The Exciting Life by Karen Mason

you can show me your sketches?
I’d like to help you.’
    ‘ So what do you do then?’ Annie asked. ‘You say you don’t work
with your father?’
    ‘ I own Top Twenty Records.’
    ‘ Really? A record company?’
    ‘ Yeah. See when I was a little boy, before the war, Mum put me
on the stage. The Tiny Rocket I was called. I couldn’t sing Annie,
I just sort of shouted in tune, but I did a trade in the music
halls. By the time the war broke out, my voice had broken and I
couldn’t sing at all. I fought in Burma and helped with a lot of
the entertainment for the troops, coaching the singers and so on.
When I came home I used the contacts I’d made before the war and
started promoting. I looked after this girl called Millie Soames
for a while. Then in Fifty-Four, I got the offer from Ernie Lee to
buy Union Records, and I bought it and renamed it Top Twenty. We
did so-so until I took on a producer called Jack Wise. He’s bloody
mad, but knows what he’s doing. He produced Look All Over, and it
went to Number One.’
    ‘ Look All Over by Jonny Sabre?’ Annie gasped. ‘I loved that
song. That was on your record label?’
    ‘ It was,’ he smiled proudly. ‘It went from there. I’ve now got
a roster of twelve acts and we’ve had seven number
ones.’
    ‘ Gosh.’
    ‘ I made my first million last year.’
    How
crass it was to talk about money, Annie thought to herself. It was
clearly the mark of someone who had no class. But she didn’t mind
it. The roughness behind his suave, handsome exterior made him all
the more attractive.
    ‘ Hopefully one day I’ll match you,’ she said
smartly.
    ‘ I’m not doubting you will.’
    ‘ So have you bought yourself a big house with your
money?’
    ‘ Nope. I’ve got a modest little bachelor pad in Kensington,
down the road from my office. I don’t need a big house. It’s not
like I’ve got a wife to put in it.’
    Annie
smiled to herself, wondering if this nugget of information was for
her benefit. She hoped so. It had hurt her so much when Patrick had
chosen Iris, and she needed a little boost – someone to make her
feel desirable.
    ‘ Well it’s very good of you to still help your dad out. My
brother would be most pleased with you. He likes people who don’t
forget their roots.’
    ‘ Is that what he accuses you of doing?’
    ‘ Yes. Maybe I sound shallow, but Uncle Michael and Aunt Nesta
paid for me to go to a good school and get a good education. I
wasn’t prepared to leave and go to work in Woolworths and throw it
all away. I married Mario and had a damned good time.’
    ‘ I remember seeing you in the papers with Mario Stefani. Such a
glamorous couple.’
    ‘ We were, but the bastard left me with nothing but debts. All I
have in the world is Bruno’s. He won that in a card game. But at
least he left it to me to do as I wish, so I have that and my
hotel. But I’ve nothing else. I’ve even been reduced to renting a
scruffy flat in Fulham until I can move into the new
place.’
    ‘ Can’t your aunt and uncle help you?’
    ‘ Uncle Michael died and left the family home to Aunt Nesta. But
she had a stroke and Kenneth put her into a convalescent home in
Switzerland. He got power of attorney as Nesta wasn’t in a fit
state to make a decision, and took Tanner Beresford. He knocked
down Elliott House and built a large housing estate over it. Uncle
Michael didn’t have a lot to leave. He lost a lot of money after
the war in taxes and so on. But he left me a nest egg and I used
that to invest in my business.’
    ‘ If it was me, I’d take myself off to America and live with
Alicia Bloom.’
    ‘ I don’t want to keep on relying on my family. If I was a blood
relative it wouldn’t be so bad, but I wasn’t even formally adopted
by the Holland’s.’
    ‘ Really? How come?’
    ‘ They were too old. They became our legal guardians and they
changed our surnames to Holland, but that was it.’
    ‘ What about your real family?’
    ‘ I don’t remember