Beatles (50 page)

But we all looked forward to receiving our costumes from the National Theatre.

Seb’s place was jumping and I didn’t want to be part of it. A grotty clique sat there smoking spliffs and drinking tea, hookahs were gurgling and chillums puffing, and incense hung in the room like the smoke spewed out of a perfume factory chimney. I dropped by some nights but soon gave it a miss, don’t know quite what it was, I was bored with them sitting there, wasted, not looking at each other, just picking fluff out of their navels, putting on mystical smiles and rolling their eyes. Solo sprints in their heads, ego trips on package tours. But one evening Seb had swept the Slottsparken crew off the floor, it was going to be the great night, it was set up to be the greatest night for many years. Gunnar was there, without his leaflets, Ola was there, didn’t bat an eyelid when we called him Gigola. And Seb was compos mentis and freshly scrubbed. We were all there and on the turntable was the new Beatles LP
Abbey Road
. We passed the cover round, scrutinised it minutely, ran our fingertips over it. The silence was pregnant with hot anticipation, it was now or never. We pinned back our ears, Seb started the record player and we didn’t say a word for forty-six minutes and twenty seconds. Then we lay on the floor, burnt out, staring at the ceiling with eyes closed, and each of us, every one of us, wondered for how many years, how many LPs, we had lain like that, a whole century rushed through our brains, a pile of calendars flipped their pages through our hearts. We were
drained and happy. Then we lit the goodies, Capstan laid a smokescreen around the room and comments were fired off from all sides. Seb’s two songs were the best he had ever done, he had surpassed himself, produced two pearls from the oyster, the tunes sat like silver coils in our ears. Gunnar rocked his socks off on ‘I Want You’ and was pretty heavy on ‘Come Together’. Even Ola had knocked together a groove that was up there, ‘Octopus’s Garden’, he lay on his back with a proud smile winding round his face.

‘I’m gonna join the navy after all!’ he shouted. ‘I’m gonna join up!’

And I loved the singing on ‘Oh Darling!’, the voice was on the point of breaking, but it didn’t, it hovered and quivered towards the impossible, on the brink, on the brink. And on ‘Because’ all the voices intertwine, they were the best harmonies we had ever heard, the Beach Boys and Sølvguttene could pack up their larynxes and start tap dancing instead. We put it on again and didn’t say a word for forty-six minutes and twenty seconds. Then we played the B-side again and there was no doubt. It was the best. It wasn’t necessary to say anything. It was the best. It was The Beatles. We dispatched all impure thoughts into the cellar, about splitting up, about arguing, and we worked ourselves up into a state of extreme optimism: this was just the beginning. We were on the threshold of a new calendar: from 28 October 1969, one bitterly cold evening between autumn and winter. We began to talk about The Snafus again, perhaps it wasn’t too late after all, the hell it was. After sailing through our final exams we could soon find a job to earn some cash for instruments and amplifiers. Ola was already there. Fantastic. Seb had a pile of songs already written. Neat. That was how we spoke, we raised each other’s spirits and held them there, we had a bedsit in heaven, it was late at night and the sun was shining all around us, we were floating in light and music and the vibes were as gentle as a kitten’s paws.

Then the door creaked and the comedown started. Pelle and the gang burst in with bloodstained faces and torn jackets. They stood there swaying and were way off course.

‘The pigs cleared the park,’ Pelle groaned. ‘Shit. Went berserk. Must have had fly agaric soup for supper.’

The boss had spoken and they collapsed on the floor. Scattering earth from their hair and clothes.

‘They arrested at least twenty of us,’ whispered a white-faced jessie.

‘Did you have anythin’ on you?’ Seb asked nervously.

Pelle gave a little smile and pulled out an oval tin.

‘The gods are with me. I sought shelter behind Camilla Collett. Said I was her grandson.’

He put the tin on the table and the others crowded round it, went down on their knees as if it were a damned altar. Gunnar looked annoyed, Ola tried to put a record on.

Pelle pointed to the cover with a filthy finger.

‘A con,’ he scoffed. ‘
Abbey Road
is utter junk.’

He fiddled with the tin and removed the lid.

Now Chief Sitting Bull had gone too far.

‘What do you mean by that?’ I demanded to know, and pronto.

He squinted at me, screwing up his face as if it were a dishcloth.

‘Paul McCartney’s dead,’ he said. ‘He isn’t on the record at all.’

