December (64 page)

      
What he wanted, though, what he needed, was to find Tom
himself. And the big guy better come up with some good answers else Weasel was
gonna butt him in the balls.
      
Bastard.

It was an important,
much-valued part of clerical tradition for the vicar to hang around outside the
church door after morning service for the purpose of shaking hands with each and
every member of the congregation.

      
'Mrs Watkins, how are you? And how's Ted's knee?'

      
The vicar was also required to update his mental file on each of
them.

      
'Get your car fixed in the end, Mr Willey?'
      
Simon had returned far later than
he'd intended last night. Tom and Meryl had gone to bed, perhaps to conduct an
impromptu therapy session. Simon had stayed behind in the emptying bar, having
a final coffee and talking to Prof. Hearing about Barney Gwilliam and Soup
Kitchen. And Dave.
      
At least he didn't have Dave's
particular problem.
      
Ah,
good morning, Mr Ellis. Tell me, is that your aura or is that chimney of yours
smoking again?

      
So here he was, all smiling and jolly at the church door,
while chewing himself up inside, anxious to get away, get back to the Castle
Inn. One day to organise themselves. It wasn't enough, but it was all they had.

      
'Mrs Jarman,' he said warmly to the last parishioner, a nice,
sparky-eyed old lady leaning over her Zimmer frame to shake his hand with both of
hers, as if he was a healing force. 'God bless you for coming. Fantastic to see
you on your feet again.'

      
'Seeing me on mine, now,' another voice said caustically, 'that
really
would
be a sight for sore
bloody eyes.'

      
Ah. He'd wondered where she'd gone. She'd been all too noticeable
during the service, chair parked behind the pews.
      
Isabel Pugh, chartered accountant
of this parish, looking businesslike and deceptively demure in a charcoal-grey,
tailored two-piece suit.

      
Now everyone had left, even Eddie Edwards, and the two of them
were alone together outside the little grey cowshed church and Isabel, her head
about two and half feet below his, was looking very much like an immovable
object under the hard, white sky.

      
'Where were you last night?' Asked rather mildly, for her.
      
'Bugger,' said Simon, 'I clean
forgot that I was supposed be reporting to you, every hour, on the hour.'

      
Isabel's shiny hair was freshly and stylishly highlighted with
gold. He wondered where she had it done; or did the hairdresser come to her? He
found himself wanting to touch it. Silly.

      
'My information,' she said casually, 'is that you were out the
other side of Pandy, at the Castle Inn.'

      
'Really.' God, she must be running an intelligence network from
that chair.

      
'And your friends.' Her eyes glowed amber. He read them like
traffic lights. Caution. 'Quite a little party, according to my information.'

      
'Don't tell me,' Simon said. 'You do the Castle Inn accounts,
right?' Two confirmatory dimples appeared, distressingly appealing, in Isabel's
creamy cheeks.

      
It was another side of her. He was more comfortable with the
embittered cripple, selfish and aggressive and determined to shock. Perhaps
that
was the act, because being pitied
was demeaning.

      
'I'd like to meet them,' Isabel said. 'You get so fed up the
same old miserable faces.'

      
'Isabel,' Simon said delicately, 'you don't know what
miserable faces are like until you've met these people. Besides …'

      
'I thought about just turning up last night. It didn't seem polite,
though.'

      
'How would you ...?'

      
'I've got a van,' Isabel said. 'Wheel on, wheel off. Hand
controls. It's behind the house. Don't get it out much. Hate driving. Like
driving your own ambulance. Or your own hearse. It would have embarrassed you,
anyway, me creaking in. Especially if there was one of them you're sweet on. A
bloke I mean.'

      
'There isn't,' Simon said. 'You evil-minded bitch. Anyway, my
warning remains. Any involvement here would be seriously detrimental to your well-being.'

      
'Well-being! Simon, when you're a fallen woman, in every sense,
the only way is up.'

      
'Wrong,' Simon said. 'And you've got to start believing me.
Vicars don't lie.'

      
Isabel said, 'You make me so mad that if I could feel my foot I'd
stamp it.'

      
'Can I push you home?' Simon smiled sweetly. 'Save electricity?'

      
'Nobody pushes me anywhere. Vicar.'

      
His smile vanished as he thought of hurling her from the top
the tower and crawling towards the black monk, exposed. The aching, slavering
desire he'd felt in his dream replaced now with dark disgust, lodged like an
old, cold brick in his chest.

      
'Look,' he almost shouted, virtually unaware of what he was
going to say until it was out. 'You're good with other people's money. How
would you like to manage a rock band?'

Moira changed down to
second gear for the steep hill into the village. Dave remembered this place,
especially the overhanging rock with the V-shaped fissure, the December sky
sombre above it: darkness at the break of noon, again.

      
'John Lennon,' she said. 'That was who I kept dreaming about.
Once, I awoke convinced he was in the room with us.'
      
They'd driven around in another
circle, this time a smaller one. A sign had said
Ystrad Ddu 5
. They'd looked at one another and then nodded
simultaneously, reluctantly, neither of them happy about it. Moira had said she
didn't want to go there for the first time with the whole bunch of them
tomorrow. Sure, sometimes there was safety in numbers; but sometimes, also,
this was an illusion.

      
And there were going to be no illusions this time.
      
'
I
didn't bring him with me, Davey.'
      
