by John Harding
Hazel hummed. “They want me to do the same. Strip in the town and sing.” Paige laughed, and even Hazel gave a titter. “I've said if you go to number one, I will. Please don't get to number one.”
“I won't,” Paige promised. “I doubt we will even chart. Ever. But you really sound happier now.”
“I am,” her little sister replied. “My big sister is 'bout to be a big star.”
“Everyone keeps telling me that but I'll believe it when it happens.”
Chapter XV
“Hello?” Claire answered her phone after checking the number and looked across at Paige and Jack, with a raised eyebrow. “What can we do for you, Andre? It's two in the morning.”
“I would like to be your agent,” the man told her, and Claire put her smartphone on loudspeaker.
“Pardon?” Claire asked.
“I want to be your agent,” he slurred, and she heard him shuffle. “I know we were demanding and unfair, but I do love your music.” Claire looked at Paige who slowly shook her head. “And I know you're still unsigned, so please, let me work with you.”
“We aren't too convinced,” Claire announced. “And it's 2am. What the hell is going on?”
“OK. I'll be honest. If we don't get your signature, then I'm finished. My uncle and me. We've been around for decades, but we've lost some key clients, and we've had a bit of a … er … well a bit of a setback with some new artists. And bank need us to have new clients. And so we seriously need your business, and I really liked you.”
Claire hummed, but Paige sat up and looked at the phone. “Us signing with you should be good for, like, both of us. Not just to stop you going bankrupt!”
“Is that Paige?” Andre asked. “I know I said some things, but I think you guys are going to be huge.”
“Thanks to Claire,” Paige reminded him. “I don't think we need an agent. Claire's got it all sorted. But we do need some sleep, so good night.”
“I … I … look I've got some favours to call in. It honestly would be last roll of the dice for my uncle and me. And we'd throw everything at you.” Paige gulped. “I'm begging. Please. At least meet with me and hear me out. I really would work extremely hard for you. It’d be you and just you.”
Claire stared at Paige and Jack. Paige rubbed her eyes and swore. “Why now? Why … I don't get it.”
“Can we call you back?” Claire asked.
“Yeah, like when the Sun thing is in the sky and not the moon.”
They heard a sniff from the end of the telephone and a grunt. “Yeah OK.”
There was silence as Claire pushed the “red” button on her smartphone. “He's got a bloody cheek,” Jack proclaimed angrily as Claire's phone went dark and the only light source in the tent disappeared. “A real cheek. To say that and to ring us.”
Claire sighed and rubbed the back of her hair. “You know, I think Paige could do with an agent.”
“But he's … he's pub football in the park not Premier League. He's amateur hour. But it's up to Paige.”
“Excellent. Then I say, let's go to sleep.”
“Paige,” Claire moaned.
“So it's not up to me?” Paige replied and looked behind her. “The agent thing is up to all of us. I don't know. I am not sure if I want an agent at all, but if I am going to have one then he's less … bossy … than the other ones.”
“There's something wrong with him,” Jack replied. “Paige deserves better.”
“Will you stop saying that?” The talented singer snapped into the darkness. “It's about us, not me.”
“Well, if we want to make it big, then we need to get into the MP3 stores like iTunes and Amazon and stuff. We need a video shot and …”
“And we don't want to give 8%,” Jack added. “He can sod right off.”
“What then. 1%?”
“No higher than 2.5,” Jack countered. “And what about merchandise?”
“Can't we discuss this when I am awake,” Paige moaned, and Claire lay back down in her sleeping bag.
“It's just …” Claire muttered into the darkness.
“What?” Jack asked.
“Well, he seems quite desperate tonight.”
“We could get a better deal, you mean.”
“Absolutely,” Claire replied. “Perhaps if …”
“Perhaps if you two want to share the double sleeping bag if you want to talk business at 2am in the sodding morning,” Paige snapped. “And seriously Jack, if you want to discuss business, please don't get a stiffy and stick it in my bloody back as you cuddle up to me.”
“Cuddle, eh?” Claire teased. “Hey, that could start a rumour.” Paige snorted. “Well you two have shared the double sleeping bag all trip,” she teased.
“I am too tired for this discussion,” Paige moaned. “OK. Do we have to do Andre now?”
“Yes,” Claire said excitedly. While Claire was keen to enlist the help of the agent, they had decided on a maximum commission, and a set of demands that Claire was only too happy to ring him to discuss.
“We are not prepared to pay eight percent,” she told him. “We are viewing it at considerably less than that. We want our songs and album on iTunes, and we want a video,” she demanded from the weary man. “Oh, and we want to discuss it with you in 36 hours time.”
“Sure, I'll set up a meeting in our office.”
