by Heide Goody
“Come out, Michael,” he said.
The archangel came in from the kitchen, carrying two glasses.
“I was just mixing a cocktail,” he said.
Clovenhoof looked at the pink frothy drink he was being offered. He wasn’t aware of having any pineapple juice or cherry liqueur in his poorly stocked kitchen, nor indeed any of the other ingredients of a Singapore Sling. He certainly didn’t have any bendy straws or cocktail umbrellas, not that such niggling reality-nuggets would mean anything to Michael.
“You spying on me again?” said Clovenhoof, begrudgingly accepting the drink.
“No, this is a social visit.”
“Yeah?” said Clovenhoof sceptically.
Michael smiled and walked around the flat, stepping over the strewn remains of the open parcels. He bent to pick up one of the many polystyrene packing chips.
“Non-biodegradable,” he said sadly. “What is all this, Jeremy?”
“I’m starting a band.”
“What kind of band?”
“The musical kind. I’m going to write the songs, sing, play lead guitar. I’ve got a friend who’ll play keyboards.”
“A friend? Well done, Jeremy.” Michael gave him a big, supportive smile. “I suppose you do need something to do with your... retirement. What kind of songs?”
“My songs.”
“Songs about what?”
“My experiences. What it means to be me.”
“Hmmm,” said Michael, continuing to pace. Clovenhoof noticed that wherever he trod, the carpet became instantly cleaner. He hoped he could entice the angel into doing a quick circuit of the hallway and the bathroom.
“You know what would happen if you tried to tell people who you really are?” said Michael.
“Strait-jacket. Padded room. A syringe full of anti-psychotics, I know,” said Clovenhoof, adding silently to himself, either that or offer me a recording contract.
“And I imagine this musical equipment is quite costly,” said Michael.
“No idea,” said Clovenhoof honestly.
“Your remuneration package is meant to be a modest one. Heaven’s coffers are not limitless, you know.”
“Bollocks.”
Michael gave Clovenhoof a long, evaluative look, up and down. In the silence, Nerys’s battle with the harp appeared to be reaching some sort of conclusion, possibly mutually assured destruction.
Michael grunted lightly and smiled.
“I wish you every success, Jeremy.”
“Well, I can’t do any worse than her,” said Clovenhoof, pointing upwards at the flat above.
“I may have had a hand in that,” said Michael coyly.
“Oh, yes?”
“No mortal’s going to play the harp on my watch. It is the preserve of angels.”
He sipped the straw into his mouth and slurped deeply on his cocktail before giving a warm sigh.
“I always think it tastes like a piece of heaven.”
“Not my cup of tea,” said Clovenhoof and put his Singapore Sling down on the mantelpiece, untouched.
In the end, Clovenhoof reasoned, the whole project boiled down to writing the songs and performing them. Writing the songs was just matter of finding the words and composing the music. Performance merely entailed practice, finding a venue and, of course, developing the right sort of stage look. Broken down, it seemed terribly, terribly simple.
Clovenhoof had ordered himself a series of ‘teach yourself guitar’ books with accompanying CDs. He started at Book One, had mastered the chords of G, C and D within the hour and was playing a selection of Status Quo’s greatest hits by tea-time. Whilst waiting for his Findus Crispy Pancakes to cook, he phoned Birmingham Symphony Hall and left a message on the answer phone asking if he could book the place for a concert that weekend or, failing that, the weekend following.
After dinner, he sat down with glass of Lambrini and tried to pen some songs. By midnight, he had written a dozen possible verses for a song tentatively titled Fools in Paradise but which by morning had morphed into the shout- and rage-filled Swallow My Fruit, Bitch.
Clovenhoof quickly moved through Books Two and Three of ‘teach yourself guitar’ and tried his hand at fingerpicking as well as chords. He scribbled down the notation for the songs he had written so far, now including Soiled Angel and Night of the Morningstar and took them down the high street to Ben’s shop so that Ben could begin practising the keyboard parts. Ben stared at the ink-stained manuscripts, speechless. Clovenhoof took this as a good sign.
