Friends of the Dusk

by Phil Rickman

  52

  The song with the big cigar

  SHE SAT IN the dark, listening to the wind and gazing at the window-cross for… who knew? Did it matter? She just sat there, numbed, thinking how not surprising any of this was. Quite a valid assumption, really. Innes hadn’t invented it, he’d heard it from someone, perhaps from more than one person because they loved to gossip, the clergy, if terribly discreetly. Maybe it had been doing the rounds for years.

  So she just sat, aware of being in the eye of the vicious storm, knowing that one move, any move would throw her into the blast. Sat until she became aware of something else not right, something not happening, the missing sound under the wind.

  Putting on the desk lamp, she stood up, walked to the door, throwing on the main lights, blinking against the glare and the thrust of tears, before crossing over to the window. Opening it, careful to hold on to its rim with both hands to prevent it being wrenched away and smashed against the wall.

  When she pushed her head into the wind and rain and looked down, the tears came unexpectedly and very quickly.

  She looked down again, through her tumbled hair, to double-check, quite aware that in times of stress small things could assume disproportionate significance, before pulling her head back into the scullery and then closing the window, carefully applying the fastener and then the stay, her shoulders shaking as all the lights flickered.

  ‘Merrily?’

  She turned round and he was there in the doorway. Jane must have let him in.

  He said, ‘What’s happened?’

  She stood there, shaking her head.

  ‘Please,’ Lol said. ‘What?’

  He looked stricken. He was wearing his old, washed-out Alien sweatshirt from his first solo album that nobody bought. She heard herself saying things.

  ‘Tried to call you. You didn’t answer.’

  ‘The phone’s dead. The lines are down somewhere.’

  ‘Huh?’ She moved to the desk and picked up the phone: nothing. ‘It wasn’t before. Never mind. Where’s Jane?’

  ‘She’s gone up to her apartment. With some sandwiches. She says she’ll tell you in the morning. What she knows.’

  ‘Sandwiches,’ Merrily said. ‘What a crap mother I am.’

  ‘She’s nineteen. I think that’s a woman. What were you looking at out there?’

  Merrily wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

  ‘There was this old briar we never cut. It used to tap against the window in the breeze. Sometimes when there wasn’t a breeze. I used to think it was like a warning of… of something about to happen. Someone watching out. A bit sinister, but not in a bad… Anyway, silly.’

  ‘It’s gone?’

  ‘It’s still there. On the ground. Broken by the wind. Pathetic, aren’t I?’

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘Also, the last call before the phone went down, I learned that the Bishop is of the firm opinion that I was sexually intimate with Mick Hunter and appears not to care who knows.’

  Lol stayed silent.

  ‘Obviously it’s not—’

  ‘Not something you even need to say.’

  ‘No smoke, Lol.’

  ‘He’s looking for a sacrificial lamb?’

  ‘Very sensitively put.’

  She broke down again and let him hold her until the wind reached screaming pitch and all the lights went out.

  The alarm clock’s luminous fingers said 3.25 when Merrily awoke, naked and cold, in her own bed.

  Evidently still no power, no lights out there, but the wind wasn’t so loud, was just skulking around like a tired drunk. She felt around on the floor until she found the long T-shirt and pulled it on.

  Lol said, ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Uh—’ She sank back. ‘How long’ve you been awake?’

  ‘A while, I suppose.’

  ‘Not since—’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that. Bit desperate, wasn’t it? Like we were on the Titanic and we knew about the iceberg in advance. My fault. A bit last-chance saloon.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I’ll have to go. I will have to go. Sooner rather than later. No point in dragging it out.’

  ‘You can’t go. That’s as good as admitting it. Something you’ve been shamefully accused of. And letting the bastard win.’

