This, by the way, is a system Jules and I have set up to monitor Audrey and her many and varied ‘little turns’. The lowest level, code one, means she’s prostrate on the sofa whinging and in need of sugary tea but if she ever makes it up to code four, the only thing to do is dial 999 toot sweet, then call the local GP and await subsequent fallout.
‘So where were you, Annie? You keep disappearing and re-appearing these days. Not unlike that TV show Scrubs.’
‘Up in Dublin doing an audition,’ I beam proudly, peeling off my coat and gloves. ‘You have my permission to be impressed.’
‘And you didn’t take me with you, you bitch! For feck’s sake, I could have done some Christmas shopping! With money you’d have had to lend me, obviously. I could have done with getting out of Dodge today; Lisa Ledbetter sat here at the kitchen table moaning for the entire afternoon. Not much point in me coming here to escape from my mother if I have to put up with The Countess Dracula instead, is there? Phrases about frying pans and fires spring to mind.’
I groan as I reach to put the kettle on.
‘You have my sympathies, hon. So tell us, how was the Countess today?’
‘What can I say? Like Lisa Ledbetter. If whining was an Olympic sport, we’d have the gold medallist living right here in our midst.’
Not an exaggeration, by the way. We all have a Lisa Ledbetter in our lives and the thing is, you just can’t allow yourself to get sucked in or else sure as eggs is eggs they won’t be happy till they drag you down with them.
‘You should have heard her,’ Jules goes on, wiping coleslaw off her face with the back of her hand. ‘She even rang Dan on his mobile to ask him for another lend of cash to tide her over Christmas. Oh, and apparently one of her kids wants to do pony riding lessons, and she got the big soft gobshite to agree to shell out for that too. I was pretending to be watching TV but heard the whole conversation. What a shameless cow; I mean, doesn’t she realise that scabbing money from Dan is my department?’
I roll my eyes to Heaven pretending to be pissed off, although I’m actually delighted that Jules is here and even more delighted that by some early miracle of Christmas, I’ve managed to miss both Audrey and Lisa. Because Jules is the perfect antidote to the pair of them.
Jules, I should tell you, is only nineteen but looks an awful lot younger still, particularly today when she’s dressed in her favourite baby-blue fleece pyjamas with her dark, jack-in-the-box curls that normally spring past her shoulders tied back into two messy, pigtails. Honest to God, the girl looks like she should still be getting ID’ed in bars.
And I know she treats this house like she’s a non-rent paying lodger, but then Jules is one of life’s naturally adorable people so it’s pretty much impossible to get irritated with her for very long. She’s Dan’s baby sister but it always feels like she’s mine too – I’ve known her ever since she was a spoilt, over-petted four-year-old girl and what can I say? From day one, we just bonded. I’d always wanted a little sister…and I certainly couldn’t have asked for one who made my life more entertaining.
And yes, of course it’s a bit weird that a nineteen-year-old college dropout should spend her days lounging around watching afternoon TV with absolutely no inclination whatsoever towards getting an actual job and supporting herself, but that’s our Jules for you. She’s one of that rare and dying breed – the entitled generation. You know, young ones who grew up having everything handed to them on a plate by doting parents and who assumed that life was all about five-star hotels and three holidays a year and wearing nothing but designer labels on their well-toned backs. The generation that landed with the hardest thump when the recession hit and suddenly all the privileges they’d taken for granted during the good years were crudely revoked.
At the time Jules had started college but when she flunked her exams last autumn, she quickly realised she’d actually have to stop partying five nights a week and actually knuckle down to some hardcore work if she ever wanted to pass. And needless to say, that was the end of that. So she moved back into her mother’s flat about five months ago and even though she claims it drives her nuts being nagged at morning, noon and night, she doesn’t seem to have the slightest intention of ever leaving. Like she hasn’t actually made the link in her own head yet between her actions and their consequences.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the girl dearly, but if you were to look up ‘indolence’ in the Oxford English dictionary, chances are it would say ‘See Jules Ferguson’. She’s like a zenned-out, calm bubble of Que Sera Sera and believe it or not she’s perfectly contented to crash out at Audrey’s for the foreseeable future, living on cash handouts from her big brother. Oh and spending all her afternoons here, the minute Audrey’s safely out of the way and the coast is clear, thereby avoiding her as much as possible. A bit like weathermen on one of those old-fashioned clocks; one goes in just as the other one is coming out.
Anyway, I pour myself out a big mug of tea and follow her into the TV room, where she’s laid out a little picnic for herself consisting of last night’s leftovers plus a bag of tortilla chips. She’s also lit the fire, but then that’s the one household chore you can actually count on her to do. I’m deeply grateful though because in this house, with the high ceilings and ancient hot water pipes, even with the heating on full-blast, it rarely gets warmer than a degree or two above freezing. Ellen DeGeneres is on TV in the background, interviewing some teen queen about her latest movie and Jules plonks down in her favourite armchair, eyes glued to the screen.
‘So,’ she says, taking a fistful of tortilla chips and stuffing her face with them. ‘Tell me all about your audition. Is it a half decent part? And by that I mean…is it worth elevating my vision from the TV for?’
I bring her up to speed on all developments in my life, debating in my mind whether I should tell her the full, unexpurgated truth. Half of me thinks what the hell, she’ll find out soon enough anyway, but the other more rational side of me thinks, no, this isn’t fair. Not till I’ve spoken to Dan. If I ever get to speak to him, that is. So I skirt around the truth and just give her the bare skeletal outline of the story.
But if I thought she’d be impressed, I was wrong. All she does is flop back onto the armchair, still munching tortilla chips, and deep in thought.
‘Shit on it anyway,’ she eventually mutters. ‘I just realised something deeply unpleasant.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘If you get this, and if they’re only looking at three other actors, then let’s face it, you’ve got a thirty three per cent chance…then…just think…you’ll be gone all day when you’re rehearsing and then gone all night when the show is playing, won’t you? Tell me the truth, Annie, what does your gut instinct say? Do you think you’ll get the gig?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Don’t say “probably not”. That worries me. What’s wrong with ordinary “not”?’
I can’t help smiling at her. You should see her, looking at me all worried, with the innocent expression and the big, saucer-black eyes. Honest to God, for a split second, she looks exactly like she did when she was about twelve years old.
‘Because if you did feck off to Dublin,’ she goes on, playing with a pig tail, ‘that means I’d be stuck here on my own, without you, doesn’t it? Bugger and double bugger it anyway. You’ve no idea what it’s like here when you’re not around, Annie. Between the Mothership with all her little turns and Lisa Ledbetter and her whinging, this house is like an open casting call for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I’m not sure that I could handle it without you. Perish the thought, but if that were the case, then I might actually have to do the unthinkable and…pause for dramatic effect…go out and get a job myself.’
Vintage Jules. The first question she’ll always ask when faced with a new set