Locked Out of Heaven

by Shirley Benton

  “And did you call yourself Holly growing up as well?”

  “How did you know? I had a lovely blonde curly wig and everything. I was gorgeous altogether.”

  “Maybe you could make a documentary about yourself at some stage – your private life sounds far more interesting than mine!”

  “Holly!” Susie screeched.

  “Gotta go,” I said, to more chortles in the background.

  “Don’t forget to make your bed,” he said before hanging up. “I might even call round and check.”

  I just about stopped myself from telling him not to expect Susie and Willie to allow him to stay the night. Luke was easy to joke around with, but he was still my boss and I was relying on him to have any income at all. Quipping about him spending the night with me probably wasn’t the way to earn money.

  The next day, we left from Eire TV in Luke’s car.

  “Mariah Carey?” I said when Luke put in one of her CDs. “Seriously?”

  “What do you mean, seriously?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be into her music. I saw you as more of an MGMT and Foster the People man.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. You’re a hard man to work out, Luke Loughnane.”

  When he turned off the engine half an hour later, I heard a horrible squealing sound.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” I said, tugging at my blindfold.

  A blindfold – how very eighties. Apparently, the idea was to engender the appropriate level of genuine reactions from me when I took off the blindfold, in case I worked out too much on my way there.

  “Holly, you know you have to leave that thing on,” Luke said. “I’ll lead you out.”

  I heard the sound of his car door banging shut. I fiddled with the blindfold again, trying to lift it up a tad for a peek, but Luke had tied it too tight. He’d done this before, for sure. Then I heard my car door open.

  “Come on.”

  He took my hands and guided me out of the car, shut my car door then put his hands on my shoulders and walked me forwards. A pungent smell hit me as soon as I got out of the car. As we walked, I heard the squealing sound again.

  We went through a series of doors, the smell changing and intensifying as we moved forwards.

  “Okay, we’re here,” Luke said eventually.

  I took off my blindfold and looked around. In complete horror. There were animal carcasses everywhere.

  “What,” I said in a low voice that sounded little more than a growl, “is this place?”

  Luke looked embarrassed. “It’s an abattoir.”

  “A slaughter house for animals? Luke, I’m a fucking vegetarian!”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t add insult to injury by looking surprised! You get this fat from pregnancy cravings to drink pints of double cream from the carton, not from eating meat!”

  “I didn’t know you were a vegetarian. Look, we’re not in the place where the animals are slaughtered – we thought that’d be too distressing for viewers—”

  “That’s considerate.”

  “So this is where the meat carcasses are trimmed. It’s little more than a butcher’s shop, really. Look, we only need about a minute of footage – we’ll be out of here in no time.”

  The cameraman set up his equipment while I covered my mouth and tried not to gag. Only the thought of the money I needed to give Susie for the bills kept me from running out of this place and refusing to do this.

  “No time” turned into forty-five minutes, in which time we got footage of me declaring I wouldn’t date a guy who worked here if he came with a free winning lotto ticket. The cameraman, of course, had to walk around the abattoir and get footage of the full horror of the place before we could leave. Too distressing for viewers, my arse.

  “Sorry if that was upsetting,” Luke said when we went back to the car as Paul was packing away the equipment into the boot.

  I shrugged. “Expect the unexpected when you sign up for a show, I suppose. It looks like the first candidate won’t have to do much to earn his appearance fee. He’s dead meat – pun very much intended. See how he likes it!”

  “We aren’t paying the guys on this show,” Luke said. “They’re volunteering to do it because it’s a bit of craic.”

  “What? But why am I getting paid for it, then?”

  “Because I pulled a few strings for you, Holly. I know things are tight for you.”

  “Ah, Luke. I feel terrible now.”

  “Oh, stop. What you’re getting paid wouldn’t even pay off a two-month electricity bill, let’s be honest. Say nothing to anyone, okay? I have a reputation as a bastard producer to maintain.”

