London, day six

London, day six

Thursday February 25

Maja:

Mark is supposed to have his rehearsal with Sarah today. Apart from that, we haven’t been playing much music since I got to London, which means it’s time to start now. Mark has a riff he’s been playing with Sarah that he needs to remember for today. It’s a simple enough riff; it’s just that internalising the phrasing is kind of hard. So is there a better way to internalise new melodies than to teach them to someone? That’s the thought when he starts teaching me the riff for the song white rabbit. It’s simple enough, but the repetitiveness of it makes it easy to get lost in it, and that is why he needed to rehearse it some more. And for me, it’s quite amazing to be able to be of any kind of help. And I finally get to try the iconic Washburn that Mark has been using for all these years. It plays beautifully. It feels so special to have it in my hands. The bass that’s been accompanying him for all these adventures during all these years. Playing it, I feel more connected to Mark.

Mark:

Yeah. That White Rabbit thing. No idea why. It has just refused to stick in my head. This is where listening, listening, listening comes in but it still refuses to stick. No panic. I’ll get there.

In other, perhaps more significant news, Maja stops me cold and short today when, somewhere in the middle of chatting, she asks me if I’d be up for having kids. ‘I’m not saying I want them now,’ she says, ‘but if I’m to start a relationship with anyone, I have to know this is something that could be a possibility in the future.’ I get it. But the crazy thing is, not only do I not think there’s anything strange about the question, but I say yes straight away. Again, not now. But sometime in the future. I’m saying I would not rule it out and that’s the closest I’ve ever come to even entertaining the idea in my whole life. Since I was little more than a child I’ve said that I would never have kids and I’ve never come close to changing that viewpoint. Until now. And it feels totally natural to say that. What the hell is happening here? Apart from anything else, yesterday we were talking about not knowing where we were, and now we’re talking about kids. And a relationship? Well, this is certainly a something.

Maja:

I’m enjoying the time we spend together, talking, reflecting on life. And before any commitment, I’d like to know how Mark stands on some of the big things of life. Like kids. It’s only natural I ask. I’m relieved when the answer of yes comes back, with full confidence. It’s just such a shame that we don’t have that much longer to talk about it, because it is time for Mark’s rehearsal. Good luck.

Mark:

But, more than just a rehearsal with Sarah, today is the day we’re going to do a full recording of our show to see what we have and maybe have a template to start to show people.

As usual I’m taking all my gear including amp, so Sarah is coming here to help me carry it to hers. Yes I can manage it all myself but this is a nice little regular gesture from her and it does make things a little easier. But she has a slight ulterior motive this time which she has not been at all shy in hiding. She wants to meet Maja. But Maja very much wants to meet her as well. Afterall, this will be her first encounter with any of my London music friends, and so her first real encounter with the actual scene.

Maja:

I’m a bit excited. I haven’t really met any people since I arrived apart from Mark and our flatmates, and rightly so because of the quarantine. I’m still allowed to be on our premises, which includes our front porch, so I’ll be OK to go out and say hello to Sarah. When I hear the knock on our door, I follow Mark upstairs, getting all nervous. Mark opens the door with a key, wait what, he uses a KEY??? I don’t have a key yet. Does that mean I can’t get out? What kind of house needs a key to get out? This is all very strange.

Mark:

Oh yeah. I’ve forgotten to tell Maja about this key thing, or to get one cut for her. What if she really does need to get out for any reason? But even apart from that, without a key, she’s not just willingly in quarantine, she really is actually locked in. Oops. I’ve accidentally kidnapped Maja.

Maja:

Outside, a very excited and giddy girl awaits us. She looks so excited to see us. Like a little child she is bubbling and bouncing with excitement. Hello hello hello. I get all shy and try to act normal, say hello and everything. It’s obvious that she wants to say hello with a hug, and who am I to resist? We do some small talk, and then it’s time for them to leave for rehearsal. Both say goodbye and they start to leave. Wait what? Just like that?

‘Hey Mark, can you come here?’ Mark comes back to the door, I grab him by the collar and kiss him. See you later. I can see how he turns all flustered and red as he says ‘see you soon’ and locks the door.

I walk downstairs, to my room. I’m quite tired so I take a nap, but I can’t stop thinking: What kind of house needs a key to get out of???

I know I’m gonna get one, it’s just been forgotten since I’m self isolating. But still, what if a fire started or something? I just don’t get it, what about guests? You lock them in with you? What if you were creepy and the guest wanted to leave, they need to ask permission from the host that they’re trying to get away from. This is just not OK. How can they build houses like this? Is it only this house that is like this, maybe it’s the landlord that’s exceptionally cheap and hasn’t installed a proper door? But still.

