by Lucy Vine
He looks at me for a second and then laughs. ‘You seriously need to chill out, Ellie. I will get to that stuff later. Or you can do it if you’re really bothered about it. I’m busy right now.’
He turns back to The Simpsons and I dig my nails into the palms of my hands. I know there is no point in screaming at him again. I swear he gets off on my anger, enjoys upsetting me. The only thing I can do is turn around and walk away.
‘And hey,’ his voice follows me out of the room. ‘Let me know if you need a pity bang to help relax you.’
I stomp upstairs to shower Gary – and Josh – off my skin.
7
5 p.m. Saturday, 9 March
Location: Dad’s heavily floral living-room (he hasn’t changed anything since Mum died). I’ve put up a few birthday banners screaming HAPPY 60TH! and a few bright yellow balloons are bouncing around the floor, but the effect is still pretty depressing. I tried to find extra decorations, but the blue balloons I found in the cupboard under the stairs must’ve been from circa 1984, because they burst in my face when I tried to blow them up.
Dad is REALLY nervous. It’s making me want to cry, but also shake him and tell him to pull himself together. When he opened the door, he was already dressed up in his best formal suit, with a glistening red tie I’ve never seen before. He’s clearly been shopping in the local Next, especially for this evening – he looks nice, but is completely overdressed for the nearby All Bar One that I’m taking him to. He’s sitting on the sofa now, poker straight and staring at the TV with the eyes of a man waiting for death. I wonder again now if I should try and get him to change, but I don’t want to make him feel even more nervous. Oh God, I’ve just noticed – he’s even put gel in his hair. Hmm. And, possibly, in his – yes definitely – in his eyebrows. The effect is disturbing. And it somehow makes him look even more like a middle-aged woman.
I stand up and he jumps, startled. ‘You look lovely,’ he tells me again as I pull uncomfortably at my pale blue dress. I don’t wear dresses often, more of a jeans person, but I wanted to make an effort for him. Except that now our combined efforts make us look like we’re going to a wedding. I head for the kitchen to fetch the M&S Colin the Caterpillar cake I’ve bought.
‘So do you,’ I shout back enthusiastically as I stick six candles into Colin and try and get the stupid fucking match to light. I laugh at Earlier Today Ellie, who had genuinely considered buying sixty candles. The Earlier Today Ellie who would now be setting the house on fire in a literal blaze of furious frustration (except no doubt the match wouldn’t light). I slowly pick Colin up, eyeing Candice’s homemade red pepper cheesecake creation sitting forlornly on the side, and head for the living-room, shouting, ‘Happy birthday!’ again, with as much jolly as I can muster.
I’ve been dreading today. Taking Dad to a cocktail bar. Taking my father, the man whose sperm I am made from, to a cocktail bar. A dad and his crotch fruit, hitting up a bar to chat up women who could potentially – y’know, fingers crossed! – replace my dead mum. I am my father’s pimp. I keep asking myself why I agreed to this. I should’ve just thrown the standard party everyone around here has when they turn sixty. The whole neighbourhood gathers to get drunk on sherry, play cards and watch a two-hour ‘set’ from Aunt Susie and Psychic Sharon in leather trousers, singing a Grease medley. I’ve had five separate, furious emails from Psychic Sharon about hosting it – she said she’d bought the extension pack for Cards Against Humanity specially for the occasion – and I kept saying no. Apparently I’m on my sixth curse this month. But why did I say no? It would’ve been much more sensible. And then the other part of me points out that it is his sixtieth goddammit, and this is what he wanted to do. He gives me so much and is such a lovely dad. He wants to try a ‘Commopolitane’ and who am I to tell him he can’t? Just because I’m still not old enough to get over the embarrassment of hanging out in public with a parent. All week long I’ve been telling people about this and asking advice. Maddie didn’t seem to think it was a big deal, she said she goes to her father’s golf club with him all the time. Sophie bravely offered to come with me, but I didn’t want Dad to feel like I needed back-up. I even told stupid Josh about it this morning when we were eating breakfast in the living-room. He couldn’t stop laughing and asking if I was that desperate for a date. He’s never met my dad, but he’s heard the stories and even seen a picture of him – at which point he said my dad was a ‘sexy older lady’ and he would ‘hit that’. After he stopped laughing, he suggested I should just get drunk really fast so I didn’t mind when Dad tried to snog girls my age in front of me. And then he did actually help me choose the dress for tonight. In fact I’d just decided maybe Cunt Josh wasn’t so bad, when I heard his bedroom door open and a furious-looking girl with bed hair stomped out and headed straight for the front door, slamming it behind her. Josh had been hanging around, chatting to me (laughing at me) for nearly two whole hours while a girl who’d stayed over waited for him in his room. And so then we had a big row about the way he treats women and he said he couldn’t understand why it was rude – he said he would’ve brought her the cup of tea ‘eventually’ – and she could’ve just gone back to sleep. Unbelievable.
