by John Harding
“The sort of people that go to music festivals quite like you,” Andre reminded her. “As do the people at Incredible Talents.” His eyes wandered to Claire who blushed. “And they are going to pay fifty thousand pounds for you.” He hesitated and then cleared his throat. “OK, they were going to pay thirty, and I beat them up to fifty! It's not a vast amount, but you are an addition to the line-up to boost sales, so it was worth it for them.”
“What? Fifty thousand? That's like massive,” Paige cried.
“You underestimate, Paige, how much money you've made,” Andre told her with a smile. “I reckon you are looking at around six hundred grand.”
Paige spluttered and gripped the side of the table. “That's over a hundred and fifty each after your cut! Wow!”
“No Paige, that's six hundred grand each, after expenses, and my cut,” Andre replied with a smile and Paige spluttered and grinned.
“You better be teasing me.”
“We got over two million owed or in an account with the music sales, and stuff. I need to get you talking to an accountant to sort this stuff out.”
“Wow, Christ. I'm rich?” She asked with a scowl. “I'm actually rich?” She looked at Claire and Jack. “Did you know 'bout this?”
“Not the amount,” Claire told her. “We need to get it all sorted with an accountant, pay tax and stuff, but yes, we are well-off.”
“Yeah,” Andre told her. “It can wait until after the concert though, I got to get away for a couple of days. But when we get back, get you chatting to an accountant.”
“Oh,” Jack muttered. “Isn't it important?”
Andre looked at Claire. “I thought Claire was off anyway seeing relatives?”
Paige glanced over at Claire who nervously bit her lip and nodded. “Yeah. Sick grandparents. South Coast,” she gulped.
“Right, well,” Jack muttered and looked up at Paige. “Guess it's just us two.”
“Yeah,” Paige muttered. “Oh, and Andre. Any chance of putting a complaint into the Police? The way those bastards dragged me to the car this morning. No dignity at all.”
Andre nodded. “I'll get the solicitor to stop off and see you,” he promised and then looked at the contract in Jack's hand. “You want to do the festival?”
He glanced over to Claire who nodded. “Yeah, it'll be exciting,” she said, smiling as Jack flicked through the legal document. “Why not?”
“I'm not sure it's worth getting out of bed for a measly fifty grand,” Paige teased and smiled. “Of course, I'll do it! I can be naked, can't I?”
“Yes,” Andre replied. “I did check that. I do know what you are like, Paige.”
“What?” Paige asked.
“Awkward!” Claire responded with a giggle. “Bloody awkward.”
* * * * *
“Claire was very keen for us not to join her,” Paige moaned as she put on her best dress and smiled at her “date” wearing a suit. “I mean, I can understand it. We've lived on top of each other for months.”
Jack chuckled. “Some of us, more than others.”
“Hey, you weren't complaining. Sharing a sleeping bag.”
“No, I wasn't,” Jack reminded her and held the door open for her. She snarled at him as she brushed her long, red hair and applied a few squirts of her perfume, before joining him on the landing.
“I won't wait up,” Lucinda teased as they came downstairs and she watched them from her front room. Jack chastised her when he saw she had a whole bottle of wine to herself. “I'm not going to drink one bottle in an evening to myself,” she moaned and pulled a second bottle from the floor. “I've got two.”
“Aunty, we need to talk,” Jack muttered.
“I'm fine,” she said, dismissing her concerned nephew. “And don't keep your young lady waiting.”
“I won't.” He frowned and crossed his arms. “But you need to stop this drinking and …”
“I am not drinking it on my own,” she snapped. “I am expecting company.”
“Ohhhh,” Paige taunted. “Anyone we know.”
“It does not matter,” she was told. “Now off you go.”
Jack hummed. “Just don't do something stupid, like accept a marriage proposal!”
“I won't,” she replied. “I've got enough toasters!”
Jack shook his head and escorted Paige out of their front door. They expected journalists to be waiting for them, but it was a cold night and they had decamped from outside Lucinda's drive to the subtler location of inside a handful of cars parked on the private road.
Paige grumbled as they drove past. “Can you stop for a moment?” She asked, and Jack looked at her as she did. “I just want a quick word with them.”
“Paige, please.”
“What? Stop. Please.” Jack reluctantly slowed the vehicle and Paige got out the car, walking towards a little Ford Fiesta parked by the side of the road with blacked-out windows. She saw the occupants move as she tapped on the window and Jack got out of his car to watch. “Open,” she barked and the car window slid down. “Just so you know,” she shouted at the middle-aged man sat inside the vehicle so that the entire street could hear. “My band mate and I are going to a restaurant together because we are fed up being stuck in the house. Claire has gone to see her relatives and we are going to the Old Ship Inn, about five miles away. We have a table booked for seven, and I am probably going to order something unhealthy, and Jack will moan at me for doing so. I will have a double vodka and lemonade and chocolate dessert. I am wearing red knickers with a matching bra, and … er … I think that's it.” She glared at him. “What no photographs?”
