Chapter Fifty Three

There were so many people in the studio that it felt as if they were all sitting on top of one another. Jeff suspected that quite a lot of them didn’t need to be there and was tempted to try to get rid of them, but decided that it was likely to make things worse if they wound people up before they’d even begun. Mouse had tried to talk to some of the production crew, but didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Despite still being mostly asleep and smelling of brandy, Duncan had taken advantage of the overcrowding to grope the assistant producer, who had been stunned into silence and was just gawping at him from the corner of the room.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you,” a passage of crummy organ music, played on something which sounded like a kid’s toy, was topped off by a nasty, tinny fanfare, “BackBeat.”

Then nasty, tinny, canned applause. Mikey grinned very deliberately at them, even though it was radio. Jeff wished that he would just get it out of the way, but something told him that it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Mr Jeffrey Hands, not yet OBE, lovely to see you again sir.”

“Morning all. Nice set up you’ve got here.” Someone tittered, but it was hard to tell who or why, “Nice doughnuts. We love doughnuts, we do, especially at some silly time in the morning.”

“This isn’t silly. This is late this is. I’ve been up since half four.” Mouse was used to operating on toddler time, and it was only just beginning to dawn on him that the others might not be quite so sharp as he was.

“Who asked you?” Mikey winked hard at him, “For anyone listening at home, that was the short one. I’ll come back to him later. But I was having a conversation with Mr Hands…”

Jeff knew that Mikey was deliberately making him squirm. He was good at it.

“Yes.”

“Mr Hands, you and I had a quiet get together in a nice cosy little boozer round the corner from the really posh bit of town where we both just so happen to live the other night.”

Mikey’s eyebrows were dancing around as if they weren’t properly stuck on.

“We did.”

“With your lovely lady wife sitting at the table, gazing on adoringly and sipping a nice glass of white wine.”

“Yes.”

“With a roaring fire in the corner, and a large shaggy dog asleep in front of it, snoring a bit.”

“Yes.”

“And we agreed how we were going to do this. Agreed that we’d start by talking about the new single, and how it was written, and how you hope it sells a squillion by the end of the week. And that once we’d played it we could then have a bit of a chat about the interesting stuff which everyone actually wants to hear.”

Jeff was trying not to laugh. It wasn’t funny, it was just that he was more nervous than he could ever remember being. Especially not before eight in the morning.

“We did.”

Mikey moved closer to the microphone, and forced his face into something which was probably meant to be a glower. He was a short, squat man, and the effect was rather unnerving, especially when he forced his voice down into a low and gravelly growl.

“But I. Can’t. Let. You. Do. That.”

Jeff didn’t move. Mouse wondered whether to have another go, but decided that he was only likely to set himself up for worse than the first time around.

“Mr Hands. I have to ask you this, as I think my producer is already dialling the number for the Samaritans as we speak.” The producer was equally short, squat and male, and was called Trevor. It was true that he was showing signs of nerves, but it was mostly excitement at the thought that he might have a scoop on his hands. Without warning, the assistant who had seemed to be overawed by Duncan started making loud sobbing noises into the second microphone: Mouse grabbed hold of Duncan’s arm to make sure that he didn’t try to do anything about it. “Mr Hands is this the end? Is BackBeat no more, all over again?”

All of the production team suddenly started making wailing noises, which made Duncan jump. Mouse laughed, in the hope that Duncan would do the same, while Jeff waited until the noise levels dropped a bit.

“Hang about a bit. Nobody said anything about us splitting. We just came in to have a chat, and so that you could play the song. It’s a good song, you know.”

Mikey kept his eyebrows low over the microphone.

“Mr Hands, I hate to inform you of this. But one of your bandmates is missing again. We’ve hunted high and low for him. Trevor has even checked the coat cupboard twice, given he’s such a skinny bastard, but all he found was a coat hanger and a bit of an old hoover.”

It was actually reasonably funny, but Jeff also knew that it was his chance to get a sentence in edgeways.

“No, Jake’s not here. He couldn’t come this morning, but he said to say hello to you all, especially.”

Mikey was still low to the desk, and seemed to have stopped blinking. He was focusing on Jeff, and alternating between his normal speaking voice and the growl.

