by Phil Rickman
'Weasel, thank heavens.' She was panting, blonde hair all over the place. 'Look, I need your help.' Her voice higher pitched, maybe on account of running.
He looked beyond her to the house, two or three lights on, but not in Tom's attic. No sounds from up there, none last night either. Bit worrying, that, the way Tom was coming unspooled.
'It's Vanessa,' she said.
The Weasel went rigid. Most of the worst things he imagined happening if Tom finally threw the big one involved the kid, Vanessa.
He jumped down all three steps to the slippery grass and tumbled to his knees. Action-hippie. Jeez.
'Oh gosh, no panic. Weasel. I was simply wondering if ... look, what are you doing tonight? I mean, you know, I'm sorry to drop this on you, but Tom and I are sort of... going out.'
'You what?' Weasel straightened up, relief giving way to astonishment. 'You're going out? Wiv Tom?'
'Yes, yes, all right.' Shelley shrugged awkwardly. 'Let's call it my personal coup of the year. It's a client, you see. Potential client, anyway. For the business. He's invited us to dinner.'
'Us? Tom?'
'Tom too, yes. Tom was ... resistant, at first. As he would be. This was last week. You probably ...'
'Oh. Yeah.'
'The night you came to see him. Which didn't exactly improve the situation either, at first.'
'No. Sorry 'bout that.'
'Well ...' Shelley was struggling a bit; personal stuff. 'No need to be, as it happens. It did, you know, take the wind out of his sails, somehow. He was very quiet all night. Been fairly quiet since, actually.'
'Yeah. Sir Wilf'll fink it's his birthday.'
'I'm sorry?'
'Your neighbour. Been bitching about the riffs in the night, 'parently.'
'I didn't know that,' Shelley said. 'You should have told me.'
'Nah,' Weasel said. 'No probs. Down the pub they don't reckon much to Sir Wilf.'
Shelley was silent for a moment, filing this away for future smoothing-out. And then she said, 'I don't know what you were discussing ... not my business.'
She wouldn't ask Weasel outright, 'cause that'd be disloyal, wouldn't it? However bad things got, Shelley was always loyal. Sometimes Weasel admired her above all other women, the shit she'd taken and still stayed loyal.
'It's complicated,' Weasel said. 'About the music.'
'Oh,' she said. The music was an issue not relevant to right now, obviously. 'It ... Weasel, I ...' She took a serious breath. 'What I think is, he's made a decision to try and pull things together. You know what I'm talking about? Maybe you don't. I mean, with Tom, you have to …' Gabbling a bit now; nerves.
Nerves? Shelley Love?
'I mean, he knows we've got problems with cash-flow and we might have to lay people off - and before Christmas, God help us.'
She folded her arms across her chest; she had on this bulky Arran sweater. Weasel wouldn't have minded folding his arms across there either.
'So I held on as long as I reasonably could, just vainly hoping and then this morning I picked up the phone to tell Broadbank I'd got flu or something and couldn't make it, playing for time, you know? Tom just took the receiver off me and put it back and said, "OK." Just like that. Very calmly. "OK."'
'Stone me,' Weasel said.
'Don't say it like that, Weasel. He's not that bad.'
'He is, Shel,' Weasel said soberly.
'Yes, all right. Has been. But it's ... it's not that you could say he's coming out of it, as such. It's that... I think finally he wants to come out of it. You know?'
Weasel was very dubious. He said nothing.
'So what I was wondering,' Shelley said. 'As this has never arisen before ... was if you could come up to the house tonight and sit with Vanessa. I mean I'm sure she'd be all right on her own - be absolutely furious if I said otherwise. But it is the first
time we've had to leave her.'
'What, in fourteen years?'
'Sounds terrible, doesn't it?'
'Nah, nah ... it's just ...'
Realising now why she'd come racing across the yard, why her voice had risen about half an octave. Why she was so nervous. This was, like, the crucial period. Any time between now and actually getting the car on the road with Tom inside it, there was an 80-20 chance of him spinning round and making a dash for his attic, and that'd be it for another ten years.
Weasel said, 'Never been on holiday?'
'Are you kidding}'
'What about... like ... a honeymoon?'
