If This is Paradise, I Want My Money Back

by Claudia Carroll

You have to be nice to them. For some of these people, getting caught on a security camera is not exactly the kind of media coverage they’re looking for. Believe it or not.

  ‘. . . then there’s that big commercial for some detergent that’s casting next week, and I haven’t a clue where you keep all the CV shots . . .’

  In the CV filing cabinet, in a big drawer with ‘CV shots’ written in black and white across it. Not brain surgery, Anna.

  ‘. . . I mean, the day-to-day running of the office isn’t really my thing. I’m more the face of the business, really . . .’

  Allow me to translate. This means that while you take your favoured clients out for afternoon-long, boozy lunches, I actually do all the donkey work for you. For roughly about a third of what you should be paying me.

  ‘So I really need you back, Charlotte. The place is falling apart without you.’

  You know what? Not tempting. Go hire yourself a temp and leave me alone. Some of us have real problems, and compared with me, your life is Euro Disney.

  God, this coma is making me an awful lot braver than I normally would be.

  More noise and chat and kerfuffle, almost like there’s a little social gathering going on all around me that I’m the reason for, but not a part of. The noise is getting louder and louder, and I’m hearing a cacophony of voices all chattering over me, then, suddenly, without warning . . . total and utter silence.

  I’m just thinking that it’s about time some bossy nurse came in and told them all to keep it down to a dull roar, but then I get the strongest whiff of Burberry aftershave and there’s only one person I know who wears that . . . oh shit, I do not believe this.

  It’s him. James.

  Has to be. I’d know even by the way the temperature in the room has dropped by about twenty degrees. Here’s me in a coma, and I can still sense the tension. There’s a rustle of cellophane and a smell of lilies, and I can hear Anna being nice to him and saying something about how divine the flowers are, but then she was always very skilled at arselicking producers. Next thing, for absolutely no reason, I get a flashback to when we first met.

  It’s all Anna’s fault really: she introduced me to him at a film festival and I remember immediately writing him off into the mad, bad and dangerous to know category. Charisma you could surf on, but I just instinctively knew he was the type of fella that, if you were dating him, you’d probably end up on about a hundred milligrams of Valium a day. Back then, he wore a leather jacket, rode a Harley and looked a bit like James Dean, if he’d ever made it to his thirties. Mean, moody and magnificent. A hard dog to keep on the porch, as Hillary Clinton once famously said about Bill. Somehow always managed to look like he’d just been in a fight. There was also a rumour doing the rounds about him that he’d once thrown a sofa over a balcony and into the pool of some five-star hotel in Cannes, the kind of place where no one says a word, just discreetly adds ‘replacement sofa’ to the bill.

  Yes, I fancied the arse off him, as any woman with a working pulse would, but not for one nanosecond did I ever consider him as nice, suitable boyfriend/potential future husband material; I really, honestly, genuinely was NOT interested. In fact, I distinctly remember only googling him once after I first met him. To put this in context, I’d have checked out my horoscope plus this fab website I found for designer knock-off handbags far, far more; that’s how disinterested I was. Anyway, I sometimes think that must have been part of the turn-on for him. So he did all the running.

  Producers persuade, that’s what they do. They persuade actors to star in their movies, then they persuade investors to pay for it, then they persuade the public that it’s a smash hit; and that’s pretty much the tactic he used on me. Persuaded me to go out with him, then to fall in love with him, then, a ridiculously short time later, to move into his house with him. Like the walking cliché that I am, I really, truly believed that I’d be the one to tame the bad boy and turn him into something cuter than a fluffy little kitten sitting on a sofa watching Love Actually. And look where it got me. My God, single women the world over should be made to study my dating history as a lesson in what not, under any circumstances, ever to do.

  He’s very close to me now; I can feel his hand gripping mine, icy cold.

  ‘You look so beautiful, Charlotte.’

  Clearly, this is too much for Kate, who’s very intolerant of bullshit, ’cos I can hear her snapping back at him. ‘James, she has a fractured skull, a dislocated shoulder, forty-eight stitches, a broken fibula, and you think she looks well? Trust me, it’s the lighting.’

