Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

I roll my eyes to Heaven pretending to be pissed off, although I’m actually delighted that Jules is here and even more delighted that by some early miracle of Christmas, I’ve managed to miss both Audrey and Lisa. Because Jules is the perfect antidote to the pair of them.

Jules, I should tell you, is only nineteen but looks an awful lot younger still, particularly today when she’s dressed in her favourite baby-blue fleece pyjamas with her dark, jack-in-the-box curls that normally spring past her shoulders tied back into two messy, pigtails. Honest to God, the girl looks like she should still be getting ID’ed in bars.

And I know she treats this house like she’s a non-rent paying lodger, but then Jules is one of life’s naturally adorable people so it’s pretty much impossible to get irritated with her for very long. She’s Dan’s baby sister but it always feels like she’s mine too – I’ve known her ever since she was a spoilt, over-petted four-year-old girl and what can I say? From day one, we just bonded. I’d always wanted a little sister…and I certainly couldn’t have asked for one who made my life more entertaining.

And yes, of course it’s a bit weird that a nineteen-year-old college dropout should spend her days lounging around watching afternoon TV with absolutely no inclination whatsoever towards getting an actual job and supporting herself, but that’s our Jules for you. She’s one of that rare and dying breed – the entitled generation. You know, young ones who grew up having everything handed to them on a plate by doting parents and who assumed that life was all about five-star hotels and three holidays a year and wearing nothing but designer labels on their well-toned backs. The generation that landed with the hardest thump when the recession hit and suddenly all the privileges they’d taken for granted during the good years were crudely revoked.

At the time Jules had started college but when she flunked her exams last autumn, she quickly realised she’d actually have to stop partying five nights a week and actually knuckle down to some hardcore work if she ever wanted to pass. And needless to say, that was the end of that. So she moved back into her mother’s flat about five months ago and even though she claims it drives her nuts being nagged at morning, noon and night, she doesn’t seem to have the slightest intention of ever leaving. Like she hasn’t actually made the link in her own head yet between her actions and their consequences.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the girl dearly, but if you were to look up ‘indolence’ in the Oxford English dictionary, chances are it would say ‘See Jules Ferguson’. She’s like a zenned-out, calm bubble of Que Sera Sera and believe it or not she’s perfectly contented to crash out at Audrey’s for the foreseeable future, living on cash handouts from her big brother. Oh and spending all her afternoons here, the minute Audrey’s safely out of the way and the coast is clear, thereby avoiding her as much as possible. A bit like weathermen on one of those old-fashioned clocks; one goes in just as the other one is coming out.

Anyway, I pour myself out a big mug of tea and follow her into the TV room, where she’s laid out a little picnic for herself consisting of last night’s leftovers plus a bag of tortilla chips. She’s also lit the fire, but then that’s the one household chore you can actually count on her to do. I’m deeply grateful though because in this house, with the high ceilings and ancient hot water pipes, even with the heating on full-blast, it rarely gets warmer than a degree or two above freezing. Ellen DeGeneres is on TV in the background, interviewing some teen queen about her latest movie and Jules plonks down in her favourite armchair, eyes glued to the screen.

‘So,’ she says, taking a fistful of tortilla chips and stuffing her face with them. ‘Tell me all about your audition. Is it a half decent part? And by that I mean…is it worth elevating my vision from the TV for?’

I bring her up to speed on all developments in my life, debating in my mind whether I should tell her the full, unexpurgated truth. Half of me thinks what the hell, she’ll find out soon enough anyway, but the other more rational side of me thinks, no, this isn’t fair. Not till I’ve spoken to Dan. If I ever get to speak to him, that is. So I skirt around the truth and just give her the bare skeletal outline of the story.

But if I thought she’d be impressed, I was wrong. All she does is flop back onto the armchair, still munching tortilla chips, and deep in thought.

‘Shit on it anyway,’ she eventually mutters. ‘I just realised something deeply unpleasant.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘If you get this, and if they’re only looking at three other actors, then let’s face it, you’ve got a thirty three per cent chance…then…just think…you’ll be gone all day when you’re rehearsing and then gone all night when the show is playing, won’t you? Tell me the truth, Annie, what does your gut instinct say? Do you think you’ll get the gig?’

