Chapter 42

PHIL
Everything went right down the toilet in the end. It was like everybody round me was going mental. The stuff with Kev was the least of it. Karen got a court order to stop him coming round. She had to. He knew when her mum and dad were out. He’d stand in the garden screaming at her. It terrified her, terrified Kerry. The last time, he tried to kick the front door in. Karen called the police. She had to.
Kev’d probably tell it different. Everybody’s version of things is unreliable, but if you want a really unreliable version of what goes on, find yourself a coward. He didn’t know what Karen wanted. She told Les he only asked her what she wanted once, on Chesil Beach that time. The first thing she said was abortion. But he knew her, knew how to work her, talked her round.
But for me, that was nothing like as weird as the whole business with Christy, then later with Danny and Christy. Fuck knows what went on there. Wish I could’ve seen Christy while he was up the hospital but we weren’t allowed. Would’ve set him off again apparently.
I’ll never forget the night he cut himself up. I was round Les’s. Late on, the phone rung. Animal must’ve got the number off me mum. You could tell from his voice he was bricking it; you could hear him trying to swallow his stutter. He said about Christy freaking out and how Patrick and Animal had been looking for him all over Amsterdam. He asked me to go over Christy’s to see if he’d come back.
I goes, ‘Why don’t you phone him?’
‘You don’t know the fucking state of him!’ he goes. ‘If I phone him he’ll think it’s all part of some fucking plot. It’ll be the last of him.’
I took the number for the hotel. When I rung Christy he hung up on me. I rung Animal back. There was a long wait, then footsteps. I goes, ‘He’s there.’ He let out this big rush of air. I heard Patrick grunt in the background like he’d just dropped something heavy.
I had to get over to the island but the last bus’d gone. There was no money round the house for a mini-cab. I run round to the cashpoint. Sod’s law the cunt wasn’t working, so I had to wait for Les’s mum to come in and borrow the fare off her.
I got round there in the small hours. Christy was nowhere. His bedroom window was open. I was going loopy. I phoned Les from a call box and she talked me down off the ceiling.
I seen the woman next door the day after. She give me some bollocks about he’d had an accident but he was being looked after. I only got the proper story a couple days later, off Kev.
Course the Danny thing put the tin hat on the band. There’s this joke. This bloke goes to hell and the Devil’s showing him the things he can do while he’s there. There’s blokes having hedgehogs shoved up their arses, blokes having their ears syringed with hot chip fat, blokes having their bollocks gone over with a belt sander, all that. Then in one corner there’s blokes stood drinking cups of tea, up to their armpits in wet shit. So the bloke chooses that. He wades in, just gets settled, two sugars thanks, all that, when the foreman turns up. The foreman goes, ‘Alright lads, teabreak over, back on your heads.’
That’s how I felt about the band; teabreak over, back on your heads. A shame, it falling apart. Once in a while we were fucking good but it was always by accident. Whenever we acted like we knew what we were doing we just sounded bog-average. We never ended up on that compilation tape. Patrick wanted us to put on ‘World Full Of Ugly’, from the chip shop tapes. I said it wasn’t on because we couldn’t ask Danny. Pity. Made it feel like we never happened.
After the split I seen less of Patrick and Animal. As much as you can see less of someone in a place like this. Patrick I was avoiding. He reminded me of me too much, reminded me of giving up. The next time I seen him to speak to was at the Hairshirt Boutique gig. According to Animal he was on pills for depression at the time. The last Saturday in March, Hairshirt Boutique organised this gig at the Pulpit Inn. On the posters they called it the Last Supper. For once, nobody turned up to put the mockers on things. Nobody needed to by then. Over the door of the pub there was a sign saying ‘Welcome to the end of the island.’ Welcome to the end of the world, it felt like. There was this real feeling of things falling apart. Sid was dead. The Pistols’ accountants had just had this big punch up in court. ATV were on their last legs.
