First Time Solo

by Iain Maloney

  ‘What?’ Was he being serious?

  ‘He was acting like every day was his time of the month. Nearly had tae give him a slap a couple of times.’

  What was wrong with him? ‘He was angry with you, Joe.’

  ‘With me? Why?’

  ‘Over the whole Clive business.’

  ‘That wasnae the problem. That was the, what’s it called? The symptom.’

  I had no idea what he was going on about. ‘Joe, that thing with Clive, that affected us all. We were all caught up in it. And then with how it ended up—’

  ‘That was a fucking accident, Jack,’ he said leaning over and stabbing me with his finger.

  ‘Aye, fine, but you have to realise not everyone has the same attitude to violence as you do.’

  ‘I know that,’ he said. ‘There are babies everywhere, frightened by a little blood, scared of a little pain. I’m looking at one now. But that’s no Terry. He’s no a fucking milksop like you, Jack. He couldn’t give a damn about Clive. If he’s cheesed off at me and no just taking it out on me, then it’s for something other than giving Clive what he deserved.’

  Heaton Park, Manchester. September – October 1943

  Air Crew Despatch Centre, Heaton Park, Manchester. One big outdoor waiting room. Acres and acres of Absolutely Nothing. Heaton Park had been a family estate that put Inverayne House to shame. Rolling hills, ponds, open spaces and tree cover. A bit of everything: An enclosed world. The original house sprawled, enormous wings of columns either side of the main building. Comrade Joe was soon lecturing about the outrage, reclamation of land, redistribution of wealth. Well, it had been redistributed. From the aristocracy to the military. Hills, trees and ponds; quite idyllic really, all that nature. Would’ve been quite pleasant if it hadn’t been full of bored servicemen.

  All we had to do was wait for our postings. We thought it would be a day or two, a week at the most. The first night as we sat outside our tents smoking, Doug got talking to another Yorkshire lad, Tom. ‘I’ve been here four weeks and not a peep about orders. Get settled in, boys. You could be here til Christmas.’

  Of course, there were training exercises, guard duty, even the odd go on a rifle range but usually after fatigues and parade there was nothing to do. We’d walk across the park, round the perimeter, circle the ponds and lakes, up the hills, down again. Trudging on. Slowstepping. If we were lucky we could make it last all day. I had nothing to do but think. My mind scattered from one subject to another. I took to doing push ups and sit ups, trying to use the energy, exhaust my mind. Technically, we were prisoners. No-one was allowed out without a pass. Some of the lads were billeted in the local community, and for a fee they’d give up their passes for a night. Others tried going over the wall. Terry quickly got to know Stella in the office and in return for luxuries she’d stamp blank passes for him. By the third night he’d got two blanks and Tom gave his pass to Doug. The three of us could hit the town. We were on a countdown and the chances of us all being posted together were tiny. At a stretch Terry and I, purely as a result of our last names, might end up on the same boat, but we really had no idea how they decided these things. Every night could be our last together.

  ‘So, where are we going?’ I asked Terry. Joe was on guard duty.

  ‘Stella says there’s a decent place about ten minutes from here.’

  ‘Pub?’

  ‘Pub. Take your trumpet.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because we might need a spittoon. So you can play it of course.’

  ‘Do you know anywhere we can play?’

  ‘Stella says they have music in there sometimes. Lots of Yanks drink there.’

  We got by the guards no problem, our forged passes standing up to the casual glance, and found the pub easily enough. It was empty, a handful of locals, some Yanks, British uniforms. Terry had his bag of goods with him. We sank a couple of beers, the first hardly touching the sides. There was a piano, but Terry didn’t seem inclined to play. He seemed to be examining the place, his searching, evaluating look going over each customer and the landlord. I nodded at the piano. ‘Fancy a jam?’

  ‘Yes, but hold on, I’ve got some business to attend to first.’

  ‘Sales?’

  ‘Potentially.’

  I got another round in. Terry hardly spoke, seemed to be waiting for something. Doug and I swapped stories about our leave, but I didn’t really want to talk about it. Three pints down the door opened and a tall, thin man in civilian clothes came in. As soon as he saw him, Terry went up to the bar. They shook hands, got drinks and sat down at a different table. ‘Are you all right, Jack?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Since you came back from leave you’ve been different.’

