A Christmas Gift

by Sue Moorcroft

  She’d been the first person to let Joe down but not, he thought as he returned his attention to Billy’s unopened letter, the last.

  Puffing out a sigh, he snatched up the letter, ripped it open and unfolded a sheet of A4 ruled paper, the kind Billy usually used for songwriting.

  Dear JJ,

  As you’re not answering phone or email, I’m sending this to your house for when you come back. Seriously, man, we can’t even talk now? Where the fuck are you? What are you doing? You’re hurting the band. You need to grow up and smell the roses – yeah, some roses do have shit around the roots. It makes the roses better and more beautiful. Concentrate on that.

  A typically self-conscious metaphor, Joe thought sourly, wondering whether Billy had immediately dashed off a song called ‘Roses and Shit’. He moved on to the next paragraph.

  We need to all get round the table with Pete and sort this out.

  Yeah, because that had worked so well three weeks ago. After a volatile band meeting in their manager Pete’s office, Billy had got right in Joe’s face and shoved him, a move that resulted in Billy finding himself on the end of Joe’s flying fist and seeing all four walls and the ceiling before he crashed to the floor.

  Maybe if Billy had accepted Joe’s hand to help him to his feet the apologies would have been said there and then. Instead, Billy had not only slapped the hand away but spat at it, climbing slowly from the floor as the rest watched, stunned into silence by a flash of violence that had solved nothing but changed everything.

  ‘Hey, you can’t act like that!’ Pete had shouted, the only one to put into words what the others were probably thinking.

  ‘One of us is going to have to leave the band,’ Billy had growled, gingerly touching his rapidly swelling lips.

  Joe hadn’t been in a fight since he left Bettsbrough and, no matter the provocation, he was bitterly ashamed of how that mechanism of meeting violence with violence had clicked into rapier-quick action. His anger turned inwards and the way forward had shone blindingly clear. ‘Me,’ he’d said bleakly. ‘It’s me who has to leave.’ And, as the others all seemed to want him to do, he signed off on Billy’s lyrics for the song that had begun as his, ‘Running on Empty’, and walked out on everything he’d known all his adult life. The band that had represented his friendship group as well as his living.

  Yet now Billy wanted to talk and was, in typical Billy fashion, trying to make everything Joe’s fault. Billy always wanted to be the centre of attention and get his own way but, until now, had always been sensible enough not to divide the band. Now Joe was on one side of a chasm and Billy had managed to get Raf, Nathan and Liam with him on the other.

  How much was Joe’s own fault? He was relying on today’s meeting with Jerome for perspective before talking to anyone else.

  He couldn’t imagine not being with the band. He let his head tip against the sofa back and closed his eyes. Most winters he managed to grab a spot of sun in the Middle East or Australia and it would have made good sense to do that again when he’d wanted time to clear his head and re-evaluate. Instead, he’d gone to a village in north Cambridgeshire as the British winter gained hold, wanting a project, a way of giving something back to the music industry that had provided him with all he had. He had a special interest in Acting Instrumental. It had been his brainchild as much as Oggie’s. Now he was relishing the almost peace that had come with just being Joe Blackthorn, volunteer and assistant events director.

  Yes, he’d wondered whether Georgine still lived in the Middledip area and if he’d hear word of her, but, recruitment being Oggie’s end of things, Joe hadn’t known she worked actually at Acting Instrumental.

  His old feelings had roared back and seized him in their jaws. He thought about her all the time. He’d told her his story. He’d admitted he was Acting Instrumental’s landlord.

  But he’d let her continue to believe he was still a drum tech and roadie.

  A long way from the scruffiest, poorest boy in the school now, yet still some insecurity or instinct had made him uncomfortable at the notion of his worlds colliding.

  Maybe he’d tell her soon, but it was peaceful just being Joe.

  He opened his eyes and stretched, then took himself upstairs to shower. In his bedroom, he pulled clean jeans, shirt and jacket from the wardrobe. As he was about to push his arms into the shirt’s sleeves he caught sight of himself in the mirror. His tattoo encircled his left shoulder, extending from the bottom of his neck and over much of his upper arm. It was cleverly designed, a circlet of features that made up different faces depending on how you looked at it. Women in his past had been intrigued, tracing individual details or counting how many faces they could make out.

