Annalise had a feeling they were laughing at her, but she wasn’t sure why. Of course, she was nervous, it wasn’t every day you got on ‘Talkshop’. It was a big deal and she wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Gail and the Miss Ireland contest. The show was meant to be ‘current affairs for women, by women’. Annalise wasn’t really into current affairs, so she hadn’t made too many comments so far. Gail said keep quiet unless they talk about fashion or beauty. Well, when Annalise heard them start up about Titanic, she figured that was her cue. She’d gone to see it with her mum, yonks ago. To her mind, it was a classic, none of that old black and white stuff for Annalise thank you. She didn’t really get the whole thing about commemorating it, but to her mind, it was as good as anything to commemorate. She’d take Leo DiCaprio any day over some long-dead war hero who probably had poor grooming and no interest in fashion or appearance. Not that she was shallow, of course, but looks were very important for media work.
‘So sad,’ she said as soon as she got a chance and tried to look doe-eyed for the camera.
‘Actually the people of Belfast are delighted to celebrate it,’ the haughty feminist on the far side of the table said over glasses that didn’t quite sit before her eyes.
‘Well, I don’t know how anyone wouldn’t cry when Leonardo DiCaprio died at the end,’ Annalise said.
‘We are talking about the same thing here, right?’ The feminist sat forward a little, as though she might produce a little square egg to show everyone just how much in control she was of those ovaries. ‘I mean, you do realize that was just a film?’
‘Of course, I went to see it with my mum, and you’re wrong, you know; it wasn’t a hundred years ago, I was still at school when we went to see it.’ Annalise could hear the muffled snigger of Susan Lynsey, although she was no one to be laughing at anyone, with her boring junior minister boyfriend. Susan was a model too, but she was strictly fashion and snotty about it. Susan didn’t ‘do’ bikini shots, she had said earlier, swiping disdainfully at Annalise when they mentioned her Miss Ireland title.
‘Oh, Annalise,’ Susan said, her voice syrupy, but her eyes were mocking. ‘We’re talking about the actual Titanic,’ she smiled sweetly, ‘the one that sank on its maiden voyage a hundred years ago.’ They all laughed at that. Annalise didn’t see the joke, but she remembered to smile at the camera when it zoomed in close to her face, doing her best to look like Kim Kardashian after her divorce was announced.
*
Annalise couldn’t say a word. She patted at her lashes, could feel the mascara thick and clumpy come apart. How was she supposed to know there was an actual ship that sank a hundred years ago? Who really cared about a hundred years ago anyway? She was a laughing stock, knew it before she left the studio. She was defeated. It felt as if she’d managed to throw away her big opportunity before it had even arrived on her doorstep. To think that this morning she’d been dreaming about a career in television. Hah, they wouldn’t ask her back now.
Annalise hadn’t the heart to tell her father. He was so proud of her. Instead, she sat in the little Mini Cooper he gave her for Christmas and made her way to see Gail Rosenstock. Gail had a suite of rooms in one of the smart Georgian Squares south of Grafton Street. The whole place was a mixture of fresh lilies and grey walls hung with large black frames of her best models in black and white prints. Annalise never really believed she’d make it onto the wall. Not fashionable enough; Miss Irelands never were. She hadn’t realized it before she won the competition, but there was a difference between fashion and glamour. The first, Gail told her, was chic; the other was glitz. No matter what Annalise did, she was never going to be fashion. As she weaved her way stylishly along the path, she was conscious as ever that Gail might be watching her approach. Annalise wanted to throw herself at the glossed front door and bawl like a baby at the unfairness of it all. Perhaps she was naively hoping for support or at the very least constructive advice. Gail Rosenstock had put her on her books just eighteen months earlier. It wasn’t an easy relationship. She was in no doubt that Gail had her favourites. The Miss Ireland crown seemed to have pushed her to the top of the pile, but before the finals, she’d been handing out leaflets in a bikini at the boat show.
‘You’re not seriously going to tell me you never knew the Titanic was a real ship, a real disaster story.’ Gail looked at her as though Annalise had just attached herself to her shoe and she knew it was going to be problematic to extricate herself.
‘Of course I knew, I was just nervous, first time on the telly and all that. They weren’t nice at all.’ She couldn’t admit it, but what good did it do anyone knowing about things that happened that long ago? Annalise prided herself on her in-depth understanding of pertinent facts. For instance, not one of those intellectual types could have named out the hottest nail colours for the coming season from all the top French houses.
‘You know the Pageant are trying to shake off that whole dumb blonde image. The feminists are doing a real hatchet job on everything this year.’ Gail was looking at the backs of her hands, but her voice was dangerously low. ‘They called me this morning, Annalise.’
‘Oh,’ Annalise felt her mouth go dry. ‘And?’
‘The clip went viral. Susan Lynsey posted it on social media and it seems she made it look even worse than it was. You’re on repeat saying the same thing over and over, and then there’s that dreadful empty-headed pout at the end.’
‘Well, didn’t you say that all publicity is good publicity?’ Maybe they weren’t exactly the words, but it was the gist.
‘This makes you look silly, and the pageant people feel, by extension, it makes them look ridiculous.’ She shook her head; the only sentiment here was annoyance. Annalise had messed up and Gail wasn’t going to make her feel good about it. ‘They want the crown back and they are giving you the opportunity to do it quietly or else they will make an example of you.’
‘That’s not fair.’ Annalise knew she sounded no better than a teenager – worse, she sounded like a pre-schooler. ‘They wouldn’t.’ It was all she could manage. She caught sight of herself in the mirror behind Gail. For a moment, all she could see was a disappointed little girl. She felt as though all the blood in her body was travelling fast from her head to the tips of her new Gucci stilettos. ‘Don’t they understand what this means to me? To my family? God, my dad will be devastated.’ She whispered the words, hardly aware of Gail anymore. These days, Annalise, with her false hair, nails and permatan rarely looked vulnerable, but now she knew she was disintegrating into a horrible caricature of the carefully created image. And she was far too upset to do anything about it.
