I’m so sorry, Louis, that this story is going to unfold as I know it will. I decided to use you, to take advantage of you. I do regret that now. But I simply had to try to steal Walter from Floss. I couldn’t help myself. They call women like me “home-wreckers.” But Floss and Walter didn’t have a real home. Not like this one, the one you sit in these days to write. I made this home for you. This is the real thing. It’s turned out pretty well. Hasn’t it, sweetheart? Do you forgive me? Can you?
Yes, I seduced Walter. I don’t know why he believed me about Floss and Ronnie. It was almost as though he’d known all along that something had been going on between them. I knew a secret that could create terrible trouble for almost everyone in my circle if I spoke about it. Including you if I wished. I felt so powerful at that moment. It was intoxicating. I’m not proud of it looking back, but for me things were only going to get a lot worse before they got better.
And Walter had been hearing all that weird music. It was just the beginning for him. It was going to get so much more overwhelming as his chakras opened up.
And you might ask if it’s hard to understand why Walter believed me when I told him I could see Floss and Ronnie making love, in the haze of my super-sight and psychic intuition.
Chapter 21
My name is Louis Doxtader. It seems I have been duped. I’m not sure I can afford to give a damn. Old Nik’s funeral came a week after the revelations at the hospital, where Floss met Maud, and Maud understood that Old Nik had only ever loved her, but that he died also loving and reaching out for the woman who was in fact, unbeknownst to him, his only child. I attended the funeral of my most successful artist with few regrets. I was sitting on a number of Nikolai Andréevich’s finest pictures and I knew his death was more than doubling their value. If I released them slowly over the ensuing years they would eventually increase in value tenfold. It was Maud for whom I mourned most on this occasion. I had seen what had happened in the critical care ward and the terrible ordeal she had had to endure in Nik’s final hours. Floss had only been in the bed opposite Nik’s for a week, and in that time Maud had almost lost her mind.
We stood huddled around the coffin, the grave freshly dug and dressed with red velvet curtain material. A few fans of Nik’s years with Hero Ground Zero had come, kept at a distance by a pop industry security man so that Maud and the guests could mourn with some dignity.
I kept my eyes on her. She had never looked so beautiful, I thought. I have never tried to hide my passion for her in this story, after all.
Floss, still using a cane, walked slowly over to stand by Maud’s side; it was at that precise second that my world started to unravel. The funeral began to feel rather dreamlike, and reminded me of a dream I’d had the night before, and I couldn’t help but try to recall it. Eventually it came flooding back to me, but as it did a second dream came to mind with equal strength. I tried to bring myself back into the present. Selena has told me that I raped Floss. I can hardly believe it. I can’t imagine doing such a thing, but I know if that Floss, that exceedingly pretty woman, had ever held her arms out to me and pursed her lips, I could never have resisted.
Louis, it’s Selena. My darling, I am taking over again. Before you go too far. There is still so much you don’t know. I remember running to your side then and drawing you away from everyone there, into the shelter of a huge tree in the cemetery so that we were alone.
“I can see them,” I said to you in a whisper.
“Who? What can you see? Who can you see?” You were struggling to stay connected to the present.
“I can see several entities using you,” I explained, waving my hands around your shoulders. I could see they were trying to take over your mind, vying with each other for supremacy.
“I can remember a number of dreams,” you said. I knew that of course. That’s why I had come to you. Your voice was shaking.
“They feel very real, and they are invading my reality.”
“These entities are actually using your mind.” That’s what I told you. I was so happy to be able to explain what I knew was happening to you. I knew you needed my attention, and that you appreciated it. I was looking particularly good that day: black suits me.
I tried to explain to you: “They are dreaming their own dreams, remembering their own past lives; this has nothing to do with you.”
You started to feel you might see Nik’s hosts of angels next, visions from his paintings, and then I had to bring you down to earth with a bump.
“You deserve this, Louis,” I told you. “I’m sorry, but this is your mind’s way of dealing with what you’ve done.”
“What have I done?” Your head was clearing quickly.
And this, my darling Louis, was when you rose from number four to number one on my list. This was the moment I knew I could hold you. “You know I saw you. At my sister’s wedding.”
It was true, I had seen you; my voice sounded low and conspiratorial even in my own ears. “With Floss…”
“Yes.”
“She was completely out of it with drink and drugs. You took her.”
You looked over at Maud and Floss together. They both smiled. Floss was beautiful of course, but Maud was beautiful too; like Floss grown older.
My name is Louis Doxtader, I am still trying to come to grips with what she has told me, and finishing this book has become so much more important. Was I guilty of giving three teenagers some overly hard drugs and trying to take advantage of one of them? I know Selena will say anything in order to get what she wants. I know that she comes to believe what she thinks she can see.
After her accusing me of what she had seen me do, we returned to the grave and moved around it as the priest read the sanctification. I was trying to get away from Selena and found myself nearer to Maud. I felt as if I had strayed into a life that wasn’t mine, and I wanted to get back to where I belonged, a place where I was respected and loved.
Maud smiled at Floss and took her free hand, and—as Nik’s coffin was lowered into the grave—mother and daughter embraced.
