The Woman Who Stole My Life (27 page)

Hey. Work stuff. World War 3 kicking off

here. Can’t take the kids this weekend.

Bummed to have missed it. Ryan xoxo

Incredulous, I stared at my phone. It was five thirty on Friday evening, the kids were waiting outside the school gates, their bags packed, ready for Ryan to pick them up for the weekend, and he was cancelling?
Again?

Immediately I rang him and it went to voicemail. With fingers shaking with smacky-rage I sent a text, telling him to pick up the next time I rang, or else the kids and I were coming to see him in person.

‘Hey, Stella!’

‘Ryan?
Ryan
?’

‘Yeah. Crazy here. I’ll be working through the weekend. Emergency.’

He was lying; he’d never had a weekend emergency when he’d been married to me. The truth was that the kids bored him – when the four of us had lived together, Ryan could flit in and out whenever it suited him, but a whole forty-eight hours being the sole provider of attention and entertainment? He couldn’t handle it.

‘Ryan.’ I almost choked. ‘They’re standing outside their school waiting for you.’

‘Too bad, eh?’

‘It’s not like you see them during the week.’

‘That’s for their benefit. We agreed. Minimum disruption during the school week.’

‘So who’s going to tell them you’re not coming?’

‘You.’

‘They’re your children too,’ I hissed.

‘You made this situation,’ he hissed back.

He was right. There was nothing I could say.

‘What a pity,’ he said, ‘that you’re going to have to miss your weekend riding your doctor boyfriend in the sand dunes in Wicklow, but, hey, shit happens.’

He hung up and I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt like my chest was caving in. Trying to manage Ryan and Jeffrey and Mannix was destroying me. I was constantly juggling situations, desperately trying to keep people happy, and the nearer every Friday got, the bigger my dread that Ryan would cancel. I could never relax, never be at ease in my own life, and I had no right to ask anyone to cut me some slack because I’d created this set-up.

‘Mannix, I can’t see you. Ryan can’t take the kids.’

Silent tension flared on the phone.

‘Mannix, talk to me, please.’

‘Stella,’ he said. ‘I’m forty-two years of age. I’m serious about this. I’m serious about you. I want to be with you twenty-four hours a day, instead of two nights in every fortnight and sometimes not even that. I’m lonely without you. I spend every night in a horrible rented flat, and you’re four short miles away, sleeping on your own.’

I said nothing. This was a familiar theme and there were times when I was afraid Mannix was going to give up on me.

‘We’re adults,’ he said. ‘We shouldn’t have to live like this. You know how I feel about you but I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this weekend stuff.’

Fear seized my heart. ‘Then you don’t really care about me.’

‘You can’t say that. This is real life where there are no blacks and whites. It’s all just grey.’

‘But …’

‘Good as you are at phone sex,’ he said, ‘this is starting to get old.’

‘Am I good at it?’ I decided to focus on the positive.

‘You’re amazing,’ he said. ‘Why do you think I’m still around?’

‘Darling, I’m so sorry I’m late!’ Georgie hurried across the restaurant to where Karen and I were waiting. ‘Blame it on Viagra.’ Georgie gave me a big hug. ‘Yes, I was with my new man, he’d taken two of his little blue pills of delight and the whole thing went on for an epoch.’ She groaned and rolled her eyes, then turned the spotlight of her smile on Karen. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Georgie. And you must be Karen.’

Karen nodded mutely. She had insisted on this meeting, had practically begged me for it, because she was fixated, to an almost unhealthy degree, on Georgie Dawson. She’d kept saying, in a mock-sad voice, ‘We really should be nice to “the loneliest woman on earth”.’

‘Honestly,’ Georgie pulled up a chair and exhaled heavily. ‘I thought he’d never come.’

‘I love your bag,’ Karen breathed.

‘Thank you,’ Georgie said. ‘Afterwards he asked me to lie in the bath and pretend to have drowned. Welshmen, believe me when I tell you this, they are
so
kinky.’

‘Kinkier than Mannix?’ I asked, just to make her laugh.

‘That little choirboy!’ Her eyes blazed with mirth. ‘Oh, Stella, you are a hoot.’

‘Is it a Marni?’ Karen was making pitiful stroking gestures towards Georgie’s bag. ‘Can I touch it? I’ve never touched a real one.’

‘Haven’t you? But you must have it.’ Instantly Georgie began emptying the contents of her handbag onto the table.

‘No,’ I said, in alarm. ‘Georgie, no. She doesn’t want it. Karen, tell Georgie you don’t want it.’

