This Charming Man

  ‘Showdown’s probably too dramatic a word. When she came home I asked her what was going on. She told me. She said we’d grown apart.’

  ‘Grown apart…?’

  ‘Yeah, like a crappy made-for-TV thing. But we had grown apart; we’d grown up and in different directions. The whole bloody thing was riddled with clichés from start to finish.’ He laughed. ‘But I loved her. It hurt.’

  ‘You’re laughing.’

  ‘I’m laughing now. I wasn’t laughing then.’

  After a respectfulpause I got the narrative under way once more. ‘So you got divorced?’

  ‘We got divorced. And she got married again.’

  ‘Not to Oliver Browning?’ I was sure I’d have heard.

  ‘No, to someone else. But he’s the same type. Rich and corporate. A great man for the jollies. Forever at Ascot and Wimbledon and Glyndebourne. He could give her what she wanted. They’re made for each other.’

  ‘Are you bitter? Underneath this dour, uncommunicative facade are you nursing a wellspring of bitterness?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Words are cheap.’

  ‘I went to her wedding!’

  ‘Did you really?’ Fascinating. ‘What was that like?’

  ‘Oh Grace.’ He groaned into his hands.

  ‘Happy? Sad? Neither?’

  With a heavy sigh he gave in. ‘Not happy. I felt like I’d failed. I’d meant my vows. When I’d said “for ever”, or whatever the phrase is – ’

  ‘ – “as long as we both shall live.”

  ‘Actually I think it was “until death do us part”.’

  ‘I don’t think they say that any more.’

  ‘So you were there, at my wedding, were you?’

  ‘No, but –’

  ‘Anyway, whatever the wording was, I’d meant it at the time. I know, I know, I was a clueless twenty-two-year-old. I knew nothing about anything and I thought I knew everything. Anyone could have predicted it wasn’t going to work. But, watching my ex-wife getting married again, I felt surprised. In a bad way.’

  ‘Who did you bring as your plus-one?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘You went on your own? To your ex-wife’s wedding?’

  ‘I didn’t have a girlfriend,’ he protested. ‘And I’m hardly going to say to some stranger, “Hi, there. Doing anything on Saturday? Fancy coming along to watch my ex-wife getting married again?” ’

  ‘Why go at all?’

  ‘Come on, Grace, I had to.’

  ‘Your pride?’

  ‘And Juno would have been upset –’

  ‘Tough!’

  ‘I had to go,’ he said simply.

  I understood. ‘But to show up on your own… talk about a spectre at the feast. Did you wear a black suit?’

  ‘Of course.’ He flat-eyed me. ‘A long frock coat –’

  ‘– with black leggings –’

  ‘ – and a stovepipe hat. I looked like an undertaker –’

  ‘– a Victorian undertaker –’

  It was Damien who began to laugh first, then it was safe for me. It was the image of him in the stovepipe hat that I found unbearably funny and tragic. We laughed and laughed and Damien stopped for just long enough to say, ‘And when the priest asked if anyone knew any reason why the marriage couldn’t go ahead, I played two bars of the death march –’

  ‘ – on a tin whistle –’

  ‘ – no, a one-man-band machine –’

  ‘– which you played with your elbow.’

  The mirth seized me again and held me in its grip until I thought I was going to choke. But even while I was in fits, I still thought it was sort of sad. Poor Damien. Having to go – alone – to witness his ex-wife in a ten-thousand-euro dress (I’m guessing, but I bet I’m right), twirlher way into her new life; being saddled with enough of a sense of duty that he felt compelled to attend, but being slightly too much of a loner to get comfort from the company of another human being.

  ‘Just one more question, Mr Stapleton.’

  ‘No! No more.’

  ‘Do you ever see Juno now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What if you bumped into her?’

  ‘It would be… fine.’

  God, I was dying for a wee.

  Frantically I jiggled my leg and wondered if I could ask one of the others to guard my place while I bolted to the Ladies. I was in a corridor outside a hotelroom in central London, with a dozen other journalists. We were all there to interview Antonia Allen, a glossy young Hollywood actress. Everyone’s call time had been 9 a.m., it was now lunchtime and there was no recognizable sequence in which we were summoned to the inner sanctum.

