December (62 page)

      
The name of the game is
Don't Worry Tom.

      
'It didn't work out, though. Never made it to the shops either,
that one, did it, Sile?'

      
'No,' Sile said coldly. His eyes were like stones. 'Tell me,
where are the other two, Moira Cairns and Dave?'

      
'Very tired,' Prof said. 'Know what I mean?'

      
He was tired too and he knew that if he didn't get out of
here, whether it was outside for a walk in the cold night or upstairs to bed,
he was going to go over to the bar and order himself a drink. And then he'd
have another drink and another and he'd end up slagging somebody off in a big
way.

      
He looked at them all, from face to face, Case to Simon to Tom
to Meryl. To Sile.
  
He'd had enough of
Case and now Copesake and all this bullshit. Time for some straight talking.

      
'Listen.' He rapped the table. 'Listen, what you're saying -
let's get this right - is what this band, the Philosopher's Stone did at the
Abbey has, like, messed it up. The Abbey. As a studio. As an Abbey. Whatever.
Or that's what people are saying. Left kind of a hex behind, a curse, whatever
you want to call it. Is that the language we're talking, Sile? Is that what
we're saying? You believe in this hoodoo shit?'

      
Sile made no reply, just looked at him with an eyebrow raised,
a very faint eyebrow, a smudge.

      
Prof said, 'Why don't you just come clean? TMM been landed
with the Abbey, part of the Epidemic package, and you want to turn it into an
earner again. Make it into the major studio it ought to've been first time
around. Remove the stain.'
      
'Now just a minute ...' Case was
half-way out of his seat, Sile waved him back.

      
Prof said, 'Mention the Abbey to anybody in the business now,
all they can remember is it's where Tom had his personal tragedy. Release that
album as it stands and it's so fucking scary, nobody except a few young weirdos
are gonna want to record there ever again, and you got a bloody great ruined
white elephant on your books. How'm I doing so far?'
      
Sile was smiling faintly.

      
'But you bring the legendary Tom out of his hermit's cave, you
take him back to where it all went wrong, and Tom straps on his axe and comes
out like - what's that western with Lee Marvin as this old pissed-up gunfighter
who makes a blazing comeback? Anyway, the result is not only a piece of history
but a hot new album and everybody's laughing, right?'

      
He looked again from face to face. Case looked uncomfortable.
Simon expressionless. Tom smiling kind of sardonically. Meryl distinctly
disappointed because Meryl didn't want to hear about commercial ventures and
business scams, what Meryl wanted was the supernatural.
      
'Sure.' Sile Copesake threw up his
hands. 'Whatever you say, Prof, whatever you say.'

      
'What's that supposed to mean?'

      
'But for whatever reason,' Sile said, 'everybody turned up,
didn't they? It must be
some
kind of
magic place, don't you think?'

The sense of
déjà vu
was overpowering. For long, long
minutes, December eighth, nineteen-eighty was no more than a membrane away.

      
Trying to unwrap Davey's subconscious was like that passing-the-parcel-game,
or peeling an onion.
      
'Look,' she said - she was sitting
next to him on the bed, holding his hand - 'somehow, you made a connection. You
linked into it. You had a vision. That doesny mean …'

      
'Yeh, but why?' His eyes were all glassy. He still wasn't fully
out of it. 'Why did I get that vision? Why was I with him when he died? Why did
I
become
him? You know I did, Moira.
You know I did.'

      
And poor wee Davey began to sob again, sitting on the edge of
the bed, slumped over the Martin guitar, his chin tucked into the rosewood
valley of the soundbox.

      
Moira remembered his story in the fax, about the Liverpool
blackout, how he'd wept over a Takamine in a music shop and the guy who ran the
shop said he'd christened it now, he might as well buy it.

      
Now he'd christened the Martin, the M38 that cost an arm and a
leg in Glasgow.

      
Helpless in the face of his total disorientation, his refusal
to accept his surroundings or that she was here with him and
real
and alive, she'd returned to her own room and fetched the guitar, put it
on his knees. He'd fumbled around for ages, like he'd never handled a guitar
before.

      
And then he'd started to play this awful, bitter song about
Patience Strong on a bad day, repeating the same lines over and over again.

                       
If you
die tonight
                       
Who has the last
laugh?
                       
If that's your
epitaph
                       
What can I say?

      
A song she'd never heard before.

      
Dave lifted his head, wet-eyed. 'I'm sorry. I'm making a mess
of your guitar. I told you I was a basket-case.'

      
'It's no' my guitar,' Moira said, it's your guitar. You had it
stolen when you came North to find me that time, remember?'

      
'Huh?' He stared down, bewildered, at the instrument in his
arms. 'That was an old Jumbo, this is ...'

      
'An M38 Grand Auditorium,' Moira said. 'You don't really like
it, do you?'

      
'It's ...' He ran his hand over the golden spruce top. It's wonderful.
It's bloody lovely. I haven't got a guitar. I had one, but it was stolen from Muthah
...' He looked up at her. 'I don't understand.'
      
'You don't have to understand,'
Moira said.

      
'They cost a fortune.'

      
Moira shrugged. 'Play "Dakota Blues",' she said.
      
