Carnforth's Creation Read Free Page A

spaced out.’ He hummed to himself for a moment, then crooned, ‘Gee I’d like to see you looking swell, baby. Diamond bracelets Woolworth doesn’t sell, baby.’
    ‘Yeah, they think noon’s all right. Better than her ladyship fetching the fuzz … Right, you finks?’
    The youth in the striped underpants made a lunge for Roy’s ankle which he easily evaded. Walking out to where she had left her horse, Eleanor still had not decided what to ask Roy. If she seemed too inquisitive he might simply refuse to talk. Then suddenly he said, ‘We’re breaking up, see. Four years and shazzam.’ He flung out his arms dramatically . ‘Still, I suppose I should be grateful to Exodus Music and your ’ubby.’
    ‘You don’t sound very grateful,’ she murmured, doing her best to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
    Roy smiled and shook his troubadour’s locks. ‘He’s no different from other promoters … likes getting his own way.’
    Eleanor’s fingers tightened on her whip. ‘I wouldn’t have thought he had enough time to be a very energetic … promoter.’ The last word stuck in her throat.
    ‘Couple of days a month, maybe. More of a rich man’s hobby. Leaves most of the work to Gemma or the bods in the office.’ He frowned. ‘Far as I know, I’m just about the only performer he handles personally. Not that anything’s come of it.’
    Having thought that Paul no longer saw his step-sister, Roy’s mention of Gemma shook Eleanor badly. Nor was it consoling to be told a little later that it had been through Gemma that Paul had met Roy, and on a suggestion of hers that he had bought a stake in a ‘management company’. Evidently pleased to have won her attention, Roy added helpfully, ‘The way the A and R boys listen to him at Exodus, he must have pumped in plenty.’ Too dazed to ask what ‘A and R boys’ were, Eleanor stared at the grass while Roy told her about the strengths and weaknesses of hisgroup. ‘Our technique’s fine for ballsy rock numbers, but useless for low volume backing. Which means now Paul’s made up his mind to push me as a solo singer, the rest of the lads have got to go.’ Soon Eleanor gleaned that Paul had recently lost patience with the group for failing to master new material he had commissioned for Roy. He had given them a deadline, and shown he meant business by offering a rent-free cottage miles away from any distraction, with rehearsal space in the village hall at Frimpton. Eleanor suspected he had chosen Frimpton, rather than Flixton, because it was further from Delvaux. Unless there had been trouble with the police, she would never have heard anything about Roy and his chums.
    When he began telling her in admiring tones about Paul’s energy and powers of persuasion, Eleanor knew she had already heard more than enough. As she hurried across to her horse, and mounted, Roy suggested that Paul had probably sent them to the country to save himself the trouble of disbanding the group. ‘Reckoned if we were cooped up we’d get into arguments.’ As she kneed her horse round, he looked up anxiously. ‘Don’t get the idea I’m complaining. He’s right behind me as a singer.’
    ‘A word of advice,’ she said sharply, ‘Paul’s enthusiasms rarely seem to last.’ Before he could answer, she had urged her horse into a brisk trot.

2
    Because Paul Carnforth had seen marriage more in the nature of a pleasant supplement to his life, than as a thorough-going revolution in its fabric, he had never taken any notice of friends who had told him that ‘his whole way of life’ madehim wrong for ‘a girl like Eleanor’. She was undoubtedly both younger and more solidly conventional than he would have predicted for his eventual bride a year or two earlier, but he had been attracted by more than her long black hair and dark attentive eyes. He thought her poise remarkable in someone so young, and enjoyed her dive-bombing frankness , even on occasions when he was its target.
    After