Shelley said deliberately, as if she was working it out, these indelible details, 'We lived together for two years. One afternoon, the seventh of July, a Tuesday, we went out to the register office with a couple of my friends. And then they went home and we came back. To the flat.'
Shelley sighed. 'Vanessa's actually seen more of the world than we have, what with going to school …'
Weasel remembered how Shelley had had a major bust-up with the education bods to get Vanessa into an ordinary state school, with, like, normal kids ... then there was the convent.
Shelley tossed back her hair. She was a gorgeous woman, and she'd never spoken to him like this before. Not at such length. Never even stood as close to him when they was alone, always suspicious of him, what he might be after.
But Weasel feeling honoured was only the half of it. This was an opportunity that could not be missed.
'Shel,' he hesitated. 'I'd be proud to sit in wiv the kid. But ...'
'Go on, Weasel, you're holding the cards.'
'All right ...' Pushing his luck a lot lately. 'Whatever's, like, wrong wiv Tom, it ain't improving, right? I mean, I accept he's making a big effort tonight, but ...'
'No,' said Shelley heavily, 'things haven't been improving. Maybe tonight's just another false dawn. I have to take that chance.'
'Maybe I could help. Not just staying wiv the kid, in other ways. If you was to fill me in ... on how ... Jeez, I wouldn't know where to start describing his condition.'
'There is a name for it,' Shelley said.
There were suddenly so many comedy clubs in London that people were saying humour was taking over from rock and roll.
Was this likely? After thirty years of youngsters posing in front of the bathroom mirror holding a tennis racket like an electric guitar, would they be practising deadpan expressions and working on their timing, collecting jokes instead of records?
It certainly didn't bode well for the industry which had supported Prof Levin since the days when the Beatles were in suits.
At least comedy clubs looked like rock and roll clubs: a scruffy doorway and steps. This joint was still hedging its bets, singers and bands sharing the bill with stand-up comics. And tonight, a bloke who had a foot either side of the great divide.
The place was called Muthah Mirth.
Ha bloody ha, Prof thought, paying dearly for the gig he'd seen billed in Time Out and an extortionate membership fee on top.
Inside, a three-piece blues band was doing GBH to an old Elmore James number while about twenty people sat around at tables, some of them eating nasty-looking bar-meals.
A dump. Poor sod couldn't be doing that well, reduced to this level.
It was eight p.m.
Prof went over to the bar. 'What time's Dave Kite on?'
'Be a couple of hours yet, squire. Have a drink while you're waiting?'
'Yeah,' Prof said. 'Gimme a Pepsi. Non-diet.'
The barman was a thirtyish bloke in a pink T-shirt with a Muthah Mirth logo involving a voluptuous solid guitar with one pick-up turned into a mouth so the guitar looked like it was grinning. He poured the Pepsi without comment.
'What's his act like?' Prof said.
'Who, Kite? Spooky. A bit spooky.'
All I bloody need.
'Spooky? What's that supposed to mean? I thought this was supposed to be a comedy club.'
'Yeah, well,' the barman said. 'Sometimes he's funny, sometimes he ain't. How the mood takes him. I reckon he's got a problem,
but they say that about all the best ones, don't they?
All the best comics, there's a tragedy going on behind the scenes.'
Prof glanced down into his full-strength Pepsi. In this light it looked like blood.
Sod it.
'Do me a favour, son. Take this away and fetch me a large Bells.'
The barman grinned. 'You one too?'
'A comic? Meaning you can sense a powerful air of tragedy about me?'
Prof put a tenner on the bar and grabbed his double Scotch with both hands, like a mother reclaiming a lost child.
'You might be right, son.' Taking a deep swallow. 'You might be right at that.'
Shelley did some thinking, her Arran sweater and her hair the same colour in the dusk. She was possibly doing a bit of lip-pursing too, which he couldn't see in this light.
Shelley said eventually, 'Have you heard of a thing called Total Allergy Syndrome?'
'Er ...' Everything was a bleeding syndrome nowadays.
'It's where ... Look, lots of people are allergic to different things, like the smell of paint or floor polish or diesel fumes or whatever ... They come out in rashes or get asthma attacks.'
'I'm wiv you. Cats. Some people is allergic to cats.'
