Authors: Jeff Noon
Interviews, photo shoots, radio appearances.
At no time did George Gold turn up, not even to push his head round a doorway and say hello.
Christina stayed loyal.
She slipped Nola a little something in tablet form. ‘Here we are. This will reinforce all your self-belief systems, believe me.’ Now they drank tea together, overstewed studio beverage laced with a whiskey shot. They laughed at blue jokes and whispered gossip of rival stars. Christina was ten years older than Nola. She was an old-school fleshhappy pop theorist with a sideline in drugs and radical mindfuck, who told stories of all the girl and guy fans she had stolen from Nola over the last year, just for a night’s pleasure. And she smiled so brightly and nodded right on cue and held Nola’s hand for good luck. But the other professionals they met along the way - reporters, marketing people, photographers and the like - they were treating Nola differently, as though she were already used-up goods. But Nola did her best, at times even better than that, feeling the old passion coming back, all beatlust, swagger and kudos. No doubt, the pill working. But more than that. Nola was buzzing on her own dream. And all went well until she had to record a filmed performance of the song, to be broadcast later that week on
Love is Cheap
, a teenage lifestyle programme.
Mime show. The usual.
Nola shook her head. ‘Chris, tell them. I want to sing it live.’
‘They’re all set up.’
‘Tell them.’
Christina’s eyes turned dark. ‘You do want they want. That’s the deal.’
Yes. The deal. Sponsorship. Packaging. So many units shipped, such and such a revenue.
And...smile.
Lips moving to the playback.
(
wanna, wanna
)
Music in the earphones.
(
I just wanna
)
Mouth and body operating in sync, no problems, but then a bulb clicked out overhead, and suddenly Nola saw herself from up there, from the lighting rig above.
Life playing at a distance, herself some creature of cloth and powder, hardly there at all. Pierced by the follow spot: red-shaded, green, then yellow, bright and burning.
Inane steps of the choreography, supposed to make her look good or sexy or saleable or something.
Hot skin, prickles of sweat under her clothes.
You know I wanna,
I wanna get to know you.
But now she couldn’t make the lyric/mouth relationship work properly, not at all. Her lips moved ahead of the playback, and then dragged back, too slowly. Take after take had to be made, until finally the director was shouting at her. He was making it worse.
Skip, stumble. Knock of her shoes on wood.
Words coming out in a rush:
I wanna (I just wanna) really want to get to know the real you.
All. All of you. Let me through.
I just wanna touch you, you, just (wanna) touch you.
The real you, I just wanna
Follow you down and cover you.
(Please) let me touch you.
I just wanna
I just...
Nola’s mouth refused to obey her. Other words came into her head, taking over, spewing forth: evil words, obscene words. She had to clamp her lips shut to stop the new lyrics from being heard. Her body jerked and twitched through the dance routine like a half-broken marionette. She felt no real connection to the actual song as music, as melody or meaning, but only as a series of specially coded phrases and gestures, designed to trigger the appropriate emotional or physical buttons in the chosen demographic subclass.
Wanna...wanna...get to...
wanna....get...close to...feel...you...
let me...all of...
wanna wanna...
Words split and slithering, music throbbing in her ears like some internal blood song.
Flashes of light, just off-vision.
‘People, I’m getting some kind of interference,’ said the director from the control room. ‘What is that, please?’
Monitor flood, feedback squall.
Nola’s stomach started first to itch,
and then to burn.
Her eyes closed shut, tight.
Sliding away. Slipping loose. Music fading to a faraway crackle, pure static, heat sparks. Pain. A voice speaking to her, whispering close. But what was being said?
She couldn’t hear it properly.
What was being told to her? Some kind of information, or a story.
How could she ever know?
Talk to me. Talk to me! Louder!
In reply came only whispering breath.
What are you saying to me?
And then Christina took hold of her by the shoulders and led her away to the edge of the sound stage, asking if she was alright. Nola could barely answer. She folded her arms around herself, covering, cowering, suddenly embarrassed by her own body.
Christina asked again.
Nola pulled away. ‘I need some time. A few minutes.’
‘Sure. Sure, you do that.’
Nola nodded, smiled.
Thank you.
