Band of Gypsys

by Gwyneth Jones

Fiorinda was beside him in the antechamber. Her eyes shone, he gave her the phone.

  ‘Where are you, are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine, my brat, relax. Look, I’m sorry you’ve been anxious, but I can’t come back yet, it’ll be a while longer. Is Ax still there?’

  ‘I’m here, I’m still here—’

  ‘Are things better for you by now? They should be.’

  They clung to the handset together, their cheeks touching. Sage’s voice was tired, calm, cheerful: obscurely more convincing because they couldn’t see his face. ‘Yes,’ said Fiorinda. ‘Things are better, I wouldn’t say they’re good, but m-materially improved: and you? How about you? Can you talk?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I can talk. I’m going to get you out. Got to go now.’

  ‘Can we talk to you again? Sage!’

  ‘Soon, so just relax, stick with it. This is good, everything’s okay.’

  The phone was dead.

  ‘He didn’t mention your not being a werewolf,’ said Fiorinda.

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t know.’

  On Thursday night, Rick’s Place had been reprogrammed too. The transformation was subtle, presumably because as yet there had been no official announcement: but the guards who took them through the house had a different attitude. The burly ‘waiters’ who had followed them around the night club floor, officiously close, were replaced, in the take-the-bullet space, by gilded scions of the new ruling class. These young men didn’t introduce themselves but acted very respectful. They imagined newsflash headlines PRESIDENT AX EXONERATED! TO BE CROWNED KING!

  On Saturday night the Scots were back again. Ax teased them about their persistence. Did they think the ‘invitations’ they handed over went into a prize draw, were they trying to make sure of the jackpot?

  ‘Do they not?’ Sovra’s tone expressed sober enjoyment of the joke. ‘That wad be a grave disappointment. We’ve been counting up the scores and are verra hopeful we have the odds.’

  ‘Well, that’s good,’ said Ax. ‘You keep wishing.’ He laughed and moved on, shaking his head, followed by his respectful shadow.

  George and Bill had not appeared, they hadn’t heard from Joss Pender again, and there’d been no second call from Sage. The cosmetic changes meant nothing. They’d have been fools not to realise that they were more helpless, more isolated than they had ever been.

  Fiorinda, now that she could get out of the Moon and Stars, cultivated the female staff. She did not speak to them. She made them speak to her, in the simplest way. She sought out places where the cleaners were working (it took an army to keep Wallingham in perfect order), and touched things. The women could not scream at her, or attack her, when she held some fragile gewgaw. They had to ask her politely to desist, and then they discovered that Fiorinda was very interested. She would like to know what she was touching, where it came from; how do you look after it?

  Plenty of the women would not play, but some of them would…

  She didn’t know if this was useful. A space had opened and she was moving into it, that was all. Plus, it was something to do, that kept her out of Ax’s way. Such is life. Shared terror for their darling had made them cling to each other, but now fear was getting old and foul, and everything jarred.

  Endless corridors. Staircases for every rank, miles of attics, odd little doors opening onto a planetary landscape of roofs and parapets. Endless show-off rooms at the front of the pile, larded with decorative plasterwork, thick with gold bordered, rose-pink carpeting (a favourite Wallingham colourway). Always cold because of the north aspect, and the huge fountains at the head of the carriage sweep.

  This house is built backwards, it belongs in New Zealand.

  Sage had been gone for thirteen days, a dull afternoon was hazing into evening outdoors. Fiorinda helped a Wallingham lady called Hazel to dust porcelain in the Reynolds Passage; their work surveilled by a cast of fake-pensive eighteenth century debutantes, with huge fluffy powder-grey hair.

  ‘It’s been a lovely summer,’ sighed Hazel, a sandy, scrawny little woman with pebble glasses, and the authority of her passionate dedication.

  ‘Gorgeous.’

  A fat pair of blue urns, finned in gold like exotic fishes, flanked a gilded nymph and shepherd group on a pedastal. Two by two by two by two. Nothing goes by threes. Did these things ever mean anything to anyone? Try to imagine Wallingham as a family home, generations of the tat a home accrues, presents and prizes and souvenirs: all laid out in immaculate manic order. Look, inside these urns there will be hairgrips, buttons, hairy blu-tac, plecs, stubs of pencil—

  ‘And very, very special for us, because of having you and His Majesty here. Both hands on the piece, at all times, ma’am.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Where does the time go? It seems as if Lammas is hardly over, and you start to think about Samhain. I do hope we’ll still have you then.’

