Walking on Thin Ice: Chapter 30

It took all of three months for the boys to realize they weren't quite ready to take the BBC's money and go off to film their little sketches together. Not to mention the Terrys were quite liking the idea that they shoot a full film, and not just a sketch show in its full glory. However disappointed they were in their own ways, none of them seemed as stir-crazy as Gemma, who had a toddler at home that was having trouble keeping up with her mother. Somehow Eric thought she was ready to be a mother when all he saw from her was this giggling, gigantic child chasing a baby around the house and taking naps when her daughter was sleeping off the day's tribulations.

Of course, no one would complain for Mike. Mike didn't appear to need to complain. A miraculously speedy recovery, the nursing staff had put her through the necessary training, and until she could leave the baby at home all day with Mike, she'd been the resident nurse for the post-operation floor, checking up on surgery patients and toting a baby around with her, able to nip off and feed the cat-like thing while it was awake, and leave it alone while it slept. When she learned to crawl and Mike could no longer handle being alone with the child he was so terrified would be putting fingers into light sockets and chewing on wires, Gemma was placed back on paramedic duty and started taking fewer work hours until it was the perfect balance between her watching the child with Mike, and Mike worrying incessantly about her.

It was a relaxing year. The healthy little store of money had doubled, and Gemma was now only working about a day a week, for just the day shift, and when she got home, she got out her guitar and serenaded Melody, who was just confident enough to bob a little around the room, screeching at her father, who seemed just enough in tune to see his daughter learning to dance and race around with no pointers from either parent. Wiggling a little bottom, lifting a shaky foot, ripping clothes off as only tiny children seemed to be able to do, he wearily watched her grow larger every day. When she was a newborn, she'd been small enough to rest her entire body along his forearm, her head barely filling his cupped hand. So fragile. Tiny and fragile.

It was now the second half of 1973, and all laziness Mike had felt, working on his sketches and helping Terry with his in return for support he'd gained from the bloke, was gone. He wanted badly to get the camera out and record the hilarity before such nonsense as, "Sir, I'd very much like to eat that shoe" became nothing more than in-context money. Nothing more than words he was paid to say. Work while it was more fun than work, if that made any sense. It seemed Gemma couldn't really understand that. She worked with death and such, but she was an artist in all sense of the word, and she knew how it felt to do something she loved and get money for it. So, satisfied he had an equal balance between home life and work life, Mike didn't bother arguing with fate until around August, when the collection of related sketches evolved into none other than a storyline. A rough one, but they were paranoid that if they worked it to death, it would become work. So, with no discernible plot instilled, they cashed the BBC's check and scouted some locations.

"Are you certain there isn't a castle up north we haven't seen yet?" Mike was crossing names off the list while Eric dangled from a tree limb, his hair sticking up comically.

"I got the whole list, mate. I've seen most of them. Wife number two rather likes sneaking off into dark places while the tour forges ahead. I'm allergic to mold; can we move on?" He fell from the branch and sat up, a bright smile on his face. "Doune was a nice one, though. Terry, didn't you see that one when you and Gil went up?"

"North. Did you hear me say north?" Mike muttered darkly.

"This one's in Scotland, Mike." Eric crossed his eyes at his friend, poking his tongue out. "North WEST. Doesn't count!"

Mike was starting to throw his hands up in disgust when he heard Gemma shriek from inside the house. She kicked open the door, dropped Melody into the grass on her freshly changed bottom, and started up the vacuum. He could hear her cursing over the din of the vacuum, and noticed Melody crawling towards a particularly large pile of dog dung. Jumping up, he collected her and pulled open the kitchen window just far enough to shout over the roaring cleaning utensil.

"What's going on? She spill something?"

Her face, eyes wild and weary, popped up in front of him. "I just checked our phone messages! Do you KNOW who is going to stop by our home in about twenty minutes?"

"The...the Queen?" Mike feigned shock.

She reached up and scratched at the screen stopping her from clawing his silly eyes out. "Paul! Paul is coming by to talk to me about recording now that I'm not working and Melody is a right little bugger--"

Mike's heart sank. "But you can't start now, can you? I mean, weren't you going to help us out with this filming thing?"

Her eyes smiled at him as her mouth thinned. "Of course I will, dear. I just...well, he's only coming by to ask a few questions, after all. I can say I need some more time before I can really commit. I mean, he must understand, right? I don't want to waste his time, of course...but still..."

"Well, as long as you're okay with it, go for it. And don't strain yourself cleaning up. He's got kids, I've heard. I'm sure he's used to stains and clutter."

"I'm sure he as army of maids and a wife that actually picks up after him." She rubbed her face. "Bloody vegan now, you know? I can't even offer him something to eat without getting the animal cruelty talk!"

