Oh, what I wouldn’t have given for two soluble Solpadeine at that point!
Big smile. “Hi there!” I managed brightly.
She was perched on the edge of a chaise longue. Wearing white jeans, black belt and a black shirt, with black wedges. Her sunglasses perched on top of her voluminous blonde hair. So much hair, all smooth and shaped and bouncy. She didn’t have Girls Aloud envy, that was for sure. I caught sight of my reflection – well, it was hard not to in a small area covered in head-to-toe mirrors. Pasty, blotchy skin from sleeping in last night’s make-up and stubble-rash.
The glowing, big-busted, luminous-toothed receptionist fussed around Carla. Just as well, as the look Carla was giving me was just about to become fifty questions.
“So, Carla, what size are you thinking of going?” the tiny brunette asked with her beautiful gold notebook and matching gold pen in her hands. Her perfectly manicured long red talons glinted in the light thrown from the chandelier overhead.
“That’s exactly why I needed to bring my friend along, you see – I just can’t decide. Yours look great, what size are yours?” Carla wasn’t one for wasting time – she was direct and straight to the point. So was James for that matter, her well-to-do gentleman of a boyfriend. Old money, he called it. Old money bought him a huge house, The Tindles, on Killiney Hill, with tennis courts and apparently no need for a day job. Well, that wasn’t altogether fair – he was a writer – although what he wrote was beyond me. No one had ever seen his work. As far as I was concerned, he was a lazy, spoiled, ill-mannered brat who didn’t deserve Carla. Whereas Carla’s straight-to-the-point was honesty, his was rudeness.
“Thanks so much, I’m a generous 36C,” she beamed back and her teeth blinded me.
“Would you mind,” asked Carla, “if I took a closer look?”
The receptionist duly obliged and obediently stuck out her chest in her pale-pink cardigan for Carla to gaze at.
“Miss O’Leary?” the doctor said, breaking up this very weird scenario.
We followed him down the corridor and into his disinfectant-smelling, yet weirdly trendy office.
I was well and truly bored. I know that’s a bit selfish but, as far as I’m concerned, if you’ve seen one pair of jelly sticky-out boobies you’ve seen them all. I found a paper cup and drank lots from the water cooler as I oohhed and aahhed at Carla. I had told her a million times that I thought she was crazy to do this. She had beautiful small breasts but she was insistent. She’d be the first one to say that my opinion really mattered to her, but her heart was set on this so there was no more I could say.
She was naked now from the waist up and the doctor was doodling on her chest with a big smelly marker. Drawing arrows this way and that, and dots around her breasts, and I found this was mildly erotic. Suddenly I got a flashback of PP Paul bearing down on top of me, his hot mouth wrapped around mine as he explored my body with his tongue.
“Okay, I think we are happy with this then?” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled another lumpy plastic wobbly silicone booby-implant out.
Carla stood up and said quietly, “Excellent – a generous 36C it is then, and sure if I change my mind I can always come back.” She smiled at the doctor.
“Don’t forget to hold onto your receipt. This does not affect your statutory rights,” I said in a low man’s voice with my chin stuck into my neck, and as I laughed out loud they both gave me an uncomfortable look.
“And for you? You are considering . . .” He paused, looking down at a clipboard, then back up at me. I shook my head and he looked back down at his clipboard. “Liposuction then?” He tried to find his notes on me, flipping furiously through the pages on his clipboard, and then went crimson from the neck up when he realised his error.
I pulled myself up and stood tall. “Not today, doctor. I am perfect just the way I am, thank you!” I flicked my hair, turned and walked straight into his glass door.
“Are you on that computer again!” my mother screeched at me from the kitchen.
“It’s an iPhone, Mam!” I shouted back. Hangover pro-gressively getting worse and only shower and sleep would save me now.
Saturday-evening dinners were compulsory in 31 Coolpak Park and I was fed up with having my Saturdays taken up. I just couldn’t seem to ever get out of the rut.
“It’s from my boss Dominic so I have to reply, okay?”
Dominic was my boss and owner of Clovers Auctioneers, 26A South Frederick Street, Dublin 2. He owned the entire old building and he rented the other office spaces in there. He drove a brand-new BMW convertible (so ridiculous with teenage twin boys to ferry around to tennis, Gaelic football, rugby, soccer, wrestling). Dominic was what you would call . . .let me see . . . a nice way of putting this . . . a bit of a prat.He always wore black trousers, always – as a tribute to his idol Johnny Cash. He had a balding head but took great care of the five strands of hair that remained at the front (we suspected he wrapped them in tin foil getting into bed every night) – he wore bright, colourful shirts and stupid cartoon ties and crazy outdoor shoes (wacky, he called them – in fact, he called himself wacky). I know what I always want to do to wacky people – whack them! Hard! Snap them out of it. He would try and make us laugh all day every day and it was completely and utterly draining. How he ran such a successful business we couldn’t work out. There were four of us in the office: himself, myself, Carla and his long-suffering wife Debbie who came in three days a week to take care of all the accounts. Debbie kept to herself really and didn’t leave Dominic’s small back office to come out into our main one very often.
