Winona Kent - Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride - Chapters One and Two

CHAPTER ONE

My parents were the founding members of Figgis Green.

I’ll forgive you if you don’t remember them. But an amazing number of people do—and still refer to them, fondly, as the Figs.

The Figs were a folky pop group that was huge in the 1960s and ‘70s and less huge—but still touring regularly and putting out albums—in the ‘80s and early ‘90s.

Mandy Green—my mum—was the main singer and my dad, Tony Figgis, shared vocals and played lead guitar.

Their best-known song was “Roving Minstrel,” a catchy thing about a faithless suitor and his careworn lady, tormented hearts, lessons learned and a really fortunate ending. It was their anthem, and they always closed their shows with it.

It was Mitch Green—mum’s brother and the Figs’ bass guitarist—who’d first floated the idea of a 50th Anniversary Tour.

“There’s something wrong with your maths,” said my mother. “We first got together in 1965.”

“The 50th Anniversary Three Years Late Tour,” Mitch said, cleverly.

“The Lost Time Tour,” I said.

And the name stuck.

The only trouble was, my dad, Tony, had died in 1995.

“You can take his place,” said Mitch. “If Mandy doesn’t mind.”

I am actually a musician and I do actually play the guitar. Quite well, in fact. I have a regular gig at a jazz club in Soho—the Blue Devil—with three mates who join me on tenor sax, organ and drums. My professional name is Jason Davey.

Plus, I had the added bonus of being completely familiar with the Figgis Green catalogue—I grew up with it.

“I don’t mind,” said my mother. “As long as no one else does.”

There were no objections.

And so, in September 2018, we started rehearsals for our thirty-four-day, eighteen-stop Lost Time Tour of England.

My uncle Mitch was younger than my mother by two years, with a shock of untidy white hair that always made me think of Albert Einstein. He’d taken to wearing spectacles to help him read, and his waistline was somewhat more portly than when he was with the original Figs. But, like everyone in the group, he’d never allowed himself to appear unremarkable. And he’d never really stopped performing. After the Figs broke up, he and my Auntie Jo took over a well-appointed pub in Hampshire, and Mitch played in a band that offered once-a-week live entertainment to its customers—much of it featuring Figgis Green standards. Once a showman, always a showman.

In the twenty years since the Figs had last performed, Rolly Black—my dad’s cousin and the group’s drummer—had moved to the States and built his own studio and filled it with instruments and had made a second career for himself scoring music for films and TV. He’d always had exceptionally long hair—which was now salt-and-pepper grey—and to mark his return, he’d braided it down his back and tied it up with a green velvet ribbon. He’d also arranged for his original silver Ludwig touring kit to be flown over, complete with its customized bass drum featuring the Figs’ leafy logo.

The original Figs had two rhythm guitarists. The first was Rick Redding, who was hired after mum and dad put an ad in NME. Rick was easily the buccaneer of the group, a romantic hero, rough in both reputation and demeanour. He’d been thrown out of the band in 1968 after he’d assaulted my dad.

After Rick left, Ben Quigley came on board. Ben’s life was similar to Gerry Rafferty’s, but without the six haunting minutes of "Baker Street." He was a sensitive soul who always shied away from the attention Figgis Green brought him. Ben wasn’t interested in joining our Lost Time tour. So Mitch recruited Bob Chaplin, a “friend of the band.”

I found Bob to be rather ordinary and no-nonsense, though he was an excellent player. He favoured white short-sleeved shirts and jeans, and his hair was short and on the curly side. He reminded me a lot of Bruce Springsteen in his “Dancing in the Dark” days.

A week-and-a-half into rehearsals, our fiddle player, Keith Reader, walked out, claiming “philosophical differences.” He’d done it before, in 1989, for the same reason, so I’m not really sure why anyone was surprised.

In any case, the day was saved by Bob, who suggested his girlfriend, Beth Homewood, as a replacement. Beth had done folk, rock, country, classical… Weddings. Commercial functions. Studio sessions. And she was available. I was a bit sceptical, worrying about her formal training—not that it was compulsory, or even recommended. Keith was the only one of the reconstituted Figs who’d had any kind of lessons.

