I hadn’t the first clue how bad things actually were, and in my defence, would you blame me? James was always so full of swagger and big talk, it never crossed my mind that the company was in trouble. When something he produced got slated in the press he’d just riff on about what a bunch of mindless morons TV critics are, and that if they had the slightest modicum of talent, they’d be out making TV shows, not sitting with their arses stuck to couches criticizing them. Likewise, if investors bailed on him, he’d put it down to them not being real risk-takers, and that they’d be sorry when whatever they’d passed on then went on to make millions and get showered with awards, IFTAs, BAFTAs, you name it. What can I say? I got so swept up in all his confidence and bravado that, like him, I always believed that the next big thing was only around the corner, and that would set him up for life.
But it looks like that was all front. All showmanship and hot air, and now the good years are over and they’re in trouble. Real trouble.
It must be coming up to about seven in the evening and the state of play is thus. Declan is still trying to persuade James to retreat to a nice padded room with no sharp implements lying around, and recover from the nervous breakdown he appears to be having. James, on the other hand, is not only insisting that he’ll be there for the big-money meeting with their number-one investor tomorrow, but that they need to have back-up, emergency, contingency plans in case the unthinkable happens and they’re flung out the door, cashless.
‘OK, we do a reality TV show, because they’re so cheap to make . . .’ he pitches to Declan.
‘Done to death, man,’ says Declan, shaking his head sadly. ‘Reality TV has had its day, and it’s over.’
‘Hear me out. A reality TV show meets a chat show, except with only one guest, who has to live for twenty-four hours in a single room with the host.’
‘Crap.’
‘Three cameras max. Big Brother, except there’s only two of them in there. In their underwear.’
‘I hate it.’
‘And the guest is a celebrity.’
‘I hate it more.’
‘And we get the guest plastered drunk before they go on, so there might be a fight. You know me, Dec, I don’t suffer fools gladly, but I’ll gladly let fools suffer.’
Poor old Declan doesn’t even answer, just stares morosely into his pint. Wish I could read thoughts, but from the look on his face I’ll bet he’s wondering whether or not he should desert the ship before it sinks, or else stay where he is: on the Titanic rearranging deckchairs. He used to be a journalist for Hot Press before he went to work for Meridius, and I’d say half of him is wondering whether it would be worth his while asking for his old job back. Sorry, make that crawling over broken glass on his hands and knees, begging for his old job back.
‘OK then, property TV,’ says James, undeterred.
‘Hadn’t you noticed? We’re in a recession. The property market is dead on its feet.’
‘You haven’t heard me out. Pimp my house, except it’s done by the two sexiest-looking presenters we can find: that leggy blonde one from Xpose on TV3 . . .’
‘I have to stop you right there,’ says Declan, firmly.
‘What’s up? Why are you being so unenthusiastic? Sure, we’ve had a few knocks, but this business is cyclical, everyone knows that . . .’
‘James, really, please just drop it.’
‘OK, I have it. We shoot a low-budget chick-flick. ’Cos everyone knows they make a fortune at the box office. One of those ones with a cheesy tag-line like, “Sometimes you have to lose yourself to find yourself.”’
‘Please shut up. Now.’
‘Or no, I’ve a better one. “Lose your heart and come to your senses.” Every thirty-something that queued up to see the Sex and the City movie would pay good money to see this. Guaranteed blockbuster. I can feel it.’
‘Either you can shut up with your crap pitches or I can leave and go home. Take your choice.’
‘What’s up with you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Spit it out.’
Declan takes a big gulpful of his pint, then wearily sinks back. You should see the hopeless look on his face: it’s like he’s ageing ten years for every minute spent sitting here.
‘It’s just that . . . you and me, man, we used to be like . . . the David Bowies of the production world. Whatever everyone else was at, we were two years ahead of them. And now look at us. Fighting for survival. Barely enough cash in the bank to pay the rent on the office. I don’t know about you, man, but I’m starting to feel like . . . like we’re analogue players in a digital world. Know what I mean?’
