Page 47 of Love Me Till Wednesday

Three minutes and 50 seconds later, she stopped singing, and the audience broke into a rapturous round of applause. It felt like they meant it. Lisa turned to smile at the rest of the band. They’d done it. Pete was grinning from ear to ear. Jim looked relieved.

‘Great stuff, guys,’ the assistant floor manager said. ‘When we’re ready for your interview, we’ll have you standing inthis position again so it looks like you’ve just finished your performance. Then you can walk over to the sofa to be interviewed.’

‘All of us?’ Jim asked.

‘Yes, all of you. Lisa first. It doesn’t matter what order the rest of you are in.’ She put her finger to the earpiece in her right ear, looking like she was listening intently.

‘Mr Nixon is about to arrive, so you won’t have much longer to wait,’ she said.

Lisa froze.

‘Nick Nixon?’ Pete asked.

‘Yes. We’re honoured to have him. He doesn’t do many interviews these days. He’s going to be talking about his new fitness book.’

Lisa glanced across at Jim, who looked like he’d seen a ghost.

‘Is there a problem?’ the assistant floor manager asked.

‘No,’ Lisa said. ‘Everything’s fine.’ Why was Nick here now? After all these years. No one moved.

‘So if you could head back to your dressing rooms, please.’ She had the look of someone who might whip out a cattle prod if they didn’t shift soon.

‘We’re on our way,’ Lisa said.

They trooped out of the studio and along the corridor, Lisa leading the way back to the dressing room, wondering how the hell this was going to pan out. Jim trailed behind, lost in his own thoughts.

Ed broke the silence. ‘What’s up, folks? You look like aliens have landed and are threatening to blow up the planet.’

‘Jim’s never even met Nick before,’ Lisa said.

‘Oh shit. I didn’t think of that.’

Pete looked worried. ‘You’re not going to challenge Nick about Jim on screen, are you?’

‘Of course not. I’m not airing my dirty washing in public. But I’m going to challenge him afterwards.’ Lisa looked at her son. ‘Assuming you want me to say something?’

Jim just nodded, still in a daze.

Pete still looked on edge. ‘We need to think carefully about how we handle this.’

Tez, always the most emotionally intelligent of them all, chipped in. ‘Surely that’s Jim and Lisa’s business. Not ours. Do you and Jim want some peace and quiet to discuss it?’

‘No, it’s alright,’ Jim said. ‘He’s not interested in me anyway.’

‘You don’t know. He hasn’t got another son,’ Lisa said. ‘He always said he wanted a big family.’

Jim shook his head. ‘No, he’s definitely not bothered.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Because I’ve had several attempts at contacting him and he’s never got back to me.’

Why had Jim never mentioned that before? ‘When?’

‘When Sophie was born. It made me think about being a father and growing up without one. I emailed his agent. I never heard anything. But I figured it could have ended up in spam, so I wrote a letter. Still nothing. I even hung around the stage door for a couple of nights when he was doing that play on Broadway, but he blanked me.’

Jim had gone on a work trip to New York a couple of years ago. Lisa had thought it was odd at the time but now it made sense.

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