C hapter One

In which Suzy celebrates her twenty-ninth birthday and Phil has a chance meeting with some old band mates.

‘To the massive and inevitable success of the Pandas!’ Suzy toasted.

Everyone stood in a circle and clinked champagne glasses enthusiastically. In the middle of the circle was a table laden with a large, lusciously iced chocolate cake and six bottles of champagne, two of which were empty already.

‘To Suzy, the best manager and girlfriend a man could have!’ Phil toasted.

Again glasses were clinked, this time a tad less enthusiastically.

‘To my lovely Wife and our child!’ Paul raised his glass amidst smiling faces. There was still a gloss on Paul and Angie’s newly rediscovered togetherness.

It was the first Friday evening of the New Year and all were assembled at Phil’s to celebrate Suzy’s twenty-ninth birthday. They were in Phil’s large lounge.

Before the party had started that evening Suzy had called a band meeting. She had insisted on herding Phil and the rest of the Pandas into Phil’s lounge and left Cleo, Jenni, Angie and Sally in the kitchen, telling them she’d come get them when they were done discussing business. Phil had opposed this initially, saying that they could have a band meeting at any time, not when he had guests. He felt deeply rude leaving people he’d invited to a party sat in his kitchen while he did something else. Suzy had countered with it being an ideal opportunity to kick start the Panda’s New Year plans and also pointed out that it was her birthday and it would only take half an hour.

Everyone had stood awkwardly where they were until Jenni said, with a thin smile,

‘We’ll be fine for half an hour Phil. You have your band meeting if that’s what the birthday girl wants’.

The Pandas had trooped into the lounge reluctantly. Nick felt a familiar feeling which he didn’t identify until much later that evening. It was the feeling of being called away from a lively game of cricket, in the sunshine, with his friends and into the headmaster’s dark study to be given an unwelcome errand to run. Paul had looked at Angie and given a little shrug, his gesture conveying that he thought this was a bit off but he was going to go along with it for a quiet life. She smiled at him. Her Paul was her Paul again.

When the door to the kitchen was safely shut tight Sally exclaimed

‘Who the fuck does she think she is, bossing everyone about? It’s not even her house!’

Sally was the least tolerant of Suzy, having not really known her well before she began managing the Pandas and began taking on some dubious qualities which Suzy erroneously but firmly believed it behove the manager of a band to possess. Cleo was the most tolerant of Suzy. She had a bit of a girl crush on her and was a bit in awe of her confidence sometimes.

The gifts that they had bought for Suzy lay unwrapped on the table. Jenni, Cleo and Angie had together pondered what to buy and had settled on Jenna Jameson’s book ‘How To Make Love Like a Porn Star’ and a calendar featuring hot firemen. Jenni thought these were tacky gifts but Angie insisted that Suzy would like them. Cleo was disappointed to see that only one of the firemen had long hair. Sally had bought Suzy some last minute, half-price, left over from Christmas, Belgian chocolates. She was tempted to start eating them. She was grouchy and she was angry with herself. She’d just had a text from Jake, her undisclosed to present company long term on/off boyfriend asking if she was in Torquay at her parent’s house that weekend. She kept composing messages to Jake in her head, telling him that she was happy with someone in Reading now and she wouldn’t be contacting him again. But she hadn’t quite got round to sending this message yet and instead just put Jake out of her mind when she was with Ian.

‘She doesn’t mean to be a pain in the arse’ Angie said to Sally, thinking that Sally was quiet because she was annoyed. Sally enjoyed the company of Angie, Jenni and Cleo. She made an effort to cheer up. She asked Angie, who worked as a hairdresser, for hair dyeing tips. Angie, ever-generous and helpful invited Sally round to her house so she could do it for her.

‘Has everyone bought their Manowar tickets?’ Cleo asked.

The upholders of true metal were playing a rare UK gig in April.

‘Nick ordered ours’ Jenni said.

‘Ian got ours the minute they went on sale’ Sally said.

‘I’m well excited. I can’t believe I’m going to see Joey DeMaio in the flesh’ Cleo said.

