by Heide Goody
Clovenhoof peered over the top of his shades down the neon-lit interior of the Hummer.
“Oh, that’s Mark and Graham. They’re my entourage.”
The two dwarfs waved cheerily. One of them, Graham, winked at Nerys and waggled his bushy eyebrows suggestively.
“M&Ms!” said Ben, spying a glass bowl.
“Eh?”
Ben picked them up.
“Only blue ones, I see,” he said knowingly, popping one in his mouth. “Is that one of your concert riders? Like Van Halen had?”
Clovenhoof, who had no idea what riders, Van Halen or even M&Ms were, said, “Er, yeah.”
“Just go easy on those,” he added, recalling that his efforts to attain the true rock and roll image had also involved a discreet conversation with a black-market pharmacist, one who he suspected specialised in veterinary medicine.
When they pulled up outside the Birmingham Symphony Hall, Nerys swore loudly.
“Tell me you’re joking,” she said, not sure whether she was delighted or terrified.
“It’s the big time for us now,” said Clovenhoof.
A crowd of people, Saturday night pubbers and clubbers, were pressed up around their vehicle.
Ben, who had his nose pressed into the soft furnishings mumbled something like, “I live in a world of tweed.”
“Too many M&Ms,” said Clovenhoof. “Graham. Mark. Give us a hand with the keyboardist.”
They forced their way out into the crowd and to the service doors of the symphony hall.
A sharp-looking woman with a computer tablet in her hand shook Clovenhoof’s hand.
“We expected you two hours ago, Mr Clovenhoof,” she said curtly.
“We’re here now,” he replied. “Which way’s the stage?”
The woman gave a wordless grunt of disapproval and led them on through the building.
“We’ve already let the audience in. You’ve clearly sold a lot of tickets.”
“Sold?” said Clovenhoof.
Nerys saw a blond, beautiful young man in a crisp suit step in beside Clovenhoof.
“Michael,” said Clovenhoof. “Spying on me again?”
“Heaven’s omniscience makes that assertion nonsensical,” said Michael. “I have just come to offer my support.”
“It’s too real,” said Ben dreamily as Mark and Graham steered him around an equipment trolley.
When Nerys looked up again, Michael had vanished.
“Too real,” agreed Nerys, who didn’t have the benefit of illicit drugs to keep her going.
And then she saw that the woman and the other venue staff had stopped and were waving them on with encouraging pats on the back. There was a doorway ahead of them, filled with a pink and golden glow and the sound of two thousand expectant people.
She suddenly felt like she was on the long slow haul up the first slope of a rollercoaster. Sure, the big drop was coming, sure, she wanted it to happen but not just yet...
“Not now,” she said but it was too late. They were already walking onto the open stage. A ragged, almost polite cheer rose up from the stalls and tiers of seating that ran up to the high ceiling.
Mark and Graham parked Ben in front of his keyboard, guided his hands to the keys and then exited. Graham gave her a cheeky wink from the wings and was gone.
Nerys looked beyond the footlights and could see hundreds of eyes on her, an army of T-shirts and aggressive haircuts. She adjusted her basque and picked up her maracas. She glanced across at Clovenhoof and saw a man born to go on stage. He slipped the strap of his silver guitar over his head and stepped up to the mic.
“We’re Devil Preacher,” he shouted to a faint cheer. “Let me tell you my story.”
Clovenhoof started up with the opening riff for The Devil’s Party, Nerys fell in with her maracas and Ben, though clearly operating on another plane of consciousness, managed to come in on the synthesiser at the right moment.
In front row seats in the upper circle, Doris pulled open a paper bag and proffered it to Betty.
“Humbug?”
“I’m listening,” said Betty petulantly but took a mint humbug anyway.
Doris squinted at the cavorting figure at the front of the stage.
“It’s all just noise, isn’t it?”
“It’s not to my tastes, I’ll admit,” said Betty. “But the tickets were free and it makes a change to the bingo.”
