by Liza Cody
Jack grins at him and raises a bottle of some local brew to his lips. He blows a long hollow note across the neck and says, ‘Hear that lonesome whistle blow?’
‘B-flat, I reckon,’ Teddy says, cupping one ear.
‘That’s our message,’ Jack says. ‘Be sharp.’
‘Yeah, man,’ says Chip. ‘But what’re you telling the kids? Y’know, with the bomb and Agent Orange and shit?’
‘Nothin’ they don’t already know,’ Jack says.
‘Like what?’
‘Live, love and be happy,’ Teddy says, “cos tomorrow kerboom.’
‘Keep changing the light bulb at the top of the stairs,’ Jack says with infinite wisdom. ‘That’s the one you need.’
Jack has made mincemeat of professional interviewers, and Chip would give up right now if he wasn’t too stoned to realise that Jack is being neither friendly nor gnostic.
‘Yeah, man,’ Chip says in a wondering tone of voice, ‘the light bulb … Like, ah, don’t be left in the dark?’
Oh, this is wonderful. I turn to the technician and say, ‘This bit. Let’s transfer this bit to video.’
‘OK,’ says the technician. ‘What the fuck’re they on about?’
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘The message is that there’s no message.’
But Chip isn’t ready to throw in the towel. He says, ‘But Jack, man, some of those songs are, like, so far out … There’s that one line, y’know, you were doing it over and over just now … “Hold me down when the hot wind shatters time …” I can’t get my head around it.’
‘Don’t ask me,’ Teddy says. ‘I only play guitar.’
‘Jack?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ Jack says slowly and thoughtfully.
Chip waits. Teddy waits. And Jack gets up to retrieve the ball a kid has kicked at his legs. He doesn’t come back. Teddy sits in silence for a few seconds. Then he says, ‘Yeah, lyrics, man. They’re the things they use to break up the guitar solo, aren’t they? Yeah, I thought so. Not much use otherwise.’
Chip says nothing. Jack’s gone. There’s nothing left to say. Teddy knows this – it’s why he hates Jack – but he sits there stubbornly until his wife, Christy, crouches down beside him and gives him a slice of pineapple. End of sequence.
That is the first and only time you’ll see Christy in this movie. She’s doing what she did many, many times – rescuing Teddy from the small, intolerable humiliations which are a second fiddler’s lot. Nice woman. Good cook. Fiercely loyal until Teddy dumped her. I would have liked her if she’d liked me. But she didn’t. Naturally.
I didn’t have any girlfriends then – except Robin. Sisterhood as a universal concept rather than a family connection was a thing of the future. Suspicion was much more prevalent than support. Nowadays, I could have all the girlfriends I ever missed when I was Jack’s blonde piece. Oh yes – a drop in your oestrogen level does wonders for your popularity rating with other women. But nowadays it is I who am suspicious. Where were these sisters when I was edible and supple? They were out spreading the whorey rumours and telling naughty stories about me to journalists. The zeitgeist was whispering a different message in those days from the one it whispers now, and women are very sensitive listeners to the Zeitgeist.
‘Let’s take a break,’ I say to the technician. ‘Is there a decent pub within walking distance? I’ll buy you a drink.’
‘OK,’ he says. ‘I’d better ring the girlfriend, tell her I’m going to be late.’
She won’t mind if an old broad buys her feller a drink, will she? Old broads aren’t any threat. Oestrogen and the zeitgeist are walking hand in hand a long, long way from island breezes and leggy, drifty chicks. No one will be betrayed tonight. Or will they?
V
Game Over
Alec dreamed he was in a playground surrounded by bright red and yellow swings and slides. Someone – his mother? – gave him something to hold. He carried the bundle up the ladder to the top of the tallest slide and let it go, intending to follow it down. But for some reason he didn’t. He climbed up to a higher level and from there he saw, far below, a tiny baby rocketing, accelerating, towards the ground. The shawl it had been bundled up in blew away leaving the baby naked and tumbling, skidding uncontrollably, down the glittering steel slope.
‘She didn’t tell me,’ he said, jerking upright in bed and seeing two giant female forms looming over him.
‘Didn’t tell you what?’ Grace asked. The ceiling light was on, blinding him.
