Читать книгу The Go-Away Bird - Warren Fitzgerald - Страница 10

The sun was out and it even felt like I might be a bit overdressed with this coat on. I could just hear Dad, ordering everyone about in the garden and congratulating himself, ‘See? I knew i’ would turn ou’ nice for a family bar-bee. May bank holiday weekend – gotta be done! Listen to yer Uncle Tel, he knows best!’ It seemed a shame to ferret my way down the Tube with the rest of the rodents, but it was quicker, so I could drop the stuff off at Jimmy’s and still have plenty of time to get to Dad’s before I started getting slagged off for being the ‘prodigal son’.

No police with dogs at the barriers – handy. As the Northern Line train rattled into the station, I stuffed my headphones into my ears and pressed the tiny ‘Play’ button, followed by the ‘Random’ one on my beloved Discman, before shoving it safely back in my coat pocket. The clanging and scraping and groaning of the train quickly faded out as bluesy Fifties electric guitars faded in, then an electric bass like something out of Grandmaster Flash reminded me that we were in the Nineties and the drums kicked in and we were off.

I used to find travelling round the city such a stress, I tell you, but now with my own personal soundtrack pumping through my head it’s just like being in my own music video. People don’t seem so threatening any more – they’re just actors in my video. A funky song from Prince and I’m strutting through the crowd like a Sexy MF, a ballad from Boyz II Men (hey, don’t knock ’em, they’re great vocalists; cheesy, I know, but they can sing) and I’m sauntering through the street annoying everyone trying to get past me who thinks that I must be a tourist otherwise I’d be scurrying along as frantically as them. And as I stared at the wooden slats that made up the floor of the train, I imagined I was on a pier – not Brighton or Southend, Christ, no! Somewhere a bit more…classy, romantic even…I don’t know, on a quayside in Miami or Venice Beach perhaps – this music was transporting me. And now this voice, sighing goodbyes, stabbed in the guts by the inevitability of dying love. Looks like Melody Maker actually got something right for a change when they said that this debut by Jeff Buckley was important, a future classic album. There’s not much coming out these days with powerful songwriting and great singing, I tell you. It’s either great singing and crap songs – Boyz II Men. Or crap singing and great songs – Oasis. Buckley’s voice was…beautiful…got to try this out with some of my students. The song was sad, but I was enjoying the technique and feeling a bit superior that I had not made the same mistake as the character in the song – getting involved.

As the song just continued to build, without looking back, one crescendoing chord sequence after another, I became self-conscious for a moment that my exhilaration might be showing a bit too much on my face – I wasn’t sure if that was a smirk from the girl sitting opposite me from inside her cave of black hair, as black as the little mice in these tunnels, their fur dyed by years of grime and fumes. Funny…I couldn’t’ve cared less if she was a minger or twice my age. But she wasn’t, so I grabbed the discarded newspaper on the seat next to me (luckily it was the Guardian and not The Sun) and I held it up to my face.