The Devil Plays an Evil Tune

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

‘Whoay, whoay. What the f**k was that?’

‘What?’

‘That f*****g lyric man?’

‘What’s wrong with it?

‘What’s right with it more like?’

‘And?’

“She flies from the gallery. Her dead hands as cold as ivory.”

I pulled the ready rolled from my shirt pocket, lit it and felt a mask of exasperated expression crossing my face. Every rehearsal this happened.

This f*****g power struggle! I took a couple of large draws before handing it to Paul.

‘What’s the problem?’ I asked through a haze of dense smoke.

‘I’m sick of his f*****g poncey lyrics man. Can’t we just have some lyrics people can relate to?’

‘Well it’s a good rhyme.’ I said.

‘So is; “this is dog s**t, give us another hit.”’ He retorted with a laugh, expelling a couple of jets of smoke through his nostrils.

‘Look we only have half an hour left, let’s just get on with it, we have an important gig on Saturday’ I turned and noticed the vacant stool at the drums; ‘Where the f**k is Ian?’

‘On the dog!’ Will replied raising an eyebrow.

‘How many times does he have to call that woman? He f*****g phones her when he arrives. Phones her when he’s about to leave, if she had any tighter leash on him it would strangle him.’ Paul ranted.

‘I’ve gotta go,’ said Ian as he burst back in the room.

‘What, the little woman says it’s time to come home for your bed socks and Ovaltine?’

‘Naw little Sandra is being sick,’ he replied as he started to unwind the thumb screws on the cymbals.

‘And big Sandra can’t cope? It’s about time you got your priorities in order.’ Paul spat.

‘My priorities are to my family.’

‘Not in f*****g band time they ain’t.’

And so that was how it went, another rehearsal ending in much the same way as all the rest. I got in the van and headed up the A1 through Archway and then took the back route through to Wood Green and up Green Lanes to my flat in Winchmore Hill. I let myself in and stuck side one of Live Dead on the turntable, the opening strains of Dark Star began to soothe my brain.

I took the cover to my seat and used it as a tray to roll a joint of some nice gold seal Afgani, courtesy of Mr Howard Marks, the man who kept Britain high I was to find out years later. I had just lit up when there was a rap on the glass, the unmistakable rap of my favourite lay, Jenny, who lived in the flat upstairs. I let her in, took a toke and handed her the spliff.

‘Your timing is immaculate as ever.’ I said.

‘I heard you come in and figured ten minutes would be about right,’ she said with that gorgeous smile.

To say Jenny was petite would be an understatement, she was tiny, like a little elf. She had waist length blonde hair and was delicately boned, I was always worried that when we were having s*x I might actually break her.

She was wearing some kind of brightly coloured hippie style caftan and I suspected nothing underneath, she had no need for a bra as her t**s were virtually non-existent and what was there was solid. She passed back the joint, slipped off her caftan, and, as I had correctly guessed, was as naked as the day she was born underneath. Rising onto tip toes she kissed me delicately on the lips before taking my hand and leading me though to the bedroom.

Jenny was not backward in coming forward.

She had vacated my bed around two thirty, it was her unwritten rule not to sleep with me. Sleeping together smacked of relationship and it was agreed that neither of us wanted a full blown affair, mutual s****l fulfilment suited us both at that time in our lives. We never shared a breakfast, in fact I don’t think we ever shared a meal full stop. Mid-morning coffee and a couple of rounds of toast was about the limit.

I threw back the covers and stepped into the bath, standing under the dribble of a lukewarm shower, washed my hair and towelled down before chucking a couple of rashers under the grill. I wondered what sort of fortune the day would bring. No doubt I’d get an irate call from Will about Paul’s behaviour at rehearsal and then I’d get one from Paul slating Will’s lyrics. Ian would be in touch to say he was finding hard to commit with the twins and all, and I would have to be agony aunt to all.

