Rock Star (19 page)

He went to his desk and wrote out a cheque before he changed his mind. Then he addressed an envelope to Fanni and scrawled a short note telling her to call him and maybe they’d get together.

Needless to say he never heard a word in return, although his cheque was cashed quickly enough.

Sharleen was silent for several months too. He was used to not hearing from her – she only called when she needed something, and since he’d turned down Marcus Citroen’s offer to join Blue Cadillac he was obviously not on her wanted list. He got on with his life, writing songs, recording, doing quite nicely, dating a variety of girls and having a good time. Until one summer night, round about midnight, the buzzer sounded on his apartment door and wouldn’t quit.

He was alone, watching a late-night movie on television.

‘Who is it?’ he called out before opening up.

The answer was incomprehensible. Instantly he knew it was Sharleen.

Throwing open the door, he was just in time to catch her as she fell into his arms – a beaten, bleeding wreck.

Kris Phoenix

1975

‘It’s bloody hot here,’ Kris complained.

‘Don’t knock it,’ Buzz replied, a sardonic grin lightening his debauched features. ‘The booze is cheap. It’s friggin’ dope paradise. An’ the crumpet runs around with nothin’ between them an’ a cold!’

Kris could see it was going to take quite a speech to get Buzz back to rainy London and work. He had to admit his friend looked great, with his gypsy tan, long hair, and single gold hoop earring. In England Buzz was always whiter than washing powder, managing to resemble a walking corpse. Here, at least, his malevolent looks came with a healthy tan, and he didn’t appear to be five days away from death, although he was still frighteningly skinny.

‘Sounds like your cup of tea, all right,’ Kris remarked casually.

‘I can tell yer, it beats the piss out of spendin’ me days an’ most of me nights in that stinkin’ Volkswagen, with Rasta’s smelly feet in me face, and Ollie
fartin’
the bleedin’ night away.’

Lounging on faded beach chairs, they both laughed. Flower brought out cans of beer. At twenty-three she was still the perennial hippie. Flowing hair and flowing clothes. Spacey eyes and an angelic smile. Kris figured she and Buzz had been together a long time – almost eight years. He half expected them to get married and be done with it. ‘Are you two ever goin’ to make it legal?’ he couldn’t help asking.

‘Wot? ’Ave you gone friggin’ barmy?’ Buzz retorted while Flower just smiled dreamily.

Yeah, Kris decided, Buzz certainly had the right idea. Why get married if you didn’t have to? Willow had caught him in a trap, and he knew it.

They’d arrived in Ibiza a few hours before, after a bumpy flight. Willow complained all the way.

Buzz met them in an open jeep wearing nothing but the smallest black briefs and a welcoming leer. Throwing their luggage in the back seat he said, ‘Blimey! You’re the two unhealthiest-lookin’ humans
I’ve
ever seen!’

‘Thanks’, Kris replied. ‘You always
did
know how to make a person feel good.’

‘It’s me charm,’ Buzz said with an evil wink, reaching for Peter John Buddy, who was clutched tightly in Willow’s arms. ‘Let’s see the baby, then.’

‘No!’ exclaimed Willow sharply, holding on with a sudden show of strength.

Buzz did not back off. He continued to try to pry Bo from her protective grasp.

‘Stop it!’ she shouted, a touch hysterically, turning to Kris for support.

‘C’mon, let Buzz hold him,’ Kris urged. ‘He’s his godfather. He’s entitled.’

Willow glared at her husband, reluctantly allowing Buzz to take Baby Bo for a second or two.

‘’Ello, mate,’ Buzz said, peering down at the child.

‘That’s enough,’ announced Willow crisply, snatching her precious bundle back.

Kris had only met his wife’s mother a couple of times, and not under the best of circumstances, but he was beginning to realize with growing dread that Willow was just like the snobbish Mrs Wigh.

Buzz drove like a maniac, the battered jeep careening along old cobbled streets at full speed, his foot jammed down hard on the gas.

Petrified, Willow sat silently in the back, squeezed in next to their luggage, with the baby bouncing around on her knee. ‘Can’t you slow down?’ she pleaded a couple of times, but neither of them heard her as the jeep sped along the increasingly bumpy roads towards its destination.

