52 songs, 52 stories

These Days

2012-03-04T10:57:00.000Z

(These Days: Nico)

He fell in love with every woman that he saw, but it was not the women he loved, just the idea of them. He loved them because they remained an open question, not something pinned down by routines of leaving things out or putting things away and turns to do things and arguments and that moment when you start to notice other people again.

So he fell in love with them all, one by one or several at a time. Sometimes he would steal a casual glance across the train carriage, or just before they passed one another on the pavement, and eyes would meet, the same quick glance even quicker averted. On his good days he thought that it was because they had seen something in him, but on his bad days, which were much more often, he thought that they were probably just wondering who that pervert was who was staring at them, and whether he would follow them, and if he did how quickly they could get help.

Even on a good day, his optimism only lasted until he caught sight of his reflection in a window, and then the thoughts of ifs and maybes and possibly perhaps all melted like snowflakes on a warm car and it was back to a bad day again, and crossing the road so that they wouldn't think that he was following them.

Sometimes he wondered if he was being too harsh on himself. He looked back at photos of when he was younger, and the girls on his arm dressed up for parties, cuddling into him grinning on the deck of a cross-channel ferry, lying in the snow making angel shapes, they were all a good catch by any standards. Way above his league, but it happened all the same even if he didn't know quite how. Most of them had come to him, made their moves when they tired of waiting for him to move first. He must have had something then, even when the flattery of the drink and the drugs were taken into consideration. He'd be buoyed by these memories, briefly, and then would crash down again into dull despair when he stood and stared at himself in the mirror and knew that they belonged to another time.

Whatever it was, it was gone.

He looked different now, older and tired, but that wasn't it because he hadn't been what you could call handsome even when he was young and luckier in love. No, he decided. It was nothing to do with looks. Inside him, a spark had gone out. He did not know when, because he had not noticed its passing, but it was gone and that was all that mattered. He told himself that he should accept this and get on with his life, but as with most things he ignored himself, so every day he fell in love again with Schrodinger's women. With each new face there was the chance of something happening, and as long as he didn't try too hard to find out, he could keep believing that.

Waiting For The Man

2012-02-26T10:12:00.002Z

(Velvet Underground - Waiting For The Man)

He stepped into a room that reminded him of a thousand others. The walls were painted off-white, the carpet was oatmeal. Polite landscapes hung in unobtrusive frames. There was a second door on the far wall. A small, neat man sat behind a large and highly polished mahogany table, his fingers steepled.

“Hello,” the man said, and smiled.

Anthony didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure where he was, or how he had got here. He seemed to be expected. Maybe this was some kind of appointment? The man sat very still behind the table, smiled encouragingly, but did not speak again.

“I’m sorry,” Anthony said, “I think I’m not well. I’ve forgotten…“ he tailed off, trying to find the words. “I’ve no idea what I’m doing here – I don’t even know how I got here.”

The man looked concerned, tutted, went back to smiling. Memories slid around each other like colours in a toy kaleidoscope. Anthony remembered a meeting in a hotel, an expensive dinner, too much wine, some cigars, sitting on the bathroom floor, the smell of expensive soap, crushing blackness.

“Look, what’s going on? Is this some kind of practical joke?”

“In a sense.” The man looked amused.

Anthony decided that enough was enough. He turned and pulled angrily at the handle of the door, but it wouldn’t open.

“You can’t go back out,” the man said quietly.

“Who the hell are you to tell me where I can and can’t go?” Anthony remembered the advice of his doctor. He stopped, put the palms of his hands together, then pushed them away towards the floor and was calm again.

"You’re just a little late for that," the man said. "No offence.”

“ I’m fine. I just want to know what’s going on.”

“Of course. You’re a dead man.”

“If you’re threatening me I’ll--"

"I’m not threatening you. Just answering your question.”

“I’ve had enough of this.” Anthony walked forward, fists balled.

"Can you feel your heart beating?”

Anthony stopped. Normally when his temper was up, he could feel his heart bouncing in his chest, the thud of blood in his ears. Now he could not feel any of it. He pulled the expensive fabric of his shirt open, and slid a hand onto his chest. Nothing. No thump, thump, no rise and fall of the breath. He felt very strange, and took a step backwards on the soft, silent carpet.

