Who just care deeply about each other and want to catch up with each other, nothing more.
But I can tell you, it’s the single nicest thing that’s happened to me in a long, long time.
Meeting Dan at the moon.
Chapter Eleven
Late one lazy day the following week, I find out exactly what the surprise was that Dan mentioned. It’s boiling hot, well over ninety degrees and I’ve just spent a deeply relaxing afternoon up in Blythe’s apartment drinking iced tea and lolling around in her little balcony, just the two of us, me in a pair of swimming togs, flip-flops and an oversized T-shirt; her in a wafting kaftan so huge and billowing, it could nearly double up as a cover for a Hummer.
‘I know I look a bit like Dame Edna,’ she sniggered, ‘but it was such a bargain, Annie love, it would have been a sin to leave it there. Only fifteen dollars in the reduced to clear bin at Filene’s Basement! Can you believe it? I’m on an economy drive at the moment, you know, because poor Sean needs me to send him home some money this month, to help out with all his car repayments. That Lexus is just cleaning the poor boy out. Shocking.’
I bite my lip, change the subject and the pair of us idle away yet another hour looking down onto Forty-Fifth street shimmering in the baking heat below us, inventing back stories for all the people swarming around, each and every one of them sweltering. And oh my God, is it hot! So hot that even the glasses of water beside us are sweating.
Anyroadup, it gets close to four in the afternoon, when I know Blythe always likes to take a little nap before the show: time for me to skedaddle back downstairs to my own apartment and leave her to it. And so I’m just flip-flopping out of the elevator on my own floor and into the cool of the marble hallway, head shoved into my handbag as I rummage around for my door keys, when suddenly I spot a lone figure slumped up against my door. Standing beside two stuffed suitcases and looking like a delivery that’s been waiting for me for hours.
Takes a split second for my eyes to adjust to the dark hallway, but when I realise who it is, I nearly fall over in shock.
‘Jules Ferguson! Am I seeing things? Is it really you?’
‘Surprise!’ she yells so loudly that I think half the building might hear and next thing we’re hugging each other for all we’re worth. I’m overwhelmed to see her; she’s like a breath of air. A breath of air from three thousand miles away. From home.
‘I can’t believe I’m really, finally here!’ she squeals at me, as I open up the door to let her in. ‘Dan paid for my flight over, but on the strict condition that I wasn’t to breathe a word about it in any of my Facebook messages to you. Said he wanted it to be a complete surprise. But my God, I’ve been just bursting to tell you, Annie; these last few weeks I’ve felt like I was carrying round the third secret of Fatima. You know me, I’m no good at secrets – keeping anything to myself always makes me constipated.’
I snort laughing, having completely edited out Jules’s lunatic sense of humour and keep hugging the girl over and over, absolutely thrilled that she’s here and flooded with determination to give her the single best holiday she’s ever had in her whole life. I let both of us in and Jules nearly passes out when she sees just how gorgeous the apartment is in the late afternoon sunshine, when it always looks its best.
I proudly show her around, but what impresses her most of all is the stunning view from the long, blonde, floor-length windows down onto Madison Avenue, hundreds of feet below us. She wolf-whistles at the very sight of it, then skittishly dances around the place like a character straight out of Glee, high just on being here.
‘This is just unbelievable!’ she roars, laughing at me. ‘I mean, come on, Annie, you do realise what a rare treat it is for me to actually be staying somewhere that doesn’t smell of Yardley Lily of the Valley talcum powder and dentures and old skin? With pension books and blister packs of tablets lying on every surface?’
I smile fondly at her, remembering only too clearly how exhilarated I felt when I first came here, five full months ago now, but frankly it seems like it was back in another lifetime. When I too felt so full of promise and fun and hope. When I couldn’t get my head around the contrast with life in Stickens, where an eventful day might include Biddy at the post office closing early on account of her sciatica being at her, or else Sergeant Flynn busting a local farmer for a tax disc that’s three months out of date. And to come from all of that to all of this? Wouldn’t be in the least surprised if Jules never goes home again.
