Band of Gypsys (26 page)

‘He’s scaring me,’ said Sage. ‘I know where we are, I know what’s happened, but there’s something else. I don’t like his state of mind.’

Ax’s siblings looked at each other. Milly Kettle rolled her eyes.

‘Everything he ever did was wrong,’ suggested Jordan, mordantly. ‘He hates himself. Everything stinks. Don’t argue, trash the fucking lot, NOW.’

‘Despair and die,’ said Milly.

‘You
are
kidding?’ demanded Maya. ‘Did you really only now notice?’

‘We’ve had that fucking
everyone better despair and die
trip laid on us, every fucking gig,’ Jordan enlarged, eyes kindling. ‘He’s never satisfied. He turns it on himself, hardest, which is supposed to make it all right. Would you say he can be difficult to live with?
Possibly
? Eh?’

‘You should have shared recording “Put Out The Fire”?’ groaned Millie. ‘All the CDs were horrific, but that was utter HELL.’ The Chosen specialised in terrible, hopeless titles for their songs and albums.

‘Every fucking time.’ Shane shook his head, grinning. ‘We do it all wrong, he has to rip up the set and start again. It’s
his fault
, of course, but—’

‘Always
his fault
, he’s to blame, but somehow we’re getting yelled at.’

‘Because yes he’s fucking demanding. Someone has to be.’

‘Because compared with Ax, everyone else is taking the piss.’

Not what I meant, thought Sage, not at all. It was hopeless, the Chosen were in a world of their own, as always. Their brother is on Death Row, stay of execution for good behaviour, and if he accepts execution by slow torture it’ll be better for the rest of us. They
know
this, but it doesn’t get through—

‘Okay.’ He mugged relief. ‘Yeah. Thanks. You’re right.’

Then nobody knew where to go with this conversation. ‘So why do you guys put up with him?’ said Sage, at last. Immediately he wished he hadn’t said that, because their demanding, impossible big brother was in the trap he’d hauled them out of. There was nothing they could do, and their distress was suddenly open, written on their faces.

‘Because if you let him do it,’ said Jordan, dead straight. ‘If you let him use you the way he wants, what he does with you is
fucking brilliant
.’

Strange words to hear from your lover’s brother. But why not? Why shouldn’t Jordan know how it feels to be with Ax?

‘Are we okay to lurk in here?’ asked Milly, changing gear.

In the Drawing Room they’d be surrounded by Wallingham black and whites, and they were afraid.

‘No,’ said Sage. ‘I want you where a lot of people can see you. There’s a well-known Oz radio journalist in there. Stick by him, if you can.’

The mess was hidden out of sight. The VIPs arrived, plus humbler members of the privileged class, who’d queued, schemed and paid large sums in barter, favours, wheelbarrows of Swedish euros for their ‘invitations’. Everyone drank bathtub vodka: many smoked the tobacco cigarettes, available as a special indulgence of Ax’s gritty, retro tastes…that made for a wonderfully louche, oldtime atmosphere, Mr Preston and Mr Pender moved around, obedient to the conceit that these were welcome guests, ‘at home’ with the royal rockstars. Random interactions were recorded, to the delight of the lucky targets. Far away on the edge of things the journo from Oz continued to monopolise Fiorinda; which was fine by Fiorinda.

KEITH UTAMORE
: Speaking of life as an icon, what about the Starborn portraits? He’s said he rarely thinks about anything else, and he’ll go on ‘painting’ you all his life. Is that uncomfortable, or is it thrilling?

FIORINDA
: (off guard) Toby Starborn is a stalker! LAUGHS. No, he’s okay. Toby’s very devout, and he sees me as some kind of magical sign—

KEITH UTAMORE
: I’m afraid I’m still a rational materialist.

FIORINDA
: Hahaha. So am I, Keith, but I’m afraid we’re living in the past. I try to look on the transformation of magic into science as just another way of cutting up the world, that gives new insights, and access to new technologies. Try
neurophysics
, it’s easier to say than the ‘m’ word.

KEITH UTAMORE
: Another way of cutting up the world… You’re something of a philosopher, aren’t you Fiorinda?

Across the room Ax Preston (who had long deserted the Scots) took an acoustic guitar from a waiter. Keith snapped to attention.

‘Excuse me, Fio—’

‘Oh, sure.’

