Best of Friends (58 page)

“Yeah, she did ask me that,” admitted Abby.

“That would be just Roxie’s style,” Mike said. “She wants to undermine you and the best way to do that is in print. If you come across in an interview like an embittered old hag, then it’s much easier for her to fire you. And that is what we don’t want to happen. When you leave Beech Productions, it will be to go to a better job. They won’t be firing you.”

“What kind of better job do you have in mind exactly?” said Abby, feeling dispirited.

“I’ve been putting feelers out discreetly and the Seven Two Seven Network are talking about producing an evening TV chat show,” Mike said calmly. “You’d be perfect for it. They’re not looking for a twenty-something kid, they’re looking for a mature and experienced interviewer with warmth and pulling power when it comes to the audience. You can do it.”

“I’ve never interviewed anyone in my life,” said Abby, shocked.

“And what do you do every time you go into somebody’s house for
Declutter
and ask them what they want done to make their lives better?” Mike enquired. “Isn’t that interviewing? You interview people every time you’re on the TV, Abby. You’re a natural at it. You just don’t realise that, and now,” he chuckled, “neither do the powers that be in Beech Productions. When I’ve finished with your career, they’re going to be so mad they let you go.”

Abby heard what he was saying but the words weren’t quite penetrating her brain. She never believed she had any skills at all. In fact, she’d often thought she’d fallen into her TV career by sheer accident, the fluke of being in the right place at the right time rather than because she had any talent for anything. Being good at dejunking people’s houses was hardly a skill. It was just something she was OK at.

It was lovely of Mike to say all those nice things but he didn’t understand: if she was on a proper TV show where she had to interview people seriously, it would all come out. People would see that she was a fake, that she couldn’t interview to save her life, that she wasn’t the natural television performer she’d conned them into thinking she was.

Mike’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “I know what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re giving yourself a long list of reasons why you can’t do another TV show, why you would be totally useless at interviewing people and why you certainly don’t want to go to an audition.”

“I’m not,” protested Abby. “I’m …” And she stopped, because he was absolutely correct. That’s exactly what she was doing—talking herself out of the new job. “So you want me to go and audition for this new show?” she asked tentatively.

“Yes,” Mike said. “I’ve been talking to the producer over the last few weeks and he’s very interested. I didn’t want to mention it to you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up but I think now would be a good time for them to try you out. You’re just what they’re looking for, Abby, believe me. Believe in yourself.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“It’s easy for you to do it too,” Mike pointed out calmly. “You’re a star, Abby, you just have to believe in yourself.”

“But I’m going on holiday in a few days’ time,” she said anxiously. “I can’t do an audition before I go, can I?”

“Yes, you can. If you leave it till you come back, you’ll be worrying about it all through your holiday. I’ll set it up for the day after tomorrow. You can fly to Dublin in the morning and we’ll do the audition in the afternoon. Then I’ll bring you out for a fabulous dinner in the evening and we’ll get plastered and tell each other our problems.”

“Dublin?” asked Abby, feeling stupid. Of course, the 727 Network was based in Dublin. “If I got the show, I’d have to work in Dublin, wouldn’t I?”

“The show would go out one night a week,” Mike explained, “so you’d probably have to spend two days a week in Dublin, three max. That would mean two nights away from home. Would that be a problem?”

Would that be a problem? Six months ago, the answer would have been yes. Then, Tom would have been upset at her going away for two nights at a time and he’d certainly have felt that her career was interfering with their family life. It was different now. She didn’t have to think about Tom. All she had to think about was Jess and how this would affect her. If, and it was a big if, she got the job, she would have to work out a way to have Tom take care of Jess when she was in Dublin. Jess might have thought she was a grown-up but she wasn’t, not yet. She couldn’t stay in the house on her own.

But then—another idea came to Abby. She and Jess could always move to Dublin. There was nothing to keep Abby in Dunmore, not any longer. She had her friends there, that was true, but the life had gone out of the place for her now without Tom. When the house was sold, there would be no emotional chains holding her there. Jess would certainly hate to leave her dad, Steph, Oliver and her friends from school, but she could stay with Tom at weekends and Steph could come and visit them in Dublin. Abby didn’t think Jess was serious about Oliver, not really. She spent far more time with Steph than with him. And besides, Oliver planned to go away to college next year.

