December (3 page)

      
Oh God, she's thinking, why'd we agree to come here?

      
It was really wonderful, at first, this band. Communal therapy,
sitting in a circle like an encounter group, exchanging wild tales over gallons
of tea and coffee. Incredibly reassuring to know there are other people like
you: Simon, kind and diffident and mixed up sexually. Tom, like so many of
these guitar virtuosos, a touch unbalanced (OK,
very
unbalanced) but with this grumpy charm. And Davey.
Soft-centred and funny, and he fancies you madly ...

      
We were a good band. We were getting along, we really cooked
musically. Because we have problems in common, a problem. Some people would say
it's a gift; some people would say a club foot's a gift. But, as the old saying
goes, a problem shared is a problem halved.

      
So why, in the
sanctified
atmosphere of the Abbey - forgetting for the moment about all this steeped in
blood stuff - is a problem shared turning out to be a problem enhanced and multiplied?

      
Dave's shaking his head. 'Traffic? Lights?'
      
'Traffic-lights, Davey?'

      
'No, traffic - and lights. People ... People shouting. Wailing.
Somebody hurt, maybe.'
      
'Man or a woman?'

      
'Or dead. Dead, I think. I don't know.'

      
'What about the wailing? Why are they wailing? This is no' Aelwyn,
is it? I mean, this is nothing to do with ...'

      
'Shock.' Shaking his head. 'Shock and grief ... kind of an -
electric grief. Hundreds of people. Not wailing. Singing? But not happy. Not
happy singing, y' know?'

      
Moira's eyes, adjusted to the lack of light, can see him
clearly now. He's looking awful cold, still in just his white T-shirt, sweat
and mud stains on the chest. Gonna catch his death.

      
'Come back to the house, Davey.'

      
'Nnnn.' Shaking his head. Assuming that whatever brought this
on is back there, waiting for him, and he might not be wrong. Mumbling again,
eyes squeezed shut.

      
'OK, then,' Moira says calmly. 'Take me there.'

      
And he does.

      
'I'm looking down on it now ... down
into
it ... it's on all these different levels, and packed with,
like, jutting, thrusting masonry ... turrets, chimneys, spikes ... like, if you
fell into it, you'd impale yourself. You know what I...?'

      
Gently, she pulls his arms away from the tree, holds them, one
in each hand. She can feel the goose bumps.

      
Dave 'A cupola kind of thing, gloss sides. And below me, on
the ground, a black ... a rigid thing with black ...'
      
'Petals,' Moira says suddenly, not
thinking about it. 'It's a flower, right?'

      
'Yes. It's a black flower.'
      
'Metal?'

      
'A metal flower, right. And noise, rising up. Black noise.
Lights that crash. Lights that scream. Heavy lights shattering. Christ, there's
no
sequence
to this, it's …

      
'I can't hear it, Davey.' Holding tight to his arms, the
coldness corning through, but nothing else. 'Let me in, Davey, let me help.'

      
But he's pulling away from her, as if he's been hit. Clutching
at the tree, starting to slide slowly down its damp, knobbly trunk.

      
'Eyes.' Whimpering now. 'Me eyes are full of blood.'
      
Moira sees a torch beam waving back
and forth across the lawn. 'Simon? Tom? Help me, please. It's Dave, he's ...'

This guy ...

      
somebody says,
      
this
guy is dying ...

      
Really clearly. Saying it very simply, like it isn't something
you can easily believe. A man says,
      
do
you know who you are?

      
For a moment he's not sure. Darkness enfolding him, the metal
petals of the black flower closing over his head. He tries to say something;
his voice has gone. He tries to focus; his vision has grown grey and dim. Tries
to move, but the petals are holding him. Tries to breathe. But there's no air.

      
this
guy is dy—

      
The black flower has a waxy perfume.
      
Do
you know who you are?
      
And, somewhere else, very softly,
'Davey ...'
      
Crags and moorland and long white
beaches. Grey seas and long white beaches, rocks wet
      
'Davey!'

      
with a splash of spray. Desperately, he throws himself into the
spray.

      
'Dave Reilly.' Whispering. 'I'm Dave Reilly.' Gripping an overhanging
branch.

      
'Simon, quick! Over here ...'

      
He starts to breathe in the night, blinks. Feels the breeze. Blinks.
Open his eyes as wide as they'll go.

      
Blinks again, frantic now. 'I can't see.' Brings a hand to his
eyes in panic, keeps opening and shutting and rubbing them.
      
'Me glasses. Where's me glasses?'
Looking blindly from side to side, up towards the branches, down towards the
grass, starting to sob. 'Where's me bloody glasses?'

      
Bloody
glasses. An unremarkable pair of tinted glasses, misted and opaque. Rimmed with
blood.

      
In the
car, the cop says, 'Do you know who you are?'

      
He
can't talk. Just moans and nods. Of course he fucking knows.

      
Moira says gently, 'Davey, you don't
wear
glasses.'

      
'No.' Dave, calm again, opens his eyes very, very slowly and
becomes aware of a very still winter night in the Black Mountains of Gwent. A
night in December, two, three weeks off Christmas. A night with no visible
moon, only lights from the Abbey fifty yards away, behind huge, black, stone
arches like the ribcage of a dinosaur skeleton.

      
The Abbey: twelfth-century stone, a crackling log fire in the
panelled hall, mulled wine in pewter mugs. And in a long, black velvet dress
...

      
'Moira?'

      
'I'm here.'

