Confessions Of A Karaoke Queen (37 page)

At the top of the steps I pause, open-mouthed. There
is
something out here in distress, but when I catch my own horrified reflection in the window opposite, I realise that thing is me.

Loaf is wearing a huge white kaftan, his wispy brown hair just licking the collar and his signet ring glinting in the late-morning sun. He appears to be practising some martial art (Tai Chi?), bending his stocky legs and drawing great circles with his arms, balancing and steadying, balancing and steadying. I’m sure it’s a highly advanced mode of spiritual and physical exercise, a regime of absolute discipline and profound concentration, but from where I’m standing it’s Loaf prancing about like a dandy in a duvet.

‘Er … hi?’ I hazard, not wanting to interrupt but feeling way too creepy just watching.

But he doesn’t turn round. And then it becomes clear why he didn’t break off at the sound of my musical efforts – he’s in some sort of … trance.

I stay there for what seems like ages, waiting. I’m rooted to the spot even though I know it’s wrong, but it’s like I’m in a
wildlife documentary or something and I’ve just got unprecedentedly close to a rare and wonderful beast, and now I’m frightened to move in case I disturb its natural behavioural pattern.

Loaf’s back is to me but I can see his facial expressions in the window, and my own slightly startled one floating behind. I decide it’s all getting a teensy bit weird. I should come back later.

But just as I’m turning to go, I’m rumbled.

‘ARRRGGHHHH!’

Loaf’s eyes open – and when he catches both our reflections he stumbles backwards, one foot slipping on the cobbles and sending him flying. The kaftan lifts and billows like a parachute and I catch a very brief glimpse of a pair of chunky bare legs before he lands on his bottom with an almighty thump.

‘I’m so sorry!’ I gasp, my hands flying to my face to mark my genuine apology but also to stifle a laugh. It
was
kind of funny. ‘Are you OK?’

‘What the hell are you doing?’ he blusters, shaking off my attempted help and scrambling to his feet. ‘Couldn’t you see I was having some … alone time?’ He’s gone very red. Against the white of his robes and the pastry-shade of his skin, it makes him look like a giant Cherry Bakewell.

‘I’m really sorry,’ I say again. ‘I just came in and I thought … well, I didn’t know where you were and then I saw … your dress and …’ I tail off.

‘It’s not a
dress
!’ Loaf vows, indignant. ‘It’s a toga.’

‘A
toga
?’

‘Yes,’ he lifts his chin, ‘for ease of manoeuvre.’ Then he frowns. ‘I thought I closed up for the afternoon.’

‘The sign said you were open.’

‘Well, I ought to close,’ he says, flapping at the seat of his toga to get off the dirt. ‘Custom’s as slow as ever. And besides, I don’t much go in for
uninvited guests
showing up whenever they feel like it.’

I nod. ‘Understood. I’ll drop by later.’

‘No, no,’ Loaf says, as if me backing out now would make this interruption not only an annoyance but also a complete waste of time, ‘what did you want?’

‘Maybe now’s not the best time …’ I venture. ‘It’s about the show.’

Loaf puts his hands on his hips. He looks like an angry Socrates. ‘Come on then,’ he urges, ‘spit it out.’

‘It’s about Evan Bergman, specifically.’ Even saying his name makes my tummy do a somersault.

He folds his arms and looks at me, a glint of inevitability in his eye, like a general who knew all along his prodigal soldier would return.

‘In that case,’ he says, ‘you’d better come in.’

Minutes later I’m in his Formica-laminated kitchen, sipping at cloudy lemonade through a straw while Loaf showers and changes upstairs. There’s a box of Celebrations on the side and I help myself to a Milky Way, then another one, then I think, Oh, I’ll just have a Mars. And maybe another Milky Way. I really hope Loaf hurries up or he’ll come back downstairs and I’ll be buried under a crispy avalanche of tiny chocolate wrappers. I decide to retire to the living room.

Loaf’s got a good set of vinyl, from Dire Straits, Blondie
and T. Rex to more obscure seven-inch collectors’ pieces. It’s all here, from Musical Youth to Marilyn; from Bucks Fizz to Bronski Beat; from U2 to Ultravox, a veritable library all meticulously labelled and filed. Somewhere between the cautions to watch out for Evan and the impromptu tête-à-têtes with David Bowie, I’d forgotten what I knew about Loaf in the first place: that’s he’s an ardent lover of music. It’s why he came to Mum and Dad’s every Saturday of the year, without fail; why he sat through all that dreadful singing, just waiting for his turn … because, quite simply, he loved the songs. Until
Blast from the Past
got started, that is.

‘Not found any nasty surprises this time, I hope?’

I spin round. Loaf’s changed into a plain brown jumper and jeans, quite a departure from his usual elaborate attire, and in a flash I see a much younger, less eccentric man, and wonder how he came to this point in his life: owner of a lowly music shop that makes 5p a week, but proud owner of it nonetheless because it stands for the very thing he’s passionate about. He’d rather sit in solitude all day with his crisps and his comics, among all those beautiful instruments, gathering dust and making no money, than be a millionaire and have even one of these records taken away from him.

‘Unless you call Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy” a nasty surprise.’

Loaf smiles in the doorway. ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’

Compelled by my genuine interest in his story, I decide to get straight to the point. Gently slipping the vinyls back into their sleeves, I take a deep breath.

‘I think Evan’s plotting something,’ I say, coming to perch on the edge of the sofa. Loaf sits down next to me, his expression troubled.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean … there’s this guy, he directs the show, and I don’t know if I can trust him, because … oh, it doesn’t matter. But he said—’

‘Nick Craven?’

I frown. ‘I thought you didn’t watch it.’

