Читать книгу The Fame Factor - Polly Courtney - Страница 12

‘Beer for you…Beer for me…Whisky for Ellie, if she ever turns up…’ Shannon slid the drinks across the table. ‘Why’re you on orange juice, Kate? What’s up? It’s not right to celebrate without a proper drink.’

Zoë took her pint and shifted sideways, beginning to realise the scale of the task ahead. It was becoming apparent that their drummer’s feet had long since left the ground and it was going to be all they could do to keep her at the current altitude, let alone bring her back down.

‘Strictly speaking,’ she said, saving Kate from her explanation, ‘we’re not celebrating. There’s nothing to celebrate yet.’

Shannon let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Oh, party-pooper! We’re just about to get taken on by the guy who put Tepid Foot Hold on the global rock map – who, by the way, have just had their latest album go platinum. That’s reason to celebrate, if you ask me!’

Kate glanced anxiously at Zoë. ‘We haven’t even met the guy yet.’

‘I have,’ Shannon retorted.

‘Yeah, after about twelve beers at the end of a long night.’ Kate started manically stirring her orange juice. ‘We haven’t. He hasn’t met us. He might not like us.’

‘Of course he likes us!’ cried Shannon, lowering her pint with such panache that the head sloshed all over the table. ‘I mean…Why wouldn’t he?’ On seeing the other girls’ gazes drift upwards, Shannon looked round. ‘Oh, hi!’ She pushed the whisky towards Ellie as she drifted over.

Zoë sipped her beer as their drummer prattled on about other artists she intended to meet when they were up there with the biggest bands in the world.

‘…the latest single by The Cheats. Have you heard it? It’s gorgeous. I’m totally in love with the lead singer.’ Shannon tipped back some beer. ‘You know, Niall King?’ she prompted, looking around briefly but not waiting for a response. ‘He’s Irish. Has the most amazing voice. Honestly, you have to hear him sing. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we got signed by the same label?’

Zoë exchanged another worried look with Kate. This was getting ridiculous. They hadn’t even got a manager yet.

‘I wonder which label they’re on…Ooh!’ Shannon suddenly ducked under the table, emerging with her phone.

The others sipped their drinks while Shannon alternately fiddled and swore at her handset.

‘No word from the labels, then?’ Kate asked quietly.

‘Not yet.’

Zoë felt guilty. She knew that the second word was superfluous. Their dirty money campaign had clearly failed. If any of the label reps had been remotely interested, they would have called by now. The bastards. They’d probably pocketed the money and thrown the CD in the bin, along with all the others. Or worse…Zoë thought unhappily about the other prospect: they had listened to the CD and rejected it.

Sitting here now, waiting and hoping to get taken on by Louis hot-shot Castle, Zoë was beginning to realise that their little stunt might have actually set them back. If the heads of the labels had already turned them down, then no amount of schmoozing on Louis Castle’s part would convince them to change their minds.

‘Listen,’ said Zoë, deciding to put the whole expensive operation behind them. ‘I think, when we meet this guy, we should show him what we’re all about.’

‘Definitely,’ agreed Shannon, looking up from her phone.

Zoë wondered whether she actually knew what she meant. ‘He’s seen us on stage,’ she said, ‘and he knows our music, but he doesn’t know us. He doesn’t know what we’re capable of between gigs.’

Shannon was nodding, her brow creased in earnest.

‘Our promotional capabilities,’ Zoë explained. ‘The way we can generate a buzz. The massive fan base we’ve built up.’

To say ‘we’ was generous, thought Zoë, given that she always did most of the work, but it was important that they felt like a team.

‘Yeah!’ Shannon agreed. ‘We should show him what we can do!’

Kate winced. ‘Please, not the Brent Cross gig…Don’t tell him about that.’

Zoë baulked at the thought. A few months ago, they had been asked to perform a few songs during late-night shopping in the run-up to Christmas. It was the sort of gig they’d usually turn down, but the fee had been good and the promoter had guilt-tripped them into playing by telling them about all the orphans around the world who would benefit from the proceeds.

Their music had proved surprisingly popular with the shoppers and during their break, Shannon and Zoë had hatched a plan to make their final song especially memorable. At the time, it had seemed like a fantastic idea for Zoë to take the escalator to the next floor of the shopping centre, grab hold of one of the decorations that hung in the atrium and sing the next song whilst swinging, Tarzan-style, across the stage in front of the other musicians.

