Page 20 of Our Song

‘It’s been a while since I read Moby Dick ,’ I say, ‘but I’m not sure the white-whale thing is holding up now.’

‘Seriously, Lol, what do you think?’

Seriously, I think it’s a good idea. But this is more than I signed up for.

I agreed to spend two weeks finishing one particular song, not writing new ones.

Now he wants to change the whole arrangement, just like that.

I suppose when you’re Tadhg Hennessy you can always change plans on a whim and expect people to go along with it.

But still … call me Ishmael, because I really do want to finish our song. And if that means writing a few more songs first, then so be it.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Let’s give it a go.’

He hands me my cup of tea. ‘Clean slate.’

‘Clean slate,’ I say.

If only.

Back in the studio, we’re faced with the freedom and terror of the blank page.

‘So what now?’ I say.

‘Do you have any rough things you’ve been working on?’ says Tadhg.

The thing is, I actually do. After dinner last night, I got out my guitar and came up with a chord sequence without a melody, just a riff and a lead guitar line.

But I remember my early suspicions, my fear that Tadhg wanted to find out if I had proof I wrote our song.

I do trust him now. But I still want to have my own recordings of whatever we write today.

‘I have what could turn into a song,’ I say. I take out my phone. ‘Want to mess around with it and I’ll record it if we come up with anything good?’

And for the first time in sixteen years, we write a song together.

It’s incredible how natural it feels. I play the riff, and after I run through it a few times, Tadhg starts singing over it, no words, just da-da-da sounds.

After a while something happens and we look at each other and I know we’re both thinking the same thing.

This is it. He’s come up with the perfect tune for these chords.

We play through it again and I record it on my phone.

‘Have you thought of chords for the chorus?’ he says.

‘Not yet,’ I say.

He picks up his guitar. ‘How about going into a D minor? And then …’ He plays a series of chords that contrast perfectly with the chords of the verse.

‘That’s not bad,’ I say. It’s better than not bad. It’s brilliant. In my head I’m humming a possible melody. ‘You keep playing those chords and I’ll pick out a tune on the piano and you can sing it.’

He rolls his eyes. ‘Oh, come on, don’t fuss around with the piano. Just sing the melody.’

‘No,’ I say.

‘This is ridiculous,’ he says. ‘I’ve heard you sing before.’

‘What? No you haven’t!’

‘Lol, you sing all the time without even realising it! Or at least you used to,’ he adds.

‘I don’t!’ I’ve sung the songs in my head, of course I have, and maybe I sometimes hummed very quietly at practices, but could I possibly have been singing out loud in front of other people? Loud enough for them to hear? Surely not.

‘You used to sing at practices all the time,’ he says. ‘I never mentioned it because I thought you’d get self-conscious about it.’

‘And I would have,’ I say, ‘because my voice is terrible.’

‘No, it’s not,’ says Tadhg. ‘Look, I’m not going to force you to sing now. Obviously. But I know you can.’

‘No, I can’t,’ I say. This isn’t annoying false modesty. It’s just honesty. ‘Not like you.’

I can only describe Tadhg’s voice as a beautiful sound.

Warm but not too smooth. A hint of rasp.

Capable of shifting seamlessly, perfectly, from heartfelt to affectless.

It’s been distinctive ever since he was a teenager, and it’s only become more powerful with age.

My off-key croak sounds nothing like it.

‘No, not like me,’ he says, and I appreciate that he’s not trying to flatter me with bullshit.

‘But – and I know this sounds patronising, but I swear to God I don’t mean it like that – it’s good in another way.

You can deliver a song.’ My expression must be sceptical because he says, ‘Okay, fine, go on, play the piano. But seriously, Lol, think about singing. I’m not talking about doing it on stage for an audience. Just in here. Just for me.’

Suddenly it doesn’t sound so bad, singing just for him. Then I imagine how embarrassingly terrible it would actually sound. I open the piano lid and start playing.

