MY FIRST GIG
In a family photo from the Nashville Rooms, on Christmas Eve 1972, seven-year-old me looks tiny beside the wooden statue of Hiawatha. I'm in my first ever suit for the stage. It has a good three sizes for me to grow into and is sewage brown.
Men entering the venue would return the Hiawatha statue's silent 'How' with theirs, deep in the throat. Beyond Hiawatha were heavy, dark chairs and tables, a sawdust floor, red and white striped walls. To me then the place seemed hangar sized, the stage a long walk across. In images on the internet site Seeking the Shows of Yesteryear it’s pub-sized with a four-piece country band in double denim boleros and bum hugger jeans crowded onstage. From the ceiling, the lights and the mahogany fixtures manager Charlie Stephenson had hung cash and carry specials Christmas decorations, like glittering origami genitalia.
Charlie, in his tan butcher’s apron, shorts and clogs, side-quick-stepped behind the saloon bar in a solo Jolly Caucus Race.
The mynah bird sang “The Time Waltz” in duet with all-comers, breaking off to scream: ‘Charlie, Charlie, evening paper, evening paper, mind your bum.’
Punters there for the music were dressed as Cowboys and American indigenous tribes. They moulted cheesecloth and pigeons’ feathers as they scurried to and from the bar like am-drammers trying to give the impression that being costumed was their default status. When they talked of the jog along by stagecoach, they’d really come on the bus; the covered wagon meant their own Ford Zephyr; the mule train, the overground.
Oh, and never forget: it Wasn't God Who Made the Honky-Tonk Angels.
‘Here’s a little number, ladies and gentlemen, that goes a little something like this…’
Blank eyes reflecting back the silvering on the bass drum, Terry’s listeners sat still as the dead. He sang “Little Donkey”, “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem”.
From her front row seat Eirwen, my mother, in her maxi-length hessian skirt and matching coat jacket, began to low along. Some dead heads turned.
‘My wife is here, I hear,’ Terry said. Eirwen’s joy at this mention radiated up from her feet, prinking her cheeks.
There was an at-seat competition to name the eight reindeer other than Rudolf. Prize: a whisky miniatures taster, a bottle of Brut and a Strictly for Use at Airports Only Toblerone.
Then Terry sang, “Born to Lose”.
During its last chorus, I stood up.
Eirwen said. ‘You just had the toilet.’
‘I have to be ready.’
‘I say what you do and what you don’t do.’
I began making my way to the side of the stage.
‘I’ve had a bit of trouble with my son, Iestyn, ladies and gentlemen,’ Terry was saying. ‘Called to the school about him during PE lessons weeing in the pool. Didn’t we all do that, ladies and gentlemen? Apparently, Iestyn does it off the top diving board.’
‘Iestyn,' Eirwen shouted. ‘Iestyn!’
A game of stuck in the mud. Why hadn’t Terry cleared this with Eirwen? What was I meant to do now?
Terry strummed, waiting. Charlie, at an optic, watched as Eirwen got to her feet, spitting on a hankie out of her sleeve.
‘I think this is going to be one of those nights, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Terry. ‘Let’s bring him onstage, shall we? My little boy for his first go. I’m so proud, and I know you’ll love him…’
A spotlight picked me up just as Eirwen stepped forward to wipe non-existent smuts off my cheek.
‘He needed that, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Terry. ‘This afternoon, as normal, we had him up a chimney.’
‘We live in the council flat we bought, Terry,’ Eirwen shouted, her eyes alight, mouth gurning from side to side expectantly, waiting to fling more barbs. Like a tennis player hunched to receive serve.
‘Sometimes, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Terry. ‘I wish I’d let that Sheik in Park Lane buy her off me.’ He strummed two chords. ‘In instalments.’
And I sang.
Headliner Mrs Zephyr sat onstage, wheezy and pug-eyed, in a lacy, terracotta crimplene, dropped waist evening gown and bunion distorted court shoes. She adjusted her hairnet, sending up a small cloud of talcum powder. As her husband wristily blindfolded her, she complained, ‘Jasper, will you kindly wait till I’ve draped myself and mine appropriately?’
