by Liza Cody
‘No, no, old man,’ Barry said. ‘I know that. We’re a few steps further on now. I’m only here to persuade you to participate. You were pivotal to the most important recordings.’
‘Yeah, I was, wasn’t I?’ Junior said, taking a long swig of beer.
‘It’s a serious programme we’re making – an evaluation – about the times, the innovations, influences. How that unique sound came about, its impact on the present day.’
‘Sounds OK to me,’ Junior said. ‘Just as long as it doesn’t turn into a hatchet job. There’s been too much said … y’know, personally.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Barry said. ‘I know you’ve remained friends with Birdie, and I respect that. I wish I could say the same – after all Jack was my very best friend and I would’ve liked to have stayed in touch with her after his death. Maybe if things had been different I could have helped her – stopped her going off the rails.’
Junior took refuge in the food. Good food represented comfort in times of stress.
‘I’m still hoping I can prevail upon her to contribute. But I’m not holding my breath. And I’m not asking you to use your influence either.’
‘That’s good,’ Junior said, “cos I ain’t got none to use.’ He was relieved to see that even if Barry wasn’t emptying his glass, at least he was clearing his plate.
‘I was wondering,’ Barry said, ‘it’s a long shot, I know, but did you keep any of the production notes?’
‘For Hard Candy?’
‘For instance.’
‘The record company kept all those.’
‘I mean what you did in Antigua. For the demo. There was stuff on the demo which didn’t appear on the album, wasn’t there?’
‘Sure. Some of it came out on the next album. But I wasn’t involved with that.’
‘I know,’ Barry said, ‘and I’ve never understood why.’
‘Lots of reasons. Everyone fighting. Anyway, Jack wanted to produce himself. He’d got so’s he thought everyone was trying to take things away from him, bend him out of shape. I couldn’t deal with it. I came here.’
Barry nodded in approval. ‘I can see why. But it’d be useful, for the purposes of our programme, if you could remember what was on the Antigua tapes. We’d like to be able to reconstruct the decision-making process – why certain songs were on Hard Candy, why others were held over for Hard Time. If you kept production notes it’d be a great help.’
‘Mmm,’ Junior said. ‘I don’t know, man. I could go through my records, see what I still got.’
‘Good,’ Barry said. ‘That’s all I ask.’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ Barry said, petulance creeping into his voice. ‘I’ve been talking to the guys – Teddy, Wills, Goff – trying to reconstruct what you all did in Antigua. Do you know, none of them remembers the same things.’
‘I’m not surprised, man,’ Junior said. ‘There was a bucket-load of mood-enhancing substances floatin’ around.’
Barry sighed. ‘God, I wish I’d been there. I’d have kept accurate records. Stoned musos are a historian’s worst nightmare. That’s why notes would be a godsend – anything you’ve got in black and white. I’d be prepared to pay generously for them.’ He leaned towards Junior, suddenly confidential. ‘There’s something else,’ he said. ‘There are other film companies on the prowl and I don’t want anyone but Memo Movies to talk to you. As I say, I’ll pay very generously for any help you can give me, but it must be exclusive help. Is that clear?’
‘OK,’ Junior said. Barry’s breath was tickling his ear, making him uncomfortable. ‘But exclusive ain’t cheap.’
‘It will be built into your fee.’
‘That’d be useful,’ Junior admitted, noticing with regret that his plate was empty. Production notes. What you did. When. Who was playing which instrument. How you achieved any particular sound on which numbers. Levels. Keeping track of tracks. Very organised. In theory. He said, ‘I never thought what we did would have any significance two weeks later, let alone two decades plus. It was a here-today-gone-tomorrow thing.’
‘Except it wasn’t gone tomorrow,’ Barry said. ‘Or the day after that. It just went on and on, gathering significance and value as time passed. Even the out-takes – the tracks Jack rejected at the time – if we could lay our hands on those, they’d be worth a fortune now.’
