same cupboard that the tape recorder had been in. Sure enough, there were some dusty cassettes there too. He grabbed the first one and looked at the handwritten contents label: 'Gilbert & Sullivan rehearsal May 1978'. He was pretty sure that his parents wouldn't be listening to this any time soon, so he took it up to his room - _that turns a man to mist_ \- and put it into the player. He rewound it to the beginning and pressed the Play and Record buttons. Then he began to sing, tapping out a beat on his jeans as he did so:

Under the Blood. Red. Sky.

I don't want to die

What kind of bomb is this

That turns a man to mist?

He hit Stop and then rewound the tape. He pressed play and a loud hissing sound emanated from the machine. He couldn't find a volume button, but suddenly the hissing abated and he heard a voice singing the melody - _his_ melody.

He had never heard his own voice before. It sounded too soft for his liking, rather like a mother singing a lullaby to her baby. But as far as he could tell, it was in tune, and his melody had made it into the world. He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled with satisfaction. He still needed a melody for the verse to accompany this chorus of course, and then there was the difficult question of how he would play the song to August, but these were problems that could be overcome. He had taken his first step as a songwriter.

He took the tape from the machine and hid it in the bottom drawer of his chest, underneath his old cricket whites. Then he returned the cassette recorder to the downstairs cupboard. Too hyped to leave the house to go sketching, he instead picked up the sky blue Strat and plucked the dream melody he had mastered last night.

After lunch he went to the fountain to hang out with Pete and the others. He didn't mention the guitar lessons, the sky blue Strat or The Dead White Sky, preferring to keep them to himself until he felt more confident with the new direction life seemed to be taking. Mindful that Martine was coming round to his place that evening, he left his friends earlier than the traditional five thirty to air his room and make sure that the volleyball playing women of The Observer magazine were not on show.

After tea he sat in his room and waited for the sound of Martine's dad's car to come up the road. As he waited he picked up the guitar and practiced his new bar chords, but something sounded a bit off. He played each string individually and compared its sound to the note of the fifth fret on the string below it. This was the only way he knew how to tune a guitar. All the strings sounded fine apart from the A string. Maybe he had nudged the tuning forks when he moved it. He tightened the tuning fork of the A string until it sounded just right compared to the lower E string. But then the D string sounded out of tune compared to the A, and he couldn't tell if it was too low or too high. He fiddled on and on trying to get each string to sound right in relation to its neighbours until finally he reached a configuration that didn't cause him to wince when he strummed an open E. But now he wasn't sure if the guitar as a whole was tuned too high or too low. Maybe he would have to invest in one of those tuner things he'd seen in music shops.

He decided to soldier on regardless and try to find the chords to accompany the chorus for Dead White Sky. But he couldn't make his mind up on which note should be the opening one: if he played a high note, it sounded okay, but similarly if he played a note much further down the fretboard that sounded okay too. How were you meant to know which note was right?

Keen to find a distraction, he looked at his makeshift guitar stand and decided it might be wise to buy a real one. He also liked the idea of getting a mini amp, and maybe a fuzzbox as well, to get that authentic punky sound. But a stand, an amp _and_ a fuzzbox would pretty much eat through the entire first instalment of his holiday money. He did have some savings he could draw on, but would his parents be happy about him spending that money (which had been left to him when his gran died a couple of years ago) on guitar gear, especially as they had spent the last several years buying him drum parts?

He resolved not to ask his parent about his savings just yet. Maybe he should just buy _one_ of the things he needed. He decided that the most pressing was the amp, as he already had the makeshift stand, and he might be able to borrow a fuzzbox from August (who seemed to have a plethora of effects peddles). There was a shop in Bath which specialized in selling second-hand musical equipment and stereos. He was pretty sure he could pick up a small practice amp there for about a tenner.

He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and counted his remaining money. Two twenties and a ten. If he bought an amp for £10, that would still leave him £40 to spend on fags, booze and going out until his next instalment was due. He'd just have to live without buying any new clothes for a while.

He put the money back in the bottom drawer and replaced the sky blue Strat in its temporary resting place. Then he browsed his record collection to find a suitable album to play for when Martine arrived. He decided on The Hollies, and lined up track one, side one just as he heard a car come to a stop outside.

Theo bounded down the stairs three at a time and managed to get to the front door before Martine had a chance to ring the doorbell. He opened the door and she entered, a smile on her face. She kissed him on the lips and the blood rushed instantly to his groin. She then made her way past him and headed up the stairs to his bedroom. Theo called to his parents that he'd be upstairs for a while and followed her up.

'The Air That I Breathe' by The Hollies was just finishing as they entered Theo's freshly aired room. "Ooh, I think my mum's got this" said Martine.

"Yeah, it's from the sixties. It's The Hollies."

Theo sat on the bed, hoping that she'd do the same. But instead she stood directly in front of him. He put his hands on her hips and hooked his thumbs underneath the waistband of her skirt. He pulled downwards, and she wriggled along to make it easier. The skirt fell to the floor revealing pale green cotton pants next to brown skin. He was about to take these off too but realised that the bedroom door was ajar. He leapt up quickly, closed the door and carried on with what he had been doing.

Twenty minutes later, side one of The Hollies _20 Golden Greats_ came to an end and Theo got out of bed to put side two on. "You don't have anything else do you?" asked Martine.

"Sure, what do you fancy?"

"Dunno. Mind if I take a look?"

"Course not. Would you like anything to drink - a hot chocolate or something?"

Martine said that she would, so Theo got dressed and went downstairs. When he came back into the bedroom, carrying two mugs of cocoa, 'I'm Alive', the opener of side two of _20 Golden Greats_ was playing and the now fully dressed Martine was placing the sky blue Strat back in its makeshift resting place.

"Oh hi!" She said as she saw him. "I couldn't find anything else I fancied, so I just put side two on."

"Oh okay" said Theo, feeling rather deflated that she hadn't found a single album that she wanted to listen to in his entire record collection. "Do you play?" he asked, motioning towards the guitar.

"Nah, I tried piano for a bit but couldn't get on with it. Nice guitar though, I like the colour."

"Me too!" replied Theo, glad that they could at least agree on a colour, if not an album. "I've just started playing. I think I might like to try and write some songs as well and maybe even sing a bit, you know, as well as drumming." This was the first time Theo had thought about trying to sing as well as learning the guitar. But why not? His voice seemed to be in tune on the recording he made earlier; it was just a shame he didn't have that Eddie Cochran wail. But maybe he could learn that, take lessons or something?

Ten o'clock came around, which was when Martine's dad had arranged to come and pick her up. Theo wasn't sure when he would next be available because there were some X-Tradition practice sessions in the pipeline but he said he'd phone her in the next few days to arrange their next date.

-

The next morning, Theo realised that he needed art supplies as well as the practice amp so he planned a trip into Bath where he could get the art gear from Harris's on Green Street, and hopefully a practice amp from one of the second-hand stores. Then in the afternoon he would head up towards Colerne to sketch that water tower.

He wore the Dead Kennedys t-shirt that he had borrowed from (and failed to return to) August, along with his Wrangler jeans and dusty Rucanors. There was no need for a jacket on such a sunny day, but he liked the idea of wearing his recently acquired beige sports jacket over the punky t-shirt, so retrieved it from his wardrobe.

He ran some Black & White through his hair and went to his desk to get some cash. He moved the sky blue Strat and placed it carefully on his bed, with its head hanging over the edge so as not to disturb the tuning forks. He then opened the bottom drawer and reached for the money. He pulled out two twenties but no ten. He looked in the drawer again, moving everything around but it was not there. Ten pounds had gone missing. He shook his head in disbelief. It had been there last night, he had counted it. Two twenties and a ten. He checked his pockets, the top of the desk, behind the desk, on his bed, under his bed, but it was nowhere. What could have happened to it?

Then an image of Martine replacing the guitar came into his head. What if she hadn't been admiring it, what if she had been looking through the desk drawers? She could have taken the money when he was downstairs making the hot chocolate. Maybe that explained why she had put side two of The Hollies on - she hadn't had time to find a replacement album _and_ take the money.

The more he thought of it, the more likely it seemed. He knew his parents and his brother wouldn't dream of taking it (not without leaving a note anyway), and besides, he had been in his bedroom practically the whole time before Martine came round. It _must_ have been her. The realisation brought tears to his eyes. How _could_ she?

He stood there motionless, the two twenties in his hand. He was too hot in his jacket but he kept it on, sweat forming on his forehead and in his armpits.

Finally he summoned the energy to move and sat on the bed. He looked at his remaining money. What should he do? He thought about phoning her. But what would he say? _Did you steal a tenner from me?_ She would only deny it, and then that would be that. No more Martine. Maybe she would phone _him_ to confess. This seemed like the only thing to do: wait for a phone call of contrition.

Now he knew that today and the next day, and possibly several days after that would be spent anxiously waiting for her call and it _did not seem fair_. He wanted to enjoy his holiday; his drumming, his guitar, his friends, the sunshine, and Martine, but now it was all on hold while he waited for a phone call and an explanation that might never happen.

Despondent, he left the house with his too-hot jacket on and made his way to the bus stop. Despite his mood of dejection, the ensuing trip was a success and he picked up a used Marshall practice amp for a tenner, and much-needed paper and pencils from Harris's on Green Street. When he got back home he asked his mum if there had been any calls but there hadn't been. He then phoned August. He needed something positive to concentrate on, so he hoped that an X-Tradition band practice might be in the offing. As luck would have it, August had been productive and had recruited another couple of members and wanted to arrange a practice for the next day. Theo asked if he could come round today as well, on the pretext of returning the Dead Kennedys t-shirt (which he now realised was far from clean). August said sure, he was just hanging out by himself and would welcome the company.

Before leaving, Theo took the practice amp to his room and plugged it in. It made the low humming noise that had accompanied every practice session and gig he had ever drummed at. It was only then that he realised he would need a lead to plug the guitar _into_ the amp. He had completely forgotten about that. _Bollocks!_ Maybe he could borrow one from August as well as the fuzzbox.

He rode out along the A4 to August's place. When he arrived, the front of the house was devoid of life but he could hear laughter coming from the back. He walked around the side of the old farmhouse to a patio area shaded from the sun by a rose-covered trellis. He saw August reclining in a garden chair, his feet on the wrought iron table in front of him, his shoulders being massaged by a woman he guessed to be his mum. August was bare-chested and the sides of his head were newly shaven, the resulting Mohican pulled back into a ponytail. The sides of his head were the only part of his upper body that were not a golden brown colour. Mrs Wells was the first to spot Theo:

"And who do we have here?"

Theo blushed as August looked up. "Theo old boy! Welcome! You haven't met my mum have you? Theo this is my mum Veronica, Ron for short. Come on over and make yourself comfortable."

Theo did what he was told but wondered if "comfortable" might include a massage from the rather imposing Mrs Wells. He found a chair and nodded towards August's new haircut, his eyebrows arched.

"Oh this" replied August. "You should see it when it's spiked up. Actually I've gone off it a bit; something of a cliché. Sophie did it for me, but I think I'm gonna let it grow out."

With this, Mrs Wells gathered her cigarettes and sun lotion from the table. "Well it's getting too hot for me out here boys. Would you like anything to drink Theo? We have squash, water or tea?"

Blushing afresh, Theo answered, "Um tea please."

"Earl Grey?"

"Yes please."

Theo did not know what Earl Grey was. Presumably it was something you got with a cup of tea at posh people's houses. A biscuit or a type of cake maybe. August grabbed his t-shirt from the back of his chair and put it on. He began to roll a cigarette.

"How's Martine?"

"Oh. She's fine thanks." But sadly, Theo did not know this. He didn't feel that he knew anything about her anymore, apart from the fact that she had a tenner of his.

"We should get the girls together one day, go for a drink. You know, a double-date. Ha!" Theo nodded and laughed as enthusiastically as he could. Oh how he would love to live in the world where such a thing was possible!

Mrs Wells returned with a tray and decanted two mugs of tea on to the table, along with a sugar bowl and a couple of teaspoons. "There you go boys. I'm off to cool down a bit."

With that Veronica - or Ron - wandered back inside, leaving Theo to ponder the lack of Earl Grey cake. She must have forgotten it. Should he mention it to August, or just let it pass? He decided on the latter, making do with the tea alone. Maybe he could have a rifle around the kitchen later. He took a sip from the thin porcelain mug and was met with the unmistakeable taste of washing-up liquid. Things were going from bad to worse. First no cake, and then this! Feeling dejected, Theo put the mug back down on the table.

"Shall we go upstairs; have a little smoke-y?" asked August.

This was a much more appealing prospect. They traipsed upstairs to August's room, the thick limestone walls offering a respite from the heat of the afternoon. In truth, Theo would rather have a couple of tins of lager than a smoke, but it would have to do. When they arrived, August walked to the far end of the room and opened the curtains revealing a large sash window, which he also opened. He then turned back towards Theo and appeared momentarily taken aback.

"Blimey! Are you pleased to see me or something Theo?"

"What?" Responded Theo.

August motioned towards Theo's crotch. Theo looked down and saw the outline of his inhaler jutting out at an uncompromising angle.

"Oh that. It's just my asthma inhaler, honest!" He took it out and looked for a flat surface to put it on.

"Don't panic, don't panic, only joking," replied August, "take a seat."

Theo sat on a large cushion in a corner of the room and August sat cross-legged on the floor. He opened a tobacco tin and started to roll a joint.

"Do you want to choose something whilst I roll this?" August said, nodding towards his record collection.

"Sure" replied Theo, "but I'll warn you: I'm not putting on any Crass."

August laughed. "Can't say I blame you. Put on what you like."

Theo looked through the collection, and was surprised to see some fairly mainstream stuff in amongst the punk: Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, The Knack. He pulled out _Sultans of Swing_ by Dire Straits.

"There's some blinding guitar work on that. Put on Romeo & Juliet, that's one of my favourite songs _ever_. I mean, if you want to that is."

Theo liked the song too, so he lined it up. August's stereo system was not a one-piece like Theo's Panasonic music centre; instead it had a turntable stacked on top of another rectangular unit with lots of large dials on the front. On either side of the units stood large floor-mounted speakers.

As the song began, August said "Turn it right up - that knob on the right." Theo complied and felt the floor vibrate as the bass and drums kicked in. August finished rolling his joint and lit it up. He inhaled deeply and passed it to Theo. He inhaled too, but not quite as deeply as August, wary that in his sober state the tobacco would make him feel queasy. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the music. He had never heard drums sound so _loud_ on record before. They resonated just the same way they did when Theo sat behind his own kit.

Theo opened his eyes and saw August lost in quiet contemplation, his eyes now closed. Theo picked up imaginary drumsticks and started to play along. _This guy is really pretty good_ , he thought to himself.

The joint, and then another, got passed back and forth between the two friends, and Theo started to feel very _heavy_. He stared at August. There were so many questions he wanted to ask him. Principally, he wanted to ask August to be his best friend. But was this something a sixteen year old could ask of another sixteen year old? On reflection he didn't really think so. Maybe he could tactfully enquire who August considered to be his best friend. That August had taken him to the Crass gig boded well of course, but that was more likely a result of circumstance than anything else. He had never met any of August's _other_ friends, just his bandmates. Were his bandmates friends, or just colleagues? He didn't seem that close to Justin when he bumped into them at the last Planets gig. Maybe August led a solitary life and wanted Theo in it just as much as Theo wanted August in his.

'Romeo & Juliet' came to an end and August got on all fours and crawled towards the stereo. He leafed through the records with one elbow resting on the floor. This looked incredibly cumbersome and uncomfortable to Theo, but maybe August was having as much trouble with his co-ordination as Theo was. Clearly in no fit state to make an informed decision about what music to listen to next, he pulled out pretty much the first album he came to which happened to be Fleetwood Mac's _Rumours_.

"Ooh! This one's good! Stevie Nicks is well fit." He managed to get into a kneeling position and spent a minute or so trying to get the liner sleeve out of the thicker outer sleeve. He finally managed it by simply tipping the liner sleeve onto the floor. He then picked it up and tipped the album on to the floor, where it rolled to a stop next to Theo who picked it up, blew on in, wiped it with his forearm and handed it back to August. As August took the album from him, their fingers momentarily touched. August thanked him and placed the record on the turntable, somewhere in the middle of the opener of side one.

"Fleetwood Mac was formed by a drummer you know," said August, "Mick Fleetwood-Mac I think his name is." He fell back onto the floor lying on his back, his hands above his head, his eyes closed.

Theo stared at his taught brown stomach and suddenly another raft of questions came to mind. Principally, he wanted to ask August if he could wear his lumberjack shirts. If he could wear his lumberjack shirts with him still in them. If he could touch the tanned skin of his upper arms. _Would your skin be as hot as Martine's? Can I lie next to you on the floor and find out? Can I place my hand on that flat stomach? Can I move downwards until I am working you back and forth and the warm jets come?_

Theo stopped and breathed deeply. Blood had rushed to his groin and his member was hard against his jeans. Next he imagined standing over August and straddling that tanned torso. He imagined leaning over and kissing his forehead, his cheekbones, his mouth. And that was where the fantasy stopped. The moment he visualized this other male face so close to his, he shuddered. He did not want the bony angles of another boy; he wanted the soft curves of a girl. Any girl - Martine, Laura, any girl. It had to be a girl to caress away the pounding in his jeans. This realisation came as a relief and made him laugh out loud.

The next thing Theo remembered was air-drumming along to 'All Night Long' by Rainbow. Had August put this on or had he? He couldn't remember. August was laughing at something. He was rolling around on the floor laughing. So Theo put down his imaginary drumsticks and started laughing too. Then he started to feel really hungry and decided that it might be time to seek out a slice of that Earl Great cake, or whatever it was. But he couldn't risk going down to the kitchen in this state surely? He guessed he'd have to go home. Would there be a message waiting for him from Martine? The thought sobered him up slightly. But do you sober up when you're high, or do you just become _less high_? He thought about asking August, who was still lying on the floor, still bare-chested and taking a long drag from another joint. Well I'm higher than August, thought Theo, at least I'm _sitting up_. The thought made him start laughing again and he forgot his hunger.

The next thing he remembered was being vertical and saying to August: "Two things: I forgot to bring back your Dead Kennedys t-shirt, and can I borrow a fuzz pedal? Oh and a guitar lead? That's three things." To which August burst into another bout of raucous laughter and Theo sat back down again to join him.

# Chapter Nineteen

Martine did not phone the next day, or the day after that. Theo resisted the temptation of phoning her, hoping that his lack of communication was a message in itself, and was as painful for her as it was for him.

The X-Tradition practice sessions began. August had indeed managed to lure well-regarded bass player Tom away from Downward Spiral and he had recruited a rhythm guitarist via a Want Ad in the window of Lyncombe's main newsagents.

X-Tradition's music became less like the free-form noodling of August and Theo's first jam session and more like what he expected hard core punk songs to sound like: loud, fast and short. Theo kept to his original strategy of using plenty of tom toms instead of the hi-hat; giving the rhythm section a stomping, heavy feel that nicely counteracted the spiky treble guitar.

With each practice session, more and more people seemed to cram into the attic practice space of Wells' crumbling farmhouse. First Sophie brought along a couple of her friends, and then they brought their boyfriends, and then Tom invited over a couple of guys he knew, and soon the practices became social events as much as jam sessions. Although the crowd were friendly enough, the sudden influx of so many strangers alarmed Theo and he found it difficult to relax or bond with them.

Another thing that alarmed him was the amount of marijuana that was being smoked. He had no moral objection obviously, but the practice room would become a haze of red leb, and to make matters worse, the smoke tended to linger at Theo's end, and he often felt queasy from smoke inhalation.

On the plus side however, August liked the logo he'd created for the band and had asked him to paint it on the back of his leather jacket. He had also painted it on a white bed sheet that hung on the back wall of the practice area, behind Theo's drum kit.

The practice sessions took place most afternoons, and in the mornings Theo kept to his original plan of sketching rural life and labour. He produced what he thought was an excellent series drawings around the Colerne water tower, and he then went on to sketch more traditional rural scenes involving tractors and combine harvesters at several of the farms between Lyncombe and Monkton Farleigh.

Evenings were spent either at August's place, at the fountain, or round at Pete's. After a week or so, he gave up any hope of Martine phoning him, and he became resolute that he would not phone her. Did that mean that he had chucked her? He had never chucked a girl before, but he assumed that saying he was going to phone a girl and then _not_ phoning her constituted a chucking. That he had ended it gave him some sense of satisfaction, although not enough to make him stop missing her.

Theo continued with his guitar playing too. He quickly mastered the Johnny Ramone chords, and became proficient at the major (and some minor) open chords too. He studied the song sheets Tim had given him, and he was soon able to play along to 409 by The Beach Boys. Singing and playing guitar at the same time seemed to come naturally and gave him an enormous feeling of achievement.

By the time the Tuesday evening guitar lesson came round again, Theo had managed to put the Martine incident into some sort of perspective. Maybe she hadn't done such a bad thing. After all, hadn't Theo routinely taken money from his mother's purse until only a couple of years ago? Don't _all_ people have the urge to steal at some time or other? Maybe Martine just found it more difficult to resist than most. He was toying with the idea of phoning her. It had only been a week or so; he could just say that he had been busy with his new band, which was partially true.

Tim was pleased with the progress both his pupils were making at the Tuesday evening lessons. Laura seemed to be taking a different approach to Theo - she was more interested in classical guitar, so spent her time learning how to use her thumb and fingers to pluck the strings individually. Theo pressed Tim for more guitar shortcuts, and Tim showed him how to do power chords, which Theo found fun to play.

Sometimes during the lessons Theo would look Laura's way and find her looking at him, which would cause him to blush. He tried to hide it by quickly looking down at his guitar, hoping that his burning cheeks were at an un-viewable angle. Once he felt his blush recede he would look back up and again she would still be looking his way, so the whole process would start again.

-

Since the X-Tradition practice sessions had become so overcrowded, Theo had spent little one-on-one time with August. He needed a way of re-establishing the (now not remotely sexual) friendship that he felt had blossomed over the past couple of weeks.

Perhaps now was the time to continue working on 'The Dead White Sky', and get it finished so he could present it to August. As far as he knew, August had not debuted the song in any of the practice sessions they had had so far, although with all the shouting it was sometimes impossible to tell what each song was actually about. The sing-along chorus that Theo had created was still in his head, as well as being stored away safely on his parent's Gilbert & Sullivan rehearsal cassette.

All he needed now was a melody for the verses, but Theo did not know how to do this. Was there some formula that songwriters used? Did you play the same chords as the chorus but in a different order perhaps? Or did you go up an octave, or down an octave? Theo realised that he didn't actually know what an octave was. He decided to listen to some of his favourite songs to see if he could find any clues.

First he listened to 'See You' by Depeche Mode but couldn't really tell much difference between verse and chorus, except perhaps that the chorus felt faster somehow. Maybe the trick was to fit more notes into the chorus. Next he listened to 'The Air That I Breathe' by The Hollies. The chorus seemed to be sung in a higher octave or key or whatever, but again the notes seemed essentially the same.

He decided to just get on with it. So he picked up the sky blue Strat, plugged it into the newly acquired Marshall practice amp, made sure the newly borrowed fuzzbox was working and sang the melody of the chorus of The Dead White Sky in his head. Then he strummed the lower E string to find a note that sounded like the opening note in his head. He decided that it was the F. Then came the G, the A and then further up the fretboard for the B and down again to the G. He played it again, singing along in his head. It felt right. So that was the chorus figured out. He seemed to remember Tim telling him some formula for figuring out if a chord should be a minor or major one, but decided to put that on the back-burner for now.

For the verses maybe he should just use the same four chords - F, the G, the A and the B. He started with the A chord, but remembering that verses seemed slower somehow than choruses, he kept strumming on that note for two bars instead of one. Then he moved down to the G chord for one bar, and then went up to the B for two more. Another melody formed in his mind. So he played the notes again, this time humming the new melody as he went. Yes, this seemed to work. Now he had to see if the lyrics that August had written would actually fit into this new verse format. He retrieved the folded piece of A4 from his desk and read the first verse:

You see the noise and hear the pain

The sky it drowns with acid rain

A blink of light that cracks the sky

Leaves houses up but children die

He tried to make the lyrics scan to his verse melody. To do so meant leaving a fairly big gap in the middle of every other line:

You see the noise and hear the pain

The sky it drowns with acid rain

A blink of light that cracks the sky

Leaves houses up but children die

But this wasn't necessarily a problem. In fact he liked the fact that the verses felt slower as a result. It meant the song would stand out from the normally frenetically fast X-Tradition output, and the chorus - when it came - would be even more powerful.

So now Theo had the chorus _and_ the verse. He knew that songs also contained a middle eight section after the second chorus, but he didn't think that this was something he needed to concern himself with now. Perhaps he and August could work on that together.

The next step was to get this finished song onto tape. So once more he retrieved the cassette recorder from the downstairs cupboard and cued the Gilbert & Sullivan rehearsal tape to the beginning and pressed Play and Record. After a couple of bars of guitar intro, he sang the first verse and the chorus into the machine, his timing faltering only once or twice as he changed from chord to chord.

He stopped the recording and rewound it to the beginning. He pressed Play and sat back, his heart pumping, half with expectation and half with trepidation. The guitar intro began and sounded very loud. He waited for his voice to come in after the first couple of bars, but when it did he could hardly hear it. Even though the Marshall was on a low volume setting the guitar completely drowned out his voice.

He rewound the tape to the beginning again. He reduced the volume on the Marshall amp and turned down the fuzzbox. If he was going to be heard over the guitar he needed to sing louder. He pressed Play and Record again. With the reduced fuzz level, his guitar sounded more rock n roll than punk. He took a deep breath and sang the opening lines of the first verse again, this time getting his voice as loud as he dared:

You see the noise and hear the pain

The sky it drowns with acid rain

On he went, this time with less faltering between chord changes. When he reached the end of the first chorus, his throat began to tickle and he felt the need to cough. So he pressed Stop and rewound the tape. He listened again as the guitar intro started, and then heard a voice; a reedy, resonant voice far removed from the motherly lullaby that he had heard on first playback. He _liked_ this voice. It sounded like the voice of a _singer_. It seemed that raising his voice to be heard over the guitar had given it more authority. Or was it that the guitar had hidden the softer aspects of his voice that he had disliked?

He sat stunned for a moment. This sounded like an actual song. Was this what it felt like to be Mark Heritage or August Wells? To create music from nothing? To be the instigator?

But would August like it? He could think of no reason why not. It may not be as punky as a lot of the X-Tradition stuff, but August said that he wanted the band to be a more democratic unit than the New England Planets. All band members should be able to contribute. And what was this if not a contribution?