“Listen love, if you don't want the press to …”
“I am helping you,” Paige said with an ominous smile. “So you can sod off outside the house. So sling your hook.” She looked at Jack watching her and shrugged.
“Oh, and missy. Your friend ain't with relatives. She’s gone with that agent of yours. We saw them buying tents this morning.”
“You what?” Paige snorted and shook her head. “I don't think so.” Jack watched as Paige walked towards him, shaking her hips from side to side and then getting into Jack's vehicle. “That showed them.”
“You gave them everything they wanted.”
“Yes, and hopefully they will go from outside our house. Well, your Aunt's house.”
“I am not quite sure that's how it works,” Jack muttered as he pulled away from where he was parked. “And I bet we are in the newspapers tomorrow as we leave the pub.”
“I hope not,” Paige replied. “You didn't really believe me when I said I would have one double vodka and lemonade?” It took Jack around fifteen minutes to drive to the pub in the tail end of the rush hour traffic, and he pulled up in the car park and scanned the other vehicles as he got out of his car. Paige's teeth chattered. “What are you looking for?” Paige asked as she waited for her date, and crossed her arms. “It's bloody cold.”
“Should have worn a coat then,” Jack muttered and turned to look at her. “Just looking for paparazzi,” he whispered.
“They could be anywhere,” Paige teased and grabbed hold of his hand. “So what if they are around? I think I look pretty nice tonight. And I think you look pretty good.”
“It's just … weird. Why are we appearing in so many newspapers? So what if we have a best-selling album and a single and a …”
“A story,” Paige told him. “That's what Andre says, we are a story!”
“You're really enjoying this, aren't you?” Jack suggested as he pushed open the door to the pub.
“Yes,” Paige admitted. “I think it's exciting.” She looked at her partner and grinned as she took his hand. “All my life I've loved making music and wished I could be successful. I never thought I would, and I would be too scared, but now people are listening. And they are loving it. Soon they'll get bored of us as a story, but our music will live on. Doesn't that excite you?”
Jack snorted. “I guess.” Her eyes narrowed. “I just
wish I could get some escape from it all.”
“You sound just like Claire.”
Chapter XXIII
Jack opened the door to his vehicle and inwardly groaned. There were several cars at unnatural angles in the pub car park, and he looked at Paige. “Not again!”
Paige squinted. “I'm too drunk to say anything,” she told him but gave him a grin. “But come here.” She fell against the car as she scooted around the vehicle and threw her hands around her band mate, kissing him on the cheek, in full view of the cars. “Thank you,” she said loudly. “Thank you for a fantastic night.”
“Paige, what are you doing?” Jack whispered into her ear.
“Teasing,” she sniggered. “Let's not end it here,” she broadcast loudly. “And Jack, where are your hands going!”
Jack rolled his eyes and pulled away from Paige. “Can we go home?” He asked in an annoyed voice and Paige blew him a kiss and trotted around his car to the passenger side of the car. “What the hell was that for?” He asked as she joined him in the car.
“OK chill,” Paige spat. “You know what they wanted.”
“But why do you insist on trying to give it to them?” Jack asked as he started the engine. “We are going to be all over the papers now.”
“We were always going to be all over the papers,” Paige replied. “At least this way we have some idea of the story they are going to run.” She smiled and pulled a funny face at him. “Laugh!” She poked her tongue out and wiggled it as he looked away.
“Stop it!” He barked. “I'm driving.”
“Angry Jack is boring Jack,” Paige teased. “And according to the papers we are … what's the word … romantically attached.” Jack grunted and swung the car onto the main road. “And probably we will be having a night of knee-trembling passion.” She put her hands on his and stretched her legs into the footwell. “Of course, if we open the bedroom windows, I am sure I can fake an orgasm loud enough for them to hear,” she teased.
“You will not,” Jack demanded and looked at his band mate bursting into hysterics.
“S'ok, I wasn't really going to.” She rubbed her hand along the back of Jack's hand, resting on the gear stick. “I don't know how to fake one,” she said with a glint in her eye. “But thanks, it's been a great evening. I've really enjoyed myself. I mean, I know you are a posh bastard, and all that, but when you want to, you can actually be quite nice.”
“I think that's a compliment,” he told her. “But I am not sure it was meant as one.”
Paige shrugged and watched the small town whizz past her window. They travelled and chatted warmly on the short journey before overtaking some ominously parked vehicles and pulling into Lucinda's driveway.
“Lucinda really did have company,” Paige cried as Jack had to navigate around the large, rusting salon car with a smirk. “The old fox.”
“That's my aunt your talking about!”
“Chill,” Paige barked and grinned.
“OK, we better go in the back way.”