  ‘Different?’

  ‘You’re drinking more.’

  I shrugged. ‘Fuck all else to do.’

  ‘So,’ said Doug. ‘Is the band a duo now?’

  ‘I suppose so. Terry and Joe hate each other.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I don’t know. What Joe did to Clive, I don’t think I can forgive that.’

  ‘They got even though. Clive got him with the bottle. Or are you talking about something else?’ My drink was empty, Doug had hardly touched his. I got myself another. The bar in Soho. Smiled a bit at the memory. All that had happened since then. But Joe had ruined it all. Prick. He should be there, the four of us drinking, playing music. There’d be an ENSA show soon in some local theatre, we could’ve played in it, but I was beginning to wish that the postings would come through and we’d be off. The drink was going to my head. Terry came back. ‘You work fast, don’t you?’ I said.

  ‘That’s business. If you don’t move fast, you’re dead.’

  ‘What you selling?’

  ‘The usual. Whatever people want to buy.’ He looked at us, sensed the atmosphere. ‘Problem?’

  ‘Jack’s got something on his mind,’ said Doug.

  ‘Sharing?’ said Terry.

  Fuck it. So I told them about Joe, about the night before Clive’s crash, seeing Joe under one of the kites. ‘I knew it,’ said Terry. ‘I fucking knew it.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ said Doug. ‘Sure he wasn’t just pissing?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not like I caught him with a pair of pliers and his hands in the engine. But…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Just his attitude. And you both saw him after the crash. He didn’t seem surprised.’

  ‘Proof,’ said Doug. ‘You’ve got no proof.’

  ‘We can’t say anything,’ I said. Doug shook his head.

  ‘We can’t not say anything,’ said Terry.

  ‘To who?’ I said. ‘Maybe if I’d said something to Thor, he might have believed us, but here, in Manchester? No-one knows us, or him. The RAF put it down as accidental death. Who’s going to believe us? Who’s going to give a fuck?’

  ‘Fine, but we can’t let him get away with it.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Revenge,’ said Terry. ‘You don’t mean…’

  ‘No, don’t be daft. Look, let me have a think about it, but I might have an idea.’

  ‘You need to be sure,’ said Doug. ‘If you’re going to do something serious, this level of serious, then you need to be sure.’

  ‘Are you sure, Jack?’

  I thought about it, Joe, his actions, his reactions. ‘Aye, he did it.’

  ‘And you’re prepared to do something about that? This isn’t something you can change your mind about later,’ said Terry.

  Drink. ‘Aye, I’m in. You can’t let people get away with things like that.’ Take action, Jack. Do something. This is something. ‘Fine. Now, let’s change the mood here. Some music?’ Aye. Lose myself.

  Joe’s tent was next to mine and as far as he was concerned we were still friends. I tried to be as cold with him as I could, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Too much free time. I was cooking. I needed an outlet, a release. I took my trumpet to a q
uiet part of the park, played like it was the field at home. Musical shelter. Escape.

  We were called into the big hut and issued with new kit. Took it back to our tents, dumped it in a pile. ‘Shorts?’ said Terry.

  ‘Rhodesia then,’ said Doug. Rhodesia. What to make of that? A bit of an anti-climax. Smoke drifted from three cigarettes as we mulled.

  ‘Must be soon if they’re giving us the kit,’ I said. ‘How long does the boat to Rhodesia take?’

  No-one knew. ‘Can we get a pint in Rhodesia?’ asked Terry. ‘I heard some countries out that way are dry. Muslim and that.’

  No-one knew. ‘A pal of mine was in Africa,’ I said. ‘In the north.’

  ‘Isn’t Rhodesia in the south?’ said Doug.

  No-one was sure. ‘Some bad fighting in North Africa,’ said Terry. ‘A few mates from back home were out that way. Hotter than buggery, sand and insects and things that like to bite. Mate of mine is in the tanks. Imagine being in one of those tin contraptions in that heat. Squashed like a sardine then baked.’

  A ‘Brew Up’ they called it. Willie told me. When a tank was hit and a fire broke out inside. Became like an oven. Like a kettle. Everyone inside got cooked. A brew up. You had to laugh. ‘So. Rhodesia, eh?’ Terry said.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Rhodesia.’

