Page 3 of Heart Strings
“Your lyrics have been described as ‘poignantly provocative.’ How does it feel to hear that about your songwriting?” The interviewer keeps a straight face, but she’s slowly crossing her legs while she stares at me.
“It’s certainly flattering.” Regardless of how the journalists and DJs goad me, I’ve no literary degree, and no interest in academically dissecting the sexual themes of my own songs during an interview. The music speaks for itself.
“Well, I’m sure your latest muse is very lucky.”
I fidget with the spiral cord of the headphones. We’re broadcasting live across the UK right now, and they want to bring up my ex-girlfriend, approaching the taboo subject deliberately because that’s what listeners theorize about.
“I appreciate that, but I’m afraid a lad’s got to keep some things to himself,” I answer with a wink.
According to my manager, Martin, keeping tight-lipped will add to my “mystique.” The label wants me to cultivate a slightly edgy image. More important, without details on my past relationship, fans can imagine themselves in my songs. A woman all but worshipped by a man, but the two destined to permanently part ways before the last reprise. In some songs, he is a warrior fighting for her. A fool. A lover. In my latest single, he is amarionette, strings pulled in every direction until he is drawn and quartered. But in every song, she is a goddess. Every woman, Martin argues, wants to be loved like that. Loved so hard that her memory alone will drive a man to rip himself apart.
And that’s what I’ve done for the past year while touring forHeaven-Bound. Night after night, city after city: I tear myself open for an audience and enjoy a collective catharsis as we share in that emotion four minutes at a time. And I wonder if Cielo is listening.
“Christ! You’re purestyle,” I say when Fionn answers the front door of our parents’ house wearing a Fair Isle jumper in red and white, Cork’s colors, with Gaelic footballs knit across his chest. He refuses to adopt the Galway jersey.
“Why are you knocking? It’s weird and you’ll offend Mam.”
Although I bought this house, I’ve never lived here. Entering without knocking wouldn’t feel right. Everyone else insists it’s weirder that I don’t simply let myself in through the back door.
“What is that abomination you’re wearing?” I ask.
“Mam has gotten into patterns lately.”
Garish but well-made knitwear is nothing compared to our seventeen-year-old sister’s hobby of ventriloquism. Nine months ago, when I’d last visited, Marie brought out two horrific dummies while my da silently begged me not to say anything negative. Their wooden grins made my skin crawl. So of course, Fionn and Marie teamed up to place them in unexpected spots during my visit. I nearly soiled myself stumbling to the bathroom on Christmas morning half-asleep, only to comeface-to-face with the soulless eyes of one perched on the toilet. Marie, with her angelic smile that has Mam and Da fooled, was the mastermind behind that prank.
My family’s new place is two stories tall and a short walk from a waterfront park. A far cry from the peeling paint and leaking roof of the cottage I was raised in back in Cork, and an even larger departure from the dodgy council flat my family had squeezed into when they first moved to Galway to be closer to Marie’s specialist. After signing with the record label two years ago, one of my first orders of personal business was moving my parents out of that moldering flat. Even after selling our old house and with Da working two jobs, they could barely afford to rent in Galway, with Mam staying home to care for Marie. I’d put my musical ambitions on the back burner then, in favor of a more stable job as a solicitor so I could help out. It feels good to provide for my family.
Mam wordlessly wraps her arms tight around me and gives me a good shake.
Still in his work clothes from the warehouse where he drives a forklift, Da rises from the battered old recliner he’s had since I was a boy and claps me on the back. “Good to have you home.”
“Aye. Missed you, Da.”
Marie bolts down the stairs, prompting Ma to shout, “No running!”
She tackles me with surprising strength for a teenage girl.
“Well, then. Nice to see you, too.” I muss her pixie cut and take a step back to observe the subtle changes since I was here for Christmas. She’d started the new year by chopping seven inches of hair, pleased that it was finally long enough to donate to a wig-making charity. “The jumper’s lovely, too.”
Bright purple knitwear adorned with clowns and elephants swallows up her torso. Marie lost interest in elephants back in third grade and has never shown an affinity for the circus. “Oh, just you wait.”
“I’ve got a surprise for you!” Mam says. “Fionn, will you be a dear and go fetch your brother’s gift from my room?”
The sparkle in Marie’s eyes makes me uneasy as Fionn ascends the stairs and returns with a box. Mam eagerly gestures for me to open it. Music notes, harps, and guitars undulate in alternating stripes across the handmade jumper. It’s the most hideous garment I’ve ever seen—except for Marie’s.
“I made one for everyone,” Mam says proudly.
“What about Da?” Fionn asks. “He didn’t get a jumper.”
“Ach! You’re absolutely right. James, I’ll get started on one for you straightaway.”
Da shakes his head at Fionn. Marie bites the inside of her cheek, trying not to laugh.
“Look at this! It’s lovely.” I lift my jumper out of the box. If I make eye contact with Fionn, he’s going to lose it and hurt Mam’s feelings. She obviously spent loads of time on each one.
“I thought you could wear it onstage. You won’t find quality like this on those high streets in London.” She tugs at the Thom Browne cardigan the label’s stylist sent to my flat a week ago. Other than surprise at its price tag, I don’t have any strong feelings about it. “They couldn’t even be bothered to put stripes on both arms.”
Fionn laughs then stifles it with a cough. Da shoots him a death glare.