I couldn’t believe my own ears. They froze to ice. They fell off. Ola and Gunnar inched closer.

‘Dead? When?’

‘Four years ago. Car accident.’

‘Four years! He wasn’t on
Sergeant Pepper
either, then! Or
Revolver
! Come down to earth, you flyin’ Dutchman!’

Pelle rolled his eyes and held a pill in the air.

‘Got a cousin in the States who knows a chick in the Midwest.’

‘Last time it was a chick who had a cousin!’ I yelled.

Pelle interrupted.

‘It was in the papers, pea-brain. He died in a car accident in ’65. So they got hold of a guy who looked like the guy and used him instead.’

‘Who could sing just the same as Paul too! Are you a complete idiot or what!’

‘The boys in the studio fix that, you know, you turnip. Distortion and so on.’

Pelle’s composure was getting on my nerves. I could see that he had the ace of spades up his sleeve.

He placed the LP sleeve in front of him on the floor.

‘Look here, mister. McCartney’s left-handed, isn’t he. D’you
think a left-handed person’d hold a cigarette in their right hand? And McCartney isn’t walkin’ in synch with the others. Eh? Is he! Now keep up, brother. He’s
barefoot
. And that’s an ancient symbol of death. Right from Vikin’ times, man.’

Pelle looked around with a triumphant expression. My eyes were burning like dry ice. Couldn’t get a word out.

Pelle snapped his fingers.

‘And look at his clothes. John’s dressed in white like a priest. Ringo’s dressed in black, mournin’ clothes. And George’s in workin’ gear, he’s the gravedigger.’

Pelle rolled a pill in his hand.

‘Can you see the VW there? Have a good look at the number plate, man. 28IF. Black on yellow. Paul would’ve been twenty-eight, if he’d lived. What about that?’

I had to counter-attack.

‘Why are they showin’ that now, eh?’ I stammered. ‘When he’s been dead for four years!’

‘Because The Beatles are washed up, anyway. The Beatles have split up, man. Can’t you get that into your skull?’

I could have strangled Pelle on the spot, grabbed the broad leather belt he swanked around in and strung him up from the lamp.

‘Not only that,’ he continued. ‘Not only that, this isn’t the first time they’ve presented him in this way.’

He eased
Sergeant Pepper
out of the pile, turned it over and pointed.

‘Can you see the badge on Paul’s shoulder? OPD. You know any English? Because that stands for Officially Pronounced Dead.’

I crumbled. The pipe was cold. My head was a blasted plain. My blood crept through my body like an earthworm.

Pelle grinned.

‘Think we need some brain food, folks.’

‘What’s that?’ Seb mumbled.

‘Amphetamines,’ Pelle whispered. ‘Keeps you clear-headed and in a good mood the whole day through.’

He swallowed one himself, the other Red Indians munched too, Seb tried, Ola wasn’t interested, Gunnar just glowered at Pelle and turned away, I took a capsule and washed it down with flat beer.

Afterwards there was a long silence in the room.

The death notice lay on the floor.

After a while Gunnar left. Ola followed him. I stood up and it was as if I had left my head behind, I had to lift it up, but couldn’t get it into position.

I ran after Gunnar and Ola. They were waiting in the lift. There was a mirror on one wall. I saw myself step into the iron room. Gunnar pressed the ground floor button and as we sank I flowed out through walls, poured in all directions, disappeared from the mirror’s matt surface.

Fear slashed at me like a blunt axe.

‘Am I here?’ I asked.

Gunnar and Ola could only stare at me.

‘Am I here?’ I screamed.

Gunnar dragged me onto the street. The cold wind kneaded my face and gave wings to my fear. I began to run. They followed me and held me.

‘You’re a bloody idiot!’ Gunnar hissed close to my ear. ‘Why did you have to swallow that damned pill.’

Ola looked jumpy, at any rate he couldn’t stand still, he was running round me.

‘Throw up,’ Gunnar said. ‘Throw up for Christ’s sake!’

I stuffed my finger down my throat and brought up the beer and tea. I tried again until I tasted bile on my palate.

Gunnar thumped me on the back. I slid down round the lamp post. They dragged me to my feet.

I went home between them.

‘Have to put an end to the drugs at Seb’s,’ Gunnar kept saying. ‘Pelle’s a reactionary prick!’

