Dance On Fire - Chapter 10

About a month or so after becoming their manager, Stan called the band together during a break in rehearsals.

‘I think it is decision time,’ Stan said.

‘How do you mean?’ Jenny unstrapped her bass and sat down next to Spike. They all sat around in a circle, smoking and drinking beer.

‘Now you have half a dozen gigs under your belts, you have all got to make a choice. The Choice. Now. Tonight,’ Stan said. ‘Either you all go full-time into the band, or you stop - now. We need to tour, tour the whole country, and we can't do that if you have to keep getting up in the mornings to go to work, or college, or whatever.’

All of them, except Matt, nodded in agreement. After all, this was what they had been working towards.

‘But I've got a good job at the bank. A career,’ Matt said. ‘I mean, what are the odds of us making a success of the band? I mean, if I piss off my parents by walking out on a good job… well, we could lose this place to rehearse in, at least.’

‘A rehearsal space is no big deal,’ Stan said. ‘We can use The Pit during the daytime.’

There was silence, a sudden burst of feedback from one of the guitars, and then more silence. They were all looking at Matt… waiting.

‘Fuck it! I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a sodding bank. Yes. Let's do it!’

There was an outburst of cheering, clapping, smiles and grins. Slowly, the calmness returned.

‘You all have a month to sort yourselves out,’ Stan said. ‘By then I will have a proper tour lined up. I'm going to buy us a van and you are going to do every fucking town in the country that has a room that can hold more than three blokes and a sheepdog.’ He paused and rolled a cigarette. ‘Not only that, next weekend you are going into a studio - owned by a mate of mine, as it happens - and you are going to record a demo tape. I want about half a dozen or so of your best songs, maybe some of those new ones - perfectly done. I've been talking to another mate too, who is considering setting up one of these independent labels that everybody seems to be doing these days: Postcard, Small Wonder, Fast, Stiff. Y'know the ones I mean? It seems that every week Mott brings in another pile of records; on labels I've never bloody heard of before. We need to get in there before the majors wake up to what's going on and the bubble bursts.’ He lit the cigarette and sat back. ‘After that, I can't decide whether we ought to go for one of these small independents, or for a major…. I'll look into it when the time is right.’

‘What are we going to live on, while we are waiting to hit the big time?’ Spike said.

‘Less than a tart's knickers. Almost nothing,’ Stan said. ‘It is not going to be glamorous, or anything like that. It is going to be a slog, but - with a lucky break or two - we could be out of it quite quickly. Get a major interested enough to put up a big advance and we could be pretty well-off quickly, like the Pistols, or The Clash were. But for that, we'd need to establish a reputation - one way or another. Otherwise, it is going to be a long, long, slow business.’

‘Maybe I ought to reconsider,’ Matt said.

‘In a way,’ Stan replied. ‘I wouldn't blame you. But I would say that it could be the biggest mistake of your life. This band is going to make it - I know it. I feel it in my water. If you walk away now you are going to miss it all, maybe without you the band will lose its magic and get nowhere, or maybe they'll find a replacement, one who works even better than you do. So they'll be swanning around America, knee-deep in groupies and drugs, while you are stuck counting other people's money for the rest of your life, and boring everyone in the pub with your stories of how you knew them all before they were famous.’

Matt nodded slowly. ‘No, I've made up my mind now. I'm in… for the duration.’

*

After the rehearsal, they adjourned to The Pit. Stan went off with Cathy and did whatever it was he did when he was running the place.

Matt seemed quiet and thoughtful, again.

‘What's the matter?’ Spike asked him.

‘I'm just wondering what my parents will say when I tell them what I'm going to do.’

‘They can't stop you though, can they?’ Jenny said. ‘We are all over eighteen, our own bosses.’

‘It's not that simple though,’ Matt said. ‘It was bad enough when I said I didn't want to go to university.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Spike said earnestly as she reached for Jenny's hand. ‘There seems to be this plan, this blueprint: school, university, good job, mortgage, wife, kids, retirement, grandchildren… death. Step out of that and… well, they just don't understand why I… why anyone, would want to. Any deviation from the accepted plan and it all spells disaster. The end of the world as they know it.’

‘I can understand it, though,’ Johnny said. Everyone turned to look at him. ‘When you think of all the stuff our parents and their parents and so on, had to go through: wars, depressions, unemployment, no NHS and all that… I suppose a stable – even boring - life seemed like perfection to them.’ Johnny shrugged and hid his face behind his glass, taking a long drink.

