Myself and Nuala are heading out to celebrate the internship. Nuala has the first shower because her curly hair takes longer to style. After Nuala’s out of the shower, we lay an array of outfits on the bedspread and have an asinine conversation about what goes with what. ‘I haven’t worn this yet,’ she says, picking up an embroidered top with woollen roses sewn onto it.
‘It’s a bit granny.’
‘Norma got it for me. She bought it at a craft market.’
‘Why don’t you put a big lump of cotton wool inside it and sew it all the way around and you’ll have a lovely cushion for the couch.’
‘You’re full of cheek,’ she says jovially. She always ends up in the same outfit anyway: a plain navy top, jeans and sturdy wedge shoes. Nondescript Nuala.
I’m in next for the shower, and by the time I’ve emerged, Nuala’s poured me a glass of chilled Prosecco. Then she sits on the edge of the bed in a pilled dressing gown and pumps a pavlova-sized wad of hair mousse into her hand before massaging it into her hair.
When the mop of curls is set, Nuala’s still hemming and hawing over the outfits on the bed. She tilts her head to one side. ‘Do you know what. I think I’ll just wear something comfortable.’ Once she’s dressed in the navy staples, she spritzes herself all over with a dusty bottle of perfume she’s had on the go for three years. Then she looks at herself in the mirror from different angles, sucks in her cheeks, turns around and looks at her own backside. ‘Have I too much make-up on?’ she says, frowning.
‘No. You’re perfect.’
‘Is the hair too big?’
‘No. It’s lovely. It’s spot on.’
‘Should I brush it all out?’
‘Do not.’
‘Do you think we’ll meet anyone nice tonight?’ she says, patting her lipstick on a piece of tissue paper. She asks the same question every Saturday evening, and I always answer the same way.
‘Tonight could be the night, Nuala.’
‘I haven’t met anyone nice in ages. If I see someone nice tonight, I’m just going to go for it.’ She’s never said anything of the sort before.
‘How do you mean, go for it? What have you in mind?’
‘I’m going to take a fella home with me and give him a night he’ll never forget,’ she says. ‘I’m over this wallflower business altogether.’ I’ll have to see it to believe it. As for myself, I’ve no difficulty catching a fella’s eye. I’m far better at pulling than Nuala, but I haven’t managed to keep a hold on anyone yet. I’ve trouble with fellas asking me questions about myself. So tell me. What do you do? I always feel that if I’d a better story to tell, they’d be more keen. That being said, it’s going to be different now; come next week, I’ll be talking nonstop about the dream that’s underway.
I go into my own bedroom, the box room, and I put on my own outfit. I don’t like having the box room and sleeping so high up. I’d prefer my bedroom on solid ground like it is at home in Glenbruff. I think of myself as being unnaturally suspended up in the sky, and I’ve a fear of the bed plummeting through the floor and into the apartment below and the one below that and the one below it again, even though that sort of an incident is virtually unheard of.
After I’ve done my make-up and straightened my hair, myself and Nuala prance around to a rotation of pop songs. We dash out to catch the last bus into town at the side of the dual carriageway, and it isn’t long before we’re standing and shivering in the queue for Club Dynasty. Nuala wants to meet a fella from the country, not from Dublin, and she says there’s a higher likelihood of finding a country fella at Club Dynasty than at the likes of Electric Jake’s Basement, or technofunk night at Gristle. She says the talent is better at Club Dynasty. The fellas are dressed better and they’re a more decent sort. ‘Evening, ladies,’ says a drunk fella in a checked shirt and square-looking shoes who’s trundled up behind us. He hiccups close to my ear. ‘I said, evening, ladies.’
‘Evening,’ says Nuala. Nuala’s compulsion for politeness is bordering on disorder.
‘Ye’re looking well,’ he slurs, his stout breath on my neck.
‘Thanks,’ says Nuala, high-pitched. The drunk fella stumbles on his feet, bumping up against me, and I shudder.
‘What’s wrong with your friend?’ he says to Nuala. ‘Is she stuck-up?’
‘There isn’t a thing wrong with my friend.’
