The Legacy of Lucy Harte

by Emma Heatherington

  It’s not lessons I’m after… I try to take my eyes off him. It just won’t happen.

  ‘Watch it!’ says Tiernan to Connor and he slowly puts his hand on top of mine. ‘I want to be the one to give her… guitar lessons.’

  I skirt a glance at Roisin. She looks like she is watching a movie as she stares at us, mouth slightly open. She is loving this. I am too.

  Back to Tiernan. His hand is still on mine. It feels good. Then I see Jeff’s face. I hear his voice. No, no it feels wrong. I shouldn’t be doing this. I am not ready for this. I need to go. I take my hand away.

  ‘I… we really should go,’ I say and they all look at me like I have just sprouted a second head.

  ‘What? Where are you going?’ Tiernan asks. ‘Ah, don’t leave me already.’

  My eyes search for Roisin, who looks like she has just been clicked out of her daze and back into real life.

  ‘What? Go? Now?’ she asks. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes, I’m serious. Yes, now,’ I tell her and I lift my handbag and jacket and whisper under my breath. ‘I can’t do this. I need to get out of here.’

  Roisin stands up and gathers her own belongings.

  ‘Okay… well, well… bye lads,’ she eventually manages, totally confused. ‘It was great meeting ya. Thanks for the drinks and um… the tunes. Cheers! See ya again… I hope.’

  She walks to me and links my arm.

  ‘Bye Roisin, bye Maggie,’ the band mumble incoherently and I quickly lead the way out of the bar, still feeling an incredible surge of electricity running through my entire body.

  Roisin leads me out of the noisy bar and into the cool of the night, her heels clicking on the pavement as we walk to the roadside to hail a taxi.

  ‘Would you like to slow down a bit, Maggie? Like, I need to talk to you about what just happened in there. Are you not going to jump his bones? He was so into you?’

  ‘Am I walking fast? Just talk,’ I say to her, still walking, still quite dazed. ‘I have no idea what just happened in there or what the hell I thought I was going to do with that man. I am a married woman.’

  ‘Stop!’ she says. ‘Just stop a minute, will you please?’

  So I stop.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You are not a married woman any more,’ she tells me. ‘Your husband dumped you for a younger model months and months ago and she is having his baby.’

  Ow!

  ‘So you are well entitled to have a fucking good time with that ride of a man in there if you feel like it. Do you hear me?’

  Yes, I hear her.

  ‘But I feel so –’

  ‘Feel so what? Don’t you dare say guilty, Maggie O’Hara!’ she says. ‘He… Tiernan… he took your hand and was looking at you like you were some sort of Disney princess and you liked him too and you get up and walk out! How could you do that? You absolute muppet!’

  ‘Don’t be a drama queen, Roisin,’ I say, but I know exactly what she means. I am a muppet. Jeff doesn’t exist in my life any more. I am a prize muppet.

  I breathe in deeply and wave down a cab as if on auto-pilot. I have no answers, really. Not yet, anyhow.

  ‘Maybe I am a Disney princess,’ I laugh back. ‘Or maybe we’re just more pissed than we think we are. Maybe there was something magic in those cocktails or in the gin. Maybe I just got scared, okay!’

  ‘Go back in, then!’ says Roisin, pointing to the bar. I start to laugh as I get a flashback of her trying to boss me around when we were little. ‘Go back in and say we are going to party the night away and let’s get pissed. With them. You, with him.’

  ‘No,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t want to get pissed. I’ve been pissed for the past six months and it’s not helping. I don’t know what to do or where to turn.’

  ‘Oh, Maggie,’ says Roisin. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  But she doesn’t have to say anything because right behind her Tiernan Quinn has left the bar too and is coming over in our direction.

  Oh shit. Oh God. Oh help.

  ‘Maggie?’ he says.

  He is a little bit out of breath. He is a big bit gorgeous. I am a giant bit going to have to just fucking do this.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry for the swift exit. It’s been a while since I was out and I just got a bit –’

  ‘Ssh,’ he says and he smiles and I melt a little inside again. I am a silly bitch. He is a nice guy. ‘You don’t have to explain. We can start again. I’m Tiernan. Tiernan Quinn.’

