“It appealed to me – the idea of you and Siobhan McGovern being together – that’s all.”
“A singer living with a writer?”
“Yes, but also the fact you were that bit older and not from the mad world of the music business. Plus, I was a huge fan – of her, I mean. I liked that she’d found somebody – somebody grounded.”
“I wasn’t that together at the time.”
“You knew who you were and what you were about.”
“I was just another writer.”
“But you were good at it.”
“Is this going to be about my deciding not to write any more? Because if it is, you can stick it.”
“No, it’s not about that, though of course I think you should still write. I remember feeling good about Siobhan finding someone to look after her. As I said, I was a fan and I wanted her to be happy. She needed someone to look after her. Everybody could see she was headed into a tailspin.”
“But she crashed anyway, regardless of having met me.”
“You helped her for a while – for quite a while actually. I really thought you guys had a chance.”
“Why would you care?”
“Because . . . you’d have to realise just how much Siobhan’s music meant to me, to a lot of girls my age – or women, or whatever we were at the time. And you can’t separate Siobhan the person from her music.”
“But they weren’t even her songs.”
“She didn’t write them, but they were her songs.”
“You might ask Danny Callinan about that; I’d say he’d be of a different opinion.”
“It doesn’t really matter who wrote them. As soon as Siobhan McGovern sang a song it became her song, and then she gave those songs to us. That’s why I cared so much.”
“Well, she crashed anyway, however much we all cared.”
There was trouble with Danny from the very beginning – Danny Callinan that is, Siobhan’s Danny. There was trouble with my Danny later, or if not trouble then a falling out, but it was obvious as soon as I met Danny Callinan that he resented my being around. This was a shame because I really liked his music and there was plenty to like about the man, but he’d made up his mind about me without giving us so much as a chance to get to know each other.
The day after I’d first gone over to London to watch Siobhan in concert – the day when my Danny went back home to Manchester and I stayed on to see Siobhan at the hotel – she suggested that I come and spend a few days with her at the band’s house up in Hertfordshire. She reckoned it was the closest thing to normality available to her, which says a lot about her life at the time. Perhaps she had a point though – she didn’t particularly want to go back to her family home in Dublin because it always created problems for her parents, and she’d only just been across the previous week for my book launch. I didn’t have anywhere in Dublin we could stay without her being mobbed – this was at the height of Siobhan’s fame, remember – so the band’s refuge-cum-home seemed like our best bet for some space and time together.
I didn’t dwell on the strangeness of it all at the time. That Siobhan should need to travel with a bodyguard at all times – Stevie – or that he should chauffeur us through the streets of London, out into the country to a huge private estate where the band and their entourage could be at peace. I was already so besotted with Siobhan that I would have followed her anywhere, and she was trying desperately to be normal in a very unreal situation. I didn’t really care about the unlikely turn my life was about to take because I was in the back seat of a car with Siobhan McGovern and she’d called me a handsome devil and she wanted to spend some time with me.
It was flattering that she wanted to talk about my work. However I might feel about my writing now, I was proud of what I’d achieved at the time, even if I knew it wasn’t going to change the world. I was glad it was Stevie up front driving because he was a benign presence and so obviously fond of Siobhan. My Danny always referred back to this day when we argued later, saying it set the tone for how my relationship with Siobhan would be from then on – that Siobhan called and I came running. That everything was on her terms, and that it was always me who had to fit into her world and not the other way around.
“Is that why you fell out with your friend Danny?” Juliette asks. “Because he couldn’t handle you being so close to Siobhan?” She adjusts her seat on the terrace so the sun isn’t directly in her eyes. I shut my eyes and enjoy the warmth of the day; this good weather isn’t going to last and I want to get the most out of it.
“That’s what I accused him of at the time,” I say. “Of being jealous, and anyway – what would he do in my place? It came to be all about that instead of what he really resented.”
“Which was what?”
“That I’d stopped writing. That I’d stopped being me and become Siobhan’s partner instead.”
“Was he right?”
“Yes, but I still don’t see anything wrong in that.”
“And what about the other Danny? Danny Callinan?”
“Well, when we first arrived up in Hertfordshire, the place was deserted, or, at least, it appeared to be deserted. Then I noticed the noise of somebody working in a kitchen somewhere, or a vacuum cleaner, and then I heard a guitar being strummed in an upstairs room.”
“So the band were all there in the house?”
“Yes, but not so you’d know it. Everybody kept pretty much to themselves.”
“What a strange way to live.”
This was exactly what I said to Siobhan after only a few minutes in the house. She said it was always like this after a gig, and that they all gradually came out of their shells over the next day or two. Stevie offered to show me to my room, but Siobhan said no, she’d take me up.
“Do you need anything?” Stevie asked me. “Toiletries, clothes, I mean?”
“No, I’m fine,” I said. I didn’t anticipate staying long enough to need more than I’d brought with me for the night of the concert. I could have done with a change of underwear, but I wasn’t going to ask a grown man to do that for me.
