‘Oh God.’ Ashling was sorry she’d ever opened the discussion.
‘Yeah, I’m a walking cliché,’ Boo said ruefully. ‘It’s very embarrassing. And I couldn’t really settle in any of the foster homes because I wanted to be with my ma, so I managed to make my way through the educational system without passing a single exam. So even if I got an address, I probably still wouldn’t be able to get a job.’
‘Why don’t the corporation house you?’
‘Women and children first. If I could get pregnant I’d stand a better chance. But childless men are meant to be able to take care of themselves so we’re their lowest priority.’
‘What about hostels?’ Ashling had heard such things existed.
‘No room at the inn. More homeless people in this city than you can shake a stick at.’
‘Oh. Oh, that’s terrible. All of it.’
‘Sorry, Ashling, I’ve ruined your day now, haven’t I?’
‘No,’ she sighed. ‘It wasn’t going very well anyway.’
‘Hey, I finished Sinister Days,’ Boo called after her. ‘Those serial killers sure do know how to mutilate. And I’m halfway through Sorted! and I counted the word “shag” thirteen times on one page.’
‘Imagine that.’ She hadn’t the energy for Boo’s book ‘reviews’.
Ashling trudged up the stairs, poured herself a glass of wine and listened to her answering machine. After a lengthy absence, the messages from Cormac were back. Apparently, the hyacinth bulbs would be delivered next weekend, but the tulips would take a bit longer.
Then, sheepishly, Ashling rang Clodagh. She hadn’t spoken to her in a couple of weeks, since the weekend she’d been in Cork, actually.
‘I’m really, really sorry,’ Ashling prostrated herself. ‘And I’m probably not going to be able to see you until after this fecking magazine is launched. I’m there most nights until nine and I’m so tired I hardly know my own name.’
‘That’s all right, I’m going to be away anyway.’
‘Holiday?’
‘I’m going away by myself for a few days next week. Health spa in Wicklow… Because I’m stressed and overworked,’ Clodagh finished, with grisly defensiveness.
Suddenly Ashling remembered with ghastly clarity Dylan’s concern about Clodagh, the conversation they’d had earlier in the summer. All at once she was visited with a very, very bad feeling. A presentiment of disaster. Clodagh was in some sort of trouble and was hovering on the verge of a great unravelling.
Guilt and fear savaged Ashling. ‘Clodagh, something’s up, isn’t it? I’m so, so sorry I haven’t been around. Let me help, please let me help, it’s good to talk about these things.’
Clodagh began to cry softly, and then real fear took hold of Ashling. Something genuinely was wrong.
‘Tell me,’ Ashling urged.
But Clodagh just sobbed, ‘No, I can’t, I’m horrible.’
‘You’re not, you’re fantastic!’
‘You don’t know, I’m so bad, you’ve no idea, and you’re so good…’ She was crying so hard her voice became incoherent.
‘I’ll come over,’ Ashling offered wildly.
‘No! No, please don’t do that.’ After sobbing some more, Clodagh sniffed and announced, ‘It’s OK. I’m fine now. Really.’
‘I know you’re not.’ Ashling felt her slipping away.
‘Yes, I am.’ She was almost firm.
As soon as she hung up the phone, Ashling began to shake. Ted. Fucking Ted. She just had a feeling… With trembling fingers she dialled his number and accused, ‘I haven’t seen a lot of you lately.’
‘Whose fault is that?’ He sounded hurt. Or was it defensive?
‘Yeh, look, sorry, it’s the job. Why don’t we go out on the piss?’
‘Great! Tonight?’
‘Er, how about next week?’
‘No, I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
Don’t say it, dont say it…
‘I’m going away for a few days.’
Oh God. Her breath disappeared as if she’d had a blow to the stomach. ‘With who?’
‘No one. I’m going to the Edinburgh Festival to do some stand-up.’
‘Are you, indeed?’
‘Yes, I am, actually.’ Hostility poisoned the phone lines.
‘Well, good luck on your trip to Edinburgh with no one,’ Ashling said, sarcastically, and hung up. She’d ask Marcus to keep an eye out, to report back on any sightings of Ted and Clodagh, or even more tellingly, no sightings of Ted at all.
