The Godson (40 page)

‘Hello, fellahs,' he said pleasantly. ‘You got here. Good to see you.'

‘Wouldn't have missed it for the world, Alan,' grinned Les, paying for the tickets.

‘I've got to organise a few things out here,' said Alan. ‘Find a spot inside, and I'll come and have a beer with you.'

‘Righto,' replied Les.

The big old wooden building was a typical country hall forgotten by time. High ceilings, timber floors and tongue-and-groove timber walls painted white with brown seating running around the bottom. There was an alcove near the front door, a kitchen to the right, behind that was a sort of dining room and the band was on stage at the rear. There would have been about three hundred people in the hall, but there still seemed to be no shortage of room. You were flat out telling one from the other, in fancy dress, though Les and Peregrine still managed to get quite a few once up and downs as they walked in wearing their cammies.

1920s flappers were dancing with cowboys and pirates. Spanish senoritas were dancing with spacemen and French apache dancers. Swarming amongst them were the hippies looking
much the same as they did at the bazaar. Tie-died jeans, coloured vests, floppy hats with patches or flowers on them and sling bags. Tai chi slippers and sandals and no shortage of bare feet. Straggly beards, straggly hair and pigtails on the men. Long hair and plaits on a lot of the women. There were people of all ages and types and, to Les's and Peregrine's delight, a number of girls on their own. Playing amongst the grown-ups were clusters of spotlessly clean, well-behaved children. Some were dressed as fairies with wigs and tiny wings on their backs; the way they laughed and giggled as they played and danced they could have passed for tiny angels. Nearly everybody seemed to know each other and it was like one big village get-together or knees-up. Most had a beer or a drink in their hand but nobody was outrageously drunk. Toes were tapping and bare feet were slapping on the floor. Everybody was smiling and happy and if you were looking for trouble you'd come to the wrong place.

‘Well, what do you reckon, Peregrine?' said Les, placing the garbage-bin to one side of the alcove near the kitchen. ‘We may as well prop here.'

‘Suits me,' replied the Englishman.

Norton popped a bottle of Moet for Peregrine and a Corona with a slice of lime for himself. They took a decent slurp each, then stepped around the other side of the alcove to get a better look at the band. It was a five piece with a fat, happy-looking girl on bass and lead vocals and a guy dressed like a French sailor on saxophone. Across the bass drum it said The Hemsemmiches.

Peregrine looked at Norton. ‘Les,' he said. ‘What's a hemsemmich?'

‘I don't know,' replied Les. ‘About a dollar twenty with mustard?'

The music was a kind of country and western, blues rock and not too bad. A lot of people were up dancing and most were listening or getting into it. To the right of the stage a DJ console sat in front of two turntables and behind these a tall, skinny guy in a floral shirt was rummaging through three or four milk-crates full of records.

‘Hey this could be all right here, Peregrine,' said Norton, tapping away to The Hemsemmiche's version of ‘Poor Poor Pitiful Me'.

‘Yes, it certainly could,' replied the Englishman.

‘All these peace-loving folk. I don't think even you could start a fight in here.'

‘Thanks, Les.'

They returned to the alcove for fresh drinks and to watch the hippies and have a bit of a perv on the local girls while they listened to the band. Peregrine said his headache wasn't getting any better and swallowed another two Panadols. After a while Alan joined them. He offered them a beer, but Les took the top off the garbage-bin and said to take one of theirs. Alan gladly accepted a Lowenbrau.

‘So how's it going?' said Alan. ‘You having a good time?'

‘Yes, quite good, actually,' replied Peregrine.

‘I like the band,' said Les.

‘The Sangers? Yeah, they're not bad, are they,' agreed Alan. ‘The DJ's good too. Arid I told you The Bachelors From Cracow are on later didn't I?'

‘You sure did,' nodded Les, raising his Corona.

‘Yep, it's gonna be a good night,' smiled Alan. ‘Anyway,' he drained his Lowenbrau, ‘I've got some other people to say hello to. I'll catch up with you later.'

‘See you, Alan,' chorused Les and Peregrine.

The band finished their last number of the bracket with the usual, ‘We'd like to take a little break now and hand you over to our disc jockey for the evening — Tony.'

