by Phil Rickman
'How did you know,' he asked without much hope of a satisfactory answer, 'where he was and when he was coming back?'
Moira sugared her coffee. The four of us, the old Philosopher's Stone, were simultaneously converging on one spot, right? Which Simon St John chose, apparently. I got here just before dark. Not so dark I couldn't see the Skirrid rising up in the fields, but I could feel it anyway. It kind of draws you in. So when you showed me Davey's car, it was pretty obvious where he'd gone.'
'Magnetic activity, you said. What's that mean?'
Moira smiled. 'You're a technical guy, Prof. I can't give it to you in those terms. Holy hill makes more sense to me. Hill of dreams, hill of visions. You ever read Arthur Machen? No? He was a mystical kind of guy, wrote weird stories around the First World War period. This was Arthur's backyard, where he drew his inspiration.'
Her voice was low and husky, earthed by the not-quite-Glasgow accent.
'Whether this was intentional or not on his part,' she said, 'what Simon's done is given us a spiritual focus. We're all converging on the Skirrid, which is a sacred site with a lot of natural power. That's magnetism. You can measure it. Physically, scientifically. Give me a magnetometer, I could prove it to you. Maybe Simon thinks we need all the power we can get.'
'Before you face the Abbey?'
'We need time to regroup. In a different way maybe. Like - I have to tell you I'm a whole lot less certain about all this than I sound - fifteen or so years ago Max Goff was realising that a rock band, or a folk band, or a string quartet, for that matter, was a very potent psychic unit, whether or not any of its members have, kind of heightened sensibilities.'
Moira paused to check he was picking up on this.
Prof said, 'And if they have got these ... sensibilities?'
'Dynamite, potentially. A powder keg. Which is why - no matter what Davey tells you - we had to go our separate ways. Each of us was, like, carrying components of something combustible. If we stayed together, sooner or later ... boom. You know?'
Prof said, 'I've heard the album.'
'Yeah. I know. Why else would I be telling you all this?'
'Pardon me, but how would you know I'd heard it?'
'I just did.'
'That's no answer.'
'It's the best you'll get off me, Prof,' said Moira tartly.
'OK, but how do you ...' Prof had no idea where this was coming from, maybe the sodding Skirrid. 'How do you know my motives are pure?'
Moira grinned, dropped her left hand over his. 'You worked with Davey on his solo album, right? He wrote to me about that. And when we came face to face outside of here, you were worried sick about him.'
'Only 'cause he's such a stupid git,' said Prof gruffly.
She put down her cup. 'I think I should go up and see him.'
'Room four,' Prof said.
Discreetly parked in his discreet Astra on the edge of the car park, Simon had watched and reasoned it out. Moira and the guy with a white beard and glasses, Prof Levin presumably, waiting for someone. And then Dave appearing out of the darkness, dishevelled, clothes wet with mud.
It was starting, the old madness. Nothing changed. Just like Dave to respond to the call of the Skirrid in knee-jerk fashion.
And Tom wasn't even here yet. From the moment of his arrival Tom was going to need careful handling. He'd look at this inn and see the oak beams and stuff, and probably panic because it was old and likely to resonate.
Simon would have had no problem putting them all up at the vicarage, somebody having to sleep on a sofa perhaps. But that would have been too close to the Abbey's own forcefield. Whereas, here, in this cosy old inn, there was an immense and ancient barrier between them and the Abbey. Breathing space.
He still wasn't sure how far he could trust the Skirrid, but it had been venerated for centuries, a circle of churches around it had been built on its holy soil, and it had borne a chapel dedicated to St Michael, the warrior.
Shelter. He would need to explain this to Tom. A Peugeot car pulled in under the illuminated pub sign. A woman got out and looked around. She was tall, with dark hair, not remotely like the Shelley Storey Simon remembered from Epidemic. Couldn't be Tom, then. Simon looked away.
What he mustn't tell Tom, mustn't even think about when Tom was around ... was the candles.
Human fat? Please, no. Human fat altered everything.
