Flesh Guitar

LAST DISORDERS

‘Look, it’s really very late and I’ve quite enjoyed talking to you,’ Kate says to Bob Arnold, ‘but I’ve got to close up the bar now. Stop by again. Tomorrow’s another day, you know.’

‘That’s undeniably true,’ says Bob.

‘And who knows, maybe it’ll be a day when you can catch Jenny Slade’s act again.’

This time he really does bang his head against the bar. He lets it drop like a bag of potatoes and although it lands with a sickening crack, Bob is sufficiently drunk not to feel the pain.

‘There won’t be any gig tomorrow,’ he says desperately. ‘Nor the day after that. Haven’t I made myself clear? Jenny Slade played her last ever gig here, a few hours ago, and I didn’t see it. You saw it. A crowd of drunken hoi polloi, they saw it. But I, the number one Jenny Slade fan in the whole world, I didn’t.’

‘Her last gig, wow. I can see why missing it would depress you.’

‘Depress!’ he says it as though the word cannot express a millionth part of the anguish and misery he is still feeling. This isn’t just a heartache. It isn’t just a mild case of the summertime blues.

‘But why would she choose this dump for her farewell gig?’ Kate asks.

‘Precisely because it was a dump,’ Bob explains. ‘Because it wasn’t on the map. She didn’t want her fans there, didn’t want a loyal following, not even an open-minded audience. She wanted to prove to herself one last time that she could conquer an audience, no matter how indifferent, no matter how bone-headed. Then, once she’d proved to herself that she still had what it takes, she wouldn’t ever need or try to prove it again.’

‘So is that why she gave the guitar away, because she had no more use for it?’

‘She gave the guitar away?’

The news only hits him slowly, like a tower block being demolished, collapsing in stages into a rising cloud of debris.

‘Sure,’ said Kate.

‘She gave away her guitar,’ he repeats. ‘Are you sure? The flesh guitar? The one that looks like it’s alive?’

‘That’s the one.’

This time he screams with anguish.

‘Do you know what that guitar is worth?’ he says. ‘You could name your price. You could just think of a number and triple it. And if only I’d been here she could have given it to ME!’

Kate isn’t terribly sympathetic.

‘You can’t be sure of that,’ she says. ‘Besides, I thought it was quite ugly actually.’

‘Ugly,’ Bob says despairingly, knowing that it is his destiny to remain misunderstood.

‘She gave it to a good-looking boy,’ Kate says. ‘Besides, you don’t even play guitar.’

‘That’s not the point,’ Bob says.

‘Anyway, I’m sure that real guitar playing comes from the soul not the instrument.’

‘You know,’ says Bob, ‘you’re learning fast.’

Kate nods. ‘It’s too bad,’ she says. ‘I thought Jenny Slade was really inspiring, a real role model.’

The BIG thought occurs to them both simultaneously, unfolding like a gaudy flower, but Kate is the first to speak. ‘You don’t think I’m too old to start learning the guitar, do you?’

‘You don’t look so old to me,’ Bob says.

‘I could take lessons,’ she enthuses. ‘I could practise really intensively, learn my scales, my riffs, my runs, get my chops together.’

‘For sure,’ says Bob.

‘And you could fill me in on the theory.’

‘I definitely could,’ says Bob.

‘I’ll need to surround myself with some sympathetic musicians,’ Kate says, ‘and I’ll have to get some stage outfits and publicity photographs and an agent and a record company, and maybe a personal trainer. And a guitar, naturally. And some amplification. And a repertoire. But, of course, what I really need are fans.’

‘Don’t worry,’ says Bob. ‘You’ve already got one of those.’

The sleeping drunk wakes again, lifts an invisible glass and yells, ‘Here’s to Jenny Slade!’

Bob and Kate do not join in with this toast.

‘Where is she now?’ the drunk asks. ‘Where’s she gone, to what godforsaken region? What’s she thinking? Is she alone? Is she feeling suicidal? Is she all played out? Is the rest silence?’

There are now tears in his eyes, saliva drooling down his beard.

‘One thing’s for sure,’ he adds. ‘We shall not hear her like again.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ says Bob.