Esther smirked then. She’d just broken up with her boyfriend because he’d slept with someone else, and it was good to see a hint of a smile again. Although I can’t stand the guy I’d still been worried about her, barely eating, smoking loads, mooching around with her hair all tangled and purplish shadows under her eyes.
‘D’you know what?’ she’d said. ‘That might be really fun!’ As if it was something of a novelty, going away with your old dad, like digging out the snakes and ladders at Christmas.
I was happy to be a relic unearthed from a cupboard of dusty old junk because, actually, I had a secret plan. Hopefully, while we were away, I’d be able to gently persuade Esther that the ‘renowned DJ’ (i.e. he owns a few shit records) and supposedly ‘recovering sex addict’ (not much sign of recovery as far as I can make out) didn’t deserve her, and that she was better off without him. I was also hoping she might consider different career options to the one she’s fallen into; i.e. being an influencer and a bit of a social media star. It’s all quite baffling and, although I don’t disapprove of it exactly, I can’t help thinking that taking a different direction might make her feel more fulfilled in the long run.
However, that wasn’t my priority. My more immediate hope was she’d come back from Corsica happy to eitherenjoy being single or meet someone closer to her own age who wasn’t a compulsively lying narcissistic fuckwit.
Unfortunately, my plan backfired. No sooner had I booked the holiday than Esther had moved back into Miles’s east London flat with its black walls, pink velvet chaise longue and a taxidermied bat dangling from a string, ready to clonk you on the head in the hallway. Baroque, he calls it. Creepy, more like. I’d fibbed that it would be impossible to change the name on the booking and take someone else. In truth, I wasn’t interested in going with anyone else and, miraculously, Esther said she’d still come.
So this is Miles’s hallway her stuff is strewn all over. Her boyfriend of two years whoclaimshe’s forty-five, and okay, maybe I should be cool with the age gap but I do find it incredibly difficult. Especially as I suspect he’s even older than he claims – as ancient as me, even! – although Esther shrugs off my concerns, saying, ‘The industry he works in is incredibly ageist, Dad. You don’t get it. No one cares how old vets are, do they?’
Well, yes, thankfully people don’t require you to exude youthfulness in order to treat their pets. Anyway, at least Miles is out tonight, ‘doing a gig’. So I haven’t had to sit on my hands to stop myself from punching him.
‘This is just about it,’ Esther announces now, reappearing barefoot from the bedroom laden with yet more clothes.
‘You can’t need all this,’ I protest.
She fixes me with a look. ‘Well, I do.’
‘But whatisall this stuff?’
‘Just basics, Dad.’
‘Basics? We’d need to charter a plane for this lot!’ I pick up a clear plastic bottle from the floor and examine it. ‘No need to take water. You can buy it there.’
‘That’s notwater-water,’ Esther scoffs.
‘What is it then?’
‘Micellar water. For cleansing,’ she adds.
I look around, feeling weighed down by the sheer volume of stuff. ‘What are those sachets?’
‘Anti-ageing face masks.’
‘You’re twenty years old! What d’you need those for?’
‘You wouldn’t get it. You’re a man …’ She shakes her head despairingly.
Another object catches my eye. ‘Come on, you’re not seriously planning to bring that—’
‘What?’
‘The fur coat.’
‘It’sfauxfur,’ she announces with a snort. ‘It’s actually really light.’
‘It can’t be light. It’s fur!’
‘Well, itis…’
‘It’ll be like wearing a carpet. D’you know how hot Corsica is?’
‘Stop being such an old man, will you?’ She swivels her eyes towards the dangling bat. I can hear Miles’s white rat gnawing away in its cage in the kitchen. Of course Miles has a rat. I’m not against them; of course I’m not. But if I’d been asked to guess the preferred pet of a self-professed nocturnal wild man … let’s say I wouldn’t have said a cockapoo.
‘You’ll get heat stroke if you wear that,’ I warn her.
‘So you can say, “I told you so” when I wind up in a Corsican hospital,’ she says with a grin.
