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Most days she felt about a hundred. “I need to work now. I have a test tomorrow.”
Her mother stood up and wrapped her arms around Audrey. “I love you. I’m proud of you. I probably don’t tell you that enough.”
Audrey sat so stiffly she wondered if a spine could snap. The fumes from her mother’s perfume almost choked her.
Part of her wanted to sink into her mother’s arms and let her take the worry for once, but she knew better than to lower her guard. Within minutes her mother could be screaming at her, throwing things and saying mean words.
Audrey had never understood why mean words sounded louder than kind ones.
“You’re very tense.” Her mother released her. “Would a drink help relax you?”
“No thanks.” She knew her mother wouldn’t be offering a cup of tea.
“I opened a bottle of wine. I could spare you a glass.”
Wine explained the glittering eyes and the brittle mood. It also explained the perfume. “Have you eaten?”
“What? No.” Linda smoothed the dress over her hips. “I don’t want to get fat. What are you studying?”
Audrey blinked.
Her mother had never shown the slightest interest in what Audrey did with her life. At the open evening at school when they’d been invited in to discuss subject choices and university, Audrey had been the only student attending alone. As usual, she’d lied and said her mother was working. It sounded so much better than admitting that her mother couldn’t be bothered and that the only time her father had been present in her life had been during her conception. She lied so much about her life that sometimes she forgot the truth herself.
She cleared her throat. “Organic chemistry.” And she was going to fail. She’d picked sciences so that she could avoid essays and reading, but there was still a ton of reading and writing. After this she was never studying anything ever again.
“I think this fad for everything organic is nonsense.” Her mother checked her reflection in the mirror on Audrey’s desk. “It’s just an excuse for the supermarkets to charge more.”
Audrey sat with slumped shoulders, swamped in misery as she stared at her laptop screen. Go away. Just go away! She sometimes found it hard to believe she and her mother were related. Most days she felt as if she’d been dropped by a stork into the wrong house.
“Mum—”
“You’ve always been a slow learner, Audrey. You just have to accept that. But look on the bright side—you’re pretty, and you have big—” her mother thrust her hands under her breasts to make her point “—get yourself a male boss and they’ll never notice that you can’t spell.”
Audrey imagined the interview.
What do you consider to be your best qualities?
They’re both attached to the front of my chest.
Not in her lifetime.
If a work colleague ever touched her boobs Audrey would break his arm.
“Mum—”
“I’m not saying that college isn’t fun, but everyone gets a degree these days. It’s nothing special. You pay a fortune for something that in the end means nothing. Life experience, that’s what matters.”
Audrey took a breath. “Wear the green dress.”
She was exhausted. She wasn’t sleeping. Her schoolwork was suffering.
Her friend Meena had helped her make a spreadsheet with all her exams on it. Then they’d set alerts on Audrey’s phone, because she was terrified of misreading the spreadsheet and getting her timing wrong. They’d printed out an enlarged version and stuck it on her wall because every since the day her mother had drunk a bottle of whiskey and decided it would be a good idea to throw the computer in the trash, Audrey no longer dared risk storing things on her laptop.
You teenagers spend too long on screens.
On the calendar above her desk were crosses where Audrey marked the end of each day. Each cross took her closer to the day when she could leave school and home.
Her mother was still hovering. “You don’t think Ron would prefer the pink? It shows a little hint of lingerie, and that’s always good.”
“It isn’t good! It looks like you forgot to get dressed! It’s called underwear for a reason. It’s supposed to be worn under clothes.” Bursting with exasperation, Audrey finally glanced away from the screen. Her mother’s hair was wild from pulling dresses on and off. “Wear the dress you prefer. You can’t live your life constantly trying to please another person.” She couldn’t for a moment imagine asking a man what she should wear. She wore what she liked. Her friends wore what they liked. It was a roundabout of trying to fit in and trying to be different.
Linda’s lip trembled. “I want him to think I’m pretty.”
