Peter May - Runaway

‘I think the colloquial “hard-on” is more appropriate in your case.’

I gazed at her, my stomach flipping over, enjoying the way her hand stayed there, squeezing me. And I said, ‘Only, in my case, it’s down to the Rachel effect, rather than REM sleep.’

She laughed. ‘You damn well better not go to sleep on me!’

So I kissed her again, and we got kind of lost in it for what seemed like a very long time. When, finally, we came up for air, she looked at me for even longer.

‘I like you, Jack Mackay,’ she said.

I didn’t know what to say. I like you, too , seemed like such a lame response that I didn’t say anything.

Then she said, ‘What about your dream?’

I thought for a moment. ‘I suppose I’m living it. Well, the fantasy version of it, anyway. To play in a group. Make music. It’s all I really want to do with my life now.’

How could I have known then that failure of ambition is like a long, lingering death, and that disappointment with your life never goes away? It only grows stronger with the passage of time, as the clock ticks off the remaining days of your life, and any residual hope slips like sand through arthritic fingers.

She touched my lips with the tip of a finger. ‘You’re talented,’ she said softly. ‘I could tell that straight away tonight.’ She kissed me. ‘It’s arousing. Talent. You know that?’ Then she smiled and said, ‘We should sleep.’

So we lay down together, covering ourselves as far as possible with my coat. The concrete beneath us was unyieldingly hard, and I spooned in behind her, pressing myself against the softness of her bottom, allowing my hand to slip over and cup one of her breasts. I was half expecting her to move it away, but she didn’t. And I was both aroused and comforted, and asleep within minutes.

We were awake early, with first light and the dawn chorus. All of us stiff and cold and bruised by the concrete, deathly pale, with dark, penumbrous smudges beneath bloodshot eyes. Our third day living rough, and we were starting, I thought, to look like down-and-outs.

We found underground public toilets in Knightsbridge at Hyde Park Corner and were at least able to wash and brush our teeth. I changed into precious pairs of fresh socks and underpants and wondered what we were going to do for laundry when the time came.

We took the Underground from Hyde Park Corner to Leicester Square. Rachel and I got separated among the rush-hour crowds in the carriage and I became aware of Maurie pushing up behind me. His mouth was very close to my ear and I felt his breath hot on my neck.

‘I’m watching you, Jack.’

There was something dangerous in his voice. Threatening. I turned my head to look at him, and his face was very close.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘She’s my cousin. She’s not for you.’

I felt anger prickle across my shoulders, and pushed my face at him so that our foreheads were almost touching, like young stags locking horns. My voice was low and just as threatening.

‘None of your fucking business, Maurie!’

We glared at each other until the doors opened at Green Park. People got off, and more got on, and Rachel found me again and took my hand. But those big eyes of hers missed nothing.

She looked at me. ‘What’s wrong?’

I just shook my head. ‘Not a thing.’

It was a grey, overcast morning, cooler than the day before, and our spirits had dipped along with the weather as reality began to set in. Just off the square, in Bear Street, we found a greasy-spoon café and refuelled ourselves on egg, bacon and sausage, washed down with hot, milky tea. Almost immediately the world looked a more promising place. Grudgingly, the woman behind the counter loaned us her Yellow Pages, and we began surfing it for music agencies and recording studios. Luke wrote out a tidy list and we headed back to the tube station to consult the big map and work out an itinerary.

There was a brief debate about whether we should split up to save time and money, but we decided that we should stick together in case anyone asked us to play for them. How naive were we?

We made the long trek out to Fulham Broadway and a tiny recording studio, tucked away in an industrial unit off the King’s Road, behind Warr’s Harley-Davidson franchise and an old art bronze foundry. Motorbikes were stacked side by side all the way along the street.

A lean, unsympathetic young man with long, greasy hair and a thinning pate told us his hourly rate for two-track demos. He eyed us sceptically through smoke that rose from the cigarette clamped permanently between wet lips, and told us that we would need to bring our own gear, and that setting-up time would be included in the hourly rate. But we had already lost interest. We had no gear, and couldn’t afford to hire any. Besides which, the hourly rate itself was beyond our means.

Outside, in the King’s Road, Luke stabbed a nicotine-stained finger at his notes and suggested that we try some of the agencies closer to town.

So we set off on a fruitless search for an agency that would sign us. A search that took us out to Belsize Park in the north, Shoreditch in the east, and the Roger Morris Agency in Oxford Street. Everywhere it was the same story. We would need demo tapes. No one wanted to hear us play. We said we would gig anywhere. Pubs, hotels, dances... funerals — which didn’t even raise a smile. When we were asked for a contact address and phone number, of course we didn’t have one.

By the end of the morning we were tired and disheartened and sitting in the waiting room of an agency in the Strand.

A secretary popped her head round the door of her office and said, ‘Sorry, boys. The boss won’t entertain you without a demo tape.’ She gave us her sweetest smile and almost closed the door on a young man on his way out. ‘Oh, sorry, John,’ she said.

He had collar-length brown hair, and wore jeans and a leather jacket. He grinned and winked as he passed. ‘It’s tough lads, eh? You write your own stuff?’

I shook my head. ‘No, just covers.’

‘Then you’re wasting your time, boys. No one’s interested. My advice is go away and write. And, you know, if you can’t write, forget it.’ He cocked an eyebrow and pulled a face. ‘See you around.’

He skipped off through swing doors and down the stairs.

Rachel’s voice was hushed in disbelief. ‘You know who that was?’

‘He looked a bit familiar,’ Jeff said.

‘That was John Lennon.’

‘Nah.’

It wasn’t possible that I had just spoken to John Lennon, and hadn’t even realized it.

But Luke was nodding slowly. ‘I think it was, you know. People look different in the flesh. And that was definitely a Liverpool accent.’

‘It was John Lennon, I’m telling you,’ Rachel insisted.

Many years later, when such things were possible, I tried to find out on the internet where Lennon might have been that day. It turned out the Beatles were in London filming Help! , out at Twickenham Film Studios, in the spring of 1965. So it was possible that it might have been him, and I like to think that it was. And that I’d had my own little brush with history.

Sadly, none of his stardust rubbed off on me, but I outlived him by decades.

The Savoy Hotel was just along the road, on the south side, opposite the Strand Palace Hotel and Manfield House. I must have heard the name Savoy somewhere, because it was associated in my mind with class and money, and when we stood on the corner by the ornately leaded windows of the Savoy Taylors Guild, I saw just why.

The entrance to the hotel was set back from the road, beneath a shiny triangular frontage resembling the nose of a giant Rolls Royce, but engraved with the name SAVOY and crowned by a golden figure bearing a shield and lance. Porters with top hats and tails saw clients on and off the premises, a constant stream of taxis and private cars revolving around the faux fountain at the centre of its turning circle, stopping only briefly to drop off or pick up. Large palm trees flanked the marble-pillared portals, through which elegant ladies and sleek, perfumed gentlemen in Savile Row suits sauntered with such casual ease you might have thought they owned the place.