They wouldn't of course, be able to prove it. Such phenomena were invariably beyond physical proof. Therefore, the inquiry would, most likely, be dropped. In time.
So far he'd managed to avoid this Superintendent G. A. Jones. The man had not returned. Simon had phoned Eddie Edwards and expressed disbelief. Human fat? Ridiculous. Defies credibility. Let's bloody hope so, Eddie had said, jittery.
This was another of Simon's mistakes; he'd reacted badly to the candles in front of Eddie. He didn't have the resolve any more, didn't have the cool he'd displayed in December 1980 when the ring of candles had appeared in the studio. Of course, he hadn't known then about the human fat. But Tom must've sensed it. Tom had screamed,
they're black!
Tom had been right.
They were black. Very black. As black as ...
the hair of the woman now tapping on his car window. The tall woman from the Peugeot.
He wound his window down.
'Is it Simon?' she asked hesitantly.
And, behind her, a familiar shambling figure was disentangling itself from the Peugeot.
Dave awoke and looked around in confusion. The furniture in the room was utterly strange.
A scuffed and hulking wardrobe barely fitted under the black ceiling beams. There was a chest and a chair and a dressing-table with no mirror. He stumbled to the window: metal kegs in a yard under a dirty bulb on a metal bracket.
He didn't know that view.
Didn't know this room. Didn't remember going to sleep in it. Didn't, in fact, remember going to sleep anywhere, only awakening. If you could call this being awake.
Tap, tap, up.
He didn't know the white-panelled door on which someone was knocking.
Dave sat on the edge of the bed. This wasn't the bedsit, was it? This wasn't Muthah Mirth. Been evicted from there. Yeh. Right. Walked out on his contract. Let them down again. Unreliable. Drove across the Severn Bridge and accosted a woman with a black bonnet. Walked up a crooked mountain with John Lennon. Who wasn't really there, on account of being dead, but it was an interesting exchange of views he and John had had. Straightened out a few contentious points; couldn't remember what they were.
The only strong memory was coming down the mountain, and Moira Cairns waiting for him. But not really, obviously. She wasn't really there, any more than John Lennon was there, because - of course - she was dead too.
Nobody wore the black bonnet for very long.
Moira was dead.
Dave wept at this. It had kept him going for so long, the thought that one day, before they were too old to do anything about it, he might see Moira again.
But he'd known for a couple of days that it was too late, watching her on that long, long beach, writing deathoak in the sand with her guitar as she tramped towards the final horizon, her face terminally black-veiled.
Dead now, then. Dead as Lennon. No more real than the view over the yard lit by the dirty bulb.
It occurred to him, with no great sense of surprise, that he'd been committed. That this was what people politely called a Rest Home. What had happened, he'd escaped and run away up a mountain with a dead legend, but they'd laid a trap for him and he'd walked right into it, confused by the ghostly shape and the voice of the love of his life. And now they'd put him into another room he didn't know, and he was naked.
He looked down at himself in horror. The bastards had taken away his clothes! And the dressing-table had no mirror; without a mirror he had no way of even confirming his own identity.
'Davey?'
Dave Kite. I'm Dave Kite. They hold benefits for me, wit
h a trampoline full of Hendersons and Henry the Horse dancing the waltz.
Bang, bang, bang.
'Davey!'
He looked at the door. Do they think I'm completely bloody bonkers?
'Piss off! Either give me my clothes back or piss off!'
Silence.
There was another door and he pushed it open and went through. He saw a white lavatory and a wash-basin and a bath with a shower attachment hanging over it like the dirty bulb hung over the yard.
He saw a chair and on it were some clothes he vaguely recognised. He grabbed them - jockey shorts, jeans, a sweater and a jacket hung over the back - hugged them to his chest to make sure they were real. Buried his face in them, and breathed in the smell of earth, the smell of the grave.
Dave began frantically to pull on the clothes before they could disappear. While the banging on the white door continued, getting louder.
And the voice went on shouting, 'Davey?' with increasing urgency.
'Piss off!' he screamed.
Maybe he'd escape again; get out of the window.
