December

by Phil Rickman

  yeh, that was about the size of it. If you can't do better than that, shurrup. It was very hurtful.

  He had to laugh. 'You're a bastard, John.'

  famous for it. You read that one about me takin' the piss out of cripples in the street? In the Pool that'd be, or maybe it was Hamburg. Don't remember it meself, I was probably pissed.

  'I didn't mean it, you know.'

  on a Bad Day? Course you meant it.

  'Well, all right. I did mean it. At the time.*

  On a Bad Day. The words written down, for the first and last time, on the torn-off lid of a box of Maltesers. Hadn't eaten a Malteser from that day to this.

  Chorus line,

  And are we ever gonna see you

  Ever gonna see you again?

  I doubt it

  I doubt it.

  The words hung like a vapour trail in the sky around the half-obscured summit of the Skirrid. The way deathoak had shone like neon in the studio that night. The way the black aura throbbed in the air around ... around half the bloody people he seemed to meet these days. If a tractor came past now, there'd be some old bloke in the saddle grinning through his terminal haze.

  Oh God, why me...?

  crackin' up, Dave?

  'Sod off.' He carried on walking. By his reckoning, this Castle Inn of Simon's was less than a mile away. If he kept on walking, he was bound to get there sooner or later. Bound to get somewhere.

  The atmosphere was heavy. Cold and sultry. Could you have cold and sultry? No birds sang. After a while he couldn't stand the silence.

  'John?'

  what?

  'Tell me again. What am I doing here? Why've I come?'

  well, principally, Dave, you've come because you're a stupid twat. Sorry, what d'you want me to say?

  'Would the truth be stretching things?'

  shit, you're sounding almost humble. Fucked if I know how to handle this. When I give you the truth, it's the last thing you ever want. I give you 'Woman' and 'Beautiful Boy' and stuff like that, you want 'Day in the Life' and 'Girl' and 'Norwegian Wood'. And then you wanna kill me. Everybody wants to kill me. Listen, you wanna know why you're doing this, I'll tell you, OK. Just don't throw it back at me, man. The reason you're doing this is Old Love. Old Love. It's like old gold, polishes up like new, only better. How's that?

  'Yeh. Thanks.' Dave came to a fork in the road. The widest , option curved away from the Skirrid, almost back the way he'd come. The hill was the only landmark he knew; he followed the straight route.

  Sour clouds were massing now around the Skirrid, dense as mouldy cheese, hardened by dusk. There were only fields as far as he could see, which wasn't actually that far any more. No visible farmhouses; you wouldn't think this area could be so remote, would you?

  After a few hundred yards, he became aware that the hedges were closer on either side, that the track he was following was no longer wide enough for a car and was gradually growing steeper.

  The dusk closed around him. He had a feeling of walking towards the end of his life. He'd never felt as lonely.

  but you still got me, Dave. You've always got me, son. For ever and ever.

  'It s getting ridiculous,' Shelley said, not laughing. Looking in fact very worried, and Martin Broadbank was ashamed that he couldn't think of a damn thing to do about it. Except for, perhaps, sitting next to her on that big, squashy sofa of hers, and putting a neighbourly arm around her shoulders.

  At this moment, Martin was alone on the big sofa, Shelley standing in the centre of the rustic-brick-walled drawing-room. Although her crisp, white blouse was sufficiently unbuttoned to ensure that the option was never far from his thoughts, he had to concede that this perhaps wasn't the time to offer her his neighbourly arms.

  The voluptuous Mrs Storey seemed, as usual, unaware of her effect on him. 'It must seem odd to you, Martin, that he's never been away from the house, even for one night, let alone two.'

  'Well, Meryl ...' He hesitated. 'She's a very capable woman. I'm sure she wouldn't let any harm come to him.'

  Shelley's eyes sparked angrily. 'You mean apart from the harm she might personally inflict with her misguided spiritualist fervour?'

  'But that's hardly … Martin was mildly surprised that this seemed to be at the forefront of her concern rather than the probable impact of Meryl's undoubted sexual magnetism.

