He had £145 now. That got him a third-hand electric guitar (the make long forgotten) and a bad amp and cabinet. After that they couldn’t get him away from the mirror.

Deco’s mother worried about him. He’d be eating his breakfast and then he’d yell something like Good God Y’Awl or Take It To The Bridge Now. Deco was on a strict soul diet: James Brown, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye. James for the growls, Otis for the moans, Smokey for the whines and Marvin for the whole lot put together, Jimmy said.

Deco sang, shouted, growled, moaned, whined along to the tapes Jimmy had given him. He bollixed his throat every night. It felt like it was being cut from the inside by the time he got to the end of Tracks of My Tears. He liked I Heard It through the Grapevine because the women singing I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE NOT MUCH LONGER WOULD YOU BE MY BABY gave him a short chance to wet the stinging in his throat. Copying Marvin Gaye meant making his throat sore and then rubbing it in.

He kept going though. He was getting better. It was getting easier. He could feel his throat stretching. It was staying wet longer. He was getting air from further down. He put on Otis Redding and sang My Girl with him when he needed a rest. He finished every session with James Brown. Then he’d lie on the bed till the snot stopped running. He couldn’t close his eyes because he’d spin. Deco was taking this thing very seriously.

All his rehearsing was done standing up in front of the wardrobe mirror. He was to look at himself singing, Jimmy said. He was to pretend he had a microphone. At first he jumped around but it was too knackering and it frightened his mother. Jimmy showed him a short video of James Brown doing Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag. He couldn’t copy James’ one-footed shuffle on the bedroom carpet so he practised on the lino in the kitchen when everyone had gone to bed.

He saw the way James Brown dropped to his knees. He didn’t hitch his trousers and kneel. He dropped. Deco tried it. He growled SOMETIMES I FEEL SO GOOD I WANNA JUMP BACK AND KISS MYSELF, aimed his knees at the floor and followed them there.

He didn’t get up again for a while. He thought he’d knee-capped himself. Jimmy told him that James Brown’s trousers were often soaked in blood when he came off-stage. Deco was fucked if his would be.

There was nothing you could teach James Clifford about playing the piano. Jimmy had him listening to Little Richard. He got James to thump the keys with his elbows, fists, heels. James was a third-year medical student so he was able to tell Jimmy the exact, right word for whatever part of his body he was hitting the piano with. He was even able to explain the damage he was doing to himself. He drew the line at the forehead. Jimmy couldn’t persuade him to give the piano the odd smack with his forehead. There was too much at stake there. Besides, he wore glasses.

Joey The Lips helped Dean Fay.

–My man, that reed there is a nice lady’s nipple.

For days Dean blushed when he wet the reed and let his lips close on it.

–Make it a particular lady, someone real.

Dean chose a young one from across the road. She was in the same class as his brother, third year, and she was always coming over to borrow his books or scab his homework. It didn’t work though. Dean couldn’t go through with it. She was too real. So the saxophone reed became one of Madonna’s nipples and Dean’s playing began to get somewhere.

Joey The Lips was a terrific teacher, very patient. He had to be. Even Joey The Lips’ mother, who was completely deaf, could sense Dean’s playing from the other side of the house.

After three weeks he could go three notes without stopping and he could hold the short notes. Long ones went all over the place. Joey The Lips played alongside him, like a driving instructor. He only shouted once and that was really a cry of fright and pain caused by Dean backing into him while Joey The Lips still had his trumpet in his mouth.

Billy Mooney blammed away at his drums. His father was dead and his brothers were much younger than him so there was no one in the house to tell him to shut the fuck up.

Jimmy told him not to bother too much with cymbals and to use the butts of the sticks as well as the tips. What he was after was a steady, uncomplicated beat:—a thumping backbeat, Jimmy called it. That suited Billy. He’d have been happy with a bin lid and a hammer. And that was what he used when he played along to Dancing in the Streets. Not a bin lid exactly; a tin tray, with a racehorse on it. The horse was worn off after two days.

The three backing vocalists, The Commitmentettes, listened to The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, The Ronettes, The Crystals and the The Shangri-las. The Commitmentettes were Imelda Quirk and her friends Natalie Murphy and Bernie McLoughlin.

–How yis move, yeh know—is more important than how yis sing, Jimmy told them.

–You’re a dirty bastard, you are.

Imelda, Natalie and Bernie could sing though. They’d been in the folk mass choir when they were in school but that, they knew now, hadn’t really been singing. Jimmy said that real music was sex. They called him a dirty bastard but they were starting to agree with him. And there wasn’t much sex in Morning Has Broken or The Lord Is My Shepherd.

Now they were singing along to Stop in the Name of Love and Walking in the Rain and they were enjoying it.

Joined together their voices sounded good, they thought. Jimmy taped them. They were scarlet. They sounded terrible.

–Yis’re usin’ your noses instead of your mouths, said Jimmy.

–Fuck off slaggin’, said Imelda.

–Yis are, I’m tellin’ yeh. An’ yis shouldn’t be usin’ your ordin’y accents either. It’s Walking in the Rain, not Walkin’ In De Rayen.

–Snobby!

They taped themselves and listened. They got better, clearer, sweeter. Natalie could roar and squeal too. They took down the words and sang by themselves without the records. They only did this though when one of them had a free house.

They moved together, looking down, making sure their feet were going the right way. Soon they didn’t have to look down. They wiggled their arses at the dressing table mirror and burst out laughing. But they kept doing it.

Jimmy got them all together regularly, about twice a week, and made them report. There, always in Joey The Lips’ mother’s garage, he’d give them a talk. They all enjoyed Jimmy’s lectures. So did Jimmy.

They weren’t really lectures; more workshops.

–Soul is a double-edged sword, lads, he told them once.

Joey The Lips nodded.

–One edge is escapism.

–What’s tha’?

–Fun.—Gettin’ away from it all. Lettin’ yourself go.—Know wha’ I mean?

–Gerrup!

Jimmy continued:—An’ what’s the best type of escapism, Imelda?

–I know wha’ you’re goin’ to say.

–I’d’ve said that a bracing walk along the sea front was a very acceptable form of escapism, said James Clifford.

They laughed.

–Followed by? Jimmy asked.

–Depends which way you were havin’ your bracing walk.

–Why?

–Well, if you were goin’ in the Dollymount direction you could go all the way and have a ride in the dunes.—That’s wha’ you’re on abou’, isn’t it?—As usual.

–That’s righ’, said Jimmy.—Soul is a good time.

–There’s no thin’ good abou’ gettin’ sand on your knob, said Outspan.

They laughed.

–The rhythm o’ soul is the rhythm o’ ridin’, said Jimmy.—The rhythm o’ ridin’ is the rhythm o’ soul.

–You’re a dirty-minded bastard, said Natalie.

–There’s more to life than gettin’ your hole, Jimmy, said Derek.

–Here here.

–Listen. There’s nothin’ dirty abou’ it, Nat’lie, said Jimmy.—As a matter o’fact it’s very clean an’ healthy.