Thin Air (10 page)

The landlady emerged from a door
beside the bar. She was middle-aged, slightly overweight and
slightly overdressed but seemed friendly enough. As Jay signed the
rather greasy page of a guest register, the landlady did not hide
her curiosity as to why a woman of Jay’s type wished to stay there.
‘I’m working,’ Jay answered cryptically, leaving her hostess to
draw her own conclusions. Jay was shown to a room decked out in
sagging Seventies furniture, with newspaper taped over a hole in
the glass above the door. ‘The kitchen’ll be ready in about half an
hour,’ the landlady said, adding, ‘for meals.’ She swept out.

Jay unpacked her bag, imagining
what drama might have occurred that broke the glass. Had someone
tried to get in, their face pressed against the window, their hands
clawing at the smooth surface, until it broke, and shards fell down
upon the mean carpet? Had a woman screamed in the bed, or had a man
sat upright, swearing softly beneath his breath? Perhaps there had
been a couple between the sheets, caught in
flagrante
. Jay
smiled to herself as she placed her toothbrush and toothpaste on
the edge of the narrow white sink. What tales hotel rooms could
tell if they could only speak.

Travelling had tired her, but
Jay went down into the bar to order steak and kidney pie and chips,
and get a feel of the place. The landlady hovered by as she served
the meal, clearly wanting to chat. It seemed an opportune moment to
begin enquiries.

‘Do you remember the - er - pop
star, Dex, who came from here?’ Jay asked. ‘He used to be called
Christopher Banner.’

The landlady smiled eagerly.
‘Yes, of course I do. Chris Banner was about the only famous person
that came from here. He and his friends used to drink in here
sometimes.’

Glancing at the early evening
clientele - elderly men and faded women - Jay thought this
unlikely. ‘I don’t suppose you know if his family are still
around?’

The landlady frowned a little.
‘Can’t say. I think they lived over at Shorefields, the first
estate out of town on the north road.’

‘You’ve never met any of them,
then?’

The landlady picked up a clean
ashtray and polished it with her apron. ‘Well, yes I have, as it
happens,’ she said. ‘I knew the mother, Cora Banner, when I was a
girl - she was Lane then, of course. We went to the same school,
although she was a year or so above me. Didn’t know her well. She
used to sing at the Varsity Bar in the Sixties. Bit of a looker,
but I reckon singing got chucked out the window after she married
and the kids started coming.’

‘Sounds like Dex inherited his
talent from his mother, then,’ Jay said. Cora must have encouraged
him to lead the life she never led.

‘Dunno about that,’ said the
land-lady. ‘Personally, I always thought she had to strain to hold
a note. She had looks, not talent.’

‘What about her kids. Did you
know them? Do you know their names?’

The landlady laughed. ‘Oh, love,
it was a long time ago. The last thing I remember of Cora was when
she got married. There was a picture in the papers. After that, I
heard nothing of the family. Until her boy made a name for himself,
of course. Why are you interested?’

‘I’m a writer.’

‘Oh, I see, you’re writing about
that Dex. Well, he’s certainly done well for himself, but we don’t
see him around here.’

‘Uh-huh. That’s probably because
he’s disappeared.’

The landlady looked surprised.
‘Has he? Well, I never!’ She shrugged. ‘These pop stars. You just
never know what they’ll get up to.’ Her lips pursed
meaningfully.

What was big news to some was
irrelevant to others. Strangely, the landlady’s ignorance pleased
Jay. It made her feel relieved. An odd reaction, she thought.

A middle-aged couple came in and
went up to the bar, prompting the landlady to sail over to serve
them. Jay sipped her gin and tonic. Shorefields. First estate out
of town.

After her meal, and some
directions from the landlady, Jay sought out the Varsity Bar. It
wasn’t called that any more. Now, it was ‘Stampers’, and had
clearly gone through a wine bar stage in the Eighties. Some of the
decor still existed in the dark green walls and art deco wall
lamps, although some Nineties rustic fashion had insinuated itself
via the corn dollies and dried grasses that adorned the walls in
between framed photographs of Fifties jazz musicians. Jay realised
there was no point in questioning the two teenage girls behind the
bar about Cora Banner. They would certainly not remember her. She
doubted the establishment was even still owned by the same people
who’d hired the young Cora to sing for their customers. Jay got
chatting to the girls, which was difficult, because they were more
interested in gossiping between themselves. They knew who Dex was,
but only one of them was aware he’d come from Torton. New stars
sparkled over the young now. If Jay wanted to find former fans, who
might know where he’d lived, she’d need to talk to people who were
in their twenties.

