It was like someone dragged a razor across my skin — not enough to draw blood, just a cold blade drawn down my neck, never enough to break the skin. I almost cried out — I would have, but my voice was gone. I know it sounds crazy, but I felt as though my own voice had been sucked into his, my breath. My heart beating at the same time as his. Nothing but that song and that voice and his guitar. None of us have ever been able to play that song since.
Jon
He’d just finished playing the bridge when I saw her. She was in the corner, watching him. I didn’t see her walk in.
At first I thought she was a young boy. Very slim and fine-boned, white-blonde hair. A real towhead. She was so pale, I mistook her for light reflecting on the mirror behind her. Took a minute for my eyes to focus and see it was a girl.
I’d put her at fifteen, sixteen. She looked younger because she was so thin, but when you got a better look, her face wasn’t young. Not old, just — she looked like she knew things. Her skin was the whitest skin I’ve ever seen — you could see where the veins were. It made her skin greenish, like a luna moth’s. She was wearing a long, floaty dress, white dress, ragged at the hem. Barefoot, leaves stuck to her feet like she’d been walking in the woods.
I didn’t think she was that unusual — you couldn’t throw a rock in the King’s Road and not hit some Pre-Raphaelite teenybopper. Pale and interesting. Still, I suspect it raised a few eyebrows with the punters in the Wren.
But with her, it wasn’t makeup. I saw that when she walked over, after the set. She was the palest creature I’d ever set eyes on. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, same way I felt about Julian. When the two of them stood beside each other, you didn’t know where to look.
Chapter 13
Patricia Kenyon
There’s an old West Country ballad called “The Lady of Zennor.” Will turned me onto it when I interviewed him for that long piece I did for Mojo about Windhollow’s legacy. It’s based on a legend about a mermaid. Zennor’s a fishing village in Cornwall. I visited it after talking to Will; he told me there was a memorial in the village church. I thought he was having me on, but damned if it wasn’t the truth.
The story goes that there was a young man in the village who sang in the church choir. His voice was so beautiful that every Sunday, a mermaid would come out of the sea and walk up to the church and sit in the back just to hear him. I don’t know how she walked with a tail — they didn’t go into that. Eventually she converted to Christianity so she could marry him. The church is ancient, twelfth century, and when you go inside, you can see where she sat — someone made a special little wooden pew for her, with a mermaid carved on each end. I sat in it — no one was there to stop me. The church was empty and I could have walked out with it if I wanted, it was so small. She must have been tiny.
I asked Will why he was telling me about this particular legend and song. Obviously I knew why, but I wanted to hear him say it, even if it was off the record. He wouldn’t.
Lesley
No, I didn’t like her, not that I had time to get to know her. I didn’t trust her. I knew too many male singers, and you didn’t have to be Jimmy Page to get a bunch of fourteen-year-old girls hopping into bed with you.
I also knew that Tom Haring would pitch a fit when he found out. Which he did. The whole point of us being at Wylding Hall was to avoid distractions, and groupies are definitely a distraction. God knows how she knew we were there. Someone must have heard about Ashton and me singing at the pub, and blabbed it around.
She certainly wasn’t from the village — every guy in that place just about keeled over when he saw her, even Jonno.
And yes, of course I was jealous. Anyone would have been. She was like some hippie wet dream: platinum blonde in that slinky white dress. Not even a dress — it was a white slip; it might have been a hundred years old. It was sheer enough you could see she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
This is all we need, I thought, to get run out of town because some naked teenager shows up at the pub.
But Jonno, god bless him, he had the sense to give her his cape to cover up. And yes, he did wear a cape, a long sky-blue velvet cape that cost a fortune. It looked a lot better on her. What the hell’s a drummer going to do with a freaking cape? Jonno threw it over her and pulled her over to our table. Which, fortunately, was in the back corner. They all just fawned around her like she was the Queen or some such shit — Will and Ashton and Jonno.
And Julian, of course. Soon as he finished that song, he jumped up, grabbed his guitar and — I swear, I never saw him move so fast. He raced over and grabbed her hand, and just stared down at her.
My first thought was they knew each other, like she was an old girlfriend or someone from school. Yet he wasn’t looking at this girl like he knew her. It was more like he was totally amazed. For a second, I even thought she was someone from the press or maybe a rock star, some bigwig he’d invited but hadn’t imagined would really show up.
But it immediately became obvious she wasn’t. I can’t describe it, but she gave off this weird vibe. You know how you’ll see a crazy person in the street, and even though they’re not acting overtly crazy — like, they’re talking to themselves, so maybe they’re on a cellphone. But you just know there’s no cellphone. You just know, that person is nuts.
That’s how I felt about her. Like maybe she was on drugs and might pull a knife, or god knows what. She looked strung out. Didn’t know where she was, didn’t know her name. Ashton kept asking her, “Who are you, who are you?” until Julian told him to shut the fuck up.
That alone was enough of a warning. Julian never lost his temper. Ever.
Whoever she was, I didn’t want her anywhere near me.
Ashton
Well, I thought, where’s Julian been hiding this? Still waters run deep! Here’s this drop-dead gorgeous wisp of a girl comes running up to him. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Also, she was just about starkers. When Jonno wrapped his idiotic cape around her, I wanted to throttle him — doesn’t hurt to look! But I suppose it was for the best.
Clearly, she and Julian knew each other. They clung together like kids; you couldn’t have slid a penny between them. After about five minutes, it got to be a bit much.
“All right,” I said. “Time, gentleman, time.”
I put my hand on Julian’s shoulder, and he jumped like I’d given him an electric shock.
“What did you say?” he demanded. He had actually gone white.
“Just a joke,” I said. I looked over and saw good old Les had been the first to do something sensible. “Look, here’s Les with a round, let’s drink up and head back home, what do you think?”
Julian took the girl by the hand. “She’s coming with me.”
“Of course she is. ” I handed him a pint. Lesley had only brought five, I noted.
“We didn’t get much money,” she said. She looked angry. “I had to buy a round for Reg.”
Just as well, the wee girl didn’t seem like she’d be able to handle her drink. Seemed a bit stunned, deer in the headlamps.
I glanced around to see if anyone in the pub recognized her. She might have been someone’s kid. That wouldn’t go over well — rock and rollers coming in to kidnap their women and children.
But no one seemed to know her. If anything, they seemed to be making a point of not looking at her. Because of how she was dressed, I thought at the time. Or undressed. There were bits of stuff stuck to her feet. Dead leaves, I thought, but when I looked closer — and I wanted to look closer, believe me — it wasn’t leaves, but feathers.