  'Oh, Martin.' Shelley moved restlessly to the big picture window, overlooking the treeless, sloping lawns and two men in overalls repairing the fence. 'You've had rather a sheltered life, haven't you?'

  He wanted to protest. He thought it unjust that he should be accused of naivety on the sole basis of not being terribly intimidated by the dubious implications of what Meryl was wont to refer to as 'other spheres of existence'.

  'Because I don't believe in this nonsense?'

  'Because you don't realise the harm it can cause,' Shelley said simply.

  'Shel?'

  Shelley turned sharply from the window. The hairy little man, Weasel, was shuffling despondently in the doorway, shaking his head.

  'Wasn't quick enough, Shel. Missed him. He was less than five miles away all the time. In that new motel down the Gloucester road.'

  'Of course.' Shelley punched her left palm. 'New.'

  Martin was baffled.

  'Checked out this morning,' Weasel said. 'About half-eleven.'

  'Was he alone?'

  'Er ... Yeah. It was a double chalet, but he was on his own. When he checked out. So they said.'

  'Perhaps Meryl booked another chalet then,' Martin said tentatively.

  'What the hell does that matter?' Shelley snapped. "The question is what we do next. Do you think there's any point at all in telling the police? I'm not bothered about any connections they might make with the Tulleys, that's irrelevant now.'

  'I'm afraid,' said Martin gently, 'that the police don't organise searches for men who appear to have gone off with a woman. If you see what I mean.'

  Shelley stiffened, glared at him and then sort of slumped. 'You're right, of course. But... I mean ... what the hell does the stupid woman think she's doing?'

  'She likes to think she can help,' Martin said, feeling foolish.

  'Sunday tomorrer,' Weasel said. 'I'll make a few calls tonight, if I can use the blower.'

  'What? Oh. Sure.'

  'And I'll get on the road early. I'll pull out all the stops, Shel.'

  'I know you will,' Shelley said, and silence fell. Martin felt the weight of something he couldn't understand.

  In the corner of the drawing-room, the child, Vanessa, stood by a bookcase, still as a mannequin.

  Her eyes, behind those extraordinary designer pebble glasses, were fixed on Weasel.

  The mist and the darkness arrived together and very suddenly. As suddenly, it seemed, as stepping out of an artificially lit, windowless room and discovering it was night.

  It had been day and now, he discovered, it was night. All of a sudden.

  Dave didn't care.

  Didn't give a toss.

  What could happen to you on a holy mountain?

  He could still see his feet in their puny moccasins. He could feel sharp stones under the rubber soles, indicating that this was not what you'd call a road any more and therefore what he should do, immediately, was turn back. Common sense demanded that he turn back.

  'John?'

  No answer.

  'Come on, you bastard, don't piss about.'

  There wasn't even a breeze to move the wintry silence. It was cold, though, on the Skirrid. Common sense suggested he turn around and find his way back to the car, because sooner or later another vehicle would pass that way - OK, probably driven by a person with an unpleasant black halo, but he didn't need to mention that.

  But he carried on walking. Not impelled exactly. He just thought: Well, I might as well.

  A kind of mystical apathy, he'd be thinking later.

  Meanwhile, he found himself thinking of that poor bugger Aelwyn Breadwinner plod
ding through the night - and the snow; there seemed to have been snow - to hammer on the door of the Abbey. Sanctuary! Sanctuary!

  He heard himself say, 'You sought sanctuary, didn't you?'

  Silence. He hadn't thought about it; just heard himself say it: sanctuary. He stopped on the path, clutching frantically at an escaping thought disappearing like a firefly into the mist. No, don't chase it. Don't think. Carry on walking.

  Aelwyn the dreamer

  Came down from the mountain

  Plodding feet in tempo with the song.

  His harp on his shoulder

  His hopes for the future

  Keep going. Don't think.

  Where William de Braose's

  Tables were groaning

  With wild boar and sweetmeats

  And liquor and ...

  'Come on,' he yelled suddenly. 'You know what I'm saying. New York. You wanted to live in New York because you reckoned it was the only place - ha ha - where you could walk around without being bothered.'

