Stardust

by Ray Connolly

  ‘I expect that’s your plan. Someone offered you a better job pimping professionally. You’re probably going up to London to live off the likes of some obscene hussy in a Soho brothel. Well, you can take your caravan and go. I want no more of you and your filth. I was going to replace you anyway, but it was only the kindness of my heart that kept you here, with that twisted leg and everything.’

  Mike had listened to Jack’s sermons before but it was the first time he had noticed that Jack actually began to speak in an Irish brogue when he became really excited. Funny thing for a man born in Liverpool.

  Anyway, that was that. He’d turned his back on the fair but he was still lumbered with a caravan that was falling apart, which he didn’t need and which he was unable to move. And then he had an idea; an idea so simple in conception that he began to wonder if perhaps his true vocation didn’t lie in pimping after all.

  ‘What you need is a new van,’ he told the assembled Stray Cats when he met them again in the afternoon. This one won’t get you anywhere and without a van you’re dead.’

  The group looked at him and maintained their silence. It was such a crushingly obvious thing to say that no one even bothered to agree with him. Anyway he didn’t expect any answer, because without waiting for one he climbed into the driver’s seat, started the engine and began to pull out of the car-park, so that the entire group had to race after him, climbing aboard with much cursing and swearing as he drove across the pavement and out on to the main road.

  ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing?’ said Johnny climbing across J.D.’s drums to get to Mike, and rapping his head on the roof as a reward for his pains.

  ‘Just leave it to me, sonny,’ said Mike, trying to find fourth gear, and then settling to drive in third. ‘We’re going to meet a man in the motor trade.’

  Chapter Three

  Life was good for Ralph Woods. Of that he was certain. Educated at a Welsh minor public school he had wisely invested the one thousand pounds he had inherited into the single industry of which he knew where honesty was not so much a handicap as a negative force, and by late 1963 he was well on his way to becoming a man of some means. He owned a used car lot, and though he said it himself, and he frequently did, there were no better bargains to be found in the entire West Midlands. What he did not explain was that it was he Who was invariably on the happy end of any bargain deal. But then life was good to Ralph Woods. He had his car lot, his wife, two adorable children, a modern detached house, and he was on the committee of both the local tennis club and the Young Conservatives. He certainly had no cause for complaint. Some people might have considered that selling used cars was not the most prestigious form of business in which to be involved in a small town, and that it didn’t lead to becoming President of the Chamber of Commerce, but Ralph Woods was a forward-looking man: a man with two new Fords in his drive, a deep-freeze and spin-drier in his wife’s kitchen, and had he not promised that for Christmas she would have a dish washer? She was a lucky woman she said, and he agreed.

  But then he was a lucky man. Because not only did he have two cars … he also had two women. He loved his wife with more intensity than he could express sometimes (most times), but he found that the rigours of his life style called for a carnal relationship quite outside the rigid framework of the social web he had built around himself; and Wendy Arrowsmith, 18-year-old shop assistant (perfume and toilet goods counter) was nothing if not carnal. At first he’d taken her back to his little wooden office for their meetings; but Wendy wasn’t a girl to be content with a couple of squalid cushions on the floor. She was in love and he’d better come up with something a bit more comfortable than that or she’d go back to her fishmonger fiancé. This had perturbed Ralph Woods for some little time, until luck had led him to Mike Menarry and his caravan behind the fair. Wendy was satisfied. Ralph got his oats. And life was good.

  He was reflecting happily upon his situation in his office the afternoon after President Kennedy’s assassination when he noticed a very unlikely crew of youths assembling outside his window in the gathering gloom. He recognized their type instantly: secondary modern boys who wouldn’t work. Whatever they were selling was no good and he was sure they would never have the cash to buy any of his models.

  There were five of them, lolling and leaning over a little yellow Ford Commer. At a glance he had priced it. Ten quid of his own money and he’d be able to get £60 for it. He wouldn’t offer them a penny more than £25, and there would be no bargaining. He could do without junk like that lying around his yard anyway.

  ‘How much d’you reckon?’ A fair-haired, pushy boy was asking for a price right away. That was a good sign. If he’d known its value he would have come out with his starting figure. They must be desperate to sell.

