The Fame Factor

‘You’d be surprised,’ her father was saying. ‘Misconduct has existed in top-level sport since long before it all went commercial.’

The man, who appeared to have far too much hair for his age, squinted at Zoë’s dad. ‘Is that so?’

‘It is.’

Zoë smiled wryly. They were trying to out-sport one another. Her father would put up a good fight, she suspected; he had once played rugby for Hertfordshire. He was also one of the most highly-respected defence lawyers in London.

‘What sort of misconduct?’

‘The England rugby squad in the nineteen-eighties,’ Zoë’s father replied. ‘There was plenty of match-fixing, even then.’

The man drew his head back, frowning. ‘How could you possibly know that?’

‘I trained with them. I was offered a place on the squad.’

Zoë nearly yelped. Her father had nearly played rugby for England? How did she not know this? And why had he turned it down? She looked at her phone. It was eight fifty-two. The questions would have to wait.

Still reeling, Zoë leaned back as the waitress poured coffee into her bone china cup. She would slip out now, pretending to visit the ladies, and then by the time everybody adjourned to the room with carpet on the walls for drinks, they’d all be too sloshed to notice her absence. She felt bad about leaving her sister, but there wasn’t really an alternative. She could hardly skip up to ‘High Table’ and explain that she was abandoning one of the most important dinners of the legal calendar to go and rehearse with her band.

Out of the darkness came an unmistakable Irish shriek.

‘Over here, you eejit!’

Zoë followed the sound to where Shannon was parked illegally in the middle of High Holborn, honking and yelling through the open window.

As a drummer, owning a large car was a prerequisite, but there was something about the battered old Volvo estate that particularly suited Shannon. The car was like the vehicular equivalent of its owner: noisy, colourful and unreliable. It had transported Shannon and all her belongings, including the drum kit, from Limerick to East London six years previously – miraculously, only breaking down once along the way.

‘I’ve had an idea,’ said Shannon, winding up her window and swerving into the fast lane. ‘Fuck off!’ she yelled as the driver behind them made a gesture with his hand in the glow of the next car’s headlights. ‘We should get some celebrity endorsement.’

Zoë gripped the fabric of the seat, glancing at the silhouette of the angry man in the wing mirror. ‘What d’you mean?’ she managed to ask. Rides with Shannon were not for the faint-hearted. Kate refused to get in the car unless there was no alternative.

‘Well, we’ve got fans all over the world, all over the internet, but none of them are famous. If we could get a big name to say, “Hey guys, I think you’re great”, we’ll be made.’ She yanked the steering wheel round and pulled a sharp left, provoking more sounding of horns.

‘Mmm, maybe.’ Zoë nodded, grabbing the door handle to keep herself upright. It was hard to focus on promotional strategies and staying alive at once.

‘That’s what Ladyhawke did,’ Shannon went on, flicking on the internal light and checking her hair in the rear-view mirror. Zoë watched as a fearless motorcyclist approached them on the outside. ‘Apparently Courtney Love left a glowing review on her MySpace page.’

‘Right…’ Zoë tried to control her breathing as the motorcyclist slipped into Shannon’s blind spot. ‘And don’t you think maybe that might have been a PR stunt by Ladyhawke’s management? Watch the bike, by the way.’

‘I don’t know. Don’t matter, does it? If it’s a stunt, then we need to be doing one too. Jesus! Where did he come from?’

Zoë breathed a sigh of relief as the motorcyclist emerged, seemingly unscathed, in front of them. ‘Um…yeah, although it might not be that easy. I bet if you look closely, you’ll find that Ladyhawke’s on the same label as Courtney Love, or her management knows Courtney Love’s management or something like that. It’s not so easy when you’re unsigned.’

Finally, Zoë began to relax her grip as they made the last turn onto Shannon’s road. It was always tricky explaining realities to Shannon. In many ways, it was great that she was so up for anything. It made a welcome change from the attitude of most of the people Zoë dealt with on a day-to-day basis. Shannon never saw problems, only ideas. Masses and masses of ideas. The hard part, for Zoë and the rest of the band, was bringing her back down to earth.

