December

by Phil Rickman

  He and Prof walked out into the grounds, the house behind them, the lawn overhung by this huge and ancient tree, branches moving like a blurred photograph of juggling hands.

  Dave s breathing became unsteady.

  Prof noticed. 'Somebody walk over your grave?'

  'Tom Storey wouldn't even have come here. Tom didn't like old places.'

  'Why not?'

  'Energies.'

  'That's a useful word, David. What's it mean really?'

  'Come on,' Dave said. 'Let's go back.'

  Thinking, I'm cracking up. This is the Manor. This is a different studio.

  The manager was waiting for them at the door to the kitchens. Russell, it seemed, was having breakfast.

  'It's half-past bloody one,' Prof protested.

  'He says - let me get this right - that you should have rung first, that he can't offer you any work. But if you won't go away, can he see you at the Crown in an hour?'

  'That a pub?' Dave cast a worried glance at Prof.

  'How far's the Crown?' Prof asked.

  'Couple of miles.'

  'OK,' said Prof. 'We'll do that. You didn't say I'd got Dave with me?' '

  'Who's Dave?'

  'Good,' Prof said.

  In the pub, waiting for Russell Hornby, Prof drinking draught Guinness and a single whisky, Dave looked deeply into his orange juice.

  'That's a good question,' he said.

  The pub was quiet. Prof had settled back with his drinks in window seat and asked, 'What's it like, Dave, being you?'

  'In fact,' Dave said, 'it's the first time anybody's ever asked me that. With the band, we knew instinctively where the others were at.'

  'I don't mean the band. I mean you.'

  It wasn't an old pub. The beams on the ceiling were painted shiny black or varnished. The chairs were vinyl-covered. There were gaming machines and a pool table. Dave had said that Tom Storey would probably be OK in here. Clearly not so sure about Prof, who'd thought, sod it, this encounter demands alcohol.

  'You serious, Prof? You seriously want to know what it's like?'

  'I'm too old to piss around with questions I don't expect an answer to.'

  'What's it like being me?' Dave drank some orange juice. 'I should say it's a nightmare. But it's not a nightmare all the time. Or maybe it's no more of a nightmare than anybody's life, I wouldn't know. Until I was about twelve I thought everyone was like this.'

  'Like what?'

  'I had this quite promising thing going until very recently.' Dave unwrapped a packet of Silk Cut, looking gloomy. 'I started smoking again when I got in last night. Packed in for a whole week once. You don't mind secondary smoking, Prof?'

  'More satisfying than secondary drinking.' Prof drained his whisky. 'What thing was this you had going?'

  'Teacher. Actively left-wing, committed atheist. Good really. She did a lot of living for the moment. We lived together for six months, for the moments.'

  'I like it,' Prof said.

  'It's funny, you get into a situation like that, it absorbs so much that this other ... aspect of you ... can go remission for weeks at a time. Like a good holiday. You're thinking, shit, life really is simple, why've I been messing a in the shallows all these years, not getting close to anyone?'

  Prof watched Dave light up a cigarette, glancing from side to side, like a schoolboy behind the bike-sheds. Ludicrously, Dave still looked too young to be smoking.

  'And then. Prof, she had to go and introduce me to her sister.'

  'What, you fancied the sister?'

  Dave laughed and choked on his own smoke. Nothing so easy as that, then. Prof waited.

  'It was in a pub,' Dave said, 'pretty much like this one, near Southport. We had a table, like this one, except the place was more crowded. The sister comes in through the top door, spots us, waves and starts walking towards us. I couldn't tell you now what she looked like, how old she was, whether she was slim or curvaceous or what. All I could see was this black and red haze around her head. Shimmering. With, like, a light of its own. Only it's a dark light. And something inside her is feeding it, feeding the light.'

  Prof felt chilled, as if a shadow had fallen across their table. He said tentatively, 'That's what they call an aura, right?'

  'Who gives a shit what they call it, one like this is bad news. I've been seeing them on and off since I was a kid. Used to see pretty ones when I was young, light blues. One of my earliest memories, me ma on her birthday, with blue light corning off her.'

  Why did you have to ask, Prof thought. Why'd you have to bloody well ask?

