Page 23 of Our Song

‘Okay, great,’ said Tadhg.‘Actually I didn’t just come over for chatsas Béarla, I came to tell you Áine just asked if we’d like to play a few songs on the last night.’

I stared at him.‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah!Like a mini-gig.’

‘Wow,’ I said.I felt I should take better advantage of this English-speaking interlude and say something witty and clever, but this gig news had thrown me.

‘So what do you think?It’d be cool to finish things up with a proper show.’

‘It would but … I’ve never played in front of an audience before.’My stomach churned a bit at the thought.It was one thing fantasising about playing on stage.It was another to actually do it.

‘You’ll be grand!’said Tadhg.‘You’re a brilliant guitarist.You’re better than me.’

‘No, I’m not,’ I said honestly.I couldn’t play a fancy solo if I tried.

‘You really are,’ said Tadhg.‘You don’t just strum basic chords like some annoying lad at a party, you find interesting ways to play them.And you always look so …’

He stopped.

‘So what?’I said.

‘You look confident,’ he said eventually.‘When you’re playing.You make it look like it’s not a big deal to play as well as you do.It’s very cool.’

I tried to play things down so he wouldn’t know that these words had made a light go on inside my chest.I laughed.‘That’s proof that I should go into acting, not music.I don’t feel very confident.’

‘Well, you should,’ said Tadhg.

There was something in the air between us, just for a moment, but I didn’t know what to do with it so I said, ‘What about you?You’re not exactly unconfident yourself.’

‘See, this is why it’s good to have a little English-break,’ said Tadhg.‘I wouldn’t know how to say confident in Irish, let alone unconfident.Though is that even a word in English?Anyway, I’m not that confident – it’s just that busking is so terrifying that after you’ve done it once, no other gig can ever scare you.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yeah!The first time you open your mouth and start singing in the street, it feels so incredibly wrong.Every part of your brain is going “Shut up!”. But you get used to it.I’m going to miss doing it.And not just because we get decent money now.’

‘Your band’s not splitting up, is it?’I sat up a bit straighter.

‘Well, kind of,’ he said.‘We have to spend our Saturdays studying until the Leaving exams.Then Susie’s going to visit her grandparents in Korea for the summer.And I think Ciaránwill refuse to keep going anyway.Which is fair enough – he never wanted to be in a band.’

He turned to look at me and I was suddenly very conscious of how close he was.‘But you know,’ he said, ‘once the exams are over, we should keep this Coláiste Laoise band going.I mean, we all live in Dublin …’ Then I heard someone calling our names and realised that everyone was heading back to the bus.

‘Back to Irish then.’Tadhg jumped down from the rock.He reached up his left hand to help me down.

‘Guitarist’s fingers,’ he said in English as I landed on the sand.He hadn’t let go of my hand.His thumb moved over my fingers, the shiny invisible calluses on the tips.It felt as intimate as a kiss.

‘What?’

‘Your fingertips.You can tell you play the guitar.’

And, astonished at my own daring, I moved my thumb over his fingertips, felt the same calluses there.‘You too.’

‘Tadhg!Laura!Come on!’Áine was looking over at us, tapping her watch.

I let go of him as if I’d been burned and we hurried over to the bus.

But I could still feel the touch of his hand on mine.

Chapter Ten

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