‘You think everyone is a lesbian because you’re one,’ Dad said to Adrienne.
‘I’m bisexual, Dad.’
‘You’ve had five girlfriends and one boyfriend. The man was an experiment. You’re a lesbian. The sooner you realise that, the sooner you will be able to settle down and have a normal family,’ he said.
‘So how do you know Christine?’ Brenda asked Adam. ‘Take a seat,’ she pulled out a chair.
Adam looked at me. I shrugged tiredly and then he sat.
He made a rapid assessment of my family and then said, ‘She stopped me from jumping off the Ha’penny Bridge last night.’
‘She’s always been a killjoy,’ Adrienne accused me.
‘He wasn’t jumping for fun,’ I explained.
They all looked at him.
He fidgeted a little, unsure what to do with their stares in the light of that revelation. I’m sure he was wondering whether his timing was off, whether he should have mentioned it at all. But they were good at that, my family: drawing you in and making you feel that the important stuff wasn’t really important at all. They decided what was.
Adrienne scrunched up her face. ‘But the Ha’penny? It’s not even that high.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Brenda asked her.
‘That’s hardly a drop at all. What is it, eight feet above the water?’
‘He wasn’t trying to kill himself with the drop, Adrienne,’ Brenda said. ‘I’d imagine he was trying to drown himself. Were you?’
They all looked at him.
He didn’t know how to answer, his surprise was so great. I was used to a range of reactions when I brought people home. Some of my friends couldn’t cope with them; others dived right in and joined them; others, like Adam, were content to observe the unusual rhythm of their talk and humour, without taking offence, since it was clear that none was intended.
‘I said I’d imagine you were trying to drown yourself?’ Brenda spoke a little more loudly.
‘He doesn’t have water in his ears, Brenda,’ Adrienne interrupted. ‘She saved him, remember?’
They chuckled a little. Adam looked at me in surprise.
I mouthed, sorry, and he shook his head with a puzzled expression, as if there was no need for me to apologise.
‘And well done, Christine,’ Dad said, giving me the thumbs up. ‘Good for you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘That probably makes you feel better about the last one, does it?’
Adam looked at me with a protective concerned expression.
‘But the Liffey isn’t that deep, is it?’ Adrienne asked.
‘Adrienne, you could drown face down in a puddle if you got stuck, or had broken your back or whatever,’ Brenda explained.
Adrienne looked at Adam. ‘Was your back broken?’
‘No.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Can you swim?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I don’t get it. It would be like Brenda eating ice cream all day to get skinny.’ She turned to Brenda as an idea occurred to her: ‘Which in fact, you do try to do.’
‘Andrew, would you like to see my ad?’ Dad asked.
‘His name is Adam, and no he doesn’t,’ I said.
‘I’m sure he can speak for himself.’ Dad looked at him.
‘Yeah, sure, why not?’
Dad left the table and went to his office.
‘Dad’s an ambulance chaser,’ Brenda explained.
‘He does personal injury law,’ I clarified. ‘Makes more money than the two of them put together.’
‘And spends it on pedicures,’ Brenda said.
‘And his back, sack and crack,’ Adrienne said, and they both cackled.
‘I heard that, and I only did it once,’ Dad called, returning from the office with a video cassette in his hand. ‘I was in India in extreme heat and it made the world of difference,’ he explained calmly and we all winced at the image. ‘Did you hurt yourself on the bridge, Andrew?’
‘It’s Adam, and no,’ he replied politely.
‘No rusty nails, sore neck, that kind of thing?’
‘No.’
Dad looked disappointed. ‘No matter. Now where can we watch this thing?’
‘Our TV doesn’t play cassettes. That’s prehistoric.’
Again, he was disappointed. ‘You know this ad was before its time. I filmed it twenty years ago. Ireland wasn’t ready for it. But now you see those guys on TV all the time. Especially in America. If you accidentally cut your big toe with the clippers they can get you money.’ He shook his head in admiration. ‘Do you have a VCR? You could go home to get it and bring it back.’
