‘I’ve two tickets for the Hurling semi-final,’ Dad said sadly. ‘Now who’ll come with me?’
Then Mum remembered something and addressed Dad. ‘Isn’t Los Angeles the place where you hurt your neck?’
About twenty years ago, Dad had gone with a load of other accountants on some junket to Los Angeles, and had come back with a gammy neck from the Log Flume at Disneyland.
‘It was my own fault,’ he insisted. ‘There were signs saying I shouldn’t stand up. And it wasn’t just me, the whole seven of our necks got dislocated.’
‘Oh, mother of God!’ Mum clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘She’s taken off her wedding ring!’
I’d been kind of experimenting, to see what it felt like. The missing rings (the engagement ring went too) left a very obvious indent and a circle of white skin like uncooked dough. I don’t think in the nine years I’d been married I’d ever taken them off: being without them felt strange and bad. But so did wearing them. At least this way was more honest.
Next to register his displeasure at my departure was Garv. I’d phoned to tell him I was off for a month or so and he’d come hot-footing it round. Mum ushered him into the sitting-room. ‘Now!’ she declared triumphantly, her entire demeanour saying, ‘Time for this nonsense to stop, young lady.’
Garv said hello, and we both looked at each other for far too long. Maybe that’s what you do when you split up with someone: try to remember what once welded you together. He’d gone slightly bitty and unkempt. Even though he was in his work clothes, he was wearing his off-duty hair and his expression was grim – unless it was always grim? Maybe I was reading more into this than I should.
Indeed, he didn’t look like he was fading away through sorrow; he was still, to use a phrase of my mother’s (except she never said it about Garv), ‘a fine figure of a man’. Hazily, I suspected that these weren’t the right thoughts to be thinking in the circumstances; they didn’t seem weighty enough. But they were all I could manage. Why? Shock, maybe? Or could it be that Anna was right and Cosmopolitan was wrong – perhaps I was depressed.
‘Why LA?’ Garv asked stiffly.
‘Why not? Emily’s there.’
He gave me a look which I didn’t understand.
‘I’ve no job and… you know… ‘I explained. ‘I might as well. I know we’ve a lot of stuff to sort out, but…’
‘When will you be back?’
‘Don’t know exactly, I’ve an open-ended ticket. In about a month.’
‘A month.’ He sounded weary. ‘Well, when you come back, we’ll talk.’
‘That’d make a change.’ I hadn’t meant to sound so bitter.
Rancour mushroomed between us, like a cloud of poison. Then – poof! – it was gone again and we were back to being polite adults.
‘We do need to talk,’ he stressed.
‘If I’m not back in a month you can come and get me.’ I strove to sound pleasant. ‘Then we’ll get solicitors and all that.’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t you go jumping the gun and getting one before me.’ It was meant to sound light-hearted, but instead emerged sounding spiteful.
He looked at me, without expression. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll wait until you’re back.’
‘I won’t be working so I’ll pay the mortgage from my Ladies’ Nice Things account.’
I had a separate bank account from my joint one with Garv, into which I put a small amount every month – just enough to cover impractical sandals and unnecessary lip-glosses without feeling riddled with guilt at spending our mortgage money. Some of my friends – specifically Donna – wondered how I’d conned Garv into agreeing to it, but in fact it had been his idea and he was the one who’d come up with the jokey name.
‘Forget the mortgage,’ he sighed. ‘I’ll cover it. You’ll need your Ladies’ Nice Things money to buy ladies’ nice things.’
‘I’ll pay you back.’ I was relieved to have a bit more money for Los Angeles. ‘Is it OK for me to go to the house to get some of my stuff?’
‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ Something guilty and defensive flickered. He knew exactly what I was talking about, but he pretended not to. And I didn’t bother to elucidate. There was a funny complicity between us, and an awful lot not being said. It was the way I wanted it: if he had someone else I so did not want to know. ‘It’s your house,’ he said. ‘You own half of it.’
