He is a shit. He is also an effective manager. That’s as good as it gets, I muse. Our previous manager was even worse; he was on the take from day one.
“I reckon it’s Abbey Road studios...” he says, idly letting the significance of that sink in. He knows I have a Beatles passion and that Abbey Road has always been a dream of mine. Pushing out thoughts of Beth – and Georgia – I am sorely tempted to say “Yes”. However, being the coward I am, I decide to leave it to fate.
“Find out if it is Abbey Road, Marti. We’re not going all that way just to play somewhere we’ve already played.” I pause to think. “If it’s Abbey Road, run it past the boys, Marti. Run it past ‘em.”
Beth
It’s been a week. One hundred and sixty eight hours of loneliness in my head.
I am bereft.
I can’t sleep; I can’t be bothered to eat properly. I have regular shooting pains up and down my arms and in my chest, I don’t know why. Every day, all day, I am reaching out to him with my mind, trying to feel the connection again. And it’s crazy because there is nothing there but empty space. I scan the news sites, wondering if – God forbid – he is dead. No news. No updates on any web site about anyone in the band. Nothing at all.
Another week passes. I give up with going to the gym but I let Richard think I’m still working out there each morning. Instead I just park up and listen to music.
Richard is being very distant. He is preoccupied with work and is on the phone to his assistant constantly but at least that means he doesn’t notice my mood. One evening he doesn’t come home at all. From 10.30 pm I am trying to call him pretty much constantly but the phone is switched off. When he finally calls me it is one am. He says he missed the last train home. I am pretty angry and suggest he could have got a taxi. He sounds drunk and I can hear people laughing. He says he is staying at Nick’s.
I can’t sleep. I am a zombie. No emotions anymore, nothing at all apart from the pains, which are joined by awful stomach cramps and a constant headache between my eyes. I watch the sun rise from my bed, the mists roll across the fields in the distance and I imagine Joel walking towards me. But it’s not real.
I get dressed and washed and I leave the house at six am. I drive to the viewing point, right up the top of the hill and I sit in my car listening to Joel’s songs and trying to connect again until it’s time to go to work.
And then I start to feel something.
Anger.
At first I was upset. Then I was convinced he was dead. Now I am angry. Really bloody angry. I wasted so much energy on this man. For nothing.
I risked my marriage, my sanity – and he doesn’t love me. He probably never did. He hasn’t got in touch. Not even one lousy attempt.
With a cold feeling that starts in my heart and sends my pulse racing, it strikes me that all this time I could have just been mad. What evidence do I really have, after all?
I have been so stupid. So stupid.
Defiantly, I change my playlist from Joel’s band to Christina Aguilera. The orchestral beginning of "Fighter" begins to play.
As the song powers up, I remember. The letter! I need to see the letter again. To see his handwriting. To try to connect with something tangible in my hands.
I start the engine and race home, driving so fast I can barely make the turns, my wheels bumping against the kerb, tyres thrust down into potholes and kicking up dust from the gutter.
Suddenly, there is a huge lorry pulling out in front of me, it’s there in the road ahead and then just stops. SHIT! I’m going too fast, I’m swerving but there are people to my left so I whip the wheel round to the right and start to lose control – “SHIIIII...”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Joel
I see a girl standing about a meter away from the canyon’s edge. I can’t make out who it is but I am scared she might fall. She steps forward, poised, ready to jump. I try to shout but I can’t make a sound.
I look down. I have no legs. I have no body.
Jesus, my spirit or whatever 'I' am is floating invisibly in the air. A sudden clap of thunder terrifies me. I feel myself start to panic and as I try to take a deep breath in to calm myself, I realise:
I am not breathing!
A few seconds stretch like hours then suddenly I am back in my body, laying on the tour bus bunk, gasping for breath. I sit up, coughing on my own spit. Nobody says anything though they look at me strangely. I lay back down. What happened there?
I was dreaming and perhaps on some level trying to connect with Beth. I’d been feeling guilty because of the way I’d left things. It’s been three weeks since I ‘saw’ her last and now we are racing through the British countryside, having just met with a producer for a quick chat about possibly working with him on our next album.
I know she is close. Too close for comfort.
But this dream thing... I am curious. Who was that girl? Was it Beth? What is going on?
I’m almost too scared to try it again. But I do. This time I can’t even settle in one place. It’s like I am floating in a vast black tunnel full of stars. It’s beautiful and silent. There is nothing to touch, nothing to hold onto and no sign of Beth. Again, it starts to freak me out when I can’t feel my body breathing. I panic and end up back in the bunk, defeated.
The coach slows and stops. I look out of the window and see that we are stopped on a typical British 'A' road. I hear sirens and see an ambulance trying to squeeze past our coach. Jeez. We're gonna be late.
I put in my earphones and shut my eyes.
