“For your thoughts. Or are they worth a great deal more than that? If so, name a price. You certainly seemed lost there for a minute.”
“Oh,” she said. “I was just thinking.”
“Of what?”
“Nothing important. What’s that music?”
“They’re having a songfest in the town square. Not the competition — that’s tomorrow afternoon and evening. Just a few hardy souls gathering in the rain and singing their heads off.”
“It sounds nearby.”
“Want to have a look?”
“I’d like to.”
“Drink up. We might as well get wet again.”
The singing, as it turned out, was not near them at all. The city fathers had set up loudspeakers throughout the town, and the music was being carried over them. They walked blindly at first, trying to trace the source of the sound, until David stopped a man and obtained directions to the songfest. The rain had let up somewhat, and they walked arm in arm through the narrow streets to the public square. A small stage had been improvised there, and a giant of a man stood in its center, microphone in hand, singing a Republican anthem at top volume.
“This is where you hear the rousing ones,” David told her. “All year long a man will tend his crops and sit in front of his fire and thank the Lord that the war’s over. But give him a festive occasion and a few extra drinks from a jar of punch, and he’ll be ready to lead an army into the Six Counties, and singing his head off about it. Then the next morning it’s back to work again.”
The song ended, and the huge, bushy-haired man introduced a pair of singers from County Monaghan who launched into a driving rock ’n’ roll number made popular by the Beatles. It seemed so out of character to Ellen that she began laughing aloud.
“Just perfect for a folk festival,” she said.
“But that’s the whole point! Don’t you see? Folk music isn’t all neatly labeled and put in a drawer over here. The people aren’t even apt to think of it as a separate category. It’s just music, and anyone’ll sing any songs he happens to like, and at any time. Oh, there are folk-music purists here, I suppose, like anywhere else. And you won’t hear any rock ’n’ roll at the competition tomorrow. But when it’s just a case of a batch of people standing in the rain and singing, anything’s liable to come out.”
She stood beside him, clutching his arm with one hand and her purse with the other. From time to time they chatted easily, then lapsed into equally comfortable long silences while they listened to the music and watched the crowd around them.
“I wish I knew more about you,” he said at one point.
“You know all there is to know.”
“Do I? I don’t know who’s waiting for you back in the States.”
“No one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Only my agent, and his interest is limited to a percentage of my income. Is that the sort of interest you had in mind?”
“No.”
“Then there’s no one.”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly. Do you really want to know more about me?” She shrugged. “There’s very little to know, I’m afraid. Wait, I have an idea...”
“What are you getting at?”
“My passport,” she said, fishing it out from her purse. “This will tell you everything there is to know about me. Age, height, weight, place of birth, color of eyes, color of hair—”
“I already know that.”
“Well, all those vital statistics.” She handed it to him. “Read on and discover the real Ellen Cameron.”
“‘Name, Ellen Cameron,’” he read aloud. “No middle name?”
“They never gave me one. Isn’t that sad?”
“You were deprived. ‘Place of birth, Belvedere, New Hampshire.’ Well, I am learning things, after all. I thought you were a New York girl.”
“Ever since college. There’s not much happening in Belvedere.”
“Are your parents there?”
“Buried there. My father died when I was small — I can hardly remember him — and mother died while I was at school.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Read on, sir.”
“‘Date of birth’ — ah, you’re, let’s see now, twenty-four? A satisfactory age. ‘Height, five feet five inches.’ Just tall enough for the top of your head to fit under my chin. That’s a more romantic way of looking at it, don’t you think?”
“Infinitely so.”
“‘Weight, a hundred and seventeen pounds, five shillings and sixpence—’”
“It doesn’t say that!”
“Well, skip the change, then. Just a good armful, that’s all.” He flourished the passport. “You know,” he said, “I have an idea. A very good idea.”
“Where are you going?”
He moved swiftly through the crowd and vaulted easily up onto the stage. He spoke in an undertone to the bushy-haired giant, who nodded and smiled and handed him the microphone.
“We’re in for a rare treat tonight,” he announced. “A professional folk singer has come all the way from New York City to sing for us. Her name” — he consulted the passport — “is Ellen Cameron. Her place of birth is Belvedere, New Hampshire, and her height and weight are a secret. And now she’s going to honor us with a few songs.”
There was a roar of applause. She shook her head at him, and he beckoned to her, and she sighed, shrugged, and gave in, joining him on the stage. The applause filled the night air.
“I’ll never forgive you for this,” she told him in an undertone. “I can’t sing tonight.”
“Of course you can. You’re among friends.”
“I’m going to have to learn not to trust you.”
“Never trust anyone.”
“I don’t even have a guitar...”
But the man with the bushy hair was presenting her with one, and she took it and curved her fingers over the strings. David slipped her passport into his pocket and dropped lightly down from the stage. “I’ll be listening,” he told her.
“I don’t even know what to sing...”
“Anything you want.”
“Well...”
“Go ahead!”
She set the microphone in its stand, let her fingers toy with the strings of the guitar, and then, at last, began to sing...
“I think I hate you,” she said.
“That’s sad. Because I think...”
“Yes?”
They were walking together down Strand Street toward her hotel. He had lit a cigarette. He passed it to her, and she drew on it, then returned it to him. The singing was still going on, and the loudspeakers made it sound as though the music were bouncing all around them. It was raining lightly again, but she did not mind the rain. She had sung half a dozen songs on the little stage, with the audience eager for more, and she did not really hate him at all, she loved him, and he had almost told her that he loved her, and she thought her heart was going to burst from it all.
“I wonder if it’ll rain tomorrow.”
“Probably,” she said.
“If it doesn’t, maybe we can go to the beach.”
“Is the water warm enough for swimming?”
“I don’t think so, but we can stretch out on the sand and watch the waves. Maybe we could pack a lunch and eat it on the beach.”
“I haven’t done that in ages.”
“Sound like fun?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh...”
“Something the matter?”
“Well, you’ll be needing this sooner or later.” He handed her passport to her. “I almost forgot to give it back to you.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to leave Ireland.”
“No, you’d have to stay.”
I wouldn’t mind, she thought. I wouldn’t mind at all.
At the door of her hotel they stopped and turned to face one another. “I’ll pick you up after breakfast,” he said. “If the weather’s good, maybe we can go down to the beach. We should be able to buy sandwiches at one of the cafés. I’ll bring a blanket to sit on. Or if it’s raining again we can find something else to do.”