Thirty

But look:

My five dream jobs:

1. NME NME journalist, 1976-1979 journalist, 1976-1979 Get to meet the Clash, s.e.x Pistols, Chrissie Hynde, Danny Baker, etc. Get loads of free records - good ones, too. Go on to host my own quiz show or something.

2. Producer, Atlantic Records, 1964-1971 (approx.) Get to meet Aretha, Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, etc. Get loads of free records (probably) - good ones, too. Make piles of money.

3. Any kind of musician (apart from cla.s.sical or rap) Speaks for itself. But I'd have settled just for being one of the Memphis Horns - I'm not asking to be Hendrix or Jagger or Otis Redding.

4. Film director.

Again, any kind, although preferably not German or silent.

5. Architect.

A surprise entry at number 5, I know, but I used to be quite good at technical drawing at school.

And that's it. It's not even as though this list is my top top five, either: there isn't a number six or seven that I had to omit because of the limitations of the exercise. To be honest, I'm not even that bothered about being an architect, I just thought that if I failed to come up with five, it would look a bit feeble. five, either: there isn't a number six or seven that I had to omit because of the limitations of the exercise. To be honest, I'm not even that bothered about being an architect, I just thought that if I failed to come up with five, it would look a bit feeble.

It was Laura's idea for me to make a list, and I couldn't think of a sensible one, so I made a stupid one. I wasn't going to show it to her, but something got to me - self-pity, envy, something - and I do anyway.

She doesn't react.

'It's got to be architecture, then, hasn't it?'

'I guess.'

'Seven years' training.'

I shrug.

'Are you prepared for that?'

'Not really.'

'No, I didn't think so.'

'I'm not sure I really want to be an architect.'

'So you've got a list here of five things you'd do if qualifications and time and history and salary were no object, and one of them you're not bothered about.'

'Well, I did put it at number five.'

'You'd really rather have been a journalist for the NME, NME, than, say, a sixteenth-century explorer, or king of France?' than, say, a sixteenth-century explorer, or king of France?'

'G.o.d, yes.'

She shakes her head.

'What would you put down, then?'

'Hundreds of things. A playwright. A ballet dancer. A musician, yes, but also a painter or a university don or a novelist or a great chef.'

'A chef?'

'Yes. I'd love to have that sort of talent. Wouldn't you?'

'Wouldn't mind. I wouldn't want to work evenings, though.' I wouldn't, either.

'Then you might just as well stay at the shop.'

'How d'you work that out?'

'Wouldn't you rather do that than be an architect?'

'I suppose.'

'Well, there you are then. It comes in at number five in your list of dream jobs, and as the other four are entirely impractical, you're better off where you are.'

I don't tell d.i.c.k and Barry that I'm thinking of packing it in. But I do ask them for their five dream jobs.

'Are you allowed to subdivide?' Barry asks.

'How d'you mean?'

'Like, does saxophonist and pianist count as two jobs?'

'I should think so.'

There's silence in the shop; for a few moments it has become a primary school cla.s.sroom during a quiet drawing period. Bics are sucked, crossings out are made, brows are furrowed, and I look over shoulders.

'And what about ba.s.s guitarist and lead guitarist?'

'I don't know. Just the one, I should think.'

'What, so Keith Richards had the same job as Bill Wyman, according to you?'

'I didn't say they've got . . . '

'Someone should have told them that. One of them could have saved himself a lot of trouble.'

'What about, say, film reviewer and alb.u.m reviewer?' says d.i.c.k.

'One job.'

'Brilliant. That frees me up for other things.'

'Oh yeah? Like?'

'Pianist and saxophonist, for a start. And I've still got two places left.'

And so on, and on. But the point is, my own list wasn't freakish. It could have been made by anybody. Just about anybody. Anybody who works here, anyway. n.o.body asks how to spell 'solicitor.' n.o.body wants to know whether 'vet' and 'doctor' count as two choices. Both of them are lost, away, off in recording studios and dressing rooms and Holiday Inn bars.

