by Marian Keyes
Dermot, her taxi-driver to the city-centre, only added to her grief. He was chatty and amiable and Lisa didn’t want chatty and amiable. She thought with longing of the psychotic, uzi-carrying madman who might have been driving her taxi, if only she was in New York.
‘Have you family here?’ Dermot asked.
‘No.’
‘A boyfriend, so?’
‘No.’
When she wouldn’t talk about herself, he talked instead. ‘I love driving,’ he confided.
‘Whoop-de-doo,’ Lisa said nastily.
‘Do you know what I do on my day off?’
Lisa ignored him.
‘I go for a drive! That’s what I do. And not just down to Wicklow, either, but a long one. Up to Belfast, over to Galway, or across to Limerick. One day I made it as far as Letterkenny, that’s in Donegal, you know… I love my job.’
On and on he went, as they inched through the wet, greasy streets. When they got to the hotel in Harcourt Street, he helped her with her several bags and wished her a pleasant stay in Ireland.
Malone’s Aparthotel was a strange new breed of hostelry – it had no bar, or restaurant, or room service or anything really, except for thirty rooms, each with small kitchen areas attached. Lisa was booked in for a fortnight and hopefully by then she’d have found somewhere to live.
In a daze, she hung up a couple of things, looked out at the grey view of the busy road, then flung herself out on to the damp streets, to inspect the city that now constituted home.
Now that she was actually here, the shock hit her with unprecedented force. How had her life gone so horribly wrong? She should be strolling along Fifth Avenue right now, and not in this drenched village.
The guide-book said that it would only take half a day to walk around Dublin and see all its important sights – as if that was a good thing! Sure enough, less than two hours was enough to check out the high spots – read shopping – both north and south of the river Liffey. It was worse than she’d expected: nobody stocked La Prairie products, Stephane Kélian shoes, Vivienne Westwood or Ozwald Boeteng.
‘It’s total pants! A one-horse town,’ she thought, in mild hysteria, ‘and the horse is wearing last-season’s Hilfiger.’
She wanted to go home. She longed for London so badly, then through the mist she saw something that made her heart lift – a Marks & Spencers!
Normally she never went near them: the clothes were too dowdy, the food too tempting, but today she flung herself through the entrance like a pursued dissident seeking asylum in a foreign embassy. She resisted the urge to lie, panting, against the inside of the door. But only because the door was automatic. Then she immersed herself in the food department because it had no windows and didn’t interfere with her fantasies.
I’m in the High Street Kensington branch, she pretended to herself. In a moment I’m going to leave and drop into Urban Outfitters.
She idled in front of the fresh fruit. No, I’ve changed my mind, she decided. I’m in the Marble Arch branch As soon as I’ve finished here I’m going to South Molton Street.
It gave her a peculiar comfort to know that the melon salads in front of her were part of the diaspora of melon salads in all the London branches. She pressed slightly on a taut cellophane lid and felt a sense of belonging – faint but real.
When she was restored to calmness she went to an ordinary supermarket and bought her weekly shopping. A routine would keep her sane – well, it had certainly helped in the past. Home she traipsed, the hood of her cardigan up to protect her hair from the rain that had started to fall again. She unpacked the seven cans of Slimfast and placed them neatly in the cupboard, the potatoes and apples went in the little fridge and the seven pieces of chocolate went into a drawer. Now what? Saturday night. All alone in a strange city. Nothing to do but to stay in and watch… It was then that she noticed that there was no telly in the room.
It was such a big blow she cried a flashflood of hot, spurty tears. What was she going to do now? She’d already read this month’s Elle, Red, New Woman, Company, Cosmo, Marie-Claire, Vogue, Tatler, and the Irish magazines that she’d be competing against. She could read a book, she supposed. If she had one. Or a newspaper, except newspapers were so boring and depressing… At least she had clothes to hang up. So while the streets below filled with young people en route to a night on the piss, Lisa smoked and shook dresses and skirts and jackets on to hangers, smoothed cardigans and tops into drawers, arranged boots and shoes into a perfect military parade, hung handbags… The phone rang, startling her from her soothing rhythm.
