December (74 page)

      
'Bastards,' Prof muttered and then grinned.

      
'Somefink's lifted from somebody,' Tom said. 'Somebody's
lighter.'

      
'And we have to use it while we've got it,' said Simon, who'd
gone round to everybody's door by nine a.m., waking them all up, summoning them
to the studio.

Last night, they'd gone to
bed in a state of major communal depression, Moira feeling no better than any
of them, because the Abbey had taken Round One. All Simon had said was, It
wasn't Prof's fault, OK? And didn't need to elaborate. They'd put Prof to bed
and assembled in the studio and tried to make like a real band, and disaster
was not the word.

      
They'd started with an old country rocker of Tom's, 'Take Me
to the River', so basic and simple it almost worked first time - Simon on bass,
Dave on rhythm and Moira backing vocals to Tom's gruff bark. Half-way through,
even Lee Gibson - who nowadays, apparently, only went behind the kit for
spotlighted drum solos during his own gigs - started beaming, enjoying himself.

Take me to the river (Tom
sang)
That's where I wanna be
Take me to the river
Where it reaches the sea.
Sit me on a landin' stage
Down by the waterside
And let me watch my troubles
Floating out on the tide.

      
It broke down on Tom's solo. Or rather, Tom broke down.
      
Tom's solo on 'Take Me to the
River' was legendary. So fluid, Moira remembered some critic writing that
trying to separate out the individual notes was about as easy as lifting the
waves intact from the sea.
      
Or single tears.

      
'Poor little bleeder,' Tom had wailed, the words shockingly
amplified. 'It ain't right. It ain't right.'

      
Afterwards he couldn't remember what this was about. Dave kept
repeating the words to him, Tom shaking his head. 'How should I know?' But too
depressed to carry on. Lee Gibson grinding his teeth and throwing his
drumsticks in the air. Moira rang the canteen on the intercom. Coffee. Black.
Lots.
      
In a bid to cheer them up, Dave had
climbed back on to his favourite McCarthy amp, sat up there like a garden gnome
with the M38 on his knee, and performed his version of Dylan's 'Girl of the
North Country'. Even though the North Country in Dave's song was Hartlepool and
there were some good jokes, he'd had to stop because he was sounding so
uncannily like Dylan he even scared himself. He'd felt driven suddenly, he
said, by something he didn't understand.

      
'We're all scared to death, aren't we?' Moira had said. 'We're
never gonna be able to let ourselves go. We're all terrified this time around
of what we're gonna let in.'

      
'Hardly without good reason,' Dave said. 'You've got to admit
that.'

      
'Yeah, but it's no good, Davey. We walk out of this one
unfinished, we're never gonna live ...'

      
With ourselves, she'd been going to say, but the sentence
stopped itself.
      
Stopped
itself.

      
Moira had felt herself go pale and turned away and suggested
they call it a night.

Now, Wednesday morning, 7
December, she'd come into the studio to find a circle of seats between the
drumkit and the mixing desk: stools, the producer's swivelling rocking-chair
and the McCarthy packing-case amplifier.

      
They were all here, bar Lee. This wasn't his problem, Simon
said. And anyway he'd still be in the sack with Michelle from TMM.

      
'This a summit meeting, Simon?' Tom said.

      
'Not quite.' Simon waved him to a stool, Prof to his chair,
Dave to his amp.

      
'Last night,' he said, 'Prof got pissed, through no fault of
his own, on red wine probably imported from Bordeaux in the 1170s.'

      
Prof opened his mouth.
      
'Don't say anything,' Simon said.
'Accept it.'
      
'Shit,' said Tom.
      
'Prof's an alcoholic,' Simon said.
      
'Now, look ...' Prof was half-way
out of his chair.
      
'Siddown,' said Simon. 'That's just
one problem. We've all got problems. But since Prof's was the first to show, I
think it's time he attended a support group.'

      
'No way,' said Prof. 'Who the hell d'you think ...?'
      
'And this is it.' Simon stood up,
walked over to the mixing desk and produced from behind it a large plastic
Pepsi Cola bottle. He removed the top and began carefully to lay a trail of
water from the bottle around the outside of the circle of seats.

      
'Courtesy of the parish of Ystrad Ddu,' he said. The water
soaked in, leaving a dark, circular stain on the pale grey carpet.
      
'Is that necessary, Simon?' Prof
asked.
      
'Bet your ass on it.' Simon stepped
inside the circle through the remaining gap and then, with a final sprinkle,
closed it from the inside. He sat on his stool, next to Moira's, with the empty
plastic bottle in his hands.

      
'OK?' The studio seemed a more intimate place, as if the walls
were crowding in to listen. Moira was surprised to see Simon taking the
initiative; he'd always been such a diffident guy. But, then, he
was
the only one of them formally
recognised as being able to splash holy water around with impunity.

      
Until now, the atmosphere had seemed so much lighter this
morning. It wasn't really; that was an illusion. The reality was last night.

      
But something had happened to Simon overnight to make him
think it was worth carrying on. And he was sharing it while it lasted. Because
they were a band.

      
Simon bowed his head over his hands, still holding the plastic
Pepsi bottle. 'I'm not going to use any elaborate language, I'm not even going
to address God, in case there are any of us to whom that kind of terminology
doesn't mean a lot. Whatever message we're sending out here, you can all send
it in whichever direction you want. Outwards, inwards, wherever.'
      
'I think we're all gonna be
pointing in vaguely the same direction,' Moira said.
      
