The Other Side of the Story (44 page)

OK, I admit it, I was glad.

One day in December when I got home from work, there was a small box sitting on the kitchen table. 'I shook it,' Mam said, all excitement. 'I think it's books. Open it. Here.' She handed me a pair of scissors.

I split the seal and found six copies of
Chasing Rainbows
inside, looking just like real books. My knees went watery and weak and I had to sit down to read the accompanying note. 'These are only proof copies. That means they're full of spelling mistakes, and the covers aren't embossed yet. They're really just for reviewers.'

'But it's a book,' Mam whispered. 'You wrote it. It's got your name on it.'

'Yeah.' Seeing my book looking like a book made me feel very strange — and not in a good way. As I flicked through it, I got the inside tremblies and suddenly understood the twinge I'd had in the chemist; there was page after page about the loveliness of 'Will', i.e. Johnny, and I marvelled at the size of my stupidity. When I'd been writing the book I'd been so worried about getting it past Mam that it had barely occurred to me that other people might get upset by it. Especially Owen. I'd never seriously considered that he'd still be around when I'd finished it — after all he kept 'storming off' and we did nothing but squabble. But the book was finished, Owen was still here and my romantic hero was based on another man. Owen was super-sensitive to slights; he knew that I spent — or at least used to spend - a lot of time at the chemist.

Even while I'd been making all the changes and corrections, I'd just thought of it as an academic exercise, not something that would eventually be in the public domain and available for all to pick up and read. How could I have been so thick? And what about J ohnny? He was bound to recognize himself; he was going to know I fancied him. Or had fancied him. He probably knew anyway, but still, how mortifying…

These were real people and they were going to be hurt. Perhaps I could nip this in the bud. How? I had no clue what to do with Owen. With Johnny, maybe I could give him a copy of the book now and joke about the contents. But I suspected that would make things worse; best to just leave it alone.

Squeezed by fear, I wondered if there was any way now I could stop this whole thing. Then I opened another item of post: an envelope — containing a cheque. An enormous cheque, the first money I'd seen from Dalkin Emery.

I stared at it: thirty-six grand in sterling. Shit. They'd sent both the signature and delivery money together, minus Jojo's ten per cent.

It looked like there was no going back. I decided that the best way to handle Owen was to keep him from reading the book for as long as possible; he never read anything anyway. That calmed me, I felt more in control. The mistake I made was, when I went to the loo, I didn't bring my mobile with me.

I heard it ring and let it go to message service. But the next thing the ringing stops and I hear Mam going, 'Which button do I press? Hello. Owen, love, how are you? Great news today. She's after getting the first copies of the book. Of course you can have one, they sent her six.
And
she's after getting a pile of money but I think that's a secret.'

I rushed out, just to see her disconnect. 'Owen rang for you on this yoke,' she said, blithely unaware of my panic. 'He's coming over to see the book.'

I stared at her in desperation. She never answered my mobile, why did she have to do it today?

Maybe Owen wouldn't come. He was very unreliable.

But just this once, Owen arrived in super-quick time and burst into the house, all excited. 'This is so cool.' He ran his fingers over my name. 'Nice cover.'

'Doesn't the girl on it look like she can't remember the right word for something?' Mam prompted.

Owen studied it. 'It looks more like she has a puncture and doesn't have a jack. Like she's trying to flag down a passing car to help her.'

Why did everything have to come back to cars with him? He handed me the book in his hand. 'Will you sign it for me?'

'These are only proof copies. They're full of mistakes.'

'That makes it even more special.'

OK. I was not going to get out of this. It wasn't going to happen.

I scribbled 'To Owen, with love from Gemma' then handed it back, and said nervously, 'Just don't forget it's fiction. It's made up, it's not real.'

'Bottle of stout, Owen?' Mam tempted. She'd started getting in bottles of Murphys for him.

'Yes, stay and have a drink, Owen.'

'No thanks, Mrs Hogan, I'm going to go home to read this.'

Off he went and I wondered if I'd ever hear from him again.

The weird thing was that Owen, who was super-touchy and took offence even on those times when I genuinely didn't intend any, didn't get upset when he read
Chasing Rainbows
.

He rang the following day. 'I'm taking you for dinner on Friday night to celebrate. At the Four Seasons.'

I loved the Four Seasons more than life itself. (He hated it, said all the luxe furnishings made him feel like he couldn't breathe.) This was a good sign.

'Have you read it already? Did you like it?'

'We'll discuss it over dinner.' But it was clear that he did.

Well?'

'I thought it was great. I mean, there was more kissing than I like in a book and not as many dead bodies, but still, it was a laugh. And I bet you based hunky Emmet on me. I should get a credit - "Inspired by Owen Deegan." '

I laughed weakly. I couldn't believe I was getting away with it.

