Darling

by Rachel Edwards

  ‘Lola!’

  I hit at the door dun-dun-dun. Not goddamn ‘I Want to Break Free’, no way. She couldn’t have.

  ‘Lola! Lola, let me out. Get me out now!’

  Too loud, too far. My mobile; it was still in my handbag by the front door, next to my shamed shoes.

  ‘Lola! Lola!’

  I could feel tears bleeding into the sweat at my temples.

  Then a blinding of light and air and noise rushed in and she was there, a bending shadow. Oxygen, music washed me down (my hysterical ears now heard ‘Killer Queen’) and Lola swept me up.

  ‘Oh, you poor thing, I’m so sorry!’

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘This stupid beeping door. God, Darling, so sorry. It must have locked behind me, it’s been sticking lately.’

  She took my hand and led me through the first door back to safety. Thomas danced out, a seafood cocktail in each hand. Seeing me he stopped dead:

  ‘What’s wrong, what—?’

  ‘The cellar door, Dad. Knew it would do that sooner or later.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ The veil of sweat said more, the tacky film noir on my face. I dropped her hand.

  We ate. The prawns were perky, the pasta porky; paccheri topped with a fat chop, rubbed with salt and fresh oregano, in a more than passable passata. But I was done in. I laughed too loud, complimented everything Thomas had created: the dinner, all things Lola. I tried, but the pulsing music was all dun-dun-dun and I could not follow the chatter, my flesh had been rubbed with salt sweat and fear, and my wine tasted sharp, all wrong. We ate on as my toes curled up on themselves, defeated. My smiles lied broad and long, as did the yawns at around 9.30 p.m. Enough. Our night had been left behind, locked in the cellar, and I pleaded an early start with Stevie: physio. I would gather up my boy, he could sleep in my bed after all.

  I pecked Thomas and hugged Lola, realising as I backed away that I knew little more about her than when she had first landed those eyes on me. As the door closed, those eyes put me in mind of magnesium, with the potential to flare bright. Or perhaps the casings of incendiary devices, of dormant bombs. Yes, that was it. In a certain light, Lola looked like she could go off at any moment.

  Lola

  DONE LIST 1

  So, getting right down to it – we good girls always do our homework.

  If you are my future child, going through all my old crap as I dribble Happy Oats down my knitted front in a nursing home you can’t afford, please ignore anything that you read here – I already have.

  Introduction

  Welcome, Ms Waite, to the inside of your brain!

  This pointless but scenic ride through your psyche is your buy-one-get-one-free, no refunds, pain-in-the-ass complimentary gift, for which you are eligible thanks to the £110 per hour (I googled her) your dad has spent on ‘talking therapies’ every fortnight since you hit puberty and cried all night because you wanted to try on your mum’s bra (totally logical, how the fuck else would I know how it worked?).

  So, no one even thought to get me as much as a training bra before thirteen (if I get saggy tits I will sue EVERYONE) but hey, two thumbs up for Alison Thoroughgood!

  BTW innocent dinky future kids: that’s true, but it’s not actually a reason anyone ever got a shrink, not any girl anyway, let alone a fine specimen such as your drooling mother, but I really can’t be arsed to go into it all right now. Also, I’d just be happy with a bit more tittage generally – there’s always lifting tape for when you hit thirty.

  Never mind that though, it’s basically:

  £110 x 26 fortnights x 5 years since my nipples first weirdly popped out (still joking) = £14,300 minus holidays. About £14k spent paying someone he hardly knows (we love our letters after names, Dad and I) to get into my head. No wonder AT wants me to deliver some serious goods, aka ‘exploratory homework’ #cantbearsedwithfuckedupgirls #fundingmytibetanyogaretreat.

  Still, £14,000 says something. It tells me two major things about Dad.

  First thing: he has a lot more money than you might think to look at his car. Even I, who deleted all his lame old-guys-in-flying-jackets-speeding shows, know a Volvo’s too safe a choice. Alfa, Dad? Audi? Merc?

  Second thing: he is an optimist.

  He wants to cure you. Aka me. But none of us – especially not Alison Thoroughgood BSc, PG Dip whatever – is sure of What Underlies The Problem. All my mouthing off may be suppressed sadness, ask AT. So what’s my issue? My Dead Mum blues, no doubt. My stinking attitude. That ‘horrible’ obsession with hotness (is this really a fault? If you have to live your shitty life, you might as well look good). Bra fetish?

