‘Quite ready.’
‘OK, let’s begin.’ The director signalled to the orchestra leader in the pit.
Rita placed herself in the arms of the King, the slightly overweight Bruce Lockeridge, and began to sing, ‘Shall we dance, tra, la, la, la . . .’
The director immediately forgave her everything.
What a voice! It was incredible; enchanting and immensely strong. And when the little bitch sang, her entire personality changed, as if she had become another person altogether; a much nicer, quite charming person, sparkling and incredibly pretty. Sometimes, he felt as if he could quite easily fall in love with Rita McDowd when she sang. And if he felt like that, the audience would be completely bowled over. After all, he knew what she was really like. The audience didn’t.
Jeannie was sitting in the back row of the Hammersmith Odeon. Any nearer, and she was convinced her eardrums would have burst. Even at the back, she could feel the floor vibrating beneath her feet. Her body was wrapped in a blanket of noise and she could hardly move with the weight.
On the stage, three wild men were surrounded by a forest of amplifiers from where the noise came; waves and waves of thunderous, deafening noise.
The maniacal drummer played with the vigour of three normal men, his drumsticks almost invisible as they whizzed over the drums. One of the guitarists, a huge man, at least six and a half feet tall, seemed to have fallen asleep. His eyes were closed and he rocked back and forth, but still managed to play and contribute his share to the head-splitting sounds.
At the moment, the other guitarist, the lead and the
best looking of the three by a mile, was striding around the stage, head arrogantly thrown back, reminding Jeannie of a jungle beast stalking its territory. He wore tight leather trousers and a leather waistcoat, leaving his chest and arms bare. A red band was tied around his forehead and he had a tattoo on his right shoulder and a gold earring in his left ear. The man returned to the microphone, his face dripping with perspiration, his body glistening, and hurled his voice at the ecstatic, rowdy audience, who responded with a roar of approval.
‘Do you wanna be ma honey?’ the man sang.
‘Yes!’ screamed the girls, and items of female clothing were flung on to the stage. Jeannie often wondered if they took off the pants they were wearing, or brought clean ones to shower their idols with.
From this distance, the singer’s tattoo was just a red and blue smudge. It was in fact a heart containing a single word, a woman’s name, ‘Jeannie’. The wild creature was her husband, Lachlan Bailey, looking nothing remotely like the boy in the grey pullover who used to play the violin. The maniacal drummer was Fly Fleming and the sleepy guitarist Jimmy Cobb, known as ‘The Cobb’, a gentle giant of a man.
All three were stuffed to the eyeballs with drugs.
She couldn’t stand the noise another minute. Jeannie went into the foyer where a middle-aged doorman regarded her sympathetically.
‘Too much for you, is it, luv? I’m not surprised. That din ain’t my idea of music. ’Fact, I’m not sure if it’s
any
sort of music, just a jumble of noise.’
‘It’s called hard rock,’ Jeannie said helpfully, ‘though some experts claim the Survivors are heavy metal. I suppose it’s a mixture of the two.’
‘You sound like an expert yourself.’
Jeannie laughed. ‘I think of myself more as a victim.’
She left the doorman looking bewildered and went outside. She still had her ticket if she wanted to return, though she doubted that she would. Lachlan didn’t know she’d come – he had no idea she was in London, so she wouldn’t be missed.
After tramping the damp, foggy Hammersmith pavements until the noise that continued inside her head gradually abated, she hailed a taxi and returned to the McDowds’ mews cottage in Knightsbridge where she was staying while she finished off her Christmas album,
Flowers in December
.
The cottage had been two, now knocked into one, and contained four bedrooms. The kitchens had been turned into a single long one, and the remainder of the ground floor was now a vast area with the original brick fireplaces left in the centre. The backs of the grates had been removed and the cavity contained an iron basket of mock flickering coals, giving off no heat. There was no need, the central heating was super efficient. The big room was richly and flamboyantly furnished – too much red and gold for Jeannie’s taste.
Sadie and Kevin were out and she’d been given her own key. She let herself in and took several breaths of warm air – it was unusually cold for October – then made herself a cup of hot milk. Tonight, she’d go to bed early.
The television on, she lounged on the settee and sipped the milk while she watched the news. In Bangladesh and Ethiopia, the people were starving. There was fighting in Angola, a civil war in the Lebanon, and the Khmer Rouge were still wreaking havoc in Cambodia. She got up and turned the set off. It was too
depressing. Left with her own thoughts, her mind turned to Lachlan.
