Just Between Us (30 page)

‘She’s a kid and you’re an adult. Do some yoga, that’ll help.’

When Amelia was half watching television and half playing with Barbie, Stella changed out of the shift dress she’d worn to meet the girls, and pulled on an old T-shirt and loose leggings. She set up her mat in her bedroom and slipped
automatically into her first position. Normally, she’d barely started before the relief would begin to flood through her but today, calm eluded her. Instead of being able to tune out her problems, the silence magnified them and Jenna’s insolent little face filled her mind no matter how hard she tried.

Finally, Stella gave up. Yoga had brought her through her split with Glenn and the years when there was always some financial worry to stop her sleeping. Stella often claimed that there was nothing yoga couldn’t fix. Not today.

Still in her yoga clothes, she walked into the living room to sit beside Amelia when, for the second time that day, she heard Nick’s key in the lock. This time, Stella didn’t feel excited. She felt sick to the stomach.

‘Hello!’ cried Amelia excitedly, bouncing up happily as Nick appeared with Jenna and Sara.

‘Hello, Amelia,’ said Nick, picking her up.

From her position on the couch, Stella watched the girls’ expressions. Sara, a tall slightly scruffy girl with dark hair and Nick’s incredible eyes, smiled awkwardly and said ‘hello’.

Jenna’s jaw tightened as she watched her father hugging Amelia, but she too said ‘hello’.

Progress, thought Stella with relief.

‘Hello, Sara,’ she said, getting up and extending a hand.

Sara flushed and said, ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘How about we start again, Jenna?’ Stella said, turning to the younger girl. She was smiling but her voice was firm. The olive branch was a cast-iron one.

Jenna took her time but said ‘OK’ in a tight little voice.

‘Wonderful,’ boomed Nick heartily.

They all looked at him.

‘I haven’t done anything in the way of dinner because I didn’t know what time you’d be home,’ said Stella in even tones.

She could see Jenna wince at the word ‘home’. That was a mistake. She had to make an effort. Jenna was a child after
all, albeit a precocious one. ‘I had salad ready earlier,’ she continued, ‘we can eat that.’

‘Great,’ said Nick.

‘Amelia, you can help me,’ Stella said. She didn’t want her daughter left to Jenna’s tender mercies.

During dinner, Jenna spoke in monosyllables but at least she was polite. Nick talked enough for four people while Stella got on quite well with Sara who was plainly a little shy, but didn’t seem to have a problem with the concept of her father’s new girlfriend.

She told Stella about college and seemed good-humoured when Nick teased her about her boyfriend there.

‘Is this serious? Should I start saving for the big white wedding?’ he joked.

‘Dad, get real,’ she laughed. ‘I wouldn’t start saving just yet.’

Nick laughed over-loudly and even Stella managed a little chuckle, but it was hard to act merry when all the time she was aware of Jenna watching fiercely from under her lashes, ready to pounce.

Amelia helped Stella tidy away the dishes. Neither Jenna nor Sara moved a muscle. What sort of woman would bring up her daughters with such bad manners? Stella thought grimly as she worked. When she was a teenager, Rose would have killed her if she’d sat at a table in someone else’s house and hadn’t lifted a finger to help.

Amelia was eager to show off the glazed apricot tart that Stella had slaved over.

‘Mummy made this,’ said Amelia artlessly to Nick, carefully carrying the tart to the table.

‘Mummy’s very good to make something this nice,’ said Nick fondly.

Stella held her breath, waiting for the terrifying moment when Jenna would snap at Nick’s affectionate use of the word ‘Mummy’. But nothing happened.

Finally, Stella began to relax. Nick must have given Jenna a good talking to earlier. She was behaving.

‘This is great,’ said Sara with her mouth full.

Stella smiled, grateful for this crumb of praise.

Jenna refused any tart but Stella didn’t mind. Jenna was obviously highly conscious about what she ate.

‘Dad, I’ve got to go,’ Sara said when she’d finished her coffee. ‘I’m meeting some people in town.’

‘We should all go,’ Nick agreed instantly.

‘Can I use your bathroom?’ Sara asked politely.

‘I’ll show you where it is,’ said Amelia.

‘I’m just going to turn on CNN and pick up the headlines,’ Nick said, also rising from the table.

Stella and Jenna were left alone in deafening silence. Stella thought of her own reputation for being cool, calm and in control of any situation, and here she was speechless in the presence of a defiant teenager. For Nick’s sake, she wanted to make an effort at conversation but suddenly the stresses of the day washed over her. She was too tired. It would be easier to smile, tidy up and wave them all off into the sunset with the first, difficult visit over.

