Everybody Died, So I Got a Dog
Page 9
CHRISTINE
(conspiratorially to RACHAEL)
The thing is, how will she COPE on
her own? She’s always had me to look
after her.
RACHAEL
Remember when Free Willy was
released into the ocean? She’ll
cope like he coped, Mum.
INT. TAXI, OUTSIDE EMILY’S FLAT – NIGHT
EMILY
(to the DRIVER)
I’ve lost my purse. And …
shit. My keys.
(She glances across the road)
Fuck, my CAR’S been clamped?
(Slurred)
Listen, have you got a phone
I can borrow?
INT. EMILY’S FLAT, CHRISTMAS EVE – DAY
EMILY is opening a present from THE COMIC, her boyfriend. It’s a pink toy mechanical poodle.
EMILY
I love it!
THE COMIC
Until we get a real one.
I think they come in pink.
INT. EMILY’S FLAT, THREE MONTHS LATER – NIGHT
EMILY is throwing the pink poodle in the bin and necking wine, watched by RACHAEL. There’s a knock at the door. EMILY sighs with relief. He can’t live without her. He’s back.
OLD GUY UPSTAIRS
(pointing to his shoes)
Would you mind, love?
EMILY taking boxes into her new garden flat helped by ADAM, RACHAEL and CHRISTINE.
EMILY
(V/O)
Maybe some of us just aren’t
cut out for life with a Labrador
and a people carrier. And maybe that’s okay.
Just as long as you find a place to live
where old men don’t regularly
ask you to tie their shoelaces.
RACHAEL
You’ve got a little garden!
EMILY
I can get a dog!
MIMI
You always say you’ll get a dog.
But you never do.
MELANCHOLY CELLO MUSIC AS WE
FADE TO BLACK
2010
I looked at the picture Rach had texted me: ‘Meet Mr Giggle. He has a diamanté collar and a satin cushion. Campest dog you’ll ever meet. xx’. This puppy wasn’t just cute, he was all set to one day break Instagram. He had giant Disney eyes, a tilting head and soft butterscotch coat. Another text arrived, of nine-year-old Mimi holding up her prize. She had a hint of triumphant glee in her eyes, that said, ‘Persistence is the difference between no and yes. Have you not read The Art of the Deal?’
The arrival of Giggle, this tiny half-pug half-chihuahua, was weighted with significance. Rach had finally joined the dog families, with their gentle order, bulging fridges and puppy treats in kitchen cupboards. The home she’d created was a thoughtfully decorated haven, frequented by friends popping in for rosé as their children shrieked happily with Mimi in the garden.
But there were bursts of our old life to remind her of how far she’d travelled. My father popped up occasionally as an amiable uncle figure, and brought his customary eccentricity.
‘I’ll cut Mimi’s birthday cake!’ he once offered, but halfway through the task got distracted by a Martin Amis book. ‘Dad,’ Rach said gently, ‘you left the carving knife on Mimi’s trampoline. Also you’re leaning against the hob. Your jumper’s now on fire.’
Mr Giggle the chug somehow helped diffuse moments like this – he managed to lend chaos a benign charm. He benefited from the good-natured stoicism of the pug as well as the sociable playfulness of the chihuahua. He reminded me of my sister, in the way his orthodox prettiness disguised a maverick spirit.
‘Giggle! You’re not meant to be up here!’ Rach would say half-heartedly as he jumped up to what was known as ‘Rach’s corner’ on the couch. He covered her in puppy bites, staring at her in awe like the boyfriend who knows he’s punching above his weight.
I would watch Rach putting on his harness and lead, bending down to give his tummy a rub as his bubblegum-pink tongue panted dementedly. I felt a pang of envy as she grabbed poo bags and wrapped up in a scarf to honour his nightly bathroom break. She spoke the language of the other dog owners now, one rooted in dutiful routine.
Giggle was far more than a dog. He was the embodiment of the path in the woods Rach had chosen, the one signposted ‘National Trust Picnic Area’. In contrast to the one I had taken, marked ‘Danger! You are in Bear Country.’