Theo didn't want to take any chances; he wanted August to hear the song in its best possible light. He imagined his song with a drum track behind it - how much more powerful it would be with the onslaught of his drumming behind the guitar and vocal. His cymbals and tom toms would fill out the sound and turn the song into a powerhouse that August would be unable to resist! But how could he get his drumming onto this demo tape demo _as well as_ sing and play the guitar?

Then the answer presented itself, as plain as day. He would need to find another cassette recorder, then he could record his drum track onto the _first_ recorder and play that recording back as he sang and played guitar into the _second_ recorder. He could think of no reason why this would not work. He was pretty sure that his parents did not own another cassette recorder, and he didn't want to ask any of his friends in case they wondered why he needed it. So another trip to Bath was required.

The next day he arranged to pick his kit up from its week-long residency at August's house and made the trip into Bath to find a cassette player. He couldn't fine one in any of the second-hand shops so he had to buy one from Woolworths for £7.99, which seriously ate into his remaining holiday money. But he believed the end result would be worth it. He also bought a three-pack of blank Maxwell C-30 cassettes.

When he got home, the house was empty, so he could conduct his two-track audio experiment without fear of interruption. The first step was to record the drum part: he set his new cassette player on his desk approximately four feet from the front of the kit and pressed the Play and Record buttons. Then he then ran to the drum kit, sat on the stool and clicked his sticks together four times to count himself in. He then waited for two bars (which he imagined to be the unaccompanied guitar intro) before beginning his drum part. He sang along in his head, creating fills and drum rolls where necessary, and then stopped completely for one bar before hitting the snare and floor tom simultaneously three times to back up the _Dead White Sky_ segment of the chorus.

When he finished, he got up from behind the kit and pressed Stop and Rewind, and then Play. He listened as the tape recorder began to hum. Then the click-click-click-click of his drumsticks, and then a deafening clatter as the bass and snare drum kicked in. The hi-hat sounded fine, but the drums and cymbal smashes were far too loud. He was frustrated that the recording sounded amateurish, and he had to find a way of improving it.

He tried putting the tape recorder further away, but that led to the sound becoming muddy. So he tried placing the recorder directly behind him at head height (he placed the tape recorder on a stool placed on top of his desk to achieve this), and this, combined with some tea towels to dampen the drum heads, seemed to provide an acceptable recording.

Now that he had his drum track in the bag, he needed to add the guitar and vocal parts. To test levels he positioned the cassette recorder containing his drum track right next to the other recorder and pressed Play. He then pressed Play and Record on the other cassette player and strummed the opening couple of bars of the guitar intro. He could just make out the drum track emanating muddily from the other cassette player, and after a few more bars he pressed the Stop button. The resulting recording contained twice the "hum" levels of his previous efforts, but the system seemed to work. The drum track was too quiet on his first attempt however, so he turned the volume up to full and tried again. This time the levels seemed more or less okay, so he attempted playing the whole song uninterrupted.

After a couple of abortive attempts during which chord changes were forgotten or notes not reached, he managed to complete the song from first verse to final chorus. He pressed Stop on both machines and rewound both cassettes. He pressed Play on the cassette containing both the drum track and the second guitar/vocal track and listened. Apart from the loudness of the hum, and the quietness of the recording itself, the song presented itself to the world, if not quite fully formed, then in an embryonic version that August would not be able to resist.

He ejected the tape from the player and mimicking August's own handwriting, wrote THE DEAD WHITE SKY in capitals on the 'contents' strip of the cassette. Then he wrote VERSION 1 next to it. He wasn't quite sure why he wrote this, perhaps to imply that there could be several more versions if need be.

He put the cassette in its protective plastic case and again wrote THE DEAD WHITE SKY on its spine. He put the cassette in the top drawer of his desk and then placed the sky blue Strat in its makeshift cradle in front of the desk drawers, as if to protect his first recording.

But now he wasn't sure what his next move should be. How would he present this song to August? The obvious thing to do would be to give it to him at the next practice session, but what if he were to play it there and then, in front of everybody? And what if his tune wasn't in fact an original and everybody heard his shameless copy of a recent chart hit, or a long-forgotten sixties classic?

He decided to think about it. Not sure what else to do, he emptied the contents of his rucksack onto his desk and took the bus to the off-licence by the train station in Chippenham. There he stocked up on booze and fags and spent the rest of the evening round at Pete's.

# Chapter Twenty

The C-30 demo cassette sat uncomfortably in Theo's front jeans pocket all the way through the next day's X-Tradition practice session.

He had failed to solve the difficult question of how to give August his tape of The Dead White Sky. Thinking about it now, maybe he should have just arrived before everyone else and played him the damned thing there and then, but it was too late for that now. He decided that he just had to wing it, and hope that an opportunity would present itself.

The practice session passed without incident, with August demo-ing a couple of new songs. Every time he introduced one of these songs, Theo's heart skipped a beat in case it was August's version of The Dead White Sky and he had missed his chance. But the new songs were called 'Green Unpleasant Land' (a song about the racism encountered by the first immigrants on The Windrush), and 'The False Economy', which seems to be about the evils of capitalism.

Luckily, this particular practice session was sparsely attended, with only the group itself and one of Sophie's friends in the relatively smoke-free attic space. Sophie and her friend left as soon as the last song had been played, and the other members of X-Tradition set about packing up their kit. Theo was leaving his drums however, so to give himself some more time he disappeared to the toilet and came back five minutes later, the C-30 cassette still burning a hole in his front pocket.

As he had hoped, the rest of the band had left as he re-entered the room, leaving just August, who was rolling himself another joint. _How many of these does he get through in a day?_ Theo wondered to himself.

He saw his chance. Gravity left him as he reached into his front pocket to bring The Dead White Sky into the world, but then August muttered to himself "Shit, I forgot to give that album to Tom." He then rushed to his record collection and pulled out _Penis Envy_ by Crass. "Back in a mo" he said and bounded out of the room.

Theo dug the cassette out of his front pocket and tapped it against his thigh. Did he really have the nerve to give it to August in person? Perhaps a better idea would be to leave it here for August to listen to later. Yes, that sounded like a plan. So where would be a good place? By the record player would make sense. He walked over to the multi-levelled sound system and left the tape upright on the closed lid of the turntable, its spine facing the room with the words DEAD WHITE SKY written on it.

When August re-entered the room, Theo grabbed his jacket and got ready to leave. The two friends arranged another practice session for a couple of days' time and talked about maybe meeting up on Friday night to check out whatever band was playing at The White Hart. Their renewed friendliness bolstered Theo, giving him the confidence he required.

"Oh, by the way, I left you something; it's on the record player."

"Oh, okay, cool" August replied.

"Yeah, just a little something, but have a listen and see what you think."

August nodded and took a drag on his joint. He offered it to Theo, who against his better judgement took a hit and handed it back. "Thanks. See you on Friday then."

-

Theo's days off from X-Tradition duties saw him spending both morning and afternoon sketching in the surrounding countryside. He had now filled up just under two full A3 pads with rural studies. He had tried to emulate Van Gogh's woodcut style but found it too difficult, so he abandoned the idea and concentrated instead on creating his own style. Taking the quarry sketch of the stone mason and his circular saw as inspiration, he continued the technique of leaving the paper completely blank around any activity happening in the scene. This gave his sketches a kind of kinetic energy that made them leap from the page. He was confident that his art teacher would appreciate this new direction and he was sure he had a large enough portfolio for the coursework part of his A-level exam.

Now that he felt he had found his own style with pencils, he decided that it was time to move on to oils. Up until now, his only experience of painting was a couple of abortive watercolour still lives, or using guache to colour in images he had copied from magazines. He ventured to Harris' in Green Street in Bath and bought a starter set of oils and a couple of pre-stretched A3 canvases There was no need to buy an easel as there was one on the garage, bought by his mum when she'd gone through a brief painting phase a couple of years back.

When he got home, he rooted around the garage and found the easel leaning up in a corner, obscured by an old Raleigh Grifter and a wooden step-ladder. He dusted it off and took it out to the garden. As he surveyed it he began to wish that he'd bought a new one after all, as this one was rather large and clunky. Still, he was saving money by re-using it - so more money for booze and ciggies. The easel had a surprisingly large amount of hinges and screws, all of which seemed to be rusted and in need of oil. He found some 3-in-1 and managed to loosen the hinges enough to open it out to its working position. He then positioned a canvas on the easel's horizontal mount and fixed it in place using various sliding wooden joists. Once he was satisfied that he'd set it up correctly, he pretended to sketch out a scene on the canvas using his finger, but it felt strange at this upright angle - he was used to sketching horizontally with his sketch pad on his lap. Still, he was sure he'd get the hang of it.

Next he had to decide what (and where) to paint. The huge amount of kit he now needed to take with him made part of the decision for him: there was no way that he'd be able to cycle anywhere with the easel, the canvases, the paints, the brushes and the palette. So it had to be somewhere within walking distance.

Although Theo's house was on a main road, one of the great things about Lyncombe was that you were never very far from greenery. At the end of Theo's garden, there was a narrow lane that ran adjacent to the houses, and on the other side of the lane lay an overgrown and seldom-visited allotment. Theo had spent many happy hours in this allotment as a child: in autumn he would take his dad's tennis racket and see how far he could hit fallen apples from the wild orchard that grew there. Or he would find a good-sized stick, whittle it down with his penknife and spend an afternoon beheading stinging nettles. It had been a while since he'd visited the allotment, but he recalled that there were a couple of small derelict single-storey stone buildings at the bottom of the allotment that might make a perfect subject for his first attempt at oils.

All this new painting equipment unnerved him though. What he loved about sketching was its free-form nature; that he could just go out on his bike, travel the country lanes and stop and sketch on a whim. But the oils, the easel, the bulky canvas - it was all so ostentatious, so _permanent_. It seemed to cancel out the opportunity for spontaneity. To banish his qualms, he decided that he needed to go out and paint _now_ before he could talk himself out of it.

It took him two journeys to the allotment to drop off all his gear. Apart from a lone pensioner tending her patch on the far side of the allotment, the place was as deserted as he'd hoped it would be, and the two derelict stone buildings were still derelict and very much on the losing side of a battle with nature. In fact, the roof of one of them had caved in and a small apple tree was growing out of it. Theo found an abandoned wheelbarrow nearby, which he leant up against the front wall of one of the buildings to give the scene an added agricultural feel. There were plenty of trees situated around the orchard which bathed the scene in a pleasant dappled sunshine reminiscent of the impressionist paintings he had seen in art class.

Once satisfied that he had chosen the best vantage point from which to paint his scene, he set about assembling the easel. Annoyingly, his chosen location was on a slight slope, which meant extending one of the easel's three legs more than the other two to gain a horizontal footing. This wasn't something that he'd needed to do when trying the easel out on the flat lawn of his back garden, but now that he needed to, he found that the required screw had in fact snapped off, and the leg was immovable. Cussing under his breath, he looked around for something to put under the offending leg to flatten the easel's angle out. He found half a brick nearby and wedged it firmly into the dry grass and placed the easel leg on top of it. This seemed to do the trick, and he forced the other two legs into the hard earth to add some stability. Next he set about fixing the canvas to the easel, looking around him to see if anyone was coming while he did so. He managed to get the canvas in place easily enough, but once there, a sudden gust of wind came up from behind it and practically lifted the whole thing into the air. Only Theo's quick reflexes stopped the easel from taking off. Did Van Gogh have these problems, he asked himself.

He tried to find some other way of fixing the easel to the ground in case of further gusts of wind, but in the end had to resort to standing with his left foot permanently resting on one of the easel's lower slats and his right non-painting hand holding on to the edge of the canvas.

Thus he began to sketch the scene in front of him. The feeling of pencil on canvas was new and surprisingly satisfying, and before long he had created a pleasing outline From which to work. Maybe he should just quit now: this outline would suffice as artwork in its own right, the canvas adding some gravitas to the pencil lines. But no, Theo knew that he had to continue, that he had to make the bold step into oils. So once more he looked around to make sure he was alone and opened his first tube of oil; a cerulean blue to realise the sky. He dabbed it on his pallet and then put a medium-sized paintbrush into the glossy gloopy splodge. Then he put it directly onto the canvas. It looked far too dark for this hazy August afternoon. Then he remembered that you weren't necessarily meant to use the paint _neat_ ; you could thin it with turpentine. Did he have any of that in his starter kit? He had a quick look and confirmed that he did indeed have some thinner.

He opened it and poured some into a well on his easel, presumably there for just that reason. He then stuck his paintbrush in it and tried to thin the paint already on the canvas. Inevitably, the resulting mess thinned to such an extent that it trickled down his pristine canvas. Desperate to stem the flow, he hurriedly put his paintbrush down on the easel's rest to retrieve a tissue from his pocket and watched as the paintbrush clattered to the ground, marking his jeans as it did so. Cursing, he finally managed to extract a tissue from his pocket and set about dabbing the canvas, and then used the same tissue to wipe his jeans.

Now he was beginning to feel frustrated. He clearly hadn't thought this through. He needed to learn how to thin the oils and how to blend the colours. The pallet that came as part of the starter kit was only small and couldn't accommodate many different colours. Shouldn't he have some little mixer wells as well, like you have for watercolours? He needed more provisions. But seeing as he was here, he decided to just go for it: he squeezed paint directly onto the canvas - greens, blues and reds for the overgrown allotment, yellows for the abandoned buildings and various blues for the sky. _Splat splat splat!_ Then, using the brush as freely as he could, he began to try to mould the paint to fit the scene in front of him. He was hoping to achieve a kind of brutalist naiveté. But what he in fact created was a swirling near-black mass in the middle of the canvas with a poorly realised sky above it. It reminded Theo of one of those scary Francis Bacon portraits. He squinted to see if this would help his painting's appearance, but it didn't. Next, remembering something he'd seen his art tutor do: he turned his paintbrush around and used it like a pencil, pushing the globulous mass into small spikey points around its periphery. He wasn't quite sure what he was hoping to achieve with this as he had now clearly given up trying to replicate the scene in front of him. Now the canvas just looked weird.

He was thinking about packing up when, in the distance he could hear voices. Sadly not the gentle undulating tones of an elderly couple coming to tend their lot, but the fierce, fast and agitated sounds of youths all talking and laughing at the same time. Theo's heart sank.

If he were sketching he could quickly pack up his gear and wait for them to pass. But now he was stuck here with an easel, a canvas, and most distressingly a wet half-finished mess that looked like it could have been created by a not particularly adept junior school pupil.

He looked around to the source of the noise, and sure enough, there was a group of five youths, all about ten years old, all on bikes, coming from the lane at the back of the houses into the allotment.

Inevitably, they made their way towards him and stopped on the path below his easel.

"Right?" One of them said.

"Fine thanks. And you?" Theo replied as neutrally as he could, hoping that his bland tone might bore the youths into leaving him alone.

"What are you doing?" Another asked.

"Just doing some painting." Go away, _please go away_.

"Can I have a look then?"

This was the question that Theo had been dreading. If he were to say 'Do you mind if you don't' would they respect his wishes and leave? He doubted it. So he tried "Don't you have anything better to do?" To which of course the answer was "No."

The kids got off their bikes and made their way up the slope towards him. Their excited chatter came to an abrupt halt as they looked at the canvas. Theo could almost feel their disappointment. True enough, the art on offer was of an inferior kind, but the kids' sudden silence implied that it was _so_ _bad_ , that even the uninhibited high spirits of youth couldn't find anything to poke fun at.

Theo felt the need to justify himself. "This is my first attempt okay? I'm not usually a painter, I prefer pencils. I was trying to do something... abstract."

"Is that another word for crap?"

Theo had to concede that in this instance, the answer was probably yes.

The ringleader's friends all started to laugh. Now Theo could feel his face starting to turn red. "Look, would you mind just clearing off?" he said, for some reason speaking in the manner of a 1950s school master.

"Ooooohh!" came the massed reply.

"I'm just having a laugh mister." Replied the ringleader, a momentary look of innocence on his face, before he began to giggle again.

"Well I'm not laughing am I, can you just go away?"

And then it started to happen . Not now, _not now_. His bottom lip began to wobble and his eyes filled with tears. It wasn't the bullying tone of the youths that had upset him; it was that they had seen such a poor effort on his part. He hadn't even really been _trying_. It didn't seem _fair_. Why did they have to see _this_?

The ringleader must have seen the tear in his eye. "Blimey, we've got a right little girl here," he said.

The only way Theo could banish the tears was to go on the offensive. So he shouted at them as angrily as he could:

"Just FUCK OFF okay? Just fucking well _FUCK OFF."_

He moved as if to run at them, which seemed to do the trick and they fled in various directions, all laughing as they went. When he was sure they weren't looking back, he wiped the tears from his eyes and went back to his easel.

Now he was in even less of a mood to carry on. But he didn't want to disassemble his kit when there was a chance that the youths were still lurking about. So he half-heartedly went back to work, trying to salvage something from this terrible afternoon. But then, just as he was squeezing out a tube of ochre on to his paltry plastic pallet, an apple landed with a loud splat right in the centre of the canvas. Instinctively he ducked, then looked around for the source of the missile and was rewarded with another, smaller apple direct to the forehead.

Realising he was under attack, he took cover in the nearby stone building that until recently had been the subject of his endeavours. Apples rained in through the glassless windows and absent roof. He picked up the few that had not disintegrated on impact and threw them back in the direction they came from. He heard distant laughter. After a minute or so under attack, the youths gave up and Theo could hear them getting back onto their bikes and riding off.

He left the building and made his way back to his easel, now lying on its side, a selection of bruised and split apples lying all around it. He righted the easel and looked at the canvas. A couple of flecks of apple skin had become lodged in its thick sticky paint. Feeling suddenly whimsical now that his tormentors had disappeared, he took a pencil and wrote "Orchard Scene, mixed media, 1983" at the bottom right, and then went home.

-

At dinner that evening his parent's broached the subject of the week's work experience at Cabot Farr estate agents. As there were only three weeks of the holiday left, his parents were keen for him to make a decision sooner rather than later. Theo was happy to start the following week, but needed to check with August about the practice schedule for X-Tradition. They had been practicing an awful lot recently and as far as Theo knew there were no gigs in the pipeline, so he didn't think that taking a week off would present a problem. His parents were pleased with this and Roger phoned his friend Rick Ingram, who co-owned the Cabot Farr estate agency in Bath.

It was arranged that Theo would start the following Monday. He phoned August after tea to check with him and August said that it was cool; he thought they should take a well-earned break anyway. They confirmed one final practice session before the week-long break on the up-coming Friday. Frustratingly, August did not mention the demo of 'The Dead White Sky', and Theo was too shy to bring it up. He assumed that Wells had yet to hear it.

The dress code for Cabot Farr was 'smart casual', which his parents explained meant shirt, jacket and smart trousers (not jeans). Theo liked wearing a shirt and tie whenever the opportunity arose and went up to his bedroom to look through the available options. He thought that the recently acquired beige sports jacket would work well with a white shirt and any one of his collection of vintage ties. The one thing he lacked was a decent pair of trousers, so another Saturday trip to the markets in Bath was necessary.

So things were shaping up nicely: he had a Friday afternoon practice session with X-Tradition (during which he may partake in the occasional joint) followed by a night at the White Hart with August and Pete and the rest of his friends. Then on Saturday a shopping trip to Bath, and on Sunday the traditional Blues Train gig. All in all a pretty decent weekend.

After tea, he retired to his room where he consumed a couple of cans of Holsten Pils and then wandered down to the White Hart. He studied the gig posters to see who was playing on the upcoming weekend: Friday's headliners were The Executives. This made Theo smile: The Executives were a local funk band that he had drummed for a while back. He left the band using the excuse that his parents wanted him to concentrate on his studies but the truth was Theo couldn't stand their Level 42 aspirations or the dreadful clothes they insisted on wearing. The lead singer was allegedly a friend of Curt Smith and kept on insisting that Tears for Fears management were interested in signing them. That they were still playing The White Hart on a Friday night seemed to suggest otherwise. It would be fun to watch his old band to see if they had become any less tedious.

The only thing that was worrying him was The Dead White Sky. He had given the demo of his version of the song to August over twenty four hours ago, and had not heard from him. Was this good news or bad news? He leaned towards the latter. August was such a sociable, effusive person he was sure that he would have phoned to offer his congratulations had he liked the song. That left two other options: that he had yet to hear it, or he did not like it. Theo thought that the former of these two options was the most likely, but what if it was the latter? Theo thought that the song was good, but what if it was a copy of some other melody that he had subconsciously heard? What if August was cringing with embarrassment whilst listening to it, thinking of a way to diplomatically break the news to him? Maybe Theo had put an unnecessary strain on their growing friendship by trying to be something he clearly was not. Maybe he should have just stuck to playing the goddamn drums.

Well, he'd find out tomorrow. And if August did not like the song, it wasn't necessarily the end of the world. He could always try again or maybe write his own lyrics to put music to. He toyed with the idea of phoning August to see if he had played the cassette but decided against it. Better to just wait until tomorrow. Then an image of that undeniably pretty girl Martine came to mind. Should he phone _her_ instead? With so many other positive things to look forward to over the weekend, he thought he would be able to withstand the rejection should she not want to see him. But Theo needed more courage than he currently possessed to phone her, and more courage meant alcohol. Unfortunately he didn't have any left, and the two cans from earlier on had lost their effect. There was no way he could get to the off-licence in Chippenham, so he would have to come up with an alternate solution.

Annoyingly, his parents didn't actually possess a drinks cabinet as such, instead there was a shelf in the kitchen that currently housed dry cider, sherry, a sticky permanently half-empty bottle of elderflower wine and five tins of Watney's Red Barrel. It was the Red Barrel that interested him now. He didn't really like the taste but it was better than the other options. Instead of taking a can without asking, Theo decided to ask his dad if he could have one. Surely he was old enough now? Maybe his dad would treat it as a one-off celebratory can, now that the estate agent work experience had been set up. He checked in the living room, but no dad. Chances were then that Roger was up in the sitting room - his retreat from the pressures of family life.

The sitting room was filled with antiques collected by his parents over the years - Louis XIV armchairs, an Edwardian chaise longue, a Victorian Grandfather clock, a vintage gramophone player, Victorian books, statuettes and illustrations. He and Jon weren't exactly unwelcome here, but it was made clear to them that the room was a special place where adult rules of conduct had to be obeyed.

He knocked on the door and waited for the resultant "Come in!" He entered and heard the familiar sound of Gregorian chant playing quietly in the background - this was what Roger listened to to relax. Theo found it rather eerie and anything _but_ relaxing. His dad was in his favourite armchair reading a novel. He smiled as he saw Theo enter.

"What can I do you for buster?" his dad asked good-naturedly.

"I was just wondering if you might fancy one of those cans of Watney's in the kitchen?"

"Yeah, I wouldn't say no. I suppose you might fancy one as well?"

"If you're offering, cheers." Roger smiled so Theo went back to the kitchen and returned with two cans.

But Theo had forgotten the sitting room etiquette, and his father looked alarmed as he brought the cans into the room "You couldn't possibly get some glasses as well could you? And maybe you should pour them in the kitchen."

So Theo traipsed back to the kitchen, found two glasses and opened the two cans of ale. He looked around to make sure he was alone and quickly glugged one of the cans down. He then opened another and poured the contents into the two glasses and carried them back up to the sitting room.

He re-entered, carefully holding the glasses in front of him. He set Roger's down on a drinks caster on a small table to the left of his armchair and then sat on the uncomfortably hard chaise longue. Not knowing where to place his own glass, he kept hold of it.

"Cheers!" his dad said as he took a glug.

"Cheers back" Theo replied, taking only a small sip, as he was beginning to feel bloated from his quickly-downed can in the kitchen.

"How are you finding the guitar? Tim said you were doing pretty well."

"Did he?" This pleased Theo no end. "Yeah, I'm really enjoying it."

"And how are things going with Wells Junior?"

Theo looked confused by this, so his dad clarified: "I mean August."

"Oh right. Yeah, really well. He's a great guitarist. And he writes pretty good songs..." Theo trailed off slightly; the thought of song-writing raising the spectre of The Dead White Sky.

"So what's the next step? Have you got any gigs lined up?"

"Not that I know of" replied Theo. And although the prospect of gigging with August was exciting, it wasn't nearly as exciting as the prospect that August might like his version of The Dead White Sky. He wanted to tell his father about the song, but thought it might be better to wait until after tomorrow, when he'd know whether August liked it or not.

"So what sort of music is it that you play?" his dad asked, taking another sip from his glass.

"Well I guess you'd call it punk rock really" Theo replied "it's pretty political stuff though, pretty serious."

"Yes, your mum mentioned something about you going to a Crass concert the other day. So is this stuff _you_ believe in, or is it all August?"

This was something that Theo hadn't really asked himself. Did the songs that August wrote for X-Tradition resonate with him? He certainly didn't consider himself to be an angry young man. He couldn't really think of anything to be angry about.

"Well, some of the songs are pretty far out there, but August said from the beginning that he wanted this band to be more of a co-operative and that everyone could contribute ideas. So I might have a crack at writing some songs to see if he likes them."

"Excellent!" replied his father. "Why not? I mean now that you're learning the guitar, there's nothing to stop you having a crack at writing. That's actually how I know Rick Ingham - he used to be in a rock n roll band in the sixties and your mum was one of the backing singers. I wrote some silly lyrics for some of their songs. You should ask him about it when you see him next week."

That his mum had sung in a rock n roll band was a revelation to Theo, as was the fact that his father had written lyrics. "What sort of songs were they?" he asked.

"Oh just silly stuff really, a bit like The Goons or the Bonzo Dog Dooh-Dah Band. Well, that's what I was aiming for anyway. It was just a bit of fun."

Encouraged by his dad's flirtation with songwriting, Theo opened up some more: "Well I'd definitely like to try writing songs. I've come up with a few melodies on the guitar, but I don't really know what to write about yet."

"Write about what you know" his father offered. "Andy Warhol once told a friend that he didn't know what to paint. His friend told him to paint what he loved. So he painted a dollar bill and the rest is history. What do you love?"

Martine came to mind but instead he said "Van Gogh?"

Roger thought for a moment. Did Theo know about 'Vincent' by Don McLean? He assumed not. He thought he'd better mention it.

"There is quite a famous song about Van Gogh already you know."

Theo raised his eyebrows. How could anyone _else_ possibly write a song about Van Gogh?

"It's by Don McLean" his father continued. "It's called 'Vincent', or 'Starry Starry Night', I'm not really sure. It was the B-side of American Pie. Or possibly it was a double-A side."

Theo _had_ heard American Pie. He didn't know what a levee was and the song annoyed him as a result. It _was_ catchy though. How could the singer of such an up-beat song possibly write convincingly about the anguished soul of Vincent Van Gogh?

Roger was worried that he might have discouraged his son so tried to make amends: "But just because someone else has written a song about Van Gogh, doesn't mean that you can't too. After all, how many songs have been written about love? People write song after song about that".

