Gimme More (11 page)

The band was Thieves Like Us, long ago split and divorced. But the lead singer and guitarist was Cy Fuentes whose solo career became the stuff of music fairy tales – or cautionary tales – depending on your point of view.

Sound engineering for Thieves Like Us had been, at that time, a significant step for Junior. It was one of those steps from which his own career might have taken off, had he not been seduced by the Big Easy. But, more significant in the long run, was his meeting with Birdie Walker. Sometimes, lounging on his lady's balcony, he
remembered the first meeting. She was ushered into the sound booth, like so many celebrity girlfriends, with a mixture of indifference and curiosity – another pretty chick there to admire the talent on the studio floor. She was there, he thought, to be impressed and also because while she was there she couldn't be with anyone else and she couldn't be out spending the star's money. The usual thing.

The half-glance he gave her took in a jail-bait adolescent body, long blonde hair and coltish grace. Cy's new babe was a baby, and Junior might have felt sorry for her except that he was too busy, and in those days even baby chicks didn't merit any sympathy: they were part of the furniture.

As the night wore on though he noticed something else: unlike the other chicks he'd seen come and go, she didn't get bored or read magazines or whine. Nor did she run around rolling joints and fetching refreshment for the band. She paid attention. She didn't chat or ask questions or in any way interrupt, but he became increasingly aware that she was watching every move he made. At one point, when a discussion between the band and the producer turned into a slanging match, she sat on the floor as if the dramatic interlude was too boring to witness. Junior's feelings were similar. He said, too quietly to be heard by anyone else in the booth, ‘If it was me, I'd put in some silly brass.'

‘What?' she asked, just as quietly.

‘They're fighting about strings,' he said. ‘Stupid idea. But they do need something, and if it was me …'

‘What do you mean “silly brass”?'

‘Well, like a bass tuba or a sousaphone – a bit of deep-down oompah for extra beat and texture.'

She considered this for a moment, smiling dreamily. Nothing else was said.

But the next day, late in the evening, a bewildered spotty young man with a bass tuba was shown into the studio. Cy's explanation to the producer even recycled Junior's description, silly brass. Junior, of course, got no credit, either for the idea or the description. Nor did Birdie. Cy took that. All Junior got was a long slow wink from Birdie.

The real payoff came later when he was hired to produce Wild Jack's second album and found that he'd been hyped as a sound man with imagination. And who should turn up with Jack to the first meeting? She was a little taller perhaps and more polished, but the long blonde hair and the lazy wink were the same.

The wink, Junior thought, was absolutely something to write home about. Birdie turned her head so that no one but Junior could see the winking eye. Then, without moving any other facial muscle, she slowly dropped one eyelid. It was like an illusion: one half of her face went to sleep while the other remained sweetly attentive. Everyone else in the room saw only her perfect profile. It was the first hint Junior had that with Birdie what you saw was
not
what you got. What you saw, of course, was so beautiful that it was hard to respond to her as anything but a visual feast. ‘Blinded by beauty,' Junior said, ruefully explaining why even he had been slow to take her seriously.

‘If she'd been a guy or a bit uglier,' Junior said, ‘who knows what she might have achieved.'

He once heard Jack say to her, ‘Jesus, babe, you don't have to
do
anything. You just gotta
be.
Sit there with your mouth shut and you're perfect. I love you.'

With half the world, as it seemed then, aching for Jack to love them too that sounded like a compliment. You're perfect. Jack loves you. Stay that way and shut up. What a trap, what an insult, Junior thought later. But only years later, and only after years of being looked after by a short string of independent women – the sort of women a lazy, easy-going man is attracted to. Because if a lazy, easy-going man wants the support of an independent woman he learns to listen to her. If you don't pay the piper, you don't call the tune. But you really should listen to it sometimes or you'll end up a lonely, lazy man.