'Am I the bloke in the chemist? Is he based on me too?'

'Here.' I handed him a gift-wrapped parcel. 'I bought you a Ferrari. A toy one,' I added, lest he combust with excitement.

He unwrapped it, declared himself delighted, 'A red one!' And whizzed it up and down a bit, going, 'NEEEEEEE-AAARRNNN!' Until it hit an American businessman on his hand-tooled shoe and the maitre d' asked him to stop, then he returned to the table and said, 'I've been thinking…'

Those dread words. 'I've spoken to you before about this,' I said wearily.

'To celebrate your advance we should go on holiday, you and me. There's this place I read about, a resort in Antigua. They do loads of watersports and here's the best bit — it's all free. Even the drink, and it's premium brand liquor, not some manky local stuff that would send you schizo. We should go, Gemma, it'll be good for us, good for our, like, relationship.'

'You mean you want to learn to windsurf while you're banjoed out of your head on free Pina Coladas.' No way was I paying for me and Owen to go anywhere. I needed every penny for Mam's move. I wasn't going to start spending money on myself. I knew what I was like. If I started, I'd never stop.

'My girlfriend got a publishing deal and all she got me was this lousy toy car,' Owen said, then we sat in sulky silence. At least he did, I just sat in ordinary silence.

'It's a great achievement getting a book published,' he eventually said. 'You should mark it and you've got the money to do it. You should do something nice for
you
. I know you worry about your mother, but life must go on.'

I could never decide if he was a selfish brat or just giving me tough love.

'Alright, get the brochure, but we're only going for a week.'

Owen was
thrilled
. 'Congratulations,' he said. 'You're finally starting to behave like a normal person.'

This was a milestone. I was going to go on holidays. I was going to leave my mother to fend for herself for a week: I was getting better. My life was getting better.

'And if we manage to survive a week together without killing each other, I think we should get married,' Owen said.

'Grand.' I knew there was no chance.

'I've just asked you to marry me.'

'Thanks.'

'I've never asked anyone to marry me before. To be honest, I expected more enthusiasm than "Grand" and "Thanks".'

'Real life isn't like the movies.'

'Oh. So anyway, is the bloke in the chemist based on me?'

'No.' I couldn't lie.

'So who is he?'

'Owen,' I said, with superiority, 'I'm a lot older than you. I've had several boyfriends and in a way they all inspired the character of Will.'

'Don't patronize me. You're not that much older than me and I bet I've had as many lovairs as you have.'

This segued into a competition over how many people each of us had slept with and neatly diffused the Johnny the Scrip situation. We ended up having a messy squabble, when it transpired that I'd slept with more people than he had, but all the same…

Lily

FIRST NATIONAL BANK

23A Edgeware Square, London SW1 1RR

5
December

Dear Mr Carolan and Ms Wright
,

Re: 37'Grantham Road, London NW3

I refer you to clause 7(b) subclause (ii) of the agreement drawn up between The First National Bank and Mr Carolan and Ms Wright on 18June of this year. The clause states that a payment of £100,000 (one hundred thousand pounds sterling) is payable by Mr Carolan and Ms Wright to the bank no later than the thirtieth of November. As of the fifth of December such payment has not been received (and a telephone conversation with Mr Carolan has confirmed that the payment will not be received in the foreseeable future). I am left with no choice but to refer you to clause 18(a) which states, 'In the event of nonpayment of any of the scheduled monies, the property is immediately forfeit.'

Therefore the property at 37 Grantham Road must be vacated by the nineteenth of December, two weeks from this date, and all keys for the property must be posted by first-class mail to the above address.

Yours sincerely,

Breen Mitchell

Special Loan Executive

It was like the end of the world.

It all happened so quickly. When Jojo rang with the terrible, terrible news that Dalkin Emery were not going to give me a new contract, I did what I usually do under pressure: I sicked up my lunch. Then, formalities out of the way, Anton and I reviewed our limited options. The biggest worry looming over us was that we were unable to make our second lump-sum payment to the bank. But we squared our shoulders and decided that, instead of hiding behind the sofa and gibbering, we would behave like responsible adults and be honest with the bank. So Anton rang Breen, the 'Loan Arranger', and explained that although we had no money right now, a royalty cheque for
Mimi's Remedies
was due at the end of March. If they could give us until then?

Breen thanked us for the call and said it would be best if we came in for a proper chat - but before we had agreed on a time, we received the letter, saying we had broken the terms of the loan, that in view of our circumstances there was no hope that our payments could get back on track and they were foreclosing. We had to vacate the house by the nineteenth of December and post the keys to them.