'Moira?' His eyes full of a
sorrowful longing, like one of Donald's Dobermans. 'You are here, aren't you?'
      
She squeezed his hand. 'Aye, I am,
Davey.'
      
'And you're OK?' he asked
strangely. 'You're not ... unwell?' '

      
'Jesus, I'm fine. Play "Dakota Blues", huh.'
      
This was the only song of his she'd
heard since the band split; she was figuring it might loosen something.
      
'I can't remember the chords.'

      
'Aw, come on, Davey, even
I
can remember the damn chords and I never played it. It's a basic twelve-bar
blues format and then you come back down ...'

      
But his fingers had already structured an E-chord and he was
thumbing a bass line. He drew a breath and Moira held hers until what came out
was not Lennon's voice but Dave's voice, a little nasal but definitely Dave's
own voice.

Coolin' my heels
In Strawberry Fields
I can't find no peace there.

The night is breathless
Kirsty's restless
She don't care.

No hope of solace
Or redemption
In the air.

Seven long years since I
heard the news
I'm still wakin' in the night
With the ...

Dave's right hand slammed
out a final ringing chord

... DAKOTA BLUES.

      
Moira said softly, 'Who was Kirsty?'

      
Dave laid the guitar on the bed behind him. 'Just this girl I
took to New York in 1986. Two-day Winter Break. She was ten years younger than
me, and we hadn't got a lot in common anyway. The second night we went to have
a look at Strawberry Fields, the Lennon memorial area in Central Park, but she wasn't
really interested. She wandered off and left me sitting there on a bench, and
that was when I started writing the song.'

      
'So you saw the Dakota.'

      
'Can't miss it, can you?'

      
'And was it...?'

      
He nodded. 'A great, towering Gothic chateau with turrets and
cupolas and ...'
      
'A black flower?'

      
'Some sort of fountain, like a black metal flower. There's a line
in the second verse about "metal petals".'

      
'I know.' Moira sighed. 'We've got so much to talk about and
so little time.'

      
She saw the reproach in his eyes. His eyes said,
We've had fourteen years to talk about it.
Where did you go?

      
'This ...' Moira hesitated. 'This question of redemption ...'

      
'That's why we're here, isn't it?'

      
'Look at me,' she said. 'Do you know why you're here, Davey?'

      
He looked at her. He still seemed very young, though his hair
was going grey.

      
'All kinds of reasons,' he said. 'Redemption's one - chance of
getting some, maybe that. Last hope of getting rid of the black bon ... of
seeing bad things on people.'

      
'What d'you mean?'

      
'I don't want to talk about that, do you mind? And there was
an implied blackmail bit - they could release "On a Bad Day", make me
look like a scumbag. Well, that's no big deal. The main reason ... Oh, what the
hell, we're here, aren't we?'

      
He didn't look at her when he said this. The main reason was
that
she
was going to be here. Moira
felt like shit. She stood by his bedside and looked down at wee, sad-eyed
Davey, wanted to love him and almost made it. She wished she hadn't bought him
the Martin guitar; it seemed like such a cheap gesture now.

      
She sat down next to him, squeezed his hand really hard.

      
'We're gonna do it, Davey. We're going in there and we're
gonna replay it. Our way this time.'

      
'But are we going to come out?'

      
'Hey, don't be ridiculous,' Moira said, tapping his hand
against her knee, thinking,
Good
question.

      
Then there was another tapping behind her.
      
'Moira? Dave?'

      
A familiar, well-modulated voice the other side of the door.
Moira was about to call out to him to come in when it occurred her Simon might
have Tom with him, and the sight of a wretched Dave and a tear-stained guitar
could send the big guy prematurely into orbit.

      
'Stay there,' Moira said. 'Don't move. I'll be back.'

Simon. Jesus, it was good
to see him. Pliable Simon. Willowy, amiable Simon.

      
And the dog-collar ...

      
'It suits you. It really suits you.'

      
'It's not a fashion statement,' Simon said. He was alone, thank
God.

      
'No, I mean it suits you,' Moira said. 'The whole priestly thing.'

      
'Wish I could agree with you,' Simon said ruefully, flicking
back a lock of fair hair, just like he used to - except the hair was perhaps a
little paler now. 'Listen, Moira, we need to do some urgent talking. Like, now.
Where's Dave?'

      
'Dave's asleep,' Moira lied. 'Dave's ... exhausted. What I
mean is, I don't think it would be good for Tom to see Dave right now.'

      
'You mean he's fucked up?'

      
'Let's just say we've a lot of stuff to unload before he's exposed
to Tom.'

      
'But meanwhile,' Simon said, 'we're being pushed into a corner
down there. We've got Steve Case and Sile Copesake from TMM trying to manhandle
us into a situation that seems uncannily reminiscent of the last time, you know
what I mean?
Fait accompli
? Out of
our hands?'

      
'Terrific'

      
'I'm sorry. I just didn't expect this. My idea was to book us
in here for a couple of nights so we could really hammer this thing out between
us before Monday. And then we could hang it on them. It didn't allow for the
bastards turning up before we could even get our stuff unpacked. Anyway, I'm
stalling. I just went to the loo, as it were.'