That Close

by Suggs

  ‘How much for the tonic suit in the window?’ I enquired.

  ‘Let’s have a look for you, son,’ said a fella with black greasy hair in a neat side parting. He hooked the suit down with a long pole and squinted at the label. ‘Nine quid, son, including alteration.’

  What! I only had eleven. That left me two quid for the weekend. But when I held that shimmering two-tone fabric in my hand, I had to have it. It took an hour to have the jacket taken in a smidge, and it fitted like a glove.

  The next thing I’m bowling down Tottenham Court Road like Jack the Peanut, and all that scraping fat and mincing pigs’ unmentionables had been worth it. Shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight, feeling like a cross between The Four Tops and Johnny Reggae. ‘He’s a real tasty geezer.’ I was on my way to meet Chalky and some of the others at this new club they were calling the Roxy, in Covent Garden.

  I’d seen the words, ‘The Clash’ sprayed in ten-foot letters across the smoked glass of the Capital Radio reception so I was intrigued when I saw them on the cover of the NME, they were going on about how all the records these days were made by old farts. Which was sort of true. But it was the picture of them that caught my eye. They looked good, they were young and they had short hair and straight trousers. The picture showed them with their backs to the camera and their hands on the wall like they’d just been nicked. The rest of the paper was full of old geezers in capes, or middle-aged brickies in glitter and stack-heel boots.

  The Roxy was where all the kids were headed to check out this new scene they were calling punk. It was 1977 and I was sixteen years old. As we piled down the dingy stairs covered in homemade posters and into the dark basement, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The place was full of kids, kids my age, all wearing gear that wasn’t the status quo or indeed worn by Status Quo.

  There was a fella in an undertaker’s outfit with green hair, a couple in matching boiler suits which had the words ‘Fuck’ and ‘Off’ on the back. Kids were dressed in all sorts of weird and wonderful homemade get-ups. Don Letts with his long dreads was in the DJ booth pumping out the bass-heavy Two Sevens Clash by Culture. I went to the bar and even the barman had blue hair. I got a pint and suddenly there was what sounded like an explosion. I nearly dropped my beer. It was a band called Eater striking up the first chords of their set. They started leaping about on stage like lunatics. Their average age fourteen. I’d never seen or heard anything like it. The bands I liked (Roxy Music, David Bowie, Cockney Rebel, Alex Harvey, etc.) all had edge, but this was a new dimension. Everyone in the room was jumping up and down. The barman shouted: ‘Fuck off, you cunt,’ and I turned round thinking he was talking to me. Until I realised everyone was doing it. It was like a coded greeting. Muriel from the Colony would have loved it.

  Eater’s short frenetic set ended as chaotically as it had begun, with guitars on the floor and the drum kit kicked over. The whole notion that you could be young, really young, was a revelation. Kids doing exactly what they wanted and doing it themselves. Musicians had always seemed on some distant pedestal, but this lot were just lying about on the floor in front of us.

  The reggae started to boom again. It was a strange mixture, but as there were hardly any punk recordings yet, dub reggae was filling the void. Exhilarated, me and the others headed out and round the corner for a last pint. But to get there we had to get past a notorious and dangerous disco called the Sundown, where hooligans from various teams would congregate on a Saturday night to kick the fuck out of each other to the strains of Minnie Riperton.

  Some of them were gathered on the pavement outside, all flares and long hair, and a couple of them had beards. ‘Fuck off, you punk pricks.’ They were West Ham, so we did. Out of sight of the Sundown we dived into the relative safety of the Angel round the back of St Giles. By the time we got in some of our new punk mates were in there already. We got chatting about what a laugh it had been, and exciting. The undertaker fella was at the bar showing our small gathering a homemade magazine he was involved in, a fanzine called Sniffin’ Glue. It was a lot of photocopied pages stapled together, with pictures and articles on all sorts of outrageous-looking new bands.

  Chalky and I took our pints and we sat in the corner. We both agreed it had been a great night, but Chalky wasn’t too sure about the music. ‘I loved the reggae but the other shit was just a bit too mad.’ I was in the middle of telling him that that was the point, when the pub door burst open. The place fell silent. ‘Oh great, it’s the West Ham.’ They’d followed us.

