December (7 page)

      
Steve was fondling the stiff paper like it was an erotic love letter
oozing scent.

      
'What you got then, Steve? Gonna trust old Prof, are we?'

      
Which he knew he could or they wouldn't be here together. Prof
Levin's discretion was legendary. Even pissed. Prof stayed shtumm. Even his
ex-wife would accept this.

      
'It's an album,' Steve said guardedly. 'Or part of an album.' He
folded the papers, leaned over the box. 'How many in there?'

      
'Twelve.'

      
'Super. It's probably all here then.'
      
'In a manner of speaking,' Prof
said.

      
Problem was, even if Elvis himself, in his undeniably cranky final
years, had secretly signed to Epidemic to record his farewell opus, it quite possibly
wasn't going to matter a flying fart any more.

      
Prof held up one of the reels, unrolled a couple of inches of
tape. 'Steve, this tape is knackered, mate.'
      
He dropped it back into the carton.
      
'Unplayable,' he said. 'Kaput.'

This boudoir was the size
of a modest dance hall. Its walls were all white.
Had
been white; there was a coating of dust now, except for the
etiolated rectangles where pictures had hung. Prof didn't like to think what
kind of pictures these had been.

      
He brushed some mould from his cuff. If Steve was expecting
some help here, he could be a little more forthcoming.

      
'I'm only guessing,' he said, 'but from what we know Max Goff
used to get up to, the atmosphere in here would have been pretty humid much of
the time. And then cold as the grave again, when he went away.'

      
Steve Case was staring at him, his hands hanging limply by his
sides. A thin vein meandering along his left nostril seemed to throb.

      
'Look ...' Prof held up a reel between thumb and forefinger,
going into his Sotheby's routine. 'This is late seventies, early eighties,
right. What you had then were manufacturers experimenting with new synthetic
materials. With unfortunate results. You got a class of tape which, if left for
too long in unsuitable conditions, could turn out worse than the BBC museum
pieces, you know what I'm saying? Look ... feel it.'
      
Steve drew back.

      
'These conditions,' Prof said. 'Hot and cold and bucketsful of
evaporating sweat and other bodily secretions ...'

      
Steve had let the papers from the envelope fall to the mattress.
The papers looked quite crisp and fresh. There was typing or print of some sort
on them. Prof made out one word, in capitals.

      
DEATH.

      
He blew out his lips. Terrific.

      
'What you're saying,' Steve said tensely, 'is that the oxide ...'

      
'Oxide, right. There's like a binder. Which holds the oxide on
to the base film of the tape - stop me if I'm being oversimplistic for a man of
your experience ...'

      
'Don't piss about.'

      
Prof grinned. 'So you get humidity in the tape, it causes the
binder to kind of exude on to the surface. When you play it, the tape glues
itself to the heads, the machine stalls, everything gets very, very gooey.'

      
He took out four cartons one by one, each grey-green with mould.

      
'Look at the state. How long you say this lot's been stored?
Fourteen, fifteen years?' Prof shook his head, enjoying himself. 'You could be
screwed then, mate. Be like black treacle on the heads, chocolate fudge ...'

      
'Shit.' Steve Case looked about to kick the box across the room.
'Shit, shit,
shit
!'

      
'This a disaster then, Steve?'

      
Steve looked about to kick Prof Levin across the room.
      
'So what was it then, mate? What we
looking at?'
      
Steve turned away and walked over
to the window, sighed. 'The Stone.'

      
'The Stones? When? How? You're kidding.'
      
'No, Prof. The
Stone.
Singular.'

      
Prof looked blank. He was freelance, wasn't getting paid for
this, had agreed to tag along because he owed Steve and also because Steve had
implied there was a big project on the cards if they struck oil. This was it?
This was the big one, the contents of the Ark of the bloody Covenant?

      
Steve was gazing out of the window across a grey field with a
shed in it. 'You don't remember this?'
      
'Should I?'

      
'A band put together for Epidemic in seventy-nine?' Steve turned
back into the room, 'Tom Storey?'

      
'I
see
.' The old
wheels turning. 'Recorded nineteen-eighty, you say. December eighty, would that
be?'

      
Steve said, 'Full title was the Philosopher's Stone.'

      
'That's a mouthful, Steve.'

      
'This was the item medieval alchemists believed would turn base
metals into gold. Metaphorical, apparently.'

      
'Didn't do a lot for Tom Storey, though, did it? Not in
December eighty. Are you saying then ...' Prof unearthed another reel of tape,
scraped at the mould with a fingernail, 'that this is the actual album Storey
was working on when he had his fabled accident?'

      
'The Black Album. Recorded at the Abbey at Ystrad Ddu -
ddu
being Welsh for black. In the Black
Mountains of South Wales. And black also because of... what happened.'
      
'Piece of history,' Prof said. 'Who
else was in it?'
      
Steve took the papers from the
mattress. 'Disappointingly, except for one of the session men, nobody who
counts for shit any more. There was a folk singer, Moira Cairns, and a refugee from
some string quartet called Simon St John ...'
      