Soon, the concert would end and the Survivors would go back to their hotel accompanied by the roadie, the driver, the sound men, a couple of bodyguards, a crowd of hangers on, many of them girls, and, inevitably, a few sensation-seeking actresses and models, women who’d achieved a modicum of fame from merely being pretty. A party would follow, Lachlan would take more speed to keep himself awake, and when the party was over he’d take a red devil to make him sleep, then speed again the next morning to enable him to wake up. He’d need more speed for tomorrow night’s concert, wherever that may be. Jeannie could understand that performing for three or more hours using a superhuman amount of energy required some sort of stimulant, but it didn’t mean she had to like it.
‘It’s not harmful,’ Lachlan insisted. ‘I won’t get hooked.’
He was already hooked. At home, he needed downers and uppers to make him function. Jeannie no longer tried to make him stop. She’d learnt it was a waste of time.
‘Everyone does it,’ Lachlan said.
‘I know, but it doesn’t mean
you
have to.’ Some people took drugs to experiment with mind control, to find a reason for living, a reason for dying. Lachlan had never been a philosophical sort of person. He knew his reason for living, to make music. He took drugs for practical reasons and occasionally for pleasure. He’d tried to persuade her to take LSD. ‘Just once, babe. See what it’s like. It’s a great sensation. You feel as if there’s nothing on earth you can’t do.’
‘No, thank you, Lachlan,’ Jeannie said firmly. She
occasionally smoked hash, but two puffs was her limit. The thought of messing about with her brain she found terrifying.
Elaine, now a qualified psychiatrist and working in Broadgreen hospital in Liverpool, theorised that taking drugs to make the body work beyond its natural physical capacity could only do harm in the end. ‘It puts a strain on the heart. Lachlan’s thirty-three. You must stop him, Jeannie.’
‘I’ve tried, but he won’t listen.’
She finished the milk, washed the cup, went upstairs and got ready for bed. She lay listening to the sound of the distant traffic in Old Brompton Road. London never slept. There would be traffic all night long. She heard Kevin and Sadie come in. They’d been to a book launch followed by a party. She had no idea why anyone would ask Kevin to a book launch, but he was a popular man these days, invited everywhere.
Two years ago, Stella had divorced Fly, not because of the drugs, though they were bad enough, but the girls.
‘I’ve seen his photey in the paper, Jeannie, with some woman hanging on to his arm, always a blonde.’ Stella had come round to the house in Formby with her children, Samantha and Russell, to complain. Jeannie had seen the photographs in the tabloids too. So far, there’d been none of Lachlan.
‘I told him,’ Stella continued, ‘that I wasn’t interested in soiled goods. He swears that nothing happens, but can you believe that?’
‘I don’t know.’ It was hard to believe that nothing happened when a crowd of women with sex on their minds mixed with a crowd of virile men high on drugs.
‘Anyroad, I’ve had enough,’ Stella said bluntly. ‘I’m divorcing Fly. I still love him to death, but I went to see
a solicitor this morning. He can come and see the kids whenever he likes, but I want out. You’re lucky, Jeannie, not having kids. It’s easier breaking up when you haven’t got a family.’
‘It must be the only thing that it is.’ Jeannie’s voice was bleak and raw.
‘Oh, Christ, Jeannie! I’m sorry. I know how much you want kids. That was a dead stupid thing to say.’
Now Jeannie lay in the McDowds’ guest room and wondered if she should have gone to the group’s hotel to see what was going on. If she found Lachlan with a girl, would she divorce him?
Never! She loved him too much, but the love was based, at least partly, on knowing her love was wholeheartedly returned. She might feel different if she discovered he was being unfaithful.
She slept fitfully and woke to another damp London morning. Downstairs, Sadie was floating about in a black chiffon negligee trimmed with swansdown, exuding clouds of expensive perfume, while Kevin’s increasingly corpulent body was clad in a paisley silk dressing gown. His Irish accent was as strong as ever when he wished her good morning.
‘It’s a pity you can’t come with us tonight, me darlin’ girl,’ he hollered. ‘If I’d known you’d be here, I’d’ve got an extra ticket.’ It was the opening night of
The King and I
.