  The next time I took off my blindfold, I was in an office. Phew. Nothing much to see here, surely. I was taken to contestant number two’s desk and told to have a look around while giving a running commentary to the camera as I did so.

  “Okay, so here’s our second contestant’s desk,” I said as I heaved myself into his seat.

  I tried not to wince as the sides of the seat chaffed against my legs. God, I’d need one of those buggies that you see in big American hotels to take me from A to B soon if I didn’t lose weight.

  “I’m going to have a look through his drawers now. Of the desk variety,” I added quickly.

  “Okay, so in the first drawer in his desk we have a book on time management. I guess someone who needs to read something like that will probably be late for the date, but that’s okay. I have four kids. I’m not punctual any more.”

  I pulled out the book, along with a few unremarkable notebooks and foolscap pads, then reached into the inner recesses of the drawer to retrieve whatever might be lurking at the back.

  “Oh, God!”

  I pulled my hand out again. It was accompanied by a set of false teeth. They were clamped over my fingers in a vice-like grip.

  “What the hell? What sort of an idiot does something like this?” I said, more to myself than to the camera – in fact, I’d momentarily forgotten the camera was there – as I pulled the teeth off with my free hand. “Well, I’m finished with this desk. I don’t need to see anything else.”

  I hurled the teeth – a thankfully unused pair that looked like they were of the joke shop variety – onto the desk and pulled myself up out of the chair. I was almost sure I heard a pop as my thunder thighs gained their freedom. Thank God for the magazine shaming me into losing weight. What I really needed, though, was someone to deliver those meals to my door every day and a trap lock for my mouth between meals, like Geena Davis’s character in Beetlejuice.

  “I’d imagine that was just the visual equivalent of someone writing GSOH – good sense of humour – in a dating ad,” Luke said as we were on our way to the next workplace. “Except without the good bit.”

  “You’ve said it. And the terrible thing is, I can’t even eliminate him after the bloodbath that was the first candidate’s workplace.”

  Soon, the blindfold was on again. Then later, I was led out of the car and taken to an indoor location, which thankfully didn’t smell of anything. Discomfitingly, though, I kept hearing people saying, “Hi, Luke,” every few seconds.

  “Please tell me we’re not at a lap dancing club,” I joked.

  “Thanks for your high opinion of me. I can confirm that we’re not at a lap dancing club.”

  “The bar in the sitcom Cheers, perhaps?”

  “No. Time travel isn’t included in my list of superpowers.”

  “So, where else could we be where everybody knows your name?”

  From the little beeping noises I’d heard, I had the distinct impression that we’d been buzzed into a building and then buzzed through interior doors to gain access to somewhere. It didn’t smell like a pub – if anything, the place we were in smelled vaguely familiar in a very nondescript, bland way. It didn’t smell of anything and yet I knew I’d been here before.

  And then the penny dropped.

  “Luke, we’re back at
Eire TV, aren’t we? Don’t tell me you’re setting me up with one of your mates!”

  Luke laughed. “Nope. It’s a new guy here, so there’s no point in even trying to work out who it is – you won’t have seen him on our station before. That’s all I’m saying.”

  When filming started and the blindfold came off, I found myself on a set with a black chandelier, a few shelves on which massive candle stands with gargoyles at their bases were placed, a table and not much else. A set of tarot cards were laid out on the table.

  “Oh no. No, no, no. This is going to be a presenter for that new show I’ve heard about – the psychics who do readings for the public late at night – isn’t it?”

  “I can’t confirm or deny that.”

  “You don’t need to – I can tell from the look on your face. Oh, God, who wants to date a fortune-teller? I can see it now. ‘Holly, just to let you know, you’re going to trip on the way to the bathroom and land on your fat arse and everyone’s going to laugh at you, okay? No, there’s nothing you can do about it as such – I’m just telling you what’s going to happen so I can show off about how clever I am.’ Or, ‘Holly, I know you’re going to break it off with me because it’s such a pain in the arse when I tell you what’s going to happen in five minutes’ time, so I’m going to get in there first and dump you right now, as of this very minute.’ Oh yes, it’d be an adventure all right.”