On the way, back he stopped in at a charity shop, where he bought a black leather jacket and some tight jeans, and then took a walk through Short Heath Park where he composed in his head a soaring power ballad entitled Drowning in a Lake of Fire.
At home, he tried on his new clothes and contemplated himself in the mirror. He decided that it wasn’t quite enough and ordered some bondage gear over the phone. He then phoned Symphony Hall again and spoke to a polite but obviously dim-witted woman who, firstly, had no knowledge of his previous answer phone message and, secondly, seemed unable to grasp that he wanted to book the venue, not mere tickets.
Clovenhoof and Ben held their first joint practice on Saturday morning. Clovenhoof had cleared all the furniture from his lounge to make room for amps, mikes, mixers, wires and an audience (should one magically appear). Ben plugged an audio lead into his keyboard. It produced an uneven droning sound, like a sleeping beehive.
“Are you ready?” said Clovenhoof, hefting his axe.
“Are you?” replied Ben.
Clovenhoof grinned and performed a fast-fingered lick that ran all the way down the fretboard.
“When did you say you first picked up a guitar?” said Ben.
“I don’t know. What day of the week is it? Right, let’s do Spineless Disciples.”
They didn’t have a drummer and neither knew how to count them in but by some happy accident they both stumbled into the first verse at roughly the same time. Clovenhoof thrashed through the chord changes D minor to G augmented seventh to E minor, leaned into the mic and let loose.
“Three times the cock did crow!
Christ denier! Christ denier!
A bunch of cocks all in a row!
Cowards and liars! Pants on fire!”
Clovenhoof launched into his solo with more enthusiasm than accuracy, ran a crazy tremolo-picking journey across the strings whilst Ben’s antique keyboard swept around him with haunting and occasionally intentionally discordant chord changes. They rampaged through two more verses and then finished at roughly the same time.
Clovenhoof looked to Ben. Ben struggled to find the words.
“That was...”
“What?”
“That was actually quite good. You can sing.”
Clovenhoof grinned but, for once, it was not a devilish smirk but the smile of someone whose chest was swelling with deserved pride.
“They do say I have all the best tunes,” he said. “What was that weird chanting sound during verse two?”
“A local taxi cab company,” said Ben, gesturing to his keyboard. “I did warn you.”
“And that violent thumping sound?”
“No, that wasn’t me.”
The thumping sound came again as if on cue. It was the front door and, behind it, Nerys. She was holding a piece of broken wood in her hands with a series of catgut wires hanging from it. She was gripping it so tightly Clovenhoof could see the painted veneer cracking beneath her fingertips.
“How’s the harp-playing going?” asked Clovenhoof.
Nerys growled.
“Whoever invented the harp was a sadist and a twat.”
“You’re not wrong. I could introduce you to him.”
“Of course,” she went on, pushing past him into the flat, “I would have had more success if I didn’t have to listen to the crap booming out of this place.”
“We were just agreeing on how good it was.”
“Rubbish,” she said, “Yo
u were – ugh! What’s that?”
She pointed at Clovenhoof’s Singapore Sling, which had stood untouched on the mantelpiece for several days now. A fine green mould had grown across its surface and was gamely climbing up the cocktail umbrella.
“It’s a cocktail,” said Clovenhoof.
“I meant the green fuzz growing in it.”
“I’m thinking of calling it Herbert.”
“Herbert?” said Ben.
“I need a pet,” said Clovenhoof. Herbert was the name of one of the most obsequious and oily of the recently deceased he had met. It struck him as fitting.
“Anyway,” said Nerys, “the timing was awful. You” – she pointed at Ben – “got completely lost and started playing Greensleeves at one point.”
“I panicked,” said Ben.
“And you, Jeremy, couldn’t keep time between your voice and your guitar.”
