Bobby stepped inside chaos. Peeling brown walls, a linoleum-covered floor, old furniture scarred with cigarette burns, stacks of used Chinese take-away cartons, and piles of old newspapers and magazines.
‘This is the tidy part,’ Rocket said with an unapologetic shrug. ‘You should see the bedroom, an’ what passes for the bathroom.’
‘Hey, at least it’s yours’, Bobby said enviously.
‘Yeah, I know, I know – it coulda bin yours too.’ Lazily he scratched his stomach. ‘That’s the breaks, I guess. You’ll find somewhere.’ Pausing, he contemplated a rusty hotplate on a table in the corner. Wanna cuppa coffee?’
Bobby thought of Sharleen, probably impatiently waiting for him, wondering why he was late. ‘I can’t stay,’ he said quickly. ‘I just came by to ask if y’can hold out a couple of weeks for your money.’
Rocket threw him a quizzical look. ‘Y’know somethin’? You really got jumpin’ balls.’ Lighting a match beneath a saucepan of water, he flipped a cigarette from an open packet of Lucky Strikes. ‘If you weren’t such a fartin’ babe in toy land, I’d be pissed. What’s the problem?’
‘It’s like this—’ Bobby began.
A woman entered the room. A woman wrapped in a bath towel and nothing else. She smiled sweetly. ‘Bobby,’ she greeted in a low, sing-song voice. ‘Are you early or am I late?’
It was Sharleen.
The shock of discovering that the love of his life was living with his best friend did not exactly boost Bobby’s morale. It was an emotional trauma, and one he faced the only way he knew how – straight on.
They made an incongruous couple. Sharleen – the pretty black girl who wanted nothing more out of life than to be the new Diana Ross. And Rocket Fabrizzi – a would-be actor who saw himself as a sort of seventies Marlon Brando.
Over the course of the next four years the three of them forged a solid friendship – based on mutual trust and respect. They were all basically orphans. Sharleen had no family. Rocket had long ago disowned his. And Bobby left Fanni and Ernest’s with no regret on their part, and rented a room that made his friends’ basement look like the Plaza.
What they had was a loyal support group. Bobby took up music again – mainly because of Sharleen’s encouragement. He wrote songs for her. He helped her with voice training, presentation and style. And he got himself a daytime job selling sheet music, while still working nights at Clooneys.
Sharleen nagged him to diet and work out, urging him to return to music full-time. Although she was a lousy housekeeper, she made him the best meatloaf he’d ever tasted.
Rocket was just Rocket. Always there, always up, always working on schemes to make an extra buck or two, in – between going out on auditions and coming home with a turn-down and an undefeated grin.
A week before Bobby’s twenty-second birthday he heard of a loft in Greenwich Village – a sub-let. Quickly he figured out that if they all shared on the rent, they could move in and begin living like human beings. It didn’t take much to persuade Sharleen and Rocket.
* * *
‘Blow out the candles,’ Sharleen urged, her ebony skin glowing.
Bobby smiled at her. She was still the prettiest girl in the world, but she belonged to Rocket and he had long ago learned to accept that sad fact of life.
‘Yes, go on, Bobby, make a wish’, said his current girlfriend, an adorable little blonde who looked exactly like all the other adorable little blondes he’d dated over the past few years – for when Bobby finally lost all the excess weight, the girls really came running. Now Sharleen was always teasing him, calling him Mister Stud and other crazy nicknames.
Shutting his eyes he wished for many things. When he opened them, Sharleen was staring straight at him. Did you wish for me to become a star? Did you, Bobby?’ she asked urgently, licking her luscious lips.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Rocket jeered. ‘We’re all gonna be stars. Just hang around another ten, twenty, thirty years. We should live that long.’
A week later Rocket got a small role in a movie shooting in New York. Two weeks after that Sharleen auditioned for a Broadway show and succeeded in joining the chorus. And Bobby sold his first song.
‘Honey,’ Sharleen said to Bobby, her big brown eyes gleaming with delight. When you make a wish – you really make a wish. We’re on our way!’
