She was a singer, a
soprano, not a professional singer,
just a girl in a University choir that I had been in.
I had nearly been kicked out by the choir master because i could not sing,
well he asked me for a scale, played a note on the piano and i was
not just flat but an octave off. He started to say,
"I think you might not get any enjoyment .."
and I asked for another try, sing it I said, let me hear the note.
There were too few boys in the choir so he agreed, sang
the note
and i got the octave, up and down, wer'e short of
tenors and so that's what i was to be.
every week twice a week, practicing, learning and at the
end of the year a concert. we sang Faure's requiem,
after the concert, letting our hair down
we went out to some club in Temple Bar.
drinks and dance, and Valerie and i, we danced to
some song, the words still linger in my mind, so many years later.
"take a parachute and jump" ... "oh sit down, oh sit down,
sit down next to me" and each time that part of the song would play
we would get close to each other on the dance floor
drop to the floor and back up again.
leaving the club, she asks me, "what do you do
when you get drunk ?" I tell her, "i climb
fridges when i get drunk, ya know, the tall cooler cabinets
they have in bars? i climb those when i get drunk !"
recalling my most recent of alcohol sodden experience,
god how we could drink when we were younger.
so she says to me, "what if these buildings were fridges?"
so i say "well if i climb fridges when i am drunk
and these buildings were a fridge then i would climb these
buildings" and no sooner had the idea fixed itself into my mind
then i find myself hanging from the second story balcony
of a building on Dame street right in the centre of Dublin.
It was easy, hanging there, her looking up at me.
cemented my desire to climb tall buildings when i am drunk
I climbed down, we walked arm in arm to the night-links,
the late night busses, there to cart the
interlopers in the city back to the suburbs.
waiting i ask "do you mind, can i kiss you?"
she nods her head, i move foreword, it's a shock, her lips,
they are warm, soft. they are wet. i didn't know it
was going to be like this !. this is good, this is happy, nice,
this is warmness. on the bus fall onto the back
seat on the upper deck, kissing, kissing all the way home.
she takes her jumper off, i kiss her through
the neck hole, her stop is approaching, she asks me
"have you slept with many girls?" concerned like. Jesus, this is
my first kiss, here i am
thinking something must be wrong with me, 18 and never been kissed.
"no", i tell her, "no i haven't".