When tragedy strikes, can love and music light the way forward?
Synopsis
Three generations of Charleston Monroe’s family had been killed in a car crash. They had been on their way to see him at Oxford University. It had a catastrophic effect on Charleston. He barely scraped through his degree in English. It had been left to Billy Bossomworth, the Monroes’ stockman to break the news to Charleston.
Charleston said: ‘I seem to have slipped into a parallel universe where I can feel no pain. You could stick a knife into me and I wouldn’t feel it.’
Freya, Billy’s wife, said she and Lucy, Charleston’s girlfriend, would go and see him.
Lucy knocked on the door of the house Charleston shared with three other students. Tony answered the door. He said: ‘Lucy, thank God you’re here. Maybe you can get through to Charlie. He’s locked himself in his bedroom and keeps playing ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ over and over again.’
Charleston’s bedroom window was open. Lucy climbed a ladder and entered his bedroom. Charleston said Lucy, they’ve gone. They’ve all gone. She cradled his head against her chest and could feel his hot tears through her blouse. When she left, Charleston seemed calmer, but he was a shadow of his former self. His lively personality had gone. He looked the same, but his light had gone out.
Charleston had been offered a job at the Daily Mail, but it was dependent upon him getting a first class degree. When he achieved only a third class, Bent Boghammer IV, editor of the Daily Mail, said he wouldn’t wipe his ass on a third class degree.
As events transpired, Charleston and his girlfriend Lucy end up as roadies in Australia working for a band called The Drumbeats. They were very big down under.
Some of the equipment was damaged in the sea voyage but Charleston managed to repair it and the band played to a sell-out concert at the Sydney Opera House.
