Chapter 6
The pub interior was dark after the brightness of the day outside, and it took Grace’s eyes a moment to adjust. When they did, she felt like she’d stepped back in time as she soaked up the cosy nooks and brass knick-knacks on display. The pub smelled of ale and pipe tobacco, which, given the smoking laws, meant it must be ingrained in the walls. The aroma always made her think of her granddad Finbar. Her memories of her nan’s late husband were hazy, because, as the youngest of the Kelly girls, she and Ava had been tots when he’d passed away. Still, that slightly sweet, earthy smell gave her a warm glow that told her she must have loved him.
Grace blinked, realising someone in the far corner of the pub was waving at her and Chris. She’d only seen him in a dimly lit bar before, but the beard gave it away – Joe, The Shamrockers’ drummer.
Chris acknowledged him with a return wave before asking Grace, ‘What’ll you have to drink?’
‘A ginger beer would be grand, thanks.’ Grace wanted to keep her wits about her and hung back, waiting for Chris to get the drinks in. She wasn’t game to head over and sit down at a table full of fellas she didn’t know without him by her side to introduce her.
The grizzled publican, who had sideburns that looked like sheepskin glued to either side of his jaw, poured their drinks, and Chris handed Grace the fizzing glass before picking up his pint. The place wasn’t exactly heaving, because aside from the lads in the corner, the only other patrons were two elderly gents supping their pints and putting the world to rights. A silent jukebox stood sentry near the door to the toilets where an old piano would have been more at home. Then, as the boards creaked beneath their feet crossing the floor, she decided you’d not want The Shamrockers playing a gig in here, because with all the foot stamping their music evoked, someone would surely go through them!
The five men around the table were all close in age to Chris, apart from one Grace pegged as fortyish. Their manager, perhaps, she mused as conversation ceased and curious eyes sized her up. They were probably wondering where Ulla was but were too polite to ask Chris in front of her.
‘All right there, lads?’ Chris greeted them, putting his glass down on a coaster and nodding to the fella with streaks of grey at his temples. ‘Mitch, how’re you doing?’
‘Good to see you, Chris.’
Grace was about to clear her throat to say hi when Chris pulled her forward to introduce her. ‘This is my flatmate, Grace. We go way back. All the way to Emerald Bay, in fact.’
A chorus of ‘Good to meet you, Grace,’ whipped around the table as Chris introduced each band member. She gave the lads her biggest, brightest smile, hoping to win them over. After all, smiling was a superpower.
But her full-wattage beam faltered at their hastily averted eyes. She hoped she wasn’t reading too much into it. Maybe the grin was overkill and she’d looked a little Jokerish. Toning it down, she concentrated on committing their names to memory by the instrument they played. Joe, the drummer, was easy because of the beard. Lee, with the brooding brown eyes, played the sax. Dean, with hair almost as red as hers, was on bass, and Rob, who had crooked teeth that gave him an endearing smile, was on guitar.
‘And this is Mitch Drummond, our manager.’
Grace smiled his way, wondering if he’d had his teeth whitened as he flashed her a smooth smile. He was very Simon Cowell, she thought, accepting the stool Rob had dragged over for her with a ‘Thanks a million’. She found herself squeezed in between Dean and Chris.
Focus on why you’re here, Grace, she told herself as Chris’s thigh pressed against hers. It shot red-hot heat up through her body, and all she could do was hope her face didn’t give away the effect his closeness had on her.
Chris seemed oblivious as he chatted amicably with Rob on his left about a gig they’d played two nights earlier. How could he not feel her leg branding him?
‘I can’t stop long, lad,’ Mitch interrupted Chris and Rob’s conversation, his accent broad and Northern, then glugged a mouthful of his OJ before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I’ve a family thing on.’ He shot Grace an apologetic look.
‘I wondered why you were abstaining.’ Joe looked pointedly at the juice.
In other words, there wasn’t time for polite chit-chat.
They needed to get down to business, Grace thought, sipping her ginger beer as Mitch began running through the bookings he’d made for The Shamrockers. The band was in demand, but then they needed to be, given this was their full-time job. Chris had told her a while back that the decision to quit their day jobs and give the music business their best shot had been scary, but so far, it was paying off.
You had to back yourself in life, Grace remembered saying to him, echoing advice she’d had from her dad. And it was solid advice, because if you didn’t believe you could do something, why should anyone else? Although, from memory, she’d received these words of wisdom during half-time at a soccer match against the Kilticaneel team when she was eight. Still and all, they’d stayed with her.