  This is what passes for wit in our family.

  ‘I just can’t believe that God could let this happen,’ he goes on, I’m guessing for Mum’s benefit. In fact, I can almost picture him rearranging his face into a look of religious faux-concern, purely on account of her being here.

  ‘Oh really?’ Kate snaps back. ‘Haven’t you read the Old Testament? He’s pretty ruthless.’

  Another awkward silence, but by now, I’m actually starting to enjoy them. I mean, here’s James stuck in the same room with probably the only three women on the planet who are completely immune to his legendary magnetic appeal. His charm assaults, for the record, come in distinct phases: first he focuses on you so intently with his laser gaze that you tend to forget there’s anyone else on the planet; second, he asks keen yet insightful questions, somehow managing to cut right to the heart of whatever the conversation subject-matter is; then, the pièce de résistance, he’ll manage to unearth something from left field, to make you roar laughing about. I’ve seen him beguile his way out of a thousand tricky situations with this strategy before, but he won’t here, not now, and certainly not in front of this audience. In fact, if it wasn’t for the coma, I’d probably be lying here having a great aul titter at his discomfort.

  Serves him bloody right.

  ‘You know, you look exhausted, Kate,’ he says to her, so sincerely that it’s actually disarming. ‘And you too, Mrs Grey. You must be worn out with worry. Why not go down to the canteen and have a coffee or a bite to eat? I’ll stay here with Charlotte. I’d . . . I’d really love a moment alone with her, but only if that’s OK with you all.’

  NO! Don’t, repeat DO NOT go! I don’t want to be left on my own with him!

  But he gets his way. Like he always does. After much reluctant mumbling and grabbing of handbags, I hear Mum bristling like a Brillo Pad and very distinctly saying all right then, but that she’ll be back in ten minutes, her clear implication being, ‘So you’d better be gone by then.’

  ‘And FYI,’ is Kate’s parting shot, ‘I don’t mind you coming to see her just this once, but from now on, we’d prefer it if just immediate family visited. Immediate family and Fiona, that is. I’ll be round to pick up some of her stuff soon.’

  ‘No problem. Any idea when?’

  ‘Whenever it bloody suits me.’

  A door slam, then I know we’re alone because he immediately lets go of my hand.

  ‘Charlotte . . . Christ, it’s so hard for me to see you like this . . .’

  Oh please, do we have to do the movie scene?

  ‘You know, I keep replaying that terrible row in my head and . . . well, I can’t help but feel partly responsible for what happened to you.’

  Did you just say PARTLY?

  ‘You were so upset when you bolted out of the house that night, and I’m kicking myself for letting you drive off into a bloody thunderstorm, the state you were in . . .’

  Good. Hope you kick yourself to death.

  ‘I feel so bad about everything . . .’

  Serves you right. In fact, that’s the best news I think I’ve heard all day.

  ‘It’s not you, you know, it’s me.’

  Oh, give me a break. In fact, I’m pretty certain I recognize that line from one of your crappy B movies. Unimaginative bastard.

  ‘I know I should have come to you sooner and told you how I was feeling but . . . well, the thing is, I just hated this cosy coupley
existence that we’d settled into, doing the crossword together, fighting over the Sunday supplements, all of that . . . I used to sit beside you on the couch watching reruns of Lost for about the thousandth time and thinking, this is not who I am.’

  No, of course, you wanted to go back to throwing sofas out of hotel room windows.

  ‘And I know I made a right pig’s ear of trying to explain myself the other night, but it’s just for a while now, I’ve been feeling a bit detached from you, and that . . . well . . . that I needed a bit of space . . .’

  And that’s when it happens. Right then, just as he’s spewing on and on and on with more of his self-justification shite.

  Suddenly, and completely without warning, memories begin to surface. The night of the accident, me driving home, the rumour having reached me in work.

  Now I remember.