Jenna had other ideas. When Stella got up from her seat and began collecting up empty plates, Jenna spoke.

‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but it won’t work,’ she hissed. ‘You’re ruining everything. My mother hates you, don’t you know that. She loves Dad properly. But you’re ruining it all, you bitch.’

Stella stepped back as if she’d been hit. The venom in Jenna’s voice shocked her as much as the words. How could Jenna loathe her so much? Stella had done nothing but love Nick. She’d been absolutely prepared to love his children, too, no matter how hard that was. And even though she guessed that Jenna’s insults were parroted from her mother, the nastiness shocked Stella to the core.

‘Dad’s ready to go,’ announced Sara.

‘Great,’ said Jenna brightly, hopping up from her chair. ‘See you.’

There was nothing Stella could do but mouth goodbye.

With a week to go to Rose and Hugh’s ruby wedding party, Tara felt very unpartyish. Her mind just wasn’t on her work as she sat in her cubicle and failed to find any intelligent way of writing the scene in question. During the storyline meeting, it had sounded easy.
National Hospital
’s hardnosed administrator, an unsympathetic character with the improbable name of January Vincent, had just discovered that her elderly mother was dying of cancer. In a pivotal scene with her regular adversary, the deeply caring Dr Burke, January had to let her guard slip and reveal that she and her mother had a turbulent relationship and hadn’t seen each other for four years. Needless to say, the argument which had caused the split had to be January’s fault.

The scene had to achieve three aims: to help explain why January had grown into such a bitch, to make the viewers long for the scene when she had to meet her mother, and naturally, to show her the error of her ways.

Viewers liked nasty characters to get their just desserts. And January was deeply nasty, unlike the woman who played her, a gentle soul named Alison.

Normally, Tara loved writing for Alison, who was a marvellous actress, but today, the muse was not around. In fact, Tara reflected, the muse had stomped off the premises altogether.

The tangled plotlines of
National Hospital
kept vanishing from her mind and the only storyline being played out in Tara’s head was of her own life, with Finn the main character. He hadn’t had a drink in over a week and Tara felt that
she should be delighted with this. But something flickering in the dim recesses of her brain told her this particular scene was far from over. That was the terrifying thing.

Nothing was normal in the Miller/Jefferson household. Finn was outwardly buoyant and merry, as if he didn’t miss alcohol at all. While Tara tried to be blithe, all the time watching and waiting for the moment when he’d arrive home with the tell-tale scent of booze on his breath. It was like waiting idly for the tidal wave to crash to shore.

Tara kept thinking of the big party in Kinvarra and the effect that all the boozing would have on Finn. Would he be able to resist or would he fall off the wagon spectacularly?

‘ ’Lo,’ said a grumpy voice as Isadora, clad all in khaki combat gear like some glamorous commando, appeared and threw herself onto a chair. She looked in a foul temper. That makes two of us, Tara said to herself.

‘What’s up with you?’ she asked.

‘Reverse badger,’ Isadora said, pointing to her hair.

Tara was familiar with Isadora’s unusual turn of phrase but this was new to her. ‘Explain, pliz?’

‘Badgers are black with a white stripe; my hair is blonde with a big dark stripe down the middle where my roots need doing.’ Isadora rummaged in her jacket for her cigarettes. ‘I haven’t time for an appointment at the hairdresser’s and I look a mess. I know,’ she groaned as she lit up, ‘smoking is the work of the devil and my arteries are probably clogged up like the toll bridge road at rush hour. I’ve heard it all before but I don’t care. I need my emotional crutch, specially when my roots are bad.’

‘Did I say anything?’ demanded Tara, annoyed

‘No,’ admitted Isadora, ‘but you had that
look
on your face.’ She settled back into the chair and inhaled deeply. ‘How’s your great script for the we’re-not-worthy Mike Hammond?’

Another sore point. Since meeting Mike and agreeing to polish up the script for his friend’s movie, Tara hadn’t rewritten a single word. Not one. Her ability to write had
vanished full stop and, faced with a script that required sandblasting as opposed to polishing, she felt like a complete novice. Time was of the essence with the script, and Tara was afraid she’d have to phone Mike up and tell him she couldn’t do it.

She gave up on the scene between January and Dr Burke. ‘Don’t ask,’ she said, clicking ‘save’ on the computer. That done, she shoved her chair back, stuck her feet up on the desk and held a hand out in the direction of Isadora’s packet of cigarettes. ‘Can I have one?’

