‘Go on,’ she says resignedly. It’s the quickest way to get me to leave quietly.
‘Are you all right? Like actually all right? I’m worried about you. And is there anything I can do? Me, the car, Darling Dimkins, we are always at your disposal.’
‘I know you are. And I know you’re fretting about me. You’re always fretting about me.’
‘Not always.’
‘No, sometimes you’re giving me a big old bollocking.’
‘I do not do that.’
‘You did the time I ripped up some of your Yu-Gi-Oh! cards!’ We both smile and before I can retort that she’s lucky she can still walk, the smiles fade on our faces and she reaches out and takes my hand.
‘I’m all right. I am. Things are a bit up in the air at the moment and I’m not going to pretend to you right now that my life is easy but the podcasts have been helping. I’m just about to listen to theSafety tips for analone. Should be a hoot. Or terrifying, could easily be terrifying. But, look, I’m getting there. I’ve got a plan. I need you to give me space, let me do things my own way. I’ve got to live my life for me, big brother, and not you. And that means me sorting my shit out myself.’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay, and then I’m going to sort your shit out, but for now will you fuck off?’
‘Okay.’
‘And see you at Drag Factor next week?’ she asks and I shake my head. ‘We’ll see’, she says, ‘now sod off,’ and I leave my baby sister to be an adult.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lily
‘So, that’s it. That’s the tour.’ Kevin closes the door to his bedroom and grins at his parents. ‘And now you’ve seen every room in the house, what do you think?’
‘It’s a very fine house, son,’ Chih-hao says. ‘Very fine indeed. It makes me happy that you have a piano. I was so pleased you took it back up again at uni, we had despaired when at eight years old your teacher advised we let you focus on something else. Maybe you can play us a tune later?’
Kevin shoots me a look; we both know that he can’t play for toffee. He can bang out ‘Silent Night’ at a push when filled with enough mulled wine and can do a damn fine ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ if he has to but he has never had the heart to admit to his parents that the money they sent him throughout uni to help with ‘his music lessons’ actually went on glue sticks, medical tape and tucking panties. The fact that he has a piano is because it is beautiful and he offered to keep it when the previous owners couldn’t get it out of the flat. Its presence in our life is no indication of his musical expertise, merely of his kind heart.
His mother, Shu-feng, who I suspect is far wiser to her son’s machinations, tries to create a diversion as Kevin smiles wanly at his father.
‘We haven’t seen this room, what’s in here?’ It is unusual for her to speak such a sentence; she is a woman who says very little.
‘Aha,’ says Kevin, standing outside his dressing room. If his parents spot those wigs atop those terrifying heads they may well send him for a psychiatric assessment. At Broadmoor.
I give him a nod because I know what he is telepathically asking me and he flings the door open wide.
‘This is Lily’s dressing room. She has such an extensive wardrobe because you know she is so... well, um... successful.’
‘Oh, I know,’ says Chih-hao, ‘I read an article only the other day about how her podcast is highly recommended. I am sorry we haven’t listened.’ He pinches my cheek with pride but I am very relieved. The thought of them clustered around a laptop listening to the sex-toys-are-our-friends talk scheduled for this weekend is enough to ensure I never record another episode. ‘But I have to ask, the article mentioned your sign-off and I am curious. I understandBe brave, have faith and be true, all of that is good advice, but why do you sayDon’t lick their faces? Do I understand right? No one would do that.’
He looks genuinely perturbed.
‘I know, Uncle Chih-hao,’ I say using the affectionate address both Kevin’s parents requested I use many years ago. ‘It does sound silly but it was because when it all began at uni, way before the podcast or I became the Love Doctor officially, I was getting a reputation for blunt but good advice, and friends – and sometimes complete strangers – would come and ask me about problems in their personal lives and so on, that sort of thing. Kev and I were inseparable but every time he was with me as someone was leaving, I’d tend to reiterate the key message, for example,Be brave, and your son would always,alwaysadd,But don’t lick their face. It started off as something stupid that made us giggle and it kind of became a thing. When that whole aspect of my life turned into a career, I kept it. Partly because it had become normalised and partly for the nostalgia.’
‘So, it’s our son’s fault?’ Chih-hao says and I shrug and smirk.
‘Right, well, this is the room where she records her podcast that you and your friends are planning to listen to all those thousands of miles away,’ Kevin says, giving me an evil look.
‘Yep, all happens in there,’ I say. Shu-feng stands on tiptoes to look past her son and see inside the room and lets out an audible gasp.
‘She really likes cosplay,’ Kevin says completely out of the blue. He shoots me a plea with his eyes, so I nod to try and help him. I am currently wearing one of my knitted dresses from Reiss, in navy. I don’t look like I enjoy dressing up as characters at the weekend. I’m sure I could, and I have done a little role play in my time, but he is digging a hole here.
‘Oh, but isn’t cos play –’ Chih-hao takes a look at the room laid before us and says slightly more wanly ‘– um… anime and superheroes and things?’
