Abracadabra

Abracadabra by Chris Green

I have just pulled into the DIY superstore car park when I catch a snatch of Abracadabra on the new radio station I have found. Blitz plays nothing but rock, which is fine, as none of the other stations will touch it. I have not heard the Steve Miller Band recently and, while Abracadabra may not be their finest effort, it’s still a treat to hear. Far better than the mind-numbing pap you get elsewhere on FM. Unfortunately, steel impedes the FM radio signal and B and Q is a steel-framed structure, so as I get near the building, the radio begins to tune out. I make a mental note to play Abracadabra when I get home, loudly. But, the tune is in my head now. I can’t get rid of the infectious Abracadabra chorus.

As if by magic, there she is. She is in the same aisle as me, looking at the selection of specialist paints. She looks divine in her Sticky Fingers T-shirt. And what cool sleeve tattoos! She smiles at me. Her smile is Stairway to Heaven. I smile back. Mine is more November Rain. I am conscious that I haven’t shaved for days. Taking me further by surprise, she comes right up to me. She tells me she recognises me.

‘I saw you unloading your white van in Serendipity Street yesterday,’ she says. ‘I’ve just moved in across the road. I tried to attract your attention, but you seemed preoccupied.’

‘Sorry,’ I say, trying to recall how I could have been too busy to notice this vision of grace and loveliness.

‘No worries,’ she says. ‘We have met now. I’m Ella Vallée, by the way.’

‘Ella Vallée. That’s a nice name,’ I say, avoiding the temptation to say, ‘I bet you are.’

‘My father was French,’ she adds, by way of explanation.

‘I’m Andy,’ I say. ‘I love France. I regularly take the van over to Calais.’

‘My name was Ella Crews,’ she says. ‘But I changed it back when my divorce came through.’

‘Oh,’ I say.

Cool. Attractive. Divorced. Flirty. This is promising.

‘I expect you are busy, but I was wondering if you might pop round later on,’ she says. ‘I’ve got something I would like you to take a look at.’

And she’s inviting me round. It gets better and better. This is exactly what I need. I’ve been at a loose end since Mandy moved her things out last month.

But let’s not jump the gun. If something seems too good to be true, it usually is. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Best to play it cool.

‘I’ve got some things to finish up first,’ I say. ‘But I could swing by later, say about six.’

‘Here’s my number,’ she says. ‘In case you get lost.’

…..……………………..………………….

When Sergeant Tom Crews returns home from his extended tour of duty in Afghanistan, he finds Ella has gone. She has taken all her things, and without them, the first-floor flat looks empty. She has left no note or any clues about where she might be, just a pile of bills and junk mail on the mat in the hallway. Certainly, she has talked about leaving before. But this was, he thought, just talk. They had their differences. There was no doubt about that. Tom did not feel it was right for the wife of a serving army NCO to run around seeing bands like Foo Fighters and Rage Against The Machine, and probably taking all manner of illegal substances while he was fighting the Taliban in Helmand Province. Ella had laughed this off, saying that he shouldn’t have been fighting with the Taliban. The army was there as a peace-keeping force. And, they had clashed over Ella’s tattoos. While it was not unusual for army wives to have their husband’s names tattooed on their arm, or a rose or something like that on their ankle, some of Ella’s tattoos were quite explicit. The snake crawling up her thigh, for instance, and the butterfly cleavage tattoo. What impression must this give his colleagues about their marriage?

But, still, six years is a long time. You have to expect a few ups and downs. Understandably, his feelings about Ella have tended to fluctuate. One day he would feel lucky to have such an attractive wife to go home to and the next, in a jealous rage over something he had found out, he might want to knock the living daylights out of her. But, was it too late to save their marriage, anyway? Might they actually be divorced? Tom has a vague recollection that, after he had seen a post of her strutting her stuff at an Eagles of Death Metal gig on Facebook, he may have signed a communication of some sort that came through the post over there in Helmand relating to matrimonial affairs, but he is not sure what it was exactly. Lately, everything seems to be a bit of a blur. With the Taliban insurgency in the Gereshk District at its height, he has hardly had time to think. Under the circumstances, he was lucky to even get leave. It was only because he had begun to have blackouts that they had let him go.

…..……………………..………………….

Ella may have just moved into the Serendipity Street apartment, but, unless the previous tenants also had a taste for rock, she seems to have quickly made the place her own. Or perhaps she has moved in with someone else, someone who had already made their mark. That’s a lingering possibility. The Jimi Hendrix mural running the length of the hallway looks quite an accomplished work. It’s also hard to imagine that the Pearl Jam posters in the front room would have been framed so professionally and just left on the walls when the last tenants moved out. I’m hoping that there isn’t a fellow on the scene.

‘Did you paint the walls purple and black,’ I ask when we get to the bedroom. ‘They look awesome with the yellow Fender hanging there.’

‘It’s not a real Stratocaster,’ says Ella. ‘It’s a cheap Chinese import.’

‘Even so, I bet it sounds as good as it looks,’ I say, in a final attempt to make sure no bloke is going to suddenly crawl out of the woodwork.

‘I’m getting better. I can play the intro to Led Zeppelin’s Heartbreaker,’ she hollers, over the Guns N’Roses riff that is pounding the Kef speakers. ‘Could you help me off with these boots, Andy?’