"So give him some tea and offer him some grass." Mike flashed her a grin. "For all your bitching and moaning, I'm pretty sure you'd die if he ate something you cooked and liked it."

She clawed at the screen again, baring her teeth. "Say that to my face without this screen here, Palin! See if you have dimples or holes in your cheeks!"

Mike sat between Eric and Gil, shaking his head with a frown. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, trying to find the words that described her insanity to sate their questioning, hungry eyes, and finally just shrugged.

"That Paul bloke is coming by to ask her about making an album."

Their eyes widened and gibbering followed for a moment before Eric, always the one to ask stupid questions just to ask stupid questions, blurted, "Paul who?"

They paused, seeming to avoid alerting Mike they too were uncertain who this Paul figure was.

"McCartney. He and that other one...John, they helped me see to Gemma in the hospital when the nurse wouldn't let me in to see her."

"And this Paul guy, just...offered Gemma a record deal?"

"He heard her singin' to Melody and said she sounded good enough to test out a recording. She was gobsmacked." Mike sighed and shook his head. "Cleaning like a maid in there...paranoid he'll come by and think we're slovenly pigs or something."

"Look at him." Graham barked after a pause, opening a bottle of gin. "Not even worried this rock star will sweep her off his feet. He's the world's most eligible bachelor, and the man is married."

For the first time, doubt started to creep into Mike's brain. He turned, wondering if he shouldn't smear Melody with dung and let her roll around naked for a bit to repel this beast of a man forcing his wife to clean and obsess for just a short time. God knew they were happy enough without him walking in and proposing to make Gemma the next biggest rock star in England. Or the world. If anyone, he'd know how to get her name spread in America, too. And all around the world.

Mike's chest tightened. But, he drowned in compassion, Gemma had always wanted to sing. He shook his head, forcing a smile.

"I think I'm safe, boys."

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Inside, Gemma was just hurling the last of the throw pillows back on the couch when she heard the back door open and Mike and the boys troop inside for more beer and chips. She rounded on them, bemoaning dirty feet and actually slapped at Eric's bony bottom as he scampered outside, his bare feet having smudged her floor. Just about ready to mop again, Gemma was digging through her floor cleaners when she saw a dark Aston Mini stop outside her house. Jumping out, a lean, dark-haired man with something like five o' clock shadow on his face, observed a crumpled paper and walked decisively to the house.

He knocked and Gemma kicked the cleaning closet shut, straightening her hair and clothes. This was THE MEETING. Not THE AUDITION, but the preliminary MEETING. The big one. Gulping, she threw open the door, unable to prevent looking pale and worried despite a weak smile.

"Hello, luv!" Paul reached forward, grinning, to take her hand. He shook it, only disappointing Gemma for a split second before he pulled her close for a hug, pecking her once on the cheek. "Lovely place. I wasn't sure if I had it right; I only had your number but I have some friends around this area and I sent some spies 'round to check it out, so I could be fairly certain..." He inhaled brightly, his eyes twinkling. "So, anyroad, I was hoping you could show me your guitar so I could hear you play it...if I'm not jumping right into things."

"No, of course not. It's not like you came by to discuss life and all its uncanny problems." She indicated the basement door. "I just have to run and get one of them--"

"Cor, a basement! It looked rather small for a growing family..."

Reluctant, because she hadn't cleaned the basement, she opened the door a little wider. "Come have a look?"

"Don't mind if I do!"

He galloped down behind her, seemingly enjoying himself immensely, and grinned at the sight of several guitars strewn about the cozy room, complete with couch, folded laundry, and spewed LPs and their covers. He eyed her selection of instruments, including a drum kit and accordian, and smiled approvingly when she selected a red-stained acoustic and sat on the floor, tuning the thing quickly and effectively.

"So, what genre would you connect yourself with?" He asked conversationally as he sat behind her drum kit and started to thump on the bass drum head a little.

She shrugged a little, thinking carefully. "I play a little of everything, listen to a little more. I always loved rock and roll, but I love acoustic songs with picking melodies as well."

"See, if we take you in and George really likes your stuff, you and I and him get to go through all the stuff you can play and pick the best, and then add a few new ones in there that we all really like." He started with a steady rock beat on the drums, tossing a little hair from his eyes with a grin. "And then I take you to a glorious, star-studded affair, everyone raves about how I picked the best little singer on this floating chunk of rock, and you walk away a millionaire."

"Simple as that?" Gemma lifted her eyebrows in surprise. "Seems like bands wouldn't break up if it were that easy."

