The Calling Page 4

  ‘What was that about?’ Zig asked as Flak seated himself at their table. ‘What’s up with Kaiser?’

  ‘His mouth’s too big and he’s got nostrils to match.’ Flak gulped from the bottle he was holding. ‘Things keep getting up his nose. You know what? I think we need a new vocalist. If we could ask George over there to join the Suddens — then we’d be laughing.’

  Annie overheard this as she returned to the table with her second drink. ‘George is too old,’ she said, ‘and too fat.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong. All that fat’s full of vocal cords.’

  ‘Crap,’ said Annie. ‘Vocal cords are only in your throat.’

  ‘Crap,’ said Flak. ‘I know people that’ve got vocal cords here.’ He slapped his chest. ‘And here. And here. And here.’ He slapped his forehead, then the top of his head, then his stomach.

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘George over there, to start with.’

  ‘And Kaiser,’ Zig said pointedly. ‘Who else?’

  ‘Rotten.’

  Annie leant forward on her elbows, warming to the argument. ‘What, Johnny Rotten? Crap!’

  ‘Johnny Rotten isn’t crap,’ said Zig.

  ‘Course he is,’ Annie countered. ‘As a singer. That’s the point, isn’t it?’

  Flak drained his beer. ‘That boy can belt out a song through his fists. He’s got vocal cords in his knuckles.’ He was evidently warming up to a bit of a speech about this, but was interrupted by the man in the denim cap.

  ‘Hi,’ said the man, holding out a hand, which Flak ignored. ‘I’m Logan Royce. Correspondent for Beaten Tracks. You’re Flak, right?’

  ‘What of it?’ Flak didn’t return the smile.

  ‘You’re the manager of Sudden Deff, right?’ Logan Royce had an American accent. ‘I’d like to talk to you. Mind if I sit down for a minute?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Only a minute, I promise you. Got to be at the Paradiso by seven-thirty.’

  ‘You’ll get bottled if you turn up at the Paradiso in that hat,’ said Flak.

  The man chuckled and drained a couple of inches from his pint. ‘Bottled,’ he said. ‘What’s bottled?’

  ‘Bottled is when they throw bottles at you,’ said Zig. ‘If you’re lucky it’s not the broken ones.’

  ‘That’s good!’ The man looked genuinely delighted, not least at the sight of Zig’s cleavage. ‘That’s very good. Bottled. I’m studying how people talk over here, see?’ He pulled the cap off to reveal a lot of flat mousy hair hanging about his neck. ‘But I take your point. I haven’t quite got the look yet. In New York they’re still modelling John Lennon.’

  Flak stuck his finger in a wide open mouth and mimed a vomit.

  ‘I know, I know.’ The American took another gulp of his drink. ‘Peace and love and the whole damn thing isn’t your thing. As a matter of fact I’m writing an article about hate culture for my magazine. I’d like to do an interview with you.’

  ‘About what? You want to know what I hate? You want a list or something?’

  ‘Well, matter of fact, I saw someone walking around this afternoon in a t-shirt with a list of hates on it. But no. I don’t want any lists. I’d like to dig a little deeper, you know, find out what’s going on underneath. Last time I was over here, just a month ago, your papers were full of stuff about that by-election in Leicester where the National Front polled fifteen per cent. Now I walk along the street outside of this pub and what do I see? People wearing swastika signs like your friend Kaiser. And t-shirts with Destroy written on them.’

  Flak made a sort of cackling noise.

  Logan turned on him. ‘It’s a joke, is it?’

  ‘It’s the reactions that are a joke,’ said Zig.

  ‘Is that right?’

  Flak was ready with the follow-up. ‘Little old England’s so bloody proud of defeating the Nazis. If they think anyone’s going to take that away from them they go ballistic. All these people with their little grey lives in their little grey streets, walking round thinking to themselves — well, we done those nasty Nazis in, didn’t we? What else have they got to feel good about?’

  ‘You’re playing with fire, man,’ Logan growled.

  ‘Oh really?’ Flak showed his teeth in an ugly smile. ‘I love fire. Here, I’ll show you something.’ He fished a box of matches out of the pocket in his trousers and laid it on the table. ‘Got a cigarette on you?’

