Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man (40 page)

For once in my life, I can't even think of a smart comment to throw back at him. The pain and the agony and the hurt that this man put me through and now he's saying: Ooooops, sorry about that, made a
bad move, can we just forget about the past and by the way, please take me back?

Suddenly the last few months flash before my eyes … every one of my exes that I painstakingly tracked down, full of hope that I'd learn something that would all stand me in good stead when I met
the one.

I can handle that none of my previous relationships worked out. I can handle the sad fact that you could summarize my entire twenty-year dating history in three words: crash and burn. I accept that I made bad choices in the past.

What I can't handle is that it's still ongoing. Whatever I'm doing wrong, I'm still doing it: viz, this arsehole on my doorstep fully expecting me to take him back with open arms. If I'm really honest, yes, there was a time after we first broke up when I probably would have taken him back, in spite of everything, but not now. Not after everything he's put me through. Maybe I'm a million miles wrong, but I can't help feeling I deserve a bit better. And
anything's
better than this …

‘Amelia?'

‘What?'

‘You're doing your drifting-off-into-space thing again. Did you hear what I just said?'

‘Yes, I was just doing my best to tune it out.'

‘I was apologizing for the huge mistake I made. I didn't know what I had with you until I lost it. I guess you're an acquired taste.'

‘Like Guinness,' I mutter, taking out my keys and opening the hall door. I've had enough. Quite enough.

He looks at me, crestfallen as I turn to close the door. ‘So I'm not welcome inside then? Are you sure we couldn't talk about this over a nice bottle of Sancerre, your favourite? Poppy's out with her friends again tonight and I really don't want to be alone. Come on, Amelia, let me in, for old times' sake. I've missed you and if you're honest you'll admit that you've missed me too.' Then he grabs my arm and moves in close. ‘Don't be like this, honey, let me inside. You know you want to.'

Now he's done it.

I turn to him, boiling with fury at the sheer
brass neck
of him. ‘I'm really glad I'm not crying because I'd hate for what I'm saying to be clouded by emotion. It is not OK for you to camp out on my doorstep just because your fiancée is having second thoughts about you. I am no one's second choice nor am I your consolation prize. Do you understand?'

He gives me the puppy-dog eyes but sensibly says nothing.

‘Oh and FYI?' I add, unable to resist this.

‘Yeah?' He looks at me half hopefully, half expectantly.

‘When a woman says she wants to take a break, allow me to translate. It means she wants a break from
you
.'

I go inside, collapse on the sofa and burst into angry, bitter tears.

 

As ever, it takes Jamie to put a smile back on my face. I call him from work the next day, desperate to talk.

‘Hey, hon!' he growls, sounding hungover as a dog and dying for a good long gossip, ‘So what's the word from planet crackpot?'

I fill him in on last night's developments, in glorious Technicolor, no detail, however tiny, omitted.

‘Oh, Jamie, I honestly can't remember the last time I cried that much. My head is splitting today and I'm supposed to be working and I just can't bring myself to do anything. This is awful. It's just so bloody awful.'

‘Jeez,' he says, concerned, ‘you really sound like you're stuck in a slough of despond. Not like yourself at all.'

‘If you'd only seen him; he was just so
sure
of himself. In his warped head he thought all it would take would be a bunch of flowers for him to be on a one-way ticket to pantyland.'

‘OK, are you ready for my take on this?' says Jamie, sounding like the Exorcist after smoking fifty fags. ‘Although you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what's going on there.'

‘Please.'

‘Elementary, my dear. Poppy's finally got bored with him and now wants to hang out with her
twenty-something friends. So if I were in your shoes, I would now be dancing on rooftops going “he, he, hee”. What a kick in the teeth for him. I'm sorry, but isn't some evil part of you just haemorrhaging bittersweet laughter, my favourite kind?'

‘No, that's the thing. It turns my stomach to think that I'm his also-ran woman and, now that he's a dumpee, he thinks all he has to do is doorstep me and I'll fall back into his arms. After what he put me through.'