“It’s still just noise.”
“He’s telling a story through song.”
“Can you actually hear what he’s saying?”
Betty shrugged.
“Something about fighting unwinnable wars.”
“Codswallop then.”
“I think he’s trying to be…”
“What?”
Betty sucked on her humbug thoughtfully.
“He’s trying to be eloquent.”
The lead singer of Devil Preacher allowed no gaps between the songs, launching into each before the cheers for the previous died. He did not speak except through his lyrics. The second song, which was apparently about ‘soiled angels’ (although Betty wasn’t overly sure) described the singer’s torturous descent into a Hell of his own making.
“The keyboard player’s good,” said Betty.
“There’s something wrong with his eyes,” said Doris. “I bet he’s on those herbal cigarettes. You know the ones. Looks like a ghoul.”
“I think it’s the fashion.”
Betty tapped her orthopaedic shoes along to the music, wondering if the high-pitched whine she could hear was part of the music or just ringing in her ears.
“Swallow my fruit, bitch?” exclaimed Doris indignantly. “Did I hear him right?”
“I think it’s about that couple, thingy and doodah. With the wotsits.”
“Fig leaves.”
“Thank you.”
“And speaking of covering up one’s embarrassment. What’s that thing she’s wearing? Like a corset.”
“It’s called a basque.”
“It’s immoral, that’s what it is.”
“I think she’s enjoying herself with her shakers.”
“Harlot. Harpy.”
“Oh, let her have some fun.”
Doris, torn between disbelief and disgust that this music was proving so popular, made a point of getting out her knitting pattern and reading that instead of listening to the racket emanating from the stage. Nonetheless, she couldn’t prevent herself tutting at the crudity of Virgin Whore or the cruel, mocking lyrics of Spineless Disciples. And as for Vampire Messiah (Drink my Blood)…
“It’s just childish,” said Doris.
“I think it’s quite clever,” said Betty.
An hour into the show, Doris had irritably devoured a whole bag of mint humbugs and completed fifteen rows of a woolly jumper. Meanwhile Betty, always up for new experiences, had followed the band’s journey down into a pit of hopelessness, where the illusions of civilisation were stripped away and the rotten core of received wisdom was revealed. Now (as Doris sucked furiously on her dentures and worked on the jumper’s neckline), Betty and the audience were lifted up by an optimistic shift in Devil Preacher’s music.
Night of the Morningstar was an act of resurrection with strained synthesiser chords challenged by an upbeat tempo. Drowning in a Lake of Fire took this change further with some cheesy power chords and conceited lyrics that together skated close to the ludicrous but never quite passed into it.
Betty had moved on from mere toe tapping to shoulder jiggling and the occasional bout of jazz hands. It was certainly better than bingo.
“Jezebel,” muttered Doris although Betty wasn’t sure who that commented was aimed at.
Up on the stage, Ben, who was struggling to focus on much at all, came back to himself for long enough to notice that the concert was going really well. The audience were loving it and so were his band mates. Nerys was cavorting and gyrating in the spotlight like the demon-possessed, shaking her maracas with disturbing vigour.
And Clovenhoof had the crowd in the palm of his hand, everyone joining in with the choruses and probably not noticing Clovenhoof’s successful use of the E flat diminished seventh chord which had proved awfully tricky in rehearsals.
The audience roared their approval as Clovenhoof plunged like a Stukka dive-bomber into the band’s final number, Lord of the Wilderness.
The audience stamped along and punched the air. If the band had leapt from the stage at that point and began to march on parliament, say, or Rome, or the gates of heaven, the audience would have followed them. Devil Preacher had two thousand converts, free-thinkers who had been released from their chains and blindfolds and were now ready to put all creation to rights.
Clovenhoof – Narrator? Singer? It was all one - leaned down to the audience and cried for their allegiance.