The girl is starving, but then Jules is always starving, so I rustle up a chicken and pesto salad for her, which she wolfs into at the living room table, all while filling me in on the latest news from home.
‘So anyway, the Mothership has gone from bad to worse, if it’s even possible to believe that,’ she says, mouth stuffed. ‘Spends most of her time stretched on the chaise longue up at The Moorings telling mad Mrs Brophy or the Countess Dracula that she’s not much longer for this world. She’s developed this death wish you see, even though Doc Martin says there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the old bat – more’s the pity.’
‘Jules!’
‘Come off it, Annie, you know as well as I do she’s as healthy as a horse. All you need to do is watch the old battleaxe eating to know that. Like watching a vulture feed off a corpse.’
I snort a bit at this, can’t help myself.
‘Anyway she’s on some pills now because she says she can’t sleep properly any more, that it feels too much like death,’ she happily chats on, helping herself to more salad. ‘Spends half the morning going through the death notices in the paper, checking she’s not in them, more than likely. And whenever someone rings her, she answers the phone by saying, “Who’s dead?” God Almighty, Annie, coming from that gene pool, isn’t it a miracle that I’m normal?’
I smile, only too well able to imagine what the poor kid has been through since I left.
‘There’s more though: she has a major fatwa out on you, hon. Still harps on in her feathery little voice to anyone who’ll listen about how you’ll rue the day you upped and left your husband, repeat ad nauseam. That we don’t just dispose of things we love and that marriage isn’t something you can just walk away from, blah-di-blah-di-blah. Honest to God, between her and the Countess Dracula, then factor in Mrs Brophy screeching at everyone…and I’m telling you, these days The Moorings is more like a mental home where everyone’s streeling around on the wrong medication.’
‘So how did you manage to get away in the first place?’
‘Dan had to hire a nurse for her. She arrived the day before yesterday and it’s only hilarious; she’s a big beefy one called Noreen and she’s mad into physical therapy and keeps forcing the Mothership to take long walks and to exercise for at least an hour a day. Says that fresh air will help her to sleep better than any bottle of pills. So there’s a right battle of wills going on at the moment as to who’ll break who first. Mind you, my money is on the Mothership.’
Next thing, the mobile phone in her jeans pocket beep beeps as a text comes through.
‘Speak of the devil,’ says Jules, rolling her eyes when she reads who it’s from. She carelessly tosses the phone over to me and I quickly scan the message. From Audrey.
AM WORRIED SICK ABOUT YOU, BUT TRY NOT TO STRESS ABOUT ME TOO MUCH, IF I TAKE A TURN FOR THE WORST, DAN WILL LET YOU KNOW. HAVING A BAD DAY TODAY AND NOREEN DOESN’T BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY I URGENTLY NEED TO SEE THE DOCTOR. BUT TRY TO ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAY, IF YOU POSSIBLY CAN, MOTHER XXXX
‘Oh dear,’ I say, handing her back the phone. ‘I see what you mean.’
‘Amazing, isn’t it? That the Mothership can emotionally blackmail me even through the medium of a simple text message. Quite a gift, when you come to think about it.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about it, hon. You’ll be fine after a few years of expensive therapy.’
Jules snorts laughing, then with a belch worthy of a builder on a halting site, she shoves the empty plate away from her, rips t
he tab off a can of beer that I plonked in front of her then slouches back onto the sofa. The picture of chilled-out relaxation. You’d swear she’d been living here for a full month instead of barely an hour.
A good moment for me to ask the one question that’s burning me up.
‘And…emm…how’s Dan?’
Weird: after all her chatter and gossip, now there’s a silence. Jules stares off into space before she answers, playing with her Jack-in-the-box springy black curls and looking no older than about thirteen, max.
