Keepers of the Flame: A love story

by Jeannie Wycherley

  She couldn’t go everywhere with him. She had her job. He wanted her to give it up, however she felt it was early days in the relationship and she didn’t want to burn all her bridges. Besides, he had very little money – in terms of ready cash. The record company tended to pay for everything, and she didn’t want Silas to arrange all her flights and travel arrangements through Mo. The less she had to do with that sleaze ball, the better. Her wages from the supermarket couldn’t cover everything, and occasionally she had to reluctantly borrow money from her mother or Terri, or Terri travelled with her, seemingly content to spend time in Dewey’s company. They were sweet together, although terribly mis-matched, the glamourous goth girl with the razor sharp haircut, and the scruffy roadie with an unkempt beard.

  When Silas and the rest of the band had travelled back to the USA to work on new material for the next album and prepare for a world tour, Jane hadn’t seen Silas for nearly four months. His phone calls had become sporadic because he was holed up in the studio till all hours of the day and night.

  She missed him terribly.

  At Terri’s suggestion she had booked this trip to the States. She was flying solo, intending to surprise Silas when she reached the venue. She’d bought the flight on her credit card and taken extended leave from her job, half-expecting never to return to it. Being apart from Silas was too painful. It was time for them to be together, properly, whatever that actually meant.

  Jane had been saving up a number of her rock and music magazines especially for the long journey. She was unused to flying long haul, and was worried about becoming bored. She flicked through the magazines on her kitchen table, wondering if she needed all of them, or whether she should just take two or three.

  Jane’s eye drifted down the small photos on a gossip spread - backstage at Lollapalooza. Lots of metal bands, including Wild Dogz had been performing there. And there he was - Silas with his arm wrapped around an impossibly tall and glamourous blonde woman, clad in leather from head to toe. Jane’s hand trembled as she lifted the magazine from the table to read the small text. “Silas Garfield, the scorching lead singer and songwriter of red hot metal band Wild Dogz will soon be off limits to his many thousands of hungry female admirers. Silas and his supermodel love Nyree Seager-Lowe, are expected to announce a date for their forthcoming nuptials after a whirlwind romance. Knowing Nyree and her love of the band’s backstage shenanigans, the ceremony will be anything but understated.”

  Jane dropped the magazine in shock. Nuptials? As in a wedding? The magazine had that wrong surely?

  Jane walked out into the hall and studied her suitcase absently. She needed to find Silas and ask him to tell his PR to put the record straight. Whomever Nyree might be, she was not Silas’s love. Jane was.

  She patted her suitcase, as if to offer reassurance that they would be leaving shortly. Her carry-on bag was still in the kitchen. She returned to the table there, saw the magazine again, her brain struggling to process the image. She opened her bag, checked for tickets, her purse and passport.

  Silas didn’t know she was coming. He hadn’t asked her to come. Hadn’t invited her. In fact, she hadn’t heard from him for a few weeks. It had seen odd that he hadn’t been in touch, and that contact between them had been reduced significantly recently, although he’d explained that away by pleading his busy schedule. Now that she thought about it, the silence spoke volumes, didn’t it?

  She’d wanted to surprise him, but the surprise was hers.

  She’d been taken for a fool. The strength in her legs ebbed away and she thought she would faint. She buckled to the floor, her chest spasming with pain. “No,” she whispered. “No.”

  Outside, the taxi was hooting to let her know it had arrived.

  Inside, her heart was breaking.

  Chapter 13

  Six years later

  “Oh my God, I am so glad to be able to take these damn shoes off,” Terri exclaimed as she and Jane tumbled through the front door of Terri’s London flat. Jane had dragged herself up to London for the weekend, something she tried to do once a month at least, and the women had met up in a bar near Covent Garden after Terri had finished work for the week.

  “Have you ever considered that it’s time to switch to flats?” Jane smirked, unlacing a pair of colourful boots, and beginning to pull off her socks. Her feet were hot from standing for hours in the crowded bar.

