Текст книги "Personally, I Blame my Fairy Godmother"

Автор книги: Carroll Claudia

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‘Oooh, and look at this fabulous shot of you and the sexy Sam Hughes! Tell us, Jessie, how did you two first meet?’

I glow a bit, the way I always do whenever I get a chance to talk about Sam. OK, the real answer to this question is:

we met at Channel Six when I first started working there, God, almost nine years ago now. I was just twenty-one years old, straight off a media training course and working as a runner on News Time,which Sam seemed to appear on every other week, talking about GNPs and PPIs and whatever you’re having yourself. ‘Runner’, though, as everyone knows, is a glorified word for ‘dogsbody’, so my job basically involved getting the tea, emptying bins in dressing rooms and on more than one occasion, having to blow-dry under one newsreader’s armpits with a hair dryer, so her couture dress wouldn’t get deodorant stains on it. I’ll never forget it; her name was Diane Daly so all the floor staff, myself included, used to call her Diva Di. A nasty nickname I know, but she’d really earned it; this was a woman who’d regularly ring me at 6 a.m. before work, to order me to the fruit and veg market so I could buy supplies of sprouted beans for her, the time she was doing her whole wheat-free, gluten-free, lactose-intolerant thing. And who would think absolutely nothing of getting me to drop her kids to school, while she skipped off to get her Restylane injections. All of which I did happily, gratefully and without whinging because I was just so overjoyed to be working in TV. This, as far as I was concerned, was It, the Big Break, which could only lead on to bigger and better things.

Two things came out of that whole experience for me. One is that to this day, I always treat the runners on Jessie Wouldlike royalty: iPods for their birthdays, posh spa treatments at Christmas; toxic debt or no toxic debt, the way I look on it is, they’ve earned it, the hard way. The other thing is…that’s where I first met Sam. Vivid memory; it was just before a live broadcast and there he was, patiently waiting behind the scenes to take part in a panel discussion piece about debt to profit ratios or something equally boring. Radiating confidence, not a nerve in his body. He ordered a coffee from me and I was so petrified, my shaking hands accidentally spilled some of it onto the lap of his good suit, but instead of ranting and raving about it, he couldn’t have been sweeter. Just laughed it off, said it was an accident, that he’d be sitting down behind a desk anyway so he could be naked from the waist down and sure no one would even know the difference. Then he smiled that smile; so dazzling it should nearly come with a ping!sound effect, and I was a complete goner.

Course it turned out every female on News Timefancied him, but he was dating some famous, leggy, modelly one back then, so it went without saying that we all knew none of us had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting near him. But just for a bit of devilment, myself and the make-up girls used to invent all kinds of imaginary sex scenarios about him, like he was the ultimate Prince Charming; utterly unattainable, but great craic to fantasise about.

‘Me and Sam Hughes, on a sun lounger, at sunset, looking out over the Caribbean…’

‘No, I’ve a better one, me and Sam Hughes in a dressing room, just before the show…’

‘No, NO. My go: me and Sam in a log cabin during a power cut with only a king-sized double bed for our entertainment centre…’

…was all you could hear along the corridors of Channel Six on the days we knew he’d be in. We even had a ‘hottie alert’ system, whereby the minute one of us saw his car in the car park, we were duty bound to text the others IMMEDIATELY, so everyone had a fair and equal chance to get their make-up on.

Anyway, whenever I did see Sam after the whole, mortifying coffee-on-the-crotch episode, which was maybe about once a month or so, he always made a point of asking me how I was getting on in the new job. Always friendly, always playfully nicknaming me Woodsie, always encouraging, always respectful and never, ever someone who looked down on me as just a humble gofer with Pot Noodle for brains.

