The Wrong Boy

by Willy Russell

  ‘I was for not bothering, me,’ Deak said. ‘I’d already dismantled my hi-hat and my foot pedal. But that’s when Slim nudged me and nodded in the direction of the Stranger. And I noticed it then; the guitar he was carryin’.’

  Morrissey, I’ve got to tell you! By this time I was wishing I’d kept my big mouth shut and never asked about the sodding Kexborough Cowboy. All I’d wanted to know was what had happened to him. But the Dewsbury Desperadoes were telling it like it was something out of Marcel bleeding Proust! I didn’t think I could stand much more. I even thought about asking them if they could stop the van and drop me off. But then, Morrissey, with Sowerby Slim having taken over the narrative, that’s when it started to happen to me, the ‘something’ that happened in the Dewsbury Desperadoes’ van. Because that’s when I suddenly started to realise what it was he was saying, Sowerby Slim, as he recounted that moment in the audition hall and began to describe the guitar that the Stranger had been clutching hold of!

  ‘A pre-war, bevel-fronted, small-bodied acoustic Guild,’ Sowerby Slim said. And then, with some reverence, added, ‘Authentic mottled fish-shell scratch board. Original ivory tuning pegs.’

  Sowerby Slim saw me then, saw me staring at him with my mouth half open and my eyes wide and wondering.

  ‘Are you all right, young man?’ he asked.

  I just nodded. And then I said, ‘All of them? All six original ivory tuning pegs?’

  Sowerby Slim leaned forward then and patted me on the knee as he said, ‘Now then, young man, that’s what I like to hear, a person who pays attention to detail when he’s talking about serious matters such as musical instruments.’ Slim lifted up his finger then and said, ‘Now, it’s funny you should mention those tuning pegs, young man. But as a matter of fact, no, they weren’t all there. There was one peg missing. Just one, mind. And I remember it because whoever had replaced it, that missing peg, they’d done a real cack-handed job on it. I’d never have done it, not to an instrument of that pedigree. But whoever had replaced that peg, they’d used a bog standard, cheap silver thing. And, oh … it was a crime, it was! A crime to repair an instrument of that quality using nothing but …’

  Slim just carried on talking then, going on about the slipshoddiness of some instrument repairers. But I was no longer listening, Morrissey. I didn’t want to hear any more about the guitar. I wanted to know about the Stranger who’d been carrying it.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked them. ‘What happened at the audition?’

  The Desperadoes all glanced at each other and all smiled, even Deak the drummer. And Sowerby Slim said, ‘Young man, there are auditions and there are auditions! And I think I can say with some confidence that I’ll never again have the experience I had that day, the day the Cowboy auditioned.’

  ‘Was he good?’ I asked. ‘Did he play good?’

  ‘Good?’ Cindy-Charlene said. ‘Good? He got up on the stage with us and we said, “Right then, friend, what would you like to play?” Well, he just sort of shrugged, a bit shy. And then, quietly spoken, very quiet, he said, “I was wonderin’ if you know ‘Country Boy’?” ’

  Cindy-Charlene just paused and stared at me then, nodding her head all knowingly as if I should understand the significance of such a title.

  ‘Well, we knew,’ Cindy-Charlene said, ‘we knew we were in for something then all right. Nobody tackles a tune like “Country Boy” without knowing his way around a guitar.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Slim concurred. ‘I’ve seen many a picker, many a good picker come to grief over “Country Boy”. I’ve even seen Albert Lee himself lose his fingering on some of the licks in that treacherously taxing tune.’

  Slim just sat there nodding at his memories. But I wasn’t interested in Albert bleeding Lee, whoever he was.

  ‘But what about the Cowboy?’ I said. ‘What was the Cowboy’s fingering like?’

  ‘His fingering?’ Sowerby Slim said. ‘His fingering … it had to be seen to be believed.’

  ‘His fingering?’ Cindy-Charlene echoed. ‘We counted him in, four beats on the snare from Deak; and the Cowboy, he’s straight in there, right into that first solo, foot beating perfect time, going off like a metronome, his head thrown back and his eyes closed like he’s so into the number that he’s possessed. And fingers! I’ve never seen fingers that could dance up and down a fretboard the way that that Cowboy’s fingers danced.’

