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fific7 · 4 years ago

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Ticket to Ride - Part 2

Billy Russo x Reader

A/N: Inspired by The Beatles song of the same name. This takes place in my S1 Punisher AU with Arrogant!Billy in attendance, in which he gets a taste of his own medicine.

Warnings: 18+ NSFW due to sexual content, including oral, between consenting adults* in some chapters. Drinking and swearing.

*Irl, please don’t go wild in the country without protection.

(My photo edit)

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𝕊𝕙𝕖 𝕤𝕒𝕚𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕝𝕚𝕧𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕞𝕖 𝕚𝕤 𝕓𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟, 𝕪𝕖𝕒𝕙

𝕊𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕟𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕓𝕖 𝕗𝕣𝕖𝕖 𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕀 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕

𝕊𝕙𝕖'𝕤 𝕘𝕠𝕥 𝕒 𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕜𝕖𝕥 𝕥𝕠 𝕣𝕚𝕕𝕖

𝕊𝕙𝕖'𝕤 𝕘𝕠𝕥 𝕒 𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕜𝕖𝕥 𝕥𝕠 𝕣𝕚𝕕𝕖 𝕓𝕦𝕥 𝕤𝕙𝕖 𝕕𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕔𝕒𝕣𝕖

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The aircraft door opened and you stepped out gratefully onto the air jetty. You weren’t scared of flying, you just didn’t like being cooped up in a flying tube for several hours on end. Up an escalator and along a short corridor and then you were able to see outside through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The sky was beginning to shade into the colours it would take on for dusk. It looked like it had been a nice day and you hoped the good weather would continue for your stay.

Karen had texted you while you were sitting on the plane at JFK, waiting for it to push back. Frank had told her that Micro had tracked your phone to the airport so boy, were you glad you’d turned off your old phone and switched to the new one when you did. She’d also told you that Billy had asked him to find out where you were headed, and your heart sank. You knew it wouldn’t take long for Micro’s vast and nerdy computer skills to find you but then again, London was a huge city and they’d have no idea whereabouts in it you’d gone to ground, thanks to your new ‘burner phone’.

You were feeling super-excited. This was beginning to feel like an action movie, with you on the run from the bad guys.

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“London??!!” Billy shouted, making Frank quickly move his phone away from his ear on the other end. “Yeah, London,” he replied.

Billy was back at his usual post by the window. “I mean... obviously I knew she was gonna fly somewhere but I thought it would the West coast, Miami, Seattle, Alaska... somewhere like that. But to go to a whole other continent....!!!!” Frank sighed, “Yeah, Bill, sounds like she’s really not keen to bump into you anytime soon.” “Yeah, thanks for remindin’ me.” “Bill, you brought this on yourself, buddy.” “I know!” yelled Billy, “An’ all I wanna do is get her back and make it up to her for the rest of my life, and all I know is she’s in London! Do you know how big that place is?” “Yeah, I do. And t’be honest... I dunno how you’re gonna even try to find her over there.”

There was a silence on the other end of the phone. “I mean...” Frank continued, “I’m guessin’ you are gonna go over there and try to find her, Bill?”

Billy’s shoulder twitched upwards briefly, and he stared intently out the window at the New York skyline.

“Yeah, Frankie... yeah, I damn well am.”

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You’d left two of your big suitcases and the backpacks in a luggage storage facility at JFK, travelling with just the one suitcase and a large shoulder bag. You took the overground Heathrow Express to Paddington before negotiating a change onto the Tube to reach Tower Hill DLR station, boarding one of the driverless trains out to Canary Wharf. Settling back into your seat, feeling pretty proud of yourself for managing not to get hopelessly lost.

Your AirBnB apartment was in a part of the city called Docklands, beside the Thames on the Isle of Dogs. It was an area of shiny skyscraper offices and fancy apartment blocks built round the old docks, and your accommodation for the next two weeks was in one of those. You were suitably impressed when you got inside it... open plan, all trendy furniture and gleaming fittings. Big, big windows with views of the river and the tall buildings.

Your phone chimed and you saw a text from Karen on your notifications. Taking your suitcase and bag into the bedroom, you went back out to the main area and sat on the sofa to read it. Oh. Billy now knew you were in London, and had apparently booked a flight over - he’d be arriving tomorrow. Your heart rate sped up; Billy was a sniper, used to finding, stalking, watching his prey. But, you told yourself, he had no idea whereabouts in the city you were and no way of finding you.

