by Ronald Smith
CHAPTER TEN
After Single Minds went away, Frankie decided to go to Australia, since 1 still could not give her a definite promise about running a music studio. And I didn't want to run the business myself. My idea was to get another couple to handle the organizing; but Bruce told me, "It only works when you're here; your personality is what makes it right."
Mairi wanted me to sell the studio as a going concern. She didn't block what I was doing, but she kept urging me, "You've got to sell now. I want my money so I can clear out."
I got another band from Phonagram called 'End Games' to hire the hall. The name seemed all too apt a comment on the way Mairi and I were headed. When I found a third group, 'Fantastica', Mairi became even more bitter, and I could see the last vestiges of our relationship tottering on the brink. She owned the Mill, but she was morally trapped by my efforts and indecision. I was about to enter into long-term business arrangements with agents in Edinburgh, and I had to think hard about what I was going to do.
The experience with Single Minds was pure epic, the best possible. We might never reach that same pitch of creative tension again. The next two bands had been an anti-climax, and it seemed pointless to go on.
One day I drove over to Dundee and up Balgay Hill in Dudhope Park. I found an old observatory there which I had never seen before, so I went in and looked through the telescope at the Mill across the Tay Estuary.
I thought about Mairi. I wanted to get back together with her, and I couldn't really ask her to live with the pressures of running a music studio if she didn't like the way of life. Saving my marriage was more important than the business.
The Mill looked far away, like a completed picture, 'No, that's it,' I decided, 'no more bands.'
When I came out, 1 noticed for the first time the name over the door; it was 'Mill's Observatory'.
