Stardust

by Ray Connolly

  Again Jeanette broke in, but this time more in anger than grief: ‘No … we don’t want anything from you. Never. Everything you’ve ever sent we put in the bank for Jimmy. We don’t want anything. Just go away and leave us alone.’

  And as the car drew up outside the cemetery she quickly opened the door and bundling her son out, she hurried to join the group of waiting, shocked mourners. Her boy friend smiled at Mike and followed her, hoisting Jimmy up into his arms to avoid the fans who were again besieging the Rolls.

  ‘Let’s get away from here,’ Mike ordered the chauffeur who had remained expressionless during the whole drive from the church. And as the fans struggled, noses against the tinted glass of the car, vainly trying to spot their idol and romantic hero, the car drew swiftly away.

  Neither Jim nor Danielle spoke for some hours after the funeral while the Rolls drove away down the MI towards London. Silence was important for Danielle. Still in a state of shock she was trying desperately to allow the events of the past few hours to coagulate into some form of pattern which she could understand. Nothing Jim had ever said to her, or nothing she had ever heard about him, had prepared her for the fact that he was already married. At last it was Jim who broke the silence, shutting the window which separated the driver and Mike from them both before he began to speak.

  ‘We didn’t stay together for very long. It was my fault. I couldn’t stand living there with my mother and Jeanette and the baby - it was all too stifling.’ He paused, possibly hoping for some help from Danielle but she said nothing. ‘Then when I began to make it I arranged with my lawyer to send her and my mum money every week. I knew they didn’t want me back.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Danielle spoke at last. Her voice croaky, her throat dry with emotion.

  ‘I don’t know … I never got round to it… no, it’s not that… it was as though I’d forgotten I was ever married … I never told anyone … not even Mike. Just the lawyer. When it came out today I was as surprised as you were, although I knew it was inevitable. I should never have brought you with me. I must be insane. It seems that I hardly knew what I was doing.’

  ‘Why didn’t you get a divorce?’

  ‘I don’t know. We just never did. I must be stupid. You know, it never occurred to me that Jeanette would be living with another bloke. I mean she was never that type.’

  Danielle looked at him sharply: ‘And I am?’

  ‘Oh no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t … I’m sorry. Oh, come on …’

  Danielle stared out of the window at the cars shooting northwards on the other lane of the motorway. ‘You have a lovely little boy. You must be very proud of him,’ she said.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mike was quite wrong in his first assessment of the events of the funeral. He had expected, indeed hoped, that Danielle would have been repelled by the distastefulness of it all, and certainly the Press during the next few days didn’t help with their front page pictures and instant tabloid revelations of the former life of the mystery star who had hoaxed them for so long about his background. But while shocked she may have been, her reaction was not one to make her run away. Indeed, once over the full force of her surprise and disappointment she rallied to Jim’s aid more than ever, always standing up for him, and always quick to hide him from the lenses of prying photographers. The Press naturally enough had a field day at Jim’s expense, digging up neighbours who had known him as a boy, talking to school friends and even managing to get Jeanette to break her long silence and actually admit publicly that she was Jim’s wife. Naturally enough Fleet Street was intrigued and annoyed that it had taken them so long to trace his background, and baffled by the way Jeanette had managed to keep their marriage secret. But she had been very shrewd, changing her name before Jim really became big, and moving away from her home town to live with Mrs Maclaine in Doncaster. There had, of course, always been rumours that Jim Maclaine was married, but it wasn’t until confronted with his wife and child that the story had broken fully, thus demonstrating perfectly the little appreciated fact that so long as you remain quiet the Press will have no scandal to write about.

