Locked Out of Heaven

by Shirley Benton

  I went into town to buy Mum a birthday present and I bumped into Ricky and Stacey. When he tried to pretend he hadn’t seen me, I was furious – and then I looked at Stacey properly and knew exactly why he’d done it. She was skanky-looking with ratty hair and looked like she had two black eyes.

  When I walked right up to them and said hello, she gave me a hostile look that reminded me of the way the zombies had looked at Mum and me that time in the flats. Ricky said they had to go and walked off without saying goodbye. When he eventually came home, I cornered him the second he got in the door.

  “What are you doing hanging around with Stacey?” I said to him. “She’s on the gear! And don’t bother denying it, cos you’re wasting your time!”

  Ricky reddened. “Shut up, will you! Mum and Dad’ll hear you!”

  “They’re not here – they’re off at some anti-drugs meeting in the city. Now, if that isn’t irony, I don’t know what is. Out of the three of us, I never thought you’d be the one to fall into the trap, Ricky.” I started to cry. “Look at you!” I dragged him over to the hall mirror. “Your eyes are popping out of your head! Is she the one giving you the gear, or has she got you robbing people in town on a Saturday like the rest of the crowd around here do?”

  “Shut the fuck up, you bitch!” Ricky said, his eyes wild.

  He might as well have physically slapped me. Ricky never used to curse, ever. As for calling me a bitch, I’d never heard him call anyone that, never mind me.

  “Stay out of my business, d’you hear me?”

  He made a dash for the front door and marched out, rattling the foundations of the house as he slammed it shut behind him. My whole body started to shake as violently as if I were standing on a bucking bronco’s back. My parents’ worst nightmare had – has – come true.

  And I haven’t a clue what to do about it.

  I’m not expecting you to talk suddenly and give me the answer, by the way. It just helps to write it down and share it with somebody. I’m not allowed to hang out with many people from around here and wouldn’t be allowed to share family issues with the few people I do have anything to do with, so you’re the closest thing I have to a friend right now. And we’ve only just met, imagine. That paints a pretty sad picture of my life, doesn’t it?

  I’ll go now and find a suitable place to hide you. Mum’s a nosey auld sod, so I’m thinking that the lining of something would be a good home for you. It’s right about now that I wish I had a suitcase. I might save up my pocket money and buy a cheap one somewhere, just for symbolic reasons – packing my stuff up for the day I get out of Blackbeg, that kind of notion. I hope I haven’t bored the lines off your page with talk of Blackbeg – the place tends to consume me. I’m not sure if I’m going to be good at this diary-keeping lark. You might have to be patient . . .

  Chapter 13

  On the day the first episode of Diary of a Boomeranger was aired, we were invited to appear on Eire TV’s morning show, Wake Up Ireland, for promotion purposes. I arrived in the studios feeling like I’d been on the batter. Oran had been up all night teething and I’d had a total of an hour’s sleep in five-minute segments. The last fifteen of those had been in the car before I’d come in.

  I’d been worried that the rest of the first week’s footage of me and my life was a bit too invasive and would upset Susie and Willie by painting Blackbeg in the grimmest light imaginable, but now I was too tired to think about it any further. Paul, however, seemed thrilled that it had been raining the day he came out to film around our estate, as if it was some sort of pathetic fallacy reflecting the doomed circumstances of my living situation.

  The make-up artist stood back and surveyed her handiwork.

  “All done, ladies. You’re ready for your first live TV appearance! How do you feel?”

  “Terrified,” Eve said in a quivering voice. “I wish I could go home.”

  “Oh, we’ll be fine,” Stephanie said. “The three of us could do this in our sleep.”

  “Holly?”

  “Cripplingly tired,” was all I could manage. “I might be putting Stephanie’s theory to the test.”

  The show’s assistant producer met us at the door of hair and make-up to lead us on set.