Shortly before Christmas, our worst-case scenario had come to pass.

Anton responded with, 'They can't do that' bluster and swore to me, 'We won't lose our home, baby.' But I knew he was mistaken. A house being repossessed by the bank? I had seen it happen before and knew that it could — and very probably would — happen again.

Of course we rang the bank and did all we could in an attempt to convince them to give us until March, when everything could hopefully be salvaged. I pleaded, Anton implored, we even considered (briefly) putting Ema on the line to sing 'Twinkle twinkle little star'.

But Breen and his colleagues were immovable and there was not one thing we could do; we had nothing to offer. Finally, we faced it: it was not going to happen. So, wearily, we asked for a grace period until after Christmas — and they refused. For the first time in this whole horrible nightmare we became indignant, but still they would not budge. They reminded us that under the terms of the contract they were under no obligation to give us
any
notice but had offered two weeks as a sop to the season of goodwill. Some time in this hellish period, Zulema gave notice with immediate effect. She had got another job, with a family in Highgate, who had given her her own self-contained flat and a car. It was not a good time for her to leave, but I acknowledged we could no longer afford to keep her. By then, with all the toing and froing with the bank, we had already wasted one of our two weeks of notice. It was twelve days before Christmas and we had a week to find somewhere to live. We could have moved into Dettol Hall but Anton said — and I agreed — that living with Debs would be too much for us. 'We'd be better off in a Salvation Army doss-house.'

So Anton bought the
Standard
and racked up several flats to view. Before I even saw the first one, I hated them all.

I know the letting agents thought Anton and I slightly weird. Anton, habitually so charming and likeable, was absent. The person looking out from behind his eyes was not the Anton I knew. His skin looked like that of a corpse and, with a shock, I noticed greying strands in his shiny black hair. He suddenly looked a lot older.

As for me, I found it hard to maintain proper eye-contact because my eyes kept scudding from side to side, doing that constantly-moving-fish thing, that happens to extremely stressed people. But the agents could not know that, they must have simply thought I was a dodgy prospect.

I was so oppressed by the time constraint that I could almost hear clocks ticking, rushing us towards the dreadful moment when we were obliged to vacate our house. As a result, I could barely look at each flat; I wanted to run from room to room, in order to do it as quickly as possible, so that I could get on to the next place.

Our plan was to get taxis between the different flats, but if a yellow light did not appear after three seconds, I forced Anton to walk — very, very quickly. Anxiety was burning me up, filling me with so much nervous energy, that I could not pause.

From flat to flat we went and I had entirely forgotten the previous one as soon as we arrived at the new one. The circuits in my head were moving at such speed, they could not contain the information.

After three days of viewing, we were obliged to make a decision and I opted for the last flat we had seen because it was the only one I could remember. It was in Camden, not far from our current home, and was new and characterless, with white boxy rooms. We signed a lease for three months. We had to pay cash because we were in such a hurry to move in. Also, because our bank references would not have passed muster.

And then we were on our knees, on a dusty floor, working through the night, packing an infinite number of boxes. It was like the nightmares I had had while we were agonizing about buying the house last May. Then it was the final morning, the removal van had arrived and a team of young Kiwi blokes in red shorts were loading it up. I leant against a wall and wondered, Is this really happening? Any of it? Especially the red shorts?

Then the house was completely empty and there was no further reason to stay.

'C'mon, Lily,' Anton said gently.

'OK.'

But leaving my dream house buckled me. As I waited just a second too long to shut the front door behind me for the last time, I actually felt something change irrevocably within me. I was saying goodbye not just to four walls (three and a half, in any case - the builders had still not finished the small bedroom, not that it mattered any more) but to a life that Anton and I would never now get to live.

If it had been just me, I am not sure I would ever have unpacked in the new place. I would have located my duvet and a pillow and lived quite comfortably in the forest of cardboard boxes. However, because of Ema, it was necessary to get some things immediately functional. Her cot had to be assembled and kitchenware unpacked. The TV, of course, was something she insisted upon. As was the sofa, to facilitate comfortable viewing. By eight o'clock that night, most of the essentials were in place, Anton had even cooked dinner and the speed of the transition was too much for me. This was our home now. This bleak little place was filled with our belongings and this was us, acting out a domestic tableau here. But how? Perplexed, I looked at Anton and asked, 'How did things go so horribly wrong?'

I stared around at the smooth white walls, it was like being inside a cube. I loathed it.

Anton grabbed me by the wrist, trying to get my attention.

'At least we have each other.'

I was still surveying the bleak white walls. 'What?'

He looked at me in despair. 'I said, at least we have each other.'