‘I’ll talk to her tomorrow,’ I say, already dreading it. Wondering how in hell I’ll even bring up the subject and already half-knowing what her response would surely be. To laugh at me first, then accuse me of being a prematurely middle-aged aul frump. But I’ll still try talking to her anyway, I silently vow. Maybe this is just a one-off thing, maybe she’s only tried it because she’s got a few nights off from work…maybe it’s all perfectly OK and I don’t even need to worry.
Jack expertly cracks open the bottle of champagne and pours each of us a glass.
‘But of course, Liz is far from being my only concern among the cast.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Annie, I know it’s absolutely none of my business, but the trouble is that I’m neither blind nor stupid. I hear things. And I want you to tell me honestly if everything is alright with you. In your private life, I mean.’
‘Who said anything to you about…?’
Then I break off, thinking, oh holy shite. I don’t even need to finish the question. Could have been Liz or Chris or any of them, on one of those long boozy nights in Sardi’s when I was home with a tub of Ben and Jerry’s and the TV. No secrets in showbiz, none. And if it’s one thing I’ve learned of late, it’s this: in the Shubert Theatre, there seems to be more leaks than a winter vegetable medley.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, looking keenly at me. ‘I didn’t mean to pry. Just checking that you were OK, that’s all.’
‘I’m fine. Absolutely fine.’
Probably no need for the absolutely, makes me sound so not fine.
‘I felt such anger on your behalf on the opening night, I really did…’
‘You know something? Bad old subject.’
I hard-wire my mouth into a smile and half raise my glass of champagne, as if to say, let’s find something else to talk about. Anything. Because frankly, this feels like he’s probing at scar tissue that hasn’t yet had a chance to heal.
But Jack’s looking for answers and isn’t letting go till he’s got some.
‘I did try to warn you, remember? Back in Dublin, at the end of our first week’s rehearsals. Long-distance relationships are a disaster. I did tell you. I’ve been there myself and I can tell you from bitter experience that after a while, it’s pretty much akin to banging your head off a granite wall. Would you agree, my dear?’
I give a rueful shrug, thinking…he’s right. Banging my head off a granite wall was almost exactly what it felt like.
‘Which is precisely why I don’t do relationships,’ he goes on smoothly, topping up our champagne glasses. ‘But then I’ve always found the whole business of Eros to be such a bloody nuisance.’
I take a sip and cast around for something else to talk about. But Jack’s on a roll now and there’s no deflecting him.
‘You see, I’m not the marrying kind,’ he goes on, ‘but believe me if I were, there’s no way on earth I’d let any wife of mine take off on her own for a full year. At least not without either coming with her or else doing everything in my power to try and stop her. Otherwise, what’s the point of even being married in the first place? What I’d very much like to know is this: what was that Dan guy even thinking?’
Dan. Usually I’ve got lightning quick at booting him out of my thoughts or affections on the rare occasions when he creeps in, but…maybe I’ve drunk too much, maybe it’s the way Jack is questioning me so keenly, so interested in everything that’s going on, that slowly makes me want to open up just a bit.
‘If I hadn’t taken this job,’ I tell him slowly, trying to articulate thoughts I haven’t allowed to bubble up to my conscious mind in a long, long time, ‘then…then, I’d have felt like a shipwrecked passenger who let the only rescue boat sail by. If that makes any sense.’
‘Things really all that bad at home?’ he asks, his voice full of genuine concern now.
Which is touching and sensitive of him, but still I don’t answer. It’s not rudeness, I just can’t bring myself to.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says simply, squeezing my bare arm with his ice cold hand.
‘I fully apologise and withdraw that last sentence. It was ungentlemanly. Never quite know when to pull back, do I? I just wanted to make sure that you were OK, that’s all.’
A conciliatory statement, so I meet him half-way.
