And I don’t tell anyone that in a strange way, my mother’s phlegmatic reactions – while constantly disappointing – are also strangely comforting because they are all I know.
Helen
When I get off the phone, I can hardly breathe I am so excited. Julia says she has some news, and she sounds happy. Her news can only be one of two things, either of which could be the beginning of my plan to kill myself.
I have spent twenty-six years waiting. Feeling nothing. Going through the motions. Surviving at best, falling apart at worst. Living from sleeping pill to sleeping pill, and trying to mother Julia in-between. Waiting and waiting for the day Julia no longer needs me so I can end my pain. That day is finally coming.
What I am feeling now is more than a small flicker of life, which is the most I have come to expect. My body is fizzing with life, spilling over with it. I am so excited I can’t sit down, I can’t concentrate, I can’t do anything. I want to tell someone. But the only person I want to speak to is Mike.
The only person I ever want to speak to is Mike.
Julia
Now that I have an arrangement to see my mother, I need to think about what I’m actually going to say to her. In most situations, the mother would know about the boyfriend before there’s an announcement of them having moved in together. Never mind the rest.
But with Daniel it’s complicated, so my mother knows nothing. In fact, as far as she knows, the most exciting thing happening in my life is still pottery class and making friends with Claire.
Claire. I met Claire at a pottery class about a year ago. I started pottery because my day job was boring and I needed to do something fun and artistic.
People often find it hard to reconcile my personality with my job. I have untameable hair, wear loud colours, and every now and again I go off to Iggy Pop in my flat. At home I am chronically disorganised, and I have a history of dead-end relationships. People expect me to be artistic, I think, or else they expect me to be a low achiever. There was a time I didn’t expect much from myself either, to be honest.
But I’m an accountant. And a really good one. And I think it’s because so much of my childhood had no answers, but accounts always have answers. From the moment I took my first high school accountancy lesson and the teacher said, ‘If it doesn’t balance, you know the answer is wrong,’ I knew this was the career for me. With my mum, I never know if my answers are wrong. With my work, I know. Accounting makes life seem fair. Alice says she’s heard of worse reasons to choose a career.
I don’t work in a smart firm where I get to wear power suits, though. I work in an old-fashioned business where my boss wears a cardigan, is freaked out by my wrist tattoo, and regards computers with utmost suspicion. My colleagues are all older than me. Good people, durable people, but cut from the same dull tweed cloth. Our offices are in one of those converted old-Joburg blocks of flats. The other tenants have knocked out walls and put in fancy flooring and cool lighting, and generally made the place quite trendy. But our suite still has faded carpets and that rough plastering that accumulates little wells of dust. You can imagine the sad lives that were conducted in these rooms before it became an office block. Sometimes it feels like the whole place is covered in dandruff.
I really need to get out, to find a more stimulating position. But I don’t seem to be able to move. So last year I decided to do pottery.
Work probably wasn’t the only thing that led me to pottery. I was also lonely. I’ve always had loads of friends; nights out and laughs and get-togethers. But something’s happened in the last year or two. My closest group of friends has just kind of dissolved. My best friend, Mandy, who’s the most talented dressmaker and fashion designer and was always up for a party . . . she had a baby. Her husband is all my fault, because she met him through me. He’s also an accountant – only he’s the stereotypical type. I never, for one moment, thought they’d get together.
I listened to all Mandy’s god-awful pregnancy tales, but it didn’t end when the baby actually arrived. Then it was all breastfeeding and sleep habits and baby nutrition and the relentless trivia of his life. I tried to understand, but it bored me to tears. So I don’t see Mandy much any more, and I don’t know if she’s noticed. And Agnes emigrated to Jamaica of all places, and now just posts enviable selfies on Facebook. Mary-Anne kind of drifted off after she got married on a beach in Zanzibar and didn’t invite anyone, which made things a bit awkward, and Flora decided to study medicine at the age of twenty-seven and is now never available, night or day.
I found out about the pottery class from a notice in a shop.
It wasn’t my usual shopping area, and it wasn’t my usual sort of shop. It was an art-supply shop, and I’d only gone there to get the particular brand of pencil my boss favours. But I saw this notice about a studio nearby and I felt like a person in a movie, tearing off the telephone number and stuffing it into my pocket. It took me a few weeks