Beth
I wake up, groggy. Everything is sideways. The world is making no visual sense. I hurt all over. There is a strange noise, which I realise is coming from my throat. I am moaning, a scream with no power behind it. My chest is squashed so tight against the steering wheel, an airbag in my face. I can't move my legs. Something starts to hiss.
Oh God what have I done?
Joel
Marti taps me on the shoulder; I open my eyes and remove my earphones. "The road ahead is blocked mate, some car bounced off a truck. There's an ambulance and some police."
"OK," I mumble. "Any idea how much longer?"
"Dunno, mate. I reckon it could be a while. There's someone trapped in the car. I just had a look, the fire brigade are on their way to cut ‘em out," he adds.
It's typical of Marti to get involved and know everything. He's a nosy bastard.
"Anyway, Joel, mate. I woke you up 'cos the guys saw a pub over the road and they want to go for a beer and something to eat. It opens at 11 but I've knocked on the door and the manager is happy to open early for us." A kindred spirit of Marti's, I think ruefully. More than happy to capitalise on the misfortune of others.
"Anyway the band reckon no one will recognise them without you, so they were gonna leave you asleep. But I thought you might be hungry?"
"Starving," I reply.
What to do? A beer sounds like heaven.
"Well no paps will know you’re here,” adds Marti, a twinkle in his eye.
"Wait for me," I say. I get up, straighten myself out and check myself out in a mirror, just in case there are any cameras. My hair is a mess. Tousled would be a polite description. Marti and I exit the coach and wander over to the pub, our eyes drawn to the scene of devastation to our left.
A lorry has pulled over with its hazards on. A small red car is on its side, having hit and gone through the low wall in front of a house then carved up the front garden, coming to rest wrapped round a lamp post. There are bricks strewn all around. The car is about three feet shorter than it should be. A paramedic is tending to someone in the car.
We enter the pub. The guys are there already and causing a stir amongst the staff and a couple of other people who I guess are other stranded drivers. It's only 10 am but the beer is served regardless of English licensing laws. It seems that the novelty of a crash and a rock band in the building overrules normal practice.
From my limited experience over the
years, the 'George and Dragon' looks like a typical English village public house. It has dried hops hanging from the beams on the ceiling, tacked up there with pins. It has tarnished brass light fixtures, a heavily varnished, slightly sticky bar and an exposed brick fireplace. There are yellowed photos on the walls and it smells kinda musty. The sun streaming through the small windows exposes a ton of dust hanging in the air.
"Cool," says Deff, our lead guitarist, who's nicknamed Deff because he practically is deaf nowadays. He takes a sip from a beer which the pump proclaims is called 'Old Fart'. How quaint.
Marti ushers us out to the pub garden and we sit at a table under a gazebo. It's turning into quite a sunny day. Unfortunately, sitting out here gives us a prime view of the accident, which makes me feel a bit ghoulish.
The fire truck turns up. We try not to stare but we are all watching from time to time as the boys talk about the flight over. Stevo is telling Deff about the hot air stewardess and what he would have liked to do with her. Mark starts singing Jace Everett's 'Do Bad Things with You'.
They are all laughing while I zone out, watching the grass blowing in the breeze and listening to the goings on across the road. I'm thinking it would be almost pleasantly warm if not for the cold breeze. I take a sip of beer and I wonder how Georgia is, working back to what time it is in San Diego. Three am...
And then a stabbing pain across my eyes stops me from thinking, breathing or seeing. I spill my beer putting it down clumsily onto the table. The worst pain I have ever felt passes through my head momentarily. Oh my God, I don't know what's happening.
Then all of a sudden - at the exact moment that Marti asks if I am OK - it's gone. I realise I am up on my feet and already sprinting to the low fence that borders the garden, leaping over it and dashing out across the road towards the small red car. The guys are yelling behind me but I don't have time to answer them.
Because I know.
I just know.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
"I said get back, Sir!" shouts the nearest of two paramedics.
"Do you know this girl?" shouts someone else.
"Beth! Beth!" I am screaming her name.
Marti races up behind me, grabs me and tells the male paramedic to take his hands off me. I didn't know his hands were on me.
And there she is. Unconscious again! What is it with this girl? I wonder.
Obviously she's hurt. I recall my vision of nothingness an hour or so before and I am scared for her. God please let her be OK and I won't leave her like that again.
"Just tell me she's gonna be OK!" I plead. "Is she alright?"
"Come away Sir," says a police woman. "She is alive but I need you to help me. Do you know her?"
"Well..." This could be difficult. Then I think (somehow) very quickly indeed. "She's a journalist." I remember that much at least. "I recognised her... her car."
Marti looks confused; he releases me from his grip and rubs his stern forehead. He's probably thinking she's a fan that I've been fooling around with.
"She's a friend," I say. "Her name is Beth. Beth Britten."
Then I realise that was her maiden name. "Well she was Beth Britten before she got married," I add. "I don't know now, I can't remember her husband's surname. I don't know if I ever knew it."