‘Probably not.’

‘Don’t say “probably not”. That worries me. What’s wrong with ordinary “not”?’

I can’t help smiling at her. You should see her, looking at me all worried, with the innocent expression and the big, saucer-black eyes. Honest to God, for a split second, she looks exactly like she did when she was about twelve years old.

‘Because if you did feck off to Dublin,’ she goes on, playing with a pig tail, ‘that means I’d be stuck here on my own, without you, doesn’t it? Bugger and double bugger it anyway. You’ve no idea what it’s like here when you’re not around, Annie. Between the Mothership with all her little turns and Lisa Ledbetter and her whinging, this house is like an open casting call for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I’m not sure that I could handle it without you. Perish the thought, but if that were the case, then I might actually have to do the unthinkable and…pause for dramatic effect…go out and get a job myself.’

Vintage Jules. The first question she’ll always ask when faced with a new set of circumstances is…hold on a minute, let me have a think. Now how does this directly affect me?

‘Well, it may not even come to pass,’ I say, taking a sip of tea and trying to plumb the fault line in my heart to gauge my own reaction if it didn’t happen. Or, even more unthinkable, if it did. Oh God, just the thought of what that would involve instantly makes me break out in a cold, shivery sweat.

But Jules is already gone off on a tangent.

‘Well anyway, lucky for you, though, Annie, there’s no need to feel guilty, because as it happens, I do have an ace up my sleeve. You know how Dan’s been on at me lately about cutting my allowance unless he sees me at least out looking for some kind of work? Well, I had a brainwave last night. While watching a repeat of Britain’s Got Talent, when I get all my best inspiration.’

‘Ehh…let me guess. You’ve decided to become a pop star and you’re going to go and audition for Simon Cowell and Amanda Holden? Isn’t it a prerequisite that you have to at least be able to sing first?’

‘No, I’m going to use my own talent, you gobshite. I’m going to become an author. I’ve even got the title for my first book all worked out. It’s a loosely autobiographical story, based on the life of a stunningly beautiful, gifted nineteen-year-old girl, who’s just dropped out of college and is forced through cruel economic circumstances into living with her nut job of a mother in a tiny little backwater, in the back arse of nowhere. It’s called I Love You, But Please Die. So whaddya think?’

‘I honestly don’t know which of us is worse. You for dreaming up this crap, or me for listening to you. Although I will say this: if you did turn to writing, it would certainly put that over-active imagination of yours to good use.’

That’s another thing about Jules – she’s famous in the family for being the greatest exaggerator this side of Heather Mills. When she was a kid, she was forever getting into trouble for telling tall tales. Famously, on her first day in primary school she told her entire class that her parents were circus performers; that her mum was an acrobat and her dad could tame lions. When the truth came out, that her father was actually the local vet and her mum was a housewife, she never batted an eyelid, just said that her dad used to be a lion tamer but now looked after sick animals, while her mother was forced to abandon her acrobatic career through injury. Psychologists say that most kids tend to grow out of this carry on by the age of six, but Jules is now nineteen and still hasn’t.

‘Well, missy,’ she says, glaring at me, ‘if you’re going to disappear off for…how long? Couple of months I’m guessing? Then the pressure will all be on me to find work. So if you think about it, it’s all your fault, abe. Feck you anyway for getting a smell of a job. Now I’ll have to run out and get my debut novel published or everyone will think I’m a complete and utter loser. How long will your show run for anyway?’

I don’t answer. Instead, I busy myself tidying up the little picnic Jules has littered around the TV room floor and try my best to tune out her question. Like I say, until I talk to Dan, it’s just not fair to confide in his family first.

But Jules smells something and is straight onto me.

‘Annie? Why won’t you answer me?’

Again, I ignore her and focus on picking up loose kernels of popcorn strewn all around the armchair where she’s sitting.

‘Are you aware that right now your face is flushing like a forest fire?’ she insists tenaciously, like a dog that’s just picked up the faintest scent of blood.

‘You know, as a little treat for us, I went to Marks & Spencer when I was up in Dublin and bought some of the gorgeous beef in a black bean sauce they do. Do you fancy some for dinner?’