‘Hello?’ And then she was sorry she’d answered. ‘Oliver!’ Oh, bugger. ‘Where did you… how did you get this number?’
‘Your mum.’
Interfering old cow.
‘When were you going to tell me, Lisa?’
Never, actually.
‘Soon. When I’d got my own place.’
‘What have you done with our flat?’
‘Got tenants in. Don’t worry, you’ll get your share of the rent.’
‘And why Dublin? I thought you wanted to go to New York.’
‘This seemed like a smarter career move.’
‘Jesus, you’re hard. Well, I hope you’re happy,’ he said, in a manner that meant he hoped the very opposite. ‘I hope it’s all been worth it.’
Then he hung up.
She looked down on the Dublin street and started to shake. Had it been worth it? Well, she’d just better make damn sure it would be. She’d make Colleen the biggest success in magazine publishing.
She inhaled deeply on her cigarette, then went to light it again because she thought it had gone out. It hadn’t, but it wasn’t calming the pain. She needed something. The chocolate called to her from the drawer, but she resisted it. Just because she felt she was in hell was no excuse to go over fifteen hundred calories a day.
In the end she gave in. She coiled in an armchair, slowly removed the paper and ran her teeth along the side of the chocolate, shaving away tiny curl after tiny curl, until it was all gone.
It took an hour.
6
There was a clink of bottles at Ashling’s door, announcing Joy’s arrival.
‘Ted’s on his way, leave the door on the latch.’ Joy clattered a bottle of white wine on to Ashling’s tiny kitchen counter.
Ashling braced herself. She was not disappointed.
‘Phil Collins,’ Joy said, with an evil glint in her eye, ‘Michael Bolton or Michael Jackson, and you must sleep with one of them.’
Ashling winced. ‘Well, definitely not Phil Collins, and definitely not Michael Jackson and definitely not Michael Bolton.’
‘You must choose one.’ Joy busied herself with the corkscrew.
‘Christ.’ Ashling’s face was a twist of revulsion. ‘Phil Collins, I suppose, I haven’t picked him in a while. Right, your turn. Benny Hill, Tom Jones or… let me see, who’s truly revolting? Paul Daniels.’
‘Full sex or just…’
‘Full sex,’ Ashling said firmly.
‘Tom Jones, then,’ Joy sighed, handing Ashling a glass of wine. ‘Now, show me what you’re wearing.’
It was Saturday evening and Ted was doing the ‘try-out’ slot at a comedy gig. It was his first time doing his act for anyone other than friends and family, and Ashling and Joy were going along to hold his hand, then crash the party afterwards.
Joy – whose surname was, memorably, Ryder – lived in the flat below Ashling’s. She was short, rounded, curly-haired and dangerous – on account of her prodigious appetite for drink, drugs and men, coupled with her mission to turn Ashling into her partner in crime.
‘Come into my bedroom,’ Ashling invited and they both edged in. ‘I’m going to wear these cream cargo pants and this little top.’ Ashling turned from the wardrobe too quickly and stood on Joy’s foot, then Joy leapt up and banged her elbow on the portable telly.
‘Ouch! Doesn’t the crampedness of these shoe-boxes ever get to you?’ Jo
y sighed, rubbing her elbow.
Ashling shook her head. ‘I love living in town and you can’t have everything.’
Quickly, Ashling changed into her going-out clothes.
‘I’d look like a Diddyman in that get-up.’ Joy admired her, wistfully. ‘It’s a terrible thing to be pear-shaped!’
‘But at least you have a waist. Now, I thought I’d do something with my hair…’
Ashling had bought several coloured butterfly clips after she’d seen what a lovely job Trix had done with them. But when she stuck them into the front of her own hair, sweeping two strands off her face, the effect wasn’t quite the same.
‘I just look ridiculous!’
‘You do,’ Joy agreed, kindly. ‘Now, do you think Half-man-half-badger will be at the party after the gig?’
‘Could be, it was at a party with Ted that you met him before, wasn’t it? He’s friends with some of the comedians, isn’t he?’
