He pointed at his chest where there was a stitched-in label. It said, Donal. ‘My mother did it, insisted it would make the company more modern. It was her idea to do the infomercial. She read one marketing book about Starbucks and now she thinks she’s Donald Trump.’
‘Without the comb-over, I hope.’
He laughed. The doors opened and he let me walk out first. ‘Whoa,’ I said when we got outside. The van was bright yellow with a red magic flying carpet emblazoned on the side. On the roof rack was a larger-than-life rolled-up plastic red carpet.
‘You see? This is what they force me to drive. The carpet turns around when the engine’s on.’
‘That’s some book your mother read. It’s just for work though, isn’t it? It’s not as though it’s your everyday van.’ From the way he was looking at me I could tell I was wrong. New thought. ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if this was your everyday van?’
He laughed. ‘Yep. It’s a real babe-magnet, isn’t it?’
‘It’s like a superhero car,’ I said, circling it, and he looked at it again with new eyes.
‘I never thought of it like that.’ Then he studied me again. It was like he was trying to say something but couldn’t. I got goose bumps. ‘I’ll be finished in about an hour,’ he said instead. ‘The floor will be wet so I advise you not to walk on it for a few hours. I’ll come back this evening to put your furniture back if that’s okay and make sure you’re happy with the service.’
I was going to tell him not to bother coming back to replace the furniture, that I could do it, but I stopped myself, partly because there was no way in the world I could lift all the furniture, but mostly it was because I actually wanted him to come back. ‘Don’t worry about locking up, you can just close the door behind you.’
‘Okay, great. Nice meeting you, Lucy.’
‘Nice meeting you too, Donal. See you later.’
‘It’s a date,’ he said, and we laughed.
Conor and I sat on the bench in the park and when no one was looking I put him in the swing. I knew he wasn’t there, but for Claire, and for the memory of him, I stayed there until the sun went down behind the park trees, pushing him back and forth and hoping his little soul somewhere out there was saying Wheeee, just like mine suddenly was.
That evening, when the buggy was safely back with Claire, I took my shoes off, brought a high stool to the centre of the floor and sat down to watch Blake’s travel show. Just as it began I heard a key in the door. It opened and Life entered, wearing a new blazer.
‘How did you get a key?’
‘I made a copy of yours when you were asleep,’ he said, taking off his blazer and tossing the keys onto the counter like he lived here.
‘Thanks for asking for my permission.’
‘Didn’t need to, your family already signed the paperwork.’
‘Ah-ah-ah,’ I said as he took a step onto the carpet. ‘Shoes off, it’s just been cleaned.’
‘What are you watching?’ he asked, doing as he was told and looking at the paused image of a snake rising from a basket.
‘Blake’s travel show.’
He raised his eyebrows and studied me. ‘Really? I thought you never watched the show.’
‘I do sometimes.’
‘How often?’
‘Only on Sundays.’
‘I believe his show is only on on Sundays.’ He brought a stool beside me. ‘The carpet doesn’t look any different.’
‘That’s because it’s wet. It’ll brighten up when it dries.’
‘What were they like?’
‘Who?’
‘The carpet people.’
‘It was just one man.’
‘And?’
‘And he was very nice and he cleaned the carpet. Can you stop talking? I want to watch this.’
‘Touchy.’
Mr Pan leaped into his lap and we sat uncomfortably on our stools and watched Blake. He was climbing across some rocky mountains, wearing a navy vest that was covered in sweat stains and revealed rippling back muscles. It made me think of the carpet-cleaning guy. It struck me as unusual that Blake, the most perfect man in the universe, would cause me to think positively of another man, and once I was comfortable with that thought, I compared their muscle sizes.
‘Does he wear fake tan?’
‘Shut up.’
‘Does he do his own stunts?’
‘Shut up.’
I paused the TV, searched for her. She wasn’t there.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Shut up.’
‘So what is the obsession with Blake anyway?’
