Page 4 of Our Song

It’s nine o’clock by the time I get home from the pub.

I’m not exactly pissed – Aoife and I spent more time ranting about Zenith than swigging pints, and we made sure to get plenty of toasties ‘for soakage’.

But I’m not what you’d call entirely sober.

Which is probably why, as I’m closing the front door behind me, the cardboard box that I’ve been precariously balancing on one hip falls to the ground.

‘Lol?’ Katie calls from the sitting room.

She’s the only person who stills calls me Lol.

It was my nickname in school but, unsurprisingly, it faded from use once people started using LOL as an acronym.

I like that Katie still calls me Lol, though.

It makes me feel … I dunno. Known. ‘Everything okay?’

‘I’m fine!’ I call back. ‘Sorry. I just dropped my ‘I’ve been fired’ box.’

I leave it there and go into the sitting room, where Katie and her wife Jeanne are curled up on the couch.

‘You weren’t fired,’ says Jeanne. ‘You were just … restructured. Here, have some wine.’

‘I shouldn’t …’ I say, but she’s already pouring me a glass of Brouilly. ‘Oh, all right then. Thanks.’

I take the glass and plonk myself down in a comfortable armchair.

Katie and Jeanne’s house is so nice. They’re practically my only friends who own their own home.

Last year I hoped me and Dave might be able to buy something soon …

But I won’t think about that now. I won’t think about him at all.

I won’t even think about the fact that, as of today, I’m officially unemployed.

I’ll just remember how lucky I am to have friends who, without hesitation, offered me a room as soon as I told them that Dave and I had broken up.

I feel tears come to my eyes. I love Katie.

And I love Jeanne too. I’m lucky my best friend got together with someone so cool.

And French. Her calm practicality perfectly balances Katie’s energy.

I look at them fondly, Katie with her bleached blonde bob and oversized sweatshirt with ‘Meuf’ emblazoned across the front, Jeanne snuggled next to her in a cobweb-grey cashmere cardigan, her braids tied up in a bun (it’s such a French cliché but she really is more stylish than anyone else I know).

‘Are you all right?’ says Katie suspiciously. ‘You look like you might be sick any minute. Don’t throw up all over that chair.’

‘How dare you!’ I say. ‘I was just thinking how great you both are. Though I’m not thinking that anymore.’

‘Good to hear,’ says Katie. ‘Because if you had puked on the chair I’d have made you spend your redundancy money on another one.’

‘Ooh, my redundancy money!’ I’m definitely a bit tipsy. ‘That reminds me. The payment should have gone through today!’

‘You’re rich!’ cries Katie.

‘Well, not very rich,’ I say. ‘But slightly richer than I was this morning. Actually, I wonder how much it is after tax?’ I reach for my phone and open the bank app. At least, that’s what I meant to do. But a combination of several drinks and general distraction means I hit the Gmail icon instead.

And that’s when I see it.

‘Oh my God.’ I drop the phone in my lap.

‘What?’ says Jeanne. ‘Oh no, have you been scammed? Is all your money gone?’

I pick the phone up again and stare at the screen. No, I wasn’t seeing things.

‘It’s not the bank,’ I say. ‘I got an email from Tadhg.’

‘Tadhg who?’ says Katie. Then it dawns on her. ‘ That Tadhg?’

‘That Tadhg,’ I say, without taking my eyes off my phone.

‘What’s the subject line?’ says Katie.

‘“Our song”,’ I say.

‘Maybe it’s a promotional thing,’ suggests Jeanne. ‘Maybe that’s the name of his new album.’

‘Jeanne,’ says Katie, ‘do you really think Laura is signed up to Tadhg Hennessy’s email list?’ She looks at me. ‘You’re not, are you?’

‘No!’ I say.

‘So why is he emailing you?’ she says.

‘I have no idea!’ I stare at the unread email.

The sender is listed as Tadhg Hennessy. Could it actually be him?

And if it is, what do I want it to say? Laura, I was young and stupid, you are the love of my life?

Laura, I know it’s been sixteen years since we saw each other but I still hate you for what happened that night?

Laura, just a heads-up, my new album is all about how much I still hate you? It could be anything.

Maybe I did just end up on his record company’s mailing list.

‘Read it!’ says Katie impatiently.

Katie, Sarah and, at this stage, Jeanne are the only people I’ve ever talked to properly about Tadhg. They’re the only people who know exactly what happened between us.

I take a deep breath. ‘Fine.’

Then I scroll down and start reading aloud.

Hi Laura,

My name’s Tara Kelleher and I’m writing to you on behalf of Tadhg Hennessy. We’d like to talk with you about a piece of music entitled ‘our song’, an unfinished composition you wrote together in the early ’00s. We would like to meet with you to discuss how to proceed.

Tadhg is currently in Dublin, and ideally we would set up a meeting and resolve this as soon as possible. If this is amenable to you, please contact me at this email address or at the number below.

I hope to hear from you soon.

‘And that’s it.’ I put down my phone and take a swig of wine. ‘It’s not even from him. Not directly.’ I can’t bring myself to admit how hurt that makes me feel.

‘Tadhg probably hasn’t written his own emails since 2010!’ says Katie. ‘I don’t think this is the most important issue here.’

