Adults

by Emma Jane Unsworth

‘We are together in every way apart from the technical way.’

  ‘Technical way?’

  ‘It’s an intense modern friendship.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We broke up.’

  ‘Oh dear god! Why?’

  ‘It was very amicable. Zero animosity. No one did anything bad to anyone. That’s why we’re still able to be close.’

  Mia stares at me. She doesn’t believe me, that much is evident.

  She says, ‘You must be devastated.’

  ‘No really, I’m not.’

  ‘It was seven years!’

  ‘But I look on it as the perfect length, really. Relationships should not be judged by their continuation but by their quality. Also, why do things have to last forever in order to be deemed a “success”? Things can come to an end and not have failed. My relationship with Art was a complete success. But it had a sell-by date. And now it’s over.’

  ‘Good lord! You’re a gibbering mess!’

  Someone comes over to talk to Mia and I stand there, useless, tensely curled, like a prawn, as my mother would say. I get out my phone and check my likes. One hundred and counting. I should get back to doing the animal ones more often. I could borrow a cat for a day.

  Mia is talking about me to the person she is with. ‘Devastated,’ she is saying. ‘Dev-a-stated.’

  And then I do my regular thing: I go through Suzy Brambles’ follows to check she is still following me. It’s just a habit, really. A formality. It’s the extra dopamine kick I need tonight, seeing myself there, amidst the …

  Wait.

  No.

  I am not where I usually am.

  My heart plummets.

  My thumb panics.

  I go out of the app and go in again.

  I am still not there.

  I turn my phone off.

  Turn it on again.

  I go through her follow list twice – no mean feat, there are over six hundred people on there. But, it would seem, I am no longer one of them.

  I bend my knees and do some heavy breathing.

  MIA SAYS

  It’s clear you’re heartbroken, Jenny.

  She pulls me upright and takes my drink.

  ‘I’m really not that bothered about Art.’ My voice is a pip-squeak.

  ‘You’ve gone ashen!’

  ‘It’s all the Aperol.’

  ‘You’ve only had two. You seemed like the perfect couple. Those first photos he took of you! The ones that blew up. They captured AN AGE. They characterised an entire summer of my life.’

  ‘What we always had was a solid friendship, and that is what we still have,’ I say, measuredly. ‘So it’s not really a break-up, more a … change of definition in terms of our relationship. Who needs to label things in this day and age anyway? It’s much more progressive to keep things loose. We’re just as close, we just don’t have sex. But we weren’t having that much sex anyway. So in terms of the day to day, nothing has really changed.’

  Mia puts her arm around me. ‘I think you’ll get back together,’ she says. She looks reassured. ‘It’s just a blip.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘Would you excuse me, Mia? I have to go now.’

  ‘Of course.’ She pulls off her arm. I exhale and move away.

  ‘See you Wednesday.’

  ‘Take the time you need.’

  ‘See you Wednesday.’

  I WALK

  through Soho – awful, extraordinary Soho, teeming with the weekend-drunk and lumbering tourists. I slip into the M&S off Oxford Street, go to the booze section and buy two bottles of white wine with Renaissance paintings on the bottles. I always feel better about buying wine when the bottle has art on it. It’s classy bingeing.

  I drink one bottle on the way to the Tube, necking it in tepid gobfuls. I stop outside the Tube where a homeless man is sitting with some Marvel figurines laid out on a bed-sheet. I hand him a pound.

  ‘Thanks love,’ he says, readjusting Spiderman. ‘Have a nice evening.’

  ‘No chance of that,’ I say. ‘The worst thing has happened. I have had the most horrific day.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that, love,’ he says.

  ‘If someone likes you for months, what makes them suddenly stop liking you?’

  He looks at me. ‘Fella left you?’

  I shake my head. I think I might walk off but I stay there. ‘Are you on social media?’ I ask.

  ‘Facebook,’ he says. ‘Now and then. For arrangements.’

  ‘Well then you’ll understand. Although I have to say I find Facebook quite suspicious.’

  ‘Suspicious how?’

