December

by Phil Rickman

  By the light of the flickering candles, Isabel Pugh was riding up and down the short aisle, sending out waves of impatience and anxiety.

  Eddie stood with his back to the door and waited.

  Isabel was in her high-powered accountant's suit, no rug over her knees, a shortish grey skirt revealing her useless legs.

  The word was that she paid a woman from Nevill Hall Hospital to come over two nights a week to pummel those legs, with their wasted muscles; make them at least look as if they worked.

  Passive physiotherapy, it was called.

  Well, it's her money; she's entitled to her bit of vanity, God knows she is.

  'We have to help him,' she said, by way of greeting. 'You agree?'

  'Help him?' Eddie said.

  Or help you, more likely, he thought.

  She was a bossy girl, liked her own way and was probably used to getting it - who could refuse to rush to the aid of a weeping woman in a wheelchair? She was also, of course, very attractive, no denying that.

  But how much of an impact that would have on Simon St John was anybody's guess.

  'How much do you know, Eddie?'

  'Not enough.' He kept shooting sidelong glances at the candles to make sure they were still white.

  'Do you know about his band?'

  Eddie sighed. It was cold in the church. He sat down on the edge of a pew and pulled the too-long sleeves of his overcoat over his hands like mittens.

  'Tell me about the band,' he said.

  By nine-thirty, the bar of the Castle Inn was so full of noisy locals that nobody noticed the two strangers sliding in.

  Simon was busy explaining to Tom and Meryl how he'd come to join the Church professionally. At the bar, ordering sandwiches, Prof had murmured to him about steering the conversation away from Dave and Moira and whatever was going on up there. If it came to it, he said, he'd have to imply they were making love. What is going on up there? Simon had said, and Prof had wiped the air with open hands - nothing he'd want to talk about even if he understood.

  'I'd always been drawn to the Church,' Simon was saying now, hunched over the fire, hands clasped. 'Always very impressed by the clergy as a boy. Other kids used to laugh at them, in their stupid robes, but they weren't having the same kind of ... experiences as me.'

  Prof saw Meryl pause with a prawn sandwich half-way to her mouth. 'Experiences?' she said.

  He thought, this woman's a supernatural junkie.

  Simon said, 'Enough to make me less sure than my peers that religion was something you had to suffer until you grew up, like school dinners.'

  'But there's religion,' Meryl said knowingly. 'And religion. Surely?'

  Simon looked mildly annoyed, opened his mouth to reply, but another voice took up the space.

  'Can we squeeze in, do you think?'

  Steve Case was the only guy in the bar whose glass had olives in it. He stood it on their table, pulled out a stool and handed another over the table to his companion. 'Sorry to disrupt your evening. Prof. Er, Tom.'

  'Stone me,' Tom said, ignoring Steve. 'If it ain't Sile bleeding Copesake. '

  Prof looked up with a guarded interest. He'd met Sile Copesake once or twice but never worked with him, which was odd, seeing as both of them had been around the same scene for maybe thirty years.

  'How are you, Tom?' Sile said.

  He's in better nick than me, Prof thought, pulling in his belly. Sile hadn't got one, to speak of. His hair and his beard were both grey, both shaven close, so it was like he had designer stubble over half his head.

  'And Prof Levin, right?' Sile wore a short leather jacket and jeans and looked fit enough to take the stage with a band half his age. As indeed, he often did.

  'Sile.'

  'Hope we're not intruding,' Steve Case said, planting himself next to Simon and the coal fire. 'But this seemed an opportune time to get together and sort a few things out before we go to the Abbey on Monday.'

  Steve glanced over at Sile. It was clear to Prof that Steve was not in charge of this operation any more, if he ever had been.

  Sile said in his soft Yorkshire rasp, 'We all need to be sure why we're here and that we're on the same side.'

  Sile had his back to the fire. Prof on one side of him, Meryl on the other. 'And you are?'

  'I'm with Tom,' Meryl said. 'I'm his …'

  'Woman,' Tom said quickly before she could start tactfully implying he was undergoing therapy. Meryl looked surprised and quite thrilled.

  'Right,' said Sile uncertainly. He must think Tom was weird, Prof thought. If the legends were to be believed, Sile was now screwing chicks a third his age.

