An original ficlet thing.
Saturday, 20 March 2004 00:05![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apollaI started writing this ages and ages ago, partly inspired by the series on BBC 1 called Somebody's Daughter, Somebody's Son and partly by a bunch of other stuff.
Somebody's Daughter
Somewhere in London, 2004
Nobody knew anything, least of all her, she realised. Not about her father and the kind of man he'd been. Lots of people approached her on a regular basis, but although their names and faces and accents changed, what they said never did.
"I really loved your father, you know."
They always started that way. The exact reasons why varied a little, but they all loved her father. Trouble was, she didn't really know who her father was, or the kind of man he'd been.
Jody Randall had been a huge rock and roll star in the 1970s. He was one of those enduring rock cliches: join a band at 16, record contract by 18, world domination before 20. Unfortunately for his daughter, he also fulfilled the 'die at 27' rock myth. Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Jopin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain all died at 27, and so did Jody Randall, leaving millions of fans heartbroken forever.
Jody was the sort of bloke who'd been keenly aware of his own image right from the start. Old school friends would always trot out the old chestnut about him turning up for the last day of secondary school in a green velvet suit that wouldn't have looked out of place on the Sgt Pepper cover or in Haight Ashbury. He'd cultivated his own legend in his lifetime, and after his death it just kept on growing.
He was the sort of bloke who named his daughter after a Led Zeppelin song, regardless of the reaction a name like 'Kasimira' might get once she started at school. It didn't matter that her mother wanted to call her Deborah, because Jody always got what he wanted. He was that sort of bloke.
He was the sort of man who died after John Bonham but before John Lennon, as if to make sure that things really did happen in threes. He was the sort of man who left one wife, one ex-wife, countless girlfriends, two ex-managers, one current manager, four bandmates, millions of fans and one six-year-old daughter.
When those fans came up to her, it was as if they were reading from a script.
"I really loved your father, you know."
"Thank you."
"You're the spitting image of him, really you are."
"Thank you."
"I don't mean to bother you, I'm sure you're very busy, but I was sure it was you and well, I really loved your father. You know?"
Well no, she didn't know. She didn't know what it was like to love a rock star. She didn't know what it was like to worship a poster on a wall, a voice on a disc. She wasn't a big music person, unlike her father had been. The world didn't turn or not because of rock and roll for her. It had for her father.
She didn't even really know what it was like to love Jody Randall as a father. She had memories of him, to be sure, but they were few and far between and had faded to sepia tones over the years. Even when he was alive, her father had spent a large amount of time on the road, in the recording studio, at parties and at times, anywhere but home.
Kasimira's mother Suzie hadn't been able to bring herself to play any of his records for years after he died and to this day still didn't much like talking about him. Kasimira knew that Suzie had loved Jody and hoped that Jody had loved Suzie.
When those people, those fans, came up to her, they always had something to share. It was almost always personal to them and so she could never quite bring herself to cut them off or give some scathing reply.
"My first ever boyfriend gave me your dad's solo album as our month anniversary's gift."
"I got married to the sound of your dad singing."
"I listened to that first album so many times the vinyl wore out."
"Your dad was my first crush. I was in love with him for years!"
"Your dad once kissed me. I saw him in a nightclub in Manchester and he kissed me."
"Your dad is the reason I joined a band."
"Your dad's voice could make me cry, man!"
"When your dad died, it broke my heart."
They all said that last one. She would smile sweetly and tell them that it was OK, but she found it odd that strangers were apparently more affected by her father's death than she was. She was sad that her father was dead and at the time she'd been devastated, but she didn't think her heart had broken over it. How could the hearts of people that never met him have broken over it when hers had not?
That said, she spent every day between her 27th and 28th birthdays terrified of dying, terrified of ending up like her father. Of course, she was nothing like her father. She did not drink except the occasional glass of wine with a meal, she did not take drugs, except one puff of a joint when she was 16 that made her want to vomit. The be all and end all of her life was not a good guitar lick or chord change. She didn't walk around like the world belonged to her or dress almost exclusively in leather, velvet and silk. Her hair was shorter, too.