‘Mmmmm,’ Joy nodded dreamily. ‘But that was weeks ago and I haven’t seen him since. Where did he disappear to, that international half-man-half-badger of mystery? Get the tarot cards and we’ll have a quick look at what’s going to happen.’
They traipsed into the bijou sitting-room, Joy plucked a card from the deck, then turned it to Ashling. ‘Ten of swords. That’s a shite one, isn’t it?’
‘Shite,’ Ashling agreed.
Joy grasped the bundle of cards and at high speed flicked through them until she found one she liked. ‘The Queen of Wands, now that’s more like it! Now you pick one.’
‘Three of Cups.’ Ashling held it up. ‘Beginnings.’
‘That means you’re going to meet a man too.’
Ashling laughed.
‘It’s ages since Phelim went to Australia, no?’ Joy interrogated. ‘It’s about time you got over him.’
‘I am over him. I was the one who ended it, remember?’
‘Only because he wouldn’t do the decent thing. Although good for you, even when they won’t do the decent thing by me, I still can’t give them their marching orders. You’re very strong.’
‘It’s not strength. It was because I couldn’t stand the tension of waiting for him to make up his mind. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown.’
Phelim had been Ashling’s on-off boyfriend for five years. They’d had good times and not-so-good times because Phelim always lost his nerve at the last minute when it came to fullblown, grown-up commitment.
To make the relationship work, Ashling spent her life avoiding cracks in the pavement, saluting lone magpies, picking up pennies and consulting both her and Phelim’s horoscopes. Her pockets were always weighed down with lucky pebbles, rose-quartz and miraculous medals and she’d rubbed nearly all the gold paint off her lucky Buddha.
Each time they got back together the well of hope was further depleted, and eventually Ashling’s love just burnt out from all his dithering. Like every break-up, the final one had been unacrimonious. Ashling said calmly, ‘You’re always talking about how you hate being trapped in Dublin and how you want to travel the world, so go on. Do it.’
Even now a faint line of connection hummed between them, across twelve thousand miles. He’d come home in February for his brother’s wedding and the first person he’d gone to see was Ashling. They’d walked into each other’s arms and stood, squeezing each other for minutes on end, tears in their eyes from the close-but-no-cigar air of it all.
‘Bastard,’ Joy said, energetically.
‘He wasn’t,’ Ashling insisted. ‘He couldn’t give me what I wanted but that doesn’t mean I hate him.’
‘I hate all my ex-boyfriends,’ Joy boasted. ‘I can’t wait for Half-man-half-badger to be one, then he won’t have this hold on me. Now what if he’s there tonight? I need to seem unavailable. If only… no, an engagement ring would be going too far. A love-bite might do the trick, though.’
‘Where are you going to get one of those?’
‘From you! Here,’ Joy swept aside a mass of curls from her neck. ‘Would you mind?’
‘Yes.’
‘Please.’
And because she was an obliging type, Ashling pushed away her reluctance, half-heartedly put her teeth on Joy’s neck and gave her a hickey.
Mid hickey-giving, someone said, ‘Oh.’ They looked up, frozen in a pose that was somehow sodden with guilt. Ted was standing, looking at them. He seemed upset. ‘The door was open… I didn’t realize…’ Then he gathered himself. ‘I hope you’ll both be very happy.’
Ashling and Joy looked at each other and roared laughing, until Ashling took pity on him and explained all.
He saw the tarot cards on the table and pounced. ‘Eight of Wands, Ashling, what does that mean?’
‘Success in business,’ Ashling said. ‘Your act will go down a storm tonight.’
‘Yeah, but will I be a big hit with the goils?’
Ted had become a stand-up comedian for one reason and one reason only – to get a girlfriend. He’d seen the way women flung themselves at the comedians working the Dublin circuit, and thought that his chances of pulling were higher than at a dating agency. Not that he’d go to a real dating agency. The only one he’d have anything to do with was the Ashling Kennedy dating agency – Ashling regularly sought to matchmake all her single friends. But the only one of Ashling’s pals Ted had liked was Clodagh and unfortunately she was unavailable. Very.
‘Take another card,’ Ashling invited him.
The one he picked was the Hanged Man.
