Disconnected

I saw you bridle and shoot me an odd kind of look – as if you were worried and scared of me, both.

“Chill? What kind of English is that? Are you hot or something? Honestly, it’s as bad as that silly expression ‘cool’, which I never liked. And Catherine, you can’t – as you so elegantly put it – chill. You are taking four A-levels. Four demanding A-levels.”

I said nothing. That way I could stay in control. You paused, sizing up the situation.

“You’ll feel different after dinner, I daresay.”

You went over to the drinks cabinet and poured yourself a gin and tonic. Gordon’s gin, and Schweppes Slimline Tonic. You drank every evening and because it was so regular it seemed normal and acceptable to me.

“Can I have one?” I asked you. You swung round, looking guilty and alarmed.

“Don’t be silly. You don’t have to copy my bad habits.” The joke was meant to defuse the situation.

I refused to smile. I was as taut as a bow, watching you, as if I was seeing you for the first time. You didn’t care much about your appearance, you never did. You always laughed when I put on some make-up as if it was a childish, or worse, a rather common thing to do. Your hair was short but almost deliberately dishevelled – clever women didn’t have time to fuss with their hair. That day I remember you wore a grey skirt and a black sweater that screamed Marks & Spencer. You thought you looked classic, timeless, but I could see the little lines that radiated from your lips like cracks on an old oil painting. I observed the tiredness in your eyes. I felt sorry for you and glad I was young. But at the same time, or following on from that, I felt angry at you because you were my mother, which was just so claustrophobic. I didn’t know how to judge myself without using your eyes, your tired, ageing eyes.

When I’m with my friends, I never talk about you. We don’t talk about our parents unless they’re being a pain. It’s good to escape. But then I come home and it’s like living in your shadow – and that’s good, because in some ways you make me feel safe, but in other ways, I want to scream. Is that normal? You’re the doctor. You should know. And I hate it that I think you know everything about me. You never worried when I was ill, and you tell me, all the time, that I’m just going through a developmental stage.

But I don’t want to be like you because your life is so drab and monochrome and hard and you’re so tired all the time. Like me. I’m tired all the time too.

I thought, I just can’t be arsed to move. Not that I’d ever say that to you.

We had dinner that evening at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. We just small-talked – well, you did, going on about the bank statement and redecorating the porch and hallway, and whingeing about your paperwork. I refused dessert. You said you wished you had my willpower. Then you said, “Are you going up to your room to work now?” It was a challenge.

“I might,” I said.

Two pugilists, eyeing each other from their respective corners.

“And there’s your oboe.”

I hated my oboe just then. She had pulled it over to her side.

“Because, Catherine, I know it’s hard sometimes to get motivated but the secret of academic success is persistence and determination. It’s always the student who keeps going who gets there in the end. I’m only telling you this for your own good. Really, it’s nothing to me whether you work or not.”

I was silent.

“Well?” she asked.

I took refuge in ambiguity. I got up, said nothing, and went up to my room.

It was a relief to be alone. I love you, but sometimes there’s too much of you. Once in my room, I threw myself on the bed, wondering what was wrong with me that night. I worked out I wasn’t pre-menstrual, but I didn’t believe in that crap anyway. Girls I knew just said they were pre-menstrual so they could have an excuse for having a go at people, or a big cry and all their mates would cuddle them. I didn’t feel like crying but just like things were out of joint. Worse, as if nothing mattered any more. The idea of not doing any work was so appealing. Like, what was the point?

But automatically I opened my schoolbag and took out my History text books and file, the document question he’d given us and an A4 pad of paper, and got myself organised. For a moment or two I actually felt like working. I like the look of a piece of blank paper. But as soon as I wrote my name, that same lethargy descended. It was such an effort to write. I tried to read the documents but they made no sense. I glanced at the first question – Explain briefly the following references: (a) ‘patrons and nominees’ (b) ‘the absurd admiration of the triumph of physical strength in France’.

I felt paralysed by the weight of the words. A sensible voice in my head (yours?) said, come on, now! It’s only a short question. You can do it. Another voice said, what has this got to do with you, or with anything for that matter? It’s all a silly game, taking exams, getting qualifications. It doesn’t matter, any of it.

Only, if it doesn’t matter, what does? That was what scared me. So I tried again. I began a sentence of my own on the paper in response, but then was distracted by the reflection of me in my dressing-table mirror.

Girl at work. Or girl not at work. My brown hair was dishevelled since I’d taken out my hair bobble. The expression on my face was blank. I automatically asked the mirror the question I always did – am I good-looking? This time the reply came back – what does it matter? In reality I suppose my face changes depending on my mood. When I smile I look quite pretty – my eyes are large, which helps. But at other times my face is heavy and formless.

So I got up to put some music on to help me start work. You have this rule, I know, that I’m only allowed classical music to work to – you read somewhere it aids concentration. Today I decided to go against you because I wanted to listen to a tape Greg, a boy in my Economics group, had lent me – The Smiths. From the Eighties. But they weren’t like what I thought of as Eighties at all, but camp and suicidal all at once. They were good. I lay on my bed and listened and thought, I could get into this. A shame I didn’t like Greg that much, at least not in that way.

Then I decided to give myself a manicure. It can be quite therapeutic, doing things with your nails, or plucking your eyebrows, self-grooming. And I needed to get myself looking good for Brad’s party on Saturday. I was half-listening for you because I didn’t want to be discovered not working. But who was I kidding? I felt as guilty as hell. The more I put off working, the more I felt squeezed by some sort of invisible pressure. I couldn’t breathe. But I couldn’t work either. I thought about rejigging my work schedule and doing double tomorrow. That seemed like a good idea. Or I could wake at six in the morning and work then.

