How far would I be willing to go?
The day passes quietly, my parents either too tired or too much into holiday mode to be their usual interfering selves. I don’t see Rashid again, and for some reason Martha is almost pleasant as we pass throughout the day. She prepares an early dinner, which I hadn’t asked for, or expected, but it’s both welcome and a comfort. This is one evening I can’t afford to be alone.
It’s nice to see the olds letting their hair down; something I’ve not much encountered before. Must be the desert air or something. Anyway, it’s only nice until Mum drinks four glasses of cab-sav. That’d be three more than her usual.
‘Go on, darl. Help me finish the bottle.’ She lifts the red I’d chosen from the cellar, something not too ostentatious looking, and therefore not worth an arm and a leg, hopefully. Sometimes I think I could give her lollie water—or Ribena—and she’d get pissed. She’s such a lightweight and that’s saying something coming from me.
‘No, thanks,’ I tell her, covering the top of my glass. ‘I’m not in the mood.’
‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ Though to be fair, this comes out more likewash-cho-gor-there?The words slurred together becoming less of a sentence and more like one long word.
‘Just water.’
‘But thissis a loverly cabinet sorvingnon! You lovadropared! Schpeshlee when you’re on holiday.’
‘Usually,’ I agree. ‘I’m just not in the mood.’ I’m in lots of moods, and all of them will be exacerbated, not alleviated, by wine.Tears. Tantrums. Despair.I’m also not on holiday, but I haven’t exactly explained that I no longer have a job from which to take vacation from.
‘Oh, I getcha,’ she says tapping her nose. ‘You gotta lecresh?’
‘I’ve got liquorice?’ I frown as she taps her nose again and then take a second guess. ‘A secret?’ Given today’s troubles, I think it’s only normal that my heart rate picks up as I ask that. I don’t recall her being that intuitive about my life before.
Glassy eyed and smiley, she looks at me. Or through me. I can’t tell.
‘Darl, a mother nooos,’ she says, propping her head on her hand. Pity her elbow then slides across the smooth wood, her body following along with it. ‘Oops!’
I love my drunken mum. She’s so undignified.
‘Here, let me fill up your glass.’
‘Steady, Katie. Don’t want her falling in the pool on the way back!’ Geoff is all jovial smiles and eau de whiskey breath. ‘When’s this man of yours back, then?’
I open my mouth to answer, but Mum beats me to it.
‘A mothernooos!’
‘A mother knows not her limits,’ I mumble under my breath. Far out, she’s like some oracle foretelling doom. ‘He’s hoping to get back this week.’ Or so his text earlier today said. I nearly burst into tears as I read his words, and it wasn’t all happiness.
‘You’ve put weight on since you got back!’ Mum shakes her finger at me, and it’s funny howthatwas completely coherent, not to mention loud, as Martha enters the dining room with dessert and stops dead in her tracks.
‘Gee, thanks for that.’
‘Steady on, Cynth,’ Geoff says, doing a funny sort of head wobble.
‘Wassat?’ Mum says, squinting at him. ‘S’water in your ear from the pool? Shudda nused earplugs!’
‘Not in front of, you know.’ Cue the head wobble again as Martha leaves again. ‘Not in front of the staff, love.’
Beam me upDownton Abbey!If only they knew Martha’s the boss of this house.
‘Was she got to do with it?’ Mum complains, indignant, quickly approaching drunken critical mass; we’ve all been there. One minute you’re a bit giggly and the next you’re completely shit-faced. ‘Am just saying Kathering probably can’t fit into her dress. Wines got empty calries. It’s the sugar, in it. Innit?’
Yes, the empty calories in the wine I’m not actually drinking. Thanks, Mum.
‘Absolutely, darl.’ He pats Mum’s shoulder as he stands, clearly deciding discretion the better part of valour. ‘Maybe we should get you to bed.’
‘Ooo, bed! Take me to lose or bed me forever! No, thasnot right!’
Geoff laughs uncomfortably, his gaze sliding to mine. Meanwhile, I’m in the market for some good eye bleach as she slides one arm around his neck, the other cupping one of his arse cheeks as he bends to help her up.
