Let's start again
By Terrence Oblong
- 970 reads
The dinner party was round Strop’s, a fashionable place in Kensington, a few doors down from Elton John’s house, so big that you could shit in a different toilet every day for a week without even having to go upstairs.
We’d arrived early. Skins was driving and he always allows several hours for traffic jams and bouts of road rage, though Mona tried to slow things down by spending an hour getting ready: “What dress should I wear Brian?” she asked me, as if I cared, “I’ve never been to one of these parties before; is black appropriate? Or something more colourful?”
Despite Mona’s stalling we still got there before 7:00 and by 8:00 O’clock I was bored with the social niceties and hungry for a bit of grub. “When we gonna eat?” I asked mine host, “my stomach’s rumbling at 6.2 on the Richter Scale.”
Strop looked at me disapprovingly, and I could feel Mona’s eyes burrowing into the back of my skull. “We can’t start yet Damage, Eric’s not here. We can hardly have a coming out dinner without the guest of honour.”
“You really a stupid fucker Damage,” added Skins, in his own charming way, “four years Eric’s been locked up, we haven’t all been under the same roof for nearly a decade and all you can think about is your bloody gullet”.
“Anyway” added Mona, ever keen to seem compromising, “if you’re bored Strop could show us round the house while we’re waiting. It’s a really beautiful place Strop and in such a good location. It must have cost you a fortune.”
“Thanks Moan, though to be honest I just happened to buy at the right time, Damage could have afforded a house like this if he’d had the right advice.”
“Yes”, Mona sighed, the sort of hard-done-by sigh that takes years of practice. “Brian has never mastered the art of high finance, have you Brian?”
“You can’t complain”, I protested, “the only reason I’ve no money left is that I wasted it all on wives. You’ve got my biggest house; I'm stuck in a pokey little flat.”
The conversation could have lasted the rest of the night, Mona can talk about my income and expenditure for days on end without so much as pausing for breath. Thankfully Strop had the good sense to intervene.
“Anyway Moan, I’d better wait near the door for Eric, but Ted’ll show you round. He knows the place as well as I know my guitar's strings.” Ted was Strop’s minder, a short chap, all I ever saw of him was his bald head glinting up at me, but he was as wide as an elephant’s backside and with the muscles of a gorilla, so he must have been a terrifying sight to midgets.
I declined the invitation, but couldn’t stop Mona from taking the opportunity of poking her nose into Strop’s every bedroom, so she and Ted disappeared for the grand tour, leaving me, Skins and Strop to talk man talk. That didn’t last long, I don’t have much in common with Strop without a guitar in my hands and Skins can be a real bore now he doesn’t drink.
“Anyway Strop,“ I said, “I really am hungry you know. Surely you can rustle up a quick sarnie to keep me going. After all, it’s hours since they let Eric out, he’s probably been nicked for something else by now.”
Strop sighed, though a friendlier sigh than one of Mona’s. “I’ll point you to the kitchen Damage, just try not to break anything.”
In the kitchen I was accosted by a little chef and a penguin-dressed waiter, who kept me away from all the interesting food by waving ladles at me. I was forced to leave with nothing more than a hunk of cheese and crust of bread; now I knew what Eric must have gone through in prison.
Luckily, Eric finally arrived a few minutes later, all smiles and apologies. Everyone queued up to hug him, as if we were the stars of an American sit-com.
“Oh Eric” wept Mona “it’s so nice to see you. It must have been so hard for you inside. You must make sure you don’t get into trouble again,” she said, with that well-rehearsed frown.
“Oh don’t worry my pretty Mona-Lisa, they won’t catch me again. I’ve picked up lots of good tips inside and next time I won’t get caught.”
Everyone laughed at this, as if it was the first time he’d said it, and we all went into the dining room in high spirits, though none of us had had a drop all day. We politely picked at bread rolls and slurped our way through an exotic, crustacean-based soup, none of us quite knowing what to say. After all, it had been nearly ten years since we’d all been together. My God, a horrible thought struck me.
“Do you realise – the last time we were all in the same room was at my wedding to Chesney?” There was a horrified silence, as if the unutterable word had been spoken and the foundations of the world were destined to start to shake and crumble to nothing at any moment. Even Mona spilt her soup at the mention of the ‘C’ word. It was Eric who finally broke the silence.
“Oh yeah, I forgot to ask, how is your darling wife, Damage? Are you still at each other’s throats.”
“You’re out of touch”, said Skins “they don’t get that fucking close to each other these days. It’s their lawyers that do the throttling. The closest they get is swearing at each other down the phone.”
“But you still see your kid don’t you?” Eric persisted, “That lovely little boy. What’s his name again?”
Skins smirked at the description of little Adolf as ‘lovely’.
“Little Adolf is no more ‘lovely’ than he ever was. I’ve managed to reduce the contractual obligation to one day’s awkwardness a month, and he usually comes without Chesney these days, thank God.”
“Must be great to see him grow though,” continued Eric, oblivious. “I’m gonna see Toby on Saturday (his bastard son) and I’ve not seen him for 2½ years, I’ll never recognise him.”
I looked round the room – what had become of us? Eric was getting all paternal, Skins was sipping mineral water and hadn’t had a new scar on his face in 15 years. Strop lived a life of luxury, popping round for drinks with Sting more often than he ventured down the Pea and Ectoplasm.