  “Okay, I think we have enough quotes from Holly for this,” Luke said to the cameraman. “Let’s move on to our final workplace.”

  “When the blindfold came off this time, I was pleasantly surprised to see a MIDI keyboard, speakers, a mixing deck and lots of other audio production equipment.

  I may not have been interested in actually dating anyone from this, but I still had to sit down and have a dinner with a complete stranger at the end and it was nice to think that it might actually be someone halfway normal. I was surprised a singer would bother going on a show like this, but then again, he probably had an album to flog. Anyone who went on something like this had to be trying to make money in some way or other. I was quickly learning that everyone had an angle.

  “Now, you have to eliminate one contestant based on their workplace,” the presenter said. “Who’s it going to be? Who won’t have the opportunity of dining with you in the fabulous new five-star restaurant belonging to one of our country’s top chefs?”

  “The accolade will have to go to contestant number one.”

  “Well, there’s a surprise! Let’s move on to the cars, shall we?”

  First up, we had a Ford Focus, but not the regular type – this one was a souped-up, boy-racer style car complete with spoiler and white alloy wheels. I opened the front door and sat in the driver’s seat. The interior was immaculately clean, which pleased me no end, because cleanliness was something I saw very little of these days. I opened the glove compartment and it was scrupulously tidy. I was starting to get a bit dubious now – too neat and tidy would be a bit much for me to handle. Then I turned my head round and looked at the back seat of the car.

  “Ah, Jaysus. Paul, you’ll want to get this.”

  The “this” in question was a condom wrapper on the back seat of the car.

  “At a wild guess, I figure the owner of this car is also the proud possessor of a pair of false teeth. And a case of arrested development.”

  The next two cars, an Audi TT Coupé and a Volkswagen Passat, were less dramatic internally. Both were reasonably tidy and clean. I attributed the Audi TT’s ownership to the singer and the Passat’s to the psychic, but both cars were so impersonal inside that it was hard to tell. It didn’t matter anyway – the Ford Focus and its condom wrapper were going. End of story for the office worker, and off we went to the first place of residence.

  “Bored?” Luke asked as I yawned loudly on the way.

  “No, no. Sorry. It’s just that I had a Mexican wave of kids in bed with me last night. Debbie woke me up at some unholy hour because she’d wet the bed, then she woke the other two. They all got into bed with me. I ended up down at the foot of the bed cuddling a child under each arm, trying to sleep upright against the headboard but only getting a few minutes here and there before waking with a crick in my neck.”

  “Sounds painful.”

  “You have no idea. I feel like someone hit me with a hurley as they were trying to score a crucial point in the All Ireland hurling final and I got in the way. Jesus, what I wouldn’t give for one of those new extreme ultra beds – you know those ones?”

  “The twelve foot wide by ten foot long ones that are always being advertised on late-night TV?”

  “Yes, in that one ad per night that isn’t related to girls on chatlines wearing next to nothing. That’s my ultimate fantasy now – to have one of those beds. Imagine the joy of having three children in the bed with you and still having room! My God, the pictures I’ve seen online . . . there’s a special range of bedding for them and they’re simply glorious. I mean, I’d sell the house for them if I still had it, maybe even the kids . . .”

  “Okay, I get it. You like extreme ultra beds.”

  I smiled sheepishly. Then I thought of something that stopped me fairly lively from smiling.

  “Ah, Christ, I just realised I forgot to change the sheets on Debbie’s bed this morning! That’ll be a nice welcome home tonight.”

  “It can’t be easy for you, Holly.”

  “Ah, people have it worse. I’m grand. I watch a lot of horror movies and they keep me sane.”

  “Really? I love horror movies.”

  “Yeah? We’re few and far between. People usually look at me like I have ten heads when I say that! So, how about you, Luke? I never did ask you if you were married or had children.”

  Paul coughed loudly in the back seat.

