‘Have it away on our toes and put as much distance between ourselves and Mr Ishmael as possible.’
‘I agree with that,’ said Rob. Who had grown his hair a bit longer, but also favoured a suit. ‘And he sacked me, anyway. I don’t know what I’m doing here.’
‘He told me he wants to put the band back together as a five-piece,’ said Neil. ‘And he wants me to take charge of the recording sessions, because that is something that I now know all about.’
‘And me to handle the promotional side,’ added Rob. ‘He did mention that to me, now I’ve been in advertising for three years.’
‘And he wants me to find him a new house, one with a recording studio attached,’ said Toby.
And it was at that moment that I realised Mr Ishmael had been watching all of us. And perhaps guiding our separate movements? Our separate careers? For his own ends?
It seemed entirely probable.
‘Hold on a minute,’ Rob said. ‘What do you mean, Neil, about him wanting a five-piece band? Who is the fifth member? Not Mr Ishmael himself, I hope.’
‘Ah,’ said I. And this ‘Ah’ drew their attention.
‘You know, don’t you, Tyler?’ said Neil.
‘I like your suit,’ I said to Neil. ‘Did you get it from Carnaby Street?’
‘Who is the fifth member?’ Neil asked. ‘And do not try to change the subject.’
‘It’s him,’ I said, and I pointed.
‘This big cocker spaniel?’ said Neil.
‘Cocker spaniel indeed!’ said the great big bloodhound.
And Neil and Toby and Rob fell back in their seats.
But I didn’t and I just said, ‘Lads, allow me to introduce you to my brother, Andy. He is our new lead singer.’
‘A man dressed up as a dog,’ said Rob. And he nodded thoughtfully.
‘Are you nodding thoughtfully?’ Neil asked him.
‘Well, I can appreciate the novelty value. I’ve been working on a concept of an extended family of furry animals who live on a common and pick up litter. Children will love them, and parents will love them loving them because they will instil decent habits into the children: abstemiousness and the cockney work ethic. I’m thinking of naming them after the common.’
‘The Ealings?’ said Neil.
But Rob shook his head. ‘The Wandles of Wandsworth Common. Catchy, eh?’
I looked at those I could look at. And those I could look at looked back at me. And as one we shook our heads. Rather sadly.
‘Well, I’m working on it,’ said Rob. ‘I’ll pull it together. But there is potential for a singer dressed as a dog. Think of Howling Wolf.’
‘Did he dress as a wolf?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Rob. ‘I just said to think of him. Maybe we could do some Howling Wolf numbers.’
‘We’re not going to do any George Formby numbers, I’m telling you that,’ said Rob. ‘I have a few catchy ones of my own that I’ve recently penned about cheese.’
‘We’ll do exclusively all our own material,’ said Andy, divesting himself of his dog’s head. ‘Mr Ishmael has commissioned me to write all the new material.’
‘This is the first I’ve heard of this,’ I said.
Andy just shrugged. ‘If you have any problems with it, then I suggest you take them up with Mr Ishmael.’
That was a phrase that would come to be used quite a lot in the near future. And it never lost any of its power.
‘I’m fine with it,’ said Neil. And his teeth made the ‘grindings of discontent’.
‘And I suppose running is out of the question,’ said Toby. ‘So I suppose we’d better buckle down and do some rehearsing.’
‘Where?’ I enquired.
‘At my rehearsal studio,’ said Toby. ‘I acquired it quite cheaply during a big property deal I was doing. I can’t quite remember why I decided to buy it now. But it’s handy I did, isn’t it?’
And we all agreed.
It was very handy.
It was not a jolly reunion lunch. In fact, it set a precedent for all reunion get-togethers to come. They would, from now on, always be grim affairs. But at that first lunch, certain lines were drawn. And we knew where we stood. We agreed that we now feared and hated Mr Ishmael. But we also agreed that if we were going to be forced into putting The Sumerian Kynges on the road, then we would become a force to be reckoned with. We would do everything in our power to become the very future and spirit of rock ’n’ roll. A Supergroup.
And that when this came about, as we now determined it would, we would then enjoy the company of as many young women as our celebrity entitled us to.
So that was rock ’n’ roll and sex taken care of. Which only left the drugs. And there were a lot of those about in nineteen sixty-seven, I can tell you.
But not, perhaps, at this moment.
Because at this moment, and for quite a few moments to come, we were rather busy with rehearsals. Andy and I wondered whether we should employ a couple of private eyes to fill in for us whilst we rehearsed, because we wanted to keep the agency open.
And we were just on the point of hiring two when the Cease and Desist Order arrived from Brentford County Court.
It transpired that P. P. Penrose, the author of the Lazlo Woodbine novels, had finally caught word, as it were, that his fictional hero had opened a detective agency within a mile of that eminent author’s house. We were served with an order to Cease and Desist using the licensed name of Woodbine. Licences again!
And so we closed the agency and we had to let Lola go.
Which was a shame, because I had grown very fond of her and was on the point of asking her to marry me.
But this was nineteen sixty-seven. And if I was going to be in a Supergroup, I would, of course, have my pick of Supergroupies. So it was probably for the best that I simply forgot about Lola.
Which would, on the face of it, appear to be very simple and uncomplicated. But which was, in fact, anything but.
Toby’s rehearsal studio turned out to be a very large industrial complex on Old Brentford Docks. At one time, big business had flourished here, but by the sixties it was a wasteland.
By the eighties it became a very expensive estate of executive homes. And Toby made quite a killing selling up. But that, too, is for the future.
But for the present, which was our present then, there it was: a great big isolated building. Which did, at least, boast to significant security. Which was certainly needed, as it happens, because when the equipment arrived, it turned out that there was a great deal of it – all that other equipment that wasn’t ours, but had been hidden away in Count Otto Black’s mausoleum. And what a lot there was. Sufficient indeed to amplify any band that wanted to play a huge stadium, or a vast festival gig, or whatever.
Gigs of a nature that had not existed in the time when the gear was originally stolen. But now? When such gigs were all the rage?
Well, how handy was that, eh? It was almost as if it had somehow been planned. That this equipment had been stored away just waiting for its moment to come.
And its moment had come.
And its moment was now.
And so we began our rehearsals. Rehearsing what? Rehearsing Andy’s songs, of course. There were a dozen of them. Sufficient for a gig. Sufficient for an album. And although I, as were the other Sumerian Kynges, was prepared
