Gimme More (9 page)

‘What do you want to do, Birdie?' Sasson says. He shows no annoyance whatsoever, just the same embarrassed concern he'd shown years ago. He remembers.

I turn my head away. ‘It's all right,' I whisper. ‘But I'd be much more comfortable next door.'

‘Let's do that then,' Sasson says and takes charge.

I stood back and watched him explain and apologise to the
ma
î
tre' d.
He was firm, quick and polite. No fuss. I wondered what he thought about violence against girlfriends nowadays. Had he understood the reality or was this patrician
noblesse oblige?

We went outside and I felt the wind blow the velvet against my body. My hair flowed like water across my face.

‘Just like that
Rolling Stone
cover picture,' Sasson said suddenly.

‘Hah!' I said. ‘Never kid a kidder, but thank you.'

‘You look well,' he said, returning to formality.

Inside the Pizza Express, neither he nor I ordered an American Hot. Instead we ate salads and he began by asking after Robin. I was surprised he remembered her name but maybe he'd prepared for this meeting too.

Then he asked about InnerVersions.

‘What do you think?' he said. ‘The A&R report was equivocal.'

‘Hmm,' I said. ‘Could be something in the mid-list if current trends persist for a year or two. Could be not. Depends what Dog has in mind.'

Sasson didn't take the bait so I went on, ‘The frontman's quite pretty. He has a goodish voice which could come up with polishing, but he has a lot to learn. There's a girl with a lot of musical talent but very little in the pretty department. The others are betwixt and between.'

‘Meaning?'

‘Meaning, unless Dog wants to invest more development money, at the moment there isn't enough shaggability to compensate for naïve musical ideas.'

‘Brutal,' he said, ‘but succinct.'

‘But they're improving rapidly and would improve even more if the label is willing to commit time and money. You
could
have a nice little earner if you're at all interested in your mid-list.'

‘We put
you
with them.'

‘Peanuts, Sasson, and you know it. Dog always puts me with bands that aren't ready for a big commitment.'

‘We trust your judgment, Birdie.'

I smiled sweetly.

‘Damn it, Birdie,' Sasson said, ‘I know that smile. It means you think I'm talking through my underpants.'

‘It means, what's your interest, all of a sudden? The Managing Director doesn't usually ask me for an interim report. In fact, I've worked with several Dog acts in the last few years and this is the first time I've met a top exec. And how long has it been since
we
met?'

‘Too long,' he admitted. ‘I just wanted to know how you were doing.'

‘Fine,' I said. ‘Fine and sweet as sugar candy.'

‘Good.'

My bland blue stare met his bland brown one across the table. We both smiled.

‘So is it true?' I say.

‘Is what true?'

‘That you are Dog's new hit man.'

‘Is that what they're saying?'

‘They're saying that you're cutting the dead wood, redefining Dog in order to make it attractive for a big buy-out. Or it's going belly up.'

‘Amazing,' says Sasson. ‘Where
do
these stories come from?'

‘Paranoia in the record industry – amazing indeed,' I say.

‘Are
you
paranoid, Birdie?' Neat little sidestep there, Sasson. I laugh.

‘Have some wine,' Sasson says, ‘and don't worry.' He fills my glass. ‘I believe', he goes on, ‘that every now and then, there is a minor clear-out on the ground floor. You needn't take it as anything more dramatic than prudent housekeeping.'

Needn't I, Sasson? Well, that's nice to know.

I sip the wine. It's simple and tasty.

He says, ‘Really, Birdie, you mustn't worry. Your instinct for trends will always be useful, whatever happens.'

The sum of all my experience, experiences and experiments – the net weight of my talents is reduced to an ‘instinct for trends'.

I put my glass down and closed my eyes. Lunch with Sasson was beginning to feel like an unsuccessful fishing trip. I could feel a boat rocking under my feet, wind in my face. The dark red ball of a setting sun tells me it's time to gun the motor and go home, but I flick my wrist and send the hook and line sailing out into a pool of still water between the writhing mangrove roots. One more time, just one more time. There's slim silver snook in there.

