Johnny Be Good (6 page)

Serengeti Knight. Serengeti Nightmare, more like. It’s Sunday morning and I’m outside in the pool doing my laps. Theoretically I don’t have to work today, although I’m always on call, and anyway, I don’t have any other plans.

It’s another hot, sunny day, and I pause for a minute by the side of the pool. I hear the glass door slide open behind me and turn around just in time to see Serengeti plonk Footsie down on the terrace and slide the door shut behind her. She doesn’t say anything to me, but I’d bet my passport that there’s a doggy surprise waiting for me somewhere inside.

I get out of the pool and dry myself off, then tie my sarong around my waist and slip on my flip-flops. Footsie runs over to me and gives me five short, sharp barks.

‘Come on, then,’ I say. ‘Let’s take you for a wander around the garden.’

He follows me quite happily, piddling here, piddling there, as we make our way around to the other side of the house. The large wooden gates start to open.

I watch, confused for a moment, as an old green Chevvy truck pulls into the driveway. A young, Latino-looking guy is behind the wheel. He raises his hand at me and smiles, and then it clicks. The gardener, the pool-boy. Santiago, that’s right, that’s his name. I remember reading about him in Paola’s manual.

‘Hi.’ I smile warmly as he gets out of the car. ‘I’m Meg. You must be Santiago?’

‘Hey, pleased to meet you.’ He shakes my hand.

He’s actually quite cute. Lovely white smile, nice body. A little bit on the short side, but seems sweet.

‘Don’t you usually work on Saturdays?’ I ask.

‘Yeah, but sometimes I have to switch if my mum’s working. She’s a nurse,’ he explains. ‘I have to babysit my little brother when that happens.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘Hello, Footsie,’ he says, reaching down to calm the yapping dog.

‘Ah, you’ve met before,’ I say.

‘Mmm. We’re very well acquainted…’

I immediately sense we’re on the same wavelength regarding a certain blonde movie starlet.

‘So when did you start?’ He begins to unload a few tools from the back of the truck.

‘Last Sunday,’ I reply.

‘Glad to see someone’s using the pool.’ He motions to my outfit.

‘I’m trying to do fifty laps each morning.’

‘That’s pretty cool,’ he replies.

‘Well, I’ve only been managing about thirty, if I’m being honest, but hey ho.’

We wander together to the pool.

‘Want me to help you carry something?’ I ask, as he opens up the pool shed and starts rummaging around inside.

‘Hey, thanks, but I can manage.’

‘Have you worked for Johnny long?’ I go to sit on a sunlounger and bask in the heat while Santiago kicks off his Nikes, hoiks up his beige calf-length shorts and makes his way down the pool steps with some sort of robotic cleaning machine. I hope he doesn’t mind me hanging around, but it’s nice to see another friendly young face.

‘About two years,’ he replies. ‘What about you? How’s your first week been so far?’

‘Good. Went to Serengeti’s premiere on Thursday night, which was pretty mental.’

‘Wow,’ he says, in awe. ‘What was that like?’

I fill him in while he steps back out of the pool and rolls his shorts legs down again.

‘Hey, I need to see to the hedges round the front,’ he says after a while. ‘You wanna come keep me company?’

‘Sure.’

‘Do you work for any other celebrities?’ I ask, opening up a black bin bag, ready for cuttings from the hedges.

‘I have a few on my books now, but Johnny’s my biggest client. I’ve worked for him since I was nineteen.’

That makes him twenty-one if he’s been here two years.

‘So,’ he whispers conspiratorially, ‘what do you think to Serengeti, eh?’

‘Erm…’ I reply.

‘Don’t worry, I don’t think he can talk.’ Santiago grins, indicating the dog.

‘I haven’t really had a lot to do with her, to be honest,’ I answer.

‘Now you’re just being polite,’ he says. ‘If I have to clean up one more doggy do-do, I’m going to go mad.’

‘Do you know how long they’ve been together?’ I enquire, as he gets started on clipping the hedges.

