Georgia

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘Filthy whore,’ he shouted.

  When he saw her backing away on to the bed, blood gushing out of her nose, he was sorry. The anger wasn’t directed at her, just at Georgia. He pulled on his pants and trousers, searching for the right words to make her forget.

  He moved towards her, hands outstretched. She cowered back amongst the pillows, white-faced and frightened.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ The force with which she spat out the words surprised him, her eyes blazed and she scrabbled amongst the pillows behind her. ‘I can defend myself you bastard!’

  A glint of silver under the red light. A long curved blade, her red nails curled round an ivory handle.

  ‘I didn’t mean to hit you,’ his words spilt out. ‘It was just –’

  The knife drove all explanations out of his head, his legs turned to jelly.

  ‘I knew there was something weird about you,’ she interrupted, getting up on to her knees, slashing out at the air between them. Her black negligee fell back, revealing her underwear and white skin. ‘This could cut off your prick like a ripe banana. I’d finish what some other woman started.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Brian shoved his feet into his shoes. He was frightened now. She looked fiendish, white-faced, bloodied nose, red hair hanging over eyes that burned almost black with rage.

  ‘Oh, I do,’ she snapped back. ‘I’ve met dozens of perverts like you. Do you think I’m stupid just because I’m a prostitute? I know a woman made that scar and I can guess why.’

  Brian backed away towards the door as she jumped down off the bed moving steadily towards him, the knife held in front of her.

  ‘Get out you bastard,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘And if I ever see you up this way again I’ll swing for you.’

  The bottle was the only way of blanking out that night. Alone in his new flat Paula and Georgia’s faces haunted him. He had to go out, down to the crowded pub until he was drunk enough to blot them out.

  Some days he made an effort to forget. He washed and dressed smartly and presented himself at the labour exchange, but even there it seemed as if something was working against him. Manual work, that’s all they offered. They ignored his education and qualifications, almost as if someone had been there first, whispering about him.

  He wanted to make his flat a home. But daily he saw things sliding. Clothes dropped on the floor stayed there. Plates filled the sink and empty beer bottles multiplied overnight. His shirts looked grey, underwear and socks disintegrated and he never replaced them.

  Bongo drums from a house behind his kept him awake. The landlord pushed notes under his door complaining of noise and smells coming from his flat. Was it before, or after he noticed how low his money was getting when he got arrested for being drunk?

  There was another woman, he couldn’t remember now who she was, or even where he met her, but for a time he got back on his feet. Did she help him get the night security job at Jarson’s in Catford?

  A period of peace. Not exactly happy, but reconciled. That hot evening in August he walked to work thinking about moving to somewhere with a garden. He even went over to the town hall to look and see what concerts were coming up. He wasn’t drinking then.

  There were bands he’d never heard of. Silly names that didn’t give a clue to what sort of music they played.

  Funny that he remembered so little about a period of over a year, yet he could see Catford Town Hall as clearly now as if a picture was in front of him.

  A rounded front, with two sets of doors going into the theatre and between them a sandwich board advertising the events. There were two teenage boys standing beside him.

  ‘See, I told you they are coming here,’ one of them pointed to the programme. ‘It’s next Monday.’

  Brian looked to where the boy pointed.

  ‘Who are Samson?’ he asked. ‘Is it jazz or a dance band?’

  They looked at him and laughed. He remembered they were both smartly dressed, Italian suits with short jackets and winklepicker shoes.

  ‘A soul band,’ the smaller one replied. ‘The best in England.’

  ‘That’s them, there.’ The other one pointed to a poster on the wall.

  The picture was of a group of young men. Sitting in front of them was Georgia.

  He blinked, afraid that his eyes were deceiving him.

  She had that impudent grin that belonged to no one else. Head thrown back, hair longer than he remembered, tumbling over bare shoulders. A tight black dress barely covered her breasts, eyes that held his with all that old magnetism.

  It was like the knife again. But this time he could feel it turning in the wound.

  ‘Who is she?’ he whispered, turning to the boys, pleading silently with his eyes for them to say she was an American, Jamaican, anything but his daughter.

  ‘Georgia James!’ The boy looked pityingly at him, as if unable to believe he didn’t already know.

  The evening sun seemed to fade instantly, a cold wind whipped around him. He felt sick, giddy and threatened.

  Blindly he made his way back across the road. He heard a car horn blast out at him and he stumbled on the kerb.

  That poster drew him every morning as he walked home. He had to go and look at it, even though he knew her face would prevent him from sleeping when he got back to his flat. He would buy a bottle, drink it just to fall asleep, then he’d buy another on his way to work.

  He risked getting the sack on Monday evening, slipping out leaving the warehouse unattended, just to see her.

  The show finished at eleven, he waited in a shop doorway just across the road from the town hall and watched the hordes of young people leaving.

  Young girls in pretty summer dresses, kiss curls lacquered to their cheeks, hair backcombed up to impossible heights, stiletto heels tapping out like castanets on the warm summer night. Boys in jeans, some in smart suits and winklepickers, others jumping astride their motor scooters, revving them up like some sort of odd mating dance.

