The Long Dark Road

by P. R. Black

  ‘I’m going to say something to you that you won’t like – you’ve got to rest it for a few days, and take some Ibuprofen. You can expect it to be painful for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Ah, that’s not quite what I want to hear. Got lots to do, you know.’

  Georgia nodded towards Susan, who had somehow appeared at the doorway to the cocktail lounge, entirely unbidden but absolutely on time, so far as Georgia could see. She frowned at the sight of Georgia’s hands on the small of her boss’s back.

  ‘I’m sure Susan could climb a ladder or two for you, Sir Oliver.’

  13

  How to look good on a night out, in the era of Cornfed:

  1.

  (rest of the page is blank)

  From the diary of Stephanie Healey

  An age-old problem, Georgia thought, staring into the mirror back at her apartment. It was a long time since she’d worried about dressing for any occasion. In the end she decided to go with comfortable over presentable. Boots – knee-high, not the beetle-crushers she’d taken out onto the wilderness. Oil-effect jeans, which were getting a little long in the tooth, and which Georgia knew would be like parting with a beloved pet once they gave up the ghost. A maroon bodysuit that she had sometimes worn to work on the odd occasion, and which had drawn comments from Dr Owens, easily the biggest sleaze she had ever worked with. Over the top she wore a short-sleeved blazer, which would have done quite nicely at work or if she’d decided to go to the pub quiz at The Drake with Rod.

  This triggered a memory of the time Stephanie had gone with them, one Tuesday during the Easter holidays. She’d still been at school and still under-age, but they’d gotten her a wine or two, and their team, The Wise Old Owls, had finished a creditable third. There had been lots of other mothers, fathers and children – people they knew, familiar faces. Georgia knew many of them through her practice, of course, both inside and out, but she’d known a strange pleasure in seeing Stephanie speaking to a schoolmate, a tall rugby-playing lad with fair hair and long eyelashes. She had been confident and pretty with a slight flush at her cheek. Credit Pinot Grigio for the blush… or maybe not. Georgia had been delighted with her daughter that night, even surprised at how much she’d known for her age. They’d gone home in the taxi, all quite merry, all quite happy. Was it the last time? Hadn’t there been a Christmas or two in between?

  Georgia sat down, and her head spun. After a time, she clicked on the kettle and tore open a sachet of instant coffee… and then another, doubling down. It wasn’t her coffee maker back home, but frankly nothing was. She was tired. Sitting down on the bed was dangerous; lying back on it would be fatal. I almost died today, she thought. I can have a night off.

  But not tonight. Not with these people.

  She looked up the Megiddos online, of course. Though she hadn’t had the time, nor particularly the inclination, to get used to their music, she’d watched the top videos on YouTube. They’d been at Glastonbury just that summer. The top video, for a song entitled ‘Tears Never Dry’, saw the band performing at just the right time, as the sun sank in front of an absurd sea of heads, with a sky from a Turner painting above turning everything a crepuscular crimson, purple and gold. There was a backing band on bass, drums and keys, but the two main men were front and centre, and the only two permanent members: Riley Brightman, and Scott Trickett.

  Brightman, Georgia knew of. He’d even made his way into the newspaper gossip columns and magazines she occasionally flicked through during a tea break at the surgery. Beautiful, rather than handsome, taken to shading his eyelashes in black, but with a firm jawline and short, pure black hair with the sheen of a house-cat’s coat. He was just pretty enough for girls to fall in love with, just alternative-looking to get away with the boys’ vote, too, with irresistible blue eyes. On stage he wore what appeared to be a Byronic, loose chemise, which someone had attacked with scissors. Onstage banter between Brightman and Trickett had revolved around how Brightman kept getting the material caught in his guitar strings. Later on, they’d brought on someone from Coldplay or Mumford & Sons for a duet, but Georgia hadn’t kept watching for that. Brightman was an engaging stage presence, polite – and a fine counterpoint for Trickett.