He was emailing me now to remind me to be at Foxrock at ten o’clock in the morning for a private viewing of Number 34, Torquay Road. He often did this on a Sunday. It drove me insane. I asked on Friday evening before we went to the Palace if I was needed over the weekend and he said, “No . . . unless you want to work? Ha, ha . . . sure I know you – you’ll be falling down drunk somewhere – like myself I might add!” Then he proceeded to lie on the floor World-Cup-celebrations-Gazza-style and mimic himself lowering pints (you get the picture). I especially hated the way he used the word remind as if he were doing me a favour. Then the iPhone email updated the page and it read, ‘PS: Mia, please come and see me early on Monday morning before Carla and Debbie get in. I have something urgent I need to discuss with you. Did you hear me? Ha! I bet you said yeah. Dominic.’ I pushed the stupid cursed iPhone (Dominic had bought Carla and myself one each) deep into my fake red Chloé handbag and made my way into the kitchen for the dreaded corned beef and cabbage. Oh, even the smell!
My world felt odd today. I certainly didn’t adore my job but I adored not living at home and I was the wrong side of thirty and had never done anything else. The Irish economy had never been so bad and, while the entire country talked politics, I didn’t. I didn’t want to know. I wasn’t stupid by any means but I couldn’t get as heated about it all as some people. I had enough gloom in my life without all that. We all knew the recession was hitting Clovers – sure it was hitting every business but especially the property market. However, Dominic kept saying we were doing okay. Holding our own. Our jobs were safe. People were still buying houses, people still had to live. Yes, at much lower prices, but the market was still moving. Clovers also had properties on the books that we rented and renting was on the up and up. I had worked for Clovers since I left college. As sad as that may sound to others I actually felt a tinge of pride about it, don’t ask me why. I know I wasn’t exactly Employee of the Year, what with my favourite websites eBay and Perez Hilton and TMZ.com and all those distractions and the odd (well, not that odd) early exit to the Palace when Dominic was away from the office – but I was doing okay. I was interested in property – genuinely, really interested – and I wanted to own my own home someday. A sprawling old mansion somewhere in Roundwood in Wicklow near Daniel Day Lewis would be nice. We could sit by the open fire in the local Roundwood Hotel, sipping pints of Guinness and reading poetry. I could ge
t some of those early days NHS John-Lennon-type glasses and sit at his knee. He could stroke my hair. Traditional Irish music piping away in the background . . .
Anyway I wasn’t interested in working anywhere else, put it that way. Well, unless Daniel needed a PA, in which case I could dress in a skintight chequered pencil skirt (àla Joan in Mad Men) and a skintight low-cut white blouse, and walk elegantly and pain-free on six-inch stilettos (my body can be any size in Dreamland – no point in trying to seduce Daniel Day Lewis otherwise, the state my real body is in). He would gaze at me over our matching round-rimmed as I took notes, until one day it would be all too much for him and he’d drophis well-chewed pencil onto the old oak desk, stand up and take me into his strong method arms and say, “I can’t contain myself any longer, Mia! It’s you, it’s been you for so long my body aches!” – all this is in the voice of Bill the Butcher for some reason. Scary to most women but sexy as hell to me. Ah, that would be nice. But hey, if that job wasn’t on offer, as far as I was concerned work was there to pay the bills and not to be enjoyed. Although I did really enjoy it most of the time. Carla said she loved the job, that she couldn’t wait to get into work every day and see what deals she could close. She would own her own business one day, I was sure of it.
I took my seat at the dinner table and picked at what I could. Samantha was in flowing form with IT this and promotion that and Niall this and Niall that (he was a long-term man on the scene). I didn’t pay any attention but I nodded. Her voice droned. Two women could not be further apart in their lives than we were and I was slightly sad about this. But again only slightly. I did not lose any sleep over it, I assure you, didn’t even feel guilty that I didn’t lose sleep (if that makes sense?). We were terribly civil to each other. An outsider wouldn’t even notice.
My mind was on PP Paul and the night was fast-forwarding in my memory. He was full-on passion. He had me naked in a matter of minutes – well, he would have done, except my jeans got tangled up in my boots and I had to reef the lot off with superhuman power myself. He explored my body with all his might. The wine had shed me of any inhibitions about my body and I duly gave as good as I got. I remembered his arms so tight around my neck it started to hurt but in a sexy way. A small shiver went down my spine.
“Did you fart again?” my mother barked at me.
“No, Mam,” I muttered.
“Well, stop moving your arse around on that chair like you are trying to let a fart and pass me the butter.”
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The Other Side of Wonderful Page 34