The wake was held at my flat, where we were surrounded by Nik’s best pictures. I felt compelled to be the host, because I was Maud’s protector, but also of course I was Andréevich’s agent.
Conversation inevitably turned to the circumstances of Floss’s birth and Maud explained to us all that Nik had never known she had borne a daughter. She had been too young and afraid; it was before they were married. By then Nik had already started to become difficult, having fits and anxiety attacks. Hero Ground Zero had become huge and he was always traveling. There was plenty of money, but the pressure on Nik was extreme and Maud did not want to have a child with him, at least not then, not so early in their relationship. So before she married him, while he was on tour for the last six months of her pregnancy, she arranged for the baby she was carrying to be born and adopted immediately in the clinic in Bern. She had never even seen the child’s face, nor held her to her bosom.
Floss’s adoptive parents, Albert and Katharine, had been waiting for her there, and brought her up as though she were their own. They never hid from Floss that she was adopted at birth, and even told her the name of the clinic in Bern where she had been born, but they had known nothing about Floss’s biological mother, only that she did not want to keep her child. The three of them had seen each other briefly in the clinic, however, passing in a corridor as Maud walked wretchedly away from her baby and they walked joyfully toward her. Their eyes met.
Chapter 22
Six weeks later we were all gathered backstage at a concert at Hyde Park. Walter had been languishing alone in his dressing room for much of the day. The first rehearsal in the morning had gone badly and while the second was slightly better, the mood in the empty park was strained.
I noticed that the road crew included Molly, who was operating a follow-spot downlighter mounted high up on the stage structure; in rehearsal the crew had obviously found the soundscapes to be too dark, too serious. They were l
ess cheerful now, just before the concert, than one would expect. One of them told me that he thought the additional music was OK, but they were all worried that Walter was being overly stubborn to refuse to play even a single one of the old songs they used to play at Dingwalls. Steve Hanson and Crow both took me aside and asked me to make sure Walter was all right. I went to see him in his dressing room.
“How are you feeling?” I didn’t want to feed into any anxiety he might have about the show, which was a massive endeavor by anyone’s measure. “Hanson and Crow are worried about you.”
Walter looked up from something he was writing. “I’m worried about them,” he said with a laugh. “They have much more to do than me in this show. My father has written some very difficult music. My role is just singing, mostly along with the choral parts.”
“Were they hard to get on board, Hanson and Crow?”
“Crow surprised me, I didn’t think he would get involved, but Hanson has always been really positive. And rather bullish.” He laughed again, not entirely without irony.
Hanson had always spoken to Walter as though he were a beloved rich uncle or senior trustee rather than an old bandmate. Money and success had joined many of the dots that had been evident in Hanson’s character back in the Dingwalls days. He’d always been made for a grand position in the music business and the arts and was entirely comfortable with who he had become, even if the pinnacle of his career had passed.
“About eight weeks ago,” Walter explained, “Steve chose a date for this soundscapes show at Hyde Park and started trying to persuade Crow to do it. He was convinced we had plenty of time to get it right and was certain it would be amazing. He loved what my dad and I have done.”
I knew that eight weeks earlier Walter would have been in a pretty bad place: Selena had seduced him, he believed that Floss had been unfaithful.
“Did he ask if you wanted to do it?”
“He called. I was on my way to Ireland to see Siobhan. I told him I was in a strange place, and could I get back to him.”
Hanson had agreed to give Walter some time, but in the background Frank Lovelace had insinuated himself into the scheme, seeing both an adventure and an opportunity. He knew precisely how to stage the event. Hanson and Frank had then pushed ahead. Tickets were to go on sale the second Walter agreed. As Walter related all this he looked pained.
I heard later that Crow and Hanson had of course conspired, despite Crow’s apparent reticence. Crow had always wanted his old band back, and if he was honest he was sick of trying to make ends meet with gigs in various pubs and clubs around Europe. He had performed a few times in the USA, mainly around New York, but his fans felt themselves part of an exclusive cult and weren’t too keen to share him. Despite a website that had thousands of hits every day, Crow knew that his fan base was small.
Also Crow liked the idea of making a “comeback” that would promise one thing and deliver another. The old fans of the Stand, and certainly all the current fans of Hero Ground Zero, even those going back to the days of Nik Andréevich, would go into shock when they heard Walter’s latest compositions—if you could call them that. He felt sure there would be songs at Hyde Park, new ones perhaps, but old ones too.
The entire soundscapes idea might be pretentious, but if it was dark then so be it. No doubt Crow believed that in the end he would be able to persuade Walter to play the harmonica solo of his life, the crowd would go nuts, and Walter would be unable to restrain himself. He’d run with the adrenaline and endorphins and would relent and do his “stand.”
“Crow,” said Walter, and he smiled and shook his head. Almost sixteen years had passed and really nothing had changed in Crow’s world. Why would it?
Crow, Steve, Patty, and Walter all knew this was going to be one of the biggest reunions in rock history.
Walter turned back to the writing he’d been occupied with when I entered the dressing room. He passed me two sheets to read.
