That this is my cue to say, oh all right then, go on, sure let’s put the past behind us and give it another go. As if it would all be that easy for him and that simple for me. But the thing is that it’s not. Amazing, he’s said everything that I could have wished for, absolutely everything, and all I can feel in return is, well … numb. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. This is the answer to my prayers, this is everything I possibly could have wanted out of life and yet all I can do is sit here and look back at him blankly.
‘If you’re really serious …’ I eventually say.
‘I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. I swear.’
‘Then you’re going to have to accept that I’m not the same person I was. I’ve changed, you see.’
‘Changed … how?’
‘In a lot of ways. For one thing, I’ve come to realise the importance of family. They were there for me when the chips were down and I’ll never forget that.’
‘You mean, your two stepsisters who were with you that night in Kildare? But you always used to bitch about them! You said they were like Pattie and Selma from The Simpsons, only worse. You used to have to force yourself to talk to them after your dad’s anniversary mass and even at that you’d only ever stick it out for ten minutes or so. Then you’d turn up at my house needing a stiff brandy.’
‘Well, it turns out I was wrong. Wrong about a lot of things and about a lot of people too. So if you really do want to win me back …’
‘It’s my number one goal in life right now.’
‘Then you’re going to have to win them over too.’
Feck it, after everything he put me through, I’m not making this easy for him.
‘Whatever you say, Woodsie.’
*
Hours later, when I arrive into Radio Dublin in time for the show, the first person I bump into is Steve.
‘Ah, no, I don’t believe it,’ he shakes his head sadly, all disappointed the minute he sets eyes on me.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I much preferred you with the red hair.’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘You have to be fecking kidding me,’ is Sharon’s stunned response when I fill her in the next day on the latest twist with Sam.
‘Sharon, I know, I can’t believe it either. But it’s like he’s taken a pill to make him start saying and doing all the right things.’
‘Did he say he missed you?’
‘Says he doesn’t work without me.’
‘Well to hell with him. He dumped you. He’s not allowed to have feelings.’
‘I’ve told him how important you all are to me now. And that he’s got to win you round if he’s to have any chance of this working again. I mean it too. I’ll never forget the people who stood by me during the dark days. Even Maggie, in her own way.’
‘Well unless he buys me a Porsche and pays for me to have a facelift and liposuction, he’ll have a right job trying to win me over. Jeez, when will you learn to stop airbrushing history, Jess? Look at you; convincing yourself that you were just on a little break and that you’re all happily reunited now.’
‘Oh come on, just give him a chance, will you? That’s all I’m asking. You know, all those movies with Hugh Grant that you watch teach us one thing and one thing only: the path of true love never runs smooth. We all need obstacles to happy ever after. Well I’ve had my obstacle and now I want my happy ever after. What’s so wrong with that?’
‘Jessie, don’t kid a kidder. I was there with you that night when we broke into his house. I saw for myself what a prick he was. Don’t you remember? Outside the cop shop in Kildare, he dragged you away from us and was vicious to you. Swear to God, you were like a car crash victim afterwards. And then he just fecked off back to the K Club or wherever it was he was going and forgot all about you.’
‘I was kind of hoping that mightn’t come up. Besides, he’s changed.’
‘Oh yeah right. Because men always change.’
But she’s wrong. He really has changed and what’s more, I’ll prove it to her. His average call rate to me now is about ten calls per day and all he wants to know is when he can see me next. He even offers to wait until after my show, collect me and then take me home.
Of course, by ‘home’ he means his mansion in Kildare, so I keep turning him down. Because I’m just not ready to hop back into bed with him again like nothing happened.
Then, even more amazingly, when I tell him that I’m looking to rent a small apartment, he offers me the use of a penthouse he owns in Temple Bar. As luck would have it, it’s lying empty at the moment, as the tenant has literally just moved out.
‘How much is the rent?’ I ask, when he phones me up with this amazing offer.
‘For you, Woodsie? Zero.’
So I say no. Because never again will I put myself in a position where I’m under an obligation to someone with more money than me. I’m living within my budget now and there’s no turning me back.