Then, one day about three months later, he found me in the staff canteen, hysterically trying to babysit Diva Di’s bratty eight– and ten-year-old boys, who were running riot around the place and ambushing me with lumpy cartons of strawberry-flavoured yoghurt. The pair of them had completely doused me in it; clothes, hair, jeans, everything, soaked right through to my knickers. And, of course, life being what it is, at that very moment, in sauntered Sam, as Darcy-licious as ever. He let out a yell at the kids, which did actually manage to shut them up, then sat me down and helped dry me off with a load of paper napkins. I’ll never forget it; he x-rayed me with jet-black eyes, laughed and said, ‘To think they say working in TV is glamorous.’ I gamely managed a grin, suddenly aware that he dated famous models and here I was, stinking of sticky, strawberry yoghurt-y crap.

‘So, tell me. Is this really what you signed up for, Woodsie?’

Now the thing about Sam is that he can be a bit like those motivational speakers you’d normally see on Oprah;you know, the ones who convince you that you can turn your life around in seven days, that kind of thing. It’s like he comes with a double dose of drive and it can be infectious.

So I told him everything. Out it all came; about how I wanted to work for Channel Six so desperately that I really was prepared to do anything without question. Including letting Diva Di take complete and utter advantage of me. I was so terrified of losing my job, I explained, that I just hadn’t the guts to point out that babysitting her horrible children and blow-drying under her armpits with a hair dryer, was well above and beyond my job description.

‘And where do you see yourself in five years’ time?’ I remember him asking, a favourite question of his.

‘In front of the camera,’ I told him without even having to pause for thought. That’s all I’d ever wanted or dreamed about. I can even remember the exact phrase I used, ‘I’d ring the Angelus bell if I had to.’ But then back came all the old insecurities; would someone like me ever be given a shot, would I even be good enough or would I fall flat on my face and make a roaring eejit of myself?

‘Are you kidding me, Woodsie?’ he grinned, wiping a bit of strawberry yoghurt off my hair with a napkin. ‘A knockout like you? They’d be bloody lucky to have you. And always remember that.’

Anyway, I think right there and then he must have seen some spark of ambition in me that mirrored his own, because any time I’d bump into him after that, he’d always make a point of asking me who exactly I’d sent my CV off to, what contacts I’d made, did I know what internal jobs were coming up? Kind of like a career guidance officer with a grinding work ethic, except one that I fancied the knickers off.

Then, by the end of that year, through an awful lot of grovelling/hassling/pounding down doors, etc., I eventually managed to land a proper front-of-camera gig. It was only doing the weekend late-night weather report (at 10 p.m., midnight, then again at 2 a.m.) but to me, it was the stuff of dreams. It was there I first met the lovely Emma, in fact; she used to do the news report, I’d do the weather, then the two of us would skite off to some nightclub and laugh the rest of the night away. We were exactly the same age, we’d both started working at Channel Six at the same time and what can I say? From day one, we just bonded.

The only downside was, I never bumped into Sam any more. In fact, apart from Emma, the only person I ever saw regularly was the nightwatchman at the security hut on my way to and from work. I kept up with Sam through the papers, but of course the only thing I was ever really interested in was who he was dating. An ultra-successful, Alpha female type usually; his identikit women always seemed to be groomed, glossy, gorgeous and it went without saying, high achievers. It was like his minimum dating requirement was that you had to work an eighty-hour week and earn a minimum six-figure annual salary. So I put him to the back of my mind and for the next few years just kept my head down and got on with it. Funny thing was though, the harder I worked, the luckier I seemed to get. It was miraculous; as though the planets had aligned for me and, even more amazingly, I seemed to be able to do no wrong. Job followed job at Channel Six, until eventually, hallelujah be praised, the Jessie Wouldshow came about.

