Chapter 8: Tint, Shade and Hue

Figuring that the ‘warmest’ part of the day was passing, Lara suggested that if we still wanted to swim, now was the time. Tommy had not forgotten the offer and eagerly agreed, not put off by the frigid air temperature. We put away our guitars and returned to the house to don bathing suits. It was admittedly a bit odd, since Lara and I never did so; pulling jeans over the trunks felt completely alien.

Lara had a giant stack of towels in her arms when we met up in the living room. Muireann still looked very uncertain about all this, though whether for her own well-being or Tommy’s I couldn’t tell. As we trudged up to the pool, Tommy was as gregarious as his sister was silent. Then again, perhaps the same could be said about me, I realized, as Lara provided most of the conversation with Tommy.

Once at the pool, Lara wasted no time in disrobing to her bathing suit. Tommy joined her as Muireann helped him keep his balance. I moved a little more slowly, unsure of what to do. I killed a few moments by clearing some debris from the area where the brook departed from the pool, allowing the water to sing a little louder. Then I took my time at removing my coat, feeling like Muireann wasn’t going to go through with this after all. I wasn’t willing to let her be left out of both the music and the swimming.

“Aren’t you coming in?” Lara asked, glancing at both Muireann and me.

“I don’t know. I’m kind of feeling a bit chilled today,” I said. “Not sure if I can handle the cold, now that I’m out here.”

Lara looked at me oddly, but then shrugged. “Muireann?”

“I think I may wait for warmer weather,” she replied.

“Looks like it’s just us, lass,” Tommy said with a grin, even as he rubbed his exposed arms and chest to keep warm. “Feck, it’s cold!”

“Tommy!” Muireann warned.

“What? It’s not like they’ve haven’t heard a bad word in their day. And besides, you’re the one going on about how cold it is all the time.”

“It’s fine,” Lara said, taking his hand. “Just save some curse words for when you get out.”

“I’m sure I can find a few more!”

Muireann just sighed as Lara walked him to the muddy beach and they quickly slipped into the waters.

“Oh, this is brilliant!” he cried out as the warmth crept up his body until he was neck deep in the unexpected waters. “You two have to come in!” he called to us.

“Not today.” I put my coat back on. “But enjoy it!”

As he turned to Lara to chat and carry on a bit, I moved closer to Muireann.

“Freezing yet?” I asked her.

She gave me a wan smile. “Since we got here! It’s not my favorite thing, very cold weather.”

“You should have applied to a family in the Caribbean,” I joked.

Her expression grew apologetic. “Oh, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know. Don’t worry, though. By the end of June, it starts to feel like winter is over.”

She gave me an exasperated look.

“I was just kidding. April or May, more like. Do you want to go back to the house?”

She glanced at the pool. “You can swim. Don’t worry about me.”

“Nah, I’m good. Lara’s more into freezing herself than I am.”

She sniffed. “I just hope they don’t catch cold.”

“Yeah, well, they’ll be fine. They have double the towels now.”

Muireann pulled her coat tighter around her neck. “Aye, that is true.”

“Come on, no point suffering out here. We can warm up by the fire.”

After a last hesitant glance at Tommy, she nodded.

“We’re going back down to the house,” I called out.

Lara gave me the thumbs up as she kept talking to Tommy.

“Don’t stay in too long!” Muireann added.

“We won’t. Hey, can you move the towels to that stump there?”

Once we’d accommodated the request, Muireann and I headed down to the house.

“So you said it doesn’t really get this cold where you live.”

“No, not nearly,” she replied.

“Strange, since you’re further north, or it looked like it from the map anyway.”

“We are more north, but we have the water all around us.”

“True. Montauk is never as bad as it is here. Hardly even freezes down there, I think.”

“Sounds like back home.”

“I guess if you get tired of the weather here you could go live with Heather for a bit!”

Muireann giggled. “You laugh, but I might have to do that!”

“We have plenty of firewood, so if you’re ever cold just let me know and I’ll crank up the stove. Or the thermostat, if I’m feeling lazy!”

“Thank you, but I’ll be okay. It’s the first day, so I’ll get used to it.”

“For sure. I really liked your song, on the violin. You said it was an air?”

“Aye, something I learned recently.”

“Did you learn on your own, or do you take lessons?”

“I take lessons, from a couple of people in the area. We have a long tradition of fiddle music in Donegal. But much of it we learn just by playing together.”

“So you call it a fiddle then?”

“Aye, usually.”

“Okay. Tommy said you play together a lot. Like, do you do shows?”

“No, not too often. More often we go to sessions, where people gather to play in groups. At houses or pubs, usually, or at festivals.”

I glanced at her lip piercing. “Like the one where your mom drove away?”

She gave me a sidelong look. “Aye, like that.”

Upon reaching the house, I opened the door and gestured for her to enter.

“Oh, thank you.”

“So do you have a band then, that you play with at the pubs or wherever?”

