Personally, I Blame My Fairy Godmother (10 page)

Anyway, to the right of us is the TV room, nerve centre of the whole house, where I wouldn’t be surprised if they all eat, drink and sleep rather than, perish the thought, actually miss a TV show. Joan flings the TV room door open, says, ‘Girls? Finish up your takeaways and watch your language, we’ve a visitor,’ and I follow her. Into the portal of hell. May God help me.

‘Well, well, well,’ says Maggie looking at me with her stony, dead, grey eyes. ‘Look who took a wrong turn on her way to the dole office.’

Pure, vintage Maggie; she always fancied herself as a bit of a one-woman Morecambe and Wise Christmas special.

‘What the FUCK are you doing here?’ is Sharon’s stunned opener. ‘And would you look at the state of you? Jeez, you look like you’re on life support.’

‘So it’s the traditional warm, friendly welcome then,’ I fire back at them, attack always being the best form of defence with my stepsisters, as I learnt a long, long time ago.

It’s been eleven years since I’ve set foot in this room and I’m astonished at how little they’ve changed. You should just see the pair of them. The Borgias on a bad day. They don’t even budge when I come in, but then lethargy was always pretty much the theme of this house. Maggie is sprawled out on what still appears to be her favourite armchair, which is positioned so that it faces the TV exactly head on, with a cider tin clamped to one hand and a forkful of takeaway Indian curry in the other. And if pulling the tabs off tins was a recognised Olympic sport, I would now be saying, ‘Ta-da…Let me introduce you to the world champ.’

Now that I get a good, decent look at her, two things strike me; has this girl ever met a tracksuit she didn’t like? Including the beaut she has on her today which is a shade of Hubba Bubba pink so nauseatingly sickening that no girl over the age of eight should ever go near it. The second thing is that she actually seems to be ageing in dog years. Maggie’s only thirty-three, but could nearly pass for twenty years older; the wiry, woolly hair is now almost completely grey and what’s more, she doesn’t even seem to care. Plus, and there’s no politically correct, sensitive way of saying this, but she and Sharon are both BIG girls. Legs the approximate size of tree trunks with necks roughly the same circumference as my waist. Nasty thought, but I remember as a kid looking at the pair of them and wondering who exactly their biological father had been anyway. A circus freak, perhaps?

Meanwhile, Sharon is stretched out on the sofa beside Maggie like she’s sedated, with a
Cosmo
magazine balanced on her belly, opened on the quiz page, ‘Is Your Guy a Stud or a Dud?’ She’s still in her brown serge uniform from Smiley Burger, where she works as ‘food preparation and hygiene manager’ (don’t ask). There’s also a big, roundey badge on her lapel that says, ‘Hi! I’m Sharon and I care about your experience here!’ Oh, that a cheap bit of plastic could contain so much blessed irony.

Anyway, unlike Maggie, Sharon always was at least aware of the directly proportional relationship between the amount of food she shovelled down her gob and the size of her arse. When I lived here, she was one of those people perpetually on a diet and yet whose weight never fluctuated by as much as a single gram, either upwards or downwards. And again,
plus ça change.
I’m guessing she’s on yet another
one of her crash diets right now, judging by the Low Fat Smiley Chicken Caesar Salad she’s wolfing down. As opposed to Maggie, who’s horsing into the remains of her Indian, eating straight out of the tinfoil container, like the fastest way to get food into her is to completely bypass all kitchenware. God Almighty, I’m astonished she’s even using a fork.

With only a year between them, Sharon and Maggie are what’s known as ‘Irish twins’ but at least Sharon manages to look in her early thirties, mainly because she hasn’t let grey hair get the better of her. At least not yet, she hasn’t. Trouble is, her hair is cut into a style so bizarre, it looks like it’s in talks to play the Jane Fonda role in
Klute.

Something else catches my eye; the Saturday supplement of today’s paper on the coffee table, lying open on one of those ‘What’s hot/What’s not’ pages. No prizes for guessing which category I fall into. Bastards.

