16. The Inner-Goddess of Teeth and Wisdom

I decide to temporarily hold off on the war that I’m planning to wage upon Mum and Dad over their invasion of my Bird-Ladies. Frankly, I can only deal with one battle per visit, and I’m still tired from the Battle of Pretend Vuitton.

Instead, I go home and spend the next two days being a nervous wreck, getting up an hour early, in order to properly overanalyze my hair and makeup and faux-nonchalant-attitude, without being late for work. It’s all very stupid behavior considering I’m not supposed to give a damn about David Phillips in my brand-new-fabulous-life, and I’m sort of acting like I do.

But then again, David Phillips wasn’t supposed to be an actual physical presence in my brand-new-fabulous-life. The contract between my new life and I was a two-way deal: I was going to expand the professional Non-Carer side of myself to include anything to do with David Phillips or my old life, and my new life was going to bring on the fabulousness. It has to know how utterly un-fabulous it is having to spend the majority of the day in the same building as David and his Polo Ralph Lauren cologne, so I’m not really sure how much I can be blamed for my failure to uphold my end of the deal.

On Wednesday afternoon, I sit at my desk and try to convince myself that I’m not having a nervous breakdown. I do this by verbally communicating to Patrice all of the ways that I don’t care about David being here, and in exchange for his listening, I allow him to paint my nails ‘Sassy Spearmint Green’ behind an upright file folder, positioned to block our nail art session from the view of Beverly. It is during this session that we all receive an email invitation for a night of champagne and canapés at The Dorchester, in celebration of the new official partnership between the Charles Hamilton Gallery and the Mauffer-Lynne P.R. Firm. This is followed, minutes later, by an email from Beverly to the entire staff, encouraging us to do our very best to attend. In other words, unless we’re in a coma, we better make an appearance unless we want to be stuck doing the art gallery equivalent of tile alphabetizing at a Scrabble warehouse. Little does she know that, personally, I would much rather organize the tiles in a hundred Scrabble warehouses than attend an event to which David will almost certainly bring Abigail Bloom.

‘We’re going,’ Patrice says when he sees me reading the email, ‘you know why? Because it’s on Saturday, and your welcome-home party is on Friday. That means you will have an entire twenty-four hours to make the fitness guy your date.’

I roll my eyes. ‘I’m not going to ask a guy to be my date to some fancy work event on the first night I meet him. Especially when it’s the next day.’

‘And why not?’ Patrice asks, looking me up and down.

‘Because that’s what crazy people do,’ I say.

‘And…?’

‘And I’m not crazy!’ I cry, probably while my eye twitches and my head does a 360 degree turn.

**

By the time Friday arrives, I feel confident that I have mentally prepared for all of the potentially awful situations that could occur upon being reunited with my long-lost friends and family.

At some point, I will spill on myself—that’s a given—and I will almost certainly lose track of my alcohol intake until after it’s too late.

Someone could have a heart attack.

I could have a heart attack. I could get diarrhea. I could hit someone’s car…with my body, since I don’t have a car. I could accidentally cut someone’s ponytail off. I could choke on a cheese cube until it is thrust back up my esophagus and propelled back into the world, most likely, into someone’s champagne glass at the very moment they are raising it for a toast. And then there is Mum’s inevitable temper tantrum that, naturally, I will be stuck dealing with.

Then there’s Arthur Macxis, who will probably bring his pack of stoner goons. They will be the ones to set off a chain reaction that will ultimately come to bite me in the ass. First, he’s going to shut himself in the toilets and light up a dubie. There is no doubt about that. This will then cause the toilets to be locked which will eventually be a problem for me, considering the amount of alcohol I plan to drink. So, due to the unfortunate circumstance of the toilets being permanently occupied, I will have to resort to taking a wee round the back of the pub in a bush, where, with my luck, I will be caught on video camera and the video will then be played for the entire party as a bit of “harmless humor.”  Then, Thomas Davison will never sleep with me and David will find out that I never slept with him to begin with. And all of this will happen because I am ridiculous.

I could probably avoid all of these potential disasters if I just disappear for the whole night and then give the excuse that I had been thrown into the back of a van on the way there and found myself in Hyde Park the next morning. It could happen.

