Georgia

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But –’

  She stopped him with a touch on the hand. ‘The hand of God,’ she said. ‘That same hand will bring her to you. Pray for his guidance when it happens.’

  Sam had Georgia’s address in his hands now. His daughter had come to him, just like Sister Mary had said. If he was a man who truly believed in the power of prayer he would get down on his knees and thank Him. But right now he was going to go back on the stage, get her to come up and do a number or two with the band.

  ‘Georgia,’ he hummed the tune as he turned to go back into the dressing room. Sam remembered now, that was the number he’d been playing when he got his first glimpse of Katy back at Lakenheath.

  Chapter 23

  ‘Fever, fever when you kiss me, fever when you hold me tight.’ Georgia stood under the shower, singing at the top of her lungs, wet corkscrew curls like seaweed over her slender brown back.

  Six weeks ago, making the album of her dreams looked impossible, but at last all the problems had been overcome and today they were starting recording.

  March’s weather had mirrored what was going on around her. Meeting Sam was like an early spring day. So much promise of good things to come, an unfolding of new leaves and flowers, unexpected warmth and sunshine. Max roared in like the March wind, laying waste all her plans. The press was Jack Frost, nipping at tender shoots, threatening to kill everything.

  Rows, bad feeling, criticism. Roots put down years earlier, torn up. So much opposition to something she knew was right.

  Speedy and Les were heavily into drugs and behaving like a pair of deprived, vacant louts. Norman sniping at his lost opportunities. Max turning into a demented, jealous old woman. Good pianists seemed extinct, even the press turned against her. There were times when she almost backed down.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for Sam,’ she said to herself as she stepped out of the shower, wrapping herself in a towel. ‘You’d have cracked up.’

  *

  The night in Ronnie Scott’s was the beginning. Up until then the album had been a hazy dream. When Sam asked her up to sing with the band in the second half she felt a little presumptuous singing the old Billie Holliday number, ‘That ole Devil called Love’. Yet she found her voice had the maturity and Sam’s horn inspired her. Even though Max sat glowering at her from the audience, she didn’t care.

  She expected Sam to play hard to get when he came round to see her the next day. With the rave reviews he was getting, he could afford to take his time and be choosy before committing himself to any band or project. But instead she found him enthusiastic, open and straightforward.

  ‘I’m yours if you want me,’ his soft dark eyes glimmered with an excitement she hadn’t expected. ‘My contract runs out at Scott’s next week. As long as you can get my visa fixed up and pay me enough to send home for my kids, then I can stay for as long as it takes.’

  Max’s attitude was quite the opposite when she called at his office later the same day and outlined her plans.

  ‘How dare you go behind my back and make arrangements? I haven’t even agreed to this album,’ he snapped. ‘You know nothing about that guy and I suppose you rushed in there offering him the moon.’

  ‘Not the moon,’ she said simply. ‘I just told him I wanted to do a recording with him. The only credentials I care about is how well he plays his horn.’

  ‘Decca won’t want to waste their time and money on an album like this,’ he roared at her, purple in the face with anger. ‘You’re digging your own grave Georgia, it’s vanity, nothing more. Stick to what you do best.’

  ‘There’s nothing more boring than an entertainer who never moves on,’ she shouted back at him. ‘Making this album doesn’t mean I won’t make any more soul or rock records. It’s just stretching myself, showing a new dimension. I could reach millions of new fans.’

  ‘The press will link your name with his,’ Max snarled at her across his desk. ‘Do you really think the public will be happy to see their golden girl with a big Yank nigger?’

  ‘You evil bastard,’ she hissed back at him. ‘Trust you to bring everything down to gutter level. Call anyone a nigger again, and this uppity one will walk out on you.’

  Of course he gave her all the rubbish about caring for her, trying to protect her. But she had hardly left his office before he was on the phone to Jack Levy, doing his best to block her.

