Looking for Andrew McCarthy

‘Dad,’ said Ellie, plunging her hands into the lukewarm water. ‘Am I a Thatcherbaby?’

He shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose so. Do you remember Callaghan?’

‘No.’

‘That’s why people your age are always blaming me for voting in Thatcher.’

‘Why did you vote in Thatcher?’

‘Well, because it seemed right, you know? At the time. It seemed the right thing to do: work hard, don’t give all your money to the government, get a nice house, get a nice car.’

‘And?’

‘And then you get comfortable and then you get bored and then your wife runs off to Plockton with an accountant called Archie.’

Her dad shifted in his seat and looked uncomfortable.

‘Oh,’ said Ellie. They rarely discussed her mother and she hated upsetting him. ‘Um. Dad. You really should put these pans into soak.’

‘… and there are too many cars on the road so you can’t get anywhere and everything they’re making is absolute crap so you’ll buy another one in a month’s time and the hole in the ozone layer is about to start poisoning South America but, you know, we’re used to it now so we just can’t stop.’

‘Oh,’ said Ellie again. ‘Ehm. Bummer.’

He nodded and looked at her. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘Thatcherbaby or not, I still think you’re beautiful.’

‘How come I can wash all this rotten egg and it didn’t make me want to puke, but now you do?’

They smiled at each other.

Ellie left him to Match of the Day and wandered up to her old room, which was exactly as she’d left it eleven years ago for college. She picked up her Strawberry Shortcake doll, inhaled deeply and looked around the room.

It looked pretty much as the flat had done for her party: covered in peeling old thin magazine posters of the Brat Pack: in particular, her favourite, Andrew McCarthy.

‘Oh Andrew,’ she said, as she had done for so many years in her teens.

‘What are we going to do?’

As usual, Andrew stayed entirely schtum. Ellie had never given up, despite the range and variety of questions he’d completely ignored over the last decade-and-a-half, including:

‘Should I let Stuart Mannering put his hand up my blouse?’

(The answer should have been no, and she knew that, but she let him do it anyway.)

‘Should I finish my homework or go out and hang around the boys doing wheelies on their BMXs at the bottom of the street?’

(Ditto.)

‘Will I ever meet a nice boy?’

(Most likely not a pubescent one.)

‘Will I ever get over Miles Sampson not being in love with me?

(Yes. Well, pretty much. As long as nobody is playing Lloyd Cole and the Commotions albums.)

‘How do I get the substitute Social Studies teacher to notice me?’

(Stop trying; it’s working and he might get sent to prison.)

‘Am I gay because I really, really like my gym teacher?’

(No, it’s a teenage occupational hazard.)

‘If I wish really hard, will I grow up to get a huge pink apartment like Demi Moore’s in St Elmo’s Fire?’

(Yes, if you become a coke whore.)

‘Now everyone at school has seen The Breakfast Club sixty-four times, will school become more like The Breakfast Club with everyone breaking down social barriers and revealing their inner selves?’

(Definitely not, although Stuart Mannering will reveal his entire outer self in biology and get two month’s detention.)

‘Will I get to meet John Cusack on a long trip across America?’

(Perhaps, if you’re six foot tall with long shiny blonde hair.)

‘Wouldn’t it be great if I had a really gorgeous lover who died and then came back and made pottery with me?’

(As yet unexplored.)

‘Will you come to rescue me, like you rescued Molly Ringwald?’

(So far, no.)

‘Oh Andrew.’

She looked at him again. The poster had worn away around his mouth from chaste kisses.

‘Where are you, then? The middle-youth of the world needs you.’

She thought harder.

‘Actually, we do bloody need you. Where the hell are you?’

As she stared at the battered magazine-torn image, a thought began to stir within her. I mean, here, surely was a man with a bit of knowledge about growing up and not playing the adolescent for ever. She stared at it a bit more with mounting excitement. ‘What,’ she wondered, ‘is he like now?’ She pictured him – a little older, not much. With shock, she realized he was only halfway through his thirties and she gulped internally – not that much older than her. Oh my God. If there was one person in the world who understood what she was going through, she suddenly had the utter conviction that it was him. Why she was feeling so bleargh. And why she felt that something was passing her by, but she didn’t know what it was.

Excitedly, she jumped up and took out her mobile.

‘Julia? Where’s Andrew McCarthy?’

‘What?’ said Julia. Behind her, someone managed to drop an entire tray of glasses. The bar crowd appeared to think this worthy of a round of applause.