‘He lives in Tipperary,’ I explained.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Dad, aren’t you listening?’
‘He tried to jump off the Ha’penny Bridge,’ Adrienne clarified.
‘But there’s great bridges in Tipperary. There’s the old bridge in Carrick-on-Suir, Madam’s Bridge in Fethard, that’s a pretty one and there’s the triple span railway viaduct over the River Suir—’
‘Okay, thanks,’ I interrupted.
‘So, Adam …’ Brenda rested her chin on her hand and stared at him, ready to gossip. ‘Did Christine tell you she left her husband?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you think about that?’
‘I think it was heartless of her. It doesn’t sound like he did anything wrong,’ he said, as though I wasn’t standing right beside him.
‘He didn’t. I agree with you,’ Brenda said.
‘He was uninteresting though,’ Dad said.
‘Boring is not a divorceable offence,’ Adrienne said. ‘If that was the case Brenda would never have lasted with Bryan.’
‘True,’ Brenda conceded.
‘Bryan isn’t boring,’ Dad defended his son-in-law. ‘He’s an under-achiever. He’s lazy. It’s different.’
‘Also true,’ Brenda said.
‘We have to go,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to know who changed my locks, I just want the key to the new one.’
Brenda and Adrienne looked at Dad. He started laughing. ‘Sorry I couldn’t help it. She takes it so badly, it’s funny. I’ll get the key.’ He stood and made his way back to the office again with the cassette in his hand.
‘So I take it Gemma didn’t come here looking for a key?’ I asked. She was usually in before me, Peter and Paul in the mornings and I wasn’t ready to face another day without her, not after the chaos in the office the previous week.
‘We heard you fired her by dropping a How to Fire Someone book on her toe. That’s not very cool, Christine.’
Adam looked at me, discontent on his face.
‘It was an accident. Did she tell you that?’
‘She was here on Friday looking for a job.’
‘Tell me you didn’t give her one!’
‘We might.’
‘You can’t, she’s mine.’
‘You don’t want her, but you don’t want anyone else to have her. You’re an abusive employer. I’m definitely hiring her,’ Adrienne replied, an amused smile on her lips.
They loved to taunt me. They were all so alike. Their humour was and always had been unique and particular to them. I understood it but had never been amused by it. That made everything even more hilarious from their point of view, which served to escalate their behaviour. It was as though they had a secret club and were doing everything they could not to keep it secret, hoping to welcome me in. But it was impossible for me. I was too different. Black sheep was an understatement; I was a completely different species.
‘Gemma pre-empted my firing her. I was only thinking about it. I might have to make some cuts. The flat is costing me too much,’ I glared at Dad as he dangled the key and I snatched it from him.
‘I’ve never in all my years given a hand-out. You all have to pay your own way,’ he said.
‘There’s such a thing as a helping hand.’ I lost my temper a little.
‘Well then, get back with your husband,’ he said. ‘There are worse things than marrying boring. Look at Brenda. Those kids are the best advertisement for superglue that I’ve ever seen.’
‘Stay with me,’ Brenda offered. ‘We could always use some fresh blood.’
‘No. I don’t want to.’
‘Why not?’
‘You’d get on my nerves. And Bryan just, you know, hovers,’ I admitted.
Adrienne and Dad started laughing. Adam looked amused even though he had no idea who Bryan was.
‘That’s true, he does hover,’ Adrienne giggled. ‘I’d never realised that before.’
‘He’s always like this –’ Dad leered over Adrienne’s shoulder and made a face, and they both laughed. Adam laughed too.
‘That’s true,’ Brenda agreed again.
‘All I’m saying is, I’d appreciate it if the landlord would go a little more lightly on me,’ I said.
‘I’ve a mortgage to pay,’ Dad said, abandoning his leering pose and sitting back down.
‘This building’s been paid for one hundred times over, and there was no one in that flat before me for a long time. The place reeks of damp, the toilet doesn’t flush properly, and there’s no furniture to speak of, so you’re hardly missing out on a tenant by having me there.’