I heard you shouting up at me.

“Catherine? Are you busy?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Very.”

“OK,” you said.

I got my headphones out of my cupboard and put them on and carried on listening to The Smiths.

To Taz (#ulink_f24f75b3-952e-5ae2-abf5-8b72e094b013)

You know most of this, but I’ll tell you again.

Lucy texted me to say she was outside in her parents’ car, and if I was ready, they’d give me a lift to Brad’s party. She could have rung on the doorbell but Lucy would text in preference to talking sometimes. I shouted goodbye to my parents and confirmed I’d be back by one. A wonderful moment as I left the house, closed the front door, heard the lock click into place – cool, dark air, and the promise of a night in which something might actually happen. But only a moment. As I climbed into Lucy’s parents’ car the radio was babbling and Lucy’s mother was babbling and Lucy herself kept up a whispered monologue about Brad whose party it was and who would be there and was her fringe OK? And her lipstick? And what about her nails? The polish came free with a magazine. And so on. I knew she went on like that because she was nervous. She’d only ever almost had a boyfriend, and that bothered her. For Lucy, going to a party was like buying a lottery ticket; this time, it might just be her. If her nails were right and her hair was right.

Brad’s house was quite near us – about ten minutes away. It was an ordinary-looking semi-detached house, with a multi-coloured pane of glass in the front door. Lucy linked with me as we walked up the curved front path and rang the doorbell. A friend of Brad’s opened the door to us and I watched Lucy straining to see who else was there.

Everyone was in a large room that extended from the front of the house to the back garden. Against the windows at the back was a large table with newspaper over it and cans of beer, bottles of Bud Light, and some Bacardi Breezers. There was also a huge mixing bowl full of crisps. The music was pretty loud – some repetitive dance music. But when I looked around the room I also saw a badly-painted portrait of Brad and his family with silly grins plastered on their faces and his mum looking impossibly young and pretty, and framed photos of some old people and a baby. And there was a sideboard full of glasses, that heavy crystal cut glass, and decanters, and some pottery figures of shepherds and shepherdesses and little child-like animals with large eyes. And for some bizarre reason someone had thrown a blanket over the TV and video.

Lucy was still linked to me and I felt her grip tighten.

“Oh, God,” she said. “I don’t know anyone here. Brad said there would be more people from our Business Studies set but there aren’t. Oh, Cathy, just look at THAT! Isn’t he gorgeous? Shall we have a drink? Shall we go and see what there is? Or shall we find the loo first? I’d like to check my hair. You look gorgeous, by the way.”

Before I knew it she had dragged me out of the party and we were on our way up the stairs, past a turn with a little occasional table with a dull white vase holding dusty artificial flowers, and Lucy began to peer in each room.

“No, that’s a bedroom, and that’s a bedroom – it doesn’t look as if his parents are in – and this must be Brad’s bedroom. Oh, look, he’s got that huge poster of Eminem. Ah, this must be the bathroom.” Lucy switched on a light and I followed her in.

Immediately she began fussing in front of the mirror, twiddling with bits of hair. I leant against the wall and noticed the clutter by the side of the bath – a Marks & Spencer bubble bath, a body moisturiser, nail clippers, Calvin Klein aftershave, little coloured bottles of aromatherapy bubble baths, an underarm shaver, an off-white sliver of soap with small hairs attached – I averted my eyes and saw that by the side of the toilet was one of those knitted ladies sitting discreetly on top of a roll of toilet paper, hiding it with her skirt. It made me smile. Brad made out he was such a cool guy at school. Brad wasn’t even his real name. He was Martin Bradley Cropper.

I didn’t like the way I was seeing through everything that night. I took hold of myself and focused on Lucy. Actually it was quite easy to get involved with her preoccupations, as they felt so important to her. I helped her put some wax on the strands of hair at the sides so they fell the way she wanted them to, and we put some glitter by the corner of her eyes. I knew Lucy was fussing because it put off the awful moment when she would have to go downstairs and face everyone. I kind of felt the same way as her, but for different reasons. Lucy was worried about what people would think of her; I was scared about what I might think of the other people.

Don’t think I was trying to be clever, or that I was up myself. It didn’t feel like that – but you know what I mean, Taz. The truth was, I wanted to be like Lucy, someone who really believed that Brad’s party was going to be top, someone who liked everyone they met, who was warm and open and good company. But I just couldn’t be that person. I felt more like a shadow with the ability to pass straight through people. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t slept much the night before.

Eventually we did go downstairs. Fliss and Toni had arrived and they squealed when they saw us and Lucy squealed back and I forced my mouth into a smile. There was lots of whispered gossip, stuff about who was coming later, and who might fancy who. Fliss and Toni wore stiff new jeans with diamante beading down the side of the legs, and tiny sleeveless tops with high necks. They both wore their hair down and daringly, Fliss had a pink hair extension. I wondered whether Toni’s had fallen off. If I’m honest, they made me feel dowdy. I’d pulled on my silvery-grey trousers, the ones that shimmer, and the dark grey T-shirt with the words Go Slow – you never gave it back to me, did you?

I stood with the girls and looked over to the drinks table where the guys had congregated. I knew most of them and had pulled one or two – it made me a little sick to think of it now. None of them was one hundred per cent fanciable; Brad was so tall he stooped, Matthew had bad skin, Chris had cheeks like a hamster. It wasn’t that I dreamed of the Mr Perfects that you see on films and TV. In many ways they’re worse. For a start, they’re not real.

Brad came over to say hello to us with a stupid grin stretching his mouth.

“Why have you got a blanket over the TV, Brad?” Fliss asked.

“Yeah,” added Toni.

“The old man insisted. In case anyone scratches it.”