And there’s me calling back, ‘Never!’
When that recording finishes I click on another file.
A sequence of crunchy guitar chords.Then me saying, ‘What if you play A minor at the end instead of D minor?’, followed by Tadhg doing just that and saying, ‘That’s it!’
Another file.
A shimmer of jangling guitar, a bouncing bassline, syncopated drums, Tadhg improvising a melody over it all, no words, justda-da-dasounds, and then me going, ‘You genius!That’s perfect.’
Another file.
The opening chords ofthesong.Our song.
My heart is in my mouth.Sixteen years ago, our younger selves play through the song.There are no drums, no bass.It’s just me and Tadhg.Which means I know when and where we recorded this.
I hear us finish the second chorus and twenty-one-year-old Tadhg says, ‘Fuck, Lol, this is good.’
‘It is, isn’t it?’says twenty-one-year-old me.‘I mean, I wasn’t deluding myself.’
‘Definitely not,’ he says.‘Let’s play it again.’
Sixteen years ago, the two of us play it again.
‘The chorus feels a bit short,’ says younger me.‘And we need to come up with a middle eight.’
‘We will,’ says Tadhg.‘What about adding this to the chorus to make it longer?’He sings a lilting wordless vocal.
I freeze.I wrote that bit.Didn’t I?
But there he is, in 2002, singing it for the first time.
And there I am saying, ‘Oh yeah, that works.’
The recording ends.I don’t move.That was the first time I played the song for him, in his childhood bedroom.The day after he told me about him and Jess.I sound totally normal in the recording.You’d never know how I was feeling that day.I really was a good actor.
I have such a strong memory of that day.At least I thought I had.But I had totally forgotten Tadhg coming up with that bit of the song.Over the years I told myself that song was all me.And it was mostly me.
But it was also, just a little bit, us.
I get up from my bed, walk across the room and pick up the guitar.I sit on the wicker chair, the one Tadhg sat on just a few days ago, and play the opening chords of our song.I start singing the melody.
Then, for the first time, I write a song about Tadhg.
I write lyrics from the perspective of my younger self, about how crushed I was by how things turned out.I write about how I tried to forget him and stop loving him.I keep some of the words of the old chorus, to remind myself why I wrote it,but I twist them a little.Then I reach the point where a middle eight should be, and after all these years and all these attempts, I finally find myself coming up with a new chord sequence that flows perfectly after the chorus, and singing a melody that fits perfectly on top of that.
That’s when I stop writing about my younger self.I start writing for me.I start writing about what I want now, what I yearn for, what I dream of, even if I know I can’t have it.I write about how I wish we were meant to be together.I write about how I can’t help hoping it’s not too late for us.I write about getting a second chance.Back in the day, Tadhg’s lyrics were always better than mine because he wasn’t restraining himself.Now I owe it to my younger self, who started writing a song this good when her heart was breaking, to finally, at long last, make something honest.Even if the words are stupid.Even if no one else ever hears it.Even if it’s just for me.
So that’s what I do.
I finish our song.
And then the doorbell rings.
I know it’s him even before I see that tall silhouette through the stained-glass panel in the front door.
I seriously consider not opening the door.I might be ready to be honest about him in a song that no one else has heard, but I’m not ready to be honestwithhim.To his face.And I still need to think about his offer.
Then I remember how I totally erased the songwriting he did in the past from my mind, and maybe I feel a pang of guilt about that because I open the door.
