Heaven's Promise

by Paolo Hewitt

  Jasmine gave me a sweet smile and told me not to worry my old grey matter on such a thing. That particular scenario, she mysteriously added, had already been sorted, so please, could I at least approach Costello with the idea. This I did and two weeks later, Rajan came to work, decked out in a turban and a tracksuit, he too caught between his family and the new world they inhabited. He made for a fine bouncer, meaning that he didn’t hold a grudge against the people trying to get into the club, but treated everyone with a firm courtesy. What was more surprising was The Sheriff’s attitude towards him who, in a remarkable scene, actually allowed Rajan to frisk him, the first time ever I saw another man’s hands near him, without the gory sight of blood and bruises following. I couldn’t get a hold on The Sheriff’s accommodating mood swing towards Rajan until, one night, Brother P., after some close observation, informed me that he wouldn’t be at all surprised if Jasmine and The Sheriff were getting it on, hence the biting of lips all round. My man’s hunch was on the ball and, I figured, made sense. Both numbers were burdened down by their past and maybe together they could at least offload some of the weight and find peaceful contentment. Some hope. Two months after the fling begun, two months in which both had quietened down considerably, Jasmine, arrived, unannounced at The Sheriff’s Notting Hill pad, to find him entwined in the arms of his landlady. As The Sheriff had informed her that the gaff belonged to his sister, Jasmine not only screamed betrayal but incest as well, before rushing down to The Unity where she downed, her head turned upside down, three whiskies, four beers and two large spliffs. Then she waited.

  An hour later, The Sheriff walked in looking for her. A pint of beer being thrown into his face, a barrage of obscenities that I hesitate to record and a right hook from Jasmine that Ali himself would have been proud of, left him standing motionless, beer and blood dripping down his handsome visage.

  The Sheriff turned calmly around, walked back to the front door, tapped Rajan on the shoulder, said, ‘don’t you ever frisk me again,’ and went to punch him.

  Rajan, quicker than an arrow, saw the blow coming, ducked and then dragged The Sheriff out into the street and administered a series of punches and kicks that had an ambulance screaming up to the club ten minutes later to cart The Sheriff off to the emergency ward.

  I didn’t see the man again for two weeks although this amount of time was nothing compared to an incident, back in the days, when he was forced to spend double that amount in a hospital bed, following his mission to meet Prince and ask him a question that he badly needed an answer to. On tour in London, it was easy to establish on the grapevine that after each show, Prince would head for a small club to deliver an impromptu performance and, although you needed a special ticket to gain entry, and security was tighter than Fort Knox, it was precisely those sort of odds that served to inspire The Sheriff even further. At the stroke of midnight, at a northside club, The Sheriff bowled up.

  ‘Ticket mate,’ said the security man.

  ‘Left it at home.’

  ‘Well, fuck off back there and get it.’

  ‘Eat shit. I’m going in to see Prince. He’s expecting me. We have an appointment. Alright?’

  ‘Don’t joke with me, son.’

  ‘Look dad, you haven’t got the capacity to understand one of my jokes, even if it came up stark bollock naked and landed on your ugly face. Now move aside.’

  ‘I’m warning you.’

  ‘I’m shivering with fright.’

  ‘Okay, then, I’ve tried reason. Now try this.’

  At which point, the crowd scattered as the security man’s fisticuff landed square on The Sheriff’s jaw, sending teeth, blood and his body clattering to the ground.

  The Sheriff shook himself to and disappeared, and the crowd, shocked and shaken, started to regroup as the bouncers tried to calm everyone down. Some semblance of normality was just starting to return when suddenly a war cry went up and there was The Sheriff, dustbin lid in hand, bum rushing the show.

  This time the bouncers didn’t wait around to exchange pleasantries, because, boy-o-boy, they started in on him seriously. Bouncers spend the night at a door coiled up and waiting for trouble. When it arrives, all that pent up energy is released and that is not a sight to behold at anytime.

