Georgia (61 page)

All they needed now was luck!

Georgia smiled ruefully as she pulled on her jeans and dragged a red sweater over her head.

Jack Levy was cunning. He had covered himself every which way. If she didn’t finish recording within a week she would be in breach of contract and he could sue her. Like Max he was running scared, knowing her agreement with Decca ran out in a few months’ time. It was thinly disguised blackmail, to make sure she wasn’t tempted to sign up with another company offering her a better deal. If the recording was ready in time and then went on to be a smash hit, Jack would merely laugh all the way to the bank. If it failed however, he would blame her for going against his wishes. Before long he would having her back, recording another purely commercial record.

Loyalty in this business was bought. No one really cared about talent. Half the singers who got into the top twenty were virtually manufactured, money changed hands to get them air time. Glossy promoters used hype to get their puppets noticed, and later when these one hit wonders no longer made them money, they were forgotten.

The music world was a giant ants’ nest, everyone relying on the Queen to keep it fuelled. Just one slip from favour and she would be devoured by the drones and replaced.

Georgia sat down at her dressing table to dry her hair, pausing to look at a photgraph of her and Samson.

It was her favourite one, taken just a few days before Ian and Alan died in the fire. The photographer James Ogilvy had been an unknown then, a pimply-faced weed who followed stars around looking for the picture that would make his fortune. He’d been after Adam Faith that day, not the support group, but he’d taken this one while he hung around waiting.

They were in a park close to the theatre, fooling around on a climbing frame. Rod sat right at the top, the other boys made a pyramid shape and she was in the middle hanging upside down over a rail, her hair hanging down to the floor. The boys looked funny now with their short hair cuts and wide shouldered jackets, and she looked positively ridiculous in that shapeless shift dress with a long pointed collar. It had taken so long to arrange herself so the dress stayed up over her knees.

‘What would you think of the boys now?’ she said to Ian. He was laughing, his eyes crinkled up. Rod had just farted very noisily from his perch on the top and John was complaining it scorched his head. All eight of them had been so naïve then, trusting children who would put up with anything for a few words of praise. That day they had no idea Ian and Alan’s time with them was nearly at an end, or that fame would follow so soon after.

‘Would you stand by and watch Speedy and Les destroy themselves with drugs?’ she asked.

She sighed and switched on the dryer. All of them, including herself, had experimented. It was as much part of the scene as groupies and drink. Purple hearts now and then to liven up the trip home or go on to a party. Smoking cannabis in the coach to relieve the boredom. But Speedy and Les had taken it a stage further since that holiday in Spain. Amphetamines to get them going, endless joints to calm them down, then out of their heads on cocaine half the night.

It was almost predictable that Les should be attracted to drugs, he was dim and he didn’t have a great deal of personality. But why Speedy? He was the one with a real mind. A brilliant guitarist, handsome, charismatic and caring. What had made him prefer spending days spaced out, screwing every girl who passed his way, and every night in a West End club?

‘We’ve all changed,’ she muttered. ‘Perhaps the press are right. I am getting ruthless.’

All that fighting to keep them together and now fame and money were changing each one of them. Rod keeping up appearances as a rock star, strutting around town with hair down to his shoulders, in tight red trousers and embroidered jackets, spending more money in a day than he’d once earned in two years. John had lost his warm humour. Now he was full of astrology, meditation and every other half-chewed-over theory he happened to overhear. Norman had new friends now, society types who invited him for weekends in the country. Away from his old friends he could forget his East End origins, describe himself as a composer. He’d even been taking elocution lessons.

Even Max was unbalanced. The man she had fought with, been in awe of, and perhaps even loved had been tough and unyielding. But he’d been consistent. Now he was riddled with jealousy about Sam, terrified she would dump him. One day depressed, another fanatical. Spiteful then solicitous. He took pills for an ulcer, handfuls of vitamins to allay his advancing years and surrounded himself with dolly birds who were only interested in his money.

Sam alone remained constant. A cool breeze on a hot day. A log fire when it was cold. He could talk about anything and everything. Laugh, make fun of her, but listen when she wanted to talk.