  Logan held out an open pack. Extracting two of them, Flak said, ‘When I give you the nod, I want you to light these fags. But you got to do it right: both with the same match, one after the other. No messing about. Got that?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Logan gave a mock salute.

  Flak put the cigarettes in his mouth, one in each corner, and nodded. When they were lit, he took a few puffs, so the fags glowed and streams of smoke came out of his nostrils, then opened his mouth wide and swallowed. A few long seconds passed before he started making chewing movements with his jaw, and pushed both the cigarettes out through his lips, still lighted. He offered one to Logan.

  ‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘I know where it’s been. Where d’you learn to do a trick like that?’

  ‘That’s not trickery, that’s science. Everything to do with fire is science.’ Flak dropped one of the cigarettes and crushed it with his boot, then held up the other one about two inches from Logan’s nose. ‘Ever heard of spontaneous combustion? People seem to think it’s a bit of a mystery. Stupid people, that is. In fact, once you know how it works it’s just a matter of technique — it’s a matter of putting a light to exactly the right place on the human anatomy. The wick effect, they call it. Turns you into a fireball, consuming your own melted fat. You can burn a human body to a crisp that way, except for the legs. For some reason the legs and feet often get left over, hanging around as if they didn’t even know anything had happened to the rest of the system. Is that the sort of thing you mean by playing with fire?’

  Logan moved back a bit, but he kept his cool. ‘Not exactly. I was in San Francisco at the time of the Manson murders. One of the effects they had, you know, was they changed the sense of humour. All sorts of things just didn’t seem funny anymore. Hate culture. When it bites, it has a tendency to snap your head off.’

  ‘If you want to get to the Paradiso, you’d better split,’ said Flak. ‘There’s a bloke in a leather mask on the door and if it’s getting full he selects the punters by their looks. I don’t fancy your chances.’

  Logan got up from his seat and finished his beer standing. ‘Cambridge rapist masks. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about, see? I’ll be at the Chelsea Drugstore tomorrow, twelve-thirty, Flak. You talk to me, I’ll buy you lunch.’

  ‘Oh how lovely.’ Flak watched him leave then announced loudly, ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead in the Chelsea Drugstore.’

  Annie was wide-eyed. ‘If he’s a journalist, why don’t you talk to him? A lot of people read Beaten Tracks. I’ve seen it on the magazine stands next to New Musical Express. How can you expect to make it in the rock music business if you don’t even want to get in the music magazines?’

  ‘Tell you what I think,’ said Zig. ‘I think you were riled because he was talking to Kaiser. You two aren’t exactly hitting it off, are you?’

  Flak raised his eyebrows. ‘Hitting it off. Interesting expression, that. I could hit Kaiser off the face of the planet, no trouble. Zig was stony-faced. ‘Maybe that’s what you done to Sol. Is it? Where’s he gone, Flak? I haven’t seen him for over a week.’

  ‘Maybe you haven’t looked in the right places.’

  ‘I went looking for him this afternoon at the Tate. In the Blake room.’

  ‘Ah! You can see all sorts of things in there. Tyger, tyger, burning bright. Anyway, gotta go.’ He stood up, but so did Zig.

  She grabbed Flak’s arm and pulled him towards her. ‘Don’t piss me about. I want to know where he is.’

  Flak had gone very still and was staring back at her. ‘I reckon Sol’s gone into the jungl
e. He’s heard the call of the wild.’

  7

  It was still light when they came out of the pub, and the King’s Road was even more crowded than before. They crossed it, went through a passageway between some shops and came out into a precinct where there were high rise buildings all around. Sharon jumped to avoid a kid hurtling towards her on a bike, his legs stuck out either side of him and the front wheel rearing in the air, but she stepped right into the path of another rider, going in circles with his feet on the handlebars. In a reflex, she stuck her arms out to block the collision and found herself with a two-handed grip on his front wheel. Luckily the boy was running out of momentum and it wasn’t a high-speed catch, though it left her with a nasty scratch up her forearm from the edge of the mudguard.

