Angels and Rain

“Phoenix, would I suit yellow eyes?” I asked him, my feet up on his untidy desk. To tell the truth, I was dubious of them. They made Phoenix’s face look foreign and unfamiliar, not quite human, somehow. He turned them on me as I asked this, his head cocked to one side. He was so, so beautiful.

Phoenix’s office was a lot more modern-albeit a lot smaller-than Laurence’s, with cream walls and a deep navy carpet. The wallspace was only taken up with one photo, as opposed to roughly a thousand and a half on his (and now my, I realised with a jolt) superior’s wall. A black haired girl and a red haired boy cuddled up together with what looked to be a ball scene going on behind them smiled down at us.

“Are those your parents?”

He glanced up at where I was looking. “No.”He stopped and looked at me. “I’d prefer them grey,” he
told me, “although I probably just haven’t got used to them yet. They’d lighten up your face a lot more. I
always thought mine looked strange for the first six months or so. You get used to them.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. And where am I to sleep tonight?”

“Oh, shit, right... Erm... Well, I’m living with my grandmother now, you know, after the Feadie thing my
parents are a bit...” He pulled a face. “Paranoid, shall we say. Valentiene might have space.”

He saw my face. I hated staying with people I didn’t know.

“What?”

I did my best to look forlornly at him for a few seconds before replying “nothing.”

“It’s not as she hasn’t got a nice house, you know. Its about tine you got over this uncertainty of new
things. It isn’t healthy.”

I snapped my head up and glared at him. They were almost the exact words my father would have
said to me, had he been here. Phoenix, good, pure, striking Phoenix didn’t see this cross my face,
only the screen of his phone as he scrolled though the contacts towards V.

“Hello? Valentiene?”

As it turns out, there is a god and he loves me. A bit.

Valentiene was visiting a friend who was having chemo and couldn’t have me (“Tell her I’m so sorry.
Any other day and I could, but I’ve known Sarah for so long…”). The downside was, of course, I had to
stay with Phoenix.

Any time up until about half an hour ago, this would have delighted me. To tell the truth, I’ve always
had a place in my heart for Phoenix. Well, come on, who wouldn’t? To say he’s gorgeous is to say
Marley and Me wasn’t really that sad, or the First World War was just a tad unnecessary. I remember
him as a teenager, where he’d just wear a pair of jeans and a jumper instead of chains and new Rock
boots and could still stop traffic.

Evidently, this had just been disguising the Ubertwat within.

“She’s a bit fond of her cats” He warned, pulling up outside a well kept house on Mulberry Road. “Not
that she has any, but there are pictures all over the place. She’s a retired artist.”

“Oh lovely! Did she sell at all?” Ex Drama captain. What can I say?

“No, she was commissioned to do pictures of army horses and such like. She was very good in her
time. I think you’ve met her a few times before. She’s my dad’s mum”- Before he could get any further, the door Number Seven opened and a small Springer spaniel followed by a smallish woman with flyaway, yet still blood red hair smiled and waved at Phoenix and I. She had one or two more wrinkles on her otherwise youthful face and a few more greys, but was still quite recognisably Rosey Dylanger.

“Rosey!”

As soon as we were in hugging range, Rosey jumped on the both of us. Unlike Nix, who seemed to have grown immune to the physical power old women possess, I came dangerously close to having a rib cracked. When I was finally released, I was fighting for breath. Phoenix just looked mildly flustered.

“Hello my love. Hello Helaynia, dear. I haven’t seen you for a while.” She smiled up (Yes, UP at me!
Finally, I’ve met someone actually smaller than I am!) at me.

“No, Mrs Dylanger. Not since Feadie’s fifteenth, I don’t think.”

“Rosey, please. I haven’t gone by Mrs Dylanger for a long time. Come in, love, come in.”

She ushered me into a well kept hallway full of pictures of cats and called her dog (Tilly) back inside. I
looked round in a daze at the walls laden with beautiful oil paintings of the countryside surrounding
Monroeville and various tabbies while Phoenix and his grandmother exchanged hugs. Rosey didn’t
look at all like the woman she was supposed to be. Her blood red hair was still bright and she had
next to no lines on her face. But that was the Dylanger blood in her.

