Dance On Fire - Chapter 05

‘So, what happened next?’

‘What?’ Pete was on the verge of sleep. He struggled against his heavy weary body, forcing himself to sit up.

Suzy, sitting naked on top of the bedcovers with her legs crossed and the tape recorder in her lap, beamed at him. ‘So, after Spike and Jenny met – what happened next?’

‘Oh, god! Not now.’ Pete fell back and lay still, looking up at the ceiling. He felt Suzy’s hand creeping up his thigh. She found what she was looking for and began to move her hand, slowly.

Pete sighed and closed his eyes.

Suzy’s hand stopped.

Pete opened his eyes, lifted his head and looked at Suzy staring back at him. She squeezed his cock with one hand and held up the tape recorder in her other. She bent down and gave a quick lick with her tongue, then looked up at him expectantly.

‘Are you trying to bribe me?’ he said. ‘Again?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I’m not going to give in to that.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Suzy bent her head.

Pete lay back again and closed his eyes.

Suzy stopped. ‘Well?’ she said.

‘The next thing was - I suppose – when I called at the student house a few days later. Only to find that Spike was finishing off an essay and Jenny was staying in too. ‘To keep Spike company,’ she said, winking at me as she closed the front door. So I set off for The Crown on my own.’

*

The Crown had become their local, mainly because of its jukebox and the crowd that gathered there. Born to be Wild was playing, very loud. Someone came up behind Pete and yelled something in his ear. He turned.

It was Jane Watson. Pete recognised her immediately. She had been in his class at school. One of those girls he dreamt about, but never had the nerve to speak to.

‘I didn’t know you came here,’ she said.

‘I’ve only been coming here for a few weeks or so,’ Pete said.

‘What?’ Jane leant closer to him, sweeping her long black hair away from her ear.

‘I said, ‘I’ve just started coming,’’ Pete shouted into her ear.

Jane glanced down at his crotch. ‘Oh, yeah?’ She laughed. She took him by the hand and led him away from the jukebox. They found a table free on the opposite side of the pub and sat down to talk about their schooldays and all that had happened to them since they left school.

About half an hour later, another girl - who Pete recognised as Jane’s younger sister, Linda - came up to the table and asked if Jane was ready. Jane nodded and finished off her drink.

‘We’re off to a party - Linda’s boyfriend. It’s his birthday. Do you remember Mathew… Matt Lodge, from junior school, Pete?’

‘Oh…. Yes, vaguely.’

‘I’m sure Matt won’t mind if you come along… will he, Linda?’

Linda looked at her sister for a moment, and then smiled. ‘No. No, he won’t.’

Outside it was cold and windy, a cold winter night. Jane took Pete’s left arm, wrapping both her arms around it as she shivered. She turned him around to face up the street. ‘Come on, it’s this way,’ she said.

Pete could see Linda further up the street, standing by a dark-blue Mini, unlocking the door. There was another girl; one he didn’t recognise standing next to Linda. They were both shivering too.

‘Hang on. We’ll go in the back,’ Jane said. ‘By the way - Pete, this is Jan. Jan, this is Pete - an old school friend.’

Pete mumbled a greeting to Jan; then wormed his way into the back of the Mini. Jane squeezed in next to him. She looked up at him as she brushed the hair out of her eyes then rested her hand on his thigh. She smiled at him and Pete smiled back.

The party had just about begun when they got there. It was an ordinary detached suburban house on a relatively new housing estate. Pete presumed that Matt’s parents must have gone away somewhere. He couldn’t imagine any parent knowingly letting their children have parties in their own house.

Inside, there were a few dozen people about, spread around the rooms, talking in small groups. There was music playing in one of the rooms. Linda, Jane and Jan had already disappeared together somewhere and Pete felt a little self-conscious on his own.

'Love Her Madly' was playing on the stereo. He saw Matt over by the record player, talking with a couple of other people Pete vaguely recognised. Matt was holding a record sleeve - L. A. Women by The Doors. It took Pete a while to notice what was different about Matt from the last time Pete had seen him. It was a few years before, waiting at the bus-stop in his Grammar school uniform. Matt too now had short - almost spiky - hair. He looked up and saw Pete.

