‘What?’
‘Oh Sharon, you have so much to learn from me,’ I smile, a bit patronisingly. ‘You see the thing about guys is that they only really appreciate you if you’re like a prize to them. And prizes have to be won. So I’m advising you to do exactly as I’m doing. Leave it a good twenty-four hours before you message back any of the guys you like. Don’t let them know you’re interested. Just play it cool. Look at me, and learn from the master. I mean, do you see me picking up the phone to Sam?’
‘You did loads of times when you first moved in here. Me and Maggie used to think you were talking to yourself the whole time, until Maggie copped on you were leaving about two hundred voice messages for him. Jeez, you were like Sky News, every hour on the hour.’
OK, I was kind of hoping that mightn’t come up.
‘Yes, well, that was then and this is now,’ I snap back defensively. ‘The point is, there are times when you have to let a fella chase you and this is most definitely one of those times. For both of us. And if a guy chooses not to pursue you, then you’re gracious and dignified, but you move on. Plenty more fish and all that.’
‘Can I not just message back this guy here? His profile sounds really funny. Look, he says, “Please don’t ask my age; in dog years, I’m already dead.” And he’s online now.’
‘Sharon!’
Anyway I do amazingly well and manage to hold out until well after 11.30 without going near the phone, but then I think, you know, this could actually be very hard for Sam. After all, he’s not a guy who finds it easy to admit that he was ever in the wrong, so … in that case, why don’t I drop him a little text message? Just to let him know I’m thinking about him, that’s all. Except I don’t want Sharon seeing what I’m at, so I slip in the bathroom and text him from there. Nothing furtive about it, I just need a bit of privacy for this.
By lunchtime, there’s no reply. So, same drill, I slip back to the loo and send a second text.
Still no answer.
So a few minutes later, I head back to the bathroom again and text again. Then I slip back to Sharon’s room and give her a great lecture about how when a fella is interested, you don’t need to do a single thing. They’ll make all the running and what’s more they’ll enjoy it. She’s totally engrossed in the computer screen and I’ve the phone in my dressing gown pocket, which I keep surreptitiously checking, oh, about every two minutes or so.
‘Is there something wrong with you?’ she asks after a while, worriedly.
‘No, why?’
‘Because you keep staring down into your nether regions. Anything you want to tell me?’
‘No, I just … emm … might need the loo again. Something I ate last night is … ehh … disagreeing with me. That’s all.’
Feck it, might as well leave a proper voice message for him. To hell with all this texting lark. In for a penny, in for a pound. He doesn’t answer, so I wait for the beep on his message minder to come on. I’m in the tiny bathroom, balancing on the edge of the bath, in the middle of a message for Sam so long the beeps cut me off, when the door suddenly bursts open.
‘I knew it! You were in here ringing that Sam Hughes fella all the time, weren’t you?’ Sharon yells, grabbing the phone off me and checking the number on it. ‘And here’s me, like a gobshite, taking dating advice from you?’ She’s so infuriated, you’d swear she’d caught me in here mainlining heroin.
‘Now there’s absolutely no need for you to overreact …’
‘And why is that, exactly?’
‘Because … it’s different for me. Remember, I’ve been with him for two years you know, so the same set of rules don’t apply.’
‘Bugger that, Little Miss Do As I Say, Don’t Do As I Do. You’re completely deluded. Jeez, you could give lessons in self-delusion to Heather Mills.’
By 2 p.m., all pride is abandoned and I’ve rung eight times, not including all the text messages. I didn’t count, but Sharon did. And still no reply. I even tried calling Eva, who’s still in Spain with Nathaniel, but, surprise, surprise, she didn’t answer either.
By 2.10 p.m., I’ve convinced myself that Sam will just do the obvious thing and call here after work. Then another alarm bell. As I’m frantically pacing up and down the tiny hallway, I suddenly catch sight of myself in one of the half dozen mirrors Joan has hanging here. Christ alive, look at the state of me. In all the time I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve even bothered once to actually take one long, hard look at my appearance. I look grey, washed out and so scrawny you’d think I weighed approximately the same as your average carton of milk. The circles under my eyes are pitch black, like a two-year-old attacked me with a Crayola, and I’m also wearing the same manky dressing gown and pyjamas I’ve been living, eating, drinking and sleeping in for weeks now. Don’t get me wrong, I have flung them in the washing machine the odd time, but basically now they’re so minging, they could do with having a stake put through them. Then there’s the small matter of my hair. The mousey brown roots on show are so glaringly bad, I’m staring at them in horror. It’s so long since I’ve seen my natural colour, I’d actually forgotten what it was.