Mona meanwhile, was more than a little wowed by the fine food and the grand house, and treated Strop as if he were a big star; not some stray guitarist we’d picked up by accident. “I heard your new single on the radio the other day” she gushed, “it’s ever so good. I was singing it to myself while I was hanging the washing out.”
“Yeah, it’s really good Strop,” Eric added, ever keen to get his word in. “They’ve been playing it all the time in prison, got to number one didn’t it?”
“Thanks, both of you. Yes it did top the charts for a while. I wrote it with Damage you know, didn’t he tell you Moan?”
“Oh Brian, you don’t tell me anything,” Mona complained. “You wrote that lovely song about the girl in the llama coat? You really show your soft side in your music Brian.”
“Now steady on old gal, I hardly had a hand in the lyrics, I just played around with the tune a bit.” Then a thought struck me. “Number one again Strop, that means I’ll be getting a royalty cheque at some point, I could do with a new guitar and my trousers are a bit patchy.”
“All in good time Damage, all in good time. There are more important things to take care of.” As he spoke the waiter appeared with the best news of the day: a big bubbly bottle of wine; as enormous as it was expensive and expensive as it was bubbly, cradled awkwardly in the waiter’s arms like a baby elephant.
Strop, easing into the role of congenial host, felt the need to introduce the wine with a weak quip. “Before we start the main course I think it’s time to raise a glass to the most bloody stupid member of Bloody Stupid Question.” The waiter started filling vase-sized glasses that were so beautifully crafted Mona temporarily forgot my ban.
I’d almost got my paws on a glass, when Skins snatched it away from me. “Not for Damage though, he’s only just got out of rehab. Don’t want to waste two week’s hard work."
“Oh I don’t know” I drooled, “a drop won’t do any harm, after all I must raise a toast to Eric, it’s not every day he’s a free man. Besides, I didn’t find rehab that hard work, I can take it or leave it.”
“I didn’t mean hard work for you, I meant for the staff. And the answer’s no – I know what it’s like, believe me, it only takes one glass.”
The waiter poured two glasses of very dull bubbling water for Skins and me, while everyone was able to raise a glass of delicious alcohol. Strop made the toast: “To Eric, who’s been to jail for the last time. To an honest, happy life – in other words keep your sins legal from now on.” There was much laughter followed by cries of ‘speech’ from those that wanted him to speak. Alas he took them at their word.
“Thanks for dropping me in it Strop. Well, thanks to all of you for finding the time to join me. And you’re right about keeping to the straight and narrow. I’ve spent too much of my life in prison. When I see the life I could have led if I’d gone straight (he gestured his arms around Strop’s pad as if we all lived in such palaces) I have to fight back the tears.
“It really has been too long” he continued, “not just since we’ve been together, but since we played together. So I’d like to propose that we reform – a Bloody Stupid reunion tour.”
There was a stunned silence. I analysed the thoughts of those around the table. Mona’s face betrayed the horror she was feeling should I be let out on the road, while Skins’ mental cogs were whirring in calculation of the money he could make from such a venture. Strop just beamed, delighted at the chance to be one of the lads again and the waiter poised placid-faced, not sure whether a proposed reunion tour merited a topping-up of glasses or a hasty transition to the next course.
Skins broke the silence, fiscal necessity outweighing social graces. He stood up, as if to make a speech, an image that was added to by the nervous shuffling of his feet and twiddling of napkin.
“Yeah, Eric, I don’t know what everyone else thinks, but I think it’s a good time to get back together. We like each other again, me and Damage have given up drinking, Eric’s given up crime, and The Boy’s given up his mortal soul. We don’t know who’ll be the next of us to go, or when, and fuck knows I need the money. So yeah, I’d like to get back together. Just for a quick tour, and only if we have a different manager this time.”
“Well I can’t match the eloquence of Skins’ reasoned counsel”, I lied, “but I agree with his sentiment. I mean, what’s the worse that could happen? I’m far too frail to cause any trouble now and without The Boy we’re never going to get very violent towards each other are we? And think of the fans, why only last year I got a letter practically begging us to reform – we have to please the mob don’t we?”
“Oh Brian,” moaned Mona, “you know how much you hated touring. You didn’t like having to play that Christmas Eve concert for the pope because it meant getting out of bed. You’d never survive a whole tour.”
Thus the two sides had stated their cases. All turned to the deciding vote, who was currently signalling to the waiter that it was time for the main course. “Oh I wouldn’t worry Moan” Strop cooed, “Brian’ll be with us, he won’t get bored, our jokes are cruder than the pope’s and we’ll let him wee out of the window from time to time to keep him happy. It’ll be nice to do a greatest hits tour. And Skins is right, none of us made much money from the band, it’s time we got something out of being Bloody Stupid. I’ve got contacts, I can get us some lucrative gigs with the minimum of fuss.”
At this point a suckling pig was laid steaming on the table and all thoughts of reformation were lost in the pure naked greed that roast pork brings out in man and woman alike. Even Mona gave up arguing at the sight of sharp knives glinting in the candlelight. But as we feasted each one of us contemplated the agreement we'd just made. Bloody Stupid had just ditched fifteen years of poisoned history and were back together.
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