The Last King of Brighton (4 page)

‘I'll call you back in half an hour,' the man said, putting the phone back on its cradle.

‘Sorry,' Hathaway said again. The man waved Hathaway's apology away as he walked down the street, shoulders hunched.

Hathaway stood in the booth waiting for the telephone to ring. His parents probably had the only telephone on the estate, but his father never made or took calls from there, preferring to use this phone box. Everybody on the street knew it was ‘his' phone box and respected that fact.

Hathaway knew the respect came out of fear of his father. It wasn't something he liked to think about. The telephone rang.

‘Johnny?'

‘I'm here, Dad.'

‘Johnny, your mum and I are staying out here a bit longer than we thought. Another month probably. We wondered if you'd like to join us?'

‘Where are you exactly?'

‘Spain.'

‘Spain's a big country, Dad.'

‘Showing off your geography lessons again? Humour me, son. You know I've got my funny ways.'

‘I think it's called paranoia, Dad.'

‘No – it's called caution, son. So what do you think?'

‘The group's doing well, Dad. I need to be here, really.'

‘As you wish. Your mum wants to know whether you're eating properly.'

‘Of course. Is she there?'

‘She's out by the pool but she sends her love.'

His mother was growing increasingly eccentric. Menopause, his father said, but Hathaway didn't really know what that meant.

His dad hung up.

Barbara came to see the group that evening. Unwillingly, but Hathaway had insisted. She sat right at the back, looking uneasy. Hathaway introduced her to the others during the break, but nobody could think of anything to say so the rest of the group left the two of them sitting together.

Afterwards, in her car, she wasn't in a talking mood. She gave him French instead.

‘Did you enjoy the gig?' he said later.

‘Look. They've seen me now – OK? You've proved you can pull an older woman. Congratulations.'

‘I don't get what you're so cross about.'

‘You wouldn't.'

‘You're not being logical.'

She laughed and reached to wipe the steamed-up side window.

‘One word of advice, John. Don't ever tell a woman that she's not logical if you want to keep everything that belongs to you.'

‘But you're not.' He could feel spots of red burning on his cheeks. ‘Don't take this the wrong way—' She snorted. ‘Don't take this the wrong way,' he continued, ‘but I did pull you.'

She gave him a savage look and turned away.

‘I have to go,' she said, staring out the side window. ‘Early start tomorrow.'

He glared at the side of her face. He was indignant.

‘Sure,' he said, climbing out of the car and slamming the door behind him.

They got over it. And so it went. Two or three gigs a week, cash in hand. Seeing Barbara for sex a couple of times a week. Long days messing about.

By October his parents still hadn't come home.

‘When's Dad coming back?' Hathaway said to Reilly one Saturday. He'd come to the office on the pier, to see Barbara really. He liked to see her all demure behind her desk, knowing what she got up to with him in the hotel and the car. She didn't work Saturdays.

Hathaway had seen this old film, one of the two that had made Marlon Brando a star.
On The Waterfront
, made in black and white. And this corrupt union boss had an office in a wooden shack at the docks on a tiny pier. He often thought of that film when he visited his father at the end of the West Pier. His father's office wasn't in a shack but through the floorboards you could see the grey waters flopping between the iron stanchions below. Through the windows you just saw the sea. There was another room beyond that one, but Hathaway had never been in there.

‘Soon, John, soon,' Reilly said. ‘He needs to. In his absence, people are starting to take the piss. You OK for money?'

Hathaway nodded.

‘I'm flush because of the money from the gigs as well. Though they've tailed off a bit. The landlord at our Sunday gig says he doesn't want us anymore and we've lost a couple of others.'

‘Which pub is that?' Reilly said.

‘The Gypsy, up on the Dyke Road. We've never got much of an audience so you can understand it.'

Reilly nodded.

‘Write down the names of the others for me but I think I know which they are.'

That Reilly should know puzzled Hathaway.

‘That housekeeper working out all right?' Reilly continued.