Dad’s laid out his unopened cards and gifts on the table and I shove a few out the way to make room for the Colin cake. I recognise Aunt Susie and Psychic Sharon’s handwriting – and there are Jen and Milly’s cards waiting too. Dad blows out the candles and I cheer appropriately, then glance at the clock on the wall. We told Jen we’d call her at this time, and she gets really angry about tardiness (not her own, her own is fine). She answers on the first ring and I wave, holding her face up in the air so she can see the underwhelming table display and decorations.
‘Stop that, it’s making me feel seasick,’ she snaps. ‘Put me on the mantelpiece. I’ll be able to watch from up there.’
I balance her up against a racially concerning porcelain statue and unnecessarily shout, ‘Present time!’ clapping my hands. Dad surveys the table and his limited popularity proudly.
‘I’m glad my card arrived. Fucking international post,’ Jen sniffs from her position above us. I laugh, she looks happy up there – I imagine she’s enjoying literally looking down on us.
‘Don’t swear, Mommy,’ says an indignant Milly, who’s just arrived and is now peering at us through the phone. ‘Happy birthday, Grandpa. I hope you live at least another year,’ she says, very seriously.
‘Oh, hello, darling!’ he says, looking delighted. ‘I’ll open yours first, shall I?’ he says, already snaffling at the envelope.
Milly’s is handmade; a beautifully intricate drawing of Dad out at sea on a boat, waving. It’s actually very good. We used to draw together quite a lot when they lived over here. She’s really talented, much better than I was at her age. My heart sinks, I miss her.
‘That’s wonderful!’ Dad exclaims, admiring the carefully drawn, appropriately elaborate eyebrows. ‘You did that all by yourself?’
Milly nods. ‘Yes, Grandpa. I’m saving up for the real boat for your next birthday because soon you’ll be so old and we’ll need to send you off to sea to die. Mommy says we can’t afford to put you in a home.’
‘We can afford it,’ Jen interjects. ‘We just don’t want to waste the money.’
Dad tries not to laugh as he props the card up on the table and picks up Jen’s, ripping open the envelope. He reads out the card’s inscription on the front; ‘Happy birthday to a man who is like a dad to me’.
I snort. ‘That’s pretty funny,’ I direct at Jen, who narrows her eyes back at me.
‘What’s funny about it?’
‘Nothing, Jen, sorry.’
Dad seems pleased. ‘Ah thank you, love, you’re a good girl, Jenny.’
He makes his way through the rest of the bland cards – all decorated with Vaseline-lensed photographs of waterlilies (and the one outrageously sweary card from Aunt Susie, who accidentally bought a job lot of Modern Toss cards a while ago – you shou
ld’ve seen the wildly inappropriate sympathy card she gave us at Mum’s funeral). Dad makes enthusiastic noises about the various socks and books he’s been given and Milly provides a musical accompaniment to the festivities with a song about penises she learned this week in the school playground. Candice and Peter from next door have bought him a really beautiful pocket watch. That is so nice of them. Dad seems completely thrilled, admiring it from every angle and then attaching it to his jacket pocket. At the same time, his eyebrows suddenly spring out, the gel worn off, and he begins to look like the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. I suppress a giggle.
From the mantelpiece Jen tells us she’s bored, and shoots Dad a look.
‘I can’t believe you’re going to a cocktail bar,’ she sneers again. ‘You know you’re making a tit of yourself? Even Ellie’s too old to drink cocktails.’