Jay sat at the bar to finish her
drink, staring into the mirror behind the bar, watching people come
through the door. Dex was more likely to have frequented a place
like this rather than The Ship. She noticed there was still a small
stage in the shadows at the back of the room. He might even have
played here in the early days. Jay tried to imagine him as he must
have been then; mouthy, gangling, the hub of a fawning group of
friends. She wished they could have come here together. He could
have told her stories about his past, shown her the physical
markers of it. If only she’d recognised the gap between them and
questioned his reticence about his history. Their relationship had
seemed whole, but that had been an illusion. Seven years of
make-believe while the cracks got longer and wider, until no amount
of underpinning could have saved what was left.
Don’t get
maudlin
, Jay told herself, lighting another cigarette.
This
is just work
.

In the morning, Jay was woken by
the landlady knocking on her door to tell her breakfast was ready.
She dressed and went down to the bar, where a few tables had been
laid with checked table-cloths and cutlery. Each table was adorned
with a small glass vase containing a couple of scrawny pinks. They
were at least real flowers. Jay was not the only guest. As she’d
surmised, the others were all men, who looked like reps. Some of
them knew each other, and were huddled round one of the tables
talking about sales figures. As Jay sat down, she noticed there was
a pay-phone on the wall near her table. Beneath it on a shelf was a
dog-eared directory and a new Yellow Pages. On impulse, Jay picked
up the directory. She was looking through the Bs when the landlady
came in bearing a plate of English breakfast.

‘Oh, that’s a bit out of date,
love,’ she said. It was: six years to be precise. ‘I’ve got a new
one upstairs. I’ll fetch it for you, if you like.’

‘Thanks. That’d be great.’ Six
years ago, she and Dex had been together. It felt weird. She had to
look at the listing for the ‘Banners’ of the town. There were about
half a dozen.

The landlady came back,
directory in hand. ‘Here we are. Now, you eat your breakfast
first.’

Jay grinned. ‘OK. Look, I hope
you don’t mind me asking, but could you spare me a couple of
minutes after breakfast?’

The landlady looked flattered.
‘Of course, love.’

‘I need to trace these people,
and you know the town much better than I do, and...’

The landlady raised her hands to
interrupt. ‘I’ll be over after I’ve got the breakfasts out. Now you
enjoy your meal.’

The woman joined Jay just as she
was finishing her toast. She now felt familiar enough with her
guest to tell her that her name was Bella. She offered Jay a
cigarette. The men had all gone off to their work now, and the two
women sat drinking strong tea, looking through the new directory.
‘I need to know which streets are on Shorefields,’ Jay said.

Bella craned her neck, so Jay
turned the directory on the table for her to see better. She
wrinkled her nose. ‘Sorry, love, but none of these.’

‘Damn,’ said Jay, then smiled
ruefully. ‘I suppose that would be too easy.’ She hesitated, then
opened up the older directory again and pushed it across the table
to Bella. ‘How about these?’

Bella took the book and
scrutinised the page. She frowned, then lifted her eyebrows. ‘Well,
this one. Yes. Milton Close. That’s Shorefields. All the roads are
named after old writers, you know.’ She laughed. ‘Tried to give the
place a bit of class. Didn’t help much.’

Jay peered at the page: Banner,
J, 64 Milton Close. Could this be it? ‘What was Cora’s husband’s
name?’ she asked.

Bella couldn’t remember.

‘Oh well, it’s worth a try. The
people who live there now might remember the Banners.’

‘Or they could have had their
phone cut off,’ said Bella.

‘Possibly.’

‘People from Shorefields don’t
move much,’ the landlady said, lighting up another cigarette.

‘Can you give me directions?’
Jay asked.

