by Neil Rowland
‘What?’
‘You heard, live with us.’
‘Brilliant idea!’ I balled up another uncooperative tee-shirt from the Co-op. ‘How’s that gonna work, exactly?’
‘I dunno. Just put your head on the fucking pillow... close your eyes. So our house doesn’t have any stars. I mean, we’re not in the RAC best hotel guide... or any shit like that.’
‘You said it!’
I thought Stan was just being cynical. Obviously I’d lost my generosity along with a sense of humour. Luckily it was just temporary. We’d need a lot of humour to get that fanzine done.
‘Yeah, well, we’ve got sleeping bags... and a fold-out sofa. The fascist regime in my house is more sympathetic,’ he argued.
I turned to face him. ‘What choice have I got?’
So we hauled my gear around to his place next door. (Since he was a lad Stan wasn’t allowed to lift or carry anything too heavy). On the step, into the night, I pulled our front door behind me.
In fact I never set foot in that house again.
10. The Smith
Stan’s parents always refused to take any rent off me. His family was incredibly generous and welcoming. They never asked me about a possible departure date. When the cooking was so great, the mattress so soft, I knew why their son was comfortable there.
Some mornings I’d hear dad revving up his Rover 75, setting off for an early shift at the vacuum factory. One or two afternoons I bumped into Mum on her return from Ray in accounts. As ever she was dressed impeccably (she worked as a telephonist), shocked to see me, speaking to me warily, quickly dashing off, clutching her handbag.
All my family, including older brother Chuck, had disowned me. They tried to ignore my mirror existence next door. They cut off the Whitmore family for harbouring me. They took no notice of me, although it must have been strange for them to realise I was behind the wall. Not wishing to take advantage of Stan’s family I had to find my own place.
Snot and I had great nights out with a new crowd, despite my change of circumstances or because of it.
As a punk pub the Pink Dragon was our obvious regular. It was the only place in town to find interesting people of a like mind, from music to movies, books and ideas, to fashion and politics. It was definitely a university of the scrapheap. I was never an ale drinker, not even during an era when lads drowned in a bath of beer every weekend with a few salted peanuts floating on top. I wasn’t exactly playing trumpet for the Salvation Army though. Anyway I was just waiting for cappuccinos to be invented.
That pub had a fantastic jukebox; filled with punk singles and EPs, as curated by Marty Gorran.
‘Can’t you rent a room instead?’ Stan suggested. He was stood at the centre of a dense cloud of sweet smelling smoke; which Dougal usually tolerated.
‘What with?’ I replied.
‘Sell your body?’ he suggested.
‘Only with the lights off.’
‘I know someone looking for a flat mate. Yeah, it’s a lad from college. Just graduated like us. He’s sharing with one boy already. The other students went back home... after graduation. Needs a couple of lads to come in with them. Why not have a talk with him about it?’
Nervously, ‘I’ll think about it,’ I said.
‘Don’t be shy, Bottle. D’you want to share my gilded cage forever?’
‘Hmm. Sure. I can’t afford much rent.’ The caring and sharing of the Co-op had its limits.
‘Reach some type of fucking agreement with him.’
Before long Stan had arranged a meeting, so that we could discuss terms.
Well it was this round shouldered, rangy lad, who bustled into the pub, in a parker, radiating energy and bonhomie. He’d got a mop of greasy, curly dark hair, with a pasty and spotty teenage complexion. He had NHS black framed spectacles, which were masking-taped together at the bridge.
‘Here comes our young gent now!’ Snot remarked.
Recognising the small guitarist, the lad scurried over. Hand raised up in greeting, with a friendly twinkle, he fairly bounded to our patch. Despite this vitality of purpose he got very breathless and had a forward leaning, bad posture. While cutting through the bar he had to avoid some irritable biker types. We knew that any accident with a pint pot, any jolting of a biker’s drinking arm, could produce a nasty altercation with dangerous consequences.
‘All right, Stan man!’ he declared. ‘In decent fettle, marra?’
Snot lifted his large hand to indicate this, remaining behind those shades, for safety’s sake, as if copying Lou Reed or anticipating Jesus & Mary Chain.