Rach had flirted with instability in her early twenties, but it was the harmless sort tied to youthful exuberance, not the lingering kind that keeps you on the party train beyond your stop. She had a few dalliances with mercurial artists but chose a future with Adam, a Mancunian advertising creative who made her laugh and wasn’t afraid of commitment. She found herself working in PR, which allowed her to draw on the skills we’d learned as childhood apprentices – racking up our ten thousand hours at my parents’ academy dedicated to the study of charm.
‘Rach is such a talented artist, I do wish she was still painting,’ my mother sometimes lamented. But if you wanted estate cars, puppy bowls and roaring fires, you weren’t likely to find them in the Van Gogh household.
I was heady with joy on her wedding day. As we sat in the living room of Mum’s house, sipping champagne and immersing ourselves in pre-bridal hysteria, it felt as if she were crossing the Rubicon into a new world. It was only subsequently that a sense of deep loss crept up on me. It was as if a limb had been disconnected, and it was difficult to adjust to life without it. I concealed this in case people thought I was just jealous. It felt to me more like the panic of a child losing a parent in a department store, when the world suddenly seems vast and frightening.
I used to compare our intense bond to some of the dog-family brothers and sisters we knew. They seemed to enjoy a slightly more relaxed relationship. The ‘how’s it going, mate?’ siblings, we called them, who enjoyed affable catch-ups at birthdays and Christmas. Perhaps it made life simpler not to speak twice a day and have giggling fits as profound as your passionate rows. Even as adults we were capable of savage brawls. They were documented in our back catalogue like episodes of Friends. ‘The one where I stole her lilac jumper.’ ‘The one where I didn’t make her a cup of tea and she called me “a selfish bitch”, and I called her “fucking unhinged”.’ ‘The one where I bought her tickets to see Boy George and she was too drunk to sound sufficiently grateful, so I dropped her calls for days.’
Our relationship hadn’t changed since childhood – she remained the voice of adult reason in the face of my impulsive unpredictability. ‘What’s happened, Em?’ she would ask calmly when I called her in tears over a bust-up with a boyfriend or a work drama. She was the only person who really knew just how fragile I was underneath my sunny exterior. In a louder way, I fulfilled the same role for her, rushing passionately to her defence, trying to fix things that went wrong in her life, the gatekeeper of her childhood vulnerabilities.
Mimi arrived a year after she got married, a physical mini-me of Rach, with a similar maverick streak. She christened her dolls ‘Scrubber’ ‘and ‘Dolly Stump’ and occasionally lapsed into a theatrical vernacular picked up from my mother. ‘You have made this room look JUST wonderful!’ she would say of Christmas decorations. ‘Your perfume is absolutely OUT OF MY world!’
When some people reach their desired destination, having chosen a life that hits all the traditional beats, they view those that haven’t as exotic curiosities. When people said to me, ‘So do you not WANT children then?’ or ‘Any MAN news?’ they were simply addressing the confident, independent person I pretended to be. They didn’t know I would store these questions away as judgments.
Rach urged me to dismiss what she called ‘the Aga interrogations.’ ‘I hate it when people say, “I’m SO glad I’m not out there!”’ she sighed. ‘Everyone is always “out there” – none of us know what’s round the corner.’
But I thought that kind of comeback would
make me sound brittle and unlikeable. So I laughed at the Aga interrogations and swerved the subject back to the other person, where it was safe. The sense of being ‘other’ was just part of me, a quirky characteristic like my twisted little toe or inability to be on time. An unfortunate truth that I preferred not to discuss. I saw my life entirely through other people’s aspirations and punctuation marks. And in their eyes I was hopelessly off course, doomed to end up wearing moon pendants, clutching a mug that said, ‘I’m the crazy aunty everyone warned you about!’
I became so good at concealing my real feelings with perfect make-up and smart remarks that the Aga people thought I was tough and acerbic and happy. They didn’t know that I felt scared of the exposure that came with a true union of lives. They didn’t know that I saw parenthood and settling down as something I could only consider when I had sorted out my own damage. And in truth, I just never had.