  Heavy traffic, rain pelting, a dark sky, the windscreen wipers going full blast, and my heart rate almost keeping pace with them. I remember hot, angry tears stinging at the back of my eyes. Not being able to catch my breath, mouth dry, gulping – and my hands trembling, like I was having a full-blown anxiety attack. I even remember trying to ring his mobile for about the fortieth time, and him not answering. I remember vomit rising at the back of my throat, and willing myself not to be sick, because the only thing I had in the car I could possibly throw up into was an empty tube of Pringles on the passenger seat beside me.

  I knew full well there’d be a confrontation when I got home, and was already doing a mental dress-rehearsal of all my arguments well in advance of it. James is brilliant in arguments, and I’m rubbish because I just get emotional; so, like a good prosecution lawyer, I always had to be two steps ahead of him in any row. I even remember making a list in my head of all the reasons why, if what I’d heard was true, and if we did break up over it, it mightn’t necessarily be the worse thing that could possibly happen to me. I had it all worked out on that long, miserable drive home, all the pros and all the cons.

  Like I said, none of my nearest and dearest ever really liked James. In fact, something Fiona said a long time ago came back to haunt me: she predicted that this would all end in tears. Mine, not his. She used to reckon that James’s ideal woman was one with no last name. And that his Jack Nicholsonesque grin would unnerve a shark. Plus, after a few glasses of Pinot Grigio, she’d always be at pains to point out that as long as I continued to live in his house, under his roof, he held all the aces in the relationship. And what did I do? Forgot the first principle of dating: love is blind, but friendship is clairvoyant. I didn’t listen to her, and look where it got me.

  Funny, but as I sat in the gridlock that wild, stormy night, thinking that if it was true and if this was it, The End for me and him, I remember, in a surge of positivity, making up my mind that I WOULD move on and I WOULD meet someone else. Furthermore, that somehow along the way, I’d set up as a producer myself, and manage to become very rich and successful, and then he’d really be sorry. I’d probably end up on the Late Late Show and on the Sunday Times Rich List, and that’d completely finish him off, given how important money is to him. And, in my little fantasy world, I’d be famous too, so famous that I’d even have my very own stalker, the hallmark of the true celeb. And every time I’d talk to a journalist, I’d graciously tell them that, yes, although I wasted five precious years of my dating life on a worthless, faithless git, I still managed to turn my whole life around and become a huge success, with an adoring husband and kids, and everything I ever wanted out of life. Even if I can only pass for young, gorgeous and nubile in a power cut. Even if I now have a biological clock that, at this stage, honestly might as well have Roman numerals on it and be carved in stone.

  Even if right up until that afternoon, I still loved him so much that it physically hurt, like a stab to the heart. Even if I’d invested so much time and trouble into him being The One that now the sheer climb-down involved was wrecking my head. Yes, all right, so maybe he wasn’t perfect, but then what guy is? As Fiona says, at the end of the day, they’re all bastards; best you can hope to do is try and find a nice bastard. And James was perfect for me, or so I thought. The laughs we had together, the silly, private little in-jokes, the mind-blowing sex, the way we seemed to agree on just about everything, even daft stuff like who should win X Factor . . .

  Seems to be my destiny to be one of those people that nothing ever, ever works out for. Electric doors. Self-tanning lotion. ATMs. And now, I can add relationships to the list. Just look at me: I’ve officially become a walking cautionary tale about what happens when you pay attention to the little voice inside your head that whispers, ‘mate for life, mate for life’. Might as well start a support group while I’m at it.

  And there’s more. There’s something else. Something I’m trying to haul up from the depths of my mind and can’t . . . but, whaddya know, right there and then James saves me all the bother by saying it straight out for me.

  ‘. . . please understand, I tried so hard, but there just never seemed to be a right time to sit you down and tell you. You have to believe me. I never set out to fall for Sophie . . .’

  And . . . da daa, ladies and gentlemen . . . there it is. I give you . . . The Missing Key. Sophie bleeding Kelly.

  I should fill you in.

  OK, here goes. Up until the night of the accident, if you’d asked me anything about Sophie Kelly, I’d probably have looked at you and shrugged. She’s one of those people that, although mildly irritating, I really wouldn’t have had that much to say about either way. But after what’s just come flooding back to me like a tsunami, it’s a case of . . . how long have you got?

