My virtual life, p.9
My Virtual Life, page 9
‘Maybe they’re related.’
Hoots of laughter echoed around the tiled walls, bouncing back at me.
There it was: the raspberry red heat of shame but this time mingled with pure anger rising up my body. How dare they? Nora did harm to no one. She didn’t deserve their disrespect and come to think of it, neither did I. What have I ever done to any of them?
Hot tears threatened to spill down my face. I bit my bottom lip to maintain some sort of composure. I didn’t want to have to go into French class with a blotchy face and swollen eyelids. The bell rang out, announcing that break time was over. I waited until I was sure they had left and finally peed. Flushed the loo and went to wash my hands. I could scarcely bring myself to look at my reflection in the mirror for fear of unleashing the overwhelming sadness I felt. I knew they were cruel, mean and vacuous, but it didn’t make their comments any less hurtful.
* * *
I was glad to have Nora’s house to go to after school. I didn’t feel like eating Kveta’s cooking and I didn’t want to see Matt. Maybe he had been the one to complain about me hanging around him. He could have said something to Ollie or Luke and they could have mentioned it to one of the Jessica crowd, now forever known as the Bitches of Belfast.
Either way I am not going to be seen ‘mooning’ around after him. I have better things to do with my time.
Rosie, the beagle, has had a litter of pups and Nora has been trying without much luck to rehome them. I have had a really good idea though – to set up a website for the shelter. We could advertise pets looking for homes and raise much-needed funds to keep the shelter going. I could design the website myself and maintain it.
I would love it but I know that Nora has a natural reluctance to anything outside her realm of church and animals.
I also wanted to ask Nora about Stella, to try to decipher how they had come to know each other. When I questioned Stella over the weekend I was met with a stony ‘don’t go there’ reply. It doesn’t make much sense.
As usual Stella has been preoccupied with work for the magazine. Even more than usual. The new season has brought with it many fashion conundrums Stella has to solve – like how to keep your feet cool in Uggs and how to wear the new yellows without looking like a canary – so I let it go. Still I am curious, and I wanted to see what Nora had to say about my mother.
So I casually dropped Stella into the conversation with Nora. Mentioned that Stella had said she had known Nora from long ago and I swear Nora literally froze like her statue of Mary at the bottom of the garden. It was as if I had blasphemed in front of one of her holy pictures.
She turned and said, ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ before shuffling off upstairs.
Later I asked her if I could help with the administration side of the shelter. ‘If you’re looking more money, I don’t have it,’ she said, her eyes narrowing to slits of suspicion.
I assured her I was only trying to be helpful. Still, I think she mellowed when she saw me trawling through the neglected paperwork she handed to me. I separated the bills from the junk mail and tried to put them in some sort of order – starting with those that seemed to be more pressing than others. I think the electric bill needs to be paid first though I doubt Nora would notice if they cut her off. She seems to rise at dawn and go to bed early. She keeps warm wearing layers of moth-eaten jumpers and with scarves wrapped around her neck.
Then on the way home from Nora’s the creepiest thing happened. I found an envelope sellotaped to the bus stop with my name printed on it in large felt-tip blue capitals. I couldn’t avoid it and even though my name was on it I still looked about me before peeling it off and opening it.
Inside on a sheet of file a paper it said: ‘Are you on Snapchat? Can’t find an email address for you, don’t want to ask about. Set up an account and we could chat.’
Feeling really weirded out now. Who could have known I would be walking past that particular bus stop?
If there are any sickos reading my blog and are leaving me notes to find – back off. I will report you to the PSNI or ChildLine. You have been warned.
* * *
Pop Tart has just left a message asking if I told Matt how mean the Jessica crowd were in the toilets. The answer, Pop Tart, is no, what would be the point? He would only agree with them and tell me that my image is all wrong and I need to lighten up. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing they were talking about him anyway, even if it was only to say what a saddo hanger-on I am to him.
12
Who do you think you are?
Stella
Tara tossed that glorious hair of hers and flounced out of the kitchen. I merely suggested that she registers for an extras acting agency and she lost it. I had to endure a ten-minute lecture on how I have no clue as to what my daughter is interested in. Then she declares that I deliberately push her into arenas where she is going to fail.
‘Why would you fail?’
‘Because I don’t look like an actress. I am not pretty enough,’ she said.
She truly has no notion at all of how beautiful she is. How is it possible that I have brought her up with no self-worth? It is my biggest failing as a mother to have not instilled in my child that she is the most beautiful girl in the world. I know brains are important, personality matters, and kindness trumps the lot, but everyone knows we just say those things. Tara is one of those special people who have no idea how they impact on the world. It is my responsibility to lay out opportunities in her path. I must speak to Sammy about orchestrating a little perk of the job treat for her. She needs to see what others see when they look at her.
Must make sure I do interesting things with my week. My number of Instagram followers hasn’t risen for a week and I need to find a brand aesthetic that will work for me. Twinkling fairy lights draped over everything is so last season. I need to find some natural foliage. I could arrange lots of branches and maybe I could hang little jam jars with lit candles in them. It would make a pretty back drop for pics of me. Maybe Tara would like a trip to the Botanic Gardens to pilfer some trees?
