Page 38 of Our Song

I’m lying on my bed on Monday afternoon staring at the ceiling and making a list of the most surprising people who have contacted me since yesterday.

A girl from my year in secondary school who I once hit with a folder because I saw her picking on a first year.

My aunt who told me at my cousin’s wedding last year that I should use some filler on that line between my eyebrows.

A former colleague who I know used to bitch about me behind my back.

And Brian’s ex Caroline, of course. Who now has her own lifestyle brand.

Of course she does. Not quite the little boutique I imagined during that lunch with Tadhg less than a fortnight ago, but almost. I have the urge to tell Tadhg about this, because he’d find it pretty funny, and then realise I can’t. Or I won’t.

I still haven’t got back to him. He stopped trying to ring me yesterday afternoon.

I suppose he thought all the calls might be getting a bit much.

Or maybe he’s just given up. I will talk to him eventually, of course I will, but at this moment all I can handle is lying in bed and staring at the ceiling.

I haven’t even cried since yesterday on the bench in Fairview Park.

I’ve spent most of the time just lying and staring.

I barely got any sleep last night. I spent way, way too long looking at comments and messages yesterday, and they’re all still scuttling around in my head like spiders.

There were so many terrible, terrible comments.

Even the compliments felt horrible and intrusive.

So many people saying things about me. We’re not meant to be exposed to so many opinions about ourselves.

I don’t think our brains can handle it. Mine certainly can’t.

Eventually Katie took my phone away from me.

I don’t know where it is right now. She could have thrown it in the Tolka for all I care.

Just thinking about it makes me feel sick.

I don’t want anyone to contact me ever again.

Maybe I’ll never leave this room. Maybe I’ll become one of those modern-day hermits. Maybe—

There’s a knock on my bedroom door and Katie says, ‘Lol? You okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ I lie.

‘Can I come in?’

I know she’d go away if I asked her to. But I’ve been in the house on my own all day while she and Jeanne were at work. Maybe I don’t really want to be a hermit after all.

‘Okay.’

She gently opens the door and walks in. ‘So … Tadhg just rang me.’

I sit up on the bed. ‘What?’

‘He’s genuinely worried about you.’

‘He shouldn’t be using you to get to me,’ I say.

‘He’s not,’ says Katie. ‘He just wanted to know how you are. He’s not trying to pass on messages or anything.’

‘And what did you tell him?’

‘I said you were in shock,’ she says. ‘Which I think you are. And that this has all been very hard for you.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He says he knows it must be hard and he’s sorry,’ says Katie. She looks down at her hands. ‘I think you should talk to him, Lol.’

I sigh. I know she’s right. I can’t keep putting it off forever.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘But I’ll need my phone back.’

‘I’ll give it back,’ she says. ‘But first, you need some food.’

I barely ate anything yesterday and nothing but a small bowl of cornflakes this morning, so as soon as I smell toast I’m suddenly famished.

I devour it before Katie hands me my phone.

When I turn it on I see multiple missed calls, some from unknown numbers, and a ridiculous number of texts.

I delete all the unknown numbers without reading them and text my parents and Annie to let them know I’m still basically okay.

Annie was one of the few people I talked to yesterday before Katie took my phone away.

‘I’m going to fly home and kill those pricks,’ she said when she rang me from London.

‘Which pricks?’ I said.

‘The journalist. Aisling’s husband. Tadhg fucking Hennessy. All of them.’

I almost believed she’d do it too. It was weirdly comforting.

After I text Annie I make the stupid mistake of googling my name, which brings up a whole new rake of stories in other outlets from all over the English-speaking world and makes me realise that this story is not going to go away quickly.

Why we’re so obsessed with ‘Tadhg’s Cinderella’

What we know about Tadhg Hennessy’s protegée Laura McDermott

What the Tadhg Hennessy ‘Cinderella’ story tells us about women in music

Is Tadhg Hennessy dating his old bandmate Laura McDermott? What we know about the most mysterious woman in music

Ally or saviour complex? Tadhg Hennessy’s Cinderella story

After looking at this I have to lie down on the bed and stare at the ceiling again for a while.

Then I text Tadhg.

The doorbell rings twenty minutes later, which was just enough time for me to shower, dress and put my contact lenses in, because I’m still stupidly vain and I couldn’t bear the thought of him turning up and seeing me looking like the scruffy waif from that dreadful photograph.

