A Christmas Gift

by Sue Moorcroft

  ‘Don’t leave The Hungries, JJ,’ students began to shout, clapping, whistling.

  After a minute, Oggie raised his hands for quiet. When the band members too made ‘keep it down’ gestures the students gradually calmed. Oggie lifted his voice. ‘If health and safety could see you blocking the corridors they’d get me the sack. Make your way to the studio theatre and we’ll see what we can do to persuade the members of The Hungry Years to talk to us there. Including –’ he grinned at Joe ‘– our own Joe Blackthorn, more widely known as drummer and vocalist JJ Blacker.’

  Georgine stared at Oggie and felt sick. He wasn’t surprised. He’d known.

  Students began to jostle in the direction of the studio theatre, the volume rising again, tutors joining the throng. Chrissy popped up to grab Georgine’s hand. ‘Come on! Maybe they’ll play.’

  Feet working automatically, Georgine traversed the corridors in a daze. By the time they reached the studio theatre, students had helped themselves to the portable staging. Errol, probably seeing the futility of trying to stop them, was directing operations to make risers and decks into a small stage. Students milled across the floor, exclaiming and laughing. Chrissy plunged in to join them.

  As events director, Georgine ought to be doing the same. Assuming a role.

  Instead, she drifted to the open tiers of seating and took up station at the back. From there, she was able to watch the members of The Hungry Years arrive, Oggie making a path for them up to the stage where Errol and Hannalee were hastily hooking up mics and stands.

  The drum kit was ferried from its rehearsal position at the side of the room and hoisted onto the stage by willing hands. Guitars and a bass were offered up to laughing band members. Billy, grinning, said something to Oggie, who shrugged and turned to Joe. Joe, looking both bemused and amused, lifted his hands in an ‘I don’t know’ gesture.

  Billy moved up to the mic. ‘Do you wanna coupla songs?’

  All the air in the room seemed to disappear as eighty-odd students took in enough breath to yell, ‘YEAHHHHHHH!’

  Billy grinned. ‘JJ’s not sure—’

  ‘YEAHHHHHHH!’

  A little more conferring to background shouts of, ‘C’mon, JJ, do it!’ and, ‘We love you, Hungries!’ Then Joe nodded, shucked off his sweatshirt, leaving a T-shirt beneath, and picked up the drumsticks to a roar of applause.

  The one with glasses, Liam, took a mic stand over to the drums and angled it down for Joe.

  Whistles and shouts rose to fever pitch, almost drowning out the experimental strumming from Liam and Nathan on guitars, Raf on bass. Billy held on to a mic stand as if staking his claim at the front of the band.

  Then, as if they were a few teenagers getting together to jam in someone’s garage, the band members nodded at one another. Joe flexed his shoulders, lifted both sticks and brought them down into a chadda-chadda-chadda-boom, and the guitars kerranged into vibrant, noisy life, Billy shifting from foot to foot until it was time for him to come in.

  Georgine felt like a tiny island on the horizon of a sea of people as the explosion of noise hit her like a physical force. She watched the man she’d slept with last night drumming with a major band. He looked radiant. His whole body moved in time with his flying sticks and he sang without, literally, missing a beat. This was why Chrissy had been able to see Joe in Germany without him being aware. He’d been on stage. Not a roadie or a tech. Up there, with an audience going wild.

  Students held up swaying phones, intent on their cameras catching the moment. Georgine was the only one who seemed immune to the excitement. Alone, standing on a seat in the back row, wanting Joe to see her above the craziness. Could he meet her eye?

  But Joe was doing his thing. He looked alive. At home. When they moved into another song, he sang the lead. It was a song she knew: ‘Why is Winter so Cold?’ A student band had covered it last year. The fact she’d liked the song seemed to mock her. She’d listened to the original on her phone without the least idea that the voice of the vocalist belonged to the boy she’d known as Rich Garrit.

  Joe Blackthorn the man.

  And now JJ Blacker the rock star.

  Just how many times was she going to find out he wasn’t who she thought he was?

  That he’d been hiding something?

