‘No news about the show yet, then I take it?’ Laura asks her, as we all hug and kiss.
‘Oh yes, I got the part and Serena’s whisking me off to Broadway to guest star in my own one-woman show,’ Barbara snaps, stubbing out her fag. ‘I just decided I wouldn’t bother telling either of you, that’s all.’
‘No need to take your nerves out on us,’ I calmly intervene.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m every bit as anxious as she is about the result, maybe even more so, but am trying desperately, desperately to think positive and attract the outcome we want.
Mainly because the alternative is just so unthinkable.
‘Sorry,’ Barbara mutters as we head inside and make our way to the function room. ‘It’s just the not knowing that’s driving me nuts. Plus Angie says her audition went brilliantly, and is already acting like she’s cast, which is driving me slowly up the wall. Last night, just to get away from her, I went out and had pity sex with Nathaniel. Yet again.’
‘Who?’
‘That barman guy. And by the way, now is a very good time to wipe that look off your face. I only did it to take my mind off things. Then it struck me, no wonder my nerves are jangling, I haven’t had sex in weeks.’
‘Why’s that,’ Laura asks drily, ‘did you pull something?’
‘Ha bloody ha.’
‘And is that what you wore last night?’
‘Yeah, why, what’s wrong with it?’
‘Dearest, you look like a coffee filter.’
Then my mobile rings, and I’m not kidding, both Barbara and I nearly leap six feet just in case it’s The Call . . . just in case . . . just in case . . .
It’s not. It’s Amanda from Best’s confirming a big meeting that’s arranged for later in the week to discuss the storyboard for the first Original Sin commercial. Sophie, apparently, is insisting on my being there. I hang up the phone and notice that Barbara is actually clutching at her heart, hyperventilating. And I’m nearly getting as jumpy as she is. Jaysus, how much longer can this go on for?
‘Eleven in the morning,’ she says. ‘Do you think it’s too early to order a stiff brandy?’
I don’t answer her, but I know exactly how she feels.
The function room is packed to the gills and buzzing when we get there. I’m not kidding, everyone is so chic and glamorous, I’m doubly glad I dragged Laura and myself off to have hair and nails done this morning. I actually know one of the features editors at Tattle, Caroline Owens, and am delighted to see her making a bee-line over to where we’re standing by the door. She shakes us all warmly by the hand and actually lights up when I proudly introduce Laura as a finalist.
‘Oh, you must be Laura Lennox-Coyningham?’ she says. ‘I absolutely adored your story!’ And I know by her enthusiasm that she really, genuinely means it. Mag-hags are great people to know, but sincerity isn’t exactly their strong suit.
‘I have two pre-teens and I can tell you it really struck a chord with me. The bit about your daughter wanting a spray tan and a belly top because all her friends are now going around dressed like the Pussy Cat Dolls had me howling.’
‘All true, I’m sorry to say,’ says Laura, doing her lop-sided smile thing.
‘Do you know, I read your story and thought: thank God I’m not alone. My ten-year-old wants her navel pierced for her next birthday, and I honestly don’t know what to say to her. For God’s sake, the child is ten. To me, she’s still my little baby and I want to dress her in orphan Annie clothes, you know, all long smocks and Victorian boots.’
Laura nods sympathetically. ‘You’re preaching to the converted,’ she smiles. ‘And to think, at that age I wasn’t even allowed to wear denim jeans. Do you know, for a special treat, I bought my daughter one of those pretty, long, white smock dresses from Zara, which was adorable on her, but the little madam fought with me and said she wanted to go out with a pillowcase wrapped around her waist instead.’
‘Because it’s “hot”, I’ll bet,’ Caroline grimaces. ‘Sweet love of God, if I hear that word once more, I’ll scream.’
‘Oh, you really must introduce a swear box system,’ Laura says encouragingly, ‘It’s a terrific deterrent and phrases count, too, you know. Particularly: “You’ve ruined my life.”’
‘Or, here’s another one,’ Caroline chips in, smiling wryly. ‘How about: “I never asked to be born anyway?” That gets a lot of airtime in my house. Hmm. Good suggestion, I might very well give it a try.’