Actually, that wouldn’t solve anything. I need Thomas Davison to be my boyfriend by Saturday. And considering I have to meet him first, I feel like I’m already cutting it a bit tight, timing-wise. I wish 24-hour love potions existed. Well, I guess they do, and we just call it Tequila.

At work, Patrice insists that we absolutely must go shopping for new clothes because, apparently, it’s bad luck to wear something you already own to an event where the primary goal is to get someone new to sleep with you. ‘Something new for someone new!’ he tells me brightly. Then, he marches over to Beverly and tells her that he’s getting his wisdom teeth removed and will need me to go with him to help him get home afterwards, since the anesthetic will have made him too groggy to cope with life alone.

Beverly’s eyes narrow in on him suspiciously. ‘Don’t wisdom teeth removals have a recovery period of at least a week?’ she asks.

‘Yes, well, I meant wisdom tooth; I could only afford to have one removed,’ Patrice sighs, ‘That cuts my recovery time down by a fourth. Plus, I’ve always been incredibly good about nurturing my inner-goddess, so my body rejuvenates itself quicker than most. I should be all better by tomorrow’s event.’

This wipes any and all concern from Beverly’s face and she says, ‘Oh, well, in that case, excellent! Good luck with your tooth!’ Then she returns her attention to her computer as though we were never there.

‘Can you believe that?’ Patrice hisses as soon as we’re out of ear range.

‘I know…how could anyone believe that story? It was terrible.’

‘Not that,’ says Patrice, waving his hand, ‘I cannot believe she didn’t offer me a raise so I could afford to get all of my wisdom teeth removed! For all she knows, they could all be infected with gangrene and without immediate removal…I could die!’

‘I don’t think that’s how wisdom teeth work,’ I say.

‘Well she didn’t even ask!’ he cries, snatching his handbag off the desk and making a show out of his exit by flinging himself through the door like he’s just been the victim of domestic abuse. This dramatic fluster continues all the way to the shopping centre but is abruptly forgotten as soon as we walk through the doors of River Island.

However, while Patrice is in his happy place, I am in a place of inner turmoil due to the narrowness of walking space between each row of clothes. It’s like driving on back country roads, where, if you find yourself a victim of a grievous fate and meet a car going in the opposite direction of you, the process of passing each other becomes an automobile’s act of Cirque du Soleil, and usually results with one car going up onto the side wall until it is, more or less, hanging vertically like Spiderman. Even worse than this, is coming across a big van or truck going in the opposite direction of you. If this happens, you might as well just save everyone some time and drive your own car over the side, because if anyone is tumbling down the hill to their death, you can bet it’s not going to be the fatass van.

Anyway, this is how River Island is making me feel, especially after I make an ass of myself trying to pass someone and fall into a rack of jumpers. Like, actually into them, and the world becomes one big dark jumper. Maybe I should just stay in here. I won't have to go to my party if I remain hidden in Jumper-Narnia. I peer out to see if anyone has noticed that I'm in here and, as if on cue, in comes a parade of three mothers with big fat infant wheel barrows, barreling through the tiny rows, like tractors in a cornfield. They make it so that all other wheelbarrow-less humans have to literally walk all the way out of that row, into a corner, to make way for them, and the front tractor ends up bumping into my knee, which couldn't fit all the way inside jumper land. As if this isn’t bad enough on its own, she then adds a quick, ‘excuse me,’ while pursing her lips into a smug-pie smile and motioning her head down to the pushchair, like its presence is equivalent to an ambulance siren on the roads of River Island. Even the babies look embarrassed by their drivers’ warped sense of importance at this point. I get up, and all I want to do is stand firm in my narrow row, look them straight in the eye, and without flinching, say, ‘Maybe you should have considered a Babybjorn before trying to fit down Crop Top Canal. Or a condom.’

Of course, I don’t say anything, and just move out of the way like everyone else. One day though…one day I’ll say it. And when that day comes, I’ll know that I’ve reached the ultimate level of who I’m meant to be.

15. Bird-Ladies are from Venus

I shove Mac’s hand and the leering blunt away, crossing my arms in a manner that I hope depicts what a tosspiece he is. Still grinning, he says, ‘anyway, when I decided to leave the tube station, I didn’t realize that ahead of me there was a queue of people, equivalent to the population of India, waiting to get into the station and blocking the road. So when I finally made it out onto Oxford Street, I was still trapped in the same place for another twenty minutes. I’ve never seen anything like it. It took me five whole minutes to get my arms free enough to raise them in the air and cry out for sweet Jah to rescue me from what was surely one of the portal entrances to hell.’

