She shoved that thought aside. The show must go on, as it had throughout the history of theatre. For now, she had a job to do, no matter who funded it or how unjustly that person had been treated by the tabloids.
Much later, when all the bows had been taken and the audience gone, she shivered as she brushed snow from her car with stinging hands and drove back to Middledip, snowflakes dancing in her headlights, snow on the roofs of houses as if someone had gone over them with a huge roll of cotton wool.
She arrived to find Blair had already taken their dad back to his flat and was waiting to excitedly tell Georgine it was the best Christmas show ever and Randall had absolutely loved it.
‘That’s fantastic,’ Georgine said, taking refuge for a few moments in a big congratulatory hug from her sister that might also have held elements of understanding and consolation too. ‘I’m shattered and we’re only halfway through the run.’ She freed herself and, yawning, carried a mug of hot chocolate to bed and fired up her laptop.
She looked up the articles in the Daily Snoop online and read every word again. The reporter’s name was Sy Calderwell. Next to his byline was a link: Send Sy an email. ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Georgine murmured. And began to type.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Joe spent the week in London feeling as if he were existing in a black cave of unhappiness.
He had several meetings with Pete and the band. Pete counselled calling a press conference for ‘damage limitation’. Raf, Liam and Nathan, like Joe, were inclined to let the negative stories die on their own. Billy was conflicted. ‘I’m not being shitty, JJ,’ he said. ‘I want to do the best for the band. I just don’t know what it is. We need advice. What about Jerome?’
Pete pulled a doubtful face. ‘Is Jerome, as he represents JJ, the right source of that advice?’
‘Yeah, yeah, we all trust him.’ Billy clapped Joe on the shoulder as if to say that they trusted Joe too, so Joe set a meeting up with Jerome, but they had to wait until Friday because he was advising in court until then.
In the meantime, Joe tried to write, but the song came out so freakin’ sad. He’d never written mushy ‘miss you so much it hurts’ songs, but he was missing Georgine so much it hurt. He tried to practise banging fills on the drums, but then he’d drift over to the piano to play sad songs like ‘Running on Empty’. Except now it wasn’t food he was hungry for.
He couldn’t remember feeling like this. Adrift. Hollow. Alone. He told himself there was no way it could be over.
Then that there was no way it could carry on. His past was going to keep turning on him like a wild animal. Journalists would drag out his ‘Cinder-rocker’ past and pronounce judgement. He refused to drag Georgine into that.
To distract himself, he invited the guys around to jam, as he’d done so many times before. Half expecting a refusal, he made sure to include Billy in the invitation but the blond front man seemed eager to turn up. He looked Joe in the eye and appeared so completely normal that Joe doubted Pete had guessed correctly when he’d tentatively linked Billy to the Daily Snoop article.
Billy even joined in quizzing Joe about musicians he might use if he truly did go solo, and he realised he couldn’t think of anyone he wanted to work with more than Raf, Nathan, Liam and Billy. ‘Don’t make me cry,’ he joked, without entirely joking. He got over his writing slump when he and Billy express-wrote a song called ‘This is Bullshit!’ aimed at journalists. They played it for the rest of the band and talked about releasing it on an album. He shoved any lingering doubts about Billy to one side and was just glad that the boys were working together again. It hadn’t really taken much. A chat, honesty, and pulling together in adversity.
Continuing with The Hungry Years had never seemed more possible.
But it would take him further from Georgine.
On Thursday, Joe met up with Chrissy and her family, as they were flying back to their US Air Force base in Rammstein, Germany on Saturday. He liked her teenage girls, Zoe and Celine, and found her husband wasn’t really called Polo, but Paolo, an über-cool American air navigator of Hispanic descent. Gladder than he could say that Chrissy invited him, Joe agreed to visit the family on the base later in the year. Zoe and Celine bounced about and declared it cool, pronounced as two syllables: ‘coo-wul’.
He rang Debs to check whether Garrit had been around. He hadn’t, but Debs had read the second Daily Snoop article and was mad enough to phone the police if Garrit so much as showed his nose in her building.
