Gimme More (19 page)

‘No, be honest,' Petra said.

‘I was being.'

‘Oh I don't know,' Petra said. ‘I want him to notice us, that's all. Do you really think my face is too long?'

They were brimful of optimism and self-doubt. They knew which was the band's table. They knew exactly the spot on the dance floor they should occupy when the disco took over from the band. They had practised cool moves and body-rolls in Helen's bedroom until they looked like a pair of sophisticated clubbers. Their dresses had caused rows with their parents. But was it enough to make Sapper look at them? And if he looked, what would he see?

‘Oh God,' said Helen. ‘I think I've started to bloat.' She turned sideways in the mirror. ‘Do you think I'm looking bloated?'

‘It doesn't notice,' Petra said. She let her hair fall to her shoulders. A million magazines, a million pop videos, had shown her what the perfect face looked like. Surely hers was only a little too long.

‘Oh God,' they said in unison, and attacked their make-up again.

Sapper comes off stage, his skin vibrating, applause acting on him like a cocaine body-rub.

Someone presses a beer into his hand, says, ‘Good set, man. Wow.'

Dram and Corky stumble towards him. What are they doing here? Surely he's alone. Two minutes ago he'd owned the stage, the music. He'd been in sole command. The applause was his.

Dram says, ‘Fuck! We're shooting 'em dead tonight.'

Stay cool. ‘It went okay,' Sapper says.

‘Get
you!'
Corky says. ‘Mr Ice. You can't kid me. I saw you lapping it up.'

Sapper tips his head back and lets a mouthful of beer slide down his throat. His throat feels like a polished, oiled tube, infinitely supple. Could be those vocal exercises mean something. Could be they're worth more than Flambo says.

He searches through the crowd, looking for Birdie. She's been so focused on his faults. Where is she when he's showing his strengths?

There she is, on the other side of the room at a table with the record company suits. She's languid, keeping her distance, making the hard club chair look comfortable. Before Sapper can decide to risk Corky's barbed comments about arse-licking and go over to talk to her, she rises and follows Karen to the women's room.

‘Typical,' Flambo mutters. ‘I always thought Karen was a closet dyke.'

‘She wasn't before she started shagging you,' jeers Corky.

Karen began the set with shaking hands and her heart in her mouth. She ended it on an unaccustomed spasm of triumph. Is this what confidence is? she asked herself, this feeling that you have what you're doing under your own control.

The bit she never told the others in Inner Versions was that the
weeks in the rehearsal room, the writing, arranging and practising were a pleasure to her. They bitched and complained. They said, ‘This is a farce and a waste of time: we should be out there playing live.'

She, on the other hand, felt for the first time that she was coming to grips with the material. In private.

Now they were testing the material and she still felt she'd kept a grip on it. Even in public.

The women's room is crowded. When she walked through, the other women turned to watch her and for once she didn't feel they would all start sniggering behind her back.

She takes several deep breaths to calm herself. Having tasted confidence, she is suddenly afraid of arrogance.

But Birdie hugs her and says, ‘Good stuff, kid. Mama's proud of you.'

‘You're just saying that,' Karen replies automatically.

‘There's only you between prod and proud,' Birdie says. And Karen can't figure out what she means.

With the set finished Helen and Petra have to jostle to keep their places in front of the mirror. They see Karen come in and go straight to one of the bogs.

‘That's Karen,' someone says.

Helen and Petra have seen her on-stage but they didn't know her name. She isn't Sapper, so she doesn't count.

‘We could get to know her,' Petra whispers. ‘It's a way to meet HIM.'

The old woman who came in with Karen is washing her hands.

‘Do you think that's Karen's mum?' Helen whispers.

A tall girl pushes through the swing door, all hair and energy. She rushes up to the old woman and says, ‘It's great, Lin. I wish I'd worn those other shoes.'

She's the student type, jeans and not enough make-up. Helen and Petra automatically decide to hate her.

‘Are you going to introduce us to the band?' the student type says.

‘Sure,' says the old woman.

