Keepers of the Flame: A love story Page 3

  The whole auditorium sang along to the chorus, creating an impressive amount of noise, and when Jane glanced fearfully out, she was blinded by the lights spinning her way. She blinked and started back, but by then Silas had jumped to his feet to begin the verse leading into the break, and he pulled her into an embrace, before moving slightly away so he could manoeuvre the microphone between them and sing down into her upturned face.

  Jane had never been this close to anyone famous in her life. In fact, with the exception of Tim and Terri (and Robbie in an innocent tussle back in the day) she had probably never ever inhabited somebody else’s personal body space quite this closely. Silas was taller than her by maybe four or five inches. He was slighter in the flesh than he appeared onstage, and slick with perspiration after an hour of jumping around, however to Jane he smelt delicious. As a teenage fan, she’d imagined his eyes would be blue, but it transpired they were grey, and soft as he sang to her. She concentrated on him and tried to ignore the other band members as they moved slowly around them, and totally blocked out the crooning crowd in front of her.

  With a key change, Silas’s voice rose. He squeezed her hand, as she trembled in front of him. He finished by speaking the last line, ‘Amorphous souls inhabiting the same planet’.

  Amorphous souls. The words catapulted Jane back to her dying father’s bedside, and Silas’s face disappeared, to be replaced with Roy’s. She imagined Roy there, watching her now, as the hero of her teenage years sang to her. Tears filled her eyes, spilling out when she recalled how he had wanted her to come here tonight.

  Silas frowned, a look of concern passing over his handsome face. “Ah,” he said into the microphone, and pulled Jane into a tighter embrace, tucking her head under his chin. “Ah man. It’s alright.” He glanced over at Bobo, who nodded and twirled away with his guitar for an impromptu solo, Mikhail easing back on his stool.

  “Hey honey?” Silas said quietly, his microphone down by his side. “Are you okay.”

  Jane looked up at him and laughed away her embarrassment. “Yes! I am. Sorry! I’m so sorry.”

  “That’s good.” He squeezed her tight, before relaxing his grip and spinning her away a little.

  Bobo wound up his solo, and Silas laughed into the microphone, “That’s the first time I’ve upset someone so much with my singing!” The crowd laughed and cheered and cat-called, and Jane ducked her head shyly. “You’re a beautiful lady,” Silas said and the crowd went wild. “One more time,” he shouted at the crowd and they launched back into the chorus.

  It’s an unquiet moon when we’re star crossed

  Lost without hope

  Yes, we’re star crossed

  And it’s taking its toll

  Cos we’re star crossed

  Amorphous souls

  Travelling the skies alone

  The music wound up and as the crowd whooped and hollered, Silas leaned into Jane for a kiss. He went for her lips, so she turned away slightly forcing him to kiss her cheek. He pulled back and studied her with amusement, before leading her offstage and handing her to a member of the stage crew.

  “Look after her for me, Dewey,” he ordered, then leaping back in front of his fans, he threw himself headlong into a thrash metal track from Feral Green.

  Dewey offered Jane a towel and a bottle of water. She remained in the wings where Silas had left her, towelling off her face, her knees and elbows weak with adrenaline now that she was out of the limelight. She concentrated on getting her breath back

  She had never seen a gig from this angle and it was electrifying. She had a good view of Mikhail – side on – and could see how hard he was working, pounding the drums, feet and arms pumping out a rhythm in perfect unison. Bobo and John dashed hither and thither, the bass line becoming dirtier with every few bars, but it was Silas she focused on, as he spun and jumped and scissor-kicked his way through the next few numbers. All too soon he was addressing the crowd.

  “Bristol? It’s been a pleasure! Thank you!” The rest of the group joined him at the front of the stage and took a deep bow before scattering away to the wings. Silas and John one way, Mikhail, Bobo and the session musician to Jane’s side of the stage.

  Mikhail spotted Jane there, and tipped her a saucy wink. Self-consciously Jane pulled back, intent on getting out of the way, nearly tripping over Dewey in the dark.

