Wishing on a Star

by Christina Jones

  ‘Yeah right,’ Gary sniggered. ‘Bloody ghosts and ghouls, is that it?’ and he nudged Alex, spilling some of his drink.

  ‘Shut up you prat.’ Jonty jabbed his finger angrily at Gary. Gary took a large drag on his cigarette but didn’t respond for a change.

  ‘Please, just listen for once,’ Tristram snapped. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘Way back when Jet and I first got the band together, when we were still at school, we had a keyboard player, Danny – a mate since we were little. We played school dances and at youth club. Then the three of us used to do local pubs when we left school.’ Jonty smiled sadly. ‘We couldn’t get a decent drummer back then, we used a drum machine and sometimes Danny played bass.’

  ‘Bloody closet Night Ranger, I might’ve guessed. You did West Coast crap I bet!’ laughed Gary.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Jonty, throwing Gary a filthy look. ‘We did really well, got a large following, and we had a bit of a buzz going, so we sent a demo tape out to the labels in London, just testing the water really.’

  ‘Yeah, at first nothing happened, just the usual ‘thanks but no thanks,’ but we carried on,’ said Jonty. ‘Anyway, after about six months we managed to get a gig on Radio One Rock Wars and we went down to Maida Vale to the Radio One studios to record a session with a proper producer.’ Jonty smiled at the memory. ‘We’d found a really heavy drummer by then, Mike, and we had a really hard vibe going … except for the keyboards.’

  ‘Yeah, we had a ball, it was amazing. We were in a professional studio instead of a crummy semi-pro set-up in a mate’s garage. It was awesome,’ said Jet, his eyes bright with excitement.

  ‘Right, so what’s this gotta do with the crap on our tracks?’ Alex was not known for his patience and this was beginning to do his head in. ‘If we’re not recording today I want to go and see the missus. It’s bloody Christmas in case you’ve forgotten.’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere; we’re recording today, tomorrow, and for the rest of the six weeks, so shut it,’ Tristram said through gritted teeth.

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ Buff said. He hadn’t yet decided to carry on. ‘Taking a lot for granted aren’t you?’

  ‘Hear Jonty out, then we’ll see what we can sort,’ Tristram said.

  ‘Come on mate, spill.’ Kris wanted to know more.

  Before Jonty could continue they were joined by a woman dressed in a Salvation Army uniform. She shook a container covered in fake holly and tinsel at the men and waited; smiling widely. They all searched their pockets and deposited their loose change in the container. ‘Bless you all, Merry Christmas, everybody,’ she said and moved to a group of giggling women drinking Babycham, eating crisps, and singing along with ‘I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,’ which someone had put on the jukebox.

  ‘As I was saying,’ Jonty sighed loudly. ‘We did the session and it went on air three weeks later. It was mad. We got loads of calls from labels all wanting to sign us, you know how it is.’ He looked at his beer. ‘Before the session we couldn’t get arrested, then everyone and his uncle was after us.’ Jet and Buff nodded, they knew how it went.

  ‘We saw lots of labels, played showcases for them all, and got loads of feedback about the songs, the way we looked, and what they thought we should be like. That’s how it is.’ Jet watched his band mates nodding their agreement. ‘Some wanted us harder, more like Sabbath, and others thought we should go more AOR, with a softer image. It was a friggin’ nightmare trying to resist the pressure to change.’ Jet ran his hands through his long dark hair. ‘We were auditioning bass players too and that was going nowhere fast.’

  ‘We had loads of managers trying to get us to sign with them and they all had their ideas as well, about our sound, image, and who was good for the band and who wasn’t,’ Jonty added. ‘We had a massive row with Danny, he wanted to play keyboards not bass, and he wanted to go with A&M records because they had a guy they wanted to manage us – can’t recall his name – but he was an arsehole.’

  ‘Yeah, they did a number on him, filling his head with crap about living in LA, having a condo on the beach and half-naked models dripping around his own pool.’ Jet shook his head. ‘He was sold good and proper. He kept on and on about how we could make a fortune and he’d always dreamed about living on the West Coast, having the red Corvette, the whole nine yards. We didn’t want that, Jonty and me. We’re about the integrity of our music, not just the bloody babes and dosh; we’re metal through and through.’

  ‘In the end we had a fight. Bloody horrid it was, real fists and violent.’ Jet shuddered. ‘Danny got pissed off his head and phoned the guy from A&M and spilled his guts to him. Well, that was a mistake. They told him they wouldn’t touch a band who weren’t one hundred percent into the deal or the manager they offered. They didn’t want Danny on his own either.’