It was then that I had the first normal thought that a person whose marriage has just broken up should have – we’d have to sell the house. The mist cleared and my future unspooled like a film. Selling the house, having nowhere to live, searching for somewhere else, trying to make a new life, being alone. And who would I be? So much of my sense of self was tied up in my marriage that, without it, I hadn’t a clue who I was.
I felt dislocated from everything, floating in empty time and space, but I couldn’t think about it now.
‘All in all, how are you? Are you OK?’ Garv asked.
‘Yeah. Considering. You?’
‘Yeah.’ A breathless little laugh. ‘Considering. Keep in touch,’ he said, and made a funny move towards me. It began as a hug, but ended up being a pat on my shoulder.
‘Sure.’ I slid away from his heat and familiar smell. I didn’t want to get too near to him. We said goodbye like strangers.
Through the window I watched him leave. That’s my husband, I told myself, marvelling at how unreal it seemed. Soon to be ex-husband, and more than a decade of my life is going with him. As he walked out of the short drive and became hidden by the hedge, I was ambushed by an inferno of white-hot fury. Go on, I wanted to empty my lungs and bellow, fuck off back to Truffle Woman. As quickly as it had appeared, the rush of rage receded, and once again I felt heavy and kind of dead.
Helen was the only one who approved of me going to LA.
‘Smart work,’ she said. ‘Just think of the men. Lovely ridey surfey types.’ She groaned. ‘Christ. Tanned, sun-bleached hair all tangled and salty, six-pack stomachs, muscly thighs from staying up on the surfboards –’ She paused and announced, ‘Jesus, I might come with you!’
And then it hit me: I was single. I was a single woman in my thirties. I’d spent my twenties in the safe cocoon of marriage and I had no idea what it was like to be on my own. Of course I knew about singletons, about the culture of the thirty-something single person. I’d heard the statistics: a thirty-something woman had a better chance of being abducted by aliens (I think) than receiving a proposal of marriage. I had watched my single sisters and friends pursue true love, and had joined in wondering where all the good men were when things didn’t work out. But the interest I’d taken had been purely theoretical. I’d wondered where all the good men were, but I hadn’t really cared. I hadn’t been smug – at least, not consciously – but there’s no doubt that pride comes before a fall.
I had no man now. I was no different from Emily or Sinead or anyone. Although, in fairness, I didn’t want a man. I no longer wanted to be with Garv, but I was blocked. I couldn’t make the necessary leap of imagination to being with anyone else.
It was then that I had my second normal thought: My life is over. That was the only thing I was sure of, the one fixed fact in an uncertain world. I clung on to this knowledge because, strangely, it gave me comfort.
Immigration took for ever. Finally, it was my turn to hand my passport over to the big, unpleasant guy at the desk. (And it made no difference which desk you picked: somewhere there must be a factory where they manufacture these men.) As he ran a disgusted eye over me, I found myself wondering if he was married or divorced. Not – let me hasten to add – because I fancied him. I’d wondered it about the woman I was sitting next to on the plane, too, and I’m fairly sure I didn’t fancy her. I just didn’t want to be the only one…
My speculation came to an abrupt halt when he barked, ‘Reason for visiting the United States?’
‘Vacation.’
‘Where are you staying?’
‘With a f
riend in Santa Monica.’
‘And your friend in Santa Monica? What does he do?’
‘She is a scriptwriter.’
And I swear to God, Mr Narky changed before my eyes. He sat up straight, stopped narrowing his eyes contemptuously, and suddenly he was as sweet as candy.
‘Oh yeah? Someone buy her script?’
‘Universal.’ Or was it Paramount? But then they’d sidelined it…
‘So is there a part for me in this movie?’ he joked. Only thing is, I’m not sure he was joking.
‘Dunno,’ I said nervously.
‘You dunno,’ he sighed, reaching for his stamp and giving my passport a good thump with it.
I was in!
*
And there was Emily, tapping her (beautiful, Japanese-style besandalled) foot impatiently. God, it was so good to see her.
‘How are you? Psychotic with jet lag?’ she asked sympathetically.
‘Certifiable. I believe I watched three films on the plane and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about any of them. One of them might have been about a dog.’
