Getting Better
I’d seen Corin’s band before so I was a bit worried
about that embarrassment of when you’re a friend
but you secretly think they’re, you know, basically, but
it wasn’t like I was busy and Tom assured me that
they were much better now. They were appearing at
the Trades Club, yeah? Respectable venue or what?
Bomb Disneyland had been there only the month
before, and The Farm before they were famous.
Anyway he was a mate. I owed it to him. He came
and saw me do my poetry once (though only once).
And then there was the question of the guy’s marrow
cancer. He wouldn’t be doing a million more gigs.
So in the event it was an OK event. I mean, OK
on the side of the band. They’d re-formed and got
better by a bit which isn’t saying much but you know
word was round about Corin not being around
et cetera so people wanted to be nice to him
so everyone was more more and dancing
and clapping and cheering like they were shit hot,
and when you forgot you were only cheering for
Corin and started just cheering full stop, you could
really get into it and have a great time and OK,
you could see him up there buzzing off those cheers
all glowing from inside, and you felt good about that.
Then after the gig we stayed and he was still glowing,
exhausted but still glowing, and he was like how
the band had really got it together now and how
his latest songs were the best he’d ever written
but he’d got to get down to a studio again and record
till later that night back at his house drinking
with Tom and Ruth and Jody he started going
off on one, all this how much talent he had and
yet he was going to kick it and I know what you mean but
I mean, I go a long way out of my way to avoid
these big soap-emotion situations and, let’s face it,
I guess I’d be as embarrassing if it was me snuffing it.
So we’re all this comfort talk like you have to, and he’s all
like it’s us have fucked up his life, you know and when
it started like that Tom thought maybe the best way out
was suggesting like another final gig. The group of us
booked The Lime Tree for two weeks after, made
some fliers, found a bassist one more time. It was
like we knew we were setting him up to fail: less
people, all less into it - like, they’d done their bit -
and Corin pushing himself too much to do it. Next
morning he was in hospital again. He begged me to send
his old tapes off so I did. When they came back he said
nothing at all, just put them around his bed.
Page(s) 34-35
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