White Christmas in Saigon

by Margaret Pemberton

  She began to laugh so helplessly she could hardly speak. ‘I’m a nightclub singer, Michel,’ she protested at last, her voice still full of giggles at his idiocy. ‘I sing slow melodic stuff. Torch songs. Committed, passionate love songs. I couldn’t become Brenda Lee or Connie Stevens if I tried.’

  Michel reached out towards the plate of cookies that her mother had brought in. Like all Gabrielle’s friends, he seldom visited her at home, but when he did, Vanh always went out of her way to make him feel welcome. She found his bespectacled, intellectual appearance reassuring. He seemed to her more like a student or a young schoolmaster than a musician.

  ‘No one would want you to,’ he said, grinning. ‘You’re far too sexy to be a teenybopper’s delight, and an imitative Miss Lee or Miss Stevens isn’t at all what Radford has in mind.’

  ‘Radford?’ she asked, intrigued despite the fact that rock and roll was not her style.

  He finished eating his cookie and leaned towards her, his hands clasped loosely between his knees, his eyes alight with enthusiasm. ‘Radford James. He’s an American. Black, talented, and very, very ambitious.’

  She began to laugh again. ‘So what is new, chéri?’ she asked, leaning over the crib at the side of her chair and tucking the blankets more securely around her sleeping son. ‘What is so special about this particular talented, ambitious American?’

  ‘What is special about him is the sound he has come up with,’ Michel said in a voice that was so unequivocal that Gabrielle raised her eyebrows slightly. As a musician, Michel was a perfectionist, and he was not impressed easily.

  ‘He had some success with an all-male, all-black group in America in 1964, but they were too like a hundred other groups for them to make any real impression. When the music scene moved to London he followed it, playing the clubs, and at the end of the year he formed a new band. Instrumentally they’re great. A hard-edged mixture of black soul and honest-to-goodness rock. More Rolling Stones than Beatles. What he needs now is a lead vocalist. Someone with blatant sex appeal and with the raw-edged quality to their voice that whips up an audience’s emotions. He thought he’d found someone. A girl from Liverpool who, like Lennon and Jagger, sounds black when she sings. They played bottom of the bill on a tour in February, and stole the show. Since then they’ve picked up a record contract and done a month-long tour of the States. Next month they’re booked to appear at what is going to be the biggest open-air pop festival ever held in France.’

  ‘And?’ Gabrielle prompted impatiently, wondering when he was going to come to the point.

  ‘And their lead singer has walked out on them. She’s married a South African businessman and returned with him to Johannesburg. Radford needs a female singer. Urgently. A female singer who isn’t imitative of any other singer at present on the pop scene. I think that what he needs is you.’

  She shook her head, the sun streaming through the window behind her highlighting her titian hair with gold. ‘No,’ she said, wondering why she found such a ridiculous idea tempting. ‘My style is too individualistic for me ever to become a pop singer, Michel.’

  ‘You’re wrong!’ His voice was vehement. ‘I know this could be a turning point for you, Gabrielle! I can feel it in my blood and in my bones! The band is already on the verge of becoming as big as the Stones, or the Beatles or Bob Dylan! When you meet Radford, you’ll know why I feel so certain that he’s going to be a major star. And when you hear the music, I know you’ll want to be a part of it.’

  His eyes were so intense, his voice so certain, the laughter that had been rising in her throat died away. To her surprise, she heard herself saying, ‘All right, Michel. All right. If you feel so passionately about this American, then I will meet him.’

  His grin split his face. ‘I knew you would! I knew it was a challenge you wouldn’t be able to resist!’

  She tilted her head to one side, looking at him curiously. ‘Why is this so important to you?’ she asked, puzzled. ‘After all, if Radford likes my voice, and if I begin to sing with his band, then we will not be working together anymore. And we have worked well together, chéri, haven’t we?’

  She wasn’t flirting with him. It was a plain statement of fact.

  His grin died and his eyes behind his thick-lensed glasses were embarrassed, ‘Yes,’ he said awkwardly. ‘We have worked well together, Gabrielle. We will still work well together, for I will still arrange the music for the songs that you compose. Only now I shall have another satisfaction as well.’

