Gimme More

by Liza Cody

  But Birdie appeared in front of them holding out the Volvo keys.

  ‘Aren’t you staying to the end?’ Grace said, disappointed.

  ‘I’ve got to talk to some people. Will you be all right on your own?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Alec said. ‘I’ll look after her.’ He wanted to add, Unless there’s something better I can do to help you. But he didn’t.

  ‘Isn’t he perfect?’ Birdie asked Grace. She gave Alec the keys.

  A few minutes later he saw Mr Freel escort her through the club and Alec suddenly felt left behind. Mr Freel’s hand was on her elbow, urging her forward, and she looked small, almost fragile, beside him. Not a fair contest, he thought, unexpectedly. And with a pang, he realised that Mr Freel, with his height, tailoring and power, might charm, bludgeon, cajole Birdie into co-operating with him. Then he wouldn’t need Alec any more, and Alec would be demoted back to office gofer at Memo Movies.

  ‘Dance?’ Grace shouted over the din. But now there was no one to watch, no one to avoid and no one to approve or disapprove, and dancing lost its point. After a while he feigned a twisted knee, and after that, there was no reason to stay.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Grace asked, a lot later.

  ‘A bit tired.’

  ‘Is the knee still hurting?’

  ‘A bit,’ he said and remembered to limp as he left her bed and went back to Jimmy’s room.

  He wedged his door ajar so that he could listen for Birdie’s key in the lock. Maybe he could meet her on the stairs and suggest a nightcap. But the hours slid away and she didn’t come home.

  What the hell is she doing? he thought. She said she was going to talk to some people, but nobody talks all night. He could still see her walking away with Mr Freel – Mr Freel urging her, Birdie small and reluctant. I’m sure she didn’t want to go, he thought. Leave her alone, Mr Freel, she doesn’t want to go and you’re upsetting my game-plan. She doesn’t trust you. She doesn’t even like you. I can tell. She never smiled at you once. You’ll come on too strong. I know how to handle her. You don’t.

  The worst thing about that night was that he could sense the juice draining out of him. He was slowly being expelled from the zone – left unprotected outside the palace gate. What he realised, as the time dragged by, was that he was vulnerable.

  He lay, scratchy-eyed, his ears ringing with the tinnitus that comes from dancing too close to big speakers, and realised that he’d invested too much in her. Birdie was way more vivid in his mind than Grace. Grace was Birdie’s shadow, her echo. The correspondence on the Net, the sassyness and invention, was a correspondence with Birdie through the medium of Grace – Grace’s mimicry of Birdie’s style. As soon as he met the original, Grace receded. The most vivid thing about Grace had been the correspondence. Grace in person was only Birdie’s niece.

  But that was what was supposed to happen, he told himself, get to Grace through Jack; get to Birdie through Grace; get back to Jack through Birdie. Circle complete. Game over. But something got distorted. It wasn’t a clean simple circle any more. Maybe it never was. He should have added a tangent: get to Mr Freel through Jack; get the pretty office, the Wurlitzer, the Beamer through Mr Freel. But only if Mr Freel doesn’t take over and award all the prizes to himself.

  Insomnia was not in the game-plan. Anger, anxiety and bewilderment weren’t either. Feelings were a pain in the arse. Alec saw them as blocks, chasms, snipers and hidden explosives on his screen. His game hero was weakened and in danger.

  Shut down, he thought. But instead he waited all night for the sound of a middle-aged woman’s feet on the stairs, and it didn’t come.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Grace, clear-eyed, glossy-haired. ‘You look dreadful.’ She plunked a bowl of muesli in front of him.

  ‘Why, thank you,’ he said. ‘You look enchantingly dreadful yourself.’ But banter took too much out of him. He hadn’t the heart for it.

  ‘He’s all worn out,’ Grace explained to her mother. ‘He’s a maniac dancer but he just can’t take the Grace pace.’

  ‘Where’s Lin?’ Mrs Emerson asked.

  ‘Didn’t she come home?’ Grace said. ‘Dirty stop-out. These old people, staying out all night, worrying their children …’

  She was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.

  ‘Lin?’ Mrs Emerson called.

  ‘Can’t stop, sweetie,’ Birdie called back. ‘Got to shower, change and be gone.’

