‘So?’
‘So, if you’re out of a job, how are you going to pay your way here? Because if you think we’re supporting you, you can feck right off.’
Shit. I never thought of that.
There’s another silence while I gulp back the disgusting Chardonnay and rack my brains to come up with something.
Eventually Sharon speaks, ‘Here’s a thought.’ We all turn to look at her and by now even my bum is starting to sweat. ‘If Jessie can’t contribute to bills and stuff, then…well, maybe she could earn her keep by doing all the housework, couldn’t she? Just imagine, we could come in from work every day to all the laundry done…’
‘And all the groceries bought…’ says Maggie slowly, with an evil glint lighting up the stony grey eyes.
‘And a home-cooked dinner served up to us…’
‘That she has to wash up after, not us…’
‘And all the ironing done. I bleedin’ hate ironing…’
‘And the garden looking immaculate…’
‘Be like having an au pair, except without the hassle of kids…’
‘And one that we’d never have to pay…’
‘Right then, Cinderella Rockefeller,’ says Maggie, with murder in her eyes and spinach in her teeth. ‘If this is what you really want, then move in, soon as you like. Because you have yourself a deal.’
I get the hell out of there as soon as I can. And as I slam the hall door behind me, I’d swear I can hear the sound of cackling.
Chapter Seven
Sunday
Packing is a nightmare. I pick up something to fling into a suitcase, then remember exactly where I was when I bought it, time, date and place, the works, then dissolve into floods of tears, then try ringing Sam again, then round off by leaving a tonne of voicemails for him. What the hell, if you’re going to boil the bunny, you might as well turn the heat right the whole way up. If I’m turning into Glenn Close with the bubble perm, might as well go the whole hog. And all of my desperate, pleading messages are ignored. Of course they are; at this stage, what the feck else did I expect?
So far, all I’ve managed to pack is three pairs of knickers and an old deodorant. I am officially a basket case.
Sunday night
Sleepless. Wondering how much longer before I’m turfed out of this house and am forced to move back into Whitehall, a.k.a. the Sandhurst of emotional emptiness. A week possibly, maybe even less? Maybe that couple from yesterday loved it and want to move in here in a few days? And find me still wandering around here, like the mad wife in the attic from Jane Eyre. Then a fresh worry: suppose the estate agents sue me for not clearing out of here fast enough?
Suddenly I get a nightmarish flash of myself standing in the dock, in handcuffs and a neon orange jumpsuit, pleading for clemency, like in one of those witness for the prosecution-type courtroom thrillers. Right. Gotta pack. Gotta clear out of here. Got. No. Choice. In a blind panic, I hop out of bed, switch on the lights and start flinging stuff that’s strewn on the dressing table into an abandoned suitcase on the floor. But then I come to a cherished old black and white photo of Mum and Dad taken on their wedding day and start bawling all over again. Times like this I’m almost glad neither of them is around to see what a sad disappointment I’ve become to them.
No, on second thoughts, packing is a bad idea. Sleeping for twelve hours = miles better.
Monday morning
After five goes, Eva eventually answers her phone to me. Yes, she did see Sam at the weekend, she reluctantly admits, but before I get a chance to launch into further in-depth questioning, on cue, one of her babies starts squealing in her ear so she just does that thing you can only get away with if you’re a mum, and immediately hangs up without even saying goodbye.
Mind you, maybe she was only saying that to get me off the phone. Maybe that was a tape she had on standby to play in the background just in case I rang. Jaysus. That’s another thing about being dumped and frozen out. Makes you incredibly paranoid.
Monday evening
The estate agent rings. The guy with the barely broken voice. ‘Bad news,’ he says. ‘You only have until Thursday to clear out.’
Three bleeding days?! ‘Can’t be done,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve been living here for two years, you can’t seriously expect me to pack up two years of my whole life in three lousy days?’
‘We feel it’s very generous of us even giving you until Thursday,’ he says, suddenly managing to sound all manly and assertive. ‘However, if you fail to meet this deadline…’
I don’t hang around to hear the end of the sentence.
