Then…to the soundtrack of a drumroll in my head for dramatic effect…came the dreaded phrase.
‘So,’ said Miss Hugenot, glowering at me with beady grey eyes that spotted fresh blood. ‘Let’s all hear from the latest addition to our class, shall we? Miss Annie Cole? Let’s see what they’ve been teaching you out in Karachi, then. Would you care to come to the top of the class and derive from first principles, x, x squared and x cubed, sin x, cos x and tan, from your notes? In full, if you please.’
Mike Sherry was on the opposite side of the class to me and, to a chorus of giggles immediately made this really annoying kissy-kissy noise that almost sounded like he was calling a horse, while I stumbled to my feet, trembling like jelly.
But that was all it took to distract Miss Hugenot. The full headlamps of her attention momentarily turned on Mike, to berate him for displaying such immaturity and in that split second and with sleight of hand that a professional magician would envy, Dan instantly switched copybooks with mine. So there was the answer, all perfect and neatly written and all I had to do was transcribe. Honour was saved and for the first time in my life, I was actually able to leave a maths class with my head held high.
Later on after class, as I was packing up to leave, Dan grabbed my arm and caught up with me as I stumbled off to try and find my next class.
‘Hey, wait…where are you headed?’ he asked me as I consulted an unintelligible map of the school.
‘Ehhh…room 201?’
‘Wrong way. Here, let me show you where it is.’
He took my books and strolled alongside me and to this day I can still remember the nervous, nauseous sensation of butterflies suddenly hitting my stomach. Bear in mind, I’d only ever been to all-girls schools before this and was totally unused to male attention, never mind the dense, sweaty atmosphere of sex that practically ricocheted off the walls at Allenwood. Sex and teenage pheromones that is, impervious either to open windows or deodorant. And now here was Dan, all tall and earthy and confident, utterly secure in his own popularity as only a captain of the school rugby team could be. The approximate size of a block of flats and so muscular he looked like he rowed everywhere. Handsome is such a Jane Austen-esque word, I thought, and yet it was the only possible adjective you could use to describe Dan Ferguson.
I tried to thank him for digging me out in maths class, but he just grinned and brushed it off. Then he abruptly changed the subject and asked me how I was settling in.
‘Great,’ I answered, trying my best to match his cool confidence. ‘Everyone’s being really friendly.’
That much was a polite, white lie; I was crippled with shyness back then, and the truth was that apart from him and Yolanda, I’d barely said two words to anyone else to date.
‘You must really miss your family though,’ he said gently, suddenly stopping in the packed corridor to look intently down at me. And I really do mean to look down at me – even at fifteen he was pushing six feet tall.
‘Very much,’ I nodded, ‘but I’ll see my mother at mid-term. And at Christmas, of course.’
‘She’s in…South America, isn’t it?’
‘Georgetown,’ I nodded, then stupidly tacked on, ‘in Guyana.’ By now people were starting to bang into us in their haste to get to the next class, but still Dan didn’t budge.
‘And your dad?’
‘Remarried. Lives in Moscow now. His new wife is Russian. I don’t really…that is, I don’t really see him all that much. In fact…I don’t see him at all.’
I think he must have guessed this wasn’t a subject I particularly wanted to be probed on, so he tactfully changed the subject back to Mum.
‘Still though, South America’s a helluva long way for you to travel to see your mother,’ he said, worry suddenly flashing into the coal-black eyes. ‘And then keeping in contact can’t be easy either. All those long-distance phone calls, emailing the whole time…’
‘Oh no, it’s absolutely fine, I’m well used to it.’
I might have sounded all sure of myself and blasé, but his quick mind seemed to read me accurately and he easily sensed the insecurity that lay beneath.
‘Do you have any other family here in Ireland?’ he asked kindly.
‘My grandmother…but honestly, I’m completely fine about Mum being so far away. As Yolanda pointed out to me, I’ve got to look on the positive side.’
‘Which is?’
‘She said I’m probably the only one in this school who can go home for the holidays and pick up a suntan at the same time.’