  A flush of colour touched his cheeks, and he paused for so long that Gabrielle thought he was never going to find the courage to finish what he had begun to say. At last he said, the colour in his face deepening, ‘I shall know in the years ahead that it was because you trusted me and acted on my advice that you became a star. And you will become a star, Gabrielle. You will become a world-famous star. It is impossible for you to be anything else.’

  Gabrielle doubted that Radford James would be interested in hiring her as his lead vocalist. Though part of her success came from her effortlessly erotic stage presence, it was her ability to sing love songs in a husky, knowing voice that made her unique.

  ‘So why go?’ Vanh asked bewilderedly. ‘There is no need for you to earn money. Gavin has arranged for part of his salary to be paid direct to you, has he not?’

  Gabrielle nodded, laying le petit Gavin in a Moses basket. ‘Yes.’ The money that Gavin had arranged to be transferred from his salary to her had been the source of their only argument. In Gabrielle’s opinion, the amount was far too much. Gavin had insisted that it wasn’t, that he would be living almost exclusively on expenses in Saigon and therefore wouldn’t need the greater half of his salary. And that she would.

  ‘Then I don’t understand,’ Vanh repeated. She was seated at the kitchen table and she looked across the room at Gabrielle forlornly. ‘I thought that you would not be working any longer, ma chére, that we would be at home together with le petit Gavin.’

  Gabrielle knew very well that that was what her mother had been hoping for, and she had always known that she would have to disappoint her.

  ‘I cannot stay at home all day, every day, Maman,’ she said gently. ‘It isn’t good that you do so. You should go for a walk every afternoon. Pass a few words with Madame Castries. Visit Madame Gariae. Make some friends.’

  Her mother gave a shrug of her shoulders that was almost Gallic, saying a trifle sulkily, ‘In Saigon it was easy, ma chére. We had so many friends – educated, wealthy people. People who respected us. Now, when Papa has no position…’

  ‘You must forget the way that we lived in Saigon, Maman,’ Gabrielle said firmly. ‘Madame Castries and Madame Garine are neither wealthy nor educated, but they would be good friends to you if you would allow them to be.’ Michel’s car horn tooted loudly. ‘Do you promise me that you will try?’ she said, walking across to the door and opening it, pausing for a moment. ‘That you will go for a walk and buy a paper from Madame Castries and pass the time of day with her? And that you will knock on Madame Garine’s door and ask her if she would like to come upstairs and share a pot of coffee with you.’

  Michel’s car horn tooted again, this time more insistently, and Vanh said reluctantly, ‘All right, ma chére. For your sake, I will try.’

  Gabrielle gave her a dazzling smile, blew her a kiss, as with the Moses basket and its precious cargo in one hand, hurried down the stone stairs.

  The room Radford James and his band were using for rehearsals was above a bistro in one of the streets in the maze around the place de la Bastille. Michel’s ancient Citroën coughed and spluttered down the rue de Rivoli nearly coming to grief with a sleek Mercedes at the corner of the rue de Sévigné.

  ‘What makes you so sure that Radford James will even listen to me?’ she asked, turning towards the backseat to make sure that the Moses basket was safe.

  The driver of the Mercedes was still hurling verbal abuse in their wake. Michel ignored him, saying complacently, �
�Because he has already heard you sing.’

  ‘When? Where?’ she exclaimed indignantly. ‘You never

  told me!’

  A grin split his angular, almost adolescent features. ‘He heard you the night of your last performance at the Black Cat.’ He swerved into the rue de Birague, a cloud of exhaust fumes in his wake. ‘There’s something else I haven’t told you.’

  ‘And what is that?’ There was a dangerous gleam in her eye. His voice was so sheepish, she knew that whatever it was, she wasn’t going to like it.

  He drew to a halt outside a bistro, the sound of rock music blasting the Street from the upper Windows. ‘He has copies of all the songs you’ve written,’ he said, making a speedy exit from the car.

