He tried to tell himself that it was the drone of the Boeing. Or the video which had instigated his drowsiness. Something was growing in volume, pounded at him, threatened to bring on a headache. Rhythmic, like the beat of tom-toms, getting closer; frighteningly hostile. Now there were words, incomprehensible to begin with yet strangely familiar so that he was able to ignore them.

Running, crying
Laughing, dying
Blood on the ground
There's only one sound
Deadbeat

He jerked awake. His first instinctive reaction was to tear his headphones off, shut it out. His fingers checked, fell away. There was no way he could stop the number until it had finished.

The film was still running, he could not hear the dialogue because of his Walkman. The jet was full, every row of seats crammed with dozing, eating passengers; nobody seemed to be taking much notice of the video. A hostess was serving drinks from a trolley, people jamming the aisle on their way to and from the toilets. Eddie glanced towards the windows, saw that it was dark outside; logically, it had to be because it was after nine before they had finally taken off from Heathrow and they were not scheduled to land at Kennedy until the early hours.

Eddie Bannon would be sixteen in August. His bright copper coloured hair was styled in the latest fashion to match that of the male members of the Necromancers as shown on the sleeve of their new album, a Mohican-type cut except that it was clipped rather than shaven. Freckled features identified him as the son of the woman who sat in the next seat.

He glanced sideways at his father. Arthur Bannon was huge of build, somehow he had managed to squeeze himself into the small seat. Muscular, the only surplus flesh was a hereditary band just above his waistline that pressurised his shirt buttons. He looked ungainly in his tweed suit, unaccustomed to wearing anything other than overalls, his figure protested visibly at this civilised attire. His complexion was florrid, a process brought about by continual exposure elements on the farm back home, his balding head pallid where a battered pork pie hat had shielded it from sun and rain. Meaty fingers twitched with this enforced period of idleness, his eyes were focussed on the screen but his bored expression showed that he had long since lost the theme of the film. He watched it as one might watch ducks swimming on a pool from the comfort of a deckchair.

The beat had Eddie stiffening in his seat, his sneakered feet picking up the rhythm his fingers tapping on his knees. Fast. Getting faster.

Hear it in the night
Hold on tight
Carried along
By the beat and the song
It's Deadbeat

A tap on his knee that wasn't made by his own fingers. An elbow nudged him. He wanted to shrug it off, slap it away. Just another few seconds.

It's Deadbeat

"Eddie!"

At last Eddie was able to push the headphones back. His body was lathered in sweat. His Necromancer T-shirt clung wetly to him. He felt weak almost to the point of exhaustion. His breath was coming in gulps. God, they had put him through it that time.

"Eddie are you alright?" Mary Bannon was turned sideways, scrutinizing her son, anxiety stamped on her pretty features.

"Yeah, I'm okay, Mum. Really I am."

"Well you don't look it!" Her tone was reproachful.

"I don't want you going down with something whilst we are in America, and its cost us an arm and a leg even though we are staying with the Insels."

"He's alright", Arthur Bannon had given up looking at the film. "It's that damned music that's doing it. Can't understand these kids today, they have to carry it around with 'em. If the bloody stuff was any good then there might be some logic in it. But it isn't, its just noise, no tune to it, they should have been around in the sixties and listened to The Beatles, Billy Fury, Eden Kane..."

"All right. Arthur", Mary cast a disapproving look at her husband, "you might live in the past, can't expect Eddie to."

"How long til we touch down?" Arthur Bannon attempted to ease his position, creaked the seat.

"They said half an hour about ten minutes ago. So I'd think that we'll be landing in about twenty minutes."

"Bloody good job. What a cock-up."

Eddie switched his radio off. He felt suddenly refreshed, he had hit his peak of exhaustion and now it had gone. The beat revived him, exilerated him. It had also made him angry for some inexplicable reason, the way it always did, and that was nothing to do with the tiresome delays.

Everything had been fine until yesterday evening. The Insels had been pressing the Bannons to go and stay with them on Long Island ever since Eddie had been a boy. His father always had a reason why they couldn't go; he couldn't afford it, agriculture was a contracting industry. And even if it hadn't been declining then Frank Hughes, their hired workman, wouldn't be able to manage on his own for a week. So the Insels had offered to pay the fare, and no amount of cajoling by Arthur had succeeded in making Frank admit that he couldn't run the place without the boss.

It would have to be April though, because the lambing would be finished by then. The winter snows would have melted, they wouldn't be trapped up in the hills, unable to reach the airport. They would fly from Manchester because Arthur did not fancy the prospect of driving through Birmingham, and Gatwick would have meant an additional overnight stop both ways.