"True" said Theo. "True."

The bar has been set pretty high though, Roger thought to himself as he watched his son take a long swig of his ale.

-

That someone else had had written a song about Vincent Van Gogh put Theo on edge. After excusing himself from the sitting room, he went immediately to his absent brother's room to search through his record collection for anything by Don McLean. He also tried his parent's collection but came up empty. 'Starry Starry Night' his dad said the song was called. Sounds a bit... _wet_ , he thought to himself.

He brooded in his room for a while wondering what the song might be like. He would ask his friends tomorrow if they had heard of it. But not wanting to be outdone by the creator of American Pie (what _is_ a levee and what's the big deal about it being _dry_?), he reached for a pencil and tore out a leaf from his sketch pad. In large capital letters he wrote out VAN GOGH SONG in mimicry of August's DEAD WHITE SKY lettering. If August can write a complete song in two minutes flat, so can he. Theo stared at the blank space below. What now? An image of The Sunflowers came to mind; a logical place to start. Then its petals morphed into the famous self-portrait of Van Gogh smoking a pipe. What made him think of this particular painting now, he wondered? Maybe he associated smoking a pipe with quiet contemplation, which is what he himself was attempting. But it wasn't working - no lyrics came forth to fill the expanse of paper. He stared some more at the dead white page. Was this what was called 'writer's block'? Determined not to be a slave to inactivity he wrote the first thing that came into his head:

The sunflowers and the stars/ the landscapes before cars

Whoah! Why was he writing about cars in a song about Van Gogh? He seemed to have gone 'off topic' very quickly. He crossed his effort out and reached for another leaf:

The way you see things/ in your mind

Leaves others cold/ and critics blind

Blind critics? What sort of image is that? What's _going on_?

Frustrated that he was tying himself up in knots, he tried another tactic. Instead of rhyming couplets, he wrote down single words, in the hope that something would germinate from them:

Harvest/ workers/ sunrise/ swirls/ sunlight/ vivid/ colour

But nothing did. And then the image of Van Gogh with his pipe filled his vision again. This time he seemed to be shaking his head almost imperceptibly from side to side.

He balled up his first attempt and threw it in the waste bin. He had more tolerance for the list of seven random words, so he folded that piece of paper up and placed it in the top drawer of his desk. His mind then turned to the three remaining bottles of Watney's Red Barrel on the kitchen shelf. He padded softly down the stairs and when he got to the kitchen he saw that there were only two cans left. His dad must have come down and taken one. He was sure Roger would be fine with him taking another one as well.

As he headed back up to his room, he passed the telephone and he thought of Martine. Of course! He was going to phone her. His heart started to race. But was it too late? He looked at the clock in the kitchen: nine thirty. Technically speaking yes, it was too late. But after the three cans of Watney's he was feeling reckless, so he opened the phone book and thumbed through until he got to the Ws. There she was - K Walker, College Road Atworth. He dialled the number and listened to the ring tone. It lasted an awfully long time. He was just about to hang up when he heard a girl's voice at the other end.

"Hello?"

"Hi Martine, it's Theo!"

"Oh I'm afraid she's gone out for the evening. Can I take a message?"

"Um, not to worry, I'll call her back."

With that he hung up. Martine's sister he assumed. Theo remembered her talking about a sister (or sisters) but couldn't remember if they were older or younger. The one who answered the phone sounded just like her.

He told his parents that he was going round to Pete's. He retrieved his ten-speed from the garage. It was already dark, and the bike had no lights, but this was irrelevant as he had already made up his mind that he was going to cycle to Atworth. What he was going to do when he got there he did not know, his plan did not extend further than cycling to the street where Martine lived.

He hoped that the white t-shirt he was wearing would make him stand out to any passing traffic. As it turned out, the roads were virtually empty, but to reduce his chances of being hit, every time he heard a car coming he stopped at the side of the road to let it pass. After twenty minutes or so, he deviated from the main road and took the left turn that he believed the bus had taken on that afternoon a few weeks back, and cycled for a further ten minutes. This road was narrow and had no street lights to illuminate it, but the night was clear and the moon gave him some light to go by. He came to a fork in the road at which there was a signpost, but neither direction indicated Atworth. He now realised that he was lost. And to make matters worse, the cycling had sobered him up and he now began to see what a futile and pointless journey he had embarked upon. He didn't even have a clear idea as to what he would do when he got to Martine's. But the alternative was going home, which didn't appeal either.

The signpost indicated Devizes to the right, and he seemed to remember that Devizes was the final destination of the bus. So he headed in that direction, the road thankfully becoming wider and lined with lights after another half-mile or so.

As he continued, he felt the occasional bump from his rear wheel. He assumed this was something to do with potholes in the road. But then the act of pedalling became more and more difficult. Was he becoming more and more sober? The bump from his rear seemed to be getting more frequent and regular. He could hear a car coming so he took that as an excuse to dismount and inspect the rear wheel. He felt the tire: it was virtually flat. He knew that there was no pump on the bike, despite their being a holder for one on the diagonal tube of the frame. An image of a rusty, cobwebbed tire pump resting on the shelves of his garage came into his mind. _Bollocks_.

Now he knew that he would have to abandon his mission. He turned the bike around and got back on. He started to cycle but it was too difficult - his calf muscles started to burn. He dismounted and pushed the bike instead. His main concern now was that his parents would start to wonder where he was. They were used to him coming home around midnight, but he calculated that it would take him at least two hours to get home from here and it was now 11 o'clock. Not wanting to worry them unduly, he started to jog, singing The Dead White Sky as he went.

# Chapter Twenty-One

The next morning Theo received what he was informed by Sylvie would be his last breakfast in bed of the holiday. He accepted it with thanks and tucked into his Shreddies as his mum opened the curtains. Bright sunshine flooded in. She lifted the sash window and said "It's going to be a hot one today, thirty degrees they reckon."

This excited Theo no end. He had nothing to do until after lunch so he could just spend the morning relaxing and doing a bit of sunbathing. He looked at his upper arms - they had certainly improved in colour over the past weeks but there was still a slight paleness above the t-shirt line.

Once his breakfast was finished, he got out of bed and immediately felt bolts of pain run through both thigh muscles. Until that moment he had forgotten about his abortive attempt to see (or spy on) Martine, or how he had pushed the bike home, or how he hadn't got to bed until 1am. He had left the bike leaning up against the side of the garage, as he didn't want to risk wakening anybody by opening its creaky metallic door. He would check that it was still there as soon as he was dressed.

He hobbled over to his chest of drawers and looked for a t-shirt. The first one he came across was the Dead Kennedys one he had borrowed from August. He put it on and walked downstairs in just the t-shirt and pants. It was indeed a beautiful sunny day, but not quite late enough for sunbathing. He went to the bathroom and looked in the cabinet for suntan lotion. A Boots own-brand factor two caught his eye, so he took it downstairs in readiness for when the sun was high enough in the sky.

To kill time he watched television: The Banana Splits followed by The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. At ten thirty he took the radio out to the back garden, laid out a towel and stripped to his underpants.

Radio 1 provided its usual mixture of pop classics and new releases. Simon Bates introduced a new Madness song 'Wings of A Dove' - Theo had never though much of Madness, but he really liked this one, the gospel choir particularly catching his ear. He decided to buy it in town on Saturday, along with the Don McLean record, if he could find it.

His sunbathing routine consisted of thirty minutes on his back followed by fifteen minutes on his front. He knew how important it was to get an even tan, but at the same time it seemed a waste not to try to get as much sun on his face as possible. By the time Newsbeat came on, he decided to call it a day and go inside. He showered, put some Black & White through his hair and went to his bedroom with the intention of wearing the Dead Kennedy's t-shirt and his Wrangler jeans to the X-Tradition practice, but as he descended the stairs, he realised that he was bored with the jeans/t-shirt look and wanted something else.

He had a rummage through his chest of drawers for some alternate trousers, but aside from another couple of pairs of jeans there really wasn't anything to choose from. But then he noticed his old black school trousers from fifth form. He used to like these trousers - they weren't the traditional cheap nylon schoolwear, but instead were thick cotton with a lining that made them hang really well. He tried them on. If anything, they were a little loose around the waist - he must have lost some weight since he last wore them. He put on his blue Rucanor baseball boots and checked the look in the full-length mirror in his parent's room. The trousers looked a bit baggy in the leg, but now that they were no longer needed for school, he was perfectly at liberty to alter them if he wanted to.

He kept a sewing kit in his desk drawer, so he removed the sky blue Strat from its cradle and retrieved a needle, some black cotton thread, a piece of white chalk, some scissors along with a metal ruler from his art supplies. He then turned the black school trousers inside out and laid them out on the bed. Then he found his Wranglers jeans (which in his opinion had the perfect drainpipe cut) and laid them on top of the black trousers. He followed the cut of the drainpiped Wranglers with the chalk, leaving a white line on the black school trousers below.

Then he threaded the needle and began to stitch along the white chalk line. It took him about twenty minutes, and once he had finished, he took the scissors and cut off the now superfluous inner section of trouser material. He turned the trousers the right way out and tried them on. The drainpipe cut was perfect. Now he just had to think about the rest of his outfit. He wanted to wear clothes that August would not have seen him in before. Aside from the Rucanors (which were still dusty from the quarry) he only had a pair of uncomfortable Pony trainers and the impractical brothel creepers. But then he remembered his old Vans skateboard shoes - he used to love them! They were cream and blue ones bought from Rollermania in Bristol about three years ago. They were in the garage along with a ton of other old stuff (including his skateboard).

After five minutes or so of rifling, he found them at the bottom of a water-damaged cardboard box at the back of the garage. He cleaned them off with a washing up cloth and some warm soapy water. They looked great, but the laces were all grey with mould so he had to unlace the Pony trainers and re-lace them into the Vans. Annoyingly they were far too long so he cut them to size with the scissors once he had tied them. He knew they would fray, but he assumed he could get a day's worth of wear out of them before that happened.

Now he just had to think about his top. He wanted to wear a shirt and not a t-shirt today, even though it was now midday and he could feel the heat from outside in his usually cool room. Sadly, his favourite shirt did not belong to him; it belonged to his brother. The shirt was made by Levis had been bought from Jean Jeanie in Bath a year or so ago. It was the same cut as a lumberjack shirt and was a cream colour with a kind of crosshatch pattern on it. Theo knew that Jon was out for the day so he crept into his room and opened his large wardrobe. He looked along the rail of clothes, and found it cramped and crumpled between two jackets. He crept from the room and ironed the shirt, then he tucked it into his newly-tailored black trousers and checked the look in his parent's full-length mirror. He rolled the shirt sleeves up so they rested on his forearms.

Satisfied that this was the right outfit for the day, he fetched his drumsticks and started the long walk to August's house. His legs began to ache and he knew it would be a long time before he would be getting back on to that bike.

So far he had managed to avoid thinking about The Dead White Sky, but it began to permeate his consciousness as he walked along the side of the A4. His panic from the previous evening had diminished slightly, and he was now feeling resigned to either one of two fates: that August did not like the song, or that it was a rip-off of something else. He knew that August was a considerate chap who would not poke fun at him for either of these outcomes, so he shrugged to himself and banished negative thoughts by singing 'Cherished Memories' by Eddie Cochran to himself.

When he arrived at August's house, he was later than he wanted to be - his aching legs and his impromptu sewing session had delayed him significantly. The front door was open so he entered and walked up the stairs towards the attic practice area. As he climbed, he heard chat and laughter broken up with the occasional stab of guitar. He guessed it would be another full house judging from the noise. He continued up the creaking bare-wood stairs to the attic itself when he stopped dead. Coming from the practice area came a sudden and very loud drumroll. None of the hangers-on played drums as far as he knew, so who was this playing his kit? He quickened his pace. When he entered the attic room, he was greeted warmly by August and the others. He said hello back and quickly looked towards the drum kit. Sitting there was a lanky Mohican-ed man probably in his early twenties with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. When he saw Theo, he put the drumsticks down and said "Sorry pal, just practicing my paradiddle."

Paradiddle? That was a _paradiddle_? Jesus! No _way_ could Theo do one that fast! He was momentarily stunned and his first thought was to ask the guy to do it again, just so he could watch. But instead he mumbled "No problem" and took the drumsticks from him as he passed.

Once he was settled behind the kit, the rehearsal began. They ran through three or four songs that had already been sessioned, and then August called a halt for a ciggie break. After he had rolled a couple of joints and passed them round (Theo partook this time to help ease his nervousness), he strapped his guitar back on.

"Right, how about we try a couple of new songs" he said rhetorically.

Theo's heart began to race.

"This one is called The Dead White Sky" he continued. "It's about nuclear war an' that."

Gravity left him. The Dead White Sky. This was it: would August use his version? Had he even heard it? He looked at his friend, trying to catch his eye, hoping for some sort of wordless acknowledgment, but he was already looking down at his guitar.

"Just join in when you can. It's a bit poppier than our other stuff."

_That sounds promising_ , thought Theo, _very promising.._.

August formed an awkward looking chord right at the bottom of the fretboard. It looked nothing like any of the chords Theo had used on his version of the song. Oh dear; maybe it was going to be a different tune after all. But then August began to play, and Theo recognised the tune - his tune - immediately. He stood up from his stool in excitement, and when everyone looked in his direction, he felt foolish and sat back down again. After a couple of bars of the familiar tune, he clicked his drumsticks together to count him and the bass player in, and off they went - a fully live and very _loud_ version of the Hanlon/Wells composition The Dead White Sky.

August started to sing, each word enunciated clearly and dripping with venom. As he progressed through the first verse his voice seemed to get higher and filled with more rage, but then he reset himself at the beginning of the second verse to start the vocal onslaught again. And then he stopped for the chorus, his voice low and full of resignation:

"The Dead. White. Sky"

Theo knew what was coming next, so he stopped drumming but for single _thuds_ on the tom toms as August sang these first four words of the chorus. The bassist kept going but quickly caught on to what was happening and followed Theo's lead.

And then the rest of the chorus began - the _melodic_ bit. Theo used the ride cymbal to add more power, and August nodded his head in approval. _Finally_ , some recognition! He looked around the room: Tom the bass player was practically head-banging as he pummelled out his improvised bassline, and many of the onlookers were nodding their heads too. Buoyed by this reaction, Theo turned it up a notch, peppering the second verse with elaborate fills and double cymbal smashes.

By the end of the second chorus August had built up a real sweat. Theo watched as he stepped back from the microphone and ran his hand through his dripping Mohican. Was that the end? Theo hadn't written a middle eight, so had no idea what would happen now. He stopped playing and looked at Tom, who did the same. But then Theo heard the guitar start up again: the same melody, but this time an octave (or key?) higher, the opening chords played over and over. August nodded encouragement to Theo and Tom, so they both joined in, Tom with his rattling bassline and Theo with tom toms and snare - _bubadum dum-dum tat, bubadum dum-dum tat_ \- quietly at first and then gradually building.

August walked up to the mic and spoke softly into it:

"Under the. Dead. White. Sky."

And then slightly louder:

"Under the. Dead. White. Sky."

And then louder again:

"Under the. Dead. White. Sky.

I don't want to die

Under the dead white sky..."

He kept on going, his voice louder, filled with more vitriol than Theo had heard before. He repeated the same phrase again and again:

"I don't want to die

Under the dead white sky

Under the dead white sky

I DON'T WANT TO DIE..."

It was clear that _this_ was the middle eight, the piece of the song that Theo had failed to write. It was clever, _really_ clever, paring the song back to its basics and concentrating on these two lines to underline the gravity of what it was about. But how long could August keep going before finally breaking into the chorus proper for one last time? He caught August's eye, and managed to shout out "Now?"

August nodded and launched into the rest of the chorus:

"I don't want to die

What Kind of bomb is this

That turns a man to mist?

I don't want to die

What Kind of bomb is this

That turns a man to mist?"

And then the song descended into chaos, August riffing at the top of his fretboard, Tom chugging away at the bottom of his, the rhythm guitarist without a clue and Theo rolling up and down the tom toms, finally coming to a halt on the snare drum - _Rat ta- tat TAT!_

Then silence.

"Holy shit" someone said. And then the applause began. More applause than had greeted any of their other songs. Theo rested the drumsticks on his snare and looked at August, who was shaking Tom's shoulder and saying "Good work buddy!" Then he practically leapt towards Theo and extended his long arm over the tom toms "Well done pal, I knew you were the best drummer in Lyncombe". Theo smiled and shook August's hand.

The hangers-on whooped and clapped and laughed amongst themselves. "That's probably as good a note as any to end on. Well done everyone." said August as he took his guitar off and leant it against his Yamaha amp.

The applause subsided and the hangers-on began to file out leaving only the band members themselves. August sparked up a joint and passed it around.

Theo looked at August, willing him to say something, to _thank_ him. But there was nothing forthcoming. So he spoke first:

"You liked it then?"

"Eh?" replied August.

"The Dead White Sky. I mean the tape I left you?"

"Eh? What tape?"

Theo felt things shift around him; he needed to hold on to something.

"The Dead White Sky" he continued "You sang my version of it. I made a demo tape and left it here. You must have heard..." But he didn't manage to get the word 'it' out, his throat was beginning to constrict and his Adam's apple suddenly felt very swollen.

"Sorry pal, don't know what you're talking about."

"You _do_ , August, you _do. I... I... I..."_

And then the first tear began to roll down his cheek. Tom and the rhythm guitarist looked at each other and edged backwards out of the room.

"I...I...I... made you a tape. I... I... I... left it here. You... you... you... must have heard... it. August... you _must_ have." His bottom lip was wobbling.

Theo stood there defeated. He wanted someone on his side, someone to comfort him. But there was no one. His shoulders began to shake and he could do nothing about the sobs that came from his mouth. He turned away from August and reached into his trouser pocket for a tissue to dry his face with, but there were none there. He used the rolled-up sleeve of his brother's shirt.

"Really sorry Theo, I don't know what you're talking about." He heard August say. "I wrote that last night and played it to Sophie this morning. It's _mine_ man. I didn't even know you wrote songs."

"Well I do and it's _mine_." Theo's voice was back and he wiped the tears away. He walked over to the sound system and rooted around for the cassette.

"What are you doing?" asked August.

"Looking for my fucking demo! It's got to be here somewhere."

He looked through the collection of singles, albums and cassettes, but it was not there. He looked down the back of the system and under the nearby bed, but still nothing.

"Sorry man" August said again. "Look, just take a minute to chill out and let's talk about this yeah?"

Theo turned to face him: "No. It's _fucking_ _mine_."

He grabbed his drumsticks from the snare drum and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

-

He leapt down the stairs three at a time and ran out the front door. Tom and the rhythm guitarist were in the front garden sharing a fag when he passed. "Are you okay Theo?" Tom asked in a kind voice.

"No I'm fucking not," replied Theo and threw one of his drumsticks at him. The stick hit the grass just in front of Tom, then bounced up sharply. Tom ducked and the drumstick ended up in a nearby tree, falling from branch to branch and finally ending up in an empty flower pot.

"Jesus Theo, what did you do that for?"

But Theo did not respond. He needed to get away from August's house as quickly as possible. Why did his bike have to choose last night to get a puncture? He heard Tom shout out: "FUCKING _LOSER!_ " but he didn't look back. Instead he walked as fast as he could. But he couldn't bring himself to run: running was something he did when he was happy, and he was far from that now. Instead he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, making sure not to think about what just happened. His muscles ached as he walked, the pain aiding his avoidance tactics. One foot in front of the other. _This is what I am doing now - I am walking, nothing more, nothing less_. He managed to get to the end of August's road without thinking about anything except one foot in front of the other. Now he was at the junction with the A4 and he wasn't sure where to go next.

It was hot, _really_ hot, perhaps the hottest day of the summer holiday so far. Sweat began to form under his armpits, and he wiped his brow with his already wet shirt sleeve.

Home was to the left and the long road to Bath was to the right. He didn't want to go home or face any of his friends. In fact he wanted to be somewhere he couldn't be found, where there _was_ no-one else. Somewhere utterly alone. So he headed towards the place he'd been meaning to go all summer, the place he often wondered about, the place that lay at the bottom of that spectacular view. Today was the day he would make it to the bottom of Box valley.

So on he walked, still _not_ thinking about what had just happened. Still _not_ thinking about The Dead White Sky, _not_ thinking about August saying "eh?" _Not_ thinking about his tears or his quavering voice. There was so much not to think about that he had to walk at top speed to keep it all at bay.

After five minutes he reached the top of Box valley. There was a wooden bench from which to enjoy the view, so he sat and looked at it. The sun was low in the sky - what time would it be now? About 6ish? 7ish? - creeping slowly towards its vanishing point somewhere beyond Bath. The previously deep blue sky was already beginning to turn red at the horizon and the valley itself looked misty and blue, the heat of the day compressed into it.

He looked down towards the floor of the valley and saw mostly woodland - the perfect terrain to lose himself in. But before he set off he bent his head downwards and let a globule of spit drip from his mouth onto the bench's concrete foundation. He looked at his old cream and blue Vans: the laces were indeed beginning to unravel. He then noticed that he was still carrying his remaining drumstick, with fresh divots from today's furious drumming. He looked up at the view again and thought about throwing the stick at it. But then he decided against it. What if he hit a cow? Instead he laid it gently between the slats of the wooden bench, resting on its concrete support.

He kept walking, following the A4 as it began its descent towards Box. He was looking for a way in to the verdant valley - a stile or gate or pathway - and after another five minutes of robust walking, he came across a narrow muddy road, just wide enough for the average-sized car to make its way along. He took the road and was gratified to see that it instantly dipped downwards at an almost alarming gradient. The awkwardness of walking at this new gradient sent fresh waves of pain to his calf muscles and gave him something new to keep the events of the past hour at bay.

Eventually the road began to even out and he put his hands in his pockets as he walked. The image of August saying "eh?" replayed itself in his mind's eye, and then a sudden flash of his own voice saying "you _must_ have heard it August, you _must_ have." And he could hold it back no longer: his throat swelled, his eyes burned and he began to cry. Big helpless sobs that forced him to stop in his tracks. He looked around for something to hit - a telegraph pole maybe - but there was only hedgerow. So he continued to walk, his breathing now steady, the sobs almost under control.

He looked ahead and saw a lady and her dog walking up the hill towards him. He turned away from them, and wiped his eyes dry, but he could do nothing about their redness. As she passed, she stopped and said "Are you all right dear?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine thank you," Theo managed to reply, his voice steadier than he expected. And to be honest, he _did_ feel slightly better. He began walking quickly again, and after twenty yards or so he looked back to see the dog-walking woman still watching him.

He kept going, and soon reached the bottom of the valley. It was not at all what he had hoped for. A well-presented stone farmhouse stood at the side of the narrow road, a humpbacked bridge to its left. A Range Rover was parked out front and he could hear a dog yapping somewhere nearby.

In his naiveté, he had hoped that the bottom of this valley would be a swampy and overgrown wilderness, an unkempt chaos of nature where he could bury his fists in the soil and scream until the anger was gone. He couldn't have been more wrong. And now he thought about it, this place looked familiar - the farmhouse, the bridge, the winding road. He must have come down here is a kid with his parents, perhaps for a Sunday afternoon stroll.

Now that he was here he decided to keep going. Past the Range Rover, past the well-maintained farmhouse, over the humpbacked bridge, and then to a public footpath that led into a fallow field, presumably the lowest point of this picturesque valley.

He climbed over the stile into the field and noticed that there was a stream at the far end. The stream was shallow and edged with sandy banks on both sides. He sat on the bank and watched the water ebb and flow, ebb and flow. Perhaps he should come down here with his sketch pad (and definitely _not_ his oils). After all, the farmhouse would make a great study, what with that quant bridge next to it. He looked west towards the setting sun: the sky was now ablaze with reds and oranges. Another hot day tomorrow.

Now that his sobbing had come to an end, he could think more clearly. His first worry was how many people had seen him cry. August for certain, and probably Tom and the rhythm guitarist as well. What about Sophie? He couldn't remember if she had left by that stage.

And what about the argument itself? Why did August disclaim all knowledge of his demo? He _must_ have heard it. Maybe he was resentful that Theo's song had received so much support from the assembled hangers-on. Maybe he didn't want to relinquish his status as sole-songwriter. _Collective my arse!_ But was it too late to try to patch things up? After all, he seemed to remember that August had said "Chill out and let's talk about this." Maybe he could talk about it now, and get August to admit what he had done. Maybe...

But then he heard a voice behind him:

"Are you _sure_ you're all right dear?"

Theo leapt to his feet in shock. He turned around to see the dog-walking lady looking at him, a look of concern on her face. He blushed but managed to compose himself, "I'm fine, honestly. But thank you for your concern."

Now he felt miserable _and_ embarrassed. He walked as quickly as he could back towards the stile, making a point of not looking back this time. Did she think he was going to _kill_ himself? Did he really look _that_ upset? The thought made him smile. _I am no Van Gogh,_ he said to himself.

The spur-of-the-moment journey to the bottom of Box valley had not worked out as he had hoped. There was no cathartic outpouring of rage, no communing with the wilds of nature, no cleansing of his earthly pains. Just a twee farmhouse, a Range Rover and a picturesque bridge.

So now was the time to get back to his _real_ element. It was Friday night and the pubs were open.

# Chapter Twenty-Two

By the time Theo had reached the top of Box hill he was exhausted. He must have walked at least six miles today.

The nearest pub was the Hare and Hounds at the top of Pickwick Road, at least another mile away. He sat down on the same park bench he had sat on earlier and noticed that his drumstick was still there. Should he take it with him? Probably not if he was going to a pub.

There was a phone box on the other side of the road so he crossed over and called home. He told his mum that he was having tea at Pete's house and that he would be going to the White Hart after, so he would see her in the morning. Then he phoned Pete and arranged to meet him at 9pm at the White Hart. He then started the walk to the Hare and Hounds.

When he arrived, there was only a smattering of other drinkers. His usual technique of ordering booze was to look as busy as possible whilst ordering his drink. Theo assumed that this made him look older, as grown-ups were always busy. To this end he'd rifle through his wallet as he ordered, or write something on a scrap of paper. Today however, he was without props. There was a newspaper on the bar, so he flipped it over to the sports pages (which he had no interest in) and pretended to read. He heard the barman come his way, so he looked up and said "Pint of Fosters and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps please" and then looked back down at the paper as matter-of-factly as he could. His heart raced momentarily, but then he heard the barman walk away followed by the familiar sound of a pint being poured.

He paid for his drink and sat down at one of the many empty tables. He lit up a fag and took a long swig from his pint. Beer in one hand, cigarette in the other - the perfection of a Friday night

He had an hour or so to kill before he was due to meet Pete, and now he began to worry that he might bump into August or Tom or Sophie (or indeed any of the other hangers-on from the attic practice sessions). Would word of his meltdown have travelled to Lyncombe already? This wasn't a very appealing prospect, so he took another long swig to try to forget it. He was just about to go back to the bar when a full pint glass slammed down on the table in front of him.

