Elizabeth Hand: Wylding Hall

But sometimes, you know, the body needs something more. Different food, different faces. Les and I were the ones first ventured down to the Wren. She was a good girl for holding her drink, and I quite fancied her. Not as thin as she’s gotten since the cancer.

In those days, she cut a striking figure. Crazy blond hair and those big blue eyes. She dressed sharp, too — long skirts and dresses, lace-up boots and flowy scarves, all kinds of shiny bits and bobs. Hippie royalty, we were. Not like you wankers with your black hoodies and earbuds.

Probably Tom should have thought it out better. Four blokes and Les the only girl — you could see how that might become a troublesome equation. I was furious when I realized Les and Julian were doing more than practice up in their bedrooms — murderously jealous, but only for a few weeks. Once the girl came on the scene, that put an end to Les and Julian’s great romance.

It was a Friday night when we first went down there, Les and me. We decided we were going to busk at the pub and make a bit of dosh. We were skint, all of us, we’d run through whatever money Tom had left us. If Old Man Silas hadn’t been coming by, we would’ve starved. Tom was supposed to drive down for a weekend to fill our coffers, but that hadn’t happened yet. The whole point of us being at Wylding Hall was not to have visitors, even our manager.

And we didn’t really want any. Odd as that sounds to you — really, can you imagine being totally cut off, no mobiles, no interwebs? We couldn’t even use the phone except in emergencies — it cost the earth.

So did petrol. We’d filled the van’s tank before we first arrived, but it was half-empty by now, and we were very cautious about taking it anyplace. It was held together with bits of string and old tin cans, and I was always terrified it would die and that would be it: we’d be stranded in darkest fucking Hampshire. As far as I know, Julian’s car never moved the whole time we were there.

I know: to you lot it sounds like hell, but to us it was heavenly.

Still, even in heaven, you want a change from boiled eggs and plonk. So one day, I fired up the van and drove me and Les into town. Understand that I mean “town” only in the sense that there was a road running through it. A pub and half-a-dozen houses, chickens in the street.

But the Wren was a proper pub with a regular clientele. Les charmed the barman into giving us something to eat: ploughman’s lunch. Big slabs of white bread and ham and good cheddar and pickles. And great ale — it was a free house, so the ale was brewed only a few miles off. We drank a few rounds, then stood the barman for a few, by which time he was ready to take Lesley straight to bed. His name was Reg, good old Reg. Died some years back. He was feeling quite jolly when Les asked if we could sing later in the evening.

“What, are you a nightingale? I thought you were a peacock!” He leaned across the bar to tug at her scarf: it was printed with peacock feathers, and she had on earrings made from peacock feathers.

“Peacocks scream. This bird sings like an angel.” I put my arm around her, but Les pushed me away and turned back to Reg.

“I do,” she said. “I sing like an angel. In London people pay a lot of money to hear me sing. But for you, Reg— just you —I will make an exception.”

Then she grabbed him and kissed him on the cheek, and that was all it took. Neither of us had a guitar with us, and I certainly wasn’t lugging around my bass, so we just … sang. That’s how we used to do it at the basement of Trois Freres at those all-night gigs, when anyone could stand up in the room and sing three songs. That’s if they could still stand. But Lesley had a hollow leg in those days and so did I. Drink is what kept us standing.

We sang “Cloud Prince” and “Unquiet Grave.” I remember because Will had just taught us “Unquiet Grave” our first day at Wylding Hall. You know that one?

My lips they are as cold as clay my breath smells earthy strong

And if you kiss my cold lips your days won’t be long

Go fetch me water from the desert and blood from a stone

Go fetch me milk from a maid’s breast that man’s never known.

The punters loved it. Reg shouted out to everyone that we were very special singers down from London, and Lesley was the next Dusty Springfield. Some shite like that.

They loved it — loved her. She was the first American they’d ever seen, some of them, and that might have been the first time they’d seen anyone looked like her, those leather boots and wild blond hair and peacock glory. What a sight she was! Pissed as a bloody newt, of course — she was purely slap happy when we finally finished singing. The lads shouted for another song, but she just laughed and said she’d be back with more of her friends.

“We don’t want your friends!” some bloke yelled. “You’re woman enough for all of us!”

We got seven quid that night. Hundred pounds that’d be worth now, almost a hundred and fifty dollars. Enough for a few bottles of wine and some chocolate cake and sweets and bananas, whiskey and fags. Not bad for three songs.

Will

One of the songs they sang that night was “Unquiet Grave.” I wasn’t there, but Ashton told me when they got home. I’d found it amongst the Child Ballads at Cecil Sharp House back in London. A very old ballad, very grim.

“Why’d you choose that one?” I asked him. I thought it was strange. Usually Ashton went for the jigs and dance songs, the old knees-up. He said he wanted to hear Lesley sing it in front of an audience.

I wouldn’t have chosen that song. Not for a first time out, there in the country. It’s a warning, that song. The way some old songs or nursery rhymes are ways of memorizing recipes, or history, or directions to a place? “Unquiet Grave” is like that. It’s a warning.

No, I don’t blame Ashton for what happened. But I do think it was a bit of bad fortune, to choose that particular song.

I wish I’d gone with them to the Wren that first night. I was the only one in the band actually knew something about folk music. Ashton and Jon, they had more of a rock and roll background. They had no trouble picking up the songs and the instrumentation, but until we went to Wylding Hall, they’d never done anything in the way of research into old music. They’d just pick up whatever song was making the rounds and try to put a stamp on it.

Julian was different. He had a better idea than anyone, even me, as to exactly what those songs were about and what they meant. But I wasn’t aware of that at the time.

And Les is American. Today, she knows just as much about folk songs as I do, but back then she picked it up because that’s what you did — if you weren’t going to be in a rock and roll band, you’d sing folk songs. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, they all did riffs on English folk. Lesley had the voice for it. More soulful than someone like Grace Slick, and Les didn’t sound like she was giving you a lecture, the way Joan Baez did.

Les had a magical voice. She was just starting to write her own songs, so she’d pretty much sing whatever you handed to her. I would never have expected her to recognize the photos in the Wren, but I might have thought that Ashton would mention them. He knew how caught up I was with folklore and ritual. Then again, maybe that’s why he didn’t mention them. Or maybe he was just too pissed to notice them.

I went up to the pub by myself a few days later. I was in the mood for a walk, and sometimes it felt like such a pressure cooker at Wylding Hall. I could hear Julian and Lesley going at it in Julian’s room. Les, mostly: I never heard much out of Julian. He wasn’t what you called hot-blooded, not until the girl showed up.