Chapter 2: Break-up

As if this wasn’t enough, my world fell completely apart two weeks later. Mike Dixon invited me to come over for a meal; this wasn’t unusual, although Millie wasn’t there.

“Hi Mike, Hi Barbara,” I chirped in a cheery greeting, but they were anything but cheery.

“Max, you need to read this,” Barbara said, handing me a sheet of paper. It was from Millie, addressed jointly to Mike, Barbara and myself. Stripped of all its emotions, excuses and protestations of love and concern, it basically said, “I’ve discovered that I’m pregnant. Billy-Joe is the father and he wants me to be with him, and I think that will be best for our child. I’m still going on the tour, but he will make sure I’m okay. Sorry to do it this way but I can’t face all the recriminations that are bound to happen. Please give my ring back to Max,” and Barbara handed me the box containing Millie’s engagement ring.

“So that’s how it ends,” I commented in a flat, emotionless voice. “Not with a bang but a whimper. Please excuse me, I don’t think I can face a meal after this,” and I rose to leave.

“Max”, Barbara’s voice was filled with love and concern. “Please, my dear, know that we are here for you. I can’t even start to imagine how you must feel, but we are still your friends regardless of what Millie has done.”

I acknowledged their concern, then drove to a quiet, secluded spot and cried my eyes out.

For the next week I chewed over what I believed to be Millie’s betrayal but, try as I might, I couldn’t heap all the blame onto her head. I knew that Billy-Joe had been the main culprit and I decided to have it out with him. I had a pretty good idea of his movements, and caught up with him in his “office” a small room at the back of a local hotel.

“I don’t know how you managed to twist Millie’s head around or how the fuck you got her into bed …” I started, but he gave me a malicious grin.

“I can tell you that she didn’t take much persuasion,” he sneered. “She was only too happy to fuck a real man; now we’re going to start a family.”

My blood was one degree below boiling, but I expected something unpleasant like this. “Okay, Joseph;” I knew he didn’t like to be called by his surname and his face darkened, “Millie has made her own bed and she’ll have to lie in it. But, be warned, if you hurt her in any way whatsoever, you’ll answer to me.”

“Is that a threat, dickhead?” he asked with the confidence borne of a baseball bat close to his chair.

“No, Billy-Joe, any harm to Millie and I’ll take it out on you. Just remember, I don’t make threats. I make promises,” and with that well worn cliché, I turned and left.

More surprises were in store for me, however, as later that evening, Millie burst into my place, screaming at me, her eyes burning with rage and her voice harsh and ugly. “How dare you. How dare you threaten Billy-Joe, you useless piece of crap.”

I wasn’t going to take that. “Listen, you gutless bitch. You didn’t have the nerve to tell me to my face that we were finished, but you can burst in here and accuse me of threatening your lover. Well, you’ve got it wrong, and if you choose to believe his nonsense, you can …”

“No, you listen to me. You threatened to have him bashed because you don’t have the guts to face him yourself, then you threatened to put out a contract on him. Billy Joe is a musical genius, and you’re not fit to even be in the audience at a Kraton concert.” Mille was still in full flood.

“Fine. Believe what you like. Just get out of here and don’t come back. I don’t ever want to see your cheating face again.”

Millie started to talk but I anticipated her. “GET THE FUCK OUT!” I yelled and giving me a look that should have killed me stone dead, she left.

Millie flew out with the rest of the band the following week, and I was left to gloom and grump in the aftermath of what had happened. “I don’t ever want to see your cheating face again?” Oh god, if she’d turned up on the doorstep with even half of one of her adorable smiles, I’d’ve taken her back that instant, baby and all.

I carried on in the same self-pitying manner for a couple of weeks until Mike caught up with me. “Okay, Max,” he was direct and to the point. “Do you think you might possibly consider letting go of your anger and resentment and concentrating on the here and now?”

I looked at him, at first transferring my resentment to him, but that didn’t help—he wasn’t going to play my game. I wanted to blame someone, anyone, to take the pain away, and I’d been trying to do that since the breakup. I was able to decant some of the pain onto Billy-Joe, but that didn’t help too much. It took Mike’s brisk commonsense to act as a circuit breaker and the truth gradually sank in. “Yeah, Mike, you’re right. I’m making myself a royal pain in the arse and I know it, but I can’t forget Millie just like that.”

“No-one’s asking you to, Max, but you know what they say; change what you can change and accept what you can’t, but have the wisdom to know the difference.”

“Mmm, yeah, I can’t change Millie’s decisions for her so I guess it’s a question of learning to deal with my disappointment and move on. Problem is, right at present, I’ve got too much time on my hands. My studies are going very well, but they don’t take up all my time.”

“Izzat so?” Mike grinned. “Then report to the depot Saturday morning at 8.30 am, and you’ll have a casual job turning old wooden pallets into wood chips. I pay basic wage, and you’ll work hard, but it will help to take your mind off Millie.”

“Thank you, Mike—and that will also help me put some money towards another set of wheels. I’m enormously grateful.”

Mike laughed and punched my shoulder, and we left it at that.

