Further Under the Duvet (32 page)

Helen has just told me that I’m ‘a fossilized old dinosaur for whom feminism might never have happened’. Well, maybe I am,
but I’m not ashamed of it; I’m simply saying what everyone else is too ‘politically correct’ to say. However, Holly, maybe you would be better off going to a different ‘agony’ aunt, one of those feathery-stroker ones who will tell you that you are perfect as a size sixteen, that you are a whole and beautiful person, that you don’t need to change an iota and that if your boyfriend doesn’t agree, you should both go for couple counselling to ‘resolve your issues’, where you will be charged seventy euro a week for twenty-six weeks. (Payment up front.)

Holly, I’m sorry you and I didn’t see ‘eye to eye’. I haven’t had a failure yet so you’re my first and, I must admit, it smarts. But I wish you and your boyfriend well with this feathery-stroker approach. Just please remember that it could all be avoided if you cut out desserts and did a bums ’n’ tums video three times a week.

Be careful what you wish for, they say. So when Siobhan came back from Australia with an Aboriginal dreaming bowl and invited us all to place a wish in it, I’m ashamed to say I wished for a fairy-tale romance. It wasn’t the kind of thing I would normally do but I was a bit wounded at the time. Even while I was folding up the note to put in the bowl, I hated Mark for turning me into the sort of person who made such pathetic wishes.

Naturally enough, I told everyone that I’d wished for peace in the Middle East. The only person I told the truth to was Siobhan, who confessed that she already knew because after everyone had left she’d unfolded the notes and read them all. She was quick to reassure me that I wasn’t alone; the person who’d claimed he’d wished for his mother’s arthritis to improve had in fact wished for a silver SL320 Merc with many optional extras, including heated leather seats and a CD player.

‘It’s just a bit of fun,’ Siobhan said, but I was keen to have faith in the future, and hoped it would come true. And, in a way, it did…

Because, would you believe it, less than a week later I met a man. Not just any man, but a fireman. The job alone was sexy, and he was gorgeous – arms the size of my thighs,
hugh barrel chest all the better to crush me against. He was slightly shorter than I expected firemen to be and this suited me fine; I was right off tall men.
And
he was a kind and caring person; only a kind and caring person would put their life at risk entering burning buildings to rescue sleeping children and climbing up trees to bring home beloved cats.

We hit it off, he asked me out, Siobhan smiled proudly from the sidelines as if it was all her doing and suddenly I was in great form. I embarked on the round of shopping and ablutions that a first date calls for and Saturday night couldn’t come fast enough.

But on Saturday afternoon my phone rang. It was my hero and he was yawning so hard his jaw cracked. ‘I’m sorry, Kate, out on a job last night, just got back, need some sleep, on a shift again tomorrow.’ Another huge big yawn.

What could I say? Huffiness simply wasn’t an option – no sniping about freshly done nails, new sandals, having turned down four other invitations and now what was I supposed to do, spend my Saturday night cleaning the bathroom? (Like I’d done every previous Saturday for the past month.) This man was a
hero
. So I sympathized, praised and rearranged for Thursday night. ‘I’ll be wide awake and full of beans,’ he promised.

So on Thursday I came to work in my going-out clothes. I caught Mark watching me as I click-clacked in my high sandals to the photocopier, but he said nothing. Briefly the pain of our separation knocked the breath from my body, then – with gratitude – I thought of my hunky fireman and I started to breathe again.

But that afternoon, minutes after I’d got back from spending my lunch hour getting my hair blow-dried, my fireman
rang. He’d just got home after a fifteen-hour stint dousing a huge conflagration in a rubber-goods warehouse.

‘I’m sorry, Kate.’ A five-second yodelly yawn followed. ‘I really need some zeds, I’m so sleepy.’

The disappointment was intense and as I thought of my good hair and my inappropriate clothes, I swallowed, braced myself, then went for it. Brazenly, I said, ‘I could come over and keep you company.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said gently. ‘All I’m capable of is sleep. How about we try again on Saturday night?’

But even though I took the precaution of not doing my hair, Saturday night didn’t happen either: he’d been rescuing people from a house fire and he was exhausted. It was then I made my decision. The rest of the world needed him more than I did. It would be selfish to try to get a go of him, so I turned him free.

