Goodnight Steve McQueen (6 page)

The other thing I like about Matty is that he’s enthusiastic. About everything. He’s never been in a proper band before and he’s the perfect foil to me and Vince. If you sliced Vince or me in half you’d probably find the word ‘cynic’ stencilled right through us like a stick of rock. If you cut Matty in half you’d probably find the word ‘mega’. Everything is mega to Matty: one of our gigs mentioned in the listings pages of Time Out; someone from an obscure fanzine in Rhyl giving us a rave review; someone offering us free recording time in their demo studio; it’s all ‘wicked’ or jawesome’ or ‘blinding’ or ‘sorted’. It’s also incredibly infectious. It’s part of the reason we keep him around, that and the fact that he’s handsome enough to make all three of us look good.

“So, when did Agent Orange call it a day?” says Matty, tucking into his fourth vodka and Red Bull.

“End of‘8 8,” says Vince, rubbing his chin. “You was probably still in nappies.”

Matty does a quick(ish) bit of maths on his fingers.

“No I wasn’t, I was thirteen years old in 1988.”

“Great,” says Vince. “We were slogging our guts out in the collective piss holes of England and Baby Face here was still waiting for his first we tty

“Wetty?”

“Wet dream, mate. Don’t tell me… you’re still waiting.”

“Oh, right, I get you… but no, I’d already, well, you know… lost it by then.”

“What, had sex?”

“Yeah.”

“At thirteen?”

“Yeah, with my little brother’s baby-sitter. I think she was Brazilian or something … or was it Puerto Rican? Actually she might just have been Italian … I don’t know. Anyway, she was definitely my benchmark arse.”

“Benchmark arse?”

“Yeah, you know, your first truly great one. The benchmark. The arse against which you judge all future arses.”

We take a short pause.

“So,” says Vince, sounding a little agitated, ‘let me get this straight. You’re saying that you lost your virginity with your little brother’s horny Brazilian baby-sitter when you were only barely out of short trousers?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” says Matty, breaking into a slight shrug. “Hey, do either of you fancy a pickled egg?”

I knew it. I just knew it. If he wasn’t such a great drummer I think I might have to have him killed.

We were definitely floundering until Matty came along. Agent Orange split up shortly after the Town and Country Club fiasco and Vince and I had gone our separate ways for a while. Vince went off to tour Germany with some rockabilly band that he hated but paid him actual money and I loitered around Camden with the shoe-gazers, getting more and more despondent. We re-formed eighteen months later (Vince got sick of oiling his quiff and living on sauerkraut) and spent the next five years trying (and failing) to restake our claim. We could never seem to get it right, though: the timing was always wrong. We were just mastering baggy when grunge hit. We were finally mastering grunge (around the time I met Alison) when Britpop was getting into full swing, and we were just getting comfortable in our Fred Perrys when Matty came along and saved us.

Matty auditioned for us in 1998. He bounded into rehearsals wearing his Maharishi combats and his silver Nikes and one of his two thousand different Duffer of St. George Tshirts and he said:

“I’m Matt Starkey. We spoke on the phone.”

Vince wanted him in immediately.

“He’s called Starkey, like as in Ringo. He’s bound to be brilliant.” And it turned out he was.

Not only is Matty a great drummer, he also knows his way around a sampler, and he’s entirely responsible for updating our sound. He grew up listening to a completely different set of music to me and Vince and if it wasn’t for him the whole techno revolution might have passed us by for good.

Matty changed all that. The first week we met him he had us listening to The Propellerheads and Moby and The Chemicals and Air and Vince was secretly blown away. It struck him that if we just managed to absorb some small part of this stuff into the guitar music that we were already making we might still stand a chance. Matty definitely thought so. He thought the stuff we were doing was mega. That’s why Vince likes to wind Matty up as much as he does. It’s a power thing. He doesn’t like to admit that Matty’s quite as important to us as he is.

For form’s sake, we decided to rename the band after Matty joined us. I suggested that we call it Chief after the character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest but Alison pointed out that if you didn’t hear it right it sounded like we were called Cheese, so we changed it to Dakota after the Dakota building instead. We also slimmed the whole thing down to a three-piece: Vince on bass and vocals, me on lead and Matty doing all the programming and triggering all the samples off the drums. It worked really well. When we were offered our first gig at The Water Rats Matty was running around like a kid who’d just been given his first skateboard. He couldn’t believe it. He still listens to stories of our Agent Orange days with a look of wonder on his irritatingly youthful face. It makes us feel good.

