Chapter 16
The first Saturday in May dawned bright and sunny, the first dry, warm day after two weeks of blustery rain.
It was as if nature had produced summer to schedule.
Monday was a Bank Holiday, and Ella had decided to use the long weekend to rest and recharge.
So instead of joining Roly for an early morning run, she had a lie-in, luxuriating in her freshly laundered bedclothes.
They’d agreed to relax their diet and allow themselves some treats, and Roly went by the Bretzel on his way home, returning with a bag of freshly baked bagels and croissants.
While he went for a shower, Ella dusted off the mosaic bistro table and chairs on the terrace, and they had breakfast in the garden.
‘This is heaven,’ Ella sighed happily as she smeared apricot jam on warm, flaky croissant, the aroma of rich black coffee mingling in the air with the scent of flowers and warm earth.
She closed her eyes, savouring her first bite of delicious buttery pastry.
One of the nice things about dieting, she’d discovered, was that you enjoyed treats all the more when you had them.
‘The garden’s lovely,’ she said, opening her eyes and looking around. ‘Do you do it yourself?’ There were a couple of raised beds with flowers coming into bud, and several large colourful pots planted with lush trees and shrubs.
‘No,’ Roly said, smiling. ‘I haven’t a clue. I hired a gardener.’
He yawned and stretched, his T-shirt riding up to give a tantalising glimpse of stomach, which Ella couldn’t help noticing was attractively toned and approaching the much sought-after flatness.
He’d installed a pull-up bar above his bedroom door, and did free weights most days now on top of his cardio workouts. It was really paying off.
‘Any plans for the weekend?’ he asked.
‘No, nothing. Unless you count not going anywhere and not seeing anyone as a plan.’
‘Apart from dinner tomorrow,’ he said quickly.
‘Yes, don’t worry. I’m not going to bale on that.
’ Every week Roly told Ella she was invited to Sunday dinner at his nan’s, and she’d finally accepted the offer.
When she’d moved in, she hadn’t expected her life to become so enmeshed with Roly’s.
It just seemed to happen naturally, inevitably, their lives gradually merging together more and more.
He’d been out with her workmates, and now she was going to have dinner with his family.
She liked it, but she wasn’t sure it was a good idea in the long run.
She felt she should cultivate more friends of her own, a social circle that didn’t include Roly.
Sunday was traditionally family time, and should be the perfect opportunity for them to diverge and do their own thing, spend it with their own people.
But her people were gone, and, she had to admit, she was glad to have Roly’s family step in to fill the vacuum.
‘I hope this weather keeps up.’ She turned her face to the sun.
‘I just want to chill out with a book and take it easy.’ She’d considered meeting up with someone over the weekend, but Hazel was going to Paris with her boyfriend, and Andrew was visiting his brother in London.
She’d found herself perfectly content that neither of them were available.
Her life had been busy the past few weeks, and she wasn’t used to that level of activity.
She was looking forward to some down time with nowhere particular to be and no pressure to be social.
‘How about you?’ she asked Roly.
‘I’m meeting a few of the lads this evening for drinks. You’re welcome to come if you want?’ He rattled off the names of some of the guys he used to hang out with at school. It amazed her that he seemed to still be in touch with everyone from back then.
‘Thanks, but I’m looking forward to a quiet night in.’
‘On Monday I’m playing golf with Jack.’
‘Jack?’ He’d said the name as if it was someone she should know.
‘You know – Jack Golden?’
‘Really? You still see him?’
‘Of course. He’s my best mate. Don’t you see anyone from school any more?’
‘No.’ She and Julie still sent each other Christmas cards, but that was it.
Even the messages scribbled inside those had dwindled over the years, from letters catching up on each other’s news, to a well-intentioned promise to meet up in the New Year that never came to pass, to just a signature scrawled under the printed greeting.
‘I don’t see so much of him now, of course, since he’s had a baby.’
‘Jack has a baby?’
‘Yeah.’ Roly’s mouth widened in a fond smile. ‘Zoe. She’s really cute.’
‘Wow! I can’t imagine that – Jack with a baby.’ In her head he was still a teenage boy, frozen in time in his last year of school, forever poised on the brink of adulthood.
‘I know. Weird, isn’t it? Everyone’s all grown up.’
‘Except us,’ she said with a wry smile.
‘Yeah. We’re like…’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Who was it who fell asleep for like a hundred years and then woke up?’
‘Sleeping Beauty?’
‘No… it was a bloke.’
‘Um… Dracula? Edward Cullen?’
‘I think we did him in school…’ He frowned, thinking. ‘Rip van Winkle!’ he shouted with relief.