Relax.

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Billy stepped off the Heathrow Express, looking around for signs indicating where the taxi rank was. He’d been looking at the Tube map during the train journey. Nah, fuck that.

He was too wired to even think about getting to London Bridge on the Underground, or ‘Tube’ as he found out Londoners called it. His brain had been working overtime trying to figure out how the hell he was going to find her in a city the size of London. She’d stay central, surely - she wouldn’t head to the suburbs, he felt confident of that.

Getting into the first taxi in the queue, he drawled out, “The Shard, please.” The taxi driver nodded and pulled away from the station without saying anything. Thank fuck, thought Billy, I can’t be dealing with a talker right now. But just as the thought had left his head, the driver’s London accent said, “First time in London, guv?” Billy sighed, “No. No, it isn’t.” In fact it was, but he wasn’t about to tell the driver that. He’d only end up getting taken on the ‘scenic route’, double the time, double the price.

The driver grunted and turned up the radio... really annoying music could now be heard but Billy would take that over inane small talk any day. He looked out of the windows at the city streets and his mind went back to his mission. Mission impossible. Finally he saw the river and the taxi crossed a wide bridge before pulling up outside the lofty skyscraper that was The Shard. According to the blurb he’d read on some travel website it was the tallest in Western Europe, and while there were taller buildings in New York, the shape of this one made it look quite dramatic.

He paid and got out of the taxi with his expensive wheeled duffel bag, heading to the Shangri La entrance of The Shard and going inside. (It’s one of the priciest hotels in London - of course). Checked in at reception on the 35th floor, he was then whisked up to his room on the 52nd by another express lift. The windows were huge and the views spectacular.

Once again, he was gazing out of a window at a cityscape.

Where is she?

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Your first full day, you occupied yourself with getting to know the surrounding area, doing some grocery shopping and sitting on your large balcony, enjoying the view and relaxing with a glass of wine.

Every time a plane went overhead you wondered if Billy was on it - he was due here today. You shook yourself a little, you’d just have to stop thinking about it. He wouldn’t find you.

Your mind wandered unbidden to his recent behaviour. Knowing Billy was a player from day one, you’d still got involved with him. More fool you. Another old cliché.... you thought you’d be the one to change him. And you thought you had. You’d dated him for a few months, he seemed to have ditched his old hound-dog ways and when he’d asked you to move in with him, you’d agreed without thinking it over too deeply.

Now, looking back, it seems like you’d made a big mistake.

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Micro had spent quite some time constructing a query table that he could run against accommodation reservations in London for her arrival day. She had no reason to book under another name and he’d just have to run with that assumption.

When Billy had come directly to him instead of going via Frank to ask that he try and track down her reservation, Micro had been too scared to refuse. Billy still really unsettled him - he always reminded him of a circling predator.

This query would take a while to run. He hit the go button and wandered off to work on another project while it tunnelled its way through layer upon layer of data.

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Billy was pacing his swanky hotel room like a caged panther. He’d given up on the idea of roaming the streets of London trying to spot his target, that was just one dumbass idea. He’d never find her that way, much better to just wait on that geeky twat to come up with the answer with his internet wizardry.

He’d spoken to Frank earlier, who had nothing new to report. Billy wouldn’t allow himself to feel guilty at cutting him out of the loop on his recent ask to Micro. He wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Frank wouldn’t mention it to Karen. Much as he loved him like a brother, Frank was a big sap when it came to Karen and he knew he’d give in and tell her, probably sooner rather than later.

However Frank had told him that Madani had called earlier that day, wanting to know where Billy was and why she couldn’t get in touch with him. Billy had figured out that his girl had got herself a new phone, and he’d followed suit. Which is why Dinah hadn’t been able to reach him. “Whaddya tell her?”he’d asked. “That you were on an overseas operation and were incommunicado.” “Good,” nodded Billy, “....that takes care of that little problem for a while at least,” feeling a sense of relief.

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Frank cut the call, a grim smile on his face. He hadn’t been completely straight with Billy, but it was for his own good. What he’d told Madani, however, had been the unadulterated gospel truth.

He’d said to her that Billy had hared off to Europe in pursuit of his live-in girlfriend, who’d suspected him of cheating on her and left him. He was absolutely determined to get her back.

He’d taken great satisfaction in the dead silence on the other end of the line, eventually punctuated by an angry snort and the call being abruptly ended.