But there was no time to be miserable because within days I’d met Charlie – at a party where he walked straight over to me, pointed a finger and said, ‘You, babe, are the woman I’m going to marry.’

‘What a fool,’ Siobhan murmured and even while one part of my brain was agreeing with her, another part found his confidence strangely alluring.

‘The name’s Charlie,’ he said. ‘Remember it because you’ll be screaming it later.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I replied, and he just laughed and said he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Over the next two weeks he pursued me rapaciously and he seemed so sure he’d win me over that in the end he managed to convince me of it too. When I finally agreed to
go out with him he promised he’d show me the best night of my life and I must admit I was intrigued.

First he took me to a party, but he made us leave after fifteen minutes because he was bored, then he took me to a bar, which I’d read about but hadn’t been to, but we were barely there half an hour before he wanted to be off again. Two more parties and a club followed. He had the shortest attention span of anyone I’d ever met and in a way all that variety was exciting.

There were three or four more nights like that and at the time I thought of myself as glamorous, but now what I remember most is the number of times I had to gulp back the drink which had just arrived, while Charlie eyed the exit and tapped his foot impatiently.

So convincing was Charlie’s wide-boy swagger that it took me some time to notice that he was shorter than me. A
lot
shorter when I wore my boots. And when he couldn’t sit through a film – and we’re not talking
Dances With Wolves
or
Heaven’s Gate
here, only a normal ninety-minute one – his attention deficit disorder began to annoy me.

Worse still, he always seemed to have a cold and his constant sniffing was driving me mad.
Mad
. As soon as one sniff was over, I was tensing my shoulders in irritation against the next one. Occasionally he sneezed and he baffled me by treating it like a major disaster.

Then I discovered the cause of the constant sniffing – and the short attention span – when I accidentally walked into his bathroom and found him crouched over the edge of the sink, a rolled-up fiver at his nostril.

It wasn’t the cocaine itself that shocked me. It was that he
was taking it for a Saturday afternoon’s shopping. And that he’d been snorting it all this time and he’d never once offered me any. Marching orders were swiftly dispatched and not even him prostrating himself and swearing that we’d get a video and a Chinese takeaway and stay in for an entire evening made any difference.

The disappointment of Charlie set me back, and I was missing Mark a little too much for my liking, so to take my mind off things I decided to throw a party, which is where I met Owen.

The moment we made eye-contact he began to blush and I’d never seen anything like it. It roared up his neck and face like red-hot lava, rushing to the furthest reaches of his head, then kind of ‘pinged’ on the outer edges of his ears. For some reason I thought of an advertising slogan: Come home to a real fire.

Flustered, he turned around and bumped into a bottle of red wine with such violence it splashed Siobhan’s dress and my pale-gold curtains and the only reason I didn’t start shrieking like a termagant was because I felt attracted to him.

Owen was, quite simply, the shyest man I’d ever met but after the cocaine-fuelled arrogance of Charlie, I liked his self-effacing charm. And though he was short, he was very good-looking – a neat handsome little package.

He asked if he could take me for a drink some time and when I said yes, he was so pleased that he knocked over and smashed my good flower vase into smithereens.

Our first date wasn’t much better. He came to pick me up, said, ‘You’ve lovely eyes. Even though they’re quite close together,’ then swept the phone off the wall with such force that it never worked properly again.

I urged myself to give it time, that he would eventually relax with me. But each outing was as bad as the first time: the blush that could be seen from outer space, the stammering compliment that managed to be an insult, then the ceremonial knocking over and breaking of something.

I had to end it with him before he’d destroyed all that I owned.

And into the breach stepped Shane, a friend of Siobhan’s youngest brother. He was too young for me but I didn’t care. He was cute-looking – another dinky one, actually; I was having quite a run of short men asking me out – and he was sweet.

He took me to Brittas Bay to fly kites which might have been fun had he not told me that we were going to an art exhibition and had I not dressed accordingly. Shane claimed to have no memory, no memory
at all
of telling me about the exhibition. Then he raced off down the beach with his big, yellow kite and I almost ended up flat on my back as I chased after him and my four-inch heels sank into the sand.

