The Other Side of the Story
'There are 3 sides to every story: your side, their side and the truth…'
For events organiser Gemma, the departure of her father into the arms show in town. Suddenly she's doling mammy she breaks every plate in the house. Being from a broken home is no fun when you're 32 - she could write a book about it…
Meanwhile first-time novelist Lily is enjoying overnignt success with her debut novel. But the person she's celebrating with is Anton — her best friend Gemma's ex - and the guilt
And then there's Jojo, a literary agent whose star is on the rise. In love with Mark, her very married boss, and with her burgeoning career, not much distracts her. Until she finds who used to be best friends. That's right: used to be.
What goes around comes around and, in the world of million-pound book deals and the race for a slot on the bestseller list, Lily, Gemma and Jojo's lives intersect, in a collision of love, loyalty and payback time.
The Other Side of the Story
Marian Keyes
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Published by
Poolbeg Press Ltd
123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle
Dublin 13, Ireland
First published 2004
13579108642
© Marian Keyes 2004
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
ISBN 1-84223-149-9
For Niall, Ljiljana, Ema and Luka Keyes
'Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.'
Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator and writer (106-43 bc)
'There are three sides to every story. Your side, their side, and the truth.'
Anon
Acknowledgements
Thanks to all at Penguin, especially Louise Moore, everyone at Poolbeg and all at Curtis Brown, especially Jonathan Lloyd.
I required a lot of expert advice while writing this book and everyone I asked gave generously of their time and knowledge - any mistakes are entirely mine.
Thanks to the New York Fire Department, with special gratitude to Chris O'Brien and the firefighters at 1215 Intervale Ave. (Sometimes I just
love
my job.) Thanks to the officers Anthony Torres, Daniel Hui, Charlie Perry and Kevin Perry of the NYPD; to Kathleen, Natalie, Clare and Shane Perry; to Viv Gaine of Visible Gain Event Management; to Orlaith McCarthy, Michelle Ni Longain and Eileen Prendergast of BCM Hanby Wallace; to John and Shirley Baines; and to Tom and Ann Hertiage of Church Farm, Oxhill.
Thanks to the 'Abel ladies': Orlaith Brennan, Maria Creed, Gwen Hollingsworth, Celia Houlihan, Sinead O'Sullivan and Aideen Kenny.
For encouragement, reading half-written chapters and general hand holding, thank you Suzanne Benson, Jenny Boland, Susie Burgin, Ailish Connolly, Gai Griffin, Jonathan 'Jojo' Harvey, Suzanne Power, Anne-Marie Scanlon, Kate Thompson, Louise Voss and the entire Keyes family. Because this book took a long time to write, I've a horrible feeling that I've forgotten to thank someone who helped me in its early days. If that person is you, I can only apologize and point the finger at my gammy memory.
Finally, as always, there aren't words to thank Tony enough for his phenomenal generosity, patience, insight, kindness, hard work, resourcetul-ness and all-round fabulousness. I'm not messing when I say this book wouldn't have happened without him.
PART O N E
GEMMA
FROM:
Gemma [email protected]
SUBJECT: runaway dad
Susan,you wanted news. Well, I've got news. Although you might be sorry you asked for it. It looks like my dad has left my mam. I'm not sure how serious it is. More as and when.
Gemma xxx
When I first got the call, I thought he'd died. Two reasons. One: I've been to a worrying number of funerals over the past while - friends of my parents and worse again, parents of my friends. Two: Mam had called me on my mobile; the first time she'd ever done that because she'd always persisted in the belief that you can only call a mobile
from
a mobile, like they're CB radios or something. So when I put my phone to my ear and heard her choke, 'He's gone,' who could blame me for thinking that Dad had kicked the bucket and that now it was only her and me.
'He just packed a bag and left.'
'He packed a… ?' It was then that I realized that Dad mightn't actually be dead.
'Come home,' she said.
'Right…' But I was at work. And not just in the office, but in a hotel ballroom overseeing the finishing touches to a medical conference
(Seeing the Back of Backache)
. It was an enormous deal which had taken weeks to pull together; I'd been there until twelve-thirty the previous night coordinating the arrival of hundreds of delegates and sorting out their problems. (Relocating those in non-smoking rooms who had slipped and gone back on the fags in between booking their room and showing up for it, that sort of thing.) Today was finally Day Zero and in less than an hour's time, two hundred chiropractors would be flooding in, each expecting
a) a name-badge and chair b) coffee and two biscuits (one plain, one fancy) at 11 a.m.
c) lunch, three courses (including vegetarian option) at 12.45 p.m.
d) coffee and two biscuits (both plain) at 3.30 p.m.
e) evening cocktails followed by a gala dinner, with party favours, dancing and snogging (optional).
In fact when I'd answered the mobile I thought it was the screen hire guy, reassuring me he was on his way. With — this is the important bit — the screens.
' Tell me what happened,' I asked Mam, torn as I was between conflicting duties.
I can't leave here
…
I'll tell you when you get home. Hurry. I'm in an awful state, God only knows what I'll do.'