“Royal College of Music,” Bob said.

And Beth was in.

She turned out to be brilliant, learning the two set lists and two encores in less than a day.

Beth was a good twenty years younger than Bob. She’d begun rehearsals with long, light brown, wavy hair, which she’d plaited loosely behind her head. By the time we opened the tour, she’d morphed into Eileen from the Dexy’s Midnight Runners video that Julien Temple directed, with her hair tucked messily into a scrunched-around kerchief. She wouldn’t have looked amiss in the chopped-off blue-jean coveralls they all wore in the film, but onstage she went for a Judy Geeson To Sir With Love look—a crocheted white mini-dress with a flesh-coloured lining and matching flat white shoes.

My mother was seventy-seven and her hair was silver-white. She had essentially the same cut that she did when she was fronting the Figs all those years ago. Except, of course, that her hair was thinner now, and her face was fuller. She was a bit heavier than she’d been back in the day, too, but that was to be expected as well. She’d happily embraced a cushiony comfy grandmotherly look, and it suited her.

It turned out some of our songs had to be transposed to fit mum’s vocal range, which had diminished a bit over the five decades since she’d started singing them. But other than that, she was still in fine form.

As for me, I hadn’t toured in nearly ten years. The last time I’d gigged around England was 2009, the year my wife, Em, died. I’d been on the road with my own band, desperate to “make it,” playing concerts in pubs and clubs and converted churches and renovated city halls and repurposed Corn Exchanges. And staging late night turns at so many music festivals I’d lost count.

Between then, and now, I’d run away to sea and worked as an entertainer on board a cruise ship. After that, I’d gone travelling and then I’d come home to England and made a brief living as a busker while I tried to find a more permanent gig.

And then I’d landed the residency at the Blue Devil.

I arranged for a leave of absence from the club and found a temporary stand-in to keep my band employed and my post-tour career in safe hands.

My prep was pretty basic. I packed up my guitars and got a haircut. I’d just tiptoed over fifty, and I have to admit, I was very nearly talked into colouring the silver filaments that had begun to infiltrate my very untidy, dark brown hair. I resisted.

So that was the band: mum, me, Mitch, Rolly, Bob and Beth. Our venues were booked. Our faces were on the tea towels.

We rehearsed. We perfected our show.

On Friday, September 7, 2018, we went out on the road.

And two weeks later, on Friday, September 21, as mum and I were on our way in to the Duke of York Theatre in Leeds for our sound check, we were very nearly killed by a gargoyle.

The Duke of York, if you don’t know it, was built roundabout 1880 and is Grade II listed. Outside, it’s high Victorian red brick and stone and inside it’s red velvet and Gothic plasterwork and gold leaf, all lovingly restored to bring the old music hall up to modern-day standards.

The renovations were largely focused on the interior, which was probably why nobody’d bothered to double-check the stability of the three stone figureheads perched outside on the lintel over the stage door.

It was 4:30 in the afternoon when the middle one broke free and crashed to the pavement, narrowly missing me—I’d stopped to tie up a shoelace—and my mother, who was hunting in her bag for her security pass. The dislodged head sent out a spray of jagged stone shrapnel as it smashed into pieces at our feet.

Mum and I looked at one another.

“Bloody hell,” she said.

I knew what she was thinking, and she knew what I was thinking.

We made a point, after each show, of going out into the foyer to say hello to people from the audience and signing their programmes and whatever else they might have brought with them. It’s something the Figs always did, back in the day, and my mother wanted to continue doing it for our tour. The venues weren’t huge, and the fans—some of whom had travelled quite a long distance—loved us for it.

Two days earlier, in Sheffield, as the last of the autograph-seekers and well-wishers straggled out, I’d spotted a woman who seemed to be hanging back. She was tall, with long dark brown hair, and she was wearing a loose black top and a spectacular flowing ankle-length brown and black skirt. She had a gold chain hanging around her neck, at the end of which were a couple of gold medallions. It looked like she was waiting for a moment to talk to us alone.

“Hello,” she said, to me, and then to mum, who was on the point of going back to her dressing room. “Please—I wish you to stay for a moment. I would like a quiet word.”