Friday, he awoke feeling that his black cave was in danger of closing in on him. Everything on the radio and TV was about Christmas, and he hadn’t planned one. Still, he thought as he drove to the meeting with Jerome, Pete and the band, he’d spent days alone in his small house in Camden before. Who cared if one of them was December 25th?
He arrived at Pete’s house almost at the point of not caring what came next.
As it turned out, the meeting was over in no time, though Pete struck a sour note at first, referring to the ‘emergency’ in the hushed tones of one mentioning a recently deceased friend. It made Joe feel terrible, as if he were responsible for dragging The Hungry Years into his horrible past.
Jerome, black brows drawn into sharp diagonals like charcoal strokes, listened to Pete’s worries attentively.
Then he listened to Joe offering to definitely leave the band and immediately go public on it to spare The Hungry Years contamination from words like gang and thug.
And Billy’s, ‘Won’t that cause “did he jump or was he pushed” speculation?’
Lastly, he listened to Nathan, Liam and Raf declare that the whole thing should just be ignored. ‘It’s Christmas in five days. People will be more interested in whether it snows and what the Queen has to say than JJ’s shit.’
Then, when Pete began again, ‘We can’t ignore it. In an emergency—’
Jerome visibly lost patience. ‘It’s not a fucking emergency; stop calling it one,’ he snapped, brows knitting. ‘Is this what’s had you running around like headless chickens? The press is not the law of the land and you can perfectly legitimately do nothing! If the police ever contact JJ about his conduct at age fourteen, that will be the time to prepare a defence.’ He glared at Pete, who’d opened his mouth again. ‘Get over yourself. Are you new to the music industry or something?’
Pete looked offended. ‘I have a reputation to think of.’
‘Really?’ Jerome drew out the word as if there was a lot more he could say.
Ignoring Pete’s spluttering, Joe gazed at Jerome in shock. ‘Seriously? That’s it?’
Jerome put away his pen and zipped up his document case. ‘It is so far as I’m concerned. Come and talk to me if you want to try and sue the Daily Snoop. Or if you make your decision about the other matter and would like my help.’
‘What other matter?’ demanded Raf, who didn’t worry too much about privacy.
Jerome’s mouth closed as if zipped like his document case. It was left to Joe to say, ‘Whether I stay with the band.’ After this week, there being a decision had kind of got away from him.
Nathan, who’d been balancing his chair on its two back legs, clunked it to the floor. ‘Still? I thought we were going to start on another album in January, like we planned all along. Shit, JJ, you and Billy wrote a song for it.’
Raf and Liam treated Joe to matching gimlet stares.
Joe glanced at Billy. Billy held up both hands as if to show he had no tricks up his sleeves. ‘I want you to stay, JJ.’
‘OK,’ Joe agreed, dazed at this light dawning so suddenly in his cave of unhappiness. ‘Then I’ll stay.’ A wave of warmth crashed into his chest. It felt like coming home, or when Shaun had taken him in and given him back his family.
Jerome’s white teeth flashed. ‘Jeez. You musicians. No wonder you keep the likes of me busy. Expect a note of my fees.’
He hurried off back to whatever was awaiting his august attention and as the front door clicked behind him, the place
erupted into cheers and whoops. Joe found himself under fire from fist bumps, hugs, shoulder slaps and nipple tweaks, with a few four-lettered friendly insults thrown in.
He was back with the band.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was the Saturday before Christmas and Georgine had tired of hoping for Joe to return.
She was tired full stop. Everyone was. Some students even groused about doing the ‘Satdee Matnee’ as they called the matinée show. The snow had begun with soft slow-falling flakes and they wanted to have snowball fights instead.
Much of the matinée audience consisted of guides, scouts or youth clubs and they treated A Very Kerry Christmas as a pantomime, laughing at Kerry’s most impassioned songs and booing and hissing Uncle Jones’ gang. They cheered and clapped a lot too though, so the beaming cast had that energy to take into the last night.
