The Shoestring Club (10 page)

Bird sighs. ‘Yes, I agree, sometimes her timing’s a little off. But she’s tired, she has a lot on her shoulders.’

She pauses, as if considering her words.

‘Your sister doesn’t find life easy,’ she adds. ‘She wasn’t blessed with your dogged self-confidence.’

I give a laugh. ‘Self-confidence? You’re joking, right?’

Bird looks surprised. ‘You have oodles of it, darling, too much sometimes. And you can be remarkably charming and sweet when you want to be. Your sister on the other hand obsesses far too much about the shop. At the moment it’s her whole life, along with Iris of course, but I do worry about her. And I do wish the two of you were closer. You were like peas in a pod for years. I really don’t know what happened.’

She looks at me. ‘You used to follow her around like a stray dog, remember? Pandora’s little shadow we called you. And then you started pushing her away, just after you turned twelve. I remember it vividly. What happened, darling? Can you recall?’

I blow out my breath. ‘Not really.’ Which is a total lie. ‘I guess we just overdosed on each other. After Mum, well, you know, Pandora was amazing. Did everything for me. Tidied my room, put out my clothes for me, helped me with my homework, plaited my hair . . .’

Bird sighed. ‘Too much for a young teenager to take on, looking back. But she insisted.’

I shrug. ‘I guess after a while it started to get annoying; she was making me feel like a child.’

Bird gives me a reassuring smile. ‘You were a child, darling.’

‘No, I wasn’t! I was perfectly able to look after myself.’

Suddenly it all comes flooding back to me: the anger and frustration I felt at being treated like a baby, the need to show them all that I didn’t need help, that I could happily stand on my own two feet. Three days after I turned twelve I woke up and my pyjamas felt a little damp. I looked down and found spots of fresh blood. I knew what it was, Mum had given me ‘the talk’ a few years ago when Pandora got her period, but it still came as a shock. I sat on my bed and cried my heart out, desperate for Mum. I couldn’t face telling Bird or Pandora, so I hid the pyjamas at the back of my wardrobe and used rolled up loo paper in my knickers instead of a sanitary pad. For two days I hid what had happened, until Bird changed the bed linen and saw faint red stains. I’d tried to rub the evidence away with a wash cloth, but there were still traces left.

During those two days of my very first period, something changed inside me; it was like a switch flicked from off to on. I knew everything was going to be different. I was grown up now. I had to stop relying on Bird and Pandora so much, I had to take charge of my life.

From that point on, I started to do everything myself. I started choosing what I wanted to wear every morning, pushing aside what Pandora had put out. I refused to let her help with my homework, struggled though it all by myself (unlike Pandora, I found school work difficult), and I fixed my own hair.

Then one day I got it into my head to travel home from school alone. I didn’t wait for Pandora like I was supposed to; I got the train back to Dalkey all by myself, arriving home an hour earlier than usual.

By the time I got there and Bird realized what had happened, Pandora was already racing around the school in a state, convinced something terrible had happened to me. She was so upset, Bird had to go and collect her. Bird brought me with her in the car, and as soon as Pandora climbed in, she slapped me across the face, hard, shocking both me and Bird. Boy did it sting.

‘Pandora!’ Bird cried.

‘I hate her,’ Pandora said. ‘I thought she’d been abducted or something.’ And then she burst into tears.

She cried the whole way home. I just stared out the window, ignoring her.

Bird sighs now. She’s clearly on my wavelength. ‘After all that train business, you started locking her out of your bedroom, didn’t you, darling?’ she says gently.

I nod, feeling ashamed. Not only did I lock Pandora out of my room, I also refused to speak to her for several weeks.

‘Can we not talk about this any more? I really do have to write some job application letters.’

She strokes the side of my cheek. ‘I understand. But give your sister a chance, Boolie. You two need each other.’

I watch Bird walk out and close the door behind her, then flop down again. As I lie there, staring at the ceiling, I can almost feel Pandora brushing my thick hair, trying to gently tease the knots out of it, one hand on my crown. I used to press my head into the cup of her palm, liking the firm, warm pressure against my scalp. It made me feel safe.

