Chapter 9 #2
Roly looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You look really happy when you talk about him. Your face sort of… lights up.’
She sighed. ‘It was the happiest time of my life. But it wasn’t just about him.
Everything was so new and exciting… college, discovering new ideas, making friends, falling in love.
It felt like the world was opening up for me, like my life was really beginning.
’ She remembered the day it started, when she’d seen Andrew on his way to the library, and he’d stopped and waited for her to catch up so he could talk to her.
She could still feel the breathless sting of frosty air and the fluttering in her stomach.
The whole world had seemed box-fresh and hers for the taking.
‘So you split up?’
She nodded. ‘After I got sick. He tried for a while – he wasn’t an asshole. But it was too much, in the end, my illness. Everything was about me, my issues, and it wasn’t fair to him. We were young. He had a life to live and, unlike me, he could live it. So we broke up.’
‘Sounds like an asshole to me.’
‘He really wasn’t.’ Selfish, maybe, but who wasn’t? She’d worked hard at not resenting him and she didn’t want to start now. ‘What about Pippa?’
‘Yeah, Pippa was an asshole.’
Ella laughed. She’d only met Roly’s girlfriend once, but she hadn’t taken to her.
‘But so was I, so I guess we were well-matched.’
‘So how come you split up?’
Roly shrugged. ‘I went into rehab. We drifted apart.’
‘Oh.’
‘And she went onto Celebrity Cell Block and shagged Adam Leader.’
‘Ah. That’d do it, all right.’ The Leaders were an Irish family pop rock band, and Adam was the frontman.
‘Every time. Can’t blame her really. Adam still had it all going on.’
Ella’s initial dislike of Pippa was solidifying by the second.
‘Do you plan to go back to college, now that you’re better?’
‘Hopefully… eventually. But it’ll have to wait. I need to pay off my debts and save up a bit first.’
Roly sighed. ‘Yeah, me too – as it turns out.’ He raked a hand through his hair.
‘I mean, I’m not in debt – I don’t think.
’ He frowned and blanched as if the thought had just occurred to him.
‘But I’ve been worried about money for the first time in my life.
It’s made me realise what it must have been like for Mum all those years. ’
Ella only vaguely remembered Roly’s mum from the odd school concert or sports day. But she knew she was a single mother and she’d raised Roly alone.
‘At least you’ve got this place.’
‘Yeah, but maybe not for much longer. I might have to sell.’
‘Oh, that would be awful. Isn’t there anything else you could do?’
‘My mum suggested getting a lodger. I’m considering it. But it’d be kind of humiliating, you know – being me.’
‘The great Roly Punch reduced to house-sharing!’
‘Shut up!’ He laughed. ‘You know what I mean. I’d probably get some nob who thought he was cooler than me just by virtue of never having been in Oh Boy! Or a crazed fan who’d follow me around all the time taking sneaky photos and plastering stuff about me all over social media.’
‘Yeah, those are probably the options, all right.’
‘I may not have a choice. But I really don’t fancy living with a stranger.’
‘I know what you mean.’ She knew that even when she could afford to move out of her mum’s, she wouldn’t be able to rent on her own.
But she couldn’t face the idea of house-sharing, and was secretly relieved she didn’t have to yet.
She didn’t have the energy for making herself appealing to potential housemates.
‘Are you planning to move out of your mum’s?’
‘Not for a while yet. Rents are crazy.’
‘But you’d like to?’
‘If I could afford it, yeah.’
‘How would you feel about moving in with me?’
Ella laughed. ‘This is so sudden! Do you usually ask girls to move in with you after one coffee and a pizza slice?’
He grinned. ‘You have to move fast when you’ve fallen behind like we have. I mean, I should be on my second marriage by now.’
‘That’s true. We’re way behind.’
‘I’d have to charge you rent—’
‘Of course. I wouldn’t expect to live anywhere for free.’
‘But I could give you mate’s rates.’
‘I wouldn’t want to take advantage, though. You could get someone who’d pay proper rent.’
‘I’d rather not take my chances with a stranger. Seriously, you’d be doing me a favour. I don’t need much coming in – just enough to stave off the panic attacks until I figure something else out.’
‘Well, I could promise not to follow you around fangirling over you.’
‘Does that mean you’re considering it?’