Then, flash forward to about two years ago, when I was at the Channel Six Christmas party with Emma, both of us pissed out of our heads. She was celebrating the show being commissioned for a second series, I was drowning my sorrows having just found out that my then boyfriend was seeing someone else behind my back. During Christmas week too, the worthless, faithless bastard. Everyone kept coming over to say congratulations on the show and I was obliged to beam and act all delighted. All whilst sending Cheater Man about thirty text messages, ranging in tone from disbelief to accusation by way of pleading. Waste of time though; every one of them was completely ignored. It was beyond awful; Christmas is when I lost my darling dad and God knows, given the highly dysfunctional background I come from, it’s a hard enough time of year to get through without adding ‘serially single man-repeller’ into the mix as well. And then I saw Sam. Also alone, also dateless. My heart stopped; I’d forgotten how uncomfortably handsome he was. He came straight over, congratulated me on the show’s success and then, sensing something was amiss, asked me what was up. Now it takes an awful lot for me to start snivelling or bawling, but the combination of too much Pinot Grigio and being dumped and missing Dad was all just too much for me. I knew if I didn’t get the hell out of there immediately, I was in danger of making a complete and utter holy show of myself in front of him and everyone else, so I blushed scarlet, mumbled some lame excuse about having another party to go to and bolted for the door.

But when I replay it back in my head now, it seems almost like a scene from a French movie, complete with mood-enhancing smoke machines and violins playing as a soundtrack in the background. There I was on the road outside Channel Six, in the lashing rain, holding back the tears and frantically trying to wave down a cab; next thing a sleek black Mercedes pulls up beside me on the kerb and the window elegantly glides down. It’s Sam. Who knew I was upset and who followed me, bless him. He coaxed me out of the icy rain and into the warmth of his car, gently asking me what the problem was and how he could help fix it. And so, not for the first time, I ended up pouring out my whole tale of woe to him. All about Cheater Man and how he actually broke up with me…via text message, the cowardly gobshite. Didn’t even have the manners to dump me for someone younger or thinner either.

Sam flashed his Hollywood smile at that, then turned to me. ‘Woodsie,’ he said, strong, clear and firm as ever, ‘any guy that would treat a gorgeous girl like you that way is an idiot and why would you want to be with an idiot? Get rid of him.’ Then the scorching black eyes gave me the sexiest up/down look before he cheekily added, ‘So then…’

‘So then…?’ I swear, I could physically feel my heart thumping off my ribcage.

A long pause while we looked at each other, exchanging souls.

‘So then…you can go out with me.’

Well, it was like something religious people must experience. Could this really be happening to me? Sam was too rich, too cool, too out of my league. I couldn’t get my head around it. Then when we sailed through our first few magical dates and when it became obvious he was slowly morphing from fantasy fling to proper boyfriend, I worried so much about what he’d see in someone like me. Turned out the answer was the very thing that I thought would turn him off me; the fact that I’d never had any of the luxuries he took for granted and was now acting like a kid in a sweetshop, loving every second of the high life he introduced me to. Until he met me, he’d often say, he was becoming jaded with his fabulous lifestyle, but seeing it all fresh through my excited eyes somehow kept it all real for him. Every time he’d see me bouncing up and down on the bed in some posh hotel or gasping in awe at some view he’d long since tired of, like the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building, he said it made him fall in love with life all over again.

And in love with me too, I’d silently hope.

‘Jessie?’

Oh shit. The interview. I almost forgot.

‘You’d drifted off there for a moment,’ Katie sing-songs. ‘We were asking you about how you first met Sam?’

I go with the standard interview answer. Of course. ‘Through work, Katie. You might say Channel Six brought us together. Ha, ha, HA.’

‘And, tell us the truth now, any wedding plans?’

Real answer: Ehhh…no. Mainly because he hasn’t asked. At least, not yet, he hasn’t. But then, with Sam you never know what’s around the corner, so I live in hope. I mean, this is a guy who’s big on spontaneity and we have been together for just over two years now, my longest relationship by a mile.

‘Jessie?’

Yet again, out comes the interview answer: ‘Well, you know how it is, we’re both so busy at the moment; honestly, it’s just something that’s never come up. But if it does, you’ll be the first to know. Ha, ha, HA!’

‘Oooh, but, look what I found here; what are you hiding from us?’ says Katie, waving at the camera to pan right to the very back of the piano.