‘Hello… er… Paul, no…. Pete?’

Pete nodded.

‘I can’t remember inviting you…. Did I?’

‘No, I….’

‘I invited him,’ Linda said, coming up from behind Matt. ‘Well, Jane asked me if he could come, and I said yes.’

‘Ah, in that case: welcome,’ Pete said. ‘Have you got a drink?’

‘No, I….’

‘Jane said you were always the quiet one at school, always a bit of a mystery,’ Linda said.

‘Was I? I had the impression that no one noticed me, that I merged into the background.’ Pete shrugged.

‘Oh, I noticed you,’ Jane said, moving closer to Pete. ‘So did one or two others. It’s always intriguing, a man of mystery.’

‘I never intended to be mysterious,’ Pete shrugged again, feeling uncomfortable under the attention. He could feel Jane’s breast brushing against his arm. ‘I just… well… I dunno….’

‘So, how come you never hung around with the rest of us then?’ Jane said. She turned to the others as she put her arm around Pete’s waist. ‘You know, I met him at The Crown? He says he goes to The Pit regularly too!’

Pete had felt alone - a bit of a loner - at
school. As far as he could see at the time, none of the others in his class shared his taste in music, or saw what he had found there. Although, he realised eventually, he hardly ever spoke with his schoolmates about anything much other than the routine trivia of the schoolday.

His schoolmates, from what Pete could gather, were definitely not interested in the same music that he was. They were all either into the stuff like Northern Soul that would, a few years later, mutate into disco, or still listening to the stuff that got on to Top of the Pops - pop music. Meanwhile, he had discovered this other world: A parallel universe where music seemed to be able to move beyond being a pleasant noise into new realms of possibility.

Pete had never realised there was this other group of people there - in his school – who shared his interest in that music. It wasn’t until he met Spike that he met someone who had even heard of the bands he liked, let alone liked them too. Now, at this party - and earlier at The Crown - he had found all these other people. He was feeling a bit overwhelmed, as though he was on the verge of an initiation into some secret society.

As a little more time passed, Pete began to relax and feel more at ease among the people at the party. After a few drinks, Pete asked Matt if it was all right to have a smoke.

‘Yes, of course,’ Matt said, looking puzzled. He nodded towards someone with a cigarette in his hand.

‘Er… Matt,’ I don’t think you quite understand,’ Jane said. ‘You are not talking about ordinary cigarettes are you, Pete?’

‘No. Not as such, no,’ Pete said. ‘If it’s a problem… forget it.’

‘Ah, right… only… I’ve never… y’know…’ Matt said.

‘Well, if you want to,’ Pete said. ‘A birthday treat?’

‘I think it would be best if we slipped off to your room though, Matt,’ Linda said quietly. ‘Just in case.’

Up in Matt’s bedroom, Pete sat on the bed and rolled a joint. Jane sat on the bed next to him, holding her long black hair out of her eyes as she watched him making it. Matt and Linda, huddled on a beanbag together, were also watching Pete carefully.

‘Haven’t any of you done this before?’ Pete said.

Matt and Jane shook their heads.

‘I had one brief puff, at a party, once,’ Linda said.

After he passed the joint to Jane, Pete looked up and looked around Matt’s bedroom. He suddenly noticed what was resting on a stand in the opposite corner of the room.

‘Shit!’ Pete pointed at the guitar. ‘Is that a real one?’

‘Er… yes,’ Matt said, smoke billowed out of his mouth as he collapsed in a fit of coughing. Once he got his breath back, he passed the joint to Linda and took a long drink of beer.

‘Bloody hell. A real Les Paul! Can I…?’ Pete was already reaching for the guitar as he spoke.

Matt hesitated for a moment before nodding. ‘I was going to put it away, in its case before the party, but I forgot.’

