Clare

I'm baking at midnight, how domestic of me.

The first batch will be bird food tomorrow, cupcakes that ended up looking like miniature Papa Giuseppe pizzas, the burn marks looking like lumps of ham scatter across the top. Did I mention flat, I could win frisbee contests with them.

The muffins are better I used the pack of blueberries and some chocolate from my stash, they better bloody be good, I don't like wasting chocolate!

I was just waiting for the bread dough to rise.

I'm pretty sure it will be destined for the brickworks to build some new castle in the highlands, probably an important cornerstone to a future king.

King Blah now tries to pull the sword out of this bread brick, arrrr, It's too hard the king laments.

Goodness I wish I could make shit up that forms lyrics as simply but king blah will have to stay in my warped mind, I can't see a top 500 hit in any of those words.

I like to tr-

"What ya cooking"

"Shit fucking hell why don't you scare me next time, I'll just go change my underwear and you head back to your lair, Cap"

My lord my beating heart, I held a hand over my chest and let my breathing take over... gasps, palpitations, gasps.

I need to calm down.

I'm going to hyperventilate if not, knees, yeah, head between knees, breath deep and slow. 

I managed to calm my heart from running out of my chest down the road as I recovered flopped on the couch..... The couch then sank from his weight as he sat beside me.

"This is quite good, bit chewy but the chocolate blueberry shit somehow saves it" Cappy, leans back and finishes the muffin as I watch from my hunched position, shaking my head every so often at the nerve of the guy.

"Your bread will be shit though" He looked over his shoulder at the bowl "Need to keep it warm. The yeast you know, needs warmth to rise"

"Can you leave now, my pleasant evening has now offically been ruined" I sat up, my face blotchy from the fast breathing and holding my breath.

"Thought I could help" He smiled through chocolate and blueberry laced teeth, disgusting "....assist"

"Plllleasssse. Though you could assist me....... by removing your body from my abode" I grabbed the guitar and decided to ignore him.

He moved into the kitchen, not far enough, but enough to give me some reprieve from his uninvited form.

As I strummed he hummed and as I changed the chords he followed, his humming was ok.

"Sing" Cappy requested "Please"

"I don't sing, that's my sisters domain"

"Come on just a bit for your old mate, Cappy" He leaned over the back of the couch and tugged at his beard and scratched his neck.

"Itchy is it?"

"Hmmmmm" He walked back to the kitchen and placed my lump of off white dough in the oven with the door open.

"Why did you do that, won't all the heat escape?"

"I'm not cooking it, I'm proving it. Like I want you to prove yourself wrong and sing" He smiled as he tossed the tea-towel over his shoulder and preceded to wash up my muffin tin.

I gave up the fight and started the intro, mine was different to the finished product... the dangers of putting your babies in other people's hands.
Mine was a girl's voice, higher for the verse and on her own, and the fill of Cass and Michelle was missing. I slowed it down, bringing it back to the feeling of the morning I wrote it. The whole thing written in one go...

Like pouring milk on my cereal, as easy as dipping the spoon in and eating.

'Monday Monday' slipped through my fingers, rolled from my tongue.

Da da dada dada da

Monday, Monday, so good to me;

Monday morning, it was all I hoped it would be.

Oh, Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee

That Monday evening you would still be here with me.

Monday, Monday, can't trust that dayyyy

I finished two verses and choruses then stopped, hand flat on the guitar strings.

I fell into another song.

When Cass and I had an afternoon off we tinkered, we mixed. The clunky tape machine forever listening and no one was bossing me, or her, about.

The finish, the start, faster, slower, higher, lower. Anything we wanted, we did.

We had this particular song ripped and spun and placed in the sexy basket, and it did turn sexy as hell. Turning the pop of those Beatle boys original creation into sass and hip, jazz and striptease.

Cass and the gang sang it at Montrey in '67.

'I Call Your Name'
A/N : Have a listen to this, it's so different!!!

I call your name but you're not there.

Was I to blame for being unfair?

Don't you know I can't sleep at night

Since you've been gone.

I never weep at night; I can't go on.

Don't you know I can't take it;

I don't know who can.

I'm not gonna make it;

I'm not that kind of man

Don't you know I can't sleep at night.

But just the same,

I never weep at night; I call your name.

Don't you know I can't take it;

I don't know who can.

I'm not gonna make it;

I'm not that kind of man.

I giggled as I did the boy parts and stuffed some words but the look on Capps face when I looked over my shoulder was so amusing I pushed home, laughing in the last flourish of strings.

"Cass"

"No Clare, silly"

"No, dim wit, Cass Elliot" Cap slid down beside me "Mamas and Papas, don't give me the blank, you obviously know, you're singing just like she did"

"Course, got the record you know"...

And the acetate and the tape from the home recording in my closet.

He took the guitar and fiddled with the head, tuning the slightly too high G perfectly "Bread is in the oven proper now, be half hour" He looked up and I want him to tell me his secrets and take that beard off. He handed the guitar back gently.

"Were you at Montrey?" He looked over me carefully, watching.

"No"

"But that's where she did it live right"

"Sure, but it came out on vinyl in what... '66 -Eyes and Ears"

"You sing it good"

"Ta"

I did the intro of Cal Dreamin' but couldn't sing. I stopped mid strum. I sat the guitar down on my lap and plucked the strings instead.

The bread was smothered in butter which sank and ran all over in equal messy measure. It was so hot, so yummy, right from the oven. I found the jam and rammed the knife in. I love the lumps, the gooey strawberries, hills of strawberries on my slice.

"Leave a couple" He laughed as I shoved the jelly aside for my sweet fruity lollies of sugary goodness.

We ate silently just him and I, his eyes up closer and in the light, a pale brown like I took my tea. I know him but he's a stranger, I like him but he's a gigantic pain in the ar-

"You know you could just say thank-you instead of devouring my loaf like it's Christmas" He smiled through the horse tail.

-arse.

"Thank-you" I poked my tongue out a strawberry perched on the end, I got a mumbled cackle.

"I've writers block" I blurted, not sure why.

"Oh yeah, sounds like me"

"Yea? You write?" I quizzed while I excavated the jam for even more strawberry lumps.

"Aha, poems, books, songs"

"Songs?" My ears were pricked and he noticed, covering a smile with his bread "Do I know any?"

"I don't know, do you?" He countered and I huffed, why not tell me. 

But isn't that me too, I'm not exactly spruiking and telling about my music either. About me being the author of those songs I sang mere minutes before.

"Awww, unfair" I smothered another slice with butter alone, waving the knife at him "Just one...."

"Nope" he did the zipper on his mouth throwing the pretend key away.

"Does that zip stop you talking completely or just about important stuff" I bite the bread and drank the rest of his eyes, and my tea, down.

"Just the stuff you want to know"

"Bugger"

"I just.... I'm trying to go forward not reverse, that's all. Life's too short for backwards" Cap contemplated.

"I guess" I stood and tossed the rubbish in the bin "but sometimes the stuff you left behind is important, it's in you and you can't get rid of it... Because it's in your heart, your mind. You are the sum of all that went before"

It's all you.