  The tattooist had specialised in optical illusions. He’d created the design from Joe’s own sketches, expounding confidently about it being an expression of the many moods and facets of one person. It had been a close enough interpretation that Joe hadn’t bothered to explain that it was actually more about identity.

  One person with many personas.

  He’d made sure it remained covered up all the time he’d been in Middledip, as well as having worn those stupid fashion glasses with plain lenses and returned his hair to the natural golden brown it had become in adulthood. The tattoo was part of his band persona, along with his messy-crop dyed-red hair – which he still felt odd without – and exaggerated sideburns shaved to points in the hollow of his cheeks.

  The tattoo would be instantly recognisable to a lot of students. It had appeared on stage at rock venues everywhere, in promo shots and selfies – on the shoulder of JJ Blacker.

  JJ Blacker.

  He stared at himself again in the mirror. JJ Blacker: that’s who he was today. Musician. Songwriter. JJ Blacker lived in trendy Camden, rode prestige cars, gave interviews to the music press, spent long days in the pressure cooker of expensive studios creating albums put out by a big record label.

  JJ Blacker who had to sort out his life.

  His eyes were drawn to a framed promo shot the record company had presented to each of them. Blond Billy Langridge, grasping a mic, Liam Willson and Nathan O’Brien with guitars slung around their necks, Raf Radkov with his bass nearly down at his knees. And JJ Blacker, drumsticks crossed in one hand. The Hungry Years was inscribed in a gothic-looking white font on a black nameplate. ‘The Hungry Years’ was the title of a mega-hit by legendary singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka, a past pub in Brighton … and the name of the highly successful British rock band of which he was the drummer.

  He finished dressing and jogged downstairs to pull on a thick coat before leaving the house, sliding on his glasses, which would automatically darken in the harsh winter sun, and his black beanie hat. Lifting his collar, he turned into Hartland Road for the walk into Chalk Farm Road then Camden High Street to the tube station. He could have easily called a cab but it was great to see Camden, never short of ornamentation at any time, blazing with every colour of Christmas light.

  The two stops on the Northern Line to King’s Cross, and two more east on the Piccadilly Line to Holborn, passed quickly and uneventfully. Nobody shouted, ‘There’s JJ Blacker, clean shaven in glasses and a beanie!’ or tried to take a crafty photo. It was no surprise that clean-cut him blended in so successfully as his new image seemed to have passed completely beneath the radar of eighty-odd performing arts students for the past two and a half weeks.

  He walked up Southampton Row to Theobald’s Road and in a few more minutes he was sticking his glasses in his pocket and announcing himself to the young guy on the front desk at Rumer Thornton, pulling off his coat as he was shown straight into Jerome’s panelled office where the paintwork was yellowing, the carpet fading, and the wooden edge of the capacious desk bare where Jerome had worn the varnish off as he worked. He claimed he couldn’t spare the time to clear his office for redecoration.

  Small and wiry, Jerome was in his mid-fifties and had smooth dark skin. As he’d been Shaun’s friend and lawyer for year
s, Joe hadn’t hesitated in going to him whenever the need arose. Jerome’s cherubic smile sometimes fooled people into thinking he wouldn’t go for their throats in court. He would. In fact, he probably kept a file in his desk drawer to sharpen his teeth.

  ‘Hey, JJ.’ Jerome came around the desk to offer a hearty handshake. ‘You’re looking mainstream. What’s happened to your red hair and sideburns?’

  Joe settled himself in a cracked leather chair as Jerome seated himself again behind the desk. ‘I needed a change.’

  Jerome nodded. ‘It sounded like it from our phone conversations at the beginning of the month. No sign of a reconciliation since then, I suppose? Tempers cooled and all that?’

  ‘Tempers have cooled,’ Joe acknowledged. ‘And it looks like second thoughts are being had.’ He showed Jerome Billy’s letter.

  Jerome read, one corner of his mouth lifting. ‘Perhaps those second thoughts aren’t particularly comfortable ones.’ He turned on his chair to face the big computer monitor protruding from the wall on an articulated arm and pulled out a keyboard. He called up a page of notes then glanced at Joe. ‘As discussed on the phone, I don’t see grounds to make a stink about the band deciding to go with Billy’s lyrics rather than yours. Billy and you wrote different lyrics for the same song and the band voted to go with his version.’

