Grown Ups

by Emma Jane Unsworth

  “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 bedsheet. I hand him a pound.

  “Thanks, love,” he says, readjusting Spider-Man. “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 toward 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 toward fueling insecurity and pain. They do that to maximize 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 that 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 setup 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

  @thejenniferMcLaine:

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

  @CissyGreenModel:

  @thejenniferMcLaine I didn’t mean it like that

  @thejenniferMcLaine:

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

  @thejenniferMcLaine:

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

  @thejenniferMcLaine:

  @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. F ive 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 trivializes 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 spirit animal. (Actually I’m not sure that’s PC anymore. 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 endeavors 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 anymore, 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 banister.

  “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 e-mail system,” says Sid, “whereby you get an e-mail when someone is at the door, and then you reply to them, via e-mail.”

  “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 jewelry. 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 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. “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.”

  Frances 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 voodoo.

  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 that 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 toward 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 froufrou top. Bangles up her arm, loose then lathed, her skin goosefleshed 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.”

  “F ive 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 little windows 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, the wedding dress. 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 bled into my face, making me pink as a ham. I left the magazine soon after. I couldn’t face the cafeteria.

  “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.” I add, “This is Sid, Moon, and Frances.”

  Frances steps forward, like she is about to be knighted. My mother takes each of their hands in turn. “Very strong energies. Very raw. Especially you.” Sid steps back.

  “Mother,” I say, “what’s going on?”

  My mother widens her eyes and looks at me meaningfully. She lowers her voice. “Your text, darling. Your … predicament. I am here to help you sort things out.”

  My stomach plummets. That’s why Kelly didn’t reply. I sent that dumb, pathetic yelp to … my mother.

  “Oh God!” I say. “That wasn’t meant for you! And I was being all late-night and dramatic.” I look at my lodgers. “There has been a miscommunication. It’s all good.”

  “No,” my mother says, “it’s not all good. You are evidently not all good. Look at this lightless tomb you’re living in.”

  “This house cost—is worth more than yours. As you know.”

  “That’s London for you. A city of discontented idiots in expensive houses.”

  I look at Moon, Sid, and Frances. “It’s going to be okay,” I say. “No one is coming or
going anywhere.”

  They look at each other nervously. Then Frances says: “Thing is, Jenny, we were just having a meeting earlier this morning, when you were still in bed. We have decided we don’t want to stay here. When we are so … misused.”

  “Misused?”

  “In your ‘journalism.’ We’re not paying this month’s rent, and we’re leaving. We’re going to an Airbnb until we find somewhere else.”

  “That settles it!” says my mother—domineering, genial. “This is what you call good old-fashioned serendipity. I am a big fan of Serendipity, and all her sisters.”

  “No,” I say. “No. Just … no.”

  Frances says: “Personally, I can’t bear to stay in one place for more than a few months. It cripples me creatively.”

  Sid says, “I don’t want the treasure of my life to be the silver drawer for your magpie claws. You are twisting my real. You are junk mail.”

  My mother stares at her.

  ONE-LINERS

  I’d gone round to a friend’s house and her father had made me cry because he’d said: “Well, I bet they don’t have to worry when they run out of fuse wire in your house.” Incidentally, this same man later said to another friend, who’d dropped a peanut down her top: “It’s good to see Victoria is finally developing a figure.” Appropriateness was not the man’s forte.

  My mother came to pick me up in the car—a Mercedes, I think it was then—and she looked at my face and just knew (it wouldn’t take a psychic …).

  “What’s happened?” she said.

  I told her.

  She put the car into park and got out. “Wait here,” she said.

  She walked up to the door. She rapped. He answered.

  “You seem to think my daughter’s hair color is amusing,” she said. “Which I think is troublesome, if not pathetic, for a man of your age.” I could hear every word, even though she had her back to me. What can I say, the woman could project.

  He said something, probably sarcastic.

  She said, “Don’t pick on the remarkable people. Go back in there with your ordinary-colored hair to all your ordinary-colored-hair family and live out your ordinary little lives. Meanwhile my daughter and I will be over here, being extraordinary.”