Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man (35 page)

‘Well, you must know somebody who you could suggest the idea to. Be a big ratings winner, you know. I'd even be prepared to let my family appear, how's that for a nice juicy carrot?'

His family? Makes sense. He and Florence must have a load of kids by now …

Oh, bugger it, I have to find out. Why else am I making this highly uncomfortable phone call?

‘So how long have you been mar—'

‘Or here's another pitch for you,' he barrels over me. ‘You know all those ghastly
Big Brother
-type shows? We set one here, a
Big Brother is Haunting You
sort of thing. You get the idea.'

‘Tim, I'll certainly pass on your suggestions, but, as I say, it isn't really my department. So, changing the subject, how many children do you and Flo—'

‘Oh, I've got it in one,' he says and I swear I can hear him smacking his podgy hand off his forehead. ‘You do one of those
Celtic Tigers
Halloween specials and you film it here at Ashton! There's plenty of room for the entire cast, you know, and I've always had a bit of a thing for that scrummy Cara O'Keefe. I very much know what I should like to do to her if she ever came to stay … I say, is she single? Do you think she'd give me a whirl?'

‘
Tim?
Aren't you married? What would Florence say?'

‘Dear me, no. You are funny! Did you really think that old Flo and I were married? No, not by a long shot, old thing. Still a bachelor, me, I'm afraid. I've had heaps of girlfriends over the years, but you know how it is, I just never seemed to find the right one. They all
come to stay here, meet the family, meet Flo and then that invariably seems to be the end of them, somehow. There's not many of my GFs that can survive the Flo test, you know. Can't imagine why.'

Towards the end of the day, however, events take a dramatic turn for the better. I'd wound up an exhausting script meeting and popped over to the canteen for a quick take-out cappuccino. I'm just paying for it, looking over my shoulder all the while for Philip Burke (no sign … phew!), when Suzy, our lovely production secretary, calls my mobile.

‘Hey, Amelia, are you done with the script department for the day?'

‘Yeah, just finished. Is everything OK?'

‘Ummmmm … yeeeeeees,' she says, drawing out the ‘yes' for so long, it set off an alarm bell in my head. ‘So you're on your way back up to the office, then?'

‘Yeah, I just stopped off for a coffee. I think I'll be burning the midnight oil tonight, so anything to keep me awake. Do you want me to get you one?'

‘No thanks,' she almost sings down the phone. ‘OK, so your plan is to work late tonight?'

‘Yeah, I need to check the edited episode we shot last week. Emm, why do you ask?'

‘Oh nothing, nothing. Just … well, your plans could easily change, that's all.'

I go back upstairs and gingerly open the office door, half expecting to find Philip Burke sitting there and not
quite being able to figure out how I feel about this. But it's not Philip at all.

It's the only person I know who could (
a
) put the beam back on my face and (
b
) make me doubly thankful that I washed my hair that morning and am wearing make-up.

Jack Keating.

My very own emotional-pension-plan man.

‘Well, hello, gorgeous,' he says, as smooth as ever, swivelling around in Suzy's office chair and looking a million dollars himself, all casual in jeans and a T-shirt that shows off how muscly he's got since I saw him last.

‘Jack!' I almost throw myself at him, I'm that delighted to see him.

‘Well, well, well, let me look at you,' he says, jumping up and swirling me around. ‘Jesus, you're stunning. You must be in love to look this well. Who is he? I'll beat the crap out of him. Do you think I'll stand by and let another man make you happy?'

He's messing, of course, but by now half the office are watching the happy reunion side show, probably wondering, Who's this big ride that Amelia secretly has on the go? There's a bunch of red roses plonked on the desk, which Jack presents to me theatrically, on bended knee.

Another great font of gossip for the office. I playfully pretend to hit him across the head with the flowers and they all laugh.

‘Come on then, babes, let's leave them all guessing and let me take you to dinner,' he says, grabbing my hand. ‘Catch you later.' He winks at Suzy on our way out. She grins back at him, bats the eyelids and gives me a huge thumbs-up sign the minute his back is turned. But then Jack's been provoking that kind of reaction in women since he was about six.

