'Why don't you ever write nice, happy songs?' his mother asked.
'There are no nice, happy songs,' he scowled. And he left her on the doorstep, waving. He didn't look back.
Blinding sun or needle rain, empty loving cup
Silly cow. Yoz – Josiah for Christ’s sake! - wouldn't play her anything ever again. Never. Happy songs? In this day and age? In his life? Get real. His hand flexed on the data-stick in his pocket: his songs. It started to rain and he stumped a little faster down the street, dragging his collar up around his ears. The black plastic dustbin bag with his weekly washing in started to weigh heavy on his shoulder.
She wasn't such a bad old stick herself though, the mum. Fed him up like a Christmas goose of a Sunday lunchtime. His belly bulged now, tight as a drum. And she put his washing through the machine while he watched telly. And there was a twenty in the breast pocket of his denim jacket. Yoz hadn't looked, but he knew it would be there. Nah, she was all right. No bleedin' ear for music that's all. It was the dad who was the real bastard.
'Got a job yet?' from over the Mail On Sunday, from over steel-framed glasses.
'Nah.' Without meeting his father's eyes.
'Looked at all?'
'Nah,’ accompanied by a torpid shrug, deliberately winding the old man up.
'He's making his music aren't you, son?' from the mum with a hand on his shoulder. Making it worse.
'Huh. Music.' Subtitled scrounger, no-son-of-mine, wastrel. And the crack of the newspaper as his father disappeared behind the headline NEW pop group or devil spawn?
That would be all Yoz heard from the dad all day, and the last time he'd show his face. The old pulp-for-brains baldie shithead. Writing songs and making music would never be a 'proper job' to him. Even if Yoz was number one in the charts, acclaimed as the world's greatest living lyricist, with money falling out of his pockets and a world tour in the offing, it still wouldn't be right. The old man would rather see him in the armed services, or with a nice steady desk job in the civil service, or studying to be a civil engineer - something Yoz had once, at fourteen, shown a brief interest in. He'd fancied building a stonking great bridge. And then blowing it up. He stamped out the rhythm of his irritation on the wet pavement, mumbling along.
'Civil engineer, daddy dear, daddy dear? No way, no fucking fear. No can do. Build your own bridges, right. Cos I'm Dina-gelignite. An' if you're looking for a fight, well screw you!'
In her way, the mum would be worse.
'That's nice, son,' as he went double platinum.
'Goodness!' as he was hailed bigger than the Beatles.
'Lovely,' as his music inspired a generation.
'But why don't you ever write nice, happy songs?'
He just got to the train in time, bundling his bag of washing inside and slotting between the doors as they snapped at his heels. There were plenty of seats at this time on a Sunday afternoon and he sat down with the black bag sandwiched between his knees. The rain had soaked through his jacket, and he was damp and uncomfortable. He belched, and then rubbed his stomach. Heartburn, that would be the next bleedin' thing.
Sunday service, Sunday suit, Sunday clouds and same
Sunday is no sunny day by any other name
The loose threads of an idea for a song began to weave together in his head. He'd been getting fragments of the melody all day, now it started to gel. Inspired by Sunday in Suburbia, Sunday Lunch, The Sunday Paper. Words, phrases, sounds that he wanted to incorporate, played in his head. He closed his eyes to listen more closely, tapping the beat on his drum of a stomach, counter-pointing that with a rustling rhythm skooshed on the plastic laundry bag. Yeah, he had a song in the making. A little girl opposite started dancing to the strange rustle and tump music he was making. He frowned hard at her and stopped playing. She stopped dancing, and buried her face in her mother's lap. She started to cry. Yoz belched again. He had a title for his song too: Acid Sunday.
Acid Sunday, Acid Sunday, what's the one day, what's the score?
Home James-Privatised-Rail-Company-Bastards, there is work to be done.
