by Paige Toon
‘It’s okay,’ Johnny says, going over to him. ‘You like this?’
I slump down on one of the ridiculously comfy sofas. Johnny crouches next to Barney and lets him pluck the strings.
‘Why don’t you play him something?’ I suggest.
Most people would modestly decline, but Johnny doesn’t. It’s refreshing.
He spins his guitar around and sits cross-legged on the floor. His chest is still bare and there’s not an ounce of fat on his stomach. Barney watches, fixated as he starts to strum.
‘Sing, too,’ I urge from my comfy sofa position, smirking now because I’m probably pushing my luck.
Johnny glances up at me and raises one eyebrow before looking back at Barney. He plays a different, jaunty tune.
‘Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O . . .’
I laugh as Barney starts to clap.
‘And on that farm he had a pig. E-I-E-I-O . . .’
Johnny stops playing and chuckles, shaking his head. ‘Nah, you can do the nursery rhymes, but I want my son to be raised on real music.’
I watch him, amused, as he starts to play something else. I recognise it, but don’t know what it is until he gets to the chorus:
‘Hey, Mister Tambourine Man, play a song for me . . .’
‘Isn’t that about drugs?’ I tease over the music. Johnny rolls his eyes and carries on playing. I smile to myself and listen to his deep, beautiful voice. Barney, next to him, is absolutely enthralled. For the first time in way too long, I feel content.
It’s at times like this that I remember why I loved Johnny.
A feeling of déjà vu strikes me, and I recall thinking the same thing about Christian only a few weeks ago. I interrupt him before the song comes to an end.
‘So,’ I say, all business-like. ‘We’ve got a bit of a problem.’
Johnny stops playing and puts his guitar down. ‘What?’
‘My sister and her husband have besieged us.’
‘Hey?’
‘My sister, Susan, and her husband, Tony, have landed on my parents’ doorstep in search of fame and fortune. Your fame and fortune, to be more precise.’
‘Ah.’
Barney starts to pluck the guitar strings, distracting Johnny. He strokes his hair affectionately.
‘Johnny.’ I try to regain his attention.
‘What? Oh, yeah. What’s the big deal?’
‘Have I never told you about my sister before? Scrap that, I know I haven’t. She’s a pain in the arse. We won’t be able to go to the house now. We’ll have to hang out here.’
‘Why?’ He pulls a face. ‘Is she going to knife me through the heart?’
‘Unlikely,’ I say wryly. ‘She and Tony will just spend the whole time pretending that they’re not interested in you in any way whatsoever and that they don’t care that you’re some big celebrity – even though they clearly do.’
‘So? It’s not like I haven’t dealt with that sort of thing before.’
‘It’s embarrassing,’ I point out.
‘Fuck it. Whoops,’ he apologises. ‘Don’t worry about it, Nutmeg. Let’s go and meet them.’
I hesitate. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep.’
‘Don’t say you haven’t been warned.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Okay, then. But play another song first.’
He grins and starts to strum.
‘Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees . . .’
Barney giggles, and pretty soon I do, too.
‘What’s his name again?’ Johnny asks as he pulls up outside my parents’ place. He insisted on driving – way too fast, I might add – and I had to give him directions the whole way.
‘Tony,’ I reply. ‘And she’s Susan.’
‘Got that.’ He unclicks his seat belt.
‘Oh!’ I cry, suddenly remembering a very important piece of information. ‘They don’t know about Barney.’
‘What do you mean?’ He turns to look at me with confusion.
‘They don’t know that Barney is yours.’
‘What the hell do they think I’m doing here, then?’ he exclaims.
‘I guess they think we’ve stayed friends,’ I reply uneasily. ‘They never knew about you and me, either,’ I add quickly, feeling my face heat up at the thought that he might assume that I bragged about it to anyone.
‘This is going to be awkward, then.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I did warn you.’
No reply.
‘Shall we go back to your hotel?’ I ask tetchily. Like I wanted to come here, anyway.
‘No, f-f-fudge it,’ he corrects himself and instantly smirks at his own ingenuity. ‘Let’s have some fun.’ He climbs out of the car. ‘Susan! Tony!’ he calls as he opens the front door – my parents rarely lock it.