‘I’m not obsessed.’
‘I mean last night. I know you said you didn’t want to talk about it but I think we should. I mean, you broke up three years ago. What’s the deal with your friends? Why are they so involved in what happened with you and him?’
‘Blake is their centre of gravity,’ I said, watching him climb across the cliff barehanded. ‘We both used to be, believe it or not. We were the ones who arranged everything, who brought everyone together. We held dinner parties every week, had parties, organised holidays, nights out, trips away, that kind of thing.’ I pressed pause, studied the scene, unpaused it again. ‘Blake is a lively guy, he’s addictive, everyone likes him.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Really?’ I looked at him surprised, then turned back to the TV quickly so I wouldn’t miss anything. ‘Well, you’re biased, it doesn’t count.’
I paused the TV again, then unpaused.
‘What exactly are you doing?’
‘Shut up.’
‘Please stop telling me to shut up.’
‘Please stop giving me cause to.’
He watched the rest of it mostly in silence with the occasional snide remark. Then finally as Blake was finished bargaining in the souks and trying to charm snakes – to which Life maturely commented that he was a charming snake – he sat down in a café in Djemaa el Fna, the large central square in the old city and gave his final thought to camera.
‘Someone once said, the world is a book and those who do not travel, read only a page.’
Life groaned and pretended to vomit. ‘What a crock of shit.’
I was surprised; I rather liked that one.
Then Blake winked. I savoured the moment, my eyes glued to the final seconds of my time with him for this season; after this, all that I would learn about him would be propaganda from the Blake Party – if I ever heard from them again.
‘Do you think that maybe he left you because he’s gay?’ Life asked.
I ground my teeth together, fighting the urge to push my life off the stool. It would be pointless, it would be like cutting my nose off to spite my face and I was thinking about that when my life changed forever. The next shot was quick, so quick that any untrained eye could have missed it, but not my eye, not even my bad eye could miss it which had worse vision after Riley had blown a pen bomb – a ball of paper blown from the outer plastic shell of a pen – in my eye when I was eight years old. I hoped and prayed and wished on every lucky thing that due to my as yet undiagnosed but ever present psychotic tendencies, that I’d merely imagined what came next. The camera zoomed out and I paused and searched. It was her. There she was. Jenna. The bitch. From Australia. Or at least I thought it was her. They were in a busy noisy café, at a table piled high with mounds of food with at least a dozen other people. It looked like the Last Supper. I hopped off the stool and moved closer, stood right up at the screen. If it was her, it would be her last supper.
‘Hey, the carpet,’ Life said.
‘Fuck the carpet,’ I said, venom in my voice.
‘Whoa.’
‘The little …’ I paced up and down before the screen, watching their frozen toast, their glasses pushed up against each other suggestively, both looking into each other’s eyes, or at least her at him and him at something over her shoulder, but still in the general direction. ‘Bitch,’ I finally said. I played it again, w
atching their toast, rewound it and watched it once more. I examined their shared look: yes, they definitely looked at one another as their glasses clinked, did that mean something? Was it code? Were they secretly silently saying to one another, Let’s you and me clink tonight just like we did on the top of Everest? The thought made my stomach heave. Then I analysed their body language, and then even looked at the food on their plates; they had shared a few dishes and they disgusted me. My heart was pounding, thudding in my chest, I felt like the blood wanted to jump out of my veins. I needed to climb through the television and into their world so I could break them up and ram the Moroccan meatballs down her throat.
‘What on earth is wrong with you?’ Life asked. ‘You look possessed, and you’re ruining the carpet.’
I turned around and fixed him with the most determined look I could muster. It wasn’t difficult, I felt it inside. ‘I know why you’re here.’
‘Why?’ He looked worried.
‘Because I’m still in love with Blake. And I know what my dream is, the thing that I really, really want, the thing that I’d do if I had the guts and didn’t care what anybody thought. It’s him, I want him. And I have to get him back.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘I have to go to him,’ I said, pacing.