Everyone was silent again for a while. Jenny was the first to speak. ‘So, do you agree with Matt's parents then, Johnny?’

‘No.’ Johnny said. ‘I think that you ought to grab at - with both hands - any chance that comes your way. I'd rather regret doing something; take the risk of seeing it all go tits up, than to regret not doing something because I let the chance slip by me. But I can understand their cautious attitude, in a way - that's all. But, it's a middle-class way of looking at things, and I'm working-class. The working-class way is to grab it now, with both hands, before they notice and take it away.’

By the time The Pit closed, they were all pretty-well pissed. They staggered out into the dark night, heading for home. Pete, Matt and Johnny saw Jenny and Spike to their door, offered several helpful suggestions as to how the girls should spend the rest of the night, and then headed on up the road.

At the top of the hill were three blocks of flats, standing together like some giant's henge on the brow of the hill.

‘Hang on,’ Johnny said. ‘We - my family - used to live in the middle one. Come on, I want to show you something.’

Matt and Pete were cautious, knowing they were out of place. But Johnny strolled in as if he owned the whole block. The lift to the top floor was slow and rickety.

Pete was more than relieved when the lift finally got up there and shuddered to a halt. He had regular nightmares about lifts that failed and trapped him.

Johnny led the others around the corner and up a small flight of steps to a locked door. Pete felt a shiver of relief run through him as he turned to go, but Johnny grinned and held up a key.

The wind was cold and strong. All Pete could see were stars and the low darker shadow of a high wall. He felt relieved to see the wall; his knees were already a bit shaky from the realisation that they were nineteen stories from the cold hard ground. Pete had always been terrified of heights. His reticence about leaving safety of the doorway meant the others were across the other side of the roof by the time he had gathered the courage to follow them.

‘Oh shit! Shit! Shit!’ Pete could not take another step. There was a sort of window in the wall. It was a long narrow strip of toughened glass, as tall as the five-and-a-half foot high wall. He could see the bright lights of the town far below distorted through the pebbled glass. He froze, unable to take another step closer to that window. He looked around. ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fucking Fuck!’

Johnny was kneeling on top of the wall, pulling Matt up beside him. Matt scrambled up the wall and they stood together side by side on top of the wall, looking down. A moment later, they were both pissing over the edge.

Pete stepped back into the doorway and lit a cigarette, expecting - at any moment - to hear the screams as Matt and Johnny fell to their deaths. A short while later they were back inside, laughing and joking together.

Johnny looked into Pete's eyes. ‘You should have come with us. There is nothing like the feeling that you are pissing on the entire fuckin' world.’

Pete shrugged, trying to appear casual. ‘I didn't need one. Maybe next time,’ he said and headed off towards the lifts.

‘No, this way,’ Johnny said. ‘It’s party time!’

‘Wha…?’ Pete shrugged, stubbed out the cigarette on the concrete floor, then followed Johnny and Matt.

For some reason he didn't quite understand, Pete didn't find the stairs as terrifying as the roof, or as scary as the lift. Despite the possibility of being able to look down and see the banisters curling down and down and down - like some graphic representation of vertigo - on one side, he felt no real fear. On the other side - the wall side - there were a couple of small windows on each landing, but Pete found he could get past these without feeling a need to glance out and terrify himself.

Johnny was pausing at each landing and opening the stair door, listening intently. They had to go down about half a dozen or so floors before Johnny found what he wanted. Even Pete could feel the throbbing music, from a flight of stairs above, when Johnny opened the door to that floor.

‘Party time! Come on.’ Johnny led the other two down the corridor towards the party. He stepped over an unconscious form slumped in the hallway, picked up the empty sherry bottle next to it, and banged on the door.

As the door opened, Johnny quickly herded Matt and Pete in, waving the sherry bottle in his other hand. ‘Jim invited us,’ he said to the bloke who was holding the door open. The bloke nodded vaguely as the three disappeared into the crowd.

‘But it’s bloody packed in there,’ Pete said uncertainly. The other two ignored him and pushed their way in. Pete sighed and followed them.

They had to weave their way slowly - and delicately - through the crowd. Pete was not that keen on parties at the best of times, but this was rapidly approaching the party of his nightmares. After glancing away, at a semi-naked woman dancing on a table, he lost sight of Matt and Johnny in the crowd.

