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rear-view mirror. ‘Pathetic,’ he confided in his booming undertone to Toby and myself. ‘To see a grown man with responsibilities indulge himself like a child. We’re all aware of Nico’s arrested development. But one child’s enough! Either he gets his fingers out of her crib or he gets himself back on the dole queue.’
    We stopped at the lights on Princess Park Way.
    â€˜Will you just look at that?’ Demetrius tutted in commiseration and pointed to a twisted, crippled figure standing by the kerb.
    The figure began to jerk and twist himself across the road, twitching and grimacing. His chin was tucked to one side and his right arm kept making a peculiar, arc-like, bowing motion.
    â€˜What right have we to self-pity …’ asked Demetrius as the cripple dragged himself past our car, ‘ … when there are poor suffering bastards like that in our very midst, wandering and lost?’
    â€˜Yeh,’ said Echo, opening his one good eye to review the pitiful tableau, ‘ … an’ I’ve got ’is violin.’

March–April ’82:
    CHILDREN OF THE POPPY
    Echo had an itch. He scratched his arm until the skin was red and raw and his crown of thorns tattoo seemed to weep blood.
    We were outside his place, blocking the pavement with old black flight-cases.
    â€˜So Jim – Jimmy – James … ’ow come yer packin yer axe, as they say, in this neck o’ the woods? I wouldn’t have thought rock’n’roll was exactly your button, old bean.’
    â€˜Job,’ I said. ‘I need a job.’
    â€˜I thought they decided on’oo wuz the Sons of Learnin’ an’ ’oo wuz the Children of Toil first day of infants school.’
    â€˜Then we’re doomed,’ I said.
    He sniffed, his raw amphetamine-eroded nostrils flaring slightly. ‘Can’t see the attraction for yer.’ He nodded at the clapped-out van and the flight-cases with the fading names of long-defunct groups stencilled in grey on the side.
    A major pop group might employ a fleet of fierce articulated trucks loaded with lighting, sound equipment, stage sets, wardrobe, merchandising, even a few instruments – indeed the whole panoply of hardware that goes with the raw vitality of the people’s music. Ours was a small affair. The glamour went no further than Nico.
    Quite how Demetrius had managed to persuade her that it was necessary she perform with a group, I couldn’t work out. But none of us would have been going anywhere if it were not for his persistence and her gullibility. Without us she would be able to travel in comfort and earn more money. It didn’t make sense.
    â€˜She’s not so thick as yer think, Jim – Jimmy. Don’t forget, she’s got the songs – what’ve you got?’
    Perhaps Nico knew she was better when she sang alone. Maybe she wanted the spotlight to ease up on her for a while. Who could tell? She seemed so knowing and so credulous at the same time that it permanently wrong-footed you. You never knew where she was or where you stood in relation to her. Most of the time she disdained even to speak so there was no point trying to figure it out. We were here, that was all. The job was to load up this Mister Whippy van with Echo’s broken-down junk and pretend to be something.
    Demetrius must have got the truck from someone who owed him one. The seats were the kind of thing you get on public transport, the bare minimum in terms of comfort. Plastic and metal. No head-rests. We had to travel two thousand miles there and back in this. Nico hadn’t seen it yet; I just knew she was going to tear into Demetrius when she clapped eyes on it. The mind that child warning was still visible beneath the thin coat of pale blue paint. On the side was written, in lean-to letters to suggest velocity, ‘r & o van hire salford’ . The suspension sank with an ominous jolt each time we threw