Sunday 22nd August

Yesterday was D day. The day that what Collins and I had been working on had its first outing. Through the lounge window, I saw Noah’s car pull up in the drive. After a while the car door slammed, and I heard Jess say. “Come in, Noah, they’re in the lounge. Isabelle, this is Noah, one of Daddy’s friends.”

Noah, guitar case in his hand, came into the lounge with Jess. She swapped Isabelle to the other hip. Noah towered over her, all tawny eyes and a mane of ginger hair. He made Jess look tiny.

“Didn’t Adam come with you?” Luke was sitting on the floor, propped up by the wall, guitar on his lap. Tessa hadn’t made it past the kitchen. Our lounge was tiny, it would hold Stadium, but strays wouldn’t fit. I’d set the keyboard up in the corner for Adam.

“Nah, he texted, he’ll be here soon.” Noah sat on the other end of the couch from Cole. “What are you playing?” he asked Cole.

Cole patted out a rhythm on his knees. “Faking it.” Milly still hasn’t come back like she said she was going to so Cole was on his own. Tessa said Milly was making it big in show jumping or something horsey in Europe.

Jess came over to me, still carrying Isabelle and kissed my cheek. “Tessa and I’ll go and get something for lunch, while you’re doing this, it’ll keep Izzy out of your hair.”

I nodded. “Yeah, okay.” I was relieved. Izzy would probably enjoy listening to the music but imagine the buttons she could push. And it was hard to play the guitar with a kid on your lap.

Jess and Tessa disappeared with Isabelle. I heard the car go out the drive and the four of us waited in the lounge for Adam. Luke stretched and looked over at Noah.

“Where were you, last night? I went around to your olds and your car was there, but you weren’t.”

“Went for a walk,” said Noah. That seemed bloody unlikely. Who goes for a walk in the middle of the night? But Luke let it pass.

I found the first score I’d printed out. If I was nervous when Luke suggested this, I was jittery now. This was the real test. I wished I looked a little more Zac Coleman, rockstar, and a little less Isaac the builder. It might have given me some credibility.

“We’ll get started. I’ll give Adam his when he gets here.” I handed the music to everyone. “See what you think.”

Noah looked at the two sheets of notation and lyrics, and then at me. “I thought you had more.”

“Look at this one first.”

“Temptation?” Noah scanned the first few lines. They were all about that jolt of electricity you get when that person that sets you alight walks into the room. It could read like I’d written the lyrics about Jess. He looked up at me again, eyebrows raised. “Fuck,” he said. “You had it bad.”

I shrugged. “Writing what I know, like Collins said.”

Luke tried to hum the melody. “Dum dum de da,” he went the way he does, then looked up at me. “Are you going to play this for us, Zac, so we don’t have to guess?”

“I’ve recorded it, we’re just waiting for Adam.” I went to the laptop. I had it set up on the sideboard. Before we got married, Jess’s mum and dad had the sideboard stored in the garage. It’d had a taupe make over too, milky coffee had taken over the whole house “Collins helped me with the arrangement. This way you can hear how it should go.”

They all studied the music with Luke dum de dah ing in the background. He picked up his guitar and tried a few of the chords.

Adam arrived at the door. “Got held up,” he said.

“We haven’t started yet.” I gave him a copy. Adam grabbed a kitchen chair and joined us in the lounge. “Here goes,” I said.

I listened with the others. The lyrics and the music just reeked of sexual tension and wanting someone you shouldn’t. Collins and I had tried to capture that feeling with down tempo chords, a strong hook and a backbeat.

I glanced at the sheet with the lyrics and music on, waiting by the sideboard for their verdict. I wanted them to think it was good. I was worried about what they’d say.

The music died away to nothing.

Silence sat heavy in the lounge.

Noah put the music down on the couch beside him. “It’s great,” he said finally.

“Thanks.” I waited for the rest to comment.

“Who’s it about?” asked Cole. I snorted, turned back to the laptop and hit pause.

“I like it,” said Luke. “Now let’s see what we can do with it.” He picked up his guitar again and plucked the first few chords.

Adam moved to the keyboard.

“Do you want it over by the chair?” I asked. “We’ve got an extension cord.”

“No, I’ll stand.” He put the music on the holder, hits a few keys and started playing. The melody from Temptation floated out into the room.

“No violin in this?” Noah grabbed his guitar.

“Not this one.”

He played a few chords, checked the tuning then came in under the melody. The lounge was filled with music, all scraps of what I had imagined, like a broken-up jigsaw puzzle of sound

“What do I do?” Cole stretched back into the couch in the cacophony like he could easily relax there for the afternoon just listening. I should have talked to Dad about using his shed again for this. The stage we set up was still there.

