by Liza Cody
She is not, as you might suppose, referring to her recent arrest for allegedly dealing mind-altering substances to minors. ‘If it weren’t so stupid it would be funny,’ she says loftily. ‘It’s not my fault if someone can’t tell the difference between a handful of sultanas and Class-A drugs.’ Not something you could accuse Birdie herself of. ‘History,’ she retorts with a flick of the once-famous golden mane. ‘I’m not apologising for the past.’
But wasn’t it the excesses of yesteryear that added her legendary lover Jack to the list of drug fatalities? Jack did what Jack did, and he didn’t do anything by halves. Fame, drugs and paranoia can be a destructive cocktail. Shit happens.’ Shit happening seems to be on the Bird brain today and that’s what’s making her so mad. Jack was convinced the record companies were ripping him off and, surprise, surprise, they still are. More than ever now with Jack’s anniversary coming up – all the old stuff repackaged, prepackaged, your usual multimedia T-shirt, Jack-on-the-rack culture – coordinated by Super Spider.’
Super Spider, it seems, is Birdie-speak for Nash Zalisky, the eccentric, reclusive mogul behind many of the pipelined Jack projects. ‘He always wanted to lure us into his web,’ Birdie shudders. ‘If Jack hadn’t died, Super Spider would’ve sucked him dry. Not many people know that Nash was totally obsessed. He still is. He’s been searching basements and rubbish bins for anything to do with Jack: photos, nail clippings – you name it. So he comes to me and says, “What’ve you got?” And I’m like, Whoa! I’m not into the necrophilia thing. Besides, why should I give him anything of Jack’s? New stuff, new deal – or no deal.’
Hold on a minute! New stuff? Can the original Rock Widow mean that there’s a secret legacy snatched from the grave? It seems she can. A forgotten stash of demo tapes and some unique sought-after movie footage have miraculously surfaced just in time for the eagerly anticipated Jack-fest. But we aren’t talking about mere nail clippings now, are we? ‘We are not. Dog spokesmen want to downgrade what’s been discovered but that’s for the usual exploitative reason: they want to own it but they don’t want to pay.’
Almost from the start, Birdie claims, corporate double-dealings left Jack with the lifestyle of a megastar but practically zilch in his pockets. ‘It’s a rockbiz cliché,’ she seethes. ‘The people who take the profits aren’t responsible for the losses. They take the bread and the people who make the music live on the crumbs. Jack didn’t even own his house or his car. What’s worse, he didn’t own his music.’
So who does? ‘I do.’ The brilliant blue eyes gaze out defiantly. ‘It’s something the record companies never accepted. But I worked with Jack and I can prove it.’
Quite a claim. True or false? Someone who worked extensively with Jack, and witnessed relations between the glamorous couple, told Q: ‘He’d start a song; she’d finish it. She’d come up with a line; he’d construct a whole theme from it. Being in the same studio as those two was like watching a game of ping-pong. They were almost inside each other’s heads. But of course Jack was the star so Jack got all the credit. That’s the way it was in those days.’
Not everyone interpreted the relationship in quite the same way. ‘She was riding on his back,’ one source close to Jack’s band informed Q. ‘He was the golden goose and she had a taste for foie gras.’
The face who reportedly launched a thousand hits doesn’t deny it. ‘Sure I enjoyed the high life,’ she admits. ‘Who doesn’t?’
It’s a lifestyle that she may enjoy again if the contractual mare’s-nest of the past twenty-five years can be resolved. But without a new deal, she insists, there will be no new music. ‘It’s great stuff but I’d rather burn the lot than sell Jack into slavery again.’
Birdie, if anyone cares to remember, is no stranger to the tragic results of fire, so you’re forced to the conclusion that she means what she says. Behind the blonde hair and innocent blue eyes there’s a core of pure steel. ‘No, it’s not an idle threat,’ she chirps. ‘I haven’t come all this way just to make things easy for someone I think of as a prime case for natural deselection.’
Ouch! Watch out, Super Spider, Birdie Walker sharpened her talons long ago, when rockchicks really knew how to be mad and bad. She wrote the book on dangerous-to-know back in the days when such things mattered. Today, it seems, she’s going by the book.