That did it. I snapped my phone closed and looked at Andrea, who'd obviously figured out something was up.
'Everything OK?' she murmured.
'It's my dad.'
I could see on her face that she too thought that my father had bucked the kickit (as he himself used to say). (There I am talking like he actually is dead.)
'Oh, my God… is it… is he… ?'
'Oh no,' I corrected, 'he's still alive.'
'Go, go, get going!' She pushed me towards the exit, clearly visualizing a deathbed farewell.
'I can't. What about all of this?' I indicated the ballroom.
'Me and Moses'll do it and I'll call the office and get Ruth over to help. Look, you've done so much work on this, what can go wrong?'
The correct answer is, of course: Just About Anything. I've been Organizing Events for seven years and in that time I've seen everything from over-refreshed speakers toppling off the stage to professors fighting over the fancy biscuits.
'Yes, but…' I'd threatened Andrea and Moses that even if they were dead they were to show up this morning. And here I was proposing to abandon the scene — for
what
exactly?
What a day. It had barely started and so many things had already gone wrong. Beginning with my hair. I hadn't had time to get it cut in ages and, in a mad fit, I'd cut the front of it myself. I'd only meant to trim it, but once I started I couldn't stop, and ended up with a ridiculously short fringe.
People sometimes said I looked a little like Liza Minnelli in
Cabaret
but when I arrived at the hotel this morning, Moses had greeted me with, 'Live long and prosper,' and given me the Vulcan split-fingered salute. Then, when I told him to ring the screen guy again he said solemnly, 'That would be illogical, Captain.' No longer Liza Minnelli in
Cabaret
but Spock from
Star Trek
, it seemed. (Quick note: Moses is not a beardy biblical pensioner in a dusty dress and child-molester sandals but a hip, sharp-suited blade of Nigerian origin.)
'Go!' Andrea gave me another little push doorwards. 'Take care and let us know if we can do anything.'
Those are the kinds of words that people use when someone has died. And so I found myself out in the car park. The bone-cold January fog wound itself around me, serving as a reminder that I'd left my coat behind in the hotel. I didn't bother to go back for it, it didn't seem important.
When I got into my car a man whistled — at the car, not me. It's a Toyota MR2, a sporty little (very little, lucky I'm only five foot two) number. Not my choice - F&F Dignan had insisted. It would look good, they said, a woman in my position. Oh yes, and their son was selling it cheap. Ish.
Men have a very conflicted response to it. In the daytime they're all whistles and winks. But at night time, when they're coming home pissed from the pub, it's a different story; they take a penknife to my soft-top or hurl a brick through the window. They never actually try to steal the car, just to mortally wound it and it's spent more time at the dentist than on the road. In the hope of currying sympathy with these bitter mystery men, my back window sticker says, 'My other car's a banjaxed '89 Cortina.' (Anton made it specially for me; maybe I should have taken it down when he left, but now wasn't the time to think about that.)
The road to my parents' house was almost car-free; all the heavy traffic was going in the opposite direction, into the centre of Dublin. Moving through the fog that swirled like dry-ice, the empty road had me feeling like I was dreaming.
Five minutes ago it had been a normal Tuesday morning. I'd been in First Day of Conference mode. Anxious, naturally — there's always a last-minute hitch - but nothing had prepared me for this.
I'd no idea what to expect when I got to my parents' house. Obviously, something was wrong, even if it was just Mam going loola. I didn't think she was the type, but who can ever tell with these things? '
He just packed a bag
…' That in itself was as unlikely as pigs flying. Mam always packs Dad's bag for him, whether he's off to a sales conference or only on a golf outing. There and then I knew Mam was wrong. Which meant that either she
had
gone loola or Dad really
was
dead. A surge of panic had me pressing my foot even harder on the accelerator.
I parked, very badly, outside the house. (Modest sixties semi-d.) Dad's car was gone. Dead men don't drive cars.
But my rush of relief kept on going until it had circled back and become dread once more. Dad never drove to work, he always got the bus; the missing car gave me a very bad feeling.
Mam had opened the front door before I was even out of the car. She was in a peach candlewick dressing-gown and wore an orange curler in her fringe.
'He's gone!'
I hurried in and made for the kitchen. I felt the need to sit down. Mad though it was, I was nursing a wish that Dad would be sitting there, saying in bemusement, 'I keep telling her I haven't left, but she won't listen.' But there was nothing but cold toast, buttery knives and other breakfast-style paraphernalia.
'Did something happen? Did you have a fight?'
'No, nothing. He ate his breakfast as normal. Porridge. That I made. See.' She pointed to a bowl which displayed the remnants of porridge. Not much remained. He should have had the decency to have his gullet choked with shame.
'Then he said he wanted to talk to me. I thought he was going to tell me I could have my conservator)'. But he said he wasn't happy, that things weren't working out and that he was leaving.'
'"That things weren't working out"? But you've been married thirty-five years! Maybe… maybe he's having a mid-life crisis.'
'The man is nearly sixty, he's too old for a mid-life crisis.'
