Page 42 of Our Song

I’m leaning on the kitchen counter, waiting for my toast to pop up and listening to a ridiculous but entertaining podcast about Sweet Valley High books when I glance at the calendar on the wall and realise what date it is. And despite myself, I feel a little pang.

Today would have been my and Dave’s eight-year anniversary. Eight whole years since we went for a drink and ended up kissing on the corner of Aungier Street on the way home. It feels like a lifetime ago.

We’re both in very different places now.

I walk to Tadhg’s through Marino, avoiding the busier main road at Fairview, and it’s all so normal that I wonder why I was so nervous about walking over to his place.

But then I reach Marino Crescent, and things are very different.

It’s scarier than I thought it might be.

There are more people than ever in the park, including some who are clearly members of the paparazzi rather than Tadhg fans. And – oh God! – now they know my name.

‘Laura! Over here! Laura!’

‘Laura, is it true you’re homeless?’

‘We love you, Laura!’

‘Leave Tadhg alone!’

‘Laura!’

‘Laura!’

They crowd around me as I get closer to Tadhg’s house. I pull my parka hood as far forward as it’ll go and hurry up to the gate, where I realise a burly security man is standing. When I approach, he gets between me and the photographers.

‘In you go, Ms McDermott.’

The gate buzzes before I can even hit the bell, and I all but run through it and slam it behind me. That was horrible. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe we should just have called it a day. Maybe this is impossible.

The front door is open when I get there, and Tadhg is in the hall, his face grim.

‘Shit, Laura, I’m so, so sorry about this.’

I put down my guitar case and pull off my parka. ‘Stop apologising, it’s getting annoying. I told you, I know it’s not your fault.’

‘Well, if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be in this situation.’

‘Hugo’s the one who leaked the story,’ I say.

We head out to the studio, but I just can’t concentrate on the song we’re trying to write.

I’m too aware of the hordes outside the house.

I’ve turned my phone off, but I know there’ll be loads of messages waiting for me when I turn it back on, so it almost feels like an unexploded bomb.

I keep looking over at it and Tadhg clearly notices because after an hour and a half he says, ‘Look, if it’s all too much being back here today, I totally get it. We can take a break.’

The thought of going home (See, world! I’m not homeless!) and staring at the walls makes my heart sink even further. ‘No, I’m grand. I need the distraction. If I go home I’ll go mad.’

‘I don’t mean you going home,’ says Tadhg. ‘Sorry, I should have said.’

‘What do you mean, then?’ I say.

‘Well, we could just hang out here,’ he says. ‘Watch a film or something. You haven’t seen the screening room yet.’

‘You have a screening room ?’

‘Um, yeah, it’s in the basement, where the original kitchen used to be.’ He catches my expression and says, ‘I mean, it’s just a big screen and some comfy chairs – it’s not, like, my own multiplex or anything.’

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘Just an average private screening room.’

‘Hey, don’t mock it till you’ve watched Casablanca on that big screen. Well, medium-sized screen. I don’t want to raise your expectations too high.’

I would love to watch Casablanca with him in a private screening room.

But I think I might be too emotionally fragile for it.

‘We’ll always have Paris’? I suppose Tadhg and I will always have the bus stop on Westmoreland Street.

My mixed feelings must show on my face because Tadhg says, ‘Or – and I hope you say yes to this one, because I would love an excuse to get out of the house – we could get lunch at—’ And he names another restaurant where dinner costs more than my week’s rent.

‘We won’t get a table,’ I say. This is the sort of place where a table usually has to be booked a year in advance. Dave tried to book one for my birthday two years ago and they basically laughed at him over the phone.

‘I know this sounds really wanky,’ says Tadhg, ‘but they usually keep a table free for, um, VIPs who might need it at the last minute. So I’m sure we’ll be fine.’

‘Jaysus.’ I raise my eyebrows. ‘First special sandwich deliveries and now this.’

Tadhg bows his head. ‘Sorry. But what do you think?’

I have to admit, the thought of a fancy meal does appeal. But the thought of being seen in public does not. I say this to Tadhg.

‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about that,’ he assures me. ‘The table’s in a little alcove. It’s really private – we won’t have people gawping at us. It’ll be grand. Paul can drive us in.’

Fuck it, if I’m going to be Tadhg’s little Cinderella, I might as well go to the ball. Or the posh restaurant, as the case may be.

‘I’m in,’ I say. ‘As long as we can stop off at my place so I can change my clothes. I don’t think they’ll let me in wearing a band T-shirt and trousers with an elasticated waist.’