By the following Friday, I’m seriously depressed. Job hunting is such hard work and so demoralizing. All my previous jobs have been set up by Dad, Pandora or Bird, pulling in favours with friends. But this time Dad’s run out of people to try, most of Bird’s friends in the drapery business are sadly dead, and Pandora says there’s no way she’s contacting any of her mates in retail, not after the Baroque debacle. And then she had the cheek to ask me to mind Iris twice this week: on Wednesday night (choir practice) and Thursday night while she visited the local karaoke bar with Rowie. And no, I wasn’t invited. I did ask Pandora if I could tag along but she said absolutely not, she desperately needed a night out and she didn’t want Rowie to feel awkward.

I’ve spent every morning this week crawling out of bed and into one of Pandora’s boring black suits – the skirt is far too long and makes me look like a civil servant. I’ve tried rolling the top of it, like I used to do with my school skirt, but then I can’t tuck my shirt in, and as my boobs are much bigger than Pandora’s, the jacket won’t close to hide the shirt flaps. So midi-skirt it is.

Once suited and booted (well ballet-pumped to be strictly accurate), I’ve walked into each carefully chosen shop with a friendly look on my face and asked to speak to the manager, only to be practically sniffed at when I enquire if there are any openings in their poxy store that I don’t really want to work in anyway. Of course I don’t actually use the word ‘poxy’, I’m ultra polite. Bird would be proud of me. But I can’t take much more of it. Surely someone, somewhere, will give me a break.

At lunchtime, after dozens of shop managers looking down their noses at me in Dundrum Shopping Centre, I’ve had enough so I call it a day. Whatever happens I’m going out tonight and I’m going to forget all about my pathetic out-of-work status. I’m gagging for a drink, actually a whole wine lake of it. I’ve been looking forward to it all week, in fact the only thing that’s kept me going is the thought of getting pleasantly hammered tonight. I managed to wangle some cash out of Dad yesterday – told him I needed it for smart job-hunting shoes – and I’m raring to go. I just need someone to join me now.

It takes me hours to get home. I can’t cycle in my suit – well technically I could but the skirt would rip and Pandora would not be happy – and the buses to Dun Laoghaire only run about once every hour, and then I have to catch a train to Dalkey.

Once in the door, I climb up the stairs, kick off my ballet flats (freshly polished so they look vaguely new in case Dad asks) and flop down on my bed. I lie there, feeling utterly deflated. Right, I’m going out before I’m too depressed to even walk, I tell myself. I roll over, pull my mobile out of my bag and key in Rowie’s number. Two rings and Rowie answers.

‘Hi, Jules, everything OK?’ She sounds a little nervous.

‘Great. But I’ve been out job hunting all week and I’m pretty wrecked. What are you up to tonight? Fancy going out?’

‘Sorry, Olaf’s booked theatre tickets. Something about a doll’s house, by a Nordic guy, sounds very dark. Not really my bag but he’s pathetically keen to share a bit of his culture with me, so I’d better show willing.’

‘What about tomorrow night?’

There’s a long pause. ‘I’d better not, Jules. You know what he’s like about me rolling in drunk.’

‘We don’t have to drink. We could go to the cinema or something.’

Rowie laughs loudly. ‘Yeah, right. The last time we went to the cinema we ended up at the dodgy nightclub on Leeson Street afterwards, remember? Fingertons. With those Nokia guys. Look, I’d better go, there are customers in. Are you sure you’re OK, Jules? You sound a bit funny.’

I gulp back what I really want to say: ‘You fired me, remember, Rowie? It’s a job wasteland out there. Please, please, please take me back. And I’m begging you, come out tonight, I really need to talk to someone who isn’t eight,’ but I bite my lip and say, ‘I’m fine, honestly, just tired,’ instead.

‘Good. Olaf’s away again in a few weeks, I’ll give you a ring.’ And then she’s gone.

I don’t blame her for being a bit hesitant about seeing me, I don’t suppose I’d want to spend time with an employee I’d just fired either, even if we were supposed to be friends.

I stare down at my phone for a second and think. Then I reach over to my bedside drawer, open it and pull out the sticky note Bird had pressed into my hand yesterday. Jamie’s mobile number.