‘Look. I can’t really talk. We’re up to H, an I … an I … can’t … motor functions.’

‘Julia!’

She could hear Julia sit up and try and pay attention.

‘Is this some guy you picked up on the way over to your dad’s house?’

‘No, you know, Andrew. I mean, what happened to him? He just disappeared. He just stopped being famous and disappeared. Maybe he’s dead!’

‘Don’t be silly … he can’t be dead … you and him have a date …’

‘Yeah, ha ha ha. This is serious. A movie star has disappeared off the face of the planet.’

‘That’s not serious. A rainforest tribe disappearing, maybe. But, you know, I just can’t see Sting doing the tribute album for the guy who made Weekend at Bernie’s II.’

‘Hmm,’ said Ellie.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘That doesn’t sound like nothing.’

‘I just might have had an idea, that’s all.’

‘A grumpy idea or a cheerful one?’

‘Hard to say. Depends on whether he’s … nothing.’

‘I don’t like the sound of this.’

‘Oh, got to go!’

‘Go where? You’re at your dad’s!’

‘Yes, and his deep fried lard is burning. Got to go!’

She put down the phone and sat back on the bed, deep in thought. God, she had seen those films so many times. It hadn’t been until much later that she’d realized her mother had been desperate to get her out of the house that year, and had let her disappear to the cinema as often as she wanted, so she could get on with the business at hand of arguing with Ellie’s dad and preparing to move to Plockton.

Ellie looked at the back wall, where her old ice skates were hanging by their grubby white laces. That was what her father had done: every time she wasn’t at the cinema, her dad had taken her ice skating. He was mad for it. Of course by the time she’d got to fourteen she’d disdained it utterly and much preferred trying to freeze-frame the video with Julia, to see how far under the duvet they could get in Class. And now she was being petulant about doing her dad’s washing up. Some things never changed. And what was grown-up anyway? And why did she suddenly have an inexplicable desire to go ice skating?

Absolute Beginners

‘Ikea on a Saturday morning,’ said Ellie. The rest of the car ignored her. ‘Did anyone hear me? I said, IKEA ON A SATURDAY MORNING. ARE WE NUTS??? Why can’t we go … I don’t know … ice skating or something?’

Julia turned around from the front seat, where she was trying to navigate her way through Croydon and placate the rest of the car at the same time.

‘Loxy needs some shelving, okay?’

‘And Patrick needs a new bathroom cabinet – he’s been buying a lot of new toiletry products recently,’ said Siobhan. ‘And he’s too busy to make it today, so I said I’d come.’

‘Why am I here then?’

‘You’re helping push the trolley,’ said Julia. ‘And if you’re very lucky, we’ll let you choose all the food that you don’t know what it is.’

‘I can’t believe you required a taste arbiter like me to come to Ikea,’ said Arthur darkly, buried under The Times. ‘You’re at Ikea; you’ve already given up and admitted you have none.’

When the gang finally limped in through the underpass towards the familiar blue and yellow factory chimneys, the car park was already overflowing with family-sized monster Range Rovers with special cyclist-killing bull bars on the front.

Ellie pouted as they queued up to get through the open doors. To the left, one hundred and seventy children were trying to stick colourful rubber balls down one another’s oesophagi.

‘Why are they there?’ she said, peering through the glass. ‘Contraception?’

The scene opened out slightly to reveal four billion identical couples in casual Gap wear. The girls all had expensively tinted blonde hair cut in Anthea Turner styles, and the men had schoolboy haircuts and emergent paunches.

Arthur and Ellie immediately clutched at their throats and started staggering around with fake choking. ‘Argh! Argh!’

‘Behave, you two,’ said Julia, pushing back her blonde hair.

‘She’s one of them!’ said Arthur pointing. ‘Croydon Wife! Croydon Wife!’

‘I’ll open the book,’ said Ellie. ‘Up to five quid. Which couple are going to be the first to have a fight.’

‘I’ll take the couple in the matching Gap separates,’ said Arthur.

‘Too non-specific.’

A tall, balding man was sighing heavily as a woman castigated him for daring to sit on a sofa.

‘Ooh, coming up on the left,’ said Ellie.

Arthur, however, was already pointing out a slightly overweight woman with a sensible haircut who was trying to push her way back through the shop, managing to convey how furious she was at the standard lamp in her hand, and deliberately kicking out at trolleys.

