epilogue

A couple of years later, Guitarist magazine did an interview with Curtis and Tony in which they discussed how they'd met that day in the studio. It was strange reading about it in a magazine. Even though I'd witnessed the meeting myself, seeing it written down made it seem suddenly distant, like it were a description of a film that I'd watched in a cinema, not something that had happened in real life. And even though I knew it was Tony they were interviewing, it seemed like a different person, and the studio didn't seem like any place I'd really been, like it had all happened in a world that I couldn't possibly be part of. I felt a bit like I was in one of those surreal films where somebody suddenly finds themselves inside the TV programme they are watching - only kind of in reverse...

GM: So I hear you guys met for the first time in a recording studio. How did that come about? Were you already playing in a band Tony?

TM: Yea, it was a local band just in my home town Westing. I used to work in the music shop there and we'd supply the studios with microphones and leads sometimes and plectrums, lots of plectrums.

GM: Yea, it's amazing isn't it. Where do they all go to?

CC: There must be some place like the elephant's graveyard, I guess, where they're all just lying there.

GM: So you were delivering something to the studio and just kind of bumped into each other?

TM: Sort of. I'd been invited to go there by Brian, one of the sound engineers, and check the studio out. So we drove down one Sunday morning in this old van we had. And we were just playing in this old chapel they'd converted into a recording room when Curtis walked in.

GM: So this was like a real chapel?

TM: Yea it still had stained glass windows and everything

GM: Hey, I bet it had great acoustics right?

TM: Yes.

CC: Yea, it was a nice little studio that.

GM: So Curtis, I guess you were at the studio to do some recording right?

CC: Yea. I was actually in the main studio and was having a bit of a break, you know just to stretch my legs and generally unwind for while (it being a Sunday and everything).

GM: For sure. I'd imagine it can get quite claustrophobic in there, especially when you've been at it all week.

CC: That's right. Anyway, like I say, this studio was built in a massive old mansion and I'm walking down this long corridor when I suddenly hear the guitar riff from 'Hands on the Clock' You know the one I mean?

GM: Sure, I do. That was on your second album, 'Days and Nights'?

CC: That's right. We recorded that way back in, oh, eighty-two it must have been. Anyway, I'm walking down the corridor and I hear this riff being played just the way I play it. I don't mean it was similar to the way I play, I mean it sounded exactly like me. I honestly thought it must be some kind of bootleg recording of one of the acoustic shows I did back in the late eighties.

GM: Right. So I guess you were pretty surprised when you saw the Kid here was playing it?

CC: I tell you I was pretty much amazed, because I've played with all the best you know, Eric, B.B., Jeff [Beck], Mark [Knopfler], Albert [Collins] whose sadly no longer with us. And they all play different but they've all got this magic, this voice. You meet a lot of very good guitarists in this business, I mean a lot of them. It's amazing, how high the standard has gotten. But very few of them have their own distinctive voice that sets them apart. And to see this (and I know Tony won't mind me saying this) you know to see this young kid who could not only play every song I'd ever bloody written just the way I played it, but who I later discovered had his own unique voice as well - it was pretty unbelievable.

GM: So, then you got together and the rest, I guess, is history.

CC: Yea, well I was looking for another guitarist to take on tour and the kid knew all my songs [laughs]. In fact he knew most of them better than I did.

GM: Well, you've written so many. How many albums is it now fourteen, fifteen?

CC: Yea, the one we're recording right now is number fifteen for me. But of course it's going to be the first proper album I've done with the Kid, so they'll be some new sounds, some new songs on there.

GM: Have you got a title for it yet?

CC: No not yet. But we're working on it.

GM: I understand there was something weird about the guitar that Tony was playing that day you met. It actually used to belong to you?

CC: Well, not exactly. Maybe Tony can explain better.

TM: Yea, it was an 1966 Epiphone Casino, I bought from this shop called Guitar Town, which has a lot of vintage guitars. I'd really just gone down to the shop to look around. But it was a beautiful instrument, and when the man in the shop told me that Curtis had been in and played it a few weeks earlier, well I just had to have it.

GM: OK, so this was a guitar that Curtis had tried out in the shop?

TM: That's right.

CC: Yea, I mean I couldn't actually remember playing it. But certainly I'd been down to Guitar Town a couple of times and tried a few of those semis out you know. So he's probably right. I probably had played that guitar. Actually, I wish I'd bought it now because, like the Kid says, it is a really wonderful instrument.

GM: So, do you think that was just a coincidence or was there maybe more to it than that?

CC: Hey who knows [he laughs and looks up to the heavens]? But, seriously we like the same kind of music, the same kind of sounds, it makes sense we'd both try out the same kind of guitars. I guess it was chance that we met. But, you know, Tony has got that magic, that unique way of playing. So, I'm sure we would have met up sometime in the future anyhow...

When Tony told us that Curtis Cline had taken his number and was going to give him a call, I'd just though either Tony was fantasising again (after finally meeting his hero face to face) or that Curtis must just have been being polite. When Tony rang me and told me that Curtis had invited him to go on a European tour I didn't know what to think. It sounds stupid now, but initially I thought he might turn Curtis down or at least have the decency to visibly wrestle with his conscience before leaving me and his mum behind.

