Perhaps the next thing wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t grounded me. Or perhaps it would.
My crime, apparently, was not ringing to let you know where I was. You had no objection, you said, to me staying out late, but you needed to know who I was with, where I was, and how I was coming home. At the time I thought you might as well plant a tracking device on me. What was the point of going out if I had to keep myself linked to home all the time? You were less bothered about the vodka I’d taken, and believed my lies about the party I went to being an all-nighter.
The idea was that if I was grounded, I would be so bored I’d catch up on my work. Fine, except now you’d given me a motive not to work – to spite you. OK, I know that’s childish, but you and dad were pretty childish screaming at me because you didn’t have the kind of daughter you wanted. I don’t know what’s happened to you, Catherine! Do you understand the effect this is having on the family? I can’t sleep, I’m so worried about you!
OK. So it was Easter Monday. You’d invited round Auntie Megan and Uncle Joe as usual as well as some of Dad’s Rotary friends. I had to be there too. The thought was like torture to me. Even in the olden days when I was a good little girl I got really bored at those sorts of gatherings. I was never sure what I was supposed to do at them. Just hang around, bring in trays of food and stand there while you boasted about me. When I was quite a bit younger I liked being boasted about, but in the last couple of years it had got dead embarrassing. Worst of all were Dad’s friends who would look straight at my chest and say, Catherine’s getting a big girl now. That’s why I told you I was going to stay in my room.
I remember the look on your face when I told you that. Anger, but not just anger – there was fear too. I could see you were scared you couldn’t handle me any more. I was pleased in a nasty sort of way, but I was scared too. Part of me wanted you to sort me out, to stay in control. The other part just wanted to defeat you. There was a stalemate. Then I had another idea, which, if I was clever, I could make out was a compromise.
“OK,” I said, sounding as if I was climbing down. “But you’ve got to understand it’s boring for me, with no one there of my age.”
You saw what I was getting at and took the initiative.
“Do you want me to invite someone of your age?”
“Yeah.”
“Who? Lucy?” Your tone of voice was conciliatory – pleased, even.
“Well, I was thinking of a new friend of mine. A boy, actually”
Mothers are so transparent. I could see your mind working. You hadn’t bargained for a boy, but on the other hand if you could get this boy into your territory, so to speak, and find out what he was like, you’d know what you were dealing with. It would be far less embarrassing for you than having me locked up in my room while all the guests were there. I knew I was in a strong bargaining position.
“Do I know this boy?”
“No. He’s a friend of Brad’s. My age,” I said. “Taking A-levels.”
“What’s his name?”
“Taz – it’s a nickname.”
“Taz!” You laughed indulgently. “Well, all right.” You picked up the paper again but I could tell you weren’t reading it. You put it down again a minute later. “So, this Taz,” you continued. “Is he your boyfriend?”
I wish I knew. I honestly couldn’t say.
“No,” I replied. It was the safest answer. A few kisses meant nothing. And besides, the last thing I wanted was you probing, and giggling, and telling everyone that Catherine’s got a boyfriend. Not that my reluctance to say anything stopped you telling Megan. I don’t blame you – she is your sister. I guess if I’d had a sister, I would have told her everything. Did you know I overheard you?
You two were in the kitchen preparing the food. I had actually come down to help you, had put my hand on the doorknob and realised you were talking about me. So I stopped. Then I found I couldn’t tear myself away.
“It’s so out of character! My greatest worry is that there’s something physically wrong with her. It had even crossed my mind that it’s chronic fatigue syndrome as she seems so listless, but she goes out for long walks, and was out very late the other night. But on the other hand, she sleeps in for hours, and she still isn’t working, Megan. Or maybe it’s even a form of depression. If so, I can’t think what has triggered it. Everything was going so well at school. After those superb GCSE results we were certain that Oxford or Cambridge was on the cards. She has everything going for her! She’s always been so bright, so hard-working. Why should she suddenly switch off? I wondered if she was in with the wrong set of friends, but they’re the same friends she’s had throughout school, and they’re all working. I even thought she might be experimenting with drugs. That’s still at the back of my mind. I think I’ll have to have a talk to her. Because I can’t accept that she should throw away everything just on a whim. That makes no sense at all. There has to be a reason.