VI
Feel Like Shit and Ashamed
My sister has made me a dress. And what a dress! There’s nothing else like it in the world. It is unique and when I put it on I am unique too. There are no designer labels and it cost her nothing but time – by which I mean that it cost her the whole of her life and experience, her hands and her eyes.
Years ago, I took her gift for granted. ‘Oh, Robin will make you something,’ I said to Jack when he wanted a certain kind of stage costume. Anyone can sew if they’ve got the patience and nothing better to do. Robin’s patient and she’s got nothing better to do than run you up what you want. I knew she’d make him something marvellous because she adored him. Adored him but bored him. There was always something abject in her devotion. Sugar and no spice.
Oh but there’s spice in this dress. And wit. Look at the collar – it rears up and then curls gracefully over below the ears. It’s a collar which forces me to hold my head high and stare into the mirror-mirror-on-the-wall. This is a dress for me now. Today. It is not feathers for a bird-brained chicky-babe.
Tina taps on the door and comes in. Her eyes say, ‘Wow!’ when she sees what I’m wearing, but her mouth says, ‘Are you ready? I was going to call a cab, but someone’s sent a car.’
‘Call a cab,’ I tell her through the mirror. ‘Send the car away.’
‘But it’s a Rolls,’ she says wistfully.
‘Nash bugs his cars. But keep it outside your door if you want to look good.’
‘I’ll get rid of it,’ says puritan Tina. No ostentation without good reason. ‘But we ought to get a move on or we’ll be late.’
‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘We’re going to be late. Relax. Make a cup of tea and chill.’
I have my reputation to consider. Am I the type to turn up dutifully, on the dot, and then wait patiently for the honchos to get their act together? I am not. Nor is this dress. Robin has made a garment worth waiting for. Nash sent his car, but it is not, as Tina thinks, a mark of respect. He wants to know where I am, and when I will arrive. It is a symbol of control. Go suck your tiny thumb, Nash. I’ll come when I’m good and ready.
Tina is uneasy. In her world they’re punctual and reliable. They prove their worth by doing what they say they’re going to do when they’ve said they’re going to do it. In my world you prove your worth by winning the status games. Hurry-up-and-wait is a losing gambit. All it will do is prove to the opposition how easy you are to control. If I showed up on time I’d be telling Nash he’d got me beat, that I’d been frightened and brought down by public exposure, that my own threats had no sting. Whereas what I want to tell him is that time’s on my side. I’ve got Jack in my pocket, the way I always had, and if he wants Jack he’ll have to deal with me. I am Rainbow Woman, Nash Zalisky, fuck with me and you’ll never see your pot of gold. What a difference a great frock makes!
I sit in the cab while George pays the driver, then I get out and sweep into Dog Records’ lobby in one fluid swoop. I leave my briefcase in the cab, forcing Tina to retrieve it and hurry after me carrying it. We meet our two lawyers.
I have four in my entourage. Not as many as I’d like, not as many as I used to have, but four more than I’ve had for ages. Two lawyers, one security man and one PA to carry the bag. That’s how it will look. Tina tries to return the bag to me, but I ignore her. Silly woman – whatever is she thinking? Rainbow Woman doesn’t carry her own bags.
We go up in the lift to the top floor and find Sasson waiting to greet us. Good – that’s more like it.
Now here is a strange thing: Sasson takes my hand and kisses my cheek. ‘God, Birdie,’ he says, ‘you look stunning.’
/> He waves my party of four into the boardroom but he delays me. Now we will have to enter the meeting together – which will indicate, to those present, an alliance or friendship. Sasson cannot be ignorant of the visual language of meetings.
He says, ‘Birdie, whatever happens, please believe that I was not responsible for the smear campaign. I wouldn’t do that.’
‘ “Whatever happens”? What is going to happen, Sasson? Any more tricks up that midget sleeve?’
‘Not that I know of. I think your legal team’s done a good job – a better job than I’d personally like.’
‘You mean it’s a straight deal?’
‘I mean, Birdie, you don’t want to make the pips squeak over every damn percentage point. There’s such a thing as being too tough, you know.’
‘I just regret not getting tough years ago when Jack was alive.’
