Becoming

Prodigal Son

For Dave, the final two weeks of the tour seemed nearly endless. Aside from simply missing Ade, he also worried about how his boyfriend was handling Urchin's breakup. In addition, Paul spent most of his time in a bit of a strop since Rod bailed him out of that Parisian jail. Lectures from both Steve and Rod didn't help the singer's temper any. Rather than accept responsibility for his poor decisions, Paul decided to lay the blame on the drag queen dancers who annoyed him in the first place, taking the attitude that if there hadn't been a drag show in between the strippers, he'd not have gotten upset enough to attack anyone, high or not.

Tensions were a bit thick between Paul and Clive as well; Clive felt Paul owed him an apology for kicking him in the face when he tried to pull him off the drag dancers and out of the club, while Paul believed Clive merely got what he deserved for trying to defend the poofters. Steve finally had it and snapped at Paul, telling him that Clive had been trying to do him a favour and keep him from getting arrested, so he needed to apologise, which he grudgingly did. Clive accepted the apology, but the fact that Steve forced the issue just gave Paul one more grievance in his own mind.

As they got off the ferry late Friday morning and started loading their gear into a couple of vans for the trip back to Maryland Point, Steve walked over to Dave. "Hey, mate," he said, "D'you mind riding with Clive and Paul? I know Paul and you ain't each other's favourite people, but I kinda need myself and Rod to ride with Dennis."

Dave nodded, knowing the reason Steve wanted to ride with Dennis and their manager. "Yeah, I'll do it, so you can do what you need to," he said. "Just... who's driving, me or Clive? I saw Paul bending the elbow pretty heavily on the ferry and the last thing we need is for him to get stopped or in a crash or something. Especially not with half our gear in the van."

"Good point," Steve nodded. "If you're good for the drive, why don't you take it? Gives you an excuse not to get into conversation with him, too, since you'll have to give your attention to the roads."

Dave chuckled. "Yeah, I'm good for it. See you at the Cart and Horses, then." He climbed behind the wheel of the van and gave a wave to Paul and Clive. "Oi! You two are with me. Let's get going, my sister and brother-in-law are expecting me for supper and we've gear to unload before I can get back to Hackney."

Clive laughed at that announcement and dragged Paul over to the van. "Pity you said sister AND brother-in-law, mate, or I might've invited myself along! Is she a good cook?"

"Angie's a good cook, yeah," Dave said. "But more importantly, she's a hairdresser, and after that tour, I'm sure my hair needs some repair work done. I'll get a good meal, and I'll set up a time for her to give me a trim and all."

Paul settled into the back of the van with a snort. "What are you, some kind of sissy that you go to a hairdresser?"

"Nah, mate, I'm just cheap," Dave said easily. "Why should I pay ten quid at the barber, when I can go to my sister and get it done free?"

"I s'pose," Paul said after thinking that over for a moment. "Wake me when we're there." He sprawled out between cases, his head pillowed on a duffel bag, and closed his eyes. They weren't more than ten kilometres down the road before he started snoring.

Clive fiddled with the wireless until he found some Deep Purple as they got onto the motorway, humming along until the song ended and a weather report came on. Then he looked over at Dave. "What d'you think, is Steve firing Denny right now?"

"What makes you think that?" Dave asked.

"Well, he wasn't gonna fire him mid-tour, was he?" Clive said. "If you ask me, Denny was the best of a mediocre lot auditioning for our second guitarist – he's good, but he's not really metal, is he? And him changing up Phantom like he did..." The drummer shook his head. "Far's Steve's concerned, changing up one of his songs like that, is like killing his baby. Plus I can't see any other reason Steve wanted you and Paul in the same van. You're good at keeping the personal out of the band, but it's no secret you two ain't exactly friends."