Personally, I Blame My Fairy Godmother (9 page)

‘Ehhhh…yeah.’

‘So, all this time, you’ve been part-owner of a house and you never told me?’

Swear to God, the woman’s eyes look like they’re about to pop across the room like champagne corks. ‘And was it sold? Is it rented out?’

‘No, my stepfamily still live there. The three of them. But I have absolutely nothing to do with those people and they’ve nothing to do with me. Trust me; it’s an arrangement that suits all of us.’

‘But you’re the legal owner of half of this property.’

‘Judy, I’m not with you. What do you suggest I do here?
Turf them all out and sell the place from under them? They’d get a hit man after me. You have no idea what these people are like; they’d have me knee-capped. This is their home.’

‘You needed somewhere to stay, didn’t you? Well here’s the answer staring you in the face.’

For a second I look at her, my mouth I’m sure forming the same perfect ‘O’ that the kids do in the Bisto commercial.

‘Jessie, welcome to the wonderful world of “Got no choice”.’

It’s like a mantra with me the whole of the next day: I have no choice, I have no choice. I. Have. No. Choice. And in fact, if I don’t get a move on, chances are I’ll come home to find all my stuff in cardboard boxes outside the security gates, the locks changed and new people already living there. All of which fits in beautifully with the recurring theme of my life right now; when you’ve got everything, you’ve got everything to lose.

It’s late Saturday afternoon and I’m still in bed, paralysed. Praying that at this exact moment Sam is doing the same thing. That he’s dead on the inside too. Despondent. Missing me. Willing himself to swallow his pride, pick up the phone and beg me to get back with him.

I’ve been practically a ‘Rules Girl’ since our last, harrowing conversation and by that I mean I’ve only texted him approximately a dozen times and left around eight voice messages on his mobile. Per day, that is.

TV is my only friend, but as I’m avoiding the news for obvious reasons, I stick to the History Channel where there’s bound to be nothing on that’ll only upset me more. An ad comes on where they quote Buddha saying that all suffering stems from failed expectations. Yup, sounds about right to
me. Next thing, out of nowhere, there’s a massive, urgent walloping on my hall door downstairs, which my first instinct is to ignore, but then it flashes through my mind,
Suppose it’s Sam?
Standing there with a huge bouquet of flowers and a speech all prepared about what a complete moron he’s been? I dive out of bed like I’ve just had an adrenaline shot to the heart and race downstairs, still in my pyjamas. Course, it’s not Sam at all though. It’s the estate agent, with a middle-aged-looking couple standing on either side of him like twin bodyguards, wanting to view the house. The estate agent is super-polite and says he’s mortified for disturbing me, but his implication is clear; just disappear for the afternoon and let people who can actually afford to live here get a once-over of the place in peace.

Which is how, about an hour later, I end up back in our humble little corporation estate in Whitehall, on Dublin’s Northside. My first time back to the house since I was eighteen, all of eleven years ago. I’m absolutely dreading what lies ahead and at the same time, so punch drunk by all the body blows I’ve taken in the last week, that the part of me that’s numb just takes over everything; all bodily functions like walking down streets and holding conversations without crying. Anyway, like I said, where I come from is not posh. Nor, from what I can see so far, has much of it changed since I used to live here. It’s basically 1950s corpo-land that’s so close to the airport, you can actually see the wheels going up and down on the bellies of all overhead flights. It also gets so deafeningly noisy at times that you feel like you could be living on the near end of a runway. But it just so happens that deafening noise suits me right now. As does anything that drowns out the loop
that’s on eternal long play inside my head:
dumpedhomelessjob-lessdumpedhomelessjoblessdumpedhomelessjobless
…etc., etc., etc., repeat ad nauseam.

The house is right at the very end of a cul-de-sac, which means that when I get off the bus, I have to do the walk of shame down the whole length of the street, alone, unprotected and totally exposed. Which, I know, makes it sound like I come from Fallujah Square and it’s not that I’m worried about broken bottles or other random missiles being flung at me; no, it’s the kids on this street you’ve got to watch out for. They’re complete savages and their cruelty knows no bounds. Plus, as it’s a warm, balmy evening, they’re all out swarming round the place like midges. Sure enough, right across the street, there’s a gang of them led by a boy of about ten, a dead ringer for the kid in
The Omen,
all harassing someone I can only presume is a Jehovah’s Witness making door to door calls.

‘You says there’s no Our Lady, you says there’s no Our Lady!’ they’re chanting at the poor gobshite, hot on his heels. I pull the baseball cap I’m wearing down even lower over my forehead and pick up my pace a bit, head down at all times. But just then an elderly neighbour out doing her hedges spots me.

‘Jessie Woods? Mother of God, it
is
you!’