  “Are you crazy?” Terri rubbed her toes and groaned aloud. “Think of all those young graduates coming through the door, with their pencil skirts and twenty inch waists. I’ve got competition. I need to keep my standards up.”

  “And you do. Very well,” said Jane admiringly. Terri was as slim and sleek as she had ever been, these days wearing more expensive clothes, with occasional flashes of white among the black, and make-up that was more subdued. Her overall look was of one of grown-up designer goth.

  “Thank you darling,” Terri said grandly. “I do my best.” She looked pointedly at Jane and burst into giggles.

  Jane threw a sock at Terri. It was a conversation they often had. Terri thought she could make more of herself. Fix herself up a bit, wear more make-up, don some pretty dresses. Jane wasn’t particularly interested. She had returned to University and taken an M Ed, followed by a couple of postgraduate certificates. She had found a good job in Bristol teaching kids with special needs. During her breaks, she liked to travel. Sometimes Terri joined her, sometimes she back packed alone. She’d seen some of the world, and there was a lot more she wanted to see.

  She was often restless, to see more, to do more, to feel more. For several years she had suffered with depression, her break-up with Silas compounding the deep sadness she had experienced after losing her father. Now she was off the meds, and while she acknowledged she was never entirely happy, she was happy enough. She got on with her life, made the most of what she had. A small terraced house in Bristol, a job she enjoyed, working with people and students she liked, her mother … and Terri. Always Terri.

  She’d engaged in occasional flings with men she had met, but they had been unfulfilling and any flame that had burned during the initial dates and frantic fumbling that followed, died out far too quickly. Sometimes she had lamented that she couldn’t find the right man, ‘the one’, usually when she and Terri had imbibed too much wine, although usually she didn’t pass comment. Jane didn’t want to settle down, if settling down meant settling for second best.

  “Shall I put the kettle on?” asked Jane as Terri disappeared into her bedroom to strip off her work clothes.

  “Don’t be daft. The fridge is full of wine. Take your pick.”

  Jane, always right at home in Terri’s apartment, grabbed a bottle and some glasses and carried them into the living room. Terri’s place wasn’t huge, but the living room was sparsely furnished, with wooden floors and chic grey sofas, and an enormous window that looked out across the East of the city. From habit, Jane switched the stereo on. No vinyl here. Terri had switched her entire music collection to CD.

  Jane pressed the eject button, wondering what Terri had been listening to most recently. The drawer flipped out and Jane scooped up the CD. Wild Dogz. Their new album, Sleeping Dogz Lie.

  Terri skipped in, clad in pink shorts and a loose black t-shirt, her hair tied back. “Haven’t you opened the wine yet?” She picked up the corkscrew and looked over Jane’s shoulder. “Ah,” she said.

  “Why the hell would you be listening to this?” Jane asked bewildered. Terri had been there for her every step of the way after the end of her relationship with Silas. She had been a stalwart supporter, allowing Jane to rend and rant as and when she had needed to. Together they had slated Silas, and the band, and promised never to listen to their music ever again. They had avoided Wild Dogz gigs in the UK easily enough, and vetoed any festivals where the band were playing. More recently, they had never brought up the group’s - or Silas’s - name. Jane preferred it that way.

  “Ah,” Terri said again, searching for the rig
ht words. She yanked the cork out of the wine bottle and poured a glass full each, before slapping the bottle down on the glass coffee table, and plonking herself down on the sofa.

  “Put it on,” she suggested quietly.

  “God, no.”

  “Honestly, I think you should listen to it.”

  “Well, I don’t think I should. Wild Dogz hold no interest for me.”

  “Put the fucking CD on, Jane!” Terri urged, her eyes flashing and Jane, scowling at her friend, slipped the CD back into the drawer and closed it. The CD automatically began to play. Jane turned the volume down.

  “You need to listen to it,” Terri growled.

  “I don’t. I really don’t.”

  “Dewey sent it to me?” Terri took a swig of wine.

  “Dewey?” Jane repeated stupidly.