  Then the press got a whiff of what was going on, and before she could talk to the band and outline her plans they had her stitched up.

  ‘Georgia goes it alone,’ was the headline. ‘No time for Samson now.’

  ‘Georgia is to split with Samson after six years’. ‘We’ve grown apart,’ she was quoted as saying. ‘I’m in a position now when I don’t need or want the responsibility of a full-time band. I want to experiment with other musicians and expand my career.’

  ‘I didn’t ever say that,’ she raged to Sam. ‘They’re making me out to be some sort of prima donna throwing off my old friends because I’ve outgrown them. Where did they get hold of such an idea?’

  ‘Max?’ Sam raised one eyebrow. ‘He’s scared, honey. He wants his little girl right under his wing. But don’t take too much notice of the press. The time to worry is when they don’t bother to write about you, good or bad.’

  In five years there’d been many squabbles, but this time it was serious. The boys closed ranks, refusing to speak to her on the telephone, ignoring even a letter she sent them explaining her plans.

  Rod and John came round after Deirdre from the office intervened and admitted she’d overheard Max talking to someone from the press. But Les, Speedy and Norman chose to use the opportunity to make a final break from her.

  There were moments she doubted her own judgement. Was it just inflated ego that made her think she could compete with singers like Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald? What if Jack Levy, Max and all the other men who had been in the business for years, were right? Suppose it was a flop, what would she do then?

  But the doubts were gone now. She had swept away all the opposition to her plans. Fly or fall she was getting her chance, and she had no intention of falling.

  Sam finally found a pianist in a pub in Barnes. He was a retired music teacher who played just twice a week in a jazz quartet. Harold Sweeting looked like everyone’s favourite uncle. White-haired, rosy-cheeked, a jolly, roly-poly character with all the enthusiasm for music so many of the professional pianists they auditioned, lacked. He had wanted to be a concert pianist in his youth, but his wife and children had come before his own hopes and dreams. Now at sixty-five he had a lifetime of experience to fall back on, yet with a youthful exuberance that gave his playing a touch of magic.

  Rod and John were joining the other session musicians too. Rod simply because he was the best drummer, and John begged to come in because he admired Sam’s playing.

  Perhaps it was fortunate that Speedy, Les and Norman had refused to join her. It left her free to employ strings and a classical guitarist, without feeling guilty.

  All they needed now was luck!

  Georgia smiled ruefully as she pulled on her jeans and dragged a red sweater over her head.

  Jack Levy was cunning. He had covered himself every which way. If she didn’t finish recording within a week she would be in breach of contract and he could sue her. Like Max he was running scared, knowing her agreement with Decca ran out in a few months’ time. It was thinly disguised blackmail, to make sure she wasn’t tempted to sign up with another company offering her a better deal. If the recording was ready in time and then went on to be a smash hit, Jack would merely laugh all the way to the bank. If it failed however, he would blame her for going against his wishes. Before long he would having her back, recording another purely commercial record.

  Loyalty in this business was bought. No one really cared about talent. Half the singers who got into the top twenty were virtually manufactured, money changed hands to get them air time. Glossy promoters used hype to g
et their puppets noticed, and later when these one hit wonders no longer made them money, they were forgotten.

  The music world was a giant ants’ nest, everyone relying on the Queen to keep it fuelled. Just one slip from favour and she would be devoured by the drones and replaced.

  Georgia sat down at her dressing table to dry her hair, pausing to look at a photgraph of her and Samson.

  It was her favourite one, taken just a few days before Ian and Alan died in the fire. The photographer James Ogilvy had been an unknown then, a pimply-faced weed who followed stars around looking for the picture that would make his fortune. He’d been after Adam Faith that day, not the support group, but he’d taken this one while he hung around waiting.