‘Thank you The Sangers,' said the DJ. ‘Okay, we've got some more good boppin' music for a while before The Sangers come back. And don't forget, later on our special guests all the way from Melbourne, The Bachelors From Cracow.'

Alan wasn't kidding about the disc jockey. He wasn't just good, he was a boogieing fiend from rock ‘n' roll hell. For a taste he hit the punters with Hunters And Collectors — ‘Relief. This went into The Fabulous Thunderbirds — ‘Powerful Stuff straight into The Hippos — ‘Dark Dark Age'. Then The Johnnys — ‘Motorbiking'. By the time he got to James Reyne — ‘Fall of Rome' the crowd was in a foaming-at-the-mouth dancing frenzy, you could hardly fit another bum onto the dance floor and Norton could take no more.

‘Ohh, fuck this, Peregrine,' he said, downing over half a bottle of Corona in a swallow. ‘I gotta get down, baby. And I don't give a stuff if I never get back up again.'

There was a happy-faced woman in a white top with dark hair and glasses tapping her feet to the music at the edge of the alcove. Les asked her for a dance. She said yes and they joined the bouncing, seething mass on the floor for a bit of slippin' and slidin' and reelin' and rockin'. The disc jockey kept the pressure up, flogging the punters unmercifully for
the best part of an hour; Spy Vs Spy, Omar And The Howlers, Machinations, and even some old Jerry Lee Lewis and Gary Glitter. Les and his partner thumped and bumped around sticking as close to each other as possible, but half the time you didn't know who you were dancing with. It was just one big rage.

The woman in glasses lasted about forty minutes before throwing in the towel. Les thanked her and offered her a drink. She said she had to find her daughter somewhere and she'd probably come back. Peregrine was sitting down having a glass of champagne when Les plucked a Becks from the ice and just about swallowed the lot in one go.

‘I have to hand it to you, Les,' said Peregrine. ‘When it comes to dancing, you have a Dionysiac style all of your own.'

‘Mate, I can't wait to get back out there,' Les winked and swallowed the rest of the Becks. ‘Michael Jackson, eat your heart out.'

‘Yes. All that's missing is the glove.'

The DJ stopped, the band came back on and the crowd settled down a little to listen to a bit of blues-rock. Les was getting into the Coronas when he noticed Peregrine smiling at something over his shoulder. Les turned around and there was Marita and Coco. Hello, our luck's in, thought the big Queenslander, but with them were two blonde-haired guys of about thirty and two pretty little girls. Bringing up the rear was an attractive girl of about twenty wearing a white blouse, tartan dress and a tartan string bow-tie.

‘Hello, Peregrine. Hello, Les,' said Marita and Coco.

‘Hey, hello girls,' chorused the boys. ‘Good to see you.'

‘You got here,' said Coco.

‘Yes,' replied Peregrine. ‘It's quite a night.'

‘We saw Les dancing,' said Marita. ‘Not that you could miss him. So we thought we'd come over.'

‘Excellent,' smiled Peregrine, and nodded towards the garbage-bin. ‘You'll have to join us for a drink.'

‘Okay. Thanks.'

The girls introduced the two boys, Roy and Steve, who were the two little girls' fathers. They had smiles in their eyes and good warm handshakes. The two little girls were Crystal and Tessa; immediately upon hearing their names they took hold of their mother's dresses and buried their faces in the folds, giggling shyly. They saved the girl in the tartan dress till last. Her name was Colleen, and Colleen got a very heavy introduction to Peregrine.

‘Colleen's into fashion designing, too,' said Coco.

‘Is that right?' beamed Peregrine.

‘Yes,' replied Colleen. ‘I work from Byron Bay. But I come up and give the girls a hand every now and again.'

‘Splendid.'

Norton couldn't help but chuckle to himself at the way Colleen was being given the big sell. It was obvious she'd been brought over as an offering for Peregrine. Be nice, do the right thing, and you never know, the rich pom might buy some of your clobber too. Half your luck, Pezz, thought Norton. She's not a bad little sort.