‘There is. She’s fucking deaf.’ A finger pokes me hard in the shoulder. ‘Here. You. I’m talking to you.’ I take a step forward. ‘I was right,’ he says. ‘She is fucking stuck-up.’ He reaches out and pokes me in the shoulder again.
‘Don’t touch me,’ I hiss. Nuala looks anxious, like a rabbit in headlights.
The drunk fella does a clumsy dance, waving his hands. ‘Oh, I’m a little stuck-up bitch. I love myself.’ His hand is on my shoulder now, tugging at it and catching strands of my hair in his beefy fingers.
‘Don’t fucking touch me.’
‘Hey.’ A fella ahead of us turns his head. ‘Don’t be an asshole, man.’ He sounds to be Spanish or Italian or something.
‘Me so sorry,’ says the drunk fella, bowing from the waist.
‘Leave the ladies alone, okay.’ There’s something of the Peadar Morley about the fella ahead. The thick black hair and the almond-shaped eyes. The lean body and the air of confidence. I look at Nuala and she looks at me and she sets about licking the pads of her fingers and smoothing over her eyebrows.
When myself and Nuala slip into the dark, pulsing warmth of the nightclub, we overhear the drunk fella being turned away at the entrance. ‘Not tonight, son.’
‘Hah?’
‘Not tonight.’
‘You must be fucking joking me. I’m after getting the bus up from Galway,’ the drunk fella protests.
‘Isn’t that nice,’ says one of the bouncers, and the other one says, ‘I hope you got yourself a return ticket because you’re not coming in here.’
‘You’re a comedian, is that it. I’ll remember your face, pal.’
‘You will in your hole, you culchie prick.’
Nuala says she’ll go inside into the club and find us a table. I hand the coats in to the cloakroom and shove the paper tickets in my bra for safe keeping. I wander into the darkly lit area next to the dance floor and spot Nuala conversing closely with the good-looking fella from the queue. Wasn’t she very cute making a beeline for him while I was handing in the coats. ‘Katie. This is Luc. Luc is from France. He’s French.’ Luc is gorgeous. What can he be doing in a place like Club Dynasty? He must be the only man in the place not wearing any socks.
‘Hello, Luc.’ Luc gives me a kiss on each cheek like a real-life French person. ‘Thanks for your help outside.’
He gives a small shrug. ‘Sure.’
‘So. What brings you to Club Dynasty?’ purrs Nuala, winding a sticky curl around her finger, her eyes lit up like the moon.
‘I’ve just moved here. Someone recommended it,’ says Luc, sounding nonchalant. ‘I’m not sure it’s my kind of place. It’s a little, uh, burrring.’
‘Have you heard of Electric Jake’s Basement?’ says Nuala, and she has a micro-glance over at me. She hates Electric Jake’s Basement. She swore she’d never return. ‘You’d love it. I could take you there some time.’
‘Why not,’ he says coolly, and now Nuala’s sliding a hand up onto his chest, but it won’t be long before Luc turns his attentions away from Nuala and towards me. That’s how these things tend to go. I’ve the more compelling personality, and a nice small mouth and symmetrical eyebrows. I wait, and I sort of shunt around a bit, and I scan the club as though I’m interested to see who else is here, and then I look over again to see Luc with his phone in his hand and Nuala calling out her number to him. ‘Oh. Eight. Seven…’ I suppose she’s changed her mind about country fellas. ‘Nine. Two. Four…’
In the morning, Luc’s sitting backwards on a kitchen chair in the apartment, resting his chest against the wooden frame, the tanned forearms ha
nging and leather bracelets encircling his wrists. ‘Nuala tells me you’re working in television. Cool.’
‘I’m starting an internship on Monday. A place called Pyro Productions,’ I say casually. I have the ironing board out, and I’m ironing my jeans. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Nuala it’s that jeans look better when they’ve been ironed. ‘I want to make films. I just have to build up a bit of experience.’
‘Nice. I just took a job as a barista. But I freelance as an illustrator.’
‘Is that so.’
‘I’m working on a portfolio to bring in commissions. It’s on my website.’
