Chapter 21
Meanwhile, Roly had to deal with the fallout of the news about the Oh Boy!
comeback at work. A couple of days after the announcement, he arrived at the cafe to find a sign on the door saying it was closed for the morning.
Through the glass he saw Ray inside with two men, one of whom was busy setting up a large professional camera on a tripod.
‘What’s all this? We’re closed?’
The two strangers looked at him curiously as he stepped inside.
‘Ah, Roly!’ Ray rushed over to him. He put an arm around his shoulders and led him into the back room, shutting the door behind them. ‘I contacted the local paper and they said they’d do a piece. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘A piece?’
‘About you working here.’
‘Oh!’
‘I would have asked you first, but it all happened much faster than I expected. I didn’t think they’d get it set up so soon.’
Roly nodded, frantically trying to take this in. Did he mind? Fuck, yes!
‘It’d be really good for business,’ Ray was saying. ‘Great publicity for the cafe, especially now with Oh Boy! in the news again.’
‘So… it’s just the local paper?’
‘Yeah. You know, the one we get here in the cafe.’
‘Right.’ Roly nodded, relaxing a little. It was just a free paper distributed to businesses in the area. They had a rack of it in the cafe for customers to take if they wanted, and people did pick it up sometimes. It wasn’t exactly the Irish Times. He doubted many people would even see it.
‘So you’ll do it?’ Ray grinned.
He couldn’t really say no, could he? Ray was a good boss, and he’d been really encouraging and supportive of Roly’s business aspirations.
It wasn’t his fault Roly didn’t actually have any.
Besides, he’d already set this up now, and he was clearly excited about it.
He’d be gutted if he had to call it off.
Ray was a decent bloke, and he worked really hard to make his little cafe a success – he deserved some recognition.
‘Yeah, sure,’ Roly nodded. ‘No problem.’
‘Great!’ Ray clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Thanks, Roly.’
They went back into the cafe, where the photographer was moving around, playing with a light meter.
It was a very familiar process to Roly. He’d done countless photo shoots in his life, but it had been a long time, and it gave him a strange queasy feeling as he let the photographer order him around.
He spent the next couple of hours posing in various positions – demonstrating his barista skills making coffee, pretending to serve the journalist who sat at a table posing as a customer, standing outside the cafe, Ray’s arm around his shoulders as he beamed with pride.
When the photographer had finished, they sat down with the journalist for a brief interview. Roly cringed as Ray talked him up, praising his punctuality and conscientiousness, his popularity with the customers, his newly acquired barista skills and his willingness to learn.
‘He’s a great little worker, and I’ve never regretted taking him on,’ Ray said, beaming proudly at his protégé. ‘I think he’s got a great future ahead of him in business. He really – and you can quote me on this – punches above his weight.’
* * *
‘It’s not that bad,’ Ella said the following week when she’d finished reading the article in the paper.
Roly had brought it home from the cafe. To his horror, and Ray’s delight, the picture of them both standing in front of the cafe had made the cover.
Ray had immediately taped it to the window facing out onto the street, alongside the article.
The cafe had received a nice write-up, and Roly was happy for Ray’s sake.
But from his point of view, it was mortifying.
‘It makes me sound like such a loser.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
Roly took the paper from her. ‘“While his old band mates prepare for a comeback tour, Roly’s embarking on a new career as a barista in a small Dublin cafe”,’ he read out. ‘You don’t think that makes me sound like a loser?’
‘I know it’s crap the way they put it, but—’
‘And it’s not my “new career”. It’s just a job.’
‘There’s no shame in it, even if it was your career. And Ray says really nice things about you. Apparently you’re very reliable, always on time, and not afraid of hard work.’
‘Jesus! I sound like such a dork.’
‘Anyway, don’t worry too much about it. It’s just a little free paper. Who’s going to see it?’
‘Yeah. That’s what I’m counting on.’
But unfortunately, the article got picked up by other papers and media outlets, and was soon plastered all over the Internet. It had the desired effect. In the following days there was a steady trickle of young women coming to the cafe to gawp at Roly.
‘I told you it’d bring in business,’ Ray said, rubbing his hands.
When people started tweeting and posting photos of the cafe on Instagram, the trickle turned into a constant stream of twenty-somethings lingering over their chai lattes as they took surreptitious photos of Roly to post on social media or asked him to pose for selfies with them.
Ray was happy at first with the boost in business, even when Roly was too busy taking selfies to make coffee, and Ray had to do it himself.
