Fiona
and I showed our membership cards to the cashier at the Blue Parakeet
as we paid, but they’d expired, so we had to wait for her to make
out some new ones. While we were waiting, I became aware of a tall,
slightly hunched figure at the other side of the lobby, smoking a
cigarette. Slim to the point of skinny, he was wearing a white
ruffled shirt and leather waistcoat with tight black jeans and ankle
boots.
Taking
a cigarette from my pack, I walked over to him. As I got closer, I
could see how black his hair was and how it curled slightly at the
nape. His face, with its deep brown eyes and olive skin, was framed
with the requisite longish sideburns. He looked slightly foreign.
When he saw me approaching, he reached into his pocket and took out a
Zippo lighter, adorned with a maple leaf.
‘Light?’
‘Thanks.’
My
hand shook a little as I put the tip of my cigarette to the flame. I
wasn’t sure why. I’d only wanted to get a closer look at him.
‘Thanks.’
Embarrassed at my shaking hand, I blamed it on the weather. ‘I’m
freezing.’
He
looked me up and down as if wondering how anyone could be cold
dressed in as many layers as an Eskimo.
‘Don’t
worry. One dance and you’ll soon warm up.’ There was nothing in
his accent to suggest anything more exotic than a Greater London
Borough. ‘You come far?’
I felt
myself blush, hoping he didn’t think I was a country bumpkin, ‘up
London’ on a rare night out.
‘We’ve
just come back from Australia, so we’re feeling the cold.’
‘Yeah,’
he said, laughing, ‘that’s quite far.’
I
blushed again. ‘No,’ I replied, emphasising the word as if
talking to a stupid person. ‘Tonight I’ve come from Earls Court.’
He was
beginning to look interested. ‘That’s a place I’ve always
wanted to go. Australia, that is. Earls Court – I can take it or
leave it.’ He paused to check I was smiling, which I was. ‘You’ll
have to tell me about it.’
This
sounded promising. But first there was something I wanted to ask him.
‘Did
you ever play at the Green Oak?’
His
eyes gleamed with surprise.
‘Yeah.
We used to play there now and again.’
‘I
remember you and the Blue Jays. You’re James Jay, aren’t you?’
He
still looked a little taken aback.
‘Yeah.
We had to change the name, ‘cos there was another group called the
Blue Jays.’
I’d
seen the poster by the door as we’d come in – James Jay and the
Jaylers. It was a terrible name. He must have read my mind.
‘Rubbish
name, but people remember it. And we get a few laughs when we do our
last number. I come on wearing a prison outfit with a ball and chain
and the lads wear prison warder caps. Then we sing Chain Gang.’
‘Really?
This I must see.’
‘We’re
not doing it tonight. It’s not that sort of a gig. This is a bit
more mainstream. You know?’
‘How
disappointing.’
I made
a sad face and he laughed.
‘How
come you recognised me, anyway? We’ve smartened up a bit. It was
jeans and t-shirts back then.’
‘Don’t
you remember? We went out a couple of times.’
The
look on his face was priceless. It wasn’t true, of course. The
words had slipped out almost unconsciously, but I was enjoying the
effect it was having. He was scratching his head trying to remember
me.
‘When
was this, exactly?’
Fi
appeared with our new membership cards and stood waiting to be
introduced. It was a welcome diversion.
‘This
is my friend Fiona.’
He
nodded his head in greeting and looked back at me.
‘Remind
me. What’s your name?’
‘Pandora.’
‘Christ.
I think I’d have remembered a name like that. What’s your last
name?’
‘Fry.’
‘Pan-fry.
What d’you get called at school? Frying pan? Andy Pandy?’
I
smiled thinly, trying to look as if I hadn’t heard it a million
times before.
‘Something
like that.’
Our
discussion was cut short by the appearance of a tall lad with long
hair, telling him it was nearly time to go on. James Jay said he’d
be there in a minute, and his friend shouted okay and went back into
the club. He walked nearer to the street door to get rid of his
cigarette butt, and paused, staring out. I wasn’t sure if our
dialogue was over.
Taking
Fi’s arm, I headed for the door leading into the club. I certainly
wasn’t hanging around like a groupie to see if any more crumbs of
conversation would fall from the table. He was extremely good
looking, so I had to follow my rule and treat him cool, letting him
make the running. If there was running to be made.
Oddly
enough, I’d always found the opposite to be true of the not so
good-looking ones, who could be attractive for different reasons –
quirky personality, good sense of humour. Make a fuss of them
and they were putty in your hands. But James was definitely in the
top ten per cent on the phwoar scale and had to be treated
accordingly. This category, by virtue of physical superiority, had no
lack of female attention so were much more intrigued by a girl who
didn’t fawn all over them.
We’d
just reached the entrance when he called out to us, ‘I’ll buy you
a drink when we finish our set. See you at the bar, then. Yeah?’
Scarcely
turning my head, I answered, ‘Yeah, see you then,’ and Fi and I
disappeared through the door.
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