That ‘little problem’ was hopefully taken care of for good.

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Micro looked at his phone as it beeped at him, the notification saying that his query was complete. That had taken much longer than he thought it would. Now he could only hope it hadn’t returned too many matches as he’d thought it prudent to run it on surname only.

He pulled up the results table and was pleased to see that there were only a thousand or so, he’d feared there would be many more. He scrolled through the list and quickly pinpointed the one he’d been looking for.

With a deep sigh he picked up his phone, typed “Wood Wharf, Water St, London E14”, a building and apartment number into a new message, then hit send. It would be the early hours of the following morning in London, so he very much doubted that Billy would leap out of bed and head right over there.

He finished eating his supper, drank a beer and settled down to watch TV when his conscience started bothering him. Should he? He shivered when he thought about what Russo might do to him if he found out.

Popping another bottle of beer open, he sat and contemplated what he should do for quite a while. He suddenly picked up his phone, sending a quick text to Frank telling him about the whole situation and including the fact that Russo now had her London address.

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While you were lounging on your balcony, sipping your wine and watching the world go by, it suddenly occurred to you that this would be a great base to work out of for a while. You messaged the estate agent and extended your stay to one month, with an option to extend if required.

Then, on a whim, you booked a flight to Barcelona early the next morning from City Airport - it was really close to your apartment even if the flights were a bit more expensive. You’d been doing a little research into other destinations to explore, and having a base in London to travel to and from made you feel much more comfortable. The W Barcelona had caught your eye while you’d been browsing for accommodation and as you were only going for a few nights, you’d booked in there.

Feeling extremely pleased with yourself, you got up and went into your bedroom, looking for a folded-up smaller travel bag you knew you’d packed in your luggage. Finding it, you began to choose some outfits for your short trip, thinking what a joy it was that you could now leave your large suitcase here.

But damn, you were going to have to be up early tomorrow. Best to get an early night, you thought, immediately yawning.

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Billy shot up in bed as his phone chimed with Micro’s text. When he read the information in the text, contrary to Micro’s belief he did leap out of bed and started pulling on his clothes (Micro had forgotten that this was an ex-Marine he was dealing with here).

He sat back down on the bed and googled the location. Oh okay, East London.... Docklands. Too far to walk and he didn’t think the Tube ran at this hour. Then he pulled up the Uber app and booked an immediate pick-up.

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Walking into the terminal building at City Airport, you were in the middle of a total yawning fit when a text came in. It was from Karen and you stopped, putting down your bag so you could read it.

Karen: Sorry to tell you this hon, but Billy went direct to Micro 🙄 and intimidated him into finding your London accom. Frank’s told him not to do that again no matter how much he’s shitting himself! Please take care of yourself 💋

You: Bastard 👿 thanks for the heads-up, I will do 😘

Picking your bags up again, you hurried over to one of the automated check-in machines to get your luggage tag.

Whoever had said ‘timing is everything’ had definitely got that right.

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“Oi!!!” yelled an irate male voice. Billy turned his head to see a groggy-looking tousle-haired guy, obviously just having been woken up. “Keep the noise down!”

Billy said nothing, just gave the guy his death stare. His head quickly disappeared back inside his apartment.

After pressing the buttons of a few apartment numbers at the main entrance, someone had buzzed him in and he’d been pounding on her apartment door for the last five minutes. But there was no response, and he knew she wasn’t that heavy a sleeper.

He slid tiredly down onto the floor outside her door. Had she somehow known he was on his way over here? No.... how would she know that?

His head dropped down in momentary defeat and he ran his fingers through his hair, groaning.

She hadn’t moved on already, had she?

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The plane lifted off the tarmac, and immediately you felt a huge sense of relief. You just weren’t ready to see Billy right now - you’d probably kill him if you did, ex-Marine or not.

Now you were off on your next adventure.

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London

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@blackbirddaredevil23 @galaxyjane @omgrachwrites @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @ourloveisforthelovely @swthxrry @odetostep @supernaturalcat7 @obscurilicious @strawb3rrydr3ss

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#billy russo #billy russo x reader #billy russo fanfiction #billy russo imagine #billy russo fanfic #ben barnes #the punisher 💀

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rabbitfootrambles-blog · 5 years ago

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PRIVATE LIFE OF THE RABBIT

Chapter One: Kingston Road to Bexhill and back.

