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 cliche, 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?”