Michael Tyne

 

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"There are many sorts of ghosts. Some are the spirits of the dead, who walk the earth. Some are just ideas, which never had their time. And some are memories. Our memories, our choices. Our pasts, which stay with us."

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Carlos Jose-Maria Gonzales and James “Arko” Arkwright are blood-brothers. For thirty-five years, they ploughed the concert-halls and festival grounds of the World as rhythm (allegedly) guitarist and manager of the rock band, Celestial Spirit. 

For most of that time, Arko has been experiencing odd, supernatural events. He’s never told Carlos. For one thing, it would freak his friend out. And, for another, Arko is half-convinced that Carlos is the reason for them. 

The two ageing rockers are now leading a quiet (but not necessarily sober) life in the Bright Futures boarding-house for Retired Performers And Artists in a small, unregarded town in the East of England. They’re surrounded by other not-very-successful refugees from the world of the Arts; and the townsfolk, about whose tough, hardship-laden lives they know nothing. 
 

But when Carlos and Arko’s old mate, Basil Rankin (of the BBC), dies in mysterious circumstances and leaves them an actual pirate radio station, the two men reach back out into the world, just one last time. The tragedies and failures of their past life come back to haunt them - literally - as ghosts walk the streets of the little town; and their lives become interwoven with those of the other occupants of the boarding-house and those of the townspeople.

As the ghosts begin to cluster close, something begins which will change Carlos, Arko and everyone in their world, in a way which no-one could ever have imagined…