by Izzy Bayliss
“Hi, Rachel, sorry it’s me, Lily – I forg –”
I heard the click of the receiver being hung up. So I pressed it again hoping that she had just got cut off. This time it rang for ages but nobody answered. I tried again and again, and it was the same thing. She was purposely ignoring me. I started to bang on the door but still no one answered. I'm normally pretty easy-going but I was really starting to get angry. I was entitled to my coat and bag at least.
“Let me in,” I started to shout at the door as I pounded on the glass. Soon I began to draw attention from some passers-by.
“They just fired me,” I said by way of explanation pointing a finger angrily towards the door of Rapid Response, but they just looked down at the ground and hurried on past my one-woman picket.
Eventually I heard the click of the door being opened, but instead of seeing Rachel the receptionist, it was Kevin, the burly security guard who looked after the office block.
“Okay, Lily – now enough is enough.” Kevin grabbed my arm and steered me away from the door. “You're making a scene, so we can do this the nice way or the hard way, whichever way you’d prefer – it's up to you.”
“But I just want to get my coat and bag –” I protested.
“You no longer work here, you’re trespassing not to mind damaging Rapid Response's property. You have sixty seconds to leave the premises before I call the Gardaí.”
“But, Kevin – it’s me!” We had shared a cigarette in the smoking area at last year’s Christmas party.
“I’m sorry but members of the public cannot be here. You will have to leave.”
“But I'm only standing on the doorstep!”
“One, two, three . . .” he started to count.
It was like he had been brainwashed by the Rapid Response way. What was wrong with everyone? Days earlier they were happy to have the craic but now they acted like they didn’t know me.
“But I have no money for the bus -” I protested.
And with that, he started digging around in his pocket, and fished out a two-euro coin and flung it at me. I ducked my head out of the way just in time, and watched as it landed on the pavement behind me.
“It costs four euro thirty-five -” I said but he had already gone back inside the door.
I felt anger course through my veins, and I knew I had reached my tipping point. I picked the two-euro coin up off the ground and fired it back against the door. I watched in horror as a crack instantly appeared across the glass and spread out along the pane before it started to shatter, falling into millions of tiny pieces on the ground. Oh my God, I hadn't meant for that to happen. Suddenly the door opened up again, but I didn’t stay to see who it was this time. Instead I just ran.
***
I walked from the offices of Rapid Response, across the broad swell of the Liffey and up to Frankie’s apartment, which was about half an hour away. I didn't know where else to go. My phone was in my handbag so I couldn't call anybody to come and get me. I had never been so humiliated in my life. The anger quickly subsided and was replaced by tears. What on earth was I going to do now with no job? How would I pay the mortgage or the bills? Things had been bad enough without having Marc to share the load, but now I was in trouble. I was so glad when Frankie answered her buzzer. Luckily she had no shoots scheduled for that day, so she had just gone straight home to bed after she had left my place. I told her what had happened, and she sat me down and put a cup of warm, sugary tea in my hand. She couldn’t believe it as I recounted the awful events of that morning but she burst out laughing when I told her about the door.
“Oh, Lily,” she laughed as tears streamed down her face. “I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't laugh, but that could only happen to someone like you.”
After I had finished my tea and the shock had begun to sink in, I asked her to drop me home to Ballyrobin. Stephen had said that my “effects” would be delivered to me, and I wanted to get home before they arrived because there would be no one there to take them in. All my belongings; my keys, my wallet, my bag, my coat and not to mention all my other stuff, had been left behind in Rapid Response. But when I climbed the steps to my duplex, I found my “effects” were already waiting for me on my doorstep, sitting outside in the rain for all and sundry to see. All the bits and pieces that had littered my desk for the last ten years, now stood in a large cardboard box that had once held boxes of photocopier paper. I instantly looked inside to find the photo of my Mum and Dad, and Clara and I, which was taken at the zoo. It was one of the only photos I had of all of us together, and was one of my most prized possessions. I was relieved to find it lying at the bottom of the box, shoved under a pair of old trainers and some gym leggings that I couldn't remember ever having worn. I felt angry that they had treated it with such disregard. I lifted it out delicately, held it in both hands and stared at it. Mum and Dad stood behind Clara and I, in front of the sea-lion enclosure. We were dressed in matching navy and white sailor dresses with knee-high white socks. Clara must have been about five because I was only two. Dad had his arms on Clara's shoulders and Mum had her arms on mine. It was at times like this that I missed her desperately. This was where I needed a reassuring hug, and for her to tell me that everything was going to be okay. My eyes started to fill with tears, so I put the photo back down again. Frankie rooted out my keys from my handbag and opened the door. We tried pulling the box inside, but the cardboard ripped at the sides, having disintegrated from the rain, so we manually lifted the items out and carried them inside, one by one. Luckily my wallet still remained inside my bag, but my coat and everything else were soaking wet with rain. There were three books that I had borrowed from Rosie but I had never actually got around to reading. They were all literary tomes with Pulitzer and Booker accolades, but they were now looking quite pitiful in their soggy, wavy paged state. Oh well, I was sure she wouldn’t want them back at that stage. There were a couple of A4 notepads. I flicked through them - there were lots of doodles and lots of lists of things from the wedding that I had needed to organise. They all started the same with the heading “List” underlined with two thick biro strokes and then bullet points the whole way down. And just to add salt to the wound, there was also a large photo in black and white of Marc and I standing outside the church on our wedding day, both smiling happily. It was still so fresh and I could remember every detail. How had it all gone so wrong? How had I become this pathetic mess in the space of a few short months?