  Still silence. He let it lie, thinking hard. Then there was scuffling in some bushes to his left; a bird or a rabbit. It seemed to kick-start the night; there was a fluttering in front of him and a beating of strong wings overhead.

  'Come on!' Dave shouted against the noise. 'Think. Dakota. The magic citadel. Protection. Sanctuary, right? The late Seventies this would be. You decided you wanted to become an American citizen. All-American ex-Beatle. But they wouldn't give you a green card for ages. The government was suspicious. You were a troublemaker. You gave press conferences in bed, you sat in a bag and mumbled subversion about giving peace a chance. You were a shit-stirrer and you had a big following, You were the very last kind of American citizen that the Reagan administration needed. You were under heavy surveillance you ...'

  I lived there. It was my home.

  'What?'

  here's Yoko, here's me. It's our home.

  The voice was in the mist. The mist laughed.

  it was our city. Once, I - get this, Dave - we once gave a thousand dollars to a fund to provide New York cops with bulletproof vests. How un-American can you get?

  'I didn't know that.'

  sanctuary. Good word. In England I couldn't go out the fuckin' front door, man. Couldn't gerra bag of chips from the chippy, nothing. And she says - this is Yoko-you'll be able to walk here, she says. And it was right, y'know? It's like you've been psychologically crippled for years and somebody takes away your wheelchair and says you don't need a wheelchair here. And nobody bothers you, nobody wants a piece of you to take home and stick on the mantelpiece. All the people, either they don't give a shit or they respect your privacy and it's like, hi John, nice day. Not, can you give us a spare pair of your underpants to auction for our new scout hut or whatever. It's freedom. I'd forgotten what that was about.

  The path was getting narrower, he could feel the bank on either side. The stones were sharper. The soles of his feet hurt. He had an image of Christ en route to his execution, barefoot, bloody great cross over his shoulder.

  The way things are going, they're gonna cru ...

  The Romans and the Pharisees and the CIA and the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration.

  What was it like? You remember Mark Chapman?'

  Long, long silence.

  He carried on tramping, pain in the soles of his feet, pains in his calves now, he was seriously out of breath and out of condition, and in this mist he'd never know when he got to the summit anyway unless he was granted a Holy Vision.

  it's a funny thing, but I can't even recall what the little fucker looked like. I can vaguely remember some young guy coming up to me with a copy of the album, and I signed it and I remember him acting kind of shy, which was unusual - this is New York, man, shyness is not a basic character flaw here. So I vaguely remember him first time round. The other time ... the last time? No. Nothing. Maybe you got me on a bad day, Dave. On a Bad Day, geddit?

  The mist laughed.

  Dave felt terrible. Also cold, especially his hands. And exhausted.

  'I'm gonna have to stop.'

  yeh, this is as far as you'll get.

  felt his feet beginning to slide back. Up to now he'd been drawn forward, like being on a slow escalator. But he knew that if he started to slip he'd lose contact, lose meaningful contact; it would be back to the insults and the banter. He fought for breath and threw his arms forward, as if there was an invisible rope out there he could grasp.

  'Deathoak,' he managed. 'Is that just an anagram of Dakota. With a spare T?'

  There was no rope to grasp. The air was cold and still. His moccasins skidded on the wet stones and he fell and slid backwards, tearing his hands on the stones as he tried to stop the momentum.

  Screaming, 'You got the green card. They let you st...' as the night and the clinging mist dragged him down the Skirrid.

  '… they let you in. And then you ...'

  Must have been a gulley he hadn't noticed on his way up. It was as if someone had picked him up and flung him back and into space. He landed hard, was stunned.

  And he knew he wasn't going back; he'd lost it.

  Dave rolled over, was dizzy. Under his bleeding hands he felt cold grass; he rolled over again and buried his face in it.

  There was some kind of grassy slope. He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his head and rolled over and over down the cold, wet gradient, gathering mud and night and mist and feeling nothing until his hands and face were slashed and stinging and he realised he must have stopped and was in the middle of a vicious thorn bush or maybe had crashed a hedgehogs' convention. He laughed.

  Or maybe passed out. He didn't quite remember how he came to be rolling down the grass. Some time later he stood up.

