Welcome to the Real World

by Carole Matthews

  There’s a fear in this because singing is the only thing that I’ve ever been any good at and, if we were to fail—which there’s a very strong chance of us doing, as the odds are stacked against us—then it would simply go to prove that I’m absolutely useless at everything. It seems such a long time ago since Carl and I used to get together at our local youth club and put on impromptu shows to entertain our easily pleased friends. It was a quantum leap for me to go after paid gigs—Carl had to bully me even then—and now I’m not sure that I have the courage to stick my head above the parapet and say that I want to be taken seriously for doing this.

  Evan was a little cool with me this morning. Breakfast was over and done with by the time I got here, even though I wasn’t late, so I’m starving already. We exchanged a few pleasantries, then Evan pointed out that I nearly made him miss an appointment at Number Ten Downing Street—which made me want to shrivel up on the spot. How could I do that? And then he disappeared to another room in the apartment with Anton to get down to work. I think there’s a piano in every room in the place, though I haven’t checked it out that thoroughly. To be honest, I’m too frightened to move from my desk.

  Now, accompanied by Anton on the piano, his wonderful voice is filling the apartment through the crack of the open door. I have no idea what the song is—perhaps I should start reading the reviews of operas in the daily newspaper to gen up a bit—but I’ve got goosepimples in places you wouldn’t believe. On the one hand, this is cheering me up immensely but, on the other, it’s very dispiriting as I realise that I’ll never be anywhere near as good. Still, the wintry sun is shining through the windows and warming my cold toes—the heating is on the blink again in my flat—and I’m trying to look busy while drifting away with the soaring music. My tired soul is in seventh heaven, letting the melody wash over me. My body is also dog-tired because it took me ages to drag my drunken, ranting dad home last night and pin him down to the sofa. I’ve never heard language like it—at least not from my parents. I thought I was going to have to club him over the head with one of my shoes to get him to go to sleep. If my true and faithful friend, Carl, hadn’t come along to help me, then I don’t know what I would have done. Between us we managed to wrestle some of Dad’s clothes from him and cover him with a blanket. Which is lucky, because I was considering putting a pillow over his face.

  Evan starts to run through some exercises. His voice rises and falls, giving his tonsils a great workout, I’m sure. I start to hum along with him and surprise myself with some of the notes I can hit. Our voices sound good in harmony together. Another surprise. I stand up and throw my head back, imagining that I’m on the stage at the King’s Head, giving my regular punters the shock of their lives. I’m getting quite into my stride, when suddenly the door swings wide, reverberating on its hinges, and Evan stamps in.

  ‘Where’s that noise coming from?’ he demands to know.

  ‘I…er…I…er…’

  ‘Is there a radio on? I thought I heard singing.’ His forehead is creased in an unhappy frown.

  ‘I…er…I…er…’ I have nowhere to hide.

  ‘It’s not a radio, is it?’ He looks at me with something approaching horror. ‘Was it you?’

  I can feel myself blanching and flushing both at once. My goodness. I had no idea that he’d be able to hear me, but I was clearly getting more carried away than I thought. How much did he hear?

  ‘Was it you?’ he demands to know again.

  I can see where he gets his reputation for being difficult from. This is my first glimpse of Il Divo. But no wonder he’s furious. Fancy his assistant having the audacity to join in with his vocal exercises. I could curl up and die. Why will the floor never conveniently open up and swallow you when you want it to? Anton comes to stand in the doorway, too. He’s also regarding me with a dark frown. I feel like a trapped animal. Maybe a lickle-ickle fluffy fox with a pack of nasty, snarling hounds bearing down on me. Die, I say to myself. Just die, it would be so much easier. ‘Er…’

  And then my mobile phone rings. We all look at each other in a startled way. Never has the sound of that irritating Crazy Frog mad motorbike ring tone been so welcome. I owe the universe one.

  ‘Hello,’ I say with a voice that has a lurking tremor.

  I glance over and though Anton has made himself scarce, Evan is now waiting, arms folded, one eyebrow raised in question. Obviously, he’s not going to let this lie.

  ‘Is that Ms Fern Kendal?’ the voice on the other end of the phone asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘This is Fern Kendal.’

