Chapter 3 #2
He’d been her manager for a short spell, and she smiled to remember his fury when she gave it all up and moved to Greece.
Especially as she wouldn’t give him a reason.
She’d been at the peak of her very brief popularity, and he could see the pound signs floating away into the Aegean before his very eyes.
He’d kept in touch sporadically over the years, which is how he knew she currently had few commitments and was happily divorced.
He’d never bothered hiding his soft spot for her and even tried his luck on a couple of occasions.
There’d been one drunken snog, and some fumbling, but he’d never floated her boat.
Small and wiry, he was a bit too market trader for her liking.
Frank was clever though; she’d give him that.
He’d had a second wind career-wise by rounding up the acts that had stayed in the business and taken advantage of the wave of nostalgia for Eighties music.
Most of the musicians were only too happy to step back into the limelight after vacating it so long ago.
Was she one of them? That was the question she needed to ask herself. She wasn’t sure, but she had to make a decision and fast. Frank had given her just forty-eight hours to come back to him before he, no doubt, went on to the next has-been on the list.
The noise level outside the office door had ramped up, and her mini break was almost over. Quickly she scanned the list of the acts once more, even though she’d done it several times already. She had to make one hundred per cent sure a certain someone wasn’t on the bill.
Suzie heaved a sigh of relief that there was no mention of Christian Lestrange, or plain old Chris Strange as she’d known him back in the day.
When he was just a singer touring the grotty pubs of Kent and Surrey like her, performing for a few pounds, sleeping on mates’ couches and squeezing, along with the instruments and all the gear, into the back of a Ford Transit.
Way before he’d rebranded himself as a rock god.
He’d been ahead of his time on the whole branding thing, considering social media didn’t even exist back then, but Christian had always cared deeply about how he came across.
The parade of women, the booze, the fags, and worse, had all fed into his image of a man without responsibilities, who lived only for the next thrill.
A sudden vision of herself on stage singing with his band, high on vodka and adrenaline, hit hard.
Even if she’d finished her set, he’d come backstage to drag her out and get her to perform again with him.
She knew the band’s numbers almost as well as her own, and she’d found his charm hard to resist.
None of them had had any responsibilities back then, and all the time in the world to play. It had been fun while it lasted, before both their careers took off, and the whole thing became way too serious.
Suzie let out the breath she’d been holding.
There was no way she could afford to bump into the man who’d broken her heart and shattered it into a million pieces.
Christian had been her first love, an intense and real love, but she’d had no choice other than to walk away from his chaotic lifestyle without looking back.
It had been the hardest decision she’d ever had to make.
It was incredibly unlikely he’d have been on the bill for these gigs; as far as she knew from her occasional checks on social media, he’d gone off to run a cheese farm in the wilds of Cornwall ten years ago after his second wife, yet another model turned actress, had left him for a younger man.
She’d found a couple of mentions of him performing with his band recently at pubs, but nothing like the scale of Athens.
Not that she cared either way what he did, but she wouldn’t even consider the tour if there was any possibility of him showing up.
Whoa. Her head swam. Was she seriously considering it?
When had that happened? Or was it just the idea of grabbing a piece of the past and holding it in her hand again?
A vision rose of the solo singer she used to be, on stage in tight black leathers.
That was another major factor. What on earth would she wear now?
She was still roughly the same size as she’d been back then, and a similar weight, give or take half a stone, but things had certainly redistributed themselves a bit.
She’d always been petite, but she couldn’t imagine squeezing into those trousers again night after night.
Her performing gear was all up in a box in the loft if she wanted to find out.
‘Mama! I need you.’
Kostas’s voice came through the door loud and clear. Suzie glanced at her phone and was surprised to see she’d hidden herself away for twenty whole minutes. Enough of this self-indulgent nonsense. She was a bar owner on a tiny Greek island, not an international recording artist.
‘Erhome. Be out in a minute.’
She carefully exited the email and pressed the lid of the computer shut.
Ironically, the music she knew so well was all around her as she entered the bar, coming from the open-air space next door that gave the Star Bar its name.
The pollution-free skies let visitors see hundreds, if not thousands, of them.
She’d half forgotten that it was Eighties night, DJed by her sons’ friend, Charlie, a boy brought up alongside hers.
She still thought of the tight little trio as boys, although they were now all well into their thirties, nearer forty if she was being accurate, and two of them, including her eldest, were even married.
Charlie was half English, half Greek, and had spent all his holidays on the island after his parents split up.
Like her sons, he was bilingual, and he’d basically lived between theirs and his grandfather’s during the tough years.
He was like a third child to her, and she’d been more than happy to give him a chance on the decks when she’d heard what his favourite tunes were.
Her own sons weren’t really interested, so it was a treat to mull over the Eighties with someone who really cared, even though he’d barely been born.
She gave Charlie a wave as she ducked out of the office, and he replied with a thumbs-up.
Eighties night meant even more customers, many of them tourists, so good for business, but tiring on the feet.
As the sultry tones of Luther Vandross singing ‘Never Too Much’ filtered through the room, she took her place behind the bar.
‘At last!’
Her younger son had his injured look on. She turned to take a customer’s order and handed over four bottles of Mythos, the Greek beer that oiled many a night in the bar and put cash in the till.
She whispered out of the side of her mouth in her son’s direction.
‘I am allowed to take a little time for myself, you know.’
His dark hair was swept up in what she’d call a man bun.
It was popular with young Greek guys and far more hygienic for the bar than the silky mass cascading down to his shoulders.
Combined with a tight-fitting black T-shirt and matching black jeans, his tanned face was the only thing she could see clearly in the gloom.
‘Great for you, Mama, but we’re swamped here.’
‘If you’re going to take over from me when I get too old and decrepit, as you say you want to, you will have to cope on your own occasionally, you know.’
‘And when will that be exactly? The too old and decrepit bit? Next week?’
‘Ha ha, amusing.’
His smile told her he was joking. They bickered all the time.
The customers loved the banter. Not that she was allowed to say that word as a middle-aged woman.
It made both her sons pretend to stick their fingers down their throats.
She and Kostas had to work so closely together, it was inevitable they’d clash.
He was so like her ex-husband, with his dark eyes and his lazy grin that could light up a room.
She did need to think seriously about when the right time to hand over the reins would be, but for now, she urgently needed to serve the customers with the smile they deserved.
Three hours in, and with her feet aching like mad, she was pleased to see her elder son, Giannis, make an appearance.
‘Hello, gorgeous.’ She leant over the bar to kiss him on both cheeks, and he planted a kiss on the top of her head. Greek men had no problem showing affection, unlike many of their British counterparts. ‘How’s your day been?’
‘Bloody hard work.’
‘Oh, dear.’
She pushed an ice-cold bottle of the local beer, Eza, in his direction. Her boys were chalk and cheese, physically and temperamentally, but they never fell out with each other, or indeed their great mate, Charlie, just with her occasionally.
‘Here, drink this.’
Giannis pushed his hands through his short, dark blonde locks before picking up his beer. His colouring and mannerisms were so similar to those of her long departed but sorely missed father. It always gave her a jolt to see her elder son, even if she’d seen him only hours before.
‘Thanks. The court case dragged on longer than expected.’