Gimme More (42 page)

I'm holding in my hand the voice that can still make my loins ache. I haven't done it any harm. It rings out clear as a bell. It's warm and cold. It's angry, hard, sad and sexy. It's funny and sly. It takes you places you've never been. It finds secret longings, corners of your soul and memory you never knew existed. It makes you get down and boogie. That voice. Remember it?

If I'd had a voice like that … ah, but I didn't. It was a gift, and it was not given to me. It was given to Jack. Jack had it and Jack used it. May God bless him and keep him. Beautiful Jack.

I didn't have a voice, but I had some music and I had some words. What could I do but give them to Jack? People wanted to listen to him. They didn't want to listen to me. Even if I'd had a voice, no one would have wanted to hear it. My young life was a performance before an audience of millions. It was a role thrust upon me by nature and my own youthful stupidity. But it was a non-speaking, non-singing role – which I suppose you could see as something of a tragedy for a woman who thought she had something to say.

But never mind. It's all over now, and at least sometimes I had Jack's voice to speak for me. I would never, never,
ever,
have harmed that voice. No. Jack did that all by himself when he burned
his throat out with boiling, choking smoke and lost it for ever. May God curse him for that. That voice could have lasted for decades if he'd taken care of it. But he didn't, and now all he has is fame – empty, resounding, eternal fame.

Here's another rock'n'roll story: this one's about the destructive power of fame. Lethal fame and lethal longing. One dark night a famous self-indulgent rock-star is prowling around his mansion under the influence of reds, greens, blues. He's a famous rock star so he has uppers and downers of all the colours of the rainbow. You name it, he's got it. He's got it so he takes it. That's what rock-stars are supposed to do. This rock-star is playing at being a rock-star, out of his skull in his lonely old mansion. He may be very famous but he can also be quite banal at times.

Outside his gate there's a hippie camp, a gathering of stoned kids who are playing at being besotted fans. They wait there, all day and all night, for a glimpse of the famous rock-star. Whenever he comes out they crowd around his car, screaming, ‘Yeah, Jack! We love you, man.'

And then, into this tableau walks the real thing – the
truly
besotted fan, the one who, when he isn't thinking he owns Jack and all his work, thinks he
is
Jack and all his work. He looks at the hippie camp. He looks at the gate. He looks at the wall. He sees no barrier. It's only God's little mistake that Jack is inside and he is outside. He is mad enough to think that he can rectify God's mistake. He can climb walls. He can cross lawns. He can walk straight into a lonely mansion on the hill. And when Jack sees him, Jack will recognise him as his brother, his twin, his other self. Because that is what Jack is to this crazy fan – his other self. So Jack will have to recognise him. There's no other way.

Except, of course, Jack doesn't recognise him. Jack sees him as a trippy nightmare figure creeping down the basement stairs with a kerosene lamp in his hand, like the robed figure of Death with empty eye sockets. Jack freaks. The mad other self freaks. The angel wrestles frantically with Death. Hell-fire laps around his ankles. The mansion on the hill burns to a crisp.

All Jack had to do was talk the guy down. All he had to do was hit the panic button. Wait for help. Ah yes, but you're forgetting all
those yellows, reds, greens and blues. And what about whatever the mad other self had dropped to help him on his crazy way?

We'll never know about that. He never even got the chance to tell Jack his name.

Anyway, I don't know how much of this is true. I'm making half of it up, and Jack couldn't remember properly the half I'm not making up. It was all a nightmare to him.

All I know for certain is that the charred bone fragments in the basement were not Jack's. And the ugly lump of gold which I wept such bitter tears over was not Jack's Egyptian ring.

When I saw Jack next it was a week later and I nearly didn't recognise him. He came in the night to Robin's kitchen door. The right side of his face and his right hand were a mass of healing burns. The fire had scorched away every beautiful hair on his head. He could only speak in a hoarse whisper. He couldn't remember where he'd been or how he got home. And he thought he was a murderer.

Technically speaking, I don't suppose anyone else would have even called him a killer, let alone a murderer. But the mad other self left an indelible calling card on Jack's mind as well as on his body.

‘Hide me,' he whispered. ‘Help me. Hide me.'

God help me, God hide me – that's exactly what I did. I thought I could heal him. Did I really think that? Did I really think at all? I know I thought I could help him find his voice again. I thought that when the burns closed, when his hair grew back, his mind would heal too. So much for the optimism of youth.

Youth and optimism faded together. Ah well – goodbye both. I was sorry to see you go, but you went – the way you always do.

And, fuck it, what was I supposed to do? Feed Jack – bald, burned, whispering Jack – to the tabloid vultures hanging around my sister's house? Are you insane?

No, I had a bolt-hole, a tiny cabin on a scruffy overgrown key on the Gulf Coast of Florida. I bought it with the proceeds from a shameful transaction in LA. Check out a certain pornographic web-site on your computer and you'll clearly see Birdie-the-whore accepting twenty-thousand dollars for unspeakable services rendered to a plump, powerful pig. You can check it out any time, night or day, courtesy of Nash Zalisky.