"That's my fucking shirt!"

Theo looked up to see his brother staring down at him.

"Oh hi Jon." Theo replied, trying to sound as upbeat as possible. "Yeah, sorry about that, I was going to ask if I could borrow it but..." he trailed off, not quite knowing how to finish the sentence in a convincing manner.

"Yeah sure. And what about that Clash album? You haven't returned that yet either have you?"

"Um..." Theo felt tears well in his eyes, so to stave off another blubbing fit he took a final swig of his pint. This seemed to do the trick, so he offered an apology and asked his brother if he would like a drink. Jon motioned towards his completely full pint and said "No thanks."

Theo went to the bar and came back with another pint and two packs of crisps. He offered one to Jon. Both brothers opened their crisps.

"Look," Jon began "I don't mind you borrowing my stuff, but just ask first okay? And don't go in my room when I'm not there. That shirt looks a right state."

It was true, the arms were creased where they had been rolled up, and there was the occasional wet patch where his wiped tears had yet to dry. Jon took a sip from his pint and Theo did the same.

"You waiting for Pete?" he asked.

"Meeting him later" replied Theo.

"What you doing here then?"

"Same as you I guess."

"Fair enough. How's it going with August?"

"Oh" replied Theo, "Umm, not so well."

And then he told his brother everything. He told him about the Crass gig, he told him about the lyrics written on the train, he told him about the melody that came to him on his bike, he told him about the home demo (which impressed Jon no end), he told him about today's practice session, about how well the song went down, about how August denied any knowledge of the demo and finally he told him that he had got a little bit upset.

Jon looked at him glumly. He knew from past experience that Theo's version of 'a little upset' usually meant a crying fit.

"Oh" he replied, "sorry to hear that."

The two brothers took long swigs from their pints.

"So" Jon began "August played this song - the Dead White Sky - at today's practice session?"

"Yes" Theo replied.

"And you wrote the music?"

"Yes"

"And it went down really well? Better than any of the other songs?"

"Yes"

"And you wrote the music?"

Hadn't he already asked this? "Yes."

"And it went down really well? Better than any of the other songs?"

He had definitely asked this one before. "Yes!" Theo replied, looking puzzled.

"Okay." His brother ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. "Let's take stock."

_Stock_ , thought Theo, that word again.

"What I'm trying to get at," his brother continued "is that perhaps there are some _positives_ that we can take away here. Okay, so August ripped off your song, but that doesn't alter the fact that you _wrote_ it, or that it's probably their best song, judging from the reaction it got. If you can write music that good once, you can do it again can't you? Sod Wells, you can do it all by yourself."

Jon had a point of course. The music _was_ his, he _did_ write it! Jon's summation of events encouraged him. He offered his brother a drink again, and now that his glass was empty, he accepted.

Theo didn't know that much about his brother. It wasn't that he _disliked_ Jon; it was more that he found his brother's unswerving certainty about everything rather intimidating. Conversations with him always seemed to get distilled to statements of fact, all of which Theo was uncertain of. Theo made things up as he went along, his horizons constantly changing depending on the blows or caresses that life offered him.

Right now the caress that life offered was a full pint of Fosters. The booze made Theo surer of things and his brother less so, and they found mutual ground where they could relax in each other's company. More crisps and more beer.

Keen to dispel the momentary silence that had sprung up, Theo asked "How is the T-shirt business going?"

"Oh that." Jon had just started a business with a friend from art school making T-shirts with huge screen prints of Hollywood stars like Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe on them. They printed them in his friend's garage. "We've sold a few to a stall in Kensington Market and I'm trying to get a meeting with the bloke who runs Paradise Garage. Early days."

"Well good luck with it. You coming to the White Hart later? That band I used to play in are on."

"Cheers pal, but I'm off into Bath, probably end up at Moles."

"Say hi to the place for me."

"Will do."

With that, Jon stood up and took a final swig from his pint. "Don't worry too much about this August thing. These things happen in show business. Just remember, you wrote that music; that's the positive to take away here."

"Will do Jon."

"And whatever you do, stick to your guns."

Theo watched his brother put his jacket on and leave the pub _. Stick to your guns!_ He laughed to himself. He had never heard that expression before.

-

Now pleasantly inebriated, Theo walked to the White Hart via the fountain. Better to face people sooner rather than later. Pete and the others were there but were just leaving for the pub. No one seemed to know about the day's events, or at least no one let on. They walked towards the White Hart, and Theo noticed Tom ahead of him with a couple of guys he didn't recognize. He slowed the pace by asking if anyone had a spare ciggie.

The pub was packed with the traditional mix of old and young, punks and rockers, teachers and pupils. Theo and his friends got a table and talked the usual crap. He wanted to tell Pete about the day's events - to get his sympathy, his support, his understanding. But not in front of everyone else. He would have to wait until they were alone.

After a while they all filed through to the back room to watch the band. The Executives had yet to take the stage, but their equipment was already there. The new drummer had a pretty decent set-up: a four-piece Gretch Renown kit in glittering cherry red with Zildjian cymbals. 'The Executives' was painted in a thin sans-serif typeface on the bass drum. They took the stage to mild applause. Shirts with thin ties, grey flannel trousers and loafers. The singer talked to the keyboard player momentarily, his back to the crowd (how _rude_ thought Theo). Then he turned round and spoke into the mic: "Hi there, we are The Executives. Everybody having a good time?"

A muted response from the crowd, although Theo did hear someone say "I was", which made him laugh.

They kicked into their first track. Theo was gratified to see that the new drummer was pretty dire. His wrists seemed stiff when he played and he hit the cymbals far too hard. He also faced the drum he was hitting as if he had to give it his full attention in case he missed. After the paradiddle incident from earlier today, Theo's confidence in his drumming abilities had taken a dive, but this amateurish display went some way to restoring it.

Now he paid attention to the rest of the band: the vocalist-cum-bass player was as ordinary as he remembered, so he turned instead to the rhythm guitarist. He seemed to be using only bar chords. His playing had a clear, crisp sound that appealed to him. _If this guy can get by just using bar chords, why not me?_ The first song ended and was greeted by more muted applause. Theo took this opportunity to excuse himself from his friend, saying he was going to the loo. As he turned to leave, he saw Tom immediately behind him, a smile on his face.

"Right Theo?" he said as he passed.

"Yeah, not bad. You?"

But he didn't wait for a response; instead he headed to the bar and bought himself another pint. He stood at the exact location where he had first spotted Martine, standing by the toilets with her gum-chewing friend. She wasn't there now though. Was she at home, or out with some new guy? He thought about phoning her but could not remember all the digits to her number.

He sipped his pint and got some change for the fag machine. He stocked up on Consulates and headed back to the bar. Tom was walking towards him through the crowded smoky room but before he could think how to avoid him, Pete came and stood next to him.

"I thought you were going to the toilet, cheeky sod."

"Sorry, changed my mind."

This was as good a time as any, so he told Pete everything: the Crass gig; the lyrics on the train; the bike-induced melody; the home three-track demo (Pete too was impressed); the triumphant debut of Dead White Sky; and finally August's disavowal of his contribution.

Pete did indeed offer his sympathy, his support and understanding, He then asked if this meant that he was now out of X-Tradition. This was something that Theo had not thought about directly. He hoped not, but then again how could he go on?

"Dunno I suppose it's up to August really. I guess I need to have a chat with him."

"Hmmm, it's all very odd" continued Pete. "Doesn't sound like August at all, I mean he's such a pleasant chap. Maybe he just forgot he heard it."

"Eh?" Theo did not follow. How could you forget something like that?

"Well he's been caning those joints a helluva lot recently. Maybe he was so stoned or drunk that he completely forgot that he'd listened to the demo. Then when he came to write some music for the lyrics, he subconsciously used yours."

This scenario hadn't occurred to Theo. "But doesn't dope make you paranoid, not forgetful?" he asked.

"Can't remember. Ha ha. No, both I'm pretty sure."

This did make some sense. August looked _way_ out of it half the time; a haze of marijuana smoke followed him like the dirt around Pig Pen in the Peanuts comics. So maybe August's betrayal was an unwitting one. The thought buoyed Theo, and made the prospect of conciliation more likely. He slapped Pete on the shoulder by way of thanks, and they went back to the gig room to watch the rest of The Executive's set.

# Chapter Twenty-Three

For once, Theo seemed to have had his fill of lager before the pub shut. He left after The Executives finished their set and was home by ten thirty. Perhaps his extended bout of walking on his already aching legs coupled with the draining qualities of all that _crying_ had left him in an unfamiliar state of exhaustion.

He woke early the next morning and ate his breakfast on the patio in the back garden, the sun already making an impact on the day.

His talks with Jon and Pete had enabled him to end yesterday feeling upbeat about chances of reconciliation with August, but now that he was sober he wasn't quite sure how to proceed. The only thing that he was certain of was that it was too early to do anything about it now. He would have to wait until at least 11 o'clock before phoning or going to see August.

He looked at his watch - it was now 8am. Plenty of time to do something constructive. He quickly finished the rest of his breakfast, got dressed and made it to the bus stop for the 8.32 to Bath, where he purchased a pair of grey flannel trousers from Bart's Bazaar and a copy of Don McLean's American Pie for £2 from Woolworths. He forgot about the new Madness single, deciding to save his rapidly dwindling savings. He studied the album cover on the bus on the way back home - Don McLean's hand close to the camera with the thumb up, a small American flag painted on it. He flipped the album over and looked at the track listing. It started with the eponymous song - the only one that Theo had actually heard of. _Vincent_ was third on the album.

He walked the short distance from the bus stop to his house, the blazing sun directly in his eyes. He put the key in the front door, eager for the relative coolness of the stone-built house. He entered and was startled to see the silhouette of a tall looming figure in the hallway. He stepped back in fright - had he interrupted a burglar? But as his eyes adjusted, he realised that the static form in front of him was not human: it was his drum kit, stacked up drum on top of drum. An envelope was taped to the bass drum with THEO written on it in August's familiar capitals.

He dropped the bag containing the album and the trousers. "But I don't _want_ them back August," he said to no one, tears forming in his eyes.

He tore the envelope from the drum and opened it:

HI THEO,

I THINK IT MIGHT BE BEST IF WE PART WAYS.

SORRY IT DIDN'T WORK OUT,

AUGUST WELLS

PS: YOU ARE STILL THE BEST DRUMMER IN LYNCOMBE

Those final words sounded damning, not complimentary. What August really meant was "you are _only_ a drummer." But now Theo didn't care if he was the best drummer in Lyncombe or even the whole of Wiltshire for that fucking matter. To be _just_ a drummer no longer seemed enough. He looked at the kit in front of him: how many times had it been ferried back and forth, up and down stairs, in and out of cars, all to accompany music created by _other people_? Other people who could turn around and drop him when he no longer suited their needs?

He was sick of it. He was absolutely sick of it.

His mother came down the stairs: "Oh hello dear. Mr Wells turned up with it just after you left. Nice of him to bring it over, save us the bother of collecting it for Tuesday." She gave him a kiss on the cheek as she passed.

"Thanks mum," Theo said glumly, not sure if he meant for the information or for the kiss. Sylvie smiled and headed towards the kitchen. Theo picked up his shopping bag and walked slowly past the kit up to his bedroom. He noticed that some of the black paint had been chipped off the floor tom, the original sky blue showing through.

So that was that: discarded from another band. Another _good_ band.

He went to his bedroom and closed the door behind him. He sat on the bed expecting to cry, but no tears came. Instead he picked up the bag and pulled out the Don McLean album. Don stared back at him, his thumb upturned. Theo couldn't share his optimism.

He took the album out of its cover, wiped it with his forearm and placed it on the Panasonic music centre. He lined up the needle at the beginning of track three and waited.

Vocal and guitar started simultaneously. No introduction, just:

Starry starry night...

Followed by some rather dreary acoustic guitar. It sounded like the sort of thing you might hear on Radio 2. A soft American voice sang about painting a palette in grey and blue. But surely it should be the _canvas_ that gets painted, not the palette? The song was already annoying him, just as 'American Pie' had for its unknowable 'levee' reference.

But Theo gave McLean the benefit of the doubt. The gentle voice carried on, describing the gentle artist looking out on a summer's day, with eyes that knew darkness in the soul. Theo thought immediately of his mushroom cloud landscape of Box valley. _There was darkness in my soul that day_...

On it went, the sketching of shadows on the hills, of trees and daffodils, and Theo nodded in recognition - _this is what I've been doing all summer long!_ Suddenly the song became not just about Vincent, but about _him_ as well.

And now Theo could see that the previously _dreary_ guitar was simply a sympathetic shoulder for the lyrics to cry on. The song was plain, it was clear, it hid nothing. It kept on coming, each rhyming couplet a damning summation of Vincent's chaotic journey from romanticism to self-doubt and madness.

Yes. Theo could see that this was a _good song_. But now the affinity he felt became displaced with the certainty that he would _never_ be able to create something like this.

To play guitar like this.

To sing like this.

To _write_ like this.

Never, never, _never_.

He listened on. Awe and envy, rapture and sorrow.

Vincent lived, Vincent died, Vincent left the world behind.

Theo glanced at the album spinning round the turntable at 33rpm, and could see that the stylus was still mid-song. There was more to come. But Vincent was already dead - what else was there to sing about? The answer was empty halls and nameless walls; the tragedy of Vincent's priceless canvases exchanging hands for millions. The _irony_...

And just as Theo didn't think the song could get any more tragic, a lavish swell of strings entered beneath the vocal, and he could hold his emotions back no more. Tears flooded his eyes and the rest of the song was lost to sob after sob after sob.

The tears gave way to a renewed anger, but this time not directed at August; but Don McLean, whose perfect song only served to remind Theo of the mountain he had to climb if he too was to become a songwriter. He ripped the record from the turntable and threw it across the room as hard as he could. It hit the wall and bounced to the floor unbroken.

He picked it up with the intention of snapping it in two, but managed to stop himself just in time. Instead he inspected it for scratches and placed it carefully back in its sleeve.

Theo decided that writing a song about Vincent Van Gogh was something that he should probably put on the back-burner for the time being.

-

Needing a project to occupy his mind for the rest of the day, Theo took the bus to the Halfords in Chippenham and bought six cans of sky blue spray paint. He then visited the off-licence by the train station and made his way back home on the bus.

When he got there, he took the drum kit from its current resting place in the hallway to the back garden. He then removed all the skins and covered the mounting lugs with masking tape. Then he laid some old newspaper out on the lawn, and was about to shake his first can of spray paint when his mum shouted out "Theo! Pete's here!" He looked up to see his friend walking from the house into the garden, his hands in his pockets, a broad smile on his face.

Theo had known Pete since the second year of Lyncombe Comp. He'd arrived half-way through the first term. Theo spotted him in the school playground one lunchtime - he was minding his own business when a couple of the rougher kids ran up behind him and pulled the rucksack off his back. In response Pete held on to it but the momentum destabilized him and he spiraled to the ground. The rough kids laughed and threw his rucksack at him as he lay there. Theo watched as the new kid stood up and put the rucksack back on.

Once Theo was sure that the bullies had had their fun, he went up to this awkward looking boy and said "Good here innit?"

"Not really," came the reply, a tear rolling down Pete's cheek.

And then, inexplicably, Theo said "Did you see The Two Ronnies last night?"

"No," replied the baffled newcomer.

So Theo began to perform one of the sketches that had amused him. He played both parts; the posh Ronnie Barker part, and the course working class Ronnie Corbett part. Theo had never performed in his life, but it seemed to come naturally in this circumstance, and the new kid laughed. Before lunchtime had ended, Theo had promised to show Pete around town the following Saturday, and introduced him to his other school pals that afternoon. They had been best friends ever since.

Pete ambled up to where Theo stood, poised over a drum shell. "Afternoon. Thought I'd drop by and see how you are. What's going on here then?"

"Got bored of black, gonna paint them blue."

"Fair enough. Anything I can do to help?"

Theo thought about it. There were some old drums in the garage, some of which had newer skins on than his current set-up, so he asked Pete to go and retrieve them.

"Sure!" Came the reply and off he went. It took him three trips to bring all the old drum stuff from the garage - a snare, cymbal stands with rubber stoppers missing, a pair of Roto-toms that Theo got bored of, a cracked ride cymbal, a cowbell, various-sized skins and a floor tom with only two legs.

Theo looked over the heap of rejected parts. It looked like there were a couple of decent skins here that he could salvage. And maybe that cowbell could make a re-appearance as well.

Theo and Pete set about spraying the drums the new sky blue colour. It took two coats to completely cover the black. Once the paint was dry, they took the masking tape off the lugs and re-attached the skins. They looked at their handiwork and both agreed that the new colour looked great. Now Theo had a sky blue Strat _and_ sky blue drums.

Pete motioned at the pile of rejects from the garage. "What are you going to do with the discarded ones?"

"Dunno. Why?"

"Weeeell, I was kind of thinking about learning the drums myself. Looks like it might be fun."

"Sure! Take them!" replied Theo.

"Thanks. What do you want for them?"

"Nothing. You're my friend."

"I've got to give you _something._ "

"Oh just buy me a pint some time."

"Sure. You at the White Hart later?"

"Dunno, maybe. Who's going?"

"Just the usual gang of losers I guess."

-

That evening, before meeting Pete and the others, Theo took the 'Wallflowers' logo from his mantelpiece and threw it in the bin. Using his gauche paints, he set about creating a new version, with a new name. This time he started with a background made up of vivid pink, green and orange brushstrokes, and on top of this, in deepest Vermillion and in the same Van Gogh type face as before, he wrote out his new band name.

Once finished, he placed it on the mantelpiece and stood back. He squinted at it, looked at it sideways, stood way back, stood up close, and finally nodded in approval. There was still plenty to think (and worry) about - writing songs, singing them, recruiting band members - but at least he had the name, and for now that felt like enough.

# Chapter Twenty-Four

The work experience at the estate agents came at a good time, Theo reflected. Although he was excited about the prospect of fronting his very own band, he felt that this week-long distraction might afford him some time to unwind and recharge after the traumatic past couple of weeks. He could then attack his new project with renewed vigour.

He was confident that his chosen name of Gang of Losers was a good one. But he started to worry that perhaps it wasn't _original_. Maybe the phrase resonated with him when Pete said it because it was familiar to his subconscious mind. But how would he find out if there was indeed a band (or a film or a book) already called Gang of Losers?

A good place to start would be to check in record shops to see if anything came up under "G". It was fortuitous that he would be spending the week in Bath, as there were two record shops in the city centre that he could peruse at lunchtimes, as well as a Woolworths, which always had a well-stocked record department. His second option was to casually mention the name in passing to see if any of his friends picked up on it. So he might say something like "Hey did anyone hear that song by Gang of Losers on John Peel's show last night?" And if the question drew blank stares all round, he'd have a good idea that the name was original.

-

When Monday morning came, Theo found that he was able to obey the alarm clock easily enough, and got out of bed to don his estate agent outfit of grey flannel trousers, white shirt, vintage red silk tie and beige sports jacket. On the bus into Bath he thought of various scenarios that might greet him when he arrived at the offices of Cabot Farr: that he had got the wrong week, or turned up at the wrong office, or that he was meant to be there at 8am or 10am, not 9am. On a more positive note, he thought of attractive female co-workers and trips to the pub after work.

The offices of Cabot Farr were situated in the Abbey Churchyard; a five minute walk from the bus station. Theo arrived at five to nine and peered through the office windows. The place was empty, so he walked twice around the churchyard, dodging the tourists already lining up to visit the Roman Baths.

When he checked the office again, it was open and there were staff sat at all of the four desks. His heart started to beat faster as he pushed the door and entered. All four employees looked up, and a man in a dark blue suit with a yellow tie said "Can I help you?"

"Um, I'm here to see Rick Ingham. My name is Theo Hanlon; I'm doing some work experience."

The blue-suited man looked at his co-workers, one of whom, a woman who Theo estimated to be about the same age as his mum, said "Ooh yes! He did mention something about it. Come in, come in." Theo walked up a single step into the office proper and looked around. Aside from the blue-suited man and the middle-aged woman, there were two other men, both older than blue-suit and both on the phone. No chance of an office romance here then.

"Slight problem however," the woman continued, smiling sweetly, "Rick is out showing houses this morning. It must have slipped his mind that you were coming." This, of course, was a scenario he hadn't envisaged. Theo felt disappointed, but then realised that a morning of wandering round the shops and staring at the Italian exchange girls might be an appealing way to pass the time until Rick _was_ back in the office.

"But not to worry," the woman continued, "I'm sure we can find you something to do. Rick won't mind if you sit at his desk until he gets back. But first let me introduce you to everybody." The woman led Theo round the room. He shook hands and forgot names. Then she took him to the back of the shop and opened a door that led into a spacious office with a large mahogany desk at its far end. Filing cabinets stretched along one wall, and potted plants seemed to cover every available horizontal plane. A couple of Michael English paintings hung on the wall behind the desk.

The woman whose name Theo had already forgotten offered him a cup of tea. He responded in the positive and after a couple of minutes she came back with the tea in one hand and an A4 folder in the other. In her absence, Theo had migrated towards the Michael English paintings and was studying the intricate airbrush technique.

"Right" she began, "I'm not sure what Rick has planned for you but for now, why don't you just have a look through our current portfolio just to get a feel for the type of properties we sell." Properties? Is that different to houses, wondered Theo. He sat in the slippery leather chair, impressed with the acres of space in front of him. Save for a telephone and a diary, the gigantic desk was empty and could easily have accommodated a Scalectrix set, should the idea take Rick's fancy. The woman excused herself and said she'd check on him in a while.

Not wanting to damage anything, Theo drank his tea carefully and resisted any temptation to open drawers. He leafed through the single sheets of A4 in the folder, each one advertising a different property. The sheets had the company logo at the top, followed by a large colour photo of the "property" in question, a couple of smaller images beneath it and then a paragraph or so of text below that. These were copies of the flyers in the office window, Theo surmised.

The majority were Georgian townhouses in the prosperous north Bath neighbourhoods of Camden, Sion Hill and Lansdown. Elegant, buildings with sash windows, iron railings, huge rear gardens and Volvos parked on gravel driveways. He looked at the prices: £60,000, £80,000, £100,000. There was even one here for £250,000.

Next he read the text and began to notice the same phrases popping up: "commanding views... spacious interiors... newly installed central heating ...Grade II listed... elevated position... ample off-road parking..."

He reached the end of the pile of sheets and looked at his watch: 9:30am. Now what? Feeling rather out of place in the office of a man he'd never met, he decided he should probably find himself something to do. Maybe he should offer to make a cup of tea? Wasn't that what the most junior member of a team was supposed to do? He made his way to the front of the shop. His four co-workers looked busy but none were on the phone and there were no clients in the shop, so he asked "would anybody like a cup of something?" This drew a positive response all round and he took orders for two teas and two coffees. Thankfully no one wanted sugar so there was one less thing to worry about. Two teas and two coffees. No problem.

He made his way to the kitchen and quickly located the kettle, cups, teabags and milk. Next to the kettle stood a machine that Theo did not recognise. It looked like a goldfish bowl with black plastic casing at the top and bottom. A plug ran from the back to a nearby socket. The words 'Morphy Richards' were printed on the bowl itself. Theo seemed to remember that the iron at home was made by Morphy Richards, so he was confused as to what this machine might be. What would a company that made irons possibly make for the kitchen? He left it well alone and set about filling the kettle with tap water. Next he looked around for the coffee, the only component he had yet to locate. There were no familiar jars of Nescafe on the work surface so he looked in the cupboards but drew a blank. He looked under the sink and along windowsills but to no avail. But then, next to the teabags he saw two silver foil pouches about the same size as packets of rice. One was open, so he picked it up and was greeted by the familiar aroma of coffee. He dipped a teaspoon in the pouch and scooped the coffee into the mugs.

He found a tray and took the drinks to his co-workers. Pleased that he'd used his initiative, he felt bold enough to engage the blue-suited man in conversation as he handed the coffee over:

"So how long have you worked here?"

"Oh about a year", he replied. "I was in the Bristol branch before that."

"Oh right." That was interesting. He was about to ask if he liked working here but the man grimaced and swallowed awkwardly.

"Jeez" he said "This coffee tastes like shit. Did you use the machine?"

"Yes of course," Theo lied, his face starting to redden. So _that's_ what the Morphy Richards goldfish bowl was. Not the start he was hoping for.

The rest of the morning was spent shadowing the middle-aged woman. He learnt that her name was Margaret, which he was able to remember because of its proximity to Martine. Theo looked at his watch sporadically throughout the morning and occasionally had to check that it was still working. He couldn't believe that time could pass so slowly.

When 1 o'clock came, he asked if it was okay to go to lunch. He was keen to get out into the summer air, and to walk the short distance to Cruisin' Records on John Street to see if there were any bands in their "G" section called Gang of Losers. Margaret said this was fine and that she'd see him in an hour. He donned his beige jacket and walked towards the door. But before he could leave, in walked a tall thin man in a blue pinstripe suit and open-collared white shirt. He had long wavy brown hair and a close-cropped beard. He looked directly at Theo and said "Good God. You don't half look like your dad."

-

Theo didn't make it out of the office for another hour. Rick ushered him into his office and sat him in the chair opposite his. He asked what Theo was studying at school, what he did in his spare time, what he was going to do when he left school, what his older brother was up to, how Roger was, how Sylvie was, what music he liked, what pubs he went to, and finally why he was interested in the wonderful world of estate agenting.

Theo had never been asked so many questions, or enjoyed answering them so much before. Rick seemed a blizzard of activity, constantly moving, smoking cigarettes, making notes in his diary, drumming on the desk ( _I do that_ , thought Theo), shifting position, scratching. But he never seemed less than riveted in what Theo was saying.

He told Rick about his art, his drumming, his A-levels, his chat with his careers teacher, and how his interest in architecture had led him to consider a career selling houses.

"Ha!" said Rick. "Well it's a good job, but you don't half get some flack. Do you have a thick skin?"

The one thing that Theo was absolutely one hundred percent sure about was that he did _not_ have a thick skin - he cried readily, he blushed daily, he brooded constantly. "I think so," he lied. He wanted one though. He really did want a thick skin. So maybe this was the right place to pick one up.

After his chat with Rick, Theo finally got his lunch break and headed to Cruisin' Records. He leafed through the "G" section in albums and came up empty. He tried the singles section too: no Gang of Losers there either, but he did come across a misfiled copy of Romeo & Juliet by Dire Straits. He thought of August and the afternoon they spent listening to this song, stoned and laughing, playing their imaginary instruments. It was only 50p so he bought it.