The town and the wind swept across my skin, everything around me seemed so close, so well-defined. It was like waking up, we approached Skillebekk and the world came towards me with a new clarity, as if I could see through anything. Throwing up helped, I thought. It was as if my head had been washed, my eyes scrubbed. I almost became religious. Everything felt so strong, as though the volume in the world had been turned up and someone had brought the image into focus. Jesus.

We stopped in Solli.

‘How d’you feel, you prat?’ Gunnar asked.

‘Fine. Very good.’

I hugged them, gave them a big squeeze.

Then I wandered home alone. Dad was in the sitting room with Pym. He wanted to teach Pym how to speak.

‘How did the drama group go today?’ Mum asked.

‘Super,’ I said.

I couldn’t be bothered with any supper and went to bed. Clocks were ticking everywhere, I could hear Mum’s and Dad’s wrist-watches ticking, too. They were mincing time into minute pieces, I had to hold my ears, buried myself in the pillow and wound the duvet round my head.

But the sounds just got louder and louder.

And I became more and more awake.

I felt like a sleepless old mattress from which the springs kept popping one after the other, singing with a rusty, ripping noise. I ran around myself, around a large inconceivable emptiness: insomnia. In the gym lessons I flew over the vaulting horse, but in mid-flight I forgot what I was doing and fell astride the box. Then I clambered up the ropes like a terrified monkey, but when I hit my head on the ceiling I forgot where I was and slid down burning the skin on my hands. I couldn’t sleep and was in constant activity. I did my homework like never before, but when I had read half a page of history I couldn’t remember a thing, my mind was a blank, and then I started another book, and so it went on. Springs pinged out everywhere, from my eyes, ears, nose, mouth, rusty piercing music that kept me awake, wide awake, night after night. I didn’t even sleep in lessons. Life steamed ahead at 78 rpm, and one night I lay with the weight of the world on my body, a stinking, sweaty, revolting world, when I remembered the dream I had had in the summer of ’65 when Mum had been playing fancy dress and she had stood naked and frightened on the cold floor. I dreamt I was dead. That I was in a coffin and felt myself being lowered. I pushed the world aside and jumped out of bed, soaking wet, rusty, with fear like a fishing spinner in my heart. I started to search for more signs, and I sank deeper and
deeper into the unreality that was wrapped around me like a dirty sheet.

I played all The Beatles records I owned, and that was all of them. I examined them from top to bottom, copied down the lyrics and fine-combed them, studied the covers under my philatelist’s magnifying glass, filled a whole album with pictures of Paul before and after ’65. I searched and I found. I was standing in a rampant river with a sieve and found the coffin nails. On
Sergeant Pepper
Paul stood with his back to us. And a left-handed bass guitar was placed on a grave. A wreck of a car burst into flames. A priest held a hand in benediction over him. On
Magical Mystery Tour
John, George and Ringo had red carnations in their jacket lapels, but Paul’s was black. On
Revolver
Paul was the only one who was photographed in profile. John sang ‘one and one and one is three’ on ‘Come Together’. One ‘one’ was gone. One ‘one’ was missing. I stood for hours in front of the mirror studying my face. I had pictures of Paul McCartney everywhere. That was how that autumn passed. Black frost paved the streets and windows were draughty. Sweat froze to ice crystals on your skin, the cold slowly permeated me and put me into deep-freeze mode.

Gunnar popped by on lightning visits to deliver more leaflets. The piles grew in my drawer, soon there would be no more room. One evening, on his way to a meeting as if propelled by some kind of rubber band motor, I stopped him.

‘How’s Seb?’ I asked, could hardly speak, my teeth were chattering like a penguin’s.

‘Okay I s’pose. Have you got a cold?’

‘Is he still takin’ those pills?’

‘Shit knows what he’s up to. But I do know for certain that he should stop, and right now. Pelle’s an arsehole.’

Gunnar was on his way to the door again. I creaked after him.

‘D’you think they’re dangerous, those tablets?’

He held my gaze.

‘They’re not exactly liquorice!’

We smiled at each other, fleetingly.

‘D’you still collect autographs?’ I asked.

‘Won’t give up until I have Mao’s,’ Gunnar said.

We stood shuffling our feet and thinking about the IFA salt pastilles and porn magazines.

‘I can get Lin Pio’s autograph,’ I grinned.

‘I’ve got it, you bugger,’ Gunnar screeched. ‘You’re not gonna trick me twice!’

He put his hand on my shoulder, then withdrew it quickly as if his hand had frozen.