Come On You Blues

8:30am. The alarm clock triggers its quadraphonic jangle, ricochets
off the walls and splices into my brain like a swarm of hot bullets. It
remains there until 9:17 when a shit, shower and shave pull them
clean.

At 9:26 I slug a jug of black coffee, no breakfast. I've got to be
hungry and lean. Eating later will cut conversation. From 10:02 a
cunning mood invades me as I renew a deep friendship with clothing
unworn since the last conflict. I decide on the lime green suit.

At 10:46 I commence pacing. I run my tongue over an infected tooth. It
creates a numbing white noise in my forehead. I flick on the radio to
divert my attention, journey through the wavebands and land on the news
station. America is going to wipe Haiti off its windscreen.

The time now is 11:33. I am tense. I am taut. I have a toothache. I've
gone through half a pack of Silk Cut. The ashtray is overflowing. She
is late.

11:58. A knock at the door.

"Hello big brother."
"You're late little sister."
"Yeah didn't know what to wear. You look like Paul Gascoigne."
"Fuck off! You look like Anneka Rice."
"No you fuck off."
"Are we going or what?"

It's 12:05. My sister Avrail is driving. Driving fast. I'm strapped to
the driving seat, chewing gum and stroking terror. We have not spoken
since she put the key in the ignition. I don't think we are going to.
What's new?

"I never thought it would happen to me and a girl from Clapham."
"Up the junction, Squeeze." Avrail is answering.
"It's all so easy."
"You're right and always easy."

I've broken the ice; traditions are there to be I suppose.

"Your turn." I'm warming.
"And it's got to be a London band."

I'm gazing out of the window at the useless countryside and poising
myself for the obscure. Avrail drives over a dead Fox . Finally:

"With a thrill in my heart and a pill on my tongue, dissolve the nerves
that have just begun."
"True, Spandau Ballet." I'm shouting.
"There's a good boy."

We're playing the lyric game. The game we've played for years, ever
since the television exploded halfway through Coronation Street. It
used to be simple, songs from the top thirty, teen fodder. As we grew
older we became more selective. It got tougher until it got ridiculous.
Bands on certain labels, towns and attitudes. I remember the night when
it got personal. It was the last time we played.

We were drunk in a pub with friends neither of us see any more.
Throughout the evening they had tried to play with us, but soon dropped
out. They were out of their depth, strictly Sunday league players. We
pissed all over them.

"I heard you let that little friend of mine take off your party dress."
Avrail with a cocky slur.
"Allison, Elvis Costello." I replied dribbling.
"But it don't count cos' Elvis don't wear glasses."
"What do you fuckin' mean Elvis don't wear glasses?"

Avrail thrust a copy of that week's NME in my face with a bespectacled
Elvis adorning the cover. I hated her smelly friend from Glasgow who'd
pulled it from his Donald Duck duffel bag.

"Yeah he wears glasses, but it's not legit cos' he wears em as a pose.
He can see just as well as you and me."
"You're as blind as a fuckin' bat!"
"He does! He also wears em as a psychological barrier so he doesn't
have to confront his audience."
"Bollocks you wanker!"

The table went berserk when she poured her untouched pint of snakebite
over my head.

A week later in the same pub amongst some friends, Avrail hauled out a
cassette player from a Co-Op carrier bag.

"Everyone shut it. My brother Mr Magoo, your time is up."

She pressed play. A recorded telephone conversation between her and a
representative of Elvis Costello's record company confirmed that our
man was indeed short sighted. She'd won.

12:18. The silence had returned. Avrail lights a Rothmans, which breaks
it. She's singing along to 'War' by Edwin Starr. It cannon's out of the
stereo and rattles me. My sister can't sing for toffee. Neither can
I.

12:20. My melancholy is getting the better of me. I was nine years old.
Avrail was almost eight. I remember rocking her in a chair by the
French windows. A summer storm approaching. Our parents arguing. I sang
her songs I'd made up. I tried to rock her to sleep but all she did was
wail.

12:26. I'm sweating.

"We're almost here, pass me a mint big brother."

I'm reaching for the dashboard and struggling with the G-force.

"I can't cope with this." I say, turning to her. I'm panicking.
"I know you can't, but for once will you just compromise? If you get
stroppy like last year I'll fuckin' kill you. Mum still hasn't got over
it, she's been slurping sherry since breakfast."
"I don't give a toss about Mum. Is he coming?"
"No he's in Leeds, poor bastard, fuckin' terrified to step outside his
front door."
"I didn't mean to butt him."
"Yeah right."
"Just that he called Dad old."
"Well he is isn't he?"
"But he fuckin' laughed as he said it, why did he have to laugh?"
"For fuck's sake shut up, it's Grandma's 80th birthday."

Grandma's birthday. The annual gathering of the clan. I hate most of
these people, their meddling, their lack of respect. Their curdling
cash equals a Corfu carve up mentality. Fuck em'!

I'm having a mint as well, something to dissolve the nerves that have
just begun.

My toothache isn't getting better. I'm looking across at my sister. The
sun is shining now, slanting across her face giving her the look of a
cool heroine. I want to tell her she is beautiful. Can't it's the
family way.
It's an autumn Sunday.

