CHAPTER 4
And, of course, we were all there that evening, in the long bar, and it was even better than the year before.

I could write about tunes, I could write about the pink glow in the cheeks of friends who might perhaps have had less beer, but it is images, snapshots, that still come to me, many of them with two manes of red hair, one of them naturally so, thrashing about to the rhythm and pulse. Of Mark, staring intently at his granda for timing, rather than at his lover’s flying legs, Darren with his own eyes closed as his girl’s are fixed on him. Joy, and music, and drunkenness, not stupidly nor nastily, but in the delight of rhythm and life.

After the weekend, these people would be going back to some drone of a job, I couldn’t see the hats and patchwork trousers doing anything but disappearing till the next weekend of music, certainly not coming out for the local pub. There were some, though, the ones with the twinkle, who I knew would be just the same every day of the year. Including Ginny, of course, who would be mad forever. I started to giggle in the middle of the session, and Eric had to slap my back to break my hiccups.

“What?”

“Just imagining Ginny in a bridesmaid’s dress, satin heels, whole shebang. You know, sane”

“Drink your beer, love, some things are best forgotten.”

Two things did astonish me that evening. Firstly, Stewie produced, quite shyly, a woodwind box.

“I wasn’t sure, so I packed it, and…”

I had to laugh. “Stewart McDuff, are you admitting to actually being shy?”

“Well, what the fuck am I supposed to be when I have to live up to you and the hairy monster? I have been practising a bit, just haven’t touched it for years and years”

It was a clarinet, not a good one, but neatly made and well looked after.

“What’s its name, Stewie?”

He gave a sigh. “She never had a name, before, but, well, this is Mel.”

Sally’s face worked for a few seconds, as she fought tears. “Me, Stewie and I , we discussed it, and it just seemed right. It fits, it fits her well. “

I realised Chantelle had come over to look at the new toy.

“Why Mel, Mr McDuff?”

He looked up, and he was older in an instant, all of his fifty-odd years there in his face. His voice, though, was gentle, and I realised finally how much strength really lay behind his calm and controlled manner; I saw why Sally loved him. And for a mad moment I wished he was younger…no.

“She was a friend, little darling, my best friend, and she didn’t make it. She met some of the same people you did, and I wasn’t there to save her. That is why Steph, and my wife, all of your friends here, that is why we do our best to see there are no more Melanies.”

He held out a hand, and she took, it, which amazed me.

“Shan, you do know we are all here for you, don’t you, that anyone who tries to hurt you has to get past us?”

She nodded, a little uncertainly.

“I will tell you, I find Ginny scary, me, and I am supposed to be the scary one”

There was a smile there. “You ain’t scary…”

Oh, Shan, I had never met anyone who frightened me more than Stewie. You just need to learn how to look. Could she see the important thing? She was inside, and he was scary outwards. He grinned.

“Glad to hear it! Now, want me to make myself look stupid?”

She laughed. “Yeah, go on!”

And at a pause after the next tune, he launched into the simplest piece from the festival book, Winster Gallop, and his reed squeaked a couple of times, but Jimmy, Darren and Steph kept the rhythm ticking along, and I could see the glee in his eyes as he settled into being in the music and not beside it.

I can’t stress that enough. Making music is a fundamental human activity, as crucial for our soul as making love, It is one thing to hear something that lifts the heart and chases the dragons, it is another to make yourself part of that joy. People need to react to music, to nod, tap, dance, and those of us with that little extra sensitivity want to do more, to make that sound at least partly ours, Some of us can, some of us, like Ginny, dance and spin. Stewie was a musician, though he didn’t realise it yet. He had that gift of recognising a key and fitting to it, he felt the rhythm and swing of the tune, all he needed was to get his fingers to do what his heart wanted.

And that was the second high spot, when Jimmy produced his own instrument case and Steph squealed like a teenager.

“You brought IT!”

I had no idea at the time what IT was, but it looked a bit like a fiddle, and a bit like a trilobite, and it made an amazing sound that reminded me of Mark’s pipes. Apparently, it was a Hardanger fiddle, and Steph was drooling. I distinctly heard someone with a trombone tell a friend “Fuck, mad Ginge has got the oddity again”

A huge, long bar, full of people playing several different tunes in several different groups, and one woman stands up with some odd collection of wires and wood, and silence spreads out in waves from her.

“Annie, you and me, I need some counterpoint. Japanese wails, and then Wild Hills?”

Mark nodded. “Want me to join in later?”

“Be good, love. I’ll hit some long Gs, yeah, as a nod”

Wet the lips…blow…tense that bit more, pull in the embouchure, FEEL the overtones and let the wildness out through Saburo. The flute equivalent of the rock guitar feedback scream…let her in with the tune, hair everywhere, have to keep growing mine, the Norwegian thing making a sound I want to cream my knickers to, it is that visceral, and then there’s Jimmy, filling the melody with me as Steph tears the dots apart and makes the tune hers.

Long and repeated Gs on the top string, and Mark hits the wail button himself, and his pipes target the same raw spots that Steph has torn open, and three of us drive the basic tune along as he explodes with staccato ornamentation, and then I get the nod, and yet again I feel, I KNOW, that this is all I was born for, to be human, to be a musician, and nothing can ever be wrong, anywhere, when things feel, sound, this good…

Oh shit. Eric is grinning at me. “I am so glad you remember me sometimes, love”

And then there is a sudden burst of applause, and the trombone player is saying to Steph, as he hands her a pint “Fuck me, girl, you made this place your own years ago, and now you are breeding them.!”

He turned to me and Mark. “Bloody good, you are, just leave the brass section alone, yeah? Pint?”

I grinned back. “There’s rather a lot of us to buy beer for!”

His grin was bigger. “Barman’s fucked off, beer’s free”

“Cheap round, then! Go on, aye?”

Off he went, with a wink, and I felt Shan at my shoulder. She laid her arms round my shoulders as I sat, and squeezed. “Thank you, Annie”

“What for? Just playing some tunes, aye?”

“No…iss more, yeah? Kelly, she says, I just gotta let go, yeah, dance, lahk… Ginny does, yeah, but not what I want”

I grinned at her. “Shan, I understand, aye? Ginny loves the music, but she doesn’t think she can make it, aye? You, you want to be in it, don’t you?”

The shyness was back. “Yeah…but…”

“But you don’t know how to play, aye?”

“Aye….yeah”

“Did Daz? He just found something that spoke to him, and he’s got very good, aye? It’s feeling the music first, only then finding what works for you. Look at Stewie, is he really good?”

She had the grace to lower her voice. “He’s OK…lahk”

“Was he smiling when he was playing?”

She brightened “Yeah”

“Then that is the key. Everyone here likes to hear good music, most of them like to play, aye, and some of them can REALLY play, but they all have a smile here. Shan, you might be a dancer, you might be a singer, you might be anything, and your mums will help you find it. But you will always be you, aye?”

“Kelly says she’ll help me learn the dancing…”

“Shan, whatever works for you. It might be dance, it might be any instrument, I’ve said that, aye? Just remember one thing”

“Woss that?”

“This is a family band, aye? No soloists here, you included. Happy rebirthday, Shan”

A hug, a kiss on the cheek. “Happy rebirthday, Annie. Love you”

And she was off to her boy, and my man awaited me.