I'm Still Standing

by Colleen Coleman

  He widens his eyes. ‘Definitely. There’s a queue snaking around the corner here all evening, and if you don’t get in before ten, you’ve got no chance. So plenty of potential. Good news for us, eh? I think a decent music venue is what people are crying out for. You get tired of seeing the same old scene played out again and again. Nothing like a live gig, best feeling in the world.’ We clink bottles and our heads turn to the acoustic set on stage.

  The longer I spend with Danny, the more time I want to spend with him. This place is exactly what I had I mind for Rosie’s. I knew I could count on him. He gets it, he gets me, and he gets what I want for the pub.

  He leans into my ear so I can hear him. ‘The best new bands cut their teeth here. Often record company guys come to hear the latest sounds, gauge the reception of the crowd – scout the next big thing. Of course, most people just come here to listen.’ We turn our attention back to the stage and watch a new band perform their set.

  ‘What do you think?’ Danny asks me when they’ve finished their first song.

  I blow out my cheeks. ‘Phenomenal stage presence. They’ve got something there, but the lead singer is in the wrong key. He’s in D, it’s too low for him. I think he needs more bass; a saxophone would also lift the middle. The drums need to pull back. A little too much going on in parts, but what a unique sound. I loved it.’

  Danny blinks at me, and an incredulous smile spreads across his face.

  ‘Are you serious? Did you just make all that stuff up?’

  I shake my head. ‘Of course not. I studied music at uni, I picked a few things up.’

  ‘I think you’re spot on. Agree completely. They’re called Supanova. I’ll pass on all your hot tips.’

  ‘You know them?’

  ‘Absolutely. That’s why we’re here. If you like them, we could ask if they’re up for doing the grand opening of Rosie’s.’

  My heart twists in my chest and for a second I imagine what it would be like, what it could be like, to have all these people, this sound, this energy under our roof. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

  He smiles at me. ‘Looks like our market research date is going to pay off.’

  ‘Do you ever play here?’

  ‘Used to.’

  I can tell by the way he slowly lifts his bottle to his lips that it’s not something he wants to get into. He taps his fingers on the bar then looks back at the stage. I close my eyes and listen to the music, breathing in my surroundings, soaking up the bustle and movement of the people – all these glorious strangers swirling around me.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says, when there’s a pause.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Not being pushy.’ He locks eyes with me for a moment.

  I smile. I know exactly what he means. I’ve always found questions difficult, small talk even worse; most people don’t seem to notice when they cross the boundaries of what you want to talk about. At parties, I’d often excuse myself and sneak off to stand outside the back door, or sit on the stairs – anywhere quiet and out of the way – for a breather. Some time out. Often there’d be other people there too, just like me, needing space. And we’d nod at each other and then avert our eyes, busy ourselves inspecting the ceiling or our fingernails with understanding and respectful silence. This was our perfect pause, a sliver of sanctuary, our wordless place.

  When the song ends, we get to our feet, clapping and whistling for more.

  ‘I just love this place,’ Danny calls to me over the crowd. ‘I’ve been coming here for years.’

  ‘So did you grow up in Dublin?’ I ask him when the noise has died down again.

  He nods.

  ‘Which part?’

  ‘All over really, both sides of the river. Me and my twin brother were brought up in care, so from the age of five onwards we got moved around a bit, different foster families, different schools, different care homes, that kind of thing.’

  I don’t know what to say, how to react. This couldn’t be more different from my own upbringing, with a family tree I can trace back hundreds of years within a square mile. Danny looks back up to the band, sensing my self-consciousness.

  ‘I’m hoping that you had some good experiences, but I guess that isn’t always the case,’ I say, circling the rim of my glass with my finger, hoping I’m not asking too much.

  ‘It was all right. My mother was into drugs in a big way, so a neighbour tipped off the police. One day we came in from school and the door had been knocked down. We were swept up out of there and that was the end of that. I don’t remember too much of those early days. But the social workers tried their best for us; they promised they wouldn’t split Rory and me up, and they kept their word on that. So wherever Rory went, I was close behind.’

  ‘What was it like?’

  I get the sense that he wants to tell me. That now that we’re here, in this great new project together, it’s important that I understand and get a sense of who he is beneath the talented musician on the corner.

  ‘It was okay. Some families were great, made you feel like they wanted you there but they couldn’t keep you for various reasons; others were the complete opposite. So I guess you end up putting the bad ones down to experience and hoping the next one will be better, that it might even turn out to be your forever home with your forever family.’

  My heart swells in my chest for the two little boys holding out hope as they were moved from place to place. I know exactly what it’s like to dream about a forever family, to pin your hopes on something and believe that once it comes along, everything else will fall into place.

  ‘Did that ever happen?’ I ask him. ‘Please say it did.’

  He shakes his head, but smiles. ‘I’m still waiting. I haven’t given up on that particular dream just yet.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got that in common,’ I tell him. ‘I was married. I thought I’d have a forever family by now.’

  He raises his eyebrows. ‘And what happened with that?’

  ‘He didn’t want it as much as I did. So it was a deal-breaker in the end. We’re divorced now.’

