Hopes & Dreams

by Claudia Carroll

‘I don’t know how you did it, Jessie,’ he says as we leave the deserted building together. ‘But it’s like you’ve tapped into something big here. Sure, I knew there were a lot of lonely hearts out there, listening in at this hour of the night, but what’s amazing is that they’re all fully prepared to ring in and talk about the most intimate, personal details of their break-ups.’

  ‘I know, I thought I’d never get that last caller to shut up about her ex. If she’d had a guitar, she’d have written a ballad about him.’

  He snorts laughing.

  ‘Please tell me I’m not that bad,’ I say suddenly.

  ‘Jessie, no one is that bad.’

  We speed through the near empty streets and he drops me right to my front door. I hop off the bike, hand back the helmet and hug him warmly.

  ‘Now I know we work you hard at Radio Dublin, so into bed and get your beauty sleep,’ he smiles. ‘And I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come in for a coffee?’ I ask, feeling I should but kind of half hoping he’ll say no.

  ‘Another time. But tell Sharon I said hi, won’t you? And that she and that fella of hers are invited to my gig this Sunday night. You’re coming too, but then you don’t have a choice, even if it is your one and only night off. All Radio Dublin employees are required to attend the boss’s band sessions. It’s compulsory.’

  A lovely feeling of deep warmth comes over me. ‘You’re a good friend, Steve, you do know that, don’t you?’

  He nods from under his helmet, waits until I’m inside, then zooms off into the night.

  *

  Given that Sharon and I have been working in what feels like totally different time zones this week, I’m actually glad when I come to the next morning and she’s still in our room, straightening her hair. Mind you, I think it could be the smell of burning that wakes me.

  Delighted that I caught her, I nip out of bed and pull the flyer I robbed from the Radio Dublin kitchen out of my jeans pocket. And just like me, she reads it, stunned.

  ‘Jeez, this is … I mean … this could be …’

  ‘I know,’ I say, nodding.

  ‘But do you think she might …’

  ‘Not if it comes from me she won’t. But maybe if you were to broach it with her …’

  ‘Leave it with me. With a subtle mixture of bullying and reverse psychology, I’d be surprised if I don’t have an answer for you by tonight.’

  *

  Joan has news for me too. Now I’m the first to admit that I laughed when she talked about going to her wine tastings, I sniggered when she yakked on about doing re-enactments from The Mikado and yet again, I nearly choked on my Bran Flakes when she’d swan off for ‘business meetings’ down in the Swiss Cottage night after night.

  But I’m not laughing now.

  Next morning, after Sharon’s left for work, it’s just Joan and me for a mid-morning brekkie. I pad my way softly into the kitchen, all set for our usual morning game of tip-toe round the mood swings. But as luck would have it, she’s in top form today, happily bouncing around the place. She even offers to cook me one of her big fries, which I gratefully accept. I’m still in my pyjamas, even though it’s well past eleven, but she’s dressed to kill in a neat little black suit with matching everything.

  ‘Looking good,’ I wolf whistle at her, messing. ‘Very Joan Collins circa the Dynasty/Nolan Miller years.’ I’m running a risk saying that much; in one of her foul moods she’d have cut the face off me for less. But for some reason today it’s like she’s the Prozac version of her usual self.

  She does an obliging twirl then sits down beside me.

  ‘Exciting news, Jessica. Huge news, in fact. And I want you to be the first to know, because I may need you to give us a little plug on your radio show. Oh and I need another small favour too. And in return, I have a little surprise for you.’

  ‘Sure, what’s up?’

  Then she says that, seeing as how Sharon and I have been sharing a bedroom for so long now, she’s thinking of redecorating it, which completely stuns me. Bear in mind that this is as close as Joan could ever possibly get to expressing affection for another human being. In this house, all outward displays of emotion are done via the Laura Ashley catalogue. I thank her, really touched, then ask what the other big news is.

  ‘I’m going into business,’ she announces, glowingly. ‘You are looking at a director of a newly formed company. I’m getting business cards printed up and everything. No expense spared.’

