‘Focus on what you want and not what you don’t want. If it can work for me, then it can work for anyone, babe.’
By the time we get back to the table, Peter has now abandoned all pretext that he’s on a date with me, and is actually on the phone to Clare. Chatting away goodo. And he doesn’t even have the grace to hang up when he sees me coming back, just keeps on talking. One of those excruciating ‘no, no, you were right and I was wrong’, type conversations that, frankly, is making me want to vomit.
‘I’ll rip the phone out of his hand and dance on it if you want,’ Barbara thoughtfully offers when she sees what he’s at. ‘Cos, you know me, I’m like that.’
‘No need,’ I say, smiling a bit over-brightly, aware that people, even, maybe, clients could be looking over. ‘The minute the auction’s over, we’re so out of here.’
‘Suits me. Baldie on my left here is seriously starting to drive me nuts.’
‘Shhh! He’ll hear you!’
‘Sorry, Charlie the razor-happy geek on my left is driving me nuts. That any better?’
With that, the auctioneer launches into his mile-a-minute patter and I sit very still, half-afraid to move in case by inadvertently scratching my head or something, I’ll have bought a painting worth five grand. And you should see some of the items: holiday cruises, a full pamper day at Powerscourt Springs (only the poshest health spa in the whole country), a role as a film extra in a movie that Gabriel Byrne is shooting here, a Graham Knuttel painting, some really unbelievable stuff. Whoever did the PR for this gig must have had some serious connections.
One cursory glance down the list of items to be auctioned off tells me they’re all waaaay over my humble budget, so I opt for sitting mutely, hands locked at my side to avoid financial embarrassment, and amuse myself by properly scanning the room, the first time all night I’ve really had a decent look around at who’s here and who isn’t. No one I know in the immediate vicinity, apart from a competitor of mine at the table behind me, who blanks me as I look over. Which in the mood I’m in, actually suits me just fine.
Ooh, then I see a friend of Paris and Nicole’s sitting at the table beside us, dressed like an extra from a Jane Austen adaptation, in a pretty empire-line dress with her hair swept up and ringlets framing her face. She’s got her own social diary, very handy for free press, so I make a mental note to self to be really nice to her afterwards.
‘Sold to the gentleman at the back!’ says the auctioneer, and the room applauds politely. ‘For four and a half thousand euro!’ and now the applause strengthens.
Unbelievably, Peter is still chatting away on the phone, jacket off and finger in one ear like a stockbroker, oblivious to how rude he’s being. At one point Baldie, sorry, I mean Charlie, asks him if he’d like to order a drink, and Peter actually waves him to shut up, like we’re all in a public library or something and we’re daring to shatter his concentration. Bastard. Rude bloody bastard.
‘And now lot number four, a three-day holiday in Paris, the city of love, flights and five-star accommodation in the Hôtel de Crillon, do I hear six thousand euro?’
Without even being aware of it, I must have drifted off, because the bidding is racing on, getting furiously higher and higher all the time, while I’m sitting here staring into space.
‘Eight and a half thousand euro, do I hear nine?’
I look over to Peter, who is smiling, actually smiling, down the phone, and I take one long, last look at him. Cos after tonight, he’s banished to the land of ‘never to be seen again’. And he just looks so handsome, it almost breaks my heart.
‘Yes, I have nine thousand euro, to you sir, the gentleman at the back, do I have nine and a half thousand euro? Do I hear the magic ten?’
. . . so what lies ahead for me? Oh God . . . it’s nothing I’m looking forward to. I have to somehow readjust my attitude, pick myself back up off the ground again and get back out there with Barbara yet again to see what I can dreg up some Thursday night . . . and then, who knows? Go through all of this shite all over again, most likely . . .
‘Sold to the gentleman at the back for ten thousand, euro!’
More mad clapping, and a lot of feet thumping now, and all the while I’m desperately trying to come out of this awful slump I’m in and be all positive and focused . . . law of attraction book . . . I’m racking my brains to remember what it says is the key to relationships, or in my case, the total and utter lack of them . . .
‘Our next item is a luxury spa day at Powerscourt Springs, for a very lucky lady. The package includes unlimited treatments, lunch and a bottle of champagne to really chill out over . . . perfect for the busy working girl who needs a little “me” time, do I hear five hundred euro? Yes, sir, five hundred to you again, sir.’