What surprised Junior was the way his acquaintanceship with Birdie slowly turned into an on-again-off-again friendship. He was surprised that he still knew her, and even more surprised because it was she who kept in touch. At first he thought that her interest in his job was because he was useful to her. If she studied his working practices and his vocabulary, he thought, she would look less like
the gorgeous idiot everyone thought her to be, and she could stay one step ahead of the competition. But then he noticed that what she knew was of no importance whatsoever. Because no one listened to her. Even Jack, even when he was using her as a co-writer, back-up singer or piano player, behaved as if he was indulging a pretty child. Jack might come in with a rough track to show the band. It would be clear that the harmony voice was hers and that she was playing the electric piano pad which underpinned his guitar riffs, and that half the lyrical ideas could only be hers. And even though that rough guide was what the whole studio used to build a polished song, the most Jack would say was, ‘Ah well, got to keep the girl amused – can't let the girl get bored.'

Music was man stuff – unless you had a voice like Etta James or Aretha Franklin, in which case you would be allowed to sing.

Birdie did not have a big black voice. What she had was soft, white and, worse, English. She could not even be a respectable harmony singer. Her growing feel for melody and harmony was not something she could use herself. She could only give it away to people who would make it sound right.

At one time Junior thought she might want to use his expertise to give herself credibility. And it was true that she did. But even now, when he hadn't recorded with a Name for years, she still played him tapes of what her ‘baby bands' were doing and listened to his comments and suggestions. He knew that nowadays there were other, more useful, people to use as sounding-boards. He was out of it. The big time had ticked away.

But still she kept in touch. Even when he was flat broke and couldn't offer her so much as a sofa to sleep on when she showed up and hung out. Then, it was her turn to offer him notions – money-making schemes to tide him over. Schemes which were actually scams: how to blag a free meal, how to con the bank into giving him more credit, how to fake references for a suspicious landlady. In other words, she taught him how to get by in an expensive place without a penny in his pocket.

‘Swimming under water,' she called it. ‘Survival techniques, so's you can hold out till the next breath.'

Eventually it occurred to Junior that this was, quite simply, how
Birdie lived: someone else paid the bills. What was more, people seemed to fall all over themselves for the privilege. He knew he should have despised her. He knew that he should despise himself, but he could never quite summon up the energy. Drifting, as he did, between boom and bust, what he felt was a kind of kinship.

Maybe she just fuckin' likes me, he thought, when he thought about it. Maybe it's because I never hit on her. Maybe with so many sweaty erks pawing her all the time she could relax with a lazy technician who considered her out of his league.

Birdie, he thought, used to be the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. And both men and women couldn't seem to keep their hands off her.

He remembered once leaving a restaurant with Jack. What were they doing? Probably having a preproduction meeting about
Hard Candy.
After about two hours Jack called his car. Jack would never leave anywhere until he knew his transport and security were in place. Even so, on this occasion, word got out and Jack, Birdie and Junior had to wade through a boiling crowd of photographers and fans to get into the car.

Junior, in those few violent moments, had a confused nightmare impression of grabbing hands and flashing lights before he was bashed on the head and dragged into the car. The car lurched slowly away, covered in kids. Kids on the roof, kids clinging to the hood, kids spraying hearts in shaving cream or Miracle Whip on the windscreen. Kids writing ‘Screw me!', names, phone numbers, in lipstick on the windows.

Inside Jack was screaming furiously at the chauffeur and the security man. Birdie was trying to make herself decent. Her shirt had been yanked so violently that there were no buttons left and her skirt was torn to the waist. Even her lacy black underwear was in tatters.

Junior, who was feeling shocked and stupid, said, ‘Ain't stardom just peachy?'

Jack sat back adjusting his own vandalised clothing and said, ‘I reckon I must be one of the few men in the world who knows what it's like to be a beautiful woman. Junior, give the girl your jacket.'

Junior struggled out of his jacket and Birdie put it on without a word. It was big enough, even in those days, to cover her to mid-thigh. She wrapped it around her like a dressing gown and sat with her arms folded across her chest.

All legs and eyes, Junior thought, trying not to stare.

‘Yeah,' Jack said, reading his mind, ‘she'd look like a doll if she was wearing a brown paper bag. They try, but they can't seem to ruin her.'