Funny, but the more I reject Sam and refuse all his generous offers, the more he ups his game. He’s even picked up a bit on my habit of airbrushing history. Claiming he never liked Emma Sheridan to begin with, for one thing. That he found her insincere and always suspected that she was eaten up with jealousy of me. Utter shite of course. He was always perfectly charming to Emma whenever we were out with her and never had a bad word to say about her. But he means well, so I let it pass. More airbrushing about our break-up too: the ‘time out’, as he refers to it, did him the power of good. Cleared his head and made him realise how much I really meant to him all along. Which I desperately want to believe, so I do.
Next thing, he calls wanting to know my detailed plans for my next night off, which is this Sunday.
‘Why do you ask?’ I say, wondering what’s coming next.
‘Because I thought we’d do something special. To celebrate our getting back together.’
‘Sam, we’re not back together. We’re in negotiations. That’s all. Nothing more.’
‘OK, well then I thought I’d take you out to celebrate absolutely nothing at all.’
‘Well, as a matter of fact, I’m not free.’
Call me a bad bitch, but God I enjoyed saying that. After everything I’ve been through over Sam, it just feels so good to not be one hundred per cent available for him. At least, not any more.
‘So, what are your plans, Woodsie?’
I fill him in about it being Maggie’s big night at the Comedy Cellar and how I’ve practically sworn an affidavit to her that I’ll be there in the front row, laughing uproariously at gags I could say along with her at this stage.
‘Well then, I’ll come with you too,’ he offers.
So I agree. After all, this is the one night that everyone I know will be at, and I really do mean everyone. If Sam is serious about getting to know my family, then there’s no better occasion for him to turn up to. Maggie has half the Inland Revenue office going, Sharon’s asked most of the Smiley Burger crew, even Joan is bringing along a load of her mates from the Swiss Cottage. But if he thinks I’m about to make it easy for him, boy does he have another think coming.
‘You could also pick me up at Whitehall first, if you like,’ I tell him. ‘So everyone can meet you, up close and personal.’ On home turf. In Whitehall, or ‘the land of the ten-year-old Toyota’ as Sam always referred to it. Because, let’s face it, if he can survive being thrown to the lions like an early Christian, he can survive anything.
It’s weird. I should be dancing for joy on the rooftops but instead … nothing. Like I’m wandering aimlessly through some kind of emotional fog and can’t tap into what I really feel here.
Do I trust Sam again? Do I believe him when he says that this is really it, for good? The God’s honest truth is, I haven’t the first clue. Funny that I’m on the radio doling out relationship advice, yet when it comes to my own stuff, I can’t see the wood for the trees. Nor is the deep confusion I’m going through helped by the fact tha
t the two people I’d ordinarily turn to aren’t around. Sharon, unsurprisingly, has written Sam off as an arch-arsehole and won’t even hear his name mentioned in her presence. And as bad luck would have it, Steve, my touchstone, is away until this Sunday, playing at a summer festival up in County Monaghan with his band.
After the show on Friday night, I treat myself to a highly extravagant cab ride home, my head spinning after yet another day and evening of call bombardment from Sam. Everyone’s in bed by the time I crawl back to the house, so I slip into our deserted TV room, take out my mobile and even though it’s almost 2.30 a.m., try calling Steve. Just to hear his voice. The phone rings out and eventually goes through to voicemail. But then I realise I haven’t the first clue what it is that I even want to say to him, so I hang up.
Why oh why, am I such a gobshite when it comes to men?
Steve, ever the gentleman, calls me back the next morning. ‘Hey, Jessie, you OK?’
‘Hi,’ I mumble back drowsily, still half asleep and still in bed, even though it’s well after 11 a.m. So good to hear his voice though.
‘I saw a missed call from you last night and got worried. Was everything OK with the show?’
‘Yeah, the show was … emm … fine.’
‘Hey, are you sure you’re all right? You sound different. Tense. Like there’s something on your mind.’
