Now that Quick had engaged me for his ‘auto’biography, The Handyman’s attitude swung between enthusiasm because his own standing would benefit if the book was a success, and worry that he would be blamed if it was not. Up to now he had been called on as a chauffeur or as a troubleshooter when physical toughness, or the threat of it, was needed. Now he was expected to provide quite different services he was struggling.
He had no experience of books, publishing, or management. So far his only contribution was a fallback plan to minimize the effects of failure. This was to tell Quick that worrying about the book was making me ill; a week or so later he would say that I had had a nervous breakdown and gone into therapy. Having nervous breakdowns and going into therapy is common in the rock and roll business, and the story would, he said, not be questioned.
Disappointed by his low expectations, I told him that Loyd had agreed to help me put the book together.
He was unimpressed. ‘The bloke who taught Quick and Teef at school? How old is he, for god’s sake?’
I mentioned that the next meeting was to be at Fulrose Court, and that Dale would be there, along with Alicia and Jeremy. ‘You should come too,’ I said. ‘You are supposed to be providing me with supervision and guidance.’
He became less negative. ‘Always wondered what kind of person your boyfriend is. Okay, I will come to your meeting, but I might have to leave early. It’s not how we normally do things, having meetings.’
On the morning before the get-together, Alicia came into work wearing her beige trilby. She had stripped it of its humming birds and gladioli, and in their place had fixed a dozen or more ceramic bees that bounced up and down on the end of wires. Any slight move of her head excited them into motion. Struggling not to laugh I asked, ‘You didn’t happen to pass a tree with a swarm of bees in it on your way here, did you?’
‘Well, I might have done. Why, is there something on my hat? Bees? Well, don’t worry, they’re not aggressive.’
‘Aren’t you worried that people will cross to the other side of the road when they see you coming?’
‘Of course not, new fashions have to start somewhere; it’s not as though I’m doing anything eccentric. I am planning to install a few miniature jars of honey inside. If someone says something particularly nice to me I will take one out and present them with it. Millinery is nothing unless it’s imaginative. Don’t worry about the meeting at your place, I’ve been told not to wear it for that. Jeremy has given me instructions on how to behave. I am not to speak except in response to specific questions. Even then, under no circumstances am I to address Loyd directly, or to mention low-frequency energy fields. Pity, because the Tulsa Telepaths have achieved amazing results using them for telekinesis… that is to say, making objects move by paranormal means… but then I don’t need to tell you that, do I? You know what I’m going to say before I’ve said it anyway… don’t you?’
‘If I am to know what you’re going to say in advance, you do actually have to say it, otherwise, all I can predict is the opposite, that you won’t say it, though I might be able to predict that you are going to say something else instead.’
‘Sorry, of course I didn’t realize… being gifted must make life so complicated… I’m not surprised you’re so reluctant to talk about it. One thing though,’ she burbled on, ‘some novelty pens, a new line, came in. There would be no harm in me giving some out as a sort of goodwill present, would there? They’re magical realism pens, with pictures of the Mexican winged serpent and other mythical beasts.’
The Handyman was the first to arrive at Fulrose Court for the meeting. ‘So this is the love nest, is it? Not bad for a couple of blokes,’ he said. He shook Dale’s hand vigorously, and later whispered to me, ‘You’ve done all right there, I’ll give you that.’
‘Yes, he’s fantastic, isn’t he.’
Jeremy arrived next, followed by Alicia and Loyd. The two protagonists said hello politely, but otherwise avoided speaking to each other. Dale handed out an agenda he had drawn up headed Autobiography Project, Third Meeting. The topics listed were: Sources of information; Structure of the book; Writing it; Illustrations; Working arrangements; and, finally, Remuneration. After allowing us fifteen seconds to read the list he said, ‘Right, I spent a couple of hours in the library yesterday and came away with these.’ He picked up his bag and took out nearly a dozen books. ‘They are unofficial biographies of Quick and Teef, and a couple on the history of the band. What I suggest is that Ben draws from them everything that might be useful, and writes the facts out in plain simple English in his own words. If he finds gaps we may have to research other sources, but there ought to be enough here to give us most of Rick Schwagger’s life story. Since this is going to be an official autobiography, we could do with some personal in-depth stuff that has not already been published. We may have to do some real, proper research to find that, but it can be slotted in as and when.