‘Oh, there’s my peridot earring,’ Georgie said. ‘I knew it would reappear.’ A pile of stuff began to mount up on the table – keys, a wallet, sunglasses, phone, gum, several thin silver bracelets, a small bottle of perfume, five or six lipglosses, a Sisley compact …

‘There you go.’ Georgie gave the empty handbag to Karen.

‘Oh, please.’ I buried my face in my hands.

‘Stella, it’s only stuff,’ Georgie said.

‘That’s right,’ Karen said, clutching the bag to her chest and looking like Gollum with the Ring. ‘It’s only stuff.’

‘So how are you, sweet girl?’ Georgie said to me.

Karen had called over a waiter and asked for a paper bag for Georgie’s belongings.

‘Can I apologize on behalf of my sister,’ I said.

‘It’s fine, it’s fine.’ Georgie waved away my concerns. ‘Tell me how you are, Stella. How’s your divorce going?’

‘Not bad, actually,’ I said.

‘Me too!’

We both burst out laughing.

It would be five years before Ryan and I were divorced; nevertheless our financial terms were surprisingly harmonious – probably because we owned so little: no stocks, no shares, no pension plan. Our home, with its mortgage, was transferred to me while Ryan got the Sandycove house and its negative equity. As Ryan earned so much more than I did, he agreed to cover all of Betsy and Jeffrey’s maintenance, including school fees, until they were eighteen. Apart from that our financial affairs were completely severed.

What had proved less easy to agree was the care of Betsy and Ryan.

‘We have to talk about custody.’ I’d eyeballed Ryan across my lawyer’s desk.

‘Custody,’ my lawyer repeated.

Ryan’s lawyer jumped in immediately. ‘My client is entitled to see his children. It’s generous enough that he permits you to have full access during the school weeks.’

I sighed. ‘What I would like is for your client to stop bailing at the last minute on the weekends he’s supposed to have the kids.’

But apparently that couldn’t be legally enforced.

Afterwards, as we stood outside, Ryan said, ‘So that’s our divorce underway. How do you feel? I feel awful sad.’

I outstared him: he did
not
feel sad. ‘Ryan, I’m begging you. You have to keep your commitment to the kids on your weekends. And to take them away on holiday for a week when they break up from school.’

‘While you’ll be doing what? Going down to your beach house with your neurologist?’

‘He’s not my neurologist any more. And I’m entitled to a break. One week, Ryan, that’s all I’m asking. I’ll have them the entire summer.’

‘Grand,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll organize something.’

‘In a different country,’ I said. ‘Not Ireland.’

He took the kids to a tacky resort in Turkey, and he went out on the pull every night, having suddenly realized he was a single man, free to have sex with whoever he wanted. The kids spent their evenings confined to the tiny apartment, watching movies on their laptops, and their mornings waiting for Ryan to come home.

‘It’s unacceptable,’ Betsy said gravely, in one of her countless phone calls to me.

‘What does Jeffrey think?’ I was interested to hear his thoughts on Ryan’s sex life, considering he had such strong views on mine.

‘Jeffrey says Dad can do what he likes.’

‘Is that so? Because –’

Jeffrey grabbed the phone. ‘You started it. Dad wouldn’t have any other girls if you hadn’t cheated.’

‘I didn’t cheat.’

‘He’s making the best of a bad situation.’

Somehow I knew that Ryan had said those very words to Jeffrey. But I couldn’t afford to get too irate because I got my week in the beach house with Mannix.

One day, during that blissful week, Mannix said, ‘Could we get a dog?’

‘When?’

‘Not right now, obviously. But sometime in the future. I’ve always wanted a dog but Georgie wouldn’t let me.’

‘I love dogs too.’ I was excited. ‘But Ryan hates them so I made myself forget how much I’d love one. What sort would we get?’

‘A rescue dog?’

‘Definitely. Maybe a collie.’

‘Can we call him Shep?’

‘Absolutely! Shep it is.’

‘We’ll walk the beach here, just you and me and Shep. We’ll be a family. Promise me that one day, after your disaster has struck us and we’ve survived it, that that will happen.’

‘I promise.’

‘Really?’

‘Maybe.’ Who knew? But it was nice to be optimistic.

As soon as Ryan got back to Ireland, he started cancelling weekends again. He also produced a girlfriend, the first of
many, all of them virtually identical. Every one of them broke up with him at the eight-week mark.

The first girl was called Maya – a twenty-something with stencilled eyebrows and eleven earrings.

Betsy disapproved of her. ‘Did you see her like shoes? They’re so high. Did she like steal them from a drag queen?’

