The Devil's Chord – Chapter 14

Reckoning

A Lie in Bluegrass

‘Jesus,’ he says, shaking his head in disgust. ‘You people.’

That isn’t the response I was expecting, when I corralled him here, in this far corner of the car park, and let fly with everything I’d been wanting to say for thirty-three years – and for ten long hours.

‘You’ve got it wrong. Everything. Every single fucking thing.’

‘Yeah? Well, enlighten me.’

‘Fuck, where to begin? … Okay. I didn’t steal the notebooks. They never left your property. Ken burned them. He tossed them all in the brazier that night. Started ranting about how it was all shit, the music was shit, we were shit musicians, it was a waste of our lives. He was completely off his face. Tried to chuck our instruments on the fire too, the mad bastard, but I stopped him.

‘I was going to call an ambulance, thought he was having a psychotic episode. Maybe he was. The next day, he didn’t seem to remember any of it. I was scared, to tell you the truth. Thought he was completely fucked in the head. Tried to get you alone, to talk about it, but you were oblivious. In a world of your own.’

I guess I was. Processing what I’d discovered in the dunny. In me.

‘… And let’s not leave aside the fact that they were my notebooks, bought by me, written in by me, because your musical genius husband never learned musical notation and was mostly too drunk and stoned to write down any of his genius ideas, or put them in any kind of usable form. They were just ideas, after all – not songs. There ain’t no copyright on ideas. You should know that, smart teacher lady with a degree in music. I turned them into songs. Ken had no claim on them, and none on me.

‘And if we still had the notebooks, and could compare them word for word, note for note with my first two albums, you’d be forced to admit that the resemblance is superficial at best. The stuff the three of us played, as The Devil’s Chord, it was unusable. Uncommercial. Self-indulgent musical masturbation. I never played any of that again.

‘I created – created from scratch – all the music that built my reputation. In two years of hard work, back home in Kentucky, working late into the night, after a long day busting my balls as a farm hand. I owe you nothing.

‘And no, I didn’t have sex with you that last night. I tried to, because you were so fucking insistent you wanted sex with one of us, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get it up. In the end, Ken did you, just to get some peace.

‘So, Niamh isn’t mine. Can’t be mine. I’ll do any tests you like. DNA paternity test? No problem. I’ll even pay for it myself. I didn’t touch you.

‘To be honest, I’d be honoured to have that fine young woman as my daughter. I’d love to have kids, but I’m infertile, thanks for asking. Oh, wait. You didn’t, did you?

‘I didn’t touch her, either. Not in the way you think. She’s gorgeous, great company, and has more musical talent than the whole sorry damn lot of us put together. But she’s half my age, and I might have made a complete fucking disaster of my love life, been a trainwreck of a husband, failed at three marriages, but I’m not such a sad old son-of-a-bitch that I need that kind of affirmation. I don’t need her notch on my gun belt.

‘She came back with one of the band. No, I’m not saying who. She’s a grown-ass woman; it’s her business. Came knocking on my cabin door, talked my ear off for hours, whereupon I set her straight on the songbook bullshit. Then she crashed on my sofa. I carried her to bed, took her boots off and tucked her in, slept on the sofa myself.

‘The kiss? It was just a friendly goodbye kiss between two consenting adults. Not that it’s any of your business – as you now know.

‘And the reason I went away, and stayed away for thirty-three years? Ken told me to. He couldn’t hack the situation we were in: it was destroying him mentally, fucking him up. You were fucking us both up. You’re the one who insinuated yourself into our relationship, turned it into some hippy-dippy, free-love triangle. I would have told you to get lost, once I knew what you were like.

‘But Ken always did have a weakness for easy pussy.’

Liar.

You’re clever, all right. Most of your claims aren’t verifiable, one way or the other. Obtaining corroboration for the others would be too high-stakes. How could I ever ask Niamh whether she slept with you? Ask her to do a DNA test because her father might not be her father? How could I ask my husband whether he destroyed the songbooks in a psychotic rage?

Like all good lies, yours sound plausible, to someone who’s inclined to self-hatred anyway.

You almost gaslighted me into believing your bullshit. I was on the brink. But you’ve made one fatal mistake.

You assume that I haven’t been a close student of Toby Reid all these years. Ah, but I have.

You see, I know about the vasectomy you had at the age of forty-eight, because it was in your autobiography. The autobiography that you probably had ghostwritten for you, so the details aren’t etched as clearly on your memory as they are on mine. Your third wife, Carol Anne, couldn’t risk falling pregnant, because another ectopic pregnancy would’ve killed her. So you had the snip. Until then, you were likely as fertile as any man.

If you can lie so brazenly about one thing, I can assume that the rest are lies as well.

Why did I read your autobiography? Why have I read, watched or listened to every interview you’ve ever given? Why do I stream all your albums, much to Ken’s disdain? Why do I follow your social media?

Because I’ve always loved you, Toby Reid, even when I didn’t like you.

Right up until that final, cruel lie slipped from your lips.

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After the conversation we’ve had – or rather, the two low, angry monologues that we’ve hissed at each other, mine accusatory and his refutational – there’s really nothing more to say between us. It’s over, and that’s almost a relief.

I walk away slightly stunned, but strangely calm.

Did he just make all that bullshit up on the spur of the moment, or has he told himself this warped version so many times over the years that it’s become his reality?

Human beings are good at that.

I’ve read somewhere that each of us lives in our own little world, only checking in periodically with the external environment to find out whether anything significant has changed. Also, that we don’t retrieve memories from some dusty filing cabinet in our brain: we recreate them, every time we ‘recall’ them.

There’s ample opportunity then, to substitute our preferred reality for what actually happened, to conform our lived experience to our self-view. And the corollary: to change other people’s memories by means of a convincing narrative.

That’s probably what Toby has done, and will do again. He’ll convince himself that we had a nice little heart-to-heart, in which his old lover’s foolish worries were put to rest.

Theoretical considerations, Megan Newell. You need to focus on the practicalities now.

Although my immediate course of action isn’t quite clear, my mind is firm on one thing. Toby Reid must not be allowed to pollute the lives and the happiness of my husband and my daughter. Or mine, for that matter, though that’s only of secondary importance.

I’m prepared to go to any lengths to make sure he’s out of the picture. He’s forfeited the consideration I’d normally give to any fellow human being, friend, stranger or foe.

And whatever I do, I need to get away with it.

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Next Tuesday in The Devil’s Chord: Meg plans musical violence.

Title image ‘A Lie in Bluegrass’: created using Adobe Firefly and Gemini 3 from the author’s prompt (see alt text).