“No, it’s just whoever comes. We sit in a circle and play.”

“Like you go around and everyone does a song?”

“No, we all play together.”

“How do you all know what to play?” I asked, as I set two chairs before the furnace.

“It’s a bit different than songs, like you do. Most everyone knows the melodies, so we all play it together at the same time.”

“So like ten people will play that air with you?”

She smiled apologetically. “No, not for airs. Oh, I’m not explaining this very well, I’m sorry!”

“It’s cool, I’m just wondering what it’s like. It was such a different sound. I really liked it.”

She made an appreciative gesture and sat in the chair.

“Let me get this blaze going again,” I said. I collected some kindling and soon had the stove on its way to getting hot again.

Muireann took off her coat. “When someone does an air or sings, they usually do so on their own. But the other tunes, the faster ones, we all play together.”

“That’s neat. Must be an awesome sound, a bunch of fiddles sounding at the same time.”

“It is. I do love it, being at a session. I try to go as often as mam lets us.”

“Is she a musician too?”

Muireann held her hands out near to the stove. “A little, but she prefers to listen. And gossip over a pint, mostly.”

I laughed. “That’s cool. Tommy said you don’t really play his songs?”

She looked down at the floor. “No, I do. But not anywhere outside of the house.”

“Why not at the sessions? You said people sing?”

She spread her hands. “The sessions are mainly for traditional music. It’s different than what he writes, which is more modern, like folk or rock.”

“Oh, I see. So at the sessions people sing like, local songs?”

“Aye, like that,” Muireann agreed.

“Do you sing?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“I do, but it’s not like Lara or Tommy.”

“Well, as long as it’s better than my lame croaking, then that’s fine!”

She giggled at my remark. “I wouldn’t call it that.”

“What songs do you sing?”

“The traditional ones mostly. Not like Tommy’s.”

“That’s really cool. Like, I don’t know any songs from the area here. I don’t even know if something like that exists.”

“Maybe.”

“I guess it’s more of a tradition in Ireland.”

“Perhaps it is,” Muireann agreed.

“Cool. Are you warming up yet?”

“Aye, thank you. This stove is incredible.”

I threw another log onto the blaze. “Yeah, but watch out, because we’ll keep moving our chairs back, and in a few minutes we’ll be on the other side of the room down to our bathing suits after all!”

“I believe it!” she said, even as she pushed her chair back and took her hat off.

“So if the four of us made a band, would you play? Or sing?” I ventured.

Muireann glanced at me before returning her gaze to the orange maw of the stove. “I don’t know ... I don’t know how to play that music.”

“I’m sure you would. There must be something we can do together!”

“Maybe. It’s not that I don’t like it. Your song was fantastic. But I don’t know what I could add to it.”

“Well, maybe as we play more, we’ll find something that works. I’d say we can play some of your music from Ireland, but me and Lara wouldn’t know the first thing about that. I’m guessing people don’t show up to these sessions with electric guitars, huh?”

Muireann chuckled. “No, they’d be shown the door, at least by the old-timers. They can be rather strict. I suppose that’s rubbed off on me a little, though. Keeping the traditions going.” She glanced at the door. “Should we go check on them?”

“They’re probably fine. I bet they’ll be back soon.”

“Okay.”

“What do the old-timers think of your lip piercing?” I asked.

Muireann smiled a little. “It was the talk of the sessions for a time. But what can they do? They still let me play, despite it.”

“Maybe they realize that they need younger people to carry on the traditions,” I remarked.

She looked at me acutely, nodding. “Aye, indeed they do. I don’t know why, but I have a real ... connection with the music of my home. It has everything for me. It is the saddest and most beautiful and most uplifting music you’ll ever hear.”

“Hmm, that sounds amazing.”

“I think it is,” she said, as she pushed her chair back a little further. “It is getting warm!”

“Told you,” I said.

She smiled at me. “Perhaps I won’t have to move in with Heather. I’ll just make friends with the stove here.”

“There you go!”

“Look, here they come,” Muireann said. The touch of relief in her voice turned into a scold, though. “Oh, Tommy, walking back in his swim trunks!”

The pair of swimmers hurried through the back yard, draped with towels, Tommy hanging on Lara’s arm. It wasn’t long before they piled in through the back door.

“Woo, it’s cold!” Lara exclaimed.

“Come get warm!” I invited, and they wasted no time in doing so.

Both of them looked invigorated and clearly Tommy had enjoyed the swim.

“This will be the death of you, Tommy,” Muireann said.

“You sound like Mam,” he retorted.

“I do not. You’re not used to this cold, like Matt and Lara are.”

“And the best way to get used to it is dive right in! That was awesome, really.”

Muireann made a face at me, mouthing the word ‘awesome’ with a roll of her eyes.

I grinned foolishly. “Uh, that’s probably my fault, sorry...”

After an early dinner, we retreated to the cabin to play some more music.

“So Matt said you have some other songs you’re working on?” Tommy asked Lara as he checked the tuning of his guitar.