  It was as The Sheriff was literally fighting off this ferocity, that a black limo pulled up and none other than Prince himself stepped out, surrounded by his bodyguards. Despite his predicament, The Sheriff saw his chance to ask the music man the question that had bugged him for so long.

  ‘Prince!’ shouted The Sheriff, as the bouncers were momentarily stopped by his unexpected presence, ‘what key is “Sign Of The Times” in? I need to know, me and my mate have been trying to work it out.’

  But the music man did not stay to answer and The Sheriff was hospitalised for a month, a time I was reliably told, he spent composing poems, one of which, ‘Kerouac meets The Supremes,’ he showed to me on his return to The Unity and, impressed I was too, especially by the opening line that ran, ‘My pen is as a restless vulture that picks at the corpse of my memory,’ and told me, at least, that underneath it all, he was not a ma n to be underrated.

  ‘Why, you should turn your anger to literature,’ I informed him one night standing up at the booth. He was just about to reply when Stinga appeared and, as this character was now seeing Jasmine, The Sheriff was not too enamoured by his presence, although he knew that he had no cause to complain about the failure of his link with her. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but I must go drown my sorrow in tomato and lemonade juice,’ and with that he exited. Stinga shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not my fault,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Sorry?’ I said, trying to make sense although with Stinga that was always a problem. His angle on life was one of the strangest I’ve ever come across arid relates back to Jesus and his 12 disciples. Stinga’s belief was that down the ages, certain people had arrived on earth who were also disciples.

  His list numbered such cats as Muhammad Ali, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mandela, Stevie Wonder, et al. Therefore, went his reasoning, which was delivered, by the way, with absolute sincerity, through adopting their particular look for a month at a time, he would actually get close to God. Tonight, he was Thelonious Monk, sporting a dark suit, large Russian style hat, and shades, whilst fully indulging in the Monk’s supposed habit of mumbling his words. He was also taking piano lessons though one shuddered to think how he would carry off Gorbachev when the time came. Jasmine, who had now come up to the booth as well, felt the same way.

  ‘These gears are alright,’ she said, ‘but I’m gone when you get to Gandhi. I mean, are you really going to walk around with round spectacles and a bedsheet? Anyway, bedsheets can be put to much better purposes, know what I’m saying?’

  Stinga mumbled a reply and the pair walked off as I pulled out The Night Writers ‘Let The Music Use You,’ an awesome, let me tell you, production and song, and started pondering, as I cued it in, on how I was going to break the Sandra news to Indigo. It was a tricky one because either I laid my cards on the table and owned up to her, which might mean her walking on two counts of deception and perjury, or she would find out for herself, and that, my friends, was the whole problemo. Brother P. had advised the first course.

  ‘You talk about this honesty vibe you have between you,’ he would point out with typical accuracy, ‘but you haven’t told her you’re a father? Shit man, you going to have to do better.’

  ‘I knows, I knows,’ I would say, ‘but I should have told her first time ever I saw her face. Now I feel that if I let the rabbit out, she’s going to think that everything I’ve told her is a crock.’

  ‘Man, just tell her. If things are as strong as you say, then it will play, no doubt about it.’

  The Brother P. was right. Life gives us many things but what it never allows us to do is turn back the hands of time, always a cause of eternal regret, and so I kept my counsel for the time being, and decided to wait for the right moment to arrive.

 
As I was doing so, the clear summer sky started carrying the scars of approaching autumn clouds, and it was as the season started to make its move, that a letter from Costello, of all people, landed on my doormat. Addressed to all Unity staff, it asked that we attend his office at four in the afternoon, that very day. After a trip Westward Ho to buy up some new tunes and shoot the breeze with whoever was hanging out down at Dillon’s shop, I made my way to The Unity, me, myself and I being the last to reach. It was strange, I have to say, to see the club in full daylight, as it transformed it into a place that was slightly unfamiliar.

  ‘Ah, glad you could make it,’ Costello said, as I made with the apologies and sat down with the rest of the staff on the tables and chairs by the ba r. The mood was down beat and downcast because, unknown to me, certain rumours had been flying around which did not point to a rosy future, a point Costello was able to confirm.