  ‘Mind if I take it for a test drive, lads?’ Ralph Woods smiled his confidence inspirer. They all nodded eagerly, and turning to lock the door to his office since he didn’t like the look of any of the dirty little buggers, he spread an orange duster over the driver’s seat and climbed in next to Johnny. The other four waited in the yard.

  He didn’t have to drive far to know what he wanted to know. He couldn’t find fourth, but he knew from the feel that the gear box was still good, though he shook his head sadly so that Johnny might see openly his massive doubts. Once round the block was enough.

  ‘I’m sorry boys … I’m really sorry.’ Shaking his head sadly Ralph Woods climbed out of the van and turning, kicked one of the front tyres with an elegant suede chukka boot. ‘Even at £25 I’d be robbing myself.’

  Watch what you’re doing!’ Johnny was down on his head like an avalanche for kicking the tyre. ‘We’ve had a better offer we might take up yet.’

  Ralph Woods smiled. Be my guest, he smirked. Take it! Because Ralph Woods knew that no better offer would exist and if they had had one they wouldn’t be wasting time standing idly around arguing. He began to walk to his office. They’d follow, he knew. That type always followed. By now it was quite dark.

  ‘Eighteen gallons of the super, please … two pints of oil and a Chinese whore in navy knickers.’

  Ralph Woods turned sharply: ‘What the hell are you doing in there?’ he barked at J. D. Clover who was loafing contentedly at the wheel of a very grand 1959 Pontiac which was being specially saved for the owner of the town’s new Chinese restaurant. ‘Get out.’ And he pulled open the car door.

  ‘Now, now, temper, temper …’ Ralph Woods turned again. This time it wasn’t J.D. who was baiting him. He thought he recognized the voice. And yes, there leaning by a large Dormobile van was that little pimp from the fair.

  Instantly Ralph Woods changed his attitude. Whatever happened he mustn’t upset Mike. ‘Mike, old boy. Didn’t see you there.’

  Mike stared at him hard. ‘I saw you.’ He paused for effect. ‘Tell you what. Hundred for that little Commer and we’ll give you another two hundred for this Dormobile. You can leave the Pontiac until next week. Anyway, that makes three hundred in all … and I won’t say a word.’

  Ralph Woods felt his grasp of the situation beginning to slip away: ‘You’re not with this lot are you?’

  Mike nodded.

  ‘I didn’t see you before.’

  ‘You didn’t look hard enough.’

  Ralph looked round at the semi circle of unfriendly faces: ‘Where are you lot going to find £200?’

  Mike paused, scratched his hair, and then made an attitude of conciliation: ‘Ah … good point. Mmm.’ He paused again. ‘I know. Let’s say we use my caravan as collateral until we can find enough to start the H.P. payments.’

  Ralph Woods was aghast: ‘Your caravan’s not worth two hundred quid.’

  Mike gave him a long reproachful look: ‘It is to me. And parked here it would be to you too.’ He smiled wickedly at Woods. ‘Dead caravans don’t talk, Ralph.’

  Ralph’s face crumpled. He was being blackmailed. That little blond bastard was blackmailing him. And he couldn’t do a thing about it
. He looked hard at Mike and then turning quickly walked back towards his office. Jim jumped up into the passenger seat of the Dormobile and looked round the massive interior of the back of the van: ‘Bloody hell,’ he said in delighted astonishment. ‘Bloody hell,’ said Stevie in open admiration.

  ‘Don’t forget I bartered my bloody home for you lot,’ said Mike the martyr.

  Life was good for Ralph Woods. He was a lucky man. But it wasn’t his lucky day.

  Chapter Four

  The Dormobile swung round the dark, slippery street corner and came to a sliding halt by the warehouse entrance. Mike turned off the engine and lights, and dropping down to the pavement walked round to the back to let the rest of the group out. Johnny was down first. He would be.

  ‘I’ll give you a hand in a minute. There’s something I want to settle first,’ he called, and disappeared inside the warehouse.

  ‘Now what’s wrong?’ Mike was helping Jim unload the speakers.

  ‘He’s after the money we didn’t get paid last night when they closed the dance down. He’s no chance of getting it.’ Jim was uncharacteristically resigned.

