Rockoholic (28 page)

“It’s empty.”

We run inside the house, into the empty kitchen, empty dining room.

“If he’s touched her, if he’s touched one hair . . .” Mac’s threatening as we go into the living room, and we both let out a sigh of utter relief as we see Jackson cross-legged on the carpet and Cree, next to him, cross-legged on the carpet, and on the carpet before them sits a leaf. And on that leaf sits a tiny snail shell.

“Oh thank God,” says Mac, bending down beside Cree and putting his hand on her head.

I’m still panting. “Did you see her?” I say to Jackson.

“Who?”

“The woman, the reporter. Sally Dinkley.”

Jackson gets to his feet, his face draining of all color. “No. She was here again?”

“Yeah, in the yard. She was in the yard. You were outside. You must have seen her.”

“It started to rain. Your sister wanted to come inside and show me the snail.”

Mac lifts Cree up. “You saved the day, you little superstar,” he says, tickling her. She wriggles about in his arms. He turns to Jackson. “That was way too close. If it wasn’t for Cree, you’d have been seen. It’d be all over.”

I dash out to the kitchen to lock and bolt the back door, and on my way back into the hallway I pull the blind down on the front door so no one can look through the glass.

The phone rings out in the hallway. God, what if it’s her? What if it’s that bloody woman again, asking about bringing a photographer or something with her to the pub? When the answering machine doesn’t kick in, I go to answer it. But it’s not the bloody woman. It’s Mum.

“Jody,” she sighs as I answer. “I’m glad I caught you, I’ve been trying your mobile. I’m sorry, love, but I’m stuck in the worst traffic jam ever, so I’m going to be late back. Halley’s staying at Nina’s after netball. Can you get your own dinner? There’s some money in the coffee jar under the sink. Go and get yourself a fish supper or something. It’s chaos here.”

“Where are you?”

“Trying to get out of bloody Wales but something’s happened on the bridge. They’ve just closed it and they’re trying to turn us all around. They said on the radio some clothes have washed up so they think it’s a suicide. Either that or that singer’s been found, the one who’s been in the papers. The one from that group you like.”

“What?” I cry.

“Yeah, there’s flashing lights and all sorts going on. Girls with flowers and banners have passed me, so God knows, it’s bloody chaos. Like some protest march out of the seventies that your grandad used to go to. I’m going to have to find another way back, so I’ll see you when I see you.”

“OK. Mac’s here with Cree. Don’t worry.”

“Oh good, you won’t be on your own, then. All right, love, see you later, bye.”

I slam down the phone and dash back into the living room. They’re all gathered around the snail on Cree’s hand. Jackson’s trying to poke inside it with a toothpick. I grab the remote and slide down onto the carpet before the TV, jabbing the
power
button, willing the blackness to go to a news broadcast.

“Jode?” says Mac.

“What is it, what happened? Who was on the phone?” says Jackson.

Flick, flick, flick, flick.
I flick through every channel until I get to the news. And the scrolling headline is there.

MISSING SINGER’S CLOTHES FOUND IN BRISTOL CHANNEL. JACKSON GATLIN FEARED DEAD.

“Oh shit!” says Jackson, a worry line appearing in the middle of his forehead.

A picture of his face flashes up. “Man!” says Cree, pointing at it.

“Yeah,” I say, almost laughing.

“I’m dead!” Jackson laughs.

“You’re dead!” Mac laughs.

Then I see Cree’s face. She’s looking up at Jackson, the leaf with her snail on it balancing on her open hand. “Is my snell dead, Man?”

He rouses himself from his own situation for a split second and bends down to her level. Her little nose starts flaring and her bottom lip disappears like she’s about to cry, but Jackson says the perfect thing to stop her in her tracks.

“No, he’s not dead. He’s just hiding. He just wants to hide away for a little while. Be by himself, that’s all.” And he looks up at me, and for the smallest second, the slightest shadow of a smile crosses his face, then disappears.

To the whole world, Jackson Gatlin is gone, never to be seen again. There’s no corpse yet, though the divers are still looking. But all his clothes have turned up, even his shoes. There’s no way he’s still alive and well and living in a domestic garage in the West Country, no way. No sane person would ever believe that.