Pete picked up the guitar reverentially. He had dreamed of - maybe, one day - owning a real, an expensive, guitar. It had always been a distant dream, something for the future and - more likely - unrealised. However, there he was holding one.

He tried a few chords, just admiring the smoothness of the action. It seemed an altogether different beast to his cheap, and now tatty-seeming, guitar.

‘It’s lovely,’ Pete said to Matt, as he accepted the joint back from Linda. ‘I’ve always wanted one, but I could never afford it. Anyway, I’m not sure if I can play well enough.’

‘Hang on,’ Matt said. He rooted around under the bed and pulled out another guitar case. This one was only a Stratocaster copy, but still an expensive-looking one. He plugged both guitars into the amp and turned it on. Pete took a long drag on the joint and passed it on to Jane.

‘Oh god, you know what they are going to do now, don’t you?’ Linda said to her sister, looking up at the ceiling. ‘Do you fancy coming back to the party?’

‘No, not for a while,’ Jane said. ‘I’ve just discovered something new about our man of mystery.’ She turned to Pete. ‘See, I never knew you could play the guitar. Next, you’ll be saying you’re in a band or something.’

‘Well….’ he said.

‘I knew it,’ Jane said. ‘I said you were a man of mystery.’

Matt started to play 'Satisfaction', Pete felt a certain amount of relief, he could manage that one quite well, or so he thought. But, part-way into the tune, Matt wandered off on a long solo that soon left Pete behind and struggling. Matt looked up and Pete shrugged helplessly. Matt smiled to himself and then played on through to the end of the song.

They played a few more songs together after that. When Pete looked up, there was a fairly sizeable audience gathered around the bedroom doorway.

‘We seem to be spoiling the party,’ he said to Matt.

‘What? Oh, right I see. I suppose we’d better stop now.’

‘Yes, I think that’s a good idea,’ Linda said, getting to her feet. ‘I’m going to get a drink.’

The Gibson had a case that looked more expensive than Pete’s own guitar. As they put the guitars away, Jane asked him about the group.

‘Well, at the moment, it is just me, my friend Spike and her friend, Jenny.’

‘Two girls?’ Jane said. ‘My mother warned me about the quiet ones.’

‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ he said. ‘We are just friends.’

‘Oh, good,’ she said and got up. ‘I’m going to see if I can find Linda.’

‘Why ‘good’?’ Pete said, but she had already gone.

Matt and Pete looked at each other and both shrugged. Pete thought Matt knew, and was waiting for, what Pete was about to ask him. Matt was trying to look busy around the room, picking things up, putting them down again in almost the same place.

‘Matt?’ Pete said.

‘Yeah, what?’

‘Would you be interested in joining the band then?’

He turned back to face Pete a little too rapidly to be cool. ‘Hmm…. What sort of stuff are you playing?’

‘Our own stuff, mainly. But, it’s still evolving at the moment. So, it could be a good time to join. You could help shape it. Spike - she’s the keyboard player, she writes most of the music and I do the words - she wants to try to get a sort of punky sound, feel to it. But I’m not so sure. I have a feeling that punk will only be a fad.’

Matt sat down next to Pete. ‘I don’t know about that. Perhaps this spiky hair, gobbing and three-chord wonder stuff won’t last that long, but I think it will grow into something worthwhile.’

Pete rolled another joint and lit it, as they started a discussion about music that must have lasted an hour or so. The party went on without them, as they sat in Matt’s room, just talking about music together. Although they didn’t agree on everything, they had enough in common for Pete to invite Matt to the next band practice.

Eventually, Linda and Jane came back upstairs to see what had happened to them. Linda took Matt away, back to the party. Jane sat down on the bed, next to Pete. She turned towards him; their faces were only inches apart.

‘You do know that you are supposed to kiss me now, don’t you?’ She said.

‘I thought that might be what you were waiting for,’ he said. ‘But I’m not very good at reading the signs, sorry.’ He shrugged.

‘Pete? Can I make a suggestion?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Just shut up,’ she said. ‘And kiss me – now - before I change my mind.’