Chapter 12

When Anna arrived home Michelle was pacing up and down with Emily in her arms. The baby was whimpering and Michelle was trying to jiggle her up and down. It was obvious she was distraught and she burst into tears as Anna entered the room.

"Oh, God, Anna!" she cried, "Mick's gone... I've fucked up, really fucked up. I don't know what to do."

"Mich, Mich! Give me Emmie, here?" She took the baby, "sit down, you want a shot?"

"I shouldn't, I'm breastfeeding."

"No matter. What happened? You and Mick had a fight?" Anna sat beside her on the sofa, draping her free arm over her friend's shoulders.

"I've fucked everything, The Curse is gone! Oh, Anna, I've broken up the band!"

"You must tell me what this is all about," Anna insisted, "then we can decide what to do."

"Mick wanted us to get married. He said I was freezing him out. He doesn't understand that I'm a mother, now, and..."

"So? He wants a fuck? Give him a fuck and he'll be like a lamb. All men are the same."

"It's not that simple."

"No? Tell me? How often do you sleep with him?"

"A few times. Maybe not as often..."

"I tell you. You've slept with him two times in the past month. Mick is a good man. Not many men would put up with that. You must go now and make up. Give him a good fuck and everything will be alright."

"We need to talk things through. You think I should marry him? Y'know he wants to split you and me up?"

"Ok, fine, fuck him and then talk. It will be much easier that way, you'll see. As for marry? Hmm, you decide, it's only a party, it won't change a thing. So, he wants to split us up? I thought he liked me?"

"He does. He's jealous!"

"Ah, yes, jealousy! You must make him less jealous."

"By fucking him?"

"Of course!" she smiled. "You don't like doing this with Mick? I thought..."

"No, it's fine. I've never had any problem, er..."

"See? Problem solved!" she clapped her hands, "now give him a call and go for a romantic dinner somewhere."

"Ok, ok," Michelle said, "what do I say?"

"'Sorry'? But you must mean it!"

"I will!" she smiled happily, "thanks, Anna!"

"See, you are a worrier," she laughed, "you must make Mick happy. This is important for us."

"You make me sound like a whore," Michelle replied, "I really love Mick, y'know. He just gets too possessive."

"Ah! He wants to keep you in a cage? We birds were meant to fly, Mich, not be put behind bars and left to die."

"Nah, that's not Mick, Anna."

"He wants to own you, you said?"

"Well, not exactly. I think he just wants the traditional thing with mum, dad and the kid."

"So? He has to accept you as you are. Mum, dad, mum's girlfriend, the baby and dad's grown up daughter he never knew. This is traditional?" she laughed.

"Don't forget the family band," Michelle chuckled.

"Oh, yes, we musn't forget The Curse," Anna agreed.

When Mick arrived at Freddie's he found Terry in the kitchen. She was polishing a stove that looked pretty clean to him. Maybe women can find dirt males just miss?

"Freddie here?" he asked.

"Nope!" Terry replied in a voice that would freeze lava.

"Ah, where is he?"

"Gone!"

"Um, where?"

"Don't know... don't care either!" Terry's voice came in rapid bursts, like a machine gun firing. Mick, of course, knew he'd come at the aftermath of a fight.

"I've left Michelle," Mick told her.

"Give her a couple of hours then bring her flowers," Terry said, "babies change the whole ball game. Learn to deal with it."

"Um, it's not about the baby, it's..."

"Mick?" she turned, "I'm sorry, honey, but I just can't cope with someone else's problems right now. It'll blow over, you'll see."

"I take it you and Freddie had..."

"A fight? No fight, Mick, he's just having a love affair with the bottle."

"Ah, well, you know Freddie? He always liked a beer now and again."

"Mick, you don't know the half of it. I know he likes a beer with his buddies. I don't have a problem with that. But every night drunk? I mean, really drunk? That's not Freddie. I've told him to come back when he's dried out. I'm not standing by and watch that man destroy himself in front of my eyes. I'm not going to do that... oh, Mick..." Terry turned and burst into tears. She ran the short distance to him and clung like a lifebuoy. "I don't know where he's gone. Why do I fetch up with drunken hopeless men?"

"You like a challenge?" Mick suggested.

"Thing is, when he was teaching we were fine. Married to him was just wonderful, I... the best time we had in our lives. Then The Curse came along and everything changed. It's the lifestyle, see..."

"Ok, ok. You want me to check he's alright?"

"I'm supposed to allow him to hit rock bottom. It says so in the booklet I got from Alcoholics Anonymous."

"But you still want me to find him?"

"Please?"

Mick immediately rang Michelle. Her response was quick, as if she was waiting by the phone. She tried to speak, but Mick shooshed her immediately. He explained about Freddie and she promised to come and stay with Terry.

"Mick, I..." she started to say.

"Thing is with fights," he said, "neither side smothers themselves in glory. That's just propaganda for the masses."

"Huh?"