'Bring who?'

      
Moira sighed. 'John Lennon.'

      
'Sorry.' Dave cupped his hands over his face. He decided to tell
her everything.

Meryl and Tom came down to
a late breakfast and were surprised to find themselves alone in a tiny, panelled
dining-room, seated beneath a pastel-hued watercolour painting of serene nuns
under an azure sky.

      
'Shit,' said Tom. 'Find another table, quick.'

      
'This is the only one laid,' Meryl pointed out.

      
Tom stabbed a calloused forefinger at the picture. 'You know
what that is? It's a fucking omen.'

      
'Is that the Abbey? It looks quite pleasant.'

      
'I've heard of artistic bleeding licence,' said Tom. 'But that
is a joke'

      
'Perhaps it's a good omen, have you thought of that? It looks
so pretty.' Meryl smiled at the pink-checked waitress. 'I think I'll just have
a boiled egg. What are you having, Tom?'

      
'Coffee. Black.'

      
'Too much caffeine ...' Meryl began, and then stopped. He was
married to a health food dealer; he'd know all about caffeine.

      
Besides, she was coming to realise how unwise it was to
lecture Tom about anything. He was a good man, but he was also a difficult man.

      
Meryl thought about the devious but essentially bland Martin
Broadbank and wondered if he'd made the inevitable move on Shelley Storey yet.
In a way she hoped he had. Hoped, too, that Shelley had accepted it. Meryl
liked everyone to be happy.

      
She thought about Stephen Case and his impassive colleague.
How they'd reduced what she now thought of as the Abbey Experience to a matter
of money and image. Both of them closer to Martin's viewpoint than to Tom's. But
at least Martin got some sort of pleasure out of it, was not so grim and
humourless.
      
She looked at the picture of the
Abbey. It was really very pleasant. Of course, that was summer. It would be bleaker
now. The week ahead would be a testing time, but Meryl was prepared to be
tested. Meryl was begging to be tested.

      
'You didn't actually stay in the Abbey last time, did you?'

      
'I commuted,' Tom said. 'No place for a pregnant woman.'

      
She saw his eyes cloud.

      
'I wonder what the bedrooms are like,' she said brightly.
      
'I'll let you know.'

      
'Probably be a draughty old place. I hope the beds are aired.'
      
'Wouldn't wanna catch a cold. Goes
to my sinuses.'
      
'We'll take some hot-water bottles.'
      
Tom said, 'Hang on. We?'
      
Meryl stared at him.

      
Tom said, 'You're staying here, darlin'. You do know that?'
      
Meryl stiffened.

      
'You was there last night when we discussed the terms. The
band goes in alone. No Case, no Sile.'
      
'But ... '

      
'And no you,' said Tom.

      
M
eryl
  
grabbed
  
a
  
handful
  
of
  
tablecloth.
  
She was dumbfounded. Shattered. Speechless.

      
Who was it who'd rescued him from the motor lodge? Who'd
persuaded him that it was in his best interests to come here? Who'd
brought
him here?
      
Who had
shared his vision?

      
Meryl felt her eyes bulge and burn. 'This is ridiculous.'
      
'No, it ain't. It's common sense.
This is a mopping-up situation. We got enough of our own shit to wade frew. It
ain't your problem. Be bloody thankful.'
      
Meryl blinked back tears of rage
and frustration, pushed back her chair. 'Excuse me.' She didn't even look at
the girl bringing her egg from the kitchen.

Dave said, 'I was disgusted
with him. I mean thousands -
millions
 
- of people were feeling really pissed off
about it. It was a bloody awful album.'

      
'It had a couple of good tracks,' Moira said. '"Starting
Over", ''Woman''.'

      
'Patience Strong,' Dave said. 'Not as bloody
good
as Patience Strong. Made Patience Strong
read like bloody Coleridge.'

      
Moira had parked on the edge of Ystrad Ddu, at the end of the
straggly dozen or so grey stone houses, past the sagging untidy pub. She wanted
to hear this before they got too close to the Abbey.

      
It so happened that Dave had bought his copy of the album a
couple of days before arriving for the session in December, 1980.

      
Double Fantasy
. John
Lennon's album. Also Yoko's. Seven songs each - one of his, one of hers, one of
his, etc. Well, everybody expected Yoko's songs to be not exactly balm to the ears
and nobody was disappointed. But when Lennon's compositions turned out to be
largely dreary, sentimental and witless-that was it.

      
'What I couldn't help remembering,' Dave said, 'was he used to
slag McCartney off for being trite and bubblegum. After the split, this was. Do
you remember "How Do Sleep?" on Imagine? Really vicious. A public
denunciation.'

      
Moira nodded. 'Made me wonder what had gone on between them.'

      
'Yet here he is, a few years later, living the life of a
contented househusband in his New York fortress, baking bread, composing sweet
little songs about his second wife and his second kid. Talk about hypocrisy.'

      
'Be careful,' Moira said. 'That was why Mark Chapman reckoned
he was compelled to shoot him. Because he was the King of the Phoneys. A full-blown
hypocrite, as defined in
The Catcher in
the Rye,
Chapman's bible. All adults are phoneys, but some are phonier than
others. You ever read that book?'

      
'Afterwards. After Chapman came out with all this crap about
doing the deed to draw public attention to what a great novel it was. I was
surprised, actually, it's a good read.'