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was.
    So “Cry My Tears Away” ate up charts and radio time, and critics praised the raw, edgy power of the flip side, “Dig Your Man.” The rhythm section made a perfect platform for the vocal harmonies: Peyton's voice all sweet turquoise velvet, Seth's reedy, woody, slightly hoarse, and the two woven together like a medieval tapestry. The Kydds became quite famous in England, played London and the European capitals, kept honing their chops.
    Harold Loomis wasn't happy. He wanted America. He'd closed the record store by now, goodnight dear old Papa, and become the full-time manager of the Kydds. He'd cultivated relationships with everyone from club promoters to disc jockeys, sound engineers to studio heads. That was how Harold liked to think of himself: as a cultivator. Hadn't he taken these four unpolished boys, young louts really, and nurtured them into a talented band with a number-one hit single? Now the label wanted an album. Harold wanted the label to send the Kydds on a tour of America.
    And, no mistake, America was waiting. Its bands were too bland, too bloated, or too black; as always, it wanted something it had never seen before. Its appetite for the Kydds turned out to be voracious.
    You've probably seen the newsreels: the teenage girls clawing their way through police barricades, the Kydds coming down the flimsy metal staircase of an airplane, trying not to let the fear of crowd madness show through their good-natured smiles. The Union Jacks everywhere, and the giant cardboard heads of Peyton, Seth, Mark, or Dennis, each little girl's personal favorite. Peyton laughed at it, was flattered. Seth raged, said he didn't want a bunch of mindless cannibal-bitch Lolitas for fans. Harold said the little girls were all right to start with. They had money and influence. The serious listeners would catch on soon enough.
    Seth told Harold he was insane to believe prepubescent girls had influence. A week later, though, when the banner of The New York Times read “KYDDS CONQUER USA,” even Seth had to admit that Harold might know something he himself didn't.
    â€œThe men don't know, but the little girls understand,” said Harold, smirking at Seth.
    The concert changed the way they thought about everything. None of them, including Harold, had ever seen a crowd that size; they associated such crowds with coronations and other royal events. There was an instant of silence as they took the stage; then the screaming started again. They glanced at each other almost shyly, paralyzed until Dennis twirled a drumstick and touched it to a cymbal. When they launched into “Dig Your Man,” they could hardly hear themselves. It wasn't the best show they had ever played, not by a long shot, but the sensation of the throng was unlike anything they'd ever imagined: deeper than sex, more primal than rock, seeming to happen in slow motion. They would play together onstage many more times, but never with the same unselfconscious sense of fun they'd had before. This show had put too much awe into them.
    They saw very little of New York—the insides of luxurious hotel rooms, the bowels of a stadium. For “relaxation”—which, like everything else they did, was filmed—they were taken to Central Park one day. Seth stood on top of a great boulder and marveled at the view, unlike anything he'd ever seen before, wilderness surrounded by the peaks and spires of the city.
    â€œDo you think you could ever live in America?” asked a reporter. As Harold hovered anxiously just out of frame, the others shook their heads:
    â€œNo, no, don't think so. England's home.” Seth, for once, kept quiet.

vi

    The Kydds had just finished recording their second album—the first had been a series of their old cover songs arranged around “Cry My Tears Away” and “Dig your Man”—and Seth had broken up with a girlfriend from his Silver Dreams days, a girlfriend who wanted a great