Soothing Music for Stray Cats
Description:
Mark’s best friend, Jim, has just jumped from the window on the twentieth floor. In his quest to understand what was going through Jim’s mind, Mark, walks out of his own life and heads for London; dreams of songwriting, and the rhythms of better living drumming gently in his mind.
As his adventure unfolds, Mark takes on house-sitting for Ron, a supposed friend from the past; and on grief’s low-battery setting, often cold and underfed, he drifts through a familiar yet sometimes alienating London cityscape.
Using music and literature to help make sense of things, and spurred on by guilt at failing to save his friend, Mark decides to keep a benevolent eye on three young lads he encounters, Joe, Mike and Bono. These ‘three musketeers’ ultimately challenging perceptions of ‘youth culture’ through acts of kindness of their own.
Excerpts from ‘Soothing Music for Stray Cats’
"When we were kids, me and Jim, we dreamt of writing songs together. We should have tried, should have given it a go, and written the songs, and lived the lives we wanted to.
’cos me and Jim… we’d do London! Set off down that Jermyn Street, pick up some shirts, or head down Saville Row, yeah, Saville Row, we’d get measured up all proper, get suited-up, suited and booted, the tailored treatment, and then we’d run riot just the two of us… through Trafalgar square, the lions and the fountains, electric guitars, Jim, blasting out his lungs as the front man, and –excuse the language like, but with the whole friggin’ full-scale Philharmonic Orchestra blasting out all around us, and Nelson up there on his column, well, we’d have sorted out the arm thing no problem, and then, and then he’d play bass. Picture it, just picture it. A massive gig, under a dark starry sky, blasting, blasting.’
A train pulled in and I climbed aboard the dark blue Piccadilly line, a straight, deep blue line that cuts across the city; and the tube, its network, like blood vessels, pumping people round its misshapen heart.
I looked at the sky again, and just for a moment, just for that moment, I was lost to it all again, gentle rhythms and the sound of the waves lapping gently against the side of the ship… and then you imagine, how in great storms, the skies curl down and the seas curl up… and then it’s calm again, and there’s space again for other things, for you and me to lie down again, easy like, just watching the great morning blue—that’s so great… it makes you feel dead good. Easy.
I could be wrong, but I felt like I was met by a smile as I entered the shop. The Turkish geezer was stood there happy enough in a cloud of his favourite smoke, the others cheery, and chatting away, and it was like stepping into another little world, a sort of capsule to somewhere else. My Turkish tardis. Trays of sweet cakes laid out all dead pretty on the counter; Turkish delight was the only one I recognised, I’m not much for sweet stuff or I’d have tried some of the other things, but there we go.
Anyway… I was given this book for the writing of songs, best I get on with it.—And what might a man need for the writing of songs? Some cigarettes, some booze, a little clarity of mind or emotion, a pen, a notebook. And space. I guess that’s it really: a pen, notebook, space.
—And who knows what comes when the ink nudges the paper - a few lame ideas, some half-arsed lyric, lines and half lines, just a semblance of song… only I’m feeling pretty nervous now… sitting here, just me and the page."
Later, when Mark and the boys finally meet Japanese student, Kazu -nervous & Samurai obsessed, their worlds are changed forever. This contemporary rights of passage novel is a calm, cool, and well controlled debut that will bathe the reader in its own, “thick broth of human kindness”.
