by Phil Rickman
She looked at the picture of the Abbey. It was really very pleasant. Of course, that was summer. It would be bleaker now. The week ahead would be a testing time, but Meryl was prepared to be tested. Meryl was begging to be tested.
'You didn't actually stay in the Abbey last time, did you?'
'I commuted,' Tom said. 'No place for a pregnant woman.'
She saw his eyes cloud.
'I wonder what the bedrooms are like,' she said brightly.
'I'll let you know.'
'Probably be a draughty old place. I hope the beds are aired.'
'Wouldn't wanna catch a cold. Goes to my sinuses.'
'We'll take some hot-water bottles.'
Tom said, 'Hang on. We?'
Meryl stared at him.
Tom said, 'You're staying here, darlin'. You do know that?'
Meryl stiffened.
'You was there last night when we discussed the terms. The band goes in alone. No Case, no Sile.'
'But ... '
'And no you,' said Tom.
Meryl grabbed a handful of tablecloth. She was dumbfounded. Shattered. Speechless.
Who was it who'd rescued him from the motor lodge? Who'd persuaded him that it was in his best interests to come here? Who'd brought him here?
Who had shared his vision?
Meryl felt her eyes bulge and burn. 'This is ridiculous.'
'No, it ain't. It's common sense. This is a mopping-up situation. We got enough of our own shit to wade frew. It ain't your problem. Be bloody thankful.'
Meryl blinked back tears of rage and frustration, pushed back her chair. 'Excuse me.' She didn't even look at the girl bringing her egg from the kitchen.
Dave said, 'I was disgusted with him. I mean thousands - millions - of people were feeling really pissed off about it. It was a bloody awful album.'
'It had a couple of good tracks,' Moira said. '"Starting Over", ''Woman''.'
'Patience Strong,' Dave said. 'Not as bloody good as Patience Strong. Made Patience Strong read like bloody Coleridge.'
Moira had parked on the edge of Ystrad Ddu, at the end of the straggly dozen or so grey stone houses, past the sagging untidy pub. She wanted to hear this before they got too close to the Abbey.
It so happened that Dave had bought his copy of the album a couple of days before arriving for the session in December, 1980.
Double Fantasy. John Lennon's album. Also Yoko's. Seven songs each - one of his, one of hers, one of his, etc. Well, everybody expected Yoko's songs to be not exactly balm to the ears and nobody was disappointed. But when Lennon's compositions turned out to be largely dreary, sentimental and witless-that was it.
'What I couldn't help remembering,' Dave said, 'was he used to slag McCartney off for being trite and bubblegum. After the split, this was. Do you remember "How Do Sleep?" on Imagine? Really vicious. A public denunciation.'
Moira nodded. 'Made me wonder what had gone on between them.'
'Yet here he is, a few years later, living the life of a contented househusband in his New York fortress, baking bread, composing sweet little songs about his second wife and his second kid. Talk about hypocrisy.'
'Be careful,' Moira said. 'That was why Mark Chapman reckoned he was compelled to shoot him. Because he was the King of the Phoneys. A full-blown hypocrite, as defined in The Catcher in the Rye, Chapman's bible. All adults are phoneys, but some are phonier than others. You ever read that book?'
'Afterwards. After Chapman came out with all this crap about doing the deed to draw public attention to what a great novel it was. I was surprised, actually, it's a good read.'
'Yeah, but it's hardly an incitement to murder. It's like Charles Manson going on about having telepathic communication with the Beatles. Claiming the Tate killings were inspired by McCartney's song "Helter Skelter" then it turns out Manson didn't know what the hell the words meant. That a helter-skelter was a kiddies' fairground ride in Britain - he didn't know that. It makes me angry, the way so many of the worse things that happen are down to misinterpretation and simple ignorance.'
She leaned back into the head-restraint, stretched her legs. 'But Chapman killed him, Davey. Not you. Chapman took a plane over from Hawaii and bought himself a Saturday Night Special. You just felt cross with the guy. And then you had a bad experience which somehow got hooked up with his, and you hate yourself because you didn't follow through and find out where they were, call up the studio where he was recording and say, "Could you please give Mr Lennon an urgent message, I think something really terrible could be about to happen to him."'
