Chapter 3
Roly fizzed with impatience as he stood in line at the convenience store.
He tried to quell the urge to fidget that itched beneath his skin.
It wouldn’t make the queue move any faster, and he’d only draw attention to himself, ticcing and twitching because he had to queue to pay for a pint of milk and a packet of biscuits like a regular person.
If he just kept his cool, acted casual and bored, no one would notice him.
He had the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up, his eyes trained on the ground, careful not to look around and risk catching someone’s eye.
There were only – he counted – three people ahead of him now.
It was a quiet Monday afternoon. He felt safe going out at this time of day, when most people would be at work – people who had proper nine to five jobs with water coolers and annual leave and all that.
Still, there were always more people out and about than you’d expect.
It surprised him every time – freelancers and stay-at-home parents, he supposed; students; the unemployed; pensioners.
He stifled a howl as the old lady who was now being served fumbled in her bag for her purse when all her purchases had been rung up.
What was that about? Had it only just occurred to her that she’d have to pay?
Finally, she moved on and struggled out through the doors with her shopping trolley.
It was almost bigger than her, but he resisted the impulse to leave the queue and go over to help her with it.
She might recognise him. Grannies loved him for some reason.
Roly glanced at the cashier – a young Asian bloke, bored arseless by the look of him.
He wasn’t even making eye contact with customers as he served them.
Clearly not one of those cheery types who thought they were making the world a better place with small talk – that was good.
Roly didn’t want to engage with anyone, and it looked like he’d get away with it.
He didn’t mind going to the meetings – he looked forward to them, in fact.
It was the journeys there and back that he found daunting – having to go out on the streets and risk being recognised.
The thought of being looked at with pity or derision made his insides shrivel up.
There was no danger of that at his meetings.
Everyone knew who he was, of course, despite the ‘anonymous’ tag.
But they didn’t care. At NA they were all in the same boat, and no one looked down on anyone else.
They’d all fucked up royally and lost everything they’d had, whatever that happened to be.
He may have had further to fall than some, but when you fell all the way down it didn’t really matter where you’d started. You landed in the same place.
When it was finally his turn, the cashier didn’t even look at him, keeping his eyes trained on the register throughout the whole transaction. Roly felt irrationally and unexpectedly pissed off, and deliberately tried to make eye contact as he took his change.
‘Miserable day,’ he said, nodding to the door.
‘Hmm,’ the cashier hummed vaguely in response, glancing at Roly for a nanosecond. Nothing. Not even that vague flash of recognition when you know someone is familiar, but you can’t quite place them. Huh! Maybe he really was anonymous now.
Out on the street, he tested the theory.
He pulled his hood down as he made his way to his nan’s house, eyeballing passers-by as he went, almost daring them to see him.
He tried to look open and approachable, like he’d welcome someone asking for a selfie or an autograph.
But it didn’t make any difference. He didn’t need to hide any more, because apparently he was invisible.
People looked through him – or worse, looked right at him and saw nothing but some chubby loser in sweats with a bag of biscuits and nothing better to do in the middle of the afternoon than eat himself into a diabetic coma.
It seemed his notoriety had finally worn off.
He didn’t like it as much as he’d thought he would.
He could probably strip naked right here in the street and still not even make the sidebar of shame, because who’d care about some nobody flashing his bits and howling at the moon. There’d be no opportunistic photos or banner headlines:
Roly Punch papped leaving his Narcs Anonymous meeting!
The former boy band hottie gone to seed!
an arrow helpfully pointing to his flabby belly as if you couldn’t spot it for yourself.
Roly Poly! Punch Drunk!
His name had been a tabloid editor’s wet dream and the asinine headlines had practically written themselves.
The last time he’d seen himself in any kind of news story, it was one of those social media clickbait articles – ‘you won’t believe how shit these former celebs look now’ or some such crap, with a picture of him looking like his nan in bad drag to draw people in.