He had plenty of time before he had to be back at the Cabot Farr offices so after grabbing a quick sandwich he walked to Bilbo's Bookshop on Green Street. He found the Film & TV section on the second floor and picked up a copy of Halliwell's Film Guide, but could find no mention of his band name. _Maybe it is original after all_.

Through force of habit, Theo perused the art section looking for books on Van Gogh. There was nothing he hadn't already seen, but he picked up a glossy coffee table edition featuring the famed oil paintings, and shook his head as he took in the vibrancy of the art world's most famous back-catalogue. Was it really true that Van Gogh didn't sell a single painting during his lifetime? Or was it just the one painting he managed to sell? What was _wrong_ with people? How could you past a painting like 'Wheatfield with Cypresses' and not immediately put your hand in your pocket and pay whatever the artist demanded?

Then he thought of something he should have done when he was in Cruisin' Records. He headed back to John Street and walked up to the counter. The long-haired assistant who served him earlier looked up from his magazine and smiled.

"Hi," said Theo "Do you know when the new Gang of Losers single is going to be released?"

"Gang of _Losers_?" replied the assistant. "Do you mean The Gang of _Four_?"

Oh yeah: The Gang of Four. Theo had forgotten about them. But Gang of Losers was significantly different to Gang of Four surely? It's not as if he was calling his band Gang of Five or something. "No, I'm pretty sure they're called Gang of Losers; a friend of mine played me one of their records the other day."

The assistant picked up a heavy looking red book from under the counter and thumbed through it. After a while he shook his head and said "No, sorry, they're not in here. I'll check in Music Week, to see if there's anything there." The assistant then walked to the other end of the counter and started to leaf through a magazine. After a minute or so he came back and told Theo that he had drawn a blank there too. Theo felt slightly guilty for wasting the assistant's time, but thanked him and left the shop.

When he got back to the office, Rick had disappeared "For the rest of the day." Margaret informed him of this in a manner that suggested that this may be a regular occurrence. She had been told to tell Theo that Rick would be taking him with him on showings tomorrow; news that excited Theo no end.

Margaret managed to find jobs for Theo to do in Rick's absence. First he was given a list of properties that had been sold in the past week, for which he had to find the corresponding flyers in the shop window. He then had to remove these flyers and add a folded cardboard banner to the top of the sheets that said 'UNDER OFFER' and put them back in the window. Next he was given some filing to do: folders relating to the same sales had to be moved from one set of filing cabinets to another. Margaret was apologetic as she gave him these tasks, but Theo reveled in their mundanity - he was able to banish all thoughts of August Wells, X-Tradition, or Gang of Losers for that matter.

He left the office at 5pm on the dot and managed to catch the 5:12 to Chippenham. As the bus left the station, he saw a man in his early twenties walking along the street. The man was wearing brown Dr Marten loafers, white socks, drainpipe blue jeans with turn-ups (to reveal the white socks) and a jacket almost exactly like his dream jacket from the World War II book. The only difference was that this jacket was blue. Theo thought momentarily of ringing the bell and getting off to ask the guy where he got it, but this would have meant drawing attention to himself so instead he craned against the window, watching him closely as the bus passed. The man had his hands in his pockets, and he looked down at the pavement as he walked. The jacket was zipped half-way up even thought it was a hot day. He wore a white t-shirt underneath. But for the jeans and the colour of the jacket, this could have been the man from the photograph. So the jacket _does_ exist! He would renew his efforts to find one tomorrow, scouring the clothes shops and flea markets during his lunch hour.

After tea, he went to search for the World War II book, just to check that the jacket was as he remembered it. Yep, same jacket, but in green instead of blue. And now he came to think of it, he really liked those loafers that the guy had been wearing too. Maybe he should get some of those as well.

As he put the book back in its place, he noticed the book next to it: Something Happened by Joseph Heller. _Ha! What a good name for a book_ , Theo thought to himself. What sort of a book would it be if Something _didn't_ Happen? And then it occurred to him that if Something Happened was a good name for a book, then it followed that it was _also_ a good name for a song.

And then something happened: those two words transformed themselves into a chorus, and before Theo knew it he was singing to himself:

Something happened

Something happened

Something happened when I met yoooooouuuuu...

He wasn't entirely sure if he actually _liked_ this melody - it was rather slow and soppy - but it was a melody none-the-less. He quickly ran to his room and scribbled the words into his sketch pad. But he had no way of recording the _notes_ of the melody other than the tape player, so off he ran - down the stairs to the cupboard next to the phone ... _something happened_...up the stairs to his bedroom again... _something happened_...unwrap another Maxwell tape, hit Play and Record, and quietly sing into the machine... _When I met yooouuuu..._

So he had a chorus. He imagined how the rhythm guitar might go beneath the lyrics - a kind of bluesy progression - but had no ideas about how a verse might accompany this. The only thing he could think to do was to write some lyrics quickly and hope he could fit some music around them.

VERSE 1:

Another day without any one to hold

Though it's June outside the weather's feeling cold

I walk these lonely streets like they are my back yard

I only seem to fall and I only seem to fall hard

He read through what he had written and a shudder of embarrassment came over him. _What if my brother saw this?_ He'd never live it down. Still, he could always revise it later; better to just crack on. So he wrote a second verse:

VERSE 2:

Another day but they all just merge into one

I need to take a ride to a place in the sun

I don't think I can take another year like this

Another year without the caress of a lover's kiss

But then...

And then into the chorus. He looked at his words, and couldn't imagine anything further from Don McLean's masterpiece. But he was only sixteen; surely he had plenty of time to mature? He decided not to think about how old Don McLean might have been when he wrote 'Vincent'.

The next thing to do was to figure out the chords for the chorus. So he sat down on his bed with the sky blue Strat in his lap and his scribblings next to him. He sang the chorus to himself and noodled around on the bottom E string until he found a note that he was happy with. He then moved further up the fret board until he found his second note. The third and final note of the chorus - used only on the final line - was another two frets up. So he had notes on the second, fifth and seventh fret. He knew that the fifth fret was the A chord, but didn't know a main chord for either of the other notes. Best to just use bar chords then.

He strummed out the three chords on the guitar and sang along in his head. All seemed fine. Now he just needed a melody for the verse. It seemed to come easily enough. There was no formula, no planning, no technique. He just looked at the words and a kind of corridor opened in his mind. He walked down it, his words forming the ground in front of him. Each line flowed into the next. He kept walking, and the corridor suddenly opened into the great hall of the chorus. Everything seemed to fit; verse had flowed into chorus. He reached for the tape recorder and sang into it. He hit Rewind and listened. Again, all seemed fine. A verse and a chorus. A song.

Not wanting his words or music to get into the wrong hands (or _any_ hands for that matter), he folded the lyric sheet up as small as it would go and placed it in his t-shirt drawer along with the C-30 Maxwell tape. Then he went downstairs to watch telly with his parents.

# Chapter Twenty-Five

Theo woke with a start. It was still dark, and the alarm hadn't gone off. Then he remembered the dream. No crashing waves this time, just a single static abstract image. At first Theo could not figure out what it was. But then the shape started to come into clear focus: a small orange rectangle surrounded by what at first Theo took to be a large blue sail. But a sail wasn't right: he could see stitching and rivets. It was something on a much smaller scale - the fabric of a pair of jeans. The orange rectangle was the Levi's tab. He had dreamed of the rear pocket of a pair of Levis. The dream baffled him and he stayed awake for ten minutes or so, staring at the ceiling trying to figure it out.

-

He arrived ten minutes early for work the next day and had to wait on a bench in the Abbey Churchyard for his co-workers to arrive. He then waited an additional forty minutes for Rick to arrive, during which time he sat in the office studying the same flyers as yesterday, or staring at the Michael English paintings. Time seemed to go very slowly. This was what worried Theo about the world of work.

Rick arrived and apologised for his lateness. He had three viewings lined up for the morning, and one in the afternoon. The three morning viewings were all situated within walking distance of the office, so after Rick had drunk a hastily made coffee, they set off. Of the three appointments, only one actually turned up. "This happens a lot," explained Rick, "You can spend most of the day stood around on sodding street corners waiting for the bastards to turn up."

The one punter who _did_ keep their appointment was a first year student at the university whose parents were buying her a flat in the city centre. The property they showed was a cramped fourth floor attic space in St James Square. Rick talked her through the pros and cons of "the space". Its generous skylight was enthused about - how it added a real feeling of light and space to the whole flat. Rick continued, pointing out how the compact floor plan meant that housekeeping would be minimal ("After all, who wants a bloody big bathroom if you've got to spend your whole weekend cleaning the thing?") On he went, hardly pausing for breath. Yes, the location was far from the university, but on the plus side it was within easy crawling distance of the best pubs in town _and_ there was a launderette opposite. What more could a student ask for? Theo kept quiet, assimilating the spiel and trying to imagine saying it himself.

At lunchtime, Theo checked out the second-hand markets at the top of town, as well as Millets and Oswald Bailey, but no one seemed to have the dream jacket, in either green _or_ blue. It may well be time for another trip to Flip of Covent Garden, Theo mused. Possibly as early as this coming Saturday.

The afternoon viewing was at a farmhouse at the very top of Lansdown Hill. Theo and Rick walked to Victoria Park where the firm's car was parked. They then began the long uphill drive out of town. The property they were showing came with three acres of land and several small barns that already had planning permission to convert into dwellings. As they drove, Theo attempted small talk: "How did you end up being an estate agent?"

Rick laughed. "Sins of a former life I guess. Well, like most things, it happened by accident. Back in the early seventies I was left a large house on Lyncombe Hill when an aunt died. I moved in and converted the attic area into a small flat for me and I converted the rest of the house into two separate flats. Took an absolute age to get planning permission I'll tell you. Anyway, once they were done, I sold them off, including the flat I was living in, and then did the same thing again with a couple of similar properties. You could buy a decent house in Bath back then for next to nothing, especially the ones down in Widcombe near the river - they were all blackened and decrepit, but once I cleaned them up - with grants from the council - they looked good as new. The estate agent who I used to sell the flats asked if I wanted to join the firm, I didn't really want to so I said only if you make me a partner. And to my surprise he did."

Rick then went on to list the various occupations he had had prior to being an estate agent. These included DJing at the first Isle of Wight festival, lead singer of a rock n roll band that once opened for Shakin' Stevens at the Bath Theatre Royal, copywriter for an advertising agency in Bristol, and owner of a Bath tour guide business where the guides dressed up in Georgian dress as they took visitors around the city's many attractions.

By now they had reached the top of Lansdown Hill and the road began to level out. They passed the turning for the racecourse and took the next right, which took them down a narrow country lane. After a while they took another turning into a gravel courtyard, a large Bath stone farmhouse standing in front of them. To the left and right were smaller buildings, presumably once stables, but now derelict. A white Porsche was parked in front of the main house.

Rick got out of the car and pulled a large set of keys from his pocket. Theo got out of his side of the car just as the passenger door of the Porche opened, and out came a woman with long blonde hair and a fighter-pilot style leather jacket.

"Mrs Hughes?" asked Rick, heading towards the woman with a hand outstretched. Theo followed just as a man - presumably Mr Hughes - walked out from one of the derelict stables.

"Afternoon Rick," said the man, who was in his mid-forties and had receding shoulder length blond hair. John Lennon-style glasses were perched on his nose and he wore an open-necked white shirt and a pair of khakis.

"Ah, Simon," said Rick, "Thanks so much for coming out to see the place."

"Pleasure's all mine."

Theo was introduced to everyone and shook hands. He did his absolute best to remember their names this time. Rick fiddled with the keys and opened the solid oak front door. He held it open for Mr and Mrs Hughes and then followed them in. The interior was dark and looked like it hadn't been decorated since the 1950s. As they walked around, Mr Hughes did most of the talking \- a direct contrast to the morning's viewing. He didn't really seem too concerned about the state the house was in but instead discussed the feasibility of converting various aspects of the property, a subject that Rick was an expert on. Once a tour of the house and grounds had been completed, Mr Hughes asked his wife what she thought. "I think it will be perfect darling," she replied. Then Mr Hughes turned to Theo and asked him what _he_ thought.

"Well if you don't buy it, I will." he replied. Mr and Mrs Hughes laughed; Theo looked over at Rick, who laughed as well.

Mr Hughes made further positive noises to Rick and the meeting came to an end. On the way back down Lansdown Hill Rick sparked up a fag whilst driving and offered one to Theo, who declined. Smoking a full-strength Marlboro in a car would make him feel sick for the rest of the day. He wound down his window in readiness.

"You handled yourself well back there my friend, I think they liked you," Rick said. Theo smiled and thanked him. "That 'If you don't buy it I will' line was cute but as a general rule, try to stay away from being glib. He is thinking about spending a helluva lot of money after all, so it's best to keep the wisecracks to a minimum. But don't worry; it was your first time. The important thing is that you were able to communicate well with them and you weren't intimidated."

Theo took the criticisms and nodded. But he had been wondering about something as they had showed the Hughes' around that rambling old property: "How do you know that he wasn't just wasting your time? I mean presumably anyone can just phone you up and ask to see a place?"

"True, true. You do get your share of FTWs - fucking time wasters - and you can usually tell them straight off, so you spend as little time showing them around as you can. Some guys however, you look at and you know they either _have_ millions in the bank or owe millions _to_ the bank. With this guy I happen to know it's the former."

"How's that?" asked Theo.

"That was Simon Hughes, the record producer."

Theo's eyes lit up "A record producer? Really?"

"Yep, he produced loads of soundtracks to West End musicals, and I think he's had a few of his songs recorded by Barry Manilow, Bette Midler, people like that."

"Wow." said Theo.

"Wow indeed. That guy's got the cash. And the thing is, he'll probably spend more on doing up the place than the quarter of a mil it will cost to buy it."

-

The second Theo saw Laura at that evening's guitar lesson, he went bright red. Suddenly his dream of the previous night made sense. That ethereal jeans pocket was Laura's. This once gangly and awkward girl had clearly made an impression on his subconscious mind. He thought back to that first guitar lesson when he watched her lean over to retrieve her father's study notes. That shard of pale skin between her Levis and T-shirt...

Now he could do nothing but stare at her. Was he imagining it or had she not looked at him once all evening? At one point during the lesson she left the room to go to the toilet, and Theo was able to watch her without her father noticing. The orange tab wobbled from side to side as she walked, Theo noting the pleasingly oval nature of her behind until it disappeared out of view.

Now that his brain had told him to think about Laura, he couldn't stop. As a strategic measure, after the guitar lesson had finished he'd left a plectrum in the dining room. This would provide him with a pretext for calling on her, if he could summon the nerve. He assumed Tim was at work all day and that there was a good chance of catching Laura at home since she too would be on her summer holiday.

Now that almost two weeks had passed since any correspondence with Martine, Theo had to assume that that particular relationship had come to an end. He was able to process this information with little emotion as he was already thinking ahead to a possible new liaison with Laura. He wrote a song about her that evening and called it 'Jeans Girl'. Again, he was appalled at the standard of the lyrics and imagined that Don McLean would be pointing his firmly thumb down if he dared to look at the American Pie album cover. But he managed to find a melody easily enough and he hummed the tune into the tape recorder (now in permanent residence in his bedroom) and hid the Maxwell C-30 tape back in his t-shirt drawer.

He tried one more attempt at songwriting that evening. Having remembered his conversation with his dad about Warhol painting what he loved (a dollar bill), Theo thought it might be a good idea to write a song on the subject. Apart from Money by The Flying Lizards, he couldn't think of any money-related songs off-hand. His mind wandered to a recent economics lesson at school where the class had been discussing the distribution of wealth in capitalist societies, and one of his classmates commented "I don't care if I don't have much money. As long as I've got enough for a couple of pints and some change for the pool table, I'm happy." Theo admired this attitude and thought 'Enough Money' was a good title for a song.

By the end of that evening he had three completed songs - 'Something Happened', 'Jeans Girl' and 'Enough Money' - as well as the untitled dream music that he had yet to write words for. But the songs felt unfocused and random: 'Something Happened' was bluesy and slow, and the other two were upbeat rock 'n roll numbers. And the instrumental was just a heavy metal-style riff repeating itself. He had no direction, no anger or outrage to fuel his songwriting. Where did August Wells get it from?

# Chapter Twenty-Six

The rest of the week at Cabot Farr progressed well. A makeshift desk was created for Theo in Rick's office using an antique table cabinet that had previously displayed tourist information leaflets in front of shop. When not out showing houses, Theo spent his time sat at his desk reading books that Rick had given him to familiarize himself with the wonderful world of estate agenting: _An Estate Agent's Guide to English House Styles_ by Geoff Winton, and _The Estate Agent's Bible_ by Valerie Steadham. He was also given _The Illustrated History of Bath_ \- knowledge of which was essential if you were to successfully flog high-end houses to rich folk from London. Theo bought himself an A4 pad from W H Smith and began taking notes from these rather weighty tomes. The process reminded him of studying for his O-levels.

On the Wednesday Theo took full advantage of his hour long lunch break and headed to Mr Hall's hairdressers on Henry Street. Normally Theo cut his own hair, with passable results, but you could only self-cut a maximum of three times before things started to get a bit too shambolic. A glance in the mirror confirmed that a critical level of shambolic-ness had been reached. The barber's was predictably busy when he arrived and Theo had to wait for fifteen minutes before it was his turn. When he finally sat in the chair he asked for his usual: "Half an inch off the top and just a tidy up on the back and sides please." The barber tutted at the mess in front of him as his scissors went to work. After about five minutes of careful clipping on the mostly uniform hair on the top of his head, the barber started on the back and sides. _Clip clip clip! Snip snip snip!_ He seemed to be taking an awfully long time back there, and Theo began to feel anxious. Once the barber had finished, he sprayed water all over and combed it through. He then reached for the mirror and showed Theo the results.

It was a short back and sides - precisely what Theo did _not_ want. He equated short back and sides with the army, or with science boffins and public schoolboys. _Not_ with rock 'n roll, rebellion and generally looking cool.

"Oh." Theo said, the disappointment in his voice very clear "I wasn't really looking to have that much off the back and sides."

"Sorry sir, but it was a right mess back there. Best to just tidy it up and start again. It looks very smart now."

Yes, it did indeed look smart, but Theo didn't want smart. Theo didn't _like_ smart. Theo doubted that anyone ever told Eddie Cochran that _he_ looked smart.

Dejected, he paid for the cut and headed back to the office, his neck and back itchy with hair. When he arrived, Margaret told him how smart he looked, to which Theo managed to shrug a begrudging thank you. At home that evening he looked at his new style in the mirror and decided things weren't actually _that_ bad. He still had plenty of length on top, and that was the main thing, surely.

The next morning he took some black & White and ran it through his hair. On a whim, he reached for his brush and gave himself a side parting, something he'd never tried before. It seemed to work. But this new hairstyle was rather severe, and coupled with the white shirt and red tie he had elected to wear, he worried that his look might be deemed a bit too 'Hitler Youth-y', so he changed into a more relaxed checked blue shirt and matched it with a dark blue knitted tie bought from a jumble sale for 5p.

When he arrived at work, Rick was 'out of the office', so he busied himself studying his estate agenting literature. He learnt about:

\- Negotiating the Contract and Closing the Deal

\- The Ten Biggest Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

\- Discovering The Skills of a Successful Agent

\- Developing Sales Ability to Win Customers.

Next he picked up The Illustrated History of Bath and learned of King Bladud's pigs, the goddess Sulis, the Roman invasion, the curing waters, the ancient abbey where the first king of all England was crowned, Beau Nash, the Pump Rooms, the Assembly Rooms, London society, crescents and squares, museums and galleries. Fascinating stuff, but by the mid-morning coffee break, he found his mind wandering and his hands doodling.

He flipped to the back of the A4 pad and wrote out the words 'Van Gogh Song', this time in lower case letters. He stared at the page: lined this time so not quite as blank as the paper from his previous attempt. He closed his eyes to try and to clear his mind. Then he opened them and wrote:

Open your eyes and visualize/ the swirling tumult in your eyes.

No no. Repetition of the word 'eyes'. He tried again:

The burst of a flower/ brings out your power.

Flower and power together? Not a good idea. Oh dear oh dear.

And again:

Surround yourself with nature/ become a living creature

Better, better. But he was already a living creature...

Painting fields of gold/ the paintings remain unsold.

But now he is reminded of McLean's paintings hung on empty walls, so he scrunched up the paper and placed it firmly at the bottom of his wastepaper basket.

Start again:

The sun blazes in the night sky/ workers sleep in fields of fire

The swirling skies reflect in your eyes/ the brush is true, art never lies

You paved the way/ but you didn't know/ the art you created/ out in the snow

All the art that came before/ fall like dead flies on the floor

Early mornings, shimmering skies/ all reflect in your steel-blue eyes.

No wait, repetition of 'reflect in your eyes'. And isn't there something about 'eyes of blue' in Don McLean's song?

It seemed that all roads led back to Mr McLean and his infuriatingly comprehensive 'Vincent'. Perhaps there just wasn't enough room in this world for another song about Van Gogh. Dejected, Theo picked up The History of Bath and continued to read.

-

Upon his return later that afternoon, Rick took Theo to a showing on Widcombe Hill, a large three-storey townhouse with shuttered windows and a yellow front door. They had been waiting on the pavement for five minutes - Rick pacing up and down smoking a cigarette, Theo sat on the knee-high front garden wall tapping out a rhythm on his knees - when Rick exclaimed "Fuck, I think I've double-booked myself."

He looked at his watch. "Yep, three o'clock. I've got a bloke coming down from London looking to convert the old Gas Board building into a McDonald's. You'll be alright on your own won't you?"

"Ummm."

"Course you will! Just spout the same bollocks you've heard me talking all week. The guide price is one hundred K."

With that, Rick handed Theo a bulky wadge of keys. "She's a Mrs Hannah, lovely lady. See you back at the office."

Theo watched as Rick ambled down the steep hill towards the centre of the city, unsure which question to ask first, and ending up asking none.

He stood there, the keys warm in his hand. He looked up and down the hill; no pedestrians and no cars. Would she come by foot or by car? Should he say "Mrs Hannah?" to every woman that walked past in case it was her? And when she _did_ arrive, should he shake her hand? Or kiss her on the cheek even? No, this wasn't France.

He was still pondering greeting etiquette when he heard the sharp sound of stilettos on flagstone. He looked up to see a beautiful woman in her late-fifties. She wore yellow canvas shoes, white cotton shirt and trousers, and a bright yellow scarf. She stopped outside the house, checked a piece of paper in her hand, and then looked at Theo.

"Cabot Farr?" She asked.

"Um yes, that's right. I'm Theo Hanlon, pleased to meet you Mrs Hannah." He stuck out his hand and she looked quizzically at him. It was the wrong hand. He quickly withdrew it and held out the right one, and she accepted it with a glowing smile. Her hand was cool for such a hot day.

"You're a bit young aren't you?"

"I'm sixteen Mrs Hannah, I'm the youngest member of staff by a few years. Shall we?"

Theo looked at the bulky mass of keys and realized that he did not know which one opened the front door. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to check that while he was waiting. The lock on the door was bronze in colour, so he tried the first bronze key on the ring, but this didn't fit. He tried the next, which didn't fit either. He tried another but he had failed to make a note of which one he'd already tried, so he wasn't sure if he was retrying the same keys. Finally, after half a dozen attempts he got one to slot in. "A-ha!" he said in mock-excitement, inwardly breathing a huge sigh of relief. But although the key went in and he was able to turn it reassuringly to the right, the door wouldn't open. He turned the key clockwise and anti-clockwise but still the door remained shut.

"Oh for goodness sake," came a voice from behind. Mrs Hannah took the keys from him. "There's a mortice lock as well silly." She found a likely-looking candidate and tried it. It worked first time. She opened the door and handed the keys back to Theo.

"Right. Thanks. Shall we begin the grand tour then?" he said, trying to restore a modicum of authority. He held the door open and she entered behind him. "Your scarf is the same colour as the front door - a good omen!" Mrs Hannah looked at him coolly.

It was only then that he realized how utterly unprepared he was. Not knowing whether to shake this woman's hand or having the right key ready was just the tip of the iceberg. Save for the asking price, he did not know a single thing about the house they were now standing in - the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, whether it was freehold, what the nearest schools were like.

The air in the hallway was cool, with just the faintest hint of damp. Mrs Hannah looked around, and Theo did the same, hoping to garner some information.

"How long has it been on the market?"

A-ha! A Good start - he _did_ know this, as he had put the advert in the window just yesterday.

"It's a new instruction; I believe you are the first to see it. The family that own it are moving to Dallas. He's in the oil business." Theo had made this bit up, but he had learnt from Rick that people never leave houses because of a problem with the house. _Always_ say that the current owners are relocating or downgrading. "Shall we begin in the kitchen and work our way up?"

They made their way to the back of the house, where Theo assumed the kitchen to be. Rick often started tours in the kitchen as it was one of the most important rooms, and often looked out onto a back garden, making the house feel bigger. Plus in these well-appointed houses, the kitchens tended to be pretty high-end.

He was in luck. The kitchen looked like a page from House & Home, and beyond it a well-maintained, colourful garden. There were lots of gleaming objects in the kitchen that he'd never seen before. What could all these things _do_ , he wondered? Maybe they were dish washers or spin dryers.

"Is there waste disposal?" asked Mrs Hannah.

"Yes, I believe the bin men come once a week."

"No, I mean in the kitchen, a waste disposal unit?"

"Oh right. Ummm..." Theo didn't know what one of those was. He looked around in panic.

"Oh for goodness sake." This was the second time Theo had heard this reproving comment. Mrs Hannah looked in the sink. "Yes, there is."

"Great, great" he managed to say, his confidence suddenly flagging. Then, realizing that his best option might be to just not let this woman speak, he launched into a non-rehearsed sales onslaught:

"If you'd like to follow me, perhaps we can take a look at this property." (It's never just a house Theo, Rick had told him) "floor by floor. As you can see from here, the garden has been well maintained with the majority laid to lawn and a selection of hardy perennials in the borders. It's the sort of garden that you can be involved with as little or as much as you like..." on through the ground floor "...utility room with downstairs loo, large spacious entrance hall, two receptions and study..." up the stairs "...two further well-appointed double bedrooms with large sash windows - nice and light and airy - and another reception/diner at the rear with commanding views of the garden and city beyond..." up the stairs once more "... and finally an attic space with master bedroom with en suite and study area..."

He felt quite out of breath. This was the most he could remember speaking in a long time.

-

On Thursday he arranged to meet Pete for lunch. Pete's summer holiday had thus far consisted of little more than hanging out at the fountain and occasionally helping his dad with the family antiques business. Pete McCaulder Snr owned a couple of antique shops, one on the Portobello Road and one in Bath. The family had settled in Lyncombe as it was convenient both addresses, the M4 in constant use to ferry 'pieces' from one shop to the other. Pete was off to Ibiza with his family in a week's time, so the two friends were making the most of each other while they could. They met outside the Cabot Farr office at one o'clock and wandered round to Orange Grove to pick up a sandwich and a coke from a cafe there. Then they found a momentarily empty bench in the Abbey churchyard and made themselves at home. Pete was complimentary about Theo's new haircut, and assured him that it didn't look too smart.

