Georgia

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘Go on back to your office,’ Sam snarled at him. ‘You ain’t doin’ no good here. She needs time to think it out herself.’

  Max stood up. His ulcer was playing him up, his head hurt and he resented Sam’s attitude.

  ‘I don’t want you two running off half cocked and making things worse!’ he said.

  ‘How much worse can it get?’ Sam’s lip curled back as he looked up at Max. ‘Even now they’re saying she’s just another no-good nigger.’

  ‘Don’t Sam,’ Georgia put her hand on his arm. ‘Max is only being realistic.’

  ‘There’s only one way out of this,’ Sam said quietly, a touch of venom in his tone. ‘To tell the whole truth. There’s people out there ready to help if asked.’ He was thinking of Sister Mary, but he couldn’t say her name now.

  ‘I’m going,’ Max moved towards the door. ‘I don’t know how you expect me to sort this one!’

  ‘You mean you can’t see how you can promote rape into a money spinner,’ Sam stood up, shoulders back, eyes flashing dangerously. ‘Piss off Max. Don’t say anything to anyone until Georgia’s decided how she’s going to handle it.’

  Sam expected Max to retaliate, but instead he could smell fear. He noticed the man had turned pale, he seemed to shrink as he buttoned up his overcoat and kept his eyes to the floor.

  ‘Keep the phone off the hook,’ he said weakly. ‘Put it back on at nine tonight. I’ll phone you then.’

  ‘Breakfast,’ Sam said once he heard the lift creaking back downstairs with Max in it. ‘My mother always said the brain works best on a full stomach.’ He patted Georgia’s shoulder. ‘Eggs and ham?’

  By four in the afternoon Sam was getting worried. Georgia was too silent. She had picked at food, drank every cup of coffee he put in front of her. But still she wasn’t talking.

  She answered his questions. She went and made a bed up for him in one of her spare bedrooms. She took a shower and washed her hair, even filed her nails. But there was no real communication.

  He knew she wasn’t thinking or planning. She was locked in herself. Buried in the kind of black hole he’d been in himself when he lost Katy. But telling her now that he was her father wouldn’t solve anything. She had to open up that black pit where she’d buried Anderson. She had to look at it for what it was and deal with it. Telling her something good would be like putting a lid on a pan of burning fat, it might halt a fire for a while, but soon it would blow up, blasting the lid away. However much he wanted to tell her, now wasn’t the time.

  ‘Talk to me?’ Sam knelt on the floor in front of her. She sat with her legs curled up under her, her head on a cushion, hair still damp in tight little ringlets. ‘You look like Jasmine does when she’s hurtin’. ‘It’s breaking me up.’

  ‘I’m finished now,’ she said softly. ‘Overnight I’m a bad smell. Decca won’t want to be involved with a scandal. My fans will hate me.’

  ‘No honey,’ Sam stroked back her hair. ‘For one thing people love drama. Once the dust has settled and they know the truth, they’ll admire you. You didn’t allow yourself to wallow in self-pity. You didn’t even allow the bastard to get away with it. You marked him for life. That’s rough justice, but at the end of the day that’s what everyone wants.’

  ‘But I made everything far worse,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I should have told the police and Celia what, really happened. Don’t you think I was maybe responsible for it all?’

  She had dark circles around her eyes as if she hadn’t slept for days and her mouth was slack and lifeless.

  He could smell guilt. She’d carried it on her shoulders the way she carried everyone’s burdens. It was time she put down that burden.

  ‘No honey. You were never responsible. A little girl learns about men through her father. She climbs on his lap naked. She might get in the tub with him. She flirts and fights with him, but no normal man feels that way about his child, however desirable she may become as she grows up. You can feel pity for him because he’s a sad little pervert. Anger because he took your youth and innocence. But never guilt. All that is his.’

  She cried then. Huge sobs that racked her slim body, soaking the cushion under her head and distorting her face. Sam just sat there on the floor beside her, stroking her hair, waiting for the poison to drain out.

  Slowly the sobs subsided to mere hiccups. He passed her a box of tissues and waited again.

