That brick was her. She was damaged and scarred. She didn’t fit.
She closed her eyes. She was losing the plot. She needed to get out before she went totally Jack fromThe Shining.
She’d been pleased that her dad was at home when she’d telephoned, and frankly delighted to hear that he was alone and she was welcome to pop round.
After the usual niceties, she followed him into the kitchen and he put the kettle on.
‘What’s up, Regan? You never come round in the daytime.’
It was like the time she got found out for smashing next door’s greenhouse; he was giving her the same look of disappointment.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she said, remembering too late that her defence of the greenhouse situation had started with the exact same words. ‘I thought I’d won the lottery and it turns out I hadn’t, but because I thought I had …’ He was watching her intently. She swallowed hard. ‘I dumped Jarvis, quit my job and moved out of the flat.’ She bit her lip and waited for his response.
‘Coffee?’
Not the response she was expecting. ‘Er, yes please. So …’
He shrugged his shoulders in a slow movement. ‘That wasn’t very smart. Was it?’
And the award for stating the bleeding obvious goes to Graham Corsetti. ‘I know that, Dad, but like I said I thought I’d won the lottery.’
‘Money’s not everything, Regan.’
‘I know.’ It was like being in a parallel universe. Why were parents so obtuse sometimes? And especially when you needed them to help you get to a solution ‘So what do I do?’
‘Get another job?’ His face was stoic.
‘Yes.’ That was the most logical thing. ‘What else?’
He scratched his greying temple. ‘I don’t know.’ He brightened up and squeezed her arm. ‘You’ll think of something.’
She blinked rapidly. Clearly he was not comprehending the huge shitstorm her life had become. In fact, shitstorm didn’t really cover it – this was more global shit tsunami with extra-large fans.
‘I feel like a pea in a river – too small to swim against the tide.’ She felt quite poetic and proud of her analogy.
Her dad screwed up his face. ‘You’d like to pee in a river?’
‘No. A pea … Oh never mind.’Why was it so hard to explain?‘It’s like someone’s slammed the brakes on my life.’
‘Hmm.’ He was pulling a doubtful face, but she continued unperturbed.
‘I mean, I was hurtling along and suddenly I’ve come flying off the rails.’
‘I see,’ said Graham, in a tone that said he wanted the conversation to end. He was a rather logical, straightforward person, lacking the encumberment of extremes of emotion – an unkind soul may have called him ‘odd’. He was still pulling a face as he passed her a mug of coffeeand opened a fresh packet of cheap chocolate digestives.
‘What?’ asked Regan, catching sight of his twisted lips.
‘Well, I’m not being funny, Regan, but it’s not like your life was motoring along at a pace, now was it?’
‘Oh, thanks a bunch.’ She snatched a biscuit from the proffered packet.
‘No, what I mean is, in life’s race, you’re less Aston Martin, more Nissan Micra – slow and steady.’ He was smiling, like he thought this was a compliment.
‘Bloody hell, Dad. You’re not helping my self-esteem here.’ She’d been called lots of things in the past, but never a Nissan chuffing Micra. She knew he had a point though, however harshly worded. She’d liked to think she was pootling along taking the scenic route in life, but she could hardly claim that when on her life’s journey so far there really hadn’t been anything worth seeing – dead ends of jobs, a scrap heap of relationships and a junk yard full of mistakes. She dunked her biscuit and half of it disintegrated into her coffee. She frowned and tried to scoop it out with the other half of the biscuit, making the situation infinitely worse.
Graham was frowning. ‘Where are you staying?’
‘Cleo’s place.’ She didn’t like lying, especially not to her dad, but technically shewasstaying at Cleo’s – just in her studio and not in the flat where he had obviously assumed she meant, judging by the relief on his face. She knew he was secretly pleased that she wasn’t going to put him in the awkward position of making excuses as to why she couldn’t stay at his.