Unspeakable services, my arse! It was just a fuck, and it bought me a house. My house. Not the bank's, not the record company's, not Jack's. Mine. A little cedar shack on the beach. An old broken-down dock, just right for tying up an old broken-down outboard. My back door on to the mangroves – in the days when the mangroves were thick and plentiful.

In those days you could only get to the key by boat across the bay. And the bay was teeming with pompano, and the mangroves were teeming with herons, egrets and the elusive snook. Then, you could see ibis stalking the beach every morning and watch the sea eagles circling the trees. It was a safe place to hide out in.

Nowadays you're lucky ever to see an ibis, and the key is linked to three other keys and the mainland by concrete bridges which bring rivers, floods, of holiday-makers like some infernal aqueduct. The little spit of sand and greenery is groaning under the weight of condominiums and golf clubs. No, this island is no longer even an island. I could sell my few acres of it tomorrow. And believe me I've had some very tempting offers. I could sell up and move Jack to another island without a backward glance. Except that Jack won't let me because that would leave his only friend, Mekong Marty, without a home.

Mute Mekong Marty is the only man on the island uglier, madder and worse off than Jack. Jack is a peach compared to Marty, and maybe that's why Jack likes him. They built their houses together. Jack's house is right on the bay, Marty's is between Jack's house and the road. Marty and his dogs guard Jack from intruders. Marty will never leave. He'll shoot himself and his dogs – three bullets into three welcoming skulls – rather than be uprooted.

If I couldn't sell, I couldn't buy another place. The scruffy plot of land was the only thing I could call my own. So I had to watch while the road was paved, the bridges were built. More and more buildings went up and the water table went down. The ibis flew away.

Now, though, everything has changed. This slim box with Jack's bright picture on the cover has changed everything. I can move Jack and leave Mekong Marty where he wants to be. I can afford proper care for Jack and a good new outboard for me.

You'd think, wouldn't you, that I'd have told Robin. Who would be better to tell than her? She would've looked after Jack. She might have put our mother in a home for Jack's sake. Or she'd have brought her along with her two little children. She'd have lived in isolation and secret with her entire family just for the privilege of looking after Jack. Hooray for the selfless heroine, the woman who would beggar herself and die for love.

She does love him, she always has. She loved him better and much more faithfully than I ever could. It's her nature to love that way. The poor deluded cow even loves
me.

Well, that's why I never told her. I could kid you and say I kept silent to protect her and her children from the consequences of her sweet love. But no one would believe that. So I'll tell you instead that the one I want to protect from sweet love is Jack.

Obsessive love nearly killed him. He's had too much love to cope with – no one should have to suffer so much love. And Robin's sweet love would soften him and rot him to the core like sugar rots a tooth. He doesn't get that kind of love from me. Never has, never will. And he's better off without it.

I'll be with him in time for Christmas, and he'll come to the edge of the dock. He'll whisper, ‘Hey, babe. What's that you've got there? Have you brought me a present?'

And I'll say, ‘I've brought your stupid voice back, take it or leave it.'

He'll take it. And maybe he'll laugh, or maybe he'll cry, you can never tell with Jack. But one thing's certain – he won't rot. And another thing's certain – he won't starve. Not now. And nor will I.

‘KIND HEARTED WOMAN BLUES'
Robert Johnson, author
© (1978) 1990, 1991 King of Spades Music
All rights reserved. Used by permission.

‘SHE JUST WANTS TO DANCE'
Words and music by Kevin Moore and Georgina Graper
© 1994 Playin' Possum Music and Keb' Mo' Music, USA
Warner/Chappell Music Ltd, London, W6 8BS
Reproduced by permission of IMP Ltd.

‘MEMO FROM TURNER'
Written by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
© 1969. Renewed 1997 ABKCO Music, Inc.
All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.

Lyrics from ‘AWFUL'
(Love/Erlandson/Auf Der Maur/Schemel)
© 1998 by kind permission of Mother May I Music/
Polygram Music Publishing Ltd.

Lyrics from ‘ACROSS THE BORDERLINE'
(Dickinson/Hiatt/Cooder)
© 1982 by kind permission of
MCA Music Publishing/MCA Music Ltd.

‘RIGHT IN TIME'
Words and music by Lucinda Williams
© 1998 Lucy Jones Music and Nomad-Noman Music, USA
Warner/Chappell Music Ltd, London, W6 8BS
Reproduced by permission of IMP Ltd.

Liza Cody, one of Britain's most inventive writers, grew up in London. She has worked as a painter, furniture-maker, photographer and graphic designer. Her first novel,
Dupe,
won the John Creasey Prize for Crime Fiction. In 1992 she won the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger Award for
Bucket Nut,
the first of her trilogy which included
Monkey Wrench
and
Musclebound.
She lives in Somerset.

THE ANNA LEE MYSTERIES

Dupe
Bad Company
Stalker
Head Case
Under Contract
Backhand

NOVELS

Rift
Bucket Nut
Monkey Wrench
Musclebound

First published 2000
This electronic edition published in 2001 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Copyright © 2000 by Liza Cody

The moral right of the author has been asserted

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is available from the British Library

eISBN: 9781408837245

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