  ‘That’s fantastic, but … . what exactly is the business?’

  ‘Oh, very cutting edge. Not my actual idea, credit for that goes to Jimmy Watson in the Swiss Cottage, who I really think is something of a business genius …’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘… but I am a principal investor and employee in the company …’

  ‘Joan! Gimme the last sentence first, will you?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, we’re a web-based company. On the internet, you know.’

  Joan pronounces ‘internet’ like it’s a brand new thing that only got invented yesterday. I also refrain from reminding her of how she used to have a go at myself and Sharon for spending so much time online. Her exact comment, I recall, was that the World Wide Web existed purely so that nerds could find out what other nerds thought about Star Trek.

  ‘Now Jessica, you’re not to laugh …’

  ‘Course I won’t.’

  ‘It’s called IPrayForYou.com.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Like all great ideas, it’s actually very simple,’ she smiles smugly, as if she’s reading a voice over for a new kind of bank account. ‘You see, we’ve already bought the web space and as soon as it’s properly designed, Jimmy and I are going to launch it together online.’

  ‘IPrayForYou.com?’

  ‘Well, the idea is that people can go online, give us all their credit card details and in return, we’ll pray for them. Our rates are very reasonable I’ll have you know. Fifty cents to light a candle, one Euro for a Hail Mary or an Our Father, five Euro for a decade of the rosary and a tenner for a full rosary. Of course the real beauty of it is that I can do the actual praying anywhere. In the car, in work, even while I’m watching the telly.’

  ‘But you’re not even religious!’

  ‘Did I say I was? This is business, Jessica. Try to keep up.’

  I just look at her, dumbfounded. ‘And do you think people might actually go for this?’ I manage to splurt out in between mouthfuls of fried egg.

  ‘Oh listen to you, so cynical. You know some people look at things as they are and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not.’

  ‘Well, what can I say? Best of luck with it, Joan.’

  ‘You’re most kind. Oh and I need a favour from you too. That stuff you’ve been storing in the garage will have to be cleared out as soon as you possibly can. Those boxes are all just going to have to go upstairs to your room.’

  ‘Sure … but why?’

  ‘Because our garage is going to be the official IPrayForYou.com headquarters, of course.’

  Unbelievable. The woman is unbelievable.

  And there’s yet another surprise later on that evening. I’m in Radio Dublin at my desk and just going through some notes I made for this evening’s show when Sharon calls me.

  ‘You’d better be sitting down for this!’ she squeals excitedly.

  ‘What’s up?’ I ask, wondering if it’s something to do with Matt. Then again, she never gets that animated over anything to do with poor old Matt. In fact, every time I ask her how things are going between them, she just shrugs and lights up a fag.

  ‘I did exactly what you told me to. Followed your instructions to the letter. Handed her the flyer you took from the radio station wall and everything …’

  ‘And?’ Now I’m all excited.

  ‘Now, I don’t want either of us to get our hopes up on this one. I mean, you of all people know what she’s like, but �
��’

  ‘But …?’

  ‘… I think she’s going to go for it.’

  Well, bravo Sharon.

  In the meantime the show continues to whiz by and some nights I stagger out of the booth at 2 a.m. and it feels like I’ve barely been in there five minutes. All week, the phone lines haven’t stopped hopping. Like The Midnight Hour has suddenly become Dating Horror Stories Central. It’s a complete phenomenon and Steve even gives me the loveliest compliment of saying that by the time the audience ratings come in, this could be the first time in the station’s history that a late-night show eclipses a primetime one. That confidence boost alone made me feel like I was walking on water.

  Some positive pieces have started appearing in the media about The Midnight Hour too. In fact it got a mention in The Times under their ‘If you do one thing this week …’ listings, which was mega cool. Even Roger Davenport, my agent, who I haven’t heard from in months, called to say that he’d heard a download of this show that everyone was suddenly talking about and he wanted to congratulate me. I’m not entirely sure what surprised me more. That someone as old-fashioned as Roger knew what a download was or that he actually picked up the phone to me after all this time. Anyhow.

