Boxing Day
"Land's End? They're not kidding!" Kylie Reigert exclaimed when she read the wooden sign as she drove along the Cornish coast in her rental car. "It might as well be the dark side of the moon."
Her career as a writer for Classic Rock magazine usually took her to cosmopolitan places like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other major cities. When she learned that Martine Chapin lived in England, Kylie naturally assumed it would be in London or Liverpool. Frankly, she couldn't imagine why anyone would want to live in Cornwall. Still, she had been trying for more than a year to get an interview with Ms. Chapin. After dozens of letters, emails and telephone calls, Martine finally agreed. Kylie would have travelled to the South Pole to meet with her.
"Arriving at destination on left," the navigator announced.
The former journalist, who had quit the magazine to write a biography of Billy Ray Younger, parked in front of a small seaside cottage.
This place looks like something out of a Charles Dickens novel, she thought, looking up at the thatched roof.
When Kylie, shivering in the cold December air, raised her hand to knock, the door suddenly opened.
"Ms. Chapin?" the writer asked.
"Yes, and you must be Ms. Reigert," the elderly woman replied.
Although she was well into her seventies, Martine was still an attractive, fit woman who looked no older than fifty.
"Please, come in," she said. "Would you like a cup of hot coffee to warm you up?"
"Thanks. I'd love some, but I always thought the English preferred tea."
"Some do, but don't judge by me. I was born and raised in New Jersey."
"You're an American? What are you doing living here in Cornwall?"
"I came here on vacation with a friend from London and fell in love with the place. When I retired, I decided to move here. It's really quite lovely in the summer months."
Once Martine prepared two cups of coffee, the women went into the parlor and talked of generalities for half an hour. Finally, Kylie, eager to begin work, took a small cassette player out of her purse.
"You don't mind if I tape our interview, do you?"
"No, not at all."
Kylie pushed the record button, sat back in the chair and asked her first question.
"Do you recall the first time you met Billy Ray Younger?"
"How could I forget it?" Martine replied with a sentimental smile. "It was November 1, 1954. I was just sixteen years old at the time, but I remember it like it was yesterday. My father was an Army man who was stationed in Fort Benning, Georgia. I had just graduated high school that June, and I took a part-time as a receptionist for Macon Records to help pay for my college tuition. Cletus Hockley, a former record producer for RCA and the owner of the company, brought Billy Ray to the studio to record a demo that day."
"What were your first impressions of him?"
"I admit I thought he was kinda cute, but I wasn't bowled over by him. He was just a poor farm boy back then, not much older than I was. His hair was uncombed, and he wore a dusty pair of dungarees—that's what we called jeans back then—and a stained white T-shirt. It looked like he had just climbed down off a tractor."
"Did you get to hear him perform that day?"
"No. I didn't have that particular pleasure until about a month later, after Macon Records signed him to a recording contract."
"And when you finally did hear him sing?"
"That was when I was bowled over! Cletus had asked me to fetch him a bottle of Coca-Cola, and when I walked into the control room to give it to him, Billy Ray was in the middle of singing a romantic ballad. My knees went weak. As much as I loved all his rock 'n' roll hits, I have to admit it was the love songs that really got to me."
Since Kylie knew most of the details of Billy Ray's rise to fame, from backwoods Southern country boy crooning in the church choir to a music legend and American icon, she chose to restrict her questions to Martine Chapin's personal experiences with her former employer.
"So when and how did you make the move from working as a receptionist for Macon Records to being Billy Ray Younger's personal assistant?"
"Like I said before, he was a farm boy. His education was minimal, at best. He could barely read and write, and his math skills were deplorable. Once his first record was heard on the air, the reporters began asking for interviews. Cletus was concerned that Billy Ray's poor English skills would tarnish his image, so he asked me to tutor him. Then when his career began to take off, I became his keeper. I had to go along on his tours and keep an eye on him to make sure he didn't get into any trouble."
"What kind of trouble?"
"The usual kind a poor young boy gets into when he suddenly finds himself in the city with a few bucks in his pocket: drinking, gambling, women."
