Trumpet: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) Read online

  When he starts to come back from the small black point, he finds himself running along the old railway line that his mother never trusted although there were never any trains. Running along he realizes his mother was right never to trust that track. The trains hurtle alongside him, whistling and steaming. People who fall off the train are met or unmet, loved or not loved. The train charges through the flame. Alongside the track, the yellow railway flowers are in full bloom. He finds himself standing on a stage clapping, standing on the one spot, clapping the blur. He spots Millie and the whole club sharpens. A nose. A laughing face. A clapping hand. A bright red silk scarf.

  There is music in his blood.

  Stomping, stamping, hooting, whistling, cheering. They want more of him. ‘Talk to me!’ they shout. Talk to me!’ ‘Gone yourself!’ They want more blood. He dives back down again. He has barely come out. When he plays his trumpet, his left leg is uncontrollable. It bends and cracks like a tree in the wind. His foot going out and coming in. His eyes shut tight to keep out the light. He is the music. The blood dreaming. The long slow ache. All the light is in the music – soaring, flying. The trumpet gets him off, takes him up or down. He could float. He could fly. He swings with his cats in the dim light. There is no level ground. He feels himself going down; he feels one of his cats going down too. He can go all the way to the bottomless ground. There’s the sensation of falling without ever stopping. Each time like dying. His number up. Each time he returns to the faces, intent, peering down at his grave, throwing mud on his face, showering him with blooms.

  The trip shakes him up. It is painful. But there is nothing like that pain. That pain is the sweetest, most beautiful pain in the world. Better than sex. Soar or shuffle along, wing or glide, trudge or gallop, kicking out, mugging heavy, light, licking, breaking, screw-balling. Out of this world. He could be the fourth horseman, the messenger, the sender. He could be the ferryman. The migrant. The dispossessed. He can’t stop himself changing. Running changes. Changes running. He is changing all the time. It all falls off – bandages, braces, cufflinks, watches, hair grease, suits, buttons, ties. He is himself again, years ago, skipping along the railway line with a long cord his mother had made into a rope. In a red dress. It is liberating. To be a girl. To be a man.

  The music is his blood. His cells. But the odd bit is that down at the bottom, the blood doesn’t matter after all. None of the particulars count for much. True, they are instrumental in getting him down there in the first place, but after that they become incidental. All his self collapses – his idiosyncracies, his personality, his ego, his sexuality, even, finally, his memory. All of it falls away like layers of skin unwrapping. He unwraps himself with his trumpet. Down at the bottom, face to face with the fact that he is nobody. The more he can be nobody the more he can play that horn. Playing the horn is not about being somebody coming from something. It is about being nobody coming from nothing. The horn ruthlessly strips him bare till he ends up with no body, no past, nothing.

  If it wasn’t for his horn he would be dead and gone. Years ago. Dead in his spirit and still living. It doesn’t matter a damn he is somebody he is not. None of it matters. The suit is just the suit the body holds. The body needs the suit to wear the horn. Only the music knows everything. Only the dark sweet heart of the music. Only he who knew who he was, who he had been, could let it all go. The sender would shout a word and he would go. The word could be ‘baby’ or ‘cooking’ or ‘take it’.

  So when he takes off he is the whole century galloping to its close. The wide moors. The big mouth. Scotland. Africa. Slavery. Freedom. He is a girl. A man. Everything, nothing. He is sickness, health. The sun. The moon. Black, white. Nothing weighs him down. Not the past or the future. He hangs on to the high C and then he lets go. Screams. Lets it go. Bends his notes and bends his body. His whole body is bent over double. His trumpet pointing down at the floor then up at the sky. He plays another high C. He holds on. He just keeps blowing. He is blowing his story. His story is blowing in the wind. He lets it rip. He tears himself apart. He explodes. Then he brings himself back. Slowly, slowly, piecing himself together.

  SEX

  Since his father died, Colman has not seen any of his friends. He has cut himself off from them, cast himself adrift. Brady, Michael, Lucas, Sammy. Sammy is the most persistent. Leaves loads of messages on his machine; has been to his flat and pounded on the door. Colman can’t face him. He’s known Sammy the longest and Sammy knew his father well. Sammy will be gobsmacked.

