‘Cool, cool,’ says Hugo.‘Where do you work?I have a lot of pals in the business.’
‘I’m freelance at the moment,’ I say.
‘But you must have worked at some agencies, right?’he says.
‘Um, I was at Visions before Zenith took over.’
‘Visions!Wow.’He literally looks me up and down, taking in my slightly messy hair – I am suddenly painfully aware myfringe is looking a bit wonky today – and scruffy runners.‘You worked there?Very cool.’He sounds insultingly surprised and then turns to Tadhg.‘So, what you said last night about your songwriting session gave me a great idea.’
‘Okay.’Tadhg doesn’t sound very enthusiastic.‘Let’s go into the sitting room and you can tell me about it.But like I said, Hugo, we’re in the middle of work at the moment.Sam Chu’s coming over soon.’
‘The little drummer boy?’Hugo pretends to drum aparrup-a-pom-pombeat.‘Brilliant.’
Tadhg turns to me.‘Can you wait for me out in the studio?This won’t take long.’
‘No worries,’ I say.
‘Thanks, Lol,’ says Tadhg.
They go into the sitting room and close the door.
Out in the studio, I start messing around on my guitar and come up with a guitar riff that might be too pop for Tadhg but which is great fun to play.I’m playing it so loudly I don’t hear the studio door open.
‘Hello!Hello?’
The voice is loud, male and unfamiliar.I let out a little cry of shock and whirl around to see a stocky man about my age with black hair and a friendly expression standing in the studio.
‘Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he says.‘I’m Sam.’He holds up the cymbals case that he’s carrying in his right hand.
‘Oh!’I say.‘Of course.Sorry for screaming.’
‘Sorry for giving you a fright.’He grins.‘Can we stop apologising now?’
I laugh.‘Sure.Where’s Tadhg?’
‘He’s still in there with young Master Hugo.’He does a pretty good imitation of Hugo’s accent when he says his name.‘He’ll be here in a minute.’
‘Cool,’ I say.I feel a little self-conscious.This is the first time I’ve met one of Tadhg’s friends from his post-me life, and I’m not sure what to say to him.
‘Anyway,’ says Sam, ‘great to meet you at last!’
At last?‘I’ve actually only been here since Monday.Tadhg just asked me to do this last week.’
‘I know,’ says Sam.‘I just meant it’s great to finally meet the famous Laura!’
I stare at him.‘The what?’
‘I first heard about you when me and Tadhg started playing together back in, Jaysus, it must be 2007?’says Sam.‘It was just after I made the ‘Winter’ video.’
‘You made that?’
‘Yeah!’says Sam.‘I used to be a video artist.I mean, I suppose I still am, but I’m mostly a session drummer these days.Anyway!Tadhg wanted to start playing live with a full band, and I’d been the drummer in a band when I was in NCAD so I stepped in.And I’ve never stepped out.’
‘Oh,’ I say.‘But, um, what do you know about me?’
‘Almost nothing!’says Sam cheerfully.‘Just that back when we started seriously playing music together, there were loads of times in the studio when Tadhg would play, like, a fragment of a song that sounded really good, and I’d ask to hear more of it so we could do something with it, and he’d say, ‘No, that was a song I wrote with Laura.’And obviously I asked who Laura was and he said you were his old bandmate.Actually, for a long time I presumed you were his ex-girlfriend as well.’
I force a laugh and say, ‘I definitely wasn’t.’