‘Well, if you ask me,’ she says slowly, so slowly that I want to scream impatiently, what? What? If I ask you WHAT?
‘I think he’s totally lost without you, Annie,’ she says, putting on a funereal voice. ‘Completely and utterly devastated. Looks like shite, hasn’t slept properly since you left, goes round the place crying like a baby for no apparent reason, is neglecting his work, in fact the whole practice is falling apart because he just can’t hack it anymore. And sometimes when I’m up at The Moorings, I can hear the sound of him sobbing to himself behind the surgery door, when everyone’s gone home and when he thinks no one’s there…’
I throw an impatient cushion across the coffee table at her, which she deftly catches.
‘I’d forgotten about Jules Ferguson and her rightly-famed overactive imagination,’ I tell her. ‘Now supposing you take your foot off the exaggerator and tell me the truth?’
‘But the truth is so boring.’
‘Jules!’
‘Right, right, keep your knickers on. Well, you know Dan – he’s out of the house from dawn till dusk, running round after every farmer in the greater Waterford area…sure I hardly ever see him at all. So nothing new there. But I will say this though, I think you taking off for a year has been the best thing that you could have ever done. Talk about giving him the kick up the arse that he needed! You know how you never realise how good you had something till it’s gone? Same thing with you and him, I bet. Not that he’s actually said anything to me, but then he doesn’t need to; I just know. I feel it and you know how accurate my intuition always is. Money on it that he’s slowly coming to his senses and copping onto the fact that your life was unbearable…and an awful lot of that was down to him.’
I give her a frustrated smile, remembering that you’ve always got to prune back at least sixty per cent of anything Jules comes out with, to allow for, shall we say, her casual over-embellishments.
‘Have you not heard from him yourself?’ she asks me frowning, can of beer clamped to her hand.
And so I bring her up to speed. Editing out the worst of our rows when I first came over here, but still telling her the truth and nothing but; that the hard, cold fact was that neither one of us was able to make the whole long-distance relationship thing work. No one’s fault, no one’s to blame, it was just one of those things that was doomed from the get-go. So like two mature adults, we therefore decided the best thing was to take the pressure off and give ourselves some time out from each other, for the rest of the year. At his behest, I add, not mine. But being brutally honest and now that so much time has passed, I do finally see the wisdom behind it. It was the only way forward for both of us and certainly the only way for me to stay even remotely sane.
Jules does a wolf-whistle loud enough to hail a taxi, then slumps back onto the sofa.
‘Wow,’ she eventually says. ‘A year off for bad behaviour, I love it. He never breathed a word of this to anyone at home, but then, you know what those strong, silent types are like. There are times you’d need a head shrink to make Dan out.’
Anyroadup, I think Jules senses that this may not be the most comfortable topic of conversation for me because suddenly, with a jolt like she’s just been electrocuted, she jumps up off the sofa, hand cupped over her mouth in shock and starts pacing up and down the room.
‘Jesus, Annie, I am such an idiot, albeit a stunningly beautiful one!!’
‘What, what’s up?’
‘I totally forgot to tell you what should have been item number one of scandal on the agenda.’
‘Which is…?’ I brace myself to allow for the usual amount of over-egging she does.
‘You will NOT believe this, but it seems after all this time that not only is there a Law of Karma in action but it even works in a kiphole like Stickens too…’
‘Jules, would you ever tell me!’
‘Lisa Ledbetter, the Countess Dracula herself, is now officially separated from her husband, Charlie.’
‘You’re kidding me! Since when?’
‘She announced it a few weeks ago. Apparently he landed some job in London not long after Christmas, so he just upped and left. Course her story is that the long-distance commute over and back is what killed the relationship, but I reckon he just realised how much pleasanter life was with an ocean between them. And in all fairness, would you really blame the guy? So now the Countess Dracula is up at The Moorings day and night with her kids, moaning about being a deserted wife, all while freeloading off Dan…’
It takes a few goes for Jules to convince me that she’s not exaggerating; for once, the girl is actually telling the truth. And for some reason, an alarm bell goes off in my head and my stomach ulcer suddenly starts to burn me up. A second later, my whole digestive system clenches up with worry.
