Thin Air (32 page)

Lacey was at Emmertame that
Sunday night; a cold, sullen presence at the dinner table. She had
dyed her fair hair different colours of red and green, which had
faded. Her clothes were a jumble of ethnic styles that hid her
body. She reeked of patchouli. Dex wondered why she ever bothered
going home, seeing as the experience clearly brought her no
pleasure.

‘Good of you to dress for
dinner,’ Lorrance said.

Lacey shrugged, disinterested in
his opinion, and drank some wine. She glanced at Dex with what
appeared to be despising. Dex could tell she considered him to be
simply her father’s creature.

Samantha yacked her way through
the courses, leaving no space for other voices, which was perhaps
fortunate as Dex felt he had nothing to say. Lacey kept directing
penetrating glances at her father, which sometimes he would return.
Dex was puzzled about their relationship. Lacey hardly spoke, but a
conversation took place, Dex was sure of that.

After dinner, he and Lorrance
went into the oak-panelled music room, and Dex produced a tape of
his recent songs. Lorrance poured brandy, and they both sat in
leather, high-backed chairs as the music spilled out of the hi-fi.
Lorrance said nothing, sipping his drink steadily. Dex had sought
to wrap his statements up in metaphor and innuendo, but now it
seemed all too obvious what he sang about. At the end of it,
Lorrance rose slowly from his chair, put his drink down
deliberately on a side table and moved to the stereo. With careful,
precise movements, he took the tape out of the machine and began
pulling it from its case. It tumbled out like shining entrails.

‘Hey!’ Dex half rose from his
chair, but was paralysed by a glance from Lorrance.

‘I presume this is not the only
copy,’ he said, still pulling tape. The spools screeched
softly.

‘No.’ Dex was stunned. He had
meant to say he would tone down the sentiments in the songs, but it
seemed Lorrance had already made up his mind about them.

‘Are you insane?’ Lorrance
inquired gently. ‘You must destroy these songs. The music is good,
of course, but the rest must go. I do this only for your sake,
Dex.’

‘I told you, it was an
exorcism,’ Dex said. ‘I can only write what’s in my head.’

‘Whip yourself in private,’
Lorrance said. ‘I can’t believe what you’ve done.’

Something in his tone made Dex
crack. ‘Can’t believe what
I’ve
done?’ He laughed coldly.
‘Have you never thought about what happened?’ For a brief moment,
Dex’s mind was filled with the image of a forgotten, rotting body,
lying in a cellar, half eaten by rats and insects. He had to put
his fingers against his mouth, afraid of retching.

‘No, I don’t think about it,’
Lorrance replied. ‘There’s no point. It happened, and the occasion
marked the end of our parties for a while.’

‘Did you kill that boy,
Rhys?’

Lorrance stared at him. He
didn’t seem angry or affronted. ‘He killed himself. It was
unfortunate, and something to be put behind us. It certainly should
not be shouted about in songs. Do you understand that?’

Dex closed his eyes. So far,
nobody appeared to have searched for that boy, not like people had
for Little Peter. Nobody cared. The evidence was slowly
disappearing into the quiet, listening forest, until nothing would
remain.

‘You are learning,’ Lorrance
said, ‘and I appreciate this blood-letting is part of the process,
but it’s time for you to rise above petty human codes.’

Dex glared at him. ‘I’m not
interested. You conned me into something, and I don’t even know
what it is. I don’t want to know.’

Lorrance smiled kindly. ‘You are
part of it now. There’s no going back. Whatever your view of
morality is, rest assured it’s only a product of human limitation.
True power is beyond morality. Sanctimony and righteousness are for
the weak and ignorant. I have hauled you out of the masses. You are
awake now, Dex. Get used to it. See the world as it is.’

‘I’ve always been awake.’

Lorrance shook his head slowly.
‘You’ve been dozing,’ he said. ‘Dreaming.’

Dex stood up. ‘I have to
go.’

Lorrance nodded, clearly at
ease. ‘Very well. I will see you again soon. Make a new DAT, Dex.
Take off the vocals and write something snappy that the kids will
like.’ He smiled and tapped his brow. ‘Let your true songs, your
essence, play up here. Eventually, you will communicate them, but
only once you’ve achieved a certain level of understanding. This
will take time, I know, but I am not concerned about you, Dex. I
can see your soul.’