She was right. Dad had had his chance for a mid-life crisis a good fifteen years ago, when no one would have minded, when we'd been quite looking forward to it, actually, but instead he'd just carried on losing his hair and being vague and kindly.
'Then he got a suitcase and put stuff into it.'
'I don't believe you. Like, what did he pack? How did he know how to?'
Mam was starting to look a little uncertain, so to prove it to me - and probably to herself - we went upstairs and she pointed out the space in the spare room cupboard where a suitcase used to be. (One of a set they'd got with tokens from buying petrol.) Then she took me into their room and demonstrated the gaps in his wardrobe. He'd taken his top coat, his anorak and his good suit. And left behind a staggering quantity of colouredy, knitted jumpers and trousers that could only ever be described as 'slacks'. Fawn of colour and nasty of shape, cut and fabric. I'd have left them behind too.
'He'll have to come back for his clothes,' she said.
I wouldn't have counted on it.
'I thought he'd been a bit distracted for the last while,' Mam said. 'I said it to you.'
And between us we'd wondered if maybe he had the beginnings of Alzheimer's. All at once, I understood. He
did
have Alzheimer's. He wasn't in his right mind. He was driving around somewhere, stone mad, convinced he was Princess Anastasia of Russia. We had to alert the police.
'What's his car reg?'
Mam looked surprised. 'I don't know.'
'Why not?'
'Why should I? I only sit in the thing, I don't drive it.'
'We'll have to look it up, because I don't know it either.'
'Why do we need it?'
We can't just tell the peelers to look for a blue Nissan Sunny bearing a fifty-nine-year-old man, who might think he's the last of the Romanovs. Where do you keep the documents and stuff?'
'On the shelves in the dining room.'
But after a quick scout in Dad's 'office' I couldn't find any car info and Mam was no help.
'It's a company car, isn't it?'
'Er, I think so.'
'I'll ring his work and someone there, his secretary or someone, should be able to help.'
Even as I rang Dad's direct line I knew he wouldn't answer, that wherever he was, it wasn't at work. Hand over the speaker, I instructed Mam to look up the number for the Kilmacud peelers. But before she'd even got off her chair, someone answered Dad's phone. Dad.
'Da-ad? Is that you?'
'Gemma?' he said warily. This in itself was nothing unusual; he always answered the phone to me warily. With good reason— because I only ever rang him
a) to say that my telly was broken and would he come with his toolbox
b) to say that my grass needed cutting and could he come with his lawnmower
c) to say that my front room needed painting and would he come with his dust sheets, rollers, brushes, masking tape and a large bag of assorted chocolate bars.
'Dad, you're at work.' Indisputable.
'Yes. I-'
'What's going on?'
'Look, I was going to ring you later, but things went a bit mad here.' He was breathing hard. 'The prototype plans must've been leaked, the oppo are going to issue a press release— new product, nearly identical, industrial espio—'
'Dad!'
Before we go any further, I have to tell you that my father works in the sales department of a big confectionery company. (I'm not going to say their name because under the circumstances I don't want to give them any free publicity.) He's worked for them my entire life and one of the perks of the job was that he could have as much of the produce as he wanted— free. Which meant that our house was always littered with bars of chocolate and I was more popular with the kids on the road than I might otherwise have been. Of course Mam and I were strictly forbidden from buying anything from the rival companies, so as not 'to give them the edge'. Even though I resented his diktat (which wasn't really a diktat at all, Dad was far too mild for diktats) I couldn't find it in myself to go against it and although it's ridiculous, the first time I ate a Ferrero Rocher, I actually felt guilty. (I know they're a joke, all that 'ambassador, you are spoiling us' stuff, but I was impressed, especially by their roundyness. But when I casually put it to Dad that his crowd should start playing around with circular chocolates, he gazed at me sadly and said, 'Is there something you'd like to tell me?')
'Dad, I'm here with Mam and she's very upset. What's going on, please?' Instead of my father, I was treating him like a bold child, who was doing something idiotic but would knock it on the head as soon as I told him to.
'I was going to ring to talk to you later.'
'Well, you're talking to me now.'
'Now doesn't suit me.'
'Now had better suit you.' But alarm was building in me. He wasn't crumbling like something crumbly, as I'd expected he would the moment I spoke sternly.
'Dad, me and Mam, we're worried about you. We think you might be a little…' How could I say this? 'A little mentally ill.'
'I'm not.'
'You think you're not. Mentally ill people often don't know they're mentally ill.'
'Gemma, I know I've been a bit distant for the past while, I'm well aware of it. But it's not from senility.'
This wasn't going the way I'd expected
at all
. He didn't sound bonkers. Or chastened. He sounded like he knew something that I didn't.
'What's going on?' My voice was little.
'I can't talk now, there's a problem here needs dealing with.'
Snippily I said, 'I think the state of your marriage is more important than a tiramisu-flavoured bar of—'
'SSSSHHHH!' he hissed down the phone. 'Do you want the whole world to know about it? I'm sorry I ever told you now.'
Fright deprived me of speech. He's never cross with me.
'I will call you when I can talk.' He sounded very firm. A little like… funnily enough, a little like a father.