  I surveyed the scene – to my right the undertaker with the green hair, to my left a bird in a bin bag held together with safety pins, and the couple in the ‘Fuck’ and ‘Off’ boiler suits. In the middle, yours truly, resplendent in an aquamarine tonic suit. I tried to look inconspicuous. The fellas in the beards lurched in, wild-eyed. No way out. I wanted to shout: ‘Hang on, we’re not exactly with this lot, we’re football chaps too.’ But that was no use now. Tables, chairs, bottles and glasses were flying in all directions.

  There was nothing for it so me and Chalky stood up. Someone went to punch me, and I ducked just in time to meet a boot coming in the other direction. It hit me squarely in the nose. I fell forward on the floor and my jacket flipped over my head. Never mind my nose, please let nothing go over my suit. Peeping out from under the jacket all I could see were feet stomping up and down and glasses smashing on the floor. The punks were scattered in all directions. Chalky was disappearing backwards into the Ladies, carefully holding three pints of lager. The West Ham fans, satisfied with their work, and having upheld the right of every democratic British citizen to punch the fuck out of anyone you don’t like the look of, marched off back to the genteel civility of the Sundown.

  NEW YEAR’S EVE

  It was New Year’s Eve and I was potless, Mum was out and the gang were all meeting at the Duke of Hamilton in Hampstead. The guvnor there was a decent sort of bloke, and you could always rely on a lively teenage crowd in the cellar bar. He’d also started a happy hour for girls, half-price drinks between six and seven, so it attracted girls, unsurprisingly. Hampstead girls who lived in big houses and who had fridges with food in them.

  There was nothing in the flat except a bottle of whisky that Mum had won in a raffle, and a half-finished packet of tablets. I slipped the bottle in my inside pocket and looked at the tablets. They were blue. I’d heard something about ‘blues’ on a track from The Who’s Quadrophenia album. There was some line in a song on the album about taking blues because they got you going.

  I put the pills in my pocket, took a big slug of the whisky, and headed out. From Camden Road I took the overground to West Hampstead. I had the compartment to myself. I looked at the pills, took one and then another, washing them down with the whisky. I stared out of the window at the backs of broken houses as the train, stopping now and then, clattered west. No-one else got on and the hypnotic clickety-clack was starting to make me feel a bit drowsy. The train slowed and stopped. I came to, opened the door and stepped out, but unfortunately it hadn’t quite reached the station. I was running in the air like a cartoon character before I fell into a huge puddle at the side of the track. I pulled myself up, great, my suit trousers were soaked, walked down the line and bunked over the fence.

  Up the hill I stopped and knocked at my schoolmate Terry’s house, and his mum answered. They were Irish, from Mayo. The old man was sitting on his own in the parlour, flat cap on the back of his head, drinking a bottle of stout and listening to The Dubliners on their mahogany record player. He worked on a building site. He looked at me and pointed at the ceiling. ‘He’s upstairs.’

  When I went up, Terry wasn’t in his room. I heard him call from his brother Tommy’s room. I went in. Terry was in the wardrobe looking through his brother’s stuff. Tommy still had a lot of old skinhead gear, which he’d grown out of, but which we thought was great. Crombie, sheepskin coat, Ben Sherman shirts, brogues, loafers, all really good gear. Terry chucked on his brother’s sheepskin and
we had a swig of the whisky. I showed him my pills. He looked at them closely. ‘These ain’t blues, you fool, have a look.’ He peered at the packet. ‘They’re Valium, 100 mills.’ I didn’t know what he was on about, but I was feeling great.

  ‘You must be mad,’ he said. He popped one of the blue pills out of the packet and rolled it round in his palm. ‘Like drinking three pints in one go!’ Downstairs the front door slammed, which signalled that his mum and dad were off out to the pub. We went downstairs. Terry grabbed a couple of bottles of Guinness from the kitchen and we retired to the parlour.

  Terry’s brother also had a great collection of sixties and seventies ska and reggae records. Terry put on ‘Double Barrel’ by Dave and Ansell Collins. ‘I am the magnificent …’ It sounded great on the old mahogany player, the bass was booming. The speaker was on the bottom of the player, so Terry and I ended up lying on our backs, heads under the speaker, dancing with our legs, laughing our heads off. We didn’t hear Tommy come in. ‘What are youse two pricks up to?’ he said, throwing his car coat on the sofa. He had on a skin-tight jumper and big beige flares. He was a big fella generally, and well known locally.