Helen and Petra exchange an agonised glance in the mirror. They turn.

‘Do you
know
them?' breathes Helen.

‘Sure,' says the old woman, smiling.

‘Do you know Sapper?' says Petra, gasping a little at saying HIS name out loud. ‘Only, me and my friend think he's…' Helen jabs an elbow in her ribs.

‘You know, the best way to meet a band is to ask for their autographs,' the old woman says. ‘They'd like that.'

‘Really? I'd feel …'

‘Yes,' the old woman says. ‘If you say you really like their music and you think they're great – that's what they want to hear. How're they going to know unless you tell them?'

‘I couldn't,' Helen says.

‘We'd die,' Petra says.

‘Could we?' Helen asks.

‘Got any paper?' the old woman says. ‘And you'll need a pen.'

Sapper suddenly finds himself surrounded by girls. At first it was just two little honeys who hung back shyly and then plucked up enough courage to approach him.

‘We think you're great,' they said in a rush. ‘Can we have your autograph?'

‘We really like the music,' one of them said.

‘Could you make it out to Helen?' said the other.

‘And Petra.'

Now he has a pen in his hand and he's modestly signing scraps of paper, beer mats, cocktail napkins, whatever they put in front of him.

He looks past the eager young bodies and sees Birdie watching.

Now she knows, he thinks. Now she'll see me for who I am.

He lifts his chin and turns his head, meeting her gaze from beneath lazy eyelids. It feels like a classic rock-star expression. It feels good. He knows he's imitating something he's seen before but he can't help it. He's starring in his own video. He sees himself from a distance, in a smoky club – somewhere blue-collar in the States. He is the tough outsider – the working boy genius – who
catches the eye of the cool, unresponsive broad. In the next scene, he's on-stage singing to her, back-lit, lonely, but so irresistible. She begins to dance. In the next scene he's dancing with her. Final scene: he walks away down a wet, lamplit street, carrying his guitar case. On the other side of the road is a white limo with darkened glass windows. One of the rear windows rolls down and the cool but melting woman watches him walk away. There is just the beginning of a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. She has plans for the tough, lonely genius. Oh yes, she does.

And it's all true. It's as if he's at last seen himself on MTV.

The thing that bewilders Ozzy Ireland the most about this gig is that he has recognised three scouts from other labels lurking in the crowd. Two come from little indie companies. But one is from MCA.

He points this out to Mr Freel who merely grunts in reply.

Later though, at the end of the first set, when the band is at the centre of a surprising rush of female attention, he hears Mr Freel ask the guy from production, ‘Just what have we signed this band for?'

The answer he hears is, ‘Interim contract. One of those suck-it-and-see things.'

‘How long?'

‘I think three months.'

Mr Freel grunts again.

Ozzy catches Birdie's eye. She winks, long and slow.

He's beginning to feel he's associated with something which might not be an instant success but which is certainly not a failure either.

‘Enthusiastic local fan-base,' he says to Mr Freel.

‘Mmm,' says Mr Freel.

Whenever Lin introduced Grace to anyone she never said, ‘This is my niece,' or ‘Meet Grace, she's my niece.' She always said, ‘This is Grace,' as if Grace needed no explanation, no reason for being with Lin except as good company. It was one of the things Grace loved her for. She wasn't an add-on, or defined by her relationship. She could be an individual.

Tonight, she's meeting a lot of people: the band, the honchos from the record company. She's at the centre of things. She's excited.

And she's lucky: she's with a guy who isn't afraid to dance. That makes him perfect. When she looks around the floor she sees so many girls dancing on their own or in all-girl groups, while
she's
out there dancing with Alec. He isn't a particularly good dancer, but he's there. He doesn't show her up or drink too much or take the piss out of dancing like some guys do.

Grace doesn't know a lot of men who enjoy dancing. Check out any dance floor and you'll see what makes Alec special.

She's glad Lin likes him enough to invite him here tonight. And she's glad he likes Lin too. Somehow it makes Grace feel more attractive if one member of her family, at least, is warm, welcoming and with it. Unlike her mother whose suspicion is almost tactile.