Birdie said nothing. Of the three, she appeared to be the calmest.

‘You look like a rape victim,' Jack said. ‘Battered and beautiful. Want a fuck?' His hands were shaking and his eyes were raw and angry.

‘Do
you?
' asked Birdie.

‘Yeah,' said Jack.

‘Then go fuck yourself,' said Birdie, in her soft, white English voice.

‘I could throw you out there to the wolves,' Jack said.

‘You could,' she agreed. She searched in the small bag she always carried and produced a gold powder compact. Inside were a few capsules wrapped in tinfoil. She gave two to Jack and offered one to Junior.

‘What are they?' he asked.

‘Peace,' Jack replied, stuffing the capsules into his mouth. ‘Time out of war. Cessation of hostilities. Surrender.'

‘Jelly babies,' said Birdie.

Junior shook his head. For the rest of the trip he remained as shocked and stupid as he had been at the beginning.

What had Junior seen that day? He replayed the incident in his mind many times, especially after Jack's death. Because rumours surfaced in the press, persistent rumours which even now floated around on the Internet. They claimed that Birdie was Jack's murderess – that she had set the fatal fire, that she had drugged Jack so that he couldn't respond to the emergency, that she had supplied him with enough scag to kill six horses and then burnt him and his house to destroy the evidence.

What had he seen? Two young people under great pressure? Jack's unexpected thuggish side? Birdie controlling Jack with drugs?

Surely not that. Junior knew, better than most, that the Name, unless he's desperate or a moron, never carries his own stash. That's the roadie's job, or the friend's, or the girlfriend's. At a pinch, it might even be the sound engineer's. No one wants the Name to be busted. So, while it might look as though Jack's girl was supplying, it was more probable that she was simply carrying. Even so, when Jack died and was sanctified – as is the custom with beautiful young rock stars – Birdie was demonised. And the underground rumble was so hostile to her, so full of conspiracy whisperings, that Junior himself wondered if a small percentage might be true. Lost in Louisiana, away from the action, he read stories about mythic strangers called Jack and Birdie the way a child might read stories about Snow White and the murderous wicked stepmother. The stories, he felt, had more to do with folklore than fact, but they were as infectious as germs and, like germs, they multiplied.

Every objection was countered: why would Birdie do away with her meal ticket? Well, said the anonymous accusing voices, Jack was already fed up with her. He was going to dump her. He was seeing someone else. She was about to be publicly humiliated.

No, said others. She wanted his money. She had secretly forced Jack to marry her. In Vegas. In Mexico. In Tahiti. In Cuba. He was furious with her for her extravagance. He was going to cut off her funds. He was going to divorce her.

Wrong. She was a member of a coven. The Sisterhood of Ishtar. An extreme right-wing/left-wing sect. She was a hypnotist. She involved him in satanism. When he woke up and wised up she had to kill him.

That's stupid, said others. Why ignore the obvious? Birdie was seeing someone else. Jack caught them together. There was a fight. Jack was killed. Birdie torched the house to protect her reputation and her lover.

Who was her lover? Ah, now
there's
a loaded question. He had to be big. Someone worth protection. So let's begin with the British Royal family. The long list of possibilities began with Prince Charles and worked its way through sheikhs and kings. It included any of the fifty richest men in the world who were not gay. Industrialists. Politicians. Film stars.

And so on, and so on. It was enough to make a lazy man's head spin. And, being a lazy man, Junior simply turned his back on it as he did with anything that caused him hassle. It was easier not to think about it. If he thought about it, he might have to do something about it.

He might have to leave New Orleans and find out for himself what the truth was. He might have to accuse Birdie himself. Or he might have to defend her.

It is best to know nothing if you plan to do nothing.

Besides, Birdie never defended herself. Perhaps that was her greatest crime. She spoke to no one. She gave no interviews. Even Jack's funeral was a secret affair – the cremation, wags said, had already taken place and no one could find a grave to desecrate. Birdie was never seen in mourning. If she wore black it was because black was stylish and it suited her.