He smiled his gorgeous crooked smile at that, then changed the subject, saying that there was a big rugby match that Saturday in the school grounds against Clongowes Wood, a rival boarding school, and did I fancy coming along to watch?
‘I’m playing in it,’ he grinned and in that second I was utterly sucked into his easy, relaxed charm. ‘And believe me, if last night’s training session is anything to go by, we need all the support we can get.’
Course at lunchtime, Yolanda cornered me and didn’t so much ask as demand to know the exact nature and substance of what we’d been talking about. So I told her, correctly guessing that she wouldn’t like it.
‘He invited you to watch the match?’ she hissed, her blue eyes a beautiful study in wounded pride. Bless her, she’d been kind and welcoming to me; really bad idea to go pissing her off now. And given that I had a social circle that consisted of one girlfriend, the last thing I needed was to start making enemies.
‘Come on, Yolanda, he meant as friends, that’s all,’ I stressed. ‘He was asking me about my mother being so far away and just felt a bit sorry for me, that’s all. For God’s sake, it’s only a rugby match. Won’t half the school be there supporting the team?’
This mollified her a bit and by the time I reminded her that Dan was only being nice to the new girl, she’d finally started to cool down a bit. But not before impressing on me that Mike Sherry had expressed interest in me, that he was a sweetheart and that I’d be a right moron not to really, really, really consider giving him a whirl.
‘You know you really should give Mike a chance,’ Yolanda had said for about the thousandth time one evening during study time, as she stared out the window and through the lashing rain at Dan training hard on the rugby pitch, rolling around with the rest of the team and covered in shite. Incidentally, him at his happiest, I’d later discover.
‘You could do a lot worse than Mike, you know. Oooh, and just think; over the Christmas holidays, you and he and me and Dan could all meet up and go out together as a foursome! Wouldn’t that be, like, the coolest thing ever?’
Like I said, everyone knew that Yolanda and Dan were a couple just waiting to happen.
At Allenwood, it was accepted fact.
Chapter Four
Christmas Eve and still no word about the play. And Dan’s lukewarm reaction to the whole thing? ‘Look, you don’t actually have the job yet, so why don’t we just cross that bridge when we come to it?’ Cue him collapsing with deep exhaustion into bed for the next seven hours and that to date has been pretty much his one and only comment on the subject.
But deep down I know he’s right, of course. As of now I don’t have the job, so nothing for me to do but try and put it right out of my head. Which of course is like trying not to breathe. A few days after my first audition, Fag Ash Hil rang saying they wanted to see me for a call-back. Good sign. So up I traipsed to the National in Dublin: same drill all over again, with Jack Gordon sitting there cool as a fish’s fart and apologising for hauling me all the way from Waterford for a second time, then telling me, actually saying it to my face, that he still wasn’t any closer to making a final casting decision yet. That he needed to mull it over for a while longer and ‘give full thought to the chemistries between each of the characters’. So I was put through my paces all over again and now there was nothing to do but wait it out.
That aside, I’ve got two secret Christmas wishes in my heart: one is that I’d hav
e news about the job…whether good or bad…by Christmas. Because nothing on this earth is worse than the not bloody knowing. Not to be though.
Lizzie rang me yesterday, hung-over as a dog after the National’s Christmas party the previous night, to celebrate the show coming to an end, ‘prior to Broadway transfer’.
Funny, but just hearing her stories about the mad piss-up they had, then how they’d all staggered into Lillie’s Bordello and stayed there till five in the morning, made me stop in my tracks. Like I’d suddenly just got a flash of the parallel life I might have had, if I’d never married. Because you know, that might have been me…out on the tiles…celebrating a blossoming career…off to play Broadway for an entire year…
God, it might yet be me, I suddenly thought, if I get good news, that is. For a split second, I allow myself to get sucked into the fantasy, the excitement of not knowing what other wonderful work opportunities might come from playing Broadway…which American agents might come to see the show and maybe even take me on…then put me up for other big jobs…I mean, who could tell? Maybe even the ultimate dream might miraculously come about…that I’d somehow get a crack at a few movie castings too?
