The Other Side of the Story

by Marian Keyes

  Muttering something about know-nothing fuck-wits, he stomped off.

  Over in Miranda’s queue, the party atmosphere had gone up several degrees and someone had opened a bottle of champagne. Glasses appeared from nowhere and clinking noises filled the air. But, like split-screen reality, on my wasteland side of the shop a cold wind whistled, a ball of tumbleweed lumbered by, then a funereal bell clanged. Well, that’s what it felt like.

  Flash bulbs were filling Miranda’s airspace with silvery light. One of the coach parties was having a group shot done, two layers of giddy, giggly girls, the front row crouching down like for a team photo.

  Then I got noticed! Three of the coach party lot, their heads together, stood right in front of me and studied me like I was an animal in the zoo. ‘Who is she?’

  One of them read my sign. ‘Lily someone. I think she’s written a book too.’

  I smiled in what I hoped was an inviting fashion but as soon as they realized I was animate they recoiled.

  Anton stepped into the breach. ‘This is the new author Lily Wright and this is her fabulous new book.’

  He distributed Mimi’s Remedies amongst them to have a look at.

  ‘An–ton.’ I was mortified.

  ‘What do you think?’ The girls inquired of each other, as if I were deaf.

  ‘Nah.’ They decided. ‘Nah.’ Then they moved towards the door squealing, ‘I can’t believe I just met Miranda England!’

  Anton and I exchanged sickly smiles. Over on Miranda’s side, they appeared to be doing the conga.

  Then an elderly lady approached me. After my previous knockback, I was a little less quick off the mark to press a Mimi’s Remedies into her hand. And I was right…

  ‘Can you point me towards arts and crafts, dear.’ There was something funny with her teeth, they appeared to be moving up and down inside her mouth. Dentures. Possibly someone else’s.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t work here.’

  ‘What are you doing sitting here then? Confusing people?’ It was hard to concentrate on what she was saying because her teeth seemed to have a life of their own, it was like watching a badly dubbed film.

  I explained.

  ‘So you’re a writer?’ A gottle of geer. ’ That’s marvellous.’

  ‘Is it?’ I was beginning to doubt it.

  ‘Yes, dear, my granddaughter is a marvellous little scribbler and she wants to get published. Give me your address, I’ll send you Hannah’s stories, you can tidy them up, give them to your publisher and get them published.’

  ‘Yes, but, they may not –’

  I stopped. Like it was happening in slow motion, she was picking up a Mimi’s Remedies and tearing a large piece off the back cover. I turned to Anton who looked as stricken as I felt. Then Gottle of Geer gave it to me with a pen. ‘Full postcode, if you don’t mind.’

  Anton stepped in. ‘Perhaps you’d like to buy Lily’s book.’

  Gottle pruned up at his impertinence. ‘I’m on a pension, young man. Now give me that address and let me find the tapestry books.’

  Anton stared bitterly after her. ‘Mad old cow. Here, hide the torn one at the bottom of the pile, otherwise they’ll make us pay for it. And then let’s just go home.’

  ‘No.’ I would have stayed there for ever, even if the room had filled with a swarm of killer bees and I somehow found myself covered in honey. Anton had done this for me and I would not be ungrateful.

  ‘Baby, you don’t have to stay to make me feel better,’ he said. ‘I’ll just tell Otalie we’re leaving.’

  Even Anton was all out of optimism. Things must be bad.

  Otalie came over. ‘Just sign these copies of Mimi’s Remedies and then you can be off. Once they’re signed, the shop can’t return them to us.’

  I started into the modest pile but Ernest, crawling around on the floor, nuzzling and licking Miranda’s shoes, saw me. He clambered to his feet and came racing over. ‘Enough! Don’t sign any more! We’ll never shift them!’

  We left them, drinking champagne, Miranda signing piles of books that stretched up like biblical towers into the sky.

  41

  By the end of January it was all over; a total non-event. Basically nothing happened and after the tensest month of my life I realized that nothing would. I was a published author and aside from a tiny, blink-and-you’d-miss-it review in the Irish Times it meant nothing. My life was exactly as it had been and now I had to get used to it.

