The Music of the Spheres

by Allister Thompson

  A month and a week after that fateful night in New York, Marty Sharpe-Thornton and Simon Hastings had set themselves back up again in their hometown and were ready to continue their career, a little more world-weary but still in fighting shape. Ferris proved to be just as energetic a manager as Billy Prestwick had been, perhaps even more so. The whole scene was buzzing about the gigs that Astronomy had planned, a series of three shows over three weeks that would culminate in the Groovy Melon launch party at the UFO, where The Flying Teapots and Astronomy would concurrently release their new LPs. The third act for the bill would be The Fairport Convention, a new band that had stunned the scene with their daring fusion of traditional folk music and rock and roll. It would be an exciting time.

  *

  The night before the band’s first gig at UFO, the band members invited some of their friends over to the house for a party they considered a wake finally to send Guy’s spirit off to wherever its final destination might be (into the body of a dolphin or ancient sea turtle, Mallorn said) in a way that he would have approved of: with gaiety and conversation. Somehow, your noble scribe seems to have been excluded from this occasion, but I digress once more.

  It was a chilly night. Cold rain and wet snow were lashing through the streets, borne on a stiff north wind, but inside the house it was warm and mellow. Teresa had turned off all the electric lights, which only worked sporadically anyway, and had lit several oil lamps and candles.

  There were fifty or sixty people crowded into the small two-bedroom house (Basil Baker had been sleeping on a sofa in the rehearsal room; Hastings/Teresa and Marty took the bedrooms) for the party. Some were talking and passing around joints, and some were jamming in small groups with acoustic guitars. Franklin Ferris was holding court about the music business with a rapt circle around him. Mallorn was entertaining in the main parlor, dominating the conversation as always.

  “Simon, your view of humanity is far too bleak. I’ve no quarrel with negative philosophies, but you have your own life to consider. We don’t want you to develop an ulcer. You’re full of hate, understandably, but you were getting there long before Guy died.”

  “He’s got a point, Simie.” Teresa sat with her arm draped across Hastings’ shoulders.

  He scowled. “You’re one to talk. And don’t call me Simie. It’s hard not to feel bleak about bloody humanity. I don’t believe in false optimism. Look at the scum that leads our society. When they’re not starting wars and turning a blind eye to our Empire’s economic exploitation of poor countries, they’re abusing their own people and the natural world. People go around with empty dreams that they can’t even describe to themselves. They think that having a certain amount of money and prestige, things that are only important to our species of arrogant, hairless monkey and to absolutely nothing bloody else, will lead them to some kind of nirvana. But it’s all for nothing. It’s frustrating to think of the potential that we have, which will never be realized. It makes me ashamed to be human.”

  Teresa sighed.

  Mallorn pointed a bony appendage at him. “But that’s just it, Simon. It is all for nothing. Or a great big mysterious something. That can be a source of comfort to you, in a strange way. When all’s said and done, every act, for good or ill, done by men and women, is forgotten and gone. The universe is too great to pay attention to the pitiful deeds of one small species of limited ability and imagination, inhabiting one miniature speck of dust. That is my source of optimism. We’re part of something too great even to comprehend. Our minds, even the most powerful ones, can’t even begin to conceive of the greater reality that surrounds us. We just have to try, well, to be the best we can.”

  Teresa sighed louder. They ignored her.

  “That’s little comfort when you have to deal with small-minded idiots every day and see what they do to the planet and to each other. This state of mind you recommend is impossible to maintain — I strongly doubt you’re anywhere near it yourself.”

  Teresa just stalked off.

  “Damn straight,” Marty muttered. “Humanity is a cancer that consumes itself and everything around it. Nothing cute about that.” He was carefully unwrapping a single-serving needleful of Kässel’s popular nonaddictive heroin substitute.

  “Look,” Mallorn said with a look of priestly benevolence, “I admit that I get annoyed too — well, more than annoyed. But you have to try to gain some perspective is all I’m saying. I’ve been fortunate to have been born with a brain with advanced cognitive abilities. As have all of you. Or most of you. I may not be the most brilliant chap on the planet, but I’ve got a good nut. I perceive more than the average person, I suppose, either that or the average person isn’t capable of proper comprehension due to the circumstances of their lives and education. We just need to try to find a way to draw them out, to find the best in them. They’re not any different to us in their souls. These dreams that they think will be satisfied by money, power, romantic love, and sex, they’re just symptoms of a greater need. We’re fortunate that we’re closer to the answer than they are, but it’s always helpful to remember that we’re not really that much closer to understanding ourselves.”

  Teresa had slipped back with drink in hand. “Well, it doesn’t make violence and suffering any easier to watch, does it? What are we supposed to do about these things? Try to send out good vibes through the tops of our heads? Half the fucking planet lives in poverty to serve this empire’s need for luxury, and the situation shows no sign of improving. People’s ignorance is not an excuse! This mystical shit’s all very well for party talk, but people with a conscience have to do something to improve the lives they see around them, no matter what it takes.”