Meanwhile, in Phil’s lounge, Suzy suggested that Phil, Nick, Dean, Ian and Paul take a seat on the leather sofas against the far wall. She stood in front of the TV and picked up something from the shelf next to it. 

Heaven help us, she’s got a clipboard, thought Ian.

Suzy went through the concise agenda she’d drawn up that afternoon. It covered gigs, an album and promotion. Her plan was to book gigs for the band, at least monthly and ideally more often. The Pandas email went to Suzy as well as the band now so that she could do this. Nick raised his hand high in the air.

‘You don’t need to raise your hand to speak’ Suzy said, irritated.

‘I can get us another gig in Oxford’ Nick offered.

Suzy made a note on her clipboard.

Suzy thought that for every gig they played in Reading they should also play one out of town. She thought that at each out of town venue they should hand out business cards with the band name and website address on. She was trying to come up with formulas for success.

Ian said he wanted to play in Torquay in a few months when it would be sunny. He liked the idea of playing in Sally’s parents’ home town. He had met them a few times, when he was at school. He would be a lot less nervous this time. Sally had said they remembered him as a quiet, shy boy.

Phil said they should be playing Camden and Birmingham. Ian said he’d enjoyed playing in Coventry and Dudley. At the mention of Dudley Phil smiled and Paul grimaced. One was remembering an amorous alleyway assignation and one was remembering a hangover from hell and marital disharmony. Suzy’s pen raced across her pad. She felt important and dynamic.

The next agenda item was the album. The Pandas planned to write more songs so they would have plenty of material to choose from. Phil wanted to record it in the next few months.

‘Anyone can knock out a demo or an E.P. but having an album sorts the men from the boys and the serious from the amateur’ Phil said. He spoke with the air of one who considered himself firmly in the serious men category.

The final agenda item was promotion. Suzy thought that each member of the band should post on the website regularly to keep interest in the Pandas up between gigs. Dean said he wouldn’t really know what to post except ‘practised a bit today’ or ‘went to band practice.’

‘Be creative’ Suzy said firmly.

She asked ‘Was there anything else they wanted her to do?’

Phil leered at her and raised his eyebrow. Suzy put her clipboard down.

‘Okay, so now it’s party time’ she said, picking up a bottle of champagne.

Having been dismissed by Suzy, Phil went into the kitchen,

‘So sorry about that ladies, please do come into the lounge’ he said sheepishly.

He’s a strange one, Cleo thought. Sometimes Phil could be impeccably polite and pleasant. At other times his social skills were lacking and he seemed arrogant, aloof and prone to speaking in tedious, expected clichés rather than actually engaging with people. He held the heavy pine door open for them.

Jenni stood up and smoothed down her short purple velvet dress. It clung tightly to her. Phil’s eyes also clung tightly to her. Cleo had on a red lace party dress that flared from the waist, disappointing anyone who might want to ascertain the exact shape of her bottom. She’d bought the dress that afternoon to cheer herself up. She’d just returned from a week in Cov with Jez. Tonight she would be sleeping in her single bed alone and untouched except by the fingers of fantasy. Her long red hair was loose down her back, straight and shiny. Phil thought that women’s hair should be long. Sally was wearing jeans and a jumper. Phil didn’t like women in jeans. He didn’t look too closely at Angie. He found that when he knew women were pregnant it was deeply off-putting to his libido. Phil had never wanted children and pregnant women were excused his attentions. Also, he and Angie weren’t each other’s biggest fans. He had done her a disservice this evening because she looked lovely. Her glossy brown hair was neatly pinned up on top of her head, except for a few strands at the front that she’d allowed to escape. She wore crystal hair clips to keep it tidy at the sides and a black well-fitting sequin dress. Phil was a much harsher judge of the appearance of women than of himself. Today he was wearing scruffy jeans without a belt, exposing a small paunch on an otherwise quite slim body as he stretched to hold open the kitchen door. His loose curled blond hair hung limp and in need of a wash and he needed a shave.