I often wondered of the merit of managing this bunch at all, but they did show promise and maybe one day they’d be my meal ticket for real, after all my windfall wouldn’t last forever.

One can dream, can’t one?

I slapped the bacon between two slices of Mother’s Pride and applied some Daddies sauce to give it some savoir-faire, sat down with yesterday’s Mirror and tucked in.

The news was all about Thacher’s landslide victory and the new sense of optimism that was to lead us into the eighties. Even the Mirror was championing her victory. I got dressed, a pair of bleached out Levis 501’s, a faded Neil Young 1973 tour T-shirt, faded denim jacket and was good to go. I scored ten Silk Cut from Patel’s, who’s good morning smile was as toothy as ever, and caught the one-two-three down to Wood Green, where I took the Piccadilly Line into town.

I’d arranged to meet this freelance AR guy that the manager of The Greyhound had put me in touch with. It was gone two by the time I had arrived and the guy looked like he had just dragged himself out of his pit, his hair was a mess and his skin the pallor of a bleached out sheet, a brace of weighty dark bags hung beneath bloodshot eyes.

His office walls were covered with tour posters ranging from Bob Dylan to The Clash, The Dead 72 tour, CSN&Y, The s*x Pistols a living history of contemporary music and venues. Behind where he sat was a wall unit that housed tape deck, an amp and a pile of discs and tapes. He introduced himself as Clive Dryfus, we loosely shook hands and I handed him our demo to add to the collection.

Dryfus lit a fag, coughed and spluttered before slipping the tape into the deck and ramping up the volume. He let about thirty seconds of the first song play before he hit fast forward, the machine stopped in the gap between songs and automatically played the second, pretty fancy I thought. He seemed to like this one a bit better, he nodded his head in time with the music and a sort of a smile registered on his face. He let about forty seconds elapse before hitting the fast forward button. That was how it went with all six songs.

‘Not bad. Not bad at all,’ he rasped. ‘I would need to see them live. Check out that they can really play what is on the tape,’

I assured him they could and were even better live, more of a raw edge I told him and handed over a list of gig dates and locations.

‘Cheers then, I’ll be seeing you.’ I said rising from the chair. He smiled and nodded, gave me the thumbs up and then disappeared behind a copy of The New Musical Express.

I left, down the dimly lit stairwell and out onto the street. It was a bright sunny day. Tottenham Court Road was full of tourists who had strayed from the main drag off of Oxford Street or geeks looking for a deal in one of the many electronic stores. I pushed my way through the throng and headed to a branch of Our Price Record’s a mate of mine ran, where I could score my sounds with a generous discount.

We touched knuckles and exchanged broad smiles.

‘My main man. How’s it hanging?’

‘Fine,’ I replied, ‘and you?’

He filled me in on his news, breaking away every now and then to serve a customer whilst I perused the racks and made my choices. We talked for a while longer and then I made my way to Warren Street, rode the stuffy tube homeward eager to give my new discs a spin.

He had not really been looking for his first victim, ironically she had found him. He had been out on a visit and was driving back down the A10, and there she was, on the Turnford roundabout hitching for a ride. He pulled into the bus stop lay-by and leant over to release the passenger door.

‘Where you headed?’ he asked

‘Wembley, so anywhere where I can get a bus or tube will be fine.’ She said breathlessly.

‘I can take you as far as Hornsey.’

‘That’s great, I think you have just saved my life.’

He smiled at the irony, gave her the once over as she got in and placed her bag in the foot-well before her. Pretty, very pretty with a hint of Indian, coffee skin with jet black hair. She told him how she been visiting friends she is at uni with and had missed the Green Line; ‘by a matter of a few minutes, I saw it go past and ran for it but it had already gone.’

She said that her father would kill her if she were late, she had a family get-together to attend and her father was very strict on protocol.

He enquired about her life at university? What she was studying? But paid scant attention to her answers as he weighed up the possibilities and fantasies that were tramping through the darkest corridors of his mind. He had waited too long a time for an opportunity such as this and wondered whether he could really carry it off.