The man smiled encouragingly.

At first no words would come. Then suddenly hope flooded in. “It’s just a dream isn’t it? In a minute you’ll vanish and I’ll walk out and the sky will be custard yellow and I’ll see someone from my old primary school riding a bicycle and talking to a fish and then I’ll wake with a slight hangover...”

The man smiled again, drummed his fingers on the table. Shook his head.

Anthony snorted. "So this is heaven, is it? Looks like a dentist's waiting room."

The man raised an eyebrow, said nothing.

“Ah. Not heaven then. You don’t look like I expected.”

“Well, that is the general idea.”

“So where are the eternal fires of damnation then?”

The man frowned as if he had tasted something unpleasant. “Metaphor and fantasy. The unpleasant work of narrow minds. None of that here.”

“So what is there?”

The man shrugged. “What you see.”

“I’m not impressed. Not much in the way of torment.”

The man laughed. Anthony looked at him for a long time. The man sat back in his chair, sighed, examined his fingernails. "There’s nothing stopping you from leaving at any time.”

“Leaving?” Anthony said. “How?”

The man looked at Anthony with rather a pained expression. “Through the other door, obviously.”

“I can just go?”

“Mm-hmm.” The man was back to considering his fingernails.

“Right. Purgatory, then. A salutary lesson.” Anthony moved towards the other door on the far side. The man did not look up but took the time to wave a hand vaguely in Anthony’s direction.

“Goodbye now.”

Anthony reached out a hand, and tested the door handle. It was unlocked. Without a backwards glance, he opened the door and walked through.

“Hello,” the man said, and smiled.

Sabotage

2012-02-19T11:01:00.002Z

(Sabotage: The Beastie Boys)

“You ready, wonder boy?” Gerry laid a hot hand on Nick’s shoulder, like an uncle about to give unwanted whisky-breathed advice on how to handle the girls.

Nick nodded, although he didn’t feel ready to speak, let alone give the most important presentation of his career. His throat was dry and tight, and a nerve jumped in his neck.

“Deep breath, son. Then walk in, head held high, shoulders back, and give the buggers what they want. This is your big moment, my son.”

Nick swallowed, and felt like he was going to choke. Gerry was right, now was his time. Deliver today, and he’d be in there himself, the youngest person round the walnut boardroom table. Paid more than he could think how to spend--although Jen would have plenty of ideas--he'd be locked in, tied down, committed. Give him another ten years and he’d be Gerry, with halitosis and a protégée, having spent a decade doing nothing but things that he didn't care about. He’d tried talking to Jen, but she’d just stared at him as if he was mad and said, “Nick, you don’t have to care. Who the fuck cares?”

Gerry slapped Nick’s back, the same way he did when he made a sexist joke about a waitress, and Nick took a ragged breath, pushed the heavy door open and walked into the boardroom.

A dozen men in dark suits looked up and nodded. Nick paused, gave them the hundred-watt smile, shot his cuffs, walked confidently to the front of the room. The laptop was on, his presentation already loaded, already checked, nothing left to chance. He felt as if there was thick glass between him and the world, like the last time he'd had flu. When he had run through his presentation with Jen the night before, he came to a halt at one point, as if he had forgotten how to speak. She frowned and made that shape with her mouth he didn’t like, and told him he had to do better than that on the day, their futures and all her plans depended upon it.

Nick pointed the remote, switched the projector on from stand-by, ready to go. Slide after slide of

graphs and charts and single bullet points that had taken him an hour each to get right. The white tape of the finishing line was in sight, and he knew what it would mean when he burst through it in triumph. One of the boys. A company man. Golf days and cigars. The new house that Jen had already designed a hundred times over, space on the drive for her Range Rover and his Lexus and still room for more when the other company men and their botoxed wives came for the regular dinner and drinks, lots and lots of drinks. It all came down to the next half an hour. Do this, and his life would be set, a triumphant procession from good school to good university to girlfriend to good job to fiancee to promotion to wife to a seat around this table until early retirement and nothing to keep him from the golf course other than angina.