  ‘You want to watch out, you do!’ she snapped, recoiling and inspecting the hurt arm.

  ‘Ya wanna watchit yew dew,’ the boy mimicked in falsetto, pushing himself off again. A group of smaller kids without bikes, who’d assembled from nowhere, started laughing.

  Zig had already disappeared around the side of the next building, so Sharon sprinted after her and found herself in an alleyway with brick walls on either side, topped by a layer of wire mesh fence. World’s End Passage said the sign on the wall. A netball post, rising above the mesh, gave away that there was a school in there. Zig had at last turned to wait for her.

  ‘Thanks for rescuing me back there,’ Sharon called, slowing to get her breath back. ‘I nearly got decked by a bunch of evil hobbits.’

  ‘Takes one to know one,’ said Zig.

  But before they’d reached the end of the passageway they were forced against the wall by a weighty kid riding his bike full throttle with the evident intention of skittling them from behind. Once he’d overtaken them he skidded to a halt and turned on them, blocking the exit.

  ‘Ya spikers!’ he called out. ‘I know where you come from.’

  Sharon guessed the kid was no more than ten years old, but he was a force to be reckoned with and she was glad to be with someone who knew how to keep their cool. She let Zig do the talking.

  ‘I know where yez live.’ The kid seemed to be winding up to something. ‘Lots Road, in’t ya?’

  ‘Can’t remember,’ Zig drawled, lighting a cigarette. ‘I might have moved.’

  He was closing in, propelling the bike forward with his feet on the ground either side. ‘You’re pulling my pisser.’

  ‘Not likely.’ Zig looked up, channelling a stream of smoke into the air above her. ‘Wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.’

  ‘You live in Sol’s place. I seen you round there.’ He planted a foot on the ground and folded his arms. ‘Sol owes me money.’

  ‘Well, that’s his problem. Nothing to do with us, is it?’

  ‘It is if I can’t find him. Somebody’s got to pay.’

  ‘Pay for what?’ Sharon couldn’t resist buying into the dialogue. ‘Deliveries. Every week. Fifty pence, for delivering the Yeller magazines.’

  ‘All right,’ said Zig. ‘Where are they then?’

  ‘Had to take em back, didn’t I? Sol wasn’t there so I had to take em back. That’s fifty pence each way. Give me a pound and we’ll call it quits.’

  Zig laughed. ‘Nice try. Bring them down to Lots Road in half an hour and I’ll give you the fifty pence. And here.’ She tossed him a cigarette. ‘Here’s your bonus.’

  They emerged from the World’s End Passage and cut across a park into an area of little streets lined with poky, run-down terraces. Above the rooflines rose two giant red brick chimneys.

  ‘What’s the factory?’ Sharon asked.

  Zig sucked in smoke from her fag and took her time answering. ‘Lots Road power station. It’s where all the power comes from for the tubes. Or used to.’

  They seemed to be walking towards it, and eventually rounded a corner into a street where the wall of the building rose up in front of them, overshadowing the squashed row of houses opposite. Zig stopped outside a door with paint flaking off it. Like the other houses, it had steps down to an extra floor below the street, but they were heaped with rubbish and didn’t seem to lead to any entrance. She followed Zig inside.

  Her first thought was that she must be seeing double. The place they were in seemed to be completely different from the one she’d seen from the street. For a start it was twice the size. The filth on the windows blocked most of the light so it was hard to see exactly the extent of it, but from where she was standing, there didn’t seem to be any walls. Then the penny dropped. It was actually two houses, with the adjoining wall knocked out.

  Zig led the way over to a staircase at the far end, where there was some light coming from above, enough to reveal the lines of a giant figure painted on the wall, stepping upward as if it was climbing the stairs.

  Sharon stared at it. ‘Who did that?’ she asked.

  ‘Recognise it, do you? That’s Sol’s work. It’s a copy, but maybe you’ve already figured that out.’

  ‘It’s The Ghost of a Flea, isn’t it? The Blake picture.’

  Zig was already at the top of the stairs but Sharon hesitated to follow her.