  Dave was talking about his formative years. Nineteen sixty-seven, the Summer of Love. He'd been too young to know much about love, but, wow, all those psychedelic colours, the op-art mandalas ... and the music. Wonderful, inspiring music. Years later before he understood most of it had been down to LSD and stuff. He'd thought it was a great psychic explosion, everybody realizing their true potential. Suddenly Dave Reilly was no longer a freak.

  'It was more than drugs, David,' Prof said sadly. 'There was something in the air that ain't there any more.'

  Maybe, Dave conceded. This had been when he first thought he could perhaps use his ... sensitivity ... to find new colours, to go in search of the lost chord, all that stuff. By the time he was twenty-one he'd been in about four bands, each one weirder than the last. But, of course, punk rock had arrived then, and all that acid stuff was way out of line. Not that Dave was using anything - who needed it when your whole life was like an intermittent acid-trip? And he was still under the illusion he could make something of it ten years later, when he answered Epidemic's box-numbered small-ad in the Melody Maker.

  'Ad? That was how it started? He placed an ad?'

  Dave nodded. 'Straightforward as that. And when I finally got in to see him. Max Goff said' - Dave put on an Australian accent - '"How do I know you're the real McCoy, how do I know you're not shitting me?'"

  Dave stubbed out his Silk Cut.

  'So I looked at him, this big fat bastard smoking a cheroot, and his ... light... was in two halves, one blue, one orangey-red, like the wires inside a plug. I'd never seen this before, I don't think it's in the rule-book. It was about ten a.m., he hadn't been up long, he was looking very pleased with himself.

  I looked at him, I didn't even think about it, I just said, "The girl sleeps on that side and the boy's on that side, right?" And then got up to leave before he could throw me out.'

  Dave finished off his orange juice. 'Ten minutes later he was having a contract drawn up.'

  'A small-ad in the MM,' Prof said. 'Blatant as that. Stone me.'

  'Wanted: musicians of proven psychic ability. Box number. He had over fifty replies. The way it turned out, I was the only eventual member of the band who was one of those who actually answered the advert. He got the others by reputation, word of mouth. Starting with Tom, who was going through a fairly excitable phase, all kinds of tales circulating. Goff got him out of some sort of trouble, Tom being the original destroyer of hotel rooms. Threw a lot of people downstairs.'

  'Those were the days,' Prof said absently. He was wondering, horrified, Can this bastard see my aura? Prof didn't like to think what colour his aura might be. He wished he was somewhere else.

  Dave looked up with a sheepish grin. 'You're all right. Prof, it doesn't seem to work with mates, people I know well. At least ... least, it never has. Up to now.'

  Dave bit down on his lower lip. Some problem here.

  'Never occurred to me,' Prof said gruffly. 'What happened about that girl? In the pub.'

  Dave sighed. 'It's just a fleeting thing. You see somebody, usually for the first time, and it's like when you've been lying in the sun and you open your eyes. A black smudge. Then you rub your eyes and it's gone. Jan's sister. Yeh. I said to Jan that night, how long has Sara been ill? Jan says, what are you on about, she's not ill. I say, maybe she should go and have a check-up. Ooooh God. She was a card-carrying atheist. Beat me into a corner with p
sychology and logic.'

  Prof said, 'I don't think I'm gonna ask you what happened to the sister.'

  'Thanks,' Dave said.

  'How often does this happen, David? How often do you see it?'

  Dave sighed. 'I thought you'd have got the picture. When I was younger, I used to see auras in all the damn colours of the rainbow - OK, including the dark ones. On occasion. That is, sometimes I'd see them faintly discoloured, kind of going off, and I could say to whoever it was, are you feeling OK? And it - you know - it would sometimes be good advice, it would help them. They'd go to the doc or some natural healer or maybe just take a holiday or get a few early nights in. You do this - somebody tells you you don't look well, it makes you think about the way you're living. And the next time I'd see them their colour would be lighter. I still don't like all this, it was a bit of a bloody cross to bear, but the times you helped somebody made it bearable.'

  Prof nodded at the window. A Rolls-Royce Corniche was pulling in, at once dominating the pub forecourt. 'Sorry,' Prof said. 'Go on.'

  'But after the Abbey, it all changed,' Dave said. 'After Lennon, after Deborah, increasingly I stopped seeing variations. I just saw the darkest ones.'

