“Who are you?” the dude asked.
“I’m Holly.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me? Why are you here?”
I bit back the temptation to say something snarky.
“To meet Luke for an interview.”
“I booked this meeting room yesterday to use right now.”
I shrugged. “Teena in reception told me to come here.”
“Well, you can’t stay here. I need this room now.”
I sat down and smiled. “I was told to come here and I’m staying here until I meet the person I was supposed to meet. I hope that’s not a problem for you.”
“It is, actually!”
“Oh dear.” I gave him one of my best fake smiles. I’d become good at them recently.
More footsteps. This time, Luke walked into the room. I recognised him immediately from his picture on the website, although it hadn’t done him justice. He wasn’t traditionally handsome by any means, but he was definitely striking. Black hair with only a smattering of grey at the sides, black moustache, black beard, black glasses, black suit. Red shirt. Red socks. Black shoes with red shoelaces. He was like a colour-misproportioned human ladybird.
“Okay, Brian, you can go now. Thanks.”
Brian’s angry demeanour dissipated. “No problem, Luke. Good luck, Holly.” He left the room in a flurry of waves and smiles.
Luke sat down and pointed at a free seat in front of him.
I remained standing. “What’s going on, Luke? I came here for an interview!”
He smiled. “That was your interview – part of it, anyway.”
“What?”
“Sit down, Holly. Let’s do something conventional for the first time today while I explain everything.”
I oscillated between walking out and sitting down. Reluctantly, I sat down. I couldn’t help remarking to myself on how lovely Luke’s accent was – undeniably English but with an Irish inflection.
Focus, Holly.
“So?”
“This entire building is riddled with CCTV, for reasons I won’t get into, and I’ve been watching your reactions to our tests in my office. I apologise if you found my interviewing style disconcerting, but it’s meant to be. Reality TV can be a disconcerting business, Holly, and most of the people I’ve worked with on various shows have never been on TV before. They have expectations that usually are only partially fulfilled or aren’t at all.
“The purpose of what you’ve just experienced was to give you a taste of what might lie ahead if you become part of Diary of a Boomeranger. You might find yourself waiting around a lot while filming. We might ask you to do things you don’t really want to do. When the show is on and you’re invited to various promotional functions, you might have people asking you who you are and acting like the answer you’ve given them doesn’t impress them very much. You might try to find promotional opportunities as a result of this show, only to find doors that you thought would be open are slammed in your face. Teena can control the doors from her desk, by the way.”
“I suppose it’s good of you to let me know the reality of the so-called reality,” I said.
He smiled, somewhat kindly. In fact, his smile was a bit too kind.
“It’s for my own benefit too, Holly. I need to find people who have what it takes to cope with being on a show like this. Contestants on reality TV shows are privately and publicly judged, usually negatively. Everything about them, everything that they are as people, is summarised and condensed into a few buzzwords that represent them.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had contestants coming up to me mid-season to say they’re leaving. They’re not, of course – not unless they want to go down the legal route – but it’s always because the experience hasn’t been as positive as they’d hoped. I need people for this show, but I need the right people. Now, let me tell you how Diary of a Boomeranger is going to be structured.”
Luke went on to say that unlike most shows of this nature, which were pre-recorded in their entirety in advance, Diary of a Boomeranger would be filmed from Monday to Saturday, edited and prepared for release on Sunday and broadcast the following Monday. There’d be four episodes and therefore four weeks of filming and editing, the broadcast starting in mid-October and ending in mid-November, and there’d be a revisited show six months later.
“We’re doing it this way in response to feedback about previous shows in relation to them being broadcast too long after being filmed, when circumstances in the personal lives of the show's participants will have changed, the show therefore being out of date or even obsolete to a certain extent. There have also been allegations of shows being potentially storyboarded when the whole thing has been filmed, so we’re trying to eliminate that kind of speculation by doing something more organic.
“Filming will start in a fortnight, so we’ll need to have the right people on board as soon as possible. Do you have any questions?”
“Yes. What’s your verdict? Am I right or wrong for this?”
I was suddenly feeling nervous. All along, I’d thought I was a shoo-in. I wasn’t sure I wanted this role, but I needed it. It wasn’t as if there was anything else in the pipeline.
Luke raised an eyebrow.
“Candidates are usually told how they did after an interview, Holly, not during.”
My cheeks burned.
“However, you’ve asked a direct question and I admire that, so I’ll give you a direct answer. You kept your cool very well earlier, but I get the feeling your heart isn’t in this. Why do you want to be on the show?”
I shrugged. Everything I’d prepared before coming here seemed pointless now. Luke wasn’t playing the typical interview game and would call me up on spoofing without any hesitation.
“I need the money, Luke. That’s why I’m here, plain and simple.”
“I see.”
“Don’t think that means you can get me for less than the remuneration figure Judi mentioned if you decide to pick me, though,” I said quickly. “I hope that doesn’t sound cheeky, but I just want to be clear about that in case there’s any . . . confusion . . . down the line if you decide I’m a suitable candidate.”