'Simon,' Tom said, standing back to look at him under the Castle Inn sign. 'You bastard. You look exactly the bleeding same.'
Simon wished he could say the same for Tom, whose hair and moustache were almost white, whose face looked like crumpled chip-paper. The best he could have said was that Tom's shamble was the same.
Instead, he said, 'How's Shelley?'
Best to start off being as direct as possible. Shelley not being here was worrying him, and if there was something worrying you, Tom would catch it like a cold.
'Shelley's fine,' Tom said. 'I reckon.'
'So where is she?'
In Simon's view, Tom's biggest mistake had been not marrying Shelley first time around instead of getting himself ensnared by the sinewy charms of a TV disco dancer called Debbie Swann. That way, Debbie Swann would be alive and so, probably, would Shelley, who would never in a million years have left Tom alone at the Abbey.
But, then, who could say, really, how that night would have ended? The cards had been drawn from the pack. Black cards.
'Bit of a problem there,' Tom admitted. 'Me and Shelley. Temporary, I reckon. Strickly temporary. Sort itself out.' He glanced up anxiously at the inn's whitewashed walls. 'Place looks old.'
'It is old,' Simon agreed. 'But that's not a problem. I examined all our rooms. There's nothing much here. Except for anything we've brought with us.'
'Yeah,' Tom said. 'Sorry. I don't get out much. This is Meryl. She's, er...'
'His therapist,' said Meryl, rounding out the R. A country girl then, Simon thought, surprised, although there was no reason why he should be; Tom did, after all, live in the country.
'Yeah,' said Tom gratefully. 'Ferapist.'
'How do you do.' Simon reluctantly took the woman's hand.
It wasn't in a glove, and her nails, which he expected to be long, sharp and thick with varnish, turned out to be short and practical. The handshake was firm.
'Wasn't for this lady,' Tom said, 'I wouldn't've come. Made me face up to responsibilities. Ferapy.'
Simon looked more closely at Meryl, shrewd eyes. Not a bimbo. But anybody could be a therapist. Simon decided there was a history to this which would need to be uncovered before they went to the Abbey.
'Let's hope neither of you will have any regrets,' he said and could have chewed off his tongue. He patted Tom's arm. 'Go in, shall we? I think Dave and Moira are already here. And the producer. Ken Levin. Prof, as he's known. Are you all right about him?'
'Never worked wiv him, Si, but I used to know people who did. He's OK. Better than that wanker Hornby, anyway.'
'That's good.' Inside the pub lobby, Simon took off his overcoat and scarf, hung them over an arm. He opened the interior door for Meryl. 'After you. Sorry I was little short earlier on. I wasn't expecting ... Well.'
Meryl smiled without looking at him and went through into the bar. But Tom didn't move.
'This a joke, Simon?'
'Sorry?'
'What the fuck is that?' Bloodshot eyes wide with shock.
'What the fuck is what?' said Simon.
'That white fing encircling your Gregory. It's a joke, right?'
'It's a dog collar,' said Simon.
It might have been a swastika armband, the way Tom was reacting. 'That's what bleeding vicars wear!'
'So I'm told,' Simon said, moving into the bar. 'You still not drinking, Tom? Coffee, is it?'
In the dimness of Room 4, second on the right along the low passage, his face looked like a Victorian portrait. Orphan boy, c.1886, Moira thought.
Someone had told her a year or two back that he was building up a small cult following as an alternative comedian with a particularly cynical line in impersonations of rock music icons. It had all sounded very worldly, a touch sophisticated, and not at all like his letters.
His face was quite startlingly unmarked by the years. Or so it seemed in this light. There were clear rings of pain around his eyes, but inside the eyes themselves was this credulous innocence. No cynicism, no sophistication. Only the innocence of long ago.
She was a different person, but he was alarmingly changed.
He stepped back a pace, gripping his arms, as if she was exuding cold. He stood by the bed. He kept glancing at her and then looking away and then glancing back. She thought there were tears in his eyes, but he blinked them away.
'You're exactly the same.' He nodded, swallowed. 'You're how I wanted to see you. You haven't changed.'
