It was well into February before Jimmy began to do his homework. He read an article about Keith Jarrett, about how Jarrett had walked offstage because a sham in the audience couldn’t stop coughing, and how this was all part of the Jarrett experience – the tension, the terror. This wasn’t a fuckin’ gig – it was only occurring to Jimmy now. This was a concert, in the National Concert Hall, where silence would be demanded, where the genius at the piano might act the bollix and walk off the stage because of a cough. And Jimmy was going there with a man with two very diseased lungs.
– What have I fuckin’ done?
He was sitting up in bed.
– What’s wrong? said Aoife.
He didn’t answer; it was all her fault.
He texted Outspan. U still up 4 the gig?
He waited and prayed, and re-read the Wikipedia piece again. Jarrett is notoriously intolerant of audience noise, including coughing and other involuntary sounds, especially during solo improvised performances.
His phone hopped. It was Outspan, back. Yeh.
– Fuck.
– Jimmy, said Aoife. – Tell me – what’s wrong?
– He’s still alive, said Jimmy.
– Will we bring a few cans? said Outspan.
– I don’t think it’s tha’ kind o’ gig, said Jimmy.
The last time they’d been to live music together had been the previous September, at the Electric Picnic. They’d had a great weekend, four middle-aged lads – they were with Jimmy’s brother, Les, and another chap called Des. They’d seen more than thirty bands and they’d been hammered and happy by the end of every night. Outspan had nearly died at one point but everything else had been grand. They’d even decided to form a band – Des’ idea – after Jimmy had seen one of his kids, Marvin, onstage with his band, Moanin’ At Midnight. They’d even jammed – jammed! – a couple of times since, Des on drums, Outspan on rhythm guitar, Jimmy on trumpet. He couldn’t keep up with the other two but he blew the occasional high C or G when he saw the opportunity coming well in advance. They even had a name – Outspan’s idea – the Fuckin’ Oul’ Cunts.
– Think o’ the t-shirts.
– I am.
Now, Outspan was looking at Jimmy. Jimmy had called to Outspan’s ma’s house to collect Outspan. Outspan had been living in his ma’s since his marriage had died. They were getting a taxi in – Jimmy’s treat.
– I meant, for the taxi, said Outspan.
– We can survive till we get into town, said Jimmy. – D’yeh need tha’ tonigh’? He was looking at Outspan’s cylinder. He had it up on his shoulder.
– First the beer, said Outspan. – Now me fuckin’ oxygen. Yeah, I fuckin’ need it.
They heard the taxi outside.
– But don’t worry, said Outspan. – I won’t embarrass yeh.
– Sorry, said Jimmy.
– You’re grand. Come on.
They sat in their seats. Three rows from the front. Jesus, Aoife was pure evil.
Outspan has left the oxygen in the cloak room. The young lad checking the tickets had told him he couldn’t bring it in to the auditorium. And the place, the surroundings, seemed to intimidate Outspan because he turned around and went straight to the cloakroom. Jimmy had gone with him, feeling the fight between relief and fury going on inside him. But he couldn’t say anything. Part of him was going to war against all this shite and another part of him had a packet of Strepsils in his jacket pocket, in case Outspan started coughing.
– Alrigh’?
– I’m grand, said Outspan.
– We could just go for a pint instead.
– Don’t be fuckin’ stupid. They sat and listened to two taped announcements, warning about phones and photography, and words from a real live man who’d walked onstage looking so nervous that Jimmy thought he was going to tell them the gig was off. But he’d just repeated the warnings and crept back off. Someone behind them coughed. There were gasps and strangled laughter.
– The piano’s fuckin’ big, isn’t it? said Outspan.
– Yeah.
– What’s keepin’ this cunt?
They waited another minute. Someone else coughed. Some woman’s jewellery jangled. Then the door at the side of the stage opened and Keith Jarrett walked out.
– He isn’t black, said Outspan.
– Shut up.
– He’s supposed to be fuckin’ black.
– Shut up, for fuck sake. He’ll hear yeh.
– I seen him on one of his record covers, said Outspan, – an’ he’s fuckin’ black.
– What’s wrong with him bein’ whi’e? Jimmy whispered.
– Nothin’, said Outspan.
The crowd was clapping like it was the end of the show, not the start. They were afraid to stop.
– I came here to see a black piano player, said Outspan. – But there’s a whi’e cunt walkin’ across the stage.
He coughed – oh fuck – but the applause smothered it.
– Black man an’ a piano, he said. – That’s what I came for. Tha’ was the fuckin’ package.
– Shut up.
– You fuckin’ shut up, said Outspan.
Jarrett was standing in front of the piano now, tapping his fingertips together, like he was thinking up something evil. The applause was dying. So was Jimmy.
Outspan nudged him.
– Would yeh look at Beyoncé’s arse if she was a man?
– Shut up, he’s lookin’ at yeh.
– I couldn’t give a shite, said Outspan. –Would yeh?
– No.
– That’s my fuckin’ point.
– He’s lookin’ at yeh!
– Grand, said Outspan.
