by Marian Keyes
Lots and lots and lots and lots of love from your grateful pal, Gemma
After the night I snuck out on him, Owen never called, which I found really, really funny. Some people might say I’d ‘given him what he wanted’ so why would he bother with me again. And I’d have to agree that the first time I sleep with a man is a tricky time – I’m braced for the balance of power to change, for him to become remote and distant, and for me to feel as though I’ve relinquished something. But with Owen – and I don’t know why – I didn’t give a flying fuck so, cheery as anything, I called.
‘Owen, it’s Gemma. Let’s go out on Friday night.’ Like we’d parted on the fondest terms.
‘You’ve a bit of a nerve.’
‘I don’t usually,’ I admitted. ‘It’s just the effect you have on me. So how about it?’
‘Will you be sneaking off home in the middle of the night?’
‘Yes, but I have a reason. Meet me and I’ll tell you it.’
Of course he couldn’t resist that and eight o’clock on Friday night saw me once again stumbling down the mirrored steps of Crash.
‘Déjà vu,’ I beamed. ‘I like your shirt.’ A different one but just as cool.
He wasn’t smiling but I kept grinning at him until he gave in and cracked his expression-free face. Then, like he was surprised by what he was doing, he stood up, caught me and kissed me. A very nice kiss, which went on longer than either of us had planned and stopped only when someone called, ‘Get a room!’
‘So what’s your excuse for running out on me in the middle of the night?’
‘It’s a good one. Buy me a drink and I’ll tell you.’
I gave it to him chapter and verse, especially how Mam couldn’t be left on her own all night or she might fake a heart attack. ‘In fairness to her, she’s trying very hard to be not so clingy, but we’re not out of the woods yet. But now you see that me doing a runner was nothing personal, right?’
‘I didn’t want you to go.’ He managed to sound both sulky and sexy.
And under the circumstances I thought it would be nice to reply, ‘And I didn’t want to go.’
It was a flirty, touchy-feely night, lots of hand-stroking and meaningful eye-locks and we both got a little bit scuttered. We stayed in Crash until kicking-out time, then on the street we stood very close and he said, ‘What now? Somewhere else?’
‘Let’s go back to your place,’ I said, fingering a button on his shirt-front in saucy temptress fashion.
‘Are you going to sneak out again in the middle of the night?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you can’t come back.’
Startled, I looked into his face and saw that he was serious! ‘But Owen, that’s really stupid.’ I’d been looking forward to a ride; I’d got a taste for it now.
‘If you can’t be bothered to stay for the entire night I don’t want you to come at all.’
‘But I’ve told you what’s going on! I have to go home to my mother.’
‘You’re thirty-two,’ he cried. ‘I could get this sort of grief from a sixteen-year-old.’
‘So get yourself a sixteen-year-old.’
‘OK.’
He turned and walked away from me, very angry and a bit jarred. I stuck my arm up and hailed a taxi.
Shaking with rage, I got in. ‘Kilmacud.’
Just before the taxi took off, the door was wrenched open and Owen bundled himself in on top of me. ‘I’m coming with you.’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘My mother will be thrilled to see you. Not.’
‘Stop the car!’ Though we were barely moving, we screeched to a kerb-side halt but Owen didn’t get out. ‘Do we have to go to your mother’s house? Can’t we go to your apartment?’
‘I’d still have to sneak home in the middle of the night.’
‘OK, I’ll settle for that. Her apartment, Clonskeagh,’ he told the driver.
‘Excuse me? Who said you could come?’
He tried to kiss me and I elbowed him off. But he tried again and he was a very nice kisser so I let him.
Then he slid his palm up my top and caught a nipple between two fingers; an electric shock zipped to my lula and suddenly I was dying for it.
*
The following day I was pale and subdued. I’d had a drunken row in the street. I’d committed a sex act in a taxi – at least I’d tried but the driver had asked me not to. And I’d slept with a man who called his nether regions ‘Uncle Dick and the twins’. What he’d actually said was, ‘Uncle Dick and the twins reporting for duty, sir.’