  For a year before his father died, Colman had been working as a courier on a motorbike. He liked it, wearing his big helmet. People made way for helmeted guys like himself. He could see them, but they couldn’t see him. It was like having a disguise. He could hide his laugh behind his visor. He liked the big leather gloves, the tall black boots, and the rest of the gear. It wasn’t the kind of gear he was used to wearing. It made him bigger. His presence loomed in the mirror in his hall. Nobody messed with him. People found him frightening. He found himself frightening. He could jump queues and nobody would challenge him. He could dart in and out of the traffic doing the fingers up to any of the stupid fuckers out there who didn’t realize they had a wing mirror. He’d whizz past them swearing and pointing first to their mirror and second to his helmet to let them know how stupid he thought they were.

  When he was a courier, he felt liberated. Like he could suddenly act the part of the biker and nobody would know any better. Everybody hates bikers. He could just put the gear on and join the clan and nod at other bikers on the road. When he stopped to get a bacon roll, people would instinctively let him go in front of them. It was quite a discovery. Actually the rest of the couriers were just mild men like himself, but nobody let on. When he stopped to deliver a package and get a signature on his board, the signature was always written in a hurry and the door closed before he revved up and screamed away. He was always in a fucking hurry. You had to move fast to make any money. The money was crap actually. The bosses didn’t seem to realize they were working in a totally constipated city. People used to get around faster in London in the days of the fucking horse and carriage. You couldn’t even fart in Piccadilly.

  The day after Colman saw his father in the funeral parlour, he went in to work. He thought it would keep him sane. He told the boss that his father had died and he said, ‘Sorry to hear that,’ and continued with what he was doing. So Colman just walked out. It made him angry. He felt angry at every fucker. He didn’t like any of the other couriers anyway. They could all go to fuck.

  A new name and a new job, that’s what he’d like. A new start in life. The thought of carrying the name Moody around with him for the rest of his life is no joke. Maybe he should change back to his original name. What would William Dunsmore do for a living? Insurance? Insurance against shit happening. A doctor? A doctor who would specialize in – what? Plastic surgery? Sex changes? Hormones? Christ. Where is this coming from. Is it coming from him? Is he spinning out or what? His brain is mince. William Dunsmore. William Dunsmore. He would do something plain and ordinary with no element of risk in it. What job has no risk at all? He can’t think. He just can’t think. Fucking forget William Dunsmore. He won’t fucking come to life.

  Colman Moody is convinced he has started to grow backwards. He is watching Star Trek, the new one, even though some bald bastard has taken over the Enterprise. He is eating cornflakes, at least ten bowls a day. He is reading the Beano. He’s got out his old copies of Oor Wullie and The Broons. The Broons upset him so he stops reading them. They remind him of his father. How his father liked them all to have Scottish things, daft naff Scottish things to keep them in touch. Every time they went to Torr they returned with packets of tattie scones, slices of square sausage, bottles of Barrs irn bru. Shortbread. Black bun.

  He gets up and pours himself a very large Jack Daniels. It’s a night for the box, he can’t handle anything else. It’s knackering talking to that Sophie Stones about his father’s life. Half the t
ime he imagines his mother sitting in the corner of that hotel room just staring at him, just fucking staring at him. It gives him the creeps. Today, for a minute, his father even put in an appearance. The worst of it all was he was smiling, smiling at Colman as if he didn’t have a care in the world. It made him waver a bit. But then he thought of the money.

  He gulps down his whisky. Jack Daniels. You are a traitor, he tells himself, drinking JD instead of a good Scottish malt. There is a crap murder on the box. Just the business. He settles himself down, knocking back his drink and pouring another one. He imagines lifting Sophie Stones onto the desk in the office he has not seen. He pulls down the zip of his jeans. He gets it out. He runs his finger up the crack of her arse. This is what she’ll like. All tabloid hacks must like it. Fucks full of cruelty and sleaze. He mutters filth into her ear. Moves it slowly back and forth. His cock seems bigger since his father died. Bigger and harder. He has a slow smile on his face. He’s shoving it right up her, swearing at her. He pulls at his balls, grasping them and then pulls his cock faster till he lets it out, swearing to himself, ah fuck, fuck, fuck, till it is everywhere, too much of it, too much. How many kids could he make with that? A fucking population. He could make a whole generation with that. There’s more come too since his father died. That’s weird, but it’s definitely true. He’s losing it. He gets up and gets some toilet paper, wipes himself down, doesn’t do up his zip, and sits watching the rest of the murder with his Jack Daniels in his hand.