‘Just because you look like an Amish.’ Jeffrey had a massive crush on Maya. ‘She’s pretty. She has a tattoo on her bum.’

‘She showed it to you?’ It was time for me to be worried.

‘She told me. A dolphin.’

A dolphin? For the love of God. Would it have killed her to be a bit original?

And so the summer moved on and I lived in a state of constant dread, surviving on little parcels of time with Mannix and waiting for him to decide I wasn’t worth the trouble.

… Then came that otherwise ordinary day in late August. I’d finished work and had popped home to pick up the kids; we were going to Dundrum to buy stuff for their new school year, which was starting the following week.

‘Come on.’ I stood at the front door and shook my keys. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Have you seen this?’ Betsy asked warily.

‘Have I seen what?’

‘This.’ The photo of Annabeth Browning, the drug-addict wife of the US Vice-President, hiding out in a convent and reading the book I’d written.

One short phone call later established that Uncle Peter’s sister’s light-fingered friend was, in all likelihood, the reason that the book had shown up DC, and I was seized with fear. Which increased exponentially when the phone rang and it was Phyllis Teerlinck offering to represent me. When she hung up, the phone immediately rang again. I let it go to answerphone; this time it was a journalist calling. As soon as she finished speaking, the phone rang again. And again. And again.

It was like being under siege. We sat and watched the ringing phone until Betsy jumped up and pulled the wire from the wall and said, ‘We need Auntie Karen.’

‘No,’ Jeffrey said. ‘We need Dr Taylor.’

I was hugely surprised. Over four months since they’d first met, Jeffrey still bristled with hostility at the mere mention of Mannix’s name.

‘Ring him, Mom. He’ll know what to do.’

So I rang him. ‘Mannix. I need you.’

‘Oookaaay,’ he said, softly. ‘Just give me a moment to lock the door …’ He thought I was ringing for phone sex. Our times together were so short and unpredictable that we took our chances where we could.

‘No, not that. How soon can you get over here? I’ll explain while you’re driving.’

I let Mannix into the house.

‘There are photographers out in the street,’ he said.

‘Oh my God!’ I stuck my head out, then whipped it back in again. ‘What do they want?’

‘Three Happy Meals and a Maltesers McFlurry.’

I glared at him and he laughed. ‘Photos, I’m guessing.’

‘Mannix, it’s not funny.’

‘I’m sorry. Hi, Betsy, hi, Jeffrey – is it okay if I close the curtains and blinds? Just until those people outside go away. So show me this magazine.’

Jeffrey thrust it in front of him. ‘The woman who rang was called Phyllis Teerlinck,’ he said. ‘She wants to be Mom’s literary agent. I Googled her. She’s real. She has lots of authors. Mom knew about some of them. See.’ Jeffrey brought up Phyllis Teerlinck’s website to show Mannix.

‘Nice work,’ Mannix said. Jeffrey glowed a little.

‘You know what I’m thinking?’ Mannix said. ‘If one agent is interested –’

‘– others must be also. That’s what I thought,’ Jeffrey exclaimed.

‘Really?’ I was taken aback. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’

‘I was waiting to talk to Dr … to Mannix about it.’

‘You want us to find out?’ Mannix asked me.

I was caught up in excitement and fear and curiosity. ‘Okay.’

Mannix started clicking at his iPad. ‘Let’s try, say, five of the biggest US agencies.’

‘Don’t go to the big ones! Try some small, grateful ones.’

‘No!’ Jeffrey said.

‘He’s right. You might as well go to the best. What have you got to lose? Okay, here’s someone at William Morris who does self-help writers. Jeffrey, try cross-referencing the
New York Times
best-seller list with agencies. Focus on self-help writers. Where’s my phone?’ Mannix hit some buttons and listened. ‘Voicemail,’ he mouthed at me, then he spoke. ‘I’m calling on behalf of Stella Sweeney. She’s written the book that Annabeth Browning is reading in this week’s
People
. You’ve got thirty minutes to get back to me.’

He ended the call and looked at me. ‘What?’

‘Thirty minutes?’

‘Right now, you’ve got a huge amount of power. We can play hardball too.’

‘Hardball?’

‘Yeah. Hardball.’

We dissolved into laughter that bordered on being out of control.

‘I’ve another agency here,’ Jeffrey said. ‘Curtis Brown. They’re big and they have some self-help authors.’

‘Nice work,’ Mannix said. ‘Do you want to call them?’

‘Ah, no,’ Jeffrey said, shyly. ‘You do it. I’ll keep looking for agents.’

