Page 64 of The Reboot
‘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 Winkel, then?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I think it’s probably a fairy-tale.’ 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 fromMiddlemarchreminded 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.’