If they moved, she and Jess could get a nice apartment, somewhere central, somewhere near a good school for Jess. And she’d learn to love it.

Lots of couples move once they’ve split up, and suddenly, in a burst of excitement, Abby could see the sense of it. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea: moving to Dublin—getting away from the memories of her life with Tom in Dunmore. All she had to do now was a good audition for the chat show role.

“OK,” she said to Mike. “You’re on. I’ll do the audition. And perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I do need to get out of Beech—and out of Dunmore altogether,” she added.

Mike spoke gently. “Nobody said you had to leave your home.”

“I know,” said Abby, “but all of a sudden, it seems like a very good idea. A new job and a new start. I suppose all I have to do now is actually get the job.”

“When they see you, they’re going to love you,” Mike said confidently. “Trust me.”

Abby laughed grimly. “Why is it that when people say ‘trust me,’ I don’t want to trust them?”

“That’s because you have got a very jaundiced view of life at the moment,” Mike said calmly. “You need a holiday, that’s for sure.”

The night before the audition, Abby and Jess had a huge row. It started, like many rows, over something ridiculously simple. Jess being out with Steph, Abby had spent the day going around the house tidying up clutter. She figured that if they were going to have to sell up, she should make the place spick and span. It was amazing that, for a woman with a declutter-your-life series, there were so many excess belongings in Lyonnais: cupboards jammed with odds and ends, drawers filled to the brim with warranties and instruction booklets for bits of equipment that Abby didn’t know they possessed.

Since Tom was still living in his friend Leo’s house he had not cleared out his belongings from Lyonnais. He’d taken his clothes, or most of them. But the shelves in his wardrobe were full of junk, there were big file boxes at the bottoms of cupboards, all stuffed with papers and photos, and Lord knows what, all jumbled up in the drawers. Abby didn’t feel it was right to throw out anything of his, but she made a big pile of all his belongings on the landing, intending to move it all tidily to the drawers and cupboards of a spare room. One day, when they’d sold the house, there would be enough money left over for them both to have a small home and then Tom would be able to take everything. This would have to do for now. It was a miserable job, but Abby gritted her teeth and forced herself on. It was amazing the things she discovered in Tom’s belongings. She had never known he was the sort of person to keep old birthday cards and mementoes; he was always so good at throwing things out. But she had been wrong about that, as she had been wrong about so many other things.

In a big file marked “school planning fund,” she found every card and letter she had ever sent him over the years. There were even Valentine’s cards. She remembered having arguments about Valentine’s Day—Tom never seemed to consider the ritual a necessary part of life, while Abby loved getting sentimental messages and small bunches of flowers. She would never have believed that he’d have kept the cards that she gave him but there they all were, not tied with a romantic red ribbon, but kept all the same.

She didn’t read any of these letters and cards. It would have been too painful. Instead she put the school fund file at the bottom of the pile on the landing. Perhaps Tom wouldn’t realise that she had noticed them. She hadn’t got as far as moving all of his belongings into the spare bedroom when the doorbell rang and she had to race downstairs and spend ages talking to somebody doing a charity collection. By the time the collector was gone, it was nearly six o’clock and Abby decided she’d just nip into the kitchen and put something on for dinner. She was rooting around in the freezer to see if she could get her hands on a vegetable lasagne when she heard the front door open.

“Hello, darling,” Abby said cheerfully. She found that this was the best way to get on with Jess these days: to seem bright and cheery, no matter how miserable or monosyllabic Jess was in return. It wasn’t always easy, adopting the happy mother persona. “How was your day, Jess?” she called out, trying to sound as if she wasn’t interrogating her daughter to find out what she’d been up to. There was no answer. In the kitchen, Abby sighed. Another night of fun. Was she the only mother on the planet who couldn’t communicate with her sixteen-year-old daughter? Or did everyone else have the same problem? If only she knew.

“Hiya, Mum.” Jess appeared at the kitchen door. She looked worn out and Abby instantly felt guilty for her earlier thoughts.

