Gimme More by Liza Cody Read Free Book Online Page A

course, I know that the mad scientist is Father Time. But then ageing and womanhood looked like a dirty trick played on an innocent victim to turn her into a disappointed idiot. Demented underwear, it seemed, was the badge worn by a grown-up woman to set her apart from the rest of the human race.
    Oh, it was a formative experience all right. Only five years later, sitting at the feet of a legendary blues man, in torn jeans and a skinny sweater, I remember the sudden pang of acute doubt about my cotton briefs and no bra. I should not be in adult company – not because of my age and the licensing laws, but because I was wearing the wrong underwear. Or, more specifically, hardly any at all. Would Dexxy be singing
Honey Crawl
for me if he knew? Answer: yes, of course he would – extreme youth and inexperience were part of the attraction. If not the
only
attraction. I thought it was me, but it wasn’t. It was only young skin. One is never too old or too young to be deluded.
    â€˜You can come with me as far as the beach,’ said Auntie May, ‘but I’m not introducing you to my gentleman friend. He thinks I’m too young to be an auntie.’
    Robin and I were too young to understand what she really meant. What we puzzled over was how she could be too young to be an aunt when she was three years older than our mother.
    â€˜Your Auntie May has a heart of gold,’ Dad said when we got home, ‘but she’s a very silly woman.’ And we accepted his judgment. We had, as Robin said, mistaken blind panic for vanity.

III
The Band
    Inner Versions is a clever-dick band from Oxford. Sapper, lead vocals and rhythm guitar, spent a year at Exeter College before dropping out. He likes to give the impression that he barely made it to the tech. He doesn’t want to be thought of as an elitist bastard. Dram, lead guitar and back-up vocals, studied art at St Martin’s. He’s less shy about his education and talent. Corky, bass, actually did go to Oxford Tech and he has a qualification in psychology. He never mentions it. Flambo, drums, did two years Eng Lit at St Katherine’s. Inner Versions is Flambo’s brainchild. He can’t sing, he can’t write songs, but he knows, absolutely knows, what the band ought to sound like. Karen, keyboards and back-up vocals, went to the Guildhall School of Music. She doesn’t know how the band should sound but she shags Flambo so she agrees with him.
    Each member of Inner Versions has learned something about the craft of music-making. Each has a little talent. All are hugely ambitious. All would deny it. Together, they are constantly at war. Separate they are nothing. They are intelligent enough to know this, but they are dumb enough to hide their intelligence.
    They want to look like an inner-city warehouse band but they want to sound like Cream if Cream were playing today. They want to be more famous than the Beatles. They want to be richer than the Stones. Cream, the Beatles and the Stones were making their names before the members of Inner Versions were born. But Sapper, Dram, Corky, Flambo and Karen know the legends. The legends serve to feed them and keep them hungry.
    After a couple of years playing the pub, club, college circuit on amixed repertoire of original songs and covers, Inner Versions were taken up in a lukewarm way by a record company called Dog. It wasn’t what the band had been dreaming of, but shit, you’ve got to start somewhere.
    The trouble is that they know, know,
know
that they’re more talented and prettier than bands who are doing a lot better than they are.
    They need a little bit of luck – a little bit of magic. That’s all.
    And when it is offered to them, they need the wit to recognise it for what it is.
    Karen recognises it almost from the beginning. The others are sceptical. Flambo is dismissive. He says, ‘You
are
shitting us, aren’t you? The deal is, we sign, you pay, we get studio