Live at the Gaumont

Billy Arkwright stretched, took the wadded cotton wool out of his ears. Not too waxy, he thought and shoved them in the pocket of his brown warehouseman's coat. Like a doctor's lab-coat, only not white. Light khaki - the colour of desert dust. God knows Billy had seen enough of that at nineteen. Still, a practical garment for a – what? He'd got the job from someone he'd known when they'd both worn light khaki. Not known, as such: OR's didn't really know officers, did they? The job wasn't hard, a few bits-and-bobs with the old boiler in the cellar, banging in a few nails, tightening loose screws and the odd touch-up with a five-inch horsehair brush; just distemper, in the dressing rooms and backstage. Dressing rooms! That was a laugh. A couple of storerooms behind the hastily rigged backdrop, where the screen usually was. Just last week they'd been showing a re-run of The Longest Day. Funny how they couldn't make a war-film that would convince anyone who'd ever seen a uniform, much less worn one.

It had been loud tonight, the ear-plugs hadn't done much. Billy wasn't forty yet, but what did they hear in that music. Those four scousers, the noise. Still, that wasn't their fault, since you couldn't actually hear the music. The Jewish girl had been good though. 'Walking Back to Happiness' : Billy reckoned he could have done with a bit of that, since de-mob. He'd had a good war. Men had been different so far from home. Of course, that meant they changed back as soon as they reached Blighty. But what could you expect? People like Billy were convenient in the North African desert, not in Bradford. Some people just wanted to forget the Army and anything that had happened there. As if the thing itself were another country too.

Billy leaned on the bass broom, rolled some Golden Virginia in the Rizla+ he'd started to use in the mob. There were actually about six store-rooms at the back. Everything, old film cans not returned, empty spools, five-hundred unsold programmes for tonight's show all went into one of the rooms, the rest were used as dressing rooms for the acts. Pushing open a door, he looked into dressing room number one, the Jewish girl was long gone - all that was left was the perfume. Billy had almost left the job just before the last big rock and roll show. It was October, a bad month to look for work in Bradford, probably anywhere. The Gaumont was a cushy billet though, and no mistake. He wouldn't leave now though. Not after that last rock and roll show.

October 22nd. The scousers had been the first lot on. Not quite as much screaming then, but still pointless trying to understand the music. Billy reckoned he'd heard My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean, but that was daft. The main act was... what did the kids say? Something else. Billy knew all about that.

Blimey, the man – not black, not exactly, sort of caramel – had more make up on than the girls on Manningham Lane. He sang something about crying in the chapel, but the crowd didn't think much of it. Billy watched from the wings of the makeshift stage, the little man was sweating, unused to not being loved, Billy thought. Anyway, the singer sat at a piano and began the most amazing shouting, screaming, crazy songs. The crowd went absolutely mad. It was really strange. In Yorkshire, for goodness sake. He didn't like the music, oh no, but the little man had it. Billy saw it, recognised it, as he had in the Army. It was plain as day, to those in the know. But the girls still screamed.

Looking round the room the Jewish girl had left an hour ago, Billy looked for something, anything to show what he'd found in the room last time, after that show in October.

The make-up had changed, but he was still wearing it. He looked small on the cartwheel-backed chair, dwarfed by dressing room No 1. The kohl-rimmed eyes looked up,

'Ain't they ANY-THIN' tuh do roun' here?'

And Billy knew, right away. They both found something to do.

Smiling, remembering, Billy pushed the bass broom around the converted storeroom floor. He'd stay in the job: not because he thought Richard would ever come back. It was just hard to abandon memories. He whistled a few bars of Richard's show-stopper from that night, 'Tutti Frutti.'