  He’s meeting her this morning. She wants the letter. He puts it in the front pouch of his bag and pulls the zip. His father’s handwriting startles him each time he gets the letter out to look at it. He gets dressed: loose baggy top and baggy trousers made in America. Pulls on his white sports socks and his big trainers. He is particular about the way he does his laces. He does not tie a knot, but tucks them in at the side of the tongue, so that they look done and undone. He pulls at the fat tongue till it sticks out properly. He looks in the mirror. Shaves thoughtfully and dabs some of his aftershave on. He finds his place very silent at the moment, unsettling. Why is it so quiet? No music, that’s it. Since his father died, he’s stopped playing music. He didn’t even realize it until now. He can’t wait to get out. Get the fuck out, he says to himself, patting his hair into shape. Get out, you asshole. He smiles at himself. Women tell him he is handsome. But he was not a handsome boy. His glasses spoiled it. He was the last one to get a girlfriend in his class. He still can’t see himself as handsome, but everyone tells him. Sophie Stones will be after him. He will have to be careful. It’s been a long time since he got his rocks off.

  Sophie Stones is armed with tape recorder and notepad and fancy fountain pen. ‘Let’s write down our objectives vis-à-vis going to Glasgow,’ she says, scribbling as she speaks. Colman looks at her blankly. (She has a great weakness for the word objectives. As soon as she says it she can start writing, but not before.) ‘Right,’ she says, happily. ‘Objectives. What are our objectives? Well, for starters’ (she writes number one) ‘to find out about Joss Moody/Josephine Moore’s childhood. What else, what else? Let’s see.’

  (She writes number two.) To collect any information from any source – old friends, relatives, school.’

  ‘OK. OK.’

  (She’s on a roll now.) ‘Number three!’ (She practically shouts.) ‘To do detailed interviews with the people who knew him/her well.’

  Colman interrupts. ‘Don’t bother with this him/her bullshit. That’s bollocks, man. Just say him.’

  ‘But it’s important that we remember that “he” was a “she” first.’

  ‘Tell me about it! I’m not fucking forgetting, am I?’

  ‘Four.’ (A bit deflated.) ‘Describe the house he grew up in.

  ‘Five. Get the birth certificate.

  ‘Six. Get all old photos, records, letters, etc.

  ‘Seven. Trace all living relatives. Get their reaction.’

  ‘There are no living relatives. What are you talking about?’

  Sophie Stones smiles a very small smile into her sleeve.

  Colman hadn’t reckoned on any of this. He thought he’d follow his own nose, let one thing lead to another, naturally. But this is more like fucking Operation Transvestite. He hears Sophie saying somewhere in the background, ‘So, I am going to accompany you.’ Shit. ‘Separate rooms of course,’ Sophie says, and pats his leg. He gets a hard-on and feels suddenly embarrassed. Feels himself scrambling around, knowing things aren’t quite right, wishing he had another brain. A sharp brain that could lay out a different plan. Just like that. All he says is, ‘Did I invite you?’ to see if that bothers her, but it doesn’t. ‘No,’ she smiles, ‘but I’m coming. You can’t do without me. Nobody can. You need a journalist’s special powers. People don’t talk any more without this.’ She rubs her thumb obscenely against her fingers. ‘And besides,’ she says, ‘I’ve discovered that Joss Moody’s mother is still alive.’

  PEOPLE:

  The Drummer

  Some guys said Moody had a baby face, but the drummer didn’t think so. Big Red McCall beat up anybody who came out with those things. One time he caught a guy saying, ‘There’s something strange about that Moody,’ in the Wee Jazz Club not long after they split with the Witnessers and made out on their own as the Boogie Woogie Moody Men. McCall never let anyone get away with anything. McCall was six foot two and weighed twenty-two stone. He cornered the guy, poked him hard with his fat fingers. Who, jab, are, jab, you, jab, calling, jab, strange? The guy stood his ground – ‘Moody’s voice is high like a woman’s,’ McCall knocked him down. He had one of those tempers where he literally saw Red. The minute after he knocked someone down, he’d help him up, spit on his hands and dust down his jacket. ‘Sorry, but I had to do that. It was fucking crucial.’ Then he gave his famous short snorting laugh, which sounded like a pig fucking, went to the bar and growled, Two Scotch on the rocks, please. Moody took his whisky grinning like a man. Big Red winked and said, ‘Canny staund assholes. I’ve no patience for them. Did you see the face on it when I walloped him?’

