Georgia

  Max didn’t need a crystal ball to see what she was up to. She was dredging up talent to join her on this harebrained scheme. She would do what she always did. Get something together and astound the men at Decca. But if she got her way in this, where would he stand?

  It wasn’t just the money now. He had enough. The one thing he couldn’t face was Georgia going out of his life for good. She thought he didn’t understand her, but he did. She wanted a quieter life. She needed a man to share it with. Before long someone would emerge from the woodwork and carry her off. That man might relegate him to the role of an old uncle. And that he couldn’t bear.

  Just the way she sat on the desk gave him goosebumps of pleasure. The tiny mini skirt, the tight white boots and the skinny sweater might have been designed by Mary Quant but it would be Georgia who millions of young girls would copy slavishly. He had taken this girl, polished her up and promoted her. Now she was the hub of the wheel, music, fashion, all evolved round her. With her beside him Max was at the centre of the world and that’s where he wanted to stay.

  ‘Okay,’ he said wearily. ‘I’ll go with you. But because it’s the only way I can have you to myself for a night.’

  It was a wicked thing to think, but sometimes he almost wished something would bring her crashing down. He would trade his fortune, his huge house and his fleet of cars just to have her dependent on him again. Sometimes he had fantasies of being her only protector. Perhaps then she’d realize how much he loved her.

  Miriam and he were washed up now. The once unthinkable divorce had gone through. She’d found new happiness with a man she met in Athens. It didn’t matter that there were countless young, pretty girls who adored him. He still wanted Georgia.

  ‘Don’t block me about this album?’ Georgia wheedled. ‘I want your support. I can’t go on with this frantic pace and you know it.’

  ‘Let’s go and hear the man and then we’ll see,’ Max grinned. ‘I suppose I should be grateful to think you care enough to want me with you.’

  ‘There’ll always be a place in my life for you,’ she said softly. ‘I hate you sometimes, maybe even love you a bit. But we’ve been together too long to part now.’

  Max was important to Georgia. She took his blustering ways, his arrogance and even his bullying in her stride. He had been with her in the bad patches, and at the heights. Even that night in Kensington had its purpose, though she hadn’t realized it until later. She had learned to stand up for herself, taken a little of his indestructible pride and cunning. If he’d been softer she wouldn’t have all she had now. Learning to outwit him was the greatest lesson he’d given her. She knew too that it wasn’t pure greed that motivated him any longer. Maybe both of them were unsure of what they were to one another, but it was something special.

  Ronnie Scott’s was packed, but still Max got them a table right down by the stage. Georgia wore just a plain black crêpe trouser suit, hoping no one would recognize her.

  ‘I used to come here all the time,’ Max said as he ordered them a drink. ‘I don’t know why I stopped coming, I’ve had more good times in here than I can count.’

  He too was hoping Georgia could remain incognito. Jazz fans were in a world of their own and so far no one had even looked their way. Ronnie Scott maintained his distance from popular music and even though this place saw more stars in a month than anywhere else, he rarely publicised it. He hoped they would dance later, share supper or a drink. But he could never be sure of anything with this girl.

  Georgia looked older tonight, her hair slicked back into a bun like a ballerina. She had lines under her eyes he hadn’t noticed before and she was pale. She did need a holiday, that much was obvious, maybe if he was gentle with her, she could be persuaded to go somewhere warm with him.

  How was it that not a breath of scandal had come out about her? What sort of iron will did she have to avoid dangerous relationships? The men who escorted her to parties, shows and theatre rarely got a second chance. She was never present when the lads got out of hand. Drink, drugs and sex didn’t seem to figure in her life. Or was she just careful about it like him?

  There had been something between her and Rod once in Spain, but that was over before Max heard about it. He’d seen a new maturity in Rod, a more caring attitude to women, yet a touch of pain in those slanty eyes. Thank God it had fizzled out, those two together would be a recipe for disaster.

  Why did he always have this feeling there was some deep well in her he hadn’t, managed to reach? Maybe that was the only thing needed to bring her to him?

