by Liza Cody
Carrying on isn’t always easy, especially if you need to carry on con brio. You can’t buy brio in a supermarket. You can, however, buy it from a dealer who might call it by another name – like amphetamine sulphate or cocaine. That’s another rock’n’roll cliché – one I tell my baby bands to handle with care. I’m in no position to advise not handling it at all, and besides it’d be a waste of breath. Bands do drugs or they don’t. They pig out on them or they don’t. It all depends on availability, personality and peer pressure. It does not depend on sensible advice from a woman old enough to be their mother.
A little white candy gives you time and space. It clears your head and returns all the brio you lost during the course of a horrible day. A sensible woman knows better than to take more than a little. A sensible woman knows the difference between brio and bouncing off walls. Besides, this particular woman only had a little. It was in her first-aid kit and it was there for emergencies.
I thought I could go home to Robin’s house, to warmth and light and company. But after the way Nash turned my plans upside-down a sensible woman would keep her bolt-hole a secret and her family out of the firing line.
I am a sensible woman so here I am, back in the wretched dark place Marielle used to call home, with only my first-aid kit for company.
Like cocaine, loud dirty music is a good antidote to a busted day. It courses through the veins, racing from hips to fingertips, chasing frustration and depression out of your system.
I look in the trade papers, I search through Time Out, but I can’t find the music I’m looking for. So I go to see Inner Versions play upstairs at the Fleece and Firkin instead.
I’m late and the first set is almost over. There’s something wrong with the band – they’re all isolated from one another, heads down, not communicating. The silly, baby-bastards have been fighting again. This band does not know how to use its negative energy. Great bands do. Great bands do not go into sulks and take it out on their audience. Great bands explode from inner tensions – they do not implode with a sad farty sigh. However bad a great band is on any particular night it does not depress its fans, bring them down or send them home cold.
Inner Versions piss me off. I leave in disgust, but on the way out I have an idea – an old idea, but it makes me laugh. I walk down the street till I find what I want at an all-night deli. I buy a packet of trickery and half a pound of film-flam – the fixings for a bitch-brew.
Back at the Fleece and Firkin I make sure the band has seen me but I don’t join them. They’re doing what they do best – which is avoiding each other in a collective huddle like a dysfunctional family on holiday. They see me and clearly they think I should come over. What do they expect me to do? Give them a pep talk? Use all my charge to top up their batteries while they bring me down? No thank you, I’d prefer to sit in a dark corner and work any magic I still possess for my own benefit.
After a few minutes Sapper comes over. I knew it would be him. He begins with some tedious complaint against Flambo and Dram. I smile at him – warm, affectionate, amused. It’s a good smile and it puzzles him because it’s such an inappropriate response to his whinging. Mysteriously, while smiling, I’m cutting slits in sultanas with my little silver penknife and I’m doing it secretively under the table.
‘What’re you doing?’ he says, craning his neck, trying to see.
‘Shhh,’ I say. ‘Don’t be uncool.’
‘Oh,’ he says as if he understands, and while he’s watching I slice a fragment from a small shapeless cake of a grey-brown substance. I stuff the fragment carefully into the slit in the sultana and then surreptitiously I put it in my mouth. I chew slowly and sip a little dark rum. My splendid smile becomes heavenly.
‘What is it?’ Sapper asks.
‘Shh,’ I say again. ‘Serenity. Haven’t you heard of it?’ A good question to ask a young man who’s both arrogant and ignorant.
‘Isn’t that something they took in the 60s?’ he asks.
I say vaguely, ‘It went out of style when the heavy chemists took over.’
‘What does it do?’ he asks.
‘What is it called?’ I counter. ‘That’s what it does. Nothing spectacular. It’s a natural substance. It just makes you feel better.’
‘Well then, lay some on me,’ he says. ‘I’m ready.’
‘Sure?’
‘Bloody Flambo,’ he says. ‘He really gets up my nose …’
While he’s complaining and watching like a hawk I repeat the procedure with the tiny brown fragment and the sultana.
‘Chew it very slowly,’ I say. ‘Keep it in your mouth as long as you can – especially under your tongue. A sip of rum helps bring the sweetness out.’