Shit. Caught. And by a neighbour who’s known me ever since I was a baby, worse luck. ‘Oh, hello, Mrs Foley.’

Right then, stand by for the sideshow. And sure enough, Mrs Foley yells excitedly over at another pensioner who’s busy doing the brasses on her front door. ‘Mrs Brady? Would you look who it is! Jessie Woods herself, as I live and breathe! She’s come home!’

‘Suffering Jesus, I don’t believe it,’ says Mrs Brady,
clutching her chest, then abandoning the hall door and waddling over to Mrs Foley’s front gate.

Nononononono, you see, this is exactly what I wanted to avoid. The thing about our street is that it’s considered rude to walk past a neighbour without having at least a ten-minute chat about the most intimate details of your private life. God, the difference between life here and life in Dalkey, where my house – sorry, my ex-house – is. Over on that side of town, I couldn’t even tell you who my neighbours are. Everyone lives behind high security gates and apart from seeing the odd four-wheel-drive zipping in and out, you wouldn’t have a clue who’s living next door to you. There were always rumours flying around that Bono and Enya lived locally, but you’d never, ever get a glimpse of them out buying cartons of milk, Lotto tickets or similar. There was a Southside snobbery at play too; even if you met people locally, say in Tesco’s, they were all far too cultured and sophisticated and up themselves to even admit that they recognised me from TV.

But Toto, I’m not in Kansas any more.

‘Terrible about what happened to you last week, Jessie love,’ says Mrs Foley kindly. ‘Big fuss over nothing if you ask me. And they really fired you just for doing that? For taking the offer of a free car?’

‘Yes, they really did.’

‘But sure I watched the whole thing myself. They made it very hard for you to say no. Nearly forced it on you, they did.’

‘Yeah, you’re right, they did,’ I agree, touched and grateful to her.

‘Well, if you ask me, you should have had more sense, Jessie Woods,’ snaps Mrs Brady, treating me exactly like I’m
still the kid she used to give out to for sitting on her front wall and damaging her geraniums. ‘You big roaring eejit. No such thing as a free lunch, sure the dogs on the street could tell you that. You should have told them where to go with their flashy car and then you’d be on the telly tonight, wouldn’t you? Instead of walking the streets, looking like a refugee.’

I’d forgotten that about Mrs Brady. She has a very nasty side to her.

‘So what’ll you do now, love?’ says Mrs Foley gently. ‘The papers all said no one would come near you for work, you poor pet.’

‘Emm…well, I’m actually hoping to take a bit of time out and just, emm…you know, reassess my options,’ I manage to say, weakly.

The pair of them look completely unconvinced, so I try changing the subject instead.

‘So how’s Psycho, Mrs Brady?’ Psycho is her son. He’s my age, we were in junior school together and from what I heard, he went on to spend most of his teenage years in juvenile prison. Everyone calls him Psycho, ever since he was about three. Even his mother.

‘Ah, he’s grand, love. Thanks for asking,’ she smiles proudly, instantly brightening. ‘He’s getting out on TR tomorrow, so we’re having a bit of a knees-up for him. You should drop in if you’re still around. He was always very fond of you. And I happen to know that he’s single at the moment.’

‘Ehh, sorry…TR?’

‘Temporary Release. Please Jesus, with a bit of good behaviour, he could be out before the summer. Only a short stretch this time, thank God.’

I ooh and aah about how brilliant that is and am just about to make my excuses when the gang of kids, led by
Omen-boy,
spots me.

Shit.

Next thing, there about eight kids all clustered around me, demanding to know whether or not I’m your one off the telly?

‘Go on,’ says one. ‘Take off the baseball hat and sunglasses till we can get a decent look at your face!’ says another one, while a third, who can’t be more than about eight, whips out a camera phone, shoves it right under my nose and starts taking photos.

“Cos if you really are Jessie Woods,’ he says cheekily, ‘then I’m emailing this to the
Daily Star.
Might make a few quid.’

Which serves me right of course. I should have remembered that round here the only safe, harassment-free time to walk down this street is in pitch darkness, preferably between the hours of 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., when it’s a kid-free zone. They really should have a sign up, warning people.

‘Leave the poor girl alone, you ignorant shower of pups!’ says Mrs Foley, shooing them away with her apron. ‘How would you like it if you got the sack and then your fella dumped you, all in the one week?’ Then she realises that I’m still standing right beside her and claps her hand over her mouth, mortified. ‘Oh, Jessie love, I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t embarrass you, pet. It’s just that it’s been all over the news ever since yesterday. About you not going out with that good-looking businessman any more, what’s-his-name.’