Work is forgotten about and
Celtic Tigers
could go down the toilet in the morning for all I care, I'm so ecstatic as I swan out of the office, roses in one hand, Jack Keating in the other.

Once in a while good things
do
happen.

He takes me to Peploe's, an über-trendy restaurant in town, the kind of place you practically have to give a blood sample just to get a table. In spite of all my feeble protests about our not having a reservation, Jack just does his thing. He makes a beeline for the hostess on duty, releases the full megawatt force of the Jack Keating charm offensive and, within ten minutes, we're sitting at the best table in the house. The King of Spain could have been left standing at the bar moaning to Pope Benedict about how long the wait is for a table, but not my Jack.

As we're glancing at our menus, I realize that it's imperative that I keep my head and not get drunk and, most importantly of all, not refer to my by now infamous email. There's no point in my continuously
blaming myself, not when I can just blame myself once and move on.

Baby steps. First of all, I need to find out if he's single.

I decide what I'm ordering, put the menu down and smile at him with what I hope is an inscrutable mask.

But Jack knows me far too well. ‘Are you OK?' he asks.

‘Of course I am. Why?'

‘You have a very pained-looking expression. You don't need to run to the loo or anything, do you?'

‘Ehh, no. Definitely not.'
Shit. So much for my inscrutable mask.

‘OK, what do you say we cut to the chase here?' He smiles. ‘It's kind of like there's a big pink elephant in the middle of the room that we're both ignoring. Why don't we just get the awkward bit out of the way and then I can go back to having a good night out with my old pal Amelia. What do you say?'

I smile up at him, kind of relieved, although I do think: Did he just say old pal? This does not augur well …

Then comes the sentence I've been dreading.

‘OK, bull-by-the-horns time,' Jack begins. ‘I read your email with great interest. After I'd picked myself up off the floor, that is.'

I cover my face with my hands, mortified, but at least
now it's out in the open. ‘Do I need a brandy in my hand for what's coming?' I ask, half-messing, half-serious.

‘The thing is,' he says, lowering his voice so that I have to lean forward to hear him. ‘I've thought about you a lot. About our friendship, I mean. You know how it is with me, Amelia, women come and go but you're always there. You're a constant in my life and I love that.'

OK,
I think,
so far so good …

‘And of course I remembered our pact. Here we both are, late thirties and still unmarried. So …'

‘So?'

I have to take a very deep breath and an equally big slug of wine. Not to over-dramatize things or anything, but the next sentence out of him could change the entire course of my life.

Jack, however, doesn't seem to have a nerve in his body. In fact, the waitress (who, by the way, is very pretty) comes over with the wine list just at that point and he automatically starts flirting with her. She falls for it and flirts right back and I almost feel sorry for her, because I'm thinking: You think he means it but he doesn't. This is just the way he communicates with all women. He can't help himself, it's practically encoded in his DNA.

Then I have a flash forward …

 

TIME: The not-too-distant future. I hope …

THE PLACE: The National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, Dublin.

THE OCCASION: I'm in the delivery ward, legs in stirrups, about to give birth to my first-born.

 

‘Come on, Mrs Keating,' the midwife is barking at me, ‘nearly there. One big push and it'll all be over.'

‘
Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I can't do this!
' I'm screeching at the top of my voice. ‘More drugs, gimme more drugs!'

‘You can have one more mouthful of gas, Amelia,' says my gynaecologist from underneath the greeny-coloured sheet thing that's covering my modesty. ‘But that's your lot, I'm afraid. You've had quite enough. I don't want the baby coming out stoned.'

‘
Bastard!
Is there anyone with a uterus in this room who will find a vein and help me?' I scream at him viciously (mainly because, in my head, he looks an awful lot like my old headmaster in school, who I hated). ‘Spinal tap me now!' I snarl. ‘I don't care if I give birth to Jimi Hendrix! I need maximum-dosage pain relief.'

‘Baby's crowning,' says my headmaster, sorry, I mean gynaecologist. ‘Quick, get the husband.'

