Chapter 13

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 never-ending 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.'