  Scott Trickett was only twenty-two, the same age as Riley Brightman, but looked a good deal older. Or perhaps he hadn’t weathered as well; he was stout, and wearing black T-shirts most of the time, with a reddish hairline. Georgia couldn’t be sure if he was receding, or if his jowls and chin had grown too large for his forehead. She could spot a drinker; he was probably a precocious one. If this was how he looked age twenty-two, then God knows how forty-two would look, or fifty-two. He had small eyes, too, and the temptation was to feel sorry for the bigger, but shorter man, playing guitar and singing back-up to a star.

  Their stage banter belied this. ‘How’s it going so far?’ Brightman had inquired, at the end of ‘Tears Never Dry’. While the audience had responded with typical enrapturement, Trickett stepped up to his mic and asked: ‘And how much of a nonce does Riley look tonight?’

  Brightman seemed the fall guy for the jokes, and he took it in good part along with the audience. But while he sang, Brightman was clearly the star, the one the camera focused on. His voice was good, Georgia had to admit, throaty and deep, belying his age, and capable of some gymnastics that made her think of Jeff Buckley, maybe the last male singer-songwriter she had secretly adored. Screams regularly greeted his every utterance, in between songs, but he was perhaps too well aware of how good he looked, in typical rock god pose, his guitar neglected for the moment, both hands clutched to the mic stand, neck corded, legs splayed.

  Georgia smiled at this. It was something you didn’t dare vocalise, along with finding policemen awfully young these days. She’d seen it come and go, these rock stars, these fads. Most of them had one album and two or three singles, a little bit of time in the sun, and as often as not they were gone. For a brief period, their number-one singles were attached to car adverts, and their agent might set up jocose appearances on panel shows. But before they knew it, they were dumped by record labels. It didn’t seem to be so different in the digital era. They were just as disposable, although not as liable to clog up your shelves or, ultimately, your loft.

  When had she last gone to a concert? She’d accompanied a widowed aunt to a Michael Ball show a while back, but she’d done that under duress (though he had been tremendous, to be fair). How about bands? She’d done a festival in Hyde Park headlined by Lionel Richie, so it could have been that, but that had felt sanitised, as if she’d actually seen it on television and misremembered having been there in person. A real concert, a real gig – with drinks before it, and excited chatter in the queue, then a club night afterwards. When had it been? What decade?

  It was a mild night, and the streets seemed unusually busy. The venue was The Orchard, a cavernous space that had one been a warehouse, converted by some canny operators into a concert venue and exhibition hall five or six years ago. It was the sort of place that might host youth theatre during the day, with mother and baby events in the café, and welcome bands in at night. A decent-sized venue, about two thousand capacity. Walking up to the venue, with its spotlit billboard, black letters on a white background, Georgia realised that the crowds and the young girls in particular were there for her daughter.

  CONCERT FOR STEPHANIE, read the billboard. Beneath that, simply: THE MEGIDDOS, plus SPECIAL GUESTS.

  The queue was already around the front of the building when Georgia took her place. The audience was mainly young and female, and she tried to swallow that increasingly familiar feeling of looking her age. Three girls just ahead of her did offer her a swig of a pre-mixed gin and tonic from a can, which she politely declined.

  One of them, a tall girl with a graceful equine neck and wonderful smoky eyeshadow, asked her: ‘You seen the Megiddos before?’

  ‘First time. I’m looking forward to it though.’

  ‘I’ve seen them six times,’ she
said. ‘I entered the ballot for Glastonbury – I think they’ll headline this year. You must have seen that, last year. They were the best band of the day.’

  ‘I did see that – ‘Tears Never Dry’ was amazing.’

  ‘It always is. God knows how it didn’t make number one. I think this is an acoustic show tonight – just Riley and Trickett. I reckon it’ll suit a lot of their stuff. Riley writes songs on an acoustic. It’s better for working out the harmonies, he says.’

  Georgia had run out of things to say about the amazing Megiddos and their cosmological career path, and she certainly didn’t want to get into a discussion with a superfan who knew everything about them, including their favourite toothpaste. ‘Who’s the support band, do you know?’

  ‘Some local chancers,’ the tall girl said, taking a swig. ‘Who cares?’