‘Temporary setback. Nothing more,’ says James firmly. But then this is where he excels himself and really comes into his own. When all hope is lost, he’s the guy at the back going, ‘This? This is nothing!’ The type of fella that in a tsunami would be saying, ‘Yeah, all right, so it’s a big wave, but to be honest with you, I’ve seen worse.’ If he’d been around for the San Francisco earthquake, he’d have come out with, ‘Bit of a tremor, that’s all.’ Or at the Charge of the Light Brigade, he’d have said, ‘Yeah, OK, so maybe there’s a few canons, nothing to worry about. Promise.’
‘But this is the baby that’ll turn it all around for us,’ he’s insisting now, refusing to let any negativity get next to or near him. ‘Let He Without Sin will be huge, we’ll syndicate it, sell rights all over the world; believe me, man, I know a hit when I smell one.’
The classic James Kane motivational catchphrase. Except this time it’s falling on deaf ears. Poor old Declan is still staring into the middle distance, twiddling with his earring so intently that I’m half-wondering if he whips it out before going home to dinner, lovingly cooked by his mammy. After a long, long silence, he simply says that they’ll just have to give it their best shot tomorrow, and see how it goes.
‘And if that doesn’t work out,’ he adds sadly, ‘I’ll have to look into bringing in the BBC and seeing if they’d be interested in doing it as a co-production. Unlikely that they will – most of their drama budget is already allocated by this time of year – but might be worth a shot.’
Now, ordinarily James would have a mild coronary at the very suggestion that any TV channel would be coaxed in to co-produce anything, his main reason being that ‘they interfere with his vision’. Honest to God, you’d swear he was Cecil B. DeMille. The actual reason, I happen to know, is that if a show is a hit, he just hates sharing the glory with anyone else. Always has to be Gladys Knight and not a Pip, if you’re with me. And it’s a terrifying measure of just how up against it the lads are, that James just nods and lets it pass.
And that’s when I begin to feel sorry for the pair of them. All their hard work, all their years of grafting, of blood, sweat and tears. Getting productions off the ground, commissioning writers, doing the endless round of investors, desperately trying to get them to stump up cash so a project can be ‘green lit’, and then, after all that, the real work starts. Hiring a decent director (harder than you’d think; James always reckons the majority of directors are just traffic wardens for actors, and that half of them don’t know their arse from their elbow), a stellar cast, a production crew prepared to put in regular sixteen-hour days, and that’s all before day one principal photography, when the director calls ‘action’.
What’s totally knocked me for six, though, is that the person my heart’s really going out to is James. After everything that’s happened, all I feel for him right now is sympathy. Meridius Movies was his from the word go, his creative baby, and unless by some miracle this magical investor comes up trumps for him tomorrow and all’s well that end’s well, then . . . I can’t imagine what he’ll do with the rest of his life. Declan, I’m certain, will be fine, his stock is high and he could stroll back into his old job tomorrow. But James has made his fair share of enemies along the way, and as for his future prospects . . .
No, no, no, this is mental! I cannot allow myself to start feeling sorry for the m
an who ruined my life and played an indirect part in my death . . . NO!! My God, do I have to remind myself that there’s such a thing as Schadenfreude?
My hand had been on the table, right beside his, and I instinctively pull it away.
I know he must feel something because he shivers, then shoves both his own hands under his armpits, suddenly trying to warm up.
And that’s when Sophie bleeding Kelly comes bouncing in.
OK, then.
So much for that mini bout of empathy, now we’re back to full-scale, de luxe, out-and-out war.
‘Oh HI!!’ she shrieks in fake surprise, like we were the last people she expected to bump into.
Sorry, make that like Declan and James were the last people she expected to bump into.
I keep forgetting.
‘Ehh . . . hi there,’ says James, after he’s finished sputtering on his pint. ‘Sophie, yeah, hi, good to see you. You remember Declan?’
‘Yeah, hi, Declan,’ she says, breezily, swishing back one of the stupid-looking girlie pigtails and standing right on top of the stool I’m perched on, with her bum practically in my face.
