‘Oh, nothing,’ I said, falling silent.
Tristan reached over and discreetly patted my arm to reassure me.
‘So who’s the focus?’ asked Penelope, sitting upright and winding her arms around her knees. ‘The Receiver?’
There was a brief pause while Lucy pulled out another card – this one a Princess of Wands.
‘It’s Wands,’ said Lucy. ‘So it’s me.’
There was a tiny burst of clinked glasses at this.
‘Hooray for Lucy!’ said Tess, and the others cheered and drank. In the scattered conversation that erupted afterwards, I turned to Tristan and gently tugged on his sleeve.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said quietly. After my humiliation before, I was reluctant to approach any of the others with my questions, even Aaron. ‘What’s going to happen at this ritual?’
He ran his fingers through his golden hair. ‘Well …’ He glanced uneasily over his shoulder. Penelope’s attention was focused on us, her pale brows lowering. The change in Tristan was sudden, startling. ‘Oh, I don’t know … really Aaron or Lucy should be explaining this to you.’
‘Nina’s instruction will begin tomorrow,’ said Aaron. I nearly jumped. I hadn’t the slightest idea he’d been listening to us. ‘So there’s no need for more questions now.’
‘Right,’ said Tristan nervously. ‘I wouldn’t want to do anything out of place.’
‘No, you wouldn’t.’ Aaron rose from his chair and beckoned to me. ‘Come on. Sleep well, everybody.’
* * *
That night I lay next to Aaron in his giant bed, the sweat drying on my skin. The night was low, cloudy and close, the moon a smudge of distant light through the window. In the background, ‘Childhood’s End’ from Green Eyed Monster started playing on the tiny, hugely expensive CD player he kept in his bedroom.
It was the one song on the debut Boarhounds album that Aaron hadn’t sung on.
He lay on his back, cupping the end of his cigarette with one large brown hand, which he lit with a golden Zippo. Burning tobacco joined the scents of sex and joss sticks in the room.
Noticing which song was on, he reached towards the bedside table, grabbed the remote and quickly skipped it forwards so that ‘Mean River’ started playing.
‘You always do that,’ I murmured from my pillow.
‘What?’
‘You fast-forward through “Childhood’s End”. You never—’
‘Why would I want that arsehole Geoff Carter singing in here?’ His bitterness was raw, acidic enough to etch glass. He dropped the lighter back on to the bedside table. ‘He can’t even hold a tune.’
It was the first time I had ever heard Aaron directly criticize anyone. Normally, he just talked vaguely of ‘negative influences’.
I knew who Geoff Carter was. He was one of the Boarhounds’ founding members. I had seen his picture all over the house, in any group photo of the band. He was a smallish, slender man with a sandy ponytail, invariably dressed in tidy new blue jeans and a checked shirt.
‘Geoff Carter. What a cunt,’ muttered Aaron. That cold, steely tone was back. ‘He’s desperate to destroy me.’
‘Oh,’ I said. I had no idea how to reply. No one had ever said that word to me out loud in conversation before. It’s practically mainstream now, but back in the Eighties it existed in some Neverland beyond the F word.
The world was still young then. When I was sixteen, Daddy had nearly slapped me for saying ‘bloody hell’ to him.
Aaron lay back and let smoke plume out of his nose. I had wanted to start smoking – the others did, except for Penelope – but Aaron had remarked, in a seemingly offhand way when I mentioned it, that he loved the fact that I didn’t taste of smoke when he kissed me, so that was that.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, shifting towards him. ‘The solo album will be huge. He’ll be so jealous. I’m sure he’s already sorry you left.’
‘Hmm …’ said Aaron. He sucked in smoke again.
The solo album, provisionally titled The Magus, played constantly in the background during our days and nights. Lucy danced before the fire to the slow ballads, and the others nodded along to its beats in the car or kitchen.