Not in the form for threats right now.
Monday night
What’s killing me now is that there’s no one, absolutely no one to help me with the Herculean labour of trying to pack my entire life up in three miserable, measly days. Not a sinner. Sam? Yeah, right. Eva and Nathaniel? Don’t make me laugh. Emma would, I know. In fact she’d be around here right now organising all my stuff into neatly labelled cardboard boxes and making pots of tea for me, sainted angel that she is. But she’s away until at least the end of the month, so that’s out. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t hear from her though; always leaving cheery, positive messages and texts telling me that everything will work itself out and that I’ll be fine. Utter shite, of course, but I do appreciate the thought.
Still, it’s devastating to think that with only one exception, the very core of people who not two weeks ago I’d have counted on as my nearest and dearest, not only won’t lift a finger to help me, but won’t even return my calls. Unbelievable. Like so much in my life lately, you couldn’t make it up. Spend the rest of the evening wondering why they ever bothered hanging out with me in the first place. Can’t figure it. The one thing Sam, Nathaniel and Eva all have in common is money; vast, bottomless pits stuffed to the overflowing brim with it. And OK, so I kind of inveigled my way into their exclusive ‘members-only’ club by overstretching myself to keep up with them all losing all sense of reason in the process. That much, even in this highly distressed state, I’m fully able to grasp and accept. But here’s the real killer; I think the main attraction I held for all of them, and it stabs me to include Sam in this, is that I was ‘yer one off the telly’.
Fame opened doors for me, like Alice in Wonderland finding the low door in the wall that led to a magical world, except mine was full of five-star hotels, business-class flights, fabulous Michelin-starred restaurants; la dolce vita. Everything I’d ever wanted and never had, suddenly offered to me on a plate. But the very second the rug was pulled out from under me, that was it. As if I’d stumbled into the VIP room by mistake and it was only a matter of time before they showed me the door. I’ve been chasing a pot of gold that turned out to be all glitter and no substance and now have nothing to show for it apart from debts I’ll probably be paying off for the rest of my natural life.
Tuesday morning
Eventually dozed off with Sky News on in the background, then couldn’t believe it when I came to and it was 10.30 a.m. Ten bleeding thirty in the morning means my allocated clearing out time has now been whittled down to less than two days, so in a rare burst of energy I’m out of bed, down to the kitchen to make some heavy duty coffee, then back upstairs to start operation Attacking the Packing.
Yes, admittedly, I’ve left it a bit late in the day, I think, trying my best to be positive, but it’s quite do-able. I am after all, the girl who once had to do military boot camp à la Private Benjamin for the TV show and still survived to tell the tale. So if I can handle eighteen-hour days of intensive exercise in three degrees below freezing on an empty stomach, then a bit of light packing shouldn’t pose any problems, now should it?
The other thing in my favour is that I rented this house fully furnished, right down to all the kitchen appliances, the works. So all I really have to worry about packing is…well, you know, stuff. Clothes, shoes, books, DVDs, CDs, all that sort of thing.
A doddle really, when
you think about it.
Twenty minutes later
Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod! Found a book which Sam gave me two birthdays ago. A first edition of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, my Desert Island favourite book of all time, ever. Inscribed with the words, ‘To Woodsie. I know we’ll always be together. Sx’ Sam always signs his name like that. Like he doesn’t actually have enough time to write all three letters of his name. Collapsed into yet more tears and this time, really thought that my heart would break.
Midday
OK, at this stage I’ve accepted that there’s just no way to get through this without getting distraught, so now the plan is to pack and howl simultaneously, with a box of Kleenex beside me at all times. Believe me, easier said than done.
I’m flinging make-up and face creams from my dressing table into a wheelie bag and doing quick mental calculations, working out that the La Prairie moisturiser and night cream alone would have set me back the guts of €400. Not including the Crème de la Mer eye cream which I spent no less than €165 on, used once, then broke out in spots.
Think I might have to have a lie down. Except there isn’t time to indulge in lambasting myself over the huge sums of cash I frittered away, is there? I’ll have nothing else to do but whinge about that when I’m stuck on a sofa in Whitehall, worrying about whether Maggie and Sharon will come down in the night and stab me in my sleep.
