Banquet for the Damned

by Adam L. G. Nevill

  Walter runs for all he is worth, losing a boot but never able to look behind again. And soon his feet skitter through the thin watery ice the sea has left after the waves retreat back into the liquid universe of splashes and sparkles and white foamy tips, and where the air is cold enough to make his ears ache inside. And he plunges through the shallows and slides to the deeps, lurching forward, until the cut of the freeze rises above his knees and into his thighs.

  As he is poised to scream, the temperature of the water steals his breath and froths with quicksand tugs about his heavy hips. His arms sweep about and clutch for balance. His spine twists. Deafened by the noise of his explosive path, he wrenches his legs high but not clear of the surface, and then plunges them down, deeper, onward, out there, further into the sea.

  Something ploughs through his wake. Is it the sea-spray or does it hiss? He feels its presence, its proximity, in the tips of his ears and at the ends of his hair. And before he can decide to face it and to steady his feet for the grapple, it looms up, then down, and he is covered in a heartbeat. He seems to dance with it for a second – two shadows in a drunken piggyback ride – before he plunges through the icy surface of the sea with it all about him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  'You're going to miss this place, mate,' Tom shouts over the judders and roar of the speeding Land Rover.

  'Yeah, like toothache,' Dante replies, his concentration split between driving, thinking, and now Tom's jabber. He wants to dwell, uninterrupted, on the city where he's spent most of his adult life, the city he feels he is leaving with few regrets, besides taking his best friend along.

  Birmingham dwindles behind him in the rear-view mirror and he feels it was never a city indifferent or unkind to him. They were comfortable in their squalid life. But the city of their birth and childhood and teens and early twenties wants them to remain with the other musicians, bums and losers of the rock scene, floundering in the shallows of a tide long gone out. Too late for a second start, his instincts suggest. The groaning activity in his stomach, caused by his doubts about driving four hundred miles to depend on an old man he's never met, reinforces this suspicion.

  And the statistics are not good. Every other band and musician they know who attempted to leave the Midlands returned home in anything between a month and a year to scratch around again. Some came back with babies and girls with strong accents, some with suntans and new tattoos, and some even returned with short hair. But no one seemed to escape the lifestyle it was so easy to slip into at eighteen and impossible to leave once you passed twenty-five. Or perhaps this insecurity is just the result of waking early, fleeing a house you owe rent on, and then staring at your entire collection of earthly things in plastic bin liners strewn across the chipped and dusty floor of an old Land Rover. It is hard to tell.

  Out the side of his eye, Dante can see Tom fidgeting. His seat belt remains unfastened, cassette cases are littered around his footwell, and his scuffed boots are planted on the dashboard where the green paint is worn down to brown metal. 'God ran out of everything but horseshit when he gave you brains,' Dante says, without turning his head.

  Tom frowns and pushes his head forward, over the gearstick, with a familiar what-did-you-say? expression on his face. Dante says nothing. He checks the rear-view mirror, and then glances at the fuel gauge beside the broken speedometer, making sure his eyes only leave the road for a second. In a 1969 Lightweight Land Rover with no midships, anything beyond a second's distraction can be fatal. A white van, with a ladder tied loose on the roof, overtakes them on the inside lane before cutting across the Land Rover's square nose. Dante brakes and then listens to their luggage begin an uneasy slide behind his seat.

  'Do your bloody belt up. Jesus!' he shouts, and gives Tom his best look of disapproval.

  Tom grins. 'When you left home you forgot something.' He raises two fingers. 'You left these!'

  Dante sweeps the de-mister sponge off the steering column, which is heavy with dew, and throws it against the side of Tom's head. There is a wet slap from the chamois leather as it blasts off the side of Tom's face. Dante roars with laughter at the success of his shot. Tom's arm, tight in biker leather, rises to deliver the retaliation. 'Don't!' Dante shouts, but his cries become laughter. Should have known better. The sponge hits his left ear. It feels like a cow has kissed the side of his head. 'Stupid bastard!' he screams through his laughter, and begins a fight to control the Land Rover as it swerves on the approach to Spaghetti Junction.

  'For fuck's sake!' Tom yells, his voice slipping into laughter. 'We're only five miles from Northfield and you've nearly crashed the War Wagon. Should have let me drive the first leg.'

  'Should've left you behind! Look at this bloody mess. You've got cassettes out of their cases, ash all over the friggin' luggage, and you've eaten half the fucking food. And close that bloody window! It's cold enough in here without you freezing my nads off.'

  'Who are you, my mother?'

  'Damn right. Mother, father, priest, analyst.'

  'You're just pissed because I get the chicks.'

  'That's right, hundreds of screaming chicks who knock on the door at midnight, crying. Or phone every twenty minutes. I can do without that, mate. This is a new start, I've told you. Any of that crap and you're on the first train home.'

