THOMPSON
An extract from
Ella’s scuba-diving instructor, Ferdia, turns out to be a man of many talents…
The fiddler who’d greeted Ferdia handed
him a fiddle and a bow with an air of casual camaraderie. Ferdia took the
instrument from him, rose to his feet, ran an experimental bow across the
strings and began deftly to tune up. Then, with a slow, sexy slur of an
introduction, he launched into ‘Tom Ward’s Downfall’.
Ella sat there with her mouth open. She simply could not believe what she
was seeing! Ferdia MacDiarmada was good!
The initial long, teasing way he’d stroked the instrument with his bow
accelerated almost immediately into more conventional jig time. The fingers
of his left hand flew up and down the board of the instrument as fast as the
wings of the hummingbird she’d seen in Salamander Cove. His right hand
manipulated the bow with assurance, the short, light strokes coaxing a
flurry of notes from the belly of the fiddle. The bodhrán joined him now,
setting feet tapping involuntarily, then the whistle, another fiddle, the
pipes – and they were off!
The crowd was in rollicking form, punctuating the rhythm of the jig with
whoops and yells of enthusiasm and encouragement. Bodies swayed in time to
the music: hands were clapping, heads nodding, fingers beating time on
tabletops. Faces – most of them red with Guinness and heat and excitement –
were smiling, foreheads were sweating, camaraderie mixed with the fug in the
air. The music gained momentum, racing towards the finale. And now the
spoons were in there, frantically stirring the frenzied crescendo that
announced the final phrases.
After Ferdia’s bow had slid across the string, producing that last, long
note, there was a momentary silence. Then the crowd whooped again, and
showed their appreciation with claps and cheers and whistles. The applause
was well-deserved. And hard-earned, thought Ella, noticing the sweat on
Ferdia’s forehead and the stains that were spreading under his arms.
The audience finally settled down, and Ella turned to Richie to voice her
astonishment that this man was a master fiddler as well as a master diver.
What a dark horse he was proving to be! But Richie was no longer there. She
searched the room with her eyes until she saw him standing in the opposite
corner, talking to Richie. Ferdia turned and looked at her with interested
eyes, then beckoned her over. Ella rose and wove her way between the tables,
drawn across the room as if there was a compass in her heart and Ferdia was
north.
‘Richie told me you play,’ he said, when she drew level with him.
‘I do.’
‘Trad or classical?’
‘A bit of both.’
‘Play a tune with us, then.’ Ferdia indicated a fiddle case on the shabby
vinyl banquette next to him. It was obviously a spare kept in reserve for
any visiting players.
‘What are you going to play next?’
Ferdia consulted with the geezer who’d handed him the fiddle earlier. ‘“Toss
the Feathers”,’ he said. ‘Do you know it?’
This was perfect!
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Well,’ said Ferdia. ‘Let’s see you rip this joint, Ella.’ His eyes as he
handed over the instrument had that incredibly flattering interest in them
again, but there as a challenge there too. She felt that small animal in the
pit of her stomach curl up again: but this time it curled up even tighter.
Ella took the fiddle. It was an old one – she could tell from the scars on
the rosewood – but a little beaut, with a tiny flower wrought in
mother-of-pearl on the tailpiece. She ran expert eyes over the board and
then raised the body of the violin to her face, pressing the patinated wood
against her cheek for an instant, checking it out like a cat before tucking
it under her left arm. Then she took a couple of steps backwards, distancing
herself a little from the rest of the group. She wanted to hold back for the
first couple of bars until she felt comfortable with the other musicians’
form.
One. Two. Three. Ferdia’s bow swept over the strings, and the music surged
out. Whistle and bodhrán were in like Flynn, and then it was the piper’s
turn to elbow out the melody. One two three, four five six; one two three,
four five six…
Ella started to move. It was impossible not to. She began by swaying almost
imperceptibly, but as the tune got livelier and the rhythm became more and
more insistent, she found herself swaying with more abandon. Then the fiddle
was tucked under her chin, her left hand was supporting the fingerboard and
her right hand was poised at an elegant angle, ready to let the bow hit the
strings. Still she waited. When the next opportunity to jump in – in between
phrases – presented itself, she grabbed it with both hands.
