Chapter 69:: After five times the poem of thy remembrance

His father had dismissed the idea of searching for Harmonia with a simple wave of his hand and ‘Are we to be policemen for our newfound friends my son, do you think?’ Then, as he followed the old man silently down the stairs of the hotel, he added, with a tone of vicious merriment, ‘Their girl, they find.’

This morning, as the father and son submit the keys and leave the hotel, they are both dressed in black. He is wearing a black tuxedo, his long curls slicked back and tied up at the back of his neck, the French cut beard – which has become a regular feature of his face ever since the mysterious death of the rockstar – is carefully trimmed to perfection. Walking ahead of him, his father is dressed, almost a little comically, in a black pin-striped suit and a top-hat. They’re travelling to London, he has been told, to attend an important funeral.

Mark buys a newspaper as they wait for the bus at the Gloucester Green station. He had never been too keen on current affairs, but for the past few weeks he had been completely cut off from everything. There had simply been no time, or mood. Now, if nothing, the newspaper will save him the effort of making polite conversation with his father through the hour-long journey.

On the bus, his father lets him take the window seat, although he is little interested in scenery. It’s a cloudy, drizzling day. He flips through the paper lazily, ignoring the front page, pondering absentmindedly on the comics for a while. And then abruptly, his navigating hand stops as he recognizes a face in one of the inside pages. He reads the heading, and all of a sudden he is breathless and sick.

He reads the single column again. The headline says, “No new find on the death of former rockstar’s wife”, followed by the black-and-white photo of a laughing face he seems to have known forever. He knows when that photo was taken, in L.A. It was windy that day, and her hair was ruffled. That dress she is wearing was buttercup yellow and white.

He can hardly bring himself to read the report again, but he does: “London, Sept. 13: The police has found nothing new about the death of Christine Middleton, former model and back-up singer, who was found hanging from an ash tree in the lawn of the Middletons’ villa in Hertfordshire in the early hours of last Thursday. No suicide note has been discovered yet, but there does not seem to be evidence of any foul play. Middleton’s suicide came as a surprise to the public after the mysterious demise of her more publicly known husband Mark Middleton, formerly frontman of the rock band The Statues, about a month from now. It is said that…” The article rambled on, putting obscenely more emphasis on his own life and career than the real, very real, only real death of Christine. As if she hadn’t mattered at all… as if the only reason the world cared about her death was the fact that she was married to a filthy bastard like him. Oh, gods! For that split second when his eyes are blinded with tears, he hates himself, loathes himself, he would have torn himself out of this body and this existence, if only he could!

For that split second, he cannot think. Christine, dead? How is that even possible? Isn’t Christine part of another reality, away and protected from all that is happening here? Christine, dead! Chris. His Chris. It doesn’t even sink in, for a while. All those feelings, all those private emotions that he imagined had died with the human Mark Middleton in the wastes of Nevada come flooding back into him, hitting him in the guts, all together. And remorse with them, terrible remorse. Why is Chris dead? Is it because of him?

Now he remembers, he had never asked Chris the truth about what his father had shown him in Roger Bennett’s office. He was then in New York, finishing the last stages of recording for his upcoming solo album. She was back at home in London, or at least, supposed to be. He didn’t want to raise the topic on phone, and besides, there had been just too many things on his mind. Once the recording was done, he had gone straight down to Las Vegas for a week of relaxation and wild partying. He remembers, also, that he had slept with a couple of girls back in those days. It was nothing personal. He had always slept around a fair bit. He was the rockstar, after all, the rules of marital faithfulness didn’t exactly apply to him. What was Chris doing back then? He never cared to make sure, and now, he never will.

Now he remembers, Chris had never met Henry White even socially. Not through him, at least. His friendship with White hadn’t been public, it was a different thing altogether. Although he often kept in touch with White, they weren’t familiar with each other’s social circle. And it wasn’t too surprising – a famous, jet-setting rockstar and an Oxford professor of History could hardly have friends in common. Now he remembers, and wonders if Chris had even known Henry White in her lifetime. Had it all been a lie, a trap he trod into when he should’ve known better? Now Chris is dead, and is he, isn’t he, entirely responsible for it?

Shaking with rage and terror on the bus seat to London, he thrusts the newspaper under his father’s nose. ‘Look!’

‘Yes,’ says the old man, solemnly pointing at the last line of the report, ‘The funeral is today, see?’

Gods, he could strangle the bastard, but not now, not here on this public bus. ‘You killed her,’ he hisses, and his voice trembles. Now he is sobbing, the tears running freely down his cheeks, and he can do nothing to stop them.

‘Pah, boy! What dramatics you do!’ the old man waves away his outburst with a sigh that is half a snigger. ‘You blame your ole’ father for everything that goes wrong in your life. When oh when will you learn to think like the grown-up that you are?’

‘You… you lied to me about White and… and…’ and he cannot bring himself to say the words, say those words about her any more.

His father turns his head at him, looking him straight in the eye. The red light flickers brightly, despite the sun on his face. ‘Did I lie, now?’

He averts his gaze from that terrible stare and looks out of the window. He doesn’t know the answer, and somehow, realizes that he doesn’t dare to find out. What if it was a lie? Everything is a lie then… this war that he cannot avoid any more now, this imminent death that he is preparing for, that is even now eating into his soul. None of it would have any meaning or purpose. What would he be left with, then? He cannot think. He’d rather not know.

It starts drizzling again outside. Some people in the bus are still staring at him, after his little confrontation with his father. He buries his face on the windowpane and tries to stop himself from sobbing in convulsions. He cannot. He cannot.

Next to him, his father folds the newspaper to another page, takes out a small ball-point pen from his breast pocket, and settles down to solving the crossword.