‘You’ll have to hand the crown back,’ Gail was speaking quickly, the shock of red hair that she clung on to, despite its obvious thinness, a thorny crest threatening to degenerate on her creamy scalp at any moment. It moved manically about her pate as though controlled by some power even greater than Gail’s. ‘I don’t want to be associated with this kind of publicity – mud sticks,’ she bellowed across the desk at the distraught Annalise.
‘Okay, so, what do I do?’ She hadn’t missed the implication, this was bigger than just giving the crown back.
‘Keep a low profile, talk to the pageant people, see if you can win them around, see if they have anything else to offer, but I doubt it.’ Gail lit one of her long filtered cigarettes belligerently; she still smoked at her desk. There was no smoking ban for Gail, she made the rules and everyone stuck by them.
*
It was with a heavy heart that Annalise handed her crown onto the runner-up and made her way to the Liffey Medical Clinic. She cried the whole way. It felt as if she’d lost the one thing worth having. She went straight to the bathrooms on arrival. There was no fixing the mess her make-up had jellied into; she washed off what remained of it. Afterwards, staring at her bare face in the muted lights, she didn’t even try to convince herself that things would get better. It was as if the sparkle had fallen from the glitterball of life. Still, she might as well keep the appointment. She wasn’t sure if bigger boobs were the way to go, but anything had to be better than wallowing in the loss of her big chance.
*
Paul Starr wasn’t the first man to tell Annalise Connolly that she was beautiful. The difference was, when he said it, she had a feeling he was telling her not to get anything from her, but rather to give her something for herself. That was just Paul. They’d met, quite by accident. She’d been hoping to get a little work done, discreet enhancement, just a little pick-me-up for her self-esteem as much as for her B-cups. David Rayner was the best surgeon in the business. Rumour had it that he’d done work on Katie Price, in her Jordan days – not that Annalise wanted to go that route. To be fair, she was very upset when she knocked on his door. Amazing the difference a couple of days makes. The crowning ceremony had been the best night of her life.
‘You think surgery is for you?’ The doctor looked at her in a way that suggested that she was not quite in on the joke, but he made her feel as if she didn’t need to be. He was tall, maybe twenty years older than she was, but still attractive. She could tell he didn’t work out, but he was in great shape, without that completely buffed look that the fashion boys went for.
‘I’m not sure, I think it’s the only thing to do now…’ she said and, to her mortification, felt hot tears well up behind her eyes. The tale of the last couple of days came tumbling out and Paul handed over tissues while she blubbered about all she’d managed to mess up for almost half an hour.
‘I think you should count yourself very lucky. Who wants to be in a pageant when you could so easily be doing something far more worthwhile?’ he said as he walked towards a small cupboard on the other side of the room. He made them tea. ‘Green or white?’ he asked as he dropped bags into the boiling water. The smell revived her, just a little.
‘White is good,’ she said, eventually looking around the office that she’d been too distraught to take in before. The silence of the place was a little unnerving, but there was no denying that money and taste had free rein on choosing the medley of cream, white and ash that acted only as a backdrop to the man himself and the drama of the canvases on the walls. ‘You have good taste,’ she said, nodding towards a giant painting on the wall to her left.
‘No, I’m afraid that I’m just the lucky recipient. My wife.’ His expression darkened, and a vague, shallow furrow creased his eyes. ‘She’s a very talented artist.’ The way he said it, Annalise had a feeling that maybe that was all she was.
‘Oh?’ she studied the painting; it only took a moment to recognize that distinctive style. ‘Oh, my God, you’re married to Grace Kennedy?’ The delicate cup almost fell from her hand. ‘My mum loves her work – Dad bought a small print for their anniversary.’
‘Yes, well, marriage is a funny thing.’ He said the words sadly, his eyes never leaving her face, and in that moment, she felt something tug at her heart. Maybe not all of her emotions had been wrenched from her?
‘Feel any better?’ he asked her as she sipped her tea.
‘A little,’ she whispered shyly.
‘Well, as a doctor,’ he smiled at her, ‘I’m going to prescribe the following.’ He took out a notepad and slipped a slim pen from his pocket. ‘First, I think you should forget about the Miss Ireland competition. None of the supermodels ever bothered with any of that, did they?’ He smiled at her.
‘No, but they…’
‘Never mind “but they”,’ he said, writing for a moment on the pad before him. ‘Next, I don’t think I should perform the surgery on you for a number of reasons.’ He locked eyes with her so she caught her breath; she couldn’t break the contact even if she tried. ‘Number one, you clearly don’t need it – unless you want to be a page three girl and, to be frank, I think you’re much too classy.’ He smiled at her. ‘Number two, even if you think it will make you feel better, I guarantee, it’ll make you feel worse – ouch!’ Even Annalise managed to smile at that. ‘And number three, I’m a heart surgeon, not a plastic surgeon, so I’d probably not make the best job of it anyway.’ He took up a folder from the desk and pointed to his name, printed in bold caps across it. ‘Sorry.’ He smiled again, almost apologetically, ‘but I couldn’t let you leave here, not without making sure that you’d be all right; you were obviously so upset when you arrived.’
‘I must have been if I came into the wrong surgery.’ Annalise found herself laughing, an unexpected outcome for the day.