‘We need to keep going hard on social media,’ Mitch was saying.
Hang on, this was her field.
‘Erm, sorry to interrupt you, Mitch, but can I ask how you currently manage the band’s brand across the different platforms?’ She tried to focus on his reply as Chris nudged her with his knee. What was that about?
It was Dean who butted in, however. ‘Posting, sharing, commenting.’
‘It would be good to get more traction,’ Rob added then shrugged. ‘But hey, everyone wants to go viral.’
‘Viral’s great but unpredictable. Consistency and good brand management across all the platforms is the key to making social media work for you,’ Grace stated.
Mitch’s interest was piqued. ‘You seem to know what you’re talking about.’
‘That’s because it’s what I do. I’m a social media coordinator.’
She had their attention now. She was aware Chris was watching her closely. He nudged her knee once again, and she realised he was silently communicating that this was her chance.
She put her glass down, surprising herself with what came out of her mouth. ‘Listen, I’ve got a proposition for The Shamrockers. I’ll work on a gratuitous basis for you to put together a campaign that will stop people scrolling and have them sitting up and taking notice of the band.’ She looked from one to the other, ensuring she had them where she wanted them.
‘And in return?’ Mitch was the businessman at the table, after all, and his eyes had narrowed as he waited to hear the rest of what she had to say.
He probably thought she wanted the band to play a family member’s wedding for free or something like that, she thought, pausing for effect as she came into her element. ‘And in return, I’d like The Shamrockers to headline a music festival.’
‘We played the Eats Beats festival in County Down last summer. It was good craic,’ Joe piped up, unaware of the foam on his moustache. ‘Lots of free food and ale.’
‘Are we talking Glastonbury?’ Dean was only half joking, because there was a hopeful gleam in his eyes.
Chris, who’d been quiet up to that point, cleared his throat. ‘Erm, not quite, but hear Grace out.’
‘We’re talking Emerald Bay, actually,’ Grace ventured, curling her toes to the point of cramping inside her summery wedges as she waited for their reaction.
‘Emerald Bay?’ A collective murmur whipped around the table, and she could feel their previous interest going up in a puff of smoke. They didn’t know her, though, and she was only warming up.
‘I thought you hailed from a dot of a place in the west country,’ Joe directed at Chris.
‘I’ve never heard of anything being held there.’ Mitch was already googling on his phone.
‘Well, you won’t have, because there’s never been a concert there other than annual church fundraisers,’ Grace supplied.
Dean visibly slouched in his seat.
‘I don’t get it?’ Rob said, glancing at Chris for answers.
But Grace jumped in, keen to explain before Mitch decided there was no point hanging around and got up from his stool. ‘What it is is this.’
She told them about the storm that had ripped through the village. The damage it had done to the school and how the new computers the community had fundraised so hard for had all been destroyed. Then Grace told them about Clara and Alfie. How Chris had grown up next door to Clara. How her best friend and her son could lose their home. She left nothing out, giving those heartstrings the biggest tug she could, because she needed The Shamrockers onboard.
Clara, she told them, was a young mum who’d been through the wringer when Alfie got leukaemia, and the house she’d saved so hard to buy was more than just a house. It was their home. All she’d wanted was to give her son a good Christmas, but money was tight, and she’d stupidly let her insurance lapse.
‘I told Chris all of this, and he came up with the idea of holding a music festival in our home village to raise money to not just replace the computers but also pay for the repair work Clara and Alfie’s cottage will need. The rest of the proceeds will go to the children’s hospital in Crumlin. That’s where Alfie was treated.’ Grace had pulled that one out of the hat, but she thought Clara would like that idea.
‘So let me get this straight. You’re thinking this summer? You do know we’re in May already? I mean, in case you haven’t noticed, the temperature is heating up, the sun is shining. All of which points to it already being summer.’ Dean’s lip curl suggested he wasn’t over Glastonbury.
‘I am, and I’m thinking of the last day of summer. The thirty-first of August. It’s a date that’s easy to remember and will work well from a marketing point of view.’ Also pulled out of the hat. She was pleased to see Chris nodding along enthusiastically.
Dean turned his gaze to Chris and shook his head as though his mate had lost the plot. ‘It’s a good cause and all that. I feel for your mate, so don’t get me wrong, but you can’t put together a festival in a matter of months.’
