Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man (6 page)

‘So how did you get on?'

‘Short answer or long answer?'

‘Long, naturally.'

I take another sip from my glass of Sancerre and brace myself. ‘Apparently, to find Mr Right, I have to revisit all of my past Mr Wrongs. Starting right at the very beginning and working from there.'

‘OH MY GOWWWWD!' Caroline squeals, ‘Greg Taylor? You have got to be kidding me! Don't tell me you have to get in contact with him again, after – what's it been?'

‘Twenty years,' I answer calmly.

‘And what'll you say?'

‘I've a fair idea of what
he'll
say,' says Rachel. ‘ “Any spare change?” '

‘I don't know yet,' I say, ignoring her. ‘The tutor gave us all these questions you're supposed to ask, so I can figure out whatever it is I'm doing wrong, but I suppose I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it. And I can't put it off for much longer, either.'

‘What would you say he's up to now?' Caroline asks excitedly.

‘Mmm, let me just apply my mind to that question,' says Rachel, acidly. ‘In prison? In rehab? Or maybe a mental home?'

‘Don't change the subject,' says Caroline. ‘I need to pee, but I'll be straight back. My life is so domesticated these days; I have to live vicariously through you.'

‘OK,' says Rachel, getting up. ‘I'll pop outside for a quick smirt.'

‘A what?'

‘You've never heard of a smirt? It's what the young ones in work call a smoke mixed with a flirt.'

No sooner have they both left the table than I have another memory flashback …

THE TIME: 13 July 1985.

THE PLACE: Old Wesley Rugby Club, Dublin.

THE OCCASION: Live Aid is on: it's the only reason I remember the date so clearly.

Two massive video screens dominate the whole bar area, both relaying live feed from Wembley arena. Queen have just come on stage and stormed the show with a foot-stomping, mosh-pitting rendition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody'. Even the operatic bit in the middle sounded incredible. The crowd, those lucky enough to be in Wembley and here in Dublin, have, predictably, gone mental.

‘You are watching the greatest show on earth!' Bob Geldof is now screaming into the cameras, ‘so get up off your f**king arses and start donating more money! Now!'

Jamie and I are perched on bar stools, with a brilliant view of the screens. ‘Wow,' we both say, overwhelmed by Queen's electrifying performance.

‘Isn't Freddie Mercury unbelievable?' I say, blown away by his operatic muscularity.

‘I heard a rumour he's gay, you know,' says Jamie, sounding like an aul' one gossiping in the hairdresser's.

‘Yeah, right,' I say, sneeringly. ‘Next thing you'll be telling me so's George Michael. Or else someone happily married like – oh, I dunno, like Elton John.'

‘So where's Greg this evening?'

‘Who's on next, Bruce Springsteen?'

‘Unavailable.'

‘The Boomtown Rats?'

‘Unavoidable. Now stop trying to change the subject and tell me where your boyfriend is.'

I take a sip of my Ritz cider and twiddle nervously on my long, feathery earrings. I was dreading that question. The truth is, after almost a year of going out, I don't know where Greg is tonight. And it's a big night. Everyone's out tonight. Half of UCD is here and have been here all day, ever since the show started.

Except for Greg.

He hasn't called, or answered any of my messages: not in ages. I've been postponing telling the Lovely Girls for as long as I could, because I know how they'll react, but I honestly don't think I can put it off for much longer.

‘Amelia? What is it?'

‘I don't know where he is. He hasn't called me since … oh, I can't remember when.' I try my best to sound all blasé, but I'm a crap actress. Jamie sees through me straight away.

‘Yes you can. When?'

‘Two weeks, four days and oh … about thirteen hours ago.' By now Freddie Mercury is belting out ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love'. The irony is too much for me and I start getting teary. ‘I don't know what to do, Jamie; I'm so knickers mad about him.'

‘Oh, come on, babe,' he says, slipping an encouraging arm around me. ‘He took you to his debs ball, and that was only a few weeks ago.'