‘Away man, it’s good to see yer again like. So this is the lad that wants to share with us mind?’
‘Let me introduce Master Paul Bottle. A gentleman and a fucking officer.’
‘Aw right, man,’ he told me, warmly shaking my hand. ‘Pleased to meet yer marra! I’m Roy. Roy Smith.’
‘So you were at Nulton Arts?’
‘Ai, I was on the journalism course, marra. Until that bas’tad at the newspeeper group chucked me off the course for pro-test-in’,’ he recalled, ruefully.
‘Stan here had a similar experience,’ I said.
‘I’m an art criminal,’ Snot suggested, taking another rich drag.
‘Me and my mate Paulie mind, we was both on the journalism course like. Did you ever meet Paulie? Ai, and I got expelled for bein’ on a political protest, like. The college and my boss, they didn’t like me takin’ direct action.’
‘Well, Roy, this is our homeless punk.’
Smith gave the aura of rare bath times; though that wasn’t rare for lads in that era. When I was fifteen a squirt of deodorant spray was a sign of effeminacy or decadence. A blob of hair conditioner would transform you into Quentin Crisp. I should have been so lucky.
Our new radical friend, to give him his full name, was Dominic Roy Smith. He’d dropped the ‘Dominic’ because it sounded too middle-class as if he could even join the Young Conservatives. For ideological reasons he’d reverted to plain Roy Smith. Indeed the lad was a passionate member of the Socialist Workers’ Party. My own political education was not advanced, but like me, Roy’s parents had completely disowned him.
Smeary denims and an anti-Apartheid tee-shirt were signs of his politics and of left-wing street cred. I made a quick Barthesian analysis of these semiotic codes. As well as being a member of the SWP Roy was a big fan of Doctor Who and Star Trek; which gave him a lot in common with Snot, even before Roy said he was getting into punk.
‘I come from a town called Darlow,’ Roy explained.
‘So where’s that?’
‘The North East, comrade. Tyne and Wear, mind.’
‘I wanna go to the Riverside in Newcastle,’ Snot said.
‘Did Stan tell you the score mind, about the spare room? Right, so I’m gettin’ thirsty again lads... Let me get another bevvy in, before I tell you all aboot it,’ Roy promised. ‘Can I get you lads anything in, mind?’
‘Not for me,’ I told him.
Stan declined as he couldn’t take too much alcohol, on account of his health. Puzzled by such abstemious behaviour Roy darted away to get himself another beer. I’d already noticed that Roy was asthmatic. Either that or he’d donated his lungs to Castro. This didn’t prevent him from shifting like a hare when it was required. He was only held back at the bar where long negotiations were necessary to get served.
Finally returning with a foaming pint pot, Smith offered me the spec on his hot property. ‘Ai marra, we rented this house like, over term time. Now college is over there’s just the two a’rus in there, comrade. Paulie and me! We need another two lads to share with us to meet the rent. So if you and another comrade want to come in... Then you’d be morst welcome, marra. So why don’t ya come over later and take a look at the place, like?’
he offered warmly.
Suddenly beginning to wheeze, his tubes rigid, in distress, Roy had to reach for his inhaler. The pub atmosphere didn’t help him to breathe. Taking a few drafts from this device (whatever chemicals it contained) he felt more relaxed. A combination of asthma and nerves set off the shakes, despite fearless revolutionary politics.
‘So who’d I be sharing a room with?’ I asked.
Bright eyed, enthusiastic, ‘Away man, you’d have your own room. Like I said, apart from you it’s only Paulie, man. I’m sharing with this lad off the Nulton Gazette. Paulie Wellington,’ he explained.
‘Where did I hear that name before?’ Snot wondered.
‘Paulie’s a junior reporter on the local paper, marra.’
‘Oh yeah, bollocks, he’s the lad wrote that review of Mortal’s gig at Nulton Arts.’
Smith’s ironical eyes gleamed (irony, mirth, frustration) behind the smudges of those thick rimmed and thick lensed specs. ‘That’s right, comrade, our Paulie covers a lot of these local gigs mind. It’s what he morst enjoys writin’ aboot, marra.’
