reading

MICHAEL JOSEPH

Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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Extract from According to Yes © Dawn French, 2016

The moral right of the author has been asserted

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Pages 337–8 constitute an extension of this copyright page

ISBN: 978-0-141-94801-0

One: Dora (17 yrs)

Two: Mo (49 yrs)

Three: Oscar (16 yrs)

Four: Mo

Five: Dora

Six: Oscar

Seven: Dora

Eight: Mo

Nine: Oscar

Ten: Dora

Eleven: Oscar

Twelve: Mo

Thirteen: Dora

Fourteen: Oscar

Fifteen: Dora

Sixteen: Mo

Seventeen: Dora

Eighteen: Mo

Nineteen: Oscar

Twenty: Mo

Twenty-One: Dora

Twenty-Two: Oscar

Twenty-Three: Mo

Twenty-Four: Dora

Twenty-Five: Oscar

Twenty-Six: Mo

Twenty-Seven: Dora

Twenty-Eight: Oscar

Twenty-Nine: Dora

Thirty: Mo

Thirty-One: Dora

Thirty-Two: Mo

Thirty-Three: Oscar

Thirty-Four: Dora

Thirty-Five: Mo

Thirty-Six: Oscar

Thirty-Seven: Dora

Thirty-Eight: Mo

Thirty-Nine: Oscar

Forty: Dora

Forty-One: Mo

Forty-Two: Dora

Forty-Three: Oscar

Forty-Four: Mo

Forty-Five: Dora

Forty-Six: Mo

Forty-Seven: Oscar

Forty-Eight: Dora

Forty-Nine: Mo

Fifty: Oscar

Fifty-One: Dora

Fifty-Two: Mo

Fifty-Three: Dora

Fifty-Four: Oscar

Fifty-Five: Mo

Fifty-Six: Dora

Fifty-Seven: Oscar

Fifty-Eight: Dora

Fifty-Nine: Mo

Sixty: Oscar

Sixty-One: Dora

Sixty-Two: Mo

Sixty-Three: Dora

Sixty-Four: Oscar

Sixty-Five: Mo

Sixty-Six: Dora

Sixty-Seven: Mo

Sixty-Eight: Dora

Sixty-Nine: Oscar

Seventy: Mo

Seventy-One: Dora

Seventy-Two: Oscar

Seventy-Three: Mo

Seventy-Four: Dad

Seventy-Five: Dora

Seventy-Six: Mo

Seventy-Seven: Oscar

Seventy-Eight: Dora

Seventy-Nine: Mo

Eighty: Mo

Epilogue

From Nana P’s recipe book

Questions with the Author

Dawn’s Reading List

Points for Further Discussion for Reading Groups

Acknowledgements

Follow Penguin

TWO

Mo (49 yrs)

All things considered, that went rather well. Big pat on own back, Mo. I am definitely getting better at not letting her appalling language upset me. No one likes to be referred to as an ‘evil slag’, or ‘hell whore’, let’s be honest, but I’ve suffered worse at the sharp end of her tongue, so ironically I’m grateful for these comparatively lesser lashings.

I am reminded of the trusty old David Walsh mantra I often recommend to my clients, ‘When, in argument, you feel like taking the wind out of her sails, it is a better idea to take your sails out of her wind.’ It certainly was no breezy zephyr I felt battering my aft as I purposely walked away, it was a Force 10 brute, but I am broad in the beam and made of suitably stern-ish stuff. As yet, unscuppered. If lilting a tad.

Yet again, no sign of Husband at the eye of the storm. He scuttled off to a safe port in the study to spend time with his ever-ready, ever-understanding lover, MAC. His endless muttered bleatings about female politics being a mystery are weak and wobbly to the point of jelly. Why does he constantly refuse to back me up at these critical moments? I have repeatedly explained the importance of consistency and continuity as far as the kids are concerned. We must present a united front. We should share my opinion at all times. I am, after all, the qualified child psychologist in this family. Other than fathering two children (total of six minutes’ commitment to the project), I’m not aware of his training. However, have to give it to him, he is certainly a supremely skilled slinker-off-er when voices are raised, no one can better his retreating technique. He certainly gets the gold in that backwards race. Oh yes.