‘What tracks?’
‘That’s why we need production notes. To see if there were any numbers which didn’t make it into either Hard Time or Hard Candy.’
‘Right,’ Junior said. ‘Well, I don’t remember any off-hand. You should ask Birdie. She’s the one with the memory.’
‘And she’s the one with the negative attitude. But her loss is your gain, if you see what I mean.’
‘No,’ Junior said.
‘Well, if she was co-operating, your contribution wouldn’t be half as valuable.’
‘Oh.’
‘Damn right,’ Barry said. ‘Think about it.’
‘It’s a pity you can’t lay your hands on any of the working tapes,’ Junior said. ‘Jack used to come to the studio with some really fizzin’ guide tracks they’d put together themselves. But I guess that was the sort of stuff which went up in flames. That really was here-today-gone-tomorrow.’
He looked at the dancers – watching with pleasure the intricate couple movements, one configuration leading to another, speedy precise footwork. When the number closed, everyone clapped and went back to their beer. All gone, all the activity and artistry disappearing into silence. No reminder of their skill remaining unless you counted sore feet. Live music, live performance, existing one time and one time only. God bless ’em all, Junior thought, anything else is like pinning butterflies to corkboards – you got a dead butterfly, but you ain’t got what moves you.
Part 4
Going Down
‘’Cos you paid the price to come this far – Just to wind up where you are …’
Ry Cooder
I
The Blues
Hard cash, cold cash, cash on the nail. Nash Zalisky came through with a finely judged amount. He hadn’t lost his touch: his judgment was so admirable it made me laugh. It was banknotes of a number a hard-working person would save for the trip of a lifetime – the sum needed to travel halfway round the world in comfort, stay somewhere comfortable for three weeks and then come home. Comfort is the key word, not luxury. If you travelled first-class you’d blow it all in two days.
It was an amount which wouldn’t pay off the mortgage or buy a new car or put the kids through school. You couldn’t go mad on it except for a very short time. But it wasn’t insulting either. It was perfect windfall cash.
I packed a bag and told Robin I was going to the States for a couple of weeks. Modestly I took the shuttle to Heathrow, Terminal Four. It was a long way to go to use a telephone but details matter in this game.
When Nash came on the line I said, ‘Thanks, Nash. I hope I’ll have some good news for you soon.’
‘Good, Birdie, good,’ said his fussy little voice. ‘Where are you?’
‘On my way.’ At the same time an announcer said, BA flight blah to Boston and blah …
I said quickly, ‘Listen, Nash, I wanted to ask, if I run out of time or money, can you … ?’
Bing-bong. ‘This is a security announcement …’
‘I can wire you a reasonable amount any time, anywhere in the world,’ Nash said. ‘But Birdie …’
‘My phone card’s running out,’ I said. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
‘Birdie …’
I cut the connection and yanked my card. Then I took the shuttle back to London and went to Maida Vale. Call me paranoid if you like but from now on I don’t want Nash to know my mobile number or which phone company I use. A weasel like Nash can insert himself into the smallest gap in your security system. Communications are his speciality.
Years ago, there was only one phone company and it was relat
ively easy to buy your target’s number. I know, because Jack had to change his every two weeks or so. Now there’s a whole tangle of land lines and satellite junk. More ways to communicate, but more opportunities for people like Nash to eavesdrop or tap into revealing little items like your telephone bills. I wonder how long it takes these days for the freaks to buy the stars’ phone numbers?
There’s no phone at Maida Vale. It’s a wretched little flat and it isn’t mine. But it’s free and I have the key. Narrow dark stairs lead to a narrow dark hall and then this wretched dark space. I can put up with it for a short while when necessary but, oh, it dampens my spirit and cramps my style. The worst of it is that I know it’s the only place I could afford if I were ever to consent to living within my means and having my means determined by the spidermen.
