Chapter Six

Erin ladled chicken curry onto two plates and carried them over to the table, placing them next to an opened bottle of red wine.

She had been working for Richie for just under a week and had quickly settled into his routine. It had taken a couple of days to get used to it as he usually rose at midday, completely ravenous. The first day she rose as normal and was up and dressed by 8am. She’d gone down to kitchen and had started breakfast and coffee and had waited..and waited…and waited. Finally she’d had to throw the breakfast out and had sat in the lounge, watching daytime TV, waiting for Richie to wake up. He’d stumbled past the lounge at around midday and had looked at her as if to say, ‘why aren’t you cooking for me?’.

After he’d eaten he’d told her his daily routine and had asked her to be on hand for those hours. For someone who rose at 7am and was fast asleep by 10:30pm, having to switch to night time hours was hard and the first night she’d fallen asleep on the sofa. Richie had come downstairs for more coffee and had just covered her with a blanket. When it happened again the second night he woke her up and presented her with an empty coffee pot and a smile.

Erin had gotten into a routine of cooking lunch at around 1pm and dinner at around 9pm. Richie had agreed to this and generally made it down to the kitchen in time.

Erin placed his plate on a tray with a mug of coffee and sat down to eat her dinner. She looked up to see him walking in. His hair was all over the place and he was wearing an old pair of sweatpants with a ripped AC/DC tee shirt and was barefoot.

She smiled as he walked towards the table, fully expecting him to pick up his tray and take it upstairs via the hidden elevator she’d discovered on her second day.

It was situated to the left of the staircase and she’d only really discovered it when Richie had stepped out of it, scaring her half to death. He’d explained that the previous owner of the house had lived there for over 50 years with his wife and had it installed when she’d become wheelchair bound. It was only big enough for one wheelchair or two standing people and ran on the smoothest and quietest system she’d ever heard.

Erin turned back to her food and was quite surprised when, instead of taking the tray, he sat down opposite her and began to eat. She’d become quite used to eating alone but was glad of the company.

“This is lovely, did you make it yourself? Or is it out of a tin?” he asked

“Oh I made it myself. The sauce is shop bought though. I can cook basic foodstuffs but Indian cookery is not my forte.” she replied.

“I can burn water.” he replied, grinning as he shovelled the chicken and rice mixture into his mouth.

She laughed at the idea that someone was so useless a cook that ingredients would hide from him. She could imagine packets squealing and trying to hide behind tins when he opened the cupboards.

“Yeah, but then again I can’t play the guitar.” she said

“Good point, but isn’t everyone supposed to be able to at least make toast?” he asked.

“No, not really. I can only cook through trial and error. I used to try new dishes on my ex and watch his face as to whether it was any good. I gave up trying to create new things after I nearly killed him with an overload of curry powder!” she laughed.

The forkload of food halted in midair as he looked at her suspiciously.

“Don’t worry, it’s perfectly ok. I‘ll show you the bottle it came out of if you want.” she giggled.

Richie smiled and ate the forkful.

After he’d eaten his fill he sat back with a contented sigh.

“You know I get so involved with what I’m doing that I forget what the time is. I’ve had to set an alarm to remind me to come down for food. Oh I meant to see you to say thanks for the ever ready coffee and apologise for not really being around for your first week. You know writing an album is like making a baby. It takes a lot of effort cause you want everything to be perfect and then when it’s finally done or born, you can’t quite believe you had anything to do with it as it’s just so perfect, then come the sleepless nights as you worry about it, is it going to sell, will people like it, ya know? And I get so wrapped up in it that time slips away. So anyway, how has your first week been? I know there isn’t a lot of actual PA work to do at the moment but I promise you there will be.”

Erin was taken aback as it was the longest speech he’d given since she’d moved in. She had already come to the conclusion that she wouldn’t get to see much of him over the next six months and was bracing herself for a solitary existence.

“It’s been fine, I love the garden so I’ve spent some time out there. The flower borders are fantastic but needed weeding so I did a bit of that, I hope you don’t mind. The PA stuff takes me about an hour and a half which pretty much leaves me the rest of the day, except for dinner and making coffee every hour or so.”

“I will have some paperwork for you to deal with soon, and some letters to type up and send out. Stupidly I’d already agreed to going along to some charity events parties and I need you to arrange that for me.”

“Do you not like partying then?” she asked, surprised.

“Hell yes, when it’s the right kinda party but I’m not Jon, I can’t go along and make small talk to people who bore the fuckin tits off me ya know, all in the name of making contacts. Jon? He’s the fucking master at doing that. The only one I’ve really enjoyed is the Habitat for Humanity which we got involved in to help build new homes for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, but having to talk to some heavily made up Lady wotsit or Lord hoohaa? Christ it’s a cure for insomnia.”

Erin laughed, she liked this side of Richie, the honest, funny side. She’d almost forgotten what he’d been like when she’d first turned up.

“I know what you mean, my ex is a lawyer and every few months I’d have to get dressed up and go make meaningless small talk all to help him get noticed by the big bosses. You tend to develop a meaningless smile that you plaster on your face and I don’t know about you, but I’d end up with this massive ache across my mouth when I got home and sometimes it felt like the smile was frozen.”

“Oh yeah, when you’ve been photographed as many times as I have the aching face is nothing. Wait till you’ve had to hold a position for so long that your limbs have gone to sleep. That happened once and I went to walk and fell over, my foot was completely asleep. Jon nearly bust a gut laughing at me, bastard!” Richie laughed, completely relaxed.

It was weird, but he really felt he could talk to Erin. After the really bad first impressions he’d got he’d expected her to be a complete klutz but she wasn’t that bad. No coffee mishaps in over a week. Things were looking up. Plus she was easy on the eye, even if she did wear shapeless clothes that hid her figure.


He put his coffee mug down and smiled. "Oh well I'd best get back up there. I'll see you later. Thanks for dinner." he said as he got up and exited the kitchen.