8

There Came a Tall, Dark Stranger …

THE TROUBLE WITH being a woman at the beginning of the twenty-first century is having to be so damn strong all the time. Fixing fuses in the middle of the night, fending off muggers, changing car tyres in the torrential rain – any more of this equality was going to put me in a psychiatric ward, I thought to myself, as I missed the nail I was attempting to hammer into a broken drawer and whacked my thumb instead. I’d been attempting my own DIY for years, but the instructions were always so complicated. I invariably ended up supergluing my elbow to my earlobe or making a bookcase out of myself. It was early one school morning and I was now sucking my throbbing thumb and leaping about in a fury, hopping from foot to foot as though in some hot-coal initiation ritual in Lower Volta, when my mother’s email plopped into my inbox with a boing! Now that I’d given up dating, Mum had given up Merlin-minding. She had rented out her flat to fund her adventures and was currently cruising the Great Barrier Reef with a wealthy widow who called her floating retirement home HMS Panty Liner.

Sweet pea, sorry to let you down but I just can’t make it home for the summer, as bloody families, totally impervious to the economic Armageddon, are bunging up planes with their half-witted ‘yuh-whatever’ offspring and I can’t get a cheap flight out of Cairns. But am sending a substitute – your cousin Kimmy’s husband, Archibald. He needs a place to stay in London for a few weeks and has offered to do all your DIY, burglar-bashing and Merlin-chauffeuring in exchange for your spare room. Could work well? Toodles. Must away – we’re counting tiger sharks for scientific research.

Of course you are, I mused sarcastically. Hadn’t marriage to my father been dangerous enough? The reply – ‘No way’ – was typed and ready to be sent when an ominous thump and a stream of expletives erupted from Merlin’s room upstairs. I checked my watch. Seven a.m. He was having his usual meltdown about Guantanamo Bay, which is what he called his school. Every morning I had to endure an exhausting war of words. Even though my son was now nearly sixteen, it could still take me an hour to haul him out of bed, and only then with a mixture of cajoling, begging, pleading, blackmailing and, finally, sheer rage. By screaming till the paint peeled off the walls, I could usually half-stuff him into his uniform, but not before he’d trashed his room in the process, often slamming doors so hard they came off their hinges. My brilliant mothering skills became strikingly apparent when I would then run back to my room and sob into my pillow. Eventually I would drag him, as he cursed and cussed, to his school gates, before dashing to work, all distraught and dishevelled and panda-eyed from mascara leakage. The daily ordeal left me more depleted than Our Lady of Put-upon and Exhausted, the patron saint of single mothers.

I abandoned the broken kitchen drawer I’d been trying to fix and trudged towards the stairs. I felt like a pilot about to fly up into a tornado. My nightie billowed out around me like wings as I climbed up into the storm. It was then I suddenly found myself fantasizing once more about how restful it would be to have a man to do a little light Merlin-taming. Plus the odd bit of light-bulb changing and carburettor tuning … The very thought of it was like a holiday. A male guest would be like having a boyfriend, only without the snoring and boring bit.

When I’d finally got Merlin to school that morning and was lying, worn out, in the fetal position on the back seat of my car gnawing at my nails and whimpering, I typed an answer to my mother’s email on my BlackBerry: ‘Okay.’

Over the next few days, against my better – i.e., my more sceptical – nature, I found myself starting to imagine what this Archibald might be like. My mother sent another email explaining that Archie had been a famous rock musician in Oz in the eighties, before he became ‘spiritual’. A picture of an erudite, easy-on-the-eye, wise and witty muscular love god, possibly sitting cross-legged on a flying carpet, began to gel in my addled mind.

I was in front of my terrace house in my pyjamas one warm June morning a few days later, attempting to stamp the recycling into the green plastic box and remember my mother’s recipe for the cake I had to bake frantically for the school fête, when a taxi pulled up and a middle-aged man with a greying ponytail, torn T-shirt and pointy boots alighted carrying a guitar case, a rucksack and an amplifier. He got out of the cab the way a cowboy dismounts his horse, with an understated swagger.

‘How’s it hangin’?’ The stranger spoke in wide, skidding, languorous vowels, vowels so elongated and laid back they were practically lounging in a hammock.

I stood and gawped at the Neanderthal figure with his prognathous jaw, minimalist forehead and broken nose. Acne scars corrugated his cheeks. Stubble had worked through the cratered surface. He was dressed head to toe in black. The satanic image was enhanced by scuffed riding boots, a tattooed python coiled on one bicep and a cockily angled cowboy hat. Disappointment clung to me like a clammy raincoat.

