Stories We Could Tell. Tony Parsons
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that?’ White asked, turning to Ray. ‘A piece about the cod war – what could be more boring than the cod war?’
‘I didn’t see it,’ Ray said, still thinking about John Lennon. But he knew that Leon’s father wrote a column for a liberal broadsheet. He was one of the few journalists in Fleet Street that was read and respected up at The Paper.
‘It was about the decline of Britain as an imperial power,’ White told Ray. ‘About how we used to go to war to fight for freedom. And now we go to war to fight about fish. Brilliant.’ White shook his head. ‘Brilliant. Tell him how much I liked it, would you?’
‘Bit tricky that,’ Leon said, edging towards the door.
‘Why’s that?’ White said.
‘I don’t talk to my father.’
They were all silent for a bit. Leon caught Ray’s eye and looked away.
Oh; White said. Okay.’
Leon closed the door behind him. Ray realised that the editor of The Paper was watching his face.
‘So,’ White said. ‘Think you can get me John Lennon?’
Ray gawped, feeling the sweat break out on his face. ‘Get you John Lennon? Who do I call? How do I get you John Lennon?’
White laughed. ‘You don’t call anyone. There’s no one to call. No press officers, no publicists. EMI can’t help you – this is a private trip. You just go out there and find him. Then you talk to him. Like a real grown-up reporter. Like a real journalist. Like Leon’s father. Like that. Think you can do it?’
There was so much that Ray wanted to say to John Lennon that he was sure he would not be able to say a word. Even if he could find him among the ten million souls in that Waterloo sunset.
‘I don’t know,’ Ray said honestly.
‘If you find him,’ White said, his blood starting to pump, his editor’s instincts kicking in, ‘we’ll put him on the cover. World exclusive – John talks!’
‘But – but what about pictures?’
White looked exasperated. ‘Not Lennon the way he is now – he must be knocking on for forty! No, an old shot from the archives. Lennon the way he was in Hamburg – short hair and a leather jacket, skinny and pale. You know what that would look like, don’t you?’
Ray thought about it. ‘That would look like…now.’
‘Exactly! Very 1977. Totally 1977. Nothing could be more now than the way the Beatles looked in Hamburg. They were out of their boxes on speed, did you know that? I can see the cover copy: Another kid in a leather jacket on his way to God knows where…’
‘But Leon says he’s leaving tomorrow!’
White’s fist slammed down on his desk. ‘Come on, Ray. Are you a writer – or a fan?’
Ray needed to think about that. He had no idea if he was a real journalist, or if he would ever be. How could you tell? Who had ever dreamed that loving music would turn into a full-time job? He was a kid who had written about music because it was more interesting than a paper round, and because they didn’t give you free records if you stacked shelves in a supermarket.
‘I don’t know what I am,’ he said.
But Kevin White was no longer listening. The editor was staring over at the door, and Ray followed his gaze. On the other side of the rectangular pane of glass, there were men in suits waiting to see Kevin White. Men from upstairs, management, bald old geezers with ties and wrinkles who looked like your dad, or somebody’s dad. They were waiting for White to finish with Ray. Sometimes White had to smooth things out with them. One time a cleaner found a wastepaper bin full of roaches, and suddenly there were men in suits everywhere, all having a fit. But White worked it out. He was a great editor. Ray didn’t want to let him down.
‘I’ll try my best,’ Ray said. ‘But I don’t know if I’m a real journalist or just somebody who likes music.’
Kevin White stood up. It was time for him to face the men in suits again.
‘You’d better find out,’ the editor said.
Leon was gone. Terry was sitting on his desk, his DMs dangling, flicking through the copy of last week’s Paper that Misty had given him at the airport.
‘This is what you need, Ray,’ he said. ‘New! The Gringo Waistcoat. Get into the Original Gringo Waistcoat – the new style. You’d look lovely in a Gringo Waistcoat.’
Ray dropped into his chair and stared into space. Terry didn’t notice. It was an endless source of amusement to him that the classifieds in The Paper were always exactly one year behind the times. While the kid in the street was trying to look like Johnny Rotten, the models in the ads still looked like Jason King.
Cotton-drill loons – still only £2.80…Moccasin boots – choose from one long top fringe or three freaky layers.
According to the classifieds, the readers of The Paper were wearing exactly what they had been wearing for the last ten years – flared jeans, Afghan coats, cheesecloth galore, and, always and for ever, T-shirts with amusing slogans. Sometimes it felt like The Paper would not exist without T-shirts with amusing slogans.
I CHOKED LINDA LOVELACE. LIE DOWN I THINK I LOVE YOU. SEX APPEAL – GIVE GENEROUSLY. And that timeless classic, the fucking flying ducks – two cartoon ducks, coupling in mid-flight, the male duck looking hugely satisfied, the female duck looking alarmed.
Terry leaned back, smiling to himself, his spiky head resting against a picture he had torn from a library book and sellotaped to his wall – Olga Korbut, smiling sweetly, bent double on the mat. After the Montreal Olympics last year, a lot of people had switched their affections to the Romanian girl, Nadia Comaneci, but Terry was sticking with Olga.
They each had their own wall, facing their desk with its typewriter, a sleek Olivetti Valentine in red moulded plastic. On Terry’s wall were bands and girls – record company 8 × 10 glossies of the New York Dolls, the Clash and the Sex Pistols plus images pillaged from magazines of Debbie Harry in a black mini-dress, Jane Fonda in Barbarella and Olga Korbut at the Munich Olympics.
Leon’s wall was by far the most artistic – an undercoat of favourite bands had been almost obliterated by headlines cut from newspapers, with yet another layer of breaking news and advertising slogans pasted on top. So a record company glossy of the Buzzcocks had a headline about the death of Mao Tse-Tung running diagonally across it, while a yellowing picture from The Times of General Franco’s coffin was enhanced with an ad for the new Only Ones single. And as Ray swung round in his chair and took out his tape recorder, he was watched by pictures of John Lennon.
There were also dog-eared images of Joni Mitchell and Dylan and Neil Young, but Ray’s wall was really a shrine to Lennon. John gone solo, in white suit and round NHS specs, Yoko hanging on to his arm. John when he had just started growing his hair, that golden middle period of Revolver and Rubber Soul John during Beatlemania, grinning in a suit with the rest of the boys. And the leather-jacket John of Hamburg, all James Dean cock and swagger, too vain to wear his glasses…
This fucking, fucking tape recorder!
The problem was that one of the spools was slightly off kilter. Ray had probably bent it pulling out the cassette after interviewing Phil Lynott with one too many screwdrivers and half a spliff in his system. Now the spool described an erratic circle when it should be standing up straight. You couldn’t stick this thing in front of John Lennon.
Terry guffawed. ‘Listen to this,’ he said. ‘Couple of girls trying to get up a petition to get Roxy Music back on the road – they say, Roxy Must Rule Again!
Ray looked over his shoulder, smiling at his friend. The classifieds were a magic kingdom of musicians wanted, records wanted, girlfriends wanted,