Castles Made of Sand Read online

  ‘For sure,’ agreed Sage, solemnly. ‘Being naïve and corrupt is a vibrant part of our cultural heritage, which we fully acknowledge.’

  ‘You guys were always into ancient history, weren’t you?’ put in Dian Buckley, tv presenter superstar: making eyes at Aoxomoxoa. ‘Snake Eyes and their “post-Motown” sound. Sage and his Grateful Dead fixation—’

  ‘A grounding in the classics develops the mind,’ said George Merrick.

  ‘You learn things,’ explained Peter Stannen, ‘that you didn’t know before.’

  ‘Paul Javert had his own reasons,’ announced Chip, invoking the dead to signal that he’d stopped fooling around, ‘when he picked rock musicians for his Think Tank. But it works. Rock is the art form of our times. It’s folk and futuristic. It’s using cutting-edge technology, without harm to the environment, to express universal human emotions. It’s about becoming more ourselves—’

  The term Celtic wasn’t mentioned. No need to spell it out. These were tame mediafolk, they knew what was going on. The discussion continued, lively and argumentative, while London grew dark outside; and the session ended in music, as Ax’s addresses to the nation generally did.

  The Triumvirate lingered until they were alone in the room.

  ‘Did you talk to Jordan?’ asked Fiorinda. Ax’s band didn’t often come to London, and communication could be difficult. ‘Has the baby got a name yet?’

  Milly Kettle, the Chosen’s drummer and Ax’s ex-girlfriend, had been Jordan Preston’s girlfriend since a short while before Ax and Fiorinda met. Her baby had been born in November, but remained nameless.

  ‘Yeah, I got through eventually. No name. My Dad is still fucking with their heads, and I have once more vetoed Slash. I hope my voice will be heard.’

  ‘But Ax, you should be pleased, a mighty canonised saint of our religion of excess. What could be better?’

  Ax looked a little hunted. ‘Don’t start. The media have left the building.’

  ‘I’m not going to start. I think the education scheme is a wonderful idea. Kids will ponder on the chord structure of All Along The Watchtower the way children of yesteryear studied Ox Bow Lakes, and who is to say which knowledge is more useless? Not me… Why is Marlon called Marlon, Sage?’

  Marlon was Sage’s twelve-year-old son. He lived in Wales with his mother: Sage didn’t often see him. Mary Williams had been Sage’s girlfriend when he was a teenage junkie with a taste for domestic violence. She was sparing with visiting rights.

  ‘No idea, I was not consulted. Could be a Welsh god. Or it might be something to do with the kindness of strangers, I never asked.’

  Smalltalk failed. Fiorinda studied the mackerel patterns on her storm-cloud skirts, chills going up her spine. She looked up and they were staring at her, with solemn intensity. Sage had taken off the mask.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Ax hurriedly. ‘Nothing at all. We were wondering if you’d like to get down to Cornwall for a few days, for a break.’

  Cornwall meant Tyller Pystri, Sage’s cottage on the North Cornish coast.

  ‘We can take the time off,’ said Sage. ‘And you need some fresh air.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Fiorinda slowly. ‘Good idea. Count me in.’

  The Heads had been in Cornwall doing some filming (for a secret project); and had stayed at the cottage. Everything was clean and tidy, but there was a faint spoor of alien presence: in the stone-flagged kitchen, in the dusky living room where Sage’s big bed stood, in the freezing bathroom with the ancient pebble-patterned linoleum; in the bedroom that Fiorinda and Ax used. Fiorinda walked around, discovering things out of place and setting them back where they should be. On the upstairs landing, with the windowseat overlooking the garden and the bookcase full of childrens’ classics, icy rain spattered the windowpanes, dousing the last of the light. The little river Chy roared in its miniature gorge.

  Stupid, like a cat sniffing strangers. Tyller Pystri isn’t home. You’ve only been here twice. She leaned her forehead against the dark glass, almost frightened.

  What am I doing here?

  In the kitchen Ax was frying eggs, while Sage put together a plate of chicken salad for himself, from the cold food Mrs Maynor, his housekeeper, had left ready. They stopped talking when she came in. ‘Hi Fee,’ said Sage, with false bonhomie. ‘Lemme give you some wine. What d’you want to eat?’ He poured the wine, precariously, with his awkward right hand; she knew better than to take the job away from him.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  She lifted a small piece of chicken from his plate, and nibbled it.

