9…’I’M TAKING FIVE!’ I whisper hoarsely to Jean who is busy gift-wrapping a box containing something or other. She doesn’t seem to mind. There’s not a great deal to do really, no queues to speak of and nothing really happening. In fact it feels more like a Monday than a Friday.
‘That’s okay, Lisa – it’s not too busy yet,’ she says peering up at the range of clocks on the far wall – all showing the exact same time and all alarms expertly switched off – God she’s good.
‘It’ll be like this until about three fifty,’ She says, ‘And then all hell breaks loose – it’s Friday, after all!’
‘Absolutely!’ I reply, trying my hardest to work up some of her enthusiasm whilst at the same time trying to work out what the heck she just meant. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes. Sorry… family things….’
Jeans nods and I grip my mother’s hand and lead her over towards Luggage and ladies shoes. There are some seats through there. I could always pretend I was helping a lady with some fittings or something. Oh what-bloody-ever – this is a family crisis!
‘Tell me what you’re talking about’ I try saying in the most controlled way I can possibly muster. At which, mum flaps her floaty skirt around from behind her like a seasoned pianist about to take position and slides onto a leatherette pouffe near the slingback sale. She begins to clear her throat and I am certain – in the surreal scheme of things – that she is about to launch into opera. I think such a situation warrants this at least.
‘He’s left me, Lisa. Simple as that.’
‘Simple? Left you? But why? When? How did it happen? What happened? Is it because of all this… these….. these…..’ I fumble about for the right words to use for “beadage about your neck woman” and fail, instead managing to lift them and swoosh them about a bit to make a dramatic point.
Mum whips them back and replaces them betwixt boob.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lisa, it’s nothing to do with what I’m wearing. These…’ she lifts the beads again and drops them. ‘This whole… different thing – came afterwards. I think it’s a part of my healing process – I’m finding myself…. I’m becoming who I really am after all these years…’
She trails off and I am aware that my bottom jaw has once more divorced it’s partner.
‘I don’t expect you to understand.’ She finishes.
Divorce.
Shit.
That isn’t going to happen, is it? That’s what normally happens when parents split up, isn’t it? Divorce. Oh bloody hell, I’m going to come from a broken home.
‘Lisa don’t be foolish! You can’t come from a broken home, you left years ago!’
I make a mental note to check the volume control on my thoughts.
Oh God but this is all I need right now.
My mind whirs. I think of Trent.
The old lady with her Ming vase.
The Carly/Simon sexual shenanigans (shudder).
The uncontrollable weeping-in-the-wardrobe extravaganza and more bird shit on my windscreen again this morning. That should have told me something.
And then it hits me.
This is all Mr Sylvester’s fault.
If he hadn’t decided to launch this fuckingly stupid Bloomingdale Offensive thing then I’d still be upstairs in my nice cosy little Accounts office doing lovely sensible, calm, predictable things like entering figures into my nice, safe little boxes and clicking on ‘enter’ and ‘delete’ and other lovely, harmless buttons and looking up and smiling inoffensively over at Carly who’d smile back at me in an empathetic manner and we’d be riding the tranquil seas of serenity until five o’clock and then I wouldn’t have to think about work for another two days when the whole comforting predictability would begin all over again. And even if this kind of fucked up nonsense was happening to my parents (hah! Parents! Who the hell said they could keep that impressive title then?!! Not exactly the best examples in that department now, are they? I mean, they weren’t ever brilliant, they’d never have won awards in the past, don’t get me wrong – but NOW?! Now they had better bloody well hand over any recognition they ever held in the name of this One Unmitigated Brilliant Disaster!) Where was I? Oh yes – even if this kind of thing had been happening – at least if I’d been holed up in my nice, safe, controlled accounts environment, then I wouldn’t have known – at least until I’d decided to give my mother a call. Or she’d called me. Wait a minute. She called me last week.
‘But you called me last week,’ I stab a finger in the air towards her.
‘I did.’ She agrees.
‘And you didn’t say anything about this.’
‘I didn’t.’ She agrees again, eyeing up a pair of yellow slingbacks. Yellow!
‘Why not?’
‘Hmm? Oh, I didn’t want to upset you, lovey.’ She smiles thinly. Ah. That’s where the duck face comes from then.
‘You didn’t want to upset me?’ This is not an accusation. Nor is it a question. It’s a kind of rhetoric thing I guess. A kind of ‘blimey – who’s the parent – who’s the child?’ type statement. I suddenly feel a little winded and sit down next to her.
She places her hand on my knee and rubs it reassuringly.
I can feel tears forming and a tight knot in my throat. Shouldn’t I be the one consoling her?
‘It’ll be alright, Lise, really it will. Your father will come to his senses. He’ll realise what a huge mistake he’s made. Give him a little while longer and he’ll suddenly see what a huge trollop that Sharon Jenkins is… he’s got to discover that for himself…. I mean it’s only…’
It’s as if all of Jean’s carefully choreographed and silenced alarm clocks have suddenly, without warning decided to TURN THEMSELVES ON FULL BLAST!!! AND IT’S MIDNIGHT! NO, WAIT – IT’S FOURTEEN O’CLOCK!!!!
‘Sharon Jenkins?’ I spring to my feet and repeat ‘Sharon Jenkins!?’ again in a strangulated way. ‘The same Sharon Jenkins two years above me at school who had the first abortion in the fifth form, Sharon Jenkins...?’
My mother nods in acknowledgment.
‘The same Sharon Jenkins who told everyone she showed her pubes to Mr Harris, Art Teacher and Gay Rights Humanitarian, for a bet, Sharon Jenkins?’
My mother’s head continues to bob, her lovely waves falling about her shoulders. They must be hair extensions, I decide.
‘That’s the one.’ She says.
‘I thought she was married to some arsehole estate agent,’ I say in a furiously controlled way, trying to remember who the unlucky bastard was. I seem to recall him being tall, dark and incredibly handsome but with a lot of obvious thick-wittedness about him. He’d have to have had. To have put up with her dense blondeness and work as an estate agent I mean.
But now she was shacked up with my father?
My dad was living with Sharon Jenkins?!
Did that make my father a tall, dark, bastard-handsome, thick-witted arsehole Accountant?
‘I’d say that’s a fair description right now,’ my mother says, smiling resignedly, and I realise my thoughts once again are far too loud for my skull to contain.
‘Of course, we’d have to add “cradle-snatcher”’ she almost giggles, leaning herself into me like we’re a couple of conspiring schoolgirls.
I feel ‘someone walking over my grave’ as my Nan would say and it scares me how well my mum seems to be taking all of this.