  'Oh my Christ,' said Prof.

  'The ones where it's too late.'

  Prof stared at him in horror. Is this real? Can I believe any of this? Is this guy sick?

  'The Abbey changed everything. It wasn't obvious at first, it's happened over years, but that's when it began. I drove away from the Abbey, booked into a hotel for the night, near Cheltenham, came down to breakfast the following morning and there were four people in the room with, like, black bonnets

  'Shut up,' Prof said. 'For Christ's sake shut up.'

  'There's a major hospital, you see, at Cheltenham, where ...'

  'David, this is the worst thing I've ever heard.'

  Prof thought. He looks so innocent, he looks so normal, so affable, he's hardly got a line on his face.

  'Now you know what an Angel of Death looks like,' Dave said, and smiled a truly sickly smile.

  IV

  End of Story

  The door of chalet eleven was opened by a cleaner, a young woman with a plastic sack.

  'I'm sorry, sir, I really am going as fast as I can ... Oh.'

  Meryl said, 'I'm looking for a gentleman.'

  'I'm so sorry.' The cleaner looked flustered. 'I thought you was him back again. I said to him, I have to get this place cleaned by eleven. He says he don't want it cleaned, go away. Go away, he says.'

  'Oh dear,' Meryl said.

  Found him.

  'And he's on his own, too, I know that, not as if .. . Anyway, he said he'd let me have ten minutes, but he's been back twice already. I'm not used to this, most people are gone by nine.'

  Meryl smiled. 'He's been under a lot of pressure lately. You carry on, I'll see if I can head him off.'

  The cleaner gratefully vanished back inside. Meryl heard a vacuum start up.

  Now. Where?

  On the other side of the Little Chef was a filling-station bordering the main road, open fields beyond it. A line of leafless poplars marked the perimeter. To Meryl as a child, the poplars would have looked like a fleet of witches' brooms lined up for a night mission. The older she got, the more she wished poplars were symbolic of supernatural transport. It was important to Meryl to be able to look out at the world and think, There's more here than I can see.

  'You come here to hassle me, lady, you can piss off now,' Tom Storey said.

  As soon as Russell Hornby had come through the door, Dave had taken himself off to the bar, to do what he'd said he wouldn't do again, which was to buy Prof Levin an alcoholic drink. He guessed Prof would appear sober for a long time before there was a problem. But when it happened, it would be a real problem.

  When Russell strolled over to Prof's table and sat down, Dave felt Time's primitive gear-lever crunch jarringly into reverse.

  Because Russell looked exactly the same. Spindly frame in denims, shaven head. Let's become calm, he used to say, wandering into their asylum.

  Dave moved over to the table, facing Prof, behind Russell. He set down Prof's pint of Guinness. 'Afraid they're clean out of whisky chasers, Prof. What's yours, Russell?'

  When Russell turned and saw him, the great gear lever lurched into neutral. There had been a change.

  Not a pound of extra weight on him, not many more wrinkles. It was, if anything, Dave thought, his eyes. His eyes were so much older, had seen too much. And when they arrived on Dave, the eyes flared with ... what? Extreme wariness?

  'Thank you very much, David,' Prof said, glaring into his Guinness. 'I'll purchase my own flaming poison.'

  Dave said, 'Still dry white, is it, Russell? Or are we into mineral water these days?'

  'Dave Reilly,' Russell said quietly. 'What an excellent surprise.'

  'Clearly.'

  Russell said, 'What's this about?'

  Prof said, 'Dave and me had something to ask you.'

  Russell's lips twitched. 'And you couldn't have phoned?'

  'We could have sent you a postcard.' Dave sat down. 'But we thought this would be cosier.'

  'What's this band you're working with then, Russ?' Prof dredged Guinness froth out of his beard.

  'Mice. Bunch of precocious brats.'

  'Never heard of 'em.'

  'Nobody's heard of anybody these days,' Russell said wearily, hardly moving his lips. 'Yeah, OK, dry white.'

  'I'll get it.' Prof was up before Dave could move. Would return, of course, with a whisky for himself.

  'But you're doing well,' Dave said. 'You're keeping busy. Nice car.'

  'Sure.' Russell wasn't looking at him.

  'Do much for TMM?'

  'This and that.'

  Russell gave him a sidelong glance. 'What is this, Dave?'