‘Paulie fucking Wellington. What a tosser. Did you read what he said about my band?’ Stan complained.
‘Not so far,’ I admitted.
‘Paulie doesn’t mean any harm, man. Try not to take offence,’ Smith said. But I noticed his hand shake as he poured down some more beer.
‘That was an appalling review. I wanted to throw up.’
‘Away Stan man, Paulie only tries to speak his mind, as he sees it... whatever other people might think.’
‘You’re sharing a loft space with that idiot?’
‘Ai Stan, as I explained... I was on that journalism course with our Paulie. Unlike me, mind, he was able to graduate... with a bit of help from me like. But I can’t blame him for that mind. And he does his level best to be a good comrade and a radical reporter.’
‘You write for the local paper as well?’ I wondered.
‘Nawh, man, don’t be daft... I was expelled, I already toold you.’
It was after Roy joined a Shipyard picket line on Teeside. He returned during his summer hols, and the sponsoring news group decided to spike his career as a trainee journalist. He was put into the role of an unqualified and jobless campaigning reporter. That’s how he found himself stranded in Nulton. At least until he got the idea or opportunity to escape.
We left the pub together - the first of many such evenings - to go and nosey around the offered property. Smith baptised this place ‘the Mansion’; situated for sure in one of Nulton’s seediest districts, up behind the railway station. After we stepped off the bus, we were heckled by a line of skinny girls, lurking against a high wall. Then there was a bunch of blokes swigging from spirit bottles, leering at the girls and taunting us for being punks.
‘Which side are you on, comrades?’ Roy shouted back at them. ‘You’d better choose, mind... before the revolution comes round!’
Smith put his head down and darted towards a socialist horizon. We tried to give close pursuit, pushing up one of the steepest hills in town. I should explain that sharp hills are a feature of Nulton topography. The gradient didn’t suit my mates - not at all. Snot’s physical problems were from infancy, but the aversion to any form of exercise (apart from smoking, riots and the obvious) was a cultivated habit.
At first Roy romped ahead, apparently as fit as a flea that had grown up in a circus. Watching him dash almost out of sight, we struggled to keep track of him. Except that we noticed, Roy shortly came to complete halt in the near distance. We saw him doubled over, apparently in agony, suffering pain, gripping his knees, wheezing violently. Until he managed to grope about into his parker, pull out the inhaler and to shove it back into his mouth. He knocked back a couple of doses of those vital chemicals... straightened again, allowed his lungs to ease, set his sights on the summit, and shot off again.
A short distance later we saw him ground to an anguished halt, yet again, requiring a further dosage of medicine. This routine was repeated several times along the way home. He bounded like a mountain cat for most of the way, until his lungs turned as stiff as sheet metal.
Near the summit we got our first glimpse of ‘the Mansion’, almost through fog. Then I was the one who needed a dose of relaxant drugs. I could imagine The Munsters living in there. And then I thought about the Motel in Psycho. I swear, that was no exaggeration.
‘Almost back at our place, comrades!’ Roy announced, stood waiting then, in a semi-heroic worker’s posture on the approach.
The block was a big dilapidated Victorian villa, recently divided into ‘flats’ by some rack-rent landlord. I was supposed to be free and independent, having flown the nest or been ejected from it. Any excitement about that idea vanished in a moment.
I began to hanker after home comforts. Even of the Bottle variety.
11. Roy’s Mansion
Leading us up crumbling stone entrance steps, to face an enormous flaking front door, under a blustery portico, Roy frisked his jean pockets in search of the key.
A rank shadowy hallway was home to a colony of spiders, ruled over by a single high naked bulb. Undaunted, almost cheerful, our fifth-columnist friend continued in the vanguard. Snot and I risked the dilapidated wooden staircase, which wouldn’t have disgraced a Hammer Horror production. I gazed up nervously, expecting Christopher Lee to come down to greet us.
My spirits plunged - it was Heartbreak Hotel, down on lonely street. Only the vague idea of sharing with like-minded mates, spurred me on. Maybe like Charles Bukowski. Would that be enough?
