“What the fuck’s so funny,” said Jamie. Struggling to stifle his own laughter
“Come here, you daft twat,” said Johnny, hugging Jamie into him. “Serves you right for being so fucking gorgeous!”
Scratching his head with both hands animatedly, Jamie laughed, “For fuck’s sake!”
Returning to the now-thinning out dressing room, Jamie saw that Lara had already gone.
“Problem solved,” Johnny whispered, “For now…”
***
“You know I don’t go kissing all the pretty boys in bands, so I don’t,” said Sally, sipping on a bones-warming brandy.
“I’m sure you don’t. And I don’t kiss all the girls that ask me,” smiled Jamie, nursing his own brandy.
“And I write the stories. I don’t want to be part of them,” said Sally, meeting Jamie’s faraway gaze.
“What’s the story?” laughed Jamie
“Ha. You knows what I mean!” smiled Sally. “And make sure your second album is as good as that and you’ll be right, so you will.”
“It’ll be even better,” nodded Jamie. “You’ll be the first journo to hear ‘em,” He kissed her on the cheek, “I promise,” and then made a three-fingered gesture by his ear, “Scout’s honour!”
“Oh, you were always too rock ’n’ roll for Scouts Jamie. That I’m certain I am!” said Sally.
“Another drink?” asked Jamie.
“I will. But I’ve got to ask, so I have. You gonna chase after her tonight?” said Sally, her brow furrowing slightly.
“I dunno. I really don’t. She’s a world away from me.” Laughing almost to himself, “Just pick up a paper and find out…”
“I will, don’t worry!” said Sally.
“You any of that sniff left? Last night of the tour and all that.”
“Seeing as though it be you,” she said, reaching discreetly for her purse. “And go easy. I know what you lead singers are like!”
As Jamie sought a cubicle in the luxurious toilets, he checked his mobile – no messages.
A tap-tap of his credit card was echoed from one of the other cubicles, causing Jamie to chuckle to himself. A hastily rolled twenty and a sweep of his head and the hooter was hoovered. Stepping out of the cubicle and checking his reflection he caught sight of Dominic, stepping out of an adjacent cubicle.
“Alright bro. Were you talking to yourself in there?” said Dom, now also checking his reflection and dabbing at his nose.
“No. Just knew somebody else was walking the line. You okay?” said Jamie, as he started to wash his hands in the polished aluminium sink.
“Good thanks J. I was just gonna ask you the same. Got your hands full, haven’t you? Said you should have left that Sally Welsh bird to me!”
“You’re all heart bro,” laughed Jamie. “My own fault.” Turning to his twin, he said, “Number three album and a single that could go even higher. I can live with that.”
“Been some year,” said Dominic, feeling a cocaine-induced numbness in his front teeth.
“And it’s only gonna get bigger when we start with those new songs. I love yer man. Come ’ere,” said Jamie, hugging his brother into him.
“Soft twat!” laughed Dom. “Anyhow. I’ve got to get back out there. Nice gaff this, isn’t it? Can’t have you with two birds on the go and leave me all empty handed…”
***
Having resisted the urge to check his phone for over an hour, and almost ready for the hotel, Jamie looked down at his iPhone. There was the little red circle indicating he had an electronic missive.
Casually opening the icon, his pulse increased slightly. Lara. ‘So where are you then?’
No ‘X’ he noted to himself, and the message was almost an hour old. But it was Lara. He weighed up his thoughts quickly – Sally had gone and that had been wrapped very harmoniously. Johnny had gone off with Amanda like a love-struck puppy, having been out shopping again all afternoon.
“How much of our advance are you spending on coats?” he’d joked that afternoon as Johnny had turned up with a beautiful tan coloured trench coat. Dom had now acquired some female company. And Mikee and Danny. They had gone off to Soho on Mikee’s insistence – D-Mo had a somewhat concerned look in his dilated pupils.
Fortune favours the brave, Jamie thought as he tapped out a message –
‘Leaving aftershow. Can meet up. Where are you? J’
If there was no reply in five minutes, he planned to go back to the hotel. However, his phone pinged back immediately –
‘Hakkasan. Get here now x’
Nodding at Dominic, he left quietly.
