Page 47 of Our Song

Two hours after we leave the restaurant, I’m standing in the middle of Tadhg’s studio bringing a plectrum down on the Danelectro’s strings to play a massive power chord.

Tadhg is behind the drum kit and we’re playing what’s by far the loudest, hardest song we’ve written over the last week.

I gather all my misery, all my frustration, all my rage at Dave and Hugo and the internet and all the vultures who started texting me, and I throw it into the guitar, getting louder and sharper and more ferocious.

We end with one final chord and one last mighty roll across the drum kit and look at each other, dishevelled with the sheer physical effort of playing – you forget how physical it is, properly rocking out – and grinning.

‘That,’ I say, ‘was exactly what I needed.’

‘Want to take a break?’ says Tadhg.

‘What I really want,’ I say, ‘is some of that wine we abandoned in the restaurant.’

‘How about the next best thing?’ says Tadhg.

The next best thing, it turns out, is a fruity red wine that, to my unsophisticated palate, tastes even better than the fancy Fleurie in the restaurant. I should have known Tadhg would have a wine cellar. (‘It’s not a cellar, Lol!’ he protested. ‘More like a wine cupboard.’)

‘I hope you know,’ I say, as we sit on the floor of the studio some time later, him leaning against the sofa, me leaning against one of the armchairs, the half-empty bottle between us, ‘that I don’t make a habit of drowning my sorrows.

If I did, I’d have been permanently pissed since last Thursday night. ’

‘I think the odd bender is allowed,’ says Tadhg. ‘This has been some week.’

‘It sure has.’ I take a sip of wine and look over at him. ‘Today has helped, though.’

He raises his eyebrows. ‘Seriously? I feel I just threw money at the problem. I know a fancy lunch and some wine can’t cure everything.’

‘It wasn’t just the lunch,’ I say. ‘Katie and Jeanne and my other friends … they’re sympathetic and lovely, of course, but they don’t get what it’s like. And you do. The being written about in the tabloids bit,’ I add, ‘not the finding out your ex is having a baby with someone else bit.’

‘Well,’ he says, ‘I’m glad I helped.’

‘You did,’ I say. ‘And this’ – I gesture in the vague direction of the instruments – ‘this helps too. And this.’ I point at the wine. ‘Just hanging out, having a drink. All this stuff is fun.’

‘Yeah,’ says Tadhg. ‘It is.’

We sit in contented silence for a moment. Then Tadhg says, ‘Would it bother you if I rolled a joint?’

‘It a hundred per cent would not,’ I say.

He scrambles to his feet, goes over to the drawers under the mixing desk and takes out a small wooden box. Inside is a packet of Rizlas, a packet of filters and a little plastic bag full of weed.

‘I hope those drugs are ethically sourced,’ I say.

‘They are, actually,’ says Tadhg, rejoining me on the floor. ‘A friend of mine in Carlow grows it. And it’s nice and mellow. Not too strong.’

‘Good,’ I say. ‘Last thing I need is some skunk-fuelled paranoia.’

Tadhg laughs. ‘Seriously, don’t worry, it’s nothing like that.’ He sets to work.

I watch him expertly roll a neat little joint. ‘You’re pretty good at this.’

‘Well, I don’t do it every day.’ He runs his tongue along the edge of the paper to seal it. ‘I’ve seen enough people fuck themselves up and become extremely boring by self-medicating with weed. But sometimes it’s just a nice way to chill out.’

‘Sounds like just what I need.’ I look around the studio. ‘We’re not going to smoke in here, though, are we? I should get my coat.’

He looks up from his task and grins. ‘Don’t worry, Lol. We won’t freeze.’

A few minutes later, we’re stretched out on a pair of astonishingly comfortable sun loungers in front of the studio, wrapped in cosy swimming robes.

‘I got these when Aideen and I had deluded ideas of going out swimming in the sea at the crack of dawn,’ says Tadhg. He lights the joint and inhales deeply.

‘Did the two of you live together?’ I ask.

Tadhg exhales a plume of smoke. ‘Nope. We didn’t really have time to plan big stuff like moving in together.

’ He passes me the joint and I reach out and take it.

The sun loungers are just a couple of feet apart.

‘Or maybe that’s just what we each told ourselves.

Maybe both of us knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. ’

I take a very small drag on the joint and hold it in my lungs for a moment before letting it out. He wasn’t joking about it being gentle and mellow. I feel some of the week’s tension start to ease.

‘You were right,’ I say. ‘This is really nice weed.’

I snuggle down into my robe and take another, slightly longer drag.