I roll my eyes because I don't doubt that this is actually what he did. ‘And were you rescued?’ I ask.

‘Well, sort of. After twenty bloody minutes of standing in the same place, I escaped the hell portal, but I was still in the middle of fucking Oxford Street, so of course, there were bloody tourists everywhere, using up all the taxis. I ended up walking around looking for one until I reached Piccadilly Circus, and there didn’t seem to be as many people going into the station—I mean you could go down the fucking stairs at a normal pace—but then, once I got down there, turns out it was just another minging hell portal. I mean, for fuck’s sake, where do they all come from? Eventually I got back to the surface and only when I saw an orange light coming towards me, did I know that sweet Jah had heard my cry and sent me an angel in the form of Don Lewis, London cabbie with empty taxi.’ He pauses and motions his head toward the painting. ‘That’s why I figure one of the devil’s names must be Piccadilly.’

‘Not Oxford?’ I ask.

‘Well I can’t bloody well call the devil Oxford, can I? “Oxford’s Circus.” Might as well call it Colonel Mustard’s Circus, fuck. I’d have the professor police all over me. Plus, I didn’t want to associate your uni with hell or anything.’

‘What are you talking about, “my uni”?’ I ask, ‘I went to UCL.’

As if I could get into Oxford.

‘Oh,’ Mac says with a shrug, and leans over to re-light his blunt, ‘I thought that’s where you were this past year.’

‘Seriously?’ I say, ‘I was in New York.’

‘Shit,’ Mac says with a laugh that causes him to choke on his weed smoke, ‘that’s all the way in America. What were you doing there?’

God, my brother can be such a jackass. I remind him that I went to do my art and gallery studies degree, but can’t help frowning because I’ve now been reminded of the secret-real reason why I was in New York. And this just ends up reminding me of my new-fabulous-life and the big fat rubbish bin that today chucked it into.

Actually, you know what? No. I will not let David chuck my new-fabulous-life into the rubbish bin. Not this time. He’s already chucked one version of my life into the bin; he’s not allowed to do it again. That’s just greedy. Not that I’m saying David isn’t greedy, because obviously he is the collective epitome of all negative words in the English language and also, every other language in the universe, including Martian and Venetian. Venetian from Venus, not Venice. Is there even a Venetian language in Venice? I feel like this is something I should know. Especially since I focused on the Italian renaissance painters in the art history concentration of my degree. My undergraduate degree, that is. So, almost two years ago. That’s long enough to give me an excuse for forgetting it, right? It’s not like my brain has an infinite amount of storage space or anything; bits of information will inevitably have to go at some point. It’s called natural selection. And the Venetian bit is unfortunately among the extinct.

Maybe there’s a Venetian dialect… Ugh, whatever, it doesn’t matter. The point is that David is all the negative words in all the languages, including both the planetary Venetian language and the Italian dialect that I may or may not have made up. And if I'm lucky, Venus is like Earth and has lots of different languages as well, since the more languages, the more negative words to describe David. And I think that was my point…

I might need to leave the room. I’m obviously second-hand high.

As I turn, I notice a colorful, little picture lying on one of Mac’s work tables. It’s of a lady wearing a dress covered in showgirl feathers, and instead of human legs, she has legs like an ostrich. The background is hot pink and the woman is wearing sunglasses. I know exactly why she’s wearing sunglasses too. It's not because it's particularly sunny in Picture Land. It’s because the artist didn’t know how to draw eyes but could manage a coloured-in black circle. I know this because Mac is not the artist of this particular piece. I am.  And by “artist,” I mean “18-year-old-scribbler”; and by “piece,” I mean “undergrad-art-class-doodle.” Let’s be real. I kept drawing bird-ladies over and over, for every assignment, because it was the only thing I knew how to do and the class was mandatory. But I did give them all a different outfit. That was the fun part. The not-fun part was the part where I was born without artistic ability and therefore, decided to do art history instead (for the sake of mankind), and somehow, still wound up being forced to take an art class.What the hell, UCL?