Arriving at the bar, a cosmopolitan and chic looking establishment just off Oxford St, he hopped out of the cab and was met by Lara.
A saucer-eyed, and for her, very bedraggled Lara. Smoking frenziedly and talking at machine-gun chatter speed. Her make-up was streaked and her hair, a voluminous tangle.
His ‘spider senses’ shouted trouble and he half-considered hopping back into the idling cab.
Too late.
“JAMIE THORNE!” shouted Lara, flicking her cigarette with pinpoint accuracy into the gutter. “JAMIE THORNE. SO, YOU HAVEN’T STOOD ME UP TWICE IN A NIGHT!”
“Hey Lara. Shall we go in and get a drink. Away from…” He made a sweeping gesture with his hand at the passing punters and small crowd of people that Lara had been stood with.
“OH, I’M FINE!” she said, again with some considerable volume.
But you’re clearly not, Jamie thought to himself…
Turning to one of her companions, she said in a dreadful stage whisper, “I FLEW ALL THE WAY FROM AMERICA JUST TO SEE JAMIE AND HE WAS GETTING ALL SWEET WITH SOME LITTLE BITCH!”
“That’s not strictly true is it? I had no idea tha—”
She cut him off sharply.
“FUCK YOU! I WAS HUMILIATED. THAT SHIT DOESN’T HAPPEN TO ME!” Making a comedic pointing gesture to herself, Lara then stepped towards Jamie, her manicured hands on her hips. “BUT MR ROCKSTAR WAS OFF ELSEWHERE. NOW HE’S SOOOO POPULAR.”
“C’mon Lara. Not here, Please,” he said, reaching out for her elbow.
Smack. A stinging slap rang across his right cheek.
“Fuck sake!” he yelled. He then raised both his palms up in front of him. Lara’s eyes had taken on an incandescent quality. Her mocha coloured complexion had a sweat sheened pallor to it. Somebody has done a fuck load of coke, thought Jamie.
“JAMIE THORNE. WHO SAYS HE LIKES ME AND THEN STANDS ME UP AND OH WAIT,” she shouted, with a quick involuntary rub of her nose, “GETS ALL COSY WITH SOME BITCH BEHIND MY BACK!”
“I’m going,” said Jamie, turning sharply and bumping into a stationary passer-by who had been recording the exchange in glorious megapixel technicolour…
Chapter 39
“Welcome home Jamie. You couldn’t just stick the kettle on for us, could you?” said the wretchedly familiar face of photographer number one.
Their numbers had multiplied, and the two-lensed beast was now four.
“She can pack a punch, can’t she?” said photographer three. A gaunt looking individual, wearing a grey canvas utility-style waistcoat.
“Looked like it hurt. Gonna take your shades off and show us the damage?” said photographer number two, leaning on a concrete bollard whilst he idly scrolled through his mobile phone.
It was thirty-six hours since the pavement incident in London and the amateur paparazzo had duly received their requisite pieces of silver for the on-the-spot mobile handiwork. Most disconcerting was the video had been hosted on the newspaper’s website gossip page. It was all there in glorious sound and vision. Lara, a dishevelled and under various influences was the antagonist, with Jamie merely the unwilling recipient of the back of her vicious tongue and equally sharp backhand.
The two minutes twenty-three second clip had been given the usual tabloid spin with a completely unfounded comment that Lara’s wrist had been ‘badly bruised’ when Jamie had attempt
ed to lead her inside the bar and away from prying eyes.
Having seen both the offending newspaper and website on the train journey back from London, Jamie was totally expecting the camera bearing reception committee. Taking off his Aviator shades, Jamie turned and faced the scrape – this being his chosen collective noun of choice – of the press pack assembled in front of him.
“Nothing to see I’m afraid. Sorry to disappoint.” Popping his shades back on, he flipped a finger in their direction. “And fuck you all very much…”
And there it was. The picture to satiate the scrape’s finger hungry appetite. A volley of camera lenses clicked into action. Jamie understood this was exactly what they wanted. Returning Rockstar sporting shades giving it the big attitude.