‘Flew here on Virgin. Was worried I’d have to swim the last hundred miles ’cause they wouldn’t go all the way.’ The man’s green eyes puckered into an amused squint. His face had more ridges than corduroy. His tanned neck was seared by pale creases where his V-neckline began. As he extended his hand for a shake, I glimpsed underarm hair which resembled an adult yak in hibernation. Steel-wool curls encrusted a chest emblazoned in a sloganed T-shirt reading ‘Elvis is dead, Sinatra is dead but I’m still bloody well here.’

I must have flinched, because his next words were ‘Hey, don’t go by appearances … I’m even sicker than I look.’ He doffed his hat. ‘Thanks for letting me stay till I find my feet. That’s real nice of you.’

‘I gather you’re the “famous” rock star?’ I said, a little haughtily, to hide my disappointment.

‘Yeah, what’s left of him.’ He gave a rich chuckle. ‘Doan worry. I won’t believe everythin’ I’ve heard about you, if you don’t believe everythin’ you’ve heard about me.’ Without waiting for an invitation, he re-shouldered his rucksack and guitar and barrelled past me, carrying his amplifier into my hall. His scuffed boots rang out on the naked wooden floorboards.

I trotted after him, into my living room, welling up with indignant rage. ‘Hey, rock ’n’ roll man!’

The interloper jammed his hands into the pockets of his obligatory black moleskins and swung around to face me. ‘I’m not in a rock band any more. I’ve gone freelance.’

I eyed him with the disdain of a Victorian aunt, despite the fact that I was wearing shortie pink PJs. ‘Oh, so you’re unemployed.’

‘Naw.’ He drilled me back with a stare which was just as judgemental. ‘I’m currently developin’ some fascinatin’ projects.’

‘Oh, so you’re long-term unemployed,’ I decoded. ‘I’ve done internet dating. If I meet a man who tells me he’s a solo artist, I immediately ask him which supermarket shelves he’s stacking.’

‘Listen, toots,’ said my cousin’s husband. ‘Music’s not what it used to be. Endless Deep Purple covers, crowds of pissed dickheads, duff equipment, only one speaker out of four workin’ so the whole bloody audience has to list to the left to hear the music. Oh fuck. And the music. “Mustan’ Sally/Guess you better slow your mustan’ down” … “Rockin’ All over the World” … “Brown-eyed Girl” … “All Right Now”,’ he medleyed. ‘“Johnny Be Good” … “Pretty Woman” … I used to love “Maggie May” but I can’t stand it now. I’ve sung it every Friday and Saturday night for twenty friggin’ years. I’d rather crawl through my own vomit. But’ – he shrugged off his rucksack – ‘there’s no money in new material. So you just end up whackin’ away in the erection section … the rhythm guitars,’ he explained. ‘I just need to spend some time not hearin’ fuckwits yellin’, “DI it into the PA, man” … Direct input it straight into the public address system,’ he deciphered, clocking my confused expression.

‘If you hate it so much, then why did you become a rock musician?’ I asked superciliously.

‘To get my cock sucked by bimbos, of course.’ His chortle disintegrated into a smoker’s cough. ‘If you’ll pardon my French.’

‘So, it was a vocational calling to a higher art form then,’ I replied scornfully.

‘Hey, is it my fault that when you’re a rock star you can have any chick in the world?’

‘And in your case, you did, judging by the way the syphilis has rotted your brain.’

‘Hey, toots’ – he shrugged with his eyebrows – ‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it! When I was born, I got a choice – a big dick or a good memory … I can’t remember what I chose.’ The Neanderthal then gave me the most lascivious wink. ‘Nice place, by the way. Anyway, once again, thanks for havin’ me.’

It was clearly time to Tipp-Ex my mother off my Christmas-card list. What had the woman been thinking – or rather, not thinking. ‘So, Archibald …’ I infused his name with total contempt.

‘Archie.’

‘… why are you in London really? Let me guess. You’ve jumped bail and are on the run?’

‘No offence, love, but your mum warned me that you’re a hard arse.’

‘Hey, I used to care, but I take pills for that now.’

‘What? Bitchy pills?’ he laughingly enquired. ‘The reason I’m in London is that I had to make a pilgrimage to Abbey Road at some point. And I just love that Princess Anne. She always gives the impression that her horse is tethered, like, two feet away. Jeez. I’d just love to saddle up some member of the royal family and ride her round the block. Yee-hah! Giddy-up, girl!’

I looked at him as though he were something I’d walked in on the bottom of my shoe. ‘Well, I don’t know what my deranged mother told you, but I am not a halfway house for recovering celebrities. So, I think you’d better find somewhere else to stay.’

