FAT BARRY

We called our Christmas tree “Fat Barry”. “Fat” because it was particularly broad and big-bottomed, and “Barry” because, well, just because it made us laugh and seemed to fit. Barry’s one of those names that’s not popular any more. You don’t see many new people being named Barry, let me tell you. The name is just gathering dust, like old jam on a shelf, and one day you’ll turn around and all the Barrys will be gone.

NIGHTFISHING, OR FISHING AT NIGHT

Some men fish at night.
They have lights and everything.
The funny thing is you never see them fishing during the day.
Maybe the fish only come out at night.
Maybe the men only come out at night.
I think they call it “night fishing”, or “fishing at night”.

Lights and everything

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

It’s too early for Christmas decorations, and I know it’s a cliché, but it gets earlier every year. And I say it every year. Every year I say, “It’s getting earlier every year.” It’s getting earlier every year. And earlier and earlier every year I say it, every year, earlier and earlier. It gets earlier and earlier every year. And I think soon we’ll be living in a perpetual state of Christmas.

Earlier and earlier, every year

LONDON BREW

LONDON BREW AT THE BARBICAN, LONDON – 19/11/23

The new frying pan is made of a strange material. Some sort of space age plastic and a type of rubber that I want to call “vulcanised” though I have no idea what vulcanised rubber is, or if it’s even a thing at all, and I wonder when the world became so hard to understand, and I conclude that there was no single moment, it just happened gradually.

Happened gradually

At the soft play centre earlier there was a boy called A_____. He seemed like a nice kid but he whinged a lot. He started crying. It was loud, too loud to ignore. “Are you all right, A_____?” called the boy’s mother. “He’s faking it,” R____ called back. 

R____ forgot his water bottle. Oh well, I think in a Brooklyn accent, he ain’t gonna die of thirst, is he. People don’t just die of thirst these days.

The kids are all right, I thought, still in the accent, it’s the adults that are the problem.

Sometimes, these days, I think in a bad Brooklyn accent. 

I looked up at the tree, stark against the ashen-faced sky, and there was a magpie sitting on one of the branches, and I thought that if I had a camera with me I might have taken a photograph of the magpie and the tree and then maybe everything would have been all right. So I went and fetched my camera but when I got back the magpie flew off and sat somewhere else. Oh well, I thought, and took photos of the magpie and the tree separately. And there’s still a chance that everything will be all right.

The magpie

The tree

P.S. THE NEW MOON VISITED

After ten years of living within a hundred yards of it, and setting a novel largely within its walls, but never once setting foot inside, I just walk straight in. As simple as that. It smells exactly as I expected. Like a pub. Exactly like a pub. Yeasty, old meny, beery. I had been intending to sit at the bar, like in the book, but all the seats are taken. It’s definitely busier than I had imagined. I had never imagined it being busy. There’s hardly even room to stand and order a drink, so I stand at the corner between two drinkers. The drinkers are filling out a ‘bonus ball’ sort of raffle/sweepstake thing. They’ve all chosen their numbers and paid their two pounds. “There’s only one number left,” says one of the drinkers, addressing me, “why don’t you take it?” “OK,” I say, “how does it work?” The drinker explains how it works and I agree to take the last number. I pay the money and give them my name (my real name) and I’m in. Just like that. “I’ve never won a raffle before,” I say familiarly, like I fit right in. “Maybe this is your lucky night,” says one of the drinkers, a grey-haired, slightly drink-damaged man with a friendly glint in his eye. “Yeah,” I say, “it could be. You never know.” The grey-haired drinker eyes me with a friendly smile. “And where’s your better half: Eve?” he says with a chuckle. “She’s at home with the kids,” I reply, assuming the role of a male chauvinist with ease, or maybe I really am a male chauvinist after all. Maybe in this environment I would be, at least. It certainly is a predominantly male environment. I got that right. I ask for a ginger beer, meaning non-alcoholic, but the barmaid serves me Crabbie’s (alcoholic). I don’t quibble. I haven’t come here to quibble. But then I haven’t come here to drink either. I’ve come here for personal reasons. To prove something to myself. To close a circle. To see what it’s really like. To face the truth and compare it with my fiction. I won’t drink the Crabbie’s. I consider standing there at the bar with the other drinkers, but ultimately decide against it. I’ve done really well getting this far and I don’t want to push it. Go easy on yourself, I think. I sit at a nearby table, where I can observe without being part of the action. I text S__. “Guess where I am,” I text. He doesn’t text back straight away, so I tell him, “The new moon!” I text. “For real this time!” I sit at my table writing in my notebook. One of the drinkers smiles at me as she goes out for a smoke and I smile back. There’s a kind of fug of chatter and pub noise, which is pierced by the barmaid exclaiming, “I’ve just got a coin with the king’s head on it!” This is greeted by a mixture of cheers and boos from the assembled drinkers. “Can I have it?” says one of them, a middle-aged man who seems to have been roused momentarily from the edge of consciousness. “You should keep it,” advises the grey-haired drinker. “That’s worth money.”