What he wasn’t expecting was photographer number four’s planned provocation. “Proper tough guy aren’t we Jamie. We can’t wait to run the pictures of you slapping her back. That’ll rain on your parade…”
Pushing his Ray-Bans up on to the top of his head, Jamie nonchalantly turned on the photographer, who had already primed his camera awaiting his reaction. “Any pictures like that are utter fuckin’ bullshit. You know it and I know it. I’ll get your arses sued so fuckin’ quickly you’ll be begging in doorways this time next month.”
Looking the photographer up and down with a dismissive sneer, he said, “You fat fuckin’ bullshit merchant. Go fuck yourself…”
“Nice words Jamie. Enjoy the rest of your day,” laughed photographer number two.
“That’ll be it for a while. Whose round is it to nip to Greggs? I’m starving,” said photographer number one, rubbing his stomach absentmindedly.
***
Entering his apartment, Jamie chucked his bag onto the bedroom floor and flopped back onto the bed. Holding his hands to his temples, he screwed his eyes shut and let out an exasperated grimace. He hadn’t heard from Lara since the unseemly altercation, and a text from Sally opining that he should have come back to hers for a spliff hadn’t helped his darkening mood.
“Johnny. I know we’ve only just got back from London, but you fancy a coffee. Come around and buzz on. Cheers man.”
Jamie hung up and tapped his phone pensively against his chin. He couldn’t bring himself to watch the online spat again. The others had kept their own counsel when they had first seen the footage. There had almost been a realisation that they were public property now and the stark truth was there for all to see.
And Lara. She was ‘off her nut’. He knew that she liked a line. They all did. But this had been something else. This wasn’t the spiritual karmic girl he’d spent hours and hours getting to know.
***
“Go on then. Look at it,” said Danny, as he perched on the edge of the bath.
Dee, sat in an unedifying pose on the toilet with her knickers round her ankles. “I can’t. You look,” she said, handing the plastic strip across to Danny.
Recoiling slightly at the piss dripping and potentially life-changing wand, Danny breathed in deeply and closed his eyes.
Opening his eyes, as Dee closed hers, he held his breath and looked down.
“Blue. It’s blue,” he said quietly.
Dee slowly opened her eyes, “Are you sure?”
“Course!” he said indignantly.
“Definitely blue?”
“It’s blue and that means…”
“That means you’re going to be a dad!” squealed Dee, jumping up from her porcelain perch, and hugging Danny, who was vainly trying not to touch her with the pregnancy divining rod.
“A dad.” Rolling the words round his tongue, confusion, delight and fear were all clouding his ability to grasp the moment. “Me. A dad. I just never thought…”
“You’ll be amazing! Absolutely amazing,” said Dee, hitching up her skirt and pulling her leopard-print knickers back up.
Struggling to articulate, Danny stood open-mouthed. “And, err, and you’ll be the best mum in the world. I just hope he doesn’t get my nose,” he laughed nervously.
“Oh, it’s a boy is it?” said Dee, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Don’t cry! You’ll set me off,” said Danny, his voice wavering. “And you know what I mean. I don’t mind at all. Boy baby or girl baby.”
“Oh Danny! I can’t believe this. I do love you.”
“And I love you,” Danny said, still shrouded in his post-tour guilt.
Prior to the day’s bombshell, he had decided that he was going to confess all to Dee and promise to never stray again if she had granted him absolution of his groupie based sins. Forgive me Dee, for I have sinned. Many times, with many. many girls… thought Danny
This, however, moved the goalposts. This was much more than that. It changed the sport and the shape of the goalposts. But Dan’s preternatural guilt was showing no sign of abeyance…
Chapter 40
It was 6 a.m. on a typical cold and damp Sunday morning. The band had assembled to shoot the video for ‘Mantra’. Barney had again been enlisted for the job, and had made the epic trek up North the previous day.
The shoot took place in the ‘skeleton’ framework of an apartment block adjacent to the Mancunian Way.
A cherry-picker supplied by a window cleaner mate of Johnny’s and the presence of cameras had soon alerted the local constabulary.
Who, after a fumbled ’bribe’ of gig tickets, had let them off with a friendly move-on…
***
After the completion of the shoot, the band, together with Barney, Ged the window-cleaner and Johnny went for a fry-up breakfast at a café on Oxford Road.
