by Paul Colize
Just as they were about to give up, a journalist from the Belfast Telegraph, to whom Dirk McDonald had sent the letter in a last-ditch effort to attract some interest, got in touch with the group and suggested a meeting.
The Ruskins and the Parkers gathered at the McDonalds’ home in Dublin on September the eighth, 1967, for a late afternoon meeting with Michael Stern, the journalist in question.
At first, all were somewhat disconcerted. On a first impression, Stern had none of the calm assurance of George West. He was short, bald and shifty-looking. He squinted as if in bright sunlight, and pushed constantly at a large pair of glasses that slipped down his nose.
They were encouraged by his apparent empathy, however, and his willingness to listen.
After their interview, the journalist confirmed his interest in the affair and promised to get the green light from his editor-in-chief, to begin investigating the suspicious deaths.
A few days later, Stern announced that he had secured the go-ahead, and asked the families to give him everything they had in relation to the case. He hoped to try to reconstruct each band member’s movements from the moment Pearl Harbor was formed, until March 1967. He was optimistic, he said, and ready to pull out all the stops to shed light on this murky business.
On Monday, September the eighteenth, 1967, Michael Stern boarded a plane, destination Berlin.
29: THE WAY I LOOKED
I took the tram to Brussels Midi. The station was on a more human scale back then. None of the gaudy shops and gangs of threatening youths I saw on my return.
In the main hall, I felt as if everyone was watching me, as if the word ‘deserter’ was written all over my face.
I walked to the platform, head down, clutching the ticket I had bought. I climbed aboard the train and moved along the corridors, searching for a seat with no one opposite.
I checked my watch constantly. My feelings of guilt increased with each passing minute. I imagined the consternation of the military authorities, the call to my parents, the missing person notices. I felt worse still when the ticket controller and customs officers entered my compartment. They studied my face and papers, then left.
The time of innocence was past. I had broken the law, and needed to be constantly on my guard.
I reached my destination around noon. Alex had told me that Paris was livelier than Brussels, but the difference between the two capitals, less than three hundred kilometres apart, was beyond my imagination.
The streets were thronged with people. The boulevards were choked with slow-moving traffic that roared and belched thick smoke. People walked and ran in all directions, gesticulating and talking loudly. My head spun. I entered a maelstrom of unfamiliar noise, colour and smells.
Around me, Paris bubbled with life, and I was alone in all the world.
I went down into the metro. I was disorientated. I boarded a train going in the wrong direction and became lost in the labyrinth before finding my bearings and alighting at Saint-Michel in mid-afternoon. I headed for Chez Popov, a bar on Rue de la Huchette. My stomach was empty. I was ready to go back on my decision.
By chance, the elderly Russian couple Alex had told me about were there. When I told them he’d sent me, they welcomed me with open arms.
They showed me the back room. Sleeping bags littered the floor. A lanky young American lay stretched out on one. He was reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and smoking a cigarette. The book was in tatters. He greeted me as if my arrival was the most natural thing in the world. In strongly accented French, he asked me where I had come from and if I liked Bob Dylan. I had no idea who he was talking about, and replied that I hadn’t read anything of his yet. He told me I had a sense of humour and that we were sure to get along.
He had a round, pink face like a soft sweet, and smiled all the time. Everyone called him Candy. We ate, and hit it off there and then. After the meal, he leapt to his feet and announced we would go find the others.
We walked to the Square du Vert Galant, at the tip of Ile de la Cité. The others were a bunch of guys like him, young men who had decided to break with convention and hit the road. They had come from all over. As well as French, there were English and Americans, and a few Dutch. They massaged one another on the public benches. They seemed to have occupied the space and chased out the passers-by. Some were lying under the weeping willow, wrapped in large blankets. Others were sitting on the stone quayside, backs to the wall. Joints were passed from hand to hand. Most people had nicknames. Finger, an American, had had the last phalange of his index finger amputated, to avoid being called to serve in Vietnam.
A fair number of them reminded me of Alex. They spoke and looked like him: indolent, and scruffy, with long hair. One or two were almost thirty. An old guy from Nantes, known as Cheyenne, was over sixty. He had a deeply lined face and faded blue eyes. He wore a beard, and long white hair parted down the middle. His nickname came from a coloured bandanna he wore tied around his forehead.
He wasn’t the group leader, but a kind of sage, respected by all. Whenever the occasion presented, he would take a book by Rimbaud from out of his pocket and lose himself in its pages, looking up only to call for silence and read us a passage out loud.
I spent my first weeks with them. I followed them from morning to evening and late into the night. In addition to the Square du Vert Galant, their favourite spots were Saint-Germain-des-Près and the quaysides along the Seine.
In the evening, everyone would meet at Place de la Contrescarpe. They would sit along the fountain rim or directly on the cobblestones. If it was too cold, they would crowd around a table in one of the bistros. They talked politics, literature, music. They discussed human nature and God. The spectre of war was everywhere. The Americans talked about Vietnam, the war their country’s young people were confronting head on. The French talked about the last wars, and Indochina, and Algeria: open wounds that seemed to have scarred their memory. Everyone talked about the coming war, the one that would destroy planet Earth.