‘She’s been on the scene for a month or so, now. Quite a long relationship for Johnny.’

‘Is it?’

‘Oh, yeah.’ He nods vigorously. ‘All I’m saying is the sex must be good.’

Ew, what a thought. I move on. ‘She doesn’t really seem like his type.’

‘Nor he hers,’ he replies.

‘Oh?’

‘She usually goes for much older guys,’ Santiago explains. ‘Her last boyfriend? He was a fifty-year-old film mogul. And what’s more,’ he adds, excitedly, nudging me on my arm, ‘he was the one who gave her Footsie–called Footsie because he had a foot fetish!’

‘Now you’re just pulling my leg.’ I laugh.

‘No, no! I’m serious!’ he insists.

‘That’s hilarious!’

‘FOOTSIE!’ The sound of Serengeti’s voice cuts our laughter short.

‘Better go,’ I say. ‘Nice to meet you, if I don’t catch you later.’

‘Yeah, you too.’

Footsie follows me around to the back of the house where his mistress is waiting.

‘I need the car,’ Serengeti demands.

‘Sure. Where do you want Davey to take you?’

‘Home,’ she says, picking up Footsie and kissing him on the top of his head. ‘Then the airport.’

‘Going anywhere nice?’ I ask as I open the door and stand back to let her pass.

‘New York,’ she says shortly. ‘Then London. More premieres,’ she explains, her voice softening.

‘Cool! I really liked the film, by the way,’ I tell her. Well, it’s half true.

‘Thanks.’

She puts Footsie down and he runs in front of me into the office.

‘I’ll let you know when the car’s here,’ I tell her and go in to call Davey.

When that job’s done, I go back out into the living room and find her there, sitting alone on one of the dark-brown-leather designer sofas, watching TV.

‘Where’s Johnny?’ I ask, surprised.

‘Upstairs in the studio.’ Her attention is focused on the telly, a documentary about lemurs.

‘The car will be here in twenty.’

I wait for acknowledgement but don’t get any, so I go to leave.

‘Oh,’ she calls. ‘Meg?’

‘Yes?’ I turn back.

‘Did you really like the film?’

‘Yeah, I thought it was good fun. I loved it when you forced Timothy’s character to eat a peanut butter and jam sandwich.’

‘Jam?’

‘Jelly. Whatever you call it. And the bit where he was trying to teach you how to drive and ended up on the wrong side of the
road was really funny, too.’ I laugh, lamely, before adding, ‘I guess you taught him in the end, hey!’

God, can I not think of anything more interesting to say?

She smiles and nods. ‘Want to watch telly?’

I’m about to make an excuse and say I’ve got work to do, but then I see some lemurs skipping through a forest on two legs, arms up in front of them.

‘Aren’t they funny?’ I look on in wonder as I sit down next to her.

‘What are they?’ she asks. Clearly she hasn’t been paying attention.

‘Lemurs.’

‘Huh.’

We sit there in silence for a minute or so, watching.

‘I’d love a pet lemur,’ I say, eventually.

She giggles. ‘You should ask Johnny. He’d probably get one for you.’

‘You reckon? I can just see a lemur skipping around this joint. Bit of a bugger to clean up after, though.’ I can’t help it; I glance at Footsie.

Serengeti shifts uncomfortably on the sofa.

A door opens above our heads and Johnny bounces down the stairs.

‘What the fuck are they?’ he asks, coming over to us.

‘Lemurs,’ Serengeti and I say in unison.

‘Hmm. So anyway, I reckon I’ll hitch a ride with you after all.’

Serengeti beams. ‘Great!’

The buzzer goes. ‘That’ll be Davey now,’ I say.

‘Perfect timing.’ Serengeti gets up and casually takes Johnny’s hand as they walk in the direction of the door.

‘When will you be back?’ I call after Johnny. ‘Do you want me to do anything while you’re gone?’

‘Nope,’ he tells me. ‘Just chill.’

‘Okay. See you later!’

Serengeti stops and looks around as she reaches the door. ‘Thanks for looking after Footsie.’