It’s truly amazing what people will put in their mouths if someone tells them it will make them feel good. Sapper only has my word for it but he takes his medicine like a lamb. I have expertise on my side, a little silver knife, a dexterous way with a sultana, and a sliver of substance X. It looks like 60s arcana, it tastes good and by golly it’ll do him good.
‘Now shoo,’ I say, waving him away like a child I’ve indulged with a treat, ‘and don’t come back till you’re in a better mood.’ I send him off, an advertisement on two legs.
Sure enough, after only five minutes, first Corky, then Karen, Dram and Flambo drop casually by for a taste of mama’s little helper. Not only them but also their friends and their friends’ friends. Word is out. Everyone wants a hit.
The band excepted, I make them pay. No one appreciates what they get for free. Besides, magic never comes cheap.
I do very good business. It cheers me up no end. The very novelty of it! I mean, whoever heard of a middle-aged lady dealing? It just isn’t done. There’s a dance in the old dame yet, and that’s no lie.
The real joke of it is that when the band got up for the second set they were relaxed, grinning like lunatics and playing their tiny hearts out. They gelled, they yelled and clearly, from the audience’s reaction, they hit the sweet spot. Oh yeah, I’ll have them singing ‘All You Need Is Love’ if they don’t watch out.
Drugs do what you expect them to do. You are told what you’re going to feel. Everyone else tells you what they are feeling, so you wait for it with suspense and anticipation. Hope and expectation make you feel what you think you should feel. In this case it’s serenity.
Do you know that in the 20s and 30s they referred to the effects of good ol’ peace’n’love marijuana as ‘reefer madness’? Who knows why. Maybe people just acted the way they thought they should act. Reefers were marketed as go-crazy stimulants so people dutifully went crazy. Nowadays Sweet Mary Jane is a chill-out soporific. Same drug, opposite effect. It all depends on marketing. So if you want a mellow evening, invest in a packet of sultanas, stuff them with scraps of diced shitake mushroom, and call your product Serenity. It’s all in the name. No wonder Ecstasy took off like a rocket.
I wish I could have pulled the trick on Jack. But he knew me too well. Or maybe it only works on recreational users because, in the main, they’re inexperienced and highly suggestible. Heavy users are neither.
But I don’t want to think about failures tonight so I put Jack out of my mind and concentrate on the band. They’re doing a song called ‘Half Empty’, and something nice is happening. Usually, Karen does the harmony, almost unnoticed, from behind the keyboard. Tonight, under the influence of Serenity, her voice melds with Sapper’s in almost mystical exactitude. The most surprising thing of all is that Sapper – for once – is listening. He turns towards her and then goes over to the keyboard. They sing together, breathe together, and their voices make a perfect chord.
Ozzy Ireland appears and comes over to my table. There’s rain on the peak of his baseball cap and an inquisitive look in his eye. ‘Staff meeting at Dog,’ he explains. ‘What’s going on? Have you signed? They are talking openly about a Jack retrospective with ten new songs. There’s a huge buzz on the top floor.’
‘Listen,’ I say, pointing to
Sapper and Karen. ‘Sounds good, eh? Maybe, when Inner Versions fragments, you could build a new band around just those two.’
While he’s engaged, I slip away. The last thing I want to talk about is Dog and how confident Nash, Sasson and their cronies are feeling.
VI
A Grotesque Suggestion
‘And this,’ Barry Stears said, ‘is Alec Parry who’s done such sterling work for us. Alec, meet Mr Zalisky.’
Alec stepped forward ready to shake hands but Mr Stears blocked him. Mr Zalisky, it appeared, did not want any physical contact.
‘Alec has been our eyes and ears,’ Mr Freel murmured.
Both men, Alec thought, seemed buttoned-up. Breath was being held. He was excited by the tension in the room. The whole huge house seemed to be whispering, Hush, let’s have a respectful silence for the concept of wealth.
Brought up on magazine articles and TV programmes about lifestyles of the rich and famous, Alec felt he should be more blasé, but now he was here what overwhelmed him was the simple fact that one man owned so much space. Here, the notion of conspicuous consumption was turned on its head: trophy possessions like antiques and Wurlitzers were booted out like so much catalogue junk. The real prize was space and other men’s time. While apparently doing nothing and being nobody, Mr Zalisky commanded and received, at a moment’s notice, the presence of two important, busy men. How the hell, Alec wondered, did a wizened runt manage a trick like that? It wasn’t as if Alec was the only one who had been left to cool his heels for an hour in the cavernous hall. Mr Stears and Mr Freel had to wait their turn too. Astonishingly, neither man complained.
