Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [77]
The epic symphony thundered from the speakers and into his bones. Jimmy stamped the pedal to the floor and straddled the white lines, veering cars left and right as they flashed and blared in near-miss panic. At a hundred he passed a line of traffic and went clean through a red light.
On a quieter road he slowed and practised changing down gears to accelerate. The engine jolted on its fittings when he changed from fourth to second on racing pistons. People who saw the erratic and swerving car thought the driver insane or an invention gone wrong.
But Jimmy drove on. He imagined it was really his car and put on the seat belt and drove slowly through estates and waited in queues at lights and pulled smoothly away, calmed now by the slower movements of the concerto.
Then again he thought of him. Jimmy hammered the pistons until they were screaming in their chambers. He wound a country lane and slid the back end out on the corners. He was tiny in his tweed and oversize car. The blind turns came again and again until a bridge appeared before him as the perfect ramp. A road running out to blue.
Jimmy pressed the pedal and flew. The wheels left the road and span through the sky.
Is this how it feels to be taken to heaven? he wondered. Like his mother, to die before your children and be lifted into the clouds by angels.
Missing Person
BILLY K, COME HOME
In an exclusive, unedited, one-off interview with Music Matters journalist Damien Flynn the Notorious drummer Ronnie Strong pulls no punches on what he thinks of his missing ‘brother’ Billy K, and what possible fate has fallen upon the singer who disappeared from the face of the earth on a Cornish cliff top.
MM – Thanks, Ronnie, for speaking to us under such difficult circumstances. I imagine, like the rest of us here at Music Matters, you’re pretty cut up right now.
RS – That’s a fucking understatement. And what’s with the ‘rest of us’ bullshit? None of you had a fucking clue where he was coming from. I was there when he was born, when he crashed the stage and hijacked the band.
MM – Sorry, Ronnie. No one’s trying to steal your grief, it’s just that many fans felt they became close to Billy K through the music. It was, it still is, a profound shock to think he is missing.
RS – Tell me about it. He’s me brother, my kid brother. Out on his own, or worse. I don’t even want to think that.
MM – Did anyone know him better than you?
RS – Maybe not in the beginning, after the success of Paraphernalia and the circus that came with it, we were tight, you know, together in all that fucking madness. I mean yeah, we pissed about, got up to a few tricks, what kids wouldn’t, suddenly up in front of a few thousand screaming fans, pockets stuffed with cash. Just a few months before the big time we were sharing a bedsit, well, a fucking squat really, Billy cupping his hands around a candle and thawing his fingers so he could play his guitar properly.
MM – Was it the lure of fame that drove Billy K, or simply his love of music, of composing, playing and performing?
RS – Listen. Before I answer any more of your questions, and I ain’t no professor of English I admit, but I want to know why you’re speaking about him in the past, like he’s finished, dead and buried. We know fuck all at the moment, apart from the fact he’s gone AWOL.
MM – Apologies again, Ronnie. You’re right, I should rephrase that last question with a more optimistic tense: Is it the lure of fame that drives Billy K, or simply his