“Sound engineer. You can work the laptop.” I took it off the sideboard, pulled out the cord and handed it to him.

“Do you want to record what we’re doing?” He hauled his phone out of his pocket.

“After a couple of run throughs.”

Luke crossed his boots and gave the first line of the lyrics a go.

“You’ve got me thinking….” growled out across the room, against the rest of the sound. He looked up at me. “Thinking with what?” He grabbed his crotch.

“Ha ha.” It wasn’t a great comeback. Luke smirked and went back to growling out the rest of the first verse. It wasn’t the way I recorded the lyrics. I listened to what he was doing. It was better. It sounded rougher, more guttural, darker.

“That’s great, Luke,” I said.

“Yeah, should work.” Luke grinned. “This is going to make people listen.”

I looked over at Adam. The music coming from the keyboard sounded right.

Adam stopped playing and looked up. He looked excited. “Is that what you wanted?”

“Yeah.”

Noah leaned the guitar against the couch. “Shall we give it a go?”

I nodded. “I’ll do the harmonies. We’ll see how it sounds.” I looked over at Cole. “Drums.”

He fiddled with the laptop. The first few beats started up and he hit pause.

“Tell me when you’re ready.”

Luke flattened out the lyrics on his knees. Adam was ready at the keyboard. Noah picked up the guitar. We were about as ready as we were going to get.

“Go for it.” Cole hit play.

We went for it.

It sounded all right.

“Again?” asked Cole.

I nodded. We went for it again. Still sounded good. The lyrics came from Luke like deep dark smoke. Adam kept the keyboard down to just glowing coals. Noah on the guitar was all blues. I thought it sounded unbelievable.

“Time to record?” asked Cole. He held up his phone.

“Yep.” And we did it again. I flopped down on the couch beside Cole when we were finished. He hit play. The moment of truth.

I could hear the growl in Luke’s voice, the smoking coals of the keyboard, the laid-back guitar.

But overall it sounded like shit.

Cole hit pause around half way through the first verse and we sat there silently. Luke puffed out a breath, then rubbed his chin with his fist.

“And that’s why we have technology,” he said. He was right if we were going to see how this could sound we needed to record each track separately and layer them.

“You haven’t got anything on that thing with just the instrumental tracks?” Luke nodded at the laptop.

“Yeah, but it’s all me playing. You’ve already heard that,” I said.

There was nothing for it. We were going to have to do this properly. “I’ll go get the leads and the interface. We’ll do one track at a time.”

I raided the spare room. We started to record the tracks separately. We listened after we added each layer.

“Delete that keyboard track,” said Adam after we listened to what he’d just done. “I can do better.” He had another go and we listened again.

Then Noah recorded the guitar track. We listened again.

“Sounds good,” said Noah. “When we get Cole on the drums it’ll be even better.”

“Yeah, what I did was basic.” I put my earphones on. We were ready for the vocals.

Luke was standing up with the microphone. Cole fired up the laptop again. I came in under Luke’s vocals on the chorus, but it didn’t need too much. He was flawless. Better than I imagined.

By the time Jess and Tessa got back with bags of food, we’d recorded the last of the vocals and layered them on top of the rest. Now was the real moment of truth.

“Just in time,” Luke said to them. He was back on the floor, leaning against the wall, all suppressed excitement. That feeling was all around the room. We all knew we had something here.

Tessa put the grocery bag on the table and sat on the floor beside him. They got engaged a couple of months ago. The diamond on her finger sparkled.

Isabelle ran over to me. “Daddy.”

I was on the couch again, pretending to be laid back about this, but I wanted to burst out of my skin. These numbers Collins and I had written had to work. I’d put everything into them. It was nearly a year of my life.

“Hey,” I said and scooped Isabelle up. She sat on my lap and snuggled into me. “Want to hear what Daddy has done?”

She nodded. She’s heard bits of everything plenty of times, I can’t keep her out of the spare room when I’m working so she’s learned to sit quietly on a chair she dragged in.

Jess was leaning on the architrave of the doorway. She looked over at me and Izzy and smiled. I guess she knew what a big moment this was too.

Cole hit play. That smoky keyboard sound floated out into the room, those laid-back guitar chords started and then Luke’s voice came in deep and throaty. I saw Tessa shiver and hug Luke, because it was great. It sounded amazing. It couldn’t have been better. And Collins and I have written another seven numbers like this. Now Stadium had two weeks to get them right before the break was over.