  “Ladies, welcome. I’m Noelle. Oh, gosh, you haven’t had your make-up done yet.” Noelle looked at me in dismay and tapped her watch. “There’s no time now – you’re due on in two minutes.”

  “No, it’s been done.” I hated how small my voice sounded.

  “Really? God, you can’t get the staff these days.” She made a shooing motion with her hand. “The usual presenter is out on location today, so you’ll have Kelvin Cassidy interviewing you.”

  “Ah! Christ, not that prick,” Stephanie said.

  Kelvin Cassidy was like a dog with a bone when he got his teeth into a subject and asked all the questions straight out that other presenters would couch carefully. If you didn’t give him a direct answer, he’d fire additional questions at you at rapid speed until the subject of his inquisition eventually gave in. I hated him with a vengeance.

  “He thinks he’s such a fine thing, even though he’s as old as the hills and looks like a horse fit for the knacker’s yard,” Stephanie continued. “It’s disgusting. I wouldn’t ride him into battle.”

  “Kelvin’s actually lovely when you get to know him,” Noelle lied outrageously.

  “Some people think Rottweilers are lovely when you get to know them.”

  “Don’t be daft, Stephanie. Out you go and good luck – not that you’ll need it. It’ll be like having a chat about the weather with a little old lady at a bus stop.”

  We took our places on the guest couch during the show’s ad break, with me smarting at Noelle’s make-up remark. I should have told her to get stuffed. Well, that was it now – I wasn’t taking any more nonsense from anyone today. I was just too tired to tolerate it.

  Kelvin marched in and threw himself on the presenter’s armchair just as someone else did a countdown of five seconds to air. He made no eye contact with any of the three of us, although I noticed him taking a sweeping look at our legs. He looked his usual unkempt self, with his bushy eyebrows gaining possession on the bottom half of his forehead.

  “Welcome back to Wake Up Ireland with me, Kelvin Cassidy. Next up, we have three ladies who had the world at their Louboutined feet: Holly, Eve and Stephanie. Now, they’ve lost everything and are suffering the indignity of being a thirty-something . . . ” Kelvin glanced at me. “Or forty-something? Living at home with their ageing parents. They’re what’s called boomerangers and are the subject of a popular documentary produced by this very channel. The first episode will be aired tonight. Holly, Eve and Stephanie join me in the studio now. Good morning, ladies.”

  I managed to trill a bright “good morning” in unison with Eve and Stephanie, although I wanted to snarl at Kelvin instead. Forty-something, my eye!

  “I’m curious to know how it must feel for grown women to have to take a step back in time and move back in with their parents, particularly for you, Holly. Not only do you have four children, but you worked as a counsellor for many years and had a luxury home in the most prestigious part of town with your man-about-town husband. Now, you’re separated, unemployed, and you’re relying on your parents to keep a roof over your head. How does that feel?”

  “Like sand between your toes as you walk barefoot on the beach on a sunny day, Kelvin. Or the first sip of a strong alcoholic drink after someone’s been tormenting you with annoying questions. Oh, it’s wonderful, no doubt about it.”

  Uh-oh. Did I just said that? You’re on television, Holly. Be careful.

  “Clearly, you’re very angry, Holly. And who could blame you, at your stage in life? Tell me about growing up in Blackbeg and how it feels to be back there.”

  “Well, my parents did a lot for me growing up, so I appreciate having the opportunity to spend time with them again.”

  “And Blackbeg?” Kelvin persisted.

>   “Some parts of it have changed because of the regeneration project, that’s for sure, and yet it’s still the same place in many respects.”

  Kelvin uncrossed his legs and leaned forwards.

  “You’re being very careful what you say, Holly, but let’s call a spade a spade here. Blackbeg is known for a whole host of unsavoury things. Last week, the gardai seized over 400 kilogrammes of cocaine from an address in Blackbeg in the largest inland drug seizure in the state’s history, for example. Every adult in this entire country knows what goes on there. Surely it pains you to be associated with a place like that again after how far you came in life?”