Archie flexed a heavy forearm as the muscles in his jaw tensed and twitched. ‘The reason I’m here is that I need to lie doggo for a while. Whatja mum tell ya? Bugger all, by the looks of things. I met your mum through your cousin, Kimmy, my wife. They went off to some solstice yoga tantric retreat together or somethin’. Anyway, my wife started usin’ the rhythm method … literally. She started rootin’ my drummer. Which kinda put the kybosh on the band. I’m tellin’ ya, just lately, if it was rainin’ palaces I’d get hit by the dunny door.’

His voice, ragged with emotion, no longer sounded harsh. It was more like ruined velvet. His obvious pain made me relent a little. ‘Well, I know what that’s like. To be left, I mean. My ex-husband left me when our son was three. It took time, but I’ve now expunged him from our lives … In fact, I’m writing to the pope to confirm that Merlin is the product of immaculate conception.’

My visitor scratched forlornly at his five o’clock shadow. ‘Divorce is like a haemorrhoid: in the end, every arsehole gets one.’

I was about to suggest a few cheap hotels when a cacophony of swearing erupted from upstairs. I could hear books thumping to the floor, lamps being thrown and doors slammed.

‘What the bejesus is going on up there? A poltergeist?’

‘The Immaculate Conception. He hates school.’

‘Can’t blame him. Is he chuckin’ a sickie?’

‘Daily.’

‘You mean he does his block like this every bloody mornin’?’

‘Well, it does save on gym fees, being attacked by a teenage male on a regular basis. Dodging hits and kicks is quite aerobic.’

I thought this revelation would be enough to send the antipodean rock-and-roller scurrying off to a B and B. But the interloper took off his hat and swung his feet up on the coffee table as though he lived here. ‘Little bastard! Jeez, that must be bloody exhaustin’.’

My barbed veneer was momentarily cracked by his sympathy. ‘It is actually,’ I sighed wearily.

‘You must want to wring the little bugger’s neck.’

‘Some days, I really do!’ I confessed, with shocked relief.

I sagged into myself. Suddenly my shortie pyjamas felt too big for me. The grey stuffing was coming out of the sofa, like a brain spilling out after a road accident. The house really was on its last, wood-wormed legs. Whatever money I made teaching was eaten up by tutors, ‘talking doctors’ and occupational and cognitive therapists. I looked beyond Archie to the garden, which had grown knotted and wild, and felt momentarily overwhelmed with fatigue. My shoulders slumped just thinking about getting Merlin dressed. I was like a punctured balloon with all the air slowly leaking out. It was 7.30 and I hadn’t yet made the cake for the fête. In my experience, only two things seriously upset teachers, the disappearance of coffee mugs and the health of the photocopier. But not contributing a cake to my school fête would be a definite mark against me in the staffroom – a fête worse than death, I murmured to the cat, the only creature who seemed to appreciate my Wildean wit. Unfortunately, the last time I baked was when I fell asleep on the beach, which meant a last-minute dash to the shops …

I turned back to the big, bulky shape on my sofa. He wasn’t gym-toned, like my ex-husband, but his body was corded by hard work and heavy lifting. Muscles and sinews strained against his shirt.

‘So,’ I heard myself saying, ‘can you do DIY?’

‘Sure. It’s easy. You just use WD40 for everythin’. Even on the foreskin,’ he twinkled impertinently.

It was a mistake. I knew it as I offered it. ‘Okay, you can stay. For one week. A trial only. And you can start by persuading the Poltergeist to come down for breakfast.’

Archie opened his guitar case, cocked a leg up on to the coffee table like some kind of conquistador, plugged his guitar into the amp and hit some gigantic chords which sounded a lot like a nuclear explosion. By the end of the chord sequence the windows were shuddering.

‘Shit, I’ve never played this badly before!’

‘I didn’t realize you had played before,’ I shouted, covering my ears and cringing. But before I could renege on my offer, Merlin’s head thrust itself around the door.

‘My brain is leaking through my ears,’ my son announced.

I felt panic rising in my chest. Was he having some kind of haemorrhage?

‘Yeah? My brain leaks through my ears all the time, mate. It’s normal,’ Archie counselled, between twangs. I looked up at Merlin. And Merlin was grinning.

I took stock of the bedraggled, ponytailed, cowboy-booted 50-year-old ex-rocker sprawled incongruously across my living room. He was an odd bird. But still, he was also a bird in the hand. Merlin was so entranced by Archie’s strumming I was able to take off his pyjama top and button up his school shirt without any violent resistance. For that moment, I dared to let myself believe that having such a man around the place might actually make things easier. That maybe this maniac had ridden to the rescue of Merlin and me …

But what I’d forgotten about a bird in the hand is that it’s bound to crap on you.