The interview was over, the journalist patched his Tablet into the Drawing Room’s superb sound desk, and began recording Ax’s impromptu instead. It was ‘Long Black Veil’, a current favourite of his.

Gallows humour.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t have run,’ said Keith Utamore softly.

‘Oh, we should have run,’ said Fiorinda, smiling, eyes on her prince. ‘We shouldn’t have got caught. How are you planning to get home, Keith?’

‘I don’t know.’

That startled her. She’d assumed Utamore was one of the new Masters of the Universe, free to return to his own world at any time.

‘I came to Europe eighteen months ago. There was a window when SIA was doing scheduled flights into Paris, so I took my chance to get a context for all the terrific Crisis Europe and Reich music I’d been playing. You know what happened next.’

‘The ‘A’ Team.’

‘I’ve been stranded ever since. I’m afraid of the airship accident rate, and crossing the Pacific by sea’s a bloody dangerous trip. I’d go overland, and island hop from Singapore to Perth via Guinea, but you’ll have noticed I’m Japanese ethnic? I’m
okay
in Melbourne, but over there I could get pulled over and wake up in Guangdong, in a re-education camp—’

What did Fiorinda know? The so-called Great Peace could be as terrifying as England, if you were on the inside looking out. Hey, compadre, have you been trapped like us, all this time?

A touch on her bare shoulder. It was Ax, cheerful and relaxed.

‘Mind if I join you? I have some time now, Keith.’

Gintrap, with their ‘deliberately crude’ tunes (Like they had a choice), and daft lyrics went down well. As did a couple of shall-we-say unremarkable performers; with the right politics. Phil MacLean’s Gaelic NeoFolk outfit was greeted with rapture. Sovra Campbell’s classic folk/classic violin set pretty much exactly equally applauded: thank God. Between the guest bands Fiorinda played piano, her gold and green party-frock skirts rustling around her, while Bill Trevor and Sage leaned on the grand to sing… Hey, look at us, the nouveau royalty, almost as good as the professionals.

Ax was being interviewed, she was glad he was getting a break.

Is my team ploughing, that I was used to drive,

and hear the harness jingle, when I was man alive?

Bill Trevor’s beautiful tenor rose unearthly, and the boss replied, deep and sweet, with an edge of cruelty that sent a shiver to every woman’s core, and plenty of the men.
Oh yes, the world goes on fine without you, my dead friend. ‘
Is My Team Ploughing
,’
had been a fuck-you party piece, long ago: released by these bad boys as an extra track on the most terrifying of Heads albums—

Her fingers almost stumbled on the keys, because she had what Allie used to call a ‘reverse déjà vu moment’. What is this weird place, where did the real world go, is this a nightmare? The vertigo passed, ghosts remained. She remembered that Fred Eiffrich had loved Houseman.

The Chosen were on last, with a big emotional set featuring ‘Straight From Green’, which the establishment loved because the tune was simple and catchy, and they never listened to the words of popsongs—and dissidents (none of whom you would ever see in here) loved because they did.

But it was okay in Rick’s Place: no censorship was the deal.

‘Now we’re going to do a Chip Desmond and Kevin Verlaine song,’ announced Ax. ‘Called “Dupes of Babylon”. We may be gone for some time.’

‘If we don’t come back, send out search parties!’ cried Milly from behind her drums.

The high life laughed and clapped, pleased with themselves for getting the joke. Of course
, Chip and Ver
were notorious for their convoluted, no-exit, marathon songs. Keith, having finished his interview with the last of the three, stopped beside Fiorinda on his way out. ‘Just wanted to say it’s been terrific, you three have all been wonderful in, er, not ideal circumstances. Thank you so much. I have to leave, my car is waiting.’

He stared at the band. ‘Tell me one thing,’ he murmured. ‘Ax and Sage. Can they
really
transform into animals?’

He was serious, maybe surprised at himself but perfectly serious. Unbelievable. ‘Can human beings turn into monsters?’ Fiorinda smiled. ‘You’re asking
me
? Oh yes, Keith. Teeth and hair, I’ve often seen it.’

Sage had been afraid she’d hexed Boris Anathaswamy, and Fiorinda shouldn’t be insulted, because such things had been known to happen. But not for a long time: and right now Fiorinda, even if she hadn’t sworn off, wouldn’t dare to touch the Wallingham situation, not by a breath. She felt it shivering, fearfully balanced, on the edge change—

Shame Keith Utamore missed the last encore, which was one for the annals. Sage and Ax, standing together in front of the Prestons’ set, sang ‘Liquid Gold’ in close harmony, dreamy and slow.