I nodded and danced too, praising it effusively along with everyone else. But in my private, secret self, I dreaded the moment it was put on, usually on Lucy’s suggestion. The fact was, I didn’t like it. It was ponderous, thudding, but also thin-sounding; Aaron’s voice was a low groaning in it, the high notes escaping him with embarrassing ease, leaving him squeaking in pursuit, and the lyrics were facile, boring – nothing like the sexy, slow-burning innuendo of Green Eyed Monster.
There wasn’t a single discernible tune on the whole thing. And I had heard it over and over and over. If there were one, I would know about it by now.
You might be wondering right now, my dearest heart, how I handled learning my idol had feet of clay, or at least a tin ear. The short answer is, I didn’t learn. Or rather, I rationalized it away, as I did much else – after all, I told myself, I understood nothing about rock music.
Yes, it was true, there were tracks from the Boarhounds which I enjoyed, but the Boarhounds were so much more commercial and sold-out than Aaron – mere pap for the masses, as Penelope drawlingly described it. Aaron was operating on a much higher plane.
‘You think the solo album will be a hit?’ he asked, tapping his cigarette into his glass paisley-printed ashtray. His tone was flat and bored, but not enough to hide his need.
His vulnerability stirred a deep tenderness within me.
‘I know it,’ I said.
I simply couldn’t understand his genius properly, I decided, and the fault was mine, not his. Plenty would understand it, in time. Perhaps, with practice, so would I.
‘I have so many enemies, Nina.’ He sighed and exhaled more smoke. ‘You wouldn’t understand, in your sweet, simple little world, but I do. So much envy, so much doubt …’ He closed his eyes, and for a long moment I enjoyed the unguarded spectacle of him.
The silence deepened, lengthened.
‘We all have to band together, Nina,’ he breathed, reaching out to ruffle my hair. ‘I told you, when you first came here, that we have to deserve revelation. To do that, we have to live communally. Love communally.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘And that demands big, big sacrifices, sometimes. Things that might hurt us. But it’s for the greater good.’
His eyes were still closed.
‘Yes,’ I said, but a little prickle of anxiousness was stirring at the nape of my neck. The close air was chilly now on my bare skin.
‘The bonds between us – they need to be strong. Reinforced.’ He opened his eyes and looked at me. ‘Can you do that?’
‘Of course.’ I had no idea what he meant.
‘You’re sure?’ he asked.
‘Of course I’m sure. I love you. I’d do anything for you.’
His eyebrows raised and he let out a bitter snort. ‘People have said that before, Nina. Actions speak louder than words. We have to give all we can to the work.’
‘Just tell me what to do.’ I reached out and stroked the perfect muscles of his arm. ‘I’ll do it.’
There was a long pause. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We need to pool our love, our resources, our energy.’ He sucked in more smoke. ‘Primarily sexual energy,’ he said.
He kept looking at me.
‘I d-don’t understand,’ I said, but horribly, I thought I was beginning to.
‘It’s important,’ he said, slowly and clearly, so there was no mistake, ‘that we don’t get hung up on exclusive attachments. As one of the focuses of the ritual, I need to share that energy with the others.’
‘I see,’ I breathed. My chest felt crushed.
‘We need to share. To become more than the mundane. To become more than we are.’ His voice was rising again in that declamatory way.
‘I …’
‘Oh, little Nina. I know this is hard for you.
But it will make you grow so much as a person.’
‘I … I see.’ I didn’t know what else to say. ‘But I don’t know if I could … you know, sleep with the others …’
‘Baby, you don’t have to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. It’s enough that you understand it. That you understand my role.’
I didn’t answer, but I didn’t have to. He had stubbed out the cigarette and was leaning over, taking me in his arms, and his mouth was on my own, swallowing up any further questions I might have. He tasted of smoke. ‘You’ll see,’ he said, raising his head for a second to pierce me once more with those dark eyes. ‘And it will be beautiful, Nina. Trust me.’
Chapter Fourteen
This is so much harder than I imagined it would be, Sophia. It’s almost impossible to describe to someone who wasn’t involved what the experience of being in that house, in the Order of Ascendants, was like.
