Everso recently, it would have been me sitting next to her on that bed getting a wet shoulder complete with smeared mascara splats.
What a huge difference between fifteen and seventeen years of age. An entire personality flip has happened. Where has my sweet little goth gone? She of the smudgy eyes and red nylon dreadlocks and Tank Girl industrial boots and clamp-on nose-rings? It was so easy to love that one. That one was endearingly injured and tragic. Why have I been sent this Tango-skinned bleached-hair designer slave? I own a human Cindy. Her insufferable rudeness grows with every waking moment. And quite a few sleeping moments I suspect. I’m sure she doesn’t waste any dream time NOT hating me. Does hate have a cumulative effect? If so, Dora will be earning buckets of interest on her massive deposits of mum-hate. I just have to accept it, she loathes me.
Today’s particular loathing is about refusing to let her have her belly button pierced. In this particular respect, I feel entirely vindicated. Was there ever an uglier mutilation? The very thought of it makes my unpierced and considerably larger stomach turn. Her choice of ‘parlour’ is that nasty dirty little dungeon opposite the carpet shop in the high street, ‘Pangbourne Ink’. Obviously I’ve never ventured in, but I know the sister of the troll who owns it and she had chronic impetigo last year, so if Dora thinks I am sanctioning such a dreadful thing and in such a dirty place, she can think again.
Of course, soon she will be eighteen and if she chooses to maim herself then, she can pay for the privilege. I am not a medical doctor, but if something terrible were to happen to her belly button, an infection of some sort, wouldn’t that seal her umbilical tubes? How would any potential grandchild of mine get its nourishment? She is risking any future child-bearing possibilities. Is there no end to her selfishness?
THREE
Oscar (16 YRS)
The suffering of the last hour has been unutterably awful. Both of the Battle harridans, the monstrous mater and the dreadful daughter, have been shrieking sufficiently enough to wake as yet undiscovered molluscs at the pit-bottom of the ocean’s silty depths. I have mastered the art of ear-fugging – the application of twisted curls of wet kitchen paper administered to the inner ears. One would imagine this would provide a merciful relief. Yet still, their damnable harpy squawking prevails.
What unlovely wretches they prove themselves to be, abandoning all vestiges of class and style, allowing the vulgarity of their lower-middle-class shackles to triumph. How very very very disappointed I am in both of them. It is so extremely tiresome. I am exhausted from the disappointment. I must needs take to my bed. The confines of my room offer the succour and solitude I sorely need. Increasingly, I discover that the delights of the Nintendo III Dance Mat Challenge are my only worthy companion. There, at least, the red fires of my passion are sated. Farewell, dear diary, ’til anon.
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published by Michael Joseph in 2020
Copyright © Dawn French, 2020
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover illustration by Ryan McAmis
‘Catching of happiness’ taken from ‘Born Yesterday’, in The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin, is reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-0-718-18424-7
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Table of Contents
Title Page
About the Author
By the Same Author
Dedication
Epigraph
Start
Eighteen Years Later
Back to the Start
1 January 2000
The Chance
Gone
The Journey Home
Anna’s Pleas
Isaac’s Big Decision
The Press
Isaac’s Second Decision
Eighteen Years Later
Back Then: Hope
Minnie’s 1st Birthday: Isaac
Florence’s 1st Birthday: Julius
Florence’s 1st Birthday: Anna
Minnie’s 1st Birthday: Hope
Anna
Minnie Grows Up
Hope Decides
Minnie’s World Changes
Anna
The Box
Hope and Minnie: Mum and Daughter
Anna: the News
Julius: the News
Back Home: Hope and Minnie
The Morning After
Hope and Minnie to the Hospital
Nesting: Hope’s Flat
1 January 2018
The Meeting; the Mirrors
The Trial, London
Anna and Hope: April
Minnie in Hospital
The Birth
Hope
Minnie’s Heart: A Week Later
Acknowledgements
Read More
Copyright