The ‘waiters’ were calling time. Ax and Jordan thought about it, decided to go ahead, and gruffly embraced. ‘You’re not coming back,’ muttered Ax, holding the hug for a moment. ‘You’re to stay away from now on, all of you. See you when I get out of this.’

The Triumvirate were routinely searched, scanned, escorted through the house and locked into their suite. The red bedchamber welcomed them, with its cool, dank and enclosed air.

They’d been imprisoned for nearly two months, and oh god to see the sun again, but to an extent the red bedchamber was home. As opposed to the Moon and Stars, which they hated because it was where they went to be interrogated. The nervous ghost, something between a pet and a bad dream, had seen them playing games and having silly spats in here. Reading poetry, and classic English novels, aloud to each other. Acting out scenes from plays. It overheard all their conversations, reminding them they were not alone.

Sage flopped into the big armchair, tugged loose his black tie, and sang softly, reprising that perfect encore:
How much, how much, how much…
Ax sat on the floor: laid his head on the big cat’s knee and picked up the harmony, eyes closed: O
f sweet can one heart hold, my baby my baby my baby…
When you know you turned in a good performance it soothes your soul, no matter what.

Fiorinda drank water to ward off a hangover, lined up the three refills she’d snagged while necking Keith Utamore’s vodka, and thought of a night at Brixton Hill, when they had serenaded her with her own music. First I was pain, then I was meat, then I was water in the desert. Then I became oxygen, fire in the air. Now I’m molten metal. Hm. Is this progress?

They weren’t supposed to take anything from the Drawing Room: but Fiorinda carried a shoulder bag with her evening shawl in it, and the screws on the way back, though unfriendly, often didn’t bother to hassle her. The bottles were the waterbottles they’d had with them when they were arrested: they’d begun to deform, bio-degrading slowly in this sunless world. This frightened her. It would be bad when they were gone: an epoch.

Little did Keith Utamore know he’d had to interview them separately because they were suspected of telepathic powers when they were together. Little did he know that they’d been interviewed, awkwardly, in the middle of a tv show recording, because that was the only time they were allowed out of the cells… Self censorship, like abused children, we don’t tell, we know the things we’re not supposed to say. But she corrected herself. Oh, he knew. He had a good enough idea, he’s a professional journalist, he had a rare opportunity and he handled the situation—

The legendary Wallingham interview with the Triumvirate gains poignancy: we know that a few days later Ax n’ Sage n’ Fiorinda were shot, and their bodies buried somewhere in that house.

‘Liquid Gold’ drifted into silence. Sage stroked Ax’s hair.

‘How d’you get on with the Scots?’ asked Fiorinda.

‘Fine.’

‘I dunno why you encourage them,’ said Sage. ‘They’re just trouble’

‘Reasons of state,’ explained Ax, still with his eyes closed. ‘Mr Minister, Scotland is our main trading partner. Cultural
entente
greases the wheels. It’s part of my job as President.’

‘Oh yeah, and what about Wales?’

‘Bring me a Welsh band, I’ll sit at their table. They can be regulars too.’

There wouldn’t be any Welsh bands at ‘Rick’s Place’. The Welsh didn’t like what had been done to Ax. As so often in these situations, the neighbours knew far more than the English public did. They knew about Lord Vries, and his ruthless secret role in government. They felt he’d had it coming.

The Scots also knew the score, but they had an agenda. Phil MacLean and Sovra Campbell were secret agents. They’d come to England on tour, and penetrated Wallingham, to offer Ax a new job. This offer, laid on the table, undercover of nightclub conversation, might be genuine: or it might not.

It was like Paris, except it wasn’t funny: the disaffected President was getting headhunted. Was it possible that the Second Chamber didn’t know about MacLean and Campbell? MacLean, at least, had been known to the Reich for years… The suits had rewritten recent history: maybe they’d fooled themselves as well. Maybe it’d never crossed their minds that when you can have a rockstar warlord, when rockstar revolutionaries make the fur fly all over Europe, inevitably
other
rockstars are going to be recruited by the secret services, to spy on their unruly colleagues… Ax was letting the Scots talk, taking care not to incriminate himself: at the back of his mind the knowledge that one day he might be desperate enough to take any risk.