A Search for Donald Cottee

by Philip Spires

  When I was very young, of course, I stayed by their side. I wasn’t allowed to go wandering off. By the time I got to eight or nine, I started feeling self-conscious whenever my parents had a bit of a cuddle. It would get to half past three. We would have finished eating and they would lay out a rug on the grass and have a nap. They used to have a real good cuddle. My mother always used to wear trousers - a rarity in those days, so they could get very close indeed and still be decent. She had no worries about keeping her skirt pulled over her knees. It started to embarrass me, so I took to wandering off into my own world, which was often a vantage point from where I could watch them necking.

  What was also embarrassing, once I’d understood what was going on, was listening to my father reading the newspapers. Normally the Sunday papers were delivered to the house by a young lad on a bike. He rode with a big open sack slung across his front, supported by a wide diagonal strap that went across his chest - and in summer it was a chest that was often bare. I used to envy him, even from a young age. It was almost as if we grew up together despite sharing no more than a word of greeting each morning. He seemed to be such a free agent, all by himself on his bike, apparently able to do his job in his own time, riding his round at his own speed. In the young view, he was the closest I could imagine to complete freedom. I soon realised, of course, that he had to rush like an idiot to complete his round by eight every morning so he could pedal his way to school where, in summer, the shirt went on and a tie followed, because he went to the grammar school in Bromaton. But when I used to get up to watch him sweep off the main road into our drive with my dad’s papers, the Telegraph and the Financial Times rolled up to a pink and white baton in one hand, I thought he was nothing less than a star.

  But newspapers on Sunday were different. Our boy had a day off on Sunday. My mother told me he was ‘chapel’ and that he went to church with his family. So on Sunday we walked to the shop, my father and I. It was all part of the day’s ritual. We would set off just after we got up, which was rarely before nine - what degenerates we were! - and would go out of the kitchen door just as breakfast was starting its genesis on the cooker. The newsagent was only two hundred yards away along the main road, on a corner where the buses to Ribthwaite turned left. The shop was always full, but we had a regular order and so our papers were saved for us behind the counter. As soon as Mrs Cross saw us come through the door, her hand would automatically reach down to the lower shelf, underneath the display of Smarties, Maltesers, Polos of various colours, blue packs of Cadbury pouring milk, Mars bars, Kitkats and other things that interested me, to locate the thick pile of papers with ‘Mullins’ written in pencil across the banner. I usually nagged for something from the shelf above, but usually the words, “Your breakfast will be ready in a minute,” came as an automatic response, sometimes issued by a smiling Mrs Cross before my father could speak. We didn’t even need to pay because we settled up monthly from a bill that the paper boy delivered during the week. It wouldn’t do to pay bills on a Sunday! So the whole trip might take only a minute or two and there would be no queuing. Come rain or shine we walked that Sunday papers walk. It was a ritual, as was reading the News Of The World that afternoon, usually when he was stretched across a tartan car rug that had been set out across the grass for our picnic. Having just finished his serious read, his Sunday Telegraph, he would pick up his second of the day for his weekly treat.

  “Now for a little bit of jam with your pudding,” he might say, or even “Here’s a bit of ‘How’s your father?’” as he unfolded the paper. Then it would only be a minute or two later that the first guffaws would disturb the quiet. My mother’s eyes would lift in an attempt at a long suffering silent sigh, but if truth is told, she was more interested in what he was about to read out loud than he was. He would start just a few seconds later, having recovered full use of his voice. She used to tell him to mind his language. She would sit there, tut-tutting, taking over-stated deep breaths, telling him to be quiet or he’d get us all locked up, that he shouldn’t say such things in front of me, or words to that effect. But really she loved every minute. The stories were a bit naughty, she once said to me, but at the time I didn’t understand what she meant, thinking perhaps that it meant something like what I was when I went to bed late or forgot to wash my neck. A few years later, of course, I understood perfectly and that’s why I started going off for my walks.