‘Hello? Earth to Annie? Can we stick to the subject at hand please? Is there something you’re not telling me? Something about your play?’

She even lowers down the volume on the TV, so there’s no avoiding her question. Then suddenly, she clamps her hand over her mouth and gasps, horrified.

‘Christ Alive, don’t tell me there’s full frontal nudity in the show and you’re too mortified to let on!’

‘No, there is absolutely, categorically no nudity whatsoever. Now would you just go back to doing what you do best – watching daytime TV and let me get dinner started?’

‘Annie…’ she says threateningly.

‘Or if you don’t fancy the beef, I’ve the makings of a nice chicken casserole. What do you say? I know a day isn’t over for you unless you’ve eaten an entire alphabet full of additives, but do you fancy eating something with an actual vitamin in it for a change? Instead of just another bag of tortilla chips, that is.’

‘Piss off, I’m stress eating.’

‘You? Stressed? You never gave a shite about anything in your life.’

‘Stop changing the subject. I know right well when I’m being fobbed off…’

‘…and maybe you’d like a healthy fresh salad with dinner? Maybe?’

‘Bitch! You tell me the truth this minute or I’ll break your nose with my bare forehead…’

‘Lovely talk. Where’d you pick that up, living with your mother?’

‘Annie! You know I’ll wheedle it out of you sooner or later, so you may as well tell me now, while you have my undivided attention. Now, quick, before Home and Away starts.’

I sigh so deeply it feels like it’s coming from my bone marrow, knowing right well that the game’s up.

‘You’re just not going to let this go, are you?’

‘Not a snowball’s chance in hell.’

Right then. I slump back down onto the sofa beside her. I hadn’t wanted to tell anyone ahead of Dan, but then I figure…knowing him, it could be a full twenty-four hours before I actually manage to nail him down. Plus I honestly feel like I’m carrying around the third Secret of Fatima – it’ll be a relief to get it off my chest. Not to mention a good dress rehearsal for what’s to come.

So I tell Jules the truth. The whole truth and nothing but.

There’s silence.

I didn’t expect silence.

Suddenly it’s like all the life and energy has been completely sucked out of the room. I look at her expectantly and she looks at me and I honestly think I’ll fling one of Audrey’s revolting china shepherdess figurines into the fireplace if she doesn’t say something.

Eventually she speaks.

‘Right. That settles it then. I’m getting wine.’

In a single hop, she’s up and over to the drinks cabinet and pouring us out two oversized glasses of Merlot. I don’t argue. I need the drink just as much as she does. If not more.

‘OK,’ she says, handing me the wine and simultaneously taking the mug of tea away from me, like it’s suddenly become poisonous. ‘So I may not like what you’ve just told me, but feck it, you’re like the only normal person in my daily orbit and if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll find some way to help you deal with this. So, let me just tap into my amazing powers of insight here.’

‘Ehh…sorry, did you say your amazing powers of insight?’

‘Yeah, that’s right. I’d use them on myself only it just so happens that I don’t have any problems.’

I fling a cushion at her which she neatly catches, then uses to balance her tortilla chips on.

‘Right then,’ she says assertively, sounding more adult-like than I think I’ve ever heard her. ‘Let’s start by doing pros and cons, will we? OK, I just thought of one. Pro: you’ll probably be dead in like, another fifty years, so chances are it won’t even matter.’

‘That’s your idea of a pro? Jaysus, I’m really looking forward to hearing the cons.’

‘Con: you have to tell Dan. And good luck with that, love.’

‘I tried telling him this morning, but then you know what it’s like trying to get him on his own. I might as well try to…’

‘Nail jelly to a wall, yeah I know. Funny but I thought he was only like that with me whenever I was trying to wheedle money out of him.’

She’s slumped back in the armchair now, long legs dangling over the side, frowning deeply and playing with her pigtails. All her little-girl mannerisms totally at odds with the glass of wine in her hand.

‘Pro,’ she goes on, taking another slug of the wine, ‘you may not even get the job in the first place, so is there really any point in bothering to mention it to him at all? You might only end up worrying him over nothing.’