Audrey wanted Ron to think her mother was pretty, too. Audrey wanted Ron to take care of her mother, so she didn’t have to.
“Green,” she said. “Definitely green.”
None of the men her mother had dated had stuck around as long as Ron.
Audrey liked Ron. His favorite response to everything was As long as no one is dead, it will be fine. Audrey wished she could believe it. “Stop drinking. Sober is sexy. Drunk isn’t.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve had a drink, yes, but I’m not drunk.”
Audrey paused, her heart pounding. “You drink a lot, Mum. Too much.” And her biggest dread was that Ron would grow tired of it. “Maybe you should talk to the doctor, or—”
“Why would I talk to a doctor?”
“Because you have a problem.”
“You’re the one with the problem, but I can’t reason with you when you’re in this mood.” Her mother flounced out of the room, slamming the door.
Audrey stared at the door, feeling sick. This was why she rarely brought the subject up. How could her mother think she didn’t have a problem? Someone in this house was crazy and Audrey was starting to think it must be her.
And now her mother was upset. What if she went off the deep end and she drank everything in the house? From time to time Audrey went through the place, room by room, hunting down hidden bottles. She hadn’t done it in a while.
Stressed, she grabbed a chocolate bar from the stash she kept hidden behind her textbooks.
She tried to get back to work but she couldn’t concentrate. Giving up, she left her room and stood listening.
She heard sounds of her mother crying noisily in the bathroom.
Crap. She knocked on the door. “Mum?”
The crying grew louder. Anxiety balled in Audrey’s stomach. It felt as if she’d swallowed a stone. “Mum?”
She tried the handle and the door opened. Her mother was sitting on the floor leaning against the bath, a bottle of wine in her hand.
“I’m a bad mother. A terrible mother.”
“Oh, Mum.” Audrey’s insides churned. She felt exasperated, anxious and a little desperate. Most of all she felt helpless and scared. She didn’t know how to deal with this. Once, in a state of desperation, she’d called a help line for children of alcoholic parents but she’d lost her nerve and hung up without speaking to anyone. She didn’t want to talk about it. She couldn’t talk about it. It would be disloyal. Despite everything, she loved her mum.
She wasn’t alone, but she felt alone.
Her mother looked at her, mascara smudged under her eyes. “I do love you, Audrey. Do you love me?”
“Of course.” Despite her dry mouth, she managed to say the words. It was a routine that happened often. Her mother drank, told Audrey she loved her, sobered up and forgot all about it.
Audrey had given up hoping that one day her mother might say those words when she was sober.
“Give me the bottle, Mum.” She eased it out of her mother’s hand.
“What are you doing with that?”
Audrey poured it down the sink before she could change her mind, bracing her shoulders against her mother’s distressed wail.
“I can’t believe you did that! I was having one drink, that’s all, to give me confidence for tonight. What did I do to deserve a daughter like you?” She started sobbing again, apparently forgetting that a moment before she’d loved Audrey. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to lose Ron. I’m no good on my own.”
“Of course you are.” Audrey put the empty bottle down on the floor. “You have a good job.” Which she was afraid her mother might lose if she didn’t sober up.
What would happen then? Did Ron know her mother was an alcoholic? Would he walk out once he found out?
She clung to the idea that he wouldn’t. Hope, she’d discovered, was the light that guided you through dark places. You had to believe there was something better ahead.
Audrey grabbed a packet of wipes and gently erased the streaked mascara. “You have pretty eyes.”
Her mother gave a tremulous smile, her earlier nastiness no longer in evidence. “You think so?”
The vulnerability made Audrey queasy. Most of the time she was the adult, and the responsibility terrified her. She didn’t feel qualified for the role. “Definitely. People wear contact lenses to get this shade of green.”
Linda touched Audrey’s hair. “I hated having red hair when I was your age. I was teased all the time. I wanted to be blonde. You don’t get teased?”
