by Liza Cody
Nothing was said until the artichokes had been placed in a heavy metal casserole. He put damp kitchen paper between the lid and the pan – 1 didn’t know if that was to muffle the sound of metal on metal or because it was what the cook-book told him to do.
This man, I thought, has been responsible for some of the loudest recordings in the history of rock music. I grinned and remembered how he’d sat through the Marx Brothers double bill with an earnest, anxious expression on his face, without once cracking a smile.
Nash sat down with us and poured himself a glass of champagne. He said, ‘Forgive me if I seem blunt, but I abhor small-talk. I’ve heard that you are in possession of a quantity of Jack’s recordings and a film which no one else has had sight of.’
‘I expect you’ve heard about all sorts of things including artichokes.’
Sasson said, ‘Birdie, please, no games.’
‘What a shame,’ I said. ‘I’m feeling playful.’
Sasson looked at Nash and spread his hands in a helpless gesture.
Nash looked at his watch and ignored us both.
Sasson said, ‘Do the materials exist? A simple yes or no. Is that so hard?’
I smiled at him.
‘Look,’ Sasson said, ‘I know you want to be the centre of attention and to be courted and all that, but I must point out to you that under the terms of Jack’s contract at the time he died, all the outstanding materials …’
‘Just a minute,’ Nash said. He got up, opened the casserole, poked the artichokes with a fork, and then came back to the table.
‘Where was I?’ Sasson asked, thrown off his stride.
I said, ‘You were about to explain to the egocentric airhead that, whatever she may or may not have, she has no legal claim to it.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Nash, ‘and I was trying to divert you from that course. It isn’t profitable.’
‘Not to me,’ I said. ‘But Sasson’s right. Never mind the contract – Jack’s estate was bankrupt and I went down with it. All his assets, all of them, Sasson, were sold to Square Hole Records to pay off the debts. And that included publishing rights in which I had an interest.’
‘Debatable,’ Sasson said.
‘Then debate it with Inland Revenue. I am still liable for tax on earnings which, according to you, are not rightfully mine.’
‘You see,’ said Nash to Sasson, ‘I think Birdie’s ahead of you. And if I may say so, it’s contradictory to tell her that she doesn’t own that which you are attempting to purchase.’
‘To take it a step further,’ I added, ‘all of Jack’s existing assets were declared for estate reasons, bankruptcy reasons and tax reasons. Any new material, therefore, cannot exist. Which is a pity.’
‘Are you saying that new materials do exist but you can’t admit to them?’ Sasson asked.
‘Ding-dong,’ said Nash, without a trace of humour.
I said, ‘I’m not saying anything. Especially while this conversation is being recorded.’
There was a moment of electric silence and then Nash said, ‘Sasson, I think you’d better leave. It’s most discourteous of you to record a conversation between friends.’
‘But …’
‘I must insist. And please give Birdie the tape.’
Sasson’s face was dark with embarrassment and rage. He fumbled in his inside pocket and drew out a little dictaphone.
‘I wasn’t recording you, Birdie,’ he said. ‘I was recording the band earlier.’
‘Good explanation,’ I said, ‘when you already have access to the demo tapes.’
‘You’re so tricky and paranoid, Birdie.’
‘Is that an apology?’ Nash asked mildly.
‘No,’ said Sasson. ‘Look Nash, if I’ve overstepped I apologise.’
‘You’ll find the car about a quarter of a mile down the drive.’
The speed with which Nash dismissed Sasson left me open-mouthed. Metaphorically, of course – a hanging jaw is not an attractive sight. I rested my chin in my hand and watched with a sleepy expression that masked my shock. For one thing, it was such an abrupt change of pace. For another, it only happened because I’d been trying it on. I didn’t actually know Sasson was recording the conversation. It was always a possibility – given the way he was trying to pin me down, and given the way Dog was already floating the notion of an album with ten previously unreleased numbers on it. In those circumstances Sasson was simply doing his job. Of course, I was doing mine too by refusing to be pinned down and creating diversions when the talk got too tight.