My parents kept trying to frame my bird-ladies and hang them up in the house. I knew their secret agenda was to convince their friends that these were new pieces of contemporary art, and then, when their friends started “ooh-ing” and “ah-ing,” my parents would slap, “our daughter is the artist” right across their ignorant faces. Then there would be a follow-up slap of “both our children are such talented artists, with such different styles,” and some feeding of bullshit that my art is cubism or something, and that’s why it looks like a 6-year old drew it. Next would be the “well done us, we’re so good at baby-making,” statements, as if they, too, are artists—artists of people—and actually designed Mac and I as humans. Then they would end with the obvious finale of “this calls for another bottle of Bernier Moscato,” and that would be that. Mission accomplished.

Naturally, I forbade it. There was no way I was going to let my parents parade my stupid bird-lady doodle art (truly, something only a mother could love) in the name of binge drinking. If they wanted to hang my pictures on the fridge with a magnet, then fine, because that’s what normal parents did when their children drew pictures—even if the picture was supposed to depict the family vacation at the beach, but looked more like a family of phallic-shaped water balloons with faces, standing on a blue rug, in the midst of an acid trip that has given all the inanimate objects around them the ability to smile.

Damn it, I really thought I had hidden away all my bird-ladies properly.

‘What’s it doing here?’ I ask, pointing accusingly at it.

‘Bird-Lady?’ Mac says, ‘Mum found it in a box in your room somewhere.’

‘What was she doing going through my room?’ I snap. This probably means she found the whole box. Fuck.

Mac shrugs. ‘They’re thinking about dedicating one of the rooms entirely to their gem sculptures or some bizarre shit. I guess she was considering yours—I mean, since you don’t use it anymore.’

Is that a joke? I am a human being. How ridiculously sad would it be if I lost my own bedroom to a bunch of gems in the shape of seaweed? They don’t even have faces, like the African masks. They’re just rocks. Literally. My parents are considering giving away the childhood bedroom of their only daughter to a bunch of faceless rocks.

I pick up the bird-lady picture. ‘Why do you have this one?’

‘I’m trying to match the shade of pink you used. I'm thinking you mixed a red and a yellow with a medium pink of some kind, but when I try, I can’t get my shade as bright as yours. You don’t happen to remember the brand of oil color, do you?’

‘Really?’ I respond, staring at my stupid doodle-painting, ‘You give me way too much credit. I’m pretty sure I just got a pot of paint labeled “pink” and stuck my brush into it—no creative mixology involved.’

Mac shook his head. ‘No—you don’t give me enough credit. I know mixed paint when I see it, fuck. Please, don’t question the professional.’ He grins and leans back in his chair again. ‘Also, when you go downstairs, will you take a look at the big, naked bird-lady that Mum and Dad hung in the dining room and see if you remember what shade of red the background is? Because that was definitely just an oil pastel...’

Hold on a minute. They hung the what in the where? Of all the bird-ladies they could have abducted, they chose the one that I was too lazy to come up with an outfit for? Ugh, for fuck’s sake.

I groan internally—and, it seems, also externally, because Mac releases a giant laugh, and once again starts choking on his weed smoke.

‘Trust me, the dining room looks phenomenal,' he says, once he catches his breath, 'very rustic, like a cave covered in drawings of ladies with chicken-legs and Star Trek costumes, and then one big, naked bird-slag.’

I glare at him. He's lucky I can't speak Venetian (from Venus), or he'd be the recipient of some atrociously vulgar cratered-street slang right now. My bird-ladies may be lame, but they are NOT slags, naked or not. They are simply comfortable living as mutant hybrids, clothing optional. As should we all. 
So there.

14. Piccadilly's Blunt of Thyme and Time

Mum comes back into the house, dusting off her hands like she’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and has just taken care of sixteen notorious vampires single-handedly. Yes, well done, Mum. You sure showed that evil bag what happens to Louis Vuitton imposters. Our giant Doberman, Zeus, comes in behind her and gives me a quick sniff of acknowledgement before strutting over to Dad and directing his giant face toward the cocktail. And, of course, Dad gives him some. Seriously, are there any sober members of this household?

I’m about to make a snappy comment about it when suddenly there’s a loud rumble and the whole ceiling begins vibrating. This pounding is soon followed by the ever-so-articulate-and-classy Mickey Avalon song, ‘My Dick,’ booming through the walls of the whole house, and my parents glance at each other with a combination of embarrassment and annoyance. This can only mean one thing.