  “You’re from where you’re from, Kelvin.”

  “I think most people would say ‘rather you than me’. I know I would,” Kelvin said. “Let’s move on to you, Eve. Out of the three of you, you must have found it the easiest for you to move back home. After all, you had an idyllic upbringing, didn’t you? You were brought up in an affluent suburb, educated privately at both primary and secondary school . . . you were given every opportunity, I believe. And you only lived away from home for what, two years before this?”

  “Em . . . y . . . yes,” Eve spluttered.

  Although she was somewhat used to the cameras by now, Kelvin terrified her.

  “I lived in London after I finished my degree in Trinity College Dublin and started working.”

  “And then you lost your job,” Kelvin said. “Tell me, what made you think you’d make a living from playing the cello?”

  “It was the only thing I ever really wanted to do.”

  “Plenty of people do things with their lives they don’t want to do just to make a living. Were you not able to get a job in McDonald’s?”

  “I . . . I didn’t try to get a job in McDonald’s.”

  “No, no. Of course you didn’t. And tell me, is it nice to have someone picking up after you again now? A little birdie tells me that your parents get the cleaners in several times a week.”

  Eve blushed furiously. “They’ve always done that – they don’t do it for me! I quite like cleaning.”

  “Hmm. It’s probably quite a novelty when you never had to do it growing up, I’d imagine.” Kelvin’s eyes rested on Stephanie. “And then we have Stephanie, the shopaholic.”

  “I was a shopaholic, Kelvin.”

  “Was, yes. Whatever you say. Is this addiction similar to alcoholism or overeating? Do you have to go to Shopaholics Anonymous, the same way that women who’ve eaten too much at the weekend drop into a slimming club on Mondays to make themselves feel better?”

  “I don’t think the subject of addictions of any kind is something that should be treated flippantly. I don’t attend meetings, but I definitely had a problem with spending money and it was something I had to address.”

  “And did you buy . . . everything?” Kelvin’s eyes dropped to Stephanie’s chest.

  If Stephanie was surprised, she didn’t show it.

  “Yes. Do you want the number of the place I used, if you need surgical enhancements yourself?”

  “I’m only asking because the public are interested, Stephanie.”

  Kelvin sounded bored now. He looked back in my direction again.

  “So, Holly, how do you think you’re going to get out of this situation? Or is this it for you now – living at home with your parents and rearing your children in their home instead of yours for the rest of your days?”

  Oh, God, I really shouldn’t have come here. I wasn’t able to handle someone like Kelvin looking down his nose at me after a full night of comforting a teething baby. Something inside me snapped.

  “Don’t be so ridiculous, Kelvin. This is nothing but a temporary setback. By the time the revisited show comes round, the kids and I will have the standard of our old lives back.” I looked at the girls. “All three of us will be sorted out by the revisited show, actually, won’t we, girls?”

  Eve looked at Stephanie and quickly looked away into the distance again. I made eye contact with Stephanie and maintained it until Stephanie muttered something that sounded like a yes.

  Kelvin was all over it immediately.

  “Stephanie, you don’t sound so sure there. I don’t blame you, from what I’ve heard. Holly, do you really mean to tell me that in six months, all three of you will be standing on your own feet again as if none of this ever happened?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” I sat up straighter and stuck my chin out.

  “I see. Well, I for one am very much looking forward to this revisited show and I think I can safely say that everyone else in the country is, too.” He sniggered. “It’s going to be one hell of a spectacle.”

  “You’d better believe it,” I said, practically spitting. “If you want to see three empowered ladies show the world what’s what, you tune in then.”

  Kelvin finished up, muttering something about an ad break coming up between bursts of laughter.

  “Holly, what have you done?” Eve said when we left the set. The panic in her voice was unmistakable. “There’s no chance of me getting myself sorted! There are no jobs going!”

  “I’ve been applying left, right and centre for jobs, too, and I can’t get anything,” Stephanie added.