‘Rip van Winkle? What subject would we have done him in?’
‘I don’t know… history?’
‘History?’ She burst out laughing. ‘A guy who fell asleep for a hundred years?’
‘Well… Science, then? Biology? We learned about that bloke who burst into flames out of the blue.’
She nodded. ‘Spontaneous combustion.’
‘Was that in History? Something to do with the industrial revolution? Oh! Did it give him the idea for the combustion engine, and he went on to invent it?’
‘Hardly, when he was dead.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Anyway, that was Dickens. We did it in English class.’
‘Dickens spontaneously combusted? I never knew that!’
Ella could hardly speak, she was laughing so hard. ‘No,’ she said, brushing tears from her eyes. ‘It was a character in a Dickens novel. Bleak House.’
‘Who’s Rip van Winkle, then?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I think it’s probably a fairytale.’ She picked up her phone and Googled it. ‘It’s a short story, apparently. He got drunk and fell asleep – but it was only for twenty years. We definitely didn’t “do him in school”.’
Roly frowned. ‘So how do I know him?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Huh! Me neither. Is there a picture?’ He nodded to her phone.
‘Just a drawing.’ She held the phone out to him, showing him the screen.
‘He reminds me of someone my mum used to go out with. Same beard. He was a drunk layabout too.’
‘When we were in school, you said Mr Casaubon from Middlemarch reminded you of your mum’s boyfriend.’
‘That was a different one. She’s gone out with a long line of tossers.’ Roly’s smile faded and he looked sad. ‘But she’s met someone recently who seems decent,’ he said, cheering up.
‘That’s good.’
‘Yeah, it’s great.’ He smiled. ‘She seems really happy.’ He nodded to the plate. ‘Do you want the last sesame seed bagel?’
‘No,’ Ella said, even though she did. ‘You have it.’
‘Split it?’ he asked, reaching for it.
‘Yes, please!’ Ella smiled.
‘After all,’ he said, cutting it down the middle, ‘a carb shared is a carb halved.’
* * *
‘Will your mum’s new boyfriend be there?’ Ella asked the following evening as they made their way to his nan’s for dinner. She lived in the Liberties, within walking distance of Roly’s house, and it was a pleasant stroll on a warm, sunny evening.
‘No. He’s working abroad at the moment – somewhere in the Middle East. I can’t remember where exactly. She hasn’t met him in real life yet.’
‘They met online, then?’
‘Yeah, some dating site.’
‘What’s the story with your dad?’
He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘Sorry,’ she said hastily. ‘I didn’t mean to be nosey.’
‘Nah, it’s fine.’
‘Is he… still around?’ Roly’s father had never really been in the picture as long as she’d known him, and she couldn’t remember Roly ever mentioning him.
She knew he’d been a Premier League footballer who’d played briefly for Liverpool and had what promised to be a dazzling career cut short by a horrific leg injury.
She had no idea where or when she’d heard that.
It was just one of those stories that seemed to be common knowledge.
‘He’s still alive, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Do you ever see him?’
‘No. He fucked off when my mum found out she was pregnant. He lives in Thailand now. Has a wife and two kids, apparently.’ His voice had taken on a hard edge.
‘So you’ve never met him?’
‘Yeah, I did – once, after the band took off.’ He gave a bitter laugh.
‘He came to a gig in Manchester. I was over the moon.’ He shook his head.
‘I was such an idiot. I used to have these stupid fantasies when I was a kid about becoming a famous footballer like him, and then he’d turn up at one of my matches – when I was scoring the winning goal in the World Cup or something – and he’d be absolutely blown away by my awesome skills.
So when he turned up that night I thought it was all coming true.
Here I was, this big famous pop star. I thought he’d be all proud of me and shit. ’
‘I’m sure he was.’
‘Nah. Turned out he just wanted money. He was hard up. His football career was over and he was drinking – a lot; he had a gambling problem.’ He drew a deep, ragged breath.
‘I said he should stay and watch the show, and we could go out for dinner afterwards – my treat. I gave him a backstage pass and everything… playing the big man.’ He rolled his eyes self-deprecatingly.
‘But he wasn’t interested in watching me “prancing around onstage, making a prat of myself”.
He just wanted the money, and he acted like I was making him work for it – like watching the concert would be such a chore. Which, okay, I suppose he had a point.’
‘No, he didn’t! Your shows were brilliant!’
He eyed her sceptically. ‘I seem to remember you calling us “cheesy as fuck”.’
‘Shut up,’ she mumbled, relieved when he laughed.
‘Anyway, I just gave him the cash and he buggered off. That was the first and last I saw of him.’