December (59 page)

      
He carried on tramping, pain in the soles of his feet, pains
in his calves now, he was seriously out of breath and out of condition, and in
this mist he'd never know when he got to the summit anyway unless he was
granted a Holy Vision.

      
it's a funny thing, but
I can't even recall what the little fucker looked like. I can vaguely remember
some young guy coming up to me with a copy of the album, and I signed it and I
remember him acting kind of shy, which was unusual - this is New York, man,
shyness is not a basic character flaw here. So I vaguely remember him first
time round. The other time ... the last time? No. Nothing. Maybe you got me on
a bad day, Dave. On a Bad Day, geddit?
      
The mist laughed.

      
Dave felt terrible. Also cold, especially his hands. And exhausted.
      
'I'm gonna have to stop.'
      
yeh,
this is as far as you'll get.

      
 
felt his feet beginning
to slide back. Up to now he'd been drawn forward, like being on a slow
escalator. But he knew that if he started to slip he'd lose contact, lose
meaningful
contact; it would be back to
the insults and the banter. He fought for breath and threw his arms forward, as
if there was an invisible rope out there he could grasp.

      
'Deathoak,' he managed. 'Is that just an anagram of Dakota.
With a spare T?'

      
There was no rope to grasp. The air was cold and still. His
moccasins skidded on the wet stones and he fell and slid backwards, tearing his
hands on the stones as he tried to stop the momentum.

      
Screaming, 'You got the green card. They let you st...' as the
night and the clinging mist dragged him down the Skirrid.

      
'… they let you in. And then you ...'

      
Must have been a gulley he hadn't noticed on his way up. It
was as if someone had picked him up and flung him back and into space. He
landed hard, was stunned.

      
And he knew he wasn't going back; he'd lost it.

      
Dave rolled over, was dizzy. Under his bleeding hands he felt
cold grass; he rolled over again and buried his face in it.
      
There was some kind of grassy
slope. He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his head and rolled over
and over down the cold, wet gradient, gathering mud and night and mist and
feeling nothing until his hands and face were slashed and stinging and he realised
he must have stopped and was in the middle of a vicious thorn bush or maybe had
crashed a hedgehogs' convention. He laughed.

      
Or maybe passed out. He didn't quite remember how he came to
be rolling down the grass.
Some time
later he stood up.

      
He had to get out of here.

      
...
could feel neither his fingers nor his toes in his worn-out boots, and the
sweat froze on his face as he ran towards the distant light, a candle in a
window slit ... his ears always straining for ... the clamour of men and horses
... these murdering damned ewe-fuckers...

      
Then light flickered up ahead.
      
Sanctuary.

      
Is it...?'

      
'By God, it is, too. You were right. How the hell did you ...?'

      
'Was just a feeling.'

      
'You're uncanny, you people. Seriously uncanny.'
      
They made him sit up.

      
'Take it gently, he might've broken something.'

      
'Jesus Christ, will you look at the state of his face?'

      
Always looks worse than it is. Take it from an old soldier.'

      
Dave said, 'I didn't know you were ever a soldier, Prof.'

      
'National bloody service. Don't even talk about it. In fact
don't talk at all. Here, hang on to this. Bloody liability, you are, Reilly.'

      
'What is it?'

      
'Think it's to put an umbrella on. In summer.'
      
'What's this place?'

      
'Nah, nah. Wrong question. You gotta say "Where am
I?" I'll pretend you said it. You're in what I believe is known as a beer
garden. The building you see there is the ... what's it called?'

      
'The Castle Inn.'

      
'Only we can't take you in looking like that. Maybe there's
some back stairs we can smuggle you up. By God, David, I'm fucking glad to see
you. Car abandoned by the roadside, three degrees of frost forecast, we thought
... I can't tell you what we thought.'

      
Dave said, 'Who's that with you?'

      
The dark figure was edged with gold from the lights in the
inn. It was not in a long dress, but jeans and a dark sweater and a black shawl
around its head.

      
He whispered, 'Is it Moira?'

      
It
was
a black
shawl, wasn't it?

II

Orphan

And you thought you were
too old to fall in love.

      
Prof Levin had never met Moira until tonight. When he came
down from Dave's room he found her ordering coffee in the Castle Inn's firelit
lounge bar.

      
She was something to look at, even in her camouflage gear,
jeans and trainers and a black anorak. She was a serious presence; you wouldn't
forget anything about her, even after fourteen years.

      
And yet any pent-up love in Dave's eyes when he saw her had
been smothered by something else. Pain. Fear even.

      
Why should Dave be afraid of Moira Cairns?
I was high on a woman
, he'd said, when
Prof had asked him what substances he'd been absorbing the night they recorded
the Black Album.
      
What was he high on tonight,
stumbling about like some wild man of the woods?

      
'Cream, Prof?' Moira set down a tray on a wrought-iron table
near the shimmering coal fire.

      
'Lots,' Prof said.

      
On his way here, his headlights had found Dave's rusting Fiat
wedged in a field gateway at the side of the road. Broken down, or what? It was
another half-mile to the pub, where Prof had found no trace of Dave, only this
dark-haired woman unloading her cases. He'd seen photos and album covers, he knew
who she was, introduced himself.

