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indriSUMMARY: Giles and Ethan, the electric Kool-Aid funky Satan groove year, in the early seventies. Rated M. Spoilers to Band Candy. Acknowledgements and disclaimers.
33.
Ethan and Ripper worked late into the night on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, working together on Ripper's improvised spell, and with Ripper showing Ethan a couple of telekenesis ones. Adrienne would go out in the evening, come back late, and still find them working. Ethan wondered why she was going to so many meetings lately: it suggested that things would shortly be going wrong for someone.
It was fun working with Ripper. He was less pedestrian than Randall, less clumsy than Diedre, and Stan and Tom did not compare at all. (Evelyn was quite different again, she was so far ahead of the rest of them.) He knew enough about magic to be properly appreciative of Ethan's skills, and displayed an admirable concentration and attention to detail. It was a delight, really.
On Thursday morning, Adrienne packed a suitcase and headed off to her parents' for the weekend. Ethan had been asleep when she left, but he'd found Ripper moping around the kitchen, having a desultory piece of toast before heading off to his job at the hotel. Ripper had a rehearsal that afternoon and evening with the his band, from which he would no doubt return dead drunk, so Ethan had a long and quiet day ahead of him.
He decided to spend his afternoon in the park. It was good busking weather and he wanted to try out the spells he'd just learnt from Ripper. Plus, it was just a nice day for a walk.
At first he looked for a quiet spot where he could lay out his gear and practice the spells. He veered away from the zoo and the football fields, looking for somewhere a little out of the way but not so private that it invited propositions. He found a grove of trees with lawn underneath and decided that was good enough. He sat against a tree and laid out his cloth and candles.
The first spell Ripper had taught him assisted the movement of something that was already moving. Ethan gathered up a few twigs and stones and then threw them one by one into the air. The first stone he threw without the needed chant and it didn't get far. He pitched the others, chanting, and watched them glide in ever greater distances.
The second spell was the genuine levitation of a light object. If he could get this one right outdoors, he could use it as the finale of his busking routine. He started with a leaf, but it proved to be surprisingly difficult, hard to get off the ground and wavering around everywhere. A spare candle didn't prove to be any easier. It was remarkable in the way that it completely defied all known laws of physics but it wasn't very impressive from a theatrical point of view. He'd have to stick with his usual routine a while longer.
Speaking of which, it was probably time to get moving. It was school closing time and he might get a bit of custom from parents and au pairs shepherding their kids to the children's playgrounds and the zoo. He set up shop out on one of the main paths and soon had a good little crowd going. No-one was being particularly generous but the coins added up. And then, towards closing time, he got a couple with kids who paused for a while. The man seemed to want to impress the woman with his generosity and threw Ethan something that folded.
It was a good afternoon's work. He packed the money away and then followed the busiest paths out of the park to dissuade anyone who might consider robbing him. He cast his eye over the parts of the park that he walked through, sizing them up, as he was looking for an outdoor venue for spellcasting on warmer summer nights. The park was locked overnight, but he didn't think that would present much of a problem.
The house was quiet when he got back. Stan's light was on but other than that the house was empty. Ethan found himself something to eat that he could heat up in a pot and took it upstairs. He paused on the first floor landing, which was where people piled old books in huge piles under the window. The paperbacks changed frequently, as Diedre, who was an indiscriminate and omnivorous reader, swapped them in and out of book exchanges. Ethan sometimes brought a box home too, if Terry was giving away excess stock. Ethan fished out a few titles that he hadn't read and which didn't sound completely mindless. Then he spent a quiet evening reading in bed. He heard Diedre, Randall and Tom come home around ten, and Ripper wobbled in about midnight.
Ethan spent a last hour or two practising the telekenesis trick in his room. At home, he could levitate small objects perfectly. Why then was it so hard outdoors? Was it because of the outdoor air currents, or because part of his concentration had to monitor what else was going on around him in the park? He didn't know. Perhaps Ripper would.
He got a good night's sleep. He wanted to be fully rested for tomorrow.
34.
Ripper woke up in Adrienne's bed the next morning. It smelt of her, but when he rolled over he didn't find her warm and smooth skin, because of course she wasn't there. She was somewhere in Wiltshire, apparently, rather than, say, pulling him on top while reminding him to be quick because she had to be at the bookshop by ten. This didn't seem fair, especially when he rolled over onto his stomach and found himself sleepily nuzzling a pillow rather than her hair.
He was hungover again, but not badly. He thought he felt able for bacon and eggs. He pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt and set to restoring enough order in the kitchen to make breakfast possible, all the while cursing inconsiderate and anonymous housemates who left unwashed pots on the stove and dirty dishes in the sink. Then he found himself praising all equally anonymous housemates who left edible food in the fridge and bought loaves of fresh bread.
He sat down to his breakfast, thinking about yesterday's rehearsal. It had gone all right, although not as well as he might have liked. He was now fifth junior band member, despite being expected to do most of the singing. Two of the band members were called Dave: Dave the Drums and Dave the Bass. Alan, a Scot, was another guitarist. Andy played keyboards and gizmos, grey-and-black boxes with their electrical innards hanging out. He was studying electrical engineering and the band's schedule was currently constrained by his looming exams.
Ripper felt he'd played OK, but not nearly as well or as confidently as Dave the Bass or Alan. A lot of it was new material for him but was played-so-often-we-could-be-asleep for the others. He was going to have to work bloody hard.
Diedre came down then, wrapped in a long pink dressing-gown. Ripper felt a sudden fear that maybe the food in the fridge had been hers, but she just made herself a bite of toast and jam and a pot of tea. She waved at him but made no conversation before taking her breakfast upstairs.