  ‘This is Doctor Parry,’ he tells me.

  ‘Oh, hello.’ Doctor Parry has been our family GP since time began. He has seen me without my clothes on more times than I care to remember—and not in a sexy way. In a way that involves rubber gloves and saying, ‘Just relax’. I wonder if I’m overdue a smear test. Why else would he be calling me?

  ‘I’m phoning about your father.’ Which, I guess, answers my question.

  ‘Dad?’

  There’s a sigh. ‘We have him here. At the surgery.’

  ‘Is he okay?’ And, of course, he wouldn’t be at the doctor’s surgery if he was perfectly all right.

  ‘No,’ Doctor Parry says. ‘He’s not okay, Fern. Can you come down here right away?’

  I risk a glance over at Evan David again. He’s still doing a manly glower. ‘I…er…’ This might be a very good time for me to make a sharp exit. ‘I’ll come right away.’

  Grabbing my handbag, hanging up and dashing towards the door all in one movement, I tell Evan David over my shoulder, ‘I have to go.’

  His mouth drops open slightly, but I have no time to worry about his reaction to my sudden departure. This is an emergency and he’ll have to live with it. My dad is one of the most important people in my life, and if he needs me, I’ll be there. Evan David can stuff his poxy job.

  ‘Wait!’ he shouts after me. ‘Don’t go like this. Tell me what’s wrong.’

  I stop momentarily in my dramatic exit. ‘My dad’s ill,’ I say. ‘Terribly ill.’

  And I hope deep in my heart that this isn’t true.

  Sixteen

  Half an hour later, I burst into the packed waiting room at the doctor’s surgery. My dad is sitting on one of the plastic chairs, looking the picture of rude health. All the images I had of him with an oxygen mask on his face or possibly a limb missing, evaporate into the air.

  He smiles when he sees me. ‘Fuck off!’

  There’s an audible gasp in the waiting room. Mothers clamp their hands over their children’s ears. Two women with blue rinses tut loudly. A toddler who is knocking seven bells out of a brightly-coloured play centre stops mid-hammer.

  ‘We won’t have that, Mr Kendal,’ the receptionist shouts. ‘I’ve told you.’

  ‘Arse. Bum. Widdle,’ my dad responds.

  I edge in, hardly daring to admit that this flushed-faced, foaming man is my relative. If the woman behind the appointments desk hadn’t already clocked me, I might have turned and run. I note that the receptionist sags with relief. ‘I’ll buzz through and tell Doctor you’re here, Ms Kendal.’

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘You’re a bagful of shite,’ he tells me cheerfully.

  ‘What?’ I feel myself recoil. ‘I’m your daughter. What’s going on? Why are you saying that?’

  He turns to the woman on the chair nearest to him. She’s trying to put as much distance between them as possible, edging into the corner. ‘Do you like big willies?’ he asks her.

  There’s another gasp. The poor woman is about to pass out. She is an ageing spinster and looks, quite possibly, as if she’s never seen a willy in her life, let alone a big one.

  ‘We can’t have this, Mr Kendal,’ the receptionist says sharply. ‘Apologise at once.’

  ‘Poo. Fart.’ My dad pauses while he chooses his next word. ‘Testicles.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ I spread my hands. ‘What on earth is going on?’
>
  Not a moment too soon, Doctor Parry opens his door, ushering out an elderly lady with a bandaged hand. ‘Ah, Ms Kendal,’ he says. ‘Come straight in. And you.’ He gestures towards my dad, who stands up and makes a very lewd gesture involving his hips to his audience in the waiting room.

  Grabbing him by the arm, I snatch him into the doctor’s office. Dad sits down on one of the chairs and grins happily.

  ‘Have you lost your mind?’ I shout.

  For once he is silent. I flop in the chair next to him while our GP runs a hand through his hair in a weary manner.

  I don’t know whether to address the doctor or my dad. I try both, but reserve my fierce look for my deranged parent. ‘Do you want to give us an explanation for this?’

  My dad folds his arms.

  Doctor Parry huffs. ‘Your father insists he has Tourette’s syndrome,’ he tells me.

  I start to laugh.

  ‘Fuck off,’ my dad says again.