So Jeffrey worked through the
New York Times
best-seller lists, finding self-help authors, and Googling until he’d found the agent’s name and number, then Mannix placed calls and
left ultimatums: return the call in half an hour or lose the chance to be Stella Sweeney’s agent.

The man at William Morris was the first to ring back and Mannix put him on speaker. ‘I appreciate you reaching out to me,’ the agent said. ‘But I need to pass. The association with Annabeth Browning is not something I’m comfortable with in the current moment.’

‘Thank you for your time.’

It was mad, but I felt upset. Less than an hour earlier I’d never even considered that I wanted a literary agent, but now I felt rejected.

‘Well, fuck him,’ Jeffrey said.

‘Yeah,’ Betsy said. ‘Loser.’

The agent at Curtis Brown didn’t want me either: ‘The market is saturated with self-help books.’

Gelfman Schneider also passed – the Annabeth Browning association again. Page Inc. weren’t taking on any new clients at present. And Tiffany Blitzer would prefer ‘to not co-enmesh with Annabeth Browning, moving forward.’

By the time Betsy plugged the landline back into the wall and Phyllis Teerlinck rang again, I was feeling very chastened and all set to agree to anything she wanted.

‘I hear you’ve been calling every agent in town,’ Phyllis said.

‘… Er … well –’

Mannix took the phone from my hand. ‘Ms Teerlinck? Stella will speak to you in fifteen minutes.’

To my shock, he disconnected the call and I stared at him. ‘Mannix!’

‘I’ve had a quick look at her boiler-plate client contract: her percentages are higher than the industry norm, her definition of “Intellectual Property” is wide enough to almost include your shopping lists, she wants thirty per cent on all
film, television and audio-visual depictions, and she has an “in perpetuity” clause which means that, if you change agents, you still pay commission to her, as well as your new agent.’

‘Oh God.’ I didn’t fully understand everything that Mannix was saying but I understood enough to have a sinking feeling. This wasn’t real. No legitimate agents were interested in me. This whole episode was like getting one of those spammy emails that said you’d won a million euro, when they just wanted your bank details.

‘Is she a bad agent?’ Betsy asked.

‘No,’ Mannix said. ‘She’s obviously a very good one. Especially if she’s as tough with publishers as she is with her own clients. But,’ he said to me, ‘I can get you better terms.’

‘I can do it on my own,’ I said.

But everyone knew I was a hopeless negotiator: I was famed for it. In work, Karen was responsible for all purchasing because I hadn’t the brass neck to haggle for discounts.

‘Let me do this for you,’ Mannix said.

‘Why would you be any good at it?’

‘I’ve had plenty of practice. I’ve cut a lot of deals to get Roland out of trouble.’

‘I say let Mannix do it,’ Jeffrey said.

‘I totally do too,’ Betsy chimed in.

‘Do you trust me?’ Mannix asked.

Now
there
was a question. Not always. Not with everything.

‘I will commit you to nothing,’ he said. ‘I’ll make no promises on your behalf. But if you do decide to work with her, the conditions will be fairer.’

‘Let him do it, Mom,’ Jeffrey said.

‘Do,’ Betsy said.

‘… Okay.’

Betsy, Jeffrey and I holed up in the sitting room and watched
Modern Families
while Mannix established a command central at the kitchen table. Now and again, in the gaps between episodes, I could hear him saying stuff like, ‘Seventeen per cent is killing me! I can’t go higher than ten.’

I’d never heard him sound so engaged about anything.

At some stage, Betsy tiptoed to the living-room window and took a sneaky look out. ‘They’ve gone, the photographers.’

‘Thank God.’ But there was a little part of me that was deflated. It was shocking how corruptible I was.

After four episodes of
Modern Families
, which meant he’d been on the phone for more than an hour and a half, Mannix hung up and made a triumphant appearance in the living room.

‘Congratulations, you’ve got an agent.’

‘I do?’

‘If you want one.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She came down from thirty per cent to seventeen on audio-visual rights, which means she really wants you – that’s a lot of equity to give away. And on print she dropped from twenty-five to thirteen per cent. I was prepared to go to fifteen.’

‘Well, that’s … great.’

‘Still details to be ironed out, but it’s small stuff. How would you feel about her coming here in the morning?’

‘Coming where?’

‘Here. Dublin. Ireland. This house.’

‘Wha-at? Why?’

‘So she can sign you.’

‘God, she’s in a hurry.’

‘She’s had a pre-emptive offer from a US publishing house. She needs a watertight contract with you before you can do a deal with them.’

‘You mean someone is offering money for the book?’ I said, faintly.

‘Yes.’

‘How much?’ Jeffrey asked.

‘A lot.’