  ‘The bastard doesn’t see it as a contest, and it probably isn’t. No, look, it’s not going to help anybody, me fighting the inevitable. Most of all, it’s not going to help Huw. Huw will damage himself trying to save my arse, and he’s much more important than me, in the great scheme of things. He’s stronger, he knows more and he can still pass it on and… and we’re not going to get to sleep again, are we?’

  ‘We’re all right, aren’t we?’ Lol said. ‘I mean us. We could be all right.’

  ‘Yes. That’s something, isn’t it? We’re all right. In spite of everything. We’re all right. And we’ve got Lucy’s house. On a mortgage.’

  ‘From where you can stand at the window and watch the new vicar going about his or her daily—’

  ‘No. Don’t think I could do that.’

  God.

  ‘And you love that house,’ she said. ‘And this village. So I suppose we’re not totally all right after all, are we? Also, the property market was stronger when you got the mortgage to buy Lucy’s house.’

  ‘We,’ Lol said. ‘We raised the deposit.’

  ‘And by the time we’ve paid the mortgage off… it probably won’t be a negative equity situation, but…’

  ‘Two middle-aged people,’ Lol said. ‘With a cat in a basket. Maybe in a mobile home, touring the country looking for gigs. And when the gigs run out there’s always busking. People leaving tins of Whiskas on the pavement for Ethel.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  She turned over to face him directly, but he was already out of bed, struggling into his briefs. Unlike Selwyn Kindley-Pryce

  – Oh God – Lol wore briefs.

  ‘Stay there,’ he said.

  Dark grey screen, white vertical lines.

  They were sitting up in bed; they had Lol’s laptop between their knees. She hadn’t known he’d brought it or she might have asked why. The battery showed a 75 per cent charge, so that was all right, they could watch funny clips on YouTube.

  ‘Lol, what is this?’

  ‘Wait.’ He opened a document. ‘I didn’t tell you about this because I was convinced, for a long time, that it wasn’t going to happen. That they’d pull it at the eleventh hour.’

  ‘Pull it?’

  ‘I’m still not entirely convinced. But Prof says they’ve spent too much to turn back now.’

  He clicked on the little arrow. Symbols began to appear on the screen, then a clock, then some stuff about copyright.

  Then colours. Woodland.

  Sound. Crackly footsteps through old brittle autumn leaves, overlaid presently with a familiar nail-strummed acoustic guitar as the camera found faces, a woman and a man, early middle-aged, coats and scarves, and Lol’s voice came in, at its most wistful.

  Remember this one, the day is dwindling

  down in Powell’s wood, collecting kindling

  smudgy eyes

  moonrise

  golden.

  The camera finding the woman’s twilit eyes.

  Merrily said, “Camera Lies”?’

  One of the songs Lol had written when he was living in Prof’s granary. When they were only together in his head.

  ‘The song with the big cigar,’ Lol said.

  ‘Huh?’

  He froze the picture. Merrily tried to see his eyes by the light from the screen.

  ‘All right, what is it?’

  ‘It’s a commercial. An epic advert. Enough to fill half a commercial break. A long, costly narrative ad.’

  ‘What’s it advertising? Cosmetics?’

  ‘Not exactly, no.’

  Lol prodded the pause symbol and it started aga
in. Now you were looking at a village in the evening, lights on the church as the couple walked, hand in hand, past the lychgate.

  Here’s a moment below the sandstone spire

  across the square the scent of apple fires

  angel wine, hands entwined

  hold on…

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Merrily said.

  ‘This is a version before the lettering went on. It’s all lettering, no voice-over.’

  ‘For what?’

  The images were coalescing in a kaleidoscope of soft colour as the breathy chorus came in.

  I keep sensations in the album of my heart

  the crunch of curling leaves, the crackling of the frost

  flip the pages on the nights we lie apart

  and mourn the barren years, all the time we’ve lost…

  ‘Barren years,’ Lol said. ‘All the time we’ve lost. What’s that sound like it’s advertising?’

  ‘A fertility clinic?’

  ‘Oh, come on, would I do that to Jane? Mortgages.’

