Читать книгу The Fame Factor - Polly Courtney - Страница 15

‘You must be joking!’ cried the brunette, visibly gagging. ‘I mean, no disrespect to him or anything, but it’s a singing contest. You can’t win if you can’t sing.’

‘That’s discrimination.’

‘She’s got a point though,’ said the girl next to Zoë – someone she vaguely recognised from previous events James had brought her along to. ‘JJ was a terrible singer.’

‘Not true,’ claimed another. ‘He had a good voice; he just wasn’t always in tune.’ She downed the remains of her wine and readjusted the fashionable sack-like top that hung from her shoulders.

Zoë let the argument wash over her as she mashed the cheesecake crumbs into the plate with her fork. They were, as far as she could make out, discussing the controversy surrounding the Talent Tout final, an event that had taken place more than two months ago. Over the main course they had dissected no fewer than six contestants’ performances, ranging from Maureen, the cleaner from Norwich, to 4U, the boy-band from Salford that featured in its ranks an albino and a midget gymnast.

‘Well, call me un-PC,’ said the brunette, ‘but I say the boy deserved to lose. Denzel White was by far the best act.’

‘You’re un-PC,’ declared the girl at the end of the table. ‘Denzel White is a dick.’

Zoë tried to recall something from the times Shannon had sat her down to watch the acts in their final rounds of auditions. She remembered Denzel White; it was impossible not to. In the last few months of the previous year, the whole nation had gone crazy for the North London rapper – his pearly teeth shining out from billboards, his lyrical voice pumping out from the internet, his cheeky smile winking from magazine centrefolds. But the other finalists…Nope. Zoë drew a blank.

That, in a nutshell, was why she didn’t believe in the merits of Talent Tout. It made great television, but it didn’t make rock stars. She had never entertained the idea of subjecting Dirty Money to the ordeal. Her band deserved more than five minutes of fame. They deserved longevity and musical respect. They wanted their songs to mean something. They wanted to make their own decisions about what to wear and when to smile. Nobody got that from appearing on Talent Tout.

Denzel White was a prime example. He had been hyped to superstar status within the space of about three weeks, his background spun in a way that spectacularly endeared him to the UK public, and now what? He hadn’t even released an album. He had enjoyed his brief accolade and then he had plummeted back into obscurity.

Kate was with Zoë on this; she understood that the show wasn’t right for the girls. Shannon disagreed. She bought into the Talent Tout dream, swallowing it hook, line and sinker, seeing the show as the obvious route to stardom. In her eyes, the twelve million weekly viewers spoke for themselves. Ellie, when pushed, agreed with the drummer, which made for an ongoing rift between the two halves of the band.

Zoë glanced longingly at the other end of the table, where James and all the boyfriends of the marketing girls were engaged in a drinking game that involved a burned cork and a piece of cheese. Zoë wished she’d been smarter and manoeuvred herself into a better position when they’d all sat down. In fact, she wished she hadn’t agreed to come out at all. If it hadn’t been for her hideous Valentine blunder then she might have let James come alone, but that wouldn’t have been fair. She owed it to him to be here tonight.

James had been quiet for the two days that followed their supposed date, making it difficult for Zoë to know how to react. For her, when something was troubling her, she let it all out, exploding with rage or misery or angst. But James wasn’t one for confrontation. He just stewed, keeping his feelings locked up inside. She had apologised, of course, trying everything she could think of to make it up to him. She hated the fact that occasionally, her relationship ended up taking a back seat to her music, but she wasn’t sure James understood that. She needed him to understand.

Tonight, as they’d set off for the restaurant, Zoë had seen the first sign that her message was getting through. James had slipped an arm around her waist and asked, quietly, whether she had heard any news from Louis Castle. Now, looking down the table at his merry, cork-charred face, it looked as though his sulk had been long forgotten.

‘How d’you think that poor guy felt?’ the first girl went on, like a dog with a bone. ‘Being kicked out because he was deaf?’

‘Deaf?’ Zoë spluttered.

The girls whipped round, all staring at her.

‘How could you not know JJ was deaf?’ asked one.

‘Well…’

There were gasps of astonishment and wary looks.

‘I…I must’ve missed that episode,’ she said sheepishly. It was as though she had confessed to not knowing of Barack Obama. She felt her phone vibrate in her lap and pushed the thick linen tablecloth aside.

Oh God. Just played it.

Boy-band-tastic. He’s

taking it 2 Universal

this wk :-( Kx

Zoë closed her eyes momentarily and took in the news. Louis must have sent them all copies of the demo CD. He had got the tracks edited and without even telling them, set up a meeting with Universal. She felt deflated. How could he do that? Why? They’d written the songs; they knew how it should sound. If Louis was putting tchyka-tchyka versions of their songs in front of record labels, he wasn’t showing them the real Dirty Money.