‘Get dressed,’ Birdie said. ‘And be quiet. Don’t disturb Robin. We’ll be in the kitchen.’
‘Wha’ …’ Alec mumbled, knuckling his eyes.
‘The kitchen,’ Grace said, ‘and be quick.’
He peered at his bedside clock. 03.18. He looked back at the door. The women were gone.
He was awake, sort of. He dressed in T-shirt and track bottoms, and stumbled as quietly as he could down to the kitchen.
Birdie was sitting at her usual place at the table. She was wearing a long red robe of some kind. Grace was making tea.
As he entered, Grace put the lid on the teapot and then came over to him.
He said, ‘What’s up?’
For a second she said nothing, and then she hauled off and hit him a stunning smack around the ear. As his face swung away from the blow, his other ear met her other hand. Whack, whack. He staggered back. She pursued him and kicked him very hard on the shin.
He howled once and from his position, kneeling on the floor, he saw the hem of a red robe sweep around him and heard the kitchen door snap shut.
‘Shut up,’ Grace said. ‘You’ll wake Mum.’
‘What’re you doing?’ he gasped, crouching, trying to protect himself from the next stinging slap.
‘That’s my question,’ Grace said, delivering another one, two, three.
‘Enough,’ Birdie said quietly. ‘I think the tea might be ready to pour.’
When he looked up Birdie was back in her place, calmly holding out a cup, and Grace just as calmly was pouring tea.
‘You’re mad,’ Alec said. His shin was throbbing and aching. His face was hot and stinging. His teeth felt loose. His ears rang.
‘Too right I’m mad,’ Grace said. ‘You used me, you bastard.’
‘You’re rumbled,’ Birdie said. ‘Take it like a man.’
‘If that’s what you are,’ said Grace.
He stared at them, his mind running like a dog trying to catch its own tail. What did they know?
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘What am I supposed to have done?’
‘Oh dear,’ Birdie said. ‘This is going to take for ever. We’ve got an asshole on our hands.’
‘No, really,’ he pleaded. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘What don’t you understand?’ Grace said. ‘That cheating and lying and screwing a girl just to get into her house to spy on her aunt might upset me? Why should a tiny detail like Grade-A treachery spoil a beautiful friendship?’
‘Look who’s talking.’ Alec was short of breath and his eyes and nose seemed to be running but he could still defend himself. He appealed to Birdie: ‘She was the one who started talking about you.’
‘Don’t go down that road,’ Birdie said, sipping her tea. ‘That’s between her and me. Concentrate on what’s between you and her. You’ve got one chance and one chance only. Blow it and you’re out.’
‘What chance?’ Alec said.
‘Don’t talk to me. Talk to Grace.’
‘That’s right Alec,’ Grace said. ‘Explain yourself to me. And don’t lie. You left your laptop switched on so I know about Mr Freel and Mr Stears and “the subject”. I know about your cameras and tape recorders. I know all that. Explain what you did to me. Tell me just who the fuck you think you are.’
She was sitting very straight and tall. Her face was pale and as hard as china.
There was only one thing left to lie about. Alec said, ‘Oh Jesus Christ, Grace. I’m only a guy who wanted a jo
b. I had no idea I’d feel this way.’ That was true – he’d had no idea he’d be standing on the rim of a chasm with his teeth wobbling and his leg half broken.
‘I’ve had ten jobs since I left college,’ he said, ‘and it’s been hard. I wound up at Memo Movies on a trial. They’re making a film about Jack. I was just trying to get myself noticed. I was visiting all the Jack web-sites when I met you. You seemed to know everything so I hung on to you. I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know I’d feel this way about you.’
‘And how’s that exactly?’
‘Grace, I …’ Maybe this was the question he’d been avoiding all his life. His head felt like a toybox: he was scrabbling about, looking for something at the bottom, couldn’t find it.
‘Well?’
‘Grace, I … I just want to be close to you,’ he said desperately. ‘I want to be part of your life.’
Miracle. For a split second it looked as if the china mask might melt.
‘What about your girlfriend?’ she said, bone-hard again.
This time, his mind, like anxious hands, searched his hard disc. What had she seen? What had he written?