  They were in a park close to the theatre, fooling around on a climbing frame. Rod sat right at the top, the other boys made a pyramid shape and she was in the middle hanging upside down over a rail, her hair hanging down to the floor. The boys looked funny now with their short hair cuts and wide shouldered jackets, and she looked positively ridiculous in that shapeless shift dress with a long pointed collar. It had taken so long to arrange herself so the dress stayed up over her knees.

  ‘What would you think of the boys now?’ she said to Ian. He was laughing, his eyes crinkled up. Rod had just farted very noisily from his perch on the top and John was complaining it scorched his head. All eight of them had been so naïve then, trusting children who would put up with anything for a few words of praise. That day they had no idea Ian and Alan’s time with them was nearly at an end, or that fame would follow so soon after.

  ‘Would you stand by and watch Speedy and Les destroy themselves with drugs?’ she asked.

  She sighed and switched on the dryer. All of them, including herself, had experimented. It was as much part of the scene as groupies and drink. Purple hearts now and then to liven up the trip home or go on to a party. Smoking cannabis in the coach to relieve the boredom. But Speedy and Les had taken it a stage further since that holiday in Spain. Amphetamines to get them going, endless joints to calm them down, then out of their heads on cocaine half the night.

  It was almost predictable that Les should be attracted to drugs, he was dim and he didn’t have a great deal of personality. But why Speedy? He was the one with a real mind. A brilliant guitarist, handsome, charismatic and caring. What had made him prefer spending days spaced out, screwing every girl who passed his way, and every night in a West End club?

  ‘We’ve all changed,’ she muttered. ‘Perhaps the press are right. I am getting ruthless.’

  All that fighting to keep them together and now fame and money were changing each one of them. Rod keeping up appearances as a rock star, strutting around town with hair down to his shoulders, in tight red trousers and embroidered jackets, spending more money in a day than he’d once earned in two years. John had lost his warm humour. Now he was full of astrology, meditation and every other half-chewed-over theory he happened to overhear. Norman had new friends now, society types who invited him for weekends in the country. Away from his old friends he could forget his East End origins, describe himself as a composer. He’d even been taking elocution lessons.

  Even Max was unbalanced. The man she had fought with, been in awe of, and perhaps even loved had been tough and unyielding. But he’d been consistent. Now he was riddled with jealousy about Sam, terrified she would dump him. One day depressed, another fanatical. Spiteful then solicitous. He took pills for an ulcer, handfuls of vitamins to allay his advancing years and surrounded himself with dolly birds who were only interested in his money.

  Sam alone remained constant. A cool breeze on a hot day. A log fire when it was cold. He could talk about anything and everything. Laugh, make fun of her, but listen when she wanted to talk.

  He’d filled her life all right. But not in the grubby way Max thought.

  There had been moments that night in Ronnie Scott’s that it seemed like the start of a love affair. She found herself gawping at him, and found him staring right back at her.

  She loved the way he looked. From the close cropped hair, the golden brown skin and doleful eyes, to his broad shoulders and narrow hips. He was a dream of a man, but not in that way.

  As the days ticked past, mutual admiration turned to close friendship. He was unmaterialistic, laughed at show business hype, demanded nothing of her. One morning he could turn up at her flat with a pile of secondhand jazz records for her to listen to. The next he was out in her kitchen cooking them a meal and insisting they went out later to explore some tourist place he hadn’t seen. Unpredictable, serious, funny, affectionate and cool in turn. He told her about women he fancied, his ex-wife and his children. His past gradually unfurled in a series of hilarious stories that left her hungry for more.

  From G.I. to barman, truck driver to rat-catcher, he painted pictures so vivid she could see them.

  ‘You didn’t kill rats? You’re making it up,’ she laughed as yet another talent came to light.

  ‘I did,’ he insisted. ‘Used to go round in a little van putting down poison, then round the next day to heave out the carcasses. Sometimes I even did gigs with a few bodies in the back. None of my buddies would get in it with me.’

  He made light of everything. He presented his childhood as if it had all been running barefoot through meadows, fishing and climbing trees. But as she got closer to him, she guessed it had been tough.

