Sam's Song

by Hannah Howe

  Chapter Seven

  It was early evening when I caught up with Derwena. I was calm again, in control. The hiatus of the afternoon had receded into the past. Derwena was doing an interview at Radio Rhoose, a local radio station, and Milton suggested that I should tag along. I kept my eye open for stalkers as we drove to the studio and again when we entered the building, but no one suspicious was hanging around.

  Tim was Derwena’s driver – of a very smart Bentley – and he stayed with the car as we entered the building. The building, a modern red-brick affair, was situated in Rhoose, just outside Cardiff. Radio Rhoose was a commercial station offering a mix of entertainment, news and features for the local community. I tuned in occasionally, but my musical tastes drifted towards the 1960s and 1970s. Like I said before, I’m an unconventional girl.

  A man with a bald head wearing jam-jar thick glasses guided us into a studio. The studio was like a hi-tech living room with a settee and two armchairs grouped around a table. There were microphones strategically positioned on the table, in line with the settee and chairs. A glass panel separated this half of the studio from the control centre, the area where the records were played and where someone pushed all the buttons and knobs. A highly capable looking woman with buckteeth, a turned up nose and a prominent V-shaped chin was in charge of this area. I was tempted to think that this woman had a good face for radio – meow, Samantha; you can be so cruel, sometimes. The man with jam-jar glasses joined Radio Face and we – Derwena, Woody, Milton and yours truly – were introduced to our host, disc jockey, Drake Jolley.

  Drake Jolley was sitting in one of the armchairs, awaiting our arrival. Drake was in his early thirties. He had ebony skin, a bald, shaved head, and dark eyes that looked huge behind large, black, horn-rimmed spectacles. His cheekbones were high and a very fine goatee beard framed his lips. He was short, around five foot eight, and his small frame was wiry with no excess fat. On seeing Derwena, he smiled, rose and walked over to greet her. She accepted his embrace in a half-hearted fashion, then slumped on to the settee and stared at the walls.

  From behind the glass panel, Jam Jar gave Drake a cue and the disc jockey leaned forward into a microphone. “Hi, that was ‘69 Kisses’ by up and coming band Rubber Whale. You’re listening to Drake Jolley, DJ the DJ, on Radio Rhoose and I’ll be right back with some special guests after this break.”

  Radio Face pressed a button and the radio station cut to a series of advertisements. Meanwhile, Drake shook Woody warmly by the hand.

  “Woody! Nice to see you again. How’s tricks?”

  “Cool, man. The new album’s nearly in the can. Things are groovy.”

  “We’ll talk about the album on air.” Drake held up his hand, to silence Woody, then looked over to Jam Jar for his next cue. When Jam Jar nodded, Drake, in a deep, rich baritone, breathed into the microphone, “Hi, it’s DJ the DJ here with you right up till the witching hour of midnight. It’s wet enough to submerge an elephant outside so why not stay snuggled up to your radio and listen to me till then. And this evening I’ve two special guests for you, none other than songstress Derwena de Caro and her guitarist Woody Larson. Hi, Derwena, Woody, how’s tricks?”

  Woody sat on the sofa, next to Derwena. Milton occupied one of the armchairs while Drake returned to his chair. That left yours truly standing in a corner looking like an unwanted lamp stand.

  “Hi, DJ,” Woody replied. “Great to be with you again.”

  “I understand that you’re at Castle Gwyn Studios cutting a new album. Maybe you can tell the listeners about some of the tracks.”

  “The album’s called Midas Melange...”

  And as Woody repeated his spiel about the album tracks, I drifted off. I thought about Derwena. She was subdued this evening, hardly saying a word. Maybe she was tired. Maybe it had something to do with her mood swings. To the outside world, she was rich and famous with a glamorous lifestyle and a sexy boyfriend. But when she went to bed at night she was probably wondering who Woody was sleeping with, who she could trust in the music business and if she could reach the high notes on ‘Fire and Ice’. No doubt, it’s great to be loved by a partner and by a family, but even with them you need your own space. To be loved by millions of strangers seemed unnatural somehow. You never met them, but somehow they knew all about you, or at least they thought they did. My personal life was a mess, I was in a constant state of emotional turmoil, but I knew that I’d rather be me than Derwena de Caro.

  “Okay,” I could hear Drake saying, “let’s play a track from the new album. This is ‘Ode to Love’.” And as the track started, I swear I could hear Beethoven and Shakespeare turning in their graves.

  “Classic,” Drake smirked as the track faded into the ether. “I understand you’re playing a concert next week. Maybe you can tell the listeners about that.”

  “Yeah,” Woody enthused. He stretched out his long legs and placed his hands behind his head, leaning back into the sofa. “We’re playing a concert for a friend, Deke Spencer. Deke is opening a new nightclub in Cardiff, Gigolos, and he asked us along to cut the tape. We’re getting the old band back together for the night, Buzz on bass, Hammock on drums...”

  “He really swings,” Drake interjected smoothly.