“In our office,” Claire said to a snigger from her band mates. “It's a green tent in a camp site.” Andre groaned. “If you hadn't had been so awkward from the start then this wouldn't be necessary,” Claire reminded him. “Do we have an agreement?”
“Yeah,” he grunted, and Claire promised to ring him in the morning with directions to where they would be.
* * * * *
Claire giggled as she grabbed Jack's hand. “Where's Paige?”
“She is over there,” she replied and pointed to a craft stall. They were not used to seeing Paige dressed, but they were at a festival and had to be clothed – at least until their performance.
The organisers had subtly asked Claire whether they could be clothed for their show as they had been spoken to by the local Police who were keen to “keep the peace,” but Claire reminded them that they were the “Bare Necessities” and the audience would expect them to be unclothed.
The harassed-looking woman disappeared before returning and demanding that Claire and Paige take to the stage with their genitals covered. “You can be topless,” the woman told her. “But you can't go on naked.”
Claire hummed. “If we say we can't get dressed, you won't let us on stage?”
“We will not let you on stage undressed,” Claire was told. She looked at Jack who was listening in.
“Sure,” Jack told her. “We can do.”
“Can we?”
“Yeah,” Jack told her. “I can promise you that none of us will go onto the stage undressed.” The woman gave a sigh of relief.
“Thank you. You don't know what pressure we've been under. Some talk show host and some Christian group have encouraged people to write into us for giving you a platform, and now the Police have come to see us. We've never had this before, but … well you are a little controversial.”
“What's Paige going to say?” Claire snapped the moment the lady had left their vicinity. “She is going to flip.”
“I never said we would remain clothed,” Jack replied. “Listen to what she said. We can't go on naked, so we won't.”
Claire's expression changed. “Cheeky,” she giggled. “OK, I like. I like a lot.”
“Good,” Jack muttered.
“Ahh look, sleeping bags. Singles,” Claire pointed out as they meandered down an aisle of stalls.
Jack muttered. “I quite like sharing.”
“I bet you do.”
“No, it's nice. It's like having a cuddly hot-water bottle.” Claire burst out laughing, and Jack grinned mischievously. “I am not giving that up for anything.”
“OK. What about this, wind chimes?”
> “We haven't anywhere to hang them,” Jack moaned. “And they are not going in my car.”
“Herbal car fresheners?” Claire teased. “Or what about this. Tattoos and piercings.”
Jack shook his head, and Claire smirked. “I've always wanted my belly button pierced.”
“Well go on then,” Jack told her. “I'll wait.”
“I don't want to do it on my own.”
“Well I don't want anything pierced!”
She pursed her lips and batted her eyelids. “For me! I thought proper rockers loved tats and piercings? Have a tattoo.”
“Well I am not a proper rocker then!” Claire shrugged and scowled. “Sorry, I don't like those places. Go with Paige.” She frowned and moaned, but they walked on, bought a drink from the bar, and Jack tried some home-made chilli jam that caused him to splutter. “Are you annoyed with me?” Jack asked Claire as they meandered back towards their tent.
“No,” Claire snapped. “Not really.”
“Then … why the face?”
“Nothing,” she replied and then looked at him. “OK, come in with me to have my belly button pierced. I don't expect you to have anything done, but come with me. Please.”
Jack snorted. “They aren't clean.”
“It'll be fine. Let's at least look.” Claire grabbed Jack by the arm and guided him towards the little tattooist to have her navel pierced. Jack watched and held onto Claire's hand as she flinched when the piercing was made and was resolute that no part of his body was to going to be a playground for the tattooist's talents, despite encouragement from his band-mate.
Claire openly admired her little metal bar that adorned her teenage body and Jack had to admit it looked good on her before they left. “I bet Paige wants one now,” he told her. “And I never had you down to get a piercing.”
“If I can play the guitar naked in front of thousands of people then I can have a bit of my body pierced,” she replied and flashed him a smile.
* * * * *
Claire was late walking onto the stage, by which time the crowd were noisy and excited. “What bloody time do you call this?” Paige asked her into her microphone with a smile. Both of the girls were topless but were wearing white knickers.
“I was going for a wee,” Claire shouted back and reached for her own microphone. “Did you go?”
“No, I just wee on the front row,” Paige teased as the crowd giggled. “If you think it's raining later, well sorry!” The audience at the small festival appreciated her joke, and she clapped her hands together and looked out over the thousand-strong audience. “Big shout out to Stroud. This is the biggest audience we've ever played to, and we hope you enjoy it!”
Claire looked at her colleague and then nodded. “The organisers of the festival have demanded that we do not perform naked,” Claire announced. “Do you think this right or not?”
