By the Time You Read This. Lola Jaye

       Prologue

      Mum’s marrying some prick she met down the bingo.

      Apparently they fell in love as he called out ‘Legs eleven’ in a smoke-filled hall in Lewisham, packed with bored housewives ticking off paper boxes. Eyes down, cross off a number and another, until some wailing overweight woman shouts ‘House!’ to anyone who gives a damn. I hate them. I hate bingo. And sometimes I hate Mum. But most of all, I hate him. For ordering me about, telling me to call him Dad, for pretending to be my dad and, most of all, for not being my dad.

      You see, my dad’s dead.

      Some illness I couldn’t even pronounce finished him off about seven years ago in 1983 when I was five and he was thirty.

      But we don’t talk about that.

      We hardly even talk about him any more, really…

      Sitting on the edge of the bed, Doc Martens feet swinging in time to my croaky hum of the Brookside theme tune, I shook my ridiculously ringleted hair that had taken ages to style and stunk of Dax hair grease and let out an exaggerated puff of air. I was fed-up. Almost a teenager, yet there I was clad in a frilly yellow dress that allowed me to resemble a pavlova. I wished I could just disappear. Maybe travel down the rec with Carla – my best friend – or change the habit of a lifetime and happily start some homework, complete with the seven dwarfs’ whistle. In fact, I’d do almost anything to avoid this poxy, stupid, pathetic ‘wedding of the year’.

      ‘Lois!’ Mum called in a squeaky voice.

      ‘What?’ I replied with a sigh, my eyes darting to heaven.

      ‘Excuse me, young lady?’

      ‘I mean, yes, Mummy?’ I replied in the cutest little voice I could pull off.

      The door to my PRIVATE (couldn’t she read the sign on the door?) sanctuary swung open. ‘Are you ready yet, Lois? We’ve got to be at the registry for eleven and it’s already nine forty-five!’

      I checked out my mother in her wedding gear, glad she looked almost as tragic as I did. Thick blue eye-shadow in a tug of war with an off-white, two-piece mess with puffed sleeves. Puffed sleeves! It was 1990! Who did that any more? The silver shoes didn’t help matters either, along with the backcombed hairstyle, perhaps more at home on a schizo Crufts poodle!

      ‘I’m nearly ready,’ I replied sweetly, but with a spot of annoyance lurking round the corner. I swung off my bed, quickly locating the pink dolly shoes she’d bought just to humiliate me that little bit more. I didn’t care about most people, but Carla and her brother Corey would be at the wedding to witness my shame and that just wasn’t fair.

      ‘You look so adorable!’ gushed Mum, and for one ridiculous second I convinced myself she was going to blub.

      ‘Er, thanks?’ I mumbled, pulling off my well-’ard DMs to slip into the dolly shoes, my little right toe recoiling in instant pain as it connected with the hard plastic. Only last week, I found out my right foot was longer than the left. I’m bloody deformed!

      ‘Come on then, let’s go, Lois.’ I ignored the invite of Mum’s hand as it came at me like a weapon. ‘I don’t want to be late for my big day, now, do I?’

      This summer was one of the hottest on record, which I could believe if my dress, currently sticking to me like flies to dog poo, was anything to go by. The heat rash that ensued meant that I scratched and tugged the dress all the way through the vows and exchanging of rings. Mercifully, the service was short. Unfortunately, the reception (held in a restaurant that stank of disinfectant) lasted a lot longer than necessary. Boring stories floating around the room like confetti. And what with the kisses, hugs, dull speeches and hard squeezes from sweaty relatives I’d never even set eyes on before, things grew shoddier by the millisecond. Worse still, Carla remained cocooned between her dad and brother on a table miles from mine. It was a total nightmare of a day, growing extra tragic the minute Granny Morris drew what little strength she had to shove me onto the dance floor for a slow dance! Egheee! The experience of dancing with Granny Morris, reminded me of one of those horror films Mum wouldn’t let me watch, but I’d catch next door with Carla and Corey – only much, much worse.

      I had finally managed to escape another ‘I remember when you were a little girl’ tale, about to join Carla and Corey in sneaking outside, when out of the shadows of balloons, streamers and ‘The Birdie Song’, a new guest appeared.

      She was beautiful, with thick black braids cascading down her slimline back like a glossy rug. Unlike Mum’s attempt at fashion, this lady wore a simple flowery shift dress and plain rounded hat that looked a bit like a full moon on her obviously gorgeous head. She smiled at me and, instantly, my mood lifted.

      She walked towards me and I realised it was my Auntie Philomena – my real dad’s sister. Her showing up was a massive surprise, especially as I hadn’t seen her in ages. So instead of running outside to, I dunno, argue this week’s top forty with my mates,

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