The room was at the top and the back of the house, so it was even quieter again. Siobhan asked me if I wanted to take a shower.
“Are you saying I need to?”
“I was thinking more of taking one together.”
It was a long time since I’d taken a bath or a shower with a girl and it must have shown on my face.
“Sorry,” Siobhan said. “Too fast.”
“No, not too fast.”
“So what is it?”
What could I say – that this was unreal, or dreamlike? Pinch me? Danny had once told me, when I got my first book contract, that authors get laid and here if I ever doubted him was the proof. I’d pulled Siobhan McGovern because she loved my books. Being a handsome devil had nothing to do with it. I said nothing and we took the shower together.
After two days, Siobhan said Danny Callinan had a problem with my being in the house. They were due to play in Berlin the following weekend and he wanted to rehearse.
“So I should go,” I said. I had no idea what the protocol of band life was like and I didn’t want to fuck things up by outstaying my welcome.
“He’s just being a dick,” Siobhan said. “We rehearse on Wednesday, travel on Thursday, sound check on Friday and play on Saturday.”
“But if it’s causing trouble for me to be here, I’d rather go.”
“It’s got nothing to do with Danny whether you’re here or not. Like I said, he’s just being a dick.”
“But still –”
“Still nothing. He thinks he can tell me what to do and he can’t.”
“It’s okay, Siobhan, really. I don’t mind.”
“It’s not okay at all,” she said and left me alone in the room.
Shit, I thought, and didn’t know whether to follow her, or stay put, or maybe try to find Stevie to drive me to the airport. I was still there an hour later when Siobhan came back up to my room. She’d
obviously been crying.
Here it comes, I thought. It was nice while it lasted.
“Danny and I . . .” she began.
I was probably the only person in England not to know what Siobhan was about to tell me.
“We grew up together,” she said. “In the same street, I mean. And we started the band together, or rather – Danny started up a band and asked me to be in it. So in a way it’s his band. And we were together in another way for a very long time, up until the end of last year in fact.”
“But that’s over now?”
“It is but, as you can imagine, it’s not been particularly easy.”
“Am I the first person you’ve met since you were with Danny?”
“You’re the first person I’ve been serious about since Danny and I split up, yes.”
“And he doesn’t like it?”
“He doesn’t like it.”
“Does he want to get back with you?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And what? And nothing – it’s over between us.”
“Does he still love you?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t love him?”
“Not in that way. I love him because he’s been my closest friend for over ten years, but we were doing each other harm by staying together for so long.”
“And the band – the band is staying together?”
“Yes, but it’s a strain.”
“It didn’t show the other night.”
“Thank you.”
“But now my turning up has made it difficult for you?”
“Something like that. We . . . we have to figure out some new boundaries, I guess.”
“And that’s what you’ve just been doing, is it? Figuring out your new boundaries with Danny?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s why you’ve been crying?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he agrees with the new boundaries?”
“It doesn’t matter. They’re my boundaries now, whether he likes it or not.”
“I don’t want to fuck up your band.”
“You’re not going to fuck up the band. Whatever happens to the band has nothing to do with you.”
“It doesn’t exactly feel that way right now.” I reached for Siobhan’s hand. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“This – with me. Why run the risk of losing everything for someone you met only a few days ago?”
“Maybe I think you’re worth it.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“What I know I like. I thought you wanted to give this a go?”
“I do, but I’m scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“Not matching up – to you. Or to Danny Callinan now too.”
“If you’re thinking of giving up so easily,” Siobhan said, “you’d best let me know.”
“I’m not thinking of giving up; I just said I was scared.”
“And you think I’m not?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it – why I’m here, why you would even think of being with me. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this.”
“You moved me. I read your books and you moved me. I want to be with the person who did that.”
“Danny Callinan wrote those songs for Siobhan McGovern,” Juliette says.
“I know.”
“As in, he wrote them about her, for her to sing.”
“I know.”
“And she chose you instead of him?”
“Yes, she did.”
“No wonder the band fell apart.”
“Thanks a bunch.”
“I’m not saying it was necessarily your fault; just that no band could withstand that kind of personal pressure. But I also think they’d have split up even if you hadn’t happened upon the scene.”
“I think so too, but perhaps not so quickly.”
“They were childhood sweethearts.”
I smile.
“Yes, I’m aware of all that.”
Remembering it now with Juliette, it all seems like a long time ago.
“What time do you have to leave for Brighton?” I ask her.
“Four o’clock at the latest. I have to drive to Belfast.”
“Will Max be okay?”
“Yes,” she says. “I have a neighbour who doesn’t mind calling in when I have to be away. She can’t manage taking him out for a walk, so it’s not perfect, but at least he has some company and can get out into the back garden.”
“And you regard this as having to be away?”
“You’re my favourite project,” Juliette says and smiles.