Jody had died intestate and so everything had gone to Suzie and Kasimira. Thanks to endless reissues of his band's records and videos and all kinds of merchandise, Kasimira had attended a private school, lived in luxury and would never actually have to work. They lived in a nice big house in a nice leafy county in nice leafy South East England behind a high wall and iron gates while a team of lawyers fought their corner against the first Mrs Randall as she tried to wrest some of their millions away from them. Apparently, being married to Kasimira's dad for a grand total of 14 months entitled the several-times married Louise Morris Randall Jackson Waters to Jody's hard-earned money. It wasn't really the money itself that rankled with Kasimira so much as the presumption that she was entitled to anything of Jody's and that money meant more to Louise than keepsakes and mementoes. It was at times like those that Kasimira realised that her father's legacy meant more to her than she sometimes acknowledged.
Her father's legacy wasn't the same thing to her as it was to the fans. To her, it wasn't the number of records sold or awards won. It wasn't the many, many stories of rock and roll excess. It wasn't a room full of guitars not touched since 1980. It was the little harmonica he'd given her for her sixth birthday and tried to teach her to play. It was the stacks of photographs he'd taken of her when she was a baby and she was still a fun novelty to him. It was not his drink-fuelled death but the cassette tape he had made her of lullabies to help her go to sleep as a substitute when he was on tour.
"Hello Kaz... Um... this is your dad... I thought I'd make you a tape so that when I'm not here you can hear me anyway... and well, I hope you like it."
She'd seen many, many interviews by Jody over the years, and he'd never sounded that nervous. It made her think that maybe she really was special to him, that she wasn't just another in a long line of people who passed through his consciousness and just as easily passed out of it. She'd never wanted to be 'just another person' in her father's life, before or after his death.
She had realised a long time ago that happy memories were matched by sad ones. Him pushing her on the swings at the park; her watching from behind a door as he trashed his music room in frustration. Him helping her bake little butterfly cakes one day when her mother went shopping; her trying to wake him from a drunken stupor one morning because she needed to get to school. Him putting her on his motorbike and pushing her round the garden on it because Suzie refused to let him take her on it with the engine on; having her fifth birthday party wrecked when he crashed that same motorbike into the fountain in that same garden. Fortunately, the sad memories seemed to fade a little quicker than the happy ones.
And now she was sat in a cafe in London killing time before going to a function at EMI to mark the release of a DVD set of her father's work both in his band and as a solo artist. She didn't particularly want to go at all, but her mother had asked, and well, Kasimira found it hard to refuse her mother about things Jody-related.
"Excuse me?" Kasimira turned abruptly to see a young woman, surely no more than eighteen standing over her, shifting from one foot to the other nervously.
"Yes?" she asked.
"Are... Are you Kasimira Randall?" the girl asked. Kasimira stifled a sigh and plastered a tight smile on her face.
"Yes I am."
"I'm not disturbing you, am I?"
"No," Kasimira said, finding herself unable to lie to this wide-eyed, hopeful girl. "Sit down if you like."
She did.
"I'm... I always wondered what I'd say if I ever met you," she said quickly. "Something along the lines of 'I really loved your father' but... you probably hear that ten times a day."
"Yes, I do," Kasimira replied, now smiling sincerely if wryly.
"I... I wasn't even born when your dad died and I don't know what it must feel like to be you," the girl said in a rush "I just... I wanted to tell you that he still means a lot to me. I don't know why really, but I think his voice... speaks to me, you know?"
"I don't," Kasimira said honestly. "I don't listen to him very much."
The girl didn't look that surprised.