      
He sees her face, touches her hair. Slowly shakes his head and
begins to cry. 'I blew it. Moira, I buggered it up.'
      
Psychics cry more than most people,
he's learned this.

Simon says, 'Dave?'

      
'He's OK now,' Moira says. 'I think he's OK. Tom?'
      
'Pretty much what you'd expect.
Left him in the courtyard, marching round and round.'

      
'Go find him, huh? We'll all go.' Moira turning back towards
the Abbey, the bastard place looking so benign with the glimmering lights in
its downstairs windows.

      
At this point, the session drummer, Lee Gibson, joins them.
He's carrying a long, black torch and grinning. 'What the fuck was all
that
about?'

      
'I cocked it up,' Dave says to Moira.

      
'Come on, Davey.' She doesn't want him talking about this in
front of Lee.

      
'I screwed up.' Shaking his head from side to side. 'You know
that. You were there.'

      
'Not really, Davey. I only caught the flower.'

      
'What have I done, Moira?'

      
'Leave it, Davey.'

      
'What have I fucking
done
?'
Keeps rubbing his eyes as if he's expecting to lose his vision again.
      
Moira snaps, 'Stop it.'

      
Lee's shaking his head in disbelief, still grinning. 'You guys
really kill me.'

      
Then, as they enter the courtyard, there's a bellowing scream.
'Poor bugger,' Dave mutters. 'We should've listened to him. Could you make out
the circle? Did you see how many candles there were? Did you see what
kind
of candles?,'

      
'Davey.' Moira's hissing through her teeth. 'Will you just
shut the fuck up
!'

      
Lee Gibson snorts with laughter. Can't blame him. We're all
terminally neurotic bastards, far as he's concerned. He's a normal guy.

      
The tower house sprouts from a corner of the Abbey. There's a
courtyard with a high stone wall, the fourth side open to the trackway, rough
lawns either side of it. Three shadowy vehicles standing in the courtyard.
Moira watches poor, frazzled Tom Storey stagger out from behind one of them,
the mad bull looking for somebody to gore.

      
'Monks!' Tom's face is bulging in the beam of Lee's
flashlight. 'Either side the gate. I'm telling you ... two fucking monks.' And
Moira shivers at this.

      
Russell, the producer, is watching from the doorway. What has
he done to deserve this? From Russell's side of the fence it must be clear
enough that whatever's scaring Tom would hold few fears for a halfway-decent
clinical psychiatrist.

      
'Candles.' Tom shuddering and shaking like an old
refrigerator. 'They was holding candles. Bastards.'

      
'Come on, squire.' Simon claps him on the back. 'We'll talk
about it inside'

      
'No
way
.' Tom
snatching at Simon's arm. 'Time is it?'
      
'Half four-ish,' Moira says. 'Let's
go down to the kitchen, make some tea, huh?'

      
Tom scowls. 'I'm getting out. Russell, keys.'

      
The big guy's feverish, incandescent - an unhealthy glow, like
radium. Tom, listen ...' Moira reckons that if all the lights suddenly went out
they'd still be able to see him. 'You're no' fit to drive, believe me.'

      
Tom's face is truly ghastly in Lee's torchbeam, a Hallowe'en
pumpkin. 'Russell, you don't gimme the keys to that Land Rover, I'll tear your
fucking head off.'

      
Moira said, 'I think we should stop him, Russell.' But Russell
only shrugs helplessly, goes back into the Abbey, shaking his shaven head at
the futility of trying to reason with loonies. Just another normal guy.

      
Tom's already climbed into the Land Rover, now cranking down
the window and shouting out gleefully, 'S'all right, keys are in.' There's a
sudden, ludicrous blast of big band music over the courtyard, the Syd Lawrence
Orchestra.

      
'... this shit?' Tom stabbing at the radio buttons, searching
for the comfort of hard rock music. Then the scrapyard rattle of the engine.
'Debs shows up in the Lotus, tell her I already split, yeah?'

      
Moira says, 'Jesus, can she get into that thing in her
condition? Tom, why don't you come down from there, call her?'

      
The Land Rover's headlights have bleared into life, under
cakes of red mud; its wheels are spinning, flinging gravel at them. The radio,
volume as high as it will go, says,

'... believed to have been returning home to their
apartment near Central Park when the gunman struck.'
      
'Listen, my friends.' Simon
guides them into a corner of the courtyard. 'I hope I'm not speaking out of
turn here, but I think we should put the arm on Russell to wipe tonight's
stuff.'

      
For a moment, Moira thinks she can see a ghastly white light
at one of the tower windows, as if the Abbey is registering mild annoyance. The
Land Rover clatters across the courtyard towards the main gate.

      
She sighs gratefully. 'Took the words out of my head. Will you
tell him or will I?'

      
'Hey now ..." Lee Gibson is not happy. 'Let's not be so
friggin' hasty.' He's wearing an ankle-length army greatcoat now, over his
moleskin waistcoat. 'Correct me if I got this wrong' - echoing Russell - 'but
the whole point of the exercise is that something should get, you know,
stirred up,
right?'

      
'No, look.' Dave Reilly wanders shakily into Lee's torchbeam.
'Better idea. Let's scrap the lot. Wipe everything.'

      
'Wipe ...?' Lee hurls his torch at the ground. The light
doesn't go out; it plays on Dave's soaked trainers.
      
'We don't need this,' Dave says.
'Any of us.'
      
'Speak for your fucking self!' Lee
ramming his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat. 'Wipe the tapes?' Flapping
the skirts of his greatcoat. 'You can wipe my arse.'