  ‘I feel so bad, Sam,’ she sat up slightly and he moved next to her, sliding his arm round her. ‘I’ve got everything haven’t I? Money, this flat, I can go anywhere, do anything. But why do I feel so empty? What have I really achieved?’

  You’ve given people yourself. Maybe that’s why you feel so drained now. Maybe it’s time you said, “Hey, this is me, not a machine. I want to have fun. Be myself.”’ Sam lifted her face up to his, kissing her swollen eyes. ‘You’ve worried about others too long baby.’

  ‘But everyone close to me gets hurt,’ she whispered. ‘Celia, Peter, Helen, Ian, Rod, even Max and Brian too. Now there’s you. I thought I could help you and your family. Now you are right in the middle of a scandal. We’ll never get that recording released, even if they let us finish it. Although my voice is a gift, it can be a curse too. If it wasn’t for that I could just be an ordinary girl.’

  ‘We all feel we’ve hurt people,’ Sam felt a lump growing in his throat. ‘Being a musician has its own kind of guilt. We follow it because we love it and sometimes it feels downright selfish.

  ‘If I’d trained as a carpenter for as long as I have at playing my horn, I’d have a masterpiece to show the world. We put our heart and soul into each performance. Sometimes we even move people to tears, but it floats up in the sky along with the cigarette smoke and It’s gone.

  ‘An artist has the finished canvas, the writer a manuscript, a carpenter the thing he has built. But your voice and my horn, they warm people for a moment and then It’s gone.’

  ‘You mean It’s worthless?’ she turned a shocked face up to Sam.

  ‘Oh, no honey, not worthless. The musicians, the artists, the dancers, we’re the ones that give food for the soul. Without us the world would be a dreary, dark place with no dreams or hope. We were given that talent for the same reason a rose was given its perfume, or a bird its song. Don’t ever think it’s worthless.’

  She was silent for a time, sitting there with her head pressed into his chest and he knew the tide was turning.

  ‘You and I are so alike,’ she whispered eventually. ‘Do you think this was why we were brought together?’

  He nearly told her then. He could see little Katy’s face in Georgia’s, just the way she’d looked that last leave when he said the troops were being mobilized. She was frightened he’d be killed or wounded, yet she had smiled to reassure him.

  ‘Don’t be a hero.’ She had held his face in her two hands and kissed his nose. ‘I love you too much to lose you.’

  It was raining hard, beating at the window. A grey miserable day that would turn into an even colder, darker night. He could remember nights like this as they went through France, fear making his skin prickle, wondering if each night might be his last. But he’d come through that unscathed. He’d even found his child after twenty years, surely he could wait another few weeks and make certain she was ready for it?

  ‘I’m sure the Almighty has a hand in it somewhere,’ he smiled. ‘Now what we have to do is put our heads together and come up with a plan.’

  Chapter 24

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Georgia asked sheepishly.

  Two days had passed. Below in the courtyard reporters still hung around hoping for a glimpse of her, trampling on the flowers, throwing sandwich papers around, making the other tenants’ lives a misery.

  It was like being in a prison. Johnson the jailer, bringing up milk, bread and newspapers, passing on any information he’d heard.

  Georgia spent much of the time sleeping, while Sam read, listened to music and cooked for them.

/>   ‘What do you want to do?’ Sam asked. It had been torture for him to just sit and wait. Every bone in his body urged him to go out amongst those hyenas in the courtyard and tell the true story. Each time he looked in on Georgia and saw her curled up asleep, avoiding any confrontation, he felt more murderous towards the man who’d done this to her.

  But even in his anger he knew he must bide his time. The slander would trickle to a halt eventually, and that was the time to reap revenge on all those who had a part in it.

  Georgia looked better today. She was pale still but the circles had gone from under her eyes. She wore a long pink fluffy dressing-gown, her hair tied back, yet until he saw her actually get dressed he wouldn’t be convinced she was fit to tackle anyone.

  ‘I should speak to Jack Levy,’ she frowned. ‘Someone’s got to pay off the session men or at least give them some idea where we stand.’

