Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. (9 page)

When I try to get back into Hornsey, I fail. I decide to apply for the fashion and textiles degree because I’m getting more and more into fashion and music and I’ve made some interesting clothes whilst I’ve been at Dingwalls. I’m accompanied to the interview by the nice man from admin. The tutors on the selection panel take against me the minute I walk in the door. They seem pissed off, annoyed about something. There’s tension between them and the suit, who’s nothing to do with me, I was assigned him randomly. This has never happened to me before, I’ve never come across people who dislike me, or won’t give me a chance, without a reason. I don’t know how to stand up for myself, how to fight my corner. They trash me and my work viciously. I know there’s something weird going on, but it doesn’t really matter because it’s obvious I’ve got no hope of getting onto the course. I start to cry with frustration. They look alarmed and ask me why I’m so upset, but I can’t speak, there’s nothing to say, I know the result of this interview is a foregone conclusion. This is the first time I’ve failed at something I want. I’ve failed loads of times before, at maths, on sports day, but those things didn’t matter to me. I leave the interview room choking and hiccupping. Standing in the drizzle on the pavement outside the college, I see my whole life collapsing in front of me. I’ve got no future. I’m just a barmaid at Dingwalls.

18 DINGWALLS

1973

I love your hat.

Captain Beefheart

It’s not so bad being a barmaid at Dingwalls. I sleep most of the day and start work at 6 p.m. I like the club best when it’s empty: lights on, chairs on the tables, the smell of stale beer, and I can see the red-painted iron pillars and the little stage, which is usually obscured by a crowd of people.

Lots of great bands play here, like Kilburn and the High Roads, Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers, Dr Feelgood with their frenetic guitarist Wilko Johnson, some Northern Soul bands – but the band that makes the biggest impression on me is Kokomo. There are ten of them all crowded onto the stage, they aren’t rock, more like funk or soul, but what really grabs my attention is the girl on percussion. There are two girl vocalists in the band, but this other girl plays congas and other sorts of percussion instruments. I’ve never seen a young girl playing an instrument in a band before. I want to be her. I want so badly, for the first time ever, to be a girl I’ve seen on stage. I want to look like her and be in that band and wear her clothes and have her boyfriend and live her life. It’s the first time I’ve ever thought of being a musician. And the reason I can make that leap is because someone behind the bar said to me, ‘Her name’s Jody Linscott, she couldn’t play before she joined Kokomo, she learnt as she went along.’ That’s what’s allowed me to dream for a moment, that phrase: ‘She couldn’t play.’

One of my best friends here is Brandi Alexander, a petite American girl a bit older than me, pretty with straight shiny blonde hair. Brandi usually wears a black waistcoat with nothing underneath and you can see the side of her boob as she moves. I couldn’t believe it when she told me she liked girls. Because she’s a lesbian, she’s not interested in impressing guys on any level. This attitude makes her appear hard: she isn’t though, she’s very kind and generous. It’s just unusual for a girl not to use her sexuality when interacting with a man. I’m the youngest person on the staff and often feel out of my depth amongst all the worldly types who work here, so Brandi’s friendship gives me confidence. Neither of us take drugs – well, not hard drugs like some of this lot do – so we’re a bit left out. I’ve noticed that people who take heroin are very cliquey, you feel a bit of a loser if you don’t partake. At Dingwalls, a group of them are always disappearing off together, whispering in corners. It’s a passive pressure; nothing’s said, you’re just treated as if you don’t quite exist. Apart from Brandi, the person I hang out with most is a blond, tousle-haired boy with black eyebrows called Rory Johnston. He’s sweet-natured, and has a half-American, half-Scottish accent. He likes me even though I haven’t got much going on at the moment: Rory sees something in me. When he isn’t working at Dingwalls, he’s a barman at the Portobello Hotel, where lots of musicians drink. He’s also an art student at Hammersmith College of Art and Building and the unofficial, unpaid assistant to a guy called Malcolm McLaren who owns a clothes shop. Rory’s a very motivated person. He often takes me to the Portobello Hotel and I sit at the little bar whilst he works. It’s a tiny basement room, not very impressive, just a bit of wicker furniture and a couple of tropical plants dotted around. I like going there because I get to see people like Mick Ronson and the other Spiders from Mars and Ian Hunter from Mott the Hoople, drinking and hanging out.