But Jack isn't at my side, mopping my fevered brow and saying things like, ‘There, there now, darling, you still look beautiful to me,' as fathers-to-be are supposed to … he's in the corner, chatting up the very pretty nurse.

In my fantasy/nightmare, she's like a Benny Hill caricature, all tits and ass and lip gloss, giggling at Jack's jokes and pointing her boobs in his face.

‘Yeah, I've always had a thing about nurses' uniforms,' he's saying, totally ignoring my wails from the bedside. ‘Very, very sexy. Where did you say you were from again? Tipperary? Fabulous accent, I just love it. So what time does your shift finish at?'

‘South Tipperary, actually,' she giggles inanely. ‘So, are you ready to order yet or would you and your girlfriend like a bit more time?'

What! Oh yeah. Reality. Sorry about that.

‘Oh, and by the way, the special tonight is grilled guinea fowl with spinach purée and a tarragon-butter sauce. It's really delish.' The waitress licks her lips a bit and looks coyly at Jack as if to say, ‘
You're
really delish.'

‘Great, thanks,' says Jack, looking up at her all twinkly-eyed. ‘Oh, and FYI?' he winks after her. ‘She's not my girlfriend.'

OK. It's not very often I get reality checks, but here comes a biggie …

I can't do it. I can't. I couldn't marry Jack even if he loved me romantically, which he doesn't. I'd never be happy. I just know I wouldn't. I love him dearly and I know he loves me too but neither of us is in love with the other and there's a very good chance we could end up ruining a fantastic, lifelong friendship.

In the end, we both say it at exactly the same time.

‘We're better off as friends.'

Then we burst out laughing and, all of a sudden, we're back to being the old Jack and Amelia, pre-pact. Having fun. Loving each other's company. Buddies.

Hours later, as we're drunkenly pouring ourselves into a taxi outside Lillie's Bordello, Jack suddenly goes all quiet on me.

‘What's up?' I ask, sensing the change in his mood. ‘Are you worried that you haven't collected enough girls' phone numbers for one night, is that it, Mr Lothario?'

‘No,' he says, mock serious. ‘I just had an idea.'

‘Whassssssup?'

‘Here we both are, late thirties and single. What do you say we make a fresh, brand-new, revised pact? If we're both forty-five and still single, we get married, you and me. Good plan?'

I don't even answer him. I just pretend to smack him on the back of his head with the flowers he gave me and we both collapse in a drunken, hysterical fit of giggles.

You might not have thought so, but after years and years of getting out there, getting rejected, getting up off the ground and going out there again, eventually, the unthinkable happened.

Jamie got a job.

A proper one, in a proper, posh ‘frock' show.

It's the stage adaptation of Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice
and he's been cast as Mr Collins, the slightly ridiculous rector who wants to marry the heroine, Lizzy Bennet, but has to make do with her best friend Charlotte Lucas instead. It's the Christmas show at Dublin's prestigious Gate Theatre, all set to open on 1 December 1994.

Two things about Jamie, however. One, he decided it would make him far too nervous to have all us Lovely Girls sitting pretty in the front row on his opening night, so he asked us to come to his first preview instead. ‘And I'll do my best to make you all
proud,' he said. ‘Or, at least, less ashamed.'

‘You're going to be wonderful in the part,' I said to him at the time, bursting with pride. ‘I've never seen you work so hard.'

‘You've never seen me work, full stop.'

Secondly and more importantly, Jamie has officially ‘come out'. This is after weeks/months/years of him dragging us all into gay haunts and then strenuously denying that there was any ulterior motive.

‘No, darlings,' he'd protest, ‘it's just that you haven't lived until you've been to Sunday afternoon bingo in the George pub. Especially when Miss Panti is the hostess.'

In due course, the inevitable came to pass. ‘You'll all be deeply shocked to know that … drum roll, pause for dramatic effect … yes! I'm out!' was his way of breaking the news to us. ‘I know it's a tired old cliché, I went into showbiz and found love in my own locker room, but hey! Welcome to the theatre!'