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.”