In a blind panic, I leg it upstairs, race to the bathroom, fling off the PJs, switch on the shower and hop in. Then, a far better idea hits me. Two seconds later, I’m hammering on Sharon’s door, wrapped in a towel and still dripping wet.
‘Come in.’ There she is, still so engrossed in NeverTooLateToMate.com that she doesn’t even bother looking up at me.
‘Sharon, dire catastrophe. Will you lend me some money?’
‘Piss off. I’ve already lent you money to pay off your mobile phone.’
‘I told you, I’ll pay you back as soon as my emergency dole money comes through. But the thing is, now I need more.’
‘What for?’
‘To get my roots done. Now. Today. Look at the state of me, would you? For God’s sake, Myra Hindley had better hair. Can’t believe you never pointed out to me how utterly crap I look. So if you think about it, in a way … this is all your fault. So you have to lend me the cash.’
No response.
‘Come on, Sharon, don’t make me beg.’
She glances up to where I’m standing in her doorway, half naked and leaving a pool of water on Joan’s Laura Ashley country floral carpet.
‘Is this because in your deranged state, you think Sam Hughes is on his way over here now to whisk you back to his country residence?’
‘I don’t just think it, I know it.’
‘Even though he’s ignored every one of your two dozen phone calls and hasn’t even bothered his arse getting back to you? You read one stupid article in one of Ma’s trashy papers and now you’re acting like a complete and utter headcase.’
Right then. This calls for, shall we say, a more subtle form of negotiation. ‘If I could have a further moment of your time,’ I say, sashaying towards her computer and standing with my dripping wet arm on top of it. ‘One of these days, you’re going to be going out on a date, with a straight, single guy. Correct?’
‘Straight and single means he passes the Sharon test, yeah.’
‘So, let’s just take a moment to think this through, will we? You’ll want to look your best for said date. You might even want to be styled for it.’
‘If you think I’m taking style advice from someone who spends all day every day in their pyjamas, you’ve another think coming.’
‘What I was getting at, dearest, is that I have a garage full of designer clobber downstairs. There’s Gucci handbags down there. And Hermès scarves.’
She looks up sharply.
‘And you might just care to see this season’s Louis Vuitton black clutch bag, which is lying downstairs in a Tesco’s bin liner as we speak.’
Now there’s a spark of interest in her eyes.
‘Not to mention a whole suitcase full of La Prairie face creams. And Laura Mercier foundations. And a mountain of Mac make-up.’
‘The stuff J-Lo uses?’
She sighs so deeply, it almost comes from her feet.
‘Right then. How much do you need?’
I try to hide my triumph. ‘OK, let’s see, cut and colour, plus a blow dry … two fifty should do it. Better make it an even three, to allow for tips.’
‘Three Euro? You could have got that much out of the loose change jar in the kitchen, you moron.’
‘Ehh … that would be three hundred Euro.’
For a second I think the girl is about to have an aneurism.
‘Three hundred bleeding Euro to get your hair done? For feck’s sake, Jessie, Cheryl Cole wouldn’t fork out that kind of money and she gets extensions!’
‘But you don’t understand, I’ve been going to Chez Pierre for years now, he’s like an artist, he understands my hair …’
‘Does that three hundred Euro include flights to France where I can only presume this gobshite Pierre is based?’
‘Ehh … no he’s on … emm … Dawson Street,’ I say in a little voice.
‘And you have the cheek to wonder how you got yourself into a financial mess?’
In the end, she grudgingly hands me over €15 so I can run to Tesco’s and pick up a Nice and Easy home colour kit in Champagne Blonde. And at that I had to promise her an entire La Prairie starter kit which sells for around €200, so not exactly the best trade in the world. Anyway, by 4.30 p.m., I’m washed, exfoliated, all made-up, back in my DVB jeans with a little top Sam always used to admire and all I have to do is rinse the colour out of my hair.