‘Shall I help you, dear?’ In frowzy black tie, by day Mr Zephyr was Jasper’s of Wandsworth, Carpet Fitter. He used a stirrup pump that predated his first meeting with the future Mrs Zephyr.
‘Not on your nelly, Jasper,' said his wife. 'That would make it the wrong Saturday out of six. Though they say, Hope Springs Eternal.’
Mr Zephyr sighed, ‘Whether you want it to or no.’
He stepped down off the stage and was dwarfed by the wallpaper. ‘I am coming among you, and ask that you give me objects. Then, I shall transmit an image of the object from my mind to the mind of my wife. Yes, sir, of course you can get the object back, sir. I expect it’s quite the feature - down the pawn shop, sir. Now, dear, open your mind.’
Beside me, Eirwen muttered, ‘That’s the code for keys – what is he playing at?’
Actually, the Zephyr’s code may not have been so clunky as ‘open’ for keys; ‘get it write’ for a pen; ‘take your time’ for a watch and so on. Telepathy acts today must invent code for makes of iPhone; types of credit card, as well as the last four digits on a specific card; or brands of chewing gum, and the number of sticks left in the packet.
Eirwen beckoned Mr. Zephyr over and gave him a china owl.
He looked aghast. 'Er...' Onstage Mrs Zephyr's feet turned upward.
I could somehow sense Terry backstage, with the blotches appearing over his sinuses and a cold morning in his eye.
***
Among my presents was the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang LP. I put on “Doll on a Musical Box”.
‘Look, mum, I’ve got - ͗
‘I know exactly what presents you've got,’ Eirwen said, face sour. ‘Father Christmas and I had a little talk about it. I said how everyone was saying – Welsh Lill, Pat, Sid the caretaker – how he'd gone too far as usual and given you too much.’
‘Did the reindeer eat the carrot?’
‘Spat some of it back out.’
Terry snored on. I was convinced as he lay fat beneath the blankets that he was a Yogi Bear puppet. (My aunt Dorothy was Zaza the cat living next door on Hector’s House; the witch in Puff the Magic Dragon was Eirwen.) I asked to get into bed, as it was Christmas. Eirwen moved to one side and nodded at the gap. I would just be in the bed with them, there would never be cuddles. Eirwen’s nail varnish and Lilly of the Valley; Terry’s Brylcreem, sweat and beer breath. Eirwen reached for the tin of Quality Street. She ate coffee creams and handed me orange half-moons. ‘But save some till after your Reddy Brek.’
‘See, a White Christmas out the window.’ Terry brightened slightly behind his inevitable hangover. ‘I’ll have won a few bob now.’
Terry didn’t know which coat I must wear to go down into the area. With no sun through the rearing grey the snow lay dingy. Terry scraped the Austin Minor’s windscreen passenger side before he remembered he would be walking to the Jolly Cockney. I made snow torpedoes and ranged them by the area plinth where the Martin brothers and I played Submarine Disasters. Towards the far end of the Vauxhall Walk were a man in a duffle coat, woman in mac, children in duffle coats. They were carrying presents, making their chattering way. I waved to Eirwen, up on the balcony. She gave me a small upward nod.
Eirwen stood stirring her hands in her slacks’ pocket studying the hall carpet. Terry told her, yes he would be expected to have a Christmas drink at the Jolly Cockney.
I was bored with my presents well before Terry was due home from the Jolly Cockney and went back to playing with my little bag of pre-decimal coins.
We always had a walk after lunch on Christmas Day. The snow was whipped along the Embankment.
‘But I thought the Zephyrs were really psychic!’ Eirwen was still insisting. ‘How was I to know it was a code?’
The wife of the compère had sabotaged the headliner act. Terry would lose gigs.
Terry said, ‘Later on in the afternoon, Iestyn, they’ll light Big Ben the stronger for Christmas.’
Eirwen was staggering to the bathroom, clutching at Terry, blinking away soap suds popping like sores, congealed gravy on her left shoulder like an Etsy food-themed brooch. He had punched her full on, dragged her to the sink full of soaking Christmas dinner things, shoved her head in and held it down.
Christmas Dinner had been roast lamb. Eirwen had sent me the around the balcony as usual to ask Welsh Lil for some fresh mint.
‘And don’t forget to wish her Merry Christmas, Iestyn. She’s not got family.’
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