JJULIUS/LOOPSEL

JJULIUS/LOOPSEL/CATE KENNAN AT MOTH CLUB, HACKNEY – 27/10/23

So, it turns out I’m the kind of guy who stops in a layby on the dual carriageway to take pictures of a rainbow. I tell myself it’s the most vivid rainbow I have ever seen. I am quite taken by it. I feel like it is emanating from me, like I am the beating heart of rainbow land.

Nice rainbow

Sometimes, I think, it seems that everything is inevitable, that everything that is happening was always going to happen, so there’s no point trying to influence the course of events. It’s better just to be swept along by it all and look about you as much as you can whilst.

One thing I’ve learned from my kids is that nothing has to be perfect.

CATE KENNAN makes the kind of music that makes you feel silly just standing there watching it. “What are you looking at?” it seems to be saying. “There ain’t nothing to see here.” OK, I think, fair enough. I close my eyes a bit. I look around. There’s a guy nodding off by the stage. A_____, my friend from T______, thinks she should be doing this in a fancy restaurant while people eat fancy dinners, and I think he’s absolutely right. 

Nothing to see here

I’ve not really connected with any new music over the last few years like I have with the sounds coming out of Gothenburg recently, and watching LOOPSEL create her spidery webs of sound it’s clear to see why: it’s otherworldly, dark, dreamy and downbeat, which is what I think I’m just like. At times her music reminds me of undergrowth. On top of Engström’s soundscapes another woman tells stories in Swedish and English that are impossible to follow but still sound nice. In a slightly sinister way, of course.

There’s a moment before JJULIUS take the stage where it seems that Julius Pierstorff has gone missing. There are whispered conversations, shrugged shoulders and phone calls that go unanswered, before he finally appears, tall, dressed in a cheap-looking suit, overcoat and hairstyle, bristling with nervous energy. There were supposed to be four of them, he explains, but the lead guitarist broke his wrist so they’re muddling through and it will just be a little more awkward than usual. It’s a kind of fidgety, uptight sound with moments of rainy melancholy. Their party song is called “Grief in Gothenburg”, or Sorg I Göteborg to give it its proper title. It’s gloomy as fuck, just the way I like it.

Gloomy

IRONIC HILL WAS HERE

ME LOST ME

ME LOST ME/GWFAA/VELOUR AT THE RAILWAY INN, WINCHESTER - 19/10/23

Winchester used to be the capital of England, and it still seems to think itself quite important. It seems like a place where rich people belong, cushioned from the world beyond, living in a sort of fantasy. Outside it’s raining, but inside it’s cosy as can be.

Fantasy

VELOUR make exactly the kind of music that I really don’t like. It’s a kind of anthemic, melodramatic eighties-style soft pop, accompanied by torso dancing and miming synthetic drum fills with index fingers. It reminds me of Spandau Ballet, to my mind one of the worst bands to have ever shat upon planet Earth. Sorry, I don’t want to be mean. I mean, if the goal is to sound like Spandau Ballet then it’s a big success. Towards the end of the set I am disliking it so acutely that I start to feel quite uncomfortable. During the last song I actually feel nauseous. Sorry. I would like it if I could.

Feeling sick

GWFAA consist of two men with lots of gear. There’s something about men with gear that is so completely serious. It’s a solemn sort of play, as if solemnness justifies the amount of gear, and, anyway, they’re not really playing at all, but working. This gear, their solemnness suggests, is not going to use itself. So someone’s got to do it. So it’s justified. I start to feel sleepy, which I think is the idea. I may even doze off once or twice. I can’t be sure I don’t.  

Solemn

ME LOST ME has her fair share of gear too, or “tech” as she calls it, but without the accompanying solemnity. She’s a strange combination of the ancient and modern, with her mix of old English style folk singing and fancy modern gizmos. One minute she’s talking about monks hiding things in bibles and the next about staying up all night playing video games. And there’s a smoke machine that always seems to know the right moment to let itself off, as if it's connected to something, somehow. That’s the kind of vibe, I guess. It shouldn’t work but it does, or maybe it doesn’t work but it should. Maybe it’s the weather, but I’m not really sure about anything this evening.

Something, somehow

EARLY LUNCH

The sense of humour of other ages has always seemed bad. 

David Berman

We stopped for lunch at twelve. We’d been smoking weed since six and were burnt out. I don’t remember eating much, maybe some chips. Our boss drank four pints of lager and then feasted wantonly on a packet of beef flavoured crisps. We never did much work in the afternoon.

On rainy days we would sit in the break room watching daytime TV and smoking fags. It was a small room and there were five or six of us. We drank tea. No one drank coffee in those days, apart from my parents who drank Nescafe out of a jar. Our boss was a racist and every time Trisha came on the screen would refer to her racistly as “That black cow”. The room would slowly fill with smoke, and somehow we used to think that was better than being outside in the rain.

Our boss had a boss. He was called Angus. I always thought he was Scottish but I don’t think he was. I don’t remember him having a Scottish accent, and Scottish accents were things I remembered in those days. His occasional visits would send our boss into a panic. “Angus is coming down!” he would say in a strangled voice. It was always unclear, however, exactly what we were supposed to do with this information, and without specific instructions to guide us we would just sit up a bit straighter wearing expressions of readiness like an ill-fitting coat.

