by Marian Keyes
‘Nope,’ Jessie said. ‘Listen, Rionna. I’m going to pass.’
‘But –’
‘No. It’s okay for me to do publicity but it’s not okay to involve the kids.’
‘Right. Gotcha.’
The office lapsed into silence. All that could be heard was the clicking of keyboards and the occasional sigh.
The decision to turn down the photoshoot sat well with Jessie. Last month’s article in the Independent, when her old boss had been quoted as saying that not everyone always liked her, well, it had hurt. All Jessie had ever wanted, as a kid, was to be one of the gang. But she missed cues, misunderstood phrases and seemed to be the last to know about trends. It was as if she’d missed bits in life’s script – the ‘How To Be Cool’ page, perhaps.
Her mother had been forty-two when she’d had Jessie, her father fifty-one. As their only child, she wondered if she’d inadvertently absorbed too many of their mannerisms. Maybe that was why adults tended to like her – teachers and other parents. Which, of course, was the last thing she needed.
As a lonely teenager, she had jumped on motivational quotes. Be yourself, she was advised. But that didn’t work, and the problem was, she didn’t know how to be anyone else.
In college, the role she carved out for herself was Miss Dependable. In shared houses, she did the cleaning and organized the bill-paying. Though her pristine Nissan Micra was scoffed at, no one turned down a lift. As for men, not one fancied her. She would get wild crushes on tormented boys who smoked hash and loved Jeff Buckley. If they noticed her at all, it was only to scoff.
Then she’d got a job. She still wasn’t sure what had happened with Rory and Johnny but it was the first time in her life that sexy, good-looking men had taken an interest. The ones who usually glommed on were a lot older than her and tended towards prissiness or pomposity. They liked Jessie’s reliable, respectable ways. More than once, she’d been praised for not being ‘a ladette’.
Jessie suspected that these judgemental men didn’t even fancy her – she’d never sensed passion from a single one. They were convinced they saw insecurity in her, which would make her malleable. Grateful, even.
They were wrong.
She was afraid she’d be on her own for ever – like, of course – but she’d never have settled for one of those patronizing, almost paternal men, with their odd hobbies. One had bred and shown Burmese cats. Another played the flute in an amateur orchestra.
Sometimes she found it hard to believe that she had her current life, where she was loved and – sometimes – liked. Her blood ran cold at how easily it could have stayed baffling and out-of-reach.
What beggared belief was that nowadays she was sometimes described as ‘beautiful’. But that was all down to money. Without her highlights, her contact lenses, her Botox – yes, of course she had Botox, fillers too – without her personal trainer, her veneered teeth and her twelve-week blow-dries, she’d look like a capable, unlovable nobody, who existed only to ‘help out’.
TWENTY-FIVE
‘Great,’ Jessie said, staring at her screen.
Several heads snapped up.
‘No, it’s a good “great”.’ Jessie laughed. ‘Not a sarcastic one. For once! All the tickets for Hagen Klein’s weekend have sold! Seven weeks before he comes.’
This was good news on several levels. Jessie’s chefs – she aimed to book four a year – were now the lifeblood of PiG. The profits the ticket sales generated were gratefully received. But the bump the shops got from each chef’s visit was the real bonus.
Truth was, left to their own devices, the shops would barely break even. But every time a visiting chef demonstrated one or two of their signature dishes on a daytime-telly chat show, hundreds of new customers arrived into the stores, looking for the amchur powder or juniper molasses or whatever high-priced item it was that the maestro had used.
Jessie had been anxious about Hagen Klein – also known as the Chainsaw Chef. His Tromsø restaurant, Maskinvare, offered amazing food, sometimes cooked with power tools, but he was odd, unpredictable and he split demographics: his über-fans tended to be too young to afford tickets. But those who usually shelled out for PiG’s cookery school liked their bad boys sanitized.
‘The business is too dependent on chefs.’ Mason interrupted Jessie’s train of thought.
That was maybe the third time he’d uttered such a heresy and it wounded Jessie.
‘All that work you and Johnny do just to get one to commit,’ he said. ‘It’s not a productive use of your time. And what if a chef pulls out at the last minute?’
‘We’ve insurance for that.’ Jessie flicked a nervous look at Johnny. ‘Don’t we?’