‘Is that him?’ I hear my sister squeak in entirely unconcealed surprise.
‘Yes,’ my dad replies unflappably.
I groan.
‘Who? Johnny Jefferson?’ Tony asks in disbelief.
Dur . . . Who else, you idiot?
‘Yes, it’s the one and only!’ Johnny cries gleefully down the corridor.
I hurry around the corner just in time to see Johnny engulf Susan in a massive bear hug.
‘Tony,’ he says affectionately, breaking away from my flabbergasted sister. ‘Come here, you.’ Over Johnny’s shoulder, Tony gives Susan a look of unparalleled incredulity. Susan looks like she’s going to burst. Even more than she usually does.
Oh, dear, I’ve obviously got the bitch in me today. I blame Jeannette the receptionist.
‘We were about to have lunch,’ my mum says, beaming at this turn of events.
‘Great, Cynthia! I’m starving,’ Johnny says, clapping his hands together. I give him a wry look and he winks at me as we head outside to the terrace table.
‘That was totally over the top,’ I say later, much to Johnny’s amusement. He’s about to drive himself back to the hotel in the GTI. By some miracle, he didn’t drink anything alcoholic today. I’m standing on the driveway, talking to him through the window.
‘What that was, Nutmeg, was fun.’
‘Will you stop calling me Nutmeg?’ I ask.
‘Nope.’
‘No, I didn’t think you would.’ I roll my eyes at him. ‘God only knows what Susan and Tony would be like if they found out Barney was yours.’
‘If?’ Johnny queries. ‘Don’t you mean, when?’
My lips turn down and I shrug.
‘We are going to tell them, aren’t we?’ he says, in a tone that implies we’d bloody well better.
‘Fine, if you want it plastered all over the tabloids.’
‘They wouldn’t do that,’ he scoffs.
‘You don’t know my sister.’
‘I know that she’s your sister,’ he replies. ‘I don’t believe she’d sell a story about you.’
‘Hmm, maybe not. But I still don’t want to tell her yet.’ I regard him curiously. ‘Have you told Dana?’
‘Nope.’
‘When are you planning on doing that?’
‘When the time’s right. She’s already peeved at me for dis appearing out of LA for days on end.’
‘What have you told her you’re doing?’
He shrugs. ‘Writing.’
He always did use to disappear on impromptu writing trips. I remember feeling horribly insecure about it. I shudder at the memory of that girl; that girl I used to be. I’ll never let myself get in a position like that, ever again.
‘Right, you’d better be off,’ I say.
‘Yep.’ He turns the key in the ignition. ‘See you in the morning?’
‘We’ll be waiting.’ I cast a look over my shoulder at the house, then turn back to him and say with widened, crazy eyes, ‘We will all be waiting . . .’
He shakes his head with amusement before driving away.
Chapter 22
Johnny doesn’t turn up until after one o’clock the follow
ing day and it nearly drives Susan and Tony around the bend. I can see them continually checking their watches. Even my parents are distracted.
‘Why don’t you go out for the day?’ I suggest at about eleven o’clock to annoy them.
‘No, we’re happy here, thank you,’ Susan replies tersely, but forty-five minutes later, she erupts. ‘Where the hell is he?’
I shrug. ‘This is what he’s like.’ Although, inside, I’m getting a little bit irate myself. What the hell has he been doing all morning? I tried calling him earlier, to no avail. I hope he’s not nursing a hangover. I’ll be really pissed off.
Sure enough, when he does finally turn up, it’s in dark sunglasses and looking the worse for wear. I answer the door to him.
‘You’ve been drinking.’ It’s not a question.
‘And?’
‘This isn’t a bloody holiday, Johnny. You’re here to get to know Barney.’
‘I am getting to know him,’ he replies unapologetically.
‘I don’t want you drinking around my son!’ I’m starting to get worked up.
‘I’m not drinking around my son,’ he replies.
‘What are you doing, boozing on your own, anyway? That should be the clearest sign to you that you’ve got a problem.’
