This Charming Man (3 page)

Not self-pity. Simply facing facts.

Phone rang. Very friendly female voice said, ‘Lola, hi!’

Cautiously I said, ‘Hi.’

Because it could be a client. I have to pretend I always know who they are and must never say, ‘Who’s that?’ They like to think they are the only one. (Don’t we all?)

‘Lola, hi!’ the female voice goes on, very friendly. ‘My name is Grace. Grace Gildee. I wonder if we could have a chat.’

‘Certainly,’ I said. (Because thought it was woman looking to be styled.)

‘About a good friend of mine,’ she said. ‘Believe you know him too. Paddy de Courcy?’

‘Yes,’ I replied, wondering what this was all about. Suddenly I got it! Oh no! ‘Are you… a journalist?’

‘Yes!’ she said, like it was all okay. ‘I’d love to have a chat about your relationship with Paddy.’

But Paddy had said, No talking to the press.

‘Obviously we will compensate you well,’ the woman says. ‘Believe you’ve lost a couple of clients recently. Money might come in handy.’

What? Had I lost a couple of clients? News to me.

She said, ‘It’ll be your chance to give your side of the story. I know you feel badly betrayed by him.’

‘No, I…’

I was afraid. Really quite afraid. Didn’t want a story about Paddy and me in the paper. I shouldn’t even have admitted I knew him.

‘I don’t want to talk about it!’

She said, ‘But you
did
have a relationship with Paddy?’

‘No, I, er… No comment.’

Never thought I’d have a conversation where I said the words, No comment.

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ the Grace woman said. She laughed.

‘Don’t!’ I said. ‘Don’t take it as a yes. I must go now.’

‘If you change your mind,’ she said, ‘give me a shout. Grace Gildee. Features writer for the
Spokesman
. We’d do a lovely job.’

Call from Marcia Fitzgibbons, captain of industry and important client. ‘Lola,’ she said, ‘I heard you were jonesing at the Harvey Nichols shoot.’

‘Jonesing?’ I said, high-pitched.

‘Having withdrawals,’ she said.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I heard you were a shaking mess,’ she said. ‘Sweating, vomiting, unable to do a simple task like press a dress without destroying it.’

‘No, no,’ I insisted. ‘Marcia, I mean Ms Fitzgibbons, I wasn’t jonesing. All that is wrong is that my heart is broken. Paddy de Courcy is my boyfriend but he’s getting married to someone else.’

‘So you keep telling people, I hear. But Paddy de Courcy your boyfriend? Don’t be ridiculous! You have purple hair!’

‘Molichino,’ I cry. ‘Molichino!’

‘Cannot work with you any longer,’ she said. ‘I have strict zero-tolerance policy on druggies. You are an excellent stylist but rules are rules.’

That is why she is a captain of industry, I suppose.

Further attempts to defend myself proved futile, as she hung up on me. Time, after all, is money.

Missed my mammy very much. Could really have done with her now. I remembered when she was dying – although I didn’t really know that was what was happening, no one said as such, I just thought she needed lots of bed-rest. In the afternoons when I came home from school, I’d get into bed beside her, still in my uniform, and we’d hold hands and watch
EastEnders
repeats. I’d love to do that now, to get into bed beside her and hold hands and go to sleep for ever.

Or if only I had a big extended family who would cosset me and surround me and say, ‘Well, we love you. Even if you do know nothing about current affairs.’

But I was all alone in the world. Lola, the little orphan girl. Which was a terrible thing to say, as Dad was still alive. I could have gone and visited him in Birmingham. But I knew that would be unendurable. It would be like after Mum died and we were living side by side in a
silent house, neither of us with half a clue how to operate a washing machine or roast a chicken and both of us on anti-depressants.

Even though I knew it was a pointless exercise, I rang him.

‘Hello, Dad, my boyfriend is marrying another woman.’

‘The blackguard!’

Then he gave big, long, heavy sigh and said, ‘I just want you to be happy, Lola. If only you could be happy, I would be happy.’

I was sorry I’d rung. I’d upset him, he takes everything so hard. And just listening to him, so obviously
depressed
… I mean, I suffered from depression too but didn’t
go on
about it.

Also he was a liar. He wouldn’t be happy if I was happy. The only thing that would make him happy would be if Mum came back.

