Edge of Eternity (65 page)

They played “Hoochie Coochie Man.” Once again the piano sounded marvelous to Walli, the minor chords thundering out.

Eric asked them to play both songs again, and they did so. Then he came out of the control booth. He sat on an amplifier and lit a cigarette. “I said I would tell you straight, and I will,” he said, and Walli knew then that he was going to reject them. “You play well, but you're old-fashioned.
The world doesn't need another Jerry Lee Lewis or Muddy Waters. I'm looking for the next greatest thing, and you're not it. I'm sorry.” He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew out smoke. “You can have the tape, and do what you like with it. Thanks for coming in.” He stood up.

They all looked at one another. Disappointment was written on every face.

Eric went back into the control room, and Walli saw him, through the glass, taking the reel-to-reel tape off the machine.

Walli stood up, about to pack his guitar away.

Dave blew on his microphone, and the sound was amplified: everything was still on. He strummed a chord. Walli hesitated. What was Dave up to?

Dave began to sing “Love Is It.”

Walli joined in immediately, and they sang in harmony. Lew came in with a quiet drum pattern, and Buzz played a simple walking bass. Finally Lenny joined in on the piano.

They played for two minutes, then Larry switched everything off, and the group was silenced.

It was all over, and they had failed. Walli was more disappointed than he would have expected. He was so sure the group was good. Why could Eric not see it? He undid the strap of his guitar.

Then Eric came back. “What the fuck was that?” he said.

Dave said: “A new song we've just learned. Did you like it?”

“It's completely different,” Eric said. “Why did you stop?”

“Larry turned us off.”

“Turn them on again, Larry, you prick,” said Eric. He turned back to Dave. “Where did you get the song?”

“Hank Remington wrote it for us,” said Dave.

“Of the Kords?” Eric was frankly skeptical. “Why would he write a song for you?”

Dave was equally candid. “Because he's going out with my sister.”

“Oh. That explains it.”

Before going back into the booth, Eric spoke quietly to Larry. “Go and phone Paulo Conti,” he said. “He only lives around the corner. If he's at home, ask him to pop in right away.”

Larry left the studio.

Eric went back into the booth. “Tape rolling,” he said over the intercom. “Whenever you're ready.”

They did the song again.

All Eric said was: “Again, please.”

After the second time he came out again. Walli feared he would say it was not good enough after all. “Let's do it again,” he said. “This time we'll record the backing first time around, and the vocals after.”

Dave said: “Why?”

“Because you play better when you don't have to sing, and you sing better when you don't have to play.”

They recorded the instruments, then they sang the song while the recording was played to them through headphones. Afterward Eric came out of the booth to listen with them. They were joined by a well-dressed young man with a Beatle haircut: Paulo Conti, Walli presumed. Why was he here?

They listened to the combined track, Eric sitting on an amp and smoking.

When it ended, Paulo said in a London accent: “I like it. Nice song.”

He seemed confident and authoritative, though he was only about twenty. Walli wondered what right he had to an opinion.

Eric dragged on his cigarette. “Now, we might have something here,” he said. “But there's a problem. The piano part is wrong. No offense, Lenny, but the Jerry Lee Lewis style is a bit heavy-handed. Paulo is here to show you what I mean. Let's record it again with Paulo on the piano.”

Walli looked at Lenny. He was angry, Walli could tell; but he was keeping it under control. He remained sitting on the piano stool and said: “Let's get something straight, Eric. This is my group. You can't shove me out and bring Paulo in.”

“I wouldn't worry too much about that if I were you, Lenny,” said Eric. “Paulo plays with the Royal National Symphony Orchestra and he's released three albums of Beethoven sonatas. He doesn't want to join a pop group. I wish he did—I know half a dozen outfits that would take him on quicker than you can say
hit parade
.”

Lenny looked foolish and said aggressively: “All right, so long as we understand each other.”