“Gentlemen,” Nick said, and he didn’t need to add anything else because there wasn’t a single woman present. “I am here today to show you the sales plan for the Minerva Project, the single most important development in this company's history, and a project which will revolutionise the packaging industry forever.”

Nods around the room. An expectant silence. An encouraging wink, from Gerry.

“But I have to show you something much more important than that,” Nick said, and the fog lifted and he felt alive. “Gentlemen, I am going to show you something more awe-inspiring than the Minerva Project, something that will mean you never forget today, something which shows the depth of my feeling about this company, about you all as colleagues, about everything.”

As he undid his trousers and the shouting began, Nick looked out of the boardroom window, and watched a gull lazily drift and bank through a cloudless blue sky.

Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants

2012-02-12T00:46:00.000Z

(Wild Beasts: Braving Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants)

Jim was disappointed by the clairvoyant's house. He'd expected a new age nightmare of crystals and candles, and so much incense that his breath would catch in his throat. Her house was disappointingly ordinary: a neat end of terrace with beige carpets, neutral walls and art from Ikea.

She didn't live up to his expectations either, just a middle-aged woman with her hair tied back, an exhausted look, and a top he knew she'd bought at Monsoon, because his wife owned the same one. He'd expected something more...dramatic. The clairvoyant had come highly recommended, which was why he was there to expose her as a fraud for the entertainment of his readers.

"Put your hands on the table, please."

"Palm up or down?"

She shrugged. "Whatever you feel comfortable with."

He put them palm up. She reached out her hands, rested the tips of her fingers gently on his. Closed her eyes for a moment. Then opened them again, looking past Jim and towards the curtains, as if she could see very far away.

"You're not married," she said, and it was all Jim could do not to smile. That'll be news to Marion, he thought. "But you will be, one day." She closed her eyes again, not long, but longer than a blink. "It will be a little sad, because you will find out that she is not able to bear children."

I should hope not, Jim thought. One's enough for me.

The clairvoyant looked at him with compassion. "But although you will always wish you could have become a father, you will find happiness of a kind."

"Of a kind," Jim said.

"Yes," she said, but didn't go on to elaborate. Another long blink. "You miss your brother."

"I do," Jim said. Apart from every other month when we play golf.

"I see him," she said. "In the other world. He is at peace."

Not unless my sister-in-law has changed beyond recognition, he thought, and had to bite down on his lip so that he wouldn't smile.

As he drove home, he started to write the article in his head. He'd make something more dramatic out of the woman and her house, something a little more exotic, it would be interesting for the readers and would also make her seem more calculating.

When he walked through the front door, the photo was gone from the wall. He'd paid a fortune for an hour in a studio for the three of them, and then spent ten times that long arguing over which photo they'd have enlarged and printed on canvas.

No-one was downstairs, and when he went upstairs, no-one was there either. Ben's room was half-full of boxes, the rest taken up by a dusty multigym. Jim walked into their bedroom, dull and slow like he was underwater. He stared at the un-made bed, at the sheets that needed changing a month ago, at the one bedside light. He slid the fitted wardrobe door open, and saw his clothes. Just his clothes.

When his mobile rang and he saw that it was his sister-in-law calling, he knew what she was going to say even before she said it.

Caught By The River

2012-02-05T11:39:00.000Z

(The Doves: Caught By The River)

Alex stood on the narrow iron ledge two hundred feet above the river and tried to be brave. The wind grew impatient and tugged at his jacket, and he tightened his fingers on the girder. He'd never been in charge of anything in his life, so he didn't want to let this one opportunity be taken from him.

Up behind him, cars hissed on the wet road. Down below him, the river waited.

Alex held on tight with one hand, fished his cigarettes from his pocket with the other, managed to maneouvre one into his mouth. He didn't really want it, but it gave him something to do while he waited to become brave enough, and it made him think of condemned men coolly waiting for the firing squad and soldiers joking while they waited to go over the top, and that made him feel a little better about the fact that he couldn't take one step forward. His hands were cold now, and he fumbled his lighter. It hit the ledge, bounced out into the darkness, down to the water. He spat the cigarette after it, and that's when he heard the footsteps.