‘Who said I was drinking on my own?’ he asks.
My mouth shuts abruptly.
‘Where’s Barney?’ He eases me to one side and steps over the threshold.
‘Outside.’
He starts to saunter in that direction and I find I’m lost for words.
As soon as they heard the knock at the door, Susan and Tony leaped into their ‘casual’ positions. Susan is now lying on a sunlounger, with one leg propped up to try to make her frame look smaller. It’s not really working.
‘Good morning!’ Tony says with forced cheerfulness. ‘Or should I say, good afternoon?’ He strokes his weak chin in an attempt to be comical and then flicks his limp brown hair back before giggling hysterically.
‘Did you have a nice lie-in?’ Susan asks huskily.
Johnny gives them a slight nod of acknowledgement, but doesn’t pay them any additional attention as he walks past. He joins Barney on the grass under the shade of an umbrella and silently proceeds to push one of his plastic toy cars around. Barney makes a grab for it and Johnny smiles a small smile. It’s blatantly obvious to me that he’s nursing quite a hangover. I go indoors to the medicine cabinet and return to the shade of the umbrella, this time accompanied by a glass of water and painkillers. I hand them to Johnny without comment. He takes them without looking at me.
‘Have you been to a perfume factory yet?’ Susan asks Johnny brightly.
‘Nope.’ He shakes his head.
‘Oh, you must go,’ she says. ‘Maybe we could all go today?’
‘Perfume’s not really my thing,’ Johnny drawls, clearly not keen to engage in conversation. Susan is having none of it.
‘Not your thing? It’s not about that; it’s just really interesting to see how they make it. Isn’t it, Tony?’ She nudges him hard.
‘Oh, yes,’ he complies. ‘Very interesting. We should go. Shouldn’t we?’ He looks at Susan.
‘Yes. We should all go.’ Susan gazes meaningfully at Johnny, but he ignores her. ‘Or we could all just stay here and enjoy the sunshine,’ she adds, false breezily.
Johnny murmurs under his breath, ‘Get me away from here.’
‘You want to go out?’ I ask him quietly.
‘Need.’
Twenty-five minutes later we’re in the car. I’m driving. Johnny is silent in the seat next to me.
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘I don’t care.’
It was a nightmare getting away. When I announced that we were going for a drive, Susan decided it was an excellent idea and that she and Tony should join us, even though she’d already promised to go with Mum and Dad to a perfume factory. She then suggested driving behind us in their car, and when I knocked that idea on the head, she accused me of being selfish. I walked out at that point. Ooh, it’s going to be fun around the dinner table this evening.
We drive around for half an hour before Barney becomes grizzly.
‘Can you entertain him?’ I ask Johnny.
‘My head,’ he mumbles.
‘Look, what do you want to do?’ I snap. ‘I can’t just drive around all day – Barney will go bananas.’
‘Won’t he sleep?’
‘No, he’s already had his nap this morning.’
Silence.
‘Shall I take you back to your hotel?’ I ask crossly, expecting him to say no and consequently perk up.
‘Yeah, that might be an idea,’ he replies instead.
Angrily, I do a U-turn and begin to make my way there.
‘Will you swing by and pick me up tomorrow?’ he asks me when he gets out of the car.
‘What time?’ I can’t keep the unimpressed tone from my voice.
‘Not too early.’
‘Ten o’clock?’
‘Eleven?’
‘Whatever. Shut the door.’
He does and I drive off.
I can hear my sister’s raised voice before I even open the front door.
‘Can you keep it down?’ I ask irritably, indicating Barney.
‘Where’s Johnny?’ Susan demands to know.
‘I took him back to his hotel,’ I reply.
‘Why?’ she cries.
‘He was hungover,’ I respond. ‘Not very good company.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ she replies.
‘Oh, would you please get over it!’ I exclaim.
‘Meg, that’s enough.’ My dad frowns at me. He doesn’t often tell me off, but when he does it really hits home.
My mum comes to take Barney from me. ‘No, it’s alright,’ I say, clutching hold of him. ‘I don’t have anything more to say.’
