"Try that last bit again," Mack's voice echoes through the studio. "Starting with the snares."

"The snares were perfect!" I protest, looking over at John for support.

"Humor me," the producer replies, and I grunt in reply. I stretch out my back before picking up my drum sticks, readying them over the snares. But, before I can begin, the studio door slams open. Freddie rushes in, followed somewhat begrudgingly by Ratty.

"I think I have something," Fred pants, slightly out of breath as if they've sprinted here all the way from the hotel.

"Why's your hair wet?" I ask, eyeing him up and down. He looks amped-up, his body practically humming with excitement. His eyes are bright, a scrap of paper held tightly in one hand. 

"I've just had a bath." He says this like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"We're grabbing lunch once we finish this track," John says as he starts to put his bass back on its stand. "Want to join?"

"I'm bloody famished; let's go now," I say, dropping my drumsticks on the snare and slipping off the stool. "We're going to that place down the way, you know, the one with the really good bratwurst--"

"Schlemmermeyer?" Freddie's interest is piqued for a moment.

"Want to come with us?" I repeat John's invitation. "There's also the falafel place around the..."

I trail off, realizing that Freddie isn't paying attention. He looks up to the ceiling and has an a-ha! moment about something. He motions impatiently to Ratty, who hands him a ballpoint pen with which to scrawl a few words on a scrap of paper in his hands.

Meanwhile, John and I continue to plot our lunch amongst ourselves.

"I don't care what you say, the sausages at Zum Spoeckmeier are better," John argues.

"But it's twice as far away!" I protest. "It'll take bloody ages, and the food isn't that much better."

"Well, Brian won't be here for another few hours anyway, so..."

Now it's John who trails off to stare at Freddie, who has raised his hand in the air. Squinting, I see that the scrap of paper is actually a slightly damp sheet of hotel stationery. It's covered in Fred's spidery handwriting, great swaths of text crossed out and written over.

"Lunch can wait," he announces. "I think I have something. And we've gotta get it down before Brian gets here."

I pull the sunglasses off my face and give him a critical once-over. "Why is everything so wet, Fred? What'd you do, write it in the bath?"

"I did, yes," Freddie says as if this too is the most obvious thing in the world.

"With his guitar," Ratty adds, looking slightly traumatized, as I imagine it was he who had to supply both the instrument and the writing materials.

"Since when do you write songs on a guitar?" I query.

"How do you write a song in the bath?" Deaky asks at the same time.

Freddie pushes a hand through his hand, frustrated as always that we're so easily distracted. "Do you want to hear it or not?"

"Can it wait until after lunch? I'm feeling quite peckish, as it were," I say. Drumming is hard work, I'll have you know. It's a real workout.

Freddie whips his head towards me, a look on his face. "Okay, okay, play it for us then," I say quickly, hands raised in defeat. John and I stand together, and Mack leaves the control room to join us.

Freddie marches over to the side of the room where Brian keeps all of his gear, picks out an acoustic guitar, and sits down dramatically on a stool. He starts to strum a chord but quickly stops.

"We agree that we're getting this on tape before Brian comes back?" He looks at us meaningfully, as if he's guarding state secrets.

"Oh, just get on with it already," I say, exasperated and hungry. "If you build it up anymore, it's just doomed to fail."

Freddie reaches over to prop up the paper with the lyrics, takes a deep breath, and begins to play.

***

Fred's song gets recorded, is released as a single, and, in late December, we're performing it live at the Hammersmith Odeon. It's the last night of the Crazy tour, and we're on top of the goddamn world. The performance is being filmed as part of a fundraiser organized by Paul McCartney, and there are cameramen everywhere that I look.

I'll admit, I love playing this song. For starters, it's one of the easier ones, drums-wise. This may or may not be because I was so goddamn hungry the day we lay down the track. Regardless, it's a well-earned break during a long set. But, beyond that, I fucking revel in screeching 'Ready, Freddie!?" towards the end. A simple pleasure, yes, but I bloody adore it. Judge me all you like.

"Thank you!" Freddie shouts into the mic, competing with the final crash of the cymbals. "We're happy to be here for such a good cause.