Why do you have to lock people inside the house?

Mark:

These are all very good points and I have never thought about any of them, although it’s quite normal to have doors like this in the UK. Don’t ask me why, it just is. As a result of this system I’ve found myself locked in the house plenty of times, when I’ve been just about to leave and not able to find my key. And yes, then managing to make myself late, or even very late for whatever it was I was about to leave for. Very relevant digression. I once stayed over at a friend’s house – the house had a double lock so it could be locked from the outside but could still be opened from the inside. Unless someone actually did lock it from the outside, which my friend kindly didn’t do when they went to work. However, the housemates didn’t know I was in the house so yes. When they went to work, the door got locked from the outside. Cue a very embarrassed Mark having to call the office to say he can’t get to work today as he’s managed to get himself locked in a friend’s house and can’t go anywhere until someone comes back. Oh well. It was a nice day off.

I’m all packed and ready by around 5pm when there’s a knock at the door. ‘She’s here,’ says Maja. Indeed she is. We walk upstairs, I open the door, and Sarah’s standing there, all totally expectantly. ‘Are we hugging?’ We are. With that, the two of them are out in the small front garden hugging and talking excitedly like sisters who haven’t seen each other for too long. I leave them to it and go and get the rest of my stuff from downstairs. When I come back up, they’re still there and still both talking a hundred miles an hour. Finally, Sarah says, ‘OK Mark, are we ready to go?’ Yep. Once again, Maja tells her that but for the quarantine rules she’d love to be coming along. Next time, Sarah promises. Yes, of course. Next time. I’m kinda playing it cool with Maja, not wanting to be too ‘public’ in front of Sarah, so I just say goodbye and Maja goes into the house and we start to walk away. Then Maja calls me back to the front door. Oh, OK. I go back and she gives me a goodbye kiss right there in front of Sarah who, as I turn back, is looking on open mouthed, in stunned, delighted shock. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No.’ Yes. With that she goes off on a celebratory skip down the road before returning, giggling like someone 20 years younger, to help me with the gear.

On the way I tell Sarah how me and Maja have been talking and I think we could incorporate her into the act in a way I didn’t think was possible a few days ago. Sarah is well up for the idea, saying it is much more about attitude than playing, and that if Maja has one thing, based on what she’s just seen for the first time, it’s attitude. ‘And you guys are just right together,’ she says. ‘I could see that straight away. Now, if you can take that chemistry and turn it into music, you have gold, no matter what levels of ability you’re talking about.’ That sets off a spark in me. Yes, this really could be something to think about. And with that, me and Maja have a project. And definitely something to talk about later.

But oh dear. With everything that’s been going on over the past week, I am woefully underprepared for today’s session in which we intend to do a full, recorded rehearsal of our short show, which is five songs all segued into each other. I’ve barely touched the bass all week. I had a tiny little play today just as I realised this, just to make sure I could remember the rhythmic parts of what we’re doing and how each song goes into the next one. But as for the solo I have to do, I am way out of practice and am just going to have to make sure I’m warmed up, and fall back on what I’ve actually come up with rather than trying to improvise a bunch of cool stuff around it which is what I usually do. This is not a time for risk-taking in my playing. While I’m on the subject of practice, I really should address my Players Path journey, or lack of. Yes, I got right to the end of level nine, with a video for every track. But what I really wanted to do, right from the beginning of it all, was to record a single video of all the tracks, kind of like making a recording of a live show. To do that, I was studying some of the theory related to soloing and improvising within them and wanted to nudge myself onto that next level before moving onto this stage of the project. I had one tiny window to record that, a Sunday a few weeks ago when I had a few hours alone in the house when I could have got this done. But I hesitated, thinking I still wanted to check out just a few things before being ready. Then all this started kicking off and I’ve not fully been back to it since. Now by this stage, I’m really out of practice with it all. Gone totally backwards to be fair. Forget nuances, I would need to totally relearn whole sections of songs before even thinking of details of theory within them. As such, this project has to be declared on ice for now. But hey, I still managed to record a video for every song.

As it is, when we get to working with Sarah today, I’m barely holding on to what I can play with her stuff. But that’s alright. Sarah isn’t in great shape preparationwise either which lets me off the hook actually. It looks like we’ve both let ourselves go a bit, but we do each have a lot of experience and technique to fall back on. All this means it takes six or seven takes to get a full one take recording of our show. In between we just go with it and have a laugh at our own little hiccups and mistakes which we pretty much equally share which means I can feel a little less guilty at not being as prepared as I would normally be. Of this, Sarah is totally understanding given what’s been going on this week. More, she loves it and loves the story of where we are.