  ‘They’re coming on!’ Georgia tapped his hand. ‘I can’t see the saxophone player though.’

  Five men in evening suits came on to the stage. Each one of them was over fifty. The man with the clarinet looked nearer seventy, he walked stiffly as if his leg hurt.

  The drummer alone was black, he flashed a wide grin and played a roll on his drums, leading the quintet into a spirited version of a Glenn Miller number.

  The trombone was good, the old clarinetist brilliant. The grey-haired man on the double bass was bent over his instrument as if unaware he was playing in public and the pianist one of the best she’d heard. Yet there was no real sparkle, or did she know too little of jazz to understand it?

  Everyone in the audience seemed delighted. Feet were tapping, fingers rapping on tables.

  As the first number ended, Georgia sensed a charge of electricity. The pianist began an introduction to a slower number, melodic and almost haunting.

  From somewhere behind the stage Georgia heard the first saxophone notes, and a shudder of delight went down her spine. Rich, fruity tenor sounds, like nothing she’d heard before. She sat up, peering at the dimly lit stage. It was getting louder and she held her breath while first the saxophone appeared behind a curtain, a spotlight focusing on it.

  It was a surprise to see the man playing wasn’t a big man. Tall yes, but slender. His lips, hands and his entire body seemed to be playing the instrument. Never before had she seen anyone so at one with a saxophone.

  She could feel herself melting inside, almost like an orgasm. His notes were so pure and delicious she barely heard or saw anyone else on the stage. Something primeval was swelling in her, her eyes filled with tears. She wanted to catch every last note and engrave it on her heart forever.

  Max felt her excitement. He too was enthralled as was everyone in the audience. But Georgia looked as if she had gone off to another planet.

  Her eyes that only minutes earlier had looked tired, now sparkled furiously. Her lips were parted, a glimpse of white teeth and pink tongue peeping out. She was flushed, tears rolling unnoticed down her cheeks.

  Max looked back at the man. He was golden brown, hair cropped closely to his head, eyes tightly shut, dark lashes curling on his cheeks. Expanded by air his chest seemed huge, yet his hips were slim and his hands long and fine like a surgeon’s. His face was too contorted by playing for him to be handsome, yet Max knew he would be.

  Was her reaction purely the music, or was this something physical?

  Throughout the entire set, Max tried to sit back and watch objectively. This man was undeniably the greatest saxophone player he’d ever heard. His solo sent tremors down his spine, notes that almost shimmered under the spotlights, drifting off with the cigarette smoke, filling a hunger in the belly.

  It was impossible to look away. Even when he rested while others played their solos, his face drew the eye.

  High cheek-bones, the straight proud nose and those full yet delicate lips. Yet there was humour in that handsome face, the way he listened, his head on one side, picking up each note and smiling when it pleased him.

  Georgia’s face fell as the set ended. Sam Cameron merely nodded at the audience and hurried off with the other men without even a backward glance.

  The audience was going wild. Clapping, banging glasses and shouting. Middle-class people behaving like a crowd of teenagers at a pop concert.

  ‘I’ve got to make a reco
rding with him,’ was all she said, eyes as big as saucers. ‘Can you arrange for me to speak to him?’

  Max ordered another drink to cover his confusion. On the one hand this man and her together could be dynamite. On the other he might just lose her. If he refused to help she would do it anyway. If he was enthusiastic he would be party to whatever came of it.

  One thing was clear by her expression, she liked everything about this man. They even looked like a couple, something Max had never thought about anyone before.

  ‘I’ll ring here tomorrow,’ Max hedged his bets. ‘From what I understand he’s going home soon. So don’t bank on anything.’

  Max left her for a moment to talk to someone he’d spotted across the club. Georgia took a gulp of her drink and looked at the curtain behind the stage. She had seen Max’s shifty look and she had so much work piled up she had no idea when she’d find time to come here again. She had to act now.

