Banquet for the Damned Read Free Page B

barbecue fuel and pumps that dispense unleaded petrol. A lonesome crow, a black crow, a big-nosed Rolling Stone, a threadbare scarecrow, a stoned Ramone. Who is he at twenty-six? A joke or a rock'n'roller?
'Where are we?' Tom asks. His face, drowsy from sleep, peeks from the side window.
Tired, Dante sighs. 'Lancashire.'
'How long have I been asleep?'
'Three hours. Remember what I said about a second pair of eyes?'
'Yeah, yeah. Sorry, mate.'
At midday they stop again, this time at Penrith, and eat fish and chips in a truckers' cafe. 'I stink of petrol, man,' Tom complains, trying to fluff some life into his sleek hair before he gives up and pulls it away from his angular face, tying it into a ponytail. Two large hoop earrings shake gently against his cheekbones. With a yawn, Tom lights another cigarette and his topaz eyes drift across the tables. No girls in here . Dante smiles.
'Now, when we get there, everything will be square with Eliot?' Tom asks.
'Mr Coldwell,' Dante corrects him and raises an eyebrow. 'We pay the deposit and one month's rent in advance. It's a good deal. Less than what we were paying back home.'
'Yeah, but what if it's a shit-hole? I could not take another house without heating. I swear.'
'St Andrews doesn't have shit-holes.'
'You've never been there. I've heard Scotland is rough. They have these posters in pubs about carrying knives. And they're for the chicks.'
'That's Glasgow. St Andrews is different. It's a jewel. Eliot . . . Mr Coldwell has told me all about it. There'll be no more scallies trying to nick our guitars up there, mate. You should be grateful. Imagine just turning up and looking for a room stinking of the War Wagon with frizzy hair. They'd drop us right back on the border.'
Tom starts to laugh. It is the same conversation that has replayed throughout the last month. Shaky supports holding the escape tunnel open. 'Sure, sure,' Tom says. 'But why couldn't we just stay at his house?'
'Who would want to live with us, man? Come on, get real. He has enough work to do: the academic stuff and his second book.'
'Do you think he will let us read it?'
'I don't know. I mean, I'll ask.'
Tom gazes past Dante to the carpark outside. 'I tell you, buddy, the other thing that's weird, is him and his bird liking our album. I mean he's an old guy. A philosopher.'
'So? He's flattered. His book was written fifteen years before we were born and we want to do a concept album on it.'
'Yeah, but it's rock music. Does he even know who the Stones are?'
'That's irrelevant. He knows we have a goal. A need to transcend all of this. That's what Banquet for the Damned is about. Our record will show it's still valid. Timeless. It can appeal to a man in his twenties today, or someone born in Eliot's generation.'
Tom nods. 'Yeah, and I'll tell you something. When the second record is released, if the critics write us off again, I'm off to London with a pistol in my belt. They fuckin' killed us.'
'They killed him too.'
'Did we waste our time?' he asks Tom at a motorway service station near Carlisle. Because now it's his turn for doubt. The closer they get to Scotland the more ludicrous the whole expedition begins to feel. It's choking and he can't keep it down.
Tom fiddles with the zip of his jeans, having just returned from the gents'. 'With what?'
'With the band.'
'Where did that come from?'
'Driving in the slow lane at fifty miles an hour, where the caravans overtake you. Gives a man a lot of time to think.'
'How's the wagon doing?'
'OK. Seventeen to the gallon and the bearing is holding out.'
Tom taps a cigarette into his hand from the red and white packet he keeps tucked under the sleeve of his T-shirt. He flicks the cigarette into the air with his thumb and then catches it between his teeth on the way down. He rolls it between his incisors before embracing the filter with his lips. 'Materially, it was a joke. Blowing our own money like that. Personally, it was a huge achievement. We're just ahead of our time.'
Dante