Just as I’m about to leave, I realise Sarah has an acoustic guitar. Of course she does. We’ve been using it to get a few concepts together, and there it is in the corner of the room. Could I possibly borrow that please for me and Maja to work on? Of course you can, she says. Brilliant. With that, we’re sorted.

Maja:

I fall asleep soon after Mark leaves for rehearsal, and I really need the rest. It’s wonderful to spend time together, and I’d rather do that, but if I’m alone, I want to sleep. All of a sudden, I’m woken up by someone walking down the stairs, and opening my door. Yes! He’s home! I sit up as quickly as possible and say hello.

In his hand he has a guitar, I wasn’t expecting that. Cool. I guess he plays the guitar, and has a plan about this, but I don’t know that much about this yet. But it’s always nice to have a guitar around, especially for songwriting.

Mark:

Oh yeah. Maja, I can play guitar.

Maja:

We soon make ourselves comfortable and continue talking. I’m not that good of a musician and I know that Mark pretty much only ever works with very skilled musicians. So when he opens up with the possibility of me working with him and Sarah, I’m shocked. You can’t mean me, joining you guys? Doing what? What? I was kinda expecting to maybe be able to join to watch a rehearsal, but really, I wasn’t even expecting that. I’m a beginner, and I play bass, the same instrument as Mark. So what am I going to do? Mark has been thinking that we both could play bass, he has some kind of concept that he is starting to build up in his mind. A concept that wouldn’t be too advanced for me and would support what he’s doing. Amazing.

Apparently, I’ve moved to London, without any set plans, and within a week I’ve joined my first band. I could even say my first professional band, since we’re planning shows and Mark and Sarah are, well, professionals. Just, wow. Or, wowsers, as Sarah would say.

I start to talk, going on about why one would go to London. No-one would go to London like I did, not after Brexit, not during Covid. I just continue to talk, just putting words on the thoughts that come out of my head, like a stream of running water. 

Mark:

It’s with some excitement that I return home and bring the guitar into the room to show Maja. And with it, the news that Sarah loves the idea of the two of us playing together with her. So it’s game on. We’re starting to reach whole new levels now. We’re talking about having kids, playing together in the same band, and also thinking about our own style and songs, which we can write on this new guitar we now have. Maja came to London to get away from something. Now she’s starting to feel she also went towards something. ‘What do you come to London for?’ she asks. ‘For the music scene, which doesn’t exist, but here we are talking about music. There are so many other reasons to come. But I just didn’t expect to come to London and fall in love.’

What now?

She continues talking, musing quietly to herself really, with me as an incidental audience. But I’ve zoned out. I’m thinking about what she’s just said and thinking how I should respond. Afterall, we’ve spoken about this being something of a relationship, and just a few hours ago we were talking about having kids together, or at least whether or not we were open to the possibility of it. And all the while we’ve been becoming closer and closer in every other way. As friends too. As close friends. As even best friends. Yeah. That’s how it feels, with the depth with which we talk, and the highs as well. Filled with the kind of joyful spontaneous shared laughter I’ve experienced with very few people before, or maybe even no-one before. And she’s said the word now. I think it’s my turn. She’s still talking but for once I’m not fully listening. She can see that because she comes to a faltering stop around the same time as I interject saying, ‘Maja…’ ‘Yes?’

‘I love you.’ A breath, a pause. It’s out there now.

‘I love you too.’

Maja:

All of a sudden, when my thoughts and words finally slow down Mark says:

‘I love you’.

I look him in the eyes, wondering where this came from all of a sudden. I stop to take a breath, to allow myself to think for a second. 

‘I love you too’.

Mark:

No more words are needed. No more words are spoken. This is almost too much to take. It kind of really is too much to take. I think it’s really happened. The magical, elusive formula, the ideal of countless books, movies and songs. I’m in love with my best friend. And she’s in love with me. To hopelessly paraphrase and misquote the movie Notting Hill, ‘There are billions of people in the world and you’re sent out to find just one of them that you love. Not only that, but they have to love you back. The odds of that are millions to one.’ Yes. It really is something that seems impossible. Now, here we are. To steal again, this time from Jason Mraz: ‘Lucky I’m in love with my best friend/lucky to have been where we have been/lucky to be coming home again.’ As we settle blissfully into our new reality, I play this song for Maja. And for me. For us. And yes, as it plays, I cry in front of her for the second time. Oh Mark, pull yourself together.

Then reality comes back to us. ‘Mark,’ she says. ‘Yes?’ ‘You do realise I’m still married?’ ‘Yes.’ And I have Jenn, immediately below us downstairs. Different situation but even so. Maja stops and ponders all this, then explodes in a whisper. ‘Boy, we’re in trouble.’