He timed his trip to the bathroom badly and had to wait for Randall to finish shaving, which seemed to take an inordinately long time given that he had a beard. Perhaps it was tricky to do the corners. When he finally got into the bathroom, he shaved himself and had a basin-wash because the bath took so bloody long. Even trying to be quick, he soon had Ethan banging on the door saying it was his turn.
He brushed his teeth downstairs at the kitchen sink instead while Randall looked on in mild distaste. Randall spent so much time looking through the fridge that Ripper's conscience got a hold of him and he wrote a note that he pinned to the front: "I owe someone bacon and eggs".
"Well, if you're going out shopping," Diedre said, reappearing in a yellow frock and black scarf, "I have a list." As Ripper looked at it, she said, almost apologetically, "I think it's technically your turn."
Ripper checked the time. He should be easily able to get to the supermarket and back before he had to leave for his job. Dee fetched him a couple of string bags and then asked him if he could also pop into the off-license on the way back for some gin.
It was overcast but not quite raining as Ripper walked to the shops. He went to the bigger supermarket on the high street, which was further away but had more of a selection. This was fine as far as it went, except that Ripper went far more often the local corner shop and didn't really yet know his way around the supermarket. The shopping list was maddeningly vague in some places ("meat") and over-specific in others ("muesli with fruit and nuts but absolutely no dried banana or raisins") or both ("that light blue shampoo"). It was written in a variety of hands and Ripper wondered why he hadn't known of its existence to add to it. The list included an enormous variety of requested packets of crisps.
He had four separate bags by the time he left the supermarket. Then he got halfway back to the house before he remembered he'd promised Diedre her gin, so he had to walk back a street and then found that the off-license wasn't open until the afternoon anyway.
He half-ran back to the house. Ethan was finally having his breakfast now, tea and toast, with his bare feet up on the kitchen table as he read the newspaper. He in no way offered to help as Ripper unpacked the shopping and fought to make room for it in the fridge and kitchen cupboards.
Ripper ran all the way up to the second floor to fetch his guitar and pull on a button-up shirt. He realised he'd have to go to the laundrette soon. Then he was back down the stairs and out the back door to make it to the bus stop. He reminded himself he could always drive if he missed it, even though finding parking was hellish near the hotel.
But he made it, the bus rounding the corner as he dashed across the road, and then he was suddenly at a standstill, with nothing to do but sit and smoke for the twenty minute journey. It started to rain as he looked out the window at the passing streets. He played through a couple of Grins songs on his fingers in minimal air guitar but he wasn't convinced he was getting one of the bridges right.
It was raining steadily when got off the bus a street from the hotel. He pulled his jacket over his head and headed for the awning of a jeweller's, then walked-dashed between covered and uncovered sections of pavement to the front door.
He had five minutes before he was scheduled to start, so he went into the gents. His hair was only a bit wet and he shook his head to get the worst of the raindrops off. Then he went out to take his seat and found that there wasn't one. He checked with the head waiter, who said it might have been taken for the large birthday booking over near the window. He promised to fetch Ripper another.
So he took his jacket off and started playing the set standing up. Today's list began with a selection of songs from Rogers and Hammerstein. Fridays were always the busier days, with business lunches and early weekend tourists. Halfway through "Oklahoma", Ripper started to wonder how quickly he'd be fired if he slipped in a Grins song.
Then the requests started. The birthday group wanted "Happy Birthday" of course, followed by "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". Ripper was still standing and his signalling to the head waiter had so far resulted only in hand signals of "Look, I'm busy, it's Friday."
Then the requests started to get more baroque. Now, Ripper didn't strictly have to agree to guests' requests, but he did when what they asked for was more interesting than what the manager had asked him to play. He didn't have to sing the lyrics if he thought the manager might object.
So, the acoustic version of "Paint It Black" it was. Then "Rocket Man" and "She's So Heavy". Then some card requested "Walk on the Wild Side".
"I don't think so, mate," said Ripper, but played "Perfect Day" instead.
The manager came out to look at him and he went back to playing "Edelweiss" for a bit.
Mind you, it was good day for tips.
The rain had eased by the time he caught the bus home. As always, he was starving by the time he got back. But there was food in the fridge that he had put there himself. A ham, cheese and tomato sandwich it was.
He took his sandwich up to the drawing room. Ethan was back practising the levitate-objects spell, so the room smelt as always of candlewax and chalk. Today he was doing something complicated with flying formations of playing cards. It was frightening how fast he picked things up and then turned them into something else.
Randall and Diedre were leaning over the gig guide in the newspaper. "We're thinking of going to a show tonight," said Randall.
"It's meant to have really good lights," said Diedre.
"Lights?" said Ripper, doubtfully.
"In time with the music," said Randall. "A light show."
"The music's supposed to be good too," said Dee, but when Ripper looked at the paper himself he didn't recognise the name of the band.
"Wanna come?"
"Maybe."
"Dinner at the pub tonight, then out to the show," said Diedre.
He finished his sandwich. "Well, I'm out for a bit," said Ripper. "Be back in an hour or so."
"Where are you going?" asked Ethan, although he didn't move his eyes from the flying cards.
"The laundrette."
"I'll go with you," Ethan said, and the cards all landed neatly, one by one onto the top of a pack. "I need to go and I want to talk to you about something."
Ripper didn't actually want to go to the laundrette with Ethan but he couldn't think of any reason why which he could say out loud.
He went through the reasons why as they walked the two streets to the laundrette. Firstly, there was the whole Adrienne-away but Ethan-here thing, which was continuing to disturb him. Secondly, Ethan had been pulling far more information out of him than Ripper had any desire to reveal, particularly about magic. Thirdly, it was remarkably difficult to have a conversation with Ethan on any other topic than magic. Ethan could manage only three sentences worth of conversation on any of the following topics: football, music, food or cars. It was sometimes possible to provoke a short discussion on cinema or current affairs, but Ethan's opinions always turned about to be at right angles to any of Ripper's in ways that Ripper felt he often failed to grasp.