Now, he thought. Now, before they come. But his arm wrapped tight around the girder and he didn't move. Alex had spent a lot of time looking up at the bridge from down on the riverside, he knew it like it was a friend, knew its moods, its habits. Hardly anyone walked across at night, but then he never had been very lucky. The footsteps stopped and there was silence for a minute. Then a man's voice said "Hello". Alex nearly went then, and for a moment he was hanging between the iron and the air. He tightened his hold.

"Go away."

"I can't do that."

"Yes you can. Just walk away, just keep going, just pretend that you never knew that I was here. This has nothing to do with you. Just fuck off."

There was a pause, as if the man were considering this. "No, I don't think I can do that."

Alex felt angry in a petty way, like a child told to put down a toy in a shop, and realised that he had spent a lot of his life feeling that way. This was his moment, his time.

"You come near me and I'll jump, I swear to God, I'll do it now."

"OK. Then I won't come near you."

They both stood in the night, listening to the rain plinking off the bridge. The river slid on below Alex, deep enough and fast enough that it would catch him, and carry him, and sweep him out into the sea.

"It's not a very nice night, is it?" the man said.

Alex wanted to punch him, punch him in the face, hard. He had never hit anyone before, even though he had often wanted to, but now he knew he really could. Or rather, could have done had the bridge not been in the way, and had he not been frightened of falling off the ledge, losing his choice, losing his moment. This was meant to be his time, and now some bastard was talking to him about the fucking weather. "Fuck off."

"Sorry."

More time, more rain.

"I am sorry," the man said. "But this is the best place. And if I stand around up here too long waiting for you, I'll do what I've done a hundred times before and I can't bear that again."

There was a shuffling noise from above and the man slid down onto the ledge a few yards from Alex. He wasn't as old as he had sounded, barely into middle-age, his brown hair plastered down over his head by the rain. He was wearing a suit and a raincoat, and looked as if he was on the way home from the office. He looked at Alex and smiled, said, "Sorry for pushing in," and stepped out into space. Alex shouted something, he didn't know what, and his hand gripped so tight around the girder that it hurt and he watched the man drop down, arms and legs out like a starfish, raincoat flapping around him in the wind, all the way down until the black river caught him and took him in and then he wasn't there any more.

Alex felt sick. He stared down at the dark water waiting to catch him, and thought of that terrible long fall. The rain stung his face and this felt like it mattered very much. He felt alive in a way that he had not done for years, and he turned to climb back up to the road. But the iron bridge was very wet, and his hands were very cold, and he never had been very lucky.

Love Songs On The Radio

2012-01-29T10:00:00.000Z

(Mojave 3: Love Songs On The Radio)

Mojave 3 there, with the beautiful 'Love Songs On The Radio'. You're listening to Pete's Drivetime Hour on Shoreline FM on 82.2 FM, online, digital radio and digital TV, and coming up shortly for you my lovely listeners: we've got the beautiful Julie with the weather and the not-so beautiful Martin with today's drivetime traffic.

I know that some of you will be thinking hang on, that's not on our usual daytime playlist, that song, old Pete's gone a little off-piste for a moment there. And you'd be right, my lovelies. Even had to bring my own CD in - if you've seen our studio webcast at the usual address slash livestudio you'll know it's all computers now, but isn't that the way of the world. Amazing how things that we think would last turn out to be yesterday's news. Might get into a little bit of bother with the higher-ups for playing some music that's not on the playlist, but it's a special day and I thought that a one-off might sneak under the radar.

I know what you're all thinking, old Pete's gone off his rocker, but don't worry my lovelies, I'm saner today than I have been for a long, long time. We don't play many requests on this show, but if we did and I could send in a request to myself, today it would be that song. Beautiful, isn't it? But you know what it's like with songs, I don't need to tell you this. Wherever you are now: at home, in the office or factory, or stuck in your car on the way home, if I said to you think of a song that means something to you, really means something to you, it's about more than the music, isn't it? It's always about more than the music.