'I remember Cairns. Nice voice.
Smoky.'
      
'And someone called Dave Reilly.'
      
'Dave?'

      
'You know him?'

      
'Well, I ...' Prof decided to cool it a little, until he knew where
this was headed. 'I did know him. I worked on his solo album. Eighty-six,
eighty-seven.'

      
'You know where he is now?'

      
Prof shook his head.
      
'Was he any good?'
      
Prof shrugged.

      
'All nobodies, you see,' said Steve. 'Except for Tom Storey.'
      
'Who's also a nobody now.
Reclusive, they say. And a session man, you said? Someone who
does
count for shit?'
      
'Drummer. And some backing vocals,
possibly. In effect, the fifth member of the band.' Steve paused for effect.
'Lee Gibson.'

      
Last Sunday Prof had read a feature in the
Independent
about Lee Gibson, who'd left
Britain over a decade ago and was now monster in the States. These things
happened.

      
'Really? Well, well.' Prof pinched his beard. Storey's
swansong and the launching of Lee, all in one album. 'Pity about the tape.'

      
'Come on, Prof, stop fooling about.' Steve sat down on the bed
which Prof suspected would be cold and damp. 'There are, at the end of the day,
things you can do with this tape, are there not?'

      
Prof raised an eyebrow, saying nothing.

      
'What I mean is you can bring this stuff back from the dead. And
discreetly.'

      
Prof hefted the box, stood up. 'Tell me something. How did you
know about this? How did you know these tapes even existed? How did you know
where to find them?'

      
'Prof ... Stephen Case touched the vein on his nose. 'You simply
don't need to know.'

      
He opened the door and waved an arm, as if to waft Prof and the
box out of the room, but Prof stood his ground.

      
'Hang on, let me get this right - this is the stuff laid down on
the night of the Storey calamity. Why did Goff sit on the tapes? Lie on them,
in fact. Shit, the fat bastard must've been
bonking
on them for bloody years.'

      
'Let's go, Prof.'

      
'And am I correct in thinking that while these tapes, strictly
speaking, now belong to TMM, nobody there, apart from you, actually knows they
exist? Talking private enterprise, are we?'

      
Steve Case didn't reply. Everything inside Prof Levin screamed,
leave this alone
, but he was curious,
now.
      
'OK. I'll talk to a man I know.'

      
'Super.' Steve said. 'And I'll talk to a man
I
know in connection with the reclusive
Tom. Who won't even talk on the phone, did you know that?'

      
Going down the stairs, the box in his arms. Prof said, 'You
got any idea why Max Goff should keep this under his bed?'

      
They moved around the picture of John Lennon, who was standing
in a doorway, looking sardonic. He was the least spooky; the other dead rock
stars loomed out at you like

dummies in a ghost train.

      
Prof said, 'Suppose they don't want this stuff released. Suppose
it's too painful. Storey, I'm thinking about.'

      
Footsteps clack-clacking on the stairs of the deserted
building, the torchbeam waving. Tutankhamen's tomb; the pillaging of grave
goods.

      
'Too bad,' Steve said coldly.

      
In Prof's arms, the box felt like the coffin of a child.

III

The Hideous Bonnet

Someone was approaching.
      
She arose to look out of the
window. No one in sight.
      
No one among the flaking autumn
trees which lined the track. The three other houses between her and the shore
were holiday homes, empty now until the spring, when she'd be gone.

      
She listened, and heard only the sound of November on the Isle
of Skye: scrabbling wind and seabirds.

      
But someone was approaching, and with an awful heavy burden.

      
She sat down again on the couch, pulling the guitar on to her
knees. She plucked three harsh chords . .
I
do not... need ...this.

      
She stood up, flung the guitar on the couch. It rolled on to
the floor, kind of bounced, the way Ovations did, durable instruments. Maybe
she should write some more songs. Write it all out of her.

      
Dangerously restless, she ran up the uncarpeted stairs, to the
smallest bedroom, an untidy cell, where she slumped down angrily at the
dresser, sleeves rolled up and roughened elbows in the mess of hairbrushes and
make-up, aspirins and chewing-gum wrappers.

      
She gazed into the mirror - oval, like her face - and with the
fingers of both hands she pushed the heavy hair back from the cold, white skin.
Her hands could no longer smooth out the frown fluting her forehead; the frown
lived here now.

      
And it would soon be December again.

      
In the mirror, as her hair fell back into place, she saw the
silver-grey ripple re-emerging in what once had been a torrent of black. By the
end of the year it maybe would reach her shoulders again.

      
Return of the Witchy Woman.

      
.Malcolm, her agent, used to call her this. She didn't like it
any more. What she should do was discard all her ankle-length black dresses and
her drab cloaks and replace them with - dear God - bright fluffy things in soft
pastel shades or crisp, efficient blouses and suits, as worn by female
executives.

      
Moira laughed.

      
And then stopped, biting her lip. Hold on there, hen, that was
no' a
bitter
laugh, was it?

      
She watched her eyes. She was thirty-eight, some way along the
steepening road from maiden to hag.

      
And someone was coming
with bad news.