Moira put a hand on his knee. 'Davey, you didn't know this was Lennon. You didn't even know it was New York. And with the really malevolent vibes buzzing around the Abbey on that occasion I'm pretty damn sure that if you'd rolled around on the grass all night you'd never have got the insight you needed to alter history.'
Dave put his hand over her hand. 'That's not the worst of it. The worst of it's that song. "On A Bad Day." You remember the afternoon of the eighth?'
'Yeah, I ...'
Drove into Abergavenny to do a little shopping, then went along to Tom's hotel to pick him up, have a chat with Debbie, Stayed an hour or so, had afternoon tea with them in the restaurant. When we got back to the Abbey ...
'... You were messing about in the studio with Simon and Lee Gibson and Russell.'
'Yeh. We recorded a song. It wasn't for the album, it was just a fun thing. Bit of a pastiche of "How Do You Sleep", Russell had played a couple of tracks from Double Fantasy and I asked him to take it off, then I sat down and started fooling about with a guitar and the song just came into me head. It was just there.'
Dave began to sing, in Lennon's voice,
Don't know what you got here
But it sure ain't a song
Sounds like Patience Strong
On a bad day.
If you die tonight
Who has the last laugh?
If that's your epitaph
What can I say?
Am I ever gonna see you again
I doubt it
Are we ever gonna hear you again
I doubt it
I doubt it.
Oh God. Moira closed her eyes. 'You wrote that the verse afternoon before ...?'
'And recorded it. In the Abbey.'
'Oh my,' Moira said hoarsely.
Dave took her hand from his knee. 'You don't want to touch me.'
'Don't be silly.'
'Mark Chapman's never been the quietest, most retiring of lifers,' Dave said bitterly. 'He's always going on about how might not have shot Lennon. Earlier the same day he went along to the Dakota and asked John for his autograph on a copy of Double Fantasy and then went away again and thought about not killing him.'
'He's bonkers, Davey. He's a headcase.'
'Also, he kept on about hearing voices in his head. The Little People he called them.'
'Davey, every fruitcake killer claims to hear voices. The Yorkshire Ripper, all these psychos ...'
'And while he's thinking about it, agonising over whether to go through with it, a song echoing all his Catcher in the Rye sentiments is being laid down with a lot of malice
a forethought ...'
Davey, you can't possibly think ...'
'...at the Abbey.'
Moira sat up quickly and switched on the engine. 'That's it. I'm no' gonny listen to any more of this nonsense.'
She jammed the BMW into gear, let out the clutch and swung into the lane, which very soon began to narrow, tall trees meeting overhead. In summer this would be a tunnel of green.
'Where are we going?'
'You know where we're going, Davey. We're gonna have a wee stroll around the ruins and get our act together.'
'I can't,' Dave said. 'I just can't do it.'
'Tomorrow you're gonna have to. OK ... OK.'
She slowed down to a crawl and began to look for a place to the car around.
Jesus, she thought. Last time we were here we were yo
ung and innocent, most of us anyway. We had youth and energy and our patron was dear old Max Goff, good vibes merchant and New Age entrepreneur.
This time we've got a bunch of cynical bastards pulling the strings, a legacy of death and disaster and we're all screwed up to hell.
She had a headache. On the way back to the Castle, she stopped at a garage, bought a double-pack of Anadin and two hundred Silk Cut.
Whatever gets you through the night...
V
Cortège
Weasel didn't remember a time when he'd ever been so badly pissed off: upset, angry, worried, humiliated, the lot, all at once.
Shelley had looked tired and glum and Vanessa didn't hardly say a word to him when he took her to Stroud, as usual on a Monday.
Vanessa's convent school was outside Stroud, and Weasel had to go into town Monday mornings to pick up supplies from the main Love-Storey distribution plant which was in this old mill-type building back of the shop.
