certainly am.’
When I was younger, during interviews I used to do a wistful look into the middle distance whenever it came up about my being orphaned. I stopped though, when it was pointed out to me that actually, I just looked constipated.
‘But your father remarried, didn’t he?’
Shit. How does she know that?
‘Emm…well, I suppose he did, yes, but…’
‘And in actual fact, you grew up with your stepmother and two stepsisters, didn’t you?’
‘Well…the thing is…’
‘She’s called Joan, and her daughters are Maggie and Sharon. Isn’t that right?’
Sweet baby Jesus and the orphans, she even knows their names? OK, now the saliva in my mouth has said, ‘I’m outta here, see you!’ Come on Jessie, think straight. Right then. Nothing to do but brush it off. I mean, everyone has family skeletons in the closet they don’t necessarily want to talk about, don’t they? And believe me, this is something I never talk about. Ever. In fact the only person in my new life who knows is Sam and that’s only because he was giving me the third degree about my deep background and I’d no choice but to ‘fess up and tell all.
‘Well, you’ve certainly done your research, haven’t you Katie?’ is what I manage to come out with. Perfect answer. I even tag on the false TV laugh for good measure, because that’s how cool I am talking about this. ‘Ha, ha, HA!’ Then I go into distraction mode; anything just to get off this highly uncomfortable subject. ‘So, em, anyone fancy a coffee then? I’ve a lovely new espresso maker in the kitchen that I’m only dying to try out.’
No such luck though, it’s as if Katie smells blood here and isn’t budging.
‘Yes,’ she nods slowly and for the first time I can see steel in her eyes. Bloody hell, is all I can think, this one will make a brilliant investigative reporter in years to come. ‘In fact, I’ve done an awful lot of research on you, Jessie. For starters, your Wikipedia entry said that you went to school at the Holy Faith School in Killiney, but when I called them, they had absolutely no record of you at all. So they suggested I try their sister school on the Northside, who did have a Jessie Woods on file. Yes, they said, you’d been a pupil there right the way through secondary school. They were incredibly forthcoming with information, you know; they even had your old address on file. Which is how I eventually tracked down your family.’
No, no, no, please don’t use the F word. You don’t understand, I have NO family, I had nothing to do with those people and they have nothing to do with me…
‘Emm…or we could shoot out in the back garden if you like?’ I’m gabbling now, panicking a bit, while thinking, Curse you, Wikipedia. ‘Ehh…there’s a gorgeous water feature out there that looks lovely when it’s switched on. I mean, it’s a bit clogged up with dead leaves at the moment, but apart from that, it could make a great shot for you…’
‘In fact, as it happens, Jessie, I’ve already spoken to your stepfamily. We interviewed all three of them only yesterday. For the full afternoon. Fabulous interviews. And you know, they were all so generous with their time, we couldn’t have been more grateful. So, it’s in the can, as you might say!’
Oh no no no no no no no no no no no…
I should fill you in a bit. Relations between me and my stepfamily are as follows: they can’t abide the sight of me and for my part…just when I think I’ve come to the very bottom of their meanness, turns out there’s a whole underground garage of mean to discover as well.
First up there’s Maggie; eldest stepsister, thirty-three years of age and still living at home. Honest to God, if you handed this one a winning lottery ticket in the morning, she’d still whinge and moan about having to drive all the way into town to collect the oversized novelty cheque. A woman with all the charm of an undertaker and the allure of a corpse, her philosophy of life can be summarised thus: ambition leads to expectation which inevitably leads to failure which ultimately leads to disappointment, so the best thing you can possibly do with yourself is not try. Just get up, go to work, come home, then spend all your free time, nights, weekends, bank holidays, the whole shebang, crashed out on the sofa in front of the telly, with the remote control balanced on your belly. Low expectations = a happy life.
Don’t ask me how she does it, but the woman actually manages to radiate sourness. In fact, as a teenager, I used to reckon that the ninth circle of hell would be like a fortnight in Lanzarote compared with a bare ten minutes in Maggie’s company. And that the only reason she didn’t actually worship the devil was because she didn’t need to; more than likely, he worshipped her.
Oh, and just as an aside, in all my years, I’ve only ever seen her wearing one of two things; either a polyester navy suit for work or else a succession of slobby tracksuits for maximum comfort while watching TV. Which for some reason, permanently seem to have egg stains on them, but I digress.
She works for the Inland Revenue as a tax commissioner; probably the only career I can think of where a horrible personality like hers would be a bonus. In fact, I was hauled in last year for a ‘random’ tax audit; all deeply unpleasant and I’d nearly take my oath that she had something to do with it. Wouldn’t put it past her. Be exactly the kind of thing she’d do just for the laugh.
I also happen to know for a fact that behind my back she calls me Cinderella Rockefeller, which is absolutely fine by me. Behind her back, I call her Queen Kong. Then there’s Sharon, thirty-two years of age and also still living at home. Works as a ‘Food Preparation and Hygiene Manager’ at Smiley Burger (don’t ask). Honestly, it’s like the pair of them just settled down without bothering to find anyone to actually settle down with. Like, God forbid, actual boyfriends. The best way to describe Sharon is that she’s PRO Coronation Street/eating TV microwave dinners straight off the plastic tray and ANTI exercise/non-smokers/ anyone who dares speak to her during her favourite soaps. For this girl, every day is a bad hair day. Plus her weight problem is so permanently out of hand that I often think she must be terrified to go near water, in case she’s clobbered by a bottle of champagne and officially launched by the Minister for the Marine. Nor, I might add, are any of the tensions in that house helped by my stepmother Joan, who refers to the pair of them as ‘the elder disappointment’ and ‘the younger disappointment’. To their faces.
I don’t even blame Dad for remarrying and allowing a whole new stepfamily to torpedo into our lives; I knew how desperately lonely he was, how much he missed Mum and how worried he was about me growing up without a stable female presence at home. When Mum died I was too young to remember her and for years didn’t fully understand the enormity of her loss. Even now, I find it hard to accept; come on, dead of ovarian cancer at the age of thirty-eight? But back then, as a scraped-faced, grubby tomboy, permanently up a tree, all I knew was that suddenly it was me and Dad against the world. And, in my childish, innocent way, I thought he and I were rubbing along just fine; we were happy, we were holding it together. OK, so maybe a ten-year-old shouldn’t necessarily be cooking spaghetti hoops on toast for her dad’s dinner five nights a week, or doing all the cleaning while all her pals were out on the road playing, but it didn’t bother me. I’d have done anything to make Dad happy and stop him from missing Mum. I can even see what attracted him to Joan, to begin with at least. Years later, he told me it was a combination of aching loneliness and heartbreak at seeing a little child desperately struggling
