“He has health issues that affect his lifestyle. You might have heard of him? Jimmy A, the jazz trumpeter?” Zazz couldn’t say he felt surprised when he received a shake of the head. Laura’s father took a seat in a well-worn chair in prime position in the room—close to the fire. A small table rested by the side of the chair, holding a china dog with the label “Biscuits” hung around its neck. Even the dog had a lugubrious air. “Can’t say I do. Sorry. I like some music, but I don’t bother with CDs or anything like that. I listen to what’s on the radio.” He cleared his throat. “Do you do music full time?”
Zazz’s breath caught on the answer, but he satisfied himself with, “Yes.”
Laura’s mother disappeared into the kitchen, only to reappear almost immediately. “You’re not a vegetarian or something, are you?”
Tempted to confess to being a strict vegan, Zazz recalled he might visit this place more than once. “No.”
“Roast lamb all right?”
“It sounds delicious.” Zazz guessed most meat served here would come out of the oven gray, or if they were lucky, brown. Red meat wouldn’t survive here for long. He could smell it now, a thick, meaty scent overlaid with the tang of cooking vegetables, and despite his misgivings, his mouth watered. Maybe Mrs. Wilkinson was a great cook, albeit of the traditional variety. Traditional Sunday lunches were rarities in his life. “Hotel food can get boring. Home cooking is a treat.”
“Good.”
Oh well, at least he’d tried. He didn’t actually smile, although he put a relaxed expression firmly in place. He reached for Laura’s hand.
He didn’t miss the way Mr. Wilkinson’s pale gaze went straight to the link, and then to his face. Zazz raised a brow slightly and smiled. “Do you work in Manchester?”
“I’m the head teacher at the local comprehensive school,” he said.
Zazz turned his smile to self-deprecating, tightening his lips. “I didn’t do well at school.”
Mr. Wilkinson lifted his chin a little. “Oh?”
“No qualifications at all, I’m afraid.”
“That’s sad.”
He shrugged. “If I’d stayed on, I’d have started my career later. I might have missed the opportunities that came my way. Who knows?”
“Why did you leave school so early? Didn’t you want to pass your exams?” If Zazz wasn’t mistaken, he read a not-so-subtle hint there. Or was he so stupid he wouldn’t have passed them?
“For what I do, I don’t need qualifications. My bandmate, Riku, has qualifications for two people and yet he earns the same as me. Riku also does film music and I write songs for other people sometimes. Not that we need the income.” He tried another shrug.
“It sounds interesting.” Not that he sounded interested. “But isn’t it luck? Like winning the lottery? Nothing you can be sure of. And you could flop tomorrow.”
Zazz kept a lid on his temper. This man was deliberately trying to belittle him. “We could. But that’s not why we do it. We all have enough money.”
Mr. Wilkinson didn’t look impressed. It didn’t bother Zazz.
The half-suppressed squeal sent a jolt of alarm right down his spine. He didn’t so much turn as swivel on the soft cushion to face the female standing in the doorway. Her “Ermagahd!” vied with her father’s “Amy!” to create a hubbub he guessed rarely happened in this house.
The unearthly calm broken, he felt better, especially when Laura’s laugh soothed his spirit.
“You have to be Laura’s sister.” He got to his feet and smiled at the shell-shocked girl. She looked around sixteen. Quite a gap between her and her sister. An afterthought or an accident?
None of his business, but it didn’t stop him wondering.
She stared at him. “Zazz.”
“Well done. Yes, Zazz. Your sister’s boyfriend.”
Her mouth rounded, then her white teeth touched her lower lip and her upper curled in the unmistakable shape of an “F”. If Zazz didn’t act quickly, she’d commit a sin that would probably get her grounded. “But it’s me, nobody else. Don’t tell me I’m your favorite.”
“Well yes, no, I mean—”
“Riku, I’m guessing.” Riku, with his flamboyant clothes, tended to attract most of the teens who followed the band.
“How does he do it? He has to spend hours getting ready.”
“A day, sometimes. But he has a series of looks planned, and it doesn’t take him as long as people imagine. Except when he’s creating the looks. That can take days. Then he draws it into a book and makes notes.”