One late December night I got in from a long day at the office to find Peggy and her mother squatting on the sofa. They each gripped a sketchpad and pencil and drew furiously. A dead hare was laid out on the table in front of them, legs askew. What with no cooker and the dead hare that table never was much used for social dining. On the plus side, the house on Kingston Road did provide us with two ample floors on which to starve. Such japes were funded by my improbable job in senior management.

I was addicted to Peggy. She was a wide-hipped brunette with pouty red lips and a wicked witch’s cackle. Her unpaid occupation as a performance artist involved gleeful pursuits such as staging wolf impressions in Hoxton galleries, and tying her hair to oak trees while chain-smoking. I can’t imagine a more glamorous way to bankrupt yourself.

We met on a train in 2002. It only took one afternoon of drinking dry martinis in the National Film Theatre bar to get me hooked. I clocked by the third glass that Peggy was the devil in disguise. Still I crawled back for more.

In the years which followed we watched silent movies together. We went to launch parties and got wildly drunk for free. We travelled across London on Route-master buses, and never paid the fare. We circulated with confidence, and spilled wine on her landlady’s Maria Callas LPs. And in October 2005 we pulled ourselves of the floor of a Dalston warehouse, and moved to this Oxford madhouse.

One Saturday morning we were planted on the sofa, trying to warm our hands up on a couple of ice cubes, when Peggy said suddenly, “why don’t you come and play Brian’s cabaret?” I hadn’t played music for a decade. How could a bungling hound such as I dream of spoiling the show?

But I didn’t realise was that this was not any old cabaret. No, no, no.

THIS was an ART cabaret.

And so, as yet unnamed, the Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band came springing out of Peggy’s womb.

One hour later I cruised across town and knocked on the door of the Reverend Tommy Costello.Standing at just under six-feet-eight, he had developed a hunchback while squatting through 24-years of life. His house, off the Iffley road in East Oxford, exacerbated the problem.

Wildly squinting jazz tourists may still seek it out. Number 87 sits squashed among a bundle of terraces as though, while thinking only of his lunch, a builder sought to balance a slither of cucumber between two fat slabs of bread.

Tom achieved nonchalance over such problems through a daily dosset box of paperbacks and weed, but life had not always been this relaxed. I was impressed to discover how, on moving out of a previous rented house in Durham, he clawed his deposit from a landlord by lying on his chest and trimming the back lawn with a pair of nail scissors. In front of the landlord. Such ingenuity extended to music.

On the day I met him I learnt that Tom had constructed a banjo out of a biscuit tin and some sticks. And that he played a mean ukulele. His model was bright red. He may have acquired it from Poundland. If I was to make this cabaret intact I needed an accompanist.

A few knocks later, a crack appeared. The door stopped at the bolt, checking I was not from Thames Valley Police. Reassured, the door opened. Tom ducked several feet beneath the jamb and re-emerged into the outside world. His head floated just beneath the sill of the upstairs window.

Tom, the hot ukulele man. Hair like a yeti and a lawless beard to match. He wore the same Aran jumper every day as it was the only item of clothing he could find long enough to fit him. As a result, he continually looked as though he had just returned from a fishing trip on the North Sea. Corduroy trousers were another perennial part of his attire. Ever fashion conscious, he refused to speak with anyone who wore jeans. Furthermore, I have nothing but respect for a man who disowned his childhood best friend because they sent him a request to join Facebook.

“Tommy,” I exhaled, introducing my fag-end to its new friends on the doorstep, “how would you like to come and play ukulele in a cabaret?”

He looked reluctant. And I didn’t even tell him it was an art cabaret.

Annie, his significant other, marched in from work at about five o’clock that evening to find us hanging off the living room floor. Their previous housemate had recently fled, escaping with his rent money and all the crockery and glasses. So we had spent all afternoon listen to the Memphis Jug Band, and drinking red wine out of jam-jars. This continued long into the night.

I broke the news that the cabaret was to be help at the De La Warr Pavilion, on the seafront at Bexhill-on-Sea. The average age of the punters would be about 87, so if we fucked it up there was a high chance they wouldn’t remember. The Pavilion was built in 1935 which, as Spike Milligan once quipped, meant it was opened “just in time to be bombed.”

“Tommy-Wommy,” Annie pressed, rolling a stick of the mighty mezz, “it’s quite the opportunity. Stuart can wear yellow and you can wear a red dress and high heels. You’ll be as a tall as a staircase.”