‘No, you don’t.’
‘We have to go to him.’
‘No, we certainly do not.’
‘This is why you’re here.’
‘No …’ He spoke slowly. ‘I’m here because you’re delusional.’
‘I’m in love with him,’ I said, still pacing, my mind working overtime while I tried to plan winning him back.
‘You’re ruining the carpet is what you are.’
‘I knew she was out to get him. I’d known it ever since I met her and she asked him if he’d like ice and lemon in his drink. The way she said it, I just knew. ‘“Ice”,’ I imitated her. ‘“Do you want ice with that?”’
‘Whoa, hold on, who are we talking about now?’
‘Her.’ I finally stopped pacing and pointed at the paused TV screen with the remote control in my hand as though it was a weapon. ‘Jenna. Jenna Anderson.’ I spat the name out.
‘And she is?’
‘The PA. I couldn’t figure out whether she was an office PA or a set PA but now I know. Now I know for sure.’ I started pacing again.
‘What do you know for sure?’
‘That she’s the set PA, would you keep up?’ I snapped. ‘Wait a minute, where’s my laptop?’ I trampled over the damp carpet and opened the corner cupboard. I reached for my laptop, and a cookie which I demolished while the computer started up. Life watched me, from the high stool. I went to her Facebook page and viewed her status. I gasped.
‘What now?’ he asked, bored.
‘Her status has been updated.’
‘To what? Herdswoman?’ he said, looking at the paused screen where she sat surrounded by cloaked men.
‘No.’ My mind was racing. I knew it, I knew my paranoia was a guide.
‘Does it say to whom her status belongs?’
‘No.’ I stared at her Facebook page intensely as I tried to read beyond the entry page. ‘I bet she’s got photographs of the two of them in there, all kinds of comments and inside information. If I could just get in, then I could see it all and I’d know for sure.’
‘Don’t you ask people to be your friends on those things?’
‘Don’t you think I thought of that years ago? She said no, the bitch.’
Life sucked air in. ‘You should have changed your name.’
‘I did.’
‘Then you should have used your own name.’
‘Are you crazy? Why would any spy use their own identity?’
‘Oh, you’re a spy now. Okay, Double D, I think you should calm down now.’
‘I can’t calm down. They’ll still be a relatively new couple, when was that show filmed? I can still break them up,’ I said, filled with hope. I ran across from the kitchen to my bed that was piled high with the couch.
‘Aye, aye, aye, watch the carpet!’ he called.
‘Screw the carpet,’ I said rather dramatically. ‘This is my life.’ Then I grabbed a suitcase from the top of the wardrobe and started throwing things in, random things, nothing that would actually ever come to being one complete outfit, but the motion of packing was helpful.
‘I’m your life and I’m telling you to just stop for a moment and think.’
I obeyed him but only because I needed him. A plot was formulating in my head and he was central to it.
‘You can’t just pack a bag and chase him to …’ He looked at the TV. ‘Morocco.’
‘I’m not going to Morocco. I’m going to Wexford.’
‘Well, isn’t that glamorous. Thelma and Louise would have been a whole lot different if they’d decided to go there.’
‘His adventure school is there. If I leave now with Sebastian, I can be there by the morning.’
‘It’s unlikely that you’ll get there at all with Sebastian. Anyway, you’ve got work in the morning.’
‘I hate my job.’
‘I thought you said you liked it.’
‘I lied. I love Blake.’
‘I thought you said you were over him.’
‘I lied. I hate my job and I love Blake.’ I punched the air. Saying it felt right.
He sighed. ‘It’s like one step forward and two steps back with you.’
‘I have to go,’ I said more calmly. ‘It’s why you’re here. I know it. When you left I Googled people’s dreams. Because you were right, I didn’t have one, which is rather pathetic, I should have one.’
‘I don’t know which is more pathetic, not having a dream or Googling other people’s.’