It was in the days when a group of friends could all get the same job together. I don’t remember any process being involved. You just had to go to an office - which was above one of those shops where everything was really cheap because it was useless and badly made - tell them your name and where you lived, and you were in.

Sometimes our boss would stay out all night and turn up to work in his evening wear. On those mornings when he inhaled on his cigarette his whole face would scrunch up until it looked like an arsehole, and he would carry on drinking from imported cans of lager that he’d bought off a guy in a car park. I’ve never seen anyone drink lager before breakfast and was secretly quite impressed.

The pub where we used to spend our lunch breaks is a Tesco now. Oh, how the times have changed.

My cousin Tom had worked there longer than the rest of us. “Tom’ll tell ya,” our boss used to say whenever the past came up in conversation.

One of our tasks was to keep the prom clear of sand. Our boss used a petrol blower, but all we had were brooms and we would sweep in neat little rows. The pointlessness of it was immensely soothing. “That’s a job for life,” passing wits would comment. But no, it wasn’t. It was seasonal work. In the winter months, much to our dismay, they just let the sand pile up.

The last I heard our boss was working in a bar in Spain. Tom told us that he’d died there. His name was Paul.

BEYOND THE PALE

 

John was glad when the queen died. He thought it was about time. He had this idea that people shouldn’t hang around too long, becoming a burden to others, and preventing the younger generation from receiving their rightful inheritance, and thought generally that people should just let themselves die when the time came. Medical treatment, he believed, should be denied to those over eighty, maybe even over seventy-five. He – he was sure – would deny any treatment offered to him once he reached old age. “Just let me die,” he imagined himself saying when the time came. And, besides, he was taking steps to ensure that he wasn’t even around to receive such offers. He smoked heavily at every opportunity, and, though he ate rather healthily (only because he wasn’t a child and preferred healthy food, not because he wanted to be healthy), never exercised. On the day of the funeral, distressed by the wall-to-wall coverage on the television, he went for a walk. Breathless after walking for ten minutes or so, he stopped at a bench outside one of the supermarkets for a cigarette. From where he sat he couldn’t see another living soul. “Fucking morons,” he said to himself, thinking of all those stuck inside, glued to this pantomime, this fairy tale of national history. He sat there for a few minutes smoking and wondering what was wrong with everyone. Then, his cigarette exhausted, he crushed it underfoot, immediately lit another, inhaled deeply, and coughed.

JOHN AND THE TEACHER: A TALE

 

John hates the outside. He once wrote, “I hate the outside, Dad always says let’s go to the park, but I hate the park, especially the trees which are stupid and are just a waste of time, when I go to the park I just sit there bored until its time to go home”. He wrote this because a teacher asked him to write about going to the park. John thought the teacher was wasting his time. He was right. The teacher thought it might help John to write about going to the park. But it didn’t. It didn’t help at all.

YUSSEF DAYES

YUSSEF DAYES AT VINILO RECORD STORE, SOUTHAMPTON – 13/09/23

I stop at the Rufus Stone on the way for a wee. It’s here that William II was killed by an arrow that “glanced” off an oak tree. A stone commemorates the spot where the oak tree once stood. 

"Glanced"

It’s a quiet place. There’s no one else around. Not a single other person. I’m the only person here. Being a sort of popular legend the incident is most probably fictional, or at least partly so. Life is never as interesting as people want it to be. Or maybe it’s too interesting, so people retreat to a safer world of make believe, stories and legends. But as the sun is setting through some trees, it certainly feels like the kind of place where a king could die.

A king could die here

When I arrive at VINILO it’s already quite full and there’s no way of getting near the front. It’s funny, but in my head I had imagined that I might be the only person here too. But I’m not. Not by a long shot. YUSSEF DAYES is here promoting his debut album called Black Classical Music, a reference to the Nina Simone quote about jazz being a white term to describe black people, so I’m guessing that he’s not a fan of the j-word, with its implications of the colonisation of a Black art form. But the music doesn’t feel “classical” to me. It’s inherently modern twenty-first century music, a deep and heady mix of styles and influences, free, funky, and virtuosic. Dayes has never played in Southampton before, so he says, though he does seem to remember passing though as a child and facetiously celebrates its great history as the birthplace of Craig David. Whether you call it jazz or not, it’s hard to argue with the fact that we are currently living through a golden age of Black British music, and Dayes is now another name to add to the long list of incredibly gifted UK-based musicians doing something that feels genuinely original, progressive and vital.

Golden age

There’s a big queue for signing so I go and have a look at a ruined fourteenth century church that’s just around the corner, and the past the present and the future dwell within me. When I return to the car Dayes is still in the shop so I dash in and ask him to sign my record. “I’m guessing you don’t like the term ‘jazz’,” I say. “It’s not that deep,” he says. “I don’t mind it. I’m just questioning. It’s not that deep.” 