  ‘Max should have done that.’ Sam felt hate rising like bile from his stomach. ‘My God, Georgia he’s a rat, and we can’t put him down with mere poison.’

  Max hadn’t telephoned that first night. Instead he sent a note round the next day saying the studio was besieged with reporters and the board were having a meeting about what action they would take.

  There had been no words of sympathy, not even a suggestion of concern. No telephone number for them to reach him, no promise to call round. He might just have easily said he didn’t care about the outcome.

  He was waiting for Georgia to find an answer. Distancing himself so if any blame came it wouldn’t fall on his expensively-clothed shoulders.

  ‘I can see to paying the men,’ Sam said. Once again she was worried about others. She knew none of them could afford to wait indefinitely and she couldn’t bear to think she’d let them down. ‘Jack Levy should come here and see you. You can’t go there cap in hand.’

  ‘But I have to sort something out,’ she sighed. ‘What do you think is best?’

  ‘Seems to me,’ Sam slid an arm round her small shoulders. ‘You should write the whole story as it was. Then we get it to the papers. Maybe we can even ask their help to find Celia to back you up.’ Sam had lain awake at night thinking up ways of getting help. He’d even slipped out to use Johnson’s phone to ring Sister Mary for her advice.

  Sister Mary was anxious to go and tell the press what she knew, but like Sam she knew Georgia had to tell the story herself. Bringing Celia into it had been an idea they’d cooked up between them, hoping that the excitement of attempting to find her might break Georgia out of her apathy.

  ‘Would they Sam?’ her dark eyes gleamed with new hope.

  ‘Of course they will!’ Sam grinned. ‘Do you think any newspaper wouldn’t jump at that kinda scoop? But first I reckon we sit tight. Let’s watch and see which rats crawl out the holes first. Find out who’s on your side out there!’

  ‘Okay,’ she shrugged her shoulders, a faint smile playing on her lips. ‘But first let me send a cheque to each of the men.’

  It was painful to wake up each morning to find yet another slanderous story about her in the papers.

  It seemed that anyone who had some minor grievance about her was prepared to slander her for financial gain.

  A landlady up in Scarborough spoke of a drunken orgy in her guest house. A barman in Lancashire claimed Georgia had pushed a broken glass in another girl’s face. Stories about sex in changing rooms. Drugs taken openly. Shoplifting in Scotland. Young girls procured for the band, hotel rooms vandalized.

  ‘None of it’s true!’ she looked at Sam in horror. ‘Why do they say these things?’

  They had been drunk up in Scarborough. A girl had been slashed by a glass, but not by her. The boys were more than capable of procuring their own girls, without Georgia’s help. Some of these stories had a grain of truth, distorted and embroidered, but most were pure fiction.

  ‘Laugh at it,’ Sam suggested. ‘These are people who would jump on any bandwagon that came along. If the newspapers said you had a religious experience in one of those places, they’d be nominating you for sainthood.’

  At first it made her cry and go back to bed. But after a day or two she became so used to it she found herself laughing at the absurdity of it all, watching for the people who cared enough about her to contradict the accusations.

  Rod was the first to go to the press. He spoke passionately in Georgia’s defence, explaining her loyalty to the band, her loving nature and the lengths she’d gone to for their protection.

  ‘Me and the lads were a bit wild sometimes,’ he said. ‘But stick someone in front of me who says Georgia was involved, and I’ll tear them to shreds.’ When asked what he knew about her life before joining the band Rod got even more heated.

  ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you there’s another side to this? She’ll tell you when she’s good and ready, as she did me. All I can say to you is use your brains, work out what would make a fifteen-year-old stab a man, then run. Ask yourself what ordeal he put her through?’

  Speedy was next, interviewed late at night on television. He blamed the press for causing a rift between them, laughed at the scandal-mongering and talked affectionately about her early days with the band.

  ‘He’s straight,’ Georgia said in surprise, leaning forward to the television set and peering at Speedy. His eyes were clear and unwavering, long hair trimmed, his face clean-shaven. ‘Well, that’s one good thing to come out of this.’

  There were other people whose voices were heard. Bert and Babs from the café spoke of the way she came into their lives, the comfort and love she showed Helen, her dignity and pride.