My week: Work, commute from Belfast, three events to attend in Dublin, a theatre outing, and a Friday night fake away and catch up with Tara. Fake away consisted of rice noodles and stir fry tofu.
Must remember to do that hot yoga class on Sunday morning.
* * *
It’s Friday night and I’m at the Perch Bar in Belfast. It’s a rooftop bar kitted out with comfy sofas, blankets to keep warm and lots of bird paraphernalia. The girls are getting the drinks in. I’m tasked with getting some seats, which means elbowing my way through the twenty-somethings. I’m preoccupied. Tara has been spending too much time at Nora’s. Initially I thought it would be good for her. They could get to know each other on their own terms. Now I’m worried that it’s all going to backfire on me spectacularly. Nothing else for it but to down a few vodka tonics. A bit of music and the warmth of the alcohol will dispel my worries. It usually does the trick.
Tara
Food: Porridge, dried mango slices, sausage roll, can of Coke, cheese and ham sandwich with pickle stuff, Kveta’s homemade fish fingers – don’t ask.
I have tried Stella’s phone three times. It’s switched off. Damn. I need to speak to her. She won’t be home until Thursday.
Usually our arrangement suits me just fine. I never actually need Stella. Kveta takes care of the washing and ironing. I can always make myself something to eat if Kveta’s cooking proves to be too scary. I also like the freedom to potter about the house without feeling I have to make conversation and give answers to the usual predictable questions of how was your day and what did you learn at school?
Matt is always envious of my set-up. He doesn’t appreciate the joys of having a conventional mother. Instead he complains that I’m a waster, who never uses my domestic set up to my advantage and organise parties and wild sleepovers. Problem is I have no one to invite beyond Matt.
But for once I wish that Stella was home. It isn’t often that I actually want to talk to her. The thing is I need to ask her about Nora. It isn’t really something that could be discussed over the phone, or on Skype, but in the absence of having a face to face discussion I may have no choice. Hang on, I’ll try her phone again.
No good, it’s going straight to voicemail.
Here’s the thing:
I had been happily sorting through Nora’s usual assortment of junk mail and money off vouchers which had been stuffed into an obviously long-neglected kitchen drawer, when I came across a pile of unopened post. The letter on the top caught my eye, for there on the front I saw in bold type ‘Mrs Margaret Hunter’. Hunter is my surname. (Paedos, stalkers and weirdos look away now. I do not want you using my name to track me down, kidnap me and hold me a prisoner in some daggy garden shed and do unthinkable things to my feet or any other part of my anatomy.)
I just stood there holding the envelope. Hunter. The same name. Then the penny dropped – we could be related.
Looking for answers I started to trawl through the drawer until I found a brown manila envelope full of old photographs.
Yes, okay, I know I shouldn’t be nosy, but what is the harm in having a peek? There were plenty of photos of cats and a few dogs, even a parakeet sitting on a bald man’s head. A few were obviously taken in the garden long before it had become so overgrown and unkempt. But it was the fifth photo in the pile made me start suddenly, as if I had seen a ghost. I felt an icy finger of nervousness snake down my spine, for there, staring out at me from the old, perfectly square coloured photograph was none other than my own mother.
There was Stella, as a young girl, smiling widely at the camera with her arm wrapped around what must surely be a younger more presentable and groomed Nora.
They seemed so at ease and comfortable with each other, like they were the best of friends. The picture was obviously fairly old. Stella looked not much older than I am now. She was wearing a purple turtleneck jumper and wide flared jeans. A silver necklace was hanging from her neck. Her hair was long and curly and her feet were bare, standing on a green swirly-patterned carpet, probably the same one in the living room now except sunlight has faded it to a dull mossy green and the cats and dogs have worn patches of it threadbare.
Behind Nora, I could see a tinsel-covered Christmas tree with its Quality Street coloured fairy lights twinkling merrily. Someone had written something on the back of the picture for the writing had pushed through making an indention across the image.
I turned it round and looked at the back: ‘Christmas Day 1985’.
Everything seemed to shift around me. It was like being on that programme ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ and unearthing old family documents to find that the family I thought I knew, was really something quite different all together.
I sort of felt like Alice in Wonderland, falling through the rabbit hole only to find herself in another world were everything was altered. It was as if I was looking through a kaleidoscope and had adjusted the lens making the image suddenly fall into sharp focus showing me a new picture, an image I had never seen before and one that seemed so peculiar it made no sense at all.
Virtual mother has a man friend
Tara
Food swallowed: Rice Krispies x 2 bowls, two flapjack peanut butter sandwiches, one can of club orange, one tin of tuna fish, 2 croissants with blueberry jam.
Lonely Girl Blog
As if my life isn’t desperate enough. I am the social outcast of school. Matt has taken to hanging around the back of the canteen in the hope of looking cool enough for Jessica Bailey to notice him; I keep finding anonymous notes in strange places; I am living with a reclusive au pair who has taken to her room, rarely coming out unless directly asked to and worse, much worse than anything else, my mother has a boyfriend.