‘Shit!’ He turned and headed back towards the door.

There was a sudden unintelligible shout and the sound of breaking glass. The crowd between the door and Pete surged backwards, thrusting him through a door into a darkened room. He could hear the shouts of ‘Fight!’ over the music outside the room, then a couple of women screaming.

He stepped back further into the darkened room. He heard sounds behind him. Pete turned and saw several moving shapes silhouetted in the darkness. Despite his relative inexperience, he could still recognise the sounds of people fucking. But whether it was an orgy or a gang-bang, Pete couldn't tell in the darkness. He eased himself out of the room as slowly and as quietly as he could.

There was a smear of blood up the wall by the door. Next to it, a sobbing woman knelt on the floor trying to wipe blood off her hands with a blood-sodden handkerchief. Another drunken woman, who had not yet realised that her cigarette was slowly burning a hole in the shoulder of the distressed woman's dress, knelt next to her muttering slurred platitudes into her ear. For a moment, Pete almost stopped to tell them about the slowly rising smoke. But, after another glance at the blood-smeared wall, he changed his mind.

By the door into the main party room, some malodorous bloke with long hair and a shaggy unkempt beard tried to tell Pete something, grabbing his shoulder and rambling incoherently into his ear. Pete could feel the heat of sour breath on the side of his head as he nodded profoundly, clapped the man on the back, and then headed for the door.

Out in the corridor Pete thought about the stairs, but decided the lift might be - marginally - faster. He pressed the button and stood with his head pressed against the cool metal of the lift doors. Several minutes later, he heard a slow groaning rattle and through the tiny window, he could just make out the dark shadow of the lift's arrival.

The doors creaked open slowly. The snogging couple inside the lift disentangled themselves from each other before readjusting their clothing and stepping out of the lift. Pete squeezed past them and managed to thump the button that kept the wheezing doors open long enough for him to get into the lift.

‘Er… excuse me?’ Pete smiled nervously as the teenage boy and girl both stared at him.

‘What?’ The boy's hands were already curling into fists.

Pete ignored him and faced the girl. ‘Are those yours?’ He pointed to the discarded knickers on the floor of the lift.

‘Oh, yeah,’ she said without looking at him. She snatched them from the floor and shoved them into her pocket. ‘Ta.’

‘No problem.’ Pete beamed at the boy and girl as the doors began to close.

‘Pete! Hang on! For fuck's sake - hold the lift!’ Johnny and Matt were racing down the narrow corridor. A bottle exploded against the wall above them, showering them both with glass. Out of the corner of his eye, Pete saw the teenage couple quickly disappearing around the opposite corner of the corridor.

‘Press the fuckin' button - quick!’ Johnny said, falling through the door and pulling Matt in with him.

Pete jabbed frantically at the button. He could see a gang of men heading down the corridor, some carrying broken bottles, others with an ominous flash of metal in their hands.

The arthritically slow doors shuddered to a close seconds before the mob got to the lift. It shuddered again and slowly began to descend. Pete could hear the thumping as the gang took out their frustrations on the outside lift doors. The sound faded away as the lift descended and - presumably - the gang gave up and wandered back to the party.

Matt and Johnny sat on the floor of the lift, trying to get their breath back. They looked up at each other and laughed.

‘Stupid cunt,’ Johnny said to Matt.

‘What happened?’ Pete said, already half suspecting the answer.

‘A girl,’ Matt said. ‘I was just talking to her, and this… this… fucking lunatic… just….’

‘I saw it coming,’ Johnny said. ‘I just managed to grab him in time. Luckily, you still had the lift there. I wouldn't have fancied legging it down all them stairs with that mob after us.’

‘It's just bloody ridiculous,’ Matt said. ‘We were only talking, about Woolworth's as it happened. That girl works there, and my sister had a Saturday job there for a while. It was just one of those coincidences that come up at parties. I couldn't believe that man - the way he reacted! All the time we were running down that corridor - it seemed bloody endless, like in a nightmare - I kept saying to myself: This can't be happening! This can't be happening!’

The lift stopped and they cautiously stepped out into the ground floor. Johnny checked around, but there was no sign of anyone from the party.

‘I think it would be a good idea to call it a night,’ Matt said. ‘I suddenly sobered up back up there, and now all I want to do is go home.’

The other two sombrely nodded their agreement. There was a moment of awkward silence before they split up to go their separate ways.

The next day Matt left the band.