Their holiday home was a run-down, dusty villa by the sea, and they were not the only occupants. Along with Buzz and Flower lived Inga, a blonde, strapping Swedish girl, plus Klaus, a bearded German man who spoke no English, and twenty-year-old American twins, both female, named Chick and Chickie.

‘Why didn’t you tell me there were other people living here?’ Willow hissed angrily.

‘How was I supposed to know?’ Kris replied, dreading what would happen when she found out what was
really
going on. Buzz had filled him in as soon as they arrived and Willow and Bo were safely deposited in a damp bedroom with a sea view and an old mattress on the floor.

It’s free sex,’ Buzz confided with a knowing wink. ‘You want it – it’s yours.’

Buzz always
had
liked the hippie lifestyle, and Flower obviously raised no objections.

Kris knew he was in for trouble – one way or the other.

*    *    *

‘You’ve got a lovely body,’ Chickie whispered in his ear.

‘Smooth skin,’ murmured Chick.

‘When are we gonna get it on?’ they asked in unison, a chorus of hope.

Kris knew he was developing a hard-on, no need to check it out. Christ! Where was Willow when he needed her?

Shifting on the hot sand, he rolled onto his stomach and glanced furtively around. Buzz was lying nearby wedged between Swedish Inga and delicate Flower. What a picture postcard
that
made, since both girls wore only the bottom halves of their bikinis. Inga’s huge knockers made an interesting contrast with Flower’s small buds.

Willow and the baby were nowhere in sight.

‘Well?’ teased Chick and Chickie, running their fingers up and down his spine.

This was torture! All he really wanted to do was turn over and ram it into each of them one after the other. He was so horny it hurt.

Well, who wouldn’t be? They’d stayed on the island for over two weeks, and Willow was consumed with anger about the sleeping arrangements, the half-naked house-guests, the food, and anything else she could think of.

‘I won’t tell wifey,’ Chick whispered, bending over to reach his ear, which she proceeded to nibble, her bare boobs brushing tantalizingly against his back.

Chickie followed suit. ‘Nor will I.’

It was more than any man could reasonably take. ‘I’m goin’ for a swim,’ he said weakly, getting up and making a wild dash for the sea.

Plunging in, the shock of the cold water abated some of his excitement. Not enough. Especially when Chick and Chickie, full of giggles, bosoms jiggling, ran down the sand to join him.

Jesus! What was he supposed to do? They’d been coming on to him ever since he’d arrived. And while on the one hand he liked the idea of making it with the dynamic duo, on the other he
was
a married man, and his old-fashioned values urged him to stay true – even if Willow continued to deprive him.

Chick swam towards him, with Chickie in close pursuit. The two of them wore very determined expressions.

The answer lay with his wife.
Willow, my love
, he thought grimly,
you are just going to have to put out, or else.

With that he dodged the randy twins, swam ashore, and hotfooted it up the beach towards the villa.

‘Where are you goin’?’ called out Buzz.

He didn’t stop. Whatever Willow was doing, she was going to have to drop everything and give him what he wanted. He was her husband. He had his rights.

The villa was peaceful and quiet, which meant Baby Bo was asleep. Perfect. Maybe she was taking a siesta too, and he could be all the way to paradise before she even realized. what was happening.

Treading quietly he entered their room. Bo was asleep in his carry cot, a thin muslin cover protecting him from any marauding bugs or mosquitoes. The kid looked great, suntanned and healthy.
He even looks a little bit like me
, Kris thought proudly. Yeah. Willow might have trapped him, but it was all worth it when he saw his son.

The wife’s probably in the kitchen, he decided – she’d spent most of their holiday hunched over the sink washing anything she could get her hands on. You couldn’t even take off a pair of jeans without her grabbing them.

No, she wasn’t in the kitchen, nor the big dusty living room. He wouldn’t put it past her to be snooping through Buzz and Flower’s room – she had an insatiable desire to know everything about everyone. ‘Nosey little cow, isn’t she?’ Avis had said when she’d caught her going through their bathroom cabinet one Sunday lunch with the family.

She wasn’t in Buzz and Flower’s room. Chick and Chickie’s was also empty. And as Inga slept on the couch, that left only Klaus, and his door was closed.