  ‘Hey. Do you have to do that?’

  ‘She does it to me too,’ said Ax. ‘I’m not hungry, then nibble, nibble. Drives me nuts. Say the word, I’ll make you a fried egg sandwich, Fio. All of your own.’

  ‘Okay, fuck it,’ said Fiorinda. ‘I said I’m not hungry. Keep your sandwich.’

  They looked at each other, two men and a girl, an abyss suddenly opening. Are we far too old? Is she far too young? Do we even like each other?

  Fiorinda went to tend the living-room fire. Sage and Ax followed her, and ate their food, making stilted conversation, while she stared at the flames and drank her wine: wondering what the fuck had gone wrong.

  ‘Shall I put on some music?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ cried Ax, rushing to the dead media wall, which was stacked with a collection handed down by Sage’s parents. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing with this catalogue, it’s before your time and you’ll scratch the vinyl.’

  ‘Thanks for reminding me how old you both are. Practically thirty, how weird that must feel. Jimi Hendrix was long dead before he got to your age.’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Wasn’t he? Not that I’d know, being a girl, a juvenile and totally ignorant.’

  Ax spent ten minutes dithering over the antiques, and was impelled by a death wish to put on Ry Cooder, which he knew Fiorinda hated. Sage fetched a jigsaw from the games cupboard. They sat on the floor, sorting straight edges for what seemed like hours, in a painful attempt to recapture the mood. Last year, when Tyller Pystri had been their haven, when this firelit room had been a bittersweet paradise… Fiorinda fetched her book and another glass of wine, and settled on the edge of the fender: ignoring them, which she hoped would improve their tempers.

  ‘Do you have to sit right there, little cat?’

  ‘Yeah, brat, do you mind? Could we see some fire?’

  ‘Ah, let her alone,’ said Ax, ‘she can’t help it. She’s an obligate fire-hogger.’

  ‘She’s finished the wine too.’

  ‘She always does that. Let’s make her get another bottle.’

  They laughed, exchanging very weird looks of guilty complicity.

  Fiorinda stood up. ‘Okay. Enough. I don’t know know what the fuck’s got into you two. I don’t know why you’re being so horrible, but I’m going to bed.’

  The men jumped to their feet in panic and rushed to block her way.

  ‘Oh no, Fiorinda! Don’t leave us! Stay just a moment!’

  ‘Fee, please, please don’t go—’

  They led her, unresisting, to the battered sofa. She must sit down, while they knelt, on either side of her, holding her hands.

  ‘Fiorinda,’ said Ax, ‘please don’t be pissed off. We’re clumsy but we mean well. W-we want to ask you something.’ His voice was shaking.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Sage: and what’s this? Sage, her best mate, her dearest friend, doubly unmasked, looking at her the way he’s never looked at her. She stared back at him, and then at Ax. Ax smiled, and kissed her cheek: and then they were both kissing her—chaste, delicate, thrilling kisses, showering on her eyelids and her brows, her ears, her fingers, the blue veins in her wrists. Her sleeve pushed back so Ax could kiss the inner skin of her elbow. Sage’s soft mouth tracing the neckline of her dress, brushing the hollow at the base of her throat—

  She said nothing, and didn’t r
espond; she remained passive, pliant, staring at them wide-eyed.

  ‘Fiorinda,’ said Ax, drawing back. ‘We want to ask you if all three of us can be lovers. We wouldn’t ask except we think you want it too.’

  ‘In spite of us being so old,’ added Sage (that one obviously still smarting).

  Silence from Fiorinda.

  ‘Well, um, what do you say?’ asked her boyfriend at last, looking very worried. Sage’s blue eyes telling her, everything’s going to be all right.

  She kept them waiting for so long they’d have been terrified—except that she was still holding their hands, and the charge of their kisses was glowing in her cheeks, in her eyes.

  ‘Dearest Ax,’ said Fiorinda. She leant and kissed him on the angle of his jaw.

  ‘Darling Sage.’ She kissed him too, at the corner of his mouth.

  She removed her hands from their grasp and folded her arms.

