Clovenhoof by Heide Goody, Iain Grant

the bathroom.
    “You know what would happen if you tried to tell people who you really are?” said Michael.
    “Strait-jacket. Padded room. A syringe full of anti-psychotics, I know,” said Clovenhoof, adding silently to himself, either that or offer me a recording contract.
    “And I imagine this musical equipment is quite costly,” said Michael.
    “No idea,” said Clovenhoof honestly.
    “Your remuneration package is meant to be a modest one. Heaven’s coffers are not limitless, you know.”
    “Bollocks.”
    Michael gave Clovenhoof a long, evaluative look, up and down. In the silence, Nerys’s battle with the harp appeared to be reaching some sort of conclusion, possibly mutually assured destruction.
    Michael grunted lightly and smiled.
    “I wish you every success, Jeremy.”
    “Well, I can’t do any worse than her,” said Clovenhoof, pointing upwards at the flat above.
    “I may have had a hand in that,” said Michael coyly.
    “Oh, yes?”
    “No mortal’s going to play the harp on my watch. It is the preserve of angels.”
    He sipped the straw into his mouth and slurped deeply on his cocktail before giving a warm sigh.
    “I always think it tastes like a piece of heaven.”
    “Not my cup of tea,” said Clovenhoof and put his Singapore Sling down on the mantelpiece, untouched.
     
    In the end, Clovenhoof reasoned, the whole project boiled down to writing the songs and performing them. Writing the songs was just matter of finding the words and composing the music. Performance merely entailed practice, finding a venue and, of course, developing the right sort of stage look. Broken down, it seemed terribly, terribly simple.
    Clovenhoof had ordered himself a series of ‘teach yourself guitar’ books with accompanying CDs. He started at Book One, had mastered the chords of G, C and D within the hour and was playing a selection of Status Quo’s greatest hits by tea-time. Whilst waiting for his Findus Crispy Pancakes to cook, he phoned Birmingham Symphony Hall and left a message on the answer phone asking if he could book the place for a concert that weekend or, failing that, the weekend following.
    After dinner, he sat down with glass of Lambrini and tried to pen some songs. By midnight, he had written a dozen possible verses for a song tentatively titled Fools in Paradise but which by morning had morphed into the shout- and rage-filled Swallow My Fruit, Bitch .
     
    Clovenhoof quickly moved through Books Two and Three of ‘teach yourself guitar’ and tried his hand at fingerpicking as well as chords. He scribbled down the notation for the songs he had written so far, now including Soiled Angel and Night of the Morningstar and took them down the high street to Ben’s shop so that Ben could begin practising the keyboard parts. Ben stared at the ink-stained manuscripts, speechless. Clovenhoof took this as a good sign.
    On the way, back he stopped in at a charity shop, where he bought a black leather jacket and some tight jeans, and then took a walk through Short Heath Park where he composed in his head a soaring power ballad entitled Drowning in a Lake of Fire .
    At home, he tried on his new clothes and contemplated himself in the mirror. He decided that it wasn’t quite enough and ordered some bondage gear over the phone. He then phoned Symphony Hall again and spoke to a polite but obviously dim-witted woman who, firstly, had no knowledge of his previous answer phone message and, secondly, seemed unable to grasp that he wanted to book the venue , not mere tickets.
     
    Clovenhoof and Ben held their first joint practice on Saturday morning. Clovenhoof had cleared all the furniture from his lounge to make room for amps, mikes, mixers, wires and an audience (should one magically appear). Ben plugged an audio lead into his keyboard. It produced an uneven droning sound, like a sleeping beehive.
    “Are you ready?” said Clovenhoof, hefting his axe.
    “Are you?” replied Ben.
    Clovenhoof grinned and performed