Rafealla
1972
Birthdays always made Rafealla sick. She hated them. Each time another year passed she felt the pain and hurt and loss all over again. And this year, her twelfth birthday, was especially bad as her mother, Anna, was thinking of getting married again, and Rafealla was outraged at the very idea.
Mother and daughter had argued back and forth interminably.
‘It’s not fair to poppa’, Rafealla had screamed.
‘Your father’s been dead for nearly five years,’ Anna tried to explain. He wouldn’t want me to continue being on my own.’
‘Yes he would!’ Rafealla shouted. ‘He would! He would!’
She loathed the man her mother was seeing. He was an English lord with a stupid stammer and stupid red hair and a stupid son and a stupid castle in the English countryside. His name was Cyrus, Lord Egerton, and he was hateful.
‘Well, young lady,’ Anna had finally said, a sharp edge to her normal gentle voice, ‘whatever I decide to do is my decision. Fortunately I do not need your permission, although your approval would be nice.’
‘Never!’ Rafealla screamed dramatically. ‘I’d sooner be dead!’
And she meant it.
Nanny Macdee had tried to calm her, but to no avail. Rafealla knew for sure that if her mother remarried it was a terrible thing to do to her poor dead father. And nobody could change her mind.
Poppa. Lucien. She thought of him often. The nightmare of his shocking death was forever with her.
How could she forget? She was right there when it happened, standing at the door of their house in Paris, waving, while her dear father was blown to pieces by a terrorist’s bomb planted in Henri Ronet’s car. They had meant to kill Henri Ronet. Lucien Le Serre’s being in the car was just bad timing on his part.
The noise of the explosion had wiped out Rafealla’s world. Shards of glass embedded in her legs caused temporary paralysis, and put a dismal end to her hopes of a future in the ballet. She was in the hospital for several months, enduring two operations. When she came out her mother had already packed up, sold the Paris house, and was all set to move to England. ‘We’ll leave the memories behind,’ she’d said to her daughter. ‘We have to. It’s the only way.’
Mother might think that, but Rafealla knew it wasn’t possible. She would never forget her wonderful poppa and all that he’d meant to her.
Right from the start she hated England. Cold, damp weather. Rainy streets. Strange food, and a language she didn’t care to speak, even though she was bilingual and had grown up speaking both French and English.
Anna sent her to a strict private school where the girls taunted her because she was ‘different’. They nicknamed her ‘gimp’, as since the accident she walked with a slight limp. And sometimes they called her ‘darkie’ on account of her olive-hued skin.
Nanny Macdee spoke to her mother, and suggested that a private tutor might be a better idea until Rafealla became more acclimatized to the English way of life. Anna agreed, and Rafealla did not return to school until she was eleven. By that time she had toughened up, and anyone who called her names paid for it.
Now it was her twelfth birthday, and the memories were flooding around her, and Anna was planning on marrying again, and it was all so unfair . . .
Rafealla went to her mother’s bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, emptied out every bottle of pills she could find, and swallowed the lot.
Soon she would be with her father again, and that’s all she really wanted.
Kris Phoenix
1973
While getting beaten up in a motorway cafe just outside of Manchester was hardly the
highlight of their tour, it did enable The Wild Ones to get back to London and an anxious Mr Terence.
Buzz had a broken nose, which upset Mr Terence far more than any of the cuts, bruises and black eyes of the other three. Nevertheless, he had them all checked out by his own doctor, and everyone was shocked to discover Kris had two broken ribs.
‘I told you I was in bloody agony,’ he informed anyone who would listen. ‘Bleedin’ hell, talk about ignoring an injured person.’
‘Getting into fights is irresponsible and just not done,’ Mr Terence tut-tutted.
‘Wasn’t our fault,’ Ollie explained.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Rasta. ‘These great big bruisers came right at us outta nowhere.’
Mr Terence cancelled the rest of their tour, moved them into a small house he owned near Hampstead Heath, and informed them that a record company had shown interest in them and that soon they would be going into the recording studios to make their first single.
‘Soon’ took three months, but the great day finally came, and they were ready for it.