  ‘At least have some breakfast.’

  ‘No time.’ Birdie’s voice floated down from the top of the stairs. Doors opened and closed, water gushed and twenty minutes later she vanished again without Alec seeing her.

  ‘She’ll wear herself out,’ Mrs Emerson sighed. And then with unusual vehemence she said, ‘Sometimes I really hate rock’n’roll.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Alec asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mrs Emerson said more vaguely. ‘The way it builds you up and up till there’s nothing left to do but crash. The way everything happens at night … I don’t know. How does she think she can survive if she stays up all night with one of her bands and then rushes off to an interview in the morning?’

  ‘Has Auntie Lin got another interview?’ Grace asked.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You can’t expect her to give up the music, Mum. She wouldn’t be Lin if she didn’t racket around at night. Can you really see her with a normal nine-to-fiver?’

  ‘She’d be safer.’

  ‘Give it up, Mum,’ Grace said. ‘Besides, she’s my role model whenever I think of growing old disgracefully.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Mrs Emerson said. ‘And I hope you never do.’ She got up and drifted out of the room, leaving Grace biting her lip.

  ‘Me and my mouth,’ Grace said.

  ‘Why?’ Alec asked.

  ‘Because Mum thinks Auntie Lin’s one of the tragic casualties of the rock’n’roll holocaust. Whereas I think she’s a survivor.’

  ‘I thought you said she was traumatised.’

  ‘Of course. Aren’t we all?’

  Alec couldn’t disagree with her that morning. So unaccustomed was he to fatigue that he placed himself in the front rank of the traumatised hoard. But after breakfast he went back to bed and slept till lunch.

  In the afternoon, feeling better, he began to compose a communication to Mr Freel.

  ‘To Mr Freel,’ he wrote. ‘The subject has, since I last wrote, been in touch with – 1: BBC. 2: Mojo Magazine. 3: Virgin Records. 4: Mr Ireland at your own company. 5: Sheeney TeleCine. 6: Inland Revenue. 7: Paul and Dahl Hair Salon …’

  Grace swung the door open. ‘What’re you doing? Let’s go out.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere. Who’re you writing to?’

  ‘Just a friend.’ Alec closed his laptop.

  ‘You’ve got friends?’ She stroked his hair and slid her hand under his shirt. ‘What on earth do they see in you?’

  ‘Rat!’ he said, grabbing her hand.

  Insults and terms of endearment: Alec was grateful, and congratulated himself on the interchangeability of the two. There was no commitment implied in calling someone a rat. If it was interpreted as affectionate no blame could be attached to him. Between him and Grace lay a shallow, frothy layer of jokes, puns and innuendo. It was what they floated on. Underneath, he felt, was nothing at all.

  Birdie blew in at dinner time but before she’d settled down there was a phonecall from a film company called Median Films. Alec knew about Median – it wasn’t as big a company as Memo Movies, but it was a competitor. The call upset Birdie.

  At first, Alec was glad because it meant that if Median was making a film about Jack too, and Birdie was upset, she wouldn’t co-operate with them. But it made him aware of the urgency of his mission.

  Then, she explained for the first time why she was so allergic to media attention. And for the first time, Alec understood that what seemed to Mr Freel and Mr Stears like a dog-in-th
e-manger attitude was self-protection.

  The conversation, unlike most of the conversations at that kitchen table, was serious. And, suddenly, Alec felt the force of all three women ranged against him. Even Grace let him down. She, who had previously advocated the healing power of talking, turned tail and left him on his own – left him with a serious enquiry on his hands and what should have been her lines in his mouth: ‘Wouldn’t you feel better if you put the record straight, if you talked to a sympathetic friend?’

  And Birdie turned him down flat. If rejection wasn’t bad enough, she made him feel that even his offer was wounding.

  He’d been pushed into showing his hand too early by Mr Freel’s interference and Median Film’s intrusion. The result was appalling: Birdie cried. Tears hung suspended from her long lashes, and he had to look away because he didn’t want to see them fall. That was what happened when you got serious – you left yourself open to attack. Tears were sharp, raking weapons to be avoided if at all possible.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Grace said. ‘She’ll come round. She’s tired, that’s all. She didn’t get any sleep last night, remember.’