Smith rummaged for a second key. ‘Away lads! Make yourselves at hoom,’ he urged.
Immediately the stench of the place - a mix tape of toilet, bad cooking, body odours, rotten socks and a blocked drain - assaulted my big hooter. On a windy night every window and fitting would rattle, like loose teeth in an old mule. Admittedly the flat was sizeable enough, because Victorian rooms were big, although damp and drafty. Even those cold drafts, hitting from us from every direction like arrows, couldn’t break up the pong.
Smith noticed my first reaction; read off the slogans written up across my face. ‘Don’t worry about it, marra,’ he assured me.
‘You’ll get used to it,’ Snot told me.
‘When I blend in?’
‘Come the revolution lads, we’ll pull down all these old slums mind, and have a proper house building programme, providing decent hooms for working people, mind.’
‘Start with this place,’ I said.
‘You want the Nulton Hilton or what?’ Snot said, in rebuke.
‘Ai man, after the revolution we’ll take over all those pricey boutiques and offices, and turn em into decent places for workin’ people,’ Roy pledged.
Well, I couldn’t stick about in Stan’s spare bedroom, with only a thin wall between me and my folks. I needed my privacy.
‘Away man, even Engels had to rough it from time t’time. We have to do the same, comrades,’ Smith argued.
The Trotskyist ripped off his well-travelled boots and the proletarian rabbit trimmed parker. Stan and I noticed those revolutionary holes in his capitalist socks.
‘Any road marra, we’re going to line all those greedy landlord bas’tads against the wall and ma-sheen gun the lot of ‘em,’ he promised - with a tremble and a determined glint in his eye.
‘They’ll never agree,’ Stan remarked.
‘They don’t need to agree, comrade!’ he insisted, rolling up his plaid shirt sleeves.
At last Snot felt safe enough to remove those sunglasses. ‘Talk to your landlord before all that fucking shooting starts.’
‘Away, what for, man?’
‘Check it’s in the contract. About shooting people. He might not like sudden noise.’
‘Noise?’
‘First you
want to sort the smell. Bottle’s a sensitive punk.’
‘Away Stan, that bas’tad landlord doesn’t have any fucking sense. Plenty of time for spring cleaning aboot the hoose, comrade, after we bring the struggle to an end.’
‘Or get some air freshener or something,’ Snot added.
‘We’re in the vanguard, lads. Concentrate on workers’ strikes and actions before your communal living spaces, mind. Acting as the catalyst that sparks the revolution, there’s plenty of time for air fresheners,’ Smith reminded us. ‘We know what capitalist landlords are like, so ignore maintenance problems... for the time being, comrades.’
‘The first action’s to plug our noses,’ Stan told me.
‘Away man, I’ve got two cans of steak and kidney pud in the kitchen cupboard,’ the Trotskyist offered us. ‘Won’t take me five minutes to boil ‘em up on the stove, man, if you’re hungry.’
‘Nah, it’s all right. Cheers anyway, Roy mate.’
They had a decent telly and double-cassette player on offer. Paulie Wellington could afford to buy that stuff. Telly and music - fantastic - they‘d got their priorities right.
‘Away, lads!’ The Smith told us, with a surge of optimism about the future. ‘So what do you think of the place?’
‘What happened to these floorboards?’ Snot asked. He noticed a hole under a rug and demonstrated the soft give of wood.
‘Ai, well lads, the landlord’s down in my book of class enemies. That bas’tad’s name’s top of the list and, come the hour of the revolution mind... he’s up against that fucking wall!’ Smith pledged. He clenched a fist, went red, fully testing his lungs.
‘He probably fucking owns the wall, and will sue you.’
‘You could refuse to pay rent. ‘Til this landlord agrees to repair stuff,’ I suggested.
‘He could be a socialist, for all you know. Maybe he’s a Labour party supporter.’
‘Away man, we doon’t negotiate with those reformist class traitors!’
‘Make him put in some new windows, new floorboards, unblock all the drains. That would be a start,’ Snot said mischievously.