‘I am not!’ I say, ‘I’m in my twenties!’
‘Barely,’ she snorts.
I glance over at Dad, he looks alarmed.
I want to reassure him it will be fine. Because it probably will be. We probably won’t even get a seat and after ten minutes he’ll admit he doesn’t really like the noise, or understand why the drinks are in jam jars, and then we can leave. We’ll head over to his local pub instead, where we’ll make a half pint of shandy last all evening, and try to avoid talking to Letchy Arthur who props up the bar every night. Just like Dad usually does on a Saturday evening. I could even send a last-minute group text to his friends and hopefully get a few to come down to the pub to celebrate properly with him.
‘Are you all right?’ I say softly, patting his arm.
‘Yes,’ he says, suddenly determined as he takes my hand. ‘Really, Ellie, I want to spend my birthday with my beautiful daughter and try something new. If you’re not too embarrassed by me – and I wouldn’t blame you if you were – I want to be sixty years young with just you tonight.’
I smile and reach over for a hug. ‘OK, well, is there anything about the bar itself that you’re worried about?’ I ask, but he shakes his head and smiles distractedly, fiddling with his new pocket watch.
Milly pipes up from inside the phone. ‘There are quite a few things I’m worried about,’ she says, and starts counting them off on her fingers: ‘Drowning, drowning in my own blood, global warming, being eaten by a crocodile, getting murdered by Finley at school, periods, the pill, what “virgin” means, never seeing Ellie again because her cats kill her—’
‘Oh my God,’ I interrupt, exasperated. ‘I’m a dog person! I don’t even have any cats!’
‘Not yet,’ Jen mutters.
‘Right, I think we better get going,’ I say, standing up and advancing on the phone.
‘Wait, I need to ask you about something, Ellie,’ says Milly, panic in her voice.
It cannot be about periods again, surely.
‘Ellie, there’s a school disco coming up and I’ve promised my class I’ll bring cocktails – just like you and Grandpa are having.’
Dad and I exchange an uneasy look.
‘I need you to help me make them. I’ve got fruit juice and lots of ice, but what else do I need? I asked Mrs Andrews at school and she said they’d have to be virgin, so where can I get virgins? What does virgin mean? I asked everyone in my class and they didn’t know either. I told them to ask their parents and get back to me but then no one would talk to me the next day because they were all grounded.’
‘You know what, Mill?’ I say, smiling at Jen, who is ignoring the exchange as she examines her cuticles. ‘Your mum can talk you through all of this.’
She looks up. ‘What?’
‘Bye everyone!’ I shout, and stand up.
‘That outfit really got away from you, didn’t it?’ Jen observes darkly as I press the button and end the call.
In the taxi, I cringe again at the prospect of spending my Saturday night with my dad in an All Bar One. But at least things are looking up on the work front. After my disastrous interview, Elizabeth called and apologised. Said she hadn’t realised it would be so formal. She said she’d been looking through my work though and loved it. And then we had a proper chat. We talked about artists we love, our favourite pieces, what we would buy if we had unlimited money, how neither of us are particular fans of the ‘modern’ installation pieces you see so much of nowadays. It was pretentious as fuck but I loved it. I have never felt smarter in my life. I finally felt like I knew what I was talking about – for probably the first time ever – and I came away from the call feeling so inspired. It’ll be a while yet before anything happens – Elizabeth’s still looking around for investors – but I feel so much more hopeful about my life. I’ve even started painting properly again. It’s much tougher work in the cramped blank-walled confines of TS, and I might be getting brain damage from the fumes in my room – slash hypothermia from having my window wide open at all times – but it’s such a nice feeling to be back at my canvas. My latest portrait is of Milly. A big, bright, shining painting of her face, contorted with fury, from a photo I took when I last saw her in real life. The eyes worked almost immediately, the brightness and the intelligence – it was easy to capture – but her nose is proving challenging. It’s such an angry little protrusion. Either way, I think it’s some of the best work I’ve done in a long time. I even let Josh have a look – and I never let anyone see my work half done – and he seemed genuinely impressed. The fumes must have got to him too because he didn’t even make a snarky comment.
