A Random Act of Kindness. Sophie Jenkins
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says, putting his hands on my shoulders briefly in what passes as a hug.
‘It’s warm in here,’ my mother remarks in a troubled way. She looks around with the restlessness of discontent, fanning her strange and unfamiliar face. ‘Isn’t it warm?’
It isn’t, actually, because the heating went off at ten, but my mother’s menopausal, so I agree with her. ‘It’s been very sunny today and hot air sinks, doesn’t it?’
‘It rises,’ my father says.
‘It must be affecting us on its way up again,’ I say brightly. Honestly, I’ve no idea who I am when I’m with my parents. They seem to bring out my inner inanity. When I’m with them, they’re the grown-ups and I regress to some attitude of despicable girlishness that isn’t really me at all.
I stir my drink with my celery stick, mixing in the spices and turning it dark brown. Wow, it’s strong.
They sit on the sofa with a sigh and I perch on the footstool opposite them with an eagerness I don’t feel. ‘How are the Bennetts?’ These are the old friends they’ve had dinner with.
‘Oh, you know,’ my mother says dismissively. ‘Ruth drinks too much.’ She pulls her cape around her and gulps hers down. ‘How’s work?’ she asks with an emphasis on work. Her voice is hoarse and it catches in her throat. ‘Still dressing people? However would they manage to go out in public without you?’
That’s sarcasm, that is, but it gives me the chance to look at her properly without appearing to stare. ‘How would they go out in public without me? Naked, I suppose,’ I reply, also with sarcasm.
‘Have people got no taste of their own?’ my mother asks.
I take a large gulp of my drink and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand in a show of reckless bravado. ‘Well, you don’t have to worry about people’s taste anymore, because I’ve been fired.’ I’d been dreading breaking this bit of news to them but now, ta-da! It’s done!
I brace myself for some yelling, because being with them is as nerve-racking as living on the edge of a volcano, but unusually for my parents they seem at a loss for words.
‘Fern, Fern.’ My father closes his eyes and shakes his head in despair. He looks more resigned than surprised. ‘You were fired? Why?’
I give them the short version of the story.
‘When did this happen?’
‘A month ago.’
‘And you’re only telling us now?’
They glance at each other over their drinks. I’ve confirmed their deepest fears about me.
‘What are you going to do?’ my father asks. ‘Are you getting Jobseeker’s Allowance?’
‘No.’ I wipe the condensation off my glass with my thumb. ‘I’m concentrating on my vintage clothing company. I’m a fashion curator.’
‘Really?’ My mother looks at me with a flicker of animation and for a moment we connect briefly with a small spark of mutual passion that makes my spirits lift.
My father, too, looks hopeful. ‘You’ve got business premises?’
‘I’ve got a stall in Camden Market,’ I tell them.
They freeze. It’s as if we’ve got some kind of satellite time-lapse going on; it takes them a few seconds for the horrible implications to sink in.
All empathy wiped clean once more, my mother says suspiciously, ‘You’re telling us you’re a market trader?’ as if it’s some elaborate story I’ve made up to make a fool of her.
I take a business card out of my wallet, which depicts me standing against a wall of flowers in a Sixties minidress. ‘Look!’ I say. ‘That dress is Pucci. You had one like that, didn’t you?’
She knows I’m trying to get around her and she doesn’t reply.
Some vague desperation for that old connection makes me persevere. ‘Gorgeous, isn’t it? Marilyn Munro was buried in Pucci, you know.’
‘I’m assuming not in this specific dress.’
Ha ha, she’s hilarious, my mother.
She reads the business card slowly, at arm’s-length, too proud for reading glasses. ‘Fern Banks Vintage.’ She hands it back to me and sighs, summing up my enterprise with her own brand of snobbery. ‘In other words, you’re selling people’s cast-offs.’
That hurts.
I reply lightly, forcing a smile. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’
‘And you hope to make a living this way?’ my father asks.
‘Yes, I do. I never pay over the odds. I look for styles and buy diffusion lines, nothing too out there, just clothes for women to look good in.’
‘As opposed to?’
‘Look …’ I’m talking too fast and too defensively, I know, but I want them to understand that this is something I can make a go of. ‘This is something I’m actually good at. And I’m building a decent client list.’ I’m stretching the truth a bit here, obviously. But it’s early days.
A deep weariness has come over them.
See? I think bitterly. Dressing people up in a department store doesn’t seem such a bad job now, does it?
My mother expresses her disapproval by emanating a dense and disappointed silence.
I play with a button on the Barcelona footstool. The silence is just starting to get uncomfortable, when: ‘How’s Mick?’ my father asks casually, breaking it.
That didn’t take long, did it? ‘He’s fine! He sends his love.’ I say that to annoy them. It’s not the kind of thing that Mick would do, send his love to my parents. They’ve only met once, briefly, on my birthday, and he wasn’t what they wanted for me. What he thought of them, he didn’t say. He never gives them a second thought.
They digest my comment for a moment.
‘Your mother and I have been talking about the flat,’ my father says, crossing one leg over the other.
‘Oh, really?’ I feel nervous, as if I’m no longer on solid ground, and I stare at his feet. For a moment I think that what I’m seeing is his pale bare ankle, but no, he’s wearing beige socks.
‘The reason we’re keeping it in our name, apart from the issue of capital gains tax, is because we feel it’s financially safer. For you, you understand,’ he adds.
‘How so?’
He and my mother exchange a look.
‘Have you thought,’ my mother says, ‘that Mick might simply be out for what he can get?’
This is a brand-new put-down out of a whole array of criticisms. I mean, Mick couldn’t possibly like me for my company, my looks and the fact the sex is good, could he? No. He’s after my flat. Correction: their flat. I take another mouthful of my drink. My eyes water. It hits the back of my nose like mustard powder. It’s more like a punishment than a cocktail.
‘He’s got his own house,’ I point out. ‘In Harpenden.’
That shakes them.
‘Actually his own?’ my father asks dubiously.
‘Yes. Actually his own.’ I’ve got a decent imagination, but even I couldn’t invent a house in Harpenden.
My mother gives me the look she uses when she suspects me of lying. I think of getting up to show her photographs of it on my phone, but I change my mind and sink back down again because honestly, it’s not worth the effort.
I crunch on my celery stick and look at her face