“I’m sorry for what I said the last time, about, you know, it all being your fault. I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes you did.”
“Well I don’t believe it now. It had nothing to do with attending that meeting. I think they’d have picked me up sooner or later, whatever I did.”
“You weren’t even arrested. You were taken and held illegally, against your will and against your rights.”
“Yes, well, I appreciate your coming to see me. What does Jack say?”
“About what?”
“About my being here; about my staying here.”
“He wants to know what you intend to do.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said that his guess is as good as mine, but we both know you can’t stay here indefinitely. He’s been very good, but there’ll come the point where you being here affects his running of the Institute.”
“Do you think I should offer him some money?”
Juliette looks up sharply. So she knows about my money and where it has come from.
Easy enough for you, I think, though who’s to say if she takes any sort of an allowance from her father?
“I don’t think it’s a question of money,” she says. “Artists come here to work, not to convalesce.”
“Doesn’t it help that I’m a writer?”
“But you’re not, are you? You’d have to be doing some writing to call yourself a writer.”
Ouch, I think, point taken.
“Talk to Jack,” she says. “I’m sure if he knows your plans, you’ll find him very understanding and accommodating.”
“I’d have to make some plans first.”
“Have you nowhere you could go? And I don’t mean wandering aimlessly around Europe again. Somewhere you could get back on your feet again? Somewhere you could call home?”
The year I spent at home in Glasnevin in Dublin with Siobhan was, I think, as happy a time as anyone could reasonably ask for.
Siobhan announced to the band that once their current tour was over, she wanted to have a break for a year. They were already committed to working for another six months; they weren’t killing themselves with a heavy work schedule of touring dates, but they were booked that far in advance. If Siobhan wanted to shout stop, the sooner she did so the better. But Siobhan taking a year off affected their plans to record a new album and a proposed tour of America, and this put a further strain on relations. And what Siobhan didn’t tell the band or her record company was that she wanted us to have a baby together.
I was surprised when she suggested looking for somewhere to live in Dublin, and surprised again when she didn’t look for the isolated grandeur that she was used to retreating to in England. She could easily have afforded somewhere in Dalkey or Killiney, a place overlooking the sea where the residents are used to tax exiles and rock stars. But she asked me to start looking just north of the city centre, somewhere handy for visiting her parents in Cabra.
“I don’t want to shut myself away,” she said. “I want where we live to be as normal as possible.”
The fact that her life was anything but normal only made her more determined to slot back into life in Dublin.
“It’ll calm down after a while,” she said.
I thought this was
optimistic to say the least, but I wasn’t really in a position to insist on where we set up home together; Siobhan was paying, after all. It was my job to look around for suitable places to buy, and arrange to go looking at them together whenever Siobhan could get away. I couldn’t come up with any better suggestions and Glasnevin is as nice a part of Dublin as you’ll find. I knew what Siobhan was doing: she was looking for a different refuge, her own refuge, away from the band. The fact that she’d chosen to share it with me only made me very happy.
“I want this to be ours,” she said. “Nobody else’s but ours.”
I found a small place in a quiet cul-de-sac behind the cemetery. Siobhan was pregnant before we moved in, before she’d even stopped touring in fact. I knew it was fast but it was what we both wanted and I couldn’t believe my luck. She told me so often that I was perfect for her that I’d finally started to believe it. I didn’t know or care if she was telling me the truth; the idea that she might not be telling the truth never even occurred to me.
We bought a house but we didn’t rush into buying anything for it. We wanted to do a few alterations – nothing too much, just some decorating really and a couple of minor changes – so we bought stuff only as we felt we needed it. The first thing we chose together was a bed. I showed Siobhan the poem by Emily Dickinson that I’d come across in Sophie’s Choice, and she had me copy it out on to a scrap of paper which she slotted into one of the joints when we made up the bed. I couldn’t stop putting my hand over her tummy when we made love, snuggling up behind her, torn between wanting to fuck her so badly and to protect her at the same time. It already felt like there were three of us in the bed together.
We didn’t have a phone line connected, but Siobhan still had her mobile. It wouldn’t stop ringing at first, even though only certain people were supposed to know the number. She apologised every time she took a call, but I told her it was all right – I didn’t want her to cut herself off completely from her world, mainly because I thought that meant less pressure on myself. But when the press started calling, Siobhan turned off the mobile and turned it on only to make the calls she chose.
We did a lot of walking, through the Botanic Gardens and the cemetery, nearly always stopping off to choose a DVD to watch in the evening – by now we had a sofa and a television. I was also in the process of putting a working kitchen together. I wanted to cook and care for Siobhan, to make sure she was getting all the right foods and vitamins. It was still impossible for her to eat out in public without it creating a certain amount of fuss and we’d soon had enough of takeaways being delivered to our door. By contrast, it was a pleasant experience to shop during the day for fresh produce to cook that evening, and in this way the local shopkeepers became used to having Siobhan around.
Dancing to the End of Love Page 14