  “Amen, sister,” Steve Brock chimed in. His gangly frame was stretched out full-length on the floor in the middle of their circle. His cuts and scratches had mostly healed, but he had a recently acquired black eye from taking on a seven-foot skinhead he had seen kicking a cat.

  Mallorn now looked mildly upset. “I’m not promoting indifference to suffering. You’re deliberately misunderstanding me. I’m just saying that approaching things with a clear mind will keep you happier, more fit to help, and better prepare you. Our music must not just be an expression of anger and bitterness but instead must inspire people to better themselves. I think we can all agree on that.”

  Teresa ignored him and launched into her favorite topic. “Now, Engels said that what the proletariat needs is leaders who—”

  The company was mercifully saved from yet another Engelist rant by the sound of the front door banging open. It continued to clatter in the wind as a ragged figure stepped in and stood dripping puddles on the floor while it blinked its eyes in the light. It was a tall man with a round face and long, stringy hair, wearing a shredded motorcycle jacket and tight blue jeans. They stared at him in shock.

  “Bloody hell, it’s Rick Farren!” Mo Wyatt exclaimed, nearly dropping a hunk of Stilton on Brock’s head. Brock sat up abruptly.

  “Well, fuck me! We’ve been looking all over for you, mate!”

  Farren wearily closed the door behind him, stripped off his jacket, and collapsed on the floor beside Brock. “I heard there was a party here tonight. You know I never miss one, boys.” He was renowned for his swagger.

  “Where the hell have you been, you bastard? We looked all over the fucking city for you,” Brock said, clapping Farren on the back.

  “Speaking of revolutionaries, eh?” Mallorn said to Teresa with a wink.

  Farren paused a moment to be introduced to her and to rakishly kiss her hand, then got up and struck a dramatic pose. “Ah, what an ordeal I’ve been through, my friends. On the run from the agents of our fascist government. Shot at, tear-gassed, you name it! I’ve barely escaped with my life. I haven’t picked up a guitar in months.”

  “That’s what happens when you choose violent methods to express your dissatisfaction,” Mallorn said.

  “Shut up, Daevid, you old windbag,” Farren growled, not without affection. “
By the way, Moorhen, are you taking this down?”

  Sure enough, Mort Moorhen was sitting quietly in a corner, scribbling down the conversation with a can of bitter positioned in front of him.

  “It’ll be a good idea for a story. Just don’t use me real name. Well, it was like this. I’d just finished a fun little job where I blew up that statue of the ruddy queen and pony in Green Park, and I thought I’d gotten away scot-free. I went down to my hide-out in the sewer to cool it for a few days, but then we had that heavy rainfall, and the water level rose to the point where I was driven out into the open. I ran over to a friend’s house, and he hid me in his attic. It turns out that the coppers had been visiting all my anarchist friends — somebody ratted me out, and not just about this job, but about a lot of past ones, too.” His brow clouded over. “When I find out who, they’re really going to have something to put me in jail for.”

  “Who would rat Rick out?” Hastings said thoughtfully. No one knew anyone who would.

  “I don’t know either, but I’d had a lot of interesting dealings with a lot of people in the period just before that. There were some rich Germans who claimed to be anarchists, and they wanted me to come and work with them. I told those wankers to get stuffed. There were a few bands I gigged with, a few parties I went to. Sometimes I run my mouth off too much after a couple of beers. Everybody in the fucking country seems to know who I am now. So I decided to lay real low for a while. But one day, while I’m in that friend’s attic, the pigs come again to harass him — gave him a mild concussion, actually. So I told him I was leaving, because there was no way I was going to put him in danger. They let those bastards carry guns.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me, you stupid shit?” Brock roared. “They’d never take me alive!”

  “I’m getting to it, damn you. I decided that I couldn’t risk being seen by anyone, or of putting the police on to any of my pals, so I went to the East End.”

  Parts of the East End had become so decrepit in the 1960s that most inhabitants simply moved away, leaving a crumbling ghost town — even St. Paul’s had fallen into disrepair. Underground service to the area had stopped, and increased suburbanization of the middle classes kept it largely empty.

  “I thought no one would ever find me there. I moved into an abandoned old house in Mile End, the worst part of town, which still had some furniture and an old bed. There were lots of other people hiding out in the area, far worse people than me, that’s for sure: rapists, murderers, psychopaths, you name it. It was depressing. I went out by night to a small shop for food while I still had money. I don’t know how that shop manages to stay open. I never saw anyone in there but the old French fellow who runs it. After a while, even he started looking at me funny, so I had to find food other ways. You don’t want to hear those details.” He sat down again and wearily ran a hand through his greasy hair.