Weasel in his brown overall with the Love-Storey logo and the Princess in her brown convent blazer, jumper and skirt, they looked like a team. Weasel liked that; him and the kid, they'd often joke about it on the way.
No jokes today.
'You want me to take you up to the convent, or is Alexandra's dad picking you up?'
Alexandra was this kid looked after Vanessa at school, her special friend. Most Mondays, Weasel would just take Vanessa as far as the shop and she'd go the final couple of miles with her mate, whose dad came through the town.
'What's it gonna be then?'
Vanessa still didn't reply, just looked moodily out the window, like she might spot Tom by the hedgerow thumbing a lift.
'You want me to take you all the way?'
Vanessa shook her head without looking at him.
Jeez. Tom was gonna pay for this and no mistake when Weasel got hold of the bleeder.
He parked the van up the side street by the shop and watched the kid trot off with her school bag without waving or looking back.
What was pissing him off most was that whenever this bastard place, the Abbey, come up on the horizon Weasel would be conveniently out of the picture - the first time it was the hepatitis do - and, but for that, Debbie would still be alive and he and Tom would have been on the road still, gigging.
On the minus side, there'd have been no Shelley, and Debbie - God rest her wotsit - hadn't been exactly of the same calibre.
Debbie liked the high life and foreign holidays; not the kind of woman to hold Tom together when he was into one of his funny turns. Also, not the kind to devote the necessary attention to a Down's kiddie. With Debbie, no doubt about it, Vanessa would
not be the smart madam she was, who could read books and went to a proper school. Vanessa might even have wound up in a home.
So maybe ...
Anyway, not Weasel's job to question the situation, or to philosophise.
Weasel's job was to find the big guy and Morticia before the Bad Shadow merged with Tom's shadow.
He always saw it as a Bad Shadow, the thing following Tom. The dirty rainbow, the visible sob. No question, Tom Storey had been born the wrong side of the tracks - the black tracks most people couldn't see at all.
'What we got then?' Weasel said to Wendy in the old mill warehouse.
'Not a lot, Weasel. Usual for Circencester, trial batch of spinach quiches and Cheze flans for Broadbanks in Chelt'nam and a special order for Safeway's in Ross, directions on box. And that's it. Welcome to the Recession.'
'Brill,' said Weasel. 'I won't have no job at all, it goes on like this. They'll be hiring a geezer wiv a moped.'
No, actually, this was not bad. It would leave him free to pursue his inquiries. He was expecting a call from little Ginger Hodge at TMM this afternoon.
Also ... Ross? Ross-on-Wye? Weasel hadn't done a delivery that far west for quite some time. Ross was actually just over the Gloucestershire border, in Herefordshire, right? So Abergavenny would be ... what, half an hour or so from there?
And maybe three-quarters of an hour from the Abbey.
Because, when you thought about it, that was the direction it was all pointing. Shelley had said Case was after Tom going back into the studio. Shelley was dead against it. But if Morticia was in with Case and Morticia had gone off with Tom ...
Worth a butcher's.
A long time, anyway, since he done any sightseeing, places of historic interest, all that shit.
Normally, Prof would have been dashing into the dining-room waving his Daily Telegraph. Look at this, look at this!
But this week's motto was Don't Worry Tom. Also, by the looks of things, Don't Worry Dave was about to come into vogue.
So Prof folded his Telegraph under his arm and endeavoured to look controlled and smiling as he sauntered in for breakfast - their second and final breakfast at the Castle Inn.
Nervous as a kitten, Prof had been up at six, mooching round the car park, up the lane, taking guarded glances at the Skirrid. This idea of Simon's, having the Holy Mountain between them and the Abbey: could he credit that?
There was more than a glistening of frost on the ground. Going to be a cold one. Prof had been wearing a furry Russian hat, Christmas present last year from his cousin's daughter in Warsaw, who was well into Western rock and deeply impressed that Prof was at the centre of it, on joint-rolling terms with Famous Names.