I’m always a little bit leery of fans who want to have a “quiet word.” You never know what they might consider to be earth-shatteringly important—the fact that you played three wrong notes in the middle of one of their favourite songs or, God forbid, you decided to use a different guitar from the one that was on that recording in 1985. Or your input was required to settle a long-standing argument about why there were two versions of one particular tune—the one on the 1968 album and the one on the flip side of the Top Ten single that came out the following year. Because they sounded decidedly different and the general consensus was that the album version was far superior. And they wanted to know what you thought.

I waited. My mother waited.

“My name is Kezia Heron,” the woman said. “I have been following you for many, many years.”

There was something delightfully old-fashioned about her. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The Figs attracted all kinds of followers, and I suppose because of the sheer nature of most of their songs, those followers were bound to have one foot firmly planted in the distant past. This woman looked and sounded as if she’d embraced that particular concept hook, line and sinker.

“I have the gift,” she said, confidentially. “I am able to see into the future.”

“Are you,” said my mother, wholly unimpressed.

I knew her opinion of seaside amusements and end-of-pier fortune-tellers. I knew that opinion included, with very few exceptions, anything remotely to do with the word ‘psychic'.

“I am compelled to speak with you,” said Kezia, looking at me. “I bring a warning.”

My mother was exercising supreme patience. She would never say anything horrible to a fan, but she wanted very badly to leave. Our shows ended late and by the time we got back to our hotel, it was usually well past midnight.

I’m more open-minded about the occult and the paranormal than my mother. “What sort of warning?” I asked.

“There will be troubles. I am certain of the word ‘dropping’.”

“Dropping,” said my mother.

“Yes, dropping.”

“As in, falling down?” I asked.

“I hear the word,” said Kezia. “Over and over again. And I feel it as it happens. A dropping.”

“Is this dropping going to kill us?” mum inquired. “Because if it is, perhaps we’d better cancel the rest of the tour and arrange for a refund on the hotel deposits and the transport.”

Kezia smiled. “I understand. Many people are unwilling to accept the words I offer. I am in your presence only to convey the message, which is extended with graciousness and humility and great caring.”

“Thank you,” I said. “We do appreciate the warning.”

“We are all wanderers on this earth,” Kezia replied. “Our hearts are full of wonder, and our souls are deep with dreams. I wish you a peaceful night.”

My mother maintained an amused silence as we went backstage to change out of our gigging clothes. We had two dressing rooms at our venues—one for mum and Beth, and the other for Mitch, Bob, Rolly and me.

“You don’t have to say it,” I said.

“And I shan’t,” she confirmed.

“I’ll keep an eye out for possible hazards.”

“I should think you would be doing that anyway,” my mother replied, deadpan, opening her door, “as the only reason I brought you along on this tour was to look after me.”

Beth, Bob and Rolly had repaired to our hotel’s bar—which stayed open late—for a nightcap with the crew. Mitch, mum and I went up to our rooms.

I made myself a mug of hot chocolate. A bonus when you’re touring is accommodations that come with electric kettles and packets of expensive tea and an equally-impressive array of coffee pods and packages of sugar and whitener and, if you’re lucky, hot cocoa mix.

I finished off the last of a G&B Dark Chocolate and Ginger I’d bought that morning and had a bedtime ciggie, blowing the smoke down the sink drain in the bathroom. I switched on the telly and read over the comments that my followers had contributed to my latest Instagram post. I “liked” them all, answered a couple of them, and then fell asleep watching Cliff Richard and the Shadows drive across continental Europe in a refurbished double-decker bus.

How do you conduct your life when someone’s told you to watch out for something that may or may not have anything to do with a vague premonition of “dropping”? Do you walk around staring at the sky, wondering if a large chunk of blue ice is going to detach itself from a passing jet, plummet to earth and impale itself in your skull? Conversely, do you keep your eyes permanently fixed to the ground in case a sink hole suddenly opens up and you end up tripping into a cavern created by a leaky water pipe dating from the Roman occupation?

If you’re my mother, you discard the entire thing as nonsense and carry on without a second thought.

If you’re me, you remember the guardian angel who saved your life six years earlier and you very definitely believe what you’ve been told.

