When I reach the Crescent the next day, I keep an eye out for potential amateur paparazzi.Though they won’t be able to see much of me, given that the weather is hideous and the hood is up on my parka.There is a large-ish bunch of young people hanging around the park in the drizzle, all looking over at Tadhg’s house.Before I go through the gate, I look back and see all the fans watching me.It’s unnerving, that feeling of being observed.I wonder, not for the first time, how Tadhg deals with it.
The front door is already open as I hurry up the steps.
‘Come in!What a miserable day.’He’s wearing a Pavement band T-shirt and jeans and a navy hoodie, and he hasn’t shaved again today.He looks more like himself – or at least the Tadhg I remember – in his own house than he did in that fancy restaurant.
‘You’ve got a little fan club out there in the Crescent,’ I say.
‘They didn’t bother you, did they?’Tadhg looks concerned.
‘No, not at all.’I pause.‘Do they ever bother people?Visitors, I mean?’
‘Not usually,’ says Tadhg.I follow him into the kitchen where the kettle is just boiling.He starts making the tea.‘They’re generally pretty respectful.But you never know … Sorry, I really should have warned you before we started all this that there might be people out there.’
‘It’s fine, I kind of guessed there would be.’I sit at the kitchen table.‘Have any of them ever, well, done anything weird?Like tried to get in here?Oh my God, do you have bodyguards hidden around here somewhere?’
Tadhg hands me a cup of tea.‘Yes, there have been one or two weird moments but nothing too terrifying.A girl did try to get in here once but didn’t succeed.And no, I don’t, but a security company does monitor the cameras twenty-four hours a day.’
I sip my tea.Perfect.‘What do the neighbours think of all this?’
Tadhg groans.‘They’re not exactly my biggest fans, I can tell you that much.’
I suppose I can’t really blame them.It must be a massive pain in the arse having a megastar living next door.I don’t say this to Tadhg, though.Instead I say, ‘What do you want to do today?In the studio, I mean.’
‘Well,’ he says, ‘I was thinking we could trythesong.Our song.See if either of us has any fresh ideas for how to finish it.’
My heart sinks, just a little.I’ve been enjoying our new-found harmony.Trying to work on the song might add a sour note.We might find ourselves thinking about why we never got round to finishing it in the first place.
But that’s what I’m here for, so I say, ‘Sure!Will we take our tea out to the studio?’
I spend a little too long setting up, but all too soon we’re both sitting there, our instruments in our laps.When we wrote songs for the band back in the day we’d sit facing each other like this.Except not exactly like this.
Tadhg says, ‘Do you remember the chords?’
‘Of course I do!’TheI wrote themis silent but heavily implied.
‘Sorry, I didn’t want to presume …’ he says.‘I mean, it’s been a very long time …’
‘Do you remember the words?’
‘Yeah, of course.’Tadhg takes a deep breath.He’s tense too.
‘Well then,’ I say.‘Let’s play it.’
I start the chords that begin the song, and after a few bars Tadhg comes in, playing the bassline, and when he starts singing the melody in his beautiful honey-and-gravel voice, a wave of nostalgia hits me with such force that I almost gasp.
‘Here we are
We’ve been talking through the night’
I try not to think about the last time we played this song together.I try and fail not to think about what happened next, everything we did, everything we said to each other.I wonder if he’s thinking of it too.I wonder if he’s forgotten all about it.Could you forget something like that?I certainly can’t.I can’t even look at him.My fingers almost stumble over the strings and I curse myself for getting distracted by stupid, painful memories.I need to stake my claim to this song and that means being actually able to play the bloody thing.
We play a verse and a chorus and another verse and then we finally catch each other’s eyes.This is as far as the song ever got.We never wrote a middle eight.We never wrote a lead-guitar line.And the second verse never even had any lyrics, so Tadhg just repeated the first verse.In fact, the few lyrics I wrote for this song back in the day were just what we used to call ‘placeholders’, words that would do for now until I wrote proper ones; the chorus was something vague and silly and meaningless about how someone was going to be Tadhg’s ‘summer girl’.I wasn’t good at writing lyrics that year.The only subject I wanted to write about was my feelings about Tadhg, and that was obviously out of the question.Besides, Tadhg was always better at writing lyrics than I was.I’d always given him that.
But still, even with the vague lyrics, the song works.What there is of it.Tadhg plays one loud chord and we stop.
‘Was it just me,’ he says, ‘or did that sound pretty great?’
‘It didn’t sound terrible,’ I say.