‘Call what I am suggesting information gathering, or call it plagiarism,’ he continued, ‘call it what you like, but material has to come from somewhere, and this is a way to start. Even gossip can be worked in if it’s interesting enough, if the source is given, with comments about reliability.’
Loyd immediately backed him up, saying that biographers always drew extensively on earlier written material, and that autobiographies in particular were often so selective and one-sided that they came close to being works of fiction. He thought it essential to agree a timetable, as even for a professional writer, a biography was at least a year’s work. A quicker and safer approach might be for each of us to undertake a section of the book. Five of us, not counting The Handyman, might stand a chance of completing it in six months, working part time. Since Loyd himself had known Rick Schwagger briefly at school, he might be the best person to tackle the early years, up to the time The Rocking Boulders began performing in pubs and clubs. Alicia, if she was willing, could pick up from there, and go on to the Oracles of Aten stage and the release of the group’s second album. Jeremy could tackle from then to the end of the nineteen-seventies, Dale could do the ’eighties, and I could bring the story up to the present day. When we had all researched our periods, we would get together to review what we had, and agree on any further research needed to fill gaps. I would then go through and put everything into a consistent style, and Loyd would take on the final editing and polishing before the material was submitted to the company acting for The Rocking Boulders. Whatever fees were due for the ghost writing could be split up among us according to the hours of work put in.
Quick’s expectation of receiving the author’s share of any profits, was a worry, but Loyd persuaded The Handyman that he should ask the Boulder’s management to pay an agreed fee for our work. Who took what share of any profits would not then be our concern.
Dale pointed out that the library books were on loan for only three weeks, but thought that with renewals and a bit of planning we should all be able to have our turn at reading them.
I asked The Handyman, who had said nothing so far, what he thought. ‘Sitting here, listening to you all taking this book so serious, if anyone has a chance of succeeding with it, maybe you do. You have to realize you are walking into a world that is ninety-nine per cent crazy. I’ll give you an example. A few years ago the lads wanted to do another concert tour. A team of people spent months on it, working it all out, identifying possible venues, designing a new stage set, and… a thousand things had to be done, costing god knows how much. Then Quick and Teef fell out over using a new arrangement for one of the songs. Neither of them would give in, and once they’d started arguing they disagreed about lots of other little niggles too. The concert tour plans, the whole thing, ended up being dumped. That is typical. Rick has been wanting to publish his life story for years and years, but suppose someone at a party tells him books are out of date now, that everyone these days is doing video clips of their lives and putting them on the internet. They might only be saying it to take the piss, but he might go against the book idea altogether.’ He stopped and glanced around at us.
‘I can see from your faces you’re taking no notice. So, if you’ve convinced yourselves this is something you want to do, you’ll all have to sign confidentiality agreements. I have to say this to you; the lads are known for hitting back hard at anyone who is disloyal.’
Remembering what I had blurted out about the Oracles of Aten in the Give and Take a week earlier, I crossed my fingers. Jeremy said, ‘You’re right, there are obstacles and there are risks, but we can’t give up now. This is a real chance for Ben, and you yourself admit that we might be the best people to bring off this exercise. Alicia, how do you feel about handling the period up to the second album?’
‘No problem at all. I’m flattered to be asked. If you don’t mind a moment’s diversion, I’ve brought along some special pens that have just come in… magical realism pens … I’ll pass them around, if you’d like one, please take one. You never know, they might help to inspire us.’
Everyone, including Loyd, accepted one of her novelty pens, while Dale shared out the books he had borrowed. When Alicia, Jeremy and Loyd had gone, The Handyman said, ‘Suppose I’d better be going,’ several times without making any move towards the door. Thinking a hug might help him on his way, I opened my arms in invitation. He clasped me tightly, then when we separated he looked over at Dale. I tilted my head to ask him to do the same. While they hugged I noticed The Handyman rubbing my boyfriend’s lower spine with his right hand.