I think it’s a conversation that only another mother could really understand.
Pretty soon, we’re all being ushered into our seats, and I’m delighted to say Laura, Barbara and I are all put in the very front row. This I interpret as a Very Good Sign. You know, kind of like at the Academy Awards, if you’re a nominee and you’re allocated a seat beside the toilets, chances are things aren’t looking too good. Barbara is fidgeting away beside me, starting to drive me a bit nuts, if I’m being brutally honest.
‘Are you switching off your phone?’ she hisses at me, through gritted teeth.
‘Course I am, why?’
‘Suppose The Call comes during this? What’ll Serena think if she can’t get hold of either of us?’
‘Then she’ll leave a message, like normal, sane people do and we’ll call her back when we’re done and dusted here. Honey, you need to calm down. I’m every bit as antsy as you are, but short of sending my mother out to do one of her magic, failsafe novenas, there’s not much we can do but wait. Anyway, this morning’s all about Laura, remember?’
‘You’re right. Sorry. How long do you think this’ll go on for?’
‘WHAT?’
‘What I’m asking is, do you think they’d notice if I slipped out to the loo and slapped a nicotine patch on? Just so I’ll last the morning? Sitting still isn’t exactly my forte these days.’
‘Barbara, if you don’t chill out and start behaving, I’m off to get a tranquillizer gun to use on you. For your own good, you understand.’
‘OK, OK, OK. I’ll just twitch away here, with my phone switched off, and think of all the karmic reward points I’ll get for being a supportive friend.’
‘Good girl.’
‘Just one more thing and then I’ll shut up.’
‘What?’ I hiss.
‘Your mother is doing her magic novena, isn’t she?’
I roll my eyes to heaven and say a silent prayer.
Please, dear God, let Serena Stroheim cast this bloody show ASAP. Because I honestly don’t know how much more of this I can take. Bloody hell, being an actor must just be the worst job imaginable. All that waiting around on phone calls that might or might not change your life would have me on double whiskeys every day. With tequila chasers. Washed down with vodka.
Next thing, there’s a polite ripple of applause as Caroline takes to the podium right in front of us and makes a very funny speech about being a busy working mum and all that it entails. The constant exhaustion, the guilt at leaving your kids with a minder while you go to an office, weighed up against the overwhelming need for adult company and a healthy bank balance. She even coins a phrase that I’ve never come across before (and in my line of work, you pretty much get to hear everything, but this is a new one on me), a phenomenon called ‘placenta-brain’. Seemingly, this is when you’re so ga-ga in the few months just before and after childbirth that you start finding your car keys in the fridge and thinking it perfectly normal. Or when you wonder where the post is, then you realize you’ve put it in the washing machine along with a load of babygros, and now everything is on a rinse cycle.
‘All ahead of us,’ I whisper to Barbara beside me.
‘Are you kidding me? These genes end here, thanks very much.’
Anyway, apart from the cynical touchstone on my left, I notice there’re a lot of heads nodding like Buddhas in the audience, Laura’s included, and suddenly I’m filled with an overwhelming rush of admiration for these women. I mean, for God’s sake, I can barely organize my
self and a Useless Builder, let alone get up in the middle of the night, do a feed, then drive kids to school, then put in a full day’s work, then go home and do it all again. Every single day without any let-up until they’re, like, eighteen. Oh, and you’re supposed to function on no more than about four hours’ sleep. AND try to keep a marriage going at the same time, which everyone knows is a full-time occupation in itself. At least if shows like Desperate Housewives have taught me anything.
God almighty, these women don’t deserve cash prizes, they deserve medals.
Anyway, in no time Caroline is introducing the magazine’s owner to announce the results. Up steps a Mr Desmond Lawlor, who I’ve never actually met before, but I know of by name, as he owns several very diverse publications: from financial magazines to movie guides to one or two of the more gossipy glossies, which are the ones I usually end up poring over. Just to check who’s Botoxed and who isn’t, who’s going out with who, and who’s newly-dumped and single again. All work-related, natch.