He’d filled her life all right. But not in the grubby way Max thought.

There had been moments that night in Ronnie Scott’s that it seemed like the start of a love affair. She found herself gawping at him, and found him staring right back at her.

She loved the way he looked. From the close cropped hair, the golden brown skin and doleful eyes, to his broad shoulders and narrow hips. He was a dream of a man, but not in that way.

As the days ticked past, mutual admiration turned to close friendship. He was unmaterialistic, laughed at show business hype, demanded nothing of her. One morning he could turn up at her flat with a pile of secondhand jazz records for her to listen to. The next he was out in her kitchen cooking them a meal and insisting they went out later to explore some tourist place he hadn’t seen. Unpredictable, serious, funny, affectionate and cool in turn. He told her about women he fancied, his ex-wife and his children. His past gradually unfurled in a series of hilarious stories that left her hungry for more.

From G.I. to barman, truck driver to rat-catcher, he painted pictures so vivid she could see them.

‘You didn’t kill rats? You’re making it up,’ she laughed as yet another talent came to light.

‘I did,’ he insisted. ‘Used to go round in a little van putting down poison, then round the next day to heave out the carcasses. Sometimes I even did gigs with a few bodies in the back. None of my buddies would get in it with me.’

He made light of everything. He presented his childhood as if it had all been running barefoot through meadows, fishing and climbing trees. But as she got closer to him, she guessed it had been tough.

He spoke of the racism in the States almost as if it was a joke. No trace of self-pity, or even bitterness, only sympathy for those who were trapped by it.

‘We’re the lucky ones, honey,’ he said. ‘Up there on the stage people don’t think about our colour, they only hear the music. Maybe by the time our kids are grown every black person will be valued for themselves.’

‘But how can you go back to it?’ she asked. ‘How can you bear Jasmine and Junior to grow up under that shadow?’

‘I hope I don’t have to,’ he said simply. ‘I’d like to bring them here. Send them to good schools. England’s a cool country.’

She wanted to give him the money to send for them right now. The thought of two children without either parent saddened her. She could see herself back in St Joseph’s waiting while people came and looked her over, bypassing her, looking for the small, sweet blonde. It wasn’t right for two children to have a father like Sam and not be with him.

But Sam was a proud man. He wanted to bring those children to a real home. But for him there would be no short cuts.

Surrounded as she was by fawning sycophants his earthy opinions counted.

‘You don’t have to worry about other people,’ he said, when she told him her fears about the boys. ‘They’re grown men now. Be there for them, but don’t try to hold them. You do what you know is right, and if for a while they fall off the path, then let them find their way back on to it.’

Two days of recording and everything was coming together. Perhaps the opposition to the album had made everyone stretch themselves just a little more. Sam had written all the brass arrangements and he and Steven the producer were at one in their ideas. Four tracks were already finished, another five well under way.

Session men and the technicians had frightened Georgia once, but now she understood how it all worked there was no need for fear. Each one had their role and Steven put it all together.

Harold was perfect. Every note he played sounded like a love affair. He could improvise like a jazz player, yet his classical background and knowledge of music was unsurpassed. His patience and humour made him a joy to work with.

‘Come and sing with me here,’ he said, drawing up another stool for Georgia by the piano. ‘Just relax and feel the music.’

It was like being ten again, joining Celia at her piano with the sun streaming in through the French windows. His slim long fingers danced over the keys, his white head nodding with the beat, the warmth of his rotund body, his encouraging smiles, dispelled any nervousness. She forgot it was a glassed-in studio way below the street, the pressure of getting it all tied up in a week, or the session men who just wanted to play their bits and go home. Harold with his hand-knitted yellow waistcoat, with red and white cravat and his huge stomach bulging over his thighs was an inspiration.

On the morning of the third day they began at six. The offices upstairs silent, typewriters covered, chairs tucked under desks. The night porter unlocked the doors for them, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

‘What a time to start,’ he grumbled. ‘I don’t know how we’ll get the studio cleaned. I suppose you’ll still be here when I come back on tonight?’

