Eden stares coolly at the woman who sits serenely on a hard chair beside his bed. ‘I don’t need counselling,’ he tells her firmly. ‘I just need to go home and have some peace and quiet.’
Doctor Sarah Elgar smiles reassuringly. She reminds him of the Cheshire Cat, about to disappear between her own rather large teeth, as she extols the virtues of the retreat that she has been recommending. He mentally flicks an ‘off’ switch and watches her mouth open and close, shaping words that he no longer hears. Eventually she stands and holds out her hand. He shakes it briefly then lies back with a sigh of relief as she exits, leaving the door open. The brochures she brought in lie on the bed and he nudges them, feeling a small sense of satisfaction at the slapping sound they make as they hit the floor. Feet shuffle briefly outside the door, and a shadow lengthens then shortens again and disappears.
Eden is desperate to leave behind the hospital, the guards who watch his room day and night, the nightmares, the humiliation of collapsing publicly, the crowds of young girls who have discovered his whereabouts and who chant his name far below on the pavements. He’s afraid, and he wants to cancel his past life and start afresh.
All he can think of to hold the shaky threads of himself together is the house where he was born. Two years ago, when his income reached ludicrous proportions, he offered to buy his parents a larger house with more land, but they refused to consider it and secretly he was pleased and relieved. Each time he drives through the gates he is washed clean by a tide of happy memories. His family are content with what they have; they always were, and they consider it laughable that Eden is paid vast sums of money to stand on a stage and sing. Ireland is abundant with musicians, and Eden never expected to be any different to the hordes of others who always swayed their way to his parents’ house after an evening at the pub. His father plays the fiddle and his mother has a sweet voice, and they tease him about his fame and hide their pride beneath an attitude of bemusement. Eden is now convinced of only two things: he will never sing in public again, and he will go home.
Slowly, because he feels unaccountably tired, he throws back the covers and dresses in old jeans and a black T-shirt. He packs away the pyjamas, books, and toiletries that Linda, his agent, brought in yesterday. This afternoon he will take the plane home, soaring above the clouds that look like snowscapes, and his mind’s eye conjures up images of patchwork fields, of the Swan Lake, his lifelong place of healing. He tries to block out the horror that was Wembley.
A light tap at the door makes him flinch, and he looks across quickly, poised to flee. Linda stands in the doorway wearing a sharp suit and a broad smile, gently fanning her face with a set of plane tickets. Eden leaps forwards and throws his arms around her. ‘My saviour!’ he shouts, laughing, as he steps back and holds her by the shoulders. She shrugs and grins.
Linda has been Eden’s agent since the early days, before fame struck, before it all grew into an amorphous, all-consuming mass that was impossible to control. A piece of her heart broke off and seemed to lodge in her throat when she heard what had happened to Eden. She caught the first available plane from Los Angeles to London to be by his side, and the guilt at not being there while Eden was disintegrating gnaws at her like a razor embedded in her side. She kisses Eden lightly on the cheek.
‘I aim to please.’ Her tone is flippant as Eden takes the tickets from her and examines them, looking askance when he realises there are two of them. ‘I’m coming with you, to make sure you arrive safely.’ she tells him. ‘I have to come back to London for a meeting tomorrow, so I’ll be leaving again in the morning. Are you sure you’ll be OK?’
‘Linda, I can catch the plane on my own. I’m fine. Honestly.’
‘Eden,’ her voice is like cut glass as she smooths back a stray frond of blonde hair, ‘there’ll be chaos if you go out there alone. The press are still camped outside with God knows how many fans.’ Her tone brooks no argument as she slings her voluminous shoulder bag onto the bed, but she smiles sideways at him as she flicks the catch open. ‘Disguise,’ she calls over her shoulder as she draws out a short, light brown wig then turns to tuck his hair out of the way in order to fit it.
Eden looks in the mirror and makes faces as Linda sticks a matching moustache above his upper lip, and slides a pair of dark glasses onto the bridge of his nose. ‘Thank God it’s sunny out there. You won’t look out of place in these,’ she tells him, making small adjustments then turning him around, stepping back to take an assessing look. ‘No-one will recognise you.’
He glances at his reflection in the mirror and shakes his head ruefully. ‘To be sure, not even my own mother would know me. Come on, let’s get out of here.’
Linda has been in love with Eden since Jack Decker, who she currently fantasises about slowly dismembering, introduced his new protégée to her. His raw talent had needed polishing, but she had been immediately aware of his vast potential. His songs bled poetry like sap; it oozed from them, revealing a great deal of the man’s soul. Whilst the lyrics flowed, imbued with imagery, the rhythms behind them pulsed, seducing the listener to a primal reaction; an awakening of blood, bone, and tissue, a pheromone-spurred pumping of the heart, a lifting of the spirits, a desire to raise the arms and stamp the feet, to entwine limbs with another being. The bass notes brought sex to mind, unfettered passion, while the soaring guitar and Eden’s husky voice overlaid those tones with sensuality, with an indescribable yearning, painful in its sweetness.