He suspected it was photoshopped. There was no denying he’d had some bad days, but he refused to believe he’d ever looked quite that grotesque.
Well, fuck it! Maybe this was the wake-up call he needed.
He’d turn over a new leaf, get his life back on track – for real this time.
When he got home, he’d throw out all the crap in his cupboards and go for a run.
He hesitated as he passed a bin. Maybe he should start right now, and chuck the biscuits out.
If he brought them home, he’d just sit on the sofa and scoff the lot while he played FIFA.
But then he thought about what his nan would say, and he couldn’t do it.
Because, after all, there were people starving in the world.
You couldn’t just throw away food like it was nothing.
It was disrespectful. He’d bring them to his nan’s and they could have them together – that way, even if they ate the lot between them, he’d still be halving his calories.
* * *
‘How was your meeting?’ his nan asked when they were sitting at the table in her cosy little kitchen, a pot of tea and plate of biscuits between them.
Christine Punch’s ex-council house in the Liberties was tiny, but it was warm, cheerful and homey, and it was where he had always felt safest and happiest. Whenever the meditation teacher in rehab told him to ‘go to his happy place’ this was where he went.
‘It was good. Tinky Winky fell off the wagon at the weekend, though. Went on a bender.’ He picked up a chocolate digestive and bit into it. He’d start the diet tomorrow.
‘Oh no! And he’d been doing so well.’
‘Yeah, he was gutted. I felt really bad for him.’
‘And how about Laa-Laa? How’s she doing?’
‘Great.’ He nodded. ‘She spoke to her daughter at the weekend. It looks like they’re going to patch things up.’
‘Oh, that’s good news.’ His nan smiled, reaching for a biscuit.
She loved hearing about his NA group, and followed their stories like her favourite soap opera.
He knew it was all supposed to be confidential and he shouldn’t tell anyone what happened at the meetings.
But he’d named them all after children’s TV characters to preserve their anonymity, so he didn’t see any harm in it.
She had no idea who they really were, and even if she had, it wasn’t as if she was going to hunt them down.
‘How’s your mum? I haven’t seen her all week.’
‘She’s good. She has a new boyfriend.’
Christine rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly, I don’t know why she keeps putting herself through it. I wouldn’t mind if it made her happy, but she really knows how to pick them.’
‘Maybe this one’ll be different,’ he said hopefully.
It was true his mum had awful luck with men.
He didn’t know why because she was lovely – kind and good-humoured, and really pretty.
She looked after herself – dressed well and wore makeup and all that – and she still looked good, even though she was almost fifty.
She deserved someone nice who’d see how great she was and treat her well.
But her boyfriends never stuck around for long.
She seemed to have an unerring knack for attracting absolute fuckwits.
But she remained ever optimistic, so he tried to be too.
He’d feel disloyal if he admitted to sharing his nan’s scepticism.
‘Well, I suppose stranger things have happened.’ Christine sighed. ‘Though I can’t really imagine what. Where did she meet this one?’
‘Online – some dating website, as far as I know.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s a step up from a phone app, at least.’
Roly didn’t think it was really, but he said nothing. He wouldn’t give her any more ammunition for criticising his mum.
‘What’s he like?’
Roly shrugged. ‘Don’t know. I haven’t met him yet. Neither has she, actually – not in real life.’
Christine tutted exasperatedly. ‘I don’t know what Loretta thinks she needs a man for anyway. It’s not how she was raised.’
That was the trouble with his nan – she didn’t get it, because apart from Roly and his grandfather, she thought men were basically a waste of space.
She had various mugs and posters around the place saying as much in different ways.
‘A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle’ was printed on the T-shirt she was wearing right now.
She’d been a major hippie and feminist in her day, always going on marches about women’s rights and torching her underwear.
He’d seen the photographs of the protest rallies and bra bonfires.
‘But she never had the sense she was born with when it came to the fellas,’ Christine continued. ‘Starting with that father of yours.’
‘Yeah, she’s a sucker for romance,’ Roly said with a grin.