‘Excuse me. I furnished it for you.’
‘Putting a teaspoon in a drawer is not furnishing a flat,’ I exaggerated.
‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’
‘I’m not a beggar, I’m your daughter.’
‘And you can’t choose that, either.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything, Dad.’
He gave me a look to imply that it did mean something and I would have to figure it out.
‘So what are you two doing?’ Brenda asked Adam. ‘Is she going to place you in a new job and send you on your way?’
Adam looked slightly amused by it all; his eyes had a glint of light in them. ‘She has to convince me to like my life by my thirty-fifth birthday.’
They were all silent. They didn’t need to ask what would happen if he didn’t like his life by that deadline; it was implied.
‘When’s that?’ Adrienne asked.
‘Two weeks,’ I said.
‘Twelve days,’ Adam corrected me.
‘Are you having a party?’ Brenda asked.
‘Yes.’ Adam appeared puzzled by the direction they were taking.
‘Can we come?’ Adrienne asked.
‘You should get one of those cakes that looks like a cake but really it’s cheese. Big circular cheeses, all layered up. They’re very clever,’ Dad said.
‘Dad, you’re obsessed with cheese cakes.’
‘I think they’re clever.’
‘You look sad,’ Brenda said, staring at Adam.
‘That’s because he is sad,’ Adrienne said.
‘I don’t know if Christine is the right person for you,’ Brenda said. ‘JJ Recruitment is great.’
‘Or I know an excellent therapist,’ Adrienne offered. ‘Which Christine is not,’ she emphasised.
‘If it’s that man you’re seeing, I wouldn’t recommend him,’ Dad told her.
‘Hold on, are you questioning my skills?’ I asked. ‘Recruitment is more than simply finding someone a job. I help people all the time. I find out what people are looking for, then I take them from one place in their lives and bring them to another.’ I tried to sell myself to Adam, without looking at him.
‘Like a taxi driver,’ Brenda said.
‘No … it’s more than that.’ I tried not to let my frustration show because I knew they were only winding me up.
‘Nobody’s questioning your skills,’ Brenda said.
‘She means because you’re sad too,’ Adrienne clarified.
‘Well, maybe they’ll make each other happy,’ Dad said, standing. ‘Meeting’s adjourned, let’s get to work. Best of luck, Martin, and look into those cakes made with cheese. Very clever.’ He flashed Adam a pearly white smile and made his way back to his office. There was the sudden sound of a police frequency.
‘He’s the best prospect you’ve ever brought home,’ Brenda said quietly as Adam left the office ahead of me, shaking his head as if unsure of what he’d witnessed.
‘Brenda, on Sunday night he tried to kill himself,’ I hissed.
‘Still. At least he had a life in him to kill. Barry barely had a pulse even on his best day.’
I followed Adam down the stairs.
‘Oh, by the way,’ Brenda screamed down the stairs, ‘Barry called me late last night to tell me you PEE IN THE SHOWER!’
Adam and I froze at the top of the steps. He slowly turned to face me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I marched down the stairs past him.
‘I don’t want to talk about that either,’ I said loudly.
I heard him give a small laugh. That lovely sound I’d heard so little of.
When we got into my office, Gemma had left a message on my desk. She had taken one of my own books from the shelf: How to Sincerely Apologise When You Realise You Have Hurt Someone. I took it that Gemma was advising me to read it as opposed to offering any apologies herself.
As the morning drew on there was a flood of phone calls, texts and voicemails from friends and acquaintances who had spoken to or received communication from Barry the previous night. I realised then that perhaps I should start reading. It sounded as though I might have a few apologies to make.
