Chapter 9
It was a beautiful, bright October day. Music was blaring from the West End boutiques and bars, with the customers and staff dressed in carnival colours. The atmosphere was electric.
‘Carnival colours, carnival colours,’ he hummed, stopping in the middle of Carnaby Street, taking out his notebook and chewing his pencil.
The most noticeable thing about Derek Longthorne was his height.
Or lack of it. Although during his teens he’d measured himself every day, he reckoned he’d not grown since two months after his thirteenth birthday.
He’d begged his mum to take him to a specialist to see if he could have a massive injection of growth hormone to give him a few extra inches.
She’d laughed, ruffled his hair and told him his dad had been the same; that women had only noticed his handsome face and big baby-blue eyes, and it hadn’t stopped them falling at his feet.
The trouble was, thought Derek, if women were to fall, they’d probably end up in direct eye contact with him.
Chortling inwardly at his own sarcasm, he set off in the direction of the shoe shop and the promised four inches that were to be his for the exchange of a ludicrous amount of money.
Surely, after this height extension, Peggy couldn’t fail to go out with him?
He entered the shop and caught the eye of a stick-thin assistant who was puffing on a cigarette at the back.
‘Hi, the name’s Derek Longthorne. I’ve come for my boots.’
The assistant put down her smoke. ‘I’ll go and see if they’re ready.’
‘They are, they must be. I mean, I telephoned this morning and—’
‘Keep your ’air on. I’ll go and ’ave a look-see.’
Derek waited in an agony of suspense. He had to have them today. Eventually, the girl came back with a large box.
‘’Ere. Wanna try ’em?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Sit down then.’ The girl indicated a red plastic-covered pouffe.
He sat down and watched as she slid the boots out of the box. They were made of soft shiny brown leather. Derek removed his brogues.
‘It’s okay, I can put them on.’ He reached out a hand to take them from her.
‘Suit yourself.’ She shrugged and ambled off to finish the cigarette still burning in the ashtray.
Derek slid on the boots and fastened the zips running up the inside of his ankle.
He staggered a little as he stood, feeling unbalanced. Then he walked carefully across to the mirror.
Five foot seven. At last, the unattainable dream. Derek smiled at the mirror, ran a comb through his blond hair, blew a kiss at his reflection, paid and left the shop.
He was in no rush to go home. He bought a new pair of trousers and sauntered down Carnaby Street imagining Peggy opening her front door and falling into his arms.
He’d loved her for the past six years, ever since her family had moved from the North down to London, and Peggy had joined his class at school.
Even his cousin Todd, usually not given to superlatives about women, had thought Peggy was ‘cute’.
Peggy had immediately become very popular, joining the ‘in’ gang of girls while his male classmates queued up to take her out.
Derek knew he didn’t really stand a chance.
He’d dreamt about Peggy at night and contented himself with that.
Until . . . he’d met her on the way to school and discovered she lived at the end of his road.
Derek began to engineer their morning meetings.
He’d linger behind a hedge until he saw Peggy emerge from her front gate, then walk behind her for a while and hail her.
She’d turn around, and he’d take in her big blue eyes, huge in her lovely face.
‘Hi, Derek,’ she’d say, and wait for him to catch up with her. Then they would walk the fifteen minutes to school together. Derek had lived for these morning interludes. At school, he was known as ‘Little Del’ – even some of the teachers had picked up on it – yet Peggy made him feel special.
The first Christmas, Derek had presented her with a bottle of perfume. She’d opened it, flung her arms around his shoulders and kissed him.
‘Derek, you really are the sweetest guy I know.’
This had taken his passion on to newer, dizzier heights.
In January, when school had resumed, Derek had plucked up the courage to ask Peggy out.
To his amazement, she’d said yes. He’d taken her to the pictures to see Elvis in Jailhouse Rock, and they’d shared a bag of popcorn.
Derek had spent the entire film trying to pluck up the courage to put an arm round Peggy’s shoulder.
‘It’s been lovely,’ Peggy had said, as Derek escorted her to her front door, ‘to go out with a boy to a film and know he won’t jump your bones the minute the lights go down.’ Then she had kissed him gently on the cheek. ‘Goodnight, Derek. You’re a really good friend.’