12:32. Half an hour late. Grandma sits between two empty chairs,
already an afterthought. Like an apology, an unopened bottle of
champagne stands in front of her. Those chairs either side of her will
remain empty. They're all here, my sister, aunts, uncles and cousins,
minus one. Mum who is pissed. Dad who is lost. I'm shaking hands and
patting backs, kissing and cuddling. They will not look me in the
eye.

We are sitting at a long pine table in this theme restaurant called the
Anvil. There are ancient farm tools positioned everywhere. Avrail is to
my right. A collection of brass spades to my left. I can't escape.
Maybe I can dig myself out.

We're eating what is boasted on the menu as the best meat in Essex.
It's good. Good enough for dogs. I'll eat fuckin' floorboards. Anything
to save me from discussing the worrying growth of Pakistani newsagents
with Aunt Lynn who sits opposite me in satin blue.

I'm chewing in time to the rhythm of the second hand of my wristwatch.
Things are going well. I'll be home by 2:30. Home with the mass grave
in the ashtray and the fresh ones already being dug in Haiti. But for
the moment my head is down and I am eating spinach.

1:05. My toothache must be subsiding. I'm on my third helping of
fat-injected beef. I've drunk five glasses of vile German wine. I'm
desperate for a piss.

Everyone peers over their plates as I make my way to the lavatory. I
feel their sense of relief as I fade from view. I'm relieving myself in
the long metallic urinal and playing sink the Belgrano with the
floating fag-butts. I'm washing my hands and face. I can't recognise
myself in the mirror. I'm looking for a towel to dry my hands. I'm
rummaging in my jacket pockets for a hanky but I pull out a small
square of folded paper.

It's speed, amphetamine sulphate, Billy Whizz! The glorious drug of my
youth. How the fuck did it get into my jacket pocket? I haven't worn
this suit for a year. It's been longer than that since I touched
anything like this. It's my thirty first birthday next month.

What the fuck in going on? I used to take speed in my late teens. On
Friday nights I bought it for a tenner a time from Mick the Malt in
Dean Street. Then I'd go dancing until dawn, talking bullshit and
creating a new world, always ending in sweaty smelly sex in strange
beds. Good times.

One night I took too much. I was working as a stage manager in a
theatre in the West-End. I went to work one Saturday afternoon after a
wild night in Wardour Street and promptly collapsed. They put me in a
cab and sent me to hospital. I told the driver to take me to the rail
station instead. When I got home I rang my boss and told him it was
just nervous exhaustion. On the doctor's instructions I should take a
couple of days off. When I returned to work they sacked me. They'd
phoned the hospital. I loved that job.

I'm lurching in and out of the toilet cubicle like a spastic waiter.
Should I throw it down the pan or should I save it for later.

Fuck it! Swallow it now.

1:35. The meal is finished and we're in the bar. I'm like an excited
fly. My mind is darting everywhere. I want to talk to everyone I really
do. I'm smiling at relatives. They turn their backs. I'm standing alone
gasping for a drink. I'm fighting with the change in my pocket.

"What are you having?" Avrail with a crisp twenty.
"Pint of lager, thanks. You still making a killing, then?"
"Getting by, getting by."
"What're you selling these days?"
"Not much, same sort of thing."
"What sort of thing is that then Avrail?"

She's walking over to where Mum is standing. They embrace. She gloats
at me. She's always been Mum's favourite.

Avrail is bad to the bone. She may have killed. She's rich, having
always dealt in the dubious. I wonder if she had anything to do with
the speed. I'm rubbing my tongue against my tooth and swallowing hard.
I must look like a goldfish in the throes of death.

Avrail and I have always had a spiteful relationship.

Avrail knew a place where there were tanks, planes and guns. I believed
her. We were seven and six years old. She said she would take me there,
to the secret field. She kept me in suspense for weeks. One pissing
rainy day she took me.

She walked me around for hours. Over hills, through fields and across
shit sodden fields. Every five minutes she'd wink and say, "Almost
there"
and sprint ahead. After about three hours it was getting dark and she
turned around and said, "There are no tanks. You really believed me
didn't you. You are fuckin' useless."

I got my own back a few weeks later, or at least I thought I did.
Avrail was bewitched by Alvin Stardust and had posters of him all over
her bedroom wall. I flushed them down the toilet. She broke my nose
when she found out.

Avrail returns sporting a razor grin.

"Are we going then?" I'm asking her.
"In a bit. You feeling alright?"
"Yeah fine, got a toothache."
"Come and talk to Dad."
"Alright."

Dad is sitting next to Grandma at the back of the room away from
everyone else. He has a pint of pale ale in his hand. Grandma is
staring at horse's hooves.

"Hello son, how's it going?"
"Fine, working hard, how about you?"
"Not so bad. The Blues did well yesterday."
"Yeah 2-0 win."

My Dad has just spoken of something that I thought died in his heart
years ago. I'm almost overcome with grief. When I was young, Friday
nights in the old house were the scenes of amazing tension. That was
when the Blues played their home matches. They didn't play on Saturdays
in those days because they had a market in their car park.

