Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man (36 page)

So Caroline and I dutifully trooped along to the Gate, minus Rachel who's living in Paris by now, but who has sent the biggest bouquet of flowers you ever saw, along with a bottle of champagne to toast Jamie's success and to mark the launch of what we all hope will be a glittering career. His name in lights, fantastic reviews, agents bickering over him and all of his performances making the news, just like when Laurence Olivier started out.

But life isn't like that, is it?

He made his grand entrance in the third scene, where all the cast dance a quadrille at the Nether-field ball. Caroline and I both collectively held our breath as an invisible string quartet struck up and … disaster.

Jamie, clad in heeled Regency buckle shoes that he wasn't quite used to, went to do a very fancy-looking twirl (think Nureyev meets Nijinsky) and fell over, dragging both Lydia Bennet and Caroline Bingley all the way down as far as the footlights with him.

He got into the papers all right, but just not in the ‘review' section.

 

ACTOR'S UNLUCKY BREAK

James French, making his debut at Dublin's Gate Theatre last night, suffered an onstage fall which brought the show to a complete halt. An under-study will take over the role for opening night as Mr French recovers in hospital from a fractured ankle and two cracked ribs.

 

Which brings me neatly to ex-boyfriend number eight on my hit list. Or, as I like to call him, Mr Non-Closure …

And I wouldn't mind, but it all started out so romantically …

 

THE TIME: The curtain went up at eight p.m. and barely one hour later, we're all in the Accident and Emergency department.

THE PLACE: Saint Vincent's Hospital, Dublin.

THE OCCASION: Caroline and I are both nervously clustered around the tiny little bed that they've put Jamie in, when suddenly a curtain swishes back and into the cubicle walks Johnny …

OK. His proper name is Johnny Allen. Dr Johnny Allen to be precise. Tall, broad, prematurely balding and newly qualified as a junior doctor; he looks like a younger version of Kelsey Grammer crossed with the toothiness of a Kennedy brother. He bounds in, full of energy and not at all like someone who's been working a one-hundred-hour week and functioning on next to no sleep.

We start flirting immediately.

‘OK, Jamie,' he says cheerfully, ‘good news and bad news. Which do you want first?'

‘You mean there's
good news
?' Jamie snarls from the bed as Caroline and I do our best to calm him down. ‘The only positive outcome to this is if my agent comes around that curtain right now to say either that
Pride and Prejudice
can go ahead with Mr Collins on crutches, or that there's a load of interesting offers in for an actor in a wheelchair. All the parts that Daniel Day-Lewis turned down,' he almost wails, bitterly disappointed and in acute pain.

‘No, sorry, not quite what I was getting at,' says Johnny, sounding a tad hesitant, as would anyone who wasn't used to Jamie's hissy fits. ‘The good news is that I'm letting you go home, but the bad news is we're going to have to put you in plaster for at least six weeks. No opening night for you, I'm afraid.'

‘
You have to be kidding me!
I can't believe that I've gone almost three minutes without saying “
Bastard bloody universe! Why me?
” ' Jamie continues to screech.

Now, Caroline in her infinite wisdom is always lecturing me that there are five distinct categories whereby it's possible for me to meet men. We even have them categorized, a bit like the way they classify hurricanes in the States.

 

Category 1
: Your friends and, by extension, your friends' friends. OK, at this point, we're almost into 1995 and I've still had no joy here …

 

Category 2
: Work. I've just started working as an investigative journalist for the
Irish Record
. It's a fab job and I absolutely love it, it's just that there's a downside. The only eligible men I'm meeting through work these days are either drug barons, crime lords or gangland criminals. Not exactly what you might call suitable husband material …

 

Category 3
: Socializing. Clubs, pubs, you name it, I've been trawling through them all and here I am, twenty-six years of age and no sign of Mr Right. Caroline is engaged now and is sporting a rock on her finger bigger than the Hope diamond and while there's nobody happier for her than I am, I just wish it was my turn.