‘Here,’ she’d said after dinner. ‘This is for you.’

I looked down at the yellow square of paper and for a second my heart lifted. ‘JAMIE’ it read. And then his number. I lifted my head and smiled at Bird.

‘He dropped it in?’ I asked.

She smiled back at me, over-brightly.

‘No, Daphne did. I was over there yesterday. We both think you should give him a ring. You’re both single and—’

‘Bird! If Jamie wants to see me, he knows where I am. And stop with the matchmaking, it’s embarrassing.’

Bird and Daphne are obviously back to their old tricks. They’ve been trying to push the two of us together for years. They could never get to grips with our platonic relationship. Daphne doesn’t think men and women can be friends, and Bird’s undecided. I know they mean well, but Jamie is clearly not interested in so much as talking to me and there’s nothing they or I can do to change that.

But right now, even though he still hasn’t called in, I’m so desperate for company I ring him regardless. I feel tingly with nerves as I wait for an answer. But it clicks straight to messages. I say in a garbled rush, ‘Hi, Jamie, it’s me, Jules. If you get this ring me back. If you want to that is. But not tonight – I’ll be out with my friends. Friday night, you know how it is. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t lonely and sitting over there all on your—’ Beep. The time has run out. Damn. I’ve always envied people who can leave short, succinct, normal messages. I screw my eyes closed and then open them again. If Jamie does call around this evening, and I’m sitting in front of the telly, he’s going to think I’m such a loser. Great! I have to go out now.

And then it comes to me: Clara – Clara Sugars. Clara is one of the researchers on the Danny Delaney team and we’ve always got on really well. We’ve even gone to a couple of fashion shows together when she’s had free tickets. Every Friday night the Danny gang meet in Dicey Reilly’s pub in Ballsbridge to dissect the week, slag off other radio shows and their pathetic ratings, and to get mouldy drunk of course. And as Karen said, Lainey and Ed are away in Paris this weekend so he won’t be there. Perfect.

As soon as Clara’s voice wings down the line I start to feel a whole lot better. For a start she sounds genuinely delighted to hear from me.

‘Jules!’ she says, in her sing-song Cork accent. ‘It’s been an age, girl. What have you been up to?’

‘Job hunting mainly. Thrilling stuff – not.’

‘What happened? I thought you liked Baroque.’

Self-preservation kicks in. I don’t want Lainey to find out via Ed that I’ve been fired. ‘Didn’t work out. I’d like to try something that stretches me a bit, something more creative.’

‘I understand. Look, I’m just finishing up here and then we’re all heading over to Dicey’s. Why don’t you join us? It would be great to catch up, yeah, and I always hate being the only female.’ She pauses for a second. ‘And I’m sorry about Ed and everything. He’s away at the moment so you’re safe there. How’s the head by the way? I heard you had to get stitches, you poor creature.’ Clara was at the birthday party, along with the rest of the team.

‘Three stitches, and mild concussion. It was just the shock, you know. I’ve known Ed and Lainey a long time and—’

She cuts me off. ‘I’m dying to hear all the details, Jules, but right now I’d better get motoring or I’ll never make the pub. See you at seven, yeah?’

At ten past seven I walk into the snug at Dicey Reilly’s and feel a wave of nostalgia. For years this used to be my weekly Friday-night haunt. When Ed and I were together I was an honorary member of the Danny Delaney Crew. At first I thought it was weird that they all wanted to spend even more time together – they’re practically joined at the hip from seven in the morning until six in the evening Monday to Friday as it is. But they seem to genuinely enjoy each other’s company, plus they’re all completely paranoid. If you aren’t there, you might get talked about, and Noel Hegarty, the producer, has a barbed tongue. You can never tell when he’s going to give someone’s reputation a lashing.

Tonight, most of Danny’s team are already sitting on the curved, green leather seat in the snug, listening as Danny holds court: Noel, Clara, Mickey Darton, who’s another researcher like Ed, and a couple of other familiar faces. Plus the ghost of Ed himself, ever the clown, eyes closed, hands out in front of him singing ,‘Hello, is it me you’re looking for?’, making the whole team laugh. I shake myself out of it and try to remember what I’d decided to say.