Kris knocked, and getting no response he pushed it open. Spread-eagled on the bed, naked from the waist down, lay Willow. A pillow covered her face, but he would recognize that uptight, suburban pussy anywhere.

Kneeling between her thighs, his bearded face embedded in fairyland, was Klaus, the German.

Rafealla

1976

To Rafealla’s consternation and eventual disappointment, Eddie Mafair did not bother to call her. And it wasn’t until almost a year later that she bumped into him at the rather elaborate wedding of the daughter of one of her mother’s friends. He was the best man, and heading in the direction of being extremely drunk.

‘Hello,’ she said sulkily, when he didn’t acknowledge her as he attempted to stagger past her table at the reception.

Glancing at her vaguely he said, ‘You’re going to have to remind me, sweetheart. I’m pissed.’

‘You certainly are,’ she replied coldly, aching all over with the desire to be in his arms once more, even if it was only on the crowded dance floor of Annabel’s.

Peering closely at her he said, ‘Suzanna?’

‘No.’

‘Diana?’

‘No.’

‘A clue?’

‘Rafealla.’

Her name obviously meant nothing to him either. ‘Nice to see you,’ he slurred, and was off.

So much for mutual attraction. She had thought he liked her. In fact she’d been positive, and made up a million excuses why he hadn’t called. Now it was quite obvious he didn’t remember her.

Still . . . she wasn’t going to let it get her down. After all, she was sixteen now, no longer the stupid fifteen-year-old who had fallen for his casual charm. There had been several close encounters over the last year. Stefan, the twenty-two-year-old male nurse whom she’d sat next to at the movies and secretly dated for several weeks until he tried to go too far. Jimmy, a young American college student who took her dancing and taught her the fine art of giving what he called a ‘blow job’ because she refused to do anything else of a sexual nature. And Marcel, a young French waiter who worked in a local restaurant. He took her for long walks in the woods and kissed and caressed her breasts for hours on end, bringing her great pleasure. Until in return – after many weeks of pleading – she finally gave him the special ‘blow job’ Jimmy had taught her, and marvelled at his ecstasy and gratefulness.

She wanted to do the same for Eddie. It gave her a gratifying sense of power, and did not interfere with her virginity, which she planned to hang on to until marriage. Odile and she had discussed it many times, and decided that everything else was allowed, but going all the way was definitely out. Too risky for one thing. Unnecessary for another. Boys were perfectly satisfied with the alternative.

The wedding was a riotous affair, a mixture of young friends of the bride and groom, and the older contingent of relatives and close family friends. Rafealla knew quite a few people, and found herself on the dance floor with a variety of enthusiastic would-be suitors. Occasionally she glimpsed Eddie. He seemed to be attached to a sinewy blonde in a mini-dress who was almost as drunk as he was.

Rafealla stared at him. She was not used to being ignored. With her long dark hair, exotic features and slim figure, she usually received more than her fair share of attention. How
dare
Eddie Mafair not even remember her.

The band began playing Beatles songs – a request from the bride. ‘Yellow Submarine’, ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘She Loves You’.

Eddie was crotch to crotch with his blonde on the dance floor.

Feeling the urge to do something to make him notice her, Rafealla brazenly approached the bandleader. ‘Do you know ‘Yesterday?’ she asked.

‘We certainly do.’

‘Can I sing it?’

‘Can you?’ the bandleader asked with a quizzical look.

‘Of course I can,’ she replied, full of bravado.

‘All right, darling, show us.’ He handed her the microphone.

Oh boy! What had she done to herself! She loved singing, but only in the privacy of the shower with that wonderful echo making every note sound good. Oh wow! How was she ever going to pull
this
one off.

‘Yesterday’
her voice wavered,
‘all my troubles seemed so far away.’
Everyone was looking at her. She had to make this good.
‘I believed that love was here to stay. Oh, I believed in yesterday. ’

She had it! Sounding good. Getting everyone’s attention, including her mother’s, who was staring at her, probably really annoyed that she was making an exhibition of herself.

Her voice was pleasantly low, an older sound than her years. She sought out Eddie Mafair with her eyes, and finally – yes – she had his attention.
Now
he’d remember her.

When it was over there was applause and a lot of ‘I didn’t know you could sing.’ And finally there was Eddie, who said. ‘Where have
you
been hiding all my life?’