Anyway, Desmond Lawlor is maybe in his sixties, in good shape for his age, slightly greying, sprightly and so distinguished-looking that if central casting were looking for an ‘honourable elder statesman’ type, he’d be the very man. There’s no beating about the bush, he just goes straight to the results, in reverse order, a bit like on Miss World.
Third place goes to a Polish woman with three kids, who Desmond tells us wrote very movingly about her experiences as an immigrant here, and the challenges of living in a new country and having to learn English from scratch, all the while dealing with a young family, far away from her own home. She gets a thunderous round of applause and heads up to the podium to accept a warm handshake and a cheque from Desmond.
I squeeze Laura’s arm encouragingly.
‘Now all of you ladies in the audience I’m sure are familiar with the legendary comedienne Joan Rivers, and I can tell you, our runner-up’s wit, humour and wry take on motherhood reminded me very much of that great lady’s style . . .’
I swear, I knew before he even said it. I just knew.
‘. . . in second place, with her hilarious story entitled “Checkout Time is at Eighteen Years”, is Laura Lennox-Coyningham!’
Barbara and I are on our feet in a nano-second, and I’m not joking, there are tears in my eyes as I watch my girl take her well-earned prize. You should just see her, she looks as cool and unflappable as ever, but the lop-sided smile is set in place so I know she’s chuffed. Bloody hell, two grand she’s just won . . .
The winner is equally popular: a young, fresh-faced teenage mum who, amazingly, found herself pregnant at seventeen and, against everyone’s advice, still went ahead and sat her Leaving Cert. And got straight honours in all her subjects, winning a place to college into the bargain. She makes a touching, short speech about how she’s coming up to her first-year exams and how much support she got from all her tutors and lecturers. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she says into the mike that Desmond holds out for her. ‘I wouldn’t change anything for the world, but there are times when I’m collecting my son from the babysitter, and I’m telling you, I’d only KILL to go out drinking Red Bull with the rest of my classmates.’ A huge roar of laughter, a novelty-sized cheque is handed over, a flash of cameras and it’s all over.
We’re straight over to squeeze our gal to death and make those ‘dolphins mating in a nature documentary’ squealing noises that women do when over-excited, as we all are now. Even Barbara waits a good four to five minutes before switching her phone back on to check for messages.
‘Two thousand euro,’ I say to a glowing Laura. ‘So what’ll you do with it? A well-earned holiday maybe?’
‘Every red cent is going towards the kids’ cultural improvement summer programme,’ she beams at us.
‘They’ll go bananas!’ says Barbara, ‘You’re going to have to throw a few playstations in at the very least, to sweeten the deal.’
‘I’m fully aware I won’t be courting popularity with this decision, but you know what? This morning I overheard George Junior calling his brother ‘gibbon spawn’ and I thought, that’s it. A summer educational programme is precisely what my family need.’
‘May I say, I’m terribly pleased to hear it,’ says a plummy-toned voice from behind. The three of us turn around to see Desmond Lawlor himself, coming to shake Laura’s hand. ‘Money well spent, if you ask me.’ He smiles in this benign, kindly way he has that reminds me of my dad. No, scrap that. Now that I see him up close, he’s actually more like my granddad.
Laura politely introduces Barbara and me, and Barbara, I’m pleased to say, manages to de-clamp her mobile from her ear for long enough to say hi.
‘May I ask you a question, my dear?’ Desmond says to Laura. Trust me, he’s one of those men who can call you ‘my dear’ and it kind of makes you feel like a Victorian lady in a hoop skirt clutching a phial of smelling-salts.
‘Of course,’ she smiles.
‘Are you one of the Lennox-Coyninghams?’
‘Guilty as charged,’ she says lightly. ‘Although normally, if I tell people I’m a lawyer I usually tack on to the end of my sentence, “but don’t worry, I’m getting all the help I need”.’
‘I’ve met your parents several times,’ he goes on, smiling kindly. ‘Socially, I’m pleased to say, never in a court-room scenario. Do you plan to return to the Bar?’
