The Other Side of the Story Read online

  This debut from Lily Wright is less of a novel and more of an extended fable – and none the worse for that. A white witch, the eponymous Mimi, mysteriously arrives in a small village – location unspecified – and sets about working her own particular brand of sorcery. Rocky marriages are cemented and sundered lovers are reunited. Sounds too sweet to be wholesome? Suspend your cynicism and go with the flow. Shot through with magic, Mimi’s Remedies manages to be a charming comedy of manners and a wry social commentary. As comforting as hot buttered toast on a cold evening, and just as addictive.

  Shaking, I put the paper down. I think they liked it. Deep breath in, hold, deep breath out, deep breath in, hold, deep breath out. Oh God, I was jealous. I was so jealous, it was hot and green in my veins.

  I could see it all now: Lily Wright was going to turn into a major celebrity. She’d be in all the papers and everyone would love her. Despite her bald patch she’d be in the pages of Hello!. She’d get on Parkinson. Even on David Letterman or Oprah. She’d be loaded and finally able to afford a Burt Reynolds-style hairweave and everyone would love her even more. She’d do charity work and get an award. She’d have a limo. And a huge big house. And a stalker. Every bloody thing!

  I picked up the paper and read the review again, looking for something – anything – negative. There had to be something. But no matter how I read it, I really couldn’t see that this review was anything but a rave.

  I threw the paper from me with a sharp rustle. Why is life such a bastard? Why do some people get every fucking thing? Lily Wright has a gorgeous man – mine, a lovely little girl – half mine, and now a glorious career. It wasn’t fair.

  My mobile rang and I grabbed it. Cody. ‘Have you seen it?’ he asked.

  ‘I have. You?’

  ‘Yes. Pause. ‘Fair play to her.’

  Cody walks a very narrow line between Lily and me. He refused to take sides when the great falling out occurred and he won’t bitch with me about her, even though under normal circumstances he could bitch for Ireland. (If only it was an Olympic sport.) One time he even had the cheek to suggest that Lily stealing Anton from me might have caused her as much pain as it did me. I mean! In theory I can understand his position – Lily had done nothing to him – but sometimes, like today, it gives me a right pain in the arse.

  It was Saturday morning, five days since Dad had gone – five days – and he still hadn’t returned. I’d been certain he would have by now. It was what had kept me going, thinking that the situation was very, very temporary; that he’d had a rush of blood to the head, coupled with the stress of the tiramisu situation, but that he’d come to his senses in no time.

  I’d been waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting to hear his key in the lock, waiting for him to rush into the hall, yelping about what a dreadful mistake he’d made, waiting for this hell to be over.

  On Thursday I rang four times to ask him to come home and each time he said the same thing – that he was sorry but he wouldn’t be returning. Then I thought that I’d rung him enough and perhaps a few days’ silence from me and Mam might jolt him to his senses.

  A week. I’d give it a week. He’d be back by then. He’d have to be because the alternative was unthinkable.

  I didn’t go to work on Thursday and Friday. I couldn’t – I was too worried about Mam. But I worked from Mam’s, spending Thursday making calls, sending faxes and emails, as I chased up Davinia’s arrangements. I even managed to zip off a couple of emails to Seattle where I vented big time and agreed with Susan that yes, Dad’s jacket could have been worse, it could have had fringes.

  On Friday morning Andrea came to Mam’s with the files and we worked our way through the lists. Davinia Westport’s wedding arrangements consisted of list after list after list; lists of the guests’ arrival times; lists of the drivers who’d be collecting them; lists of where everyone was staying and lists of their specific requirements.

  (I love lists and sometimes at the start of a job, I’ll put things on the list that I’ve already done, just so I can draw a nice ‘done’ line through them.)

