An obnoxious buzzing sound pierces my ears. I lie rigid, willing it to stop. It can’t be time to get up. I’m so disoriented I’m not sure if I slept at all. I hear a grunt, and the noise stops.
“Elly,” Tristans says in a gruff voice in the darkness. He gently shakes my shoulders.
“Yes?’ I say sorrowfully, my eyes closed. What I mean is fuck off and let me sleep!
“You need to get up.” His voice is sterner this time. In an unwelcome embrace, he shakes me a bit harder.
My eyes flit open and I fix on Tristan’s shadow rummaging through the room.
“Tristan?” I bolt upright and turn on the bedside lamp, squinting as the light floods the room.
“There’s no toothpaste in your bathroom,” he says with a grunt. “And you had two bodies in your living room when I went to get a glass of water.”
Only two? A quiet Friday night, then.
“Did you sleep?” I ask, knowing the answer from his murderous expression.
“Not enough.” He perches on the edge of the bed and nudges me. “I was too busy protecting you from the mad woman, remember? Anyway, it’s 5. You need to get a move on.”
I let out a long drawn-out sigh. “Yes, Daddy.” I groan. Interesting. I’m vaguely turned on by his new nickname. Perhaps I have disappearing-daddy issues. “Sorry for waking you. Feel free to sleep in.”
“Not a fucking chance.” He grimaces. “I’ve called a car. It will drop you at Paddington station on the way.”
With a moan I throw back the duvet and dramatically fling my legs off the bed. It’s pitch-black outside. This is an inhumane time to get up on a Saturday. What didn’t I just say yes to a lift in a helicopter? Goddamn stupid pride. Next time someone offers me a chopper, I’ll say that sounds lovely, thank you.
***
The last thing I want to do this morning is the four-hour trek to Wales after two hours of sleep.
Besides the fact we spent a large proportion of the night shagging, when we finally laid our heads down, Tristan proved to be a very distracting presence.
Not only because I was on high alert after the gas-inducing dinner but because his body is so large, he takes up the majority of the bed.
And he snores.
My train journey is a clusterfuck of emotions as I process last night’s events. I have a two-hour train to Swansea then I have to change onto the slowest train in the world to get to my village. Torture.
My inner harlot revels in the fulfilment of a fantasy I’ve had since I boarded the flight from Athens—to be shagged senseless by an unattached Tristan. My inner nun is freaking out over the fact I’m a dirty gullible grad who slept with the CEO.
Oh, who cares? Right now I’m too tired to give a shit.
The issue is that despite his asshole behaviour in Mykonos, I placed Tristan on a pedestal that no other bloke could reach. He left me in limbo. Megan says I don’t give blokes a chance, but no matter how attractive, funny or kind the guy is, I always come to the same conclusion.
They’re not him.
My stomach is a tangled mess of nerves and garlic butter snails. I regret my show of bravado. Now I’m lurking beside the smelly train toilets instead of the lovely window seat I booked.
The snails were worth it.
Finally, I reach the concrete building that I call home. Built in the 1950s, our social housing flat is grey and ugly; there’s no way to dress it up. I wonder what Tristan would think if I took him home.
“Mum?” I call out, turning the key in the door.
Nothing. She didn’t answer her phone when I called from the train.
I scan the drab brown kitchen. It seems to deteriorate a little more with every visit. There are three empty wine bottles on the kitchen table, the rubbish bin is overflowing, and the dishes in the sink look days old. I hit redial on my mum’s number for the seventh time this morning.
“Elly, sweetie,” comes her breathy voice down the phone. I put her on loudspeaker.
“Mum, where are you?” I try not to sound tense since it’s her birthday. “I’m home.”
‘Oh, sweetie, I forgot you were coming so early. I’m having brunch with Barry.”
“Barry?” I repeat in a clipped tone. “Barry who? Did you have a party here last night?”
“Don’t be silly,” she says breezily. “Just Barry and me.”
“You got through one and a half bottles of wine each?” I ask.
“It’s my birthday!” she huffs. “I can’t believe you’d begrudge me a little fun on my birthday.”
“Remember the spa treatment I booked for your birthday?” My voice rises. “It starts in forty-five minutes.”
There’s silence.
“Oh dear, I thought it was tomorrow. Can we do it tomorrow?”
“I doubt it,” I say sharply. “I booked it months ago. I’ll lose my money.”
“Sorry, sweetie.” She doesn’t sound sorry; she sounds drunk. “You should have reminded me.”
“I did,” I snap, my blood boiling. “Last week. Yesterday. And this morning.” Deep breaths, Elly. “So?” I demand. “Are you coming home so we can go?”
More silence.
“I can’t leave in the middle of brunch. I’m so sorry, I must have read the date wrong.”
My hands ball into tight fists. Why did I bother coming home? She doesn’t care if I’m here.
She says something to Barry about ordering more olive oil and bread.
“Hello?” I snap. “I’m still here.”
“I’ll see you in a few hours, okay?” she says. “Then we’ll have a nice catch-up.”
I end the call before I say something I regret then call the spa and beg them to rearrange it. The angel on the phone takes pity on me.