Dex shuddered inside. ‘I’m not
what you think I am.’

‘You have no idea what I think
you are.’

Lorrance walked with Dex to the
front door. There, he put a hand on Dex’s shoulder. ‘Did you hope
to reach me with those songs, make me feel remorse?’

‘No. It was just for
myself.’

‘Just as well. Good night, Dex.
Drive carefully.’

Out in the night, Dex stood in
the driveway and stared back at the house. It was an evil place and
it had touched him intimately. If he stayed around Lorrance,
perhaps all that was good within him would die, and he’d become
like the others, like Charney. Three Swords. They pierced the heart
of the world.

Dex got into his car, and turned
on the CD player. Songs from his last album, ‘Memory Drift’,
surrounded him. Songs that had meant something. He knew Lorrance
wanted him to write vapid confections about drugs and partying and
shallow sex. Feed the masses what they want. Help them stay asleep.
He remembered his original vision and what he’d hoped to achieve.
He’d wanted to throw cold water over people, wake them up to
reality. How far he’d strayed from the path. Perhaps the only way
to escape whatever Lorrance had decided for him was to sacrifice
himself. The songs he’d written should be released. He should be
honest. If they weren’t, perhaps nothing should be released at all.
People might wonder, then. As he put the car in gear to set off, a
ray of light spilled out of the house, then disappeared. The front
door had opened and closed. Dex peered out at the drive, and saw a
slim figure approaching. It was Lacey. She leaned down to look into
the car, her face impassive. ‘Drive me somewhere,’ she said.

‘Sure,’ Dex answered. ‘Get
in.’

She walked around the car, her
feet crunching on gravel. Once she had climbed in, she filled the
interior with her earthy patchouli scent.

‘Where do you want to go?’ Dex
asked. She had no bag with her. Her hands, with their
multi-coloured fingernails, were clasped loosely in her lap.

‘Just drive.’

Dex set off down the drive-way.
Lacey said nothing, staring out of the windscreen. He wondered what
she wanted from him. ‘I’m going back to London,’ he said. ‘You want
to go there?’

She shook her head. ‘You can
stop in a moment.’

‘Why? What is this?’

She glanced at him. ‘Stop now.’
They were only a short way from the gates to the estate. Dex pulled
onto the grass at the side of the road. Bright moonlight shone into
the car, illumined the landscape around it without colour.

‘Well?’ Dex said.

‘Don’t be a fool all your life,’
Lacey murmured.

Dex stared at her. ‘I’m no fool.
What do you want?’

She smiled bitterly. ‘You are a
fool. You shouldn’t give in to my father. He didn’t make you, he
just used you.’

‘You listened to our
conversation.’ Dex leaned back in his seat, his arms folded.

‘Yes, I listened,’ Lacey said.
‘I have no interest in you, that’s not why I’m talking to you now.
I care only about truth.’

‘Dex expelled a bark of caustic
laughter. ‘Truth?’ He shook his head. ‘Get out of the car, Lacey.
Don’t try to involve me in any family feuds.’ It was not
inconceivable Lorrance had sent his daughter out here himself.

Lacey raised her eyebrows at
Dex, spoke coldly. ‘I’m not involving you in anything. All I’m
saying is be true to yourself.’ She opened the car door. ‘I know
what happens,’ she said, and walked away from the vehicle, leaving
the door hanging open.

Dex watched her walk back onto
the drive-way to home. Had that been another test? Dex could not
tell. Perhaps Lacey had acted from her own impulses, in which case,
how much did she know?

Shortly after this event, Lacey
Lorrance absconded from university and ran away. Dex found out
about it from Zeke Michaels. ‘She’s gone to join a hippy commune or
something,’ he said. Dex privately wondered if this was true.

Dex pretended to work on the new
material, but spent all of his time thinking. When the time came to
go on tour, he was terrified. He had made the decision to perform
the songs as they should be performed. He would sing the truth.
Then, after the first gig, he realised an incontrovertible
truth.