‘No,’ I say, shaking my head firmly. ‘It wouldn’t be fair not to tell him. Aside from the fact that I physically get heartburn when I try to keep secrets from anyone. It’ll be unpleasant in the short-term, but it’s got to be done. Besides, you know what he’s like. The whole way back from Dublin this afternoon, all I could think was…if this did happen and if things actually went my way for once…I wonder if he’d even notice that I wasn’t around any more?’

‘I take your point,’ says Jules, nodding sagely. ‘There’s every chance you could take the job, disappear off and he’d barely even cop that you weren’t here.’

I throw her a grateful smile. God, it’s so lovely to talk to someone who understands exactly where I’m coming from. Really understands that is, as opposed to telling me what a lovely husband I have and how lucky I am to be married to such a hard-working man with such a strong work ethic who always puts his job first and blah-di-blah.

‘Oooh, here’s a thought. You could always just leave a note behind, saying that you’ll explain it all to him on your deathbed.’

‘Serious suggestions only, please.’

‘I was being serious. You’re a living saint to have put up with everything that you do round here, Annie, I really mean it. Remember the anniversary? You were so patient with him. I think I’d have flung my stuff into a suitcase, jumped into my car and headed straight for the nearest motorway after that episode.’

I shudder a bit just at the memory. The anniversary she’s talking about wasn’t our wedding anniversary by the way, but the anniversary of when we first got engaged, oooh, what feels like about two hundred years ago, when we were both just twenty-three years old. It was early December and at the time, we were in New York on holiday, in the dim and distant days when we still did romantic couple-y things together. Dan had just passed his finals in college and I’d just finished my first, proper acting gig at the National, my big breakthrough role, so this was like a double celebratory trip for us. We were young, we were in big love, in proper astonishing movie love and it honestly felt like the world was our oyster.

Anyroadup, one night we went ice-skating in the Rockefeller Center…that is to say, Dan was ice-skating while I was clinging onto him with one hand and onto a railing with the other, petrified I’d fall. And it started to snow very lightly and he turned down to kiss me and…well, that’s when he proposed. Completely spontaneously, totally out of the blue and yet if he’d stage managed the whole thing, the moment couldn’t have been one iota more flawlessly perfect. Even the snowflakes gently showered us, as though on cue. And it was just so unbearably romantic that ever since, that’s the date we’ve always celebrated as opposed to our wedding anniversary. December the first.

So this year, given the ridiculous hours he’d been working and the fact that we’d barely spoken to each other in I don’t know how long, I really made the effort and pulled out all the stops. I booked dinner for the two of us in Marlfield House, a stunning five-star country house hotel about fifty miles from here – one of those super-luxurious places where the staff all call you Madam and even the cushions have cushions. Not only that, but as an extra surprise, I even booked an overnight stay there for us too. That way neither of us would have to drive home and so it really would be like the second honeymoon the two of us so badly needed. All proudly paid for from my humble book shop earnings, so he couldn’t back out of it by saying it was too expensive for us either.

Anyway come the big day, Dan was out doing TB testing, a laborious, time-consuming and ongoing part of his job, so I went ahead of him to Marlfield House in my own car so as not to waste the day, arranging to meet him there in good time for dinner. But…disaster: he got a last-minute emergency call to deliver a foal on a farm a good forty miles away and wasn’t able to make it, leaving me at the hotel all alone and all by myself. Stood up by my own husband. Not his fault of course, but then it never is, is it? And it’s impossible to have a row with Dan, ever. He’s just way too reasonable and always takes full blame for everything himself, in a sort of row-avoidance, pre-emptive strike.

Completely and utterly pointless my even getting upset about it – this is the life of a country vet and by extension a country vet’s wife. This is what I signed up for. Of course I understood and didn’t get annoyed…sure how could I? And what was I going to do anyway? Get snotty because Dan works hard at a job that’s pretty much twenty-four-seven?

But it left its fecking sting all the same.

Suddenly I’m up on my feet, pacing. Dunno why but I can’t seem to sit still any more.

‘This evening,’ I say firmly. ‘For better or for worse, I have to tell Dan this evening. Even if I have to throw his mobile phone into the fish tank and physically grasp his head between my two hands in a vice grip to get his attention.’