CHAPTER TWO

In 2012, I was an entertainer aboard the Star Sapphire, an aging cruise ship doing round-trip weekly voyages from Vancouver to Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay and Ketchikan. I was addicted to Twitter and I picked up a follower who immediately appointed herself as my guardian angel. Her name was Jilly.

I had no idea how old Jilly was or what she looked like. Her avatar was a shooting star with a rainbow tail. In my imagination she had long blonde hair and intense blue eyes and she wore long skirts and suede boots like Stevie Nicks. She sent me private messages telling me all about myself. Half the time she was wrong, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her. When she was right, she was absolutely right.

Since she maintained she was an angel, I'd asked her—jokingly—what she’d died from.

Knocked down by a car, my love. A distracted driver, not paying attention, overworked and exhausted. His wife had just lost her job and one of his children was very ill. I forgave him immediately…which of course expedited my admission to Guardian Angel School.

That had made me smile. You go to school for these things?

Of course! We attend classes and study Angelic Theory. We must write three scholarly papers. And we must earn our halos and wings in an assigned practicum.

Is that all I am to you, Jilly? An end-of-term job placement?

Ah no, lovely. Once placed, we are with you for life. Unless of course there’s a major falling out or disagreement…in which case we can negotiate a reassignment.

Some people took their constructed Twitter personalities very seriously.

She went on to warn me that something bad was going to happen aboard the Sapphire.

And when the bloody ship caught fire and sank, Jilly saved my life. The Sapphire had lost all power and was foundering in the sea. Jilly stayed in touch with me—impossibly—on my mobile. There was no electricity and no WiFi, no phone signal, and we were miles from shore. And yet, she stayed online and navigated me out of the depths of the ship and up through a disused hold into the back of the Showcase Lounge and then outside through a door that I was later told didn’t exist.

For her efforts, she was awarded her halo and wings.

And then, of course, she disappeared, and I never heard from her again.

But, because of Jilly, I wasn’t a sceptic. I wasn’t confident in my own intuitive abilities (in spite of Jilly’s encouragement), but I definitely believed that other people had a gift for it, and if they felt they had something important to share with me, I was never going to be dismissive.

Plummeting gargoyles aside, our sound check that afternoon in Leeds was uneventful. Every venue has its own limitations, excesses and quirks. Which was why, at 4:30 p.m. on the day of every show, we trekked onstage, took our positions, switched on and ran through our individual line checks, gain structures and volume settings. And then, together, we played a couple of songs from the set lists so Tejo could fix the overall mix.

Tejo’s full name was Prakash Thejomaya, and it was his job to make sure our voices and our instruments sounded good—not only in his headsets, but through the front-of-house speakers (for the audience) as well as the rear-facing stage monitors (for us).

He had quite a menagerie of instruments to monitor on top of our vocals. Aside from our guitars, Beth’s fiddles and Rolly’s drum kit, we’d thrown a jaunty banjo into the mix, an Irish tin whistle, a Celtic drum, a mandolin, an autoharp, some maracas, and an accordion.

Yes, my mother played the accordion.

She’d wanted me to learn, but I’d refused.

I know my limits.

A couple of hours later, at our pre-gig dinner, mum and I were presented with a large cardboard box, taped shut and tied up with a big green ribbon.

“What’s this?” I said.

Beth had a huge smile on her face. “Open it and see.”

My mother appropriated one of the catering knives and sliced through the tape.

Inside were broken chunks of masonry.

“It isn’t,” mum said.

“It is,” Mitch replied.

“More or less,” Rolly added.

“He’s called The Mad Hatter,” Beth said. “He’s got an identical twin at St. Peter’s Church in Winchcombe, which is said to be the inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.”

“Resin?” I inquired, picking up one of the larger pieces. It didn’t weigh enough to be made of stone.

“They wouldn’t let us have the original,” Mitch said. “Something about the theatre being listed and the need to preserve its history by restoring damaged artifacts.”

“Fortunately,” Bob added, “the Duke of York’s gift shop sells absolutely bang-on replicas of its world-famous stage-door grotesques.”

“Which smash up reluctantly,” Rolly said. “But mic stands do make quite good hammers, in a pinch.”