      
They'd looked at each other and discovered a common concern
for Reilly's mental condition.

      
He's out there,
Moira had said thoughtfully.
And I don't
think he's alone.

      
What followed had been eerie. Moira had walked out to the edge
of the pub car park, where it met the beer garden, fields and woodland beyond
it.

      
That's the Skirrid up there?

      
The
what?

      
It's a holy hill,
so-called. A lot of magnetic activity, Prof.

      
She'd sat down at one of the beer garden tables, in the dark
and the cold, hands clasped on her knees, hooded head bowed, very still, Prof
not knowing where to put himself, backing off to lean against the back wall of
the pub. Until Dave had appeared, rolling and tumbling, as if she was reeling
him in like a fish on a line.

      
Now Moira was hanging her anorak over the back of her chair,
sitting down opposite him in front of the fire, setting up cups on saucers, all
very cosy.

      
'How is he?'

      
She was wearing a washed-out grey sweatshirt, a chain around
her neck with a silver Celtic cross,

      
'Confused is the word,' Prof said. 'He's taking a bath. Wants
to look his best for you.'

      
Moira didn't smile. Dave and Moira, Prof wondered, was this a
two-way thing?
     
Fourteen years was a
hell of a long time; she could have made contact if she'd wanted, could have
let him find her. He thought, I wouldn't have bloody well let her get away from
me so easily.

      
'How did you know,' he asked without much hope of a satisfactory
answer, 'where he was and when he was coming back?'

      
Moira sugared her coffee. The four of us, the old
Philosopher's Stone, were simultaneously converging on one spot, right? Which
Simon St John chose, apparently. I got here just before dark. Not so dark I
couldn't see the Skirrid rising up in the fields, but I could feel it anyway.
It kind of draws you in. So when you showed me Davey's car, it was pretty
obvious where he'd gone.'

      
'Magnetic activity, you said. What's that mean?'
      
Moira smiled. 'You're a technical
guy, Prof. I can't give it to you in those terms. Holy hill makes more sense to
me. Hill of dreams, hill of visions. You ever read Arthur Machen? No? He was a
mystical kind of guy, wrote weird stories around the First World War period.
This was Arthur's backyard, where he drew his inspiration.'

      
Her voice was low and husky, earthed by the not-quite-Glasgow
accent.

      
'Whether this was intentional or not on his part,' she said, 'what
Simon's done is given us a spiritual focus. We're all converging on the
Skirrid, which is a sacred site with a lot of natural power. That's magnetism.
You can measure it. Physically, scientifically. Give me a magnetometer, I could
prove it to you. Maybe Simon thinks we need all the power we can get.'

      
'Before you face the Abbey?'

      
'We need time to regroup. In a different way maybe. Like - I
have to tell you I'm a whole lot less certain about all this than I sound -
fifteen or so years ago Max Goff was realising that a rock band, or a folk
band, or a string quartet, for that matter, was a very potent psychic unit,
whether or not any of its members have, kind of heightened sensibilities.'
      
Moira paused to check he was
picking up on this.
      
Prof said, 'And if they
have
got these ... sensibilities?'
      
'Dynamite, potentially. A powder
keg. Which is why - no matter what Davey tells you - we had to go our separate
ways. Each of us was, like, carrying components of something combustible. If we
stayed together, sooner or later ... boom. You know?'

      
Prof said, 'I've heard the album.'

      
'Yeah. I know. Why else would I be telling you all this?'
      
'Pardon me, but how would
you
know I'd heard it?'
      
'I just did.'
      
'That's no answer.'

      
'It's the best you'll get off me, Prof,' said Moira tartly.

      
'OK, but how do you ...' Prof had no idea where this was coming
from, maybe the sodding Skirrid. 'How do you know my motives are pure?'

      
Moira grinned, dropped her left hand over his. 'You worked
with Davey on his solo album, right? He wrote to me about that. And when we came
face to face outside of here, you were worried sick about him.'

      
'Only 'cause he's such a stupid git,' said Prof gruffly.

      
She put down her cup. 'I think I should go up and see him.'

      
'Room four,' Prof said.

Discreetly parked in his
discreet Astra on the edge of the car park, Simon had watched and reasoned it
out. Moira and the guy with a white beard and glasses, Prof Levin presumably, waiting
for someone. And then Dave appearing out of the darkness, dishevelled, clothes wet
with mud.

      
It was starting, the old madness. Nothing changed. Just like
Dave to respond to the call of the Skirrid in knee-jerk fashion.

      
And Tom wasn't even here yet. From the moment of his arrival
Tom was going to need careful handling. He'd look at this inn and see the oak
beams and stuff, and probably panic because it was old and likely to resonate.

      
Simon would have had no problem putting them all up at the
vicarage, somebody having to sleep on a sofa perhaps. But that would have been
too close to the Abbey's own forcefield. Whereas, here, in this cosy old inn,
there was an immense and ancient barrier between them and the Abbey. Breathing
space.