  “He certainly does, DJ. And Crispin will be on keyboards. I’ll be playing acoustic six string, twelve string and electric guitar. I might even dust off my old mandolin for ‘Bees and Honey’.”

  “That will be cool.”

  “It should be a cool evening, DJ. There’s a few tickets left so maybe your listeners would like to snap them up and join us.”

  “Make sure you do that, listeners. I’ve received my invite and I look forward to seeing you there.”

  An excessively cheerful jingle plugging Drake Jolley’s radio show and Radio Rhoose filled the airwaves then, on Jam Jar’s cue, Drake leaned into the microphone again.

  “Okay, I understand our switchboard has been buzzing with listeners phoning in, so let’s take some calls.”

  Drake handed Derwena, Milton and Woody a set of earphones apiece and they slipped them over their ears. Then he offered a set to me. I thought, why not; I accepted the earphones and listened to the calls.

  “Hi,” Drake crooned, “who’ve we got on line one?”

  “This is Roger.”

  “Hello Rog. What’s your question for Derwena and Woody?”

  “This is for Woody...on your last album, Moon, Stars, Sun you had a track called ‘Moongirl’ and in the lyrics you mentioned an astronaut called Samson. Is this a biblical reference and is the song really about the creation of the universe or is it about something even more profound?”

  Drake raised an eyebrow and offered Woody an expectant glance.

  In response, Woody stretched his legs, yawned and shrugged. “It’s just a song about getting laid.”

  In his armchair, Milton was turning puce. He loosened his cravat, then removed his silk handkerchief and dabbed spots of perspiration from his forehead. He was there to control the controllables and we’d both listened to enough radio phone-ins to know that the callers were far from controllable.

  Meanwhile, Drake sailed on serenely. “Thank you, Woody. And now for our next caller...who’s on line two?”

  “Hi, Derwena,” a female, teenage voice bubbled enthusiastically.

  “Hi,” Derwena replied, as though in a trance.

  “Love your songs.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I just discovered that my boyfriend, Gav, has been having sex with my best friend, Steph. Should I stick with Gav and dump Steph, or should I forgive Steph and dump Gav. Or should I do what Gav suggests and enter into an open relationship with the two of them? I’m very confused...”

  Derwena cast a jaundiced eye towards Woody. She leaned into the microphone, “Follow your heart, dear, that’s all we can do.”

  “And our next caller...” Drake adjusted the gold iden
tity bracelet, dangling from his right wrist. He also wore gold rings on his middle and little fingers and a gold chain around his neck. He looked over to me and winked. The gleam in his eye said ‘sex’. He might have been thinking about sex, but as I eyed his ultra-cool satin shirt, my mind was on washing powder and the price of toilet ducks. I wondered if I should tell him that.

  “Hi, Derwena,” a thin, nasal voice came on to the line. “I’ve written a song about you. Can I sing it? ‘Derwena looks like a million dollars, when she sings all her fans holler, because she knows how to sing the blues. Derwena is a superstar, and when she swings her hips all her fans go ‘ah’, because Derwena’s so sexy in those high-heeled shoes’.”

  Behind the glass panel, Jam Jar raised his index finger and made a slicing movement across his neck and the crooner faded from the airwaves. It was left to Drake to fill the void. With a smile in his voice, he intoned, “Don’t call us, buddy, we’ll call you. And unfortunately that’s all the calls we have time for this evening. But before you go, Woody, maybe you could tell our listeners what happened to your hand. If only this were television, ladies and gentlemen, though you’d need 3D for the full effect.”

  “My hand...” Woody held up his right hand and studied his bruises, his ‘badges of honour’, as he so proudly called them. “Oh, that was a DIY accident. I hit myself with a hammer. I like to relax in my spare time by doing some cabinet building, putting up some shelves...”

  “Well, take care next time, those fingers must be worth a mint. Are they insured?”

  “For ten million bucks. Each.”

  “There you have it, ladies and gentlemen,” Drake murmured into the microphone, “Woody Larson, the man with ten million dollar fingers.”

  Jam Jar made another slicing motion, Radio Face pressed a button, filling the void with yet more adverts, and we removed our headphones.

  “That was great, Woody,” Drake enthused. He cast a disenchanted eye towards Derwena. “Shame Derwena wasn’t more with it, though.”

  “Next time,” Woody grinned. He stood and slapped Drake on his back.

  “Yeah,” Drake replied, stumbling, regaining his balance.

  With his equilibrium restored. Drake glanced in my direction. He gave me the eye. Inwardly, I cringed. It’s not that I’m particularly beautiful, but men always seem to be looking at me. Or maybe it was my over-active imagination. Maybe I should take to wearing a paper bag over my head. Me and Radio Face. Stop it, Samantha; you’re being very wicked tonight!

  “Hello, good looking,” Drake smirked, “didn’t know you were part of the band.”

  “I play triangle,” I smiled politely. And with my shoulder bag slung over my shoulder, I followed Derwena, Woody and Milton out of the radio station with not a stalker in sight.