The place is filled with boxes and, again, most of them don’t belong to me. They belong to a woman called Marielle who used to dress a glittery-glam guy I knew years ago. She ran the wardrobe and the laundry for him when he went on tour. I refused to go on tour with him after the first time. But I liked her, and while she was away I watered her plants and fed her cats. Now, many miles down the pike for all of us, her cats and plants are dead and she is in an old folks’ home with premature Alzheimer’s, as alone and scared as a body can be. One day she’ll die, alone and scared, unable to remember her own name. Everyone’s a stranger to her and every step she takes is into the unknown. At the mercy of badly paid professionals, she is allowed only four fresh incontinence pads a day. Soon, resenting even this extravagance, they’ll strap her to a commode. You’d think the glitter-glam guy would help her out. But he’s driving a cab in Manchester and can’t even pay his own kid’s maintenance. It’s just another rockbiz story playing itself out. And meanwhile I still have the key and a place to hide in.
If it all goes wrong I could end up living here permanently with nothing much to do except reflect on how cruel life is to insane, incontinent old women, and how the older you grow the harder it is to pick up the pieces and start again.
The beautifully judged mad money Nash has bestowed upon me, if it’s all I make out of this, will not see me into a comfortable old age. It won’t protect me from being scared and alone, nor will it buy a lifetime’s supply of incontinence pads. Because, walking through this narrow doorway, that’s what I think I’ll need – one step into this wretched little world, and already I’m shitting myself.
I look at Marielle’s cardboard boxes and I think: is this all there is? She started packing, unpacking, packing, long before anyone knew something was going wrong. Bundling up her life into smaller and smaller boxes for the trip of a lifetime to a foreign country where she would be a perpetual stranger even to herself. Her life is in these boxes, not in her head. There’s more of her life in my memory than there is in hers. I can tell stories about her. She can’t. It’s all wiped off her screen. Blanked.
Terror-struck, I realise that the process began when she was only a couple of years older than I am today.
I jam Taj Mahal’s Natch’l Blues into my personal CD player and clamp the earphones around my head. I press, crush, the cans against my ears as if the strength of my arms will ram music into my brain. I close my eyes tight and wait for the moment when music becomes thought and thought becomes music, when my hips move of their own accord, when pulse equalises with beat and kick-starts the heart.
It’s what the Blues are for. Courage. When circumstances are crap, when you can’t face life, when you can’t face yourself, when you’re sinking, the Blues give you grit.
Without music and money you might as well fade away and die.
II
Soft Touch
These days, when George Adler walked into the office in the morning, he walked with the lightest step a heavy man is capable of. He enjoyed seeing fresh flowers on the reception desk. When he came in early, arriving before Tina, he would find that although Linnet was absent, the overnight calls had already been logged and the coffee machine was primed and ready to switch on. Then he could sit alone with a steaming mug in his hand and recover from commuting, mulling over what was to be done that day, even reading the morning paper.
George was good in the early morning. Tina wasn’t, she built up steam as midday approached. And Linnet was best in the afternoon and evening. As a team, he thought, the three of them worked an eighteen-hour day in shifts. He went home early, Tina a couple of hours later, and Linnet would clear everyone’s desk, organise the next day and lock up.
Today though, when he arrived, he found the office already open for business and the coffee ready to pour.
‘Hello?’ he called, and went to his room to unpack his briefcase. These days he rarely had to take work home so his briefcase usually only held the morning paper and a lovingly prepared packed lunch.
‘Morning, Linnet,’ he said when she came in with his coffee. ‘You’re early. Something special on today?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
Her smile was so warm that he nearly missed the pallor and the shaky hand.
When she came back half an hour later with the opened mail, he said, ‘Anything urgent in that?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Routine. There are a couple of things waiting for signature but otherwise …’
‘Are you feeling all right?’ he asked, because although she was as quick as usual he sensed an uncertainty about her.
‘Yes,’ she said. She turned to go and then stopped in the doorway. ‘Yes,’ she said more slowly, ‘but I do have a problem. George, would you mind if I took off my employee’s hat and signed on as a client for a moment?’