  Right then. For starters, she’s a rubbish actress anyway, and now that I come to think about it, I heard James say so plenty of times. Definitely. I’m not messing, the girl has about all the dramatic ability and presence of a cutlery drawer. Then there’s the small matter of her high-pitched, squeaky voice. Honestly, I’d rather listen to a roomful of computers dialling up an old-fashioned internet connection. In fact, I distinctly remember saying that to James after we saw her last movie, and he categorically agreed with me.

  At least I think he did.

  I grudgingly have to admit that she is gorgeous, so good-looking that you’d almost think she travelled around the place with her own personal lighting cameraman in tow. She has corkscrew curly blonde hair, big poppy Bette Davis eyes, and is also thin, thin, thin. ‘Look, no carbs!’ thin. So thin that every time I see her, all I want to do is ram lard down her bony little throat. However, if there are two types of women in this world, those who are out to help each other and those who aren’t, then Sophie Kelly definitely belongs to the second kind. You know, the kind of woman who makes you feel that in life’s big VIP aftershow party, she’s invited and you’re not. She’s also Different With Men. And, OK, yes, I have on occasion witnessed first-hand her flinging herself at James like some kind of blow-dried missile in slingbacks, but like the gobshite I am, I used to shrug and write it off. She’s an actress, I figured, he’s a successful producer, and whether I liked it or not, that’s how this business works.

  I had no woman’s intuition. No sixth sense. No clue as to what was to blindside me. And therein lay my downfall. In the space of one short day in my life, I managed to lose everything. Lover, boyfriend, home, even my career. Because much and all as I enjoy my job, in spite of Anna driving me scatty half the time, our agency represents Sophie helium-voice Kelly, and there’s just no way on earth I could handle her ringing the office looking for auditions, and me having to pretend to be nice to her. Call me a bad loser, but I’d rather lose a limb. Then there’s all the clients at the agency. Word would spread like wildfire, I knew, because let’s face it, actors have a grapevine that Ernest & Julio Gallo would be proud of.

  Pathetic life CV, isn’t it? Twenty-eight years on earth, and I managed to make a complete shagging mess of the whole thing. Honest to God, if there was any justice, I should be hauled up in front of the dating poli
ce and have my head impaled on a spike as an example to other single women who put up with crap from men. And what would my defence be? That love makes Andrea Bocellis of us all. Brilliant.

  And the laugh is, it took a coma for me to be able to see it clearly.

  ‘You have to believe me,’ James is still harping on ad nauseam. ‘There just never seemed to be a right time. I never set out to fall for Sophie, but you know how it is. You don’t look for love, love looks for you . . .’

  Yet another line I recognize from some rubbishy TV show you made. One of those ones that was hardly worth the electricity it took to broadcast it. What are you trying to do, anyway, clear your conscience? Or maybe, like the paragon of selfishness that you are, you really only came here to try and make yourself feel better.

  Yep, that sounds by far the more likely option.

  On and on he goes, remorse itself, apoplexy on a plate, the devil made me do it. Honest to God, if I was to actually listen to the utter crap he’s coming out with, he’d have me believing that Sophie Kelly chased him, hounded him, boiled a few bunnies along the way, and basically bludgeoned him into submission, while the whole time he behaved like a perfect model of fidelity and gentlemanly decorum, blameless as a choirboy, every now and then pleading, ‘Desist from your advances, you harlot, I have a girlfriend, I tell you!’ Don’t get me wrong, I’d really love to believe him, but I know it’s total and utter shite, so I tune out and sink back down, down, down, letting him ramble on to an empty house.

  Wish I could be like Angelina Jolie. You get the impression from her that if Brad Pitt ever left her for someone else, she’d just shrug her shoulders, shove a cigarette through the overblown bee-stung lips, make a blockbuster movie, then move swiftly on with all two dozen of her kids trailing in her wake. Purely to pass the time, I count all the occasions I distinctly remember Kate telling me to dump him. You don’t need to put up with all this crap, she used to say. The guy is pure, liquid man-thrax. But I love him, I’d invariably answer, the ultimate defence of the gobshite. Plus, I happen to like monogamy. For starters, you don’t have to wax as much.