  ‘And you shut up,’ I tell him.

  ‘He says he caught it at the King’s Head.’

  ‘You can’t catch Tourette’s syndrome.’ At least I don’t think you can. I look to Doctor Parry for confirmation. ‘Can you?’

  ‘No,’ he assures me.

  ‘Bog off.’

  I think Doctor Parry is being patient beyond the call of duty. If I were him, I’d have strong-armed Dad out of the surgery within minutes. Or I’d have given him an armful of some powerful sedative reserved for violent lunatics or horses. ‘He has not got Tourette’s syndrome,’ I hiss. I have to say that Doctor Parry doesn’t look surprised.

  ‘I bloody well have,’ Dad insists.

  ‘He’s attention seeking,’ I say to the GP. ‘This is all because my mum has thrown him out.’

  ‘Kiss my arse.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Is punching your own dad a criminal offence? I might be tempted to risk it. ‘You never swear.’ Well, only if he hits his thumb with a hammer or something. ‘Stop it. Stop it at once.’

  ‘I called your mother, Fern. Before I tried your phone.’ Doctor Parry looks at his notes. ‘She wouldn’t come down here, I’m afraid.’

  ‘He thinks if he’s ill, she’ll take him back.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t seem to be working.’

  ‘Stop pissing talking about me as if I’m not here!’

  ‘Then stop “pissing” acting like a spoiled child!’

  ‘I’m ill,’ Dad insists.

  ‘You are not. You have the constitution of an ox. The only time you’re ever under the weather is if you’ve had too much beer.’

  ‘Nellies. Knackers. Knockers,’ is my dad’s lovely rejoinder.

  I feel like banging my head against the peeling paint on the wall in Doctor’s Parry’s jaded office. Why didn’t I just hang up and face the music—or questions about the music—with Evan David?

  ‘What can I do?’ I make my plea to the GP.

  ‘I’m very busy,’ he says apologetically. ‘I’ll write him a prescription for some antidepressants.’

  ‘He’s not depressed.’ This is ludicrous. ‘He’s as right as rain. Acting like this will only make my mum more determined to divorce him.’ I turn to my Dad. ‘Can’t you see that?’

  ‘Big dangly bollocks.’

  He might be fit and well now, but he won’t be if he carries this on for much longer. ‘This is not funny, Dad. It’s an insult to Mum, to me and to Doctor Parry.’ Not to mention all the people who do genuinely have Tourette’s syndrome. ‘This sort of behaviour is ridiculous. Nathan is the only one who’s ill in our family. Don’t you think we have enough to worry about with him?’

  ‘Your father clearly has some mental problems, Fern.’

  ‘He hasn’t. He’s making this all up.’

  ‘Are you happy to take him home?’ Doctor Parry asks me. ‘I can have him hospitalised.’

  At the thought of this, Dad perks up even more.

  ‘He’s not going to hospital,’ I tell Doctor Parry as I scowl at my dad. I won’t have him taking up a bed, denying treatment to someone who really is ill. ‘He’s coming home with me.’

  Dad’s smile fades. Yes, I’ll sort him out. Just wait until he gets a taste of my medicine.

  Seventeen

  On the Tube on the way home from Doctor Parry’s surgery my dad said, ‘Bottom,’ in a lascivious manner to the woman seated next to him. She whacked him over the head with her copy of the Guardian newspaper three times and so he spent the rest of the journey in morose silence. Which just proved to me, as if there was ever any doubt, that he’s simply making all this up. Now he’s sitting at the kitchen table, chin on his hands, sulking.

  Squeaky pops his head out of the skirting board. Rummaging in my bread bin, I find a crumb of cake for him and put it on the floor. I wish someone would give me the same sort of unconditional love that I lavish on this mouse, and then I remember that Carl does. Carl adores me and yet gets little more than a few crumbs of cake in return.

  My dad sighs theatrically.

  ‘Don’t. I’m not in the mood. I have just walked out on my new job for you,’ I snap at him. ‘For no good reason. A job that was very important to me.’

  He opens his mouth.

  ‘And don’t even think about saying arse or bugger!’

  He closes his mouth again.

  ‘I don’t know where you got this stupid idea from.’