  “He’s managing them now.”

  “Oh,” Jane allowed herself to think of the big bearded man, and smiled. He’d always been lovely to her, and Terri of course. “I didn’t know you were still in touch.”

  “Yes, well, that’s not something I thought you would want to hear. We hook up when he’s in London.”

  “You do?” Jane asked, incredulous that Terri had a secret life she knew so little about.

  “He’s been divorced for about four years. He’s a total sweetheart, and what happened between you and Silas was not his fault,” Terri pointed out.

  “No, of course. I understand that. I’m not judging you, or him, honestly. Have you ever seen …”

  “I have, as it happens, but I don’t give him the time of day.” Terri scooted forwards and sat next to Jane on the rug in front of the stereo. “I wouldn’t do that to you, hun, you know that. Dewey is different.” She picked up the empty CD case from the side of the stereo. “He gave me this when I saw him three weeks ago. He was in London alone, for a meeting with Sony. The group have a big European tour starting in November. They’re back in the US over Christmas, touring a bit of Asia in the new year, and then they’re over here again next summer for the festivals.”

  “So?”

  “They’re the biggest metal band of all time. They’ve sold millions of albums. Silas has his face plastered over merchandise from here to Sydney and back again. Yet you know what Dewey told me?”

  “I don’t care,” Jane swallowed, furious at Terri.

  “He told me Silas is unhappy.”

  “I really don’t give a shit, one way or the other,” Jane said getting to her feet. She stormed from the room, knocking the coffee table and spilling some of her glass of wine, and retreated angrily to the bathroom. She filled the basin with water and spent some time washing her hands and splashing her face until she had calmed down enough to face Terri once more.

  She was well aware that Silas’s marriage to Nyree had hardly made it out of the honeymoon period. They had married on a sun-drenched beach in St Lucia, with photos of the ceremony - Silas looking tanned and healthy in little more than a cream pair of linen trousers and a shell necklace - appearing in all the gossip columns. Nyree, who courted publicity the ways some people craved chocolate, had worn a designer dress, cut down to her belly button, teamed with an over-the-top wide-brimmed sunhat and diamond encrusted flip-flops. Three weeks later she had appeared in public without her wedding ring, and the marriage had been dissolved thereafter.

  Jane had tortured herself with the photos and the write-ups. She hated the pain and the heartache each fresh story gave her, and yet, she couldn’t let it lie. For many months, she could think of nothing except Silas, and how she loved him, and how he had betrayed her.

  Silas had repeatedly tried to contact Jane. The first time he called she had wanted to weep and beg him to come back to her, instead she had hung up as soon as the first shock of realisation passed. After that she had stared mistrustfully at the phone every time it rang, refusing to answer. She remembered the phone in her flat ringing endlessly until she had been forced to unplug it, and eventually she took the steps needed to change her number. Soon enough she moved to the little terraced house her Mum had helped her buy, with some money Roy had squirrelled away for them. Silas had never tracked her down.

  Wild Dogz had gone from strength to strength over the intervening years. World domination had followed. Nowadays they played massive gatherings of people, an enormous juggernaut of stage equipment - and a mammoth road crew to match - following wherever they went. The time had come, eventually, when Jane could at last avoid reading the stories, and try to drive their success from her mind. Her feeling of loss never faded though. She had trusted that Terri had her back, so what was this all about?

  Taking a deep breath, Jane left the sanctuary of the bathroom, and en route to the living room grabbed some kitchen towel. She mopped up the spillage without a word as Terri lounged back against the sofa and regarded her sadly.

  “I’m sorry,” Terri said. “Perhaps I should have told you about Dewey.”

  “It’s okay,” Jane replied meekly. “I’m not going to tell you who you should or shouldn’t have as a friend.”

  “But you’re my best friend,” Terri pouted, “and I didn’t mean to hurt you. In my own stupid way, I thought I was protecting you from more pain.”

  Jane smiled, “I can see that. You probably were. So … have you and Dewey …?”