“I disagree.”
“Yeah?” Nerys picked up a discarded fork from the floor, brushed Findus Crispy Pancake crumbs from its tines and held it up like a baton. “Well, let’s take it from the top.”
She counted them in, slowed Ben as he stumbled headlong into the middle section, brought them back together during verse three and drew a crescendo from them at the song’s climax.
There was a long silence once it was over.
“That was better,” said Ben quietly.
“Yes, it was,” Clovenhoof agreed.
“Shall we have a go at another?” said Nerys happily.
Clovenhoof passed out fresh sheet music.
“This is great,” he said with genuine joy. “Finally, a chance to express myself. A chance to create something of lasting value. Art.”
Nerys looked at the music and raised her baton.
“Okay. Virgin Whore. From the top.”
At their next practice, Nerys came armed with a pair of maracas and some news.
“I’ve got us our first gig,” she said.
“Us?”
She waved her maracas in his face as evidence of her intrinsic role in the band.
“The Boldmere Oak, this Wednesday,” she said. “It’s open mic night.”
“Well,” said Clovenhoof loftily, “I’ve been in negotiations with the Symphony Hall.”
“Perhaps best to start small.”
“What’s this stuff?” said Ben, digging into the wrappings of a recently arrived parcel.
“Clothing accessories,” said Clovenhoof. “Part of our image.”
He took out a studded black harness of straps and laid it experimentally against his leather jacket.
“I thought it’d look a bit more hardcore. What do you reckon?”
Nerys had found a red and black leather basque and admired it at arm’s length.
“What do you think?” said Clovenhoof.
Nerys realised that the others were looking at her.
“I couldn’t possibly wear this,” she said in a deeply unconvincing tone. “I’d look like a complete slut.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Clovenhoof, equally unconvincingly.
“I mean, I would if I had to,” she said, hopefully. “You know, for art’s sake.”
“For art’s sake, of course.”
“What’s this?” said Ben, holding up a contraption of straps, buckles and a large sausage of moulded black latex.
“It’s a strap on,” said Nerys.
“Really?” said Ben, fascinated and horrified. “Why would anyone...? I mean, these straps don’t seem long enough to go around anyone’s waist.”
“That’s because it’s meant to go on your face,” said Nerys.
Ben froze and then dropped it with a small yelp.
With so little time until their Boldmere Oak gig, they crammed in as many practices as possible. Each night, after a successful run-through of their current songs, Clovenhoof would take to his desk and pen several more. He was particularly proud of the anthemic Lord of the Wilderness and, when he had finished the words to Vampire Messiah (Chalice of Blood), he felt goosebumps across his whole body.
On the Monday, he managed to get through to the Director of Programming and Events at the Birmingham Symphony Hall to whom he outlined his proposed concert.
“Yes, madam,” he said, “I fully understand that you plan months in advance but maybe you have cancellations and the like.”
He listened carefully.
“Perfect. Well, we could step into that slot.”
There was laughter and more words on the other end of the line.
“I have no idea how much it costs to host such a concert. Perhaps you could tell me. Pluck a figure out of the air.”
He nodded.
“Okay. That seems reasonable. I’ll take it.”
He rummaged around in his desk while she spoke.
“Here,” he said, picking up a credit card. “Let me read some numbers to you.”
He nodded.
“I’m deadly serious, madam. Ticket sales and promotions? Don’t worry, I’ll deal with that.”
Once their business was concluded, Clovenhoof had a celebratory Lambrini, checked on Herbert’s progress and continued composing.
At five am, having just finished the score for the twenty-minute rock instrumental Care Bear Torture Cycle, he wondered if he perhaps ought to just give it a rest and go to bed for once.
The open mic evening in the upstairs room of the Boldmere Oak opened with Lennox’s brother-in-law’s Slayer tribute band, followed by a three piece band of college kids who clearly put more effort into the rock music than their studies. Ben, Nerys and Clovenhoof were on third.