The winter had been wet and mild, there had not been any snow. Until the evening they were due to leave. Arthur had panicked and driven the Subaru down to the village, loaded up with suitcases, and Frank had brought him back in the Land Rover. By morning the snow had melted but it started again by the time they reached Congleton. No matter, it was spring snow, Arthur was suddenly optimistic, it wouldn't lie.

Their flight was due at 13.25. When they had not been called by 13.20 Arthur's optimism waned. He stood staring out across the runway. There wasn't a plane out there. Neither could they go back through customs to find out why. The departures screen offered no other explanation "than next info 14.00 hours".

At 15.30 the 47 passengers for New York were advised that, due to snow on the runway at Gatwick, the plane from there had gone direct to Kennedy. The passengers waiting at Manchester would now be shuttled down to Heathrow in time to catch the 18:30 flight. The shuttle was late, the Heathrow plane was held back and they had finally taken off at 20.40. Estimated Time of Arrival in New York – 02.30.

They touched down at 03.10.

"The snow was just a convenient excuse", Arthur Bannon muttered as they filed off the plane into a rainy New York night. "I'll tell you what its all about. There weren't enough passengers waiting at the Manchester to warrant flying a Jumbo all the way up north. So they shuttled 'em down to London and crammed 'em on an under-booked flight."

He's probably right, Eddie thought as they queued to go through customs, but what the hell. His feet tapped to the beat which he couldn't have shaken off if he wanted to. He would buy the Deadbeat L.P. this week, maybe a cassette, too.

The Insels, like the Bannons, were in their early fifties. Marvin was tall with thinning grey hair, wore thick lensed spectacles that gave him a vacant expression. But his voice was deep and powerful; it had to be survive in real estate in New York City.

"Hi, there!" he moved across to shake Arthur's hand, kissed Mary. "Good job we rang the airport to check the arrival time. So this is young Eddie!"

Eddie felt his hand being crushed, winced. Charlotte Insel was much younger than her husband, probably under forty. Strikingly attractive with long raven hair, she had Eddie wondering what Stephanie looked like. He had not bothered much with girls so far, there wasn't much scope living out in the Welsh Border hills. An unfamiliar feeling assailed him, one that was not altogether unrelated to Deadbeat.

You'll know it's right
You'll love all night

The Insels had most likely put Stephanie to bed hours ago. She was probably a drip like the few girls he knew back home.

Eddie sat in the back of the station wagon between the two women, Arthur was in front alongside Marvin. A powerful vehicle, it dwarfed memories of Subaru's and Land Rovers, cruised with seeming invincibility across the wet Kennedy tarmac.

"Don't go through Pace Park, Marvin", there was a hint of uneasiness, almost fear in Charlotte's voice that brought a faint tingling to Eddie's spine.

"Don't worry, I won't." Marvin accelerated, caught up with the central lane of traffic and eased into the central lane.

"Pace Park?" Mary Bannon asked. Maybe she had sensed it too, or else she was just trying to make polite conversation with friends whom they had only met fleetingly some years ago and had corresponded with at irregular intervals.

"A shanty town" Charlotte laughed, it sounded forced, "we'll maybe show it to you in the daylight, not that there's anything to see. Multi-racial, Puerto Ricans mostly, they sell drugs openly on the streets and there's a whore standing every few yards. Fights, riots, a murder most weeks. The police stay clear most of the time. But it's only a few miles down the road from Bellport and almost everybody has an alarm filled to their homes. Most of them keep a guard dog of some kind. Nobody drives through Pace Park after dark if they have any sense. On more than one occasion the inhabitants have stood across the road, stopped a car and mugged the driver."

The fifty kilometres journey to Bellport was completed in just under an hour, Marvin turning off in to an area that was in total contrast to the busy wide road, slowing as he entered a tree-line avenue. Clapboard houses that bespoke affluence, partly hidden in their expansive grounds, even the rain and mist could not hide the natural beauty as the headlights arched on a bend. Then the car was bumping down a stony track, easing to a halt in front of a wide verandah.

"Welcome to Bellport." Marvin opened the doors, seemed oblivious of the fast drizzle. "It's taken you a while to get here but I assure it's worth it." He glanced at his watch. "I think we are all in need of a long cool drink, followed by an even longer sleep. Then, tomorrow, we'll take you round."