‘So, at least you’re smiling.’ He got up to show her out. ‘Cosmetic Surgery is on the next floor, but really, my advice is for you to go home and get over this disappointment.’ He handed her the slip of paper he’d been writing on the desk. Outside in the waiting room, two women sat beneath a giant oil painting of a serene lake in the midday sun. Annalise wondered about Grace Kennedy and what kind of a woman it took to captivate a man like Paul Starr. She knew men like him were way out of her league – they’d go for the smart girls, the talented girls, the successful girls. At the lift, she unfolded the piece of paper he had handed her. It contained only two words: Good luck and then his phone number beneath.
Twenty-six years of age, and she had a grey rib. Annalise Connolly couldn’t figure why these things always happened to her. These days, life happened to Annalise, nothing she could do about it. That was half the problem though, wasn’t it? That and the fact that she felt fat and manky and trapped! There, she said it. She peered closer into her bathroom mirror. It wasn’t good. She was morphing into someone unrecognizable. She was wearing a scrunchy, for heaven’s sake. Not a good scrunchy either; not one like Ralph Lauren featured in his Spring/Summer New York collection, where the models had their hair sculpted – yes, actually sculpted. God, Annalise thought to herself, I’d love that. There were probably livelier looking corpses up in Glasnevin cemetery. Paul had said it, at the time; lime green was not a good colour for a north facing en-suite. She should have listened to him; he was never wrong. Paul. They were, she knew, an unlikely pair. A Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones – only they were both ancient.
‘Come on you guys,’ she yelled down the corridor at Jerome and Dylan. Two children, four years; how had that happened? ‘Dylan, take the saucepan off your head,’ she said absently as she walked past the melee that permanently covered her kitchen floor. ‘Homes are for living in,’ she had told Paul all the time. Anyway, she’d much rather spend time with the boys than all day cleaning as if she were some unfortunate Eastern European woman. The saucepan was stuck. She tugged it as hard as she could, but there was no moving it. Madeline would know what to do about this.
Madeline Connolly was still a young woman – early fifties, although she’d pass for skimming along the edge of her mid-forties. She was the polar opposite of her daughter. A qualified accountant, she wore her auburn hair neat, her clothes sharp, and offered her advice wisely and sparingly. She gave up work when Adrian was born, tried for baby number two and eventually conceded that it wasn’t going to happen. Then, the adoption board made contact. They had a little girl, three years old, pretty as a picture, birth mother had died of a heroin overdose, father unknown. Her parents had been honest with her from day one, but they’d loved her as much, sometimes, she wondered, if not more, than her bookish brother. Adrian lived in the Emirates now, a successful engineer. She had at least managed to pip him to the reproduction post. Maybe, she thought, it was the only thing she’d managed to do well.
‘You have to come over, Madeline.’ She rang out of desperation. Her mother wasn’t due to visit for two more days, but… she couldn’t ring Paul. True, he would sort everything out, but he made her feel as if she was hopeless. Not that he would say anything to make her feel bad; quite the opposite, it seemed he loved her even more when she was floundering. Funny, but even though he was still willing to rescue her, she had come to the point where being rescued wasn’t as important as feeling capable and in control of things. ‘I can’t get it off his head.’ The saucepan had fastened tight; Annalise bent down and kissed him on his adorable nose; how could you get cross with such a cutie?
‘Have you tried butter, dear?’ Always practical, cool as a breeze, Madeline Connolly had an endless reservoir of patience with her daughter.
‘I’ve tried everything but putting his face in cold water.’ Dylan, for his part, seemed unaware of her distress and his head was lodged securely in one of – thank God – her cheaper saucepans. ‘But his ears are turning a dark blue,’ Annalise wailed and she wiped a sodden cornflake from his forehead and wondered what else was lodged inside.
*
Friday in the emergency department was not as busy as Annalise had expected or rather dreaded. Her mum dropped her off at the front entrance.
The waiting was the pits, of course. There were people there much worse off than Annalise, Dylan and the saucepan which had taken on a personality of its own. The saucepan-helmet now had special powers that Dylan expanded on much to the entertainment of all around them. Annalise tried to keep their distance from anyone who looked downright contagious. It took three hours before they were called. It seemed that everyone else in the waiting room was either old enough to be dead already or young enough to belong in the maternity suite. There were two small babies; their pitiful cries had stirred something in her. She’d have loved a girl – she adored her boys of course, wouldn’t change them for the world, couldn’t imagine life without them – if only she could order exactly what she wanted; one, small pink cherub. She had enjoyed her pregnancies, the scans, the yummy-mummy massages in the local beauty parlour and the way everyone spoiled her. Even the birth – she’d had gas, air, and the offer of an epidural, but two pushes and it was all over. She’d never tell anyone that of course; it was something of a badge of honour if you suffered a little. Paul’s first wife, Grace, had had a terrible time of it; not that he talked about it much. Same as her own mother; one child and that was it. ‘Funny how these things are easier for some people than others,’ she’d said once to Madeline. If the barb hurt, Annalise hadn’t noticed or meant it. No, she’d ridden on the excitable wave of each pregnancy. She’d even bagged a deal with one of the TV stations to front a healthy-eating campaign. The Duchess of Cambridge inspired it; Annalise loved every minute of it and people had loved her. ‘Maybe it’s because they’re getting to see what I see – the real you,’ Paul had murmured in her hair as he’d picked her up from the studio one afternoon.
‘Amazing how the doctors know exactly what they’re doing,’ she said to one of the nurses. Two junior doctors applied a light lotion about Dylan’s skull and then pulled sharply so the cornflakes Dylan had mysteriously put in the saucepan before putting it on his head splattered in a distasteful spray that could as easily have been vomit from the stench.
‘Was the milk sour?’ An old battleaxe glowered at Annalise as though she might have stuck the pan on the child’s head on purpose.
‘Of course not,’ Annalise said defensively, but the wailing started again, so she bundled up Dylan and began to make her way out of the cubicle.
