Having Only the Now to Live In.

Tonight I felt an unaccountable yen to hear Ronnie Drew singing The Rare Old Times, so I loaded YouTube and listened to it.

It took me back to that day in 1996 when I encountered the three girls on the Halfpenny Bridge in Dublin, one a teenager playing the accordion, a younger girl of around twelve or thirteen, and a feisty little seven or eight-year-old who kept pestering me as I was trying to take a picture of the view down the Liffey. It was obvious that they were sisters, and they subsequently became the inspiration for my short story The Accordion Player.

I remember walking across the bridge and my eye being caught by a movement down to my right. I saw a little hand reaching out to grab the strap of my camera which was slung around my neck, and then a slightly bigger hand reach out to pull the smaller one away. But the kid was not about to give up just yet. She followed me, demanding in her gravelly little street urchin voice: ‘Give us some money, mister.’ I was irritated and we had quite an argument, until eventually my conscience got the better of me. I walked back across the bridge and put some money into the accordion player’s collection box.

Looking back I realise how different my reaction would be if it happened now. Irritation would, I hope, be replaced by understanding and the desire to learn. It was one of those situations which I would so love to relive, to go back in time as the person I am now and do things differently.

‘May I sit and talk with you?’ I would ask, and if the favour were to be granted I would proceed with gentle questioning until I had a picture of their collective story. And then I would invite them for coffee and pastries in the smart little coffee shop in Temple Bar which had become my mid-morning watering hole. Maybe I would find something enigmatic but profound to say to the little girl: ‘Keep a good heart, young madam, and you will always have something to lean on.’ She wouldn’t understand, of course, but maybe the seed would lie dormant and one day grow to bear fruit.

But life doesn’t allow us that facility, and matters would probably take an entirely different turn even if it did. It seems that memories are only there to learn from, not correct, and maybe that’s all for the best to serve whatever point there is to being alive.