‘Yeah.' I try to sound convinced but am not really doing a very good job of it, mainly because Greg spent most of the night chatting up Sandra Sweetman, the pin-up girl of first-year Arts, UCD. Literally. She ran in the students' union election and not only was voted in by a landslide, but all her posters (in which she looks stunningly gorgeous, a bit like Lucy Ewing) were nicked and are now hanging in student bedsits the length and breadth of Rathmines. ‘I was kind of hoping that the reason Greg hadn't called was because he was
so
mad about me that he couldn't bring himself to pick up the phone …' I trail off lamely seeing the look of disbelief mingled with pity on Jamie's face.

‘Now, you know what I'll say to that,' he says, gently.

‘Probably, but say it anyway.'

‘That's a bit like saying, “Oh, I just love that song so much that I'm never going to listen to it ever, ever again.” Or, “I love that movie so much I'll never watch it ever again, as long as I live.” You know, a bit like the way I feel about
The Breakfast Club
.'

‘I know, you're right.' I take another gulp of Ritz and try really hard to keep the wobble out of my voice. Wesley's packed and I really don't want to be seen bawling in public.

‘Hey, you know the real reason Jerry Hall wouldn't
marry Bryan Ferry?' says Jamie, trying to lighten the mood, bless him.

‘No, why?'

‘Well, would you want to be known as Jerry Ferry?' By now, Rachel and Caroline have made their way back from the loo, looking just like Krystle Carrington and Alexis Colby from
Dynasty
, all pencil skirts and shoulder pads. Their faces alone are a dead giveaway.

‘You were ages,' says Jamie. ‘I was nearly going to have to go in there after the pair of you. Any longer and you'd have missed your precious David Bowie.'

‘I don't care,' says Rachel, sitting down opposite me and taking my hand.

This also raises the hackles of suspicion on the back of my neck, mainly because Rachel adores David Bowie; she's been waiting all day for him.

In fact, she and Jamie are always having great heated debates about the Thin White Duke, although Jamie's main grievance against him isn't musical. It's that he called his son Zowie Bowie. ‘Anyone who'd wilfully do that to an innocent child,' he says, ‘deserves nothing better than a long career in regional panto.'

Caroline cuts straight to the chase. ‘Suppose we had just heard something really, really awful and we didn't know how to tell you?' she says to me, genuinely concerned.

‘We
have
to tell her. We wouldn't be proper friends otherwise,' Rachel snaps.

‘WHAT? Tell me
what
?'

‘OK,' says Caroline. ‘When we were in the loo, I met my neighbour Sarah Daly …'

‘Yes? And?'

‘And you know how her sister is going out with Peter Hughes?'

‘Well, no, but I do now.'

‘And you know how his brother plays rugby with Greg?'

‘Please, just tell me whatever it was you heard, the suspense is wrecking my head.' I've got a nervous knot in my stomach and I don't know why. I'm also finding it really hard to keep the impatience out of my voice.

‘OK,' says Rachel, taking up the baton. ‘Well, Sarah was playing Trivial Pursuit the other night with the sister and Peter and a gang of his mates and one of them is on the Leinster team with Greg—'

‘No, you're telling it wrong,' Caroline interrupts. ‘Peter's brother Seamus is the one who's on the team with Greg. Remember? The guy who failed the Leaving Cert three times in a row? Oh, you know who I mean; high eyebrows, low IQ.'

I know they're both trying to be helpful and that they mean well, but by now I'm fit to be tied. ‘Girls, it doesn't matter if Peter's brother plays in a fly-half position with Ronald Reagan, what did you hear about my boyfriend?'

They look at each other shiftily.

‘He's going out with Sandra Sweetman,' Rachel eventually says. ‘For definite.'

‘
WHAT?!
' Try as I might, I can't stop the tears from welling. I feel like I've just been punched.

‘Hang on, hang on,' says Jamie, taking my corner. ‘So you heard this from your neighbour's sister's boyfriend's friend?'

‘Ehh, yeah,' says Caroline.

‘Oh well, that's practically CNN,' he says sarcastically.

‘It can't be true,' I sob into my Ritz, ‘Greg said he loved me.'

‘What?' says Rachel. ‘When?'

‘The night of his debs in the back of his car.'

‘He really said that?'

‘Well, I told him I loved him and asked if he felt the same and he didn't deny it. But then he did go back inside and spent the rest of the night chatting her up.'