“Don’t you?”
“I’m flattered, but no.” He did have stage clothes, but it didn’t go much further than that. “I put on what I’m in the mood to wear and it’s as haphazard as it looks.”
Despite the disapproving glares from her father, Amy sat next to Zazz on the huge sofa and talked to him about fashion and clothes. “Will you dress Laura?”
Zazz choked back his initial answer, that he was more likely to undress her. “If she wants me to.”
“Would you dress me?”
He’d guessed that was coming. “You need to learn your own style first. For all I know, you have it.” But not here, not now. Amy wore simple clothes, white shirt and black trousers. Maybe she had a stash of exciting clothes somewhere. He hoped to God she was legal, and she didn’t turn up at the stage door made up and dressed up. One reason Chick gave his “be careful” speech to all new recruits to the crew. Some girls had come, not for sex, but to catch them out and earn money outing them in the media. It was a wicked world out there.
“I wanted to see you.”
That was something he could help with. “Can you come to London next weekend?”
He could feel Amy’s excitement, but immediately her father dampened it. “You have mock A level coming up a week on Monday. Science. You’ll be revising.”
Shit, the old man didn’t want her to have any fun. But he forced a grin. “Don’t worry, we’ll work something out.” If it fucking killed him. He’d get her over to New York. That was it.
A ring came at the door. Interesting to notice that Mr. Wilkinson didn’t attempt to rise to answer it, leaving the task to his wife. He remained where he was, like some doom-laden chaperone.
Quiet voices, and then the room filled with four more people. At least, this part of the room did. Zazz got to his feet and suffered the introductions. Laura’s brother brought an air of cheerfulness with him, much needed here, and the formal introductions didn’t do much to dispel it. He hugged his mother and clapped his father on the shoulder. That was one way to cope. Ignore the repressive atmosphere. Zazz wondered if he could ever do that.
The kids knew him, and so did her brother, Andy, who gave him an appreciative, though not fawning, summary of Nightstar. Zazz shrugged. “Thanks, it’s a job.” To his relief, Andy laughed.
“Great job if you can get it, and if you’re good enough.” He tilted his head toward his father. “I bet Dad never heard of you.”
“Not everybody has.” He wasn’t too keen on the knowing smile. He didn’t want to join any faction here.
By the time they’d sat at the table, Mrs. Wilkinson having refused to let them help her carry the dishes in, the kids had kind of recovered from their initial dumbstruck response. Zazz would have preferred dumbstruck and staring to the volubility they exploded with. Two girls, their ages definitely in single figures, but he wasn’t too familiar with small children to know if they were five, six or seven, or even eight. Very excited at meeting him. It troubled him to think they knew him because his lyrics weren’t meant for kids that age, but when he recalled what he was doing at the age of six, he relaxed. It could be a lot worse.
That meant her brother was around the same age as Laura. Zazz exchanged a glance with her, brief, but enough to know how uncomfortable she felt. He didn’t think it had much to do with his presence, more from being here. She was far too subdued. He understood that she was trying to get through this, and her attitude
made him even more determined to behave. He controlled the temper that boiled up in regular intervals during that meal at pointed comments from her parents about his career and his lack of qualifications. He didn’t even have the solace of a good home-cooked meal. It turned out that Mrs. Wilkinson was a great believer in getting up early to put the sprouts on. At least the meat, while cold, was edible. He worked his way through, even the vegetables, which he’d always hated, and smiled.
For Laura, he smiled.
Zazz had decided on his revenge, and a way to cheer up Amy. He needed to call Chick. Accordingly, he excused himself after the meal to visit the bathroom and after a brief conversation, Chick promised to call him back when he had the answer. Then he went downstairs, ready to do battle if necessary.
At the bottom of the stairs he saw a familiar shape. Black-shrouded, it lay propped by the front door, its air of neglect palpable. As he went through to the main room, he asked Amy, “You play guitar?”
Amy glanced out to the hall, then shook her head. “No, that’s Laura’s.”