Mitch already has his wallet out. ‘Listen, love—’
‘Grace,’ she said, bristling.
‘Grace. Dean’s right. It’s a noble idea, but’ – he pulled a fifty out of his wallet and waved it toward her – ‘you’d be better off asking for donations.’
Chris flapped his hand. ‘Put that away, Mitch, unless you’re getting another round in.’
A ripple of laughter went round the table.
‘A Heineken for me.’ Dean perked up, hopeful once more.
Mitch wasn’t getting more drinks, nor was he getting the most critical factor in her and Chris’s plan. The money raised couldn’t be a straightforward donation. The people giving their hard-earned money to help had to be receiving something in return. Otherwise it wouldn’t work; Clara would refuse to take it and insist it all go to the school. They could do that, give it to the school. It would be gratefully received, but they had the chance to do so much more here. When Alfie was sick, that feeling of powerlessness had been bad enough for her as an honorary aunty. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like for Clara and her family. But this was her chance to help her friend and her son. Hers and Chris’s.
A music festival meant people got something in return for their money. She was sure Clara could be convinced it wasn’t charity but rather the community involved in an event that benefitted them all. Somehow, though, she had to sell the idea to these fellas, particularly Mitch, and convince them she and Chris could pull it off. Her jaw set, and those who knew her would recognise that the muscle twitching in her cheek signalled Grace wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was time to pull out the big guns, so she retrieved her phone, pulled up a photo of her with Alfie – hooked up to goodness knows what – at the children’s hospital and passed it around.
‘This is Alfie. After making it through this, don’t you think it’s unfair that he might wind up homeless because of a dumb mistake made with the best of intentions.’
Grace didn’t feel so much as a pinprick of guilt pushing for the sympathy vote. Nor was she concerned with exaggerating the truth, because it was true. OK, so Clara and Alfie would hardly end up on the street, but they would lose their home.
‘Lads, the thing you need to understand is we’re talking about holding it in Emerald Bay.’
‘But according to this’ – Mitch waved his phone – ‘it’s barely on the map.’
‘That’s just it. Everybody knows everybody in our village, and if I can convince them a music festival is good for one of its own, for the village as a whole, they’ll all want to get behind the idea, and believe me, it will happen.’
Grace tried not to frown as her father’s face floated to mind, but surely he wasn’t that pig-headed that he’d kick up a song and dance at Mark Dorrance’s son’s band headlining.
‘All I’m asking for is a time commitment of one day from youse, and in exchange, you get the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping that little lad there on top of getting a killer social-media campaign.’
Mitch was no longer looking dubious, Grace noticed with satisfaction.
‘A free pass through the pearly gates for a good deed done when I’m old and grey? I’m in, Mitch. What do you say?’ Joe said.
‘I think it could be a goer. Like Grace said, it’s one day, and it’s bound to generate publicity once word spreads. And you’ll get behind a social-media campaign here for the lads?’
‘I will.’
‘Cheers, then, Grace, lads.’ Mitch raised his OJ, and glasses were clinked around the table. Then, after checking the time, he drained the dregs of his juice and pushed his stool back. ‘I’ve got to make tracks.’ He pointed to Grace. ‘Keep me in the loop. Chris will pass on my details.’
‘I will. Thanks a million, Mitch. It’s going to be gas.’ Grace was fizzier than her drink. She’d successfully jumped the biggest hurdle and secured their big act. The music festival was going to happen!
‘What shall we call it?’ she asked, not having thought that far.
‘What about The Emerald Bay Summer of Love,’ Dean suggested.
Grace spluttered on her ginger beer, imagining the dour and bad-tempered Mrs Tattersall’s reaction to the idea of a hippy lovefest in the village.
Chris’s eyes danced. ‘Maybe not, mate.’
‘Music, fusic, woosic.’
They all stared at Dean, but it was Chris that spoke up. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Rhyming.’ He looked at them like it was obvious.
Grace couldn’t help laughing. Then lightning struck. ‘Emerald Grooves.’ And she could tell by all the nodding as the band members sounded it out that she was on to a winner.
The Emerald Grooves Festival would be held in late summer in Emerald Bay.
She and Chris had a lot to do between now and then, but she knew they could smash it – together.
That thought sent warmth spreading through her, and she savoured the word together, tucking it close to her heart as the conversation continued.