Goodnight Steve McQueen Read Free Page B

this is going, don’t you?”
    “It’s only six months, Danny. It’s perfect. It’ll give us time to sort our lives out.”
    “What d’you mean? Our lives are sorted out. What’s wrong with our lives?”
    “We can’t carry on like this. You can’t carry on like this. You can’t work in a video shop for the rest of your life.”
    “It’s just until we get signed. You know I’m only doing it until we get signed.”
    “You’re twenty-nine, Danny, you’ve got to be realistic. It’s time you thought about doing something else.”
    “Yeah, so my uncle bought me my first guitar when I was fourteen. I’d had a nasty incident with a girl at the local swimming baths and he was trying to cheer me up, and anyway, the moment I started playing I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”
    “Wow, I think that’s so great. I mean, I think it’s really cool that you didn’t go to university or anything. My parents would have had a fit if I’d told them I was dropping out of my A-levels to join a band.”
    We’re back at Alison’s shared house in Tufnell Park and we’re smoking a joint and drinking neat vodka in her box room She’s made it nice, though, not like my hovel in Finsbury Park. It’s amazing what girls can do with a lava lamp and a couple of cushions. It felt like we were in a harem.
    “Well, they did go mad, at least my mum did. My dad died when I was a kid.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry.” She says this like she really is sorry.
    “I mean, it’s not my mum’s fault,” I say, not wanting to get into my dead dad story just yet. “She had big plans for me. Wanted me to go to uni or film school or something. I think she was scared I’d end up a drug-addled waster.”
    “Bet she won’t be saying that when you’re on Top of the Pops.”
    “Exactly. Take tonight there were three record companies down there tonight.”
    “To see you?”
    “Well… no, they were there for the headline band. But they might have seen us as well. You never know.”
    “So have any record companies ever been down to see you?”
    “Yeah, a few. I mean, we’ve had a lot of interest. My last band nearly got a deal with Polydor. It’s just a matter of time really.”
    “That’s so cool. How much money do you think they’ll give you when you get signed?”
    “Dunno, really, depends on the advances and the points and all that.”
    “What’s points?”
    I’m not entirely sure I like the way the conversation is going so I decide it’s time to turn things round a bit.
    “What about you?” I say, handing her the half-bottle of Absolut. “What did you want to be when you were a kid?”
    “Honestly?
    “Honestly.”
    “Oh, I can’t say it. It’s too embarrassing.”
    “No, go on, I won’t laugh, I promise.”
    “It’s stupid really,” she says. “I wanted to write detective novels. I wanted to be Agatha Christie. I mean, imagine that, how unrealistic is that?”
    And she takes a long swig of vodka and gazes out of the open window on to the street.
    “But that’s your favourite thing about me. The fact that I haven’t given up, that I haven’t been sucked in. The fact that I haven’t succumbed to the whole fast car, porcini mushroom, power suit, Arena Homme, designer bog roll thing.”
    “Like me, you mean?”
    “No, not like you. I mean, you wouldn’t get in Arena Homme. You’re not a Homme.”
    “I’m serious. That’s what you think of me, isn’t it, that I’ve copped out, joined the rat race, gone over to the other side?”
    “Of course not. You’re different.”
    “How am I different, Danny? How?”
    Because you’re Alison.
    She thinks we should go to bed. She doesn’t think we’re getting anywhere. She thinks we’re both too tired and too drunk to say anything sensible and she doesn’t want us to get things out of proportion. We can talk in the morning, she says. She’ll go in late. Everything will make more sense in the morning.
    You know you’re in trouble when your girlfriend