‘Don’t forget your saucepan.’ A younger nurse handed her the offending kitchenware.
‘At least it wasn’t a good one,’ Annalise said, popping it into her Coach bag. The nurse looked horrified and Annalise moved closer to her. ‘No, it’s all right, really; this is an old bag. I’d never put a milky saucepan into anything this season.’ As she was leaving the hospital, she spotted a familiar shape making its determined way towards her with a small child struggling to keep up.
‘Annalise,’ mwah, mwah – Kate Dalton expertly air-kissed upwards, missing her mark by a calculated four inches either side. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Oh, just a minor household accident.’ She nodded towards Dylan. Thank God she’d thrown the offending pot in her bag. Kate Dalton. She’d started out plain old Katie Prendergast. She got hitched in Castle Leslie – like Heather Mills, only with horse-racing celebrities instead of rock stars. She’d married a Cheltenham Gold Cup winning jockey, not much taller than herself. ‘One of those silly things. That’s boys for you.’ Annalise ruffled Dylan’s sodden hair. ‘And who’s this?’ She bent down towards the little girl at Kate’s side.
‘This is my daughter, Nicola,’ Kate said, her voice was soft in spite of the tight grip she maintained on her hand, but the child remained statue-still.
‘Hello Nicola, you are just like your mummy, so pretty.’ Annalise thought she caught a quivering smile, but her overwhelming sense was of detachment in the child’s face. ‘If only boys were as well-behaved,’ she said, standing again. Even if she had a natural jelly in her handbag, she had a feeling the child wouldn’t be allowed it. Kate had always been very diet-conscious.
‘Well, of all the days to meet you here.’ Kate took stock of her. Annalise was grateful she’d managed to change into smart shoes and her nice coat; she could have been in jog pants and a hoodie. ‘We’re having a fundraiser tonight.’ Kate nodded back towards the hospital.
‘Here?’ Annalise couldn’t quite manage to take the surprise out of her voice. Nowhere in the world felt less party-like than the emergency ward.
‘No.’ She shook her head, took a deep breath and, as though speaking to a six-year-old, ‘We’re raising funds for the hospital. I’m on the board. We’re trying to get an assessment unit for children.’ She nodded down towards the child beside her. She was lovely, a miniature version of her diminutive mother. She had the same clear skin, dark hair, perfect features, but eyes that continued to stare somewhat unnervingly at Annalise. ‘Nicola has autism,’ Kate said the words gently; it was as much an explanation as an introduction.
‘I’m sorry,’ Annalise said and then had a feeling that she should have said something else.
‘It’s…’ Kate took a deep breath, ‘it is what it is, thank you though; I’m sure you mean well.’ She ran her perfectly manicured hand gently across the child’s glossy hair, then fixed her gaze on Annalise. ‘You have two children, don’t you?’
‘Yes, holy terrors.’ She was delighted to get back to home ground, at least something she could talk about with some degree of confidence.
‘Both healthy?’ It almost felt as though Kate was setting up some kind of trap for her. Of course, that was the good thing about being Annalise; she didn’t have to pretend she even noticed, mostly she actually didn’t.
‘Yes. All healthy and happy.’
‘That’s good. You’ll support us to fundraise, won’t you? Can’t put a price on having a health service you can rely on. You can bring that mysterious Paul Starr with you. It’s as if he’s kidnapped you; no one sees you since you married him.’ She wrote the details of the hotel and time down on a small card for Annalise, and made her promise she’d be there. ‘We need all the help we can get the way things are these days.’
‘I’m not sure.’ Annalise wanted to pull out her chequebook and write out an astronomically large amount in favour of the hospital. The only thing stopping her, of course, was the saucepan sitting smack bang on the top of her handbag. If it had been one of her better ones, then perhaps…
‘Listen, it’s not just about the money,’ Kate always seemed to be able to read people, ‘you’re still good for the press. They love you, especially after that piece you did when you were pregnant. Most of the other girls wouldn’t have been seen dead in public if they were that fat.’
‘I wasn’t fat…’
‘Yes, we know that.’ Kate leaned in closer, as though they were best friends sharing some secret that no one else was in on. ‘Anyway, isn’t it time you got back out on the scene again? You can’t hide away forever. Who’s to say? You might even enjoy getting your picture in the papers again.’ Then she was gone, striding purposefully away, the little girl keeping up her pace awkwardly at her side. Autism. Annalise thought about it for a moment. She was luckier than she’d realized.
It actually turned out to be a good day. Madeline made them all a lovely casserole and stayed at her house for most of the afternoon. Annalise spent two hours channel hopping between Jerry Springer and Fashion TV while Madeline took the boys to the local park. ‘It’s been an horrendous experience for you, dear.’ Madeline popped the offending saucepan in the dishwasher. Annalise put the card from Kate on the mantelpiece but then took it down. It proved too distracting up there. It was a very nice card, exactly what she’d expect Kate to have designed for herself. It contained little more than her name and contact details. A narrow line of text at the bottom of the card announced that she was a P.R. consultant. Sometimes it seemed to Annalise that everyone had a career but her. Even the supers were still modelling, and god knows they were as ancient as Methuselah.
