It was a hot summer’s evening so, item by item, we undressed, ending up naked together, on his bed. Billy putHorsesby Patti Smith on the turntable and it was one of the strangest collections of songs I’d ever heard – raucous and screechy, then suddenly,unexpectedlysoft, melodic and beautiful.
At first I ignored the music. I was too busy revelling in the sensation of Billy’s fingertips running rings around the edges of my nipples. For a moment, because the rhythm changed, and Billy’s finger stopped, I hated Patti Smith with all my heart.
But then something strange took place, something that had never happened to me before. Perhaps the weed was part of it, but mainly I think it really was just the music.
I got lost in sound, that’s the thing. I wasabsorbedby it until everything else around me disappeared. Patti Smith’s melodies, and her lyrics – which were like poetry – were alternately beautiful and nightmarish. For forty-five minutes I just floated there, on that bed, held in Billy’s arms, soaking up an alternate world that the music seemed to be creating inside my head.
When the second side came to an end and the needle lifted clunkily from the vinyl, neither of us were able to speak. For ten or twenty minutes we just lay there together, stunned by whatever had just happened, and in my case shocked that music could even do that. I’d always loved music to dance or to sing along to, but this? This was on a whole different level. It was a revelation.
Finally, Billy gently turned my head so that I was looking up at him and said, ‘Wow! Did you get that? Did you just, like, trip on that album? Cos I swear I went to Planet Patti.’
I nodded and swallowed and tried to think of something coherent to describe how I was feeling, but I couldn’t. Instead, by way of reply, a tear trickled from the corner of my eye. Billy saw it and smiled, then leaned into me and kissed it, and I thought,I love you!And then, you guessed it, we had sex.
There were times, of course, when I hated the music Billy played, but even the bands I couldn’t stand opened up glimpses of different ways to be. And that experience of listening and choosing and asserting my tastes made me feel like I was finally growing up.
Another time, with a huge band of biker friends, Billy took me to the New Forest, camping.
We rode down in a swarm of roaring motorbikes – plus a Ford Transit van – terrifying the sleepy towns we drove through. Once there, we got drunk, smoked more weed (also stolen from his parents) and got lairy around the pool tables of local pubs. Late at night, after a drunken ride back to the campsite, we’d sit around the campfire and someone would inevitably start strumming a guitar. Billy’s friends were older and wiser than mine – they discussed music, art and politics, but without ever being stuck up about it. They talked, just as often, about life, or drugs, or shagging.
I’d lie back in Billy’s arms and listen to the music, and feel so happy. Actually, it was more than happy: I felt as if, for the first time, I was right where I was supposed to be.
I’d notice how Billy’s friends paid attention to him when he spoke, and I could hear how they laughed at his witty one-liners, and these things made me feel proud I was his girl. Everyone wanted to sit next to Billy; everyone wanted totalkto Billy. But at the end of the evening it was little old me who he’d take by the hand and lead to his tent where, without fail, we’d have sex. Sometimes this was discreet, soft, romantic lovemaking, but more often it was carefree, naughty and noisy. In those moments Billy actually seemed to be proud of what we were doing – it was as if hewantedthe others to know. So instead of feeling embarrassed, I’d thinkyeah, suckers, he’s with me! I could hardly believe it was true.
We got back to Margate late one Sunday evening, and Mum, who just loved to be around youngsters and who also had Mondays off, convinced half of them to stay the night. They pitched their tents in our front garden and, while Mum heated oven chips and sausages for everyone, Billy’s friends lit a bonfire.
Then, there, in the middle of the estate, surrounded by grubby tents, she and I sat on the old singed sofa, like some queen from the Middle Ages with her bride-to-be daughter, demanding that the musicians entertain us.
Billy and his friends did just that, with Billy playing the guitar and singing, Siobhan on backing vocals, and boyfriend Jake drumming with sticks on a Tupperware. They all loved the vulgar devil-may-care madness of my mother, and Mum loved their youth and freedom right back. A few neighbours came to complain about the noise, or the tents, or the smoke from the bonfire, but for the most part they ended up joining in the fun. The moment was impossible to resist.
The next morning, once all the bikes had roared off, Mum and I went around the muddy garden with a bin bag, picking up empty beer cans.
‘Now that Billy, darlin’, is a keeper,’ she said. ‘And if you don’t want him I might try my hand myself.’
I laughed. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘He’s great, isn’t he?’
‘He’s better than great,’ Mum said. ‘That boy, mark my words, is gonna be famous.’
‘You think?’ I asked. I was in love with Billy. I thought Billy was amazing. But famous?
‘He’s got star quality,’ Mum said, definitively. ‘Like Trevor Howard. The actor.’
‘Yes, I know who Trevor Howard is, Mum,’ I said.
‘But did I ever tell you, my mum used to know him?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ I said. ‘You did.’ She had told me many times.
‘Well, my point is, you could tell, even back then. Mum always said that the minute you laid eyes on Trevor Howard, you could tell he’d make something of himself. Like your Billy. It’s like an aura some people have around ’em.’
‘An aura,’ I said. ‘Right.’
‘So just make sure you don’t lose him. Cos that Siobhan's got her eye on him, too. Just so’s you know.’
‘She hasn’t,’ I said, emptying a Tennent’s can into the weeds before binning it. ‘She’s got her own boyfriend, Mum. She’s with Jake – the drummer.’
‘You just keep an eye on ’im,’ Mum said. ‘Cos a bloke like that… they don’t crop up every day. And frankly, he’s out of your league. So you’d better be on your best.’
‘Huh!’ I said, hesitating between agreement, amusement and outrage. ‘Well, Billy doesn’t seem to think so, does he?’