Yes, I want to have a successful career. Yes, I want to work in television, the Holy Grail. I would just like to get married first, that's all …

 

Category 4
: Activities and hobbies. I regularly go to the theatre and the movies but still no joy. I know this is a numbers game and that you have to go to every dog fight you're invited to and I do, I
really
do.

Anyway I'm not
actively
looking to find my man when I'm on a night out with my friends … mainly because everyone says this is the surest way to meet someone. I.e., by not looking.

 

Category 5
: Accident. Let me explain. When Caroline first mooted this to me, I presumed she meant if you spot a guy you fancy, you should reverse your car into his – that type of accident. But no. This category effectively
covers those rare and wondrous occasions when you meet someone unexpectedly, unplanned, out of nowhere.

 

She catches my eye from the other side of the bed and silently mouths ‘Cat. five'.

Hint taken.

I flick into full flirtation mode.

‘Sorry about this, doctor,' I say, gazing into his lovely blue eyes, ‘it's just that this was a really big career opportunity for Jamie. Do you ever go to the theatre? Tonight's show looked really interesting – well, the ten minutes of it that we saw. It's just that if you wanted to come with us when we go back …'

‘Ughhh!' groans Jamie from the bed. ‘Heterosexual politics, thank God I'm out of that arena. Look, Dr Whatever-your-name-is, she's single. She's not bad to look at. From her demented ramblings I'm guessing she wouldn't mind seeing you outside of this public-health hell-hole. Have you the slightest interest?'

I glare at Jamie thunderously. ‘Remind me again which is the bad leg?' I ask him. ‘Just so I can bang my handbag down on it?'

‘Sorry, I'm just trying to save both of you a lot of time.'

‘Now, now, Jamie,' says Caroline, ‘don't take it out on Amelia just because she's able-bodied.'

Dr Johnny, however, spares my blushes. ‘Sounds great. I'd love to take you out,' he says simply.

‘Good. Just don't think of going to see
Pride and Prejudice
, that's all,' says Jamie warningly. ‘If you value my friendship, you'll boycott all theatre until I'm back in the game.'

‘How about a film?' Caroline tactfully suggests, bless her.

‘Sounds good to me,' says Johnny. ‘The last movie I saw was a colonoscopy.'

And thus it came to pass …

 

THE TIME: Flash forward to about six months later, June 1995.

THE PLACE: The townhouse I'm still sharing with Caroline and Jamie. Well, until Caroline gets married, at least.

THE OCCASION: Rachel's home for the weekend from Paris, where she now lives with Christian, and she and I are having a night in to catch up on each other's lives. Caroline's out with Mike's family, Jamie's on a date and this is the first time I've actually had Rachel all to myself. After a bottle of wine, I blurt out the whole, sad tale of me and Dr Johnny …

 

Ten p.m. ‘Right, now that the other two are out of the way, tell me honestly,' Rachel asks me as she lights a fag and takes a deep drag, ‘when was the last time he called?'

‘Let's see now,' I say, topping up our wine glasses.
‘This is Friday, so … emm … it would have been … almost three weeks ago.'

‘And no row? No other woman on the scene? No signs that this was coming? No reason for this?'

‘No, that's what has me on the verge of turning into a stalker. Everything was going really well. He treated me well, took me out to lovely places, I got on with all his friends, he got on with Caroline and Jamie. Then, about three weeks ago, he took me to see
Braveheart
, dropped me back here, stayed over, went to work the next morning, said he'd call and then … big, fat nothing.'

‘That has to be the world's greatest lie: “I'll call you.” '

‘No, the world's greatest lie is “You know I love you.” '

‘Whatever. He's a bastard. If Christian dropped me without having the balls to say it to my face, I swear on his future grave I'd rip out his goolies.' Then she clocks the hurt look on my face. ‘Sorry, darling. Are you not ready for me to start slagging him off? Give me the nod as soon as you are. I'm your girl.'

‘It mightn't be so bad,' I say. ‘I called his direct line at the hospital earlier and the ward sister said he's definitely on the night shift tonight. She said she'd give him the message and get him to call as soon as he gets a break.'

Rachel arches an elegantly plucked eyebrow. I swear
she can do it even better than Roger Moore. She doesn't need to say anything, her message is plain.

