The Wine of Angels

When she walked up to them, retrieving her breath, the tall, thin one went gratifyingly red. Merrily didn’t smile at him.

‘You seen Jane Watkins anywhere?’

‘Yeah,’ the other boy said. ‘I seen her a few times. Nice-looking. Bit like you.’ Smothering a giggle with his hand, cocky little sod.

‘And do you know,’ Merrily said patiently, ‘where she is?’

‘Hang on,’ the tall one said, ‘I never seen her on the bus. You see her, Dean?’

‘She weren’t on the bus. She weren’t on the bus this morning neither, I’m pretty sure.’

Merrily frowned.

‘No, honestly.’ Dean was overweight and beady-eyed. ‘There’s six of us gets on at this stop, right? And she’s always there when I gets yere. Last minute, me. Matter of pride. Jane wasn’t there, Vicar.’ He grinned in her face. ‘Swear to God.’

‘Thanks,’ Merrily said tightly.

‘Looks like ’er bunked off, dunnit? Naughty, naughty.’

The square swam before her. She couldn’t believe it. Not for one minute. Whatever she said about school, most of it disparaging, Jane did not bunk off. Jane had never missed a day except through illness and family tragedy. The youth was lying. Why was he lying to her?

Dean nonchalantly pulled from his schoolbag a can of Woodpecker cider, ripped off the tab. Merrily was sure she could smell it. Sweat and apples. She turned away in disgust. The kids were separating, going off in different directions. Maybe Jane had missed the bus. But if she wasn’t there this morning?

Merrily went cold. She turned round and round, the square blurring into the Black Swan, the Country Kitchen alleyway, the Late Shop, Church Street, the vicarage behind its trees. Not again. Jane, please God, not again, don’t do this to me.

Calm down. It’s broad daylight. She’s fifteen years old, she’s smart, she’s been around. She’s probably at the vicarage. Up in her Apartment with a tape-measure.

I’ll kill her.

In his last, morose months, Nick Drake, aged twenty-six, would get into his car and drive and drive until he ran out of petrol, because he hadn’t the confidence to stop at a garage. Often, his father would have to travel about seventy miles to bring him home.

When he was not out in his car, Nick would sit with his guitar in his room at his parents’ home and play the same chord sequence over and over again, like some sad mantra. There had been a time, not so many years ago, when all this had made terrifying sense to Lol.

He sat on the chair arm with the dented Washburn on his knee. His fingers found A-minor and then F and then E-minor, stroking the strings with nails ruined by a winter of collecting and chopping logs for the stove. Conceding that Nick’s chord-sequence, even in those faded days, was probably a good deal more complex. Never could work out his tunings.

On the table was a letter which had arrived this morning from the record company, TMM. It was pleased to inform Lol Robinson that the compilers of a new mass-market collection, to be called Acoustic Echoes, would be interested in including his song ‘Dandelion Dreams’ from the third and last Hazey Jane album.

Money for nothing. Backed by TV-advertising, these compilation albums sold by the vanload and also generated new interest in your old records. This was the fourth in two years to include one of his songs; it was how he lived. And it was a living; it paid the mortgage on the cottage, it put food on Lol’s table and Ethel’s dish. It was enough. Wasn’t it?

He struck the doleful E-minor. He wanted to write again, sure he did, but when you lost it you lost it. You were supposed to be more inspired when you were unhappy, when your woman had gone and left you all alone. How come he could just about cobble lyrics together for Gary Kennedy’s adequate tunes and that was it?

The phone rang. It would be Karl. Karl had rung twice since the weekend. The second time, he’d said, I’m going to come and see you again. I’ve got some ideas for songs. As if Lol had never said, No way, no I’m not doing it, I can’t do it. Got some ideas for songs, Karl had said, voice absolutely bland, no hint of menace. I’m going to come and see you again.

He put down the guitar, picked up the phone.

‘Lol? It’s, er, it’s Dennis. Dennis Clarke.’

‘Hello,’ Lol said, relieved. ‘How are you doing? Thanks for the album.’

‘No, er, no problem.’ Dennis coughed. ‘So you saw Karl, then.’

‘He came over.’

‘Yeah,’ Dennis said. ‘Right. He came back to see me again. We had a talk.’

‘He tell you about this gig he did with this band in America and all the girls afterwards and how he could’ve gone on all night despite being twice their age?’

‘No,’ Dennis said. ‘Gillian was there. He told me about how much money we could make if we did another album.’

‘And were you impressed?’

Dennis went quiet.

Lol said, ‘Was Gillian impressed?’

‘Lol, OK, look, I ... Well, I said ... I said yes. I said I would.’

‘Would what?’

‘Do another album.’

This time Lol went quiet.

‘It’s just a record, Lol. It won’t mean touring. I mean ... I can fit it in. Karl says they’ll organize a studio at Chipping Camden or somewhere, so I travel up, come home at night. Gillian’s ... Gill says she doesn’t mind.’

‘What about your wrist?’

‘Elbow. I suppose, if I take a couple of pain-killers ...’

‘Right,’ Lol said. ‘Well, good luck. I’ll look out for it.’

‘No, hang on. I mean ... I mean, you have to be in the band, obviously.’

‘That’s funny, Dennis, because I told Karl I wasn’t going to do it.’

‘Lol, you’ve got to do it.’

‘Oh. I see,’ Lol said. ‘He kind of threatened you, did he? What was it, plain violence, or something Gillian doesn’t know about? I have to say, it was the violence used to work with me. But that was nearly twenty years ago. Not now, I don’t think. What he did finally was worse.’

‘Lol, listen—’

‘He says, Dennis, you persuade that little bastard, or—?’

‘No! No, he didn’t! It was nothing like that.’

Lol felt sorry for him. He felt sorry for himself too, but maybe Dennis, the safe, Chippenham accountant, was more vulnerable right now.

‘Dennis, if he ever asks, I’ll tell him you did your best.’

‘Lol, for Christ’s sake ...’ He sensed Dennis was near to tears. ‘Oh, come on, man, you know it’s you he needs. You know he can’t write a fucking song to save his life.’

‘Dennis.’ Lol was surprised how firm his own voice sounded. ‘Just tell him to leave me alone. Tell him not to come near me.’

Outside the window, there was white blossom on the apple trees. Why did white blossom depress him so much? Maybe the memory of white flowers on his mother’s coffin. His father turning his back on Lol at the graveside. On a luminously still May afternoon much like this one.

‘I won’t tell him that,’ Dennis said. ‘Not yet. Jesus Christ, it’s only an album, Lol. Just the one.’

‘Vicar!’

She turned impatiently at the vicarage gate. ‘Oh. Gomer. Oh dear, I’m sorry, I’m—’

‘You got some addresses for me, Vicar?’ He was wearing a dark suit and a black tie with what had to be a twenty-year-old knot.

‘Sorry?’

‘In Cheltenham. Figured I’d set off early, like.’

‘Oh. Of course. I’m really sorry, Gomer, things have been ... Would you mind if I were to call you with the