My heart skips a beat; something embarrassing I forgot to clean up? A pair of knickers from the last party I had? An empty tin of beer stuffed with cigarette butts? A final notice bill from the gas board? It’s OK, I think, breathing normally again. Nothing too offensive, thank Christ; just an old photo of me when I first started out as a weather girl, with a horrible mousey brown bob, which kind of gave me a look of Julie Andrews from certain angles. Then another one of me in studio with Emma, my hair as spiky as a toilet brush and far, far blonder, taken when we first started working together, all of five years ago. Emma looks neat, be-suited and pristine, with her chestnut hair elegantly groomed as always, like she’s ready to start reading the nine o’clock news at the drop of a hat.

Actually, at the time that photo was taken, I only had a tiny little five-minute feature-ette on what was then Emma’s chat show; the wacky sidekick to her more sober, grounded TV persona. The balance of personalities seemed to work though; me wild and scatty, her cool and ordered. Then by some miracle (and a lot of encouragement from the mobile phone companies, who made a fortune out of all the texts people bombarded us with) my mad dare piece took off, and got so big that now the whole show is about me making an eejit of myself out on location, while Emma acts as anchor back in studio. Lesser women than Emma may have been slightly peeved at me stealing her thunder, but like I say, the girl is a walking saint and has never been anything but super-cool and encouraging about the whole thing. If there are angels masquerading as people wandering round this earth then Emma Sheridan most definitely is one.

Back to the interview and by now the camera is panning in on a photo of me with a broken leg, which I got after a bungee jump dare. But no, it was nothing as dramatic as whacking it off a bridge while suspended upside down by knicker elastic or anything; just a piece of camera equipment fell on me as I was clambering back into the van on our way back to base. My hair is longer in that shot and still blonder again; in fact, it flashes through my mind that the more successful I got on TV, the brighter the highlights got, right now the hair is almost platinum, the exact colour of Cillit Bang.

Then, out of nowhere, eagle-eyes Katie grabs up a photo which I’d forgotten all about. ‘And here you are as a teenager. So pretty, even then! Tell us, Jessie, who are your two friends in the photo with you?’

Oh God, I’d completely forgotten. That’s the trouble with airbrushing your past; the people you knew back then can sometimes seem like ghosts from a bygone age. OK, so the real answer to her question is that yes, that’s me, aged about fourteen, with my then best friend Hannah and her older brother Steve, who lived across the road from us and who were amazingly kind to me during a very rough time in my life. We were thick as thieves, Hannah and I; after we left school, we even shared a flat for a few years, which suited both of us down to the ground. We were both eighteen and she wanted her independence, while I had just lost my darling dad and had to get the hell out of our house for…well, let’s just say for personal reasons. Anyway, Hannah and I had a ball together. My life was slowly starting to turn a corner; I was working as a lounge girl in a bar at night so I could put myself through a media training course during the day, right up until I landed my first gig as a runner at Channel Six. Meanwhile Hannah was doing an apprenticeship in hairdressing and it seems like we just spent the whole time laughing and messing and getting on with our young lives. Steve worked as a handyman doing odd jobs wherever he could, but was always hanging out with us too, and it was just such a happy, joyful time all round. But then Hannah got married, I moved from behind the camera to in front of it and the last I heard of him, Steve had upped sticks and moved to the States. And so the three amigos drifted apart a bit. The way you do.

It’s no one’s fault or anything, these things just happen. You know how it is; you try meeting up whenever you can, but then realise that actually you don’t have all that much in common any more. And in an alarmingly short time, old pals become shadowy people who you exchange Christmas cards with and scrawl across them, ‘We must meet up sometime, it’s been too long!!’ But you never do.

God, I wonder what Hannah would say if she could see me now, given that this is exactly the type of show that we used to crack ourselves up laughing at, slagging off the D-list celebs desperate enough to go on them. ‘For feck’s sake, Jessie, what are you doing, dressed up like a dog’s dinner and throwing your home open to these eejits?’ most likely. ‘You look like a right gobshite.’ Hannah was never one to pull her punches.