After he had gone I said, ‘He seems to like you.’
‘He’s a straight man wanting to dabble. There’s no harm in a hug, but that’s as much as he’ll get from me.’
We had to make time to write the ‘auto’biography while continuing our usual work much as before. As if that were not enough, Alicia decided to install a palmistry system on her computer, and asked Dale to help. Clients for this service were to put their right hand on the glass plate of a scanner; the resulting image was matched up automatically with one of thousands of images that came with the software. The corresponding standard ‘reading’ was brought up on the computer screen, to be adapted by Alicia with any bits of personal information she had obtained while chatting to the client. An introductory paragraph claimed the reading was derived from the centuries-old wisdom of mystics enhanced by the power of proven modern technology. The dark blue cover of the resulting booklets bore the words Personal Palm Consultation and the customer’s name in fancy lettering.
Dale probably found that a little time spent in Hatshepsut’s Pavilion was light relief from the neverending troubles with the hospital laundry. Alicia’s own attitude was a paradox. Mostly she treated palmistry, astrology, fortune telling and all the rest as good fun, but from time to time would act as though one of these examples of extrasensory perception, low-frequency energy fields being her current favourite, deserved to be taken seriously.
She wanted the palmistry system to be working in time for a ‘Psychic Fayre’ at the local church hall. When she and Dale were ready to test it, they called me in to the shop to have my palm scanned. The printer must have jammed as he was tidying away some pieces of crumpled, ink-spattered paper. ‘Playing up?’ I asked.
‘It’s the paper. In order to save trees Alicia insists on using the backs of old letters and odd bits of paper that have been shoved through the letter box. They get stuck.’
‘Not all that often,’ she said. ‘I hate to waste anything. Right, Ben, put your hand on the scanner. I wonder what your palm will reveal about you.’
I did as she asked, saying, ‘You know all about me already. How about instead of reading palms, we bring the whole thing up to date by having people sit on the scanner with their pants down? You hear of people doing it on office photocopiers. I bet there aren’t many fortune-telling services that use people’s bottoms. You could start a new trend.’
‘Isis preserve us. Do you have to ridicule everything? Anyway, what you propose may be all very well for you and Dale, with your little gay men’s bottoms, but for lots of people my scanner wouldn’t be big enough to obtain the full image. Then there’s the matter of privacy. We would have to set up a cubicle. Besides, who would want to show their friends a booklet with an image of their bottom in it? The idea is totally impractical. Where’s your common sense? Do you realize you are mocking something that, according to historical records, was being practised in China in three thousand BC, and,’ she said, picking up a leaflet that came with the software, ‘even the psychiatrist Jung wrote: Hands, whose shape and functioning are intimately connected with the psyche, might provide revealing and therefore interpretable expressions of psychical peculiarity of human character.’ She nodded emphatically as she read this, sending the bees on her beige trilby into wild excitement. If any of them were to come off their wires they would ricochet around the room like bullets.
Dale said. ‘Come on, Ben, give it a chance. Let’s try to be positive. If you could manage to get Rick Schwagger’s palm print, you could put something in the book about it… a few paragraphs comparing what his palm reading says with how he is in real life. We could include the image of his palm as an illustration. With a bit of imagination it would make a nice little section of several pages. He’s keen on the paranormal, so he would probably go along with the idea. We are supposed to be putting in original material about him, remember?’
‘And how are we going to obtain his palm print? Wrap plasticine around the handles of his maracas, and peel it off with the imprint when he puts them down?’
‘Or,’ Dale proposed, ‘how about wet plaster? You could tell him all the big stars are leaving their hand prints in plaster for posterity.’
Not to be left out, Alicia said, ‘How about leaving a bottle of cooking oil in the kitchen with some of the contents smeared on the outside. You could ask him to pass it to you. You’d have to be careful to preserve his hand print intact. I’m sure Dale would be able to find a way of scanning it in.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘Rick and I often pass bottles of cooking oil to each other in the kitchen.’