"You haven't smashed up my guitars, have you?"

"Of course not!"

"Then there's hope," he told her.

"You're really fucking weird, sometimes, Mick Johnson."

Mick had been worried about Freddie for a while. It wasn't just his drinking, but his weight and his ability to handle the management of a band growing as big as The Curse. He knew Terry had been covering for him and he, himself, had to organise a few things that'd slipped Freddie's mind. The task was overwhelming him and Mick thought they needed professional managers to handle the band's affairs.

But, Mick and Freddie went back a long way. He'd been an integral part of The Curse from the outset and been invaluable in coaching Karen. It was tough having to fire someone so close as him and Mick had put the matter off.

His friend was unravelling under the strain, though, and it had to be done before he cracked completely.

Freddie had always been something of a binge drinker, but he'd always managed to show. There'd been some concerns over the years, but Freddie had always got things under control. Now, it seemed, the booze was finally winning and there needed to be an intervention.

Mick trolled through Freddie's usual haunts. They were generally worker's bars where he was barely noticed and he could hole up in a corner somewhere and get drunk. He shifted locals regularly - some say so Terry couldn't find him easily.

Freddie and Terry had always had this love/hate thing going and he'd often been a 'guest' at Mick's when they'd had a fight. A couple of days usually sufficed before everything was okay again.

Mick visited six bars and there was still no sign of him. He was getting really worried, now. There were literally 100s of bars in this town and it could take him all night to visit them all.

By chance he passed a small park and saw a figure slumped on one of the seats. Something made him turn around to check and, sure enough, it was Freddie.

His friend was paralytic. He'd pissed his pants and there was vomit on his clothes. Probably he'd been tossed out of the bar for being too inebriated, but what Mick was going to do with him he didn't know. He was too heavy to move and too bombed to move himself. Did Mick really want this specimen on the upholstery of his precious Camarro was something else he had to consider, but he couldn't just leave him there.

Fortunately for Mick, the problem was eased by the arrival of a police patrol car. After he explained the problem, the cops hauled Freddie to his feet and half carried the big man to Mick's car. He spread a sheet of plastic he had from the boot over the seat and the cops eased Freddie into it. Mick then called Michelle and asked her to tell Terry he was taking him back home with him.

Anna came out to assist him, dousing Freddie with a bucket of water, before helping Mick bring him in the house. They stripped him of his clothes before laying him in a spare room to sleep it off.

"He has to go," declared Anna, clicking her tongue. For once, Mick had to agree.

The irony wasn't lost on Anna. Someone who'd been so insistant at distancing the band from drugs had fallen foul of the most insidious drug of all, alcohol.

Emily was safely asleep in her crib. Anna was fidgety and found totally unimportant tasks to do. Mick sat down in the lounge and turned on the TV. He realised he'd never been alone with Anna before. She was plainly uncomfortable and refused to sit down. Instead she went into the kitchen and Mick heard pots and pans being banged around as if she was busy doing something. Finally, he announced he was going to bed and she could relax.

"Is Michelle coming back?" she asked as he got up. Her voice was tinged with anxiety.

"She's staying at Terry's tonight," Mick told her.

"Ah!," she nodded. She hovered as if having more to ask and Mick paused. "Mick?" she said, finally, "you're, ah, not leaving us, are you?"

"Us?" he grinned, wryly, "as in you, Michelle and Emily?"

"You don't want me here?" she asked, almost as a statement of fact.

"You can stay," he shrugged, as if it made little difference, "if you want to, of course."

"You jealous?"

"Frankly," he sucked in his breath, "frankly, I don't know what I am. They don't have a manual for this sort of set up."

"Michelle said you want a traditional wife. She said..."

"Did she?" Mick raised his eyebrows, "that's her interpretation. I never said anything of the kind. I guess it would be less complicated, I suppose."

"Yes," she nodded, "but you understand?"

"Not completely."

"Michelle and I have this special..."

"Yes, yes," he said, irritated, He really didn't want the speech again about their 'special love.' He'd heard it enough times from Michelle. "Look, I don't really care how close you are or whether you play around together. It don't really bother me that you have first claim. But, what am I to Michelle? She says she loves me, but so what? Words are cheap. Are we a couple? I'd like her to prove that we still are."

"Ah, yes! You two must go for a romantic dinner somewhere."

"Then what, Anna? Is that the end of it? You sure this isn't going to come up again?"

"Hmm," she considered, "we must organise this properly."

"Huh? Like on a roster?"

"Sure, why not? I have things I can do when she is with you."

"Oh," he chuckled, "that's, um, very generous of you."

"See?"

"No, Anna. You're offering to lend her to me now and again, like she's some kind of car. 'Hey, I'll let you drive her around Thursdays?' That's not what I had in mind."

"Oh? Tell me, what do you have in mind?"

"Look, I really don't know," he threw a hand up to the heavens, "if this is to work, we need to feel our way along and see what happens."