They talked all day long, in sombre, grandiose terms. They would get carried away, raise their voices, disagree furiously, slam their hands on the table and issue dark threats, even when no one contradicted them.
From time to time, they would get into a discussion with someone from the other camp, the ones they called the ‘bourgeois reactionaries’. Things would quickly turn sour. More than once, they almost came to blows.
I never got caught up in the conversation. I listened. I wanted to form my own opinion before defending theirs. Often, they would seek my approval of the theories they put forward. But even if I had an opinion, I wasn’t able to put it into words. Eventually, they accepted my status as a taciturn observer.
Their arguments were often confused, or contradictory. They said they were anti-war, and their badges preached disarmament or anti-militarism. But many wore items of American army uniform: khaki shirts, parkas, military caps and boots.
They tried to explain the symbolism behind their choice. But I never understood their logic. They said they were pacifists but they walked around dressed like soldiers.
In the same way, I felt respect for the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and couldn’t picture him as a bloodthirsty warmonger, manipulated by the demonic McNamara – as they maintained he was.
I didn’t want to spark a fight and find myself rejected by the group. I said nothing.
Money-wise, I was getting by. I had brought all my savings with me. I had taken Alex’s advice and converted my Belgian francs to dollars. A thick wad of green slumbered at the bottom of my case. I changed a note from time to time, to cover my needs. I thought my funds would see me through until I found a stable job.
Events decided otherwise, and the money quickly vanished. The group said that money drove the economy, and the economy drove the war. They were proud not to have any, and were all the better for it.
Encouraged by the group, I squandered what I had, to match their free-wheeling status. I financed the group’s lifestyle. I pa
id for meals, drinks and grass. When there was nothing left, I did as they did, and asked for money on the streets. Begging was frowned upon, and I had to watch out for the police.
Candy played guitar – mornings down in the metro, afternoons on café terraces. One day, I offered to join him. He hesitated, then agreed. I had brought my sticks. At first, I watched him for a day or two. I kept an eye on the coins people tossed into his guitar case.
One morning, I felt confident enough to try. I waited until he launched into a blues, and drummed along, beating on the ground. He loved it. He didn’t know I was a drummer. He liked what I was doing, and so did the public.
I let rip after that. On bistro terraces, I would bang on the ground, the walls, the pipework, bottles, table-tops, the waiters’ trays, whatever was to hand. I whirled around Candy like a satellite in orbit.
On the pavement, people would stop, tap their feet, clap their hands, sing along with us. Some afternoons, we would gather an audience of about fifty. We made money, but the crowd attracted the police and more than once we had to make a run for it.
Candy knew my situation, and covered me when I ran off. He would slow down and let himself be taken in my stead. His American passport was a magic ticket. He never spent more than an hour in custody.
On one of our escapades, we met a diaphanous youth who played like us, on the steps of the Sacré-Coeur. He was a singer and guitarist, pleasant, open and hugely talented. I saw him again years later, on TV. He had cut and dyed his hair, and become the French pop star, Michel Polnareff.
From then on, Candy and I played together every day. At the end of the evening, we would count out the money and share it. Then we would eat, get drunk and smoke joints. We would go back to Chez Popov just before dawn, and set out again a few hours later. I was free, I felt great, though I was hungry and getting thinner by the day.
I liked our autonomous lifestyle, but the ersatz drumming was losing its appeal. I missed playing for real. I had itchy hands and feet.
The Paris rock scene was unlikely to fulfil my aspirations. The Beatles were a massive hit in France, especially after playing the Olympia earlier that year. Other British bands like the Rolling Stones and the Spencer Davis Group were being talked about, too, but the French remained focused on their beloved héxagone. They were determined to protect their home-grown stars, rather than embrace real rock.
France had its yéyés – named for the Beatles’ ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ – an insipid bunch singing insipid songs. Some of them fancied themselves as real, hard rocker: dilettantes like Johnny Hallyday, Eddy Mitchell, or Dick Rivers. I gave them two years at most, before they sank into oblivion. They thought that by anglicising their names, covering English and American rock standards and half-heartedly wiggling their hips, they could be real rockers. Eddy Mitchell’s insipid cover of ‘Maybellene’ brought tears to the eyes.
Even Sylvie Vartan, a dumb blonde of about my age, who had shared the spotlight with the Beatles at the Olympia, assured everyone quite seriously, on the radio, that she was singing rock and roll.
A few years earlier, in the Fifties, Henry Cording had been France’s first self-proclaimed rock singer. His music was beneath notice, but his lyricist was the poet and novelist Boris Vian. Now, under the name Henri Salvador, the same singer was squeaking and gibbering his way through an appalling series of novelty hits, not least an abysmally mawkish song about a little mouse called Minnie.
One thing led to another. Cheyenne discovered I could play drums and was looking for a job with a band. He was a musician himself, and had played trumpet in a jazz group after the war. He told me there was a musicians’ labour exchange of sorts, on Friday evenings at Porte Saint-Martin, near the Théâtre de la Renaissance. Instrumentalists looking for work would swap tips and openings, and people in work could find replacements as required.