They played the song again, and Walli could see immediately what
Eric meant. Paulo played light trills with his right hand and simple chords with his left, and it suited the song much better.

They recorded it again with Lenny. He tried to play like Paulo, and made a decent job of it, but he did not really have the touch.

They recorded the backing twice more, once with Paulo and once with Lenny; then they recorded the vocal part three times. Finally Eric was satisfied. “Now,” he said, “we need a B side. What have you got that's similar?”

“Wait a minute,” Dave said. “Does that mean that we've passed the audition?”

“Of course you have,” said Eric. “Do you think I go to this much trouble with groups I'm about to turn down?”

“So . . . ‘Love Is It' by Plum Nellie will be released as a record?”

“I bloody well hope so. If my boss turns it down I'll quit.”

Walli was surprised to learn that Eric had a boss. Until now he had given the impression that he
was
the boss. It was a trivial deception, but Walli marked it.

Dave said: “Do you think it will be a hit?”

“I don't make predictions—I've been in this business too long. But if I thought it was going to be a miss, I wouldn't be here talking to you, I'd be down the pub.”

Dave looked around at the group, grinning. “We passed the audition,” he said.

“You did,” Eric said impatiently. “Now, what have you got for the B side?”

•   •   •

“Are you ready for some good news?” said Eric Chapman over the phone to Dave Williams a month later. “You're going to Birmingham.”

At first Dave did not know what he meant. “Why?” he said. Birmingham was an industrial city one hundred twenty miles north of London. “What's in Birmingham?”

“The television studio where they make
It's Fab!,
you idiot.”

“Oh!” Dave suddenly felt breathless with excitement. Eric was talking about a popular show that featured pop groups miming to their records. “Are we on it?”

“Of course you are! ‘Love Is It' will be their Hot Tip for the week.”

The record had been out five days. It had been played on the BBC Light Programme once, and several times on Radio Luxembourg. To Dave's surprise, Eric did not know how many copies had actually been bought: the record business was not that good at tracking sales.

Eric had released the version with Paulo on the piano. Lenny had pretended not to notice.

Eric treated Dave as the leader of the group, despite what Lenny had told him. Now he said: “Have you got decent outfits to wear?”

“We normally wear red shirts and black jeans.”

“It's black-and-white television, so that'll probably look fine. Make sure you all wash your hair.”

“When are we going?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“I'll have to get off school,” Dave said worriedly. There might be trouble about that.

“You may have to
leave
school, Dave.”

Dave gulped. He wondered if that was true.

Eric finished: “Meet me at Euston station at ten in the morning. I'll have your tickets.”

Dave hung up the phone and stared at it. He was going to be on
It's Fab!.

It was beginning to look as if he might actually make a living by singing and playing the guitar. As that prospect came to seem more real, his dread of the alternatives grew. What a comedown it would be now, if he had to get a regular job after all.

He called the rest of the group immediately, but he decided not to tell his family until afterward. There was too much risk that his father would try to stop him going.

He kept the exciting secret to himself all evening. Next day at lunchtime he asked to see the head teacher, old None Above.

Dave felt intimidated in the headmaster's study. In his early days at school he had been caned in this office several times for such offenses as running in the corridor.

He explained the situation and pretended there had not been time to get a note from his father.

“It seems to me you have to choose between getting a decent education and becoming a pop singer,” said Mr. Furbelow, pronouncing
the words
pop singer
with a grimace of distaste. He looked as if he had been asked to eat a can of cold dog food.

Dave thought of saying:
Actually, my ambition is to become a prostitute's minder,
but Furbelow's sense of humor was as scant as his hair. “You told my father I'm going to fail all my exams and be thrown out of the school.”

“If your work does not improve rapidly, and if you consequently fail to gain any O-level qualifications, you will not be admitted to the sixth form,” the head said with prissy exactness. “All the more reason why you may not take days off school to appear on trashy television programs.”