"Well, I don't know," said Ripper, a little tiredly, "it could have been the air currents. Was it windy?"
"Not perfectly still, but hardly gusty," said Ethan. The laundrette was otherwise empty as they loaded their respective washing machines.
"Or was your concentration divided in some way?"
Ripper tried to think of positive things about Ethan. He was hard-working. While it was often hard to tell, given the hours he kept, Ethan must be regularly spending seven to ten hours a day practising magic, with a determination that was either admirable or medically unsound, and perhaps both. And there was every indication that he had been doing this for years, without pay or much else in the way of external motivation.
Other good things about Ethan included: he got along well with Adrienne, and Adrienne seemed to trust him, which seemed to indicate that Ethan was in some way trustworthy, although clearly not in a way that would preclude him flirting with Adrienne's actual boyfriend.
Also: creative, highly intelligent, and limber. In fact, he was sitting now cross-legged on top of a dormant washing machine, staring pensively out of the window. His cheap sandals hung from his feet. Ripper wondered if he wore them all through the winter too.
A girl in her late teens came into the laundrette just then. She looked in their direction and gave them a hesitant smile that Ethan returned with a perhaps over-welcoming grin.
"How is your girlfriend?" Ripper asked Ethan loudly.
"Girlfriend?" Ethan appeared genuinely confused. "Do you mean Evelyn?"
Ripper nodded.
"I haven't the faintest idea," said Ethan. "It's not like she writes to me. And she only visits when she wants something."
Ripper couldn't think of anything to say to that. Instead he thought about his own girlfriend. "Have you met Adrienne's parents?" he asked.
"Yes," said Ethan. "They came around to the house to help her move out."
"Move out?" asked Ripper. "When was that?"
"Last year," said Ethan, "but she moved back." An odd tone came into his voice. "Don't ask her about that, please."
"What are they like, then, her parents?"
Ethan shrugged. "Tweedy. Her father's in banking and I think her mother was a nurse."
"Are they fire-breathing or anything?"
"Not on any occasion that I have observed," Ethan said, "but they don't come down here very often. They don't approve of the life of squalor she has chosen. What are yours like?"
"They're very nice people," said Ripper, "but they're disappointed that I decided to go into music. I, I call them sometimes but I haven't seen them for quite a while. Yours?"
As if by magic, Ethan's washing machine went "ping". "Time for the dryer then," said Ethan.
Ripper searched for a more neutral topic. "Know anything about this gig Randall and Dee are going to?"
"I may have mentioned it to them," Ethan said. "It sounded like the sort of thing they would like."
"But you're not going?"
"No. Are you?"
"Yes," said Ripper.
"Then I hope you enjoy it," Ethan said.
Back at the house, Ripper spent a couple of hours in his room practising on his guitar. The next rehearsal was Sunday and the Daves were hoping to soon fix the date of their first comeback gig. Ripper was going to have to practice until his fingers bled.
Then it was time to head down to the pub. He could tell this because Diedre ran up and down the stairs shouting, "Pub time!" until the entire household assembled at the back doorstep. He watched as Randall, Ethan and Diedre renewed the wards on the door, as well as locking it. Then they were off down the road to the local.
"Everyone has to buy Tom a drink tonight," said Diedre. "He has his exams soon and needs to get very drunk."
Ripper had a bit of a conversation with Tom about his studies, which were in economics. Tom explained the difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics while Diedre hung her arm around him as she chatted with Stan. Then she turned and stage-whispered to Tom, "Oh, don't bore Ripper." To Ripper she said, "It's very dull when he talks like this, isn't it?"
"Actually..." said Ripper, although she was, in fact, quite correct.
Tom gave an uneasy smile and Diedre kissed the top of his head.
Stan was saying, "So there I was, at the back of the club..."
Ripper went to the bar for half a dozen pints of bitter. "And one for yourself," he told the barman. When he got back to the table, Diedre had taken his seat, and Ripper found himself sitting between Stan and Randall.
"Do you like cricket?" Randall asked him.
"A bit," said Ripper. "Do you want to know the rules?"
"Oh, I know the rules," said Randall. "I'm looking for someone to go with me. Diedre will go, but she won't watch it, she'll sit and read instead. I'd like to go with someone who I can talk to about the match."
"I'm not sure I can spare the time at the moment," Ripper told him. "I have my job and the band. I've spent my whole day running around and it still doesn't feel like I've done anything."
Randall shook his head. "See, that's the problem. You have a job. I hated working."
"What did you do?"
"I sold shoes," said Randall. "I was good at it but it's not what I would call a vocation."
"Shoes," said Ripper, with some surprise. He hesitated over a potential faux-pax. "Would you mind if I possibly asked what you do for money now?"
"I came into some money when I was twenty-one," said Randall. "Not much, but sufficient to keep me in the style to which I have become accustomed." He laughed. "My needs are few."
The food arrived then. Then there was beer, followed by more beer, followed by a round of gin "Generously provided by Diedre Page," as she herself declared. It was the first time Ripper had ever heard her surname.
"To Diedre Page!" he said, raising his glass.
"To Diedre!" the others echoed.
They went home to change before going out. Dee and Randall dressed up in their most theatrical clothes while Tom and Stan went for a more standard jeans-and-t-shirt look. Everyone was drinking vodka from a bottle. Then Dee and Randall took half an hour to paint each other's faces up like clowns.
"You two look dead creepy," said Stan.
