Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail! (26 page)

“That equipment looks expensive.”

“It's the best there is,” said the Assassin confidently. “Megawatt upon megawatt, my son. Enough sound to shake the foundations of society to bits! Ho, ho, ho!”

“Will Malcolm be here with the money?” asked Mo.

“You won't need money if this works,” said the Assassin.

“I haven't had any wages in months.” Mo set a wary foot on the gangplank.

“There are bigger things at stake,” said the last of the Musician-Assassins. “More important things.”

“That's what they always seem to wind up saying.”

The white schooner rocked in the water. The Assassin began to hurry about the decks, checking the sound system, following cables, adjusting mikes.

“Power,” he said. “Power.”

“Wages,” said Mo. “Wages.”

But he was already becoming infected. He could feel it in his veins.

“Hurry up, bishop.” Miss Brunner was being dragged along by four of Frank's dogs. She had her Remington under her arm.

Frank was in the lead with six more dogs. The bishop, with two, rolled in the rear. It was dawn and Goldhawk Road was deserted apart from some red, white and blue bunting.

“If you ask me” said Mitzi catching up with her dad, “he's using all this for his own mad ends. All we wanted was a bit of publicity. Are you sure this is 1977?”

“Miss Brunner is never wrong about things like that. She's an expert on the Past. That's why I trust her.” Bishop Beesley set his mitre straight on his head with an expert prod of his crook. “She stands for all the decent values.” He wheezed a little. “You haven't got a Tootsie Roll on you, or anything I suppose?”

They had reached Shepherds Bush. On the green people were beginning to set up marquees and stalls. Pictures of QEII were everywhere.

Miss Brunner paused, hauling at the leads. “This could have achieved what the Festival of Britain was meant to achieve. A restoration of confidence.”

“In what?” asked Mitzi innocently.

“Don't be cynical, dear.”

They took the road to Hammersmith.

“It's just your interpretation I'm beginning to worry about,” said Mitzi.

Everyone was on board. Nobody seemed absolutely certain why they were here. The assassin was checking his rocket launchers and grenade-throwers, which lined the rails of the main deck.

“Hello, Sid,” said Lemmy. “You're not looking well.”

Sid plucked at his bass. John cast a suspicious eye about the schooner. “Ever get the feeling you're being trapped?”

“Used,” said Muggy with relish, “in a game of which we have no understanding.”

Automatically Mo was tuning up. “Has anybody seen Harrison?” He thought he'd spotted a flutter of moleskin on the yardarm.

The schooner was full of musicians now, most of them dead.

“Raise the anchor!” cried the Assassin.

The band faltered for a moment, astonished at its own magnificent volume. The sound swelled and swelled, drowning the noise of the rocket launchers as Jerry took out first the bridge and then the White Tower. Stones crumbled. The whole embankment was coming down. Hundreds of sightseers were falling into the water, clutching at their ears.

Overhead, police helicopters developed metal fatigue and dropped like wounded bees.

On board the schooner everyone was cheering up no end.

Mrs Cornelius lifted her frock and began a knees up. “This is a bit o' fun, innit?”

Soon everyone was pogoing.

The Assassin ran from launcher to launcher, from thrower to thrower, whispering and giggling to himself. On both sides of the river buildings were exploding and burning.

“No future! No future!” sang Jimi.

London had never seemed brighter.

The schooner gathered speed. Down went Blackfriars Bridge. Down went Fleet Street. Down went the Law Courts. Down went the Savoy Hotel.

It wasn't World War Three, but it was better than nothing.

Miss Brunner, Bishop Beesley and Frank Cornelius had managed to get through the crowds and reach Charing Cross. With the dogs gnashing and leaping, they stood in the middle of Hungerford Bridge, watching the devastation.

The schooner had dropped anchor in the middle of the river and the sound-waves were successfully driving back the variable-geometry Tornados as they attacked in close formation, trying to loose Skyflashes and Sidewinders into the sonic barrier.