‘A client?’ he said, surprised. ‘What’s up?’
She sat opposite him on the client’s chair and said, ‘I’m afraid it’s one of those stories where past and present collide. But the immediate difficulty is that I’m being followed and I’ve been forced to move out of my house. Also, I’ve had some things stolen.’
Later that afternoon, talking to Tina, George said, ‘I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. I mean, I knew she was different. I said from the first, didn’t I, that she was a bit special?’
‘At length,’ said Tina.
‘Please,’ said George, ‘don’t mock. I’m only saying I’d never’ve guessed that our wonderful Ms Walker had a story like that up her sleeve. Even I have heard of Jack.’
‘Gosh,’ Tina said. ‘And I bet you’ve heard of Elvis and the Beatles too, you trendy old raver.’
‘All right already.’
‘Well, me old dear, you are coming over a bit star-struck all of a sudden. However glamorous the setting is, she’s our Ms Walker, a middle-aged woman with a problem, needing a bit of advice. Pro bono, unfortunately.’
‘She did offer to pay, of course.’
‘And of course you declined.’
‘You’re giving me that look,’ George said. ‘I am not a soft touch.’
‘But you do have a soft spot for Linnet. Admit it.’
‘The point is,’ George said, huffing gently, ‘are we going to help her? Or are you prejudiced against her because she’s had a racy past and a lot of people have said bad things about her?’
‘Racy’s putting it a bit mildly,’ Tina said. ‘But no. Handsome is as handsome does, and I’ve got to admit that she’s done handsomely by us.’
‘So?’
‘So, all I’m asking is that you look at it coolly. Break it down. Take the drama and emotion out of it and what’ve you got? Just an ordinary middle-aged woman who’s afraid she’ll be ripped off.’
But George was having difficulty seeing Linnet as an ordinary middle-aged woman. Had he ever? If he was brutally honest with himself he’d have to say that he’d never seen her as ordinary. There was a part of him that had always felt that they were using a Rolls-Royce to deliver the milk.
‘Tina doesn’t seem to see that this is both qualitatively and quantitatively different,’ he told Fay over dinner that night.
‘Maybe Tina resent
s having employed someone under false pretences,’ Fay suggested. ‘More pie?’
‘Ah, but where were the false pretences?’ George asked, holding out his plate. ‘She told us her name. If I was of a generation too old for it to mean something, and Tina was too young, that’s our lookout, surely.’
‘She gave you her proper name,’ Fay pointed out, ‘not the name she’s known by.’
‘How long can a grown woman live with a sobriquet like “Birdie”?’
‘A linnet is a bird too,’ Fay said, as if it were highly significant.
‘The point is,’ George said, irritated, ‘there’s something rather gallant about a woman trying, all by herself, to protect a dead lover from powerful, acquisitive forces.’
‘Isn’t that a rather romantic way of seeing it?’
‘Romantic?’ George said, startled. He stared at Fay, but she was looking back at him with nothing more than amusement in her eyes.
‘Maybe it’s the thought of a pro bono case,’ he said, recovering quickly. ‘Tina’s very hard-headed about expenditure. The business is only just beginning to turn the corner, after all.’
‘What does Linnet actually need?’ Fay asked.
‘I don’t know yet. I’m still thinking about it.’
‘You like her a lot, don’t you,’ Fay said musingly.
‘Yes I do. So does Tina.’
‘Does she?’
‘Of course.’ He watched Fay covering the pie dish with foil, carefully tucking down the edges. Did Tina like Linnet? Why was it important for him to tell Fay that she did? Why was he asking himself these questions? It was because of a curious expression that Tina and Fay shared. It reminded him of his mother. The saying, ‘There’s no fool like an old fool’ popped, unbidden and unwelcome, into his head.
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ he exclaimed, and stumped away crossly to watch tennis on TV.
