Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [3]
The story I want to tell is really that of the last year of my life, but as we are all products of our pasts and our personalities it’s essential I go back right to the beginning, as the conventions of fairytales dictate, to understand how the events of 2006 unfolded and why I happen to be sitting on a plane that is winging its way to Hong Kong as I write.
During my childhood I resided in the pink bedroom at the rear of the family home, which overlooked Dad’s vegetable patch and the dog kennel: home to three successive generations of not-very-bright golden retrievers. If I can think of one word to describe me in those early days it would be ‘dreamy’. Mum, by virtue of her position as school librarian, fed this tendency by bringing me home lots of story-books to read. I particularly loved all the unfashionable ones, like Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series and National Velvet and, of course, the fairytales I critiqued earlier. I could never decide which of my favourite fantasies I wanted most to come true: to get a pony for my birthday and win a jumping ribbon in a gymkhana or to be plucked from obscurity to play Cindy Brady in a re-make of The Brady Bunch.
I was pretty good at school work, but nothing like my gifted older brother. I attended the local primary school and, when the time came, transferred to the local girls’ high school, where I received a patchy, state-sponsored education in science and the arts, of which I retain very little.
Once my hormones kicked in my daydreaming took on a different quality. I spent a large chunk of my teenage years lying on my bed listening to music and dreaming of my Prince Charming. For a long time I was certain it was to be John Taylor, bass player from Duran Duran. My bedroom, plastered with posters, became a shrine to my idol and I’d visualise elaborate scenarios of my life as the rock star’s girlfriend. The fact that we lived on opposite sides of the globe was a minor obstacle in my adolescent eyes. What was 17,000 kilometres where love was concerned? If only I could just meet him, I reasoned, he would see through the unfortunate pimples and puppy fat, ditch his supermodel girlfriend, and sweep me off to London for a makeover, where I would emerge, swan-like, only to lord it over all the more popular girls at school (the last part probably being my favourite bit of the fantasy).
There was also an embarrassing, but mercifully brief, period when I forsook John for George Michael from Wham! (boy, was I barking up the wrong tree there), although I quickly saw the folly of my ways and returned to my first love. In my fantasies he was very forgiving. As far as I know, John is still kicking around with Duran Duran, and still looking pretty good if the photos are anything to go by. And you’d have to have been living on another planet to not know what George Michael has been getting up to in recent years. Fortunately I did eventually move on.
I occasionally went out with real boys during this period, but they always seemed so unsatisfactory compared with John and George - so spotty, so skinny, so real. And the boys I really liked were never the ones who liked me. It was always their less attractive, less cool friends who asked me out. Most of these relationships were short-lived - I think two months was the record. Occasionally I was the dumper but sadly more often the dumpee. I can’t say I really blame those boys as I am sure I came across as being incredibly dull. Whilst devastatingly witty in my own mind I was so terrified of making a fool of myself that most of my clever remarks remained stuck in my throat, only to wither and die before being given the chance to dazzle. We’d go on these excruciatingly