Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail! (21 page)

All he'd wanted was a bit of this and that. Some peace and quiet. Some fun. Everybody was going crazy. He hated the lot of them. Why couldn't they leave him alone? Why couldn't he leave them alone?

He was dying for a crap.

He cast about for an anchor. Five feet away the back wheel of a new Honda could be seen, sticking out of the mud, as if the rider had tried to make it across this no-man's-land and failed.

Mo blinked. “Sid?”

What the hell did it matter anyway?

The room was full of heavy metal. In one corner about fifteen old hippies were wondering where it had all gone, while in the opposite corner fifteen punks were wondering where it was all going.

Mo stood in the middle.

“Anybody want a fight?”

A few eyes flickered, then faded again. Wired faces tried to move.

It was a musician's graveyard. They existed as far apart as Streatham and Kensal Rise. They had served their turn. Many of them had even shown a profit.

Mitzi came in. “Blimey.” She rattled her box.

“Line-up, lads” said Mo. “The lady's got the blues.”

“Been to Highgate yet?” she asked him.

“Is there any point?”

“Not a lot.”

“I'm on my way,” he said.

Johnny Rotten, the angelically malevolent Scaramouche, is a third-generation son of rock 'n' roll—the galvanic lead singer of the Sex Pistols. His band play at a hard heart-attacking, frantic pace. And they sing anti-love songs, cynical songs about suburbia and songs about repression, hate and aggression. They have shocked many people. But the band's music has always been true to life as they see it. Which is why they are so wildly popular. The fans love the Sex Pistols and identify with their songs because they know they are about their lives too.

—Virgin Records Publicity, 1977

“Sex and agro are the best-selling commodities in the world. Everybody's frustrated or angry about something, particularly adolescents.”

Frank was having his hair redone to fit in with current trends. “Easy on the Vic, Maggy. We don't want to go too far, do we?”

The phone rang. Maggy picked it up. Her hand stank of camphor. “Popcorn.”

She listened for a moment and giggled. She turned back to Frank. “It's your mum.”

“Tell her I'm dead.”

“You're about the only one who isn't.”

Frank took the greasy receiver.

“Hello, mum. How are you? What can I do for you, then?” He was patronising.

He listened for a while, his expression becoming devoutly earnest. “Yeah.”

Maggy began to pluck at his locks again, but he stopped her. “Okay, mum.”

He frowned.

“Okay, mum. Yes. Yes. Look after yourself.” He handed the phone back to Maggy. “Well, well,” he said.

From the other side of his office door his dogs, a mixed pack of Irish Wolfhounds and Alsatians, began to scratch and whine. He sometimes felt they were his only real security. Moved by some impulse be couldn't define, he placed a reluctant hand on Maggy's bum.

Mo had managed to reach Tooting. Autumn leaves fell onto the common. In the distance was what looked like a ruined Swimming Baths. He dipped into his tub of Sweet and Sour Pork and Chips. His fingers were already stained bright orange, as was his entire lower face. Over to his right the road was up. Drills were hammering. He was beginning to feel more relaxed. It was when they put you in the real country that you went to pieces.

Jimi was waiting for him behind a large plane tree. “I shouldn't really be talking to you, you bastard.”

“Divide and Rule,” said Mo. “Aren't we part of the same faction any more?”

“What does Malcolm say?”

“Haven't seen him.”

“Or the Record Company.”

“They haven't released anything.”

“Then it could be okay.”

“It could be.” Mo offered Jimi the tub. The guitarist began to eat with eager, twitching fingers.

“I've been trying to make this deal with the devil all day,” he complained. “Not a whisper. What you up to then, you bastard?”

“Very little, my son.”

“Got any money?”

Mo shook his head. “How long you got to stay down here?”

“Another six months. Then I might get remission.”

“Play your cards right.”

“A bit of spit never hurt anybody. Are you in Tooting just to see me?”

“No. I'm looking for a train robber.”

“They're difficult to fence, trains.”

“You have to have a buyer set up already.”

“Things were simpler in the fifties, you know. The poor were poor and the rich were bloody rich. People knew where they stood. I blame it all on rock and roll. Now we're back where we started.”

“It was the only way out. That doesn't work any more. You think it does. But it doesn't.”

“The music goes round and round.” Jimi farted. “And it comes out here.”

Mrs Cornelius flashed her torch around the cinema. “It's filthy in 'ere. You fink they'd do somefing abart it.”

Customers began to complain at her. She switched off the torch. “Please yerselves.”

She went back into the foyer.

With intense concentration, Alvarez was dissecting a hot dog.

“Found anyfink?” she asked.

“Not a sausage.”

“Anybody ring fer me?”

“Ring?”

“Never mind.”

She'd done her best to warn Frank. Now it was up to him. Three guardsmen in heavy khaki and caps whose visors hid their eyes marched into the cinema and bought tickets. “This had better be good,” said one of them threateningly to Alvarez.

“You can't go wrong with sex and pistols.” His mate began to guffaw. They had that smell of stale sweat and over-controlled violence common to most soldiers and policemen. It was probably something in the uniform.

“A little vomit is a dangerous thing.” Miss Brunner tried to smooth a lump in her satin trousers. Her thin hands were agitated, irritable. “There's no point in going for that. Not unless you mean to do it properly. Vomit has to have some meaning, you know.”

“What about gobbing,” said her eager assistant, Clive. “Should that stay?”

“Well, it is associated with the band, after all.” She sniggered. “Disgusting, really.”

“But we have to get into disgust, don't we? Disgust equals the Pistols. Ugly times. You know? But will people be disgusted enough?” This was the constant worry of the publicity department at the moment. “I mean, it's important to associate Sex Pistols with nastiness. They should be synonymous in the public's view.”