  She understood him not wanting to dwell on his past and wanting people to know him as he was rather than as he had been – but being a famous drummer in a famous band? No. She didn’t get why he’d hide that, and it made her feel as if the memories of last night were laughing at her. He only made his move on you when you couldn’t see and recognise his tattoo – get it now? Being hidden is his natural preference.

  She felt stupidly let down.

  Slowly, she climbed from the seat, trailed to the end of the row and trudged down the steps to floor level. She skirted the bouncing, whistling, joyous students and let herself out of the studio theatre, leaving the noise behind. She detoured to the cafeteria to find hers and Joe’s laptops still abandoned on the table, then sought the sanctuary of her own room.

  There, she stared at her computer screen, trying to summon one of the hundreds of jobs she knew to be waiting. She couldn’t think. The cogs of her brain felt as if they were turning through treacle.

  She shifted her cursor over an app at random. Twitter. OK. She’d schedule tweets. Trying to come up with a dozen different ways to say ‘buy a ticket for our show!’ without seeming to say it, that was a job.

  Instead, she found herself googling ‘JJ Blacker’ again; scrolling through image after image of him. Moody poses where his tattoo figured boldly. Candid shots of him frowning in concentration, singing, laughing, grinning. On stage, he truly did wear guyliner and mascara, as he’d once told her – and she’d laughed. It had seemed so unlike the Joe Blackthorn she thought she’d known.

  People bothered snapping him doing his grocery shopping or asked him for selfies. She read interviews with him, about his life with The Hungry Years.

  He never said a thing about an underprivileged childhood or Acting Instrumental.

  He could really compartmentalise.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Joe felt as if he were surfing a giant, glittering wave of emotion, and something was making him reluctant to jump off the surfboard.

  Being on stage with the guys again – even a thrown-together, tiny, portable stage for a thrown-together, tiny gig with the bass too loud – felt so right. It warmed him deep inside that they’d come to show him how much they wanted him. Even Billy.

  They’d ended on a bit of a Q&A for the students, fielding serious questions about the music industry with a fair sprinkling of, ‘Will you sign my guitar?’ or, ‘How did you get so awesome?’ He’d attracted a lot of questions about what he was doing at Acting Instrumental, to which he’d put his finger to his lips and said, ‘I’m relying on you guys to keep it quiet,’ realising belatedly that there was no chance.

  His euphoria had dimmed.

  Word getting out – he didn’t want to think about that right now. Instead he responded to a call to ‘show us your tatt!’ by laughing, ‘You don’t want me to lose my DBS, do you?’

  When three o’clock arrived, Oggie cleared the room. Many students had buses or lifts to catch. Chrissy ran up to give him a hug with a quick, ‘Polo’s waiting for me outside. You have my contact details so I hope I can introduce my family to you before I go home to Germany. It’s up to you.’

  He felt a swirl of regret. ‘I’ll be in touch. I wish we could have spent more time together.’ The band turning up had messed with his reunion with Chrissy as well as with his head.

  ‘Wouldn’t have missed meeting the rest of the band,’ she cried, giving him another hug before dashing out of the door.

  Several tutors – not Georgine, he’d caught her leaving partway through the second song – hung on long enough to be able to say they’d talked to the band, then Oggie sent them on their way too and locked the door. The band and Oggie perched on the
edge of the stage to chat while they gave the building a chance to clear.

  The mood was upbeat. The guys seemed enthused about Acting Instrumental, comparing it to to their more mainstream college they’d left in 2005. When they talked about doing a benefit gig Joe put in, ‘That would be best directed towards the community courses in the holidays. I’ve already wondered about making transport available to bring kids here from Bettsbrough for those.’ Then he left it to Oggie to explain the intricacies of funding.

  Joe was able to sit back, to wonder where he’d have to go to track Georgine down. He wasn’t stupid. He’d read her expression.

  Pissed-off woman.

  He sure as hell wished he’d told her about JJ Blacker.

  It was well after five when he finally saw the guys into the car that had been waiting in the car park all afternoon. One last wave and he turned to hurry in to Georgine’s room. When he stepped into the room and shut the door she was sitting at her computer, face pale and green eyes enormous.