Paul worked so hard and it wasn’t, as she’d told him so often, as if he needed to. Paul just loved his job, she supposed. They could easily have lived on her allowance. Her father had given them the mock-Georgian house they lived in as a wedding gift. Maybe it wasn’t Paul’s scene, but they had a boyband singer next door and a celebrity chef at the other end of the row. Annalise thought it was perfect; if it was ostentatious, she didn’t notice. Each year her dad presented her with a new car. The latest had to have cost the guts of a hundred grand – and she loved it. ‘Company car,’ he told her proudly. ‘Just take care of my grandchildren; that’s work enough for you to be worrying your lovely head about.’ Her dad was the best. He’d come up from the country with little more than the shirt on his back, and within a few years of meeting and marrying Madeline Divine they’d managed to build up a car sales empire that had sewn up half the dealerships up and down the country. In some ways, Paul was similar to her dad; work meant something more than just money at the end of the week. Like her dad, he too wanted to look after her and spoil her. Annalise began to feel uneasy. Did she want to be married to her dad? Sometimes she thought back to their first meeting; Paul might have been in an empty marriage, but there was no mistaking he was very proud of his successful artist wife. Annalise hadn’t been successful at anything in her life, the one shot she had at it, she messed it up spectacularly.
‘Anyway,’ Paul told her when she mentioned he worked so hard, ‘I have other commitments, remember.’
‘Of course I remember,’ she’d said, but she never wanted to think about Grace Kennedy or Delilah. That time was over for Paul. Mostly Annalise convinced herself that he’d probably never really loved Grace Kennedy at all. He loved Annalise, she was sure of that. He let her have everything she wanted, never put pressure on her. When she realised she was pregnant with Jerome, he’d been over the moon, and there had been no looking back. Life had turned out well for Annalise; she was married to a man who adored her with two kids that were the centre of her life. What more could any of them want?
*
‘Long day?’ Annalise kissed Paul lightly as he discarded his coat. The boys were in their pyjamas, fed and washed, there was not a soggy cornflake left on any of them. She handed Paul a tall glass of gin and tonic when he walked in to the sitting room. He slumped into the leather chair that she’d ordered especially for him for Valentine’s Day. ‘Fancy hitting the town with me tonight?’
‘I didn’t think we hit the town anymore?’
‘Well, normally we don’t, but…’ She explained about Kate, Nicola, and fundraising for the hospital. She was as excited as if she was off to her first teenage disco.
‘You go; I’ll stay here with the boys.’
‘I’ve organised a babysitter; she’ll do everything. Really, I’d love you to come.’ Sabine worked in the beautician’s. She was a whizz with make-up, hair and false nails. For an extra fifty, she’d promised to mind the boys. There was no time for waxing, not properly anyway. It meant Annalise’s skirt would have to be long, so she’d borrowed an Ellie Saab 1970s-inspired gown in a nude chiffon fabric from Madeline’s wardrobe. She could easily sashay into her old life dressed like this. Annalise would be picture-perfect by eight o’clock.
‘Honey, I’m just too wrecked. But you go have fun.’ Sometimes Paul could be such an old man. Well, she thought as she headed out the door, she would have fun, even if she was nervous as hell having to go alone.
The ticket for the night cost seven hundred euros. For that, Annalise was stuck beside a doddery old man who was some kind of head doctor, but seemed to have an inordinate interest in her boobs. The real fun had been on arrival. The party was in one of Dublin’s tiger hotels. The foyer was cut in two. One side, the smaller, held back a throng of people – the non-celebs and a couple of photographers. She stopped for a chat with a reporter or two, bringing them up to date on her busy lifestyle, telling them about her dress and shoes. ‘This old thing…’ She’d loved it, for the few minutes it had lasted, and realized, she missed it.
Once inside the main ballroom, she had floated about. The room was a sea of mint organza, swirled from each table to the ceiling; an abundance of candles added not only ambience, but old-fashioned warmth too. Annalise felt a vaguely nervous sensation in her stomach, as though something fabulous might come of the night. It wasn’t all doctors and businessmen either. Before the meal, she bumped into a few people she knew from her modelling days. They were delighted to see her, but there hadn’t been much to say beyond the initial catch-up. One of the advertising people asked if she was still modelling – not that he’d offered her anything, but at least he’d asked.
‘Oh, I took a bit of a sabbatical.’ She’d heard Madonna use the word once, had waited this long to use it. ‘I’m thinking about going back, maybe, I dunno, branching out a bit; I quite fancy media.’ It was the champagne; she’d never been much of a drinker. The stuff sent her doolally too quickly; she put it down to her drug-addict birth mother. The night, because of the drink or not, was magical. She left as the dancing was finishing up. She travelled home, slightly tipsy and full of newfound enthusiasm for the possibilities that life might still hold for her. She could have a career. Like Kate, a consultant. Like Kate Middleton? Okay, so maybe becoming a duchess might be a little off the radar, but she could be every bit the bloody success as that Grace Kennedy.
The next morning it seemed that the grey clouds that had been hanging over Dublin for longer than she wanted to admit had cleared back a little. The sun shone gentle but tentative rays through her bedroom window. As Annalise drank her cup of herbal tea, she felt an optimism; difficult to articulate, but something she had to take action on. She dropped the boys off at their nursery and stopped off at the newsagents, picked up the morning papers, and a skinny latte. If she were in Los Angeles, she’d be having frozen yoghurt, she told herself ruefully. And there she was. Front page of the Mail; page three of the Independent. In her modelling heyday, she’d have been delighted to get a front page. She would have bagged a couple of gigs just on the back of the Independent coverage. Only classy girls got into the broadsheets. It was the dress. She looked almost, well, dare she say it? Regal. The celebrity gossip sites were the same; they were all her friends today. Two hours later, as she parked outside the nursery, she felt as though she were a new person. That lingering insipid feeling that she was losing herself was dissipating slightly. If not her old self, then maybe a better, mature version of that self was within easy grasp today. Question was, would she be brave enough to reach out and grab it?
She hooked up with Gail Rosenstock later that day, organized to meet her in town before the week was out. ‘Oh, you’re quite the comeback kid,’ Gail said when she rang. To be truthful, Annalise had been nervous about ringing her, but as Gail herself had always said, ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get.’ And it wasn’t as though she’d actually given up the modelling, it was more that it had given up on her for a while or at least that’s the way it felt. The phone had just stopped ringing.