‘Gimme that.’ Emily positioned herself at the helm of my trolley – or should I say ‘cart’? – and pushed it briskly towards the airport car park.
The heat hit like God had opened a huge oven door. ‘Lord,’ I reeled.
‘Not far,’ she encouraged.
‘Hey, look!’ I was distracted from the faint-making heat by a bunch of holy-roller, culty types, clustered on a patch of grass, wearing turquoise robes, shaking tambourines and chanting away goodoh. I half-suspected they’d been laid on specially for me – Welcome to LA – the way in Hawaii they get some girl to put one of those garlands of flowers around your neck.
Emily was unimpressed. ‘Plenty more where they came from. Get in.’ She opened the car door. ‘The air-con will be on in a minute.’
I’d never been to Los Angeles before, but I’d have known it anywhere. It was all so familiar – the sixteen-lane freeways, the tall, skinny palm trees, the adobe-style houses. The skyline was low and extended for ever – it was nothing at all like Chicago.
Every few blocks we passed mini-malls which advertised pet-grooming, nail salons, gun shops, surveillance equipment, dentists, tanning salons, more pet-grooming…
‘You could groom a lot of pets in this town,’ I remarked dreamily. It was the jet lag. I was gone a bit mental from it.
Emily had no time for such nonsense. There was a story and she wanted to hear it. ‘So what’s up with you and Garv?’
I had a very real urge to jump from the speeding car. I plumped for, ‘We were making each other miserable, so we’ve called it a day.’
‘Yeah, but –’ I could hear fear in her voice. ‘You haven’t actually split up?. You’re just taking a break from each other? ‘Cos of everything?’
What was this conspiracy? Why would nobody accept it was finished?
‘We have split up.’ My right arm began to tingle. ‘It’s all over.’
‘God.’ She sounded terribly upset. ‘But you’re not going to… get divorced?’
A wash of shame hit me. ‘What else would we do?’
‘Have you actually started proceedings?’
‘Not yet. We’re waiting until I get back.’ With those words, a fact I’d known intellectually transformed itself into something personal. ‘I’ll be a divorcee!’
‘Um… if you get divorced, you probably will.’ Emily threw me an anxious glance. ‘Is that a shock?’
‘No, it’s just… It’s just hit home.’ All the same, it had hardly been part of my life plan. ‘A divorcee.’ I tried out the word again and my ever-present sense of failure intensified. Striving for humour, I said, ‘You know what that means? I’ll have brassy blonde hair and make a show of myself at family parties, drinking too much and dancing provocatively with younger men.’
‘That’s me now,’ Emily said. ‘And, you know, it’s not so bad.’
Silence descended, and I could almost hear the turning of the cogs in her overtaxed brain.
‘But I still can’t believe it,’ she breathed. ‘Like, what happened?. Did he end it or did you…?’
I didn’t want to discuss it. I wanted to forget it and enjoy myself. ‘Neither of us. Both of us, I mean.’ Then, like a grenade, I lobbed into the conversation, ‘I think he’s met someone else.’
‘Who? Garv!’ she shrieked, nearly so high-pitched that only bats could hear her.
‘He’s an attractive man.’ I felt oddly defensive.
‘That’s not what I meant.’ With a volley of well-targeted questions she extracted the story of Truffle Woman, and she took it almost worse than I had done. Driving into the sun, she muttered, I thought the decent behaviour of Garv Garvan was the one thing I could depend on. I thought he was one of the few good ones out there. Maggie, I’m devastated.’
‘I’m not exactly jumping for joy myself.’
‘And who is this girl?’
‘Could be anyone. Someone he works with. Could be…’ I made myself say it. ‘Could be Donna. Or Sinead. He gets on well with both of them.’
‘It’s not Donna or Sinead. They wouldn’t do that. And if they did I’d have heard. Men,’ she said bitterly, ‘they’re all the same. The few brains they have are in their mickeys. How much do you hate him?’
‘Lots. When I have the energy.’ The thing was that even though I was raging with Garv, in a way I didn’t blame him.
