Stories We Could Tell. Tony Parsons

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СКАЧАТЬ different in my day,’ said Terry’s dad.

      ‘Why’s that, Mr Warboys?’ Misty asked.

      Terry’s dad grinned ruefully. ‘Because some bugger was always shooting at me.’

      Misty shook her head with wonder. ‘You’ve had such an interesting life,’ she said. She touched the hand of Terry’s mum, the hand where she wore her engagement ring, her wedding ring and the eternity ring she had got last birthday. ‘You both have. Depression…war…it’s like you’ve lived through history.’ She looked at Terry. ‘What has our generation ever seen or done?’

      Terry’s parents stared at her. World war, global economic collapse – they thought that was all normal.

      ‘Lump of gateau?’ said Terry’s mum.

      They took their Black Forest gateau to the settee, and Misty perched herself on the piano stool, lifting the lid on the old upright.

      ‘I had lessons for ten years,’ she said. ‘Five to fifteen. My mother was very keen for me to play.’

      Terry smiled proudly. He had no idea she played piano. His smile began to fade as it became clear that she didn’t, not really. Misty picked out the worst version of ‘Chopsticks’ that he had ever heard.

      ‘Ten years?’ Terry’s dad chuckled with genuine amusement. ‘I reckon you want your money back, love!’

      ‘I’m a bit rusty, it’s true,’ Misty smiled, seeing the funny side.

      ‘Don’t listen to him, darling,’ said Terry’s mum, and she sat next to Misty. ‘Shove up a bit. Let me have a go.’

      The piano had belonged to Terry’s grandmother – his mum’s mum, back in the days before television when every sprawling East End family had their own upright in the corner and a chicken run out back. You made your own entertainment and your own eggs. There wasn’t really room for a piano in that little front room, but Terry’s mum refused to get rid of it, especially now that Terry’s nan was no longer around.

      His mum cracked the bones in her fingers, smiling shyly, then began to play one of the old songs, about seeing your loved one’s faults but staying with them anyway. She had the easy grace of the self-taught and she started singing in a soft, halting voice that made them all very still and quiet, although Terry’s dad wore a knowing grin on his face.

       ‘You may not be an angel Angels are so few…’

      Terry’s mum paused, but kept playing, and Terry’s dad guffawed with delight.

      ‘She’s forgotten the words,’ he said, embarrassed at his fierce pride in his wife and her gift. But she hadn’t forgotten the words.

       ‘But until the day that one comes along…’

      And here she gave a rueful look at Terry’s dad.

       ‘I’ll string along with you.’

      Misty stared at Terry’s mum with an expression of total seriousness, as if she was in church, or in the presence of Truffaut saying something profound.

      Misty had once told Terry that she’d never tasted instant coffee until after she had left home. And he knew that his mum would end the dinner with coffee that came out of a jar from Nescafé. He also knew that his mum would probably add sugar and milk without asking Misty if she wanted any or not, the way you were supposed to, and he knew that someone was going to have to wash up those prawn cocktail teaspoons before they could stir their Nescafé.

      But as he watched his girlfriend watching his mum pick out that old song, Terry felt for the first time that none of that stuff mattered very much.

      The train shook Ray Keeley awake.

      He brushed a veil of long blond hair out of his bleary eyes and stared at the harvest fields, the scattering of farm houses, a couple of mangy horses. One hour to London, he thought.

      Ray knew those fields, could read them like a clock. He even recognised the horses. He had been passing through this part of the country for three years, since he was fifteen years old, heading north to see bands on tour in Newcastle and Leicester, Manchester and Liverpool, Leeds and Glasgow, and then coming back to London to write about them.

      He realised what had woken him. There were voices drifting through the carriage, loud and coarse, effing and blinding. A bunch of football fans were approaching, on their way to the dining car. At least they looked like football fans – long floppy feather cuts, short-sleeve shirts that were tighter than a coat of emulsion, and flared trousers that stopped some distance from their clunky boots. Feeling a familiar shiver of fear, he sunk deeper into his rock-hard British Rail seat, allowing his fringe to fall over his face, hoping to hide from the world.

      Ray knew their type, and knew what they would make of him with his long hair, denim jacket, white jeans and cowboy boots. But they were more interested in finding lager than tormenting a lone hippy kid, and guffawed their way out of the far end of the carriage.

      Ray closed his eyes. He didn’t feel good. He couldn’t remember sleeping last night, although he knew he must have at some point, because he couldn’t remember when the woman had left his hotel room.

      She was the press officer from the record company, there to make sure that Ray got into the shows and got to interview the lead singer while they were travelling from one town to the next. He liked her a lot – she looked a bit like the girl in Bouquet of Barbed Wire, and she knew her music. But Ray knew that the next time they met she would act as though nothing much had happened. That’s what it was like. You were meant to take these things lightly.

      He always felt a bit down coming off the road. You were tired. You were hungover. There was a ringing in your ears from seeing two shows and two sound checks in the last forty-eight hours. And there was always some girl you liked who would be somewhere else tonight. And of course you were going home.

      The youths came back, swigging from cans of Carlsberg Special Brew, a few of them leering at Ray with amused belligerence. He stared out of the window, trying to control his breathing, feeling his heart pounding inside his denim jacket. They were everywhere these days. But they’re nothing compared to my father, he thought. My father would kill them.

      Then he must have fallen asleep again, because when he awoke the sun was low, and it took Ray one foggy moment to realise that the fields were gone, there were graffiti-stained walls all around and people were collecting their bags as the train pulled into Euston.

      16th August 1977, and here comes the night.

       Chapter Two

      As Misty steered her father’s Ford Capri along the Westway towards the city, Terry laid his right hand lightly on her leg, feeling the warmth of her flesh through the white dress, idly wondering what their children would look like, and loving that little swoon of longing he got every time he looked at her.

      Misty was nineteen years old – three years younger than Terry – and although they had grown up within a few miles of each other, he was aware they were from very different places. More like different СКАЧАТЬ