Anyway, this is not a social call, so nothing for it but to say what I came to say then get the hell out of here before the law of the sibling jungle kicks in and we all start killing each other. I plonk down on the far end of the sofa and switch off the TV, this being the only sure way to get everyone’s full attention.

‘If you value your miserable life,’ Maggie snarls at me, with enough venom to wither a city, ‘you’ll turn the telly back on. I was watching that!’

‘It was the ads,’ I smile back, as politely as I can.

‘Drinkie?’ says Joan, trying to diffuse the tension that’s ricocheting off the walls like ions before an electrical storm. ‘Girls, one of you go into the fridge and get your sister a tin of Bulmers.’

‘She is
not
our sister,’ the two of them growl, both sitting
back and lighting fags in such perfect synchronicity, you couldn’t rehearse it.

‘Besides,’ says Sharon, all brave and feisty because she has Maggie right beside her for moral support, ‘if her majesty wants a tin, she can get up off her skinny arse and get it herself.’

‘I don’t actually drink cider,’ I say to Joan, trying to block out Pattie and Selma from
The Simpsons.
I will
not
let them get to me. Instead, I’ll just do what I always do whenever I’m in their company. Lock my voice into its deepest register and remain cool. This also being the surest possible way to piss them off.

‘But if you had a glass of wine please, Joan, I’d love one.’

Feck it, alcohol is about the only thing that’ll get me through this. Joan disappears off to the kitchen, and the second she’s out the door, Maggie and Sharon immediately start chanting, like a pair of bullies in the kids’ playground, ‘OH, I DON’T DRINK CIDER…I’M TOO FAR UP MY OWN ARSE.’

I totally forgot they could be so horrible. Dear Jesus, how did I edit this out? I must be off my head doing what I’m about to do, but then my accountant’s words from yesterday come floating back to haunt me.
I. Have. No. Choice.
Besides, this was my family home long before the bloody Addams family ever moved in and took over. Dad bought this house, Mum died here, I grew up here. I legally own half of it. If I have no choice in this, then neither does anyone else.

Joan totters back in on her scaffolding heels with a bottle of Chardonnay, my least favourite wine in the whole world, but it’ll just have to do. Then she pours a thimbleful for me and a full to the brim glass for herself.

‘Wine with a cork?’ mutters Maggie. ‘What is this, Christmas Day?’

‘Thanks,’ I say, taking it from Joan. ‘Now will you sit down please?’

‘Would if I could but I can’t. I’m going out tonight and this suit creases if I sit in it. Besides, I look thinner if I stand and then the Spanx don’t cut off circulation.’

Right then. I take a huge gulp and launch into my semi-prepared speech. ‘OK, I’ve something to say to you all, so I need you to listen. As I’m sure you know, seeing as how the dogs on the street seem to, this hasn’t been an easy week for me.’

‘I
see,’
says Maggie, slooooooowly. Scarily slowly, as she picks up the paper with my name plastered all over it and thrusts it at me. ‘Would this perchance have anything to do with the reason why her majesty is gracing us with her presence today?’

I’m in mid-patter though, and determined not to let her pointed jibes get to me.

‘I slipped up at work and lost my job—’

‘You call what you did a “slip-up”?’ sneers Sharon, sucking on her fag so deeply it’s like she’s inhaling all the way down to her feet. ‘Should have taken the bloody car and run, you gobshite. A Merc like that would go for eighty grand on the black market, easy.’

‘Hmm,’ says Maggie dryly. ‘Now if only there was some mechanism in your head that controlled the shite that comes out of your mouth.’

It’s as if they know exactly why I’m here and are toying with me now, like starving rottweilers teasing a kitten just before going in for the kill. So I’ll just give them the last sentence first. Easier and far, far quicker. ‘I’ve lost my
home and until I get another job and get back on my feet again, I’m coming to stay here. Believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s happening, so suck it up.’

Stony silence.

Then, all of the sudden the tension that was hovering over the room earlier breaks like a storm and now everyone’s jabbering viciously over each other.

