Lottie Biggs is Not Tragic

But then again, belief in something as abstract as God conflicts with my basic philosophical principles. I asked my RE teacher, Mr Davies, about this only today and he actually gave me a helpful answer. I said, ‘How can I believe in God when the only thing I can be absolutely certain of is my own existence?’

Mr Davies looked a bit surprised because he’d just been telling me to put my pickled onion crisps away and he pushed his glasses up his nose so that he could see me better. Then he rubbed his beard and said, ‘Why do you say that?’

I said, ‘René Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, believed that we should question everything except the unquestionable. And the only unquestionable factor in all of this is that we are asking questions. And therefore we have a brain. And therefore we exist.’ I sat back in my chair and felt a crisp crunch underneath me, and then added, ‘But how do we know that God does?’

While I was saying all of this, I’d become aware that all of the other kids in my class were staring at me as if they’d just overheard me chatting in fluent French with the great philosopher himself. It made me smirk. I couldn’t help it. I was feeling as tasty as a chocolate bar, to be honest.

Putting his two index fingers to his pursed lips, Mr Davies looked at me thoughtfully and then he said, ‘I’m an RE man by trade, Lottie, so I tend to side with the more spiritual philosophers. Have you ever heard of Sir Francis Bacon?’

Mr Davies scratched his ear and said, ‘A very interesting man. Very. And a very clever man. Some people actually believe that it was Bacon who wrote the plays we associate today with the name of William Shakespeare. Yes they do. Hmmm? But the reason I’m bringing Bacon to the ideas table now, Lottie, is because he once said, If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.’ And then Mr Davies put his index fingers back on his lips, nodded his head vigorously and said, ‘Think about that! Hmmm? Think about that!’

I thought about it but I didn’t get it. To be honest, I was still trying to work out where the ideas table was. I rubbed my chin, pursed my lips and scratched my ear and finally said, ‘So?’

Mr Davies pointed at me and, in a hushed voice, he said, ‘You . . . are . . . unique! Think about that, Lottie. Hmmm? Hmmm? There is nobody else quite like you on this entire planet.’ And then he looked around at the rest of the class and said, ‘Every . . . single . . . one of you . . . is a totally . . . individual . . . and extraordinary . . . creation. Hmmm? Can we really be certain that God doesn’t exist? Can we? Hmmm? Could anything as mundane and ordinary as mortal man really be solely responsible for populating the world with six . . . billion . . . walking . . . works . . . of art? Hmmm? Hmmm?’

Beca Bowen, who sits at the back of the class deliberately close to where there is a plug socket, put down her hair-straighteners and said, ‘Yeah but, Davo, there’s still no hard evidence, is there?’

Mr Davies shrugged and waggled his hands in the air and said, ‘True, true . . . There will always be doubts. And I admit that a certain leap of faith is needed on this one but, then again, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, is there? Hmmm? The world would be a very dull place otherwise, don’t you think?’

And then he turned back to me and added, ‘And what do you think, Lottie? Surely the fact that you exist is proof positive of some superior being, isn’t it? Hmmm?’

I was a bit embarrassed then so I did my very best attempt to impersonate Shrek and grunted, ‘How the hicketty-heck should I know?’ Secretly though, I was dead chuffed. Whichever way you look at it, Mr Davies had definitely paid me a very nice compliment. I’d never thought of myself as a walking work of art before.

And then Mr Davies carried on with the lesson and in it he talked about people who’d had near-death experiences and who had claimed to have seen bright white lights and dead relatives and their whole lives flashing in front of them at super high speeds, and then he made us write a list of the ten best moments we’d each experienced in our own lives and I chose the time that I got an A* for my English coursework and the time Goose and me just sat thinking in my wardrobe and the time in the summer when Gareth asked me to go out with him and, after that, I got stuck because I couldn’t actually think of any more. And then he asked us to think of a time that stuck out in our minds for all the wrong reasons and that was really easy because I’ve just lived through one of the worst weekends of my life. And the ironic thing is that it all started at the Hippo Eater Happy Pub.

The Hippo Eater Happy Pubis agigantic bar and restaurant tucked neatly under the flyover on the very southern edge of Whitchurch village. No matter what the time of day or which day of the week it is, it’s always incredibly busy and sometimes, when the population of Northern Cardiff is particularly hungry, the queue of people waiting for a table stretches right through the double front doors and spills out on to the big gravel car park. It was just like this on Saturday when my mum and I swung into one of the few remaining parking spots. There was no need for us to queue though because my mum had planned ahead and booked a table. Thinking back on it, I should have realized that this was the first telltale sign that my mum was not being spontaneous at all and was definitely and deliberately and deviously up to something.