After toasts had been made Suzy cut the cake and gave everyone a generous slice. She hadn’t planned to celebrate her birthday but Phil had insisted. Suzy said her birthday had never been a big occasion because it was too close to Christmas. Phil had said that was all the more reason to make an occasion of it now. He had emailed the invites and thoughtfully bought the cake and champagne earlier that day while Suzy was at work. Cleo loved the novelty of the champagne. Jenni thought it was a bit vulgar and over-rated.

‘Did you have a productive band meeting?’ Sally asked Ian.

‘I shall tell you all about it later’ he said. They smiled at each other, glanced at Suzy and wordlessly shared the private view that she was a bossy-boots.

People sat down with plates full of cake. Cleo took a mouthful which was mostly chocolate butter-cream icing. Phil plugged his MP3 player into an expensive dock and put Richard Cheese on. The band meeting conversation spilled over into what Suzy had designated as party time because that’s how these things work. Paul the drummer would obviously tell Angie his wife what they had discussed, his first loyalty was to her, not to Suzy the manager. Nick always asked Jenni’s opinion about anything to do with the band. She tried to stay out of the frequent small disputes between Phil and Nick. She’d noticed that these had become more regular since Suzy had taken on her managerial role. Suzy was bored in her day job as a sales rep for a cleaning products company. She had given up her part time job organizing Ann Summers parties so she could spend more time managing the Pandas but actually most of these newly free evenings were spent having sex with Phil.

Paul checked his lottery numbers on his phone. Not even a tenner. This sparked a conversation about what people would you do if they won the lottery.

‘I’ve thought about this a lot. I’d open a red light district. I’d build it on a slope and call it Fanny Hill’ Phil said.

‘I’ve read that, it was fascinating’ Cleo said.

‘Do you think you could ever have sex with a man for money?’ Phil asked her. He stared at her, waiting for her answer.

Cleo’s cheeks flushed red under his scrutiny and she pressed her knees together.

‘Um, er, no, not unless I really, really had to or he was really hot so I was going to anyway’ she stammered.

‘I’d get a fantastic nursery ready for the baby and employ a cleaner’ Angie said primly, neatly deflating Phil’s conversational lust balloon with a big, sharp nappy pin.

‘I’d like a man shed where I could play drums and not disturb the baby. It should also have a beer ‘fridge’ Paul said.

Angie smiled indulgently at her husband.

Ian had a list of guitars he’d like. There were Dave Mustaine and Gary Holt signature models he had his eye on. He would also pay Englebert Humperdinck to come and sing for Betty, his Nan. She thought he was dishy, like Nigel Havers.

Nick would set up his own business. He didn’t know what it would do except give him the freedom to have a lie-in when he wanted. In the back of his mind he also noted that he’d buy a big diamond engagement ring for Jenni.

Jenni would pay for more education and build an extension for her parent’s house because every time her Dad bought books home her Mum would moan about having to find space for them.

‘Don’t you ever want to leave school?’ Suzy asked.

Suzy would start a promotions company she decided.

Phil realised with the strength of an epiphany that what he wanted most in the world was to make an album. And that this wasn’t just made possible by money. It would take the hard work of himself and the rest of the Pandas plus a sound engineer. He must finish off his half-started song ideas and make this album happen. He would be thirty-nine-years old soon. Slayer had been young men when they had recorded ‘Reign In Blood’. He wanted to create something similarly solid that stood the test of time, immune to fashion.

Dean would get his own house if he won the lottery. Cleo nodded her agreement to this. It would be first on her list too.

‘So where’s Lucy tonight?’ she asked him.

‘At work. She wanted to come’.

‘How was your third date?’ Suzy asked, probing hopefully for salacious gossip. 

‘Great. We went for a pizza and then back to my house and listened to Vallenfyre because she hadn’t heard them. Then I walked her home’.

‘Well, you certainly know how to show a girl a good time’ Suzy said disdainfully. She was getting drunk.

Sally found it interesting, listening to what people would do if they won the lottery. You could learn a lot about someone’s values based on what they said. Her thoughts snapped unpleasantly back to her own values and the text from Jake.

‘Let’s play a party game’ Suzy said. She walked over to the MP3 dock and waited until she had everyone’s attention.

‘So, we put the MP3 player on shuffle and the song that comes on is the music you’d dance to if you were a stripper. I’ll go first’. She selected shuffle, pressed play and waited.

