Same crapology, different day, Eloise thought distractedly as she shuffled her way through everyone else and into the Post’s conference room, all set for the first news briefing of the day.
Ahh; crapology. Yet another one of Jake’s, mash-up contributions to the English language.
Jake. Funny how, even at the most unexpected times, he still had the power to inveigle his way into her subconscious. And try as she might to banish him from her mind, somehow he kept intruding.
‘Not that I’ve time to listen to the answer,’ Ruth O’ Connell said to her on the way in, ‘but are you OK?’
‘Ehh … yeah, why wouldn’t I be?’
Eloise answered, puzzled at her even asking the question in the first place. Ruth never inquired after anyone, at any time, ever. As far as she was concerned, once you were alive, showing a resting pulse rate and continuing to turn up for work, you were assumed to be perfectly fine, unless subsequently stretchered off by a team of paramedics with paddles affixed to your heart, end of story.
In other words, just like Eloise herself used to carry on, not all that long ago.
‘Oh, nothing,’ Ruth backpedalled, instantly realising she’d said The Wrong Thing.
‘I suppose I’m … just a bit tired, you know yourself,’ Eloise tried her best to smile weakly back at her, as the momentary flush of irritation passed. Hardly Ruth’s fault that she’d picked up on the low-level depression that had been hanging like a fog over her ever since … Well, ever since.
And in all this time, she thought, drifting back up into her cloud of anxiety, not so much as a single word from Jake; nothing. Like he’d just completely vanished right back to where he came from; thin air. He’d moved lock, stock and barrel out of Helen’s flat and wasn’t returning phone calls, not to mention any of the countless messages she’d left for him at the language school. During her darker moments in the rare bit of time that Eloise got to herself, she oscillated between bouts of fist-rattling, white-hot anger, then lately – even more worryingly – a deep unease about what in the name of God had actually happened to him.
Frankly, it was getting harder by the day to tell which was worse.
Yes, she’d messed up royally, yes what she did was wrong on so many levels, she knew that and God knows, she’d beaten herself up about it enough times. But still, she could be so annoyed at him, livid at how he could just stalk off Homer Simpsonlike in high dudgeon without even giving her the courtesy of a second chance. Hadn’t he been given just that himself? But no, instead of putting what she’d done behind them and starting over, as far as she was concerned, he was sulking, letting her sweat while he hid out God alone knew where. Punishing her, torturing her, acting like a complete child.
This white-fury, of course, would quickly boomerang into annoyance directed squarely back at herself. For Christ’s sake, she’d think in her stronger moments, wasn’t dealing with almighty crap like this the very reason why she electively didn’t ever do relationships? Or even friendships? Because this was what inevitably happened; you invested so much time and all of your considerable energies in one other person, only to have the door firmly slammed right in your face. So why did she even bother in the first place?
Then there was Lily, pretty much the only person in her life that could put a smile on her face these days. Every night when she rushed home to her, Eloise would play with her, sing to her, bathe her and put her to bed while the same thought ran round her head. The one good thing to come out of this whole mess was that she’d never introduced him to Lily. Because if he’d met her and then chose to bugger off on her, Eloise swore she’d have strangled him with her bare hands, gladly done time for it, and very likely ended up behind bars in Wheatfield Prison herself.
At least Lily was okay and oblivious to the backstage drama that had gone on. And now these mornings when she’d snuggle into her bed at the crack of dawn and ask, ‘Mama? Have you found my daddy yet?’ Eloise would just pull her tightly to her and gloss over the subject, telling her how loved she was, that she was the best little girl in the whole world and how lucky they both were to have Auntie Helen living with them. And Lily would smile her gap-toothed little smile at that and let it go.
Another thing though; now that Jake was officially gone from her life, why couldn’t she seem to just do what she always did? Bury herself in work and get on with her career? The one thing that had never in her whole life let her down before?
Because somehow she just wasn’t able to focus anymore. Found herself barely able to concentrate these days; she whose proudest boast once was that she could multitask for Ireland, keeping tabs on about ten different conversations all at once and still stay fully abreast of all of them. Normally, even on the bad days, and there were certainly plenty enough of them, work filled her, gave her a buzz that got her through the interminable hours until she could get home to Lily.
She thought habit and routine would save her, but for some reason, not now. All she knew for certain was that when you stripped away every fluctuating emotion she was feeling, here’s what she was left with. Wherever Jake was, whatever he was doing, whoever he was with now … She just missed her friend. Missed him far more than she’d ever have thought possible. And night-times were worst. Because nights were when they used to talk. Not about anything life-alteringly huge; they wouldn’t take the world apart then put it back together again; they’d just have long, meandering chats to each other about their respective days and if she ever dared stray into moaning or stressing territory, he’d gently bring her round, tease her out of it, make her laugh, make her feel like she wasn’t battling the world alone all the time.
