Sam. I almost drop it with nervous anxiety and before he’s even said a word, my heart’s already twisting in my ribcage.
‘So…you got my messages then?’ is my opener. Shit, I didn’t mean to sound sarky, it just slipped out.
‘Yes.’
‘That’s all you’re going to say? “Yes”? A monosyllable?’
There’s an awkward pause, so I do what any TV presenter does when faced with a hiatus, fill it up with gabble and shite. The nightmare the last few miserable days have been, the agonising worry over why he was blanking me out—
‘Woodsie,’ he interrupts and I jibber over him. But then nervous tension tends to have that effect on me.
‘I need somewhere to stay,’ I stammer. ‘So – and I know it’s an awful lot to ask – is it OK if…Look, what I’m trying to say is…and of course, it would just be until I get back on my feet again…but the thing is…can I move in with you?’
There’s silence. I didn’t expect silence. I have to say ‘Sam?’ a few times just to check that he’s still on the line.
‘I’m here,’ he says dully and I swear to God, now I can actually feel the beads of sweat starting to roll down my face. ‘To be honest, Woodsie, I think right now, that would be a bad idea. A really bad idea.’
For a second I can’t speak. Then more gibberish comes tumbling out, Tourettes-like. ‘Look, I know it’s a big ask, and an even bigger imposition, but Sam, it’s just temporary, just until I find another job, that’s all…’
‘I’ve got my parents coming to stay, so I’m afraid it’s not going to work.’
‘But your house has seven bedrooms! It’s not like we’ll all be on top of each other!’
‘Look, there’s no easy way to say this, but I really feel that…’
The breath catches in the back of my throat. ‘You really feel that…what?’
‘That you and I should take a bit of a break. I need to be honest with you; I’m finding all of this negative media attention very difficult to live with.’
There it is, the one cold, bald sentence that I’ve been dreading this whole, horrendous week. Funny, now that it’s out in the open, a dead calm comes over me. ‘Just so you’re clear on a few things, Sam,’ I say icily, almost spitting, staccato style. ‘The negative media attention as you call it, is dying down. We put out a press release and that’s pretty much killed the story—’
‘Woodsie,’ he interrupts, ‘you know where I’m coming from here.’
I’m cooler now so I let him talk. And out it all comes, all my worst fears, verbalised. He’s worked so hard to get to this level of his career and bad press is the last thing he needs right now, he feels his position is utterly compromised because he and I are so publicly linked together…blah-di-blah-di-blah.
It’s like he’s reading from an instruction manual on how to break up with someone and leave them with absolutely no hope of reconciliation. And all I feel is numbness, like I’m anaesthetised from pain that’s going to hit me like a sledgehammer any minute now.
‘What you’re trying to tell me, Sam, is that you don’t want to be tarred by association with me. Like my fall from grace is something contagious.’
‘Woodsie, look—’
Then I throw in an old classic. What the fuck, I’ve nothing to lose. ‘I thought you loved me. But here you are, at the first real hurdle we’ve ever had to face, bailing out, running for the hills. You’re the single most important person in my life and I mess up once and suddenly you decide that I’m flawed and therefore dispensable. Have you any idea how that makes me feel?’ My voice is shaking so much, I’m amazed I even managed to get that much out coherently.
‘Woodsie, you’re taking this the wrong way…’
‘What other way is there to take it? You’re dumping me over the phone? After two years?’
‘Can we drop the dramatics? No one is dumping anyone. I’m just suggesting we take a break, that’s all.’
It’s an odd thing when the man you love asks you for ‘a bit of time out’. Makes you feel like the first quarter in a basketball game.
‘Woodsie? Are you still there? Because there’s something else I need to say to you.’
I catch my breath, waiting on some crumb of comfort he might throw my way.
‘I’m having my PR people put out a press release to say we’re not together any more. I think it’s best for both of us to put a full stop to this. Don’t you?’
Week from hell: day five
Somehow I manage to get out of bed and haul myself to the one meeting I’ve been postponing all week but have now run out of excuses for. My accountant. You should see me; I’m like a dead woman walking. Literally. Dead on the inside and dead on the outside. The whole way there, all I can think is, If I were to getrun over by that bus…it wouldn’t necessarily be the worst thing that could happen. Given the rate at which my entire life is unravelling, I’d be surprised if Satan wasn’t waiting at the gates of hell for me with a fruit basket and a complimentary robe.
My accountant is called Judy: she’s a widow with four sons all of whom she’s single-handedly putting through schools and colleges, and I’d say she’s never been in debt once in her whole life. I think she realises that there’s rock bottom, followed by another 500 feet of crap before you finally arrive at where I’m at right now. So, for once, she’s going easy on me.
She sympathises over my being turfed out of the house and even manages not to invoke the one phrase that really would send me over the edge, ‘I told you so.’ Then, for a full hour, Judy goes through every sickening, nauseating entry on my credit card statements, household bills, the works, trying to figure what we can write off against my tax bill versus debt that just has to be saddled onto all of my other loans and toxic debts. I’ve even come clean with her about the secret Visa card I’d been hiding all along. At this stage, on the brink of bankruptcy, what’s another few thousand? But, try as I might, even in my numb, deadened state I still can’t tune her out entirely and snippets of past extravagances keep filtering through, stabbing me right in the solar plexus.
Shopocalypse Now. Story of my life to date. Veni, Vidi, Visa.
‘The fifteenth of last month, crystalware from Louise Kennedy, €485.’
I remember. Six beautiful long-stemmed champagne flutes. An anniversary gift for Nathaniel and Eva. Who by the way, I rang this morning to ask/beg/plead for a temporary roof over my head. Eva didn’t even have the good grace to sound concerned about me; just said that they’d now decided to stay down in Marbella with the kids for longer than they’d thought, so it just wasn’t a runner. Anyway, she’d spoken to Sam and knew about our break-up. Knew about it before I did, I’ll warrant. And her final word on the subject? ‘Yeah…you know, we’re really sorry but I suppose these things happen. Shame you won’t be coming away with us this Easter. You’re always such fun to be away with.’
Like I’m some kind of court jester. But however vague and dismissive she sounds, the subtext is clear as the crystal I bankrupted myself to buy for her; Sam was their friend long before I came along, so, foursome or no foursome, if anyone is going to get jettisoned, it’s me. Of course it is. I’m utterly dispensable. In Eva’s eyes, I’m broke = I’m out.
In fact, the only real friend that’s come out of all this for me is Emma. Before I’d even had a chance to ask, she said that I’d be more than welcome to stay at her flat in town. The only person I know who actually offered to put me up. There was a catch though; she’s on a few months’ paid leave from Channel