The speakers obliged her with Judas Priest’s ‘The Green Manalishi’.

She went round the room clockwise;

If Sally were a stripper she’d have Children Of Bodom’s ‘Blooddrunk’ to dance to.

Ian would have to try his best with Sodom’s ‘Axis of Evil’.

Cleo got lucky with Danzig’s ‘Hint Of Her Blood’.

Phil got Barry and the Beachcombers’ Fat Man On A Moped. Everyone laughed.

‘I want another go’ he said.

This time he got the Butthole Surfer’s ‘Sweat Loaf.’

Angie got Dedlok’s ‘Protest.’

Paul would be shaking it to Seventh Void’s ‘Broken Sky’

Dean got Iron Maiden’s ‘The Evil That Men Do.’

Nick got Status Quo’s ‘Ice In The Sun’

Jenni got Dismember’s ‘Beyond Good And Evil’

‘I’d have liked Spinal Tap’s ‘Big Bottom’ Angie said.

‘My preference would be Buck Satan and the 666 Shooters’ ‘I Hate Every Bone In Your Body Except Mine’ Suzy said.

***

After the band meeting, the next morning, at Phil’s kitchen table, Phil and Suzy went through her notes. Phil told her to ignore some of the decisions they had made as a group yesterday.

‘Don’t bother with Oxford or with any smaller towns. Also we don’t need everyone posting on the website. I can speak for all of us. They key thing is the album, we need to go full speed ahead. I want it done yesterday’.

‘Okay, well, whatever you think is best’ Suzy said deferentially. It would be fair to say she had stopped managing the band and what they wanted as a collective and was essentially managing Phil and his requests.

‘Tonight I’m going to take you out for a birthday meal and then I’m going to write some material for the album. You can help if you want’ Phil said.

He felt sure that Suzy would help him achieve his aims. There was something about her presence that inspired audacity in him. She made him want to show-off and she didn’t rein him in when he did.

***

It was Saturday night in the Green Man. Lucy was behind the bar until eight and couldn’t wait to finish and see Dean. She thought back to when she’d last seen him. He’d been so sweet, asking her what she wanted to do, insisting on paying for pizza, letting her choose what music they listened to in his room. His Mum had bought them tea and biscuits twice in the space of an hour. They’d kissed but not moved beyond that and Lucy wondered what would have happened if they had had the house to themselves. She’d been wearing her best underwear just in case. Tonight she was wearing her best underwear again and a fifties style dress her sister had bought her for Christmas. It was shiny red with black classic tattoo designs on and she loved it. She was wearing a fluffy black cardigan with skull buttons. Her glossy black hair was in a pony-tail and she wore a red plastic bow hair clip to keep her hair neatly in place. She wore face powder, mascara and a little black eyeliner on her upper eyelid, drawing attention to her blue eyes. She didn’t usually dress up this much for work but at one minute past eight her weekend would begin.

That evening Lucy was working with a barmaid called Alice who she’d done a few shifts with before. It was very quiet in the pub and so they had plenty of time to chat between customers. Alice was also a student. She was impressed that Lucy was in her final year studying Cybernetics. She thought it funny that someone studying something so futuristic should like to dress so retro. Alice was in her final year of studying English Literature and Politics. She looked much more modern than Lucy. She had dark brown dreadlocks, held back by a wide black headband and was just five feet tall. She wore a black combat style mini-skirt over leggings and the big black boots favoured by ladies who frequented the Green Man.  She was wearing a Nine Inch Nails T shirt and a chunky purple cardigan. It could get chilly behind the bar, with the door opening and shutting, letting in cold air.

The door swung open and Paul, Ian, Cleo and Jenni entered. Lucy served them their habitual drinks (lager, lager, vodka and Diet Coke, JD and Coke). They sat around a table in the middle of the pub and didn’t yet take their coats off. Nick arrived next, straight from work, with his supermarket uniform in a bag and his long black hair in a ponytail. He hated working on Saturdays but he often had to. He greeted Lucy and bought a pint of lager then sat next to Jenni who untied his hair and fussed with it, untangling gently it with her fingers. Dean came in next. He too had to work on Saturdays occasionally, in The Right Note music shop, but didn’t he mind too much. Lucy came out from behind the bar briefly to hug him. When she went back behind the bar she selected ‘Alucard’ from the Pandas E.P. to come on the jukebox. This had the effect of making the Pandas and their friends more animated. Voices got louder and coats were removed. Sally and Angie arrived and there was a feeling that Saturday night had begun.