“Ah yes,” Mrs. Wilkinson said. “I meant to ask you about that. I was planning to drop it off at the charity shop next week. Unless you want to keep it.”
“Is there anything left of me in this house, Mum?”
Why didn’t her mother hear the hurt in Laura’s voice? Or did she, and chose to ignore it? “Not much. You took most of it when you left.”
“And you cleared the rest out.”
“I needed the space. Sorry, if you’d wanted to keep anything, you should have said. But when the girls stay over, they need somewhere to sleep. So should I take the guitar down to the shop?”
Since they’d mentioned it, Zazz took it on himself to go and fetch it. Unzipping the plastic shroud, he found a cheap acoustic, still stringed but hopelessly out of tune. One of the pegs was nearly slack, and when he tightened it, the string tensed and broke. Another had already gone. Mrs. Wilkinson said nothing. She didn’t need to. She had an expressive long-suffering sigh.
Four strings remained. Zazz tuned them. The instrument had a tinny sound. It reminded him of an abandoned Christmas present, after someone clueless had taken the advice of a bad salesman. It would never make a great sound. He perched on the arm of the sofa and played a tune. The first few notes of Rodriguez’s guitar concerto. Not that he could play the whole thing, he didn’t have the technique. And it needed a Spanish guitar, not a standard acoustic. So he gave up, remembered the song he had in his head, the one he was working on most at the moment, and played a few notes of that.
Interesting. Slightly wrong, kind of shallow and off.
“Would you like the guitar?” Although he hadn’t spoken loudly, Mr. Wilkinson’s voice easily intruded into Zazz’s thoughts. What must it have been like, to grow up with that kind of interference? His dad would have left him alone, maybe placed food in front of him if he was sober enough. But not intruded, unless Zazz asked for help.
“I’m sorry?”
“You seem to have taken to it. I don’t recognize that tune.”
He plucked a string, heard the fuzz in the tone. “I only wrote it recently. It’s not made it to an album yet.”
Gasps told him he’d created A Moment. If Anticlimax made it to a proper track, those girls would tell their friends, as if he was John fucking Lennon writing Imagine in their front room. Although Zazz guessed the song would always mean more to him than to anyone else. However he knew how his oddest, most melancholy music sometimes found a home in the hearts of the most unlikely people. “Yes, I’d like the guitar. Thank you.”
“But it’s awful,” Laura said. As he turned an amused gaze on her, she stammered, “T-that is the guitar, not you. You know I love your music.”
“Yes, I know. And thanks. That’s why I want it. The song is about fizzling out, things not working, and this is perfect. I want to repeat the initial pure melody on this at the end. It’s fucking perfect.”
Only when the room fell perfectly silent did he realize he’d uttered the forbidden F-word. Shit. And he’d behaved so well so far.
Suddenly, he’d had enough. He’d fallen over backward to please these people and they regarded him either with suspicion or adulation. He welcomed neither. Her brother wanted to make him his best buddy and her parents wanted to demonize him. He was Zazz, that and nothing else. He made his own way, and if people liked it, good. If they didn’t like it, good. He’d never tried to pass popularity contests, and now he knew why. Because it involved courting people he didn’t like.
The mist rose before his eyes, like red-light-infused dry ice, and he started to lose it. Then he looked at Laura and knew he must not. She was on edge, she must have seen his growing impatience. He set himself to calm down, to behave like a civilized person. Difficult but he managed it long enough to say, “I’m sorry but we have to leave soon. Thanks for a great meal.”
Ten minutes later the cab had arrived and they were out of there. He had the guitar case in his hand and his other wrapped around Laura’s.
Once in the taxi, she sighed and snuggled into the shelter of his arm in a way that made him feel good. “My parents seem to have discovered their soft side with their grandchildren. If either of the kids had wanted to learn the guitar, I’d never have seen it again.” She touched the case. “I know it’s a crap instrument, but I saved all my pocket money for months to buy it. It was all I could afford.”
“My dad would have kept it. He’d probably have made sure I had something better.” That gave him an idea. “Will you play for me?”
“What?”
“I want to hear what you do.”
She shook her head. “I’m not up to your standard—”
He put his free hand over hers. “Just do it for me, will you?”