  He took refuge in the acid froth of their exchanges but later, when she went down to watch TV, he stayed in her room to finish his letter to Mr Freel.

  How do you tell the Big Boss-man to butt out? ‘I do think,’ he wrote, ‘in view of the subject’s reaction to Median Film’s approach (tape to follow), that anything that might be interpreted as intrusion or digging should be discouraged. It only serves to harden her attitude …’ He was rather proud of that. It took him a long time to compose, but it sounded sophisticated and respectful while saying, ‘Fuck off, you’re ruining my game.’

  Again, he didn’t have time to finish. Grace said, ‘Still at it? Well, you’ll be happy to know that Lin went to sleep in her chair. It might be because what’s on telly’s so boring, but I think, personally, it’s because tears are cathartic.’

  IV

  Excerpts from the Antigua Movie

  Junior Moline sits like Buddha at the sound desk. On his right is a young beach bum with a lot of talent and attitude. On his left is The Widow Oats. Change focus and you’ll see what they see: the band – Jack, Teddy and Wills, all with acoustic guitars – are sitting on the floor, working something out. Goffis tucked away behind a barricade of cardboard boxes to stop the drum sounds bleeding on to everyone else’s tracks. A few more beach bums are building another baffle. What for? I can’t remember. Over against the peeling back wall is an upright piano. Jack’s blonde chick has her back to everyone and she’s playing the piano but you can’t hear her. All the mikes are in the middle with the boys. The electrical gear – guitars, amps, etc. – is strung together like charms on a giant black cable bracelet.

  It’s ad hoc, it’s messy. It’s like a nursery school with all the toys on the floor. Lyric sheets flutter and fall whenever anyone walks by.

  Everyone, it seems, is playing trains. They’re stoking the engine, building up steam to drive the sixteen-beats-to-a-bar locomotive rhythm which propels the title song, ‘Hard Candy’ – uh huh huh-hunh … Heads nod, feet pedal, knees pump, sweat rolls.

  It’s hot in there. The boys are stripped to the waist. The blonde chick’s Indian shirt clings to her back.

  Pull focus again and you see the way Junior’s shorts cut into his meaty thighs. The beach bum’s frayed cut-offs sag low on his narrow hips. The Widow’s bikini top supports nothing. It clings perilously to the unbelievable cantilever of her astonishing bosom – crimson on bronze. A tiny gold cross winks slyly, heliography from the foothills.

  She calls herself Stella Splendens. The blonde chick calls her Offences Against The Senses – Oats for short. Her perfume is too heavy, her make-up too thick, her colours too strong, her voice too brassy, her breasts way too improbable. She strikes me, even now from light years’ distance, more as a billboard than a woman. Constructed like a mantrap by the roadside.

  What was she doing there? She looks all wrong in that ragged company. Someone brought her. Someone was doing a favour for the rich Widow Oats. But she was out of place on the island. She was a hanger-on, not a hanger-out. A bit of a joke, I thought.

  ‘Out of it,’ Jack said. ‘Uncool.’ Then.

  Later, when we came across her backstage, when Jack was touring Hard Candy, it was a different story. She didn’t look so out of place in LA. She was built for LA. Built in LA, probably.

  Never mind. She carried Jack away to her eyrie in the Hollywood Hills to sample her jacuzzi. Yeah, right! Which wouldn’t have been too bad in itself, because shit like that happens on the road. Except that they were both such narcissists that they had to invite the paparazzi along to record the coupling. ‘Rock Rebel In Hot Water.’ Good headline.

  ‘Birdie Flies’ followed that, and ‘Sauce For The Goose’ – yes, that was the banner caption to a picture of me and Homer Webb on a converted trawler off the Adriatic coast. Homer was lovely. He taught me to fish and he made revenge truly sweet. He didn’t deserve what Jack said about him, either in the papers or in ‘Adversarial Attitude’.

  Widow Oats, on the other hand, deserved every word of what I said about her in ‘Sliding Widows’. And, do you know? – Jack didn’t even like her. He certainly never defended her and some of the unkindest lines in the song are his.

  ‘I’ll tell you how I feel about her,’ he said. ‘It’s the way you feel about turkey the week after Christmas.’