Mum lifted the rest of the pieces out of the box and placed them on the table. It was like a 3D jigsaw puzzle. But, in short order, she’d got them fitted back together.

The result was a man with a lopsided grimace, exposing a row of top teeth with one missing, and bulging eyeballs with holes where his pupils ought to have been. He was wearing a squashed top hat and he was leering at us like some kind of unhinged madman.

“He looks just like Keith, doesn’t he?” mum mused.

Keith’s membership in the Figs had always been marked by contentiousness and conflict, and when he’d finally stormed off during rehearsals, it had been with very bad grace, and nobody really missed him—least of all my mother.

I was about to take a photo for Instagram when our tour manager, Freddie Pope, intercepted me.

“I wouldn’t,” she said. “Theatre management’s asked us not to say anything publicly about the incident. Liability, amongst other things.”

Freddie’s the daughter of a high-profile 1980s music promoter. She planned our itinerary and arranged our hotels and was always on hand at Reception to check us in and out. As well as being our tour manager, she also looked after the merch table—and our wardrobe.

I didn’t dare disobey her, lest she neglect to get my gigging clothes cleaned and I ended up having to walk onstage smelling like a steroid-soaked bodybuilder.

“I won’t,” I promised.

One of the original reasons gargoyles—or, more technically grotesques—were added to the exteriors of medieval buildings (and, in this instance, a Grade II listed Victorian music hall), was to ward off evil spirits.

Which didn’t appear to be working, in my case.

I came offstage that night experiencing what I recognized, with a sinking feeling, were the first twinges of a cold. I don’t know about you, but with me, whenever my immune system starts to kick in, I feel like my brain’s being zapped. It’s like a volley of warning shots—rapid-fire ordinance that immediately sends me to the medicine cabinet for zinc lozenges, Vitamin C and Lemsip.

But I didn’t have any of those with me. And nothing was open by the time we got out of the theatre. So, back at the hotel, I ordered three glasses of orange juice from Room Service, had my usual late-night ciggie, and went to bed hoping for the best.

When I woke up the next morning, I knew it was going to be one of the worst colds in the history of mankind.

Unfortunately, they seem to be a standard thing when you’re on the road. You’re in and out of all those hotels, cafes and restaurants. You’re mingling with potentially-contagious guests backstage before the show. And even more potentially-contagious fans in the foyer afterwards. I wondered if Kezia’s prediction of “something dropping” might also have included snot, which was most definitely making its presence known by the time my breakfast of poached eggs and toast and another three glasses of freshly-squeezed orange juice arrived.

There wasn’t time to go looking for medication; we had to check out and get on the bus. Lincoln, our next stop, was about ninety minutes away.

Our bus was one of my mother’s gifts to the Figs, prompted by too many old memories of touring in overcrowded vans with unreliable engines. Downstairs, it had a kitchen (tastefully decorated in white, fully equipped with a fridge, a coffee maker, a microwave, a kettle, a toaster, and a sink with hot and cold running water), a TV connected to multimedia, WiFi, a toilet, comfy sofas and reclining seats.

There was a steep little staircase at the back that twisted around, like the steps in an old red London Routemaster. The steps landed you on the sleep deck, where there were eight bunks and a roomy master bedroom (complete with an ensuite loo furnished with a heated floor, a fresh water toilet and a shower with variable temperature controls).

The longest journey on our itinerary was only about three hours, and none of the trips involved overnights. But the leader of the band was definitely making sure we got there in style.

Runny-eyed and miserable, I was the last to board that morning. And I was very glad that, upstairs, we had all those beds.

“Get yourself some Otrivine,” Neil, our lighting guy, suggested, as I staggered down the aisle.

Neil Sparks had the perfect last name for someone in charge of our lights and electrics. His dad was a physician, and Neil himself had originally followed in his footsteps and qualified as a GP. But he didn’t like it. His heart was in music. And after about five years he gave up his medical practice and got himself a gig with a rock band—probably the oldest rookie stage hand on the circuit—unloading trucks and hanging spots. From there, he’d become a Lighting Assistant, which meant he was the guy making sure everything was plugged in the right way. Then he’d learned how to run a desk and had become a Tech.