But by the end of the week, there was a queue down the street of young women waiting to get in to see their idol, and Ray realised Roly’s fans were crowding out the regular customers, who were getting fed up and taking their business elsewhere.
Furthermore, the coffees they spun out while they chatted up Roly didn’t make up for the loss of the cafe’s regular lunchtime crowd, who weren’t going to spend half their lunch break queuing when there were plenty of other places in the area they could go.
‘I’m a victim of my own success, Roly,’ Ray said to him ruefully as they cleaned up at the end of the week.
He’d already removed the article from the window and moved the stack of free papers to the store room.
But it was too late – the cat was already out of the bag and couldn’t be stuffed back inside.
The publicity machine had taken on a life of its own, and was gathering momentum daily with no help from Ray.
* * *
‘Roly, can you come here, please?’ It was the end of the shift the following Friday, and Ray beckoned him into the little room at the back as Roly was turning the sign on the door to ‘Closed’.
Roly looked around in confusion. They hadn’t even started clearing up yet. They always waited until the coffee machine was cleaned, the counter wiped down and the dishwasher loaded before they had tea and their ‘debrief’ in the back room.
‘Don’t worry about cleaning up,’ Ray said.
Roly followed him into the back room and they sat down at the little table. In another break from their usual routine, Ray didn’t make tea, and there was no plate of leftover cakes.
‘You’ve been doing a really good job here, Roly,’ Ray said as soon as they were seated.
‘Thanks.’ Roly wondered was he going to get a raise.
‘But I’m afraid I’m going to have to let you go.’
‘Oh!’ Roly was stunned. ‘But you just said—’
‘It’s not a problem with your work,’ Ray said quickly. ‘You know I’m very happy with you on that front. I wish I could keep you on.’
‘So…?’
‘Unfortunately, it’s become too disruptive having you here. All these women who come in to see you—’
‘Um… I thought that was the idea? It’s brought a lot of new customers to the cafe.’
‘It has, it has. But that’s the problem. They’re not spending much, and they’re hogging tables, lingering over a single coffee for hours just so they can ogle you. They’re putting off my regular customers. It’s not good for business.’
‘But – you said it would be great for business.’
‘I know.’ Ray nodded. ‘But you live and learn, Roly. You’ll find that yourself as you go on in business. It’s all trial and error. But we gave it a shot, right?’
‘Um… yeah.’
‘You can’t expect to win them all. The important thing is to learn from your mistakes and move on.
That’s my last bit of advice to you – if you want to succeed in business, don’t spend too much time working on the wrong thing, focusing on the wrong idea.
Fail fast, cut your losses and pivot quickly to another strategy. Fail fast – remember that.’
‘Right. Thanks.’ Failing fast sounded like something he’d be good at. ‘Well, that’s that, I guess.’ Was it even legal, he wondered, for Ray to fire him for cluttering the cafe up with customers. Not that he wanted to fight him on it, but it didn’t seem right.
‘But don’t worry,’ Ray smiled, brightening.
‘I’m pivoting as we speak, and I think I’ve got the perfect solution!
’ He got up from the table and went into the walk-in store cupboard.
‘You’ll be glad to hear I’ve already found your replacement.
’ His muffled voice came from the depths of the cupboard.
‘I think he’s the perfect man for the job. ’
‘Wow, that was quick.’ Roly turned to see Ray struggling through the door with a long, oblong piece of cardboard.
‘Ta da!’ With a flourish he stood it on the floor and turned it around to face Roly. ‘Roly Punch, meet… Roly Punch!’
Roly couldn’t believe his eyes as he eyeballed a life-size cardboard cut-out of himself.
‘Oh my God!’
‘I found it online. It’s amazing, isn’t it?’ Ray grinned, delighted with himself.
‘It’s… incredible!’
‘See, this way we have the best of both worlds. We’ll still be the cafe that has Roly Punch, and people can come in and take selfies with him if they want to.’
‘But… he won’t be able to work the coffee machine. Or, you know… take orders and stuff.’
‘Ah, no. I’ll have to get someone to replace you as a waiter, of course.
But they’ll be able to serve customers at the same time as your fans take selfies with this fella.
I can put you off in a corner where you won’t get in anyone’s way, maybe even set up a booth and charge people to take photos with you.
’ Ray rubbed his hands gleefully. ‘It’s a great idea, isn’t it? ’
‘It’s brilliant, Ray. Genius.’ Roly couldn’t take his eyes off the cut-out figure. It was surreal.