‘Oh.’
Maura’s is the lowest point in the five-week cycle because all she can cook is baked potatoes and grated cheese, which generates aggrieved griping that she could at least order in pizzas, seeing as she has plenty of money.
I do get pizzas on my week, but they’re only supermarket ones, which I suspect also generates aggrieved griping. But, feck them, I don’t have the resources that Maura does.
Joe and Declyn are both good cooks, so their weeks are happy ones. But Derry’s week is the jewel in the crown, the Met Ball, the event that no one misses. Derry is a great woman for flinging money around and always sends out to Rasam for a small mountain of fabulous Indian food.
Something beeps outside.
‘Here’s my taxi,’ Mum says. ‘I’ll be home by eleven.’
‘Have you your phone?’ I ask.
‘Yes.’ She scampers away.
‘Is it switched on?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice floats back to me. I’m certain she’s lying.
Feeling confused and hard-done-by, I go in to Pop, who greets me by bellowing, ‘Who are you?’
‘Amy.’
‘Amy who?’
‘Amy O’Connell.’
‘I’m an O’Connell, could we be related?’
‘I’m your daughter.’
‘Away to feck, I’ve no children. Who are you?’
‘Amy.’
‘Amy who?’
‘Amy O’Connell.’
After about ten minutes of this lark, I really want to hit him with a hammer. I can actually visualize the whole thing, picking up a hammer, clonking Pop on the skull with it, then watching him lapse into the silence of the comatose. No wonder elder abuse is so prevalent.
It’s suddenly a lot easier to sympathize with Mum needing to go out with these mysterious friends of hers.
I can’t even go on the internet and escape into looking at cushion covers or fantasy holidays because in this house you can only get Wi-Fi in an upstairs bedroom and I’d better not leave Pop on his own.
The thing with the Wi-Fi is that we’re actually stealing it from the neighbours, the Floods. I’m ashamed of this but the story of how Derry and I tried and failed to get broadband installed is too long and too boring. However, living internet-free is hard and sometimes the temptation to jump aboard the Floods’ Wi-Fi is irresistible. As compensation, we bought them a case of Argentinian wine, but Joe went around with it and, for reasons we never got to the bottom of, neglected to explain what it was actually for. So the moment to ’fess up has passed and we live in fear that the Floods will start using a password.
At eight o’clock things get worse: Pop wants to watch a documentary about serial killers but I want – need – to watch Masterchef. Pop seems much tougher going tonight than ever before. Then I remember that the few evenings I’ve minded him in the past, Hugh was with me. It’s a lot easier when there’s two of you. ‘You’ll like this,’ I say to him, keeping a tight hold of the remote.
But Pop heaps such loud, lavish insults on Marcus Waring and the misfortunate contestants that I quickly admit defeat and switch over to Jeffrey Dahmer: The Milwaukee Cannibal.
‘The lad with the kettle!’ Pop says. ‘This is a great one.’
27
Friday, 16 September, day four
Alastair breezes in from London around two p.m., like he does every Friday. ‘Plans for the weekend, Amy?’
‘Neeve and Kiara are talking about us going bowling.’
‘Bowling!’
I have to laugh. ‘Apart from anything else, the shoes. No, just the cinema on Sunday, all part of the routine.’
‘Routines are good. So, anything social? What about your girlfriends?’
‘Lunch with Steevie tomorrow, after I do battle with my hairdresser. Then, tomorrow night it’s Vivi Cooper’s birthday.’
‘Who?’
‘Wife of Hugh’s friend Frankie. Hugh said yes before he decided to skip the country so I’ve inherited the obligation. It’s in Ananda, six couples and me. I’m not going. Vivi says I can decide at the last minute but I already know it’s a no-way.’
‘You don’t think it might be good for y–’
‘I’d be mortified. Having to pretend to be okay but – Oh, God!’ Suddenly I’m struggling to catch my breath.
‘Easy,’ Alastair soothes. Gently he rubs my back until I can get some air in. ‘Sorry,’ he says.
‘It’s grand. You were only trying to help. It’s just, what if I got the panic in a situation like that? When I’d be trapped with all those people?’
He nods. ‘Maybe just see people one on one?’
I’m not sure. Apart from the girls, there’s no one I feel entirely safe with.
‘But tomorrow night,’ he says, picking up my thoughts, ‘just stay in, eat and look at runway shows on vogue.com. You’re in shock. Your world changed too quickly. You’re still processing it.’
‘Is that what it is?’ I’m desperate for an explanation.
‘The transition will take time,’ Alastair says. ‘You’ve to metabolize all these new factors.’
‘And then I’ll be okay?’
He laughs, a little sadly.
‘Okay,’ Tim announces to me and Alastair. ‘Quick meeting.’
‘Feck off,’ Alastair cries. ‘It’s ten to five. It’s nearly the weekend.’
‘Media Awards?’ Tim continues as if Alastair hasn’t spoken. ‘On Friday, November the eleventh, in Brighton. Do we go? And, if so, which of us?’
Because the British media has to pretend it isn’t entirely London-centric, these awards – ‘the Oscars of the News World’ – take place outside the capital. About seven hundred presenters, producers, researchers, directors and journalists descend on a seaside resort, where approximately a gazillion prizes are doled out for every imaginable version of current affairs.
Something about being away from home encourages late nights and bad behaviour. Accolades are dished out to the great and the good over a rowdy dinner. Then there’s an old-school disco, featuring lots of dad dancing and multiple after-parties in various hotel rooms. In some you drink whisky and play poker until sun-up and in others you dance around a trouser-press, drunkenly convinced you’re talented enough to be on a podium in Pacha.
Pity the unlucky person whose bedroom is right below an after-party – they won’t get a moment’s sleep. And there’s no point complaining: the staff are too scared to intervene, and if the sleepless guest goes upstairs to demand the racket quietens down, there’s a good chance they’ll be hoicked into the room and force-fed rum.
All kinds of unlikely alliances are forged on such a night – holding back the hair of your mortal enemy as she pukes, after one B52 too many. Or walking hand in hand on the shingle beach as the sun rises with a man you’d never previously had down as doable.
If you were prone to infidelity, it’s the perfect setting.
‘D’you want to go, Amy?’ Tim asks.
‘Yes.’ It’s always a fun night and I hadn’t gone last year because Hugh’s dad had just died.
‘We should all go, really,’ Tim says. ‘Having nearly every journalist in Britain in one room is too good an opportunity.’
‘Can we afford for the three of us to go?’ Between airfares, hotel costs and ticket prices, these things are expensive.
Alastair and I look at Tim expectantly, awaiting his verdict. We’re equal partners in our business, but in all financial matters we treat Tim like he’s our dad.
‘Thamy?’ Tim calls. ‘Costings for flights to Gatwick on November the eleventh? And the cheapest rooms at the Gresham Hotel in Brighton?’
We drift back into our work, and when Thamy shows her findings to Tim he obviously likes what he sees because he says, ‘Book them.’ Then, ‘Okay. We’re all going.’
Out of nowhere I wonder if Josh Rowan will be there.
28
Seventeen months ago
The terrible evening when Premilla’s drug shame had appeared online, I stood on the plane, waiting impatiently to exit, scrolling down through the grisly details and strategizing.