Then, he had the audacity to sit in Dora’s bedroom with her for an hour whilst she apparently ‘emptied out’ and explained to him that she feels she and I are enemies and have been for years. I am not her enemy, I am her mother. Sometimes it’s probably the same thing. It needs to be. I am not here to be her friend.

What am I here for actually? To be a guide, a judge, an inquisitor maybe? At the moment I am purely transport, bank and occasional punch bag.

Everso recently, it would have been me sitting next to her on that bed getting a wet shoulder complete with smeared mascara splats.

What a huge difference between fifteen and seventeen years of age. An entire personality flip has happened. Where has my sweet little goth gone? She of the smudgy eyes and red nylon dreadlocks and Tank Girl industrial boots and clamp-on nose-rings? It was so easy to love that one. That one was endearingly injured and tragic. Why have I been sent this Tango-skinned bleached-hair designer slave? I own a human Cindy. Her insufferable rudeness grows with every waking moment. And quite a few sleeping moments I suspect. I’m sure she doesn’t waste any dream time NOT hating me. Does hate have a cumulative effect? If so, Dora will be earning buckets of interest on her massive deposits of mum-hate. I just have to accept it, she loathes me.

Today’s particular loathing is about refusing to let her have her belly button pierced. In this particular respect, I feel entirely vindicated. Was there ever an uglier mutilation? The very thought of it makes my unpierced and considerably larger stomach turn. Her choice of ‘parlour’ is that nasty dirty little dungeon opposite the carpet shop in the high street, ‘Pangbourne Ink’. Obviously I’ve never ventured in, but I know the sister of the troll who owns it and she had chronic impetigo last year, so if Dora thinks I am sanctioning such a dreadful thing and in such a dirty place, she can think again.

Of course, soon she will be eighteen and if she chooses to maim herself then, she can pay for the privilege. I am not a medical doctor, but if something terrible were to happen to her belly button, an infection of some sort, wouldn’t that seal her umbilical tubes? How would any potential grandchild of mine get its nourishment? She is risking any future child-bearing possibilities. Is there no end to her selfishness?

FOUR

Mo

New Year’s Day. I vow it every year, but this year I mean it, everything is going to change. Radically. Last night was ample evidence that all sentient and valuable life in my home world has evaporated. Who have I become? Who is this? Who is Mo Battle?

I am, apparently, a person who goes to a scruffy pub like the Miller’s Arms on New Year’s Eve, to meet up with neighbours my community-minded husband has fostered. I have nothing in common with them, and hardly even like them. We meet in order to kill what seems like aeons of dull time until the final countdown of doom, heralding the flip into another potentially stagnant year. For God’s sake, I spent two whole hours in that pub separated from the husbands, being forced to listen to the merits of turkey-turning with the wives. Yes, for easily the first three minutes, I was genuinely engaged in the science of it all – of course the juices of the bird would move about during the cooking, into the fattier parts of the corpse, especially the breast, and yes I acknowledge that rotating the beast might be advantageous and possibly tastier. Frankly that was the extent of my interest. But no, there were another 117 minutes of fowl-cooking minutiae to endure. As Karen blathered on incessantly about basters and thermometers and convection cookers and marinating and stuffing and blah and blah, my mind wandered, but for the sake of neighbourly relations I skilfully fixed my gaze on her yappy, overactive mouth and kept a convincing stream of responsive listening noises coming.

Whilst I was trapped in turkey hell with the heifers of our local, Husband was, of course, at the bar with the bullocks, lowing and chewing on their smutty Christmas anecdotes. As if there is anything remotely saucy about Christmas. There isn’t, but they managed to make disgusting grunting noises all evening as if they were at Spearmint Rhino where discussing women in salacious terms is expected. Husband isn’t ordinarily as blokeish as this, but when the herd convenes, the rules and codes are strictly adhered to. He assures me that their conversations are nothing of the sort and that they never refer detrimentally to the various wives.

Could this be an abandonment issue for me? For some reason his desire to be in their male gang, separate and away from me, always feels like a betrayal of some sort. I don’t really want to be there at all, never mind being left with ‘the girls’. I don’t have anything against the other wives per se. It’s just that they wouldn’t be my choice of friends; they have been thrust upon me because Husband regularly drinks with ‘the G-team’ as he calls them. He doesn’t worry whether or not they are suitable as his friends. They are there, so they will do. How curious. The idea that people you chance upon in a pub become a cohesive, supportive group of compadres, united in the pursuit of a nightly pint of Guinness (hence the G-team). The king of all tipples according to him, complete with its frothy crown.