"Well," he did a quick little cymbal solo and resumed the beat, "with girls--married ones at that--there isn't too much to really do to get into trouble. I was a stupid, young boy during our tours, and the rest of them were no better. Girls would come to us with knickers in hand, asking if it was all right they hadn't worn a bra at all, and we really felt like it was our duty to satisfy the entire nation by deflowering as many young girls as we could." He stopped playing and frowned. "I don't know of many men that would do the same to teen pop stars. Besides, you're married with a beautiful daughter. That husband of yours will protect you from any drug-infested parties and keep your eyes off the young up-and-comers."

Gemma began to pluck a gentle melody and looked at Paul imploringly. "When you said you and the producer would pick new music for me...does that mean I won't be writing any of my own stuff?"

"I didn't know you wrote." He lifted his eyebrows.

"Just a little. Nothing serious, as most humble girls will say." She grinned and played her little folk melody louder. "This is one of them. Nice little ditty."

Paul sat on the floor beside her and smiled, watching her switch from one song to another, to another, to another, explaining to him what she liked about each until she was talking enthusastically, her guitar forgotten on the ground as her hands told him a story of discovering guitar through Jonas and perfecting it through herself. When she finally lost her breath and had to stop talking, staring around, at a loss for words, Paul let out what sounded like a dreamy sigh and stood up, returning to her drums.

"Play me a rock ballad."

She started to strum some chords to search for the right key, and then played a generic rock riff on the acoustic guitar, fading into some strong power chords. She went back to her guitar melody every few moments, enjoying how it evolved even as Paul chose a driving beat to accompany the laid-back appeal the song was taking. Paul was nodding encouragingly, and as Gemma tore off into a drowned solo, Paul jumped up, searching in her second room for an amplifier.

"Get your electric on. Do you have microphones and the like?"

"Yeah, I'll get them. Hold on."

Terry was standing at the kitchen sink drinking a glass of water as fast as he could, knowing that he was missing some important decision-making outside when he heard thumping coming from the basement. Up burst Gemma, muttering under her breath. She exited to her bedroom and continued to thump around, ignoring that Terry was even standing there, a glass in his hands, his dirty feet on the linoleum she had just mopped.

A few moments later an impatient man popped up from the stairwell and spotted Terry, posed with his empty glass of water and grinned happily.

"Hello there! Know where I can get a similar device?" He indicated the glass, clearing his throat politely.

Terry, mechanical almost, turned away from Paul and opened a cupboard, taking down an extra glass and handing it to the man, who then filled the cup with the divine perfection that was water and drank deeply, grinning over at Terry in a way that Terry wasn't sure if he should be irritated with the man's happiness, or allow it to rub off on him.

"So...over on business, I assume?" Paul attempted to strike up a conversation.

Clearing his throat, Terry rinsed his glass, nodding firmly. "Scouting locations. We're trying to get back into the groove of things."

"Excellent. I heard a rumor you were going to make a film."

"As far as we can predict, it'll be a stretch if we can make it have a plot as opposed to a jumbled mess of skits." Terry sighed and then dipped his chin out the window. "But no one's in a hurry, especially Mike."

Paul nodded, drinking deeply again. "New baby bliss. Plus he's got to have a fabulous home life."

"Yeah? What makes you say that?" Terry turned and observed Paul as he drained the last of his glass.

Paul put the glass down and grinned again. "Gemma."

Puffing out from the bedroom with a rather large amp stuck in her arms, Gemma started down the stairs. Outside, her daughter began to cry. Paul abandoned Terry before he could comprehend what the man had said and helped Gemma with the amplifier, chatting at her with that optimistic grin of his all the way.

Finally finding his feet, Terry took all of twenty-three steps from the kitchen sink to the tree outside where Eric was holding little Melody on his lap and forcing her to play patty-cake. For the millionth time she refused and Eric grew dismayed.

Terry sat hard in the grass, wondering what he had just seen.

"What do you think, Jonesy?" Mike held up two publicity photos. "Neuschwanstein or Doune?"

Unable to answer, he blinked at Mike helplessly, opening his mouth to say something, anything, and not saying anything.

"What?" Eric frowned. "We didn't pick the right ones?"

"Terry?" Mike frowned and then tilted his head. "What is it? Are you all right?"

"I don't know what I just saw," Terry swallowed a lump in his throat, "or what he meant, but I don't like him in there with Gemma, mate. I don't trust him at all."

Mike's back straightened and he stared into the basement window from his position, seeing the dark and hearing the squealing of feedback. Lots of things were possible, and people that were allowed to have anything they wanted would take what they wanted when they found it. If, for some reason, Gemma was this Paul McCartney's object of desire, then it seemed inevitable to Mike that she fall victim to his predator instincts.

Inside, Paul clicked drumsticks, tossing hair from his eyes again. "One two three four!"

