Disclaimer: I don't own the Mighty Boosh characters or the plot of Notting Hill. I just cobbled them together in a Frankenstein kind of way...

Rated for language and implied sex, some drugs references.

“Ain’t No Sunshine”

1

Howard Moon, 36, Jazz Maverick, Cream Poet, proprietor of a small, unsuccessful second-hand shop and author of a small, even less successful book, Howard Moon: The Adventures of a Man of Action in the Arctic and Other Equally Unforgiving Natural Environments, was walking back to work after his lunch break with no idea that this day was going to change his life forever. Baguette under one arm, rolled up copy of the esteemed publication ‘Global Explorer’ under the other, Howard hurried along the streets of Dalston. He wasn’t looking where he was going, because looking where he was going meant that he might actually have to look people in the eye which was, in his experience, not one of the safest things to do in the general Hackney area, an environment arguably less forgiving than many of those he had written about in his book. And because he wasn’t really looking where he was going, he didn’t see another person coming round the corner by the shop towards him. The other person, who was listening to one of those new-fangled walkman devices - a bit like a portable record player but not, Howard thought - didn’t see Howard.

Consequently, there was a crash, a bump and a splash of some indistinguishable iced beverage, followed quickly by an indignant yelp from the other person. Howard’s eyes darted everywhere as he tried to take in what had just happened. He saw a broken pair of sunglasses, an empty cardboard coffee cup, a mop of black hair and a pair of unnaturally pointed silver boots, in that order.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, miss,” Howard babbled as he extended a hand to help haul the victim of his lack of attention to pavement protocol to an upright position. As he did so, the mop of black hair shook and Howard found himself looking into the face of a man, perhaps five or six years younger than himself, good looking in a visually noisy, pointy-featured kind of a way, with angry blue eyes suddenly very close to his own. Howard dropped the man’s arm and took a step back, stammering a correction,

“I’m so sorry, sir…” The man looked down at himself and sighed angrily.

“Why didn’t you look where you were going, ya jerk-off?” He demanded in a London accent.

“Sorry…”

“You’ve spilled iced-tea all over me!”

“I’m really very sorry. Sorry. I’ll buy you another one...”

“The iced tea’s not important, but look at my shirt!” Howard looked. It looked like one of the shirts his mate Leroy sold from his market stall for five euros. “This is Jean-Claude Jacquetti, you know!”

“Well…I’m sure Jean Claude won’t mind if you explain what happened…” Howard said. Suddenly, the angry frown faded and the corners of the young man’s mouth turned up in a suppressed laugh.

“’Spose not.”

“Look,” Howard continued, “I live right across the street if you want to come in and change. You can borrow one of my shirts.” The other man’s eyebrows shot up in horror as he looked at the shirt Howard had on. Howard, mistaking the look, carried on, “It’s just that house there. That’s my shop. I live above it. You can just come in and change. Call a cab if you like. I’m not a rapist or anything.”

“I suppose…” the other man said, warily. Howard bent down and picked up the sunglasses and handed them back to their owner, then held out his hand.

“Howard Moon.” The stranger shook it.

“Nice to meet you, Howard Moon.” Then he frowned as Howard was looking at him expectantly. “What, you want an autograph or something?”

“Well, if you could just tell me your name, you don’t need to write it down.”

“You…you mean you don’t know who I am?” The man studied Howard, curiously.

“Nope. Should I?”

“I’m Vince Noir,” said Vince. “Rock and roll star,” he added as Howard continued to look at him blankly.

“Ah. Nice to meet you Vince,” Howard said politely.

“You really don’t know me? I’ve won fourteen NME awards. I’m on the cover of this week’s Face magazine. I was voted 3rd most famous man in London only last week.”

“Never heard of you, sorry,” Howard said. “Not my kind of thing, rock and roll music. I’m more of a jazz connoisseur, myself.”

“Jazz?” Vince said, in the tone of voice you might expect someone to say ‘venereal disease’. But he followed Howard across the street to his flat all the same.