“True.” Miss Brunner touched a finger to a blackened lid. “Should we emphasise the urine angle?”

“Piss-stools.” Clive laughed a high-pitched, artificial laugh. “Rebels with bladder problems?”

“Now you're being facetious. It won't do, Clive. This is serious. We want the name in every paper by Thursday.”

“But the record isn't mixed yet.”

“The record, dear, is the least of our problems. We want the front page of
The Sun
And the rest of them, if possible.”

Clive put a pencil to his post-office lips. “Well, we'd better get busy, eh.”

“Our first problem.” said Miss Brunner, “is to find a nicer word for gob.”

Mo came out of Balham station and walked into the High Street. DIY shops and take-aways stretched in both directions.

“Nobody ever really hates you,” said Mitzi. “It's more that they enjoy being threatened. You know, like throwing a baby up to the ceiling. You couldn't lose. It's just that you expected a different reaction. It's all fantasy. It happens every time.”

“You could kick 'em in the balls and they'd keep coming back for more. You've got to feel contempt for people like that.” Mo was down.

“I don't know why. They're only enjoying themselves. That's what they pay for. Better than fun fairs. What you're asking them to do is to take you seriously, to believe you're real. But you're not real. You're a performer.”

They reached a high, corrugated-iron fence.

“Here we are,” she took a key from her pocket and undid a padlock, pushing open the creaking door.

It was a junkyard. Piled on top of one another were dodgem cars, waltzers, chairoplanes, wooden horses and cockerels, roller coaster cars.

“See what I mean,” she said.

“What's the point of being here?”

“There's a fortune in scrap, Jerry.”

Frank Cornelius zipped himself into his leather jacket while Maggy added a few touches to his make-up. “Why is everybody flying South?” he said.

“It's the way the band-wagon's going. Balham, Brazil, Brighton.”

“Get the car out. I'm heading for Highgate.”

As they went down the stairs, he said: “What we need is a few more novelty acts. They only have to think they're new, that's the main thing. As long as you
think
you're new, you
are
new. And the punters will think you're new, too. There's nothing new under the old limelights, Mag.”

“What about the spirit?”

“You mean the blood?”

He began to laugh. It was a hideous, strangled sound. “New equals good. It's been going on for at least a hundred years. The New Woman and all that. New equals vitality. New equals hope. One thing's for sure, Maggy. New very rarely equals profit. Not at first, anyway. It has to be modified and represented before anyone will buy it in a hurry. That's the secret of the process. But it takes so much energy just to get a little bit of something happening that there are bound to be casualties. Look at poor Brian Epstein. It was the writing on the wall for management. It had to become us or them. We didn't want another manager coughing it, did we? How many A&R men do you know who've killed themselves recently?”

“I dunno.”

“None. It's the survival side of the business, my love.”

They arrived at the street. Ladbroke Grove was full of beaten-up American cars. Maggy went round the corner to the mews to get Frank's Mercedes.

“It really is time we moved away from this neighbourhood,” he said. “But it's where I've got my roots, you know.”

“Your mistake was in cocking a snoot at the Queen, my lad.” Bishop Beesley unwrapped a Mars Bar and, like an overweight pigeon, began to peck at it.

“Well, we took things more seriously at the time. We needed something.” Mo sat down in a battered dodgem. “Do you really own all this?”

“Every bit. You must have a lot of money stashed away. How would you like to invest?” The Bishop wiped his pudgy hands on his greasy black jacket. “Americans buy it, you know. And people from Kensington and Chelsea. It's decorative. It's nostalgic. It's fun. Good times remembered.”

“If not exactly relived,” said Mitzi.

“You can't have everything, my dear. Junk, after all, has many functions and takes many forms. None of us is getting any younger.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Mo. “This is an investigation.”

“Into what, my boy?”

“We haven't decided yet.”

“Anybody dead?” His chocolate-soaked eyes became speculative.

“You thinking of buying in?”

“I have an excellent wrecking crew, if you're interested. And we specialise in salvage, too. I mean salvation.” He grimaced and sought in his pockets for another Mars Bar. “We could be mutually useful to one another.”

Mo got up. A pile of Tunnel of Love boats began to creak and sway.

“We'll be in touch,” said Mitzi.

From somewhere within the stacks came the sound of heavy breathing.

Bishop Beesley went back into his hut and locked the door.

It was a mock-Gothic complex. Frank signed in at the gatehouse and Maggy drove through. The gates were electronically controlled and shut automatically behind them. Surrounding them were tall brick walls topped with iron spikes. At intervals was a series of buildings once used to house Victorian painters. Now they were used for recording purposes.

The largest of the buildings was at the far end of the square. Maggy parked in front of it.

Wheezing a little Frank got out of the car. “I should never have had that last bottle of amyl.”

He mounted the steps and pressed a buzzer. A bouncer in a torn red T-shirt let him in. He descended to the basement.

The studio was deserted. In the booth a shadowy figure in a rubber bondage suit sat smoking a cigarette through an enema tube.

Frank said: “Mr Big sent for me.”

“Not ‘Big,' stupid. ‘Bug.'” The voice was mysterious, slurred.

“Are you Mr Bug?”

“I represent his interests.”

“Somebody's on to us.”

“What's new?”

“My mother just told me.”

“So?”

“Hadn't we better start worrying?”

“Worrying? We're just about to make the real money.”

Frank was nervous. “I can't see how … “

Mr Bug's representative began to unzip the front of his suit. “In exposure, you fool. What do you think
The News of the World
is for?”

“I'm not entirely happy,” said Frank.

“That's the secret of success, isn't it?”

Frank began to sink.

The voice grew sympathetic.

“Come here, you poor old thing, and have a nibble on this.”

Frank crawled towards the booth.