  ‘Merde!’ she flared furiously, opening her own door, and then the rear door, hoisting the basket from the backseat. ‘How dare you, Michel! That really is awful of you! Really—’

  She broke off, forgetting her incensed indignation as the music hit her ears in a wall of sound. ‘Tiens!’ she said in stunned amazement. ‘How many musicians are in this rock band? Fifty?’

  Michel laughed, leading the way inside and up a flight of bare wooden stairs. ‘Seven at the moment. Three guitars, two bass, two pianos.’

  A Fool in Love merged into Nowhere to Run. At the top of the stairs they crossed a small landing and walked into a large room, bare except for the musicians and their instruments and a black woman in a red leather minidress, singing the Nowhere to Run number in a voice that was a passably good imitation of Martha Reeves’s.

  ‘Fine, baby. Great,’ a voice said dismissively. ‘That’s all for now, I’ll be in touch.’

  The woman looked as though she were going to argue the point, and then, as he turned away from her and toward Gabrielle and Michel, decided against it, shrugging a jacket around her shoulders and walking quickly from the room, flashing Gabrielle a look of frustrated fury as she did so.

  ‘Well,’ Radford James said uncaringly, standing with his fingers splayed on his hips in a gesture that would have been effeminate in a man less sinfully masculine. ‘You’re actually here, baby!’ White teeth flashed the broadest smile that she had ever seen.

  He was tall and loose-limbed, broad shoulders tapering down to a lean waist, the narrowness of his hips erotically emphasized by the tightness of faded blue denim. He was younger than she had anticipated, twenty-two or twenty-three, and his skin was so dark and smooth that there was almost a sheen to it.

  She was flooded with a sense of immediate rapport, as if meeting for the first time someone she had always known.

  ‘Yes, I’m actually here,’ she said, laughter bubbling up in her throat as she put the Moses basket down and walked towards him.

  He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen, and she knew that the rapport blazing between them was inextricably mixed with instant, almost overwhelming sexual attraction. If they had met a year earlier, she knew she would have had no hesitation in tumbling into his bed. But they hadn’t met a year earlier, and she was married to Gavin, and the only bed she was ever going to tumble into was his.

  Radford took hold of her hands, laughing down at her, his eyes telling her everything she already knew. ‘Honey, when I saw you onstage I knew you were only a little-bitty thing, but hell, offstage you ain’t no bigger than a minute!’

  Gabrielle gave a throaty chuckle. She was wearing stiletto-high heels that added at least four inches to her height. She resisted the temptation to step out of them, and also the temptation to tell him that though she was petite, she had a big voice. He would find that out soon enough. As would Michel.

  A smile quirked her mouth as Radford began to lead her towards the nearest piano. The songs she sang in the clubs never required her to give her voice full rein. She didn’t know if the next few minutes were going to be a surprise for Radford, but she knew that they were going to be a shock for Michel.

  ‘What would you like me to sing?’ she asked, knowing that whatever it was, she would be able to do it just the way he wanted to hear it.

  He looked down at her, an eyebrow rising slightly at her buoyant confidence. ‘You know that this is a real long shot, don’t you? I mean, I want a big voice as well as one packed with emotion. I know you have the emotion. But we’re not a small-club band, and I don’t want a small-club singing voice.’

  ‘You’re not going to get one,’ Gabrielle said with sudden gentleness, knowing that he was nervous because he so desperately wanted her voice to be right.

  Something unspoken, almost atavistic, passed between them. ‘Okay,’ he said softly. ‘Okay, girl. We’ll give it a try with one of your own songs. I’ve kept the structure and the basic melody, but you’re going to find the treatment a hell of a lot different. Sit tight while we play it through and then, when you’re ready, come in with the vocal.’

  She stood by the side of the piano, and from the moment they played the opening riff she knew that Michel had been right. The sound was sensational. Blues oriented and gritty. And it was a sound that was backing her song. She looked across at Michel and flashed him a wide smile, trying to dispel the tension she knew he was feeling. It was going to be okay. Her nerve endings tingled with anticipation. It was going to be more than okay. It was going to be the start of a whole new career.