  ‘So what’s this place? You don’t live here, do you?’

  ‘It’s a squat. Haven’t you ever been in a squat before? You’re a bit wet behind the ears, aren’t you? Come on up.’

  ‘I know what a squat is.’ Sharon took the stairs slowly, following the sweeping lines of the figure painted on the wall beside her. On the landing there was a window in which someone had cleaned a patch. She put her face up to it and looked out over a row of little garden squares, divided up by brick walls.

  Zig pulled her away. ‘Nothing out there,’ she said. She opened a door that led into a room facing the front of the house, with real daylight coming through clear windows. It was a sitting room with fat old armchairs and carpet on the floor. A black cat sat poised on the back of one of the chairs, swishing its tail and miaowing at the intrusion.

  ‘Hello puss.’ Sharon stroked the cat’s neck with a finger and it settled with its belly against the chair, claws catching at the fabric. ‘What’s its name?’

  ‘Cat.’

  ‘Doesn’t it have a name?’

  ‘Its name is Cat. Belongs to Sol.’

  Sharon looked around at the shabby furniture, noticing that the arm of one of the chairs was stuck full of scissors and pieces of kitchen cutlery. ‘So you actually live here? It’s a bit dark downstairs, isn’t it? Do you get electricity?’

  ‘Up here we do. Not officially, of course, but Sol managed to plug us into next door’s wiring.’ Zig flicked the light switch to demonstrate.

  ‘Why did they knock the walls down?’

  ‘And what’s the price of fish and what colour knickers does the Queen wear? Ask a lot of questions, don’t you?’

  ‘Sorry. Just one more. Does Sol live here?’

  Zig flung herself on the settee. ‘Yes. He’s got a workshop down in the basement, full of stuff.’ She was staring out of the window, avoiding eye contact.

  ‘Is he your boyfriend?’

  Zig flashed her a look of contempt. ‘What do you think?’ Sharon blushed. ‘Why don’t we go and have a look round his studio? See if we can find any clues about where he’s gone.’

  ‘Can’t get in. It’s locked.’

  ‘You sure you can’t get in? I mean if he’s really missing, somebody ought to check it out, oughtn’t they? How d’you know he’s not lying unconscious on the floor or something?’

  ‘There’s no way he could have locked himself in because the door’s padlocked on the outside.’

  ‘Maybe we could break in.’

  Zig shook her head in exasperation but she was already getting up from the chair. ‘It’s a bloody great padlock. You’d need a hacksaw or something.’

  ‘Well you’re not short of hardware by the looks.’ Sharon was inspecting the weaponry stuck in the arm of the chair. She pulled out a corkscrew and a pair of fine-bladed scissors. ‘Let’s have
a go.’

  ‘Don’t give up easily, do you?’ Zig took the corkscrew from her, picked up a big black torch from one of the boxes and led the way back downstairs. The cat ran ahead of them but stopped a few feet away from the bottom step, its eyes still visible in the dimness. ‘Move it, Cat.’ Zig gave it a prompt with her foot. Then she bent down and pulled up a piece of floorboard. There were three short planks covering a square hole in the floor, through which the cat instantly disappeared. Zig went after it, and Sharon followed.

  It was dark down there and the light from Zig’s torch wasn’t a lot of help as she negotiated the rickety steps to the lower floor. When her feet reached the ground, she saw what Zig was talking about. In front of them was a bolted door, with a hefty-looking padlock attached to the bolt. The cat was staring up at it and miaowing vigorously.

  Zig handed Sharon the torch and started probing the lock with the tip of the corkscrew.

  ‘Useless!’ she concluded, in a matter of seconds. She exchanged the corkscrew for the scissors and tried again, swearing as one of the blades snapped.

  ‘What about trying with a safety pin?’ Sharon took one out of her shirt and handed over the torch. But it wasn’t any good. She couldn’t get the point far enough in. ‘What’s that noise?’ she asked, stopping for a minute.

  ‘It’s the factory. They run trucks underground.’

  The distant rumbling suddenly got drowned out by a battering on the front door.

  ‘Conker,’ said Zig.

  ‘What?’