Fiddling with the salt and pepper shakers, Danny was even twitchier than normal.
“What’s up D-Mo? You’ve hardly said a word all morning. You weren’t scared of the heights were yer?” said Dominic, as he poured sugar into his tea.
“Nah. Fuck off. Not at all,” snapped Danny.
“Go on then. What’s up with yer?” said Mikee, hungrily glancing over in the direction of the café’s kitchen area.
“Look. This is big news,” said Danny, looking around almost furtively.
Interrupted by the arrival of their food, Danny hesitated before he made his revelation.
“I’m gonna be a dad. Got back off tour and Dee’s pregnant,” gauging his bandmates’ faces for their reaction.
“Congratulations man!” shouted Mikee.
“Fuck. A Lonely Souls baby,” said Dom, “Pleased for you D-Mo.”
“Me too,” said Jamie, “Made up for you. Really am.”
“Don’t look so worried. You’ll be a natural,” said Johnny, a quick flashback to his attempts at paternity running through his mind.
“I’ll film the birth if you want,” offered Barney, through a mouthful of vegan bacon.
Raising his mug of overly-sweet tea, Dominic called a toast. “To Danny and Dee! And a little D-Mo!”
Seven chipped mugs came together, and Danny mustered up his best smile.
***
“Right lads. My visa is only for twenty-four hours, so if I don’t leave these Northern wastelands sharpish, I’ll get scurvy or summat,” said Barney, adjusting his pastel blue plus-fours. “Video will look mega. Had a quick look at some of the footage in the car over here. Love it!”
As goodbyes were exchanged, Johnny noticed Danny hanging back slightly.
“Nice one Barney. We’ll await seeing the rough edit later this week.”
Turning to Danny, Johnny said, “You okay man?”
“You got time for a pint? Could do with a chat. Don’t tell that lot though,” mumbled Danny.
“No worries. I’ll make excuses and see you in Cord in five,” said Johnny.
***
“Guinness do you?” asked Johnny as he caught the barmaid’s attention.
“Yeah. Cheers. And thanks for this as well. Can’t speak to me dad. He’s a cunt. Been better lately…”
As ever, Danny was talking at speed of consciousness pace.
“Right. So, I�
��m a ‘Dad’ stand-in. Ta for that!” laughed Johnny.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean it like that. But my head’s in bits,” said Danny, rubbing at his temples as if to illustrate this.
“Okay. I’m all ears. What’s the problem?”
Taking a long draw from his pint, and nodding in approval, “I can’t do this anymore.”
Snapping to attention, Johnny said, “What do you mean? ‘This’? You’re not quitting the band?”
“FUCK! NO WAY. The band’s my life. They’d have to carry me out in a box!” said Danny, with the hint of a laugh.
“That’s a fuckin’ relief! Don’t do that to me!” said Johnny.
“We got back from tour right,” he looked round and dropped his voice to a hushed whisper, “and y’know, I wasn’t exactly faithful every night. I was gonna ’fess up. To Dee. Tell her I’d never do it again and set a date for the wedding and that. Next year probably,” and then with a slight tug on the cuff of Johnny’s shirt, “and then she tells me that she’s pregnant!”
“You can’t say anything Danny. Especially now. She’ll go fuckin’ spare. I promise!” said Johnny, in an equally whispered manner.
“Look what happened to Jamie though! What if one of the girls goes to the papers or something,” said Danny with a heavy sigh, “and the guilt is killing me. Irish Catholic and all that shite.” Crossing himself in front of Johnny for the first time.
“Well my son. Father Harrison says confess your sins to me and I’ll absolve you of it all. Then shut the fuck up about it!” said Johnny, putting his hands palm together and offering up a prayer.
“I’m serious. I have to tell her. Look Johnny, this is my first proper girlfriend. This is all fuckin’ new to me. I’ve got responsibilities now. I want a clean start,” said Danny, gulping the last of his pint down and indicating with a tilt of his glass that it was his shout.
Returning with two fresh pints, Danny said, “What should I do then?”
The Rock 'N' the Roll. 'N That Page 28