  She stood very still for the few seconds before they began to play the song through for the second time and then, as the opening riff, honed razor sharp, hit the air, she launched herself away from the piano, dancing to the centre of the room, the sound tearing out of her.

  She never had to ask if she was good. The roar of applause from the band and from Radford and, Michel, when the last note had been played, told her everything.

  ‘Girl, you can sing,’ Radford whooped exultantly, whipping them straight into Peaches ‘n’ Cream and then I’m Ready for Love, song following song, some of them songs she had written herself and that Radford had already worked on with his band, some of them classic oldies. Only when le petit Gavin, overwhelmed by hunger, began to cry lustily, did the session come to an end.

  ‘I guess that’s it for today, baby,’ Radford said as she wiped the perspiration from her face and lifted her crying son into her arms. ‘How does it feel to be a queen of rock?’

  ‘It feels great.’ Her face was radiant, her heart still slamming against her chest, her pulse racing, perspiration trickling down her neck and her back.

  He flashed her a dazzling, down-slanting smile. ‘Wait till you give the same kind of performance under lights, honeychild. Then you’ll know where it’s at!’

  She had undone her sweat-soaked shirt and the baby was nuzzling at her breast. He had never before met anyone like her. She was so petite, so guileless, so effortlessly sexy. And she wasn’t about to take their mutual, almost crucifying attraction for each other to its logical conclusion. Her apologetic refusal to the unspoken question he had asked within seconds of meeting her was clear and unmistakable in her eyes.

  He wondered why. He didn’t believe for a moment that she was the kind of lady who would allow a husband and a child to hamper her natural inclinations. Not unless she wanted them to. And if she wanted them to, then it meant she had to be simply crazy in love. He wondered who her husband was, that he commanded faithfulness from a lady whose sexual appetite was, he was sure, as uninhibited and as wide-ranging as his own.

  The open-air concert was to be held on the last Saturday of the month. For the next two weeks they met daily in the room above the bistro, Michel taking on the role of baby-sitter and audience as Radford had Gabrielle and the band rehearse numbers over and over, constantly altering the material, and improvising and discarding.

  ‘That’s very close,’ he would say sometimes when they were all near to dropping with exhaustion. ‘That’s very close, but it’s not quite it. Let’s try it again.’

  ‘You know that if this comes off, the record contract is in the bag, don’t you?’ Michel asked her, dangling le petit Gavin on his knee as Gabrielle ner
vously gathered together the dress she was going to wear, and her white leather stage boots, and her makeup.

  ‘Yes.’ She couldn’t allow herself to think about the record contract. All she could think of was the concert. In two hours she would make her debut as a rock singer. And at least two of the songs she had written would get a massive hearing.

  ‘I haven’t forgotten anything, have I, chéri?’ she asked, looking around the apartment, the dress and boots in one hand, her makeup bag in the other.

  ‘No.’ He was almost as nervous as she was. The concert wasn’t just any old pop concert. It was going to be televised. It was going to reach an audience of millions. The cream of British and American rock groups had travelled to France especially to participate. The very best groups that France possessed had hustled to be with them on the bill.

  ‘Ça va. Then I’m ready,’ she said, her sumptuous red hair framing her face in an untamed riot of waves and curls.

  Her mother came into the room, startled as always by Michel’s easy, confident handling of her grandson. ‘There is a letter for you, ma chére. It is from Saigon. And it is not from Nhu.’

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ Gabrielle did the impossible. She forgot about the concert, opening the envelope with trembling fingers, reading Gavin’s untidy scrawl with a fast-beating heart.

  ‘—and so I’m back from Da Nang now, and I think the Buddhists are going to run out of steam,’ he had written toward the end of his letter. ‘Nhu thinks they never had a chance since they can’t offer any alternative political leadership. Your aunt Nhu is quite a girl! Very vital and very positive. She’s taken me under her wing, and from now on life looks as if it’s going to be very interesting indeed—’ He ended by saying that he missed her like the very devil, and he sent her all his love.

  ‘Good news?’ Michel asked, his nervousness increasing. If it was bad news, he would never forgive her mother for having handed her the letter two hours before the most important concert of her life.