  You wouldn’t believe some of the calls we’re getting into the show either. Maybe it’s something to do with the anonymity of radio, but there’s a freedom here that you just don’t get on TV.

  For instance, the other night the topic was cheating and a married woman calling herself Caroline rang in to tell us that she’d got married ridiculously young, to a guy she referred to as ‘Mr Ah Sure He’ll Do’. ‘I panic dated,’ she told me in a wobbly voice and then, just because everyone else was at it, she panic married. And started cheating on her husband about two years ago with a guy she works with. The affair has been over for months now but she insisted she was going to confess all to her husband and come clean. He may not be the love of my life, she said sadly, but he’s still a good man who deserves the truth.

  Cue about half a dozen calls and texts in to say, ‘But you got away with it!’ Which then led on to a heated discussion about cheating in the broadest sense, is it like a tree falling in the forest? Is it only really classified as cheating if you get caught out?

  ‘But I don’t get it, why would you risk your whole marriage over something that’s finished?’ one caller rang in to ask Caroline.

  The sheer, bald honesty of Caroline’s reply startled me. ‘Because it’s the getting away with it part that I can’t live with.’

  Then a guy calling himself Brad (I know, I know, they make half the names up) rang in to say that he’d dated someone who he thought was his absolute dream woman. He got engaged and then married her in a whirlwind courtship during which he couldn’t believe they’d never had as much as a single cross word. He honestly thought that he was the luckiest guy alive not only to have met, but then to have married her. However, that all changed the second she got the ring on her finger. It was like a Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde situation; gone was his sweet-tempered, adorable girlfriend and left in her place was this toxic harpy who seemed hell bent on making his life a misery and spending every penny he’d ever made. So now he’s met someone else, someone kind and understanding, a shoulder to cry on. Nothing’s actually happened between them, so technically he hasn’t actually cheated per se, but his argument is that he was duped by the woman he married and now feels entitled to run after a chance at real, lasting happiness. ‘When we were dating,’ he said, ‘my wife played a great game. A fantastic game. But she was doing nothing more than acting a part the whole time. And once she landed me, her real personality emerged.’

  The switchboard in front of me instantly lit up, some with irate callers to remind ‘Brad’ that he had taken a vow for better or for worse and now had to live through the for worse bit whether he liked it or not. Others were more sympathetic, telling him that if he’d met someone else, then he shouldn’t let the new potential girlfriend out of his sight.

  We sign off for the night with one single woman’s wry comment. ‘You know something, Jessie? Listening to all of this talk about cheating just reaffirms what it is that I’m looking for in a partner. I want the Ronseal Man. A fella who does exactly what he says on the tin. Loves me and only me and that’s it.’

  What can I say? I love this gig. Everyone here at the station has been tremendously supportive, as if sensing that I’ve a lot to prove and a long way to crawl back. And then there’s Steve, sweet, adorable Steve who’s fast turning into my bestfriend-next-to-Sharon. There was only one night in all of last week when he wasn’t around after the show, so the two of us could either stuff our faces with late-night fast food or else zoom homeon his motorbike. He texted me though, to say that he was at a rehearsal for his band and apologised for not being there for me.

  The funny thing is that I missed him.

  *

  By the time Sunday comes around, I’m wall-falling with tiredness, but it’s Steve’s gig with his band tonight and not only did he almost make me sign an agreement in blood that I’d be there, but I’ve asked Sharon and Matt to come along too. The long-suffering, gentlemanly Matt even offered to drive the two of us there, saying he’d come and collect us at Whitehall first.

  I’m running behind getting ready so by the time I get downstairs, poor old Matt has already been introduced to Joan. She’s on the highest of high alerts for this, fussing and fawning over him like he’s minor royalty. In fact, if I know my stepmother and unfortunately I do, chances are she has a copy of some mother-of-the-bride magazine upstairs on her bedside table with all her favourite outfits already marked in highlighter pen.