‘Seriously,’ Dale said, ‘why not ask him for his palm print? Tell him it would help you write his book – after all, he believes you are using psychic powers for it. Suggest to him that The Rocking Boulders’ fan club might be interested in putting it up on their website. The club might also have some ideas about original material for the book.’
The upshot of this suggestion was that The Handyman arranged to bring Quick and Teef to visit the Psychic Fayre at the local church hall, a Gothic building originally built as a school. Above the entrance, inscribed in stone, were the joyless words Bring thy children unto me that I may teach them the ways of the Lord. In defiance of this Victorian adage, inside the hall were more than forty stalls offering tarot reading, crystal healing, numerology predictions, more tarot reading, astrology, books on parapsychology, tarot reading again – about one out of four stalls sold tarot cards or books about them, or offered on-the-spot card readings.
Alicia had finished setting up and was sitting beneath a banner with the outline of a human hand in glittering sequins. Six major lines of the palm were labelled in gold: life; heart; head; Apollo; Saturn; and Mercury. The computer, scanner and printer were at one end of the stall, surrounded by screens decorated with palm prints in pastel colours. I stared thoughtfully at the banner with its intersecting palm lines and, when Alicia looked up to greet me, said, ‘Oh, it’s just like a sketch of the tube train lines around King’s Cross and Euston.’
A loud female voice came from behind me. ‘What are you trying to do? Put people off ?’ I could feel the breath that carried the words on my neck, and turned to find Muriel, or Myrtle to use Alicia’s pet name for her girlfriend, standing behind me, wearing a tweed suit. She was holding a large marmalade cat that began to purr loudly.
‘You’ve met Myrtle before, haven’t you?’ Alicia said.
‘The name’s Muriel actually.’ I smiled at Myrtle/Muriel, who continued, ‘Myrtle is a little pet name Alicia has for me.’
To suggest that Boadicea or Dragon might be more appropriate would have been far too rude, if not likely to provoke assault. Alicia said, ‘Myrtle, or Muriel as I suppose I should call her since we are at a public event, is going to give psychic readings through the medium of Phoebe, her cat.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that explains it. Seeing the moggy I thought the fayre had been double booked with a cat show.’
‘Very funny,’ Muriel/Myrtle said dismissively. She and the cat fixed me with eyes that commanded obedience. ‘As a reward for that remark you can be my first victim. Come along. Since, according to Alicia, you are “gifted”, I will be particularly interested in your impression of the performance Phoebe and I have devised.’
‘You shouldn’t call telling someone’s fortune “a performance”, Muriel,’ Alicia reproved.
‘I was speaking figuratively.’
Quick and Teef had yet to arrive, so I followed Myrtle and Phoebe behind one of Alicia’s screens. We sat down at a table covered with a black fibrous cloth, surrounded by silhouette images of cats, the eyes painted green.
‘Not cat’s fur, is it?’ I asked, stroking the tablecloth tentatively.
‘Don’t get excited, it’s artificial. Now I want you to take Phoebe from me,’ she said, handing me the docile moggy. ‘Stroke her head gently, and when she looks into your eyes, look back into hers.’
I took Phoebe as bidden and gazed into the rich amber of her eyes. She was so plump that holding her made my arm ache. She resumed purring, and after a few minutes Myrtle reached across and took her back. The two of them gazed lovingly at each other.
‘Oh yes, you’ve made a very strong impression,’ she said, toying with a holographic pendant at her bosom, the colours changing as she fiddled with it. ‘Phoebe is telling me that you are the sensitive type. You must take care not to be easily offended by what people say. Though they may be abrasive at times, they usually don’t mean to insult you. Remember, when someone says something amiss it will usually be through ignorance or lack of understanding rather than malice. You’re artistic. Don’t be put off by early disappointments, you must keep trying. And you have someone who is very close to you – a relationship with another man who is very important in your life. Phoebe senses you are one of those special gay men who is truly suited to a long-term loving relationship. But you must be careful. Being male, you are of course hampered by your essentially self-centred nature, lack of interpersonal skills and poor emotional development. You must make every effort to moderate these innate flaws in your character. The philandering male within you, and the attentions of others who lack your loyal and faithful nature, could easily lead to ruin. You have been fortunate to bond with one of those men who is an exception to the general rule, who is sincerely concerned for those around him. If only you could be more like him. Regrettably, like you, he has to struggle against his fundamentally oppressive and power-hungry masculine characteristics.’ Perhaps judging that she had insulted me enough, she paused, smiled and asked, ‘Well, Ben, how did I do?’