  ‘A break-up with paperwork. Ouch.’ He nods slowly, like we’re starting to make sense to each other. ‘Is that why you came to Dublin? To start all over again?’

  ‘That was the idea.’ And sitting here with this beautiful man, checking out bands for our brand-new venture, I’d say it was probably the best idea I’ve had in a long, long time.

  Long after the band has finished playing, Danny and I are still deep in conversation.

  ‘Do you ever write your own music?’ I ask.

  He takes a deep breath before he answers. ‘We used to.’

  That reticence again. We used to. Is Danny fresh from a big break-up too? I know better than to push. He’ll tell me if he wants me to know. I take a sip of my drink, give him some space to choose his words.

  ‘Rory and I used to play together. We used to play here. It was right up there that we were picked up by a record company.’ He nods towards the stage.

  ‘Congratulations! To be honest, I’m not surprised. Your voice is incredible.’

  He blushes and waves his hand. ‘Thanks, but Rory was actually the singer. And the songwriter. I was just guitarist and general slave.’

  I am desperate to know why he plays on the street if he had a record deal. What happened? Were they dropped? Did they turn the deal down? And where is Rory? I’ve never seen anyone else playing with Danny on the corner – did the record label take Rory and leave his brother? Again, I wait; if he wants to tell me, I’m sure he will. And if not, that’s his decision, not mine.

  He presses his hands together like a steeple in front of his lips.

  ‘But Rory went and died. So that was that. Rory died and took our world with him.’

  I reach out for his hand. ‘Oh Danny, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Me too.’ He raises his glass and I do the same. ‘To starting over.’ He toasts.

  I nod and throw down my drink in one. And here, half drunk, in the earl
y hours of the morning, with one hand curled around my glass and the other round the fingers of a beautiful, kind and gifted man, I feel overwhelmed, emotional at the way we have found each other. There are so many people in this city, in this world, and somehow I’m sitting across from this one. Somehow, amid this heaving crowd, we’ve managed to catch each other’s eye. And it feels perfectly right.

  He sweeps his thumb over mine. ‘Ready to go?’ he asks. ‘Another big day tomorrow.’

  I nod, and he squeezes my hand and holds it tightly as we push our way against the throng, out into the new dawn light together.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The band is booked. Danny pulled in a favour and Supanova have agreed to play here on our opening night, which is just incredible. The moment word got out, we had people phoning us up wanting to know whether it was true, and we were able to confirm that yes, it’s actually happening. Ruby has agreed to take over our social media campaign, so already the details have been shared all over the country and beyond. She’s a whizz with tech and graphics; already she’s mustered up a couple of hundred followers and created a buzz about our launch, posting old footage she’s found online of bands playing to packed-out crowds, sharing the story of Rosie Munroe and her infamous pub crawl for equality. Yesterday she told me that she even went to an after-school club voluntarily to ask for help building our webpage.

  Danny and I have decided that the only way we are going to get the place really up to scratch is to close the pub for five whole days, Monday to Friday, and have our grand opening on Saturday night. That’ll give us a (very tightly scheduled) chance to refurbish the disused rooms, clean everything out, set it up as we want it and drum up some excitement on local radio and in the newspapers, getting word out that Rosie Munroe’s is under new management and ready to take over the city.

  Tomorrow, our contractors arrive. I’ve had to dip into my savings for all of this. We could do it ourselves, but it wouldn’t be up to standard and it would take a lot longer than five days. So I’ve bitten the bullet and pulled out all the stops. First impressions count, and I can’t afford to get this wrong. If Rosie’s exceeds everyone’s expectations on the first night, then word will spread, our reputation will precede us and I’ll make the money back to cover it. That’s my business plan, basic and built on common sense. Danny has sourced the builders, the electricians, the painters and the plumbers. He’s got us mates’ rates, so I’m hoping we’re going to come in on budget and be completely ready and looking sensational in time for Saturday night, with no last-minute emergencies. Our grand reopening. Which will be exciting. And terrifying.

  Danny and I spend the whole of Sunday cleaning out the back rooms that have been shut off and haven’t seen the light of day for over a decade. We fill a skip with black bin bags of crap just from downstairs. It takes us eight hours straight. Once that’s done, we knock down the thin partition blocking off the old dance hall that Christy mentioned out the back. Just for a little peek, to see if it actually exists or if it was just a figment of his whiskey-fuelled nostalgia. Danny kicks the painted chipboard down with little effort and we step through eagerly.

  Wow, it exists all right. Christy wasn’t making it up. It’s the size of a tennis court. Chandeliers, embossed wallpaper, marble pillars… it blows my mind.

  ‘Speakers,’ Danny says suddenly, snapping me out of my reverie. ‘Stick it on your checklist. We’ll need top-quality sound to fill this space.’

  I gasp, holding my hand to my chest.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asks, concern in his eyes.

  ‘It’s all suddenly getting very real.’ I meet his gaze. ‘I was just picturing what it’s going to be like when it’s finished. I still can’t quite believe we’re doing this. This room! It’s perfect, it couldn’t be more perfect.’

  Danny takes to the centre of the floor and motions for me to join him in a waltz. I step into his open arms and position his hands, one on my waist and one raised in front.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?’ I say, as he treads on my toes for the third time.