‘You’re welcome.’

And then she actually smiles at me. Maybe she’s not so bad after all.

When they’ve gone, I return to the office. I know Johnny said not to do any work, but I don’t have a whole lot else to do without a car. I wonder if I should try to rent one while I’m here?

I sit down and log onto MySpace. As usual, loads of girls want to know if it’s the real Johnny Jefferson’s page or not. It’s a pain in the butt reassuring them all the time.

Johnny returns later that afternoon. ‘What you up to?’ he asks, slumping down onto the black Eames chair beside my desk. His T-shirt rides up over his stomach.

Concentrate, Meg!

‘Just trying to organise your MySpace page.’

‘It’s Sunday,’ he says, ‘you shouldn’t be working.’ He wriggles around in his chair and pulls his T-shirt down.

Phew.

‘I don’t really know else what to do.’ I glance back at the computer screen. Someone’s just posted a message.

‘Go for a swim?’ he suggests, helpfully.

‘Santiago’s just treated the pool.’ I strain to read what it says.

‘Go for a drive?’

‘I don’t have a car.’ Something about his gig next week.

‘You can take one of my cars.’

‘Really?’ Now he has my full attention.

‘Sure. The Porsche 911 would be okay to use.’

‘The Porsche?’ I’m flabbergasted.

‘Sure. Why not? You can drive, can’t you?’

‘Yes, but are you really going to let me drive your Porsche?’

‘Maybe not the Carrera GT, but the 911 is fine.’

I don’t actually know what he’s talking about. ‘Porsche’ is ‘Porsche’ to me, although it does sound like he has two.

‘Wicked!’ I reply with delight. ‘Maybe I’ll do that next weekend?’

‘Suit yourself.’ He stands up and pokes his head out of the door.

‘Christian, what the hell are you doing? Get your arse in here!’

‘Alright, fuckwit, I was just talking to Davey.’

A man who I can only assume to be Christian enters the room. He has straight, black hair, cut indie-boy style.

‘Hi.’ He comes around to my side of the desk to shake my hand. ‘I’m this tosser’s mate from back home,’ he informs me in a Geordie accent. He’s about the same height as Johnny, but not as lean, and his skin is positively pasty in comparison.

‘Christian’s going to be using the office a bit,’ Johnny explains. ‘You can use that desk,’ he tells his friend, making a poor attempt to tidy up a messy pile of paperwork. I get up and take the papers from him, relocating them to my desk.

‘Christian’s writing my biography, aren’t you, mate? Going to tell it like it is, eh?’

‘Yep. About time the world knew what a wanker you are.’ They both laugh and play-punch each other.

‘That chilli still okay to eat?’ Johnny asks me.

‘Um, I don’t think so.’ I rack my brains. ‘There’s some spaghetti Bolognese in the freezer. I could defrost it if you like?’

‘Cool. You want some, too, Meg?’

‘So how are the preparations for Thursday going?’ Christian’s dark-brown eyes flick between Johnny and me once we’re all seated outside on the terrace. I’m facing away from the view this time so Christian can have the pleasure.

Johnny stares across at me. ‘Don’t ask her, she didn’t even know I had a gig coming up.’

‘No shit?’ Christian’s eyes widen in shock.

I feel my face heat up.

Johnny grins. ‘Preparations are going fine, mate. Record company have it in hand. Nothing left to do except write some fucking songs.’

‘Have you got any new material?’ Christian asks.

‘A few songs, yeah, but it’s still a work in progress.’

I’d like to know more about the gig, but I’m too embarrassed to ask in case I get ridiculed again. I turn to Christian instead.

‘Have you written much of your book?’

‘No,’ he answers. ‘I’m kicking it off with the comeback on Thursday.’

‘So, mate,’ Johnny interrupts. ‘Up for a big one tonight?’

‘No way,’ Christian moans. ‘I’m fucking jet-lagged.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Johnny waves his hand dismissively and Christian gives him a wry look.

‘How’s Serengeti? You still seeing her?’ Christian continues.