  “Steady,” he said and smiled.

  “I should go,” Jane said nervously and Dewey shook his head.

  “They’ll do the encore now,” he replied. “Maybe even two. You can’t miss those.”

  Dewey was right of course. Wild Dogz had yet to play two of their best known tracks: Forever Carnal and Silent Death, and the current single Samson’s Revenge, and within two minutes of vacating the stage, they were back on in response to thunderous stamping and clapping.

  Jane observed from her viewpoint once more, increasingly distracted now by the thought of how she could find her way around the front of the auditorium to locate Terri, however when the group launched into a raucous version of Diamonds Are Forever, she found herself joining in, along with several thousand other fans, and smiling at the audacity of the metal version of Shirley Bassey’s well-known Bond song.

  At one stage, Silas glanced her way and caught her singing along. He beamed at her before turning his attention back to the masses. Jane remembered the way it felt to be close to him, not thirty minutes previously, and shivered. It had all passed by in the flash of an eye and yet in some ways it was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to her.

  Roy must have been her guardian angel, she figured. He was looking down on her and smiling and supporting her through the adventure of a lifetime.

  Chapter 5

  The band drifted off stage-right after their final bow with Jane watching them from the opposite side with a sense of disappointment. She looked for Dewey but he was already on stage with the rest of the roadies and sound and lighting guys, stripping the electrics, and striking the cyclorama.

  She considered heading back onto the stage and walking down the steps she had first used to access it, when she heard someone behind her.

  “Hey?” an American accent. She turned. A guy in a dark blue suit, with an open-necked shirt, hovering near a rack of guitars, waved a bottle of beer her way. “You coming to join us?”

  Jane looked around in confusion, wondering what he meant by joining ‘us’, and where.

  “Me?”

  “You’re The Unquiet Moon chick, right?” He smiled. His eyes were cold, his tiny pupils boring into her.

  The way he said it unnerved Jane. She didn’t want to go anywhere with him.

  “I have to go and meet my friend,” Jane said. “I need to know how to get back to the entrance.”

  He leered at her. “You’re kidding, right? Wild Dogz are out back there, partying, and you want to go home?”

  Jane shrugged helplessly, as Dewey rattled past her with a trolley full of kit. “Oh hey?” he said when she caught his eye. He looked at the guy in the suit and then back at Jane. “You’ve met Mo?”

  Jane shook her head.

  “Mo Stark. He’s the band’s manager.”

  “Oh,” said Jane. The manager. No wonder he was a sleaze ball.

  “I’m just trying to persuade ….” He cocked his head and Jane realised he was waiting for her name.

  “Jane.”

  “I was just trying to persuade Jane here to come and join the party. She’s worried about her friend.” Dewey’s head turned unsurely, swivelling between Jane and Mo.

  “Okay. You want me to see if I could find her?”

  “Well,” Jane started reluctantly.

  “You should go and see Silas. He asked me to look after you. Not sure I’ve done a very good job,” Dewey said and his eyes flickered nervously to Mo.

  Jane didn’t want to make trouble for Dewey so she relented. “Alright. My friend is called Terri and she’s a rather impressive looking goth, about five foot three with enormou
s platform boots and shoulder length black hair.”

  “Okay,” said Dewey again and he offered Jane a reassuring smile, before turning on his heel and heading back out onto the stage.

  “Well alright then, Jane,” leered Mo. He held out his bottle of beer. “Here, I’ve just opened this one. Take it and we can get this party started.”

  Jane took the bottle he proffered. It was cold. Straight out of the fridge.

  “Drink up,” he said and nodded at her.

  Reluctantly, she tipped her head and held the bottle to her lips, pretending to take a drink by blocking the opening with her tongue, and only pretending to swallow.

  “Good girl,” he said. “Come this way. We always have the craziest parties.”