‘Couples shouldn’t really talk about “going to Ikea”,’ said Arthur. ‘They shouldn’t even say, “Hey – let’s go to Ikea!” They should just say, “Hey – let’s have a fight!”’

‘Well, I think it’s rather sweet,’ said Siobhan. ‘I used to love it when Patrick and I came here.’

Everyone stood and stared at her. She shrugged. ‘You are all just immature.’

Two hours later in the lighting section, all jollity had gone. One man Ellie could see from her vantage point, hidden behind a desk unit, was actually crying.

Siobhan was marching Arthur round the bathroom cabinets for the fifteenth time.

‘For the fifteenth time,’ said Arthur, ‘it’s horrible. It’s all horrible, and this is it put up properly. You and Patrick make tons of money between you. Why don’t you just use some of the stuff you import?’

‘Because it’s made out of gold.’

‘Anyway, it’s only bathrooms,’ said Julia.

‘Yes, only somewhere where you spend the most intimate times of your life. With this rubbish.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ said Siobhan, getting red and hot and agitated. ‘Stop being such a poseur. It’s only some fucking bathroom shelves.’

‘Shit!’ said Julia. ‘I forgot Loxy’s shelving!’

She tried to turn the trolley around. They were completely trapped. Ellie groaned loudly as they backed up four hundred people around the shop; people who showed their horror at this transgression by muttering very loudly and immediately falling out with the person they were with.

‘Sorry!’ Julia was saying. It was suddenly about 200 degrees in the store.

‘Why don’t we just cut our losses?’ said Arthur. ‘Dump the trolley and run like hell.’

‘God, this place drives me crazy,’ yelled Ellie suddenly. ‘I think it’s some sinister rat/maze type experiment. Giant creatures are peering in through the corrugated roof, making notes on us.’

She looked at the crowds, backing up like panic-buyers at a petrol pump.

‘There’s no way back,’ she said suddenly, in horror, staring around her and breathing hard. ‘There is no way back. Don’t you see? Guys, don’t you SEE?’

They all looked at her.

‘We’re on a one way trek through Ikea. This is it. This is our lives. There’s no way back.’

‘Ehm … are you freaking out?’ said Arthur, as Julia manoeuvred herself out of position. Ellie was still fixed to the spot and staring straight ahead.

She thought about it. ‘Yes. YES I AM.’ And she stormed off against the flow of traffic, leaving a chorus of disgruntled middle class tutting in her wake.

Ellie sat in the car park, thinking furiously. That was it. She was getting off this track right now. The poster in her bedroom came back to her. All those dreams. All those teenage nights. For what? Andrew had disappeared. Emilio; Judd; Anthony. All gone. ‘I’m disappearing too,’ she thought to herself, sadly. ‘I’m getting older, and giving up and fading into the background. And if I don’t run away now, then I’ll run away to Plockton in twenty years and that really will be a disaster.’

By the time her friends finally emerged ninety minutes later, red-faced and cursing, she had it all figured out.

‘Okay, everyone pay attention to me,’ announced Ellie loudly.

‘Well, that will be a new experience for us all,’ said Siobhan.

It was the following Monday night. Ellie had summoned everyone to a council of war round at her flat, much to Big Bastard’s disgust. She had been putting out bowls of crisps when he’d grunted, ‘I’m going to the pub. All your friends are morons.’

‘Okay, no, hang on, why are my friends morons when your friends moon out of the back of coaches every week and think it’s always hilarious?’

‘Because they know how to have fun,’ he sniffed, trying to smooth down his unruly hair with his enormous hairy paws. ‘Your friends just sit around and talk.’

‘Sitting around and talking are what people do,’ said Ellie. ‘Showing off their arses to each other is what monkeys do.’ She held up a Pringle and a cashew nut. ‘See?’ She waved the Pringle. ‘People sized brain’, then the cashew, ‘monkey sized brain. People brain – monkey brain. Ellie brain – Big Bastard brain.’

She ate the cashew nut.

‘Big Bastard brain all gone.’

‘And they’re all poofs.’

‘How could they all be poofs? Some of them go out with some of the other ones of the opposite sex.’

‘That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not a poof.’

‘Um, yes it does. Oh, Big Bastard, I’m sorry I ate your brain.’

‘Well, I’m going to have some of my mates round.’

‘What, so that you and all your non-poof friends can spend the day showing each other your butts?’

‘I might have them round tonight after the pub.’

‘You will not!’

