Adults

by Emma Jane Unsworth

  I instantly feel harassed. I stare at the text for a moment. As I’m staring, another text from her arrives.

  How r u? xx

  It doesn’t feel right that someone older than me abbreviates more than I do, but this is the way it is. She texts me approximately once a week. When I ignore her, she turns up in my dreams. The other night she was in the doorway of my room, wearing a pair of wings – fine-boned and iridescent, like a dragonfly’s. They glistened in the moonlight. When she turns up like that I have to remind myself that the visions are only my version of her – the real her is three hundred miles away.

  I close my eyes and see it. That house. Mock Tudor. Mock everything. Our street was adjacent to a big-dog housing estate and the kids would come and chuck crab apples at the garage doors. I’d look down from my turret bedroom window, feeling quite the oppressed royal. Someone wrote ‘WITCH’ in chalk on the wall and my mother looked at it proudly while I burned. Thousands of years ago, witches were respected as healers, she said. They were wise women in the community.

  And then we got doctors, I said.

  Did we, though, she said, did we ever really ‘get’ doctors like we got witches? What I’m talking about is a gift, not a career choice.

  In the garden there was a huge laburnum tree where caterpillars grew in the buds and dangled down on invisible threads in late spring. She liked bright plants. Pinks and yellows, for good energy, to ward off evil spirits. Lupins, azaleas, bleeding hearts. She dug up the pampas grass after I told her it was code for swingers. In the middle of the front lawn there was a monkey puzzle tree, its base beaded with grey stones, Japanese-style, after something she saw in a magazine. Other things: the crack-spangled patio, the planters polka-dotted with moss, the eternally unoccupied bird box. I’ve been back a handful of times. Birthdays. Christmases. Odd times off the slingshot of another failed love affair.

  A WOMB OF ONE’S OWN

  I lived in Stepney Green, Kentish Town, Streatham. I saved like Scrooge. I wrote for fourteen hours a day. I was in some kind of rocket mode, blazing a way, trying to escape an old atmosphere. I walked home down the worst of roads in a knitted hat, trying to look mad (un-rapeable), with my Yale key between my first two fingers. I had a contact – one, from a kindly teacher at school. I followed up on it. A trade magazine for a supermarket. It was a start. I ate a lot of sautéed vegetables. I had love affairs with men whose guitars were as badly strung as their sentences. Oh, to be fearless in terrible shoes again, oh so fearless and able to tolerate the cheapest of drinks and the cheapest of shoes. Outlet pleather and bad designs but all that time ahead, all that time, to wear terrible shoe after terrible shoe and wake up on another floorboarded, guitar-lined attic room with a leisurely hangover and all the hope in my heart. I’d leave before they woke, leaving a calligraphic note, and I’d go home and close my own door and feel joy when I saw the pictures I’d hung on my walls. The chairs I’d arranged. The carpets I’d chosen. The paint I’d painted. I started to feel what could be a kind of love of creating my own space. A love that could be nurturing and proud, as well as utterly romantic. A love that felt accessible and, if not quite democratic, then self-made. Empowering. All mine. To share with people I might have round, in varying contexts. I was romancing myself. I was also looking after myself. This was progress.

  The first day of my first job, I texted my mother to tell her. She replied:

  Good luck xxx

  Good luck! Have you ever read a less motherly text? Good luck!

  I thought about her at least once every three minutes. I scratched my scalp and sniffed it; it smelled of her. I’d come into my flat and feel her energy there, latent somehow, in a place she’d never been. I missed the North: its winds and mosses; its cool, thirsty cities. I’d look at the weather reports for Manchester and feel glad when the weather was good. I had it as a location to slide past on my weather app. My little darling, I’m glad you have clear skies tonight, I’d think. I sang ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ so loudly on the Tube once, drunk, that someone gave me a pound. I thought about our old living room, telly and lamp on; a cube of light in the vastness of space. I was an astronaut out on the arm of the mothership, umbilicus stretching, stretching, stretching.