‘Sure what’s that to do with us?’ says Maggie. ‘Go and stay with one of your celebrity friends. How do you spell celebrity if your name is Jessie Woods? Oh I know, L. O. S. E. R. Or you could stay with your boyfriend. Oh wait a minute, I forgot, you don’t have one. At least, not any more you don’t. Oops. Silly me.’

Bloody ouch. That comment cuts to the quick, like Maggie’s comments have been cutting me most of my whole life. Meanwhile Sharon sniggers so hard at this that cider actually comes down her nose.

‘Nice one,’ she smirks over at Maggie, grabbing a Smiley Burger paper napkin and wiping her face with it.

‘Thank you, gag copyrighted to Maggie Woods.’

Christ alive, there’s so much about the pair of them I’d completely blanked out. That Maggie has by far the tougher, stronger personality for starters and where she leads, Sharon, who’s that bit weaker, will invariably follow. But the trick with them is never, ever to react, so I just gulp back yet more revolting vino and eyeball them, waiting to see who’ll blink first.

‘Well, I’m terribly sorry to put a damper on this,’ says Joan, sounding panicky, ‘but it’s out of the question. We have…emm…visitors coming to stay…emm…from Canada. For ehhh…three months.’
‘Fine, then we’ll just all be a bit crowded, won’t we?’ I say firmly. Joan always was a crap liar.

‘You can’t stay here! This is
our
house, not yours!’ snarls Sharon.

‘Technically, no it’s not. It’s half mine. Dad left it to Joan and me equally and my name is on the title deeds.’

‘Excuse me, your majesty, but has it occurred to you that we don’t actually get on? I mean, you’re sitting there now, drinking our wine and looking down your nose at us like we’re cave dwellers.’

‘No I’m not! Besides you’re looking at me like you want to have me…diagnosed.’

‘She can’t stay here and that’s all there is to it. Besides, it’s not a runner because there’s no room for her,’ says Sharon triumphantly to the other two and completely ignoring me. Like the Chardonnay has suddenly made me invisible.

‘This house only has three bedrooms and I’m fucked if any of us are going to share with her.’

‘So? I’ll sleep on the sofa. Not a problem.’ Funny, the more they protest, the more I’m digging my heels in, mainly because I know this is the surest way to annoy them even more.

‘I don’t see why you can’t just check into a hotel until you get back on your feet again,’ says Joan, nearly spitting out the words. ‘Far easier and far less stressful all round.’

‘Do I have to spell it out to you? Gimme a B, gimme an R, gimme an O, K, E.’

‘Hang on one minute,’ says Maggie, leaning forward in her armchair like a sumo queen squaring up for a fight. ‘I hate to be the fingernail in the salad here, but we all pay the mortgage on this house, as we’ve done ever since the happy day when you first fecked off. Even Ma and she’s
only working part-time. All the bills are split equally between us and we pay for our own food, booze and fags.’

‘So?’

‘So, if you’re out of a job, how are you going to pay your way here? Because if you think we’re supporting you, you can feck right off.’

Shit. I never thought of that.

There’s another silence while I gulp back the disgusting Chardonnay and rack my brains to come up with something.

Eventually Sharon speaks, ‘Here’s a thought.’ We all turn to look at her and by now even my bum is starting to sweat. ‘If Jessie can’t contribute to bills and stuff, then…well, maybe she could earn her keep by doing all the housework, couldn’t she? Just imagine, we could come in from work every day to all the laundry done…’

‘And all the groceries bought…’ says Maggie slowly, with an evil glint lighting up the stony grey eyes.

‘And a home-cooked dinner served up to us…’

‘That she has to wash up after, not us…’

‘And all the ironing done. I bleedin’ hate ironing…’

‘And the garden looking immaculate…’

‘Be like having an au pair, except without the hassle of kids…’

‘And one that we’d never have to pay…’

‘Right then, Cinderella Rockefeller,’ says Maggie, with murder in her eyes and spinach in her teeth. ‘If this is what you really want, then move in, soon as you like. Because you have yourself a deal.’

I get the hell out of there as soon as I can. And as I slam the hall door behind me, I’d swear I can hear the sound of cackling.