As soon as he was in the door of his basement flat, it was straight to the keyboard and the mixing desk. He simply discarded the washing bag, threw off his wet jacket, switched on his equipment, plugged in the guitar and started to scrape out the chords of his song. As usual, it wasn't as easy to get it together as it had seemed when the ideas came. Now came the hard work. He stopped playing and put the kettle on for coffee. But he forgot to make it, absorbed by the process of making music. He programmed in rhythm, selected a baseline, laid some guitar on that, sampled some stuff, and tried out some lyrics.
The scars are scars of yesterday but blood spills fresh like snow
Hope, the cruellest company, as every trickster knows
Two hours later he still hadn't had a coffee. And he still hadn't got the song he wanted. There had to be more loathing, more despite, more attitude. More of a sneer. It was still too weak, too flimsy, too bleedin' melodic. He didn't want hope and humanity; he wanted parody and pointlessness, comfort but no joy, bourgeois stasis. He wanted the hopelessness of his mother and father, their lifestyle, their relationship, their pathetic aspirations.
Father in rank solitude, mother close at hand
Guardians of the veil of fear that covers up this land
Loving, cold as a slab dead fish, duty to be done
Feeling old as a drab dread wish, beauty on the run
Yoz dragged his fingers frantically through his hair. Then he was off. Out through the flat door, up the single flight of stairs, into the hallway. She was halfway up the stairs to the first floor, dressed in red, carrying a bag of groceries in each hand.
'I need someone to moan,' he greeted her.
'Do you say this to all the girls?'
'What?' Yoz was too distracted to be embarrassed. 'I need the sound of... I need a woman's voice. To record. I'm making... I...' he petered out.
'Okay,' she said, turned around and started to descend towards him.
'Good, come on.'
'Wait,' she said, and passed him the shopping bags to carry. Absently he accepted the load and preceded her down into the basement.
'Nice place,' she said as they entered.
'What?' Yoz was suddenly aware of the mess: the clothes scattered everywhere – a pair of boxer shorts on top of the telly, the empty cans, the mouldering foil take-away trays. 'I've been busy,' he explained brusquely.
'So I see.'
'I haven't got time for that stuff. Right, what you've got to do is...'
'I'm not doing anything unless you're a bit nicer.'
'Nicer?'
'Nicer,' she confirmed.
Acid Sunday, acid Sunday what's the one day, what's the score?
Over her shoulder Yoz caught sight of himself in the dusty mirror hanging askew on the wall. His hair stood ridiculously up on end from running his fingers through it as he worked; he was two days unshaven - an unconscious prerequisite for visiting the parents; his clothes were grubby and creased. Not a pretty sight.
'Sorry,' he said a bit sulkily, 'my head's full up with this song. I make music.'
'I've heard,' she smiled.
And Yoz realised how attractive she was.
'Does it disturb you?' he asked. He'd seen her before of course, disappearing up the stairs, or rushing out. They'd nodded, but never spoken.
'We live right above you,' she said instead of course it bloody does. 'There's just the hallway between your ceiling and our floor - like a big speaker cabinet.'
She was fundamentally gorgeous.
'I'm sorry,' he squirmed, 'you should have said.' She had beautiful brown skin and laughing eyes, hair straightened and shining gloss-black, held back with a red band, whiter-than-white teeth, dazzling smile. Yoz moved round to stand between her and the TV, trying to hide the boxers.
'We don't mind,' she said. Drops of rain glittered and glistened in her hair.
'We?' Yoz asked, desperate to sound casual. She'd blow it now, My boyfriend and I.
'My flat-mate, and me,' she said.
'Flat-mate?'
'Al.'
'Al?'
'Alison.'
There is a God.
Unless…
'The blond-haired woman?' Yoz asked. 'Thin?' He'd seen her too, coming and going.
'Alison,' she confirmed. 'She's got an eating disorder.'
'Sorry,' he said.
'She's working through it.’
‘You’re not…’
‘Just mates,’ she said.
There is also a Goddess.
