Heartbreaker (21 page)

When the year’s touring was finally over, he headed home to his wife and baby daughter and tried to sort himself out. He still had a big problem with alcohol. He’d thought that it would calm down when he got home, it pretty much always had before, but not this time. Nicci despaired of him. Tom was round a lot, trying to be supportive, trying to help.

Johnny and Nicci had a big party for Bonfire Night that year and the band and their families all came to stay. Johnny did okay until about midnight, when he passed out on the lawn and was dumped unceremoniously into a spare bedroom by Tom and Paul. By the time he surfaced the next day, everyone had gone and he was left to sort things out with Nicci.

Chapter 53

‘She didn’t go nuts, which was what I’d expected,’ Johnny told Alex. ‘She was upset, kept crying. Begged me to get help.’ He looked down, remembering. ‘I didn’t want to. I wouldn’t accept that I had a problem. Hell, I’d always drunk a lot, we all had. We struggled on into the New Year, then I finally faced up to the fact that I needed to do something. You’ve got to remember, going into rehab was unusual back then, in this country anyway. Not like now. No one bats an eyelid these days.’

Alex nodded, thought of the many photographs she’d seen of musicians and actors skipping merrily off to the Priory, the scent of supermodel fresh in their nostrils, hoping to come home with a new girlfriend to go with their new, healthy lifestyle. Often a toss-up which one they’d tire of first.

Johnny pushed his hair out of his eyes. ‘Let’s make some coffee, Alex, I need a break.’

‘Okay, I’ll do it.’ She squeezed his shoulder and went inside to put the kettle on. As she walked away, she looked back at Johnny; he sat with his head in his hands. When she came back with the coffee ten minutes later, he hadn’t moved. Alex put down the tray and pulled a chair up close to Johnny; she held him tight and after a time Johnny reached out and held her, too.

Later, Johnny continued. ‘So I went into rehab, got the drinking under control. Tom was around a lot. Being supportive.’ He stood up and started to pace. ‘Let’s go for a walk, talk about something else,’ he said, eventually.

‘Okay. Let’s go down by the river and see if there’s any sign of our foxes.’ Alex could see that he’d had enough. She wanted to take his mind off what they’d been discussing, and that seemed like an effective distraction.

Johnny was quiet, withdrawn, as they walked away from the house. Alex took his hand and chatted as they strolled along in the sunshine. Johnny was twitchy. Alex spoke to him about trivia, focused his mind on the mundane. It calmed him, he got less edgy. They meandered along by the water’s edge.

‘Come on.’ Alex found a spot where the river was narrower and there were stepping stones. She jumped easily from one to another until she reached the far bank. The sun and rain had worked their magic and the grass reached almost to her waist, dotted through with wild flowers. ‘Come on, slowcoach.’

Johnny shrugged. ‘Whatever you say.’ He leapt the stones as easily as Alex had. ‘So what’s so exciting over here?’

‘You are.’ She kissed him, her tongue darting into his mouth, her fingers unbuckling his belt. As Alex dropped to her knees, Johnny closed his eyes and inhaled sharply through parted lips, turning his face up to the sun.

Chapter 54

Johnny had things to sort out on the Thursday, so he left Alex to work on her laptop while he was busy. They were expecting company on Friday: Paul, Siobhan, Colin, Marilyn and Christabel were coming for Elaine’s birthday bash on the Saturday. Mark Killian was due on Saturday afternoon, accompanied by the Red Rage. He was taking advantage of the band being together to get some photographs he’d been commissioned to take to accompany a magazine article. After the week they had put in, Alex was looking forward to the company, although she was still unsure of what to do, if anything, after having seen Colin and Christabel kissing. She hadn’t told Johnny about it; she didn’t know what to say to him.

***

On Friday afternoon everyone was outside enjoying the sunshine and Alex and Paul had wandered away from the others. ‘You seemed to steer clear of the worst of it when Heartbreaker was touring,’ she said.

Paul gave a wry smile. ‘Yeah, I did. It all got a bit much, you know? So I would find my nephew Harry and me somewhere quiet to stay and just leave the rest of them to it.’

‘It got pretty wild at times, by all accounts.’

Paul nodded. ‘That it did.’ He was thoughtful. ‘I remember one time with Tom. Something had really pissed him off and he could get pretty angry.’