  I slid a glance at the girl next to me. Could I trust her to keep my spot? No, I decided. She was all hard edges; I could practically smell her killer instinct. As soon as I’d run down the corridor she’d tell the scary woman with the clipboard that the journalist from the Spokesman had gone home.

  The chair was so hard that all sensation had left my buttocks. I could stick pins into them, turning my arse into a pincushion, and I wouldn’t feel a thing. Maybe I should do it for the entertainment of the other journos? (‘Go on, no, go on, harder, I can take it.’) It might help to pass the time.

  But they didn’t look like a fun lot and I abandoned the idea. I wanted a bathroom, a cigarette and eight slices of toast.

  I closed my eyes. Oh toast, toast, how I love you, toast. I’d have one slice with butter, one with peanut butter, one with Philadelphia, one with strawberry jam and four with Nutella. I’d have a Nutella one first, then the peanut butter, then another Nutella, then the jam, then twenty cigarettes, seeing as this was a fantasy. I’d have six empty toilet cubicles to choose from, a feather cushion for my bum, then more toast and more cigarettes…

  And to think that my job was sometimes considered glamorous. Because the stars couldn’t be bothered coming to Dublin to be interviewed, I went to London fairly regularly and, because of that, people (non-journalist ones) were always saying, ‘You lucky bitch.’

  If only they knew. This morning I’d had to get up at 4.45 a.m. to catch a 6.45 Ryanair cattle-truck in order to be in London for 9 a.m. I hadn’t eaten anything on the plane because it was so early I was afraid I’d puke. Now I was starving and hadn’t done any preventative eating.

  ‘I bet they’ve handmade biscuits in the room,’ I said to no one in particular. ‘They always have them in hotels like this, but I’d be just as happy with a Jaffa Cake.’

  A couple of people looked up from their hardware (laptops, BlackBerries, mobiles) but were too tense to answer. Normally the likes of Antonia Allen wouldn’t cause undue distress – she was just another skinny blonde with a central casting wheat allergy, starring in a formulaic movie with a sick-makingly large budget. But four days earlier her boyfriend had been busted having sex with a (male) undercover reporter and suddenly she was white-hot. I was dispatched to London. ‘Come back with the gay-boyfriend story,’ Big Daddy had ordered me, coming over all tabloid, ‘or don’t come back at all.’

  I had a ValMcDermid book with me, but I couldn’t concentrate on it because anxiety was burning a hole in my stomach lining. Antonia’s people had said that if the word ‘gay’ was even mentioned the interview would be terminated. How was I going to get her to open up?

  I’d done a bit of digging on the internet and all I’d discovered was that she was utterly unremarkable. Hanging over me, making everything extra-pressured, was the knowledge that Casey Kaplan would pull it off. In the three weeks since he’d started at the Spokesman, he’d dazzled us with the celebrity kill he dragged back from his hunting sessions. Even though we had different titles and different briefs (I was ‘Chief Features Writer’, he was ‘Celebrity Features Writer’), I was being measured against him.

  I rang TC. ‘Any news?’

  ‘Casey Kaplan’s finally made us privy to the story that’s going to rock our world.’

  ‘What?’ Don’t let it be something good.


  ‘Wayne Diffney’s wife is pregnant.’ Wayne Diffney was once in the atrocious boy-band Laddz (he was the ‘wacky’ one with the hair that looked like the Sydney Opera House). Now he was desperately trying to make it as a rocker. He’d grown a wispy beard, boasted that he never wore anti-perspirant and tentatively said ‘fuck’ on national radio.

  ‘That’s it? A Wayne Diffney story? Right. How’s your world?’

  ‘Unrocked. Yours?’

  ‘Steady. Quite steady.’

  More waiting. More leg-jiggling.

  My phone beeped. A text from Damien.

  loan approved! nu car 4 u!

  We’d been horse trading with financialinstitutions since the weekend; this was welcome news.

  A journalist emerged from the hotel room and we all looked up. How was Antonia? Chatty? But his poker face gave nothing away. Either Antonia spoke and he was guarding his exclusive. Or she didn’t and he was masking his failure.

  My phone rang. ‘TC?’

  ‘You’re not going to like it.’

  ‘Hit me.’

  ‘Wayne Diffney isn’t the father. It’s Shocko O’Shaughnessy.’

