‘I need my bag,’ I manage. ‘And I should say goodbye.’
I dart in before Chizo can stop me, but she catches up, grabs my bag and hustles me back out of the room, muttering, ‘Very fond of Robert. She was very fond of Robert. Overcome. But carry on enjoying yourselves. Amuse-bouches arriving in five.’
116
Monday, 1 May
Days pass and I hear nothing from Neeve. It hurts terribly. Then a week has gone by, another starts, and I have to wonder if she and I will ever talk to each other again.
But there are other things to worry about: the calendar clicks into May, which means that Sofie’s exams start in just over a month. She – we – have only five weeks for her to learn everything she needs to know. I’m not alone in my anxiety; every parent in the country with a kid doing the Leaving Cert is feeling it.
Sofie needs proper nutrition to survive this route march, so I buy twenty energy bars, hoping she’ll eat them. Then, miracle of miracles, she comes to me with a shopping list: avocados, eggs, salmon, berries, almonds and pumpkin seeds.
‘Of course!’ I’m thrilled. ‘I’ll go right now and get them.’
‘Calm down.’ She’s laughing. ‘Listen, I’ve been thinking. I need a job for the summer. I need to save money for when I start college in September.’
Hopefully when she starts college. If she gets the right grades. Her stumbling block is physics and, much as I’d like to help, I’d be more use if she needed to be tutored in Martian. Hugh, however, can do science and has been working with her. (I sometimes wonder if Sofie decided she would focus on science subjects just to show how alike she and Hugh are.)
‘Could Derry help me find a job?’ she asks.
Christ, I don’t know. Probably. ‘What sort of thing were you thinking of?’
‘Maybe in a hotel. Waitressing? Preferably in Europe, because the pay is better than it is in Ireland.’
Well, she’s thought this through very carefully. ‘Just for you. Or for you and Jackson?’
‘Just for me. And maybe Kiara.’
‘Not Jackson? What’s going on?’
‘He’s working for his dad this summer. We’re not breaking up, if that’s what you were thinking.’
Well, good. Just … This needs to be said. ‘Honeybun, you’d be apart for three months, you and Jackson. You’re both at an age when people change a lot.’
She looks surprisingly wise and twinkly. ‘We both know that. But we’re together, me and him. We’ve talked about it. We’ve decided.’
Yes, but what if she meets someone else and gets torn in two with guilt? ‘You’ll be coming into contact with all kinds of other people. It’s not inconceivable that you might fancy another –’
‘I’m with Jackson. I belong to him, he belongs to me.’
‘All I’m saying, sweetheart, is that going away for three months is risky.’
‘Everything’s risky, Amy. There are no guarantees, not when you love someone. But we want to stay together so we’ve decided we’re giving it our best shot.’
‘Um, very good, then.’ I feel I should say more but nothing comes to mind.
Luckily, my phone rings. ‘Mum?’
‘Amy, will there be any more work for me? In my role as ambassador?’
‘No, Mum. Didn’t Alastair tell you all of this?’
‘Well, he did, but I thought there might still be interest in me.’
‘I’m sure there’s lots of interest in you.’ Jesus, the fragile ego! ‘But Mrs EverDry is satisfied with all that you’ve achieved so there’s no need to do more.’
‘I don’t mind, though. She doesn’t even have to pay me.’
But she’d have to pay me and the lads and that’s not going to happen. ‘Mum, the campaign is over. It’s been a huge success so you should be proud.’
‘I’m finding it hard, though, settling back into ordinary life, stuck here in the house with Pop.’
‘Dominik’s around, though? You can go out whenever you like?’
‘Yeeees. I know. It’s just …’
I’ve seen this before, the comedown from fame. It’s brutal.
On the second Tuesday in May, the Press Awards are on in London. It was at this same do, two years ago, that I propositioned Josh and invited him up to my hotel room. It’s very hard to believe that I – me – behaved so recklessly. He may be here tonight and I fear I’ll bump into him. But things go well. All the speeches and awards take place without me clapping eyes on him.
Then, just after the formal part of the night ends and the throng have started circulating, I spot him, standing with a crowd of about six people, all of them talking animatedly.
My mouth goes dry. It’s the first time in nearly three months since I’ve seen him. He’s not looking my way and I’m able to study him covertly. To my surprise, he’s almost nothing like I remember.
I’d thought he was so hot, so sexy, but here in this hotel ballroom, among all of these people, he looks, well, ordinary. I must have projected a huge amount of wishful thinking onto him because all through that time I’d thought he was extraordinary.
Images of that night two years ago rush at me. It was only the third time I’d ever met Josh and I’d invited him up to my bedroom. What the hell? Like, seriously, what the hell?
Worse still, the following day I went home to Hugh, sat in our kitchen and tantalized him with murky allusions.
Subsequently Hugh told me he’d known something was up and I’d believed him. But astonishingly, in a visceral way, I can now feel it. It’s as if every one of my cells have lit up with guilt: my body is alive with it.
Of course Hugh had known! My giddiness, my arch hints, my insistence on having sex the night I got home – all the signs were there that something had happened with another man.
And Hugh had been correct when he’d said I was different throughout the entire flirtation: I was moody – frequently irritable. Occasionally I overcompensated by being gushingly nice for very short bursts of time.
I bought sexier clothes, higher shoes – even my underwear was saucier. I’ve memories of sitting opposite Josh in that restaurant we used to go to for lunch, turned on by the knowledge that my knickers and bra were made of sexy black lace.
In the crowded ballroom, I turn away from him. I don’t want him to see me. More importantly, I don’t want to see him. Because I’m ashamed. I’m terribly, terribly ashamed.
Worse, I’m sad. Hugh must have been so lonely during that time – which lasted about three months. Until then I’d been his best friend, his shared-brain and, abruptly, I was replaced by a callous stranger. As a result of selfishness, rather than cold-blooded cruelty, but all the same.
117
Wednesday, 17 May
When I wake in Druzie’s spare room, last night’s shame is still with me and stays with me all day long. I need to talk to Hugh. I have to apologize.
At the airport, waiting for my flight home, Derry emails to say she’s got summer jobs for Sofie and Kiara. Impulsively I ring her, I want to offload to someone.
‘Right!’ She launches into the news. ‘They’ll be chambermaiding in a glitzy health-spa in Switzerland. Very decent money. They’d better not let me down.’
‘They won’t, they won’t.’ Obviously I hope they’ll behave and, all credit to the pair of them, at least they know how to clean.
‘Ames, are you okay?’
‘Aaah.’ I squirm. ‘I saw Josh last night.’
‘What?’
‘No, not like that, he didn’t see me. But I’ve got an awful bout of the guilts. About Hugh, I mean. All those weeks I was meeting Josh for lunch, Hugh knew something was up, and I know it’s two years ago but, Der, I feel shitty. I feel so guilty.’
‘Then Hugh ran away to Thailand. Get over yourself. The scorebook is even.’
‘Derry, there’s no scorebook. There are two wrongs here. It’s hard to face this but I was cruel to Hugh.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I want to make it right. I want to take his hurt away.’
‘It’s probably long gone.’
That doesn’t make me feel better so I say my goodbyes and call Hugh. He answers after two rings.