But you know what, the sex was glorious. Fast and fabulous and sweaty and sexy – and plenty of it.
Between one of the bouts he’d mumbled into my hair, ‘Sorry for saying the thing about the sixteen-year-old.’
I’d been angry at the time but to hold a grudge you had to care and I didn’t.
‘You’re a stupid fucker but I forgive you,’ I said magnanimously.
‘I saw Lorna today.’
Who? Oh, his ex-girlfriend.
‘Were you upset?’
‘No.’
No, just devastated. And I got what had happened in the street – he hadn’t been arguing with me, he was arguing with someone who wasn’t there. So what was my excuse?
Sympathetically I stroked his hand until I felt his mickey unfurl and straighten up again, then I turned to him.
‘Say it,’ I asked.
‘Permission to board, skipper.’
He rang me on Sunday afternoon.
‘I have tickets for a gig on Tuesday night. Would you like to come?’
‘Would I have to stand up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’ll pass. No offence, it’s just not me. Bring someone else.’
‘OK.’ Pause. ‘What are you doing now?’
I was working, typing lists for Lesley’s bash. ‘Nothing,’ I said. Something was building in the pit of my stomach.
‘Would you like to do something?’
I swallowed. ‘Like what?’
‘What would you like?’
I knew what I’d like and I’d like it very much.
‘An hour,’ I said. ‘That’s all I can spare. Meet me at my flat in twenty minutes. Mam!’ I yelled, scooping stuff into my bag. ‘I have to go out. Work. I’ll be a couple of hours at the most.’
7
On Wednesday morning, by exchanging low meaningful words with desk-boys sporting labour-intensive hair, a suited and booted Cody managed to get us upgraded and into a lounge.
‘How do you know all those boys?’ I asked.
Disdainfully Cody was discarding Today’s Golfer and Finance Now. ‘Jesus, would it kill them to have a copy of Heat? Oh, just from around.’
As we boarded the plane a male steward noticed Cody and flamed an immediate scarlet. ‘Cody?’
‘That’s my name. At least it is today. But who knows which one of my multiple personalities will be in charge tomorrow?’ Cody turned to me. ‘Strap yourself in, my dear. Well, would you look at that, I can’t seem to buckle my own belt.’
‘It’s piss easy, you thick, it jus –’
‘Excuse me, sir,’ Cody shoved away my helping hand and summoned Scarlet Boy. ‘Could you help me with this?’ He gestured towards his crotch.
‘What appears to be the problem?’ Poor Scarlet Boy’s mortification was manifesting itself in extreme heat.
‘I need to be strapped in, if you wouldn’t mind… whoops, butter fingers… that’s it, nice and snug. Niiiiiccce and snnnugg.’
‘Just from around,’ I murmured. ‘You get around a lot.’
‘Better than living in purdah and taking a vow of misery.’
‘I’m not in purdah any more.’ Suddenly I was finding this funny. ‘And you’re a smelly pig.’
‘What do you mean you’re not in purdah any more?’ He looked at me suspiciously, then his eyes went ‘ping!’ ‘It’s the bloke in the chemist.�
��
‘No.’ I strung it out a little, just to make him suffer. ‘It’s Owen.’
‘Owen the cutie?’
On the night of Cody’s birthday, Owen had approached him and said, ‘Excuse me, is your lady friend spoken for?’ As a result Cody thought Owen was delightful.
‘Owen the cutie,’ I confirmed.
‘Have you slept with him?’
I was astonished. ‘Of course.’
‘You never told me.’
‘I haven’t had the chance. I haven’t exactly seen you, have I?’
‘God Almighty. Tell us more.’
‘He makes me feel young.’ Quickly I forestalled Cody before he started to coo, ‘Not always in a good way. Since I’ve been seeing him I’ve… one –’ I counted out on my fingers –’look aren’t my nails a lovely colour? Anyway one, I’ve had a drunken row with him in the street. Two, felt his mickey in a taxi. Three, snuck out on my mammy on Sunday afternoon just to have sex with him.’