As always, the churchyard was packed. They sat opposite the entrance to the Roman Baths and watched the hundred metre queue for admission move at seismic speed. The mostly American queue-ees were a cacophony of white shoes, sunglasses, loud shorts, shoulder bags and beer guts. The queue was good-natured though, and the occasional bout of raucous laughter could be heard. A couple of men had rolled-up towels underneath their arms. Perhaps they had misjudged the nature of these baths.

The two friends ate their sandwiches and watched the flurry of activity that was a constant in Bath during the summer months. To their left, a rather earnest-looking busker stood at the Abbey entrance and belted out sixties covers on a 12-string guitar. The open case in front of him seemed to be devoid of coins. To their right, another busker was busily coaxing a crowd together with promises of "Spectacle and wonderment." He joked with the Americans and cajoled the kids into persuading their parents to stop and watch. He eventually got an audience together that took up practically half of the churchyard.

The sun was beating down, so Theo took off his linen sports jacket and loosened his tie. He resisted the temptation of rolling up his shirt sleeves for fear of derailing the on-going even tanning of his arms. Pete was wearing jeans, flip flops and a black Marillion t-shirt. As far as Theo was aware, Pete didn't actually own any Marillion records, and on a previous occasion he had professed a liking for the t-shirts more than the band itself.

Both boys finished their sandwiches and settled back to watch the buskers. The earnest young man to their left was currently torturing Ticket To Ride and the 'spectacle and wonderment' guy was getting the crowd to count along as he did press ups "to get himself warmed up". Theo put his hands in his pockets and crossed his legs to reveal electric blue socks beneath his grey flannel trousers. Using knowledge gleaned from the morning's revision session, he educated his friend on the history of the Abbey - its 7th century beginnings and its unusual carvings: a ladder to the right and left of the main door that stretched up most of the Abbey's facade. The ladder to the left featured angels making their way to heaven, whist the ladder to the right featured fallen angels making their way to hell. The angels on their way to hell were descending the ladder upside down, their heads facing the ground - the only way the medieval stonemasons could make a clear distinction between the two sets of figures. Pete had never noticed this before. Nor had Theo for that matter.

"Ha! Well I never." said Pete. "Which way are you going Theo?"

"Down with a bit of luck pal, down."

"Me too."

Just then, a group of about thirty Italian exchange students led by a teacher holding a closed red and white umbrella above her head came to a halt directly in front of them. As there were no spare benches, the leader instructed her group to sit on the ground, which they did with much laughter, shouting and general high-spirits.

By now, the 12-string busker had given up his losing the battle with the Wonderment and Spectacle guy. A crowd of about two hundred stood in a circle around the busker, completely obscuring him from view. The crowd was being encouraged to begin a slow handclap, which they did with great enthusiasm. The clapping got faster and faster, louder and louder until finally Theo and Pete could see a flurry of juggling balls make their way into the sky. Ball after ball after ball. How many did this guy have in the air? The two friends estimated at least six. After 20 seconds or so, the balls went out of sequence to a massed "Aawwwww" from the crowd.

Theo heard giggling coming from the group of students sat in front of them. He looked down to see two girls, who quickly looked away, their shoulders still shaking. He could feel his cheeks begin to redden. The girls sat cross-legged and seemed to be about his age. Both girls had jet black hair and skin the colour of muscovado sugar. The girl nearest to Theo looked over at him again, revealing equine features, with eyes of dazzling green and full lips that parted to show perfect white teeth. Her hair was long and straight and shone brightly in the sunlight. She wore dogtooth-check pedal-pushers, blue daps with white ankle socks, and a pink t-shirt. The pink of her t-shirt against the brown of her skin reminded Theo of some luxurious sweet he'd loved as a child. The other girl was slightly plump, wore white Rayban Wayfarer sunglasses and had her hair in pigtails.

"Ay ay," said Pete, "We could be in here."

Theo cringed at the thought of being forced to chat up these two beauties in broad daylight, with no booze to loosen his tongue, and the added obstacle of no shared language. But Pete had no such concerns and launched in with:

"Ciao bella!"

Both girls giggled, looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

He continued undaunted: "Il mio nome e Peter, e questo e Theo." The girls nodded politely at both of them, and then giggled some more.

Theo looked at his friend: "I didn't know you spoke Italian."

"I'm doing it for A-Level twat-head."

"Oh yeah." Theo had forgotten that.

A large "Ooooh!" came from the crowd watching the busker.

Then from the long-haired Italian girl: "Neek Eyward!"

"Excuse me?" Theo replied, his blush returning.

"Neek Eyward. Aircut One Underd. You look like eem yes?"

Pete roared with laughter. "Nick Heyward! She thinks you look like Nick Heyward! Ha! Must be that new haircut. What a fantastic day!" He slapped Theo on the back on roared with laughter again. The two Italian girls joined in. A large cheer came from the crowd watching the busker.

Theo had never been told he looked like anyone else before. His vanity was momentarily wounded, but then he recalled from a recent issue of Smash Hits that Nick Heyward was constantly being mobbed by girls as he made his way through London, so maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all.

On a roll, Pete continued. "Girls, you have made my day. Quali sono i vostri nomi?"

The long haired girl replied, her English slow and hazy: "My name eez Adriana and zis eez Lucia."

Pete got to his feet and shook both their hands, his demeanour like a character from Jane Austen. He then looked round at Theo, urging him to do the same. Theo dutifully got to his feet and shook hands as well. Adriana offered Theo a dazzling smile and her emerald eyes dancing underneath jet black eyebrows. Her hand felt cool and clammy and he could feel her sweat in his palm long after their hands had parted.

A voice shouted from the centre of the churchyard. It was the group leader. "Okay everybody. Time to go. Tempo di andare!" With that, the rest of the group started to get to its feet. Theo watched as Adriane got up. She brushed herself down, put her rucksack on her back and smiled his way. He couldn't get over how _clean_ she looked. Everything about her looked brand new. She was like a page from the Benetton catalogue. He felt scruffy in his second-hand clothes.

Pete took the initiative again: "Ladies, ladies, you cannot leave without giving us your phone number! We could help you with your English, and you could help me with my Italian. Lord knows I need it!" The girls looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders once more. Adrianne took her backpack off and brought out a postcard and fountain pen. She used her thigh to rest on and wrote on its reverse. She handed it to Theo. He looked at the postcard: her name, an address in Florence, but no phone number. He flipped the postcard over: a photo of Bath abbey, with the same angels making their way to heaven, making their way to hell.

"Arrivederci" said Pete, and leaned over to give them both a kiss on each cheek. Theo had no choice but to do the same. That sugar brown skin was as soft and warm as he imagined it would be.

He said his "arrivedercis" too and watched them walk away. After a couple of steps, Adrianne turned round and shouted out "Bye bye Neek! I like your style." And then the two girls ran to catch up with the rest of their group. The crowd let out an appreciative "Oooohh!!" and burst into loud applause.

-

That evening, Theo sat on the edge of his bed looking at the postcard that only hours earlier had momentarily rested on Adrianne's dogtooth-checked thigh. He studied her looping italics - her name, her address in Florence, the kisses beneath. That perfect confection of pink and brown, that page torn from the Benetton catalogue and made corporeal in the Abbey churchyard. Would he write to her? What would he say?

Then he flipped the card over and looked at those good and bad angels of the Bath Abbey. He recalled his juvenile conversation with Pete about "wanting to be bad", and going straight to hell. This was true to an extent: he wanted the sex, the drugs, the rock n roll, the thousand girls that The Stranglers had apparently already made their way through. But more than that he wanted to be good - _really good_. He wanted to achieve, to be regarded, to climb, to soar. Oh Lord let me soar!

And this sounded like a hymn to Theo; _O Lord Let Me Soar!_ Maybe he should _write_ a hymn. Was there money in that? Presumably there would always be a need for new hymns. Did you get paid every time it got sung in a church, the same way that you get paid if your song is on the radio? He wasn't sure. But he did recall from his parent's Gilbert & Sullivan days that you had to pay for sheet music (you weren't allowed to photocopy it), so presumably there was money to be made somewhere. He decided to dig out a bible from somewhere to get some inspiration.

# Chapter Twenty-Seven

Rick promised to take Theo out to lunch on the Friday, as a thank you for his dutiful work over the past week. They left the office at one pm on the dot and walked the short distance to Sweeney Todd's on Milsom Street. Sweeney's was an American-style burger place famous locally for its mini-skirted, roller-skating waitresses. They took a table by the window and Rick ordered a bottle of white wine.

Their waitress roller-skated away and came back a couple of minutes later with a bottle and two glasses on a tray held at shoulder level. She expertly placed the tray on the table, and off-loaded its contents onto the table. Theo stared blatantly at her legs as she did so and felt the blood rush to his groin. Adrianne yesterday and now this!

Rick asked if he could start a tab. Theo thought he was asking if it was okay to smoke and was about to reach for his Consulates when Rick took a small rectangle of plastic out of his wallet and gave it to the waitress. Of course! It was a credit card. Theo had never seen one in the flesh before, although he had seen the Access adverts on TV. He assumed a "tab" was something that enabled you to pay with the credit card. The waitress replied that this was fine and took the credit card and rolled away, both men watching as she went.

"Company credit card," said Rick. "I think we can get away with using it on this occasion. Not only is it your last day my friend, but Hughes has put a firm offer in on that place we showed him. So that's my monthly commission sorted."

"That's great news!" replied Theo.

"Yep. Pretty soon the company will be called Cabot Farr and Ingham, but keep that under your hat. And do you remember the rather fragrant Mrs Hannah?

"Yessss" replied Theo, unsure where this was going.

"Well she put an offer in too. Five grand below the asking but what the hell, it was optimistically priced anyway."

Theo beamed as Rick poured them both a glass of wine. "Hope you didn't mind me leaving you to fend for yourself but I thought you could use a baptism of fire."

"Oh, so there was no McDonald's viewing?"

"Nope, sorry. She said you were clumsy as fuck, but very sweet. And that you seemed to know what you were talking about."

Theo managed to ignore the first statement and let the final two wash over him. A grown-up thought he knew what he was talking about!

They both took sips from their wine. "Things could be looking up you know."

"Really? How do you mean?"

"The recession - it could be coming to an end." Theo didn't know that there had been a recession. He wasn't even sure if he knew what one was, but it sounded bad. "The past few years have been fairly tough - unemployment has gone through the roof, although Bath seems to have escaped the worst of it. We've noticed quite a few city types from London starting to buy second homes here, or moving down permanently to put their kids in the good schools here. And it's getting easier to get a mortgage these days. It could be a good time to be an estate agent."

Theo processed this information. He had enjoyed the past week, and if he had to have an office job, he couldn't imagine one that would suit him more. Maybe he'd have a chat with his parents about it, see what they thought.

By one thirty they had polished off the wine and Rick ordered another bottle. They each ordered a burger and fries at the same time, with Theo going for a banana milkshake as well.

The roller-skating waitresses fascinated and alarmed Theo in equal measure - he was terrified that they would clatter into one of the restaurant's many tables at any time or simply fall over as they ferried full trays of food and drink back and forth from the kitchen at the rear of the dining area. But he could not keep his eyes off their legs. He imagined Martine and Adrianne in one of these outfits, and then Laura. Then he wondered what time these girls finished work, and where they went afterwards. Would they change out of their mini-skirts?

"You know" Rick said, snapping Theo out of his reverie, "Bath is one of the best places in the world to live. It's true! There was a survey recently in The Sunday Times. Even though the council have done their best to fuck it up. Some of the buildings they allowed to go up in the seventies - Southgate, Snow Hill, The Hilton - shocking. Snow Hill I can understand because it's council housing so it's not gonna have Corinthian columns all over it but The Hilton? That's a multi-million dollar international company, and they were allowed to put up a fucking breeze block in the middle of a Georgian city. If you look down on Bath from any one of the famous seven hills, one of these monstrosities is gonna fuck up the view for you. The sack of Bath, I call it."

The mixture of white wine, burger, fries and banana milkshake had Theo's taste buds all over the place. He decided to settle them with a Consulate, the first time he'd smoked in front of Rick. Impressed with Theo's choice of cigarettes, Rick asked if he could have one. It felt good to be offering a cigarette to someone; usually it was him doing the cadging.

Rick continued "Bath used to be a city of hippies and artisans, now it's all stoke-brokers and hairdressers. Still, good for business I suppose." Not knowing what to say to this, Theo just nodded and watched the waitresses skate back and forth, back and forth. Rick ordered more wine, and eventually coffee. When they finished the coffee they thought better of going back to the office and ordered more wine.

Rick sparked up another ciggie and offered one to Theo, who accepted, his alcohol levels high enough to allow him to enjoy the proffered Marlboro without qualms. "So what's this band you're in then?" asked Rick as he blew out his match and placed it in the ashtray.

"Well, er, I'm not actually at the moment." Theo didn't quite feel that he could tell Rick that he was in the process of forming his own band. "I was in a rockabilly band called Steal Guitars, but they chucked - I mean sacked - me when their regular drummer got out of prison."

"Ha! A jailbird drummer eh? Sounds about right for a rockabilly band. Still, sorry to hear that."

"Yeah." Feeling buoyed by Rick's sympathy, he carried on: "I was a bit pissed off. Then I got into this punk band called X-Tradition - not 'extradition' with an E but X-tradition starting with an X..."

"Well that's not very clever. How would you find them in record shops? Would you look under E or X?"

"That's what I said!" agreed Theo. "Anyway, I didn't see eye to eye with the singer songwriter so we parted ways." Theo didn't want to go into the whole Dead White Sky thing again. "And now I'm, er..."

"Between bands?" offered Rick.

Theo had never heard this expression, but it made sense. "Yup."

"It happens, it happens."

Keen to move the conversation away from himself and on to a more comfortable subject, Theo asked about Rick's experience as lead singer of a rock 'n roll band, and how his dad had come to write songs for them:

"Well." He began, taking a long swig from his wine "It's a longish story I guess. There was so much going on in the seventies, music-wise..."

"You mean punk and that?" interjected Theo.

"No, not just punk, although I suppose that was part of it. All this current nonsense about punk reclaiming music for the masses is a load of nonsense by the way. The music scene pre-punk was filled with nothing _but_ working class lads - Slade, T-Rex, Mott The Hoople, Bowie - all working class and proud of it. Anyway, there were lots of things going on, and it was a time when the division between the arts was getting blurred, so you'd have poetry at art shows and painting accompanied by live music and so on. I wanted to become an actor, but was also really into music as well, so I decided to combine them both and created this character Mr Marine. So I wrote loads of monologues and comedy skits and then I got a band together and set some of them to music. Sylvie was one of the backing singers and she suggested I tried using some of your dad's stuff as lyrics. Your dad had tried to get some of his poetry published in _Agenda_ \- fairly high-brow stuff it was, and very good - but he had nothing but rejection letters from them. So in a fit of pique he started to write the silliest, most trivial things he could think of. They were perfect for what we were doing. Some were just daft and others quite fiercely anti-establishment. Funny considering what your dad does now."

"Can you remember what the poems or songs were about?"

"Some of them, yeah. He wrote this poem called 'Ode To A Dripping Tap', which we made into a prog rock epic, and then there was a song about the Morris Minor called' Go 'Lil Morris Go!' which was a bit like one of those American car songs of the sixties, but it featured two Morris Minors racing and the first one to hit thirty mph won. It took five minutes and happened in real time. Silly stuff really."

It gladdened Theo to think of his dad being so daft. "What was the band called?"

"The Serene Mr Marine Entertains." replied Rick. "Bloody stupid name for a band - way too long - but it was very much 'of the moment'. We weren't bad though. I could sing a bit, the rest of the band were tip-top musicians. All of them had been in pub bands since the sixties, plus there were three gorgeous girls on stage - your mum being one of them - usually wearing not much more than these girls roller skating up and down here." The image of his mum as one of these roller-skating waitresses momentarily derailed him.

Rick continued: "Yeah, we had a pretty big local following, and we even headlined an all-dayer at the Colston Hall in Bristol arranged by The Natural Theatre Company. Then I heard that Shaky was playing The Theatre Royal and that they were scouting around for a local support act. I contacted his manager and we went to meet him, me in my finest green velvet suit, along with the three girls, and he could not resist us! I played him a tape featuring our two most rock n roll songs and told him we'd be a perfect fit for Shaky."

"Was Shakin' Stevens cool then or something?"

"Er, well, cooler than he is now. Yeah, that whole teddy boy thing was big back then, and he'd just been playing Elvis in the West End. So yeah, he was pretty cool. But that gig was pretty much the beginning and the end for Mr Marine. We didn't have our own manager so I did all the negotiations with Shaky's guy. We agreed a set amount to be paid upon completion, but once our set was over he refused to pay the full amount, saying we were shambolic and not at all like the demo tape I'd played him when we met. Which was true to an extent. But I went off on one, and then he refused to pay us at all, and then the rest of the band got narky and it all kind of fell apart. We were serene no more." He stared into the middle distance. Or possibly at one of the waitresses. "The moral of the story I suppose, is make sure you get a good manager. And don't fuck with Shaky"

They eventually got back to Cabot Farr at ten past four. Rick had some urgent calls to make; otherwise they could have stayed in the restaurant, or gone on to a pub when opening time came round. Rick disappeared into his office, leaving Theo to sober up in the front shop. He made himself some coffee, without the aid of the coffee machine, which he still did not know how to use. He then excused himself saying that Rick had asked him to nip out and get the paper. He returned just before five with an Evening Chronicle rolled up under his arm. As he entered the shop, Rick was just leaving, cigarette in mouth, in the process of donning his jacket. "A-ha! There you are. Thought you'd left without saying goodbye for a moment. I've gotta run." He held out a hand and Theo shook it.

"Thanks for all your help Rick." Theo said.

"No problem young man. It was my pleasure. And if you ever want a job as an estate agent, give me a call. We could use a man like you."

"Thanks. I will."

"And say hi to Roger and the divine Sylvie for me."

"Will do." Theo watched as Rick disappeared across the Abbey churchyard, nodding at virtually everyone he passed.

# Chapter Twenty-Eight

By the time the 5:12 from Bath had reached the top of Box Hill Theo was desperate for the toilet. He didn't think he could wait for the stop nearest home, so he pressed the bell just outside the Hare & Hounds.

He entered the pub and went first to the toilet, and then to the bar. Sadly there was a different barman to last Friday, so it wasn't a given that he would get served. This evening's barman looked young to Theo and had very blond hair and very tanned skin.

"Can I help you mate?"

"Um, pint of Fosters please." Theo was thrown by the barman's accent, which he guessed was Australian. He also wondered why he had called him 'mate'. Was it short for 'shipmate', or 'workmate'?

The barman stared coolly at him. "How old are you?"

Theo could feel the eyes of the other patrons on him and he started to blush. "Er, twenty."

"What's your date of birth then?"

"Um July second 19...65?" Theo had been asked this question plenty of times, but something about the strange accent and the 'mate' had thrown him. He realised he was not sounding particularly believable.

"Sorry mate, I'm not gonna serve you." There was the _mate_ again.

"Oh right. Fair enough I suppose." He turned around and headed for the exit.

"Oi! Where do you think you're going?" It was that Australian accent again. "You can't bugger off without buying a drink if you've used the toilets."

"But you wouldn't serve me!" Theo replied, perplexed.

"You can buy a soft drink though can't you?"

"Oh right." Theo could feel himself going even redder "I'll have a coke then please"

He heard some laughter coming from somewhere in the bar. He downed the drink as quickly as he could, its sweet fizziness clearing his head.

When he got home he ran up to the bathroom in need of the toilet again. As he headed up the stairs his mum called out from the ground floor.

"Yoohoo! Theo!"

"Hi mum, down in a minute, just going to the loo."

"Rightie-ho. You just missed Laura though."

He stopped dead. "Laura?"

"Yes. She popped round to return a plectrum. Said you left it at her house last Tuesday."

The plectrum ruse! It worked! But was this good news or bad news? Did she just drop it round out of politeness, or was she using the plectrum as he'd intended to - as a device for seeing him? Theo ran down the stairs three at a time to where his mum was. "Did she say anything else? Did she ask for me?"

"Well of course dear, she asked if you were in. When I said no, she handed me the plectrum and asked me to pass it on to you."

"Anything else?"

"Oh yes. She asked if we were going to watch you on Sunday at the White Hart and I said yes. She said she'd see us there. Her dad has finally relented and allowed her to go."

Laura at the White Hart. This was good news indeed. An image of her in a mini skirt roller-skating around The White Hart while he tapped out a rhythm on his drum kit filled his cerebral cortex.

At the dinner table, Theo told his parents and brother about his week at Cabot Farr: about the huge farmhouse and the record producer; about all the flats and houses he had shown; the newly-learned vocabulary and sales techniques; and how Rick had told him to give him a call 'any time' should he want a job. At this, Theo's parents exchanged a smile and Roger said "That's fantastic news Theo, well done. Rick's a good guy to keep in with, and that firm is one of the best around. This causes for a celebration." Roger left the table and came back with a full bottle of Dry Blackthorn cider. Not Theo's favourite, but better than nothing.

Later on at the pub, Theo attempted to bring up the subject of Laura. He mentioned casually that Tim was letting his youngest daughter attend the Blues Train gig on Sunday to see if this engendered any response from his friends. What he needed to know was whether Laura was considered good-looking or not, as he genuinely couldn't tell. Having seen her first as the gangly and awkward thirteen-year-old, he wasn't sure how far from this she had progressed. All he knew was that his subconscious considered her jean-covered rear to be worth dreaming about.

"Well if her older sister is anything to go by, she's probably pretty hot." These words of Pete put Theo's mind at rest. It seemed his subconscious was right after all, and he offered to get a round in.

The only space at the bar was next to Tom, who was chatting to a couple of older guys Theo did not recognise. He had managed to avoid anyone from X-Tradition all week but his desire for booze outweighed his desire to avoid Tom, so he positioned himself next to the bass player and tried to catch the barman's eye. Once he had ordered a round, he looked over at Tom, who now seemed to be on his own. He remembered his policy about politeness and made the first move: "Sorry about the other day. I mean throwing that drum stick at you."

"Don't worry about it."

Another of Theo's policies was to not ask a question if you thought the answer would be one that he didn't want to hear. But buoyed by his successful day at Cabot Farr, and his first boozy business lunch, Theo was confident that he could withstand any bad news he might learn from quizzing Tom about August:

"So how is X-Tradition coming along?"

"Dunno. Not even sure if we're still going to be honest."

Theo's heart quickened. "Really? Why, what's happened?"

"Dunno. I haven't heard from Wells all week. I phoned him the other day but he was out and never got back to me. I thought we had a gig lined up here in a couple of weeks but Bill doesn't seem to know anything about it. I left Downward Spiral for that sod. The least he could do is return my calls."

"Oh, sorry to hear that. So, has he recruited another drummer?"

"I think so yeah, that bloke who was messing around on your kit the other day. He's pretty good, but well-dodgy."

"How do you mean?"

"Druggie. Whatever you want, he can get. Him and Wells are constantly off their gourds. I think he deals at the Hat & Feather; Wells has been going there a lot apparently. I might go there later on actually; see if I can track him down."

The Hat & Feather was a pub in Bath popular with crusties and punks. Theo knew it by reputation only. It was situated at the top of Walcot Street near the London Road. Whenever Theo walked past, he could always hear loud dub music coming from inside, and there were usually half a dozen dogs on strings sniffing around the entrance.

Theo offered to buy Tom a drink by way of apology, but Tom said he was going to head into Bath, thanked him anyway and patted him on the shoulder.

Theo left the pub before closing time once again and wandered home by himself. He wasn't sure if the news that X-Tradition had imploded was good or bad. Maybe he should take it as a compliment that once he had left, the band fell apart. But then again maybe Theo had nothing to do with it, and August's increased drug use could be to blame.

He wished he'd asked Tom about the Dead White Sky, and whether August had mentioned the ownership of the song. Too late now. He walked home humming the tune he had written, with August's powerful lyrics playing over in his mind:

A blink of light that cracks the sky

Leaves houses up but children die

Then, with a sudden cringe of embarrassment he remembered some of his own lyrics from his recently completed Jeans Girl:

Well she's my jeans and t-shirt girl

She knows just how to rule my world

How many times had fledgling songwriters rhymed 'girl' with 'world' he wondered? On reflection, hiding the cassette containing this song in his t-shirt drawer wasn't adequate. This was a song that deserved to be buried in a very _very_ deep hole.

When he got home he went straight up to his room and listened to proper pop music on his portable bedside turntable: 'Ant Music', 'See You', 'Jimmy Jimmy', 'The Model'. He flicked through the rest of his collection as he listened and came across 'Romeo & Juliet' by Dire Straits. He had yet to play it since buying it in Cruisin' Records the other day. Remembering the song's lavish production, he decided that the portable player wasn't up to the job and turned on the Panasonic music centre. He turned the volume and bass up as loud as he dared for such a late hour and listened.

Like Don McLean's 'Vincent', 'Romeo & Juliet' starts with a guitar riff that Theo could never imagine mastering. The song is a reworking of the timeless love affair, with Shakespeare's prose replaced by contemporary street slang. At least Theo could understand this version.

Mark Knopfler's raspy low-key vocal was barely audible above the reverberating guitars and drums. He sang of love-struck Romeos, serenades, and the endless yearning of boy and girl, boy and girl.

And this love-struck Romeo thought of Martine of course, of course. The girl who pierced his heart with her knowing look. That undeniably pretty face, that stocky body, that surprisingly _hot_ skin. That smile meant only for him. Was she alone in her bedroom thinking of him, or out with some other guy...

And then he thinks of August of course, of course: his soul being stolen by the drug dealer, the new drummer. He imagines August at the Hat & Feather, pills being folded into his palm, a smile on the dealer's face. But it didn't have to end that way; with August's head nodding downwards in a stupor while dogs barked all around.

And Theo knows now that he isn't ready to leave August behind. The Wallflowers will have to wait. This love-struck Romeo needs to get August back of course, of course.

# Chapter Twenty-Nine

The following morning, Theo dug out the cassette that August had made for him. CRASS on one side and THE SUB HUM ANS on the other. Determined to like it, he put it into the Panasonic music centre and turned up the volume.

It didn't sound to Theo like Crass had the aural enjoyment of the end user in mind when they created their music. Were you expected to quietly nod alomg to it? Were you expected to lose yourself in a reverie as you listened on your headphones? Theo just didn't get it. Presumably the message was the most important thing here. But if you couldn't _hear_ the lyrics, was there a message? That's where owning the album would come in handy - Crass albums always had the song lyrics on their album sleeves as well as combative artwork to get their message across.