Taking his right hand off the wheel he felt in the map compartment for the syringe he had kept for such an occasion as this, slipped the protective sheath from the needle, being careful not to prick himself.

As the lights at Southbury Road changed from red to amber he quickly struck, stabbing the needle into her leg and depressing the plunger, a heavy dose of Ketamine quickly attacked her bloodstream. Before she could truly register what had just happened, her eyes became heavy and her head lolled forward, a dribble of spittle falling from her mouth and staining her skirt.

Taking the next right he took the back roads to his rented garage, he opened the double doors and backed the car half way in so he could remove her without being spotted. His tyres on the gravel had sounded like an advancing army, and although there were never many people about he was worried that some nose-twitchers interest could have been roused.

He lay her out on the cold concrete floor, checked her breath before driving the car out and closing the doors to the outside world. For inside was his world, a world that had been long prepared and even longer in fantasy, now it was a reality and his quarry lay upon the floor.

All his for the taking.

He hit the light switch and a six-foot-florescent reluctantly flickered into life, like it had been awoken from a deep sleep and was reluctant to get out of bed, a temperamental teenager; ‘Oh must I really light up your seedy little world!’ it seemed to complain.

She looked paler under the harsh yellow light, as if someone had poured some extra milk into that coffee colour, once again he checked her breathing, didn’t know how long she would be out so he figured he better get a move on. Starting on the blouse he undid the buttons and threw it open to expose a white bra and a line of dark hair running down from her navel and disappearing under the waistband of her skirt. He struggled, unable to find a zip he grabbed a pair of scissors from the bench in the corner and cut away the skirt, cut the front of her bra and freed her breasts. He stood for a moment to admire his handiwork before completing the task with the removal of her tights and knickers, and once naked he lifted her up and placed her in the chair, securing the straps.

The chair he had fashioned at art-college, had titled it “Black Death” as the majority of those put to death in the United States were black. It was a hideous crudely constructed wooden structure with leather restraining straps and it was bolted firmly to the floor.

He had fantasised of its usage in the years since leaving college.

Now the fantasy was reality.

He pulled up the chair that sat by the bench in the corner, sat down before her, waited for the show to begin.

I had called Paul to let him know about the gig at the Greyhound and how it was possible we might be graced with a visit from Clive Dryfus, the AR guy. Once again he moaned about Ian and his commitment to the band.

‘He’s been a f*****g liability since the twins have been born.’

I said it must be hard on him, that they probably take a lot of looking after, double the trouble and all.

‘Yeah well,’ Paul continued, ‘a lot of people have kids but it don’t mean you can’t have a life outside of the family, it’s only a couple of nights a week.’

‘Just cut him a bit of slack Paul. Give him time to adjust.’

‘That’s what I like about you Si, you can always see the other geezers point of view. Don’t mean it’s right though.’ He added with a laugh.

I told him we all had our crosses to bear and hung up.

I walked back into the kitchen to find Jenny standing at the back door; come in I beckoned.

‘You don’t have to stand on ceremonies.’ I told her.

‘I don’t like to just barge in uninvited, you might be other-wise employed,’ she added with a suggestive wink.

‘I should be so lucky.’

‘Well I don’t know. A handsome eligible bachelor such as yourself must have them flocking.’ She said running a finger down the line of buttons on my shirt, a mischievous smile crossing her face.

‘Methinks thou doth flatter me too much young lady. What do you want?’

‘A tenner till Friday and a quick f**k!’

‘Tenners I can do but I am afraid I am right out of fucks.’

She moved toward me and placed her hand to my crotch

‘I think a new supply has just arrived,’ she said as she began to loosen my belt and slowly undo the buttons on my 501s.

‘Time to get it out of the stock room and put it to good use.’ She declared as she reached into my pants.

Resistance was futile.