‘My flat darlin’.’

‘Yeah, your flat which will get completely done in when your pissed up friends start picking fights with each other. Or themselves; you all look the fucking same. You’d better take that mirror down, they’re like budgies.’

‘We do not look the fucking same.’

‘Okay, what would you say is the top shirt designer of choice amongst every single one of your friends?’

Big Bastard shrugged. ‘Who cares? Clothes are for girls.’

‘It wouldn’t be Ben Sherman by any chance would it?’

He shrugged again, but his ears went slightly pink. ‘So what? ’S comfortable.’

‘And what about shoes? A little beige number perhaps? With connotations of being Big Masculine Woodcutters?? Okay, you bring back all your nongay friends with peanut brains to show each other your arses and worship Johnny Vaughn. We’ll see you later.’

‘I’m putting your rent up.’

‘I’m reporting you to the Inland Revenue for having an undeclared tenant.’

He’d stomped out of the house snarling, although not before Arthur had arrived and maliciously called him duckie.

‘I can’t believe the way you turn into Graham Norton whenever you see Big Bastard,’ Ellie said, straightening out her fishnet tights.

‘That’s my militant side, sweetheart. It’ll do him good in the long run, you’ll see. Anyone with that much testosterone can’t possibly be straight anyway.’

‘Oh, he is. I know, because when he thinks I’m not looking, he touches himself when there are those girls on television who sing pop songs in their school uniform.’

Ellie glanced into the mirror, smoothed down her black curly hair and removed some cashew nut debris from between her teeth. She always felt scruffy next to Arthur, who pretended that his immaculate appearance was a natural gift from God.

‘Deviant. Okay, what are we all here for? You never normally have us round here unless you’ve broken something.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Ellie. ‘What about that time I needed to borrow money?’

Siobhan filed in warily.

‘You realize I left work early for this?’

‘Siobhan, it’s eight-thirty. Was there anyone else in the building?’

‘Just some people I know.’

‘Okay, how many non-security personnel were there apart from you?’

Siobhan pouted and stretched out on Big Bastard’s chair, removing a half-eaten multi-pack of KitKats.

‘God, that flatmate of yours eats like a horse.’

‘Eats like a horse, farts like a horse and you don’t even want to know what it’s like when Carmel’s round.’

‘No I most certainly don’t,’ said Siobhan. She looked tired and drawn. ‘Patrick can’t make it. He’s working on some buyout. Or it’s his evening class. God that’s weird; I can’t even remember. Christ, I’m so knackered.’

Ellie put a glass of wine in her hand.

‘Uh huh. I think I might have something that can cure that.’

‘Alcohol! Excellent!’

‘I thought you were never drinking again after we reached Kahlua,’ said Arthur.

‘I don’t remember saying that. Although to be fair, I don’t remember getting home.’

‘No. Not alcohol. It’s my fabulous and brilliant plan. But we’ll need to wait for everyone to arrive.’

‘Ehm, I told Colin he could come,’ said Arthur.

‘You didn’t. He’s so not in on the big plan.’

‘It’s alright, I’ll make him hand round the nibbles.’

‘Yeah, ’cause it’s illegal for him to serve spirits.’

‘Very funny. I’ll have you know that beneath that childish veneer there’s a very old soul.’

‘Fuck off!’

‘True. Well, old soul, good muscle definition – call it what you will.’

‘Sorry we’re late,’ said Loxy apologetically, sticking his head round the door. ‘I stopped to get Jules some flowers on the way home from work and missed my train.’

‘Bloody idiot,’ said Julia over his shoulder, putting down her suede handbag and kissing everyone within reach. ‘Hello, hello. Okay, what’s going on? And if it’s Monopoly, include me out.’

‘Okay, everyone,’ began Ellie.

‘Hang on,’ said Siobhan. ‘Annabel and George aren’t here.’

‘They’re too old for this plan.’

‘That’s not very fair. They’re the same age as us.’

‘I bet you,’ said Ellie severely, ‘one million squillion pounds that by the time we do this plan, Annabel will be up the duff anyway. Sproglets leaking from every orifice.’

‘What on earth is the plan?’

‘Okay,’ said Ellie again. She got up and went over to Big Bastard’s record player, where he’d filed all his Big Country albums, and put on her specially prepared eighties mix tape. There was a funny little African rhythm, then Pat Benatar began bellowing ‘Love is a Battlefield.’

‘Come with me,’ she started, ‘on a mystical journey back into the mists of time.’