That song's a beautiful number, bit of a country touch, would pull at old Pete's heartstrings anyway, but like I said my lovelies, it's about more than the music, isn't it? It's about the way that a song stops you in your tracks, strips away the years, and takes you right back to that moment, that one precious moment, so real that for a moment you're there, in a poky rented attic room, and you can hear the autumn rain on the skylight and that song playing on her cheap hifi, and you lean in towards each other for the first time, and in that moment you know that everything has changed. That nothing will be the same again.

That song becomes your song. Might be other people's too, but they don't matter. It's your song. The years go by, and you don't listen to it very often, but still it's there, your song. Then things grow tired and one year, you start to wonder, and the wonder turns into something else, and that something else is a cancer that eats and eats away at you, and you start to check phone bills, and steal receipts out of the bin, and every word seems to have two meanings, and every reason sounds like an excuse, and you jump between telling yourself that everything is OK and fearing that everything is not, and then one day you happen to change your routine and you're in an unexpected place at an unexpected time and there it is, you find out for sure that everything isn't OK, and that it will never be OK again.

So you play that song.

One last time. Because it's a beautiful song.

And in that moment you know that everything has changed. That nothing will be the same again.

And now it's time for Martin with today's drivetime travel on your local favourite, Shoreline FM coming to you on 82.2 FM, online, digital radio and digital TV . So, Martin, how's it looking on the ring-road tonight?

Intermission #2

2012-01-24T19:21:00.000Z

When next week's story goes up (inspired by 'Love Songs On The Radio' by Mojave 3, as requested by James), that will be the fifth story that I've posted on here, and the end of the first month of 52 Songs, 52 Stories. It's been fun to do so far, and an interesting experiment, as on at least a couple of occasions I've had little time to anything else other than just sit down and write them in a few minutes, give them a quick once over, and publish. It's strangely liberating...Thanks for reading the stories so far, I hope you've enjoyed them, and continue to enjoy the blog throughout the rest of the year. If you have, I'd be grateful if you spread the word, and give 52 Songs an occasional mention in other places.

Psychokiller

2012-01-22T19:07:00.000Z

(Talking Heads: Psychokiller)

"Are you scared?" the man on the phone asked, in a deep and growly voice.

"No," I said.

"Well, you better be."

"I'm not."

"You will be when I tell you this. Check the display on your phone. This call's coming from inside the house."

"Inside the house?"

"From the phone in the basement. Scared now, eh? Terrified?"

"Not much. We don't have a phone in the basement."

"What?"

"Can't have a phone in the basement, because we don't even have a basement."

"Are you trying to bluff me? Because if you're trying to bluff me..."

"I'm not trying to bluff you. We don't have a basement."

"Shit. Are you sure?"

"I think I'd know."

"Shit. But I thought I dialled—well, well, you just wait Sandra, I'm coming up out of this basement and I'm be heading straight for—"

"I'm not Sandra."

"What?"

"My name's not Sandra. My name's Jane."

"Jane?"

"Yes."

"Not Sandra?"

"Not Sandra. I don't even know any Sandras."

"Are you sure? No, sorry, stupid question. Shit."

"You're not very good at this, are you?"

"No. It's--"

"It's what?"

"Never mind."

"No, go on. It's what?"

"It's my first time. Doing...this. Being a serial killer."

"If it's your first time, then you haven't actually killed anybody yet."

"Well—but—well..."

"So you can't call yourself a serial killer."

"Suppose not."

"Actually, if it's your first time, you're not technically even a killer."

"I—no. No, I'm not. I've read a lot of books, though. Studied the greats."

"Hasn't really rubbed off, has it?"

"Guess not. I...look, I fell quite a way when I climbed in through the window to the basement, and I think my leg is really badly hurt, maybe even broken. And when I tried the door just now it's locked, and I don't think I can climb back up and out of the window with my leg like this. It really hurts. And there's spiders. And I'm really cold, and I don't even know if anyone's upstairs, and if they are I can't even work this phone to call them to terrify them, and I can't even get out of here. Help me. Please."