And that’s when I realise I can’t do it. Can’t tell him about Sam torpedoing back into the calm waters of my life, at least not over the phone I can’t. So, like the moral coward that I am, I settle for umming and aahing instead.
‘Well, if you’re sure you’re OK,’ says Steve, sounding unconvinced.
‘Fine. Honestly. Really.’
‘Then you take care. And I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Yep, till tomorrow.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Come Sunday night and the only person NOT crowding out our tiny little TV room is Maggie, the star of the show, the lady of the hour. Crippled with nerves, she spent the day chain smoking one fag after another and counting down the hours until 8 p.m., when the contest proper starts. Either that or else bombarding me with demands like, ‘The Michael Jackson gags. Final call: in or out?’
‘Out,’ I said firmly and for about the twentieth time. ‘Overdone, tasteless and, above all, not as funny as the rest of your material.’
‘But the gag about the Renaissance and the French toast should definitely stay in?’
‘One hundred per cent. Trust me, it’ll work.’
By 7 p.m., nerves eventually get the better of her and she decides to make her own way into the Comedy Cellar, to clear her head a bit and ‘get in the zone’. Her phrase, not mine. Gas to think that she has yet to perform a single live gig and is already speaking the lingo like a pro, with a contract from the BBC tucked under her oxter. So off she goes, leaving the rest of us to follow in her wake, in time for the show.
Joan already has a little party going on in the TV room, with her ‘business partner’ (swear to God, I can almost hear her talking in quotation marks every time she introduces him). Yes, none other than Jimmy Watson, who I recognise from the night I was in the Swiss Cottage with Sharon. Chunky and florid-faced with a major eye in Joan’s direction, it has to be said. Anyway, between the two of them, they’ve invited a gang of their mates from the pub and things are just beginning to get into full swing. I don’t actually recognise anyone, but they all seem to know me and keep grabbing me to say things like, ‘Congratulations Jessie! Sure we never doubted but that you’d be back on telly in no time!’ Everyone’s here for a few drinks before we head into town for the gig, and as Joan has me on drinks duty I’ve the path worn down running back and forth from the kitchen to the TV room. Honest to God, every trip I make, I’m more and more laden down with trays full of Chardonnay and dips from Tesco’s, all served in the good Christmas Day crystal, as per madam’s explicit instructions.
Anyway, Joan’s in full swing, holding court and boastfully announcing to the room that IPrayForYou.com will shortly be up and running and that they’re all invited to the official launch, when yet again, the doorbell rings. Sharon’s still upstairs lashing on make-up, so I go to get it. It’s Matt, carrying two six-packs of Bulmers, Sharon’s favourite tipple, God bless him. I hug him and tell him to go on through to the kitchen, while I race upstairs to tell Sharon he’s here. No harm to keep him out of Joan’s way; the form she’s in, I wouldn’t put it past her to introduce him to everyone as her son-in-law elect. Particularly given that whenever poor Matt’s around, she has a tendency to act like Mrs Bennet from Pride and Prejudice on overdrive.
I hammer on the bedroom door and yell at Sharon to come downstairs, but instead of telling me she’s on the way, she asks me to come inside and close the door behind me.
‘What’s up?’ I ask.
‘Tonight’s the night,’ she says, all firm and decisive.
I look at her blankly thinking, what exactly? That she’ll sleep with him for the first time, announce she’s pregnant, tell us she’s engaged? What?
‘The night I’m dumping Matt,’ she finishes.
I slump onto the bed beside her. ‘Sharon, you can’t do that, he’s so knickers mad about you! My God, he even arrived here with two six-packs for you and the poor guy doesn’t even drink.’
‘Jess, I’m very grateful to you for everything you’ve done, but you’re not talking me out of this. He was my “in case of emergency, please break the glass box” guy but now I’ve my sights set on better things.’
‘But he’ll be devastated!’
‘He bridged the gap between arsehole and Holy Grail and now it’s time for me to move on.’
I barely have time to respond, because next thing Joan is screeching up the stairs that there’s a visitor just arrived for me.