‘Imagine getting dumped and the first thing your ex does is go running off to the papers,’ sneers a third neighbour who’s just joined us. She’s leaning on a yard brush and has a perm so tight that it’s almost as if someone poured a tin
of baked beans over her head. I haven’t the first clue who she is, but she seems to know more about my own private life than I do myself. Sam and his bloody, bollocking press release included. He warned me he was going to do it, ‘Put a full stop to this,’ as he’d said during our last, nightmarish phone call, so I knew it was inevitable. But it still somehow feels like someone’s physically taken a shovel to my insides. Right. Officially had enough. Got to get outta here.

‘Sorry, but I’m afraid I really should get going…’ I say lamely in an attempt to make a run for it. No such luck though.

‘You should have married that Sam Hughes when you had the chance, Jessie,’ pontificates Mrs Brady. ‘Then at least you’d have a few quid to show for yourself. Or you could have had a baby with him, then maybe he’d think twice about running to the press to tell everyone it’s all off with you. Plus you’d have the child maintenance coming in every week, which would have come in very handy, now that you’re jobless…’

‘The secret to a long and happy marriage’, says Baked Bean Head, leaning on her yard brush, ‘is that the man has to be scared shitless of the woman. They only really respect you when they’re completely terrified. You must have gone far too easy on him, Jessie…’

OK, it’s at this point I officially can’t take any more. ‘I’m really sorry, ladies, but I have to get going.’

They turn to glare at me, like I’m being rude to just walk away when they’re all busy throwing out their pearls of relationship advice, but at this point I’m beyond caring. I take a deep breath and turn into our tiny front yard. And almost fall over when I see the state of it. I’m not messing, there are actual statues of stone angels blowing into
trumpets dotted around the tiny grassy bit, the original agony in the garden. Trying my best to keep my stomach from dry-retching at the very sight of it, I knock firmly on the front door.

And wait.

And wait again.

A kafuffle from the TV room inside, followed by a clearly audible row about who’s going to get up and answer the door. Which is followed by another glacier-slow wait before the door is eventually opened. By Joan, my stepmother. Dressed, and I wish I were joking here, pretty much like Cher on the Reunion tour. It’s almost scary the way everything matches; her suit is deep purple and so are the nails, lipstick and shoes. With, the final touch, tights the colour of Elastoplast. Honest to God, there are mothers of brides out there who’d blush to be seen in this get-up.

‘Jessica!’ she says, with a horrified, icy smile so fixed that it almost makes her look embalmed. That’s another thing about her; she’s the only person in the northern hemisphere who calls me Jessica. ‘What in God’s name are you doing here? It’s not Christmas Eve, is it?’

‘Emm, I did phone to say I was calling today, do you not remember, Joan? About an hour ago? You told me to be sure to call after
Britain’s Got Talent
but before
American Idol.’

Now coming from any other family, that might sound pig rude, but the thing about these people, certainly when I lived with them, was that their lives entirely revolved around the TV schedules. And clearly that hasn’t changed.

‘Oh, did I? I really have to start writing things down. I also have to have a drink. Right then,’ she sniffs, looking
down at me like I’m about as welcome as a fungus. ‘Seeing as you’re here, I suppose you’d better come through to the drawing room.’

By which I’m assuming she means the TV room, which is the only reception room in the house, apart from the tiny kitchen. But then that’s Joan for you, everything gets talked up. In fact, I’m surprised she doesn’t refer to the minuscule patch of grass in the front garden with the ludicrous gakky stone angels as the ‘meditation and contemplation’ area.

So in I go and am instantly struck by just how garish the place looks. So utterly different to when it was just me and Dad living here. The hallway, which is minute, dark and poky, now has a patterned cream Axminster carpet with loud polka-dot wallpaper in pink, blue and green. The overall effect of which is to make me feel like I’m trapped inside a bottle of prescription pills. No trendy, ‘less is more’ minimalism going on here; this has turned into the house that taste forgot. Joan catches me staring gobsmacked into the kitchen, which is straight ahead of us, and completely misinterprets my dropped jaw.

‘Oh yes,’ she waves airily, brightening a bit. ‘You’ve noticed the dining area. Elegant, isn’t it? I’ve just had the vinyl flooring redone in liquorice and marshmallow.’

This, by the way, would be Joan-speak for ‘black and white’. Now while that might sound reasonably tasteful, factor in the bright peach fake festoon blinds in oceans of nylon draped over windows that you can barely see out of, the net curtains are that thick, along with peach stripy wallpaper and you’ll get the picture. Dear Jaysus, it looks like a Mississippi paddleboat from Mark Twain’s time washed up in a tiny little kitchen in Whitehall. Put it this way, you
wouldn’t want to be sitting there with a minging hangover. Gak, gak and gak again.