Bad Heir Day by Wendy Holden Page A

1978, when his guitar had been accidentally (or was it? he was still not sure) plugged into the mains. Even by his optimistic lights, the reaction of the music press to the news Solstice were re-forming could hardly be described as ecstatic, with the result that “Sex and Sexibility” needed more of a push than overdue quadruplets. He could not afford to let golden opportunities like this pass.
    “Hi. Jett St. Edmunds,” Jett said, stretching out a hand to the journalist. Not bad, he thought. A bit skinny and pasty perhaps. “And you are?” he asked, pulling in his stomach and moving closer.
    “Brie de Benham. Daily Telegraph .”
    “Hi, Brie. Know the name,” Jett drawled, chewing on a nonexistent piece of chewing gum.
    Yes, of course you do, Cassandra only just stopped herself saying. From the Waitrose cheese counter .She could spot Jett’s thunder-stealing game a mile off. She was aware that “Sex and Sexibility” was hardly lined up to be the Christmas number one, but she’d be damned if it got publicity, however badly needed, at the expense of her new book.
    “How’s it going?” Jett asked, fixing Brie with his most charismatic stare.
    “Fine,” Brie smirked. “Miss Knight has been telling me how she gets up at five and reads all the newspapers while she’s working out in the gym.”
    Jett stared at his wife, who returned his gaze unblinkingly. “Gets up at five ?”he chuckled. “Oh yes, she gets up at five ,all right. Five in the goddamn afternoon ,that is. And working out? The only thing of Sandra’s that gets regular exercise is her goddamn credit card.”
    In the hall, the telephone began to ring. Both Jett and Cassandra held their ground, locking eyes, neither willing to give up the valuable field of potential publicity to the other. “Phone’s ringing,” smirked Jett at his wife. “Probably that goddamn Gosschalk chick. She’s never off the blower.”
    Silently telling herself she was doing it for her son, Cassandra gritted her teeth and stalked out of the room. Jett promptly sat down on the sofa beside Brie de Benham, who immediately rammed her elbows together to make the most of her skinny cleavage.
    “ Ass Me Anything , ” he breathed. Might as well get in a plug for the album straightaway.
    “OK.” Brie switched on her tape recorder again. “Is it true that Jett St. Edmunds isn’t your real name and you’re really called Gerald Sowerbutts?”
    “ What ?What are you goddamn talking about?”
    “You said to ask you anything.”
    “ Ass me anything. Name of the new goddamn album.”
    “Oh. Right. Well, anyway, is it true? About the name?”
    “Of course it bloody isn’t,” snarled Jett. “I’m called St. Edmunds because I come from there.”
    “From Bury St. Edmunds?” At least, he thought, she’d got off the Gerald bit.
    “You gottit, baby.”
    This was, in fact, merely the version of the truth preferred by the record company who, having decided to ritz up Jett’s Christian name, completed the exercise by surnaming him after the town where their A&R man first discovered him performing “House of the Rising Sun” a capella to an audience of two at a bus stop. Jett had objected to the name at first because he thought the town was pronounced Bury Street Edmunds, but preferred the story, as well as the rest of the tricky subject of his origins, to remain cloaked in mystery.
    “And do you ever take your sunglasses off?”
    Through the mirrored shades Jet invariably wore to do everything but sleep in, he saw Brie looking at him coolly. “Take them off ?”He laughed theatrically. “Honey, I’m in showbiz.” Brie smirked.
    “Is it true what I’ve heard about you women journalists?” Jett murmured, moving his mouth close to her ear. “That you keep vibrating pagers in your knickers so you get a thrill when someone calls you?” He placed a hand heavy with silver skull rings on her thin, black-nyloned knee and began to work it slowly up her thigh. Hearing the