And I knew the group had been working hard, playing nearly every night for the last week – small venues like the Milton Keynes village hall one – and big ballroom and club gigs – but they never seemed to be paid much. I guessed Stephan, as their manager, arranged the bookings, got the money, and dished it out to them as and when.
We reached the house, and it still looked a bit grim and unwelcoming, but my heart leapt at the sight of it because it was something I shared with Scott. A special place.
After I’d dumped my luggage in the still freezing bedroom I followed Scott into the kitchen, where it was lovely and warm and where Mo was cooking again. This time he greeted me with a smile and actually welcomed my offer to help him peel a mountain of potatoes. It was a huge step forward. So, while I peeled, Scott made coffee for everyone, the music – a Simon and Garfunkel LP this time – echoed from the radiogram in the sitting room and the rest of the band drifted in and out and chatted. I was blissfully happy.
That evening’s meal was tinned steak and kidney pies, mashed potatoes and baked beans. Mo had allowed half a pie per person and each plate was piled high with mash and beans. We again ate in the big sitting room with music in the background and the group talked about gigs as they ravenously shovelled down the food. I ate only slightly more slowly – it was fab comfort food – again with Scott leaning against my legs.
The rest of the evening drifted by in a happy haze of conversation, music and laughter. Only one thing jolted me slightly from my bliss: apparently Mo’s steady girlfriend, Cassie, might be coming over from Jersey to stay for a while. That sort of made sense. Of course, Mo seemed the type to have a long-term girlfriend. I wondered if Cassie and Renza had ever met. I guessed they might have done, and made a mental note not to be in Leighton Buzzard at the same time as Cassie. It also explained why Mo didn’t slope off outside with a local groupie Dolly Rocker “to look at the van” in the break at Milton Keynes. Zak and Joss had, and their giggling conquests had returned for the second half with undone tops, love bites and messed-up make-up.
Rich never seemed to bother with girls either, although I was absolutely sure he wasn’t homosexual. Maybe he too had a steady girlfriend tucked away somewhere. And maybe she too was friends with Renza. I decided not to ask.
Zak put The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds LP on the radiogram, Mo fetched bottles of beer from the kitchen, and Scott stretched out beside me on the sofa, his long legs across my lap.
The conversation and laughter rose and fell, the boys occasionally sang along with one of the tracks, and I knew I’d remember it forever.
And then we went to bed.
Stella’s Diary
February 2nd 1969
It was daylight when I woke up. I squinted at the bedside clock. Almost mid-day. An icy white glow came from behind the green curtains. The radio beside the bed was burbling quietly. We’d left it on when we’d eventually fallen asleep. It had been on Luxembourg playing soul, but was now emitting odd foreign squeaks. I reached across Scott, who was deeply asleep, and turned the dial to Radio One. Then I kissed his cheek, shivered, and slid from the bed.
My goodness – it was colder than ever!
As I had no idea where exactly my clothes were after I’d hurled them off the night before, I grabbed Scott’s discarded T-shirt and hurried into the mercifully vacant bathroom.
I grinned knowingly at my reflection in the tiny mirror over the sink.
It was proper now; a real proper grown-up relationship. And making love with Scott had been nothing on earth like that one previous embarrassing fumbled experience with Mike.
Absolutely nothing on earth.
I hugged myself in delight. Then stopped, because now I was really, truly “the other woman”. I tried to feel ashamed, guilty, all the things I knew I should be feeling – but I didn’t. I didn’t care how wrong it was. I really didn’t care. I loved Scott more than life. Ok, I was the stop-gap, the substitute – but until Renza was back permanently, I was more than happy to live with it.
No wonder, I thought as I cleaned my teeth, re-did my sequins and eyelashes and spiked my hair, that the rather sweet junior houseman at my out-patients appointment, had said what he’d said – not exactly meeting my eyes.
“… although the cysts and abscesses are gone and the wounds are healing nicely, I’m afraid the internal scarring is irreversible and severely damaging to your reproductive organs, which were, according to your notes, rather – um – malformed. You’ll probably not menstruate – do you understand what that means? good – for months. And I’m afraid you’ll never be able to have a baby.”