“Layna, would you like a drink?” Phoenix asked me over the top of her head.

“Erm, yes please Nix. Just some water if you have any.”

He gave me a thumbs up sign.

I watched Phoenix bugger off down the hall to the kitchen and started to feel a bit lost. I hardly knew
Rosey and now I had to make conversation with her? I looked at her, smiled and hoped he was as
talkative as I remembered her to be.

“So, young Ryves, what have you been doing with yourself?”

“Erm...” I looked round for help “Generally nothing in particular.”

“Ah well, best way to spend your life as far as I’m concerned. Try being retired, love”

“Phoenix tells me you were an artist.”

“Ay, I was one day. See that picture of the river in autumn? That was me.”

“Really? It’s amazing!” I looked up at the picture hanging above the telephone table. It looked like the
kind of thing you’d expect to find in an art gallery. “And you didn’t get paid for this?”

“I’d forgotten how thick your accent was, dearie! But thankyou, thankyou. No, I don’t get paid. I don’t
want to. True art is about passion rather than money. I pained it because it reminds me of where I
used to live, back in the good old days as we’re supposed to say.” She smiled at me. “Can’t think why.
It’s a drawing of inner peace to help manage stressful situations. You need to sit and look at it, and
you’ll see the face of a young woman in that oak tree overhanging the brook. And that root, see? That’s
the body of Ophelia with her skirts flailing out behind her. It’s a bit morbid, but it helps to remind you
that your mortal body can’t last forever. Soon you’ll lose it and your spirit will need to find its own way.
You need to be prepared for that possibility, you see. If you aren’t re-incarnated, then you are left as a
wandering spirit in the world of mortals and I have no desire to become a Phasmartis, do you?”

I stared at her and wondered if she was mad.

“So what are you doing with yourself now, Helaynia?”

Did she know about the Convent?

“Er, I work with Phoenix now actually.” I told her. If she knew about the Convent then she’d know what I
was talking about. I had to admire my brains on that one.

“Layna. Here. Everything okay?” Phoenix asked, coming to my rescue. I looked at him in a grateful
kinda way. He winked at me.

“Fine Phoenix.”

“Yeah, fine. Your nan’s just been telling me about her art.”

“Oh yeah?” I could see Phoenix thinking crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap behind his hair. “Come
through, Layna.” He took hold if my wrist and led me through to the living room. “Sit down. I am so
sorry about my grandmother, she’s full of odd ideas, I’m afraid. It wasn’t that river one she was on
about, was it?”

“The autumnal one?”

“Yes. That one. That’s the worst.”

“I really like her.”

“Oh good. If she gets too much, just punch her.”

“Phoenix!” I hit him with a cushion.

“What? She’s a tough old bat. She’d probably hit you right back.”

“So you’re trying to trick me into getting hit by a... how old is she again?”

“Seventy-three.”

“She isn’t! She looks about thirty!”

“We Dylanger’s don’t age as we should.” He said with a cheeky grin.

“No, Phoenix. You could easily be mistaken for a six year old” I said sarcastically. “But you have a
streak of vampire in you, all of you do.”

“Mmm.” He nodded. “I suppose so.”

Hurm. Maybe I’d misjudged him.

“Aha! There you are! I was wondering where you two had got to. Now, I’ll just be getting me bag and I
shan’t interfere with you nemore, eh?” Rosey’s head, which had just appeared around the door gave
us both a knowing wink.

“Oh no, we’re not...” I began.

She gave us a Oh-yes-you-are look.

“No, we’re seriously not.” Said Phoenix.

This may turn out to sound like a pantomime.

“Of course you aren’t, my loves, course you aren’t. I know all about your gender preferences, Phoenix.
Anyway, I’m off down the pub. Phoenix, you have my mobile if you need to ring me.”

She gave us a theatrical wave and a few moments later we heard the front door slam.

I looked over at Phoenix. “Gender preferences?”

He mimicked my wide-eyed look. “That bitch!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That I now strongly dislike my grandmother.”

I did not like his patronising tone. “Are you gay?”

I expected him to do a little hand flick and laugh it off with me, but the real answer shocked me slightly.

He looked me solidly in the eye and replied “Yes,” with no trace of a smile.

