Do You Want to Know a Secret? (26 page)

‘You’re right. Sorry. How long do you think this’ll go on for?’

‘
WHAT?
’

‘What I’m asking is, do you think they’d notice if I slipped out to the loo and slapped a nicotine patch on? Just so I’ll last the morning? Sitting still isn’t exactly my forte these days.’

‘Barbara, if you don’t chill out and start behaving, I’m off to get a tranquillizer gun to use on you. For your own good, you understand.’

‘OK, OK, OK. I’ll just twitch away here, with my phone switched off, and think of all the karmic reward points I’ll get for being a supportive friend.’

‘Good girl.’

‘Just one more thing and then I’ll shut up.’

‘What?’ I hiss.

‘Your mother
is
doing her magic novena, isn’t she?’

I roll my eyes to heaven and say a silent prayer.

Please, dear God, let Serena Stroheim cast this bloody show ASAP. Because I honestly don’t know how much more of this I can take. Bloody hell, being an actor must just be the worst job imaginable. All that waiting around on phone calls that might or might not change your life would have me on double whiskeys every day. With tequila chasers. Washed down with vodka.

Next thing, there’s a polite ripple of applause as Caroline takes to the podium right in front of us and makes a very funny speech about being a busy working mum and all that it entails. The constant exhaustion, the
guilt
at leaving your kids with a minder while you go to an office, weighed up against the overwhelming need for adult company and a healthy bank balance. She even coins a phrase that I’ve never come across before (and in my line of work, you pretty much get to hear everything, but this is a new one on me), a phenomenon called ‘placenta-brain’. Seemingly, this is when you’re so ga-ga in the few months just before and after childbirth that you start finding your car keys in the fridge and thinking it perfectly normal. Or when you wonder where the post is, then you realize you’ve put it in the washing machine along with a load of babygros, and now everything is on a rinse cycle.

‘All ahead of us,’ I whisper to Barbara beside me.

‘Are you kidding me? These genes end here, thanks very much.’

Anyway, apart from the cynical touchstone on my left, I notice there’re a lot of heads nodding like Buddhas in the audience, Laura’s included, and suddenly I’m filled with an overwhelming rush of admiration for these women. I mean, for God’s sake, I can barely organize myself and a Useless Builder, let alone get up in the middle of the night, do a feed, then drive kids to school, then put in a full day’s work, then go home and do it all again. Every single day without any let-up until they’re, like, eighteen. Oh, and you’re supposed to function on no more than about four hours’ sleep. AND
try
to keep a marriage going at the same time, which everyone knows is a full-time occupation in itself. At least if shows like
Desperate Housewives
have taught me anything.

God almighty, these women don’t deserve cash prizes, they deserve medals.

Anyway, in no time Caroline is introducing the magazine’s owner to announce the results. Up steps a Mr Desmond Lawlor, who I’ve never actually met before, but I know of by name, as he owns several very diverse publications: from financial magazines to movie guides to one or two of the more gossipy glossies, which are the ones I usually end up poring over. Just to check who’s Botoxed and who isn’t, who’s going out with who, and who’s newly-dumped and single again. All work-related, natch.

Anyway, Desmond Lawlor is maybe in his sixties, in good shape for his age, slightly greying, sprightly and so distinguished-looking that if central casting were looking for an ‘honourable elder statesman’ type, he’d be the very man. There’s no beating about the bush, he just goes straight to the results, in reverse order, a bit like on
Miss World
.

Third place goes to a Polish woman with three kids, who Desmond tells us wrote very movingly about her experiences as an immigrant here, and the challenges of living in a new country and having to learn English
from
scratch, all the while dealing with a young family, far away from her own home. She gets a thunderous round of applause and heads up to the podium to accept a warm handshake and a cheque from Desmond.

I squeeze Laura’s arm encouragingly.