  I tried to cheer myself up by thinking, I lost all my limbs in a bizarre meat-slicing accident, my sister and her boyfriend have been kidnapped by terrorists in Chechnya (even though they’re in Argentina), and my child’s head is abnormally, embarrassingly large.

  This is a technique I employ when I am terribly unhappy: momentarily I pretend that a terrible catastrophe has occurred so that I can say, ‘Before this terrible thing happened I was outrageously fortunate and never realized it. I would give all I possess to turn the clock back.’ The idea is that what was once only boring normality now assumes the lustre of Utopia. Then I remind myself that the catastrophe did not actually happen, that I have been nowhere near a meat-slicing machine, and that my life is a glorious, disaster-free Utopia. That usually makes me grateful for what I have.

  I remained flattened by anti-climax and when my dad rang a few days later, I found it hard to be animated. Not that it mattered, he had enough animation for ten people.

  ‘Lily, love!’ he exclaimed. ‘Got some good news for you. A friend of Debs, Shirley – you know her, tall skinny bird – read your Mimi’s Remedies book and thought it was genius. Came over here to the house, going on about it.’ His voice dropped low with emphasis. ‘Didn’t even know you were my daughter, never made the connection. Her book club is going to read it and when she found out I’m your dad, she went a bit mental, know what I’m saying? She wants signed copies.’

  ‘Well, er, great, Dad. Thank you.’ Isolated incident though this was, it cheered me a little.

  I did not need to ask why it was he who was brokering this and not Debs: it would have killed Debs to be nice to me – we didn’t call her ‘Dreadful Debs’ for nothing.

  ‘I’ve six books for you to sign, when can I drop them over?’

  ‘Any time you like, Dad. I’m going nowhere.’

  He picked up on my tone. ‘Cheer up now, girl,’ he said gleefully. ‘This is only the beginning.’

  I had once read a newspaper article which described the actor Bob Hoskins as ‘a testicle on legs’ and that struck a chord: Dad was a little like that. He was short, barrel-chested and swaggery, a working-class boy made good. Then bad. Then, eventually, good again.

  My mum – a ‘beauty’ – had married beneath her. Those were her exact (if jokey) words. She had hooked up with Dad because he had said to her, ‘Stick with me, doll. We’re going places.’ Those were his exact words, and he was true to his promise. They went from modest Hounslow West to detached Guildford splendour to a two-bedroomed flat over a kebab shop in Kentish Town.

  (All this has left me with an aversion to house-moving. If the roof fell in on top of me, I would prefer to do a repair job with black bags and masking tape than move.)

  Having an entrepreneurial father sounds like a seriously good idea. They make a lot of money very quickly and move their wife and two daughters into a lead-paned-windowed, five-bedroomed house in Surrey. But what you hear about less often is those risk-takers who go too far, who lever everything including the family home, in the expectation of making yet another killing and exponentially increasing their already huge wealth.

  The financial pages display great admiration for those men (and it appears always to be men) who ‘make a million, lose a million and make another’, But what if that man is your father?

  One day I was going to school in a Bentley, then in a white van, then I wasn’t going to that school at all. There was Pony Club, then no ponies, and when the ponies were once again on offer, I did not accept them. I could n
ot trust that they wouldn’t be taken away again at a moment’s notice.

  But I adored my father. He was ever optimistic and nothing kept him down for long.

  The day we had had to leave the house in Guildford, he cried like a child, his stubby fingers over his tear-drenched face. ‘My beautiful five-bed, three-bath house.’

  My little sister Jessie and I had to comfort him. ‘It’s not so beautiful,’ I said.

  ‘And the neighbours hated us,’ Jessie chimed in.

  ‘Yeah,’ Dad sniffed, accepting a tissue from Jessie. ‘Naffing stockbrokers.’

  By the time, five minutes later, he got into the van, he had convinced himself that he was better off out of it.

  I think it was the constant financial insecurity that drove Mum to eventually divorce him but I know they had once loved each other a lot. Affectionately they used to speak about themselves as a third-person unit: ‘Davey’n’Carol’. She called him ‘my rough diamond’ and he called her ‘my posh bird’.