Then-

“You didn’t know, did you?”

I said nothing.

He hit me over the head with a cushion, in a completely unnecessary and undignified manner.

This caused the dog to bark.

Phoenix picked her up and bought her onto his lap.

“Nixy, are you sure she's really allowed?”

“She’s fine, ain’t ya, Tillsie?”

The little dog yipped, sneezed, jumped of Phoenix’s lap and proceeded to run in circles round the
coffee table with the shoe she’d just stolen off my very foot in her mouth.

“Should she be doing that?” I asked, slightly shocked at the fact that Rosey’s dog had just gone wacko
on us.

“You’ve never met a spaniel, have you Layna?”

Then, all of a sudden, tiredness hit me like a brick wall. I decided to be blunt and to the point.

“Nixy, where am I going to sleep tonight?”

“Okay, right.” He got up. “You can stay up in my room, love, I’ll have the sofa.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, course, Layna, don’t worry. It’ just up here.”

He led me up a flight of stairs, lined with yet more paintings, and into a small box room at the end of
the landing. It was quite recognisably Phoenix’s. All his old, various crap: posters, fencing awards,
drawings, photographs and frames, books, CD’s and a picture of him and another boy outside the
Eiffel tower were littered around the place.

“It’s a bit of a mess I’m afraid,” he said, standing in the middle of a small mountain of hardbacks.

“That’s nothing, Phoenix, you should see my room. It’ll knock the socks off of this.”

He sneered at me. I stuck my two fingers back up at him.

“And look who I’ve got!” He said proudly, trying to pull something from the top of his wardrobe and
dislodging a few old boardgames in the process. “He’s up here somewhere... Aha! Oh shiiiiiiiit...!” He
said as a sea of Cluedo’s and Scrabbles landed on his head.

“Phoenix!”

“It’s okay, I’m still alive. Here.” He handed me an old acoustic guitar.

“Freddy!” I could feel my face light up “You kept him!”

“Course I kept him! He was my first one. I have a new one now, I’ve called it Oink.” He pointed to a
newer looking Gibson in the corner. I looked down at Freddy in amazement. Freddy, named after the
late, lamented Freddy Mercury, had been Phoenix’s old guitar when he was about twelve. I still
remember him sitting there, trying-and failing after endless attempts-to teach me ‘Smoke on the
Water’ and ‘Satisfaction’. Of course, I was never much cop at it, but he was amazing.

“Why Oink?”

He shrugged. “I take it you still can’t play?”

“Don’t be cheeky, young sir.” I went to hit him with Freddy, but he ducked. Damn him and all his socks.
“But no, I can’t.”

“You never could, my love. You were good at the piano, though.”

“I gave up.”

“Why? You were really good!” Phoenix looked mortified.

“Piano teachers are so patronising. You make the slightest slip up and they instantly launch into a
spiel about note values and stuff until you feel like strangling them.”

“I know how you feel. It seems to be a universal plot with all music teachers..”

I smiled.

I sat down on the corner of his bed, pulling the covers over my legs. Phoenix plopped down next to me
and started fiddling with a strand of my hair.

“I love your hair, Laynia.”

“You’re welcome to it. It never behaves itself.”

“I wanted to go this colour, but my hairdresser said it wouldn’t suit me.”

How had I not guessed he was gay?

“Phoenix, you are this colour.”

“No I’m not. I’d like a sort of reddy tint like yours has in it.”

Okay, getting weirded out now.

“Erm, Phoenix, where’s your loo?”

“Huh?” He looked at me like I’d just descended from Mars on a giant pancake.

“Toilet, Phoenix.”

“Oh! Down the landing, by Nana’s room. Are you hungry? I’ll make dinner.”

Am I hungry? It’s only just gone six! As I believe I’ve said before, something has happened to that boy. He’s gone a lot quieter all of a sudden. Maybe as men get older their brains somehow get mutilated by small space bunnies... Shut up, brain. Why did I even agree to have you in my head in the first place?

My brain is silenced.

Ahh, the silence.

I want to know why brains were even invented in the first place. It’s not like we need them.

When I came back, Phoenix was strumming away at Freddy. He was an amazing guitarist, but one of
those annoying people that refused to admit that they had a gift.