  ‘It was coming up to Christmas and the labels were closing down for the holidays so they wanted us to commit. Sony and BMG in London kept the pressure up but Jet and I liked the sound of Zomba. They had bands like us and good American distribution and we’d showcased for a manager who had managed successful bands, just like us, on their label.’ He glanced at Tristram. ‘We liked him and felt he would be good for us. Danny hit the booze and he cocked up the second showcase we were asked to do for him.’ Jonty looked at Tristram who was frowning into his beer. Suddenly he realised no-one was talking and he looked up. All eyes were on him.

  ‘Yeah, I wasn’t impressed with him or his attitude at the time; anyway, I knew we could find someone else who could also write songs with the others. I didn’t think the band needed keyboards anyway, it wasn’t adding anything to the sound and I knew I could market them without. Their sound was harder and more aggressive than the AOR direction Danny wanted to go.’

  Tristram took a deep breath before continuing. ‘I told Zomba Danny would hold the band back – I could make a success of them – without Danny.’ He looked uncomfortable for a moment, then said in a stronger voice, ‘I was right. Keyboards took them in the wrong direction.’

  ‘Yeah, and then Mike got cold feet. His dad wanted him to get a job and have some stability, plus he was planning on getting engaged to – what’s her face – and save for a house,’ Jet added, ‘So right at the worst possible time, he left the band.’ Jet looked angry.

  ‘Bloody painter and decorator last I heard with loads of kids, living in a council house near his dad.’ Jonty added shaking his head at the memory. ‘What a prat!’

  ‘We hadn’t decided upon a bass player and suddenly we had to find another drummer. It sucked,’ said Jet. ‘Danny didn’t want to play bass.’

  ‘Anyway, to cut a long story short and all that, I negotiated the Zomba deal – music and publishing – and the band signed with me,’ said Tristram, anxious to get on with it. ‘Danny threw a wobbly, refused to sign anything and flounced off somewhere. He went on a bender for weeks, wouldn’t take calls or answer the door. In the end we sacked him.’

  ‘Yeah, OK, so what’s the biggie here?’ said Kris, ‘Happens all the time.’ He waved a fiver at Alex, ‘Get a round in mate, my throat feels like Ozzy’s halfway through No Rest for the Wicked’ Alex left them and pushed his way to the bar through giggling girls with tinsel and fake snow in their hair and on their clothes. A couple tried to get him under the mistletoe without much luck. The band sat in silence until he returned with a tray of drinks and a plate of mince pies courtesy of the pub landlord.

  ‘Go on, Tristram,’ said Alex. He was anxious to get on; it was all beginning to do his head in.

  ‘We got a call about six weeks later from his mate Fizz, the singer with Loved Up, saying that, Danny was, um,’ Tristram cleared his throat and waited a moment, taking a deep breath. ‘Danny had um, had died.’ He rubbed his eyes, shaking his head wearily. ‘He’d hanged himself in his mate’s recording studio at the back of his house.’ Tristram looked up, pain in his eyes. ‘He did it with some studio cable on Christmas Eve.’

  Buff and
Geoff glanced at each other but said nothing. Death was nothing new to them, both having lost many musician friends over the years to drugs and booze.

  ‘What?’ Alex screwed his face up. ‘What a big girl’s blouse!’ he laughed, looking around expecting similar reactions from Kris and Gary. They looked stunned. Roy Wood and Wizzard belted out ‘I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day.’

  ‘Can’t someone turn that bloody thing off?’ shouted Tristram at the juke box. Nobody in the pub took any notice, not that they’d heard; it was Christmas Eve and they were out to celebrate.

  So much for sympathy, thought Jonty, for whom the whole episode was doubly raw at this time of year. He’d been mates with Jet and Danny since primary school. He’d always wanted Danny to join the band on bass, not keys, but Danny had always had a reason not to join them. When he finally agreed Jonty and Jet thought he was as committed as they were. They hoped they’d wean him off of keyboards eventually. It was a shock when he got sacked; both musicians believed he’d see sense and come crawling back after a while, but he didn’t. He killed himself instead. The guilt nearly destroyed them both and it was months before they could rehearse or record without thinking they could hear him playing his favourite melody on his Fender Rhodes or strumming his Warwick bass. Finding a bass player and drummer had been left to Tristram. They hadn’t the heart for it.