Emily gave me a sharp look. She knows me very well, I have no secrets from her. But before she could explore further I tried to head her off at the pass.
‘It could be worse,’ I said with grisly cheer. ‘At least it’s amicable… Amicableish,’ I added, less certainly. ‘The money and house will be sorted out properly.’
‘Of course they will. Garv is nothing if not decent. At least you don’t have –’ She stopped, aghast.
‘Children,’ I finished for her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘It’s OK,’ I reassured. It wasn’t really, but I wasn’t going to think about it.
‘Do you – ‘she started, at the same time as I said, ‘Anyway! So what road is this we’re on?’
Emily ignored my attempt to change the conversation. Instead she warned, ‘Amicable or not, you’re going to have to talk about you and Garv.’
I sagged with reluctance, and all of a sudden I knew what this reminded me of. When I was sixteen I’d slipped coming down the stairs and my knee accidentally went through the glass front door. I’d ended up with hundreds of slivers of glass embedded in my knee, each one having to be removed individually with tweezers. Pain relief hadn’t been on the agenda, and I’d been rigid and sweating with pain and the anticipation of more to come. Every word about me and Garv was like another sliver being picked from my raw flesh. ‘I will talk about it,’ I said. ‘But not now. Please.’
‘OK.’
Eventually, the character of the roads began to change until we were in a modest residential area. All the houses looked like one-offs – some adobe style, some New England, some deco, painted in low-key pastel shades. There was a general air of kemptness. Everywhere there were flowers.
‘We’re nearly there. Nice, isn’t it?’
‘Lovely.’ It was just that I’d expected something a little edgier from Emily.
‘When I first moved to LA I had to live in a rotting – literally, it was rotting in the heat – apartment building in East LA, and people kept getting shot and killed outside my window.’
OK, maybe edgy wasn’t so great.
‘The murder rate in Santa Monica is way low,’ she reassured.
Marvellous!
We pulled up outside a white clapboard bungalow, with a small lawn on to the pavement. Water sprinklers worked like searchlights back and forth on the grass.
‘Keep an eye out for them fecking sprinklers,’ Emily advised. ‘They’re on a timer, and they’re always surprising me and destroying my hair. And keep an eye out for the nei
ghbours on that side, they’re the kind of people who give LA a bad name.’
‘Serial killers?’
‘New Agers; they’d read your aura as soon as look at you. The neighbours on the other side aren’t much better. Boys. College students, doing computer programming or something. They’re handy if ever you want to buy drugs, not that you’d want to, I know.’
This gave me a little breathing space of relief; I didn’t want to be surrounded by married couples. Drug-dealing students were far preferable.
Flowers blazed shocking pink against the dazzling white of Emily’s house. It was all very pretty. Then I noticed the ‘Armed Response’ sign in the front garden and my delight with my surroundings dimmed somewhat. What happened around here that an armed response was necessary?
We hoicked my stuff into the cool, shady house. While I oohed and aahed over the hardwood floors, white blinds and pretty back garden, Emily made straight for her answering machine. ‘Gaaaaaargh,’ she groaned. ‘Ring, you bastard.’
‘A man?’ I asked, with as much compassion as I could muster.
‘I wish.’
‘Oh?’
‘Maggie,’ she slumped on to a chair. ‘I’m officially Down on My Luck.’
‘Are you?’ I asked faintly, suddenly aware that I wasn’t the only person in the world who was mid-crisis.
‘I’m so glad you’re here.’
‘Are you?’ How had I suddenly mutated from comfortee to comforter?
Emily sighed, then her whole sorry story unravelled.
After the studio had passed on Hostage (or was it Hostage!?) her agent had fired her, which was nothing less than catastrophic. Studios never, but never looked at work which hadn’t been submitted by an agent; and it was almost impossible to get an agent, she explained. Every day, literally thousands of screenplays arrived at the mail rooms of the big agencies and had to go through a savage screening process. If the mail-room kids didn’t like it, it was out. If it made it past them, it had to pass muster with a reader. In the unlikely event of that happening, it got read by an agent’s assistant. And only if they raved about it would an agent deign to look at it.