‘It was for inspiration – and you know what one person online said?’ I was quite breathless about it now that it applied to me. ‘They said they want to someday, someway, somehow be reunited with the one true love that they lost.’ My voice ended in a squeak. ‘How romantic is that?’
‘Not very if the true love in question is a fake-tan-wearing selfish snake.’
‘Come on,’ I begged, ‘when you meet him you’ll realise that you actually like him. Everybody likes him.’
‘He doesn’t like you,’ Life said bluntly. ‘He left you. Three years ago. What makes you think anything will change?’
I swallowed. ‘Because I’ve changed. You’ve changed me. He might like me now.’
Life rolled his eyes, not wanting to fall for it but he couldn’t help it, he gave in. ‘Fine, I’ll go with you.’
I celebrated and gave him a hug. He didn’t reciprocate.
‘But you have to promise me that you’ll go to work tomorrow. You’re in a lot of trouble, it won’t do you any good not to show up. And you have to visit your mother. You can go to see Blake after work on Tuesday. Drive up and down in one night so that you’re back in work by Wednesday.’
‘I thought you wanted me to take care of my life,’ I whinged. ‘I thought that work was a distraction from taking care of the things that count.’
‘It is sometimes, but it’s not now. It’s the opposite now.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means that now Blake has become a distraction from taking care of the things that count.’
‘You make me sound so clever, as if I’m deliberately doing all this emotional distraction stuff.’
‘Not clever, just stupid. You have such blinkers on with Blake that you wouldn’t even recognise the perfect man of your dreams if he was standing right next to you.’
I narrowed my eyes, uncertain of whether he was trying to tell me something.
‘No, not me.’
‘Phew.’
‘He could even be right outside that very door,’ Life said, mysteriously.
The doorbell rang. I froze. Then I gathered myself, I didn’t believe in signs, I didn’t even trust sat nav. I looked at Life.
He smiled and
shrugged, ‘I heard footsteps in the corridor, just thought I’d chance it.’
I rolled my eyes and pulled the door open. It was the carpet guy. I’d forgotten about him.
‘Sorry I’m late, I was delayed on another job and I would have called but my battery went dead, which means I’m late for my next appointment and my dad will have a fit. Do you mind if I borrow a charger or use your phone to call—’ He stepped into the apartment and saw Life. He seemed a bit put out, ended his story and respectfully nodded. ‘Hello.’
‘Hi, I’m just a friend of Lucy’s,’ my life said, swinging his legs back and forth from his perch on the high stool. ‘There’s nothing at all romantic going on between us.’
Donal laughed. ‘Okay.’
‘Now that you’re here to supervise the crazy lady, I’m leaving.’ He hopped off the stool. ‘All those track marks in the carpet are hers. She’s a pacing, raving uncontrollable lunatic.’
Donal studied the ground. ‘What were you doing in here, wrestling?’
‘Metaphorically speaking, yes,’ Life responded.
‘You can’t leave, we have so much to discuss,’ I said to Life, panicking.
‘About what?’
‘About the trip.’ I made big eyes at him.
Donal lifted the suitcase from the furniture.
‘Wexford,’ Life said to Donal, bored.
‘To an outdoor adventure centre,’ I said in defence of our trip.
‘In Bastardstown, no less,’ Life said, raising an eyebrow.
‘Ah yeah, that’s the man off the TV’s place,’ Donal said. ‘I’ve seen it advertised. Blake somebody.’
‘Blake Jones,’ I said, feeling proud.
‘Yeah, that’s him.’ Donal made a face and not a nice one, which led me to believe he didn’t like Blake. ‘And remember,’ Donal said, putting on a posh accent, ‘the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.’
Life laughed loudly and clapped his hands. ‘That’s a good impression. Isn’t it, Lucy?’
I scowled.
‘He’s her ex-boyfriend,’ Life explained to Donal, who immediately stopped smiling and looked worried.