Dance On Fire - Chapter 02

‘I’ve heard so many stories about how Transmission started,’ Suzy said. ‘Which one of them is the truth?’

Pete eyed the tape recorder, making sure it was running. ‘I still hate talking about myself,’ he said. ‘Especially if it involves telling the truth.’ He glanced out of the coach window at the countryside speeding by. He leant closer to Suzy. ‘The stories usually say it started when Spike and I first met - and that is, partially, true. Although, I haven’t seen any story that got it right. That is as much our fault - mine especially - as anyone else’s though. I always hated interviews, trotting out the same old stuff time after time. There was some pressure from the record company on us, and on Stan too - back in the beginning - to exaggerate, to embellish, to make ourselves not just interesting but notorious.’

‘So, come on - what is the true story?’ Suzy said.

‘Those stories of how we met. At a party, an orgy, or that she dragged me unconscious out of a burning house after a wild party went wrong, and - as I said - so many other variations…. Well, not one of them is true. They are all hype - bullshit. The truth is… we met… on a Monday morning… in the library.’

‘Bollocks!’ Suzy laughed.

Spike was sitting in the row of seats in front of Suzy and Pete. She turned and knelt up, resting her arms on the seat back. ‘We met - and this is about as rock and roll as it gets - in front of the sheet music shelves,’ she said. ‘We were both reaching for the same book. I remember it was a book of Bob Dylan sheet music: Blonde on Blonde.’

‘I was after the words, Spike was after the music,’ Pete said, turning to look through the window again.

*

They had both mumbled apologies, each with one of those nervous awkward little laughs, when their fingers brushed together as they both made a grab for the same book.

‘I only want a quick look,’ Pete said. ‘Just to check the lyrics of Visions of Johanna.’

Spike laughed out loud and then glanced around guiltily. ‘Actually,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s that song I want too, to look at the music. It’s my favourite track on the album.’

Pete thought she had a very posh-sounding accent, not local. He looked at her carefully for the first time. She was short, slightly – only slightly - plump and had short spiky blonde hair. She shone, glowed with health and good living, in that particular middle-class way.
He felt like a tramp, suddenly very self-conscious, standing there in front of her in his dole-queue chic: the rotting jeans, the ex-army overcoat, the second-hand motorcycle boots and his shaggy unkempt blonde hair in dire need of a wash.

‘I won’t be a minute - then you can have it,’ he said.

‘So… do… do you play then?’

‘Yes, piano mainly, but occasionally guitar, some violin, and I’m trying to learn the flute. Do you play?’

‘Guitar, but not very well. I could do with writing this stuff down. I’ve got a terrible memory.’ He was trying to juggle the Dylan book, the other books he was carrying, and to get his pen and notebook from the inside pocket of his coat. ‘Oh shit!’ He looked around guiltily, but there was no one else nearby.

Spike laughed again as she bent down to help him pick all the stuff he’d dropped. ‘Oh, Lord of the Flies. That is a good book. We did it for O level though, didn’t you?’

‘No. I didn’t do any O levels.’

‘Sorry. I…’ She looked down the cover of the book, seemingly embarrassed. After a few moments of awkward silence, she looked up at Pete, handing the book back to him. ‘I know. Why don’t I take out the Dylan book? We can go to the pub down the road and have a drink. While we are there, you can copy out the words you want. I'll buy the drinks - what do you say?’

‘Okay, fine by me. But I can afford to pay for my own drinks, y’know.’

She blushed again. ‘Sorry… I didn’t mean…. Oh, buggery-damn.’

It was Pete’s turn to blush. ‘No… sorry… bad joke.’ He smiled. ‘Let’s start again…. Yes, I would like to go to the pub with you. My name’s Pete, by the way.’

‘My name is… Cordel… but forget that. I hate it. Everyone calls me Spike.’ She ran a hand through her spiky hair.

*

‘Up until I met Spike, I always had a great deal of difficulty talking to girls, to women. I wasn’t that good at conversation, interaction, with blokes either. But I could - in a fashion - talk to men. With women, I was either a babbling fool, or - more often - mute, stiff and awkward. An imbecile.’ Pete stopped talking and watched the speeding motorway for a moment.

‘Why?’ Suzy said softly.

‘I don’t know.’ Pete Shrugged. ‘With Spike, it was just different. We just fell into conversation.’

Spike glanced at Pete, her head cocked to one side. She turned back to Suzy. ‘We talked about all sorts of things that lunchtime: music, books, music, school, university, music. Pete spoke of being unemployed again, after working only six months in a place that had gone bankrupt.’

‘She told me that she was considering - but not in front of her parents - quitting university,’ Pete said. ‘Bloody hell, radical students - so long ago… twenty-odd years. It was another world back then.’

‘Why?’ Pete said.

‘I don’t know. Maybe it is that entire Student Revolutionary thing. It all seems so false, so… so middle-class. Just spoilt rich kids playing meaningless games. But then, even 'dropping out' seems a bit too… well, trendy too.’ Spike turned away from Pete. He saw how she was watching a tall slim black-haired woman at a nearby table.

The woman was trying not to spill the drinks on the small round table as she eased herself behind it. As the black-haired woman sat down, the man sitting next to her absent-mindedly stroked her thigh. The woman turned to smile at the man.

Spike turned back towards Pete. ‘Yes… I know I am middle-class. But I can’t say I’m happy about it.’

‘Why not? It seems all right to me. A bit dull, but….’ Pete shrugged.

‘I don’t know… it just seems so shallow… so false. I admire the honesty of the working-class life. It seems more real… genuine… somehow.’

Pete thought of his parents, sitting side-by-side singing along with the club band in the Miners’ Welfare. Then there was the bingo, the beer and warm thick smoky smell of the pub. The deep - seemingly ingrained - oil stains in the creases and scars of his father’s hands, his grandad and the way his every laugh turned into a deep racking cough that would leave him hunched-over and breathless. Pete shrugged; maybe it was more real, maybe even authentic, but what did that really mean - a lifetime of struggle, bad health and an early death? More clichés - working-class this time, not middle-class - but still clichés all the same. He longed to leave all clichés behind.

Pete looked up. The pub was almost deserted and the landlord, across the other side of the room, had begun collecting glasses. ‘I think it’s closing time,’ he said, finishing his drink and standing up.

Spike stood up too. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Are you doing anything this afternoon?’

‘No, not really. Why?’

‘Do you want to come back to my place, as it were, play some music, have a chat, something like that?’

‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘I'd like that.’

‘Just one thing though, you do know I’m not… not… offering….’

‘No, of course. Yes,’ Pete felt himself turning red again. ‘Yes… of course. I do… understand.’

She looked up into his eyes for a moment, and then smiled. ‘Come on then, it’s this way.’

Dance On Fire is available here