What's fascinating about fishing is the uncertainty. If you
knew
you could always catch a fish, it'd be called catching. But you don't know, so it's called fishing.

* * *

‘Birdie?' Sasson said. ‘You aren't listening.'

‘What did you say?'

‘I was wondering if you'd like to have coffee at my place. I have a wonderful new espresso machine and I can make it much better than they can here.'

One more time? ‘Why not?' I said. But I picked up my wine glass again. The Pizza Express was safe and cheerful. Conversation clattered around us, echoing off the marble surfaces. I was in no hurry to move. Maybe getting in here would be my only victory. Such a small thing – to make Sasson change the venue of a meal – in other ways his well-kept exterior remained impregnable. He was regarding me with amused dark eyes, not giving anything away.

Yesterday's Sasson had been such a transparent, eager fish. And yet power and money suited him. The extra weight seemed like substance rather than fat. Old, sloppy Sasson dithered whereas this strange familiar man lurked with quiet confidence.

He emptied the wine bottle into my glass and said, ‘What're you thinking, Birdie?'

‘Not thinking – listening to the reverb in this restaurant,' I said promptly. Because when a man says he wants to know what you're thinking, the odds are fifteen to one he's lying. I went on, ‘Remember “Going Down in the Diner”? The diner reverb we dubbed on to the coda?'

‘Good lord, Birdie,' he said, sitting back in his chair and looking at me with narrowed eyes as if trying to read someone else's paper from a distance. ‘You
do
have an eidetic memory, don't you? It's odd. You never struck me as someone who lived in the past.'

‘I didn't have much past to live in years ago.'

‘I remember some things,' Sasson said, ‘but they're just facts, like old newspaper articles. They don't
live.'

‘How grey,' I said. ‘As a matter of interest, Sasson, doesn't the word “eidetic” refer to visual memory? I was talking about a sound. What's the word for that? Ear-detic as opposed to eye-detic?'

‘Aural,' Sasson said flatly.

‘Boring,' I said.

He shook his head. ‘What is it with you, Birdie? Games, games, games. You haven't changed at all.'

‘Why should I?'

‘Age,' he said. ‘Real life. No money. Aren't they humbling experiences?'

A slap in the face, no less.

‘Humbling to whom?' I said sweetly. ‘Are you
humbled
by your age or your real life?'

‘But I'm not you,' he said. ‘I never had it all and lost it. No peaks to tumble from.'

‘And you were never a woman. So youth and beauty don't matter. You aren't “humbled” by grey hair and a paunch. You never made anything except money so your work will never go out of style. You were never stylish. You were never judged for the way you looked or your shaggability or your “instinct for trends”. You just sell what stylish shaggable people produce.'

‘Birdie, I…' He was flustered and dithering now. I was relieved to see it because letting myself go has no place in my scheme. It's indistinguishable from letting myself down.

‘Games!' I said in disgust. ‘You think of games as winning and losing. Why can't games be merely playful?'

‘Because yours, yours and Jack's, were always designed for the bright and beautiful. You never gave the rest of us a chance.'

Aha, I thought. An old wound. It went some way to explaining his surprising outburst.

I said, ‘
Now
who's tripped over memory? I make a bad pun and young Sasson cries “foul”. Were you “humbled” by your youth, Sasson, the way I'm supposed to be “humbled” by my age?'

‘Yes,' he said, vehemently. ‘That was the wrong word. I apologise for it. But yes. I could never keep up.'

‘With what?'

‘With Jack. And you, when you came along. You made matters infinitely worse. At least, before you turned up, I was part of the team. At least I was useful. You changed the game. The team became you and Jack. Everyone else excluded. Everyone else made to feel dull and plodding.'

I said, ‘Couples are like that. All couples exclude.'

‘Yes,' he said, ‘but…' It seemed as if he was going to go on but he restrained himself. I'm sure he would've said, ‘But Jack was
different. Jack was special. Every piece of Jack you took was a piece I couldn't keep for myself.'

Picture. A young guy with Spanish black hair picks up the phone. An agent is offering his talent a soon-to-be-very-famous photographer for his new album cover. When he puts down the receiver he rushes to tell his talented friend. Without knocking, he opens a door and sees the golden body of his talented friend asleep naked on indigo satin sheets. A golden girl sprawls like an exhausted kitten across his belly. The talent opens a sleepy, sensual eye and says, ‘Fuck off, Sasson.'