‘I’m going on Saturday with Marcia and Zoe, aren’t I? We thought the Flower Girls should go to see Rita together, and Marcia’s only just had the baby. She didn’t think she could manage tonight.’ With this latest birth, Marcia was now the proud mother of five boys.
‘What’ll you do with yourself while we’re gone, luv?’ Sadie asked worriedly. ‘You’ll be all on your own.’
‘Stay in, read, have a nice rest. I have to go to the studio this morning to do some more of my album; it’ll be finished tomorrow. I’ll try to fit in some shopping. Christmas isn’t all that far off.’ She was quite looking forward to the day.
‘Our Sean’s arriving tomorrow,’ Sadie said. ‘He wanted to be here for Rita’s first night, but couldn’t make it.’
‘I know.’ Jeannie hadn’t discovered Sean was coming until she’d got to the McDowds’, otherwise she would have stayed in a hotel. She’d seen little of him since Marcia’s wedding and would have preferred them not to be under the same roof, even if only for a few days.
Kevin announced he wouldn’t go into the office today, but would work from home. He picked up the phone and began to bellow instructions to his staff, while Sadie wandered off to have a bath. Jeannie left for M&M’s studio by the Embankment where the Flower Girls had auditioned for their first recording contract. The new album had eight numbers on each side, classic love songs such as ‘Embraceable You’ and ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’, each linked to the next by a few bars of a carol. She played another four songs to everyone’s satisfaction, including her own, then made her way back to Knightsbridge, where she decided to buy lunch rather than return to the cottage – Kevin would almost certainly have summoned a few members of staff to relay orders in person and she’d feel in the way.
It was getting dark by the time she returned, laden with Christmas presents; a lovely fluffy hat, gloves and scarf set for Elaine, Barbie dolls for her half-sisters, a necklace for her mother. Sadie had had her hair set that afternoon and was wondering what to wear for the theatre.
‘I thought you’d bought a new dress specially for tonight?’ Jeannie said.
‘I’m not sure if I like it. It doesn’t go with me hair.’
‘You’d better make your mind up quick, woman,’ Kevin shouted as Sadie went upstairs. ‘The car’s coming for us at six o’clock. I’m off to have a bath. Jeannie! Help yourself to some champagne. I opened a bottle earlier.’
Jeannie poured the champagne. Sadie came in a few minutes later in a slinky black dress that was too tight, too short, and showed far too much white bosom.
‘What d’you think?’ Sadie asked. ‘Is it too young for a woman of fifty-one?’
‘Well,’ Jeannie began cautiously, but Sadie got the message straight away.
‘I’ll take it back tomorrow and wear me green one. Ooh! Is that champagne?’ Her eyes lit up as she helped herself to a glass. ‘Me and Kevin have been drinking it all afternoon. It’s not every day your daughter stars in a West End show. Things have changed a bit, haven’t they, Jeannie, since you and me lived at the opposite ends of Disraeli Terrace?’
‘I’ll say!’
‘How are all your family, luv? I don’t often have time to speak to you on your own.’
‘Dad’s in the same house. He’s seventy-three, very fit, and still works for Colonel Corbett, though only part-time. Mum, Alex, and their girls are fine, and Gerald loves being a journalist. He’s with the
Record Mirror
now, and married to a girl called Helen. They’ve got two children.’
‘That’s good.’ Sadie gave a little satisfied cluck. ‘And how about Max? Do you see much of him?’
‘Not all that much.’ Max still refused to set foot in Noah’s Ark. ‘He teaches History and Geography at a
school in Childwall. His children live in America and he misses them badly, particularly Gareth. Mind you, we all miss Gareth. He was Mum’s first grandchild.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Sadie said sympathetically. She went all misty-eyed and was bemoaning her own lack of grandchildren, when Kevin yelled it was about time she got ready. ‘It takes you a couple of hours to get your bloody slap on.’
Jeannie was glad when it was six o’clock and the car arrived to take them to the theatre, Sadie encased in emerald green slipper satin and a white mink coat. She had more champagne – it would only go flat if it was left – and went upstairs to run a bath.
It was cosy in the black marble bathroom with the buzz of traffic in the distance. Jeannie didn’t think Sadie would mind if she used some of her bubble bath. She relaxed and let her legs float in the scented water until it began to feel cold, then climbed out, washed her hair, and wrapped herself in the shell pink terry towelling robe that hung behind the door of her room – she presumed it was for the use of guests.