“Do you actually know where he is? Because you’re actually not that good at keeping track of the band members are you? I mean, don’t you think it would be a good idea to get chip thingies put into the others in case they do a runner as well? What do you think?”

Duncan seemed to wake up.

“I’m not going anywhere, me.”

“My God! The hairy one speaks!” Mikey smiled at Duncan, who tried to smile back, and then promptly ignored him. “It’s weird isn’t it. For years we’ve all been trying to figure out what Jake McDonald actually does, when he’s not taking an hour and a half to work out what he wants to say when you ask him the time, and suddenly he’s the really interesting one. He gets beaten up, his Dad’s in jail, and you say that he’s even started writing songs. Don’t think I believe that bit, but it’s a good story. But he finally gets interesting, then he disappears. Don’t you think that’s a bit odd?”

“He got shot, too.”

Something about the way that Duncan said it made Mouse realise that he was nowhere near sober enough, but he then realised that there was little that he could do about it. Much as he might want to, he couldn’t exactly put all six foot of him under his arm and carry him out of the room. But Mikey seemed to cheer up, even though he knew he was running a fairly high risk of being clobbered on air. He ignored Duncan’s contribution to the debate, and appealed to all three of them.

“Come on Guys! It’s me, Mikey. You can tell me. Is it true that at this very moment Jake’s undergoing a sex change in Rio, and he’s going to join you on tour in the autumn as Jacqueline?”

There was a muddle of laughter and protest, which Duncan didn’t quite manage to join.

“That’s bollocks, that is,”

A hooter sounded, and the producer made frantic hand signals. Mikey wagged his finger across the desk.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to have to inform you that Duncan Woods just used a very naughty word. We’ll do rude things to him after the show’s finished, I promise.”

“Sorry, mate.” Duncan did at least have the grace to look vaguely embarrassed, “It’s just that you were talking…,” The producer suddenly waved furiously behind Mikey’s head “… you were saying stuff about Jake which wasn’t true.”

Mikey lent over the desk towards Duncan, and spoke in something which might have been a full-voiced stage whisper.

“So no sex change then?”

Duncan was looking confused, and Mouse wanted to panic.

“Of course not. He’s gone to find a girl.”

Mikey was having a private chat with Duncan, with six million people listening to it, and Jeff wasn’t quite sure how to stop it.

“Couldn’t he have found one here? I mean, it’s a while since I’ve been out, but I think that there are girls here too.” Duncan was looking confused again, “What do you think?”

Mouse tried to kick Duncan, but got the cross bar of his stool instead and nearly overbalanced. He only just managed to catch hold of the desk before the last leg left the floor. Jeff decided that enough was enough.

“I think that’s none of your business, Mikey mate.”

Mikey pouted, showing large amounts of the inside of his bottom lip.

“But I thought we were friends!” There was a general oohing and ahhing from lots of the random people who didn’t need to be there, “Don’t get narky with me, I’m just trying to get the truth for your loyal public, who were hanging eagerly on Duncan’s every word there.”

Jeff wasn’t letting go.

“It’s all fine. Jake just can’t be here this morning, and I’m sure they all understand that even if you don’t. And you’ve missed the exclusive on the single, you know. Everyone else played it about five minutes ago.”

Mikey looked at Trevor, who shrugged. They were both struggling to keep a straight face, but knew that they hadn’t quite made the most of things.

“So now what do you want us to do? Do you fancy trying to compose something with Trevor, so we can have a new exclusive, like? ”

Jeff had played that game with them before, but this wasn’t the time for it.

“Just play the bloody song, will you!”

Mikey pouted again.

“Tetchy.”

Jeff pouted back, forgetting that it was radio, and wishing that they had cancelled. It was Mouse who saw that Trevor was getting as frustrated as he was, and managed to catch his eye. It looked as if they were trying to stare one another out, until Trevor gave a quick thumbs up. He moved over the cue the track as Mouse dived over the desk to get onto one of the microphones.

“OK everyone, here’s our new song. It’s called Footsteps, and we hope you all like it.”

Mikey beamed at the room as the opening piano chords struck up, and waited until he was sure that they were off-air.

“I reckon we just about got away with that, don’t you?”