"He's a bit of an acquired taste," she said. "but... I'm sure people like me bug you all the time, but I couldn't not tell you what your father means to me... because... well..." she stopped and sighed. "I find it hard to describe. You... you knew him. He was yours and we only saw him from a distance. If anyone gets why I care about someone who's been dead so long, I thought it would be you, because he was really yours."
Kasimira looked at the girl for a moment. Was that how these people really felt when they came up to her? That he was far more hers than theirs? She had always thought it was the other way around. These people came up to her because they knew she loved Jody, because they thought she would understand. And she did understand why these people loved him despite everything because so did she. No wonder they had wanted to talk to her, tell her how much they loved her father, because they thought she'd understand.
Kasimira smiled at the girl and said, "I understand."
She'd never seen anyone look so relieved. Then she recalled her appointment and checked her watch.
"I'm sorry, but I have to go," she told the girl, getting up from her chair.
"The DVD launch?"
"Yes. Are you going?"
"No."
Kasimira looked at the girl and felt a wave of sympathy wash over her. This girl wouldn't ever see the man she idolised in person. She wouldn't get to see the Jody Randall charm in action or see him sing live. She wouldn't ever know what it was like to have him look intently at her with blue eyes that seemed able to melt steel. Kasimira suddenly felt incredibly sorry for this young girl and realised that for everything, at least she'd had him for a while.
"Would you like to come with me?" she asked. The girl looked surprised.
"I... Yes, please."
"Come on then. I need someone who knows about Jody. Last time I did something like this I was asked about one of his songs and couldn't give the answer."
"You might like his stuff," said the girl. "Not because he's your dad, but just because he was good at his job."
"One day, maybe." Kasimira held the door of the cafe open for the girl.
"Can I ask you a question?" the girl asked, stood in the doorway.
"What?"
"What was he like?"
"Just... my dad... a man like any other. Just a man. Not a god or anything. Just a man."
The girl smiled sweetly and said, "I thought so."
Kasimira smiled, a broad smile and for the first time in many years, really felt like Jody Randall's daughter.
The End
Comments on a postcard to the usual address. Or just leave a comment below. Smart-arsed or not, I don't mind.
Somebody's Daughter
Somewhere in London, 2004
Nobody knew anything, least of all her, she realised. Not about her father and the kind of man he'd been. Lots of people approached her on a regular basis, but although their names and faces and accents changed, what they said never did.
"I really loved your father, you know."
They always started that way. The exact reasons why varied a little, but they all loved her father. Trouble was, she didn't really know who her father was, or the kind of man he'd been.
Jody Randall had been a huge rock and roll star in the 1970s. He was one of those enduring rock cliches: join a band at 16, record contract by 18, world domination before 20. Unfortunately for his daughter, he also fulfilled the 'die at 27' rock myth. Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Jopin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain all died at 27, and so did Jody Randall, leaving millions of fans heartbroken forever.
Jody was the sort of bloke who'd been keenly aware of his own image right from the start. Old school friends would always trot out the old chestnut about him turning up for the last day of secondary school in a green velvet suit that wouldn't have looked out of place on the Sgt Pepper cover or in Haight Ashbury. He'd cultivated his own legend in his lifetime, and after his death it just kept on growing.
He was the sort of bloke who named his daughter after a Led Zeppelin song, regardless of the reaction a name like 'Kasimira' might get once she started at school. It didn't matter that her mother wanted to call her Deborah, because Jody always got what he wanted. He was that sort of bloke.
He was the sort of man who died after John Bonham but before John Lennon, as if to make sure that things really did happen in threes. He was the sort of man who left one wife, one ex-wife, countless girlfriends, two ex-managers, one current manager, four bandmates, millions of fans and one six-year-old daughter.
When those fans came up to her, it was as if they were reading from a script.
"I really loved your father, you know."
"Thank you."
"You're the spitting image of him, really you are."
"Thank you."
"I don't mean to bother you, I'm sure you're very busy, but I was sure it was you and well, I really loved your father. You know?"