“Is everything OK?” she asked anxiously, abandoning her plans not to sound like an interrogator.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” said Jess, although it was obvious from her face that everything wasn’t fine.

Abby was nervous of enquiring too far in case she pushed Jess away. Her instinct was to ask, but if something was wrong, Jess would tell her, right? Pushy mothers heard nothing but interested, non-probing mothers heard everything.

“You look a little bit tired, Jess,” said Abby tentatively. That sounded OK, didn’t it? It wasn’t prying but it was concerned.

“Yeah, I am a bit,” replied Jess. “Steph and I went for a long walk,” she added. That was a lie for a start. Steph had never been that interested in going for long walks and certainly not nowadays, now that she was glued to Zach. Jess had actually gone for another long walk with Oliver but she didn’t want to tell her mother that. If Mum knew how much time she was spending with Oliver, then she would be absolutely terrified that Jess was off having sex. Jess did not want to go there. It was bad enough having Steph asking her morning, noon and night if she and Oliver had actually done it yet.

“A long walk, that sounds nice,” her mother said in a friendly voice. Jess felt the faintest glimmer of guilt as she looked at her mother’s face.

Mum was still looking at her. “So, was it a very long walk?” Mum asked. “How far did you go?”

Jess’s feelings of guilt swelled. She really shouldn’t have lied. It wasn’t fair on her mum. “We did about four miles,” she said and turned round. “I think I’ll go upstairs and have a hot bath before dinner, OK?”

Her mother looked so thrilled with this that Jess felt even more of a cow. She had been a bit of a pain in the bum lately. It wasn’t fair. Mum was doing her best, it was just that Jess couldn’t cope with her mother’s full-on attention all the time.

“I’ll just see if I can find a nice lasagne in here,” Mum said enthusiastically. “Otherwise, I could phone for pizza?”

“Great,” said Jess. She ran upstairs and then at the top of the landing, she saw it: her dad’s stuff. All those old box files he was always saying he was going to tidy up, and some of the reference books and magazines he used to keep in a pile in his room. Jess looked at it all with horror. What was it doing out on the landing? No, she knew exactly what it was doing—her mother was going to throw everything on the trash heap, just the same way she had thrown Dad on the trash heap. Dad wasn’t wanted anymore so he had to go and now all his belongings were going to have to go too. Jess felt tears pricking her eyes as she looked at his stuff. She walked past into her bedroom and slammed the door. How could her mum do this? How could she pretend to be so nice and friendly and all the time be making a big pile of Dad’s things ready to dump them? Jess was furious. She threw her rucksack on the bed and thought about not ever coming down again. That would show Mum what she thought of her. But that was wrong. Mum needed to know exactly what Jess thought of all of this. She stormed out of her bedroom and ran down the stairs into the kitchen.

“How can you do that to Dad?” she snapped at her mother.

Abby looked up from the freezer bag she was defrosting in the sink.

“What?” said Abby. “What are you talking about, darling?”

And then she realised: she’d never finished moving Tom’s stuff into the spare room. Oh God, what would that look like to Jess?

“Darling, you don’t understand. I was just tidying up—”

“I understand all right,” said Jess harshly. “I understand everything. You want Dad out of your life for ever. Well, he’s my dad and you can’t take him out of my life. You stupid bitch.” She whirled around again and ran upstairs, slamming her door.

Abby slumped onto the kitchen floor and sat up against the freezer, her legs stretched out in front of her. She just couldn’t do anything right, could she? Her husband wanted to divorce her and her daughter hated her. Perhaps that’s what she should have told Maria at yesterday’s interview. Now that would have made a hell of a story. But Abby didn’t want to make wonderful stories for magazines. Right now, she’d settle for a reasonable relationship with Jess and her career going sort of OK.

It was no consolation to Abby to realise that when everything
had
been working out in her life, she just hadn’t appreciated it.

Early the following morning, Abby drove Jess to Steph’s house. She had decided to let Jess stay overnight with her friend’s family while Abby was in Dublin doing the audition. It seemed more sensible than letting the girls stay by themselves in Lyonnais, which had been Jess’s suggestion.