‘Now all of you ladies in the audience I’m sure are familiar with the legendary comedienne Joan Rivers, and I can tell you, our runner-up’s wit, humour and wry take on motherhood reminded me very much of that great lady’s style . . .’

I swear, I knew before he even said it. I just
knew
.

‘. . . in second place, with her hilarious story entitled “Checkout Time is at Eighteen Years”, is Laura Lennox-Coyningham!’

Barbara and I are on our feet in a nano-second, and I’m not joking, there are tears in my eyes as I watch my girl take her well-earned prize. You should just see her, she looks as cool and unflappable as ever, but the lop-sided smile is set in place so I know she’s chuffed. Bloody hell, two grand she’s just won . . .

The winner is equally popular: a young, fresh-faced teenage mum who, amazingly, found herself pregnant at seventeen and, against everyone’s advice, still went ahead and sat her Leaving Cert. And got straight honours in all her subjects, winning a place to college into the bargain. She makes a touching, short speech about how she’s coming up to her first-year exams and how much
support
she got from all her tutors and lecturers. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she says into the mike that Desmond holds out for her. ‘I wouldn’t change anything for the world, but there are times when I’m collecting my son from the babysitter, and I’m telling you, I’d only KILL to go out drinking Red Bull with the rest of my classmates.’ A huge roar of laughter, a novelty-sized cheque is handed over, a flash of cameras and it’s all over.

We’re straight over to squeeze our gal to death and make those ‘dolphins mating in a nature documentary’ squealing noises that women do when over-excited, as we all are now. Even Barbara waits a good four to five minutes before switching her phone back on to check for messages.

‘Two thousand euro,’ I say to a glowing Laura. ‘So what’ll you do with it? A well-earned holiday maybe?’

‘Every red cent is going towards the kids’ cultural improvement summer programme,’ she beams at us.

‘They’ll go bananas!’ says Barbara, ‘You’re going to have to throw a few playstations in at the very least, to sweeten the deal.’

‘I’m fully aware I won’t be courting popularity with this decision, but you know what? This morning I overheard George Junior calling his brother ‘gibbon spawn’ and I thought, that’s
it
. A summer educational programme is precisely what my family need.’

‘May I say, I’m terribly pleased to hear it,’ says a
plummy-toned
voice from behind. The three of us turn around to see Desmond Lawlor himself, coming to shake Laura’s hand. ‘Money well spent, if you ask me.’ He smiles in this benign, kindly way he has that reminds me of my dad. No, scrap that. Now that I see him up close, he’s actually more like my granddad.

Laura politely introduces Barbara and me, and Barbara, I’m pleased to say, manages to de-clamp her mobile from her ear for long enough to say hi.

‘May I ask you a question, my dear?’ Desmond says to Laura. Trust me, he’s one of those men who can call you ‘my dear’ and it kind of makes you feel like a Victorian lady in a hoop skirt clutching a phial of smelling-salts.

‘Of course,’ she smiles.

‘Are you one of
the
Lennox-Coyninghams?’

‘Guilty as charged,’ she says lightly. ‘Although normally, if I tell people I’m a lawyer I usually tack on to the end of my sentence, “but don’t worry, I’m getting all the help I need”.’

‘I’ve met your parents several times,’ he goes on, smiling kindly. ‘Socially, I’m pleased to say, never in a court-room scenario. Do you plan to return to the Bar?’

‘I have the days counted,’ she smiles. ‘Literally.’

‘But I trust you’ll keep writing until then? No false modesty, my dear, but you do have a unique voice. Sharp as a razor and smart as a whip.’

‘Well, I . . .’

‘It’s just that, if you were interested, I think we might be able to offer you some freelance work. Something along the lines of a column, perhaps?’

Barbara steers me away on the pretext of getting coffees for all of us, leaving the two of them chatting away goodo.

‘I think we’re just big blurry shapes to Laura now,’ she says sagely.

‘He’s offering her a gig! This is incredible!’