The decoration had supported her for long enough to attract the attention of most of the onlookers and a couple of burly but fast-moving security guards, at which point Zoë had plummeted to the stage via Shannon’s drum kit, her landing amplified by her radio microphone. Surprisingly, they hadn’t been asked back to Brent Cross Shopping Centre.

‘Maybe not that one,’ Zoë conceded. ‘But Manchester,’ she said, referring to a gig that she still maintained had come about as a result of an administrative error. They’d been supporting one of the biggest indie acts in the Northwest and the promoter had referred to them all night as ‘Thirsty Money’, but they didn’t need to explain that. ‘And Chiana.’

Chiana was a live music venue in Soho whose owner Shannon had somehow talked into letting them play. When it had transpired that a couple of minor celebrities were drinking there, Zoë had managed to engineer a photo that revealed not just the inebriated celebrities but the whole of the Dirty Money setup, complete with promotional backdrop, which, following a mysterious ‘leak’, had appeared in one of the trashy free newspapers the following day.

‘It’ll all help, won’t it?’

‘Um…’ It was Kate. ‘Can we make sure we only tell him about the good stuff?’

‘Don’t be so—’

Shannon trailed off. A man was swaggering across the bar towards them, dressed in a giant, red and brown flecked shirt that must have been made to measure – possibly out of a set of Persian curtains. His garish, gold-buckled belt was only visible from the girls’ low vantage point, due to the flabby overhang.

‘Hiiiiii,’ he called in a manner that Zoë recognised instantly from the telephone call. He had the type of face that had probably once been handsome: perfect white teeth and an overly warm smile, but it was difficult to tell with all the chins. ‘How are my adorable rock goddesses?’ He opened his hands to them like a preacher addressing a congregation.

Zoë couldn’t help glancing at Kate, who stared back at her, wide-eyed.

‘Good!’ cried Shannon, when it became apparent that nobody else was going to reply.

‘Good? Good! So, what can I get y’all?’

The ordering process took some time, mainly because every time one of the girls said the word ‘bottle’, the American would repeat it four or five times in various accents, then pretend to forget what the bottle was to contain.

‘Not funny,’ muttered Kate, as Louis Castle retreated to the bar, relaying the whole conversation to the barman in a booming voice.

‘Give him a chance!’ hissed Shannon.

‘At least he’s not trying to flirt,’ Ellie pointed out. They all cringed at the reminder of their old manager’s sleazy ways.

‘I gat you a double,’ he said, pushing a bucket-sized tumbler of Jack Daniels towards Ellie. ‘And here’s a vaardka for you, in case that OJ needs spicin’ up.’

The girls took their drinks and watched the enormous man arrange himself at the table, siphoning off nearly half of his pint with his first sip.

‘So,’ he said, looking at each one in turn, his eyes glistening behind the rolls of fat. ‘Are you ready for the big time?’

‘Yeah!’ replied Shannon immediately.

‘Mmm,’ added Ellie, presumably because Shannon had pinched her under the table.

‘Are you ready to make it?’

Zoë closed her eyes. Perhaps these lines worked on artists in Los Angeles or wherever he came from, but they really didn’t wash with her. ‘Have you got any ideas about labels?’ she asked.

Louis looked at her, eyebrows raised. ‘Woah!’ He looked around at the other girls, grinning manically. ‘You’re quick outta the blocks! I only just sat down!’ He pointed to his half-finished pint. ‘Gimme a chance!’

Shannon laughed along with him, prompting Ellie to do the same.

Zoë forced a smile too. ‘Sorry. It’s just…We’ve been together for a while now and—’

‘Hey,’ he interrupted. ‘I know. You’ve been around a few years, hoping to get signed and now you just wanna grab that deal and run, huh? Yeah. I’ve seen that before.’

Reluctantly, Zoë nodded along with him. She had been about to explain that their manager had promised great things and never delivered, and that they didn’t want to end up in the same situation again, but Louis Castle had already moved on.

Zoë sat back and let the conversation flow around her. The manager quickly got onto the subject of his stable of successful acts in the States and his plans for replicating such success over here. Ellie and Shannon lapped it up, gasping and cooing and clapping their hands like small children. Kate, like Zoë, was doing her best to look convinced.

‘When you say, “package us up”,’ the bassist ventured, ‘what exactly do you mean?’