As we sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and saluted the midnight moment with loud cheers and I was forced to clamp hands with a particularly limp, waxen chap with unfeasibly long fingers, who had just emerged from the Gents and who I knew perfectly well hadn’t washed his hands, it dawned on me that I will not allow this to happen again next year. No. Next year will somehow, please God somehow, be different. I am determined to make it so.

There are important issues I must address this year.

I must be thinner.

I must be in a better relationship with Dora and she must respect me more.

I must tackle Peter’s constant insistence that he is in some way channelling Oscar Wilde. It was an amusing family joke two years ago, but now I am finding it worrisome.

I must be further along with my book, and I must have a title for it. What would be a good title for a self-help book for parents of teenagers? Two possible ideas at the moment under consideration: 1. Whatever! and 2. Teenagers: The Manual. Hmm. Think the exclamation mark on the first suggestion might preclude it from being a serious contender.

Finally, I must give some serious thought to my fiftieth birthday in October. Can’t decide whether to celebrate or hide in a deep cave. Not denial exactly, but maybe I could just ignore it … ?

My resolution is: by this time next year I want to know what the hell I’m doing and how I feel … about … everything …

I honestly have no sense of anchorage at the moment. I feel frumpy and unbeautiful, and cross, all the time. Could be the menopause. Mind you, I think there is still a bit of Southern Comfort coursing through my veins from last night. And from the large glass of it I just drank ten mins ago. Hair of the dog. Shame that there was actually some hair of our actual dog in the disgustingly dirty glass which Dora hadn’t even bothered to wash out before she put it back on the shelf. Oh, and that reminds me, the other member of the family I must pay attention to this year is … Poo. Absolutely must get her spayed. This is the eighth year I’ve forgotten. Wonder if the vet would agree to do Dora at the same time … ?

Happy New Year.

NB: Must arrest gradual sclerosis of hope for future.

FIVE

Dora

Fact. Sam Tyler is a cockheaded gitshit, a twatwanker, a coward and a gay. I can’t believe I actually went actually out with him, how embarrassing. On top of it all, he is so rank, like, a total minger. Lottie always said he’s like well below me and she’s like so right. Why didn’t I listen to her? I thought she was jealous! Of what? Of me going out with the biggest mong in Berkshire? – doubt it.

What I really can’t believe is that I was thinking of finishing with him anyway and he just like beat me to it. At one minute to midnight. On New Year’s Eve. In front of everyone – for max humiliation no doubt. And he had his next girlfriend all lined up and ready, so he’d obviously been like planning it or something? And she’s like the second biggest mong in Berkshire after him. Good – well I hope they are happy together in mongtown where they can like live with all their mong friends and family and have mong babies who will grow up to be like more mongish than them.

Now at least I can admit how much his little twig legs always freaked me out and how disgusting his teeth are because he hasn’t properly brushed them since he was two or something and how his stubbly little moustache which he so believes makes him look like Zac Efron, so doesn’t. It looks like a girl’s moustache, like his next girlfriend’s moustache. Which she got from her mother. And how useless he is at kissing. Like someone should tell him, ‘Hello! You can move your mouth around you know and not keep like completely still like a dead corpse or something?’

Anyway it doesn’t matter except all his friends were laughing at me and calling me BB New Year. I didn’t know what that was until Lottie told me it means ‘best before New Year’ like I am past my sell by date like a packet of ham or something. Thanks Sam, you scrote. Can’t believe I ever let him touch me. Thank God it didn’t go too far, although I bet he’s like told his mates it did. Liar. It didn’t. He doesn’t even know how many holes a girl has got – he said eight!! Good luck new girlfriend, you lie back while he stupidly humps away at every hole but the right one and all the holes of every other girl he like sets his eyes on. Hole- shagging freak.

I wish I hadn’t cried though. I wanted to not show any reaction, like ‘yeah, OK. Whatever’, but I think the Tequila Punch was like so strong, that I went all like wobbly and before I knew it I was blubbing like a proper twat. Oh God!! Everyone saw. I hate him. I so hate him.