Then a stab of reality so sharp it almost winds me; that’s Lizzie’s future I’m describing, not mine. For the coming year, the world is her oyster and if I’m being honest with myself, I envy her from the very depths of my bone marrow. And right now, she’s out partying and having hangovers then staying in bed till the crack of lunch, like you’re supposed to when you’re twenty-eight and when you’ve absolutely no one else to answer to but yourself.
And here’s me, stuck in my mother-in-law’s house, listening to all her passive-aggressive little digs for not clearing out ash from the grate properly AND for using cranberry sauce out of a jar and not making it from scratch, like all Ferguson women have done for the last two millennia.
But then I’ve no choice in the matter. Because I’m married, aren’t I? With my husband of course, nowhere to be seen. Leaving me yet again feeling like I’m trapped in a cage of my own making, watching everyone else have fun in the outside world, through reinforced steel bars.
Lizzie, bless her, made the right noises on the phone, saying all the things you need to hear when waiting to find out about a job that could potentially change your entire life. That no news was good news for starters. Oh, and that Jack had taken himself off to London for a few days to accept some award, so chances were I wouldn’t hear anything till New Year and I’d just have to put it out of my head till then.
‘Though why in the name of Jaysus he bothered leaving town just to collect some award, I couldn’t tell you,’ she’d croaked down the phone to me in a just-out-of-bed voice, though it was well past three in the afternoon. ‘The guy has so many by now, I’m surprised he doesn’t have them up for sale on eBay’.
And so to my second Christmas wish: some alone time with Dan. Did you ever see a couple that needed it more? Now traditionally at the practice, we always host a little mulled wine and mince pies party on Christmas Eve, just after the surgery closes and before everyone drifts off their separate ways. We’re only closed till the twenty-seventh and of course, I’m cooking Christmas dinner for Dan and his family tomorrow, but I’m still hopeful that not only will Dan and I get to spend all of Christmas night alone together, but the whole of Stephen’s Day too.
I’ve totally spelt it out to him. I’ve told him that this is our bit of time, for us and for no one else. That this means an awful lot to me and that by God we were going to make the most of it. No work, no farm calls, no phones ringing, no half the town descending on the house, just him and me. A.L.O.N.E. That with a possible year apart hanging over us, surely he agreed that we had a lot to talk about? Course his mobile rang in the middle of my big speech, so I doubt he took in most of what I was saying, but still.
Point made. Cards laid on table.
Come Christmas Eve and I’m at The Moorings, frantically getting everything organised for said staff drinks party. I’d already decorated the house, even remembering to put up the Christmas tree in the exact spot ordained by Audrey year-in-year-out. Though why she doesn’t just put masking tape on the carpet to save her all the bother of whinging at me that it’s not in its precise place, I’ll never know.
Anyroadup, if I say so myself, the place looks terrific: the fire in the drawing room is blazing away, cheesy, cheery Christmas songs are playing in the background and the mulled wine is mulling. I think to take my mind off the play, I’ve been over-compensating by acting like Nigella on speed these past few days. By some miracle, I’ve managed to do all the shopping for Christmas Day and not forget anything, tidied the house from top to bottom and still found time to squeeze in an appointment to get my big bushy head of hair blow-dried straight for the holidays. Well, straight-ish, given that my hair actually grows outwards and not downwards. Not unlike Sideshow Bob’s in The Simpsons.
Come six pm and just as the last patient leaves the surgery, suddenly the drawing room seems packed with people: Dan, Andrew, James, the intern, Mrs Brophy yelling at everyone and of course Jules who’s been here all day, supposedly helping me, but who’s actually spent most of the afternoon slumped on a couch with a bridge of saliva between her knees and chin, watching It’s a Wonderful Life on TV.
The room is buzzing, everyone’s laughing and enjoying themselves and just as I’m racing around in my good Karen Millen LBD, topping up glasses and making sure everyone’s stuffing their faces with mince pies…surprise surprise…the phone in the hall rings.