‘So how’s Birmingham?’ I asked.

At least I got on with my life after Mum died. At least I didn’t move to Birmingham, not even Birmingham proper, which has good shops, including Harvey Nichols, but a Birmingham suburb, where nothing ever happened. He was in such a hurry to move. The minute I turned twenty-one, he was off like a shot, saying his older brother needed him; but I suspected he moved because we found it so hard being with each other. (In fairness, I must admit I was considering moving to New York myself but he saved me the bother.)

‘Birmingham’s grand,’ he said.

‘Right.’

Big, long pause.

‘Well, I’ll be off so,’ I said. ‘I love you, Dad.’

‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘That’s right.’

‘And you love me too, Dad.’

I go against every one of my instincts and watch the news, hoping to see coverage from the Dail and possibly catch a glimpse of Paddy. Have to sit through terrible, terrible stuff about seventeen Nigerian men being deported even though they have Irish children; and European nations dumping their rubbish mountains in third world countries (and yes, they said ‘third world’, not ‘developing world’).

Kept waiting for Dail report, for pictures of fat, red-faced, corrupt
looking men standing in a room with a blue carpet, shouting Rawlrawl-rawl! at each other. But it never came.

Too late I remembered it was the summer holidays and they wouldn’t be back in session (or whatever they call it) until two weeks before Christmas. When they would have to break for Christmas. Lazies.

Before I turned the telly off, my attention was caught by an item about the Cavan to Dublin road being closed because a lorry carrying six thousand hens had overturned and all the hens had got loose. The screen was full of hens. I wondered if my grief was inducing hallucinations. Hens are funny things to hallucinate about, though. I looked away, squeezed my eyes tightly shut, then opened them and looked at the telly again and the screen was
still
full of hens. Marauding gangs making for the open road, a great swathe of them disappearing over a hill to freedom, locals stealing them, carrying them away by their legs, a man with a microphone trying to talk to the camera but up to his knees in moving sea of rust-coloured feathers.

I can’t stop ringing Paddy. It’s like OCD. Like washing hands constantly. Or eating cashew nuts. Once I start, I can’t stop.

He never answered and he never rang back. Was aware I was debasing myself but couldn’t stop. I longed for him.
Yearned
for him.

If I could just speak to him! Maybe I wouldn’t get him to change his mind, but I could get answers to questions. Like, why did he make me feel so special? Why was he so possessive of me? When there was another woman all along.

There was a horrible niggling feeling that this was my own fault. How could I have believed that a man as handsome and charismatic as Paddy would take a person like me seriously?

I felt so very, very stupid. And the thing was, I wasn’t stupid.
Shallow,
yes, but not stupid. There was a big difference. Just because I loved clothes and fashion didn’t mean I was a thicko. May not have known who the president of Bolivia was but I had emotional intelligence. Or at least, had thought I had. I always gave great advice on other people’s lives. (Only on request. Not uninvited. That
would be rude.) But clearly I’d had no right to. Cobblers’ children, etc., etc.

The worst week of my life continues with no respite.

At a photo-shoot for author Petra McGillis, I’d staggered along to the studio with three massive suitcases of clothes I’d called in according to Petra’s specifications, but when I opened them up she said, outraged, ‘I said no colours! I said neutrals, camels, toffees, that sort of thing!’ She turned on a woman whom I later discovered was her editor and said, ‘Gwendoline, what are you trying to turn me into? Pistachio green? I am NOT a pistachio-green author!’

The poor editor insisted she was not trying to turn the author into anything, certainly not a pistachio-green person. She said that Petra had talked to the stylist (me) and told her her requirements and that no one had interfered.

Petra insisted, ‘But I said, “No colours!” I was quite specific. I never wear colours! I am a serious writer.’

Suddenly everyone was looking at me – the photographer, the make-up artist, the art director, the caterer, a postman delivering a parcel. It’s her fault, they all accused me with their eyes. That stylist. She thinks Petra McGillis is a pistachio-green person.

And they were right to accuse me. No way could I blame Nkechi. It was me who had taken the call, and when Petra had said, ‘No colours!’ my scrambled brain must have heard, ‘I love colours!’

