The melody in our hearts (2 page)

 
Part One - How it all began

~
One
~

*** July 26, 1993 ***

It was a rainy late-July afternoon. Valerie was thirteen at the time and, like all students in Ireland, she was off school for the summer break. A group of school friends had gone shopping in the city, while she had been cooped up in her room all day doing her homework, as she preferred books to shopping. This was another reason why she never seemed to fit in with them and was always considered “the weird girl.”

She got off the window sill, where she had been sitting for the past hour reading the same paragraph over and over again without being able to concentrate. She put the book on her desk, thinking she would try again later. Her parents were at work; Marie, her older sister, was probably sitting in a café somewhere in the city center with one of her awful friends, and Valerie felt a sudden desperate need for company. There was only one person who would surely be happy to see her, and she knew he would lift her spirits: Her Grandfather Paddy, who lived with Grandma Maureen in the basement apartment. Unlike Marie, who hardly ever visited him, Valerie loved spending time with him, and she often went downstairs after school and sat on the old leather couch, listening to his stories while having tea and homemade biscuits.

Her favorite was the story about the war and how he had met his best friend, Thomas Wyler, an American soldier who had rescued him during one of the last battles in Italy and who had gone back with him to Ireland after the war was over. After a few weeks though, Thomas had fallen in love with an Irish girl and had settled in Dublin, passing on his great passion for jazz and swing music to Paddy, who had by then become his best friend. Grandpa Paddy had later passed on his passion for music to Valerie; as she was growing up, he would play his old records and tell her things about the big musicians, like Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Louis Armstrong. By the age of ten, she already knew them better than any of the members of the boy bands that were so popular for her generation. Most of her school friends made fun of her, thinking she was a weirdo for listening to such old music, but she never minded too much: She had come to love the sound of the piano, the trumpet, and the clarinet, and she enjoyed listening to her grandfather’s old records, pretending she was somewhere cool, like New Orleans, wearing a Charleston dress and dancing to the sound of a Sinatra song.

Valerie wondered if her Grandpa would tell her some nice stories today, or if he would simply play some old records and drink tea. As she opened the door to the basement apartment, she almost bumped into him, all dressed up and ready to go out.

“Hello Valerie,” he said, smiling. “Are you here to see me?”

She nodded. “I was getting bored up there in my room. Are you going out, Grandpa?”

He put on his hat and nodded, looking for an umbrella in the closet behind the door.

“I’m going to the Club,” he said, closing the closet door and looking at her. “Would you like to go with me?”

She stared wide-eyed at him: She had never been allowed to go to the Music Club, the jazz and swing club her grandfather and Thomas had founded soon after the war was over. Her mother had always said she was too young and that she should spend time with her friends, rather than with a bunch of old men reminiscing about the good old days.

Sure, her mother would be mad if she knew she had gone to the Club with Grandpa, but she was bored, her mother was at work, and after all, Grandpa wasn’t a child. He would take care of her and wouldn’t let anything happen.

“Mum wouldn’t want me to go,” she said nevertheless, well aware that she would be in trouble if her mother found out.

“But would
you
want to go?” he asked, smiling cheekily. “She’s not here after all. What she can’t see can’t hurt her. Besides, what else would you be doing on a day like this? I thought you were getting bored all alone up there!”

“Wouldn’t we be in trouble?” she asked, even as Grandpa was already out of the door, waiting for her.

He smiled. “I may be old, my child, but I’m still her father, and I will take care of her in case she gets mad, don’t worry. Come on, go get your coat now.”

She nodded and ran upstairs, needing no second bidding.

As they walked down the road, she barely maintained a walk as her overwhelming excitement encouraged her to take off running. She always had to stop and wait for her grandfather to catch up to her.

When they finally reached the building where the Club was, she could barely stand still while she waited for somebody to open the door.

The crowded room was warm and music was playing; she immediately recognized “
Moon River
,” and she closed her eyes for a second, savoring the moment.

She scanned the room and saw mainly old people chatting and drinking, but then, at the far end of the room next to the record player, she saw a boy. He stood out amidst all those old people as he was browsing through the records, and she thought how nice it was that she wasn’t the only teenager who liked old music after all. It sort of made her feel less weird.

She pulled on her grandfather’s sleeve to catch his attention.

“Who’s the boy over there?” she asked him, pointing toward the young man.

Her grandfather squinted, trying to see who she was talking about, and then he nodded.

“That’s Ryan, Thomas Wyler’s grandson. I think he’s about your age. You’ll like him; he’s a good boy. He comes here quite often.”

He looked over and waved at Thomas, and Thomas smiled; he nudged his grandson and said something to him, then they walked toward Paddy and Valerie.

Some couples were dancing in the middle of the room, so Thomas and his grandson had to zigzag across the room to reach Paddy and Valerie. When they finally made it, Thomas took Valerie’s hand, smiling.

“Valerie! Bless my soul, you’ve grown up so much! I haven’t seen you in a while, but maybe it’s you growing up so fast while I just keep getting older!”

She smiled sheepishly and shook hands with him.

“Here, let me introduce you to my grandson, Ryan,” Thomas said. “He loves music just as much as we do, which is weird for a boy his age.”

“Hello,” she said shyly, suddenly feeling embarrassed.

He was a good-looking guy, with hazel eyes and dark brown hair. A forelock hid half his brow, almost covering his left eye; he was taller than her, and she could see his body was quite toned for a boy his age.
He must be an athlete
, she thought, and she wondered what school he went to and why she had never noticed him in town. Surely her sister, Marie, would notice a guy like that, but she wasn’t like Marie, she reminded herself. She wasn’t that interested in guys, not like her sister seemed to be lately.