Another interpretation might be that I engineered Sasson’s departure in order to get my hands on an extra artichoke. That alone would have been worth doing: supper was delicious. Some say seize the moment. I say savour every bite. Especially when you don’t know what’s going to happen next and you’re in the company of a man who, for the last thirty years, has always been on the winning team.
True to form, Nash didn’t speak while eating, and afterwards he simply beckoned. I followed him along the padded corridor, through the hall and into a room furnished sparsely with sofas and books. He sat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. I slipped my shoes off and curled up in the corner of one of the chairs, massaging my feet.
‘You’re like a cat licking her paws,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘You have a cat’s ability to take what’s going and move on. I noticed that before. I hypothesised that feeding you might be a pleasure, and so it was.’
‘I’m glad it was good for you too,’ I said. ‘I imagine that you’re rarely wrong in your hypotheses.’
‘There’s a pattern to human behaviour, and as such it’s predictable in the same way that animal behaviour is.’
‘So when you say no one meets anyone for the first time, are you talking in the animal sense? Like when a horse meets another horse it’s merely meeting itself in strange form. It should be already familiar with the stranger’s horseness.’
‘Most people think I’m talking about the transmigration of souls.’
‘Is it useful to have people think you’re dippy?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Is it useful to have people think you’re stupid and greedy?’
‘Sometimes. Sometimes it’s annoying and a waste of time. Sometimes,’ I added, ‘it’s entirely accurate.’
‘I don’t think it would be profitable to proceed in negotiations with you on the premise that you are stupid.’
I laughed at that. He blinked solemnly and paused. During the pause, the door opened and a man came in with a tray. He served me with a cup of espresso and glided out of the room leaving Nash still poised on the edge of the sofa looking earnest and anxious. While I, I hope, looked like a relaxed cat. It’s always better to conform to your enemy’s delusions about you.
Eventually he said, ‘So, you have money troubles.’
I said, ‘You know I do.’
He nodded. ‘I could handle those.’
‘With ease.’
‘But that’s not all?’
‘No. I have a beef with the labels and the publishers. They ripped me off. And before that they ripped Jack off.’
He nodded again.
‘And insofar as you are involved with the labels and the publishers,’ I went on, ‘you’ve ripped us off too.’
‘You believe I’m involved?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then for the purposes of this conversation we’ll accept that as true.’
For once I say exactly what I’m thinking: ‘Well, Nash, that removes a whole layer of tedious accusation, denial and justification.’
‘I told you, I abhor small-talk.’
‘It wasn’t going to be small,’ I say. ‘I have a stack of dodgy royalty statements which go back years.’
‘Let me have copies.’
‘You can handle that too?’
‘It all depends on what you have to offer in exchange.’
‘Nothing,’ I say. I’m looking him straight in the eye when I say it, and he looks st
raight back. He’s very difficult to read.
‘Nothing?’ he says, blinking slowly.
‘Not while this conversation is being recorded.’ Well, it worked once so it might again.
‘I see,’ he says. No confirmation, denial or justification.
We sit for a while in silence and I sip my coffee with apparent contentment. He looks perplexed but I don’t for one moment buy it. I recall Sasson’s unease in the car: maybe he was aware he could be overheard by someone other than the driver. And I remember how quickly Nash kicked him out and how outraged Sasson was. Like someone carrying the can for someone else. Maybe Nash has a reputation for bugging his own house.
Nash begins tentatively, ‘If, for purposes of this conversation, we accept that as true, would you be more comfortable walking in the garden?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s very late. There will be dew on the lawn. I don’t want to spoil my shoes.’
‘Well, Birdie,’ he says with a helpless shrug, ‘it seems that we have met twice and I have silenced you twice. I’m devastated. The first time it was because I thought your conversation would be inane.’
‘Why did you want my company then?’
‘You were beautiful and I was lonely. Why did you come?’