  One of her friends, a short girl in a shorter dress who shivered in spite of the mild conditions, said: ‘You into Riley, then?’

  ‘He’s a great singer. He could be a star.’

  ‘Could be?’ the second girl spluttered. ‘I think he’s there already, love. I reckon you could be his mother. You’re not his mother, are you?’

  ‘No. Not his mother.’ Georgia felt herself shrivel. There was something feral about the shorter one. This, and the sweet smell of the drinks they were necking, made her feel insecure. She’s basically a child. Get a grip of yourself. And tell her to fuck off, if necessary. ‘Are you his girlfriend?’

  She did laugh at that, all credit to her. ‘Hey, terrible about that lass, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘The one they’re having the concert for, I mean.’

  ‘They never did find out what happened to her,’ said the girl with the long neck.

  ‘Must be awful for her family,’ the shorter girl said. ‘Looks like she killed herself. But imagine not knowing.’ Then, bless her, she offered Georgia a drink from what purported to be a bottle of pink gin and tonic.

  ‘No thanks, I’m driving,’ Georgia lied.

  ‘I reckon someone’s done away with her,’ the tall girl said.

  ‘Yep. Long gone.’ The shorter girl grinned, finished the last of her bottle, and screwed the top back on. ‘She’ll be in someone’s freezer, by now. In different drawers.’

  Georgia took out her phone, and pretended to be busy with a text message.

  When they reached the front of the queue, the three girls were vigorously searched, with the doormen having watched them finish their drinks and then stuff the bottles into a bin before rearranging their clothes. Georgia grinned as the tall girl unbuttoned her top a little. She knew what was coming.

  ‘Are there any spaces on the guest list?’ she asked one of the doormen.

  The bouncer was, to his credit, utterly impassive. ‘I’m afraid the guest list is full tonight.’

  Georgia had a flashback to when she had gone to see Suede, when they were popular the first time around. She’d seen people behave the same way. Things didn’t change quite so much.

  When she stepped up, she made sure she said, loud enough for the three girls to hear as they continued into the venue: ‘I’m on the guest list tonight.’

  The doorman consulted his phone. ‘Name?’

  ‘Georgia Healey.’

  The doorman looked up, blinked, then smiled for the first time. ‘Please step through the barrier to my left, Mrs Healey. You all right?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  Every head turned to follow her progress. The three girls, who were in the process of being frisked by a female steward, looked at her as if she had sprouted a second head. Georgia wished she’d kept her voice down, as she took a trip up the stairs.

  *

  The VIP area was floodlit in purple, with a soft-lit bar that wasn’t particularly busy. It was a broad space on a balcony overlooking the entire area – the kind of place Georgia would have preferred to watch any show, these days. A band was already playing down below, a droning outfit with a floppy-haired singer on a Rickenbacker guitar that seemed broader than he was. He was almost offensively blond, a shade of hair difficult to look at under the rudimentary light show, like staring into the sun. When he dragged his hand through his floppy fringe, which was often, he had a big forehead, Georgia noticed. No one seemed particularly interested, and neither was Georgia, especially after the big screen dominating the space at the back of the stage suddenly lit up, in sharp white and black.

  ‘Find Stephanie Healey – missing, 22 March 2017. Call now if you have any information.’

  Then a number.

  And then, in the white space below, a montage of images Georgia knew very well. A clear-faced student union card ID, the hair clipped back, the chin thrust forward, a strangely confident aspect for such a quiet, diffident girl. Then a cropped image of her cuddled up to a friend whose hair was visible – she was certain this was Adrienne Connulty, with bright red lipstick on that didn’t suit her and a silly grin that she wore even worse. Then her wearing a football strip, part of a team she had decided to try out for. So far as Georgia knew, she hadn’t played a single game, but in a strange way the football kit had suited her angular features. She had her arms folded, in classic team photo pose. Had she just enjoyed the aspect of dressing up? She’d barely even kicked a ball as a child, huffed her way through every PE lesson, made every excuse not to take part in high school. Had she done it for a dare? Was there someone involved that she fancied?

