The Motherhood Walk of Fame
Page 22
Must have been that bagel I had for breakfast.
Later that day, he called me back. ‘How are you getting on?’ he asked. ‘You sounded really pissed off earlier–I was worried about you.’ Oh, he was a complete bastard, that Sam Morton. There was nothing worse than a gorgeous, caring, lovely (I was going to throw in ‘hung like a donkey’ but I thought it might spoil the moment) movie star having the absolute audacity to phone up and be all sensitive, loving and absolutely bloody perfect.
There was another bong noise. ‘Carly, listen to this.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Just giving you an update on our progress across the Atlantic…’
‘Sam! SAM! Stop rubbing it in, you evil git!’ I wailed down the phone.
‘How many seats does the plane have?’ I asked when he put the phone back to his ear.
‘Six big leather ones. And a sofa. And a bed in the other room.’
‘Do you have a telly?’
‘Four. Plasma screens.’
‘What’s the food like?’
‘Perfection. The chef has three Michelin stars.’
I groaned. ‘Sam, I think I’ve got a hard-on.’
The sound of his laughter made me smile. A feeling of dread started creeping up from my toes. I was going to have to address what was bubbling between us–the ostrich impersonation couldn’t go on forever. As soon as the script was finished. One thing at a time.
‘Anyway, tell me where you’re up to with Operation Big Cheque.’
That was the name we’d given to this whole fiasco the day before in a bid to motivate and inspire me. I still wasn’t sure if it was working.
‘Okay, I’ve finished the treatment.’
‘Wow, that was fast!’
‘I cheated,’ I confessed. ‘To be honest, once I discovered that a “treatment” was basically a description of what happens in the story, I realised that it wasn’t too different from the synopsis I wrote for the original book, so I called Kate and asked her to pop into my house and email all my Nipple Alert stuff over to me. Then I stayed up most of last night tweaking it and I think we’re good to go on that now.’
Sam’s voice dropped a few octaves. ‘You do know I love it when you do that American-lingo thing, don’t you?’ he said. I detected disparagement.
‘Piss off and stop mocking the afflicted. If it’s good enough for Oprah…
‘Anyway, I’m starting the script now. I’ve studied the theory on the DVDs and books, I’ve read loads of the scripts in your office, I’ve asked you 676 questions and I’m in a mild state of confusion and panic–so I figure it’s a good time to start.’
‘Carly, most of the scriptwriters I know are in a permanent state of confusion and panic,’ he said encouragingly.
‘Then I was born to do this!’ I declared positively. ‘And I will. Just as soon as my telephone stalker goes back to luxuriating in his flash private jet and stops harassing poor plebs like me. Now go away before I’m overtaken with jealousy and turn a mild shade of Shrek.’
I put the phone down and stared at the computer. And stared. And stared. Then I got up, wandered around in circles, then sat back down again. And stared at the computer. A few minutes later I got up again and this time went to the loo, where I sat, contemplating, for at least half an hour. I checked my reflection in the mirror.
Carly Cooper, Miss Glasgow Bag Lady 2007. My eyes were puffy through lack of sleep. My hair had forgotten what a hairdryer looked like and I’d been wearing the same clothes for two days. Don’t judge me harshly, please–clothes selection takes valuable minutes from each day and it was time I didn’t have. Thank God for Eliza bringing in food every few hours or the skeletal model apostles would have a new recruit.
I went back into Sam’s office and poured a coffee from the pot that was on the hotplate. I sat back down and stared at the computer. A coffee machine in his office–how flash was that? Then I decided that the desk was dusty, so I took everything except the PC off it, then used the sleeve of my jumper to polish it until it gleamed. I put everything back on the desk. Then I ran my fingers over my eyebrows. Yep, they definitely needed plucking. Now where were my tweezers? I had to pluck them that very moment. It couldn’t wait for another minute. I was slipping, I chided myself. I’d let my new eyebrow regime go to hell.
Writer’s block.