  ‘Alphabetical order. Well, this is very formal. So this was your big plan, was it? You decide you want some group sex, so you cunningly kidnap me and lock me up, miles from anywhere: sneer at me, ignore me and be totally horrible to me. And then when you think you’ve done a fine job of softening me up—’

  ‘Sheer nerves,’ said Ax hurriedly.

  ‘Frightened stupid,’ explained Sage. ‘It just came out that way.’

  ‘Tell me, does this approach often succeed? Is this how you romanced all those sheep?’

  ‘I knew we’d get the sheep. I’ll be hearing about those sheep to my dying day.’

  ‘Sheep? Huh? What sheep?’

  ‘All those sheep we met in Yorkshire, Sage. Surely you remember.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sage’s turn to look worried. ‘Er…well, in that case. Maybe this is the moment when I ask for, um, a few other sheep to be taken into consideration.’

  ‘I don’t think you’d better tell me how many,’ said Fiorinda. ‘Not that I care. My God. If either of you really thought this would work, then I am sorry for you.’

  She took Sage by the shoulders, tugged him close and kissed him on the mouth, long and strong, tongue in it, first time ever. Then the same to Ax.

  ‘That’s reverse alphabetical order. And I’m still going to bed.’

  Left alone, they sat on the sofa with their ears ringing, silent for a decent interval to allow tumescence to subside.

  ‘So much for that,’ said Sage. ‘Shall we go after her?’

  ‘I don’t think we should, not tonight. But I don’t think it went too badly—’

  ‘No. Not considering what a fucking mess we made of the intro.’

  Sage got up and started to prowl around: so wired, so electric Ax expected sparks to rise from anything he touched. Finally he went and softly closed the door to the stairs, which Fiorinda had left open.

  ‘Why d’you do that?’

  ‘Because I’m going to kiss you. I want to find out how it feels without the drug, an’ I don’t want Fiorinda by any chance walking in on us. Could be misunderstood.’

  ‘Kiss, not fuck.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Ax sat waiting for the threat to be made good, thinking he wished to God the three of them had fallen into this arrangement through an act of casual lust, years ago, and had the difficult emotional dynamics sorted by now. But things happen as they must. Sage came and sat down again beside him.

  ‘Ax—’

  They kissed, for a long time: finally tore themselves away from each other. Sage leaned back, staring at the ceiling, making up his mind. ‘Oooh. I think I could live with that.’

  ‘Good. I suppose we might as well go to bed.’

  ‘You going to stay down here with me?’

  ‘If you don’t mind. It seems like the right thing.’

  They made the room ready for night: the rituals of Tyller Pystri, where ancient electric lamps must be switched off one by one, black vinyl put away in cardboard sleeves, the fire made up. They stripped, got into Sage’s nice big bed, and lay listening to Fiorinda stomping about overhead. It sounded as if she was moving furniture.

  ‘Maybe one of us should stay awake.’

  ‘What for? You think she’ll come down and take an axe to us?’

  They nearly choked themselves smothering hysterical giggles, which would not sound good at all upstairs.

  ‘You can stay awake,’ said Sage. ‘Since you’re going to anyway.’

  The room was cold, despite the fire. The rain had stopped. There was a black frost out there beyond the thick walls, the deep-set mullioned windows where the night looked in, the icy dark stretching out forever.

  About an hour later the stairs creaked. Ax felt a surge of movement rousing from beside him, like something much bigger than Sage. My God, he thought, what have I unleashed? The door opened. Fiorinda came into the room, her fiery hair tumbled on the shoulders of a brown and gold shawl, a candle in a china holder in her hand. She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at them, pale as the candleflame. The shawl fell back. She was wearing a nightdress, a long slip of cream satin with narrow shoulder straps.

  ‘Our friends are convinced you two are having a secret affair. Are you?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘We were waiting for you,’ said Ax.

  She nodded. ‘Well, okay… Okay, I knew this was coming. Of course I did. I’ve known for a long time. Fact is, from the night you did the oxytocin, I knew it had gone too far. No more pissing around, I just had to have you both.’ She saw them startle. Ha! Nice to give them a different view of the situation. But she wished she could stop shivering, all gooseflesh; she felt such a kid. ‘Only… I don’t know how it works. I w-want to, but I don’t know how? Who do I turn to? W-which of you two am I with? Which of you—?’