51
In a blur of fraught, hysterical days and sleepless nights, the thirty-first of August, the day of the Colleen launch, rolled around. Far, far too soon.
Ashling was woken by the familiar agony, stabbing in and out of her ear like a hatpin. She might have known. Her bargain-basement ear could always be relied upon to play up at the most inopportune times – the initial exam of her Leaving Cert, her first day at a new job. If it hadn’t let her down today – ‘The most important day of your working life,’ according to Lisa – she’d almost have been disappointed.
Almost, but not quite, Ashling thought grimly, as she swallowed four Paracetamol and shoved a lump of cotton wool into the side of her head. This shagged everything. She couldn’t wash her greasy hair herself in case she splashed water into the ear, she’d have to go to the doctor before work, then she’d have to cram a hair appointment into the lunch-hour she hadn’t planned on taking.
She had to plead with Dr McDevitt’s receptionist to get an early appointment, then she had to implore the doctor to give her some decent painkillers. ‘The antibiotics take a couple of days to work,’ she begged. ‘I can’t think straight with the pain.’
‘You shouldn’t have to think at all,’ he scolded. ‘You should be at home in bed.’
As if! As soon as she’d picked up her prescriptions she had to race to a film preview, where everyone she met conducted their conversations with her greasy hair. The film lasted three endless hours, during which she fidgeted irritably, thinking of all the work she could be getting through at the office. Imagine that she’d once thought this sort of thing was glamorous!
As soon as the credits began to roll, she snatched the press release from the publicist and hit the ground running. A record-breaking ten minutes later she burst into Colleen’s almost deserted office, tripping over party sandals and walking into dresses hanging from doors and filing cabinets. Lisa’s phone was ringing, but by the time she got to it, the person had hung up. She threw herself upon her own phone, only to discover there wasn’t a hope of getting a hair appointment on a Thursday lunchtime. Not even when she tried the salons that were beholden to Colleen.
The first one said, ‘Emergency? Yeah, we know about tonight. Lisa is here.’
Well, that was the end of that one. Lisa would be getting a Freebie Deluxe, using up the entire quota. Calls to further hairdressers established that Mercedes, Trix, Dervla, even Mrs Morley and Honey Monster Shauna had all used the Colleen name to bag themselves appointments.
Excuse me? What kind of fucking eejit am I?
But she couldn’t spare the time to berate herself – she was starting to panic. Her hair felt rancid. She’d have to wash it here. Luckily the office was overrun with hair-care products – there was even something as basic as shampoo. But she needed help and literally the only person in the office was Bernard, decked out in his best diamond-patterned tank-top in honour of the occasion.
‘Bernard, will you be my lovely assistant and help me wash my hair?’
He looked terrified.
‘I’ve an ear infection,’ she explained patiently. ‘I need help to make sure water doesn’t get in.’
He squirmed in agony. ‘Get one of them girls to help you.’
‘Look around, there’s no one here. And I’m interviewing Niamh Cusack in less than an hour, it has to be now.’
‘When you come back?’
‘I’ve to go straight to the hotel to help set
everything up. Please, Bernard!’
‘Ah, no,’ he writhed. ‘I couldn’t, it wouldn’t be right.’
Christ! The day and a half from hell! But what could she expect? Bernard was forty-five and still lived at home with his mother.
‘Anyway, I’ve to go out to the credit union,’ he lied. And off he raced.
Ashling slumped at a desk and tears were way too close for comfort. Her ear hurt, she was exhausted, she’d have to go to the party with flat, filthy, greasy hair and everyone else would look fantastic. She cupped a hand over her throbbing ear and let a few exploratory trickles run down her face.
‘What’s wrong?’
She jumped. It was Jack Devine, studying her with what was almost concern.
‘Nothing,’ she mumbled.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘The party’s tonight,’ she recited resentfully. ‘My hair is dirty, I can’t get a hairdresser’s appointment for love nor money, I can’t wash it myself because I have an ear infection and no one will help me do it here.’