‘A child of five could handle Nice and Easy,’ Sharon assures me, standing in the bathroom beside me, playing with all the La Prairie she’s just looted from the garage. Like a kid on Christmas morning that’s focused on their toys and nothing else. ‘Jeez, tell you something else,’ she says, with her face pressed right up against the bathroom mirror, ‘this concealer stuff is seriously good shite. You can hardly see my acne scarring. OK, you can rinse your hair off now, Jessie, the time’s well up. You’ll be gorgeous and you’ll have saved yourself a fortune.’
She’s absolutely right, I think, shoving my head under the shower hose. Just think of the dosh I could have saved myself over the years just by doing home treatments! And they’re so easy too. Sharon told me what to do and I just followed her instructions to the letter. Doddle. All delighted with myself, I towel off my hair and stand in front of the bathroom mirror, prepared to be dazzled.
OK, my hair is now orange. Bright orange. Like a puppet in a kids’ show. Not red, not ginger … orange. Think of the worst ginger going and right now I’m trumping them. I’m even more carroty than Mick Hucknall. Or Prince Harry.
I’m rooted to the spot, staring horrified into the mirror, my mouth in a perfect ‘O’.
‘It’s ehh … a nice change, isn’t it?’ Sharon says hopefully.
‘Sharon. I’m about to have a longed-for reunion with my boyfriend. And I look like Beaker from the frigging MUPPET SHOW. And it’s YOUR EFFING FAULT!’
‘You must have left it on for too long,’ she says, reading the side of the box.
‘Oh, NOW you read the instructions?’
It costs me a brand new jar of Crème de la Mer to bribe her to go back to Tesco’s and get another colour that’ll tone this one down. Either that, or a pair of garden shears to cut my hair off with. In fact, the amount of expensive stuff I’ve given her would have got me about three sessions in Chez Pierre so this whole cost cutting lark is turning out to be a bit of a false economy.
Two hours and another home colour later, the orange is now a few tones lighter, still red-ish, but at least now I’d be able to walk down the street without people thinking that I’ve a traffic cone stuck on my head.
‘Very Nicole Kidman,’ nods Sharon approvingly, as she blow dries it for me out of guilt. ‘Strawberry blonde suits you. Plus there’s another advantage.’
I just glare in the mirror by way of an answer, still hopping mad at her for not reading the shagging instruction box.
‘At least no one will recognise you now. Which can only be a good thing, can’t it?’
Anyway, by 5.30 and with the hair crisis averted, I try calling Sam’s office and manage to get a hold of his snotty assistant, Margaret. ‘No,’ she tells me crisply, ‘Mr Hughes is in meetings all afternoon and can’t be disturbed.’ Her standard ‘kindly get off the phone, please’ clause. So I leave yet another message and I’d nearly swear I can hear a note of triumph in the bitch’s voice when she says, that yes of course she’s happy to pass it on. But her subtext is loud and clear; don’t hold your breath waiting for him to get back to you, baby. Well feck her anyway. She obviously didn’t read last night’s paper and hasn’t a clue about the latest development. Tell you something else, the minute I’m back with Sam, she’ll be out on her ear and with a bit of luck, propelled to the back of the same dole queue I had to suffer my way through.
5.45 and by now my nerves are ricocheting. I keep checking the phone every few seconds, but nothing. By now, both Maggie and Joan are home from work; Maggie’s in the kitchen and I can hear Joan clattering her handbag on the hall table downstairs, rattling all her china ornaments. Clearly in one of her bad humours, then. Then from the very depths of my mounting hysteria, suddenly … a brainwave! I don’t need to put myself through all the misery and torture of waiting, do I? Not when I could just borrow Joan’s car, drive to Sam’s house and wait for him there. Perfect! I am such a moron. Because no matter where he is, he’s got to go home sometime, doesn’t he?
But my cunning master plan totally hinges on Joan lending me her car a) because Sam’s house is in Kildare, miles away. Even if you got the bus to Kildare village, you’d still have an approximate fifteen-mile hike ahead of you. And b) a taxi would end up costing about €200, which, quelle surprise, I don’t have.