Mr Terence had put them together with a young producer, Sam Rozelle, and Sam was as enthusiastic as they were. He loved their material – especially the songs Kris and Buzz had written together – and he predicted great things ahead.
Kris didn’t know what to believe anymore. He still felt good about the group – especially now they were doing their own songs, and not just belting out copies of other people’s hits. But he was also wary. There were so many fine groups out there – so many singers, songwriters and guitarists. And so few hit records. How could they possibly stand a chance with all the competition?
Sam took him out for a beer the night before the recording session. They sat in a pub in Kilburn and discussed things. Sam was a quiet man in his early thirties with thinning hair and a conservative style. He was married, with two small children, and a wife who looked ten years older than him. He seemed perfectly happy and content, and Kris sometimes wondered if he hadn’t strayed into the music business by mistake.
‘Well, Kris.’ Sam raised his glass in a toast, glancing around the crowded pub. ‘Make the most of this. Anonymity is something you’ll miss.’
‘Huh?’
‘Going about your business unrecognized.’
Kris snorted with laughter. ‘Oh, yeah, sure.’
‘Don’t underestimate your future,’ Sam said very seriously. ‘I know what’s going to happen. Believe me. I’ve seen it before.’
Kris tried to make light of Sam’s prediction. ‘Well, mate,’ he said with a cheery wink, ‘I bloody well hope so, it’s about bleedin’ time. We’ve been at it for long enough.’
* * *
Back at the house, Buzz was sitting on a sofa sharing a joint with Flower and a couple of her girlfriends. Ollie was asleep, and Rasta out.
‘’Ere, sit yourself down an’ join in the outrageous fun,’ Buzz deadpanned when Kris arrived home.
‘yeah, c’mon, Kris,’ urged Flower, her wide blue eyes as stoned as ever. She had only just forgiven Buzz for giving her a nasty case of the crabs.
Kris checked out her girlfriends. Usually he stayed well away from Flower and her friends, but tonight he was on edge, he needed something or someone to calm him down and force him to relax.
One of the girls was out of the question – she looked no more than fourteen. The other had possibilities for a one-night stand. She was the Julie Christie type – only not as good looking. Her name was Willow. She was nineteen years old and worked as a sales assistant in a dress shop with Flower.
Sitting down next to her he started with the chat. It never took long – half an hour later she was in his bed. To his amazement he soon found out she was a virgin. This was a first – he’d never encountered a virgin before.
‘You shoulda told me’, he said, thrusting for entry.
‘Why?’ she whispered, shivering. ‘Would it have made any difference?’
He pondered that one. Would it? When Kris Phoenix wanted to get laid nothing stood in his way. ‘I dunno.’ Pausing, he said, ‘D’you want me to stop?’
‘No,’ she answered quickly. ‘Get it over with.’
Get it over with! Oh, that was charming, really romantic. He felt his hard-on deflate, and suddenly sleep seemed the most tempting item on the menu.
‘Listen, luv,’ he said, disengaging himself. ‘I think you’d better go home.’
Willow began to cry. ‘I’ve disappointed you, haven’t I?’ she asked tearfully.
This girl was certainly different. He was so used to the lower-echelon groupies out on the road, and the hard nuts he encountered in London – tough little cookies who had been around and around and then some. Yes, this one was definitely unusual. She had feelings.
‘C’mon, don’t cry,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘It’s not your fault.’
Tentatively she touched his limp penis and started a slow stroke. ‘Can we try again?’ she asked timidly.
Who was he to say no?
Rising to the occasion he made another attempt, and this time it was all the way home with hardly a sound from her and a loud grunt of satisfaction from him. Exploring uncharted territory was quite a kick.
After the deed was done they lay companionably in each other’s arms. Usually, when it was over, he couldn’t wait for them to get dressed and get out. With Willow he didn’t seem to mind. She fitted into his arms nicely, and she had a lovely firm pair of bristols.
With a sigh of satisfaction he drifted off to sleep, not waking until the morning, when he was quite surprised to find her still there. Lustfully eyeing her sleeping form, he quietly rolled on top, making a stealthy entry.
She awoke with a little gasp, followed by a little smile.