  Like all sensations, however, it was quickly over, no matter how acutely it may have hurt those intimately involved, and although Danielle never mentioned the subject of Jeanette and Jimmy again she was upset more than Jim could begin to imagine. All the same life went on. In a hundred years’ time it would all be the same, she liked to tell herself, and resolving that it would make no difference to her relationship with the man she loved she went with him back to America for the autumn tour, more recordings, the spring tour, more television and so on. She wasn’t even thinking about the future because there just seemed to be no point to it. Instead she lived hedonistically for the moment, tolerating Mike, and trying to keep Jim happy. In New York they lived in a hotel, since Jim had become obsessed with the instant luxury of room service but they had always to keep a room vacant for Mike, who before long, and at Jim’s suggestion, moved in with them. He said he felt more secure when he had Mike where he could see him but Danielle suspected that his security stemmed from the need to be surrounded by the two people who really cared about what happened to him.

  The fortunes of Jim and the Stray Cats were in no way dissipated by the adverse publicity Jim had received, and hit album followed hit single with profitable regularity. Relations between Jim and the rest of the band were however less than cordial, and it was not with any particular shock that Mike saw things drawing to a head during the summer of 1968, just over two years after they had moved their careers to the States.

  One evening Jim, Mike and Danielle received an invitation to join J.D. and the rest of the group for a few drinks in Max’s Kansas City in Greenwich Village. Jim didn’t particularly want to go, as he was engrossed in watching an old movie on television but Danielle, who had been ill with ‘flu for the past fortnight, insisted. She just wanted to get outside the hotel. Okay, said Jim, and Mike called for the limousine.

  J. D. Clover, Alex, Stevie and Kevin were quite drunk by the time Jim joined them and they went into an exaggeratedly ritualized routine of gathering chairs and drinks for Danielle and Mike. This surprised Jim because they had not, on all previous occasions, made much attempt to be polite to either of them.

  ‘What’s the celebration?’ he asked as they sat down.

  ‘Just that we’re splitting with you,’ said J.D.

  The full force of what J.D. had said took a moment to sink in, which was just as well, because immediately he’d said it the four other Stray Cats went into a kind of drunken hysteria.

  ‘You’re joking?’ said Jim at last. The idea was unthinkable. He was the star. Whoever heard of the backing group splitting with the star: ‘You can’t leave me.’

  ‘Fancy a drink,’ said J.P. smirking at Mike.

  ‘I am the Stray Cats,’ insisted Jim.

  That’s right,’ said Stevie. ‘And we’re tired of being your shadows. I started this band. Well, Johnny Cameron and me-God rest his soul,’ and again the four of them fell to laughing among themselves.

  ‘You’re out of your minds.’ Jim was becoming angry with panic. ‘If it weren’t for me you’d still be catching crabs in Oldham. You’ll disappear without me.’

  ‘We disappeared with you …’ J.D. was enjoying tormeriting Jim. After years of being the joker of the party J.D. was showing an entirely new side to his personality.

  Jim tried again: ‘Come on, let’s talk about it.’

  J.D. shook his head: ‘Piss off.’

  Jim stared at him for a moment. Then suddenly amazement confounded his shock. ‘That’s right, piss off,’ said Alex, which was, to everyone’s recollections, the longest sentence Alex had ever said in public.

  The whisky was clearly talking.

  They caught Porter Lee in his office the next day. He was understanding but he didn’t really have a great deal to say.

  ‘Look Jim, it was like this. The other boys wanted
out … so we agreed that they set up by themselves … that boy Kevin has one hell of a good voice, you know.’

  ‘But you can’t let the silly sods do it,’ whined Jim. Without the Stray Cats behind him he suddenly felt terribly vulnerable.

  ‘I can’t stop them,’ said Porter Lee. ‘Under our new agreement I’ll be managing them as a separate act.’

  This was news to Jim: ‘You’ll manage them, too?’ Somehow this possibility hadn’t occurred to him.

  ‘Of course. They have a contract … just like you. Remember you all signed separately.’

  ‘So where does that leave me?’

  ‘Well, let’s put it this way. You’re still the same. So you’ll just have to build a new group around you … it’ll be a big saving to you in the long run.’

  ‘Saving? What d’you mean?’ Jim had never shown much interest in the money side of the Stray Cats. Mike leant forward to listen. If he had a weakness in his job as personal aide it was that he, too, was not overly greedy either for Jim or for himself. They both trusted Porter Lee and true to his word he had made them rich beyond their dreams.