"Drugs?"
"No. No back then, anyway. He never was one for pot, cocaine, heroin or acid. It wasn't until the end of his career when he developed a dependence on prescription drugs that things got out of hand."
"So let's go back to the 1950s," Kylie said, referring to the notes she made in preparation for the interview. "After Billy Ray received a gold record for his first album, Macon Records sold his contract to Summit Records, and Aubrey Swaggart took over managing his career."
"That's right. Cletus knew how talented Billy Ray was, but he was also aware that Macon Records was too small a company to do him justice. The label lacked the financial resources that Summit had to properly promote a major client. He did what was right not only for himself but also for Billy Ray. He sold his contract for two million dollars and then retired from the music business. And the rest, as they say, is history. Aubrey Swaggart made Billy Ray the most successful rock 'n' roll artist of his day, the 'Great One,' who up until the early 1970s was the highest selling recording artist of all time."
"And you? What did you do when Billy Ray went over to Summit Records?"
"By that time, he considered me invaluable. I was handling his correspondence and telephone calls, balancing his checkbook, paying his bills, filing his tax returns. He offered me a job as his personal assistant, and I took it."
"And you were with him for how long?"
"I dedicated more than thirty years of my life to him."
"According to my research," Kylie said, referring to her notes even though she knew what was written there, "you never married. Was there ever anything romantic between you and your employer?"
"Never. Billy Ray was a ladies' man, but he never made a pass at me. Perhaps he instinctively knew I wasn't interested even though I preferred to keep my preference for women to myself."
Once they finished discussing Billy Ray's early musical career, Kylie suggested they take a break. The tape in the cassette recorder had almost run out, and she wanted to stretch her legs.
"How would you like some lunch?" Martine inquired. "I can make us some sandwiches."
"Why don't you let me take you out instead," Kylie offered. "There must be a restaurant somewhere around here."
"There's a pub down the road where you can get fish and chips as good as any they serve in London."
"Sounds great."
Once away from the running tape recorder, the women's conversation shifted from Billy Ray Younger to movies, fashion trends, Hollywood gossip and the current political situation in America. Martine Chapin, who had not been back to the States in nearly a decade, enjoyed the walk down Memory Lane that her lunch with the writer provided. When they finished the last of their beer, however, it was time to return to the seaside cottage and resume the interview.
* * *
"Let's fast forward to 1958," Kylie suggested after loading a blank cassette into her tape player and pressing the record button. "Billy Ray Younger was the number one recording artist in the world. Why did he decide to pursue an acting career?"
"We never really discussed it," Martine admitted. "The studio made the offer, and he accepted it. Maybe he enjoyed the challenge acting presented or perhaps he just liked being in the limelight. I do know that after he made his first movie, he was hooked. He would have gladly given up his music career to be the next James Dean, but he would never be given the chance. The studio didn't want an actor; they wanted a singer. Whether Billy Ray was cast as a baseball player or a circus performer, he was also required to sing in his roles. There were two things you could count on in a Billy Ray Younger movie: there would always be at least half a dozen musical numbers, and he would always get the girl at the end of the picture."
"That particular combination worked well," Kylie observed. "His movies did well at the box office up until the mid-Sixties, that is."
"Ah, yes! The mid-Sixties. That was the beginning of the end. Up until that time, Billy Ray had the Midas touch. Everything he did turned to gold. Every record he released was a hit. All his concerts sold out, and his movies made millions. Teenage girls swooned over him."
"And then came the ...."
"Uh-uh!" Martine said, quickly interrupting the writer before she could finish her sentence. "We must never say their name."
"What?"
The elderly woman laughed at the look of confusion on Ms. Reigert's face.
"It was Billy Ray's rule," she explained. "No one in his inner circle was ever permitted to mention them in his presence."
"Do you mean in all those years he never discussed the ... them?"
"On those rare occasions when Billy Ray spoke of them he always referred to them as 'those damned limeys.' My former boss was many things, but politically correct was not one of them."
