Page 14 of Our Song

I feel jittery with nerves when I set out on Monday morning, carrying my Danelectro electric guitar in its padded case.

I spent most of yesterday playing it. Tadhg was always saying what a good guitarist I was, and I want to make sure I’ll live up to his memories.

It takes me barely fifteen minutes to get to his house in Marino Crescent.

The boundary of his property is too beautifully designed to look like a fortress, but that’s almost what it feels like.

The green walls separating his front garden from those on either side are at least ten feet high, as are the huge wooden gates facing the footpath.

A smaller gate is embedded in the left-hand gate for pedestrian access.

There’s an intercom at the gatepost next to it; I press the button.

‘Yes?’ says a female voice. Maybe all our meetings will be attended by his staff. Maybe I’ll never find out what it’s like to be alone with Tadhg again.

‘Hi. It’s Laura. Um, McDermott.’ I glance up and notice a security camera pointing at me.

With a buzz and a click, the smaller gate’s lock releases, and I head through it and into a perfectly ordinary front garden.

I’m not sure what I was expecting – not, like, topiary cut into the shapes of guitars or something.

But I’m aware of a faint surprise that it’s all so, well, normal.

A narrow gravel drive and an electric car, which is plugged into a charging station.

A paved path leading to the front door. Lots of plants.

It’s very nice, but it could be anybody’s.

You’d never know a music superstar lived here.

The front door (painted a very nice and doubtless expensive teal) opens and, to my relief, Tadhg is standing there, wearing an olive-green T-shirt with a navy shirt over it and what are possibly the same jeans he was wearing last week.

I’m not sure what I would have done if I’d been greeted by a butler or something.

‘Hey!’ His smile is warm, genuine. I try to gauge the vibe.

Are we just … going to keep pretending nothing bad happened sixteen years ago?

Pretending we’re just old pals who, because circumstances led them in different directions, haven’t seen each other for over a decade and have now bumped into each other again?

But now I’ve decided to do this time in the studio, I need to make the best of it. If he wants to pretend, then I’ll pretend too.

‘Hello, neighbour,’ I say.

‘Come in!’ He stands aside and I walk into the hall. The ceilings are high, the walls a lovely peacock blue covered in framed artwork, the floors beautifully polished parquet. The Danelectro case nearly bashes into a table.

‘Brilliant, you brought your guitar,’ says Tadhg. ‘You found the place okay, then?’

‘Well, I do only live down the road.’

‘Of course, you said.’ We stand there in the hall for an awkward moment. ‘Um, do you want a cup of tea?’

‘Sure.’ Suddenly I have a flashback to 2003, our practice space in Brian’s parents’ garage in Stillorgan. Tadhg making endless cups of tea because he needed caffeine to keep going but he didn’t like coffee. Same as me.

‘The kitchen’s back here,’ says Tadhg. I follow him to the rear of the house, into an airy room with tall windows, eau de nil cabinets and a big table with the weekend papers still scattered across it.

The table is a beautiful mid-century design rather than bog-standard Ikea, and there’s a framed poster on the wall for an achingly cool indie film; I remember Tadhg wrote a song for the soundtrack that was nominated for an Oscar.

Through the windows I can see a garden with what looks like a stable building at the end of it.

I take a seat at the table as Tadhg fills the kettle and takes some mugs out of a cabinet.

There’s no sign of the person who answered the buzzer.

An embarrassingly painful thought strikes me: just because the tabloids haven’t reported that he has a new girlfriend doesn’t mean he’s still single.

He’s always been good at keeping his private life private.

‘So it’s just you living here?’ As I say it, I realise it sounds like I’m fishing, and I suppose I am.

‘Yeah.’ He pops tea bags into the mugs. My shoulders relax a little.

Tadhg turns to face me and leans back against the kitchen counter as the kettle starts to steam. ‘It’s a bit big for one person,’ he says. ‘I’m kind of rattling around in it.’

I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Am I seriously meant to feel sorry for him, living in his big four-storey townhouse while I’m lodging in Katie’s spare room?

‘Well, there’s a housing crisis going on, you should take in lodgers.’ Then I catch the look on his face. ‘Jesus, I was joking! I’m not trying to guilt-trip you.’ Although maybe I kind of was.

Neither of us says anything for a moment.

Tadhg runs a hand through his already messy hair. ‘God, Lol, this is really weird.’

At least he’s acknowledging it.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It’s strange for me too.’

‘I don’t just mean us … talking again.’ He turns back to the counter and pours water into the mugs. They’re good mugs, seventies-style ochre-coloured earthenware.

‘What do you mean?’ He’s taking milk out of the fridge now. I want to jump up and say I’ll make my tea myself, to make sure it’s just right, but I also want – I need – to hear what he has to say.

‘I mean it’s weird you seeing me like this,’ he says. ‘In this big house. With this … this life.’

‘You don’t see any other old friends?’ I’m genuinely shocked at the thought. I can’t imagine the Tadhg I knew back in the day ditching people because he got rich and famous.

Tadhg comes over to the table with the mugs, and it’s his turn to look shocked. ‘Of course I see old friends! Ciarán was here last week.’

‘Then I don’t get it.’

He passes me the tea, and for a split second our fingers touch.

‘Most of my old mates, I saw them all the way through … everything.’ He sits opposite me at the table.

‘It all happened gradually. They were there when ‘Winter’ took off. They were there when I started playing bigger venues. They were there for the whole Glastonbury thing. But it’s different with you.

The last time we saw each other I wasn’t …

’ He trails off, looking squirmingly embarrassed.