DEERHOOF

DEERHOOF/YAMA WARASHI AT LAFAYETTE, KING’S CROSS – 21/08/23

When you live in London you imagine that it belongs to you somehow, and you to it. But London is a beast. It belongs to no one and possesses nothing. At least these are my reflections as I drive through Hammersmith on a sunny late summer evening listening to a Dub Store Records mixtape that I made a couple of days ago. I feel like a failed wanderer returning home to find that everyone he loves has disappeared with no explanation. Who are all these people, he thinks. Where have they come from. Were they here before. He has to adjust and knows things will never be the same, but finds he is quite happy to watch from the fringes as an outsider. And maybe, he writes – using his recently discovered technique of resting his notebook on his thigh so he can write while driving – being an outsider is the only route to freedom left. So he thinks.

 

Recently discovered

The band have requested that everyone wear face masks at tonight’s show so he bought one at B____ on his way here. He doesn’t like wearing face masks and only ever wore them reluctantly. But his motto at the moment is “Try not to be a cunt” and so he bought the face mask and he will wear it. He is trying.

In all my years of living in London I don’t think I ever walked along Regent’s Canal, but here I am as a tourist – or a visitor at least – doing just that.

Just that

You can tell the people who live here because they’re talking loudly on their phones about all their upcoming plans. “I’m meeting Ralph on Thursday,” says one woman. “You’re welcome to come if you want.” Or else they’re sitting in tucked away bars and covert restaurants talking animatedly about everything they’ve got going on. What lives these people lead! So much to do! What a lot to say! Plans! Arrangements!!

What lives!

I sit on a block of concrete at King’s Place where I am joined by a young man called Y___ who fumbles for a lighter before accepting he doesn’t have one. I don’t have one either, though I expect myself too. He was born in Greece before moving to Brighton and now London. I think Peckham he said. He makes weird music, he tells me. When his friend arrives I make my excuses. I go and have my portrait taken in the photo booth we always go to. The first one takes me by surprise but the rest are all poses. I never used to be a poser but I am now.

Poser

LAFAYETTE is a nice place full of hip London people. Falling Asleep At William Tyler, one of the original Rough Trade Tote Bag Guys from Nights Out, is here, standing right in front of me, right at the front, clutching his face mask (not a cunt) and readying some sort of digital recording device that he keeps in his front pocket. Haven’t seen him for a while. Do you remember him? He looks well. He always stands right at the front which you have to respect. I could try and talk to him but what would I say. “Hello, you’ve become a character in the fiction that is my consciousness. I call you Falling Asleep At William Tyler because I once saw you nodding off at the front of a William Tyler show at Café Oto.” No, I couldn’t say that. Could I? No, that wouldn’t do. Or would it?

FAAWT

YAMA WARASHI is not her name. It’s the name of her band. People sometimes call her “Yama”, which means “mountain” in Japanese, even though she’s not a mountain. One of her songs is about a Japanese coffin because she likes ancient stuff, which may explain why she lives in Wiltshire, near Avebury and Stonehenge, where she saw strange things flying in the sky. Another song is about veganism and how if you cut a leaf in half it can still live but if you cut a person’s head off, they die. It’s a definite vibe.

Mountain in Japanese

DEERHOOF have a lot going on. They are a busy band, their songs constantly rearranging themselves, folding in on themselves, like a musical kaleidoscope. It’s a very precise sort of mayhem, really. Somehow, it shouldn’t work but it does. Somehow, it shouldn’t make sense and doesn’t, by and large. At least not to me. But, actually, I think we should all just stop expecting things to make sense. Why should things make sense. It seems unreasonable to expect them to. Singer Satomi Matsuzaki comes onstage in a sort of Robin Hood pixie costume, or maybe it’s supposed to be a watermelon. The guitarist looks like a Greg to me, but he’s actually a John, and the drummer, who is a Greg but looks more like a John or maybe a Peter, is all flailing arms and hair and skinniness and odd socks and kind of lurches over to the microphone to make a series of rambling monologues in which he speaks very slowly and seems to be constantly fishing for words that just won’t bite. 

Works

THE DISAPPEARING PLAYGROUND

There was once a playground that made children disappear. Everyone knew that it made children disappear, but they still went. It became known locally as The Disappearing Playground and people came from miles around to see if the rumours were true. There was always a man there listening to jazz on an old boombox, held together with sticky tape, and there was a large dragonfly that always flew around him and sometimes landed on his knee, which was bloody like he’d just fallen over. And there was a robin that just sat on the ground by his side doing absolutely nothing, just sitting there. Children loved the playground because it had the best stuff. There was a see-saw, some swings, a little ship-shaped climbing frame and, best of all, a water play area. All the children loved the water play area. It would keep them occupied for hours before they disappeared. 