‘Oh you poor deluded eejit,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘Have I taught you nothing? Don’t you understand body language? Can’t you tell when a guy is trying to get into someone’s knickers without my having to use glove puppets and semaphore to hammer the point home to you?’

‘Laura and . . .
Desmond
? No, you can’t be serious. For God’s sake, he’s an old man.’

‘In some cultures, mid-sixties is considered the prime of life.’

‘There’s listed buildings out there that are younger than him.’

‘Plenty of women find age a turn-on. Our Laura, for one.’

And then it hits me. Sweet Jesus, she’s right. I mean, when George Hastings came along all those years ago, we wrote him off as an old, old man who she’d be wheeling to his bridge club and feeding through
a
straw in no time. Desmond is exactly her type.

Her identikit type, to be exact.

‘But he seems like a nice guy, doesn’t he?’ I say to Barbara, a bit worriedly, if I’m being honest.

At that moment, we both look over to where Laura’s standing, deep in conversation with Desmond. And then she dust-flecks him. Right in front of our very eyes.

‘Done deal, if you ask me,’ says Barbara.

One sneaky snipe of champagne in the hotel bar later and finally we get to quiz the still-glowing Laura.

‘He offered me a bit of freelance work,’ Laura says primly. ‘
C’est tout
. End of subject. Absolutely no need for further discussion, and I do NOT want this to become a subject of gossip amongst you pair. Yes, phone numbers were exchanged, but just so I can pitch some ideas at him, for a possible monthly column. And, come to think of it, I do actually have an idea. What do you think of this? “Motherhood: the ties that bind . . . and gag”.’

‘So, I didn’t notice him wearing a wedding ring,’ says Barbara, ignoring her and cutting straight to the chase, as ever.

‘Your point being?’

‘For a man his age, that can only mean one of two things. Gay or divorced.’

‘Neither as a matter of fact,’ Laura replies, cool and unflappable as ever. ‘Widowed.’

Chapter Seventeen

BRILLIANT NEWS. I
mean fantastically, unbelievably amazing news and all it took was:

The universe, it would seem, a bit like my Auntie Maisie, appreciates good manners. Anyway, Barbara gave it a lash and said she only thought she’d gone a tad
too
far when Evil Angie found her in front of the bathroom mirror, clutching a tube of Colgate and thanking the world and its sick dog for her best actress Oscar, her Tony Award for best Broadway newcomer and her Irish Theatre Award for: ‘best, hottest and generally all-around most amazing actress to have been employed by Serena Stroheim, ever in history, ever.’

Laugh all you like, but these little things are what get us through times of great stress.

Anyway, at the close of business on Friday, the long-awaited miracle came to be. I was holed up in yet another meeting at the Best agency (still no sign of Daniel coming back from the States, ho-hum), and had my phone off for most of the day. I figured I’d be done and dusted by seven-ish, but Sophie insisted on going through the first-draft scripts for all of the commercials with a fine toothcomb. Best’s have also selected a director for our first shoot, someone called Tom Howard, who I haven’t heard of but who apparently shot a highly successful beer commercial for them some time ago. ‘Wait till you see him,’ Amanda whispers to me. ‘V v v cutie. Hot hot hottie. We like.’

Anyway, hours after the others have all deserted the place, Amanda and I eventually crawl out of the boardroom, both of us so wrecked and mentally exhausted from a full day’s brainstorming that we can’t even face the freebie Choca-Mocha kisses that are just lying there
for
the taking. We’d no choice, we had to work later than the others, as she and I are hatching an idea that’s, well, just a bit ‘out there’. And we’re not quite ready to announce it just now, as chances are the whole concept could get shot down before it even leaves the ground. Our strategy is to make this product skyrocket with a bang so loud you’d think the Space Shuttle Challenger had just been launched, but what we’re planning is risky and we need approval from the top. Which means Daniel. Who’s still in the bloody States. Which means conference calls most of next week, probably.