"I take it from what you're saying that he blamed them for his dwindling popularity?"
"Yes, I'm afraid he did. Poor Billy Ray! He never knew what hit him. At first, he thought they were a fad, that they would have a few hit records and then vanish from the music charts like so many acts did back then. He didn't realize how popular they would become, that their overwhelming success would be the Boxing Day of his career."
"Boxing Day? What does that mean?"
"Here in England, it's a holiday celebrated the day after Christmas. Traditionally, it's a time when servants and tradesmen received a gift known as a Christmas box from their employers and customers. To me, it signifies the end of the holiday season that begins with Thanksgiving in America. All the excitement and celebration leading up to December 25—shopping, parties, gift-giving, caroling, baking, feasting—finally comes to an end on Boxing Day."
"And you believe Billy Ray's career would have come to an end even if his popularity hadn't been challenged by that group from England?"
"Maybe not as abruptly as it had, but, yes, I think he was on the way out by then."
"But his musical career was still going strong at that point," Kylie argued. "In fact, he performed up until the very end."
"That's true, but he wasn't the Great One anymore. Hollywood was no longer interested in him, and neither were the concert promoters. Given limited options, he began dressing in sequined jumpsuits and singing his old hits in Las Vegas hotels and nightclubs. Meanwhile, those damned limeys—to borrow his expression—were changing rock 'n' roll forever and becoming icons of their generation."
"What about his personal life?"
"It was fodder for the tabloids. His much publicized fairy tale romance ended in divorce. When Bettina left him, it nearly destroyed Billy Ray. That's when he began overeating and taking prescription medications. My God! He was once a teenage heartthrob, and by that time he looked like a sausage stuffed into a sequined casing. It broke my heart to see what he'd become."
"Can you describe his mental state at that time?"
"I'm no psychiatrist, but I believe he was sinking into a deep depression. His sleeping habits were appalling. He would stay up for days on end and then sleep for long periods of time. He became—for lack of a better word—paranoid, always carrying a gun, putting double and triple locks on all the doors, traveling with a bodyguard whenever he left the house."
"Didn't anyone try to get him help?"
"He was under a psychiatrist's care. A lot of good that did him! Just more prescription medicines."
Martine pursed her lips and stared at the running cassette tape.
"Look, can we please take a break?" the elderly woman asked. "Even after all these years, those memories are still very painful.
"Sure," Kylie replied, turning off her cassette recorder.
Despite the frigid December weather, Martine stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. She knew where the writer would be going next. The young woman's questions would take her back to the worst period in her life and make her relive events that she'd spent thirty years trying to put behind her.
Why did I ever agree to do this interview? she wondered. I should have continued to ignore Ms. Reigert's requests.
Meanwhile, Kylie went to the bathroom, got a drink of water and then waited patiently for her hostess to come back inside the house. It was nearly ten more minutes before she heard the front door open.
"Sorry," Martine apologized. "I had to prepare myself for the rest of your interview."
"If you'd rather do this another time, I can always come back."
"No. I'd just as soon get it over with."
She returned to her chair, and Kylie pressed the record button on the tape player again.
"Colin Ennis."
There was no actual question, just a name. It was not an ordinary name, however. Colin Ennis was the lead singer and driving force behind arguably the greatest band in musical history. Adored by millions of fans around the world, he became a legend in his own time. Unfortunately, as was the case with many legends, his life had a tragic end.
"As I said, Billy Ray blamed 'those damned limeys' for how his life had turned out, and Colin Ennis, in particular, became the lightning rod for all his hatred. All of us in the inner circle knew how Billy Ray felt about Colin: he loathed him. One time we were all sitting around the mansion drinking beers and watching old movies when there was a commercial for Colin Ennis's solo album. Billy Ray was so enraged that he took out his gun and shot the television."
"And this didn't disturb anyone?" Kylie asked with disbelief. "His behavior didn't raise any red flags?"
