The Magic of Tom Dolly
by
Michael Graeme
We were like a couple of
old fashioned gentlemen, Michael and I, dressed in our
long tailed jackets and our bow ties, as we strolled the
last half mile to the concert hall. My friend seemed
quieter than usual, but it was only to be expected.
Tonight was his big night, his first solo performance
before a large audience and he would be nervous, I was
thinking.
The pavement was crowded,... men in shirt sleeves, girls
in summer dresses,... their bright chatter ringing clear
above the sluggish roar of the traffic. Many I guessed
were concert-goers for they smiled and nodded in our
direction, though it was Michael they recognised of
course. Some even begged his autograph, for already he
was well known and so handsome the girls could not help
but admire him.
Meanwhile I looked on, wearing my middle age with a sense
of resignation and reflecting wistfully upon the fact
that though I had twice as much experience as he, still
my name was unknown,... as it always would be now, I
guessed.Then, above the sounds of the street, I caught
the strains of a violin. It was Mozart, a pretty tune but
not well played and to make matters worse, the instrument
had a poor tone, like an old tin can.
Michael winced in horror. "Would you listen to
that?" he said but I did not reply. He was young and
had yet to learn not all of us were so well blessed as
he.
Nearing the street-corner we came upon the musician, an
elderly, homeless man wearing a long mackintosh, all
tattered and stained. He had his cap upon the pavement
but it contained no more than a few coppers. The crowds
had no time for his music you see, for there were bigger
fish in town that night.
My friend and I had time to spare so we found a street
cafe and sat out beneath a parasol, watching the world go
by. Michael eyed the crowds, his hands clenched upon the
table.
"I have a bad feeling about tonight," he said.
"I have never felt so nervous, so lacking in
inspiration. I shall make a mess of it,... a terrible
mess,..."
But Michael was always like this on the eve of a concert
and still somehow he never failed to rise to the
occasion, a proud twinkle in his eye as he coaxed the
closing bars from his violin,... Still, it gave me no
pleasure to see him so anxious.
"Did I ever tell you the tale of old Tom
Dolly?" I asked, thinking I might distract him with
one of my yarns.
Michael sighed. "Once or twice," he said, as if
to warn me he was in no mood for misty-eyed reminiscence.
"Ah, but did I tell you about his secret?" I
went on. There was a flicker of interest at that which
encouraged me to continue. "I'll have told you he
was a traveller, then," I said. "A traveller in
the old sense,... homeless, but not driven by poverty,
like the poor fellow we've just seen - more because that
was the way he chose to live, you understand?"
Michael nodded patiently, and leaned back in his chair.
"I can see him
now," I said, "wandering into town every year
at the same time, with his coat tails flapping and all
the dogs in creation barking at his heels. It was the
summer fair that brought him and when the fair had gone,
he would vanish with it. Where he came from, where he
went, no one knew.
"I was a child of six or seven when I first saw him.
I was hanging onto my mammy's arm, the pair of us dazzled
by the noise and the colour that had transformed our once
quiet meadow. He was sitting in the shade of an oak tree,
selling the most exquisite peg-dollies you ever saw. I
tell you, they were a wonder,... made by his own hand, so
finely carved and so delicate - a curious thing when the
man himself was such a shambles.
"He would have been around fifty then, a battered
bowler on his head and an old suit held together by
safety pins. His face was gnarled like the bark of the
tree he was leaning upon, but I always thought he had a
kindly smile, as if the spirit within him was made of a
much softer material.
"Now, by his side on the grass lay a violin, half
wrapped in tissue paper and even as a child I could see
it was no ordinary instrument. Some said it was Italian
and centuries old. I remember its deep amber colour and
the way it seemed to glow, as though it were lit up from
inside.
"As the children gathered with their pennies, he
took it up and reeled off a half a dozen of those
wonderful old dancing tunes, running each into the other
without missing so much as a single note.
"Listening to Tom Dolly was like listening to pure
magic and from that moment there was nothing in the world
I wanted more than to play the violin as well as he. So
began my apprenticeship - long evenings after school
scratching on my grand-daddy's cracked old fiddle and
then lessons from the grumpy old music teacher in town.
"I began to pick it up just fine and by the time I
was sixteen I was playing in the ceilidh bands like a
professional. I would even take myself up to the
crossroads out of town for the lads and the lasses to
dance their reels,...
"Oh, I was king of the dance all right and of the
classical too,... except for the week of the summer fair.
For then it would be Tom Dolly who they were wanting and
I'd be like that poor old fella back there,... everyone
saving their coppers for someone else.