  He spoke of the racism in the States almost as if it was a joke. No trace of self-pity, or even bitterness, only sympathy for those who were trapped by it.

  ‘We’re the lucky ones, honey,’ he said. ‘Up there on the stage people don’t think about our colour, they only hear the music. Maybe by the time our kids are grown every black person will be valued for themselves.’

  ‘But how can you go back to it?’ she asked. ‘How can you bear Jasmine and Junior to grow up under that shadow?’

  ‘I hope I don’t have to,’ he said simply. ‘I’d like to bring them here. Send them to good schools. England’s a cool country.’

  She wanted to give him the money to send for them right now. The thought of two children without either parent saddened her. She could see herself back in St Joseph’s waiting while people came and looked her over, bypassing her, looking for the small, sweet blonde. It wasn’t right for two children to have a father like Sam and not be with him.

  But Sam was a proud man. He wanted to bring those children to a real home. But for him there would be no short cuts.

  Surrounded as she was by fawning sycophants his earthy opinions counted.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about other people,’ he said, when she told him her fears about the boys. ‘They’re grown men now. Be there for them, but don’t try to hold them. You do what you know is right, and if for a while they fall off the path, then let them find their way back on to it.’

  Two days of recording and everything was coming together. Perhaps the opposition to the album had made everyone stretch themselves just a little more. Sam had written all the brass arrangements and he and Steven the producer were at one in their ideas. Four tracks were already finished, another five well under way.

  Session men and the technicians had frightened Georgia once, but now she understood how it all worked there was no need for fear. Each one had their role and Steven put it all together.

  Harold was perfect. Every note he played sounded like a love affair. He could improvise like a jazz player, yet his classical background and knowledge of music was unsurpassed. His patience and humour made him a joy to work with.

  ‘Come and sing with me here,’ he said, drawing up another stool for Georgia by the piano. ‘Just relax and feel the music.’

  It was like being ten again, joining Celia at her piano with the sun streaming in through the French windows. His slim long fingers danced over the keys, his white head nodding with the beat, the warmth of his rotund body, his encouraging smiles, dispelled any nervousness. She forgot it was a glassed-in studio way below the stre
et, the pressure of getting it all tied up in a week, or the session men who just wanted to play their bits and go home. Harold with his hand-knitted yellow waistcoat, with red and white cravat and his huge stomach bulging over his thighs was an inspiration.

  On the morning of the third day they began at six. The offices upstairs silent, typewriters covered, chairs tucked under desks. The night porter unlocked the doors for them, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

  ‘What a time to start,’ he grumbled. ‘I don’t know how we’ll get the studio cleaned. I suppose you’ll still be here when I come back on tonight?’

  ‘Sure thing,’ Georgia tickled him under the chin. ‘Be a darling and put on the coffee?’

  Both John and Rod were better for being away from the rest of the band. Rod had dropped his cocky stance, knowing the session men, Sam and Harold had not only years on him, but a far greater knowledge of music. John hadn’t mentioned meditation once so far, he was engrossed in the sound, playing far better than she’d ever heard him before. Neither of them had complained about anything, not the early starts, or Steven’s continual re-takes.

  She had come to trust Stephen Albright implicitly. Ever since that first recording he had produced all her records. Like her he moved with the times, never falling into the trap of making each record sound the same. He was plumper now, so his height seemed less remarkable. A half-chewed pencil, eyes tightly closed behind his thick glasses were still his trademark. But his public school speech was peppered with cockney slang, scruffy clothes replaced by designer chic, he drove a Ferrari and lived in a penthouse in Mayfair, but he was still as uncompromising about music.

  Georgia was halfway through ‘Summer Time’ when she saw Max’s face pressed against the porthole in the studio door.

  It was just after nine, and Max never normally surfaced before noon. Just one look at his bloated, angry face and the way he pummelled the glass with his fists, was enough to know something serious had happened.