Car 3

77
Mr Spider Spenser

Outward appearance

A diffident librarian coming home from a fancy dress? Skinny, all in black, with traces of white makeup and mascara. Bald on top, with long wispy hair at the back and sides. His shoulders are covered with stray strands. He rifles repeatedly through a black shoulder bag.

Inside information

Spider works Tuesday nights at the bar in Etoile, when it gets called Tombstone Blues. Going home to Lambeth North. Officially unemployed and on benefit. A Jobseeker, in another words.

Spider is a Bauhaus fan. He used to know people who knew Pete Murphy. He also knows a woman who does publicity for the Cure. Last night she gave him a cassette for free

What he is doing or thinking

Where's my bloody tape?

It was a copy of Concert the cure live from 84. Back then, Spider was new on the scene. His hair was a kind of black fountain off the top of his head. He sat at the bar with his girlfriend Lizzie, who looked like a virgin being buried in her wedding dress. Everyone knew them. They were all ex-punks or near-Romantics or hard core Goths or something in between and more interesting.

Some live in Australia now teaching scuba diving. Lizzie married an indulgent businessman and went dykey. Now she dresses like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and is a mother. She looks big. He feels small. They all thought that somehow being fashionable, knowing people, being in the arts would make them rich. Then very suddenly they all were gone.

Like that tape. He keeps scrabbling in the bag.

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