Nuala lands into the kitchen in fresh make-up. ‘I’ll walk you to the bus stop,’ she says breathily.
‘LucDuret.com. L-U-C-D-U-R-E-T. Maybe you could take a look,’ he says to me, slowly rising from the chair.
‘Sure. Yeah.’ A website. I’ve never met anyone with their own website before.
After they’ve gone, Norma comes into the kitchen with a glossy magazine rolled up under her arm. ‘Well. What do you make of the foreigner?’
‘I think he’s nice. Why, what do you think?’
‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘It won’t work.’ She fills up the electric kettle with water and plugs it in. She rattles around in the cupboard and takes out two mismatched mugs.
‘Why won’t it work?’
‘God knows who he is or where he’s from. We know nothing at all about him. He could be a raving madman for all we know. He mightn’t even be French.’
‘I don’t know why he’d pretend he was French.’
‘I always say you’re as well off meeting someone from down home. At least then you know the parents and the aunts and uncles and cousins and all of that. You know what you’re dealing with, and there are no unpleasant surprises.’ That’s all well and good, but the only fella I ever loved from down home lost his mind, and there’s no way of knowing if he ever found it again. ‘Will you have tea?’
‘No, thanks, Norma.’
‘Please yourself,’ she says, returning the two mugs to the press. She doesn’t like drinking tea on her own.
I fold up the jeans and take them into the box room. I pull out my old battered laptop and go on to Luc’s website, where there’s a gallery of illustrations of lunar landscapes and three-dimensional characters brandishing futuristic weaponry. I lie back on the bed and mull over the conversation myself and Luc had in the kitchen. It’s great having a new story about myself that I never had before. I wonder what Evelyn would think of the story. Would she be admiring?
Minutes later, I hear shrieking from outside in the hallway and the sound of high-heeled boots jumping up and down. It’s Nuala, returned from the walk to the bus stop. ‘He’ll never forget Nuala Mary Creighton! Never! Never!’ We’ll hear all the ins and outs of it over the days to follow.
‘I’m Katie Devane. I’m starting my internship today.’ The woman at reception with the septum piercing, faded green hair and headset with a tiny mic looks down at a worn black diary. ‘I was told to come in and ask for Bernard. He said he’d get me started.’ The woman smiles a confused smile before lifting her head.
‘Bernard’s not here. He’s left the company.’ I stare at the woman and she stares back at me. ‘He didn’t leave us any messages about an intern,’ she says, matter-of-fact.
‘He offered me the internship last week. I can show you the emails. We had a meeting and everything.’
‘Let me talk to someone. Give me a minute.’ She slips out from behind the reception desk and enters a room along the corridor, half closing the door behind her. I look around the foyer. There are several screens secured to the wall, each showing a different Pyro Productions television programme. A travel show called Away and Abroad. A programme about casserole cookery called The Heat Is On, and a new detective drama series, Shanley and the Shades. A cluster of snappily dressed people meanders past the reception desk, chatting about actors and schedules and contracts. As they clear the foyer, I can overhear the conversation between the woman with the faded green hair and a man inside the room down the corridor.
‘What the actual fuck. We’ve interns hanging out of the lampshades at this stage,’ the man says.
‘Bernard arranged it. I could wring him. The poor girl is standing out there in reception. She’s waiting for an answer.’
‘We’ll have to put her off. Tell her we’re after bringing in someone else.’
‘She’ll be upset, Jason. She’s only young, and up from the country.’
‘God almighty. Give her something. One of the mugs or a hoodie. It’s as much as we can do.’
The woman returns to the front desk and hands me a cellophane wrapped hoodie branded with an Away and Abroad logo. ‘I’m sorry about this. It’s Bernard. He’s been organising meetings with young women and promising things.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘He’s just trying to get off with them. With girls like yourself. He’s caused all sorts of trouble.’ She leans over the desk and says, ‘One of our runners has a restraining order out on him.’
‘So there’s no internship.’
‘No. There isn’t. We already have someone. We’ve a few people. There’s a form on our website that you can fill out, but I have to tell you, we get hundreds of applications every month.’ I nod and draw my bottom lip into my mouth. ‘I hope you haven’t travelled too far. Will I call you a taxi?’
