“I agree, and that’s why we’ll beat them. Brentford Records are going to have their own retail outlets. A chain of independent record shops.”

“What?” went John. “What?”

“A chain of small shops up and down the country.”

John Omally shook his head in a weary kind of a way. “Jim, Jim, Jim,” he said to Jim. “And where will the money come from?”

Pooley smiled a broad and cheery smile. “Ah,” he said. “I was wondering about that myself. But as you’ve just saved us half a million quid on the recording studio, we can use that money.”

Omally buried his head in his hands and Jim got another round in.

The arrival of the Gandhis at precisely seven o’clock came as a bit of a surprise. And if their punctuality glared into the face of rock ’n’ roll, their appearance positively gobbed in its eye.

The Gandhis looked—

Respectable.

The four male members wore matching dark grey business suits. Their big hair had been slicked back and tucked down the collars of their white shirts. White shirts! And these white shirts were buttoned at the neck. And these white shirts had ties!

Litany, grey moustached but make-up free, favoured a demure beige two-piece number over a white cotton blouse. She wore sensible shoes on her feet and she looked like a lady librarian. She even had a briefcase!

“Jesus Jones!” said John Omally.

“By the prophet’s beard!” said Jim.

“Good evening, madam, good evening, gents,” said Neville the part-time barman.

Litany smiled upon Neville and Neville pinked up at the cheeks. “I’ve heard you draw the finest pints of Large in Brentford,” she said.

Neville’s pigeon chest came swelling up his shirt front.

“Then five pints, please,” said Litany. “The gentleman there will be paying.”

Neville glanced at the gentleman there. The gentleman there was Jim.

“Hmm,” went Neville, his pigeon chest falling. “The gentleman there. I see.”

The gentleman there had his mouth hanging open. The gentleman with him had too.

“Is that really them?” whispered John.

“It is,” Jim whispered. “It is.”

“But why are they—”

“Dressed like that? Because I asked them to, John. I didn’t want Neville getting all upset, so I asked them to dress down a bit.”

Omally shook his head. “Well, we can’t just sit here staring. Let’s give them the big hello.”

Pooley made the introductions. John shook hands all round, lingering somewhat longer than was perhaps necessary on the shaking of Litany’s.

Litany smiled up at John.

And John smiled down at Litany.

And whatever thoughts were now going through John’s head, he kept very much to himself. But had these thoughts been set to music and brought out on a CD, it is a certainty that the CD would have needed one of those labels that says PARENTAL GUIDANCE: EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT.

“Can I have my hand back, please?” asked Litany.

“Oh yes,” said John. “Won’t you all come over and join us at our table? Jim will take care of the drinks. Won’t you, Jim?”

“I will,” said Pooley. “I will.”

Neville brought a tray out and loaded up the pints. “Now that’s more like it, Jim,” he said. “A bit of class in the bar. Estate agents, are they? Or accountants?”

“Something like that,” said Jim, fishing out his wad and peeling off a ten-spot.

Neville held it up to the light. “This better be kosher,” he said.

“But it’s the change you gave me from the last round.”

“Exactly,” said Neville. “So watch it.”

Pooley struggled across with the tray and set it down on the table. “Don’t I get a seat?” he asked.

“Bring one over, Jim,” said John, who was sitting next to Litany. “I’d give you my seat, but I’m sitting here.”

Pooley dragged a chair across and squeezed himself in between Gandhis.

A description of the Gandhi men might be useful here. But sadly there is little to be said. In their suits and with their hair dragged back, they all looked much of a muchness. Tall and lean, with sticky-out cheekbones, big on sunken eyes. Very much like brothers, they looked. But not at all like the Osmonds.

There was Ricky Zed, on lead guitar. Dead Boy Doveston on bass. Matchbox Finial on rhythm guitar and occasional keyboards, and Pigarse Peter Westlake on drums. There would no doubt have also been Adolf Hitler on vibes and Val Doonican as himself had this been the Bonzos’ Intro and the Outro. But it wasn’t, so there wasn’t.

So to speak.

Jim pushed pints around the table, smiling all round and about.

“Now, before we begin,” said Litany, “there is something that Pigarse wants to say. Isn’t there, Pigarse?”

“I have a morbid fear of identical twins,” said Pigarse.

“No, not that,” said Litany.

“My father once pushed a Barbie doll up his bottom for art,” said Pigarse.

“No, not that either.”

“I’m very sorry for punching you last night in the Shrunken Head, Mr Omally,” said Pigarse. “It was rock ’n’ roll madness and it won’t happen again.”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Litany.

John, whose eyes had hardly left her for a single moment, said, “That’s all right, Pigarse, forget it.”

“Stone me,” said Jim.

“Forget it,” said Omally. “I thought I’d wait until the band got really big before terminating Pigarse’s contract and chucking him out on his ear.”

“Most amusing,” said Pigarse.

“Glad you think so,” said John.

Litany took a sip at her Large and drained an even half-pint. “This is very good stuff,” said she. “So shall we get right down to business?”

John, who had never actually seen beer vanish quite as fast as that, even when it was going down his own throat, said, “Yes, that would be fine.”

Litany opened her briefcase and took from it papers which she laid on a spare bit of table. “It is imperative,” she said, “that from the word go we all know where we stand, legally. We have signed a contract with Jim, giving Brentford Records exclusive rights to our music and we have each put up five hundred pounds to make us shareholders in the company. This is to ensure that we have absolute artistic control over our music and an equal share in all profits.”

“Absolutely,” said John.

“Absolutely,” said Litany. “Jim and I discussed this during the afternoon and I have had these legally binding contracts drawn up to ensure your commitment to us. That you will fulfil your side of the bargain. Do what is expected of you. So forth and suchlike. Do you understand?”

“Absolutely,” said John once again.

Litany took up the contracts and passed them over the table. One to Jim and one to John. “Please read them carefully,” she said. “We must get this right from the start. I don’t want us all fighting later. I have no wish to get screwed by a bunch of solicitors and end up coughing into their pockets.”

Omally tried to picture that, but his thoughts took a deviant sexual turn so he set to reading the contract.

“This part here,” he said.

“Which part is that?” asked Litany.

“The party in the first part of this contract will be known as the party in the first part.”

“What about it?” asked Litany.

“I don’t like it,” said John.

“Nor do I,” said Jim. “It’s out of an old Marx Brothers movie.”

“Ignore that bit, then,” Litany said. “And just read through the rest.”

Jim read and John read and Jim turned pages.

John turned pages too and Jim read some more.

John turned a page then and Jim turned another one.

And then they turned some pages back. They weren’t entirely sure.

“Happy with it?” Litany asked.

“It has a certain poetry,” said John. “But what it says, in essence, is that Jim and I are entirely liable to all expenses incurred by the band. That we finance it ourselves, but all costs are defrayed against record sales and all profits split seven ways.”

“That’s it,” said Litany.