‘I told you so,’ he says. Our fingers briefly touch as I pass him back the joint. Maybe it’s the weed, but I am suddenly very conscious of the physical contact.

‘You’re a very accurate drug pusher,’ I say.

Tadhg groans. ‘I’m like something out of a nineties teen drama. “Hey, kids, just have a toke of this joint! It’ll chill you out!’”

‘Saint Tadhg’s drug shame,’ I say in a dramatic headline-announcing voice.

Tadhg lets out a hoot of mirth that turns into a proper fit of laughter, and I crack up too.

It’s a clear night despite the freezing cold, and as I look up at the stars – surprisingly visible even though we’re not far from the city centre – a feeling that seemed impossible for much of the last week bubbles up inside me.

Happiness.

We lie there on our loungers, passing the joint back and forth. I feel cosy, and happy, and safe. Maybe that’s why, after a while, I say, ‘What about you and kids? Do you want to have them?’

If it weren’t for the fact that I’m slightly stoned, I would have been too nervous to ask him.

I would have dreaded hearing ‘Yes, being a father is my dream and nothing is more important than passing on my genetic material’.

Obviously Tadhg and I are not together – I’m not so high that I’ve lost my grip on reality – but it would have broken my heart, just a little bit, to know that I wouldn’t have been enough for him if we were.

And yet somehow, right now, I feel like I can handle whatever he says.

‘I think I’ve always felt that if it happened, great,’ says Tadhg. ‘And if it didn’t happen, also great.’

‘Did you ever come close to planning it?’ I say. ‘Sorry, that’s way too personal.’

‘No, no, it’s fine.’ Tadhg takes another drag on the joint, which is almost finished now, and hands it over to me.

‘My ex Amanda knew she didn’t want kids.

And I thought about it a lot and realised I was fine with that.

After her, I didn’t have another serious relationship for a few years – just short-lived things.

Then I got together with Aideen and, like I said, we never got round to doing any serious relationship-changing stuff.

I mean, I’ve thought about having kids. I suppose most people do, when they hit their mid-thirties.

But it’s not something I feel I really have to do. ’

I didn’t think it was possible for me to relax even more, but it turns out it is. I take a last drag on the joint and stub it out in the 1970s standing ashtray that’s positioned between the loungers.

‘Feel free to tell me this is none of my business,’ says Tadhg, ‘but how do you feel about it now? The whole kids thing.’

I exhale softly. ‘Weirdly enough, I kind of feel … good? Maybe that’s not the right word.

’ I look up at the stars. It’s so clear I can make out all the constellations.

‘Actually, I think it is, but it took a while. It was a huge deal when I realised I would never have a baby. It was … it felt like proper grief.’

‘But now?’ says Tadhg.

‘I still feel sad about it every so often,’ I admit.

‘Maybe I always will. Or maybe I won’t. Pregnancy announcements are still, I don’t know, triggering.

I don’t exactly feel jealous – it’s more like …

excluded. Like, I’m happy for people, of course I am.

It’s just every time someone tells me she’s pregnant, there’s one less woman like me in my life. I’m the outsider. Because I failed.’

‘You didn’t fail anything, Lol,’ says Tadhg gently.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘In my heart I know that. And it’s not like there’s some huge gaping hole in my life. Day to day I’m genuinely okay with it all. Much more than okay, actually.’

‘Good,’ says Tadhg.

‘Yeah, it is good,’ I say. ‘And the whole thing made me confront how much I might really want to have children. Like, would I be prepared to go through fertility treatments that almost certainly wouldn’t work for me?

Or try adoption? And I realised I don’t want to do any of that.

Which I guess means there are limits to how much I actually want kids, even if I do feel sad about it sometimes.

’ I keep my eyes fixed on the stars. ‘If it had happened, it would probably have been wonderful. But maybe it wouldn’t.

The thing is, I’ll never know. What I do know now is that there are a lot of other things that can make me happy.

And I can have a happy life without having kids. ’

Tadhg sits up on his lounger and looks at me. ‘But didn’t you believe that already?’

‘Well, yeah, in theory,’ I say. ‘But it’s hard to feel it’s true when the entire world is always telling you that you’re a tragic failure.

That’s really what makes me feel bad these days, not my actual life.

I mean, every story where a couple doesn’t have kids or can’t have kids seems to end with a fucking miracle baby at the last minute.

Like you can’t be a proper grown-up or live happily ever after unless you have children. ’

Tadhg ponders this for a moment and then says, ‘Shit, yeah, you’re right.’