Time: three minutes later
Context: behind The Fridge nightclub, Brixton, SW2
As they passed along quiet Buckner Road, Margo’s stomach gave a lurch. Ahead, hand-stencilled on the side of a battered white transit van was an advertisement:
speakers amps strobes etc
ALL YOUR EVENT NEEDS
Piper & sons
And directly underneath sat the final piece of their puzzle; a single word inexpertly painted over so that, in the weak lighting here, it remained visible:
Monk
So that explained why this final piece of info had been placed in brackets. Doubtless Toby had been in a hurry, writing in lower case what was in fact another surname. Thus what she had ended up reading was:
AV Piper (monk)
Clearly AV denoted an audiovisuals company which, with vehicle, must previously have been owned by someone called Monk. But was that this person’s sole link, or were they of ongoing interest?
And how exactly did the lines of the original note connect? It was surely no coincidence that the Piper and Sons van was currently parked outside the second of the nights promoted by Barry Hadley? Therefore it now seemed certain that there was something significant about The Astoria last week. And of course the reference to today’s date had already managed to lure Margo to The Fridge tonight. Not to mention nearly getting her charges injured as she’d led them in a game of British Bulldog through a full-blown riot.
At the back door of the club Eileen played her part beautifully by diving into the arms of a bouncer for reassurance. Meantime Margo’s wide-eyed description of being practically murdered by maniacs and maimed by flying glass successfully blagged them inside
|Touch of exaggeration though ends sometimes justify means, right?|
Coats checked in, Bobby surprised them with a round of tequila slammers, claiming with a straight face he’d forgotten Margo only drank water once she could hear beats at volume.
After finding them somewhere to sit Charlie pointed out some lads from New Cross in the East End, admitting it had taken a moment to realise what had changed; they were growing out their hair. From Margo’s early days with right-wing extremists, three of the group possessed serious National Front backgrounds. Yet here they were, suedeheads all of a sudden, with second generation Jamaicans who, she knew from casual acquaintance, hailed from Streatham to the south. Charlie marvelled at how, nowadays, blokes who otherwise would be in the streets battering each other’s brains in were mingling at nights like this.
‘Even stranger is that they’re not even doing it hoping to impress the lasses. Not trying impress anyone in fact. Just ʼappy to get out of their trees. And surprising no one more than themselves ʼow much they prefer a spot of loving to all that fighting.’
After a while Bobby waved the others off to the dance floor. Nowhere near as confident a mover as the rest of them, Margo could never quite fathom how he entertained himself all the time he spent on his own.
Considering the fracas outside, the place was busier than she’d expected. And the atmosphere was as joyous as always, the promise of live percussion and the whole Funki Dread afro-caribbean vibe continuing to draw higher numbers of party-goers. As for them, it had been Charlie stumbling across Sunday evenings at The Africa Centre in Covent Garden which had first steered them here, with both events being laid on by the Soul II Soul crew.
This thought instinctively made Margo glance over. Ten metres away, locatable as ever directly in front of a bank of speakers but back to the world, Charlie was going for it with trademark enthusiasm
|That’s me sister. Princess Gurner, what with her incessant chewing whenever she’s out ʼaving a bop|
Christened Charlene years before their mum’s obsession with Neighbours, the nickname had originally been bestowed by her brother delirious that his favourite player, on whom he modelled his sideburns, had just scored an improbable hat trick against the greatest power in European football. Prior to the return leg there was two weeks of parading an ecstatic four year-old from room to room like a trophy. So the moniker ‘Charlie’ had well and truly taken root throughout the family by the time the swashbuckling forward had gone and notched another goal. Incredibly though, that evening their team had been thumped 5-1, eventually losing the epic tie in extra time.
‘Chai-ly. Chai-ly’ the younger girl had chanted in her reedy little voice when bursting into his bedroom early the next morning. Even if she had been allowed to stay up the night before she was too young to understand why, that day, he’d refused to leap out of bed and throw her up onto his shoulders. So she had pursued him, the cry of ‘Chai-ly. Chai-ly’ becoming increasingly plaintive, glistening eyes giving way to distraught sobs. Unable to control himself, he’d lashed out at the annoyance, sending her scurrying underneath their bunk bed from where it always seemed to fall upon Margo to coax her out.
҉
‘Yessss. Get in there.’
Margo grinned back at the guy punching the air repeatedly as he slid slowly between his fellow dancers.
‘Tonight is party time, it’s party time tonight’ he sang along, ending each chorus with a delighted yell of ‘Weekend!’
For almost an hour the three of them had been enjoying themselves in the main space, bobbing constantly and beaming at total strangers, doing their own thing though staying mostly within sight.
For her part Margo kept moving to one side of the sound stacks. Regular testing confirmed that good hearing was one of her stocks-in-trade and she fully intended to keep hers sharp.
‘I’m gonna find a friend to spend the weekend’ he continued to croon.
The warm-up DJs had been giving it their best go yet, since the last change at the turntables, the atmosphere was noticeably lifting to a different level. True, this was an even more eclectic blend of music than she’d experienced on her previous visit here, but that was fine by her. And for many around her, it would appear.
‘It’s alright’ the geezer wailed tunelessly as he bounced past. ‘Alright, alright, alright.’
Margo thought about ducking away for a breather, saving herself for when the big boys came on to spin their most recent white labels. A moment later however, the bass growl under 808 State’s ‘Pacific State’ renewed her variation on the classic two-step and what resembled the twitter of some exotic bird combined with electronic horn instantly transported her to the Balearics.
A clutch of devotees twisted feverishly in front of some high priest of the mixing desk whose taste and touch she had yet to recognise. Each time break beats kicked in they raised a hand, then both arms as the hi-hats were cranked.
Her own energy picked up another notch.
Heads banged in unison as a burst of piano house was dropped, those most swept up in celebration carving parabolic cuts in the air. With the intensity mounting extra features began to be added in every fourth cycle, underpinned by a quickening drum line. A zealot nearby twitched his upper body in blissful rapture yet, communing with eyes-wide-open blindness, no one seemed to notice.
Margo whirled to her left and spotted a boy in oversized baggies, his baseball cap practically back to front. His eyes were clamped tightly shut as he silently mouthed ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck’, his arms and legs thrashing to welcome the onrushing aural juggernaut.
She gazed around at a venue approaching full capacity, where even those seriously winding down a moment ago had picked up again. Clubbers beckoned to strangers to pull them up, anywhere there might be more room to move. Everyone wanted to scale the perfect peak, nobody willing to risk missing the ultimate high
On and on, exhaustion a forgotten state
consciousness re-routed in favour of sensory overload
minds blank, nothing,
nowhere else, no past,
your own future indistinguishable from all others
your pay packet blown on small stamped tablets …
҉
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