  Then there were the timetables. Hour by hour breakdowns of when the marquee was being erected, when the acres of satin would arrive, when the floor would be laid and the lighting and heating should be set up. We were making good progress until Davinia rang on Friday afternoon to say that her friends Blue and Sienna had broken up and could no longer be seated at the same table as each other. All other work had to be shelved for the next two hours as we constructed a new seating plan – this one tiny sundering had set off shock waves which rippled through the entire wedding party, because they all seemed to have slept with each other. Every proposed move impacted negatively: Sienna couldn’t sit at Table 4 because Blue’s new girl, August, was there. She couldn’t sit at Table 5 because her ex, Charlie, was there. Table 6, Blue’s ex, Lia, whom he’d dumped for Sienna. Table 7… etc. And if we tried moving the obstacles – August to a new table, for example – she’d end up face-to-face with someone she’d shafted or slept with. It was like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube.

  What made things worse was that I didn’t have Andrea’s full attention. She kept eyeing the bars of chocolate thrown casually along the window sill, in the bread bin, and on top of the fridge. ‘It’s like,’ she exclaimed, ‘being let loose in a sweet shop.’

  Because chocolate had been so freely available to me all my life, I could pretty much take it or leave it, but it had come in very handy since Tuesday: more alarming even than Mam losing the will to live, she’d lost the will to cook. And as I had no clue how to, it was just as easy when mealtimes rolled around to have biscuits and chocolate.

  I loaded Andrea up with a selection of stuff in the hope that she might concentrate on the job in hand.

  ‘Focus,’ I entreated. ‘Do it for Davinia if you won’t do it for me.’

  You see, Davinia Westport was a bit of a rarity. Even though she was posh, rich and good-looking, she was nice. (Apart from, like I said, insisting on getting married in a tent in the coldest month of the year.) More often than not the client is the worst thing about my job – worse than hotel ballrooms burning down two days before the event or the guests at a fund-raiser being fed salmonella chicken and having to be ferried off, puking their guts up, during the raffle. But Davinia was different. She didn’t ring me at home in the middle of the night shrieking that her polo neck was the wrong shade of black or that she’d got a cold sore, and that I’d better fix it.

  Andrea and I finished up at about eight o’clock on Friday night. No sooner was she gone, gratefully clutching an armful of confectionery, than Mam presented me with a list and dispatched me to the supermarket for the weekly shop. She didn’t come with me because whenever I suggested she get dressed, she hugged her (increasingly grubby) peach dressing-gown tighter around her and whimpered, ‘Don’t make me.’ But as I unpacked the groceries when I got back, Mam complained that I’d got all the wrong things. What did you get this butter for?’ she asked, puzzled the way she’d been puzzled when I hadn’t locked up the house the first night. ‘This isn’t the bread we get. And we don’t get proper cornflakes, we get the own-brand stuff. Throwing money away…’ she muttered.

  Before I went to bed, the locking up had to commence; checking the windows, shooting bolts and putting chains on all the doors as I secured the house to Mam’s high standards. I was exhausted by the time I trudged up to bed – and I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for myself. It was Friday night, I should have been out on the razz instead of babysitting my mam. How I wished that Dad would come home.

  I was too upset to sleep so I took refuge in a fantasy. Conjuring up imaginary story-lines where runaway boyfriends return and enemies are vanquished is my party trick. I’ve gained quite a reputation, especially among Cody’s gang and sometimes people I’ve just been introduced to ask me to do it for them.

  How it works is, they give me a thumbnail sketch of the disaster: for example, their boyfriend had been spotted in Brown Thom
as getting a Burberry bag giftwrapped. Naturally the aggrieved party thought it was for her and did what any sensible woman would do – went directly out and bought matching sandals. But the next time they meet, the fella breaks it off… without cushioning the blow with the bag. Obviously he’s met someone else!

  I take a bit more information, like length of relationship, cost of the bag etc., give it a little think and come back with something like, ‘OK, picture the scene. It’s three months from now and you bump into him and as luck would have it, you’re looking great…’ Pause to plan the hair and wardrobe – yes, they could have the candy-striped trews they saw in Vogue and yes, they would go with those scoop-necked tops. OK, high-necked if they preferred. And the new season’s boots, well, obviously – then I continue. ‘The Burberry bags have been marked down and you’ve bought yourself two. No, no wait, you haven’t bought yourself any because who wants a bag that no one else wants? No, you got a bonus at work and you bought yourself an Orla Kiely that there was a waiting list for and you’re just back from a sun holiday where you caught jaundice so not only are you rake-skinny, but you’ve a lovely colour. His car has just been clamped, it’s pelting rain and one of his shoes has been stolen by a vicious inner-city fox.’ Etc., etc. It’s my attention to detail which people rate me for, I’m told, and when Anton ran off with Lily, it was a case of fantasist heal thyself.