9
How to Enjoy Your Life in Thirty Simple Ways
The first thing I needed to do before sitting down with Adam was to cancel all of my appointments for the next two weeks. With no Gemma to help me with the logistics, I would have to delegate my work and meetings to my two colleagues Peter and Paul, who already weren’t talking to me after Gemma’s unfair dismissal. I sat down at Gemma’s desk and got started. Cancelling Oscar took me the longest as I called him just as he had allowed the third bus to pass without getting on. I had to talk him through the entire experience of getting on the bus, sitting down and doing breathing techniques, then tell him a story to distract him, and then I had to supply him with my mobile number because he was so distressed that I would be out of the office for the next fortnight. But by the time I’d finished, I was able to bid farewell to an exhilarated man who felt like he could take on the world after accomplishing three bus stops. His next task was to walk home, which he would do with a spring in his step. As soon as I’d hung up, Adam shouted to me from my office.
‘Forty-two Tips on How to Think Positive Thoughts When Everything Is Going Wrong …’ Another book title from my collection. ‘Thirty-Five Ways to Think Positively …’ He snorted derisively. ‘These numbers intrigue me. Why so specific? Why forty-two and not forty? Why can’t you round off your positive thoughts to the nearest ten?’
He moved along the shelf.
‘Five Ways to Show Love, Five Ways to Conserve Your Energy. Ten Ways to Conserve Energy.’ He laughed. ‘Okay, I think I see how you do it. You file these in order of numbers, right? Do you say to yourself, “Today I’m in the mood for a long route to conserving my energy”, or “Today I’m feeling quite tired so I’m going to take the short cut to conserving energy”? Surely you would always go for five ways to conserve your energy, because wouldn’t doing ten things when you had the option of five defeat the purpose? Do you think the person who wrote the five ways has a lot more or less energy than the person who wrote the ten ways? Because he has more methods, but he wrote a shorter book, which was probably less exhausting. They should meet up; maybe this guy could write a book called How to Advise People How to Write How-to Books. Six ways, twelve ways, thirty-nine ways, sixty-six ways – yes, we have a winner!’ He held a book in the air. ‘Sixty-six Ways to Solve Your Money Problems. Sixty-six? I know just one: go to work,’ he said to the book, and continued to browse.
‘Some people can’t work.’
‘Of course. Stress is the new back problem.’
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‘You’re not at work. In fact, I’m curious to know where exactly they think you are.’
He ignored me. ‘Is it like self-prescribed healing? You say, “I need six ways to lose weight”, or “This week I need twenty-one ways.” This week I’m a Nine Ways to Walk Up the Stairs kind of person.’
‘That’s not a book.’
‘No, but it could be. You should write it. I’d like to know nine ways to get up a flight of stairs. The most obvious way is clearly never the one these people have in mind.’
Of course it was my ambition to write a book, but I wasn’t about to share that with him, not when he had that opinion of self-help. I felt it was close to happening though. Only the previous week I thought about taking How to Write a Successful Book from the unpacked pile of boxes that contained my life in the flat downstairs. Barry hadn’t been very supportive of my dream – not that that should have stopped me from doing what I wanted to do. I freely admit that in the past I had used his lack of support as an excuse because I was afraid of doing it, but things were different now and I had promised myself that I would try.
There were many themes going around in my head, but the working title was How to Find the Job of Your Dreams. So far I’d found thirteen variants of the same title in print and I’d read four of them and still felt I had more to add. The books I’d read seemed to focus on get-rich-quick schemes, whereas I always felt the end goal should be personal happiness. Brenda told me personal happiness didn’t sell, that I should weave sex in the office into it, or at least dedicate a chapter to it; again, a family member’s input into my personal ambitions proving infinitely unhelpful.
Adam meanwhile was still venting about the self-help collection.
‘Is there a secret safe with a load of books for me? Maybe One Hundred Ways Not to Kill Yourself?’
Thinking he was hilarious, he plopped himself down in an armchair, which happened to be mine. Seeing as it had taken him so long to get there, I didn’t object. I sat in the chair my clients usually sat in. I wasn’t used to this angle of the room and I immediately felt discombobulated.
‘You know you’re not far off,’ I said, beginning the session. ‘I’m not going to give you one hundred ways not to kill yourself, but we are going to put together a crisis plan.’