Tell Him Billy Fry Sent You - A scene from 'Blue Lynx' my novel (work in progress)

I like to write in scenes. It's always the connecting narrative that is hard work.   

 Protagonist Manda Bailey is trying to organise her four friends, who are an aspiring rock band, into actually recording an album. 

                                                        ____________________

Chapter 7 - Tell him Billy Fry sent you 

The next day I got the 136 bus to Lewisham, to see Billy Fry at the Garage Studio. It had been good enough for our first single, so why not for an album? Yes it was in a garage, but the studio equipment was reasonably good, or at least Matt and Dibs thought it was, although the building was ramshackle, its acoustics were poor according to Andy. Rick hadn’t said much and I soon found out why. I thought all I had to do was talk nicely to Billy Fry to get round him.

         I was a bit shocked by how he looked, he had always been quite solid and cheerful, but I hadn’t seen him for a few months and he’d lost weight, he looked about twenty years older. I’d never realised he was ill, he probably had been for a while. He coughed as he smoked and I did remember that he’d always had a cough. When he offered me a cigarette, I said no thanks.

Billy Fry told me he was thinking of closing the studio down, he didn’t have the stamina to run the place anymore and probably needed to sell some kit to pay debts. That made me angry when I thought how the guys hadn’t paid him for using the place for band practice, maybe they hadn’t even coughed up for the single. I didn’t ask him in case he expected me to find the money, I just said something vague but sympathetic. We drank instant coffee while he told me about his illness, in a bit more detail than I wanted. He dug out some biscuits, custard creams, and he nattered on about music, telling me he was a jazz saxophonist although he didn’t play anymore because of his lungs. He’d accompanied a lot of bands in the sixties. I asked who and he dropped a few names, rock bands and soul singers as well as jazz. Then he came out with something that encouraged me.

‘Your lot, Blue Lynx, stupid name that, sounds like aftershave! But you know something gal, they’re quite good. They got potential!’

I was amazed. We’d all known Billy was into jazz and I never thought he’d listened to our rock band while we were mucking about in his studio, he wasn’t even there very often, or not when we were. Rick had somehow got hold of a key.

‘We just finished a tour,’ I told Billy. ‘It went all right, Blue Lynx are great live.’

‘That don’t surprise me, gal, there’s talent there. Wish I were twenty years younger, I might come along one night.’

‘Thanks, Billy, that’s great. I’ll tell them you said that.’

‘Don’t do that, gal! You’ll give that Rick Brandon ideas. He already thinks he’s Jeff bloody Beck and he bloody well ain’t, pardon my French!’

               ‘Well, I think they’re great,’ I said and he snorted. ‘Billy, listen! I know you’ve got the experience, you worked with so many great artists. What you think of them is more important than what I think.’

‘Anyways, I didn’t say they’re great,’ he lit a cigarette from his previous stub, ‘what I said were, there’s talent. Dibs is quite something and that guy Andy. He don’t say so much as his bleeding brother, but when he does his ideas are spot on and he understands the music.’

‘What about Matt?’

‘He’s a drummer, what can I say,’ he shrugged. ‘They got their own thing. I know you been going out with him gal, but he’s a bit average. He could improve I expect, but he don’t work hard enough. Drummers need to work hard.’

‘I’m going to finish with Matt anyway,’ I said, not quite sure why I was telling him. Matt always claimed he did work hard.

‘That’d be a shame,’ Billy looked sideways at me, or rather at my chest.

‘Why do you say that?’ I hoped he’d get my defiant tone, I was feeling uncomfortable, on my own here with this old bloke almost leering at me.

‘That band needs you!’ He said, surprising me again. ‘They do!’ He nodded. ‘I’ve watched you gal, they needs you to sort them out.’

I swallowed the creepy feeling and I said, ‘That’s why I’m here Billy. They need you more than me. They’ve actually all agreed, the next thing to do is make an album.’

‘They have, have they.’ It wasn’t a question, I could see him thinking. He was sitting in a tatty armchair, I was perched on a drum stool, but he hauled himself up.

‘Just you stay there, gal, I won’t be a mo,’ he brushed past me, a bit too close, then he disappeared into the tiny back room that was his office. He came back a few minutes later with two bits of paper.

‘Give that to Ricky bloody Blackmore or whoever he thinks he is this week,’ he handed me the first paper, ‘Seeing as how he imagines he’s the band leader.’ I read, astonished. It was a bill for the use of the Garage Studio.

‘They owe you four grand?’ I said.

‘I may have rounded it up a bit,’ he wobbled his hand sideways, ‘That’s interest, you know. You can get them to pay me when the album charts. Or pay my missus if I’ve copped it.’

I bit my lip, feeling guilty.

‘And this one’s for you, gal.’ He gave me the second bit of paper. ‘There’s three studios there. They’d all do you better for recording a decent album than this old dump.’ He tapped the paper with a tobacco-stained finger. ‘I’d start with Mushroom Studios if was you.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll give that to Rick too.’

‘No don’t do that,’ Billy shook his head impatiently, he was staring at me again. ‘I said it’s for you, get it? That Rick’s so full of himself, he’s a bleedin’ twat. He won’t get in the door at Mushroom and you can tell him he won’t get through my door neither, not with that key he half-inched, I changed the bloody lock.’

‘Rick actually stole a key?’ I could believe it but it still made me fume.

‘Not your problem, gal,’ he said, ‘But someone needs to sort that band out and you got the nous for that job. Now you gotta find your gumption, I reckon you got some. Just you put on a pretty frock and go talk to Bernie Coulter at Mushroom. He looks like the most tattiest roadie you ever met but he’s got his head screwed on, like you have. He’s a good producer an’ all, and that’s what your band needs. Talk to Bernie, tell him Billy Fry sent you.’ 

When I left Billy Fry to lock up his studio, I felt a bit sorry for him but I was amazed at what he’d said, that I had nous and gumption and the band needed me. But I didn’t have the gumption to just hand that bill to Rick. The first chance I got, I shoved it in his guitar case under some sheet music and hoped he wouldn’t realise how it got there.