She lies back on the low wooden bed, amidst the cornucopia of throws and cushions. Getting the long black boots off is a doddle, compared to the tight ice-blue jeans. They fit her like a second skin. How long must it take her to get into them? And, my sweet Lord! Where does that snake tattoo end up?

…..……………………..………………….

Tom Crews has no idea where Ella might have gone. She has no family nearby, in fact, he has never met her parents. He hasn’t had much to do with her friends and they haven’t had much to do with him. He has always thought of them as common and they have always thought of him as dull, far too straight to be with Ella. Their incompatibility has come up time and time again in their arguments.

After the earlier episode with the photos, Tom deactivated his Facebook account but now, in an attempt to find out what is going on, he re-activates it. To his alarm, he finds that Ella is no longer on Facebook. Or if she is she is, she is no longer using her name, or her maiden name, Ella Vallée. He searches the flat and manages to find a mobile number for her friend, Lola on a scrap of paper. He is not sure which one Lola is, but he thinks she might be the one who comes around in the studded leather jacket, the one that talks like Eliza Doolittle and is always chewing gum. Lola tells him, not at all convincingly he feels, that she hasn’t heard from Ella in a long time. Roxy, the one with the green hair, who he tracks down to Nail It is more straightforward. She just tells him to sling his hook.

In what can best be seen as a desperate measure, Tom goes into town and sits on a bench outside Pricks Tattoo Parlour in the High Street in the hope that Ella might show up there. It is a long shot, but he does not feel he can stay in the empty flat. When Mikey, an old friend of his, comes up to him and asks him what he is doing there, he realises that he is acting irrationally and they go off to The Prince of Wales for a pint.

‘I bumped into Ella last week,’ Mikey says, once they have exhausted their reminiscences about the old days back in Toker’s End. ‘She was coming out of R3hab.’

‘What?’ says Tom, taken aback. ‘I didn’t. uh. I know she likes to smoke the odd spliff, but I didn’t realise she had a …… uh problem.’

‘Of course, mucker. You’ve been away, haven’t you?’ laughs Mikey. ‘R3hab’s a new club. R 3 H A B. Opened last year in the old fire station. Ella stumbled out. About 2 am, I think it was. I had been to Cloud Nine. That’s a club too, by the way. Anyway, Ella was with some friends, Lola, I think the one’s called. And that one with the green hair. Oh! And I suppose I shouldn’t tell you this, but they went off with some rough-looking blokes. It might have been innocent, of course.’

‘Innocent? Do you think so? At 2 am?’

…..……………………..………………….

The Stieg Miller Band, a Swedish tribute act is playing at R3hab and Ella has got us tickets. I wouldn’t normally go to see tribute bands, nor I suspect would Ella, authenticity being important to us rockers. But, she explains that Mojo describes the Stieg Miller Band as the real deal. Some of the band members have played with Armageddon and Lowrider, two top Swedish rock bands. I have not heard of either band. The only acts coming out of Sweden that I have heard of are Abba and Sigur Rós. Come to think of it, Sigur Rós might be from Iceland. Perhaps I am a few years behind with my reading of music periodicals. I already know what I like and if Stieg Miller sounds anything like Steve Miller I guess that is enough to go on. I still have the Abracadabra earworm.

I wouldn’t normally go to R3hab either. These places have a reputation for fights, or at least that is what Mandy and her friends used to say. But, Ella tells me there is nothing to worry about. Her powers of persuasion are such that I feel I have little choice in the matter anyway. She even kits me out with some new clothes for the occasion. From the designer shop I’ve never had the nerve to go in. I have never had a real biker jacket before. It’s very stylish, and I’m sure that the super spray jeans will get more comfortable as the night wears on.

…..……………………..………………….

‘Let’s get our arses down there,’ Tom Crews says, after the fourth pint.

‘What are you on about?’ Mikey says. ‘Where are we going to get our arses down to?’

‘R3hab.’

‘R3hab doesn’t open until around 10 pm, mucker. And I expect they have a dress code. I mean, look at you. You’re wearing …….. a double-breasted suit. They’re not going to let you in looking like that. When was the last time you saw someone wearing a double-breasted suit? And isn’t that a regimental tie? I mean, come on, man!’

‘You don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go, do you?’ says Tom.

‘Well. It is a mad idea,’ says Mikey. ‘But if you are going to go you’ll need to go home and change.’

…..……………………..………………….

The band plays Abracadabra over and over. It sounds pretty good, but why don’t they play another Steve Miller number? The Joker or Fly Like An Eagle, maybe. A man wearing an orange apron ambles towards me, pushing a trolley loaded with rolls of wallpaper. He does not look like he will know. Wait! What is he doing here? Where has he come from? ………… He goes up to the girl in the Sticky Fingers T-shirt, who is looking at the specialist paints.

‘Do you need any help?’ he asks, with a convivial smile.

‘Have you got acrylic paints in purple and black?’ the girl asks. ‘I can only see pale colours here.’

Oh no! It has happened again. I’m still in B and Q. I must have had another of my flights of fancy. I only came out to buy replacement bits for my Black and Decker.

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