Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man (14 page)

‘Well,' says Jamie, ignoring the bilious glares from Rachel, ‘you know how Matt and I used to do loads of shows together in the drama society, back in the UCD days?'

‘Oh, yeah, now I know who you mean. I think.'

‘Well, he used to be really friendly with your old flame Pete Mooney way back then. So I asked him if he knew where he was now and, get this, they're still in touch with each other. So, Pete's in Belfast now, apparently, working as, oh God, you're going to love this, an
accountant
!'

‘What's so funny about him being an accountant?'

‘Nothing, just that when he so cruelly disbanded Emergency Exit, he told me that I had no talent and that he was going to be a megastar. And now I'm the one in showbiz while he's a humble bean-counter. It's not very often in this life that I get to say
HA HA
!'

‘So he's up in Belfast now?'

‘Yes, but here's the surprise, honey. Look what Papa has for you …' he says theatrically, producing a tatty bit of paper out of his pocket with the air of a conjurer.

‘What's this?' I say, automatically taking it.

‘Only Pete's home phone number. So you can do your homework for class next week and it'll hopefully distract you from
He-whose-name-shall-forever-remain-unspoken
. Aren't I just a national treasure?'

‘If this Matt whatever-he's-called is still so friendly with Pete,' I ask, puzzled, ‘didn't he wonder why you wanted his phone number? You and Pete haven't spoken in decades. Even the Beatles had a more amicable break-up than you pair.'

‘Oh no, I explained to him that it was for you.'

‘You
what
?'

‘Well, I was telling Matt that you were doing this course where you hunt down all your exes which he thought was just hilarious. So then I said that you'd probably want to speak to Pete at some point—'

‘Jamie! You told someone I barely know and that I haven't seen in twenty years that I'm trying to track down someone
else
I haven't seen in twenty years so that I can find a husband?'

‘Well, I didn't think it was classified.'

‘Do me a favour and kill him for me,' I say to Rachel icily. ‘I'm jumping in the shower now, so if you could avoid bloodstains on the freshly vacuumed carpet, I'd be very grateful.'

‘Why are you having a shower?' Rachel asks, surprised. ‘You can't seriously be thinking of going into work?'

‘I've a meeting with the senior script adviser at ten, which I scheduled, so welcome to the wonderful world of got no choice.'

‘Amelia, you
cannot
go into work. Not today. I'm not letting you. Throw a sickie.'

‘Well, if I do, then I'll just stay home all day and start disinfecting the furniture. Being busy is good. Having a focus is good. And anything that prevents me from physically hurling Jamie out the window right at this point in time can only be a good thing. Let Caroline in when she gets here, will you?'

I head for the bathroom but even as I close the door behind me I can hear Rachel tear strips off Jamie. Loud and clear. ‘
You fecking idiot!
I warned you not to tell her,' she rants at him. ‘Why doesn't Rupert Murdoch just employ you and your big mouth? Save himself a fortune on Sky News.'

‘There's one simple, basic tenet to being my friend,' Jamie answers defensively, ‘and it's not my fault if you all keep forgetting.
Tell me nothing. I talk
.'

Oh dear. I'm no sooner in the shower than I feel another flashback coming on …

THE TIME: 31 December 1986.

THE PLACE: Mike's student flat in Rathmines (or Rat mines, as we call it, mainly due to the low/non-existent standards of hygiene)
.

THE OCCASION: A fancy dress, New Year's Eve party
.

I wouldn't mind, but we went to loads of trouble over our costumes. Myself and the other Lovely Girls have gone as Charlie's Angels. Caroline is Jill Monroe
(except she looks even better in a jumpsuit), Rachel is Sabrina, I'm Kelly and Jamie is Charlie (any excuse for him to get into a dress suit).

The night does not get off to a good start.

‘I'm breaking up with Pete Mooney. Tonight. For definite. Don't even try to talk me out of it.'