That just left Ethan, sitting up in the drawing room, working through the next spell from Spivak. Ripper poked his head through the doorway.
"We're off now then," he said.
"Have fun," said Ethan. "Don't stay out too late." There was something about his tone that made Ripper flush.
Back downstairs, they all tumbled out of the house. Ripper was feeling a bit discombobulated, but everyone else seemed tipsily happy.
"Stan has some LSD," said Diedre, suddenly seizing his arm. "I think we should all take some."
They all stood together in the train carriage, talking too loudly and laughing so hard that the other passengers looked everywhere except at them. Then they reached their station and climbed the stairs up to the stale London air.
There was a long queue to get into the gig and it was a bit cold. They took nips of whiskey from Randall's hip flasks as they waited. Stan hadn't brought a jacket, so he was moving on the spot a bit to get warm.
Ripper asked him, "Are you still seeing that girl you brought to the party last week?"
"Mandy?" asked Stan. "No. To tell you the truth, I think she's a little younger than she was letting on. She enjoyed that spell though. Tu-whit-a-woo!"
They paid some money and stepped through a door. On the other side was a cavernous room lit up with red lights. It wasn't busy once they were inside, and the room seemed too big for the number of people in it. Stan and Randall went to fetch everyone drinks from the bar. Diedre handed out some pieces of blotting paper but Ripper didn't feel up to it right now and pocketed his. Randall came back and passed him a beer.
The show began. Ripper didn't know if this was the support act or the main gig. He didn't know if there was a support act. The band had three separate keyboard players and only one guitarist.
Dee said, "I'm not sure this stuff is working," and Stan replied, "Give it time."
Ripper went up to the stage to give their gear his professional appraisal. Much to his surprise, he found his new bandmate Andy at his elbow.
Andy pointed out a few of the black boxes. "That's what I want to make, man," Andy said.
"What are they?" Ripper asked.
Andy tried to tell him, but the quiet opening few chords suddenly went forte. Ripper tried to lip-read and make out Andy's enthusiastic gestures, but could make no sense of them.
"I can't hear you," Ripper mouthed.
Andy nodded vigourously, gave him the thumbs up sign, and then turned back to watch the band.
The hall was slowly starting to fill up. The light show had begun with the very first note, but Ripper had barely noticed. Coloured lights swirled in sometimes geometrical patterns, but it all looked pretty pedestrian compared to the sort of things he'd seen Evelyn and Ethan conjure. The lights made it harder for him to find his way back through the crowd. Dee, Randall and the others weren't back where he'd left them. Ripper scanned the faces of the swaying, dancing crowd, trying to find their familiar faces. He spotted Randall on the other side of the room -- the clown makeup certainly helped there.
When he got there, Tom was doubled over. "Whoa," Tom said, "whoa," but nobody was helping him. "I'm all right," he said, when Ripper tried to touch him. "I'm all right."
Diedre was standing nearby with her back against a concrete pillar. She was staring at the ceiling. Stan and Randall were tripping too.
The music was OK. Ripper stood and listened to it for a while. They did some interesting things with the output from the guitar, although the chord progressions were pretty standard.
A girl came up and tried to dance with him. He gestured towards Diedre and the girl danced away.
He fingered the drug-infused piece of paper in his pocket. That would be one way to spend the evening.
He went up to Diedre. Her clown face swivelled towards him.
"I'm off," he said. "Not my scene tonight."
Diedre nodded as if he had said something very wise. She planted a kiss on his lips, leaving thick red and white face paint.
On the train back he felt very tired and very sober. The ride seemed to take forever. Parties of people would get on board, shout drunkenly at one another, then get off two stops later.
He was really going to have to tell Adrienne about Ethan, he thought. She deserved to know what sort of a friend he really was. She'd be unhappy to hear this, but then she would laugh at Ethan's obvious stupidity. Maybe she'd say it was just a joke, Ethan's odd sense of humour, what had he been so worried about? Why had he been worried at all? There wasn't anything to be worried about, was there?
So perhaps he couldn't tell Adrienne at all.
He could keep on ignoring the man. He was bound to get bored eventually. Yes, Ethan, who could spend five hours in a bare room with a pentagram and count it a fine evening's entertainment.
Or, well, he could just give in. Ripper's previous experiences suggested that this wouldn't take long and would effectively end the whole thing. Get it over and done with, move on, back to normal, back to Adrienne and practising his guitar.
He was aware he was talking himself into something, but he couldn't find the flaw in his logic. He was clenching and unclenching his hands as the train pulled into Camden Town station.
The house looked much the same as when he'd first seen it. All of the lights were off, and the only sign of life was the candlelight from the first floor. Ripper came in through the kitchen and made his way up the stairs.
"There you are," said Ethan. "I was beginning to think you'd missed the last train. How long until the others are back?"
Ripper found he had lost the ability to speak. He gave a small shrug.
"Never mind," said Ethan. "It'd be more polite to go upstairs anyway."
Ripper stood there, feeling slightly sick and not at all sure of what he was doing, as Ethan packed away his spellbook and casting gear.
Then Ripper was suddenly in a panic. If he was going to do this, he was going to do this now, what was Ethan doing wasting time and fucking around with his stuff? So he crossed the room in three strides and shoved Ethan up against the wall, pushing his hand up Ethan's shirt and his tongue into Ethan's mouth.
"Upstairs," said Ethan, slightly hoarsely.
They went up to Ripper's room.
Five minutes later, Ethan walked out.
33.
Ethan and Ripper worked late into the night on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, working together on Ripper's improvised spell, and with Ripper showing Ethan a couple of telekenesis ones. Adrienne would go out in the evening, come back late, and still find them working. Ethan wondered why she was going to so many meetings lately: it suggested that things would shortly be going wrong for someone.
