Toby muttered something. But I didn’t hear what.
But we were on our way to greatness, I just knew it. And Toby knew it, too, I knew that he did. Even if he wasn’t letting on.
We ran through all our numbers that night.
All six of them.
And when the crowd called out for an encore, we did ‘It Will Never Get Well If You Pick At It’ once again. Because that involved us each getting an instrumental solo.
And there it was. We were done.
We came off that bit of bare flooring that had served as a stage as the true stars we were. There was no doubt that we had triumphed. That we did have our foot on the ladder. And several rungs up, at least.
We did that thing known as the ‘high five’ to each other and Neil even threw his drumsticks into the audience.
‘You were absolutely brilliant,’ said a gigantic womanish creature.
‘It has been an honour to have shared the same floorboards as you.’
‘Well, thanks very much,’ I said. ‘I appreciate that.’
‘Tell you what,’ said the tottering gargantuan, ‘me and the other girly-boys of the band would be really honoured if you would join us for a drink. At our expense, of course.’
‘Well…’ I said. And, I confess, with a degree of hesitation.
‘It would mean so much to us,’ this being continued. ‘You wouldn’t want to let us down, would you? That wouldn’t be very rock ’n’ roll, would it?’
And I agreed that it would not.
And I went to tell the guys the good news.
‘I’m not leaving my gear in here,’ said Neil. ‘It will all be gone by the time we get back.’
‘Good point,’ I said. ‘Good point indeed.’
‘Pack it into your van,’ said the towering travesty of womanhood. ‘And perhaps you’d be kind enough to pack in our gear also. I don’t think we want to leave it in here. You’d be amazed how much it cost.’
And so we packed all the gear into the Bedford. And the gear that belonged to Venus Envy also. And Toby locked up that van. Very tightly. And we checked the side doors and the rear doors also and assured ourselves that the van was well locked up.
‘And so,’ said I to the nearest she-creature that loomed above us, ‘where would we be having this drink?’
‘At our private club. It’s open all night and it’s just around the corner.’
‘Should we drive, do you think?’ I asked the colossus.
‘But we won’t all fit in, will we?’ it replied.
Which was true. And so we walked.
And it wasn’t really just around the corner. It was up the steps, past Ealing Broadway Station and along the Uxbridge Road, over Ealing Common and all the way to Acton Town. And then off a side road and into a rather sleazy-looking neighbourhood that was new to me. We might have all fitted into Mr Ishmael’s limo, but as I said, when we looked for him, he’d gone.
‘Go down the alleyway there and wait by the gate,’ said the largest of the large Venus Envys. ‘We have to sign you in at the front entrance. It’s a secret drinking club and you have to appear to be members.’ And he/she tapped at his/her nose with a mighty finger and Toby, Neil and I scuttled off down the alley, beating frantically at ourselves as we were now damn near frozen to death.
And there we waited. In the falling snow. Up to our knees in the stuff and risking frostbite.
‘This is absurd,’ Neil said.
‘It’s rock ’n’ roll,’ said Toby. ‘And we deserve to be bought a drink – we were brilliant tonight.’
And I agreed that we were.
And we had a moment. We three. In that alleyway. A special moment. In our youth, being all young and eager and carefree and life being ours for the taking.
And we even had a bit of a group hug.
In a manly way, of course.
And probably more in the spirit of survival than camaraderie.
And we waited.
And then we waited some more.
And Neil sought to lighten the mood of this waiting by remarking that in my snow-capped green baize flare- trousered jumpsuit, I made for a passable Christmas tree.
And at very great length, when we were all about to keel over and die from the cold, we did what we should have done earlier and beat upon the back gate with our fists and demanded entry.
And presently someone came to answer our beatings.
But not a nightclub bouncer or barman.
A little old lady with a candle.
‘What do you want?’ quoth she. ‘Banging on my gate at this ungodly hour?’
‘We want to come into the club, we’re freezing.’
‘Club?’ went the old woman. ‘Club? There’s no club here. This is a private house.’
And then it all sort of slotted together.
All of it. Like the pieces of a jigsaw.
And we looked at one another.
And reached what is known as a consensus opinion.
And we ran, fairly ran, all the way back to The Green Carnation Club. But there was no one there. No one. Just that door hanging off its hinge.
And outside that door, a sort of patch of road that had less snow on it than the rest. A patch that corresponded exactly in area to that of our Bedford van. Which, dear reader, as you may well have guessed, was no longer there to be seen.
14
We trudged back, freezing and forlorn.
To The Divine Trinity, where we had left our street clothes.
We were glum and we were angry, too.
We had been had, big time. Done up like a kipper. We had fallen prey to a most inspired piece of chicanery, it was true, and we could hardly have been expected to see it coming, but that didn’t make things any better. We had lost all of our instruments.
And then we arrived at the allotments.
And the allotment gates were wide open.
And so was the door to The Divine Trinity. For it had been crowbarred from its hinges.
And there were the tyre tracks of what must surely have been a lorry. And all of our amps and speakers and other expensive equipment-
Had gone.
15
And so I became a private detective.
Well, not quite as quickly as that and things are never that easy. I was very upset, I will tell you that. The more I thought about it, the more it became clear that this terrible happenstance was really all my fault. I did my best to deny this, of course, because it did seem logical at the time that there had to be someone to blame who wasn’t