  He had to get out of here.

  ... could feel neither his fingers nor his toes in his worn-out boots, and the sweat froze on his face as he ran towards the distant light, a candle in a window slit ... his ears always straining for ... the clamour of men and horses ... these murdering damned ewe-fuckers...

  Then light flickered up ahead.

  Sanctuary.

  Is it...?'

  'By God, it is, too. You were right. How the hell did you ...?'

  'Was just a feeling.'

  'You're uncanny, you people. Seriously uncanny.'

  They made him sit up.

  'Take it gently, he might've broken something.'

  'Jesus Christ, will you look at the state of his face?'

  Always looks worse than it is. Take it from an old soldier.'

  Dave said, 'I didn't know you were ever a soldier, Prof.'

  'National bloody service. Don't even talk about it. In fact don't talk at all. Here, hang on to this. Bloody liability, you are, Reilly.'

  'What is it?'

  'Think it's to put an umbrella on. In summer.'

  'What's this place?'

  'Nah, nah. Wrong question. You gotta say "Where am I?" I'll pretend you said it. You're in what I believe is known as a beer garden. The building you see there is the ... what's it called?'

  'The Castle Inn.'

  'Only we can't take you in looking like that. Maybe there's some back stairs we can smuggle you up. By God, David, I'm fucking glad to see you. Car abandoned by the roadside, three degrees of frost forecast, we thought ... I can't tell you what we thought.'

  Dave said, 'Who's that with you?'

  The dark figure was edged with gold from the lights in the inn. It was not in a long dress, but jeans and a dark sweater and a black shawl around its head.

  He whispered, 'Is it Moira?'

  It was a black shawl, wasn't it?

  II

  Orphan

  And you thought you were too old to fall in love.

  Prof Levin had never met Moira until tonight. When he came down from Dave's room he found her ordering coffee in the Castle Inn's firelit lounge bar.

  She was something to look at, even in her camouflage gear, jeans and trainers and a black anorak. She was a
serious presence; you wouldn't forget anything about her, even after fourteen years.

  And yet any pent-up love in Dave's eyes when he saw her had been smothered by something else. Pain. Fear even.

  Why should Dave be afraid of Moira Cairns? I was high on a woman, he'd said, when Prof had asked him what substances he'd been absorbing the night they recorded the Black Album.

  What was he high on tonight, stumbling about like some wild man of the woods?

  'Cream, Prof?' Moira set down a tray on a wrought-iron table near the shimmering coal fire.

  'Lots,' Prof said.

  On his way here, his headlights had found Dave's rusting Fiat wedged in a field gateway at the side of the road. Broken down, or what? It was another half-mile to the pub, where Prof had found no trace of Dave, only this dark-haired woman unloading her cases. He'd seen photos and album covers, he knew who she was, introduced himself.

  They'd looked at each other and discovered a common concern for Reilly's mental condition.

  He's out there, Moira had said thoughtfully. And I don't think he's alone.

  What followed had been eerie. Moira had walked out to the edge of the pub car park, where it met the beer garden, fields and woodland beyond it.

  That's the Skirrid up there?

  The what?

  It's a holy hill, so-called. A lot of magnetic activity, Prof.

  She'd sat down at one of the beer garden tables, in the dark and the cold, hands clasped on her knees, hooded head bowed, very still, Prof not knowing where to put himself, backing off to lean against the back wall of the pub. Until Dave had appeared, rolling and tumbling, as if she was reeling him in like a fish on a line.

  Now Moira was hanging her anorak over the back of her chair, sitting down opposite him in front of the fire, setting up cups on saucers, all very cosy.

  'How is he?'

  She was wearing a washed-out grey sweatshirt, a chain around her neck with a silver Celtic cross,

  'Confused is the word,' Prof said. 'He's taking a bath. Wants to look his best for you.'

  Moira didn't smile. Dave and Moira, Prof wondered, was this a two-way thing? Fourteen years was a hell of a long time; she could have made contact if she'd wanted, could have let him find her. He thought, I wouldn't have bloody well let her get away from me so easily.