The nurse who had been attending to me had pulled a horrified face at the brutal sentence. I’d smiled reassuringly at her. It was hardly news to me. It was OK.
“Not,” the houseman had looked at me then, blushing a little, “that this is the green-light to promiscuity, you understand. I’m not – er – suggesting that your infertility should mean that you – um – assume you have in-built contraception. Post-operation, you may now safely have – well – um – sexual intercourse, but I’m advising against it on moral rather than medical grounds.”
The nurse had hissed a bit and then winked at me. I’d grinned at her.
And I was still grinning now as I hurried back to the bedroom.
I pulled the curtains back a little, managing to unstick them from the frozen windows, and yelped with delight. It was snowing! It must have been snowing all night! Everywhere was covered in a glorious white eiderdown, and the fat goose-feather flakes were still tumbling from the ochre sky.
‘Scott!’ I leapt into bed and dived under the covers. ‘Scott! Wake up! It’s snowing!’
He opened the gorgeous turquoise eyes, pushed his long black hair away from his face, then smiled lazily. ‘Hi… is it? Good…’ Then closed his eyes again.
I giggled and snuggled closer to him, watching the snowflakes dance against the window. He sighed sleepily and pulled me towards him. Amen Corner were singing ‘Half As Nice’ on the radio.
Paradise, I thought, dreamily, is here, now, in bed with Scott and watching the snow.
The bedroom door flew open. Zak, dressed for once, peered in. ‘Scott! Ah – sorry…’ he grinned. ‘Well, at least you’re behaving like a normal couple at last… um – Stephan’s on the phone for you… I think he wants to meet up. Shall I tell him you’re otherwise engaged?’
‘No,’ Scott kissed me and swung himself out of bed. ‘I need to talk to him. We need to know where we’re playing… and if I don’t catch him now he’ll disappear for weeks.’ He looked at me. ‘Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back.’
Stephan arrived at the house later that afternoon, just as Scott and I, having built a lop-sided snowman, were shoving handfuls of snow down each other’s necks in the front garden and shrieking with cold and laughter.
Having ploughed through the snow from London in his latest model automatic white Rover, Stephan surveyed us with grave doubt, said he needed to talk to Scott pronto and marched into the house. He was younger than I’d imagined; very suave and quite elegant in a grown-up businessman sort of way.
Still grinning and dripping snow, we trailed indoors after him. It was only slightly warmer inside than out. So, once Scott and I had shed wet coats and boots, and Scott and Stephan had disappeared into the “practice room”, I changed into the rainbow jersey dress, and using my coat as a blanket, snuggled up on the sofa with The Ka of Gifford Hillary.
It was dark when Stephan and Scott emerged, and Mo was busy in the kitchen preparing tonight’s dinner – curry again – Rich, Zak and Joss were reading various music papers, and I was completely gripped by Dennis Wheatley’s spooky story.
‘Stella,’ Stephan held out his hand. ‘Maybe I should have introduced myself earlier – but I never like to interrupt children at play. It’s very nice to meet you. Scott’s told me a lot about you, you sound like a well-connected young lady.’
Slightly intimidated, after all he was a big-name mu
sic mogul, I put down the book and shook his hand. Scott was laughing behind Stephan and I raised my sequinned eyebrows at him questioningly. He just shook his head and smiled that wicked smile.
‘We’ve been through the fan club stuff,’ Stephan continued, ‘and I’m impressed. Extremely professional. I’ve brought a box file of all the letters we’ve received from fans so far – so you’re going to be busy sending out the application forms – and I’ve included stamps for postage. If you run out, let me have invoices for everything next time we meet. And – yes – Scott’s also told me about your teen magazine connections. All very good news for us.’