Still bolstered up by the night before, she set about making spaghetti bolognaise. It was her signature dish (her only dish that didn’t include ingredients from foil-wrapped packets). She couldn’t wait to tell Paul about her plans. She wanted him to be proud of her, the way he’d been of Grace Kennedy – the woman whose art still hung on his walls.
‘I’m worried about you,’ he’d said to her only last week. ‘It’s as though the light is going out in you.’ At the time, she thought maybe she had a touch of PMT.
‘I’m fine.’ But she liked that he was worried about her. She liked that he was there to look after her, although, she had to admit, he seemed to be there less and less these days.
‘Pressure at work, poppet,’ he said, rubbing his finger under her chin, just as her father had done when she was a little girl. Sometimes she loved the way he spoke to her, sometimes, though, it really annoyed her, the way he talked as though she was his daughter, not his wife. Once she almost said it, pointed out that he already had one daughter, but they never spoke about Delilah and she didn’t want to talk about Grace anymore than he did.
Friday eventually arrived. She was meeting Gail Rosenstock at Café en Seine for lunch at twelve thirty. She wore her white Ralph Lauren trousers suit – a present from Paul for Jerome’s christening. She’d seen it in a shoot in Vogue. She’d never had the chance to model for Vogue. She corrected herself as she zipped up her pants – so far. Vogue loved a comeback girl. Marianne Faithfull and Helen Mirren must have featured a hundred times between them and they must be as old as the Virgin Mary, and not nearly as virtuous. Annalise arrived with five minutes to spare, just enough time to check her make-up. It was unfortunate that she’d decided to use the bathrooms, because it was on her return that she met Susan Lyndsey.
In the beginning, Annalise had squarely laid the blame for her ruined career on Susan Lyndsey. After the Titanic incident, she’d attended a shrink for almost eight months, going over the same ground, three times a week. Her father would have paid for more, but the therapist assured him he was being more than generous. Mind you, he gave him a great deal on a convertible Mercedes, which otherwise, let’s face it, the guy wouldn’t have come within a stiletto’s sole of. As far as Annalise was concerned, the loss of the Miss Ireland title had made her career as uncertain as Kate Moss’s had been after her cocaine debacle. At least Mossie got the cool badge from hers. There is nothing fashionable about being Miss Ireland and it is even worse if they say they don’t want you anymore. The only thing less hip is being in Riverdance – as a male chorus dancer.
Anyway, here she was, standing in the middle of Café en Seine, squared up against Susan Lyndsey and, honestly, if a pin had dropped, it would probably have shattered the sound barrier.
‘Darling!’ Susan had her by the shoulders, mwah, mwah, air-kissing the heavily aromatized space about them. ‘I haven’t seen you in so long, how have you been, you look just…’ Susan had managed to develop an accent that parked itself somewhere on Madison Avenue, via Sloane Square. Their last meeting had not been so happy. There had been a party in The Four Seasons, everyone who was anyone was there. Annalise had been upset. It was just days after she handed the crown back, and she’d said exactly what she and all the fashion scene knew about Susan: Susan was gleefully shagging every young male model that came her way. As far as everyone else was concerned, Susan was seeing a junior minister in the Department of Finance. She’d even accompanied him on a trade mission to Japan. She was meant to be cleaner than a Tatler editor’s contact lenses. Susan was on course to become Ireland’s answer to Carla Sarkozy, without the scary Botox and stretching. Their spat had brought them both crashing down to earth.
It wasn’t classy and, once more, Susan managed to come out on top. Susan became instantly cool; almost a post-cocaine Kate Moss. Within a month, she was all over London Fashion week, while Annalise morphed into a tragic failure. It made for great celebrity news. To this day, Annalise froze into morbid and complete embarrassment at the memory of it.
‘Hi Susan.’ Annalise managed to collect herself. She heard the wobble in her voice, but just over Susan’s shoulder, she spotted her agent – or maybe her ex-agent. So she smiled at Susan, a flicker that didn’t reach her eyes, and walked towards the seat that was waiting for her.
‘I swear, she’s got a huge spot on her chin,’ Annalise whispered across to Gail Rosenstock as they pretended to look down through the menu. Of course, Gail was on a diet. She had been beautiful in her day. Unfortunately, not since she was thirty-six had she fitted into anything less than a size-fourteen dress. In the fashion business, fourteen was rhino-sized – bordering on elephant. In the normal world, of course, it was just womanly. The world through Gail’s eyes was not normal. She ordered warm lemon water for starters and, later, she played plate hockey with a winter salad.
‘So, you’re ready to come out of hibernation, are you?’
‘I think I am.’
‘They certainly still love you.’ Gail pushed across her mobile. Even today, three days later, celebrity gossip sites were raving about her ‘vintage’ Ellie Saab. ‘A genius idea of course,’ Gail sniffed at her. ‘Who styled you?’
‘No one styled me.’ Annalise was on the water too. It seemed a little unfair to have anything else; anyway, she could grab a rice cake on her way to pick up the boys.
‘Never mind.’ Gail looked wistfully at the gown. ‘The question is how to follow that up?’ She was thinking aloud. ‘You could come back as a very different package. Before, you were all short skirts, tight tops and flirty.’ She drummed her fingers for a minute. ‘But with this… would you consider doing OK!?’
‘OK!, the magazine?’ Annalise repeated the letters wistfully as though they represented exotica she’d dreamed of for the last few years. ‘Have they asked?’
‘No, but they’re always on the lookout for something a little different.’ Gail’s tone was delicate; it was one she reserved for times when she could go either way. Annalise knew she was on unsteady ground and if she wasn’t careful, she could find herself without an agent anymore.
