He sat on the couch and I sat in an armchair.Then he handed me his guitar and I played the opening chords of ‘Anyone But You’.
We ran through all our songs that night.It was almost as if some part of us knew it was the last time we’d play together for a long, long time.We drank our first cans, then Tadhg made some tea and we kept playing.We did some covers.We did songs that didn’t have full lyrics yet.We opened the second cans.We even played our song, though we didn’t make a serious stab at figuring out any new bits of it.
‘We’ll give it another go in September,’ said Tadhg.
God, after tonight I wasn’t going to see him again until the end of September.It was ridiculous.But that reminded me I had to wake up early tomorrow and get on a plane.I looked at my watch and realised it was ten o’clock.
‘Shit,’ I said.‘I should go soon.’
‘Let’s do one more song,’ said Tadhg.
We did ‘Midnight Feast’.Even then I knew the lyrics were bad, but I also knew it was a good song.Maybe we could write new lyrics in the autumn.And as I played the last chordI thought,I’ll miss this over the summer.I’ll miss him.I’ll miss him so much.
I played the last chord as loudly as I could.Then we looked at each other and smiled.
‘I’ll help you clean up the dinner stuff,’ I said.
When the table was cleared and the dishes washed, Tadhg picked up his beer can.
‘Huh, there’s more left of this than I thought,’ he said.
I picked up my cider.‘Same here.’
‘We might as well finish them,’ he said.
And because I was literally leaving the country the next morning so he couldn’t possibly think I was after anything, I didn’t insist on leaving straight away.I said, ‘Sure.’
We sat down at the kitchen table and clinked our cans off each other.
‘Cheers,’ I said, taking a swig of cider.
‘We’ve written some good songs this year,’ said Tadhg.‘And almost written one great one.’
‘It really is good, isn’t it?As a song.It’s properly good.At least,’ I acknowledge, ‘it will be when we finally finish it.If we finally finish it.’
‘We’ll finish it,’ said Tadhg.‘We’ll still be in a band together.’
I sipped the cider.I wondered if you could get cider in America.‘It won’t be the same without Brian and Jo.And without us both being in Trinity.’
‘No, it won’t.’Tadhg drank some beer.‘But we’ll still be in Dublin.The others are okay with us playing the old songs.And we’ll write new ones.And record them.We can recordoursong!’
‘Steady on,’ I said.‘That would be a miracle.’
‘Nah, we’ll do it,’ said Tadhg.‘I have faith in us.You’ll come back from New York full of inspiration.’
‘I hope so,’ I said.‘I mean, I can’t wait to go to New York.Obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ said Tadhg.
‘But I’ll really, really miss playing music for the whole summer.’
Then I thought, surely I could risk a little bit of honesty, seeing as we weren’t going to see each other for over three months.
I said, ‘And I’ll miss you, I suppose.’
‘I’ll miss you too,’ said Tadhg.‘No supposing about it.’
‘Yeah?’I laughed.