"Now, listen" --- Freddie puts a hand on his hip, motioning to the cameramen--" I know it feels like a Cecil B. DeMille production here tonight, but don't worry about them.  Anyway, right now, we're going to play"--dramatic pause--"My God, it's quiet in here."

The audience roars, and my cymbals jiggle slightly from the vibration. Who knew that this many people could make this much noise?

"It's always like this at Hammersmith," Freddie continues his bantering. "I don't know why. Are you supposed to be a sophisticated crowd? Is that it? Well, I suppose you are."

I glance over into the wings, wishing that Chelsea were there. We had a whole plan--as soon as the performance was over, we would fly private to France for a week of skiing. Instead, she's holed away in Tuscany with her family. 

We run through Bo Rhap and Tie Your Mother Down, then it's on to the encore and, before I know it, God Save the Queen blares over the speakers. Standing at the front of the stage, I throw my drum sticks into the second row and walk off with one final wave. Crystal throws a navy robe over my shoulders as I make the familiar walk to the dressing room.

I'm the last one to arrive, and there's already a heated debate going on when I walk in.

"The fucking string broke--"

"I don't think anyone noticed, I barely noticed--

"How do you not notice a broken string when it's just hanging off the side of the guitar? It's going to show up in the film."

"Well, I'm the bloody guitar player, and, I'm telling you, I didn't notice--"

"Well done, gents," I say loudly, clapping my hands to get their attention and, hopefully, distract them. "And we're fucking done for the year."

"I can't believe it's almost 1980," John says, pulling on trousers. "I used to read these sci-fi books when I was a lad, and I always thought that in 1980 we'd have flying cars and the like. But, instead, we have--"

"Margaret Thatcher," Brian deadpans as he throws his towel on the pile in the center of the room. "Rog, you still going skiing?"

"Nah, I'll go in January before we head back to Munich. I'm spending New Year's with Cadence. Skylar's bringing her round tomorrow." I remove my white shirt that's been drenched in sweat and reach for a nicely-folded jumper sitting on the bench. 

"How is Skylar?" Brian asks as he walks over to the door to let in the masses.

"Fine, I guess," I reply with a shrug.

Freddie looks at me strangely, that same Buddha-like look from long ago on the tour bus when I could barely get up the nerve to ring her.  But he doesn't get a chance to say anything before Ratty, Crystal, and the others barrel in, and we're all caught up in the post-gig chaos.

I leave Hammersmith on a high, driving myself back to Surrey. The lights are out, the staff away for the Christmas holiday. I love my house, I do, but it's fucking lonely when no one else is around. I usually keep it full of people, some of whom are paid, and some whom are invited to the jam sessions that I regularly organize when I'm in town.

But tonight, it's just empty. Feeling a headache coming on, I take two paracetamol tablets and hop in the shower.  By the time I'm out, it feels as if the temperature has dropped significantly, and I'm shivering. Burying myself under the covers, I will myself to sleep and hope for the best.

The light hurts my eyes when I open them the next day, forcing me to take refuge under the covers. My whole body aches, and I have a fever. I curse the fact that no one's here to take care of me, and I wonder if it would be bad form to call my housekeeper on her week off.

After a few moments, I decide to brave a walk to the en-suite. I take three steps across the room, see the world start to spin, and realize that I'm really fucking ill.

Hours? Days? Years? later, I hear a familiar voice, but I can't place who it belongs to because it sounds as if they're miles away.

"--I don't know where he is, let's just look in--"

The voice comes closer, then I hear a panicked gasp.

"Jesus, Roger, are you okay?"

A cool hand is on my forehead, and I open my eyes, but everything is hazy.

"Just a cold," I croak out, feeling exhausted from the exertion. I feel arms around my torso, a much smaller body struggling to get me into bed. A hushed phone conversation, and then the weight of someone sitting next to me.

"Your doctor is on holiday. Let's see if we can sort you out." The same cool hand from before strokes my cheek and pulls the covers up. I hear a rummaging around in the medicine cabinet, and then I'm struggling to swallow pills and take a sip of water. The effort of it all exhausts me, and the world goes black again.

What ensues for the next few days are a series of hallucinations filled with loud sounds and psychedelic colors. I'm aware of reality intermittently, but never for long enough that I can sort out what's real.