"Are you scared?" I said, in a deep and growly voice. He didn't say anything."Are you scared?"

Finally, in a little voice. "Yes."

I hung up.

SexyBack

2012-01-15T12:45:00.000Z

(Justin Timberlake: SexyBack)

He always scared me, my neighbour. I was bookish and quiet, Radio 4 and light opera. He was forever demolishing things and sitting in the garden drinking from cans and whatever he did, if the temperature was a few degrees north of freezing he always had his shirt off. He did it because the kind of man he was, he wanted to show himself off, and he did it because he wanted to show her off.

She curved over the strong muscles of his back, her head animated by his shoulder blade: when he shrugged, she looked up and down. Her dark hair coiled down the small of his back, and her eyes looked straight at you, cool and dark and hiding a lifetime of possibilities. For all it was such a primitive, debased art form, the tattoo had been executed with real beauty. I often wondered who she was. Whether he had known her. Whether he had...known her.

I tried not to look, because I am not the sort of man who looks at other men, but it was not easy. He would dig his garden, and I would sit in my first floor study, looking out of the window, watching her move as he moved. Then at night, I would dream of her. We would be at a party, and she would stand out like a rose amongst the dowdy and drooping shrubs of my colleagues. She would look around the room, and when her gaze met mine, she would stop. Smile. Take a slow drink. Not look away with contempt, like the rest.

When I woke in the morning after one of these dreams, the world seemed a little more tired and colourless than before.

My neighbour would get very drunk, and shout and fight, and throw things at his wall. He would play music late into the night, and sometimes he would bring a woman back and I would have to wear my ear-plugs so I didn't have to listen to the animal percussion of bed-frame against wall. Once, I didn't wear my ear plugs, and I closed my eyes and listened and imagined that the woman he was with was her. Afterwards though, I had to run to the toilet to be sick.

I could have moved, I should have moved, I wanted to move, to live and work in another city, but it was the house I was brought up in, and it was the house I nursed my mother in until last year, and then it was just my house. I wanted to move and start a new life. I wanted to start my life. But when I thought about all the change it scared me. Most things did. I am ashamed to admit it, but there you are.

It had been a hot day, and he had been out in his garden hammering something together all afternoon, stopping only to add to the pile of cans around his feet. The beat, beat, beat gave me a headache, so I could not concentrate on the work that I brought home, and that made me stare through the window, watching her, thinking about how a soft breeze would have caressed her hair around her neck, risen softly to my window, cooled my forehead, smelled of her perfume.

Then he turned round and saw me.

I ducked down, but my desk was in the way and I did not know if I had been quick enough. There was a loud crash outside, and I sat up to see the whole fence swaying. I was sick to my stomach and I was hot in the head and my arms and legs shivered and shook, as if I had the flu. I wanted to crawl under my bed, and curl up and put my hands over my ears.

My fence crashed and swayed again. I took a ragged breath and said, 'Be a man. For once.' At least I meant to say that, but what came out was, 'Be a man. For her.'

I staggered downstairs and out into the garden. There was silence for a moment, and I began to hope that he had grown bored and gone inside to shout at his television, but then a whole fence panel came crashing down over my perennials, and onto my lawn. I had to step to one side, or one of the thick wooden fenceposts would have hit me. He sauntered through.

"My fence," I said, and I hated the sound of my voice, and I hated him, and I hated myself.

"Fuck your fence. I seen you," he said, "watching. Not the first time. Always watching. Fuckin' perv. Gonna tell the whole street, tell 'em to watch out. 'Specially the ones with kids."

"Don't you dare." I stepped forward, nearly tripping over the fencepost at my feet.

He made a face, and a sound like a little girl being scared. I could smell the drink on him.

"You would not believe what I am capable of," I said.

He laughed, shook his head. Then he lifted a fist, very quickly, as if to hit me. I flinched. He dropped his fist, laughed again. "You wouldn't have the bottle," he said. He looked at me as if I were dirt. Then he spat, on the ground, and turned his back to walk away.

She was laughing too.

When colleagues in my new job come to my new flat, in my new city, they often remark on it. "How unusual," they say. "Very folk art, very primitive, but all the same it's stunning execution, and that frame sets it off beautifully. She's not on canvas though, is she?"