Sally’s previously light brown hair had been expertly dyed dark red with Angie’s assistance. It looked great. Angie thought it made Sally and Cleo look quite similar, now that she saw them together, but no-one commented on this. The big news that night was a notice up by the bar about the pub being shut for two weeks of February. It would close on the eleventh and reopen approximately two weeks later.

When Lucy finished work at eight they questioned her about it anxiously. She told them that the brewery wanted to redecorate and modernise the pub.

‘But where will we go on a Saturday?’ Dean fretted.

‘We’ll find another pub to drink in for two weeks, it’ll be fine’ Paul said.

Lucy had decided to look for another job. She didn’t want two weeks of no pay. Also she had become tired of working evenings. She had been unable to attend Suzy’s party last night because of work. She felt frustrated when she couldn’t take part in things or watched everyone else having fun while she was at work on the other side of the bar.

Damon, the singer of Demon Speeding and best mate of Dean caused hilarity when he said to Dean ‘We should play with each other again really soon’.

Dean replied ‘Mate, look, I have a girlfriend now’.

He smiled at Lucy. She smiled back and felt a bit sad that Dean’s pants were an as yet unexplored region.

‘You know what I meant. We always pack out the Edge Bar’ Damon said.

‘Yeah, we should do another gig together. We’ll get it added to the agenda’ Ian said.

They explained yesterday’s meeting to Damon.

‘So where is your glorious leader this evening? He asked.

‘Phil has taken her out for a birthday meal’ Cleo said.

‘He’ll want something in return’ Angie said. Angie thought Suzy could do a lot better than Phil.

‘I’m surprised Phil hasn’t got bored of her yet’ Ian said.

‘I’m surprised she hasn’t got bored of him yet’ Angie said.

‘Maybe it’s a match made in heaven’ Cleo said optimistically.

‘Or maybe made south of heaven’ Jenni said.

Damon said he’d speak to The Edge Bar about potential dates and let them know.

The Panda’s track ‘Metal Fix’ came on. None of them had put it on so it must have been a genuine fan.

***

At practice that week they went through their set and then song writing was the focus. Phil and Suzy had begun writing a song together after her birthday meal. Phil did the music while Suzy wrote the lyrics. She’d written about the fear of premature ejaculation in a sex dungeon. This collaboration was okay musically but lyrically it was terrible. It was called ‘Instant Whip’. Phil played the riff for the Pandas but he didn’t share Suzy’s lyrics with them. He really didn’t think it was suitable but hadn’t wanted to disagree with Suzy.

The Pandas had thirteen original songs and had already recorded four of these, leaving nine for the album. Phil wanted them to write another three tracks. Some of their stuff was short, barely over three minutes, so he thought twelve tracks was preferable to ten and everyone agreed. They jammed a bit, coming up with some promising sounding stuff. They came up with the title ‘Heavy Head’ for a song along the same lines as ‘Metal Fix’, about the way they thought metal thoughts and breathed thrash metal metaphorically.

***

The next Friday night found Phil and Suzy in the supermarket. Nick was also there, stacking shelves with jars of pasta sauce. He felt a bit awkward when he saw Phil and Suzy. He saw them before they saw him. He’d started to hate anyone he knew seeing him in uniform. He went out to the stockroom to get more jars, partly to avoid speaking to them.

Phil and Suzy joined a small queue. Suzy looked into their basket thoughtfully.

‘I forgot the lettuce. I’ll run and get it’ she said.

The supermarket was quiet in a January way. Shoppers were selecting cheap own brands and putting them in baskets containing well-chosen items, in contrast to three weeks ago when they had full trolleys of all manner of impulse bought, exciting, festive season comestibles. The Rover biscuit assortments and the drums of Twiglets and cheese footballs that weren’t lucky enough to get eaten at Christmas stacked up forlornly. They had comrades in many cupboards too that wouldn’t get masticated for quite some time. 

