Stories We Could Tell Read online

  White dropped the Music from the masthead, fired all the old farts who were nostalgic for the days when the big news was the Tremeloes’ tour and Herman’s Hermits secret heartache and whether Peter Tork was going to leave the Monkees. In a daring last throw of the dice, White kept the title alive by hiring heads, freaks and hairies from what was left of the underground press, because the underground press was dead or dying too. It felt like everything was dying in the early Seventies.

  Ray could imagine the looks on their faces at Horse and Hounds when the new writers started turning up for work, all those refugees from Oz and Red Dwarf and Friendz and IT who filled The Paper with tales of bands that all the other heads, freaks and hairies knew by affectionate abbreviations. Heep. Floyd. Quo. Lizzy. Tull. Zep. And those writers loved Kevin White, just as Ray loved him, because White had the guts and the vision to do something that nobody else in this entire tower block of magazines would ever do – he gave you your first chance.

  ‘You just got back, didn’t you?’ White said.

  Ray nodded, on surer ground now the talk was moving on to bands. Thin Lizzy,’ he said. ‘Leicester and Birmingham. Two thousand words. Centre spread.’

  ‘Good tour?’ White said.

  Ray nodded, smiling. Thin Lizzy had been the first band he ever went on the road with, and they would always have a special place in his heart. When Ray had been a bumbling schoolboy with absolutely no idea how to conjure a two-page feature out of forty-eight hours with a band, Phil Lynott, the band’s black Irish frontman, had taken care of him – showed Ray that on the road it was okay to drink screwdrivers at breakfast if they calmed you down, coached Ray on how to conduct an interview, and even turned on Ray’s tape recorder when it was time to talk.

  ‘You’ve written about them before, haven’t you?’ White said.

  ‘This will be the third feature,’ Ray said.

  White sighed, and something about that sound sent a sense of dread crawling up Ray’s spine. For the first time since entering the editor’s office, he felt that this was going to be bad.

  ‘Yeah, you’ve been doing this for a while, haven’t you?’ White took his feet off the desk and looked out the window. ‘And that’s the big problem with this job. You can only do it for so long.’

  Ray felt sick to his stomach. That was the flip side of White’s fresh-blood policy – it meant some guy at the far side of his twenties quietly being put out to pasture.

  But surely not me, Ray thought. I’m young. And I’ve got nowhere else to go. Nowhere else I want to be.

  ‘It’s like this, Ray,’ the editor said, talking more quickly now, wanting to get it over with. ‘We can’t send you to interview the new groups.’

  ‘But – Thin Lizzy!’

  White held up a hand. ‘Hardly new. And that’s different. We all love the first band we went on the road with. You can’t do that every week.’ Then White was leaning forward, almost pleading. ‘I need writers who I can send to interview Johnny Rotten and Elvis Costello and Dag Wood.’ White sighed with exasperation. ‘And that’s not you, is it? Look at your hair.’

  Ray suddenly saw himself in White’s eyes and – beyond the paternal affection and friendly chitchat – Ray saw that he looked ridiculous.

  The music had changed, as the music always will, and Ray had not changed with it. Suddenly The Paper didn’t need a young head who was still hung up on the flowers-in-your-hair thing. It was a joke, man. Ray still believed in the whole peace and love and acoustic guitars thing that everybody was sneering about now. How could you send someone like that to talk to John Lydon? What would the Clash think?

  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 – ’

  White consulted a scrap of paper on his desk. ‘Leni and the Riefenstahls are at the Red Cow tonight. You can give me a review of that by first thing tomorrow morning – 800 words.’

  Leon nodded. ‘So that’s 500 words for the fight against Fascism, and 800 words for Leni and the Riefenstahls – who less than a year ago were parading around the 100 Club in swastika armbands. Right.’

  ‘We’re still a music paper, Leon.’

  Leon laughed. ‘That’s right. We’re doing the pogo while Rome burns.’

  ‘A good journalist can write well about anything. Look at that piece by your father this morning. You see that?’ White asked, turning to Ray. ‘A piece about the cod war – what could be more boring than the cod war?’

  ‘I didn’t see it,’ Ray said, still thinking about John Lennon. But he knew that Leon’s father wrote a column for a liberal broadsheet. He was one of the few journalists in Fleet Street that was read and respected up at The Paper.

  ‘It was about the decline of Britain as an imperial power,’ White told Ray. ‘About how we used to go to war to fight for freedom. And now we go to war to fight about fish. Brilliant.’ White shook his head. ‘Brilliant. Tell him how much I liked it, would you?’

  ‘Bit tricky that,’ Leon said, edging towards the door.

  ‘Why’s that?’ White said.

  ‘I don’t talk to my father.’

  They were all silent for a bit. Leon caught Ray’s eye and looked away.

  Oh; White said. Okay.’

  Leon closed the door behind him. Ray realised that the editor of The Paper was watching his face.

  ‘So,’ White said. ‘Think you can get me John Lennon?’