‘I’ll check.’ He looked a bit sweaty.
‘You might want to drill down into the small print,’ Mason said. ‘We really need to have that conversation about your online store.’
PiG already had an online site, but in the last few weeks Mason had been pushing them to vastly expand its reach, to ‘entirely reconfigure the PiG brand’.
Ordinarily, Jessie considered Mason a little genius, but on this subject he was wrong. Entirely wrong. What made the bricks-and-mortar stores so special was the wealth of knowledge each staff member had to offer. Every one of them cooked with the same products they sold. They had insider tips and hard-earned advice, which an impersonal website could never replicate.
‘Jesus!’ Rionna said. ‘It’s twenty past twelve. The table’s booked for half past. Come on.’
They were meeting Erno Danchev-Dubois, a self-described food-trend consultant, in the nearby Radisson. The hotel was where they had all their meetings. The office was far too small.
‘Am I to come?’ Mason asked.
‘If you promise to say nothing more about a new website.’
Mason smoothed down his already immaculate clothing and Jessie couldn’t help smiling fondly on him. ‘Look at you.’
In his rolled-up chinos, checked waistcoat, white T-shirt and red dicky-bow, he was a sight to behold. He carried a fogeyish floppy leather briefcase and wore no socks under his black-and-white brogues. Even with his mid-century black-framed spectacles, the smiley little face underneath the neat quiff looked about fifteen.
Nerd Hipster, apparently. Erno was bound to adore him.
Erno was a rare beast. Food-trend consultants existed by accident rather than design. They had usually been educated in several countries, spoke at least four languages, knew everyone – and had fallen on hard times. PiG had four such individuals on a retainer to predict what trend or foodstuff might take off in Ireland next. But it was an inexact science and mistakes were made, sometimes drastically.
As they piled into the car, Jessie said, ‘Take Erno’s guff today with a pinch of salt. He gave us a bum steer on the Bhutanese thing.’
‘But he was spot-on about Columbian street food,’ Johnny said.
‘Which is why we haven’t cut him loose.’
Erno had both a gin and tonic and a glass of wine before him. He leapt up, clicked his heels together, bowed and pressed his lips against first Jessie’s and then Rionna’s hand. Jessie was suddenly reminded of what Ferdia had said the one time he’d met Erno: that he seemed like a bad actor. (‘Next time you see him, he’ll be playing Mother Goose in the panto at the Gaiety.’)
As she watched, Erno kissed Johnny on the cheek, once, twice, three times. Then Mason. That triple-kiss was new. Christ …
Taking charge – because no one else would – she gave the menu a glance. ‘No starter for me. If I eat too much in the middle of the day, I fall asleep.’
‘Me too,’ Rionna said, on cue.
Rionna was great. Rionna was so bloody great. Jessie would be lost without Rionna.
‘And me,’ Johnny said.
Johnny was great too.
‘Sure.’ Mason smiled.
Mason didn’t care about food. Mason was young.
Erno was the only one who looked sorrowful. But Jessie was having serious d
oubts about Erno.
After the usual chit-chat – talk of ambassadors, fincas, the new Aman hotel in Kyoto – they finally got down to business over dessert.
Brazil was Erno’s prediction for the Next Big Thing.
‘Again?’ Jessie caught the waiter’s eye and decided to signal for the bill. Bit abrupt, maybe, but she wasn’t wasting any more time with this nonsense. ‘Do you not remember? About three years ago? Feijoadas left, right and centre? More cassava than you could shake a stick at?’
Erno was discombobulated. ‘Of course … Well … Bhutan is about to explode.’
‘It certainly exploded our bottom line for last year’s second quarter.’ Jessie managed to smile. ‘Listen, Erno, we can’t stay for coffee. Lovely to see you. We’ll be in touch.’
As they made their way to the car park, Jessie was deep in thought. Erno had gone off the boil and it was a worry.
‘Poor fecker,’ Johnny said.
‘Wonder what’s up – burn-out?’
‘Too fond of the drink?’
‘I suppose it’s an occupational hazard.’
They had three other analysts but they’d worked with Erno the longest.