The snow continued through the day like feathers from a gigantic burst pillow and forming a carpet to crunch softly underfoot. The students got their snowball fights out of their systems and the audience still turned up, even though they had to fight their way through a whole two inches of snow to get there. The radio was forecasting at least one more inch overnight, gloomily, as if their sole intent was to panic the countryside into either buying up everything in the supermarket and risk being stuck in a snowdrift, or holing up indoors to starve.
The students were excited by the Bettsbrough Bugle covering the evening performance. Georgine shoved aside surly thoughts about bastard journalists, because it wasn’t the fault of the young female reporter from the Bugle that Joe didn’t get to see the show he’d given so much to; nor that the very bastard Sy Calderwell of the Daily Snoop hadn’t printed anything of the nice-side-of-JJ-Blacker stuff she’d emailed to him.
The Mayor of Bettsbrough attended and made a speech praising the Raised Curtain and Acting Instrumental and the extraordinary standard of the shows each put on. The students cheered and took up their starting positions as if they could do two shows a day for the rest of their lives.
Georgine stopped feeling like throwing it all in and began driving enthusiasm instead, giving everyone silent double thumbs-up in the wings and waiting for the audience to settle before going out front of stage to give one last, rousing introduction, including congratulating the composer, Jasmine, who had a place in the front row, and ending, ‘Whenever you’re ready, Musical Director!’
Band One and Band Two transferred their gazes to Errol on the other side of the stage. He air-counted one, two, three, four and bass and drums crashed in on five, six. The company swung into A Very Kerry Christmas, Uncle Jones for the final time.
Georgine watched the whole thing with a rock in her throat. Every single student sang or played or danced or acted – some of them all four – their hearts out. When they’d taken three bows on their own, she floated on the stage to give her final speech with a bottle of water in one hand and a tissue in the other, truly scared that she might not be able to speak.
‘These students are amazing,’ she said, voice trembling. ‘This has been our most ambitious show and longest run to date, and they’ve worked so professionally to bring you this fantastic piece of musical theatre.’ She waited for a fresh round of applause to die away before bringing on every non-cast person to receive their own accolades: Errol, Maddie, Keeley, Fern, Oggie and the parent volunteers. She thanked the tech crew, who flashed the lights in acknowledgement, and she thanked the audience too.
Then Samantha went off and skipped back on with a bouquet for Georgine, and she pretended to be overcome – which wasn’t hard in her current rocky emotional state – though she got flowers after every run, because Oggie arranged it.
Finally, the audience filed out with great smiles on their faces. The cast went to the changing rooms for the after-show party, as you seriously could not take forty-plus teenagers to a pub. Avril, Vix and Hannalee put out soft drinks and sausage rolls, and everybody hung up costumes that were to return to Acting Instrumental. The tutors exchanged Christmas gifts – token only, was the rule – and, touchingly, a few of the kids presented boxes of Roses and pots of Christmas cacti to the staff too.
Then Georgine, the directors, Oggie and the tech crew got straight on with the get-out, conscious that the Raised Curtain would be used by others tomorrow. Props were dismantled and packed. Equipment disassembled and checked off.
Georgine grinned and chatted with everybody. Inside, the rock had dropped from her throat to her stomach because even to the very last second she’d harboured some forlorn hope that Joe was there somewhere. That maybe he’d be the one to walk on with the bouquet.
But he hadn’t.
So it looked like that was that.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sunday was the day before Christmas Eve. After a lengthy and well-deserved lie-in, Georgine was roused by Blair at her bedroom door. ‘Are you awake?’ Blair whispered. ‘Something’s happened.’
In a heartbeat, Georgine was very awake indeed. ‘What? Is it Dad? He hasn’t gone out in the snow and fallen, has he?’ She reached out and dragged back a curtain to give her enough winter light to see her sister, who was dressed to go out.
Blair came into the room, giving her ‘a look’. ‘Don’t be so pessimistic. It’s something good.’ She coloured prettily. ‘I have a date.’