  She glanced round quickly. Everyone was engrossed in talking and drinking. She walked across the front of the stage, jumped up quickly in the corner and found her way through the curtain.

  Stifling a giggle she found three steps down the back of the stage. She felt like a groupie. She had no idea of the layout in this club, but she’d find him.

  ‘You aren’t allowed back here.’ A little man in overalls came out of a door and blocked her way.

  ‘I am,’ she smiled sweetly. ‘I’m Georgia James and I’ve come to see Sam Cameron. Could you point out the dressing room?’

  He faltered for a moment, but turned to one side, pointing further down the corridor. It was painted that green gloss paint they had backstage everywhere, chipped and stained, bare boards underfoot.

  ‘In there,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see you if anyone asks.’

  She could hear a low rumble of male voices. The sound of beer pouring into a glass. She tapped on the door and waited.

  The elderly clarinetist opened it. He had a pint in one hand and he peered at her short sightedly.

  ‘Could I speak to Sam, please?’ she said, feeling foolish now. Behind him she could see only legs stretched out, all the same in dark trousers and black shoes.

  ‘It’s someone for you Sam.’ He turned his head back to the room and she saw the double bass player’s grey head come into view. His eyes widened. He ducked back and she heard a whisper. All at once one of the pairs of legs moved.

  He was taller than he looked on stage. Well over six foot, his shoulders broader without his jacket. Muscles strained his badly-pressed shirt, a button was missing and his bow tie was slightly crooked.

  ‘I’m sorry to barge in like this,’ she said nervously as she stood outside the door. ‘But I had to speak to you.’

  He was looking at her intently. Studying her as closely as she’d studied him earlier.

  ‘I’m Georgia,’ she said, dropping her eyes from his dark brown ones.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘What brings you here?’

  He was smiling, almost as if she was an old friend he expected. Yet she sensed shock too.

  ‘Did you know I was out there?’ She was stumped for how to approach the subject, she felt odd. Like a girl on her first date.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I’m glad you were.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because I played good tonight. I’d have hated you to hear a bad set.’

  ‘You were brilliant,’ the words came out even before she could think what she was going to say. ‘I want you to do a recording with me. I was afraid if I didn’t barge in you’d leave and I wouldn’t get to speak to you.’ She stopped short, aware how silly she must sound to a seasoned professional like him. She could feel sweat on her forehead, she was blushing. ‘I mean, that is if you’d like to.’

  He didn’t reply for a moment. He leaned against the door post looking down at her.

  ‘Ma’am, I can’t think of anything better,’ he said. ‘Just say the word and I’ll be there.’

  ‘Are you laughing at me?’ She could see his mouth twitching and from the silence behind the door she knew the other men were listening. Maybe her goosebumps were caused only by that delicious Southern accent, or was it those brown velvet eyes?

  ‘Not laughing,’ he said, his mouth breaking into a wide grin. ‘Just thinking maybe there is a God up there somewhere.’

  Chapter 22

  Sam stood in the doorway with Georgia’s address and phone number in his hand. He wanted to laugh and cry all at once.

  ‘Well, you’ve got it made,’ Dave the bass player came up behind him, playfully thumping him on the back. ‘A year from now and you could be as big a star as her.’

  Sam couldn’t reply. What could any man say when he saw a dream about to come true?

  Everything had been topsy-turvy since his first day in England. First grief to find Katy was dead. Guilt that a child was out there somewhere, who could be theirs. Then the unexpected spotlight turning on him, critics raving about him, real success only inches away from his grasp.

  In those first few days he had imagined it would be easy to find one war orphan, but that conviction was soon dashed.

  The police offered no leads. No birth was recorded at Somerset House. Bureaucracy, despair and blind alleys. Social workers who shrugged their shoulders, the young priest in Whitechapel who suggested it would be better to put it behind him. The public library had revealed more news and photographs of the disaster, but still no report of a child.

  Torn between the acclaim he was getting nightly and days spent in searching. Afraid to tell anyone but Clive what was on his mind.