“What is that?” I asked, referring to the jazzy tune he was playing.

“That’s a guitar.”

“No, twit. The tune.”

He shrugged. “I just made it up.”

“You’re really talented, you know.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Not.”

“Are.”

“Not.” He threw his poor, long-suffering pillow at my head. There’s turning out to be a lot of this.

“Are,” I said, ducking. The flying pillow hit the doorframe and ricocheted off back onto his bed.

“And how old are we? He said, laughing. And great shot.” He said, looking at it in wonder. “I’ve put
carbonara on for you downstairs, is that okay? It’s about all I can cook.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Cool. It’s just that... I’m not fantastic in the food front and...”

“Phoenix, I’ve already said that that’s fine.”

He nodded and picked at a few loose threads on his black duvet cover.

“Why did you get sacked from that pizza place, Layna?”

“I hit my boss over the head with a chopping board and broke her nose.”

“Bloody hell!” He exclaimed, accidently tugging too hard on a thread and making a small hole in the
fabric. “Why?”

I gave a light couldn’t-really-care-less sort of shrug. “She was annoying me.”

“I heard from Feadie that she wasn’t nice.”

“Phoenix, she makes Ivan the Terrible look like a puppy. She’s pure and utter evil.”

He laughed. “Wait until you see pure and utter evil Layna, it’s nothing like restaurant managers.”

“Oh yeah? Wait until you see restaurant managers in full throttle. Nothing is more scary.”

If he knew better, he didn’t contradict me.

“What’s that burning smell?” I asked, sniffing the air in an amiable type way.

Phoenix leapt up and ran out of the room. I should imagine that burning smell is dinner, then.

“It’s ready!” Phoenix shouted up at me.

Yes, I should imagine so, too.

“Through here.” He waved me in. “The pasta’s caught a little at the bottom, but I don’t think it’ll kill
you.”

“Oh, so we’re okay then, If you don’t think it’s poisonous” I said, sitting down at a small wooden table
in a very small and mostly wooden kitchen.

“Say when.” He said, ladling carbonara onto my plate.

“When.”

“And I take it you’ll be wanting cutlery too?”

“Please.”

He opened a drawer and started digging about for forks. “You don’t mind if they’re bent, do you? Nana
isn’t fantastic at replacing stuff like this.”

“No, Phoenix, bent is fine, just let me eat!”

He handed me a knife and fork and sat down himself opposite me, his face bathed in

the light of the dying sun. He is beautiful, Phoenix.

It was only after I started to eat I realised that I hadn’t had anything all day. With a

combination of my ravenous hunger and the speediness of my bent fork, I had

finished before I noticed Phoenix wasn’t eating.

“That was quick.” He said, with a slight trace of awe.

“Yes, Nix, that was. Now may I steal a bit of bacon?” I asked him, putting on my best

pleading face. He held out the pan he was still holding to me without a word and I nicked a piece of
bacon from him.

“I forgot you didn’t have any breakfast this morning. Valentiene did make you

something, but I don’t think you ate it.”

“Mmm. I’m glad I stole that bit of bacon.”

“Do you want some more? I think there’s more in the pan.”

“What, bacon?”

“Well, if that’s what you want, but I did mean the carbonara.”

“That would be nice, thanks Nix.”

He got up and started refilling my plate with what was left of our meal while I got

stuck into his. “How long have you been living here?” I asked between mouthfuls.

“A few weeks. Three or four.”

“Cool. What’s it like, living with your grandmother? I mean, one of mine’s dead and
the others stuck in a Battersea carehome somewhere thinking marmalade is currency.”

“I don’t think mine’s far off that marker to be honest. She’s full of these odd ideas of life and death and
wandering spirits. You heard, with the painting and all. She thinks she’s the sixth re-incarnation of
Cleopatra.”

I barely suppressed a snort of laughter. “I never want to get old. I’ll probably jump off a building or
something when I’m sixty. Blow all my cash on drugs and stuff beforehand and die happy with a
houseful of crack and an empty purse.”

“I’d like to go a little less graphically, I think.” Said Phoenix, putting my plate back down in front of me
and looking hard at his.