Louis turned to her, grinning enigmatically from behind his many chins. ‘I’ll tell you…over the next drink!’

Once again, he returned with a bumper round.

‘So,’ the large man began, returning to his seat and sinking into his next pint. ‘What I mean, is make you “sellable”.’ He drew quotation marks in the air. ‘Like a brand. We need to make it obvious what you stand for.’

‘You mean, like our image?’ asked Shannon. ‘What we wear and that?’

‘Exaaaaactly,’ Louis replied. ‘And that includes getting you out of those old hooded tops and jeans!’

Shannon laughed. Zoë and Kate glanced at one another.

‘Don’t you think,’ Zoë said carefully, not wanting to offend the man, ‘that the image thing is only really important for manufactured pop music? Boy-bands, girl-bands…’

He smiled at her pityingly. ‘Honey, all acts have an image.’

‘But…’ she persevered. She wanted to explain herself. ‘I can see why the teeny-bop artists have a certain look…They have to appeal on the looks front, because there’s nothing more to them. But say…Coldplay? Razorlight? U2? It’s all about the music for them, isn’t it?’

The four faces flicked round to Louis.

‘Zoë,’ he replied, still wearing the sympathetic smile. ‘It’s all about the image, whatever the act. Why d’you think Brandon Flowers wears those cute little military jackets? Now, nobody’s telling me he’s not talented!’

Zoë nodded, annoyed that the manager had found an exception to the rule. As the conversation moved on to the subject of touring and festivals and broadcasting rights, Zoë started to consider the possibility that Louis might be right. If he really had pushed so many acts into the American limelight, if he really had nurtured a band like Tepid Foot Hold from small-town act through to global superstardom, he had to know a thing or two about the music business, didn’t he?

It was a few drinks later, all courtesy of the prospective manager, when the subject of representation finally came up.

‘So, you think you’re ready to jump on board?’ asked Louis, smiling like a fat schoolboy.

‘Yes!’ cried Shannon and Ellie, who, by this point, looked ready to jump into bed with the man.

Even Kate had mellowed a little, Zoë noticed, watching her try not to smile at the manager’s dubious charm.

He was like a holiday brochure, thought Zoë: slick, enticing and full of promise. But then, she thought, watching her drummer crash her glass against his and throw back her drink, he was a man whose job it was to place artists with record labels. His job was to ‘sell the package’. Perhaps being like a brochure was no bad thing.

‘Yes,’ she said, looking across at Kate.

Eventually, the bass guitarist nodded.

‘Great!’ roared Louis, reaching out and grabbing one of Shannon’s hands and one of Zoë’s. ‘That is fantastic news.’

After a period of mutual congratulation, they rose to their feet and stumbled out.

‘I’ll get a contract over to you this week,’ he said, crushing each girl’s hand in turn. ‘Then we can talk about recording a few of your tracks properly.’

‘Plopper – properly?’ Zoë was more drunk than she’d thought.

‘Yeah, you know. With a producer.’

‘We already have a producer!’ cried Shannon, presumably referring to the creepy architect who had wormed his way into her affections, wooing her with descriptions of his in-home recording suite and persuading the girls to use him to produce their demo CD.

‘What, Sleazebag Simon?’ asked Kate, grimacing.

The CD had turned out all right in the end, but Shannon had clearly blocked from her mind the memories of what she’d had to do in order to retrieve the disc from Sleazebag’s house.

‘Sleazebag Simon, eh?’ Louis chuckled. ‘You won’t be needing him any more. You’re in another league now, ladies!’

Staggering across the road like a malcoordinated, eight-legged animal, the girls relived some of the cheesier moments of the night, all scepticism somehow having dissolved and been replaced with childlike excitement.

‘We’re heading for the big time!’

‘Big time!’

‘We’re on the fast train to success!’

Suddenly, Shannon broke loose from the pack.

‘Louis!’ she called, waving her arms above her head as though she was drowning. ‘I forgot to ask!’

In the bleary distance, Louis tilted his head to one side, his breath forming clouds around his face.

‘Can you get us signed to Polydor?’ she yelled.

‘Why’s that then?’ he replied.

‘It’s my destiny!’ Shannon shrieked. ‘I’ve got to meet Niall King from The Cheats!’

It was almost possible, from where they stood, to see Louis’s eyes roll in their sockets. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he called, raising a hand, turning on his heel and walking off.