Howard’s flat was very brown. Actually, that wouldn’t be an accurate description. Fairer to say it was a cacophony of different shades of brown. Vince didn’t think he’d ever seen so much brown in his life, and was quite thankful for that. On the walls were posters of jazz musicians, in the corner piles of jazz records. Vince looked around, idly thumbing through some of the magazines on the coffee table, Global Explorer, Jazz on My Face, Jazz Sounds Weekly, Bored Baboon Housewives…

“Hang on, what’s this?” Vince picked up the primate pornography with an expression of extreme distaste, looking at Howard now as if he might be some kind of weird pervert after all.

“That’s my flatmate’s,” Howard explained. “He’s a gorilla.”

“Well, he’s got some unusual tastes, but that’s a bit harsh.”

“No, he actually is a gorilla. His name’s Bollo. Not my first choice of flatmate, I’ll admit, but the rent has to be paid, you know. It’s not so bad now I’ve taught him to take answer phone messages and not to leave banana skins on the stairs.”

“Oh.”

“So, which would you like,” Howard asked, holding up two shirts, both of which Vince thought were quite hideous. “The angry muffin or the bilious cinnamon?”

“Er…I’ll take the angry muffin,” Vince said, although he really had no idea which of the two that epithet might refer to. Howard handed him the shirt on the left.

“The bathroom’s just through there…”

“Thanks. I think I’ll give my manager a ring, get him to pick me up. Alright if I wait here for ten minutes?”

“Fine,” Howard said. “Er…cup of tea? Fraid I don’t have iced tea…or there’s….pretty much all we have in the house is beer and soup.”

“I’ll have a tea, cheers,” called Vince from the bathroom.

“So…er…Vince, what kind of music is it that you play?”

“You know, bit of indie, bit of rock, bit of electro. Whatever’s cool at the time. I’m promoting my third album at the moment.”

“That’s great,” Howard said, feigning enthusiasm. Vince emerged from the bathroom dressed in Howard’s shirt.

“Don’t laugh,” he warned Howard.

“I wasn’t going to. That’s my best shirt, you know, sir!”

“What this? It’s…it’s very kind of you,” Vince said, flashing him a dazzling grin. “Tea, brilliant.” And he sat down across from Howard, wrapping his hands around the mug.

“So, your shop, what kind of stuff does it sell?”

“Jazz records, jazz memorabilia, stationary, jazz stationary, assorted, er, stuff.”

“Doing well?”

“Not at all.”

“Sorry to hear it. Maybe I’ll pop round some time, buy a few, er, jazz pencil cases.”

“A very useful item, the jazz pencil case,” Howard said, “you never know when you might need one.”

“I really can’t think of any time when I possibly would,” Vince said. Howard frowned. “So, you live with a gorilla? Must be…different. Your girlfriend doesn’t mind?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Howard said, finding himself blushing despite his best efforts at communicating mentally with his skin and pleading with it to stay a normal colour.

“Boyfriend?” Vince asked, arching one eyebrow.

“N-no,” Howard stammered awkwardly, feeling his blush deepen.

“You and the gorilla, you’re not…”

“No! Christ no!” Howard exclaimed, shuddering.

“Well thank goodness for that. I was only asking, cos I knew this bloke once, went out with a scorpion, well mental! People have all kinds of crazy kinks.”

“I guess they do at that,” Howard agreed. This was weird. Well, it wasn’t every day that he invited strange men up to his flat for tea. Less still apparently-famous rock stars. He’d envisaged a quiet half an hour, just him and his magazine and his baguette. Which he just now remembered he’d left abandoned on the street corner. Howard Moon, man of action and wilderness photographer, was not, by his own admission, much of a people person. It probably explained why he didn’t get many customers in his shop. People who’d been once tended not to come back. But this, this was…nice.

“Fun, being a rock star, is it?” He asked, and then kicked himself mentally. What kind of inane question was that? This explained why he’d never got very far in that career in journalism.

“It’s genius. I get to do all kinds of crazy things. On my last tour – “ But whatever Vince had been about to say about his last tour was cut off by the sound of a horn beeping outside. “That’ll be Bob, my manager,” Vince explained, draining his cup of tea and getting to his feet.