“You have to fight fire with fire,” said Miss Brunner. “Come on. We still have a chance of making it to the Festival Hall.”

They hurried on.

Mitzi let them go. She clambered over the railing of the bridge and dropped with a soft splash into the river. Then she struck out for the ship.

Behind her, the dogs had begun to howl.

The water had caught fire by the time she reached the side and was hauled aboard by the Assassin himself. He was glowing with health now. “What's Miss B up to?”

“Festival Hall,” Mitzi wiped a greasy cheek. “They're going to try to broadcast a counter-offensive. Abba. Mike Oldfield. Rick Wakeman. Leonard Cohen. You name it.”

The Assassin became alarmed for a moment “I'll have to boost the power.”

“No future! No future! No future!”

From over on the South Bank the first sounds were getting through.

“They're fighting dirty.” Jerry was shocked. “That's the Eurovision Song Contest as I live and breathe. Look to your powder, Mitzi.”

He gave the National Theatre a broadside.

Concrete blew apart. But the counter-offensive went on.

“We're never going to make it to the Houses of Parliament at this rate,” said the Assassin. “Keep playing.”

It had grown dark. The fires burned everywhere. The volume rose and rose.

The schooner began to rock. Planes and helicopters wheeled overhead, hoping for a loophole in the defences.

“God Save The Queen!” sang the Sex Pistols.

“God Save The Queen!” sang the choir of what was left of St Paul's Cathedral.

Mrs Cornelius leaned to shout into Mitzi's ear. “This is great, innit? Just like ther fuckin' blitz.”

Another broadside took out the National Film Theatre. Celluloid crackled smartly.

The schooner creaked and swayed.

The Assassin had begun to look worried. They were being hit from all sides by Radio 2.

“Suzanne takes you to the kerbside

and she helps you cross the street,

Sits beside you in the restaurant,

tells you what there is to eat

And she combs your hair and cleans your trousers

leads you down to smell the flowers

And fills out all your forms for you

And reads to you for hours …

Yes, she makes a perfect buddy for the blind … “ sang Jerry.

Slowly, through the flames and the smoke, the schooner was making it under the bridge and heading for Vauxhall. There was still a chance.

Malcolm first thought about the film when the group was banned. The idea was if they couldn't be seen playing, that they could be seen in a film. That was probably just after they got thrown off A&M in Spring '77.

Obviously with “God Save the Queen” and the kind of global attraction that the whole episode had, he began to think more seriously about it and he approached Russ Meyer in early Summer '77 and he went out to Hollywood and talked to him …

I think (Meyer) intended it to be a Russ Meyer film using the Sex Pistols, whereas Malcolm obviously intended it to be a Sex Pistols film using Russ Meyer. So there was a basic conflict from the start. He thought it would be the film that would crown his career … Meyer thought Malcolm was a mad Communist anti-American lunatic and he was demanding more money because the thing looked risky. Meyer was very, very angry when it fell through. Kept referring to Malcolm as Hitler. “Sue Hitler's ass” and all this stuff.

—Julien Temple, interview with John May, NME, October 1979

“We've lost a battle, but we haven't lost the War.” Petulantly, Miss Brunner switched off the equipment. Her face was smeared with soot. The dogs lay dead around her, bleeding from the ears.

Through a pair of battered binoculars Frank surveyed the ruins. “They got the palace before they sank.”

“Did they all make it into the airship?”

“I think so.”

Bishop Beesley finished the last of his toasted marshmallows. “They're a lot further forward,” he said. “Aren't they?”

Miss Brunner glared at him.

Smoke from the gutted Houses of Parliament drifted towards them.

“It's a state of emergency all right” said Frank.

“Somebody's got to teach the Sex Pistols a lesson.” Miss Brunner's lips were prim as, with a fastidious toe, she pushed aside a wolfhound.

“They have a lot of power now,” said Bishop Beesley.

She dismissed this. “The secret there, bishop, is that childishly they don't want it. They'll give it up. They don't want it—but we do. Half the time all we have to do is wait.”