Sometimes I think giving up will hurt Matty even more than it will Vince.

“So, did you give any thought to what we were talking about the other day?”

“What?” I say suddenly convinced Vince has been reading my thoughts.

“You know, about the shoes. That whole thing about finding a decent transitional shoe.”

Vince has a thing about shoes. Apart from a minor obsession with hair products (he’s paranoid about going bald) he’s convinced that it’s shoes that maketh the man. He also thinks it’s a little unseemly to still be wearing trainers at the age of thirty-three.

“Yeah, because you can only wear trainers until you’re thirty and then you start to look like a bit of a ponce. By the time you’re thirty you want to be on the lookout for a whole different kind of shoe altogether, something to bridge the gap between trainers and dad shoes. Then what you have is this long hiatus until the age of, say, seventy-five or so, and then it’s OK to start wearing them again. I mean, a bloke expects to be wearing trainers by the time he’s seventy-five, that’s if he can still stand up. It goes with his twenty-four-hour clothes. Yeah, they actually ‘ave ‘em, twenty-four-hour clothes that you can eat in, sleep in and quite possibly shit yourself in. My granddad buys his from John Lewis.

“So anyway, what a bloke really needs is a transitional shoe for the middle years. Not exactly a slip-on, not exactly a lace-up. More of your desert boot but less hippyish. Not exactly a work shoe but not quite as casual as your plimsoll neither.”

Last week Matty suggested a clumpy leather arrangement with Velcro straps that he’d seen in Camper but Vince pointed out (quite astutely, I thought) that they would make him look

like he was mentally handicapped. It’s definitely been worrying him, this whole transitional shoe thing.

We carry on like this for the rest of the night: arguing the toss about bands that we hate, defending the honour of records we love, drinking and shouting and winding Matty up as far as we dare.

“Have either of you ever used nose-hair trimmers?” I say, wondering if it’s worth buying the ones I’ve just seen in this month’s Innovations catalogue.

“Yeah, they’re great… saves you pulling them out with your fingers. They do your ears as well.”

“What… you’ve got hair in your ears’}’

Vince rubs his chin, takes out a Rizla and begins another roll-up.

“Just a matter of time,” he says gravely. “My old man’s got more ear hairs than pubes these days, and he reckons most of them have gone grey.”

Matty stares at his beer glass for a moment. He looks perplexed, and then he starts to laugh.

“Ha, ha … ear hairs. Right. Good one. Blimey, I thought you were serious there for a second. Fuck me. Ear hairs. Phew… Anyone want another drink?”

Too right we do.

I’m enjoying it. I’m enjoying the lager and the banter and the chance to reminisce and it’s a relief not to have to think about Alison and the job and the ultimatum and the whole damn thing. I decide to tell them later. I decide to discuss the whole six-month thing after Alison has gone. It’ll be easier then. I’ll have a clearer mind. It’ll make more sense after Alison has gone.

“So how’s things shaping up with Alison’s job, then?” says Vince. “Oh, not bad, y’know, just about getting my head round it, I suppose.”

“Still, it’s not for long, though, is it?”

“No,” I say, and then I remember something. “Yeah, she asked me to see if you wanted to come to her leaving do on Saturday.”

“Where’s she having it?”

“The Medicine Bar in Islington.”

“Nice one. Can I bring Kate?”

Kate is Matty’s girlfriend and for some reason I’ve never been able to work out Alison has always seemed to have it in for her.

“Of course you can,” I say. “You’re all invited.”

And then it’s last orders and we decide to make a move and head for home.

Bollocks! Why did I say I’d do it? Why did I promise Sheila that I’d mow her lawn this afternoon?

It’s Saturday, it’s almost noon, and I still haven’t done any of the things I meant to do before Alison leaves on Monday. I haven’t bought her present. I haven’t organised a haircut or picked up the food or bought a new shirt, and now I’ve only got three hours to get all the way into town, buy everything I need and make it all the way back up to Hornsey Lane to do Sheila’s garden before four o’clock.

I could cancel. I could do it next week. I could phone her now. Fuck it. Can’t cancel she said her daughter was coming over tomorrow. I’ll grab some breakfast then I’ll just have to shoot.

“Morning, Dog Breath, I just made coffee, there’s some left if you want it. We’re out of milk, though.”

“I know,” I say through a mouthful of dry cornflakes. “What you watching?”