‘It’s not that things were that bad at home,’ I tell him, glugging back a mouthful of champagne for Dutch courage, ‘not at all. But at the time, before this job came along and rescued me that is, it really did seem that way. I used to wake up every single morning knowing exactly how the day ahead would pan out and feel like I was suffocating. As surely as if someone had tied a plastic bag over my head. In fact, there were times…I mean…I often used to think…’ and that’s when I break off.
Too hard to put into words. Not something I can articulate, and certainly not right now.
‘It’s no use, Jack. I don’t think you’d understand.’
‘Try me. I’ve been told I’m a good listener.’
‘Well…let’s just say…I often thought that because I’d married so ridiculously young, that I’d missed out on a huge chunk of my life, the best years in fact, the fun, single years and somehow, this job seemed like the best possible way to somehow reclaim all that missing time. If that makes any sense to you.’
He’s looking at me so intensely that I find myself trailing off a bit.
‘Never mind, it’s impossible to explain. Maybe I’ll try and explain it to you someday, but not here and not now.’
‘I might just hold you to that.’
‘Oh, but just for the record, in spite of what you may have heard, here’s the truth straight from the horse’s mouth. Dan and I haven’t broken up, we’re just taking a bit of time out, that’s all.’
‘Time out?’
‘That’s right. A marriage sabbatical, if you like.’
He whistles. ‘New one on me.’
‘A bit like a gap year.’
There’s a long silence now, one I make absolutely no attempt to fill and eventually Jack cops on that this really isn’t something I particularly want to discuss in a Forty-Sixth Street dive bar with a relative stranger. He leans in and takes my hand, but tenderly.
‘You know, I think I owe you an apology, Annie,’ he says more softly. ‘It’s your first night out in a long time and the last thing I wanted to do was to upset you in any way. And I faithfully promise not to mention your private life again, unless expressly given permission by you. Am I forgiven?’
Funny thing: I’ve known Jack to be tough, acerbic, brilliant, sarky and passionate, but he sure as hell keeps this side under wraps. The kinder, gentler, more concerned side, that is, that I’m only really seeing for the first time tonight. A man with leagues and fathoms of depths to him, I decide there and then. A guy who really takes some getting to know, if women ever really do get to know the real Jack Gordon.
I say yes of course he’s forgiven and thankfully, he changes the subject.
‘So how are you liking New York then?’
The satyr eyes slant downwards as his expression relaxes and he winks at me. ‘That a safe enough subject for you?’
I smile a bit.
‘Yes, good and safe. And I love New York, at least the little bit of it that I’ve seen.’
‘Have you done the Empire State yet?’
‘Nope.’
‘The helicopter tour at sunset?’
‘Never even knew there was one.’
‘Strawberry Fields at Central Park?’
‘Ehh…’fraid not, sorry.’
‘The Hudson River in the moonlight?’
‘The river? Oh come on, do I look like Mark Twain?’
He laughs at this, but keeps on questioning me.
‘Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty?’
‘Emmm…no. Though according to Blythe, there’s a great discount store near it called Century Twenty One.’
‘Annie, what in God’s name have
you been doing with your free time here?’
Watching telly, I want to say. Moping. Trying to do anything other than think about Dan. I’m too ashamed to tell him that, like a guinea pig trapped in a wheel, the only bits of the city I’m familiar with are all within a tiny three-street radius of the theatre.
‘Right then,’ he says firmly. ‘That settles it.’
‘Settles what?’
‘Well, you’re at a loose end during the day and I’ve got all this free time until the right movie project comes along. So, in the meantime, why don’t you and I become tourists?’
Much, much later, Liz and I are in the ladies loos together.
‘I need to talk to you,’ I hiss at her into the mirror as she piles lip gloss on top of yet more lip gloss.
‘Shit, what is it with this fucking mirror?’ she says, ignoring me and squinting at her reflection up close and personal. ‘Some mirrors are our friends, but not this one, sadly. All I see looking back at me is a big pile of O.L.D.’
‘Liz, will you please listen to me?’
‘I am, I am. As it happens, I need to talk to you too, babe. So what’s the story with you and Jack?’