And now he was our Lighting Director. And our Band Physician (which wasn’t a bad thing when three members were in their mid-seventies and a fourth had the worst cold in the history of mankind and could barely stand up).

Neil was sitting in one of the comfy chairs at a table about halfway along—facing forward, as he’d have otherwise got motion sickness. Honestly, not a very good thing for a roadie.

“Can I get it in tablets?” I said.

“I’m afraid not. Nasal spray only.”

I have an aversion to squirting anything up my nose. It makes my sinuses scream—like that pain you get when you eat ice cream too quickly or you jump into a swimming pool without holding your nose and the water shoots straight up into your brain. But, at that point, I was open to anything that would make me feel better and—more importantly—preserve my singing voice and prevent streams of guck from splashing onto my guitar onstage.

I carried on past the little kitchen and up the stairs to the sleep deck. They didn’t call it the “Artist and Entourage” bus for nothing. I was obviously part of the entourage—but I had the added perk of being the son of The Artist, so I immediately availed myself of the private bedroom at the very back with its double memory foam mattress and it lovely comfy pillows.

I heard and felt the rumble of the engine, and we were away.

I wasn’t allowed to smoke, so I spent the next two hours alternately dozing (with tissues stuffed up my nose) and interacting with my followers on Instagram, many of whom fretted over the state of my health and offered interesting cures, including green tea (a possibility), a dozen oysters (not so much), fresh garlic in a glass of milk (definitely not) and putting a cut-up onion in my socks (your feet end up smelling like Burger King and you still can’t breathe).

As we were approaching Lincoln, I checked my private messages. Ongoing chats with friends. One or two women hoping to get into bed with me (not likely, but I was enjoying the virtual foreplay). And a new one from someone called anon77865, who hadn’t messaged me before and who didn’t have a photo.

I’m very pleased you and your mum weren’t killed by that unfortunate gargoyle, they wrote.

I am too, I messaged back. And thank you.

It was a good thirty seconds before I remembered I’d agreed not to post anything about the Mad Hatter anywhere.

How did you hear about that? I asked.

Don’t you recognize me, my love?

How could I possibly recognize them? They didn’t have a picture. And I’d never chatted with anon77865 before.

Sorry, I wrote back. I don’t.

But now they weren’t answering.

I waited.

Finally.

Sorry my love. Just touching up my appearance.

The avatar had changed from the generic grey Instagram head to something else. A shooting star with a rainbow tail.

And the name had changed too.

Jilly? I wrote. JILLY?

Yes. It is me.

Hello, I said.

I couldn’t possibly convey the depth of my feelings at that exact moment. What do you say to a guardian angel who’s been MIA for six years? It was like rediscovering a long lost friend…only much much more emotional.

Welcome back, I wrote.

Thank you, my love. It’s good to talk to you again. Although you’ve never been far from my thoughts.

I should hope not, I said. Being your assigned practicum and all.

I’ve always been watching over you, Jason. I told you, once placed, we are with you for life.

Part of me really did want to believe that she was what she claimed. Part of me still couldn’t explain how she’d managed to stay in touch with me—on my phone—while the Star Sapphire was in her death throes.

But the larger part of me—the one where my common sense lived—was urging me to think otherwise. This was just Jilly, a very creative human being with a brilliantly over-active imagination.

No matter. She was back in touch. And I was loving it.

Do you know about the warning mum and I were given? I asked.

What warning, lovely?

I told her about Kezia Heron visiting us after the show in Sheffield.

She predicted something would drop, I said. And it did. Spectacularly. I wanted to contact her to tell her that her prediction had come true. But she didn’t leave us any details.

I shall make some inquiries, Jilly promised.

Thank you, I said. And then, I asked her again: How did you know about the gargoyle?

How do you think?

That was Jilly. Infuriatingly obscure when it mattered the most.

Is something else going to happen? Is that why you’ve come back?

I’m back because I felt it was time, my love.

I believed her.

She’d got me safely off the Sapphire.

I’d never have found that door without her, and that was the truth.

I’m here to help you. And now you must prepare yourself for Lincoln.

What do you mean? I asked.

But she was gone.