Just Like A Rolling Stone

By Vivien Brown

In 1971, Geraldine Clark turned sixteen. It was the year that Clive Dunn’s Grandad pushed its way quite unexpectedly to number one in the charts, everyone was swooning over David Cassidy on TV, and The Rolling Stones came to Brighton – even though she never did get to see them.

Geraldine had always loved living in such a busy town so close to the sea. But on a chilly January day, with nothing exciting going on, her promise to her dad still playing on her mind, and the wind whipping up the waves and rattling at the pebbles on the beach, she wasn’t quite so sure.

Wrapping her woollen scarf tightly around her neck, she turned up one of the side roads, away from the seafront, before stopping to pull a scrap of paper out of her pocket. She checked the address she’d scribbled down.

Yes, this was the right place. The shop was not as big as she’d expected, but it looked bright and inviting. Its sign, displaying the name BitsAndBobs, was newly painted and its windows sparkling clean.

She took a deep breath and checked her reflection. This would be her first job interview, and she was determined not to let her nerves get the better of her.

Ever since her mum had died, there had seemed no real point to anything. She hadn’t been able to sleep, and she hadn’t been able to cry. She had felt lost, as if a great ball of grief had settled inside her and nothing could shift it. She had started staying out late, got mixed up with the wrong crowd, and even dropped out of school for a while, but none of that had helped. And when she had seen the helplessness and hurt in her dad’s face, at a time when he was grieving too, she’d realised that she had to stop rebelling against the world, start looking forward and get herself back on track.

She had to make a success of her life, and make her dad proud of her again. It was what her mum would have wanted.

Her O-level exams were coming up in the summer. The need to put effort into her studies and make up for lost time had been drummed into her so often that she could recite her dad’s exact words back to him like a parrot.

But she was sixteen, she had reminded him, and sixteen-year-olds needed their independence and a little fun in their lives too. So she had promised to stay at home and study in the evenings after school, and all day on

A whole TWO POUNDS a week. She’d buy MAKE-UP and go to THE CINEMA

Sundays (which she wasn’t totally sure was actually going to happen), if only he would let her look for a Saturday job, and he had finally given in.

With all the excitement about the new decimal currency due to be introduced the following month, she had expected lots of places to be crying out for extra staff, if only to cope with all the confusion the new coins and prices were already creating – but finding work had turned out to be surprisingly difficult.

Handing in her name and address at just about every shop and café in town

had taken a whole day of trudging the streets, and left her with nothing but aching feet and dashed hopes.

So when Mrs Payne had got in touch, Geraldine had been ecstatic. A job would get her out of the house and give her some cash of her own – a whole two pounds a week – without having to plead for extra pocket money.

She would be able to buy Petticoat magazine every week, treat herself to make-up, and go to the cinema with her friends on Saturday nights. Everyone was talking about the new film, Love Story, and she really wanted to see it.

She opened the shop door with a “ping” of the bell and went inside. There wasn’t a customer in sight, but perhaps that was to be expected. From the rows of cheap printed china, racks of postcards and sticks of rock on display, this was clearly a souvenir shop, and it was hardly the time of year for holidaymakers.

A middle-aged woman with a short curly perm and round rosy cheeks was sitting behind the counter, flicking through a magazine.

“Ah, you must be Geraldine,” she said, looking up and smiling. “I’m Betty Payne. I hope you don’t mind if we sit here in the shop to have our little chat. There is a back room, but my husband’s at the wholesaler’s so I’m on my own today and I can’t leave the place unattended. Do take off your coat and have a seat, dear. Now, tell me, are you good with figures?”

These tiddlers are so fiddly,” Mrs Payne grumbled, her fingers struggling to count a pile of the new halfpenny pieces she’d just scooped from the till. “They’re just too small!”

“Here,” Geraldine said, putting down her pricing gun. “Let me help.”

“Thank you, dear. And how are you getting on with re-pricing the china? New pennies indeed! Why we can’t just carry on with our old pennies, I do not know. And as for having no shillings any more, well, I don’t know what I’m going to do about the name of the shop. Everyone knows what a bob is, don’t they? I can hardly change it to Bits and Five New Pence Pieces, now, can I?”

Geraldine laughed. This was her second Saturday working in the shop, and she was quickly getting the hang of things.

“I’ve just about finished this. What shall I do next?”

“Well, it’s probably time you stopped for a break now, dear. You go and have your lunch, and I’ll see you back here at half past one.”

Geraldine slipped behind the curtain that separated the shop from the tiny back room, pulled on her coat, retrieved the egg sandwiches she had made for herself that morning, and was just about to leave when the shop door flew open and a young man came rushing in.