‘Eughhh, get off me,’ I shout, springing up to my feet. James reacts with a jolt, but no one seems to notice. Screechy Sophie is too busy doing her, ‘Oh my Gawd, like, imagine bumping into you guys here, of all places, like what a coincidence!’ act, with the poppy eyes bulging out of her stupid-looking head. And fooling no one, well, certainly not me.
‘I met you at the premiere of Nine Lives, and I Picked This One?’ she smirks at Declan, hand outstretched.
‘Oh right, yeah, I remember,’ says Declan, although I know by him he’s only lying to be polite. ‘So, eh, are you meeting friends here or what?’ It’s unspoken, but there’s the merest hint of suspicion there, all the same. This spit-on-the-floor dive bar is most definitely not the kind of place girls come into, particularly girlie girls with their boobs on display like her, wearing more bronzer than you’d normally see on the whole of Girls Aloud. Already the half-dozen or so scruffy aul fellas at the bar are reacting like a gang of freemasons whose secret handshaky meeting has just been interrupted by some bird in a Wonderbra.
‘Ehh, noooooo, not exactly,’ she lies back at him. Then digs a deeper hole for herself by adding, ‘Just came in to use the loo, actually, ha ha ha.’
‘Right,’ Declan nods, letting his suspicions pass, but then I suppose he has other things on his mind. Interesting, I note, though, feeling very Miss Marple altogether; either he’s the best actor this side of Daniel Day-Lewis, or he genuinely doesn’t have concrete proof that there’s actually anything going on between James and Poodle Head. In fairness, it would be hard for a gentleman like Dec to believe how any man could do that with his ex-girlfriend still warm in the ground.
I can barely believe it myself.
‘So, like, how ARE you?’ she shrieks at James, ‘I haven’t seen you in like, for ever.’
‘Yeah, yeah, it’s ehh . . . been a while, all right.’
Oh, for f*ck’s sake, now it’s like I’m watching a play being acted solely for Declan’s benefit. Badly acted, at that.
‘So . . . emm . . . OK if I join you for a sec?’ she says, plonking herself down right where I was sitting, without waiting for an answer. Neither of them say a word, Declan just drains back the dregs of his pint and says he’s going to take off. No doubt code for: ‘Or else mammy will murder me for being home late for the meat, spuds and two veg dinner.’
No sooner has he left than Sophie ups and moves right in beside James.
Ohh, this’ll be good.
‘I called to the office and Hannah said you’d probably be here,’ is her opener.
James says nothing, just does his moody staring off into the middle distance thing.
‘I’ve been out of my mind with worry ever since this morning,’ Sophie goes on, dropping the voice decibel level a bit, always a relief. ‘Are you aware of how weird you were acting? At one point, you actually claimed you could hear someone talking to you. I mean, I was there, like, not having a clue what to do with you. Whether to call an ambulance or just drag you upstairs and force you to sleep off whatever it was you’d been drinking the night before.’ Then she does this really irritating tinkly laugh thing as if she’s trying to lighten the whole situation and write it off as a big joke.
Some hope.
‘You can tell her from me that you weren’t imagining it,’ I chip in, cool as you like. James jumps and looks around a bit, but otherwise keeps up this whole brooding, intense silence thing he has going on.
So on and on Miss Screechy Voice goes, how she’s fully aware of what a difficult time this is for him (plus she manages to do this without actually mentioning my name, no mean feat), but that it’s been tough on her too, and that all she really wants is to be there for James. But it’s difficult when he’s a) behaving like a mentalist, and b) not answering any of her calls/persistent texts, etc., etc., blah di blah di blah.
‘Do you mind if I just hum through her monologue?’ I ask. Good and loud so he can definitely hear me.
James reacts as if he’s just been given a short, sharp electric shock. Hilarious.
‘You know,’ I say, right into Sophie’s face as she’s yakking on about how she’s used to guys chasing all over town after her, and how it’s never, ever the other way around. ‘If I’d wanted to listen to mindless droning, I could have just stayed home and switched on the air conditioner.’
