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SUMMARY: Giles and Ethan, the electric Kool-Aid funky Satan groove year, in the early seventies. Rated M. Spoilers to Band Candy. Acknowledgements and disclaimers.
39.
There was somebody already in the telephone booth, so Ethan had to wait. It was drizzling slightly and Ethan hadn't bothered to bring an umbrella. He stood underneath the awning of a nearby greengrocer's until the booth was free.
He rang the number Adrienne had given him. "Adrienne Wright," he said. "Do you need the money up front? How long will it take?" Then he gave out Rupert's details.
Diedre and Randall were in Adrienne's room, half-watching the television, while working on a series of costume sketches. Ethan peered over Randall's shoulder.
"New outfits for Midsummer," said Diedre. "We have to be spectacular."
Ethan eyed the drawings. "You'll look like George Clinton."
"Good," said Randall. "He's who I want to be when I grow up."
"That's going to be difficult," said Ethan.
"The George Clinton of Art," said Randall.
"That's a little easier to achieve," Ethan allowed.
They watched the lunchtime news and an animated programme called Mr Ben. Mr Ben dressed up as a wizard in a costume shop and then stepped through a side-door into wizardly adventures.
"We didn't see you much over the weekend," Diedre said.
"No," said Ethan
"Or of Ripper."
"No," said Ethan.
"Are you shagging him?"
"Yes," said Ethan.
"Does Adrienne know?"
"Yes," said Ethan.
"And she's OK with it?"
"Yes," said Ethan.
"Well, that's all right then," Diedre said, and she went back to work on her costumes designs with Randall.
Ethan stayed to watch Pebble Mill at One and then decided that he really should get to work.
But he dawdled, and he dawdled, and then Ripper came home from work. Ethan met him in the kitchen.
"You're looking much better," Ethan said, hopefully.
"I'm not really feeling better," Ripper said. "Look, could we go for a walk?"
"It would be much more comfortable upstairs," said Ethan.
"A walk," Ripper said.
Ripper took them along Regent's Park Road. It had stopped drizzling, and the weather now looked more like scattered showers: clumps of cloud sliding across the sky, threatening rain one minute but letting the sun through in the next. Fortunately, Ethan didn't believe in those sorts of portents.
They reached Primrose Hill and Ripper found one of the drier park benches.
"Look," he said, "I can't do this. It isn't fair on Adrienne. She deserves better than this."
Ethan looked at him, trying to work out what he meant. Rupert looked very distressed, sitting all hunched up with his hands between his knees.
"Do what?" asked Ethan. "What are you doing to Adrienne?"
Ripper turned and gave him a horrified look that suggested Ethan ought to know.
"You mean sleeping with me? That's really not a problem."
"I think it is," said Ripper.
"It really isn't. I spoke to her about it."
"You spoke to her?" said Ripper, his voice rising half an octave.
"Well, of course I did," said Ethan. "Did you think I'd make a pass at you otherwise? I've known her a lot longer than I've known you."
Ripper looked in every direction except Ethan's. He looked up at the sky, down at the grass, and over towards the path home.
"You mean you haven't talked to her about this?"
"No!" squeaked Ripper. He looked rather green.
"Are you going to throw up?" asked Ethan.
Ripper shook his head. Ethan tried to work out whether putting his hand on Rupert's arm would be a good thing or a bad thing.
"And what about the others? Do they know too?"
"Some of them," said Ethan. "They're not stupid."
"And do they care?"
"No," said Ethan, finally annoyed. "If they were the sort of people who cared, they wouldn't be my friends, would they?"
Rupert didn't say anything for a long time. Then he said, "Would you mind going home? I'd really rather be by myself for a while."
So Ethan went home.
40.
Ripper walked up to the top of Primrose Hill. He looked out over London, not really seeing any of it. He walked back down. He sat on a park bench for a while and then went walking through Regent's Park. He walked past the zoo, through the lawns, to the boating pond and back. He hadn't eaten all day but he didn't want anything to eat or drink. He went to a pub anyway, and bought a beer that he stared at for hours, long after the sun set. Then he went back to the house.
Randall, Diedre, Tom and Stan were all in the kitchen. Ripper tried to tell if they were looking at him any differently, but he couldn't see any change. That made him feel worse: they must have thought he was that sort of person all along.
Adrienne was sitting on her mattress, watching The News at Ten. She'd tidied up and swept the floor. The ash-filled saucers were gone and she'd bought herself a proper ash tray. She patted the spot next to her on the bed.