What a waste. I could have spent extra glorious hours in bed with God’s gift to women.
My eyes sweep the dirty kitchen in dismay. I’ll never relax in this mess. Finishing the dregs of my coffee, I lift the evidence of last night’s party and put them in a fresh recycling bag. Instead of getting pampered in a spa, I’m spending the next hour cleaning.
I take my anger out on the plates, scrubbing them with ferocity. What I really want to do is smash her dishes on the floor, Gemina style, but instead, I open the cupboard to stack them away. In the back corner, there are pill bottles instead of plates.
“What the hell is diazepam?” I say out loud, examining the bottle. A search of the name online tells me it’s Valium. Why does Mum need Valium? She never told me she was prescribed these.
Sometime later, I open the front door to find a two-seater red convertible sports car in the driveway. To complete the cliché, a bald man in his sixties, maybe seventies, sits in the driver’s seat.
“Elly, darling!” Mum spills out of the car and staggers through the door, giving me an eyeful of cleavage.
Barry locks up his late-life crisis and follows behind her.
“So good to see you. I’ve missed you so much,” she says excitedly, alternating between Croatian and English. Her Croatian accent only comes out when she’s drunk. She flings her arms around me, suffocating me with alcohol fumes. “Meet Barry. Barry, this is my daughter, Elly. She’s a lawyer!”
“I’m just in training,” I correct her.
Barry and I study each other warily in the doorway, neither of us wanting the other one in the house. ‘Nice to meet you, Barry.” I narrow my eyes. I’m at least a foot taller.
Mum sweeps into the kitchen, oblivious to the fact that the house now gleams, and begins banging open cupboards in search of something. “Go into the living room, Barry, relax.” She waves her hand at him and he scuttles off.
“How are you, Elly?” She pulls me in for a massive hug. “I can’t wait to hear all about the new job! Tell me everything!” She doesn’t mean it, not in this state. I could tell her I’m running for Prime Minister, and she’d say, ‘Oh, that’s lovely!’ I give her a half-arsed recollection of my first month at Madison Legal, enough to make her feel like she’s a caring inquisitive mother.
She dances around the kitchen opening cupboards and drawers.
“Looking for something?” I shake the bottle of pills.
She snatches the bottle. I watch her put two pills in her mouth and swallow without water.
“Why are you taking those?” I ask. “Did the doctor prescribe them for you? I’m sure they said not to drink with them.”
“They’re for my anxiety,” she says airily, flinging open the fridge. “Can you fix the three of us some cheese, sweetie?”
“Why are you anxious?”
“It’s hard being a single parent, living all alone.” She moans. “Supporting myself.”
I give her a cynical look. “I pay all your bills, Mum.”
In her heyday, Mum was mildly successful. She had a clothing shop that kept us afloat, but her excessive spending eventually ran it into the ground. I’ve paid her rent and bills for these past six months and, while I want to help my mum, it’s a dependency I need to break. I hope Barry is rich and senile enough to marry her.
“Sometimes you don’t appreciate what I went through for you, Elly.” She pulls a bottle of white wine from the fridge.
“You’ve told me a million times,” I say through clenched teeth. “Loose skin, tits down to your ankles and a weak bladder.”
I need to rein it in, I don’t want to fight with her on her birthday. It’s just it rubs me the wrong way when she forgets I’m even coming.
“Typical Leo, so dramatic,” she says, pouring wine into two glasses. “Don’t be in a bad mood in front of Barry, darling.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Shouldn’t Barry be trying to impress me?
I follow her into the living room, where she collapses beside Barry on the couch, the hem of her skirt riding up past her knees.
His fingers graze her thigh, and I grimace.
“Tell us all about London!” Her eyes sparkle. “Have you been on the London Eye yet?”
“Not yet,” I say. “But I love the South Bank. Megan and I hang out there a lot. It’s got great markets and bars.”
“I can’t wait to visit you for a weekend. Barry, perhaps we could go for the weekend to visit Elly?”
“That would be lovely…” I trail off as she smiles at him coyly. He licks his lips and tickles her ear with his finger.
Dear God.
“I’m going for a walk,” I mutter. I might as well not be here.
I leave the room to go get a fork to gouge my eyes out.
Of course, I want Mum to be happy and find a partner, I just wish she wouldn’t be so blatant about finding him directly in front of me.
Grabbing my coat, I slam the door behind me and walk with purpose to the green fields bordering the town.
Every time I visit Mum I feel on edge. Between the house-share and my bedroom in Wales being used for storage now, I feel a bit driftless. Someday I’ll own a house of my own and then I’ll call it home.
Until then, I’ll indulge in online house porn.
There it is. The cottage I’ve lusted after for two decades. It lords over the valley like something straight from the pages of a fairy tale. The owners retained its original character with beams and exposed stone walls, but I know they have a hot tub in the garden.
When I was younger, they used to have loads of kids playing in the garden. Now the gardens are deserted, and the children are grown up and have moved away.
I sit on the grass, looking out over the peaceful countryside, and take my book out to read. My plan is to stay up here long enough for Mum to exhaust Barry. Hopefully he’s not on Viagra.