  I probably am crazy, but point me to a teenage girl who isn’t. ‘Talking therapies?’ Chemo = therapy. Talking = fuck off, I’m watching YouTube, right? Just saying.

  Make yourself comfortable, Lola, and I hope you have plenty of biros.

  This is a piss-poor introduction to my head, but then who likes saying what they’re supposed to say? It’s tragic. Long story short: I will make the Notes every week or day or month or whatever and make my long list of five Achievements, as instructed, because as I have mentioned, I am a good girl. Not four Achievements (four’s for losers), not six (arsewipe show-offs) but five, as in ‘high five, AT, woop-woop!’ But basically these will be no more than DONE LISTS. I told her straight ‘No thanks, I’m more of a Nike kind of girl: just do it’ but that Alison, she needs to see where I’ve been – she’s always looking backwards. Isn’t that a bit lazy, or nostalgic, or even romantic for a therapist? Obviously I don’t think AT is actually in love with me though, thank Christ. Scary old geezerbird when I first met her. Now I think she’s more straight and tough than butch. Whatever. She won’t be reading any of these lists either, she just wants me to keep telling her whatever the hell I want in our sessions – an important part of the process she says – but at least she will get me to spend my whole time looking backwards too #timewasters101. I think the idea is that I am to feel I have got somewhere, DONE something just by making it to the end of the week without pausing to blow my brains out. Or something. Still, better than the sad-sack page-a-day diary with spaces to note your mood and that weird teddy on the front she tried to shove on to me a couple of months back. I didn’t mind giving her what she wanted to hear for a while: ‘Dear diary, I’m so fat and why can’t I get anyone to screw me blahblahblah … Mood: So Very Sad …’ I aimed for devastatingly sincere with a tiny hint of piss-taking, but I guess she didn’t buy it which is why we’re now doing this. ‘I won’t read these lists, Lola. You decide how much and when, Lola,’ in her ever-hopeful voice. Touching. I suppose I do owe her a brief go at this thing, although the diary fail was definitely not my fault – don’t give me some fat teddy holding carnations and expect me to spill my guts like you’re doing me a huge favour.

  Notes

  First off, I don’t get it. I just don’t. So three even four times I offered to give him Viv Halston-Jones’s mobile. Pretty, freshly divorced, perfect. Lizzie HJ’s a laugh too so if the parents hooked up it would be exactly like some cheesy old sitcom, brilliant. Him – ‘I’ll think about it.’ That usually means ‘yes’. Next thing, he comes back with her?

  I don’t fucking think so.

  I strongly suspect I have failed all my GCSEs. Why not? Screw A*s – nothing you really expect to happen happens. Things you don’t want: boom. Who needs it?

  OK, massive dilemma – how best to slut-shame Caro Francis?

  FB? Might actually be that much of a loser, but everyone would think I was joking. Who takes those posts seriously any more?

  SnapChat? Yaas! Snap of me with my tongue poking way into my cheek, nice. Will try not to send it to Eli C instead of Ellie this time. #bloodydisaster

  Old school … Yes! Scream with laughter around the Dovington boys then shout to Anna about what is so piss-yourself funny. Bingo. (Hey, Dad, you were right! Sometimes life is better without a digital trail.)

  Seriously – who the hell gives so
meone a blow job in a hot tub? At a party? When it’s Will Benton? Caro Francis is rancid. Caro bloody Francid. She must secretly have been a total ho this whole time when we thought she was just a bit of a dick whose mum massively over-Bodens. It was probably because everyone reckoned they had holed themselves up in the parents’ en suite doing all that blow first. Anna was too drunk to freak. Lucky her mum was on another cruise with Tobias (the dilf to end all dilfs) and not just out. Someone’s hot tub – since when is that OK? Other people went in there afterwards as well. Ewwww (add ws. Ad infinitum. Rocking that Latin revision a little too late, Lola Waite). No wonder Anna was so pissed off in the morning that she cried, what a way to start the summer. I think she is planning to drain it just in case (sperm swims, right, but does it float? Maybe the filter got it all. Caro certainly did lol). How does that even work: why didn’t she drown?

