Good at Games

by Jill Mansell

  The rain was coming down harder now, dripping from Lucille’s eyelashes and darkening her denim shirt.

  “Look, it’s a pretty rough pub.” She paused, wondering how to phrase it delicately. “Sometimes the customers get a bit…”

  “You mean you’d rather I waited outside for you, in the car. Fine,” said Jaz, guessing at once what she was trying to say. “Now please, will you take the bike back into the house and let me give you a lift before you drown?”

  The Marshall Arms in the heart of Bedminster wasn’t what you’d call classy. Most of the regulars hated her kind of music, Lucille explained, but the landlord—for some reason—was a fan. It was his way, she suspected, of testing his customers’ loyalty. Pleasure versus pain. If they wanted to drink in his pub, they had to put up with her songs.

  “I used to play in places like that.” Jaz was touched by her concern.

  “Maybe,” said Lucille, “but still promise me you won’t come in.”

  He dropped her off outside the dank, grimy-looking building, then set off across the city to Winterbourne, which was where his AA meeting actually was.

  Well, what was a round trip of sixteen miles between friends?

  * * *

  During the course of the evening, several of Jaz’s friends asked him how he felt about his ex-wife’s involvement with Harry Fitzallan. In their eyes, he saw avid curiosity mingled with concern as they wondered if this might trigger a relapse.

  Jaz realized that if he told them the truth—that in his opinion Harry Fitzallan was an idiot and not good enough for Suzy—they would automatically assume he was jealous.

  To his intense irritation, therefore, he was forced to smile and crack jokes and tell everyone what a great guy Harry was, and what a perfect couple he and Suzy made.

  “She’s moving on,” said Jeff, who could never resist the temptation to stir things up. “Doesn’t that make you feel a bit…you know?”

  “I couldn’t be happier,” Jaz insisted. “What my ex-wives get up to doesn’t bother me.”

  Reluctant to let go of the idea, Jeff said, “We haven’t seen Celeste for a few weeks. Everything OK between you two?”

  “Fine.” Jaz stretched and yawned, bored to tears with this interrogation. He glanced at his watch.

  “People who think they don’t need to come to meetings anymore are playing with fire,” said Jeff with a self-righteous air. It had certainly been his downfall in the past.

  “She hasn’t stopped. She’s joined another group closer to home.”

  This was a lie, but Jaz couldn’t be bothered to argue. And since there were dozens of AA meetings being held in the city every single night, Jeff would never know he wasn’t telling the truth.

  Jeff, an avid gleam in his piggy little eyes, said, “Separate groups, eh? What’s brought this on? It’ll be separate bedrooms next!”

  One of the great things about getting roaring drunk, Jaz remembered, was the way you could say whatever was on your mind. If some idiot was being annoying, you just told them to fuck off, simple as that.

  And there was no getting away from it—Jeff was an annoying idiot.

  But Jaz, being sober, couldn’t bring himself to say it. Which was a shame and one of the major disadvantages of giving up the drink.

  Instead, he said patiently, “Celeste’s fine, I’m fine. We’re both fine, I promise.”

  The meeting was over. Everyone else was putting their raincoats on, getting ready to leave.

  “Coming for coffee?” said Jeff, buttoning up his anorak.

  “Not tonight.” Jaz checked his watch: nine thirty. “There’s someone I have to meet.”

  “Hold up!” snickered Jeff. “Not a female someone, I hope!”

  Sometimes, Jaz discovered, you really didn’t need alcohol.

  “Screw you, Jeff,” he said pleasantly. “Don’t be a jerk all your life.”

  * * *

  The Marshall Arms was heaving with bodies when Jaz reached it at ten o’clock, but none of them appeared to be listening to Lucille.

  Having slipped unnoticed through the door, Jaz moved to the end of the bar farthest from the makeshift stage, ordered a Coke and sat down in a darkened corner where he could hear Lucille without being seen. The last thing he wanted to do was put her off.

  Although anyone who could carry on singing while a group of lagered-up Bristol Rovers’ supporters were chanting and hammering their empty glasses on the bar had to be pretty strong-willed.