Argh! It had been so long since I’d written my last book that I’d forgotten the agony that is writer’s block. It must be like childbirth–once you get to the end of labour you forget the pain.
When I had written Nipple Alert, I’d had the cleanest house in London. I’d sit down to write and four hours later I’d have done two loads of washing, disinfected every inch of the bathroom, tidied all my cupboards and cut the grass.
It’s a rare idiosyncrasy of the writing profession. I mean, I’ve never heard of astronaut block. Or dinner-lady block. And the only blockage that plumbers encounter involves a dodgy beef vindaloo, a U-bend, and a bill for fifty quid an hour.
Come on, Carly, get it together. You can do this. You have to do this.
I put the coffee cup down and shook my shoulders like an athlete limbering up. Come on, girl, time to get serious. I placed my hands above the keyboard, took a deep breath, made contact, and then…Whoosh. My fingers were like speeding bullets as they came to life in a flurry of determination and productivity.
A few seconds later, I sat back to contemplate the fruits of my labours. There it was, in full glorious, fabulous brilliance…
www.eBay.com
And I was already on the ‘handbags–closing in one hour with no offers’ page. Oooooh, my attention was taken by a natty wee red leather number that…
What was I thinking? I was in the middle of the most pressurised situation in my career, and I was about to buy a bag that would make me look like one of Santa’s little helpers for no other reason than it would take my mind off the fact that I had writer’s block.
I pressed the square on the top right corner of the screen and closed it down. I opened up my novel and read right to the end of the first chapter. I’d already worked out that the best idea was to pretty much stick to the original framework of Nipple Alert, so as not to lose the plot completely. In every sense.
Time to work. No more procrastination. I conjured up the one thing that would motivate me to such an extent that I wouldn’t be tempted even for one second to go back onto eBay every ten minutes to check the offer price on that handbag–my family.
My boys, first and foremost. But also Mark. I was doing this for Mark. More accurately, I was doing this for that glorious moment when I’d be able to tell him that it had all paid off and the fruits of my labours were going to bring us everything we’d ever dreamed of: financial stability, freedom from the rat race, time to spend together as a family, a ten-foot paddling pool…actually, that last one was only on the boys’ wish list.
And I’d give the whole speech with a big smug grin and then add ‘na na na na boo boo, ya big unsupportive twat’ to the end.
Bitter. Immature. Unnecessary.
But it was enough to get the fingers flying and the brain in gear. A couple of hours later I sat back, grinned and pressed ‘save’. I’d done it. I’d had more false starts than a nervous swimmer, and I hadn’t quite mastered every function of the software so all the characters currently had the same name, but those technical hitches aside, I’d completed the very first page of my very first ever script on the way to my very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
And it felt great.
I checked my watch–5.45 p.m. Great timing, the boys would be back any minute.
I couldn’t resist a wee surge of excitement. I might look like I’d been dragged through a Hollywood hedge backwards, but I had page one of my script, my husband, my boys, and, now that I’d finally got started, a definite feeling of optimism about getting the screenplay finished. It might be the biggest load of tosh Lee Stavorski had ever had the misfortune to read and he m
ight use it for nothing more than lighting the end of his big phallic cigar, but at least I’d be able to say that I’d done it.
And that would make all this worth it. God, I was missing spending time with the boys.
Since I’d started working, we’d fallen into a routine. I’d get up in the morning and work for an hour or so, then when the boys finally roused I’d feed them and get them dressed. Mark would appear after his shower, and then he’d pack the boys and assorted accoutrements into the car, pausing, as demanded by Mac, to mourn the departure of Archie, who’d been sent to the great alligator park in the sky by a stiletto in the beach car park. It was Lex Luthor’s first experience of losing a family member and he wasn’t taking it well.
The man-van would then ride off into the sunrise, not to be seen again until 6 p.m. when it would come trundling back up the drive full of exhausted, happy people. And Mark.