He sat down in his usual spot and took his boots off. She passed him a cigarette and then put her arm around him as they watched a segment on a plane crash. Ripper couldn't see the screen very well, so he pulled his glasses out of his pocket.
"I spoke to Ethan," Adrienne said, her eyes still mainly on the television. "It really is all right." But that just made Ripper feel sick again.
"You never said anything," he said.
She said, "Neither did you."
Once the news was over, she got up to turn the television off. She crouched over him when she came back to bed. "I'm going to be very busy in the next few weeks," she told him. "I'm going to be out a lot in the evenings and on weekends. You can do what you want." And then she leant over to start kissing along his jawline while she undid the buttons of his shirt.
"Would it have been any different," Rupert asked her, "if you'd been in love with me?"
"I don't know," said Adrienne. "I've never been in love."
41.
Ethan caught the train to Oxford late on Saturday morning. Adrienne's contact had required cash on delivery, and she had to go to work. She'd said to him first, "I think he's one of your lot, actually. I think he's a wizard." And then she'd given him her share of the money. Ethan taken a bit extra out of the household kitty because this was a household concern, to see whether Ripper or his surveillants might constitute a threat.
He spent a little while looking around Oxford first. His Latin Master and his mother had been very keen for him to go there. He supposed that if he had, he might have met Ripper a couple of years ago instead. But it was with a sense of disinterest that he walked the town streets, taking in the spiny architecture, the manicured lawns, and the other tourists gawping about. This was a possibility he'd turned his back on without regret.
The contact went by the name Mr Grey and he had a shopfront not far from Blackwell's. It sold tourist tat: mugs and spoons and placemats with "Oxford" printed on them in blue.
Mr Grey was of average height and hair-colour. He had an unmemorable face. There was nothing about Ethan's sense of the man that suggested he might be a wizard. In fact, Mr Grey didn't feel human at all.
Ethan handed him a wodge of cash and Mr Grey gave him an envelope. "You'll want to read it before you go back to London," Grey said. Ethan thought that if Grey looked like anyone at all, it was Eric Morecambe.
Ethan found a nearby pub and ordered a pint and a ploughman's. He read through the document, section by section. It had Rupert's birthplace and the names of his parents and siblings. His father worked for a council and his mother was an archivist. He'd had an excellent education and an interest in martial sports, particularly fencing. School prizes, and a mention of a second family home near Devon. At university he'd studied history with a focus on the mediaeval period and he'd joined a band. There was a list of known lovers (all women, Ethan noted), and the comment, "No serious vices." Blah blah blah blah blah.
And then there was a single sentence at the end that made Ethan eat his lunch rather faster than might have been wise.
He went back to see Mr Grey, who had of course been expecting him.
"What's a Watcher?" Ethan asked.
On the train back to London, Ethan read and reread the second document he'd bought. It had cost all of the cash he'd had left on him, plus half a pint of blood. But it had been worth it.
So Rupert belonged to a family of Watchers, an organisation dedicated to the control and eradication of demons, particularly vampires. They trained and supervised a line of mystical beings called Slayers, who resembled teenage girls but had supernatural strength and speed. Watchers were raised from birth to learn demon-lore, magic and combat skills. Watchers were intelligent, highly-trained, well-organised and ruthless. "Do not fuck with them!" someone had written in pencil on the bottom. Ethan wondered if that had been Mr Grey.
Ethan found himself considering Rupert anew. Rupert, with his obvious magical ability, his depth of knowledge, and his fighting prowess. Rupert, who had been brought up and brainwashed by a quasi-military sect, and yet had been courageous and clear-sighted enough to leave them. And he'd stayed away, though even now they hounded him on Tube stations and in unmarked black cars.
Rupert, who turned out to be someone quite different from what Ethan had first assumed. Not just an amiable guitarist.
Ethan thought about this all the way home, on the train, in the Tube, and walking along the streets. Standing outside the house, he could hear Ripper practising his guitar.
Adrienne came home soon after and found him sitting on the back step with his eyes closed, leaning against the door.
"So what did we find out?" she asked, "about our housemate."
"He has over-protective parents," Ethan said, not looking at her.
Adrienne snorted and went inside. And Ethan was left wondering why he had just lied to her.
39.