  All the Desperadoes just fell silent then, with smiles on their faces as they seemed to savour the memory of that special moment. And I was smiling too, smiling a big smile that seemed to have come up from somewhere deep in the very soul of me.

  And I said to the Desperadoes, ‘It must have just been so brilliant, that. Just so brilliant seeing him, the Cowboy, playing like that.’

  They looked at me, the Desperadoes. And I looked back at them with the big warm smile still on my face. But Cindy-Charlene was slowly shaking her head and looking somewhat crestfallen now.

  ‘But he wasn’t!’ she said. ‘That’s the whole point! He wasn’t playin’ anything. All he was doing was just skittering his fingers anywhere and everywhere. And there wasn’t one single note he played that bore the slightest resemblance to “Country Boy”; or to anything that could be reasonably described as music!’

  Sowerby Slim shook his big bearded head and sorrowfully declared, ‘It was awful. Truly awful.’

  ‘And right embarrassing,’ Cindy-Charlene said. ‘Because we didn’t know what to do. We didn’t want to give offence. So we just had to keep playing along and carrying on as if it was a normal audition. And every time we got to one of his solos, the Stranger, he’d shriek with delight, leap up in the air or drop down on one knee, giving it loads and thrusting out the neck of the guitar as if he was Hendrix, Clapton, Django Reinhardt and Chet Atkins all rolled into one.’

  ‘And the worst of it was,’ Deak said, ‘when we got to the end of that number he just stood there, smiling at us all and asking us if he’d got the job.’

  ‘We just stood there saying nowt,’ Cindy-Charlene explained. ‘Because y’ could tell, even then y’ could tell as how he was … oh, such a mild-mannered, innocent sort of chap. I was trying to think of something a bit diplomatic like, wondering if perhaps we could find a way to let him down gently. In the end though, it was Deak who just threw his sticks up into the air and said, “Got the job? Got the fuckin’ job! We’re lookin’ for a guitarist, mate, not a ten-thumbed bastard who wouldn’t know a crotchet from a fuckin’ hatchet.”’

  Cindy-Charlene shook her head at the memory of that appalling moment. ‘I felt awful for him,’ she said.

  ‘I felt right dreadful when Deak told him that. It might have been the truth but it’s not easy, is it, it’s not easy for a person to be told he’s no good.’

  ‘The weird thing though’, Sowerby Slim piped up, ‘is that he didn’t even seem to mind.’

  Cindy-Charlene nodded and said, ‘That’s right. He didn’t take the slightest bit of offence. He thanked us all, shook us all by the hand, even Deak; and he said he was very very grateful and it had been a particular honour for him to audition with us. Then he just walked off the stage, clutching his guitar, and headed off towards the exit.’

  Cindy-Charlene shook her head, somewhat ruefully. ‘And that might have been it,’ she said. ‘In fact that would have been it if the caretaker hadn’t already locked up the front of house. He thought we were all done, y’ see, so he could lock up and leave us lot to go out the back. So when the Stranger got out into the foyer, he found the doors locked. And not being the sort of man to cause a fuss, he just perched himself on a beer crate, quite content to sit there waiting till someone came along and unlocked the doors.

  ‘But we didn’t know about that,’ Slim said. ‘We didn’t know he was out there in the foyer. We were just sat there in that empty hall, depressed by three days of fruitless auditions and especially by having had our hopes suddenly raised and then dashed by the ten-thumbed Stranger with the bevel-topped Guil
d.’

  ‘And when we first heard it,’ Cindy-Charlene said, ‘at first we thought it was somebody playin’ a record.’

  ‘Aye, but what a record!’ Deak said.

  ‘What d’ y’ mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, we were sitting there,’ Cindy-Charlene said, ‘and we heard it drifting through.’

  ‘This … sound,’ Slim said, ‘a sound that … just wrapped itself around your heart. A sound that made y’ want to weep an’ … wail with joy at the same time.’

  I looked at Sowerby Slim. ‘What do y’ mean?’ I said. ‘What sort of sound?’

  ‘Singing.’ Sowerby Slim nodded, ‘Melody. A voice … singing. But singing like you’d never heard singing before in your life.’