Isadora was startled out of her usual nonchalance.

‘A cigarette?’

‘No, a lobotomy,’ said Tara in exasperation. ‘Yes, of course a cigarette.’

‘You’ve spent years telling me not to smoke.’ Isadora looked outraged.

‘You’re not the only one who can do with an emotional crutch.’ As soon as she’d said it, Tara was sorry. She didn’t want to talk about why she was depressed and mentioning that she needed an emotional crutch would be like a red rag to a bull where Isadora was concerned. Today however, Isadora didn’t bite. She handed over a cigarette and flicked her lighter on. Tara sucked the cigarette inexpertly and asked herself what it would be like to be addicted to cigarettes. Or anything.

She’d had the odd cigarette socially when she was in her college but had never longed for a fag as soon as she opened her eyes, which was what people like Isadora and Holly did. Tara had spent years trying to get her younger sister to give up, although Holly, a pushover in most arguments, held firm.

‘It doesn’t suit you,’ muttered Isadora, gesturing at Tara’s cigarette. ‘You look like it’s your first time behind the bike shed.’

Tara felt vaguely insulted. ‘Are you telling me I’m a boring old square?’

‘No, just that you don’t suit smoking. Sorry.’

Tara took a few more exploratory puffs until she felt nauseated and dropped the half-smoked cigarette into a polystyrene cup of cold coffee. Try as she might, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a slave to those little white sticks. She knew they were deadly, but strangely, they didn’t seem as deadly as alcohol. Did smoking destroy marriages in the same way that Finn’s drinking was slowly destroying theirs?

‘Have you ever tried to give up?’ she asked suddenly, wanting to understand what it was all about.

Isadora winced. ‘For ten years, I had only one New Year’s resolution: to stop smoking. By dinner on New Year’s Day, I was deranged with bad temper. Whoever was living with me at the time would practically force a fag into my hand and tell me to shut up and light up. What can a girl do?’

‘When people give up, are they always smokers who have just managed to stay off them, or do they become exsmokers?’

Isadora grinned. ‘You’d have to ask someone who’s managed to give them up for longer than eighteen hours and four minutes.’

‘Right. But if you really wanted to,’ Tara insisted, ‘could you do it?’ She wasn’t thinking of cigarettes: she was thinking of Finn. She wanted to
understand.
‘Is it the craving that gets to you in the end? Do you think that if people really want to give up things they’re addicted to, that they can? Or is it deeper than that?’

Through a veil of smoke, Isadora gazed at her friend. ‘Why do you ask?’ she said. ‘Oh, don’t tell me, you’re dreaming up an addiction storyline. Is it going to be fags, drink or drugs and who have you lined up to get the poisoned chalice?’

Tara laughed and picked up a notebook. ‘You know me so well,’ she said ruefully. Her mind was racing, trying to think of which character she could suddenly land with an addiction. She didn’t want even Isadora to know what she was really thinking. She wasn’t ready to open up the pain. ‘I saw this documentary on a rehab clinic,’ she stalled, ‘and
I’ve been playing around with the idea. I don’t know who’s the right person for it but we need to spice up things.’

Isadora’s eyes narrowed.

‘It was just a thought,’ Tara added lamely, cursing herself for saying something so stupid. Both she and Isadora firmly believed that the best storylines were character-driven rather than issue-driven. Blindly saying she had an issue but no idea who to pin it on just wasn’t the way she worked. ‘Actually, I must be tired,’ she added lightly, ‘because that really was a crap idea.’

‘Addiction isn’t a crap idea,’ Isadora countered, dropping her cigarette in the cold coffee. ‘It’s one of the few issues you can drop in and out, and we haven’t had a major addict story for ages; not since Billie and the prescription drug one.’ Another fag was lit up and Isadora leaned back in her chair thoughtfully. ‘Which doctor should we make a slave to the bottle?’ she grinned. ‘You know they say you’re not an alcoholic unless you drink more than your doctor.’

Tara looked at her stonily.

‘We could use that line,’ Isadora mused. ‘The idea has to be introduced gradually, though. We can’t rush it on this one. Nobody suddenly starts drinking like a fish.’

Somehow, Tara managed to look interested without betraying the battering her heart was getting. Isadora grabbed a pen and pad from Tara’s desk and began scribbling notes. ‘Alcoholism is a slow builder, we need that sense of pace.’

‘What needs a sense of pace?’ Tommy, the show’s senior storyline editor, pulled up a chair and sat down.