Alison is watching the end of CD’UK with Ant and Dec. She harbours some kind of kinky fantasy involving both Ant and Dec that she doesn’t think I know about, but I overheard her discussing it with her friend Shelly one night when they were both pissed, so I like to wind her up about it.

“Hmmmm… what? Oh, nothing, I just turned over. Some kids’ music show I think.”

“Isn’t that Ant and Dec?”

“Em… yeah, I think so. Not sure what their names are really.”

“They’re a right pair of tossers, though, aren’t they? Don’t you reckon?”

“Dunno, they seem all right.”

“They’ve definitely got to be shagging each other, haven’t they? Which one of them d’you think’s the daddy?”

“Neither of them. They’re not. I mean, I think they’re straight.”

“Yeah, but look at that one’s hair, what’s going on with that dark one’s hair?”

“Ant?”

“Ha! … I thought you said you didn’t know what they were called. You even know which one’s which.”

“I don’t. It was a guess.”

“You fancy them, don’t you? You fancy Ant and Dec. You want to have a double bunk-up with Ant and Dec and then you want them to have sexy homo love games with each other while you watch.”

“Danny, shut up. Don’t be disgusting. God, you’re so filthy sometimes.”

Alison loves it when I’m filthy.

“So d’you fancy going out for breakfast? We could go to the World Cafe or something.”

“I can’t,” I say, indicating the cornflakes. “I’ve got to run into town for a couple of things and then I said I’d go over to Sheila’s and mow her lawn for her.”

“Today?”

“I know, I’m really sorry, but I sort of promised her and she’s counting on me now. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“You’re too nice, Danny McQueen, too nice for your own good, that’s your trouble.”

And then she taps her lips, indicating that she wants me to come over and give her a snog. Her mouth tastes sweet, sweet and warm from the coffee, and I notice her passport lying on the sofa as I bend down to give her a kiss. It suddenly strikes me as weird: knowing that she’s going away somewhere and

knowing that I’m not going with her.

i p.m. What is it with hairdressers? Why do they all keep telling me which day of the week it is? It’s Saturday, sir. I know it’s Saturday. I’ve known Saturday was the day that comes after Friday since I was three years old. Well, you have to book sir. It’s our busiest day of the week, and it is August. August? So what? So friggin’ what it’s August? What fucking difference does it make if it’s August? Well, a lot of people go on holiday in August. A lot of people like to have their hair cut before they go away on holiday. And it is Saturday. Bastard!

No one will give me a haircut. I only want the whole thing tidied up a bit. Just so as I look a bit more presentable, a little less like a mature sociology student and a bit more like Phil Daniels in Quadrophenia. Who am I kidding? Phil Daniels was about twenty when he made Quadrophenia. Maybe I should be going for more of a sixties Terence Stamp sort of a vibe. Sod it, I’ll just have to go to the barber’s in Crouch End when I’ve finished up here.

2. p.m. Have just wasted half an hour looking at transitional shoes in Neal Street and now they’ve run out of duck a 1’orange in Marks and Spencer. I just missed the last one. I saw the bloke that got it, some git in a suit with a great haircut, and now he’ll be eating mine and Alison’s duck a 1’orange and it’ll be him getting his knob felt instead of me. Wanker. They’ve got Sancerre, though. Excellent. What else goes with Sancerre? Fuck. Fuck. Can’t decide what to get. Dressed lobster? What’s a dressed lobster, then? What’s it got on, fucking trench coat or something? Can’t get lobster. Looks like I’m trying too hard. Can’t get two Lincolnshire sausages in onion gravy looks like I’m not trying hard enough. What’s this Malaysian curry with lemon-grass and coconut rice? Shit, no good it’s low calorie.

Suddenly notice extremely attractive-looking woman in

short skirt buying Honey Chicken with Balsamic Potatoes and decide to plump for that. And a cake. A Thomas the Tank Engine cake. Don’t ask me why.

2.30 p.m. There are no shirts in Ted Baker. No shirts. At all. Well, there are shirts, but none of them are blue. Black’s no good and I’m fucked if they’re getting me in something with a sodding pattern on the front.

2.35 p.m. In desperation have tried on something black and shiny with pattern on the front. Look like Robbie Williams’s dad. Robbie Williams is the new David Essex. I am David Essex’s dad. I am David Essex’s dad. Decide to forget whole new shirt thing and stick with navy blue Carhartt hooded top instead. Alison likes me in my navy blue Carhartt hooded top.