So who is the man in my living room, swinging a little girl around by her arms as she squeals happily? Just a man, I suppose.

Mac and I sit on the sofa watching the news unfold. Watching the same images again and again and again because there’s nothing else to report — some clothes have washed up, fans are there on the bridge, crying, being moved along by police, throwing roses over the side. Some are lighting the roses with cigarette lighters before throwing them off the bridge, in homage to Jackson’s burning-rose tattoo. Some have “JG” written on their cheeks in black marker. Some are showing their tattoos of Jackson’s face and lyrics all up their arms. Jackson himself isn’t paying any attention. He’s playing with Cree on the floor. Well, Cree’s playing with him. He’s just sitting there, not quite understanding what she’s doing or why she’s combing his wet hair using the plastic knife and fork she ate her mini meat pie with. She giggles as she combs his hair down over his face and he blows out so it messes up. She combs it back and he blows it and she giggles again.

Jackson looks up after a while. “I’m, like . . . dead. I’m totally the deadest, ain’t I?”

Mac scowls at him, like he’s just interrupted a really interesting comment the windswept reporter’s making, even though we’ve probably heard it six or seven times before. “They haven’t found a corpse yet, I’d hold your horses if I were you.”

“It all points to them finding a corpse, though, doesn’t it? It’s awesome.”

I don’t think his deadness is awesome at all. I’m watching those fans on that bridge, a thousand broken hearts all cracking in unison. It’s about as un-awesome as you can get.

The clock on the mantelpiece chimes three o’clock. Mac turns to me. “Shouldn’t you have been back at work at one?”

I bite my lip but that’s the most I do. “I completely forgot.” I don’t actually make any further effort to go back to work, though. They know what I’m like, and I’m leaving on Friday anyway so it hardly matters. No point going back at all.

Sally Dinkley comes to my house
again
that afternoon. Knocks on the front door and waits. Rings the front doorbell and waits. Knocks again. Calls out to me. Waits again. We sit on the sofa, all four of us (well, five if you count Roly inside his leafy carry case). We’ve got our fingers on our lips so Cree knows we really mustn’t make a peep. Eventually Dinkley gets the hint. Me and Mac are on
PAUSE
, watching each other, the TV on
MUTE
, a jumbo bag of Doritos on the sofa between us, rooted to the endless news bulletins but unable to move for fear that she’s suddenly going to ram-raid the front door with her bubble-gum Beetle.

“What are you going to say to this Dinkley woman when you meet her at the Pack Horse?” Jackson asks me without looking around.

“No idea,” I say. “Don’t think I’ll bother to go now that this has happened. I’ll just stay here.”

“You have to. She’s still convinced he’s here somewhere,” says Mac, flicking channels to another news station. “She’ll think finding the clothes is a red herring. It’ll just make her more determined. She’s studied that photo. There’s no way she’s going to believe he jumped off the Severn Bridge two weeks ago, is she? No, you’ll have to meet with her and tell her the photo was a hoax. I’ll come with you and say I Photoshopped it or something. Go all grief-stricken, make it look like you’re really sorry you lied now that he’s dead and everything.”

“I can’t just act grief-stricken.”

“Yeah you can. I’ll sneak you a couple of glasses of wine first. That should do the trick.”

“Then what happens to him?” I say, nodding toward Jackson, whom Cree has deemed fit to wear two of her pink teddy barrettes in his hair. “If I convince her that he’s dead, what’s going to happen to Jackson, then?”

Jackson turns around and looks at both of us in turn. “You gotta go and shake her off for good. And then you gotta get me out of the country.”

“Oh yeah,” Mac says, snapping his fingers. “Just like that. We do it all the time, Jode, don’t we, help get missing rock stars out of the country? I’ve got a fleet of planes in
my
garage.”

“Mac,” I scold but Mac’s not listening to me, he’s just looking at Jackson.