With that, James is up on his feet, right in the middle of her ramble about how neglected and unloved she’s been feeling of late.
‘I need to go,’ he says abruptly. ‘I mean, leave. Now. Alone.’
‘What did you say?’ God, it’s so funny how the screechiness rises in direct proportion to how pissed off she is.
‘Long day, very tired, emotional, stressed, need to go. Goodbye.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ she says, instantly on her feet, and following him out the door where he stands squinting into the traffic, trying to pick out a taxi with its light on.
‘A quick word to the wise,’ I say right into his ear. ‘If she as much as sets foot in our house, I’ll sit beside you all night singing the entire Andrew Lloyd Webber canon. Not an idle threat, my darling. Remember, I’ve all the time in the world.’
‘NO! Please, no!’ he shouts, leaping away from me and nearly colliding with an old lady passing by, laden down with Tesco’s bags.
‘Well, there’s no need to shout,’ screeches Sophie. ‘I only wanted to make sure you were OK.’
‘Oh yeah, and another thing. Any chance of getting her to bring the voice down to foghorn level?’ I ask, innocently.
‘How the fuck is it possible that I can hear this?’ James demands to thin air.
‘Hear what?’
‘Oh, forget it, nothing,’ he trails off, knowing she’d never believe him.
Just then a taxi pulls up, and he hops in. Sophie tries her best to jump in after him, but he’s too quick for her. Like a bolt, he’s off, leaving her screeching after the car, ‘James Kane, do not think for one second it’s OK to treat me like this . . .’ She’s clearly not the brightest bulb on the tree, though, as it takes a second or two for her to cop on that she’s shouting after a car that’s just skidded off, so instead she whips out her pink mobile, punches in his mobile number, continues screeching down the phone at him, realizes that she’s hurling abuse at his voicemail, then hangs up and starts furiously texting him instead.
Clearly, a last-word freak. And a text maniac to boot. Who knew?
Times like this, I’d really love to hang around, if only because she’s like a walking master class in how not to treat men, and God knows, I have a lot to learn. Guys like James, for instance, respond well to being treated like crap, but run a mile when you hound them and chase them all over town, viz.: precisely how Sophie’s behaving right now. If my downfall was that I was always too nice to him, then hers is that she’s too available/ obsessive/downright scar
y.
Believe me, I’d love to stay for more of the sideshow.
But there’s somewhere far more important I need to be.
Chapter Nine
FIONA
I’d almost forgotten. Her date. With Mr Loves German Shepherds. The charm continues: all I need do is really focus on her, and next thing here we are. In an underground car park, to be exact, where Fiona’s sitting on the driver’s side with me plonked down on the passenger seat beside her, watching her shove her face into the rear-view mirror and lash a gooey layer of lip-plumping gloss over yet another gooey layer of lipplumping gloss.
‘You look gorgeous,’ I can’t help saying out loud. No reaction, of course, but then I didn’t expect one. Plus, it’s only the truth; she’s dazzling tonight, she really is, except, there’s something different about her that I can’t quite put my finger on. Then I look down at what she’s wearing, and it all starts to make sense. She’s out of all the sensible school gear and is now wearing a tight-fitting pair of Diesel jeans, a gorgeous flowery top that I’ve never seen before but looks like it cost a small mortgage, and actual high heels, unheard of for her. Not unlike what the old Fiona used to strut around in, back in her drink-you-under-the-table-in-Renards days, oh so long ago. As if her online alter-ego, Lexie, comes with a completely different wardrobe to F. Wilson, mild-mannered schoolteacher.
‘I look like shite,’ she mutters to herself, and I just know by her that she’s not even getting the slightest sense of me. ‘Mutton dressed as lamb.’
Then she does this thing of staring at herself in the mirror while simultaneously pulling the skin back from her eyes and up from her forehead. She’s always at it; the idea is to see what she’d look like with a facelift.
If This is Paradise, I Want My Money Back Page 11