Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man (19 page)

‘What does that mean?'

‘It means that you can only really appreciate all the wonderful guys in this world when you've been through the shits. I know what I'm taking about, Amelia. I've been married three times.'

‘Wow!'

‘And after all that, I still believe in love and happiness. You know, there's a metaphysical word to describe what you're going through. Chemicalization. Ever heard of it?'

‘No, never.'

‘Put simply, it means that when the universe sends you something awful like you've just experienced, the converse is only around the corner. And this wonderful thing that's waiting for you will be the perfect counterbalance to what you're going through right now. The universe is very fair like that.' She clocks my puzzled look and takes me by the arm. ‘It means go home and crack out the champagne, Amelia. Your prince is almost here.'

The rest of the working week goes by in such a blur of meetings, castings, hirings and firings that I almost can't believe it when I wake up at six a.m. on Saturday morning (force of habit;
Celtic Tigers
starts shooting at seven) and then realize that this is the one morning of the week when I can actually sleep on.

I doze off and have the craziest dream …

I'm living in a mud hut in Johannesburg with
He-whose-name-shall-forever-remain-unspoken, barefoot and
pregnant, when Ira Vandergelder swoops down in a helicopter, throws a rope ladder over the side, and rescues me.

Figure that one out, Dr Freud.

I'm in the deepest, soundest sleep when the phone on my bedside table rings. Rachel, putting on a truly awful Southern accent. ‘Hi, Thelma, it's me, Louise! Get your lazy arse out of the bed and look out the window.'

‘Oh God, what's the time?' I ask, groggily dragging myself out of bed.

‘Time we were on the road, sleeping beauty. It's eleven-thirty.'

I haul myself like a sleepwalker over to the balcony window, throw back the curtains and there they are: Rachel and Jamie, sitting in the front seat of her convertible with the roof down, waving at me like a pair of demented loonies. Rachel is looking very Audrey Hepburn today, in a 1960s-style shift dress and big, dark sunglasses, and Jamie looks like he always does, as if he just fell out of an early house pub down the docks.

Suddenly I'm wide awake. I fling open the French windows and stage whisper down to them, mindful that (
a
) my neighbours are all night owls who, chances are, could still be asleep and (
b
)
He-whose-name-shall-forever-remain-unspoken
might have moved in across the road: ‘Jamie! Are you coming with us?'

‘Course I am. I was starting to feel really left out of all the fun. If you pair are going to be Thelma and Louise on this road trip, then I'm Brad Pitt. You know, the sexy, super-cool drifter they pick up. Don't you think that would be good casting for me?'

‘You have exactly five minutes to get your tush down here,' says Rachel, ignoring him. It's a three-hour drive and I plan on a good stiff cocktail before we get to Glenstal.'

‘Booze hound,' says Jamie.

‘People in glass houses,' she snaps back. ‘The smell of
stale drink off you, I'm only thankful we can take the top down on the car. You must have been locked out of your head last night.'

‘Do you mind? I prefer tipple happy.'

To avoid them entertaining the neighbours any further, I manage to persuade them to come up to the flat for a lightning-quick coffee while I jump in the shower, and then decide on a suitable outfit for, fingers crossed, meeting Tony Irwin in.

‘Now remember, he's a schoolteacher,' Jamie advises me as I'm standing in front of my wardrobe in a bath towel, frantically trying to root out something. ‘So nothing too overtly sexy. Dress like you would for a garden party and you won't go too far wrong. You know, vicar's-wife type vibe.'

I settle on a long, floaty skirt and a sweet little pink cashmere twin set which is on extended loan from Rachel and, five minutes later, we're on the road.

Caroline calls and we put her on the car speakerphone so we can all chat/squeal at her.

‘Have fun, you guys,' she says. ‘Think of me stuck at home all weekend!'

‘Where's Mike?' I ask.

‘Don't get me started,' she says, a bit crossly, for her. ‘He's at a conference in London. Which means he'll spend ten minutes talking to sales reps and the rest of the time out on a golf course. Won't be back till Monday. So ring me all the time and keep me in the
loop. Otherwise I'll go off my head looking at Barney DVDs and scraping porridge off the walls. Oh, and will you do me a favour?'

‘The answer is yes, what is the question?'

