Page 69 of Rewrite the Stars
But there’s no way I’m singing here tonight. I can’t even think straight, never mind remember words to songs I haven’t sung in so long.
‘What can I get you?’ Eva asks again but I don’t know if I want to have a drink or not. I have the car outside and I’d planned to go home after a chat with Tom on how we feel about each other, and to decide if it’s really over.
The ‘old me’ would have loved this scene, a chance to kick back and get sloshed with a rock band in a cosy pub, but that’s not me any more.
Have I turned into some sort of prude who can’t just go with the flow? So many voices race through my head. I can still have some fun, though, can’t I? I’m allowed to have fun. Jack isn’t home for a couple more days and if I weren’t here tonight, I’d only be sitting at home alone watching the hours tick by in Ardara, torturing myself. Maybe I could stay somewhere local and see how it goes? I did pack an overnight bag just in case. Maybe I owe it to myself to relax a little and turn off the voices in my head. Maybe I’m not giving Tom and his lifestyle a chance. Am I being too judgemental?
I’ve had a stressful few months. I’m not doing anything wrong by having a drink with an old friend, am I?
‘I’ll have a gin and tonic, please,’ I tell Eva. I’m sure one drink won’t blur my senses that much, will it?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Before long I’m sipping down the ice-cold gin and tonic, feeling it numb my anxiety more quickly than I could ever have imagined. Another one follows, and then another, and by now I’m a lot more chilled and in the zone which makes this whole set-up just a little more bearable.
Thankfully, Tom never mentioned me singing a song again.
He sits closer to me now as he serenades his audience with stories of life on the road, my arm touching his skin, and when he moves against me the feeling is electrifying. His arms are so strong and warm and I close my eyes wondering what it would be like to be sitting here as his girl.
Then I open my eyes, coming back to reality, and I try to focus on one of his tattoos to see what it says. I don’t ever remember him having all those tattoos. They are marks and statements of his life after me and I want to see what they can tell me about the life he has lived since we parted.
‘Forever Joanie’, says one of them in big scrawling text down the inside of his forearm.
Joanie … yes, she’s the girl he brought to that movie premiere, the one in the magazine that Emily showed me one day in my apartment on Merrion Square. The actress, that’s right. She must have meant a lot to him if he got her name tattooed on his arm.
Wow. I got a song, she got permanent ink.
He also wears a short wrist sleeve of symbols like stars and hearts and a small American flag alongside an Irish tricolour, which I assume is representative of his family roots. A symbol of his birth sign Taurus blends into where his elbow bends, then a date which must mean something to him sits above it. Whoever tattoos his arms has certainly been busy.
The noise and chitchat around me fades like white noise in the distance and I feel like I’m reading the diary of his life just by following the inky patterns on his right arm. But then my eyes widen when I see that Joanie’s isn’t the only name on there.
Is that a ‘Michelle’? And a ‘Suzie’? Really? The figure of a scantily clad woman slithers down his bicep and underneath it says another name which I can’t quite make out. Who is she? I feel a very brief pang of jealousy and then a whack of common sense hits me in the throat. He has an armful of women, quite literally!
I burst out laughing, cover my mouth and excuse myself when both Eva and Tom glance my way. Is this what I could have been? A name scrawled as a memory or impression on his arm? Is this the modern-day equivalent of the old term ‘notches on the bedpost’?
Tom leans across and whispers into my ear.
‘This is all bullshit, isn’t that what you’re thinking, Charlie?’ he says in response to my spontaneous giggle and moment of harsh realization. His breath smells stale, like my grandfather’s used to when he came home from a day out backing horses. It makes me gag a little. ‘I work damn hard, Charlie. I need to let loose every now and then but you’re absolutely right. Most of this lifestyle is just bullshit. I don’t even think Eva likes me any more. She used toreallylike me. Really.’
I watch as Eva snuggles up to one of the other guys whose name I can’t remember. She pouts and purrs and flicks back her hair, and then straddles the man with one leg, all the while skirting across, vying for Tom’s attention. I assumed at first she was Ana’s friend, or maybe a girlfriend of one of the others, but now I cop on, no. She may be pretending to be Ana’s friend but she’s here for Tom’s pleasure when it suits him – she’s his casual bit on the side in some weird agreement that I can’t understand.
I think I’m going to be sick. I’ve been such a fool. I don’t belong here.
‘You’re right, Tom,’ I tell him. ‘This all stinks of bullshit. But it’s your bullshit, so maybe it smells a little sweeter from where you’re sitting.’
He just laughs. Everything, it seems, is just a laugh when you’re as famous and drunk as Tom Farley.
I excuse myself and make my way to the bathroom, regretting now that I’ve had three drinks and can’t jump into my car and drive home to my lovely cottage in Ardara and prepare for my husband to come home. I need to get out of here. There’s no way I’m hanging around here to join the queue and hope that Tom can fit me into his obviously very busy schedule. He didn’twantto see me! He just more or less told me to come along for the ride and join in the craic if I wanted to seehim! He has no interest in speaking to me in any other way or about anything more and I was a fool to think otherwise. All these years I’ve wasted, wondering ‘what if’ when he was busy ramping up his catalogue of Barbie dolls with plastic tits and Botox faces, pouting and purring like bitches on heat for his pleasure. No thanks!
I check the time. It’s just after nine thirty in the evening. Still no sign of Ana, not that Tom seems to give a shit. Alternatively, I have two messages from Jack from the other side of the world who wants to know how I am, but I’m too afraid to respond, terrified he’ll know I’m here in Howth with Tom even though I know that it’s impossible he would. I’ve betrayed him enough by coming here. I’ve made a fool of myself, but I can’t drive home now. I hate this horrible world of booze and strangers and I certainly don’t want to be part of Tom Farley’s harem. My brother was absolutely right when he said I’d always just be one of his conquests, even if he did bag a hit single out of our love story.
I make my way out of the bathroom onto a tiny narrow corridor that leads back into the main bar, when I stop, having come face to face with Tom alone at last. My heart jumps.
‘Tom!’
I’m about to say I’m going to go home but he interrupts me.
‘You having a good time, honey?’ he asks me, swaying a little with a beer in his hand. He’s obviously already forgotten our latest ‘bullshit’ conversation. ‘Ana is here now. You’ll probably hate her but don’t judge her just because she’s pissed at me. She’s a good girl. She’s just sometimes a bit misunderstood.’
