Second Thoughts

Second Thoughts

Phil dragged his heavy head from his arm and his unplanned nap. He focussed one bleary eye on the couplet he’d decided he could work with after a night full of false starts. The waste bin next to his desk was probably more than half full of crumpled pages. He was starting to stiffen up: time for a change of position, or at least flex a different set of muscles.

 He pushed away from the desk, grateful for his decision to invest in a mid-range comfortable office chair which protected his back, regardless of the hours he spent in front of his laptop. A gentle push was enough to coast smoothly backwards, with just a hint of a twist to turn so he could stand and stretch as he looked out of the window. The stretch began in his legs and continued upwards: a genuine, unmistakeably feline whole body experience.

He ended by clenching and extending his fingers/cat claws several times, then glanced down at the half-cup of cold coffee, a sensible distance away from the computer keyboard. He decided against refilling it immediately. Instead he sauntered a few more steps and picked up the closest of his acoustic guitars. His eyes flashed to the few lines on his monitor screen and his fingers automatically sought out a G chord. Experience had taught him that this key was best suited for his clear tenor voice. The rhythm of the lyrics suggested a 4/4 time signature. It was straightforward: he was even able to ‘tweak’ it with dotted and grace notes in suitable places. A fresh melodic phrase suggested itself as he strummed along and he decided it ‘felt like’ a chorus. Time to trap the notes on paper before they floated away and were lost forever. It was half past two: there was no point in trying to grab a few hours sleep.

He dug a pad of manuscript paper out of a drawer and started copying by hand the first few lines of the lyrics, well spaced beneath the five-lined blankness, adding a treble clef and a precise F# to indicate the key.

“When you told me you were lonely and you longed to head back home

 Like a fool I said I understood, you wanted time on your own

 Though I’ve changed address a few times I guess, I’ve never changed my phone

 You can call any night or day: how I long to hear you say … You’re coming home”

Was it just a shade ‘schmaltzy’, he asked himself, then shook his head. Ninety nine of every hundred pop songs dealt with the topic of lost love and broken hearts – even if ‘his’ lyrics weren’t intended for public consumption. Phil’s sole objective in writing this was the cathartic, soul-cleansing effect of purging his own very personal negative emotions.

That should do for at least a ‘middle eight’ he told himself. I feel a solid 12-bar blues coming on … Had it really been that long, he asked himself. Have we really been so far apart as long as the time we were together? The calendar says Yes: my heart says it was only yesterday. I like the sound of that line too, maybe I can work it into the next verse …

“I’m not going to be the one who says ‘I told you so’ – but it’s true                  

 You said our hearts have pulled us apart, well it’s left me feeling blue

 The woods and mountains of your home are things I simply cannot give

 So if you need them, I’ll give you your freedom: somehow I’ll survive”

I can’t stay in this house no more:

Waiting and hoping for your knock on the door –

“No, that’s so . . . lame!” he growled, tossing the notepad to one side, knowing he could do better with just a little thought. Another coffee for inspiration, maybe . . .

Phil studied the pages he’d covered with his roughed-out lyrics. As always, he felt an uncomfortable mix of awe and surprise. He was conscious that this wasn’t the first time he’d somehow “zoned out” and produced a half-decent set of song lyrics he had no memory of writing, but it was without question his own neat, inimitable handwriting. Adding the melody line was even easier. As he habitually assured every classroom filled with budding Bachs and wannabee Wagners, there were only eight notes in a scale as opposed to twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Of course it was easier to compose a melody than it was to write a sentence – few of his students had managed to find fault in his maths, and accepted the outrageous statement at face value.

I had no intention of writing song lyrics tonight, Phil mused as he sketched in the most useful guitar chords where they were called for, but he had no doubt regarding probable cause. Am I really still such a slave to my emotions? Or could I care less what others think about me …?

Yes, you’d better have some pride and self-respect left his mind scolded him as he tidied his lyrics and musical scribbles together in one of the Yellow folders he used for “Work in Progress”. His thoughts drifted. Was it really just twelve months . . . ?

Twelve months – one  calendar year – didn’t sound like a long time, and perhaps that was true enough for most people. He’d certainly been with Maria far longer than that, right up to the day she’d decided she was suffering “hemvi”, homesickness, packed a bag and returned to her family home in Sweden. Every day he spent on his Jack Jones felt as if the minutes stretched into hours, making aa mockery of any attempt to establish something that resembled a regular sleeping pattern Sometimes – despite an exhausted body – he’d wake in the pitch-black darkest hour of the night knowingat once it was pointless to contemplate the possibility of further sleep. He often went two, three nights with no sleep at all and frequently had to use the TV or radio to check on what date (sometimes which day of the week) it was.

Crucially, he’d forgotten to adjust his clocks that spring and spent three days longer than everyone else living in a miserable UK winter. One minor plus: he quickly became accustomed to fewer rest hours – he’d stopped thinking of them as ‘sleeping hours’. He took this and turned it on its head. Phil used every ‘extra’ waking hour writing. He tried writing prose, poetry, and the occasional attempt at short sketches which might be developed into plays: but he found that song lyrics flowed more easily than anything else. One of his guitars (enhanced by a cheap & cheerful amp) moved in to share the work space . . .

