‘How was it?’ he asks.
‘You know, it’s… OK?’ I tell him. ‘It’s funny to look at these guys who I’ve never met and think I could potentially be making an entirely new person with them.’
He tries to laugh lightly, but I can hear the awkwardness right underneath it.
‘I know dozens of women who would love nothing more than to be choosing their child’s father from a catalogue of hot Danish men,’ Johnny says.
Oh yeah, dozens?I think but refrain from saying.
‘Hey, how is Ciara?’ I ask him, making sure I don’t deliver her name with any kind of sneery undertone, like I’ve definitely done in the past. We are keeping things light-hearted, and this vibe is a relatively new thing for us. It’s delicate,and I don’t want to break it. I can barely remember a time when he and Ciara weren’t together. He was on the apps for a total of fifteen minutes before she very sensibly snapped him up. As for the time when we were together… it feels like several lifetimes ago. It’s like the Renaissance, or medieval France. We can barely make out the broad outline of that period any more.
‘Oh, you know, good,’ he says. ‘Twenty-week scan is happening next Thursday. It’s stressful. She’s happy enough that everything is going well but… I don’t know.’
‘I know this is next to impossible, given everything from before, but try not to worry,’ I tell him. ‘You’ll have that baby in your arms before you know it.’
‘Yeah, I… Look, we’ll see.’ I can hear the apprehension that’s doubtless been living in his throat for the last few months.
‘Ten little fingers, ten little toes, just you wait.’ And I mean it. Johnny is going to be an outstanding father to this child. Ciara and this new person coming to join them… well, they’ll be luckier than pools winners.
A silence bleeds through the line. Time once was, and not too long ago either, that we never thought we’d be talking like this.
‘I’m actually so happy for you, Johnny,’ I tell him. This is only half true, but I tell him anyway. Or rather, I’m happy for him, but still sad for myself.
‘Oh, you actually are, are you?’ he teases gently.
‘Stop. I’m trying to say the right thing here and it’s not easy.’
‘I know. And I’m sorry.’
‘You’ll be great at this. I know it.’
He exhales sharply. ‘Well, maybe before things get crazy, we could catch up if you find yourself in London, meet fora coffee. Discuss all of these Danish guys, put them through their paces.’
‘I’d love that,’ I say, although we both know it will never happen. We sign off and I know that whatever happens with him from now on, I’ll be watching it all at a remove, and he will be doing the same with me.
The theatre company in Wicklow has given me a brand new laptop, which means that this doesn’t yet have the browser extension that can ‘block’ certain keywords, like ‘Ted Levy’ and ‘Alice Andre’ from my internet browsing. Though I made a promise to myself never to seek him out, curiosity gets the better of me and I give myself one last look before I download the new browser extension.
The moment I see the name ‘Ted Levy’, for the first time in a long time, my sphincter seems to do an involuntary pucker. I haven’t thought about him in a long time; I had removed him and all those around him from any and every social media platform. And yet there he is, in a new newspaper article. In the accompanying pictures, Ted looks older and paunchier, with bleached-out dreadlocks and the sort of facial hair that can only be charitably described as ‘experimental’.
‘Ted Levy and girlfriend Ella Kaplin spotted grocery shopping in Los Feliz, Los Angeles’, the headline reads on the story.
Page Six, 21 July 2016
Ted Levy looked as though he didn’t have a care in the world as he ran errands with his long-time girlfriend Ella Kaplin.
Levy, 48, whose latest movieA Cool, Dry Placewas a critical and commercial flop in Hollywood, dressed down for the outing in black shorts and cargo pants, keeping his long locks cool under a fedora. Art gallery owner Kaplin, 25, looked ethereal in a broderie anglaise floaty dress and Salt Water sandals, her blonde locks tied up in a loose bun.
It’s been a challenging year for the Canada-born actor, who has had to weather a flurry of accusations of sexual harassment and bullying. The incendiary claims, which Levy strenuously denies, have been brought forward by five women, one of whom was Clara May, a runner on his breakthrough Hollywood role.
Last year, Levy’s career took another major blow when Maxi Kane, a 16-year-old superfan based in Georgia, alleged online that she’d had a brief fling with the star while he was on location there in 2012. Levy has strenuously denied these claims, telling reporters that he had instead struck up a ‘platonic’ friendship with the teenager. It was later revealed that Kane went on to message Levy over 8,000 times using various platforms, and had made unwanted visits to the home of his then-girlfriend, Alice Andre.
Asked if he was worried about such accusations affecting his own professional prospects, Levy has remained upbeat. ‘I know I work in the world of movies and comedy, but these outrageous rumours are the funniest things I’ve heard in a very long time.’ Indeed, the actor has no fewer than four movies in his slate for the rest of 2016.
It’s fascinating to find that once I’ve read this, there is just… nothing there. Not even the mention of Maxistirs up any kind of conflict. I don’t see anyone attractive or adorable in those pictures, just a dude. I no longer see a soulmate, or the possible father of my future children. I even try to remember what those old feelings I had for him were like, and I just can’t access them.
And looking at him, I see Ted for what he was. A place to park my feelings about losing the baby. Something to escape into. Somewhere nice to send my brain for a while. Not so much a person as a hiding place.
Incredibly curious that I could look at a photo of Ted Levy and feel absolutely nothing about it, I decide to look in on others from that whole time, too. I don’t know if this is related to the more recent Ted news, but the Tedettes forum is no longer in operation. There’s no sign of it anywhere. It’s as though it never, ever existed. All that chaos, energy, sisterhood– no more.