‘Hail to the Beast!’ Dun. Dun. Dun.‘Hail to the Beast!’ Dun. Dun. Dun.‘Hail to the Beast!’ Dun. Dun. Dun. (went two thousand voices, two thousand stamping feet and two thousand pounding fists)
All the while the guitar and the keyboard wrapped around one another in a chain of progressing chords that could have no end.
‘Hail to the Beast!’ Dun. Dun. Dun.
“Oh,” said the handsome young man three seats along from Betty. “This will never do.”
The man was, unlike the jumping, thumping mob around him, dressed in a respectable and cleanly pressed suit. He seemed to be enjoying proceedings almost as little as Doris.
The man reached into his pocket and produced a phone. He didn’t seem to press any buttons but it was ringing anyway.
“What service do I require?” said the man. “Police. Definitely the police.”
‘Hail to the Beast!’ Dun. Dun. Dun.
The audience were moving as one, as if hypnotised. It was as though the whole world was being bent to the will of the band, well, Clovenhoof’s will. It is said that willpower could move mountains and it seemed to Ben (who would happily admit he wasn’t feeling entirely compos mentis at the time) that the very walls of the symphony hall were bending in to meet them. And a quiet part of Ben’s brain pointed out that the symphony hall’s walls, floor and ceiling were made of two-metre thick concrete and this kind of behaviour couldn’t have been part of the architect’s original plans.
But the walls were not just bending but stretching up to lift the ceiling to impossible heights.
‘Hail to the Beast!’ Dun. Dun. Dun.
The concert hall was transforming into a palace, a fortress, a battleship carrying Clovenhoof’s army of dark warriors towards that ultimate battle which could only end in victory. And, as if to signal that victory, Ben’s keyboard began to emit an ululating siren call and a strange, dispassionate voice said something like “Charlie Whiskey Foxtrot. We’re moving in.”
Clovenhoof had his guitar raised as if to shoot down the sky and Ben saw that his band mate, his neighbour, wasn’t just some bloke with too much money and bad manners but was a red-skinned demon with horns and goat legs and hooves – hooves! – and, worst of all, always had been.
And then someone cut the power and the house lights came up and the doors opened and dozens of men in helmets and hi-vis tabards came running in.
The demon turned to Ben, a crestfallen look on his face.
“Spoilsports,” he said.
Ben took a deep breath.
“Jeremy,” he said. “I think I’m having a real bad trip.”
“Me too, Kitchen,” said Satan.
Betty and Doris walked away from Symphony Hall, gingerly probing their ears.
“That seemed to go rather well,” said Betty.
“You’re right. Absolute Hell,” grumbled Doris. “Have your ears gone funny?”
“What?”
They walked on.
“You’d never catch Daniel O’Donnell flaunting himself like that,” said Doris after much thought.
“The young people seemed to enjoy it though. I liked the part with the policemen. Very entertaining. I always like to see a man in uniform.”
“They were all a bit young to be real policemen if you ask me. I’m not sure it’s done my rheumatics any good.” Doris grunted as she put weight onto her hip in order to illustrate this.
“Still, it’s an evening out, isn’t it?” said Betty.
Doris peered up and down Broad Street, stepping back with a grimace as a girl of around eighteen staggered out of a pub and vomited onto the pavement in front of them.
“That’s all very well,” said Doris, “but where on earth are we going to get a nice cup of tea at this time of night?”
Nerys woke slowly, battling her way up through the layers of sleep, trying to piece together the memories of the night before and separating them from the bizarre dreams she had had. Her brain and her mouth were lined with the dry cotton wool of last night’s alcohol.
She remembered the concert and the roar of the crowd. She remembered the police coming in and the arguments backstage before she and some guys pegged it down Broad Street to the nearby clubs. She remembered the dancing and the drinking and some hilarious fumblings in the back of a black cab. That all seemed pretty straightforward but then there were these other images sprinkled through her recollections. A snarling devil’s face, the concert hall distorted into some brutalist cavern and, weirdest of all, a sensuous lover with too many arms and too many legs.
