from wine boxes tiled the walls.
‘Ta-da!’
I nodded and smiled, as required.
‘Go ahead and take a look, it goes right back.’
I had never been a huge wine drinker – a vodka, gin or rum girl, me – and could not spot a good year, coo with urbane delight. However, even I could work out, without looking too hard at the labels, that if wine had been left alone for a few decades you had to be confident that some poor grape-trampling sod would have made it worth the wait.
‘Yes, Dad? Coming!’ A yelled reply to a call I could not hear. ‘Back in a sec.’
She skipped upstairs and left me gazing, with the same eyes I had turned on the ‘original’ fireplaces and the ‘spacious’ study, at a bottle of 2012 Côtes du Roussillon Villages Le Clos des Fées. Ah, fée: French for fairy.
Thud-click.
‘Lola?’
Nothing. Nothing except a muffle-thump of bass, some new and energetic tempo. Was that Queen?
‘Lola?’
I moved, with laboured nonchalance, to the foot of the stairs. Slow, slow, feet chilling on dank stone. I stared up: please, not this. Where the oblong of daylight had shown there was now only black.
‘Lola!’
Nothing but the dun-dun-dun high above, through dense, deaf floors – ‘Under Pressure’? Within seconds the room was pressing against my skin. I sank into a crouch. Walls locking down on me, dead air growing sweet in my nostrils, a sharp whiff of red flowers; the lights dimmed and in my ears dun-dun-dun a drum beating, a dangerous vibration, my lungs tight and full because I must have stopped breathing and then I was pounding upwards, upstairs dun-dun-dun-dun pounding hard into hard blackness:
‘Lola!’
I hit at the door dun-dun-dun. Not goddamn ‘I Want to Break Free’, no way. She couldn’t have.
‘Lola! Lola, let me out. Get me out now!’
Too loud, too far. My mobile; it was still in my handbag by the front door, next to my shamed shoes.
‘Lola! Lola!’
I could feel tears bleeding into the sweat at my temples.
Then a blinding of light and air and noise rushed in and she was there, a bending shadow. Oxygen, music washed me down (my hysterical ears now heard ‘Killer Queen’) and Lola swept me up.
‘Oh, you poor thing, I’m so sorry!’
‘I thought—’
‘This stupid beeping door. God, Darling, so sorry. It must have locked behind me, it’s been sticking lately.’
She took my hand and led me through the first door back to safety. Thomas danced out, a seafood cocktail in each hand. Seeing me he stopped dead:
‘What’s wrong, what—?’
‘The cellar door, Dad. Knew it would do that sooner or later.’
‘I’m fine.’ The veil of sweat said more, the tacky film noir on my face. I dropped her hand.
We ate. The prawns were perky, the pasta porky; paccheri topped with a fat chop, rubbed with salt and fresh oregano, in a more than passable passata. But I was done in. I laughed too loud, complimented everything Thomas had created: the dinner, all things Lola. I tried, but the pulsing music was all dun-dun-dun and I could not follow the chatter, my flesh had been rubbed with salt sweat and fear, and my wine tasted sharp, all wrong. We ate on as my toes curled up on themselves, defeated. My smiles lied broad and long, as did the yawns at around 9.30 p.m. Enough. Our night had been left behind, locked in the cellar, and I pleaded an early start with Stevie: physio. I would gather up my boy, he could sleep in my bed after all.
I pecked Thomas and hugged Lola, realising as I backed away that I knew little more about her than when she had first landed those eyes on me. As the door closed, those eyes put me in mind of magnesium, with the potential to flare bright. Or perhaps the casings of incendiary devices, of dormant bombs. Yes, that was it. In a certain light, Lola looked like she could go off at any moment.
DONE LIST 1
So, getting right down to it – we good girls always do our homework.
If you are my future child, going through all my old crap as I dribble Happy Oats down my knitted front in a nursing home you can’t afford, please ignore anything that you read here – I already have.
Introduction
Welcome, Ms Waite, to the inside of your brain!
This pointless but scenic ride through your psyche is your buy-one-get-one-free, no refunds, pain-in-the-ass complimentary gift, for which you are eligible thanks to the £110 per hour (I googled her) your dad has spent on ‘talking therapies’ every fortnight since you hit puberty and cried all night because you wanted to try on your mum’s bra (totally logical, how the fuck else would I know how it worked?).
So, no one even thought to get me as much as a training bra before thirteen (if I get saggy tits I will sue EVERYONE) but hey, two thumbs up for Alison Thoroughgood!
BTW innocent dinky future kids: that’s true, but it’s not actually a reason anyone ever got a shrink, not any girl anyway, let alone a fine specimen such as your drooling mother, but I really can’t be arsed to go into it all right now. Also, I’d just be happy with a bit more tittage generally – there’s always lifting tape for when you hit thirty.
Never mind that though, it’s basically:
£110 x 26 fortnights x 5 years since my nipples first weirdly popped out (still joking) = £14,300 minus holidays. About £14k spent paying someone he hardly knows (we love our letters after names, Dad and I) to get into my head. No wonder AT wants me to deliver some serious goods, aka ‘exploratory homework’ #cantbearsedwithfuckedupgirls #fundingmytibetanyogaretreat.
Still, £14,000 says something. It tells me two major things about Dad.
First thing: he has a lot more money than you might think to look at his car. Even I, who deleted all his lame old-guys-in-flying-jackets-speeding shows, know a Volvo’s too safe a choice. Alfa, Dad? Audi? Merc?
Second thing: he is an optimist.
He wants to cure you. Aka me. But none of us – especially not Alison Thoroughgood BSc, PG Dip whatever – is sure of What Underlies The Problem. All my mouthing off may be suppressed sadness, ask AT. So what’s my issue? My Dead Mum blues, no doubt. My stinking attitude. That ‘horrible’ obsession with hotness (is this really a fault? If you have to live your shitty life, you might as well look good). Bra fetish?
I probably am crazy, but point me to a teenage girl who isn’t. ‘Talking therapies?’ Chemo =