As the days grew longer and brighter, Phil felt more comfortable, more ready to enjoy – or at least tolerate the company of others. As the lighter half of the year approached, Phil made a conscious effort to tidy and restore his work area, boxing and filing every melody he’d jotted down: most of them had some sort of lyrics scribbled in the margins. As the BBC calendar clicked over to May, Phil carried sack after sack of waste paper, redundant lyrics and musical disasters to the bottom of the garden and built a bonfire to mark Beltaine, season of light. He lit the fire just as the late afternoon sunlight was beginning to fade and stayed close at hand.

“Penny for ‘em?”

The voice was familiar, but Phil was startled. The few friends he had were teachers, but none of them were ‘close enough’ to drop in on him unannounced.

“Jim! I wasn’t expec……..”

“You managed to stick a knife in Scully after all these years?” Jim said, deadpan and with a nod towards the fire. Scully was a harridan of a Head Teacher nobody particularly liked.

Phil snorted.

“I wouldn’t build a bonfire for ’im, you can be sure! Nah, this is just some rubbish I’m getting shut of . . . I didn’t realise you lived out this way? The fire’s not big enough to be a hazard, is it? I don’t want people makin’ a fuss or callin’ the Fire Bobbies!!”

Phil’s automatic reversion to the nickname for the Fire Service common on every Liverpool child’s lips set them both laughing.

“Beer?”

Phil’s single word invitation was more than enough: they both turned and strolled unhurriedly towards the kitchen door.

“You’re . . . managing, then.” Jim was possibly the only one of Phil’s friends who knew his current unmarried-but-not-single state.

“Yeh. I just decided it was time to tidy my office, been writing a lot recently.”

“Was it worth it?” Jim inquired, raising his bottle in salute. “Got more space to call your own?”

Phil took a sharp breath as if ready with a smartass response to his friend’s banter, but paused. His eyes clouded over.

“This house . . . has become too big for me, since ………….”

Jim nodded. This room, filled with Phil’s work and personality, didn’t contain a single mention or memory of Maria anywhere.

”         I know you were close, mate” he murmured,  “We always joked about never seeing one or the other, Youse was allus t’gevver” Joey’sScouse background occasionally broke into his speech when he was upset or dealing with emotional issues.

He looked around the racks of shelves, neatly filled with files and samples of the work Phil had been churning out over the past eighteen months or so.

“You know what, with a little bit o’ help and maybe a few mates standing behind yiz

I think you could put together a decent LP outta this lot! Jus’ like that ‘ouse up in Kenny, who did John Lennon’s first recording: gorra Blue Badge for it, too! What d’yer think?”

           Phil said nothing. He didn’t need to: his eyes were back to their usual clarity and wandering across the shelf units . . .  

***

           It must be a Liverpool ‘thing’. Whenever friends gather to lend a hand with something, somebody always seems to ‘know someone, who can . . . (and it doesn’t really matter what . . .) Within a week Phil had a backing group, including a drummer whose ‘kit’ filled a Ford Trannie. They were also booked to debut at the Irish Centre.

           Which, on the first Saturday in December already had its Party Hat on. They played to a packed Hall for a generous hour as their opening stint until Phil caught a signal from the bar to sing one more before taking a break.

           He nodded to the group and stepped forwards.                   

           “Hope you like this. The other guys haven’t heard it yet: it’s one of my own.”

“When you told me you were lonely and you longed to head back home

 Like a fool I said I understood, you wanted time on your own

 Though I’ve changed address a few times I guess, I’ve never changed my phone

 You can call any night or day: how I long to hear you say … You’re coming home”

           The pre-Christmas merriment of the audience had dimmed to little more than a reflective calm: everybody was listening to the lyrics, and what conversations persisted were being conducted in whispers.

Something – the flash of a familiar colour, or a well-remembered perfume? – caused Phil to glance at the hall’s single entry-and-exit door. Who else could it ever be but

           Maria

           Phil began what he knew was an incomplete verse two, yet knowing he’d find the words – the  only words he needed:

“I’m not going to be the one who says ‘I told you so’ – but it’s true

 You said our hearts have pulled us apart, well it’s left me feeling blue

 The woods and mountains of your home are things I simply cannot give

 So if you need them, I’ll give you your freedom: somehow I’ll survive”

I can’t stay in this city any longer …

It’s time to move on: my feelings grow stronger and stronger

I miss you each and every day: that’s all I can say

Won’t you pick up the phone and call me? – You know what my answer will be --

[rall]    …wel - come ho - oome …

           And if someone had been so careless as to drop the proverbial pin, it would have been heard at the back of the hall.

           Seasonal magic dust  was the only possible explanation. Maria was suddenly there’ on the stage and at Phil’s side

“