‘I was fed up and lonely.’
‘With Jack?’ This time he looked genuinely perplexed.
‘At the time Jack was in the full flood of narcissism. Life is lonely with a narcissist.’
‘Why did you stay?’
‘For the music.’ I sighed. ‘Besides, it’s only a phase most rock-stars go through. With any luck they come out the other side.’
Nash said, ‘Do you know how much courage it took to ask you out that time?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve never asked anyone out.’
‘Then you’ve never been refused.’
‘That’s a different question entirely. Of course I’ve been refused.’
‘I mean sexually.’
‘You didn’t ask for sex. You asked for company.’
‘But if I had asked for sex, Birdie?’
‘You didn’t, Nash. That’s what distinguished you.’
‘Did it? I always thought you wrote “Walks Like a Spider” about me.’
‘You accept that I wrote it?’
‘For the purposes of this conversation I accept that you had a hand in it.’
‘It wasn’t remotely about you,’ I say, lying through my teeth.
‘You see, you were so sweet in person, but the songs were napalm.’
‘So much for being an inane conversationalist,’ I say lightly. The turn he has taken gives me the creeps.
‘I thought about it a lot in the intervening years,’ he says. ‘Yes, I thought you were uninteresting. You said two things: the first was that money has a price, which is a truism. The way you said it made it sound trite rather than apposite. That, I now believe, was the effect of your appearance and a light girlish voice. Your voice has strengthened over the years and your delivery has more impact.’
‘It was still a truism,’ I say. ‘Even a cliché.’
‘The second thing,’ he goes on, ignoring me, ‘was, “if you know a discreet way out of here, I’ll allow you to take me anywhere.” I should have paid more attention. You were selling yourself very cheaply in those days. You held my hand for the price of a cinema ticket.’
‘When you say you abhor small-talk,’ I say, ‘it’s because you haven’t a clue how it works. Did you record all your conversations even back then? And replay them, searching for hidden meaning? Nash, you don’t get out enough.’
‘You are reputed to have a good memory,’ he retorted. ‘It’s the same thing.’
‘No it isn’t,’ I say. ‘Memory is a reconstruction, of context as well as words.’ I’m beginning to feel as if I’m trapped in an elevator with someone I don’t trust.
‘Memory distorts and degrades more quickly than tape,’ Nash says. ‘Tape is accurate and absolute.’
‘Only if you take what’s said at face-value,’ I say. ‘Nash, I’m getting tired and I’ve an appointment at nine.’
‘Face-value?’ he says. ‘I thought you were accusing me of searching for hidden meaning.’
‘What if there was no meaning at all?’ I say. ‘That’s what small-talk is.’
‘Of course there was meaning. I knew a discreet way out and you came to the movies with me. You didn’t talk. I paid for the tickets. I did not grope, but I held your hand. The words were not without meaning; they were the basis of a deal.’
‘OK. There was a deal. But it was a long time ago.’
‘Nevertheless, what haunts me is that I missed something important – a clear equation between physical contact and money. If there was no meaning, why was the innuendo sexual? Why is it still sexual?’
‘Still?’
‘You said, only a short while ago: “I’m glad it was good for you too.” Of course you were talking about the food, Birdie, but the reference was to that sordid question asked after carnal encounters.’
‘It was a bloody joke, Nash.’
‘No,’ Nash says. ‘The words mean something. They bring images to mind. Why do you conjure those particular images, Birdie?’
‘Why do you receive them in that particular way? You’re talking like one of those people who worry endlessly about song lyrics – even play them backwards.’ As I say this, I realise with horror that Nash Zalisky, the eminence grise behind some of the loudest, weirdest recordings in rock history, is exactly such a person.
‘Yes, lyrics,’ Nash says, ‘I was coming to that.’ He’s still sitting on the edge of the sofa, his hands clasped anxiously between his knees.