‘So you’d flog me as a comeback beauty queen?’
‘You could make a nice career out of it; don’t knock it. A bit of self-promotion, you might even get a social diary column in one of the dailies.’ They both knew Annalise had difficulty writing much more than her name. ‘You wouldn’t actually have to write the thing; just let them slap your photo over it.’
‘Right, I’ll have to think about it.’ She observed the table opposite where a familiar-looking newscaster sat with a woman she imagined must be his wife. Life was going on here, while she was slowly withering. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I was hoping to get a TV gig.’
‘Darling, you have a little way to go before you’re bagging those ones…’
‘But it went well the last time. They even said then, they’d love to see me again. Of course, I’d probably need to be pregnant for that.’
‘They say that to everyone. Take it from me, do OK! And then we’ll see what comes out of it.’
‘What about…’ Annalise cast her eyes longingly to where Susan Lyndsey was sitting.
‘Annalise, she’s high fashion; she has that serious edgy look going on; you can’t compare.’ Gone were the soothing words, Gail was packing away her phone and nodding towards the waiter. ‘Back in the day you were fun. You’ve never been cool enough to carry off high fashion.’
‘I’ll get this,’ Annalise said; she kept the hurt from her voice. ‘You’ve kept me on the books?’ Gail glowered in response. She’d always been a frowner. Annalise didn’t take it personally. There hadn’t been a call though; until Friday night’s appearance, she’d been yesterday’s news.
‘The scene is changing all the time, Annalise, you know how it is. You look great this week, but everyone has a window. Think about what I said…’ And she was gone, rushing out into the afternoon sunshine.
Annalise thought about nothing else for probably hours, until her head began to hurt from digesting what her current career options might be. She could try to find a new agent, but really Gail was the best around. She thought about OK! magazine. She’d love to see herself decked out in the latest labels, sprawled across an animal-skin rug, covering the magazine’s centre pages. The problem was, she knew Paul wouldn’t feel the same way. That evening, when she told him, he couldn’t understand why she’d want to go back to that scene.
‘Why would you want to go back to that? We’re happy as we are, aren’t we?’ Paul said as they eyed each other over the kitchen table. The takeaway half eaten, a bottle of champagne begun – she wanted it to be a celebration. ‘Aren’t you happy?’ In that moment, something flashed between them. She couldn’t say what. Maybe it was a realization, but there it was, just one second.
‘I thought I was, but I’m just not sure anymore.’
‘Oh.’ It was all he could manage. They didn’t play games in their relationship; Annalise simply couldn’t. There was no mystery, no hidden agenda. If she wanted something, then she said it. It made for an uncomplicated life, something Paul told her he valued in their relationship. ‘I see,’ he said and walked from the table to where he kept a bottle of Powers whiskey, her dad’s drink. He poured himself a large measure and returned to the table, champagne cast aside. ‘So, you want to go back to work.’ He swallowed the amber liquid and Annalise winced. Even the smell of the stuff made her think ‘old man’. ‘Back to modelling?’
‘Maybe, to start, but I have plans, I want to…’
‘You don’t need to… we don’t need you to.’ He shook his head, she loved that his hair was greying slightly at his temples. It gave him a look of sophistication, a modern-day Cary Grant. ‘I’ve always looked after you, haven’t I? I’ve taken care of you. You don’t need anything more. Think back Annalise, did it really make you happy before I met you?’
‘I… no, maybe not then. Things have changed; I’ve changed. I need something more out of life.’ She knew she sounded ungrateful for all the good stuff they had together. ‘Paul, I totally get that you have taken care of me and, I do appreciate that, but maybe…’ She searched for the words. She didn’t want to hurt him. ‘Maybe I need to be able to take care of myself a little more.’ She smiled at him, leaned across to brush her lips on his nose, make everything better.
‘I see.’ He got up from the table, her light kiss fell somewhere along his arm. ‘And you’ve made up your mind already?’
‘I think it’s important that I have a career – not full-time.’ She couldn’t manage five days a week or anything near it. It took more and more time with each passing year to become the swan the world would expect her to be.
‘Oh?’ There it was again and she realized he was getting older.
‘Gail would like me to think about doing a spread for OK! magazine.’
‘I can’t do this,’ he said simply. Paul didn’t ‘do’ celebrity events. It would be rubbing his ex-wife’s nose in it. It would be an invasion. They’d married in an intimate affair in Mauritius – just the two of them, her parents and Adrian. It had been perfect. If she’d missed the whole big do in a fancy castle, she’d more than made up for it in a luxury hideaway. They only had a couple of photographs Madeline took on her phone to remind her of that idyllic paradise. The photographer Paul booked had never shown up. It was a pity, because she could have given one to the magazine, used it as backstory; far better that than any other reference to the past.
‘I have to do it,’ she said, suddenly realizing that this might be a way of facing her demons. Her way of making peace with having humiliated herself and having to walk away from the Miss Ireland competition. Maybe too, it would help her to quell the spectre of his successful first wife who loomed larger with every passing day in Annalise’s mind, even if she didn’t want to admit it. By comparison to Grace Kennedy, she was a failure. Not quite good enough to fill her shoes, had she won him only on a sympathy vote, swayed by youth and prettiness? Was it enough to hold onto Paul? Okay, so maybe it had started out with a vacuous wish to be photographed; but the more she thought about it, the more she needed to do this. They sat there, both set, for the first time in their marriage, maybe for the first time in Annalise’s life, both determined to get their way.