‘You should know,’ Johnny answers. ‘Fucking journo,’ he elaborates, tapping a fag out onto the tabletop and lighting up.

Christian chuckles. ‘I don’t believe anything I read unless I’m
the one who wrote it.’ He stands up and starts to clear the plates.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll get those,’ I say.

‘Thanks.’ He hands me his empty plate and Johnny’s almost full one. ‘I’m gonna take my bag up,’ he says. ‘Am I in the gold room?’ he asks Johnny.

‘You’re in whichever room you like,’ Johnny replies, reaching across the table and flicking his ash onto his pile of half-eaten spaghetti. ‘Except for Meg’s, of course. Keep your hands off my staff.’

Christian rolls his eyes and heads back indoors.

‘See you downstairs in twenty,’ Johnny calls after him.

‘I’m telling you now, I’m not having a late one,’ Christian calls back.

‘Sure you’re not, mate.’ Johnny grins at me. ‘Can you book Davey?’ He discards his cigarette onto the ground and gets up.

‘Sure,’ I reply. ‘Guest list anywhere?’

‘Nah. We’re kicking off round TJ’s place.’

‘TJ…’

‘Member of my band,’ he explains.

‘Oh.’ Should I have known that?

After they’ve left I try to get enthusiastic about going for another swim in the pool or watching a film in the private cinema, but in the end I just wander upstairs to bed.

Thirty-one…Oh, I give up.

It’s seven o’clock in the morning and I’m out in the pool doing my laps. I reach the shallow end and stand up, wringing my hair out as I climb up the steps.

It’s another glorious day. I wrap a towel around myself and stand there on the stone terrace, looking down at the city. The smog has lifted and it’s just blue, blue skies as far as I can see.

I hear a loud yawn from behind me and turn around to find Christian, in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, stretching his arms above his head.

‘Hi.’ He smiles, sleepily. ‘Nice day.’

‘Sure is.’ I smile back.

‘How’s the water?’ He motions towards the pool.

‘Gorgeous. You going in?’

‘Nah.’ He shakes his head and yawns again. ‘Maybe later.’

‘You’re up early.’

‘Jet lag,’ he explains.

‘What time did you guys come in last night?’ I didn’t hear them.

‘I cracked at about midnight. Fuck knows about Johnny. He’ll probably walk in the door at any moment.’

Hmm, so Johnny
doesn’t
always get his own way, then.

‘You hungry?’ he asks me, pointing his thumb towards the house.

‘A little.’

He waits outside the door for me while I quickly dry off with the towel and put on the fluffy bathrobe that I found in my bathroom. He slides the door closed behind us and follows me to the kitchen. It’s Monday morning and Rosa will be here soon.

‘Toast? Fruit? Cereal?’ he asks.

‘Cereal sounds good.’

Christian starts opening cupboards and pulling out boxes.

‘What is
that
?’ I point at a colourful box, standing out amongst the more muted tones of mueslis and fibre-based cereals.

‘Fruity Pebbles,’ he reads from the box. It’s decorated with cartoon drawings of Fred and Barney from
The Flintstones
.

‘Are you going for the kiddie cereal?’ He asks the question as though he’s speaking to a small child.

‘Hell, yeah!’ I reply and he laughs, taking two bowls out of a cupboard and pouring Pebbles, followed by milk, into both. He grabs a couple of spoons from a drawer and brings everything to the table.

I peer inside the bowl. It’s full of flat, little rice crispy-style things, brightly decorated in all the colours of the rainbow. We both scoop up spoonfuls and shove them into our mouths. It’s
really
sweet. I start to giggle.

‘I fucking love kids’ cereal,’ he tells me between mouthfuls.

‘It’s the best,’ I agree.

‘So how did you get this job?’ he asks, adding, ‘If you don’t know anything about Johnny…’

I fill him in.

‘So you had to pack up and leave, just like that?’ he looks at me, wide-eyed.

‘Yeah.’ I laugh, slightly in disbelief. It still seems so unreal.