  THERAPY SESSION #1

  (DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE)

  Hi, yes, here? Okay. This is a nice office. Plain, but I suppose that’s so I focus on the task in hand, which is no mean feat! What do I think that is? Sorting out my mental state haha. I should probably do more exercise. That would probably make a big difference. I noticed you had a kayak strapped to the top of your car outside, do you like to kayak, or do you have children? [Pause] Oh, I see, well I was just making conversation, I ramble when I’m nervous, I suppose that’s music to your ears. It’s like I can’t stand silence and that’s possibly because my mother was loud at home and when there was silence it meant there was a problem. [Pause] No, I’ve never had therapy before – does it show? I hate sounding like an amateur. Do you know how long it took me to choose what to wear today? Days. Literally. I was thinking about what might make you like me the most and I settled on something plain but with a few flourishes and I’m glad because I see now that’s very much your vibe. I’m not judging you, I barely know you. I know this is meant to be a socially pure zone but I don’t believe in any space you can hurl things into without consequences – that’s just me. Everything has consequences, doesn’t it? Every act of communication is an act of translation. I should probably have done Philosophy rather than English and Communication Studies. I don’t even really know what Communication Studies is, other than a chance for the lecturer to talk about his days on the broadsheets. He’s no use for magazine contacts. [Pause] What’s my relationship like with my mother these days? Desultory. Can I say that? It’s not like she was the worst in the world. She didn’t molest me or anything like that – and sometimes I think it would have been easier if she had. If I’d had something concrete to work with, you know? [Pause] How’s it going at uni? Good. Good, I think. Apart from the Communication Studies. It was definitely the right decision to move down. It’s a great uni – and the fact they organise things like this – what do they call it? Pastoral care. Some universities might be embarrassed they’d attracted a load of loonies, but not this one – and I respect that. [Pause] Do I have a relationship with my father? No, I don’t even know his name. She’d never tell me. Which gives her clairvoyance skills some credibility, because it’s like she predicted the internet. You know if I had a name I’d have Facebooked the shit out of him. People at school used to tell me he was in prison. Aren’t children delicious? Freeloaders, that’s what my mother calls them. It’s what she called me. It was fucking work, being her daughter. I put a fucking shift in. [Pause] I sound angry? Yes, I think I am angry. So that’s the thing to work on, I suppose. The anger. That’s the thing I want gone. [Pause] No, she never heard from him, or she never told me if she did. All I know is he called one night when she was pregnant. She was in bed and she answered the phone and he didn’t speak but she knew it was him by the sound of his breath. Sinister, right? In my worst nightmares my father is a perv. You know, an old Rat-Packer. Come over here, princess, and give ol’ Daddio some sugar. I can imagine her going for a creep like that. Allow me a blowsy moment: sometimes I see things – the undersides of sycamore leaves, oily puddles in tarmac – and I’m reminded of a father I never knew. A cellular memory, perhaps. An amino acid residue. I don’t even know how memory works; I suppose no one does – it’s one of the things your lot are working on. When he called that night she was so shaken that her adrenaline surged, and she said she felt me stir, inside, awoken. I often think about that moment. My first encounter with the anxiety the world had in store. I had no protection in place. I mainlined her anxiety like alcohol. But that’s not the worst thing. The worst thing she ever did was leave me to go on holiday to the Bahamas one Christmas. Worst Christmas of my life. I was sixteen. I vowed I’d never let her hurt me again, and I haven’t. She se
nt me a postcard. I still have it. It’s what you might call a prized possession because every now and then when I feel my resolve weakening, I reread it. I didn’t take it lying down, though. I had my revenge. [Pause] How? I staged my own suicide the day she got back. You’ve never heard someone scream so much. It was magnificent. I wrote a note and left it downstairs and then I got in the bath with a razor and some fake blood. I’d say she’s probably seeing her own therapist about it but she’s quite anti-therapy. Gin is her therapy. I hope she rereads the note. It was a really fucking good note. But then, I am a lot better educated than she is. [Pause] No, that is no thanks to her. She paid for my education and then she partied all night. What kind of self-sabotaging showmanship is that? Her problem – and she has a whole catalogue of problems, believe me – but her main one is she doesn’t have any true friends. She’s a loner. And that means she has no one to set her straight. It’s not that she lowers the tone; it’s that I don’t think she realises there is a tone …