‘Really fucking famous,’ I finish for him.

‘Um, yeah.’ He looks down at his mug.

I take a sip of the tea. It’s perfect – just the right amount of milk and …

My eyes widen and meet his. He half-smiles.

‘Just barely a quarter teaspoon of sugar, right?’ he says. ‘I don’t know why you look so surprised. I made you enough cups of tea back in the day.’

I smile back. I can’t help it. He is, I realise with a start, the only other person who has ever made my tea exactly the way I like it. Even Dave always put in too much sugar and not enough milk. ‘I suppose fame hasn’t changed you that much.’

He takes a sip from his own mug. ‘Well, I still drink about ten cups of tea a day, so I suppose you’re right.’

‘I bet you always take a box of proper tea when you go abroad,’ I say.

‘Of course I do.’

‘So do I,’ I admit. ‘Though I’m squeezing it into a Ryanair-approved carry-on bag, not taking it on a private jet.’

‘Laura,’ he says, ‘I have never gone near a private jet.’

‘I know,’ I say, and then realise this shows I’ve read about his vocal opposition to celebs using private planes. ‘I mean, I’d assume so.’ To change the subject I say, ‘So you have to travel a lot?’

‘All the time.’ He doesn’t look excited about it, so I change the subject again and ask what I’ve been wondering since he said he lived alone.

‘Who buzzed me in earlier? Over the intercom?’

‘Tara,’ says Tadhg.

‘Oh, right. Does she work here every day?’

‘Oh no, she’s not in the building,’ says Tadhg. ‘She’s in my office in town. I just asked her to monitor the door this morning in case I was playing music too loud out in the studio when you arrived and didn’t hear the buzzer there. She can access it remotely.’

Tadhg doesn’t even have to answer his own doorbell. It is weird seeing him in this life.

‘So … how is this all going to work?’

‘How’s what going to work?’ Tadhg looks at me across the table, his expression quizzical. His glasses are slightly crooked and he clearly hasn’t shaved today.

‘I mean this whole thing,’ I say. ‘Me coming here.’

‘Oh! Right,’ says Tadhg. God, this is kind of excruciating. Every time I think we’re being normal, things get awkward again. ‘Well, I thought we could start by just playing music together before we try working on the song. Warm ourselves back up.’

It makes sense. Diving straight in to ‘our song’ would be too disorientating. It could bring up arguments too, and right now I think I have to keep things peaceful.

‘Sure,’ I say.

‘Cool.’ And then he grins. A proper smile, no awkwardness at all. ‘Want to see the studio?’

‘Wow.’

From the outside, the studio looks like what it is – the well-kept former stables at the bottom of the garden. But inside …

‘It’s beautiful!’ I stare around at the blonde wood, the beautiful grand piano, the drum kit, the mid-century chairs and couches, the rugs on the floor, the collection of beautiful guitars sitting in their stands.

We’re in the main recording studio, having gone through an airlock-esque little entrance room and another room containing the sound desk.

There’s a vocal booth on the other side of the main studio space.

It’s so, so much nicer than any professional studio I have ever been to for work, and it’s basically just his home office.

It’s also bigger than my and Dave’s entire flat.

‘Well, today it’s all yours.’

As Tadhg walks over to the row of instruments, I forget that he’s a rock star and this is his own private studio.

I feel like we’re in a music practice room again.

I unzip my guitar case and pull out my beloved Danelectro.

It’s an aqua-blue pastel dream of an instrument, a retro confection, with a lovely twangy sound and a hot-pink vinyl strap.

I feel guilty for ignoring it for so long.

As I pull the strap over my head then take a lead out of the pocket of the case and plug it into an amplifier, I realise Tadhg is looking at me. Or rather at my guitar.

‘Is that the same …?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It’s my old guitar.’

I wish I could say I then put my foot up on the amp and launch into an amazing solo, but instead I say, ‘Um, have you got a tuner?’

Tadhg passes me one, picks up a bass, and we spend a minute tuning the instruments, which at least avoids another potentially awkward silence. Now here we are, facing each other, instruments in our hands. In a practice room together for the first time in sixteen years.

‘Want to play a song?’ says Tadhg.

‘Sure.’ I swallow. Why is my mouth so dry? Why is there no tea left in this charmingly retro mug? ‘What’s a good warm-up song?’

‘D’you know ‘Everything is Free’?’

I nod. Tadhg starts playing the bassline of the melancholy but beautiful Gillian Welch song – since when has he been a bass player? Years, probably – and I launch into the chords, making them spikier and sharper than they are on the acoustic original.

Then Tadhg starts singing, his gravel-and-honey voice blending perfectly with the bittersweet lyrics.

I’m picking notes as well as playing chords, catching Tadhg’s eye to make sure I come in at just the right moment, and for a few minutes we fall back into our old easiness, our old mutual understanding.

How have I not done this in so long? We’re at the final chorus now, and Tadhg lets the last note linger.

When it ends, we stare at each other in silence.

‘When was the last time you played with other people?’ he says.

‘Oh wow, I’m not sure.’ I flop into a chair and lean back, holding the Danelectro across my body like a shield. ‘Ten years ago, maybe?’

After our band split up I tried to start other bands. After I got my first job, I briefly joined another friend’s band. But none of them lasted long. We never clicked musically. We never even got far enough to play any gigs. They were never right.

Nothing was ever as good as being in a band with Tadhg.

‘Haven’t you missed it?’ says Tadhg.

And I have. Oh God, I have.