Does this mean that her kids will start referring to Dan as ‘New Dad’?
And even if that were to happen, what exactly could I do about it from three thousand miles away? When, at his behest, we’re having a gap year off from being married to each other?
Absolutely nothing, except to try and put the whole thing out of my head. But try as I might, I still can’t shake off the feeling that this is bad news.
Very, very bad news indeed.
Jules takes a nap to help her get over the jet lag while I shower and get organised for work this evening. Then I walk with her to the theatre, getting as much of a kick out of her reactions to the sights and sounds of Fifth Avenue as she is herself. Honest to God, it’s like dragging a small toddler through Toys R Us; every two seconds something bright and shiny and new will catch her eye and she keeps on running into shop after shop until eventually I laughingly have to haul her out of Sephora on Fifth and remind her that I have a show to do. And that if I don’t get to work soon, my understudy will be shoved on at short notice.
‘Sorry, Annie, I just want to skip around the place, drinking it all in!’ she chirps. Then she spots the Empire State shimmering away in the distance, the observatory at the top, crystal-clear even from street level on a cloudless day like this. Two seconds later, Jules has whipped out her camera phone and is snapping away.
‘What are you giggling at?’ she asks, all innocent saucer eyes. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘You. You remind me of me, that’s all.’
When I eventually manage to drag her to the theatre, absolutely everyone on the box office staff is warm and welcoming and lovely to Jules. The show is sold out, but I still manage to wheedle a house seat for her, which she’s thrilled about. All thanks to Hayley, or as we all now refer to her, The Queen of The Box Office. She lights up when I introduce Jules, then waddles her huge frame out from behind the box office to hug her, warning me that I’m to give her the time of her life in the Big Apple.
Then just as she’s handing over Jules’s ticket, she drops her voice a bit and asks, ‘Have you heard the good news yet, honey?’
‘No,’ I answer, ‘What news?’
‘Oh darn it,’ she almost gulps back the words. ‘Me and my big mouth! I’ll let them tell you when you get upstairs. But I think you’ll be real pleased, sweetheart.’
Not having the first clue what’s going on, I lead Jules round to the stage door and the first person I bump into is Chris, half made-up with her hair in rollers, wearing just her dressing gown and hyped up to the ceiling. I don’t even get the chance to introduce Jules to her; Chris just jubilantly hugs me, then excitedly tells me that Jack is waiting for all of us in th
e green room, that he has an urgent announcement to make and wants us all present and correct. So I usher Jules in with me and sure enough everyone’s there ahead of us, cast, backstage crew, the whole lot of us.
And the atmosphere in the room is electric There’s a massive buzz in the air and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. We stand at the back of the tiny room, now packed to the rafters, eyes open and mouths shut, as Jack’s already in mid-patter.
‘Sorry to drag you all in here when you’re busy getting ready for the show,’ he’s saying calmly, dressed head to toe in a sharp black suit and looking like he should be starring in a Wim Wenders movie. ‘But the fact is that I’ve just received some exciting news, which I thought you’d all like to hear. As you are no doubt aware, the Tony awards will take place in three weeks’ time…’
‘What are the Tony awards?’ Jules hisses at me, looking completely blank.
‘Theatre of New York,’ I whisper back. ‘It’s a really big noise over here. Like the theatre world’s very own Oscars.’
‘…to be held at Radio City Music Hall,’ Jack continues as an excited murmur ripples round the room.
Next thing, with a theatrical flourish, he elegantly whips out a fax from his shirt pocket and teasingly waves it at us, looking just like Chamberlain about to declare ‘Peace in Our Time’.
‘And now…the moment you’ve all been waiting for…this has just arrived and an announcement to the press is being made concurrently…’
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow Page 23