Little brother, Arthur Macxis, is home.

I grin at my parents as I move toward the stairs, and Mum shouts after me, ‘tell him to turn that rubbish down! We shouldn’t have to hear it three floors below.’

As soon as she says it, the song changes, and I follow the sound of angry reggae music up to the loft which Mac took over years ago and converted into a studio/smoke room. The studio element is for painting. Mac’s a brilliant painter. He never wants to show his work anywhere though, and every time I ask him about it, he gets grumpy and dishes out elegantly worded clichés like: ‘I would rather not sully my art by letting the fuckheads of the world rub their minging hands and opinions all over it.’ The other element of his loft—the smoking element—is because he’s a pothead. Surprise!

Let’s just say, he’s lucky Mum and Dad are rich, otherwise he wouldn't be able to just exist in their loft, getting high, and living by his stupid artist-against-society mantra of painting pictures for no one to see but him. 

I climb up and find Mac working on a giant painting of what looks like a tube train bursting upward out of a covered tunnel and through the torso of a giant devil-man. The devil-man has his mouth wide open like he’s releasing the mother of all deranged cackles and his snake-like tongue is flitting out, reaching off the edge of the canvas. Across his eyes, Mac’s painted the London Underground sign for Piccadilly Circus station. 

‘What’s this?’ I ask, lowering the volume of Damian Marley on his sound system. Mac replies with a sort of grunt and keeps painting. I wait for him to finish off the red Underground symbol and then watch as he throws down the brush, drops into the swivel chair behind him, spins around to face me, and puts his feet up on the workstation. 

‘It’s called Piccadilly’s Circus,’ he says with a grin, adjusting the red bandana he’s wearing to keep his hair out of his eyes. But when I say hair, I actually mean dreadlocks—a big, full on head of them. I’ve never asked him if they’re purposely done—like if he goes to a specialist dreadlocks barber or buys special wax on dreadlocks.com or something—or whether they’re just the result of years and years of neglect. I’m tempted to lean toward the latter. They’ve grown a lot longer since I last saw him. It’s so fucking unfair. I mean, here I am, terrified to do anything new or interesting to my hair because of the massive bad-haircut risk (since my hair grows at a phenomenal speed of, maybe, 0.2 millimeters a month, meaning I’d be stuck with my bad haircut for virtually the rest of my twenties). So I just keep my hair long and boring—and by long, I mean mid-boob, because once my hair reaches that length, it seems to think it’s done its part and can go on sabbatical until my next trim. Then there’s Mac, who has fucking dreadlocks, and gets to have hair that grows at least two inches a month. And it's now reaching a point (especially with that red bandana) that could earn him a job as Jack Sparrow at Disney World.

           

‘I see that, Captain,’ I reply, ‘are you angry at Piccadilly Circus?’

‘Fuck yeah I am,’ he says, as though this is some sort of general conviction all of humanity shares, ‘fucking Piccadilly and Oxford Circus—more at Oxford Circus, to be honest. Made the mistake of changing there yesterday. Christ, it was a bloody nightmare. More than the normal nightmare too. This was like an absolutely-fucking-mental nightmare that only a deranged schizo in a straight jacket could have come up with. I don’t know how all those people fit down there without spewing onto the tracks.’

He pauses to lean down and pull out his box of blunt-rolling materials from the bottom shelf of the workstation, followed by a giant bag of weed.

‘So, after I fail to fit on the next two trains,’ he continues, spreading out his rolling paper and sprinkling the weed with a perfection that is second nature, ‘I accept that there’s no way in hell I’m getting to Liverpool Street by tube this century, so I bail and go for a taxi. Now get this—I’m not fucking around when I say it took me fifteen bloody minutes, squashed inside a herd of people to the point that my bones started crushing, to walk up the ten bloody steps to the exit.’

After lighting the blunt, he inhales deeply and releases a smoky exhale. Then he extends it out to me and says, ‘hit?’ with a stupid grin. I know he’s laughing about Ted and Ruth’s ruby wedding anniversary.