It was fun working with Ripper. He was less pedestrian than Randall, less clumsy than Diedre, and Stan and Tom did not compare at all. (Evelyn was quite different again, she was so far ahead of the rest of them.) He knew enough about magic to be properly appreciative of Ethan's skills, and displayed an admirable concentration and attention to detail. It was a delight, really.
On Thursday morning, Adrienne packed a suitcase and headed off to her parents' for the weekend. Ethan had been asleep when she left, but he'd found Ripper moping around the kitchen, having a desultory piece of toast before heading off to his job at the hotel. Ripper had a rehearsal that afternoon and evening with the his band, from which he would no doubt return dead drunk, so Ethan had a long and quiet day ahead of him.
He decided to spend his afternoon in the park. It was good busking weather and he wanted to try out the spells he'd just learnt from Ripper. Plus, it was just a nice day for a walk.
At first he looked for a quiet spot where he could lay out his gear and practice the spells. He veered away from the zoo and the football fields, looking for somewhere a little out of the way but not so private that it invited propositions. He found a grove of trees with lawn underneath and decided that was good enough. He sat against a tree and laid out his cloth and candles.
The first spell Ripper had taught him assisted the movement of something that was already moving. Ethan gathered up a few twigs and stones and then threw them one by one into the air. The first stone he threw without the needed chant and it didn't get far. He pitched the others, chanting, and watched them glide in ever greater distances.
The second spell was the genuine levitation of a light object. If he could get this one right outdoors, he could use it as the finale of his busking routine. He started with a leaf, but it proved to be surprisingly difficult, hard to get off the ground and wavering around everywhere. A spare candle didn't prove to be any easier. It was remarkable in the way that it completely defied all known laws of physics but it wasn't very impressive from a theatrical point of view. He'd have to stick with his usual routine a while longer.
Speaking of which, it was probably time to get moving. It was school closing time and he might get a bit of custom from parents and au pairs shepherding their kids to the children's playgrounds and the zoo. He set up shop out on one of the main paths and soon had a good little crowd going. No-one was being particularly generous but the coins added up. And then, towards closing time, he got a couple with kids who paused for a while. The man seemed to want to impress the woman with his generosity and threw Ethan something that folded.
It was a good afternoon's work. He packed the money away and then followed the busiest paths out of the park to dissuade anyone who might consider robbing him. He cast his eye over the parts of the park that he walked through, sizing them up, as he was looking for an outdoor venue for spellcasting on warmer summer nights. The park was locked overnight, but he didn't think that would present much of a problem.
The house was quiet when he got back. Stan's light was on but other than that the house was empty. Ethan found himself something to eat that he could heat up in a pot and took it upstairs. He paused on the first floor landing, which was where people piled old books in huge piles under the window. The paperbacks changed frequently, as Diedre, who was an indiscriminate and omnivorous reader, swapped them in and out of book exchanges. Ethan sometimes brought a box home too, if Terry was giving away excess stock. Ethan fished out a few titles that he hadn't read and which didn't sound completely mindless. Then he spent a quiet evening reading in bed. He heard Diedre, Randall and Tom come home around ten, and Ripper wobbled in about midnight.
Ethan spent a last hour or two practising the telekenesis trick in his room. At home, he could levitate small objects perfectly. Why then was it so hard outdoors? Was it because of the outdoor air currents, or because part of his concentration had to monitor what else was going on around him in the park? He didn't know. Perhaps Ripper would.
He got a good night's sleep. He wanted to be fully rested for tomorrow.
34.
Ripper woke up in Adrienne's bed the next morning. It smelt of her, but when he rolled over he didn't find her warm and smooth skin, because of course she wasn't there. She was somewhere in Wiltshire, apparently, rather than, say, pulling him on top while reminding him to be quick because she had to be at the bookshop by ten. This didn't seem fair, especially when he rolled over onto his stomach and found himself sleepily nuzzling a pillow rather than her hair.
He was hungover again, but not badly. He thought he felt able for bacon and eggs. He pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt and set to restoring enough order in the kitchen to make breakfast possible, all the while cursing inconsiderate and anonymous housemates who left unwashed pots on the stove and dirty dishes in the sink. Then he found himself praising all equally anonymous housemates who left edible food in the fridge and bought loaves of fresh bread.
He sat down to his breakfast, thinking about yesterday's rehearsal. It had gone all right, although not as well as he might have liked. He was now fifth junior band member, despite being expected to do most of the singing. Two of the band members were called Dave: Dave the Drums and Dave the Bass. Alan, a Scot, was another guitarist. Andy played keyboards and gizmos, grey-and-black boxes with their electrical innards hanging out. He was studying electrical engineering and the band's schedule was currently constrained by his looming exams.
Ripper felt he'd played OK, but not nearly as well or as confidently as Dave the Bass or Alan. A lot of it was new material for him but was played-so-often-we-could-be-asleep for the others. He was going to have to work bloody hard.
Diedre came down then, wrapped in a long pink dressing-gown. Ripper felt a sudden fear that maybe the food in the fridge had been hers, but she just made herself a bite of toast and jam and a pot of tea. She waved at him but made no conversation before taking her breakfast upstairs.
He timed his trip to the bathroom badly and had to wait for Randall to finish shaving, which seemed to take an inordinately long time given that he had a beard. Perhaps it was tricky to do the corners. When he finally got into the bathroom, he shaved himself and had a basin-wash because the bath took so bloody long. Even trying to be quick, he soon had Ethan banging on the door saying it was his turn.
He brushed his teeth downstairs at the kitchen sink instead while Randall looked on in mild distaste. Randall spent so much time looking through the fridge that Ripper's conscience got a hold of him and he wrote a note that he pinned to the front: "I owe someone bacon and eggs".