NIRVANA COVERS BAND

 

1. THE M3

“This is Nirvana,” says Peter, speeding down the M3, listening to Polly. He is addressing his daughter, Liv, who nods disinterestedly. She’s only six but she’s already learnt to switch off as soon as her father starts droning on about the music he likes.
  “They’re Stan’s favourite band,” he says, trying to ignite some interest in his daughter, who nods again, but doesn’t care, and simply isn’t interested.
  “This is one of their quieter songs, but they’re actually quite heavy. Do you like it?”
  “What?”
  “The music.”
  “Not really.”
  Mandy, the girl’s mother and married to Peter, is sitting in the passenger seat. She says, “I’m not sure she should be listening to this.”
  “Why not?” says Peter.
  “It’s not really age appropriate, is it?”
  “Why not?”
  “Well, do you know what this song is about?”
  “Um, no, not really.”
  “So, you like to sing along, but you don’t know what it means, is that you?”
  “Yeah, I guess so. I don’t really listen to the lyrics in songs that much.”
  “It’s about the kidnapping and rape of a teenage girl.”
  “Oh.”
  “I really don’t think it’s appropriate.”
  “No, well, I wouldn’t worry too much. She’s not really listening, anyway.” 
  “That’s not the point.” 
  “And if I don’t know what it’s about then I doubt she will either.”
  “I don’t know. She is quite perceptive. She understands more than you might think.”
  The song, Polly, ends and another, Territorial Pissings, begins.
  “Can you just put something else on, please?” says Mandy. “Something a bit more child-friendly.”

2. HALLIFORD STREET

“It’s only a mid-life crisis if you call it a mid-life crisis,” says Peter.
  “It sounds textbook to me,” says Mandy.
  “I mean, not really. You know as well as I do that I’ve never stopped wanting to be in a band, and I’ve never stopped playing music.”
  “But you did stop playing in a band. Quite a long time ago. Like, over a decade ago.”
  “And now I’ve just realised that it’s something I really want back in my life, and rather than just not do it, I’ve decided that I’m just going to do it, or at least try to make it happen.”
  “Yes, exactly. You’ve realised that you’re not getting any younger, and that actually, recently, things have taken quite a sharp downward turn, what with your teeth, and your bad back, and your thinning hair, and you’ve decided, all of a sudden, that you have to do it now, right now, and that, if you don’t do it right now, you will most probably never do it again, and have to live out your old age with all this regret and you’ll just be this sort of impotent, beaten-down pile of flesh and bone. I mean, that is basically the definition of a mid-life crisis. You may as well just buy a sports car or a pair of leather trousers. It’s the same thing.”
  “Well, thanks for your support as always. I know I can always count on you for an encouraging word.”
  “Oh, I’ll support your mid-life crisis. Absolutely. As long as you don’t want to spend hundreds of pounds on new equipment, or buy a van, or anything like that. If you just want to play little gigs at The Dead Duck, like you used to, that’s absolutely fine. You go ahead. I’ll welcome it. I might even come.”
  “Well, I probably will need to buy a few little bits and pieces, maybe get my guitar serviced, nothing major.”
  “That’s fine,” says Mandy, flicking through some unopened mail that had accumulated in a little pile. “Just don’t go overboard.”

3. HENDERSON ROAD

“Bob!” says Peter. 
  “Peter?” says Robert.
  “Yeah, it’s me. Peter.”
  “Yeah, I know. It’s just a bit of a shock, that’s all. I haven’t seen you for years. How are you?”
  “I’m fine. How are you?”
  “All right, yeah. Can’t complain. It’s Robert now, by the way.”
  “Can’t I call you Bob?”
  “I prefer Robert.” 
  “I can’t believe you still live here.”
  “Why wouldn’t I still live here? Where else would I live?”
  “I don’t know. Sometimes people move, Robert. How long have you lived here? Twenty, twenty-five years?”
  “Yeah, something like that. So what can I do for you?”
  “Well, I wanted to speak to you, and I didn’t have your number, so, um, well, I remembered where you lived, and, um, we used to pick you up for practice, do you remember?”
  “Of course. And you used to call the house and take the piss out of the way I answered the phone.”
  “Yeah, well, you know, that was just a laugh. You know what we were like. We were always taking the piss out of everyone and everything.”
  “Especially me.”
  “Anyway, can I come in?”
  “Yeah, the kids are just having their lunch, but we can talk in the other room, if you like.”
  “Great.” 
  “Do you want a cup of tea?”
  “No, you’re all right, mate. I’ve just had one. My bladder can’t handle too much tea these days.”
  “No, mine neither.”
  Peter sits down. Robert remains standing.
  “Aren’t you going to sit down?” says Peter.
  “No, I’m trying to stand up as much as possible at the moment,” says Robert, “as an alternative to sitting down.”
  “Why?”
  “It’s good for your heart, apparently, someone at work said, so I thought I’d try it. It’s not too bad actually. It’s not as bad as you might think.”
  “Suit yourself.”
  “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
  “Well, so, you’re going to think I’m crazy, I probably am, but I was listening to Nevermind by Nirvana the other day.”
  “Oh yeah.”
  “And I was just thinking about how we used to cover half of the songs on that record.”
  “Yeah, we did, didn’t we?”
  “Yeah, and it gave me this idea to get the band back together. Start playing some gigs again.”
  “Seriously?”
  “Yeah, well, you know, for fun, for a laugh, nothing too serious, I’m not thinking we’re going to be the next big thing or anything.”
  “Good job too.”
  “But you never know.”
  “Oh, OK.”
  “Don’t you miss it?”
  “Miss what?”
  “Playing in a band. Playing gigs.”
  “Not really. I’m a music teacher. I’m constantly playing music, and putting concerts together.”
  “It’s not the same though, is it, as what we used to do? It doesn’t have that same excitement, surely, with a load of kids? It can’t do.”
  “Nothing has that excitement, any more. I mean, not in a bad way. Life just gets less exciting as you get older. But, you know, there are advantages too.”
  “Like what?”
  “You’re more secure, more comfortable, more capable. You’ve got the next generation to think about.”
  “Oh, come on, man. When was the last time you listened to Nevermind?”
  “Just, like, last week or something, probably. They’re actually Phoebe’s favourite band?”
  “Who’s Phoebe?”
  “My daughter.”
  “She likes Nirvana?”
  “Yeah, she loves them.”
  “Cool. How old is she?”
  “She’s, like, twelve, almost thirteen.”
  “Fuck it, she can join the band too. I’m well into the idea of multi-generational bands. Can she sing? Play keyboards?”
  “No, she’s more into sports and, you know, fitness, and things like that.”
  “Is that why you’re doing this standing up thing?”
  “No, not really. It was more because of what that person at work said.” 
  “Oh well, she doesn’t have to. I was just trying to be inclusive, you know, the more the merrier, that’s what I always say. What about your wife, or partner, or whatever, would she be up for it?”
  “We’re divorced, so, no, I don’t think so.”
  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, mate.”
  “Oh, that’s all right. It was for the best. It was a few years ago now, anyway.”
  “Is there anyone else, you know, are you seeing anyone else?”
  “I’ve been on a few dates, but no, you know, nothing really, at the moment.”
  “Well, the band would be a great way to maybe meet someone else, you know, it never used to do any harm.”
  “Yeah, maybe. 
  “Have you still got your kit?”
  “Yeah, it’s up in the roof, I think. I mean, I never got rid of it.”
  “Good. Well, what do you say? Are you up for it?”
  “Yeah, sure,” says Robert, “I’m up for it. I’ll give it a go. See what happens.”