‘No story, we’re just talking,’ I say defensively, then drop my voice so as not to be overheard. ‘Now what I want to ask you is…are you by any chance doing lines of coke tonight?’
‘Oh shit, sorry,’ she says lightly. ‘Did you want some? It’s right here, in my bag. Should be enough for a couple more lines, at least.’
‘Liz!’
‘What’s your problem? Everyone does it, for feck’s sake.’
‘Everyone does not do it and I’m concerned about you. What’s more, Jack’s noticed and now he’s up the walls worried as well.’
‘Relax, grandma, I’ve been doing it for a long time and trust me, you’d like it. Makes you feel like the whole world is in love with you. Aaaa-mazing. I feel phee-nomenal.’
‘Liz, you’re doing coke on top of all the booze you’ve drunk? Christ Alive, what is with you? You won’t be happy till you’ve partied yourself into an ICU and end up being fed through a shagging straw!’
‘Oh please, I’ve hardly drunk anything. Few cocktails, some champagne, nothing more. I may be American drunk, but I’m Irish sober. Besides, who gave you the right to start acting like my conscience? For Christ’s sake, Annie, look at you, perched on my shoulder, judging me. Well you can piss off with yourself; I don’t want to be judged, I just want to have a good time. And by the way, you really shouldn’t pull that disapproving face, you know. Makes me see what you’ll look like when you’re older.’
Bugger it anyway, I think. Pointless talking to her when she’s this high, so I decide to wait till tomorrow, when she’s come down a bit.
‘Besides, you never answered my question about Jack,’ she says, turning back to the mirror and lashing on more bronzer than you’d normally see on the whole of Girls Aloud. ‘Mightn’t be my type, but I can see that some sex-starved women might find him completely fuck-able. Like you, for instance. Don’t you just want to drag him home and do it with him once…just to get it out of your system? So come on, tell me. What’s going on with you and him anyway?’
‘It’s called having a conversation with a man without sticking your tongue down his gob or letting him paw you up in front of two hundred people. You should try it sometime.’
Her reply could strip metal.
‘Still so bloody middle-aged,’ she sighs into the mirror. ‘Little countrified wifey let loose on the big city and all you can do is wag your parochial finger in my face because I’m having a fabulous time and you’re not. All I’m suggesting is that Jack could be like your own personal sexual nicotine patch, that’s all. To help wean you off Dan. You need to get laid, honey, and badly. It would help remove that stick you’ve got lodged up your arse. Make you far more fun to be around as well, which would be no bad thing.’
‘Right that’s it, I’m going,’ I say, picking up my bag. ‘See you outside.’
‘Oh, I’ve pissed you off, have I?’ she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘Dear oh dear, how WILL I sleep at night? Oh yeah, I just remembered. I’ve got pills for that too.’
Seems I’m learning another lesson about Liz when she’s coked up. It turns her into a very dislikeable version of herself. The very worst version of herself, in fact.
The Princess of bleeding Darkness.
‘Oh did I hit a nerve?’ she asks dryly. ‘Are you having a little anxiety stroke because I dared to tell you the truth? Or maybe you’re just cranky because it’s well past your bedtime. Must be…ohh…what…almost midnight by now? Time for your warm milk and Ovaltine in front of your new best friend, the TV, surely?’
‘Goodnight, Liz.’
My hand is on the exit handle with one foot outside the door, when suddenly she calls me back.
‘You know what Jack told me a while ago?’ She’s eyeballing me in the mirror now, while readjusting her boobs so they jut out provocatively over her top.
‘I couldn’t give a shite what he told you. See you later.’
‘Chris and I were in Sardi’s with him a few weeks back,’ she continues, ignoring me, ‘and one of the hostesses was practically flinging herself at him. So we were teasing him and probing him about whether he was single or not…’
‘For God’s sake…’
‘And you know what he told us?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care and what’s more I really am leaving now.’