My relationships lurched from one unsuitable match to another. I sought out quick-witted, high-status partners who were always tantalisingly unable to commit to me. (Hi there, Dad.) But the ostensible reasons for the endings – not over their ex, not ready to settle down and several remixes of ‘it’s not you it’s me’ – allowed me to avoid the one common factor. Me. When you are simply a collection of the qualities you think people want you to be, when you can’t show someone what really frightens you or what pain you have inside your heart, then you are unable to form a true connection with anyone.
My first flat was not a home, more, as one boyfriend, Joel, observed, ‘Just a place to rest your head.’ So I installed myself as a permanent guest at my best friend’s house.
I fell happily into the cocoon of warmth and laughter Jane had created in her own life. She told me she had known she was going to marry her husband, Jonathan Ross, the moment she met him. The things that made her different, seemed to be qualities he celebrated. I became godparent to their children Betty, Harvey and Honey and buried myself in their lively home, becoming an honorary family member. Their household had all the charm of the world I’d grown up in, but was founded on permanence.
And dogs. I didn’t know you could make a dog family like this, one with quirks as well as roots. I felt a rush of belonging when the barks subsided as the Ross family dogs recognised their fellow pack member and rushed to greet me. Harvey’s expressive-eyed Boston Terrier, Yoda, who lifted his paw on to your hand every ten seconds to indicate, respectfully, that he really needed your full attention. Honey’s alpha-female chihuahua, Princess, who attached herself to you possessively, snuffling with smug triumph when she saw off the others for full lap rights. Betty’s fluffy, sweet-natured Shih Tzu, Captain Jack, with his curious centre parting. Jane’s gremlin-like Brussels Griffon, Sweeney, who followed her around like a devoted but suspicious lover, and Mr Pickle, Jonathan’s fabulously eccentric and slightly pot-bellied black pug.
I threw myself into the dazzling whirl of the Rosses’ social life, enjoying my role as charming co-host. I was finally a fellow, loved gang member rather than the noisy freak always taking up too much room.
Some people who viewed them solely through the prism of their fame found it difficult to make sense of the space I occupied in the Rosses’ lives. ‘You’ve got your feet under the table there,’ one woman said archly, when they gave me a generous birthday gift. But Jane was simply my history, a person who had seen me before I strapped on all my false armour. I had a tendency to run away from friendships when minor conflicts arose, but Jane and I were in it for the long haul.
Rach, immersed in her own family life with Adam and Mimi, enjoyed vicarious updates on my adventures: the impromptu weekend hanging out with Russell Crowe where a writer whispered at dinner, ‘Sorry, but Nicole Kidman is on my left – hope you understand if I don’t talk to you much!’ The unexpected evening with Morrissey where I panicked about how to address him. ‘Moz, please,’ his publicist advised. The time I let myself into Jonathan’s dressing room and answered the door to Jim Carrey, offering him champagne and stuffing myself with chocolates before he gently pointed out that I was actually in his dressing room.
I was once described as a ‘girl about town’ in Heat magazine, as if I were an It girl rather than someone who often resorted to prayer at cashpoints. I felt sure that ‘girls about town’ didn’t change into red carpet outfits in a Starbucks disabled toilet, using a Sharpie pen to colour in scuff marks on their heels.
I had chosen a salaried career doing jobs in newspapers and magazines because it provided the buzz of the creative world I had grown up in without any of the performer’s unpredictability. And because that was just what someone from a middle-class north London family did. It would sound right at dinner parties. I wanted to be around excitement but not the risky focus of it; the sage judge of things, not the curio being judged. ‘Em’s a trainee at the Sunday Times!’ my mother would proudly update her friends. ‘Em’s now Editor-at-Large at the Evening Standard Magazine!’ ‘She’s going to be Deputy Editor of a fashion magazine!’
In truth, I was too easily distracted and anarchic for the level-headed routine of an office dedicated to delivering information on a regular schedule. I struggled to concentrate, tried to use humour and presence of mind to get by, and threw myself into my work’s exciting social perks instead.
With some jobs, you get to pretend you have a champagne lifestyle on a discounted Prosecco salary. Like my parents, I was a bit chaotic with money in my younger days. There were unpaid parking tickets scattered around my car and I viewed brown envelopes as too much information. But when you work for magazines you get to immerse yourself in a pretend world for brief periods, which is fabulous – as long as you don’t forget that it’s not actually yours.