"It's just a fever dream," I hear a voice say from far away. But they're so obviously fibbing because I'm on stage at the Rainbow surrounded by a roaring crowd who are waving lighters high in the air. Fred is singing something I've never heard before, and I realize that I've no idea what to play. But it doesn't matter because my drum sticks are too heavy, and I can't manage to pick them up.

In the distance, I see the flame from one of the lighters catch fire to the upholstered seat, and the fire spreads rapidly. The crowd screams in panic, everyone trying to escape, but my bandmates continue to play on as if nothing is amiss. "Hello? Can anyone hear me?" I shout into the microphone to my left, but there's nothing. I'm rooted to my seat, and I'm fucking terrified.

"It's okay," I hear in the distance, the voice muffled as if I'm underwater. Grey smoke surrounds the stage, and my lungs begin to burn. Soon I'm fighting for air, but the rest of the band just continues playing. Two arms encircle me from behind, holding me tight. "It's going to be okay," the voice says again and again and again. "I love you."

And then I'm floating in a large pond next to Skylar. "I took Cadie to the British Museum last week," she says in a soothing voice, the same sort she'd use with our daughter if she had a nightmare. "Do you remember when we tried to go and were run off by rabid fans? God, that was so long ago." She sighs deeply, so profoundly that the water around us ripples. "Do you ever wish we could go back to those days? They were a mess, but they were--"

I look over, but Skylar is gone, and a grotesque toad sits on a lily pad so large that it takes up most of the pond. After a long moment, it hops away into the mist, leaving me all alone. It's dead quiet, almost alarmingly so, until I hear a voice singing from the heavens. "What do you do to get to feel alive?" It sounds like a young boy from an American gospel choir, his voice both euphoric and melancholy at the same time. Then, a celestial chorus of voices joins in: "I'm all right, all right, hey, c'mon! baby said it's all right."

"It's going to be alright," I hear that familiar voice murmur next to my ear, a hand stroking my face, lips streaking across my face. The pond disappears, and the song disappears, and it's hours before the fever breaks, and the dreams dissipate. I go to sit up but realize that my entire body aches as if I've been hit by a lorry. I open one eye, staring into the blue dawn light streaming through the window.

I half-expect Skylar to be sitting in the uncomfortable armchair across from my bed. But it's empty, and I wonder if I've been on my own the whole time. Had I imagined everything, then? Was I all alone the whole time?

"Oh, you're awake!" Skylar walks into the room holding a mug of tea. Her eyes look tired, her body gaunt as if she hadn't eaten in days.

"Hey," I rasp as she rushes over to feel my forehead.

"Thank God, your fever is gone. I thought we'd have to go to the hospital soon."

I try to sit up but can't. "What day is it?"

"Friday," she replies. "The 30th."

I flop my head back on the pillow, wincing at the pounding in my head. "Where's Cadie?"

"My mum's," she replies as she helps prop me up before walking to the dresser to pull out a fresh shirt. "You need water. Do you think you can manage?"

I allow her to pull off my soaked shirt, replacing it with a well-worn Pink Floyd t-shirt. She's about to walk to the nearby pitcher of water, but I reach out to grasp her hand.

"Thank you," I say.

"Serves you right for living all the way out here," she says with a small smile before she turns around to walk to the window. "If it weren't for me, you'd have been eaten by wild boars before anyone found you."

"Were you-- were you here the whole time? I mean, was it you the whole time?"

Skylar gives me a strange look just as the doorbell rings.

"Be right back," she says, heading towards the door.

"Wait," I reply, rapidly running out of energy. "I need to know, was it you?"

But she's already running down the staircase to open the door. Snippets of the conversation in the foyer float up as the world gets woozier.

"--back early from holiday--"

"--what!? Is he alright?"--

"--well, thank you for tending to him, I know he's grateful--"

"--no, I can take it from here, but we'll ring if there's anything else--"

A minute later, Chelsea enters the room. She's decked out fashionably, her face slightly tanned from her holiday. My heart swells at the sight of her, but, strangely, it feels as empty as it's ever felt.

"Oh, my poor baby," she says, rushing over to the side of the bed. "Are you alright? You've had the flu?!"

"I'm fine," I murmur as my fatigue threatens to overtake me. "I'm fine, I'm fine. I'll be fine, it's all fine," the words are barely comprehensible as everything fades to black once more.