I found the place, but it was deserted. A bistro owner told me the exchange had moved to Pigalle. I stopped by several times but came away with nothing. I had almost given up on the idea of drumming for a living when, by pure chance, Candy took me along one evening to the Cigale jazz club.
The place was full of music lovers, and jazz fans in particular. Candy introduced me to Maurice, a musician he knew from the Antilles. He played trombone with a small line-up, and invited me to jam the following evening, in a cellar on Rue de Clichy.
I went along. I played all night, alternating with another drummer, a somewhat aloof Frenchman who called himself Mike. By the small hours, I was exhausted and happy. I had reconnected with my old sensations. My technique was intact, as if my hands had a memory all their own. One of the guitarists came over to ask if I would play with him. He was called André and wanted to form a rock group. He knew a good bass player, and had his eye on a singer. What was more, he had a new drum kit I could play.
Two weeks later, we began rehearsing. André lived on Rue de Provence. We called ourselves Les Tourbillons – the Whirlwinds. We weren’t bad. The singer knew a few people, and got us some gigs.
We played several times at the Golf-Drouot, on a Friday night. Five or six groups took turns over the course of the evening. We had forty-five minutes to convince the public and earn the chance to come back the following week. I had some great times there. It was the high temple of Paris rock, with an audience of true music fans. They were great teachers, and we made great progress.
A few weeks later, we played a rock festival at the Tabarin, a cabaret at the foot of Montmartre. The bill included big names like Vince Taylor and the Chats Sauvages.
After our set, a man in his forties, dressed in a suit and tie, came over and asked if we would like to record some studio demos. We showed up a few days later, in Seine-Saint-Denis, on Paris’s north rim. Not really a studio, just a bare room with a tape recorder and a Neuman mic standing in the middle.
The man was waiting for us, with a technician and a sour-looking woman who stared me up and down. He gave us a few sheets of music, recent English and American hits for the most part.
We positioned ourselves around the mic, and the technician did a quick sound check. We played about ten numbers from the repertoire, and a couple of André’s compositions. The two men and the woman listened, stroking their chins. They sat on rickety chairs off to one side, all in a row. From time to time, they would whisper in one another’s ears.
The man got to his feet in the middle of a number and signalled for us to stop. He called André over. They left the room and came back fifteen minutes later. The band was hired to record a single, but the man didn’t want me.
My playing wasn’t the problem, but my personal style was. He didn’t want a beatnik on his books. He would find another drummer to play with Les Tourbillons. André was sorry, but he couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that. He fired me on the spot.
I went back to Candy and the others, and my recitals on the grands boulevards.
Autumn was drawing to a close, and my second Parisian winter loomed. The English guys headed back to London one by one. There was a lot going on. Young people were making themselves heard. London was The Place to Be. A new craze was sweeping the music scene – rhythm’n’blues. New groups were emerging every day. People talked about The Animals, The Kinks and The Who.
The Who positioned themselves as dangerous competition for the Beatles. They had a drummer who played like no one ever before.
What was more, a pirate radio station called Radio Caroline was spearheading a revolution. Broadcast from a boat anchored outside territorial waters, Caroline played great music all day long, a thousand miles from the never-ending diet of Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, as authorised by the stiff-shirted big-wigs at the BBC.
For the first time, you didn’t need a well-known name, a contract with a big-time label or a government-approved sound to get airplay.
I liked Paris, but I knew I would have to cross the Channel if I was to keep playing drums and not get fired for the way I looked.
30: ON THE SCREEN
X Midi seemed unaffected, however, and was making good progress.
Each afternoon, the porters would install him in a wheelchair, and one of the care staff would walk him along the corridors in the clinic. Weather permitting, they would walk outside, along the avenues in the park.
Every two days, he was taken to the physiotherapy unit to be verticalised. The therapy consisted of strapping the patient to a tilt table and gradually moving him into an upright position. The treatment promoted respiratory mobility and helped decrease spasticity. It was also thought to have psychological benefits.
Thanks to the verticalisation sessions, and daily bronchial draining with the physio, X Midi was now able to breathe unaided.
The occupational therapist had noted more ample rotations of the head, and firmer movement in the fingers of the left hand. The man was now able to stretch the corners of his mouth. A speech therapist set to work, and detected the emission of a few sounds.
Marie-Anne Perard made one of her regular visits, on Tuesday, June the twenty-eight, towards the end of the morning. She was accompanied by a tall, well-built therapist, wearing a broad smile.
The chief consultant stood beside X Midi.
‘Hello. My colleagues tell me you’re making encouraging progress. Congratulations.’
The man stared straight into her eyes.
‘Are you hot?’
No reaction.
‘Are you in pain anywhere?’
The man continued staring at her, without blinking.
‘You still don’t want to communicate with us?’
She turned to her giant of a colleague and beckoned him to come forward. She stepped aside so that he could enter X Midi’s field of vision.
‘This is Dominique. He’s just joined the team and will be your physio from tomorrow. Dominique is French, he’s worked at the clinic in Garches and has experience of cases similar to yours. I’m sure you’ll get along.’