  By the time I got to thirteen or fourteen, I was as keen on listening to what my father read as she was, except that for a while I dare not admit it. I used to sit there, still embarrassed but strangely drawn, transformed by the experience. I can remember my mother watching me, almost taking pride in the fact that I was obviously growing up. And it was also around that time, towards the end of the nineteen fifties, when some of the stories started getting a bit more risqué. It was one thing to use words like ‘intimate’, but it was something else to use what I first understood as Latin for six, or refer to parts of a man related to peninsula, even if we were at the seaside. By then I knew precisely what was going on and both my parents knew it. In many ways, they treated me just like another adult, which I liked. I suppose we were a very liberal, liberated family in an era where such behaviour was rare, but where its pursuit was suddenly fashionable. But those stories in the News Of The World weren’t about middle-class business families like ours, or at least that’s what we assumed. They were windows into a different kind of existence, lives we preferred to keep at arm’s length both because we were above things like that but, more probably, precisely because they featured in the pages of that particular newspaper, a place where our lives would surely never figure. They would both turn in their graves if they thought that their wonderful Suzie, their beautiful daughter, was now a character described in one of those stories featured in that Sunday rag. They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Well this comes pretty close.

  It’s been nearly a year since I took on The Castle and it’s gone from strength to strength. We might not be back to the glory days of years ago, but we are doing very well. And getting the acts sorted out was one of the main things that has led to the improvements. Takings are up. Footfalls are up. We serve more food and more of the better quality, higher profit end of the menu.

  One of the new lads I signed up was a dead straight singer. Tommy Dean he called himself. He had a good voice and I thought he looked just like Billy Fury. When he did his audition, I could just imagine him wearing that long coat with the velvet collar. All he needed was a better hairstyle and a curl across his forehead. I told him what I thought and he was confused. He was only twenty-odd and had never heard of anyone called Fury. He wasn’t even born when Billy was big. I can remember that afternoon quite clearly. He sang one song that I didn’t care for and then he did a ballad, one of those steamy Lionel Ritchie numbers and I came over quite funny. I hadn’t felt like that for years. I was sure I had something with him, but he needed grooming so he would appeal to a different generation. If he could do that to me, he could do it to lots of older women and they would turn up in their droves. I gave him a bit of a cuddle and sang a few lines of Halfway to Paradise, but he clearly hadn’t heard the song before. He seemed embarrassed when I told him he had only taken me halfway there, as if it was some form of personal failure. He seemed guilty, hurt. I gave him another hug and laughed it off. He needed building up, I thought.

  I told him that I thought he could get the grannies’ juices flowing, especially if he did the early sixties look as well. He was all cheekbones and forehead, so the kiss-curl would sit perfectly. The tight trousers would fit across that behind, I thought, and those thighs, well I ask you... On stage he was all quiet confidence, deep voiced and in control. The minute I got near him, however, he flopped into a dollop of marmalade. He went all quiet, withdrawn, almost unable to speak. For the most part, he was like that whenever he wasn’t performing. And when he was not singing, that deep luscious tone became a mere peck and whi
stle. He spoke in little jabs, never lines. With a mike in his hands, he was simply transformed. He was a born performer. And those words, those words, they are the stiff of wet dreams...

  I want to be your lover.. I’m only halfway to paradise ... I long for your lips to kiss my lips ... Bein’ close to you is almost heaven ... Put your sweet lips close to my lips ... Do’t lead me halfway to paradise ... so near, yet so far away

  Well I set him on, but on condition he did some research and came back a Billy Fury tribute. That’s exactly what he did. He did early evenings, always turning up early to sit for an hour and read the paper and have a meal before going up to my office to get changed. The meal soon became a regular and contractual part of his pay. When he’d finished his act, he put his jeans and t-shirt back on in the office and then got off home in his car as soon as he could. I don’t think he ever had any other work around town. He changed his name, of course. We called him Jerry Little, the big crooner from Punslet. He’s not actually from Punslet, by the way.