  ‘You got any more to offer than that?’

  ‘Just saying, you know? Rhodesia.’

  Joe turned up, flung his new kit in his tent. ‘No gonnae be much action there as far as I can see. Don’t know about you boys but I signed up tae kill some Fascists, no sit in some fucking desert miles from the action playing with myself. Christ, why can we no just get on with it? Sitting around here with our thumbs up our arses waiting tae be shipped off tae bloody Nowhereland. I want tae be killing Fascists no smoking in Manchester or smoking in Rhodesia. At this rate the war’ll be over and we’ll still be sitting here, smoking.’

  No-one answered him. ‘Hey, Jack,’ said Terry, ‘I got a couple of passes. Up for it?’

  ‘Fuck yes,’ I said. ‘I need to get out of here.’

  Joe looked at us. Waited for his invite. Nothing.

  ‘So, it’s like that, is it?’ he said. We said nothing. He left.

  Same pub, another sale, another jam. A few other RAF lads, over the wall or forged passes, same as us. During one of Terry’s compositions, the pub door opened and in walked three black GIs. One went to the bar and ordered drinks, the other two made straight for us. Terry, who had his back to the door, didn’t see them. The atmosphere in the pub shifted. I was reminded of the fight in the London club. There’d been a lot of sounding off in the papers recently about black Yanks courting British women, and often producing mixed race babies. Some muttering ran through the pub, but no-one had the balls, or was drunk enough to say anything. One of the GIs leaned on the piano.

  ‘Hey man, that’s great playing.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Terry. I stopped playing, but Terry continued.

  ‘Yeah,’ said the other. ‘We were walking past and we heard. Had to come in. We play here too sometimes.’

  ‘You can play?’ said Terry.

  ‘Can we play? Course we can play. We’re from New Orleans. In New Orleans if you don’t play, you ain’t nothin’.’

  The third man came over with the drinks. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘George is the name.’ He put the drinks down and shook hands. ‘Jack, Terry, this is Nathanial and Jed.’

  ‘New Orleans,’ I said. ‘Really?’

  Nathanial nodded. ‘Yeah, really. Hey, do you mind?’

  I hesitated, but handed it over. The sounds he got out of it. Incredible. He played like the band in London, that new sound. ‘What is that?’ I said to George. ‘That style of jazz.’

  ‘You like?’

  ‘I heard it once in London, couldn’t forget it.’

  ‘That’s what they’re calling bebop. It’s the next thing, but it hasn’t made it here yet. I mean, here it’s still all swing and big band.’

  ‘Who’s doing this?’ I said. ‘Are there any records I can listen to?’

  ‘You ever heard of Dizzy Gillespie?’

  ‘I know him,’ I said. ‘He was in Cab Calloway’s band.’

  ‘That’s the fella,’ said George. ‘Well, you should hear what he’s doing now. It’s the future, baby. Guys like Dizzy and Charlie Parker.’

  Nathanial finished, took a drink.

  ‘That was great,’ I said. ‘You think you could teach me?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Nathanial. ‘Say, you guys like a party?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We were just on our way to one. You come with us, we can jam some there.’

  I looked at the time. ‘We need to be back by midnight.’

  ‘You turn into a pumpkin?’

  ‘Rules.’

  I looked at Terry. He shrugged. ‘More ways into the park than just the gates.’ Did I really want to turn down this chance? Don’t sit waiting for something to happen, Jack. Make it happen.

  ‘Fuck it,’ I said. ‘Why not?’