  Sile and Steve had more drinks brought over. Tom sat back in his chair, didn't eat, didn't drink while Sile talked.

  Sile talked about the Abbey, which he said he'd known since was a kid evacuated to Wales during the war. Sile said the Abbey had always fascinated him, moved him. Did they know how it had been founded, by this monk running away from his past, all the bad things he'd done, and finding redemption?

  Prof hadn't heard about that. It was supposed to matter? They were talking about a sodding recording studio.

  Sile said he'd recommended the Abbey to Max Goff when Max was looking for somewhere remote and interesting where progressive bands could make adventurous albums. Max had believed that progressive rock music would return one day, more progressive than ever.

  'I've got to tell you,' Sile said, 'I didn't know what he had in mind. I didn't know how he planned to use the Abbey or I'd've been less enthusiastic. I didn't know it was going to stir up demons.'

  'Oh, please,' Simon said, looking pained. 'That wasn't quite how he explained it to us at the time.'

  'I'm using the word loosely,' Sile said. 'Max Goff wouldn't have known a demon if it crawled up his trouser leg. He was a New Age guy. He believed in beautiful spirits.'

  'Listen,' Tom said, 'There was a geezer called Aelwyn somefink, turned up outside the Abbey in eleven-whenever, pleading to be let in. Only when the monks got the door open the only way they could bring him in was on shovels.'

  Sile nodded.

  Tom said, 'Dave Reilly had this loony idea we could free this Aelwyn's soul wiv a song. It went wrong. Badly, badly, fucking wrong. None of us wanna talk about that, so if that's the direction you was heading, you better back off, Sile, OK?'

  'OK, OK.' Sile made a cutting motion. 'All I want to say is, it's obvious that neither you guys nor the Abbey benefited a lot in that grim episode. The album's awesome, but it's unfinished and it's flawed.'

  'How'd you get hold of them tapes?'

  'Part of TMM's legacy from Epidemic. Prof'll tell you all about that. Prof was there when Steve found the tapes.'

  Yeah, Prof thought. And maybe Prof was invited along to be a credible, trustworthy witness. Maybe Prof was set up.

  He said, 'What you're really saying is you never exactly got your money's worth out of the Abbey after that business.'

  'I wouldn't have chosen to put it precisely like that,' Sile said.

  'Or after the other business. Soup Kitchen.'

  A babble of silence formed around their table.

  'Wossat?' Tom demanded. 'What you on about?'

  Prof deliberately didn't look at Sile, but he felt Sile looking at him. Daggers.

  'Epidemic took another new band to the Abbey in '87.' He paused. Tom was also watching him intently now.

  The name of the game is Don't Worry Tom.

  'It didn't work out, though. Never made it to the shops either, that one, did it, Sile?'

  'No,' Sile said coldly. His eyes were like stones. 'Tell me, where are the other two, Moira Cairns and Dave?'

  'Very tired,' Prof said. 'Know what I mean?'

  He was tired too and he knew that if he didn't get out of here, whether it was outside for a walk in the cold night or upstairs to bed, he was going to go over to the bar and order himself a drink. And then he'd have another drink and another and he'd end up slagging somebody off in a big way.


  He looked at them all, from face to face, Case to Simon to Tom to Meryl. To Sile. He'd had enough of Case and now Copesake and all this bullshit. Time for some straight talking.

  'Listen.' He rapped the table. 'Listen, what you're saying - let's get this right - is what this band, the Philosopher's Stone did at the Abbey has, like, messed it up. The Abbey. As a studio. As an Abbey. Whatever. Or that's what people are saying. Left kind of a hex behind, a curse, whatever you want to call it. Is that the language we're talking, Sile? Is that what we're saying? You believe in this hoodoo shit?'

  Sile made no reply, just looked at him with an eyebrow raised, a very faint eyebrow, a smudge.

  Prof said, 'Why don't you just come clean? TMM been landed with the Abbey, part of the Epidemic package, and you want to turn it into an earner again. Make it into the major studio it ought to've been first time around. Remove the stain.'

  'Now just a minute ...' Case was half-way out of his seat, Sile waved him back.