"Most of Billy Ray's friends laughed. They thought it was a big joke. We'd all seen him line up the group's records on the fence and use them for target practice. To me, this was just another example of his bizarre behavior. Not one of us ever thought Billy Ray would actually harm anyone."
Martine lowered her head to hide her tears, but Kylie heard her soft sobs.
"We really can do this another time," the writer said, taking pity on the older woman.
"No. I'll be all right."
The former personal assistant reached for a tissue from the box on the end table, wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
"If you're sure ...."
Martine nodded her head in response.
"The night Colin Ennis was to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame."
This was not Jeopardy. There was no need for the writer to put her thoughts in the form of a question.
"It incensed Billy Ray that Colin was going into the Hall of Fame as a solo artist after he'd already been inducted as part of the group. He saw it as further proof that 'that bastard limey' was getting the fame and attention that rightly belonged to him. He was the Great One, you see. Why was he in the Hall of Fame only once and Ennis twice?"
"But he was never a member of a group. He was always a solo artist."
"You and I know that, but Billy Ray .... Well, at that point, he wasn't thinking clearly. God! Can you blame him for feeling like the world was against him?" Martine cried in defense of a man she obviously venerated. "His career was foundering, he lost the only woman he ever loved, people were ridiculing him because of the way he looked and dressed and his doctor was pumping pain killers and antidepressants into his system like they were candy!"
"Are you defending Younger's actions?"
"No. I just .... You don't know what he was like when I first met him. Billy Ray was kind, sweet and thoughtful. He was the most generous man I've ever met. He would give you the shirt off his back if you wanted it. There were so many people that took advantage of his good nature and sponged off him for years, but it never bothered him. People are still living off him today even after he's gone. Do you know that last year alone his estate made over fifty million dollars in music and movie royalties and by licensing his name and face to products that ranged from lunchboxes to shot glasses to women's handbags?"
"And all that money goes to Bettina, his ex-wife."
"She wasn't his ex-wife. They were never divorced, only separated. Up until the day he died, Billy Ray hoped she would come back to him, but she never did."
"Let's talk about the night of April 7."
"I was in New Jersey. My brother was in the hospital for an appendectomy, and I went to see him. When visiting hours were over, I went back to my hotel, had room service send up something for me to eat and then I turned on the television to watch the induction ceremony."
Martine closed her eyes as though trying to blot out the pain of the past by that simple gesture.
"I thought Billy Ray was still at his mansion back in Georgia. I was the one who made all his travel arrangements, and I certainly never booked him on a flight to New York. Like everyone else, I watched the events unfold on television and .... I was horrified! Not since Jack Ruby had killed Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters had anyone witnessed a shooting on live television. As much as I hate resorting to clichés, when the security guards wrestled the shooter to the ground and I saw Billy Ray Younger holding the gun, I could not believe my eyes!"
"I'm sure it was quite a shock!"
"That's an understatement. To this day, that sight haunts me."
More tears. Another tissue.
Thank God, it's almost over, Martine thought.
"You were the last one to see Billy Ray alive, weren't you?"
"Yes. After he was arrested for shooting Colin Ennis, he was given the usual one phone call. Rather than contacting a lawyer, he called me. I was still in New Jersey, so I drove to Manhattan."
"He wasn't in a cell when you saw him, was he?"
"No. The police had sent him to the hospital for observation."
"Was he sedated at the time?"
"The doctor had given him something to calm him down, but he was lucid when I spoke to him."
"Would you tell me what he said during that last meeting?"
Martine sighed before answering.
"He was completely unaware of what had happened. In fact, he seemed to have blocked out the preceding twenty-five years of his life. It was as though he was still the Great One, making records and movies, performing concerts and living happily with Bettina."
"What you're saying is that he'd finally snapped?"
"That's how it appeared to me. And in light of what happened next ...."
"That brings me to my next question. How do you suppose Billy Ray was able to take an overdose of sleeping pills while he was under observation at one of New York City's finest hospitals?"
"I honestly don't know," Martine said. "Don't you think I've wondered the same thing all these years?"
"The police questioned you, didn't they?"
