Chapter 14

Meetings and conferences outside London sometimes took Dale away for a night or two. In mid-April his manager sent him up to Birmingham for three days on a training course about new employment contracts. The intention was that, when he returned, he should talk to groups of staff about new pay scales and terms of employment. A bit envious of these expenses-paid trips, I asked, 'And which plush hotel will you patronize this time?'

He smiled. 'If you feel like taking my place on this one, you're welcome. Pay scales and terms of employment are a grind. Expect half the group will nod off in the afternoons.'

He got up early to catch his train to Birmingham, and left me a note saying he had put a new game scenario on the computer for me. At home after work that evening, the first thing I did was to look at it. The game opened with my hunky Latino avatar, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt with my name on it, walking on a sunny hillside holding a bunch of pink helium balloons. I clicked on the balloons to see if they would burst, but instead the funnel of a whirlwind appeared on the horizon, sped towards 'me' and whisked 'me' up into the air, trapping me in its spiral of dust and debris. Clicking on the balloons now made them explode one by one, but although the on-screen me would slip down towards the ground a little way as each one burst, a pair of eyes would appear at the top of the funnel and glance downwards, while the whirlwind spiralled round ever faster and drew me upwards again.

I was carried over some houses, spun dangerously around a church steeple, then whisked off to a field of rugby pitches where several matches were in progress. Seeing my avatar carried aloft from pitch to pitch, I clicked on the steeple, then on the rugby posts, but the on-screen me remained trapped, meandering round the sky. Then I clicked on a rugby scrum several times; it shoved itself a little in one direction, then back again. Then I clicked on the bottom of the whirlwind, and it came to a stop directly above the centre of the scrum. A ferocious cry came from the many-legged heaving mass. Hearing this, the funnel developed facial features, two eyes, eyebrows, a nose and a mouth — a face which contorted into a scream. The wind dropped me into the middle of the scrum, somersaulted and shot off back over the horizon. A series of lecherous grunts came from the players in whose midst my avatar had disappeared, as they threw my clothes up into the air.

Surely Dale was not going to leave me there being mauled by that lusty gang? The on-screen me, hidden by the heaving mass of muscle, was presumably struggling to get free, and frantically I clicked again and again at the spaces between the players' legs in the hope my avatar would come crawling through. Each click produced a cry for help.

The scene shifted to the woods at the end of the field, where Dale's avatar was sawing up a felled tree. Hearing my shouts, he cupped his hand to his ear, located their direction, and sped over to the scrum. He grabbed the players, one at a time, by the scruff of the neck and the back of the shorts and threw them across the pitch, quite an achievement since most of them were big powerful guys. The second rugger player to be hurled off landed on top of the first, and they began to caress and kiss one another, and so on until the whole lot had been paired off and were coupling all over the field.

Having rescued me, Dale helped me to my feet. I had retained my underpants, so obviously those ruffians had not despoiled me. We retrieved the rest of my clothes from the ground, and he led me into the woods, where we stopped by the felled tree. When I clicked on it he gestured to me to sit down. There was a red scratch on my forehead, which he patted tenderly, and then made instantaneously better with a kiss. One kiss led to another, and very soon we were, like the rugby players, in each others arms, only much more considerate and loving.

This was a delightful scenario, so I rang him to thank him, but he was too tired after a long day to talk for long. His inventive and well-wrought scenario would be difficult for me to match, and I did not want to be diverted for too long from Quick's book, but I resolved to to work up one for him before he returned.

On the second night he was away, I called in at the Give and Take for some company. There were perhaps half a dozen others in the bar. 'Quiet night.' I said, after ordering my drink from Smiles.

'There were plenty in earlier, including a few of the Gay Symphony Orchestra. They have a new violinist, he's really nice. Wouldn't mind a chance of vibrating with him some time. You on your own?'

'He's away. Work ... a course in Birmingham.'

Smiles leaned forward and said confidentially, 'Sorry to have to tell you, but over there, in the far corner, sitting on his own, is someone you used to know. He's been in asking about you a couple of times. I tried to put him off by saying you hadn't been in much lately.'

In the mirror at the back of the bar I saw Toby's reflection. 'Oh god.'

'Well, you used to like him.'

'"Used to," you're right there. Not any more.'

'Well, not my business. Actually, there is something I wanted to ask you about, an idea I've had for the bar. You remember how those school disco nights used to pull in the crowds at that straight club in Hammersmith? Hundreds used to turn up, all wearing school uniform. You must have seen them.'

'Yes, there was a real craze for dressing up as school kids, and not only at Hammersmith. Pubs all over the place were having school disco nights.'

'Well, you know a while ago the owners of this place were talking about opening a new late night venue? They decided it was too risky. Now they want me to try some theme nights here, to bring more people in. I was thinking of a school disco night. Guys in sexy school uniforms, what do you think?'

'Generally the girls were better dressed, I thought the blokes were really scruffy. Still, could be worth giving it a try.'