  Ax got out from under the covers and put himself behind her, a wall at her back, hugging her close.

  Sage took her hands. ‘Don’t worry about it. Anything you do is right.’

  ‘If anything feels wrong,’ said Ax, kissing her hair, ‘at any point, you say the word, and you and me go back upstairs.’

  ‘Everything will be like before,’ said Sage. ‘No damage. We promise.’

  ‘And don’t, fuck’s sake, worry about the secret affair. It won’t happen, ever. Will it, Sage?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Fiorinda shrugged. ‘Fine. W-why all the fuss, anyway? It’s just sex. It’s not a big deal.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ said Sage.

  ‘Yes it is,’ said Ax.

  She sat for a moment, her heart beating hard against Ax’s arm. Then she freed herself, picked up the skirts of the satin slip, tugged it over her head and tossed it. Instantly Sage pushed back the quilt, so they were naked together. All three of them sighed then, involuntarily: a sigh of profound relief, we’re over the edge, we’ve done it. Fiorinda leaned back against Ax, how warm he feels, and held Sage’s maimed hand to her breast, ah, what a rush. ‘This’ll never work,’ she said, her whole body sweetly burning. ‘We’ll fall out, and it will be awful.’

  ‘It’s worth a try,’ said Sage, trying to sound level-headed.

  ‘It’ll work,’ said Ax. ‘As long as we’re careful, at the start, and make an effort.’

  She moved her head gently from side to side, so her hair caressed Ax’s throat, the way he loved. ‘Uh-uh. Nothing’s supposed to be an effort in the Good State. Or it won’t last.’

  ‘But we’re allowed to concentrate on one another,’ said Sage. ‘I remember that.’

  They were quoting from Ax’s manifesto, the one he’d pitched at his friends three years ago: a plan worth living for, on the other side of the end of the world. In the Good State we will only take time off from having fun, from making art, from being ourselves, to concentrate on each other, like the social animals—

  She’s flying, into Sage’s arms, Ax falling after her—

  Well.

  That was very good. What a rush, how overwhelming, how frightening, tell the truth, to lie naked between them, these two big fierce male animals. But from the mom
ent they both had their arms around her, kissing her, nuzzling, whispering, sweetheart, is this really okay? Are you okay Fee? it had been nothing but good and wonderful. Oh, there are problems, I know there are problems. But we truly love each other, and the sex is brilliant. Surely we can sort out the rest. Someone was walking around: Sage. She opened her eyes to the icy grey morning and saw him dressed in biker leathers, sitting down to pull on his boots. There wasn’t anyone in the bed with her.

  ‘Where’s Ax?’

  ‘Gone for a walk. He’ll be back soon.’ Second boot on. Snap the closures.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  He came and sat on the bed. ‘Back to Reading.’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Because I can’t do this threesome thing. I’m sorry, baby. I can’t.’

  She sat up, pulling the covers around her, suddenly very young, suddenly a shamed and frightened child. ‘W-was I no good?’

  ‘Oh God. Fee, it will be all right. I’m still your Sage. I love you. I will be your best friend, forever and ever. But I can’t do this.’ He didn’t touch her. She didn’t dare reach out to him. ‘So I’m going. The keys are on the kitchen table. Leave them at Ruthie Maynor’s. You can push them through the letterbox.’

  Ax had walked towards the sea, on the unfenced track that crossed the clifftop grassland above Sage’s house, and then taken a turn along a field line, beside a hedge. Before the Crash he’d had a data chip implanted in his brain, holding a huge stack of information about this country: he’d thought it would come in useful. He could review Sage’s estate in several scales of detail, twelve acres of dry granite pasture, a portion of the Chy. Not much cover except for the gorge, which would be a trap… A standing stone. A patch of crooked dwarf oak trees. Odd set-up for megastar seclusion, but there you go, that’s Sage. He was now outside the domain, on National Trust land from here to the South-West Path; the cliff’s edge, the Atlantic.

  God, it was cold. He took shelter under the thorn hedge, the wind fingering his spine. He was thinking of the strained conversation he and Sage had had, the day after they took the oxytocin, in the Fire Room at the Insanitude—an old retreat of theirs in the North Wing; an island of Few territory now, in the wastes of Boat People accommodation.