December Read online

  Heard the voices hissing,

  deathoak

  Still hearing, from somewhere, Moira's voice against the elements, but the words were inaudible, the only words he could make out were death oak suspended in the tight studio acoustic, and he was sure that if he looked hard enough, he would see the words light up, blinking in the smoky space Like neon, like the cold fingernails of fire at the tips of the candles.

  And he was so cold.

  And then an explosion of lights and he was looking up at the fortress. Monster of a building. Bit like one of those French whatsits, chateaux. But too big to be an original and not so delicate. Overwhelming. Forbidding - kind of Victorian Gothic.

  And then blackness. Deep, throbbing blackness.

  And someone saying,

  this guy is dying.

  Outside now, clinging to the tree, Dave vaguely remembers unslinging the Martin, letting it fall, bolting out of his booth.

  Still hearing it, death oak, as he rushed at the rear door, seeing Russell and his engineer, Barney, on their feet in the control room, behind the glass panel, mouths moving, no sound. Passing the booth containing Tom, hunched, red-faced, doubled up over the Telecaster, as if his appendix was bursting or something, the guitar bansheeing from the amp.

  Plunging through the rear door into the stone passage, his legs weak and cold, like poor bloody Aelwyn's. Dashing across the lawn towards the trees, for shelter.

  Sanctuary.

  Realizing now how perishing cold he is, slumped under the dripping tree in his T-shirt, canvas shoes soaked through. But not cold like Aelwyn and not cold like ... who?

  Now, out here on the edge of the wood, comes another voice, the only voice he ever wants to hear.

  'Tell me about it. Davey, for God's sake ...'

  He mumbles, 'I love vou.'

  'Davey...!'

  He opens his eyes, sees concern furrowing her forehead. She's edged with gold from the lights in the house, and he's starting to cry, just wanting to hold her and lose himself in the dark wildwood of her hair. Drunk with relief, he's burbling through the tears, 'Oh God, I love you, Moira, I really love you.'

  'Davey, listen, something awful bad's going down.'

  'Can we go away together? I really do love you, Moira. Can we ...?'

  'Sure. Oh, Davey, please, you have to tell me what you saw.'

  'If I tell you, can we go away?'

  'Oh Jesus, Davey,' Moira says ruefully. 'I think we'll all be going away soon.'

  Ten minutes later, she's saying, 'Where? Where was this?'

  'I couldn't tell you. I'm sorry. How long have I been out here?'

  'An hour. Maybe more. We couldny find you. Davey, think yourself back. Come on now.'

  Moira is standing on the edge of the lawn, shivering in her stupid black velvet frock, the kind of frock fortune tellers wear at the village fete. The session broken up into chaos and recriminations, Russell throwing up his hands, Lee hurling his drumsticks at the wall. Not everybody wanting even to look for Dave.

  Dave says, 'What about you?'

  'I ... I can't remember, Davey,' Moira lies. 'Like a bad dream after you wake up. and, like, all you recall is the atmosphere.'

  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.'

  Tail-lights wobble as the Land Rover hits the dirt track.

  Moira says softly, 'Lee, this is no' your problem, OK? You'll have the full fee, whatever happens.'

  'I don't believe this.' Lee turns away in disgust. 'You bastards need putting away.'

  Simon waits until the studio door has slammed behind Lee. 'Right. We're obviously not going on with this. I don't think we need a vote on it, do we?'

  'I think we can safely speak for Tom.' Dave picks up Lee's torch. 'He won't be back. He's had it with invoking ghosts.'

  'We all have, Dave. But if we walk away, we have to accept that's it for the band. Irreconcilable musical difference is, I think, the usual term. We'll have to say that.'

  'Hang on,' Dave said, 'I don't think I understand.'

  'It's simple. If we're still together as a band. Max Goff will sue us for breach of contract. He'll nail us to the wall. He'll know we can't afford the action - except for Tom, maybe, so he'll try and force us to come back.'

  'Sod that,' says Dave.

  'But if we've split up, he'll know there's no prospect of that. He may decide to write us off. What I thought ... I'll ... I'll go and see him myself. Come to an understanding.'

  Simon's face, half-lit, is entirely without expression. Moira knows how much he hates Goff. She also knows that Goff does not hate genteel, willowy Simon. 'We'll all go,' she says carefully.

  'No.' Simon's smile is sad, rueful. 'That wouldn't be appropriate. I'll do it.'

  Moira watches the Land Rover's red tail-lights fading into

  the night mist. She looks up at the Abbey. As usual, it seems to be gazing down on her with an ancient knowledge and a frightening edge of derision. The part housing the studio has a single sawn-off tower, with windows where once, presumably, there were only slits. She looks to Dave, who shakes his head.

  'Too small, too old. This was in a city, I think. Doesn't matter now, though, does it?'

  Moira shakes he
r head too, knowing that neither of them believes it doesn't matter, and then she says what she ought to have said hours ago.

  Dave, who just a minute ago thought he couldn't get any colder, cries out, 'No!'

  'Listen.' Moira's is a lonely voice, but calm, all too calm. 'This has to be the real end. I mean, we're no' gonny work together again, are we?'

  Adding, as if she can feel him reaching out for her, 'Davey, love, we're no' safe together. We're too much.'

  'We need each other,' he protests hopelessly. Knowing she's shaking her head. He needs her; she doesn't need him. Or she wouldn't be saying this.

  'You could've ... come to some harm tonight, Davey. We've become unlucky. Simon knows that, don't you, Si?'

  Simon doesn't reply. Moira says, more harshly, 'We're the band that should never've been, a bloody toxic cocktail. We daren't see each other again.'

  Dave turns away, clenching his fists. Wanting to sob. He doesn't, it would be despicable. How can he possibly walk away, and just forget about her? He's thinking, wish I'd died, like ... like who?

  He's looking towards the east, where there's no suggestion of a dawn. Around them, there's an unnatural silence, as if all three know what's coming next. As if they're all waiting for the sound which will prove how right Moira is and will snap the spine of the night.

  In the long, heartsick days to come, Dave Reilly, approaching his twenty-seventh birthday, is going to drive himself half-crazy playing it all back. Always ending in tears. And flames.

  It's as if time's mechanisms have gone haywire, all the shattering moments of the night occurring simultaneously in one endlessly distressing present-moment. The dark fortress and the broken glasses and a prolonged rending and mangling of metal. And Moira breathing, 'Jesus ... no?' - an appeal for divine intercession in the split second before it happens.

  Before they turn as one and run out of the entrance onto the slippery track leading into an oblivion of hills and forestry and starless sky, and it begins to rain.

  Maybe two hundred yards along the dirt track, they see a lone, steamy headlight beam, pointing vaguely into the sky like a dying prayer and then dissipating into mist. A single, faraway scream is cruelly amplified by the valley, beneath it the distant,