The post-match commentary went on till just after 10 p.m. The pub was still busy when the telly went off, and even before the band started playing, everyone was singing. Mr Cornally served out more chips. My mam had brought her own sliced pan and a pound of butter to make up chip sandwiches. Nobody really noticed the lads getting up on stage – they were eating chips, talking about the game, laughing, singing, hugging and crying happy tears.
Rich spoke to the crowd. ‘Hello, Ireland,’ he said, and no one paid attention. They were too busy having a good time to notice the kid on the stage. ‘Hello, Dublin,’ he roared again to the few people who bothered to listen.
Walker was patting his slightly swollen nose and making snorting sounds. ‘I think I took an elbow to the face from Titch,’ he said. ‘I didn’t feel it till now.’
‘Yeah.’ I nodded. ‘Your nose is definitely bigger.’
‘Nuts,’ he said.
I looked over at Sumo. He was asleep in the corner. Charlie came and sat beside me. We didn’t speak, not even one word. We were the only people in the room who had nothing to say. After a bit I looked her way. She smiled at me. I smiled back.
‘It’ll be OK,’ she said, and that was that. We looked back onto the stage to Rich and the boys struggling to get attention.
‘Would you all shut up and listen to these lovely boys?’ my mam roared from the corner of the room. ‘Go on, son,’ she said, and everyone laughed and cheered.
Rich turned the colour purple, then he coughed a little and fixed his Lego-man hair before leaning into the mic.
‘This is our first song. It’s called “Take On Me”, by A-ha,’ Rich shouted, and stepped back from the mic. He clicked his fingers three times and then stepped back to the mic and started singing. On the second line of the song the rest of the boys joined in and Johnny J started to play, but the sound was too low.
‘We can’t hear ya,’ someone roared.
‘Eh? Hello?’ Rich tapped the mic, ‘Testing, one, two. Decko, will ya turn us up?’
Decko twiddled with loads of knobs.
‘HELLLLLOOOOOOOO.’ It was so loud the room shook!
‘OK, TURN IT DOWN A BIT, DECKO.’ The room rumbled with the sound of my brother’s voice. My mam looked around the place anxiously. My dad dropped some chips out of his chip sandwich. Decko just pushed everything down again, so now Rich was just mouthing words. Some of the kids that went to school with us laughed and jeered. ‘You’re crap!’
Johnny J looked panicked, so I got up and went over to Decko.
‘Hiya, Decko.’
‘All right, Rich’s brother?’
‘Yeah, grand, thanks. Any chance you’d let me take over?’
‘Ah yeah, great. I’m bursting for some chips,’ he said, and he was gone.fn1
I took over. The sound wasn’t perfect, but the lads could be heard. They were halfway into the first verse before the crowd really started to notice them. By the end of the second chorus they had them in the palm of their hands. Everyone was singing along, and every now and then someone would shout, ‘Ooh aah Paul McGrath, ooh aah Paul McGrath.’ By the time they sang U2’s ‘Bad’, my dad was crying again.
‘That’s my son,’ he said, pointing to the stage.
Johnny J sang really well and he was great on guitar, and for the first time I thought to myself, This could be something.
The boys left the stage to thunderous applause, and just like that they were local heroes. It was only when Johnny J got off the stage that I saw his Uncle Ted. He was waiting for him by the door. They hugged, a big bear hug. They held on to one another really tight. I think Uncle Ted was crying, but a lot of grown men cried that night, so no one took much notice.
Afterwards, Johnny J went missing. I looked for him and found him outside, sitting on the ground, leaning against the pub wall. I sat beside him.
‘Good gig,’ I said.
‘Do you mean it?’ he said.
‘Yeah.’ And I did. They were good. The crowd loved them.
‘It was fun,’ he said.
‘I know.’
‘What now?’ he said. It was a good question.
‘We buy your mam a ticket to New York City,’ I said.
‘But where in New York City?’
‘The hospital.’
‘What hospital?’
‘I’m sure any of them will do,’ I said.
‘Do we even know where the hospital is?’
‘No, but there’s plenty of money for a taxi so …’
‘Are we mad?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘but I told you before, my dad says everyone’s mad.’
Uncle Ted came round from the back. ‘You ready to go home?’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ Johnny J said.
‘I’ll walk with you. I’ll nip in to check on your mam and you can tell me all about this band.’
‘Nothing to tell,’ Johnny J said. ‘It was just one gig.’
‘Just one gig! No way – you have something there. Don’t they, Jeremy?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You see,’ Uncle Ted said, and he ruffled his nephew’s hair. ‘Rock stars.’
‘What about Auntie Alison?’ Johnny J said to his uncle, and Ted’s smile faded and he held Johnny J by the shoulders.
‘Don’t you mind Auntie Alison,’ he said, and Johnny J nodded and they hugged again. I just sat there.
‘See ya tomorrow,’ Johnny J said, and they started down the road. He spun around and walked backwards. ‘And, Jeremy?’
‘Yeah?’ I said, struggling to get up off the ground.
‘Best friends ever,’ he said, and I grinned. He turned around and walked away.
I waited outside for my emotional father, my proud mother, my grown-up sister and my ultra-annoying brother to come out of the pub.
Rich was high on life. ‘We are going to be the biggest band on the planet,’ he said, punching the air.
‘Ah you were fantastic, son, just fantastic, and, Jeremy, you were brilliant too. Wasn’t he, Daddy?’ my mam said.
‘I did nothing,’ I said.
‘You twiddled those buttons. Didn’t he, Ron?’ Mam said, and Rachel grabbed my hand.
‘Good job, Jeremy,’ she said.
‘Ace,’ my dad said. ‘Oh, it was some night. We’ll remember this one, Debbie. It’s one for the books all right.’
They talked and laughed and my dad chased my brother up and down the street before putting him in a headlock and ruffling his hair. Rich had tried to spike up his hair for the gig with gel. He looked like a Lego man who’d received an electric shock.
‘Dad, Dad, me do! Don’t mess with the hair.’
‘Ah you’re lovely, isn’t he, Debbie? Isn’t he lovely?’
My mam and Rachel just laughed.
Rich was busy protecting his hair. ‘Ah no, seriously, it takes ages to do it.’
That night my mam and Rachel sat up drinking tea and I could hear Rachel telling Mam about how lovely Rupert, her doctor boyfriend, was and how hard it was to be a nurse, and Mam told Rachel about how sad she was about her friend and how worried she was about Johnny J and me. I tried not to listen because I needed to sleep. There was still so much to do. What I didn’t know as I drifted off was that a detective had Walker’s jacket in his hand and that jacket had Walker’s name written on the inside collar. It was only a matter of hours before they would connect Walker’s jacket to Walker’s dad, Walker’s dad to Walker and Walker to the rest of us. Time was running out.