Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Katie

With the girls away in Wales and Rhys out of the picture our little terres house had never seemed more peaceful. It wasn't that i didnt miss them all and the noise they made, it was just that after America i needed the peace and quiet. The time alone to lie on my bedroom floor smoking a joint, listening to the national in the afternoon as a breeze tickled my skin in cooling waves from the open window in my attic bedroom.

Benji had been phoning me a lot, said it felt strange having Saffy and Fliss around but not me. Said their antics weren't nearly as funny as when i was there giggling along beside him. And i knew how he felt.

It was strange not having them around. Strange not having all 5 of us around. Smoking on my bedroom floor in the afternoon. But i needed the peace and the quiet, i needed the time to enjoy my own company.
Quiet reflection, i kept telling myself. It would do me good.

And maybe it would have if Rudy and Jazz hadn't lived next door, if they didn't come round every morning with a breakfast joint, if they didn't come round every morning with supper. Id have probably got some rest if only they'd let me.

"so what dya thinks gonna happen then, with honeymoons?" Rudy hadn't been the first person to ask me that since we'd come home from America, Blakes had asked me more than once and so had Jazz, but that morning it was Rudy and when we were sitting alone in my bedroom which would have been full of us all only two months before, it was harder to shrug the question off.

Because I'd been wondering too.

"i don't know," i sighed focussing my attention on rolling another joint. It was all we ever seemed to do these days. "i think Saffy and Fliss are still writing, but Fliss says we aren't honeymoons without Alice,"

"so what are you?" he asked and when i giggled into my inhale and shrugged my shoulders saying something like,

"oh i don't know, honeymoon," i didnt realise that i was echoing someone else.

"do you think Jazz will stay?" he asked lighting up the newest of our smokes. He lay back with his head on a pillow in the center of the rug, gazing up at the dreamcatcher dangling from the center of the cieling.

"why has he said anything to you?" i frowned because i sort of just assumed that he would. That it was only ever Alice that we needed to worry about.

"No I'm just not sure how he feels that she just left like that... It was out the blue you know. I think he thinks there was more coulda been done to make her stay..."

"believe me there wasn't anything we coulda done," i sighed feeling a little guilty because i still wasnt sure whether i could believe that myself.

"no," shrugged Rudy, "you're probably right," and i probably was and later that evening, drifting around on my own, i started thinking about it again. About Alice and what Honeymoons was going to be like without her. Whether we'd still exist in a few months time.

I lit up a cig and picked up my guitar, I'd not played anything other than bass in a little while, but America had forced me out of comfort zone and so cigarette between my lips i started picking at the strings, listening for a melody between the notes.

"we had a great day, even though we forgot to eat..." my lips curved around the words whilst i wasn't thinking. Eyes sort of half open as i watched the shadow of the trees on the wall. "
And you had a bad dream, then we got no sleep, cause we were kissing... "

I wasn't sure what i was thinking about as i laboured over it, the words sort of falling into place here and there in a way that i hadn't really expected them to.

Not one of the usual songwriters I was surprising myself with every line i managed to feel my way around, and placing my guitar down to roll another joint i found myself smiling to myself about myself. That wasn't something I'd done for a long time.

"i had a fever until i met you, now you make me cool, even though sometimes I still do something embarrassing," i grinned closing my eyes, letting out a giggle that no one else would hear, thinking of Ben and how he'd have liked that line. Laughed it off, really loved it.
I felt like a child again, this fresh sort of feeling flowing through me, blindly trying to do something despite being clueless to it.

By the time Rudy and Gez showed up for "supper" I'd perfected it, but i wasn't about to show them. In fact I'd vowed to keep it a secret. My secret little melody, I'd show it to the girls one night when we were high and then maybe one day we'd show it to someone else. But Fliss and Saffy were the songwriters and they were always more adept that me. When it had been the five of us Alice had always shrugged off the ideas of anyone but Fliss and I'd never really felt like i could challenge her, what had really changed now? and so i placed my guutar down in the corner and rolled another joint, one for three this time. And i reserved the daydream that Honeymoons without Alice might mean Honeymoons with me.