  He puts out his hand. I shake it.

  ‘I was hoping you would say that was your name,’ I tell him and he looks a little confused. Oh, if only he knew.

  ‘Can I call you? Tomorrow?’ he asks.

  Roisin coughs, which I take as code for me to not even dare and refuse.

  ‘Yes, you can,’ she says.

  He hands me his phone and I put my number in and save it.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever left a bar to run after a woman before,’ he tells me and I get a rush of warmth through my veins. ‘But I think you are going to be worth it. Goodnight, Maggie.’

  ‘Goodnight, Tiernan Quinn.’

  He kisses me on the cheek and runs back into the bar and I swear Roisin is doing a Riverdance on the pavement beside me.

  ‘Lucy Harte, you wee beauty!’ she says, looking up at the stars. ‘Now, any chance you can do the same for me?’

  Chapter 15

  I am on a beach, in a place called Malahide outside Dublin, sitting on a chequered rug, holding an acoustic guitar and Tiernan Quinn is by my side pushing my fingers onto the fret board to show me the chords I need to learn for ‘Songbird’ by Eva Cassidy. He played it at a wedding once and I couldn’t believe he even knew it, but since it was Lucy’s last favourite song it’s the one I’d like to learn if I ever get round to it.

  I can feel his breath on my neck against the cool breeze that comes from the Irish Sea as I strum the guitar. It squeaks a little, but I get it eventually.

  ‘You have done this before,’ he smiles. ‘You said you used to play a bit, but you know a lot more than you are telling!’

  ‘I don’t remember!’ I reply, but to be honest I am enjoying his teaching a lot. His left arm is resting behind my back and the guitar is just a prop that brings us physically closer without needing to make any obvious moves.

  We spent the morning walking the beach and clearing the cobwebs from the night before and while I am trying to play it very cool, the urge to get physical with him is totally killing me. He is being the ultimate gentleman and is totally taking my lead, which makes me a lot more relaxed than I thought I would be.

  ‘I’m not the stereotypical womanising musician you might think I am,’ he said to me earlier as he laid out the rug he took from his car when we were finished walking.

  ‘You can be whoever you want to be, Tiernan,’ I told him. ‘You don’t need to explain yourself to me.’

  He looked a bit hurt when I said that, but it’s true. I don’t care about his reputation, good, bad or indifferent. I am just enjoying his company and I think he is mine too. If he knew my past he would probably run a million miles.

  With the guitar lesson coming to a natural end, it’s time to talk again, or so he thinks.

  ‘So, tell me all about you, Maggie O’Hara,’ he whispers, pushing my hair off my shoulders. ‘What brings you to Dublin? I’d like to think it was to see a really happening band called The Madd Mollies, but I’d seriously doubt it.’

  I want to tell him the truth, the story about Lucy and how she fell for him when she was so young and how I really did track down him and his band, but I can’t tell him all that. I don’t want him to know about me. I just want to lie here on this beach and feel him close to me and pretend that all my troubles and baggage of the past didn’t exist. I just want to be a girl with a guy showing her chords on a guitar before he kisses her in the sand and tells her how beautiful she is and how good she makes him feel, without any sad stories of heart transplants and marriage
break-ups and a husband who is having a baby with someone else and who wants a divorce right now.

  I don’t want to be the woman with someone else’s heart. I just want to feel my own heart beat when he looks at me and savour this attraction to the wonderful enigma that is Tiernan Quinn.

  ‘I might tell you all of that one day, Tiernan,’ I say to him, looking into his gorgeous eyes.

  ‘Why won’t you open up to me? You don’t answer any of my questions.’

  ‘We’ve only just met,’ I remind him. ‘Look, I have quite a story that I can’t share with you today, but I probably will tell you all about it one day soon, but for now do you mind if we just –?’

  And that’s all I have to say for him to understand.

  He takes the guitar from my hands and lays it by his side and he cups my face in his hands and kisses me so deeply that my eyes roll back in delirium. His tongue moves in my mouth and my body responds by rising towards him, and his strong, warm hand grips my waist to pull me closer. My God, I had forgotten how good this feels. He leans me back gently onto the rug and I feel the sand in my hair and he stops and looks at me with a beautiful hunger and kisses me again even more passionately than before.