'And with some it just runs riot, and they're allergic to a whole lot of different things. There've been people who've had to live in sort of sterile bubbles. I mean, it can be life-threatening.'
'Sometimes freaten other people's lives,' Weasel said darkly.
'And Tom ... God, it all sounds so ridiculous. Look - you must know this, you've known him a lot longer than me - Tom's always been very ... sensitive, OK?'
'If you mean the second sight, yeah we all knew that. Scary stuff. We all had a few frights, being around Tom. And Tom hisself...'
'Was probably more scared than any of you, I'd guess.'
'I fink it just made him mad,' Weasel said. 'Angry.'
'Same thing,' Shelley said.
'And then he went frew this stage where he'd make, like, a joke of it. 'Cept it wasn't that funny. Like … OK, when he was wiv the Brain Police, in about '72, we had this manager for a while, real money-grabbing, slave-driving bidder, he'd have the band gigging eight till midnight, seven nights a week. Anyhow, one night, everybody's well knackered and Tom just points at this manager. Carlos, and he goes, "You wanna take a night off, tomorrer, mate, gonna do yourself a mischief." And then he turns his back and just slopes off, the way he does, you know? We don't fink nuffink of it. And then next night, same time - same time exactly, I reckon - the geezer goes and falls downstairs at his gaff and breaks his bleeding back. Stoke Mandeville job, we never seen him since. We said, bleeding hell, Tom ... He says, "Nah, nah, piss off, I didn't do it, I just seen it coming, all right." And we didn't say nuffink else, seeing he was about to get ... annoyed.'
'Coincidence,' Shelley said unsteadily, hugging herself.
'Sure,' Weasel said. 'You call him sensitive, Jesus, sometimes I reckon he's the most insensitive bastard I ever met. Look, Shel, it's getting parky, we could go in the van, make a cuppa ...'
'I haven't got time, Weasel. Besides I've said too much already.'
'No you ain't. It needs to come out, this does. Go back to what you was saying. This syndrome bit.'
'Oh, Christ ...' Shelley glanced behind her towards the house, began talking low and quick. 'Look, after ... after Deborah died, as you must've gathered, he was very bad. He saw Vanessa being Down's Syndrome as a kind of retribution. I mean, I don't know what happened that night, I convinced myself I didn't want to know. I really thought it was just a phase. And I thought - arrogantly, I realize that now - that I could pull him out of it. But it got worse and worse, as you know, he withdrew … You know about this house, why we had to come here?'
Weasel said carefully, 'I seen these geezers, the dowsers?'
'Checking out the spot, yes. Making sure it wasn't on a ley-line or something. Had to be a site nobody had lived on before - hence the barn conversion. And using new materials, no old stones. And no old trees - I still don't understand that one.'
'You got real problems, Shel. You oughter've told me before, not been so self, self... proud. I fink a lot about the big stupid bleeder, you know that.'
'I've coined my own phrase for it,' Shelley said. 'The problem. My own clinical term.'
There was a familiar roar from the house. 'Shelley!' A sash window shot up with a crash. 'Where are you, darlin'?'
'I'm out here, Tom.'
'Shelley, do I own a fucking tie?'
Shelley gave the Weasel a really hopeless smile and turned back towards the house. 'We'll be leaving at eight-fifteen, OK?' she said hopefully.
'Sure. Don't worry 'bout a fing. Shel ...'
She stopped. He could only see the white sweater, grey from this distance, and the paleness of her hair.
'Wossa term?' Weasel said. 'This problem? Wossit called?'
Shelley carried on walking until she was just a smudge. Then she stopped and called back, over her shoulder.
'Total Psychic Allergy Syndrome. Work it out.'
And she disappeared into Tom Storey's ugly, yellow, sterile house.
'This is Meryl,' Martin Broadbank said. 'She does for me.'
She was tall, an inch or so taller than Martin and maybe a year or two older. Black hair coiled up into something exotic. A long, tight black dress with a little apron over it.
Fantasy figure, Stephen Case thought. Miss Whiplash meets Mrs Danvers.
'How do you do,' Meryl said, and she had a deep, fairly cultured voice, a voice you'd expect from the mistress of the house, as distinct from the mistress of its owner.