However, a couple of days after he'd told me about the tour and everything, I was walking down the High Street on my lunch break and saw a photo of his mum's house up for rent in the window of the estate agents. It turned out he'd arranged for his mum to move in with his uncle, who apparently had some kind of granny annex on the side of his house. It all seemed so cold and calculated to me. But I guess that's the way you get anywhere in this life; decide what you want and go out and get it.

Despite my inevitable jealousy, I was genuinely pleased for Tony, and knew deep down that, of course, he had to go. However, like I say, I had hoped Tony might have talked to me about it first, shown some signs of loyalty, faked some kind of remorse at having to break the band up after all those years. But all he did was call me up to tell me that he was leaving for London at half-past seven on Thursday morning to meet Curtis's manager and sign some kind of contract.

"Oh right," I said doing my best to appear pleased for him. "Right, we'll go out for a drink on Wednesday evening then," I said.

"I'll be busy packing Wednesday," said Tony. "But we can meet in the day."

"I'm working," I said, sulkily.

"Oh right," said Tony.

"Well, I'll see you when I see you then," I said.

"Yea," said Tony. "I'll be back soon anyway."

"Yea right," I said. "I'll see you then then," and put the phone down.

I didn't actually see Tony again for five months (although he did send several postcards). Then one night he called me and told me he had some good news, which involved me and Curtis Cline. It seems stupid, but I really thought he was going to tell me that he'd sorted it for me to play rhythm guitar on Curtis's next tour. I lay all night dreaming that I was going to be some big rock 'n' roll celebrity. But, unfortunately, my hopes of superstardom were somewhat short-lived.

It turned out Curtis didn't want me for a guitarist, he wanted a caretaker to look after his house, and Tony had suggested I'd be 'ideal.' I laughed at first. Then got angry and told him where he could stick his job, and put the phone down, vowing that I was never going to speak to him again.

However, once I'd got all that resentment out of my system, I mulled things over and decided that being paid to look after a house that had it's own recording studio, a snooker table and a heated, indoor, guitar-shaped swimming pool wasn't so bad. I called Tony back and very apologetically told him I had changed my mind and would like to become Curtis Cline's caretaker after all. So that was that.

A couple of years or so later Curtis wanted to sell the house, so Tony bought it off him. He got it for a good price and it is a beautiful house, but I'm sure the only reason he really bought it was so that I wouldn't have to move out (which was fairly nice of him considering it cost about a half a million).

So here I am now living in Curtis Cline's (sorry Tony's) house with my girlfriend, mowing the lawn and, doing a bit of pruning and hedge strimming. I occasionally have a whiz round with the Hoover and splurt a bit of Toilet Duck down the loo, but aside from that I don't have much to do apart from opening the post and giving the odd guitar lesson.

In case you're wondering what happened to everyone else I've mentioned. Well, Barry Slater, the formerly racist bully who played drums with us for a while at school, now has his own roofing business and, believe it or not, married Shareen (after she got pregnant at the age of sixteen). In fact, I've just started teaching their kid, to play guitar. In a couple of years he'll almost be the age that I was when I first met Tony (not quite but almost), which seems almost more weird than Tony going off and becoming a world famous rock personality.

Stewy and Shaz aren't married but are still living together. I'd like to tell you their lifestyle has changed but it hasn't. Stewy still plays guitar and bass in local bands and Shaz still works behind the bar of various pubs and restaurants.

Dave still works with his dad restoring vintage cars. When I go home I still see him driving along and occasionally we pop out to the pub for a swift half. He's got a staggeringly beautiful Italian girlfriend (though not so beautiful as Terry who is still, probably the most beautiful woman I've ever met).

Recently, someone told me they'd met Terry in Oxford and she'd asked after me. Apparently, she confided in them that she used to really fancy me, but thought that because I never made a move, I just wanted to be friends with her. If I'd known at the time, something would probably have happened between us. But it's too late now because she's married. Apparently he's a really nice guy and they're very happy together. I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse, but there you go.

Personally, I can't see the attraction of marriage, but at the moment everyone I know seems to be going for it. I don't know. People seem to reach a certain age and start rushing into wedded bliss with whoever comes along. Even John's married now to a girl from Bedford. He moved up there a couple years ago and got a job with a firm of chartered accountants based in Letchworth. I still see him at Christmas but that's about it.

Predictably enough, Dad's become a biscuit consultant; a trouble-shooter who flies all round the world advising people on biscuit recipes, design and packaging. Mum seems vaguely happy about it all. She no longer has to work in the chemist's shop (which she always considered to be beneath her), and she's got a new car (which puts her one rung of the ladder above most of the neighbours). And, because Dad's away most of the time, she doesn't wind herself up by endlessly arguing with him. Actually, the only thing that really upsets mum these days, is the fact that I'm not married and still haven't got a proper job. However, I can't see that situation changing just yet.

Mum keeps saying to me, 'I expect even Tony will be married soon.' I hate to disappoint her by telling her that unless they change the law pretty radically, Tony is unlike to be able to marry his lover. But it's probably best not to try and discuss these things with her. I don't think she'd really understand.

As for me...well, I'm doing all right. I eat, drink, sleep, fart, watch TV and teach kids guitar chords and blues riffs, as well as occasionally indulging in various semi-legal recreational activities. I've got a 30 watt valve amplifier with reverb and overdrive, a multi-effects pedal (which features, among other things, three different delays, two choruses and a fairly convincing auto-wah) and a beautiful girlfriend. So, for now, I guess I'm just happy to sit here and play my guitar.