‘Ah yes,’ he says, just for a split second looking like young Sasson.
I wonder how much he allows himself to remember. Is there a tiny corner of his memory which makes him feel that he let Jack down? Or has he armoured that tiny corner and remembered only the fiction: that I drove a wedge between him and Jack.
He says, ‘Birdie, before we go in, is there anything I should know?’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know – anything else you’re hiding, another ace in the hole that’ll up the ante again. I’ve got a lot riding on this deal. I’d like to think, now we’ve got the finance sorted out, we could work together.’
I don’t get a chance to answer because Nash bustles out of the elevator with his bodyguard. However late I was, he wanted to be later. I laugh. I look at Sasson and he can’t resist it. He laughs too.
‘What? What?’ Nash asks, suspicion flaring behind his glasses.
Sasson straightens up first. He says, ‘Nash, good of you to come. Shall we go in now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nash says warily. ‘I had a terrible dream. I nearly didn’t come. I nearly didn’t get out of bed. Birdie, have you ever had a dream so bad that you feel the whole day will be cursed? Remind me to tell you about it. What a beautiful dress, Birdie. Did I buy that for you?’
‘Not a chance,’ I say, letting the old laughter linger in my voice. ‘This is a dress no mere money can buy.’
‘Oh,’ he says to Sasson, ‘we’ve been paying her too much.’
‘We’ll see,’ Sasson says. ‘I can’t wait to hear the new tracks.’
‘Why are we standing out here?’ Nash says plaintively, and Sasson leads us into the boardroom.
I slip into a chair between George and the more savvy of the two lawyers. Nash sits at the centre of an army. Sasson, as host, sits at the head of the table with an array of board members and advisors. The only one not present is Barry Stears, which is strange because the deal involving the movie is with him.
Everyone turns and watches me sit down. I am the show, the girl in the spangled tights. Roll up, roll up, the notorious scarlet woman has just made her entrance. Watch her balance on the wire – soar or floor – it doesn’t matter as long as there’s a spectacle.
I lean towards the savvy lawyer and whisper, ‘Where’s Barry Stears?’
‘I’m told he had to go to the US suddenly. That’s his proxy over there.’ He indicates another grey spidery man with the smallest flick of one finger. The savvy lawyer has played this game before: he knows the value of sotto voce conferences with his client. Nothing important is said. Sometimes, at a strategic point, he leans towards me and says something idiotic like, ‘Bit warm in here, isn’t it? I wish they’d turn the air-conditioner up.’ And I look down at his unreadable notes nodding sagely. The secret agenda: you’ve got to have one even if you haven’t got one. Otherwise, I sit back, nonchalant, relaxed, legs crossed, shimmering in my rainbow garb.
The main deals are these: first, the new Dog album; sub-clauses, my participation in arranging and producing it, publishing, copyright, the videos, reproduction and mechanical rights. Second, Memo Movies’ film; sub-clauses, visual material to be supplied by Ms Walker, sound-track and rights thereto, interview fees etc. Third, the authorised biography; sub-clauses, Ms Walker’s agreement to be interviewed and supply previously unpublished photographs.
Hanging over all this is Nash’s deal with Dog and Memo, giving him TV, Radio and CD-ROM/e-commerce rights. In other words, Nash wants the world première on everything, because he is number-one spider, and he can afford it.
Most of this was thrashed out by grey men, including my grey men, over the previous few days. From my point of view the offers are now adequate and the payment schedule is satisfactory. Even better, my lawyers have set up a private bank account for me with a subsidiary account in … wait for it … yes, in the Cayman Islands.
With this account in place and the knowledge that I’ve forced all three parties to do separate deals rather than allow myself to be bundled tidily into one all-encompassing contract, I can afford to sit back.
In fact, I am secretly jubilant. I have brought us to this stage without ever letting the opposition have a proper sight of what they’re buying. The old-fashioned method of seduction has a lot to recommend it. Do not display your wares because to do so would cheapen them. Conceal and hint. Build hunger, and then in a carefully contrived accident, flash a little flesh. Ooh yeah – I’ve gone back to long skirts and petticoats for this deal.