"A journalist -!" Marti seethes. "Fan-fucking-tastic. A journalist..." He steps away, waving his arms about theatrically and kicking a fragment of brick, hard across the street.
"Do you mind!" says the police woman to Marti.
"Come with me, Sir," she says to me. She leads me towards the police car. "Did you see the accident?" I shake my head. Out of the corner of my eye I am aware of a fire engine turning up, it's slowly squeezing past our coach.
"Do you know anyone who we can contact?" she adds.
"I don't know," I say. Then I remember. "She works for a newspaper supplement. That's all I know." She writes this down and then uses her radio to call in the information.
Then Marti is next to me, holding up a small towel of all things and I see why the police woman led me over to her car. There, on the corner of the street, is a man with a microphone. He was facing a local news channel camera. Now it's trained on me.
Safely hidden from the camera behind the towel – the kind they put on the bar to catch the drips - and sat in the police car feeling like a fool, I tell Marti I will be riding with Beth in the ambulance. He freaks. I remind him who pays his wages. He reminds me who pays mine. I ignore him and ask him to phone Georgia and to tell her that we were witnesses to the crash and that I am going with the police purely as a witness, so she's not to worry. The last thing I want is the time for someone to put doubt in her mind as to why I am there.
The police woman checks with the paramedics that it's OK for me to go with Beth, who has been cut out of the car and is on a stretcher being loaded into the back. They agree. It's obvious they know who I am and figure it will be a cool story to tell their buddies.
"You are being a dick," says Marti. "How the fuck am I gonna spin this?" He mutters angrily.
"You'll figure it out, Marti." I say. "I have some money and my phone, I'll call you later and I'll meet you at the hotel."
“She's all alone, Marti," I add.
He strides off. The rest of the band is huddled by the coach door, looking at me like I am mental. Drivers are standing by their car doors, squinting at me in the sun, some with camera phones trained on the spectacle. Road crash meets rock stars.
"We're ready Sir," says the paramedic. I get inside the ambulance. Beth is strapped down and is lying under a white cellular blanket, like one of Harry's baby blankets only bigger. She has a mask over her mouth and nose. Her eyes are closed. She looks like she's been in a fight. A machine is beeping. The engine starts, it rattles the medical equipment noisily.
"You can hold her hand if you like?" says the lady paramedic.
I give her a look that mirrors hers - furtive - as if seeking a nod that this is our secret.
"Go on, Sir. It will help her."
Beth's hand is very, very cold. My head hurts. The doors slam behind me. I see our hands together. I see her wedding ring. I see my wedding ring. I wonder where this will lead.
What am I doing?
It takes only a few minutes to arrive at the hospital.
Beth gets taken away. The nurses accommodate my request to wait alone in a side room. I don't want to cause a fuss I explain but it's not ideal to be sat in a public area right now. One nurse can't stop giggling when she sees me and runs off; only to return with an autograph book. Where did she get that from? I wonder, as I duly sign. Her badge says 'Alison'. A man who I assume is her supervisor tells her off and I am left alone again.
The room is rather sterile with plastic-padded, high backed chairs that wouldn't look out of place in an old folks' home. There are posters about all sorts of medical conditions, from osteoporosis to cancer. It smells in here. Everything looks old. There is a blood-stained tissue on the floor. I shudder and pick up a magazine, wondering wryly what I'll catch and who the hell Jordan and Peter are.
It’s a tense wait. About an hour later, there is a knock on the door. A woman enters the room, carrying a large bag. She's in her fifties, small with bobbed brown hair. I can tell from her eyes that she has been crying.
"Do you mind if I wait in here?” She says, putting the bag down.
"Not at all, ma’am."
I see there is a slight shake to her hand as she sighs heavily. "I’m waiting to see my daughter. I have her things."
"Sit down, please," I say, getting up and helping her to a chair. She looks like she is in a real state. For a fleeting moment I think of my mom.
"I'm Annie," she says. She looks me over, "I understand you are a... musician?”
I nod, embarrassed, wondering how she knows. "My name's Joel.”
"The nurse seemed quite excited about you being here, I’m sorry I don’t recognise you, I’m not really into modern music. Not like my daughter.”
/> "I, err, we witnessed a road crash," I explain, "With my band. Just came along to check the driver was OK.”
"My Beth had a road crash – was she who you saw?"
I gulp. “I think her name was Beth, yes.”
"Well it’s nice that you came to check on her, Joel." She emphasises my name. "They say she is OK, she has mild concussion and some bruising. But she is remarkably unscathed otherwise, no signs of internal bleeding." She pauses. "It has been quite a shock..."
She stops. Sighs. Looks at me.
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with her husband but his phone just goes to answer machine. I let myself into her house on the way here; I knew she would need some things. It’s best if she stays with me if Richard’s away, he’s often away…”
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