by Celina Grace
Then Race was lighting up a cigarette and passing it to me and the moment was gone.
“Wanna see the swimming pool?” he asked.
“Hell yeah,” I answered.
That had been hours ago. We’d spent the rest of the afternoon in and by the pool; splashing each other, laughing, drinking, dozing on the old quilts and blankets we’d dragged from the manor to soften the flagstones. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, Blue and Janey had come to join us, flushed and satiated. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Janey privately yet, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to her. Was I going to be all squeals of happy glee for her, or was I going to be a bit disapproving and sniffy, not to mention pissed off that she’d effectively just dumped me in favour of a man - even if that man was Blue Turner? I drank some more champagne and put it to the back of my mind.
Even Wade staggered out to join us an hour after Blue and Janey had appeared. He said a vague sort of ”Hi, yeah,” to us, when Janey and I were introduced, but then fell prone on one of the quilts and appeared to go back to sleep. I caught Cody’s gaze and he rolled his eyes heavenwards, which made me chuckle.
When it finally grew dark, the soft pink of the sunset gradually infusing with darkness, we moved inside. Insects were biting and it was growing cold in a way that English summer nights tended to do, despite the warmth of the day. We congregated in Cody’s room, the enormous one with the painted ceiling. Race disappeared for an hour and came back with fish and chips for us all. I had thought – in the one moment when I’d been vaguely aware of hunger pains, soon gone as the next hit of cocaine took effect – that we might all go out to eat, find a restaurant or a pub that did food. But if I didn’t realise it then, I soon came to understand that, apart from Race, no one left the grounds of the manor. It was its own private universe, with its own rules and its own religion.
Time blurred throughout the evening. I had been drinking all day but, because of the coke, I’d managed to avoid actually becoming drunk. I was pretty tipsy though, enough so that when Race turned to me again as we sat next to one another on the sofa and began to stroke my bare leg, I decided to go for it. Didn’t I deserve a bit of fun too? Janey and Blue had already left for his bedroom (leaving Wade behind this time, at least).
“So, where am I sleeping tonight then?” I said, trying to raise one eyebrow at Race.
He tipped me a lecherous wink. “Can’t you guess?”
Cody was sat in an armchair by the fire, one leg dangling over the arm. “Why not put her in April’s room?” he suggested, with a faintly malicious twang to his voice.
There it was again, the sudden change in atmosphere, almost too subtle to notice. Wade jerked in his seat. Race’s hand stilled on my leg and then, after a moment’s pause, began stroking again.
“April?” I asked, muzzily. It was then I remembered the blonde girl who’d been in the room when we arrived, the one who’d been knelt before Wade. She’d stormed out, hadn’t she? I tried to remember whether anyone had actually reacted to her exit. Had they even acknowledged that she was there? I had a sudden jump of paranoia. Had I imagined her?
Race was pulling me to my feet. “Bedtime,” he was saying. I nodded obediently, raised a hand to Cody and Wade and followed Race out of the room and up the staircase.
I’m not going to go into too much detail here about the sex with Race, mainly because I don’t remember much about it. It was okay, though; I’ve had worse. I think my overriding thought was to feel a bit annoyed at myself that I hadn’t even managed to make it with a band member, unlike Janey. Afterwards, we had some more champagne and I think I must have passed out because I don’t remember much more after that.
I had a strange dream that night. I dreamt about moonlight coming through the curtains, a long white spear of light, and a girl crouched next to me. I thought it was Janey, but then her face seemed to change and it was someone else. She was whispering to me, something like you have to get out, get your friend and get out… The spear of moonlight shimmered. I don’t remember anything else about the dream. I woke up sometime later, in the greyish light of a summer dawn. Race was gone from the bed next to me. I was parched, desperate for water. There was a sink in the corner of the bedroom, rather bizarrely, and I staggered over to it. I didn’t hold out much hope that it was actually connected to the water system, or that the water that came out of it - if it was – would be drinkable. I was too thirsty to care though, and when the turn of a tap yielded a thin, warm trickle, I put my mouth under it and gulped down what I could. Then I stumbled back to the bed and fell fast asleep again.