Dave thought of arguing about “trashy” and decided it was a lost cause. “I thought you might regard a trip to a television studio as an educational experience,” he said reasonably.

“No. There is far too much talk nowadays about educational ‘experiences.' Education takes place in the classroom.”

Despite Furbelow's mulish obstinacy, Dave continued to try to reason with him. “I'd like to have a career in music.”

“But you don't even belong to the school orchestra.”

“They don't use any instruments invented in the last hundred years.”

“And all the better for it.”

Dave was finding it harder and harder to keep his temper. “I play the electric guitar quite well.”

“I don't call that a musical instrument.”

Against his better judgment, Dave allowed his voice to rise in a challenge. “What is it, then?”

Furbelow's chin lifted and he looked superior. “More a sort of nigger noisemaker.”

For a moment, Dave was silenced. Then he lost his cool. “This is just willful ignorance!” he said.

“Don't you dare speak to me like that.”

“Not only are you ignorant, you're a racist!”

Furbelow stood up. “Get out this instant.”

“You think it's all right for you to come out with your crude prejudices, just because you're the burned-out head of a school for rich kids!”

“Be silent!”

“Never,” said Dave, and he left the room.

In the corridor outside the head's study, it occurred to him that he could not now go to class.

A moment later he realized he could not stay in the school.

He had not planned this, but in a moment of madness he had, in fact, left school.

So be it, he thought; and he left the building.

He went to a café nearby and ordered egg and chips. He had burned his boats. After he had called the head ignorant and burned-out and a racist they would not have him back, no matter what. He felt scared as well as liberated.

But he did not regret what he had done. He had a chance of becoming a pop star—and the school had wanted him to let it slip by!

Ironically, he was at a loss to know what to do with his newfound freedom. He wandered around the streets for a couple of hours, then returned to the school gates to wait for Linda Robertson.

He walked her home after school. Naturally the whole class had noticed his absence, but the teachers had said nothing. When Dave told her what had happened, she was awestruck. “So you're going to Birmingham anyway?”

“You bet.”

“You'll have to leave school.”

“I've left.”

“What will you do?”

“If the record is a hit, I'll be able to afford to get a flat with Walli.”

“Wow. And if it's not?”

“Then I'm in trouble.”

She invited him in. Her parents were out, so they went to her bedroom, as they had done before. They kissed, and she let him feel her breasts; but he could tell she was troubled. “What's the matter?” he said.

“You're going to be a star,” she said. “I know it.”

“Aren't you glad?”

“You'll be mobbed by dolly birds who will let you go all the way.”

“I hope so!”

She burst into tears.

“I was kidding,” he said. “I'm sorry!”

She said: “You used to be this cute little kid I liked to talk to. None of the girls even wanted to kiss you. Then you joined a group and turned into the coolest boy in school, and they all envied me. Now you'll be famous and I'll lose you.”

He thought she wanted him to say that he would be faithful to her, no matter what, and he was tempted to swear undying love; but he held back. He really liked her, but he was not yet sixteen, and he knew he was too young to be tied down. However, he did not want to hurt her feelings, so he said: “Let's just see what happens, okay?”

He saw the disappointment on her face, though she covered it up quickly. “Good idea,” she said. She dried her tears, then they went down to the kitchen and had tea and chocolate biscuits until her mother came home.

When he got back to Great Peter Street there was no sign of anything unusual, so he deduced that the school had not telephoned his parents. No doubt None Above would prefer to write a letter. That gave Dave a day of grace.

He said nothing to his parents until the following morning. His father left at eight. Then Dave spoke to his mother. “I'm not going to school,” he said.

She did not fly off the handle. “Try to understand the journey that your father has made,” she said. “He was illegitimate, as you know. His mother worked in a sweatshop in the East End, before she went into politics. His grandfather was a coal miner. Yet your father went to one of the world's great universities, and by the time he was thirty-one he was a minister in the British government.”