  ‘Because he manipulated them and our manager Pete supported him,’ Joe couldn’t resist putting in, the hairs on his neck prickling just thinking of that day. ‘We were going with my lyrics until Billy came in rubbing his chin and saying he was worried that my version would be too much of a departure, hinting someone, presumably from the label, had given him the nod that we should stick with his. Pete and the others took his vague rumblings as gospel and said they might as well go with his version. But the band’s put out plenty of my songs with equally socially aware lyrics on singles and albums. It was all BS.’

  Jerome shrugged. ‘From that description of events, he hasn’t broken the law. He’s just managed to manoeuvre himself into the lion’s share of the publishing royalty.’ He grinned, looking more like fifteen than fifty. ‘Would it be a horrible pun to say musicians have a “record” for professional differences?’

  ‘Yep.’ Joe slid down more comfortably in his chair. ‘But I’m not expecting you to advise me to take legal action against Billy for being more of a motor mouth than I am. It’s the other stuff that could be tricky. Is he going to bring a suit against me?’

  Jerome’s smile faded. ‘I’d say that if neither of us has heard anything yet it’s a good sign. According to my notes … well, you say you struck him?’

  ‘Afraid so. I suppose the fact that it was in reaction to him shoving me wouldn’t dissuade him? A “he hit me first” sort of thing?’

  Swivelling gently on his chair, Jerome raised his eyebrows to meet his neat hairline. ‘It’s some mitigation. However, your words were that he gave you a feeble shove and you nearly smashed his teeth down his throat. If that’s true, his legal team would feel in a strong position.’

  ‘That is pretty much what happened,’ Joe acknowledged with a sigh. ‘I’m ashamed I hit him but I did it. Thanks for being honest. I suppose we just have to wait and see if he starts anything.’

  ‘Perhaps in anticipating legal action we’re being hasty. The letter did say Billy’s willing to talk …’ Jerome let the thought hang in the air.

  For several moments the two men gazed at each other, Joe thinking, Jerome giving him time to.

  It was Joe who broke the silence. ‘I suppose I’ll have to talk to him. Things can’t be left in limbo. I need to talk to them all.’

  Jerome nodded. ‘Have you decided whether to leave the band?’

  Joe propped his elbow on the chair and let his head tilt onto his hand. ‘Part of me wonders how in the hell it’s come to this. The other part feels that the explosion’s been coming for a while. I seem constantly to be at loggerheads in situations like this. Pete says my ethics, whatever he means by that, are holding the band back from even greater commercial success. Is it me? Am I idealistic? Or scared of our increasing success? I don’t know. Since the band demonstrated such a lack of confidence in me I’m not sure I particularly feel like touring, working in the studio, or even writing.’ Briefly, he explained where he’d been for the past weeks and what he’d been doing. ‘Working with those kids, helping the events director pull the show together, it feels as if I’m doing something important. I’m not on the payroll but it’s satisfying and honest.’

  Slowly, Jerome nodded. ‘You wouldn’t be the first musician to leave a band, JJ.’

  Joe rubbed his temples, every beat of his pulse tightening the tension above his eyes. ‘I need to start a conversation with the guys, I suppose.’

  ‘And your manager?’

  Joe thought for quite a long time before answering. Pete ‘the Beat’ Betterby had been a drummer in a prog rock band in the seventies and had turned eventually to management. ‘Until recently, I trusted Pete. He’s been mumbling about the agreement between him and the band but I don’t think he’ll really do anything to rock the boat. He’s doing too well out of us.’

  Jerome raised his eyebrows. ‘Nevertheless, run it past me if he does more than mumble about it.’

  ‘Of course.’ Impatiently, Joe returned to the subject of the quarrel. ‘Pete’s entitled to like Billy’s lyrics more than mine, but I resent the way he dismissed me. It was as if he expected me to say “Oh, OK, Billy’s taken a song that was really important to me, substituted his cheap, crappy lyrics and covered up an amateur rhyme scheme with repeated obscenities, lining himself up a heap of cash as lyricist in the process. And you guys have all been manipulated into saying it’s ‘safer’ to take that to the record company, without even recording my version to get the record company’s reaction. That’s OK then, I can see it’s easier all round.” Pete shouldn’t do things the easy way. He should do them the right way.’ He could feel his hands clenching at the remembered injustice.