‘Have you stuff to do back in the office?’ Johnny asked. ‘Why don’t we knock off for the afternoon? It’s been a hard week.’ Johnny had been at a trade fair in Munich. He’d done three eighteen-hour days.
‘I was thinking I might jump in the car and drive to Kilkenny, show them some love.’
‘Jessie. One afternoon. I feel like I never see you.’
‘You work with me and live with me. How much more of me do you want to see?’
‘I’d just like to hang out with you for a couple of hours. Kilkenny can wait. It’s only a blip.’
‘You’re making me sound like one of those high-powered weirdos who never switches off.’
‘All I want is some alone time with my wife. What’s so wrong with that?’
‘Look, I’ll be home by nine. Make sure the dogs get walked.’
TWENTY-SIX
‘Dad! Get up, you lazy feck.’
Groggily, Johnny awoke. Nine-year-old TJ was peering down on him. ‘You’ve to drive me to ju-jitsu,’ she said. ‘Here’s a coffee. Drink it fast. Be ready in five.’
‘Why can’t your mother?’
‘She’s making the kinetic sand.’
The what?
But TJ was gone.
It was Dilly’s first-communion day. With the amount of fuss being generated, Johnny couldn’t imagine what her wedding day would be like. Down in the sunny, sky-lit kitchen, it was all go. The entire household was milling about and Jessie was head to head over a clipboard with McGurk. Johnny bristled. McGurk gave him the creeps. Usually he worked weekdays but Jessie must have press-ganged him into today.
‘Good morning, Mr Casey.’
He’d told McGurk a thousand times to drop the ‘Mr’ lark, but McGurk persisted, as if it gave him pleasure to be irritating. There was the bang of an ex-seminarian about him. Johnny could see him in Rome debating points of theology with other cold, pointy-nosed young men.
McGurk had ‘a story’. Like, of course he did – Jessie collected people with ‘a story’. He’d been head of housekeeping in a luxury Swiss hotel but he’d had a breakdown. He was looking for a position with less pressure, but he remained ‘a dedicated neat freak with a fetish for ironing’. Nothing wrong with that. McGurk’s problem was that he wasn’t an ounce of craic. He remained immune to Johnny’s chat and charm. Unfailingly polite, he still managed to let Johnny know he loathed him.
Johnny had wanted to hire another cheery, chatty Filipina, like lovely Beth, the previous incumbent. But Jessie had set her heart on McGurk. ‘It’ll be good for the girls to see a man in a servile position.’
‘I’m under the cosh,’ Johnny had said, ‘and they see me every day of their lives.’
To add to Johnny’s irritation Ferdia, lanky and dishevelled, was lounging against a counter, eating Sugar Puffs from a big Pyrex bowl. He really did treat this place like a free hotel, Johnny observed. Living it up in his little cottage at the bottom of the garden, as if it were a suburban Chateau Marmont, then popping in and out of here to eat their food and collect his laundry.
‘We’ll set up the trestle table here.’ McGurk was pointing with his pen.
‘Not by the kitchen?’ Jessie sounded surprised.
‘No. Positioning it here will keep the flow going.’
Jessie nodded meekly. Well! That didn’t happen often.
Somehow Johnny caught Ferdia’s eye and Ferdia said, ‘So terrified of her own ordinariness she has to surround herself with weirdos.’
Johnny chuckled, then abruptly remembered who he was talking to and snapped, ‘Don’t say that about your mother.’
‘Speaking of weirdos,’ Ferdia said, ‘I wonder what Nell will be wearing today.’
He was a fine one to talk, Johnny thought, him and his Girl Power T-shirt.
‘Something wonderful,’ Jessie said. ‘Unique. Individual.’
‘Whatnow? No.’ Ferdia addressed Jessie as if she were a simpleton. ‘Her clothes are just plain mad.’
‘Because all her stuff is from charity shops. She doesn’t buy new clothes because of the planet. Or is it something to do with not “feeding capitalism”? Whatever it is, she still looks amazing.’
TJ jingled car keys at Johnny. ‘Come on, you useless arse.’ She headed for the door, Camilla and Bubs scampering after her. ‘Someone hold the dogs!’ she yelled. ‘They’re trying to get out.’
Saoirse grabbed them by their collars as they strained to escape the house.