I’ve had enough. I uncoil myself and get up. ‘Nash,’ I say, ‘don’t start. This is a mistake. I’m playful with words. You aren’t. Leave it at that. I’m going now.’
‘Please don’t go,’ he says. ‘Nothing’s resolved.’
‘There’s nothing to resolve.’
‘You keep saying that, but you’re wrong. I should have offered you my protection years ago – for more than just a few hours. I’m offering it to you now. There’s a room prepared for you upstairs. If you’re tired, sleep. We can talk again when you wake up.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. But I’d rather die. ‘I want to go home.’
He doesn’t move, an anxious boy with an un-dead face. I’m in Dorset, for Christ’s sake. I want to be in London.
I say, ‘I need transport, Nash.’ I’ve been careless. Now I’m carless.
‘Yes, yes,’ Nash says impatiently. ‘But you’ll have to wait.’
‘You must have more than one car.’
‘But only one driver.’
‘I don’t need a driver.’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘You can drive?’ He sounds astonished.
‘Can’t you?’
‘I never learned.’
We stare at each other. Impasse.
I say, ‘Please will you lend me one of your cars?’
‘As a matter of fact,’ Nash says, ‘I don’t even know where they’re kept.’
‘I’ll look.’ I walk away from him. I’m almost expecting the door to be locked, but it isn’t. I leave him sitting like a decaying child and find my way through the hall to the front door.
The front door, however, is locked and I can’t find any way to open it. The only other place I know how to get to is the kitchen. The back door is impassable too. I wander in and out of every room I can get into and find no way out. It’s a huge house with many rooms. Some of them are empty of everything but books, some are completely empty. There is a small cinema and an indoor pool. There’s a banqueting hall, a ballroom, a lot of suffocating silence but no exit.
I stood in the middle of the ballroom feeling silly and angry. It was the one room Nash hadn’t carpeted to death. The floor was a beautiful polished dancing surface. I tapped out an inaccurate paradiddle with my feet. There were two things going on, I thought. One of them has to do with
what I want. The other is what Nash wants. Nash is a man and men are normally written in such big print that they’re easy to read even by candlelight. But I don’t know what Nash wants, and that is an unusual predicament for me.
If I didn’t understand him I wouldn’t be able to bargain with him. I have to know what a man wants. I have to be able to give him at least the illusion that he’s won before he’ll give me what I want. All my experience tells me that.
I twirled on the beautifully sprung floor. I swung my hips and boogied by the light of the moon streaming in through the long windows. Then I said aloud, ‘Nash, in case you’re listening, I’m in the ballroom. I hate being destructive, so please come along with a key before I break one of your elegant windows.’
He appeared so quickly that I thought he must have been waiting just outside.
He said, ‘Why are you so desperate to leave me, Birdie?’
‘Because I don’t like the feeling of confinement.’
‘It’s protection I’m offering you, not confinement.’
‘Thank you,’ I say carefully. ‘But sometimes the two can feel pretty similar.’
He sat down cross-legged on the floor. ‘Did Jack feel that way too?’
‘Yes.’
‘But it’s a brutal world.’
‘All the same, I don’t want to be cut off from it. Nor did he.’ ‘He would have been torn to pieces without protection and so would you.’
‘That was a long time ago. Nobody’s interested any more.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Nash said. ‘You’re causing a lot of interest at the moment.’
‘Not really. It’s Jack. Some things don’t change.’
‘Do the new tracks exist?’
I smile in the moonlight and shake my head. I say, ‘I’d love to talk to you properly. But I can’t do it here.’
‘It’s safe here.’
‘Where’s your phone, Nash?’ I say. ‘I’d like to call a taxi.’
‘Oh Birdie, Birdie,’ he says. ‘Have you any idea how much I could do for you?’
‘If you want to do something for me,’ I say, ‘you could start by calling a taxi.’
‘Is that all you want from me?’
Yes it is, no it isn’t, you lunatic prick. If you hadn’t put the wind up me so badly I’d have you tied up like a pet poodle by now.