Like a true gentleman Peregrine poured the girls a glass of champagne and Roy and Steve had a Tuborg each. They weren't bad blokes and it turned out they shaped surfboards at Byron Bay. Norton had tipped them to be surfies of some description: the unkempt blonde hair looked very offshore on the tanned faces and if that wasn't enough, the 100% Mambo T-shirts and the Bad Billy cotton pants were a dead give away. They had another couple of beers from the garbage-bin then the two surfies went and got some of their own. The girls knocked over one bottle of Moet while they discussed fashions, assuring Peregrine the clothes he'd bought went to England on schedule, then they popped a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. All in all the night was going along famously. The band took another break and the DJ started up again so they all got up for a dance. All except Les. He was left to keep an eye on the two anklebiters. But they weren't bad little kids and Norton didn't mind them sitting on his knees and crawling all over him and blowing spit bubbles in his face while he tried to drink his Corona. And Crystal and Tessa didn't think Uncle Les was too bad for a grown-up either. After a few dances the others trooped back from the dance floor. As they did, Colleen was hanging all over Peregrine like a garage sale dressing gown. Peregrine Normanhurst III, thought Norton, you've done it again, buggered and all as you look. Now I wonder if there's something out there for Uncle Les?

Les was wondering what his chances were when the DJ announced that the next record would be the last before The Bachelors From Cracow. He grabbed a fresh Corona and moved to the edge of the alcove for a better look.

He got there just in time to see some bloke with jet black hair swept straight back over a pale, vampirish face pull the cover from a mixer just a metre or two away. At his side stood two girls with equally pale faces and spiky dark hair wearing
men's double-breasted suits, T-shirts and Julius Marlow shoes.

‘And now,' honked the DJ, ‘let's give a big warm Tweed Valley welcome to our special guests for the evening, The Bachelors From Cracow.'

The crowd applauded and surged forward as the band walked out on stage carrying their instruments. They were a seven piece group — young with fifties-style flat-top haircuts and had intense, interesting faces. They nearly all wore cheap, dark suits and ties and had that hip city-boy look about them. The saxophone player was a swap for Max Headroom and the guy on electric piano had to be nearly seven feet tall with a big lantern jaw like Gomez Addams's butler. The trumpet player looked like a young James Cagney in a black bolero jacket. The best of the lot was the lead singer, he was about four feet tall with short black hair cut into a long scraggly fringe at the front that wisped across a nose big enough to double as a bus shelter. He looked like Tiny Tim after someone had shoved him in a wool-press.

No matter what they looked like, The Bachelors From Cracow could really wail. It was slick, cool, fast-lane jazz, so full of energy you'd think there were twenty on stage, not seven. To top it all, the reptilian lead singer had one of those smoky, crackling, tone-perfect voices ideal for singing jazz. If the band was the cake, he was definitely the icing. The music wasn't exactly Norton's cup of tea and the crowd obviously preferred rock 'n' roll. But every number they did was that tight and full of power no one could fail to be impressed. Peregrine was absolutely rapt and for a while seemed to have snapped out of his earlier lethargy.

‘I say,' he spluttered. ‘Those chaps are just… just sensational.'

‘I like them too,' said Colleen, gripping his sleeve.

The Bachelors From Cracow did every track from their new album to an enthusiastic, appreciative audience. They got a big ovation, then came back for an unexpected but howling version of James Brown's ‘So Good', after which they faded off stage into the arms of their girlfriends in the Julius Marlows.

The DJ returned, Norton finished another Corona then went for a leak. When he returned the others had gone except for Peregrine, who was seated with Colleen next to him. He motioned for Les to sit down on the other side.

‘Les,' he said. ‘I hate to be a slacker. But this headache is getting worse and I feel quite ill. I'm afraid I'm going to have to go home.'

‘Yeah? Oh, that's no good.'

‘Colleen has a car and she's offered to drive me.'

‘Yes. I know how to get to where you're staying from here.'

‘No, I'd better take you home,' said Les.

‘No, it's all right,' insisted Colleen. ‘I can do it.'

The way Colleen was insisting told Les that she wanted to get rich, young Peregrine on his own and talk a bit of fashion with him, among other things. However Les wasn't too keen on letting Peregrine go off with a complete stranger. He also wasn't too keen on leaving the dance. Still, Colleen wasn't really a complete stranger. She was a good friend of Coco and Marita who were now more or less business partners with Peregrine. Les thought about it for a moment. He'd walk up to her car with them and check things out.

‘Okay,' he nodded. ‘I'll walk up to the car with you.'