Georgia (37 page)

Chapter 13

As Georgia rushed headlong towards Sloane Square, angry with herself for being foolish enough to believe she and Max had anything to discuss, the boys were just leaving the Hilton.

‘We’d better get a cab,’ John wobbled unsteadily along the pavement.

They were all drunk. Ian so bad he could barely walk, lost in a silent world of his own.

‘We can’t all get in one,’ Rod said, slurring his words. ‘Perhaps we ought to walk anyway.’

Speedy turned at a high-pitched shriek from behind them. A public relations girl from Decca was tottering towards them. Earlier in the evening her blonde hair had been piled up on her head in elaborate curls, now it was dishevelled, falling over her face.

‘Take me home Speedy,’ she called out.

‘One down,’ Rod murmured, pausing against a car showroom window and pressing his face against the glass. A gleaming red Mercedes was turning round slowly on a revolving platform, it made him feel even drunker.

Ian swayed, white-faced, eyes half closed a few feet from Rod. John and Alan were sitting on the kerb. Les was throwing up noisily behind a parked car.

Speedy and the girl crossed the road towards Knightsbridge. The tall blonde girl’s white dress was so tight she could only hobble, she trailed a pink feather boa over her shoulder, unaware it was touching the pavement behind her. The pair of them had linked arms and it was hard to see which one was holding the other up.

‘He won’t be much good to her when they get back,’ Rod said to nobody in particular. ‘But then I think he’s already given her one in the toilets.’

It had been a wonderful party. Scores of girls milling around, convinced Rod was every bit as much of a star as Adam Faith, Billy Fury and all the others. One tart had given him a wank under the table and he could have pulled anyone he wanted if he’d put his mind to it.

But Ian was bugging him. He hadn’t said or done anything other than drink himself stupid, and he knew it was all to do with Georgia.

‘Where’s Norman?’ he asked, lurching forward towards where John and Alan sat hunched mindlessly on the kerb.

‘Gone off with some girl,’ John turned bloodshot eyes on Rod. ‘Can you get it together to flag down a cab?’

Ian was usually the one that rounded them all up after nights like these, but one glance at his blank face was enough to know he was the one who needed looking after.

‘All right,’ Rod lurched into the road and put up his hand.

A taxi came seconds later.

‘Where to mate?’ A raw-boned face under a flat cap looked out suspiciously.

‘Ladbroke Square,’ Rod said. ‘Just a minute while I get my mates.’

‘Don’t any of you throw up in the back otherwise I’ll rub your noses in it,’ the taxi driver said sharply. ‘And open the bloody windows, the fumes are enough to make me sick.’

Rod paid the driver as the others almost fell out the taxi. Les rushed back to the gutter, and once again vomited.

The house was in darkness. Timed switches on the wall turned themselves off even before they climbed slowly to the first landing. A smell of curry came from behind the door of a Jamaican family. Their flat was right at the top of the house. Three large rooms on the fourth floor and another up a flight of steep narrow steps to the attic.

Rod put his arm round Ian, supporting him as they made their way up. Alan and John had already reached the top now. Les was hauling himself up by the banisters like an old man.

‘What’s been eating you tonight?’ Rod asked Ian as they finally got in the front door.

‘Georgia,’ Ian said stupidly, his mouth drooping. ‘She’s only staying with the band because of me and I can’t bear it any longer.’

‘Come on now mate,’ Rod eased Ian back into an armchair. The whole flat was filthy. He would have to find some bird to come and sort it out. Clothes in heaps, records all over the floor, piled up ashtrays, half eaten food going mouldy on plates left there weeks ago, and at least two dozen empty beer bottles.

The flat was a mixture of tastes. Speedy’s collection of old books. Ian’s posters and records of blues and soul artists. Rod himself was responsible for the red warning road lamps, picked up on another drunken binge. There were nude girl posters. A Salvador Dali print and a bull-fighting poster personalized with Norman’s name. A black and red pair of knickers had been on the table lamp so long no one could even remember who they belonged to. A messy, tasteless place, but it was a storehouse of good memories.

Alan was lurching up the steep stairs that led to the attic. His new grey leather jacket was stained with drink and he’d burned a hole in his one good pair of black trousers. His small, boyish face grinned inanely, his blond hair brushed down on his forehead made him look like a medieval page boy. He didn’t even realize he was making for the wrong room. The attic belonged to Rod and Ian, but Rod couldn’t be bothered to turf him out. Les was in the bathroom being sick yet again and John was attempting to make some coffee.