‘Who’s no one? Bernard? Was that why he was leaving at such high speed? He nearly knocked me over coming out of the lift.’
‘He’s gone to the credit union.’
‘No, he’s not. He only goes to the credit union on a Friday. God, you must have really spooked him.’
Jack had a good old laugh at that while Ashling regarded him sullenly. Then he laid down his pile of documents and abruptly snapped into action. ‘Right then, come on!’
‘Come on what?’
‘Come on to the bathroom till we wash your hair.’
She turned her dismal face up to his. ‘You’re busy,’ she accused. He was always busy.
‘It won’t take long to wash your hair. Let’s go!’
‘Which bathroom?’ she finally asked.
‘The gen –’ he started, then stopped. They locked eyes in a silent struggle. ‘But –’
‘Not the gents’, she said, as firmly as she could.
‘But –’
‘No.’ Bad enough for Jack Devine to be washing her hair, but to have to eyeball a wall of urinals into the bargain – I don’t think so.
‘All right then,’ he sighed, defeated.
‘It’s not a bit like our one.’ Jack hovered on the threshold, looking into the innocuous washroom as if it was something remarkable, frightening even.
‘Come on,’ Ashling said snippily, trying to hide her awkwardness. She took the rubber shower-hose that had been a freebie from a shampoo company and tried to suction it on to the tap. But it concertinaed up into bendy uselessness. ‘No-good pile of shite.’ Her jaw was clenched. Could this day get any worse?
‘Give it here.’ He leant over her, and she stepped smartly out of the way. With one upward yank he thrust it on to the faucet.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered.
‘Now what?’ He watched her dash her hands under the pinpricks of water, adjusting the tap until she got the right temperature.
Tipping her head forward she leant into the white porcelain basin. ‘Get it wet first. And mind my ear.’ God, she could have done without this!
Uncertainly he picked up the hissing shower-head and buzzed an experimental trail of water over her head. Her brown hair changed instantly to a black slick.
‘You’ve to get it all wet,’ she called, her voice upside-down smothered.
‘I know!’ She felt him start at her left ear – the good one – lifting the hair, systematically separating it into hanks, soaking it all, moving around to her hairline, then down to her neck. It tickled, not unpleasantly.
As he stretched to reach it all, he was bent over her yielding back and his thigh was near against her side. At the same time that she realized she could feel the heat of him, she became very aware that the door was shut. They were alone. She started to sweat.
But as the trail of water tickled its way towards her right ear, she was diverted by fear. ‘Careful!’
‘All right!’ Jack was disappointed. He’d thought he was doing quite well for a man who’d never washed anyone’s hair other than his own before.
‘Sorry.’ Her voice was muffled. ‘But if any water gets in, the eardrum will perforate. It’s happened twice already.’
‘Right, I get the picture.’ He made himself slow right down and, with his fingers, stroked gentle furrows to sluice water away from the danger area. To his surprise there was something about the arc of skin at the back of her ear that bizarrely touched him. That little line of clean tenderness before her hair sprang into vibrant life. It looked so pitiful and sweet and inexplicably brave. And the big, idiotic-looking lump of cotton wool which blossomed from the side of her head… He swallowed.
‘Shampoo,’ she interrupted. ‘Put a blob on the hair, then lather it –’
‘Ashling, I know how shampoo works.’
‘Oh. Of course.’
Slowly he began to circle his fingers on her scalp, working the shampoo through. It was unexpectedly pleasurable. She closed her eyes and let herself lapse into it, letting the last exhausting month, her enormous workload recede.
‘How’m I doing?’ he asked.
‘Fine.’
‘I always wanted to be good with my hands,’ he admitted. He sounded wistful.
‘You couldn’t be a hairdresser,’ she murmured, half-resenting having to speak, so much was she enjoying this. ‘You’re not camp enough.’
Her skull tingled with ecstasy as he worked his hard, sure hands along her. She was going to be dead late for Niamh Cusack and frankly, she didn’t give a shite. Little shivery thrills crawled along her hairline, the tension departed her over-stressed body and the only sound in the shady room was that of Jack’s breathing. Slumped over the sink, she was sleepily cocooned in his warmth. Bliss… But then, as she felt an ache opening way down in her, she became frightened. He was not giving her a normal shampoo. She knew it. He must know it. It was far too intimate.
