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.
Zoë closed her eyes and let her head roll back on the velvet seat, imagining she was somewhere else. The sweeping string section built to a climax with a piercing blast of high-pitched brass and in her mind, the heroine held up the prize in her hands, victorious. Classical music always sounded like a soundtrack to her.
She opened her eyes again as the volume dropped to a pizzicato murmur, watching the polo-necked conductor as his arms jerked up and down like those of a Thunderbird puppet. The music was incredible, she couldn’t deny that. But it didn’t seem like something to be admired in its own right. There was no stage presence – no element of performance.
‘Bravo!’ yelled her father through
