December (56 page)

The sight of the guitar
behind glass turned Moira's heart to marshmallow.

      
The guitar had a golden spruce top, rosewood body, an ebony
fingerboard and mother of pearl around the soundhole.

      
It wasn't as big as some of the Dreadnoughts, maybe the old jumbo
size, with a thin back. But it was the most expensive instrument in the store
by several hundred pounds. And it shimmered with memories.

      
She had enough left for that and a new Ovation. Just about. If
she was being really,
really
crazy.

      
There hadn't, in fact, been much left in the deposit account
at the Bank of Scotland by the time Moira had come out of there. Knowing full
well that if she went all the way back to Skye to fetch her regular Ovation
she'd find some excuse to stay there, she'd drawn out a whole five grand, gone
shopping for clothes. Cold weather clothes.

      
And for a guitar.

      
There'd been a nice secondhand Ovation Glen Campbell in the
store, but she'd settled for a humbler model because it was the only Ovation
they had new. Secondhand was always a risk. Like, maybe the last owner had sold
it to buy smack. With a secondhand, it could sometimes take a couple of months
to play out the bad stuff (drugs, or depression due to failure, broken relationship,
money trouble). She didn't have a couple of months and the last thing she
needed was to take any bad stuff with her to the Abbey.

      
To the Abbey. Black walls, death.
      
Jesus, I can't believe I'm doing
this.

      
Malcolm had even been dialling the TMM number for her as she
took the phone, like he was handing her a pistol to put in her mouth and
helpfully cocking the hammer.

      
This guy Steve Case had sounded like your standard record
company executive trash. Throwing out phrases like Aelwyn the Dreamer to prove
they had the tapes. Her being distant, shooting hostile rays down the
mouthpiece - as if any 1990s record company exec would be sensitive enough to
notice.

      
But when he said,
We've
remodelled the Abbey, we're going to reopen it,
she'd known at once what
this was about and gone cold and still with the knowledge.

      
Got to go back.

      
The Duchess in the steam. The sad figures of lumbering Tom and
Simon in his monk's robe and poor wee Davey fading away. So many years blocking
it all out, avoiding the inevitable.
      
Oh, Lord ...

      
And when it finally comes back, it comes back over the phone
from London, courtesy of some smooth, laid-back creep with a coke spoon in his
inside pocket.

      
Got to go back.
      
For the healing.

      
Who sang that? Van Morrison. Poor old Van, the eternal seeker
after spiritual truth, redemption.

      
If it had come last year, a month ago ... Christ, if it had
come last week, she'd have hung up immediately. What did they think she was, a
basket case?

      
OK, she'd said, very quietly. I'll think about it. Call you back.

      
And she had. Automatically, almost. With hardly a thought,
except that she was no damn good to anybody, least of all herself, with the Duchess
dead and the Abbey hanging over her.

      
And when she'd done it - called him back first thing this morning
- it was like some cosmic flunkey was suddenly running in front of her removing
all the barriers. Malcolm having the rest of her stuff taxied over from the
Clydeview Private Hotel.
      
A call back from Case's secretary
to say the Reverend Simon St John had her booked into an inn a few miles from
the Abbey. The
Reverend
! Jesus God,
redemption took some strange, stony paths, didn't it just.

      
And now she was pointing at the mellow-looking guitar in the
air-conditioned showcase - the only exhibit in the store behind protective glass;
all the other guitars were on racks, so the punters could pull them down, try a
few chords.

      
The young guy in charge said, 'You do know what mat is, don't
you?'

      
Looking down at her in his superior way, having no doubt cast
her as a Mum pricing up Junior's first wee guitar for Christmas.

      
And, hell, it
was
a
lot of money. These imports just got more and more pricey; no way you'd pay
that much in the States, no way at all.

      
On the other hand, spending more money than she could afford
would be a further statement of commitment, right? Leaving so abruptly, making
no attempt to contact Simon or Tom, not even waiting for Davey to call back,
all that was a demonstration of how insecure she still must be, underneath, about
this thing. Having to act fast, get on the road, do some hard driving, before
reason could prevail.
We're no' safe
together .. . we're too much.
This, fourteen years ago, saying: We blew it,
let's cut our losses, we're too inexperienced to handle this, let's get the
hell out while we still can.

      
Thinking she could leave it all behind, that none of it was
going with her, that by being somewhere else, doing other things with other
people, she could shake it off. Like purging the body of a need for drugs. Only
purging the spirit was just so much harder.

      
'Sure I know what it is,' she said to the store manager,
almost snarling. 'It's an M38 Grand Auditorium. Now get the damn thing down
before I change ma mind.'

      
Leaving him flushed and dumbfounded as she walked out of the
store, nearly three and half grand lighter, a guitar case in each hand. Thinking,
you lucky wee swine, if you don't sell more than a pair of castanets the next
fortnight you'll still have earned your Christmas bonus.

      
Feeling better -
terrified
,
but at least it had a focus - she headed south, eyes open.
      
Eyes open, right?
      
On her own now, but not naked.
      
Oh
God
.

At the pub, effortlessly
hammering the locals at darts, Weasel had learned a good deal about thin Meryl,
who, being of farming - or, rather farm
labouring
- stock, had a whole bunch of relatives hereabouts.