  Big Red’s temper earned him his nickname. He was proud of it. Ever since he was a boy he’s been graffitied with nicknames. ‘Big Man’ at three, his nervous granny set that one rolling. ‘Brassneck’ at around six, after he asked Sandra MacGregor to kiss him and she said loud enough for the whole street to hear, ‘You’ve got a brass-neck, Malcolm McCall.’ ‘Poacher’ at twelve when he was poaching with his great uncle Tummock. ‘Bunk’ for a long time because he was always bunking off school. ‘Malki’ until he was nineteen till when he took up the drums. Malcolm McCall was his proper name, but he’d never answered to it all his life. Who was it who first called him Big Red? He can’t remember. But Big Red spread quicker than wildfire, quicker than blood on a barroom floor.

  Big Red was his favourite because he believed in communism and had a red hot temper. Nicknames were magic; they let people know what they were in for. Big Red was all for them. When he was wee, only the unpopular swots were not granted the gift of a nickname. The wee pains in the ass. Some of those clever bastards would skulk into smokers’ corner and make a nickname up for themselves! Then they’d find some sly way of forcing the nickname to catch alight. But it never did. It always spluttered out like the damp match that it was. The boys who were called David, Peter, Walter and John tried to metamorphosize into Mince, Spider, Peanuts and Crow only to find themselves chucked back onto the slagheap of their dull names. Nothing they could do about it. You had to be in the running to be crowned with a nickname. You had to have a bit of what it takes. Yes. You had to have a bit of this. Panache. You couldn’t try it on if you were just a wee nyaff. Or you had to be so slick your own name sounded too cool for anybody to ever want to change it. Imagine being born with a name like Miles Davis. You’ve already got it made. If you had a name like Miles Davis maybe, you already sounded like you were driving a Mercedes. No need to tamper wey a name like that. Miles Davis. Charlie Mingus. Joss Moody. />
  Big Red first met Moody when the drummer of the Witnessers took food poisoning. One of his pals asked him to stand in and he did. He went up to Moody and asked him straight, ‘What kind of rhythm shall I play for you?’ From that day on Moody and him were tight as fists. McCall could drum the same rhythm every night. He had total recall for what he’d done before. Moody was private with his trumpet and McCall was extrovert with his drums. They were a great team. McCall’s showmanship was hilarious. He made more verbal asides than a character in a Shakespeare play. He always played with this huge powderpuff for his armpits. He dressed in loud green chalk-striped suits and bright ties. He could roll those drums like thunder. When they started to make records together Joss joked that he would knock the needle off the wax. McCall felt he had a calling for the drums. They were his babies. The big bang and the wee tom-toms. He got them all to practise drumnastics until he got so out of hand Moody told him to cool down or split. He was in danger of nabbing the limelight.

  McCall loved nothing better than a wee jam with Moody. A wee practice. Just the two of them. Blowing room. They’d doodle and noodle and smear. They’d make the odd clinker. It seemed, to Big Red, that they understood each other perfectly like bad twins. There have been more times than Moody was aware of, when Big Red McCall rushed to his defence. Big Red McCall was not the least bit interested in private life. He was no gatemouth. He had never clyped in his life. Some blokes liked to blether and gossip but McCall wasn’t one of them. He accepted Moody had a bit of a squeaky voice. Big deal. Lots of people squeak. As for baby face, millions of jazz men have baby faces. Look at Baby Dodds, Baby Mack, Baby Riley. The jazz world is full of big pudding faces, cheeks like cheese puffs. A man with a baby face could send you to town. A man with a baby face could have you away ta ta on a big raft sailing for an island you’ve never heard of. Big reefs. Rocks the size of drums. Trees playing trombones. Big Red McCall and Joss Moody together had people reeling and begging for more. The claps they got! They weren’t normal appreciation. They were fucking desperate. Jazz was their fix. Jazz was in the veins.