Luke smiled. “You mean, in case I decide to screw you.”
“No, no,” I insisted, although that was exactly what I had been thinking. “I’m just trying to make myself and my intentions as clear as possible, that’s all. From your point of view, if you pick me, I think I’ll provide plenty of talking points. If I’m in it, this series is going to show exactly what it’s like to go from extreme wealth to . . . well, not quite poverty, but not far off, either.”
“Okay.” Luke stood up. “Thanks for coming in, Holly. I’ll let you know if you have the position tomorrow around midday, okay?”
“Great. And, em, if I’m picked, how soon would I be paid? Sorry for asking, it’s just . . . well, it’d be rude not to, I guess.”
“Payment would be on completion of the show, Holly.”
“Oh.” There wasn’t much more I could say. There was no point begging for a sub when I didn’t know if I was even getting the gig yet. “Okay. Thanks for your time, Luke.”
“Holly, just a minute.” He beckoned me back as I walked away. “What’s your favourite colour?”
“Em . . . purple.”
“How many cows do you reckon there are in Ireland?”
“Seriously?”
“Of course.”
“Right. Em . . . a million?”
“Only a million?”
“Every second person is a vegetarian or a vegan these days, aren’t they?”
“I’m not. Are you?”
“No.”
“One or the other of us is the second person. Do you want to guess again?”
“Does me getting a place on the show depend on it?”
“Maybe.”
“Three million, so.”
“Okay.”
“Em . . . can I ask what that was all about?”
/>
“Just standard interview questions to help me get to know candidates better.”
“I see. But how does my guess on cows help you to get to know me better?”
“Oh, that one. It doesn’t, really. I was just wondering if you knew the answer. Haven’t a clue myself but was thinking about it the other day.”
“Right. I see.”
“Okay, Holly, we’ll talk tomorrow, so. Just press the release buttons on the doors to let yourself out.”
I laughed. “Another test, eh?”
“Sorry?”
“It’s to see if I have any cop on.”
Luke frowned. “I’m not with you.”
“It’s okay, I know how this works now. You want me to go walking out there like a big eejit, then you’ll come out and say ‘Holly, everyone knows interviewees are always escorted from the interview room to reception.’ As if I’d be allowed to roam around the building! Besides, it’d be very rude just to throw an interviewee out into a corridor and let them make their own way back to reception, wouldn’t it?”
“Actually, Holly, this part isn’t a test. We just trust our interviewees not to go racing around our building like toddlers. The CCTV helps that trust element, of course.”
“Oh. Right. Okay. Sorry, sorry . . .”
“But it’s good to get the feedback about the rudeness aspect.”
“Sorry, I wasn’t saying you were rude as such, just—”
“No explanation needed, Holly. Thanks for your time. Let me walk you out.”
Well, one thing was for sure – it was time to go back to the drawing board on the moneymaking front, because this was one job I definitely wasn’t going to get.
Chapter 9
“You’re going to be on what?”
I could understand her amazement. I was shocked to the core myself to have a place on the show after making such a balls of the interview. They really were stuck, but there was no point in volunteering that information. Susie would probably come to that conclusion herself shortly anyway.
“A show called Diary of a Boomeranger,” I said carefully.
It would only be a matter of seconds before she mentioned Australia. My money was on “It’s far from Australia you were reared.” As if I needed to be told that!
But it wasn’t to be.
“Oh, yes, they had something about that in the ad break for Corrie one night. I did think at the time that I knew someone who fit the criteria, but never thought you’d be mad enough to have anything to do with it! You know they only want to make a holy show of people on those programmes, don’t you? You’ll all be given roles – personas – and knowing your luck, you’ll be the butt of the joke. The fat jolly one, maybe, except not so jolly. The token fat girl.”
“I’m working on my weight,” I said.
I wasn’t. I was just too poor to buy anything other than the bare essentials now, and between that and stress, I seemed to have lost about a half a stone. Things like that never happened to me, so I felt it was only right to point out my weight loss before the whole thing went into reverse and doubled for good measure.
“Doesn’t matter. They’ll pick one skeletal-looking creature, one posh-totty type who’ll be wiggling around in 7 For All Humanity jeans—”
“Mankind,” I said, more to try to stop the flow of conversation than because I wanted to correct Susie.
It didn’t work.
“Oh, whatever they’re called – anyway, it’ll be a posh girl with a curvy bum and a dainty chest, and then there’ll be a fatso who everyone can feel sorry for if they’re kind-hearted and laugh at or pity if they’re not.
“Have you lost the plot, Holly? First you dump your husband and then you sign up for a joke of a show like this?”
“How are you such an expert on reality TV shows all of a sudden?”
“My children never used to come to see me. I had a lot of time on my hands.”