‘You’re quite sure you learned those things about me from Phoebe, not from Alicia? Anyway, the good things you said about Dale are right. You were convincing, you and Phoebe… though I’m not sure you are likely to get much repeat business from male clients if you’re going to be so free with your ultra-feminist opinions.’
There was little prospect of changing her views about men in general, but not wanting to let her insults go completely I said, ‘Dale is not at all oppressive or insensitive.’ The steady gaze of Muriel and Phoebe, and the glimmer of light from the holographic pendant drew me on. ‘Dale is someone who brightens up the room when he walks into it. The world is a better place when he is around.’
The words slipped out, expressing feelings that in the past had only ever half-formed in my mind. Because Myrtle and I did not know each other well, realizing that I had revealed some of my inner thoughts to her left me terribly embarrassed. Could Phoebe’s warm, glowing eyes and the holographic pendant somehow have made me express feelings normally kept at the back of my mind? I looked down, afraid that my facial expression might give away even more.
Myrtle cleared her throat and spoke gently, ‘Ah… to feel so about someone has to be a very good thing. Of course Alicia often talks to me of you, so we can be frank with each other.’ She shifted in her chair, alarming Phoebe who rose up on her arm. ‘Careful Phoebe, watch your claws on my best jacket.’
She stood and put Phoebe down on the chair. ‘I’m a schoolteacher. It helps you understand the way people tick. Fortune telling, what fun! You know, I think I could get to like you. Have to make allowances for you being a man of course. But tell me now… forget you are a friend of Alicia. Was my performance good enough to earn a fee from a willing punter?’
‘To someone hoping for something to believe in, yes, it probably would.’
‘You’ve got to the nub of it there. People always believe what they want to believe, and hear what they want to hear. Alicia has given me a few tips on playing the mystic’s guessing game. One thing Phoebe did tell me though. You yourself are not really “gifted” at all, are you?’
I returned her steady gaze. ‘Are you going to expose me as a fake? I wish you would. Alicia is the one who tells the world I have unspecified psychic powers.’
‘Rob her of something that matters such a lot to her? She rates you highly, I’m not going to spoil it all. Phoebe and I know there are certain things we must keep to ourselves, don’t we darling,’ she said, picking up her cat again. ‘All these theories about psychic phenomena, they are so very, very important to Alicia. She could never accept that all there is to life is the daily struggle to survive, followed by ultimate nothingness. We understand how she feels, we sympathize, don’t we Phoebe?’ The cat purred louder and louder. I was sure I could feel the floor boards resonating under my feet.
We left our hidden corner behind the screen to find Alicia stapling together a palmistry system booklet for an elderly woman, who watched her closely with sad, heavy eyes. Alicia took her hand and pecked her cheek, and watched her as she walked slowly away. Who would begrudge her any comfort the booklet might give?
Myrtle exclaimed loudly, ‘They’re here.’ Quick, Teef and The Handyman had arrived and were coming towards us. Bodyguards, two burly men in suits, followed a few yards behind. You might expect the presence of such famous rock and roll stars to cause a commotion, but no one at the Psychic Fayre paid any attention to them. Rock stars were clearly unimportant alongside tarot cards and crystal balls. The group stopped at a stall with necklaces and bracelets of coloured quartz. Quick and Teef chose a couple of items each, and walked on, leaving The Handyman to pay. At another stall Teef bought a headscarf with white stars on a dark blue background. By the time they reached us, though, I could see that he was worried from the way his eyes darted nervously to and fro. ‘Hi Alicia, hi Bendy,’ said Quick, ‘brought me best mate, Teef. He don’t say a lot, he’s gone a bit… you know.’ He raised his right hand to his head and waggled his fingers vigorously to suggest mental confusion. Teef appeared not to notice. ‘Anyway, got to be quick, dinner party in Sloane Square to go to. Not Teef, he’ll have to go straight back home. You wouldn’t take him to be with a lot of high-class people, not these days.’