‘Just to have sex?’ Cody echoed.
‘I did it again last night,’ I said. ‘On the way home from work.’
Owen had called me at the office at about six-thirty and asked, ‘What are you doing tonight?’
‘I’m going home and you’re going to a gig.’
‘Not for an hour and a half. Come over.’
Immediately I closed all my files and left. As soon as I rang Owen’s bell, the front door opened, he pulled me in and within seconds we were going at it, me pressed against the door, my clothes half off, my legs around his waist.
‘What colour are his eyes?’ Cody asked, with interest.
‘I don’t know – eye colour. It’s not like that. I’m just having a good time and, anyway, Owen’s still hung up on his ex-girlfriend.’
‘But this is the first person you’ve slept with since Anton. How does he measure up?’
‘That’s not fair,’ I said. ‘I love Anton, it would be like comparing fast food with dinner at the Ivy.’ I thought about it some more. ‘Mind you… I must admit, there are times when a Big Mac is exactly what you want –’
The pilot interrupted. ‘We’ll be landing at Heathrow in forty-five minutes.’
Owen was instantly forgotten as it hit me what I was heading into in London; the potential of it. My mouth went dry as I considered the best possible outcome: if I got published and was successful and I became a human glitter ball… But how likely was that?
Instantly sombre I said to Cody, ‘Probably nothing will come of all this agent stuff.’
‘That’s the attitude.’
‘No, I’m serious. Probably nothing will come of all this.’
‘I’m agreeing with you.’
‘Oh sorry, I forgot it was you.’
A moment or two of silence.
‘Why shouldn’t anything happen?’ I asked. ‘You’re so bloody defeatist.’
He sighed and rattled his free Irish Times. ‘Kettles, pots, etc.’
From the moment we landed in Heathrow ninety minutes later – the pilot was a lying bastard – every blonde woman was Lily, every man over five foot four was Anton.
‘It’s a city of eight million people,’ Cody hissed, when I dug my nails into his arm one time too many. ‘We’ll never, ever meet them.’
‘Sorry,’ I whispered. Since Anton and Lily had got together I’d been to London only twice – this was the third time – and being on their territory always reduced me to jelly. While I dreaded bumping into them, I also had a gruesome, voyeuristic desire to see them.
I was shaking when we got out of the tube at Leicester Square and Cody guided us towards Soho – Anton worked somewhere around here but Cody wouldn’t tell me which street. ‘No stalking!’ he chided. ‘Remember why you’re here.’
You’d want to have seen Jojo Harvey. She was about ten foot tall, pouty and dark-lashed and had auburn wavy hair to her shoulders. If she was in a film, a sax would play mournful, sexy notes whenever she appeared. She was gorgeous. But not skinny, you know? There was plenty of her.
Cody said he’d wait in reception so she took me down a corridor and into her office. There were lots of books on her shelves and when I saw Mimi’s poxing Remedies, I was punched with a bundle of longing and hatred and about sixty other emotions. I want that for me.
Jojo waved an untidy sheaf of paper and said, ‘Your pages. We laughed so hard, I swear to God.’
‘Um, good.’
‘All that stuff about going to the chemist. And the dad growing sideburns. It’s great!’
‘Thanks.’
‘So any ideas on format? Fact or fiction?’
‘Definitely not fact.’ I was horrified.
‘Fiction then.’
‘But I can’t,’ I said. ‘It’s all about my mam and dad.’
‘Even that stuff about Helmut? Or the girl – Colette? – dancing around the trouser press in her underpants? Hey, I loved that.’
‘Well, no, that was made up. But the basic story, the one of my father leaving my mother, that’s true.’
‘You know, call me unsympathetic –’ she swung her feet up on the desk – nice boots, I noticed –’but it’s the oldest story in the book – man leaving wife for younger model.’ With a big smile she said, ‘Who’s going to sue you for stealing their plot-line?’
Easy for her to say.
‘You could change the details a bit.’
‘How?’
‘The father could work in a different industry – although I love all that stuff about the chocolate – the mom could be different.’
‘How?’