  The scenario I’d comforted myself with involved escaping to some remote rural Mills & Boon community. Beside the sea, naturally; some fantastically wild sea with big waves and surf and spray and the whole lot. I’d go for long, mad walks along the sea or the cliffs and while I was out tramping along gloomily, some hunky farmer would spot me and, even though I hadn’t had my roots done for ages, he’d take a shine to me. Of course, he wasn’t just a farmer, he was also a film director or a former entrepreneur who’d sold his innovative company for millions. I’d have an ethereal fragile quality about me, but because I was so wounded I’d be rude to him in the village shop when he tried to be nice to me. However, instead of calling me a stupid bitch, like he would in real life, and recommencing his fling with the village floozie, he’d take to leaving two fresh eggs on my doorstep in the morning. I’d get back from my four-mile stomp along the cliff to find the eggs – still warm from the hens, of course – waiting for my breakfast. (And never mind that my breakfast would normally consist of a mini-Magnum and three bowls of sugarpuffs.) I’d make a delicious omelette, with some wild parsley snipped from the garden that came with the house. Or else he’d leave a freshly picked, hand-gathered bouquet of wild flowers, and the next time I met him I wouldn’t sneer, ‘Do Interflora not deliver out here, then?’ Instead, I’d thank him and say that buttercups were my favourite flowers. (As if.) At some stage I’d end up in his kitchen where I’d see him tenderly feeding a tiny lamb from a baby’s bottle and my heart would begin its long overdue thaw. Until one morning, when I was out on my hike, a piece of the cliff would dislodge itself, taking me with it. There had been warnings about the unstable cliff edges, but in my death-wish state I’d discounted them. Somehow the hunky farmer would have seen me toppling over into the briny and he’d come with his tractor and ropes and rescue me from the little ledge I’d fortuitously landed on. Bosh. Happy Ever After land.

  6

  TO: [email protected]

  FROM: Gemma [email protected]

  SUBJECT: non-stop drama

  Wait till you hear. Last night I was in bed, comforting myself with the film director-farmer fantasy when I heard a noise coming from Mam’s room. Some sort of bump, then she was calling piteously, ‘Gemma, Gemma.’ Like this – Ddgemmmmaaah… ddgemmmaaah… so I pelted into her and she was turned on her side, writhing like a dying haddock and said, ‘My heart!’ (So people really do say that in the real world.) ‘I’m having a heart attack.’

  I believed her – she was grey, her chest was heaving and her eyes bulged. I grabbed the bedside phone so hard it fell on the floor.

  It’s the weirdest thing, making a 999 call – I’d only ever done it once before: Anton had had badly bad hiccups and I’d been very drunk. (Actually, so had he, it was the reason for his hiccups.) We’d tried everything to stop them: cold key down his back; drinking from the wrong side of the glass; looking at his bank statement to see just how overdrawn he was. It had seemed like an emergency at the time, but the 999 operator had given me short shrift.

  This was a different story. I was taken very seriously, told to put Mam in the recovery position (whatever that is) and promised that an ambulance was on its way. While we waited, I held Mam’s hand and begged her not to die.

  ‘I’ve a good mind to,’ she gasped. ‘That’d teach your father.’

  The awful thing was I didn’t even have a phone number for Dad. I should have insisted on getting hard-faced Colette’s number, in case of emergency, but I’d been too proud to ask.

  Mam was wheezing and fighting for breath – it was absolutely terrifying, I can’t tell you – and I couldn’t get over my bad luck. Imagine! Losing two parents in one week. It had never said that in last Sunday’s horoscope.

  This was the time that I wished that the autumnal evening classes you and I used to sign up for (but never go to after week three) had been in first aid, instead of yoga or Spanish conversation. I might have learned something that made the difference between my mother living and dying.