  Terri sniggered. “Maybe. The boy comes back for a reason, doesn’t he?”

  Jane laughed out loud. “You’re incorrigible, Terri.”

  “I know,” Terri momentarily looked smug, quickly becoming serious once more. “I want you to listen to the CD, Jane.”

  Jane rolled her eyes. It was unlike Terri to be quite so persistent. “Okay, I’ll humour you. Why should I? Tell me.”

  “It’s a great album. Nay, in fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s a brilliant album. You love music, ergo … you need to hear it. No?” Jane looked firmly unconvinced. “And Dewey tells me there’s a track on there that Silas wrote especially for you.” Terri drained her glass and reached for the bottle again. “There I’ve said it. I’ve passed the message on. You can kill the messenger now if you want.”

  Jane scrutinized the CD cover with fresh curiosity. Silas had written a song for her? A song on an album that was number one across half a dozen countries? She scanned the song listings on the reverse of the CD cover, and there it was, Keepers of the Flame.

  Chapter 14

  Back home in Bristol, alone on Monday night, Jane placed the CD on her own stereo and opened up the jacket to locate the lyrics. She listened to the album several times, Silas’s vocals and his song writing had both matured, his voice was slightly deeper and richer, then soared effortlessly when he wanted it to. He could still scream when he needed to, however these tracks were less dirty-thrash-metal, and more ‘considered’ hard rock on the whole.

  Jane kept coming back to the same track. Wild Dogz had perhaps recorded three ballads across seven albums, with The Unquiet Moon the most well-known of these, but Keepers of the Flame was a rare gem indeed.

  The track previous to it was a torrid rock track, Killing Time, with a solid back beat. In the final minute of the song, Bobo’s distinctive guitar had been mixed with some aggressive Spanish guitars, until Bobo was faded out of the mix and the ferocious Spanish guitars were all that remained, reaching a crescendo before gradually winding down to a single person picking out the rhythm.

  Silas.

  The intro for Keepers of the Flame then merged seamlessly in from the previous track.

  I’m in the dark

  Alone

  In pain

  You’re the ghost who haunts me.

  Once again

  I close my eyes

  You fade away

  I beseech you

  Beg you. Won’t you stay?

  And fill me with a joy so clean

  Take me back to where we’ve been

  We’re dancing in the rain

  Again

  We’re keepers of the flame.

  I hurt myself witho
ut you here

  Embrace the darkness, the hate and fear

  I call you up

  No-one at home

  I’m drifting aimless, destined to roam

  In my mind’s eye, we’re whole once more

  Can’t we return to the start? Cos I’m sure

  We’ll be dancing in the rain

  Again

  We’re keepers of the flame.

  On the third listening, tears began to flow down Jane’s cheeks. She didn’t understand what had gone on with Nyree, or why Silas had behaved the way he had, still he sang this song from his own heart to hers, and her blood began to quicken with happiness. While she wasn’t entirely sure she could forgive him yet, she knew she could begin to heal.

  Chapter 15

  “This is a really bad idea.” Jane swung around on her heel and made a bolt for the exit of the bar. Terri just managed to get a hand out in time to stop her and yank her back.

  “Where are you going? Don’t be daft. Dewey will be so disappointed.”

  The women were in The Black Horse, a pub crowded with bikers, goths, heavy metal and rock fanatics, people who favoured lumberjack shirts, and all flavours in between. There was a preponderance of very young people and students, amongst the old lags. Most of those in the bar who would be heading on to the gig shortly, looked to be teenagers. Jane had never felt quite so ancient before. With two big name acts in support, this had become a hugely anticipated event and the pub was packed out.

  Terri had offered to buy tickets to the concert, and initially Jane had flatly declined. However, the more she listened to the album, the more she mellowed. When she had eventually relented, all the tickets had been sold out. Terri refused to let it drop, and had insisted on contacting Dewey. Of course he could pull strings. He provided VIP tickets for them and had suggested meeting them prior to the show so he could hand them over personally.