And there was something else. A presence. An upright hardness that was hovering around her liver, just about where Jack Devine’s groin was. Or was she imagining it… ?
‘Perhaps you could rinse it now,’ she said in a little voice. ‘And put some conditioner in, but do it quick, I’ll be late.’
This was Jack Devine. Her boss’s boss. She didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it: was, it was too freaky.
The very second he finished, she squeezed out the excess water, then saw him approaching with the towel. ‘I can dry it myself, thanks.’ She was breathless.
In the mirror their eyes collided. Instantly she swung away from his sloe-black look. She was embarrassed, confused… the way she always felt around him, but to the power of ten.
‘Thank you,’ she managed politely. ‘You’ve been a big help.’
‘No problem.’ Then he smiled and the mood altered totally, so much so that she later wondered if she’d imagined the unspoken something buzzing around them. ‘I’m not the big ogre you all think I am.’
‘No, we don’t –’
‘I’m just a bloke doing a tough job.’
‘Er, right!’
‘Now, how much do you bet me that Trix will catch me coming out of here?’
It took Ashling a moment to reply, ‘A tenner.’
52
When Jack arrived at the Herbert Park Hotel, the party was well underway. The place was thronged, copies of Colleen lay on tables in thick, lustrous piles, and the girls had a highly efficient human conveyor-belt in place to process the anticipated movers and shakers.
First port of call was Lisa, who, lacquered and glittery-shiny, had probably never looked more beautiful. Then Ashling, awkward in a dress and spindly heels, was checking invitations against a list. Mercedes, snake-thin in black wet-look, was affixing name-badges to arrivees, then Trix, attired in nothing much at all, was directing people towards the cloakroom. Beautiful young men and women circulated with trays of grown-up-looking cocktails – not an umbrella in sight.
‘Madam
editor,’ Jack stopped in front of Lisa.
‘Hi, I’m the greeter!’ she grinned.
‘Well, greet me then.’
She kissed his cheek and in a mag-hag parody exclaimed, ‘Darling, so fabulously fantabulous to meet you! Er, who exactly are you?’
Jack laughed and moved on to Ashling, who looked up from her print-out. ‘Oh, hello,’ she exclaimed, unexpectedly skittish. ‘Devine. Jack. Can’t see you on my list. Which are you, a mover or a shaker?’
‘Neither.’ He acknowledged her black shift-dress. ‘Looking good.’ But what he really meant was, ‘Looking different.’
‘I hardly ever wear dresses,’ Ashling confided.’And I’ve already laddered one pair of tights.’
‘How’s the hair working out for you?’
‘Judge for yourself.’ She did a tipsy twirl.
On other women a swingy bob would look sleek and feline; on her it had an endearing plainness which he found vaguely heartwrenching.
‘And your ear?’
‘What ear?’ Ashling demanded gaily, then raised her champagne cocktail. ‘Cheers! Feeling no pain. Now, move along, please.’
Lisa spent the night receiving congratulations. The party was a triumph: they’d all come. A thorough search had uncovered only six hundred and fourteen Irish movers and shakers, but it seemed as if every single one of them had turned out. Praise and goodwill swirled around the room in great uplifting gusts. It was fabulous!
And despite disasters right up to printing, Colleen was a dazzling achievement. Its cutting-edge heat practically hopped from the glossy pages. Lisa had even, at the eleventh hour, secured a celebrity letter. The new boy-band Laddz had just broken through and Shane Dockery, their lead singer, the nervous youth who Lisa had met all those months ago at the Monsoon launch, had managed to mutate into a bona fide heart-throb, who had teenage girls swarming like monkeys up the walls of his house.
Shane remembered Lisa. How could he forget the only person who’d been nice to him during the wilderness months? If he could just evict the teenage girls from his stationery drawer he’d be happy to write the letter. And everyone agreed that his article had an engaging freshness and exuberance that hoarier old rockers wouldn’t have been able to simulate.