Читать книгу Personally, I Blame my Fairy Godmother - Claudia Carroll - Страница 14

I meet with my agent, one Roger Davenport, in his offices in town. Roger, I should tell you, is a sixty-something bachelor whose ideal client would probably be Audrey Hepburn. Always dresses a bit like a magician in velvet suits and bow ties, usually accessorised with a brolly; a bit like Steed in The New Avengers. He’s also a thorough gentleman of the old school and never loses his temper with the kids who always follow him, as he strolls from his converted Georgian townhouse to his equally elegant Georgian office. I’ve often seen him sauntering through town, like it’s permanent Bloomsday, chased by kids all chanting, ‘Here mister, where’s your boyfriend?’ Water off a duck’s back though; Roger is famous for his unflappable cool and permanent good humour. Until I go in to see him, that is.

He’s sitting at his antique desk when I arrive at his office, surrounded by this morning’s papers. ‘Dear Lord, Jessie, what precisely were you thinking?’ is his opener, peering up from over Churchill-esque half-moon glasses. I fill him in, with particular red-eyed snivelling saved for the part where I stress that I didn’t know I’d done anything wrong. It’s fast becoming my new catchphrase.

‘Well, my dear,’ he frowns, looking like a consultant about to give me bad news, ‘naturally I shall do my best to source alternative employment for you. However, be warned. This will be no easy task.’

Then I meet with Roger’s publicist Paul, a prematurely grey chain smoker with so much manic energy that after ten minutes in his company I’m so exhausted, all I want to do is lie down in a darkened room and take sedatives. Together with Roger, we draft a press release, which I think just about hits the right, apologetic note between deep contrition and remorse for what I did, yet gently touching on the fact that had I suspected for a second that what I was doing was wrong, I’d have been a distant speck on the horizon.

On his way out the door to have a cigarette, statement tucked under his oxter, Paul turns to me. ‘Oh, by the way, I do have one bit of good news for you, Jessie.’

I look at him stunned, but then, optimism is an unfamiliar sensation for me right now.

Then he tells me that some topless glamour model who I never heard of has just left her boy band drummer husband who I also never heard of, for a Premiership footballer whose name I couldn’t even attempt to pronounce.

‘Sorry Paul, excuse my addled brain, but how exactly is this good news?’

‘Means you’re relegated to page four.’

I see what he means. By the time I get back to the house, the photographers and press who were there yesterday and this morning have completely dispersed. So now I know exactly what they mean by ‘yesterday’s news’.

By nine that night, I’ve broken the magical half-century barrier with the amount of messages I’ve left for Sam, which in stalking terms is probably the equivalent of running the four-minute mile. And not one single call answered. I’m too exhausted even to cry, so I just collapse into bed and sleep the sleep of the damned.

Week from hell: day two

My policy of call bombardment to Sam continues. Except now that I’ve actually had a night’s sleep and am thinking a bit more clearly, I’m furious with him. Madder than a meat-axe. I mean, for feck’s sake what exactly is going on here? Me going through career meltdown and him ignoring me? Cowardly bloody bastard. With woman’s intuition, the only possible reason I can come up with for his bizarre carry on is that Sam, media lover, with a book about to be published in a few months’ time and an ongoing campaign to become a panellist on that entrepreneur’s TV show, can’t hack being around the PR disaster that I’ve become. So if it comes to a choice between his precious career and me, his girlfriend, then guess who gets the boot? Which leaves me with exactly two courses of action to choose from: Plan A, I barge into his office to have it out with him there. Except then I’d only have to face snotty Margaret acting like a sentinel, who’d probably force me to wait in reception for the rest of the day out of pure badness. And to be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t give the old bitch the satisfaction. Plan B is just to go round to his house and stake him out there, but he lives in deepest County Kildare, about fifteen miles from any bus route and let’s face it, there’s no way I could ever afford the taxi fare. Probably just as well for him that neither plan is a runner, because the mood I’m in right now, if I did get to see him, I’d bloody kill him, then feed his rotting carcass to starving alsatians.

I leave about six messages for Nathaniel too, but, surprise, surprise, he doesn’t get back to me either. I’ve always liked Nathaniel, but in my yo-yoing emotional state, now I’m furious with him too. I always thought he was a bit weak, a bit too easily dominated by Sam and his Type A personality. Now here’s the proof. I ring Eva too, the only one of our foursome who’s still actually speaking to me, but it turns out she has another yummy mummy friend over with her kids for a play date, so she can’t talk. She swears she’ll call me later on though. Which of course, she doesn’t.

Roger calls to say that, as he suspected, no one is hiring right now. He’d put out a few feelers on my behalf, but nothing doing. ‘Best lie low for a bit, Jessie dear,’ is his sage advice. ‘When this unpleasantness all dies down, I’ll try again. Perhaps not a primetime show, but maybe something on one of the digital channels.’ This is about as close as polite, gentlemanly Roger would ever come to saying, ‘Your stock is so low in this town, you’ll be bloody lucky to get a job in community radio reading out the funeral notices on the 5 a.m. graveyard slot.’

Then Paul the publicist rings with an update; our press release has done the trick and seems to have killed the story for the moment at least. I’m now further relegated to page eight, which is marginally better than being publicly stoned.

‘Any actual…em…good news?’ I ask hopefully.

‘Are you kidding me? You don’t pay me for good news; you pay me to make bad news go away. You’re now on page eight beside the horoscopes and the weather report; as far as you’re concerned, that’s a miracle up there along with the second coming of Christ.’

Funny, my entire career, which I worked so hard for, is lying in ashes around me and yet all I can eat drink or focus on is Sam and this disappearing trick he’s pulling. I don’t even sleep that night. Every time I hear a car on the road outside, I keep thinking that it’s him and that he’ll knock on my door and that there’ll be some completely rational explanation for this crucifying silence and then he’ll hold me in his arms and everything will be just fine.