  Chapter 6

  Jane followed Mo out the back of the stage where an enormous door the size and width of a double decker bus was standing open, with a truck pulled up to it. There were numerous huge, hairy and bearded blokes loading equipment up. Mo took her past the door to the other side of the stage. Half a dozen steps brought them to another exit. He opened this one and stepped back. She found herself in a well-lit corridor, both wide and long, with numerous doors on the left hand side. Windows to the right looked out onto the loading bay. She was truly backstage now she figured, and the rooms to her left were offices and dressing rooms.

  She walked slightly ahead of Mo, questioning why he was hanging back. When she turned to look at him, he lifted his gaze from her backside and smiled lasciviously. “This way,” he said again, and stepped past her.

  She could hear the party long before they arrived at it. Guns N’ Roses were booming out of some speakers. She followed Mo into a large reception room and stared around in amazement. There were dozens of people hanging out. Some were leather and denim clad and obviously fans, or involved in the music scene somehow themselves, others were more smartly dressed, men in suits, women in short revealing frocks.

  Jane stood and stared, her head swivelling from left to right and back again. She thought she recognised a couple of guys from Def Leppard, and was that really Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath? She peered around for members of Wild Dogz and spotted Bobo, lounging on a couch with a woman slightly older than herself with the longest hair she had ever seen. It was caramel coloured and spread out around her in a wonderful pre-Raphaelite frizzy halo. She was smoking an enormous spliff. When the woman caught Jane staring at her, she grinned, waving the spliff her way.

  Jane glanced away quickly. It wasn’t that she never imbibed, more that she felt incredibly shy and completely out of place here.

  She spotted Mikhail, surrounded by a gaggle of attentive teenage groupies. Most of them did not appear to be legal. Jane was aghast.

  Mo watched her as she looked around, taking in her surroundings, and when her focus returned to him, he smiled and took her arm, leading her to a table in a dark corner. People were gathered there, bending over, snorting lines of cocaine and shrieking with laughter.

  “Would you like a hit?” Mo asked. It explained his tiny pupils, Jane figured.

  Jane shook her head and backed off. Her mind made up. This was no place for her. She needed to find Terri and get out. The gig had been amazing; however, she was a fish out of water in a place like this. “No,” she replied. “Thanks for the invite but I really need to go.”

  Mo grabbed her elbow, “You need to loosen up, babe. I can introduce you to some big names if you play your cards right.”

  Jane yanked her arm back, and turned away, knocking into a girl standing behind her and spilling her drink.

  The woman shrieked and glared at Jane. “Watch it!”

  “Sorry, I’m sorry,” Jane placated her. The girl, archetypal biker chick with shaggy blonde hair, snarled at her. Underneath the thick make-up she was probably no older than sixteen or seventeen, her figure was straight up and down with no hint of a curve. This was no place for a kid her age.

  “Hi again,” said a deep voice next to her. “Are you causing trouble, here?” Jane looked up into Silas’s amused face.

  “She spilled my drink,” the girl said.

  “It’s a free bar, Monty. Help yourself,” Silas instructed, hardly taking his eyes from Jane. The girl huffed and puffed on the periphery. Jane had stopped hearing her.

  “Can I get you a beer or anything?” Silas asked Jane, and Monty stomped away.

  “I’ve got one,” Jane said and lifted her bottle. “Mo kindly gave me his.”

  Silas shot Mo a look. Mo squirmed and meandered back to the cocaine table, leaving Jane and Silas together.

  “Did he now?” Silas took the bottle from Jane and she thought he would drink from it, but instead he stalked angrily away and threw it into a bin in disgust, the contents splashing the walls and floor.

  “What’s your name, sweet lady?” he asked when he returned.

  “Jane.”

  “Jane what?”

  “Jane Fraser.”

  “I’m Silas Garfield.”

  Jane shook her head and grinned. “I know who you are.”

  “You do? Shucks. Well, Jane Fraser, let me find you a different drink.” He led her to the bar. “You like beer?”

  She nodded. “Bitter if you have it.”