Outside, a DHL van had pulled up. ‘Howya, Johnny,’ Steve, the delivery man, called.
See, Steve called him Johnny. Why couldn’t McGurk?
‘Howya, Steve,’ TJ said.
‘Howya, TJ.’
Although should Johnny be worried that the entire family seemed to be on first-name terms with their DHL man?
‘Delivery for Jessie.’
‘I’ll take it.’
Johnny looked at the sender – Net-a-Porter! What the feck? Then he remembered the shoes she’d ordered for Jin Woo Park’s wife.
‘Who’s coming today?’ Ferdia asked Jessie.
‘Ed and Cara, Liam and Nell. Some of the neighbours and a few friends. Twenty-five. Maybe thirty.’
‘Unbelievable,’ he muttered.
‘Ah, don’t be cross.’ She wrapped her arms around his waist. ‘You’re only annoyed because we’ll be out in the garden, disturbing you in your little flat.’
‘You’re a hypocrite.’ He disengaged himself. ‘When did you last go to Mass?’
‘You pick your battles.’ Jessie was breezy. ‘Everyone else in her class is doing it.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re going to take her around the neighbours and shake them down for cash?’
‘That’s the custom. We did it for you.’
‘We weren’t so rich then.’
We aren’t so rich now …
For a moment, a teeny-tiny moment, she’d pretend the shoes were for her. She’d carefully open the lovely Balenciaga box, peep inside and pretend.
And, oh, God, look at them! The leather, the lustrous soft white leather. They were so beautiful.
Slipping them on for a second would do no harm, as long as she stayed on the carpet. She gazed in the mirror, at the perfect little heel, the fashion-forward pointy toe. The longer she looked, the more she wanted them.
Why can’t I have something nice?
She worked hard. Yesterday she’d done a fifteen-hour day – she’d gone to Kilkenny and taken the staff out for morale-boosting drinks and pizzas. It was gone eleven when she’d got home.
These shoes were a size too big for her. But because they were slides, she could get away with it …
With sudden resolve, she made her decision. Feck it, she was keeping them!
‘Mum!’ Saoirse called up the stairs. ‘Cara’s here.’
&nbs
p; Instantly Jessie was awash with guilt. Cara had come to do their monthly accounts: she was sure to find out about Jessie appropriating Océane’s shoes. Maybe she could just lie about it … Mostly she didn’t mind Cara knowing what she bought. What she couldn’t handle was poor Cara’s pep-talks, as she tried to help Jessie and Johnny live within their means.
But they did live within their means. Apart from the one-off expenditures that distorted the bottom line – of which today was a prime example. It wasn’t every year that a child made their first communion; this party for Dilly was atypical. So, yes, her dress had cost a fortune and a fair bit was being lashed out on this afternoon’s catering – it was such a relief not to have to pretend to cook for it – but this sort of outlay wouldn’t happen every month.
All Jessie really wanted from Cara was information. So that if the time ever came to cut back, she and Johnny could consult Cara’s neat spreadsheets and see instantly what might go.
But, right now, there was no need.
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘We’ll be gone for about three hours,’ Jessie said, as the kids streamed towards the people-carrier. ‘You’ll have peace and quiet. McGurk is setting up stuff in the kitchen, just ignore him, he likes it better that way.’ Then, thoughtfully, ‘People really aren’t his thing, are they?’
‘Come on,’ Johnny yelled.
‘It’ll only take me a couple of hours,’ Cara said.
‘But you’ll be back later?’ Jessie asked. ‘For the party?’
‘Course. Oh, my God, gorgeous shoes, Jessie.’
‘Oh! Oh, thanks. The sale. Net-a-Porter.’
A sale in May? Really? Well, whatever, Cara would find out soon enough. It was beyond weird having access to so many of the Caseys’ secrets, but they seemed cool about it, so she should be too.
‘Don’t let the dogs into the house,’ was Jessie’s parting shot. ‘They’ll eat the party food and Camilla is too old – she’ll puke everywhere.’
The front door slammed. Cara sat at the computer in the living room, put in her earbuds and logged into the Caseys’ current account. There were probably better things to be doing this morning, but what the hell? This wasn’t so bad, and it gave her a satisfying sense of payback.