“You’ll never guess!” he said excitedly, wrapping Mrs Payne in his arms and lifting her off the floor as he

swung her round in a circle before dropping her back down again.

“No, I probably won’t, so maybe you should just tell me,” she said, giggling as she caught her breath.

“The Rolling Stones are coming. Here, to Brighton!”

Geraldine’s heart started to pound wildly. Whether the thought of a group as famous as the Stones coming here to her own home town was to blame, or whether it was the strikingly handsome face of the young man delivering the news, she was not at all sure.

“Really, dear? How nice,” Mrs Payne said, clearly unimpressed. “Let me introduce Geraldine, my new assistant. Geraldine, this is my son, Kenneth.”

“The Rolling Stones are coming here?” Geraldine gushed, forgetting even to say hello as she took the cold hand the young man held out to her and shook it distractedly. “To do a concert?”

“They certainly are! Two concerts, in fact, on a Wednesday, in March. They’ll be at The Big Apple, in Queens Road, and tickets go on sale tomorrow. Oh, and pleased to meet you, by the way,” he said, grinning. “You can call me Ken.”

“Didn’t that place used to be the old dance hall?” Mrs Payne chipped in. “Your father took me there lots of times, when we were courting. It was called The Regent back then. A lovely springy floor, it had. We’d dance till we dropped! But I hear the concerts there nowadays can get very loud.”

“I expect this one will be the loudest ever, Mum, with Mick Jagger belting out Jumping Jack Flash and hundreds of teenagers jumping up and down with him. That should get the old floor springing again all right! So, what about you, Geraldine? Will you try for a ticket?”

Geraldine already knew what her dad would say. He’d be worrying about all those people in hippy clothes, imagining them smoking and taking drugs in some dark and sweaty hall, and he’d go on and on about singers with long hair gyrating like mad things, and about who she was with and how she’d get home. He would never agree to her going. And on a weekday, too.

“They say it’s some sort of farewell

Her DAD would WORRY about people in hippy CLOTHES taking DRUGS

tour,” Ken went on. “Before they go off to live in France. It might be the last chance to see them…”

Geraldine had a giant colour poster of the group, and some of their records, in her bedroom. There was nothing she would like more than seeing them, and hearing them, for real, but that would mean telling lies, sneaking out of the house, and back in again.

Could she get away with it? Should she? No, she’d promised. Promised her dad, and herself, that she had put her rebel days behind her. And now she had the chance to prove she meant it. “I don’t think so,” she said reluctantly. “That’s a shame. Well, I’ll see you later, Mum.” Ken opened the shop door again, letting a blast of freezing air in, before turning back to Geraldine. “I don’t suppose you fancy sharing a bag of chips, do you? On the pier, maybe? We can get to know each other, if you’re going to be sticking around.”

“OK,” she said, her face starting to flush as she put her sandwiches back behind the curtain. He was probably just being polite, making a friendly gesture to the new girl, but the last thing she wanted was to risk smelling of eggs. She may not be going to see Mick Jagger, but having her lunch with Mrs Payne’s good-looking son came a close second.

She slung her bag over her shoulder and followed him out into the street. “So, Geraldine…” “Call me Geri. My friends do.” “We’re friends already then, are we?” Ken smiled at her, his brown eyes twinkling. “Only teasing. Of course we are! Come on, let’s go and find somewhere to sit and I’ll treat you to those chips. Salt and vinegar?”

“Yes, please.”

You’re a Stones fan, then?” he asked, ten minutes later, as they sat side by side, looking out across a dull grey sea.

“Yes, although I liked The Beatles better. But now they’ve split up, they’ll never be coming to Brighton, will they?”

“Maybe not the others, but George Harrison might! Now My Sweet Lord’s at the top of the charts. But are you sure, about not seeing the Stones?” He swallowed his last chip and wiped his greasy fingers on the screwed-up paper. “They say there’ll probably be big queues for tickets, but I could try to get you one if you like?” “No. I’d love to, but I can’t. Sorry.” “No need to apologise. Love is never having to say you’re sorry! Isn’t that what they say in that film all you girls are raving about? The one where the wife dies young. Not that I’ve seen it myself.”

“Me neither.” “Would you like to? See it with me some time, I mean?”

His hand brushed hers as he leaned over and pinched one of her chips and, as she playfully batted him away, she could have sworn she felt a tiny spark of electricity tingle its way up her arm.

Geraldine Clark would always remember 1971 as the year she didn’t see The Rolling Stones. But it was also the year she passed every one of her exams, and made her dad proud. And, as she watched the saddest ending to a film she had ever seen, and finally cried her heart out for the mum she had lost, it was also the year she found love. And somehow that made everything all right.