He shrugged hopelessly.
Grace and Birdie exchanged one of those terrifying, wordless female glances.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he cried. ‘I lied to her too. I said I was on a management course. I’ll have to tell her, whatever happens here. I can’t go on with her any more. Not since you.’
It felt true and untrue. His girlfriend was safe, and part of him would’ve given anything to be safe right now. Another part of him knew that she was from the lumpen past.
He fastened on to the bit that felt true. He said, ‘I’ve never met anyone like you before. I didn’t know I could feel … this way. I think you’ve … changed me.’
Grace looked at Birdie again. She said, ‘Do you believe him?’
Birdie, in her red robe, detached and almost judicial, said, ‘Hard to say, sugar. You must make up your own mind. Sometimes they luck into the right words. Sometimes they believe them – that’s what makes it so hard. He seems to believe himself, but Grace, that doesn’t mean that what he says is true.’
‘Well, I think I believe him.’
‘But remember, he came into this house like a spy. He courted you, cultivated you with his own ambition in mind. You were a convenience, a means to an end.’
‘It’s true,’ Alec blurted out, ‘but I …’
‘He kept it going,’ Birdie went on, implacable. ‘You have to ask yourself, would he ever have come clean if you hadn’t rumbled him?’
‘I’ve been going crazy,’ Alec said, to Birdie. ‘In the last few days I felt I was splitting apart. I didn’t know what to do. But, Grace, you’ve read my last e to Mr Freel – you can see I was trying to find a way to make him back off.’
Grace looked at Birdie again. ‘That’s true, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Yes, but why, baby?’
‘Why, Alec?’
‘Because …’ This was the big one, this was where you were expected to expose your throat. ‘Because what I was doing was wrong. Not just to you, Grace, although that was the worst. I was doing wrong to all of you.’ He turned to Birdie again. ‘They said you were a bitch … a sort of monster. Like you aren’t really human. So, at first I thought it was a sort of game. But they were wrong, and I’m so, so sorry.’
Grace said, ‘Don’t you believe him?’
‘Believe what? That Sasson and Barry told him I was a bitch? Yes, I believe that. That he thought it was all a game? Yes, that too. That he’s so, so sorry? Grace, honey, you have to think very carefully before you believe a guy who says he’s sorry.’
God, she was hard. Alec felt his eyes and nose running again. That’s what always happens when you apologise, he thought. They throw it back in your teeth. He tried to wipe his nose on his T-shirt.
Grace said, ‘Well, I’ve thought about it and I believe him. I’m going to give him a cup of tea.’
Oh you little angel, Alec thought. You do like me. You really do.
‘Get him an ice pack while you’re about it,’ Birdie said languidly. ‘Unless you’d still prefer to give him an ice pick.’
‘I am doing the right thing, aren’t I?’
‘Only you can say,’ Birdie said. ‘Only time will tell. It’s a hung jury, but it’s your vote which counts.’
Blag your way in, Alec thought, and then …
‘One piece of advice,’ Birdie said to Grace, ‘before you give him anything more than a cup of tea, if you want to know where he’s coming from, make him take you to Hull to see his mother.’
Oh shit, shit, shit, Alec thought. He could feel himself blushing. ‘Stanmore, actually,’ he said.
‘You see,’ Birdie said, as if he hadn’t spoken, ‘with relationships, you take things on faith which no way would you take on faith in business. If you don’t want to get burned again, check his references. It’s only fair. He’s already checked yours – in fucking spades.’
Grace looked at Alec.
‘OK,’ he said reluctantly.
‘Tomorrow? I mean today?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Now you can give him an ice pack,’ Birdie said. ‘And Grace, if you’re satisfied and you still want him after you’ve seen his mum, between us we might be able to come up with a plan to rescue his job. Because, as of this moment, he’s lost all his points with Sasson and Barry, as well as with you. He’s an embarrassment, and they won’t be as kind as you when they find out.’
‘You’re not going to make me quit?’ Alec said in surprise. Mentally, he was already on his way to the job centre.
‘Do you want to?’ Grace asked.
Key question. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They lied to me … about your aunt.’