‘Um – thank you… I’m really looking forward to running the fan club – and – er – I think we’ve already decided to do the interview for the magazines to tie in with the record coming out – er – being released…’
‘Ideal. Right, if one of you could get me some coffee, I’ll be on my way. It’s a sod of a night out there, the roads are crazy mad, and I need to be back in London tonight.’
Everyone, including Scott, rapidly disappeared towards the kitchen.
Stephan laughed and slumped on the other end of the sofa. ‘They’re good boys. Have you known them long?’
‘No. Just a few months.’ Oh, God, I thought. He’s going to ask me about Renza or something.
He didn’t.
‘They’re very talented – and certainly getting their name known, but it’s a jungle out there. Cut-throat. I’m doing my best for them but every lad and his dog wants to be a pop star these days. So, you and Scott….?’
‘Are friends,’ I said, hoping my voice wasn’t wobbling.
‘Of course,’ Stephan nodded, smiling a bit. ‘He’s the only one I can talk business with. He’s got a great business brain, that boy. The way he plays guitar would make the angels weep, but he’d be ace in management. Mo and Rich hold them together in a sort of parental way, and Zak and Joss are just a pair of mad kids making the most of the available chicks and the freedom. But Scott’s got a sensible head on his shoulders. You’ll make a good team. Ah – coffee… thanks, Rich.’
A good team? I sighed to myself. If only….
Stella’s Diary
February 10th 1969
I’d had an interesting week in Leighton Buzzard. It’d snowed every day, and the wind had whipped it into drifts, so the road outside the house was covered almost to the tops of the hedges. We’d still managed to get out though. I think Scott loved the snow almost as much as I did, and because we both liked walking, we’d slipped and slithered our way into the town, playing snowballs and window-shopping, on most days.
Stephan had apparently left a list of bookings with Scott – keeping Narnia’s Children busy until they leave for Scotland at the end of the month, and maybe, I hoped, with some sort of money coming in – and they’d had three gigs in the last week: two reasonably local in dance-halls, and one at a club near London.
I’d gone with the band to both the local ones – the roads were tightly-packed with snow and resembled bob-sleigh-runs, but Rich drove carefully and we made it one piece – and had a great time. It seemed that this had always been my life… being with Scott, travelling in the van, curled against him, his arms round me, his guitar case under my knees, the stack of speakers wobbling precariously behind my head, the radio blaring, everyone else laughing, talking, singing, smoking… watching them be brilliantly talented and stupendously sexy on stage, so very proud to be part of it all, buying them beer and crisps in the break, and then going home in the early hours of the morning and falling into bed with Scott and making love and sleeping until the afternoon.
I never wanted it to end.
I’d stayed in the house alone for the third gig. It was quite scary once they’d all gone, but I locked all the doors, switched all the lights on and turned Luxembourg up really loud on the radiogram in the sitting room and worked. Yes, worked!
Well, sort of. I started sifting through the mountain of fan club mail Stephan had left, addressing envelopes and popping fan club application forms into them, then keeping the original letters to type up the contact names and addresses so that when I got home I could send out the monthly newsletters. There were, as Stephan had said, masses of them, from all over the country, and lots of them from girls who seemed to have met Narnia’s Children on some Mediterranean cruises they’d done the previous summer, and most of them declaring undying love for one or other or all of the group. I tried really, really hard not to feel jealous about the ones who said they’d love Scott forever.
Then, I came across a beautifully written letter postmarked Germany and signed Renza Rossi.
I stared at it. At the perfect writing in pale blue ink – fountain pen, not ballpoint – Renza… in Germany… Renza Rossi… what a beautifully exotic name that was. A beautiful name for my beautiful 16 year-old rival. No, there was no rivalry… there never would or could be… Renza would win every time. I shivered and it had nothing to do with the cold.
She’d written to Stephan saying Scott had told her recently that there was a fan club being set up and as a laugh she’d like to join and so would one of her brothers and a sister – Jasper and Sophia.
I exhaled heavily and, with trembling hands, folded three application forms into an envelope and wrote the German address on the envelope. Then I pushed it to the bottom of the pile and tried to forget it. But I couldn’t. It seemed so very wrong to be writing to Renza, to be sending her fan club stuff, when I was sleeping with her fiancé.
