Dead in Time

Chapter Twenty-One

August 28th 1976 

He didn’t keep anything in any kind of order. Typical bloody Damon, Joss decided. Just piles of stuff banked up, pack-ratted around the leather sofa, the record player, and the outdated bits of equipment he used. Guitar on the wall, one on the floor; blue glass ashtray on a rickety coffee table, its shorter fourth leg chocked up with back issues of Harper’s and Vanity Fair. That perfume advert Inez had done probably featured in some of them. Joss wondered if she knew where they’d ended up. 78s filled shelf after shelf, and the colours of different sleeves—some new, unopened, some dog-eared, passed down third or fourth hand like an old girlfriend—mixed before his eyes. Joss brushed through them, thumb rattling on slim spines, finding nothing but Damon’s eclectic tastes and annoyed by it.

He had no right to be, he knew that. No right to be in here, either, and that knowledge beat tight in his chest. He ducked back over to the sofa, stooping to avoid hitting his head on the wonky wooden ceiling beam. Man, he was still firing on all four cylinders of browned off, that’s what this was.

Downstairs, aggressive American rock pounded, muted a little through the floor, but not much. As if Damon felt out of place outside of sordid council flats with damp chipboard walls and noisy neighbours. That might be unfair, Joss supposed. Few council flats had views like this. The little window looked all the way down to the Severn, muddy and baked dry in a fringe of frazzled grass, monochrome with the last hours of the night. Even over the music—over the stifling, stale air—he heard those words repeat.

It’s all changin’, Cris! You can’t hold me back no more, y’know what I’m sayin’? If I got a chance, I’m gonna take it, man!

Vince standing there red-faced and oily, cheeks puffed out, and turkey-gobbling, Cris inhaling like a sail boat at six knots, eyes bugging and knuckles white on his glass. Strings of vituperative bile. Joss had just stayed behind the cheese plant, not gone into the room. Listened in, but… he’d not wanted to get involved. He never did that, always stuck to what he knew, stuck to the task in hand, and that got things done. Because that’s who he was. Mr. Dependable. They had their roles, he had—he had his job. Glue and sticking plasters. And Damon wanted to rip them off. He couldn’t… no, he could believe it. Stumbled away, not listened to the details. They’d come out soon enough, like the work Day said he’d done. New songs. Whole new world. Shystering little—but who to tell? Joss didn’t want to admit eavesdropping, didn’t want to be the one to drag it into the open, not yet…. Jessie had the right of it, when she said to stay quiet.

His fingers closed on a sheaf of papers, folded into a notebook that lay on the arm of the sofa. These didn’t look familiar. She had a point, that was the thing. And he’d just have a look, have….

Shit. This stuff was actually good.

Damon’s handwriting, big and bold, spilled all over the pages. Same style Joss knew so well, the same broad beats, same snazzy riffs, but different. Newer, cleaner, better. He hadn’t seen anything like this from Day’s pen since Only a Woman. And words… words that actually meant something. No incessant mantra, no baby-girl-rock, but ruined clouds over faces of the past, hands stacked with apologies. Joss’ thumb skated over the smooth gloss of the page.

I’d fix it if I could, if only you would

Lay back and let me.

Morning light splits the pillow in two

Don’t know why you

Still mean what you do

But you do.