Ferdia turned round. For a split second he appeared a bit fazed at seeing
her there, and then a smile spread over his face as he watched her settle
into the swing of things. She smiled back. It was a smile of pure delight,
but there was complicity there too. They were smiling the kind of smile that
is shared between two strangers who have suddenly discovered that they speak
the same language.
Her head was held proudly as she wielded the bow to and fro, back and forth
across the strings, and she felt possessed by a wonderful sense of power.
This was the power of music: this was the power exerted by the tradition
that had been handed down from generation to generation of Irish. Once upon
a time, every household in the country would have had a fiddle, house
sessions would have been commonplace, and the people would have played and
danced – jigs and reels and hornpipes – till dawn. This was the finest,
fastest, sexiest music in the world!
Ella shut her eyes and felt the notes she was creating flow out of her,
diving under the carved wooden bridge into the belly of the instrument,
bouncing in a wave off the back and flooding out through the carved
arabesques. She smiled to herself as the music took hold of her and
transported her effortlessly into the realms of embellishment. This was
where you strutted your stuff and displayed your virtuosity! This was where
you improvised and cut notes with deft fingers and showed off with triplets!
She could tell by the vibe emanating from the other musicians that they were
all having a blast; her smile grew broader and behind her closed lids her
eyes grew dreamier as she lost herself in the magical maze of the music.
And when she returned, minutes later, Ferdia was still watching her, with
something new in his eyes that she had never seen there before. There was
respect there, the respect that one peer feels for another. But there was
more. There was also a gleam that was unmistakable, and it was the gleam of
very, very strong sexual attraction. Oh God! Yes! She had hooked him! And
she had done it without recourse to any wiles, any pretence, any stupid
game-playing. She bit her lip to stop her smile becoming any broader, and
looked back at Ferdia with challenge in her eyes as she treated him to a
sample of ornamentation that sounded effortless, but was actually
breathtakingly elaborate. He responded by moving nearer, echoing the notes
she’d just played to prove that he could match her. She tried something
else. A whole sexy galaxy of starry notes shimmered out of the instrument.
Again he answered her, with an extra dollop of embellishment to ice the
musical cake.
But the next few phrases, the ones that anticipated the climax, were all
hers. She outclassed him, playing without thinking. Now it was she who was
in charge! The laughter and naked admiration in Ferdia’s eyes told her that,
and he stepped back and surrendered centre stage to her. Ella swayed, every
fibre of her being responding to each note of the bodhrán’s beat, still
looking at him, and still smiling. She felt as if the animal inside her –
the one that had been wound taut as the G-string on her violin – had
uncurled, stretched like a panther, and found its voice at last. The final
exultant phrase came. And then the last drawn-out shuddering note as Ella
drew her bow down over the singing strings and let her right arm drop to her
side.
Again there was that electric moment of silence before the crowd rose to
their feet and roared their appreciation. Ella stood there breathing hard,
her face slicked with sweat, her hair sticking to her forehead. There were
damp patches on her tight cotton T-shirt, and she was still wearing that
blessed-out smile. She looked positively post-coital. As she lifted her jaw
off the hard edge of the chin-rest and shook her hair back over her
shoulders, she became aware of Ferdia advancing towards her. He stood for a
moment, looking down at her, and then he bowed his head until it was on a
level with hers. The crowd went even wilder, thinking he was going to kiss
her. But his mouth went to her ear, not to her lips. For a second she was
bewildered by the warm sound of his voice in her ear. She, too, had been
preparing herself for a kiss from him – a kiss that was simply the
inevitable finale to what had just gone down on the makeshift stage in the
dingy pub. And then she registered what he was saying.
His voice was trickling into her ear like the sweetest honey. Acacia blossom
honey. Or dripping clover. ‘I am going to make you come,’ he was saying.
‘And come. And come. I am going to make you come like you have never come
before in your life, and I am going to do it now. Get your coat.’
Ella thought she was going to swoon. In a daze, she made her way through the
crowd, too muzzy with sexual arousal to be able to acknowledge the
compliments that came her way. She reached the chair where she’d left her
suede jacket and slung it over her shoulders, not bothering with the
sleeves.
Just as she and Ferdia reached the door of the pub, it swung open violently.
A white-faced garda pushed his way into the room. ‘Jesus, Ferdia – thank
Christ you and the boys are here. Can you get kitted up ASAP? A car’s gone
off the road into the Salt Lake. We need divers down there now.’
© 2005 Kate Thompson
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