  “We’ll think of something, ladies,” I said much more confidently than I felt. “I was just so annoyed at that idiot for speaking to us so dismissively.”

  “You’ll think of something, Holly, and let us know when you do. This was your brainwave, not ours.”

  Stephanie linked Eve’s arm and they walked away, shaking their heads.

  The ramifications of my words sunk in. A public pledge to have myself sorted in six months! I wouldn’t have myself sorted in six years. I was suddenly wide awake.

  My phone rang as I went to collect my coat and handbag. Susie. Great.

  “Hello, Susie.”

  “Holly, did you really spend all those years working successfully or were you making it up? You hear stories of these people who put on a suit every morning and go out to work, but they really spend their mornings drinking cider by the banks of a river, and their afternoons sobering up and writing poetry.

  “I find it hard to believe that someone with the amount of experience in a work environment that you’re supposed to have, and in the profession you’re in, would react to Kelvin the way you just did. And you always did smell faintly of apples whenever you came over here for dinner . . .”

  “There was a time when I used to eat a lot of apples.”

  “I presume that apple-eating habit has gone by the wayside. You’re going to be so busy finding a way to sort yourself out within six months, though, that you won’t have time to eat anyway. That’s one way to lose three stone, I suppose.”

  “Am I that much of a mess? You really think there’s no way I’ll be able to find a way to get us our own place within six months?”

  “You might get some pokey apartment with rent allowance when your social welfare claim comes through, but a place that’s even a fraction of the standard you used to have . . . no chance. Not unless you have plenty of money to put with your rent allowance.”

  I didn’t even have enough money for a can of Red Bull to keep me awake.

  “Looks like I’ll have to find a way to make more money, then.”

  “Even though you haven’t been able to find so much as your hairbrush since you left Terry? And what about those other poor creatures who you’ve dragged into this? They’ll just end up with egg on their faces at the end of all this – as if they weren’t bad enough. Oh, Holly, you’ve really gone and done it now.”

  I opened my mouth to argue but instead said the words I never thought I’d say to Susie ever again.

  “You know what? You’re right.”

  I was sick with nerves when I tuned in to watch the show that night, but it turned out to be a lot less traumatic than I’d feared. Stephanie’s segment was up first. I was sure I wasn’t imagining the fact that her chest seemed to focus quite st
rongly in her footage. Then it was my turn. The scenes in Sorrento Hill and Blackbeg were exactly as I’d imagined them but much shorter than I’d feared. In no time we’d moved on to Eve’s story, then it was time for a commercial break.

  When we went back to Stephanie and her chest, her second segment seemed to go on forever and mine was just a one-minute soundbite of me talking about how I was hoping to make the most of the opportunity to be at home with my parents again. That obviously wasn’t what people wanted to hear, because the show quickly moved on to a section where Eve burst into tears because she was so worried about not having a career in music ever again.

  And then it was all over and I was still in one piece. If I hadn’t been so worried about the crap I’d spouted to Kelvin, I’d have been slightly elated that I’d survived my first episode.

  The next day, I’d just finished filming a promotional ad for the show in the Eire TV studios, when I saw Luke emerging from a meeting room.

  “Luke! Can I talk to you about something?”

  Luke shook his head. “I really have to go, Holly.”

  “This can’t wait.”

  And it really couldn’t. Time was money and all that.

  “Can you give it to me in ten seconds? That’s all I have.”

  He was already walking away backwards as he spoke, beckoning me to follow if I wanted to use those ten seconds.

  Crap. Explaining the concept of pimp my life – the only moneymaking idea I’d managed to come up with, again as a result of a conversation with Hayley involving Kim Kardashian – and convincing him to get involved in it was going to take a lot more than ten seconds.

  “Can you come for a drink with me tonight?” I said.

  “That’s it? That’s what couldn’t wait?”

  “No! I mean, I need to talk to you about something, but it’ll take a while – I wasn’t asking you out for a drink as such.”