‘And my mum hasn’t called me, has she?’
It was fair to say my mother and I hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms the last time I’d been to visit.
‘You need to call her and you know it,’ the duck said.
Annoyingly, he was right. She might be a passive-aggressive pain in the arse but she was my passive-aggressive pain in the arse and the fact that we hadn’t spoken since our argument was starting to weigh on me.
‘And of course,’ Rubber Ducky wasn’t finished with his truth bombs, ‘you’re still thinking about Nick. Even though he hasn’t called you back.’
‘I am not!’ I snapped before realizing I was lying, not only to a rubber duck but also to myself. ‘But so what if I am? He told me to call and now he won’t speak to me. What if something has happened to him?’
‘Is that what you’re telling yourself now?’ he asked.
‘Fuck off.’
The ‘he must have died or he would have called’ rationale. Keeping single women delusional since the invention of the telephone.
‘I just don’t understand why he would ask me to call him and then not call me back.’
‘Could always move in here,’ Rubber Ducky suggested, changing the subject. ‘There’ll be a free room at the end of the month.’
‘I can’t live here.’ I shuddered at the thought as the water began to cool without me touching the thermostat. With still unshaven legs, I conceded defeat and turned off the shower. ‘No one should have to live here. Amy should have moved out years ago.’
‘I’m not arguing with that,’ he said. ‘This bathroom is disgusting. You’re going to have to make a decision about something and soon. I’m not showering in here again.’
Wrapped in my not-really-big-enough towel, I opened the bathroom door, trying to keep my vagina covered, and gave the rubber duck my best side eye.
‘Duly noted,’ I replied. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Hello?’
Somewhere on Parsons Green high street, en route to meet Paige on a shoot, I found the courage to call my mother. But my mother didn’t answer. Even though their voices were almost identical, I knew at once it was my younger sister, the eternally put-upon middle child, Mel.
‘All right,’ I said with a cough. ‘It’s Tess.’
‘Well.’
The ability to put that much weight behind that one word was a skill she had learned from our mother. I only got the boobs and the hair; Mel had inherited the whole passive-aggressive package.
‘Is Mum there?’ I was trying to keep my voice light in the hope that they had all forgotten me storming out of the house two weeks ago. Of course, it would have made more sense to hope I would bear witness to the second coming of Jesus but still, it was nice to be an optimist.
‘She is.’ She quickly switched to a yell that was entirely unnecessary given the size of my mother’s house. ‘Mum! It’s Tess!’
‘And what does Tess want?’ I heard Mum yell back.
‘She wants to know what you want,’ Mel relayed faithfully.
‘Can I just speak to her, please?’ I asked. My tolerance levels were dropping with every passing second. ‘It’ll be quicker.’
‘I’m very well, thanks for asking,’ she said. I had not caught my favourite sister in a good mood. ‘She says she wants to speak to you!’
‘Maybe I don’t want to speak to her,’ Mum replied, sounding very pleased with herself. ‘I haven’t forgotten what she said when she walked out of this house.’
‘She says—’
‘I heard what she bloody said.’ I cut Mel off before she could finish, wondering whether it wouldn’t be easier to just throw myself off the Westway and hope a passing bus was there to finish me off. ‘And I haven’t forgotten. I’m sorry for losing my temper and I shouldn’t have walked out without explaining what was going on but I was upset.’
‘She says she’s really sorry and she shouldn’t have walked out.’
‘That’s not exactly what I said, is it? Put her on the bloody phone, Mel.’
‘Don’t swear at your sister,’ my mum said, finally on the line without an interpreter. ‘You’re not in the position to be calling my house and being all high and mighty.’
I closed my eyes and rubbed the spot in the middle of my forehead that felt a tiny bit like it might actually explode. Still, better an aneurysm than an apology – that was the Brookes motto. Or at least it should be.
‘I wasn’t swearing at my sister—’
‘Yes, you were. I’ve got ears, you know.’
Breathe, Tess, breathe.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ I corrected myself. ‘How are you?’
‘As if you’re bothered,’ Mum huffed audibly down the phone. ‘After that scene you caused.’
The scene she was referring to wasn’t so much ‘a scene I had caused’ as a scene caused by my sisters hanging me out to dry by telling my mother I had lost my job at Donovan & Dunning, at which point she had chucked a glass of red wine across the room and got into a screaming row with Amy. In the middle of a christening. Amy had of course diffused the situation by climbing onto a table and holding the baby aloft while singing The Circle of Life. Amy was wonderful.
‘And you’re the one who walked out and said you were never coming back.’
It was good to know she’d run everything through her own filter and come up with her own version of events. History was written by the winner. The winners and their mums.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said as calmly as possible. There was no point in getting into another row; the only thing that would work here was blanket apologies. ‘I didn’t mean it. I was being stupid.’
‘Yes, you were.’ Clearly not enough apologies yet. ‘You sounded like you were off your head. Charlie says you’re not doing the heroin, though.’
And if Charlie said so, it must be true. The only person who had had a bigger crush on Charlie for the last decade was my mum. Mostly, it only manifested itself in overly maternal smothering when he went with me to visit, but I always felt a bit bad for my stepdad whenever she started pawing my best friend. Poor, lovely Brian. Patience of a saint, that man has.
‘I’m not doing heroin, I was just made redundant,’ I explained, the words still sticking in my throat. Me. Redundant. Bleurgh. ‘And it wasn’t only me, the whole company went under, so it wasn’t anything I did.’
‘There’s no need to be defensive,’ Mum sniffed. ‘No one said it was your fault.’
Another