‘Come on, babe, you have to stay strong. You have a big awards do coming up and the last thing you need are stress lines breaking out on your face. Refocus. Regroup. So what's the plan for today?'

I'm so shell-shocked by the last twelve hours, I can't even think straight … Then it comes back to me. ‘Oh, you'll love this. I have to contact Gary O'Neill.'

Jamie snorts. ‘The original dirty rotten scoundrel? The Nick Leeson of the skies? Take great care, angel, in fact take a tip from me. Do it over the phone. You don't want him getting his thieving paws on your credit card. Again.'

He's dead right,
I'm thinking,
God knows what Gary's up to now. He could even be in prison for all I know … In fact, if he's a free man, I'll be very surprised …

‘Ooooh, this is just
way
too much drama for me this early in the day,' says Jamie. ‘Keep safe and keep me posted, won't you, hon? Oh, here, I have to go, the
dead have arisen.' In the background, I can hear a loo flushing and heavy footsteps thumping around Jamie's flat.

‘I'm not finished with you yet,' I say. ‘Have you got someone there? Did you score last night?'

‘At it like students after lights out all night long, baby,' he says, dropping his voice to a whisper. ‘I'll call you back, darling. I was very drunk and now I have to try and remember which lies I told him. I definitely remember saying that I was a black belt in karate and that I was fluent in Greek and Arabic and that I was acting part-time while I did a Ph.D. in genetic research.'

‘Jamie!'

‘In fact the only thing I didn't lie about was being single. Cheerie-bye, dearest, chat later. Love you, mean it!'

I seize the moment. I have about half an hour before my next meeting, with the advertising department, so I make sure the conference-room door is shut tight and I go for it. After all, time is running out and here I am, still single and now dealing with an ex-boyfriend who thinks I'm fair game.

Right, here goes.

One deep, soothing breath later and I'm on the phone to the British Airways personnel department.

Then I do something I'm not very proud of.

In my defence, when I was in current affairs, we used
to do this all the time. If we needed to talk to someone and get specific information, we'd say, ‘Hi, I'm calling from the
News Time
TV show, can you tell me … ?' It was like uttering a magic formula. People would tell you all kinds of stuff which they probably shouldn't have. But it worked then and it works now.

The lady in personnel I speak to sounds crisp and efficient. Definitely not a rule-breaker, so I chance my arm. ‘I know you're not supposed to give out personal information,' I say tentatively, ‘but, you see, I'm a producer calling from TV One and I'm trying to track down an employee of yours.'

OK, it sounds like I'm about to make a documentary about the airline industry but, so far, it's only a half-lie.

‘Any information you can give me would of course be treated in the strictest confidence,' I add, doing my best to sugar it up.

It works like a charm. ‘Who did you wish to contact?' she asks.

‘One Gary O'Neill,' I answer, feeling a bit more confident.

‘Gary O'Neill?' she asks, repeating the name slowly.

‘That's right. He was employed as cabin crew for you, oh, about eight years ago. He may easily have left the company by now, I realize that, but if you had any contact details, you'd be doing me a very big favour.'

There's a long, long silence and I can hear her tap-tap-tapping away at the keys of her computer.
‘O'Neill, Gary. Yes, here we go. He took a voluntary redundancy package from the company in two thousand. I have an address and a mobile phone number I can give you, if that's of any use.'

‘Thank you so much,' I say, delighted, ‘I really am so grateful.'

‘No problem,' she says brusquely. ‘Just one more thing. If you do manage to get hold of him, could you tell him I'm still waiting on him to repay the cash he borrowed from me? Thanks ever so much.'

It's like phoning the Pot Noodle of ex-boyfriends. I don't particularly want to do it; I know it's bad for me; but I just can't help myself …

It takes about four goes of his phone just ringing and ringing out again before I eventually do get him.

‘Hello?' he answers, sounding groggy and half-asleep, even though it's two in the afternoon.

‘Gary?'

‘Ehh … depends. Who's this?'