He had more luck with The Subhumans. A lot of their songs sounded quite similar to X-Tradition stuff - pounding bass lines, screeching guitar, melodies you could whistle and words you could hear. Theo was pretty sure he could play these songs on the guitar. It still wasn't quite the sort of music that he would willingly listen to, but he could see how people could like it.

If this was the sort of music that Wells felt so strongly about, Theo felt that he could get on board. Surely once they had patched up their differences over The Dead White Sky, they would be able to work together again? Maybe it didn't matter if Theo did not have that _drive_ , that _anger_ that Wells had. All Theo had to do was put August's words to music, something he had clearly demonstrated an ability to do.

He spent the afternoon at the fountain, making the most of the sunshine in his now cut-off Dead Kennedys t-shirt, borrowed from Wells all those weeks ago. He made casual enquiries about August and got confirmation that he was indeed spending a lot of his time with the new X-Tradition drummer and hanging out at the Hat & Feather.

Plans were made for that evening: everyone was to go round to Pete's to watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on video. Theo said he'd come along but in truth wasn't at all that keen to watch such an apparently terrifying film. He knew from past experience - crying during a screening of Jaws and having to be escorted out by his parents - that horror movies were not for him. This made the decision to visit the Hat & Feather all the easier to make - had he a viable alternative, he might not have had the resolve to go to that notorious pub by himself.

Theo left his friends in the late afternoon and told them he'd see them at Pete's later. He then took the bus to Chippenham to visit the off-licence by the train station where he stocked up on Consulates, a litre bottle of white wine and a four pack of Holsten Pils. He managed to smuggle the booze and fags up to his bedroom upon arrival and joined the rest of the family just in time for Saturday tea. He ate a double helping of lasagne, guessing it might be wise to line his stomach for the evening ahead.

After tea, he headed upstairs and reached under the bed for the first of his four cans of Holsten. He coughed as he cracked it open, and then put on side one of The Hollies _20 Golden Greats_ while he thought about what to wear. His first choice of outfit was his old Vans skate shoes, his recently-tailored school trousers with roll-ups to reveal while socks (a style that copied from the jacket-wearing guy he saw the other day), and the Dead Kennedys t-shirt. He checked this look in the full-length mirror in his parent's room. Too monochrome, so he needed to re-think. He liked the look of the Vans, white socks and drainpipe black trousers, so it was just a matter of finding a more colourful top half. After rifling through his own clothing options, he thought about asking Jon if he could borrow the checked Levi shirt again, but then recalled that he was wearing that shirt the last time he saw Wells. He needed something different. Then he remembered another of his brother's choice buys \- a blue and white Breton top from American Classics in Covent Garden. This would go perfectly with the rest of his outfit and he could top it off with the beige sports jacket.

He finished off his first can and knocked on Jon's door. "Come in!" came the reply. Theo opened the door to find Jon lying on his bed smoking a cigarette and listening to Steely Dan.

"Hiya. I was wondering if I could borrow that Breton top you've got?"

Jon sat bolt upright and put his hands in the air. "Finally!" he said. Then again, louder: "FINALLY!!" He then got off the bed and ran out the door, still shouting "Finally!" at the top of his voice. He ran downstairs, into the kitchen, the front room, shouting as he went. Then back up the stairs, into their parent's sitting room, then up the stairs again to Theo's room and the bathroom all the while shouting "Finally, finally!!" He ran back down the stairs, back into his room, reached in to the open wardrobe, grabbed the Breton top, handed it to Theo, said "there you go" and closed the door.

Theo took the top back to his room and tried it on with the rest of the outfit. He was pleased with the way it looked, but decided it could do with even more colour. So he rooted around in his sock drawer and came up with a green silk handkerchief. He positioned it in the breast pocket of the beige jacket, and nodded in approval as he looked in the mirror.

He cracked open another beer and lit up a Consulate while leafing through his record collection. He played the usual suspects - pop followed by new wave followed by punk, followed by pop again. He drank and sat on the floor, his back against the side of his bed.

He thought of Martine, Laura, August, Van Gogh, and finally poor old Eddie Cochran, who died just a couple of miles up the road. A taxicab late at night, the driver loses control, three passengers in the back - Eddie, his girlfriend Sharon Sheeley and fellow rock n roll legend Gene Vincent. Upon impact, Eddie threw himself over Sharon to protect her and was fatally injured. Young, beautiful, talented, and now heroic. Theo often thinks of that taxi, making its way from Bath to Chippenham late at night, its passengers on a high from the just-finished gig at the Bath Pavilion. Gossiping and joking and sharing cigarettes or maybe even booze - after all, Eddie was an American who had just turned twenty one, maybe he was revelling in his new-found freedom.

As their taxi made its way through Lyncombe towards Chippenham, did Eddie look out upon the quant stone buildings of this ancient town? Did his gaze fall on the streets that Theo walks every day? He liked to think so. Lyncombe was the last town Eddie Cochran passed through. Young, beautiful, talented and gone.

He was now onto his third can of beer. He looked at his watch - seven thirty. Still an hour before Pete and the others would start to wonder where he was. If they phoned, he'd just say that he'd decided to stay in with his folks and watch the Hammer horror flicks on BBC2. There was a knock on his door: Roger and Sylvie informed him that they were going out for a meal. He bade them goodnight and leant out the window to wave as they made their way down the path and on to the street. It was starting to get dark, and grey clouds were coming in from the south. He smoked another Consulate. Soon after he heard the front door slam again and watched as his older brother got into a car crammed with raucous friends. He was alone.

He placed The Hollies back on the turntable and then set up the tape recorder. He put a new C-30 cassette in and hit Play & Record. He then put the needle at the beginning of The Air That I Breathe and listened intently, taping his right hand against his thy. When the vocal began, Theo closed his eyes and sang along:

He worried that his voice wouldn't be able to handle the anthemic chorus; that he would cough or gag, or his voice would break. But he continued, steadily, not trying to sing too hard, just making sure that he was _in tune._ The chorus came. A deep breath...

When the song ended, he tiptoed out to the landing just to make sure there was no one there; that no one heard him. All the lights were off, he was alone.

He sat on the floor and played the tape back. Muffled and faint, he could hear the guitar intro; and then a voice. His voice he assumes; it's certainly not the lead singer of The Hollies. And the voice was in tune, it resonates nicely. But this is the verse; the easy bit. Theo's heart began to pound as the chorus approached. He heard a deep intake of breath (Is that _mine_? he thinks to himself) and then it hits: _All I need is the air that I breathe_... the notes are hit cleanly, it sounds in tune, a little bit of vibrato but not too much. He sounded like a singer.

In celebration, he cracked open another beer \- no need to hide the ring pull with a cough this time. He glugged it down whilst listening to Depeche Mode's 'See You'.

When the song finished he could hear the phone ringing faintly downstairs - _Pete_ he thinks, _bang on time_. There was no point in answering it; they could survive an evening without him. Besides, he was sure he wouldn't be able to endure The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. _Ring ring, ring ring!_ But what if it's not Pete? What if it's Martine, or August, or even Laura? Or even, bizarrely, that page out of the Benetton catalogue with her sugar brown skin? He bounded down the stairs three at a time, beer in hand, and landed on the tiled corridor floor next to the phone just as silence filled the air. He picked up the handset in desperation only to hear the dial tone in his ear. _Bollocks_.

He trudged back upstairs, determined not to let the spectre of a missed call ruin the evening. He arrived back in his room and reached under the bed for the litre bottle of wine. He forgot to get a glass when he was downstairs so he used the mug from his breakfast tea that had been on his desk all day.

He listened to Romeo & Juliet as he drank, this time paying attention to the drumming more than the words. Was this guy up there with Topper Headon and Clem Burke? Possibly, possibly. He'd have to listen to more Dire Straits to be certain. By the time he had played the song twice, he'd polished off half of the wine. He looked at his watch: nine pm. There was a bus to Bath at 9:10, so he put the cork back into the wine bottle, checked that he has his wallet, matches and Consulates and jogged down the stairs and out into the night air.

# Chapter Thirty

Theo's bus approached Bath from the east, heading along the London Road with the Snow Hill flats so hated by Rick Ingham on the right. Once past Snow Hill, the bus headed up London Street and then came to a fork in the road, with The Paragon on the right and Walcot Street to the left. The Hat & Feather sits at the top of Walcot Street, to the left as you pass. Theo rang the bell and the bus stopped just outside the Hilton hotel - another of the 1970s disasters that Rick believed had ruined his city.

Theo headed back up Walcot Street, his bladder now bursting. He passed a couple of pubs - The Saracen's Head and The Bell - but both looked packed to the rafters, so instead he looked for a quiet place to take a slash. Just before the Hat & Feather was a chapel set back slightly from the rest of the street. A path made from large limestone slabs lead from the street to the chapel itself, with a small overgrown graveyard spreading out around it. Beyond the graveyard was a fallow field that stretched down to the river below. In the seventies, there used to be summer festivals and adventure playgrounds on these fields, but the council had put a stop to all that.

The front door to the chapel was wide open and light streamed from it. Theo could make out perhaps twenty or so people milling around just inside the door. He walked towards the chapel to take a look. At the back of the chapel was a stage filled with musical equipment: a mic stand, a keyboard, an acoustic and electric guitar, a couple of small black boxes on stands which Theo assumed to be synthesisers, but no drum kit. Nothing seemed to be happening, so he found a dark corner of the graveyard away from any streetlights and relieved himself.

When he had finished, he headed back towards the pathway and saw two silhouettes walking towards him. As they passed, one of them said "There should be more people than that. I put up _tons_ of fucking posters."

The other guy didn't respond. Theo stopped and watched as the two entered the chapel and made their way through the apparently too-small crowd onto the stage. Been there, done that, thought Theo.

Now he was only a short distance from The Hat & Feather. In need of ammunition, he took out a Consulate and sparked it up. His reticence at entering this notorious pub was off-set by his desire for a pint. There were several dogs on strings sniffing around the entrance and he could hear a pounding dub bassline coming from within. But now an unexpected wave of confidence came over him: this was just another pub on just another Saturday night. _This is what I do_. So he pushed the door open and was met by a wall of leather jackets and dreadlocks. Smoke billowed out, and the bassline almost buckled his knees. Undeterred, he edged in sideways, one hand outstretched in front of him. He lightly tapped the nearest leather jacket and it moved begrudgingly to let him pass. Thus he made his way in, towards where he assumed the bar to be. Left a bit, right a bit, squeeze, nudge, apologize, dodge, breathe in, straighten up, shuffle onwards. He kept an eye out for August's lanky form, but would he even be able to spot his leather jacket amongst all of the others? Would he be able to spot his Mohican amongst all the others?

Finally, there it was: the bar; surrounded at least three rows deep by spiked, shaved and bleached men and women, all dressed in black, dressed in black. Suddenly Theo felt very conspicuous in his beige jacket, cravat and Breton top. But it was a _good_ type of conspicuous; he suddenly hated the darkness and the gloom of the black leather jackets. He wanted brightness and he wanted colour. He wanted sunflowers.

Once established at the cramped bar, his next task was to get served. The bar staff seemed to be exclusively female and exclusively young. In his experience, younger bar staff are more likely to refuse you than older ones. To the older ones, everyone looks underage, so they more or less just check at random. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not. But the younger ones take it as a challenge to spot the underage drinkers. He summoned his best game and smiled eagerly at the first barmaid to look his way. She leant towards him and he yelled over the pounding music "Pint of Fosters please". The barmaid looked at her colleague who shrugged her shoulders and nodded. He got his pint.

Now fully armed, he surveyed the packed pub. There was no sign of August, Tom or any of the other X-Tradition crew. The pub's rear car park was where drug dealing took place, so he decided to see if he could find August there. He squeezed through the crowd, expertly dodging any threats to his pint. Once outside he found hungry dogs, empty beer crates, dustbins, a few random smokers but no August. Then he heard another source of sound, competing with the pounding from the Hat & Feather. It must be coming from that gig at the Walcot chapel. Intrigued, Theo headed over, pint in hand.

The door to the chapel was still open, so he watched standing on the flagstones outside. There were just the two musicians on stage; one singing and playing an acoustic guitar, the other at a keyboard. A projector cast the words 'AMBIENT PLEASURES' across the back wall of the chapel, and there were a couple of Greek-style statues on plinths either side of the stage. The impenetrable song they were playing came to an end and was met with a polite smattering of applause. The singer checked the tuning of his guitar while the other guy moved from the keyboard and picked up the electric guitar.

Another slow turgid song followed. The audience didn't seem to be getting into it, with several leaving or just milling chatting amongst themselves. Theo was about to head back to the Hat & feather when the guitarist suddenly put down his guitar and reached for a violin, played a brief solo between verses and then went back to the guitar. Impressed by this virtuoso display, Theo decided to stay and made his way into the chapel.

He walked towards the front of the sparse crowd and watched the duo perform. The singer looked to be in his mid-twenties and wore glasses and had long straight blond hair. He wore a dark green boiler suit and seemed to be singing something about the cold Siberian wind. His eyes remained closed when he sang. How were the audience meant to connect with him if his eyes are closed?

Next he turned his attention to the other guy. This was much more like it. He stood bolt upright and totally still, the only movement coming from his fingers as they worked their way up and down the fretboard, adding layers of melody to the singers languid vocal. He stared blankly into the middle distance, only occasionally making jerky movements, presumably to negotiate a tricky chord change. Theo was transfixed by his appearance: he had incredibly short hair, almost as if it had been shaved off and then grown out a bit. This gave him a severe, drawn look. The haircut reminded him of a kid at school a couple of years ago who had to have his head shaved because of lice. Theo doubted if this guy had lice, so why on earth would he give himself such a severe haircut? Especially as he seemed to be quite handsome otherwise? Maybe he was an ex-skinhead, growing his hair out. Next Theo studied his clothing: a blue denim shirt open to the waist, with a white t-shirt underneath. The t-shirt seemed to have a watercolour sketch of a conductor leading an orchestra. Above the image he made out a few letters, which after a while he worked out said "Bath Music & Arts Festival 1982". The ampersand had been made to look like a musical staff.

The guy put his guitar down as the song came to an end. Even less applause than last time. Theo shook his head, partly in appreciation of this multi-instrumentalist with the concentration camp haircut, and partly at the direness of the material he had to play along to.

He began to worry that he had wasted too much time with Ambient Pleasures and should head back to the Hat & Feather to continue his August-hunting.

Once inside the pub again, he battled his way through the masses to the bar and ordered another pint. He looked around and this time saw someone he recognised: _Sophie_. His heart raced; if she was here, then so was August! Emboldened by the four cans of Holsten, the litre of white wine and now two pints of Fosters, he moved across the packed pub and tapped her on the shoulder. She looked round with a smile on her face, one that quickly disappeared when she saw him.

"Oh hi," she said in a rather resigned manner - one that Theo had grown used to.

"Hi there." He replied, determined to remain upbeat. "Just wondering if August is about?"

"He's gone on holiday with his parents to their house in Tuscany."

"Oh." Theo felt deflated. "How long for?"

"Two weeks. Why?"

Two weeks. No August for two weeks. "Oh, no reason." Theo's eyes began to feel hot, a precursor to tears.

Sophie's attitude seemed to change, and she turned fully to face him. "Can I give him a message? I was going to phone him tomorrow?"

"Oh, not to worry. Just say hi I guess."

He could feel the tears in his eyes, so to detract attention from them he reached in to his jacket pocket and pulled out his Consulates. Sophie asked for one, and Theo lit them both. She took a deep drag and then leant towards him:

"I liked your demo of that nuclear war song by the way."

Theo's eyes widened and gravity left him once more. For some reason his hand jerked suddenly and his cigarette narrowly missed Sophie's bare arm.

"Sorry. You mean The Dead White Sky? You know it was mine?"

"Sure. We played the tape. Sounded really good."

A wave of relief fell over him, and he wanted to hug Sophie so much. Then he felt his bottom lip go. Before she could see him cry, he excused himself and headed out the door. Once outside he wiped the tears from his eyes and took a long drag of his Consulate. _So the fucker knows it's mine_ , Theo thought to himself, _Now what?_ Go back and talk to her again in a minute and try and figure out the lie of the land.

To give himself some breathing space, he headed over to the chapel and stood at the back, watching the audience watch the band. It was hard to pigeon-hole the sound that Ambient Pleasures was making. 'Experimental' might be a good word to use. There were lots of spoken words and intricate flights of musical fancy. But nothing Theo could really latch on to. Another song finished to more lacklustre applause. The band took off their instruments and walked off stage. Theo took this as a signal to wander back to the pub. The evening was now fully dark and the air had cooled. He decided to stay in the graveyard until he'd finished his cigarette.

After a couple of minutes, a shaven-headed figure walked out of the chapel and leant against the gravestone next to Theo. The guy lit up a fag. Feeling upbeat after Sophie's revelation, Theo sparked up a conversation:

"Are there any instruments you _don't_ play?"

The guy jumped in shock and looked towards Theo.

"Oh hi," he managed to say. "Didn't see you there." A long silence followed and Theo assumed that he was ignoring the question. But then he said "Well I don't play any wind instruments."

This was said in such a matter-of-fact way that Theo assumed the guy had missed his playful tone. "Oh right. So how did the gig go?"

"You didn't catch any of it? Okay I guess. Pretty abysmal turnout though."

"You didn't put up enough posters, obviously."

The guy looked at him again, not quite knowing how to react.

"Sorry" Theo continued, "I overheard a conversation you were having with your band-mate earlier on."

"Oh. It's his band really. He writes all the so-called songs. He just hires me for these gigs to be his back-up band."

"Doesn't sound much like fun." But before the guy had a chance to answer, a voice shouted from the chapel:

"Oi, dickhead, you gonna help or what?"

"Coming!" came the reply in a sing-song voice. The guy stubbed out his cigarette and started to head back to the chapel.

"What a charmer," said Theo. The guy smiled and off he went.

Now in need of another piss, Theo headed back to the Hat & Feather and made his way through the crowd to the bogs. He waited for a stall to become available, as he didn't like to pee in the urinals. Once finished, he made his way back into to the pub and headed towards where he and Sophie last chatted. But she was no longer there, of course, of course. He circled the pub looking for her. He checked round the back and waited outside the women's bogs, but after ten minutes or so had to resign himself to the fact that she had gone.

He queued up at the bar, watching the punks, goths and crusties, all laughing and smoking and dressed in black, dressed in black. He looked down at this beige jacket and Breton top, still pleased with the brightness and the colour of his chosen outfit. Then he thought of Jon, running around the house shouting "FINALLY" when Theo asked if he could borrow this top. Sarcastic sod. He thought of the pint they shared last Friday, and how much fun they had. Maybe they could do that again soon?

What expression had Jon used when Theo told him all about August and the mix-up over the song? Stick to your guns. That was it, _stick to your guns!_ The expression made Theo think of that famous Warhol painting of Elvis dressed in cowboy gear, revolver at the ready. _Stick to your guns!_

And then Theo understood fully what this meant: that he would never be happy just being a drummer for hire. He needed to be the gunslinger, the one calling the shots. But he needed help; he needed people who knew what they were doing. People who knew about keys and chords and middle eighths and how to tune a fucking guitar.

He needed a guitar-playing, violin-wielding keyboardist.

He gulped hastily at his pint and put the glass down. He made his way as quickly as he could through the crammed pub: left a bit, right a bit, squeeze, nudge, apologize, dodge, breath in, straighten up, shuffle along. Finally he made it to the exit.

He ran the short distance to the chapel, but as he approached he could already see he was too late. The chapel was dark, the large oak door already locked. Surprising how quickly a band can pack up when there is no drum kit. Then he heard an engine start and looked up towards the street to see a white transit van chugging to life. He ran towards it, but the van moved away with surprising speed and tore away down Walcot Street. Theo gave chase, but the van was lucky with the lights and sped away towards the High Street, and then drove out of view completely. By the time he had run as far as the Hilton Hotel, Theo knew that he has missed his chance; that he wouldn't be able to catch the van, that he wouldn't be able to ask that guitar-playing, violin-wielding keyboardist if he would like to join his band. If he would like to be in Gang of Losers.

Out of breath, Theo turned back towards The Hat & Feather. He passed Schwartz Brothers take-away and decided that he was hungry. He ordered a quarter pound cheeseburger with extra garlic mayonnaise and a portion of fries with extra blue cheese sauce. He ate his meal as he walked slowly towards the pub. By the time he reached the Hat & Feather he had polished off the burger and half the fries. Feeling full, he tipped the remaining fries on the pavement to the side of the pub and watched as a couple of be-stringed dogs tucked in. Were dogs allowed fries? He wasn't sure. Would their stomachs balloon up, or was that sheep? Deciding not to wait around to find out, he made his way back into the pub.

He was still hoping to find Sophie, although he knew in his heart of hearts that she had long gone. The bell rang for last orders, so Theo headed to the bar as quickly as he could. He checked his pockets and he had enough for another pint. Once purchased, he leant on the sticky, butt-strewn bar and watched as the place started to empty. The house lights came on and only then did his thoughts turn to how he might get home. He had forgotten to make a note of what time the last bus was. The station was at the other end of town, and would take an age to get to, but he knew that the Lyncombe bus went through Walcot Street on its way out of Bath, so if he was lucky he might be able to flag it down. He took his pint with him as he left the Hat & Feather and crossed the road to the bus stop.

The night was cloudless and there was just enough moonlight to read the timetable without too much squinting. On a Saturday, the last bus from this stop was eleven-o-four. Theo looked at his watch: ten fifty eight. Perfect!

He checked his pocket for change, and had somewhere between 50p and a pound, hopefully enough for a single ticket. He sat down on the pavement, his back against the wall, and sparked up the last of his Consulates.

Had this evening been a successful one? Clearly he had not been able to meet up with August, and would have to wait at least another two weeks before having the chance to do so. But he had the next best thing: an admission from August's girlfriend that he had indeed written the music to The Dead White Sky. For now, this felt like enough. It gave him the ammunition he needed to progress with his _own_ vision, his _own_ band. He was no longer prepared to be just the best drummer in Wiltshire (or any other county for that matter); he was going to be a _frontman_ , the leader of Gang of Losers. But he needed other musicians, and he needed an organised musical brain to translate the music in his head to the outside world.

How would he find that guy? That guitar-playing, violin-wielding, keyboardist? The one who didn't play any wind instruments? All he knew about him was that he played in a band called Ambient Pleasures, and that there were posters promoting tonight's gig (although apparently not enough of them) all around Bath. Maybe these posters would have some contact information on them, or perhaps a list of other dates they were playing. Or maybe he could phone the chapel that hosted tonight's gig. Would the number be in the Yellow Pages? Was it actually a chapel, or just a concert venue these days? He had no idea. He didn't know where to start.

He was about to go over the road to the chapel to see if he could find any clues when he saw the bright lights of the A31 heading towards him. He got to his feet, took his change from his pockets in preparation and stuck his arm out to hail the bus.

It came to a stop and Theo got on, slurring his destination to the driver. He managed to pay the exact fare and wandered down the bus only to be called back because he hadn't taken his ticket. He apologized, took it, and made his way back down the bus, looking for a seat as he went. He walked all the way to the back but the bus was full so he walked to the front again, wobbling slightly from side to side as it started to move. He was in luck - there was an empty seat near the front that he must have missed in the confusion with the ticket. It was a 'priority seat' reserved for the elderly, disabled or those with push chairs. But there didn't seem to be any of those about, so Theo took it. Instead of facing to the front, the seat faced sideways, presumably to make it easier for the less fortunate to manoeuvre. Once seated, he stared blankly ahead, then focused, and realized he was staring directly into the eyes of Martine.

"Right Theo?"

That undeniably pretty face was looking right at him, her mouth upturned in an alluring smilee. He said nothing in response, but he could feel his cheeks beginning to redden. He was about to assess whether her appearance was good or bad news; whether it heralded a chance to get back together with her, to end the day with the radiant heat of her body next to his, when he saw a stonewashed denim arm place itself around her shoulders. Only then did he realize she was not alone. Theo looked to Martine's left and saw the guy from the Steal Guitars gig. _Not_ an old school friend then. He stared at Theo for a second and then suppressed a giggle. With this, Martine started to giggle too. Not knowing what else to do, Theo stood up and walked to the front of the bus. He addressed the driver quietly and steadily, his slurred speech from earlier seemingly disappeared. "Would it be possible to get off the bus now please?"

"Sorry pal, I'm not allowed to stop between stops. Won't be long though, the next stop is by the garage on the London Road."

"Oh right. Thanks." Theo chose not to think about Martine, or the "Right Theo?" or the guy with the stonewash denim jacket, or the giggling. Instead he thought about getting off the bus and walking. Walking walking walking, one foot in front of the other, like he did that day at August's house. One foot in front of the other. That's how you do it! Yes, one foot in front of the other. You don't need to think about _anything else_...

But these avoiding tactics did not work very well in the cramped and sweaty conditions of the night bus back to Lyncombe, especially when he could hear Martine and her new boyfriend chuckling loudly from only a few feet away. He closed his eyes tightly. He knew that tears were starting to form.

He took a deep breath. The bus had stopped in a queue of traffic. The driver was tutting quietly to himself. Theo was now feeling claustrophobic and desperate to get off: "Um, are you sure I can't just nip off..."

"Can't do it," came the reply. "I get a bollocking from the boss if it gets back to him. Local residents complain you see."

"Oh right." More chuckling from behind. But then he had an idea: he recalled Pete mentioning something about a taxi driver refusing to pick him up once because he looked like he was about to vomit. Assuming that the bus driver would not want to end his shift clearing puke off the bus, he tried his luck: "Sorry, but I think I'm gonna be sick. I just had a burger with blue cheese sauce and I think it was a bit off..."

The bus driver looked at him and shook his head. With that the doors opened and he was free. He stood on the pavement and watched as the bus drove off, Martine holding his gaze as it did so.

His anger, his disappointment, his _humiliation_ needed to be off-loaded very very quickly. He started to walk, looking for a perfect surface to bury his fist into. And after a few paces there it was - the bus timetable at the stop he would have disembarked at, had he not invented his vomit ruse. The timetable was attached to a lamppost and was at the perfect height. First checking that there were no passers-by, he pulled his arm back and then let fly at full speed. His fist piled into the timetable, bending its plastic covering and rebounding slightly off its hardboard backing. Satisfied with the loud _fwap!_ that the punch created, but disappointed with the low level of pain it delivered, he again pulled his arm back and let the timetable have another blast. More pain this time, but with a slightly duller sound (his first had presumably damaged the plastic somehow). Now in the swing of things, he pulled back for another go, not noticing that his second punch had dislodged the timetable and caused it to swivel by ninety degrees or so, exposing the post itself as well as the sharp metal ties used to attach it.