  “Oy, you lot, shut up and give the girl a chance,” the landlord bellowed above the noise.

  “It’s crap!” howled one of the Rovers’ supporters with a barbed-wire tattoo circling his fat neck. “Tell her to sing summat we know.”

  “Like Cher,” yelled his sidekick. “Or Madonna, phwooarr!”

  “And get your tits out while you’re at it.” The tattooed one began banging his huge fist on the bar for emphasis. “Yeah, go on! Tits! Tits! Tits!”

  Jaz smiled to himself, instantly transported back to the old days of hecklers in filthy backstreet pubs. It was something he missed almost more than the later years of adulation and hero worship. He wondered how Lucille would handle this.

  The next moment, he instinctively ducked down as Lucille strode into view—but there was no need to hide; her attention was fixed unswervingly on Barbed Wire.

  Swiftly removing the empty glass from his hand, she hauled him away from the bar and led him up onto the stage.

  “Tell you what,” said Lucille, into the mike. “Why don’t you get your tits out?”

  And she launched without hesitation into “You Sexy Thing,” the Hot Chocolate number so memorably featured in The Full Monty.

  Everyone in the pub let out a great roar of approval. Barbed Wire, thrilled to be the center of attention and grinning like an idiot, gyrated his vast stomach and danced clumsily along to the music. When he finished unfastening his beer-stained shirt and threw it into the audience now gathered around the stage, laughter and wolf whistles rang out, and Lucille murmured into the microphone, “Crikey, they’re bigger than mine.”

  Someone brought a hat around as Lucille was finishing her set. Jaz dropped a ten-pound note in. Barbed Wire, whom he’d observed a couple of minutes earlier throwing in a couple of pound coins, was now leading the singing and clearly yearning to get back on stage. An hour ago he’d been a pain in the neck. Now he was Lucille’s greatest fan.

  Jaz shook his head in silent admiration. That was the way to deal with hecklers. Lucille definitely had the knack.

  * * *

  She spotted him as she made her way over to the bar for a drink.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Two minutes?” Jaz shrugged, reaching into his jeans pocket for loose change. “Just arrived. Let me get you a drink.”

  “Liar.” Lucille broke into a grin. “I saw you being served at the bar an hour ago.”

  “God.” Jaz sighed. “I’d make a useless international spy.”

  “You would. But you can still buy me a drink. I’ll have a Guinness please.”

  Jaz ordered a Guinness and another Coke for himself.

  Watching him, Lucille said, “Is it hard, coming into a pub and not having a drink?”

  “Not hard. Just boring. It helps if there’s live music.” He smiled. “You coped well. Won yourself an admirer into the bargain.”

  Lucille acknowledged the compliment with a rueful shake of the head. “I coped, but they won. I ended up playing the music they wanted me to play.”

  “This kind of venue, it’s all you can do,” said Jaz. “Believe me.”

  “I know you’re right.” Lucille took a gulp of Guinness. “It’s just…singing other people’s songs is never going to get me anywhere. But nobody wants to listen to anything I’ve written myself. I feel like one of those people who
stand in the middle of Broadmead shouting about Jesus and the love he can bring into our lives… Everyone scuttles away faster than you can say ‘nutcase.’”

  “The song you were playing when I came in,” said Jaz. “That was one of yours.”

  “Exactly. Nobody was listening to it.”

  “I listened to it.”

  “And it wasn’t very good.” Lucille looked at him. “Was it?”

  “You have a fantastic voice. Seriously. Great range, perfect pitch, real depth.”

  “But the song was still garbage,” Lucille prompted. “It’s OK, you can say it. I promise not to throw myself off the Suspension Bridge.”

  “OK,” said Jaz. “It wasn’t fantastic, no.”

  “The truth.” Lucille’s expression was serious. “It was garbage.”

  Reluctantly, Jaz admitted, “Well, pretty much.”

  God, being truthful was no picnic. Then again, was there anything worse than being a hypocrite and a liar?

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Appalled, Jaz realized there were tears glistening in Lucille’s luminous brown eyes.

