'Not Many People Stare The Devil In The Eye And Walk Away A Winner. She Saw The Look. Satan Was Scared Of Her'
In part ten of Good Guys Lost, Missy cements her career as the queen of pop. It brings her into contact with Jimmy Savile, who finds that this young woman is no victim
Read part nine of Good Guys Lost here
Pursuit
Missy expected to hear from Billy on Monday. She had breathless tales of a drunken Irish Christmas. The visiting family from Cork had become involved in an absurd series of events during the festive period. The girl was also excited to tell him some news: she had been offered a job.
At a gig between Christmas and New Year she bumped into a young A&R man she had met the previous summer and then seen at various concerts. They had fumbling sex before she became involved with Billy but did not ignore each other afterward. They often talked about bands when they crossed paths. The talent spotter was very interested in Missy’s opinions. During the holidays he told her he was leaving a major record company to start an independent operation. He was allowed to recruit two staff and the money on offer would double her wages as a secretary. It was less secure, sure, but she could do whatever she wanted with her days. There were no second thoughts. Even before Christmas she was getting to the point where the sound of a ringing phone made her feel nauseous.
Except at lunchtime and the half hour before closing. In the new year her stomach leapt every time the ringer buzzed. She hoped it might be Billy.
On the first day back she was amused by his silence. She imagined him hungover and hung up; trying to work out whether he should relocate to London and mulling over the level of commitment he should show to his new girlfriend. “Men,” she sniggered to herself.
By the third day she was angry. He was selfish and probably shacked up with a blonde somewhere. She’d rip his balls off when she saw him. By Friday she was concerned.
In late afternoon, she finally snapped. She rang a number Billy had given her to leave messages with his mother. The call was answered quickly. “Mrs Green?”
A man’s voice, suspicious, said: “Who wants her?”
“My name’s…” she hesitated. “I’m a friend of Billy’s.” There was silence. “His girlfriend in London.” It went quiet but she heard the clunk of a receiver being set down on a table. There were family-life noises in the background. A child cried.
Missy could not know that this was not the Green household. It was a neighbour’s flat three doors along the landing. It was the only phone on the block and therefore a community asset. The man who answered had to leave his residence and go and fetch Lilly.
In London, the girl could not imagine what was happening. She listened intently to the clunks and voices at the other end of the line, desperately trying to get an insight into Billy’s life. Eventually, after a scraping noise, a wary woman’s voice said: “Who is this?”
“I’m a friend of Billy’s, Mrs Green. He’s called me every day at work for a couple of months. I haven’t heard from him this week, not since he went home for Christmas. He’s supposed to be recording down here in London soon and I’m worried about him.”
Lilly had been warned that the authorities would try anything to get to her son. There was no chance of her giving any information to a stranger. It was probably a policewoman.
“Don’t know,” Lilly said. “He goes away to sea. He’s been on a ship for about six weeks now. I haven’t seen or heard from him. He’s on a tanker. Don’t expect him home anytime soon. Don’t ring here again.”
Missy put the phone down in shock. So that was that. She gathered her stuff, went to the office and opened the door without knocking.
“Mr Richman,” she said sweetly. “You need a new secretary, you old fruit. Goodbye.”
Without any more explanation she walked out into Denmark Street and the next phase of her life. She had learnt a crucial, bruising lesson: never fall in love with any man who wanted to be involved in showbusiness. Part of her was angry at herself. She had seen the way band members and musicians behaved, their selfishness and contempt for women. How had Billy conned her? He had appeared vulnerable, sensitive and trustworthy. She had seen something in him. It turned out not to be there.
“That,” she said aloud, “is the last time. I will not let anyone do that to me again.”
*
If you don’t want to wait for the next extracts, the paperback is available here
Not a single tear was shed in east London. Yet the short relationship had two lasting effects on the girl. It hardened her heart in the most brutal manner and she now completely uncoupled sex and love. Every relationship she would enter would be on her terms and to her benefit.
The other lasting legacy was the nickname. Eileen had always been too workaday for her anyway and in the glorious weeks of infatuation her friends on the punk scene had responded well when they heard her called Missy. The dominatrix overtones chimed perfectly with the era of bondage trousers. So she not only answered to it but built part of her developing persona around it.
The new job suited her as perfectly as the new name. She met the A&R man in the Pillars of Hercules in Greek Street. His name was Duncan Stevenson and he had learnt his trade at EMI. Now it was time to strike out alone.
He explained the brief she would work to. Punk was about to go mainstream but Stevenson believed that it would burn out quickly. There was money to be made, though.
“I want you to find bands that are not as threatening as the punks,” he said. “You like The Jam?” She nodded. “Groups like them but less angry. I want to sign bands that will make the middle class kids feel wild but not so wild they and their parents get scared off. Understand? Pop bands rather than punk. With a bit of punk power.”