‘Well hello there, Joan, how are you? Wow, can I just say that you look absolutely amazing today. Nice … emmm … pant suit. Very … ehh … Jackie O,’ I smile as I pad downstairs, trying the softly, softly, kill-her-with-niceness approach.
‘Christ Almighty, Jessica, what on earth did you do to your hair? You look like Bianca from EastEnders.’
‘Oh, well, you see I’d a bit of an accident with a home colour kit …’
‘Oh I see,’ she says, throwing me a look that could freeze mercury. ‘So in other words, you’ve been messing around with your hair all day instead of doing the list of housework I left for you? The breakfast china in the kitchen hasn’t even been washed since this morning yet. And one of my Lladro figurines has mysteriously gone missing. You’re not pulling your weight around here, Jessica, and I simply won’t stand for it.’
Jesus, Joan and her shagging ornaments. I wouldn’t put it past her to have diagrams drawn of where they all go.
‘I can explain about the figurine, honest, but the thing is right now I need a lend of your car … It’s sort of an emergency.’
‘A lend of my car? Well Madam Woods, I’ve a few home truths for you. You’re constantly borrowing it to go to the supermarket so you can avoid meeting neighbours on the street and you’ve never once put a single drop of petrol into it.’
‘I know and I’m sorry and I will, as soon as—’
‘I know, I know, as soon as your emergency dole money comes through. You’re like a broken record. You’d think you were about to collect on the Euromillions lottery, the way you keep going on about it. May I remind you that at the end of the day, it’s only dole.’
‘Please Joan, it’s just for tonight, I’ll make it up to you.’
‘Out of the question. Besides, tonight I’m going to my musical society meeting.’
‘For “musical society” read “sing-song down at the Swiss Cottage”,’ snorts Sharon, thudding down the staircase and barging past us on her way into the kitchen. ‘The landlord got a piano put in the bac
k room and the last time Ma got up and sang, he barred himself. Boom, boom.’
‘We’re rehearsing for a production of The Mikado, if you must know,’ Joan fires back at her. ‘And look at the holy state of you, still in your night attire at this hour of the day. You’re a holy disgrace, so you are.’
‘Give me a rest, it’s my day off.’
‘Don’t suppose … you’re in any way … emm … flexible on this?’ I plead to Joan in a last-ditch effort to get around her.
‘Do I sound flexible? Now not another word out of you; the matter is closed,’ she snaps on her way upstairs. ‘And that kitchen better be tidied by the time I get back down.’ She glares at me furiously and then, to really ram her point home, snatches her car keys off the hall table and takes them upstairs with her.
Bugger it anyway. I half feel like shouting up after her that she could always use her broomstick to go out tonight. What’s really annoying is that she was in wonderful humour only this morning. In fact, if I’d told her what I was at then, she might even have offered to drive me, purely so she could get a good look at the inside of Sam’s house. Then, out of the corner of my eye, under a stack of unpaid bills, something glittering catches my eye. The keys to Maggie’s little Fiat Uno.
Well whaddya know, my luck’s turning. Two seconds later, I’m in the kitchen where she’s snacking on the microwaved remains of last night’s chicken tikka masala, while Sharon peruses the collection of takeaway menus, deciding what the pair of them will order in for dinner later. Brilliant timing. Perfect. Couldn’t have planned it better, in fact. Maggie is always at her most agreeable directly after food. A bit like a hippo.
‘Maggie, could I talk to you for a second?’
She looks at me a bit puzzled, then, being Maggie, reaches for a wisecrack. ‘If you want to communicate with me, Cinderella Rockefeller, then I suggest you leave a Post-it note on the fridge. And by the way, is your hair on purpose?’
‘Ha, ha, HA!’ I force a laugh to try and win her round. ‘You are so dry and witty, ever thought of going into stand-up?’
‘Not a bad idea actually, Mags,’ Sharon chips in, with her mouth full of grub. ‘You’re always saying it would be the ultimate doss job and you’d be amazing at it. Jeez, you’d be like another Jo Brand.’
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