Right then. I head for my wardrobe and realise with horror that I have no fewer than twenty pairs of jeans…twenty! What in the name of Donatella Versace was I thinking? And I wouldn’t mind, but most of them look identical. Into my suitcases they go and when I run out of luggage space, I start flinging them and just about everything else into black plastic bin liners. Then I move on to all my evening dresses. Beautiful, so beautiful that all I want to do is prostrate myself on the ground before them and gape in awe at their beauteous beauty.
A thought; wonder if there’s some kind of second-hand swap shop where people could buy all this gear, that might generate a few quid for me? Or maybe I could flog it anonymously on eBay? Then, a miracle, I manage to find three tops, two skirts and a brand new winter coat, still with the tags on them. Money in the bank, I reckon. Because the shops will have to take them back, won’t they? So I’ll just get the cash back instead. Brilliant! I grab the phone which is lying on my bed and call the customer service department in Brown Thomas. No, the assistant says very politely, sorry but, no cash refunds are ever given, just store credit instead. Which leaves me with almost €980 worth of store credit and not enough money to take a taxi to Whitehall with all my stuff.
Another panic attack. Hadn’t thought of that. I haven’t a bean to my name; how exactly am I supposed to deal with the sheer logistics of hauling a mountain of suitcases and bin liners like a bag lady all the way to the Hammer House of Horror? Panic, panic, panic.
Just then my mobile rings and I do a leap over the bed worthy of the Grand Slam rugby team to grab it, in case it’s Sam. But, of course, it’s not. Instead it’s, of all people, Joan. Wondering when exactly they can expect me? And did I need to get a spare key cut? She’s so helpful and nice in fact that I keep having to repeat her name just to check that this is in fact the same Joan I think it is. I tell her that I’ve only got until Thursday to clear out and miracle of miracles, she actually offers to come over in her car to help me shift my stuff.
Well, well, well, I think, hanging up and catching sight of the photo of Mum and Dad on my dressing table. Whaddya know? Maybe they made this minor miracle happen from beyond the grave. I continue packing with fresh vigour, in complete wonderment at just how spectacularly wrong I can be about people.
Half three
Joan arrives bit late but then, who am I to complain about the one decent human being who has actually offered to help me in my hour of need? She breezes in, groomed like a storm trooper in a bright, floral patterned dress with every single accessory matching, shoes, bag, the works. But then, why am I surprised? This is Joan. Everything always matches.
Anyway, the minute she gets here, she clicketty-clacks in on her scaffolding heels, surveying the place like a Japanese tourist in the Sistine Chapel and asking if she can have a good nose around. I say yes, of course, then offer her a coffee. She follows me into the kitchen and there’s a silence as we both look at each other, but neither of us has anything to say. The funny thing is, that now she’s here and it’s just the two of us on our own, there’s so much I want to tell her. Because maybe, after all these years, I’ve completely misjudged her and now I’m at the lowest ebb of my life, she’s turned into some kind of guardian angel that’ll get me through this horrible, horrific time.
Be ironic if, after all these years of me being busy despising her that now, at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, I did actually manage to forge some kind of working functional bond with her. Growing up, I had all the normal grievances you’d expect a kid to hold against any kind of surrogate guardian; Joan constantly taking Maggie and Sharon’s side in all rows against me, with the added complication of me resenting her for trying to take the place of a mother that she couldn’t possibly come near.
But if Maggie and Sharon were openly hostile to me, Joan was more…glacial. Frosty. I remember one time, when I was about eleven, she lost me in a huge department store and while I was terrified the whole time that I’d end up kidnapped by some pervert, the ordeal barely knocked a feather out of her. In fact, to this day I can distinctly remember the security guard finding me white-faced and frightened, wandering around the cosmetics hall, then handing me back to Joan. Poor man honestly looked as if he was weighing up whether or not to call in social services. Well, what was he supposed to think? My guardian was neither bothered that I was gone nor particularly relieved to have me back. She never as much as broke a sweat. But there you go. Some women just aren’t cut out for motherhood. And in a million years, I’d never have gone whining and complaining to Dad; he’d quite enough stress on his plate as it was and the last thing I ever wanted to do was add to that.