So he did come then. I wasn’t certain if he would and frankly wouldn’t have been in the least surprised if I’d got a phone call to say he couldn’t make it; that some last minute ‘business emergency’ had come up. On a Sunday evening. But there’s no mistake; by the time I get downstairs, there’s Sam sitting in Maggie’s armchair, the seat of honour, being fussed and preened over by Joan who looks as if she’s just seen the messiah. My instinct is to race in to rescue him, but he seems to be doing perfectly fine by himself. He’s introduced himself to everyone, Joan included and is now sitting back, allowing himself to be waited on hand and foot.
‘And that’s your Bentley parked on the road outside, is it?’ a very red-faced and puffy-looking Jimmy Watson is asking him. ‘Must have set you back a fair few quid.’
‘Wouldn’t see much change out of two hundred and eighty K,’ says Sam, cool as you like, as the whole room looks suitably impressed. Then he spots me and bounds over, pecking me on the cheek. ‘Jessie, you look beautiful. So how come you never invited me here before? Your stepmother is the most charming lady I’ve ever met. And her house is so tasteful and elegant.’
There’s the tiniest edge in his voice that only I’m attuned to; a slight rise in register that Sam does whenever he’s taking the piss. Joan, however, is oblivious and giggles like a schoolgirl. In fact, she’s so taken with this guest of honour that I wouldn’t be surprised if she made a play for him herself.
‘Jessica dear?’ she says in her most put-on posh voice. ‘Do fetch Sam a nice Chardonnay from the fridge. And be sure to use the John Rocha crystal.’ A half-wink from Sam as I go into the kitchen to do as she commands, but then the doorbell goes again, so I trot out to the hall to open it.
I don’t believe this. It’s Steve.
I knew he was coming to the gig tonight with his family, but I so did not expect him to call here first.
Ohgodohgodohgodthisisgoingtobeawkwardawkwardawkwardawkward …
‘Hey!’ he says, his face lighting up as he leans down to hug me. ‘So, did you miss me? Did Radio Dublin fall apart without me?’
I barely have time to answer though, as next thing, Sam is hovering at my shoulder, right b
y the open hall door.
‘Who’s this, babe?’ he asks, eyeing up Steve a bit suspiciously.
‘This is Steve, a very good friend of mine,’ I manage to stammer. ‘And, as it happens, my boss.’
Steve stands up to his full height, immediately recognising exactly who Sam is. He’s about a foot taller than him, but then Steve’s about a foot taller than the rest of humanity. ‘Yes, I know who you are,’ says Steve, more icily than I’ve ever heard him before. ‘In fact, I know exactly who you are. I saw you in the documentary about Jessie.’
‘Oh yeah, that’s right, I think I did appear in that. I was away on business when it was broadcast though, so I’ve never actually seen it. Besides, I’m not really someone who gets time to sit down and watch TV.’
‘You used it to plug your new book.’
‘Did I?’ Sam laughs, then through the open hall door, suddenly he spots a gang of kids all clustered around his Bentley, noses pressed up against it.
‘Jesus Christ, Jessie, look, those kids are pawing my car!’
‘Well, that’s kids for you,’ says Steve, sounding cold. Actually cold, which is so not like him.
‘Well, can we move them on or something? I’m afraid one of them might steal my satnav.’
*
Then, when the time comes for us all to go, once again, I’m in the gakky situation of having both Steve and Sam, one at either side of me, both offering me lifts.
Out on the road, there’s the Bentley parked right beside Steve’s humble bike. So what do I go for? Glass coach or pumpkin? Jaysus. Tonight hasn’t even properly begun and already I’m hating every second of it.
Nor do things improve when we get to the Comedy Cellar either. I try my best to collar Steve on his own to thank him for the offer of a lift and to explain that I just didn’t want to leave Sam alone when he doesn’t really know anyone, which is the only reason I got into the car with him, but I don’t get a chance. The place is jam-packed and so crowded that we’re doing well to even get a table together.
Hopes & Dreams Page 32