  I half-remembered something about aspirin – weren’t you meant to do something with that for heart-attack victims? Either you were definitely supposed to give it to them, or you were definitely not supposed to…

  In the distance came the sound of sirens, getting closer, then through the bedroom curtains the blue light flashed. I ran down to open the front door and ten minutes later when I’d undone all the chains and locks, two fine hefty young men (you’d have liked them) burst in, pounded up the stairs with a stretcher, strapped Mam on, then pounded back down again, me scampering to keep up. They slid her into the ambulance, I hopped in after her, then they were attaching Mam to all kinds of monitors.

  We wee-wah’ed through the streets as the men checked Mam’s readings and I can’t say how I knew but very shortly the atmosphere changed from efficiency to something less pleasant. The two men were giving each other funny looks and the knot in my stomach got worse.

  ‘Will she die?’ I asked.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Um…?’

  Then one of the lads said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with her. No heart attack. No stroke. All her vital signs are fine.’

  ‘But she was gasping,’ I said. ‘And she’d gone grey.’

  ‘Probably a panic attack. See your GP about it, get some Valium.’

  Can you imagine! The siren switched off. The ambulance was doing a u-turn and, at a much slower speed, Mam and I were returned home and deposited outside our front gate. Mortified. The lads were quite nice about it. When I clambered out I apologized for wasting their time and they just said, ‘No bother.’

  I went back to bed and I swear to God I was burning with shame, in flames from it. Every time I was just drifting off I’d remember again and go Aaaagh! and have to sit up. It took hours to get to sleep and when I woke up it was Saturday morning and time to read the rave review of Lily’s book in the Irish Times. (Copy attached from the Irish Times website.)

  I hate my life.

  Although I’m glad it’s cheering you up – but soon you’ll make friends and you won’t be lonely any more.

  I have to go now because Dr Bailey is here (again). Please write and tell me nice things about Seattle.

  Love

  Gemma

  PS I shouldn’t even humour you on this, but if you really need to know, I thought the coffee flavour was too concentrated and I’d much prefer it with milk chocolate instead of dark.

  I was allowed out to collect Mam’s prescription from the chemist. Dr Bailey had prescribed stronger tranquillizers. Then he’d scribbled on his pad and said, ‘Perhaps some antidepressants too.
’

  Mam said, ‘The only anti-depressant I want is for my husband to come home.’

  ‘That’s not on the market yet,’ Dr Bailey said, already edging down the stairs and back to the golf course.

  I went to the same chemist I’d gone to the other night. Not only had they been nice to me, but it was the nearest.

  The door pinged and someone said, ‘Hello again.’

  It was the same man who’d saved my life on Wednesday night.

  ‘Hello.’ I handed over the prescription. He scanned it and clucked sympathetically. ‘Take a seat.’

  While he ducked behind the melamine divider to get Mam’s happy pills I noticed they’d all kinds of nice things that I’d missed on my mercy dash on Wednesday night.

  Not just the usual chemist paraphernalia of painkillers and cough mixtures but mid-range face creams and, most distracting of all, nail polishes. This is how I feel about nail polish…

  A few of my favourite things

  Favourite thing No. 2

  My nails: A testimonial

  All my life I’ve hated my hands. I’m prone to short limbs anyway and nowhere is it more pronounced than my fingers. But about six months ago, at the behest of Susan, I started getting my nails ‘done’. Which means getting them lengthened and strengthened with all sorts of fake jiggery-pokery. But the best bit of all is they don’t look fake. They just look like nice nails, a nice length, painted a nice colour. (No horrible witchy femme fatale red talons for me.)

  I am different when my nails are done. I am more dynamic, I gesticulate more, I am better at scaring my staff. I can indicate impatience by drumming on table tops and I can wrap up a meeting with a few choice clatters.

  I am now utterly dependent on my long nails. Without them I’m like Samson without his hair, I feel naked and devoid of power. And I no longer laugh when people make fun of girls who regard breaking a nail as a disaster, because a broken nail has the same effect on me as kryp-tonite on Superman.