  He instantly felt terrible. “Oh God, now you’re upset—”

  “I meant thanks a lot in the grateful sense, not the pissy one.” Lucille broke into a watery smile. “It’s like going along to a modeling agency and being told there’s no way you can be a model because you’re only four feet ten. Don’t you see?” Reaching across to reassure him, she touched Jaz’s wrist. “If anything it’s a relief. Now, at last, I can stop trying.”

  This only made Jaz feel a million times worse. Being honest definitely wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. He had trampled on Lucille’s dreams and that was unforgivable. Opening his mouth to tell her that when he had been starting out he’d been told he was garbage practically on a daily basis, he was beaten to the tape by Barbed Wire.

  “Great stuff, love. That was ace! Clever little girl you got ’ere.” Blasting them both sideways with his beery breath, he gave Jaz a congratulatory thump on the shoulder. “Pretty too. You’re a lucky bloke.”

  “Actually—” began Lucille.

  “Let me get you both a drink! Pint, mate?”

  “Thanks, but I’m fine.” Jaz nodded at his pint glass, still two-thirds full.

  Barbed Wire gazed at it in horror. “What’s that? Coke? Bloody hell, mate, ’ave a proper drink. Oy, Don, get us a couple of pints of Stella!”

  “Really, no,” said Jaz. “I don’t drink.”

  Barbed Wire, clearly confused, said, “Eh? Why not?”

  “I’m an alcoholic.”

  This was way beyond Barbed Wire’s comprehension. He shook his shaven head. “Yeah, but you can have just the one, can’t you?”

  This, of course, was precisely what Jaz couldn’t do. Before you could say “relapse,” just-the-one would have turned into just-the-fifty.

  “Look,” Jaz said easily, “why don’t you let me buy you a drink? We’ve got to leave in five minutes anyway.” He swiftly ordered and paid for a pint of Stella.

  “Cheers, mate.” Relieved to have the situation sorted out, Barbed Wire said, “Bloody good little singer, isn’t she?” Giving Lucille a hefty nudge, he went on, “We all thought you was gonna be crap, but you turned out orright in the end. Hey, better give us your autograph, love, case you ever get famous.”

  The momentary flicker of grief in Lucille’s eyes was almost more than Jaz could bear. He turned away, hating himself, as Lucille shook her head at Barbed Wire and said lightly, “Don’t worry, no danger of that ever happening to me.”

  Chapter 27

  Next to Jaz in the passenger seat, Lucille opened the manila envelope the landlord had handed her as they were leaving.

  Jaz, still feeling rotten, waited until she’d finished counting the money. Overcome with curiosity as Lucille silently pocketed it, he said, “Decent night?”

  “Twenty-two pounds eighty-four pence.”

  “In the hat? That’s pretty good.”

  “Twenty pounds for playing,” Lucille corrected him. “Two pounds eighty-four pence from passing the hat around.”

  Jaz opened his mouth, then closed it again just in time. If he were to tell Lucille he’d put a tenner in, she’d only feel patronized.

  Anyway, she’d had more than enough bad news for one evening, thanks to him.

  “Look,” he tried again, “all I heard was one song…”

  “My best song.” Lucille’s tone was dogged. “And I told you, it doesn’t matter. I trust you; that’s why I asked for your opinion. I’d have really hated it,” she assured him, “if you’d lied.”

  Jaz changed into second gear as they roared up Constitution Hill.

  “You do have a terrific voice.”

  “Thank you,” Lucille said gravely. “And you don’t have to feel guilty.” She broke into a smile. “I’m a big girl, I can take it. I’m glad you told me the truth.”

  She sounded convincing. If Jaz didn’t know better, he might almost have believed her. And he had meant it when he’d said she had a terrific voice.

  Oh well, there was nothing more he could do about it now. Lucille’s nonexistent songwriting skills weren’t his problem anyway. The world was full of aspiring singers destined for a lifetime of rejection and failure.

  I’m getting soft in my old age, Jaz told himself as he swung the Alfa onto Goldney Avenue. Like she said, I did her a favor.

  OK, now just forget it.

  * * *

  Two days later, Donna turned pale green behind her computer. Suzy and Rory were too busy sniping at each other to notice.