  Prof said, 'Mention the Abbey to anybody in the business now, all they can remember is it's where Tom had his personal tragedy. Release that album as it stands and it's so fucking scary, nobody except a few young weirdos are gonna want to record there ever again, and you got a bloody great ruined white elephant on your books. How'm I doing so far?'

  Sile was smiling faintly.

  'But you bring the legendary Tom out of his hermit's cave, you take him back to where it all went wrong, and Tom straps on his axe and comes out like - what's that western with Lee Marvin as this old pissed-up gunfighter who makes a blazing comeback? Anyway, the result is not only a piece of history but a hot new album and everybody's laughing, right?'

  He looked again from face to face. Case looked uncomfortable. Simon expressionless. Tom smiling kind of sardonically. Meryl distinctly disappointed because Meryl didn't want to hear about commercial ventures and business scams, what Meryl wanted was the supernatural.

  'Sure.' Sile Copesake threw up his hands. 'Whatever you say, Prof, whatever you say.'

  'What's that supposed to mean?'

  'But for whatever reason,' Sile said, 'everybody turned up, didn't they? It must be some kind of magic place, don't you think?'

  The sense of déjà vu was overpowering. For long, long minutes, December eighth, nineteen-eighty was no more than a membrane away.

  Trying to unwrap Davey's subconscious was like that passing-the-parcel-game, or peeling an onion.

  'Look,' she said - she was sitting next to him on the bed, holding his hand - 'somehow, you made a connection. You linked into it. You had a vision. That doesny mean …'

  'Yeh, but why?' His eyes were all glassy. He still wasn't fully out of it. 'Why did I get that vision? Why was I with him when he died? Why did I become him? You know I did, Moira. You know I did.'

  And poor wee Davey began to sob again, sitting on the edge of the bed, slumped over the Martin guitar, his chin tucked into the rosewood valley of the soundbox.

  Moira remembered his story in the fax, about the Liverpool blackout, how he'd wept over a Takamine in a music shop and the guy who ran the shop said he'd christened it now, he might as well buy it.

  Now he'd christened the Martin, the M38 that cost an arm and a leg in Glasgow.

  Helpless in the face of his total disorientation, his refusal to accept his surroundings or that she was here with him and real and alive, she'd returned to her own room and fetched the guitar, put it on his knees. He'd fumbled around for ages, like he'd never handled a guitar before.

  And then he'd started to play this awful, bitter song about Patience Strong on a bad day, repeating the same lines over and over again.

  If you die tonight

  Who has the last laugh?

  If that's your epitaph

  What can I say?

  A song she'd never heard before.

  Dave lifted his head, wet-eyed. 'I'm sorry. I'm making a mess of your guitar. I told you I was a basket-case.'

  'It's no' my guitar,' Moira said, it's your guitar. You had it stolen when you came North to find me that time, remember?'

  'Huh?' He stared down, bewildered, at the instrument in his arms. 'That was an old Jumbo, this is ...'

  'An M38 Grand Auditorium,' Moira said. 'You don't really like it, do you?'

  'It's ...' He ran his hand over the golden spruce top. It's wonderful. It's bloody lovely. I haven't got a guitar. I had one, but it was stolen from Muthah ...' He looked up at her. 'I don't understand.'

  'You don't have to understand,' Moira said.

  'They cost a fortune.'

  Moira shrugged. 'Play "Dakota Blues",' she said.

  'Moira?' His eyes full of a sorrowful longing, like one of Donald's Dobermans. 'You are here, aren't you?'

  She squeezed his hand. 'Aye, I am, Davey.'

  'And you're OK?' he asked strangely. 'You're not ... unwell?' '

  'Jesus, I'm fine. Play "Dakota Blues", huh.'

  This was the only song of his she'd heard since the band split; she was figuring it might loosen something.

  'I can't remember the chords.'

  'Aw, come on, Davey, even I can remember the damn chords and I never played it. It's a basic twelve-bar blues format and then you come back down ...'

  But his fingers had already structured an E-chord and he was thumbing a bass line. He drew a breath and Moira held hers until what came out was not Lennon's voice but Dave's voice, a little nasal but definitely Dave's own voice.

