An Cat Dubh 24

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

AnCatKatie

Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Joined
Nov 27, 2010
Messages
6,813
Location
pearl jammin'
*sings to the tune of Mysterious Ticking Noise* Larry, Larry, Larry Mullen Jr—Bono Vox! Larry, Larry Mullen Jr—Bono Vox! David Evans David Evans David Evans David Evans—Bono Vox! Adam Clayton A-dam Clayton oh A-dam Ad-am Clayton...

No, none of this is true. She did steal my terrible aspiration to sing. And that question/declaration about art.

A song by Edge, hurrah! and acoustic, no less! (Please excuse my attempts at songwriting...)

The weekend will be fun times for Bon 'n' Cath...:sexywink:

***

The next day Paul’s frustration built tight inside his chest. He felt like he would explode, sitting at one of the desks at school, drumming his fingers reflectively. ‘An Cat Dubh’ spread like shadows throughout his mind; he still thought of Cath, and the little indent his body had made in the mattress beside her, probably cool and empty now.

The teacher was saying something unintelligible in Gaelic, and made the mistake of calling on him unasked. Bono’s reply was halfway between “sod off” and “I love her” and came out a sort of gibberish.

“Paul,” the teacher said, drawing him aside at the end of class. “I know you’re trying—but please pay attention. It’s just this class you need to finish, the last thing.”

He sighed and nodded, seeing that look of Is something wrong? written inadvertently on the teacher’s face.

Why did adults—no, he was an adult too—why did they assume everything going on was something that needed to be spoken or could possibly be understood? How in hell was this in any way the situation of a kid in school? It was so strange, so surreal, to be in the situation of what was, to him, the very young and the very old all at once.

He said some reply, beginning to see why Cath had left school.


The morning wrapped around Cath with the lingering blue whispers of dreams that had already faded.

Cath looked a little puzzled that Edge came over again, but welcomed the company of the guitarist. She did tell him, though, yawning, that she probably wouldn’t be getting anything productive done; she was tired again. She fell straight asleep at the table, Edge catching her from falling, and in doing so a bright cold something shocked against his palm: she had a little wire ring on her third finger. He looked at it in puzzlement and woke her briefly; “Cath, I’m going to get my guitar and practice some of the new music in the other room. Is that all right?” She nodded and closed her eyes, letting her face fall against her hands.

After returning, Edge set down his guitar against the door and gently, so as not to wake the sleeping Cath, hoisted her up from the chair and carried her upstairs so she could sleep properly, then came back downstairs and lay full-length upon the couch, aimless thoughts rippling through his fingers into music. He hadn’t played acoustic for a while. He found himself favoring a particular configuration of strings that made an interesting sound in pattern, and drifted off into a half-asleep state, a small song racing through his mind.

The first chord tugged at him, and the next one following, the others easing his thoughts. He half-whispered, half-sang, very quietly, in the sudden fragile silence.

Song for blue eyes
and for brown eyes
yes, the water and the land
while these eyes cry…


She whispers to him
she sings very softly
door closed behind her
she goes out the back way


All things begin
all things end
all things end
but all things begin…


There was a small sound; Cath had nearly silently come downstairs, looking more awake, hair falling wetly past her shoulders and dripping little water trails down her arms she didn’t feel like wiping away. “Are you making music?” she asked quietly, as if afraid she was interrupting something.

He nodded, and when she asked to hear it, shook his head with a small smile. It felt right for a later time.

“Listen, Edge,” Cath said mischievously, grinning, “I have an idea.”

Edge groaned: Cath was slipping on a sweater and then another sweater on top of it, clearly preparing for going outside. “I don’t know if this is the best idea,” he said, and she looked at him oddly.

“I want to move while I can!” Cath half-shouted exuberantly, her grin infectious. “Not that it isn’t getting difficult.

“Besides,” she added conspiratorially, leaning in close to him, her wet hair falling and brushing against his collarbone—he shivered—“there’s only so much time Paul isn’t here, and I want this to be a surprise.”

Edge rolled his eyes, already slipping on his shoes.


It was warming up outside. Cath no longer needed to wrap her heavy coat so tightly around herself. Their footsteps slapped and whispered against the street and Edge became very aware of the foot of space between both of them. It was a comfortable space, invaded by both inadvertently at times. Still, they huddled to one side and crossed their arms against the chill. Cath was a luminescence beside him, a little sun burning against the fading winter.

“So what made Bon so angry at you?” Cath asked abruptly.

Edge stared over. “What?” He hadn’t expected that question.

“He stopped talking about the band for about a week after you played at that hotel.” The names were running together; Cath remembered more the events that happened in U2’s performances, the little strings of connection tugging at Bono from the audience as he sang, the memory alight in his eyes when he sometimes described it to her. “It’s like you’ve given yourself and they give you back,” Paul had once tried to explain…

He paused, making a face boyishly as he struggled to put into words what he felt onstage. “Except part of it isn’t you, it’s them, and it makes you a better you…like forgiveness, redemption, being heard.”

He gave a half-smile, staring intently at Cath, who nodded, beside him in the comfortably empty house while they ate breakfast. Her legs crossed under her growing belly, her bare feet kissing the cool floor. Paul was all tight energy today, barely able to sit to talk, the wild energy from the performance still within him, not trapped by the dark turtleneck or Cath’s arms. She pushed her plate away, came over and settled beside him on the protesting chair, their legs intermingling between the chair legs.

“I thought of singing once,” Cath said, feeling foolish, “after I met you—you know, for the first time—“ He blushed. “My mam was musical once, I think. I don’t remember. But it was impossible in my house.”