  She was waiting for him to show up, judging from how promptly she closed her laptop and met his gaze. ‘I want to make it clear how little I appreciate your constant dissembling,’ she began. ‘It’s not just once you’ve hidden an identity from me, but twice. I understand you have trust issues, and why, but it makes me uncomfortable. Even insulted.’

  He didn’t make the mistake of moving into her personal space but sat down across the table. ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. Being Joe Blackthorn … you’ve no idea how healing it’s been. And to be here. When I came, I’d had a big bust-up with the band that knocked me for six.’

  She stowed her laptop in her bag and zipped it. ‘You’re the only one in the band to use a stage name, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but don’t read too much into it. Originally I became JJ Blacker because I didn’t want to be perceived as hanging on the coattails of my uncle. Then, as we began to find success it was also so Garrit wouldn’t know I was making money.’

  She pulled her scarf from the back of her chair and wound it around her neck. ‘Would you have ever told me?’

  ‘I nearly did tell you a couple of times.’

  ‘But?’ She picked up her coat.

  ‘But –’ he tried to remember ‘– but I just liked being with you as me.’

  ‘Which you?’ She slid her arms into her coat.

  Joe felt a sudden surge of irritation at the unsmiling way she was questioning him, all the while getting ready to leave as if this wasn’t important enough to command her entire concentration. ‘They’re all me, Georgine! That’s the trouble.’ He yanked off his sweatshirt and T-shirt in one movement, turning his left shoulder so she couldn’t help but see his tattoo. ‘See this? It’s all my faces. My identities. Bewildering, isn’t it? That’s what it’s like being me. All I wanted was to be Joe for a while.’

  She nodded slowly, studying the tattoo, mind almost visibly working. Finally, she raised her eyes to his. ‘For a while. A while that’ll soon be over. The students are sharing pictures from this afternoon all over Instagram and Snapchat already. We’ll have the press at the gates and you and Oggie will agree that it’s best for Acting Instrumental if you return to your real life.’ She smiled without warmth. ‘Conservative as it sounds, I’m really not your brief-fling type. You’ve got a hell of a career. I’m sincerely proud of you and what you’ve achieved but there’s no place in your life – lives – for me. Let’s just let this thing between us fade away.’

  She zipped her coat, swung her bag onto her back and brushed past him.

  He wished he’d said ‘now’ instead of ‘for a while’. ‘For a while’ told her he was keeping his options open. He wanted to go after her and assure her he was sticking around, that he was worth investing emotions in.

  But his feet stuck to the floor. He couldn’t, because he didn’t know.

  He’d loved it here, taking a breather from the craziness of tours and song-writing and studio time, away from the relationship with Billy that had hit a patch so toxic it affected the whole band. But things had just changed. He’d felt part of it again up there, playing, the kids bouncing. Live performance really had it.

  Yes, he wanted Georgine too! Somehow, he’d have to make her see that. He’d have to show her that just because the parts of his life were pretty separate at this moment, that didn’t mean they had to continue to be.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  To hell with Instagram, forget Snapchat, yesterday’s music-euphoria notwithstanding, Joe turned up at Acting Instrumental on Tuesday morning.

  By the time Georgine arrived he was already taking a call from Ian at the Raised Curtain about the get-in on Saturday. ‘Will your resident tech come in to do a handover? Or will they be happy for me and the crew to find our way around?’ Joe asked, trying to ground himself in A Very Kerry Christmas. From the corner of his eye he saw Georgine enter the room and hesitate. He put his hand over the phone and murmured, ‘Morning.’

  After an instant she muttered, ‘Morning,’ and shucked off her coat.

  In Joe’s ear Ian said, ‘That’s why I’m ringing. Yvette, our technician, thinks a familiarisation session is essential but she doesn’t work on Saturdays.’

  Joe watched Georgine leafing through the production file with a frown of concentration. ‘I think I can bring the crew down. Hang on.’ He covered the mouthpiece again. ‘How do I get permission to take the tech crew down to the theatre for a familiarisation session?’