‘Will you ask Tony if he has any pull getting boys into Glenstal Abbey? I'd so love to enrol Joshua there. Wouldn't he look so sweet in that lovely navy-blue uniform?'

‘Consider it done,' I say. ‘In fact, it might even be good cover for us going down there in the first place. Sure as hell beats my explanation of, “Oh, hi there, Tony, long time no see, we were just passing, don't suppose by any miracle you're still single?” '

She laughs and we all say goodbye and promise to keep her fully posted.

‘OK, girlies,' says Jamie, ‘we have a gruelling, three-hour journey ahead of us, so that should just about give us enough time for me to tell you about my date last night.'

‘Don't tell me you actually met up with Pete Mooney?' I ask, horrified at the very thought.

‘Like I'd ever do that to you? Even I have standards, you know. Besides, that is
soooo
last Friday's news. Try to keep up.'

‘With your Spaniard?' Rachel asks innocently.

‘No, that's mucho finito.'

‘Since when?'

‘Since he stopped calling over a week ago. You
know me, I'm not needy but I do require the reassurance of constant attention and if he can't provide that, then let him see how dull and boring life is in a Jamie-free universe.'

‘This is the twenty-first century, don't tell me guys still do that?' says Rachel, wrinkling her nose in disgust, as if she'd just driven past a silage plant. ‘Just stop calling you and then expect you to psychically deduce that you've been dumped? And what's the statute of limitations these days anyway?'

‘Stop using long words. Explain. Slowly. I'm
very
hung over.'

‘I mean, thicko, if a man stops calling, then how long do you give it before you accept that he's the dumper and you're the dumpee?'

‘Depends,' says Jamie. ‘With me, there's usually a forty-eight-hour rule. And a text message doesn't count. That's just what guys do when they couldn't be arsed picking up the phone to you. No full-on phone contact, no Jamie. Look at me, Amelia, and learn by example.'

‘When I was married to shit features number two,' Rachel chips in, ‘and he was working late and wouldn't call me, I used to think either he was having an affair or lying on the side of the road in a coma. Funny, but I think I actually would have preferred the coma option.'

‘I'm really sorry to hear about your Spaniard,' I say.
‘It would have been nice if things had worked out for you.'

‘Yeah, well, it would have been nice if Hitler had channelled all his energies into opening a nice chain of vegetarian restaurants instead of the Third Reich, but guess what? That didn't happen either.'

‘So what poor unfortunate freak-o-saurus were you dating last night?' Rachel asks.

‘This guy I met on the internet. Now, normally, I'm not one to kiss and tell, but … Oh, who am I kidding? Well, girlies, you'd have howled. From his profile, I expected to meet a guy with the swarthy good looks of a young John Cusack and the charisma of that guy who won American
Pop Idol
. What I actually got was a middle-aged man who looked like one of the judges on
Pop Idol
, with all the charisma of a Heinz ketchup bottle. I wanted to say to him, “Do you
have
a full-length mirror in your house?” The difference between him and his Gaydar profile was so unbelievably huge, you'd think he was leading a double life. You know, kind of like Bruce Wayne and Batman. Except this guy looked more like the aul' fella that's the butler.'

‘Just out of curiosity,' I ask, ‘what does your Gaydar profile say?'

‘Actor, Buddhist, gym bunny, muscle Mary. OK, maybe I've only been a Buddhist for twenty minutes but, apart from that, it's all true. I'm far too honest about myself online, that's my trouble.'

Just then, his mobile beep-beeps for about the fourth time. ‘Oh shit, it's him again,' says Jamie, glancing at the text message, then snapping the phone shut. ‘He's got a bad case of Jamie-itis. How am I going to let him down gently? What would you do, Amelia? You repel men all the time.'

‘Stop taking your hangover out on me. For a Buddhist, you have a very nasty streak.'

We've just bypassed Naas when naturally enough the chat turns to Tony Irwin.

‘Now, don't pass out,' says Rachel, ‘but if by any miracle he's still single, then, baby, you've got yourself some competition. My legs are waxed and I'm match fit, if you get my drift.'

‘Well, stop the presses,' says Jamie, sticking his head between us from the back seat of the car, suddenly as excited as a puppy that needs the loo badly. ‘Can this be Rachel speaking? The same Rachel who has forsworn all men, love, romance and all that jazz?'