. . . there’s something in the book about filling yourself up with love like a magnet, so that you’ll attract it to you . . .
‘Eight hundred euro! Do I hear a thousand? Thank you, sir!’
. . . but the trouble is, I’ve spent my whole life attracting emotionally unavailable cretins, and the fact is, whatever I’ve been doing wrong all this time, guess what? I’m still doing it . . .
‘Two thousand five hundred euro, sir, thank you! Do I hear three thousand? Come on, gentlemen, time to spoil the lucky lady in your life!’
. . . I glance over at Barbara, who’s looking, well, a bit bored actually, but Baldie actually has this liquid-eyed expression as he’s chatting her up. She has about as much interest in him as she has in the price of J-Cloths, and yet there he is, looking at her adoringly, hers for the taking, should she so choose . . .
Oh for f**k’s sake, I think, suddenly furious, where did I go so wrong tonight? My luck with guys is so unbelievably bad that I’m actually starting to think that I’m paying off some huge karmic debt from a past life. Hmmm, maybe that’s the answer, maybe I should give up on the Butterfly Club and start doing past-life regression therapy instead . . .
‘Sold! Yet again, to the gentleman at the back! Sir, may I say, you are single-handedly keeping this auction going!’
‘Is that the same guy who’s buying everything?’ Barbara whispers hopefully to me.
‘Whoever he is, he must have spent well over sixteen grand by now,’ says Baldie, and I turn to look at him in utter astonishment. Well, in my defence, it’s the first words he’s uttered to anyone other than Barbara all evening.
‘Well, I wonder who he’s with tonight?’ Barbara says, giving me a significant look. This may sound innocuous enough, but is in actual fact girl-code for: ‘Because if by some miracle someone that filthy wealthy also happens to be single and straight, we’re so in there.’ It seems that a lot of the single women here have the same idea, as out of nowhere there’s a lot of elegant, bejewelled necks and bare, fake-tanned shoulders craning to see who this mysterious guy with cash to burn is; all of a sudden there’s suddenly a lot of compact mirrors out and lip-gloss being hastily re-applied. You can almost feel feathers being preened and peacock tails being paraded out for show.
‘And who is the lucky lady you’ll be giving this beautiful spa voucher to?’ the auctioneer calls down to whoever mystery man is, a bit cheekily.
‘She’s here, actually,’ comes a distant voice from the very back of the ballroom. Now there’s a wave of Chinese whispers circulating all around us, ‘She’s here, he bought it for someone who’s here.’
I join in the general neck-craning, to try to make out who he is, but it’s too dark, and whatever table he’s sitting at is just too far away from ours. Barbara and I meet in an eye-lock and simultaneously shrug. Well, it was too good to be true really, that the mystery millionaire guy could be free and single. Besides, I tell myself, he’s probably ninety-five with a colostomy bag and a Zimmer frame. And he bought the spa day as a gift for his nurse to thank her for feeding him through a tube. Probably.
‘And the lucky lady’s name?’ says the auctioneer, into the mike.
‘She’s a Miss Vicky Harper.’
<
br /> ‘Sorry sir, what was that name again?’
‘The gift is for Miss Vicky Harper. She’s sitting right over there at table nine.’
Sweet baby Jesus and the orphans. I do not believe this. It’s Daniel Best. For definite. I’d know the voice anywhere. Not only that, but the minute the auctioneer moves on to the next item, he’s on his way over to me from the back of the room. I don’t even have time to collect my thoughts, barely even get an emergency conference with Barbara. Before I’m even aware of what’s going on, he’s standing right beside me, with the cheeky grin, looking as divine as ever, in a sexy, scruffy, yes-I-may-have-put-on-a-tux-but-just-look-at-how-dishevelled-the-rest-of-me-is way.
‘Surprise!’ he twinkles down at me, in that half-teasing way he has. ‘I saw you across the room earlier and, well, I just thought you deserved a treat.’
‘I . . . that is, I thought . . . you’re . . . supposed to be . . . aren’t you in America?’ is all I can stammer, I’m that stunned.
‘Got back this morning. So right now, I’ve been awake for about thirty hours non-stop, and my body thinks it’s tomorrow fortnight. In other words, I’m just about ready for a mortuary.’
‘How was your trip?’ I smile, trying my best to sound cool and you know, normal.
