avevale_intelligencer | Continuation

Keith Lovell. Brian’s brother, whose manic stage presence had brought anarchy to the UK while little Johnny Rotten was still failing to learn that it was rude to spit. Two things. One, Keith was definitely dead, overdosed in a Little Chef. Cue jokes about why you don’t get so many garlic mushrooms any more. Two, Ray had never met him.

We all reacted in our various ways. Beano demanded to know what Ray had taken and where was the rest of it. Tony looked pained and fiddled with his keyboard. Les made a face and turned away. But Brian...Brian took it seriously.

“You actually saw him?” he said softly.

“Straight up,” Ray babbled. “Swear to God, on my life. As clear as I’m seeing you now.”

“Yeah, right,” came from Les.

“What did he say?” Brian asked.

“He just—he just pointed back towards the house.” Ray took several deep breaths, and you could see the self-mythologising circuits kicking in. “It was his wish that I should come back and—and carry on.”

“About bloody time,” Beano grumbled. “I’m starving.”

“Thanks, Ray,” Brian murmured. “I appreciate it, man.”

And normal bickering was resumed. I thought no more about it.

*

Where was the lovely Karen in all this, I hear you ask? She was in London, being the acceptable face of the Fruits. There was much to negotiate, and she was still the clearest head we had. We had the offer of an album deal, which needed to be remoulded closer to the heart’s desire, and also there was the next tour to plan. So she missed the opening rumbles of the storm. Lucky girl.

A week and two days passed, and we started to record. The gig at Wisbech had finally knocked the guys into some kind of shape performance-wise; you could hardly tell that two of them hated each other’s guts. Les and Ray were on their best behaviour. The next blow-up came from a totally unexpected direction.

“I’m a keyboard player, not a bloody scientist!” Tony yelled.

“Really? Well thank you for telling me, Tony, ‘cos I was starting to wonder.” That, gentle readers, was Astrid, Ray’s somewhat volatile lady.

“I-i-i-it’s cutting edge, man, it’s...it’s what everyone else is doing...” Ray, always a devout worshipper of technology without understanding it in the slightest, had taken his credit card for a wee outing up Tottenham Court Road and bought Tony a cutting edge music workstation, complete with state-of-the-art computer and more software than you could shake Daniel Barenboim at. Not realising, of course, that Tony had started out playing organ and piano and maybe mellotron if it was working that week, and had never taken a single step beyond.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Tony complained.

“You can learn, can’t you? Or is your brain fossilised like everything else?”

“Look, mate,” Tony said, ignoring the Scandinavian barb, “thanks and everything, but I don’t need all this. Not yet. I’d need a training course to work out which buttons to press.”

“Some people are just so ungrateful,” Astrid observed to the wall.

“No, no, that’s fine, mate,” Ray said miserably.

“I’ll have a look at it,” Tony said. “Maybe Luke can give me a hand.” Luke was the backup guitarist, brought in when we all thought Brian was dead, and seriously talented for a twelve-year-old. Maybe I exaggerate a little.

Les muttered something about inventing a problem and then throwing money at it, and Tony slid quickly back into his role of buffer state.

“Only Keith said we’d need it,” Ray mumbled, unheard by anyone except me. Maybe if I’d said something then things might have turned out differently, but I was busy moving expensive boxes out of the way.

Tony got his beloved Yammy set up in their place, and the guys went into one of Brian’s new songs.

*

Les was the next.

He was never a big contributor of ideas when they were all there, preferring to stay in the background playing his bass and lobbing in the occasional sarky aside, but he did have ideas. He’d written several songs with Brian in the early days. He just preferred to work his ideas out on his own. So, by unspoken arrangement, I used to leave the kit set up some nights so he could come in and just play. Sometimes I left the backup tape running, accidentally on purpose like. Never told him, of course. He’d have hit the roof. He was good at roofs. But sometimes I’d rewind it and have a listen, just to see if there was anything good coming out.

This is what I heard, a few days after the keyboard incident. Les was playing “What Might Have Been,” one of his favourites of his old stuff, and someone else joined in on harmonies. He stopped, waited a moment, then started again, and the same thing happened.

LES: Who’s that?

VOICE: ‘Ello, Wicksy.

LES: Beano, that you?

VOICE: Come on, mate, don’t you recognise me?

LES: Aw hey, come on, that’s not funny. Brian?

VOICE: Close.

LES: Where are you?

VOICE: Right here.

LES: Aw, God no...fuckin’ flashbacks...

VOICE: I ain’t a flashback, Les.

LES: Hughie, if this is meant to be a joke...

VOICE: Remember that time in Abingdon?

LES: What?

VOICE: You were right, mate. It was baking soda.

LES: It was...?

VOICE: I was faking it.

LES: You—You were completely out of it.

VOICE: Fooled you, din’t I? Couldn’t admit I’d been burned yet again.

LES: You bugger, Keith—

A pause.

VOICE: Yes. It’s me.

LES: You mean...Ray was telling the truth?

VOICE: I had to contact him first, mate. Sorry, but he was the only one who was open to me.

LES: Keith, man...you’re dead.

VOICE: I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that to you.

LES: No, this can’t be happening, it’s gotta be...

VOICE: Listen, Les. You’ve got another chance, mate. All of you, the band. This is important.

LES: Keith...is it all right where you are?

VOICE: Bit grey and boring. Kind of like Guildford.

LES: Can you...come back?

VOICE: Not all the way. I can talk to you. But you need Ray.

LES: Oh, man, but he’s a—

VOICE: He’s my successor, Les. My spiritual heir. He’ll grow into the role if you give him a chance.

LES: Well...if you say so, man. Still not sure I’m not dreaming this, mind.

VOICE: It’s time to take it all back, Les. The music. The world. It all went wrong, see. Jealous forces interfered, and now it’s up to you to take it back.

LES: I don’t understand.

VOICE: You will. I’ll talk to the others as well. But you’ve got to stand with them. The flame still burns, Les. It really does still burn.

LES: What d’you mean?

Well, that was it for that night. To be honest, I too thought it was one of the guys playing a jolly jape on poor old Les. The Abingdon reference, that was true enough, but anyone could have said that. But when Les came down the following day looking even more wasted than usual, and was so non-abrasive in the studio you could have cleaned a non-stick pan with him, I knew he believed it. I resolved to leave the tape running every chance I got after that, see if the mystery voice delivered any further insights.