  I would never have said a thing like that about Homer. In fact I could’ve stayed with him a lot longer if Jack hadn’t come to find me. He was sweet. His voice was too obedient and MOR for blues or rock, but it was nice, just right for his material – a ballad voice.

  I go to see him sometimes, even now, and he’s still sweet. Widow Oats got what she deserved: she married a Hollywood producer.

  ‘Fast forward,’ I say to the technician, interested to note, in spite of this chasm of time between then and now, that The Widow still has the power to irritate the shit out of me. Actually, she didn’t amount to anything in herself – it was the sight of Jack holing himself below the waterline on those titanic tits. It was so obvious, so show-biz. So disappointing.

  Long ago, I believed that rock’n’roll wasn’t show-biz. It was a way of life. It was somehow pure and exempt. I thought Jack and I were expressing real emotions – feelings which rejected show-biz bosoms as falsities, fallacies, falsies, false titties.

  Maybe it wasn’t fallible Jack who foundered on those improbable breasts, maybe it was me. There’s no one so cynical as a disappointed believer.

  It was Widow Oats who showed me the rock-rebel falling, not for the best, but for the biggest.

  To be touched, to screw someone in heat or passion, is one thing – that happens – it isn’t wonderful but it’s understandable. To fall for such a trite caricature of sexual attributes and to exploit it for publicity isn’t understandable at all. Or rather, it’s only understandable in show-biz terms.

  In the next sequence, ‘Hard Candy’ is coming together nicely. Jack is sitting on a stool. He still has the acoustic guitar strapped across his chest. Teddy and Wills have gone electric. Jack’s chick is now playing a small organ.

  Singer and organist are facing each other. There is intense eye contact between them. You might think that he is singing to her, that this is a moment of high romance. Don’t be fooled by two beautiful kids’ beautiful eyes locked together. They aren’t romancing, they’re counting. They’re counting the vocals in so that stressed words fall on stressed beats. Complicated lyrics are being welded to driving rhythms.

  Their slender young bodies sway and they look as though they’re dancing. But they aren’t. In each movement are the silent signals they’re giving each other. Every swing of the shoulders, every dip of the head is a count or a signal. Nothing is done for effect. It’s concentration, not show-biz.

  It’s Jack and his chick at their best. But, ah but, I say now in this dim editing room, it was being f
ilmed. Doesn’t that fact alone make show-biz out of concentration and a fallacy out of the notion of pure rock’n’roll?

  I say to the technician, ‘Transfer this sequence to video, please.’

  I don’t want to give the spidermen anything, but I’m forced to. If you want people to be jealous and acquisitive they must have some inkling of what they’ve been excluded from. This sequence, at least, shows Jack and his drifty blonde chick acting like people who can be more than enigmatic and decorative. Even if the chick is only being used as a human metronome, at least she is being used for something – she isn’t just floating around looking edible. Ah, vanity. Even now.

  I love islands. But now, the sandy, scruffy wildernesses are mostly tamed and thatched. The dusty dirt paths are metalled, the miniature jungles and mangrove swamps are cut back until they’re little more than herbaceous borders, and all the tattered, unruly kids are groomed to be desk clerks. We’re running out of islands. Maybe there were too many movies showing sexy glamorous people like Jack and me getting away, cooling it, on undiscovered dots in the ocean. Eventually everyone wanted a piece of one.

  I bet the shack we used as a studio was torn down to be a tiny part of a huge hotel, and tourist money destroyed what it existed to share in.

  Jack and Teddy sit in the shade outside, leaning against the crumbling wall. Occasional sea breezes lift their hair away from young, strong necks. They are on a break. The kids have a desultory football game going with Wills and Goff. Now and then the ball thumps against the wall. Nearby, an exhausted dog shares the meagre shade, its emaciated ribs rising and falling in starved sleep.

  With nothing better on offer, the cameramen film the band doing bugger-all while the soundman tries his hand at interviewing Jack. What was his name? Chip? Cookie? The credits will tell me, for unfinished, ragged, unruly as this film is the guys who made it stuck their names, big and bold, at the end.

  Chip says, ‘What’s your message, Jack? I mean, what’s the point, man?’