tell a friend, regretfully, that I’d inherited my father’s looks and her brains – I thought it would please her if I studied fashion design. But at St Martin’s, the more I found out about the great designers, the more certain I was that I could never equal them. As a daughter, I’m an all-round disappointment and losing my job doesn’t help.
To take my mind off my worries, I call my boyfriend, Mick, who’s in Amsterdam with his band, just to say hello. It goes to voicemail, so I leave him a message to say hi.
Mick and I have been dating for nine months in a friends-with-benefits kind of way. We met at Bestival on the Isle of Wight. He’s got red hair and a beard that covers most of his very beautiful face. He’s a sound engineer and spends a lot of time travelling. Sometimes I meet up with him somewhere like Hamburg or Paris, and when he’s in London he stays over and we have fun together, but other than that, I don’t know where the relationship is heading, if anywhere. We both like it the way it is. He’s keen on the idea of free spirits; figuratively and literally – no commitment and drinks on the house. His job means that he’s not home a lot, but I don’t mind. Honestly, it suits me, too.
In a flurry of activity, I make up my bed for my parents with fresh linen, do a bit of desultory tidying, spray the place with Febreze, and then I go shopping for vodka, Worcestershire sauce, tomato juice and celery so I can make some Bloody Marys to welcome my parents with. It’s ‘their tipple’, as they put it, and because of the tomato juice element they knock it back as if it’s a health food, which is fine with me.
As a family we like each other a lot better after a drink.
I start watching television and around ten thirty, I give up on my welcoming committee duties and fall asleep.
I wake up as I hear them coming down the steps sometime later and listen to the key rattling in the lock. In my lowest moods I decide I’ll ask for that key back, ‘for a friend’, an excuse I’ve used before, but they seem to have a little stash of them in reserve in case I absentmindedly forget who owns the place.
With a wide smile of welcome, I jump to my feet and there’s my father in a Burberry trench coat, carrying an overnight bag and holding the door for my mother, who comes in with her cream hair blending with her fur-trimmed cream cape, fluttering, elegant and distant.
‘Hi! Hi! Come in!’ I say, even though they’re already very much inside.
I don’t recognise my mother at first. Without a shadow of a doubt, even despite my habit of scrutinising everyone, I would have passed her in the street.
My father has mentioned my mother’s ‘tweaks’, as he calls them, and I realise that one of them has involved filling the dimple in her chin. I have the very same dimple and now she’s got rid of hers … What does that mean? We both have the same wide mouth too, only hers is now poutier, even though she’d pouted perfectly adequately with the old one. And her eyes, which had been large and round, are smaller, as if her real face is sitting some distance behind the one she’s currently wearing. She has the eyeholes of Melania Trump.
She looks me up and down without a word, taking in my pencil skirt and white silk blouse. If she could have frowned, she would have. She recoils with a gasp when she sees Dolly. Overreacting is an affectation she’s developed.
‘You’ve still got that ugly old thing,’ she says.
I cover up Dolly’s ears. ‘Don’t offend her, she’ll come and get you in the night.’
My mother pretends not to hear.
‘Bloody Marys,’ I say cheerfully, sweeping my hand in the direction of the kitchen island as if I’m introducing them to each other.
‘Thank you, darling,’ my father says, putting his hands on my shoulders briefly in what passes as a hug.
‘It’s warm in here,’ my mother remarks in a troubled way. She looks around with the restlessness of discontent, fanning her strange and unfamiliar face. ‘Isn’t it warm?’
It isn’t, actually, because the heating went off at ten, but my mother’s menopausal, so I agree with her. ‘It’s been very sunny today and hot air sinks, doesn’t it?’
‘It rises,’ my father says.
‘It must be affecting us on its way up again,’ I say brightly. Honestly, I’ve no idea who I am when I’m with my parents. They seem to bring out my inner inanity. When I’m with them, they’re the grown-ups and I regress to some attitude of despicable girlishness that isn’t really me at all.
I stir my drink with my celery stick, mixing in the spices and turning it dark brown. Wow, it’s strong.
They sit on the sofa with a sigh and I perch on the footstool opposite them with an eagerness I don’t feel. ‘How are the Bennetts?’ These are the old friends they’ve had dinner with.
‘Oh, you know,’ my mother says dismissively. ‘Ruth drinks too much.’ She pulls her cape around her and gulps hers down. ‘How’s work?’ she asks with an emphasis on work. Her voice is hoarse and it catches in her throat. ‘Still dressing people? However would they manage to go out in public without you?’
That’s sarcasm, that is, but it gives me the chance to look at her properly without appearing to stare. ‘How would they go out in public without me? Naked, I suppose,’ I reply, also with sarcasm.
‘Have people got no taste of their own?’ my mother asks.
I take a large gulp of my drink and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand in a show of reckless bravado. ‘Well, you don’t have to worry about people’s taste anymore, because I’ve been fired.’ I’d been dreading breaking this bit of news to them but now, ta-da! It’s done!
I brace myself for some yelling, because being with them is as nerve-racking as living on the edge of a volcano, but unusually for my parents they seem at a loss for words.
‘Fern, Fern.’ My father closes his eyes and shakes his head in despair. He looks more resigned than surprised. ‘You were fired? Why?’
I give them the short version of the story.
‘When did this happen?’
‘A month ago.’
‘And you’re only telling us now?’
They glance at each other over their drinks. I’ve confirmed their deepest fears about me.
‘What are you going to do?’ my father asks. ‘Are you getting Jobseeker’s Allowance?’
‘No.’ I wipe the condensation off my glass with my thumb. ‘I’m concentrating on my vintage clothing company. I’m a fashion curator.’
‘Really?’ My mother looks at me with a flicker of animation and for a moment we connect briefly with a small spark of mutual passion that makes my spirits lift.
My father, too, looks hopeful. ‘You’ve got business premises?’
‘I’ve got a stall in Camden Market,’ I tell them.
They freeze. It’s as if we’ve got some kind of satellite time-lapse going on; it takes them a few seconds for the horrible implications to sink in.
