Пит Таунсенд - The Age of Anxiety

Walter’s wedding to Floss that autumn was a light and carefree occasion. Walter seemed younger. He’d lost his rangy look, his tan had lightened, and he appeared happy and excited. There was something else too: he seemed as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. I thought I knew what that weight had been, and I wasn’t sure I approved of what he had done, nor did I think it was necessary. He had decided not to make music again, nor would he write songs or poetry nor do anything that might be regarded as “art” for fifteen years. He later explained that it was fifteen years after Old Nik had had his vision that he returned to normal life. Walter intended to do the same. In any case, I felt what had happened was a significant aspect of what made him an artist in the first place; he had always been special, someone to whom the audience had responded positively. He unlocked their feelings. I’d told him he tapped into their collective psyche. He had money; he could start a new life.

There were cheerful wedding bells of course, the chatter of the guests, cake, and all their friends and families were present. There was no music and no dancing. Walter had wanted a less bawdy occasion for his second marriage.

This occasion was the first for many years on which I had an opportunity to speak with Walter’s parents, Harry and Sally Watts. We had been in contact, but my business was doing well and I was busy. Harry was still in high demand too.

By the time we stumbled into each other I was slightly drunk. I should not have taken alcohol. I had sworn off it for years since Pamela had walked out on me, but I was a little dizzy. What I can remember is vague.

Harry had put on weight. I imagined his arse must look rather ridiculous when he sat on the wide organ stool, shifting from side to side. He had lost a little hair, his skin was rather red, and he looked as though he might have become a bit of a boozer. He looked his age. What were we both now? Fifty-one?

Sally, though, still looked pretty good. She was wearing one of those bosom-enhancing uplift dresses women only get out at weddings to try to outshine the bride, made of stiff material that cupped her breasts like offerings. She smiled like a film star, her cleavage and her perfume distracting me.

“How lovely Florence is,” said Sally proudly. “Do I remember her from the other wedding?” She laughed. “I shouldn’t mention that, should I, Louis? You were flirting with both the younger girls, weren’t you? Selena of course and Florence! Did you ever tell Walter? Shall I? Ha ha!”

My face must have revealed my anxiety; we were at my godson’s wedding, for heaven’s sake!

She laughed again. “Don’t worry, Louis, I won’t say anything. I remember once it was you and me who were flirting. Before Harry of course.”

I couldn’t remember flirting with the girls. I’d seen them since at Dingwalls several times and they’d said nothing about it. So now I decided I just had to suffer Sally’s teasing, although I took some comfort from the fact that she and I shared some secrets too. It was true that she and I had flirted and come close to being lovers when we were younger—and not only before Harry. Occasionally afterward too. It had always felt normal, human, and natural to feel that attraction—old friends who survived the sixties should always consider wife-swapping surely? Even if like me they were usually too smashed to rise to the possibility.

Then she changed tack, hardening slightly.

“How is Siobhan? We liked her very much you know.”

“Siobhan is getting along,” I said, aware that I sounded rather drunk. I hadn’t really had very much to drink, but—Christ!—I was actually swaying. “We exchange letters occasionally.”

“You are as rat-arsed as Florence was,” said Sally, impishly switching back to a topic she had no doubt sensed made me highly uncomfortable. “You remember that, Louis? At Walter’s wedding to Siobhan?”

What was she getting at? Harry laughed, perhaps hoping to lighten the mood, but I knew Sally pretty well, and there was undoubtedly a real barb in her words. What a fucking cow she was being!

“What could possibly be wrong with an eighteen-year-old girl, playing bridesmaid, getting a little drunk at a friend’s wedding?” My voice was slurred, but part of me felt the need to defend Floss.

Harry changed the subject. How strange it was, he said, that Walter should marry such a horsey girl.

“Sally and I have always been enthusiastic riders,” he said. “Especially when Walter was a little kid, but at an early age he developed an aversion to horses that bordered on the pathological. You must remember that, Louis. Rain loved horses of course.”

Later, with Sally safely engaged at a distant table with Rain, catching up on the gossip, Harry sat with me.

“I’ve never understood Walter’s commitment to this pub rock stuff. I thought it was a teenage phase. At least it’s turned to gold for him. But what is he going to do next? I wonder if he’ll go back to horticulture and tree surgery? No bloody money in gardening, that’s for sure.”

“He’s been doing some very interesting writing, I know that.”

Harry looked away for a moment, musing almost as if he were talking to himself. I could barely hear what he said. “Might he become a serious composer at last?”

“He might surprise us all,” I replied. “Especially you, Harry. He could come up with something that advanced the entire way words and music are presented, something really futuristic and audacious.”

Harry’s eyes gleamed. “You mean something scientific?”

“No,” I said. “A presage. Some kind of sign or signal. It might take as long as fifteen years to gestate, but I believe it will come.”

Harry’s look of pride collapsed and he regarded me with disdain. “Some bloody godfather you’ve turned out to be,” he said. “Let’s go and get another drink before you fall over.”

Old Nik and Maud had been invited through me, and they were the only ones who failed to show; Maud sent a message that Nik had been very ill. As I read the fax Selena came up behind me and pinched my bottom. It was such an impudently familiar and unexpected thing for her to do, I didn’t know how to react. She stood beside me and read the note.

“So Old Nik gets ill and you lose your chance to flirt with his gorgeous wife.” She turned to Harry, who appeared quite shocked. “Floss has stolen my man, Harry. Do you know what that feels like?”

Harry looked bemused. We all glanced over at Floss, who was talking to Walter.

Floss had a new front tooth and was smiling proudly, delighted with her nickname at last. The tooth was set with a diamond.

Selena said it was her engagement gem; she had refused to wear a conventional ring.

Floss came over to where the three of us stood holding our champagne glasses, all yearning for something different to drink no doubt, something stronger.

Floss hugged her old friend and commiserated with her.

“I know you loved him, my darling,” she breathed as she released Selena and held her at arm’s length, gazing at her intensely. “But I love you, so much. Tell me you still love me. We are still friends.”

Selena held her belly for a moment and looked pained.

“Are you pregnant?” Floss laughed.

Selena dismissed the question with a wave. She said her work as a healer and her contact with angels often made her feel bloated. There was a price to pay for helping others: if a healer eased another’s pain it sometimes manifested in the healer.

Floss kissed Selena.

“Thank you for being here, my darling,” she said. “I know it’s hard. I couldn’t have faced it without you.”

They went to sit together on a bench in the hotel garden.