‘I’ve never asked anything of you, Annalise.’ He waved his hand about the kitchen. ‘We’re living the life you’ve chosen for us, everything here, down to the lime green en-suite; you’ve had your own way.’ He stopped for a moment; she thought he might actually begin to cry. ‘I’m begging you, for both of us, don’t do this magazine.’ Then he got up from the table, filled up his glass and headed for the spare room. It was, although Annalise did not realize it at the time, the beginning of the end.
She rang Gail as soon as she dropped the kids off on Monday morning. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. This could be her last chance and really, Paul always let her have her way. He would come round, she was quickly convincing herself. This would soon blow over and he would be proud of her at the end. Gail would put the call through, probably have it all arranged before the week was out.
‘Maybe,’ she said lightly, ‘whoever shoots it, might do a few head and shoulder shots for your portfolio, something a little more up to date than I have here.’ Of course the unsaid words were, you’re getting older, hitting a different market. Falling out of low-cut dresses with a gloop of lip gloss isn’t going to cut it when you’re headed for your thirties, dear.
The shoot went off fantastically well. Of course, Paul wasn’t in it, but at least she’d managed to get the boys included. He promised to sue the ass off the magazine if they so much as mentioned his name, and from the vehemence that underscored his voice, she had a feeling he actually meant it. When they published the spread, Annalise was delighted with it. She’d written down, in advance, all the answers to the questions they normally asked. Gail had helped her to frame her words about future career plans. To read the piece, you’d swear that television companies were battering down her front door. As it turned out, they didn’t, but life took on a slightly more glamorous tint. She spent Mondays and Fridays in town. If she didn’t have any look-sees, then she spent them on maintenance. She finally succumbed to the urgings of Gail and had shots of Botox injected into her brows to relax her frown lines. Not that she had actual frown lines; preventative was the word the doctor used. ‘Does Carol Vorderman have them?’ Gail had countered. Annalise wasn’t sure she wanted to look like Carol. The woman was just scary as far as she was concerned, but then clever girls always creeped her out.
Things didn’t improve with Paul either and it wasn’t just him cooling his heels. It was as though he pulled a door closed between them. He didn’t even pretend to be interested in her days anymore. He made plans for him and the boys – the playground, the cinema, or the local pool. She thought it would pass. After a few weeks though, it started to get to her.
‘Maybe I’ll come along,’ she said one day as he was struggling to get Jerome into his new Burberry jacket.
‘No thanks, we’ll be fine,’ he said pleasantly enough, but she knew, from the way he wouldn’t meet her eyes, he didn’t want her tagging along. The time they spent together had grown into one long empty silence. That evening she had to say it to him.
‘Don’t you love me anymore, Paul?’
‘Do you love me?’
‘I thought we didn’t play games?’
‘I thought you loved me.’ He said the words simply, but he knew. She knew that he knew. More often these last few weeks, she looked at him and thought, I’m married to a man old enough to be my father. It was fine in the beginning. He’d given her everything she needed – security, unconditional love, and he was attractive. What he lacked in a muscled torso, he more than made up for in technique. When he kissed her, he hardly skimmed her lips, leaving her with a longing that almost tore her up. She often wondered at the effect it had on her. Had he any idea?
‘I did…’
‘Ah, I see, you did – but not anymore, is that it?’
‘No, it’s not like that. I still love you, Paul, it’s just that everything else…’ As her words petered off into a vast hollow of despondency, she knew this was an ending of sorts. It was a silent, undramatic parting of ways. All kinds of thoughts were dashing about her brain. Other couples talked about staying together for the kids, or was that just her parents’ generation who thought like that? Wasn’t Paul her parents’ generation? God, she couldn’t think about this now.
‘I get it. You’ve moved on and I’m never going where you want to take us.’ He shook his head. It was the end. Really the end. Paul knew it; maybe Annalise knew it too, but only in a superficial way. Her marriage was dying, slowly, here in the safety of her Miele kitchen. They may as well have been talking about war in Syria. Something distant and terrible. Something that was far too tragic for her to grasp in this moment.
She thought about ringing her mum. She was certain Madeline would come round, maybe bring a nice homemade Pavlova, her favourite. Tuck her in bed early and offer to take the kids to nursery the following day. On the other hand, maybe not? Madeline had spotted the thaw in her relationship with Paul. ‘He is your husband, darling; sometimes you have to meet halfway.’
‘But this is important to me.’
‘I know it’s not easy, but marriage isn’t always easy. He’s a good man, Annalise, worth making sacrifices for.’ Madeline had never really seen modelling as a career.
When he left, it was so quietly that Annalise wasn’t sure he’d gone. He took a bag, just the one, emptied out a handful of essentials and left the rest, as though he’d be back after he sorted out whatever hospital emergency called him away. Except it wasn’t work that took him from her. Still, it seemed unreal, had she pushed him away so easily? And for what? For something that hadn’t made her happy before? Annalise moved from room to room. The loneliness was overwhelming, but, being a natural optimist, she convinced herself it would all work out. They’d been together almost five years and this was their first real fight. Come on, she thought to herself, every couple had fights, right? Maybe this was a growing up moment. Annalise hoped he might come back and then it would all be a fuss for nothing if she called her mum.
*
Annalise was driving when she heard it. All thoughts of the photo shoot, the magazine spread, the boys, everything left her head for she couldn’t say how long. She fiddled with the car sound system she’d never quite got the hang of, tried to catch the same item on another station.
‘News has just come in of a tragic car accident in the city centre. The victims are believed to be Paul Starr and Annalise Connolly. The pair were leaving the Liffey Hospital when the car they were travelling in collided with a lorry. The driver of the second vehicle is not believed to be seriously injured. Mr Starr, who passed away at the scene, was well known as one of Europe’s leading surgeons, with patients who include international celebrities and royalty. Ms Connolly is a former model and believed to be in a stable condition.’