And you can imagine how this makes me feel. To watch my only daughter, with so much promise, risk so much. I thought we were so similar, so close. I thought she was just another version of me. What hurts most is that she won’t explain, Megan! That she won’t see sense. That she doesn’t seem to understand what I’m going through. Yes, I will pour myself another glass of wine. It’s not too early, is it? I need something to fortify me while I prepare the cake. It’s as if she’s deliberately set out to hurt me. And it’s not as if she can catch up that easily. If she has to repeat her AS-levels next year, then that means an extra year’s school fees, and where are we going to find those? Peter was hoping to retire. She doesn’t think about that, does she? The young are so selfish. My only hope, Megan, is this boyfriend of hers. Maybe it was all just hormones! Perhaps we should have encouraged her to go out with boys earlier. He’ll bring some balance to her life. He sounds like a nice boy, at college, she tells me. Her age. No, I haven’t met him. Well, here’s hoping he’ll put her back on the straight and narrow. Hooray for men, that’s what I say! Whoops! Is that slice of cake retrievable? Better put it in the bin. Do you think I should have a coffee before the guests arrive?
Yes, I heard all that. And I thought, if I’m so like you, I can get pissed too. So I went into the living room and poured myself a large sherry. Drank it, then poured another. I needed it. I felt awful about inflicting you and all of this on Taz, but I had to see him. Because I was grounded, it was the only way I could think of.
Dad and Uncle Joe came in from the garden then and found me drinking. They just said to pour something for them, which I did. Uncle Joe felt in his pocket and gave me a twenty-pound note.
“Buy yourself an Easter egg with this,” he said.
I thanked him. I’ve always liked Uncle Joe. God knows what he saw in Auntie Megan. Or how she ‘lowered herself’ to marry him. Even though really he owns a factory where they make bathroom accessories – yes, toilet roll holders, loo brushes, and the like – Auntie Megan always says he’s ‘in business’. You can’t even mention what Uncle Joe does for a living unless you turn it into a joke. Uncle Joe was always dead generous with me, though. We had a little chat.
“So how old are you now, Catherine?”
“Seventeen,” I said, amicably.
“Seventeen. You should be learning to drive. We gave Brian and Nick driving lessons for their seventeenth birthdays. Both passed first time. Then Brian pranged Megan’s car.” He laughed at the memory. “So are you going to learn?”
“I might do,” I said.
“Girls are less interested in motors than men,” Uncle Joe said as an aside to my father. That riled me.
“Not so,” I said. “Quite a few of my friends at school are learning, and Melissa’s actually passed her test. She did an intensive course.”
And didn’t we all know about it? Her parents had even bought her a second-hand Mini as a runabout. She had it fitted with a CD player.
“I must move with the times,” Uncle Joe said, genially enough. “And it gives a girl a lot more freedom to have a car. Less dangerous than using public transport. Though when I was a lad…”
I’m sure you don’t want me to repeat the rest. Uncle Joe’s reminiscences could bore for Britain.
The guests started to arrive then. I was on red alert, waiting for Taz. I hoped he hadn’t lost his nerve. I could hardly blame him if he had. You and Dad’s friends were the pits. Sorry. I know they’re probably nice people and everything and I accept I don’t know any of them that well, but together they just depressed me. They were so stiff. And it was all small talk. The weather, holidays, the sales at John Lewis’s – it was just talking for talking’s sake. Like, I thought none of you really cared about each other. Well, I knew you didn’t. I knew you and Dad had invited the Rotary chairman and his wife, Ted and Valerie Porter, even though you couldn’t stand them. You felt obliged. There you were air-kissing Valerie and complimenting her on the suit she was wearing.
I offered to pour the drinks. I abandoned the sherry as it was pretty sickly, and moved on to the wine. Where was Taz? I was lost in a sea of flowery dresses and designer handbags, and men in suits with swollen paunches, tinny laughter, pathetic plates of finger food that the women were guzzling down while pretending not to be eating, a guffaw of laughter, clinking glasses, and you in the middle of it all, half-cut, looking both pleased and frazzled. At that moment my mood was precariously balanced. If Taz came, I would be on a roll, reckless; if Taz stood me up I would be finished, destroyed.
Only I heard the doorbell because of the volume of noise. I wriggled out of the crowd and opened the front door. Taz hadn’t let me down after all. We just smiled at each other. Really smiled. I wanted to kiss him but didn’t. I knew I was more drunk than he was and I wanted him to catch up with me. He’d made an effort with his appearance. He was wearing black combats and a black vest top and his leather jacket. He’d spiked up his hair with gel and I reached out and touched it.