Packing is a nightmare. I pick up something to fling into a suitcase, then remember exactly where I was when I bought it, time, date and place, the works, then dissolve into floods of tears, then try ringing Sam again, then round off by leaving a tonne of voicemails for him. What the hell, if you’re going to boil the bunny, you might as well turn the heat right the whole way up. If I’m turning into Glenn Close with the bubble perm, might as well go the whole hog. And all of my desperate, pleading messages are ignored. Of course they are; at this stage, what the feck else did I expect?

So far, all I’ve managed to pack is three pairs of knickers and an old deodorant. I am officially a basket case.

Sleepless. Wondering how much longer before I’m turfed out of this house and am forced to move back into Whitehall, a.k.a. the Sandhurst of emotional emptiness. A week possibly, maybe even less? Maybe that couple from yesterday loved it and want to move in here in a few days? And find me still wandering around here, like the mad wife
in the attic from
Jane Eyre.
Then a fresh worry: suppose the estate agents sue me for not clearing out of here fast enough?

Suddenly I get a nightmarish flash of myself standing in the dock, in handcuffs and a neon orange jumpsuit, pleading for clemency, like in one of those witness for the prosecution-type courtroom thrillers. Right. Gotta pack. Gotta clear out of here. Got. No. Choice. In a blind panic, I hop out of bed, switch on the lights and start flinging stuff that’s strewn on the dressing table into an abandoned suitcase on the floor. But then I come to a cherished old black and white photo of Mum and Dad taken on their wedding day and start bawling all over again. Times like this I’m almost glad neither of them is around to see what a sad disappointment I’ve become to them.

No, on second thoughts, packing is a bad idea. Sleeping for twelve hours = miles better.

After five goes, Eva eventually answers her phone to me. Yes, she did see Sam at the weekend, she reluctantly admits, but before I get a chance to launch into further in-depth questioning, on cue, one of her babies starts squealing in her ear so she just does that thing you can only get away with if you’re a mum, and immediately hangs up without even saying goodbye.

Mind you, maybe she was only saying that to get me off the phone. Maybe that was a tape she had on standby to play in the background just in case I rang. Jaysus. That’s another thing about being dumped and frozen out. Makes you incredibly paranoid.

The estate agent rings. The guy with the barely broken voice. ‘Bad news,’ he says. ‘You only have until Thursday to clear out.’

Three bleeding days?! ‘Can’t be done,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve been living here for two years, you can’t seriously expect me to pack up two years of my whole life in three lousy days?’

‘We feel it’s very generous of us even giving you until Thursday,’ he says, suddenly managing to sound all manly and assertive. ‘However, if you fail to meet this deadline…’

I don’t hang around to hear the end of the sentence.

Not in the form for threats right now.

What’s killing me now is that there’s no one, absolutely no one to help me with the Herculean labour of trying to pack my entire life up in three miserable, measly days. Not a sinner. Sam? Yeah, right. Eva and Nathaniel? Don’t make me laugh. Emma would, I know. In fact she’d be around here right now organising all my stuff into neatly labelled cardboard boxes and making pots of tea for me, sainted angel that she is. But she’s away until at least the end of the month, so that’s out. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t hear from her though; always leaving cheery, positive messages and texts telling me that everything will work itself out and that I’ll be fine. Utter shite, of course, but I do appreciate the thought.

Still, it’s devastating to think that with only one exception, the very core of people who not two weeks ago I’d have counted on as my nearest and dearest, not only won’t lift a finger to help me, but won’t even return my calls.
Unbelievable. Like so much in my life lately, you couldn’t make it up. Spend the rest of the evening wondering why they ever bothered hanging out with me in the first place. Can’t figure it. The one thing Sam, Nathaniel and Eva all have in common is money; vast, bottomless pits stuffed to the overflowing brim with it. And OK, so I kind of inveigled my way into their exclusive ‘members-only’ club by overstretching myself to keep up with them all losing all sense of reason in the process. That much, even in this highly distressed state, I’m fully able to grasp and accept. But here’s the real killer; I think the main attraction I held for all of them, and it stabs me to include Sam in this, is that I was ‘yer one off the telly’.

