This year’s Fiction Month is extended with a flash fiction short. Two elderly rock musicians meet on a sunny afternoon…
Drum and Bass
Two elderly men are sitting on a bench in the sunshine. One pulls his T-shirt up and over his head.
‘Christ, man! You shouldn’t be exposing yourself like that! Think of the public!’
Badger chuckles, casting a rueful glance down at his pasty, bulbous belly. ‘Ah Jez, you’re not seriously expecting anyone to recognise us, are you? They’d hardly have known us then, let alone now.’
His companion grins. ‘I wasn’t thinking of recognition-who is ever going to recognise a drummer and a base player? I’m just trying to save innocent holiday makers from unpleasant sights.’
Jez is tanned, wiry. He pulls a tobacco pouch from a pocket of his leather waistcoat and begins to roll a cigarette. ‘Want one?’
Badger shoves his sunglasses up and rubs his eyes. ‘Gave up fifteen years ago. One less vice! Still have a few though’
‘Let me guess’ ventures Jez, blowing out a plume of smoke, ‘Beer and women’.
Out on the beach a group of scantily clad teenagers is arranged on towels, listening to hip-hop, exclaiming over their phone messages, snapping selfies.
Badger tugs at his once luxuriant pony tail and grunts. ‘Probably not women so much these days. So how does it feel to be back in blighty? Like you’ve never been away?’
The base player sighs and flicks his cigarette end to the sand. ‘To be honest I’m thinking of giving up the bar, selling up and coming back, except I don’t know if we’ll get a buyer. Trade isn’t so good. Nobody’s heard of ‘Satan’s Spawn’ these days, let alone Jez Jarwood. People in Spain don’t have the money to spend boozing like they did. They’ll come in, buy one beer, nurse it for the whole of a sports fixture then go and drink at home.’ He coughs then begins pulling more tobacco from the pouch, yellowing fingers still string-hardened. ‘Then me and Paulette haven’t been getting along that well since the profits dropped. How about you? Still enjoying marital bliss?’
Badger’s face is turned up to the sun, his rounded belly glistening under it’s heat like a tight, sweating marrow. ‘We broke up. The lifestyle of a session musician doesn’t lend itself to family life. I see the kid sometimes-not as often as I should. Do you ever hear from her, from Jillie?’
Jez has his elbows on his knees, squinting, smoking like he’s facing the firing squad. ‘No. You?’
‘No. I thought she might turn up though. First gig for twenty years.’
‘We don’t know if she’s even alive, Badge; or where she lives, or if she knows about the gig or cares! She might be married, have kids-grandkids, even!’
Over on the sand two of the teenagers have returned from swimming and are chasing each other with handfuls of wet sand, screeching with laughter.
‘Did you-?’
‘No. Did you?’
‘No. I wanted to. We all wanted her, didn’t we? The other two.’
‘Yes. They did. Christ, it was messy, wasn’t it?’ He launches into a throaty coughing fit, bony shoulders shaking then he spits on to the sand between his boots.
Badger sits up and begins to struggle into his T-shirt. ‘They were good times, Jez, back then; even the fights. I’d go back and do it all again, wouldn’t you?’
Jez straightens up and flicks a few specks of ash from the faded denim covering his skinny knees. Who were they trying to fool with a ‘comeback’ gig? There was no trace, now of the taught body and blond curls he flaunted as a twenty something. Badger’s trademark white streak of hair amongst the black was lost in a mangy, grey comb-over. And Jillie, their brilliant, beautiful constant, their shared muse, she’d have aged, gathered weight, be mired in domestic life.
‘I don’t know, mate. We’ll see how tonight goes.’
Jez takes his case from the boot as Badger heaves his bulk from behind the wheel of his battered Audi and lumbers, wheezing around to make his farewells. He takes Jez’s yellowed fingers in his huge grasp and pumps. ‘It was a gas wasn’t it?’
There is only a slight nod in answer and a small smile. ‘Come over, Badge when you get a break. Bring the boy! Constant sunshine and all the paella you can eat!’
Badger grins. ‘Yeah. I might do that. Keep in touch, brother. See you at the next gig!’
He watches as Jez trundles the battered case into the gloom of the arrivals hall, where he turns one last time and raises a hand before joining the queue, then he squeezes back behind the wheel, selects Iron Maiden’s ‘Run to the Hills’, turns up the volume and drives away.
Anecdotage 