  ‘Shut the fuck up, Alex, you cold bastard,’ shouted Jet. ‘He was our mate, whatever our differences, he was a mate.’

  The meat raffle kicked off and it grew a little quieter in the pub as the ticket numbers were called and winners collected their joints of meat and fresh turkeys. In the public bar several meat pie sellers were making their rounds, carrying baskets filled with locally made pasties and pork pies. Cliff Richard blasted out ‘Mistletoe and Wine,’ and several girls joined in loudly, oblivious to the drama unfolding nearby.

  ‘What’s Danny got to do with the racket on the tracks?’ Buff asked the obvious, ‘Are you saying it’s him?’ Geoff rolled his eyes. This was one hell of a gig and no shit.

  Tristram bent closer to the others, ‘It’s him, make no mistake.’ Geoff laughed and pulled his jacket over his head and waved his arms, making ghoulish sounds.

  Buff hit Geoff’s shoulder. ‘Shut up.’ He looked Tristram directly in the eye. ‘Spill,’ he said. The others shifted in their seats, Jet and Jonty looked utterly miserable but said nothing.

  ‘Danny used to play that melody all the time when messing around on his Fender, he used it to warm up; he never finished writing it. Jet and Jonty recognised it as well. It’s him on the tracks.’ Tristram took a long slug of beer. He said, ‘When he was found in the studio, Slade was belting out – ‘Merry Christmas Everybody,’ – he hated it.’

  ‘So what’s his beef then?’ Buff asked. ‘Why’s he giving it some wellie now?’

  ‘I don’t know, but something’s upset him,’ said Jet. Jonty nodded.

  ‘Listen to yourselves, ‘something’s upset him,’ are you serious?’ Gary threw his head back and laughed. ‘Guy’s fuckin’ dead!’

  ‘Ghosts, ghoulies, phantoms and … Danny!’ giggled Alex. ‘What are you like?’

  Roars of laughter and shouting from other customers penetrated Tristram’s brain. ‘I can’t talk here, let’s go back to the studio.’ He got up, drained his drink, and headed to the exit. Jet and Jonty followed, with Buff and Geoff not far behind.

  Kris looked at the others, uncertain. ‘You coming?’ He really wanted to know what was going on. Gary and Alex nodded, drained their drinks, and left with Kris.

  Back in the studio kitchen they sat at the table with coffee and waited. ‘I think he’s pissed off with how the band’s working out,’ said Jonty after a while. ‘I feel he sees the opportunities we’ve had and what we could have and I think he’s trying to warn you …’ He looked at Alex, Kris, and Gary, then Jet and Buff, ‘warn us, that if we don’t stop fighting and falling out, it’s all going to be for nothing.’

  ‘Right, some sort of phantom from the grave with a message,’ laughed Alex. ‘A sort of rock ’n’ roll Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past shit.’

  ‘I think Jonty’s right,’ said Tristram. ‘I think Danny screwed up big time and he doesn’t want his mates to go the same way.’ He really felt Danny was trying to warn them and this was his way.

  ‘We didn’t know him, so why should he care?’ Gary asked, lighting another smoke.

  ‘He was our mate, he cared about us and I think he doesn’t want to see us fall apart and lose it all,’ said Jet. ‘He can see how it is, and I for one don’t want to see another five years of hard work go down the pan.’

  ‘I’ll ask him, shall I?’ Alex opened the studio door and went inside. Immediately the lights started flickering. ‘Hi, Danny, it’s me, Alex. Come out, wherever you are.’ The others followed him reluctantly. ‘See, he’s not here.’ The lights went out as Geoff closed the door.

  For a moment they stood in darkness and silence, adjusting their eyes. A dim light remained in the vocal booth, spilling shadows over the mixing desk. ‘Try the lights, Geoff,’ said Buff, sitting in his chair.

  ‘Nope,’ Geoff kept trying the main switches but nothing. He went to the back of the desk took a torch from the back shelf, put it on and slide underneath where he fiddled with the cables, reattaching them. ‘Try the channels, Buff,’ he said, popping his head over the back of the desk. ‘Anything?’ Buff slid a few faders, changing channels, expecting the guitar tracks to play quietly, but all they could hear was keyboards.