‘I know, I know,' I say, ‘I shouldn't have called him at work, but oh, Rachel, the whole thing is driving me mental. I've already left about five messages for him at his house and he's ignored every one of them. Am I still going out with him or is it all off? That's all I want to know. I can handle being dumped, I've been there before and will be again. What's killing me is the not knowing.'

Silence from Rachel.

‘I know what you're thinking,' I say, ‘but I just need to give it this one last chance. If he doesn't call me back tonight, then that's it. Finito.'

Midnight. We're on to our second bottle of wine and still no call.

The phone is sitting on the table between us, actively not ringing.

‘Which would you prefer to have?' Rachel asks, slurring her words only a tiny bit. ‘A bionic arm or a bionic leg? Just say if you had to choose.'

‘Jamie could do with a bionic leg,' I reply. ‘They should hurry up and invent them.'

‘Yeah, he's still a bit Sir Limps-a-lot, isn't he?'

‘Naaaa, he's loving all the attention. Ever since he started physio, he's turned into a grade A hypochondriac. I can't stop him from going to doctors, healers, herbalists,
acupuncturists, you name it. He says it's great to be able to talk about himself in a surgery for a full hour uninterrupted. He woke me up the other night because he had chest pains and he thought he was having a heart attack, but it turned out to be a packet of Revels he ate before he went to bed.'

Rachel nearly chokes on her wine she's guffawing so much and I have to thump her on the back. ‘Wine went up my nose. Sorry.'

‘You OK?'

‘Yeah. I just miss all this so much,' she says. ‘The messing and the crack and the staying up all night talking about fellas. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Dublin.'

‘Dublin misses you.'

‘Everything's changing,' she says, suddenly serious. ‘Caroline's getting married, I'm living in Paris …'

‘Some things are still the same. I'm still single. There are some things you can always rely on. It was ever thus and probably always will be.'

And still the deafening sound of the phone not ringing …

Two a.m. Now the tears have started.

‘He couldn't have not got six messages in a row,' I sob drunkenly.

‘Well, sweetie, if I can just dust down an old chestnut, what a shithead and I hope he dies roaring for a priest.'

‘You know, maybe he's just really, really busy tonight and he hasn't had time to call … yet.'

Rachel just does her eyebrow thing and lights up another fag.

‘I know, you're right,' I say, despondently. ‘I would have had more respect for him if he'd just told me to fuck off.'

Four a.m. Rachel's fast asleep now, stretched out on the sofa like an elegant Persian cat … And still no call.

I stay up a bit longer though.

Waiting, waiting, waiting …

Anyway. Back to the present.

After work next day, I go home, kick off my shoes and get straight down to business.

Tracking down Mr Non-Closure turns out to be the easiest one yet. I didn't mention it, but in the ten years since we dated, he's actually become quite famous. He's now a consultant cardiologist and is always in the papers, giving advice on things like ‘Why the Atkins diet is keeping coronary bypass surgeons in business' or ‘A forty-minute cardiovascular workout every day plus a half glass of red wine and you'll never end up on my table'.

Best of all, he's still working in St Vincent's Hospital, which makes my job as easy as pie. Brave as you like, I
pick up the phone and ask to be put through to his direct line.

His secretary answers. ‘Dr Allen's office, may I help you?'

I ask if I can speak to Johnny, fully expecting to be told that he's not available. And I'm right.

‘He's actually in theatre at the moment, but I'm expecting him back to his rooms in about an hour's time. Can I get him to return your call?'

‘Yes thanks,' I say, trying not to sound like I'm ringing up to arrange an angiogram. I tell her it's a personal call, leave my name and number and say that I'll be at that number for the rest of the evening.

Phew. Apart from asking out Philip Burke, which is another day's work, that's pretty much this week's homework taken care of.

I'm just about to pour a nice glass of Sancerre when there's a buzz at my apartment door. ‘Who is it?' I ask a bit gingerly, just in case it's
He-whose-name-shall-forever-remain-unspoken.
But, thank God, it's Rachel.