A small terrier yapped its welcome in the hallway. Eddie smelled the sweet scent of woodsmoke from within, pine panelling that had darkened with age and was adorned with innumerable framed photographs. He found himself searching for a picture of a teenage girl, willed it to be like Charlotte Insel. There wasn't one.

He had hoped for a beer, instead he was handed a Slice that was cold and fizzy, the ice clinking in the glass. The living room was spacious, filing cabinets and a word processor seeming to blend in with the antique furnishings, the carved dolphin table littered with papers. Marvin threw a log onto the smouldering ashes in the wide fireplace.

"We get all our firewood from out of the swamp", he announced with undisguised pride. "We'll show you our swamp tomorrow, it's just beginning to wake up now the Spring's here."

Still there was no picture of Stephanie. Eddie told himself it didn't matter. In his mind, distant but powerful, he heard the beat again and began to tap his feet.

Hear it in the night
Hold on tight

He clutched the bedsheets, screwed the cotton into balls in the palms of his sweaty hands. And in his mind he saw Stephanie Insel, her unseen face in shadow, her naked adolescent body rocking to a frenzy so that it was shiny and slippery by the time she came to him.

He drifted to into an uneasy sleep but the grey dawn awoke him, had him creeping to the window to look out, pulling back a curtain.

The swamp began where the circular driveway ended, a wilderness of trees and scrub that were just coming into bud, interspersed with pools of brackish water. An awe-inspiring spectacle, so different from his native hills and pine forest which were a way of life to him.

Ducks were in abundance, mallard like the ones which flighted into the small pond above the farm at dusk, squabbling, quarrelsome birds, the colourful drakes fighting each other for the privilege of chasing the few protesting females. Ducks were striking up, circling, gliding down and swimming back into the fray with renewed vigour.

Eddie dressed, put on his new denims that were stiff and restricted his movements. Reluctantly he left the Deadbeat T-shirt in his suitcase, his mother had requested him not to wear it in the Insel household. This morning the garment seemed tired and lifeless, as if his sweat from the beat had exhausted it, too.

He let himself out on to the landing. Downstairs a clock was striking; he counted the chimes. Six. Floorboards creaked as he moved, he stopped to listen. There was only silence. He was afraid that the dog might hear him and start barking but it didn't. He reached the hallway, edged towards the front door.

This was stupid. He could have stayed in bed until the household was moving. He did not need to go outside, he did not particularly need to go outside, he did not particularly want to. But he did all the same.

It had stopped raining. The eastern sky was turning to a pale shade of pink reflected in those swamp pools, and the mallard were quacking their alarm at his approach. A bunch took off with a mighty rush of wings, were beginning to circle as soon as they cleared the treetops.

The cat made him start. Not that he was afraid of cats, he had not expected to find one here. It sat at the base of a tall poplar, watching him. It had probably been watching him ever since he had left the house, it may have been there all night. So big, undoubtedly a tom, it reminded him of Tiggy, the farm cat, back home. There was something almost disapproving in its expression, a haughtiness, a dominance that reprimanded him for trespassing in its domain.

"Hallo!"

Eddie jumped, turned and saw the girl standing amidst the bushes. Slim with long dark hair, she wore faded jeans and a checked shirt. In her hand she carried a sketchpad. He swallowed his embarrassment, without any doubt this was Stephanie Insel.

"I'm sorry, I..."

"You're up early", she smiled and came towards him, reminded him of his fantasy last night and how it had ended. He experienced a sensation of guilt. A set of Walkman headphones were pushed back on her head, he heard the repetitive swishing of the reception. She switched it off, almost apologised. "I was going to do some sketching."

"Don't let me disturb you."

"Its all right, I'd already decided not to bother. It's just that I love being about at this time of day. Anyway, I think we're all going out today. Daddy's got something planned and as he's one for surprises I'd better not spoil it by telling you."

"That's fine", Eddie smiled, asked, "are you coming too?" he found himself tensing in anticipation of her answer. Suddenly, her company on the proposed trip, and he didn't give a damn where they were going, was of paramount importance.

"I might", she giggled suddenly. "It depends."

"On what?" Oh, God, she was just the way she had been last night, coming toward him with that seductive wiggle of her hips, pouting her pert lips as though she might kiss him.

"On how I feel." Now she was petulant, walking past him not even glancing back. "I might see ya later."

He stood there, bathed in a rose glow of the rising sun, heated and feverish, heady. Only then was he was aware that Stephanie Insel had aroused him in a way which he had never experienced before. And, he knew, without any doubt, that she was coming on the outing today.