  ‘I want you, Maggie,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘Will you spend the day with me? Please?’

  The weight of his body on top of me, the firmness of his manhood against my inner thigh means that there can only be one answer to his question.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I will,’ I reply and we lie side by side on the sand and look up at the afternoon sky and just breathe in unison as gulls circle above us and the sound of the waves crash in the near distance. I feel his hand clasp mine and we don’t need to say anything else for now.

  We just breathe.

  ‘Well, hello you dirty rotten stop-out! Did you have a nice day?’

  I meet Roisin back at her apartment to say my farewells before I catch the last train back to Belfast later that evening and to say I have a new spring in my step is an understatement.

  ‘Amazing,’ I tell her, unable to hide my glow.

  Tiernan took me back to his home, where we spent a glorious afternoon in his back garden first of all, where we listened to music and barbecued some chicken and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other for a second.

  We just about managed to make it to the bedroom when it wasn’t just the barbecue that was heating up and he lit a spark in me, pardon the pun, that had been out for too long.

  ‘I feel alive again, Ro,’ I tell my cousin and she gives me an almost suffocating hug in her hallway. When she finally lets go, she has tears in her eyes.

  ‘I must be hormonal,’ she tells me, ‘but I am so fucking delighted for you, Mags. You need to believe in yourself more, you know that? You really need to step out of the life you’ve been living and go see the world instead of moping around and drinking your days and nights away in your apartment, do you hear?’

  I know exactly what she is saying and I am so determined to make this day my brand- new start.

  ‘I never thought I’d be able to enjoy myself again like I did today,’ I tell her. ‘He has awakened me, let’s say, and it was pure heaven. Thank you, Roisin. Thank you, Lucy Harte!’

  ‘What the hell are you thanking me for?’ she replies. ‘I was only a very jealous bystander. Christ, he is one hot mutha-fucker. Was he good?’

  I blush. That gives her the answer she was looking for.

  ‘Let’s just say I am very, very, very satisfied!’

  ‘Oh, you lucky cow! Are you seeing him again? Please say yes!’

  I smile and shake my head.

  ‘Roisin, I’m not ready for any sort of relationship with anyone right now. I need to get to know myself again, but who knows what the future holds? I know he likes me. I know I like him, but I’m going to focus on me for a while. Does that sound selfish?’

  Roisin shrugs in response.

  ‘That sounds more like the Maggie O’Hara I know and love,’ she says. ‘Now, don’t you have a train to catch? Or are your aching loins too exhausted to travel tonight? You can stay, you know?’

  My loins are actually aching but I want to keep riding along on this glow and get home to plan my next move as I follow Lucy’s directions.

  ‘I have a trip to France to plan,’ I say and Roisin’s eyes widen in admiration. ‘And a few other things on her list that I need to tackle. But I’m dancing a bit inside, Roisin, and Lucy said to never stop dancing.’

  ‘You go, girl. I’ve loved seeing you. I’m proud of you, cuz.’

  ‘Thanks, Roisin,’ I tell her and we hug again. ‘I’m kind of proud of me too.’

  I enjoy my thinking time on the train home and I close my eyes and visualise Lucy and her cheeky smile and how her list brought me such energy and excitement on my spontaneous trip to Dublin. I am spreading my wings just like she wanted to. I am travelling. I went dancing. I found a part of me that I had buried away inside – a sense of adventure and wildness that allowed me to just get up and go and follow my heart, instead of always worrying about the what-ifs and what-nots.

  I feel alive inside again. Tiernan Quinn has lit a fire inside me with his music and passion and his ability to bring out an inner glow that I don’t think Jeff ever did.

  Was I just ‘settling for’ something when I met Jeff? Surely not…. was I? On paper, he was the cardboard-cut-out good guy. He had a good job, a respected (if boring) family, a healthy childhood, a five-year plan (that obviously didn’t involve me, after all) and he had no money worries. He was a safe bet. Or so I thought…

  But did he make me dance? No. Did he make me laugh and kick my legs in hysterics on the beach and did he make me scream for mercy in bed like Tiernan Quinn just did?