  He shuffles backwards and forwards and shakes his head. ‘No clue.’

  So I take his hand in mine and slide my arm along his shoulder. ‘Follow my lead,’ I tell him, and we step out. ‘One two three, one two three, one two three… turn.’

  We sashay and swing around the floor a few more times, Danny picking the steps up very quickly and trying to add his own lifts and improvisations.

  ‘I bet your parents danced like this,’ he says as we slow down.

  ‘They did. My father used to take my mum up to Dublin for weekends when they were first married. They’d go on the train, spend the day at the race track and then go out for dinner and dancing.’ I remember photos of my mother in a party dress dipping backwards in my father’s arms. He used to say he thought there was a lovely charm in meeting somebody this way: inviting them to dance, swaying to the music together, exchanging smiles while the music played – no swiping to the left for these guys.

  ‘You’re quite the romantic,’ I tease Danny. ‘Serenades, waltzes, offers to walk country girls home.’

  ‘Can’t help myself,’ he says, and steps closer to me. From the way he hesitates, I get the impression he’s unsure if it’s okay to come any closer. He’s unsure whether I want him any closer.

  But I do. In this moment, I absolutely do.

  He’s staring at me, contemplating his next move. I want him to just go for it. I bite down on my lower lip and close my eyes. I’m not yet ready to make the first move, but I won’t resist him if he does. I can smell his scent; I can feel the warmth of his chest against mine. We stand motionless, two dancers stuck in a pose, neither sure how to act around the other.

  ‘So how about you, do you consider yourself a closet romantic?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, I don’t think so. Well, maybe. I’m not sure. Once upon a time, perhaps.’ A memory comes flashing into my mind. ‘When I was sixteen, I was asked to go to the graduation ball by a boy in my class. I was so surprised, so taken aback – for lots of different reasons: I’d never been asked out before, I didn’t realise that he’d even noticed me and I’d kind of resigned myself to not going at all.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it wasn’t me somehow. I’d never done anything so public, so exposed like that before, and I never did anything like it afterwards. It’s almost like it happened to someone else. You’d have to know me to understand. I was the kind of girl who wouldn’t go out on a Friday night in case I fell behind in my school work.’

  He laughed. ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘It’s true. I didn’t.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘My mother made me a beautiful dress, my sister did my hair, we took loads of photos before even leaving the house. But when I arrived at the dance hall, a beautiful big gilded room like this, he was with someone else. He had another partner. He’d changed his mind and never bothered telling me.’

  ‘The bastard,’ Danny says. ‘Tell me where he lives, the little shit.’ He tightens his arm around my waist. ‘What did you do? I hope you went and smacked him.’

  I laugh at the thought. ‘I just slipped out the side door. I went to the cinema instead. Sat in the darkened seats all by myself with a big box of popcorn until it was time to go home. And when I got in, my mother and sister were waiting up, excited to hear all about the evening.’

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘I pretended that everything had gone wonderfully, that my date was a perfect gent and that I’d had the best night of my life. They went to bed smiling. And that was a fair enough result for me.’

  ‘Do you mind if I tell you something?’ he asks. ‘I mean, I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  He pauses, choosing his words carefully, I suspect. I’m shitting myself. I have no idea what he’s going to tell me and I promised I’d take it. My stomach drops in dread.

&n
bsp; ‘Well… it’s just when you talk about yourself, it’s almost like you’re talking about someone else. I know you went to university, but not many people study for so long just to then quit their respectable job and work in a pub. You say you’re quiet and shy, but then I see you peel two angry teenagers apart. You say you keep to yourself, but you’ve totally taken Ruby under your wing, giving her your time and your support to help her make something of her life. I guess I’m just trying to figure you out, Evelyn Dooley.’

  I hesitate. I don’t have to explain myself, not to him, not to anyone, but as we sway back and forth in the middle of this silent dance floor, I suddenly realise that I want him to know me – really know me, with all my seeming contradictions. I genuinely care what he thinks, how he thinks. I want to explore him, get inside his head as much as he seems to want to get inside mine. And the only way for that to happen is to be honest, to be open, to tell the truth without shame or apology.

  ‘You’re right,’ I begin. ‘Because I think I am talking about two people. I used to be Evelyn O’Connor, the conscientious wife and teacher, the dutiful daughter. The one who worked all the time. Who went along with what others decided, even what they thought was best for me. But these days, I don’t feel like I’m any of those things any more. Right now, I’m trying to figure out who I really am, and to be honest, I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever find the answer.’

  Danny searches my eyes, a half-smile playing on his lips.

  ‘Everyone feels that way sometimes, but not too many people take action. Not too many people have the guts to change things for the better.’

  ‘You think? I’ve always kind of thought of that as weakness, a failure, like I quit. But the way you say it makes it feel like it was something else, something brave.’

  We continue to sway on in silence before he looks at me again. ‘Good.’

  ‘Good what?’

  ‘You’re starting to see yourself like I see you. And that’s good.’

  He steps back, bows and offers his hand.

  ‘Evelyn Dooley, may I please have this dance?’