“What d’you think?”
In two more hours
The light will fade
I wait
For all of you
Ascend the towers
This serenade
Comes late
Nothing I can do
“Beautiful, Walter,” I said, meaning it. “But surely you’re not suffering all that badly from anxiety about the concert?”
Yet I could see he was in an anxious, darkening mood. How would the audience respond to their grand project, his soundscapes realized by his father, the additional songs and story provided by Steve and Patty Hanson—and the occasional burst of R&B energy that Crow had managed to squeeze into the otherwise serious and arty program?
Just then, with three hours to go before the first of the audience would be allowed onto the green and two hours before showtime, Floss came into Walter’s dressing room. She looked magnificent. She was wearing some very fancy dress, Gucci or Balenciaga, overly embroidered with sequins, that had obviously cost a fortune, and was looking happy.
“Oh, darling,” she said sympathetically. “Are you feeling down?” She sat next to him and held his hand.
“I need to speak to you, Floss,” Walter said. He suddenly turned pale.
“I’ll give you two some privacy,” I said, getting up to leave.
“No,” Walter said firmly. “Uncle Louis, I need you to stay, and I want Floss to have your support if she needs it too. After I’ve said what I have to say.”
“Fucking hell, Walt,” said Floss, reddening and suddenly quite angry. “What can be so important that you need to speak about it now?”
Walter motioned for us both to sit down, but then he got up and paced up and down in the dressing room, looking at himself in the huge floor-to-ceiling mirrors.
“I have to tell you, my darling,” he stuttered. “I betrayed you. When Selena said you and Ronnie were lovers… she and I had sex. I’m so, so sorry. Louis knows all this.”
Floss looked down and her eyes filled with tears.
“You have done nothing wrong,” said Walter, facing her and appealing to her. “My actions were wrong; you never had an affair with Ronnie. I feel so ashamed.”
Floss suddenly burst into profound and open tears. Walter was distraught too. She was waving both her hands in the air, as she had always done at such times, as though shooing flies away, or dust; she was dismissing him while he tried to apologize repeatedly. I put my hand gently on her arm but she brushed it away.
I wanted to be anywhere else but there at that moment.
Then.
Walter started to say something, but Floss suddenly took control.
“Shut up, Walter! Both of you, listen.”
She was almost shouting, and Walter and I both realized this was something different, that she was not crying over his sex with Selena.
“What?” Walter was confused, and so was I.
“Walter, darling.” She spoke to Walter but was looking at me, as though it were vital that as witness I should be on her side as well as Walter’s. “There’s something I’ve never told you.”
Walter turned to look at me. I suspected that he regretted having asked me to be present; he had planned only to unload his own guilt. Having endured the paranoia and uncertainty around the supposed affair between his wife and Ronnie Hobson, what could this new revelation be? Infidelity was what sprang to mind. If not Ronnie, who had Floss cheated on him with? If not an affair, what could it be? Financial collapse? Bankruptcy? Simply that his wife was bored with him? Was she leaving him as Siobhan had done? It occurred to me that if she had something to say about what Walter had told me was their rather sporadic sex life, then I was sure he would prefer I was not present to hear it.
Floss was shaking, very slightly. Neither Walter nor I moved to console her. At any other time we would have done so. I stood up and broke the silence.
“Floss.” I was almost stammering. “Walter wanted me to be here to hear his confession to you. But I can leave now. Surely I should leave?”
>
Floss shook her head. “I want you to be here,” she said. “I feel safer with you here.”
Walter was angered by this. “You’re completely safe with me, darling, don’t be so mad. I’ve never raised a finger to you.”
Floss looked at him beseechingly. “I don’t mean that you would hurt me. This concerns Louis. He is a part of all this.”
Walter was looking at me with complete astonishment, and I found it hard not to look guilty. Was she going to speak about the drugs I’d shared at his wedding to Siobhan eighteen years earlier? I felt a rising sense of panic. Would she confirm what Selena had accused me of? Of raping her. From what Selena had said I assumed that Floss didn’t remember anything about it. But then of course I did not remember what happened and I couldn’t be sure Selena was telling the truth when she said she knew. What had Floss meant when she said I was a part of what she had to say?
“Please, you two,” she said, composing herself. “Just sit the fuck down and stop looking at each other like that.”
Walter and I sat together, but as far apart as we could, on the long gray sofa in the dressing room. She pulled up a chair to face us and sat down.
“You know, Walter, that I lost our baby when I fell from Dragon.” Walter said nothing, but nodded his head imperceptibly. “Well, I lost a baby once before.”
Walter immediately got up and knelt in front of her. He took one side of her face in his hand.
“When? How?” He was ready to forgive her anything, it seemed.
“I was nineteen. I gave birth to her in the same clinic in Bern where I was born. Fucking Catholic parents: I didn’t consider abortion. Now of course I wonder where she is.”
“A daughter?” Walter was shaking his head in incomprehension. “What happened? Did the child die?” Walter was looking at his wife, wide-eyed.
Floss shook her head. “No. She lived.”
The Age of Anxiety Page 21
