War, Migration & the First Generation

  

In walks Veki’s Vlado all unannounced straight to the baguette counter. To look at him you’d think he’d come down from some office tower, leaving the work piled up on the desk no time to tarry. Almost entirely grey. Loose black leather jacket, dark navy trousers, shoes still polished. Not any beef put on his bones in all these years. Was it the same Lennon glasses? Struggling on his super after his ex cleaned him out; stung recently too by an online dating site that he eventually traced to an unromantic outer Doveton address. Would that have been lunch at this hour? The slight frame possible and a night owl. Veki had said he was continuing to trawl the possibilities on screen. The Ukraine. Radiating even from way back then. Fags had killed his father in the end in the new country, mad relentless worker; difficult relations. Mother was for nurture – strongly attached. A vanished sister had dived into drugs in mid-teens. Assistant Manager in an office for a stretch, hard task-master with poor communication skills; not exactly a people person. When the department was decommissioned there must have been insufficient confidence for any kind of try-out elsewhere. Retirement before he was forty. The smooth blonde from the other side of town with a previous child was suspected by Vlad’s small circle to be a gold digger. Head over heels properly. No more jamming with the band; no visiting the family man in those years. It had always been an ordeal waiting for Vlado to unlock his doors for entry. Security conscious galore. The half-formed recording studio was never completed and passed into disuse. Tech-head; mixer at jigs. Vlad’s bass had always been questionable. It was only Veki who abided Vlad and the pair certainly had their moments, a couple of times Vek blowing up after enduring the opening of the fort, the clean shoes, crumbs at the coffee table one time/two too many. Briefest recall of Vlad at Laurie’s funeral – nothing in particular; fulfilling the obligation without affect something like the on-stage manner behind the glasses bent over his strings.