‘Fantastic, very productive. I’ve perfected my Robert de Niro impression AND my Clint Eastwood. Just in case there’s rumours going around that I was skiving over there. “Go ahead, punk, make my day.” What do you think?’
‘Did de Niro really say that?’ I’m aware of the silence around our table as everyone’s taking in this bizarre conversation, but you know what? For the first time tonight, I don’t care.
‘No, no, that was Clint Eastwood. My de Niro is: “You talking to me? Cos, I don’t see anyone else here?”’
‘Bravo, Robert de Niro to the life, I’d have sworn Raging Bull himself was here talking to me.’ I give him a handclap.
‘Ehhh . . . except that was from Taxi Driver. Now, of course, I could do my Raging Bull impression for you, but I’m not properly attired. I need the aul boxer shorts on for that. And of course to put on twenty stone.’
I laugh, and for a minute it’s like we’re the only two people there, and then from out of the corner of my eye, I realize . . . Barbara and Baldie are both staring at him, waiting to be introduced.
‘Sorry, Daniel, this is my best friend, Barbara Fox.’
‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ she says, and you can practically see her assessing him, weighing him up, taking everything in, deciding whether she likes him or not.
‘And this is . . .’ Shit, shit, shit, what’s his real name? Oh yeah . . . ‘Charlie.’
They all shake hands, then Barbara throws in. ‘Nice gift. Wish I worked for someone like you.’
‘It’s by way of a thank you, actually,’ Daniel smiles, turning back to me. ‘You have no idea the fantastic work this lovely lady has been putting in for Best’s over the past while, and I just thought, when all seven of the Original Sin commercials are in the can, you might fancy unwinding in style. That’s all.’
‘I’m really touched.’ I’m about to gush on a bit more, still a bit overwhelmed, when . . . Oh for God’s sake, I do not believe this. For the first time all bloody night, Peter decides to put his phone down and actually take notice of me. Arm on my shoulder, the works. Suddenly, out of the blue, he’s decided to act like a date again.
No way out, I’ll just have to introduce him. Rats anyway.
Then it strikes me, this is the second time I’ve met Daniel out socially and each time I’ve been with a different guy. He must think I’m Mata Hari, and the irony is, if he only knew the sad, awful, lonely truth.
‘And this is Peter,’ I eventually say, a bit unenthusiastically.
They shake hands and Daniel just nods and smiles pleasantly, taking it all in.
‘Well, great to see you, Vicky, but I’d really better get going,’ he eventually says.
‘You’re leaving now?’
‘I’m that jet-lagged that if I don’t go voluntarily, there’s a fair chance they may have to wheel me out of here if I stay any longer. So you take care and I’ll see you soon. OK?’
‘OK.’
And just as quickly, he’s gone.
Chapter Nineteen
The Butterfly’s next meeting. July.
RIGHT. OUR PROGRESS to date, in order of who’s doing the best and who’s, ahem, shall we say, lagging behind the class a little, and maybe in need of some remedial project-management. Or a kick up the bum, or whichever way you choose to put it.
LAURA. In a flashback to our schooldays, she’s easily and effortlessly the gold star, top-of-the-class girl. Item one on the agenda, discussed at great length among the three of us, is a certain Mr Desmond Lawlor, proprietor of Tattle magazine, who true to his word gave Laura a weekly column to write, which is already in print (well, OK, maybe only two columns so far, but as a proud friend, I’m allowed to brag), and proving hugely popular.
Last week’s was called ‘Why No Self-Respecting Mother Should Ever Run Out of Threats on the Eve of a Bank Holiday Weekend,’ and it was all very funny and very Laura, involving a (true) story about how she caught Jake and George Junior having a major, blow-up row. Nothing unusual there, except that George Junior was actually taking a tiny drop of blood from his brother, with a rusty safety pin. When interrogated separately by Laura, always best, she claims, if you want the hard, cold facts (it’s a tactic she read that they use on terror suspects in Guantánamo Bay), George Junior claimed he needed the blood for a medical experiment he was doing, for which he’d promised his brother in return six Jaffa Cakes and a Cornetto. His defence was: ‘Oh come on, Mom, using a rat is just too cruel.’