Dad would come home from work all filthy and ragged. He'd wash, change
his clothes and eat his dinner. I'd hover around the kitchen and wait
for his magic words. Dad knew the agony he was putting me through.
Years later I realised he enjoyed it. Eventually he'd fold his paper up
and push his plate away. He'd look around the room for what seemed
forever and then say, "Let's go son."
My coat was on and we were out the front door into the sodium
night.

The journeys to the stadium were great. We had to get there by kick off
and Dad drove like a madman. He'd shout at other drivers who got in his
way. "Fuck off you stupid cunt!"

Once inside the stadium he'd buy me a meat pie and a can of tepid cola.
The pies were always burnt. The game was important, but now I realise
they were not as important as the two of us huddled together
chanting

"COME ON YOU BLUES."

Through rain, snow and gale force winds we were always there. Avrail
came a few times, but by then she was already playing much more devious
games.

After the game Dad drove even faster. On the way home he'd stop at the
local dog track, just in time for the last race. He'd get out of the
car and vanish for about ten minutes. I'd be left alone with my bobble
hat and my crumpled programme. When he returned he'd sometimes be
laughing and sometimes swearing. One night he came back and he was
crying. After that night we never went to see the Blues again.

Years later I wondered if he was interested in me, or was it just a
sly way to gamble behind Mum's back. I know now just by looking at him
that he loved me, still does.

"Do you fancy coming to a game sometime Dad?"
"Yes. That will be nice son."
"Right, I'll sort it then."

We're smiling at each other. We have signed a treaty. Everything is
dissolving. The years of confusion and non-communication and sometimes
I think hate. I'm going to put my arms around him and tell him our new
life begins here, from this very moment. I love him and I'm going to
tell him.

"Dad do you know that I ...."
"Are you going to buy me a drink back or what, you tight
bastard?"
"Yeah alright."

I'm going to tell him. I've got to tell him.

"You'll have to buy them Avrail. I haven't got enough."
"Always the poor fucker."
"I'll have a pint of lager."
"I'm proud of you big brother. You made a real effort today, talking to
Dad. Are you going to have a word with Mum?"
"No I can't. I'm speeding out of my nut Avrail. I found it in my jacket
pocket. It helps me to talk to people, speed. It must have been a whole
gram. I found it in my jacket pocket, I don't know how it got there but
I feel fuckin' great. I love Dad and I love you, give us a hug."
"You idiot. That was my speed. I borrowed that jacket when I was
looking after your flat last year. Is there any left?"
"No I did the lot. Give us a hug. I love you. Give us a kiss."
"Fuck off you pervert, don't touch me. Fuck off."

I'm trying to put my arms around her but she's pushing me away. She is
spitting at me. There's a raised voice behind us. It's Dad. I've got to
tell him.

"What are you two having a barney about then?"
"Nothing Dad, my big brother is just being a prat. Have you got that
two hundred you owe me Dad?"
"I can't pay you back Avrail. I ain't got it. Maybe next month when I'm
a little bit straight."
"It's always next fuckin' month with you Dad. I know you got the money,
now fuckin' give it to me."
"I haven't got it love, I just haven't."
"Do you know what you are Dad? A fuckin' loser."

The room has become silent, slow motion and maybe sepia. I'm lunging
forward. Let me tell him.

"Fuckin' leave him Avrail." I'm screaming. "I love you Dad. I love
you."
"Oh fuck me! The bigger loser wants to have a go now does he? Fuck off
to your little world of films and pop music you streak of piss."
"Shut up you evil bastard. Leave Dad alone. I love you Dad."
"Why what are you going to do? Butt me like your little cousin last
year. You're nothing, big brother. You can't even have kids. Oh yeah I
know all about that. You're a freak."
"You fuckin' cunt Avrail."

8:30am. The alarm clock triggers its quadraphonic jangle, ricochets off
the walls and splices into my brain like a swarm of hot bullets. I
throw it against the wall but it continues.

At 9:17 I flick the radio on to hear 'Up the junction'. I wade through
the wavebands and run ashore on the news station. USA v Haiti didn't
happen. My toothache has gone.
There are dog ends on the table and on the floor. I wear the same suit.
I have no cigarettes. I am scared.

I may have killed my little sister yesterday afternoon. I slashed her
neck open with a pint glass. Blood spurted over Grandma. I head
screams. I heard gurgling noises.

I ran out of the restaurant. Nobody followed me. I got a cab home, done
a runner on the driver. I dug out the family photo album, took it over
the park and burned it. Nobody came. Have I killed her? I spent the
evening watching 'It's a wonderful life' and ringing chat lines.

"What song has the line 'Bless my cotton socks I'm in the news'
in?
"I don't know. Do you want to know what colour knickers I'm
wearing?"
"No. Sorry, goodbye."

Still nobody came. I had bad dreams. I dreamed that Dad had a heart
attack at a Blues game. He was the only one in the stadium and died
alone. I dreamed that Avrail died in a car crash, her head decapitated.
I dreamed of dead babies.

"Why hasn't anyone come?"

You can kill your own sister and nobody cares.

It's 11:58. A knock at the door.