Eliza normally finished around five, so I’d slave over a hot telephone, calling in whatever feast the kids would like for tea. Oh, I know it was sheer indulgence, but cooking time detracted from the valuable two hours that I got to spend with the kids before they got packed off to bed. And anyway, this was exceptional circumstances–although I was going to have to put them in some kind of ‘gastronomic decompression chamber’ before we went home and returned to a stable, healthy diet with a takeaway treat once a week.
In my defence, though, it’s not as if the takeaway food I was ordering was junk.
Oh, I know–I’m attempting a feeble justification to stop Jamie Oliver adding me to his hit list.
I could call up the local veggie shop and they’d send up four delicious mouth-watering salads all prepared and ready to eat.
I could. I didn’t, but I definitely could.
Instead I usually plumped–with plump being the operative word–for a great little Italian on Sunset who did gorgeous chicken, pasta and pizza with freshly baked focaccia breads and a salad on the side. And it would all arrive, ready garnished and plated, just waiting to be put in front of Mac and Benny (who would be slipping into a fatigue-induced fog by that time) and their non-communicative parents.
It’s not that Mark and I weren’t talking. It’s just that it was hard to have an in-depth conversation when you were in separate rooms. While I ate with the kids, he’d normally disappear with his dinner into Sam’s office to take advantage of the only two hours in the day that the computer was free. Same old Mark–he never could quite cut the umbilical cord that connected him to his work. We’d once been on holiday in Egypt and he’d nipped out of Tutankhamen’s tomb to take a call from a screeching female in Essex who was apoplectic because her former business partner had buggered off with the company Bentley She got it back eventually but Mark never did get to see how Tut departed the earth.
I didn’t dare disturb him while he was in there working, so I just ate with the kids, sometimes played with them in the pool, trounced them at Connect Four, watched a bit of TV, then read them stories until it was time to kiss them goodnight.
Cue change of rooms. By the time I’d come out of the boys’ bedroom, Mark had cleared out of the office to let me start working again. Sometimes he’d go and crash out in Sam’s home cinema to watch a DVD. Or have a float in the hot tub under the stars. Or chill in the electronic massage chair. Yes, I could see why he thought LA life sucked.
Or sometimes he’d just go and sit out by the pool with a beer and a book. On the first night I’d gone out to see him. ‘Thanks for today,’ I’d said, because I did truly appreciate the fact that he was going along with this and taking the kids out of my hair so that I could get on with the work. Although, here’s the thing–permission to have minor rant about the inequality in parental relationships. When I had the boys all day on a Saturday because he had to work extra hours, did he ever come home, snog my face off and thank me? Nope. He came home and asked what was for tea. So how come I felt I should show gratitude for something that, if the roles were reversed, would be taken for granted? However, I did, for once, have the sense to keep such mildly irritating issues to myself, being cognisant of the fact that our relationship did, at present, have all the stability of a vibrator on a skateboard.
Anyway, back to that first night. He’d put the book down (a good start), smiled and shrugged his shoulders. ‘S’okay.’ Articulate.
‘I really appreciate this, you know,’ said I, not so much lying as exaggerating ever so slightly in the name of ceasefire maintenance.
He’d looked at me for a moment, then opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out.
I’d sat on his knee and kissed him. ‘I love you,’ I’d whispered. Don’t say I don’t try.
‘How’s it going?’ he’d asked.
‘Slowly. Haven’t got a clue what I’m doing, to be honest.’
Silence.
‘Well, you’d better get back to it because the sooner you get finished the sooner we can have some time together.’
It hadn’t been said in an angry or nasty tone, it was just pragmatic. Pragmatically irritating the life out of me.
‘You’re right,’ I’d said through gritted teeth, as I jumped off his knee and about-turned.
‘And I love you too,’ he’d said when I was about ten feet away.
I turned and grinned at him. ‘Thanks. I needed that.’
‘Any time,’ he’d replied.
And so, as dawn fell that evening, not a single cheap shot had been fired. That was Wednesday; it was now Sunday and the truce had held up. On the few occasions when our ships did pass in the night there would be a quick kiss, a smile, and maybe even, God forbid, the occasional locking of lips. Apart from that one time when he grabbed me, threw me down on the sun-lounger and shagged me in twenty-six different positions. But he’d been asleep when I had that little fantasy, late one night while waiting for a new pot of coffee to brew, so that didn’t count.