Everyone was there, the posh lot included. Usually there was a bit of needle between them and everybody else, but not that night. It was like two sides of a family meeting up at a funeral and making an effort. Before the bands come on I went outside to get some air. I stood looking out to sea for a bit. Then I climbed up on Pulpit Rock. Fuck knows how long I was sat there, watching the moon shining off the water and thinking about Christy.
I heard a voice call up behind me. It was Animal. He goes, ‘Patrick’s on in a minute Phil. Are you coming down?’
I said, ‘We all are aren’t we?’
The worst of it was The Village Idiot People. Patrick had made out to the Wildman that he wanted him as singer for this band he’d so-called formed with Jeff and Andy. It was like watching somebody pulling the wings off a fly.
The Wildman had a feather boa on. Patrick give him a plastic toy guitar to hang round his neck and bought him Guinness all night. I said to Patrick, ‘Bit tight isn’t it?’
He just said, ‘Bollocks. He likes the attention.’
Then the four of them got up on stage and did a twenty minute version of ‘Wild Thing’. The Wildman looked so lost, I couldn’t look at him.
Linda stopped it. She was due on next, doing her own songs. She walked onstage, unplugged Patrick and walked up to the mic. She goes, ‘This is cruelty without beauty.’ She was having a go at Patrick and the others, but everybody thought she was introducing the first song. Then she said, ‘Here Be Monsters.’ She was introducing the first song but everyone thought she was having a go at Patrick and them.
Just before Hairshirt Boutique come on I seen this ferretty-looking little twat tap Patrick on the shoulder. As he turned, this bloke clumped him one. I laughed so much I spilt me pint. The side of his head swelled up after. Not Tom and Jerry size, but noticeable.
Hairshirt Boutique finished by slaughtering that Doors song, ‘The End’. There was something about it. I could’ve cried me eyes out.
Soon after the Pulpit gig the twins called it a day with Milk, Milk, Lemonade. I’ve still got that last issue, the one with the headline ‘Who put the disease in seaside?’ Then the Shakespeare Monkees split. Ed talked about starting a new band called the Trappist Monkees. The idea was they’d just get up on stage and not say anything. But his heart wasn’t in it.
In some ways Animal come out of it the best. He got this job as warden up the bird sanctuary over Radipole Lake. The money was shit, about two quid a week more than signing on, but they give him a caravan rent free. He used to nip up Dorchester and do a bit of busking too, so he managed.
The last time I touched a guitar was when I went round his place for a bit of a jam. He had electric in the caravan but he said we’d have to play acoustic so it wouldn’t scare the birds. I thought he was taking the piss. With all the stuff in between I’d forgotten about him being into all that. He was drawing again. A bloke on Dorchester market used to buy some of his pictures.
He had the place done out nice; painted up, and hooks and shelves for everything. You wouldn’t have thought it because his dad’s place was a right tip. He was at home. I always said he reminded me of a gyppo. I said to him how I had to hand it to him, sticking to his dreams and that. Punk as fuck.
He goes, ‘If it weren’t punk it would’ve been something else. I had to. Had to do something to show meself I’m here.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You know what it was like round ours. Couldn’t get a word in. Wasn’t like having loads of brothers, more like having one big lump of brother squashing the shit out of me.’
Then he surprised me. He goes, ‘Anyway, the punk thing was always more your thing than anybody’s.’
He reminded me about when we seen Sham 69 at Taunton Odeon. Before it, we seen Jimmy Pursey in the Golden Egg with all his hangers on. I said hello to him. He goes, ‘Alright lads? Coming to the show later?’
Animal smiled. ‘You was moaning about it all night, going “What’s he mean, show? It’s a gig not a show. It’s not supposed to be fucking show-business.”’
I’ve got some good memories from then, but there’s a taste in me mouth. It’s something about wanting, deserving and getting and how they’re hardly ever anything to do with each other. All them parties; we was never really invited. That’s what that time was; just us gatecrashing. Sometimes I think about us lot. Sometimes I think about me and Paul. Maybe there’s those that leave and there’s those that get left behind. I know which I feel like.