Miss Twenty

Lyrics from 'Fatal Summer' by Joe Kender, kindly reproduced with the
permission of the artist

We are old, we are older

Never quite caught up, wiser

And we tanned our selves on lazy evenings,

Never believing, never quite believing&;#8230;

It was my birthday. I was the youngest, the last party of the year. I
protested, and only wanted an intimate evening, no change in routine.
Telly and beer in 67 Halliwell Road always made me happy. It was a
great night. Jim decided to make chilli, a spontaneous chilli. We all
got really excited, pooled our money and rushed around the corner to
the Alldays shop, to buy all the kind-of-relevant ingredients we could
think of. We also used it as an excuse to buy yet more beer,
convincingly rationalising to each other that the spice and heat of the
chilli would give us no choice but to consume more ice-cold beer. We
were all on top form that night. We stood around in the shite-brown
kitchen from the seventies, squeezing hips in the gap by the kitchen
bin, and buttocks on surfaces between chopping boards and coffee jars.
The back door was open, and all the flies came in, but they didn't
bother anyone, they kept away, to themselves. We drank black sugary
coffee and cans of Fosters alternately. Putting the kettle on,
especially that often, felt so grown-up to me, and I welcomed it,
imagining a similar situation in my own house when I got to Jim and
Joe's age.

Jim rifled through all the kitchen cupboards and the fridge constantly
as he cooked, telling us awful wordplay jokes. Jim was the most
interesting cook I'd ever met. He used no recipes, and he put the
strangest things into, say, a spaghetti bolognese, but everything just
came out right - better, much better than right - in the end. I
remember standing by and scrunching my face up in disgust once as I
watched him thwack a large dollop of peanut butter into a chicken
casserole. I tasted it later anxiously. It was marvellous.

As Jim shook a spray of banana-hot sauce into the pan, Dom started
telling us about his latest short film project. We all used to take the
piss, all the time in fact, teasing him about the pretentiousness of
his style and ideas, but he would always shake his head slowly and
smile a big, wide Dom-smile. His latest thing was to make a film in a
tree in a park. That was as far as he intended to plan the film. He was
a big fan of not planning things out, just triggering them off and
watching them unfold. We went out for a while, but I guess that was why
we weren't compatible. I've always been a list maker.

We left the meat to cook on for a while, and went upstairs to the
living room. Joe put his live Pearl Jam video on, and while we had
another coffee we talked about maybe one day all starting a band
together. We'd need a drummer, obviously, but Dom reckoned we couldn't
go far wrong having two guitar players "like me and Joe". I stretched
out on the floor, warm and happy from the beer buzz. Jim stretched out
too far on the misshapen velour couch and knocked off their ugly blue
glass ashtray. It smashed on the hearth tiles next to the settee. There
was a moment's silence, and then we all just started to laugh, giggling
at first, then harder. I volunteered to clean it up.

When the chilli was nearly ready, we set up outside in the garden. We
usually hung out at the bottom, on a little concrete square by the
washing line. Late in the evenings we'd take drink, pillows, blankets
and candles out there, and form a square of bodies, heads resting on
stomachs all the way round, and just talk for hours, sometimes 'til
five. Learning each other's heart beats off by heart. Joe once
threatened to write a song based on mine, he said it was erratic.
Thankfully, he never did. This night though, we'd decided to eat up by
the house first. I sat at the cobwebby garden furniture and watched the
tiny garden spiders busying around the legs of the table. When the
chilli arrived, it was amazing. A mound of lush meat and rich-looking
sauce, on top of a cereal bowl full of white white rice. It had cheese
that had melted into transparent grated shapes over the meat, and a
puddle of yoghurt to the side. It was my first real chilli I think.
Every mouthful was so good, and Jim was so happy that we kept
complimenting it, and that we all liked it so much. He looked so
content that evening. We all did, sitting in that back garden with the
insects biting the hell out of us, and looking up at the pinky sky, and
discussing tomorrow.

I miss it. That's the total truth. It was the best, and I mean, heart
squeezed between teeth and tongue, music dripping from sweating brows
and backs, laughing and snoozing in hot dark corners, best, summer
ever. It was the most important time of my life too, that little
passageway with all the leaf mulch between believing life could go
somewhere and knowing it never would.

'To You', by Joe Kender

Take it with you, that little eye of yours

Never lose gleams and dreams and

All those kisses we all gave

Don't forget me, I'm asking

Never stop looking out

We may meet somewhere, once

In a tired crowd the other side of far

Would I give it all to you? x2

Take me with you, I didn't leave

I waited and here you come down

The path you never wanted to stray from

And you might think it

Was good for nothing

A waste of time and love and harmony

You may be wrong, or never correct

Would I give it all to you? x2

Would I have given it all to you? x2

Would that I had given all to you