When I woke up again it was bright daylight. I lay for a moment in a tumble of sheets, staring up at the damp-blotched ceiling with its empty light fitting, thinking back on the extraordinary day I’d just passed. I think I had kind of expected to wake up somewhere else, perhaps in our tent or a hostel; that Janey and I hadn’t really come to Asharton Manor, hadn’t really met Dirty Rumours, hadn’t really done all of the things we thought we had. It must have all been a really weird, far-out dream. But no – I sat up, clutched my head with a groan, and looked around me. No, it wasn’t a dream. I really was here, in Race’s bed, in Asharton Manor.
Some kind of sound had woken me. I heard it again then, the distant, tinny clatter of a door bell. Someone was ringing the doorbell? I scrambled out of bed, found a shirt of Race’s to put on, found my knickers from yesterday and my sandals. Then I stumbled out of the room and made my way towards the noise.
Race’s bedroom seemed to be off the corridor that we’d walked along yesterday. I recognised the suit of armour at the end. I found my way back to the staircase, stepping carefully over the holes in the floorboards and picked my way downstairs. The doorbell was still ringing, a harsh, insistent drilling that reverberated its way through my sore head. Should I even answer the door? It wasn’t as if this was my house, after all. Where was everybody? Groaning, I threw open the door, squinting through the bright sunlight that flooded in.
The woman on the doorstep, one foot in her high heels tapping impatiently, was so pulled together, so well-groomed and smart, that for a second I thought I’d hallucinated her. She had a smart black suit on, a white blouse with a froth of lace at the neck and dark hair that fell in waves around her pale face, a slash of scarlet lipstick her only colouring.
“Who are you?” she asked, staring and frowning.
“I’m Eve,” I muttered. “Did you want someone?”
“I want Blue. Where is he? In his room?” She pushed past me and strode into the hallway, looking around her with an expression of intense irritation. “God, this place…how anyone could live here is beyond me.” She gave me a look that implied that it was clearly the right sort of surroundings for someone like me. “I’m going up to see him. Don’t worry—“ As I made some sort of sound of protest, “I know the way.”
She clacked upstairs, her heels thumping like hammers on the treads. Who the hell was she? I thought for a moment of what Blue and Janey could very well be doing, right at this moment in his bedroom, and cringed.
“Morning,” said Cody’s voice behind me. I turned. He was wearing a loose blue shirt and shades and smiling.
“Hello,” I said. Then I gestured upwards. “Who the hell was that?”
Cody’s smile dropped away. “Oh God, is Merian on the war path again? I forgot she was due down today. It’s okay—“ He had clearly seen my expression. “She’s our PR agent. Pain in the neck, but she gets things done.”
“PR agent?”
“Public relations. Public appearances, interviews, meeting fans, all that guff.” We began to walk through the hallway towards the stairs at the back. “I hate it,” he added, absently.
The stairs at the back of the hall took us down towards the kitchen, which I hadn’t even seen before. It, again, was huge – were there any small rooms in this house? – with a gigantic old kitchen range still in place along one side of the kitchen. There was also a gas stove with a filthy top a
nd a large refrigerator. Cody went over to this and extracted a bottle of milk.
“I need coffee,” he muttered. “Eve, you want one?”
We dug out some bread and butter and marmalade from the cupboards and took our breakfast booty out onto the terrace at the back of the house. The view was fantastic, a spreading vista of trees and rolling hills, and the shining thread of a river in the distance. There was a battered wooden table and some chairs standing there and we sat down and ate, looking out over the gardens. They were horribly unkempt but you could just about see the shape of the original garden beneath all the wild growth, a faint ghostly imprint.
“This is a weird old place,” said Cody after his last mouthful of bread and marmalade. “I’ve been reading up about it. There’s the remains of an ancient settlement in the woods, dates back to pre-Roman times.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. They used to worship one of the ancient pagan goddesses here. Astarte.”
