Her:
I can hear the music out on the sidewalk before I ever go in, but it's not Declan's music. Someone else is playing now. I see his name on the poster by the door, though, so I know he's here. Back in Dublin, playing his music.
I pay my money and they let me in. I've never been in a Dublin club, but it's just the same as the ones I went to in Prague when I was at University. It's dark and loud, and the floor is a little sticky. It's full of people, swaying and moving, and I don't want to push into the middle of them, so I press back to the wall and follow it around the room.
When I stop, there is a table next to me with things for sale. There are stacks of CD's and I see the face of the girl now on the stage on one. Further away, on the other corner, I find the stack of Declan's CDs. I take one from the pile and run my fingers over the cover, Declan's picture. It's the side of his face with lots of light and shadows. He looks good, better than he did when he lived here in Dublin. I turn it over, reading the names of the songs I know so well.
I have a copy already, of course. One was delivered to the flat three months ago, in a fancy heavy envelope along with a check and a letter from this record company. The letter was lots of words about rights and things I didn't completely understand. When I took it to Billy, he explained to me that the check was to pay me for playing on the demo, and helping Declan with the songs. Billy got one, too. So did Švec, Andrej and Reza. I wouldn't have kept that check except for the little slip of paper fastened to it, written in Declan's handwriting.
Thank you, it said. This is yours, too.
So I kept the check from the record company and I made my mother's lie come true. I used Declan's other gift to me and I started teaching piano lessons. I still have to clean houses during the day, but I don't have to do the offices at night. Things are so much better now because of that. I am home every night to help with dinner and put Ivanka to bed.
Except for this night. When I saw the paper on a lamppost in the city earlier today, I knew I had to come and see him again. I didn't tell my mother where I was going, though. I didn't want to listen to her pushy questions. So I told her I needed to see a friend, which is true.
Now I am standing in this crowded club, waiting for him to show up, and wondering if he will seem at all the same. So many months have passed and now he's almost like a dream to me. He wasn't someone real, he's just someone I invented in my tired, wanting head.
The girl on stage singing sad songs in a high, pretty voice finishes and smiles at the applause. The stage is empty for a while, except for a man who comes out and arranges some wires and speakers. He comes out with a guitar and sets it next to the microphone. At first, I feel a huge disappointment, as it is not Declan's guitar. Then I tell myself not to be so foolish. It's been nearly a year and he has a record now. He wouldn't still play that terrible old guitar he had. He would play one like the shiny black one set up on stage.
Still, it's empty. The crowd shifts as people go to find the bathrooms and more drinks. I move into the empty places until I'm in the middle of the room.
Then a man comes on stage and says some things about Irish clubs supporting Irish musicians, and aren't they all happy to have this great new Irish songwriter visit them. The crowd applauds and it doesn't sound like they're being polite. It sounds real. A few people put their fingers in their mouths and whistle. One girl shouts out "Declan!" These people know who he is already. People are hearing Declan's music.
I don't have time to think about that, though, because all of a sudden, Declan is there. He's smiling in that way he had, like he's embarrassed that anyone is even looking at him. He keeps his eyes away from the crowd as he picks up his guitar and settles the strap around his neck. His long fingers slide along the neck, the only part of him that looks assured and easy. His fingertips find their places on the strings like they know where they belong better than he does. I loved that about Declan. So unassuming unless he was singing and playing, and then he overwhelmed me.
The crowd has gone still around me, but there's this quiet energy, like they're just waiting for him to open his mouth and sing before they can breathe again. I know this feeling because it's how I feel, in my chest and in my head and stomach and every little inch of me—just waiting for his songs to reach into me and grab my soul again. It feels like it's been asleep since the last time I heard him sing.
Finally, Declan looks at the crowd, his chin down, his gaze sliding sideways as he smiles.
"Hey there," he says, and the people around me erupt in shouts. He smiles wider in response. "I'm really happy to be here tonight, playing these songs for you. They've meant a lot to me in a lot of ways, and it feels good to share them finally."