“Cool!” I said. I took in his olive skin and dark brown eyes and thought that Taz was beautiful, in a way. Men can be beautiful too. I don’t think beauty is just an attribute of women. I thanked him for coming because I realised that he must be feeling nervous. I was nervous on his behalf and I hoped I hadn’t been selfish inviting him.
And then it started. I took him into the living room and went up to you, and said, “This is Taz!”
The look of shock in your eyes. The way the people in your group looked at you to see what your reaction would be. The way you tried to cover up your shock.
“Taz! How nice! Catherine has told me so much about you!”
Except, I thought, that he was Asian.
Taz was all tensed up, cracking his knuckles again. You just kept coming out with this crap about how lovely you were able to come, did you find the house easily? You were playing for time so you could recover your composure. Taz’s eyes were darting everywhere, taking in all the plates of food, the piano, the country garden style three-piece suite and all the polite haw-hawing from your guests. I took his hand and squeezed it.
“Taz?” said Ted Porter, who had been busy chatting you up. “What’s that short for?”
“Tariq,” he mumbled. I knew he was squirming with embarrassment and I felt selfish for bringing him.
“Tariq. Ah. You wouldn’t be Dr Patel’s son? Good chap, ears, nose and throat.”
“Patel is a Hindu name,” I interrupted. “Tariq’s family is Muslim.” I couldn’t be bothered to be entirely accurate.
“Pardon me!” Ted Porter said, humouring me. “So what branch of medicine does your father practise in, Tariq? Or is he a GP?”
“He’s not a doctor,” Taz said. “He had a job in a distribution warehouse but he’s been laid off.”
Ted Porter glanced at you in surprise, and you raised your eyebrows – my God! It was as if you had forgotten we were both there. Being drunk is no excuse, Mum. All my life I’ve been brought up not to be rude and there you were being such a snob – and showing it in public. In a way, it was funny. I realised that Taz’s colour wasn’t an issue. If his father had been a consultant surgeon or company director he could have been lime green, you’d have still been delighted to see him.
I was so staggered by your rudeness I didn’t react. Not then, at any rate. Instead I led Taz over to the drinks table.
“Sorry about this,” I muttered. “I know they’re all awful. Why don’t we go into the garden?”
Taz agreed, so I uncorked a bottle of red wine, took two glasses, and we went through the kitchen into the garden. It was better then.
“It’s nice out here,” Taz said. He wandered over to the pond and looked at the fish. I poured some wine and handed him some. I was aware that there were people standing at the French windows, and some of them were looking at us. I wanted to get away. I took Taz for a tour, showing him your herb garden and the rockery, and we wandered down to the shed. Taz turned and looked back at the house.
“You live in an effing mansion,” he said.
“It sucks,” I told him. He looked at me oddly then. I realised to my amazement that he was quite impressed. That kind of upset me. I wanted him to hate you and the house as much as I did. Taz was mine, after all.
We sat down on the bench at the back of the garden and I poured the wine and we sat there drinking it. We just chatted to begin with. Taz explained about his father’s problems at the warehouse, and how his mother was going to do extra hours at Asda as a result. I whinged about you and the fact there was all this pressure on me to work.
“Why aren’t you working?” Taz asked me.
I was already pretty pissed by that stage and I think that’s why his question made me angry. For a minute I thought even Taz was saying I ought to pull myself together. That I was just an over-privileged, spoilt kid. I wanted to try to explain to him that there was more than one way of feeling that you’d missed out. So I said there was more to life than essays. That I felt as if I was on an assembly line in a factory and before I knew it I’d be labelled in a box, just another commodity. That nothing I could do was going to be good enough. I could feel my anger now shifting to self-pity. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. I told Taz I wanted to have a life of my own. That I hadn’t been given a chance to grow up.
Then I thought that Taz was my chance. I didn’t say that to him. Instead I carefully put my wineglass on the grass, turned to him, and kissed him. I didn’t give a damn who saw. He kissed me back, but it wasn’t like it was up on the embankment. He felt tense, he was holding back. I blamed you, Mum – that’s not as crazy as it sounds. Taz wasn’t himself because everyone had been so mean to him. Especially you. Whereas before I had been letting go, letting the wine dissolve my anger, now it came back in a rush. I wanted to be alone with Taz and I couldn’t. And I’d brought Taz from my world into yours, and you’d shown me you despised him. Crazy thinking, maybe. But I hadn’t eaten much all day except for some chocolate in the morning and the wine was giving me a headache. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mixed the red wine with the sherry and white wine I’d had earlier.