Chapter 55

1979, USA

‘Fucking wankers.’ Tom spat the words out. He was furious. Paul had rarely seen him so wound up. ‘Look at this shit, for God’s sake.’ He was waving a copy of
Sounds
magazine as he paced his hotel room like a tiger in a too-small cage.

‘What is it, mate?’

‘Fucking poll. Fucking garbage.’ Tom thrust the magazine angrily at Paul. ‘It’s supposed to be a proper music paper, not a teenybopper rag, fucking pieces of shit.’

Paul flicked through, searching for the offending article. It turned out to be a bog standard readers’ poll: best band, singer, guitarist, and so on. Out of habit, he looked straight at the ‘best drummer’ category and saw that he was in the top five, although behind a couple of people he would have expected to come out ahead of. Still, ever since John Bonham got beaten into second place by Karen Carpenter, albeit in a poll in Playboy, he had learned to take these things with a very large pinch of salt. He scanned on to find what it was that had set Tom off. Andy was in there, so was Johnny, the band got a mention, although there was no real category that Colin fitted easily into and so his name was missing.
Here we are
, thought Paul,
‘best bass guitarist’
. He scanned the names; the usual suspects were there. He clocked John Paul Jones, Lemmy, Andy Fraser … and there was Tom, too, propping them up in tenth position just behind Phil Lesh, but still in there.

‘What’s the matter, mate? You made the top ten.’

Tom was apoplectic. ‘Look at number fucking four.’ He practically choked on the words.

‘Number four?’ Paul was scanning.

‘Number four.’

‘Sid Vicious. Ah.’

‘Exactly. I was beaten by a guy who couldn’t play to save his bastard life. He barely knows which way up to hold the fucking thing.’

‘Be fair, the Pistols are a popular band.’ Which was exactly the wrong thing for Paul to say. He could have bitten his tongue off, but it was too late.

In common with many rock bands at the time, Heartbreaker had received a lot of bad press because of their style of playing. Punk and New Wave heralded short, punchy songs, not long solos and medleys. It hadn’t stopped new rock bands emerging, although the guitar style was often frenetic, speed being of the essence. It wasn’t that rock had ever gone away or even appreciably waned in popularity; more that the music press had apparently decided that their readers were no longer allowed to like established bands. Of course, the readers’ polls generally showed the truth of the matter. And some of the new stuff was great, Paul liked The Clash and Ramones; hell, he even liked the Sex Pistols. Tom, however, had taken the whole dinosaur/rock tsar thing very badly. He still saw Heartbreaker as his and Johnny’s band and he took any criticism personally.

‘Tom, cool it, man, it’s just a poll.’

Tom was raging, looking for something on which to vent his anger. He eyed Paul up, decided the drummer was too big to take on. Before Paul could stop him, he had picked up a bedside cabinet, heaved it above his head and smashed it to the floor.

‘Jesus, Tom.’ Paul darted out of the way. With a roar, Tom seized a standard lamp and started wielding it like a club. Paul skipped backwards into the bathroom and took cover. From his place of safety, he could hear Tom roaring and grunting with effort as furniture splintered and glass shattered. When the rage and fury ended, he peered out.

The room was destroyed. There was splintered wood and broken glass everywhere, and in the middle of it all stood Tom, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily, clutching what was left of the standard lamp like a conqueror with a club. He was grinning from ear to ear, temper gone. ‘That was fucking great,’ he exclaimed. ‘You’ve got to try it, Paul, it’s a blast.’

Johnny came into the room, alerted by the noise, and his eyes widened when he saw the devastation. ‘What the hell …?’

Tom grinned. ‘I was angry. I feel great now.’

‘Look at the place, you maniac. How’re we gonna talk our way out of this?’ Johnny was incredulous.

Tom shrugged. ‘We’ll just pay for it. Whatever it costs, it’ll be worth it.’

Colin and Andy arrived and looked aghast at the devastation. Then Colin started to laugh. Soon they were all laughing, holding their sides, tears rolling down their cheeks. ‘You mad bastard,’ gasped Colin. Then he noticed a lamp that had rolled to the floor but not broken. ‘Here, you’ve missed something.’ Colin grabbed the lamp and smashed it off the floor, the broken wardrobe and the headboard, then pitched it across the room, missing Tom by inches.

Chapter 56

‘Tom was right, though,’ said Paul. ‘The hotel people weren’t happy, but money can solve most problems. We’d always done a bit of damage. We tore the phones out of the walls, for a start; they rang non-stop otherwise, it was the only way to get any peace, and we’d trashed the odd telly or pool table or whatever. But now, total wrecking sprees became part of our repertoire, as much as drinking, drugs and women had ever been.’

