Elizabeth Hand
Wylding Hall
To Ellen Datlow, with love and gratitude for 27 years of friendship, acute editorial insight, and doll heads
Thrice tosse these Oaken ashes in the ayre,
Thrice sit thou mute in this inchanted chayre;
Then thrice three times tye up this true loves knot,
And murmur soft, shee will, or shee will not.
Goe burn these poys’nous weedes in yon blew fire,
These Screech-owles fethers, and this prickling bryer,
This Cypresse gathered at a dead mans grave:
That all thy feares and cares an end may have.
Then come, you Fayries, dance with me a round,
Melt her hard heart with your melodious sound.
In vaine are all the charmes I can devise:
She hath an Arte to breake them with her eyes.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Tom Haring: Producer, Moonthunder Records; Windhollow Faire’s Manager
Windhollow Faire:
Lesley Stansalclass="underline" Lead singer/songwriter
Ashton Moorehouse: Bassist
Jonathan Redheim: Drums, percussion
William Fogerty: Rhythm guitar, fiddle, mandolin
Julian Blake (deceased): Singer/songwriter, lead guitar
Patricia Kenyon: Journalist/Music critic
Nancy O’Neilclass="underline" Professional psychic
Billy Thomas: Photographer, estate agent
Chapter 1
Tom Haring, Manager/Producer
I was the one who found the house. A friend of my sister-in-law knew the owners; they were living in Barcelona that summer and the place was to let. Not cheaply, either. But I knew how badly everyone needed to get away after the whole horrible situation with Arianna, and this seemed as good a bolt-hole as any. These days the new owners have had to put up a fence to keep away the curious. Everyone knows what the place looks like because of the album cover, and now you can just google the name and get directions down to the last millimeter.
But back then, Wylding Hall was a mere dot on the ordnance survey map. You couldn’t have found it with a compass. Most people go there now because of what happened while the band was living there and recording that first album. We have some ideas about what actually went on, of course, but the fans, they can only speculate. Which is always good for business.
Mostly, it’s the music, of course. Twenty years ago, there was that millennium survey where Wylding Hall topped out at Number Seven, ahead of Definitely Maybe, which shocked everybody except for me. Then “Oaken Ashes” got used in that advert for, what was it? Some mobile company. So now there’s the great Windhollow Faire backlash.
And inexplicable — even better, inexplicable and terrible — things are always good for the music business, right? Cynical but true.
Apart from when I drove out in the mobile unit and we laid down those rough tracks, I was only there a few times. You know, check in and see how the rehearsal process was going, make sure everyone’s instruments were in one piece, and they were getting their vitamins. And there’s no point now in keeping anything off the record, right? We all knew what was going on down there, which in those days was mostly hash and acid.
And of course, everyone was so young. Julian was eighteen. So was Will. Ashton and Jon were, what? Nineteen, maybe twenty. Lesley had just turned seventeen. I was the elder statesman at all of twenty-three.
Ah, those were golden days. You’re going to say I’m tearing up here in front of the camera, aren’t you? I don’t give a fuck. They were golden boys and girls, that was a golden summer, and we had the Summer King.
And we all know what happens to the Summer King. That girl from the album cover, she’d be the only one knows what really went on. But we can’t ask her, can we?
Will Fogerty, rhythm guitar, fiddle, mandolin
I knew Julian from school. We both grew up in Hampstead and attended Hampstead School for the local comprehensive schooclass="underline" Posh boys compared to Ashton and Jon, which put us at a distinct disadvantage, I can tell you that! Ashton was part of the Muswell Hill music mafia; all those blokes knew each other — stand in the middle of Archway and throw a rock in any direction, and you’d hit a folk musician.
Whereas if you threw a rock in Hampstead and hit anyone, you’d end up in prison. There were days when I could have done with that happening to Ashton. He could be a right bastard.
Still, that was our hardship, mine and Julian’s — not belonging to the working class. Me and Julian weren’t at public school — what you Americans call private school — and Hampstead’s North London, not posh Kensington. But Muswell Hill was where the best musicians came from. Something in the air. Or the drink, more likely.
I started on violin and Julian played the piano — not sure when he took up the guitar. Once he did, it was like he’d been born to it — he was an extraordinary guitar player. These crazy tunings that would make it sound like he was playing a flute or a sitar, or a human voice. We used to play at the Hampstead Folk Club, which was a glorified name for an upper room above a pub. All the folk clubs were like that: up a stairway to a dark paneled room with chairs lined up and everyone smoking cigarettes and nursing their pint. If you were lucky, someone might have a joint and would pass it to you. Nothing heavier than that. No one paid to hear us sing. And none of us musicians got paid, unless you were someone like John Martyn.
But it was a good way to meet girls, I thought, so I dragged Julian along with me to take our turn at the front of the room. Girls loved it. Girls loved him; he could’ve played the kazoo and they’d be banging on his door. He was just too good-looking, but shy around the girls in those days. Even then, people wondered, Was he gay? If he was, I never saw any of it.
Lesley said she wondered sometimes, but I think — and this is off the record; Les and I are still close, and I wouldn’t want any hurt feelings. Also, she has a temper. But I think Julian just wasn’t attracted to her. Not that Les wasn’t pretty. She was a lovely girl; we all fancied her. That’s why we took her on!
But you know what I mean. She was a different type, physically, from Arianna. Lesley wasn’t a waif, and even in school Jules always went for the wee girls with the big, sad eyes. No stamina, girls like that. I would know. And Les was scary smart, which can be intimidating for a bloke, even someone as brilliant as Julian. Maybe more intimidating. I don’t think he was accustomed to being with someone who was his equal. Musically, yes, but not someone who could match him intellectually. Especially a girl.
And Lesley was American to boot, which in those days was a novelty, and also an affront to a lot of people. I mean, an American teenager singing traditional English folk songs in a London pub? Some people came just to see her fail. Well, that didn’t happen.
Lesley Stansall, singer/songwriter
He never talked about what happened with Arianna. The police report said she fell from a third floor window to the pavement. There were no bars across the window in Julian’s flat; I do know that. She was depressive — that’s what they’d say now — her and Julian both.
Suicide? How could it possibly matter all these years later, whether I think she killed herself?
She was a teenager; we were all teenagers. Today Arianna would be some gothy little girl hunched over her mobile. She was a beautiful child with a pretty voice. She didn’t have it for the long haul.
Tom
Julian took Arianna’s death very hard. He felt responsible: “I should have never let her into the flat that night, it was my fault we’d had an argument,” etcetera etcetera. They’d done a gig together at Middle Earth, just the two of them. Afterward, he told her the rest of the band wanted to head off in a different direction, musically. She’d thought that her and Julian singing together would be the start of something, a Simon & Garfunkel sort of duo. Instead, it was the end. He was trying to give her a gentle kiss-off, but I think it had the opposite effect.