  He found some and cracked open two bottles with one of the numerous bottle openers lying around, handing the first to her, and holding his own up. “To you, Jane.”

  Jane laughed self-consciously, “and to you.”

  “To us, then.”

  “Okay. To us.” They clinked bottles and drank.

  “What was wrong with Mo’s drink?” Jane asked.

  Silas shrugged. “Maybe nothing.”

  “Oh right.” Jane looked pointedly at the bin.

  Silas led her away from the bar, and put some distance between himself and everyone else. That was difficult to do, the room was so crowded. He leant closer to her. “Put it this way, on my watch I’d prefer you didn’t accept anything from that dude.”

  “Really? He’s your manager.”

  “Hopefully not for much longer. He was the record company’s idea. I preferred it when it was us and Dewey.”

  “Dewey was your manager?”

  “Back in the day, hell yeah. And a good one he was too.”

  “Was he at high school with you too?” Jane knew Silas, Bobo and Mikhail had met at school and formed the group at that time.

  “Dewey and I go way back. We were at kindergarten together. He’s always been a fat bastard, but I love him.”

  “You guys were so young when you first started.”

  “Fourteen. Fifteen. Yeah, it was kind of young. We didn’t get a record deal for a few years though. That was our saving grace. Gave us some time to get a little better at what we do. Or try to do.”

  “The gig was amazing tonight.” Jane said wistfully. She wanted to see him perform all over again.

  “Well thank you, Jane Fraser,” smiled Silas, “That’s sweet of you to say. Are you here on your own?”

  “No. I came with a friend. I’m worried about where she is.”

  “Do you need to go find her?” Silas asked, having to turn away as someone called his name.

  While he was otherwise engaged, Jane looked around the room again. The party table had drawn a large crowd of braying professional types intent on their own pleasure, but elsewhere, she and Silas were the focus of a great deal of attention. People were looking over, some openly pointing, or obviously talking about them. She felt self-conscious again, standing in such close proximity to this rising metal star, aware of her unkempt fingernails and split ends, in a room full of immaculately turned-out women. Even those who had dressed down were clad head to toe in designer leather and denim, and ultra-expensive plain tees.

  Silas returned his attention to her just as Mo walked over.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Silas. I really need you to have a chat with the NME people over here. They’re thinking of doing a big spread on Wild Dogz and they’d like you on the cover. Would you mind?
”

  Silas pursed his lips and nodded curtly. “Sure,” he said. “I’m sorry about this, Jane Fraser. Duty calls. Would you mind?”

  Jane shook her head. “No, of course not. It’s your party!”

  Silas leaned into Jane as though kissing her cheek. “Remember what I said,” he murmured quietly and backed off. “I’ll be back as soon as I can extricate myself, I promise.”

  He followed Mo to where a group of men huddled in the corner. The music journalist shook Silas’s hand enthusiastically and they began conversing. Mo gazed back at Jane while Silas chatted, oblivious. Shuddering, Jane turned away, pondering whether Dewey had located Terri yet. She headed towards the door, intent on looking out into the corridor. Monty manoeuvred herself so that she was blocking Jane’s way.

  “What are you doing with him?” the young blonde girl asked.

  Jane studied her, unsure how to respond. She speculated on whether or not Monty was high.

  “I’m not doing anything with him as you can clearly see.” Jane indicated the empty space surrounding her and made an attempt to step around Monty.

  Monty side-stepped so that she blocked Jane’s way.

  “You can’t crash the party and take what’s not yours, you know?” Monty slurred, her eyes half closed. “And he’s not yours.”

  “I’m not taking anything, or anyone. I’m just having a beer.”

  Monty snorted. “Yeah, whatever. You’ll only be another one of his conquests, you know. Another easy lay. He always comes back to me.” She tottered off on impossibly high heels, wobbling across the room to where the cocaine party was in progress. Jane watched her go, astonished.

  “She’s right you know.” A voice she had come to recognise and be repelled by. Mo stood at her shoulder, having apparently heard the whole exchange.