Because Hathaway wasn't exactly house-trained, Reilly had arranged for a woman off the estate to clean and cook for him. Hathaway wasn't always in at regular mealtimes so she left stuff in the fridge to be heated up. She was wary at first – she'd never seen a fridge before.

Sometimes Hathaway couldn't be bothered. Her cheese and onion pie eaten cold was fine but the steak and kidney got a bit congealed.

‘How do you know the pubs that aren't booking us?'

Reilly stood and walked over to the window. He watched the turgid water.

‘Some of the pubs we look after have chosen to go with our competitors in your father's absence.'

‘Look after? You mean with the one-armed bandits and that?'

Reilly nodded without turning.

‘And they happen to be the ones that aren't booking us any more?'

Reilly turned and nodded again.

‘Probably.'

Hathaway left a few minutes later. As he made his way through the noisy amusement arcade next door – The Beatles' ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand' blared out above the cacophony of pings and bells – he saw Charlie over by one of the old slot machines.

It was called The Miser's Dream. There was a little puppet of a miser with white hair and spectacles sitting at a table in the middle of a spooky old room. Charlie put a penny in the slot, and as Hathaway approached, the scene came to life. A door opened and a skeleton shot out; a picture slid back to reveal an ogre lurking behind it. A trunk opened of its own accord and a hooded creature started to climb out. All of this behind the miser's back whilst he continued, oblivious, looking at his piles of money on the table.

‘You can keep your rigged one-armed bandits,' Charlie said, by way of acknowledging Hathaway. ‘This is the one for me.'

‘Rigged?'

Charlie glanced at Hathaway.

‘No offence to your dad but every one-armed bandit in town is rigged so the odds are in the arcade's favour. Always have been.'

Hathaway nodded. He was wary of Charlie, who had quite a short fuse. He liked him but he hadn't known him as long as the other two in the group.

‘So we're still on for the gig at the Snowdrop tonight?' Charlie said. The Snowdrop was a pub on the edge of Lewes, down the end of the Cliffe High Street.

‘I said we'd be there for seven. Money's not bad, and if it works out, it could become a regular.'

‘You know I'm from Lewes?' Charlie said, looking at a worn penny that had a faded image of Queen Victoria on one side, which he'd fished out of his pocket to put into the slot.

Hathaway looked at the side of Charlie's face, at the knotted jaw.

‘I remember you saying,' he said.

‘Bloody hate the place. Bad memories. So excuse me in advance if I'm in a foul mood tonight.'

‘Would we know the difference?' Hathaway said, stepping back quickly when Charlie mock-lunged at him.

The two had first met when Hathaway had advertised a few months earlier for a drummer for the group he wanted to start.

Charlie had turned up in Hathaway's dad's office on the end of the West Pier in full Teddy boy mode: the drape jacket with velvet lapels, the string tie, the brothel creepers.

‘What kind of music you going to be playing?' he said, looking Hathaway up and down. ‘I ain't doing any Cliff Richard or Pete Seeger.'

‘We'll mix it up – Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, Orbison, The Shads – whatever else is around that's good.'

‘How old are you?' Charlie said.

‘Nearly seventeen. You?'

‘Nineteen. That's a good age for a drummer. Drummer has to hold it all together. Keep the beat. It takes maturity to do that.'

Charlie looked round.

‘What is this place?'

‘My dad's. He owns this end of the pier. The firing range, the amusement arcade and the dodgems.'

Charlie nodded slowly.

‘It smells.'

Hathaway pointed down at the gaps between the floorboards to the water churning below.

‘It's the sea.'

Charlie tilted his head.

‘You got a van?'

Hathaway shook his head. Charlie smirked.

‘I have. You're going to need a van.' He took a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, patted the other one for matches. ‘What do you think about the Springfields?'

‘Mum and dad music.'

‘Acker Bilk?'

Charlie lit up.

‘The same. I hate trad jazz.'