4. HALLIFORD STREET

“Daddy’s going to be in a band,” announces Peter over dinner.
  “Really?” says Liv.
  “Really?” says Mandy.
  “Yeah,” says Peter. “Why do you sound so surprised?”
  “Who else is going to be in this band?” says Mandy.
  “Well, Robert and Evan, like in the old days.”
  “What about James? He moved to Australia, didn’t he?”
  “Well, yeah, he did, so he’s not, obviously, he’s out of the picture.”
  “So, who’s going to sing? Not you, I hope.”
  “No, I mean, I might sing the odd number, and I’ll definitely sing backing vocals, but no. We were thinking of Ed.”
  “Ed?”
  “Yeah, I think you knew him back in the day. He used to be in that band Small Brains. Good voice. They had a song called Give Me Meat. That was their really popular one. It was a kind of anti-vegetarian anthem. We played with them a few times, back in the day.”
  “Oh yeah, I know who you mean.”
  “He always had a good voice. Evan works with him.”
  “Does he?”
  “Reckons he’ll be up for it.”
  “Sounds good.”
  “Does that mean you’ll be famous?” says Liv.
  “No,” says Peter, chuckling indulgently, “probably not. But you never know.”
  “Will you be on the internet?” says Liv
  “Yeah, I should think we’ll be on the internet. I mean, everyone’s on the internet nowadays. It doesn’t take much to get on the internet. Of course, if we’d had all that back in the day, who knows what would have happened.”
  “I don’t think anything would have happened,” says Mandy. “You were basically a Nirvana covers band.”
  “Well, we were a bit more than that.”
  “Still, you were a pretty long way from the big time, let’s be honest.”
  “Well, you never know. Anything can happen.”
  “Well, it can’t. Not really.”
  “OK, well, maybe I’m just a bit more optimistic about things.”
  “Maybe.”
  “I think I am. A bit more positive.”
  “And, just think, all this because you happened to listen to Nevermind in the car the other day.”
  “Well, yeah, it’s been brewing for a while, I guess, but yeah that was the immediate inspiration.”
  “Blimey,” says Mandy, “I always knew you were impressionable, but, seriously ... wow.”