Dingwalls is full of characters, like the two girls Robyn and Shawn Slovo: their parents were world-famous anti-apartheid activists, their mother was assassinated because of it. Shawn and Robyn are very creative, they’re writers and are very confident when they speak. No one intimidates those two. I’d like to be like that. The other person who stands out for me is a waitress called Rose. She doesn’t take any shit. Once Captain Beefheart came in for a burger and called Rose over to tell her he liked the way she walked. It’s interesting he noticed that about her: she has a very specific walk, a cross between a swaggering docker and a ballerina, with feet turned out, very purposeful, not traditionally feminine, not trying to be all slinky and seductive. He liked her walk for being strong and militant. I’m very jealous that Beefheart noticed her. It was the talk of the club for the rest of the evening.

I had my own ‘Beefheart Moment’ a couple of years later. I was in a cafe in Portobello Road and noticed Captain Beefheart was sitting across the room. When he left, he passed my table and to my astonishment stopped and said, ‘I love your hat.’ I was wearing a giant shocking pink silk beret with white polka dots on it that my mum had made for me. It had a fat pink stalk sticking out of the top. I looked back at him with a very serious expression and said, ‘I love your music.’ He looked surprised, he wasn’t a very well-known musician, not the sort who got recognised. He nodded and left.

The bosses at Dingwalls aren’t like normal bosses. One’s called Dave ‘Boss’ Goodman, he’s a big cuddly guy who used to look after the group the Pink Fairies. Russell Hunter, who was their drummer, runs the bar. They’re both cheeky and irreverent most of the time but occasionally they take their jobs seriously and get strict with us, which is quite funny. I’ve got a crush on Russell – I like his soft voice – but he’s not interested in me. Once he asked me to go upstairs with him to the little flat above Dingwalls to collect some empty crates. Everyone jeered as we walked out because the flat is known as a bit of a shag pad. When we got up there he pulled me down onto the waterbed, and started to kiss me. I was so overwhelmed when he put his hand between my legs that I started to tremble. He stopped and said we should go back downstairs. We didn’t collect the crates, and he never made another move.

A strange twisted little man who collects the glasses at Dingwalls – he isn’t paid, he just comes early and they let him stay because he works for nothing – has developed an obsession with me. It was annoying at first but now it’s got out of hand. He calls me ‘Tresses’ because of my long wavy hair – which is actually a perm I had done at Molton Brown in South Molton Street, copying Maria Schneider in
Last Tango in Paris
. He has long black oily hair and bulging eyes and talks like Uriah Heep, all long-drawn-out vowels and whiny intonation, whilst rubbing his hands together. He wears tight black trousers and red scarves tied to his wrist, a cross between Max Wall and a demonic Morris dancer. He starts coming to my flat when I’m not working and waiting outside the front door all day. I don’t want to be intimidated by him, but I don’t fancy going out whilst he’s there. He pushes notes under the door, written in this flowery, mediaeval script. The other day he dropped some scented soap through the letter-box with a note saying, ‘Dear Tresses, Every time you use this, you will be rubbing me all over your body.’ I chucked it in the bin. I ignore him. I never look at him or speak to him and change my phone number. It’s the only way to deal with an obsessive.