"As I listened to him play, spellbound like the
rest, I wondered how it could be so. After all, was I not
younger than he? Were not my fingers more nimble? Did my
scales and arpeggios not glide with a silkiness beyond
compare? Why, I kept thinking, I could work my way
faultlessly through the most fiendish of scores, written
by the most famous of composers, yet people said Tom
Dolly could not read a single note."
I cast a glance at Michael. He was still listening but
shifting impatiently in his seat for this much he already
knew,...
"Always it was the same," I went on.
"Whenever he came to town, I would put away my
violin because I knew there would be no one listening
while he was around. For all my efforts, all my learning,
I was still nowhere near as good as he. There was only
one solution: I had to get him to teach me his secret.
"But that was not so easy, for apart from the fact
that I saw him only one week of the year, when Tom was
not at the fair, he would be playing for the men in
O'Leary's bar. Now O'Leary's had a reputation around
town, if you get my meaning, and that placed it out of
bounds to a respectable teenager such as myself.
"Instead, one evening, I decided to wait outside
O'Leary's and then to follow Tom to his camp when he came
out. I had it in mind I could pretend to chance across
him. I would have my violin with me,... we could exchange
a few reels like I had seen them do in the movies,... and
then maybe he would tell me what I was doing wrong.
"As I waited in the still of the night, I could hear
the sounds of men's laughter and I could hear too the
mellow tones of Tom's violin. They were lively tunes he
was playing, tunes to which the men were singing bawdy
songs but still there was a sweetness in his music that
rose above all that,... something masterful in the
movement of his fingers,... in the caress of his bow upon
the stings,...
"Closing my eyes I pictured him, his gnarled face
set into that kindly smile as the music poured from his
soul. Meanwhile I sat, my own instrument hanging loosely
from my hands, my bow tapping out the infectious rhythm
upon my shoe. And somehow, sadly, I began to get a feel
for what it was I lacked.
"It was very late when the doors finally opened and
the men spilled out into the darkness. Tom was the last
to appear. I saw his silhouette in the doorway as O'Leary
counted the money into Tom's outstretched hand. Then Tom
touched the rim of his bowler respectfully before
shuffling his way down the
street.
"I did not follow. Instead, I just stared at the
outline of his back. I saw his shoulders hunched, his
instrument tucked under one arm,..."
"And?" said Michael, impatiently.
"I didn't know it
then," I went on. "But it was to be the last I
ever saw of him. The fair left in the morning and Tom
went on his way as usual, with nothing but a burned out
campfire to mark his passing,..."
Michael shook his head, confused. "But,... surely,
the following year - when the fair came once more?"
"No," I replied. "He didn't come. Nor the
year after, nor the after that. Eventually we got to hear
that he'd passed away."
Michael sank back, disappointed. "But you had me
believe you'd discovered his secret," he said,
looking as if he thought I'd cheated him.
"And so I had," I replied. "Like I was
saying, it came to me that night outside O'Leary's. It
was listening to him play and then the sight of him
wandering off into the night. He was a humble man, a man
who could not even write his own name. I doubt he
understood the magic that was inside of him,... and even
if he had, he could never have explained it to the likes
of me.
"For me music is something written down on paper
until it can be memorised. But for Tom, it was written
everywhere,... in the hedgerows,... in moonlight on the
water,... in dappled sunlight on the hillside. It was a
gift, my friend and you should know because you have it
too."
At last, Michael smiled in slow understanding. He relaxed
a little and I was glad for perhaps my tale had helped
him after all. I gave his arm a friendly squeeze and
called the waitress over for the bill.
"We'd better be going," I told him.
The concert hall held two thousand that night and they
all listened, breathless, as Michael's bow drew out the
last bars of his solo. It was hot and I could see beads
of sweat sparkling on his brow, as the spotlight picked
him out. Meanwhile the rest of us looked on from the
shadows, our instruments poised but silent. It had been a
magnificent performance.
I looked at my fellow musicians and wondered what they
might be thinking. We had each worked long and hard for a
place in the hall that night. We were our country's
finest players and yet most of us would for ever remain
anonymous.
Only once in a while did someone come along who had the
mark of greatness upon them, that indefinable magic which
set them apart. Michael had it all right, but it was Tom
Dolly who had taught me it was never a thing to be
resented in others simply because you did not have it
yourself. It was not something that could be learned, you
see? It was a gift,... and perhaps the only glimpse we
mortals shall ever have of the divine.
When his final note faded into the background of the
concert hall, there was an explosion of applause and I
knew that Michael was on his way. But when I looked, I
realised there had been a change in him. Instead of the
usual proud twinkle, his face remained serious, the mood
of the music still upon him. Then at last he nodded in my
direction,...
"That was for Tom Dolly," he whispered.
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~ First
Published February 1997 ~
Index
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Copyright
© M Graeme 1997
m_graeme@yahoo.co.uk
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