“I’m sure I had more than that.”

I looked guilty.

“Ah well.” He shrugged and sat back down. “Would you like the rest of this, Layna? Nana won’t be
hungry.”

“Thankyou!”

I held out my plate while Phoenix scraped what was left of his onto my now re-
emptied plate.

“Merci beaucoup. Not eating?”

“Vegan.”

“Since when?”

Phoenix! You lose touch with him for half a minute and he becomes a gay, vegan Goth kid.

“Since I was fourteen.”

He looked at me as if I was an omelette giving him a maths lesson.

“Don't you remember?”

“No.”

“Oh. Nice to see I’m so forgettable. Coming through to the living room? Don’t worry about the dishes,
I’ll do them later on.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah, course. Come through.”

“And what does that mean?” I asked with a laugh, watching him try desperately to keep his lovely
features under control.

“I mean, nights with no-one for company save a half mad old woman do take their toll, you know.”

“’Kay then.” I got up, crossed my knife and fork and followed him through to the living room. He looked
up at me with big doe eyes.

“Wait there.”

So I waited.

“Rosey found this when she was cleaning an couple of weeks ago.” Phoenix’s

disembodied voice told me, floating through from the living room. “I thought you might like it.”

He re-appeared again carrying a large leather bound book. A photograph album.

“Come through, Layn, there are some lovely ones in here.”

I went through to the living room, noticing for the first time just how hideous the

textured wallpaper was, and sat next to him on a sofa that greatly resembled a burst teabag. A sight
and a half greeted me.

“Oh my God!”

Staring back up from the pages was a fourteen year old me, along with some other school friends,
namely of Mav, Emma, Roth and, of course, Feadie dressed up as various members of the
‘Scooby-Doo Crew’.

I think the ears rather suited me.

“I remember that!”

Phoenix looked at me. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t to be honest.”

“What’s next?”

He smiled. “Lucy Eziah’s ‘G’ themed fancy dress party.”

Lucy Eziah’s ‘G’ themed fancy dress party. That bought back painful memories.

“May I ask you a question?”

“Of course, Phoenix.”

“Why did you decide to go as the German Air Force?”

I looked at him. “I was bored and without ideas.” I switched my gaze back to the photo and smiled.
“Still, at least I didn’t go as a goulash.”

Phoenix shook his head. “Poor Onna.”

All crowded into one frame and falling over each other were half of the 9A form of St. Ozzie’s (plus
Feadie, Roth, Sonny, Elijah and Inigo) dressed as ghosts, Germans, goats (on one occasion, goats
cheese), Onna as a goulash, me as the German Air Force, German shepherds, a game pie, bunches
of grapes, a cheese grater and God.

“Bloody hell.”

“I remember having to help pin all those balloons on Feadie and Roth. It took almost two hours.”

I looked at him pitifully. “Phoenix, that’s nothing. It took me four hours to do the wings alone. Then
there was the body, and all the cotton wool...”

“Yes, why are you fluffy?”

“I was in the process of being shot down.”

He laughed. But more a shocked ‘You did what now?’ laugh then an ‘Oh my God, you’re so funny I
might die’ kinda laugh.

“That’s what I love about you, Layna. Your subtle tact.”

I flipped over the page. “And what may this be?”

Halloween 1999. Dressed as a piece of cheese.

New Year/century/millennium 2000. Covered in champagne.

In Bath, hiding behind a paper bag.

At Whitechapel Boys College (Feadie’s school) for the Leavers Ball between our two schools.

The disastrous canoeing trip that Doona Dylanger had organised for us at the end of Year Eleven.
Everyone in their canoes, Mav discovering that I’d tied our boat to hers so we didn’t have to do anything, the boys’ boat capsizing, me waving goodbye to our lunch as it floated downstream, Onna rescuing it, me being banished from our boat as I managed to turn it over and Emma realising her phone was now at the bottom of the river and coming back in again when they realised I was a pretty good rower...

“How did you capsize it?” Phoenix asked. I smiled.

“Roth said that you could see that they were old by the way that the yellow paint had flaked off. Of
course, they were green plastic, but I tried to look anyway.”

“Sounds like you.”

“Oi!”