“Power pop?” she said.
“You’ve got it. I don’t mind one-hit wonders. If they’ve got one song, get them in the studio, crank the record out and count the cash.” She thought briefly of Billy and his one potential big seller. “Then give them another chance to see if they can repeat the trick. If they can’t, drop them. We’ll pay peanuts for the advance. They’re all so desperate to get a deal and get in the studio they’d sign away their balls.”
“I can do this Duncy. Why me?”
“Because when I’ve talked to you it’s clear you’ve an eye for potential. You’ve got experience with a publishing company. And I want to fuck you again.”
“That can be arranged,” she said, running her hand up his thigh and squeezing his groin slowly in full view of the rest of the pub.
“Come back to my flat in Victoria,” he said. “An American friend brought me some cocaine. You ever tried it?”
“Only speed and weed.”
“You’ll love this. It’s a different experience.”
Missy was more interested in the drug than the sex. “How do you take it?” she giggled. “I don’t mind your little needle entering me,” she slapped his groin now, feeling his penis erect under his jeans, “but I don’t want to inject drugs.”
“No, no,” he said. “You roll up a pound note and snort it up your nose. But you can sniff it off anywhere. I want to snort it off your nipples.”
“As long as I can sniff it off your cock, Duncy,” she whispered down his ear, drawing her bottom lip over his neck and under the lobe. “If it’s big enough.” She pulled away quickly, projecting her voice so the clientele could hear the comment while she cackled like a scornful crone. The tone was set for their professional relationship.
*
It was hard for a woman in the pop world. The men with power assumed the girls without it were fair game. Predators used their fame, wealth and status to take what they wanted. Missy was in the line of fire from her first foray into the A&R world.
Bands were reluctant to take her seriously. In pokey dressing-rooms, egocentric lead singers would stroke her hair as she tried to talk business. Leering drummers touched her up while breathing heavily down her ear. In tiny rooms full of sweat and masculinity, she doubled down on the sexuality. Over-excitable vocalists suddenly found their genitals grabbed and manhandled with a rough urgency that surprised them. “I want to talk contracts, big boy,” she would say with a heavy dose of mockery. “Are you man enough to put your balls on the table?” Then she would laugh. It was the sort of guffaw that caused droopiness in everyone except the most spaced out sex fiends. It quickly became clear to the wannabee pop stars who was in charge. She would slap bassists’ backsides hard and express a desire to tie them up with their E strings and make their body vibrate. She marked her territory as the hunter.
Most of the callow youths trying to crack the music scene had their bluster punctured easily. Missy learnt to turn the tables on boyish bravado and take control of the situation. She doled out sexual favours on her terms and record contracts to those in whom she saw potential. Her instincts were unerring.
The hits came rolling in. Post-punk power pop fizzled for a moment and then died but before it expired Missy managed to get three rather tepid combos into the top 30. She rode the mini Mod revival at the end of the 1970s until it crashed. While The Jam imitators were still selling records, she had already latched on to the New Romantic movement. Her portfolio was full of footnotes to pop history but they raked in the money for her company and made her wealthier than any of the bands.
The turning point in her career came when she championed a group that was part of the ‘new wave of British heavy metal.’ Jeans, flairs and long hair were a standing joke when Sounds magazine and a few DJs began to get behind a slew of mainly dreadful bands. Missy checked a few out and dismissed even their single-hit potential. Then she watched a five-piece from Newcastle called Audio Seizure. She saw something. It was impossible to explain but she knew that their raw, infantile sound and lyrics would generate cash.
Duncan Stevenson was not convinced. His tiny record company – and his reputation – had grown hugely. He took credit for the succession of successful records. His first nickname – the Hitman – began to appear in the music papers, largely on the back of Missy’s instincts. This, though, was a gamble too far.
She badgered him constantly, teased him with the offer of sex and, finally, threatened to leave for a bigger label if he failed to sign the band. He relented and allowed her to offer Audio Seizure a small contract. It was a mere £20,000, barely enough to put out and promote a single, an album and finance a transit-van tour.
There were flops on her resume but that was always going to happen given the label’s policy. She had never staked her instinct – and status – in such a big way. Remarkably, vindication came with the first single.
The whole concept was laughable. It was six minutes long, called Bang Your Head and was played at punk pace except for a slowed-down guitar solo coda that comprised the final 120 seconds. Everyone in the industry who heard the finished version turned the tape off before 90 seconds had elapsed. Stevenson only sanctioned the release to restore the power balance with Missy. He wanted her chastened by failure.
