“I don’t know, Walter,” said Selena, even angrier now with him in return. “But I know this baby would have been so important to her. It would have been more important than you could ever imagine. Please, get moving.”
Walter put down the phone and got to his feet.
Siobhan had gathered his keys and wallet and handed them to him. She did so with two hands, reaching out and pushing him away as though to urge him to go. At the last minute she grabbed the folder of soundscape descriptions.
He shook his head. “Keep them,” he said. “Please. I have copies.”
He looked into Siobhan’s blue-green eyes, then walked out to the car; the thought came to him that his mother had never trained him to understand women; they still seemed such strange creatures. And if he was any kind of example of men in general, then they were equally peculiar.
On the ferry from Dublin back to Holyhead, Walter leaned against the rail on the deck outside the bar. The sea was rough, the sky gray, and the ferry groaned slightly as its stabilizer fins struggled to keep the massive bulk of the ship steady. Keep it steady they did; despite the waves and the wind the ship plowed on at eighteen knots as though the Irish Sea were a millpond. Nothing to fear out here.
And yet Walter felt the return of the intense anxiety he had suffered when he first woke up to Siobhan’s news about Floss’s accident. He could not go to the hospital. He must go home first.
Oh God! He couldn’t make himself go to see his own wife, who could be dying in the hospital after an accident that had led to a stroke.
I remember that when Walter told me all this I interrogated him quite harshly. How could such a good man, and he was that, suddenly become so self-obsessed, hard-hearted, and callous? How could he have waited even for a second before driving to the hospital? He defended himself as best he could. He had been in a mist, unsure he should even be driving. He had asked himself whether the panic he felt rooted in was fear. Or was it anger?
He arrived on the outskirts of London in the rush hour. It took him over ninety minutes to drive on the M4 from Reading past the airport. It was after seven in the evening by the time he was level with Chiswick on the A4. Instead of turning off to Sheen he carried on, turning left through Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush, through Paddington and up to Camden Lock.
Dingwalls. That had been his decision. He needed to stand at the bar at Dingwalls. He didn’t even know if the place would be open, but as he drove past it to park in a back street he could see a line of people queuing to get in.
As he walked to the door the first person he saw was me. The evening at the club had not quite started, and there was a scruffy, young local band onstage doing a sound check. I had gone to meet Frank Lovelace for a drink and to discuss what Walter might do with his new work, as complemented by the brilliant work of his father. We were both standing talking to the bouncer.
We had heard the news about Floss’s accident half an hour or so earlier from Selena, who had been sitting on the edge of the stage looking up at the young lead singer as though hoping he might notice her. She looked downcast, her cheeks streaked with mascara. Pathetic. She hadn’t noticed me as far as I could tell.
Frank spotted Walter approaching and hurried toward him, throwing his arms around him when he reached him.
“What are you doing here, man?” He blocked his way into the club. “Have you seen Floss?”
“How do you know about what happened? Do you know what happened?”
Frank nodded. “Selena,” he said, gesturing indoors. “She’s in the club watching the band.”
Instead of turning around and leaving, this seemed to strangely reassure Walter. He smiled grimly at Frank, perhaps making the face he felt Frank would expect to see, and went in and walked to the bar.
I intercepted him. “Come and talk to me, Walter,” I offered. “You must be in shock, we all are.”
He muttered that he needed a drink, and while I was getting it Crow, who was doing a show later that evening and was at the other end of the bar, came to join us, holding a Coke. Crow hugged Walter, an uncharacteristic gesture, then shook his hand, and with a shake of his head and a quietly expressed promise to meet soon, made himself scarce. But in that moment Walter had gotten a tangible unspoken message from Crow that he should not have come back to the club; it would always be his home, but he should not be here now.
Selena joined us at the bar, looking less confident than usual, and less glowing. She put up her hand to him in greeting, but didn’t move toward him, aware of his confusion. He looked around him and seemed to lose concentration. He looked dizzy.
Frank Lovelace was giving orders to a girl of about seventeen, who wore dirty jeans, a scruffy denim jacket, and was carrying what looked like a heavy spool of lighting cable. Her face was smudged with what appeared to be engine oil.
“Molly,” said Frank, introducing us. “I got her the job here on the lights.”
Molly was the tank-girl type who often ends up doing this kind of work. Not necessarily as gender-bending as she might appear, she would have been conventionally pretty but for her messy hair. She was smiling hugely though, obviously pleased to be a part of the Dingwalls world, and especially enjoying the insider proximity to the band.
She looked at Walter as if she wanted to say something, and he responded with an encouraging nod.
Selena looked ready to throw herself into the girl’s path, but was just managing to contain herself. The young woman held out her hand to Walter.
“Welcome back,” she said in a confident voice. “We’ve all been waiting. I’ve never seen you play, much too young. Got work to do now. But respect, man! Respect!”
Frank gestured that she should go back to work, so she walked off toward the stage.
Selena tracked Molly’s movements, glaring at her. She wanted to let the younger woman know who was boss, it seemed. So I had Walter to myself and we sat and talked. Walter explained something of what had happened between him and Selena, their sexual encounter, and also how confused he was. He was still wondering why he had felt compelled to go to Siobhan for guidance, and apologized for not reaching out to me.
Walter was not one of those predatory men so common in the music business. He had loved Siobhan and now he loved Floss. And yet Floss was not entirely in his mind; it was almost as though he were driving her specter away: Floss, in a hospital bed, broken and probably distraught.
He looked to the bar where Selena now stood gazing intently at him. His thoughts slowed down even more. Is serial monogamy the answer to the attractions of the flesh? This was the pointless thought that he said now flashed into his head. Falling into bed with Selena had been out of character for him; he knew it and so did she. He could therefore safely acknowledge and accept it when he was attracted to a woman, whoever she was. As he was telling me this, I caught him watching Molly as she reappeared and went back to work. He saw me watching him and in an instant he was found out! It was a poignant moment; Walter was coming to grips with the fact that he was just a man, a human being.
Molly looked like the kind of girl who would confront any man she wanted and, in the brutal parlance of the times, get her needs met. She also looked as though she might be a lesbian; this was something that maybe troubled Walter further after our discovery of Siobhan’s bisexuality. He might be one of those men who wanted to conquer the unconquerable. Just as some young women felt safe in a lively group of gay men, some young men felt drawn to women who like women.
The barman gave Walter a free beer as if for old times’ sake.