  He went out, we got back up to our feet and he came back with a bottle of beer, flopping on to the chair. I proffered the whisky.

  ‘Where you two tosspots off to tonight?’

  ‘Probably going up the Duke in Hampstead.’

  ‘What, they’re all weirdos and poofs up there, ain’t they?’

  ‘Yeah, and girls.’

  ‘Girls? What? They ain’t proper girls. You wanna see girls? You wanna come with me down to Rupert’s in Paddington. That’s girls, that’s girls with make-up and skirts, not dungarees and monkey boots.’ He took a swig of my whisky and kicked off his platform shoes. I was feeling very strange.

  By the time we got to the Duke it was packed, old farts upstairs cradling jugs of ale, the cellar bar steaming with testosterone-fuelled teenagers. I couldn’t believe it when I first went in there, a real eclectic mix of kids into fifties and sixties clobber, Hampstead Teds, Kentish Town yobs, the Aldenham Glamour Boys, and the posh daughters of lefty intellectuals. ‘Mull of Kintyre’ was playing on the jukebox and a couple were swaying along. When it got to the bagpipe bit I felt strangely moved.

  Johnny Hasler, AKA Billy Whiz, had his feet on the table. Wearing Blackburns with a white stripe painted down the back, beaming his wide grin, fag between his teeth, pint in one hand and the other arm of his yellow Lewis leather jacket draped across his girlfriend Kate’s shoulder. In the corner Chas Smash, AKA Cathal Smyth, and Si Birdsall, both with cropped hair, immaculate in Prince of Wales and Kid mohair suits respectively. Chas standing, one brogued foot on the bench, talking to Si, who is sitting arms outstretched between their girlfriends, Sarah and Jo, the Brown twins with their long blonde hair. Si sporting a livid side parting, the remnants of a scar left from a Rockers’ chain across his nut. Lee ‘Kix’ Thompson and Barzo, both wearing sheepskin coats, are leaning up at the bar, ensconced in heated conversation with ‘Rockin” Tony Hilton. Thommo in black turtleneck and cream sta-prest, bright green DMs sticking out at the bottom. Barzo wearing a button-down shirt, unbuttoned, and Levi’s, clutching his pint with a hand spattered with spray-paint from the previous night’s exploits along the Overground line.

  They were arguing about music. We were always talking about music, day and night, and apart from sporting the finest quiff since Elvis walked the earth, Tony knew his stuff. He was a big fan of fifties rock ’n’ roll as were Barzo and Thommo, but Tony had started going back, right back through the Rockabilly stuff and off into the country, hillbilly ways. Sourcing obscure music was hard, but Tony knew his onions. He didn’t just look, he was ‘the part’. Chalky was talking football with Arsenal boy, ‘Binsy’, a Hampstead local, but a local from the council flats.

  Chrissy ‘Boy’ Foreman was chatting to Pat, Paul and John Jones. A fair contingent of the Aldenham boys were gathered in the corner. Occasionally you’d see their feathered haircuts bobbing up and down the stairs, in and out, for a spliff. Everyone swigging on pints of light and bitter, the hand pumps always poured a bit more than a half, so you got slightly more beer for your 30p. Bryan Ferry’s ‘Tokyo Joe’ was blasting out of the jukebox and Debbie, Thommo’s girlfriend, was dancing round the tables with her mate Marion. The pub was packed with the usual mix of hooligans, Teddy Boys, posh Hampstead girls, and the nucleus of what would become Madness.

  The place was more than a little lively come closing time and Johnny Hasler told me there was going to be a house party nearby. There often were, held at the homes of those posh daughters of Hampstead intellectuals whose parents, God help them, were away. Excitement spread through the cellar.

  I didn’t hold my breath. Being a few years younger than the rest of them I was way down the pecking order, and charming as my teenage self may have been, I was no match for ‘Rockin” Tony and the rest, in the dewy eyes of seventeen-year-old Hampstead girls. Even with my chest puffed out as far as it could, I’d often see the heels of the gang disappear through a big polished front door, only to be met by it slamming in my face. Of course it was dog eat dog with the older boys and, in fairness, I’m sure there were only so many yobbos a posh girl wants/needs in her house at any given moment. But, man, these houses were something to behold, big old gaffs with plenty of room to spread out, bedrooms all over the place. Big living rooms with good sound systems, loads of records and plenty of room to dance. And lest we forget, big fridges, with food in them.