I'm sitting in Mike's tiny living room, chatting to Caroline, who's perched beside me on the edge of the moth-eaten sofa, still managing to look elegant even though she's drinking wine from a mug. Caroline rarely drinks but, believe me, in this flat you want to swig alcohol. It means there's a better chance of the germs being killed in whatever utensil you've been given to drink out of. The place is packed with all of Mike's dentistry student friends, doing vodka ice cubes, pissed drunk and all in full fancy dress, moshing to Jackie Wilson's ‘Reet Petite'. It's hard to believe, but back in 1986, that song was all the go.

‘Oh, honey, don't break it off with Pete tonight,' says Caroline. ‘Not on New Year's Eve, that would be awful for him. Would you want to start off nineteen eighty-seven by being dumped?'

‘No, but nor do I want to start off nineteen eighty-seven with a boyfriend who's driving me slowly up the wall.'

‘That bad?'

‘Caroline, I'm exhausted from trying to be cool enough for him. And guess what, I never will be. He's
constantly criticizing me: the way I dress, the movies I want to see, the music I like. He came over for dinner last night and ended up having a go at my poor old mum because he caught her watching
Cagney and Lacey
. He told her it was the cheesiest series ever committed to celluloid and that it was fundamentally aimed at menopausal housewives.'

‘You're kidding.'

‘I wish. And Mum was doubly upset cos she'd gone to loads of bother over the meal. She'd defrosted quiche and everything. Then I thought Dad would physically fling Pete out of the house when he started having a go at his taste in films.'

‘What films?'

‘
Crocodile Dundee
. Dad's seen it twice.'

‘I'm really sorry, Amelia. I didn't realize things were that bad. Didn't he take you to a movie just the other night?'

‘Yeah,
Blue Velvet
. In the very first scene a human ear is found lying in a field … need I say more? I did my best to pretend to enjoy it, but he sees right through my act. Art-house stuff just isn't me. I would have been so happy just going to see
Hannah and Her Sisters
. And don't even get me started on the time he found out that I thought Che Guevara was one of the Rolling Stones. I still haven't heard the last of that one.'

‘Have you told Jamie?'

‘No. That's the other thing. He keeps putting Jamie
down too. He's always giving out about him in the band. He says his singing is off key and that his songwriting is way too commercial. He wants Emergency Exit to head in a completely different direction. Experimental, electronic stuff, you know? I think Pete's idea of a successful song is one that gets them interviewed by Paula Yates on
The Tube
whereas Jamie—'

‘Secretly wants to represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest, I know.'

Just then Mike comes over and slips his arm protectively around Caroline's waist. That's the other thing that's upsetting me, although I'd never say it. They started going out the same night as myself and Pete, all of ten months ago, and are getting on so wonderfully well that it's almost highlighted the slow deterioration of my relationship. Put simply, Mike gave Caroline a string of pearls for Christmas (which he worked his arse off to earn the money for, at his part-time job in a garage) whereas Pete gave me … nothing.
Nada
. Not a thing.

Now, in his defence, he says he's fundamentally against the concept of exchanging gifts while there are people starving in Africa, but it's just that I went to loads of trouble over his present: a season ticket to the Fellini retrospective at the Adelphi Cinema, which I knew he'd love. Funny, but for someone opposed to giving gifts, he has no problem accepting them …

‘So how're my two favourite Charlie's Angels?' asks Mike. ‘And where've Sabrina and Charlie gone?'

‘Dunno,' I reply. ‘Last seen heading in the direction of the keg.'

‘Doesn't he look handsome?' Caroline asks, looking up adoringly at him.

Mike has dressed up as Richard Gere in
An Officer and a Gentleman
(Caroline's Desert Island favourite movie) and looks like any woman's fantasy come true. I'm just about to ask them, Cinderella-style, how long to go till midnight when Pete himself sidles over.

‘Oh, hi, Pete!' says Caroline warmly. ‘So what have you come as?'

‘A rock star.'

‘Who?'

‘Guess. Don't tell them, Amelia.'

‘Ehh … Bon Jovi?' asks Mike.

‘You think I'd dress up as
Bon Jovi
? Get lost.'

‘Prince?'

‘Not even close.'

‘Give in.'

‘Billy Idol. Thought that would have been, like, sooooo obvious.'