A sixteen year old Phoenix in a scarf and hat standing in a park being with his arm round a red haired,
doe eyed friend.

“That’s Jinx, isn’t it? Are you still in touch with him?” I asked, vaguely recognising him from
somewhere.

“Jinxie. And no, I’m not. He...” He said shook his head. “Nothing.” He said shortly and turned the page.
Honestly, I don’t know why people bother with men. Phoenix is gorgeous, I’ll agree with any old
Norman who says that, and he’s good fun, but I don’t have any unusual feelings for him at all (aside
the obvious). Whoever invented men must be the maniac who thought we needed brains. I may need
to kill him.

Slowly.

With a brain.

If I put brainpoison in his water I could beat him up with a solid one.

“Layn? Are you okay?”

“Hmm?”

“You looked a bit vacant.”

“I was thinking.”

“Oh. I wondered what that whirring noise was.”

I glared at him

See what I mean? They all think that they’re so very clever but have the mental age of a three year old.
All of them. Even the male vampires are the same, but you have to be careful what you think around
them.

“What are the guys I’ll be working with like, Nix?”

“What? In the department or in general?”

“In the department.”

“Well, they’re all pretty nice guys. Nyko can be a bit of a handful at times, but he’s okay really. You just
have to look pretty deep.”

“Which one’s he?”

“The one with the blonde hair. Insolent, clingy little git. The vampire.”

I had known that there had been a vampire, but the word still had an electric effect on me. I sat up
straight and tried to burrow further into the back cushions of the sofa, looking around me. I knew all
about vampires.

But...

“He looks like Rafe.”

“Sorry?”

I shook my head. I said that aloud? “Raphael Thursdon. You won’t have known him.”

“... The one with dark hair. He’s my second, Rowan. You may take I while to warm to him. And then
there’s Pandorra. Pandorra’s very...” He sighed, as if struggling to put it into words. I hadn’t realised
Phoenix was still talking. I looked at him in a hopeful kinda way that made me look like I was listening
intently and not like a spastic frog. “... very aristocratic. Very French. I hate to say it, but she reminds me
desperately of Marie Antoinette. We’re quite a small department really. It’s okay, we manage.”

“Laurence said I was replacing someone?”

“Ah yes. Masariah Bentley. Nice guy.”

Masariah? I thought that was a female name.

It’s both, my brain told me.

Yes brain, thanks for that.

“Cool. Starting tomorrow, I hear.”

“Yep. Hopefully then you’ll be back in your own house.” He winked at me. I gave a half smile back. I
hadn’t yet told him about the gasmasky creature. I didn’t think it important. Weird things happen in
Monroeville, but that doesn’t mean to say they’re important. It was a coincidence I lost my keys on that
day, that’s all.

“You can get another key carved in town. If you think it’s well and truly lost somewhere outside then it
would be wise to get a new lock put in. They can do that relatively easily as well.”

“Jolly good. And er, vampires?” I asked. I couldn’t help it, really. If you’ve seen what they can do to
people...

“Vampires?”

“How many vampires are in this Convent thingy. I heard there were thirty.”

“’Bout twenty five, thirty, yeah. Youngest being Jakob Schneider, German boy. Fourteen and speaks
hardly a word of English. Surprising really, most Germans are pretty good at it.” *cue pensive look
from Phoenix* “We did have our Nyko try and teach him a word or two, he’s fluent in German, see. But
at the end of two weeks all Jak could say was ‘Sod off’ and ‘What’s happening to my fishy delight?’ so
we sacked Nyko and got him tutoring”

“Fishy delight?”

“Yep, what’s happening to my fishy delight. Don’t even think Nykolai knew what he meant by that.
Taught him it as a joke more than anything. Said it meant ‘hello’. So, changing the subject completely,
where did you sleep the night before last”

“Kiaity Reynolds’ house. Do you know her? Blonde?”

“Don’t think so. If she wasn’t in London, I probably don’t. Do you have an E-mail address, Layn?”

I looked at him.

“For work. I’m not hitting on you.”

“Oh, okay...” I paused. My MSN address might be a tad unsuitable for work.

“It’s confidential.”

“No, I know. It’s extremetuna@hotmail.co.uk”

He looked surprised.