I don’t get a chance to go with the interview answer though. Because by then Katie has snatched on another, even older photo that brings a whole new set of memories flooding back.

This time it’s an ancient, grainy shot of me aged about four, up a tree in our back garden at home, with my dad standing proudly at the bottom, arm rested against the tree-trunk, like he’s just planted it all by himself. I’m in a pair of shorts, with a dirty face, scraped knees and a plaster on my arm.

‘Oooh, look at little Jessie…such a cute little tomboy!! I think you must have been a daredevil even from a young age!’

Real answer: Funny thing is I can remember that photo being taken so clearly. It wasn’t long after my mum died and I remember spending all day every day up that tree. Coaxing me down was a daily ritual for my poor dad. He used to call me his little firecracker and would proudly tell neighbours and aunties that I was afraid of nothing. But then, losing your mum young makes you fearless. Because the worst thing that can possibly happen has already happened, so what’s there left to be afraid of?I can’t say that though, because, even after all these years, there’s a good chance I might start sniffling.

Interview answer: ‘Yes, Katie, that’s me with my darling dad, who passed away almost twelve years ago now.’

A pause, while Katie fingers the old photo frame thoughtfully.

‘And you’re an only child?’

‘Yup, 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…

Chapter Three

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 to step into her mum’s shoes and somehow keep the show on the road. Then along came this attractive widow; glamorous in a blonde, brassy, busty sort of way, with two daughters just a few years older than me.

Joan, I should tell you, is one of those women with the hair permanently set, the nails always done and never off a sun bed, even in the depths of winter. She looks a bit like how you’d imagine Barbie’s granny might look and can’t even put out bins without lipstick on (by the way, I’m NOT making that up).

With a chronic habit of talking everything up as well. Like when she first met Dad, she’d introduce him as ‘Senior Manager of a Drinking Emporium’. Whereas, in actual fact, he was a humble barman. How they first met in fact: she used to go into the Swiss Cottage pub where he worked for the Tuesday poker night games, only she’d insist on telling everyone she played ‘bridge, not poker’.

I’m not even sure how long Dad was seeing her for before they got married; all I knew was that one miserable, wet day, when I was about ten, he took me to the zoo for a treat, to meet his new ‘friend’ Joan and her two daughters. That in itself was unusual and immediately set alarm bells ringing; because he never took a day off work, ever. Poor guileless Dad, thinking we’d all get along famously and would end up one big happy family.

I was the only one who actually enjoyed the zoo; to the twelve-and thirteen-year-old Sharon and Maggie everything was either ‘stupid’ or else ‘babyish’. By which of course, they meant that I was stupid and babyish. I can still remember the two of them ganging up on me behind the reptile house to slag me off for not wearing a bra. Then, in that snide, psychological way of bullying that girls have, they said I was so immature, I probably still believed in Santa Claus.

Which, right up until that moment, I had.

I can date my childhood ending back to that very day.

Nor did things improve after Dad remarried. Turned out Joan’s first husband had been a chronic alcoholic who’d left her with even less money than we had, which of course meant that right after the wedding, she and the Banger sisters all came to live with us in our tiny corporation house. Me, Sharon and Maggie all under the one roof? A recipe for nuclear fission if ever there was one.

So Christ alone knows what tales they’ve told the film crew about me. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve got a Jessie doll somewhere in the house with pins and needles stuck in it. But if it comes to it, I’ve a few choice anecdotes I could regale them with myself. The innumerable petty tortures they’d inflict on me were worthy of the Gestapo; like using my maths homework as a litter tray for their cat, or else, a particular favourite of theirs, hiding my underwear so I’d have to go to school either wearing swimming togs underneath my uniform or else nothing. Then the two of them would gleefully tell the other kids in the playground, so they’d all point at me, roar laughing and call me Panti-free. I’m not kidding, the nickname stuck right up until sixth year.