Adopting her little guitar riff from earlier, Gemma began to play the loud, gritty sound of her ancient guitar. The notes were soaring around her, and Paul, drowning in the beat he was creating, could only watch with admiration as she picked a melody and twisted it, her voice complementing just barely as the microphone picked up faint notes of her singing weak backgrounds for help finding the notes she wanted.

Some minutes later, when her wrists grew tired, Gemma struck one final chord and let it ring, letting Paul take a solo to wind it all down and end with a quick chop on his high-hat cymbal. Immediately Paul stood up and inserted the drumsticks into his back pocket, grinning with even more fervor than usual.

"You could turn out a hit every ten minutes, Gemma! This is going to be so easy! George has to meet you!" He grabbed her hand. "When can you come to London and stop in at Apple?"

"I...I don't know. My husband is trying to start up this movie thing, and we always said we'd travel together--"

"Oh, come on!" Paul squeezed her fingers almost painfully. "Production only takes a few weeks, and then a month or so of publicity shots--we can do that without you actually there--and you come back for an overnight to release the album. Short, quick!"

"Publicity shots?"

"You know...LP cover, things to send to magazines and newspapers when they want to report on you. We can take those while you're in the studio." Paul squeezed her hand even tighter. "Please?"

"I suppose if we go in soon enough I won't miss the scouting and such with Mike and the boys." She bit her lip uncertainly.

Wrinkling his nose, Paul took a step back, dropped to one knee, and took up Gemma's hand again, imploring her with suddenly gigantic cow eyes, his face utterly serious, no trace of his happy-go-lucky grin left. "Please, Gemma? It would mean the world to me."

She wanted to laugh, but no amount of incredulity could bring her to laugh at his utterly serious, pouting, baby-faced sorrow. He looked like he might start bawling if she said she wasn't certain she would be able to do it, and this idea made her cringe. It was bad enough he was being forced to beg her to do something she had secretly wanted to do since Jonas had put the guitar in her lap (she had secretly hoped she'd have sudden talent--need no coaching! Go right to the top forty!). She bit her lip even harder.

Mike cautiously edged into the room where the music had ceased to be. He drank in the surroundings first. An acoustic, her favorite one, thrown away carelessly on the couch, an electric guitar in its place, plugged into a buzzing amplifier, propped up against the far wall, a glass of water placed quite carefully on the floor in front of it. The drums, vacant, were buzzing with recent use, the snare buzzing with the vibrations of the amplifer. And in the foreground of this strange sight, Paul on one knee before Mike's wife, his face so imploring, so begging, so everything but what Mike wanted to see that he actually started to whine aloud.

"Okay," Gemma hung her head and Paul jumped up, whooping loudly. Half expecting them to kiss, Mike started to divert his eyes, and then he heard the saving graces that prevented this from turning into another misunderstanding.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Paul jumped up and down like a giddy school-boy. "I promise you and your husband will have plenty of time to go with the other blokes and search for locations and everything. It'll be quick--thank you!" A quick sweep and he had kissed her forehead. "It'll be the time of your life!"

"Yeah," Gemma laughed, rubbing her forehead with something like uncertainty and looked over to Mike, smiling weakly at him. "Look, dear. I'm going to be famous!"

Mike's face twitched and he smiled; it was all he could think to do. Shrugging helplessly, he looked at the man that had kissed his wife and felt stirrings of not shyness or defeat, as he might have associated with Gemma if he'd seen some other man attempt to sweep her off her feet. He felt jealousy and it was a wonderful, hot, uncontrollable feeling. He sent Paul a dangerous look, one that Gemma saw and wondered what it meant. Taking her hand, Mike smiled a little and nodded quietly.

"Which is better then?" Paul took the drumsticks out and dropped them on the snare rim, balancing them there. He turned off the snare and the comforting buzzing stopped.

"Which time, you mean?" Gemma bit her lip and furrowed her brow a bit, looking to Mike for guidance. "When would you rather have me with you? Filming or scouting?"

"We're scouting now. It's just plain annoying. Filming, most likely. When I can't watch Melody anyway."

"Mike?" A voice drifted downstairs. "We can't find Melody's socks. Or shirt. And soon it'll be her diaper, Eric's shouting."

"Aww, cripes!" He skiffed his foot over the floor. "Since when do we raise a nudist?"

Gemma smiled and shrugged. "She came into the world naked, it's hot outside. Besides, Jonas took care of this lawn. It's nice barefoot. Must feel nice on a bare bottom." She poked his hip. "Your bum's just forgotten what the sun feels like. Probably wonderful."

"Kids will be kids." Paul said with a happy smile, and Mike was reminded that he was walking in on the happy suburban dream he was beginning to develop.