"Well, if you're going out shopping," Diedre said, reappearing in a yellow frock and black scarf, "I have a list." As Ripper looked at it, she said, almost apologetically, "I think it's technically your turn."
Ripper checked the time. He should be easily able to get to the supermarket and back before he had to leave for his job. Dee fetched him a couple of string bags and then asked him if he could also pop into the off-license on the way back for some gin.
It was overcast but not quite raining as Ripper walked to the shops. He went to the bigger supermarket on the high street, which was further away but had more of a selection. This was fine as far as it went, except that Ripper went far more often the local corner shop and didn't really yet know his way around the supermarket. The shopping list was maddeningly vague in some places ("meat") and over-specific in others ("muesli with fruit and nuts but absolutely no dried banana or raisins") or both ("that light blue shampoo"). It was written in a variety of hands and Ripper wondered why he hadn't known of its existence to add to it. The list included an enormous variety of requested packets of crisps.
He had four separate bags by the time he left the supermarket. Then he got halfway back to the house before he remembered he'd promised Diedre her gin, so he had to walk back a street and then found that the off-license wasn't open until the afternoon anyway.
He half-ran back to the house. Ethan was finally having his breakfast now, tea and toast, with his bare feet up on the kitchen table as he read the newspaper. He in no way offered to help as Ripper unpacked the shopping and fought to make room for it in the fridge and kitchen cupboards.
Ripper ran all the way up to the second floor to fetch his guitar and pull on a button-up shirt. He realised he'd have to go to the laundrette soon. Then he was back down the stairs and out the back door to make it to the bus stop. He reminded himself he could always drive if he missed it, even though finding parking was hellish near the hotel.
But he made it, the bus rounding the corner as he dashed across the road, and then he was suddenly at a standstill, with nothing to do but sit and smoke for the twenty minute journey. It started to rain as he looked out the window at the passing streets. He played through a couple of Grins songs on his fingers in minimal air guitar but he wasn't convinced he was getting one of the bridges right.
It was raining steadily when got off the bus a street from the hotel. He pulled his jacket over his head and headed for the awning of a jeweller's, then walked-dashed between covered and uncovered sections of pavement to the front door.
He had five minutes before he was scheduled to start, so he went into the gents. His hair was only a bit wet and he shook his head to get the worst of the raindrops off. Then he went out to take his seat and found that there wasn't one. He checked with the head waiter, who said it might have been taken for the large birthday booking over near the window. He promised to fetch Ripper another.
So he took his jacket off and started playing the set standing up. Today's list began with a selection of songs from Rogers and Hammerstein. Fridays were always the busier days, with business lunches and early weekend tourists. Halfway through "Oklahoma", Ripper started to wonder how quickly he'd be fired if he slipped in a Grins song.
Then the requests started. The birthday group wanted "Happy Birthday" of course, followed by "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". Ripper was still standing and his signalling to the head waiter had so far resulted only in hand signals of "Look, I'm busy, it's Friday."
Then the requests started to get more baroque. Now, Ripper didn't strictly have to agree to guests' requests, but he did when what they asked for was more interesting than what the manager had asked him to play. He didn't have to sing the lyrics if he thought the manager might object.
So, the acoustic version of "Paint It Black" it was. Then "Rocket Man" and "She's So Heavy". Then some card requested "Walk on the Wild Side".
"I don't think so, mate," said Ripper, but played "Perfect Day" instead.
The manager came out to look at him and he went back to playing "Edelweiss" for a bit.
Mind you, it was good day for tips.
The rain had eased by the time he caught the bus home. As always, he was starving by the time he got back. But there was food in the fridge that he had put there himself. A ham, cheese and tomato sandwich it was.
He took his sandwich up to the drawing room. Ethan was back practising the levitate-objects spell, so the room smelt as always of candlewax and chalk. Today he was doing something complicated with flying formations of playing cards. It was frightening how fast he picked things up and then turned them into something else.
Randall and Diedre were leaning over the gig guide in the newspaper. "We're thinking of going to a show tonight," said Randall.
"It's meant to have really good lights," said Diedre.
"Lights?" said Ripper, doubtfully.
"In time with the music," said Randall. "A light show."
"The music's supposed to be good too," said Dee, but when Ripper looked at the paper himself he didn't recognise the name of the band.
"Wanna come?"
"Maybe."
"Dinner at the pub tonight, then out to the show," said Diedre.
He finished his sandwich. "Well, I'm out for a bit," said Ripper. "Be back in an hour or so."
"Where are you going?" asked Ethan, although he didn't move his eyes from the flying cards.
"The laundrette."
"I'll go with you," Ethan said, and the cards all landed neatly, one by one onto the top of a pack. "I need to go and I want to talk to you about something."
Ripper didn't actually want to go to the laundrette with Ethan but he couldn't think of any reason why which he could say out loud.
He went through the reasons why as they walked the two streets to the laundrette. Firstly, there was the whole Adrienne-away but Ethan-here thing, which was continuing to disturb him. Secondly, Ethan had been pulling far more information out of him than Ripper had any desire to reveal, particularly about magic. Thirdly, it was remarkably difficult to have a conversation with Ethan on any other topic than magic. Ethan could manage only three sentences worth of conversation on any of the following topics: football, music, food or cars. It was sometimes possible to provoke a short discussion on cinema or current affairs, but Ethan's opinions always turned about to be at right angles to any of Ripper's in ways that Ripper felt he often failed to grasp.
"Well, I don't know," said Ripper, a little tiredly, "it could have been the air currents. Was it windy?"
"Not perfectly still, but hardly gusty," said Ethan. The laundrette was otherwise empty as they loaded their respective washing machines.