So Taz and I got up and walked some more around the garden. Then we saw you and Dad coming towards us with the Porters. It was all becoming a nightmare. Dad was wittering on about security and Neighbourhood Watch and the break-ins there’d been recently. Ted Porter nodded furiously. I mean, what subject could be more important than the good old middle classes keeping hold of their own.
Drink does funny things to you. I was beginning to see that. It makes you happy, it can make you very tired, it also kids you that you sound brilliant when you don’t. You think you’re being clever when in fact you’re coming over like an idiot. But it also stops you caring what other people think. It lets you say what’s on your mind. So blame the drink, not me.
“Taz and I are going out for a while,” I told you. I didn’t want to stay in your party for one moment longer.
“No, honey,” you said, looking daggers at me. “Remember you said you were going to stay in and help me tidy?” You meant, you’re grounded, Catherine.
“Let her go,” Ted Porter said, waggishly. “I daresay she has things to say to her young man.”
What a creep! He made my skin crawl.
Then Dad intervened. “Sorry, Ted. You’re a sport to stick up for her, but I’m afraid Catherine’s under house arrest. There’s a small matter of some essays and a couple of pieces of coursework.”
Ted winked at me. “There are more important things than school. I’m going to stick up for Catherine here, Peter. I never got myself any qualifications, and that didn’t hold me back. It’s character – character and determination. Those are what count, in the final analysis. I didn’t get where I am today by sitting exams. Oh, no. Seize the day, Catherine. Carpe diem. And Tariq, what about you? What are your plans in life?”
I squirmed for Taz. He shrugged, embarrassed.
“I’m interested in art,” he said.
“Art! Now there’s a subject! I don’t go in for all this modern stuff, you know. Give me a good old portrait or landscape. Constable. Turner. The Mona Lisa. There’s nothing wrong in being old-fashioned, Tariq. Get yourself grounded in the basics. Start from the bottom. Like I did. Don’t be afraid of getting your hands dirty.”
Ted Porter was itching to talk about himself, I could tell. It amused me to prompt him.
“You began as an errand boy, didn’t you?” I said.
Ted Porter preened himself. “Errand boy. Then office junior. Then clerical work. Once they saw what a smart lad I was, it was onwards and upwards. Deputy manager, manager, director, on the board, a partner – Huitt and Porter Properties. I can’t pretend I’ve not been successful. But I’m grateful for it, oh yes! I’ve always done my bit for charity. Can’t forget those less fortunate than oneself. This will interest you, Tariq. I was in India a couple of years ago, a bit of a holiday. Now, there was poverty. Cripples on the street, children begging. I’m surprised their parents let them. But then, foreigners aren’t like us. I don’t mean you, Tariq. I can see you’re assimilated. And some of my best friends are of Asian origin. I respect them. They know a thing or two about hard work. Make sure you work hard, Tariq.”
Something snapped then. I’d had enough.
“Don’t you be so… so bloody patronising! You’re so up yourself! Just because you’re old, it doesn’t give you the right to talk down to us! I know you stand around at meetings wearing chains and medals and toasting the Queen and shaking hands with other fat old slobs, but you’re still not anything special. In fact you’re more childish than we are. It’s all games with you. You know nothing about real life. You’re so satisfied with your silly little world where everyone has to look up to you that you write off whole cultures. And I’m supposed to model myself on people like you? You’re ignorant, you’re racist… you’re disgusting!”
And by that I meant all of you.
“Catherine!” I remember the horror in your voice. But I didn’t feel as if I’d done anything wrong. The opposite, in fact; I felt as if I was a sword blade glinting in the sunlight, slashing through swathes of hypocrisy, fighting for the truth.
“And it’s not just you. It’s everybody…” I made a sweeping gesture to the lounge where people were still eating and drinking. “They’re like rats in a cage. Only they don’t realise it. And they preach to us and never think to look at their own prejudices and faults. I think…” I was struggling now. I wanted to make an impact and couldn’t work out how. The booze was making me fuzzy. “I think – you’re all jealous. You want to be young again. Well, you’re not. I am, and I’m not wasting my time like you.” Waves of fury and nausea were coming over me. I could see the shocked look on everyone’s faces. Then Dad’s hard, murderous eyes and Ted Porter’s astonished, gaping mouth gradually lost clarity.
“Catherine. Apologise,” you said.
Next, a heaving in my chest and I didn’t have time to get back into the house. I could only get as far as the azalea bush, and I threw up there.