Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones Read Free Book Online

long time girlfriend, had suddenly become vocalist and rhythm guitarist Jordan Preston’s girlfriend instead. Such as, Sage had recently lost the final round in his messy and pricey attempts to recover the rights to the Heads’ first album, the legendary Morpho. Promising material for invective; or with luck a more physical exchange.
    ‘Oh! Could I talk to you guys?’
    Allie Marlowe had left with the suits, but she’d come back. She stood hugging her attaché case, nervous and self-important. ‘Oh, Paul would like to, um, put a proposal to some of you. I have a list of names here.’
    She read out her list, and dispensed slips of fresh-pressed plastic.
    ‘You’ll need those for ID. Must rush, I have to talk to Pigsty.’
    The selected looked at each other in bemusement. ‘Holy Fuck,’ said a style-victim black youth, with a crimson brush cut and the face of a depraved cherub, ‘What did we audition for? Does anyone know?’
    His companion tossed back shining brown cavalier ringlets. ‘Oh, Oh, Oh, pass the plutonium, Darius. We’ve been sampled for destruction.’
    Silly boys, thought Fiorinda.
    ‘I know I had my particulars taken down,’ said an older, booming voice. That gave her a jolt. She remembered being scanned, at the enrollment table. Bravado aside, it was the first time to her knowledge that she’d been handled by the law: and she didn’t like it. Happily Sage seemed to have lost interest in plaguing the guitar-man, so they could leave, and she didn’t have to come back.
    After the LSE gig, Ax returned to the house on the Lambeth Road that belonged to his good friend Rob Nelson, of the PoMo band Snake Eyes ; who shared it with his three fabulous girlfriends (aka The Eyes) and various other members of the tribe. He was staying there, while the Chosen camped at Reading, because he needed to be at the heart of this thing; and he didn’t want to be in the Park. Some time after midnight he left the house, stone cold sober, and walked through the poorly-lit, humid night, up the long, straight road to the river. He liked walking, it helped him think. When you walked you saw things, felt things, smelt things that occupied the outer layers of the mind, freeing-up the machinery. A stack of binbags big as a house, who did that, and was it art? A scuttling rat with an immensely long tail; a pair of barefoot, horrible-looking little children crouched asleep in a doorway.
    The city was not sleeping. It crawled with light and movement, but on Vauxhall Bridge there was nobody about. A full moon slipped between broken clouds. Ax had talked to the band, his brothers Shane and Jordan, and Milly. Made sure they were okay, warned them he was going to be away a couple more days, doled out praise and customized attention for each of them. Attention keeps people sweet, one of those little mechanical tricks he’d picked up. Obviously no substitute for real feeling, but you don’t always have time for real feeling, and you always need to keep people sweet. He walked up and down, pondering the imponderables of life: like why was his Dad such a shite, and what about that little red-haired girl?
    A few years ago, when the Chosen had their rush of money, he’d done the traditional thing and bought his parents a nice house outside Taunton, his home town. Mum and Dad were still living there, along with Ax’s youngest brother and his sister, but Dad—without telling Ax—had raised two mortgages on the property, spent the money and fallen behind on the payments. The situation had just gone critical, which was why Ax knew about it. It was amazing, the amount of fucking stupid behaviour his Dad could pack into a life that should be problem free. Get out of bed, go down the pub. What else had ever been asked of the bastard?
    He wished he could sort that problem, once and for all. Since he knew he could not he put it aside, and contemplated instead the things that had gone down today: itemising faces, names, quirks of behaviour,