Of course Alec was the last one in and would probably be the first out, but in the meantime, here he was at the centre of the cabal. Birdie called them ‘the troika’.
Alec sat in the only vacant chair, completing a square around a glass coffee table. The meeting wasn’t even taking place in a proper office. They were in a vast, bare room with a deep, deep carpet and thick brocade curtains which shimmered in dim light.
Mr Freel began by saying, ‘Well, Alec, my boy, Mr Zalisky wants to ask you a few questions.’ He then went on to ask them all himself, with a few interjections from Mr Stears. Sir, it seemed, didn’t even have to use his own vocal chords.
‘I wonder if you’d go through the events leading up to our acquisition of a small can of film,’ Mr Freel said.
‘Well, as you know,’ Alec said, ‘I’d been monitoring phone calls made to and from Mrs Emerson’s house, and I noticed quite a cluster for Sheeny TeleCine. I reported the fact.’
‘This was before Birdie left the country?’ Mr Freel asked.
‘Yes, sir. So I went there. It’s a scruffy place in Brook Green. They specialise in transferring film to video. I think most of their business comes from people who want to look at their old home movies on TV. They do titles and graphics and other odds and ends. Anyway, Mr Stears was looking for a film, so a tele-cine lab rang a few bells.’
‘Could Birdie have known you’d found the place?’ Mr Freel asked.
‘I don’t see how, sir. It wasn’t as if I followed her there, or as if I talked to anyone who could have told her. I just had a look at the building and reported back to Mr Stears.’
‘Now, the photographs you brought us,’ Mr Freel said. ‘The ones you thought might be stills from a movie. Has anyone noticed they’re missing?’
‘No one’s said a word. They came from a shoebox at the bottom of Mrs Emerson’s wardrobe. She … I don’t know, sir, she collects things. There’s all sorts of stuff that looks as if, well, as if she’d only keep it because it had something to do with Jack. It’s a real jumble. I only noticed because the envelope had ‘Antigua’ written on it.’
Mr Stears turned to Mr Zalisky and said, ‘Apparently Birdie’s sister carried a torch for Jack. Her bedroom’s something of a shrine to him.’
‘I’m sure she would be really upset if she knew anything was missing,’ Alec said, ‘and she hasn’t been upset.’
‘Fair enough,’ Mr Freel said. ‘We’re simply trying to establish whether or not you’ve aroused suspicion.’
‘I don’t think so, sir.’ Alec carefully prevented himself from blinking. ‘But the, er, burglary happened after Birdie went away so I don’t know how she reacted when she heard about that.’
‘Right. She packed up quite suddenly one night and left the next morning?’
‘Yes and I don’t know why. A hand-delivered package arrived. It seemed to be something she was waiting for. It might’ve been money, but I don’t know.’
Mr Freel and Mr Stears glanced at sir, but sir remained silent.
‘Where did she go?’ Mr Freel asked.
‘I don’t know. Nor do Grace or Mrs Emerson. That’s what she does – just blows without saying where. It’s a bit of a joke in the family. I’ve looked at her passport, of course. There are immigration stamps from airports all over the world. But if she went abroad, she’s back now. She called Mrs Emerson from a public phone in Maidenhead last night.’
The troika nodded. They already know that, Alec thought, disappointed.
They already knew a lot, Alec told Birdie later that night. ‘What they seemed most interested in was where you go. Where are you now, by the way?’
‘In Devon,’ she said, the husky laugh making his ears tingle, ‘but don’t tell anyone.’ Their secret.
‘They speculated for a long time about whether you knew that I knew about the lab. And there was a lot about if the lab could manipulate sound and images. Which I couldn’t really answer. Mr Stears knows more about that than anyone.’
‘What conclusion did they come to?’ Birdie asked.