He looked at her and smiled a crooked smile.

“Hi, what’s up? Nice to meet you,” he replied.

He had a weird accent; Thomas was American, so Ryan must have somehow picked up his grandfather’s accent, and she thought it was cute.

“So, Ryan, now you have someone your age you can chat with. Have fun, you guys,” Thomas said and nudged Paddy, pulling him away.

Valerie didn’t feel totally at ease and wished her grandpa hadn’t left her. She had always been a shy girl, and now she had been left alone with a boy who probably didn’t want to spend time with a girl he didn’t know.

He looked at her and motioned toward the records.

“Fancy playing some old records? I understand your grandpa’s brought you here ‘cause you like old music, right?” She nodded, somehow relieved that he didn’t seem to mind having been left to babysit. “Cool, let’s go. Oh, and mind the dancers; they don’t really care about stepping on other people’s feet.”

He grinned, and she suddenly felt at ease, as if that smile had erased all of her fears. Maybe she would have fun there after all.

“I like your accent,” she said, after a while.

He smiled at her and shrugged.

“Grandpa never lost his accent, but Dad didn’t really pick it up. You wouldn’t say his father is American. But since I’ve spent most of my time with Grandpa and his Sinatra records growing up, I kinda picked up the accent. The teachers weren’t too happy when I started school and tried to make me lose it, but since they weren’t successful I guess they just got used to it in the end and stopped bothering me. But now I have this Irish/American accent, which some people find weird, and sometimes I even get treated like a tourist.”

She chuckled. “I like it though. It’s... cute.”

“Yeah, me too. It’s who I am, and I wouldn’t be able to change it now, even if I wanted to. Besides, I’m a proud Irish citizen, but I don’t forget where I come from, where Grandpa comes from. I definitely want to go back to America one day; jazz music is way more popular there than it is here.”

He brushed the forelock away from his eye and started browsing through the records, looking for one he wanted to play next.

“Do you live in Dublin, too?” he asked, while checking out the cover of a Louis Armstrong record, and she nodded.

“Yes, we live in Ballsbridge.”

“So do I!” he said, looking surprised.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around, though,” she said, thinking how odd it was that they lived so close, yet they had never met before.

He shrugged. “I don’t go out much. I’m pretty busy, what with school, the soccer team, and piano lessons.”

“You play the piano?” She looked up in awe.

He nodded. “You too?”

“I wish!” She sighed, looking away. “My mother doesn’t really like music, so she’s had me take French lessons in my free time and play tennis at the local club.”

She made a face and he laughed.

“Eww! I wouldn’t want to swap lives with you!”

She smiled at him, feeling totally at ease with this guy she had only just met. She never really felt at ease around people she didn’t know; sometimes she felt out of place even when she was with her school friends, but maybe the fact that Ryan didn’t consider her weird because of her music tastes made everything seem less awkward.

“How long have you been playing?”

“Since I was about five, so almost ten years now. Grandpa Tom has been feeding me music since before I learned how to speak, and it was obvious that I would want to learn to play an instrument sooner or later. One day I was watching TV with him, and there was this man playing the piano, so I said, ‘I want to learn to play the piano.’ Needless to say, Grandpa was totally excited and took me to a music school the following week.”

“And were your parents okay with that?”

He nodded. “They’d always known that I, unlike my father, wouldn’t be immune to Grandpa’s love for music, and they actually reckoned it happened a bit later than they expected!”

“Wow! I wish my mum would think the way your parents do. She’s always talking about how cracked Grandpa is. If she knew he took me here, she’d go mental!”

“That’s too bad,” he said, shaking his head. “But if it helps, my friends from the soccer team think I’m a bit coo-coo too, ‘cause I come to the Club with Grandpa instead of chasing after chicks the way they do.” He chuckled and then looked up at her. “Well, it’s good to know I’m not the only teenager in town who’s joined the Club now. Maybe we could hang out together some time.”

They spent the afternoon talking about their lives, the schools they went to, their families, and the things they liked, and the more they spoke, the more confident they felt that they would be great friends.

After that day, Valerie’s life changed completely. Ryan became an important presence in her life, and they started spending every minute of their free time together. She could be her real self with him; she didn’t have to pretend to like things that a girl should or be ashamed by who she was. When she was with her school friends, she always felt stupid and out of place because she liked school and listened to old music, but when she was with Ryan, she always felt special. He made her feel special because he thought she was smart and funny, and he seemed genuinely pleased to spend time with her, unlike her school friends or even Marie.

Her parents hadn’t been too happy to learn that she was hanging out with Thomas Wyler’s grandson, especially when they had found out that he liked going to the Club with his grandfather; besides, he was a boy, and they feared she had a crush on him and would end up leaving school behind to hang out with a guy of whom they didn’t seem to approve. Ryan and Valerie seemed to be the only two people in town who didn’t find it strange that a boy and a girl could be friends, and soon they became inseparable; they often joked that they were siblings who had been separated at birth, only to find each other years later.

Since Valerie had a very scientific-oriented mind, they used Ryan’s problems with math as a good excuse to meet up every day; even though she was two years behind him at school, she seemed to understand those boring equations that didn’t make any sense to him, and that had helped to convince her parents that she was only doing him a favor, and there was nothing more behind it.