BC (BEFORE CHILDREN) I got most of my kicks late at night, in a windowless room, with the help of a close friend, two microphones and a big fat songbook. There’s a restaurant in Dublin called Ukiyo that serves excellent tuna carpaccio but which, more importantly, sits above several private karaoke booths where for a fee those who are this way inclined can murder power ballads and indulge their inner Gaga all night long.
Or, if you are another way inclined, you can duet endlessly to I Know Him So Well as sung by Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson in the musical Chess circa 1985. In those days, I wore tube skirts and copious brooches of the diamante persuasion. One night, in a badly lit disco, slow dancing to I Know Him So Well, an ex-boyfriend remarked that I looked like Paige. I took it as a compliment, incidentally, even though she was 20 years older than me. They were strange days when hot pink and royal blue were a winning combination and marriage fantasies about George Michael were not unrealistic.
I Know Him So Well is pretty much the perfect karaoke song for two women who (a) like singing, (b) fancy themselves to be quite good at it, and (c) enjoy pretending to be the other woman/wife in a toxic love-chess-related triangle.
The harmonies in that song sound achingly good if you hit them perfectly which after many, many wine-fuelled nights we eventually did. We’d programme the song in 10 times in a row so we didn’t have to keep getting up to press pesky buttons. It was unspoken, but it always felt as though we were rehearsing for something. As though, one day, we would be at a talent show and someone would drop out and we’d be called upon to get on stage to sing an emergency duet. There would be this look between us and we’d know it was time. “Nothing is so good it lasts eternally,” I’d begin in my role as Florence as sung by Paige. She’d be Dickson’s Svetlana. The standing ovation would last for hours.
Once, when I got offered an interview with Dickson, I immediately came up with what seemed like a classic twist on the traditional one-to-one. I suggested to her PR person that we meet in Ukiyo and duet on I Know Him So Well. It was perfect. I actually thought Dickson would jump at the chance to recreate her iconic performance with a karaoke addict in a basement covered with palm tree wallpaper. Her loss.
It wasn’t our only song. We did tunes from the Carpenters, Carole King, Michael Jackson, Aguilera, Spears and Take That. In-between songs we’d put each other’s world to rights and we never left until Duncan called down on the phone from the restaurant above to say he had a home to go to and didn’t we? So we’d go home and sleep in till lunchtime because we could then. Because we could. BC.
And now AC (after children), in the absence of energy and funds and lie-in possibilities, my children's bedroom is my karaoke booth. AC, I am in solo mode. I start off quite traditionally. Down By The Sally Gardens, maybe, and then it's on to She Moves Through the Fair.I do that one deep and low and wispy, channelling Sinéad O'Connor. Then I might tackle Tell My Ma When I Go Home (The Boys Won't Leave The Girls Alone), a wee nod to their Northern lineage. I sing as though I am on stage. I sing Christopher Robin and Little Man You're Cryingand Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Raland Rainy Days and Mondaysand Wouldn't It Be Loverly? and Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home). I keep singing even after I hear their deep sleep breath. I sing because it makes me feel good and because it reminds me of being sung to as a little girl and because I miss being Florence to my friend's Svetlana. I sing because it gets me happy.
One evening, I find myself walking past Ukiyo with bags of groceries and I go in for a glass of wine for old times’ sake. Duncan is there. He asks about my friend and I tell him how we don’t get out much these days, how just sitting here brings back happy memories, how maybe I’ll get the old team back together soon. I forget the groceries at my feet. We talk for ages. Later he says: “Do you want to have a bit of a sing?” and I say “Why not?”
He unlocks a downstairs door, presses some buttons and leaves me alone with the dodgy wallpaper, microphone in hand. The room fills with Streisand’s The Way We Were and the tears come. He knows us so well.
roisin@irishtimes.com
THIS WEEKEND: Róisín will be rewatching coverage of the Castletown Donkey Derby from 1994, as tweeted by Eoin Butler. It’s possibly the most important sporting event ever held in this country. Oh, and comedy gold. (Search for Castletown Donkey Derby on YouTube)