“’The Goddess’,” I murmured, remembering. “That’s why the pub had that freaky name.”
Cody swallowed a mouthful of bread and butter. “She liked human sacrifice. Astarte, I mean. That’s what the villagers felt, anyway. But if you were poor and powerless, wouldn’t you do whatever you could to try and court the goddess’s favour?’
I stared at him. “You don’t talk like a member of a rock band.”
He laughed. “Just because I’m a drummer doesn’t mean I’m thick, you know. Besides, music’s not my first love.”
“No? What is?”
He jumped up. “Finished your coffee? I’ll show you.”
We made our way back to the converted stables but this time we walked a bit further down to another door. Cody opened it, put on the light and ushered me inside.
I exclaimed in delight and surprise. It was an artist’s studio; full of paintings, propped up against the walls, hung on hooks and one big half-finished piece of work on an easel.
“You did all these?” I asked incredulous. I like art – I even debated studying it at university before eventually deciding that English might be a better option – and I thought that Cody had real talent. His preferred medium seemed to be oils and most of the pictures were landscapes. I recognised in one or two of them the very view we’d just been looking at during breakfast.
“Wow, these are great,” I said, wandering from canvas to canvas. I looked more closely at one in particular. “This one is fantastic. I love the way there’s a – well, a bit of sinister undertone to it.”
“How do you mean?” asked Cody. He came over to stand next to me by the picture.
“Here,” I said, gesturing. “You’ve got the beautiful bucolic scene here, woods and trees and blue sky, and yet there’s a real sense of the macabre. I think it’s these figures here, in the middle. In the clearing.”
“Figures?” said Cody. He peered hard at the canvas, screwing up his eyes.
“Yeah, here,” I said, pointing. “And here. Almost like a small group. It’s so tenuous, almost like a suggestion, really, but I think that’s what makes it work really well.”
Cody kept staring at the picture. “Yeah,” he said, after a moment. “Do you know, I’ve never noticed that before. Never noticed that those dark – patches - could be construed as figures.”
“Well, you painted the bloody thing,” I said, laughing. “I’ve probably got it all wrong. It was just what I saw when I first looked at it.”
There was a moment of silence, which made me look across at Cody. His face was somehow tight, features drawn together in something that was not quite a frown, something more than that. I thought suddenly that I had really offended him.
“I’m really sorry,” I said quickly. “Don’t mind my philistine mutterings. I think it’s brilliant, really.”
“No, you’re fine,” said Cody, after a moment. He turned away from the painting. “I just hadn’t realised…” He trailed away.
“When did you paint it?” I asked brightly, trying to make conversation to lighten the suddenly awkward mood.
He was staring off into the distance, still clearly upset. “About three months ago,” he muttered.
The door to the studio opened then and made us both jump. Race stuck his dark head around the frame, his eyes hidden once more behind his mirrored shades. I felt embarrassed. Was what had happened between us going to be a one night stand or was he hoping for more? Was I hoping for more? I didn’t really know.
As it was, he lifted his glasses onto his head and winked at me, which relieved the tension somewhat.
“Come on, Cody,” he said. “You’re wanted in the studio. Merian’s kicked Blue out of bed and it’s time to get going.”
“Oh, all right,” said Cody in a long-suffering voice, but I got the impression he was sort of relieved to have an excuse to leave the studio. I could have kicked myself. I may have slept with Race, but it was with Cody that I had felt the first faint forming of some sort of friendship. Had I just blasted that to kingdom come by my clumsy remarks on his art? As he walked past me, he gave me a gentle poke in the ribs which made me squawk and then giggle, relieved that he still seemed to like me.
The three of us walked the few yards down to the studio. I could hear tentative chords coming from a guitar. When we walked into the room, Merian was perched on the edge of a chair, smoking furiously. Janey was sat on a floor cushion, hugging her knees and watching Blue adoringly; Blue himself was adjusting the guitar around his neck and Wade was sat in a chair over by the far wall, with a syringe in his arm.