‘We’re all ready for you,’ Alicia said. She lifted the lid of the scanner, positioned Quick’s right hand on the glass, covered it with a black cloth decorated with a floral pattern in gold thread, and began the scan. Teef stood beside me and whispered anxiously ‘Bendy, won’t hurt will it?’
‘No, course not. Watch Quick being done, not hurting him, is it?’
‘Yeah, but he doesn’t feel much, he’s not the same as us. Is it a laser? We’ve used them in the stage shows. One of the crew’s eyesight got damaged. I suppose I’ll have to go through with it. You’ll stay with me, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will, but there’s nothing to worry about. It’s not a laser, it won’t feel hot or anything like that, you can relax.’
When Quick’s scan was complete and the quality of the image checked on the computer screen, Alicia called out ‘Next please,’ as though she had a queue waiting. Teef, immobilized by terror, regarded me pleadingly. I took his arm and edged him forwards. He winced as Alicia positioned his hand on the glass.
I put my arm across his shoulders. ‘It’s okay Teef, all that happens is something a bit like a camera on the other side of the glass moves across and records the image of your hand. You won’t even feel it.’
He closed his eyes as the ordeal began; beads of sweat ran down his face. ‘Look at me,’ I said. ‘Come on, look at me.’ He forced his eyes open. ‘You’re all right. You’re fine. Honestly.’ Fifteen seconds later the process was complete and Alicia lifted the cloth from his hand. He uttered a long ‘Ooooh’ of relief, then inspected his palm for damage. ‘Is it all right?’ I asked.
‘Yes, it hasn’t even touched me. I’m tougher than people think. It’s fine. Thanks for staying with me, Bendy, I get a bit paranoid sometimes.’
‘We all do. Do you want to go back to the car now?’
‘Yes please.’
He clutched my arm as we made our way down the hall. We passed Quick, who was talking to a young black woman selling aromatic candles. ‘Tell you what darling, if you’re free later this week we could get together for a nice little candlelight evening, just you and me. How about it?’
She must have had no idea who she was talking to, for she answered, ‘How about it? I think you should pick on someone your own age.’
Teef and I continued out to the car, and after he had settled inside I turned round to see Quick heading our way with a bag full of outsize candles.
‘Here, get rid of these for me, will you Bendy? Not used to going to this much trouble to get myself a date. Hope she’s worth it!’
Back at Fulrose Court I showed Dale the candles, and we decided to keep one that smelled of sandalwood and give the others to Alicia. She smiled knowingly when, passing them to her, I intentionally described them as ‘automatic’, not ‘aromatic’. Smiling she made out a little sign saying Automatic Candles. They all sold over the next week or two, but not one purchaser asked what it was about them that was supposed to be ‘automatic’.
The scanned images of Quick’s and Teef ’s palms, printed boldly on expensive cream paper, were impressive. Below the palm prints Alicia added the words Certified as a genuine copy of Rick Schwagger’s/Heath Prityard’s palm print, and issued under the auspices of The Rocking Boulders’ official fan club. They were advertised for sale with T-shirts and other merchandise on the club’s internet shop, and within a week over a thousand were ordered.
As we were all so busy, Alicia called Myrtle in to help print another batch. As well as running off and laminating the palm prints, she helped out more generally in Hatshepsut’s Pavilion. Her home was in Hay-on-Wye, over the Welsh border, where she worked as a part-time music teacher, but she regularly spent long weekends in London with Alicia. She was happy to take on all sorts of jobs, from shifting boxes of stuff around to helping with paperwork. It turned out that she and Jeremy had known each other for decades, having met in the Gay Liberation Front when they were in their twenties.