Chapter Nine
She hadn’t wanted to go into work, but she had to make sure everything was okay and book the time off. The first thing she did was check on Jimmy. She called him, and he smugly told her Zazz had called that morning to chat with him.
“Yeah, and the rest. Jimmy, has the media been around?”
“Not so far.”
That was what she wanted to hear.
“Your friend’s calling around later,” Jimmy said.
“Oh?”
“Riku. Nice to have a fan again.”
“Jimmy, you always had fans. But take care.” What had Zazz said? That Riku could take shit and walk away? Dangerous for the people around him, especially an alcoholic and addict like Jimmy A. And something else Jimmy thrived on—admiration. He adored being the center of attention, and Riku would give him that.
She finished the call and glared across her desk at the one pushed against it, behind which sat Kelsie. “Was that your idea? To get Riku to visit Jimmy?”
“No, it wasn’t.” She lowered her voice. “He’s not made another date with me or anything else. Took my mobile number reluctantly. Do you think he’s gone off me? Already?”
Laura didn’t know Riku well enough to tell, and she said so. Kelsie had made up her eyes quite heavily this morning. Had she been crying? “Rock stars,” she said with a twisted grin. “Take what you get and keep it, but don’t ask for more. They’ll run a mile.”
Except Laura had asked for more, and he’d said yes. Shit, there was nobody like Zazz.
“Laura? Can I have a word?” Their boss, the slightly overweight, slightly balding Jeff Conrad called across the office. “Bring James Asaro’s file with you, please.”
Apprehension rose within her and she forced a deep breath before she composed her features and picked up the plastic file with Jimmy’s details. A fat file, denoting how long he’d been in the system and how they’d conspired to keep him alive and as healthy as they could. Not how she’d worked to keep him away from dealers and pubs. They had even more on electronic media, but some people in the department still preferred hard copy, so her office still had myriad filing cabinets ringing the central desk blocks. They probably kept the local cabinet and hang
ing file manufacturers in business.
Focusing her mind on Jimmy’s case, she stepped into the office and received a, “Close the door”. Uh-oh, not good. Anxiety filling her, she took a seat when Jeff indicated it and placed the file on the desk in front of her.
“Have you seen the papers?”
“The evening paper isn’t out yet,” she said, wondering where he was going with this, not daring to think.
“I daresay that’ll be full of it as well.” He gave her a gloomy glare.
He rotated the screen on his desk so she could see, and silently clicked through several screens.
By the end of it, she wanted to hide. This was national media and big gossip sites. Pictures of the kiss Zazz had given her in the press room, other pictures she hadn’t known they’d taken, of them with Riku and Kelsie outside Zazz’s father’s flat. All with salacious headlines, some of them puns on the Murder City Ravens’ songs, others comments that made her ears burn. Zazz Takes a Poke at Manchester was the crudest and the worst. One of their loudest songs was called Poke. They hadn’t done it on either of the nights.
“I’m switching your caseload,” he said bluntly. “You can have Mrs. Callaghan instead of Mr. Asaro. You can add her on your rounds after Mr. Gray.”
“You’re taking Jimmy away?” It didn’t take the analytic faculties of Sherlock Holmes for her to work that out.
He shrugged. “I don’t have much choice.”
Her world turned bleak. How could she go on with this job? Some social workers did it for the pleasure of helping others. Not the money, that was for sure. She’d known for a while that she did it because she’d found the degree the easiest to do, and then went along with the career plan. The unemployment queues scared her, and so far she’d avoided them. Enjoy her job? Sometimes, especially when she came across someone like Jimmy A—colorful, bright and a joy to visit.
If she looked on the bright side, she could hope that Mrs. Callaghan was a bright old lady, one who had a fund of anecdotes. But she could easily be the complaining type, or one of the ones who lived in squalor. Once she’d had to call out the district nurse to someone, and they’d had to unstick the woman from her bed. Not the poor old lady’s fault, but not a pleasant task. Laura realized that had formed her turning point, when she decided she didn’t enjoy the job. But who enjoyed what they did for a living?
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