  ‘How much money did you make last year?’

  Jim laughed. He knew he had a very healthy bank balance and a considerable number of investments: ‘I dunno. A lot, I suppose. Go on tell me.’

  Porter Lee opened a drawer and pulled out a file: ‘Well the Stray Cats made a lot of money but your fifth isn’t an incredible amount. Of course, publishing helped, but you still have to split your album royalties with Stevie for most of your biggest songs. Sure, you made a lot of money. But you spent a lot too.’

  ‘I’m not going to end up broke, am I?’ Jim had to laugh at the way Porter Lee was discussing his financial state as though he were suddenly in straightened circumstances.

  ‘No,’ said Porter Lee. ‘But you’re not a millionaire yet, either.’

  ‘What about you?’ asked Jim, suddenly disliking the man intensely. ‘You seem to be managing all right.’

  Porter Lee threw wide his hands, and was about to say something when Mike cut him short: ‘Managers do,’ he said.

  ‘Well, that’s bloody wonderful,’ said Jim as the lift descended down from Porter Lee’s twenty-eighth floor penthouse. Danielle put a hand through his arm comfortingly. She too felt frightened by what Porter Lee had said. She didn’t doubt Jim’s talent but she did doubt his guts to carry on without his band.

  Mike leaned forward and pressed the Stop button on the elevator: ‘I’d better tell you now. I’d thought of joining the others. They made me a good offer. Tour manager. I thought you should know.’

  Jim panicked instantly: ‘You can’t join them. You’re with me. I got you in. You can’t leave me now.’

  ‘I don’t know, it’s a tempting offer.’

  ‘Sod their bloody offer,’ Jim’s pent-up emotion was now bubbling out. ‘From now on half of everything I earn is yours-fifty, fifty. I never wanted money, anyway. You can’t go. You can’t leave me.’

  Danielle turned away in disgust. Jim was making an exhibition of his cowardice.

  Mike considered the notion for a moment. He liked being coaxed: ‘Okay. We’ll give it a try. But from now on you’ll have to shift your arse out of neutral, and you’ll really have to work. And this time Porter Lee can play it our way.’

  And to Jim’s relief he released the Stop button, allowing the elevator to continue its descent.

  ‘One thing,’ added Mike as they walked out into Broadway. ‘I want you to know that it’s not the money for me, either.’

  The inspiration for Dea Sancta Et Gloria was scribbled down on the mass card that Jim had kept after his mother’s funeral. Years earlier as an altar boy he had always enjoyed the Sanctus part of the mass because it was so short, but it was only at his mother’s funeral that a vague idea came to him that he might be able to turn a song of praise to Hosannah in the Highest into a hymn of love for woman. He never knew how he thought of it: the varied incidents in his life just led him in that direction, and once the seed was in his mind it nagged away at him as it tried to grow.

  At first his work with the Stray Cats made it impossible to even consider composing such a piece, but from the way the pop music industry was moving at the end of the sixties he knew intuitively that one day he would find the perfect opportunity.

  The departure of the Stray Cats was that moment. Although his first reactions had been of fear and panic, in just a little time he began to see the possible advantages. Porter Lee wanted him to form a new band immediately and take to the road in competition with the Stray Cats, but smiling enigmatically Jim declined and instead took Danielle and Mike on holiday to South America, where, resting in the closeted comfort of an ocean-side villa, he composed the basic structure of his Sanctus. Writing simple rock and roll songs had always been easy for him, and indeed he actually felt some moral guilt about the absurd size of the reward he received for the tiny efforts and skills needed to compose pop songs, but Dea Sancta taxed him considerably more. It wasn’t that it was harder to do that which was pretentious, but that he seemed to be betraying so much of himself in the songs. Still, by the end of 1970 he was ready to go into the recording studios, and through Mike arranged to book the New York Philharmonic to accompany him. Danielle for her part, was delighted. At last Jim was trying to do something worthwhile musically. Porter Lee was less sure, and not at all certain that what Jim was trying to do wasn’t sacriligious but as he was holidaying in Bermuda, he wasn’t on hand to interfere with the sessions. All the same Mike decided to pop down to see him. They had business to talk.