  He was a one-time drag artist, failed comedian and then part-time DJ, specialising in house, whatever that is. He only recently discovered he had a singing voice and then came to me for an audition just to test the water. And I go and change his whole act there and then, before he’d even got started. There was no-one more surprised than him. I could tell that. He did three months for me and, as predicted, the ladies couldn’t get enough of him. They’d have his trousers if they could reach.

  Soon after he became a regular, Jerry used to bring his girlfriend along. You don’t ask questions in this business. People turn up, do their act, get paid and then go home. I assumed it was his girlfriend, but she was a funny sort. All frills and no knickers, that one, if you ask me... She was one of those aerobics, all skin and bone, with deep purple bags around her eyes. I thought from the start she might be on something. I couldn’t get it out of my mind the first few times I saw her. It was such a tragedy to see a young life like hers being rotted away by chemicals. If I could have got my hands on the dealers that were pushing her the stuff, I would have strangled them. But she was still quite attractive, if unpredictable. At one stage she begged me for work, saying she hadn’t any money and needed a job, and would do absolutely anything, any hours, and for any pay. I told her I would think about it and let her know. Every dog might have its day, but for the life of me I couldn’t imagine her and talent occupying the same space.

  Well a few days later I needed some hours of bar work to cover for illness. I gave her a call and was surprised to find that she didn’t even remember asking me for work. She denied everything, confidently asserting that I must have got her mixed up with someone else. I checked her name. I was right. It was her. I had the right person. Jasmine was her name. It takes all sorts, I thought.

  She told me once that her family had a bar up the coast. She also told me that they were losing money every day they opened. It was clear they hadn’t the first idea of how to run a business. They couldn’t even add up. They had hardly any customers, save for a few regulars who came and drank their cheap beer all day and all night, got drunk every time and stopped your average punter from coming through the door. They did no food apart from nuts and crisps because they had no cooking facilities. It was just a little lock-up shop front. They didn’t even have anywhere to store their spare barrels. They were under the counter from what Jasmine told me. Well that’s no way to go on, is it? Let the cobbler stick to his last. People who have no shoes shouldn’t try to think. When I offered Jerry some extra hours, he said he couldn’t because he was helping out behind their bar. I didn’t need a course on psychology to know he was lying. I had no idea what was going on.

  She stopped coming to The Castle with Jerry. He still turned up, did his act, never spoke to a soul and then went straight home. And then, all of a sudden, he seemed to develop a plastic bag fetish. Every time anyone came into the bar with a bag, he would have it. One of the bar staff came in one day with two handfuls of shopping from Mercadona, all cleaning stuff and new dusters that I’d sent out for. You should have seen him go for those bags. And there was another time when I sent a delegation to the British cash and carry down towards La Vila. They were doing a special on Bombay Mix, so I bought a bulk load. My theory was that people would eat it by the handful and then buy extra drinks to mop up the salt and chilli. And did it work? It certainly did. Bar takings rocketed. And we did especially good with the bottled water, which is our highest profit item, because we fill them up from the tap and in any case no-one knows any different when it comes out of one of those multi-purpose squirters. But when they came back with my snacks, Jerry as usual was in early doors eating his steak pie and chips - like everyone else, he always left the salad - and he just couldn’t settle until he’d got all of those plastic bags. I can remember watching him fold them one by one and packing them into his pockets. Truth is stranger than fiction, I thought, and something told me that this wasn’t the last I would hear of Jerry and his plastic bags. When strangeness invites itself in, you can feel it in the air.

  As he was helping us unpack the Bombay Mix, I turned to him and said, “Do you like something a bit hot then?” I can remember it clearly. Because he said so little, I was just trying to get something, anything out of him.

  “I do,” he said. But then after a pause he continued, “Do you want those plastic bags?”

  “No,” I said, “we’ll just ditch them.”

  “Is it all right if I take them?” he asked timidly.

  “Of course you can. Are you collecting them or something? You’ve had your eyes on every plastic bag that’s gone through this bar for the last week.”

  Now I thought I was making a bit of a joke, but he just seemed to melt when I spoke. It was the strangest of reactions, as if I had just discovered him doing something he shouldn’t, if you see what I mean. But then he was always a bit like that, so I didn’t give it a second thought. But it’s clear now that he hadn’t thought that anyone had noticed him taking all those bags.