Yes I have, she wanted to scream at him. I'm a totally different person. I've been around. I've been making my own living, sorting out my past, burying my mother. I'm mature, hard-boiled, hard-bitten. I've got scars all over me. Can you no' see the scars?
Dave said. 'Thank you. You can go now.'
He smiled vaguely, turned and moved to the window, looking out of it and down. His shoulders shook, just once.
Moira said, 'Davey?'
He ignored her, began to mess with the window, unbolting the sash. Then something seemed to occur to him and he turned back to face her.
He said, 'On your way out, could you just send Lennon in one last time?'
Moira froze.
'Oh Jesus,' she said.
III
Supernatural Junkie
After an hour or so, Prof went up. He stood outside in the passage trying to see into the bedroom, but Moira wasn't opening the door wide enough.
'Thing is, they've started asking for you. Tom is getting restive.'
A lamp was burning low in the room behind her.
'Tell them ... Can you no' tell them we're awful tired or something?'
She didn't look especially tired. She did look het-up, was controlling it, like a midwife at a bad birth. She had her sleeves pushed up over her elbows. There was a light sweat on her forehead.
Prof said, 'What would that sound like to you? See, I … I'm starting to get the hang of this, and the name of the game is, Don't Worry Tom.'
'Yeah, I remember the basic rules. Only Tom's so unpredictable, you have to keep changing them as you go along.'
Prof shuffled about. 'Is Dave OK? I mean, it's nearly two hours since he was gonna have a bath.'
'Yeah, well, all that happened, Prof, is he lay down afterwards and fell asleep, and when he awoke he was kind of disoriented. I think he'd ... OD'd on whatever's coming the Skirrid tonight.'
Prof was in no mood to go into this. 'I tell you, Moira, two hours, we've been here, we haven't even seen this Abbey yet and already things are turning out rather weirder than I anticipated. Even considering the company.'
'Yeah,' Moira said. 'And it will get weirder, I have to say.'
'Tom's turned up with a woman looks like she's the madame of an expensive massage parlour.'
'Not Shelley?'
'Meryl,' Prof said. 'Her name's Meryl. And as for Simon did you know he was a flaming church minister now?'
Moira's eyes widened briefly, then she
gave a secretive kind smile. 'Aw, hey,' she said softly, looking not at all displeased. 'You're kidding.'
'Says he can't stay too late tonight on account he's gotta be up early for Holy Communion at half-eight. Needs to let the wine breathe or whatever they do.'
'Hold on.' Moira's eyes narrowing warily. 'He's a local vicar?'
'Ustrad Dee? Am I pronouncing it right?'
Moira went quiet. From the room behind her came the low, even rhythm of an acoustic guitar - nail-strummed Martin, no mistaking it. Like a silken river.
Moira said slowly, 'You're telling me Simon St John has got himself made vicar of Ystrad Ddu? He's got the Abbey in his own backyard?'
'Well. Far's I can gather. Yeah.' The unlikeliness of this was occurring to Prof for the first time. Why would Simon want to spend his life in such stifling proximity to the ancient fun palace that spawned the Black Album?
'Oh hell,' Moira said. 'We are gonna have to talk about this, at some length.'
And then from inside the room came a chiming A-minor chord. And a tight and acid voice rang out, strident and angry the darkness.
You die tonight.
Who has the last laugh?
The last word reverberated - aff, aff, aff - the full hard, bright vocal of, say, 'Come Together'. Prof clutched the door jamb; his legs felt weak.
Moira said, 'We'll talk later, OK?' And gently closed the door on him.
Shutting herself in with the howling ghost of John Lennon.
Prof muttered, 'Get me out of here.'
In response to a peremptory phone call, Eddie Edwards went to meet Isabel Pugh in the church.
Girl's braver than me, he thought, weaving through the short, dark alley between the churchyard yews. Since the appearance of the candles he'd been far from happy in this place.
As he turned the iron handle, he could already hear the wheelchair's whine and the sound of the rubber on the stone floor.