There was somebody already in the telephone booth, so Ethan had to wait. It was drizzling slightly and Ethan hadn't bothered to bring an umbrella. He stood underneath the awning of a nearby greengrocer's until the booth was free.
He rang the number Adrienne had given him. "Adrienne Wright," he said. "Do you need the money up front? How long will it take?" Then he gave out Rupert's details.
Diedre and Randall were in Adrienne's room, half-watching the television, while working on a series of costume sketches. Ethan peered over Randall's shoulder.
"New outfits for Midsummer," said Diedre. "We have to be spectacular."
Ethan eyed the drawings. "You'll look like George Clinton."
"Good," said Randall. "He's who I want to be when I grow up."
"That's going to be difficult," said Ethan.
"The George Clinton of Art," said Randall.
"That's a little easier to achieve," Ethan allowed.
They watched the lunchtime news and an animated programme called Mr Ben. Mr Ben dressed up as a wizard in a costume shop and then stepped through a side-door into wizardly adventures.
"We didn't see you much over the weekend," Diedre said.
"No," said Ethan
"Or of Ripper."
"No," said Ethan.
"Are you shagging him?"
"Yes," said Ethan.
"Does Adrienne know?"
"Yes," said Ethan.
"And she's OK with it?"
"Yes," said Ethan.
"Well, that's all right then," Diedre said, and she went back to work on her costumes designs with Randall.
Ethan stayed to watch Pebble Mill at One and then decided that he really should get to work.
But he dawdled, and he dawdled, and then Ripper came home from work. Ethan met him in the kitchen.
"You're looking much better," Ethan said, hopefully.
"I'm not really feeling better," Ripper said. "Look, could we go for a walk?"
"It would be much more comfortable upstairs," said Ethan.
"A walk," Ripper said.
Ripper took them along Regent's Park Road. It had stopped drizzling, and the weather now looked more like scattered showers: clumps of cloud sliding across the sky, threatening rain one minute but letting the sun through in the next. Fortunately, Ethan didn't believe in those sorts of portents.
They reached Primrose Hill and Ripper found one of the drier park benches.
"Look," he said, "I can't do this. It isn't fair on Adrienne. She deserves better than this."
Ethan looked at him, trying to work out what he meant. Rupert looked very distressed, sitting all hunched up with his hands between his knees.
"Do what?" asked Ethan. "What are you doing to Adrienne?"
Ripper turned and gave him a horrified look that suggested Ethan ought to know.
"You mean sleeping with me? That's really not a problem."
"I think it is," said Ripper.
"It really isn't. I spoke to her about it."
"You spoke to her?" said Ripper, his voice rising half an octave.
"Well, of course I did," said Ethan. "Did you think I'd make a pass at you otherwise? I've known her a lot longer than I've known you."
Ripper looked in every direction except Ethan's. He looked up at the sky, down at the grass, and over towards the path home.
"You mean you haven't talked to her about this?"
"No!" squeaked Ripper. He looked rather green.
"Are you going to throw up?" asked Ethan.
Ripper shook his head. Ethan tried to work out whether putting his hand on Rupert's arm would be a good thing or a bad thing.
"And what about the others? Do they know too?"
"Some of them," said Ethan. "They're not stupid."
"And do they care?"
"No," said Ethan, finally annoyed. "If they were the sort of people who cared, they wouldn't be my friends, would they?"
Rupert didn't say anything for a long time. Then he said, "Would you mind going home? I'd really rather be by myself for a while."
So Ethan went home.
40.
Ripper walked up to the top of Primrose Hill. He looked out over London, not really seeing any of it. He walked back down. He sat on a park bench for a while and then went walking through Regent's Park. He walked past the zoo, through the lawns, to the boating pond and back. He hadn't eaten all day but he didn't want anything to eat or drink. He went to a pub anyway, and bought a beer that he stared at for hours, long after the sun set. Then he went back to the house.
Randall, Diedre, Tom and Stan were all in the kitchen. Ripper tried to tell if they were looking at him any differently, but he couldn't see any change. That made him feel worse: they must have thought he was that sort of person all along.
Adrienne was sitting on her mattress, watching The News at Ten. She'd tidied up and swept the floor. The ash-filled saucers were gone and she'd bought herself a proper ash tray. She patted the spot next to her on the bed.
He sat down in his usual spot and took his boots off. She passed him a cigarette and then put her arm around him as they watched a segment on a plane crash. Ripper couldn't see the screen very well, so he pulled his glasses out of his pocket.
