Little Star

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.

All communication was to be via email, and he had no problem with that. He was quite happy to avoid the hassle of trying to explain himself to parents or brothers or whoever.

When they had said goodbye and talk soon, Max sat there for a long time staring straight ahead. Then he took out Robbie and pressed him to his lips, whispering, ‘Well done, buddy.’ When a waiter came to ask if there would be anything else, Max ordered a small bottle of champagne. Well, sparkling wine. The same thing for half the price. That was his theme tune.

***

The following weekend they recorded the demo in a studio on Gotgatan. A series of emails had criss-crossed between Theres, Teresa and Max Hansen. A background tape to the song ‘Fly’ had been prepared, and the decision had been made to cover Abba’s ‘Thank You for the Music’.

Teresa felt small and lost in the soundproofed basement rooms. She didn’t know what Max Hansen had said to the studio technicians and the producer, but it was obvious that everyone regarded her as an irritating hanger- on and barely tolerated her.

This was partly down to Theres. Even when she was due to go in and record her vocal track, she refused to do anything unless Teresa went in with her. Teresa was told not to make a sound. Not to rustle, not to move, not to breathe audibly. Preferably not to exist.

Theres was familiar with the technology involving headphones and the microphone from her home recordings, and as far as Teresa could judge she sang perfectly on the very first take. The warnings about audible breathing were superfluous, since Teresa was holding her breath most of the time in any case.

The producer’s voice came over the speakers, asking Theres to put a little more emphasis on this phrase, hold back in the first verse and so on. Theres did as she was asked, and after two more takes the producer was happy.

After another hour or so they played the raw mix. Teresa couldn’t understand this business of a ‘raw mix’. It already sounded like something you might hear on the radio, and a shiver ran down her arms when she heard the first lines and thought: That’s my song. I wrote that.

Faced with a result, something similar seemed to occur to the studio people, and they looked on her with a slightly kinder expression. A guy in his twenties turned to her and said, ‘Good lyrics, kid,’ and Teresa had to stare at the floor because she was blushing. She could handle nastiness; kindness and praise were tricky.

The song continued, and even though it sounded much more like a real song than it had before, Teresa felt something was missing; it had lost something from the simple version they had recorded in Svedmyra. She couldn’t for the life of her put her finger on what it was, and didn’t dare to say anything because she knew she would be waved away. Presumably they knew what they were doing.

Then they moved on to ‘Thank You for the Music’, and when Theres had sung the last line, ‘For giving it to me…’, the people on the mixer desk were sitting motionless and open-mouthed. Then the producer switched on the speakers so that Theres and Teresa could hear the spontaneous applause.

Max Hansen was satisfied, and announced they were ‘onto a surefire winner’. When Teresa asked if they could have a copy of the raw mix on CD, he said it was impossible because they didn’t want to risk it getting out before the whole thing was finished. It would also be a good idea if they deleted the version they had at home, to make sure there couldn’t be any unnecessary leaks. Teresa said of course, without the slightest intention of doing so. Max Hansen gave Theres a five-hundred-kronor note. He would be in touch as soon as things started moving.