  Jerome nodded. Outside, the traffic rumbled up Theobald’s Road. The hum of conversation from the outer office was punctuated by the ringing of a phone. ‘Are the royalties the main issue?’

  ‘No, you know they’re not,’ Joe replied morosely. ‘The main issues are about betrayal and integrity. Or lack of integrity. But royalties are easier to measure.’

  Jerome pulled his keyboard closer and typed a note. ‘I agree, but you’ve signed off on Billy’s version of –’ he checked his notes ‘– “Running on Empty”. I can only support your decision to enter a new conversation with your manager and the other members of The Hungry Years and suggest you let me know what transpires, especially if you decide to part ways with the band. I think we can leave dealing with the prospect of a suit against you for if and when it materialises.’

  ‘Right.’ Joe passed a weary hand over his eyes. ‘I need to think. If I stick by what I said and go, the ramifications will be huge – like divorcing four people. Being the man who broke up the band.’

  Jerome made a tiny movement of his shoulders. ‘But we can make it happen, if that’s what you decide.’

  The clock on the wall moved on nearly an hour while they talked through the various legalities, Jerome making notes as they planned for the aftermath if Joe left The Hungry Years. Eventually, Joe’s brain protested at the overload of information about things like future royalties on past work. ‘I’ll talk to the boys and get back to you,’ he said abruptly, it suddenly hitting home that he’d just moved a step closer to leaving not just Billy, but Raf, Nathan and Liam.

  ‘Understood.’ Jerome typed another note with an air of finality.

  Rather than stirring from the chair and leaving Jerome to get on with his working day, Joe scratched self-consciously behind his ear. ‘As I’m here, do you know where I can get information about debt and the powers of debt collectors? For a friend?’

  Slowly, Jerome sat back and pushed aside his keyboard. He folded his hands behind his head, regarding Joe na
rrowly for a moment. ‘It’s not my field. I can dig you out some general information, but your friend would be as well going along to a debt charity. They’re pretty good, I understand.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Joe rose. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  Jerome came around the desk to clap Joe on the shoulder. ‘Just remember, JJ, you haven’t done anything you can’t undo.’

  ‘Yet,’ Joe supplemented.

  ‘Yet,’ Jerome agreed, and Joe left via the busy outer office, carrying along with him a mental image of Jerome’s confident, astute smile. He’d always appreciated that it was better to have Jerome with him than against him.

  Outside again, fastening his coat against the raw winter day, instead of turning left to the tube station he turned right up Gray’s Inn Road and ambled all the way back to Camden, absorbed in his thoughts as London went about its busy day. With a pause to buy a calzone from the takeaway window of a little Italian place near to his home, he let himself back into his house an hour later.

  He plugged in and turned on his phone and fired up his laptop, eating the calzone slowly at his small kitchen table while a host of texts, missed calls and voicemails indicated their presence on his phone screen and his email client populated his inbox with messages that had things like ‘WTF????’ or ‘Where the hell are you?’ in their subject line.

  He began by listening to the voice messages. Nathan, Liam and Raf had initially left sympathetic messages like, ‘Hey, can see why you’re upset. Are you OK?’ and progressed through, ‘We need to talk. This affects us all,’ to, ‘Where the fuck are you, JJ? What are we supposed to tell the record company? This isn’t cool!’ He winced. They were right.

  Towards the end there were a couple of abrupt messages from Billy too, saying they couldn’t leave everything up in the air. Finally, he said gruffly, ‘Maybe we can sort something out.’ Not exactly an apology but at least a hint he accepted the existence of an issue.

  The emails and texts followed a similar pattern. Manager Pete had emailed on a daily basis; smooth requests to get in touch, there were matters to be resolved. Joe smiled cynically. Maybe Pete the Beat had realised that he’d handled things badly and was belatedly worrying about damage to his own career if popularity of The Hungry Years took a dive as a result of JJ leaving. Feedback from the fan club and the record company had always been that Joe was a popular and recognisable member of the line-up often referred to as ‘the Hungries’. Girls wrote We love you JJ! on their skin. Unofficial merchandise depicted his tattoo. A girl had had the letter J tattooed on each breast, then pulled her top off at a gig to show him. The music press and social media alike had gone crazy.