As we pull up in town, I think again how astonishing it is that Dad’s nearby town actually has a cocktail bar. There’s so little here – the Next, the old Woolworths that turned into a Pound Shop but everyone still refers to as Woolworths, Psychic Sharon’s candle shop that sells candles from the Pound Shop but substantially marked up in price because she’s ‘blessed’ them, and that’s basically it. Last year everyone went nuts over a rumour that a Nando’s was opening up a branch in town. It was in all the local papers and the mayor made an announcement welcoming the news. For literally two or three months, it was all anyone was talking about. It didn’t turn out to be true, but still, it was a pretty exciting time to be a resident of Judfield. So the fact that they have a legitimate cocktail bar here, just down the alley by Pound-Shop-Woolworths, is fairly amazing.
But that amazingness also means it’s always dead busy, as the local teenagers flock there in an attempt to escape the grandparents they’re staying with for half term. I’m aware of its popularity and I thought about ringing ahead to book a booth, or even try to get Dad and me on the guest list. But then I was worried they’d ask for our ages. I’m sure they couldn’t actually have an upper age limit on patrons – that’s probably age-discrimination, right? – but I can’t imagine they’re desperate to welcome in the local sixty-year-olds. Or even the local thirty-year-olds. I assume they just rely on old people preferring bingo and Antiques Roadshow (TBF, Dad loves both those things) to dark rooms and sticky floors filled with teen strangers groping each other.
I’ve made us get here super early – it’s only six forty-five – partly in the hope that the place will still be fairly empty, and partly because I thought I could swoop Dad in without anyone noticing and hide us both in a dark corner. But as we approach, I can see that plan was idiotic. There’s already a long queue, snaking down the alleyway, and two bouncers are prowling up and down, snarling at terrified teenagers who are quietly practising their fake year of birth and star sign. Dad grips my arm with terror as a couple of sixteen-year-olds give us a funny look. I square my chin at them, meeting their eyes defiantly as I take my dad and we join the back of the queue.
It’s not moving.
OK, maybe this is the answer to my problem. If we can’t even get in, problem/potential mortification solved. If we can’t get in the door, we don’t have to see anyone. I glance at Dad and feel bad. He looks so anxious, his eyebrows – now free from the gel constraints – are throbbing with anticipation and panic.
Shit, one of th
e bouncers has spotted us. He’s glaring over at the pair of elderly oddballs at the back of the queue, and he looks furious. They’re never going to let us in. This could be very humiliating. The bouncers confer, one of them – at least 17ft tall with dark eyes – is gesturing angrily in our direction.
Oh no, here he comes. Dad looks like he might cry as the angry giant beckons us to come over, out of the queue. Everyone’s staring. God, we’re actually being asked to leave. I’m being thrown out of a club I hadn’t even managed to get into yet. And not for fighting or excessively boozy reasons – AKA cool stuff – but because I’m out with my dad. This is a whole other level of mortification.
‘You two want to come in here?’ the giant is shouting, threatening violence with those dark eyes.
I tremble as Dad whispers, ‘Yes please, sir,’ adding quickly, ‘It’s my birthday. My daughter and I wanted to try our first Commopolitane cocktail.’
‘Cosmopolitan,’ I mutter petulantly, avoiding eye contact. ‘And I’ve already tried one.’
There’s a long, angry pause, and then the violent-eyed giant breaks into a terrifying grin. ‘Of course! Come right in, mate. Just didn’t want you standing out here in the cold if you were coming in. Happy birthday – that is a lovely suit you’re wearing. Is that tie from Next? My wife got me the blue one. Nice to have a couple of people in here with some CLASS.’ He shouts the last word and a few of the classless people in the queue look a bit miffed. Even more so as the giant leads us past them, straight in and up to the bar.
‘Get out of the way,’ he growls at two terrified students sitting there. They make a run for it and the BFG gestures for us to sit. ‘You want to try Cosmos, right? Two?’ He waves a buxom barmaid over. ‘Liza? Two Cosmos for these two please – on me – can you believe they’ve never tried them before?’ He laughs, and looks at me pityingly for my sad, sheltered life.