I can hear low voices coming up from the hall, and a few moments later there’s a knock on my bedroom door.

When I open it, Tadhg is standing there, looking like he hasn’t slept in at least twenty-four hours. Well, that makes two of us.

‘Shit, Laura,’ he says. ‘I am so sorry about this.’

‘Me too.’

We just stand there for a moment, and I realise he’s waiting to be invited into the room, so I say, ‘I suppose you’d better come in.’

I sit on the bed and he takes the chair by the dressing table. He looks too tall for it.

‘Are you okay?’ he says. ‘Sorry, that’s a stupid question.’

‘No, I’m not,’ I say. ‘Okay, I mean. And neither are my parents. I had to explain to them that I’m not actually destitute.’

‘Oh Christ,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry. I keep saying it, but I really am.’ And he sounds it. But what do I know?

‘Was it you?’ I say. ‘That story. Did it come from you?’

‘What?’ he says. ‘No! No, of course it didn’t!’

‘Last week,’ I say, ‘you said Hugo wasn’t going to object to us working together. Was this why? Did you say he could use me for publicity?’

‘Jesus!’ Tadhg looks genuinely horrified. ‘Of course not! Oh my God, Lol, I would never … Is that what you’ve been thinking?’

My face must give him all the answer he needs.

‘I swear I had nothing to do with this story,’ he says. ‘It’s all fucking Hugo. Who is no longer my manager, by the way.’

‘But did you know?’ I say. ‘Did you know he was going to do it?’

‘No!’ he says. ‘Of course I didn’t.’

‘So he didn’t mention it when he called over that day?’

‘He just said he’d been thinking that me working with someone who wasn’t a professional musician would be even better publicity than working with those producers,’ says Tadhg.

‘And I told him you and me were focusing on songwriting and we didn’t need any publicity.

I said maybe we could discuss making it public in the future, but right now it was a private arrangement.

Working with you was my priority, and he could tell Ahlberg and Johns I’m otherwise engaged.

He said he understood. He didn’t mention leaking any story to the media – he didn’t mention any publicity plan in particular.

I realise now that he was asking for details about you but I swear, Laura, I didn’t tell him anything apart from the fact we were in college together. I didn’t even give him your full name.’

I remember Hugo asking for my surname that day. Asking where I worked. He must have been fishing for info because he knew Tadhg might shut down his scheme, and he wanted to be able to go behind his back and get someone to research me.

‘I never thought he’d do anything like this,’ says Tadhg. ‘And I know you don’t owe me anything at the moment, but I really hope you believe me about this.’

I do. But still. But still. I think of my parents calling me yesterday, worried and upset.

I think of Aisling. I think of all those articles.

All those terrible comments. All those messages.

All those thoughts about me. They’ve all been unleashed and I can’t stop them and I can’t unsee them.

And they’re going to keep coming, at least for a while.

Why did I think I could ever be okay with any public scrutiny?

‘I believe you.’ I can see the relief on his face. ‘I’m sorry for accusing you of something so awful.’

‘That’s okay,’ says Tadhg. ‘I understand. It would never have happened if you weren’t working with me. I’m so sorry about that.’

Then I remember something.

‘But … but last week you said you couldn’t really trust Hugo,’ I say slowly. ‘At least not like you trusted his dad. So did you actually tell him not to leak the story about me? Like, explicitly tell him? Or did you just say it didn’t need any publicity?’

‘I don’t— Maybe not explicitly but I thought it was obvious …’

‘Well, clearly it wasn’t!’ I say. ‘You just assumed it was. God, Tadhg, the world works so smoothly for you now and you don’t even realise it!

Everyone around you does what you want, so it doesn’t seriously cross your mind that one day they won’t.

And now that day’s arrived, and I’m the one paying for it! ’

‘I’m so sorry.’ He looks it too. But that doesn’t change anything. ‘I really didn’t think this would happen.’

‘You should have checked that Hugo wasn’t going to say anything!’ I’m on the verge of angry tears now. ‘You should have fucking checked!’

‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘I know you’re right. Fuck. I’ve really messed up.’

‘Yes!’ I say. ‘You have! All this attention …’ I trail off.

‘Yeah?’ he says gently.

‘It feels awful, Tadhg,’ I say. ‘I don’t know how you deal with it. It feels really, really awful.’