Georgine collapsed back on her pillows, clutching her heart. ‘FFS, Blair! Don’t frighten me. I’m just surprised you haven’t had loads of dates already. Where did you meet—’
‘It’s Warren,’ Blair stuck in, as if it ought to be obvious. ‘Isn’t that amazing? He says he wants to talk.’
‘Oh!’ Georgine digested this unexpected turn of events. ‘That’s great! Isn’t it?’
‘Hope so.’ Blair bent down and gave Georgine a hug. ‘So, don’t worry if I don’t make it home tonight.’ A grin and a wink and she was gone.
Left alone to shower and dress, Georgine tried to decide how to fill her day. If Blair and Warren made up – which would be lovely – she’d have to get used to a silent house again. She was glad about the absence of debt collectors and bailiffs, but no little sister to chat to or spat with? That she was going to miss.
It only took her an hour to realise that doing nothing gave her too much time to think about the sadness in her heart, and so she pulled on her boots and coat and drove to Acting Instrumental, which looked pretty in its Christmas clothes of snow. She let Don the site supervisor know she was there and set to restoring the Kerry Christmas props to the props room. Then she jumped back into her car and drove to Bettsbrough, where the snow was rapidly turning brown, and called on Randall, bright and enthusiastic about how well the show had gone. She made up for neglecting him for the past couple of weeks by cooking a full English breakfast for an early supper.
The next day was Christmas Eve. Georgine went grocery shopping at six a.m. to beat the hordes and shopped as if Blair would be with them for Christmas dinner, and possibly Warren too as Blair, true to her suspicions, hadn’t come home last night. Whatever had been happening in Blair’s life while Georgine had been immersed in the show, it seemed to have put a reconciliation very much on the cards. If it turned out to be just Randall and Georgine on Christmas Day, they’d eat their fill and then she’d make meals to freeze for later in the holiday. She still had two weeks off to look forward to.
But she wasn’t feeling time-offy yet and time off was rarely completely time off for those involved in education so, once back home with the festive shopping put away, she downloaded video clips and photos amassed during show week and organised them, along with those from rehearsals, and began to think about the Level 2 students’ show in April, which would be a musical revue: much more straightforward.
When she’d edited the footage of the final show, she stared at its icon for a long time … then sent a link to Joe’s phone. However he’d left things, and however abruptly he’d left them, he deserved the opportunity to see the show he’d done so much work towards.
&
nbsp; Then she shut down her laptop.
As Randall was engaged in the residents’ lounge that evening, playing bingo and singing carols – he wasn’t too good at the latter, but was happy to listen to those who were – Georgine wrapped up warm and wandered down to The Three Fishes to join the village Christmas Eve merrymaking. En route, she paused to help some giggling village kids make a slide on the pavement, hoping, belatedly, that it didn’t send any poor pensioner off to casualty for a plaster cast.
When she reached the pub she found it warm and cheery. Coloured lights flickered and ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ and ‘I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day’ played in the background. There were BOGOF deals for Christmas punch and mulled wine. Tubb had very sensibly taken down the dartboard.
Georgine bought raffle tickets from Janice and laughed when what she won was having her car valeted by the men at the village garage. ‘But it’s only held together by the dirt!’ she joked. Then, with a lovely warm feeling, she remembered Grandma Patty’s money and thought she might spend part of her Christmas holiday looking for a newer car.
She drank four large glasses of mulled wine while she chattered to everyone she knew in the village – which equalled a whole bottle to herself, but it wouldn’t hurt, just for once. Then Blair and Warren turned up looking starry eyed and happy and bought prosecco because they were on their way to Georgine’s to gather some of Blair’s things. She was moving back in with Warren.
‘I was too miserable without her to let money come between us,’ he said, his eyes glowing as he looked at Blair.
‘That’s fantastic!’ Georgine cried, hugging them, tears prickling hotly in her eyes. ‘What a fantastic Christmas present for us all!’ She’d always liked good-looking Warren, who worked in the travel industry and was always smartly dressed. She gave him a big hug. ‘Merry Christmas! Great to see you guys back together,’ she said as she waved them off with a beaming smile.
A Christmas Gift Page 29