Silence as we all look at each other and all you can hear is Shane McGowan rasping ‘Fairytale of New York’ in the background.
‘WHAT WAS THAT?’ yells poor, half-deaf Mrs Brophy.
‘Phone,’ says Andrew, pointedly not budging. ‘Must be a patient.’
Shane McGowan and Kirstie MacColl are growling out the bit where they call each other scumbags and maggots, while tension suddenly bounces off the four walls of the drawing room.
‘I’ll take it,’ Dan volunteers.
‘No, no, stay and relax, I’m sure whoever it is will understand that it’s Christmas Eve and that we’ve closed up for the holidays,’ Andrew smiles benignly. But it’s loo late – Dan’s already out the door. I’m focusing on handing out mince pies and desperately trying to convince myself that this is absolutely NO indication of how things will be over the short holiday when the practice is closed and when Dan is meant to be taking a break.
Two minutes later, he’s back in the room, rubbing his eyes with the back of his palms, the way he always does whenever he’s really exhausted.
‘Everything OK?’ Andrew asks politely, glass in hand.
‘That was Beatrice Kelly,’ Dan replies and I know with absolute certainty what’s coming next. Beatrice is an elderly widow who lives on her own and is passionately devoted to her horses, which she treats almost like surrogate children. In fact, it’s a kind of joke around here that if there is such a thing as reincarnation, then to come back as one of Beatrice’s horses would be karma of the highest order.
‘It’s that hunter she had trouble with last week,’ Dan tells Andrew.
‘Oh, the hyperperistalsis case?’
‘That’s the one. Now she thinks it’s full blown colic and she’s panicking. Right then, sorry to break up the party, but I’d better get out there.’
I get a justifiable flash of irritation when I see that neither Andrew nor James as much as offer to go with Dan, but just sit there nursing their mulled wine, nibbling on mince pies and looking at him blankly. So, silently fuming, I dump down my tray of empty glasses and follow Dan down the freezing cold kitchen passage and out the side door.
‘Sorry about this,’ he says, pulling on a pair of Wellingtons. ‘But it’s all my own fault. I told Beatrice that if she had the slightest concern about that horse to ring me immediately. And you know what she’s like when it comes to her horses.’
I force my mouth into a stretched smile and
utter the one phrase that pretty much summarises my life at The Moorings to date.
‘It’s fine, it can’t be helped.’
‘No, course not.’
‘I’m only sorry you’re missing the party, that’s all.’
‘I’ll be well back in time for Midnight Mass, don’t worry.’
I manage a genuine smile at this. Although neither Dan nor myself are the slightest bit religious, still Midnight Mass is the one time of year you can count on us heathens to cross the threshold of the local church. Useless pair of hypocrites, I know, but it’s just such a lovely service, with the kids singing carols and the big tree and most of the town there, half pissed.
‘I’m not a bit worried about the party,’ I say calmly, even managing to make myself believe it. ‘Sure we’ve still got all day tomorrow and the day after. Don’t we?’
I reach up to gently brush a tufty bit of his thick, black hair that’s standing upright on his forehead, then go to gently stroke his cheek, but he’s distracted and doesn’t respond.
And two seconds later he’s gone out into the dark, icy cold evening.
Half eleven that night and he’s still not back, so after I’ve tidied up the house, Jules and I walk to Midnight Mass on our own. Well, that is to say I walk and she staggers, having spent most of the evening knocking back approximately half a bucket of the mulled wine. I’m still hopeful that Dan might meet us at the church or even join us late during the service, but when we get there, there’s no sign of his mud-soaked jeep anywhere.
A sudden stab of worry: he shouldn’t have taken this long, should he? Maybe there’d been some kind of accident? So I call him but he doesn’t answer. Which only makes worry work like yeast in my mind.
By the time the choir get to Silent Night, Jules has fallen asleep and actually snores for the rest of the service.
Holiday = not off to a good start.
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow Page 8