5. HOLLOWAY ROAD

“This place has gone a bit upmarket,” says Peter. “It was dingy as hell when we used to practise here. I don’t like it. I preferred it as it was.”
  “I don’t mind it,” says Robert.
  “Yeah, I like it,” says Evan.
  They get set up quietly. Peter has a sense of the great importance of the moment – the first rehearsal of this new era in the band’s history – and is breathing carefully. Robert and Evan look uncomfortable, and seem at times as though they are rediscovering how to use their hands after some sort of accident. 
  Once set up Peter starts playing his electric guitar at great volume. The other two join in like children forced to go to church. They carry on like that for about five minutes.
  “Sounding good,” says Peter, when they have finished. He adjusts his amp, and then says, “Could you just turn the bass down a bit, Ev?”
  “Really? I could hardly hear it over here,” says Robert.
  “Yeah, it’s just a bit boomy, if you know what I mean.”
  “Yeah, I do, but I thought it was fine,” says Robert.”
  “So did I,” says Evan.
  “OK, well, maybe just turn the low end down then,” says Peter.
  “All right,” says Evan.
  “Any word from Ed yet?” says Peter.
  Evan checks his phone. “No,” he says, “nothing.”
  “But he’s definitely coming?” says Peter.
  “Said he was.”
  “Oh well. No point waiting around. Might as well get started.”
  Peter launches into the opening chords of Smells Like Teen Spirit. Of course it is recognisable, but his playing is sloppy and lacks finesse. The other two join in, but without conviction. In the absence of Ed, Peter does his best to sing the song.
  “I haven’t played that for years,” says Peter, when it’s over. “I still remembered it all though. Mad. Sounded great.”
  “I don’t know,” says Robert. “I think there’s something a bit weird about a group of middle-aged men playing Smells Like Teen Spirit. It just doesn’t feel right, somehow.”
  “Yeah,” says Evan, “I know what you mean. There’s just something not quite right about it.”
  “No,” says Peter, “I thought it was fine. It just needs a bit more brio.”

ADAM

 

There was once a boy who turned into a dog. All day long he barked in his room, but no one could understand what he was saying. What he was saying was, “I want to be free. I want to run in the fields. I want to swim in the sea. I want to sing in the forest.” But no one understood what he was saying. They just thought he was being noisy and told him to be quiet. “Keep the noise down,” said his mother. “Think about the neighbours,” said his father. “You’re so annoying,” said his sister. And they told him to stay in his room. And they told him he couldn’t have any treats. And they told him he couldn’t watch TV. And so, one day, the boy stopped barking and just stayed inside all day, day after day. And he didn’t even cry at night. He didn’t make any noise at all.

THE SPARE ROOM

 

The spare room is full of stuff. They have tried to sort it out before, but every attempt seems doomed to failure. Every time they take a step forward they take two back, or sometimes, so it seems to him, three or four. They just have so much stuff. He finds it bewildering how much stuff they have. 

  Every so often, in the kitchen directly beneath the spare room, they hear the sound of something falling or shifting above their heads, as if the objects, piled precariously right up to the ceiling in places, collectively exert some sort of tectonic force. 

  It has been building to this for many years, and the problem has been exacerbated by having children. Now, as well as the rest, the spare room is full of kids’ stuff no longer used or needed: potties, bed guards, booster chairs, a role-play kitchen, and so on. There is something berserk about it all.

“Have you got any plans for the weekend?” she says.

  “No, not really,” he says.

  “You’ve got the whole weekend to yourself. I’m really jealous.”

  “I’m sure you’ll have a nice time too.”

  “Yeah, but I’d rather have a weekend to myself.”  

  “Well, you didn’t have to say you’d spend the weekend with your mother.”

  “Yeah, but it would be nice if you, just once in a while ...”

  “If I what?”

  “Well, you never go away, do you? So I never get any time to myself without the kids.”

  “No, but I can if you want me to.”

  “Well, yeah, it might be nice every once in a while.”

  “OK, then, I’ll go and stay in a hut in the mountains, or something.”

  “You’d have to take the kids with you.”

  “Would I? Why?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t get a weekend to myself otherwise, would I?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “You could take them to a holiday village for the weekend, or something.”

  “I hate those places.”

  “Well, sometimes you just have to suck it up when you’ve got kids. Sometimes, you’ve just got to do things for other people.”

  “I do do things for other people.”

  “Well, I mean, like, do things you don’t want to do.”

  “I’m always doing things I don’t want to do.”

  “So, what do you think you’ll do when we’re gone?”

  “I thought I might try and sort out the spare room. It would be nice to be able to use it for something – an office, or a guest room, or something like that.”

  “Who do you think’s going to want to come and stay here?”

  “I don’t know, but it would be nice to have the option, so we could invite people if we wanted to.”

  “Like who?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. People. Friends.”

  “You don’t have any friends.”

  “OK, your friends then.”

  “My friends wouldn’t want to stay in that dingy little pit.”

  “OK, an office then. Or a play room for the kids.”

  “What are you going to do with all the stuff that’s in there now?”

  “I don’t know. Chuck it. Take it to charity.”

  “You better not chuck any of my stuff away.”

  “Well, I might chuck some it away. I’d probably have to chuck some of it away.”

  “You’d better not. Not without asking me first. I’ll kill you if you do.”

  “You’ll kill me?”

  “Well, you know what I mean. I just won’t be very happy.”

It’s nice having the place to himself. He wakes up naturally and lies in bed awhile just thinking and looking at the ceiling. He spends about an hour just lying there doing nothing special. It’s funny, he thinks, but he actually feels a bit lonely, or maybe he just thinks he ought to feel lonely and so duly feels lonely. Then he goes downstairs and listens to some free jazz at high volume while he makes breakfast. He turns the free jazz down while he eats and spends another hour browsing the internet on his laptop, looking at nothing special, but still ends up spending about a hundred pounds on various things. 