He stood up on stage, watching
the audience pulsing to the music, their hands held aloft. He sang
to them - really sang to them - projecting into his voice all the
feeling in his heart. The applause came, the baying, but it was no
different from the response to any other concert. They still howled
for the old familiar songs. Dex realised then that his fans never
really heard him. His painful revelations, about himself and world,
had washed over them. He expected too much from them. Their
adoration was his life-blood, but for them to adore him they had to
be ignorant. He could not have their understanding and their blind
faith, for faith dies in the glare of awareness.

At that moment, as the lights
dimmed, and he left the stage, he realised he had gambled with the
commitment of his audience, but had misjudged them, over-estimated
their intelligence. He was no guru to them; he was a star. Gurus
might speak, and people might learn from them, but stars merely
glowed; beautiful, but remote. The audience would never respond in
the way he’d like. They’d never come to their senses and say “Yes,
he’s right. We must do something about this”. But he sensed the
power he had over them, the sort much prized by Lorrance and his
kind.

Gina Allen was standing in the
wings, chewing the inside of her cheek. Dex felt scorched by her
glance. She looked predatory. He brushed past her.

Backstage, Dex began to fret. He
knew that Lorrance would soon discover he’d dared to sing the
forbidden songs, because he’d noticed earlier on that a half dozen
or so dark-suited Ghosts had been stationed around the edge of the
venue. What would be the consequences of his actions? He’d be
punished in some way. Jay might even be in danger, or Julie and the
kids. And for what? The audience hadn’t even noticed his message.
They adored him, but not Dex the person. He wasn’t real to them.
They didn’t want him to be real. Neither did the carrion-eaters
that hung around the scene, the social climbers, the wannabes.

Dex had sensed the power in his
voice, a force that became stronger every day. His education had
been taking place whether he co-operated with Three Swords or not.
He was changing. And nobody would notice. He could charm people,
influence them, direct them, and like drugged sheep they’d comply.
What value did these people have, anyway? Men like Charney and
Lorrance existed because the masses were too lazy and self-centred
to care. There were fates worse than death. Dex could wait for it,
or walk away from it all, deny them their victory. Ultimately, it
had not been a difficult choice to make.

Jay sat with her head in her hands, her
elbows resting on the worn table-top. ‘I was a fool not to sense
anything was wrong with you,’ she said. ‘I was too wrapped up in
dead-lines and that shallow, horrible life.’

Dex moved uneasily. ‘Don’t blame
yourself, Jay. I was deeply in the shit before I even met you. You
gave me respite, you gave me love, but ultimately it was not
enough.’

‘Thanks.’

Dex ran his hands through his
hair. ‘By the time I left you, I was hardly myself any more. I had
to go, just to try and recapture what I’d been. Jay, if I’d stayed,
I don’t know what would have happened. Leaving you was the kindest
thing I could do. You found a new life...’

Jay leaned forward. ‘Dex, be
quiet. I loved you. You should have told me what was going on. We
could have got out of it together. I would have stood by you. We
respected one another.’

Dex was silent for a moment. ‘I
didn’t want to put you in danger. I thought you’d get over me.’

‘Some people you never get
over,’ Jay said. ‘I learned to live with it, that’s all. I’ll never
meet anyone like you again.’

Dex pulled a rueful face. ‘I’m
not that special, Jay, not really. I’m an ordinary northern bloke,
who got lucky. You wouldn’t have looked twice at me otherwise.’

Jay shook her head in
exasperation. ‘It didn’t matter to me about the fame, the
adulation. Can’t you understand? You could have been a brick-layer.
It was never about that.’

‘We wouldn’t even have met if I
wasn’t what I was.’

‘But we did meet. It happened.
It was precious.’

He took her hands and rested his
forehead on them. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

Jay kissed his hair, inhaled
that familiar smell. She wanted to hold him, absorb his pain,
cleanse him. Perhaps there would be a time for that. She withdrew
her hands from beneath his. ‘Dex, you have to tell me now: what
stirred it all up again? Why did Sakrilege take an interest in me
after three years? Why did someone say they’d seen us
together?’

Dex raised his head. ‘It might
be partly because I showed up at Lorrance’s house. I let him see
me. I wanted to fucking spook him and I did. He probably thought
I’d decided to return to my old life and that I’d make contact with
you.’

‘Would you have done, if
Sakrilege hadn’t taken that interest in me?’

He paused. ‘Jay, I don’t know. I
thought about you a lot. But I was screwed up with self-pity. I
thought I was bad news for you.’