  I have never fully come to terms with my parents’ divorce. A little pocket of resistance in me is still holding out for a reunion. Mum made Dad leave twice, then took him back before she finally called it a day; even though they divorced eighteen years ago, it still feels temporary.

  But when Dad met Viv the chances of my parents reuniting receded out of sight.

  Viv was nothing like Mum. Mum was not genuinely posh, she was a doctor’s daughter, but compared to Viv she was a member of the landed gentry.

  Dad met Viv at a dog track, saw her in secret for months then, when he decided he wanted to marry her, sat Jessie and me down and broke the news.

  ‘She’s got a good heart,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s like me.’

  ‘Common, do you mean?’ Jessie asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Oh goodie.’

  Dad was terrified that Jessie and I would hate Viv and who could blame him? Not only was Viv the wicked stepmother but I was sixteen and Jessie fourteen – walking balls of teenage broken-home emotions. We hated even those we loved, so what chance did an interloper like Viv stand?

  But Viv was a sweetie: warm, squashy and welcoming.

  The first time Dad took Jessie and me to her small, cigarette smoke-filled house, a car engine was oozing oil on the kitchen table and one of her two teenage sons – Baz or Jez – was cleaning under his nails with a long serrated kitchen knife.

  ‘Ooh, we’re scared,’ Jessie scorned.

  Baz – or Jez – gave her a dark brooding look and Jessie pretended to stumble, jogging his arm and plunging the knife into his finger.

  ‘Ow!’ Baz or Jez yelped, shaking his hand in pain. ‘Christ! You stupid cow.’

  Highly entertained, Jessie peeked up from under her too-long fringe and smirked. There was a tense moment when I thought that perhaps he might kill her, then he also began to laugh and after that we were mates. We were their posh, blonde stepsisters and they hovered about us, protective and proud. We, on the other hand, hoped that Baz and Jez were criminals but, to our bitter disappointment, discovered that they were all show. ‘So you’e never been in prison?’ Jessie asked in distress. Baz shook his head.

  ‘Not even a young offenders’ place?’

  Jez looked like he was going to say yes, then changed his mind and admitted the truth. No, no young offenders’ place either.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said.

  ‘But we’ve been in plenty of rumbles,’ Jez offered anxiously. ‘We have scars.’ He was rolling up his sleeve.

  ‘And tattoos,’ Baz said.

  But Jessie and I tossed our posh blonde heads. Not good enough.

  Jessie and I lived with Mum in Kentish Town but spent most weekends in Viv’s place. Life with divorced parents was not perfect but certainly not as bad as I had expected. In retrospect that was down to Viv’s warmth and my stepbrothers’ kindness.

  Jessie dealt with the divorce a lot better than I did. Cheerfully she pointed out the many advantages of being from ‘a broken home’.

  ‘We can be as naughty as we like and everyone must be kind to us. And think of the gifts! In the right hands, this divorce lark could be very… what’s the word?’

  ‘Lucrative.’

  ‘Does that mean we get heaps of stuff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lucrative, then.’

  Mum tried to be grown-up and impartial about Dad’s new wife, but most Sunday nights when we returned home she could not help asking, ‘How are the Pearly King and Queen?’

  ‘Well. They send their love.’

  ‘Have you had supper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What? Jellied eels and mash?’

  ‘Fish-fingers and chips.’

  Three years after they got married, Dad and Viv had a son, Bobby, the Pearly Prince. Named for Bobby Moore, West Ham’s hero.

  Jealousy sickened me: Dad would not have any time for me now that he had a son.

  I was determined not to visit baby Bobby and held out for sixteen days. Only when Mum told me off did I cave in.

  ‘Grow up, darling. Everyone loves you, but they’re quite cross that you haven’t been to see your little half-brother. Like it or not, he’s your family, and hell, if I can visit him, I’m quite sure you can.’

  With bad grace I bought a cuddly hippo and, accompanied by Jessie, caught the train to Dagenham. Jessie geed me up with stories of Bobby’s enormous sweetness, none of which I believed. Until I saw him. Tentatively I cradled his miniature body in the crook of my arm, then he smiled at me – perhaps it was only wind contorting his face but it so did not matter – and he grabbed my hair with his shrimp fingers. How could anyone be jealous of this little darling?