  A fireball roared in my stomach. Harry ‘Shocko’ O’Shaughnessy was the realthing, a bona fide rocker. World-revered, rich as Croesus, he occupied a security-bound mansion in Killiney from which he occasionally emerged, smiling and unkempt, to present prizes at high-profile charity events and to pleasure visiting supermodels.

  ‘Hailey has left –’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mrs Diffney – Hailey’s her name. She has left Wayne and moved in with Shocko. Kaplan was actually there in Shocko’s billiards room, playing billiards with Bono when she arrived in a taxi. He and Bono walked down to the local chemist and actually bought the actual pregnancy test. Or so he says. Would they not have lackeys to do that? An hour later Diffney arrives with a hurley – he had to come on the Dart, the poor bastard, Hailey had taken him for his last twenty – to sort out O’Shaughnessy, and of course couldn’t get past the gate. But Kaplan – Kofi fecking Annan – persuaded Shocko to let him in so he could have his say. Once he’s in, Diffney goes on a spree with the hurley. He broke four platinum discs, landed Bono “an unmerciful clatter” on the left knee and said, “That’s for Zooropa,” then hit Shocko “on the hair”. It’s the hottest story in the world and Kaplan was at it.’

  Antonia was smaller in the flesh. They always are. Weary and shrunken – for some reason reminding me of a dried mushroom – she was nothing like the radiant princess who appeared in couture frocks on red carpets. (‘The pain of her recent betrayal is taking its toll, rendering her oddly fungus-like…’)

  ‘Are you enjoying London?’ I asked. ‘Or is this hotelroom all that you get to see?’ (Once upon a time, an over-interviewed Bruce Willis told me shrilly that he didn’t get to see anything of any place he visited, that actors on publicity tours never did. I seized this piece of information and I use it when I need people to think I’m insightful.)

  Antonia nodded. ‘Just these four walls.’

  ‘My twin sister lives in London.’ It never hurt to give a subject a little personalinformation. ‘But I never get to see her when I come here for work.’

  ‘That sucks,’ Antonia said, not terribly interested.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, trying to look wistful. ‘It does.’

  The clipboard harridan took her place on a nearby sofa and watched our exchange with hard eyes. The empty space between my first two fingers twitched. I always wanted a cigarette when I was anxious and right now I was very anxious. This precious half-hour window was my one shot at the gay-boyfriend story and all the odds were stacked against me.

  Antonia was drinking herbaltea. I hadn’t genuinely expected that she might be hitting the sauce – mind you, you’d be surprised; she had suffered a terrible shock, after all – but it was another avenue closed; not much chance of her tongue being loosened by a few dried raspberry leaves.

  I started off with a couple of warm-up, lick-arsey questions about her ‘craft.’ Actors love nothing more than to talk about their craft. However, it makes for staggeringly tedious reading, which is why it never appears in the actualarticle.

  I nodded earnestly as she crumbled shortbread biscuits (yes, the hand made ones I’d predicted) onto her plate and explained how she’d felt her way into the role of Owen Wilson’s hard-working girlfriend.

  ‘I spent time working in a lawyer’s office, answering the phones.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Just for, like, a morning, but I’m a quick study.’

  I choked down a large shard of biscuit, almost puncturing my oesophagus. She’d answered too quickly, hadn’t given me enough time to chew it. As soon as I could speak, I mentioned some crappy art-house film she’d been in, a couple of years back. ‘That was an important piece of work,’ I said, to show that I ‘got’ her: she wasn’t just another 6-stone, wind-up doll, she was a serious actor. ‘Any plans for similar work in the future?’

  She shook her head. Feck. I’d been hoping to lead the conversation round to the handiness of personalpain in her craft. It was time to jolt her off auto-pilot.

  ‘Antonia, what’s the last lie you told?’

  She flashed a frightened look at Mrs Clipboard and I said quickly, trying to recover lost ground, ‘Only kidding. Tell me your best points.’

  ‘I’m… ah… I’m a team-player. A great sense of humour. I see the best in people. I’m thoughtful, sensitive, caring –’

  Yes, yes.

  ‘And – not so easy this one – your worst points?’

  She pretended to think about it. ‘I guess… I’m a perfectionist. A workaholic.’ Yes, yes. They always said the perfectionist thing.

  ‘What makes you angry?’