Ben took to the stage and plugged in his keyboard. The drinkers in the room winced at the howl of feedback, which never quite died away. Eschewing the bondage gear, his one concession to metal-wear was a Megadeth T-shirt that his grandma had bought him for his sixteenth birthday and which still fitted him. Nerys’s outfit, which wasn’t so much suggestive as downright explicit, drew much more attention when she flung off her overcoat and picked up her maracas. Clovenhoof strode onto the miniscule stage, all leather and denim, picked up his silver axe and glared at the crowd.
The crowd glared back.
Ben found himself nervously reflecting, almost as though he was having an out-of-body experience, that they weren’t a typical heavy metal band. None of them had the trademark long hair (Nerys’s was too tidy and feminine to count) and only Clovenhoof had a true heavy metal instrument and, sure, Nerys had a certain dampish metal-girl look about her but that was totally destroyed by the maracas. Maracas? What were they thinking? She wasn’t Bez and they weren’t the Happy Mondays! If anything they looked like an unholy Latino electro-synth rock band, fronted by a man who already seen too much of life.
It was all going to go horribly wrong.
“We’re Devil Preacher,” growled Clovenhoof, a name Ben was sure he had made up off the cuff. “And this one’s called Spineless Disciples.”
Clovenhoof glanced at Nerys, who licked her lips nervously, shared a panicked look with Ben and then shook her maracas...
...and they played.
And it worked. It shouldn’t have worked. But it did.
They played Spineless Disciples and Vampire Messiah and (Never Trust a) Man in a Dress, one song rolling into the next.
They were carried along by Clovenhoof’s guitar-work and singing voice, sometimes screaming, sometimes a silvery tenor, sometimes something dark and gravelly, dredged up from the bottom of a canal. What audio landscape he couldn’t generate was filled in by Ben’s distorted keyboard work, adding breadth and depth (and, at one point, the Shipping Forecast) to the music. And through it all ran the quiet but insistent hiss and rattle of Nerys’s maracas, like the tapping of death watch beetles or the rattling of bones in their graves.
And when Clovenhoof shouted one last, ‘Run away from the man in a dress!’ and the final synth howl faded, the drinkers tucked their pints under their arms, clapped and even whooped a little.
&nbs
p; “Yeah!” shouted Clovenhoof in utter jubilation, dug his hands deep into his pockets and flung dozens of freshly printed tickets out into the small audience.
“Come to our next gig!” he shouted. “Give tickets to your friends!”
“Next gig?” said Nerys but got no answer and didn’t overly care because she was suddenly being paid attention by a small knot of men who wanted to buy her drinks and play with her maracas.
Clovenhoof kept the details of their second gig from Ben and Nerys, wanting it to be a surprise. Between band practices, he made phone calls and bookings and on one long and productive afternoon took a gargantuan tour of record shops and bars to distribute free concert tickets. He was a little dismayed to discover that taxi drivers did not accept credit cards and had to ask the man to show him how cash machines worked.
On the Saturday evening, the three of them watched a dozen hairy and tattooed men pack their gear into a Pickfords truck.
“Where the hell is this gig?” said Nerys.
“You’ll see,” smiled Clovenhoof. “Here’s our transport.”
A white stretch limo – no, not a stretch limo, a stretch Hummer - pulled up outside the flats.
“You are kidding me,” said Ben.
“Come on,” said Clovenhoof and led them out through the grey winter drizzle, flicked an irreverent salute to the chauffeur and barrelled his companions inside.
“This is bigger than my flat,” said Ben.
“I know,” said Clovenhoof. “Onward James!” he called to the driver.
“Jeremy,” said Nerys as they pulled away.
“Yes?”
“Two things. One, why are you wearing sunglasses when there’s no sun?”
“It’s an accepted part of the rock star life style. And two?”
“Yes. There appear to be two... gentlemen of limited stature in here.”