December (58 page)

      
The words hung like a vapour trail in the sky around the
half-obscured summit of the Skirrid. The way
deathoak
had shone like neon in the studio that night. The way the
black aura throbbed in the air around ... around half the bloody people he
seemed to meet these days. If a tractor came past now, there'd be some old
bloke in the saddle grinning through his terminal haze.

      
Oh God, why me...?

      
crackin' up, Dave?

      
'Sod off.' He carried on walking. By his reckoning, this
Castle Inn of Simon's was less than a mile away. If he kept on walking, he was
bound to get there sooner or later. Bound to get
somewhere.

      
The atmosphere was heavy. Cold and sultry. Could you
have
cold and sultry? No birds sang. After
a while he couldn't stand the silence.

      
'John?'
      
what?

      
'Tell me again. What am I doing here? Why've I come?'

      
well, principally, Dave,
you've come because you're a stupid twat. Sorry, what d'you want me to say?

      
'Would the truth be stretching things?'

      
shit, you're sounding
almost humble. Fucked if I know how to handle this. When I give you the truth,
it's the last thing you ever want. I give you 'Woman' and 'Beautiful Boy' and
stuff like that, you want 'Day in the Life' and 'Girl' and 'Norwegian Wood'.
And then you wanna kill me. Everybody wants to kill me. Listen, you wanna know
why you're doing this, I'll tell you, OK. Just don't throw it back at me, man.
The reason you're doing this is Old Love.
Old Love. It's like old gold, polishes up like new, only better. How's
that?

      
'Yeh. Thanks.' Dave came to a fork in the road. The widest ,
option curved away from the Skirrid, almost back the way he'd come. The hill
was the only landmark he knew; he followed the straight route.

      
Sour clouds were massing now around the Skirrid, dense as
mouldy cheese, hardened by dusk. There were only fields as far as he could see,
which wasn't actually that far any more. No visible farmhouses; you wouldn't
think this area could be so remote, would you?

      
After a few hundred yards, he became aware that the hedges were
closer on either side, that the track he was following was no longer wide enough
for a car and was gradually growing steeper.

      
The dusk closed around him. He had a feeling of walking
towards the end of his life. He'd never felt as lonely.

      
but you still got me,
Dave. You've always got me, son.
For ever
and ever.

'It s getting ridiculous,'
Shelley said, not laughing. Looking in fact very worried, and Martin Broadbank
was ashamed that he couldn't think of a damn thing to do about it. Except for,
perhaps, sitting next to her on that big, squashy sofa of hers, and putting a
neighbourly arm around her shoulders.

      
At this moment, Martin was alone on the big sofa, Shelley
standing in the centre of the rustic-brick-walled drawing-room. Although her
crisp, white blouse was sufficiently unbuttoned to ensure that the option was
never far from his thoughts, he had to concede that this perhaps wasn't the
time to offer her his neighbourly arms.

      
The voluptuous Mrs Storey seemed, as usual, unaware of her
effect on him. 'It must seem odd to you, Martin, that he's never been away from
the house, even for one night, let alone two.'

      
'Well, Meryl ...' He hesitated. 'She's a very capable woman.
I'm sure she wouldn't let any harm come to him.'

      
Shelley's eyes sparked angrily. 'You mean apart from the harm
she might personally inflict with her misguided spiritualist fervour?'

      
'But that's hardly … Martin was mildly surprised that this
seemed to be at the forefront of her concern rather than the probable impact of
Meryl's undoubted sexual magnetism.

      
'Oh, Martin.' Shelley moved restlessly to the big picture
window, overlooking the treeless, sloping lawns and two men in overalls
repairing the fence. 'You've had rather a sheltered life, haven't you?'

      
He wanted to protest. He thought it unjust that he should be
accused of naivety on the sole basis of not being terribly intimidated by the
dubious implications of what Meryl was wont to refer to as 'other spheres of
existence'.

      
'Because I don't believe in this nonsense?'

      
'Because you don't realise the harm it can cause,' Shelley said
simply.

      
'Shel?'

      
Shelley turned sharply from the window. The hairy little man,
Weasel, was shuffling despondently in the doorway, shaking his head.

      
'Wasn't quick enough, Shel. Missed him. He was less than five
miles away all the time. In that new motel down the Gloucester road.'

      
'Of course.' Shelley punched her left palm. 'New.'

      
Martin was baffled.

      
'Checked out this morning,' Weasel said. 'About half-eleven.'

      
'Was he alone?'

      
'Er ... Yeah. It was a double chalet, but he was on his own. When
he checked out. So they said.'

      
'Perhaps Meryl booked another chalet then,' Martin said tentatively.

      
'What the hell does that matter?' Shelley snapped. "The
question is what we do next. Do you think there's any point at all in telling
the police? I'm not bothered about any connections they might make with the
Tulleys, that's irrelevant now.'

      
'I'm afraid,' said Martin gently, 'that the police don't
organise searches for men who appear to have gone off with a woman. If you see
what I mean.'