  ‘Yep. It’s on all the channels, it’s crazy.’ Buff turned the volume off. Suddenly the lights flickered and died as the vocal booth filled with a blue tinged mist. It swirled around at shoulder height and as they watched the room grew so cold they could see their own breath. ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ filled the studio briefly, so loud they clapped their hands over their ears. It stopped; all they could hear was deep breathing, on the mic. Then, ‘Testing, testing, one, two, three.’ The voice was unmistakable. Tristram, Jonty, and Jet froze. The others gaped at the shimmering outline of a man standing at the mic.

  ‘Tristram, hey, man; you got what you wanted, but it’s not looking great,’ the voice said. Tristram grabbed the desk for support, speechless.

  ‘Jonty, Jet, my old mates. Stabbed me in the back, but that’s cool; would’ve done the same.’ The two musicians held their breath. ‘I forgive you, it’s in the past.’

  ‘Wha … why?’ Tristram stuttered. ‘Danny, it can’t be …’

  ‘Yep. It is.’ Danny laughed a soulless laugh. ‘Been watching you; gotta say, mate, you guys suck.’ Danny’s ghostly form gradually looked more solid, more human, as he spoke.

  ‘You know, at first I wanted to take it all away from you guys,’ Danny’s voice shook, ‘You didn’t deserve having what I lost, but you know what?’ Danny’s breath filled the mic. ‘I like the new music, I think it’s got legs.’ He sighed. ‘I’d never have made it, I know that now. You guys wanted it real bad. I just wanted the glamour, the fame, and the lifestyle. It’d never have worked … I know now; it’s all about the music.’

  ‘Danny, why? Why did you do it?’ Jonty was almost crying. ‘I’ve had nightmares. Jet nearly lost it … why?’

  ‘Man, you’ll love this,’ Danny giggled. ‘It was a mistake, an accident. Remember that chick from A&M, the one looked like butter wouldn’t melt?’ Both musicians and their manager nodded.

  ‘Well, me and her we sort of got into it, in the studio, and her old man came barging in just at the wrong moment.’ Danny coughed long and hard. ‘Thing is, he didn’t see the cable round my neck and he shoved me hard. I fell off the chair.’ Danny paused ‘Bingo!’

  ‘But if someone was there, why didn’t they help you?’ Jet couldn’t believe it. ‘Surely she tried, even if her old man didn’t?’

  ‘Too late, mate. I was so high I vomited and choked on it and by the time they realised, it was, like, well, they wanted out of there.’ Danny si
ghed. ‘They came back later, dressed me and put me back so it looked like I’d kicked the chair away; done deal, no-one checked. Just another drugged-up sex game gone wrong. No-one wanted a scandal so they managed to cover it all up – even Tristram worked his magic.

  ‘God, Danny, mate, that’s tragic.’ Jonty had tears streaming down his face. ‘No-one breathed a word. We just heard you’d hanged yourself, nothing was mentioned about what you just said …’ Jonty shook his head. ‘We’ve been so cut up, especially at Christmas, because, well, you know … the date.’

  ‘Look, you three.’ He gestured to Twister’s newest members. ‘Don’t throw it all away being shits. It doesn’t last and stuff gets in the way of the music.’ His hands shimmered as he moved them. ‘I had it and lost it and regret being such a shit, but you guys, you’ve got it all – and the way you’re going on, well, you’re gonna blow it.’

  Kris, Gary, and Alex stared, unable to speak. ‘Don’t be dumb, you’re making enemies, losing friends, and soon the fans will get fed up with the nasty rep you all have.’ Danny’s voice was weak and regretful. ‘Buff is a cool guy, he doesn’t deserve this crap; Geoff doesn’t deserve it. Think, will ya?’

  Danny’s image shimmied and began to fade. ‘Don’t forget. Don’t screw it up, guys. Make it for me, your old mate is watching.’ His presence drifted away, ‘I love you guys.’ Then he was gone. The lights came back on and the desk lit up. The room was warmer.

  ‘We didn’t get to ask anything,’ Gary said. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  Tristram cleared his throat. ‘OK guys, you heard what Danny said, I was going to have this chat with you anyway, but we’ll have it now.’ He looked around the room. ‘Are you going to change your attitude, your behaviour, grow up and work hard, or are you going to throw it all away? Choice is yours. I for one haven’t the time or money to waste.’

  The members of Twister looked back at him, at Buff and Geoff, and each nodded sincerely. ‘I think we all agree, Tristram, we’re going to change and things are going to be different. Better. Right, guys?’ Gary said.