“Well, how do you expect us to do it? Have you any idea how hard it is to get in and out of this country? Any country, for that matter? Even if we get you a boat, you have to face some form of customs somewhere. And unless you know someone who can knock up a false passport . . .”

“Well, what, then?” says Jackson.

“Well,” I blurt out. It’s what I’ve been mulling over for some time. They both look at me. “We do know someone who can get people in and out of the country, don’t we?”

Mac’s blank. “Do we?”

“Yeah. The BFD.”

“Who’s the BFD?” says Jackson.

“He’s this sketchy guy who lives in Nuffing and he got caught bringing illegal immigrants over from Romania a few years ago.”

“No, no, no,” says Mac. “I told you Duncan had nothing to do with that, it was all his dad. I never said Duncan was involved with that.”

“No, but he must have known something about it, mustn’t he? You said he’s a well shady character. I bet he’d find a way if someone paid the right price.”

Cree takes her barrettes out of Jackson’s hair and clips them on his ears instead.

Mac shakes his head. “No way, Jody, we are not getting involved with the BFD and you are definitely not giving him a penny of your money, no way.”

“But if that’s the only way —”

“NO!”
Mac shouts. “We can disguise you, Jackson. We can give you a bit of cash for the road and I’ll even drive you to the nearest ferry port, but from then on, you’re on your own.”

He gets up off the sofa. “I’ve got to go.”

“Mac, don’t be mushy,” I say. “Please, can’t we talk about this?”

He turns to me. “I’m not mushy. I’ve got a rehearsal. Cream Puff, come on, we’ve got to go.”

“No,” Cree whines, with wobbling leg. She puts Jackson in a choke hold. “My stay with Man and Dody, Kenzie, no!”

“It’s fine, she can stay here,” I tell him. “Will you come back here afterward?”

“Do you want me to?” he says, looking at Jackson, then back at me.

I’m confused. “Well, yeah, to pick up Cree.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be back about five-ish. Bye, Creepy.”

His sister gently removes one hand from its clutch around Jackson’s neck to wave him good-bye, wary that he might scoop her up and take her with him. But he doesn’t. He leaves, and she gets Man to herself, so she’s happy.

A convincing disguise is the essence of all covert operations. In most of the Shakespeare I failed at school, someone was either dressing up in drag or pretending to be dead or in hiding, and it usually turned out all right. Apart from
Romeo and Juliet
, I suppose, when Juliet disguised herself as dead and Romeo topped himself, but I try not to think about that.

So me and Cree set about trying one of my mum’s blond hair colors on Jackson, but it doesn’t take. It’s just dark brown with the slightest of gold tinges. He looks like I’ve just sneezed glitter all over him. Cree insists on helping to wash it off but she gets bored midway through and starts soaping her hands and rubbing them all over the toilet seat.

“We’ll cut it,” I suggest.

“You ever cut someone’s hair before?” he asks me.

“No. But men’s hair is easy to cut, isn’t it? I used to watch my mum cutting Dad’s.”

“All right.” He seems up for anything, so we go down to the kitchen and I find Mum’s bag of hairstyling equipment under the sink. I drape the plastic gown around Jackson and find the scissors. Cree decides to give Doctor Dolly an impromptu haircut, too, putting her up on the stool beside Jackson and draping her in a tea towel. She has to hack a bit as her blunt craft scissors don’t work very well on hair.

I start snipping away at his ends.
Snip, snip, snip, snip.
He stops my hand. “You got any clippers? Electric razor, anything.”

“Uh, yeah, I think so,” I say and make toward the cabinet to get it out. “Dad had a grade two for a while.”

“I think we should go all the way.”

“Huh?” I say. Then I realize he’s talking about the clippers. “You want to shave it off?”

“Yeah. I’m known for my hair, so if I get rid of it, I’ll be less known.”

“Are you sure you want to?” I put the scissors on the breakfast bar and stoop to search for the clippers in the cabinet. They’re all the way in the back under a pile of dusters.

“Yeah,” he says. “Put it on the shortest setting.”

Cree has two hands to the scissors and is trying to hack through Doctor Dolly’s neck with great concentration on her face, tongue out and everything.