  ‘It listens. It’s listening to us right now, on your phone. If I say panini maker you’re going to get loads of ads for panini makers next time you log on.’

  ‘Don’t say it, then.’

  ‘Panini maker! Panini maker!’ I shout towards his phone. ‘That should do it. Just you wait.’

  He turns his phone off quickly.

  ‘My mother’s on Facebook and that’s part of the reason I avoid it. It’s hard to see her interacting on there. It gives me physical pain. It’s like watching her dance. She started putting all these passive-aggressive memes on there directed at me, which was the main reason I left. I still have actual PTSD about it. Facebook is pretty much my Vietnam.’

  He stares at me. I drink more wine.

  ‘Facebook,’ I say, ‘is a data-collection agency dressed up as a chummy get-together but geared towards fuelling insecurity and pain. They do that to maximise the power of the ads and keep people coming back. Then they can all keep selling the same shit back to us more effectively.’

  He says, ‘It makes it easy for me to meet up with people.’

  ‘You think that, but the one thing Orwell didn’t predict was that we’d put the cameras IN OUR OWN HOMES. IN OUR OWN FACES. You know? We’re like our own fucking Big Brothers. It’s all worked out so perfectly I bet even the social media bosses can’t believe it. Do you know the kids of everyone who works at social media HQs in California all go to this school that’s ringed off from the internet behind a massive firewall so they can’t get online until they’re sixteen because their parents know it will ruin their lives and minds?’ I stifle a sob. ‘Like it’s ruined mine.’

  I tell him all about Suzy Brambles. He keeps looking around, unable to concentrate, but I can tell he gets the gravity of what has happened. Maybe he’s on that Spice stuff that makes people unable to focus their eyes. I’m glad I can focus my eyes on him when I concentrate because if I couldn’t I would worry that I looked just as fucked. I unscrew the second bottle of wine. People pass, heading into the Tube; some of them hand him money and he says Ta, yeah, nice one. Another homeless man comes and stands nearby; he looks at the man on the ground and then at me. He smiles, I can only presume supportively, as I fill him in on what has happened. ‘I don’t come from anywhere and I’m not going anywhere,’ I conclude. ‘This is the curse of the liberal elite.’ When I’ve finished, I start to cry, and he wanders off. Probably to ponder the deeper meaning of my plight as I’ve just relayed it to him.

  As I’m leaving, I give the man on the ground another two pounds. I say, ‘You have a wonderful little set-up here. And a community you can trust. Cherish that.’

  He smiles but he doesn’t look as though he really appreciates what I’m saying, the savage.

  I stand, swaying with clarity, outside Oxford Circus. I feel saturated with my own fight, like the squid on the menu. I guess that sums me up pretty well as a modern woman: a creature cooked in her own ink.

  DRUNK TWITTER

  @CissyGreenModel:

  As a mother I couldn’t just sit around and watch refugee children die

  @jenniferjenniferMcLaine:

  @CissyGreenModel as a non-mother I love watching refugee children die. It is one of the great pleasures of my life

  @CissyGreenModel:

  @jenniferjenniferMcLaine I didn’t mean it like that

  @jenniferjenniferM
cLaine:

  @CissyGreenModel How did you mean it then? Because it sounded as though you were suggesting motherhood generates new levels of compassion & empathy

  @jenniferjenniferMcLaine:

  @CissyGreenModel which I can assure you is bullshit of the sloppiest order

  @jenniferjenniferMcLaine:

  @CissyGreenModel CASE IN POINT: Rose West

  You have been blocked from viewing @CissyGreenModel’s tweets

  DRAFTS

  To: Suzy Brambles

  Subject: Why?

  Dear Suzy Brambles,

  Was it because I was leaving too many comments? I know I might have been a little overbearing. Five under one post is perhaps a tad OTT – but the jokes worked better as individual lines, do you ever find that? I admire you greatly – your output and your work. Sometimes I like your pictures so much I can’t bring myself to ‘like’ them because it feels like it almost trivialises the intensity of the emotion, and also – I sort of hate you for making me like something so much. I feel too seen.

