Chapter 9
It was a mild March day and the street was busy with Saturday shoppers as they stepped out into the sunshine.
They bought huge pizza slices from the takeaway counter across the road and walked back to Roly’s house in nearby Portobello.
Delicious smells of hot dough and herby tomato sauce wafted up from the warm cardboard boxes they carried, and Ella couldn’t stop smiling.
It had been so long since she’d spent a freewheeling weekend morning with a friend, drifting from coffee to lunch to wherever the mood took them.
It was the ordinary, everyday life that had been out of her reach all those years, and she was fizzing with excitement to be part of it again…
which was pathetic. No, fuck it. It was exciting, and she wasn’t going to let herself feel ashamed about that. She was allowed to enjoy it.
It was a short walk to Roly’s house in a quiet street of terraced red-brick houses.
‘It doesn’t look like a shithole,’ Ella said, looking around as Roly fumbled in his pocket for his key, while balancing the pizza box in his other hand. There was a small pebbled garden to one side, and a prettily tiled path led to the navy-blue door.
‘It’s not a shithole in itself. It’s more what I’ve done with the place.’
‘Oh.’ She smiled. ‘Slob?’
‘Yeah. You’ve been warned.’ He pushed open the door and nodded to her to go ahead of him.
‘Oh, I see what you mean.’ She followed Roly into a large airy living room with a Victorian cast-iron fireplace and large sash bay windows.
Ella looked around, admiring the high ceilings and original features.
It was a beautiful room, but every surface was buried under piles of clutter, and the floor was littered with takeaway boxes and empty bottles.
There were used plates and mugs mouldering on the coffee table and random items of clothing strewn across the furniture.
It could be mistaken for the aftermath of a wild weekend, but Ella recognised the signs of depression and inertia in the mess.
She’d let her room get like this sometimes when she was going through a particularly low phase and even throwing a pizza box in the trash was too much effort.
‘I did warn you.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s lovely. It just needs some tidying up. I love these old Victorian houses.’
‘Well, have a seat.’ He waved her to the pale-blue sofa facing the window. Only one side was clear – obviously where Roly usually sat – and she folded herself onto it.
He cleared a space on the coffee table for the pizza boxes. ‘Drink?’ he asked, rubbing his hands. ‘Tea? Fizzy water? I don’t have anything stronger, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s fine. Drinking in the middle of the day doesn’t agree with me anyway.’
‘I’d offer you a Coke or something, but I kind of threw out all my food yesterday.’
‘Oh. That was a bold move.’
‘Yeah, I want to lose this.’ He patted his belly. ‘So I’m turning over a new leaf – after this, obviously.’ He nodded to the pizza.
‘Yeah, me too. I’ve put on so much weight since I’ve been ill. I’ll have fizzy water, please.’
When he went to get the drinks, Ella got up and explored the room.
Everything about the place interested her.
It had been so long since she’d been let into someone else’s home like this…
it was like getting a peek into someone’s life.
She studied the shelves, looking at Roly’s things as if they might give her some insight into who he was now – the abstract painting above the fireplace, the blue and white kilim rug in front of the sofa, the rows of games and DVDs.
It was weird to think of Roly as someone who owned rugs and lamps.
She couldn’t imagine him buying them, picking out sofa cushions, choosing window blinds, deciding what shade to stain the polished wooden floorboards and what colour to paint the walls.
It seemed so grown-up, and made him feel more distant from her now, someone she no longer knew.
He came back with drinks and napkins, then cleared a space on the sofa and sat beside her.
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ Roly said as they ate. ‘It’s really great to see you.’
‘You too.’ She smiled at him – her periodic Huckleberry friend. She’d missed him, she thought, with a sudden rush of longing, as if she wasn’t right here with him. Maybe she was pining for all the years she’d lost with him. She took a sip of water. ‘It’s been such a long time…’
He gave a sad smile. ‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to see me again after how I was the last time we met.’
She frowned. He was still talking about that night before Christmas in Fifth & Liquor, and thought she’d been the one to let their friendship fizzle out.
There was some truth in it in a way. He’d always been the one to initiate their meet-ups, and it had taken her by surprise every time he’d got in touch again.
But she could have reached out to him if she’d wanted to.
If she was honest with herself, she’d been relieved when she hadn’t heard from him again after that night at Marty’s.
She couldn’t have been around him after that, couldn’t have continued to be his friend, without telling him what she’d done – and she didn’t see herself ever having the courage to do that.