Can my life be any more desperate? You may ask. Yes, for the boyfriend in question is none other than Dylan McKay; for those of you not familiar with the Dublin social scene, Dylan McKay is the newest, hottest, happening, hip model-wannabe actor.
What he sees in my ageing mother is beyond me, but perhaps her occupation and her ability to drop his name into as many column inches as she likes could be part of the attraction.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that Stella is only a part-time, virtual mother, I now have to share our weekend time with Dylan McKay. They expect me to have dinner with them in fancy restaurants like the Merchant Hotel and Coco’s and then drop me home before they go for drinks in the Apartment and finish up clubbing in Sirens. What’s worse, they think nothing of eating each other’s faces in front of me – does she not understand that I am an impressionable teenager? And then there are the sounds that go bump in the night – I do not want to go there!
Can anyone out there advise me on how best to explain to my mother that I may actually need her to be more motherly and less like a rebellious big sister?
Your thoughts would be gratefully appreciated. Except for Micer who is verging on the creepy – keep your comments to yourself, mate.
* * *
5.05pm
In response to blog reader Jiggy’s query, Stella’s preoccupation with the gorgeous Dylan McKay has prevented me from probing about Nora. How could I ask her personal questions about our unspoken family history while he was nibbling on my mother’s ear, or lying sprawled out on our sofa flicking through the music channels? Besides, Stella has become a simpering lapdog to him, waiting on him and seeing to his every whim. Urgh, just the thought of it is enough to make me gag.
Pathetic. Why do relationships have to render people brain dead and moronic? I see enough of it with Matt without witnessing the same pathetic lovelorn behaviour being carried out by my own mother, in my own home.
Since I have been forced to wait and bide my time with the questions, I have begun to have second thoughts on bringing the subject up at all. Maybe there’s a reasonable explanation as to why Nora would have a photograph of Stella taken on Christmas Day – they didn’t have to be related to be spending Christmas together. Do they? Maybe I wanted it to be true. Maybe my hidden desire to be part of a family has made me see something that wasn’t actually there. I have somehow made it so. I’ve have tried it out in my mind – Nora is related to me. No, it doesn’t fit. Nora with her wild gypsy hair, animal stench and hoarding is the antithesis of my slick, organised, on-trend mother.
No matter how I twist the images around in my mind I can’t make them settle into anything other than absurdity. Perhaps there is a far-flung family tree connection? That is as far as I can contrive the image. My hand darts to my chest and I can feel my heart flutter like the wings of one of Nora’s canaries. I feel like I’ve tripped and fallen into an alternate universe. Whatever the truth is, I have to find out.
Stella has always been vague about her background. I know she was born and brought up in Belfast. I suppose I have always been accepting of the fact that we didn’t have an extended family to visit. Growing up in Leeds, I never questioned why we didn’t visit Belfast. It was just an accepted fact that it was always just the two of us.
When the opportunity to move to Belfast arose Stella had been apprehensive. It was clear to me that she wanted to go but needed constant reassurance that I was okay with it. I had taken time to think about it. Perhaps I would suddenly find a long-lost family and be welcomed back into the bosom of family parties and cosy Christmas scenes. It would make a change from just being the two of us, especially on Christmas Day when there’s never exactly been an abundance of pressies under the tree. But when I did raise the issue of meeting family back in Belfast, Stella told me not to go expecting too much and anyway, what was wrong with there being just the two of us? Sure, she had said, she had good friends from her schooldays in Belfast and they would be like family to us. Initially the job at Heart magazine was based in Belfast. We didn’t bank on Stella’s quick promotion to the fashion editor post and requirement to be in Dublin most of the week. But the new set-up suited us. Stella had her independence and I was content to let Kveta pick up after me and tsk tsk when she was annoyed.
I sort of feel now that it’s best to keep my head down and pretend nothing has changed. Except now I will be on heightened alert to pick up any clues.
Stella
I’ve bagged myself a man. Hoorah! We met at an after party in some random warehouse off the Ormeau Road. It was a select gathering. All writers, film crew and A-listers only. Believe it or not, Belfast has a good ratio of hot famous people since the filming of The Fall and Game of Thrones. The infrastructure is in place for other big movie productions so we are actually teeming with good pickings. Not that I was looking. It was a work night event and I was on my best behaviour when I was introduced to up-and-coming actor Dylan McKay. It was one of those encounters when his pheromones slam into your pheromones and everything else is irrelevant. Things I remember from that night: he smelt delicious, like a ripe pear mingled with an animal muskiness. His chest was smooth and hairless, well-toned rather than brawny, and he had nicely defined arms. He kissed like an amateur, all tongue and gushy, but I just directed him down below and that worked out perfectly well.
When I woke the next day to find myself pleasantly tired and exhilarated I thought that was the end of it. Dylan was all for having breakfast and meeting up later on so for once I thought, feck it, why not?
Tara is older now and I can’t stay single for ever. I have been the dutiful mother and denied myself my womanly needs for long enough. The odd date in Dublin doesn’t count as Tara doesn’t meet them. That morning in bed, Dylan looked like a new puppy, frisky and cute. How could I resist?