A few years ago Mum and Dad decided to throw them a party. They reserved a huge ball room in the Savoy and hired caterers and waiters, and both a DJ and a swing band. Of course, my brother and his dumbass pack of stoner goons had to show up as soon as they got the munchies for pâté and chocolate mousse in mini port glasses. And of course, they had to convince me that it would be a good idea to take “a few hits with them” round the side of the building. Not being entirely aware of what kind of monster these “few hits” would turn me into, I went ahead and did so.

Regrets.

I don’t remember all of it (since I was actually quite drunk to begin with), but I do know that I decided it would be a great idea to have the DJ play ‘In Da Club’ by 50 Cent and then proceed to jump on stage, snatch the mic from the swing band, and rap the entire song for all the guests. I can still see myself pointing directly at Ted and shouting how I didn’t give a fuck it wasn’t his birthday. At the time, I was confused about why no one was singing along or grinding on the dance floor—but, now I know, it was probably because I sounded satanic. Arthur Macxis and his knobhead-potheads were hysterical, as well as the only ones who applauded for me. Obviously. 

Dad had grabbed me by the arm after my number and pulled me over to the side where Mum was waiting to interrogate me.

‘Have you been smoking herbs?’ she had snapped, taking over the firm grabbing of my arm from my dad.

Mac followed us and said, ‘my fault, I picked some Thyme from the garden and rolled it into a blunt for her. I thought it was virgin, but I guess I was wrong.’

‘You’ve been smoking Thyme?!’ Mum gasped, as if this was a synonym for meth-crack-cocaine wrapped in a heroin sandwich.

‘You’re the one growing it in the garden,’ Mac replied, a grin tugging at the corner of his lips, ‘and stop acting like you didn’t live through the sixties. We’ve seen the photos, Lady John Lennon.’

‘How many times do I have to tell you that was a fancy dress party?’ Mum whispered fiercely.

‘Fancy dress parties don’t last for two years,’ I pointed out, and Mac and I laughed obnoxiously.

‘Well I certainly wasn’t smoking Thyme,’ she responded, tightening her grip on my wrist as some form of punishment. 

But then confusion hit me and I began to think that I had smoked “time.” The drama of it all was too much for me to handle in my state and I got so terrified that I screamed, ‘You’ll never take me alive!’ and ran from the ballroom. They found me later, sitting in the car singing Alanis Morisette. 

If I’m lucky, the rest of my life will go relatively nothing like that.

13. Sean Connery and the Churl with the Sainsbury's Bag

I text Mum as I’m leaving work to let her know I’ll be swinging by and she responds with the address of the house. 

14 Summerhead Vale

Richmond

I’m not sure what to think of this. Normally, when Mum says or texts strange things, I try and view the world through the eyes of Mum and can eventually come up with an idea of what strange logic is behind her strange words. I have to admit, though, this one has me stumped. It would make some sort of sense if it were an address other than that of the house I spent 85% of my life living in. And I wouldn’t even have been shocked if they had randomly moved into some country villa in Bath and then forgotten to breathe a word of it to me until I was standing outside of our old house in Richmond, confused as to why a strange Spanish guy, with rolled up jeans and a cigar hanging from his mouth, was opening the door. But it’s not. It’s the same house. I text back a question mark because…well, because Mum makes me feel question mark.

See you soon love Mum Dad in house pick up tonic thx x

Okay, whatever. 

When I arrive at the house, I walk in (tonic in hand) and apprehensively glance around. Everything is as it was when I left, minus new pieces of art here and there. The scary African masks are still hanging on the walls, laughing at me, with their giant grins and beady little eye holes. I’ve never been on good terms with them. They’re just so impertinent and taunting and weird. And I know that whatever voodoo spirits are lurking in there don’t like me—because I know their secret. I know that behind all that cultural artsy façade, behind their tribal paint and dangly beaded dreadlocks, they are nothing more than psychopathic, animalistic versions of It—and no, I don’t mean the cute furry Cousin It from The Addam’s Family; I mean the Stephen King It. Yeah. That It. Except, instead of just one It, my parents’ house serves as the international building of Killer Clown University—all in the name of art. And I always knew those scary masks were just waiting for the day an innocent little child (like me) would break Mummy and Daddy’s rules and take them off the wall and wear them. Then they would suck the soul out of that child, using their voodoo magic. Or they would take over the kid’s mind and turn them into little clown-mask-wearing Chucky dolls, waving around knives and murdering their families. 