"Goatskin," I say. "It's goatskin."

Never Tell

2012-01-08T17:55:00.000Z

(Violent Femmes: Never Tell)

They had been drunk, it's true, but not very drunk, and they were very young. Simon persuaded Paul to work through their summer job lunchbreak so they could finish early, and then on the way home one of them had suggested a swift pint that turned into three, but Simon could never remember whose idea that was. They didn't take the usual route home, because a tractor turned into the lane ahead of them, so Paul drove the long way round because it would be quicker. He slid a copy of Doolittle into the cassette player and turned it up loud, and Simon drummed on the dash and sang along.

They turned a corner and she stepped out into the road from nowhere and bang onto the bonnet and thump over the roof and then she was behind them on the road and Paul was standing on the brakes, and Simon was just holding on to the dashboard and swearing softly, over and over, and Black Francis shrieked, "Tame" until Paul slapped at the stop button and everything went very quiet.

When they reached her, her eyes were wide open and her mouth was open as if she was going to say something, but she would not say anything ever again.

They looked at her, and they looked at each other, and they looked at the empty countryside around them, and then they ran to the car.

There were three terrible weeks of stories in the local paper, and conversations in local shops. Simon slept fitfully, and woke at five most mornings, not sure if he had dreamed a hammering on the door or whether it was real. The stories stopped when nothing new happened and other stories came along, and one night Simon went to sleep at eleven and woke at nine the next morning, and hadn't dreamed of anything at all.

They didn't decide to spend less time together, but that's how it turned out. Simon went off to university, and Paul took on his dad's business, and occasional sessions in the pub turned into once a year Christmas cards, and then much later, they were just Facebook friends who never messaged or commented, just watched.

Simon hadn't spoken to Paul for five years when he got a message on Facebook with a phone number at the end. Call me, it said. We need to talk.

When Simon phoned he could hear a child shouting in the background, and the loud sound of a TV. "Can't speak now," Paul said. "But can we meet? I really want to talk."

"Sure," Simon said, "it would be great." He wasn't sure that he meant it, because although he missed the friendship that they had once had, he knew that they would never get that back. There would be an awkward conversation in a pub, a lot of time spent talking about other people they had once known, and then they would say this was great, we must do it again and they never would.

They met in a seaside town halfway between where each of them lived now, in the car park of a pub. There was an awkward shaking of hands, and Simon said, "Pint?" and then regretted it. "Or a coffee, whatever?"

Paul was older, fatter, but with dark smudges under his eyes. "Maybe in a bit." He sounded even more tired than he looked. "I've got a banging headache, drive down was a nightmare. Can we just walk for a bit, get some fresh air, blow it away?"

"Sure," Simon said, and they walked along the prom, past deserted out-of-season arcades. The path rose up from the town onto the cliffs above the bay and the wind grew stronger there and whipped at Simon's hair. It didn't seem to do Paul much good

"You don't seem right, mate." The last word felt wrong in Simon's mouth. Once, but not now. Once they had been as close as brothers, now they were just strangers with a brief shared past and one terrible secret.

"I see her," Paul said. "When I go to sleep at nights. When I wake up. I've been thinking of nothing else for months. I can't stand it." He walked to the edge of the cliff, stared out at the sea.

"Jesus, man. I'm sorry." Simon walked to him, thought of putting an arm around his shoulder, hesitated, the years apart filling the six inches between them.

"It's not her that scares me. It's what she could do to my life. My family."

"She can't do anything. It's done with. In the past. Case closed. A terrible tragedy, but she walked out from nowhere. You're not to blame." He saw the look. "We're not to blame."

"It eats away at me like a tumour. Every day, I wake up, and I worry that day will be the day it all comes out. I've got so much in my life now, so many good things. I don't deserve them, but I have them, anyway. But the better it gets, the more I have to lose. The day before I got in touch with you, I was reading Ella a bedtime story, and she snuggled right into me and squeezed my hand and said 'Daddy, I never ever want to lose you' and just the thought of it...Jesus."