In fairness to both Caroline and Mike, it's not in the least bit obvious. The only difference between the way Pete looks now and the way he looks normally is that his hair is that bit spikier.

‘Can you do something about the music?' he says to
Mike. ‘If I have to listen to Tina Turner singing “Private Dancer” any more, I'm leaving.'

‘Give me a mo,' says Mike, politely hopping to.

‘Oh, and I don't want to make a fuss, but could you get me something clean to drink out of?'

‘Jeez,' says Mike, ‘you said don't make a fuss.'

‘So what do you think of our costumes?' Caroline asks Pete as Mike disappears into the crowd.

He doesn't answer; he just looks down at us in that patronizing way he has which is
really
starting to bug me.

It takes more than a snotty look to deter our Caroline though, who's determined to extract a compliment from Pete if it kills him. ‘Doesn't Amelia look gorgeous with her hair all backcombed, in the hot pants? Just like a 1950s cyberbabe.'

Pete just looks at me, searching for a suitably cutting witticism. ‘She looks like … like … like a slutty American pin-up painted on to the fuselage of a bomber.' Then he swaggers off completely delighted and thinking himself the drollest man in the room.

‘I'm sitting right here, you know!' I shout after him, boiling.

‘I know. Think of it as a backhanded compliment.' And he's gone into the kitchen.

‘Right, that's it. If you don't break up with him tonight,' says Caroline, smarting, ‘I'll do it on your behalf. Just wait till after midnight.'

Just then Mike starts flashing the fluorescent light above on and off to grab everyone's attention. ‘Two minutes to the countdown, everyone!' he calls out. ‘Grab your partners!'

‘Let me go and find Charlie and our missing angel,' I say to Caroline. ‘At least let's all be together for the start of nineteen eighty-seven.'

Caroline smiles and rejoins her fella as I work my way through the throng, searching for the others. I scour the tiny, filthy kitchen and the hallway looking for them. No sign.

Then I spot Pete chatting to one of Mike's friends and he imperiously beckons me over, to be obediently by his side for the stroke of twelve.

Ughhhhh. As if. I shudder and am wondering how I can get out of that one when Mike switches off the music and starts the countdown. ‘TEN-NINE-EIGHT-SEVEN-SIX …' they all start chanting.

I can see Pete coming through the crowd and moving closer to me. It's at this point I figure I have no choice.

‘FIVE-FOUR-THREE-TWO …'

I open the bathroom door, not even caring if (
a
) there's anyone on the loo or (
b
) the bathroom is so dirty, it's a science project. This is an emergency.

And there they are.

It's one of those things that, if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes, I'd never in a million years have
believed it. Jamie and Rachel are having a snog, kissing the faces off each other with such reckless abandon that they hardly even notice that it's me, staring at them in deep, total shock.

‘Emm … Oh God, if you'll excuse me, I'm just going back outside to gouge out my eyes,' I manage to stammer.

Then the whole place erupts. ‘HAPPY NEW YEAR!'

I've said it once and I'll say it again. Thank God for work. Thank God for being busy and thank God for not having any time left over to think. I make it into the office and the morning flies by in a blurry haze of story meetings, script meetings and emergency meetings with the press office about how to prepare the media for the slimmed-down, tightened-up, new-look
Celtic Tigers
that will be coming shortly to a TV screen near you. It's well after two p.m. before I even get a chance to sit down at my desk, grab a sandwich and pick up my phone messages.

Nine missed calls. All from Jamie, all increasingly apologetic/grovelling/contrite to the point of … well, I'll let you hear for yourself.

‘OK, sweetie, I know I've been a naughty boy, but you just have to forgive me. You know me,
in vino veritas
, and, besides, I was only thinking of you, my love. I'd never have dreamed of opening my big mouth
about you and Pete Mooney and your night course if I hadn't thought I was helping—'
Beep
.

‘Ooops, sorry, machine cut me off. Anyway, please don't judge me too harshly. I really, honestly thought I was doing you a favour or I'd never, ever have breathed a syllable about your course, which, for the record, I think is fantastic for you, honey. I know how much you want to be a Sadie, Sadie, married lady and fair play to you. You're actually going out there and doing something about it—'
Beep
.