Page 71 of If Not for My Baby
I’d never thought about it before, but now that he’s describing the constant attention, even walking into a restaurant and sitting down to eat sounds incredibly isolating. “That’s why you don’t want to do another album.”
“It’s just beginning to cannibalize the craft for me. For a long time I struggled to write anything.”
The break between his albums. Longer than anyone expected after his outrageous initial success. “How come?”
“I started to think about every song in terms of what questions I’d be asked by interviewers. How the melodies would sound played to thousands of ears, night after night, show after show.”
It strikes me as profoundly sad, the clinical, detached wayhe’s begun to think of his music. Music that to me, and to his fans, is the very opposite. Even when he sings about the apocalypse—the earth flooding over and burning up under a resentful sun—it’s anything but cynical.
“But what you bring to that stage, Clem…Singing with you is helping more than anything Jen or the label have offered me. Your passion—your awe—it reminds me of how I once felt. The way it was when I first started performing. The closeness of those intimate gigs. The way the audience felt like they were a part of the music.”
We stare at each other, close enough for our breath to sway the grass. “I do love it. Every part of it.”
The warmth in his voice is a drug. “I know.”
“Those small gigs…is that where you met Cara?” I can’t help the question.
“No, she and I met at Trinity. We had a poetry class together.”
“You were no doubt a stellar student.”
“The farthest from it. Cara, too. We barely graduated. Did a few of those rightly awful gigs together before I nearly gave up. Told my parents if I couldn’t make it in Ireland I’d move to New York. Give it a shot out here.”
I think about my mom, and leaving her for this tour. “Must have broken their hearts, to think about their only son halfway across the world.”
“They cried. Said I’d be fiercely unhappy and back within the week, but they’d give me their savings to go and try anyway.” A melancholy grin. “Surely they’d have been right, but I never had to find out.”
“What happened? ‘If Not for My Baby’?”
He nods, and something haunted flits across his eyes. It always does when he brings up the inception of that first song. “Cara and I wrote it on her porch, drinking cans, savagely miserable. Weeks later we’re peddlin’ our woeful wares across the globe. Two whole years on tour.”
Based off his music, I’ve never known a love like Tom and Cara had, but I cannot imagine writing a song together about the demise of your relationship. And then making it to superstardom off said song and performing it all over the world together. “That must have been so hard.”
Tom thinks on this one, kneading his thumb into his fingers. “At times. But I tried to be mindful. Focus on my gratefulness, not how much I missed my dog.”
I prop myself up on an elbow. “You have a dog?”
“He’s called Conry. A spaniel mix, real stand-up mutt.” He picks at a blade of grass and rips it in half. “I still hate being away from him.”
My heart becomes a puddle in my chest. “Who does he stay with? When you’re on tour.”
“My parents watch after him. I dunno if my mam would even give him back at this point. They hike together every Sunday after church. It’s like squatter’s rights. He’s hers now.”
“Joint custody,” I say.
“I’ll get my hands on the best lawyer in County Kerry.”
I snort and turn onto my stomach, inching a bit closer to him.
“I love that thing you do. When somethin’s funny, but not worthy of your roarin’ laugh.”
“Not the snort.” I moan, laying my face into the grass. Then I sneeze. “Kill me.”
Tom rolls to his side, splaying a hand over my lower back. “It’s all so cute.”
Someone needs to investigate whatever wizard magic is in those hands of his. “I have a dog, too,” I say, lifting my head to rest it atop my hands. All I smell is fresh grass. “Her name is Willow.”
“Beautiful name.”
