The Ned Wood Archive

Don’t think you knew
you were in this song

There was a new face around the kitchen table. I’d been over with the Banshee Twins to watch TV. It was a Thursday, so it was Top of the Pops day. And the Jam were Number One, so we had to celebrate together: me, Fi, and Cat. That memorable performance with the Tomato Soup apron. Weller kicking off with the angry slashing chords, then kicking off with his angry voice damning the government, damning the military, damning the media, damning the establishment. It’s the perfect song if you’re outraged and want to play something to help channel your energy. It’s the perfect song if you want to rail at the state of the world. It’s the culmination of everything the punk had been trying to say. May as well sup up your beer and collect your fags cos everything that needed saying has now been said. So Fi played it a couple more times on the stereo in her room, turned up to eleven so we could hear it in the kitchen, and we all pogoed like we were sixteen again.

And I went home happy. And like I say, there was a new face round the table. Our table not Fi’s. The lads were having more dinner parties and stuff at the flat. Gav, especially, was getting more confident, more at ease with himself. I noticed a big change in him when I got back in March. He was having folk round for meals. Sometimes I’d be invited to join in, sometimes not. Pall, too. He did a bit of entertaining. And when I got back from the Wee Fies, Pall was entertaining in the kitchen. Pall, Nessie, and maybe someone else from Pall’s course. And, right at the back of the room, sat under the window that lets the light from the kitchen into the box room, there she was. Quiet. Staring ahead. No expression on her face. Not smiling. Seemingly not listening. Just looking. A beautiful sharp chiselled face under short straight hair, black, flat, parted at the side. Really short hair like I had back in my first year at grammar school. Very striking. You’d notice her immediately.

And wearing a suit. A well fitting, two piece light grey suit. Thin lapels, one button done up, over a white shirt and light grey tie. Probably narrow legged trousers, too, I thought. (I was right.) I’ve got a picture of Billy Fury in a similar suit. Billy Fury’s is shinier and probably silver – it’s a black and white photo, so it’s not 100% obvious. A Martian Fry suit, perhaps. But I’m getting a couple of years ahead of myself.

I’d picked up a couple of Billy Fury singles in London. Once Upon a Dream and Collette. Got them in London from a friend of my roommate Doug’s. The first’s a ballad. Great dreamy voice. Better than Elvis. Like melted chocolate. The second’s my favourite. Quicker. Driven forward by racey guitar runs. Same smooth vocals. Both productions obviously of their time. And fabulous. So I got me a postcard-sized picture of Billy Fury and put it on the wall. And that’s my first thought when I saw her: Billy Fury suit. And also what I put down as a Billy Fury haircut. Short, parted at the side. Actually more like Bowie was wearing around the time of Heroes. No. The best comparison would be Audrey Hepburn. Roman Holiday. Shortish sides, tucked behind the ears, hair parted to one side and a floppy wave across the forehead. You couldn’t fail to notice Kat.

She wasn’t into Billy Fury, though. She was into the same music as Ness – Bowie, Eno, Kraftwerk, Ultravox. If I tried to impress her, by knowing the words to any of the songs or telling her the history of any of the bands, she’d correct me. Whenever she listened to stuff, she Insisted on playing the whole album through start to finish, side 1 first. This was all later, when I’d got to know her a bit, and that took a while. Wouldn’t ever select a particular track. Well, I didn’t like doing that either in case I messed up the LP or the needle. But I did it anyway. Like with Hiroshima Mon Amour. And Autobahn about half way through, sometimes. And she wouldn’t let us play any music during dinner. Had to listen to it in peace which was always difficult when Pall was around because we’d always talk about what we were listening to over what we were listening to, me and him. Was into sci fi and stuff like Lord of the Rings (so had that in common with Pete the Poet!). Also into old 50s movies. Bogart, Edward G Robinson: Double Indemnity. Maltese Falcon. Also the Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Creature from the Black Lagoon. Probably Roman Holiday, too. But just black and white stuff.

She was a Kathleen. I wasn’t allowed to call her Kathleen, though. No-one was. She insisted on Kat. Now, you lot can tell the difference between Kat and Cat, I mean, one’s got a K and one’s got a C. However, a lot of the times, when we spoke about each other: me, Gav, Pall, Pete, and the rest, we couldn’t always tell who we were speaking about. So Cat became Scottish Cat and Kat became English Kat. And the conversation would go “And this is Kat. We call her English Kat because she’s English.” which is a bit dumb. But then other folk who’d only just met her would say: “Yes. She’s very English, isn’t she.”