Fame opened doors for me, like Alice in Wonderland finding the low door in the wall that led to a magical world, except mine was full of five-star hotels, business-class flights, fabulous Michelin-starred restaurants;
la dolce vita.
Everything I’d ever wanted and never had, suddenly offered to me on a plate. But the very second the rug was pulled out from under me, that was it. As if I’d stumbled into the VIP room by mistake and it was only a matter of time before they showed me the door. I’ve been chasing a pot of gold that turned out to be all glitter and no substance and now have nothing to show for it apart from debts I’ll probably be paying off for the rest of my natural life.

Eventually dozed off with Sky News on in the background, then couldn’t believe it when I came to and it was 10.30 a.m. Ten bleeding thirty in the morning means my allocated clearing out time has now been whittled down to less than two days, so in a rare burst of energy I’m out
of bed, down to the kitchen to make some heavy duty coffee, then back upstairs to start operation Attacking the Packing.

Yes, admittedly, I’ve left it a bit late in the day, I think, trying my best to be positive, but it’s quite do-able. I am after all, the girl who once had to do military boot camp à la Private Benjamin for the TV show and still survived to tell the tale. So if I can handle eighteen-hour days of intensive exercise in three degrees below freezing on an empty stomach, then a bit of light packing shouldn’t pose any problems, now should it?

The other thing in my favour is that I rented this house fully furnished, right down to all the kitchen appliances, the works. So all I really have to worry about packing is…well, you know,
stuff.
Clothes, shoes, books, DVDs, CDs, all that sort of thing.

A doddle really, when you think about it.

Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod!
Found a book which Sam gave me two birthdays ago. A first edition of Margaret Mitchell’s
Gone with the Wind,
my Desert Island favourite book of all time, ever. Inscribed with the words, ‘To Woodsie. I know we’ll always be together. Sx’ Sam always signs his name like that. Like he doesn’t actually have enough time to write all three letters of his name. Collapsed into yet more tears and this time, really thought that my heart would break.

OK, at this stage I’ve accepted that there’s just no way to get through this without getting distraught, so now the plan
is to pack and howl simultaneously, with a box of Kleenex beside me at all times. Believe me, easier said than done.

I’m flinging make-up and face creams from my dressing table into a wheelie bag and doing quick mental calculations, working out that the La Prairie moisturiser and night cream alone would have set me back the guts of €400. Not including the Crème de la Mer eye cream which I spent no less than €165 on, used once, then broke out in spots.

Think I might have to have a lie down. Except there isn’t time to indulge in lambasting myself over the huge sums of cash I frittered away, is there? I’ll have nothing else to do but whinge about that when I’m stuck on a sofa in Whitehall, worrying about whether Maggie and Sharon will come down in the night and stab me in my sleep.

Right then. I head for my wardrobe and realise with horror that I have no fewer than twenty pairs of jeans…twenty! What in the name of Donatella Versace was I thinking? And I wouldn’t mind, but most of them look identical. Into my suitcases they go and when I run out of luggage space, I start flinging them and just about everything else into black plastic bin liners. Then I move on to all my evening dresses. Beautiful, so beautiful that all I want to do is prostrate myself on the ground before them and gape in awe at their beauteous beauty.

A thought; wonder if there’s some kind of second-hand swap shop where people could buy all this gear, that might generate a few quid for me? Or maybe I could flog it anonymously on eBay? Then, a miracle, I manage to find three tops, two skirts and a brand new winter coat, still with the tags on them. Money in the bank, I reckon. Because the shops will have to take them back, won’t they? So I’ll just get the cash back instead. Brilliant! I grab the phone which
is lying on my bed and call the customer service department in Brown Thomas. No, the assistant says very politely, sorry but, no cash refunds are ever given, just store credit instead. Which leaves me with almost €980 worth of store credit and not enough money to take a taxi to Whitehall with all my stuff.

