Chameleon

Chapter 4

Big-time rock promoters do not live with their mothers.

Mike Menagerie lived with his mother.

It was a constant, nagging reminder of his failure. Just like the Hellfire Club had been a failure. Well, perhaps not a total failure. Getting out alive was certainly a plus, but not getting paid and having most of the band's gear smashed up did not constitute a roaring success in Mike's book.

He moved with exaggerated care. Letting himself in by the back door, he removed his shoes and deliberately kept the lights off so as not to disturb his mother. Moving cautiously forward he rammed his knee painfully against the leg of the kitchen table, sending it scuttling across the linoleum. Mike hopped on one foot, clutching his injured knee and biting his tongue to stop himself yelling in pain.

'Michael?' His mother's voice. 'Is that you?'

'No, it's Jack the sodding Ripper!' he hissed through clenched teeth.

'Yes, Mum,' he said out loud. 'It's me. Didn't want to disturb you. Go back to sleep.'

'I wasn't asleep. You know I always wait up for you. Come up and tell me what happened.'

Mike sighed and turned on the lights to save himself further injury. He plodded dismally upstairs. She won't approve, he told himself. She never does. Norman Bates had it easy compared to me!

Doreen Smith had become a mother late in life. Her husband had left as soon as his son was born. Mike had taken it as a personal insult. Doreen doted on her only

child, but disapproved strongly of his chosen profession. And the fact that he had adopted a ridiculous surname.

'What's wrong with your real name?' she'd asked him.

'It's boring,' he told her.

'Mike Smith is a good, dependable name,' she'd retorted. And so the argument would go on, endlessly.

Mike poked his head around the door to his mother's room, trying not to breathe in case she smelt beer on his breath.

Doreen sat up in bed, a pink bedjacket around her shoulders and curlers in her hair, a half empty box of chocolates within easy reach. She was watching an old Bogart movie on a portable black and white TV.

'Well, don't stand there like a wet weekend,' she said. 'Come here and tell me what happened.'

She patted a space by her side and Mike grudgingly crossed the room and sat on the very edge of the mattress.

Doreen sniffed. 'You've been drinking,' she stated.

'I am twenty-seven, Mother,' Mike replied petulantly. 'Besides, it was a club. I had to have a couple.'

Doreen grunted her disapproval and sniffed again, pointedly.

'So?' she demanded. 'How did it go?'

'Not as well as we'd have liked,' Mike admitted. It was no good lying to his mother, she had a built-in polygraph.

Doreen sniffed again. 'I don't know why you bother,' she said. 'You could have a proper job with your Uncle Brian any time you like.'

'I don't want to be a butcher, Mum.'

'It pays well.'

'I'm a vegetarian!'