VAGABON

CHAPTER TEN: VAGABON/GEISTE AT ST PANCRAS OLD CHURCH, SOMERS TOWN – 21/10/19

The guy at the front checking tickets can’t quite believe I haven’t got a smartphone. “What,” he says, when I present him with a printout of the email confirmation that I have bought a ticket for tonight’s event, “you haven’t got a smartphone?” 

  “No,” I say, and show him my phone. “Definitely nothing smart about that.” 

  (I didn’t actually say that second part. I only wrote it a few minutes later in my notebook. All I actually said was “No.”)

  “Oh come on,” says the man checking tickets, his face contorted by slight disbelief combined with what almost amounts to a kind of disapproval. “You’re doing me out of a job. I work in I.T.”

  “Well, I have got a computer,” I say, feeling the need to defend myself.” He doesn’t seem to have heard so I say it again. “I have got a computer,” I say, again.

  He doesn’t respond, and I’m still unsure if he’s heard me. He lets me in regardless. “OK,” he says ticking my name off his list. “In you go.”

  There’s another man standing next to him, taller, with browner hair. “There’s the bar,” he says, pointing to a white folding table with some cans of lager on it. “There’s the toilet,” he says, pointing to a door with the word ‘Toilet’ written on it. “And there’s the new album,” he says, pointing to some copies of Vagabon’s new album, Vagabon, resting atop a table; not the table with the lagers, a different table.

  Helpful fellow, I think. 

  “Thank you,” I say.

  This is happening in an old church.

ST. PANCRAS OLD CHURCH is an old church in Somers Town. In the grounds is the Hardy Tree, a tree surrounded by hundreds of gravestones, supposedly placed there, for some reason, by a young Thomas Hardy. The church has that musty smell that all old churches seem to share. The smell of old damp stones and musty incense.

  I find a lone unoccupied seat in the front row. “Is anyone sitting here?” I say to the man sitting next to the empty seat. 

  “No,” says the man sitting next to the empty seat. He shakes his head as if to stress that the empty seat has absolutely nothing to do with him whatsoever. So I take my seat near the remains of one Joseph Richardson, who departed this life on January the 16th, 1979, aged 39, and one Thomas Percival Crawley who perished on the 12th of February, 1822, at the age of just twenty-seven. I wonder what happened to him. Maybe it was some sort of freak accident. It doesn’t say. All I know is that I am sitting near his remains. And next to the votive candles, which cost 20p. 

  One of the guys from the front desk sidles into view, and lights some candles at the front of the stage, which is the cue for GEISTE to appear who, like the venue, is dressed in the Gothic style. 

GEISTE is a solo performer, accompanied by lots of reverb and some machines. One thing I do quite like is that she helpfully explains where each song fits into her oeuvre. “This song is from a mixtape I released on Soundcloud in August,” she helpfully explains, and, “This song is from an E.P. I’m writing at the moment,” and, “This is my first single. It’s called Ocean,” and, “This is my second single, Anthem.”

  “I like to do things in order,” she explains. 

  This being a church the crowd is a little hesitant at first, but they warm up a little by the end. 

  

During the interval the guy next to me is reading an article on the Guardian website under the headline, “How annoyed will Johnson be?” 

  I am writing in my notebook about the guy next to me reading the article about how annoyed Boris Johnson will be, while the earthly remains of various people rest nearby.

“I only arrived in London yesterday, and I feel insane,” says Laetitia Tamko, aka VAGAGON, laughing nervously. She plays the first song alone, just her and an electric guitar. I close my eyes a little bit and drift off. It’s a very lovely moment.

  Before too long she is joined by a moustachioed man who looks like he has just stepped out of a Wes Anderson movie, and who either has a highly abstract tattoo, or has just let a child scribble on his arm. It’s hard to tell. He plays a little Casio keyboard, which is resting on a piece of antiquated church furniture, but too low so he has to hunch over to play it. He also plays a violin in a kind of mournful way, entirely appropriate to the surroundings.

  “I heard this is the oldest church in London,” says Tamko. “It’s really cool to play in a church. It means I can play these songs differently, which I’m really excited about.” By differently she means quieter and slower. At one point it is so quiet that I can hear the sound of my foot tapping on the parquet floor; when, at another, a beat kicks in, the candleholder next to me starts to vibrate noisily. 

  Foot tapping and vibrating candleholders notwithstanding, the songs resound beautifully in the ancient space.

  “Thanks for coming,” says Tamko before the last song. “Please come and see me next time I’m in London. I’ll bring my band with me, which I’m really excited about.” She smiles. “And buy my album.” 

  I do. I buy it off the guy from the front desk who was checking tickets, the one who works in I.T. He looks at me sceptically. 

  “She’ll be out to sign them in a minute, if you want to wait,” he says.

  “Oh no,” I say. “That’s OK.” I don’t really care about getting things signed by people.

  I hand over a twenty-pound note. He looks at it sceptically.

  “Thanks, anyway,” I say.

  He doesn’t respond.