* * *
Yes. Stop worrying. Have to go now, Niven’s coming over xx
* * *
I throw my mobile to the pillows on my bed and put my hands over my eyes. Why does it feel like the air just changed between us? It was one impulsive comment in a thread of messages that were already careering in that direction. I feel judged. I never expected that from Sam.
If we were in a normal relationship this would probably have been our first argument. We would’ve sulked for a few days but then called or met to clear the air. Being so far away from him, his words are the only clues I have to go on. I can’t read him because I don’t know him well enough yet.
Lurching from one emotional rollercoaster to the next isn’t what I came here for. I had far too much of that in London. I get up, stuff my phone in my pocket and head for the door. Paris is on my doorstep and I can lose myself in its beauty for a while. Concentrate on me.
I’ll deal with everything else later.
Chapter Fourteen
Sam
Turns out my gut feeling was right: music really is the only thing I understand. Everything else confuses my brain.
So I’m writing songs on the old guitar that creaks beneath my fingers as I sit on the green bank behind Ailish’s house because I don’t want to think about Phoebe. About what she said…
Keeping my head busy has been my main concern for the last week. Most days I have the house to myself while Ailish is out at the many jobs she has. She bakes for the pub by the ferry crossing, volunteers at a coffee morning in nearby Bunessan for young mums and elderly ladies once a week, is a business mentor for teens up in Tobermory once a month and when she isn’t doing all that, she visits friends all over the island. It’s exhausting to watch, but inspiring, too. Ma was always amazed by how much of herself Ailish gave to others. I’m not sure I could do that.
A second opinion on what Phoebe said would help, but I’m not ready to share it with Ailish so early into my time here and I haven’t seen much of Niven because he’s overseeing exams at his school. Next week they break for the summer so that’s when he’s promised me ‘the fun will really start’. Maybe by then I will have worked out how to respond to Phoebe.
There’s nothing wrong with what she said. Given our flirting it was an obvious next step. But when I saw those words, my heart froze.
I should have said the same back, shouldn’t I?
I can feel myself pulling back. I wish I didn’t feel that way. I told Laura I loved her first. And regretted it immediately. She had her first affair within a month of me saying it. You don’t just say I love you like that. I laid my heart out for Laura and she trashed it. I can’t risk that again. Not until I’m certain.
The sun has managed to kick through the mist that has claimed Fionnphort for the last five days and the wind from the ocean beats against my face and chest as I sit on the lush bank, the guitar a surprisingly effective windbreak between the edge of the Island and me. The Iona ferry isn’t in yet but it’s due to appear within the hour. One car is waiting already, small and lonely from my vantage point. I’ve become accustomed to the rumble of tyres and sudden swell of noise when the ferry arrives. It’s a curious break in all the natural sound here, where so little of modern life is visible. I would have loved this place as a kid, if I’d been able to see the Island this way, and not as the battleground that robbed me of my father and, years later, my ma. My heart contracts and for a moment I’m fighting tears.
Sitting here I am connected to the land in a way I didn’t think possible. Physically, emotionally, historically – and as I’ve done countless times before, I channel the building emotion into music. The tune that emerges is a grace – music for an ancient Island blessing. It’s half-remembered from my earliest days playing with Jonas and the lads in the Dumbiedykes pub band, half improvised.
Closing my damp eyes I give in to the flow of the tune, losing myself in the strange place between being awake and dreaming when the music catches you.
‘That’s it, lad. Don’t let the sting stop you,’ Jonas used to say. ‘The sting is what reminds you you’re alive.’ I didn’t understand then. I do now. So much of being a musician is mind over matter: playing when you ache, when you haven’t slept; endlessly repeating sections until muscular memory kicks in and you can switch off your brain.
Out here, though, with no audience, nobody to see and the music I make carried away on the breeze, sore fingers aren’t making me play on.
The memories are what sting.
Then the pain finds a new outlet through my voice and I start to sing – a jumble of random words that dance with the rhythm my fingers make. And I’m free, in this wilderness with its startling beauty. I’m one with it.
‘We-ell, it’s original, I’ll give you that, but those aren’t the words I remember.’
Niven is standing by the dry-stone wall that marks the boundary between Ailish’s square of garden and the wild hill it nestles into. Arms folded, head on one side like a sheepdog hearing a whistle, ridiculous grin plastered all over his face.
‘Cheers. I like it.’
He scrambles up the path, chuckling, and flops down onto the peat-scented ground beside me. ‘I didn’t think you did much with the trad tunes now. Thought it was all beardy-hipster “new-folk” and mandolin versions of Led Zep songs.’
‘I’ve forgotten the ones I learned as a kid,’ I say, not protesting when Niven liberates the guitar from my hands. My fingers were starting to complain anyway. I shove them into the pockets of my coat. ‘It’s one of the things I want to do while I’m on the Island.’
‘Learn the old stuff? That’ll be easy enough. Come and gig with me Saturday night up in Tobermory.’
‘I’m not sure I’m ready for that.’
‘Not on this pile of kindling,’ he says, plucking a string and frowning at its rusted, sorry excuse for a vibration. ‘On your fiddle. My lot are a good bunch of lads, reliable and fun. It’ll be a blast. Come on, what do you say?’
I’ve never turned down a gig in my life, so the answer is academic. Playing might be what I need to take my mind off Phoebe.
* * *
Niven’s bandmates are great. A real mix of ages, which is as it should be – from John-Jack Macallan in his early eighties to Gowan Burnie, barely 17 years old. There’s no hierarchy like I’ve found in commercial bands and that’s so refreshing. Egos always get in the way of the music. Here, you rock up with your instrument, take a seat, maybe buy a round of beers (Gowan excepted, naturally; he gets the crisps in) and play. There’s no setlist, either, just a quick conversation of this one, that one and then we wing it…
At one point a lady from behind the bar comes over, hutches up between Niven and John-Jack and sings two songs with us. There was no agreement with her prior to the gig, and if someone gave a signal I missed it. But nobody protests, which makes me think this is an unspoken invitation. When you’re amongst friends, everyone can pitch in for a spot of entertaining.
Unlike every other gig I’ve played in the last six years, every punter in the pub just listens. No phones held aloft, recording it for endless shaky playback after the event. Once our gig is over, there will be no record that we were ever here, apart from the memories in the minds of those who listened.