“I don’t know babe,” he puffed back, “Bexhill is far, far away. Besides, I don’t like heels and I’m worried my strings will break.”

“Then play string-less ukulele. It could be a new thing.”

“It would,” I butted-in, “look…magnificent.”

Annie took a pensive drag. “You could cause a riot with your string-less ukulele, and then everyone could hold hands and sing “I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside.”

And so it was that she convinced Tom to play the cabaret. I’ve pondered why it is always women who are so keen to kick-start these projects. And I’ve concluded it’s because they can’t wait to get us out of the house.

Drinking wine out of jam jars is a staple feature in hipster bars nowadays. In my head I hear dishwashers clanging in the backrooms of Rivington Street pseudo-dives, at a rate of two hundred jam jars per hour. The folks down Shoreditch can’t eat jam fast enough to keep up with the demand. For us, buying new wine glasses was off the cards for practical reasons – we had blown all our money on records. Jazz, blues, country and gospel. Maybe a little Hawaiian music when it took our fancy.

Records sound best when they’ve been lived in. Modern record producers claim they can digitally reproduce the sound of crackle. But it’s not the same crackle you get after repeatedly spinning a Jelly Roll Morton 10” LP across the room so your partner in crime can read what’s on the label - “damn, I knew this one would sound better after we dropped the fag ash on it.” Did you ever try to spill fag ash on an MP3? It’s impossible.

You can have fun with old records too. If it was up to me, schoolchildren would use them as frisbees. I’d put it in the national curriculum – playtime with Parlophone. And they double as dummies. When my daughter was six months old she took a copy of the Parnassie Sessions with Tommy Ladnier on trumpet and Mezz Mezzrow on clarinet out of its sleeve, and put it in her mouth. I tell you she didn’t cry once all the time she was sucking that record. And it has sounded better ever since.

78s are the monarch of records. If you’ve ever carried a box of 78s across town your shoulders will feel the weight. They’re so heavy that once I had to stop on my way to the record player to have a nap. By the time the needle hit the disc, I had arms as strong as a bricklayer’s. If you see my biceps all blown up it doesn’t mean I’ve been to the gym – it means I’ve been buying 78s on eBay.

Over the following weeks rehearsals, of a sort, ensued. The first revelation that came from these rehearsals is that I can’t make any sounds approaching a tune while playing a banjo, let alone one that has been made out of biscuit tin.

My technique, and I didn’t learn this from reading an instruction manual, was to throttle it around the next with my left hand while my right hand banged downwards, in the manner of someone trying to bash mud off their tent after a damp weekend at Glastonbury. Tom had also developed his own method for playing the ukulele. I call it the Costello method. His original intention was to launch into flamboyant solos constructed from quick-witted runs of notes, with each note sounding out like a sexual conquest. The reality was that between is, I’ll put this nicely, it was difficult to pin us down to anyone particular genre.

Our aim was jazz, of course. Naturally it’s difficult to replicate the sounds of a full jazz band using only a banjo and ukulele but we had other tricks. Tom would occasionally put his uke down and blow harmonica which, in its upper register, sometimes gave out a sound approaching that of a clarinet, and sometimes that of a cat who had been trodden on. I bent a metal coat hanger into the shape of the letter “O” and sellotaped a green plastic kazoo halfway around it. Whenever we felt a trumpet solo coming on I would use my left shoulder to lift the coat hanger up a few inches until I gripped the kazoo in my mouth. Hence, with the addition of slapping our shoes on the ground in imitation of a drummer, and some imagination, we considered ourselves Oxford’s equivalent of the Original Memphis Five. Meanwhile Amy rolled another spliff.

No-one who likes this music ever asked me how I got “into jazz,” but almost everyone else does. I started buying jazz records when I was about 12 because I didn’t want to listen to the same music as my class mates. I refer to them as the Clearasil crew - a crew time has stuffed into vitrines alongside the music of Bros, fluorescent socks, and the art of long-distance spitting.

Yet when I think of them we are still all sat in a frozen portacabin, furthering out ambitions to fail GCSE maths by locking Mrs Rubberlips in the stationary cupboard. These were the conditions under which I began to dream of New Orleans.

I pined for an age of black and white. Where the folks were better dressed. When they knew how to dance. And when, as I later discovered, they would have had the decency to keep the stationary cupboard permanently under lock and key. So my musical career started with Hollywood musicals. Fred and Ginger. Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler. Judy Garland. But it was Louis Armstrong who ensnared me.