‘I have the days counted,’ she smiles. ‘Literally.’
‘But I trust you’ll keep writing until then? No false modesty, my dear, but you do have a unique voice. Sharp as a razor and smart as a whip.’
‘Well, I . . .’
‘It’s just that, if you were interested, I think we might be able to offer you some freelance work. Something along the lines of a column, perhaps?’
Barbara steers me away on the pretext of getting coffees for all of us, leaving the two of them chatting away goodo.
‘I think we’re just big blurry shapes to Laura now,’ she says sagely.
‘He’s offering her a gig! This is incredible!’
‘Oh you poor deluded eejit,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘Have I taught you nothing? Don’t you understand body language? Can’t you tell when a guy is trying to get into someone’s knickers without my having to use glove puppets and semaphore to hammer the point home to you?’
‘Laura and . . . Desmond? No, you can’t be serious. For God’s sake, he’s an old man.’
‘In some cultures, mid-sixties is considered the prime of life.’
‘There’s listed buildings out there that are younger than him.’
‘Plenty of women find age a turn-on. Our Laura, for one.’
And then it hits me. Sweet Jesus, she’s right. I mean, when George Hastings came along all those years ago, we wrote him off as an old, old man who she’d be wheeling to his bridge club and feeding through a straw in no time. Desmond is exactly her type.
Her identikit type, to be exact.
‘But he seems like a nice guy, doesn’t he?’ I say to Barbara, a bit worriedly, if I’m being honest.
At that moment, we both look over to where Laura’s standing, deep in conversation with Desmond. And then she dust-flecks him. Right in front of our very eyes.
‘Done deal, if you ask me,’ says Barbara.
One sneaky snipe of champagne in the hotel bar later and finally we get to quiz the still-glowing Laura.
‘He offered me a bit of freelance work,’ Laura says primly. ‘C’est tout. End of subject. Absolutely no need for further discussion, and I do NOT want this to become a subject of gossip amongst you pair. Yes, phone numbers were exchanged, but just so I can pitch some ideas at him, for a possible monthly column. And, come to think of it, I do actually have an idea. What do you think of this? “Motherhood: the ties that bind . . . and gag”.’
‘So, I didn’t notice him wearing a wedding ring,’ says Barbara, ignoring her and cutting straight to the chase, as ever.
‘Your point being?’
‘
For a man his age, that can only mean one of two things. Gay or divorced.’
‘Neither as a matter of fact,’ Laura replies, cool and unflappable as ever. ‘Widowed.’
Chapter Seventeen
BRILLIANT NEWS. I mean fantastically, unbelievably amazing news and all it took was:
Three back-to-back ‘magic’ novenas to whatever saint up there my mother happens to have a hotline to.
Me spending the last, agonizing few days reading all Barbara’s horoscopes in just about every glossy we have in the office, and picking the most favourable one. (‘Good news! A time for celebration is here, so crack out the champagne and get partying.’) Then reading it down the phone to her, only embellishing it slightly to make it sound like a miracle was imminent. (OK, so maybe I made up the bit about the champagne.) Now, admittedly, the ‘good news’ that particular horoscope refers to is pretty generic and not necessarily career-related; I mean, there’s days I find discounted Woolford tights in the House of Fraser and that’s a cause for minor celebration, but it was the best one I came across for our Barbara, a Capricorn. And I only cheated by throwing in a line from the Aquarius horoscope in the box below, as it was far more positive and even said ‘dreams do come true, just believe in yourself’. Ordinarily, she thinks all of this is complete rubbish, but did later admit it helped her get through yet another nail-bitingly anxious morning.
Me sending her daily affirmations and quotes from my dog-eared law of attraction book (‘Giving thanks for what you want in advance inevitably sends a far more powerful signal out into the universe.’) According to the book, some people even go around with ‘attitude is gratitude’ notebooks in their pockets; the idea being that every time you think of something you’re grateful for, even if it’s only getting a decent parking space, you make a note of it and keep saying thank you, to keep ’em coming, so to speak.
Do You Want to Know a Secret? Page 20