Locked Out of Heaven Read online

  I had to run to Terry’s friend’s bathroom and be sick. What in the name of God were we going to do?

  Afterwards, I cursed Terry for hours and when I was finished doing that, I cursed myself mercilessly. Why hadn’t I taken more of an interest in what had been going on with the pubs? Why had I trusted him? Why hadn’t I put up a fight about him remortgaging the house? We’d had enough back then. We hadn’t needed more bars. But I’d agreed because I felt I owed him. I’d been feeling like that since before we got married. But it wasn’t just that. I’d trusted Terry not to let us down.

  How had I got everything so, so wrong?

  Then there were the phone calls where I’d demand that Terry tell me exactly how he planned to keep his family afloat.

  “But how can I do that when I’ve nothing left? Of course I’d pay maintenance voluntarily if I could, but you know very well that there’s nothing to give now!”

  These phone calls usually became one long obscenity, where I’d howl at Terry for gambling with his children’s futures. He’d point out that we only had Hayley, then aged thirteen, at the time he’d remortgaged the house to fund the new pubs, and if he’d known there’d be four children to support and not one he’d never have taken the risk. It wasn’t enough for me. No answers he gave me were ever enough to explain how things had come to this.

  I knew I’d have to apply to the court for a maintenance order, but as Terry said, there was nothing there to give. I could only hope he’d get another job in the interim – if he did, maybe court wouldn’t even be necessary. But right then, everything was still up in the air and I still had a period of time to go before I’d be eligible for social welfare.

  And of course, there was the thorny issue of access to the kids. Terry was currently seeing the kids every couple of days in Susie and Willie’s home, but we both knew we’d have to work out a more formal agreement. Every time we tried, the talks dissolved into obscenities. In the meantime, Terry was drifting from one visit to the next.

  If only I’d stayed where I was working . . . and the bitch of it all was, I’d loved my job. Up until five years ago I’d worked as an addiction therapist in a private residential rehab centre in the County Wicklow countryside, treating people with alcohol, drug, gambling and other addictions. I’d been working there for years and although I probably would have made a lot more money if I’d set up on my own years ago, I hadn’t needed to worry about money back then.

  I adored my job. Helping people with addictions was all I’d wanted to do since I was a teenager. It could take years in the current working environment for me to get a job again, though – and anyway, how would I even make it work out logistically? The cost of childcare would negate what I’d earn.

  The previous day, I’d asked Susie if she’d be interested in minding the kids if, hypothetically, I went back to work and her answer had left me in no doubt as to where I stood.

  “I’ve already done my bit rearing children and anyway, you’d only fleece me in what you’d pay me compared to what you’d pay a crèche.”

  I considered setting up my own business, but I couldn’t afford to rent a premises and I couldn’t bring clients into Susie and Willie’s home. There seemed to be stumbling blocks at every turn.

  Meanwhile, there was absolutely nothing left in any of mine and Terry’s joint accounts, but our family expenditure was relentless. While money had been a problem from the day I left Terry, I’d considered my worries to be short term – Terry would eventually pay maintenance when he accepted we wouldn’t be getting back together, I’d get my single-parent allowance and we’d get by – but now my prospects were a lot bleaker. I was eternally grateful for my wonderful kids, but the financial responsibility that lay ahead terrified me. What if I failed them?

  Chapter 7

  The inevitable day had come already. Sarah had only been at school a few weeks and she now had head lice. How had she been rubbing heads with other children so soon? She wasn’t even all that friendly a child! I’d applied foul-smelling lotion – bought by Susie – to her head – and mine as a precaution – and was under strict instructions from Susie to stay in the bathroom with Sarah until it was time to wash the lotion out. I just prayed Debbie wouldn’t get it. Oran, thankfully, was as bald as an egg.

  Susie reckoned she’d be okay – she’d just applied peroxide that morning and figured anything living wouldn’t stand a chance against it, although she’d left it on so long that I worried her hair wouldn’t stand a chance, either. Willie had no hair left to speak of. As for Hayley, we never saw her any more, anyway. Hayley had finished school last June and had been unsure about which college course was the right one for her, so we eventually decided to let her take a year out to decide rather than rush her into the wrong one.

  She was currently working as a waitress in a city centre restaurant to save up some money for college while living with friends in a shared house. When she’d finished school, I’d thought we’d have enough money to support her through college and hadn’t tried to stop her from living independently – it was a good way to learn about hard work and earning your living. As things had turned out, it was a damn good thing she was working. I wasn’t sure if we’d be eligible for a grant next year in light of our new circumstances – I hadn’t had time to look into that yet owing to our current madness – but one thing I knew was that I didn’t have money to pay college fees.

  Every time I thought about my financial situation, I felt physically sick. I wasn’t far off carrying a brown paper bag around with me now to control my breathing whenever reality crashed in on me, which was pretty much every minute of every day.