‘Get some in here sharpish.’ Rod called out. He turned back to Ian and crouched down beside him. Even drunk, Ian was as immaculate as when he arrived at the party. Tie neatly knotted, shirt crisp and fresh. Even his hair was perfect, baby soft, shining pale yellow in the murky light.

Rod knew Ian loved Georgia. He’d even been jealous at first, hurt that anyone could come between him and his best friend. But Ian was level-headed. He had maintained all his old enthusiasm in the band, perhaps even increasing it. What had happened to make him react like this now?

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Rod felt a pang of sympathy for his friend. If a girl made him miserable, he just went out and found another, but Ian was different. ‘Why don’t we give her the elbow? Insist we want to go it alone that way she won’t have to feel bad about us?’

‘Don’t be such a fucking idiot,’ Ian seemed to sober up suddenly, his blue eyes flashing ice cold. ‘Do you really think I could fill Georgia’s shoes as singer?’

‘We did all right before she joined us!’ Rod said evenly.

‘We didn’t know what a good singer could do then, did we?’ Ian slumped back in his seat, eyes closing. ‘You’d be looking to me to make it right. The audience would wonder why you had a wanker like me up front. I’m stuck in the bloody middle holding you both back. That’s the reason she won’t go. She’s afraid for me.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting we all used to sing before she joined us?’ Rod had never seen Ian like this before. ‘Mick Jagger’s voice ain’t so hot, and what about the Beatles? All we have to do is use a bit of strategy. Stop feeling sorry for yourself mate. Georgia loves you, anyone would think she wanted to dump you!’

‘Maybe she does!’ Ian’s head slumped down towards his chest. He looked defeated and old. ‘Aren’t I more like a brother to her? You can love someone, and be “in love” with them, the two aren’t necessarily the same. She loves all of us. That’s the bloody trouble.’

‘Of course she loves you,’ Rod said firmly. He sat down on the arm of the chair and hugged his friend awkwardly. ‘After all it’s you she sleeps with!’

Rod wasn’t one for soul searching. A girl to him was a diversion, nothing more. They all had their attractions, once he’d played them out, he moved on. He couldn’t really understand why other men agonized over feelings, it was such a waste of energy.

‘You don’t know anything about her,’ Ian sniffed. ‘Her father raped her when she was only fifteen. That’s why there was never any blokes in her life until me. If any of you had been the one to press the right buttons you might be the one sharing her bed now.’

Rod was too drunk to think that one out, or even be shocked.

‘It’s you she loves, you prat,’ Rod hauled him up by the shoulders. ‘You was always mates, right from the start and she ain’t the type to use anyone. All you gotta do is to push her out on her own, ’cos she’s too damned stubborn to do it herself.’

‘Then why didn’t she come with me to the party tonight?’

‘I expect she knew we’d all end up rat-arsed like this,’ Rod grinned. John was swaying behind him with three cups of coffee. ‘Now drink that and piss off to bed. And stop seeing problems where there aren’t any.’

Ian seemed to pull himself together a little after his coffee.

‘I shouldn’t have told you about Georgia,’ he said as he went on up the steep stairs to the attic. ‘I only told you because I know you’re a real human being under that flashy exterior. You won’t let on to anyone?’

‘You’re a wanker when you’re pissed,’ Rod called after him. ‘Any more crap from you and I’ll tell her what a feeble little prat you can be.’

Rod woke up, a faint smell of something in his nostrils.

For a moment he couldn’t quite place where he was, he had cramp in his legs from lying curled up on the couch and as he moved he fell on to the floor knocking over the half drunk coffee.

‘Shit,’ he exclaimed. It had splattered his new shirt and it would stain if he didn’t see to it.

Standing up, he looked around.

There was a smell, and a strange noise, a kind of faint roaring above him. His head felt as if it were full of cotton wool, his stomach was churning. Yet he was sure he wasn’t imagining that smell.

‘Fire!’ he yelled, running out the door and leaping up the stairs to the attic, three at a time. The door was closed, smoke billowing under it and as he opened it another cloud of it hit him in the face. Beyond the smoke were flames. Licking up by the window, fanned by the draught from the door.