‘I hate skiffle,' Charlie said, blowing out smoke. ‘You haven't got Joe Brown or Lonnie Donnegan lurking somewhere in the background, have you?'

Hathaway smiled again.

‘Are you from Brighton?'

Charlie shook his head.

‘Lewes originally. We've just moved down to Moulscombe.'

Hathaway waved an arm around.

‘We'll rehearse here out of hours.'

‘I assume I can bring the van on to the pier – don't fancy carting the drum kit from the pleasure gardens.'

‘You can.'

‘And is that just the two of us?'

‘I've got a couple of friends from school. A bass player and a vocalist. They couldn't be here today.'

‘In detention?'

Hathaway grinned and after a moment so did Charlie.

‘Are they any good?'

Hathaway nodded.

‘Are you?'

Hathaway nodded again. Charlie pointed over at Hathaway's guitar and amp.

‘Play us a tune, then.'

The Snowdrop was packed that evening, and Charlie, though quiet, seemed OK. At the first break an old friend of his came over, an unreconstructed Teddy boy.

‘This is Kevin,' Charlie said. ‘We used to pal out until I moved to Brighton.'

Kevin looked awkward. He stared at his shoes as he said:

‘And turned into a mop-top.'

Charlie and Kevin went off to the corner of the bar for a drink, but Hathaway could tell by the way they were standing that the conversation was awkward.

It was snowing by the time they finished the gig so progress back into Brighton was slow. Once they'd dipped down off the Downs, Hathaway said:

‘Kevin an old friend, is he?'

‘More of an ex-friend, really. Not his fault. Just bad memories.'

The others glanced at each other but nobody said anything.

Charlie filled the silence:

‘My little brother died. Kevin and me were kind of implicated.'

Again nobody said anything until Hathaway said:

‘Sorry to hear that.'

‘Yeah,' the other two said, almost in unison.

They drove on past Falmer on their left.

‘We seem to be losing gigs,' Dan said. ‘Don't the pubs like the music?'

‘I think it's to do with my dad,' Hathaway said. ‘And his arrangements with the pubs for the one-armed bandits'

‘What do you mean?' Charlie said, as a car overtook and pulled abruptly in front of him. It slowed, forcing Charlie to crunch his brakes.

‘Idiot,' he muttered.

Hathaway said:

‘The pubs that aren't using us are the pubs that aren't using my dad's machines any more. When he was away, they went elsewhere.'

‘Hang on,' Charlie said. ‘Does that mean we're getting these gigs in the first place because your father has influence? That it has nothing to do with talent?'

‘I think the link with Dad helps,' Hathaway said.

Charlie was getting agitated.

‘I'm not getting this. I'm a bloody good drummer. That fucking Ringo Starr doesn't compare—' He pressed his foot hard on the brake again. ‘What the hell is going on here?'

The car in front now had a flashing light on its roof and its hazard lights winking as it slowed down even more. Hathaway looked in the side mirror.

‘There's a cop car behind us too. Panda.'

‘If it's trouble, I don't want any tonight,' Charlie said, crashing the gears.

The car in front guided them into a lay-by. The car behind followed.

‘What the hell do the rozzers want?' Charlie said.

Four plain-clothes coppers spilled out of the unmarked car in front. Two bulky coppers came out of the panda. One of the plain-clothes cops wrenched open the passenger door and waved a warrant card at the occupants. He took a deep breath and breathed out.

‘I'm smelling something illegal. You darkies in disguise, are you?'

The back door of the van was wrenched open.

‘What do you know – it's a bloody pop group.'

This from a red-faced, sour-mouthed sergeant whose white helmet scarcely fitted his enormous head.

‘What's the problem?' Dan said.

‘I think you want to say “Sir”.'

‘He definitely wants to say “Sir”.' Another copper loomed behind the first. He too sniffed loudly. ‘Smells like the casbah in here – or Notting Hill. Want to get out and empty your pockets, gents?