  MY DEAREST DARLING JENNY,

  I hardly know what to tell you – other than Roger and I are having a marvellous time and it’s not as hot as I feared, which you know is a relief for the likes of you and I who suffer with the dreaded frizz. You would not believe the beaches – I have taken lots of photos so as soon as I get back I’ll get them developed so I can show you and with any luck they won’t just be of my sausage knees or half a palm tree. I hope you are having a very merry Christmas and you found the money in your card under the tree – get yourself something nice in the sales. No one seems bothered about the millennium bug here so I really think try and keep your panic under control darling (you do worry!) although poor Roger did suffer another type of bug when we first arrived but that seems to have mostly evacuated now and certainly hasn’t put him off the lumumbas. See you in the new year – and the new millennium! I hope it will bring us both many great things. I really do feel so positive about the future and just know you’re going to make me so proud.

  Take care.

  Your loving mother XXXX

  LIKE OF DUTY

  I don’t reply to my mother. Instead, I go back for another dose of Suzy Brambles. But lo, what’s this? A new post! I devour it.

  She has been out in Soho. She has imbibed too many shots. She has succumbed to a falafel kebab. Soho … So … close, and yet so far. I give it a Deep Like. You really feel likes like that. Everyone must. And then I comment:

  LIVING YOUR BEST BAB LYF

  With no kisses, to look nonchalant. Then I wonder whether I should have put Livin’ with an apostrophe rather than Living, to sound more youthful. Then I go through Suzy’s follows again just to check I am still there. It makes me feel strong to see myself amongst her chosen people. I know she is seeing what I’m doing, even if she doesn’t feel the need to reach out. I notice that she has started following Art, which is odd because he hardly ever posts anything, just the odd nice coffee or cool job he’s been on.

  Music strikes up from the living room downstairs – which means Sid is DJing again. I did once tell her that those decks are strictly a weekend-only activity and then I felt so old I instantly relented and brought home a load of shit-maddening frenetic dance records, just to disprove my own point. It’s like when I left a bad Airbnb review – the only bad one I’ve ever left – and the host replied so viciously that I left another review on another site that was completely complimentary and over the top and I got so carried away writing it that by the end of it I was convinced I had been wrong and was actually madly in love with the place, so I booked another stay there. They declined my booking.

  I send Kelly a message:

  Okay I’m dying here. I can’t stand these people in my house. I’m trapped, terrified of the future and sick of pretending. Send help

  Kelly doesn’t reply, which isn’t like her. I hope she’s not in some way trying to manage me. I thought we’d made an agreement to not do the passive-aggressive thing with each other. We just save that for everyone else in our lives. I look at her Instagram and like her two most recent pictures, out of duty. She is my friend, after all.

  My favourite rental flat was above a furniture shop. It had a shower-head in the bath I had to trap under my foot while I soaped my armpits. When I sat on the toilet at night, silverfish scooted around my toes. One time, a cockroach made a cameo. The saving grace was a grubby little balcony, complete with two upturned buckets where I could sit with a friend and smoke. Over the road was a wicker warehouse. The first time Kelly came round I said: Don’t ask me who would want to live in a flat like this because I have no idea.

  She replied: Someone who wants to assassinate a wicker salesman.

  I said: Kelly, comments like that are why you are the love of my lifetime.

  She said: Well, it’s not like I had much choice about you being mine.

  I don’t know what she meant by that. She’s funny, Kelly, sometimes. She fights her feelings. It’s like on some level she isn’t satisfied with the way things have turned out. And I wonder whether that’s just motherhood or something else inside her.