  ‘Were you brought up a Christian, Hazel?’

  The woman must be sixty. Obviously she loved her job, maybe she wasn’t very smart, but surely she remembered a normal world—

  ‘Yes ma’am. I came to the Old Religion in my teens, what a long long time ago it seems now. So many changes. That’s when I started working here, for the National Trust, and met Lady Anne, who took a real interest in all of us. She’s such a wonderful person—’

  Damn. Cross you off my turning list.

  ‘I was wondering if it was at Samhain that His Majesty means to undergo the rites, such a noble thing for him to do.’ Hazel sighed sentimentally, and her dusting slowed in contemplation. ‘Though very solemn for you, ma’am, of course.’

  ‘The expiatory rites? Why would he? Ax is not a werewolf!’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Hazel’s cheeks went pink. ‘I shouldn’t have… I didn’t mean anything… Someone said, in the housekeeping room… His Majesty has been discussing it with Lady Anne. Ma’am! Please! The Ch’ien-lung urn—!’

  Their suite, as they had discovered when the shutters were opened, looked into an internal courtyard. Ax sat in one of the window embrasures of the red room, picking guitar, and peered down at the square of pavement three floors below. There was a dry fountain in the centre: he couldn’t see any doors into the building. Blank windows, shuttered on the inside, walls of water-stained stone… His Les Paul usually stayed in its case in the bottom of the armoire, along with Sage’s visionboard, the First Aid kit; and Fiorinda’s saltbox, in her tapestry bag. They were superstitious about touching these treasures, which had so far been ignored by the jailers. Out of sight, out of mind.

  But he had needed the comfort of holding this old friend, because Fiorinda, he didn’t blame her, had turned cold on him. What could he say to her? They didn’t know how closely they were watched. They were agreed (it was one of the things they couldn’t discuss, but he thought they were agreed) that the visual surveillance might be quite poor. But you had to assume anything you said was heard. Forget the invasion of privacy, who cares if they see you cry, if they see you making love: fuck ’em.

  Just remember to say nothing, ever, that could get you in trouble.

  It’s the way a lot of people live their whole lives.

  His fingers moved, his mind went round in circles. If that was Sage, speaking to us in real time, not a recording, and intuitively, instinctively I believe it was, and I know she does too…then he is not okay, fuck that for a lie, but he is alive, and he used a keyword. Who could make our bodhisattva use a keyword, against his will?

  Begone dull care,

  You and I shall never agree—

  Ax had once told an enemy of the Reich that rockstars are like gods: dumb idols, eating well and making the priests rich. That was the fate that had closed on him and on Fiorinda. They had powers, different powers, that could tear the world apart, but they would do nothing. They would stay here, coffined in stone, not daring to move. He looked up at the tank of sky. How much more of this can I take? What can I do for her? She doesn’t love me, she wants Sage, and I can’t get
him back.

  The real meaning of Iphigenia was burning a hole in his heart.

  Fiorinda stripped off her felt slippers and her polishing gloves, and dropped to the floor, arms huddled round her knees, thick curls falling forwards, smothering her. The walls are glass. Every wall in this prisonhouse is a one-way mirror, we are whores in a fish-tank, waiting to be scooped out. They took Sage, so now Ax can’t wait, he’s jumping up and down squealing me, me, pretty please. The bastard. I hate him. I hate, hate, hate him. Torrents of silence poured through the woven stars, it’s like having your mouth stitched up. She steeled herself, and rose to her feet, stretching and rubbing her back. My, that stately-home housework is demanding!

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said Ax, ‘we could take another walk in the gardens.’

  It was later in the evening: they had dined. The shutters were locked and the hangings drawn over them, the servants had departed. The scrubbed and burnished red room was a stranger, they felt bereft. Ax picked guitar: setting Fiorinda’s teeth on edge, and breaching their silent agreement that the treasures should never be touched. She sat with her embroidery frame.

  ‘I thought you’d decided not to play guitar in here.’