It had never happened to me before. I was usually so good at channelling the clients’ requirements that they tried to steal the garments from the shoot and got me into trouble with press office.

‘I’ll wear my own bloody clothes,’ Petra said, tightly and tetchily.

Resourceful Nkechi made many calls, seeking an emergency care package of neutral-coloured garments, but none was available.

At least she tried, all the accusing faces said silently. That Nkechi is mere assistant but she showed more gumption than the stylist herself.

I should have left there and then, as I was no use to anyone. But for the rest of shoot (three hours), I stood by, smiling gamely, trying to bring the twitch in my lip under control. Now and then, I’d
nip forward to adjust Petra’s collar, to pretend I had a reason for existing, but it was a disaster, a horrible, horrible disaster.

I’d spent a long time building up my career. Was it all to be destroyed in a matter of days, because of Paddy de Courcy?

Hard to care, though. All I was interested in was how to get him back. Or failing that, how to endure the rest of my life without him. Yes, I sounded like overblown Gothic-type person, but really, if you’d met him… In person he was so much more good-looking and charismatic than on telly. He made you feel like you were the only person in the world, and he smelt so nice that after I first met him I bought his aftershave (Baldessini) and although he brought an extra-special additional de Courcy ingredient to the mix, one whiff was enough to make me feel tunnel-visiony, like I was about to faint.

Another call from this Grace Gildee journalist. Pushy. How did she get my number in the first place? And how did she know Marcia Fitzgibbons was going to sack me? In fact, I thought about asking her who else was going to sack me, but desisted.

After a certain amount of pussy-footing (on my part) she offered five grand for my story. A lot of money. Styling was an uncertain business. You could have twelve jobs one week and none at all for the rest of month. But I was not tempted.

However – I was not complete fool, despite feeling like one – I rang Paddy and left a message. ‘A journalist called Grace Gildee offered me lots of money to talk about our relationship. What should I do?’

He rang back so fast I had barely hung up.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said. ‘I’m a public figure. I’ve a career.’

Always about him and his career.

‘I’ve a career too, you know,’ I reminded him. ‘And it’s going down the Swanee due to my broken heart.’

‘Don’t let it,’ he said, in a kindly manner. ‘I’m not worth it.’

‘She offered me five grand.’

‘Lola.’ His voice was persuasive. ‘Don’t sell your soul for money, you’re not that kind of girl. You and I, we had good times together.
Let’s preserve the memory. And you know that if you’re ever stuck for a few quid, I’ll help out.’

I didn’t know what to say. Although he was behaving like a supportive friend, was he, in fact, offering to pay me to keep shtum?

‘There’s plenty I could tell Grace Gildee,’ I said bravely.

A different voice from him this time. Low, cold. ‘Like fucking what?’

Less confidently I said, ‘… The… things you bought me. The games we played…’

‘Let’s make one thing clear, Lola.’ Arctic tones. ‘You talk to no one, especially not her.’ Then he said, ‘Must go. I’m in the middle of something. Take care of yourself.’

Gone!

A night in with Bridie and Treese in Treese’s big house in Howth. Treese’s new husband Vincent was away. I was secretly glad. I never feel welcome when he’s there. Always feel he’s thinking, What are these strangers doing in
my
house?

He never joins in. He’ll come into the room and nod hello, but only because he wants to ask Treese where his dry-cleaning is; then he goes off to do something more important than spend time with his wife’s friends.

He calls Treese by her proper name, Teresa, like it wasn’t our friend he married but a different woman altogether.

He is quite elderly. Thirteen years older than Treese. On his second marriage. His first wife and three young children are stashed somewhere. He is a big cheese in the Irish rugby organization. In fact, used to play for Ireland and he knows everything about everything. No room for discussion with Vincent. He says one sentence and the entire conversation shuts down.

He has a rugby-player physique – muscles, wideness, thighs so enormous he has to walk in a strange side-to-side, just-got-off-a-horse motion. Many women – indeed Treese obviously does; she married him, after all – might find this comely. But not me. He is too butty and… wide. He eats phenomenal quantities and weighs about forty stone, but – I want to be fair – he isn’t fat. Just… compacted.
Very dense, like he’s spent time living in a black hole. His neck is the circumference of a rain barrel and he has a stunningly enormous head. Also big hair. Gak.