  Coolin' my heels

  In Strawberry Fields

  I can't find no peace there.

  The night is breathless

  Kirsty's restless

  She don't care.

  No hope of solace

  Or redemption

  In the air.

  Seven long years since I heard the news

  I'm still wakin' in the night

  With the ...

  Dave's right hand slammed out a final ringing chord

  ... DAKOTA BLUES.

  Moira said softly, 'Who was Kirsty?'

  Dave laid the guitar on the bed behind him. 'Just this girl I took to New York in 1986. Two-day Winter Break. She was ten years younger than me, and we hadn't got a lot in common anyway. The second night we went to have a look at Strawberry Fields, the Lennon memorial area in Central Park, but she wasn't really interested. She wandered off and left me sitting there on a bench, and that was when I started writing the song.'

  'So you saw the Dakota.'

  'Can't miss it, can you?'

  'And was it...?'

  He nodded. 'A great, towering Gothic chateau with turrets and cupolas and ...'

  'A black flower?'

  'Some sort of fountain, like a black metal flower. There's a line in the second verse about "metal petals".'

  'I know.' Moira sighed. 'We've got so much to talk about and so little time.'

  She saw the reproach in his eyes. His eyes said, We've had fourteen years to talk about it. Where did you go?

  'This ...' Moira hesitated. 'This question of redemption ...'

  'That's why we're here, isn't it?'

  'Look at me,' she said. 'Do you know why you're here, Davey?'

  He looked at her. He still seemed very young, though his hair was going grey.

  'All kinds of reasons,' he said. 'Redemption's one - chance of getting some, maybe that. Last hope of getting rid of the black bon ... of seeing bad things on people.'

  'What d'you mean?'

  'I don't want to talk about that, do you mind? And there was an implied blackmail bit - they could release "On a Bad Day", make me look like a scumbag. Well, that's no big deal. The main reason ... Oh, what the hell, we're here, aren't we?'

  He didn't look at her when he said this. The main reason was that she was going to be here. Moira felt like shit. She stood by his bedside and looked down at wee, sad-eyed Davey, wanted to love him and almost made it. She wished she hadn't bought him the Martin guitar; it seemed like such a cheap gesture now.

  She sat do
wn next to him, squeezed his hand really hard.

  'We're gonna do it, Davey. We're going in there and we're gonna replay it. Our way this time.'

  'But are we going to come out?'

  'Hey, don't be ridiculous,' Moira said, tapping his hand against her knee, thinking, Good question.

  Then there was another tapping behind her.

  'Moira? Dave?'

  A familiar, well-modulated voice the other side of the door. Moira was about to call out to him to come in when it occurred her Simon might have Tom with him, and the sight of a wretched Dave and a tear-stained guitar could send the big guy prematurely into orbit.

  'Stay there,' Moira said. 'Don't move. I'll be back.'

  Simon. Jesus, it was good to see him. Pliable Simon. Willowy, amiable Simon.

  And the dog-collar ...

  'It suits you. It really suits you.'

  'It's not a fashion statement,' Simon said. He was alone, thank God.

  'No, I mean it suits you,' Moira said. 'The whole priestly thing.'

  'Wish I could agree with you,' Simon said ruefully, flicking back a lock of fair hair, just like he used to - except the hair was perhaps a little paler now. 'Listen, Moira, we need to do some urgent talking. Like, now. Where's Dave?'

  'Dave's asleep,' Moira lied. 'Dave's ... exhausted. What I mean is, I don't think it would be good for Tom to see Dave right now.'

  'You mean he's fucked up?'

  'Let's just say we've a lot of stuff to unload before he's exposed to Tom.'

  'But meanwhile,' Simon said, 'we're being pushed into a corner down there. We've got Steve Case and Sile Copesake from TMM trying to manhandle us into a situation that seems uncannily reminiscent of the last time, you know what I mean? Fait accompli? Out of our hands?'

  'Terrific'

  'I'm sorry. I just didn't expect this. My idea was to book us in here for a couple of nights so we could really hammer this thing out between us before Monday. And then we could hang it on them. It didn't allow for the bastards turning up before we could even get our stuff unpacked. Anyway, I'm stalling. I just went to the loo, as it were.'