‘Did you ever join in?’ asked Alex.

Paul grinned sheepishly. ‘Yeah, once or twice. I could understand what drove Tom to do it, it was a great way of letting off steam.’

They wandered over towards the house. A red Toyota MR2 had pulled up and they were curious as to who the visitor might be.

‘Col caught it on film a couple of times,’ Paul was telling Alex. ‘It was going to be a part of the tour diary.’

‘The lost tapes?’

Paul nodded. ‘I thought Tom had them, but they weren’t at his house when it was cleared out. Afterwards. You know.’

As they rounded the hedge they saw Johnny talking to a young woman who was dressed in tight jeans and an even tighter top; she had long, brown hair and was very thin and very pretty. Johnny had his back to Paul and Alex. Alex motioned to him to stop and they watched what was happening.

‘Come on, Johnny,’ she was saying, ‘we were s-o-o-o good together, you know we were.’ She pouted. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t missed me.’

Johnny shook his head, put his hands out in a ‘what can I do’ gesture.

She slid her arms around his neck, moved closer to him. ‘Baby, I’ve missed you.’ She pulled him close and whispered something in his ear.

Johnny laughed. ‘Ah, Candy, you’re a bad girl.’ He took her hands, started to prise her fingers from his neck. ‘It’s over. Has been for ages. Come on, babe, leave me alone.’

Candy wasn’t going to be put off that easily. She hung on, reached up and nibbled his neck. Johnny let go of her fingers and put his hands on her waist. He said something to her that Alex couldn’t hear, and she kissed him. Johnny pulled away and turned towards the house, leading Candy by the hand.

Paul took one look at Alex. ‘That might not be what it seems, don’t jump to conclusions.’

Alex blinked back tears. ‘What do you think it is, then? D’you think she’s collecting for charity? Maybe she’s an expert on modern art, just popped in to value some paintings. Or do you think she’s the new cleaning lady?’

‘Give him a chance. He’s crazy about you, he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize what you two have together.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ The tears were flowing now, and Paul put an arm around her shoulders.

‘Because I know him, Alex, I’ve known him more than half my life. And it’s a long time since I’ve seen him the way he is over you.’ He hugged her. ‘I know he can be an arsehole, but he’s basically a good bloke.’ He produced a handkerchief and gave it to her. ‘What if Siobhan looked out now and saw us, eh? What do you think she’d make of this? Things aren’t always what they seem.’

Alex dried her eyes and blew her nose. ‘Thanks, Paul, you’re right. You’re a good mate.’

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s go on in and see what it’s all about.’

They headed into the house, but there was no sign of either Johnny or Candy. Alex’s heart sank.
So, that’s it then
, she thought to herself,
first sign of a bimbo and he reverts to type. Marvellous.
She went up to the room she and Johnny shared, listening at the door first to be sure it was unoccupied before she went in. She threw some stuff into a bag and went back downstairs, hurt turning to anger.

‘What are you doing?’ Paul looked at the bag then back at Alex.

‘Going to the George and Dragon. I’m not staying here like a spare part while Johnny screws the lovely Candy.’ She strode purposefully out towards her car.

Paul dashed after her. ‘Don’t go like this, I’m sure it’s not what it seems. And you’ve been drinking.’

‘I’ve only had one glass of wine. I’ll be fine.’ She threw her bag into the back of the car and climbed into the driving seat. She slammed the door, fired the engine and, jamming the wheel down hard right, reversed out at high speed, squealing the tyres and scattering gravel. She rammed the gear stick into first and screeched off down the drive with her foot to the floor.

Chapter 57

It had just turned seven when Alex got to the George and Dragon. If Gerry was surprised to see her, he didn’t say so.

‘Hi, Gerry,’ she said, scanning the handpumps. ‘Pint of Abbot, please. And a room for the night.’ He raised an eyebrow, but settled for bringing Alex her beer. She took a table tucked away in a corner and nursed her pint. She couldn’t believe Johnny could be so faithless. What had Dave said about her being a bit old for him? Candy was certainly younger than she was. Was Carol right, too? Could she really have got Johnny so wrong? Then again, maybe the problem was her. He certainly wasn’t the first man to cheat on her.
Why
, she wondered,
what the hell’s wrong with me
?