Tony Parsons - Stories We Could Tell

He was no longer the little star. The world had changed while he wasn’t looking. It was like Ray – Beatles fan, California dreamer, the hippy child who was born ten years too late – was a star of the silent era, and talkies had just come in. He watched the editor pick up a copy of The Paper and turn to the section for album reviews.

‘Listen to this,’ White said. ‘Another slice of New Nihilism for all you crazy pop kids, and it’s like staring into an abyss of meaning-lessness.’

Ray listened to his words being read. His mood improved. He had been reasonably pleased with it, especially the bit about the abyss of meaninglessness . That sounded pretty good. That sounded like something Skip Jones might write.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ Ray said mildly.

Kevin White scowled at him, and Ray flinched. The editor could be scary when he wanted to be. For five years he had bossed an office full of precocious, overgrown adolescents, all of them high-IQ misfits, many of them habitual users of illegal substances. He knew how to control a meeting.

‘The abyss of meaninglessness?’ White threw the paper on his desk. ‘It’s KC and the Sunshine Band!’ Then his voice softened. White had seen it all before. Writers who were once part of the Zeitgeist – a word that was freely bandied around in the offices of The Paper – but now belonged to yesterday, writers who had done their stint on The Paper , their bit for rock and roll, and didn’t realise that it was time to be moving on. Writers who had lived for music suddenly discovering that everything they heard disgusted them, suddenly discovering that the music didn’t live for them.

‘This new music…’ Ray shook his head, and a veil of yellow hair fell in front of his face. He brushed it away. ‘Tear it down, smash it up. No words you can understand, no tunes you can hear.’

‘Who are you?’ White said angrily. ‘My maiden aunt from Brighton?’

Ray hated it when the editor raised his voice. It reminded him of home.

‘What’s happening?’ Ray said. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening.’

But he understood only too well. He should have been writing ten years ago, when it really felt like this music was going to change the world. 1967 – summer of love, year of wonders, the year of Sgt Pepper , when music was still pushing back the boundaries, when people still believed in something. He should have been in London when heads and hearts were still open, when there was still the possibility of glimpsing the Beatles playing live on a rooftop in Savile Row. He should have been tooling around and taking notes when the world still believed in love, enlightenment and John Lennon. And he should definitely have been at Woodstock, chanting no rain, no rain in the mud, with flowers in his hair and a California girl in his sleeping bag, a mellow smoke on the go, good acid in his veins turning everything the colour of sunshine, and maybe Arlo Guthrie up on stage singing. Instead of having to wait until the film came out in the grey light of a colder, drabber new decade. Yes, those few days on Yasgur’s farm really summed it all up for Ray.

Were you at Woodstock?

No, but I saw the film with my mum.

Kevin White took a deep breath.

‘Maybe, Ray, maybe a move from the staff to freelance would be good for you, and good for the paper.’

Ray’s eyes were hot. ‘Would I still have my desk?’ he asked.

White shifted uncomfortably. ‘Well, probably we would have to give your desk to someone else.’

Ray could see it now. He would be like one of the freelancers who came into the office hoping to be tossed a bone – a minor album to review, a lesser gig to attend – while the stars of The Paper wrote the cover stories, while Terry and Leon flew around the world, and got their picture next to their by-line. No desk to call his own, never really belonging, on the way out.

‘This is the only job I want,’ Ray said, and it was true. Ray could not imagine his life without The Paper , without his friends, without the comforting routines and rituals of rock and roll – going on the road, doing the singles, having somewhere to come every day, somewhere that felt more like home than the house where he lived. He had loved it as a reader, and he loved it as a writer. On either side of the looking glass, it was in his blood.

‘Then you’re going to have to give me something fast,’ White said, embarrassed that he had to act like the boss of IBM or something. ‘Something I can use.’

At that moment Leon Peck burst into the editor’s office. ‘Let me read you something,’ he said. ‘Sorry and all that – this won’t take long.’

White and Ray stared at Leon. ‘Don’t you knock?’ White said. ‘And what’s with the stupid hat?’

‘The Nazis are coming back,’ Leon said, tugging self-consciously at his trilby. ‘So maybe we should worry a little less about bourgeois convention and a little more about stopping them.’ He cleared his throat and read from the copy of the Sunday Telegraph he was holding. ‘It is a disquieting fact, recognised by all the major political parties, that more and more people are giving their support to groups which believe in taking politics to the street’

‘What’s the point?’ White said.

Under the brim of his hat, Leon’s eyes were shining with emotion. ‘Boss, I was down there on Saturday. Look, look,’ he said, pointing at the bruise under his eye. ‘Look what they did to me.’

‘You’ll live,’ White said. Ray noticed he was a lot rougher with Leon than he was with him. But then Leon hadn’t been just a kid when he first walked into The Paper .

‘Let me write something,’ Leon begged. ‘Give me next week’s cover. Hitler said that if they’d crushed him when he was small, he would never have succeeded.’

‘This shower are just a bunch of skinheads, that’s all,’ White said, taking the Sunday Telegraph from Leon and looking at the picture of the flag-waving mob. ‘They couldn’t find their own arse without a road map, I can’t see them invading Poland.’ He handed back the newspaper. ‘And Elvis Costello is on next week’s cover.’ White thought about it. ‘But all right – you can give me 500 words on Lewisham. Anybody go to this demo?’

Leon smiled. ‘I’m assuming you don’t mean thousands of anti-Fascist protesters, boss. I guess you mean rock stars. Concerned rock stars.’

White rolled his eyes. ‘Anyone our readers might’ve heard of.’

‘No, they were all too busy doing photo shoots and getting their teeth capped to fight Fascism. But I hear John Lennon is in town.’

Ray’s jaw fell open. He stared at Leon, not believing a word of it. ‘Lennon’s in New York,’ he said. ‘In the Dakota with Yoko and baby Sean.’

Leon shook his head. ‘Lennon’s in London,’ he said. ‘For one night only. Someone at EMI just called me. Thought it might make an item in the diary. Passing through on his way to Japan.’ Leon cackled. ‘Give me McCartney any day of the week. At least Paul knows he’s a boring old fart who sold out years ago. Think Beatle John would fancy pinning on his Chairman Mao badge and coming to the next riot? Has he still got his beret? Or should we start the revolution without him?’

‘Well, he started it without you,’ Kevin White said. ‘Come on – what are you doing for us, Leon?’

Leon’s face fell. Ray knew that’s what they always said when they wanted you to get in line. What are you doing for us? ‘Well, mostly I’ll be working on this riot story,’ Leon said. ‘I thought we could call it Dedicated Followers of Fascism . Maybe – ’