Theo drove his fist in again, and instead of meeting the flat plastic of his previous assaults, his fist pummelled the lamppost itself. His hand buckled at the impact and its back brushed against one of the metal ties, causing a gash in the skin. He pulled his hand back in shock and looked at the damage \- the knuckles were torn, the resulting blood appearing black in the moonlight. Standard-issue for Theo and nothing too much to worry about. But the gash looked more problematic: blood was trickling at some pace down his hand and congregating on his watch strap, and then dripping to the ground.

He watched as a small puddle of blood formed on the floor. Now what was he meant to do? He wished he was at home so he could just say to his mum "Er, I think I may have just..." and she would see the cut and instantly know what to do. But he was a long way from Lyncombe now.

The hospital in Bath was on the west side of the city, a long walk from his current location. But he wasn't even sure if this injury warranted a hospital visit. So he reached for a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wrapped it around his hand, keeping it in place by balling the hand into a fist. Using his other hand, he checked both pockets for change - all that remained was coppers and a couple of 5p coins. Not enough to get another bus home, let alone a taxi.

Theo was not sure of the exact distance from Bath to Lyncombe, but he estimated it to be about ten miles. A friend of his from school had once walked it and said it took him just over three hours. So he set his mind to walking, and put one foot in front of the other, expertly not thinking about his throbbing hand or his ex-girlfriend and her new, older-looking boyfriend.

He walked past the antiques shops on London Street and then down onto the London Road. The fish and chip shop was doing good business, and a burger van also had a large queue of post-pub revellers looking for something to soak up the alcohol. He passed the Longacre Tavern, a pub popular with the local Afro-Caribbean community. He could hear loud reggae music coming from within. Chances are there was a lock-in going on. Buses passed at regular intervals, but he had no idea where they went. Some of them might travel along the A4 and take him some of the way home. If he had any money that is.

The London Road led on to Batheaston High Street. Chemists, grocers, pubs, cafes. All closed, all silent. As Theo passed the pub, he noticed a couple of pint glasses on a wooden table outside. He checked them for viability but one was empty and the other had a cigarette butt floating in it. He moved on. The High Street petered out and became a narrow suburban street. He checked his injured hand; the handkerchief seemed to be containing the blood so he assumed that all was well. It wasn't really hurting either. Good job he didn't embarrass himself by going to the hospital.

After a couple of hundred yards the street joined the A4. He had probably walked just over a mile already. The streetlights were further apart and he had to rely more on the bright moonlight to see where he was going. A roadside sign informed him he was now entering Wiltshire.

He was beginning to need the toilet again. There was a side road just in front of him, so he followed it until he found a gap in the hedgerow and took a piss looking out over a moonlit wheat field. He re-joined the A4, and kept walking. He looked at his watch: it was now twelve forty-five. His parents would be fast asleep, and he'd be in bed by the time they came to check on him in the morning.

When he reached the outskirts of Box, his legs were beginning to tire. The first pub to greet him as he entered the village was The Bear. It faced the main street and had a car park to the side. At the rear was a generous beer garden with plenty of tables and chairs. Beyond the beer garden was a village green, with a rugby field and children's play area. Theo stopped at the pub and looked in through a window. All was quiet inside - no signs of a lock-in here. But looking at all those beer pumps lined up along the bar made thirsty. He looked around to check that no one was coming, and made his way through the car park to the beer garden at the rear.

He was in luck. An uncleared table offered up a half pint glass containing clear liquid and a slice of lemon - presumably a gin and tonic, and a nearly full pint of what looked like bitter. He double-checked each drink for cigarette butts, sat down at the wooden table and took a swig of the beer. A bit flat, but apart from that perfectly okay. Now all he needed was a Consulate to go with it. He gingerly reached into his breast pocket, being careful not to further damage his hand, but there was nothing there. Did he leave the packet at the Hat & Feather? Did he smoke them all and throw the pack away? Did he give them to Sophie? He couldn't remember. He had his lighter though. So he scoured the ground for cigarettes and found a half-smoked Marlboro. He tore off the blackened stub to reveal fresh tobacco and lit it. He took a deep drag and exhaled, watching the grey smoke disappear into the night air.

Then he noticed that there was scaffolding all the way up the side of the pub, and rows of neatly stacked slate tiles just outside the entrance to the toilets. A new roof was in the offing, clearly. Theo and his friends never missed an opportunity to climb scaffolding late at night, especially after a few beers. So he took a couple more drags from the cigarette and a couple more swigs from the beer and looked for a way up. All ladders to the first floor platform had been removed, so he jumped as high as he could and managed to grab a pipe at platform level. His battered hand complained briefly, but the excitement of the climb pushed it to the back of his mind. He pulled himself up and stood on the platform. He remained motionless for a moment, in case he had disturbed anyone. No lights came on, so he continued. He located the ladder up to the next platform and climbed until he got to the roof.

Once there he could see that the roof was definitely in need of repair: several of the slates were cracked or missing completely, revealing the weather-beaten woodwork underneath. There was an open skylight just in front of him, and it was near enough for Theo to peer over and see what was below: some kind of storeroom. He leant over on to the roof and reached for the open window. He reckoned he should be able to squeeze himself in. But then a moment of clarity came over him. Why would he want to go in? What's the best that could happen? He'd sneak down to the bar and pour himself a beer? Would that even be possible? Don't landlords lock the pumps or something when the bar is closed to stop people like him from nicking the booze? And the worst case scenario would be that the landlord would call 999 and Theo would turn up at home in the back of a police car.

So instead he walked along the platform to the rear of the building and looked out across the playing fields beyond the beer garden. The moon was still bright and he could see shadows cast by trees at the side of the rugby field. Beyond the trees stood a row of houses. A light came on in one of the upstairs rooms. Someone going to the loo. Or maybe this was a nightshift worker starting their day. Theo mused that the secret to life was to be the one going to bed at this time, not the one getting up.

He looked down at his injured hand. He was used to the pain from his knuckles - the punching of inanimate objects had become something all too common-place recently. But the more focused pain from the back of his hand was giving him cause for concern. The handkerchief covering his cut was now completely sodden with blood. He carefully unwrapped it and looked at the centimetre-long gash. He clenched his fist and watched as a small spurt of blood arced towards him and landed on his beige jacket, missing his brother's Breton top by a fraction. Then he started to really worry. Shouldn't it have stopped bleeding by now? Doesn't blood clot after a while? He knew he was not a haemophiliac, so it gradually dawned on him that the wound must be serious, that he must have clipped an artery. He looked down at his feet and saw dark spots dotted around the scaffolding planks. Good God, he was leaving a trail! Would future generations be able to retrace his steps by following the faded blood spots on the ground?

He turned the handkerchief over and reapplied it to his hand, keeping it in place with his clenched fingers. He was now over half way through his journey home, and he decided he would worry about the cut once he got home. He may have to wake his parents up and get them to drive him to the hospital. What excuse could he use this time? Maybe he could just say he got picked on by some older kids and had fought back. Perhaps one of them pulled a switch-blade on him. That was the sort of thing that happened to teenage kids wasn't it?

He started to feel the cold and pulled his collar up against the breeze. He made his way down the scaffolding and continued his journey.

Once out of Box, he began the steady ascent of Box Hill. Determined to keep his mind off his dripping hand, he thought of his fledgling songwriting efforts, and what he'd be able to actually offer the guy from Ambient Pleasures if he were able to find him. He was pleased with some of what he had written thus far: The Dead White Sky music obviously, and the tune for Something Happened was half-decent. And Enough Money sounded upbeat and commercial - the sort of thing he could imagine hearing on Radio 1. And maybe his lyrics weren't really that bad. After all, aren't the charts full of stuff like _She's my jeans and t-shirt girl/ She knows just how to rule my world?_ Who actually listens to the lyrics to pop songs anyway?

But what about his attempts to write a song about Van Gogh? He couldn't be so flippant about _that_ \- the lyrics would have to be genuine, true and above all original - no mean feat with Don McLean in the world.

Although not particularly steep, Box hill came after four or five miles of solid walking, so Theo found it heavy going. He took several stops and watched the occasional car or taxi zoom by. As he climbed, more and more of the view of the valley came in to view. He had never seen it bathed in moonlight like this before. The normally green fields and hedgerows were now blue and black, and the farmhouses dotted over the hills were all in silhouette. As he climbed further still he began to see Box below him, slate roofs gleaming in the moonlight, and beyond that the twinkling orange lights of Bath.

After another hour he reached the top of the hill, and suddenly feeling feint, sat at the bench overlooking the valley. He could feel his blood pounding through his arteries, and daren't look at his hand in case it told him something he did not wish to know. To take his mind off his troubling physical state, he looked around for his drumstick he had left here yesterday. No sign of it anywhere. Maybe some kid had picked it up, felt its weight and its power and was currently badgering his parents for a drum kit. More drummers in the world, multiplying, multiplying.

He looked for the Colerne water tower but it took a while to make it out in this light. He thought of it turning into a mushroom cloud and the sky turning white, and then cracking. The end of the world.

But the end of the world was not a comforting thought - especially with a bloody hand - so instead he thought of Adrianne, that chocolate-skinned beauty from the churchyard. The girl with the smile and the pedal-pushers - _Neek Ayward yes?_ Was she back in Italy now, or still here? Wherever she was, she was probably asleep. And he imagined her lying in bed, dark skin against thin white sheets... And Laura? What about her? Would she be asleep too? He thought of her cosy in pyjamas, maybe a couple of teddy bears in there with her. Sleep well Adrianne, sleep well Laura. He daren't think of Martine; he knew she wouldn't be alone.

Feeling revived, he stood up and started to walk. The road flattened out and then sloped gradually downhill. His pace quickened. He walked past the Copenacre MOD site where his dad worked. There was a security guard on duty at the front gate. Theo nodded but the guard didn't nod back, but held his gaze as he passed.

After another ten minutes he had reached the Hare & Hounds. Needing another piss, he made his way into the car park and slashed up against a wall, thinking of the miserable Australian barman as he did so. Now all he had to do was walk the last five minutes home. He looked at his blood-soaked watch: three am. He reached his front gate with his key already in hand, and inserted it as quietly as he could into the lock. The door opened and he entered the warm hallway. All lights were off.

Conscious that his hand should be his first priority, he tiptoed to the bathroom and carefully unwrapped the handkerchief. The flow of blood seemed to have stalled, much to his relief. He opened the bathroom cabinet and looked for the first aid kit. He located a plaster and roll of bandage, and applied them as deftly as he could. He watched the bandage for a minute or so, and when no blood seeped to the surface, he assumed he was over the worst.

In need of sustenance after his long journey, he tiptoed to the kitchen and made himself a bowl of corn flakes. Once finished, he made himself another. He listened out in case his midnight meal had woken anyone, but all was quiet.

Do houses enjoy this silence, Theo wondered. Do they rejoice when their inhabitants go to bed? Do they relish the peace and quiet after all that talking, laughing, slamming, clattering, _drumming_? Maybe those creaks you hear in the night are just the house breathing a sigh of relief.

Once he'd finished the second bowl of cereal he made his way up the stairs to his bedroom. As he passed Jon's room he noticed that the door was ajar. He stopped to listen and heard his older brother snoring. He was about to continue when he heard a second sound; a lighter, gentler snore ebbing and flowing in tandem with the first. Intrigued, he pushed the door gently and peered in. Jon's bed was directly in line with the door and he could see his brother on his side, one arm dangling over the side of the bed. He was covered by a white sheet. Lying next to him was a girl, also on her side, back to back with Jon. She was completely naked. Moonlight streamed into the room, and her long slender legs looked a bluey-white. He imagined this girl was Adrianne, his Italian admirer. Now it was his turn to admire her. He stared for as long as he dared, and then quietly pulled the door shut. When he reached his room, he turned on his angle-poise lamp and dug out the now well-worn Observer magazine. He leafed through to the volleyball playing women and studied their tanned athletic legs. Would they too look bluey-white in this moonlight? He turned off the light to find out but couldn't see anything. Besides, he knew that he would not be able to reach satisfaction with so much alcohol coursing through his veins.

He put Eddie Cochran's _Greatest Hits_ on the bedside record player and got undressed. He slid into bed, with his bandaged hand outside the sheets resting on his stomach. He stared at the ceiling. But even though it was the middle of the night, and even though he had walked mile upon mile and drank pint after pint, he still could not sleep. Even Eddie could not soothe him. There was a pounding in his heart and he did not know why.

By the time 'Three Steps to Heaven' came on, Theo knew that trying to sleep was pointless. He got up, opened the window and leant out. The air was still warm and the street deathly quiet. Perfect conditions for a Consulate. If he had one that is.

Absentmindedly he looked down at his bandaged hand, pleased to see that no more blood had escaped. But he couldn't just leave it at that; he had to check it of course, of course. So he unwrapped the bandage and looked at his pale, distorted hand. The pattern of the bandage had already left an imprint on the skin. To double-check that the wound was improving, he clenched his fist again. No spurt of blood this time. But this confirmation wasn't enough. Recklessness pushed him onwards and he squeezed the wrist of the injured hand with his other and watched as blood spurted upwards once more. He jerked his wrist to the side, the arc of blood narrowly missing him. He watched as the blood fell downwards to the limestone slabs of the front garden. Perhaps that wasn't such a good idea after all. He started to feel faint again, and realized for the first time that it may be linked to loss of blood. Before he could process this information fully the desire for sleep hit him like a juggernaut, but he could not move. Instead he watched the blood - his blood - drip drip down to the ground below. How very foolish he had been.

Before making the gargantuan effort to move to the bed, he looked out at the deserted street once more. The moon seemed to have disappeared and the bluey-blackness of earlier had been replaced by a warmer hue. He looked to the east and saw the source of this new light: at the horizon were the beginnings of the dawn; the sky brimming with orange, purple and pink. Then, the sun began its slow ascent: a huge red mass, gradually infiltrating the sky. With it came a transformation: the previous gentle tones replaced by a dark, deep, blood red.

And then Theo knew that he had his Van Gogh song: he imagined Vincent alone, his head in his hands, mortally wounded by his rejection as a painter; his rejection as a lover. The artist was consumed with violent rage and the sky above him drips with blood, creating a torrent that washes everything away. Theo has already written the music for this song. Now all he has to do is alter the lyrics. The Dead White Sky becomes The Blood Red Sky and the song is no longer about nuclear war, it is about the moment that Vincent realises that there is only one way out.

Theo closed the sash window and sat at his desk. He reached for a sheet of paper and began to write.

# Three Months Later

Theo is smoking a Consulate and studying the poster for Gang of Losers' first gig. It is pinned to the notice board outside The White Hart. The date at the bottom of the poster is today's: 3rd November 1983.

On balance, he is pleased with the poster. Originally he had hoped to make it full colour but that would have been far too expensive. The poster itself features a black and white photographic recreation of Van Gogh's famous 'Room At Arles' painting. Theo had rearranged his own bedroom for the shoot and had taken the photograph himself, using his brother's Canon SLR (he made sure to ask first). He found a wicker chair the same as the one in the painting from Junktion in Bath. In a deviation from the original source material, an acoustic guitar leans up against the wicker chair, and the band's logo appears top right of the poster, above the bed. There are two splashes of colour: the logo is green, and the body of the guitar is yellow. Theo added these touches himself using Indian ink. It took him an entire evening to paint the thirty posters he'd had printed.

He liked the wicker chair so much that he decided to put it on stage, and it is there now, Laura's acoustic guitar leaning against it, just like in the poster.

He feels a hand on his shoulder and looks around. "We're on in ten minutes Theo." Alan smiles at him.

He thanks his band-mate for the information and watches as he heads back into the pub, leads dangling from his back pockets.

It had taken him some time to track Alan down. His first course of action had been to look for more Ambient Pleasures posters in Bath. He located them quickly enough, but they contained no information except the solitary gig date and venue location. Next he went to the Walcot chapel, scene of the gig, and found it to be hosting an exhibition by a local artist. He obtained a contact number for the chapel owners from the artist, but when he phoned them, they had no details for the band at all.

Theo was on the verge of giving up. He wracked his brains for any other details from the meeting in the chapel graveyard. And then something began to niggle: why did this guitar-playing, violin-wielding keyboardist seem so amenable when his band-mate called him a "dickhead"? Surely he should have been offended, or at least disgruntled. Theo replayed the moment in his mind:

" _Oi, dickhead, you gonna help or what?"_

_"Coming!"_ came the reply in that sing-song voice. Why so chirpy? Then Theo wondered if he might have misheard. Maybe his band-mate hadn't called out 'dickhead' after all; maybe it was something _like_ dickhead. The more he thought about it, the more it sounded like 'Dicken', and Dicken was a name, wasn't it? He looked in the local phone book, but found no listings. Undaunted, he went to Bath and scoured the city for a phone box with an intact directory and again checked for the name. And there was one entry of course, of course: Mr & Mrs R Dicken, Sion Hill, Bath 317___. So he put a coin in the box and dialled. When it was answered he said "Hi can I speak to the Dicken from Ambient Pleasures please?" The voice on the other end asked him to hang on a moment, and then another, younger voice came on the line.

"Hello?"

"Hi. My name is Theo Hanlon, we met in the graveyard last Friday. Do you want to be in a band with me? We're called Gang of Losers."

A momentary pause, and then the answer: "Yes, very much."

They met up the next day outside the Walcot chapel, the only landmark they both knew. Theo arrived with another homemade demo in his jacket pocket. This one contained four songs: the instrumental and still un-named Dream Song; 'Something Happened'; 'Enough Money' and 'The Blood Red Sky'. He had written 'Gang of Losers' and his phone number on the spine of the cassette case. Alan agreed to listen to it and to call Theo later that day if he liked what he heard. Once back at home, Theo sat on the stairs willing the phone to ring until finally, at eight thirty that evening, it did. He picked it up and a voice on the other end said, "Your songs only have three chords in them. But they are pretty good."

With that endorsement, Theo set about recruiting the rest of his band. Pete proved to be an able drummer and Theo let him have his drums 'on permanent loan' on the understanding that Theo could go round to his house whenever he felt the need to play them. It seemed fitting that Pete should be in the band, seeing as he gave Theo the idea for the name. And of course, Pete had that large attic area perfect for practice sessions. After X-Tradition imploded, Theo was able to recruit Tom on bass, whose position in Downward Spiral had already been filled. Laura joined on acoustic guitar, which she played in tandem with Theo's electric sky blue Strat. The Strat and the acoustic together created a unique sound that was to become their signature.

Laura's presence in the band thrilled and troubled Theo in equal measure. His main motive for asking her was to keep her close, with a view to asking her out. But now she was a _bandmate_ , and he panicked that he had complicated the situation unnecessarily. And because nothing was ever clear cut for Theo, he couldn't quite get the image of that pristine, elegant and above all deeply-tanned Italian exchange student out of his mind. The postcard with her scribbled address was hidden in his bottom drawer, guarded by the sky blue strat, (which he still had to buy a stand for). One time, he got as far as buying a postcard and writing "Dear Adrianne, I wonder if you recall the day we met. You told me I reminded you of a certain lead singer..."

He so wanted to tell her that _he_ was a lead singer now.

And what would he give to see that Benetton-ed body out of its impeccable clothing? Theo tried not to think too much about that.

What had been her parting words to him? "I like your style." Yes, that was it, _I like your style!_ Theo thinks this is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to him. A girl like that would be good to have around too.

-

That Friday evening in August when Theo had written his Van Gogh song had culminated with a trip to the hospital after all. He hadn't been as quiet as he thought when he got home, and his drunken movements around the house had woken his parents up instantly. They lay in bed quietly chuckling to themselves as Theo staggered around the house, bumping into this, knocking over that. "We thought you'd brought a bloody rhinosaurus home with you!" his father had said. They listened as Theo made his way to his bedroom, and were just dozing off when they heard his window being opened. This had alarmed Roger, who got out of bed and sneaked to Theo's door to find him quietly staring out the window, an imaginary cigarette in his hand. When Theo moved to close the window, Roger nipped back to his room without being noticed. It was only when they heard a large _whump!_ a few minutes later that they went back to investigate. They found Theo sprawled on the floor, blood seeping from his wound. For a moment Sylvie thought he had attempted suicide, but a quick slap to the face soon revived him, and he was able to tell his parents what had happened (more or less).

They drove him to the hospital in Chippenham where he was diagnosed with dehydration (and being very drunk). He was hooked up to a drip and kept in for observation for twenty four hours. He had lost a fair amount of blood, and the gash to his hand needed stitches. He had nicked the superficial palmar arch. Since that day he had not felt the need to punch anything.

-

Now that Theo considers himself to be a songwriter, and not _just_ a drummer, he tries to write something every day. Sometimes it's just a melody or a couple of lines of lyrics which he will give to Alan to work on; sometimes it is a complete song. He writes about betrayal, about loneliness, about longing, about insecurity, about sex. About Adrianne and the way she smiled at him. About anything, as long as it's something that has affected him personally. The moment he tries to write about wider issues or themes, he loses his touch and it comes out sounding false. He seems to be the opposite of August Wells in this regard.

Within two months, Gang of Losers had twelve original songs. It proved difficult to pigeonhole the type of music that they created. On one level it was very simple, with each song containing only four or five of the 'Johnny Ramone chords'. But the chords are only the framework that the melody is built around, and Theo had an unnerving knack of creating melody. And with his voice, and the sky blue strat and acoustic guitar firing on all cylinders, the effect was impressive. Jon told Theo that they sounded like the lovechild of the Ramones and Simon & Garfunkel - compliment that Theo would take any day. Neither Theo nor Alan could think of any lyrics to accompany Theo's dream music, so Alan suggested that they just make it an instrumental, and now they will use it as their set closer.

Once Theo had plucked up the nerve to tell his parents about the new direction his life seemed to be taking, they were wholly supportive. He assured them that drumming was still very much a part of his life and that all that money spent on kit, all those car journeys, all that packing and unpacking, all that _noise_ was not in vain - it had given him a vital grounding in the basics of music, and he was now building his way up. Besides, he could always go back to drumming if all else failed.

Sylvie helped her son in his efforts to learn to sing. She found a singing tutor via the local Gilbert & Sullivan society; a retired music teacher who gave lessons for a fiver a go. His mum told him that there was a certain inevitability to his becoming a singer, as he had always sung quietly to himself as he wandered around the house. Theo said that he hadn't noticed doing this, to which Sylvie rolled her eyes and said "Oh Theo..."

His singing tutor, Mrs Cossins, told him his voice was a light tenor with a soft and open tone. Powerful but with a smooth resonant touch. But even with this kind encouragement, Theo found it difficult to sing in front of other people, so the early song demos had to be produced with Alan providing Theo with a backing tape of a song, and then Theo adding the vocal in the privacy of his own bedroom. He then gave the resulting tapes to his band mates to learn. When Laura said "Wow! Is that really you?" it gave him the confidence he needed to take the next step and sing in front of the rest of the band. From then, it seemed only a small step to performing in public.

Alan's musical and technical proficiency had enabled the band to create a near-professional sounding 4-track demo. Its quality led to Theo doing something he now considers to have been foolish, something that has been troubling him all week. So convinced was he of their demo's brilliance, that he made a copy, put it in a jiffy bag along with a brief note, wrote 'F.A.O. Simon Hughes' on it, packed the jiffy bag in his rucksack and took the bus to Bath. He then walked to the top of Lansdown Hill, and after a few wrong turns located the sprawling farmhouse he and Rick had sold to the renowned record producer back in the summer. There were no signs of life; maybe Hughes hadn't even moved in yet. Undaunted, Theo walked briskly to the front door, and before he had time to think about it, pushed the jiffy bag through the letter box.

Would Simon Hughes like the demo? And if he did, would he remember who Theo was? Probably not. Oh well, there was nothing he could do about it now.

-

Theo stubs out his cigarette and looks up and down the High Street - all is quiet. It's warm for a November evening, so he unzips his US army bomber jacket and feels the cool breeze on his black t-shirt.

He managed to track down this dream jacket on a trip to Flip in London with Alan and Pete. When Theo found the jacket crammed on a rail between two biker jackets, he practically leapt on it. Luckily it was the right size and he purchased it immediately. It cost a whopping £60, and he had to borrow £20 from Pete to buy it (which he has yet to repay). But he was right: he _does_ feel invincible in it.

He looks at his watch. He is due on stage in five minutes. He glances at his poster one last time. He thinks of the fun they had re-creating Vincent's room. Pete and Laura helped him move all the furniture out of his room to take up the carpet to expose the floorboards underneath, and Pete made a hardboard surround in the same style as Vincent's bed that was then placed around Theo's. All in all, the effect was pretty convincing.

Since his first and only attempt at oil painting, in that abandoned and overgrown allotment, Theo has put his plans to follow in Van Gogh's artistic footsteps on hold. Although his art teacher was impressed with the vitality of his series of sketches of rural labour, he agreed that not everyone could make the step to oils quite as easily as they'd like.

The poster next to theirs looks amateurish in comparison. It is for a band called The Wallflowers - August Wells' latest incarnation, formed after the implosion of X-Tradition. Their first gig is scheduled for next Friday. At least August didn't have the nerve to copy Theo's original logo. Instead he has gone for a more predictable image of a wall with the band's name spray-painted on it. A single rose grows out from a crack to the right of the name. Below is a photo of the band: August is the most prominent. He wears a white shirt unbuttoned to reveal his chest. Of the three other members of the band, he only recognizes the tall, looming figure of the drug dealing, paradiddling drummer, who stands at the back dwarfing his band mates.

Theo has not spoken to August since their bust-up over The Dead White Sky. All Theo knows is that The Wallflowers music is apparently very mainstream and that the name for the band was blatantly stolen from him. Maybe this is something else that August has managed to forget. He wonders if The Wallflowers will include The Dead White Sky in their set. He suspects not if their direction is now more mainstream. But on the other hand, Theo's version of the song was the most mainstream thing about X-Tradition. If August wants to use _his_ version of the song in his Wallflowers set, so be it. It won't stop Theo using his.

A shaved head pops out of the saloon bar. "We're on in one minute. What are you still doing out here? You won't need that jacket on by the way; it's fucking boiling in here."

But Theo doesn't care if it's hot. He is wearing his jacket no matter what.

He lights up another Consulate and heads indoors. Alan was right: it is hot. And the place is looking decidedly busy. _Are all these people here to see us, or just to have a drink?_ As he walks through the pub to the stage in the back room, he notices a lanky figure with tanned skin and hair pulled back into a ponytail: August Wells of course, of course. They make eye contact but Theo looks away instantly. He can't think about August now; he can't think about his old life as the drummer, the kid at the back of the stage. The kid who could be replaced.

He walks onto the stage and takes the mic in his hands. "Good evening. We are Gang of Losers."

Pete clicks his drumsticks together four times and the first song begins.

THE END