  ‘It’s something to do. I’m getting interested in the English idiom.’

  ‘How fashionable of you. You should send out for a lute, I’m sure Lady Anne would be delighted.’

  ‘Maybe I will,’ said Ax, narrow-eyed. ‘Right now I’m going to work on me new repertoire of Hendrixed-up English folksongs. Is that okay?’

  ‘You do that,’ Fiorinda kept her head bent, counting threads. ‘Ax, you bastard, is it true you’ve volunteered for the expiatory rites?’

  Ax did not reply. He stared at her, dumbfounded. Are you so angry with me you’ve forgotten we’re on camera?

  Yeah, she thought. I’m so angry…‘So I take it you did. You are incredible. You fucking idiot, expiatory rites means they will burn you alive. They are not kidding. They had me on the bonfire, remember? Burn you alive? You’ll be begging for it. They will hang you, draw you and quarter you, that’s the least they have in mind. DO YOU KNOW WHAT—’

  ‘Yes.’ He set the Les Paul aside. ‘I know what it means. Okay, I made the offer, maybe I shouldn’t have, it just came to me to do it. This is old news, Fio. Lady Anne turned me down, I’m not a werewolf.’

  She applied her needle, viciously accurate. ‘Poor Ax. They wouldn’t let you immolate yourself, and it’s your only trick. You utter bastard. You didn’t think you should tell me first? You always did love him best.’

  ‘I said, she turned me down. Look, this is out of date—’

  ‘I think they took Sage and tried to make him turn into Wolfman, and whatever happened gave them an excuse to decide you’re clean. They were prepared to sacrifice him. They can use us. Sage doesn’t fit in the picture.’

  ‘Fiorinda, Sage is okay! For fuck’s sake, we both talked to him!’

  One savage glance told him what she thought of that, and told him also she was in control. She had not lost it under the strain, she just hated Ax. She bent over her work again, her words clipped and icy. ‘So fine, Sage is gone, we’re the fucking Lord and Lady, and you’ll have to settle for the slow torture of staying alive, at which I am expert. Ax, remember when I came back to Lambeth, that time after the first meeting of the Countercultural Thinktank, did you really seduce me, polite word for it, because you fancied me?’

  ‘Huh? Where’s this coming from—?’

  ‘Or did you have a huge crush on Aoxomoxoa, and you wanted to fuck something that belonged to him? I know I’m not your type, in the female line. You prefer a real woman with plenty of tits and bum, so I’ve wondered.’

  She looked up, limpid grey eyes and a smile of contempt.

  Nothing is safe. She’s a psychopath. She’ll attack something as precious and vital as the first night you spent together, eight years ago—

  ‘I wouldn’t mention it,’ said Ax, curling his lip. ‘I have never thought anything of it, but it was you brought up the idea of sex, not me. You did have a bit of a reputation, so I wasn’t surprised. My memory is we both had a good time. Several good times, as I recall.’

  Fiorinda stitched rapidly: sliced open to the bone by this evil misrepresentation. ‘That’s right. I often offered to fuck blokes when I was a kid, to get it over with. Teenage girls in the music biz find it’s easier. I used to have a lot of good times too. You’re easy pleased, Ax. I was faking.’

  ‘I knew that,’ said Ax. ‘Fuck’s sake, you were sixteen years’ old, with a passion for your abusive daddy and more or less oblivious to the existence of the rest of the human race. What kind of pornstar do you think you were?’

  It was a knife-fight now. The horrible release of saying the worst, nastiest thing possible, with full knowledge and intent, was irrisistible.

  ‘You self-obsessed little Hitler. Remember when you ran away, Mr Dictator, because you were convinced the threesome wasn’t working, how noble of you? Was that really to let Sage have me? Or was it because you’d grasped you were never, ever, going to hear me say I loved Big Brother?’