  ‘I have some very bad news,’ he started and everyone now knew the worst was on its way. ‘The local council wish to terminate the club’s licence and close it down. They wish to build a car park. I am very sad to tell you this but the matter has been voted on and, according to my solicitor, is final and binding.’

  All of us stared dumb founded at this middle aged Greek guy who, despite all the bluff exterior was, when all was said and done, a decent man to be your wage payer, but at this moment, he looked sad and tired, as if all the years of his life had finally broken through onto his face and shoulders, and beaten him down and into submission.

  ‘I am currently looking for new premises but as this for this place...’ Costello waved his hand vaguely around him and sat down. He had nothing more to say. The club he had run for seven years was like a second home to him and now the town’s planners had taken it away from him. All his memories were to be crushed into the ground by the builder’s machinery and there would be nothing left.

  One of the staff, a young gal from Bristol called Kathy, who had come up to town to study hard during the day and earn some much needed cashola at night, was not about to stand for it. She shot up and demanded that we organise a petition, to be signed by all the regulars and ourselves, and then follow up with a march on the town hall.

  Most people present shook their heads. Either they were not at all fazed by Costello’s tragic news or they simply didn’t believe, as was the country’s present mood, in the value of protest, a concept that Mrs T. had successfully implanted in most people’s minds.

  ‘So what do you say?’ Kathy demanded of the assembled.

  There was nothing but silence to answer her.

  ‘What is this?’ she asked, puzzled by her silent work companions. ‘Doesn’t anyone want to do something? Are we going to just sit back and let them get away with it?’

  She had a fighting spirit that life had not been able to budge, and she also had a point that couldn’t be denied, which was namely that if everyone always went with the greyer’s demands, then gals, for example, wouldn’t have the vote and the Vietnam war would probably still be in full swing.

  Costello was not in a fighting mood. ‘These people,’ he said wearily, ‘have made up their minds. All this area is to be turned into a shopping centre. It’s wrong and, yes, we can protest but, believe me, they’ll do what they want to do. There’s too much money at stake. I’ll just have to find another club.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Kathy implored, ‘don’t give up without at least a fight. I know things look bleak but we can do something about it. I can get some leaflets made up at college and we can hand them out to people over the next few weeks, tell them what’s happening. Or we could get in touch with the press and shame these bandits publicly. There’s loads of things we can do but let’s not give up just like that.’

  ‘You don’t know these people,’ Costello replied. ‘So I start another club somewhere else. It’s no big deal, really. You can all come and work there when it’s ready.’

  ‘Is that a promise?’ Kathy shot back, ‘or are you going to let the Council decide who you employ or where you work? All of you lot,’ she said, turning to look at us all, ‘are pathetic. I really can’t believe you’re going to let them do this without a fight. Let’s at least get a petition up.’

  ‘If you want to do that, then it’s in your hands Kathy,’ Costello explained. ‘Meanwhile, we’ve got three weeks left before they move in. Now if you’ll excuse me...’

  Costello stood up and walked slowly to his office, closing the door gently behind him.

  ‘Well,’ Jill said, ‘that’s the end of that, then,’ and as everyone started to gather round, I picked up my newly acquired tunes and made for the exit sign, followed by Kathy who angrily stalked past me.

  I figured she wasn’t my biggest fan in the world as the Sandra debacle had won me few favours with the women in the club, but I at least wanted to applaud her spirit.

  ‘You alright?’ I asked. ‘No, are you?’

  She was grim faced and about to boil over.

  ‘I just wanted you to know that I agreed with you back there.

  If you need help with anything you only have to ask.’

  ‘Is that why you kept your mouth shut in there?’

  ‘I don’t like to make snap judgements,’ I explained. ‘What are you studying, anyway?’

  ‘The life and times of Fidel Castro,’ she told me and as she did something seemed to snap in her brain because she suddenly stopped walking and turned to face me.

