The band I’m in is back on the road for the final leg of our spring tour: Milton Keynes, Settle, Liverpool, Cambridge, Bristol and more. At this point the tour is beginning to interfere with work and my life, but I’m still pleased to be taking a break from the cat’s attentions. I was apologetically nice to the cat after I stepped on it, and it’s now under the impression that we are best friends. It watches me when I sleep, crouched next to my head, purring loudly. During the day it follows me around so closely that I worry it’s developed a perverse taste for being stepped on.
Midway through the tour my wife turns up for the Exeter gig, which is unlike her. I can’t see where she’s sitting, but her invisible presence is unnerving. At the interval I find her manning our merchandise stall, which is unheard of. I watch as she hands a man a souvenir tea towel. Although I can’t quite hear what she says to him, I sense that a key element of the transaction is missing.
“Are you giving those away?” I say to her.
“It’s called marketing,” she says.
“There’s a price list,” I say. “How did you get this job?”
After the show I pack up and drive to the house of some friends, where my wife and I are spending the night. Everyone is still up when I get there.
“That was great!” says our friend. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Apart from some minor technical issues at the start. I got a bit rattled, but I recovered.”
“I didn’t notice anything ,” says our friend.
“I did,” my wife says. “And if I notice something’s wrong, then I know it’s bad.”
“Was it that bad?” I say. “I didn’t really think…”
“When you all had to stand away from the microphones and play unplugged,” my wife says. “That was a bit tense.” I search her face for a moment.
“We did that on purpose,” I say.
“Did you?” she says.
“We do it in every show,” I say. “We spent weeks rehearsing it.”
“Oh,” she says. “I thought the power had gone.”
The next day I’m up early, showered, dressed and knackered, to do morning radio in Truro before the gig in Falmouth, but my wife is up to say goodbye. She is being uncharacteristically nice to me – it’s almost as if I’d recently stepped on her – and I suddenly feel a terrible pang at our parting. The cumulative effect of 13 nights on the road, and three more to go, is beginning to take its toll. I think about asking her if she wants to come to Falmouth, but I know she has to be back in London. And anyway, there’s no room in the car.
I load up my banjo and kiss my wife on the cheek.
“I’ll see you when I see you,” I say. She looks into my eyes, then above them.
“You’re not going to be happy with your hair,” she says.
“I’ve seen my hair,” I say. “It’s radio.”
On Saturday we play our last gig at the Stroud Subscription Rooms where, I am told many times, the Beatles once performed. The next morning I find myself sitting outside a pub, waiting for the drummer and watching drinkers from the previous night come and retrieve their cars. It seems a good time to look back on 16 nights in 16 towns, but I’m too tired. I can only focus on a point in the future, a few hours hence, when I can walk through my front door and put my bag down on the cat.