"Paul, get a grip - you won't lose her, she won't lose you.You're just panicking, getting it all out of perspective."

"No," Paul said. "I've got everything in perspective. For the first time since it happened."

Simon snorted. "If you had it in perspective, you wouldn't be in this fucking state. It's ten years on, Paul. She's forgotten. Not by us, you know I don't mean that, but the police? A dusty file in an archive box somewhere, and nothing to link it to us, to you. Nothing. That's what you've got to keep in mind, when you're going through a bad time, like now. No-one knows, Paul. No-one knows."

Paul shook his head slowly. "You do," he said, and Simon tried to take a step back from the cliff edge but it was all too late, far, far too late.

Intermission #1

2012-01-07T17:38:00.000Z

New story up some time tomorrow morning, UK time.

It's a bit longer than last weeks; most will probably be shorter. Some might be much shorter. But this one took as long as it took.

Don't expect any to be as polished as fiction of mine you might have read elsewhere ("that's polished?" a chorus of disbelieving readers cry). The constraints of doing one of these a week on top of everything else is interesting, because I don't have the luxury of revision, just a quick whip-through. So the stories might be a bit rough around the edges but at least will be spontaneous. He said, in the hope that this is a good thing.

I'm also guest blogging tomorrow and talking a little more about why I am doing this, and why music makes stories. More on that when it's published.

I've had three requests for songs which I will honour over the next month or two. Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, Love Songs On The Radio by Mojave 3, and coming up next week, SexyBack by Justin Timberlake.

It's going to be an interesting year...

Why Don't You Kill Yourself?

2012-01-02T04:05:00.000Z

(The Only Ones: Why Don't You Kill Yourself)

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" he said. "That you really want to do it?"

"Yes," she said. "No. Yes. I do, I'm sure, but I'm scared."

"To be honest, I'm scared too," he said. "But we do this, nothing can scare us. Ever again. Nothing can hurt us. Ever again. And we're together now, and we will be together, after."

"Hold my hand."

He held her hand.

"Don't let go of it."

"I won't let go of it."

"I'm ready," she said.

"Sure?"

"Sure."

"On three, we jump. Don't forget, I love you, and will always love you."

She just nodded, looked down at the river.

"One," he said.

"Two," he said.

"Three!" he said.

They both stood there, on the railing of the bridge, hands pulled apart at the same time, like they'd just pulled a Christmas cracker.

After a moment, they both climbed down, saying nothing. He walked one way. She walked the other.

52 songs, 52 stories

2012-01-01T09:00:00.000Z

So what is this?

It's a simple idea, really. Each week in 2012 I'm going to pick a song, usually at random. I'm going to write a very short story inspired by that song, and post a video for the song and a story here.

Fifty-two songs, fifty-two stories. First one will be up on Jan 1st.

What made you decide to do this?

A combination of two things that happened at the back end of 2012.

I was involved in a project called Off The Record, which is a charity anthology edited by Luca Veste, featuring stories from a host of excellent authors (and me) with each story inspired by a classic song track. Taking the opportunity for a plug: thirty-eight stories for next to nothing (Amazon UK | US), it's a bargain, and all the royalties go to charity - the National Literacy Trust in the UK, and the Children's Literary Initiative in the US. I contributed a story inspired by Hendrix's Purple Haze.

Around the time that Off The Record was released, I discovered a really entertaining blog called A Month In Music, written by Alex Watson, and based on a very simple premise. He had thirty days of music in his iTunes collection, 10,513 songs. He switched iTunes to shuffle, pressed play, and wrote about what he heard. The result was a very well-written, sweetly melancholy blog that riffs off the songs played across the month to talk about music, and memories, and how life turns out as it goes past, and I thought, I'd like to do a regular project like that. Something that commits me to writing something on a regular basis (but not an insane one, considering other writing projects that I have on the go).

And so, putting those two ideas together, this is it.

So, who the hell are you?

I am me. I write stuff.

I like the photo in your header.

So do I. It's part of a larger photo from stock.exchng, and credit for the photo, and thanks for permission to use it, go to the photographer: mn-que.