  I want to know all of these things, now. Sooner.

  You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

  He saw her again. Until after 1.30 a.m. last night, ‘dinner round hers’, and apparently she’s ‘quite a bit more than just a date’. I mean … what?

  For a start, let’s get the obvious thing out of the way. Since when was he into black women? I mean, Mum was it for him – the bomb – natural blonde, like me; she was your genuine Alpha², your total headfuck dreamgirl. I’ve got the photos to prove it. Dad’s always said: they simply went together. Tall, slim; him dark, her fair. All that genetic pay dirt I would get on my knees and thank God for every day if I believed in all that crap. Then Mum dead, nothing and no one for years, a few pointless dates, and now Darling. Is she his change that is as good as a rest? I doubt it. She must have been some kind of sexual accident. But then AT always says there are no such things as accidents. This does not make any sense.

  Listen up, Roxie McFoxy. Stop torturing us with yet another tragic end-of-year routine … Rrrrring! The Eighties called, they want their Electric Slide back (told you – YouTube never lies). And why is Jane Forte in the front row? Her arse alone will eclipse us all.

  Darling. She’s kidding, right? She tried, I’ll give her that. Obviously right out of her depth, nice enough, just wrong. Wrong for us, anyway. Nothing intelligent over dinner – except how lovely the pasta was, how lovely the daughter was, and had she mentioned she loved the pasta? Just rolled her eyes at Dad and laughed the whole bloody time. Some sucking up to The Lovely Daughter (that’s me, kids), all a bit obvious. Pretty sure Dad was finding her painful too because he wasn’t bothered when she sloped off early. That’s old people for you: need to get their rest.

  Did she really think I’d find her lovely, what with her rolling her eyes and dragging her minging feet all over our poor house (hello, tights? Pedi?). Plus, she kept sniffing and coughing all over the wine, all like ‘Why do you people drink this dusty old crap?’ It’s true, they don’t like wine. Ellie went to Antigua and all her parents could drink was rum and beer, so her mum spent ten days with a massive air-conditioned migraine. True story.

  Darling White is rude and I was angry. So – a little chill-out time for her in our cellar. Only for a few seconds and I was right there outside the door the whole time, but she screamed the goddamn place down. Lola! Lola! You’d have thought she was being murdered.

  Now or never: a big shout-out for Caro Francis tomorrow, outside Maccy Ds, ably assisted by Anna #slutshaming101. The boys should be needing a Quarter Cheese, a fag and yet another pathetically unsubtle stare at our tits by about 5 p.m. No Will, I hope, or it’s obviously a non-starter.

  Now she’s even getting into my head, into my warm-down space. This is literally the only time my head ever clears into whiteness and silence. That’s why I do it, the dancing – it all ends in the white and silence in my head. Now Darling White’s stolen even that.

  I did mess with her head, though. Thinking about it, she nice-freaked all over me at dinner the other night, after the cellar thing. Trying way too hard. I watched her: super-nervy. She cut the pasta using her knife for a few bites, then remembered and picked up the spoon. I pretended not to see, but Dad saw and he saw me not noticing and told me later that I have great manners. I really do.

  If she turns up again she’ll get 100 per cent The Lovely Daughter and fuck-all of me.

  I can’t wait. I literally can’t wait for things to get back to how they should be again.

  Dad reckons I’m impatient, but in some great way. I know the truth: it’s not that I’m actually patient, I’m not, I’m impatient, but it isn’t all so uncomplicated and great, it’s more of a juicy flaw, a fat complicated spot that I enjoy squeezing. As soon as I see a dress online I want it not only delivered now, I want to be wearing it while I look for the next one I want. I actually do! I might eat a GoGo bar all nice and slow when my friends are around, but on my own it’s all over before the wrapper’s hit the bin. What? Just the way it is. If by any miracle I ace my GCSEs then I want the results today, I can’t wait weeks, I’ve earned now. Tiring, but I’ve come to appreciate it – patience is the most over-rated virtue, as Mum used to say, apparently. That must be why Dad likes me not having it.