David Bowie is on stage now, singing ‘Modern Love'.

‘And this was our song,' I bawl, like a five-year-old.

The others have all put comforting arms around me and then the single worst moment of my seventeen-year-old life unfolds. I spot Greg. With Sandra Sweetman. The bar is packed and smoky, but it's definitely them. As if to confirm their couple status, he's wearing his
Miami Vice
pants and she's wearing the matching white jacket over her ra-ra skirt. She looks all
blonde and tiny and is snuggled into him possessively as loads of her bloody student union pals at the bar call them over, offering to buy them drinks.

All I want to do is crawl under the table and pray really hard for an aneurism or a heart attack or any medical emergency that'll get me out of this, when Rachel takes over.

Looking like the Amazonian giant that she is, even scarier than one of those girls in the Robert Palmer ‘Addicted to Love' video, she picks up her pint of Fürstenberg and strides over to them.

Greg blanches a bit under his designer stubble as he sees her thunder towards him at her most intimidating. Even over the noise and David Bowie and all the screaming fans in Wembley, I can still hear her loud and clear.

‘Amelia is too sweet a person ever to say this to your face,' she snarls down at him as the packed bar is eerily silenced, ‘so I'll do it for her. You are a lying, cheating scumbag and if you
ever
come near her again, I'll do this to you.'

With that, she flings the pint of beer into his face, smashes the glass on the floor and strides back to where the rest of us are sitting, gobsmacked.

‘Problem solved,' she says. ‘Are you OK?'

I'm too dumbstruck to speak, so Jamie expresses what we're all feeling. ‘Well, congratulations, Rachel. You just became my personal heroine.'

In my darkest moments of despair, when I'm seriously thinking that the universe has given up on ever finding me a life partner and wondering if I'm destined to live out the rest of my natural life alone, there's one bright, shining thought which never fails to fill me with renewed optimism and hope for what lies ahead.

Caroline and Mike and their perfect, soulmate marriage.

Caroline and Mike are one of those couples that you just look at in awe and marvel at. He's as lovely as she is; she adores him and he idolizes her. In fact, he's put her on a pedestal so high that if Catherine Zeta Jones left Michael Douglas for him, the chances of him even noticing would be slim to negligible. They're lucky, lucky people and you can't even begrudge them, not for a moment. If ever I find myself wondering whether I'm better off alone, Caroline and Mike come into my mind and I think: NO. It doesn't matter what
anyone says, true love exists and marriage
does
work. Spectacularly well, in fact.

We're just finishing up brunch when Mike arrives to collect Caroline, carrying a bunch of stargazer lilies, her favourites.

‘Well? How are the champagne Sheilas?' he asks, pecking me and Rachel on the cheek, but only after giving his glowing wife a bear hug and presenting her with the bouquet, as if he hasn't seen her in weeks instead of only a couple of hours ago.

Did I mention that, in addition to being both husband and father of the year, filthy rich and great fun to boot, Mike is also incredibly handsome? He's very tall, broad-shouldered with classic, preppy good looks, bright blue eyes and alert good manners; the type of man who really
listens
to you and cares about what you're saying – and it isn't an act. He's not only the type of man Ralph Lauren would kill to have in one of his ads, but the yardstick by which I unconsciously measure all future boyfriends/life partners/lovers/quickies/husbands.

Even Jamie fancies him a bit.

‘Actually, we're remarkably sober,' replies Rachel. ‘For us.'

‘So what'll you pair get up to for the rest of the afternoon?' Caroline asks as we all say our goodbyes. I mutter something about having some shopping to do, but before I can say my five favourite words in the
English language, ‘seasonal stock reduced to clear', Rachel has ordered another bottle of Sancerre.

‘Feck it anyway,' she says to me as soon as the happy couple have gone. ‘When you're out, you're out.'

‘Rachel, can I ask you something?'

‘As long as it's not my real age. As Oscar Wilde says, a woman who would tell you that would tell you anything.'

‘Do you ever look at Caroline and Mike and envy what they have?'

She almost choked on the Sancerre. ‘Are you mental? Have you been inhaling cleaning products?'

‘I'm serious.'