It was an all-involving lifestyle – Aaron provided everything for us, and very quickly we became infantilized; rarely sober and dependent upon him for so many things; for his approval, his conviction that we were all special, gifted, meant to be together. I’d noticed that the sunlight of his love was every day becoming just a tiny smidgeon harder to obtain – vanishing like the end of a rainbow into a hazy distance; retreating as you walked towards it.
He was sure of me now. He no longer had to work at seducing me. It was up to me to do the running.
We were standing in the dining room, my back to the camera on its tripod. Together we would perform the ritual in this very room. We would rehearse in the mornings, so I could learn the proper words. A large part of this rehearsal would involve meditation to ‘open me up’ to the ‘creative energies’ that the chants would raise.
‘We have our own special chants that Aaron has devised,’ said Lucy. She was looking rather self-satisfied in her floaty black skirt, her eyes huge with kohl. She was wearing her talisman and tiny silver ankh earrings. I think she was enjoying being in a position to school me.
Nobody had offered me one of the order’s talismans yet – the circle with a cross in it. Tristan’s was visible whenever he leaned over, and Penelope’s gold talisman usually nestled somewhere under her high-necked frilly Princess Di blouses.
I was too shy to ask when I would get my own. Presumably once I mastered whatever Lucy was going to teach me, and I became a fully functional member of the order.
Wolf didn’t seem to have one either, or if he did he didn’t wear it.
‘What does Wolf do?’ I asked, curious.
‘Wolf chronicles our spiritual journey,’ said Aaron, with a drawl that was becoming more and more common, the one that signalled the conversation was boring him. As if I was boring him.
‘Like a reporter?’
‘No,’ said Aaron, while Lucy’s expression underwent a strange change, her bright coral-painted lips thinning. ‘Wolf films the ritual.’ He waved towards the camera on its tripod.
‘Films it?’
‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘All iterations of the ritual are taped for posterity.’ She didn’t meet my eyes when she said this. ‘It’s so that we can capture any spoken revelations during the ritual that we can’t remember later.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Cool.’ I felt uneasy. Lucy was, if nothing else, enthusiastic about everything at Morningstar, Aaron’s cheerleader-in-chief. She was the good cop to Penelope’s genteelly sneering bad cop. That said, she did not seem particularly happy about Wolf and his role, and furthermore, I could tell Aaron sensed this about her and that it was making him angry again. That icy disapproval radiated out of him, and I knew that whatever happened we needed to stop making him feel that way.
‘So are there a lot of tapes?’ I asked brightly. I could hear the rising lilt in my voice – this ebullient chatter was exactly how I used to deflect Daddy’s bad moods at home.
‘A few,’ growled Aaron.
Lucy remained silent.
‘The taping isn’t always successful. We’ve suffered from the negative forces that some members bring. It’s vital,’ he continued, eyeing Lucy as he spoke, ‘that we work hard on the meditations so that these negative, wheedling forces of doubt and negativity are crushed. We can’t expect revelation while we’re whining and second-guessing the process.’
‘Absolutely,’ agreed Lucy. ‘If Nina has problems with the ritual being filmed, that creates problems for everyone, not just herself.’
‘You don’t have to take part if you don’t want to,’ said Aaron to me, as though I was too painfully stupid to be bothered with. ‘I have important things to do. Lucy, you carry on.’
‘Of course.’
And out he went, leaving me alone with her.
‘Now, first of all …’
I blinked, wondering whether I had missed something. Somehow, right before my eyes, Lucy’s reluctance about the camera had been transmuted into mine, and I was in trouble with Aaron over it.
You’d think I’d have said something, but I was too powerfully confused and taken aback. I wasn’t sure what had just happened.
It was a feeling I would grow more and more used to.
* * *
Ten days after Lucy and Tristan’s trip to the bank, we were sitting together in the kitchen around the oak table when the news about the money came through. It was about four o’clock. Aaron had been in London to talk to his agent about his solo album. He’d returned and gone upstairs, and we were waiting for him to come back down and join us.
We were always a little lost, aware of ourselves as lacking, when he wasn’t with us.