  I flicked through the day’s paper as Sarah played on a tablet. When I reached the gossip page, an ad at the bottom caught my eye. A TV station was looking for people who’d moved back in with their parents to appear on a new show called Diary of a Boomeranger. I hoped they didn’t find out where I lived, because they’d be knocking down my door to get me to appear on it – I was the perfect candidate. Estranged wife of man about town who used to live in the city’s poshest suburb until they split up and their house was repossessed is now living back in the city’s biggest drugs and crime hotspot with her parents and children in a tiny terraced house – God, they’d love that.

  Hmm, there was financial remuneration on offer. I wondered if it was as paltry as the sum a national paper had offered me to dish the dirt on my break-up with Terry. I was still reeling from the indignation of having been offered such a pathetic amount to bare my soul. The trouble was, I wasn’t sure what else I could do to make money fast, either.

  Later that day, I had the radio on in the background while I was washing my hair for the fourth time. It looked like I’d been sheep-dipped into a chip pan since the treatment that morning and I couldn’t seem to wash the stuff out properly. An ad was aired on a station that was associated with the TV network looking for participants for Diary of a Boomeranger, “Eire TV’s water-cooler winter schedule show”. I suppose they were going to have to do plenty of advertising to get people to sign up. Who wanted to admit publicly that their life had gone so belly up that they had to rely on their parents to bail them out?

  That evening, when the cartoons got too much for Susie and she insisted on turning on Eire TV’s nightly fashion show, we’d only just made the switch when the ad break came on. It was the first ad – there wasn’t even a cushion of a new Cadbury bar or something before the ad waltzed into our sitting room and made itself comfortable. I couldn’t help but feel the new show was following me around, taunting me. “You’re perfect for it, you big loser,” it was saying. I flicked over to the news.

  A few days later, I was poring over my income-and-expenditure spreadsheet again when the phone rang. Sarah’s class was having their first school photos taken this week and she’d come home with a leaflet outlining the photographer’s packages. There was no debate about this – I had to have those photos. I would kick myself forever in the future if I didn’t find the mea
ns to purchase them. I decided on the smallest package and had been moving figures around here and there when the call came through.

  Incoming: Judi

  Judi? She was an acquaintance of Terry’s and worked for a national newspaper. She was probably ringing to get the goss on our break-up as well, but she wouldn’t get far. I pressed the answer button, curious to see what she had to say but ready to give her a piece of my mind if she said the wrong thing. If I didn’t, I knew from experience that she’d just go on to someone else until she found some sort of story – true or not.

  “Hi, Judi, how are you? I didn’t expect to hear from you.”

  “Hi, Holly. I’m great, just great. Listen, I won’t beat about the bush. I’m working for Eire TV now and I’m helping the producer to find suitable participants for a new show going out in October—”

  “Let me guess. Diary of a Boomeranger?”

  “Oh, you’ve heard of it?”

  “Who hasn’t?” I sighed.

  “Lots of people, it seems. To be honest, we haven’t had a huge amount of applicants to the show.”

  “That’s not because they haven’t heard of it, Judi. It’s because nobody in their right mind would want to go on something like that.”

  “Maybe they’d have a change of heart if the price was right, though.”

  “Oh?”

  Judi said nothing.

  “Well, do you want to tell me what that price is, Judi, just in case I bump into any of these people?”

  She mentioned a sum.

  “Is that all?” I said while thinking to myself that it was a lot higher than I’d expected the budget for that show to be.

  “Oh, come on, Holly. It’s a pretty good offer and much more than what’s usually put on the table.”

  So they were stuck for people and had to fork out more than usual. Interesting. The show had been advertised as part of their winter schedule and I imagined they’d have to see it through now no matter how they did that. Besides, if it got good figures, they’d surely make that amount back through advertising revenue. They were leaving it late to look for people, too.

  “Why are they only advertising for people now? An ad on the radio said this was the new winter water-cooler show.”

  “Two participants are lined up, but one had to pull out owing to illness. The show needs to go ahead in October as scheduled, so . . .”

  So there was possible bargaining power. Interesting.

  “You’d have a very good chance if you applied, Holly. Do you want to throw your hat in the ring?”

  I politely declined and hung up, incredulous that I’d even considered the offer for one second.

  I turned my attention back to my income-and-expenditure spreadsheet. A few minutes later, my phone rang again. Hayley’s name flashed on my screen.

  “Mum, what’s the story? Have you and Dad sorted things out yet?”

  I sighed. Explaining to Hayley why I’d left her father had proved to be one of the hardest things about the whole situation. The truth wasn’t an option and the alternative explanation – that we’d been having problems I couldn’t discuss with her – hadn’t been going down well.

  We went through our usual conversation – me explaining that Terry and I wouldn’t be getting back together, Hayley questioning why not – for a good quarter of an hour. Eventually, I managed to move things on.

  “So, are you up to anything this weekend?” I asked.

  “I was hoping to go to a gig in the 3Arena, but I don’t have the money for a ticket.”

  I knew there was an unasked question in there. The gravity of the situation we were in didn’t seem to be a reality for Hayley.

  “I wish I could help, Hayley, but I don’t have any money myself right now. Not unless I go on TV, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, just something silly that happened earlier.”

  I told Hayley about the phone call from Judi.

  “God, Mum, why not go on this thing? You could do a Kim Kardashian and earn a fortune through spin-off activities!”