  ‘You might like to know that at one point Castro had an army of about twenty men fighting 30,000 soldiers. He didn’t give in. He won the war. But then,’ she finished her history lesson by looking me up and down, ‘he was a man. See ya.’

  Kathy walked and, on an impulse, I decided to head up to nearby Regent’s Park to find some peace and solace so as to gather up my thoughts whilst checking out the beautiful, and there is no other word, flower gardens they keep there which is one of my fave spots in town.

  It was one of the boss things about this sprawling metropolis, for one minute you could be passing through an urban scenario so bleak that you wanted to shed a tear for all those families who had been crammed in and left to rot there, and then, before you knew it, you were standing in a nearby park, that was so serene and calming, it made you glad to be around to feel and see it all. I passed an hour away in the park with only my thoughts for company and what thoughts they were, a jumbled up kaleidoscope of mixed emotion and premonition for the future, and the realisation that just as my runnings had settled down to a very comfortable pace, life had once again upped the odds.

  I couldn’t help feeling that I was in static limbo, especially where work was concerned, for recently I had made up tapes of my some of my mixes and posted them off to a few pirate radio stations. That was weeks ago and I still hadn’t heard a word, probably because the whole pirate scene was now overflowing with DJ’s, all of whom had watched DJ groups, such as M/A/R/R/S or Bomb The Bass hit number one, and wanted in on the action. Costello’s bombshell hadn’t helped, either, for what if he didn’t find new premises or, worse still, herded together a brand new staff to help him with his new venture.

  Summer was starting to close in on me and I needed a voice to reassure me, to tell me that every little thing would be alright, and there was only one candidate for the job. I went and belled Indigo.

  ‘Hi, babe, what you doing?’

  ‘Studying. You alright?’

  ‘Not really, can I come over?’

  ‘Why, what’s up?’

  ‘Just some news which I wish I hadn’t heard.’

  ‘Well, give me a couple of hours to finish off this essay before coming. It should have been in yesterday. Is that alright?’

  ‘Not really. I’ve got to go home and pick up my tunes. I’m working tonight.’

  ‘I’ll pop down the club then. It’s about time I did.’

  I didn’t dare hesitate in my reply or Indigo, who is sharp when it comes to these matters, would have pounced on me straight away. She knew me tha
t well.

  ‘Well, it won’t be a particularly great night. Wednesdays never are.’

  ‘That’s alright, I feel like a bit of a night out. It feels like I haven’t stopped working. I’ll come for about ten, okay?’

  ‘I might not be able to talk to you. JJ isn’t coming down and I’ve got to do the whole shift.’

  ‘Scared I might not like your DJ’ing?’

  ‘That isn’t it.’

  ‘I’ll check you about ten. You sure you’re alright?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine. We’ll talk later.’

  ‘You can tell me now.’

  ‘Nah, it’s cool. But don’t come if it’s going to interfere with your study.’

  ‘I told you, I’ll be finished soon. I wouldn’t do that anyway. My degree is much more important than you are.’

  ‘Thanks, babe. I feel the same way about my record collection.’

  ‘Lonely wanker.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Check you later.’

  ‘Bye darling.’

  As you know I didn’t want to run the risk of Indigo coming to the club and hearing about the Sandra incident but now I had no choice for my hand had been forced, and so I promised myself that on this very night, after the dance was through, I would lay bare everything to her and damn the consequences.

  That night, I reached The Unity early, set myself up in the booth and went in search of Jill who I found taking a quick drink at the bar before the faces started arriving in numbers.

  ‘Jill, a friend of mine is coming down tonight...’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she pointlessly interjected.

  ‘And I’d really appreciate it if no one mentioned Sandra or any of that business to her. Know what I’m saying?’

  Jill arched her eyebrows. ‘Why not?’ she asked.

  ‘Because I haven’t told her anything yet and I plan to lay it on her tonight, after the club. Can you help me out on this one?’

  ‘I might be able to,’ she replied. ‘Sandra says you haven’t been to visit yet.’

  ‘Yeah, well the best laid plans of mice and men and all that.