Come Dance With Me

26 Elias Newman

29 January 2003. Jimmy Wicks’s phone number was ex-directory but I remembered other band names. Howard Dent was not ex-directory and he gave me Jimmy’s number. When I phoned I got Jimmy’s ex-wife Tracy. She sounded as if the breakup had not been amicable and demanded to know why I wanted Jimmy’s number. On the spur of the moment I said that he owed me money. ‘That makes two of us,’ she said. ‘If you see that bastard, you tell him I’ve got friends who know where he lives.’ She gave me a number, and when I dialled it the phone was answered by a man who sounded suspicious. He said Jimmy was out but he offered to take a message. I said who I was, told him I was calling about Christabel, said it was urgent, and left my number.

I wasn’t very hopeful but he did actually phone me and said that he’d meet me at The Anchor & Hope in High Hill Ferry, Upper Clapton. With my A to Z I located the pub by the River Lea, opposite the Walthamstow Marshes in E5. I took a taxi there and found him on a bench outside the pub, finishing a pint and looking at the river. The sky was grey and darkening, the wind was cold. Two Hassidic Jews all in black were on the path on the other side of the river, arguing about something as they walked. Their black gesticulations made the landscape seem more still, more bleak. A train clattered past the marshes to the bridge, grew larger, and was gone. Jimmy looked as if he’d drawn the short straw in a lifeboat where somebody was going to get eaten. He finished his pint, shook his head, and said, ‘OK, here we are. Whatever it is you want to talk about, why couldn’t we do it over the phone?’

‘Let me get you another pint. What’re you drinking?’

‘London Pride.’

I got two, came back to the bench, and sat down. ‘Cheers,’ he said without much conviction.

‘Cheers. I don’t feel completely at ease with you, and I thought we could talk better face to face.’

‘Why don’t you feel at ease with me? Because you’re screwing Christabel?’

‘I don’t feel at ease because I’ve noticed that you’re not comfortable seeing me with her.’

‘Are you or aren’t you?’

‘What?’

‘Sleeping with her.’

‘That’s neither here nor there.’

‘That means you are. So what’s on your mind?’

‘She’s gone to Honolulu and Maui and she said it was to do with the past. She seemed not in the best of spirits when she left. I was wondering …’

‘You were wondering what I could tell you?’

‘I feel awkward saying so, but yes, I was.’

‘You feel awkward because if she wanted to tell you anything more than she did, she’d have done it, right?’

‘OK, I felt kind of foolish coming to you but I’m worried about her.’

‘Welcome to the club. Everybody that knows Christabel worries about her. My round.’ He took our glasses and went inside. ‘Thirsty work, talking about Christabel,’ he said when he came back with our pints. ‘Excuse me while I make a pit stop.’ When he sat down again he said, ‘Are you in love with her?’

‘Yes.’ So there it was, out of my own mouth. ‘Are you?’

‘Have been for years but she’s never been interested in me.’

‘But you’ve been married until recently.’

‘So? That never stopped anyone from loving somebody else. You’re not married?’

‘That’s right, I’m not.’

‘Thinking of marrying Christabel?’

It was dark by then. The Anchor & Hope sent out its beams like a beacon for the weary traveller and the street lamp by our bench had come on while I sat here talking to Jimmy Wicks and saying what I’d never said to Christabel. A train chuntered past the marshes with its windows golden in the evening. It grew large, crossed the bridge and the reflecting river, and left a plume of silence behind as it disappeared. ‘I’m superstitious,’ I said. ‘I’d rather not say more about us just now, I don’t want to jinx it. I know that something’s troubling her but I don’t know what it is. She said she’s gone to Maui for a kind of remembrance day. Can you tell me anything about it?’

Jimmy sighed. ‘Did you know she had a son?’

‘No. Who was the father?’

‘Guitarist with a German band, Adam Freund. He’s dead now. So’s the son.’

‘What happened?’

‘Light rig fell on Adam. That was in 1990. Three years later she went to Maui with her son — Django his name was and he was four years old. He fell off a cliff.’

‘Jesus’.

‘Jesus didn’t save. She never got over it.’

‘Understandably. Was she married to Django’s father?

‘He was married to somebody else. She’s had a bad history with men.’

‘What kind of bad?’

‘There were three or four of them who met untimely deaths.’

‘Are you saying that she had anything to do with that?’

‘No, but I think it’s always working on her.’

I nodded and so did he, then we both shook our heads and drank our London Pride in silence for a while. ‘Any idea where she’d be staying on Maui?’ I said.

‘Probably the Pioneer Inn in Lahaina or Rudy Ka’uhane’s place.’

‘Who’s Rudy Ka’uhane?’

‘Just a friend, nothing romantic. He’s a carpenter, made Django’s coffin. The Pioneer Inn always knows where to reach him.’

‘Thanks, it’s really good of you to help me. You’re a good man and I’m grateful to you.’ I grabbed his hand and shook it. He seemed embarrassed.

‘No use being a dog in the manger, is there. I’d really like to see her happy and I wish you luck.’

‘I don’t take anything for granted. I see you’re ready for another pint.’

‘They go down fast and they go through me fast. I’ll be right back.’

I got a pint for him but none for me. When he came back I said, ‘Are you thirstier than usual?’

‘I am, actually.’

‘Have to pee more than usual too?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Might be a good idea to see your GP, get him to test your blood sugar.’

‘You think I’m diabetic?’

‘I think you should check your blood sugar.’ I was remembering my father and the sweetness he couldn’t metabolise. What a lot of blocked sweetness there is in the world!