  ‘It was a voice,’ Cindy-Charlene said, ‘a voice like a perfect sweet-and-sour sauce; sweet and tangy at the same time; full and soft and curving like a woman but hard and muscly like a man; brittle, yet supple; gentle and jagged at the same time. It was a voice that sounded like it had been marinated in the kitchens of heaven. And every note carried through to that empty hall as if it was being borne on the wings of angels.’

  ‘And we all just sat there,’ Deak said, ‘sat there thinking we must be listening to some rare and priceless record. Until it started to dawn on each and every one of us and we began to look at each other as we realised it couldn’t be a record. Or else we’d have heard some instruments as well. Then it stopped, this magical melody, just stopped mid-phrase and we heard George, the caretaker, shouting something in the foyer. Then we heard the rattle of keys. And that’s when we started moving, all of us, running down that empty hall and out into the foyer. Only to find it empty except for George who’d just let the Stranger out and was locking up again.’

  ‘For a second,’ Cindy-Charlene said, ‘we stood there staring at George himself and wondering if it was somehow him who’d made that incredible sound.’

  ‘I was even starting to think we might just have imagined it,’ Slim said, ‘but that’s when Cindy-Charlene pointed out through the glass doors and said, “Look”.’

  ‘And there he was,’ Cindy-Charlene said, ‘the Stranger, strolling off across the car park.’

  ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ Deak said. ‘I couldn’t see how it was possible. After the vomit he’d spewed from that guitar. I couldn’t believe it could be one and the same creature.’

  ‘But I knew,’ Cindy-Charlene said, ‘I knew! I couldn’t get those doors unlocked fast enough. He was almost out of sight by then, the Stranger. We ran like hell across that car park. And when we got to the gates we thought we’d lost him. But then, halfway up the high street, we saw him outside Hendleys Music Mart, stood there staring through the window. When we caught up with him he was just about to go into the shop. He looked all puzzled and perplexed when he saw us. But I just said to him, “Sing!” ’

  ‘He was all reluctant,’ Sowerby Slim said. ‘He just stood there blushing and a bit embarrassed and asking us why we wanted him to sing.’

  ‘In the end,’ Cindy-Charlene said, ‘I just started singing myself. People at the bus stop were stood there looking at us like we were all soft. And there was me, singing away in the street, trying to get the Stranger to join in. But he just watched and smiled and kept saying it was lovely. And I started to think I might as well pack in. Started to think perhaps we’d got it wrong and it wasn’t his voice we’d heard at all.’

  ‘But then,’ Deak said, ‘just as we were about to give it up as a bad job, quietly, really quietly at first, the Stranger opened his mouth and softly started singing along with Cindy-Charlene.’

  ‘And oh,’ Slim said, ‘what a harmony! What a glorious sound he made; singing perfect thirds to Cindy-Charlene’s top line. And then swapping with her and him taking the top line, Cindy-Charlene the harmony and the pair of them making a sound that could soothe the inconsolable soul. It was like that street was suddenly dripping in honey. Those folks at the bus stop, they couldn’t believe their ears; they were stood there in raptures; there must have been three buses came along but nobody made the slightest effort to get on one. And the last bus, the driver just kept it there at the stop with the doors open and him and all his passengers listening to such sweet beauty in the ordinary street.’

  ‘And the applause,’ Deak declared, ‘the shouts and the whistles when the song was done.’

  ‘But he just stood there frowning, didn’t he,’ Cindy-Charlene said, ‘the Stranger? Like he couldn’t understand what it was that everybody was applauding.’

  ‘But we didn’t hesitate,’ Slim said. ‘We hadn’t even been looking for a male vocalist. But right there in the street, we asked him if he’d like to join the Dewsbury Desperadoes.’

  ‘Well, if you’d seen the look on his face when he heard that,’ Cindy-Charlene said. ‘He just looked from one to the other of us as if he couldn’t believe his ears. And all his face lit up then. He closed his eyes for a second like he’d just been given the most precious thing in all the world. When he opened them again, he said, “Do y’ mean it? Do y’ really mean it?” ’

  ‘We told him of course we bloody meant it,’ Deak said. ‘And we could see that he finally realised we were making him a serious offer.’