  ‘I don’t care what rubbish people are saying,’ Babs was quoted as saying. ‘All of us in the market know the real Georgia. That girl’s got more compassion in her than any of you will ever feel. You should be ashamed of yourselves!’

  But even as that hit the papers so there was more slander from men who claimed to have slept with her in the days when the band was on the road.

  ‘I’ve never even seen any of these men, let alone slept with them,’ Georgia gasped as she read about three-in-a-bed scenes from Edinburgh to Penzance. ‘How could they say such a thing?’

  ‘Fantasy, honey,’ Sam grinned. ‘They’ve spent so long wishing they could do it, that now they think it’s real. But just look at them. No one in their right mind would believe them.’

  Ian’s mother made claims that if Georgia hadn’t treated her son so badly he wouldn’t have got drunk and burned to death in that house. Rod’s mother and stepfather backed up Mrs McShane by saying Georgia had turned their son against his family.

  ‘I don’t believe anyone could make such things up,’ Georgia gasped. ‘Why doesn’t Max stand up for me?’

  But Max was caught by a photographer at London airport, leaving for America with a blonde dolly bird simpering on his arm.

  ‘The first I knew of this was when Anderson came forward.’ Max looked furtive, embarrassed at being caught slipping away. ‘I feel bitter she didn’t take me into her confidence earlier, and although I know the whole story now, I’m not at liberty to say anything. I’m a business man with other clients to look out for. Georgia will handle it all in her own way.’

  ‘What can I say?’ Sam spread his hands in a gesture of ‘just as I thought’. ‘The man’s sitting on the fence. He hasn’t got the guts to stay firmly on your side. Even now he’s probably planning to sell his memoirs to the highest bidder.’

  If it hadn’t been for the scores of letters from the most unexpected people, she might have thought everyone was as uncaring as Max and Jack Levy. Harold and his wife wrote to invite her over to dinner. Norman sent a bouquet of flowers with a note offering his apologies for ever doubting her. Other musicians, girls and technicians from Decca, and even Deirdre, Max’s receptionist sent letters of support and sympathy. Flowers arrived from Andreous, Steven her producer, from an American promoter, Ronnie Scott’s and from Pop and the girls in Berwick Street.

  ‘Remember, I know the
truth,’ Janet wrote on a piece of bright blue paper, her spelling so bad Georgia could barely read it, her handwriting like a child’s. ‘If I’d had my way I would have gone to Fleet Street and told them exactly what that creep done to you. Pop says you’ve got your reasons for keeping quiet and if I go shooting my mouth off it might make things worse. But I want you to know we are all here for you when you want us. Who is this Sam? I hope he’s good to you, if not he’ll have me to reckon with.

  Sal and all the others send their love, so do our kids. We play your records all the time.

  Love Janet.’

  ‘Real friends,’ Georgia gulped back tears as she handed it to Sam. ‘You find out the real ones when the going gets tough!’

  But just when she thought they had run out of steam, Sam’s face began to appear in the press. They sent someone to New Orleans to check out his home there and soon he was getting the treatment too.

  ‘Sam Cameron has two children, left with his sister while he holes up with Georgia,’ they said. They found news of a bar-room brawl he’d been in. His ex-wife was interviewed and claimed Sam not only beat her, but kept her as little more than a slave. There was a picture of his two children, both in ragged clothes and bare feet, the house behind them looked like a shack.

  ‘I took that one myself,’ Sam said, his dark eyes growing black with fury. ‘They’d been out playing in some mud. I thought it was funny that they looked like a pair of waifs. Everyone has a snap of their children like that.’

  It was cruel the picture they had painted of him. A heartless vagabond who cared nothing for his family. Somehow by hurting Sam they had succeeded in hurting Georgia still further.

  ‘How dare they?’ she gasped. ‘Oh Sam, what have I dragged you into?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Sam shrugged his shoulders. ‘They’re scraping the barrel now.’

  But the next day there were more stories. One about Georgia spending four hundred pounds on shoes in one day and another claiming she didn’t wash her clothes, but threw them away.