Mistress. Archaic words came easily to mind in this setting, the baronial hall with the Jacobean panelling and the big, central staircase and that musty, fruity smell, like old, stored apples.
'Interesting place,' Stephen observed, trying not to appear over-impressed. 'How old?'
'Mainly seventeenth." Martin Broadbank was casual-formal, black suit over a white polo shirt. 'With some sixteenth-century bits, or is it fifteenth, I forget.'
Meryl said, with authority, 'There's a core of a smaller house, at least fifteenth century, possibly earlier. Are you interested in old buildings, Stephen?'
Letting him know with that 'Stephen' that she'd transcended the paid-retainer stage.
'I'm interested in all kinds of old things,' he said, meeting her eyes, as dark and tranquil as rock pools. He looked away, suddenly uneasy about her.
'Which reminds me,' Broadbank beamed. 'I've invited a couple of other neighbours, Sir Wilfrid and Lady Tulley. They, too, have a certain interest in your mate Storey.'
Stephen Case wondered what he was getting into here, in this essentially Addams family setting, the Jacobean farmhouse and the awesome Meryl. Martin seemed to have developed a disturbing taste for costume drama.
'They're not exactly fans, though,' Broadbank said. 'Not of his music, at least. Come through to the drawing-room, Steve.'
Meryl said, 'Excuse me,' and glided away to the side of the staircase.
'Dinner to prepare,' Broadbank explained. 'She's an absolute treasure, that woman. Used to be one of my store managers. Now she manages me.'
'I bet she does,' Stephen said, following him into more oak panelling, wing chairs around a deepset log fire, burgundy velvet curtains, drawn. Thinking of his open plan flat in Islington: white walls and black ceilings, three sofas and a bed angled around a £30,000 hi-fi system. Wondering where he'd gone wrong.
'I've always liked older women,' Broadbank said. 'Meryl understands me. Knows when to be around and when to make herself scarce. Awfully perceptive. I think this house would be a bit too much for me without her. They can be quite oppressive, these old places. What is it you chaps drink, tequila?'
'Sherry will be fine, thank you, Martin,' Stephen said resentfully. He did prefer tequila, actually, fuck it.
'Sit down, Steve. We've probably got a few minutes before anyone shows. Let's plan this thin
g out. Tell me, what precise result are you looking for this evening?'
Broadbank opened a previously invisible door in the panelling. Lamplight glinted on bottles. 'Now - sweet, dry, Bristol Cream?'
'Dry.' Stephen slipped into a deep, fireside chair. 'It's difficult. You see, I've acquired some tapes, back from when Storey was a force to be reckoned with, when people were still talking about the great guitarists of our time as Hendrix, Clapton, Beck and Storey. After this stuff was recorded - immediately after, according to some sources - Storey started to go downhill.'
'Drink? Drugs?'
'That's the curious thing, I don't think so. His wife died, as I mentioned, in difficult circumstances, but when did tragedy stifle creativity? Look at Clapton, when his child was killed - writes a song which becomes a kind of anthem for the bereaved.'
Stephen stretched his legs, making furrows in the deep, soft rug. 'No, there's more to it, Plus, there are other people we believe were on this album. Lee Gibson?'
'Even I've heard of him,' Broadbank said, handing him sherry in a crystal schooner. 'And his women. Piece in the Mail, I think, the other week.'
'Yeah, yeah.'
'So there's money in this material, is there?'
Stephen Case shrugged. 'You can never tell.'
'Oh, come on, you wouldn't be going to all this trouble ...'
'Well, it's possible, yeah. You discover a missing album connecting Lee Gibson, even if he was only a drummer in those days, with the fallen idol, Tom Storey, plus whoever else. Sometimes a mystique forms.'
'And if there isn't one already, you'll manufacture one. Don't look at me like that, I'm a businessman. CDs, tins of soup, what's the difference? And savoury flans with vegetarian cheese-substitute.'
'What?'
'Doesn't matter. Why do you need Storey? Why not just do what you like with the stuff? You don't need his permission, do you?'
'No. The band have no rights. They took money up front. It's our album - we could even sue them for not finishing it. But that's all in the past. Right now, his co-operation wouldn't go amiss.'
'And you're curious, aren't you?'
