"Soup," Bev put in.
"Cake and soup," he amended. "And some nice tea."
He set her down to go to the phone and ring room service.
"Come over here, Emma. I have something for yon." Johnno patted the
cushion beside him. She hesitated. Her mother had often said just
that. And the something had been a smack. But Johnno was smiling a
true smile. When she settled beside him, he took a small, clear plastic
egg from his pocket. Inside was a toy ring with a gaudy red stone.
Emma gave a little gasp as he put it in her hand. Speechless, she
turned the egg this way and that, watching the ring slide from side to
side.
It had been a careless thing, Johnno thought. A machine that took
American quarters, and he'd had change left after his speedy shopping
spree. More touched than he wanted the others to see, he opened the egg
for her, then slipped the ring on her finger.
"There. We're engaged."
Emma beamed at the ring, then at him. "Can I sit on your lap?"
"All right then." He leaned close to her ear. "But if you wet your
pants, the engagement's off."
She laughed, settled on his lap, and began to play with her ring.
"First my wife, then my daughter," Brian commented.
"You'd only have to worry if you had a son." Stevie tossed off the words
as easily as he tossed off the drink. Then wished he'd cut off his
tongue. "Sorry," he muttered as the room fell silent. "Hangover. Puts
me in a filthy mood."
At the knock on the door, Johnno gave a lazy shrug. "Better put on that
famous smile, son. It's show time."
Johnno was angry, but hid it well as the young, bearded reporter sat
down with them. They had no idea what it was like, he thought. None of
them, save Brian who had gone to school with him, had befriended him.
The names he'd been called-fag, pussy, queer. They had hurt a great
deal more than the occasional beatings he'd taken. Johnno knew he would
have had his face smashed into a pulp more than once if it hadn't been
for Brian's ready fists and loyalty.
They had been drawn together, two ten-year-old boys with drunken
fathers. Poverty wasn't uncommon in London's east end, and there were
always toughs ready to break an arm for pence. There were ways of
escaping. For both him and Brian, the escape had been music.
Elvis, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters. They would pool whatever money they
could earn or steal to buy those precious 45s. At twelve, they'd
collaborated on their first song-a really poor one, Johnno remembered
now, lots of moon/June rhymes set to a three-chord rhythm they'd pounded
out on their battered guitar. They'd traded a pint of Brian's father's
gin for that guitar, and Brian had taken an ugly beating. But they'd
made music, such as it was.
Johnno had been nearly sixteen before he realized what he was. He'd
sweated over it, wept over it, pounded himself into any girl who
would have him to turn his fate around. But sweat, tears, and sex
hadn't changed him.
Finally it had been Brian who had helped him to accept. They'd been