Paul tilted his head in question. “Have I ever heard you sing?” He was looking at her so intensely, from that wordless similarity between them—little echoes and refractions of loss and love spun between their words always—

She smiled sideways. “You’ll hear me, sometime. Now shh.” Smiling, she closed the small distance between them.


He had been so different from that when he returned home angry for some reason—the day they’d played at the hotel, and that he did not mention the band at all even if she asked. Little hints of Paul showed through in Bono’s hurt he hid from her, that she let mend on its own: he had some inward pain only time and other reparations would fix.

Edge smiled at her, shoving some of his hair out of his face that had settled there with the wind. He could keep little from her, obviously.

“He…had a lot on his mind, and was thinking of leaving the band. Just considering,” he said seriously, “but the fact that he was considering was enough. I said some bad things I shouldn’t have said, and he hates me a little. A song came out of it, and the band went on. I think he was too scared to be able to let go of it. He has interesting motivation.”

Cath nodded, inwardly musing. “That does make sense, now that you mention it.” She grinned. “Interesting motivation. Me?”

“Well, of course,” Edge grinned. “It’s a surprise the record’s not called ‘Girl,’ or ‘Woman’ or ‘Ca—“—he managed to begin before she swatted him, laughing.

They made it all the way to Dublin, though twice Cath had to pause and lean against him, breathing hard, explaining the first time it was all the extra weight, the second time silent; the companionable silence had deepened between them. By the time they got a little ways into the city, Cath was excited, grinning again. Abruptly, she asked him to “wait out here, will you?” while she went into a little building. What felt like hours passed; Edge sat down against the side of the building and watched cars race past.

At last she exited, looking pleased. Edge looked but didn’t see any bags.

“What did you get?” he asked curiously.

“I didn’t,” she said enigmatically, “and it’s really little.” She sighed a breath of energy out into the dimming sky. “I think I know what I may do, after the record,” she began. Edge stilled before continuing walking. That thought had not occurred to him. It would be strange, performing in front of a sea of people, searching for the face that wasn’t there…his heart fragmented a little further.

He looked over curiously, hiding his pain; instead, the headlights caught cold and sad across his vision, but Cath understood the question all the same.

She balled her fists inside her coat pockets with a resolved look about her, and nodded. “I might become an artist. I hadn’t thought about it before…”

“…you were around all these strange musicians?” Edge finished, laughing quietly. She shook her head fondly.

“Perhaps.” The hopeful expression crystallized into a sort of reflectiveness. “I had no thoughts of making anything of myself when I lived with my family—if you could call it a family, with my mother gone, and…and the men. I honestly hadn’t thought it through. I only knew I would leave eventually, not what I would do.” She looked over at him. He said nothing, but a little structure of their thoughts formed between them, his sympathy and silence, her automatic realization that she could speak and he would listen, something she had rarely stopped to think about.

“What happened to your mother?” Edge asked, feeling suddenly awkward, like he was trespassing upon unfamiliar ground. He knew Bono had hardened a sort of silence around himself after his mother died, but Cath was different to him in many ways. “You mentioned her before.”

“I’m not sure,” Cath said. “She may have died. I was young when she was just—not there.”

A sort of veil of protection had settled firmly around Cath even when her mother was gone, one that wavered and vanished when she was fifteen and her father began drinking seriously, in plain sight. Still, little harm had come to her; her brother, in a drunken fit, hit her once but her father was her fierce protector in that instant. But Cath had grown up fast. Somehow, she felt like a death had taken place, however; she had had the urge to find her mother and look into her face, as if she would see herself and the answers to everything that had gone wrong.

“You know, if she didn’t,” Edge said, “you could probably find her.”

“The thought did come to me…Ah, but she could be called anything, I realized. I would only know her if I saw her face.”

Edge frowned. “You don’t know her name?”

“Her maiden name, no. Even that I’m not sure of. I’m not at all sure whether my name is my father’s side or my mother’s; he’s rarely even called by his first name. The two years before I met Paul, I rarely heard a name.” She gave an ironic sideways smile.

Edge laughed, explaining after Cath’s questioning look, “Bon…Bono had difficulty getting into the hospital. The doctors weren’t convinced you knew him, and he realized he didn’t know your last name either.”

She rolled her eyes. “Poor man. I swore I had wrote it on whatever papers there were after the first visit…”

Shaking his head, Edge confessed, “I have those. He wasn’t there.”

“Mm, well, it’s not like I’d get lost.”

Edge’s heart thudded. He was saved from an answer; they had arrived at the Hewson’s, and there was a light on. Cath opened the door and was met by a school-wearied Paul, who looked accusingly at Edge.

“Where were you?”

“Getting something,” Cath replied evilly.

“What?” Paul asked, intrigued.

“Secret,” she replied, smiling that infuriating smile, and he sighed, waved at Edge, and closed the door. Paul shivered: her coat had been imbued with cold from outside. He tried to rub heat back into his arms before wrapping them around her at last and kissing her deeply. Cath swatted Bono’s hands away from slipping the secret from her pocket and trapped them with hers, leading him to the couch and grinning foolishly at his enthusiastic refusal to separate their bodies.

“You’ll find out later,” she promised, though of course her words were muffled.

"You'll like it!" Those, too, made it only into his mouth. "Mm," he replied, pressing her against him.

She gave up speaking. It was the weekend tomorrow; they could sleep in late…
 
Mysterious Ticking Noise FTW...
Anyway...
I want to know what Cath's surprise will be!! :D
Ahhh... solo acoustic Edge-song. Nice. (It wasn't half bad either! :wink: )
 
And the U2 version is so much more win :D

The surprise is something awesome, is all I'm going to say...

and god, I should never write lyrics, ever. I did get a nice tune for it in my head, though :3
 
Back
Top Bottom