Tracey Thorn - My rock n roll friend

Also by Tracey Thorn

Bedsit Disco Queen

Naked at the Albert Hall

Another Planet

First published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2021

by Canongate Books Ltd,

14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West and in

Canada by Publishers Group Canada

canongate.co.uk

This digital edition first published in 2021 by Canongate Books

Copyright Tracey Thorn, 2021

The right of Tracey Thorn to be identified as the

author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance

with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

For permission credits please see

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available on

request from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 78689 822 7
eISBN978 1 78689 824 1

She will have her own version. I am not the centre of her story, because she herself is that. But I could give her something you can never have, except from another person: what you look like from outside. A reflection. This is part of herself I could give back to her.

Margaret Atwood, Cats Eye

INTRODUCTION

London, 2020

Dear Lindy,

You wont believe what Ive done: me, the quiet one. Ive written it down, written you down, told all your stories, tried to capture you in the pages of a book. Some people know about you already, or think they do; youre sort of famous. Others have never heard of you, but I dont think it matters either way. This isnt a rock biography, and although the story of your band, The Go-Betweens, is part of the narrative, the real story is you. Or maybe, in truth, the story is you and me, the arc of a friendship, the imprint one person leaves on another.

Do you remember how it began? I do, so clearly: 31 March 1983, backstage at the Lyceum in London. I was in my dressing room sitting in front of the Hollywood-style bulbs surrounding the mirror uncomfortably bright lights which showed up the tattered glamour of a faded old theatre, dust motes swirling in the air, a worn-out sofa, a carpet that had seen better days, a window that didnt open, stale air.

My band the Marine Girls were about to play a gig supporting Orange Juice. Also on the bill were The Go-Betweens. I was terrified and out of my depth, unused to dressing rooms, sound checks, gigs in London, all of it. In my second year at university, but still a small-town girl at heart, little more than a child. My band was drifting and splitting, our friendships fracturing, and I felt myself coming apart, beginning to wonder who I was, and what I wanted. Earlier that afternoon Id been brought close to tears by my first ever encounter with a road crew. Now I was feeling lost and lonely, staring at myself in the mirror. I hated my hair. I hated my outfit. I hated my reflection.

The dressing-room door opened. A breeze. The air changed. Then someone speaking at the top of her voice. Your first words were: HAS ANYONE HERE GOT A LIPSTICK I CAN BORROW? I looked up to see blonde hair and a Lurex dress. A tall, angular woman, who seemed to reflect the light, or perhaps you had your own internal source. You didnt look like youd ever been scared to go on stage, or felt judged by your own bandmates, or been browbeaten by a road crew. You looked like confidence ran in your veins. You looked like self-belief in a mini dress, the equal of anyone.

I cant remember what I said. I fear that I stared. I tentatively held out a lipstick. Who was this woman?

It took me a while to find out. Maybe Im still finding out. After all the years I realised there was plenty I didnt understand when I started this book. And if you want to know what moved me to start writing it, Ill tell you one more story before I begin. Its the parrots story, and I know you remember it, but maybe you dont quite realise the significance for me. How it sums up so much about who we were, who we are, what it all meant.

It happened in 1987, when I invited you to come and spend a day with me at a spa. You brought along Amanda Brown, who had just joined The Go-Betweens, and together we went to the women-only Sanctuary Spa in Covent Garden.

Opened in 1977, a gift from a millionaire to his ballerina wife, it was one of those luxehippy 70s destinations, with a vaguely communal vibe, very much of its time. There were secluded jacuzzis, a sauna and a steam room, and old-fashioned sunbeds. The walls were white and curving, the floors brickwork. Passages and narrow steps led round and back on themselves. Here and there were circular white rattan chairs, and piles of cushions. Wooden footbridges crossed the pools, which were full of koi carp, their mouths gaping open at the surface, begging for food, or gasping for air. Hungry for something anyway. Candles lined the edges of the pools, in a style which was half-Moroccan, half-Japanese.

In the centre was the swimming pool, planted all round with tropical greenery. Ivy trailed down from the ceiling, and a swing extended out over the water, conjuring up images of 70s soft porn, and in fact an orgy scene from the 1978 Joan Collins movie, The Stud, had been filmed in this exact spot. Joan had appeared on the swing wearing black lace knickers, stockings and suspenders, although only after loosening up with a few drinks in a nearby Covent Garden pub.

I was faintly embarrassed by the corny connotations of the place, and I wondered what you would make of it, but as we entered you simply shouted at the top of your voice, Oh my God, PARROTS! because, yes, I had forgotten, to complete the rainforest effect, there were a number of brightly coloured parrots flying around.

In the changing room, we put down our bags and reached for our towels and costumes.

You know, you can actually swim naked here, I said. Some women do. I mean, you dont have to, and its maybe a bit of a hippy thing, but...

I glanced up into the mirror to see your reflection behind me, and you were stripping.

I love to swim nude, you said. Within a few moments Amanda had joined you. Come on, itll be great.

I rummaged in my bag, looking for something. What? Playing for time. Nudity was natural to you, always easy and liberating, but for me it meant exposure. Id had very little of it in my life, but I was trying to shake off the constraints of my upbringing and background. In that moment I had to make a decision.

We take off our clothes, and peel off layers.

I think, what is surface, what is depth?

I think of the mirror, and the pool.

I see us clothed and unclothed.

Lipstick, powder and paint.

It was the mid-80s, and none of us had a Brazilian or a bikini wax; we had full 70s bushes. None of us went to the gym either, or had a boob job, and I was skinny and flat, and you looked at my body, and with your usual lack of restraint shouted, Tracey, your tits are TINY! And I laughed, there being nothing else to do. Something in me began to let go. Was there another way to be?

So there we were, three women from the UK indie music scene, that sexless little world of plimsolls and anoraks, and we were stark naked, swimming in a pool draped in tropical plants, posing with our tits out on the porn swing once used by Joan Collins while parrots swooped and dived above our heads.

A few years later, I did the same again, on a Greek island with Ben, when we drove the length of a rocky track down to an isolated cove, only to find when we got there that it was a nudist beach. A few moments of hesitation, then I picked my naked way across the sand and felt the bliss of being in the sea, the sweet sting of salt and sand, water on skin like a caress. I thought of you that day, and remembered the Sanctuary, and was grateful. One tiny turn of the key in a gradual unlocking.