To separate the man from the music is as difficult for her as it is for his fans. Linda has worked with many luminaries in the rock world. She has watched her clients perform, make love to the audience, leaving them gasping for more, then step offstage to curse their co-musicians, bitch about the venue or hotel, switch to an alter-ego that bears little resemblance to their public personas. Eden is different. He is polite to everyone, modest about his huge success, and enthusiastic about suggestions for improvements. It has always been apparent that he loves to sing, he lives to sing, and that he has viewed his fame merely as the means to carry on performing. His air of vulnerability is not an act; it is fundamental to him. Eden has always stated that the Muse could desert him at any moment, leaving him dry and empty, and this has left no room for egotism to rear its head. He takes nothing for granted.
Even without his looks, which he never seems to be aware of or capitalise on, Eden’s performances onstage and his sweetness offstage would have made him beautiful to others. The talent and the self-effacing attitude, combined with his liquid almond eyes and easy smile are devastating, spell-binding. Linda knows from watching those around him as well as from personal experience that it is easy to fall under his spell. Yet there is an elusiveness about him, a sense that he keeps his inner self intensely private. Despite his friendliness, Eden rarely voices opinions about anything other than his music. He has frustrated the press by refusing to reveal anything of his private life, his relationships, his likes and dislikes. Even Linda feels she barely knows the real Eden. This has led to constant hypothesising and rumour. Some say he is gay, others that he has children scattered around the world, still others that he is unintelligent, weak, devoid of personality. The scar on his forehead has given rise to much rumour and hypothesising, but Eden refuses to explain it and, surprisingly, no-one in his homeland seems to be willing to enlighten the press either. Eden keeps his silence, neither confirming nor denying anything that is said or written about him. ‘My music is all that matters,’ he has told his interviewers time after time. ‘Judge me by my music.’ Linda laughed uproariously when Jack Decker told her there was to be a biography about Eden, joking that his only direct quote would be to judge him by his music.
Linda has nurtured his talent, encouraged him, made suggestions, teamed up with Jack to draw together the team of virtuoso backing musicians. She has booked his hotel rooms personally, sat late into the night with him listening to new songs. She could spend her entire life looking at him, listening to his soft Irish brogue, wondering what runs through his mind apart from music. Eden, who considers her a trusted friend, would be shocked if he knew. It has never occurred to him that she feels more for him than for any other client. He admires her perceptiveness, her tenacity, her ability to bring order out of chaos, but the thought of a relationship with her has never crossed his mind. Linda has never given a hint of her true feelings, fearful that it would damage their professional as well as personal relationship. If anyone finds out that she turns down all offers from the numerous men who ask her out, they never mention it to her face. Linda has a reputation as a straight-talking tough cookie; she’s known as a ball-breaker in the business, and apart from when she is alone with Eden it suits her to foster that. She was devastated on hearing of Eden’s collapse. And then discovering that they had lied to Eden in telling him that they had spoken to her had her spitting venom. The band and Jack had been crushed and shamed by the tongue-lashing she inflicted on each of them on her mobile whilst rushing to Eden’s bedside.
The plane touches down smoothly, and Eden and Linda take a taxi to his parent’s home. It is getting dark, an added bonus, though Eden’s disguise seems to have worked well. It pleases Linda immensely to see him relax as they drive through towns and along empty roads towards the house where he was born. He phoned his parents from the airport to say they were on their way, but asked them not to meet him in case the press get wind of his presence there. As the taxi drops them off at the end of the lane, he briefly squeezes Linda’s hand, picks up the two bags of hand-luggage and strides ahead of her with a spring in his step.
Grace McDonagh opens the door before Eden’s key is fully in the lock, and shrieks with shock at his appearance, then, laughing, steps forward and throws her arms around him. She only reaches to his chest, and Eden picks her up and swings her around, her feet kicking at empty air, as the rest of the family come running. Within seconds he is surrounded by the clamour of his sisters, Maggie and Lizzie, while his father waits patiently behind them until the women, all talking at once, have had their say. Eden’s eyes meet his above their heads, and he winks at his father as if to say ‘Nothing changes.’ Voices wing through the air like fireflies, and he feels warm and safe and happy.
Linda stands quietly in the garden. She knows this family well, has stayed with them on numerous occasions, and is always touched by the bond that holds them. Sometimes she has to wrestle with a sharp, unwelcome stab of envy. Her family disintegrated when she was only seven years old, and the acrimony of her parent’s divorce lingered like a corrosive chemical throughout her childhood.
Eventually Eden puts his mother down, laughing as she totters slightly, and reaches a hand behind him to draw Linda into the house. Their gratitude for bringing him home engulfs her like a warm blanket, and she shrugs it off, protesting.
Eden wakes to a grey, drizzly dawn. He yawns and stretches, and lies for a while, peacefully absorbing the sounds of the morning. Birds call to each other, cows low softly in the distance, waiting to be milked. Leaves whisper as droplets of rain run off them. Nearby a rooster crows, jubilantly greeting the new day. Small rustlings betray the breakfast haunts of feathered and furred creatures.
Naked, Eden strolls to the window and partially draws back the curtains to survey the landscape he loves. The half-light suddenly explodes into brilliance as countless flash-bulbs sear his eyes and a babble of questions assaults his ears. He steps back, struggling for breath, and, as Grace rushes into his room, darkness engulfs him and the floor rushes up to meet him.