“Sometimes.” Audrey reapplied her mother’s makeup, her approach subtler than Linda’s.
“How do you handle it?”
“I can take care of myself.” Audrey styled her mother’s hair and stood back and admired her handiwork. “There. You look good.”
“You’re so much stronger than I was.”
“You’re strong, too. You’ve just forgotten it.” And if you stopped drinking it would help.
She didn’t say it again. Her mother was calm now, and Audrey didn’t want to do or say anything that might change that. They lived on a knife edge. One slip, and they’d all be cut.
Her mother studied herself in the mirror, touching her cheekbones with the tips of her fingers. “You’d better get back to studying. Thanks for your help.”
It was as if the emotional explosion had never happened.
Audrey returned to her bedroom and closed the door.
She wanted to cry, but she knew that if she cried she’d get a headache and then she’d fail her test. If she failed her test, she might fail her exams and she hadn’t come this far to fall at the last fence. A few more months and she’d never have to study again.
Half an hour later a deep rumble of laughter announced that Ron had returned home.
Audrey covered her ears with her headphones, turned up the volume on pounding rock music and drowned out whatever was going on in the room above her.
Only when she glanced out of the window and saw her mother and Ron heading out of the house together, hand in hand, did she finally relax.
Don’t blow it, Mum.
When she was sure the coast was clear and that her mother wasn’t about to return for a bag, a coat or any other number of things, she ventured downstairs.
She could hear a dog barking in the street outside, and one of her neighbors shouting at another. She didn’t know them. It wasn’t that kind of street. In this particular London suburb, people came and went and never spoke to their neighbors. You could die, and no one would know. It was one of the cheaper areas of the city, which basically meant you paid twice what you would anywhere else in the country and got half as much for your money.
Rain was sheeting down, obscuring the view from the window.
Hardy, their rescue dog, was curled up in the warmth of the kitchen but when he saw Audrey he greeted her like a long-lost friend.
Audrey dropped to her knees and hugged him. “You are the only thing about this place I’m going to miss. You’re my best friend, and I wish I could take you with me when I go.” She giggled as he licked her face. “I hope she gets out of bed long enough to feed you when I’m gone. If not, scratch at the door. Or bite Ron on the ankles.” She stood up. “Food?”
Hardy wagged his tail.
She put food into his bowl, freshened his water and was wondering what to eat herself when her phone buzzed. It was Meena, asking if she could come over so they could study together.
Audrey and Meena had both moved to the school two years earlier, at an age when everyone else was already in groups and cliques.
Their friendship was one of the best things about the place for Audrey.
Given that she was likely to have the house to herself for hours, Audrey messaged back a yes. She would never, ever have contemplated having a friend around when her mother was home, but she occasionally invited Meena, provided the house was empty. Her parents were both doctors and Meena had the kind of stable home life Audrey could only dream of. She had uncles, aunts and cousins and Audrey wanted to implant herself in her family.
She checked the fridge.
It was empty apart from two bottles of wine.
She’d asked her mother to buy milk and cheese, but instead she’d eaten the few things Audrey had stocked up on the day before.
Tired, Audrey grabbed the open bottle of wine and tipped it down the sink. It was like trying to bail out a sinking ship with an eggcup, but still she couldn’t help trying to fix the situation.
There was no time for her to shop, so she headed for the freezer. Fortunately the frozen pizzas she’d bought the day before were still there. She threw them in the oven and retrieved a packet of chocolate biscuits she’d hidden for emergencies.
The moment she answered the door to her friend, she knew something was wrong. “What?”
“Nothing.” Meena pushed past her into the house. “Close the door fast.”
“Why?” Audrey peered out into the street and saw two girls leaning against a wall. She recognized them immediately. They were in her year at school. “What do those hyenas want?”
“My carcass. For dinner. Close the door, Aud!”
“They followed you again?” Audrey felt something hot and uncontrollable burn inside her. “What did they say?”