In her column, Laura then segued into a hilarious diatribe about how all she has to look forward to is their teenage years, and ended up describing in detail a vivid dream she had had, flashing forward to five years hence, where she came home from a late session in King’s Inns to find a trashed house, toilet flooded, broken grandfather clock, smashed window-panes and the family dog drunk. Only to have her kids try to convince her that all of this happened while they were innocently out doing the Stations of the Cross.
I loved reading it, because it felt just like having a conversation with Laura, and nearly burst with pride when I saw her photo at the top of a page in Tattle, with her hair tied back, in the grey woollen ‘court’ outfit, neatly and sensibly dressed as always. But I hadn’t quite realized the effect she was slowly starting to have on the world at large till I was in a supermarket queue one day and overheard two harassed-looking mums talking about her column and actually quoting from it. Her lines that ran: ‘My all-time favourite household chore is ironing. My second favourite chore being banging my head on the bedpost until I’m unconscious.’ For a split second, I almost felt like I was friends with Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City.
Course the main item Barbara and I want to know concerns the same Mr Desmond Lawlor (it feels peculiar referring to him by his first name, trust me, he’s just one of those patrician, older and wiser types that have the effect of making me feel like I’m ten years old again), and his interest in our Laura. We both have a strong intuition that it may well go beyond the professional, but trying to get hard information out of her is like getting blood from a turnip. Every time there’s a bit of teasing or mild slagging when his name comes up, she clams up and goes all ‘politiciany’ on me. I’m not messing, at one point she even used the phrase: ‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’
So case closed. For the moment at least.
Anyway, whatever Mr Desmond Lawlor’s intentions are towards her, and whatever is or isn’t going on, it’s had one noticeable side effect. With that unerring sixth sense that men seem to be born with when it comes to a woman moving on with her life, George Hastings, ex-husband from hell, can practically smell that there’s something in the air. I can’t put my finger on it, the only signs I have to go on are that: a) h
e’s being an awful lot nicer to Laura, and even took the three older kids to see the new Harry Potter movie last week. Now, just to give you a rough idea of just how unheard-of that is, Jake apparently said: ‘Dad’s bringing us to the movies? DAD? Do you mean OUR dad?’ Point b) he’s referring to Miss Human Botox an awful lot less, but did let it slip that she’s going off to Ibiza with her pals for the summer break. So maybe the age gap is beginning to show, or maybe it’s just plain old-fashioned loneliness that has him behaving an awful lot more responsibly towards his ex-wife and children, but whatever the outcome, Barbara and I have made a non-negotiable pact.
If he as much as attempts to inveigle his wormy way back to her, we’ll club together and get that hit man we promised Laura after him. And not a jury in the land would convict us.
BARBARA. Again, nothing but gold stars hanging out of her. Rehearsals have begun in earnest for A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the dance studios in town, so, to be honest, I haven’t seen nearly as much of her as I’d like. We still haven’t got around to organizing yet another Thursday night trawl around the town, but that’s as much my fault as hers.
Between finalizing a list of sponsors for the show, getting invitation lists together, not to mention publicizing its three-night run, myself, Paris and Nicole have barely seen the light of day. And that’s on top of the work I’m doing with Best’s about the upcoming commercial shoot, and all the press that’s involved, which . . . well, more anon.
Anyway, I do manage to snatch a quick brunch with Barbara for a lightning update session. It seems that she’s building herself up to play the part of Hermia (one of the ‘star-crossed lovers’, not that I’d know, but for those who care, the fact is it’s a leading role), with the same scary discipline and dedication that you’d normally associate with Russian teenage gymnasts training for the Olympics. Not only is she up at six a.m. every day doing voice warm-ups, but then she goes to the gym on her way into rehearsals, so she can be in peak condition to face the mighty Serena Stroheim.
Then absolutely no falling into the trap of ‘ah sure, let’s just go for the one drink after work’ with the rest of the cast. No, she’s straight home for a strict session of line-learning followed by a sensible early night. As she herself puts it, there’s no such thing as ‘just the one drink’ with actors. Many’s the time on occasions past she’d be dragged into the pub, full of noble intentions to have one margarita and then head home, only to find herself falling out the door at closing time, then being dragged off to a nightclub. Those days, she assures me, are now gone. This is the new, improved, ultra-professional, model of puritanical virtue and sobriety Barbara.
Do You Want to Know a Secret? Page 23