  He found Porter Lee lying on a floating rubber porpoise in the middle of his pool. It was winter in New York, but while not actually roasting hot, it was quite balmy in Bermuda and Porter Lee had always been a health addict.

  Quite simply Mike began to lay down the plans that he and Jim had hatched for the commercial handling of Dea Sancta: ‘What you do is get television stations all around the world to put up a big enough advance to cover the cost of the album and the show itself. You can’t lose. If they can make money showing boxing matches by satellite round the world, think what you can pick up showing Jim Maclaine by satellite. For every one boxing fan there have to be five thousand pop fans.’

  Porter Lee could hardly fail to be impressed at the sheer size of the operation. At that time everyone was fascinated by the first Ali-Frazier fight, which was due that winter, and suddenly the potential wealth that satellite T.V. made available made his mouth water. It was true there would be an enormous audience for Jim Maclaine, just as there would be for a show by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or Dylan. But was the material right? He wasn’t sure. It was all too big for him to grasp. But as doubts and counter-doubts raced through his head, Mike was pressing on with his own, by now, very well formulated plans.

  ‘Then to coincide with the satellite concert we release the album worldwide. Just imagine the promotion you’ll get. It’s all or nothing on this one.’

  ‘What kind of concert had you in mind?’ gasped Porter Lee.

  Mike was ready for him: ‘Leave that to us. I promise you it’ll be like nothing you’ve ever seen before. After this he’ll be bigger than Adolf Hitler.’

  Meanwhile, in New York Danielle was doing her share of the pre-concert publicity. While Jim recorded she sat outside the studio, fending off the nuisance brigade who had made it their life’s work to follow him around, and giving interviews.

  ‘Am I right in believing,’ asked a man who said he was from Rolling Stones, ‘that the theme for the album is a deification of woman?’

  ‘Well, I suppose you could say it was something like that.’ Whenever the questions got heavy Danielle would hide behind a faked, but very strong French accent. When it suited her she spoke excellent English. ‘Really, I’m not in a very good position to tell you. You should ask Jim about.’

  ‘But it is a sort of women’s lib thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’ Danielle could hardly talk for
laughing. If there was one thing that Jim hated it was women’s lib. ‘No. Nothing like that. Jim loves women … proper women. The music is to the glory of women … how can I explain?’

  ‘I hear it’s dedicated to you?’

  Danielle smiled and shrugged, unsure of what to say next. ‘You’d better ask Jim,’ she said, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near Jim.

  The recordings for the Dea Sancta album took four whole months, cost two hundred thousand dollars and reduced Jim to nervous exhaustion. But by the end of February the sessions were virtually completed. During much of the recording Danielle and Mike had been bored onlookers, rarely talking to each other and in fact, getting on each other’s nerves more than usual since they had to spend hours and hours every day in the sound control booth together while Jim worked. But by the last day of recording she at least was prepared to hide her animosity, and as a special celebration ordered a large chocolate cake to be made in the shape of a record.

  ‘Will you tell Jim I’ll be back later. I’m just going home to get something,’ she told Mike as Jim tried for the umpteenth time to overdub some harmonies in Latin on the title track of the album.

  Mike nodded and Danielle disappeared.

  She had hardly left the building before the sessions were over. Pulling off his headphones Jim smiled triumphantly round the studio at the few musicians still working.

  ‘That’s it. We’ve done it. It’s over,’ he yelled, and running around waved his fist in the air in an attitude of triumph. He knew he had a success. He knew he’d won. Going back to his voice box he shouted up through his microphone for Danielle to come down. He wanted to know her verdict.

  ‘She’s not here, Jim,’ said Mike blankly. ‘She’s gone home.’ Suddenly he had seen his chance. He wouldn’t give Jim the complete message.

  There was a sudden hurt silence from the voice box. He knew Jim would be upset by what he would consider a desertion.