Growing out my ‘Maria Schneider’ perm. Muslin top from Kensington Market. Waistcoat homemade by me. Boots, Terry de Havilland. 1973

Working at night brings you into contact with some strange people and puts you in some scary situations. One night I was walking over the little bridge in Chalk Farm Road, just before the left turn into Dingwalls, when I thought I caught a flicker of something ‘not quite right’ out of the corner of my eye. Foolishly, I ignored it. As soon as I turned into the cobbled yard behind Dingwalls, I found myself on the ground. It happened that quickly. Two boys were on top of me clawing and scrabbling at my crotch, trying to tear my tights off. I screamed and fought back but I wasn’t strong enough to fight two of them. Then luckily for me, a big white car turned into the yard; it was Russell, the bar manager. I shouted out to him, he stopped and the two boys ran off. Russell told me later he nearly didn’t stop, he thought it was just a bunch of kids mucking about. He called the police and they came and interviewed me. One of them said, ‘Well what do you expect, going round dressed like that?’ I was wearing a denim skirt, denim jacket and stripy Biba tights. They didn’t follow it up.

The longer I work at Dingwalls, the harder it is to get the energy to do it. At first I was very keen and interested and wanted to make a good impression, but after six months of night work, I’m tired all the time and stroppy to the customers. I’m taking speed every night and missing out on life by sleeping all day. I’m getting nothing done except kissing lots of boys. One night when I arrive for work, the bosses call me into the office and sack me. They sack nearly everyone that night, even Rose who’s a brilliant waitress. Not only have I been sacked, I’ve got nowhere to live. I’ve fallen out with the girls I share a flat with in Bounds Green. It happened when the bog broke. I asked them to chuck a bucket of water down it after they’d been, especially if they’d thrown a tampon in there. I’m not that fastidious about cleanliness but it was beginning to stink. They were furious with me for suggesting such a thing, accused me of not being a feminist and being revolted by natural womanly functions. (It’s become quite difficult nowadays to disagree with other women without being called anti-feminist.) Anyway, it’s all turned nasty so I’m going to move out.

Now I’m homeless, with no future, and not even a barmaid at Dingwalls.

19 22 DAVIS ROAD

1973

Everyone knows how to get a squat: you go along to an empty house at night, break in, change the locks and it’s yours. Sue, who used to work with me behind the bar at Dingwalls, tells me there’s a house next door to hers in Acton with an empty flat upstairs. Me and Alan Drake (my friend from Southgate who I went to the Bowie gigs with) set off one night armed with a screwdriver, torch, hammer, candles and new lock, in a plastic bag. Mum says, ‘Be careful, dear,’ as she waves us off. Alan breaks the front door open, I unscrew the old lock and put the new one in and that’s it. We go up the wooden stairs, no carpet – that’s good – and look around. The walls are painted olive green, the main room has flowery William Morris-style wallpaper. We spend the night tucked up in our sleeping bags, chatting away excitedly. Later we’ll get someone to jam the electricity meter with a pin so we have free electricity. Everyone does that.

Two little old ladies live in the flat below us. Very sweet old ladies. We hear them calling out, ‘Hello? Hello? Who’s there?’ in their wobbly voices. They must be terrified, hearing people break in and clump about upstairs late at night. Even though we have separate front doors, it must be disconcerting. We’re surprised they don’t call the police. Alan and I go down and talk to them, we explain that we’re moving in upstairs and everything’s fine. The old ladies look at us with dread, like they’re in our hands and if they’re going to die tonight, so be it.

We make an absolute racket in that flat. We play music all day and night. The scariest-looking people come and go at all hours. One night Long John Baldry, an old blues singer who’s had a few hits, smashes the front door down because he’s fallen for Alan. Another time someone throws a brick through my bedroom window – luckily no one is in the room – we think it must be a disgruntled cabbie because we often get black cabs home from gigs, ask them to stop in the street parallel to ours, jump out, then leg it down a tiny alleyway into our road. We’ve heard that cabbies aren’t allowed to leave their cabs, they have their money in there, so they can’t follow us. Obviously one of them’s hunted us down and found out where we live. It won’t have been difficult, we stand out a mile.

For most meals, Alan and I eat Kellogg’s cornflakes with the occasional KitKat or Mars Bar thrown in for a treat. We never eat proper food. I’m perfectly happy with a bowl of cereal for every meal (
still am
). We’re thin and spotty with pale grey skin.