"I know who he is."
"Who?"
"That bloke. In the old manor house up the hill. Done it up all right last few years, he has. Cleaned up the pond, thrown in some peacocks."
"So?"
"So what sort of smarmy git ponces around with long hair, cloaks, and a pair of bloody wolfhounds?"
"I dunno. Some sort of film star? One of those aristocratic types what just got their money and want to splash it around? We had that barmy Viscount a couple of years back in the old Entrecote place. You remember - drove through the village in a rickshaw while wearing nothing but an old Eton tie."
The gaffer leaned on the bar of the Dancing Bear in Wilton, cradling his pint of Old Mortmaw Stout and peering from under eyebrows so bushy they seemed to be small furry animals. "Young Frederickson, yes, I remember him. No, this one isn't bonkers. Just strange. But he's not been in any of the films I've seen. So I reckon he's not a film star."
His drinking companion, a stout farmer from nearby Grafton, lifted his own mug of Fairybones Light Ale and peered into its depths, the odd drifting particle holding his attention. "And, that's because you only watch the westerns and the action flicks."
"That is as mebbe, Sam. But he ain't had any of them film starlet types up there either. Just a bunch of dubious types in long robes turning up at night year before last, just afore he shut hisself up looking like summat the cat dragged in. You remember a couple of years before that, too, he wasn't around for a while. Then he turned up as scruffy as your Uncle Albie, looking like he'd just spent a stint in the Scrubs. Mebbe he were in one of them rehab places. Drugs I reckon, or the drink. Ain't that what them celebrity types do?"
"If he's a celebrity, then I'm Baby Spice. There's been no news cameras, no reporters hiding in the bushes outside nor trying to pump us for information by buying us drinks, more's the pity. But I see your point. So if he's not one of them film types, what is he? And how come you'venoticed all of a sudden?"
The gaffer looked a little shifty and drained his pint, placing it in front of Sam and raising a meaningful eyebrow. "A man's got to keep up with the neighbourhood goings-on. Anyways, old Mrs Lonsdale saw them odd types going in and out two years back, and shereckons they're his managers, or tour guys. And then they started having wild parties in the middle of the night – strange lights and screaming songs that sound like banshees until the local kids reckoned there was a ghost in there."
Sam finished his own drink and beckoned the barman, who put two more mugs in front of the villagers and then went back to polishing glasses. Andy lifted his second pint of the day, took a sip then wiped the foam off his lip with the back of his hand. "Ahhh, a good drop that. Bless the day George here switched to buying that local brew from those London kids. And bless 'em for starting …"
"Get on with it, Andy. Who is the guy?"
Andy took one more sip, refusing to be pressured. Finally, he beckoned for Sam to lean in, and whispered "My Suzie worked it out, but. They was organising a comeback. All them weirdos? Band mates. He's a rock star. And she's worked out who he is."
"Go on then."
"He's the lead from the Soft Serves."
"The who?"
"Nah, they were from the sixties. No, the Soft Serves, one of them Glam Rock types with the long hair and the glitter and flares – used to send the girls crazy. My Suzie had a record of them doing the Candy Cane Bop, and … oh, what was it … Dance Hall Attack. She used to think they were so tough, and they was really such a bunch of nancy boys. But it's him, she thinks. Scott Brians. Lead singer. Used to wear glittery pants so tight you could … well, you'd never catch me in them."
"Cor. Imagine that." Sam looked through the window opposite, through which the road leading to the house in question could just be seen. "A real live rock star in the village. So do you think he'd do a concert up there at that manor? Raise money for the Church Roof or them African orphans?"
"He might." Andy drained the end of the pint and put it down, then hoisted his frame off the bar stool and picked up his hat. Suddenly he froze, then ducked behind one of the large beams that held up the ceiling of the old building. "By all that's holy, that's that Fullaghar cow and she's on the bloody warpath again."
"Sounds like you're afraid of her." Sam snickered quietly and sipped his drink.
"She's after me to pay damages."
"Damages? What the heck for?"
"Her bloody dog crashed through my hedge the other day chasing a quail or something, and got hisself scratched. And now she's blaming me for it."
Sam watched as the dumpy pepper pot figure walked briskly past the pub, pausing only while the dog with her peed on the front doorstep. To Andy's relief, the pair then continued past and up the road the drinkers had been looking at earlier. "Nah, you're safe this time. But she's got a look I wouldn't want to be facing, that's for certain. I'd say your rock star might be having a visitor in the next few minutes."
"Poor man. Maybe she's an old fan."
"Not her. Not her style. But I don't envy him one bit, for all that he probably had his share of groupies when he was young. Right, I've got a pig to pick up. Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow, Andy. You watch out for yourself, too. You're not as young as you used to be."
The gaffer's response was a rude hand gesture as he stomped off out the door.