The epiphany came in Bath, June 1986. St Louis Blues hit like a bomb blast. My foundations never recovered. There were two records in particular we used to copy at these rehearsals. The first was “Big Butter and Egg Man”, originally recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1926. I’m getting tired of working all day / I want somebody who wants me to play. I read it was written in dedication to a producer of dairy products who used to frequent the Sunset Café in Chicago. I like to think there really was an enormous bellied businessman sat there, puffing at a cigar and rolling his eyes at goods he knew money couldn’t buy.

The second was a tune called “Glad Rag Doll”, which we never got the hang of on account of it being in Eb and Tom’s hands being too big to get his fingers around the strings.

We got the chords out of a book entitled Its Easy To Play Jazz. As the Pogues’ Spider Stacey once said of learning the tin whistle, “it looked easy. I very soon realised my mistake. It isn’t easy at all.”

I use the word “rehearsal” loosely, but we had good intentions. And there was one original I had written, “White Youth In Crisis” which I had demoed with of all people the bass player from the Jesus and Mary Chain. It was a curious choice. But having failed to memorise any of the others it was this one we took with us when the morning of the cabaret dawned.

In the intervening weeks Peggy fine-tuned her performance. Her preparations included watching Japanese pornography on a laptop acquired with an arts council grant. On the eve of the cabaret she packed a suitcase with props and made her way to the venue. The journey was made in a coach, hired exclusively for use by performance artists. It probably turned into a pumpkin the moment they stepped off.

Alas there was no room for me and Tom so we made the trip in his off-white Ford Fiesta. He confided, as we hit the road, that the car cost £150. However, he aimed to make half of that back when he sold it for scrap. From the way it jolted down the motorway to Bexhill, I think that day was fast approaching. Annie reclined in the back with the banjo and ukulele.

“Babe,” Tom noted as we reversed onto the M23, “I wish you wouldn’t roll them so fat when I am trying to drive.”

On arrival we found preparations in full swing. A box of Becks lager lit up our dressing room. Next to it was some seaweed in a plastic bag. It appeared that someone had gone for a swim. We found Peggy rehearsing with two other performers in a gazebo which overlooked the English Channel. By the time the audience began to arrive the tension was audible.

I’d never been to a cabaret. Whatever I was expecting wasn’t this. The curtain rose at half-past seven to reveal the organiser’s son, dressed as a fox. He introduced the acts which followed. First of all, three women stood on stools, wearing wigs made from bin liners. They gargled water for approximately 15 minutes. A handful of spectators, sat around cabaret tables, applauded modestly, as though watching someone else’s children at a primary school play. Next, kneeling in the orchestra pit in a kimono, Peggy sang Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” to the tune of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day,” in a voice which would have broken Judy Garland’s tonsils.

Our turn in the spotlight came halfway through the second act. Tom began by strumming D, F# minor, G, and then a chord which I don’t think anyone has invented a name for yet. I leaned into the microphone. “Mother,” I hollered,” I’ve lost all ambition.”

“Tell it like it is brother Stuart,” offered Tom. I then threw in what might loosely be described as a dance move.

No-one clapped.

Backstage they urged that we were among the best acts of the night. Peggy said that my outstretched arms had thrown a shadow on the black curtain behind us in such a way that I resembled someone in the process of being crucified.

Meanwhile Annie overheard a member of the bar staff comment that the cabaret was the worst thing they had seen in 20 years of working at the venue.

When we got back to Oxford I had a surprise. Peggy’s mother had moved in.

Peggy didn’t have much in the way of possessions, having once thrown away everything she owned. But what she had kept was revealing.

On the rocking chair upstairs were a wolf skin and head she acquired while driving through the Arizona desert. On the desk she kept a foetus in a jar. There was one book, on the the three wise men (and gang I clearly hadn’t been asked to join).

Finally there were a few clothes, her laptop and one DVD, entitled The Beast. As a result of this sparse ensemble I calculate it took her and her mother five minutes to pack the lot into the boot of their two-seat convertible and return to Scotland. It was Holy Innocent’s Day, 28 December.

On their way out, they’d trampled a Christmas tree into the carpet - so at least they left the place looking festive.

“I’m not surprised she left you,” Tom gestured later, “I couldn’t live in a house with no kitchen.

“It’s the rats I feel sorry for.”

The remaining 10 months of the tenancy dragged out. From here-on it was just me and a Bessie Smith record.

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