I manage to eat one of the fish fingers, while Herbie polishes off eleven and Tommy seven. We all cuddle into each other before the curtain falls on this particular scene: the audience is giving me a standing ovation, I’m bowing from my waist, and tears are flowing all round. ‘Electric’， they gush, ‘Simply stunning’， ‘Touched by greatness’， ‘A miraculous performance by an Irish unknown set to take the London scene by storm’， ‘A whirlwind of emotion’， ‘Beautiful and terrifying in equal measure’， ‘Vulnerable yet ferocious’… The reviews keep coming; it’s possible I might drown in the sudden flood of attention: words in print and out, hands clapping, people standing, feet stamping, those tears （crocodile or genuine?）， thousands of new friends on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram （stupid addictive spaces, stupid fawning people）， autographs, chat shows – and the standing in the spotlight, drinking it all in, pissed, high, out of my skin. My appearance as Hedda in a revised version by a trendy new playwright is the performance of the decade: sex-starved, voracious, vulnerable, powerful, trapped, free.
I’m living in a hall of mirrors, my image distorted and bounced back at me: beautiful, grotesque, famous, grotesque, brilliant, grotesque. I’m a sad, needy clown.
‘Yaya? Yaya?’ Tommy’s voice tugs at the edge of my consciousness as I rock, clutching my stomach, sweat pouring out of me. He’s blowing on my face and Herbie’s big tongue is licking me. Five years ago now. How fast I slid down the snake’s back and how perilous that climb on the ladder was in the first place. The sensation of being judged, good or bad, strangled me. That, and the fact that I always knew one day I’d be found out.
Tommy is pinching the skin on the back of my hand, twisting it. ‘Yaya, wake up, wake up, stop talking to yourself.’ I jolt fully awake and see my son’s face, wet and hot. Herbie is panting heavily, his filthy breath hawing on me. Push myself to sitting and take in the scene around me: the cold congealed final fish finger, the carpet strewn with clothes and wrapping and crumbs and muck. ‘A rat would have a party in here.’ I can see my father’s face, his nostrils flared, his body hard and brittle as if it could hardly contain all the disappointment I have heaped on him, as if it might break with the shame. His only daughter, first treading the boards, exposing her madness to the world, then hiding out, a single mother, a common layabout on benefits. There was no pride for my father in my unexpected talent on the stage. He didn’t want that path for me, and he certainly didn’t want this one.
These moments of lucidity are the worst, when the fog has cleared and cold reality lays claim to me, nipping at my heels, making me need to run again, and fast. Can’t sit with this laying-bare of my failings, and again I find myself in the kitchen opening another bottle, Tommy looking in at me from the living room. ‘Are you still thirsty, Yaya?’ This is unquenchable, sweetheart. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. I can’t do it any other way. I drive the bottle opener too deep into the cork so it crumbles and splinters. Next time I’ll make sure they’re screw-tops. Next time… There won’t be a next time. I manage, I swallow, I soothe, I sleep, my boys climbing on top of me.
Sunlight pours through the window and stabs me with its edges. I draw Tommy to me, cuddling his warm, sleepy body.
‘Mr Sunshine has slept enough, Yaya, he’s come out to play.’
Little fingers drum on my head, pa-rum-pum-pum-pum.
‘Shh, little man, come here and let’s sleep a little longer.’ I hold his hands, kiss his fingers. Little torturers.
‘Up, Yaya, up.’
Tommy pulls the duvet off the three of us and runs around the bedroom chasing and cupping the light with his hands. I don’t remember going from the couch to the bed. Pity I can’t block out other unwanted memories. ‘Tommy, pull the blind down, there’s a good boy,’ I manage, my voice catching and breaking on every syllable. ‘Can you get water?’ He nods, goes into the kitchen, pours a glass, brings it back and holds it to my mouth, then to Herbie’s. ‘Unhygienic…’ I try, but it’s too much effort. Tommy puts a towel over my eyes and strokes my hair until I go under again.
‘Tommy?’ The TV is on; I can hear shouting and booing, probably one of those daytime therapy circuses that Tommy loves. Jeremy Kyle is his favourite. He’s kind, Yaya. He wants to make the peoples stop screaming. We’d make great fodder, top-rating viewing. I crave my son’s snug little body and the heft of Herbie, so I call out to the dog, who doesn’t come. The door is closed to the living room, which I’ve told them is strictly forbidden. We have nothing to hide from each other, not even number-twosies, which Tommy finds brilliantly funny. Closed doors make me panic, so I heave myself to the side of the bed, head spinning, sick rising, place my feet on the carpet and haul myself to standing, open the connecting door and find Tommy curled up in Herbie’s belly on the couch, the two of them locked in a circle of love, the dog snoring, the little boy’s arms draped around his neck. The picture is of such tenderness that my breath catches and I have to sit, my vision blurred. When did I become such a crier? Everything these days brings on the waterworks, everything beautiful and everything cruel, and this scene seems to contain it all.