‘Doesn't surprise me in the least,' I say. ‘This is Tony Irwin, after all. The only man we ever fought over in two decades.'

‘You better watch out, sweetie,' says Jamie, patting my arm, ‘she might just deploy the lethal Rachel pheromone.'

‘Ladies, we have to be realistic here,' I say.

‘One hour away from meeting someone you haven't seen in eighteen years and now you want to get
realistic, because … remind me again? Oh yes, because you think this will get you a husband this year,' says Jamie.

‘Why don't you find a parade and then go and rain on it,' Rachel snaps at him. ‘Could you imagine if we had to track down all of your exes? It would take a lifetime.'

‘I know,' he agrees, taking it as a compliment. ‘I am to dating what—'

‘Cholera is to Senegal,' she finishes his sentence for him.

‘I was about to say that we should realistically accept that Tony is happily married with a large family by now,' I go on, ignoring their bickering, which always blows over like a tropical storm. ‘So you deploy the lethal Rachel pheromone all you like and we can fight over him all we want, but I think we both know that if either one of us actually got him, it would be way too good to be true. Chances are some other lucky bitch has got there light years ahead of us.'

‘Yeah, you're probably right,' says Rachel grudgingly. ‘He couldn't possibly be still single. Life isn't like that, is it?'

I nod in agreement and we drive on in silence, the mood in the car having cooled down considerably.

To this day, I can never understand how a guy like Tony picked someone like me over Rachel.

And then I remember …

 

THE TIME: Spring 1987.

THE PLACE: The Carlton Cinema, O'Connell Street, Dublin.

THE OCCASION: Tony and I have just been to see
Withnail and I
with Rachel and Jamie who are, get this, a couple.

 

‘Isn't Tony just the sweetest, loveliest man ever?' I shout at Rachel over the toilet cubicle that's separating us. ‘I think I've met the love of my life and I'm only n-n-n-n-nineteen.'

‘Shut up, I hate that bloody song,' she barks, flushing the loo.

‘Sorry, but I really think this is THE ONE. He's so adorable; he even apologized for all the bad language in the film. There're not many guys who would come out with something like that.' I come out of the cubicle and head over to where Rachel is frantically putting on even more blusher and lip gloss in front of the mirror. ‘I love your hair in the bob,' I say to her admiringly. ‘You look just like Holly Hunter.'

‘Tell that to my boyfriend.'

I'm only half listening as I'm so anxious to get back to Tony. You know when you're so mad about someone that even running to the loo seems like an eternity to be apart?

‘Are you nearly ready Rachel? The lads said they'd wait outside for us and then Tony's talking about
getting the bus back out to the Belfield bar for a nightcap.'

‘Do I look OK to you? You know, normal? Attractive? Not repulsive?' she suddenly asks me, out of nowhere.

‘You look like any man's fantasy.'

It's the truth. In fact, I might as well be honest here. I have a niggling, sneaking suspicion that the only reason I had the great good fortune to land my lovely, wonderful Tony is because Rachel was otherwise occupied with Jamie …

‘I went to loads of trouble to look well tonight,' she says. ‘I've three tins of mousse in my hair, this outfit cost all of my Saturday job money and my shoulder pads are miles bigger than anyone else's here.'

‘Rachel,' I say gently, ‘what's up?' She's been in bad form all evening, but this is the first time she's hinted at the reason why. It's not like her to show any kind of chink in her armour.

‘Jamie. My so-called boyfriend. That's what's up.'

‘Tell me.'

‘I don't know. All I know is that whenever I'm with him, I feel like the unsexiest girl in college. He won't lay a finger on me and it's driving me nuts. Apart from a few chaste kisses, with no tongues, that's it.'

‘Oh, honey, are you OK?'

‘No actually, I'm not.'

‘Maybe he just wants to take things slowly. He's such a good friend—'

‘My arse. Amelia, everyone in UCD is doing it except me. My parents were out last night and he came over to watch a video of
9½ Weeks
, which I'd rented specially, thinking it would get him in the mood. Then he spent the whole night talking about Mickey Rourke and did I think he'd look as well as him if he started taking aerobics classes. I'm telling you, my patience is wearing very thin.'