I love the Hippo Eater Happy Pub. For a start, it’s one of the few pubs that I’ve ever been in. Even though I’m in Year 11 – and am therefore easily old enough to be an under-age drinker – my experience of alcohol-vending establishments is pretty much limited to sipping soft drinks through a straw in the occasional fun-pub family area with my mum or dad. The truth is, that unlike some of the people in my year at school, I’d never dare to try and pass myself off as an eighteen-year-old because I’m really obviously only fifteen. And, unfortunately, from a certain angle in a certain light, I can tend to look about twelve. It’s not particularly a problem though because I don’t actually like alcohol. I tried some lager at a party once and it tasted so rancid that I’d seriously rather lick my own armpit.

But I do like pubs. I like the fact that they are quite dark and a bit noisy and the cola is extra sweet and slightly flat and comes in a glass with big cubes of ice and a slice of lemon. And I like the fact that it’s totally illegal for my mum – who is, after all, a well-known policeperson – or dad to send me up to the bar with a ten-pound note to fetch all the drinks for them. Just for a change, I get to sit down and wait around like Lady Lazybones while they bring the drinks to me. And while I’m sitting there, I like watching the people crowding around the flashing quiz machines and cheering in front of the massive TV screens and leaning up against the bar and chatting each other up and laughing about secret things that I can’t possibly hear because I’m tucked away in the safety of the family area.

And of the few pubs I’ve ever been inside, I like the Hippo Eater Happy Pub the most because they serve such a colossal choice of food that the menu is as thick as a telephone directory and the waiters and waitresses whizz around on roller skates and wear bright pink T-shirts which have I EAT LIKE A HAPPY HIPPO written right across the front. And I especially like the fact that the children’s menu is only available to tweenies who are fourteen years old and under – which means that it’s totally illegal for my mum to buy me anything from it and I’m actually fed like an adult for once.

But my mum hates the Hippo Eater Happy Pub. She hates everything about it. She hates the skating waiters; she hates their awful tacky T-shirts; she hates the big spongy seats; she hates the irritating quiz machines; she hates the unnecessarily extensive menu; she hates the obscene size of the portions; she hates the shocking amount of waste; she hates the anti-social presence of the gigantic flat-screen televisions; she hates the irresponsible promotion of greed. In short, my mum hates every single utter thing about the Hippo Eater. I know all this because every time we ever go there, she tells me. At length.

So I really should have guessed that my mum had a sneaky hidden agenda when she voluntarily whisked me away there for lunch.

But I didn’t. Because I clearly wasn’t thinking. And for a young Welsh philosopher like me, that was a very stupid oversight.

Things started going suspiciously weird-shaped within about three seconds of us passing through the main doors. Just as we arrived at the big desk with the sign that says . . .

. . . Detective Sergeant Giles walked by us in his plain clothes. He did a dramatic double take, stared at my mum in amazement and then casually kissed her on the cheek. Just as if he was a French person or something. Immediately, I felt totally uncomfortable and started looking at my feet. I heard Giles say to my mum, ‘Carolyn! I never had you down as a hungry hippo kind of girl!’

My mum did this weird fluttery laugh I’d never heard her do before. It made her sound like she was having an asthma attack. Then she put her arm across my shoulders and said, ‘I’m treating Lottie to lunch. It’s about time we spent some time together and got up to date with each other’s lives, isn’t it, Lottie?’

Because I’d been forced into the conversation, I sort of looked at Giles and sort of looked at the floor and did one of those smiles which only involves moving your mouth. And then I said, ‘Hmm.’

DS Giles said, ‘Great minds think alike! I’ve just been enjoying a Hefty Hippo Swamp Burger with Lois,’ and then he clapped his hand across the back of a girl about my age who was all dressed up like an emo.⁹ She was very tall and had long straight hair which was beige on top and dyed jet black but just at the ends. She also had a pudgy face. Around her neck she was wearing this big spiky metal thing on a cord. I must have been looking at it for too long because she said, ‘What are you staring at?’

DS Giles laughed and said to the scary emo girl, ‘Show Lottie what they are.’