  *

  I sat in the corner cradling my bottle of whisky, and my head was decidedly wonky. Jenny, a girl I’d seen around, floated into view. I liked her and I’d been to her flat a couple of times, nothing much had happened. It was a nice mansion flat with a communal garden. Her mum was an old hippy who’d get a bit fruity when she’d had a few. But she liked me, which was something, and she was very funny!

  ‘Want a fag?’ I certainly did. She handed one over, which I put in my mouth the wrong way round, then fumbled and dropped it.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, just a bit pissed.’ The Valium seemed to have turned my fingers to rubber. Terry was standing on a table singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

  ‘Sit down you prick, it’s only half ten.’

  Terry threw his beer in the air. He was one of them people who would suddenly go. Someone pulled him off the table. There were some real hard nuts in the pub, but there was no real malice in the air. Everyone was straight back into the new years jollities.

  Jenny went to get a drink and came back with a Bacardi and coke. I was starting to feel a little more human. Well, just drunk, not completely mangled.

  ‘You want to come to the party?’ She squeezed in next to me on the bench.

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ She smelt great and my senses were definitely returning.

  The party was in a big house just down the road and I got in, which was a result because, as I’ve said, I didn’t always.

  I headed for the kitchen; the fridge was already surrounded by admirers. I was starving. Mmm, ham, cheese. I made myself a sandwich and headed towards the music which was coming down the stairs. In the living room the lights were low and a few people were dancing. Jenny appeared with two warm cans of Breaker, some trendy new Canadian lager, but I wasn’t in a position to care. I took another of the blue things. ‘Fancy a dance?’

  There was a rock ’n’ roll compilation on the turntable and a few Teds were jiving away. I quite liked the old-style rock ’n’ roll, especially the Fats Domino stuff, the New Orleansy gear, it had a good roll. I smooched round the room a couple of times with Jenny on slightly wobbly legs before the song ended and we both collapsed onto a vacant sofa. With my arm round her shoulder I was sinking back into the dreamscape. A radio started broadcasting the bells of Big Ben and they sounded like they were being played through water. My head was resting on her shoulder.

  ‘Happy New Year,’ she said, and we chinked our warm beer cans
. The lights went out and she kissed me. People saying ‘Happy New Year’ and singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ echoed distantly round the room. I felt someone tug at my arm and it felt like they were in another room. The kiss swallowed me up and I was sinking to the centre of the earth. Someone shouted: ‘The lights have gone.’ Someone else lit a candle and the girl whose house it was started screaming, ‘You bastards!’ In the melee, someone had turned off the fuse box and had half the record collection away. The lights came back on and everyone had to leave.

  When I got outside Terry was asleep on the steps – he hadn’t been let in. Jenny said: ‘Do you want to come back to mine?’

  ‘Yes I do, but I can’t leave him here.’

  The girl whose party it was was crying at the top of the steps. Some of her dad’s cameras had gone too.

  ‘Just fuck off, the lot of you. I’m calling the police.’

  People were streaming past on either side. ‘Come on, let’s go.’ Jenny was pulling my sleeve. I can’t leave Terry here. He came to, with a start. ‘You snide bastard! Why did you leave me out here? I’m freezing.’

  ‘Come on, Terry, we gotta go.’ I tried to pull him up, but my fingers felt like celery. The blue things were working their magic again and the world was fading in and out.

  ‘Stay there then.’ Jenny ran down the steps, I followed on rubbery legs. The world faded back in just in time to see Terry throwing a bottle at me. It missed, he lurched towards me, we took a couple of wild swings, albeit slow ones, at each other before we ended up rolling on the ground.

  I could hear Jenny shouting in the distance. I was deafened and blinded by blue flashing lights, sirens, sight and sound all jumbled together, swirling like psychedelic dishwater down a giant plughole.

  I woke up in Hampstead police station, feeling like death. I was cold, really cold. They let me out and made me sign for all my worldly goods – a three-quarters-finished bottle of whisky with a few diced carrots and chips floating about in it, and 20p. I would have to appear at Highbury Magistrates’ Court in the Happy New Year.