I plonked myself wearily down on the sofa. The combination of the day's events and the hangover from the night before had left me exhausted. I didn't even have the energy to talk to poor Frankie who was sitting beside me.
“You head on,” I said to her after a while.
“Are you sure you don't want me to stay? I have a shoot with some actors in town first thing in the morning, but I can just get up a bit earlier?”
I shook my head. “I'm just going to have a bath and go to bed.”
She nodded. “Well, I'll call you in the morning. Try not to worry, it's all going to be okay.”
“But how will I pay the mortgage and bills?”
“Don't worry about that now, I can help you out if needs be.”
“But I can't borrow money from you!”
“Of course you can, sure you'd do the same for me if the shoe was on the other foot. Look, Lily, it's all going to be okay, I promise,” she said soothingly.
“I hope so, Frankie. I really do.”
After Frankie had gone, I had just turned on the taps, letting the water cascade into the tub when I heard my phone ring in the living room. I ran out to get it and saw that it was Rosie.
“Lily, I am so sorry for what happened today –” she said straightaway.
You see? She was just the loveliest person – even when everyone else in the office was pretending not to know me, Rosie had picked up the phone and called to see how I was doing.
“Thanks, Rosie.”
“I just wanted to say that I think you we
re treated appallingly.” She stretched out the word “appallingly” in her lovely posh accent. “After you left, Stephen offered me your job, but I declined. I told him that there was no way I could do that to you, it wouldn’t be right.”
“Really? You did that for me?” I asked incredulously.
“Of course I did.”
“No, Rosie, you should take it, you deserve it.” I didn’t want her to put her career advancement prospects on hold because of me.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?” she said eagerly.
I couldn’t believe it! She hadn’t taken much convincing. I thought she was in solidarity with me! She could have at least played the charade out for a bit longer. I knew she was too good to be true. I just knew it all along.
“You’re welcome to it, Rosie,” I said wearily. I just wanted this whole thing to be over.
“Well thank you, Lily for being such a good sport about it all,” she gushed. Although it had never bothered me before, her accent was now starting to grate on my nerves. Who used the word “sport” in this day and age anyway?
“Okay, well I’ve got to dash – I have dinner plans.” It was a lie but I just wanted to get her off the phone.
“Okay well, toodles!”
“Yeah toodles to you too.”
I mean who says “toodles”? I’m sure in Rosie’s clique they had their own unique language consisting of air kisses and words that no one else outside the postcode had even heard of.
Chapter 11
“You are not going to believe this, Lily,” Frankie said as soon as I answered the phone.
“What?”
“Well you know that shoot I told you I was working on?”
“Yeah the one with the actors –”
“Well the actors were Marc and Nadia.”
“Marc as in my Marc?”
“I’m so sorry, Lily if I had of known there was no way I would have accepted the job, but I literally went along to the address I was given and I nearly got sick when I saw who it was. There was no way I could have walked away leaving everyone in the lurch like that – I could say goodbye to ever working again. I feel desperate. I’ve been worried sick all day about how I was going to tell you.”
“It’s not your fault. Did he say anything to you?” God I was pathetic clinging to any nugget of new information.
“He blanked me, Lily!”
“What do you mean?”
“He pretended that he didn’t know me.”
“But how – you were a bridesmaid at our wedding!”
“I know – I was raging, but obviously I couldn’t say anything because I had to remain professional. But he wouldn’t look me in the eyes. I gave him dagger eyes at every opportunity though. Nadia hadn’t a clue who I was because she kept saying that the clothes were amazing and you could see that he just wanted to curl up and die.”
“She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”
“No she’s not.”
“Oh come on, Frankie – she’s a ride.”
“Well I saw her without her make-up.”
“And?”
“She has some premature skin-damage - too much sun exposure.”
“That’s it?”
“Well . . . one of her nipples is inverted.”
“How do you know that?” I was aghast.
“Because she was practically naked during all the different outfit changes – there was only a thong between me and her lady garden. I saw it all.”
“I can’t believe everyone I love in this world keeps seeing this woman naked.”
“Well I could hardly avoid it – she was practically whipping off her clothes as soon as I came in the door.”
“Did you check out her bum?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And?”
“Even though it kills me to admit it – it’s a good one.”
“Isn’t it? I still can’t get over it. So soft and peachy . . .”