  “Right,” he says to himself when he has finished, “let’s get on with the spare room.”

It has got to the stage where it is even a challenge to get into the spare room. It has reached the stage where they have just started opening the door and chucking stuff in, and so even getting into the spare room is a struggle. He really has to squeeze himself in. He has to hold his breath and everything. At one point he even thinks about abandoning the project in despair. But he sticks at it and soon makes it inside. 

  Once inside, he clears a little space for himself in the middle of the room by piling stuff up against the door. He looks around. There is quite an array of stuff, and he thinks that he had, perhaps, underestimated what a big job this is. He had imagined, as he often does with things, that it would be easier than it is actually going to be. 

  He had better not get ahead of himself, he thinks. He had better just take it one box at a time.

  The boxes are piled to the ceiling and cover the only window in the room. The light in the room flickers. He reaches up and grips the highest box with the tips of his fingers. He prizes it free and angles it downwards, so that he can rest it on his head, before bringing it down into his arms. But he has dislodged something. Something large and heavy and made of old, thick glass comes sliding towards him. It hits him on the head and knocks him out. He falls backwards and crashes into a tower of boxes, which collapses upon him. This collapse then precipitates a landslide of baby stuff. An old rug falls across the door. Some more boxes fall.

  A creaking sound can be heard as all the possessions get comfortable in their new positions, and then it goes quiet.

There is a loud knocking, then a banging, then a child’s heedless voice. “Daddy! Let us in! Open up!”

  And then another voice, her voice. “Is he not answering? Try again.”

  “Daddy! Open the door!”

  She puts down all the bags she is carrying and finds the key to open the door. The kids burst in. “Shoes off!” she says. The kids are already inside, walking all over the carpets with their dirty shoes. “Ugh!” she says, looking around. “The place is a mess. There’s shit everywhere. He could at least have tidied up.” She calls his name but he doesn’t answer. “I wonder where he is,” she says. It’s odd. He never goes out. That’s part of the problem. She puts the TV on for the kids. They sit watching, as if drugged. She starts cleaning the house, then breaks for a cigarette. The smell of bleach and cigarette smoke wafts around the house. 

  She is smoking out of the back door. She looks up and notices that the light in the spare room has been left on. 

  The spare room is just above her head. She remembers that he said he was going to try and sort it out, and wonders how he got on.

DAVE

 

“This is DAVE,” says S____. “He eats too many crisps.” “I only eat two packets a day,” says DAVE. “And he likes to play chess.” “Oh right,” says DAVE, “so I’m the crisp-eating chess guy.” Everyone laughs.

“Is that it?” says DAVE later. “Am I just the crisp-eating chess guy? Is that what they’re going to see me as now? An old guy who eats crisps and plays chess. And did she say ‘too many’?” “Yeah,” I say. “I think she did.” “I mean, what she’s playing at?” “It was a bit...” “Am I just a joke to her?”

“It’s funny the way,” I say, looking at S____, “you’re kind of giving a little summary of everyone.” S____ laughs politely and then I swear she flashes me a look that says “I hate you and everything you represent to me which is slow-talking, open-minded, soft-headed liberalism.” “And this is A___,” she says. “He’s written a book, though I can’t quite remember the title...” “That’s OK,” I say. “I prefer to remain anonymous these days.”

You see DAVE and I aren’t like normal people. We aren’t really even people. We’re characters. Each day we just make ourselves up. 

“I can’t believe K___ said that I only make friends with men,” says DAVE. “Yeah, I know, but you did say that men and women can’t be friends,” I say. “Well, have you seen When Harry Met Sally?” “I think so. But I can’t really remember it, I have to say.” “I love that film.” Yeah, I don’t know. It didn’t really make much of an impression on me.” “But, is that OK, to say that? I just don’t know if it’s OK to say that?” “Does it really matter?” “They just think I’m a joke.” “Who cares?” I say. “I do,” says DAVE. “I just want everyone to like me.”

“Are you coming tomorrow?” I say. “I don’t know,” says DAVE. “Why not?” I say. “I just don’t want people to think I’m only doing it because you’re doing it. I just don’t want to be that guy,” says DAVE. “Would you rather be the guy who doesn’t do it because he doesn’t want people to think he’s that guy?” I say. “Yes,” says DAVE. “I would.”

I don’t give up. I’m not giving up on DAVE. He’s a project. I leave a note on his car. It says, “See you tomorrow!” I reckon it’s 50/50. But if you press me, I’ll probably say I don’t think he’s coming.

A note about our cars. Both DAVE and I drive cars that didn’t initially belong to us, and in which the driver’s window is broken so when we have to present our ID card to enter the car park we have to open our doors. We both use our boots for storage. We have much in common. We are quite a sight.

It took a few months of role modelling and gentle persuasion and piss taking, but I finally prevailed on DAVE to stop wearing a tie to work. He doesn’t wear a tie any more. He used to. For all the twenty-seven years of his working life, DAVE wore a tie. But not any more. Not any more.