'Would you dress up for it?'

'You couldn't make it a rugby kit night, could you?'

'Rugby kit ... that's your thing at the moment, is it? Striped jerseys and tight little shorts? You and Dale are a bit skinny, but a few of the regulars in here might give you a tackle. I'll stick with the school discos for now though. We need more than one or two guys to dress up for it to be any good, which is why I'm asking you. Need to advertise a bit, here and there. What do you think?'

'Yes. I'm sure I could pick up some short trousers in a charity shop or somewhere, and I could borrow blazers from Jeremy.'

'There'd be a prize for best uniform, probably a bottle of wine.'

We were interrupted by Toby, who meandered up to the bar and stood beside me. 'Hi Ben, how are things?'

'Okay.'

Smiles said, 'We were just talking about trying a school disco night. Do you think it would bring people in?'

Toby smiled his easy, anything-goes smile and nodded. 'If you get any naughty boys in, I'll bend 'em over and give 'em a walloping.'

'That's not quite what I had in mind.'

'You sure?' Toby asked. The bar's phone rang and Smiles went to answer it. 'So, ' Toby said to me, 'you're doing okay?'

I wanted to be rid of him, and responded with an offhand, 'I'm all right thanks.'

'The other night Smiles was saying you've become a big fan of The Rocking Boulders.'

Smiles would have to pass on to Toby, of all people, what I'd so stupidly blabbed to him. 'I like their stuff. I've read a few things about them lately. It's nothing much.' When we were boyfriends Toby had no interest in rock and roll. Why was he so keen to hear about the Boulders now?

'Your mate behind the bar said you know a friend of theirs.'

'Well ... oh ... it was some gossip I'd picked up. Second or third-hand stuff.'

'You've got me interested.'

'Why? Are you hoping to get a job as a roadie?'

'Very funny. Same old you. You always were one for a laugh, weren't you?' He was not, though, going to give up easily. 'Seriously, I am interested. I heard they joined some funny sect, like the Prophecies of Arun or something? Maybe we could help each other. Me and Jayde are sharing the upstairs flat now that she and Jake have split. He's downstairs where you used to be. He's changed, the wanker says he wants to get a job, and he's decided he's gay. Tell us about this Egyptian thing The Rocking Boulders were into, and maybe I can get Jayde to be a bit more reasonable about this kid she's having, stop her saying it was all your fault.'

I had not told Smiles much about the Boulders, but clearly it was enough to have impressed Toby. What was he after?

I said, 'That's the deal is it? If I help you, the pair of you will make less trouble for me than you might otherwise? What about your part in all this? That night, when Jayde says I made her pregnant, I went to that club with you, expecting to go back home with you. If anyone is to blame it's you. In fact, you told me you were bisexual. Now you're living with her. Maybe you're the father, not me.'

'Now let's not get into a big scene here. I've come along to have a sensible chat, see if we can help each other. Understand what I'm saying? Jayde wants to have this kid, she doesn't want to get rid of it, that's the truth. She thinks you're its dad. If you help me, tell me about this prophecies thing and The Rocking Boulders, maybe I can persuade her to back off from pointing the finger at you.'

He must have thought she had worried me enough for this bit of blackmail to work. What did he want from me? To help him get in with the band's crowd so he could sell them some pills or some coke? If that was in his mind, he would probably believe almost anything I said. 'Well, since you're so interested, I did hear that in the nineteen-sixties they were interested in a sect that was all to do with Egyptian mummies, pyramids, Cleopatra, and all that kind of stuff.'

He listened intently. 'Yeah, ' he said, 'the bands back then all went in for religious shit, didn't they? It was a big thing with the Beatles and the other rock bands. So what happened about this sect? Are they still going?'

'I don't really know.' I hesitated.

'Come on, Ben. You can tell me. Were The Rocking Boulders, you know, into weird kinky religious ceremonies?'

I've never been good at lying, so I told him things that were nothing to do with the sect: that the Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for life, the ankh, was like a cross but with a loop at the top; that when the ancient scribes wrote the names of the pharaohs they drew a line around the symbols called a cartouche; and that as well as the mummies of people that everyone knows about, mummies of cats had also been unearthed. He listened closely, but after ten or fifteen minutes my knowledge of ancient Egypt was running out. He still wanted more, so I risked an outlandish lie. If he caught me out, I could claim to have meant it as a joke. I said that most ancient cultures used to mummify their dead, and that the Australian Aborigines used to mummify budgerigars.

'Did they? Did they have budgies in Australia then? So when they made mummies out of animals, were they, like, hoping people would be able to have their pets with them after they died?'

Since he was so gullible, I grew bolder. 'No one really knows. You have to remember they built these enormous tombs, so they had to have lots and lots of things to put in them.'

'The Aborigines had tombs as well, did they?'

'Yes, but budgerigars may have been chosen because they're small. Or maybe the early Australians thought they were intelligent, because they could teach them to talk.'