It was funny, but my reaction to Wade’s drug use followed a path that was to become quite familiar, the longer I stayed at the manor. My first reaction, that morning, was of violent shock and disgust. I’d done drugs myself but nothing on that scale – I’d never once seen anyone actually injecting themselves with anything. I said nothing but sat down next to Janey, feeling a bubble of nausea creep up in my throat. That was the first time. The subsequent few times were necessarily robbed of the shock; it was no longer a surprise but I felt something like deep embarrassment, each further occasion diluting even that emotion, until I regarded the sight of Wade shooting up with nothing more than slightly exasperated boredom. A lot of things were like that at the manor.
It explained a lot about him, though; his constant lethargy, for one. Surprisingly, half an hour of sitting there after his injection, Wade slowly got up and strapped on his bass. What followed was an astonishing hour of superb music; riffs and chords and musical experiments wrung from his guitar. For a couple of hours, the band worked seamlessly together and Janey and I sat, absolutely entranced and not saying a word, the magic unrolling in front of our eyes.
Then, eventually, Blue’s voice cracked and Wade stopped playing and wordlessly unstrapped his guitar and sloped over to the sofa in the corner where he lay himself down and turned his face to the back of the sofa. Cody’s drumsticks faltered and stopped. Merian, who’d smoked non-stop through the entire session, stubbed her last cigarette out with a vicious twist and stood up.
“Well, that’s all we’ll get out of him for today,” she said, with an edge of contempt in her voice. “Still, there was something there. I’ll be able to report something positive back to Grimm, at least.”
Grimm? I was puzzled for a moment until I remembered the name of Dirty Rumours’ record label.
Merian put both hands in the small of her back and stretched her shoulders back. Blue watched her with an expression I couldn’t decipher.
“Well, Blue, I’ll leave you to it,” she said, as if there were nobody else in the room. “Don’t forget that they’re expecting to hear something by the first of September. That gives you just over two more months.”
“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Blue. He swung his guitar strap over his head. “You can see yourself out, yeah?”
“Naturally,” said Merian, crisply. Her gaze fell on Janey and myself and her lip curled. “Don’t forget what I said.”
Without elaborating on what
that had been, she hoisted her large leather handbag onto one bony shoulder. At the doorway, she turned, as if she’d forgotten something. “Got a title yet?” she asked, over her shoulder.
Blue smiled. “Little Things That Kill.”
Merian considered it for a moment, her head on one side. Then she gave a single sharp nod, as if satisfied, and strode out of the door without a further farewell. I heard her high heels clicking over the flagstones of the stable yard before they faded from hearing.
“That’s it,” said Blue, voice hoarser than usual. “Hard work’s over for the day. Now it’s time to relax.” As if on cue, Race came through the door of the studio with a tray laden with bottles and glasses, cigarette packets and the ubiquitous silver tin of cocaine.
As the days rolled by, I began to see that this was the routine of life at the manor. Work on the new album in the morning; the only time we ever saw Wade in a state that was anything other than catatonic. Break for lunch and the first drinks and lines of the day. Party on into the evening, before the need for sleep overtook us. We slept where we dropped, as it was warm enough to do that on most nights; on the terrace, by the swimming pool, on the lawn, by the fire in Cody’s room. Janey and Blue, and Race and I, seemed to have paired off. Although I shared a bed with Race (or a lawn, or a sofa, or a rug by the pool), I actually spent more time with Cody. We seemed to click, and with Janey so taken with Blue – she was by his side almost constantly, we hardly had a chance to exchange more than a few words every day – I would have been lonely except for my new best friend. One particularly hedonistic afternoon, I made a tentative move towards him; not so much because I fancied him, just because that afternoon I felt so close and so affectionate towards him that it seemed to me the logical next step. I didn’t stop to think about Race. But as it was, Cody put my hands away from him gently but firmly, laughing.