I read one or two internet based reports of Kraton’s progress, and they seemed very positive. No mention of Millie, although that wasn’t unexpected, but Mike and Barbara did get occasional e-mails from her, full of passion about the band’s performances, but not quite so much enthusiasm about her relationship with Billy Joe. Her pregnancy appeared to be developing well, but, again, not too much detail.

Then communication ceased and Mike and Barbara had no contact for nearly two weeks. They tried to raise Millie on her mobile but that seemed permanently switched off. They confided their worries to me and those worries became infectious.

Then we got the news from a highly unexpected source. Dick Cavanagh, Kraton’s keyboard player rang Mike and Barbara to tell them that he was arranging for Millie to be flown by air ambulance to the major hospital in San Antonio, Texas. Apparently, she’d had a serious infection following a botched abortion in Mexico and had needed proper hospital treatment. Dick had paid for the flight himself, but he couldn’t fund the $100,000 that her hospitalisation was likely to cost.

We held a crisis meeting. Mike and Barbara were able to raise $75,000 at short notice, and they arranged immediate flights to San Antonio. I undertook to source the other $25,000 and follow on as soon as possible.

It was an outside chance, but I caught Dad immediately he got home from work. “Dad, I need $25,000, and I need it now.” I gabbled in my anxiety.

“Well, good evening to you, too, Max,” he replied half-humorously. “I think you’d better tell me the whole story.” I did so, and Dad was very supportive. He had always liked Millie and shared the disappointment when she walked out. “Fortunately for you, Max, I’ve got a cash float that I’m sitting on waiting to invest when the market moves in the right direction. I think saving Millie would be a first class investment.”

I rang Mike and told him the good news and then got myself onto a plane for San Antonio. Mike met me at the airport at an absurdly early hour and we hurried to the hospital. He brought me up to speed on the way in. “Apparently, that bastard Joseph coerced, forced, manipulated or blackmailed Millie into having a termination. I don’t know which and care less. Much worse, it had to be in some third class pseudo-medical establishment in Mexico, and the inevitable happened—Millie developed a potentially lethal infection.”

“That bastard’s going to pay for this,” I growled, but Mike jumped in quickly.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Max. He’s not worth it, and if you get into trouble it will only hurt Millie even more.”

Then a light went on in my head, and the answer came to me fully formed. ‘That bastard’s going to pay for this’ I thought. Literally. I had brought Denny’s song sheets with me, possibly for insurance purposes, maybe as some sort of intuition, and I could use the information to coerce Billy-Joe into paying all the costs associated with Millie’s treatment. And a little bit left over! A bit risky, maybe, but I knew Billy-Joe wouldn’t want to take the risk of being exposed as a fraud.

We arrived at the hospital and went straight to Millie’s room. She’d been sedated and was in a heavy sleep. The doctor told us that there had been just about every complication that was possible in a termination. The termination was, in fact, incomplete as well as some internal damage. All this led to heavy bleeding and infection. Millie had needed an operation to fix all the problems; the doctor was optimistic that she would recover completely although he was unsure about whether there would be complications in any future pregnancy.

We left Millie to sleep, and I sought out Dick Cavanagh and thanked him profusely for all his help, promising to pay him back the cost of the air ambulance to San Antonio and all his other expenses. Dick was very laid back about this, but told me the whole story.

Apparently, Billy-Joe had become disillusioned at the prospect of being a father, and put pressure on Millie to have a termination. Dick said that, at this time, Millie still believed that “the sun shone out of Billy-Joe’s arse” and she didn’t want to risk losing him. He had sold it as a simple, painless, complication-free procedure and she reluctantly agreed to the termination.

“We were touring in northern Mexico at the time, and Billy-Joe arranged for the abortion to take place on the cheap in a local medical establishment. Things went badly wrong, but I could see that Billy-Joe was more concerned with the tour than with Millie. She was obviously suffering, but he sold her a story that all she needed to do was to rest for a while, everything would be okay, and she could rejoin the band when she was better.

I knew that simply wasn’t true. Millie was in pain and running a fever, and I had it out with Billy-Joe, telling him he ought to wait until she was fit to travel. He told me to mind my own expletive business, and if I was so concerned about her, I could stay behind and keep her company. That gave me the opening I needed and told Billy Joe that I was quitting Kraton there and then. He blustered a bit about contracts and the need to keep the band together and I told him to take a hike; he swore and disappeared. Millie got no better; that was when I rang her parents, then arranged for her to be flown to San Antonio and to be hospitalised.”

Dick mentioned one other thing. During the time in Mexico it had become very obvious that Billy-Joe was having an affaire with Carol, one of the group’s backing singers. Carol had actually let this slip when she visited Millie immediately after the operation, and when Millie accused Billy-Joe of this betrayal he didn’t deny it. Dick had no doubt that this had contributed to the severity of her post-operative problems, and I agreed. That shock would have had a negative effect on her recovery.

I thanked Dick again, asking him what he was going to do now he had severed his ties to Kraton. “Don’t worry about me, man—I’m glad to get away from those incompetents. I’ve got some contacts in Nashville, and I’m going to head up there and pick up whatever work I can. Adios, amigo—I’ll see you back in Aus. one day.” Dick went on to make a name for himself as a very proficient and reliable session musician both back home in Australia and later in the USA.