All over now, she sighed restlessly to herself. It was over and she’d never see him again. Her mind had already accepted this.
She just wished someone would explain it to her heart.
‘Course, know what you need to cheer you up a wee bit?’ Ruth playfully nudged her, as they took their seats round the already packed conference room, everyone laden down with briefcases, notebooks, iPhones, iPads, Starbucks takeouts, the whole works. All ready to hit the ground running.
‘What’s that?’
‘A night of passion with that ride of a lover boy of yours. That’d sure as hell put the colour back in your cheeks, lassie.’
Half an hour later, and the rough cut of tomorrow’s front page was finally beginning to take shape. The lead story, after much aggressive canvassing from Robbie, was the Republican primary in Washington, followed up by yet another interest rate rise pitched by finance editor Jack Dundon, the only calm, measured voice in a roomful of journos all yelling over each other like kids in a disorderly classroom, each desperately wanting to get their stories maximum prominence.
Eloise was working fast and furious today though, and in the space of twenty minutes, had already covered both foreign and political; a developing story of a government minister accused of planning corruption during the property boom … One to watch and monitor closely, she told the room to much nodding and grunting, as she briskly dealt with the story and moved on.
Wish some random outsider would step in and edit my life, she found herself suddenly thinking from out of nowhere as she stretched across the table to get her next set of briefing notes. Wish some higher being would decree from some heavenly conference table exactly what I need do to solve my own personal drama, and bark instructions at me as to how best I could move on from here.
Some bleeding chance, she sighed, suddenly realising that the room had gone scarily quiet as everyone just looked at her in a semi-trance, totally unused to her drifting off into space like this.
And so, picking up the pace, she moved onto domestic. As it happened it was pretty quiet, the lead story being the justice minister issuing an outright condemnation of the scenes of violence that had accompanied an Apprentice Boys parade up in Derry the previous day. Which they’d already covered in glorious technicolour and which, in spite of Ruth’s table-thumping hissy-fit about giving it a full half page, Eloise was anxious to move on from.
‘So what’s happening in the courts today?’ she asked the table.
‘Not much, but the next few days should get a lot more newsworthy, as it happens,’ replied Joe McHugh, courts correspondent; by a mile the elder statesman of the room.
‘No hot, leggy models suing any of our rivals for defamation this week, then?’ Kian from sports joshed to sniggers round the table. ‘Pity, we need a few shots of a former Miss Ireland with mascara dribbling down her face after being cross-examined. I see the photo caption now: Not All The Fake Tan In The World Can Help Her Now …’
‘Shhh, give it a rest Kian. Sorry, go on Joe,’ said Eloise, scribbling furiously on the sheaf of notes in front of her.
‘Okay then, here’s my lead … Name Michael Courtney ring a bell?’ Joe casually threw across the table at her.
Everyone else in the room continued on as normal, the low hum of conversation still buzzed, the world kept turning round on its axis.
Only Eloise looked up sharply from her notes.
‘What about him?’
‘He’s finally standing trial early next week. Should be juicy. He’s been in a holding prison in Portlaoise for almost three months now while they’ve been trying to gather enough witnesses to testify against him. Which of course, is easier said than done. Might be worth a page six though or even in time, a page three. I’ll see what I can do. But for now, I can at least get you five hundred words on what’s he’s up for and what the likely sentence is. Plus, just to remind readers exactly the kind of hard-case this guy is, maybe I could do a short profile of what it was he allegedly did, that eventually landed him behind bars. What would you say to maybe four thousand words?’
Again the low background drone of chat continued. Only Eloise stayed totally focused on Joe, her face growing whiter by the minute.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘We’re not covering it. And no mention of what he is or isn’t allegedly up for.’
‘Now hang on Eloise, the Michael Courtney trial will be a good one, well worth …’
‘I said no,’ she almost barked back at him, then instantly wished she could claw back how irrationally snappy she’d sounded, the minute the words were out of her mouth.
‘I’m just saying, people will want reminding of what happened, for God’s sake it was well over three years ago now. I just think we should bring them back up to speed, that’s all. It was a huge page one at the time, you’ll remember. Big story.’
‘I remember perfectly well thanks, I just don’t think it’s news right now. Sorry Joe, it’s a no.’
‘Well, if we don’t, you do know that the Chronicle will be sure to splash it …’
‘So let them. Gimme something else instead. Right then, who’s next? Okay Kian, seeing as how you won’t shut up, let’s hear from sports.’
And the meeting moved on and almost no one appeared to notice. After all, the Post frequently dropped stories deemed beneath it, that were too tabloidy, not worth the attention of the paper of record. This was a fairly small story in the grand scheme of things; what could possibly have made it any different?
But directly across the table from Eloise, Seth had been quietly drinking it all in.
Scarcely able to believe his luck.
Just another few days max, he thought. That’s all he had to wait.
And then everything would be in place.