‘It's a blast from the past. Amelia Lockwood. You'll be surprised to hear from me after so long—'

‘No, are you kidding?' he whistles. ‘Amelia Lockwood, I don't believe it. It's great to hear from you. I was just reading in the paper that you're up for a big TV award. Best producer, isn't it? Well done, good on you.'

I can hear him lighting up a cigarette as he's talking.
OK,
says my inner voice sternly,
just get to the point
quickly and then get off the phone. You don't want Gary O'Neill of all people getting the wrong idea about why you're getting in touch after all this time …

‘Gary I just wanted to ask you something.' I pause for a minute, wondering what would be a polite way of saying: ‘Why did you lie to me/use me/run off without saying a word? Oh, and let's not forget the clincher. I don't actually have proof, but I do have a fair idea that you used my credit card to run up a huge bill …'

I don't get the chance to finish my sentence, though. He barrels right over me.

‘It's fantastic that you rang, Amelia.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Yeah. This could be your lucky day. I have a proposition for you which I think you'll be very interested in.'

Do not let the charm get to you and under no circumstances are you to part with money …
‘Oh, really? What kind of proposition?'

There's just the tiniest pause. ‘I'm doing a lot of charity work at the moment to help build an orphanage for the homeless kids in Belarus. I think this could be a fantastic opportunity for you to make a no-holds-barred documentary about the great work we're doing out there.'

‘What work is that exactly?'

‘We're only in the very early stages, really. Fund-raising mostly. But TV exposure could really give us a
boost. Basically, what we're asking people to do is to pledge two thousand euro a head to sponsor a child. We'll raise the money in advance and then the building work proper can go ahead. My financial advisers are telling me we need to raise one point two million and then we're home and dry. It's for a fantastic cause. You could do worse than consider investing yourself, Amelia. Think of the children.'

He chats on and I let him, but my thoughts have long since drifted. At this stage, it's not a relationship coach I need. It's Lourdes.

Rachel, as ever, is completely fantastic. Friday comes and we're all on our way over to Caroline's for one of her yummy big mammy dinners, as I call them.

‘I love feeding you guys at least once a week,' Caroline said with Joshua screeching in her arms. ‘It's getting to be my raison d'être. At least then I know you're all eating one square meal in a seven-day period. Honestly, Rachel's practically gone skeletal. Her idea of dinner is to uncork a bottle of wine and light up a cigarette. And someone should really tell her that mints are not a food group.'

But, before we head out there, Rachel suggests I pop into Urban Chic to have a look at a particular outfit she's put by for me, for the awards do.

‘Oh my Gowwwd!' I squeal when I see what she's earmarked. ‘I'm not worthy!'

‘As your stylist, I've made an executive call. I neither know nor care what the glamourometer usually is for these TV awards, but you, my darling, are going
for all-out Hollywood-on-Oscar-night look. I've even made an appointment for you to have your hair done at Marshall's.'

‘Wow! I'm well impressed. The wait to have your hair done there is about three months. The too-posh-to-push brigade all plan their Caesarean sections around getting their hair done in there.'

Rachel steers me over to the mirror, comes behind me and pulls my hair up. ‘You see?' she says. ‘A classic chignon with absolutely no jewellery whatsoever would be fantastic. Very chic, very French. Come on, try the Peter O'Brien on, I have a good feeling about this frock.'

The dress is more like a 1940s ball gown, a real showstopper in every way. It's very, very tight fitting with a flamenco-style ruffle skirt in the most elegant silvery colour you ever saw. The fabric is bias-cut and it has what look like hundreds and thousands of minuscule bugle beads sewn knee deep across the hem line. I'm almost afraid getting into it, it's probably worth more than I am.

As I'm shoehorning myself into it inside the fitting room, I fill Rachel in on the Gary O'Neill saga.

‘You know what that worthless bastard is?' she calls back to me. ‘Puff Daddy without the gun charge. But that's probably right around the corner for him. More to the point, what happened with
He-whose-name-shall-forever-remain-unspoken
? Jamie said you had an unwanted late-night visit the other night.'