Even if she had, it would likely have been the end of their friendship anyway.
So it was easier not to see him again and content herself with the fact that she’d done the right thing – letting him go had been a necessary part of that.
‘It was nothing to do with you or how you were that night. I think we both just drifted apart. I mean, I never heard from you either. You were busy with the band, and then rehab… I got sick.’
‘You mean you would have forgiven me? For how I was that time?’
‘Of course. There’s nothing to forgive. I knew it wasn’t really you.’ But would he have forgiven her? She didn’t dare ask. ‘You were off your head.’
‘I wish I’d called you afterwards… apologised. I almost did a couple of times, but I lost my nerve.’
‘Anyway, I did see you again after that night at Fifth & Liquor. I told you I was at that party in Marty’s house, after the concert in Croke Park.’
‘Oh yeah.’ He frowned. ‘I forgot.’
She wished she hadn’t mentioned it. Something happened to his face when he was reminded of that night that she didn’t like, and she felt a stab of guilt.
It had all fallen apart for him after that party.
Because she’d thrown him under the bus… or pushed him out of its path. Sometimes she still wasn’t sure which.
In fact, the very last time she’d seen Roly, he hadn’t been obnoxious at all – just sad and pathetic.
Her mind shied away as it always did from the image of him hunched in a corner of Marty’s guest bathroom chopping out lines, a half-empty bottle of vodka beside him.
He’d looked so lost – gaunt, pale and dead-eyed, staring at her unseeingly when she came into the room.
She’d been so scared and sad for him. When she forced her mind back to that night, she knew she’d done the right thing.
He’d been drowning and she’d thrown him a lifebelt.
Anyone who loved him would have done the same.
‘Do you still see any of the guys from the band?’
‘Yeah, I see Charlie occasionally since he’s moved back to Dublin. The rest of us sort of drifted apart. The band was all we had in common, really. Once that was gone…’ He shrugged.
‘But you were so close. You’d been through such intense experiences together.’
‘I know – like people who survived the Titanic or something. There were things we could only really talk about with each other – things only the five of us understood. We were the only ones who knew what it was like being in Oh Boy! I thought we’d be friends for ever.’
‘Do you miss it? The band?’
‘Only every other minute of the day.’
She gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘Yeah, I know what that’s like.’
‘But I plan to get it back – all of it.’
‘Well, you’ve made a good start.’
He frowned, confused. ‘You think?’ he asked sardonically.
‘You did rehab. You’ve got clean and sober.’
He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Oh, that.’
‘That’s a big deal, Roly. You should give yourself credit.’
‘I suppose. But in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly living my best life, am I?’
‘What does your best life look like, then?’
‘Pretty much what it was when we met that night at Fifth & Liquor – only without the drugs, obviously. And the dickish attitude.’
‘Take away the drugs and the dickishness, and what’s left?’
He laughed. ‘Just money, fame, success. Plus I was really fit when I was in the band.’
‘No, you weren’t. You were just skinny.’
‘Skinny, then. And I was with Pippa. We were all loved up. How about you? What’s your best life?’
‘Same, actually.’
‘You were in love with Pippa too?’
She laughed. ‘No, but how things were when we met that night – I was at Trinity, I was in love…’ Just talking about it, she could feel the excitement of it again, smell the earthy tang of the air, feel the warm surprise of Andrew’s lips on hers, see the fog of their breath mingling in the chill autumn air, the memories all wrapped up in the golds and rusts of fallen leaves. ‘I’d just moved in with my boyfriend.’
‘Oh yeah, I remember you telling me about him.’
‘Really?’ He’d hardly listened to her that night. She’d be surprised if he remembered a word she’d said.
‘What was his name again?’
‘Andrew.’
He nodded as if he’d heard it before, but she could tell it was new to him. ‘What was he? A philosopher or something?’
‘Yeah.’ Maybe he’d listened more than she gave him credit for. ‘He was on the same course as me, but he went on to specialise in Philosophy. He’s a lecturer now at Trinity.’
‘So you keep in touch?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I just… heard on the grapevine.’
‘Stalked him on Instagram, you mean?’
‘No! I’ll have you know I’ve done no such thing.’
Roly smiled. ‘He doesn’t do Instagram, does he?’
‘No,’ she admitted sheepishly. ‘Facebook, though… that’s a different matter.’