‘The important issue,’ says Jeanne, ‘is that Tadhg Hennessy is interested in a song you co-wrote.’

‘It’s not that big a deal,’ I say.

They look at me with identically sceptical expressions on their faces.

‘I mean, I do know him!’ I say. ‘Or I did. It’s not like getting praise from Beyoncé.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ says Katie.

‘She’s going to meet him,’ says Jeanne. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I mean, he can’t even mail me himself.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’ Jeanne looks appalled. ‘I mean, obviously I never met him, but from what you and Katie have told me he wasn’t a total monster.’

‘He wasn’t,’ I say. ‘It’s just … me and him. It ended really badly. We stopped speaking and that was it.’

I didn’t see his face again until someone in work sent me the ‘Winter Without You’ video.

The story of Tadhg Hennessy’s meteoric rise is famous by now.

‘Winter Without You’ was his first single, released on his own no-budget indie label back in 2004.

It got a smattering of plays on Phantom FM, but when YouTube took off a few years later, an artist friend of his made a video for it and that video went viral.

A colleague at the agency where I was working at the time sent the link to our entire team with the subject line ‘Best thing I’ve heard all year’.

I remember how I felt after I clicked on the link and realised who I was looking at.

I remember making myself sit through the entire thing and reading the ecstatic comments beneath it.

I remember realising that Tadhg was now achieving what we’d once dreamed about doing together.

My stomach churns at the memory, and it’s not just the alcohol and toasties.

‘But Lol,’ says Katie gently, ‘that was a long time ago.’

I look at her. She was there for all of it. It’s easy to forget that now, because I made the big break with Tadhg all about me, but he and Katie had been proper friends. In that last year of college we’d been a little gang, the band and Katie.

‘What are you saying?’ I say.

‘I’m saying – and remember I’m not totally sober – that this could be a good thing,’ says Katie. ‘Especially right now.’

‘Really?’ I roll my eyes. “‘Hi Tadhg, I see you’re a megastar now. How am I doing? Oh, I just got laid off from my copywriting job.’”

‘Everyone’s been laid off at some stage,’ says Katie. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. And what I meant was, well, maybe this is fate.’

‘Fate,’ I say flatly.

‘You lose your job and then, shazam, Tadhg asks you if you want to meet up and talk about a song you wrote together!’ says Katie. ‘How is that not a present from the universe?’

‘First of all, we didn’t write that song together, whatever he’s claiming now,’ I say. ‘ I wrote it. He just sang it. And second of all, you’re assuming I want to hang out with him.’

‘Well, don’t you?’ says Jeanne.

Of course I do, even though I know he might not be the Tadhg I remember anymore. I don’t say so, though. I take another gulp of wine instead.

‘He must think the song is good, Lol,’ says Katie.

‘He probably just wants to make sure I didn’t, like, record it on a Dictaphone or something back in 2003.

’ I feel a surge of righteous anger. ‘God, I bet that’s it.

He wants to steal my song and he’s making sure I can’t sue him when he releases it on his next album.

And I didn’t record it so he’d win. He was the one who recorded our band practices, with his stupid minidisc recorder. ’

‘Or maybe,’ says Katie, ‘he wants to give you a proper songwriting credit.’

I get a flashback to sitting in a lecture theatre in college, imagining the credits of our first album.

Maybe some girls imagined double-barrelling their names with the man of their dreams. The thought of changing my name when I got married has never crossed my mind.

But I often found myself doodling ‘All songs: Hennessy/McDermott’ when I was meant to be taking lecture notes.

‘Look,’ says Jeanne. ‘If you ignore this email, do you think you’ll regret it in a year’s time, when he has a new album out that could have had your song on it?’

‘Maybe,’ I admit.

‘And you were really good friends with him once,’ says Katie. ‘Despite, you know, everything.’

‘True,’ I say. ‘But he wasn’t that great.’

There’s a long silence as I ponder their words. Finally Katie breaks it.

‘Well,’ she says. ‘He was really, really hot.’

‘He still is,’ says Jeanne. ‘And I don’t even fancy men.’ So annoying that Tadhg’s appeal transcends gender preferences.

‘Fine, fine, I’ll admit that he was hot. Is hot,’ I say. ‘Satisfied?’

‘No!’ says Katie. ‘I know you want to do this. And more importantly, I think it’ll lay some ghosts to rest. Give you closure about everything that happened back then. I think you should tell this Tara person you’ll meet Tadhg for lunch.’

‘Just to see if he’s still hot in person,’ says Jeanne.

‘Exactly,’ says Katie. ‘Just don’t reply now because I think you’re a little bit pissed. As am I. Wait until tomorrow and then do it. If you still want to.’

I give in. ‘Fine, fine, fine. I’ll reply tomorrow. If I still want to.’

‘Laura, this is a good thing!’ says Jeanne. ‘You have a special relationship with Tadhg Hennessy! That’s pretty cool, no?’

I laugh. ‘If you say so.’ Jeanne hadn’t been there. My relationship, if that’s what I can even call it, with Tadhg Hennessy was definitely not cool.

Except, of course, for the moments when it really, really was.