He'd stood on the edge of the beer garden, facing the Skirrid, which was quite clear this morning despite a bit of mist. It wasn't really very high, and if it had been a few miles further west you probably wouldn't have noticed it at all.
Prof had had a quick look around to make sure nobody was looking and then spread out his arms like some of the fey and mystical musicians, back in the early seventies, used to do every morning, paying their respects to the sun before venturing into the studio. Prof had closed his eyes and done it to the Skirrid.
Nothing happened.
'Daft sod,' he'd muttered, then gone back to the inn and bought the Telegraph, a good, solid, no nonsense read. The Skirrid. Bollocks. Dave might have thrown a wobbly that first night, been shell-shocked ever since, but Prof hadn't felt a sodding thing coming off the Skirrid.
It was the Daily Telegraph which had blown his mind. Bottom of page five. Two paragraphs.
The dining-room was empty, not even the little waitress around. This being way out of season, nobody was staying here apart from the band, and the Castle had adapted quickly to the little eccentricities of guests like Tom Storey who breakfasted at twelve a.m.
It was only half-nine. Prof sat down, turned to page five and looked at the two paragraphs again. The words hadn't altered.
'Strewth,' he said,
Morning, Prof.'
Prof mashed the paper between his hands.
'Not you as well,' Moira said.
She was wearing a short woollen dress and looked very fetching. And she was alone.
'Where's Dave?'
'We're no' connected at the waist, Prof,' Moira said, a little more Scottish today. 'If he doesny show in the next half hour I'll go up and tap lightly on his door.'
'Moira, would you ...?' In the absence of Simon, who'd spent the night at his vicarage, Moira had to be the most balanced of them. 'Would you take a look at this?'
He folded, halved and quartered the Telegraph, handed it to her. Moira stood with one hand on the back of his chair and read where he'd pointed.
It didn't take her long. She sat down opposite him and laid the paper on the table, upturned to the small headline
RECORD PRODUCER
FOUND DEAD
Moira bit her upper Up. 'You saw him ... when? Couple a days ago? I mean, how was he?' She was white.
Prof breathed out heavily. 'I have to say he was not happy to see us.'
'Dave says Stephen Case asked him if he was interested in going back to the Abbey to produce us.'
'And Russell said he wasn't that strapped for cash, or words to that effect. Least, that's what
he told us he said.'
'You got the feeling Russell was nervous about going back?'
'He was certainly tense. He didn't want to talk to us at all, I had to lean on him a bit.'
'But suicidal?' One hand squeezing the other.
Prof blew out his lips. 'What's a suicidal guy look like?'
The young waitress came in then to take their orders and Prof and Moira looked at each other and said 'coffee' simultaneously. When she'd gone, Moira leaned across the table.
'Prof, I ... Did Dave mention seeing anything ... around Russell?'
'What d'you mean?' And then he understood, closed his eyes, rubbed his face with his hands. 'I hate this.' Talked through his hands. 'It gives me the creeps so bad.' He lowered his hands. 'No. He didn't. If he'd seen anything, he would have said it, the mood he was in that day. Maybe it's only sick people - how should I know?'
'I'm sorry to even mention it. And you're thinking, I've got to go in there and do the job Russell was supposed to've done. Listen, you no' under contract, Prof. You can still back out.'
Both Prof's hands were trembling. 'I was feeling really good about it yesterday, what with nailing Case and Copesake in the bar. I'd got it nicely under control, all the other stuff. I thought this is just another record-industry scam. They love rumours and deaths and is Elvis alive and living in Ipswich. I'd forgotten my own nightmares - two full, uninterrupted night's sleep in a row and you think, What am I getting so worked up about? It's like Maurice at Audico. You put one working day between you and the weirdness and you're eager to put the whole thing down to imagination.'
Moira said, 'Who's Maurice?'
Prof stuck his head back into his hands and moaned.
Moira read the Telegraph report again. 'It says No suspicious circumstances. That's police-speak for suicide. But what else could it be? I've never been to the Manor, is this tree a feature?'
