Loveless (Osemanverse #10)(91)

So I called an emergency meeting of the Shakespeare Society.

We were going to get Pip back. And Rooney was going to help, whether she liked it or not.

It was a Saturday, and we agreed to go out for mid-morning coffee. Jason had an early rowing practice, Sunil had an orchestra rehearsal, and Rooney would not get out of bed until I slapped her on the back of the head with her aqua rug, but somehow we all made it to Vennels Café by eleven o’clock. I finally knew what Vennels was.

‘That … is a lot,’ said Sunil, once I explained my plan. ‘I could get Jess involved. She plays the viola.’

‘And I’ll ask my rowing captain if we can borrow some stuff,’ said Jason, tapping his fingers over his mouth. ‘I’m sure he’d say yes.’

‘I … I don’t want to bother anyone,’ I said. The thought of other people having to help felt kind of embarrassing.

‘No, Jess will actually be upset if I don’t ask her to take part,’ said Sunil. ‘She’s obsessed with stuff like this.’

‘What about Rooney?’ said Jason to Rooney. ‘What do you think?’

Rooney was slumped back in her chair and clearly did not want to be awake.

‘It’s good,’ she said, trying to sound enthusiastic but failing dismally.

Once Jason and Sunil headed off to their own things – Jason had a study group and Sunil was meeting some friends for lunch – Rooney and I were left alone. I thought we might as well stay here and have some food, since she hadn’t had any breakfast and we didn’t have anything else to do.

We ordered pancakes – I went for savoury; she went for sweet – and chatted for a while about mundane topics like our coursework and the upcoming reading week.

Eventually, though, she cut to the chase.

‘I know why you’re doing this,’ she said, her gaze level with mine.

‘Doing what?’

‘Making me go out for breakfast and help you with the Pip thing.’

‘Why’s that, then?’

‘You feel sorry for me.’

I put my knife and fork neatly on to my empty plate. ‘No, actually. Wrong. Utterly wrong.’

I could tell she didn’t believe me.

And then she said, ‘You spoke to Beth on the phone.’

I froze. ‘You were awake?’

‘Why’d you answer the phone?’

Why had I answered the phone? I knew most people would have just let it go to voicemail.

‘I guess … I hoped she was calling to check up on you,’ I said, and I didn’t know how much sense that made.

I had just wanted Rooney to know that someone had called. That someone cared. But Beth wasn’t that person. She didn’t care any more.

‘Was she?’ asked Rooney in a small voice. ‘Calling to check up on me?’

I could have lied.

But I didn’t lie to Rooney.

‘No,’ I said. ‘She didn’t have your number saved.’

Rooney’s face dropped. She looked down, to one side. She took a long gulp of apple juice.

‘Who is she?’ I asked.

‘Why do you have to do that?’ Rooney leant on to one hand, covering her eyes. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘That’s fine. I just want you to know that you can.’

I ordered another drink. She sat in silence with her arms folded, seemingly trying to cram herself further into the corner of the room.

It took two weeks of intense planning.

In the first week, we coordinated the time and place, and Jason went on a mission to sweet-talk the captain of his rowing team into letting us use what we needed. After we sent him to barter with a four-pack of beers, he returned with a smile on his face and a spare key to the boathouse, and we celebrated with pizza in Jason’s bedroom.

In the second week, Sunil brought Jess along to a rehearsal. Although I didn’t feel I knew her very well, having only spoken to her a couple of times, she immediately demanded to know where I’d got my jumper – it was beige with multicoloured Fair Isle patterns – and we proceeded to bond at length over our shared love for patterned woolly jumpers.

Jess was completely in favour of taking part in our scheme, despite the number of times I told her it was OK if she was too busy. And when she took out her viola and Sunil took out his cello, I realised why she was so keen – they clearly loved playing music together. They started running through the piece, chatting about it as they reached difficult parts and making little notes on the sheet music.

Both of them seemed different here, as opposed to at Pride Soc, where they were constantly running around, organising everything, being the president and the vice-president. Here, they could just be Sunil and Jess, two best friends who liked making music.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll get it perfect before Sunday,’ Sunil promised, with a big smile on his face.

‘Thank you,’ I said, but it really didn’t feel like enough thanks for what they were doing.

Rooney begrudgingly agreed to take control of a tambourine. The first couple of times we ran through it together, she just stood there, tapping it against her hand, looking down at the ground.

But as we got closer to Sunday, she started to get a little more into it. She began bobbing on the spot as we ran through the piece. Sometimes she even sang along, just a little bit, like she was sure nobody could hear her.