"Or was your concentration divided in some way?"
Ripper tried to think of positive things about Ethan. He was hard-working. While it was often hard to tell, given the hours he kept, Ethan must be regularly spending seven to ten hours a day practising magic, with a determination that was either admirable or medically unsound, and perhaps both. And there was every indication that he had been doing this for years, without pay or much else in the way of external motivation.
Other good things about Ethan included: he got along well with Adrienne, and Adrienne seemed to trust him, which seemed to indicate that Ethan was in some way trustworthy, although clearly not in a way that would preclude him flirting with Adrienne's actual boyfriend.
Also: creative, highly intelligent, and limber. In fact, he was sitting now cross-legged on top of a dormant washing machine, staring pensively out of the window. His cheap sandals hung from his feet. Ripper wondered if he wore them all through the winter too.
A girl in her late teens came into the laundrette just then. She looked in their direction and gave them a hesitant smile that Ethan returned with a perhaps over-welcoming grin.
"How is your girlfriend?" Ripper asked Ethan loudly.
"Girlfriend?" Ethan appeared genuinely confused. "Do you mean Evelyn?"
Ripper nodded.
"I haven't the faintest idea," said Ethan. "It's not like she writes to me. And she only visits when she wants something."
Ripper couldn't think of anything to say to that. Instead he thought about his own girlfriend. "Have you met Adrienne's parents?" he asked.
"Yes," said Ethan. "They came around to the house to help her move out."
"Move out?" asked Ripper. "When was that?"
"Last year," said Ethan, "but she moved back." An odd tone came into his voice. "Don't ask her about that, please."
"What are they like, then, her parents?"
Ethan shrugged. "Tweedy. Her father's in banking and I think her mother was a nurse."
"Are they fire-breathing or anything?"
"Not on any occasion that I have observed," Ethan said, "but they don't come down here very often. They don't approve of the life of squalor she has chosen. What are yours like?"
"They're very nice people," said Ripper, "but they're disappointed that I decided to go into music. I, I call them sometimes but I haven't seen them for quite a while. Yours?"
As if by magic, Ethan's washing machine went "ping". "Time for the dryer then," said Ethan.
Ripper searched for a more neutral topic. "Know anything about this gig Randall and Dee are going to?"
"I may have mentioned it to them," Ethan said. "It sounded like the sort of thing they would like."
"But you're not going?"
"No. Are you?"
"Yes," said Ripper.
"Then I hope you enjoy it," Ethan said.
Back at the house, Ripper spent a couple of hours in his room practising on his guitar. The next rehearsal was Sunday and the Daves were hoping to soon fix the date of their first comeback gig. Ripper was going to have to practice until his fingers bled.
Then it was time to head down to the pub. He could tell this because Diedre ran up and down the stairs shouting, "Pub time!" until the entire household assembled at the back doorstep. He watched as Randall, Ethan and Diedre renewed the wards on the door, as well as locking it. Then they were off down the road to the local.
"Everyone has to buy Tom a drink tonight," said Diedre. "He has his exams soon and needs to get very drunk."
Ripper had a bit of a conversation with Tom about his studies, which were in economics. Tom explained the difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics while Diedre hung her arm around him as she chatted with Stan. Then she turned and stage-whispered to Tom, "Oh, don't bore Ripper." To Ripper she said, "It's very dull when he talks like this, isn't it?"
"Actually..." said Ripper, although she was, in fact, quite correct.
Tom gave an uneasy smile and Diedre kissed the top of his head.
Stan was saying, "So there I was, at the back of the club..."
Ripper went to the bar for half a dozen pints of bitter. "And one for yourself," he told the barman. When he got back to the table, Diedre had taken his seat, and Ripper found himself sitting between Stan and Randall.
"Do you like cricket?" Randall asked him.
"A bit," said Ripper. "Do you want to know the rules?"
"Oh, I know the rules," said Randall. "I'm looking for someone to go with me. Diedre will go, but she won't watch it, she'll sit and read instead. I'd like to go with someone who I can talk to about the match."
"I'm not sure I can spare the time at the moment," Ripper told him. "I have my job and the band. I've spent my whole day running around and it still doesn't feel like I've done anything."
Randall shook his head. "See, that's the problem. You have a job. I hated working."
"What did you do?"
"I sold shoes," said Randall. "I was good at it but it's not what I would call a vocation."
"Shoes," said Ripper, with some surprise. He hesitated over a potential faux-pax. "Would you mind if I possibly asked what you do for money now?"
"I came into some money when I was twenty-one," said Randall. "Not much, but sufficient to keep me in the style to which I have become accustomed." He laughed. "My needs are few."
The food arrived then. Then there was beer, followed by more beer, followed by a round of gin "Generously provided by Diedre Page," as she herself declared. It was the first time Ripper had ever heard her surname.
"To Diedre Page!" he said, raising his glass.
"To Diedre!" the others echoed.
They went home to change before going out. Dee and Randall dressed up in their most theatrical clothes while Tom and Stan went for a more standard jeans-and-t-shirt look. Everyone was drinking vodka from a bottle. Then Dee and Randall took half an hour to paint each other's faces up like clowns.
"You two look dead creepy," said Stan.
That just left Ethan, sitting up in the drawing room, working through the next spell from Spivak. Ripper poked his head through the doorway.
"We're off now then," he said.
"Have fun," said Ethan. "Don't stay out too late." There was something about his tone that made Ripper flush.
Back downstairs, they all tumbled out of the house. Ripper was feeling a bit discombobulated, but everyone else seemed tipsily happy.
"Stan has some LSD," said Diedre, suddenly seizing his arm. "I think we should all take some."