  He tried the local council, who referred him to the children’s department and at that point he discovered all war orphans were taken to a home in Billericay in Essex.

  No one had bothered to tell him the home had been pulled down years earlier, or that all the old records were destroyed in a fire. Just another pointless journey, looking for someone no one seemed interested in.

  The days were ticking by. He had to slot in his search between rehearsals, interviews and keeping himself prominent so he wouldn’t be forgotten. His children’s future depended on him becoming a lasting success. He couldn’t risk failure by turning into a recluse.

  Almost at the point of giving up, he went back to the library in Stepney. They had a local history department and one of the librarians, Miss Brice, was actually enthusiastic. ‘Let’s study the newspapers again,’ she suggested. ‘We might find something interesting, a name, an event that leads us on to something else.’

  Miss Brice reminded Sam of the women who helped out voluntarily during the war, manning tea stalls and organising dances for the troops. Silver grey hair, gold-rimmed spectacles and rosy, clear skin. He liked the way she used the words ‘we’ and ‘us’, it gave him the feeling she cared as much as he did.

  He got really hung up on those old papers, making his way to the library almost every day, collecting scraps of information that were useless to him, but riveting all the same. He knew what was on at the movies. Men that got sent to prison, weddings, births and deaths, but nothing relating to an orphan. Time was slipping away. It was February already and he was due to leave on March 1st.

  *

  ‘Anything?’ Miss Brice noticed immediately when something caught his eye.

  ‘Just reading this about a woman who was an Army nurse taking up a position in Stepney,’ he said. ‘Her life reads like a novel. She had travelled in China, Africa and India, nursing, then in field hospitals during the war.’

  ‘That’ud be Miss Hammick,’ Miss Brice smiled. ‘She was a regular Tartar. The kids used to shake in their shoes when she came along. She wouldn’t stand for any nonsense. She ran the department like a battle campaign.’

  ‘What department was she in then?’ Sam looked up. Just the mention of children made him take notice.

  ‘I can’t remember what they called it then. She was like the forerunners of today’s social workers.’ Miss Brice came over to him at the table looki
ng over his shoulder. ‘She handled all sorts of things. Truants, child neglect. Unmarried mothers, family disputes. She wasn’t noted for her diplomacy, but she got a lot of problems sorted while she was around here.’

  ‘She’s not here any longer then?’ Sam’s spark of hope died as quickly as it was fired.

  ‘No, she retired a few years back. She must be at least seventy. But I think we may find out something more about her because they had a retirement “do” for her.’

  ‘I’ve got to go now,’ Sam said reluctantly. ‘I’ve got someone to see before going on to the club. But I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll dig around Sam,’ she assured him, making a note of it on a pad. ‘This might be a real lead for us.’

  When Sam met Clive later he filled him in with this news.

  ‘Don’t go building up your hopes Sam,’ Clive said over a pint. ‘Even if Miss Hammick knows something, this girl’s grown up now. She may be married. She might not even be in England. Suppose after all that you find you aren’t her dad?’

  ‘I’m sure I am,’ Sam growled. He couldn’t explain why exactly, but the more he dug into the events of the bombing, the more convinced he became.

  ‘Even if you are, she may have been brought up by white people. The shock of a black six-foot Yank may be too much.’

  ‘No daughter of mine would have those hang-ups,’ Sam laughed. ‘Her mother had too much guts to create a little dim-wit.’

  Whatever he said to Clive, he did have the same worry. How would Jasmine react to finding her mother years from now? And they were the same colour. The person who brought the child up was the one that counted surely? Could any girl find room for a father who left his pregnant girlfriend and never came back to look for her?

  He knew Miss Brice had found something just as soon as he got in the library.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ she said, almost jumping with excitement. Her hazel eyes glistened behind her glasses. She twitched at her strand of beads round her neck. ‘I was so excited I telephoned her last night.’

  ‘Well ma’am, you are a surprise,’ Sam chuckled. ‘And they told me you Brits were cold-blooded.’