From across the table I catch Nash staring at me. I lower my eyes shyly and think, yep, attempted rape only drives the bride price up, I wonder if he understands that now. I hope not. Let him think he’s forced me to this table. Let him think that my counter-threat began as a tantrum and ended with one mildly snide article in Q magazine. Now he thinks there’s a chink in the wall – I’ve broken my silence once, so I’ll be easy meat for any interviewer he chooses to feed me to. I have all the stories, the essence of Jack, locked in my head; let him think he’s found the key and I’ll spill my precious load into his waiting hands. Well, Nash, we’ll have to see about that.
But eventually, the time comes when even Rainbow Woman has to show and tell. All parties, including mine, are satisfied so far. Now they want to see the bride’s face.
I ask Tina for the tape cassette and the video cassette. She gives them to me with a rather sour look. I expect that while this meeting has been grinding on, she sat there silently wondering what the hell she’s doing. Good Father George isn’t wondering. He knows he’s here to protect me. But Tina, being rather more sceptical, has probably come to the conclusion that her only purpose is to look like a personal assistant and bag-carrier to the woman who used to tidy her office. Tough break, Tina, but that’s show-biz.
‘What do you want first?’ I say, turning to Sasson, ‘music or pictures?’
‘Music,’ he says. ‘Do you mind if I ask my chief engineer in to hear this? I know we won’t be listening to the masters yet but I’d like him in on this as early as possible.’
I smile and say, ‘Of course.’ I’m pleased with Sasson. He’s provided the dramatic pause. During it I get up and walk over to the sound equipment. I keep the tape and video in my hand. Even these simulacrums of the real deal are too valuable to give to anyone else.
I look at the sound system, the giant speakers, the Star Fleet control panel. Mooching, figuring out how the system works, I have separated myself from my team, from the ranks of suited spiders. I am music, they are business. Music versus money. Romance against finance.
The silk rainbow swirls against my thighs as I walk to the window, turning my back on the table, looking out over the Soho rooftops to the clouds beyond. There are faces and fungi in the clouds. It is a dreamer’s sky, full of morphing images. No two people will see the same picture on the cloudy canvas. No two dreamers will dream the same dream. That is the art of clouds and dreams. Those are the clouds and dreams of the artist. And these are the thoughts I can’t afford to be thinking in the company of spiders.
I turn back towards the room and find that every eye
is upon me. Nash is getting out of his chair to join me at the window. Oh no, that’ll never do. I let him commit himself and then I glide around the other side of the table and out through the door. Leaving the boardroom without explanation, carrying with me the cassette and video. I cause pandemonium. Unbelievably, several of them chase my skirt as it flicks out into the corridor.
In the open-plan office at the end I stop at the first desk and ask for the ladies’ room. The chasing posse is there to be ignored. I sashay into the ladies room and lock the door.
It is extraordinary. Am I a rogue elephant or a psycho? No one, it seems, has the slightest idea of what I’m going to do next. Am I really so unpredictable that I cannot avoid Nash and go to the ladies room without being treated like an absconding prisoner?
In the mirror I look at my reflection and smile. Unpredictable, exotic Rainbow Woman is still, for the time being, in charge of the goldmine, the means of production, the wealth of the grey nation. No wonder they’re scared shitless.
By the time I return, the grey nation has assumed some semblance of dignity, leaving just one scout by the elevator to make sure I ‘don’t get lost’. But I cannot sit at a table with them any more. I need the separation, especially if I am to listen to Jack’s voice. After I’ve slotted the cassette into the deck I go back to the window and turn my back on the audience.
Jack’s voice begins, husky with cigarette smoke, ‘Gimme time, gimme one last chance …’ The opening line of ‘Adversarial Attitude’. There is solid rich rhythm guitar under his voice and some honky-tonk piano providing the fills. It’s the timeless song of the ill-treated man, his stone-hearted rival and the stolen woman. It’s violent and insulting: ‘She says he’s steady, kind and sweet – I know the whoring, boring man who beats his meat …’ Jack calling poor Homer a wanker in his own inimitable fashion. Anger stretches his voice and gives it the horn-like power which can cut through any rock’n’roll band, however loud, and dominate it. If you heard that voice only once, even if you never heard it again, you wouldn’t forget it.