He nodded at Keith Jarrett and – Jimmy would have sworn it – Jarrett nodded back, before he turned and sat at the piano.
– Do you know him?
– No, I don’t, said Outspan. – Stay quiet. You’ll fuckin’ distract him.
Jarrett was staring at the piano keys. His head was moving from side to side, like he was making his mind up – like a kid making his mind up. His shoes, his head – lots of things about him reminded Jimmy of a tricky kid. He reminded Jimmy of someone, but he couldn’t think who; someone he’d known in school, years ago.
Then he started playing.
And it was incredible. It was like he – Jarrett – didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know what note was going to follow the last one. Like he was composing the piece Jimmy was hearing but throwing it away at the same time. He’d no sheet music in front of him, and his eyes were shut. He stood up and stamped his foot. He sat. He stood again and looked into the piano – he was the kid again – wondering what it was like inside, what happened when he hit the keys. Jimmy could hear it now; the man was grunting. There was long moments when Jimmy forgot he was listening to music.
But it was – it was music. And it was brilliant. Never played before. And it would never be played again. It amazed and frightened him – something so brilliant, gone. It made him want to lean out, or stand up, and catch it. A note, just. And bring it home to Aoife.
There was a quiet passage, fewer notes stretched across longer gaps. Jimmy could hear Outspan.
– Stop wheezin’, he whispered.
– Fuck off.
– D’yeh want a Strepsil?
– Fuck off.
Then Jarrett was up of the seat again and slapping the stage with his foot. Outspan could wheeze away. It was all a bit nerve-wracking, though – Jesus – when Keith stopped playing and stood up, bowed, and took the applause. That bit was actually fine. Jimmy hadn’t been to a formal concert before. It was fuckin’ daft, the whole bowing and clapping routine. But it was the moments after the clapping stopped and your man decided what to play next, or waited for something to go off in his head; when he put his hands on the keys like they were trying to escape, and waited, and waited – it was all a bit terrifying. Jimmy could feel the tension in his legs. One good cough, a sneeze, or the crack of some o
ul’ one’s knee as she tried to cross her legs, and your man would be up and out. That was the reputation, the legend, the expectation – even the hope. Dublin would cough and Keith Jarrett would storm off.
But he didn’t. Off he went again, diving into the piano. Jimmy decided that the guy wasn’t just a bollix. He was a genius. And probably not a bollix at all. It was all marketing.
There was an intermission.
– Fancy a drink?
– Fuckin’ sure.
– Jesus, man. The women.
– Are we still in Dublin?
– Wha’ did you think of your man?
– A bit of a prick, said Outspan.
– Will we go back in?
–’Course, yeah. He’s fuckin’ unbelievable.
– D’yeh need a blast of your oxygen?
– No, said Outspan. – I should be alrigh’.
And then it occurred to Jimmy; he knew who Keith Jarrett had reminded him of. Fuckin’ Outspan. Outspan had been like that in school. The head wagging, the body rocking, fingers tapping the desk. Outspan had had a dreadful time in school. Teachers had hated him. Jimmy remembered the tears, Outspan standing at the blackboard, chalk held an inch from the board, trying to stay still. The silence. Outspan’s sobs. Jimmy remembered trying to get the answer of the sum to him, concentrating, hoping the figure would transfer from his head to Outspan’s. The tension in his legs. He’d hated Outspan then. And loved him.
They went back in.
– How was it?
Aoife was awake. She must have been lying there, waiting. He wanted to tell her. About Jarrett – the music. And Outspan, the kid at the blackboard. He knew he’d cry.
– Sorry for wakin’ yeh, he said.
– How was it? she asked him again.
– Shite, he said.
He’d tell her the truth in the morning.
AVAILABLE NOW FROM RODDY DOYLE
THE GUTS
Jimmy Rabbitte is back.
The man who invented the Commitments back in the eighties is now forty-seven, with a loving wife, four kids ... and bowel cancer. He isn’t dying, he thinks, but he might be.
Jimmy still loves his music, and he still loves to hustle – his new thing is finding old bands and then finding the people who loved them enough to pay money for their resurrected singles and albums. On his path through Dublin he meets two of the Commitments – Outspan, whose own illness is probably terminal, and Imelda Quirk, still as gorgeous as ever. He is reunited with his long-lost brother and learns to play the trumpet...
This warm, funny novel is about friendship and family, about facing death and opting for life. It climaxes in one of the great passages in Roddy Doyle’s fiction: four middle-aged men at Ireland’s hottest rock festival watching Jimmy’s son Marvin’s band Moanin’ At Midnight pretending to be Bulgarian and playing a song called ‘I’m Going to Hell’ that apparently hasn’t been heard since 1932...
Why? You’ll have to read The Guts to find out.
PUBLISHED IN HARDCOVER AND EBOOK:
AUGUST 2013
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. He is the author of nine acclaimed novels including The Commitments, The Snapper, and The Van, two collections of short stories, Rory & Ita, a memoir about his parents, Two Pints, a collection of dialogues, and The Guts. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.
Roddy Doyle, Jimmy Jazz
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