‘Somebody forgot to go home,’ he teased, thrusting back and forth. In the daylight, with no makeup, she was prettier than he’d thought. He liked the fact that she wasn’t a slag.
‘I wanted to stay and wish you luck,’ she said timidly. ‘Buzz said today’s the big day.’
‘Yeah.’ He nodded, tweaking an appealing nipple as he deftly manoeuvred her above him, and really got to work.
Cheeks flushed, breathing fast, she did everything he asked.
‘Spread your legs,’ he commanded.
She did so, and immediately began to climax.
Joining her in the dance, he realized he’d never felt so good in his entire life.
Today was going to be a winner.
* * *
‘I’m fed up with the friggin’ faggot makin’ goo-goo eyes at me’, Buzz complained. ‘If ’e’s not bleedin’ careful I’m gonna belt ’im one. I mean it.’
Kris looked up from the newspaper. ‘What happened?’
‘I went round to ’is flat today – ’e said he had to talk to me.’
Kris put the newspaper down. He was angry – he’d told Rasta, Ollie and Buzz that if there was any talking to be done he’d do it. They had to have a leader, and he’d thought it was understood he was it. ‘Why’d you do that?’ he asked sharply.
‘Fuck! I dunno. He said it was somethin’ private.’
‘What was it?’
‘A bunch of old cobblers ’bout the record comin’ out soon, publicity crap, an’ how he thinks I should dump Flower. Bad for me bleedin’ image.’ He scowled. ‘What bleedin’ image?’
Rubbing his chin Kris shrugged. ‘Beats me.’
‘Then the stupid old geezer puts ’is ’and on me knee. Cor blimey! He’s lucky he’s still walkin’.’
‘What did you do?’
‘What din’t I do?’ Buzz ranted. ‘I told ’im straight. Mr T, I says – do I look like a friggin’ queen?’
‘Very subtle. I bet that went down like a ton of shit.’
‘’E got all red in the face an’ nervous. “Dear boy,” ’e says, “how can you even think such a thing?” ’ Angrily Buzz flung himself into an armchair. ‘’Y’know somethin’? All I wan’ outta life is to play great guitar an’ get rich. Then I can tell ’em
all to go get fucked.’
‘Not a bad idea,’ Kris responded mildly. ‘Only if you’d leave everything to me, you wouldn’t have to put up with his bollocks, I’d deal with it.’
‘Right. You’re on. Just keep the creep away from me an’ Flower. She’s bin my girlfriend for five years, an’ I’m not gettin’ rid of her for any old fairy. Okay?’
Kris decided he’d have to talk to Mr Terence. He might be financing their rise to nowhere, but he certainly didn’t own them. And when their record came out and the money started rolling in, he’d be making plenty on his initial investment. Thirty-five per cent of The Wild Ones was a pretty secure bet.
Kris was excited about their record, ‘Lonesome Morning’ – words by him, music by Ollie. He couldn’t wait for it to hit an unsuspecting public. The big time had to be just around the corner, and he was ready. Oh, was he ready!
* * *
Five weeks later a conversation took place.
I’m pregnant,’ Willow said, her pale face flushed.
‘You’re what?’ Kris demanded, sure he couldn’t possibly have heard her correctly.
‘Pregnant,’ she repeated, with tear-filled eyes. ‘And my father’s going to kill me.’
‘Oh, shit,’ he said.
Bobby Mondella
1973
‘Please, Bobby, please,’ Sharleen was pleading with him, ‘there’s no point in your tellin’ Rocket. He’ll only get mad, and you know what he’s like when he’s mad. And it’s not as if any thing’s going to happen. This is a business date, purely business. If Rocket were here I’d take him with me. But he’s not, he’s in California, and I wish I was with him, and since I’m not, there’s no harm in this. Honestly! Now pass me that rhinestone earring and stop fussing.’
Reluctantly Bobby reached for her earring, and watched her clip it into place. She looked radiantly pretty as usual, with her glowing black skin, fluff of jet curls, and large brown eyes. Tonight she was wearing a slinky dress sparkling with deep purple sequins. It plunged in front, dipped in back, and he knew she must have blown a week’s salary on it.
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