That was the main problem. That he did know how it was. Not as someone in a band – he never was, never had it in him – but he certainly knew all about pubs. Not to mention lock-ins, and the sort of people who hung around for lock-ins. And how being in a band meant spending a lot of time in pubs, with exactly the sort of people that he used to be. And what about the lad’s window round in the morning?
‘Fucking poncing about in a band,’ he muttered. ‘I really don’t like the idea. He’s a grafter, that lad, not some pie-in-the-sky wannabe with ridiculous ideas. He should be home in bed.’ He waggled a finger in Christine’s general direction. ‘He’s going to be too tired to get up for the windows tomorrow, just you wait.’
Christine gave him a look that he’d come to know well. Because Christine, who he’d been with since Joey was still a toddler, knew him so well – so uncomfortably well. She knew exactly why he was so hard on poor Joey; it was simply because he was terrified. He’d completely wasted his own youth – in a booze- and heroin-filled oblivion, much of it alongside her brother – and couldn’t even begin to contemplate the prospect of that kind of life for his son. Worse than that, they’d even lost him for a bit – well, Christine had, anyway – to social services, when he was just a baby. And he’d been complicit. Involved. A central part of the problem. Had even stood, albeit off his face, and watched the social taking Joey away – he could recall his frightened screams like it was yesterday. And Christine howling like she was dying. Because it was almost like she had been. It had been a long wretched road to get him back again.
But you know what’s going to happen, Bri? For God’s sake! Can’t you see it? You’re going to be the one that drives him to it! Christine’s words, spoken in anger after one of their interminable ‘differences of opinion’ about Joey – what he could and couldn’t do, where he could and couldn’t go – were never far from Brian’s mind. Because a part of him knew she was right. But if he didn’t look out for him, who fucking would?
He lowered the heavy green curtain and managed a conciliatory smile in the face of her tutting. ‘Stop fretting, love,’ she told him. ‘Joey knows where his bread’s buttered. He won’t give up the windows. He knows that would be mad. It’s doing that round that’s enabled him to buy the bloody crap he needs in the first place.’
Which wasn’t exactly why Brian had passed his window round on to Joey. It was supposed to be his living – a proper, stable, decent living. Not just a stopgap till he ‘made it’ as a bloody pop star! No, it wasn’t charity – Brian had been only too happy to accept a job at Beechwood Brushes, not least so he could drop Chris off at work, and bring her home again – but he’d done so with the intention of giving his son a future. One he was constantly anxious that Joey might at any moment throw away.
Brian glanced out again, sensing a light in the street. Finally. ‘Oh, thank fuck for that! They’re back,’ he said, feeling the tension drain from him. Sometimes he felt like he was going on eighty rather than forty. ‘And judging by the way your Nicky’s parking that bleeding van, he is pissed. For definite, the knobhead.’
‘Come away from that bloody window, Bri,’ Christine snapped. ‘The frigging neighbours’ll be wondering what’s going on. Honestly! Nowt like drawing attention to us, is there?’
Though there was little chance of avoiding it, given the way Nicky was sauntering up the path – not to mention the way he was singing at the top of his voice, despite Joey’s fruitless attempts to shut him up.
‘The kid did good!’ Nicky bellowed, once they’d both clattered in, slinging his keys on to the coffee table where they immediately overshot and skittered down to the rug. Joey rolled his eyes as he followed him into the front room.
‘Er, what about the stuff?’ he said, sounding plaintive, and looking hopefully at Brian. ‘No way am I leaving it all out there to get nicked.’
‘Patience, lad,’ Nicky said. ‘All in good time. At least give me a chance to have a fucking slash!’ Upon which he burped loudly and flung himself down on the sofa, giving Christine just enough time to save her book from being crushed.
Brian shook his head but decided not to say anything. He and Joey could deal with the kit between them once Nicky had gone to bed. He knew how anxious Joey would be at the prospect of Nicky dropping something precious like his snare drum or something. He also looked happy, and Brian didn’t want to spoil that.
‘So you had a good night, son?’ he asked, as Joey sloughed off his denim jacket. ‘You must be buzzing, mate. Did you get plenty of claps and all that?’
Joey’s caramel-coloured eyes shone with pride. ‘It was mint, Dad! I swear the punters loved us. Really loved us.’ He was pacing in front of the gas fire. ‘And I swear down, Paula’s brilliant. I mean, really, really brilliant. You’d never know it wasn’t Debbie Harry – just you wait till you see her yourselves. And, like, we all fit together’ – he meshed his hands – ‘so incredibly well. You know, if I could bottle this buzz, I’d make a fortune!’
Christine laughed. ‘Well, my boy, you never know, do you? If they can clone a sheep can’t be long till they can bottle buzz too, can it? How difficult can it be, after all?’ she smiled. ‘Trust me, I can feel it from here.’
Brian smiled too, caught up, as he always was, in pride for his stepson. ‘You and Paula still getting on alright then?’ he asked, just about managing not to wink. Paula’s name had been coming up such a lot lately that he and Christine had both picked up on it independently – and both agreed they knew why, as well.
‘Dad!’ Joey said, his cheeks darkening immediately. ‘Course we are. We have to. We’re working together, aren’t we?’
‘And she’s a lovely lass,’ Brian pointed out.
‘She’s fucking fit,’ Nicky added.
‘And you could do a lot worse,’ Christine said, standing up. ‘Me and your dad were only saying the other day, weren’t we, love? You and her would make a lovely-looking couple.’
‘Whoah, whoah, whoah,’ Joey said, looking suddenly aggrieved. ‘Have you heard yourself? Nowt’s happened yet, Mam, so you and Dad can just keep your nosy snouts out. Last thing I need is you two showing me up if she calls round.’
‘Ooh, calling round, is she?’ Nicky said. ‘You’re well in there, son. Lucky bugger. Anyway, is anyone going to make a brew, or am I going to have to do it?’
Brian reached for his pouch of baccy. ‘What do you think?’ he said.
Nicky roused himself and Brian followed him out into the kitchen anyway, leaving Joey to tell Christine all about the evening, the words ‘I’ve got a permanent place in the band now’ following his progress down the hall. He was pleased to see Joey happy – how could he ever not be? – but he couldn’t shake the nagging anxiety that increasingly accompanied it. Things were changing and he wasn’t sure he liked it.
Dreams were one thing but real life was a very different matter. And it seemed to him that Joey’s dreams, however talented he might be, were surely destined to end in disappointment. Maybe not now, not right away, but eventually they would. He wasn’t stupid – half the bleeding pubs in Bradford made it so obvious; how many of them had bands in, scratching out a meagre living, day to day, from one badly paid gig to the next? What were the chances of it ever really amounting to anything? Whereas with the windows, if