There are more shouts, more whistles, lots of clapping. Declan ducks his chin and smiles again. He doesn't say anything else. He doesn't need to, because he starts to play. From the first chords he strums, the crowd goes quiet. The sound vibrates through me down to my feet. I've listened to his CD, of course. A lot. Until Reza hid it and said it was making me too moody. But listening to it is nothing like this, standing in the same room with him, hearing the music bounce off the walls and bodies and echo into me.
Then he opens his mouth and begins to sing. The sound—the chords and notes straining against each other—makes me ache inside. I feel it everywhere, this music that is so familiar to me but still seems new. I know this song. I've played this song with him. It's different now, maybe better, but it still feels like my song. Once, his voice and my voice made this song live, so now it's like it's a little bit mine, too.
I stand so still through three of his songs. I can't look away from him. I don't want to. For all these long months, even for the few days we worked on his music, I'd convinced myself that's all it was about—the music. My mother, Reza, even Billy… they all tried to make me confess that it was more that I was feeling. I told them it wasn't, mostly because it was impossible. I am a dreamer, but I am not a fool. Still, now that I'm standing here seeing him again, I know they were right. It's always been about him, impossible or not.
I am distracted by two girls right behind me. They must have just moved there because I couldn't hear them a moment ago.
"Ahhh," one says.
"So bloody handsome," the other one sighs.
"Think I'll have a go at him after the show, yeah?"
The other girl laughs, all knowing like Reza does when she's on the prowl. "If you don't, I will."
My skin tingles all the way to my hair. I don't turn around to see them, but I do turn my face away from the stage. I can't look at Declan while I listen to them talk about him like that. My eyes fall on the stack of CD's on the corner of the table. I feel foolish, standing here alone in this club, thinking back on the feelings he sparked in me, when he probably barely remembers me. He's not famous, but these people know him. They love him. Those girls want him. He's not that lost man that I met last year, playing his guitar to no one on the street. He's found himself and the world has found him. I'm a single mother working like mad just to hang on. I don't belong here.
I look back at the stage, at Declan as he starts his last song of the set. My throat tightens as I imagine singing my part of it. I press my lips together to keep from doing it. I'm glad I came to see him. It's good to see him here, doing what he was meant to do. It's good to see other people loving his music like I do. Maybe now I can put him behind me, just a story from my past.
As I'm taking my very last look at him, reassuring myself that he's just fine, he takes a rare glance at the crowd, and just like that, he's looking right at me.
I can't move. I can't even breathe.
Declan had been singing the last line and he bites the note off short, his hands freezing on his guitar. There is a long moment of silence as we stare at each other over the crowd. Then I hear people around me begin to murmur, wondering what is happening. I'm messing things up for him, ruining his show by surprising him this way.
Finally, I turn away and start pushing through the people to get to the door. By the time I reach the door that leads to the dark, cool hallway out front, the people have thinned out. I take a deep breath and keep going, towards the door that leads outside.
"Dusana, wait!"
*0*0*
Him:
I'm still not good at this part. Funny, I've been playing and singing since I was fifteen and I used to do it on the street corner in front of disinterested strangers all the time, but getting up on a stage in front of an audience that has willingly paid money to see me still makes me nervous. I guess I worry about disappointing them, although they never seem disappointed. Colin tells me I need to talk more up there, banter with the crowd, make them my friends. That's the hardest part for me, so I tend to say very little and let the music speak for me.
I'm especially nervous tonight because it's my first show back in Dublin. The London shows have gone well, but home is different. The crowd is good—the club looks packed. People applaud when I step on stage. While I adjust my guitar, a few whistle and one girl calls my name. It's still alarming and unreal. Does she mean me?
If I think about it too much, I'll freeze, so I don't look at them. I keep my eyes on the mic or my guitar and I just sing. Dublin changes this music. While I was recording and playing gigs in London, I focused on other things. I was crafting them, perfecting them. There was so much to learn about recording and what the producer could do, and it was all about that. Being home brings me back to the beginning, and when I start singing, I'm singing with all the raw emotion that I used to write them. The songs were always about heartbreak and loss, but now they're not about Fiona. It's a different loss I sing about now.