  Music begins to drown him out. Guitar sounds crunch from four speakers and drum rhythms thunder around the cabin. It feels like the hits on the snare drum are interfering with his breathing. Tom lights another Marlboro and winks at him through the smoke. Then he fidgets on his seat and shakes his mane loose from neck to waist. On only one occasion in their long friendship has he seen Tom get serious enough not to fool around. It takes a death to rattle Tom.

  He's about to say You're not going to ruin this. But he stops himself, remembering a vow against dwelling on Tom's philandering. It'll get him nowhere. Just accept it and let it go. Remember your purpose and focus on it, that's what Eliot Coldwell says – his mentor, his second chance, a man he would drive to the ends of the earth to meet. But whenever Tom so much as hints at his sexual history, his recollection stubbornly winds back to Imogen, Tom's most recent girlfriend. And the thought of her freezes Dante's stomach, and his notion of loyalty and brotherhood is challenged.

  He shakes his head and whispers, 'Fuck it.' To think Tom's success with women used to make him a little proud. But now it only makes him think of Imogen – the woman he'd waited his whole life to meet, who fell in love with Tom. It was instant and obligatory.

  In the Land Rover cabin, the music begins to die. One of Tom's tanned hands, the fingers heavy with silver rings, swivels the volume dial down. 'I love the summer!' he shouts, and frees his camera from a leather case. 'So much light. Look at this, 5 a.m., and I can take a picture of Birmingham. Something to remind you of home.' He winks and reaches across the handbrake to slap Dante's thigh. Clambering to his knees and then shuffling about-face, he photographs the apricot light that smoulders behind the black chimneys, lonesome spires and cuboid flats as Birmingham fades behind them, all set to a shimmer by the rattle of the Land Rover's passage across the tarmac.

  Dante hits the stereo EJECT button and flips the Metal Church cassette onto the floor: too early for speed. That could keep him awake later. After searching for an alternative, he pulls one of the few remaining cassettes out of the rack and holds it before the big steering wheel to read the label.

  AC/DC: Highway to Hell.

  'Perfect,' he whispers, and slots the cassette into the stereo.

  Dante stops at the Preston services at 9 a.m. His vision shakes, his buttocks burn, and his jaw is frozen. The War Wagon has no consideration for passengers. It is a piece of machinery craving short bursts on muddy fields, but they have given it four hundred miles of motorway to rattle across. They try to counteract the engine noise with music, and that only deafens them.

  A shaky wheel-bearing is checked on the forecourt of the petrol station with a kick to the tyre. It seems secure, but the oil
level in the reconditioned engine is right down. Dante pours two litres in and crosses himself. Something is steaming under the raised bonnet too, even though the water level is fine. Back pressure: not good. Or so he's been told by weary AA men in yellow jackets who often rescue him and Tom. But the War Wagon only has to get them to Scotland. After that, it can maroon them both for all he cares. He's never going back.

  Staring at the cashier's booth, he watches a small Asian man inside restock a tiered rack with mints and gum. In front of the attendant he sees his own reflection on the glass, a lean and rangy spectre standing between sacks of barbecue fuel and pumps that dispense unleaded petrol. A lonesome crow, a black crow, a big-nosed Rolling Stone, a threadbare scarecrow, a stoned Ramone. Who is he at twenty-six? A joke or a rock'n'roller?

  'Where are we?' Tom asks. His face, drowsy from sleep, peeks from the side window.

  Tired, Dante sighs. 'Lancashire.'

  'How long have I been asleep?'

  'Three hours. Remember what I said about a second pair of eyes?'

  'Yeah, yeah. Sorry, mate.'

  At midday they stop again, this time at Penrith, and eat fish and chips in a truckers' cafe. 'I stink of petrol, man,' Tom complains, trying to fluff some life into his sleek hair before he gives up and pulls it away from his angular face, tying it into a ponytail. Two large hoop earrings shake gently against his cheekbones. With a yawn, Tom lights another cigarette and his topaz eyes drift across the tables. No girls in here. Dante smiles.

  'Now, when we get there, everything will be square with Eliot?' Tom asks.

  'Mr Coldwell,' Dante corrects him and raises an eyebrow. 'We pay the deposit and one month's rent in advance. It's a good deal. Less than what we were paying back home.'

  'Yeah, but what if it's a shit-hole? I could not take another house without heating. I swear.'

  'St Andrews doesn't have shit-holes.'

  'You've never been there. I've heard Scotland is rough. They have these posters in pubs about carrying knives. And they're for the chicks.'

  'That's Glasgow. St Andrews is different. It's a jewel. Eliot . . . Mr Coldwell has told me all about it. There'll be no more scallies trying to nick our guitars up there, mate. You should be grateful. Imagine just turning up and looking for a room stinking of the War Wagon with frizzy hair. They'd drop us right back on the border.'

