Gang Of Losers by Chris Lynton
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."
&
-
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!"