‘Sure thing,’ Georgia tickled him under the chin. ‘Be a darling and put on the coffee?’

Both John and Rod were better for being away from the rest of the band. Rod had dropped his cocky stance, knowing the session men, Sam and Harold had not only years on him, but a far greater knowledge of music. John hadn’t mentioned meditation once so far, he was engrossed in the sound, playing far better than she’d ever heard him before. Neither of them had complained about anything, not the early starts, or Steven’s continual re-takes.

She had come to trust Stephen Albright implicitly. Ever since that first recording he had produced all her records. Like her he moved with the times, never falling into the trap of making each record sound the same. He was plumper now, so his height seemed less remarkable. A half-chewed pencil, eyes tightly closed behind his thick glasses were still his trademark. But his public school speech was peppered with cockney slang, scruffy clothes replaced by designer chic, he drove a Ferrari and lived in a penthouse in Mayfair, but he was still as uncompromising about music.

Georgia was halfway through ‘Summer Time’ when she saw Max’s face pressed against the porthole in the studio door.

It was just after nine, and Max never normally surfaced before noon. Just one look at his bloated, angry face and the way he pummelled the glass with his fists, was enough to know something serious had happened.

‘Take five, Georgia,’ Stephen’s voice came through her headphones from the control room. ‘Max is in a paddy about something.’

Georgia sighed, taking off her earphones. As she opened the studio door Max lunged forward.

‘Max wait. You can’t go in there,’ Stephen shouted behind him, clutching at Max’s arm. He was too slight to create a real barrier between the bull-like man and Georgia, but he did his best.

‘What is it?’ she asked, her face furrowed with irritation. ‘Can’t we even get on with this without interruptions?’

‘Interruption?’ he roared. ‘You’re finished my girl, never mind interrupted.’

Georgia just stared. She had seen Max fighting mad many a time, but never quite like this. Black stubble on his chin, the shirt under his sweater looked suspiciously like pyjamas and his trousers could have been slept in. But it was his face that really unnerved her.

It was purple. Veins stood out on his forehead like ropes and he had dried spittle round his lips. Eyes blazing like a man about to kill someone.

‘Calm down,’ she gingerly touched his arm. ‘What’s the matter?’

She was aware all the technicians were at the door of the control room, and behind her she could feel Rod, John and Sam. The silence from the session musicians proved they were all listening, still in their seats, their music open in front of them on stands.

Max flicked her hand from his arm and pulled a newspaper from his back pocket.

‘This,’ he almost slapped her with it. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Calm down,’ she snapped back at him. ‘Why didn’t I tell you what?’

‘That you were wanted for attempted murder!’

Ever since her first publicity she had half expected someone to confront her with her past. So many times she had intended to take Max aside to prepare him. But even in her worst nightmares she hadn’t anticipated this.

The paper felt almost hot in her hands. The face of the man she had learned to forget, staring up at her.

The studio lights seemed to burn her, the walls buckled and moved.

‘Tell me it isn’t true?’ Max’s plea seemed to come from a long way off. ‘It’s some sort of sick joke? It’s made up?’

There was a roaring sound in her ears. She could feel the handle of the knife in her hand, see blood dripping from the blade and he was lying at her feet, fingers clutching at the wound in his white belly.

Sam instinctively knew what was in the paper, even before he got a glimpse of the headline.

Elbowing his way through the crowd in the doorway, he saw the colour drain from her face. She swayed, then crumpled to the floor.

The air was charged with emotion. Max’s anger. Rod and John’s shock. Stephen’s eyes behind his thick glasses blinking with astonishment. The curiosity of the session men and technicians.

‘Out the way,’ Sam reached Georgia in two strides. He knelt down beside her, stroking back her hair from her face. ‘Get some water, damn it,’ he yelled at Max.

It was Rod who ran for the water. Stephen found some smelling salts and rushed over with them. The rest of the men stood in a semi-circle around them, too shocked to speak.