Tony Curtis in Twin-set and Pearls ...

Tony Curtis in twin-set and pearls appears like the shop owner and spins O towards puckish Vinny, who loves the Beatles and writes teenage fan letters to Audrey Hepburn; keen to form a band, but can't play
[ ... ]

Remember Dickie Bird and the Sparrows, and summer with Monica, and a wispy-bearded hippie man with a faraway fairytale voice in curly-toed sandals and zig-zag knitted cap and bells plays Mongolian flutes at the Queen Elizabeth Hall; it's cold and black and Tuesday on Winter Hill, and O strides all scholarly above a tiny twinkling town, wrapped in dad's old black, white and gold; and Michael teeters in black and white patent leather winkle pickers and raging electric blue much-too-tight mail-order mod-suit, as we wind our way past squadrons of scooters bedecked with Flash Gordon mirrors and fish-tail parkas to a moorland tent, big plastic beers in small hands, and three tiny, silver men make new waves from old souls [ ... ]

Long summer afternoons with Vinny, the grammar school boys wholly in awe of the older brother's postman pals; boozy afternoons of cribbage with the pampered proletariat on Crab Lane [ ... ]

And going round to Mark's on Sunday afternoon to dutifully kiss Jacqui's cousin, the pale too young Irish girl with curly wire wool hair and out there accent, he realises she can't kiss; proud that he can, after illicit lessons with posh, dark, and dangerously sexy Anna, devastating in lemon sherbet [ ... ]

What happened, what happened ...

What happened, what happened? Vincent blinks. Nothing happened. Nothing ever happens. In the Big Nothing [ ... ]

The twisted fist in O's gut is pulling him down and in, sucked in flat; Pet Shop Boys pointed heads, reversed birth dunce, and click and whirr, and coils backwards contortionist, like a roll of celluloid film, vanishing clean over the edge; wet face flashes black and white, slides down the metal chute to the bone splintering, hulking embrace of giant Moloch hands [ ... ]

There's no way back. No you can't, of course you can't, old man; no way back to slender, skipping Troy and Marina's gigantic eyes; Oh Joe in the motorway cafe, the weep weep cradle song and the little girl lost; wide open to a sense of wonder, cheery smiles from a naked, nervous Willy and his wife, swinging in a cheery tree, to a yellow stripe on soldier blues and thick red blood runs down prison bars, as he strides beside redbrick mills; and hand in hand with his guardian angel on a mystery trip to see the mean, filthy Lowry chimneys from the green hills of a New Jerusalem [ ... ]

And in the end, grimly gathered round the final, suckling O of an old man's life, a Sillitoe Salford schoolmaster, fragrant pipe and pea-whistle pockets, steals seal silent down the wide open O, and lives a shadow show, exchanging soot-black Rosamund streets and gaswork ginnels for the bright, white light of the Big Nothing; hushed whispered litanies on hard wooden benches, tight lips puckered closed O to taste tart, tiny metal feet, white grey pungent plumes, dancing hologram ghost cones, and the metal rattle of the censer, for the nimble hot coals ballet points to cold marble Sunnah ablutions and closeted synchronised bending in pious manly rows, as clean, white feet enjoy the flock shock of thick, warm carpet [ ... ]

The Money God yawns, scratches, and stretches like a slack, sloppy cat, proudly smooths his paid-for Buddha belly, and smiles down benignly on fools who told his end would usher in a new beginning. You are mine now, Tina, he chuckles, and imperceptibly swells a little round the Pilsbury dough boy middle, and makes a slightly deeper dip in the soft cushions on which he reclines [ ... ]

And glancing down, O sees the big, white bird thrash and flounder in the dirt, and looking up, he sees the noose, and shivers [ ... ]

Reflecting on his reflection, O ..

Reflecting on his reflection in the glass, O was a little troubled by his growing resemblance to Barry Gibb; progress, perhaps, from the Turin Shroud; certainly, a change in tone, and a slightly better outlook; but the fact remained: he was getting older; old man, look at my life: I'm a lot like you are; sooo much more than twenty four, lumbering, crabby Neil, and so much more for you too; so much more for you [ ... ] Time taps and beckons from the wings; time now to join the Elders, trapped in time and in space; in the fire's cheerless glow, another flaxen poll, muses on the old, worn out, forgotten themes, doomed to simply stayin' alive, more Branson than Bronson, in yesterday's Levis; or brooding on the bus - and remember, only losers take the bus - jealous of the narrow waist, the flat stomach, and the sinewy strength of the young man's arm in front; and the possibilities; you'll meet a stranger some night; and it makes me sad        [ ... ] like the vegetarian cafe where he would sit and listen to the rattle of the pots and the prattle of the Eloi; looking at the bright eyes, the bright lives he hadn't won ; listen to Tony, fabulous - let's 'ave a look at what you would've won [ ... ] David gone, and no hand to hold; Niamh off somewhere, afraid to return; fearful of the pitchforks and the burning, and the sawn-off shocks of cold calculation; he is alone, and so much less than wonderful; so much less than wonderful; unbearably so [ ... ] sore thumb surgeon among butchers threads delicate needle pricks against the big, stupid din of the bacon slicer, as giant blades rotate, and legs give way, slide sideways, as cows collapse under dumb electric prods, wielded by slavering, foaming giant steel trotters; dawbed fraud, and fears the falling fat pig fists on his poor head; fumbling unfamiliar tools, botches bumbling fool, like Baudelaire's bird stumbles on deck; cramped, damp, tattered streaks of grey, where once proud pinions rose pure white, and banked on cool Olympian streams [ ... ] Oh sea-girl sister, sleek seafarer, with stately brow, stands forward at the darting prow; my faerie queen, let's dream sweet, blissful dreams of the slim, white hand of the king's only daughter, of the elvish harps of the western lands, of the wild hunt, and the thumping chase over heavy going, hedges and briars, when we thought we heard the tiny horses laugh [ ... ]