‘Hmmm, I know what you mean,’ says Jules, wolfing back a bag of nachos now. ‘Terrible pity you’re not a sick animal, isn’t it? You know Dan, he can’t resist the scent of the wounded.’

I nod, knowing only too well what she means.

‘Tell you something though, Annie.’

‘What’s that?’

‘This could just be the fright that he needs to put manners on him. You know, when he realises that you’ve actually got a life and a career of your own outside of here. God knows, you’ve made enough sacrifices for him these past few years, and you get sweet feck all in return. If you ask me, he totally takes you for granted and never once have I heard you complain.’

She gets absolutely no argument from me on that score.

‘So,’ Jules goes on, stretching her long legs out towards the fire, ‘maybe this’ll be just the kick up the arse that he needs. I mean, when you tell him that you’re not prepared to sit around and play the surrendered wife any more. Hey, I don’t suppose there’s any chance I can stay and watch?’

Unsurprisingly, I do NOT let her stay and watch. Come eight o’clock, there’s still no sign of Dan, quelle surprise and it turns out Jules is meeting up with one of her pals from college, who lives in Lismore village not too far away. So I wave her off, full of promises to report back the full, unexpurgated transcript of my Big Chat with Dan later on.

It was my full intention to wait up for him, so he couldn’t head straight for bed without saying two words to me, like he normally would. But by half eleven, I’m stretched out on the sofa in front of the fire with the TV still on, out for the count and utterly drained after all the hoofing up and down to Dublin earlier today.

The dogs are the first to wake me; Dan often takes them out with him on farm calls and they always go bananas whenever they get back home. So the minute I hear barking and paws scratching to get through the living room door, I’m groggily hauling myself up, all set for the almighty show-down.

‘Dan?’ I call out, sleepily stumbling to my feet, ‘I’m in here.’

Our three Labradors are first into the room, jumping and slobbering all over me as I pet each one in turn. Then I look up…and there he is, filling the door with his huge, broad-shouldered, hulking frame, still wearing the giant, oversized wax jacket he wears out on farm calls and looking more exhausted than I’ve seen him in months. Honest to God, the dark circles lining his face are now exactly the same shade of black as his eyes.

‘Hey, you’re still up?’ he says, in a voice flat with tiredness. ‘I thought you’d have been in bed hours ago.’

‘Emm…yeah, I…. well…I wanted to talk to you,’ I say, with a highly inconvenient knot suddenly appearing in my stomach. ‘How did you get on today?’

‘Oh same old, same old,’ he says, coming in towards the fire for warmth, as ever, the room suddenly seeming smaller just because he’s in it. He’s left his Wellingtons in the hall but even in stockinged feet, he still towers over me by about a foot and a half. He brings the cold outside air into the room with him and smells of the outdoors: horsey and leathery. Unsurprising, given that he’s been on an equine farm for the past sixteen hours. Must be raining outside too because his thick, black hair looks damp as he runs his hands through it, trying to dry himself out a bit.

‘I was up at Fogarty’s most of the evening – Paul insisted I call over a second time, after I’d done the rest of my calls. But all is well, I think. I did another endoscopy on the filly and there’s nothing sinister. He’s just panicking because she won’t be fit for the flat season, that’s all.’

I smile up at him and change the subject.

‘Hungry?’ Good tactic; a full stomach will possibly make him more amenable to what I have to say.

‘No thanks,’ he yawns, ‘I’m just so, so tired. But James has taken the phones now, so at least I can crash out for a bit. I’ll just feed the dogs then get to bed. Early start tomorrow, you know yourself.’

It flashes through my mind how polite and passionless our conversation is. More like two flatmates who hardly ever see each other than husband and wife.

‘I’ll look after the dogs, don’t worry, but before you do go to bed, Dan, there’s something we really need to talk about.’

‘Could we leave it till later? I doubt I can take too much in right now.’

He’s half way out the door and I know this is the only chance I’m going to get, so I go for it.

‘Dan, remember I told you I was up in Dublin today for an audition?’

‘An audition? Really? You never said.’

I let that go on the grounds that the guy is practically sleepwalking with sheer knackered-ness and has probably even forgotten talking to me this morning. Chances are I’m just a big, blurry shape to him now.