  Mike didn’t answer and so together he and Jim and the rest of the group began to cart the Stray Cats’ menial equipment through the arch doorway into the warehouse and down the narrow steps into the Club Goodtimes. This was Mike’s first experience of being a road manager and he was quite sure that he wasn’t going to like it much, or do it for very long, but it suited his purpose to show willing for a while.

  The stage was at the far end of the vaulted cellar, a low rostrum of a platform, with a couple of cardboard palm trees stuck at either side to act as the wings and to frame the act. When pop groups weren’t playing for the kids at the Club Goodtimes they rented the place out for strip-tease shows, and the girls liked to have a palm leaf or two to disappear behind for a bit of a tease before they bared their all.

  By the time Jim had shown Mike how to arrange the various speakers, amplifiers and instruments around the stage, and how to plug in each of them, Johnny was firmly entrenched in his argument with the club’s manager, Keith Nolan. It was now turned half-past seven and young girls were already beginning to drift into the cellar in search of the promised goodtimes, but so long as Johnny argued there didn’t appear to be much chance of that.

  Jim and Mike watched him from the stage: ‘Your mate Johnny has the diplomatic touch of a dinosaur,’ said Mike shaking his head wearily. ‘I’d better go and give him a hand. When I get close enough to the manager, get Johnny on stage if you have to drag him by his toupee.’

  Together they approached the enraged Johnny: ‘But you closed down on us,’ they heard him rasping.

  ‘I’m sorry Johnny. I can’t afford to pay you when you don’t play.’

  ‘It wasn’t our fault we didn’t play. We didn’t bloody shoot him.’

  Nolan looked appalled: ‘I find that in extremely bad taste.’

  ‘Jesus wept.’ Johnny looked round in incredulity and red-faced frustration.

  ‘I’m sorry, Johnny. We have a contract,’ and pushing one hand inside his breast pocket Nolan produced a folded sheet of paper.

  ‘Time you were getting on stage, you three-chord wonders.’ Mike was moving in the line of Nolan’s retreat but talking to Johnny. Johnny’s cheeks flushed with further annoyance.

  ‘Come on, Johnny,’ called Jim, and catching his eye beckoned him towards the stage.

  ‘Right little gang of barrack room lawyers, aren’t they?’ Nolan looked relieved by Mike’s intervention. But as he began putting the contract back into his pocket Mike leaned forward and slipped it inquisitively from his hand.

  ‘Fancy a drink?’

  Nolan stared for a moment at the contract and then looked at Mike. Already in his mind he knew he was conceding some kind of defeat - although he didn’t yet know quite what.

  ‘One-two-three-four …’ shouted Jim, and suddenly the cellar was swamped in sound, a great driving, whining noise as the Stray Cats went into their first number. ‘Well, fancy that,’ thought Mike, as he guided Nolan towards the door, ‘the Stray Cats aren’t a bad little band. Maybe I have struck lucky, after all.’

  Keith Nolan knew he was no match for Mike Menarry at bargaining. For one thing he’d only had the club for five months and already he was beginning to regret becoming involved in the pop thing at all. The Nolans had always been in catering. His grandfather had owned a gingerbread shop and his father had had a nice little teahouse. The family had thought he was getting a bit above himself when he’d opened a coffee-bar in the fifties, but that had done very well, and now fired with success he’d made the big leap on to the pop music bandwagon that was rolling round England in 1963. ‘A nightclub?’ his father had said after chapel one Sunday morning, when Keith had told him of his new plans. ‘You’ll be joining the Mafia next, lad. No good will come of this. You’ll see.’ And beginning to see he certainly was. Not that he’d opened a nightclub in the adult sense of the word, he much preferred Club Goodtimes to be known as a discothèque.

  Straight away little things had started to go wrong; youths had had fights with the doorman and pushed their way in without paying; boys had been seen up to no good with girls in the dark recesses of the cellar and after that had been hinted at in the local paper, poor Keith couldn’t go to chapel for three weeks; and then the police had come around searching for purple hearts. As if that weren’t enough there had been trouble with the groups. Either they didn’t turn up or they came with only half their instruments and amplification equipment. Now this trouble with the Stray Cats just seemed to be about the limit.