"I spoke to Ethan," Adrienne said, her eyes still mainly on the television. "It really is all right." But that just made Ripper feel sick again.
"You never said anything," he said.
She said, "Neither did you."
Once the news was over, she got up to turn the television off. She crouched over him when she came back to bed. "I'm going to be very busy in the next few weeks," she told him. "I'm going to be out a lot in the evenings and on weekends. You can do what you want." And then she leant over to start kissing along his jawline while she undid the buttons of his shirt.
"Would it have been any different," Rupert asked her, "if you'd been in love with me?"
"I don't know," said Adrienne. "I've never been in love."
41.
Ethan caught the train to Oxford late on Saturday morning. Adrienne's contact had required cash on delivery, and she had to go to work. She'd said to him first, "I think he's one of your lot, actually. I think he's a wizard." And then she'd given him her share of the money. Ethan taken a bit extra out of the household kitty because this was a household concern, to see whether Ripper or his surveillants might constitute a threat.
He spent a little while looking around Oxford first. His Latin Master and his mother had been very keen for him to go there. He supposed that if he had, he might have met Ripper a couple of years ago instead. But it was with a sense of disinterest that he walked the town streets, taking in the spiny architecture, the manicured lawns, and the other tourists gawping about. This was a possibility he'd turned his back on without regret.
The contact went by the name Mr Grey and he had a shopfront not far from Blackwell's. It sold tourist tat: mugs and spoons and placemats with "Oxford" printed on them in blue.
Mr Grey was of average height and hair-colour. He had an unmemorable face. There was nothing about Ethan's sense of the man that suggested he might be a wizard. In fact, Mr Grey didn't feel human at all.
Ethan handed him a wodge of cash and Mr Grey gave him an envelope. "You'll want to read it before you go back to London," Grey said. Ethan thought that if Grey looked like anyone at all, it was Eric Morecambe.
Ethan found a nearby pub and ordered a pint and a ploughman's. He read through the document, section by section. It had Rupert's birthplace and the names of his parents and siblings. His father worked for a council and his mother was an archivist. He'd had an excellent education and an interest in martial sports, particularly fencing. School prizes, and a mention of a second family home near Devon. At university he'd studied history with a focus on the mediaeval period and he'd joined a band. There was a list of known lovers (all women, Ethan noted), and the comment, "No serious vices." Blah blah blah blah blah.
And then there was a single sentence at the end that made Ethan eat his lunch rather faster than might have been wise.
He went back to see Mr Grey, who had of course been expecting him.
"What's a Watcher?" Ethan asked.
On the train back to London, Ethan read and reread the second document he'd bought. It had cost all of the cash he'd had left on him, plus half a pint of blood. But it had been worth it.
So Rupert belonged to a family of Watchers, an organisation dedicated to the control and eradication of demons, particularly vampires. They trained and supervised a line of mystical beings called Slayers, who resembled teenage girls but had supernatural strength and speed. Watchers were raised from birth to learn demon-lore, magic and combat skills. Watchers were intelligent, highly-trained, well-organised and ruthless. "Do not fuck with them!" someone had written in pencil on the bottom. Ethan wondered if that had been Mr Grey.
Ethan found himself considering Rupert anew. Rupert, with his obvious magical ability, his depth of knowledge, and his fighting prowess. Rupert, who had been brought up and brainwashed by a quasi-military sect, and yet had been courageous and clear-sighted enough to leave them. And he'd stayed away, though even now they hounded him on Tube stations and in unmarked black cars.
Rupert, who turned out to be someone quite different from what Ethan had first assumed. Not just an amiable guitarist.
Ethan thought about this all the way home, on the train, in the Tube, and walking along the streets. Standing outside the house, he could hear Ripper practising his guitar.
Adrienne came home soon after and found him sitting on the back step with his eyes closed, leaning against the door.
"So what did we find out?" she asked, "about our housemate."
"He has over-protective parents," Ethan said, not looking at her.
Adrienne snorted and went inside. And Ethan was left wondering why he had just lied to her.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 02:44 am (UTC)LOL, the penny drops.
"He has over-protective parents," Ethan said, not looking at her.
Who knew Ethan could be so good at understatement?
no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 04:34 pm (UTC)One small thing, 'a second home near Devon' sounds odd, Devon being a county rather than a town. How about 'in Devon'?
no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 11:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-10 11:22 pm (UTC)