Oh brother where art thou!

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When I came back to Australia in 1983 I pretended to everyone at school that Tom Bailey from the Thompson Twins was my brother. At first they didn’t understand; they thought the Thompson Twins were actually real twins. Anyone who knew anything about the band knew that wasn’t the case. The Thompson Twins were named after the two detectives in the comic strip The Adventures of Tintin. There were three members in the band, and one of them was a black guy, so to think they were twins was stupid. I had to explain all this when questioned about my claim to fame, which tended to lessen the magnitude of the situation. Tom Bailey from the Thompson Twins is my brother! Don’t you people get it!

Most of the kids at the school knew I was from the UK and the fact that my sister still lived over there only validated my claim. “Tom couldn’t come out to Australia with us because of the band and everything. They’ve really started to hit the big time.”

There was a slight family resemblance, but seeing as Tom was 13 years older than me and my mother had had me when she was about 23 meant I had to think this thing through a bit more, especially when people started at me with questions.

Tom was the product of my mother’s first marriage, when she was 16 (she was much older than she looked) and later, when she had married my father, Tom stayed with his dad. He would come for Sunday Roasts and Christmas and stuff. They were great days, some of the best I’ve had. I remember one year when we were all sitting around the fire on a snowy Christmas afternoon and Tom pulled out his synthesiser and just started playing the coolest tune. That song was later recorded. It was the famous Hold me now.

I went on a school camp and had to share a tent with a girl who had no friends. She liked tuna and peas. Together. I told her about Tom in a fit of boredom one night. She loved the Thompson Twins; she had all their records. She thought I was the coolest, most fascinating person she’d ever met, especially since I still had my English accent. She was so gullible I could tell her anything. I had a picture of Tom I’d cut from a magazine in my wallet, behind the little piece of plastic in the photo compartment, which made it look like a real photo. She gasped in awe. She wished she had a famous brother. “Oh, it’s not a big deal,” I told her. “He’s just my dumb brother.”

Two years later I’d left school and was working in a small record store, importing records from the UK. I loved it because I only imported records by bands that I liked. The Thompson Twins were nowhere to be seen. A girl came in one day and recognised me from school, which was surprising because I looked completely different. I was a goth. “How’s your brother?’ she asked. I studied her for a moment, unable to place her face, but annoyed by her nerdiness. “What brother?” I said. “I don’t have a brother. You’ve got the wrong person.”
Then it dawned on me: this was tuna and peas. I laughed. She didn’t. She left, all worked up about something. What did I care?

I opened a carton of twelve inch singles that had just arrived and was pleased to see the new release by The Smiths among them. I studied the cover for a moment, turned to my co-worker, a young, naive girl of 16 and said, “Hey, did you know Johnny Marr from The Smiths is my cousin?”

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