Paige held the microphone out to the crowd as a small volley of boos came from the festivalgoers. “Is that a yes or a no?” Paige asked and received a deafening sound of disapproval. “We better get naked then?” Paige replied, and all three of them took off their clothing and threw it to one side. They saw the furious glance of the festival organisers at the back of the crowd, but Claire just waved at them.
“We didn't go on stage naked,” Claire shouted to them with a smile. The naked Paige looked at Jack and Claire, and Jack started his introduction to Don't Leave Me. The small festival soon filled, and the Bare Necessities found themselves playing in front of a much larger crowd as the audience swelled.
They were a late addition to the line-up and were not on the posters advertising the festival. Claire had managed to get them as a warm-up act on a small stage in the mid-afternoon after a Scottish rock band had cancelled at the last moment, but as word spread that the Internet sensations were performing live, their admirers could not fit in the area assigned to them.
Paige could see the ever increasing numbers of people joining them and tried to get a few people to strip naked; the festival was not a clothing-optional site, but Paige promised that they would do an encore for as long as the festival organisers would allow if a dozen people stripped.
There was laughter, reticence and then nervousness as the demanding girl wandered up and down the stage, offering encouragement to various attendees who looked undecided. “Come on,” she told a teenage girl. “You can come and join me on stage!” The guy behind her hollered and Paige pointed at him. “And you, sir.”
Paige managed to get a number of people down to their underpants and the odd drunken patron to strip naked, and she started singing again. The festival organisers didn't object as the Bare Necessities overshot their allotted time by more than two hours, and as the band left the stage, Paige and her band mates received a raucous cheer.
The band got dressed, and Jack opened the boot to his car that was parked a few metres away. They had a couple of guys from the festival to help, but they loaded their equipment in the car while the musicians that followed them got set up. Paige had time for a little chat with them and was amazed at how well known she appeared to be.
“Watch out,” Claire muttered as two of the festival organisers strode over to the car, slipping in the churned up earth.
“What the hell was that?” The woman asked. “You promised us, you wouldn't be naked.”
“We promised you, we wouldn't go on stage naked,” Claire corrected her. “And we didn't. And we asked our audience if it was OK to perform like that and they said it was fine.”
The scowling woman crossed her arms. “We should have cut you off,” she spat.
“And then you would have had hundreds of angry people,” Jack reminded her.
“We made a promise to the Police and you have broken that. They will be furious.” Paige sneered in derision. “You are now banned from Stroud Festival,” she told them. “And we will not be paying you.”
“Hang on,” Jack told her. “We did three hours of music straight. We filled our stage. We …”
“Get out!” She hissed. “Or we will call the Police.”
“You haven't heard the last of this,” Claire warned her, and the three band members got into their car and, under the watchful eye of the organiser, drove into the service road, and out through the back of the estate to travel to a small hostel thirty-five miles away.
Paige was angry at their treatment, but didn't care too much about not being paid. “It was a massive audience,” she told them. “It shows we are popular.”
“And if we put on the website we were thrown out of Stroud, that'll get us notoriety,” Claire suggested.
“We don't want notoriety,” Paige replied. “Do we? We've enough of that.”
“No, well what could be better than being thrown out of a festival for being naked? That's awesome!”
Jack slowed on the country road and go around the bend and accelerated onto the straight when a car flashed its lights in his mirror. He ignored it, but the car flashed its lights again and again. A blue flashing light appeared, and Jack swore. “Might have a light out,” he moaned and slowed his vehicle to stop in a passing place.
The Policeman got out of the car and strode up towards Jack's vehicle. Jack opened his window. “What's up officer?”
“Paige Simmons, Claire Baynes, Jack Rees-Montague. I am arresting you contrary to the Sexual Offences Act 2003. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioning something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be written down and may be used as evidence against you. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Claire muttered and looked at Paige, stunned.
“What the hell have we done?” Paige asked but was hauled out of the car before anything was explained to her.
Chapter XVI
“I need my belt,” Jack moaned. “Keep my trousers up.”
“After what you've been doing tonight, that should be the least of your worries.” Jack reluctantly passed the wisecracking Se
rgeant his black leather belt and Paige smirked at him. “Cell six.”
“I'll get us a lawyer,” Jack promised the two girls as he was led away and Paige was pushed forward.
“Name?”
“You know my name,” Paige told him with a scowl. “I was arrested, and the office knew my name.”
“She's an awkward one, Sarge.”
Paige's scowl deepened. “Perhaps I would be less awkward if I hadn't just been arrested and have no idea why.” The desk sergeant looked back at her and repeated his question. “Paige. Paige Simmons. Now can someone tell me what the hell is going on? He said sexual offences, but I ain't touched nobody.”