Eventually the kite-flying torment ended and we went to the pub and the real date began. But within minutes Shane disclosed that he thought:

a) Jack Nicholson and Jack Nicklaus were related,

b) that flour was made from flowers,

c) that the Mona Lisa’s real name was Muriel.

At the Muriel bit I sighed heavily; this was awful. And thick and all as he was Shane said, ‘You’re not really into this, are you, Kate? Some guy wrecked your head, yeah? Siobhan said.’

I sighed again; Siobhan was so indiscreet. But all of a sudden the idea of spilling the beans about Mark to this dim, sympathetic boy was enticing.

‘It was great for ages and I don’t really know what happened but in the end he just rode roughshod over me.’

‘He rode
who
?’ Shane was all indignation.

That was it! But Shane was mad keen to see me again. ‘We could go to this exhibition you keep talking about,’ he beamed.

Gently I turned him down. I couldn’t see him again. He was simply much, much,
much
too stupid.

Then I was depressed. I’d gone out with so many men and I was still thinking about Mark. I saw him at work but we never spoke. He’d been smiling a bit at me lately, probably because he thought enough time had elapsed for us to start behaving like civilized people again. Well, he could think again.

I squared my shoulders and told myself it would all be fine eventually.

I thought the good times had finally arrived when I met a short, clever doctor who kept trying to get me into bed by tugging at my clothes and saying, ‘Let me through, I’m a doctor.’ It was funny the first time he said it, though not funny enough for me to sleep with him. Quite funny the second time too. By the fifth time I was worried. Was this what counted as a sense of humour with him?

Unfortunately it was and I stopped letting him through.

It was Siobhan who twigged what was happening.

‘Hiho,’ she greeted me. ‘How are you enjoying your fairytale romance?’

‘Still waiting for it,’ I said glumly.

‘What are you talking about? You’re slap-bang in the middle of it. You’re Snow White and you’re working your way through the seven dwarves.’

I told her she was off her rocker and that I wasn’t going to play, but she insisted. ‘They’ve all been very short, haven’t they?
Haven’t
they? And their personalities fit. The poor fireman who couldn’t get out of bed? Sleepy, obviously. Charlie the coke-fiend is Sneezy, of course.’

‘There wasn’t much sneezing, mostly sniffing,’ I said, but Siobhan was undeterred.

‘Poor shy Owen is an open-and-shut Bashful. Shane is Dopey – the funny thing is that’s what his friends call him anyway. And the doctor? Well, Doc, obviously.’

‘So which ones haven’t I done?’ It’s impossible to remember the names of all seven of them.

‘Grumpy and Happy.’

Mark asked if I’d meet him for a drink after work. With a heavy heart I agreed. It had been seven months now; I supposed he was entitled to his stuff back.

But we’d barely sat down when he blurted out, ‘I’m sorry, Kate. I was such a grumpy bastard to you.’

As soon as I heard the word ‘grumpy’ my heart almost stopped in my chest. But Mark couldn’t be Grumpy! He was too tall!

‘You were right not to put up with me. I’ve had plenty of time to think and, Kate, I feel small. I feel so very, very small.’

‘Small?’ I repeated.

‘Small. Tiny.’ He held up his thumb and first finger, barely leaving a gap. ‘This small.’ Then he told me he loved me, that he was miserable without me and asked if there was any chance that I’d take him back.

‘I know I don’t deserve it.’ He hung his head. ‘But if you’d give me just one chance I’d make it up to you and I’d do everything I can to make you happy. If you come back to me, Kate, I’ll be happy. I’ll be so
happy
.’

First published in
Woman’s Weekly,
February 2002
.

Q
.
Dear Mammy Walsh, I am a young man (aged twenty-seven) and I have developed a slight crush on you. I dig your no-nonsense approach. Tell me, if they made a film of your life, who would you like to play you?

Darren, Cork

A
. Dear Darren from Cork, me, of course! However, I know that often the Hollywood studios insist on a ‘star’, in which case I think Halle Berry would be perfect. She and I have very similar ears, Mr Walsh has remarked on it more than once. Thank you for your interest, also your gracious comments. I recently had my first failure, due to the no-nonsense approach you mentioned and it’s nice to be reminded that you can’t please all of the people all of the time.