Certain record stores across the country had their sales recorded and averaged out as representative of the entire nation to generate that week’s charts. It was a simple and flawed system because the labels were aware of the supposedly secret locations and sent people out to buy large amounts of individual records from these shops to create a false illusion of national demand. Done cleverly, this could catapult a single on to Top Of The Pops, the BBC showcase. An appearance on TOTP, which had an audience of millions, could change the fate of a band. Stevenson kept his regiment of secretive buyers away from Audio Seizure’s debut. His pluggers – more senior operatives who schmoozed radio and television DJs and producers – were instructed to ignore the single.
Against all expectations, Bang Your Head began to sell. Radio stations in the north east supported their local band and word of mouth began to create a buzz. From nowhere, it made the top 50 in its second week of release. It was hovering around the 30 mark a week later. Missy had done it again. She was delighted.
Yet even she did not expect what happened next. The single crashed the top 20 despite receiving no national airplay. The entire music press ran features on the band and a TOTP appearance beckoned.
Missy liked the lads. They glugged crates of Newcastle Brown Ale and swigged whisky from the bottle. They were in their late 20s and womanised rabidly, engaging whenever they could with their female followers. On occasion they would smash up equipment, a room, a car or a bar. But they were always respectful to Missy. She was at least five years younger than “the boys” but they treated her like a serious record executive. Within weeks, she started mothering them and cleaning up the chaos they left behind. None of the band made a clumsy pass at her, although it was clear they all fancied her. They acted like she was out of their league. There was never any need for her to project her ferocious, dangerous sexuality towards them.
The band asked her to come to Television Centre in White City for their debut on national television. They were nervous. She was only too happy to go along and reassure them.
Missy had been to TOTP before. This was the big stage. From the perspective of living-room sofas across the nation, it appeared to be harmless family entertainment. Inside the studios it was a hothouse of lust.
Under-age girls roamed around while predatory men looked for victims. Missy was used to the culture of groupies so it made little impact on her. During this filming she felt relaxed and in charge. It was the first time she had been at a show presented by Jimmy Savile.
Like almost everyone in the industry she had heard about Savile. Rumours of his dark carnal appetite abounded. There were even tales that he used his volunteer work in hospitals to molest helpless patients and had parlayed his massive celebrity status to gain access to morgues where he engaged in necrophilia. All this while establishing friendships with the Royal Family and Prime Minister and hosting an extremely popular children’s show called Jim’ll Fix It.
Part of Missy could not believe the stories. It was a business where exaggeration and bluster were common. But she was fascinated to see what the man was like in the flesh.
Brazenly, she caught his eye during rehearsals. He was nearing 60 and looked every day of it. He was dressed in a tracksuit top and running shorts that were damp and stained at the crotch. An ominous bulge hung between wiry thighs. When the crowd surrounded him to rehearse the shots of him announcing the artists, a young girl at his side flinched as an unseen finger probed her private regions. Missy watched with amusement. He clearly had impunity to act as he desired here.
In the gap between run-throughs and filming, he took a young woman – certainly, she appeared to have nudged just past girlhood – into his dressing room. When she emerged five minutes later it was obvious that Missy had overestimated the girl’s age. She was crying and distressed. Embarrassed, too. She tried to compose herself as she walked past. At that point Savile popped his head out into the corridor, a fat Havana between his teeth, and looked straight at Missy. “Come in,” he said. “I’ve heard you know a hit record when you hear it.”
A small thrill of excitement shivered through her. If the rumour mill had any substance, this was the next best thing to meeting Aleister Crowley. She walked into the room and Savile locked the door. The wet stain on the satin running shorts was bigger; sopping and sticky.
He leaned over her, a threatening presence, and pushed her towards the dressing-table ledge in front of the mirror. He smelt of rancid sweat and criminal sex. The assault was near.
He still had the cigar in his mouth. Missy was more concerned about being burnt than raped. He pushed against her and fumbled with her leather trousers. It crossed her mind that a man of his age must be loading up on drugs to maintain such an erection – she could feel it pressing. As he groped – rather inexpertly, she mused – she squirmed sideways, but not enough for him to think it was any more than token resistance. While he was distracted, she reached around, slid her hand under the skimpy running shorts and rammed a sharp finger up his rectum. He leapt away, shocked at the role reversal and the cigar tumbled out of his mouth.
“Fix it for me to watch you have sex with a dead body, Jim,” she said, referencing the title of his show. “That would excite me. We could be partners. I’ll give you pleasure like you’ve never had.”
Savile froze, shaped to slap her and then backed away. Missy straightened her clothes, unlocked the door and minced out into the corridor. She was happy. Not many people stare the devil in the eye and walk away a winner. She saw the look. Satan was scared of her. In the toilets, she took another big hit of cocaine and felt like no one could stop her.
They couldn’t. Audio Seizure played New York and college radio stations went crazy for this bunch of Geordie headbangers. Their fame spread despite scant promotion. Missy oversaw their route to stardom like a proud, filthy mother.
Next: Boy bands, girl bands and bootlegging and kiss-and-tells