‘I was up at Fogarty’s most of the evening – Paul insisted I call over a second time, after I’d done the rest of my calls. But all is well, I think. I did another endoscopy on the filly and there’s nothing sinister. He’s just panicking because she won’t be fit for the flat season, that’s all.’
I smile up at him and change the subject.
‘Hungry?’ Good tactic; a full stomach will possibly make him more amenable to what I have to say.
‘No thanks,’ he yawns, ‘I’m just so, so tired. But James has taken the phones now, so at least I can crash out for a bit. I’ll just feed the dogs then get to bed. Early start tomorrow, you know yourself.’
It flashes through my mind how polite and passionless our conversation is. More like two flatmates who hardly ever see each other than husband and wife.
‘I’ll look after the dogs, don’t worry, but before you do go to bed, Dan, there’s something we really need to talk about.’
‘Could we leave it till later? I doubt I can take too much in right now.’
He’s half way out the door and I know this is the only chance I’m going to get, so I go for it.
‘Dan, remember I told you I was up in Dublin today for an audition?’
‘An audition? Really? You never said.’
I let that go on the grounds that the guy is practically sleepwalking with sheer knackered-ness and has probably even forgotten talking to me this morning. Chances are I’m just a big, blurry shape to him now.
‘Yes, I was and I don’t know how it went but, well, you know how it is. I just have to wait by the phone now. Oh…and say a lot of novenas,’ I tack on lightly, smiling nervously.
‘Well…best of luck. I hope it all works out for you.’
Another massive yawn from him as he winds up the conversation and makes to go upstairs.
‘Dan, that’s not the whole story.’
‘No, no, I’m sure it’s not…but can’t you tell me about it tomorrow?’
For a second my heart goes out to him; the guy is physically swaying on his feet with exhaustion right now.
‘Dan, I’m sorry, but no, this won’t wait any longer.’
OK, now I have his attention.
‘Well, what is it? Some big movie role or something?’
He’s starting to sound a bit narky now, like I’m delaying him from precious sleep time.
‘It’s a play, a new play that’s on in the National in Dublin. One of the actresses is pregnant and has to drop out, so I’d be taking over from her. If I landed the part, that is.’
‘Hey, that’s terrific…well, let me know as soon as there’s news.’
‘And…you see…there’s something else too. Something important.’
OK, now I’m learning a big life lesson. Namely that when on the brink of a potentially volatile conversation with one’s other half, never EVER leave the TV on in the background. Because it has the power to throw the oddest curve balls into the mix. Right now, there’s some late-night American soap opera on TV where a wife is having a showdown with her husband and is telling him she’s leaving him.
‘I am sick of this marriage and I’m sick of being taken for granted!’ the wife is yelling at the top of her voice.
‘So what’s that then?’ Dan asks politely enough, but with ‘then can I please go to bed?’ practically etched across his forehead.
‘I’ve had enough of the way you ignore me!’ screams the TV, as I fumble around for the right words. Shit, and I wouldn’t mind, only I’d rehearsed this in my head about a dozen times this evening.
‘Well, you see, if I were to get cast…’ I start, gingerly picking my words.
‘Do you understand? You are so emotionally unavailable to me and I’ve taken all I can of this. There’s only so much neglect a person can put up with!’ fed-up TV wife is still yelling in the background. I rummage around the sofa for the remote control to switch the shagging thing off, but of course can’t find it.
‘…the show wouldn’t actually be running at the National,’ I say, gathering a bit of momentum now.
‘And, after years of putting up with the way you treat me, I’ve had enough of you and your white silences and it’s time you heard a few home truths,’ TV wife continues to screech, as I root under the armchair cushions where Jules had been sitting earlier, still searching for the remote. No joy, so I just lunge for the telly to switch it off manually. But not before TV wife gets in the final clincher: ‘Because I’ve sacrificed my own life and career for you and get absolutely nothing in return. I’ve barely had as much as a sentence out of you in months, years in fact. We’re not man and wife any more – we’re barely even on speaking terms. So now you leave me no choice but to walk out that door and never come back, do you hear me? Enough’s enough…I’m leaving you and you’ve got no one to blame but yourself!’
‘Annie, I’ve just worked a fifteen-hour day, in yet another month of fifteen-hour days. I’m this close to collapsing with sheer exhaustion. Is there any chance you’ll just stand still for two seconds together and tell me whatever it is that you’re trying to tell me?’
Deep breath. Stay calm. And remember it’s not like I even have the job yet.
‘What I’m trying to tell you, Dan, what I’ve been trying to tell you since this morning, is that if I got the part, I would be going to Broadway. To New York.’
My mouth frames each and every word. And suddenly the fireplace is at the oddest angle.
‘But hey, that would be terrific for you…you love New York…’
‘You haven’t heard the whole thing…’
‘Which is…?’
‘Which is…that I’d be gone for one full year.’
First sparks.
I was barely twenty-four hours at Allenwood Abbey when one accepted fact was drummed into me as received wisdom; namely that my dorm-mate and New Best Friend, Yolanda, fancied the actual knickers off Dan. It seemed that everyone knew, even, it could only be presumed, the guy himself.
As it happened, the following day he and I were sitting together for my very first class – as bad luck would have it – maths. By a mile my worst subject. Yolanda had warned me that Miss Hugenot, the teacher, had a weepingly annoying habit of picking on any poor unsuspecting moron whose concentration she suspected might have drifted out the window, then hauling them up to the whiteboard to write out trig equations. In full.
Anyway, in clattered Miss Hugenot, dumping a pile of uncorrected homework on her desk, before standing imperiously at the top of the class, surveying us all down her long, thin, aquiline nose. I later discovered that she was a perfectly humane woman, but to the terrified, fifteen-year-old me on my first, proper, full day, she might as well have been the Wicked Witch of the West minus the green face-paint, the broomstick and the dum-di-dum-di-dum-dum music in the background.
Please dear Jesus don’t let her pick on me, I semaphored shyly across to Dan, who just grinned back confidently with all the calm of someone who was well able to understand the finer points of differential calculus; not least what the shagging thing