  'It's a question. TMM, who, as you know, have acquired the Epidemic back-catalogue, have apparently discovered a missing gem.'

  'Good for them.'

  'Not in the archives, as such, but under the late Max Goff's bed, along with the whips and handcuffs and things.'

  Russell's time-hardened eyes narrowed.

  Dave said, 'This is the master of an album including, among other, possibly more intriguing items, the last known recorded works of the reclusive genius Tom Storey.'

  Russell said, 'I've had nothing to do with this. Believe it.'

  'Nothing to do with what?'

  'Anything. Any of it.' Russell stood up suddenly. 'I'm sorry. I have no more time.'

  A hand came down on his shoulder. 'Course you have, Russell,' Prof Levin said.

  Tom Storey said, 'How I hate the fucking countryside.'

  He was leaning against the dusty Volvo. He looked awful, still in last night's clothes, except for the tie. White stubble among the veins on his checks.

  'Why do you live here, then?' Meryl asked him.

  'I don't live in the countryside, as such,' Tom said. 'I live in a house. Used to live in a house. It's useless now.'

  'I don't think so. The car went into the fence, that's all.'

  'It's destroyed,' Tom said. 'It's ruptured. The stupid old gits went frew the fence and they died there. They bust me wide open.' He turned his head away impatiently. 'What's the fucking use telling you this?'

  'No ... please.' Meryl reached out hesitantly and touched his arm. 'Give me time. Let me think about it.'

  Tom shook his head. His moustache drooped. His yellow-white hair hung down like a lampshade. The sun had gone in; it was starting to feel like November again.

  'In one respect,' Meryl said slowly, 'I should've thought countryside'd be better for you. Not so many vibrations as city, and slower.'

  Tom said nothing. He'd come up behind her on the car park, big and menacing, but she could feel his nerves vibrating in the air. What she had to do now was persuade him, somehow, that she hadn't been sent here to bring him back.

  'They say your house was built with all new materials. And no
trees around it, just a fence. I'm truly thinking here. Mr Storey, I'm doing my best. If that fence marks the perimeter of the area you've had protected, then if something smashes that barrier ...'

  Tom's head turned slowly back towards her.

  "And, if, in smashing that barrier, somebody died ... Would that mean, their spirit...?'

  Tom said, 'You don't know nuffink.'

  'I think I do.'

  'You didn't know nuffink last night. You didn't see nuffink. You kept well shtumm, lady.'

  'I'm sorry about that,' Meryl said. Nothing quite like that had ever happened to me before. I didn't know how to react. That s why I'm here. I've come to ... apologise, I suppose.'

  'Apology accepted,' said Tom. 'Now Piss off and leave me alone.'

  The chalet door, number eleven, was propped open and the cleaning woman came out with her vacuum cleaner and her black bin-sack. She gave Tom and Meryl a tiny smile and moved on number nine.

  'I'd really like to talk to you, Tom,' Meryl said. 'Can we go inside?'

  'I'm going inside, you're leaving, and you're gonna forget you saw me, or else ...' Tom raised his arms like a cartoon spook '... I'll make your nights miserable, I will.'

  Meryl didn't move. She was quite unnerved but couldn't let him see that. She looked him steadily in the eyes. 'I believe you could, too. But I don't think you would.'

  'Nah,' Tom said glumly. 'I'm frew wiv all that. Mug's game, comes back on you. You wanna leave all that shit alone. You're too old.'

  Meryl's spine stiffened.

  'What I mean is,' Tom said hurriedly, 'is it's for kids.'

  'I hope so.'

  'Fuck it,' Tom said. 'I'm screwed. I ain't got a home no more. Let's go in, make some tea.'

  'Look,' Russell said. 'I'm sorry. I got some clean tapes, scruffed them up a bit, changed the labels, gave them to Simon. I'm sorry, but it's very much against my religion, burning work-in -progress. Some bands are crazy, get stoned or blind pissed. Some of the old punk bands, they'd grab a reel, go outside and wind the tape twice around the bloody building, just for the hell of it. I'm paid to produce a record, end of the week I serve up the goods.'

  Dave thought it was exactly the kind of explanation you would expect. If he'd been writing Russell's script this was what he'd have come up with. Which didn't necessarily mean it was a lie.