“Obviously”—Saint had jumped headfirst into a lake of delusion and seemed to be taking his bandmates with him—“we’ll open with ‘Fuck the Man, Fuck the System.’”
“Actually,” said MagiMix, “this might wind up online, and parents from my school might see it, so I’d rather like to limit the number of f-bombs if at all possible.”
Rik Jism coughed into his hand in a way that sounded a lot likePussy.
“Could you change it? To perhaps ‘Eff the Man, Eff the System,’” suggested MagiMix.
I privately bet myself that Saint would tell him radio edits were for sellouts.
“Radio edits are for sellouts,” Saint told him.
Rik Jism patted Saint on the back. “Saint, mate, it’s not selling out if you’re not being paid.”
“How about ‘Shit in Thatcher’s Mouth’?” Saint tried.
“Notsupertopical,” pointed out Rik Jism. “And if Teacher Boy here has a problem withfuck, he probably also has a problem withshit.”
“‘Wanking to Picasso’?”
MagiMix gave a thoughtful nod. “Yeah, we can do ‘Wanking.’”
Saint smiled. “‘Paradise in a Nun’s Gash’?”
“Quite a lot of religious students.” MagiMix sounded very apologetic. “Might be hard to explain.”
“‘Come on Eileen.’”
“No!” That time thenohad come from Rik and Mix simultaneously.
I shouldn’t have been getting involved, especially because this was a hypothetical list for a set that wasn’t going to happen, but I also couldn’t help myself. “What’s wrong with ‘Come on Eileen’? It’s a disco classic, isn’t it?”
“You’re thinking of a different ‘Come on Eileen.’” Rik Jism’s voice had a note of warning in it.
“Fucking Dexys stole the title from us,” explained Saint.
MagiMix folded his leather-jacketed arms over his otherwise exposed nipples. “With a time machine,” he added, “because that’s the only way they could have released their song in 1982 when you didn’t write the Sputum version until 1987.”
Saint sneered. “That Kevin Rowland’s a tricky bastard.”
Before they could drift any further down memory lane, I cut them off. “I’m going to say this one last time. There is no gig. Youare not playing. Rancid Sputum will not be opening for Odile or foranybody.”
Saint finally heard me. And he didn’t like what he heard. “Hold on. This is my fucking festival.”
I’d really hoped telling him to fuck off once would be enough. Then again, Rik Jism and MagiMix had hoped that too. “It’s CRAPP’s festival. The money to set it up came from your dad and other doners; the money it’s making belongs to the charity and not to you. You don’t have any authority here, Saint.”
“Hey,” Saint protested, “I’m not into institutional power.”
I tried to adopt an assertive posture. Then realised I looked like a wanker and stopped. “Good. Then this situation shouldn’t be a problem for you.” Having made my point, I glanced at Jism and MagiMix. “Richard, Michael, sorry you had a wasted trip.”
“You could’ve told us before we got into the set list,” complained Rik Jism.
“I think he sort of did,” said MagiMix.
Rik Jism, who, for an accountant, seemed to have a worryingly poor eye for detail, considered this. “Okay, yeah I suppose he might. Besides”—he glared at Saint—“it wouldn’t be the first time he’d got us invested in something that never happened.”
“Oh my God,” said Saint in the aggrieved tones of somebody who was definitely in the wrong but would never admit it, “you cannotstill be angry about that.”
“I hitchhiked,” said Rik Jism, “from Kettering to fuckingPrague.”