‘Tara’s got an idea for an addiction storyline,’ Isadora announced enthusiastically.

Tara knew what a snowball felt like when it started rolling down the hill.

‘It was just an idea out of thin air,’ she said. The story conference had been the day before and she hadn’t mentioned it then. Some of the editors felt immediately threatened if any idea materialised without it having been
discussed to death at the conference. ‘I saw a documentary on addiction the other day…’

‘What channel was that on?’ Tommy looked interested. ‘Maybe we could get a copy of it?’

‘I think it was on satellite, I forget to be honest, but it was last week maybe,’ Tara lied hastily. ‘It wasn’t a good programme but the idea stuck in my head.’

By the time the subject had been thrashed out by Tommy and Isadora, Tara’s brain was addled with the idea of addiction.

‘Brilliant idea,’ Tommy said approvingly to her. ‘We needed a shake-up for Dr Carlisle and this is definitely it. You should write it, seeing as it’s your idea.’

‘Slow build, that’s vital,’ repeated Isadora.

‘Yeah, to get that sense of impending doom and only the audience know what’s coming.’

Isadora nodded. ‘And Carole, his wife, doesn’t pick up on it because of the problems she’s got with the sexual harassment case.’

‘Great,’ said Tara weakly.

When Isadora and Tommy had gone, she punched a key on her computer to rescue it from screensaver-dom. The word game which automatically appeared onscreen when the screensaver had been on for over ten minutes, came into view. Tara loved the conundrum game and had to limit herself to playing it for five minutes a day. Now, she exited it with one hard key stroke and stared at the monitor blindly. How dumb could any one person get? Finn was an alcoholic and she must have been an utter idiot not to have noticed until now. Nobody slipped from being a social drinker to being an alcoholic in a few short months. There were signs, warning signs, and Tara must have seen them. She and Finn had been together for nearly eighteen months, married for nearly a year. Had he always drunk this much and had she been too blinded by love to notice? Or, even worse, had it only started since they were married because their marriage was the reason he drank?

Everyone would think she was an idiot to have noticed only now. And they’d tell her to get out. Mum, Dad, Stella and Holly—they loved Finn but none of them would want her tethered to an alcoholic for life.

Aaron popped his head round her cubicle. ‘Tara, Scott Irving’s here. We’re introducing everyone to him in the conference room. Want to come?’

Yes,’ said Tara quickly. Scott Irving was Aaron’s latest wunderkind, a hot young writer he’d swiped from a rival channel. Ordinarily, Tara might have experienced a moment of jealousy that her mentor was bringing in another young writer. But she was too preoccupied to care.

She followed Aaron along the grey-carpeted corridor to the conference room. There was something comforting about the combination of Aaron and the familiarity of the office. Surely nothing life-shattering could happen in this ordinary, everyday world? Finn might not be an alcoholic after all. Other people would have noticed, wouldn’t they? Finn wouldn’t be able to do his job. His colleagues would phone up, frantic that he’d drunk several bottles of vodka or something.

People just didn’t become alcoholics suddenly, she told herself. She was worrying too much.

In the conference room, the executive producer, whom the writers secretly called Godzilla because he was so thickskinned, was opening champagne to celebrate a triple whammy: superb ratings, the arrival of a fading Irish movie star in a cameo role and the poaching of Scott Irving from TV222. The room was full and noisy with the customary laughs and wicked remarks about Godzilla, who wasn’t as loved as he’d have liked. Playing jokes on Godzilla was an office sport and he still hadn’t discovered who’d changed his mobile phone ring tone to the sound of a female porn star faking orgasm. Ralph was heading the leader board on the Godzilla-jokes for that one, although Tommy had apparently planned something wicked to do with Godzilla’s office chair and superglue.

Tara slipped in and leaned against the back wall beside Isadora, letting herself finally relax.

‘He’s a bit of all right, isn’t he?’ said Isadora, gesturing to the tall lean man at the top of the room with God and Aaron. ‘I like that Byronic smoulder.’

Tara glanced up and saw that the new writer did indeed have enough physical charms to be on the other side of the TV cameras. Pale-skinned enough to be an Anne Rice hero, his coal-black hair and heavy five o’clock shadow gave him a tortured-artist air.

‘You’re incorrigible,’ Tara whispered to Isadora. ‘What happened to the gorgeous Michael?’

‘I dumped him,’ Isadora said, eyes on Scott. ‘Three weeks was long enough.’

Tara laughed out loud. Situation normal.