I shake my head. ‘No. It’s okay.’ I haven’t the money for splashing out on taxis. I walk out of the building and a forklift whips past me, barely missing my nose. It was all too good to be true. Who’s going to hire me, or offer me any sort of an opportunity, when all I’ve done is wrapped up chips and scratched toothpaste off mirrors and I’ve the same education as hordes and hordes of other young people? Now I know how Evelyn must have felt, not getting on her course. She must have felt dreadful.
As I shuffle towards the bus stop, I think about having to phone Mammy and Daddy and telling them the internship hasn’t worked out. After pleading with Daddy to give me the money for rent and everything. He won’t hear of me going after another internship after this. And I think about having to go back to the apartment and facing Nuala and Norma. Relaying disappointments to others always seems to magnify them. If Norma so much as says I told you so, I’ll wallop her.
According to Nuala, who works in recruitment, all the production companies are damned with graduates sending in applications. ‘Supposably there’s a company that gives out the number for an old fax machine they have sitting someplace in a prefab. They haven’t filled the paper tray in five years. It’s become a sort of a running joke.’ I wish Nuala wouldn’t say ‘supposably’. It’s not even a real word. It drives me mad when she says it. It makes my blood boil.
The story has disintegrated, and with it, a hatch opens in my mind, unleashing an unsettling thought. The dream will never come to fruition without Evelyn. And though I tell myself that it’s illogical, superstitious even, I can’t seem to shake the idea that myself and Evelyn are supposed to pursue the dream together. I won’t be able to make it on my own. I’m only special by association.
Myself and Nuala and Norma are out for a hot chocolate at a shopping centre close to the apartment, and I have the sneaking suspicion that this is a sort of a prearranged intervention. Norma’s strongly recommending that I go forward for the teaching diploma, like she’s some sort of evangelist for doing the teaching. She has all the details tucked into her Filofax. ‘Just apply for it, Katie,’ she says firmly. ‘You can decide later. Give yourself the option.’ She’s like a dog with a bone.
I’m staring sullenly into the glass of hot chocolate, swirling a long-handled teaspoon in the lukewarm sugary gloop. ‘Norma. I don’t want to do the teaching. How many times have I to say it.’
‘You have to be realistic, Katie. Everyone gives up on their dream eventually. Holding on to it is a bit childish if you ask me.’
‘Norma,’ says Nuala. ‘You
’re very harsh.’
‘I’m only saying. It’s human nature to think we’re all here for some big purpose. But most of us aren’t. Most of us are ordinary, and it’s important to accept it. A person has to be content to lead a normal life. There’s no shame in it.’ The three of us sit in terrible, awkward silence. The worst thing that could happen would be for me to fail, to never make something of myself, and I’ve the anguished feeling that failure is fated. I haven’t Evelyn’s self-belief. I haven’t Norma’s pragmatism. I’m not a natural Pollyanna, like Nuala. Polly-fucking-Nuala. Maybe it’s the usual thing for people to give up, and it’s a part of the fabric of life. Look at Mammy, sure, existing with the spectre of the unlived Self.
I wonder should I relent and apply for the teaching. The prospect of it is making more and more sense. I’ve the impression that Nuala and Norma are only keeping me on in the apartment out of charity: the rent hasn’t increased since I moved in. My tweed coat is four years old and fraying at the cuffs. There’s a hole in the left pocket and coins have slipped into the lining, ringing against my leg.
Nuala puts her hand on my forearm and rubs it. ‘It wasn’t your fault it didn’t work out,’ she says in a kindly tone. ‘You must put this incident behind you and have another go when you’re feeling better.’
Norma shakes her head, closes over her Filofax with a slap. ‘There’ll be more torment where that came from.’ She sits back and folds her arms. ‘I’m only saying.’
‘You’ve said your piece, Norma. It’s no one’s business only Katie’s what she does next.’ It’s a pity Nuala can’t get me a job herself, but she only recruits door-to-door salespeople.
You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here Page 11