  It’s like with Will. Why should I wait for him to come to his senses and realise that his decision to let Caro Francis anywhere near him was just horrible? I mean, she’s all lumpy hips and boobage and no brains and she doesn’t even get his jokes so it’s not as if they can have a proper laugh together. And why would he be interested in someone who – let’s face it – he’s much better looking than? Like putting a 10 with a 5 ½ (the half is because boys seem to like obese chests, the five is basically for showing up and breathing); it won’t work. Seriously, she’s got these weird eyes, all puffy and glassy, clueless. Dead walrus eyes, I swear. He must have been so wasted. I’ll be doing him a massive favour by exposing their whole stupid human hubbly bubbly scenario. How tacky? He’ll thank me one day. Even if he won’t, I don’t think I can stop myself.

  No, I don’t like waiting, not for anything. But I have waited for Will Benton for over nine months.

  And for the record, I’ve always thought my own impatience started out as a rebellion against my stupid surname (any thoughts, AT?). Whenever someone says my name in full, I just think ‘Why the fuck should I?’

  Mission accomplished! I yelled to Anna about the whole ridiculous hot-tub thing, she shrieked back and there you go – if Will goes near that sket again he will be torn to pieces by all his piss-taking mates (btw I’d never heard of a ‘nob-gobbler’ until Martin Howe shouted it mega-loud, then the staff asked us to please move away from all the Happy Meal eaters). Now I feel calm again. So that’s where the hell my white and silence went after the Year 11 (Group A) Modern Dance Prizegiving rehearsals yesterday – all sucked up by Caro Francis, never mind that bloody Darling.

  When I’m furious in the morning and sunny at night, Dad tries to hug me into submission and says I’m a funny old mix, and don’t I just know it?

  Sure do, Pops, sure do.

  Can’t sleep again.

  Was going to bin this crappy book as I can’t, to be honest, be arsed with yet more writing after weeks – literally gazillions of seconds I will never get back – spent in exam hell #smothermenow. But making this sad sacrifice to the great god AT is better than trying to lie still until I have another one of those dreams where I run and run and get nowhere. Maybe it is good to keep track of what I’ve done. Especially during the summer – I need structure, apparently. AT might say that’s linked to my impatience issues but I can’t hang around to find out (ha!). Gotta get the DONEs done.

  So. End of term tomorrow. End of Harbrooke House too, forever – one final dull-as-fuck Prizegiving but Dad’s not bringing her, so that’s good. Time for the mums to get all teared up again (not mine, lol) and the dads to snort a term’s fees’ worth of champagne and canapés. Our parent-pleasing (rated U, no twerking) dance, then a trillion+ hours of the annual Year 13 tears and snot festival, bring wellies – ohlikemyGodIcantbelieveIllneverseeyouagaaain. Then I’ll da
nce my lil white mighty-fine booty off! Sorry, must stop doing that. I’m really not a racist.

  All this to come, tomorrow. Will might even get dragged along to the evening – Georgie Benton wins everything in her year, always. That would keep me awake at least. After that it will finally be the start of my actual, proper life. No more Harbrooke House, no more rules to do my head in, just a crazy-long summer, then college and my time at last. End of.

  Achievements

  Started a FB group (no Caro Francis) for everyone going to the Mungojaxx festival which is actually going to be on Josh’s cousin’s farm, some fields near Henley. Have kept the Caro/Will cumfest offline for now (the screaming plan worked big time).

  Added ten extra squats and twists to my morning workout. Roxie will cream her pants when she sees my insane leaps tomorrow. Get the fuck into the back row, Jane Forte!

  Bought my first ever packet of Golden Kings using my fake ID. Sweated it, but Delhi Deli don’t give a toss. They’re not even a proper deli (no salami, no pastrami, no scotch eggs #grossguiltypleasure). No meat at all, people, bad for you or religiously impure or whatever … but go ahead, smoke yourself silly! (Don’t do it, kids, ever.)

  Lost Thursday’s lunch. Mistake.

  Practised in my head being nice to Dad’s date. Did not tell her she was totally not his type. Did tell him, of course. Did not ask her, ‘And who in Mcfuck’s name is even called “Darling”?’

  Darling

  SATURDAY, 23 JULY

  It was time. My baby had been brought along to meet everybody, but he decided to show the world his tonsils at high volume when I tried to get him out of the car.