I go to bed early that night, feigning illness. My mum puts Barney to sleep. I don’t want company. I just want to be on my own. I have a deep sadness inside me and I don’t want to do anything other than dwell in my own misery for a while. I’ll feel better in the morning. I’m sure I will.
Chapter 23
I’m sitting in my bedroom with the phone pressed painfully hard against my ear. My stomach is a knot of tension and anxiety. I’m calling Christian again. It’s the fourth time in three days. But he’s not answering. He’s still not answering.
Johnny left a week ago after a whirlwind trip. I was sorry to see him go. Being around him made for a nice escape from reality, but now I’m back in the real world, and I miss Christian.
Aside from everything else, he was my friend. Plus, of course, he was Barney’s father. Barney still seems completely unaware of – and unaffected by – Christian’s absence. I’m thankful for that, at least.
I stare down at the receiver and end the call, my ear burning from the pressure of having the phone pressed up against it. I wonder what he’s doing. I wonder if he’s doing this exact same thing right now: staring down at his phone. I wish he wasn’t refusing to answer it.
Susan and Tony went home a few days ago and, despite the fact that their brush with celebrity made them more unbearable than usual, I even miss them. They talked about Johnny incessantly after he left – even Mum and Dad were on a strange, Johnny-related high. They all forgave him for refusing to grace them with his presence that day. I think they’ve chosen to erase the negative parts of his stay from their memories so they can reminisce about their time with him with untainted affection.
I come out of my bedroom to hear the unmistakable sound of Johnny’s singing coming from my dad’s study. Frowning, I wander down the corridor to the room at the end. My dad is sitting in front of his small stereo, staring down at a CD case. I stand there for a moment, listening. I recognise this song. It’s one of the album tracks Johnny was writing when I worked for him. I listened to his CD only once – during one of the dark moments I had when I was pregnant with Barney. T
he track comes to an end and the next song starts to play.
‘Hi, Dad!’ I say brightly, making him jump. He looks guilty. ‘I didn’t know you owned any of Johnny’s CDs?’
‘I, er, found this one in town. I thought it might be nice to hear some of his work – you know, seeing as he’s part of the family.’
‘Fair enough,’ I say, trying to block out the lyrics about the ‘brown-eyed girl’. When this single was released, I remember coming across a music review which said Johnny was paying a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Van Morrison song. But this is the song he wrote for me. I’m the brown-eyed girl.
‘Turn it down, Dad, I don’t want to hear this,’ I say cheerfully.
‘Why not?’ he asks, furrowing his brow. ‘I like it.’
‘Yeah, me, too, but I’ve heard it too many times.’
That part’s the truth. When Johnny asked me to go back to LA with him and I said no, he told me he’d wait for me for three months. One month later, I found out I was pregnant. My decision to stay with Christian seemed pretty clear-cut after that, but sometimes, late at night, I would doubt it. When Johnny’s single came out I would play it over and over, not only to torment myself, but also to question whether I was doing the right thing. I only truly decided to cut my losses with Johnny on the day that I had my twelve-week scan. I hadn’t told Christian I was pregnant, so I went alone to the hospital. Seeing that tiny grey and black jellybean shape on the monitor . . . its heartbeat . . . In the first three months, it hadn’t seemed real, but now there was my baby, right there on that screen. And it hit me there and then – with an impact as hard as a slap across the face – that the first person I wanted to tell was Johnny.
If I hadn’t walked past the newsagent’s inside the hospital, maybe it would have all turned out differently. But I did, and there on the front of one of the tabloids was a picture of Johnny with his arm around a girl – a girl I knew. The headline read: ‘Going to put a ring on it’. I stopped dead in my tracks and snatched up the paper. It was a trashy story about Johnny finally falling in love, and the girl he was with was the same one he slept with in LA. She was the final straw for me back then. And here she was again. It was a message: my three months were up. He was moving on. I remember standing there, clutching my stomach as I read this stupidly speculative story – which turned out to be totally untrue because he never did settle down with her – and finally my breathing slowed and I calmly put the paper back where I found it. Then I went home and told Christian my news.