  Tom starts to laugh. It is the same conversation that has replayed throughout the last month. Shaky supports holding the escape tunnel open. 'Sure, sure,' Tom says. 'But why couldn't we just stay at his house?'

  'Who would want to live with us, man? Come on, get real. He has enough work to do: the academic stuff and his second book.'

  'Do you think he will let us read it?'

  'I don't know. I mean, I'll ask.'

  Tom gazes past Dante to the carpark outside. 'I tell you, buddy, the other thing that's weird, is him and his bird liking our album. I mean he's an old guy. A philosopher.'

  'So? He's flattered. His book was written fifteen years before we were born and we want to do a concept album on it.'

  'Yeah, but it's rock music. Does he even know who the Stones are?'

  'That's irrelevant. He knows we have a goal. A need to transcend all of this. That's what Banquet for the Damned is about. Our record will show it's still valid. Timeless. It can appeal to a man in his twenties today, or someone born in Eliot's generation.'

  Tom nods. 'Yeah, and I'll tell you something. When the second record is released, if the critics write us off again, I'm off to London with a pistol in my belt. They fuckin' killed us.'

  'They killed him too.'

  'Did we waste our time?' he asks Tom at a motorway service station near Carlisle. Because now it's his turn for doubt. The closer they get to Scotland the more ludicrous the whole expedition begins to feel. It's choking and he can't keep it down.

  Tom fiddles with the zip of his jeans, having just returned from the gents'. 'With what?'

  'With the band.'

  'Where did that come from?'

  'Driving in the slow lane at fifty miles an hour, where the caravans overtake you. Gives a man a lot of time to think.'

  'How's the wagon doing?'

  'OK. Seventeen to the gallon and the bearing is holding out.'

  Tom taps a cigarette into his hand from the red and white packet he keeps tucked under the sleeve of his T-shirt. He flicks the cigarette into the air with his thumb and then catches it between his teeth on the way down. He rolls it between his incisors before embracing the filter with his lips. 'Materially, it was a joke. Blowing our own money like that. Personally, it was a huge achievement. We're just ahead of our time.'

  Dante smiles. After shuffling further up the Land Rover's bonnet, he gazes about the carpark, takes a long drag on his Marlboro and points at the surroundings. 'Doesn't this just get to you, though? I'm twenty-six and still in fancy dress. I don't have a pot to piss in. Look over there at that couple in the BMW. They're what, our age? She probably got that tan in the Maldives. Just look at them. Plenty of disposable income. Great jobs. Fucking home owners. Mate, we've got one mobile phone between us and it's been out of credit for two months.'

  Tom shakes his head for the entire time Dante speaks. 'Man, I hate it when you talk like this.'

  'But what if we never get anywhere, if this Scotland thing is a mistake, if the second album dies a death? We have nothing, we're nobody, we're mediocre, exactly what we've been trying to avoid.'

  'Buddy, if that guy over there with the Beamer took one peek into our lives, he'd trade places in a flash.'

  'Piss off,' Dante says and grins, secretly adoring the fact that he's kick-started Tom along the familiar path of reassurance he can't do without.

  'Sure he would. Think of the girls. And the gigs. We're fuckin' rock stars. What about that darling in the red dress at the Rock Café? That one night you had with her is worth any BMW.'

  Dante grins.

  Tom slaps his thighs. 'We're on the road, baby! Shooting up to Scotland with a bag of pot, two guitars and a prayer. We've got edge. More edge than you can shake a stick at. Have we ever gone hungry, not had a smoke, or good company, and a few cool tunes?'

  Laughing, Dante looks through the grimy Land Rover windscreen at the plastic bags containing every thing they own in the world. 'It's a mockery, man.'

  Tom laughs. 'Now you mention it, let's just end it right here. Who in their right mind would drive this piece-of-shit four hundred miles to hang out with some old bloke they've never met? It's one long explosion from start to finish.'

  'But it always sounds so rock'n'roll when you say it.'

  'M90, M9, who gives a . . .'

  'Tom, we've put about fifty miles on the clock, and that's about a grand's worth of fuel in this shitbox. All you had to do was say "right" back there before Edinburgh.'

  'Oh come on, there were like six different lanes, and fifty signs with arrows going all over the place. My compass is all screwed up.'

  'You're fucking useless.'

  'Gimme a break. It's this bloody tank. My arse cannot take another minute of it.'

  'You're a waste of fucking space.'

  'And the stink of petrol is giving me a headache. Man, we're getting poisoned. That battery should have a cover. It gives off explosive fumes or something.'

  Dante watches Tom flick his Zippo lighter open to spark up another cigarette. He begins to laugh.

  'What you laughing at?'

  Ignoring Tom, he leans forward across the steering wheel to gaze at the sky. 'It's beautiful. Look at that sky. Don't you feel we're getting somewhere?'