‘They manipulated you,’ Birdie said, looking directly at him, the dazzling blue eyes almost pinning him to the wall. ‘What do you expect in show business? But if you have a choice, my advice to you would be don’t quit from a position of weakness. Wait till you’re strong and then flounce. Whether you have a choice or not depends on Grace. I’m going to bed.’
It was as if the spotlight had been switched off and he was left in the warmer, dimmer glow of Grace’s hazel eyes. He sat down, carefully, and buried his face in his hands.
Now what? Exposed, humiliated, hurt. He should be toast. Why wasn’t he toast? Because Grace saved him? No. Birdie allowed Grace to save his ass. Why? What for?
Ah. Alec saw a glimmer of light flicker across his screen. Game over? I don’t think so – there’s the double game to consider, the double infiltrator, the double agent. There’s information and then there’s misinformation. She must have thought of that.
And if she hasn’t, Alec thought, I’ll score points by suggesting it myself.
VI
Here Today Gone Tomorrow
Blackened redfish with some étouffée and jambalaya on the side, complementing the sweet potato – hog heaven. Junior gazed at his plate in ecstasy. On stage were Eddie LeJeune and the Morse Playboys – another rare treat. On the dance-floor some of the best Cajun dancers in the city were executing the fancy footwork and controlled mayhem which went with the music. Traditional Cajun alive and kickin’, Junior thought. Alive and cookin’, he added, piling a little of everything on to his fork.
‘You can’t do better than Mulate’s,’. he said, through the starburst of flavours.
Barry Stears nodded. ‘Perhaps a little spicy,’ he said, cautiously prodding the bulging area under his rib-cage, preparing it for invading enemies.
Junior did the arithmetic: good music to listen to, plus good food to taste, plus good dancers to watch, minus Barry to deal with, equals … Well, even with Barry alongside, he still came out ahead. Especially when Barry was picking up the tab.
‘Where were we?’ Barry asked.
‘You’re making a TV programme about Jack and you want to interview me. For a fee.’
‘Right,’ Barry sai
d, mashing étouffée into his potato. ‘How does that sound?’
‘Fair enough,’ Junior said. ‘As long as it’s here in N.O. – I don’t want to travel, man. They’re making the planes too small and they won’t let you smoke. And as long as we talk about the music – I won’t do the gossip. And as long as the fee’s cool. I’ll have to ask Sandrine.’
‘I’m particularly interested in Hard Candy.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Not just the album,’ Barry said. ‘You went to the Caribbean, didn’t you, when they were doing the demos?’
‘Yeah, six weeks. We worked most nights and slept most days. I didn’t come home with much of a tan.’
‘What do you remember about it?’
For a moment Junior held his loaded fork suspended between plate and mouth. ‘Making do,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t a proper studio – we had to build a lot of it ourselves. There were people everywhere – wives, friends, girlfriends, kids off the beach. Sometimes they’d have the kids singing and playing too. Dustbin lids and spoons. Nice stuff, lots of fire and invention.’
‘And a film crew?’
‘Yeah, a handful of young guys. It was a mess, but we got the job done.’
Barry reached into his inside pocket and pulled out an envelope which he placed next to Junior’s plate.
‘What’s this?’ Junior asked.
‘Photographs. I wonder if you’d look at them and tell me if you think they were taken then.’
Reluctantly, Junior put down his fork and examined eight rather sludgy colour stills – Jack and Birdie playing in the surf, Jack and Birdie sharing a hammock, Jack on a shady veranda rolling a joint.
‘Yes, look – that’s the studio,’ he said. ‘See what it was like? Jerry-built. No proper sound-proofing. Where did you get these?’
‘They’re stills from the movie,’ Barry said.
‘What movie? Oh, that movie. Is this the thing Teddy came to see me about?’
‘It might be,’ Barry said, collecting up the photographs and restoring them to his pocket. ‘For a long time I thought it’d been destroyed.’
Junior looked at Barry, taking in his tailoring and trendy tie, so tight-assed and out of place among the jeans and epigrammatic T-shirts. He realised for the first time that Barry wasn’t drinking. Uh-oh, hassle. He said, ‘Look, I told Teddy – I never saw the movie, and Birdie never stored anything with me.’