I waited for the Cliff bashing to commence, but a good minute passed and Susie didn’t bring him up at all. Maybe that meant I was about to be bashed instead, but surely she’d run out of fuel with me by now. Come to think of it, Cliff hadn’t been mentioned at all since I moved back home.
My older brother was living in County Meath with his wife and two children in a mansion he’d built on the site of an old demolished cottage. It couldn’t have been any more different from the environment he grew up in, which was exactly what he wanted. He rarely came near Blackbeg but sent Susie or Willie a text every week or so to let them know he was alive and well.
He’d send birthday cards – or, more accurately, his wife, Jane, would, addressed from them both and their children – a few days before Susie’s and Willie’s birthday each year, and he’d always invite Susie and Willie over to spend Christmas Day with him and his family. They never accepted. A few times a year, he and Willie would meet up in a city centre bar and watch a game of football or a rugby match. Meeting Willie was safe enough in Cliff’s eyes. Susie was the problem. Susie and Blackbeg.
Cliff was a property developer and had enjoyed great success in the boom times, but like so many others in that field, he’d speculated to accumulate once too often and hadn’t exactly been left with a huge fortune.
And then, just when we were out of the woods, Susie said, “Your brother promised to come over for lunch this Sunday but surprise, surprise, I haven’t had confirmation from him yet.”
“I was talking to him yesterday and he’s absolutely up to his eyes in finishing his new development,” I said. “He’ll come on Sunday, I’m sure of it.”
I made a mental note to ring Cliff later and remind him. He seemed to be working eighteen-hour days recently. He’d bought a detached house at an auction for over a million euros. It was located in a County Meath suburb that had a shortage of property on sale, and he’d planned to knock the house down and build a large number of properties on the site.
Shortly after he bought it he’d been refused planning permission for sixteen two- and three-bedroom terraced houses on the site, on the grounds that the number of houses would result in development on part of a public open space area. He’d then reapplied for permission for twelve three-bedroom terraces and was refused because the council felt his development would affect residents in a nearby estate. Apparently, the number of houses would result in overlooking and overshadowing.
He’d reapplied for a third time and was granted planning permission for six four-bedroom homes three years ago, but as the bottom had been falling out of his business at the time, he’d only managed to get the money together for costs and labour to start developing early this year. Thankfully, he’d had the sense not to use his family home as collateral for any of his business deals. Unlike us eejits.
“All I want now is to get these houses up, sell as many as I can and make that million-euro site money back,” he said. “Then that’s it – I’m done with property.”
“But what will you do then? You won’t know what to do with yourself when you’re not working!”
“I don’t know. Take it easy, maybe. Relax once in a while. Drop the kids off at school and collect them again. At least I’ll see them awake every day when this development is done. All I’ve seen of them during the week since they were born are their tousled heads in their beds at night.”
The “being busy” card didn’t wash with Susie, though.
“I’ll believe Cliff is coming when he walks through that door. So tell me, then. What has you going on that show? Is it that you want to show us off?”
“No—”
“Of course not.”
“No, what I was going to say is that I won’t be dragging you and Willie into this in any way. We won’t be filming here in the house. They’ll just take some footage of the Blackbeg area, most likely, but not here.”
“No. Imagine if they showed this place and then your repossessed house . . . well, that wouldn’t do at all.”
“That’s not why we’re not doing it, Susie!” God, she was i
mpossible. “I wouldn’t dream of having them film your home – that would be a huge imposition. This is my project and I don’t want to drag you all into it. I just need to earn money. That’s the only reason I’m doing it. You know I’m in a state of perpetual panic about my finances these days.”
“How much are they paying you?”
I mumbled the figure.
“The whole world sees you coming, Holly.”
“That’s a really good payment for this type of show. Besides, it’s not just about what they’re paying me! I’m trying to open myself to opportunities to get the hell out of . . .”
“Here?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! To get out of the financial state Terry has put us in, of course! What else can I do, Susie? Sit back here and wait for the state to bail me out? You know I can’t claim social welfare until Terry and I have been separated for three months – and even if I do get it eventually, that money will just about get me from one end of the week to the next. What about rainy day money?”
“Why don’t you get a proper job, the type where they do collections for people’s weddings and leaving dos and the like? Then you could at least rob a fiver out of the envelope if you got stuck. You’re from Blackbeg, after all.”
“At least I’m doing something positive. I’m not sitting here doing nothing. If only I hadn’t let Terry persuade me to give up work years ago.”
“Wasn’t it well for you for the last five years, sitting at home getting the roof over your head paid for while your husband did all the work!”
It was clearly one of those days. A day when Susie would say or do anything to rile me. Perhaps she and Willie had had another of their epic rows before I’d come in, or perhaps it was that time of the week again when she had to torment me to keep herself sane.
“I don’t think the sisterhood would think much of that comment, Susie. If it’s that easy to mind kids, you can have all of mine for the afternoon.”
“Oh, I of all people know it’s not easy to mind kids. And you, Holly, know very well just how hard I learned that lesson.”
Locked Out of Heaven Page 5