Two tall men sharing one basket joined Phil’s queue. The one next to Phil recognised him and hesitated before saying

‘Alright Phil’

‘Dudes, hey, how you doing?’

‘Good thanks. We’re on our way to a gig. Just stopped in for supplies’ he said, gesturing to the five Cornish pasties, some strawberry milkshake and a bottle of Jim Beam that his basket held.

He cast his eyes over Phil and Suzy’s shopping in that way you can’t help doing when you meet someone you know in the supermarket; extra volume shampoo, tomatoes, toilet roll, flying saucers, skimmed milk and salmon fishcakes.

‘So you not got a gig tonight? Having a quiet night in?’

‘No, not playing tonight. It’s been hectic with the band recently though’. Phil sighed as if to demonstrate the effect his bustling, hurly-burly rock and roll lifestyle had on him. It was wearying being this in demand his sigh tried to communicate.

‘Yeah, know what you mean. We’ve just got a one year record deal. We’re going to have to up our game, finally make an album. Funny thing is we were just doing it as a hobby’.

Suzy had returned with the lettuce and heard this record deal news with interest. To Phil it felt as if the guy had just calmly urinated on his shoes and then asked him to say thank-you.

‘The Pandas have got big things ahead of them this year too’ Suzy interjected while Phil tried to force some congratulatory noises from his lips. The congratulatory noises were not forthcoming.

The checkout operator began scanning Phil and Suzy’s shopping. Suzy packed it while talking.

‘I’m negotiating another gig in Camden. Most of the writing for the album is done’.

Phil thought to himself ‘please don’t mention ‘Instant Whip’’.

‘Sounds good’ the man with the record deal said.

Phil paid for the shopping and they left, everyone wishing everyone a Happy New Year, it being the time when this was still just about appropriate.

On the face of it, it had been a polite, friendly conversation but that’s not how Phil experienced it. To him the take home message was ‘The Shakes are doing better without you’.

‘You didn’t introduce me’ Suzy said reproachfully.

‘It’s no-one you’d want to know’ Phil replied.

‘They could be useful contacts. It’s great they have a record deal’.

‘They were Baz and Colin, the singer and the bass player from my old band The Shakes. It’s only a one year deal. They’re not as heavy as the Pandas so they’re more accessible and label friendly’.

Suzy sensed Phil’s irritation.

‘You should play a gig with them. You’d blow them off the stage’. She squeezed Phil’s hand.

‘Yeah, but I’ve moved on’ he said.

‘Let them have their little moment. I’ll get mine and it’ll be bigger and longer. The trouble with The Shakes was they had no ambition. I had to do all the work’.

‘Well, now we’ll do it together’ Suzy said. She opened the bag of flying saucers and popped one in Phil’s mouth. He consoled himself with the thought that The Shakes were just bland rice paper but the Pandas were sherbet. He was glad Suzy had been with him. The message he thought she sent to the Shakes was that he was still a pussy magnet.

Phil thought back to that awful evening when Ken, the Shake’s drummer had calmly told him that he knew Phil was having an affair with his fiancée. Phil had frozen. He looked at his band mate and did some quick thinking; how did he know? Should he deny it? If the drummer knew then she must have confessed. But why?’

Phil knew he’d been playing a dangerous game but figured she was playing a more dangerous one, with more to lose than he had, so it’d be safe. What Phil hadn’t added to his calculations was how much he enjoyed being part of Nightshade Milkshake. He didn’t feel good about the deceit but she was something special and he’d felt like he was having a sexual renaissance. She had told Phil that Ken was staid and unimaginative in the bedroom. In the words of AC/DC ‘There was nothing that she wouldn’t do’. Phil knew he had to react somehow.

‘Yeah, sorry, Dude’.