‘Best keep your windows wound
up, and your doors locked,’ said Bella, with relish, adding, ‘It’s
only a five minute drive away.’

Some years ago, in the depths of
recession, Shorefields must have been hideous, a landscape of
despair, but now, in between the more run down houses, some efforts
had been made to cheer the place up. There were still a few gardens
where old electrical appliances rusted in the unkempt grass and
wheelless cars sagged on bricks, but mostly the houses looked
fairly neat. There was a shopping centre, where a few shops were
still open - or had reopened. The others, shuttered closed and
boarded up, were daubed with graffiti. The post office looked like
a high security prison, with iron blinds that drooped above its
windows like the boozy eyelids of an old convict.

It took Jay about twenty minutes
to find Milton Close because the estate was a maze. What would the
distinguished dead writers who had lent their names to the streets
think of this aspect of immortality? Glancing up Shakespeare Road,
Jay assumed that the most literary people around were those who
could read the tabloids.

She paused on the corner of
Milton Close before turning onto the road. Her heart was beating
quickly. She realised that a small part of her suspected Dex might
be here. For a few minutes, she sat smoking a cigarette, chewing
the skin around her thumb nails. A group of young girls with babies
in push-chairs walked past, a gaggle of pre-school age children
gambolling around them. The girls looked contented enough. They
laughed together brightly.
Who am I to judge?
Jay wondered.
She started the car again and turned onto the close.

The road was flanked by
flat-faced houses. Some had trellising out front, and garish robes
of Virginia creepers shed their skirts upon the front door-steps.
Bare clematis strangled itself like incestuous wires. 108. Not far
to go. A poorer family must live here; the short front garden was
overgrown with dandelion and wild, untramelled tresses of yellowing
grass. 96. These people must’ve bought their house. Pity about the
fake stone front and the Austrian blinds in blinding pink. 70. So
near now. Children singing. Not these children, lounging
belligerently against the sagging fence, decked out like miniature
adults in a temper, but ghost children from the past, from the
years of Dex’s childhood. Jay imagined an old Beano comic
skittering down the road. There it is: 64. The family home. The
curtains were dingy, half an inch too short, like an unfashionable
skirt, and coloured acid yellow. Never a good colour for
curtains.

Jay’s hands were damp upon the
steering wheel. She felt observed, as if eyes moved behind the
dingy nets of number 64 and hands twitched uneasily. What would she
say if the Banners still lived there?
Hi, I’m Jay. You’ve never
met me, but I lived with... Dex
. Should she call him Dex?
Perhaps it would be better to use the name his mother had given
him, the one that had been imprinted upon him at the font? She had
a vision of women in their Nylon best huddled in the dusty sunshine
of a Sixties-built church, and Dex, a faceless infant, silent in
the passing arms. What would Cora Banner look like now? Would
vestiges of her former glamour still cling to her?

It was more likely that the
family had moved on. Jay realised she should have been more
organised and, instead of haring off eagerly, gone to the local
library to check the electoral roll. She should have made deeper
enquiries, visited the offices of the local paper. Her
investigation of Dex must be treated like any other job. Still, she
was here now. She would leave her car, walk up the short, cracked
pavement to the door and knock upon it: three times, like fate or
death.

Her knocking elicited no
response, but Jay could feel a stillness about her, which told her
someone was watching and listening. The Banners must be sick and
tired of people coming to the house. She could understand why they
wouldn’t open their door to yet another stranger. She took a few
steps back and stood with her hands on her hips, gazing up at the
bedroom windows, where she sensed the most concentrated area of
scrutiny.

A neighbour had also taken an
interest. After Jay had knocked again, a young woman emerged from
the house next door on the left. ‘What do you want?’ Her voice was
hostile. She was quite hefty and looked capable of flooring Jay
with one punch.

Jay adopted a conciliatory
smile. ‘I’m looking for the Banners. Do they still live here?’

‘What d’you want with them?’

Jay hesitated only a moment.
‘I’m a friend of Christopher’s.’

The woman sneered. ‘Yeah? Well,
you can fuck off! Julie doesn’t want to see anybody. Why can’t you
people leave her alone?’