  They were in no hurry to go home. Some ran across the street to a coffee bar. Others bought chips and stood outside eating them from the newspaper, still more wandered past him hand in hand. He could see pleasure in their faces, a world he couldn’t enter. He felt old, tired and bitter.

  Most of the crowd had gone now. About thirty or forty teenagers left standing outside the stage door, away from the main entrances now shut up.

  A cheer alerted him. First he saw a tall, dark man come out. The waiting girls flocked round him, pressing in on all sides.

  Behind them he saw Georgia. She was standing on the steps of the stage entrance wearing a white summer dress, her hair caught up with a ribbon, a few stray curls on her forehead. With the light behind her she was silhouetted in the doorway, slim and graceful.

  He had hoped it wouldn’t be her. A mistaken identity, just another dark girl with the same name. But as soon as her voice floated across the street he knew it was her.

  ‘Did you enjoy the show?’ she asked the waiting kids. ‘Thank you for coming.’ Her voice sounded as if she were whispering in his ear. He could remember a time when she sat on his lap while Celia played the piano. He could feel her soft arms round his neck, breath sweet on his cheeks.

  He moved closer, crossing the road, standing beside a parked van to conceal himself.

  Another young man joined them. This one blond and frail looking. The two men stood either side of Georgia as if protecting her.

  Brian waited until the last piece of equipment was brought out, moving back over the road so he wouldn’t be spotted. He heard their laughter, saw the familiar way they treated Georgia and as he watched so the pain in his heart seemed to get stronger.

  The next day he read a review in the local paper.

  ‘Samson’s strength is Georgia,’ he read, with eyes welling up with tears of impotence. ‘Catford Town Hall rang to her beautiful voice capturing the enthusiastic audience with her beauty and her power. Watch this little girl, she’s go
ing all the way.’

  That was the start of the collection. One tiny review cut out and pinned to the wall. But it was soon to be added to.

  He began to drink heavily, his lady friend disappeared. The flat grew dirty again. His shirts needed washing. The West Indians in the houses at the back of him seemed to play their drums even louder.

  When he read about the fire and the two boys who died he was glad. The band’s name stopped appearing in music papers and he lost interest in buying them. The need for drink seemed to lessen and as his savings had almost gone he seriously considered moving somewhere smaller, nearer his job.

  He got into a new routine at work. First the paper work, then a quick patrol round the warehouse checking doors, then back into the office for a cup of coffee to listen to Book at Bedtime on the radio.

  It was cold and raining that night after the story, and he was loathe to leave the warm office for another check. He remembered twiddling the dial and finding music, settling down with his paper to do the crossword.

  Violins filled the office with a melancholy sound that fitted the rain and his mood perfectly. He turned up the radio, sat back and listened.

  As guitars came in, he frowned, realizing it was a pop song after all.

  ‘There’s no time, baby.’

  He knew it was her the moment that voice filled the office. His hand reached out to switch off the set but somehow he couldn’t do it.

  Slumped over the old desk, banging his forehead with rage, hating her voice, yet loving it too. She was taunting him with failure. Sneering at him over the radio. He would never be free of her.

  He could see her before him as she had been that night of her birthday. The face upturned to receive Peter’s kiss, pressing herself against him. She’d shut her father out then, she hadn’t wanted him to join the party and later she’d called him pathetic.

  Nightmare flashes. Prickling net in his hands, strangely mixed with satiny skin. Celia showing him a small back covered with weals from a cane. Georgia standing over him with that knife and blood spurting out. More blood, this time on Celia’s face and all the time Georgia was telling the world that it was too late for her father.

  He didn’t remember the police picking him up by Lewisham Hospital where he was lying in a gutter. Neither did he remember not locking up the warehouse. All he could remember was that song and the melody that pounded into his head long after he lay vomiting in a police cell.

  After that everything became hazy. The police kept coming, questions and more questions. His landlord shouting abuse at him, some trouble with a woman downstairs. They said he’d conspired with the gang who broke in and stole thousands of pounds worth of goods. A man like him kept in Brixton prison with common criminals!

  It made no difference that he was released after a few days and the case against him was quashed, the damage was done. Turned out of his flat, his mother’s desk and Persian carpet taken for back rent.

  A hostel for the homeless, sleeping in a cubicle alongside filthy vagrants, a spell in hospital with pneumonia and finally someone pushed him into this room in Ladbroke Grove.

  National Assistance kept him now, while the girl who was responsible for his sickness made millions.

  He had just cheap sherry to keep him warm while she swanned about in limousines wrapped in furs.

  There was no getting away from her success. She flew in and out of England like a film star. Every word she uttered, every place she visited was recorded. Pictures of her in every shop, newspaper and magazine. Game shows on television, interviews on the radio. He knew her escorts, her clothes, beauty hints and every appearance she made. He logged it down in a little book, and when she attended a film première in the West End he waited in the shadows to see her.

  She brushed past so close to him he smelt her perfume and almost touched her hair. It was in that crowd that his glasses got broken, crushed underfoot, just the way she had crushed him.

  How clever she was at skirting round the truth about her earlier life. Never at any time did she speak about her childhood. Wasn’t that proof enough for anyone that she had done something shameful?