  Rory normally didn’t argue, but Suzy’s unscheduled disappearances from the office were testing him to the limit. Suzy, in turn, was stressed up to the eyebrows by the situation Harry had landed her in and the endless lies she was being forced to tell.

  “Come on,” she yelled, “it’s not as if I’m skipping out to buy a new pair of shoes or something! Harry’s in the hospital, and he wants me to be there with him when the photographers come down from London to take his picture.”

  “You’re losing us business,” Rory snapped back. “Our customers are complaining that every time they try to reach you, your phone’s switched off.”

  Suzy almost stamped her foot in frustration. Long hair flying, she grabbed her bag, yanked out her phone, and waved it under Rory’s nose.

  “It’s not always off! It’s on, OK? See? On! The only time it’s off is when I’m in the hospital because when you’re in the hospital you aren’t allowed to have your cell phone switched on!”

  “Exactly,” Rory hissed, picking up his briefcase and heading for the door.

  “Ummm, sorry about this…” Donna murmured to no one in particular. Pushing back her chair as the spinning room began to tilt and gather speed, she tried to stand up.

  “Sorry about what?” demanded Rory, exasperated. With one hand on the door handle, he turned and looked over his shoulder just as Donna’s chair went toppling backward, closely followed by Donna herself, the keyboard from her computer and the two hundred sheets of legal paper she’d been about to load into the laser printer.

  “Oh my God,” squealed Suzy, trampling all over the scattered sheets as she rushed to Donna’s side.

  To be fair, it wasn’t easy to tell that Donna’s complexion was pale green, what with the amount of heavy white foundation she wore. Her black-kohled eyes fluttered for a few seconds as Suzy cradled her head in her lap.

  “Call an ambulance,” Suzy barked at Rory. “Tell them she’s unconscious and burning up. It could be malaria.”

  Last night she’d caught the end of a movie set in Africa, where the heroine had died of malaria.

  “What?” said Rory in disbelief.

  “I don’t have malaria.” Donna, her eyes flickering open, murmured, “I just fainted.”

/>   Thankful that she was conscious, Suzy gazed down at her and said, “Heavens, are you pregnant?”

  “No, but I ache all over. I think it’s the flu.”

  Flu, yuck. Holding her breath to keep the germs out and casually easing Donna’s head from her lap, Suzy said, “You poor thing. Why didn’t you tell us you were feeling rotten?”

  Still pale and nauseated, Donna nevertheless managed a brief smile. “Couldn’t get a word in edgewise.”

  “See?” Suzy looked up at Rory. “It’s all your fault.”

  * * *

  “Right, well, that’s just brilliant,” Rory said when Donna had been dispatched home in a taxi. “How long’s she going to be off, a fortnight?”

  “You’re all heart,” Suzy told him. Still on her knees, she was busy gathering together the scattered sheets of paper. “We’ll have to get a temp in, that’s all.” Recalling the last temp they’d employed, she added, “This time, preferably one who can read and write.”

  Rory shuddered at the memory. He couldn’t go through that again. Casually, he said, “What about Fee?”

  Suzy shook back her tawny hair and looked up at him from under her bangs. “What about her?”

  “She helped us out before, didn’t she?” Rory forced his voice to stay sounding neutral. “Did a good job, if I remember.” I remember. Oh yes, I remember! “You could ask her, couldn’t you?”

  “Honestly, you’ve got some nerve,” Suzy protested. “Fee offered to help us out for a few hours when we were desperate.”

  “We’re even more desperate now,” argued Rory.

  “You can’t do that, though. You can’t ask someone to help you out for a whole fortnight. It’s like your neighbor calling you over to hold his ladder steady, then five minutes later asking you if you wouldn’t mind redecorating his whole house for him. No,” Suzy said firmly. “Just because Fee’s so good-natured, people are always taking advantage of her, and we’re not going to do that. It’s too much. We’ll just have to hire a temp and keep our fingers crossed.”

  * * *

  The words pot, kettle, and very black indeed sprang to mind, Rory felt, recalling Suzy’s remarks about other people taking advantage of Fee’s good nature. Talk about shameless.