‘My first one’s next month. If I pass that, I’ll have the joy of a recall in May. Slap-bang during my exams.’
‘What are your chances?’ asks Lawrence.
‘A thousand applicants for fourteen places, give or take. Then again, what were Elf’s chances of getting a record contract?’
Steam tumbles upwards from the spout of a coffee pot.
‘Just goes to show,’ says Imogen. ‘Aim for the sky.’
The clock in the hallway gongs three times.
Elf finishes her coffee. ‘I’d better hit the road.’
‘Won’t you cancel your Cousins spot tonight?’ Bea asks. ‘With Bruce being too ill to sing, presumably?’
Elf has been clinging to the hope that by not cancelling the gig Bruce might reappear and the last nine days be erased. Now the bill for her self-delusion is due. ‘I’ll play a solo set.’
‘Surely Bruce won’t let you go traipsing round Soho alone in the middle of the night?’ asks her father.
‘I’ve lived there a year without any trouble, Dad.’
‘Why don’t I go along?’ asks Bea. ‘As Elf’s bodyguard.’
‘Not funny,’ says their mother, to Elf’s relief. ‘Tomorrow’s school. Having one daughter cavorting in Soho is bad enough.’
‘Why don’t we go, darling?’ Lawrence asks Imogen. ‘I’ve heard so much about the Cousins folk-club.’
‘You have a long drive to Malvern tomorrow,’ says Elf. ‘Besides, a Cousins gig is like a home game. My friends’ll be there.’
Three months ago, Elf and Bruce dashed along the platform at Richmond station, her heart pumping, legs aching, breath rasping, beneath platform lamps haloed by mist. ‘JESUS SAVES,’ promised a poster. The scent of chestnuts from an oil-drum roaster infused the twilight. A Salvation Army band was playing ‘While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night’. Bruce’s stride was longer so he reached the last carriage well ahead of Elf and jumped aboard. ‘Stand clear of the doors,’ shouted the station-master. ‘Stand clear – of – the doors!’ Elf was sure she was doomed to miss the train, but Bruce grappled her aboard at the last possible moment and they tumbled onto a seat, joyful and gasping. ‘I thought,’ said Elf, ‘you’d left me behind.’
‘You’re kidding.’ Bruce planted a kiss on her forehead. ‘Career suicide.’ Elf nestled her head under his chin, so her ear was over his heart. She breathed in the scent of his suede jacket and the ghost of his after-shave. He stroked her collarbone with his calloused fingertips. ‘Hello, girlfriend,’ he murmured, and Elf’s nerves went zzzzzzt. Take a photo of this, a line came to Elf, take a photo of this with your Polaroid eyes … and she thought that even if she lived to be a hundred, she would never feel quite as glad to be alive as she was right then. Not quite.
Three months later, Elf stands on the same platform at Richmond station that she and Bruce dashed along. There is no hurry tonight. There are delays on the District Line due to an ‘incident on the track’ at Hammersmith: London Underground’s favoured euphemism for a suicide. Sunday evening pools in London’s gardens, seeps through cracks and darkens streets. Nowhere is dry in West London tonight, and nothing is warm. The poster promising ‘JESUS SAVES’ is peeling and scabby. She’ll have less time than she planned to run through her old solo set list. The Cousins crowd will see an under-rehearsed Elf Holloway play a duff set and conclude that when Bruce Fletcher left he took the magic with him. They’re bound to know by now – I’m the jilted Miss Havisham of the folk scene. Elf looks into the dark window of a closed tea-room. Her reflection scowls back. She has never been the good-looking Holloway sister. Imogen’s pretty in a wholesome, Christian way. Bea’s status as the family beauty has gone unchallenged since infancy. Elf, relatives agree, takes after her father. Meaning I bring to mind a pudgy middle-aged bank manager. Not long ago in a club toilet Elf overheard a woman say, ‘“Elf Holloway”? “Goblin Holloway”, more like.’
Elf’s mum told her, ‘Make the most of your hair, darling – it’s your best asset.’ It’s blonde and long. Bruce used to like burying his face in it. He complimented her body parts individually, but never her whole self. Or he’d say, ‘You look nice today,’ as if there were days when I looked like a dog. Elf always told herself that her talent as a folk singer would outweigh the fact she doesn’t look like Joan Baez or Wanda Virtue. Talent, she hoped, would bring forth the swan from the ugly duckling. Bruce’s attentions made her believe that this was happening, but now he’s gone … I look at myself and I think, ‘How forgettable’. Her reflection asks, ‘What if you’re just not as good as you think are?’
A one-clawed pigeon hops about on the track.
A fat rat a foot away pays it no attention.
There’s a phone box up by the ticket barriers. Elf could call Andy at Les Cousins and plead laryngitis. It won’t be hard to find a replacement for a Sunday-evening slot. Sandy Denny might be in, or Davy Graham, or Roy Harper. Several regulars have an album out – a whole LP, not just an EP. Elf could just go home to her flat, curl up under her blanket and …
What? Sob yourself to sleep? Again? Do nothing until the last of the Wanda Virtue money is gone, then crawl back to Mum and Dad, penniless and career-less, contract-less? If I don’t show up at Les Cousins tonight, Bruce wins. The doubters will win. ‘Without Bruce propping her up, she’s just an amateur who got lucky with one song – like, once.’ Mum will be proven right. ‘If you’d bothered to plan for your future like Immy, you’d have a Lawrence of your own by now, too.’
Bugger that, thinks Elf.
Les Cousins is named after a French film, but everyone Elf knows pronounces it ‘Lez Cuzzins’ or just ‘Cousins’. Under its surreptitious sign, the narrow door is sandwiched between the Italian restaurant at 49 Greek Street and the wireless-repair shop next door. Elf descends the steep steps, glancing at the posters of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, apostles of the folk revival. The fug of chatter, nicotine and hash gets thicker. Waiting at the bottom is Nobby, an ex-fusilier who collects the entrance fee and assists the occasional drunk back upstairs. He greets Elf with an ‘Evenin’ love. Parky out.’
‘Evening, Nobby.’ Elf resists an urge to blurt out, ‘Is Bruce here?’ As long as she doesn’t ask, it’s possible he’s shown up to apologise and resurrect the duo. Maybe he’s onstage, setting up …
Andy sees her and waves from his corner bar where he serves Coke, tea and coffee. No alcohol licence means no closing time which means all-night shows. Every folk singer of note plays at Cousins, and Andy’s wall of fame boasts Lonnie Donegan from the club’s skiffle days, the Vipers, blues émigré Alexis Korner, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, Donovan pointing to the This Machine Kills inscription on his guitar, Joan Baez and the dead-too-young Richard Fariña, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan himself. Elf saw him four years ago play a new song called ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ on this very stage, under the cartwheel and fishing nets, where a golden Australian named Bruce Fletcher is not waiting for her …