‘Well, Mr Stears said he couldn’t tell without seeing the video. He said the film he had was clearly made from the original negative, but obviously anyone could switch sound-tracks if they had the original material. He said he’d have a better chance of diagnosing it if he could compare the film with the video. Mr Freel said that obviously it was the video which was manipulated because that was the one they were intended to see. But he said that ultimately it didn’t matter.’ Alec paused, then he said, ‘I’m muddled, Birdie. Did you manipulate the video?’
‘There were two versions,’ she said, ‘with different sound-tracks. They stole one – with your help. I showed Nash the other. Don’t worry about it, Alec. I’m just keeping them on their toes. What did Nash say?’
‘He didn’t say anything. He just sat there fidgeting and making everyone really nervous.’
Birdie laughed again.
‘So there was a lot of talk about what you might have done in the lab and, especially, how much time you’d had to do it.’ Alec was wondering how to tell her the rest. He didn’t want to upset her even if she was in Devon. But he had to warn her.
It had come unexpectedly after Mr Freel said, ‘Does it really make any difference if the video was doctored? That’s Jack’s voice we heard on the sound-track. We’re all in agreement about that, aren’t we? So we have concrete proof there is at least one brand-new song – and it’s unbelievably good.’
Mr Stears said, ‘I know you’d be satisfied with a few extra tracks, but I’ve got a far more exciting idea in mind. I went over it again and again with Junior Moline. He looked up all his old notes – such as they are – and nowhere can he find any reference to a song called “Sliding Widows”. He doesn’t remember anything like it. Nor does Teddy.’
‘That doesn’t mean a thing,’ Mr Freel said. ‘We know Jack was planning a new album several months before he died. David Palmer mentions it in that Rolling Stone article. Jack kept writing up to his death.’
‘But that doesn’t explain the quality of the sound – especially if Jack was recording himself at home,’ Mr Stears argued. ‘Junior couldn’t explain it either. He thought at first that it was a digital recording. He was convinced. But then he said it couldn’t possibly be because digital recording simply wasn’t around then. But he kept saying the quality of th
e sound was too good to be analogue. Digital didn’t exist then, Sasson. But it does now.’
‘You’re crazy, Barry,’ Mr Freel said. ‘This is a complete red herring. This is where those “Elvis is alive and well and living on Mars” stories come from. The important thing is that we now have evidence that previously unreleased recordings do actually exist. Besides, Junior had nothing to do with any of Jack’s production after Hard Candy. Jack produced Hard Time himself, working with other engineers. Maybe Birdie had the sound-track digitally remastered. That’s done all the time.’
It was as if they’d forgotten Alec’s presence and were continuing an old argument. The only one to remember was Mr Zalisky. He spoke up for the first time saying timorously, ‘Maybe this isn’t the time or place for such a discussion?’
It was comical to Alec that an interruption as weak and uncertain as this made Mr Freel and Mr Stears shut up like school kids caught shouting in chapel. That was real power, Alec thought, when you didn’t even have to raise your voice or sound halfway confident but you could still make grown men stand to attention.
Reluctantly, he reported what Mr Stears had said. There was a moment of silence. Then Birdie said, ‘Oh Alec, that’s grotesque.’ Just four words from a long way away but he could hear a lifetime of sadness in her voice. They continued to speak for a while longer but when at last he rang off, Alec felt heavy with her distress. He looked across the room at Grace who was curled up in a chair pretending to read The God of Small Things but actually listening to his side of the conversation.
‘What did she say?’ Grace asked.
‘She said, “That’s grotesque”,’ he told her, imitating Birdie’s tone of voice.
‘Well it is,’ Grace said angrily, ‘really stupid and cruel. Lin’s right – whatever you give them they always want more.’
‘I know,’ Alec said. He was hiding his exhilaration, even from himself. He wished he still had the piece of film Mr Stears was so excited about. He wished he could use his own ears to compare the quality of the sound against a digitally remastered copy of Hard Candy or Hard Time. There must be some way, he thought, of distinguishing a track which was digitally recorded from an analogue track which had been digitally remastered. If anyone could say for sure that it was a digital recording then Mr Stears’s ‘bigger prize’ would be within his grasp. What if Mr Stears was right? What if that was Birdie’s big secret? She’d go to any length to protect Jack if he were still alive.
