Chapter 2

Bear reached into the envelope and pulled out the newspaper cuttings, slightly yellowed with age. A woman half his age, dressed only in a pair of pants and an untied robe, appeared with a tray. The robe fell off her and she climbed into bed again with tea and toast. He’d been married twice since the band broke up, neither marriage worked, nor did the one to the young woman he’d met on the road during their brief success. So now he just lived with someone. She was good for him, and he was good to her; no official ties, but it worked.

The band had been another nine-day wonder despite their hopes and determination. Once the mystery of what they wore under their kilts on stage was solved, the media lost interest. Their music was just a little above average, but not enough. Laclan had gone back to Theoretical Physics; he was Professor Laclan Smith now; Simon Perkins had drifted into teaching and discovered that attractive young girls in schools were just as much a temptation as they were on the road. He was doing ten years for underage sex with a pupil, four other cases taken into consideration (and they were the four that people knew about). Gerry was the only one to have sensibly put away cash; when it all stopped, he bought the clapped out van from the band and turned it into the first Scottish Ethnic Food van for festivals. He also invested in a restaurant. Now he had a mobile catering business that worked at all the festivals and a small chain of five restaurants. Only Bear had stuck with the music industry. He had moved into session work. When Deep Purple needed a second drummer for their mega-album, they called him; when Ginger Baker was in detox, Bear stood in; when Arizona had the catastrophic breakup (to form New Arizona and Original State), he joined New Arizona until they all met up and forgave what they had all said and reformed. During all that, he worked on a seminal album of drumming which sold moderately and was now regarded as a classic. Just Drums was exactly that, with overdubbing, one track had thirty drums playing together, they were all Bear. He’d had a moderately, quiet, successful life.

“You going to read all day? Oh, I see.” She put the tray on the bedside table and slid down to attend to his third erection on the morning. This was, for Bear, a red-letter day. He hadn’t managed three erections in so short a time for quite a while. She came back up fifteen minutes later. In that time, he’d been thinking. “Well?”

“I remember them.”

“Fuck off. All those girls and you remember this one.”

“These were different, all in uniforms that were meant to be strictly smart and female, and were so very, very sexy.”

“Pervert. But that doesn’t mean she’s yours.”

“We were the same age, near as makes no odds. And no, it doesn’t, but the story pans out.”

“DNA test would prove it.”

“I know, but no. It isn’t like she’s going to get much out of me if that’s what she’s after. Getting a DNA tests says ‘you are a gold-digging liar’ and if she’s telling the truth I’d like it to start better than that.”

“Okay, whatever you say. Is that you?” she was looking at a picture of the group in their heyday. He was remembering the grey uniforms and white pants, the train down from Scotland. He remembered that more than the following night. He remembered well. “Oh, my. They must have been sexy, four times! How about I ride this one for a while?” He was looking at his erection too; she knew it wasn’t her that had brought it up, it was the thought of the schoolgirls. Still, never look a gift horse in the mouth. He was hard, but had nothing to give; he was happy for her to ride to her own satisfaction. Then they could get on with the rest of the day. He had an idea for a new track for his band. It wasn’t so much a band as a group of ageing rock stars and wannabees who liked to get together and jam.

The day moved on, he thought about it all as he did some drumming, added bongos, added a tambourine, took it out again and replaced it with a bodhran. All the while he was thinking. Finally he had a conclusion. He replied to the girl. Even replying established contact. If he had not wanted contact he would have ignored her.

Letter was replaced with email, and they finally agreed to meet in London in a ‘safe space’. Trafalgar Square had seemed a good idea, but there were all sorts of people there. Bear decided that the girl – Katie – would recognise him, so he sat on the edge of one of the fountains (turned off as usual) and waited.

“Umm? Hello? Bear?”

“Katie? Hello, yes, lets get a coffee? St Martins has a nice cafe.”

They went in, saying little; both observed the other as they queued for coffee and a cake. Katie was thinking that this was a large man, she knew that. His public persona was of a large, sweaty man in his favourite old leather sleeveless jerkin; quite often with no shirt, usually beating hell out of a vast array of drums. He had never moved to the computerised electronic drums, even for practice. Here he was dressed much more sedately (his partner Angie had advised, cajoled, and ordered him so he looked respectable), she was pleased, even if he did still look like Grizzly Adams in jeans and a shirt. Six foot two or three? His hands and forearms had the muscle and power that a drummer develops, and the joint issues too, one finger joint was swollen from Bear’s poor self-taught grip. His face was calm. If she had known him better she would have seen the ripples of panic under that calm sea. He wasn’t afraid of a public scene, he was afraid of upsetting her. His calmness was born of a broad satisfaction with the last nearly twenty years. He had achieved his goals, he had kept his goals realistic. He had not sold out to the ‘music Man’ nor given it all up to make money.