  ‘Injustice. Poverty. World hunger.’ The usual. How about your boyfriend taking it up the bum from another bloke? Christ, Antonia, that’d be enough to annoy a saint!

  But I felt something change. A tiny little flicker of a shift in her mood. She began to break a new biscuit onto her plate and I took a risk. ‘Antonia, why don’t you eat that?’

  ‘Eat it?’

  Mrs Clipboard watched suspiciously.

  ‘It’s only a biscuit,’ I said. ‘It’s comforting. And without getting into things –’ meaningful pause, compassionate look – ‘you could probably do with some comforting right now…’

  Still staring at me, she ate the biscuit in three quick chomps.

  ‘Nice?’ I asked.

  She nodded.

  I closed my notebook. My tape recorder was still running but shutting the notebook gave the impression that it was all over.

  ‘Are we done?’ She was surprised.

  Finishing up early is a good move. The fear that someone’s interest is waning panics them.

  ‘I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Especially considering what you’ve gone through recently. The press…’ I shook my head. ‘The way they’ve hounded you…’

  Trust me, trust me, I’m the kindly, insightful journalist with the twin sister she doesn’t get to see very often. And you’re probably dying to give your side of the story…

  ‘My own editor told me not to come back without asking about you and Jain.’ I shrugged helplessly. ‘But…’Iput my notebook in my satchel.

  ‘Oh. Will you get in trouble?’

  I made a gesture that I hoped would convey that I’d be sacked. ‘But who cares?’ I brushed crumbs off my trousers, about to stand up.

  ‘Look,’ she said urgently. ‘It’s not such a big deal. It was over anyway. I didn’t love him any more. And whatever anyone says, I’m not dumb, I knew he was cheating. I just didn’t know it was with a guy.’

  Mrs Clipboard looked up sharply. ‘Antonia! Miss, um – ’ She reached for her clipboard. Who was I? ‘Ms Gildee!’

  ‘I’m glad to see you’ve got good people who care about you,’ I said quickly. ‘Did Jain give any indications that he might be gay?’ Keep talki
ng, Antonia, keep talking.

  ‘He worked out a lot, he took care of his skin, but what guy doesn’t?’

  ‘Judy Garland records?’

  ‘Miss Gildee!’

  ‘You know what? No. But he did go to Vegas to see Celine Dion.’

  ‘How about sex?’

  ‘Miss Gildee, I am ordering you to stop right n –’

  ‘The sex was great!’

  ‘But was it straightforward?’ I was going for broke, a race to the finish between me and Mrs Clipboard.

  ‘This interview is over as of right now –’

  ‘What I mean is – I can’t think of a less crude way to put it…’ There’s a time to be ingratiating and a time to be obnoxious. ‘Was it through the front door or the tradesman’s entrance?’

  ‘The wha –? Oh! Is that what everyone is saying?’ Antonia was flushed with outrage. ‘That we had only anal sex?’

  ‘Antonia, no! Don’t say any –’

  ‘For the record, it wasn’t always anal sex! It varied!’

  ‘For the record?’ I picked up my tape recorder and switched it off. ‘Thank you, Ms Allen, Mrs Clipboard.’

  As I tore down the corridor to the Ladies, I felt ashamed. I’d conned Antonia into breaking her cover. Then I thought, Oh come on. She was a twenty-one-year-old beauty who got free clothes from Gucci and who picked up five million dollars a movie. I was an underpaid journalist who was just doing her job.

  ‘My throat is bruised from swallowing spiky bits of biscuits.’ I dodged a shoal of people just in on a flight from Zakynthos, and kept walking, my mobile clamped to my ear. ‘My bladder is stretched out of shape, it’ll never go back to the way it was before –’

  ‘Like a jumper washed on the wrong setting.’

  ‘If you want a jumper washed on the right setting, do it yourself.’ I continued my litany of woe. ‘I’ll be blacklisted by the studio. They’ll never let me interview any of their people ever again. I didn’t have to go that far, Damien. Big Daddy is never going to publish anything as crude as “Antonia Allen confirms anal sex.” It just suddenly got to me. The dance between the stars and the media is always on their terms. And –’ this was hard to admit – ‘the spectre of Casey Kaplan was breathing down my neck. But I don’t like dirty tricks. I’ve broken my own rules and it feels wrong…’