"They questioned everyone who might have had contact with Billy Ray while he was there, not just me. They questioned nurses, doctors, orderlies and even the hospital's cleaning people."
"And yet Younger's death remains a mystery."
"It's hardly a mystery, Ms. Reigert. Billy Ray killed himself."
"Only after somebody provided him with the pills."
"Are you accusing me?"
"No. I'm just stating the facts. Someone brought those pills into the hospital, and you were the last person to see him alive. The police questioned you, and obviously your answers satisfied them because you were never charged in connection with your employer's death."
"Is it facts you want? Fact: Billy Ray was a wealthy man. He could have bribed anyone to bring him those pills. Fact: Since there were no security cameras inside the hospital, the police could never positively identify the culprit. Fact: Billy Ray was a sick individual who murdered an innocent man in cold blood and probably would have spent the rest of his life in a psycho ward."
"And you would have hated to see that happen, wouldn't you? After all, Billy Ray was a man you had known and loved most of your adult life. A good, kind, generous man, an employer who had always treated you so well."
"That's right," Martine said, her eyes once again filling with tears. "I don't think I could have stood seeing that happen. Now, do you have any further questions?"
"No," Kylie said, turning off her tape recorder. "You've answered them all."
* * *
Through the crack in her window curtains, Martine watched Kylie Reigert's car drive away.
I'm glad that's finally over, she thought with relief and headed toward the kitchen to make a pot of tea.
The water had just begun to boil when she heard another car pull in front of the cottage.
"I've just made us some tea," she called when the front door opened.
"Good. I could use a cup. I thought that writer would never leave!" Bettina Younger exclaimed as she sat down at the kitchen table. "You and me both."
"How did the interview go?"
"Great! I gave an Oscar worthy performance. Ms. Reigert left here thinking I was the ever-loyal assistant who couldn't bear seeing my poor boss spend the rest of his life in a loony bin!"
"She didn't ask about me?"
"Your name did come up, but she wasn't interested in exploring your failed marriage. I think her main reason for wanting to interview me was to get me to confess to having given Billy Ray the pills he used to kill himself."
"As though you'd be foolish enough to do that!" Bettina laughed, gently squeezing the hand of the woman who had secretly been her partner for more than forty years.
"We really have nothing to fear," Martine reassured her. "No one will ever know that you and I played on Billy Ray's insecurities and fostered his jealousy of Colin Ennis or that we encouraged him to buy a gun and learn how to shoot it. People see what they want to see. They look at me and see nothing more than an unassuming woman who spent most of her life idolizing and living in the shadow of her celebrity employer."
"They should know you like I do," Bettina said adoringly. "When I decided to leave Billy Ray, you were the one who convinced me not to seek a divorce despite the fact that you and I wanted to be together."
"Our patience paid off, didn't it? Why settle for part of his considerable fortune when we could have it all?"
"Speaking of all those lovely millions, isn't it time for us to go on another vacation?"
"Where would you like to go this time?" Martine asked. "We went to Paris last month and to Rome the month before."
"Someplace warm. How about Australia?"
"All right, but let's wait until after Christmas."
"How about we depart on Boxing Day then? We can drive up to London in the morning, pick up a few things at Harrods, have dinner and take a late flight out of Heathrow."
Martine was reminded of her interview with Kylie Reigert in which she had compared Billy Ray Younger's waning career to the December 26 holiday. It had been so easy to mislead the writer, just as it had been easy to deceive the former Georgian farm boy and his love-starved wife.
"Boxing Day is fine with me," the greey, scheming personal assistant replied with a smile, not for Bettina Younger who adored her but for the life of wealth and luxury she had worked so hard to attain.
The characters in this story, although inspired by several actual rock 'n' roll performers, are entirely fictional.
In one of his earlier lives, Salem wanted to be a rock 'n' roll singer. He performed a song that went "You ain't nothing but a black cat, crying all the time ... Well, you ain't never caught a mouse, and you ain't no friend of mine." Oddly enough, the record didn't sell well.
