I’m a big fan of a bit more detachment in work, I think it shows a little maturity – instead of it being like ‘me, me, me’ you know? Hard not to be me me me with ID Pol work, and ID Pol is hard to separate from immaturity, like I see these pics, and they’re fine but it’s hard not to see the genetic connection between these and teen girls taking pics of their period knickers and dyed-unshaved armpit hair. Yawn! So I’d say detach yourself from your work – dump photography for a while and try something else, even.
See you in the pub,
Irina.
EDDIE FROM TESCO, II
I keep the money in a plastic bag under the sink, deciding I’ll deposit one or two rolls a month. I buy some dumb shit – I used to buy dumb shit all the time, and then my parents took my credit cards. No credit needed now, I guess.
I come home with a bunch of shopping bags, and none of the lights will turn on in my house. I hide the shopping in my spare room, then ring my dad and tell him to come fix it. He’s over in half an hour. When I open the door for him, he hugs me, and kisses my cheek. His hair is still red, even though he’s almost sixty. He’s an ugly man, but I see the sketch of myself in him. We’re the same height and colouring. He has a sharp nose that points upwards, and high cheekbones. Mam and I don’t even look related.
‘Daddy,’ I coo. ‘I can’t work out what I’ve done!’
‘I’ll sort it, love, don’t worry.’
He sorts it. The bulb in the living room has blown and tripped the fuse. He sorts the fuse, then changes the light bulb for me. I follow him around the house and tell him about how well things are going. I tell him I’m seeing someone, and prep for the show is going really well, and I’m getting so many private sales that I was able to quit the bar.
‘Well, you can tell your mam yourself. I’m not telling her.’
‘I never said I wanted you to tell her,’ I snap. He climbs down from a wooden chair, a new light bulb in place. His knees click when he gets down.
‘Is there anything else you need doing, love?’ he asks. ‘While I’m here? How’s the pipes? Your sink still leaking?’
‘No,’ I say.
I direct him to the drawer of my bedside table, the one that won’t close properly. I make him wait outside with the door closed while I move all of my bedside-table shit into the wardrobe. I perch on the bed and watch him work. He smacks aimlessly at the drawer with a hammer.
‘Thank you, Daddy,’ I say. He smiles at me, and the corners of his eyes crinkle up.
‘I do worry about you, love. Quitting your job like it’s nowt. I know you’ve been on the sick,’ he says. ‘I popped into your work, and that lad told me. The muscly one.’
‘Why did you pop in to my work?’
‘I’m sorry. I haven’t seen you; your mam hasn’t seen you. I just wanted to say hello,’ he says. ‘I worry, it’s my job. And you’re just full of secrets, aren’t you? Always have been.’
‘Maybe it’s because you’re so fucking weird about everything I tell you – did Mam tell you what she said when I told her I had the exhibition? She just started going on about how she hasn’t heard of the gallery, and how she’s not homophobic because she thinks my photos are shit, or something. It’s literally like… why would I bother?’ I say. ‘Seriously, Dad, I’m asking. Why should I bother if you’re both just going to give me gyp whenever I sneeze?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I’m not giving you gyp, love, I’m just—’
‘Worried. You said.’
Dad convinces me to come home for dinner, even though I’m meeting Flo for drinks in a few hours. He waits while I put my makeup on. I only go because I’m hungry, and I only have a bag of spinach in the fridge and I’m not in the mood to deal with Eddie from Tesco today.
Dad has this awful, racing-green vintage sports car, and he always looks so fucking pleased with it. I keyed it once, when I was seventeen, because he dobbed me in to Mam for smoking after she found an open pack of tabs in his jacket pocket. He said they were mine and I’d worn his jacket out.
Mam complains that she didn’t know I was coming over.
‘I’ll fuck off then,’ I say. Rather begrudgingly, Mam lets me into the house, and continues to complain that they’ll have to rethink dinner. Dad will go and pick up fish and chips. I complain about carbs.
‘Just eat the fish,’ snaps Mam. ‘This has really thrown my evening off, Irina. It really has.’ She was going to catch up on Corrie tonight.
While Dad is out hunter-gathering, Mam sits me down at the dinner table and interrogates me. She says her curtain-twitching friend, Susan, （who lives on my street） saw me getting into an old car with a short foreign-looking man, and worried, because she’d been reading all about these Asian grooming gangs.
‘I was so embarrassed when she rang me, Irina,’ she says. ‘What on earth were you doing?’
‘I’m seeing someone,’ I say. But she snaps that I should be more careful about who I’m seen with. ‘Are you telling me not to go out with men who look like they might be Asian? Or are you asking me if I’m being trafficked or something?’
‘Oh, so I’m a racist now,’ Mam snaps. She tells me the issue was the height difference and the dodgy car, not the ‘racial thing’。 She was embarrassed because Susan had said your Irina got in a battered Micra with some little foreign-looking fella, and then brought up the grooming gang stuff, because she thought it was strange that I was with such a little bloke. Mam says Susan wouldn’t have brought up grooming gangs or pimping had we not looked so strange together.
‘Susan looks like she’s been hit in the face with a shovel,’ I say. ‘And she dresses like it’s 1997. Why would I care what Susan thinks?’
‘You know she had that stroke, Irina. So, who was he, then? I had a look through your tagged Facebook photos again, and I didn’t see anyone matching Susan’s description.’
‘Oh my God,’ I say, under my breath. I need to delete Facebook. ‘I just… It was just the once. He works in the Tesco near mine.’
‘You said you were seeing him a second ago. Susan didn’t make him sound very attractive,’ Mam says. ‘Not my type – working in a Tesco. Honestly. At your age.’
‘Well I might see him again. I don’t know.’ I look down at the table. I can’t look at her face. She’s smirking. I feel sick. I tell her he’s in teacher training. I don’t comment on the age thing. I think he might be twenty-four. At the most. I couldn’t find his Facebook page, because I don’t know his last name. ‘Anyway, I’m not going to pick dates based on who I think my mam will find attractive. Sorry he’s not conventionally handsome, or whatever. I’m a broad church.’ I think she’s about to drop it; she falls silent for a moment. Her fat upper lip is curled, and her over-plucked eyebrows are raised to her tight hairline.
‘I know you are,’ she says. I ask her what she means by that. She clicks her tongue. ‘Not everything’s a dig, Irina,’ she says. ‘But it must be if I’ve said it, because I’m the worst mother in the whole world, aren’t I? Just the horrible bitch who nursed you, and bathed you, and who pays your rent.’