  The thing about Joan is that when she’s pulling out all the stops to impress you, it can often be worse, far worse than when she’s in one of her foul humours, so it’s hard to know what’s going through Matt’s mind at this moment. We all just sit around awkwardly with the TV on low and me trying to make inane small talk. Eventually, Joan leaves the TV room to get him a Tropicana juice from the fridge, which I happen to know she bought specially for him when she found out it was his favourite. And which no doubt she’ll serve in the good crystal glasses which only ever come out at Christmas.

  So now it’s just him, with myself, Maggie and Sharon.

  ‘You have that slightly glazed, shell-shocked look that everyone seems to get when they first meet my mother,’ says Maggie, sucking on a fag and staring at him, unblinking.

  ‘Had to happen sooner or later,’ he shrugs, completely unfazed by the whole ordeal. ‘Sharon and I are now past our tenth date, you know, so the probability of our relationship proceeding further is now at well over sixty per cent.’

  The gig is in the centre of town and I’m doubly delighted to see that a huge gang from Radio Dublin have turned out in force to support Steve. Including a lot of the pretty young things, Steve’s office fan club, in other words, all looking as pert and young and gorgeous as ever. Anyway, Sharon, Matt and I grab a table and I rush to the bar to get a round of drinks in. Ian is there, in yet another one of his astonishing T-shirts. Tonight’s is no exception, it says, ‘My mother is a travel agent for guilt trips.’

  ‘Steve will be pleased you came,’ he smiles. ‘I think someone has a crush on you.’

  ‘Come on, Ian, that’s ridiculous. We’re friends, going back years. Nothing more!’ A good, forceful nip-this-in-the-bud-right-now statement. Just wish I wasn’t flushing to my roots as I said it.

  ‘Oh yeah? So you think it’s normal for him to hang around the station most nights till past 2 a.m. so he can escort you home?’

  I put this out of my head and get on with enjoying the band. The gig is absolutely brilliant too. Turns out The Amazing Few write all their own songs and they’re surprisingly good. Steve is terrific onstage, not a nerve in his body, as he plays lead guitar, looking like he’s approximately a foot taller than the rest of the band.

  Sharon and Matt seem to enjoy it too; although it has to be said that Matt spends mo
st of the night either a) staring adoringly at Sharon or b) laughing at Sharon when she puts him down with that weird mixture of distain and fondness she treats him with. He disappears off to the loo at one point and Sharon immediately starts neck-swivelling around to check out any other single fellas that might be loitering around and on the loose.

  ‘May I remind you that you’re here with someone?’ I say sternly, after I catch her ogling some guy sitting opposite us who’s covered with tattoos.

  ‘Listen to you, the dating police. I’m only checking out what else is on offer. You know, on the principle that when you have a fella on your arm, suddenly other guys start paying you a bit more attention. Its like they look at you in a whole new light. Admit it, Jess, in your heart you know I’m right.’

  I shake my head and go back to watching the band. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve created a dating monster.

  Anyway, when it’s all over, at about 11 p.m., Steve saunters past all the girlie girls from the station who are catcalling him to join them and instead ambles over to our table. I jump up to give him a bear hug and tell him how fabulous he was. Only the truth.

  It’s one of those wonderful, fun nights; Steve messing and joking like he always does, everyone in good form and relaxed. Sharon and Matt decide to leave early-ish as Matt has a meeting first thing in the morning and Sharon’s on the Smiley breakfast shift too. They offer me a lift home but Steve insists on my staying, saying he’ll give me a lift on his bike later.

  ‘If I’m sober enough, that is,’ he laughs, heading off to the bar to get another round in.

  ‘The more I see of Steve Hayes,’ says Sharon as I hug her goodbye, ‘the more I’m getting to like him. He’s … Fertiliser Man.’

  ‘By that, I’m hoping that you don’t mean full of shite?’

  ‘No, you eejit. I mean he grows on you. Just slowly and over time, that’s all.’

  After they’ve left, he’s full of lovely things to say about Sharon too.

  ‘I can’t get over how different she is,’ he keeps telling me. ‘She’s looking fantastic but it’s like her personality has changed too. I used to be terrified of her and Maggie and now I think Sharon’s completely cool. One of us.’