‘Deal,’ says Tadhg.

Tadhg calls the restaurant and confirms that the alcove table is indeed free.

‘Do you want to come in while I’m getting ready?’ I say, when we pull up outside my house ten minutes later. As we head inside, I hope any potentially curtain-twitching neighbours are at work.

‘Um, make yourself at home.’ I am suddenly weirdly conscious that he knows I’m about to go upstairs and take my clothes off. Not that he’ll be giving that matter a second thought. Or even a first one, probably.

‘I will,’ says Tadhg. ‘Do you have any biscuits?’

I point him in the direction of the custard creams and run upstairs.

Fifteen minutes later, having put my glasses into my bag just in case we somehow stay out so late I have to take my contact lenses out, I descend the stairs in a 1980s Laura Ashley frock and find Tadhg sitting on the couch in the sitting room reading Devil’s Cub , one of Katie’s beloved Georgette Heyer novels.

‘Can I borrow this?’ he says without looking up. ‘I’m learning a lot of surprising things about the eighteenth century.’

‘I’m sure Katie won’t mind as long as you look after it,’ I say. ‘Her Georgette Heyer collection is sacred.’

‘I’ll treat it with kid—’ He looks up. ‘ Oh . You look really nice.’

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Charity shop.’

‘You always did find the best things in those shops,’ says Tadhg.

‘There’s slim pickings in them these days,’ I say. ‘Mostly tat from the nineties. This was a miracle find.’

‘I miss going to charity shops,’ says Tadhg, unfolding himself from the couch. ‘I found some amazing things in George’s Street back in the day.’

‘The dead men’s suits!’ I say.

‘I think it could have been just one dead man with a really sharp wardrobe,’ says Tadhg. ‘Who was exactly my size.’

‘His family must have dumped a different suit at each shop,’ I say. ‘Do you still have them?’

‘They’re probably still in my parents’ house,’ he says. ‘I should dig them out. Though I doubt they’d still fit me.’

‘You could get them altered,’ I say.

‘I’d have to get them fumigated,’ says Tadhg. ‘I played so many gigs in those suits they could probably stand up by themselves.’

He’s not talking about shows he played with me.

We only ever played four gigs together that year.

I feel a pang at the thought of all those shows he must have played in those suits later, after we went our separate ways.

I saw his name on posters around town and outside music shops quite a few times in those early post-Trinity years, when I was doing my postgrad and starting my first agency jobs.

It never failed to give me a moment of genuine pain, and a jealous rage, one that I couldn’t justify even to myself, that he was still making music without me.

Well. I suppose he’s making music with me again now.

Half an hour later, Tadhg and I are sitting in the alcove at the back of a beautiful room in a Georgian townhouse, with a bottle of Fleurie in front of us.

The room is lit by low, soft lamps and decorated in warm cream and gold.

It’s like being inside a pearl. A few heads turned as Tadhg walked through, but the fanciness of the clientele means that no one actually gawked.

And once we’re tucked into the cosy little alcove, only the people on the nearest table – a couple who look like they’re in their seventies – can see us.

‘Wow,’ I say. ‘This really is perfect.’

‘Here, have some of this.’ Tadhg pours me a glass of wine and I take a large sip.

‘If ever there was a time for day drinking,’ I say, ‘it’s today. But not, like, in a getting hammered way,’ I add hastily, lest Tadhg think I’m going to start dancing on the table.

He laughs. ‘I fully agree.’

We clink glasses. I let out a sigh that sounds more despairing than I meant it to.

‘I know it’s very easy for me to say,’ says Tadhg, ‘but this will pass.’

‘Will it, though?’ I take a sip of wine. ‘I mean, it’s not just all the attention I’m getting now. What’ll happen when I’m looking for work in the future? Even if they don’t remember the story, this Cinderella stuff will be the first thing that appears when people google me.’

I think of Amanda Sorohan. Despite the fact that she won a huge international art prize last year, the first thing that comes up when you search for her online is the fact that she used to go out with Tadhg.

It is easy for Tadhg to say comforting things, because he doesn’t have to worry about stuff like that.

Me supposedly being his little protégée will be just one more feel-good Saint Tadhg story in a long list.

‘I know,’ says Tadhg. ‘But I talked to Tara, and she said we can hire experts who specialise in cleaning up search results for people’s names.

’ He looks at my miserable face. This is one situation when I really don’t care if my feelings are obvious.

‘I know that’s not ideal, though. And I keep saying it, but I’m so sorry, Lol. ’