Karling Abbeygate
by Ray Sellers

When Karling Abbeygate asked me to write her a new bio, I was scared. What would happen to me if she didn't like it? I had heard the rumors like everyone else. This being the case
though, I had to agree to do it. What choice had I?

My wife watched me for weeks, smoking cigarettes and gnawing my nails. Where to start... Where to start...

How to eloquently portray Ms. Abbeygate and her way with words. A humble writer like myself would have to try very hard indeed to share sufficiently with the reader, her poetic yet pointed lyrics, and her sunny yet somehow sinister melodies. How do these dichotomies come together? This was no lean task I was facing. Ms. Abbeygate born in Norwich England, and has a definite "schpeel" on the details of her up-bringing. This is where my journalistic background got the better of me, and had me treading a thin line.

I called her mother. How I got the number is best left a secret, but an hour or so later, and five bucks or more poorer, I had the scoop.

"Hello.. Is this Ann, Karling's mother?"

"Yes dear, she's not here though, I have a number you can reach her through, I'll just get.."

"No..., that's OK, see, I'm a writer friend of hers in America, she asked me to write her new biography, and I just wanted to ask you a few questions"

There was a pause, and I heard Ann light up a cigarette. A woman after my own heart. I knew that Karling would frown down upon the two of us, smoking and talking about her. I felt a slight stab of nerves, but pushed it away. I was already in too deep.

"What do you want to know?" The sunny tone had left her voice, and been replaced with the sound of a lady willing maybe even eager to spill the beans.

"Well for a start, tell me what she was like as a child" I said

"Always different" she replied. "Talked to imaginary friends. In fact one time she got me so scared, I really believed someone was stalking her. She would say "a man in a long coat talks to me behind the shed". I almost called the police, until she told me that he had started living in her wardrobe too.

She was a very strange girl. Once I found her singing into a tape recorder. It was the most scary thing I had ever heard. No music, just her little girly voice singing angel like these weird awful words into a little hand held tape machine. She scared me."

"Yes.." I replied thoughtfully "I can see that quite clearly. What were the songs about Ann?"

"Well... spooky things, but they were somehow true and honest, things that must have come through her, as no little girl would think them up on her own. One was about a boy in a mental hospital."

"Let me ask you this" I said, sensing it was time to change the subject to something lighter. "What do you think of her success in the USA. People seem to love her performances, and her records. What do you think of all of this?

Ann was reluctant to lighten up and the next hour was spent discussing the fascinating Karling Abbeygate. The things she had done as a child. The strange paintings and stories she had created. Her love of music, her natural singing voice, her strange obsession with wearing odd shoes. This and a whole lot more

"naturally I am very proud" Ann said "the tone of her voice changed, and she suddenly clammed up, her conversation became stilted and forced.

" I think she is a special, gifted girl. I wish she wasn't so macarb, but it seems there are a lot of folks out there who really get something positive out of that. Probably the same type of people who like witches and vampire movies" she said. There was a silence over the phone line as if we both new we'd gone too far.

"My phone is beeping" I said, "just a minute Ann while I get this call", and I knew, and I'm sure Ann knew, with horrified certainty who the other caller was going to be.

"Hi Ray, It's Karling..." pause

"Err Hi Karling. How's it going? I ummm I was just talking to your mother in England

"Ray.... I said I needed a new biography. I don't need you digging into my childhood. How did you get her number?"

"Busted" I thought.

"Karling I wasn't trying to fuck with you. I just wanted to know who it was I am writing about. I wanted to know if its true. Shit. I mean, I wanted to get a better idea....."

"I see" she said.

Two weeks later. My computer died. Everything I had written on Karling Abbeygate was lost. Coincidence? Maybe. However I resume this bio in tradition form...... Just incase