The Story of John Nightly
Page 64
At first, things went well. Christiania was new then and we hadn’t developed the… problems we have to deal with today. John was writing and composing all the time and had written a new piece of music. It was a gentle piece, a kind of hymn piece; to Iona, there’s no doubt.
What they intended was to make a performance of it here at Grey Hall, where Dylan had played. That year, in exchange for agreeing to pay for electricity and water, the Danish government finally conferred on the commune the status of ‘social experiment’. It took some of the pressure off us but it also meant that many people were just sitting around getting stoned all the time. I think John began to experience strong feelings of paranoia again, and started to spend more and more time in the… what we call, refer to, as the pharmacology department – the hash market.’ [Niels opens his smoke box] New Age was actually… new then… and people were coming here to try things. Other ways of… living… of doing.’
Niels put down his soggy joint and peered into the smoke, as if attempting to decrypt or decipher something that might be in there. But in a way… I always thought that John himself was in a kind of a… a kind of downbeat place at that time… personally I mean…
item: ‘Star Trends’, by Sacha Gomez, GIRL magazine, (Vol. 5, No. 87). 10 November 1967.
Jasmine Sansar Mukti (Dawn Miller). Birthdate: 26 April 1948, Bolton, Lancs.
Born on 26 April, Jasmine is a typical Taurean. Strength of will and obstinacy – look at the eyes in the photograph – and practical knowhow are her zodiacal characteristics. Her natal horoscope shows the moon in Sagittarius, denoting a quickness of mind, and a keen intuitive nature associated with Sagittarians. She is wise, generous with her time, and has a measured sense of self. Jasmine has recently taken the names Sansar (‘world’) and Mukti (‘freedom’) as is the custom in India; possibly giving an indication of her wider interests when she leaves her university. In the coming week, Monday and Wednesday are good days for shopping!
14a Down End Road, London SW11. Monday, 18 December 2008.
‘Like the thing Leonard Bernstein said about music. On his TV series…for schools, wasn’t it?’
Justin had the three decks lined up ready to go. He put on his reading glasses, adjusting them by gently tapping back and forwards along the bridge of his nose, all the time squinting and frowning as though he were twenty years older than his actual age. He double-checked that he had the correct sides of the LPs while at the same time lining up that morning’s roll call of pills.
‘Me and John watched it one day in America when they were first trying to get him back to… normal health, I suppose. He was such a fan – of Bernstein. Thought he was really “the man” y’know, man. Always managed to get himself out of bed to watch that show.’
Justin shuffled to the sink, pausing momentarily to look out over adjacent rooftops before downing the tabs in one with a tumbler of water. A shared bedsit in the eaves of a terraced house in South London was most definitely not what the guitarist and former stargazer might have been expecting as a final resting place, but he seemed quite chipper.
‘John loved the fact that you had, like, the most… “profound” musician in the world, but that he’d always be talking about pop music or… the Pointer Sisters.’ He laughed, ‘at least at that time anyway, or… Mahavishnu, the sort of… “un-profound” stuff. While realising of course that the whole thing, everything we were doing, stuff that everyone like us… was doing, was actually very profound indeed!’ Justin looked to his friend for a response, but none came. ‘You remember the programme, don’t you?’
RCN nodded, at the same time wondering exactly where they were headed. It was quite an epistle this early in the morning, and he had to be getting on.
‘Bernstein was decked out in his Levi’s suit. This kind of… profound, or whatever, guy… in jeans and that…’ Justin leaned over the amp and switched it on.
‘There was the bit where he came on at the end of the series and they did this… Q&A… and the interviewer asked him these stupid questions.’ He began to half-heartedly act out the part, putting on a typical ‘cinema-trailer’ voiceover…
‘“It’s been a truly wonderful series, Maestro, and I should like to ask you this one final question…” The question was something like, “After all of this teaching, all these weeks spent… analysing… explaining things – educating, Maestro – can you tell us, and I hope this won’t sound too simplistic…” And they cut to Bernstein, who has on this sort of expression – What the hell’s this imbecile on about? And why on earth am I still sitting here? Bernstein had this fag in a holder… sort of superior… super-clever, supercilious and that…’
Justin moved over to Deck 1 and lined up the needle. ‘So the guy says… “Maestro, let me ask you this…” ’ Justin for some reason now fell into a half-Russian, half-Indian accent… ‘ “What exactly is music, Maestro? What is it really? And how do you… how can you… really describe it?” Whatever it was he said… it was or coulda been at least a… a fairly stupid question…’
RCN sniffled and snuffled in his woollen cardi as he nursed his habitual cold, tipped a third lump of sugar into his tea and stirred it once more for luck. He motioned that his friend continue.
‘And he says – the interviewer I mean – “Because when this music – inspiration – comes to you, wherever it comes from, when it does come… can you… tell me… explain to me, what do you try to do with it?”
