Mandolin Dreams. Chapter I
Mandolin Dreams. Chapter I
London, now.
The clock can never be stopped, paused or turned back for any reason. The "world" must run until it destroys itself. It always destroys itself.
—The Pharmer’s Handbook, Sixth Edition, page 12.
Van, in his usual seat, waited for Anthony. He fidgeted, looked at his watch, at his phone, at the old iron clock that stuck out over the bar. Each showed the same time, except that last one. It hadn't moved since that time that Anthony... Van took a deep breath.
He found some measure of comfort in his surroundings. This was, after all, the Sherlock Holmes Pub. It was not the best pub in London, not by a long shot. The seat beneath him was less Victorian era English pub comfortable, and more Elizabethan uncomfortable, barely padded wood that numbed your bum before you got too tipsy to notice.
Every time the front door opened, Van would stare first at the light from the opening, then at the shadows, and finally the faces of not-Anthony that traipsed into the pub. They were mostly tourists thinking that this pub held some historical significance with the legendary fictional detective. It did not. The pub did have its share of regulars as well, but they mostly kept to themselves, and to Van, they seemed more like props than people.
For the fifth time today, Van went up to the bar. "Another, Terry."
Terry didn't betray any surprise at Van's appearance, didn't say anything. He just handed him a tumbler, heavy with fine Scotch Whiskey. They looked at each other. There may have been some concern in Terry's eyes, but he didn't seem to know how to express it.
"Have you heard from Anthony?" Van said as he picked up the glass, and held it close to his chest. Terry shook his head, dropped his eyes, and busied himself wiping down the spotless bar top between them. Van wondered at Terry's silence. He knew that he was also worried; he could feel it.
"I'm sure he's fine. Just running late. He's been late before." Terry said.
"Not like this. Not today. Something's not right." Terry shrugged and went back to wiping. Van took his glass back to the booth.
He pulled his fat black headphones up from around his neck, put them on and queued one of his demos. He thought it might distract him for a while. It was an old song; one of the few that they'd worked on together. Anthony had refused to let Van release it. He kept saying it wasn't finished, that something was still off. Van often went back to it, worried at it like a thin scab over a freshly healed wound. He kept trying to make it better, for Anthony's sake. He wasn't sure that anything he could do would ever help.
By the riverside, grinnin' like a clown Ain't nothin' in the world to bring me down Roll yet another Brother, eighteen inches long And lets while away the day, just floating along Ain't a cloud in the sky Nothin' but the sound of the river, rollin' by Take off your shoes, forget yer blues Forget the grind, just leave your troubles behind
The sound of his own voice grounded him. He looked around the booth again. It had become a shrine of sorts to their history in the bar. They'd been coming here, every chance they got for the last thirty years. No matter where either of them was in the world, if one needed the other, they met here. There were pictures of them all over the wall in the booth. Mostly just the two of them, but sometimes Terry would jump in. He had put up some of Van's albums, and cover art from a few of Anthony's books. None of them, successful, but all of them wonderful. Outside of this booth, they weren't famous, but in it, at this table, they were fucking legends.
Van, again, caught Terry staring. "You're worried too, aren't you Terry? Don't deny it. I can see it."
"A little, I guess." Terry nodded.
A clock somewhere chimed midnight. Terry walked over and squeezed his massive frame into the seat opposite Van. He moaned "damn booth. Too fuckin' wee." This made Van smile a little. Terry looked down at his hands. They looked empty without a rag, or a glass in them. He fidgeted. "He's not coming, Van." He reached over and slowly put a catcher's-mitt-sized palm over Van's arm, nearly covering it from wrist to elbow.
Van didn't pull away, didn't move. "We've never missed a meeting, Terry. No matter what. He wouldn't just not show up. He wouldn't. Something's wrong. I can feel it."
"Things changed for him in the last year." Terry said at last. He looked at Van, more interested in his reaction than anything else. "Did you know that he spent most of it living upstairs?" Whenever they stayed in London, Terry let them use the apartment above the pub. It had pretty much become theirs. As far as Van could tell, nobody else ever used it.
"Really? I thought he was back in Montreal." Van spiralled. "He never said anything. I was in Montreal too. What the hell? Are you sure? We'd been to Hurley's not so long ago. That's another pub we spend way too much at." Van blushed a little. "But it isn't nearly as nice as this place. Why didn't he say anything?"
Van could feel his chest tighten making it difficult to breathe. Terry explained that Anthony was in and out for much of the year, that he didn’t really know what was going on, that Anthony may have been working on a book or something. He was saying anything that might prevent Van from a meltdown, or worse.
"He was writing? Been telling him to get back to it for years. He just wouldn't. Even when you-know-who said that he really should. It could explain the secrecy. I wonder what got him started." Van shook his head.
"It's late. I gotta lock up for the night. I think if you got yourself a good night's sleep, things might look a little different in the morning." Terry winked. He squeezed out of the booth and waited for Van to do the same.
"Yeah. I'll head upstairs. Thanks Terr'."
The pub door shut behind him. He heard Terry lock it. It was late, but there were still people about. Foot traffic to and from Charing Cross was constant. Everyone had somewhere to be. Everyone was somewhere. He felt his stomach tighten. "Somewhere" he thought. "He was writing." The pain in his stomach moved to his head. A thought tried to form, tried to push through the back of his eyes. He rubbed his face.
It was cold for September. He shrunk into his jacket, turned up his collar and looked around hoping to see Anthony running towards him from one direction or the other. He leaned back against the narrow wall next to the door and lit a cigarette.
So much had changed since the first time they'd been down this road. Back when they still thought anything was possible and hadn't known how hard the world actually was.