She left the studio space, making her way to the washrooms down the corridor. The walls went hazy in her sight and she slipped and almost fell. Her stomach heaved. Sounds rushed in her ears, creating fuzz, residue. Dust on her tongue, metal spice. A weird flavour. Finally she made it to the Ladies where she managed to stagger into one of the cubicles, just before throwing up, a rich vomit spatter on the white tiles.
‘Jesus. What is wrong with me?’
And still her stomach ached, stabbing.
Hands coming up. Shirt, fumbled at,
yanked aside.
(ughhh)
(hardly daring to look...)
The bruise.
(there...shit...uh...no...)
The bruise had grown worse.
Where before it was stained with pink and purple, now it was multicoloured, the original colours dissolving into many other shades, reds and yellows and a few daubs of orange. It was still roughly circular in shape, looking to be more than three inches across, obscuring Nola’s navel.
It was spreading.
The weird voices continued within her hearing. Were they coming from inside her head, or from the world outside?
One voice grew prominent.
Nola could make out a few words here and there, amid drop-outs and static:
...Every night...the enemy make inroads...our boys do their very best...a sudden attack...
Her fingers touched at her abdomen, pressing.
Warm flesh, dampness.
She bent over to examine the bruise in more detail. Was it moving? Was it moving under her touch, or more bizarrely, moving with a life of its own?
Sudden surge of pain, deep inside.
Fuck. Shit.
Nola moved in panic. She banged the cubicle door back against the cubicle wall, rushed over to the mirror above the row of sinks.
Shirt pulled wide open.
Buttons slipping free. One, two.
Her body pressed itself as close to the glass as she could manage.
There now. There it was.
It moved again.
The bruise was alive.
Alive...
It moved in psychedelic patterns, the colours shifting and melting one into the other. Now they swirled, now they broke apart and reformed, moving as one, ever-changing. Nola touched at the surface, tenderly, in fear. Her fingers came back sticky and hot. She watched enthralled as the movements of the strange contusion slowed at last, coalesced, taking on a definite shape. Nola stepped back a little from the glass, to better make out the effect.
It was a
It was...
It was a mouth.
Lips. Tongue. Teeth. Gums. Saliva...
The image of a mouth.
A perfectly formed if slightly oversized human mouth that occupied more or less the entire area of the bruise. The thin red lips opened and closed. The burred tongue was licking wet, tapping at the teeth and roof, forming syllables. And the voice that now played in Nola’s head seemed to be moving in time with the lips.
A man was speaking aloud from Nola’s stomach.
The latest figures show plainly that support is falling amongst the middle classes...
Nola grabbed at the nearest sink for support. Her fingers tried to dig into the porcelain. Her own mouth opened to scream, or to cry out at least, but nothing would come from her, no sound, no release. Only the stomach wound continuing, another voice now, another pair of lips, those of a woman.
Nola recognised the sound.
It was Dolly Temple, the blowsy slattern of
Square Peg Avenue
. Dolly Temple, the Queen of Daytime Soap, ranting, spitting words from her pink polished lips.
You. Get. Out. Now. Leave. I detest your kind.
Dolly hissed and steamed.
Never. Do you hear me? Never again will I sleep with you!
Nola groaned. She held herself. She clamped her hands, both hands over her stomach, to hold the images inside, to keep the noise from escaping.
It was no good.
The white tiled surfaces throbbed with splashes of livid colour as her eyes opened and closed.
‘Nola? Are you in here? Nola?’
Christina’s voice. Footsteps.
Nola panicked. She rushed back into the cubicle.
I can’t let people see me, not like this.
It was too late. Christina banged a fist against the door, calling her name.
Stay away!
The door swung open.
Christina stared at her. ‘We were wondering where you’d got to.’
Nola pulled at her shirt, holding the two halves closed with her fist. ‘I...I...I’m busy.’ Her voice stuttered. She managed to get a button fastened.
‘Right. I can see that.’ Christina looked at her. Cold. Cold eyes. ‘It’s just that the video crew are getting worried, with the time and all that, the costs.’
Nola came out of the cubicle. She said, ‘I’m not feeling too good.’
Christina nodded. ‘If I had your chance...do you think I’d be like this? Hell no. I’d be singing and dancing like a cheap wind-up robot, all day and all of the night. Now get out there and perform.’
Nola made no answer, could not even keep her eyes fixed on any one subject.
Christina changed tack. She pulled down a length of paper towelling, wetted it in the sink, and went to dab at Nola’s damp face.