  I have consumed some alcohol but this is honestly the truth of how I am feeling, and I know that because I have been thinking these exact thoughts since before I was drunk so it’s sort of like a lucid dream in that way. You mean so much to me. Whenever I post anything you are one of three key people I look to see whether you have liked what I have posted. The other two are a famous comedian who follows me quite randomly (possibly mistakenly, but I’ll take it) and the editor of Italian Vogue who I met once on a press trip and followed me when we were both drunk and I was sitting next to her in a bar at midnight telling her to follow me. Anyway, you are my Number One because you are the most like me – you are my digital support animal. (Actually I’m not sure that’s PC any more. You are my digital support animal.) Anyway, sorry if I got too much, I didn’t mean to. I was just being appreciative.

  I wonder, did you see that comment about my integrity underneath that column? That would put me off me. That DOES put me off me. Daily. Sometimes hourly.

  Or was it the picture of the croissant? That was annoying, I know. I know now. But you never gave me the chance to redeem myself. I’m so much more idiosyncratic than that. I’m actually quite gothic beneath this modish veneer. I wish you’d given me the chance to show that side of myself to you. I can’t tell you how it feels to see that you have gone. It almost makes my online endeavours pointless. In fact, I might give up. I’m sure you wouldn’t like to think of someone abandoning their (online) life for you, would you? This betrayal has been so dislocating that I don’t even know where I end or begin any more, personal brand-wise. I thought you liked the cut of my jib. But how shall I cut my jib now? To be honest I just feel like slaughtering it. And maybe I will. Maybe I’ll slaughter my jib.

  Consider yourself the murderer of my jib.

  Sincerely,

  Jenny McLaine

  KNOCKKNOCK

  At first I think it is my soul, pounding for release from its prison.

  Then I wake up properly and hear it again.

  KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK

  It is someone at the door.

  My brain starts screaming instead. My brain! Blaaaarrggg. It is too big for my skull. It is coming out through my eyes. I need painkillers as a matter of urgency. I have a thirst a thousand crystal reservoirs could not slake. I also dropped my phone on my face while I was using it in bed and I think I have a black eye. Help me. Who is here to help?

  My bedroom door opens. ‘Jenny?’ Sid sticks her head around the door. ‘Are you okay?’

  I sit up. I think I might hurl. ‘No. What is that noise?’

  ‘There’s somebody at the door.’

  We look at each other.

  ‘Somebody at the door? Who would be at the door?’

  ‘I don’t know! But there IS somebody. AT THE DOOR.’

  ‘Dear god! Are we to have no privacy? Why are people so determined to intrude all the time? Who would come to a door and knock on it?’

  KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK

  We both jump.

  I get up and grab my dressing gown. I open the bedroom door to see Frances and Moon peering over the bannister.

  ‘Who is it?’ Frances shrieks.

  ‘I don’t know! I’m not expecting any callers!’

  ‘Whoever would? Who knocks on a door in this day and age?’

  ‘It’s outrageous!’

  ‘So rude!’

  ‘Such an affront!’

  ‘I need a lie-down.’

  ‘You know I read they’re developing an email system,’ says Sid, ‘whereby you get an email when someone is at the door, and then you reply to them, via email.’

  ‘We need this in our lives.’

  KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK

  ‘I peeked through my blinds,’ says Moon. ‘It’s a woman.’

  ‘A woman?? What does she look like?’

  ‘Sturdy. Middle-aged. Lots of jewellery. Sort of … fancy and tough, like a celebrity sportswoman.’

  Oh my sweet dear god Jesus. My heart pounds in my chest. My head pounds in my head.

  ‘It might be Amazon,’ Sid says. ‘Looks like there’s a van. Have you ordered anything?’

  ‘No …’ I pull on my dressing gown on and tie the cord tight. ‘I mean, I don’t know! Who ever knows? I can’t be expected to keep track of all that! That’s what the tracking link is for!’

  I tiptoe halfway down the stairs.

  The letterbox flaps open again. ‘I know you’re in there!’

  ‘Is it that smackhead again?’ says Moon.

  ‘It might be a bailiff,’ says Sid.

