Free Rainbow Bridge by Gwyneth Jones Page A

he’d been the Triumvirate’s most valued ally in this endless, fearsome rollercoaster ride. He knew everything . But Islam was a connection they could no longer afford. No baggage, no allegiance except to the new masters. Stand or fall alone, it’s the only way to do this; if it can be done.
    Something about, goodbye forever. Something about, cancel all our vows—
    A wave of desolation swept over them. Everything must go. They must be ready to sever themselves from their families, from the Few.
    ‘Remember when we were going to get married?’ said Ax, at last.
    It was bizarre to recall, but a royal wedding, Fiorinda in a cloud of tulle, had once seemed like a good idea—when Ax had been trying to live with the Second Chamber. Really it would have been hateful, worst aspects of the gilded cage, but,—
    ‘We weren’t. We were both going to marry Fiorinda,’ said the shadow beside Ax, somewhat distantly. ‘I was never asked. Too New Agey.’
    Fiorinda I know thought Ax. We can fight like hell, we do fight like hell, but she’s part of me, I can’t lose track. I will never get a handle on this big cat.
    ‘Well, I’ve changed my mind. I’m asking you now. Will you marry me? And please don’t fucking laugh. I’m desperate.’
    ‘I’ll think about it.’
    ‘All right, spurn me then… Where is Fiorinda, anyway?’
    ‘Took Min and went home. She gets so hellish tired. Ax, what am I going to do about Marlon? I very stupidly swore blind I’ll send him back to Wales, but he’s way past that. I can’t tell him what to do.’
    ‘I bet you can. You can be very intimidating… Let him stay with the folks, and lose Mary’s number. You’ll probably never see her again anyway.’
    The cold air smelled of leaf mould, disembodied bass from the arena was like the roar of distant traffic; on a winter’s night in a lost world. They sat in silence, the darkness restoring intimacy, the thrill creeping up on them: is he going to touch me? What’ll I do if he touches me? Standing up together, they managed to cross that ever-perilous borderline, into each other’s arms.
    ‘You okay, babe? I mean, fuck, you know what I mean. Are we okay.’
    ‘As long as you never let go,’ mumbled Ax, his face against Sage’s shoulder. How gaunt he feels these days, but strong: long bones strapped together with ropes of steel. ‘I’m never sure , big cat. A day in the public eye and I’m thinking, fuck, can I possibly be lovers with this bloke? If I touch him he’s just going to belt me one.’
    ‘Me, same. I don’ know where I get the nerve to hold you, Sah.’
    They returned to the arena, found Muhammad, and had the conversation. It was not as bad as they’d feared. Sayeed Muhammad made it easy on them.
    Slight Return
    Fiorinda dreamt that she was sleeping in the annexe, the army-surplus tent pitched beside Sage’s van in Traveller’s Meadow, on Reading Festival site. Oak leaf shadows danced on her eyelids, she could hear a distant blur of music. In her dream she knew she was pregnant, and it puzzled her that it didn’t seem to matter which of them was the baby’s father. It was Dissolution Summer, Ax and Sage were deadly music biz rivals, and the country was falling apart—
    …
    The oak tree was gone. The annexe was gone, and the meadow by the riverside. There was nothing left. The hazel bothy was pitch dark, and very cold. She crawled halfway out of the blankets to light a candle stub in their tin lantern, and lay down again, counting over with her eyes the battered hard case of a cherry-red Les Paul Classic (never called the Classic, always ‘The Les Paul’, or ‘The Gibson’). The case that held Sage’s visionboard, which Ax and Fiorinda sometimes called Rho , the name of the model, but Sage referred to only as ‘my board’. And the battered tapestry bag that hid Fiorinda’s saltbox, the wooden apple that was the talisman of her magic.
    Min sat on the end of the heather bed, blinking at her sleepily.
    I have