Picture. A young guy with eyebrows that meet in the middle knocks at a door he would have previously walked through without thought. There is no reply, but he can hear a piano being played so he thinks it's all right. He opens the door and sees his golden friend sharing a piano stool with the golden girl. He has his left arm around her shoulders. She has her right arm round his waist. He is playing chords with his right hand. She is playing a skipping bass line with her left. He is singing nonsense words. She is harmonising with a shoo-wa line. They are both trying not to giggle. The young guy with the single eyebrow says, ‘Sorry, Jack, but…' The music stops. The giggling voices shut up. Two heads turn simultaneously. Two pairs of Siamese cats' eyes blink. Jack says, ‘Fuck off, Sasson.'

Sorry, Sasson, but it was a romance. You wouldn't expect to break in on Jack and Jill's honeymoon, would you? So why were you so hurt by Jack and Birdie's? Why was
everyone
so furious when they were excluded? Answer that one honestly, Sasson, and see what it tells you. It won't tell you anything about love that you don't already know. But it might tell you a little something about your attitude to a star.

Now, that's a sorry nest of snakes to uncover in the Pizza Express at Hyde Park Corner. It wasn't my intention. It wasn't Sasson's either. But, whatever he says about memory, he's as much a victim of it as I am. I intended to use it but, instead, it used me. He wanted to keep memory and me at arm's length. But it seems we both jumped out and bit him.

Lunch is a bust.

It was time to fold my hand and pass.

I put the wine glass down and say, ‘Thank you so much for lunch.' Good little girl. I say, ‘And thanks so much for your offer of coffee but I'm afraid I have to blow.'

‘Please don't go,' he says, without meeting my eyes.

This was unexpected. I thought he would be relieved. No one likes a witness to a lapse of control. And, if I'd read him right, his control was something he prized.

I watched while he composed himself. Which is to say, I watched himput the table straight. He folded his paper napkin, tidied the cutlery, rearranged the salt, the pepper, the flowers, as if they were on an office desk. When he was satisfied, he turned in his chair and beckoned a waiter. The waiter came immediately and, calmed by obedience, Sasson's rich patrician manner returned. He asked for the bill.

Only then did he make eye contact. ‘That was stupid,' he said. ‘You must be right about memory. But I didn't come to pick at old scars and I certainly didn't mean to be insulting. I don't know what happened. But I do hope you'll come to my flat for coffee. I promised an old friend we'd meet him there.'

An executive apology: the apology of a man or woman who would not apologise if it weren't tactically necessary.

I raised one brow and gave him my blue Siamese stare.

‘Barry Stears,' he said smoothly. ‘I believe you had dinner with him a few weeks ago.'

So that was what lunch was about. Not a meeting between old friends. Not my baby band. Bloody Barry. I put my elbow on the table and rest my chin on the heel of my hand. It's a pose which does wonders for your jaw line. You can also hide any expression of distaste which might twist your perfect lipstick.

Oh yeah, summon the tricky little lady, soothe her with lunch and small talk. Keep filling her glass and then lure her to your apartment with promises of a slick new espresso machine. She'll fall for that, won't she? Then you can spring Fat Barry. And the big bad wolf will eat her all up.

‘Look,' Sasson says, ‘I know you don't take Barry seriously but he's become a media heavyweight and you'd be wise to listen to him.'

‘Forgive a crude question,' I say, ‘but what's it to you?'

‘Well, you don't answer his letters or his e-mail. You don't return his calls. Your sister won't let him in the house. Why? He's harmless enough.'

The waiter interrupts by placing the bill in front of him. He snaps his platinum card down and waves it away without looking. Careful, Sasson, that might have been me.

I say, ‘Sorry, but I don't want to meet Barry.'

‘Why?'

‘Because he's a grave robber, a body snatcher.'

‘Come now, Birdie,' says Barry's ambassador, ‘there's no need to get emotional about it. He isn't as bad as all that.'