  “No to both,” Luke said, but that was the last thing he uttered for the remainder of the journey.

  I was glad when we reached our destination and it was time to film again.

  “And then there were two,” the presenter helpfully pointed out. “‘If you want to know me, come and live with me,’ they say. Well, on this show we feel that that’s a bit premature, but we do give our ladies looking for love a taste of the places their prospective dates live in. Now, we’re going to take Holly to the remaining guys’ homes. Let’s see what she thinks of them!”

  The minute I opened my eyes, I knew I was in the psychic’s house. Not through any sixth sense, but rather the fact that the hall was decorated in Ouija board wallpaper.

  “Ah, here, turn off that camera. I’m leaving.”

  “Holly—” Luke started.

  “No. Ouija boards have always freaked me out. If he has the flipping things wallpapered onto the place he first walks into when he gets home, the odds of him having an actual one of them in his house are off the scale! He probably has a whole range of Ouija merchandise. I mean, let’s be honest here, he probably had to get that wallpaper custom-made, so why not go the whole hog and have Ouija butter dishes, tissue boxes, the works? No, I’m out of here and nothing you can say will stop me—”

  “He has an extreme ultra bed.”

  I hesitated. “No way. You’re just saying that . . .”

  “I swear. Is it a sign, do you think?” he said, laughing.

  I ran into the bedroom. Sure enough, there it was.

  “It’s as big as a swimming pool,” I said reverentially.

  It spanned almost the width of the entire room, except for a locker on one side. It was lovingly decorated with a variety of luxury quilts and bolsters and a ridiculous amount of pillows. I could barely fight the urge to throw myself on it and bounce up and down on my bum. And there wasn’t a Ouija board in sight.

  “Okay, he’s still in the running,” I said as I reluctantly left the bedroom.

  We made our way to the singer’s place. It was an apartment in a trendy central part of town. I felt a huge surge of disappointment when we went inside. The apartment was horribly messy and for me to d
eem something messy when I lived in absolute chaos myself most of the time meant that it was pretty bad. This place was the kind of territory that Kim and Aggie would tackle in the TV show How Clean is Your House?

  “I think I’ve seen enough,” I said weakly.

  The psychic it was, then.

  A few nights later, I was sitting in a restaurant at half nine waiting for my blind date, with Paul discreetly filming across the room, when I saw a familiar face approaching my table. Oh no. Just my luck to meet someone I knew when I was being filmed on a blind date! Particularly since I had, in a sense, been on a blind date with this man before . . .

  “Frank! How are you?” I said as Frank got closer to my table.

  I had no choice – it was obvious he’d spotted me.

  “Holly? What’s going on? I was told to go to table number seven . . .”

  “Frank . . . do you by any chance have yet another new career?”

  I didn’t need to wait for Frank’s answer, because I suddenly noticed what was printed on his scarf: Ouija boards.

  It was going to be a long evening.

  Chapter 33

  1 November 1994

  Wow. The bank holiday weekend served up more than the usual Monday off college, Diary. If this entry ends up somewhat rambling, it’s because I’m writing in a state of shock. I don’t know if it’s good shock or bad.

  About a week ago, Terry said he was taking the bank holiday weekend off work. I fell around the room laughing.

  “As if! You haven’t taken a weekend off since you opened the pub.”

  “Well, I am now. I have a few things lined up for us.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m saying nothing except I know you’ll like my plans.”

  And although I nagged him senseless, he didn’t give a single thing away.

  The weekend rolled round. I flopped home after college to find Terry sitting on the couch with Mum, who’d asked me that morning if I’d come directly home after college instead of going boozing like I usually did on a Friday because she wasn’t feeling well. She didn’t look the slightest bit sick now and even had a great big dopey smile on her face. Our neighbours were occasional potheads and I wondered fleetingly if she’d inhaled some of it while cutting the hedge or something, but I had a suspicion it was probably something to do with Terry’s presence. They looked like they were in cahoots. Whatever was going on, Susie seemed ridiculously pleased to be involved.