Ken’s initial non-aggressive tone had thrown Phil off-guard. He very nearly got knocked out by a flying drum stool that hit the far wall of the practice room because he just managed to swerve to avoid it. As Ken came out from behind the drum kit and towards him Phil ran away. He didn’t decide to run away, his legs just started moving him out of the theatre of conflict. Ken’s fiancée hadn’t confessed at all. Ken had been acting on a hunch that he was ninety-nine percent sure of. Usually Phil spent the first part of each band practice boasting about who and what he’d been up to. This had stopped recently. When Ken got home from work the day before he’d found a couple of yellow Dunlop Tortex .73mm guitar picks on the bedroom floor. He only knew one person who used these. The turtle looked smug, like the owner of the picks, whose jeans pocket they had fallen out of. Ironically Phil liked them in yellow because they were easy to spot. Nowadays he bought the blue ones.

***

Cleo’s Friday night was taking place in Cov with Jez. She had got the train straight after work and got in before he was home. As she wandered about the house, waiting impatiently for him, she thought about how good it would be when she moved to Cov. She realised she’d gone from thinking about if she moved to Cov to when she did. She wanted to do small things for him like make his dinner. She wanted to please him. She wanted to play house with him. She wanted him. She decided to wait for him in bed, in just her underwear. She thought about masturbating to pass the time and ease the restless feeling between her legs but knew that the satisfaction she wanted was uniquely Jez shaped and obtainable only by union with him.

She had tried writing him rude texts at lunchtime, anticipating the fun they would have that evening but she couldn’t help censoring herself. She wondered if it was ruder to do sex or to write about it. Everyone does it but not everyone writes about it she thought so maybe it was ruder to write about it. Jez liked her to show appreciation vocally for his bedroom talents and she was getting gradually better at it, trying not to hold back, blush or speak at an inaudible volume. She was still always a bit shy when seeing him again after being apart for a couple of weeks. She thought about what she’d say to him when he got in. Hello, obviously, but after that? She tried out sentences in her head ‘Please may I have your dick?’ was what she wanted to say but would sound odd and too polite if she said it out loud. Jez came in while she was thinking. He saw Cleo’s bag on the kitchen table and shouted ‘Hello’ then came upstairs to find her. She couldn’t believe how pleased she felt to see him. She didn’t say anything, just leapt on him and squeezed him tight, wrapping her bare arms and legs around him as he got under the duvet with her. He was cold from having just come indoors but she didn’t care, even when his chilly hand slid inside her knickers.

‘This is a very warm welcome’ he smiled.

She kissed him.

‘I’ve got something warm for you’ he said. He’d got Chinese takeaway on the way home. Cleo thought he meant something else and her hand deftly undid the now straining zip fly of his jeans. Jez decided to let the food go cold. His actual balls were more important and insistent right now than his sweet and sour chicken balls.

***

Nick, Jenni, Ian, Sally, Dean, Lucy, Paul and Angie were spending their Friday night in the Green Man. Phil had suggested to Suzy that they socialise less with the rest of the Pandas this year. He’d thought it important early on to get to know his band mates in the pub but now he felt he had the measure of them. He’d also noticed that Suzy was irritating Nick and Ian with an alarming frequency lately. If Phil had to choose between being successful or popular he would choose being successful in a heartbeat.

Lucy had the night off and was in need of relaxation. She’d had a busy week applying for various jobs to avoid being penniless when the Green Man shut for two weeks. She had applied to work in a cinema, a supermarket and an office. Her friend Alice was behind the bar. She put the Pandas E.P. on when they all trooped in. They raised their glasses to her in a thankful salute.

Damon came in, greeted everyone, and then went to the bar.

‘A pint of Carling please’ he said.

‘Hey, cool hair’ Alice said. Then time became treacle and felt slow and sweet.

Dreadlocked Damon smiled at dreadlocked Alice. It was a little like looking in a mirror, but a sexy gender opposite mirror that was pouring him a pint of lager. Damon felt a weird sensation, a mixture of familiarity and desire.

‘Yeah, well, dreads are clearly the best hairstyle to have. You can touch them if you like’ he replied magnanimously, inclining his head towards her across the bar. The question he was most often asked about his hair was when he last washed it. Secondary to this was usually if the questioner could touch it. Damon found this annoying because it happened a lot, but not in the Green Man. Alice stood on tiptoes and reached across from her side of the bar to touch his hair lightly.