  She didn’t look up. ‘Talk to Oggie. You’ll need someone else with you because there are too many for one car, and you’ll have to do a trip-planning risk assessment first.’

  ‘How about this afternoon?’ Ian asked down the phone. ‘Sorry for the short notice but Yvette’s been flat out with our productions and she’s struggling to find a window.’

  ‘I’ll find out whether the theatre-tech students are already tied up this afternoon and get back to you ASAP.’ Joe was only giving about twenty per cent of his attention to Ian. The rest was all on Georgine, noting the small lines of tension, the set lips, the unwillingness to meet his gaze.

  When he’d ended the call, he leant his forearms on the table. ‘The atmosphere in here’s colder than outside. Don’t let’s be like this, Georgine.’

  With a meaningful look at the doorway, which he took as a reminder that they could be overheard, she shrugged. ‘Don’t worry. After the impromptu The Hungry Years appearance yesterday, you won’t be here much longer.’

  Stung, he rose. ‘I don’t see any press storming the gates.’

  She turned a page of the production file. ‘Give it time. And it’s not just the press. The students are agog at having a real, live rock star among us. You’re going to find it hard to do the job you’re supposedly here to do. In fact –’ she gave a little sigh ‘– we all are.’

  The exchange set the tone for the morning: wintry. Joe moved on with arranging the trip to the Raised Curtain and every time he called into Georgine’s room he found she wasn’t in it, though her timetable said planning and admin this morning. It created a weight in his stomach.

  However, he wasn’t here to worry about his love life, or its hitches. Oggie offered to be the other car driver for the afternoon visit to the theatre and it only remained for Joe to free up the students in question from their planned activities.

  Unfortunately, whenever he appeared in the corridors or stuck his head into practice rooms he couldn’t help but be aware of a buzz and it wasn’t just because he’d abandoned his glasses, there now being no point to wearing them for the purposes of disguise. He was no stranger to the attention but it felt odd here, at Acting Instrumental. He set his sights on carrying on exactly as before and hoped the students would soon get over it.

  At lunchtime he sat with a singing tutor, Vix, who he hadn’t had much to do with as her work lay largely with Level 1 and 2 students, but she was certainly prepared to make up for lost time now. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t recognise you! I love The Hungry Yea
rs. When’s your next album out?’

  As she hadn’t bothered to keep her voice down, a host of students from nearby tables jumped up and crowded round to hear the answer. Joe, who’d been looking forward to the gammon with spicy wedges on his plate, smiled. ‘I’m Joe Blackthorn here. And Joe has only just got enough time to wolf this lot down before he has to gather up the tech crew and get to the theatre.’ To add emphasis, he took his first mouthful and gave the students a little wave goodbye.

  Although they moved back it wasn’t long before the first piece of paper landed beside him. ‘But do you mind giving me an autograph?’ a slight, dark-haired girl demanded. ‘You can do it while you’re chewing,’ she added helpfully.

  Joe glanced at her hopeful face from the corner of his eye. Others were gathering behind her. One autograph would lead to dozens, then someone would ask for a selfie. He glanced at Vix, hoping she’d jump in and shoo everyone away, but Vix was looking through her bag as if she was searching for paper and a pen too.

  Then a voice came from behind Joe. Georgine’s. ‘Let’s leave Joe to eat his lunch, shall we? He’d need permission from Oggie to sign autographs anyway, and put your phones away because nobody’s said it’s OK to take photos. Off you go!’

  Grateful, Joe turned in his seat to thank her, but Georgine was vanishing along with the disconsolately dispersing students. Though he liked her back view, he wasn’t keen on it being turned on him.

  After lunch he took three members of the crew in his car, Robby, Guy and Tristan. They were boiling over with questions about The Hungry Years but, ‘I’m not here in that capacity,’ he said firmly, and that quieted them down so much that he stowed the phrase for future use.

  But not all that far in the future, because when he got to the theatre he found that one of the girls from Oggie’s car had told the technician, Yvette, who instantly turned more starry eyed than seemed appropriate for her forty-plus years. ‘JJ Blacker’s here? Must get a selfie!’ She fumbled her phone out of her pocket.