  Did she know or care that her father watched her on television through the window of an electrical shop? Shivering and hungry, unable to hear her voice, only watch her dance and her lips move?

  But of all the articles he read about her there was one that played on his mind above all the others.

  She was posing on a white settee, bare arms wrapped round her knees, a short red dress revealing her brown thighs, hair tumbling down over her back, so shiny it looked like wet tar.

  ‘I love simple things,’ she told her interviewer. ‘Bright primary colours and lots of white paint. Huge vases of fresh flowers and the sun streaming in through the windows.’

  Brian thought about his old home. Walking in after a day at work to find the French windows open, the perfume of roses filling the room. Georgia on her swing, wrapped in a private world. Tea laid in the kitchen, flowers in the hall. Celia’s voice calling out.

  ‘Come in now darling, Daddy’s home.’

  The sun never came in his windows. The paint in his room was brown and cracked and it had never seen a vase of flowers.

  He’d found her flat in Chelsea. It took him all day to walk there. A three-sided block set around a central garden. The sort of plush place aristocrats kept for the Season. He looked at the polished doors, the gleaming brass and the uniformed porter, and knew he would never get inside. He was of less importance than the youngsters who gathered there, looking up at the gleaming windows, trying to guess which one of the flats was hers.

  He had a pain in his stomach which wouldn’t go away and sometimes when he vomited he brought up blood. Without his glasses he couldn’t see clearly. His legs ached just on the walk to the post office. But if John Adams sold that story, all his troubles would be over.

  Georgia would be finished.

  Chapter 21

  ‘Have you heard this man play, Max?’ Georgia stood in the office, a musical paper in her hands.

  ‘Who?’ Max barely looked up. ‘Do you think I’ve got time to listen to every musician in England?’

  ‘Don’t be grumpy with me,’ she grinned, perching on the edge of his desk and waving the paper under his nose. ‘Sam Cameron, the saxophone player from the States. Ronnie Scott has extended his contract, he’s played to packed houses nightly. Since when didn’t you take an interest in something like that?’

  ‘Since you got back from the States and had stupid ideas about making a middle of the road album,’ he snapped. ‘Sometimes I don’t think you’ve got a brain. Who in their right mind wants to buy a record full of old songs?’

  ‘Millions of people,’ she retorted. ‘A far greater number than the ones who want pop.’

  Georgia was tired. The long tours, the one night stands, the travelling had become impossible. Her world was up there on the stage or in a recording studio. No time for friendships or even love affairs. She had been to so many countries, yet not one had she seen in any depth. She had so much money she could buy anything, yet the simple pleasure of a day’s shopping, lunch in an ordinary pub or even a night in watching the television was denied her.

  At twenty-one she’d seen everything, done everything. Yet nothing. Was she going to spend all her youth pursuing nothing more than money? When did she last meet a real human being to laugh and chat with?

  Bodyguards to escort her everywhere, hairdressers fussing around her, fittings for fabulous dresses she wore once then put aside. Journalists hanging on her every word. People behaved as they thought she wanted them to. They fawned on her, smothered her. Every unguarded word was recorded. How much longer could she stand it? Wasn’t that why so many famous people ended up with drug and drink problems?

  Her affair with Rod had changed things in so many ways. For a time it seemed impossible to stay in the same room as him. She knew he wanted her, she ached for him. But he’d been right, there was no future in it. Rod
loved the high life, as soon as a gig was over he was out looking for more excitement. Her idea of a good night was a quiet dinner with people she could talk to. Compromise would have done no good, both of them would be unhappy half of the time.

  But that closeness in Spain had left her hungry. How could she find that again when she was always on the move? Who could she trust enough, when half the men she met were only interested in her fortune, name and body?

  She had a beautiful flat she rarely saw, a red Mercedes she hardly ever drove. Was she going to spend her life hoping for love, but never finding the time for that either?

  There was a way out. To make beautiful albums for a different market. Her income would be assured, but by dropping out of the mainstream of pop she could gain time for herself. But of course Max would have none of that.

  Rod and the rest of the band were restless. They wanted more now than being her backing group. She knew they were privately working on new material, an image for a band entirely different. Something that was theirs and theirs alone.

  The Beatles and the Rolling Stones had paved the way. Samson wanted to do something equally innovative. She knew each one of them had experimented with drugs and it had altered their conception of sounds. They had moved in a different direction to her and they had a right to their freedom now.

  The last thing Georgia wanted was to allow Max to push forward a new backing band, or even worse start booking her into cabaret work. She wanted to hold the reins herself, pick the musicians to go forward with. People she liked and trusted.

  Listening to jazz in the States had started something. She had heard old classic songs revitalized and now she was burning to sing things she loved.

  ‘Come with me tonight to Ronnie Scott’s?’ She bent over Max and tickled his neck playfully. ‘Don’t be a grouch. Aren’t I still your golden goose?’

  Max leaned back in his chair and smiled despite himself.

  He’d met his match with this girl. However he tried he couldn’t outmanoeuvre her. She took risks, she gambled on her fans’ loyalty, she managed to get what she wanted every time.