Thursday
‘Well shake it up, baby, now!’
‘Shake it up, baby!!’
‘Twist and shout!’
‘Twissannshout!!’
‘C’mon c’mon c’mon come on, baby, now!’
‘Come on, baby!’
‘Come on and work it on out!’
‘Workitonnaaht!’
In excited unison Helen and Colette dutifully screamed the responses. Two heads, one dark and curly, the other black Irish glossy, bobbed and weaved in time to the thundering beat. On the tiny cluttered stage thin leather-clad youths shook their guitars with mock menace. A gaggle of the most daring girls, their faces white in matt Pan Stik, eyes stark with eyeliner and mascara, mouths open and moist, reached up to touch their heroes who wriggled away. To each side rose banks of amplifiers, barricades between the musicians and their fans; chords powered up to the low curved ceiling, bounced back from the sweaty walls and drove into the audience like missiles.
‘Wanna dance?’ a voice yelled in Helen’s ear. The music was so loud her eardrums had gone numb and her brain rattled, but she could lip-read the offer. At her side Colette was approached by his companion and with a shrug accepted.
It was too dark to identify what the lanky boy wore but that was probably a school tie – the Institute, at a guess. A sixth-former if she were lucky, nipping down like herself to spend his midday break at the Cavern’s cheaper sessions. One hand held a half-full bottle of Coke while the other gestured away towards another aisle, where couples were frenziedly jiggling in time to the overwhelming beat.
‘Yeah, why not?’ She would have preferred a Coke but he was probably as poverty-stricken as she was. A dance, provided she didn’t get too hot, would be marginally less tiring than that steamy crush so close to the stage. To be honest, she couldn’t see what was so marvellous about John Lennon. Everybody knew he was as blind as a bat without his spectacles and his reputation was unreliable. Paul with his angelic face and sweet voice was more to her taste, but he’d been in a foul mood since the first note and wouldn’t smile or fool around. George had bad teeth and seemed forever preoccupied with intricate riffs on his instrument as if the paying punters were entirely incidental.
‘Wassyername?’ The boy yelled again in her ear in a pause between phrases of ‘Long Tall Sally’. He was a determined and vigorous dancer, his tie flapping against his white shirt. That was definitely a school blazer.
Yet his youth was a reassurance. Dockers came in sometimes when bad weather had stopped work. To beat the no-drinks rule they would get tanked up beforehand in The Grapes pub nearby or a Yates Wine Lodge, then leer at the girls. The alcohol emboldened their hands, too, though often they were barely older than the schoolboys. Occasionally there would be fights. They didn’t understand or apprecia