  “Do you need any more?” I asked. “I’ll ask the others to save theirs.” He nodded guiltily.

  Now you know that everyone has hundreds of the things at home. We all have cupboards full, stuffed with crinkly creased wrappings we swear will come in useful one day. All we ever do is get more every time we go to the shop. When I told everyone Jerry wanted their spare bags, they collectively decided that it was time for a clear out. So within a few days Jerry had hundred of the things. He was even more embarrassed when he told everyone that he didn’t need any more because he now had enough.

  “Enough for what?” I remember asking. He didn’t answer. Still waters...

  Well everything was quite normal for a couple of weeks. Jerry came early doors as usual, had his steak pie and chips, got changed, did his Billy Fury tribute, took everyone halfway to paradise and then went home in his old Escort. Then, without warning, he didn’t turn up. By eight thirty I’d started to panic and so I rang his mobile but it was switched off. I had to apologise to the waiting hordes of blue-rinsed old ladies and then had to arrange a cover for the following few evenings before I could get round to tracing what might have happened. It was the next day before I tried Jerry again, but his mobile was still dead. I offered a contract to my cover act after a few days. It was as if Jerry Little had disappeared off the face of the earth.

  It was last Friday afternoon when Maureen reappeared at the door of my office. We had chatted earlier, just after I arrived, while she was finishing off her cleaning. She’d left and we’d said goodbye because she wasn’t due behind the bar that evening. But she came back clutching one of the English newspapers. She had it folded open to an inside page where she had already outlined a large story in green highlighter. Now our Maureen is not one to waste words. She came in, put the paper onto the desk before me and then immediately left. I watched her disappear across the upstairs landing, past Phil and Karen’s c
losed door before I looked at the story.

  “Human body parts found in basura,” said the headline. I have the cutting here in front of me now. “Summer visitors, Jim and Aileen Greatrex, both 63, from Punslet, got the shock of their lives on Tuesday. They were on their way out of their apartment for their morning walk when they paused to drop a bag of kitchen waste into the communal bins in the street outside Torre Alta, Calle Montaña. Early risers, the couple were up and about at six, and the street was deserted.

  The basura bin had been left open all night and local strays had scavenged some of its contents. Being community-minded, Jim and Aileen decided to pick up the half a dozen bags strewn across the road and replace them in the bin.

  Imagine their shock when one of them split and a human foot dropped into the gutter. Forensic tests later confirmed that the foot was indeed human. The Guardia Civil have been informed.

  Stop press: A British man is helping police with their inquiries.”

  I don’t know what prompted Maureen to put two and two together, but my thoughts followed the same logic. Great minds... We both kept our opinion to ourselves, however, preferring not to comment whenever gossip in The Castle moved onto the subject. We kept quiet for a couple of days, but then I got a phone call from that nice lady in London. “Hello. I work for the News Of The World. I wonder if you have time to answer a few questions about an entertainer who is known by the names Jerry Little, Tommy Dean, Jimmy Briggs, amongst others?”

  They ran the story the following Sunday. It was one of those predictable ‘Costa del Crime’ stories, where everyone is a criminal, wears flip-flops all year and has pints of lager for breakfast. The Castle was mentioned, and I was quoted. Jasmine had taken a job in a local club. The family was so short of money she’d gone on the game, poor thing. She did most of her work while Jerry was away doing his turn at The Castle. The report claimed that he knew nothing about Jasmine’s earnings. But then he found out and flipped his lid. The story was that he did nothing for a few days - probably the days he used to collect his plastic bags - and then, a week or so later, he calmly did her in with a kitchen knife while she was making his burger and chips. He parked her in the bath and then, over the next couple of days, systematically cut her into little pieces, wrapped them in several layers of plastic bags and deposited them in small numbers each day in local rubbish bins. He had almost finished the job, and successfully, when someone left a bin open overnight and one of his bags finished up punctured in the road.