‘You’ll definitely get lucky tonight,’ Ashling promised.
‘But it’s the Hanged Man!’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
Ashling knew that if you put a man on a stage, no matter how plug-ugly he is – and be it strumming a guitar, lepping around in doublets and purple hose or observing that you can wait for a bus for ages, then three come at once – you can guarantee that women will find him attractive. Even when it’s only standing on a dusty, foot-high platform in a twenty-foot-square room, he assumes a strange, seductive glamour.
‘I’ve decided to change my act, go slightly surreal. Talk about owls.’
‘Owls?’
‘Owls have worked for lots of people.’ Ted was defensive. ‘Look at Harry Hill, Kevin McAleer.’
Oh Christ. Ashling’s heart sank. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
As they left the flat there was a little pile-up in the hall as everyone sought to rub the lucky Buddha.
The comedy gig was in a packed, rowdy club. Ted wasn’t on until the middle of the show and though the proper comedians were clever and slick, Ashling couldn’t let go and enjoy herself. Too worried about how Ted would go down.
Like a lead balloon, if the performance of the other first-timer was anything to go by. He was an odd, hairy little boy whose act consisted almost entirely of ‘doing’ Beavis and Butthead. The audience were unforgiving. As they booed and shouted, ‘Get off, you’re crap,’ Ashling’s heart twisted for Ted.
Then it was Ted’s turn. Ashling and Joy clasped hands, like proud but justifiably anxious parents. Within seconds, their hands were so slippery with sweat that they had to let go.
Under the lone spotlight, Ted looked frail and vulnerable. Absently, he rubbed his stomach, lifting up his T-shirt, giving a brief glimpse of the waistband of his Calvins and his narrow, dark-haired midriff. Ashling approved. That might get the girls interested.
‘This owl walks into a bar,’ Ted started. The audience’s upturned faces were lambent with expectation. ‘He orders a pint of milk, a packet of crisps and ten smokes. And the barman turns to his friend and says, “Look at that, a talking owl.” ’
There were one or two nonplussed titters, but otherwise an expectant silence reigned. They were still waiting for the punchline.
Anxiously, Ted started into a new gag. ‘My owl has got no nose,’ he announced.
More silence. Ashling had almost gouged stigmata in her palms with tension.
‘My owl has g
ot no nose,’ Ted repeated, laced with desperation.
Then Ashling understood. ‘How does he smell?’ she called, her voice quavering.
‘Terrible!’
The air was thick with perplexedness. People turned to their neighbours, their faces twisted into what-the-fuck… ?
And on Ted laboured. ‘I met a friend of mine and he said, “Who was that lady I saw you walking along Grafton Street with?” And I said, “That was no lady, that was my owl!” ’
And suddenly they seemed to get it. The laughter started small, but began to swell and burgeon, until the audience were in paroxysms. In fairness, it was Saturday night and they were pissed.
Behind her, Ashling heard people wheeze, ‘Your man’s hilarious. Off-the-wall, completely.’
‘What’s yellow and wise?’ Ted dazzled with a smile.
The audience were in the palm of his hand, their breath held, waiting for the gag. Ted smiled around the room. ‘Owl-infested custard!’
The roof nearly lifted.
‘What’s grey and has a trunk?’
A giddy pause.
‘An owl going on holidays. That’s a grey owl, obviously.’
There went the rafters again.
‘You’re recruiting for a job.’ Ted was on a roll and the audience were in floods of merriment. ‘You interview three owls and ask each of them what’s the capital of Rome. The first one says she doesn’t know, the second one says it’s Italy and the third one says that Rome is a capital. Which owl do you give the job to?’
‘The owl with the biggest tits!’ someone yelled from the back and once again laughter and applause rose and flapped like a flock of birds. The more established comedians, who’d only let Ted on as a favour to stop him pestering them, looked at each other anxiously.
‘Get him off,’ Bicycle Billy muttered, ‘the little bollocks.’
‘Gotta go,’ Ted ruefully told the audience as Mark Dignan made an urgent throat-cutting gesture.
‘AAAAAAWWWWWWW,’ everyone complained in bitter disappointment.