‘I love that you don’t know anything about Johnny,’ he says. ‘He’s got way too big an ego as it is.’

I shrug. ‘So what about your book?’ I ask. ‘How did that come about?’

‘Um, well, he pretty much just asked me if I wanted to write one and I thought, why the fuck not?’

‘What have we got here, then?’ Rosa appears at the door.

‘Hi, Rosa!’ we both chorus. Christian stands up.

‘Hello, my boy,’ she says warmly, coming round the table to give Christian a hug. ‘Good to have you back.’ Then she frowns, looking down at the remnants of our cereal. ‘What are you two eating?’

‘Fruity Pebbles!’ I tell her, enthusiastically.

‘They rock!’ Christian adds.

Rosa rolls her eyes and starts to put the boxes of cereal away. ‘I could make you a nice omelette or something, if you’d prefer?’ she says. ‘Or a full English breakfast? I know how to do those.’

‘No, no, it’s okay.’ I get up. ‘I’d better go and get showered.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ Christian says. We take our bowls to the dishwasher, but she snatches them from us and shoos us away. Christian follows me up the stairs.

‘No doubt see you in the office,’ he says, breaking off at the top of the stairs to turn left as I go right.

‘Absolutely.’

Half an hour later I walk into the office to find him already in there, tapping away at the keyboard. He smiles and says hi, but his expression is distracted.

I log onto Facebook. A crazy number of girls have written ‘I love Johnny’ on his wall. Yawn.

The two gigantic post bags to the side of my desk have been taunting me for days now. I know I should tackle some actual fan mail instead of this online nonsense, but it’s just so addictive. I reluctantly close down the window on my computer and reach for a handful of fan mail. The first envelope I open is plain white with black, spidery handwriting.

Yeah, yeah, heard it all before.

Oh.

I breathe in, sharply.

‘You alright?’ Christian peers at me over the top of his screen.

‘Hey? Oh yeah, just a horrible fan letter. He’s dying of cancer and wants to meet Johnny.’

To my surprise, Christian casts his eyes to the heavens.

‘What? You think he’s lying?’ I ask.

‘No. I mean, he probably
is
ill. But do you know how many letters Johnny must get like that?’

I shake my head.

‘Hundreds.
Thousands
. He can’t meet everyone.’

‘True,’ I concede. ‘So what do I do? Do I show him this one?’

‘I wouldn’t,’ Christian says. ‘I’d put it to one side and see how many you get, then decide what to do. There
will
be ones that you should show him, but you can’t show him everything. That would really do his head in.’

However horrible it seems, I know Christian’s right. I open another envelope as Christian goes back to tapping on his keyboard.

As the morning wears on, with Rosa bringing us in regular cups of coffee and freshly baked peanut butter cookies, there’s still no sign of Johnny.

‘Did he even come home last night?’ I ask eventually.

‘I think so,’ Christian replies, before finally succumbing to his curiosity and my concern. He pushes his chair out from under the desk and stands up. ‘I’ll go check on him.’

He returns after a couple of minutes. ‘He’s coming down now.’ Ten minutes later, a shirtless, sleepy Johnny stumbles into the office and slumps down in the Eames chair. He’s wearing dark shades.

‘Good night?’ I ask brightly, struggling to look at his face and not his chest. It isn’t easy.

‘I don’t really remember so I reckon it must’ve been pretty good. You are
such
a pussy,’ he says to Christian.

‘Fuck off,’ his mate replies and keeps on typing.

‘Can you stop doing that for a minute?’ Johnny asks.

‘Why?’ Christian answers.

‘I want to talk to you.’

Christian’s tapping comes slowly to a stop. ‘What?’ he asks, a little irritably.

‘What’s your problem?’ Johnny asks.

‘What do you mean, what’s my problem?’ Christian snaps.

‘Chill out, mate.’ Johnny grins. ‘Has he been in this mood all morning?’ he asks me.

‘Erm,’ I say hesitantly, ‘I think he might just be in the Zone.’

‘The fucking Zone.’ Johnny laughs.

Christian goes back to his keyboard.

