‘Robinson, watch my lips and remember this: all I did at the Master House was pay for the drugs and expend some testosterone. The so-called magic passed over my head. I didn’t believe in it, then, and I don’t believe in it now. It was libidinal spice.’
‘So you never found the gold. Or whatever it was.’
‘Need you ask?’
‘What happened to the tapes?’
‘Mat took them, I suppose. If I should come across one, I’ll let you know. Or anything else that occurs to me. Just write down your phone number on there.’
Hayter picked up a folded copy of
‘So the girl—?’
‘She was black. It was a novelty. She was … succulent.’
There was a coldness in the room and it seemed to gather in Lol’s spine and he sat back against a cushion. Stourport finished his drink and didn’t pour another.
‘Don’t expect me to go any further than that — not that any of it’s spectacularly obscene in comparison with some of my later escapades. Most of which have been extremely well chronicled, as you know.’
‘What happened to them? The ones that got away.’
‘Dunno. I was in the slammer. A nightmare. You couldn’t even get decent dope in British prisons back then.’
‘You didn’t hear from Mat?’
‘No. Dead, now. Somebody told me he’d gone out to the Middle East or somewhere and he’d died or been killed. I wasn’t sorry. He was a cold bastard.’
‘What about Mary?’
‘Dunno where she went. I was in the pokey, like I said. When I came out, just about the last place I was likely to go near was the Master House. In fact—’
Lord Stourport broke off, slowly put his glass back on the hearth and looked out from under his shelf of white hair, levelling at Lol a steady gaze that went on for a long time. All the time it took for Lol to realize that he’d said the name Mary and Jimmy Hayter had only ever mentioned a nameless black girl.
41
Time of No Reply
On the back of the stone, it said:
NOW WE RISE
AND WE ARE EVERYWHERE.
‘Where are you now?’ Merrily was asking in Lol’s ear.
‘In a churchyard. Under an oak tree. Tried to call earlier but your phone was busy. All the time.’
On the grave, in front of the stone, strewn like the fallen petals of plastic flowers, Lol had counted fourteen plectrums.
Above them, on the small, grey memorial, a blunted plectrum of stone in the grass, the names of MOLLY DRAKE and RODNEY DRAKE and their dates.
At the top, the name of the son who had predeceased them both. His dates: 1948–1974.
‘Churchyard, where?’
‘Um, Tanworth. Tanworth in Arden. In Warwickshire.’
Pause.
‘Lol, that’s …’
‘Nick’s village.’
‘Oh God, Lol.’
‘It’s OK.’ His glasses had misted; he took them off. ‘It was on the way. I saw the signpost. Had to stop, obviously, never having been. Maybe — you know — avoiding it.’
‘Of course you had to stop.’ Slightly awkward pause. ‘What do you … I mean, what’s it like. You know, the …?’
‘Very quiet and modest, really. Not unhappy. Listen, there are things I need to tell you. Lord Stourport.’
‘You saw him? I tried to reach you.’
‘Um … you won’t find this edifying.’
Lol put his glasses back on, took out a folded tour-schedule, full of the notes he’d scribbled in the truck, back near the burger van, and told her what he’d learned from Jimmy Hayter.
Standing next to the grave of Nick Drake and his parents, decent, prosperous residents of this increasingly wealthy village, while the sun was hiding in the oak tree, making an autumn bonfire amongst the turning leaves.
Merrily made notes on the sermon pad.
She wrote down the names:
PIERRE MARKHAM
MICKEY SHARPE
SIGGI—?
MAT PHOBE?
DE MOLAY — TREASURE?
With a kind of mental shiver, she wrote down,
CROWLEY
OTO
And then,
GROTTO OF DREAMS???
And, in rapid sucession,
BLOOD SACRIFICE … COUNTRY GIRLS.
… PAID
Underlining this, remembering Mary’s letter:
Because he was safely out of there, in the sanctuary of the Tanworth churchyard, at the shrine of his first tragic hero, she was able to smile at the way Lol had blown it, dropping Mary’s name when Stourport had referred only to a black girl.
She wrote,
FRAIL.
And then, finally,
SYCHARTH????
