<< previous The Outside Of Everything next >>
 

Chapter 459
The Traces

I hate the news. I hate listening to the radio, and hearing the way news is reported. I absolutely detest the way nowadays the broadcasters encourage and cajole people into sending in texts commenting on the news. I hate the way news is reported on the web, where people are encouraged to send in their photos and videos related to news items. It’s just horrible. What’s it all about? What’s the point of it? It seems unhealthy. Why is seemingly everyone going around pointing their phones at everything that moves or maybe doesn’t move? Does anything happen in the world nowadays without someone pointing a camera phone at it and preserving it for posterity? These are the same people moaning about civil liberties and the surveillance state no doubt. How on earth does someone caught up in an incident just happen to have the ‘phone number of the BBC conveniently handy? It’s unhealthy.

The funny thing is that looking back it was oh so different. It’s one of the reasons I’m salvaging these stories. You see there seem to be so few traces we even existed. We seemed to be in danger of slipping through the cracks. Disappearing into the shadows. For good. Would that matter? Probably not. After all, all these digital photos, all these texts, all these videos posted here, there and everywhere. Who’s going to see those traces?

The curious thing is that it wasn’t a policy decision or anything. We just didn’t even stop to consider it at all. We were scraping by, day by day. Why worry about posterity? I actually really wish I had some photos from those days to share with you. I wish there were some video footage to post on the web. There should be some, but goodness knows what’s become of it. One that sticks in the mind is a college project the boy Patrick was working on. This was Patrick, the younger brother of my mate Taj. The Taj who used to haunt me in the library, with his dreams and schemes. Patrick had this idea of capturing me and our Fair One out and about uptown, doing a video diary, documenting a day in the life, outside of everything. It was good fun, though heaven knows what became of it or even Patrick. I tried looking him up on the web the other day, but there were no traces, appropriately enough.

If I remember rightly, if that video diary still existed, it would show myself and my fairer comrade sauntering round the centre of the capital, ostensibly looking for a new venue to host one of our Northern Soul for the Masses nights, complete with a live group or two and perhaps some poetry or spoken word stuff. Patrick’s rationale was to capture something of what he saw as people living on the outside of everything. Which he thought was us. He wanted to capture something of how we spent our time. Doing our own thing. And we thought that was as good a way to spend a day. Of course it was all as artificial as hell. Of course it was. These things always are. You try and act naturally with a camera poked in your face. It just doesn’t happen. With the best will in the world. We’re only human, after all.

So what you would get if you were able to sit yourself down and watch this video now is the Fair One and me jumping out of the train at Charing Cross. And you could jump out in those days. The old slam door trains. Dangerous really. Opening the doors wide as the train draws into the platform, practically flattening any poor soul waiting there. From there we wandered out of the station, over Trafalgar Square, up round the back of the National Gallery, singing a Van Morison song about Curzon Street, up Haymarket and onto Piccadilly Circus and then along to the vicinity of St James’ and Jermyn Street, where we were going to check out a pub which apparently had a function room for hire. But that wasn’t really our thing. So we headed up and over Regent Street to the environs of Carnaby Street and the wonderfully lost side streets between there and Soho. There we grabbed a coffee in one of those family run Italian cafes which at that time were the bedrock of the area, with those gleaming silver coffee machines and coffee was coffee and you took what you got.

Being a bit of a glorious Spring day we took the coffee down to Golden Square where Patrick filmed us sitting moodily among the tramps and construction workers and cycle couriers. From there we headed up Frith Street or one of those Soho streets, which was basically anything but Wardour Street which we hated though I think the Marquee was still there then which we had a sentimental soft spot there for historical reasons. Across Oxford Street, without stopping, and up one of the quieter streets which run parallel to Great Portland Street where there were a few venues we wanted to check out. That was fun. Lying our heads off. Making out we were running a jazz night. That sounded more sophisticated. Made the Cypriot gangsters less nervous. Those places really were run by those types in those days. Family ventures, after a fashion. Not the global brands there are now. Whew those were different times. More chance of someone being prepared to take a risk then it seemed. Or is that looking back through rose tinted spectacles? Ah.

We were then filmed wandering over towards the area known to some as Fitzrovia. The lure of the old wanton intellectuals. Not sure how much we knew of all that back then. I certainly had not yet read Julian Maclaren Ross, but had the gist of it. I would have read some Patrick Hamilton, and had the feel of that. The bars that crowd frequented. The talk they talked. The shoulders they rubbed shoulders with. The time they wasted away. We knew the area better from live shows we’d been to. The Living Room. Somebodies and nobodies. We grabbed a sandwich from one of the french sandwich bars. For a bit of balance. Falling in love with the girl behind the counter. Taking our paper bags and heading up to Regents Park, crossing near Great Portland Street tube. Up into the park. Sitting on a bench. Eating our sausage baps. Gassing away. Yakkety yak. Putting the world to rights. Watching people walking their dogs. Enjoying the sunshine.

What then? Well, a walk in the park, of course. Upwards and onwards towards the zoo. Were the wolves still visible then as you passed by? Probably. Out of the park and down Parkway. Dodging the traffic. Dodging the pedestrians, the pushchairs, and everything. We crossed over Camden High Street. Went round the tube station. Popped into the Rock On shop or whatever it was called. Flicked through the racks of records we couldn’t afford. Flicked through the flyers for live shows we’d rather die than endure. Came out. Looked in the shoe shop next door. Had a mock argument about whether to go up to the Compendium bookshop. Caught a 24 bus back to Trafalgar Square to get the train back home just ahead of the rush hour and all the commuters. Losing ourselves in the sports pages of the evening paper. Walking home from our local station. Disappearing round our respective corners into our bolt holes. The Fair One’s beautiful black and white cat running to meet him. That was it. Our day out. Not typical. But.

Patrick did a good job of editing the thing. Making a very neat cine-verite montage. Probably more flattering than it needed to be. Ending up with something akin to a Bande a Part for a new lost, jazz generation, whatever. Sans Anna Karina of course. Alas. And that dance scene. The Madison. It would be lovely to see the film again, our one, not Bande a Part, but then again. Ah, but whither Patrick now? Many years ago I heard from Taj he was saying that they were going together to visit family in Tanzania, and that Patrick was working on a film about their cultural roots and the web and weft of politics. I hope he didn’t get too deep into those particular murky waters.

© 2008 John Carney
Illustration © 2008 Alistair Fitchett