  ‘It is not a bailiff,’ I say. ‘Things are not quite that bad.’

  Moon says, ‘Well, whoever it is, let’s just open the damn door and ask her what she wants.’

  Sid starts to pass me on the stairs. ‘No!’ I shout. ‘No.’ I pull her to one side. ‘Do not answer the door. She might go away.’

  But I know that’s not true. This is the woman who read my diary every day and replaced the hair trap on top – I caught her, tweezers poised, tongue-tip poking out. She is relentless. She is alien blood.

  Frances looks at me, confused.

  The letterbox flaps again. ‘Who is that? I know someone is there! I can see SHAPES.’

  Frances joins me flat against the wall.

  A hand comes through the letterbox and waves. ‘This is my daughter’s house and I demand to be let inside!’ The hand stays there.

  Frances gasps. ‘Jenny, is it … your mum?’

  I stare at the hand poking through the letterbox. It is the hand of a dame. Long nails painted pale blue, gold rings, an impatient flutter of the fingers. The hand retreats.

  ‘JENNIFER, DARLING! OPEN THE BLOODY DOOR!’

  ‘Hard to tell,’ I say.

  ‘Hadn’t we better let her in?’ says Sid. I see my mother’s power has worked its way under the door and into their hearts, like fungus.

  I look up to Sid and Moon.

  ‘Let her in,’ says Moon.

  I move towards the front door. I hesitate just before opening it.

  Oh god. Can I do this? If I allow her to step over this threshold I don’t know what it will mean. I should never have given her an address for Christmas cards, that much is evident now. I never felt obliged to invite her here. She almost ruined my education. This is my house.

  I unlock the door. Open it.

  A punky feather cut, cheap platinum. Tight jeans and a little frou-frou top. Bangles up her arm, loose then lathed, her skin goose-fleshed in the October air. Gold earrings. A hologram eye pendant round her neck, winking as she moves. Mascara, liner, gloss and froth. A laugh like a splat.

  My mother, everyone. Everyone, my mother.

  ‘Jenny! I thought you were going to leave me there all day. Are you compos mentis?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘What have you done to your hair?’

  ‘It was an impulse thing.’

  ‘Is that a black eye?’
/>
  ‘Sorry, what do you want here?’

  She motions to a man on the street, next to a large hire van. ‘It’s fine. Just give me five mins.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘A driver.’

  ‘Five mins for what?’

  ‘You not going to invite me in?’

  I step back and she walks through. ‘Well, look at this little place! It’s even smaller than you described!’

  ‘I’ve sent you photos.’

  ‘Those tidbits are never the full story though, eh?’

  I watch where her hands go, what she touches.

  ‘Oh!’ she says, looking up the stairs. ‘You must be the lodgers. Who knew so many people could fit in such a small space.’ She looks around the hallway, assessing. ‘Well, I hope you’ve all made alternative arrangements.’

  ‘What?’

  My mother looks at me. ‘I came as soon as I could.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She looks at the walls. ‘You know,’ she says, ‘I’ve got my whole hall covered with her articles. That first piece she did for that supermarket magazine. They put her on the cover.’

  Budget Wedding Dresses – Happy Ever After or Just a Disaster? ran the header. A question immediately answered by the ill-fitting dress on my torso, and also, unfortunately, by the magazine’s red masthead, which leaked, and bled into my face, making me pink as a ham. I left the magazine soon after. I couldn’t face the canteen.

  ‘A wedding dress?’ says Sid. ‘She’s a radical feminist who writes for a radical feminist online magazine.’

  ‘It was from a supermarket. I think that’s pretty radical actually,’ I say.

  ‘Shame it’ll be the only time she gets to wear one, though,’ says my mother. ‘You know, it’s as I suspected. There’s not a single photo of me up here.’

  I say: ‘There’s not really a photo of anyone.’

  There isn’t. There’s just a few gaps and lost nails, where Art took his pictures.

  ‘We hardly ever see her with anyone,’ Sid says. ‘No one comes round.’

  I shoot her a hard look. ‘I’m really busy, actually. I have an active social life. And anyway, you’re all always here. That is basically a society.’