  “It was rough, I can tell you, living like a scavenging animal in that wasteland. Even for me. I wouldn’t recommend it. But it came to an end soon enough. Either someone saw me and recognized me, or more likely one of the sleazy types living around me was a copper’s plant. I’ll never know, but I woke up one night to find the house surrounded by police cars and spotlights. They had a megaphone, and they told me if I came out and surrendered, they wouldn’t shoot me. The fuckers! No one’s ever been physically hurt by anything I’ve done, and they wanted to shoot me. Well, I wasn’t going to stand for that. They tear-gassed the place when I told them to fuck off, and then they took a couple of shots at the windows. I shot back, though I hate bloody guns. After a couple of days cooped up like that, I got pissed off and decided to fool the motherfuckers, like I’ve done so many times before. I dug through the cellar wall, which was crumbling, into the sewers, my home away from home, and escaped. I got away to Kent, where I lived under a hedge and ate blackberries for a couple of weeks. When fall came, I snuck back into town to my little hideout again. Just today, I was driven out by this damned rain again, and I ran into Steve Took, who told me that everyone had been looking for me to give me some kind of important news — but I already heard about Guy.

  “Steve said there was a party going on here, so I came by for some nosh and booze, and to find out why the hell all of you were trying so hard to find me. And you didn’t do a very good job, I must fucking say. So what’s up?”

  Hastings laughed. “We don’t usually go poking around the sewers, you know. There’s alligators down there, somebody told me. We’re glad to see you in one piece, but not on account of the coppers. There’s something even more sinister going on. You haven’t by chance seen Ed Barrett, have you?” He led Farren off to the kitchen to fill him in over some kale dip and a smoke.

  Mallorn leaned back in his chair. “This certainly is fortunate. Now we just have to find Ed.”

  Marty looked at him sharply. “And what if we do? What if he’s still alive? That won’t end it. There’s still a professional assassin out there looking to kill us. I’m not going to recommend that we hide out or anything. I’m just hoping that this bloke doesn’t become desperate to carry out his commission in any way possible. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

  A silence fell over the group.

  “The Uncaring Mother” by Hunter L. Burlington,

  from Life/Death and other Short Stories

  (Dilettante Press, 1965)

  If

  In a flash

  The air was chilled

  The juice was squeezed from our lemon sun

  The nearest candle stars blown out

  Would the universe cry in pain?

  Would it cry as a mother torn by loss?

  Would she weep for us?

  The children of her fecund womb

  Our lives plucked like fruit from the bough

  Left to rot on barren ground

  No

  She has no need for us now

  She has countless children

  Seventeen

  The next day, the band held its last rehearsal for the gig. They played for two hours, going over the contents of the set twice to make sure they would at least be competent. As they played, Hastings reflected on his discussion with Mallorn the night before. Was he really comfortable with the aggressive cast of new lyrics in songs like “The Misanthrope”?

  If the population grows

  And the world is clearly finite

  Where did all these apes come from?

  I know isn’t right

  You say I’m no better than you

  You say we’re all born the same

  But good is good and bad is bad

  And I know who to blame!

  Of course, that was one of the few that could possibly been seen as advocating violence, which had not been his intent in writing it — at least, he didn’t think so. It was more of a satire, a form of humor that most people never seemed to understand. The other sets of lyrics were simply less abstract than his lyrics had been before, and much more negative or resigned in tone, like the song he was most proud of amongst the batch, “Further Up, Further In”:

  You stumble through the streets

  Drenched in rain

  The shock resounds, explodes in your brain

  Somewhere far away

  The sun is setting fast

  Some time years away

  You think about the past

  Sung with Teresa’s breathy voice accompanying, the song was as chillingly beautiful as anything he had written with Guy. Ferris wanted to release it as a single from the album they were due to begin recording. The forthcoming record had already inspired a great deal of interest due to his tireless promotion, and he had more than earned his percentage of the door from the upcoming gig.

  As the afternoon wore on and everyone else took naps, Hastings lay awake. He was starting to feel nervous. He hadn’t played in front of a crowd since the night of his horrendous acid trip, and he knew that a great deal would be expected of him. The wild (but mostly true) rumors that were circulating about ho
w Guy Calvert had been assassinated to prevent him spreading his anarchic message meant that the rise of Astronomy from the ashes of The Spheres would be an occasion of grave symbolism. They would have to give it their all.

  After tossing and turning for a couple of hours, he deemed his attempt to sleep useless and rose, slowly so as not to wake Teresa, who was snoring beside him. He fetched himself a sandwich from the refrigerator and went over to the front window. Looking out, he was startled. Was that a shadow slipping into a doorway on the other side of the street? He stared but saw nothing but blowing leaves. Shivering, he wondered again how long he would have to live as a marked man.

  The sky was still thickly overcast, but now the clouds possessed a nasty greenish tint. It was almost dark as night. Hastings had seen clouds like these when the band had taken a holiday to the southern Virginias, close to the Spanish Zone. There, it usually meant a severe storm, even a tornado, could be imminent. It seemed like a disturbing portent of evil to come.

  He sighed and picked up his brand-new orange Gibson, which he had just got back from being set up. Tentatively, he began to pick out the chords of an old Spheres tune from the first album, another of his many musings on the cycle of life and death. He inadvertently slowed the tune down to a funereal dirge pace, and his voice fell muffled in the room’s dusty confines.