Whatever the case, when I was little, I was convinced they were evil. Tom, John, Mark, and Rick. I had named them so I could whisper personalized threats whenever I walked by, so they would know that just because they had my family fooled, they didn’t fool me. Nope. Those bastards would never fool me.

I’m still standing around glaring at the masks when I hear footsteps coming out from the kitchen, followed by, ‘Is that you, darling?’

Dad appears in the doorway. He’s holding an orange cocktail in his hand that has a slice of watermelon on the rim and a purple umbrella in it. A fucking umbrella. It’s probably a recipe from his 1,001 Greatest Cocktails book called “Kilner Me Softly” or something. He's so predictable.

Dad likes to dress as though he’s fresh from the set of Out of Africa. His white hair and beard are always neatly trimmed, and he has a pair of rebellious eyebrows that decided to remain dark brown forever, without any regard to what colour the rest of the head hair was wearing. Sometimes when he speaks, he sounds a bit like Sean Connery with a French accent, so unless you know him pretty well, he’s basically just grunting words with a fancy-sounding twang. And if the sun is out, you can be damn sure he’ll have on his Indiana Jones hat and some sort of multi-coloured necktie scarf thing, usually tucked into a cream jacket. This is what’s happening now. Plus an over-decorated glass of Malibu rum with a splash of orange juice. And a purple fucking umbrella.

Mum is close behind, wearing one of the obnoxiously coloured dresses from the little boutique she owns for no reason, called Sybil’s (named after herself, naturally). This one is bright purple, (probably to match Dad’s cocktail umbrella) and has a giant peacock feather sticking up from the left shoulder.

 ‘My God, what have you been eating, darling? You’re as thin as a rail,’ Mum says, shimmying over to me, a glass of champagne in one hand and her free hand flapping about. I’m about to tell her nothing, since I tended to spend most of my university meal plan money on things other than food (clothes, booze, a hair straightener), when she adds, ‘It’s wonderful! Now you can fit into some of the dresses from the shop.’

‘Well being broke is the best diet,’ I reply, handing Dad the Sainsbury’s bag with the tonic in it as we go into the kitchen.

‘Broke,’ Mum titters, rolling her eyes toward my dad and giving an airy chuckle, ‘You poor hard-done-by child. Whatever next?’

I am about to correct her, and say that I am broke, as an independent party from them, but my father cuts in with, ‘Not to sound pretentious darling…’

AND there it is. The “not to sound, darling” phrase my dad is so very fond of, always followed by the big “BUT” that inevitably makes him sound exactly the way he pretends he doesn’t want to, and often has the power to make the person he’s speaking to feel like they have a brain the size of an embryo. 

A hamster embryo.

Examples include: “Not to sound ungrateful darling, BUT…I don’t think reading an article in National Geographic really qualifies you to contribute to this particular discussion.” “Not to sound forward darling, BUT…one too many of the wrong sexual partners and a woman could be considered damaged goods.” “Not to sound repetitive darling, BUT…please, don’t drink from the bottle…that’s what glasses are for.”

Eye roll.

‘BUT…I don’t think you should go around describing yourself as “broke.” It’s such a churlish word, and I don't like to think of you as a churl.’ 

I smile and look down at the fake Louis Vuitton bag on my shoulder. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. 

‘This bag is fake,’ I say abruptly, plopping it on the counter top for all to see.

Dad flashes it a condescending look but doesn’t seem that bothered. Mum, however, lets out a loud gasp as though I’ve just slapped a rotting animal corpse on her counter.

‘Get it off,’ she says sharply, ‘Get it off this instance.’

‘It’s just a bag, Mum,’ I reply, unable to contain my amusement. 

‘This is not a bag,’ she shouts, snatching it from me, ‘this is an imposter. And I will not have it in my house!’ Then she dumps the entire contents of my bag onto the counter which is something I had not anticipated.

‘Mum!’ I groan, trying to reach for the bag, but before I can get anywhere near it, she disappears into the other room and out the back door. I look to Dad for reinforcement but he just shrugs and says,

‘Well you brought this upon yourself. Now you’ll have to carry your contents home in a Sainsbury’s bag.’

‘Like a churl,’ I respond.

Dad nods and takes a sip of his overdressed Maui cocktail. ‘Like a churl.’