Greystones

“What time is it supposed to start?! 9:30, right?!” one of my companions shouted to the rest of us as we ambled down the sidewalk. I shook off my cringe at the volume. Murmurs of general consent circulated among the group while the Irish Sea whispered in the distance, trying to hush us as we darted through a doorway a sign emblazoned with gold letters on black paint, “W.H. Dann & Son.” I had passed the building a handful of times already in the four days we’d been in Greystones but had managed never to notice it until it loomed directly in front of me. After ducking inside the door, my eyes strained for several seconds to make out shapes in the drab light.

            Unsure of what to do or where to go once inside, I flattened myself against the nearest wall next to, what I eventually saw, was a bright yellow, red-lettered poster announcing "Russells’ Ales" and waited to take a cue from someone else. There were dark figures ahead of us. Heads and shoulders. The necks of guitars with the ends of strings peeking out above the wood. The sudden glint of the metal ring around a banjo. A fiddle bow. The heartily folded bellows of an accordion. 

     The musicians—men (and a woman, holding the fiddle) of various ages—sat in a tight circle of chairs in a dusky recess immediately ahead of us to the right. To our left, the fellow behind the bar swept us with a disinterested glance as he slid two glasses under taps and turned the handles. Suddenly, everything—each movement and sound—seemed to keep an anticipatory rhythm.

            “Back there, maybe?” one of the other girls whispered, slipping around me and beginning to disappear into the shadows at the other end of the room. Without hesitation the lot of us made our clumsy way past the musicians, winding through the chairs and tables to a slightly less occupied section of the pub. The handful of people already seated turned and watched as we somewhat noisily rearranged the furniture, chair legs irreverently scraping the cold stone floor. I couldn't decide if I wanted to disappear against the back wall so people would stop looking at me or pull my chair even closer to the musicians' circle so I could get a closer look.

Instead I simply settled into my seat, my fast-paced thoughts distracting me. Perhaps I shouldn’t stay long. What time is it? Maybe I could just stay for half an hour. An hour. Forty-five minutes? 

What are those? On the shelves? Kerosene lamps? And… rum kegs. There really is not much light in here. Did I decide on forty-five minutes? An hour. This chair looks so familiar. Do my grandparents have one of these? What time will it be in an hour? Ten-thirty? 

And then, every trace of every thought in my mind disappeared.

           

            The voices in the circle seemed to reach a consensus, and then stilled.There was a sudden rustling, and then music—rustic, sad, sweet music that made my breath catch in my throat—poured from the circle and unapologetically saturated every last cobwebbed corner. Everything kept time.

            Even if I had wanted to, it was no longer possible for me to move. The world dissolved into the faint, even pattering of the rain outside on the pavement and into the distant grumble of the Irish Sea combing over and over the stones on the beach. Nothing seemed to matter but the spellbinding sounds from the circle across the room. Everything kept time.

            Candlelight winked through partially drunk glasses of Bulmer’s and Guinness on the tables. The murmurs and hushed laughter of friends and acquaintances leaning in to hear each other’s voices created its own soft symphony underneath the quick-skipping notes of the flute and the fiddle that intertwined around each other, dancing deftly through the thick pub air and its aroma of wood, stone, sea salt, and stale beer. The occasional ding of the cash register and the clinking of glasses passing from hand to hand over the counter sang along, filling me with a deep longing for something I didn't quite understand. Everything kept time.

My eyes fell on the figure of an older gentleman sitting at a table across from me. His tired eyes were locked on his pint of Guinness; his cracked white knuckles, adorned with various rings, peeked out from the sleeves of his beige sport coat. What hair he had left was white and ringed around the back of his head. With one hand he clasped a black and gold cane and with the other he rubbed his knee, squeezing tightly and letting go, squeezing tightly and letting go, grimacing ever so slightly as he did so. Everything kept time.

          My ears discovered snippets of lyrics wrapped in an Irish lilt. "Oh pretty lady, oh, I love you so madly and think about you all the time…" I basked in the dim light. It played through the frosted glass windows in rough wooden frames. "…to see the ship sail upon the sea…" The silhouette of a man's face—singing, his ardor and passion unmistakable in nothing more than the outline of his features—darkened one of the glass window panes. "Me and the devil, we were walkin' side by side…" I slowly let my eyelids fall. "...I'll remember this moment until the day that I go home…" Everything kept time.

          The music stopped. I opened my eyes. My companions were fishing for their belongings and attempting to return the chairs to their original positions. Several whispers fluttered between us. "What time is it?" We began to file out the way we had come, as conspicuous as we had been coming in. The hands holding the fiddle bow and the pipe lowered. Guitars adjusted. Necks craned. "Aww the garls are leavin’," A deep voice from the dusk of the nook sounded disappointed. "What's the point now?" another voice concurred. Laughter rolled all around the circle as we shuffled past and mingled with our own. We squeezed through the doorway and back out into the night, fresh rain heavy in the air. The waves sighed in the distance. The fiddle notes kept dancing in my head, following me up the hill. Our shoes tapped the sidewalk and we returned the way we had come, but the beat seemed off. It was 12:03.