Thirty-one

Laura and I go to see my mum and dad, and it feels sort of official, like we're announcing something. I think that feeling comes from them rather than from us. My mum's wearing a dress, and my dad doesn't buzz around doing things to his stupid and vile homemade wine, and nor does he reach for the TV remote control; he sits down in a chair and listens and asks questions, and in a dim light he would resemble an ordinary human being having a conversation with guests.

It's easier to have parents if you've got a girlfriend. I don't know why this is true, but it is. My mum and dad like me more when I have someone, and they seem more comfortable; it's as if Laura becomes a sort of human microphone, somebody we speak into to make ourselves heard.

'Have you been watching Inspector Morse?' Inspector Morse?' Laura asks, apropos of nothing. Laura asks, apropos of nothing.

'No,' says my dad. 'They're repeats, aren't they? We've got them on video from the first time around.' See, this is typical of my dad. It's not enough for him to say that he never watches repeats, that he's the first on the block; he has to add an unnecessary and mendacious embellishment.

'You didn't have a video the first time around,' I point out, not unreasonably. My dad pretends he hasn't heard.

'What did you say that for?' I ask him. He winks at Laura, as if she's in on a particularly impenetrable family joke. She smiles back. Whose family is it, anyway?

'You can buy them in the shops,' he says. 'Ready-made ones.'

'I know that. But you haven't got any, have you?'

My dad pretends he hasn't heard and, at this point, if it had been just the three of us, we would have had a row. I would have told him that he was mental and/or a liar; my mother would have told me not to make mountains out of molehills, etc., and I would have asked her whether she had to listen to this stuff all day, and we would have taken it on from there.

When Laura's here, though . . . I wouldn't go so far as to say she actively likes my parents, but she certainly thinks that parents generally are a good thing, and that therefore their little quirks and idiocies are there to be loved, not exposed. She treats my father's fibs and boasts and non sequiturs as waves, giant breakers, and she surfs over them with skill and pleasure.

'They're really expensive, though, aren't they, those ready-made ones?' she says. 'I bought Rob a couple of things on video for his birthday a few years ago, and they came to nearly twenty-five pounds!'

This is shameless stuff. She doesn't think twenty-five pounds is a lot of money, but she knows they will, and my mum duly gives a loud, terrified, twenty-five-quid shriek. And then we're off onto the prices of things - chocolates, houses, anything we can think of, really - and my dad's outrageous lies are forgotten.

And while we're washing up, more or less the same thing happens with my mum.

'I'm glad you're back to sort him out,' she says. 'G.o.d knows what the flat would look like if he had to look after himself.'

This really f.u.c.ks me off, a) because I'd told her not to mention Laura's recent absence, b) because you don't tell any woman, but especially not Laura, that one of her major talents is looking after me, and c) I'm the tidier one of the two of us, and the flat was actually cleaner during her absence.

'I didn't know you'd been letting yourself in to examine the state of our kitchen, Mum.'

'I don't need to, thanks all the same. I know what you're like.'

'You knew what I was like when I was eighteen. You don't know what I'm like now, bad luck.' Where did that 'bad luck' - childish, taunting, petulant - come from? Oh, I know where, really. It came from straight out of 1973.

'He's much tidier than me,' says Laura, simply and gravely. I've heard this sentence about ten times, with exactly the same intonation, ever since I was forced to bring Laura here for the first time.

'Oh, he's a good lad, really. I just wish he'd sort himself out.'

'He will.' And they both look at me fondly. So, yes, I've been rubbished and patronized and worried over, but there's a glow in the kitchen now, genuine three-way affection, where previously there might have been simply mutual antagonism, ending with my mum's tears and me slamming the door. I do prefer it this way, really; I'm happy Laura's here.