“I suppose so. They're not fond of responsibility, these young hooligans.” Bishop Beesley took off his dirty surplice. “It makes you sick.”

Miss Brunner looked with horror at his paisley boxer shorts.

“You weren't breaking any icons,” said Nestor Makhno. “You were just drawing bits of graffiti over them. And helping the establishment make profits. You went about as far as Gilbert and Sullivan.”

It was a somewhat sour evening at the Café Hendrix.

“You have to go solo,” said Marc Bolan. “It's the only way.”

“Don't give me any of your Stirnerist rationalisations.” The old anarchist poured himself another large shot of absinthe.
“The Ego and his Own,
eh?”

“My anarchists were always romantic leaders,” said Jules Verne, who had dropped over from The Mechaniste in the hope of finding his friend Meinhoff.

“Which is why they were never proper anarchists.” Makhno had had this argument before. He turned his back on the Frenchman. “It's all substitutes for religion, when you come down to it. I give up.”

“If you want my opinion, they should never have put a woman in charge.” Saint Paul, as usual, was lost in his own little world.

Having failed to find what he needed at The Jolly Englishman public house, Mo put his disguise back on and went to Kings Cross, heading for The Hotel Dramamine.

He was sure, now that a few things had been settled along the embankment, Jerry would want to explain.

The lady at the door recognised him. “Go up to Room 12, dear,” she said. “There'll be someone there in a minute.”

He didn't tell her what he was really after.

He got to the first landing and went directly to the cage room. This was where Mr Bug had kept his special clients. It was empty apart from a miserable Record Company executive, who whined at him for a moment or two before he left. No information.

Other doors were locked. The ones which yielded showed him nothing he didn't already know. It was obvious, however, that Mr Bug wasn't here.

Room 12 had been prepared for him. He suspected a trap. On the other hand the lady on the waterbed looked as if she could take his mind off his problems. He decided to risk it.

“You don't know where Mr Bug is, I suppose,” he said, as he stripped.

She opened her oriental lips.

“Love me,” she said, “you're so wonderful.”

He flung himself onto the heaving rubber.

The door opened. One of Mr Bug's representatives stood there. He had a wounded Alsatian with him. From beyond the window a car began to hoot.

Mo scrambled out of the bed. As he made for the window he was certain he heard the dog speak. It was better than nothing. He plunged from the window and into Jerry's car. “Let's rock.”

“Monarchy's only a symbol,” said Mr Bug's representative to Mitzi as the car moved slowly through what remained of St James's Park, “but then so are the Sex Pistols.”

Near the pond, groups of homeless civil servants were jollying each other along as they erected temporary shelters, prefabs and tents.

“I don't think anyone meant it to go this far.” Mitzi frowned. “Could you hurry it up a bit? I've got a train to catch.”

“Jerry did. A bit of chaos allows him more freedom of movement.”

“Malcolm has the same idea. Keep 'em fazed.”

Mr Bug's representative placed a rubber hand on her little knee. “Instant gratification” he said. “Where are we going?”

“To rock.”

Mr Bug's representative tapped the chauffeur with his whip. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes, sir.”

The car bumped up the path through the park towards Piccadilly. All the roads around the Palace were ruined.

“It's peaceful now, isn't it?” Mitzi wound down the window. “I love the smell of smoke, don't you?”

“I can't smell a thing in this exoskeleton. My usual senses are cut off, you see.”

“I suppose that's the point of it.”

“It does allow one a certain kind of objectivity.”

“Like being a child?”

“Well, no. Like being an ant, really.”

Mo and Jerry panted on the platform, watching the train as it pulled away.

“I saw him.” Jerry scratched. “Jimi.”

“Or someone like him.” Mo rubbed his nose. “Should we find out where the train's going?”

“He could get off anywhere.”

“You spent too long in that bloody hotel,” said Jerry.

“You could have arrived a couple of minutes earlier.” Mo was bitter.