Suddenly I heard a commotion outside–lots of thundering wee feet and shouts of ‘Muuuuuuuuum! Where are you?’
I wandered out into the hall and followed the noise. ‘Muuuuuuuuuuuuuum!!!!!!’ came more shrieks from the other side of the house.
I didn’t panic–the mother sensor had kicked in again and I realised that they were happy squeals, not ‘Come quick, I’ve just decapitated my brother.’
I found them already out at the pool, Mac and Benny in the shallow end endeavouring to mount an inflatable reptile of indeterminable origins, while Mark held the tail, his own head thrown back as he roared with laughter.
A week at the beach had darkened his skin, lightened his hair, and he had a couple of days’ growth on his chin. Mark had always been handsome, but…hello! Ovaries in spin cycle.
‘Look, Mum, look, Mum, it’s Rex!’ screeched Mac.
‘And Rex is…?’ I asked vaguely, frantically racking my brain for a Blue Peter reference that would help to identify the creature in front of me.
‘A dinosaur! Mandy at the barbecue said it’s a Tyrannosaurus Rex and everybody knows that!’
Except me, apparently. And don’t let my ignorance of planetary evolution distract you from the most crucial two words in that sentence.
Mandy? Barbecue?
Dame Judi Dench couldn’t have put on a better act than the one I had going at that very minute. I kept a huge smile on my face the whole time as I walked around the pool to the shallow end, sat down on the edge and dangled my feet in.
‘That’s great, guys!’
‘Do you like Rex, Mum, do you do you do you?’ Mac gasped.
‘I do, Mac–he’s gorgeous.’
Mac’s eyes widened in fury.
‘Green Goblin,’ Mark whispered out of the corner of his mouth.
‘I mean, Mr Goblin,’ I back-pedalled furiously.
‘I’ve got a new name too, Mummy,’ declared Benny coyly. Well, this was new. Inevitable, but new. I dreaded to think. Since his favourite characters in the whole world were Scooby-Doo and Sponge Bob Square Pants, I had an impending feeling of doom.
‘Mac. I’m called Mac now.’
So Mac was the Green Goblin and Benny was Mac. I was beginning to think my family had issues that could see a psychologist’s children through college.
‘Well, Mac and Green–can I call you Green?’ He nodded. ‘Okay, Mac and Green, Mum needs millions and millions of hugs and kisses or it’s broccoli for tea.’ You can’t beat blatant threats when it comes to effective child-rearing.
They crossed the pool like tornadoes and smothered me in hugs, kisses and chlorinated water.
When they splashed off with Rex in tow, Mark waded over towards me. I expected him to quickly tap me in the manner of two wrestlers in a tag-team bout, then head inside to lose himself in the fascinating world of his email inbox, but instead he stopped at the edge, pulled himself up and sat next to me.
My brain immediately switched to the really important stuff–like…like…how incredibly fit he looked in those blue swim shorts.
‘Good day?’ I asked him, going for innocuous and cheery but probably hitting somewhere on the line between slightly deranged and bunny-boiler.
‘Yeah, we had a great time–the boys just love Mother’s Beach. Every time I suggest we go elsewhere they overrule me.’
Three things struck me about that sentence. Number one: Mark was being light-hearted. Number two: It was possibly the longest sentence he’d uttered to me all week. Make that ‘month’. Number three: Years working in nightclubs in my wild youth had resulted in very minor damage to my hearing, but even with my reduced audio capacity I was pretty fucking sure he hadn’t mentioned the words ‘Mandy’ or ‘barbecue’.
A pause stretched out as I tried to work out the best way to formulate my next question. Unlike Mark, I have been known to occasionally tango with the big green monster. Not to an obsessive, private-detective-on-the-payroll level–I was more at the ‘occasionally just happens to scroll through the messages on his mobile but of course I trust him’ stage.