  ‘Mortgages?’

  ‘It’s not the most discredited bank in the country, but a few thousand punters must have no cause to love it. Obviously, I’d rather it was a respectable charity or a nice hybrid car, but where do you stop worrying about the effects you’re indirectly having? If you’ve done the music for a Mars bar commercial, do you get anxious about tooth-decay and diabetes?’

  ‘So what’s it actually saying?’

  ‘It’s directed at thirty-somethings, maybe forties, wondering whether it’s too late to take out a mortgage.’

  ‘Mourn the barren years, all the time we’ve lost?’

  ‘So make sure you don’t lose any more. If you think it’s too late for a mortgage, come and talk to us, and we’ll be happy to rip you off. Thing is… when I wrote that song I was not hopeful of things working out for us. Or even getting started.’

  ‘I know.’

  The song had ended before the last verse and the line explaining the title.

  Camera lies…

  she might vaporize

  in cold air.

  He’d written several songs about her, but this was the most despairing.

  ‘That was why I was thinking they’d change their minds about it,’ he said. ‘Pull the song and replace it with something less negative.’

  ‘Without the last verse, it isn’t negative.’

  Lol switched off the laptop, explaining how it had come through Prof Levin who’d been doing electronic jingles for an advertising agency. Who seemed to have become his agent. He’d had a song used in a commercial before, which had paid some of the deposit on Lucy’s cottage but wasn’t screened very often. This, however…

  ‘This is a big-budget commercial, going out on over fifty stations in this country alone. Peak hour. And the bank… it’s part of some kind of international conglomerate. We’re looking at several countries. Europe, USA, Australia. It’s not just the synch rights, it’s—’

  ‘What are the synch rights?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. I’m scared to try and work it out in case I’m wildly wrong, but Prof’s done some calculations. Each time the ad’s screened we get a few quid – different amounts according to the network and the time of day. It…’

  He took a breath. His voice came back quite small.

  ‘For a while, it seems, we could be looking at over a grand a day.’

  Merrily felt herself pale.

  ‘You and Prof?’

  ‘Each. Well, my share, as writer and performer, is more than his. I don’t know. I’ve never been an expert on… money and stuff.’

  ‘For… how long?’

  ‘Months, probably. Maybe longer. There are apparently plans to keep the tune and change the video.’

  ‘I’m feeling a little bit weak, Lol. Am I right to be feeling weak?’

  ‘Then again, it might not work out. The ad could be a flop, get pulled at any time. But even if it did we’d probably be looking at enough to pay off the mortgage on Lucy’s house. And then there’s the spin-off CD sales… downloads… It’s… it’s all a bit ironic.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s the word. How do you feel?’

  ‘I’m still kind of in denial. The point is, this is one of the few ways comparatively obscure musicians can make money these days. It’s not a vast amount compared with what bands were collecting in the golden age, pre-digital. But it’s life-changing for me. Us. Possibly.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She felt his gaze, his nerves, the fear that something might vaporize in cold air.

  ‘Wanted to tell you as soon as I came back, but circumstances… All I’m trying to say is… if you wanted… needed… to move on… then we could do it, couldn’t we?’

  She pushed back the duvet, grabbed her e-cig from the bedside table.

  ‘We’re really not going to sleep now, are we?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘I’ll go down and build up the fire.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Lol sat on the side of the bed. ‘Been living with this for days. It doesn’t happen to people like me, does it? Then again, I didn’t think people like you happened to people like me either.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Who wants someone like me?’

  The wind muttered in the trees at the end of the vicarage drive.

  ‘And then there’s Jane,’ Lol said.

  ‘I didn’t want to mention Jane. Not yet. Anyway, Jane is not your problem.’

  Merrily paused at the bedroom door, her dressing gown half on, remembering Jane, tearful in the early morning.

  Like, I realize I’m going to have to leave here at some stage, but I always want to think I can come back and it’ll be just like it was.