Advertisers and fashion brands want you to say nice things about their product, so they spoil you. They fly you First Class to attend fragrance launches, and install you at the Beverly Hills Hotel, with a driver at your disposal, and leave gift bags containing £300-moisturisers in your room.
In return for all this you agree to play the role of an immaculate fantasy guest. A Devil Wears Prada character. You wear borrowed Chanel, which means you learn to dodge waiters carrying trays of red wine. You accept compliments on your Louis Vuitton bag, which you were loaned because the label want you to look the part on their front row. And when the bill for dinner arrives you half-heartedly reach for your card, knowing they’ll protest. Which is handy, because you need to pay the London Borough of Haringey roughly that amount for council tax.
Sometimes you get taken to Montenegro on a private jet with the world’s highest-paid male model, David Gandy. You appreciate him not flinching when your Oyster card falls out on to the carpeted aisle. And you are grateful that the immaculate hotel staff didn’t remove you when they discovered Superdrug hairspray in your ensuite.
The job involves regular bursts of essentially harmless ‘dress up and pretend’ moments. Which have nothing to do with your real life. But to appreciate this, you need something solid to return to, an anchored life waiting for you at home. My colleagues mostly seemed to be able to file these extraordinary moments away in a box marked ‘Crazy experiences!’ But I often crashed down from them. The life I came back to felt empty. I didn’t know where that fashion person ended and I began. I felt jealous of pretend fashion me, who always said the right thing and wore the right clothes. I knew I wasn’t especially fulfilled but I didn’t have the courage to think about the life I really wanted.
Then I got to know the comic, Frank Skinner.
Frank had been a regular member of our gang at the Rosses’. I had always liked him – when Frank arrived it felt like someone had thrown a handful of glitter into the room. He had settled down recently with his girlfriend, Cathy, and the three of us had become close pals. I would pop over to Frank’s flat and we’d eat takeout sushi and drink tea, talking long into the night. We would also watch a lot of trashy TV. ‘CATH!’ he’d shout, ‘get off the toilet. You’re missing Dog The Bounty Hunter!’
I didn’t expect to get the email that arrived from him one morning. He wanted me to co-host a radio show with him. The heady ego boost was swiftly followed by total panic. He’d got me all wrong. I sneakily stole focus – I didn’t nakedly demand it. I was the travelling player who weaved in and out of others’ narratives, being charming.
I feared becoming the person my mum had once called a ‘dreadful show-off’. I’d discovered that phrase in a letter she sent to my grandmother. (It was the ‘dreadful’ that stung – look, at least call me an accomplished show-off.)
But Frank carried me along on the tidal wave of his enthusiasm.
I was a bit shit at first, settling on a sidekick character for myself, a sort of high-maintenance London snob. But he encouraged me to slowly shed the act and be more authentic. ‘Don’t feel you have to hide your intelligence,’ he’d say. ‘Don’t tell me stories beforehand, or I won’t react genuinely.’ It was a crash course in the right way to approach performing. But it was also a bit of a crash course in life.
Frank’s fearless honesty as a comic extended with wild abandon into his everyday life. There was no Photoshopping of sometimes harsh truths, no attempt to hide the messier aspects of humanity. ‘You can spend your whole life trying to be popular,’ he often said. ‘But at the end of day the size of the crowd at your funeral will largely be dictated by the weather.’ Frank was in many ways my opposite. He served up his beliefs raw without pausing to wonder what people might think or feel. And he talked of ‘doing to the world rather than letting the world do to you.’
The Saturday breakfast show on Absolute Radio became a symbol of something important in my life. A place where I could unleash the dreadful show-off for a bit. I formed a bond with our other player – a brilliantly talented stand-up called Gareth Richards – and enjoyed my rapport with the fabulously dry comic who followed him, Alun Cochrane. Our producer, Daisy, became a close pal, our post-show chats evolving into exciting nights out as we threw ourselves into the adventures provided by this new world. It was a place where an inability to blend in was seen as an asset. Even my mum defied the habit of a lifetime by setting a curious contraption called ‘an alarm’ every Saturday for 8.00am, to listen.