  The situation seemed quite clear cut to him. They had an agreement signed by both sides that the group was booked four days a week (Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday) for a period of one month. When they played they got £15 a night. If for any reason they couldn’t play they didn’t get paid. Last night, as a mark of respect for the dead, Nolan had decided to close the club down. He had refunded all the kids who had paid, and had offered the Stray Cats a fiver for their trouble in turning up. But that didn’t seem to be enough. They were just downright ungrateful. £60 for four nights’ part-time work a week didn’t seem too bad to him. He couldn’t imagine why they were always crying poverty.

  Much of this Nolan explained to Mike over a couple of pints in the corner pub and Mike, he was pleased to discover, really did seem to understand his point of view. But things became a little awkward when Mike began to examine the contract. Nolan knew that it was no more binding than a thread of cotton but he hoped the group didn’t know that. He couldn’t afford for them to walk out on him. They were a good little band and without them he might as well close down now as face any further losses.

  The trouble is, Keith,’ said Mike, ‘we both know that this contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Now, honest, Keith, I do understand your problem but you know the lads as well as I do; they can be really difficult especially when they think they’ve got right on their side. Now, I tell you what, as a mark of your good faith why don’t you make them some kind of gesture. You don’t want them to walk out on you, do you? Well, they might. If I were you, I’d offer to pay for a hotel room on top of the fifteen quid a night they get. Think about it. What can it cost? You can get a little hotel room with a couple of beds for five pounds a week. An extra fiver and they’ll be so much in your debt they’ll work until they drop. I know them. They’re a funny lot but they’re all right.’

  Nolan wondered why he’d never seen Mike around before seeing as he knew the Stray Cats so well, but he quickly dismissed it from his mind as Mike ordered another round of drinks, and indeed it did seem to him that maybe a hotel room would buy him bundles of good-will. If it made the awkward little nuisances any easier to get along with then it was worth an extra fiver out of his already subsistence profits.

  ‘Okay, Mike. I’ll give it a try,’ he said, and excited by his own generosity he offered to pay for the round of drinks.


  ‘You know, it’s a real pleasure doing business with a bloke as straight as you, Keith. Believe me, the boys won’t forget your generosity,’ said Mike.

  When Jim had seen Mike leading Nolan out of the club he’d realized in the back of his mind that something was afoot, but once on stage and playing before a crowd his awareness of the chores of the outside world evaporated and he became at one with the music, the group and the crowd. There was just something magical, something indescribably exciting about making that music that made him feel he wanted to go on and never stop; and the greater the appreciation the greater the high. It hadn’t always been that way. The first couple of bands he’d played with had just called for hard slog and since he wasn’t allowed to sing with them his contribution had been minimal. But with the Stray Cats he could feel the excitement in the air when they began to play. Over the years he’d taught himself to play piano and guitar but it was a bass player they needed mostly in the Stray Cats, since Alex was needed to play back-up lead guitar whenever Johnny decided to go off pulling crumpet, and so Jim had adapted himself to just the four strings. And to his surprise he found that he enjoyed it more than he would have believed possible. It seemed such a basically sexy instrument, such a phallic thing, and holding it low down with its body pushed into the flesh between his hip and his thigh he felt a strange eroticism. Tonight they had opened with Need A Shot Of Rhythm and Blues, an old rock and roll classic which all the groups did in those days, and immediately they began to attract single girls into a group around them. He liked that. When he shut his eyes for concentration he liked to believe he was playing at Madison Square Garden and the few fans became thousands in his imagination. Already Johnny was up to his usual tricks of pulling while on stage and had singled out his bird for the night. This was usual procedure. Johnny always pulled first - because he tried hardest. To Johnny it was a matter of pride that he would have his evening’s love-life settled before the interval. And unlike Jim, Johnny only enjoyed pulling if he did it publicly. The thrill to Johnny was demonstrating to his colleagues his attractiveness and apparent virility. Of course, all groups did their best to pull from the stage but Johnny carried the performance to the ridiculous, being prepared to forget about the music if the bird looked like she might not want to wait until the end of the show.