“I do. They’re not finished yet, but getting there.”

“Let’s have one then. Maybe we can make something of it now.”

Lara shrugged and pulled the folded set of papers out from her pocket. “I have two I’m working on,” she said as she separated a pair of pages. She handed one to Tommy. “Here, see what you think.”

“Are you sure about that, lass? We might be here all day.”

He laughed while Lara turned beet red.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry!” she cried. “I—”

“You’ll get used to me soon enough,” he said good-naturedly. “I appreciate the confidence, though!”

“I don’t know what I was thinking. Well, I wasn’t thinking. I’m really sorry!”

“Less apologizing and more reading of the lyrics!”

Lara settled down and looked at the sheets. “All right, here’s one that me and Matt started on a few days ago. Well, we only had the chorus at that point, but...”

“Four Days, right?” I confirmed, as I took up my guitar.

“Yeah. I wrote a bit more since. So the first verse goes: You touched me with fire ... Struck the match ... Set me up to melt ... There was a time when it burned right through ... Now I’m not allowed to think of you... “

As Lara half-read and half-sang, I remained still. She sure wasn’t going to pull any punches with her lyrics, it seemed. I could only hope that Pete would be enough of a decoy as far as the subject of her songs went.

“Then there’s like a different section, but not sure all the words yet. Something like, Now I watch you float away ... Getting further on the bay ... Blue eyes fading into gray skies ... But still I know why... “

Does Pete have blue eyes? I wondered how many more verses it would take for someone to start wondering what Lara really meant. But damn, her singing was getting to me, prying at the edge of my mask and letting feelings seep out that we’d promised to stow away. The lyrics seemed as if to come from my own mind. I shivered.

“And then the chorus. Matt, do you remember what you figured out for it?”

I snapped out of my thoughts and recalled the guitar chords I’d worked out. After a couple quick corrections, I had it again. Lara sang the chorus with me and then set the paper down.

“Something like that,” she said, smiling. “That’s all I have. I need another verse at least, obviously.”

“Aye, but that’s a good start to a good song,” Tommy said.

“The lyrics in that middle section aren’t quite what I want.”

“Is it like a boat?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“The ‘floating away’ part.”

“Oh, uh, sure, I guess. You know, like drifting apart.”

“When I look at a boat, I just see the wake,” Tommy said. “The triangle of water behind it.”

“Hmm...” Lara pondered.

“How about, The wake cuts through the bay?“

“That’s kind of cool,” she said. “Yeah, I like that image.”

“We can play with it later, if you’d like.”

“Definitely,” Lara agreed happily.

“What’s the other song?” Muireann asked.

“It’s even less worked out and probably dumb. Just a silly idea I had. I need to work on it more before sharing it.”

“Is it the one you sang on the other day, in the snow?” I asked.

Lara glanced at me, smiling apologetically. “Oh, no, that was just a silly little thing.”

“I thought it was cool.”

“Well, I don’t even remember that anymore. This is something new.”

“What’s it called?” Tommy asked.

Lara hesitated, glancing at me. “Oh, um ... I’m not sure yet.”

I was looking at the other paper that sat on the couch between us, and shivered. Written at the top was a clear title. Masks.

“But never mind, it’s hardly anything yet,” Lara added, quickly folding up the papers and returning them to her pocket. “Let’s play something. Muireann, where’s your violin?”

“Oh, it’s over there. Please, go ahead. I like to listen to you sing.”

Lara shrugged and then looked at me. “What should we do?”

“I vote for Tommy’s song or keep working on Please Don’t. That was sounding cool before the swim.”

“I can show you my song,” Tommy agreed. “Lass, maybe you can sing along on the chorus?”

“Um ... I can try, but—”

“Here, write down the words.”

As Tommy dictated the chorus of his song to Lara, I meandered over possibilities for putting a band together. The Nameless... Is it worth convincing Lara to tolerate Pete for the sake of keeping the music going? But it was too complicated, really. How would three guitars work? And how would Muireann ever fit in to that? I was still put out by Carl’s strange behavior, particularly with respect to Pete, Jonah and the redhead. Besides, I wasn’t sure how Tommy and Carl would get along. Either swimmingly, or they’d be at each other’s throats, I figured; neither of which was particularly appealing.

No, those guys weren’t the answer, unless it was to steal Bruno away to play bass with us. Awkward as hell, that... My mind shifted to Colin. That also meant three guitars. But he’d come over to play bass the other night. Maybe—

“Hello?” Lara was nudging me.

“Huh? What?”

“Do you want to learn the song?”

I looked at Tommy and Muireann, both of whom were smiling at me.

“Sorry. I was lost in thought.”

“Lost in outer space, more like,” Lara corrected. “What were you thinking about?”

I shrugged. “Just wondering if Colin wants to play bass with us.”

“Oh ... Hmm. That could be fun.”

“Colin’s the lad with the Jeep?” Muireann asked.