  Ray gawped, feeling the sweat break out on his face. ‘Get you John Lennon? Who do I call? How do I get you John Lennon?’

  White laughed. ‘You don’t call anyone. There’s no one to call. No press officers, no publicists. EMI can’t help you – this is a private trip. You just go out there and find him. Then you talk to him. Like a real grown-up reporter. Like a real journalist. Like Leon’s father. Like that. Think you can do it?’

  There was so much that Ray wanted to say to John Lennon that he was sure he would not be able to say a word. Even if he could find him among the ten million souls in that Waterloo sunset.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ray said honestly.

  ‘If you find him,’ White said, his blood starting to pump, his editor’s instincts kicking in, ‘we’ll put him on the cover. World exclusive – John talks!’

  ‘But – but what about pictures?’

  White looked exasperated. ‘Not Lennon the way he is now – he must be knocking on for forty! No, an old shot from the archives. Lennon the way he was in Hamburg – short hair and a leather jacket, skinny and pale. You know what that would look like, don’t you?’

  Ray thought about it. ‘That would look like…now.’

  ‘Exactly! Very 1977. Totally 1977. Nothing could be more now than the way the Beatles looked in Hamburg. They were out of their boxes on speed, did you know that? I can see the cover copy: Another kid in a leather jacket on his way to God knows where…’

  ‘But Leon says he’s leaving tomorrow!’

  White’s fist slammed down on his desk. ‘Come on, Ray. Are you a writer – or a fan?’

  Ray needed to think about that. He had no idea if he was a real journalist, or if he would ever be. How could you tell? Who had ever dreamed that loving music would turn into a full-time job? He was a kid who had written about music because it was more interesting than a paper round, and because they didn’t give you free records if you stacked shelves in a supermarket.

  ‘I don’t know what I am,’ he said.

  But Kevin White was no longer listening. The editor was staring over at the door, and Ray followed his gaze. On the other side of the rectangular pane of glass, there were men in suits waiting to see Kevin White. Men from upstairs, management, bald old geezers with ties and wrinkles who looked like your dad, or somebody’s dad. They were waiting for White to finish with Ray. Sometimes White had to smooth things out with them. One time a cleaner found a wastepaper bin full of roaches, and suddenly there were men in suits everywhere, all having a fit. But White worked it out. He was a great editor. Ray didn’t want to let him down.

  ‘I’ll try my best,’ Ray said. ‘But I don’t know if I’m a real journalist or just somebody who likes music.’

  Kevin White stood up. It was time for him to face the men in suits again.

  ‘You’d better find out,’ the editor said.

  Leon was gone. Terry was sitting on his desk, his DMs dangling, flicking through the copy of last week’s Paper that Misty had given him at the airport.

  ‘This is what you need, Ray,’ he said. ‘New! The Gringo Waistcoat. Get into the Original Gringo Waistcoat – the new style. You’d look lovely in a Gringo Waistcoat.’

  Ray dropped into his chair and stared into space. Terry didn’t notice. It was an endless
source of amusement to him that the classifieds in The Paper were always exactly one year behind the times. While the kid in the street was trying to look like Johnny Rotten, the models in the ads still looked like Jason King.

  Cotton-drill loons – still only £2.80…Moccasin boots – choose from one long top fringe or three freaky layers.

  According to the classifieds, the readers of The Paper were wearing exactly what they had been wearing for the last ten years – flared jeans, Afghan coats, cheesecloth galore, and, always and for ever, T-shirts with amusing slogans. Sometimes it felt like The Paper would not exist without T-shirts with amusing slogans.

  I CHOKED LINDA LOVELACE. LIE DOWN I THINK I LOVE YOU. SEX APPEAL – GIVE GENEROUSLY. And that timeless classic, the fucking flying ducks – two cartoon ducks, coupling in mid-flight, the male duck looking hugely satisfied, the female duck looking alarmed.

  Terry leaned back, smiling to himself, his spiky head resting against a picture he had torn from a library book and sellotaped to his wall – Olga Korbut, smiling sweetly, bent double on the mat. After the Montreal Olympics last year, a lot of people had switched their affections to the Romanian girl, Nadia Comaneci, but Terry was sticking with Olga.

  They each had their own wall, facing their desk with its typewriter, a sleek Olivetti Valentine in red moulded plastic. On Terry’s wall were bands and girls – record company 8 × 10 glossies of the New York Dolls, the Clash and the Sex Pistols plus images pillaged from magazines of Debbie Harry in a black mini-dress, Jane Fonda in Barbarella and Olga Korbut at the Munich Olympics.

  Leon’s wall was by far the most artistic – an undercoat of favourite bands had been almost obliterated by headlines cut from newspapers, with yet another layer of breaking news and advertising slogans pasted on top. So a record company glossy of the Buzzcocks had a headline about the death of Mao Tse-Tung running diagonally across it, while a yellowing picture from The Times of General Franco’s coffin was enhanced with an ad for the new Only Ones single. And as Ray swung round in his chair and took out his tape recorder, he was watched by pictures of John Lennon.