  No, he didn’t. I deserve better. I deserve to dance. Lucy has taught me that I really do deserve to fill her heart with the best love in the world, not a one-sided plea with a man who probably never really loved me anyway. I know now what it feels like to be so enriched and I will never settle for any less.

  Okay, Lucy Harte. Where are you taking me to next?

  Lucy

  ~ January 1999 ~

  Big news, big news! Massive news! Brilliantly funny news! Are you ready?

  Everyone in our house is going mental apart from me – I am in my room, as usual, trying to avoid the madness and also because if I show my face I know I will laugh at them and if I laugh at them I will be in trouble even more than Simon is now because… are you ready? Are you really ready?

  SIMON GOT A TATTOO!!! A REAL tattoo! The shouting is tremendous! The reaction is priceless! He is in SO much trouble, which makes a big change as around here it’s normally ME who gets into trouble, so I am LOVING it!

  Mum is having a complete meltdown and is threatening to sue the tattooist for breaking the law! Dad is calling a friend, who says he knows someone who knows someone who can remove it but it will cost him loads and Marilyn is literally on her knees saying prayers that he doesn’t catch some life-threatening disease from the needle that was used!

  Henry, my forever loyal little gopher, is reporting back to me at regular intervals with answers to my questions from my safe haven here (if I go down I will have to give my real opinion, which will probably result in me being grounded and I have plans this weekend, so I’m not going to risk it!).

  Here are the things that Henry has been able to tell me so far:

  Simon told the tattooist he was eighteen. He is not eighteen, of course. He just turned seventeen. Cool!

  The tattoo is still bleeding a bit, but Henry thinks it’s of a star and a sun symbol and Henry says that Mum says it looks more like a chicken and an egg. This is too funny!

  The tattoo is on his wrist and Mum is mortified and says at least he can cover it up with a thick watch strap when he goes to church or is out in public or when anyone comes to visit. I love my brother so much!

  He says it cost £20, but Henry heard Simon tell his best friend that it was £120! That’s like a full year of pocke
t money! He is so dead!

  On the upside, our parents are totally unified in their disgust at their eldest child’s decision to mark his body so carelessly at such a young age. This does not happen very often! Normally if my dad says black, my mum argues white, so every cloud has a silver lining.

  Oh, I must pause… here is Henry with an update…

  …..

  I’m back! This keeps getting better!

  It’s not of a star and a sun. It’s not of a chicken and an egg! It’s of a peace symbol and a gun! A gun! Oh! My! God! I think my mum just fainted! She says she will never, ever forgive him, which is ridiculous, but she probably won’t! I think I am going to wet myself laughing! Go Simon, you absolute nut case!

  *Note to Lucy Harte: Don’t be a chicken! Get a tattoo!

  **Note to Lucy Harte: Always forgive your friends & family. People make mistakes!

  Chapter 16

  I sleep a lot on the train journey home and dream that Lucy is mad at me for taking it too far with her precious Tiernan Quinn. I asked him not to text me or call and to just give me time to work out a few things in my head and I feel so bad now for being so cold and, well, for using him to stroke my own ego and make me feel better.

  I text him just as we arrive at Belfast station. I hope I didn’t hurt him. I really do because he did more for me than he will ever know. I haven’t smiled like this in years! Yes, years!

  Tiernan, I have to thank you for the most wonderful day, I write to him. Until our paths ever cross, I will be working on sorting my crazy life out, but I do hope to see you again. I really do. Keep singing! Love, Maggie x

  I feel better for that. At least I am being honest and not flinging myself into some rebound relationship where both of us will end up getting hurt.

  I think of Lucy’s list again and I try to plan my next move. France is the big one, obviously, but getting a tattoo is pretty much up there too. I have always hated tattoos, but after seeing Tiernan Quinn’s tastefully decorated artwork I could be convinced to get maybe a teeny-tiny one in honour of Lucy and it would also remind me of the amazing day Tiernan and I spent together, plus it would remind me at times of the need to be forever grateful for the life that Lucy gave me.