  ‘Aye,’ Slim said, ‘and that’s when we realised an’ all. Because that’s when he lifted up that bevel-topped Guild guitar of his. And lifting it to his lips, he kissed it and said, “At last, old girl; at last we’ve done it! We’re on our way!” ’

  Sowerby Slim nodded at me. ‘That’s right,’ Slim said, ‘he thought we were asking him to join as a guitarist!’

  Sowerby Slim shook his head and Deak did the same, saying, ‘It’s beyond me. It was always beyond me; when it came to singing, he could move me to the very depths of my heart and soul. But when it came to playing guitar, the only thing that moved in me were my bowels!’

  ‘We tried telling him,’ Cindy-Charlene said. ‘We all went back over to the club and tried to make him see it was a crime, not allowing a voice like that to sing. But he just stood there frowning all the time and saying, “Well, I don’t know … I just don’t know really.”

  ‘ “You’re a singer,” we told him, “a singer, not a guitarist.”

  ‘But it was like he couldn’t get it into his head and he said, “Y’ mean … y’ mean, I can sing with y’ … but I’d have to give up the guitar?” And the way he looked at his guitar when he said that, it almost broke my heart.’

  ‘But that’s what gave me the idea,’ Slim said, ‘when I saw him looking at that Guild like it was his favourite whippet that was about to be put down. I didn’t know how he’d take it but I said, “Look, how’s about a compromise? How about … you come and sing with us … and you keep your guitar … But … but y’ don’t … actually … plug it in!” Well, he frowned at first, a big deep frown. I thought I’d blown it. I thought it was all up with the feathers then. But he said, “On stage? I can have the guitar on stage with me?” We all nodded. “But I won’t be plugged in?” We all nodded again, but cautious this time. We just stood and watched him; and it seemed like an eternity as he stood there, debating with himself, wrestling to try an’ come to a decision. And when he finally looked at us, all he said was, “Well, I think perhaps a chap gets to the point where he has to be a bit realistic, doesn’t he?”

  ‘We didn’t dare say a word. We just stood there staring at him, crossing our fingers. Then he nodded and it was almost like he was talking to himself as he said, “I’ve never wanted to be a singer. Always thought I’d be an instrumentalist. Always saw myself singing with my fingers, really. Never thought about singing with my voice.” He looked at us then and he said, “But I can have the guitar with me, up on the stage?”

  ‘We all nodded again, furiously.

  ‘And that’s when he said, “Well, perhaps … perhaps it’s for the best. As I said, sometimes a chap has to be realistic, doesn’t he?” He smiled at us all then. And he said, “All right then. I’d be very pleased to accept
your offer, to become a Dewsbury Desperado.” ’

  Sowerby Slim sighed then. Deak and Cindy-Charlene sighed as well. And suddenly the atmosphere in the van went back to being somewhat melancholic.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked. ‘I thought you all wanted him to join.’

  Cindy-Charlene sighed again and said, ‘We did.’

  ‘So why’ve you all gone so sad and depressed again?’ I asked them.

  Cindy-Charlene turned her head and stared out the window. And Sowerby Slim told me, ‘Don’t mind Cindy-Charlene, young man. It’s painful for her. It’s painful for all of us.’

  ‘Why?’ I said. ‘Why is it painful? It shouldn’t be painful,’ I said, ‘because I think it’s brilliant that you made the Cowboy sing. What was the point,’ I said, ‘what was the point in him wasting his time for ever, pretending he could be a guitarist when he never could? And all the time,’ I said, ‘all the time, he had an instrument that he could play, one instrument that he could play brilliantly …’

  I tailed off then because I could hear my voice beginning to crack and I could feel tears starting to form at the back of my eyes. So I just blinked and said nowt. But Sowerby Slim said, ‘Hey up. Now hold on. There’s no need for you to be getting upset, young man.’

  I nodded and I said, ‘I’m sorry, I just … it … I’m …’ But I couldn’t say nowt because all sorts of things were tumbling through my head. And I didn’t know if I should tell them or not. But then Cindy-Charlene turned round again and looked at me. And she said, ‘The reason we all find it a bit painful, Raymond, is because we all feel guilty!’

  ‘But why?’ I asked again. ‘Why should you be guilty when all you did was make the Cowboy see what he always should have seen? Made him see that he was a good singer! Wasn’t he happy?’ I said. ‘Wasn’t he happy being a singer?’