He was doing what he thought was best for the band, of course. He only made money if they made money – Louis took twenty per cent of whatever they got; that was the agreement – but Zoë felt he was making a mistake. She was worried that he would turn them into another homogeneous, straight-off-the-conveyor-belt pop act. They were better than that.

She sighed, just as the phone buzzed again in her hands.

Wow! Have u heard

CD? It rocks! + I had

gr8 idea 4 celeb

endorsement: I can

get us on Irish TV

with a star! Shan x

Her frown melted into a smile. Shannon always had a great idea. You couldn’t fault her enthusiasm. Zoë wondered how the tracks actually sounded. Deep down, she had been half-expecting something like this. Louis Castle didn’t consult his unsigned protégés when it came to dealing with big-time labels. He called the shots. And maybe, given what he had achieved in America, the girls should just put their trust in his judgement.

After several attempts to catch James’s attention, she made contact with his sleepy blue eyes. He and the others around him had reached the hitting-wine-glasses-with-forks stage of the evening, which suggested that it might be time to go.

‘Bus?’ suggested Zoë as they wandered into the damp, night air.

James grinned hazily at her, trying to focus. ‘Little…black bus?’

Zoë smiled. When James got drunk, he turned into a chilled-out caricature of himself. He became more…well, more like the old James. He always maintained a grip on reality, just a skewwhiff version of reality. So when he pushed open the door of their flat and found, behind it, a small brown parcel marked SOHO STUDIOS, he seemed to know exactly what it was.

‘D’you think this is for you?’ he asked, holding the package just out of Zoë’s reach.

‘James, please…’ She grabbed at his long, muscular arm, stepping on a pile of junk mail and skidding to the floor.

‘You want this?’ he goaded, waving the brown box around as she crawled onto all fours.

Using the parcel, he led her onto the sofa where she collapsed on top of him, dizzy and panting.

‘Will you put it on?’ Zoë pleaded, as James unwrapped the disc, at arm’s length. The note enclosed, which he eventually relinquished, was written in neat, female handwriting – presumably belonging to Louis’s PA.

Hope you like. Will be meeting the Universal boys this week. Fingers crossed.

Louis

James reached back and switched on the hi-fi system. Stretching, he inserted the CD, raised an eyebrow seductively at Zoë and, with excruciating slowness, moved his finger across to the Play button.

Zoë sat up, straddling her boyfriend and starting to undo the buttons of his shirt. She wanted to hear the tracks but she also wanted a piece of James. His eyes were filled with mischief and she could feel his hand – the hand that wasn’t controlling the stereo – working its way up her thigh.

The introduction to ‘Delirious’ started blasting out of the numerous speakers and she suddenly stopped. She could feel the colour drain from her cheeks.

‘Oh my God,’ she said, feeling instantly sober.

Fleetingly, she wondered why he’d put that track first, when ‘Sensible Lies’ was so much better, but there were bigger things to worry about.

It was like being punched in the stomach. She couldn’t think about anything – couldn’t articulate a response. All she could do was listen to this…this sound that was filling the lounge.

‘It’s fucking disco,’ she spat, when the song got into its groove.

If James replied, she didn’t hear him. Her ears were focusing on the clinical beat. She waited for Ellie’s chords to come in, then the vocals. It was unrecognisable. Like listening to somebody else’s music.

‘Fuck!’ she yelled, as her own voice sang back at her above the sanitised riff. She wanted to cry. ‘What’ve they done?!’

The song finished and, transfixed, Zoë waited mutely to hear the next butchered track.

‘Zoë?’

Zoë listened to the mutilated rendition of ‘Sensible Lies’.

‘Zoë,’ James said again, propping himself up on the sofa and pulling her firmly towards him.

‘What?’ she asked, distracted by a cheesy key-change that had been inserted just before the second chorus. It was unbelievable what they’d done.

‘I said, this is amazing.’

Zoë looked at him and frowned. They both seemed to have sobered up now but James wasn’t making any sense. ‘What, amazingly bad?’

‘No,’ he said, pushing himself up on the sofa so that she was sitting in his lap. ‘Listen to it.’

In silence, they listened to the instrumental that preceded the final verse – ordinarily, Zoë’s favourite part of the song.

‘Seriously,’ said James, wrapping his arms round her waist and squeezing her against his body. ‘Imagine you’ve never heard of this band.’

Zoë closed her eyes in anguish, letting her head roll back on James’s shoulder. She had never heard of this band. It wasn’t hers. This was not the sound of Dirty Money.

Enveloped in James’s arms, swaying gently to the unfamiliar music, Zoë tried to force herself to hear it afresh. She heard the pulsing beat and the harmonies and the catchy tune…

The song finished and the final track came on. ‘Run Boy Run’ was one of their most uplifting numbers. Zoë tilted her face upwards to tell James that he was right, that she was too obsessed with the band, that she was sorry for sometimes neglecting her commitment to him, that she really was grateful for his unwavering support. But she didn’t get a chance, as James’s lips were pressing against hers.