Well no, she didn't know. She didn't know what it was like to love a rock star. She didn't know what it was like to worship a poster on a wall, a voice on a disc. She wasn't a big music person, unlike her father had been. The world didn't turn or not because of rock and roll for her. It had for her father.
She didn't even really know what it was like to love Jody Randall as a father. She had memories of him, to be sure, but they were few and far between and had faded to sepia tones over the years. Even when he was alive, her father had spent a large amount of time on the road, in the recording studio, at parties and at times, anywhere but home.
Kasimira's mother Suzie hadn't been able to bring herself to play any of his records for years after he died and to this day still didn't much like talking about him. Kasimira knew that Suzie had loved Jody and hoped that Jody had loved Suzie.
When those people, those fans, came up to her, they always had something to share. It was almost always personal to them and so she could never quite bring herself to cut them off or give some scathing reply.
"My first ever boyfriend gave me your dad's solo album as our month anniversary's gift."
"I got married to the sound of your dad singing."
"I listened to that first album so many times the vinyl wore out."
"Your dad was my first crush. I was in love with him for years!"
"Your dad once kissed me. I saw him in a nightclub in Manchester and he kissed me."
"Your dad is the reason I joined a band."
"Your dad's voice could make me cry, man!"
"When your dad died, it broke my heart."
They all said that last one. She would smile sweetly and tell them that it was OK, but she found it odd that strangers were apparently more affected by her father's death than she was. She was sad that her father was dead and at the time she'd been devastated, but she didn't think her heart had broken over it. How could the hearts of people that never met him have broken over it when hers had not?
That said, she spent every day between her 27th and 28th birthdays terrified of dying, terrified of ending up like her father. Of course, she was nothing like her father. She did not drink except the occasional glass of wine with a meal, she did not take drugs, except one puff of a joint when she was 16 that made her want to vomit. The be all and end all of her life was not a good guitar lick or chord change. She didn't walk around like the world belonged to her or dress almost exclusively in leather, velvet and silk. Her hair was shorter, too.
Jody had died intestate and so everything had gone to Suzie and Kasimira. Thanks to endless reissues of his band's records and videos and all kinds of merchandise, Kasimira had attended a private school, lived in luxury and would never actually have to work. They lived in a nice big house in a nice leafy county in nice leafy South East England behind a high wall and iron gates while a team of lawyers fought their corner against the first Mrs Randall as she tried to wrest some of their millions away from them. Apparently, being married to Kasimira's dad for a grand total of 14 months entitled the several-times married Louise Morris Randall Jackson Waters to Jody's hard-earned money. It wasn't really the money itself that rankled with Kasimira so much as the presumption that she was entitled to anything of Jody's and that money meant more to Louise than keepsakes and mementoes. It was at times like those that Kasimira realised that her father's legacy meant more to her than she sometimes acknowledged.
Her father's legacy wasn't the same thing to her as it was to the fans. To her, it wasn't the number of records sold or awards won. It wasn't the many, many stories of rock and roll excess. It wasn't a room full of guitars not touched since 1980. It was the little harmonica he'd given her for her sixth birthday and tried to teach her to play. It was the stacks of photographs he'd taken of her when she was a baby and she was still a fun novelty to him. It was not his drink-fuelled death but the cassette tape he had made her of lullabies to help her go to sleep as a substitute when he was on tour.
"Hello Kaz... Um... this is your dad... I thought I'd make you a tape so that when I'm not here you can hear me anyway... and well, I hope you like it."
She'd seen many, many interviews by Jody over the years, and he'd never sounded that nervous. It made her think that maybe she really was special to him, that she wasn't just another in a long line of people who passed through his consciousness and just as easily passed out of it. She'd never wanted to be 'just another person' in her father's life, before or after his death.