An hour later, we have the bones of a song. It’s a bit rackety, it still has no words, but it is, very definitely, a song.

‘Let’s run through the whole song one more time so I can record it, and then we can leave it for now,’ I say. I go to pick up my phone from the table where I left it, and Tadhg says, ‘No need, I’ll record it.’ He’s holding up his phone.

‘We can both record it,’ I say.

Tadhg gives an exasperated sigh. ‘Lol, you know I won’t, like, do anything with the songs we write here without your full permission, don’t you, whoever has them on their phone? And obviously if we ever record and release anything properly, you’ll get a full credit for everything.’

‘Well, I should hope so,’ I say.

‘Sorry.’ Tadhg looks a little awkward. ‘I just want you to know I’m not, like, trying to exploit you or anything.’

‘Good,’ I say. But my shoulders relax a little. It’s good to hear him actually say those words. ‘Because I wouldn’t let you.’

‘I’d expect nothing less,’ says Tadhg. He shows me his phone, which reveals that it’s not recording. ‘Go on. You record this one.’

‘You don’t have your old minidisc recorder hidden in your pocket, do you?’ I say.

Tadhg laughs. ‘Just hit record, Lol.’

When we return to the studio after lunch, he plays me a chord sequence and melody he’s been messing around with recently.

‘I know it needs something more,’ he says. ‘Any suggestions?’

The song fragment is good – it’s very good – but I feel that old itch to adjust it that I’ve always felt when listening to Tadhg’s music.

That urge to tweak things just a bit, a chord here, a melody there, make it even better, make it shine.

That urge I felt in the band, the urge I still feel every time I hear one of his songs on the radio or in the soundtrack to a film.

‘Play it again,’ I say, and when he does I say, ‘In the first line of the chorus, bring the tune up at the end instead of staying on that note. Like this.’ And without thinking, I hum the revised melody.

‘Laura McDermott,’ says Tadhg, ‘am I hearing things or did you actually just sing?’

‘Oh, shut up,’ I say. ‘I was just humming.’ But I’m smiling.

By late afternoon, Tadhg and I have written two whole songs.

It’s not all smooth sailing, of course – we clash sometimes, over whether a bassline works, over whether a guitar line should cut out during the verses, but we always find a solution that pleases both of us.

It’s work, it’s serious, concentrated work, but God, it’s so much fun .

‘I’ve missed this, you know,’ says Tadhg after I’ve played back the second song and we’ve agreed it’s pretty much done apart from the lyrics. ‘Us. Working together, I mean.’

There’s a hesitancy in his voice that catches my heart.

‘You’ve missed it? Really?’ I say, as briskly as I can. ‘With all your jet-setting about the place? I presumed you’d forgotten me years ago.’

‘Come on, Lol,’ he says. ‘I was hardly going to forget about you .’

I smile back at him and I’m filled with such fondness for him it takes me by surprise. We were friends once. We were real friends. And maybe we can be friends again. Maybe we already are. Maybe we’re …

A familiar old feeling pervades me, one I almost don’t want to name.

Hope.

Tadhg’s phone buzzes. He looks at it and says, ‘Oh, bollocks.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘I just didn’t realise how late it was.’

‘How late is it?’ I say.

‘Just after six.’ He sighs. ‘Sorry, Lol, I don’t want to kick you out but we’d better call it a day. I’ve got to be somewhere at seven.’

‘No worries,’ I say. ‘I should head too.’ Though I don’t have anywhere to be apart from Katie and Jeanne’s house, and I’d have happily stayed playing music with Tadhg all evening if he’d asked me to. ‘Where are you off to? If you don’t mind me asking.’

And I find myself silently praying, with an intensity that shocks me, Please, please, please don’t let him say it’s a date .

‘Just a dinner thing in town,’ he says, which could be anything. A hot date. A business meeting. His mother’s birthday.

Or a dinner with some other woman like me, a woman who used to be in love with him and is, I very much regret to inform myself, in danger of falling in love with him again.