“Yeah,” she said wistfully.
“What magazine will it be in?”
“Social Importance – it’s the cover story in next week’s issue, but don’t you dare buy it. Do not do that to yourself!” she warned.
“Where are they living?”
“You promise you’re not going to rock up there and stalk them?”
“Frankie – what do you take me for?”
“Well she lives in one of those Georgian townhouses just off Fitzwilliam Square.”
“Nice.”
“Are they all loved-up?”
“It’s hard to know – Nadia knows how to turn it on for the cameras and she knows all the right things to say – years of being prepped by her publicist, I’m sure. But he’s like her little lap dog. I can see he’s revelling in all of this – the free clothes, the photo-shoots and magazine spreads. You should have seen him posing in front of the camera and talking about the ‘projects’ he’s working on at the moment - how he got himself into character for his new role and how the whole process was so ‘cathartic’. He is so far up his own arse it’s not funny.”
“Eh . . . role? It was a five-second walk on part.”
“Exactly! But of course I had to nod and smile and fawn over him like he was the next Michael Fucking Fassbender. And he fired all the clothes on the floor when he was finished with them leaving them for me to pick up. Not cool. Then he went ballistic when the caterers brought curry for lunch shouting ‘didn’t they know what the carbs would do to him?’ so the poor assistant had to run off and find him some sushi! He was a complete diva. I could see the magazine staff biting their tongues, but they couldn’t say anything because Nadia is the lady of the moment. He won’t get far in that business let me tell you, Lily.”
It hurt. There he was getting the A-list treatment while I was left jobless and picking up the pieces of our broken marriage. It was very hard not to feel bitter and angry and even though Frankie had warned me not to buy the magazine, a twisted part of me desperately wanted to see what it was that they had together. What did she have that I didn't? Okay so I already knew the answer to that one; a body to die for, a glamorous career and millions in the bank trumped my life hands down, but still it was so hard to believe how much my life had been turned upside-down in just a few weeks.
"Promise me you won't buy the magazine?" Frankie said.
"I promise," I lied.
Chapter 12
It was always the same - whenever I was in work, I couldn’t wait until I was off again but when I had no work to go to, the novelty had quickly worn off and I was already lonely and dying for someone to talk to. The trouble with being off midweek was that everyone else was busy. Frankie was on an all-day shoot, so I couldn't hang out with her. The only people I knew that didn’t work were Dad and Clara. I knew Dad had his computer course, run by the local secondary school to try and integrate him into the modern age that morning. The only other person who wasn’t doing anything was Clara, and even I wasn’t that desperate. Plus that would involve telling her that I had been fired, and God only knew how she would react to that bombshell. She had taken news of the separation pretty hard, and I couldn’t begin to imagine how she would cope with that as well. It was bad enough having a sister whose marriage broke down after a mere three months, but an unemployed divorcée sister was in another league altogether.
I watched a bit of Jeremy Kyle titled Can I smell another woman on my man? and another called Could my twins have different Dads? I waited for the best bit where Jeremy says “Dean, –” *cue collective holding of breath,* “you are not the father.” When Jeremy was over there was only Cash in the Attic on, or a repeat of Country File, so I chose Cash in the Attic and wished something like that would happen to me, except that we didn’t have an attic because our house had a flat roof.
My phone had rung then just as we were getting to the best bit and annoyingly my heart skipped a beat thinking it might be Marc. When was I going to stop doing that? He had already made his feelings pretty clear, and I was getting annoyed that m
y heart didn’t seem to be taking this into account. But it was just Marc's mother checking to see how I was. She still didn’t know that Marc had asked me for a formal separation and she had reacted angrily when I told her, saying she felt she didn’t know her own son anymore, and asking what had she done wrong raising him. I knew her heart was almost as broken as mine.
By lunchtime I was going spare. I realised I had no food, so I went to the supermarket to stock up on a few essentials like wine, chocolate and ready meals before the last of my money ran out.
I saw Piotr the homeless man who sat begging outside the supermarket most days sitting in his usual spot beside the trolley bay. He had a piece of cardboard folded underneath him, and a well-worn sleeping bag covered his legs. He had come over from Poland during the Celtic Tiger to work in Ireland's booming construction trade but, after the work had dried up during the recession, now found himself homeless. I usually bought him a cup of tea from the deli whenever he was there.
“How are you doing, Piotr?”
“Not too bad, Lily.”
I looked down at his weathered hands, which were a pinkish-orange colour. He looked cold. “I'll get you a tea to warm you up.”
“Thank you, Lily, you are very kind lady.”
I smiled and went inside. I made my way through the aisles, picking up the things that I needed. I had just reached the frozen food aisle and was busy looking at a two for one deal on pizzas when I heard a voice.
“Lily – Lily McDermott, is that you?”
It was high pitched and shrieking like it always had been. I swung around and sure enough it was the unmistakable voice of Wendy Murphy. Wendy had been in my class in school, and was as annoying then as she is now.