Thirty-two

Fly posters. I'm for them. The only creative idea I have ever had in my life was for an exhibition of fly poster photographs. It would take two or three decades to get enough stuff, but it would look really good when it was finished. There are important historical doc.u.ments on the window of the boarded-up shop opposite mine: posters advertising a Frank Bruno fight, and an Anti-n.a.z.i rally, and the new Prince single, and a West Indian comedian, and loads of gigs, and in a couple of weeks they will be gone, covered over by the shifting sands of time, or at least, an advert for the new U2 alb.u.m. You get a sense of the spirit of the age, right? (I'll let you into a secret: I actually started on the project. In 1988 I took about three pictures on my Instamatic of an empty shop on the Holloway Road, but then they let the shop, and I kind of lost enthusiasm. The photos came out OK -OKish, anyway - but no one's going to let you exhibit three photos, are they?) Anyway, every now and then I test myself: I stare at the shop-front to make sure that I've heard of the bands with gigs coming up, but the sad truth is that I'm losing touch. I used to know everyone, every single name, however stupid, whatever the size of the venue the band was playing. And then, three or four years ago, when I stopped devouring every single word in the music papers, I began to notice that I no longer recognized the names playing some of the pubs and smaller clubs; last year, there were a couple of bands playing at the Forum who meant absolutely nothing to me. The Forum! A fifteen-hundred-capacity venue! One thousand five hundred people going to see a band I'd never heard of! The first time it happened I was depressed for the entire evening, probably because I made the mistake of confessing my ignorance to d.i.c.k and Barry. (Barry almost exploded with derision; d.i.c.k stared into his drink, too embarra.s.sed for me even to meet my eye.) Anyway, again. I'm doing my spot-check (Prince is there, at least, so I don't score nul points nul points - one day I'm going to score - one day I'm going to score nul points, nul points, and then I'll hang myself) and I notice a familiar-looking poster. 'BY POPULAR DEMAND!' it says. 'THE RETURN OF THE GROUCHO CLUB!' And then, underneath, 'EVERY FRIDAY FROM 20TH JULY, THE DOG AND PHEASANT.' I stand there looking at it for ages, with my mouth open. It's the same size and color as ours used to be, and they've even had the cheek to copy our design and our logo - the Groucho Marx gla.s.ses and moustache in the second 'o' of 'Groucho,' and the cigar coming out of the b.u.mcrack (that's probably not the correct technical term, but that's what we used to call it) in the 'b' at the end of 'club.' and then I'll hang myself) and I notice a familiar-looking poster. 'BY POPULAR DEMAND!' it says. 'THE RETURN OF THE GROUCHO CLUB!' And then, underneath, 'EVERY FRIDAY FROM 20TH JULY, THE DOG AND PHEASANT.' I stand there looking at it for ages, with my mouth open. It's the same size and color as ours used to be, and they've even had the cheek to copy our design and our logo - the Groucho Marx gla.s.ses and moustache in the second 'o' of 'Groucho,' and the cigar coming out of the b.u.mcrack (that's probably not the correct technical term, but that's what we used to call it) in the 'b' at the end of 'club.'

On our old posters, there used to be a line at the bottom listing the type of music I played; I used to stick the name of the brilliant, gifted DJ at the end, in the doomed hope of creating a cult following for him. You can't see the bottom of this one because some band has plastered a load of little flyers over it; so I peel them off, and there it is: 'STAX ATLANTIC MOTOWN R&B SKA MERSEYBEAT AND THE OCCASIONAL MADONNA SINGLE - DANCE MUSIC FOR OLD PEOPLE - DJ ROB FLEMING.' It's nice to see I'm still doing it after all these years.

What's going on? There are only three possibilities, really: a) this poster has been there since 1986, and fly poster archaeologists have just discovered it; b) I decided to restart the club, got the posters done, put them up, and then suffered a pretty comprehensive attack of amnesia; c) someone else has decided to restart the club for me. I reckon that explanation 'c' is the best bet, and go home to wait for Laura.