The One Before The One

‘Seriously? Cool. Maybe I could come to a few?’

I sigh. My stomach shrivels like a mollusc into its shell.

‘Or help you out at work? I’ve decided I want to go into business, actually – sixth form’s not for me. I was thinking, because I really love shoes, like seriously have a passion for them, that I could be a shoe designer. I could design the shoes here, I mean dead funky ones, much better than the pap that’s in the shops now,’ she says, in her flat Yorkshire accent. I’ve pretty much lost mine, after someone once told me I sounded like Geoff Boycott. ‘I could draw them – Art’s my best subject – send the designs to China where a team of people would make them, then get them sent back here!’

She looks at me as if to say, ‘Genius, or what?’ and a strange nausea passes over me, like this is already becoming more surreal than I can handle. Thankfully, then, there’s a noise like a lion roaring. Her mobile. Again.

She picks up. ‘Yo.’

She said that last time they called, so I assume it’s the same person.

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m here now.’ Pause. ‘Yeah, she’s cool, yeah, I think so …’ She looks at me and grimaces, apologetically – so she clearly told whoever’s on the other line of her plans to come and ‘surprise me’. Just not me.

Her voice grows quieter.

‘Yeah, I know Carls, I know. I’ll talk to him at some point.’ So, boyfriend trouble?

She rolls her eyes and makes a blah-blah-blah sign with her hand. There’s a long pause, then a gasp and a ‘No way!’ then an even bigger gasp and a ‘What, like permanent-permanent?!’

After about five seconds and no ‘goodbye’ that I can decipher, she hangs up.

‘What’s happened? Is everything Okay?’

‘Oh yeah,’ she says, cracking a pistachio between her teeth, ‘it’s just my mate Carly’s had her hair dyed, and it’s gone totally tits up.’

We sit at the kitchen table, me still in the wedding dress and the start of a hangover.

‘So listen, honey, about the sixth form thing. Does Dad know you aren’t planning on going back?’

‘Yes. Dunno. Don’t care. I’m not really talking to him at the moment, or Mum for that matter.’

‘What? What do you mean you’re not talking to them? You mean to say you came on the train all the way to London and you didn’t tell them? Lexi! Right, I’m calling Dad now.’

I pick up my bag and rummage in it, trying to find my mobile, but Lexi stretches across the table and slaps her hand on top of it.

‘Caroline, don’t. Please.’

She lowers her eyes at me, looks at me from under silky black lashes that I was always so envious of as a teenager.

‘Back away from the bag, Caroline. Away from the bag, come on …’

She slowly takes the bag from my grasp, like I’m a self-harmer and it’s full of razors.

‘Please don’t call Dad. They know I’m here – Dad drove me to the station.’ She looks a bit sheepish. ‘And gave me the money to get the train. He gave me a bit of cash too, you know, for the holidays?’

‘Oh, did he now? And did he think to, you know, call me about this?’

She wrinkles her nose.

‘Mmm, yeah. But I think you had your phone off.’

I am about to protest about the ludicrousness of this comment when I remember, yes, I did. I always switch off all methods of communication when I’m indulging in a maudlin-fest. One gets so much more out of it that way.

We sit in silence for a minute. I look around at the kitchen, at the disarray – the Flora margarine carton with fag butts in it, the empty bottle of Prosecco (with a fag butt in it), the little sister, helping herself to pistachios, announcing she’s staying for the summer. The whole summer. God, I hate summer, and I am suddenly taken hold with a sickening grip of panic, a sort of vertigo like I’m in freefall.

Then Lexi’s phone goes again. This time she looks at the screen and runs upstairs to take it.

Brilliant. A lovesick teen on my hands.

I get straight on the landline to Dad. It rings three times before the answerphone kicks in. If they’ve sodded off on one of their yoga holidays to an obscure Greek island, I’ll kill him, I really will.

‘Hi, this is the happy home of Cassandra and Trevor Steele. I’m afraid we’ve been currently called upon elsewhere, but if you’d be so kind as to leave us a message …’

Then: ‘Helllooo!’

These days, Dad sounds like he just leapt off a yacht in the Carribean to answer the phone, he’s so ecstatic. ‘Dad, it’s Caroline.’

‘Ah, lovely Caro! I was just about to call you.’

‘Were you? Good.’

Resist temptation to rant. It never works with Dad.

‘Do you think you might be able to tell me what’s going on?’

‘Ah. Lexi?’

‘Yes, Dad, Lexi.’

‘The thing is, honey, I’ve been trying to call you all afternoon but you’re always so unavailable.’

(Note: emotional blackmail three seconds into the conversation.)

‘I see, so you thought you’d just send her over?’

‘No! It wasn’t like that. Look, I can tell you’re excited …’

‘Am I? I don’t feel that excited.’

‘So just take a moment to relax. A few deep breaths. Would you like me to call you back?’

‘No, I’m fine. I want to talk about this now.’

‘Okay, all right.’ (Dramatic sigh.) ‘The thing is, honey, Lex is … how can I put it … “at sea” at the moment. She’s in a transitional phase, there’s a lot of inner conflict. She’s been off the rails recently, raging against the world. All the normal teenage stuff, but also some sadness, some searching; her mum and I feel, some un-met needs.’

I hold the receiver away from my mouth for a second and swear, silently and enthusiastically to the heavens.

‘Dad, do you think I could have this in plain English please?’