Scary Emo Girl tutted and looked annoyed, and then she lifted the spiky thing up and placed it over her eyes. She looked like this:

‘Wow!’ said my mum. And then she said, ‘Funky!’ And immediately gave me another bout of cringe-flu.

Scary Emo Girl stared at me blankly from behind her spiky glasses and then she said, ‘What’s the point of you?’

DS Giles laughed again and said, ‘Oh, you girls! I sense we’ve got some fun days ahead! Come on, Lois, let’s leave Lottie and her mum to have their lunch.’ And then he said, ‘Carolyn, I’ll call you!’ And with that, he winked at my mum – bold as brass – and she blushed and said, ‘Talk to you soon, Steve,’ and then Steve and his horrible daughter left the building.

There are certain moments in my life where I get this weird sensation which happens simultaneously in my brain and in my stomach. It’s as if my brain sinks swiftly into my feet and my stomach rises rapidly up into my mouth. It only lasts for a couple of seconds but it’s a very sickening experience. It’s the sort of feeling I’d get if I finished an exam early and then realized, as I was walking out of the exam hall, that there were a whole load more questions on the other side of the paper. Or if I wrote a text which said YOUR BODY IS TOTALLY HOT and accidentally sent it to my dad instead of Gareth. I don’t think there’s an official name for this feeling but there flipping well should be. It was exactly what I was feeling right then.

I watched them leave and then I looked at my mum. She’d been watching them go as well and she had this weird faraway expression on her face.

I didn’t like the look in her eyes one bit. And all of a sudden, I was aware of a lot of worrying thoughts whirring around in my head and I couldn’t quite get a grip on them and work out which thought was worrying me the most. Before I had a chance to regain control of my head, a person in a bright pink T-shirt said,

‘My name is Sian – I’m your meeter-greeter.

Thank you for choosing the Hippo Eater.’

‘Before you enjoy our marvellous cooking

Please tell me which name you gave for your booking.’

‘OK guys, let’s rock and roll.

Please follow me to your watering hole.’

Very quietly, under her breath, my mum said, ‘Oh for goodness sake, knock it on the head!’ My mum can be massively rude sometimes.

We followed Sian over to a table and she left us alone with the telephone directory menus so that we could make our choices.

I pushed aside my Happy Hippo Christmas Cracker and opened up the menu. For all I cared, it may as well have been written in Morse code by someone wearing cyber-goggles. Because I didn’t fancy eating anything.

Without looking up from her menu, my mum said, ‘Steve. His name is Steve. Don’t call him by his surname, Lottie; it’s not polite.’

‘I don’t wish to hurry you or appear at all rude

But are you ready to order your food?’

My mum put down her menu and said, ‘Lottie, there’s nothing remotely weird going on.’ And then she sighed and said, ‘We do need a chat though.’

My mum gave me a very long and penetrating look and then she said, ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’ve been feeling really very happy just recently.’

Even though she paused, I knew there was more that my mum wanted to say. But suddenly, I really wasn’t very sure if I actually wanted to hear it. Feeling breathless and panicky, I gripped hold of the edge of the table and said, ‘Why did Steven wink at you?’

My mum has this pointless problem with elbows on dining tables. For some reason that has never been fully explained to me, she thinks that resting your elbows on the table is a shocking sign of colossal rudeness. So when she put her own elbows on the table and rested her forehead in the palms of her hands, I did consider telling her to remember her manners. I only considered it though. I don’t have a death wish. After what felt like thirty years, she said, ‘I’ve been feeling really happy just recently, and—’

‘I don’t wish to hurry you or appear at all rude

But are you ready to order your food?’

‘Please allow me to clarify

To save your order from going awry;

two Happy Hippo Hot Pots?’

My mum squeezed her temples as if she was trying to decide whether her head was ripe for eating or not and then said, ‘Lottie, you’re making this really difficult for me.’

‘Making what difficult?’ I said. I said it a bit louder than I meant to. Even though I didn’t have a clue what was going on, I could tell that there was something very bad lurking just around the corner and it was putting me in an extremely edgy mood. If you must know, I had more edge than the entire coastline of the African continent and according to my geography teacher that has 356,000 kilometres of edge.

My mum said, ‘I’m your mother. I’ll always be your mother. But I’m a woman too and I’ve been on my own a long time and—’

‘Yes, I know,’ said my mum. ‘But Ruthie has also got Michel and you’ve also got Gareth.’