  And then a picture of Stephanie and Georgia, heads leaned into each other, from three Christmases ago. The last Christmas? They had all gone to midnight mass, the biggest laugh being that only Rod was a Catholic, but he’d long gotten out of the habit. It had been a gorgeous moment, on a frigid evening with the night skies having put on their Sunday best with an extraordinary scattering of stars above. Epic, sweet sadness, even while Stephanie was there, in between her and Rod, and the three of them going home in time for a brandy and a Baileys and the fire on, joking that Santa had already been, gazing at the piles of presents and tinselly wrapping, and Georgia had to look away at that point and check her phone.

  Someone touched her elbow, and she jumped.

  Adrienne Connulty held up a hand. ‘Sorry, Georgia, didn’t mean to startle you.’

  They both had to shout, as the support act began their latest drone. ‘Quite all right.’

  ‘Hey,’ Adrienne said, ‘I thought they called this type of thing a warm-up act? If it gets any cooler out there, I’ll ask them to stick the heating on.’

  ‘You know, someone once told me that the big aim of a support band is not to be better than the headliners.’

  ‘Mission accomplished. Get you a drink?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  Adrienne drank from a bottle of beer. She wore a denim jacket and had changed her hair, quite radically, since they’d spoken the day before. She looked like an eighties teen magazine cover star, fresh-faced, blonde and slightly frizzy. Georgia had to admit this suited her. She particularly liked the pin badges on her lapels – ‘The Megiddos’, and also ‘Prat Spaniel’.

  ‘Prat Spaniel? Who are they?’ Georgia asked, pointing to the badge.

  ‘You’re watching them now,’ Adrienne replied, indicating the stage. ‘Or trying to. Local outfit. Riley’s done them a favour, I think.’

  The band finished at that moment to lukewarm applause. The band linked arms and bowed as if they’d finished a residency at the Royal Albert Hall, before the blond singer palmed sweat off his broad forehead and said: ‘Remember why we’re here, folks. We’ll be collecting for the Find Stephanie fund, while the main men are on stage later. We even take contactless. Uh, score one for the digital age. Anyway, enjoy the Megiddos, we’re Prat Spaniel, come and say hello if you see us!’

  Before he left the stage, he raised an expensive-looking camera, and shot the crowd. Even from that distance, Georgia could make out the grin underneath the camera. But neither it, nor the camera’s flash, could quite outshine the stark blond hair.

  ‘Click,’ h
e said, into the microphone, after taking some shots of the crowd. Then they were gone.

  ‘They were OK, I guess,’ Georgia said, applauding gamely. ‘Probably sound better on record.’

  ‘Not sure I’d take the gamble. Anyway… Georgia. I want to say sorry about earlier on. We got off on the wrong foot… I’m not sure what happened. You’re upset, I’m upset… Look, we just want to find out what happened to Stephanie, all right?’

  ‘Of course. Goes without saying.’ Georgia sighed. ‘Look, forget about it. I’m on the lookout for answers. We both know there probably aren’t any answers. I’ll go on like this for as long as I live. I know that. Sometimes it gets to me. I try to hold back, but I can’t. Sometimes things boil over.’

  ‘I get you – I totally get you,’ Adrienne said, leaning an elbow on the balcony and moving closer. ‘I’m a results-based person. You are too – you’ve got to be in your game. Same with me. I want answers; you want a diagnosis. Am I right about that?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And we both want the same thing – am I right about that?’

  ‘This isn’t part of the show, Adrienne,’ Georgia said, scanning the faces that were turned towards them. ‘Don’t bother with a call and response.’

  ‘If you just turn that way, we’ll help you out a little.’ Then Adrienne leaned close, her cheek brushing Georgia’s, and an arm snaked around her shoulders. Blades of hair jabbed into her nose. She turned to look at what Adrienne was grinning at; a flashbulb erupted in her face.

  By the time a second muzzle flash had spiked her eyes, Georgia had a grip of herself, smiling, chin upthrust.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ she muttered. ‘If you’d just asked for a photograph, I’d have posed for one. You didn’t need to try and trick me.’