  We followed them down the street. Row after row of identical houses, blackouts up, gaps like missing teeth, rubble neatly contained within a lot. Whispering lest noise carry, curtains twitch, RAF issue boots outrageously loud on the pavements. Didn’t want to meet some ARP, MP, explain ourselves. The streets were deserted. Ghost town. A low rumbling crossed the border of our hearing. Four years of war had ingrained that sound. Bombers. We had control of the skies, raids were becoming rarer. No need to panic, but it wasn’t a good idea to be out in the streets. The bombers passed over and the fighters went up to meet them. We stopped walking, watched the darting Spitfires and Hurricanes, desperate for the day we could join them in the sky. Now we’d gone solo, had spent some time in an aircraft, we watched the show with more intelligent eyes. Neither of us had been inside a proper fighter but we’d studied them enough. I mentally went through the movements, the combined action of arms, legs, the sweep of the head, the calculations that went into each roll, dive and shot. A fraction of the adrenaline the pilots up there were feeling, but I understood enough to recognise the metallic taste. A Junkers took the final fiery dive. Cheer. When a Hurricane took a hit and the pilot bailed out we felt the sickness of fear. This would happen to us one day. Would I be lucky enough to bail out? Returning bombers passed overhead. One of them was slower than the others, limping at the back, smoke. Then we heard it, that whistle. We all knew that whistle. ‘Fuck!’

  Dived into the nearest garden and ducked behind the wall. The blast rocked us, dust and smoke everywhere, ringing, a loud persistent ringing. Picking ourselves up, dazed. A bomb had landed on the house three doors down. No chance. Whoever was in there was a goner. Terry recovered his wits quickest.

  ‘Now would be a good time to leave,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe we can help.’ I thought of the church and felt sick. The fire brigade would be on the scene soon enough, and we didn’t want to be around when they did. We tore ourselves away from the burning remains.

  ‘Maybe we should go back,’ said Terry.

  ‘We’re going on,’ said Nathanial. I looked at them, at Terry.

  The party was in a house shared by three nurses the Yanks were seeing. The girls were hesitant at first to let us strangers in but eventually relented when Terry produced a bottle of whisky. The near miss woke us all up, filled us with energy. They talked but I wanted to get to it. Nathanial saw that, got his trumpet out, and I got mine, and he set about teaching me some bebop. The fast tempo I’d already got from listening in London, but the harmonic structures, the asymmetrical phrasing, that’s what I’d noticed and didn’t know how to replicate. ‘See, man,’ he said, ‘Satchmo would go from here to here, take the next step, maybe mute it. Now Charlie Parker, he’d have none of that. He’d go to the flat ninth, maybe, improv from the higher intervals of the chord.’

  He showed me phrases, and I copied, learned to relax into the freedom. ‘The trick’s fighting your
muscles, letting your instinct take over, letting what you hear in your head, letting that come through your fingers.’

  I could feel it, tingling, something coming through me and out the trumpet. Wrapped in it, afloat in it, could feel my fingers hurting, the speed new, but I couldn’t stop, a new world, set foot in a new world. ‘Try this out. This is Dizzy.’ He played a piece, slow at first, swinging, high notes tinged with melancholy. The vibrato Nathanial could pull off.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Called Night in Tunisia.’

  I thought of Willie, his leg in the desert. ‘Show me again.’

  Terry tapped me on the shoulder. ‘We’d better get going, Jack. It’ll be light soon.’ The girls had gone to bed, as had George and Jed. He’d just been listening. I hadn’t noticed. I wanted to stay there forever playing bebop, learning, improving, growing, but Terry was right.

  ‘You guys drink there a lot?’ said Nathanial.

  ‘When we can get passes,’ said Terry.

  ‘See you in there sometime.’

  ‘Definitely.’

  We only just made it before sunrise. I boosted Terry onto the wall, he pulled me up, dropped into some bushes. Laughing, we got back to our tents. ‘You look happy, Jack,’ Terry said.

  ‘Man,’ I said. ‘That was a fun night.’

  ‘Good. I’ll get some more passes.’

  ‘And how about…’ I paused. It seemed wrong but I couldn’t ignore the urge. The energy from the music, the bomb, the frustrations. ‘How about some fun?’ I said.

  ‘Fun?’

  ‘You know, the kind of fun you had in Soho.’

  ‘You serious?’

  Exhausted, only an hour of sleep before parade, but the glow in me, the stretched, warm lungs. Please let them ship me to America. We were told to return the kit we’d been given. Apparently they did this quite often in case there were any spies in the camp. Everyone gets shorts so the spy sends off a message saying ‘pilots off to Africa’ then they recall the shorts and give us snow gear, or something like that. Causes confusion in the enemy and hopefully the spy pisses off his superiors and they put him up against the wall. I thought this was applying logic after the fact, attempting to explain the inexplicable.