She rolled over, her hand touched naked flesh and she opened her eyes. She was in a hotel bedroom. Grey daylight filtered in through net curtains.
The man next to her rolled over and smiled.
“Morning gorgeous,” said Mark.
“Oh,” she said. “I thought...”
“What?”
She sat up. From what little she could remember, she was sure Graham had been the much more flirtatious one...
There was the sound of running water from the bathroom.
“Graham’s in the shower,” said Mark.
Ah, thought Nerys. That’s one mystery solved.
Chapter 4 – in which Clovenhoof doesn’t need anyone, meets a certified Genius and catches a life-threatening cold
Clovenhoof pressed himself into the shadow of a snow-covered privet hedge.
“Mommee, why’s that red man playing that funny game?”
Clovenhoof glared at the small child and shrank back into the hedge. A blob of snow fell onto his back. He hadn’t had time to grab a coat, and it quickly melted through his shirt, resulting in an uncomfortable cold trickle down into his underpants.
He wasn’t playing a game. He was following Nerys and her Aunt Molly. He wasn’t overly sure why.
It was partly out of boredom, partly out of curiosity.
He had spotted Nerys and Molly leaving the flats that morning and it was unusual to see Aunt Molly out at that kind of time. She had a routine of hairdresser appointments and shopping trips, but those were invariably in the afternoon. Clovenhoof had tried to close his ears to details of Molly’s delicate digestion which apparently made morning outings a dangerous prospect.
Clovenhoof felt compelled to follow and see where they were going. As he made it out onto the street, they were a couple of hundred yards away so he trotted after them. As they turned onto the much quieter Church Road he realised that he ran the risk of being spotted so used the technique that he’d seen on television, of scuttling from tree, to postbox, to gateway and pressing himself into each hiding position so that he remained unseen. He was close behind Nerys and Molly now, but he couldn’t quite make out their conversation.
“Look at him, mommy.”
Nerys glanced back over her shoulder when the child spoke, but didn’t notice Clovenhoof. The mother – thankfully – didn’t look back at all.
When they disappeared from sight, he walked on, trying to shake himself free of the snow. There had been quite a fall in the night, but it was already melting into a slushy beige mess. Ridiculous stuff. He remembered why they’d never bothered with it in hell.
Nerys and Molly were headin
g for St Michael’s Church. They joined a crowd of people who were already standing outside and moved to the front where there were some other women of Molly’s age. Clovenhoof stood at the back with the stragglers and tried to fit in, doing what they did. They stared at the floor, or looked up the road as if they were waiting for a bus.
But no, not a bus. As he was looking up the road, a large black car arrived and Clovenhoof spotted the coffin in the back.
He wondered if there was free food at funerals and putting his clammy undergarments out of his mind for the time being, he trailed in behind the other mourners.
He loitered at the back of the church and looked around to see if there was a buffet. The large pale tapestry of St Michael standing over the vanquished Satan hung above him.
“Ugh.”
The mourners started to sing the first hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful a high-pitched, saccharine bleating. Clovenhoof changed his mind about staying and thought he would sneak out before he threw up.
He turned and Michael was standing there, looking incredibly pleased with himself.
“Spying on me again?” said Clovenhoof.
“My church, my people,” said Michael.
“Oh please. None of these people would recognise you with or without your frock on.” He looked up at the tapestry “Although they’ve really caught your smarmy arse smugness. And that’s not easy in tapestry.”
Michael brushed a speck from the lapel of his immaculate suit.
“Jeremy, I know that you’re trying to goad me but I want you to know that I am here to make sure your transition is as smooth as possible.”
Clovenhoof gave Michael a look of disbelieving contempt.
“My transition?”
“Yes. Everyone wants to see you settled in, and living a nice normal life. We were a bit disappointed in your recent activities. Dabbling in... popular music could only be described as…” - Michael pulled the face he’d pull if he found he’d been flossing with a pubic hair - “Attention-seeking.”
“So, what’s the problem with attention-seeking?”