Perhaps I shouldn't have brought him home unannounced, she thinks. But I thought Mum was flexible. She used to be nicer to my friends. Perhaps she doesn't want me to grow up. Perhaps she's getting too old.

Grace takes a drink out of Alec's glass and feels his arm around her shoulder. They're waiting for the band to go on-stage again.

Lin comes over and says, ‘Can I leave the car keys with you, sweetie? You haven't been drinking too much, have you?'

‘Aren't you staying to the end?' Grace says, disappointed.

‘I've got to talk to some people. But if you've drunk too much to drive, call a cab.'

‘I'll drive,' Alec says. ‘I've only had a couple of beers. I won't drink any more.'

‘Isn't he perfect?' Grace blurts out.

Lin laughs and says, ‘Whaddya think, sweetie? Shall we ask him to leave his name with the booking agent? Give him a call when we need a good roadie?'

‘Why not?' Grace says, recovering.

Alec throws back his head and snorts with laughter. Grace feels she's been saved from her own obviousness.

* * *

The second set begins with ‘Thirty-nine Stitches'. Sapper hits it with everything he's got. He
is
the guy in the restaurant and he's the waitress too. He's begun to describe the song to anyone who'll listen as a character song, and tonight, for the first time, he feels the characters inhabiting him.

Bathed in white light, speeding, he picks Birdie out of the shadows in front of him. This is partly her song too. They wrote it together. A song about a young man and an older woman. He's giving it back to her – exactly how she wants it – hot and hard.

There's a heaving mass of dancers between him and her – girls, like snakes, are just about wriggling out of their skins. But he can feel her eyes. She's watching.

Next on the set list is ‘Back in the Sweatshop'. ‘Two nights with my baby – then back in the sweatshop again. Don't go, don't go, baby doncha leave me. Don't go, don't go, don't go.'

He looks for her, but she's gone. Her shadowy chair is empty. She doesn't come back.

Well, fuck her – who needs her anyway? Plenty more where that came from. Look at 'em all! Booty by the ton. All hot for me. ‘But don't go, don't go, don't go. At least, my honey, stay with me until I've finished with you.'

Right at the bitter end, in the alley behind the club, when his muscles are aching and his skin is chill with drying sweat, he tastes the sourness of partially metabolised adrenaline and amphetamine. He has gorged on live flesh, so how come he's still hungry?

Sated and wanting more, he sees two girls in strappy, slippery dresses hanging out near the van.

‘Pudding?' Dram suggests. ‘Ours?'

‘Aren't they a bit young?' says Karen.

‘They're never too young to be up for it,' Flambo says. ‘You go on home like a good girl. Unless you fancy some too.'

‘Which one is yours?' says Dram.

‘Don't fuckin' care,' says Sapper, edging forward. ‘The one with the neck. You two can fight about the other.'

The back of the Bentley was upholstered in blond suede. It was as big as a poor boy's double bed – not that I know a lot about poor boys' double beds. I leaned into the softness, closing my eyes. The ride was smooth enough to be sickening.

I wished I was alone. I wanted to empty my mind. But Sasson, who had been monosyllabic earlier, wasn't going to let that happen. The false intimacy in the back of a chauffeur-driven car was working on him.

‘I hope you didn't think I was completely unresponsive back there,' he said. ‘In fact, I think you're right – that's a nice little band you've got there. It's the commercial possibilities I have to consider.'

I sat tight behind closed eyes and didn't answer.

He continued, ‘The singer seemed to be giving it a lot of top-spin.'

What did Sasson know about top-spin? It was a silly metaphor. What everyone's looking for is a lead singer you can't drag your eyes away from, and that isn't something you can work on the way a tennis player works on a stroke. A singer's got it or he ain't – it's one of life's mysteries.

‘What's the matter, Birdie? Nothing to say? I thought you'd be pitching for him.'

‘No. I've already told you what I think would be sensible and fair.'

‘You must have a personal opinion though. I mean, think of the singers you've known. How does he stack against them?'