‘So… Bernstein sort of… looks straight at the guy. Straight through him… raises his eyes to the heavens, confirming his true feelings for the human being sitting in front of him.’ Justin began to elaborate with his hands. ‘That he was… y’know, he was basically a guy who didn’t understand a fuckin’ thing about anything – you remember this, John?’ RCN shifted position on the sofa-bed and picked up the newspaper in anticipation of Justin’s imminent concluding of the tale.
‘Remember the programme, yeah.’
‘ “Do with it?” says Bernstein, like… becoming even more irritated. “Yes, do with it,” says the interviewer, becoming more y’know… confident. “When inspiration hits, and some music comes to you, what do you do with it?”
‘So, the camera stays on the Maestro, and the Maestro nods, as if to say, Okay, you imbecile, I will actually answer that. “As little as possible,” says Bernstein, most definitely looking pleased with his answer, a half-smile coming from his eyes as he takes another drag from his ciggie, coughs then suddenly looks… extremely sick.’ At which point, as noted by RCN, Justin appeared to do the same, he stood up straight to get his balance and cleared his throat…
‘ “So… in conclusion then, my question is, as I say, after all this… this going through things, all these weeks of explaining to us, teaching, educating’ us, Maestro… I ask… What exactly is music? What really is the…”
‘“Waves of love,” says the Maestro. “Waves of love…” ’ Justin paused, swallowed and began to tremble slightly as he repeated the words. ‘“Waves of love,” the Maestro says again, much softer this time, before he, Bernstein, takes yet another drag and sort of… puffs it out all over the screen, and stares down at the floor. As if the Maestro was suddenly… overcome by his own… genius brilliance, you know?’
The old codger that Justin had become lined up Decks 2 and 3, balancing each stylus rather precariously on the record’s outermost grooves before he himself wiped away an unwelcome tear, got up the courage to look RCN in the eye, raised his eyebrows in a kind of apologetic ‘So there you go!’ way, and flicked the switch.
‘That IS what it is, man. That’s exactly what it is. Music y’know – John? You know? The only… literal thing it can be. Can’t it? Waves of Love?’
The nurse nodded philosophically as the Mink Bungalow’s opening credentials, the most perfect seduction known to man, muffled in and out of sync, as it always had. Sludgy and uneven in texture, despite surface noise and static, poor stereo-imaging and the odd rumbling floorboard, John Nightly, even o
n a dusky, damp morning in deepest Balham, still managed to flood the room with eternal light and wisdom.
‘Weirdest chords I’ve ever heard…’ slurred the guitarist, following a deep intake of breath before taking a Bernstein-like drag himself, as he turned his head towards the speakers and began to physically vibrate, letting his very being fade into the music, letting himself be thoroughly consumed by it. ‘And they’re still fuckin’ weird!’
RCN breathed heavily and sighed as if he literally could not take one more second of this unabashed, unhindered and certainly uncalled-for display of emotion. An upset this early in the morning, and also at this strange location, this uncomfortable and somehow (it had to be said) reasonably unwelcoming, tiny-roomed home.
The nurse got up from the sofa-bed and walked over to the window by the sink. What a sight it was that greeted him. Not the soft, late-afternoon haze of his Cornish idyll but a series of filthy, good-for-nothing backyards and their utterly inappropriate extensions. Ken Livingstone’s vision for London. Cold, grey… afraid, a-feared… money-grabbing, money-generating, money-orientated. A vision very unlike that of Lady Percyval, the Wesleys, Justin, RCN… or Leonard Bernstein. Not at all ‘profound’, except for the snap of footsteps in the street and the song of the sparrow on the next-door roof. The visitor sighed again and pulled a face before he too paused, looked down at the beer-stained floor, over at his old acquaintance, then inward at himself – his very being; shirt buttons popping across RCN’s belly, waistline so tight even he himself was surprised his faded old jeans hadn’t burst their seams. He opened the door to the fridge.
‘There’s juice in here from 2005!’ RCN shouted to the guitarist over the meandering masterpiece.
‘Yeah… but it’s the end of 2005!’ replied Justin, quick as a flash, as RCN affected another deep breath, as deep as he could manage, pulled a another face, signalling his discomfort, giving his friend a sympathetic gaze before slumping wearily on Justin’s Oxfam recliner, hoisting himself up with no little trouble onto its unmatched, scratched and soiled, plastic cushions.
‘But what he didn’t say, Just…” RCN mumbled, as his own rheumy old eyes began to well up. ‘Is that… sometimes… sometimes…’ RCN looked directly at his host. ‘You get a tidal wave.’
item: Transfer deposit from: Royal Bank of Scotland, Market Jew Street, Penzance, Cornwall TR18 2QR.
Account in the name of Mr J. Nightly.