      
Born out Bisley way into a big family, good-looker from an
early age, never slow to exploit it. Big ideas. Too good for the local boys,
except for the odd fumble behind the hedge, for the experience. Buggers off to
Cheltenham, marries a businessman, Charles Somers, moves down to the West
Country, but it don't last, couldn't be expected to, not with this lady.

      
Divorced, Meryl high-tails it back to Cheltenham, teaches
cookery for a few years at some snooty school. Succession of blokes, then talk
of her going all religious, but, like weird-religious. Finally fetches up as
'cook-housekeeper' to that Councillor Broadbank - talk about a slippery
bastard.

      
So how would you feel - Weasel asking - if she'd pissed off with
your, er, best mate?

      
So much merry laughter at that one that the poor sodding
landlord must've been scared it'd bring half his beams down.

      
Next morning, Weasel stakes out this Hall Farm for an hour or
two, parking in the village half a mile away. Watches Broadbank cruising off about
ten then has a little nose around.
      
True enough, all quiet, no Meryl.
The slippery bastard was on the level this time.

      
Weasel motored over to the Love-Storey wholesale depot in
Stroud to borrow the phone. He rang Directory Enquiries and got a number for
Dave Reilly's old ma in Hoylake - it being Dave who'd directed him to Tom when
he come out of pokey, so worth a shot.

      
Phone was answered by an unknown male, elderly. Maybe Dave had
got hisself a new daddy.

      
'David? Gone off with his girlfriend, pal.'

      
'Girlfriend? Who? Where's she hang out?'

      
'Scottish girl. She rang here for him, like you, yesterday. We
gave her his London number.'

      
'Which is?'

      
'Hang on. Rhoda, what's that number for your David?' But when
Weasel rang the London number some geezer, gave his name as Adrian, said
irritably that Dave Kite (Dave Kite?) wasn't here no more, no idea where he'd
gone, he'd had to clear off in a hurry this morning so that he, Adrian, could take
up residence as was his right under the deal with Muthah Mirth.

      
Scottish girl?

      
Couldn't be, could it?

      
Nah.

Dave, at the wheel of the
grumbling old Fiat, was trying to remember coming across the Severn Bridge
before. Didn't remember the mud flats, water like sheet-metal, or the crazy toll
they made you pay to go into Wales. The fact that they let you out for nothing,
if you were in any state to get yourself out … Was this an omen?

      
give yourself a break,
Dave. Pretend there's no such things as omens, yeh?

      
'That's bloody rich.
You
believed in them. Least, she did, Yoko, which amounted to the same thing. And
fate …'

      
don't fucking start,
Reilly ...

      
'... And how you could change the whole pattern of your life
if you went off in some pre-arranged direction along a certain line of
latitude, some crap like that. Is it right she used to put you on a plane for
somewhere you'd never heard of, because it would be quote good for you unquote,
and you never argued, you just went? "Directional Therapy", right?'
      
don't
push it, Dave.

      
'All I'm saying is, how is that any more stupid than what I'm
doing now? Moira just leaves a message on me answer phone and I leap up and pack
me bags - yeh, yeh, I had to leave there anyway, but ...'

      
did I say it was stupid?
Listen, if there's only one woman you ever connected with, sooner or later
you've gorra go for it. Even if you're wading into a river of shit with no
wellies.

      
Curiously, the countryside seemed greener, better-wooded on
the Welsh side of the bridge. And undulating; already there were hills, easy,
rounded hills. He came off the motorway at Chepstow; should've waited for the
Abergavenny exit, but he wanted to take it slowly.

      
On the basis that he couldn't believe he was here.
      
It was a bright, cold morning.
December 4. Bright and cold and unreal. The further he drove into the green
border country, the more detached he became, the deeper the feeling of unreality.

      
'Suppose she's not there.'
      
No reply.

      
'I said, suppose ...'

      
He peered into the rear-view mirror. It was clear, no mist,
just a reflection of the road from Chepstow to Monmouth.
Ahead
of him was the wide,
wooded canyon of the Wye Valley.
      
He drove around a bend and -
Christ!

      
The abbey ruins were enormous. They filled the car windows,
blocked out the forestry and the river and half the sky. He was thrown into
panic, wanted to slam the Fiat into reverse, swing round in the road, race for
the border.

      
wrong Abbey, Dave.

      
'What?'

      
'Tintern. This is
Tintern Abbey. A very famous national monument.
      
'I ...'

      
The ruins were massive, far too massive. And manicured, and
spread out like an enormous medieval film set.

      
Unreal. There was no reality here. This abbey was a tourist
attraction. There was scaffolding all over it; winter maintenance. This abbey
was dead.

      
The road slid into the village of Tintern and Dave stopped the
car, bowed his head over the steering wheel and took long, deep breaths. He sat
back, leaned his head over the seat back.

      
What am I doing here?

      
Suppose the other Abbey -
that
Abbey - did not exist except in some maverick sphere of the imagination.
Suppose he was driving in wild pursuit of an impossible dream. Suppose that he'd
manufactured Moira's voice on his answering machine. That when he'd called
Kaufmann's office and heard the secretary say
, 'I'm sorry, Moira's left, said to tell you she'll meet you at the
Abbey, does that make any sense? What she'd really said was, I'm
sorry, there's no one called Kaufmann here and I've never heard of Moira,
perhaps you have the wrong ...