‘I don’t know…’ She was touched by the offer, but did he really mean it? And would it be a good idea? She looked around the living room, trying to envision herself living here.
‘I’d clean the place up,’ he said quickly. ‘And there’s plenty of space.’
It could be the perfect solution. She could move out, and her mum and Nora could go on their trip without worrying about her being alone. A slow smile spread across her face. ‘Roly, is this a genuine offer? Because I have to warn you, I’m tempted to take you up on it.’
‘Of course it’s genuine. It’d be great, the two of us living together. We’re kind of both on the same page – trying to get back on our feet, get fit. We could do it together.’
Ella was starting to get excited about the idea. She loved a project, and she was already envisioning kanban boards and goal-setting sessions. ‘It would be good to have an accountability partner. We could do our own personal boot camp.’
He nodded. ‘We can cook healthy food and work out together. We could start running!’
‘Or not. Suddenly I’m less tempted.’
He grinned. ‘Okay, we don’t have to go running. Why don’t I show you around, and you can have a think about it?’
Ella loved the house, and was already picturing herself having coffee in the little terrace garden – ‘it’s a total suntrap in summer,’ Roly told her – or snuggled up in the big armchair in front of a real fire on a cold winter day.
It was only when Roly was showing her the bathroom and they were both standing in the small space that she began to have doubts. They hardly knew each other really. Would it be awkward sharing a bathroom? It seemed scarily intimate.
‘And this would be your room,’ he said finally, leading her into a large airy room with a double bed and lots of wardrobe and drawer space.
Like the rest of the house, it was crammed with junk, the bed buried under a jumble of clothes.
‘Obviously I’d clear it out. And there’s an en suite through there.
’ He pointed to a door, and Ella immediately felt better about the whole thing as she stepped through into a small bathroom. This might be doable after all.
‘So, what do you think?’ Roly asked as they walked back downstairs.
Ella grinned. ‘I think you’ve got yourself a lodger.’
* * *
These Are Days
Ella had been surprised and, though she’d barely admit it to herself, hugely flattered, when Roly stayed in touch with her after they’d left school and he’d moved to London with the band.
He messaged her occasionally with updates about his exciting new life when Oh Boy!
were recording their first album and they’d all moved into a vast warehouse apartment in Shoreditch paid for by the record company.
She sometimes wished she had something more interesting to tell him in return.
She’d started college and she was enjoying her studies and the new friends she was making.
But her life largely went on much the same, and compared to Roly’s it seemed dull and uneventful.
He was busy touring the world, playing giant stadiums and appearing on TV, while she was writing essays, studying for exams and working part-time as a waitress in a small cafe to supplement her grant.
As time went on and the band became bigger, his communications became increasingly sporadic.
It was sad, but inevitable, she thought, that they’d eventually drop off completely.
Their lives were so different, they had nothing in common now – and they’d had little enough to begin with.
It still sometimes puzzled her how they’d become friends in the first place.
But always just as she gave up and decided she’d heard the last from him, a message would appear out of the blue.
She suspected she mostly heard from him when he was a bit down or homesick, or when he’d fallen out with one of the guys in the band.
Then last week, almost a year after he’d left, Oh Boy!
were coming to Dublin on their first tour, and he offered to put Ella on the guest list. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings by saying no, even though Oh Boy!
really weren’t her kind of thing. She didn’t know if she’d see Roly afterwards or if he just wanted to show off.
But she talked Julie into going with her, and the two of them sat in the 3Arena amongst a crowd of hysterical, squealing teenyboppers and their parents.
‘We should have brought a kid with us,’ Julie hissed at her, making an ostentatious display of not enjoying herself. A memory of the Debs flashed through Ella’s mind; Julie standing on the sidelines, a supercilious smile on her face.
She regretted bringing Julie tonight. Why couldn’t she just let go and enjoy it for what it was, in all its insane, ridiculous glory?
She thought it was funny that they looked so out of place among the sweaty, over-stimulated children, and it was fun seeing Roly up on stage doing his thing, bumping and grinding his way through the preposterous dance routines.
The whole thing was cheesy and over the top, but it was kind of wonderful in its way, and it was nice to see all the kids so into it, screaming their heads off and sobbing with joy and emotional overwhelm.