  Whatever happened now, it wasn’t going to be like it was.

  ‘I knew Jane first,’ Lol said. ‘Before you. I want her as a problem.’

  She smiled, went back to the bed and sat down next to Lol, bent across him, touched him.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said softly. ‘Well deserved.’

  The wood-stove blazed. Two short white candles shone on the kitchen table.

  They’d talked for two hours plus. Talked all around it. It felt like whole days had passed since she’d returned from Lyme Farm. Like the world had been upturned in the storm but was far from steady.

  Lol finished his tea, picked up his laptop.

  ‘I think I should leave now.’

  ‘Leave?’

  ‘Go home. Give you some space. To decide what you want to happen. What you want me to do. If there’s anything I can do.’

  She looked at Lol. There had never been a time when they’d felt they could decide anything. This money, however much it turned out to be, was his money. They weren’t married, they didn’t live together. His money, his song. No, he’d insisted, it’s your song. If there hadn’t been you there wouldn’t be a song.

  There was no light in the sky, the wind still prowled. The storm wasn’t over. The radio said no let-up until evening.

  ‘I may have to go out this morning,’ Lol said. ‘To, um… see Prof. Things to organize. I should be back by midday.’

  ‘You have to go? In this?’

  ‘I do have to go. I’m not leaving the county or anything.’

  ‘This county can be a killer in bad weather.’

  ‘I’ll drive carefully.’

  They held one another in the porch, with the wind whipping past, and then he was gone into the swirling darkness of the village square. She looked up and saw a faint blueish light in Jane’s attic apartment. Jane had a battery-powered lamp with a blue plastic shade.

  Back in the house, Merrily found her mini Maglite, turned it on and followed the beam through to the scullery where she tried the phone. Still off.

  On the edge of the desk was a sheaf of printouts. One word pencilled at the top: djinns.

  Jane must’ve crept down with them some time after she and Lol had gone to bed. You had to love her.

  She came
back to the kitchen and fed Ethel, filled the kettle and put it back on the wood-stove, found the old toasting fork. Sometimes she felt she could live like this for an indefinite period: no lights, no phone, toasting fork.

  Actually there was a phone. She found the mobile on the dresser where it had lain all night, switched off because she couldn’t charge it unless she went out in the car. She switched it on.

  Answering service: three messages, two last night, latest one about twelve minutes ago. All the same person.

  ‘Mirrily, will you for Christ’s sake call me back.’

  53

  Only the start

  EVEN IN THE drive, the wind was getting under the car like a big hand.

  You’d better just go, Jane had said. You’re not going to be happy if you don’t.

  It wasn’t yet dawn, but there was enough light to show that Lol’s truck had gone from the square. The Freelander rocked as she turned out full into the blast, headlights on. The wind was coming out of the west, the rain was stinging. A vague glow in the Black Swan suggested Barry had fired up his generator.

  Old Barn Lane was blacked out and she had to drive around two substantial fallen branches to get on to the bypass.

  The first time she’d called Casey back, it could have been too early. No answer, but it showed the line was still active. She’d waited half an hour, reading Jane’s notes on the djinn, which were unexpectedly disturbing, then tried Casey again. Nothing.

  When you thought about it, people didn’t oversleep in these conditions. She’d called back again, leaving a message this time, and that was when Jane had come in, thrusting a slice of honey-smeared toast into her hand.

  Just be bloody careful, Mum.

  Not much traffic on the roads, apart from Land Rovers and long-distance lorries. Weather warnings had been going out on radio and TV for more than a day now.

  She couldn’t imagine Lol’s journey being all that necessary in the conditions. Outside of a studio, Prof Levin was famously laid-back. What was Lol not telling her? When someone had already given you too much information to process, you tended to ease up on the questions.

  As she did, at some stage every morning, she whispered the Lord’s Prayer – the traditional version; this was not one of those times when you talked to God like a mate.