‘Looks like you got a food problem too.' She nodded to the piles of foil dishes. 'MSG junkie?'
'The Chinese,' Yoz shrugged. 'When I'm working I forget to eat. They're open twenty-four hours,' he shrugged again. He wished he'd cleaned up, wished...
'You wanted me to moan,' she reminded him, arching an eyebrow.
'Eh?' Yoz had forgotten his song. He gulped. 'Oh yeah.' Indicating she should follow, he led the way, stepping carefully through the debris, to the relatively clear corner where he worked.
'There,' he said and passed her a microphone. 'What I want, what I'm after is...'
'I'm Grace, by the way.'
'You are,' Yoz confirmed distractedly as he set the sliders on the mixer. 'I mean, you are? I'm Yoz.' Awkwardly they shook hands, both smiling and shying from the eye-bright eye contact they made.
'Nice to meet you,' she said, and gently withdrew her warm hand from his. 'Shall we?'
'Right,' Yoz said, busily setting up the recording. 'Okay, what I need is...' He looked at Grace and realised how impossible it was going to be now to make his request. 'Uh... Could you moan?'
'Just moan, like in pain? Or like about the weather or something?'
'Like in bed,' Yoz said, giving Grace a nervous, apologetic, grin.
She rolled her eyes: 'Like Je t'aime?!'
'No. Like, you know, when it's almost painful, when it breaks your heart - when you want to cry.'
'It's never been like that,' Grace said.
'Uh... I mean... Imagine... It hasn't for me either, but... I imagine... I...'
'You're blushing.'
'You're making me.'
'What're you making here, porn?'
'It's a dance track. Sort of about - uh - marriage, the beginning, and the end; about the pain in loving, in sharing broken dreams... About...' Yoz clenched his fist, lost for words. 'If I could find the right words, I'd be a writer, right.'
'Maybe you should play it to me?'
He did. And winced.
No day to anticipate, no day to look up
Blinding sun or needle rain, empty loving cup
The jagged techno baseline, the screeching-wailing-lamenting garage guitar, the nihilist lyrics intoned in a portentous monotone.
'It's nowhere near finished,' he explained. 'It's a bit... A bit...'
'Miserable,' Grace supplied.
'Well...' Yoz began grumpily.
'When was the last time you went dancing?'
'Eh?'
'Your music's good, right, I can hear that. But I reckon you've been stuck down here too long. What's missing is... Like joy or something.'
'Joy!' Yoz spat out the word. 'In this dog-shit country, in this dead-meat life?'
'Joy,' Grace repeated. 'At the moment,' and she indicated the desk where the tape still revolved – though silently, 'that's music to slit your wrists to, innit, not dance?'
'Mm... But...' Yoz tried in vain to mount a defence.
'You need to go out and have some fun,' Grace decided.
'Fun?!'
'Tonight.'
'Tonight?'
'Tonight. I'll take you down Arkadia. What do you say?'
'I... I...' Yoz thought hard, but only for half a second, 'Okay.' And remembering the mum's gift nestling in his jacket pocket, 'But it's my treat. I mean it's for my music, so...'
'Whatever,' Grace smiled and rose, 'I'll pick you up about nine, okay?'
But tonight you come as shadow, dance the dark away
Bring brightness to the bitterness of another no way day
The following evening Yoz began to rework his song. He grinned as he listened to the sounds he'd recorded late last night in his cleaned up flat. Grace could moan all right. Joyously. And, clearly, he could do much the same. Outside the sun was going down, a deep red lipstick kiss smudged across the sky. To work! Yoz tweaked the rhythm and picked up his guitar. He had a new title for the song now - Acid Sunday Happy Monday Morning.
Acid Sunday, acid Sunday, what's the one day, what's the score?
Happy Monday, have some fun day, seen you one way, want some more
The vision of you, the grace to see in the country of the blind
Monday morning melody, you play lyric on - my – mind
What would the old man think of this one? And The Mail On Sunday?
Screw them.