Which was interesting, because I’d ask “What is it that is very English?” She was a bit quiet. Didn’t take over the conversation like a Pete or a Nessie. Always sat in the same place when she came round. At the back of the table under the box room window. Always left fairly early. None of this makes her especially English, does it? She was difficult to read. Her expression never changed much. Hardly ever smiled at first. Only thing was, if I made a joke, her eyebrows would go down and scrunch up. The opposite to Spock’s eyebrow lift. Like she didn’t understand the joke. Did that mean it wasn’t logical? She preferred to sit and observe rather than bounce around like Nessie. She’d express an opinion if you asked her directly, but she wouldn’t interrupt anyone and would never shout someone else down. Occasionally, though, she did get a bit fed up and would lash out verbally and strongly to make her point, for instance when Pete teased her about her clothes and she’d quickly strike like a cat swinging it’s deadly sharp claws at you just the once before retreating back into innocent indifference.

Funny how different people react. Pete was a great person for finding out. Sarah would completely ignore him as if he wasn’t there. Nessie would listen to everything he said and then talk about something else, just showing that she didn’t care. Gav would take everything on board and just get hotter and hotter and more and more frustrated. Kat, English Kat, would listen, soak stuff up until she reached a certain point and then react with a loud but accurate response and then go back to being quiet and observant again. To me it was like the couple of days I spent in San Paulo in Brazil on my trip down south. Every day would be the same: the temperature hot and rising until, at 5 o’clock on the dot, and you could set your watch by it, the heavens opened and it absolutely poured down for ten or fifteen minutes, and then go back to being a normal day again. Fortunately, Pete was hardly ever there when she was. He was on his way out of our group as she was on her way in.

Anyways, what most people said, when I asked them why they’d called Kat “very English” was “It’s her accent.” So, there you go. She hasn’t got “an accent” like me or Pall or Pete or Nessie. She talks in what I still think of as that normal, bland, southeastern way. Not Cockney or Estuarine. Not posh. Just common or garden, Cambridge English. Like Sarah.

I had a suit a bit like hers. I’m big on suits and sensible shoes. I loved to wear the bright blue suit I’d bought in London. The one I got for a summer ball: jacket with one button at about waist level, long thin lapels. Slightly baggy trousers, but coming in to a tight fit at the turn up. Like the ones Brian Ferry wore around the time of the Manifesto album. One of the lasses I met in London invited me to her end of year ball and I was so pleased with the suit when I turned up only to find that it was black tie and everyone else had tuxes. I loved that suit, but I managed to wear the seat of it out within a couple of years.

And I had this other one. Narrow, straight legs, longish jacket, three buttons, this was, but with the same narrow lapels. Light grey. Not so much silver grey as aluminium grey. Wore it with white shirts and grey ties. Of course, that was much later. I did wear the odd suit back then – got the mickey taken out of me at Southampton sometimes – but I didn’t have Kat’s style. No-one did. I loved the way she looked. Sometimes she’d wear the suit. She could carry it off so she looked like she’d always been wearing a suit. Sometimes she’d have that Annie Hall look, with real Oxford bags, not flares. Sometimes, she’d have an old vintage dress, you know, like Jean Harlow or someone. Said she got them in old second hand clothes shops. I don’t remember seeing that many around Edinburgh or back home, back then, so it must have been a Cambridge thing. She’d got style, though. I wish I had that much style. Fact is, I was in love with her for about two weeks after that. Was always on at Pall to invite her round. I thought she looked magnificent. Could look at her for hours, like Victoria Carson. Or Audrey Hepburn.

Weird thing was: a lot of other folk thought she looked strange. They’d make snide comments. Couldn’t get past the suits. Couldn’t get past the shirt and tie thing. Couldn’t get past the short hair. Same as all the rubbish Sinead O’Connor had to put up with. That got to her a bit, but, then she’d say “It’s the right thing to do. It’s good to look smart.” I agree. I just wish I’d had her courage and her style back then.

So that was the end of term. Going Underground with the Jam and dreaming of Kat.