It hadn’t been so easy when he’d discovered that Peggy was going out with Mikey Doolan, the class hunk.
Derek shuddered as he remembered being picked up from the police station by his white-faced mum, having been caught red-handed after throwing a brick through Mikey’s parents’ kitchen window.
Following a couple of other similar incidents, Derek had been referred to a psychologist. The doctor had told Derek’s mother that he had developed an obsession, probably caused by his teenage hormones going wild.
She was assured he would grow out of it.
Of course, Derek had pretended this was the case, but inside, he knew that his love for Peggy would never, ever leave him.
Derek decided he fancied a drink. He went into one of the noisy bars, sat up on a stool and ordered a beer.
He sighed. All that was five years ago now.
He’d done as the psychologist and the police had ordered him to, and stayed away from Peggy.
He knew she wasn’t really intimidated by how intensely he loved her.
She had only said that to cover up her real feelings for him.
She knew, deep down, that he was the man for her.
Derek was biding his time. These days, Peggy lived above a chip shop, only a few hundred yards down the road from him. He knew she went into the West End every day to some college or other, because he had once sneaked onto the same bus and watched where she had got off.
Derek took a sip of his beer. He comforted himself that Peggy would love him when he was famous.
He remembered all the talk in the boys’ changing room about the groups they would form when they left school.
Most of them had since taken apprenticeships in the local shoe factory and a lot of them were unemployed.
Whereas he, Derek Longthorne, a.k.a. ‘Little Del’, was rhythm guitarist in a proper band.
He would engineer a meeting between the pair of them soon.
But the timing needed to be right. Derek had to impress her.
Todd, his cousin on his dead dad’s side, was someone Derek idolised.
When he’d started at the same school as Todd, he’d been mercilessly bullied due to his stature.
Todd, three years older, had looked out for him, sorted out the bullies and made sure Derek was left alone.
He’d gone to a really famous music college when he’d left school, and had told Derek to keep practising his guitar, as one day he would want to form a band.
Derek had taken his cousin at his word. He practised for hours every night, nearly driving his mum mad, but finding that the concentration drove thoughts of Peggy from his mind.
Then, sure enough, Todd had come to see him the summer Derek had left school and asked him if he’d be interested in becoming part of the new group he was forming.
In spite of their being cousins, Derek had to audition.
His years of solid practice, combined with a natural ability, had made it easy for Todd to offer him a place.
Derek drained the rest of his beer from the glass.
That had been three years ago. Fame was taking longer than expected.
‘Todd Bradley and the Blackspots’ got regular gigs and had a small following, but it was hardly megastardom.
Worst of all, they had just lost Norman, their bass guitarist, to another group, which had further demoralised them.
Derek checked his watch. There was no need to rush home tonight. Auntie Marge was coming round for tea, and Derek knew how she and his mum liked to be left alone for a nice chat. He stood up and decided to take a wander down Carnaby Street.
Con suppressed a yawn as he hauled his guitar onto his shoulder and played a few chords.
Trying to find a spot where his instrument wasn’t drowned out by records blaring from the shops was becoming more and more difficult.
He checked what he’d made so far. Almost ten shillings.
If he was honest, it wasn’t enough to keep a dog alive.
This was it. The last day. On Monday he’d find himself a proper job, paying decent money. Sorcha and he would soon be out on the streets. She deserved better. He owed her a good life, after everything. There was no alternative.
‘Ah well,’ he sighed out loud to no one in particular. ‘No one can say I didn’t try.’
As he strolled along, Derek thought of the song he’d half composed earlier today. He might show it to Todd when it was ready, to see if they could play it at one of their gigs.
Suddenly, Derek became aware of a melodious sound coming from the other side of the street.
It was in such contrast to the rest of Carnaby’s hectic cacophony that he turned around to look.
The busker was tall – Derek no longer resented him for that – and extremely good-looking.
The song he was singing was not one he had heard before, so he presumed it was an original.
Although simple, it had a haunting melody.
Derek slowly ambled across the road to watch for a while.
There was no doubt the chap was a proficient guitarist, and he liked his deep, mellow voice.