“I’ll show you out,” said Howard, leading the way back down the steps, as if there was ever any possibility that Vince might have got lost on the way out and ended up in a cupboard instead. Although, thinking about it, having a pop star in his cupboard was probably the only thing that could improve business for the shop right now, Howard reflected. At the door, Vince paused.

“Here, Howard, give me your number and I’ll give you a call sometime. Make sure I get your shirt back to you at least.” For once having stationery for every occasion concealed about his person was paying off for Howard. He produced a biro and a scrap of paper and scrawled down his phone number.

“Well, be seeing you then,” Howard said, knowing it was a lame thing to say, that he would almost certainly never see Vince again.

“Yeah…” Vince was looking at him oddly. Then the horn sounded again and he blinked. “Right. Well, see ya Howard Moon. Cheers for the tea and everything.”

“Sorry I bumped into you.”

“No problem.” Vince smiled. Howard froze for a second, dazzled by that smile, then reached across to undo the door. As he did so, Vince leaned up and planted a soft, entirely unexpected kiss on Howard’s unresisting mouth. Howard was too surprised to do anything sensible like kiss him back, standing frozen, eyes open in surprise. Then Vince pulled away, looking embarrassed. Howard stared at him open mouthed, raising one hand to his lips where Vince had kissed him.

“I…er, shit, shouldn’t have done that. Don’t, you know, tell anyone,” He pleaded.

“Um…ok. I mean, alright if I tell myself? If it helps, I probably won’t believe me.” A smile tugged again at the corner of Vince’s mouth.

“Bye.”

And just like that, he was gone, leaving Howard staring after him in a daze.

Howard found it hard to get any work done that afternoon. His brain was screaming all kinds of things to him that he had previously refused to listen to. Things about being a massive gayist and entering a whole new kingdom of gaydom. Howard tried not to listen to them this time, but the memory of Vince’s kiss still lingered on his lips. That night, he found it hard to sleep.

The next day, Howard got up early, as he was wont to do, of a morn. He flicked idly through the morning paper as he ate his cornflakes, lingering unusually on the entertainment section, just in case there was any mention of a certain rock star. There on page 48 was a review of Vince’s latest album, accompanied by a smiling photograph of the man who’d unexpectedly kissed him the previous afternoon. Howard sighed, trailing an idle finger over the face on the page.

At lunchtime, he was eating his traditional baguette, when there was a knock at the door. Bollo being in, he stayed put and waited for the ape to answer it. Bollo trudged heavily up the stairs and appeared at the kitchen door, a parcel tucked under his arm.

“This for you.”

“Thanks Bollo.”

“Uh,” Bollo grunted and retreated to his room. Howard peered at the parcel curiously, before tearing it open. Inside was a pink box with the name ‘Jean Claude Jacquetti’ in gold letters. Attached to the box was a note, handwritten in what looked like crayon.

‘Dear Howard [the note read],

Cheers for lending me yr shirt. Sadly I thought it was best to put it out of it’s mizery so I got u a nu one instead. Hope it’s ok and all.

Vince x’

There was a smudge after the name that looked as though someone had written a kiss, then thought better of it and scribbled it out. Or perhaps it was just a scribble. Vince didn’t have the neatest handwriting after all. Howard opened the box and pulled the shirt out from its nest of tissue paper. It wasn’t at all the type of shirt he’d usually wear, it was plain in an understated military-green. Not at all the kind of shirt he’d expect Vince to pick, either. Even though lunch break was over, Howard felt compelled to try the shirt on. Overstaying his lunch break was possibly another reason the shop wasn’t doing as well as it could. The silk of the material felt cool against his skin. It was clearly not cheap, this shirt. Howard would have preferred his old shirt back again, but as he caught sight of himself in the mirror, he had to admit this one looked good. He looked good. In this shirt, Howard wondered whether he could be the kind of person people would notice. The kind of person Vince would notice…

Then he shook his head, smiling fondly to himself and packed the shirt away. He was going wrong, thinking like that. After all, what would a handsome young rock star want to do with a semi-reclusive jazz-loving failure like him? He was pretty certain he was never going to see Vince again.

He was wrong about that, as it turned out.