‘Oh, whatever,’ Johnny says, getting to his feet and ambling towards the door. I follow him.

‘Johnny, could we sit down and talk about those photoshoot and interview requests?’

‘Yeah, yeah. In a while, crocodile,’ he replies, heading into the kitchen. Rosa greets him with her usual gusto, vigorously grabbing his upper arms with her chubby hands and making ‘grr’ noises. He seems to like it.

‘What are you up to today?’ she asks, setting about making coffee.

‘Today, Rosa, my gorgeous girl, I’ve got the band coming over. Anytime now, in fact.’

It’s two o’clock.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ I ask.

‘Nope, Meg. I just got to get myself in ‘the Zone’, that’s all,’ he answers sarcastically.

The buzzer goes.

‘That’ll be them now,’ Johnny says, staying put.

I head towards the front door. Four scruffy-looking individuals stand behind it, all wearing shades. I stand aside to let them pass. Two carry guitar cases, one has a keyboard, and the last guy is carrying a pair of drumsticks, so I figure the drum kit is already upstairs in the studio. I say hi and introduce myself and they all nod and grunt. I don’t get an introduction back.

Johnny is at the top of the stairs as they traipse up in the direction of the studio.

‘Be with you in a minute, guys,’ he calls out, and heads towards his room at the end of the landing. I watch from the bottom of the stairs as they enter the studio and slam the door shut behind them.

‘They were a chatty bunch,’ I say to Christian as I re-enter the office.

He chuckles. ‘They turned up at the club as I left last night,’ he explains. ‘Late night, I’m guessing. Right.’ He stands up and grabs a pad and pen from his desk. ‘I’m off to take some notes. Catch you later.’

A couple of hours pass and I manage to put a dent in the fan mail. Occasionally I can hear music coming from the studio upstairs, but it sounds muffled. At 4.30, Christian pops his head around the door. ‘Come up and have a listen,’ he says.

The music gets louder as we get closer to the studio. He opens the door and ushers me inside. Johnny and the band are behind a glass screen. Johnny is shouting out instructions and the four guys are nodding their acknowledgement. Christian pulls out a
chair for me behind the mixing desk and sits down beside me. His notepad in front of him is full of messy scribblings.

‘Have you heard any new stuff?’ I ask.

‘Not yet.’

‘Who are the band?’

‘The drummer’s Lee, TJ is on bass, Mike’s on rhythm and Bri is on keyboards. On tour there’s a much bigger team–backing singers, sax, violins, the lot, but this is more of an acoustic set. Johnny’s playing a couple unaccompanied.’

I look at Johnny’s side-profile now as he talks to his band, guitar strap stretched across his chest. He’s wearing a tight, faded grey T-shirt. A cord trails from the acoustic guitar hanging behind him, leading to an unseen amp. The band nod at what he’s saying and he turns to face the glass, swinging the guitar around into his hands. He starts to strum and Christian turns up the sound on one of the dials in front of him.

I recognise the tune; it’s an acoustic version of one of his more upbeat hits. Johnny steps up close to the mic, lips touching it as he starts to sing. His voice fills me up, warm and soulful, and I’m mesmerised, rooted to the spot.

And then he looks up and it’s like an electric shock as his green eyes penetrate me. He’s singing to me and I’m frozen, unable to tear my gaze away. I’m locked in a stare with him.

And then he looks down, back at his guitar, and doesn’t meet my eyes again. The song finishes and he turns back to his band. It’s as though I was never there.

I suddenly feel overwhelmed. Tears prick my eyes, and I’m aware of how crazy that sounds, how bizarre it is.

I glance at Christian and am surprised to find him calmly watching me.

I stand up, nervy with embarrassment. ‘I should get back to work,’ I say, fidgeting with thin air.

‘Right you are,’ he says, and looks down at his hand, pen hovering over a blank sheet in his notepad.

I walk to the door and glance back at Johnny for a moment, and in that very same instant he meets my eyes again, his expression grave.

I try to keep my legs steady as I walk out the door.