  “Apart from our derrières, Kim and I have very little in common,” I pointed out. “And hers is sexy big, whereas mine is just lardy and lumpy.”

  Hayley didn’t live in the real world sometimes, but that was both Terry’s fault and mine. She was a product of her Sorrento Hill upbringing.

  After our call, I went back to my spreadsheet yet again. I burst into tears five minutes later. I wasn’t able to find twenty lousy quid anywhere for Sarah’s pictures.

  Something was going to have to be done. We couldn’t continue like this.

  I passed my phone from one hand to the other for a good half an hour before ringing Judi back. I’d get more information about this, that was all. Anything was better than sitting here wondering how much budget-brand pasta we could buy with the contents of the kids’ piggy banks. It wasn’t as if I’d end up going on this show or anything. No. No chance.

  Chapter 8

  I sat in the reception area of Eire TV staring at a plastic tree and contemplating bolting out of the door again. My interview with Luke Loughnane, the producer of Diary of a Boomeranger, was due to start in one minute. As I sat there, I realised how little I’d thought this through. I was here to try to get a job and therefore money, yet I had no idea if I even wanted a part on the show or not. Was I crazy even to contemplate doing something like this?

  As I watched people walk in and out of the building, I realised the decision would probably be made for me. There weren’t many people in this place who looked like me. In fact, I wasn’t sure I was even the same species as the preened and chiselled specimens that were busily passing through reception. Would I be completely lost in this environment? Would it chew me up and spit me out?

  And while I was asking questions, where was Luke? While I’d preoccupied myself with assessing Eire TV heads, ten minutes had passed and there was still no sign of him. I fidgeted on my seat. I had to pick Sarah up from school on the other side of the city in two hours’ time. I needed things to run according to schedule.

  I tentatively approached the reception desk.

  “Em, sorry – Luke does know I’m here, doesn’t he?”

  The receptionist – Teena, according to a name badge on her shirt – gave me the kind of look one would reserve for extreme limescale build-up on a toilet.

  “Of course.”

  “It’s just that I have to pick my daughter up from school in a while, so I was hoping we’d start the interview when we were supposed to.”

  “As I said, Luke is aware of your presence in the building,” she said before picking up a phone that had started to ring while I was speaking.

  Another ten minutes passed. No explanation was offered as to why Luke was late, or whether he was even coming at all. It was ridiculous. I stood up to leave, then instantly remembered the pile of bills, the speech and drama classes, the school photos. I sat down again. Now I felt ridiculous.

  Tears stung my eyes. Why did I have to put myself through something like this? How had it reached a point where I so badly needed something I wasn’t even sure I wanted that I couldn’t say how disrespectful I found it to be kept waiting twenty minutes? It was a joke. And it wasn’t worth it. I stood up again.

  “Luke is ready for you now,” the receptionist said in a much sweeter voice as I walked towards the front door.

  I turned round slowly.

  Her phone hadn’t rung.

  Maybe Luke emailed her or sent her an instant message to say he was ready. I thought about the pile of bills again and found myself walking towards her.

  She got out from behind her desk and walked to a door on her left, swiping it with a card and holding it open for me.

  “Walk straight down the corridor until you reach the double doors, then go to the first room on the right. Luke will be waiting for you there.”

  She walked away before I could thank her. As I approached the double doors, I noticed a swipe system on the left. I
pushed against the doors anyway – Teena must have some way of releasing the door from reception or she’d have swiped me in, surely? The doors didn’t open. There was no way to pull them.

  I walked back to reception and pressed a light switch-esque button to let myself out. I pushed against the door. It didn’t open. I knocked on the glass section of the door, trying to get Teena’s attention. She was on the phone and didn’t seem to hear me.

  Okay. I’d have to wait until she was off the phone. I stood at the door, staring out, for five minutes before Teena mercifully hung up. I intensified my knocking efforts and after a while Teena cocked her head to the side as if hearing something from afar. Slowly, she turned round.

  She opened the door. “Holly, what are you doing hanging out there?”

  “Wearing my knuckles away!” I explained my predicament.

  “You must be mistaken. That swipe access for that door is currently broken and you can just walk straight through it. Let’s go through and I’ll show you.”

  When we went through, Teena pushed the door open and grinned at me.

  “There you go. First room on the right.”

  “But . . .”

  It was pointless – she was already striding back down the corridor, her shoulders shaking. She looked like a bold teenager in Mass trying to suppress laughter.

  I went through. The room was empty.

  I went into the room and sat down to wait, hoping I wouldn’t have to call on Teena for assistance again. She’d pull a shoulder muscle if she saw me again within the next few minutes. After a few minutes of rapping my fingernails on a conference table, I heard footsteps in the corridor. I brushed my clothes down with my hands, smoothed my hair back and stood up.

  A trendy-looking twenty-something guy walked in. Definitely not Luke – I’d seen his picture on the Eire TV website and he was in his forties. The picture looked a bit dated, though, and was probably there since he’d taken the helm at Eire TV eight years ago, when he moved to Ireland from a station in the UK.