Another panic attack. Hadn’t thought of that. I haven’t a bean to my name; how exactly am I supposed to deal with the sheer logistics of hauling a mountain of suitcases and bin liners like a bag lady all the way to the Hammer House of Horror? Panic, panic, panic.

Just then my mobile rings and I do a leap over the bed worthy of the Grand Slam rugby team to grab it, in case it’s Sam. But, of course, it’s not. Instead it’s, of all people, Joan. Wondering when exactly they can expect me? And did I need to get a spare key cut? She’s so helpful and nice in fact that I keep having to repeat her name just to check that this is in fact the same Joan I think it is. I tell her that I’ve only got until Thursday to clear out and miracle of miracles, she actually offers to come over in her car to help me shift my stuff.

Well, well, well, I think, hanging up and catching sight of the photo of Mum and Dad on my dressing table. Whaddya know? Maybe they made this minor miracle happen from beyond the grave. I continue packing with fresh vigour, in complete wonderment at just how spectacularly wrong I can be about people.

Half three

Joan arrives bit late but then, who am I to complain about the one decent human being who has actually offered to help me in my hour of need? She breezes in, groomed like
a storm trooper in a bright, floral patterned dress with every single accessory matching, shoes, bag, the works. But then, why am I surprised? This is Joan. Everything always matches.

Anyway, the minute she gets here, she clicketty-clacks in on her scaffolding heels, surveying the place like a Japanese tourist in the Sistine Chapel and asking if she can have a good nose around. I say yes, of course, then offer her a coffee. She follows me into the kitchen and there’s a silence as we both look at each other, but neither of us has anything to say. The funny thing is, that now she’s here and it’s just the two of us on our own, there’s so much I want to tell her. Because maybe, after all these years, I’ve completely misjudged her and now I’m at the lowest ebb of my life, she’s turned into some kind of guardian angel that’ll get me through this horrible, horrific time.

Be ironic if, after all these years of me being busy despising her that now, at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, I did actually manage to forge some kind of working functional bond with her. Growing up, I had all the normal grievances you’d expect a kid to hold against any kind of surrogate guardian; Joan constantly taking Maggie and Sharon’s side in all rows against me, with the added complication of me resenting her for trying to take the place of a mother that she couldn’t possibly come near.

But if Maggie and Sharon were openly hostile to me, Joan was more…glacial. Frosty. I remember one time, when I was about eleven, she lost me in a huge department store and while I was terrified the whole time that I’d end up kidnapped by some pervert, the ordeal barely knocked a feather out of her. In fact, to this day I can distinctly
remember the security guard finding me white-faced and frightened, wandering around the cosmetics hall, then handing me back to Joan. Poor man honestly looked as if he was weighing up whether or not to call in social services. Well, what was he supposed to think? My guardian was neither bothered that I was gone nor particularly relieved to have me back. She never as much as broke a sweat. But there you go. Some women just aren’t cut out for motherhood. And in a million years, I’d never have gone whining and complaining to Dad; he’d quite enough stress on his plate as it was and the last thing I ever wanted to do was add to that.

Rebelling as a teenager with Joan around was a tall order too, mainly because if you plonked yourself down on the sofa beside her, aged fourteen and smoked one Marlboro Light after another, she wouldn’t bat an eyelid. Likewise, if you staggered around the house pissed out of your head, her only concern would be whether you’d been at her stash of Chardonnay. Or if you decided you wanted to live off batter burgers and chips day in, day out; again, in Joan-land, not a problem.

With poor Dad out slaving away in the pub where he worked every hour God sent, she was the only authority figure in my life for most of the time. So therefore my teenage rebellion usually involved eating healthily and trying to actually get the odd vitamin into me. While other kids in my class envied that I could get away with never doing homework and watching telly all evening eating McDonald’s if I felt like it, I’d be in the kitchen washing heads of lettuce and juicing carrots.

And here she is now after all these years sitting on a bar stool in my kitchen; OK, maybe not exactly full of friendly
chat and warmth – Joan doesn’t do warmth – but she’s an ally and, feck it, she’s here. More than some people.