‘You can touch mine if you like’ she said. Damon did so eagerly.

He paid for his drink and went dreamily to sit down. He told Dean he was in love.

‘Who is that hairy Goddess?’ he asked Lucy.

‘Her name’s Alice’ Lucy replied.

Lucy liked Damon and that was fortuitous because he and Dean spent a lot of time together. They had a long standing bromance which she respected. All three of them planned to go to the cinema in the week. Dean and Damon had arranged to go already and Damon had invited Lucy earlier that evening when it came up in conversation. They were going to see ‘Shaun Of The Dead’.

When Alice finished at eight she came over to chat to Lucy who was in the middle of a conversation about what she’d do for work instead of tending the bar in the Green Man.

‘What we need for stadium gigs is a giant mechanical panda, the equivalent of Iron Maiden’s Eddie. You could design that for us’ Ian suggested.

‘No wait, we need two mechanical pandas, programmed to be having a fight’ said Nick.

‘With laser eyes’ said Ian.

‘Yes, laser eyes’ echoed Nick.

‘It should be a fight to the death’ Paul decided.

‘But then you’d have to play around a deceased panda’ Angie pointed out. She would often have to rein in her husband’s mad ideas.

‘No, it could get taken up to panda heaven on wires’ Cleo suggested. She was great at coming up with positive solutions to problems.

‘It needs a flap in the stomach that opens to squirt bloody entrails out of’ Jenni said.

‘I don’t think venues let you do that type of thing because of health and safety. That’s why Alice Cooper audiences don’t get covered in fake blood now’ Paul said sadly.

‘Shame’ Cleo said.

‘But Eviscerated Panda will be so big you’ll be able to do what you like onstage. You can just pay the venue’s cleaning bill for the sake of realising your artistic vision’ Jenni reassured them.

‘I’d rather spend the money on beer’ Paul said.

Lucy agreed that designing giant robot pandas would be a preferable occupation to bar work. She turned to Alice,

‘Do you want to come to the cinema in the week with me, Dean and Damon?’

Alice said yes without asking what they were going to see. Damon was delighted.

Other topics of conversation that night were hair, studying, knitting and jobs. Sally’s still quite new red hair made her feel more assertive. Ian loved it. Jenni was looking forward to the start of her second term as a microbiology Masters student. She was passing the time until term began by attempting to learn to knit so she could make little black and purple striped cardigans for Paul and Angie’s baby. Nick had begun job hunting. Jenni was very pleased about this. She knew he was wasting his potential and she knew that he knew he was so she didn’t say anything. Cleo was feeling unsettled. She missed her friends when she spent a lot of time with Jez and missed Jez when she spent a lot of time with her friends. She tried to focus on enjoying the here and now but it was a skill she couldn’t always grasp.

               The last song played on the jukebox that night was AC/DC’s ‘It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock N’ Roll)’. After this everyone in the Green Man bundled themselves up in their winter coats again and went home. Everywhere seemed like a long way away in chilly Reading.

***

Suzy got off the phone, wished she had someone to high five, and went to get a glass of wine to celebrate. She had got the Pandas a gig at the Camden Underworld. She had emailed last week to enquire about a gig date for the Pandas. Then, as was her habit in her sales rep day job, she had followed up this email with a phone call. Her timing had been synchronicity itself. The guy responsible for booking bands had just taken a call from a band that had pulled out of a support slot that week. He offered this slot to the Pandas. It was late Monday afternoon. The gig was on Wednesday. She accepted without checking with any of the Pandas. She knew this was somewhere Phil really wanted them to play. He’d seen Zodiac Mindwarp and The Love Reaction and Paul Di’Anno’s Killers there and it was on his list of places to conquer. Ian, Cleo and Jenni had seen Exodus there when they had just left school. It had been their first metal gig outside Reading. It was agreed that it was a great venue. When Suzy emailed round the details everyone responded quickly. This gig happened with the minimum fuss possible. All of the Pandas were delighted that their first outing of the year was to be in a prestigious venue.