  Ax had run away because it was Sage and Fiorinda, the lovers who kindly allowed Ax allowed to get in bed with them, and he had not been able to bear it. He took full responsibility for the disasters that had followed, as she knew. But if there are no rules, then yes. YES, her scorn for what he was trying to do had been a hateful burden. Fiorinda sneering on the sidelines, refusing to take responsibility for her own choices, saying why bother, the situation’s hopeless, into the foul swamp and never get out, you can’t win—

  ‘You know, I could never understand why you didn’t leave yourself. You could have had Sage off me anytime, and enjoyed making his life a misery as he trailed round the jet set world he hates, chasing your fucking twisted ambition to be a global super-pop-star just like abusive daddy—’

  ‘D’you think I don’t know we’re in here because of you? We should never have come back, we knew England was dangerous as all hell, but when President Eiffrich says oh please take this poisoned chalice you jump at it because he makes you feel big and Ax Preston can’t resist a gamble—’

  ‘Sorry, Fio, you can’t pin that me. I didn’t “bring you back”. You did it yourself, it was your choice. I’m not your big strong daddy-substitute. I’ve never been your boss—’

  A sound, quiet but unmistakable. A door had opened, and closed.

  They stood frozen, as in a game of statues, knowing there had been an escalation. Trying to figure out what had happened while they were screaming at each other. The coiled chimes were still. No bell had rung, but someone was inside the suite. They had been invaded. This had never happened before, never. The gold briars glinted on the red wall hangings.

  A weight of menace: is this it? Are we going to die now?

  Ax picked up a lamp.

  ‘Will you stay here while I go and see?’

  ‘No!’

  The midnight room was a cavern of shadow, Ax’s lamplight waking gleams from the stars and crescents around the walls. He thought, for some reason, that he would see two coffins lined up open on the floor. No coffins.

  ‘Anyone there?’

  Something moved. There was a tall figure sitting in one of the chairs.

  It was Sage.

  ‘Sage?’

  ‘Hi there, my dears. See? I told you I’d be back.’

  It was his voice, sweet and deep. It was Sage. He was dressed in a grubby white shirt and jeans: and, strangely, wearing dark glasses. As they came closer, he turned his face away. He was avoiding the light.

  ‘Are you all right?’ whispered Fiorinda.

  ‘I’m fine. Jus’, not the light, okay?’

  He seemed rooted to that chair. They looked at each other, constrained not by the surveillance but by Sage himself, something in him they dared not touch.

  ‘Let’s get you through to the other room,’ said Ax.

  Fiorinda took the lamp. Ax walked with Sage, guiding
him. At the door of the red bedchamber he baulked, unwilling.

  ‘They cleaned the suite,’ explained Fiorinda. ‘The red room doesn’t smell the way it did any more. Part of our new privileges.’

  ‘Oh right. Shame. I missed this place, I was used to this place.’

  ‘We think so too,’ said Ax. ‘C’mon, lie down, my big cat.’

  Sage lay on their bed, obediently, flat on his back. Fiorinda closed the curtains, dimmed the lamp to its lowest setting and set it on the bedstand.

  ‘What happened?’ breathed Ax.

  ‘Well, they want the cognitive scanners,’ said Sage, reasonably, as if he expected Ax and Fiorinda to know all about this. ‘To build an ‘A’ team. They think I know where, an’ they want that information so they won’t have to bother arresting anyone else. They’ve been using memory retrieval imaging. O’ course I don’t know where the scanners are, so they’re not having any luck, but they keep trying.’ He lay very still, but kept talking, motormouth. ‘It’s a crude old machine, ’bout ten-fifteen years old. I don’t know what they’re seeing on their screens, I bet it’s crapdoodle. So tha’s what’s been happening to me. I walked into it, stupidly. Then I thought, better co-operate, since I can do no harm. As a bonus, you and I are not werewolves any more, Ax.’

  ‘Yeah, we know. How did they figure that? They provoked you and you didn’t bite them?’

  ‘Somethen’ like. Anyway, now I get a break. Recovery time. Is there, is there any way I could talk to my dad? I’d like to tell him I’m okay.’

  They held his hands, staring at each other across his body.

  ‘Will you let me take off those glasses?’ asked Fiorinda, softly.

  He hestitated. ‘Okay… But no more light.’

  She gently lifted the sunglasses, cheap wraparound shades she’d never seen before. They saw dark bruising from his brow to his cheekbones, some of it livid: some many days’ old, diffusing into his white skin.

  Oh God is good, he still has eyes, but what a mess—

  ‘Did they damage the nerves? Baby, did they damage the nerves?’

  A bare whisper, trembling. ‘They will if they do it much longer.’