Then people in the industry could say whatever they liked, piss on his hall carpet and encourage everyone to boycott him and whatever the fuck they could think of. He would rake up his money and put all this behind him, head off somewhere with a better climate, wash down his Viagra with cocktails with a little umbrella in them and live life for as long as life was there to be lived.
When Teresa rang him on the Saturday he was as nice as pie. He asked her to pass on his apologies, as far as he was concerned the whole thing was forgiven and forgotten, and now it was a matter of looking to the future. The world was their oyster and Tora was his number one priority.
During the afternoon he made some calls. A studio and producer posed no problems, but as he suspected his good name wasn’t enough to persuade any record company to pay for a demo. However, he eventually managed to strike a deal with Ronny Berhardsson at Zapp Records, which was owned by EMI. They’d known each other for years, and Max Hansen had supplied him with a couple of artists who had at least recouped their production costs.
Ronny said Zapp could cover the cost of studio time, but the rest would have to come out of Max’s own pocket. Ronny had seen Idol, and even if he wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as Max, he agreed that the girl had potential. It was worth a shot.
As Max Hansen got ready to leave for the meeting, he was careful not to omit a detail he had forgotten last time. He took Robbie with him.
Robbie was a sun made of metal, a happy face the size of a fivekronor piece surrounded by five stubby points. Max had won it at the Tivoli theme park in Copenhagen when he was eight years old, on a family visit with both sets of grandparents.
He could no longer remember why he had called the little smiley sun Robert, later shortened to Robbie, but it had accompanied him throughout his life as his lucky charm. The last thing Max did before leaving the apartment was to kiss Robbie on the nose and tuck him in his jacket pocket.
Wish me luck, buddy.
He got to the restaurant fifteen minutes before the agreed time, ordered sashimi and read through the contract he had prepared the previous evening. It gave him the rights to fifty per cent of all Tora’s income from future recordings and appearances. He was hoping that the girl or girls would have so little idea about this sort of thing that fifty-fifty would sound perfectly reasonable.
He would of course need the signature of a parent or guardian, but his intention was to get the project moving first, so that this person would feel obliged to accept his terms if the whole thing was to go ahead. The scheme was not without risk; there was a reason why he’d brought Robbie along.
Max had finished his sashimi and begun to worry that the meeting would be a wash-out when the freak appeared by the entrance to the restaurant. Teresa, that was her name. Max Hansen got up and went to meet her.
Then Tora appeared, and Max had to turn to Robbie’s other particularly useful quality. The sight of that beautiful creature sent a stab of fear through him. He hadn’t thought he would react like this, but a week of brooding darkly on what had happened in the hotel room had got into his bones. He started to shake and pushed his hand into his jacket pocket, clasped his hand around Robbie’s protruding points. The fear in his heart shot down his arm and gathered around the pain in his hand. A seemingly relaxed pose: left hand in his jacket pocket, right hand outstretched, hello there, welcome. They sat down at the table.
Teresa did the talking and Max relaxed a little, loosened his grip on Robbie. He set out his plan. They would make a demo featuring two songs: a cover of something Tora sang well, plus a new song. He knew several pretty good songwriters and would gather together a few possibilities. At that point he was interrupted.
‘We’ve got songs,’ said the freak.
‘I’m sure you have,’ said Max. ‘But we can look at those later. We need to adopt a completely professional approach at this stage.’
The freak placed a cheap MP3 player with earphones on the table and ordered him to listen. She was rather rude. He extricated his left hand from his pocket, holding it so that the red indentations in his palm wouldn’t show, sighed meaningfully and put the earphones in.
He knew roughly what he was going to hear. Once upon a time it had been cassettes, then CDs, and more recently MP3 files that young wannabes had sent him. They fell into two categories: feeble variations on whatever happened to be current, or mournful ballads accompanied by guitar. By and large.
Teresa pressed play and it took Max Hansen three seconds to realise this was something that had been recorded at home using a music program, without any great finesse. Guitar, bass, percussion and a clumsy synth track. When Theres began to sing he thought he recognised the song, although he couldn’t quite place it.
They say that you will never fly
They say that you’re too young
They say that you must always listen
To all their rules and strictures
But if you have wings you’ll fly…
It was a good song. Actually, it was a really good song. The production was crap and the lyrics needed a bit of work, but the melody was immediately appealing and of course Tora sang perfectly. By the time he heard the first chorus, Max Hansen had already decided that he could perhaps save on the cost of a songwriter. This song showed off Tora’s vocal range and potential beautifully.
He had to keep up the pretence. Before the song came to an end he pulled out the earphones and shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose it might do. It might be OK with decent production. We can probably work with what we’ve got here.’ Max Hansen took out the contract and placed it in front of Tora along with a pen. ‘Right, I need your paw mark on this piece of paper.’ He turned to the last page and pointed to the line at the bottom. ‘Just here.’
Tora looked at the line, then at the pen. Then she said, ‘How do I make a paw mark?’ She turned to Teresa. ‘Can you do it?’
Max forced a smile and slipped his left hand into his jacket pocket, where he rubbed his thumb over Robbie’s face. ‘A signature, I mean. You need to sign here. If I’m going to carry on working with you so that you can make a CD.’
Teresa pushed the contract back across the table. ‘We can’t do that.’ Robbie found his way back into Max’s palm, pressing against the skin until it was almost punctured. Max closed his eyes, concentrated on the pain, and managed to remain calm.
‘Listen, my dear,’ he said to Tora. ‘This is your chance. Trust me, I’m going to make you a star, you’re going to earn money and have fans, the whole shooting match. But you have to sign this piece of paper, or that’s the end of it.’
‘I don’t want money,’ said Tora. ‘I want to make a CD.’
‘And you will make a…’ Max Hansen broke off. ‘What do you mean, you don’t want money?’
‘She means what she says,’ said Teresa.
After some negotiation it emerged that what Tora wanted was a deal where Max Hansen gave her cash in hand. There was no need for paperwork or registration or the allocation of rights. Max Hansen was to act as if he were her guardian, but without any written proof.
It was risky. Max Hansen would never even have considered it if it hadn’t been for his plan: take the money and run. He could cash in bigtime here before it came to light that he had no right to. After all, everyone would just assume the paperwork was in order.
‘OK,’ he said, ‘we’re agreed,’ as if it was perfectly normal not to have a signed contract between artist and agent.
So Max Hansen put his papers away, forbore from rubbing his hands and explained how things would work over the next few weeks. The biggest fly in the ointment was that Tora refused to do anything unless Teresa came along, which meant he would have to book studio time at the weekends. He hoped the girls’ irritating symbiosis would wear away as time went by; Tora was too talented to drag a troll on a chain along behind her. But for now he would just have to live with it.