“You must be joking!” Paige cried and got out the car. “I want to meet her new fella.” Jack pulled a face at her, but the drunken girl just snorted. “She's hardly likely to be screwing on the rug in the lounge, is she?”
“Paige …” Jack called, but his date was impatient and she grabbed him by the hand and swayed from side to side as he unlocked the door. “You know, I think you are too wild for me when you've had a drink!”
“I'm too wild for you when I ain't had a drinkie!” Paige cried and burst into the hallway, looking towards the open lounge door, from where they heard voices.
“You're back?” Lucinda called out, and Paige bit her lip as her head poked through the open doorway.
“Paige,” Jack hissed, but the tipsy girl ignored him.
“Hi,” she muttered and looked at the table in the middle of the room. Three wine bottles sat on the table, and Lucinda followed Paige's gaze.
“Don't tell Jack,” she pleaded.
“Don't tell me what?” Her nephew asked and crossed his arms as he came into the room and groaned. “That's a lot of bottles, Aunty and…”
“Don't start,” she snapped and gestured towards Paige and Jack. “No need for introductions, right?”
Paige frowned as she looked at the balding man sat opposite Jack's aunt. “Why?”
Lucinda froze and looked at her partner and then at the two teenagers by the door. “You've not met?”
“No,” they replied in unison.
Lucinda sniggered. “Paige, Jack. This is your agent, Greg.”
* * * * *
“It's nice,” Andre admitted as he held Claire's hand. They sat on the picnic rug by the lake, and she looked across at him, smiling.
“I know. It's one of my favourite places.”
“It's where you met Paige, right?”
Claire shook her head. “No,” she said as she opened the rucksack containing a sparse picnic. “That was … a different site. Umm, this is much smaller. That's why it's got fewer facilities. But it has this lake in the forest.” She shrugged and smiled. “I got my first kiss, at this lake. Hell, actually. I got my only kiss at this lake.”
Andre giggled. “Marie Jamieson. Year seven disco. Mind you, she kissed everyone. No-one ever forgets their first kiss. Soft lips.” He rubbed his lip as he smiled. “She's now works in a prison, so I doubt she kisses quite as much.”
“You never know,” Claire joked and passed her companion a bag of crisps, an apple and some foil wrapped sandwiches. The naked man took them and looked back at her. “So how is your first proper naturist holiday?”
Andre took a bite of his sandwich, so he didn't have to answer immediately and then stretched. “It's … umm … it's a bit basic.”
“They are a bit more basic in this country,” Claire responded. “We've been abroad. Mum and Dad and me, and it's bigger over there. I mean, this is a nice site, and we come regularly, but they do whole Center Parcs style stuff abroad.” Andre smiled as she spoke. “But what about it, you seem happier now?”
“So do you,” Andre replied. “You're not as stressed.”
“And neither are you.”
“It's only you and your friends that make me stressed. You know, I am doing a serious amount of work for next to no commission.” Claire glared at him. “OK, not as high commission as I am used to.”
“That's better,” Claire told him and leant across. “But you get the wonderfulness of my company.”
Andre went to speak, but the look on Claire's face stopped him, and he sighed. “OK. I am very grateful you chose me. I know there were bigger agents out there wanting you.”
“We went with the one who we felt we could trust,” Claire admitted. “And I can't imagine any of the arrogant twats who visited us that day who would take their client to a naturist resort for a couple of days to help her unwind. They'd just check her into Champneys or the Priory.”
“Yeah … well … that's umm … ahem,” Andre stumbled, and Claire opened her bag of crisps.
“It is appreciated,” she told him. “I'm glad we came. A rest is just what I needed. Paige just seems to go forever, and Jack will do whatever Paige says, but I like my slow pace of life.” She leant back on the rug and looked up at the sky. “What can you see in the clouds?”
Andre looked up, and Claire beckoned her holiday partner to lie on the rug next to her. “That one there, looks just like a car,” Andre suggested, and Claire hummed. “And that one is a guitar.”
“Maybe,” she said and put her hand in his grasp. “And if you look really closely, that one's cloud-shaped.” Andre laughed at her and squeezed her hand. “I could lie here all day talking to you. And just chill.”
Andre sighed and smiled at her. “I could lie here all day, too.”
“Well you better, I'm not going anywhere,” she said with a smile and touched his thigh with her hands. She adjusted herself on the blanket and sighed before closing her eyes. “Lovely,” she whispered.
; * * * * *
“Paige, this is a really bad idea.”
“It's a really good idea,” Jack was told angrily as Paige browsed the shelves of the shop. He pulled his hood over his head and glanced up and down the aisle.
“Paige, seriously …”
“Oh what?” Paige spat and glared at him. “I want to get some of this stuff without being noticed. This is the last thing I want to be on the front page of the sodding tabloids with. It'd spoil everything.” Jack pulled his jacket hood further over his head, and Paige snarled at him. “You are really not blending in.”