Michel is my sister Ruthie’s boyfriend. They study archaeology together at Aberystwyth University. It’s quite sweet when you think about it. They found each other through their shared love of broken pottery and old pterodactyl bones. He’s a bit boring but he’s OK.

I nodded. Without realizing it, I’d started to rip the paper Hippo Eater Slop Mats into hundreds of tiny pieces.

‘Well,’ continued my mum. ‘I need a special friend too. And I’m happy to say that I think I’ve found one. And he’s a really nice man.’

A plate of Happy Hippo Hot Pot was suddenly whacked down on the table in front of me. Sian said,

‘Give me a shout if you need more grub,

And enjoy your meal in our Hippo Eater Pub.’

And then she skated off again. To be honest, I was starting to understand why my mum hates the Hippo Eater so much. After about two seconds, it’s a seriously annoying place. I took a deep breath and said, ‘Please don’t tell me that you’re having an affair with Giles!’

My mum said, ‘I’m not having an affair! And neither is he. We’re both free agents.’

I looked at my Hot Pot and fought back the urge to be sick over it. I was suddenly feeling iller than the illest person in the whole of Illinois. I didn’t want to hear my mum using phrases like free agent and special friend. It was plain wrong!

‘Detective Sergeant Giles!’ I said, almost gagging on my own vom. ‘You are joking?’ I think I might have been crying at this point.

‘I don’t care whether he’s called Starvin’ Marvin or Marvin Luther King – you still shouldn’t be going out with him!’

‘Martin Luther King,’ my mum said. ‘Not Marvin. And I think you’re being very unfair. You don’t even know Steve and, anyway, you can’t tell me who I can or cannot go out with.’

‘No! YOU’RE the one being unfair,’ I said. ‘Of all the people in all the world, YOU have to choose THE ONLY ONE who has ever cautioned me for being a shoe thief! How am I supposed to be OK with that?’

While I’d been saying all of this, some part of my brain was telling me to keep my voice down because there were people on other tables who were blatantly turning round to have a gawp. But I couldn’t keep my voice down. I was really wound up.

My mum said, ‘Keep your voice down, please. There are people looking at us.’

Even though I knew she was totally right, I said, ‘Do I actually care though?’

I said, ‘No I’m not. YOU’RE the one who is acting all weird and talking about SPECIAL FRIENDS. You’ve even changed your lipstick just to impress Stevie Wonder. That’s WELL PATHETIC! I used to respect you but now I can see that you’re nothing but a SAD and TRAGIC Type B person!’

My mum pushed her Hot Pot away from her and said, ‘I’ve got no idea what you are talking about now. But you’re causing a scene. Put your coat on. We’re leaving.’

Tears were swimming across my eyes and causing my vision to go all fuzzy. I didn’t want to be having this hideous row with my mum but, for some reason, I just didn’t seem to be able to stop myself. It’s like I was being operated from afar by a psychopath with a remote control. Without moving I said, ‘But why him, Mum? Why did you have to go and pick the only policeman in the whole of South Wales who has got me under closed-circuit surveillance?’

And then my mum raised her voice too and said, ‘Oh for God’s sake, Lottie, you’re just being absolutely absurd!’ And before I even knew what was happening, she’d put some money on the table, picked up her coat and was saying, ‘I can’t sit here any longer. I honestly can’t. I’ll be in the car.’

My head had gone completely blank. I sat all alone at the table and tried to get a grip on myself. Remembering a technique that Blake, my counsellor, once taught me, I closed my eyes and breathed slowly and deeply.

After a minute or so of doing this, I felt the pressure ease in my body and it suddenly seemed a lot less likely that my heart was going to crash its way right through my ribcage.

It was Sian, the waitress. She said, ‘You know what, I can’t be arsed with all this rhyming crap right now. I just wanted to check you’re all right.’ Then she said, ‘Is there anything I can do?’

I opened up the other eye too and looked at her properly. I was still crying. ‘I doubt it,’ I said very quietly, between gulps for air. And then I shrugged and said, ‘Unless you want to adopt me?’

I nodded sadly and smiled back but it was another one of those smiles that only involves moving the mouth. ‘I don’t blame you,’ I said. And then I put on my coat and went outside to find my mum who I knew would still be sitting in her car waiting for me.