'Were you and he lovers. And if you were then say that you were. On a groundsheet under canvas. With your tent-flap. Open wide.'
Twenty five pages of classic Coe prose. The horrors of The Herbert Estate and the surrounding vicinity, where William lives. A long monologue that is a better education than many entire creative writing courses for aspiring fiction writers. Read it. Break it down. He's a master. Even at this formative stage.
Then a band meeting at The White Goat with the utterly hopeless Alaska Factory who are completely at a loss to find their way out of the creative and commercial cul de sac they find themselves in. They try to persuade William, who plays keyboards, to stand up onstage during gigs to enhance their stage presence. He is resolute that he will not. They bicker. They have no spark. The only thing they seem to have in common is despair.
William finds consolation in going to the bar and chatting with, and attempting to chat up Karla the new barmaid from Mull who he seems much better suited to than with the abstracted and hopeless Madeleine.
There is another cut to the two of them struggling to make any connection of any emotional kind in an evening date at a Hungarian Restaurant where William spends most of the evening trying to work up the courage to giving her a properly amorous and lasting good night kiss at the end of the evening. They are plainly incompatible. As so many relationships are at that age. For better or worse we are back to Morrissey in terms of our soundtrack. The patron saint of such ill begotten teenage and early twenties matches.
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