They all stood together in the train carriage, talking too loudly and laughing so hard that the other passengers looked everywhere except at them. Then they reached their station and climbed the stairs up to the stale London air.
There was a long queue to get into the gig and it was a bit cold. They took nips of whiskey from Randall's hip flasks as they waited. Stan hadn't brought a jacket, so he was moving on the spot a bit to get warm.
Ripper asked him, "Are you still seeing that girl you brought to the party last week?"
"Mandy?" asked Stan. "No. To tell you the truth, I think she's a little younger than she was letting on. She enjoyed that spell though. Tu-whit-a-woo!"
They paid some money and stepped through a door. On the other side was a cavernous room lit up with red lights. It wasn't busy once they were inside, and the room seemed too big for the number of people in it. Stan and Randall went to fetch everyone drinks from the bar. Diedre handed out some pieces of blotting paper but Ripper didn't feel up to it right now and pocketed his. Randall came back and passed him a beer.
The show began. Ripper didn't know if this was the support act or the main gig. He didn't know if there was a support act. The band had three separate keyboard players and only one guitarist.
Dee said, "I'm not sure this stuff is working," and Stan replied, "Give it time."
Ripper went up to the stage to give their gear his professional appraisal. Much to his surprise, he found his new bandmate Andy at his elbow.
Andy pointed out a few of the black boxes. "That's what I want to make, man," Andy said.
"What are they?" Ripper asked.
Andy tried to tell him, but the quiet opening few chords suddenly went forte. Ripper tried to lip-read and make out Andy's enthusiastic gestures, but could make no sense of them.
"I can't hear you," Ripper mouthed.
Andy nodded vigourously, gave him the thumbs up sign, and then turned back to watch the band.
The hall was slowly starting to fill up. The light show had begun with the very first note, but Ripper had barely noticed. Coloured lights swirled in sometimes geometrical patterns, but it all looked pretty pedestrian compared to the sort of things he'd seen Evelyn and Ethan conjure. The lights made it harder for him to find his way back through the crowd. Dee, Randall and the others weren't back where he'd left them. Ripper scanned the faces of the swaying, dancing crowd, trying to find their familiar faces. He spotted Randall on the other side of the room -- the clown makeup certainly helped there.
When he got there, Tom was doubled over. "Whoa," Tom said, "whoa," but nobody was helping him. "I'm all right," he said, when Ripper tried to touch him. "I'm all right."
Diedre was standing nearby with her back against a concrete pillar. She was staring at the ceiling. Stan and Randall were tripping too.
The music was OK. Ripper stood and listened to it for a while. They did some interesting things with the output from the guitar, although the chord progressions were pretty standard.
A girl came up and tried to dance with him. He gestured towards Diedre and the girl danced away.
He fingered the drug-infused piece of paper in his pocket. That would be one way to spend the evening.
He went up to Diedre. Her clown face swivelled towards him.
"I'm off," he said. "Not my scene tonight."
Diedre nodded as if he had said something very wise. She planted a kiss on his lips, leaving thick red and white face paint.
On the train back he felt very tired and very sober. The ride seemed to take forever. Parties of people would get on board, shout drunkenly at one another, then get off two stops later.
He was really going to have to tell Adrienne about Ethan, he thought. She deserved to know what sort of a friend he really was. She'd be unhappy to hear this, but then she would laugh at Ethan's obvious stupidity. Maybe she'd say it was just a joke, Ethan's odd sense of humour, what had he been so worried about? Why had he been worried at all? There wasn't anything to be worried about, was there?
So perhaps he couldn't tell Adrienne at all.
He could keep on ignoring the man. He was bound to get bored eventually. Yes, Ethan, who could spend five hours in a bare room with a pentagram and count it a fine evening's entertainment.
Or, well, he could just give in. Ripper's previous experiences suggested that this wouldn't take long and would effectively end the whole thing. Get it over and done with, move on, back to normal, back to Adrienne and practising his guitar.
He was aware he was talking himself into something, but he couldn't find the flaw in his logic. He was clenching and unclenching his hands as the train pulled into Camden Town station.
The house looked much the same as when he'd first seen it. All of the lights were off, and the only sign of life was the candlelight from the first floor. Ripper came in through the kitchen and made his way up the stairs.
"There you are," said Ethan. "I was beginning to think you'd missed the last train. How long until the others are back?"
Ripper found he had lost the ability to speak. He gave a small shrug.
"Never mind," said Ethan. "It'd be more polite to go upstairs anyway."
Ripper stood there, feeling slightly sick and not at all sure of what he was doing, as Ethan packed away his spellbook and casting gear.
Then Ripper was suddenly in a panic. If he was going to do this, he was going to do this now, what was Ethan doing wasting time and fucking around with his stuff? So he crossed the room in three strides and shoved Ethan up against the wall, pushing his hand up Ethan's shirt and his tongue into Ethan's mouth.
"Upstairs," said Ethan, slightly hoarsely.
They went up to Ripper's room.
Five minutes later, Ethan walked out.
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Date: 2011-04-01 07:40 pm (UTC)Oh well, have to wait to find out, I suppose.
a few small errors in an otherwise wonderful chapter, use of laudromat again, also distances measured in blocks
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Date: 2011-04-02 12:06 pm (UTC)I'm also grateful to you for pointing out errors. I will fix those up in the next day or two.
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Date: 2011-04-02 12:15 pm (UTC)I reread Part 3 today. It needs a little surgery but I'm hoping that won't take long.
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Date: 2011-04-03 12:07 pm (UTC)I guess the fandom has shrunk so much that maybe there aren't that many Giles/Ethan 'shippers left. They would've been all over this story a few years back.
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Date: 2011-04-04 02:28 am (UTC)Heh.