Page 77 of Our Song

‘Your folks okay?’says Katie.

‘Just worried I’m living on the streets.’I let out a groan.‘What am I going to do?’

‘You need to talk to Tadhg,’ says Jeanne.

‘I really don’t,’ I say.‘I can’t.Not right now.Fuck, I’m sorry about all this.I know you didn’t sign up for all this drama when you let me stay here.’

‘Oh, stop it,’ says Katie.‘You don’t need to apologise for anything.’

‘You didn’t cause this drama,’ says Jeanne.‘It’s this dreadful journalist woman.’

My phone vibrates with another call and this time it’s Aisling.I have to answer it.

‘Laura, I’m so sorry!And Kev’s so sorry.Seriously, he didn’t mean to cause any trouble.Are you okay?’

‘Not really,’ I say.

‘I didn’t think you’d mind me telling him about you and Tadhg.’Aisling sounds on the verge of tears.‘But I didn’t think he’d tell anyone.’

It turns out Kev knew the journalist back in college.She found me on social media and discovered Kev was a mutual connection.She messaged him and asked him about me and Tadhg, and of course Kev was only delighted to share what he’d just discovered.

‘He didn’t know she was asking as, like, a journalist,’ says Aisling.‘She said she knew Tadhg herself.’

I take a deep breath and try to convince myself it’s not really Aisling’s fault.I didn’t tell her to keep me and Tadhg’s history a secret.But I really can’t bear to talk to her at the moment.

‘I don’t blame you,’ I say.‘But I’d better go.’

I hang up just as my phone lights up with an alert.There’s anew text from Tadhg.In fact it looks like there are quite a few texts from Tadhg, all more or less saying the same thing.

Tadhg: Please ring me, Lol.I can’t apologise enough for this.

I can’t ring him now.I have a feeling that if I do the shock and anger will turn into distress and I’ll start crying instead.And I vowed a long time ago that I was never, ever going to cry in front of him.

‘Come on, Lol,’ says Katie.‘Have a shower and me and Jeanne will take you out for breakfast.How does that sound?’

Suddenly, the thought of getting out of the house is very appealing.I might even leave my phone behind.

‘Okay,’ I say.

Half an hour later, Katie, Jeanne and I are seated in our favourite local breakfast spot.We come here fairly regularly and the staff all know us to see.But today, after the server takes our orders, she looks at me oddly.

‘This might be a weird question,’ she says, pencil still posed over her order pad, ‘but … is that you?’And she points at a newspaper left on the seat of the table behind ours.

My appetite vanishes.The story about me and Tadhg is not the lead headline.But over the masthead of the newspaper there’s a text band saying ‘Tadhg Hennessy helps desperate pal: full story page 4 and 5’ and next to it is a photo of Tadhglooking extremely elegant and handsome next to the awful, awful photo of me staring into the heavens in my parka.

‘Oh my God,’ says Jeanne in a genuinely horrified voice.

‘Um, yeah.’My voice sounds like it’s coming from very far away.‘I suppose it is me.’

The server looks like she’s going to ask something else but then Jeanne says, ‘Could we get some tap water, please?’and the girl says, ‘Oh yeah, of course,’ and goes.

Katie reaches over, grabs the paper and then sits on it.‘Now no one else here will see it,’ she says.

‘It’s on the front page,’ I say numbly.‘People will see it in shops.’

It turns out it wasn’t even the only copy in the café.More customers arrive for leisurely breakfasts over the Sunday papers, and I can see that appalling front page on a few tables.All the staff keep looking over at us, and at least one customer glances up from reading the story itself and does a double-take when she sees me.Who knew print media still had such power?

I haven’t finished my eggs but I can’t stay there a minute longer.

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