Account Number 3357049
Sort Code 60-41-34
Amount £8,529,000 (conversion from dollar account)
Beneficiary Coutts Private Bank, 25, Berkeley Square, London W1A 4WW
Transfers per amounts listed
Date 14 November 2007
Reference Will, donations
Tax reference Nightly, J. North London office, 844-302-32
To Greenpeace: £2,000,000
To The Elephant Trust: £500,000
To The SUMHA Centre: Brampton, Huntingdonshire: £400,000
To The Carbon Trust: £500,000
To St Danes Hospitals: F. Centre Project Trust: Trondheim, Norway: £300,000
To The Cinnamon Trust: £300,000
To Mr R. Kemp (details as advised): £100,000
To E.P. Peed (details as advised): £100,000
To Mr M. Hall (details as advised): £100,000
To Cornwall Tree Trust: £300,000
To St Eina Roof Appeal: £100,000
To St Stephens Nursing Trust: £300,000
To Rural Stations Project: £50,000
To St Eina Churchwarden’s Appeal Fund: £100,000
Saturday house-clearance sale. Pears Auction House, Penzance. 17 March 2009
Lot 113
An illustrated plastic goose
Lot 704
A kite spinner
Lot 022
A cane bin
Lot 403
A Thunderbirds Supermanionation puppet of (Alan)
Lot 349
A box of books
Lot 299
A box of books
Lot 401
A padded tartan dog
Lot 413
A boomerang
Lot 399
A coloured print of The Hay Wain after John Constable, framed
Lot 556
A 1970’s rocket lamp
Lot 586
Two pairs of field-glasses
Lot 599
A rocking-horse
Lot 922
A John Speed Map of Cornwall (reproduction)
Lot 223
A box of 78 rpm records (artists incl. Beatles, Jim Reeve, Starship and Will to Power)
Drawing taken from plant-hunter’s notebook 1978 by Rev A. C. Smith, Yatteling Rectory, Colne. Anemone hortensis (stellata) [starry anemone] at Cap St Martin, Mentone
John Nightly, 1948 – 2017: a Chronicle
The following timeline features persons or events that might be seen to have had an influence on the characters in the story.
300BC
Aristotle publishes On the Heavens (proposing geocentric cosmology)
120BC
Ptolemy (in The Almagest) creates a more accurate model of the universe based on Aristotle’s theories
1100
Cornish saints establish prayer circles around the area of Black Cliff and Porthcreek, Kernow, (Cornwall)
1230
John of Hollywood (Johannes de Sacrobosco) publishes his Tractatus de Sphaera, the first printed astronomical handbook
1450
May 9, Thomasine Bonaventure born in Week St Mary, North Cornwall
1473
February 19, Mikolaj Kopernik, ‘Nicolaus Copernicus’, the founder of modern astronomy, born in Torun, Poland
1498
Thomasine Bonaventure marries Sir John Percyval, Lord Mayor of London
1511
St John’s College, Cambridge, founded by Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Heny VII
1514
Copernicus proposes heliocentric cosmology
1527
July 13, John Dee, astrologer to Queen Elizabeth II, born in Tower Ward, London
1530
December 23, Thomasine Bonaventure dies in Week St Mary, North Cornwall
1540
Alessandro Piccolomini publishes Delle stelle fisse, the first star atlas
1542
November 12, Dee enters St John’s College, Cambridge
1543
May 24, Copernicus dies in Frauenburg, Poland, having received an ‘altered’ copy of his On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres on his deathbed
1545
May 1, John Gerard born in Nantwich, Cheshire
1546
December 14, Tycho Brahe born in Knudstrup, Skåne, Denmark
1552
July 15, John Speed, historian and cartographer, born in Farndon, Cheshire
1555
May 28, John Dee arrested for ‘calculating’
1564
February 15, Galileo Galilei born in Pisa, Italy
1567
June 9, John Parkinson born in Nottingham
1570
April 15, John Tradescant the Elder born in Suffolk
1571
December 27, Johannes Kepler born in Weil der Stadt, Germany
1572
January 28, John Donne born on Bread Street, London
1573
Brahe publishes De Nova Stella
1576
Construction begins on Brahe’s Uranienborg observatory, his ‘Castle of the Heavens’
1577
Brahe draws the first circular natal star charts (for the children of King Frederic II)
1577
Dee publishes the Perfect Arte of Navigation
1584
Brahe builds Stjerneborg, ‘Star Castle’, his underground observatory
1586
Donne attends Cambridge University
1592
Brahe produces his Catalogue of 777 Stars
159
7
John Gerard publishes his Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes, the first botanical catalogue in England
1600
Kepler becomes Brahe’s assistant
1601
October 14, Brahe dies in Prague, Bohemia
1601
Donne produces his Songs and Sonnets
1605
Galileo publishes his Dialogo de Cecco di Ronchitti da Bruzene in perpuosito de la stella Nuova (or concerning the New star)
1607
Donne publishes his Divine Poems
1608
March 26, John Dee dies in Mortlake, Surrey
1608
August 4, John Tradescant the Younger born in Meopham, Kent
1608
December 9, John Milton born in Cheapside, London
1609
Johannes Kepler publishes Astronomia Nova
1609
Galileo builds a series of refracting telescopes
1610
Galileo publishes Sidereus Nuncius (The Starry Messenger)
1610
July 25, Galileo discovers the planet Saturn
1610
Kepler publishes his Conversations with the Sidereal Messenger in support of Galileo
1612
John Speed publishes his first map of Cornwall