He closed the door quickly, leaped down the stairs again and rushed into the other bedroom.

‘John, Les,’ he shouted, shaking their arms. ‘Fire! Ring the fucking fire brigade. Alan and Ian are in there burning alive!’

John was up immediately. Dark eyes gleaming in the dark. He grabbed his trousers and ran for the door.

‘Les, for fuck’s sake wake up,’ Rod screamed now. ‘Fire. Get out now!’

He stopped only long enough to grap a heap of blankets, his heart thumping like a steam hammer.

Running into the bathroom he turned the taps on full, then dunked the blankets in, hauled one out and carrying it dripping in his arms he made his way up the stairs again.

‘Get the other tenants out, Les,’ he shouted back down the stairs as Les lumbered out. His sallow, long face stared stupidly, dark hair hanging over one eye. He wore only a pair of jeans, feet bare, his sunken chest and spindly arms almost pitiful. ‘Get going!’

The smoke made him choke as he opened the door and the heat of the flames made him recoil momentarily. Putting the blanket over his head he got down on all fours and began to crawl across the floor.

The bed closest to the window was well and truly alight, flames licking over it, but the black smoke prevented him from seeing anything. The curtains had caught, taking the fire to the other bed, and he could just make out the outline of a body, flames just flicking out like evil fingers to consume it.

He threw the blanket over the body, standing just for a moment choking with the fumes. Then grabbing the body by the feet he hauled it away from the bed.

There was a thud as it hit the floor, but it was too late to be cautious. Blinded by the black smoke he hauled it back across the floor, towards the door.

It was Alan. His face blackened by smoke, burns on his arms and legs, his fair hair almost completely gone on one side of his head, sharp little features so familiar, but different seen black.

John was coming back in the front door.

‘Bring me more blankets!’ Rod shouted. ‘In the bath.’

Rod stood coughing on the landing. His hands were burned but that was unimportant. Somehow he had to get Ian out of there too.

‘Don’t go in again,’ John flung him blankets, rushing up to look at Alan lying inert on the landing bending over him to feel for a pulse. ‘The floor might go. Wait for the fire brigade.’

‘Try giving him the kiss of life,’ Rod hissed. ‘I’m going back.’ He dropped down to his knees, one blanket over him, dragging the other behind him, as at last the sound of sirens wailed down the street.

‘Up the top,’ Les directed the firemen at the front door. He had sobered up the moment he knew what had happened, but now he wished he’d had the presence of mind to grab shoes. He had cut his foot on a piece of broken glass and blood was pouring out.

‘You stay here lad,’ the big fireman pushed him aside. ‘Who else is in there?’

‘Three of my mates,’ Les tried to follow but was pushed back. ‘No, four, John went back into help.’

The two first fire engines were quickly joined by another two making a ‘V’ shape in the road. Firemen rushed in one after another, hauling hoses behind them.

Outside a crowd was gathering, more stood behind the railings of the communal gardens in the centre of the square. Old women in nightdresses. Children in pyjamas, men wearing nothing but a pair of trousers like himself.

‘How did it start?’ A fireman tugged at Les’s arm as he stared up at the house. Flames were flickering on the roof now, turning the dark sky purple. Thick black choking smoke wafted down, almost concealing the ladder from the fire engine and the man on it wielding a high-pressure hose. Another two fire engines came roaring into the square, the men leaping out even before the engine stopped.

‘I don’t know,’ Les was crying now, tears splashing down over his cheeks, a dew drop gathering on his hooked nose. ‘We’d been to a party. We were all drunk. Perhaps it was a cigarette.’

John came out first, quickly followed by two firemen carrying a body on a stretcher.

Les broke through the cordoned-off area and ran to John.

‘Who is it?’ he asked. ‘Where’s Rod?’

‘That’s Alan,’ John’s dark eyes were filled with tears. He reached out for Les like a child, burying his head on his shoulder. ‘Rod went back to try and get Ian. I think he’s copped it too.’

‘Is Alan dead?’ He could hardly bear to ask.

‘Yes, overcome by the fumes before the fire reached him. I tried to revive him, but I didn’t know how. Rod risked everything, for nothing.’

It was like some hideous nightmare. John and Les stood bare-chested, huddled together. Windows opened, more people drifted onto the square in their nightclothes, all around them were whispers, pointing them out and giving other neighbours their opinion as to who was still inside.