‘Lots of ways. Look at all the moms you know and see how different they all are.’
‘Everyone would still know it was my parents.’
‘They say everyone’s first novel is autobiographical.’
I wanted her to keep saying things, to convince me, to talk me into it, I wanted to keep coming up with objections and for her to keep batting them away. It was nice to be wanted and I was happy to stay there for hours.
But, next thing she was swinging her long legs off her desk, getting to her feet and sticking out her hand. ‘Gemma, I’m not going to talk you into something you don’t want to do.’
‘Oh! Right…’
‘Sorry we’ve both had our time wasted.’
That stung. But I suppose she was important and busy. Nevertheless I’d enjoyed being courted and persuaded and I didn’t like her so much now.
Then as she walked me back out to Cody, I see this ride coming down the corridor towards us, lovely long limbs moving in a lovely suit. Hair as black and shiny as a raven’s wing and eyes as blue as ambulance sirens. (A simile I wasn’t entirely sure about.)
He nodded a hello at me and said, ‘Jojo, will you be long?’
‘No, I’ll be right back.
‘That’s Jim Sweetman,’ she said. ‘Head of our media section.’
On the tube back out to Heathrow, Cody was disgusted with me and I was super-subdued. An agent, a literary agent, had been interested in something I’d written – an event that was rarer, by all accounts, than an eclipse of the sun. Now it was all over. I sighed. And I bet Jojo was having a mad affair with that ridey Jim Sweetman.
It was at me like an itch. I’d wasted a day of precious sick leave – and there was worse to come. At Heathrow I went to the newsagent’s to buy magazines to take my mind off myself on the journey home and from six feet away I saw it. From the way my hair follicles prickled, I knew that something very bad had happened. Even before my brain had translated the words in the newspaper into something meaningful, dread had got there first. It was a photo of Lily – on the front page of the Evening Standard. Featuring – this is the worst bit – in big, black type, the description, The Unknown Londoner Who’s Been Taking the Literary World by Storm.
The full story was on page nine. I snatched it up and crackled through the pages until I got to a quarter-page picture of Lily in her sumptuous home (in fairness, you could only see a corner of her
couch) with her sumptuous man, talking about her sumptuous best-selling (crappy) book. It pains me to say it, but she looked great, all fragile and ethereal and unbald. Mucho, mucho air-brushing, I suspect.
Anton also looked amazing, far more beautiful than her actually, especially as his hair was his own and not a Burt Reynolds-style weave. I was shocked by the sameness – he looked just like my Anton – and affronted by the differences; his hair had got longer and his shirt was all sharp creases and smooth cotton – a far cry from when his clothes used to look like they’d been through a mangle. (This hadn’t added to his charm, I’m not that bad.)
I gazed at the photo and let his laughing eyes look directly into mine. He’s smiling at me. Stop! You looper! Next I’d be thinking he was communicating with me in code.
Jostled and bumped by other travellers, Cody at my shoulder, I skittered over the story of Lily Wright’s rise to bestseller-dominance and I was afraid that I was going to throw up in public.
I rounded on Cody. ‘I thought you said she wasn’t setting the world on fire.’
‘She wasn’t.’ He was raging that he’d missed a trick. ‘Don’t take it out on me. It’s yourself you should be angry with.’ Cody never says sorry; he just shifts the blame. ‘Look at the chance you threw away today.’
He nodded at the smiling image in the paper. ‘See that? It could have been you.’
I didn’t buy the paper – I couldn’t – but I thought about Anton all the way home. This was the first time I’d even seen him in over two years but his photo affected me as if we’d split up only last week. And I’d come so close to him today. I might have passed by his very office, I could have been within feet of him. It must mean something.
8
We slipped quietly into the fifth month of Dad’s absence. I managed to keep it from myself for a couple of days because I was so depressed about other things, mostly my stillborn writing career.
Jojo was right – a husband leaving a wife for a younger woman really was the oldest story in the book. Even though my novel wasn’t going to happen, it all began to unfold in my head, especially since I’d started waking again at five in the morning.