She had realised a long time ago that happy memories were matched by sad ones. Him pushing her on the swings at the park; her watching from behind a door as he trashed his music room in frustration. Him helping her bake little butterfly cakes one day when her mother went shopping; her trying to wake him from a drunken stupor one morning because she needed to get to school. Him putting her on his motorbike and pushing her round the garden on it because Suzie refused to let him take her on it with the engine on; having her fifth birthday party wrecked when he crashed that same motorbike into the fountain in that same garden. Fortunately, the sad memories seemed to fade a little quicker than the happy ones.
And now she was sat in a cafe in London killing time before going to a function at EMI to mark the release of a DVD set of her father's work both in his band and as a solo artist. She didn't particularly want to go at all, but her mother had asked, and well, Kasimira found it hard to refuse her mother about things Jody-related.
"Excuse me?" Kasimira turned abruptly to see a young woman, surely no more than eighteen standing over her, shifting from one foot to the other nervously.
"Yes?" she asked.
"Are... Are you Kasimira Randall?" the girl asked. Kasimira stifled a sigh and plastered a tight smile on her face.
"Yes I am."
"I'm not disturbing you, am I?"
"No," Kasimira said, finding herself unable to lie to this wide-eyed, hopeful girl. "Sit down if you like."
She did.
"I'm... I always wondered what I'd say if I ever met you," she said quickly. "Something along the lines of 'I really loved your father' but... you probably hear that ten times a day."
"Yes, I do," Kasimira replied, now smiling sincerely if wryly.
"I... I wasn't even born when your dad died and I don't know what it must feel like to be you," the girl said in a rush "I just... I wanted to tell you that he still means a lot to me. I don't know why really, but I think his voice... speaks to me, you know?"
"I don't," Kasimira said honestly. "I don't listen to him very much."
The girl didn't look that surprised.
"He's a bit of an acquired taste," she said. "but... I'm sure people like me bug you all the time, but I couldn't not tell you what your father means to me... because... well..." she stopped and sighed. "I find it hard to describe. You... you knew him. He was yours and we only saw him from a distance. If anyone gets why I care about someone who's been dead so long, I thought it would be you, because he was really yours."
Kasimira looked at the girl for a moment. Was that how these people really felt when they came up to her? That he was far more hers than theirs? She had always thought it was the other way around. These people came up to her because they knew she loved Jody, because they thought she would understand. And she did understand why these people loved him despite everything because so did she. No wonder they had wanted to talk to her, tell her how much they loved her father, because they thought she'd understand.
Kasimira smiled at the girl and said, "I understand."
She'd never seen anyone look so relieved. Then she recalled her appointment and checked her watch.
"I'm sorry, but I have to go," she told the girl, getting up from her chair.
"The DVD launch?"
"Yes. Are you going?"
"No."
Kasimira looked at the girl and felt a wave of sympathy wash over her. This girl wouldn't ever see the man she idolised in person. She wouldn't get to see the Jody Randall charm in action or see him sing live. She wouldn't ever know what it was like to have him look intently at her with blue eyes that seemed able to melt steel. Kasimira suddenly felt incredibly sorry for this young girl and realised that for everything, at least she'd had him for a while.
"Would you like to come with me?" she asked. The girl looked surprised.
"I... Yes, please."
"Come on then. I need someone who knows about Jody. Last time I did something like this I was asked about one of his songs and couldn't give the answer."
"You might like his stuff," said the girl. "Not because he's your dad, but just because he was good at his job."
"One day, maybe." Kasimira held the door of the cafe open for the girl.
"Can I ask you a question?" the girl asked, stood in the doorway.
"What?"
"What was he like?"
"Just... my dad... a man like any other. Just a man. Not a god or anything. Just a man."
The girl smiled sweetly and said, "I thought so."
Kasimira smiled, a broad smile and for the first time in many years, really felt like Jody Randall's daughter.
The End
Comments on a postcard to the usual address. Or just leave a comment below. Smart-arsed or not, I don't mind.