Maybe Vix had been right all along – maybe I was a man-stealing, groupie tart. I shoved the fan club stuff away, turned the radio up even louder, tried dancing round the sitting room to ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’, but it didn’t work. For the first time I felt horribly guilty and I didn’t like it at all.
I abandoned the fan club stuff and the futile dancing, and concentrated on finishing Scott’s birthday card instead in the hope that it might make the guilt go away. His birthday was on the 14th, and I’d decided to make him a massive card, using all my art A level skills (Miss Loxley would be so proud, I thought), with cut-outs and sketches and cartoons – all relevant to him and his life. It was my secret labour of love and I’d worked on it when the band was practising and hidden the card under the bed (no one seemed to clean under the beds ever) when Scott was around. It was all mad hippy stuff, and rock’n’roll, and guitars and books and astrology and sci-fi, and everything else I thought he might like. The colours were clashing and shocking and probably glowed in the dark. I really hoped he’d like it.
By 1 in the morning I was falling asleep, but I’d finally finished it, and after careful deliberation, wrote “Happy Birthday Superstar, with all my love always and forever, Twinkle XXXXX”. Then, turning off all the lights and the radiogram, and taking the chain off the door, I took it upstairs and carefully wrapped it in “happy birthday” paper before hiding it again. After that I quickly got ready for bed and slipped under the covers.
Oh my lord! The bed was freezing! I pulled the eiderdown up over my nose, closed my eyes and tried really, really hard not to think about Renza.
I must have fallen asleep despite the guilt and the ice-box temperatures because the next thing I knew was Scott sliding into bed beside me – even colder than I was.
‘What time is it?’ I asked, trying hard to keep his icy feet away from mine. ‘Is it time to get up?’
‘4.30-ish… You been ok?’
‘Fine, thanks. Good gig?’
‘Great.’
‘Good.’
I curled against him. ‘Scott… tell me about Renza – no, listen…’ and I told him about the fan club applications.
He laughed in the darkness. ‘Sorry, I should have forewarned you. She’d told me that the kids wanted to join – they’re smashing, those two… she’s got a lot of younger brothers and sisters, and her mother – who’s a dragon, believe me – uses Renza as an unpaid nursemaid and skivvy.’
I swallowed. It was like Cinderella only
real. I’d had such a cushy life in comparison. ‘I’ve put a form in for her, too. Because she asked for one. Shall I take it out?’
‘No, don’t. She says she’s our number one fan – which she is – so she deserves to be an honorary member at least.’
‘Okay. I’ll make her number one on the list. And this way she’ll know what you’re all doing when you don’t write or ring her often enough?’
‘Ouch.’
‘Do you have a photo?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I see it?’
‘Now? Seriously?’
‘Yep. Scott… I have this picture in my head, I’d love to know what she’s really like… I know it’s all wrong, and rubbish timing, but…’
He sighed, swung himself out of bed and felt his way round to the dressing table-wardrobe thing. ‘There…’
He pushed the black and white photo into my hand and switched on the bedside light.
I stared at it. At Renza. At last. She wasn’t just beautiful – she was stunning. It looked like a posed studio photo, and she was looking wistfully over her shoulder: so slim, gorgeous complexion, perfect features, huge eyes, a waterfall of straight blonde hair tumbling out of sight.
I handed it back. ‘Thank you. She’s very, very lovely.’
‘She is. And special. Like no one I’ve ever known in my life. Sweet, innocent, unworldly, funny, tells amazing stories, knows so much, could do anything she wanted but isn’t allowed to, and has a really terrible time at home.’ He put the photo back on the shelf, closed the door, switched off the light and slid into bed. ‘I love her very much. I promised her I’d sleep with that photo under my pillow – and I always do – until now. But I’ll never hurt her.’
‘No…’ I turned away from him, my words muffled by my pillow. ‘I know.’
Only One Woman Page 29