      
Shelley stiffened, glared at him and then sort of slumped.
'You're right, of course. But... I mean ... what the
hell
does the stupid woman think she's
doing
?'

      
'She likes to think she can help,' Martin said, feeling foolish.

      
'Sunday tomorrer,' Weasel said. 'I'll make a few calls tonight,
if I can use the blower.'
      
'What? Oh. Sure.'

      
'And I'll get on the road early. I'll pull out all the stops, Shel.'

      
'I know you will,' Shelley said, and silence fell. Martin felt
the weight of something he couldn't understand.

      
In the corner of the drawing-room, the child, Vanessa, stood by
a bookcase, still as a mannequin.

      
Her eyes, behind those extraordinary designer pebble glasses,
were fixed on Weasel.

The mist and the darkness
arrived together and very suddenly. As suddenly, it seemed, as stepping out of
an artificially lit, windowless room and discovering it was night.

      
It had been day and now, he discovered, it was night. All of a
sudden.
      
Dave didn't care.
      
Didn't give a toss.

      
What could happen to you on a holy mountain?
      
He could still see his feet in
their puny moccasins. He could feel sharp stones under the rubber soles,
indicating that this was not what you'd call a road
any more
and therefore what he should
do, immediately, was turn back. Common sense demanded that he turn back.
      
'John?'
      
No answer.

      
'Come on, you bastard, don't piss about.'
      
There wasn't even a breeze to move
the wintry silence. It was cold, though, on the Skirrid. Common sense suggested
he turn around and find his way back to the car, because sooner or later
another vehicle would pass that way - OK, probably driven by a person with an
unpleasant black halo, but he didn't need to mention that.

      
But he carried on walking. Not
impelled
exactly. He just thought: Well, I might as well.

      
A kind of mystical apathy, he'd be thinking later.
      
Meanwhile, he found himself
thinking of that poor bugger Aelwyn Breadwinner plodding through the night -
and the snow; there seemed to have been snow - to hammer on the door
 
of the Abbey. Sanctuary! Sanctuary!

      
He heard himself say, 'You sought sanctuary, didn't you?'
      
Silence. He hadn't thought about
it; just heard himself say it: sanctuary. He stopped on the path, clutching
frantically at an escaping thought disappearing like a firefly into the mist.
No, don't chase it. Don't think. Carry on walking.

                       
Aelwyn
the dreamer

                       
Came
down from the mountain

      
Plodding feet in tempo with the song.

                       
His
harp on his shoulder
                       
His hopes for the
future

      
Keep going. Don't
think.

                       
Where
William de Braose's
                       
Tables were
groaning
                       
With wild boar and sweetmeats
                       
And liquor and ...

      
'Come on,' he yelled suddenly. 'You know what I'm saying. New
York. You wanted to live in New York because you reckoned it was the only place
- ha ha - where you could walk around without being bothered.'

      
Still silence. He let it lie, thinking hard. Then there was scuffling
in some bushes to his left; a bird or a rabbit. It seemed to kick-start the
night; there was a fluttering in front of him and a beating of strong wings
overhead.

      
'Come on!' Dave shouted against the noise. 'Think. Dakota. The
magic citadel. Protection. Sanctuary, right? The late Seventies this would be.
You decided you wanted to become an American citizen. All-American ex-Beatle.
But they wouldn't give you a green card for ages. The government was
suspicious. You were a troublemaker. You gave press conferences in bed, you sat
in a bag and mumbled subversion about giving peace a chance. You were a shit-stirrer
and you had a big following, You were the very last kind of American citizen
that the Reagan administration needed. You were under heavy surveillance you ...'

      
I lived there. It was my
home.

      
'What?'

      
here's Yoko, here's me.
It's our home.

      
The voice was in the mist. The mist laughed.

      
it was our city. Once, I
- get this, Dave - we once gave a thousand dollars to a fund to provide New
York cops with bulletproof vests. How un-American can you get?

      
'I didn't know that.'

      
sanctuary.
Good word. In England I couldn't go out the fuckin' front door, man. Couldn't
gerra bag of chips from the chippy, nothing. And she says - this is Yoko-you'll
be able to walk here, she says. And it was right, y'know? It's like you've been
psychologically crippled for years and somebody takes away your wheelchair and
says you don't need a wheelchair here. And nobody bothers you, nobody wants a
piece of you to take home and stick on the mantelpiece. All the people, either
they don't give a shit or they respect your privacy and it's like, hi John,
nice day. Not, can you give us a spare pair of your underpants to auction for
our new scout hut or whatever. It's freedom. I'd forgotten what that was about.

      
The path was getting narrower, he could feel the bank on
either side. The stones were sharper. The soles of his feet hurt. He had an image
of Christ
en route
to his execution,
barefoot, bloody great cross over his shoulder.
      
The way things are going, they're
gonna cru ...
      
The Romans and the Pharisees and
the CIA and the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration.
      
What was it like? You remember Mark
Chapman?'
      
Long, long silence.