Their rehearsal studio, which was actually the front room of the West London flat that Shannon shared with three or four other girls (it fluctuated), was just large enough for the drum kit, three small amps and four people standing, as long as Zoë half-perched on the armchair and Kate stooped inside the upturned sofa. Sometimes, when the girls scraped together enough funds or they had an important gig coming up, they’d book a slot in the Shoreditch studio but most of the time, they made do with the drummer’s lounge.

Flattening herself against the wall to let Ellie pass, Zoë thought about how she was going to broach the subject of their Indie Awards fiasco.

‘Great, we’re all here!’ cried Shannon, ‘Let me tell you my news!’ She thumped the bass drum with the newly-purchased pedal.

‘Hold on.’ Zoë held up her hand. ‘I just want to say…’ She bit her lower lip, not wanting to come across like a bossy headmistress. The truth was, though, she was the boss. If she didn’t say it, nobody would. ‘We really messed up, the other night. And now, because of that, we don’t have a—’

‘Who cares? We don’t need—’

‘One sec,’ Zoë pleaded. ‘We don’t have a manager, we don’t have a booking agent, we didn’t win the award and I think it’s safe to say we won’t be asked back to the Camden House for a while. I think we need to start—’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ yelled Shannon. ‘We don’t need Jake or Dan any more!’

‘What?’ Zoë asked cautiously.

‘Well…’ Shannon bowed her head and performed a drum roll that seemed to go on forever. Zoë watched, willing it to stop. ‘We have a new manager!’

The three girls looked at Shannon, who beamed back at them triumphantly and whacked the cymbal for effect.

‘Who?’ asked Kate.

‘Aha.’ Shannon carefully balanced her drumsticks on the rim of the snare, her movements deliberate and slow. She rubbed her hands together, like a magician warming up for a trick. Zoë sighed impatiently. Finally, the drummer looked up. ‘The guy I met in the bar, after the awards night. He’s called Louis Castle. Ring any bells?’

Three faces looked back at her blankly.

‘Okay,’ Shannon shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s not that big over here. But he’s from LA and he’s managed bands like The Anglers and Domino Scene and…and Tepid Foot Hold!’

Zoë glanced at Kate’s face, then at Ellie’s. There were no signs of recognition on either. ‘Tepid Foot Hold?’ She frowned. ‘Sounds like the name of an IKEA flat-pack.’

Shannon growled. ‘They’re big in America. Massive.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Anyway, this guy has his own management company and he wants to manage us! He’ll sort us out with a booking agent and everything. I mean, seriously. He was talking about stadium gigs!’

Zoë exchanged a quick, apprehensive look with their bassist. Kate’s expression said it all.

‘Well, don’t all thank me at once!’ Shannon cried loudly. ‘I’ve only gone and put us one step closer to world domination!’

Zoë tried her best to look enthusiastic. The problem was, they’d been here before. Shannon was always making Useful Acquaintances. She seemed to have a natural magnetism for lonely, lecherous males who – either by calculation or misunderstanding – ended up in her address book when it was perfectly clear to everyone else that they simply wanted to get in her pants.

‘Oh, and I forgot the best bit!’ Shannon’s eyes were wild. ‘His company, Blast Management, has some sort of connection with Universal. Universal!’

Zoë’s ears pricked up. She glanced at Kate.

As a general rule, Kate’s expression served as a good sanity check. She was naturally cautious – to the extent that she chopped up her old credit cards and scattered the pieces in different dustbins around the country – and as such, tended to stand in the way of Shannon’s more ludicrous schemes. Kate was still looking sceptical.

‘Not…BMI?’ asked Ellie, smiling dreamily. ‘Maybe he’s going out with an air steward.’

Shannon tossed her long, black ponytail over her shoulder.

‘Look, I’m telling you, this guy is a hot-shot manager from LA. He’s seen us perform a few times and he loved our set at the awards.’

‘Did he love the bit when you threw the bass pedal at Kate?’ asked Zoë. ‘Or when all the lights went out?’

‘Shut up!’ cried Shannon, her accent full strength. ‘If you don’t want a manager, then fine. But if you ask me, this is our big chance. And to be honest, we haven’t got a lot to lose right now.’