‘And that’s pretty bloody misty,’ said Arthur.

‘To a time … when things were young and fresh.’

‘Hey everyone! Booyashaka!’

Colin entered the room wearing sunglasses, despite the September rain outside. And the pitch dark.

‘Aha. Speaking of things that are young and fresh …’

Colin noisily started to eat the cashew nuts whilst Julia got him some squash.

‘When things were harmonious and squabbling was unknown,’ Ellie continued.

‘We don’t squabble,’ said Arthur. ‘Colin, leave some of those cashew nuts for everyone else.’

‘But I like cashew nuts.’

‘Just put them down,’ said Loxy, wondering whether a show of supportive strength would impress Julia in any way.

‘It’s none of your business,’ said Julia, nudging him. ‘For Christ’s sake, shut up Loxy.’

‘See!’ said Ellie. ‘It’s Ikea all over again. Exactly what I’ve been talking about. The really stupid stresses of modern living are all too much. Which is why I propose …’

The music had changed to ‘Broken Wings’ by Mister Mister.

‘We all take a trip.’

‘What kind of a trip?’

‘Please, not like when we all went to Cornwall and got lost and had to sleep in the car even when it was sleeting,’ said Arthur.

‘Better than that.’

‘My verrucca is better than that.’

‘My weekends are pretty booked up,’ said Siobhan. ‘I’m trying to book a slot to see my boyfriend.’

‘Oh please, what about that time we hired a canal boat for after finals?’ said Julia. ‘I’m still under a court order for that.’

‘That’s because you were the only one mature enough to sign the lease.’

‘No, it’s because the Hedgehog here was the only one mature enough to see if she could invent a new spin drying method by dragging all our clothes through the engine.’

‘That wasn’t it …’ started Ellie. ‘Okay, look, we’re getting off the point. We’re older now and if Caroline fucking Lafayette can hike across the Himalayas on a pogo stick, we can bloody well drive a car to California …’

There was a silence.

‘Do what?’ said Arthur.

‘Oh, fuck!’ said Ellie crossly. ‘I’ve cocked it up now and spoiled my big build-up. I’d drawn graphs and everything.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Julia seriously.

‘This is my big plan,’ said Ellie, looking dejected. ‘It’s only going to sound stupid now.’

‘We were expecting that though,’ said Julia kindly.

Ellie pouted a bit more. Then she bucked herself up and smiled.

‘Okay. Here’s my plan. We all take some time off work.’

‘Can’t be done,’ said Siobhan instantly.

‘… say, a month.’

‘Ha!’

‘Then, go to America and hire a car.’

‘Why?’ asked Julia.

‘Okay. Here comes the science bit.’

‘Hang on,’ said Arthur. He refilled his glass. ‘Okay. I’m ready.’

‘We go to California and find the Brat Pack. And demand some answers.’

She sat back, legs crossed, waiting for the reaction. Everyone looked at everyone else to try and gauge the state of play.

‘Hedgehog, darling,’ said Julia, sitting down on the floor next to her friend.

‘You know we love you. But what the hell are you talking about?’

‘Look at us! We’ve already agreed something’s going wrong somewhere, haven’t we?’

‘Err, had we?’

‘Yes, we had, Ikea freaks.’ Ellie stood up. ‘We are going to find those Gods of our youth, and get them to explain a few things. Like – what the hell happened? You guys promised us the world in the 1980s, and you didn’t get it and we didn’t get it either and now we’re all getting fat together and it’s WRONG. Your films made growing up look fun. And it’s not. It’s cynical and stupid and boring. It grinds you down and makes you worry about acronyms you don’t understand, like – I don’t know; “ISA” and “SERPS”. And IKEA. And it rains all the time. And my Visa bill is due. It’s time for us to get out for a bit. Because otherwise, we are going to be worrying about fucking PAYE and nothing else for the REST OF OUR LIVES.’

There was a long silence.

Siobhan lightly put her hand on her friend’s leg. ‘Hedge, I’m not trying to be horrible about your idea or anything, but – all of them? You know, I’m not sure they all live in the same house like Morecambe and Wise.’

‘That doesn’t matter! Don’t you see? Look at what happened. They were told they were going to be the biggest movie stars in the world. Then they told us everything was going to work out great. Well, it didn’t work out great for Robert Downey Junior and it didn’t work out great for Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez married Paula Abdul, and it’s not working out for us either. And I want to know why.’