  I try and relax by looking at the page of someone I was mildly obsessed with for a while when things started getting bad, @Virginiaginia. She’s luscious, and I don’t use that word lightly. She’s a cultural commentator married to a pop scientist. I go to her Twitter. I realise I am secretly hoping she has split up with the pop scientist. I am looking for evidence of this. Why? Schadenfreude? Solidarity? I start looking through HIS photos to see if SHE has liked them, to work out whether they’re still going out. I’m fucking cracked! But I can’t stop. The compulsion is all-consuming. I require the 360 on this. I deserve the 360 on this. They have liked each other’s posts, but maybe they’d like each other’s posts MORE if they’re not together any more, in that generous, fake way exes do. It’s looking hopeful – there’s no mention of him otherwise for weeks and weeks … I click through to her blog. The most recent post is called ‘Starting Over’. Aha! V. promising! I read, ravenous. Drat, the post is about some recent foray into watercolour. Ah. So disappointing. They’re dreadful paintings, too. And prove nothing. I slide back to her Twitter. There – I find it. Ten weeks ago.

  A picture of them at a barbecue.

  I console myself with the fact that they could have split up within the past ten weeks.

  As I lie waiting to fall asleep I listen to Father John Misty’s I Love You, Honeybear. I wonder whether I will ever love anyone like that.

  Like I love Father John Misty, I mean.

  (I wonder if he’s still with his wife?)

  PICTURE THE SCENE

  An eco lodge on the edge of the Sahara. Sounds awful, right? I mean, you could fall in love with pretty much anyone there, even a camel. It was a press trip. Art was some sort of trainee travel photographer on his first junket. I was doing a feature on sustainable lodges for The Nonspecific Nerd. I was seeing three men, one of them the editor at a poetry publishing house, the second the UK’s foremost Alexander Pope critic, and the third ran an indie music label in Brighton and had DJ’d at the BAFTAs. All of them were divorcees. I’d run around Soho with each of them in turn, sometimes two together, hoovering up the summer.

  When I first saw Art I wasn’t instantly attracted to him. He bounded around – I mean bounded – snapping away with his Leica camera, the brown leather case dangling proudly. I recall his khaki shorts, his hairy legs, his designer-shabby vest, his blister pack of stomach muscles, his luxury gadgets. There he was: White Male Gonna-Make-It.

  He came up to me as I stood reading the itinerary in reception. He said later that when he tried to make conversation with me, I looked at him like he was asking for money. I used to be like that. Measured. Poised. Gilded.

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ he said – giddy, lucky, asinine.

  ‘What, that it’s 11 a.m. and they haven’t given us coffee? Yes. Quite.’

  He was taken aback. I smiled and said: ‘I know, I’m an entitled bitch, right? But that’s what this is: the
Age of Entitlement. That’s what they’ll call it, years down the line. There’ll be a marble statue of a woman like me with an empty cup and a face on, defining the era.’

  He laughed, and I felt my wings unfurl. And why not? I was a woman in my twenties. The whole world was mine to kill.

  That first night in Egypt, the hotel laid out paper lanterns on the paths, leading the way to dinner. I noticed him at his table, sure, but there were other people to notice, too. I wasn’t limiting myself. I was infinite with possibilities.

  It was a glam gig. The backdrop of the cliffs, the hotel carved into the soft sandstone; we were off on a jeep ride over the dunes the following day. The Michelin-starred chef had made a vegetarian dinner from the lodge’s sustainable, irrigated garden. It was so nice it felt dirty.

  After dinner I took my mint tea to the quiet garden and Art followed me.

  We got talking. Initially, our conversation took the tone of jousting. We were teasing each other, nudging each other, showing off, retreating, peeking back. That was my natural way, but I see now for him it was because he was coming from a point of hurt – albeit misguided, self-indulgent hurt. It didn’t take him long to tell me that he was contacting his most recent ex regularly to ‘take her temperature’. Otherwise, he said, ‘People become saints or monsters in your memory’. He’d been unfaithful to her, and she’d ended it.

  I noticed he had a tattoo on his bicep. The trishula. ‘Are you Buddhist or Hindu?’ I said, keen to change the topic.

  ‘Neither.’

  ‘Just ethnically confused.’

  I was pushing him in every puddle. But he deserved it. All white men you meet deserve it. He smiled. ‘The trishula means something to me. It symbolically destroys three worlds: the physical world, the past, and the mind.’

  ‘Handy.’

  He sighed. ‘I feel like I’ve destroyed a few worlds lately.’ Another sigh. ‘I’ve been thinking of working in a soup kitchen, or something like that, to try and redress the balance.’