Over time, it was becoming clearer to me what everyone’s role was. Penelope managed Aaron’s business affairs. It was she who answered the phone, her impeccably spoken ‘Hello?’ soft and yet capable of being heard in nearly any room of the house. It was she who booked the car, organized his diary, read his post – either at the breakfast table or in his private study, a place on the upper floor near his room which I had never been admitted to.
Lucy recruited newcomers and trained them.
Wolf was allegedly the photographer, though I never saw him with the camera. As a rule, he sat about and smoked endlessly with the other men, sometimes jamming with Aaron on his instruments, can of beer in hand.
Tess’s role was still hidden, unless it was simply that of mascot, but this evening I was about to find out what purpose Tristan served.
Michelle had cooked us a lasagne for later, and we had cooed over the crates of champagne and other treats that had been pre-emptively ordered in anticipation of Aaron’s return.
Tristan had been telling a story about how he’d first met Lucy.
‘It was Glastonbury, I think,’ he said.
‘Who knows?’ said Lucy, sitting cross-legged on the stool near the door, enjoying the attention.
‘Somehow I’d lost Xanthe …’
‘That was your girlfriend’s name?’ asked Wolf, disbelievingly. ‘Xanthe? Who gets called Xanthe?’
‘I think it’s a pretty name,’ I said.
‘You would,’ replied Wolf, with a contemptuous snort.
‘You’re one to talk about names, Mr Wolf,’ said Penelope, regarding him through lowered lashes and offering him a small smile. ‘What’s your real name?’
‘Mind your own business,’ he said curtly.
‘So, while I was there,’ continued Tristan, ‘I got talking to some other guys at the chillout tent, and one of them was Lucy—’
‘FUCK!’
It was Aaron, upstairs in the master bedroom, which was on the other side of the house. His roar thundered through the long gallery and barrelled down the stairs alongside the crashing sound of some object being hurled with immense force against the wall.
‘FUCKING FUCK!’
We all froze. In the resulting silence I could hear the kitchen clock timer ticking, the tiny burning hiss of Wolf’s perpetual spliff as it flaked into ash.
We all looked at Lucy, who appeared lost. The colour had drain
ed from her face, and her red lipstick looked like dead blood. She in turn cut her eyes at Penelope, and without another word the two of them vanished into the hall, where we heard the stealthy creak of them mounting the stairs.
We waited a few seconds, straining to listen.
‘What is it, do you think?’ asked Tess, wide-eyed.
‘Bad news,’ said Wolf. ‘That’s what I think.’ He looked at Tristan, who had gone sheet-white. ‘You sure there wasn’t a problem at the bank when you went, mate?’
Tristan stood up and rushed out as well.
Wolf watched him go, and Tess followed Tristan to the door, peering up after him before disappearing herself.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
Wolf grinned nastily. ‘I think Tristan’s family have turned the tap off, love, that’s what I think.’
‘What do you mean?’
He raised a dark eyebrow and waggled it. ‘Who do you think pays for all this?’ He gestured around theatrically, bottle of Pils in hand.
‘Aaron does, right?’
He smiled thinly, shaking his head. He leaned forward, stealing a glance towards the door the others had melted through. ‘You reckon, eh?’
I was completely confused, as though I was being told a joke and didn’t understand the punchline. ‘Of course he does. Aaron’s rich. He’s got this house, he’s a star …’
‘A star?’ Wolf drummed his heels against the legs of his chair in mock excitement. My naivety obviously delighted him. ‘Yeah, a star! With one album behind him, just before he got his spoiled, prima donna arse fired from the band?’ Wolf laughed. He reached into the pocket of his denim jacket and pulled his tobacco tin out. ‘He lives waaaaaay beyond his means, petal. He’s spent every penny he owns and he’s not getting another cheque till February. And the taxman will be having all of that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s broke, that’s what I mean.’ He was putting together yet another roll-up. ‘Not a pot to piss in.’
‘No.’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘But how … that doesn’t make any sense.’
Everything Is Lies Page 15