  Shortly after the birth of the Pearly Prince, Mum met Peter and more change was afoot: Mum was going to live in Ireland. This sent me into another tailspin. My family were scattering to the four corners of the earth and I needed to hold on to them.

  There was no space for me to live at Dad’s; the room that Jessie and I stayed in had been turned into Bobby’s. I begged Mum to let Jessie and me come with her to Ireland and although Mum was agreeable, Jessie was not. She liked London and planned to remain there. When she broke the news to me, I responded in my usual fashion by sicking up my supper.

  It was preposterous: Jessie was eighteen and I was twenty but I felt as if we were being sent to different orphanages. I cried buckets the day I went to Dublin.

  Not just the sadness of leaving Jessie behind but because Peter had a daughter, Susan, who was six months older than me. I expected she would resent my arrival and behave like a perfect bitch – but on the contrary. What exercised her most was whether we were half-sisters or stepsisters and she was pleased to find that as soon as Peter and Mum married we would be stepsisters. ‘I know it’s different in London,’ she said, ‘but here, having a stepsister is quite glamorous.’

  Susan’s best friend was called Gemma Hogan and we defied expectation by becoming a tight little unit. For a number of years my family situation was fine; perhaps a little too like a French film where everyone seems to have slept with everyone else. However we all got along.

  But nothing stays the same for ever.

  Nine years after marrying Viv, Dad met Debs and for some unfathomable reason, fell for her; perhaps Cupid was playing an April Fool.

  Debs had been abandoned by her husband, leaving her with two young children and Dad decided to rescue her. He left lovely Viv with the big heart for loathsome Debs.

  Everyone expected that he was simply having a temporary fit of insanity but as soon as his divorce from Viv came through, he married Debs. I had acquired two more step-siblings, Joshua and Hattie. Then Debs fell pregnant and gave birth to a little girl, Poppy. Another half-sibling.

  After I met Anton I had to draw a chart to explain it all to him.

  Family Tree

  42

  Then one Monday morning in early February, Otalie phoned.

 
; ‘There’s a fantastic review of Mimi’s Remedies in this week’s Flash!.’

  ‘What’s Flash!?’ Anton asked. He hadn’t left for work yet.

  ‘A kind of celeb magazine.’

  ‘I’ll get it!’ He was already halfway down the stairs.

  SCREAMING MIMI’S

  Mimi’s Remedies by Lily Wright Dalkin Emery 298pp £6.99

  Jonesin’? Bum too big? Tattoo gone septic? Then Doctor Flash! recommends that you sling on your jimmy Choos, get down to your nearest bookstore and treat yourself to Mimi’s Remedies. We know you girls are too busy out caning it to have time to read books but this one’s worth it, honest guv’nor. Witty, cheery and sweet as Kylie, it’ll have you rolling in the aisles.

  Best Bit: The married couple at each other’s throats – screamingly funny. Mimi’s Remedies puts the FUN back into dysfunctional!

  Worst Bit: Finishing it! This book is as yummy as an entire bucket of Miniature Heroes – without any of the guilt. Go girl! Flash! Promise: You’ll laugh out loud or I’ll eat my Philip Tracey.

  ‘They’ve given you four and a half stilettos,’ Anton read, in wonder. ‘The maximum number you can get is five. This is a fantastic review.’

  It was. Even though it had never been my intention to put the fun back into dysfunctional, but never mind.

  Then Jojo phoned. ‘Great news!’ she said. ‘Dalkin Emery are reprinting Mimi’s Remedies.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘The first print run’s sold out and they expect to sell more.’

  ‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’ I stammered.

  ‘Yeah, it’s real good.’

  I rang Anton and relayed the news. He responded with silence.

  ‘What?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘Is it just me?’ he croaked. ‘Or is something happening here?’

  About a week later Jojo phoned again.

  ‘You’re not gonna believe this!’

  ‘I’m not?’

  ‘They’re reprinting.’

  ‘I know, you told me.’