‘I might have seen bits,’ Loaf says, on the defence. ‘Besides, you can’t bloody miss it. It’s everywhere! All your mugs splashed over the weeklies; I even saw your photo in my TV guide the other day, on the facing page to Simon Cowell!’

I lift my knee, rest my elbow on it and cup my chin in my hand. ‘I know,’ I say wearily. ‘That’s what worries me.’

‘Go on.’

‘It
is
Nick Craven.’ I shake my head, not wanting to talk about it but knowing I must. ‘We had something and then we … well, we didn’t. I guess we never did. And now he’s confusing me, telling me I’ve misunderstood, but the thing is I don’t know whether or not I believe him and anyway, he
still
can’t be straight with me for whatever reason so why should I care? He’s been working for Evan Bergman – that much I do know because he admitted it – and he made me believe there was something between us when there wasn’t.’ I pause for breath. ‘So now he’s supposedly come good, he’s maintaining that Evan’s got some dreadful plan in place for the final live night – and worse still, that it involves my ex, Lawrence. If I’m being totally frank Lawrence
can
be a bit of a plonker, but I can’t really entertain the idea that he’d be willing to sabotage me on live TV. Would he? I mean, we’ve had our differences in the past, but he wouldn’t do that, he wouldn’t
be so …’ I chew my lip. ‘Whatever, I can’t go merrily on the word of some guy who’s already lied to me and hurt me at the risk of one of the few friendships I have left intact – sort of. So I came here because I don’t have anyone else to talk to, because it seems like all my friends are either pissed off with me, or they don’t know where they stand any more, or they wish they’d never got involved in the first place, or they think I’m paranoid, or they might have agendas of their own, so I have no idea who to believe. And I figured if you
knew
Evan, because you said you did, that you might have an opinion on it – on whether I should trust him over Nick. Because I honestly have no clue!’

Loaf sits back and clasps his hands together in his lap. ‘Finished?’

‘Think so.’

He looks up at the ceiling for several moments, so that eventually my gaze follows his, as if the answer might have appeared there by magic.

‘You want to know if I think Evan’s capable of doing something like this?’ Loaf’s gaze slides back to me, and the way he says it fills me with dismay.

‘Yes,’ I say weakly.

‘Capable of plotting something that will damage you, your parents and the club for ever more?’

I nod, queasy. ‘And it’s next week. Opening night was bad enough and we had a tenth of the number of viewers then. This is a big deal!’

‘Why would he do it?’ asks Loaf, in a way that isn’t so much a question as a test. ‘What’s in it for him? Shouldn’t he want the show to go off without a hitch?’

I laugh. ‘God, no – he wants to go out with a bang: anything to get the viewers excited. He doesn’t care about
me
– he doesn’t care about any of us! Or Pineapple, he couldn’t give a shit. He’ll be well clear of us come Saturday and the more he pulls in the better his commission next time. He’s jumping off a sinking ship and he figures if it’s going down anyway, he might as well let off some fireworks.’

‘Hmm.’

I tap my heel against the foot of the sofa. ‘What do you know?’

Loaf stands up, walks over to the mantelpiece and runs his finger along its edge. He stays like that a minute, me watching his back and waiting for him to speak.

‘I knew Evan Bergman a long time ago,’ he says. ‘A very long time ago.’

‘You did?’

‘Thankfully I haven’t seen him in years.’ He clears his throat. ‘Fifteen, maybe twenty years. And if I never saw him again it would still be too soon.’

I slide from the armrest on to the sofa, not wanting to interrupt in case I put him off his stride. I grab a cushion and pull it to me, as much a comfort as a shield to whatever blow Loaf is about to deliver.

‘I wondered if you recognised me,’ Loaf says, his back still to me. ‘I thought you might – you and your friends always used to look at me funny when I came into Sing It Back.’

It wouldn’t be right, or kind, to clarify exactly why we looked at him funny – though I still don’t entirely approve of the ‘Bat Out of Hell’ thing. Nevertheless I’m sorry: rather than laughing at Loaf and mocking him, maybe I should have had
more time for our most loyal customer from the outset, bothered to consider why he might be how he is.

On cue Loaf announces, ‘I wasn’t always like this,’ with such lonely bitterness that I half expect him to turn round having developed a hideous facial disfigurement and tell me nobody’s ever loved him.

‘You don’t know my name, do you?’

‘Er …’

‘It’s OK. Most people don’t. Most people don’t recognise me these days.’ He turns to me, and I feel I should now be struck by some grand revelation.

‘They don’t?’

‘No. I used to be different.’

Oh god. He
is
Meatloaf.

My voice drops to a scratchy whisper. ‘Are you Meatloaf?’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘My name’s Gary,’ he says softly. ‘Gary Wishall.’

OK. Should I know who Gary Wishall is? Do you? Not wanting to offend him, I nod uncertainly. ‘You are?’

He exhales, as if this is a secret he’s been holding in for a long time, as if telling me now is a great relief. ‘Yes. But in those days I became known as the Genie.’

It takes a couple of seconds for the penny to drop, but when it does it’s all I can do not to gasp.

Wish Records. The biggest pop label of the eighties, a legendary hit factory with a flood of number ones to its credit; its founder on a par with Stock, Aitken and Waterman. I’ve heard the Genie talked about in certain circles, by Mum and Dad among others, by people all through my childhood as this
borderline mythical, mystical figure with profound powers, like everything he touched turned to gold. And that must be where the name came from: acts would come to Wish Records and the Genie would grant them; make their dreams come true and send them soaring into the pop stratosphere.

‘
You’re
Gary Wishall?’ My eyes widen. ‘You’re the Genie?’

He nods sadly. ‘Once upon a time.’