Just the same, I immerse myself in it for the whole set. I forget the people and the club. There's just me and my voice, my fingers on the strings, and the stories I can tell with them. I'm almost through the final song of the set and I feel bold. Time to look at all these people who've come to listen to me sing. Time to invite them in to the stories I've been telling. But when I look across the faces, I find the one person who's been there all along.
I forget to finish singing. The note just cuts off as I stare at her. She's not smiling or even looking happy to see me, but she's here. She came to see me. Then, just as my heart starts beating again, she turns around and disappears into the crowd. I shake my head, wondering if I've just imagined her. But I can see people shifting out of her path as she pushes towards the door. I don't even consider what I'm doing, I just ditch my guitar and hop off the front of the stage, chasing after her.
The crowd around me makes all kinds of surprised noises, but I ignore them and stay focused on the door I think she just went through. It opens into a small, dark front room, fifteen degrees cooler than the crowded main room behind me. Dusana has her hand on the exit door when I call her name. She stops, hand still on the door.
"Dusana," I say again.
She slowly turns around. And there she is again, that serious little face and those huge dark eyes that pin you right to the ground. Her stare is unnerving, just like I remember. I feel challenged, examined.
I smile at her. "Where are you going?"
She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. Dusana was always nothing if not confident. "I'm sorry I disturbed your concert." I've forgotten exactly what her voice sounds like, the way her accent bites off her consonants and the lyric high note in her vowels, the one I can hear so clearly when she sings.
I take a step towards her. "You didn't. That was the last song. Weren't you going to say hello?" I'm a little bewildered that she would come here and leave without seeing me at all.
Dusana looks away, towards the posters tacked to the walls. "I didn't want to bother you." Her words imply polite distance, but that's not what I hear in her voice. She sounds uneasy.
"You'd never be a bother," I tell her, smiling again, trying to get her to relax. This girl knew me better after three days than Fiona did after five years. I want what we had again, that comfort and ease. It's been months and months, but surely it's still there somewhere. "I just got here this afternoon," I tell her, to explain why I hadn't gotten in touch with her yet. "I was going to come round tomorrow."
"Come round?" she echoes, looking confused.
"To see you. How's Ivanka?"
"Ivanka is good."
"And your mother? Reza and Švec?"
"Good, good," she says, the life coming back to her voice a bit. "We are all good."
I look closely at her. "You too? You're good?"
Finally, something like a smile. Just the hint of one. She's trying not to laugh at me. But it's okay, it's real. "I'm good, too."
"I'm glad. And your… Marek? How is he?"
"He is well, I hear." Her voice gets distant again and her eyes are blank. "He's doing good back in Prague."
"Prague?" My heart drops out of my chest. "I thought he was coming back. You told me he was."
"He did," she says. Her hands are clasped in front of her, fingers twisting together nervously. "He came. It didn't work out so he went home again."
"So… you and him−?"
She looks up and meets my eyes. "We are over."
"I'm sorry," I say perfunctorily, because I'm not. I'm really, really not sorry. At all.
Dusana shrugs, "It was months ago now. And it was for the best."
"I'm glad you're doing okay about it."
"How is your girl?" Dusana asks, lifting her chin. She was so sure about me and Fiona. She pushed me away and sent me to America to win her back. I'd almost regret telling her about our failure if I wasn't also selfishly delighted.
I shrug, hoping I sound as over it as I feel. "Turns out there really wasn't any future there after all."
Dusana's eyes go wide. "She wouldn't come back to you?"
"Oh, no, she came. I just didn't stay."
"You left her?"
I nod. "It was over. I just had to go see that for myself."
"Oh," is all she says, but her face shows her thoughts and Dusana is thinking a lot.
I take another step towards her and she startles, but the door is at her back and stops her retreat. I keep going, until I'm close enough to reach out and grab her hand. Such tiny little fingers, capable of making the most amazing music.
"Listen, I have another set tonight, but can I come around tomorrow to see you?"
"You want to come around?"
I nod.
"Okay. You can come. In the afternoon."
I smile and once again, I get a tiny answering smile in return. "Good. I'll see you then. I have so much to tell you, Dusana."