'Thanks.' Simon glanced briefly
towards the huge, white-washed stone arches in the ceiling. 'OK. We've got
problems, we've all had problems for a long time, and now we've come together
to admit we can't handle them alone.'

      
'Right,' Tom said.

      
'We've come back to the place where we were all severely
tested, and some of us failed the test pretty badly.'

      
'Some us didn't even finish the paper,' Dave muttered.

      
'We need help,' Simon said and was silent.

      
Moira heard a popping sound and saw small bubbles appear in
the carpet where the holy water had fallen.

      
'Ignore it,' Simon whispered, flashing her the Don't Worry Tom
look.

      
Moira nodded. She could see where he was corning from. To get
through a session here they needed to balance an awareness of reality with
enough illusion to enable them to function. Like crossing a narrow, rickety
bridge across a deep, deep canyon. To make it to the other side, you needed
confidence and fear in equal measures. Maybe that was the definition of
courage.

      
'You know ...' Simon smiled at Prof. 'I reckon you
have
been to AA meetings in the past.'

      
'Bollocks,' Prof said.

      
'We're meeting you more than half-way. Prof. Tell me, how does
that intro go? You know ... when you go to an AA meeting, you have to introduce
yourselves and everybody states their name and one simple fact.'

      
'Yeah,' Prof said. 'I believe I've heard of that. Maybe saw in
a film once.'
      
'Go on then.'

      
'Sod it.' Prof sighed and then intoned, 'My name is Kenneth
and I am an alcoholic'

      
'Terrific,' Simon said. 'Now I'll have a go.'

      
He closed his eyes for a moment, smiled to himself, and he
said, 'My name is Simon. I am a pervert and a necromancer and, by continuing to
practise as a priest, I am committing the grossest, most unforgivable blasphemy
and endangering the immortal souls of all the poor bastards who, through me,
seek God's blessing.'

      
There was a long silence.

      
'That's a tough one to follow, Simon,' Dave said. 'But I'll
give it a whirl.'

X

Organism

Eddie Edwards had been
staking out the place since just after eight, walking Zap up and down the
street in the sharp air until the poor dog was dizzy, had to be. But it was
nearly ten by the time Mrs Pugh left the house. Vicarage-cleaning day, too -
the woman was giving herself an easy time of it in Simon's absence.

      
Soon as she was round the corner out of sight, Eddie was
hauling Zap up the path and hammering on the door. His old plastic briefcase
was under his arm, the handle snapped off years ago.

      
'Heavens,' Isabel said, 'I don't know which of you's tongue is
hanging out furthest. Seen you go past that window fifteen times. Mug or a
cup?'

      
'Mug, please, my dear.' Eddie unpacked his case on the
accounting table. 'Sit now, Zap.'

      
'Always wanted a dog,' Isabel said sadly, pouring coffee. 'But
you try taking a puppy for a walk in a wheelchair, and Mother couldn't be
bothered. You're all red-faced and frozen, Eddie. Think it's going to snow?'

      
'Too cold for it,' Eddie said, hanging his overcoat over the
back of a dining-chair, approaching the open stove with arms wide as if he
wanted to hug it to death. 'Or maybe it's just me that's profoundly cold.
Starting to frighten me, this business. Feels like a great claw is poised over
us all.'
      
'Not all of us,' Isabel said. 'Only
Simon.'

      
'Aye, and anyone who consorts with him.'

      
'Consorts, now, is it? I should be so lucky.'

      
Eddie accepted a mug of coffee, warming his hands on it.
      
'Getting fond of the boy, aren't
you?' He added tentatively, 'I'm not sure that's good.'

      
Isabel wore her business suit and a lot of make-up. She looked
glamorous, dangerous and terribly vulnerable.

      
'Not good?' She said aggressively. 'Bloody suicidal it is.'
She smiled, couching the euphoric Zap's head in her lap. 'But what can you do?'

Simon said, 'He
talks
to you?'

      
'Well, you know.' Dave, embarrassed, shifted about on his
amplifier. 'I mean, mostly it's insults. He gets impatient with me. I can
understand that.' Dave shook his head, like a dog shaking off water. 'Maybe I
just do such good impressions I can even fool myself.'

      
'If it's a guilt-trip,' Prof said, 'it's misplaced.'

      
'It's not misplaced,' Dave said quietly. 'We all know what
we're capable of, and when we fall short we fall very
badly
short and it's a slippery slope. It's like Simon. He's
bisexual. Well, fine. Fine for a normal person; no kind of sex is perverted,
long as it's consenting adults or consenting sheep. But when the psychic
element intrudes and you've got dead monks on your back, as it were,
that's
perverted, Simon's right.
Perverted, blasphemous, the whole bit, and it's all too easy for people like us
to slide into that kind of pit. Especially in this business.'

      
'Which I got out of,' Simon said. 'Not realising that taking
holy orders only increases the risk. For a priest, the temptations are truly enormous,
black pits opening up all over the place. I won't go into details. Well, you know
... a lot of priests crash spectacularly. Sometimes you think maybe a monastery
- a hard-line Trappist outfit or something - is the only refuge. Complete
seclusion.'

      
'Seclusion don't work,' said Tom. 'Seclusion's a real bummer.
You start feeding on your own guts.'

      
'Seclusion's scary,' Moira agreed. 'Small things set you off -
things you wouldn't normally notice.'

      
Dave turned to her. 'What happened with your mother?'

      
'She died. Just died. She had a stroke.'