Don’t know why I even bother entertaining her when she’s high like this. Completely futile exercise.
‘That there was only one woman he really wanted, but he couldn’t get her. Know why?’
‘Course I don’t.’
‘Because she’s already married.’
And then she turns to stare pointedly at me.
That night, the dreams started
It was New Year’s Eve after my first term at Allenwood and Dan had invited me down to Waterford to stay with his family. But as it happened, that night his parents had taken the seven-year-old Jules to visit cousins a good forty mile drive away, when after dire weather warnings, the worst snowstorm in twenty years enveloped the whole of the south east. Which meant that the roads were utterly treacherous and his family had no choice but to stay put.
Which meant that Dan and I were left together at The Moorings. All alone for the whole night.
I’ll never forget it – the house was so icy cold that we pretty much camped out by the fire in the drawing room, the only room in the whole place where the temperature was fluctuating somewhere above zero. I had just spent Christmas with Mum in hot, humid South America so as far as I was concerned, this, by contrast, was like something out of Charles Dickens. The snow was beating down outside and the fire crackling away while he and I toasted marshmallows and sipped hot chocolate, side by side on the sofa, with a giant fleecy rug tucked over me for extra warmth and snugness. We’d chatted and laughed and watched The Truman Show on DVD and warbled our way through every Christmas-y song we knew.
But now that it was close on midnight, the mood between us had shifted and become more mellow. I’d only arrived back in Ireland the previous day and was trying my best to stifle yawns as the jet lag finally hit me.
Meanwhile Dan was stretched out beside me, hands behind his head, staring into the fire and lost in thought.
‘So,’ he eventually said after a long, easy silence. ‘You and Mike Sherry.’
‘Oh don’t,’ I shuddered. ‘He annoys me.’
‘Good. I’m glad, he annoys me too.’
‘Dan?’ I had to ask the question. Opportunities rarely came as golden as this one.
‘Yup?’
‘You and Yolanda?’
He turned on his side to face me and even in the dim firelight, I could see him grinning.
‘Yolanda who?’
For a delicious moment, neither of us spoke, we just looked at each other, exchanging souls. I smiled, afraid to say an
y more in case I broke the spell. Then, I started to shiver involuntarily as the fire began to die down.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘you’re frozen. Slide over here. Allow me to be your personal electric blanket for the night.’
Well, I couldn’t resist him for another second. Gently, he pulled me towards him, wrapping his strong, chunky arms tight around me, instantly warming me up. He smelt musky and as my head lay in the crook of his arm, all I wanted was for him to bend down and kiss me. If I was frozen a minute ago, suddenly not only was I hot, but it was making me hotter just to look at him.
Then, a mile away from Stickens village, we heard the church ring out the bells for New Year.
‘Happy New Year, Annie,’ he murmured gently, so close to me that I could feel his lips gently graze my ear.
‘Happy New Year, Dan.’
Bliss, I thought. A rare and perfect moment. Lying here in his arms is sheer ecstasy and nothing, absolutely nothing could possibly improve this magical night.
‘Any new year’s resolutions?’ I whispered through the silence.
‘Just one.’
‘Which is…?’
‘Never, ever to let you go.’ And I swear, his voice was as soft as breath.
If that’s true, I thought, then before it’s barely started, my life just got made.
I looked up at him. Slowly, barely perceptibly, he moved his head down towards me and a second later, his soft lips were on mine. We kissed slowly at first, gently, tenderly. And then it began to grow more and more passionate and intense as all the months of waiting for him, longing for him, finally paid off.
Next thing I knew, my fingers were running through his thick, black hair while his hands were running down my waist and up my thighs, pulling me even closer to him, kissing me far, far harder now, far more intensely, his tongue in my mouth and mine in his.
I was wrong it seemed. The night could and just did improve dramatically.
I can pinpoint the exact moment that I fell in love with Dan and this was it.
On the stroke of New Year, nineteen ninety-nine.
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow Page 20