Rebelling as a teenager with Joan around was a tall order too, mainly because if you plonked yourself down on the sofa beside her, aged fourteen and smoked one Marlboro Light after another, she wouldn’t bat an eyelid. Likewise, if you staggered around the house pissed out of your head, her only concern would be whether you’d been at her stash of Chardonnay. Or if you decided you wanted to live off batter burgers and chips day in, day out; again, in Joan-land, not a problem.
With poor Dad out slaving away in the pub where he worked every hour God sent, she was the only authority figure in my life for most of the time. So therefore my teenage rebellion usually involved eating healthily and trying to actually get the odd vitamin into me. While other kids in my class envied that I could get away with never doing homework and watching telly all evening eating McDonald’s if I felt like it, I’d be in the kitchen washing heads of lettuce and juicing carrots.
And here she is now after all these years sitting on a bar stool in my kitchen; OK, maybe not exactly full of friendly chat and warmth – Joan doesn’t do warmth – but she’s an ally and, feck it, she’s here. More than some people.
I make her a coffee using the fancy cappuccino maker for probably the last time (like so much else, it came with the house) and ask her whether she’d like the grand tour. It’s the first time she looks animated since she got here, so off we trot, me still in my pyjamas and dressing gown, her all eager to see the place, inquisitiveness on heels, scanning the place so thoroughly, you’d nearly think she was about to put an offer in on it. In fact, it strikes me that her real reason for coming over was to see where I live, but am I complaining? Hell, no.
So we start with the huge hallway and suddenly I get that sensation of seeing the house through someone else’s eyes. In all my time living here, I don’t think I ever really appreciated how beautiful it really is till now, just when I’m being flung out. Can’t believe I used to give out about all the pink marble floors; looking at
them now, they’re just so elegant and classy. And the doric columns gracefully adorning each entrance off the main hall – breathtaking. Dear God, I actually deserve to be thrown out for not giving this fabulous mansion all the love and care it needed.
Joan pulls me out of my reverie. ‘And were there ever any celebrities here?’
I remind myself that she’s come all this way to help me; the woman is doing me a massive favour, so in return, the least I can do is tell her what she wants to hear. Yes, I answer. Loads of them. An actress who’s a household name once snogged a well-known and very married libel lawyer on the exact spot you’re standing on now. And a boy band member snorted a line of coke off the hall table, then was sick into the ivy growing on the steps outside. Then there was the time I went upstairs while a party was in full swing to find a well-known model in flagrante with a property developer friend of Sam’s, whose wife was at home nursing their four-week-old baby boy.
It’s a good thing these walls can’t talk, because the last days of Sodom and Gomorrah would have nothing on some of the antics that went on here. The house would be packed to the gills with ‘celeb friends’ and ‘well-wishers’ and I’d be right in the middle of them, pouring the entire alcoholic content of my house down people’s throats. I don’t know who exactly I thought I was, the Great Gatsby? Living not just in any house; oh no, only the Elton John of houses would do me. And where are all those so-called friends now? I find myself wondering. Feck knows, but I can tell you this much: not a single one of them has as much as picked up the phone to even see how I am. Not one.
Anyway, Joan drinks it all in, gimlet-eyed, then goes back to wandering around, checking out the décor. ‘Well, I suppose a place like this is all very well and good if it’s the kind of thing you’re into,’ she says coldly, reaching into her handbag and fishing out a box of Dunhill. ‘But if you ask me, it’s all just a bit…sterile. Needs colour. And warmth. Not to mention wallpaper. The lovely polka-dot one I have in my hallway now would work very well here. Festoon blinds would be gorgeous too, give the place a bit of character. And I hope you don’t mind my saying, Jessica, but what in the name of God is that awful smell?’
Personally, I Blame my Fairy Godmother Page 10