time, her rough fingers gripping legs covered by a cheap denim skirt. ‘Come down when you’ve unpacked your things and washed your hands.’
So, from that day, I knew it was going to be a case of one of them thinking, ‘If I press this button, will she come closer to me than to her?’ or, ‘If I dangle this carrot, promise her this, will she bend my way?’ Gem wanted her trophy ‘daughter’ and Mum wanted to keep control over the one thing she had and Gem didn’t. That’s not love, is it? People assume because I had not one but two maternal figures, I grew up in a kind of paradise. But I was not nurtured, I was experimented on as they tried to beat each other using me. The only way I was going to survive was by pitting the two of them against each other.
This rule applied for years, all the way up to Gem buying Leadership. I’d planted the idea of Gem thinking about her legacy. What was she working towards? What was she leaving behind and who to? I carefully led talk of ‘legacy’ towards the idea of ‘dynasty’. ‘Gem, don’t you think it would be incredible to find something we could both take a role in growing, not just to sell it on, but to become our family business? For me, then maybe even for my children, your grandchildren …? I’ve read about this magazine that’s in trouble but has massive potential.’
Mum could see what was happening and didn’t like it one bit. ‘School fees are one thing, Gemma, but buying a company so she can have a go at playing journalist? Isn’t that a bit much, even for you?’ To which Gem said, ‘At least my hard work has bought her an education and more. How have you ever helped her? How were you planning to get her out of the mess she’s in?’ (Once it was done, Gem never discussed what happened to me at uni in terms that actually described the events. Always ‘the mess’, ‘the problems.’) Mum said, ‘How dare you say I don’t work hard? And if she’s got into a mess, it’s trying to be someone like you who’d flog their grandma for a quid.’
When we knew the Leadership buyout was definitely happening, I let both of them know I needed to move. My mother had only just managed to get away from Gem by moving to a miniscule rented flat in Mile End. She didn’t want me staying with Gem anymore, but she didn’t want me living with her either, not really, although she told me I could ‘have the living room’ at her place if I ‘really wanted it’. She made a seriously half-baked attempt to look like she actually cared where I lived, ‘Get your own place, keep on with Gemma, it’s your choice, but do not make out you couldn’t have stayed with me if you wanted to, Lily.’ Ok, Mum, you can say you tried to help me now.
I told Gem I didn’t think it was a great idea if I lived with her once we started working together. ‘It’s going to look so much more professional for us if we don’t introduce ourselves to the business as a “mother and daughter act”, but two individuals serious about making the magazine a success.’ She didn’t quite buy this, telling me, ‘Do let me know when you’ve touched down in the real world. I’ll keep your room made up in Marylebone.’
Of course, there was no way I could afford anywhere on the meagre allowance she gives me to keep me from ‘working in jobs like your mother’s.’ But I had to show her she wasn’t right about everything. So, I am now fully immersed in the real world, thanks Gem.
I knew I had to be away from both of them and somewhere I could focus on what I need to do, but I was about two minutes into my search when I realised rent, even in unsexy Zone 3 North East London, is completely insane. I mean, I couldn’t even afford to live in one of those places where you’re the one sleeping in the living room, let alone somewhere with a real room of my own and a proper space where I could eat a meal with a flatmate, sit on a sofa and talk, maybe even make a friend. Today, living rooms are another basic that’s become a luxury for my age group. Why aren’t we rioting, people?
I googled ‘Rent-free accommodation N4’ in an act of hopeful desperation, as I’m sure hundreds of others like me must have done before. I saw this:
Sympathetic homeless female 18-24 req. for discrete rent-free use of mod high-rise apartment N4. Apply w/ photo.
I went to see the place, to see the concierge who’d posted the ad. He is in his forties and completely repulsive. I negotiated the ‘erotic arrangement’ with him down to one hour every Wednesday in exchange for the use of the flat and the promise to keep it quiet from the absent owner, a Singaporean, he tells me. The time with him seems to come around so fast. Sometimes it feels like a week of Wednesdays.
When he’s sweating on top of me, behind my eyelids I imagine a map of London with tiny little flashing red lights for every one of us swapping the use of our bodies for the use of a home. Were all of them damaged like me? Or were some of them normal, with friends who worried about them, mates who would eventually say, ‘That’s enough. You need to come and crash with me’? Maybe they would one day find themselves somewhere warm and not toxic, protected from it all – dysfunctional parents, exploitative rent and ‘erotic arrangements’. Was it ever possible that one day we would all find ourselves safe, in jobs that pay us money, with the possibility of a real future?
I honestly don’t know why more people my age aren’t more like me. Why aren’t they angrier? We’re not much more than playthings to those older than us, to people exactly like KR. Her so-called Generation X are the worst. KR and her contemporaries think it’s their right to take us for everything we have, everything they think they can get away with, then minimise our pain and undermine us for our choices over the few things we can control.
Each week, when the concierge goes after his hour, I swallow my tears down like a meal, something to make me stronger. Afterwards, when I take my shower and scrub my body down with salt and honey, it’s very hard not to give in and cry. But I never do.
I’ve just pulled over the deadbolt and safety chain and put some soup on, my mum’s words ringing in my ears, a last-minute plea to create the impression she really did want me to stay with her: ‘You’ll never manage on your own. You can’t even boil an egg.’ To which I reminded her, ‘I don’t eat eggs.’
I log on and start to type, only remembering the soup when I smell the pan burning dry. I just hate it when the adults are right.
Time to show one of them how wrong they can be. In the morning, I’ll pop my head into Gem’s office and tell her I’ve thought of a great way to help Katherine Ross get back to her best, like she and I talked about.
I know I’m paying a high price to stay in this flat. But I can see KR’s place from here. I’m less than 100 metres away but from the darkened glass of the tenth floor, I am invisible to her.
For four weeks now, I’ve got to see her spill out onto her front steps every morning. I know what times she comes and goes. I know how weak she’s feeling before she puts on her daily ‘I’m doing fine!’ mask for the rest of the world as she drags herself to the end of her road and across Green Lanes to the bus stop at the foot of my block. I know on Sundays she tears around the park like something is chasing her, and in the afternoon strides to the pub with The Partner like they’re late for an important appointment.
All this insight makes the price for this apartment worth paying.
Katherine
This is how catastrophic change begins. Small disturbances at the surface, the first suggestion of the sinkhole opening beneath; the moment in the horror movie the protagonist sees something out of the corner of her eye and dismisses it witlessly. I used to love horror movies. I can’t bear them now.
Even