  Without realising it, my dad’s eyes slide furtively towards the lounge and the site of my ancient computer. I stomp into the front room and log on. This is yet another gift from Carl; his sister’s company was throwing them out to make space for whizzy replacements with flat LCD screens and more megabytes or gigabytes or whatever sort of bytes are important for computers, so he rescued one for me and one for himself. Ali, my landlord, lets me use his broadband line for free, so that I don’t even have a bill for my e-mail—not that I ever get any. All I ever get is spam offering me dodgy American medications, a Russian bride or begging letters from African princes who have fallen on hard times. The theory behind the computer acquisition is that it will be easier for Carl and me to compose music together, although we’ve never quite worked out how this will benefit us in practice, and still sit on my sofa strumming away until the wee small hours, fuelled by cheap vodka.

  When the computer has finished whirring, I check out the history of places that Dad has visited on the Internet and gnash my teeth at a government that provides free computer tuition for the over-55s. The government should have better things to do with the money, like putting more research into child asthma and affordable housing, so that Nathan doesn’t have to spend every day wheezing in a damp flat. And the over-55s should have better things to do with their time, like gardening and playing bowls. The first thing they do when they get hold of a computer is buy Viagra and get themselves into all sorts of trouble in chat rooms. My dear parent hasn’t been buying medication to enhance his sexual prowess, but sure enough, he’s been onto a dozen different sites all discussing the symptoms of Tourette’s syndrome. No wonder he now considers himself to be such an expert on it. I could kill him. Really I could. And guess what? You can’t catch it in pubs. One vital flaw in his completely cock-and-bull story.

  Back in the kitchen, I fold my arms and put on my most disappointed voice. ‘I know what this is all about, Dad, but it won’t help. It just won’t help.’

  ‘Go and see your mother,’ he whines. ‘Tell her I’m ill. Tell her your old dad needs her.’

  ‘All this will do is make her more determined to keep you out of her life,’ I tell him earnestly. ‘Can’t you see that? She needs you to be strong. She needs you to give up the booze and the gambling. She needs you to stop seeing diamond-patterned jumpers as a style item. And, most of all, she needs you to put her at the top of your list for once.’

  Somehow, my dunderheaded dad still manages to look sceptical.

  ‘No wonder she’s had enough of you,’ I say in exasperation. Two days and I’ve had my fill. Snatching up my ha
ndbag, I head for the door. ‘I’m going to see Mum.’

  My dad brightens.

  ‘But not to plead your case.’ Though, of course, in reality I’m going to beg her on bended knee to take him back so that I don’t have to put up with him for a moment longer. ‘I’m going to see how she’s managing.’

  ‘Tell her I love her,’ Dad says.

  ‘You should tell her yourself.’

  ‘She won’t listen to me.’

  ‘Well, pretending that you’ve got Tourette’s syndrome certainly isn’t going to do anything to improve the situation.’

  My dad hangs his head. ‘Bloody bastard bugger,’ he says with feeling.

  Eighteen

  Mum is working at the newsagent’s shop today, so I head off there to speak to her. I decide to walk in the hope that not only will I get a bit of fresh air and exercise, but that it will give me time to calm down and put some distance between me and my darling daddy and all his foibles. I love my father dearly, but that doesn’t mean that I like him all the time.

  Also, I need to decide what I’m going to do about Evan David. I suppose I should phone to explain what has happened after my hasty departure this morning, but what can I say? ‘My father has gone completely doolally, but other than that it was all a big hoax—sorry I skipped out unnecessarily.’ I’m not sure that he’ll want me back anyway. I’ve hardly proved myself to be the most efficient personal assistant. I’ve turned down the possibility of a dinner date with him. I’ve forgotten to tell him about a meeting with the most important man in Britain. And I’ve muscled in on his singing lesson. Not what you’d call a great start. Plus, there seems hardly any point in ringing up to grovel and then ask for tomorrow off to attend the Fame Game auditions. I’d have to explain about my singing aspirations, and that would be too, too embarrassing for words. It’s a shame because I think I really would have enjoyed myself working there. If nothing else the view was great—and I’m not talking about the one out of the windows. Oh well.