But, like today, I’ve woken up and like really miss him and his cute little face and now I’m thinking like maybe I really loved him or something? Like maybe he was like my soulmate or something and now I’ve lost him. I like, so loved him, and I still do. I still really love him. To the earth and beyond. Like we said. OH SAM —

SIX

Oscar

Families are a frightful inconvenience, true, but nowadays we are too hasty to dismiss them.

The Battle family. My family. Hmmm.

I am utterly convinced that if only a little glitter could be sprinkled on their blandness, they might yet spring up, and dance the dance of life. This, at least, is my theory where my ancient (sixty-nine whole years for goodness’ sake) grandmama is concerned. Nothing ages a woman so rapidly as a diet of relentless Jeremy Kyle and Emmerdale. Evidenced by Grandmama, who carries the horrific strains and scars of years of loyal service to both of these demanding mistresses.

I offered her the benefit of my company this New Year’s Eve, but informed her that as of midnight I should much like to insist that she refer to me as Master Oscar at all times. For that is whom I am, and I can’t stress enough the importance of being Oscar.

Thankfully Grandmama acquiesced to this simple request. She is dreadfully dowdy but a perfect saint. Her name is Pamela. I ask you, how was she ever supposed to make anything of herself with that ghastly moniker as her albatross? As a rule, I would never trust a woman who sports anything nylon but, in Grandmama’s case, all is forgiven due to the incontrovertible fact that she is gleefully ignorant of the joys of fashion and utterly unencumbered by a shred of style. I therefore choose not to taunt or goad her, it would only be cruelty, and poor wretch, she has no idea of the magnitude of her folly.

Bless her, she is famed in those parts of Pangbourne which are her closest environs, to be something of an expert when it comes to the preparation and serving of the finest of banoffee pies, and truly, in this respect, I am extremely fortunate, for banoffee pie in all its creamy bananaish toffeeish glory is quite easily one of my primary passions in life. To taste, to savour and to have culinary congress with it, is my pure rapturous delight and gives me, frankly, a reason to live. What else is there?

So, in pursuit of this pleasure, and at the set hour, I wended my way by means of two entirely separate and equitedious omnibus experiences to Grandmama’s. I wore a high collar and one of Mater’s faux fur hats against the biting wind. I fancy the ensemble was a mite enchanting, and suited me more than a little, and I detected not a few admiring comments en route.

Once at Grandmama’s domicile I was horrified to realize that she had not reserved the evening exclusively for me, but had invited in, albeit briefly, her imbecile neighbour, the appalling Janice. A woman with the kind of face that once seen, is rarely remembered. Never was there a creature more appropriately placed to be the poster girl for euthanasia.

Why was Pamela born with such hideous contemporaries? I have no doubt that Janice was once the prettiest fool in England but now she is nothing more than a dull, agèd (sixty-two years) and ugly slattern, whose foremost crime is to assume she is always worthy of the post of centre of attention. She is blissfully unaware that this position requires the skill of being even the slightest bit amusing or interesting, if that’s not requesting too much? I am accustomed to dullards, Lord knows I am surrounded by them daily in my family, but the awful Janice takes the biscuit. And the cheese and, by Jove, the crackers.

It was the hour to suffer and suffer we did. News of her wearisome family in Wales, her bargains at the sales and her monstrous bunions were among the ripest of the topics. I wished I were rather ravaged by wild dogs and torn apart and greedily gulped down than have to sit in her atrocious company, but mercifully, she was soon bumbling off muttering something about her neglected dog.

This left Grandmama and I to our familiar New Year’s traditional schedule of a hand of cribbage, followed by the notorious banoffee pie in front of Jools Holland’s Hootenanny where we both agreed that Dizzee Rascal was, frankly, dazzling. A satisfying evening with much to recommend it. I look forward to a decade of scandalous delights and I promise earnestly to remain forever Oscar.

SEVEN

Dora

Oh my complete and utter God. Mum is like a constant noise. She says the same things over and over again so much, that in the end, I can’t even like hear her. She sounds like that noise you get when you’re trying to tune the radio and you haven’t got to a channel yet. The noise inbetween, that’s her. Interference. I can usually pick up on a vague theme of whatever she’s stressing about. Today it’s something about revision and my UCAS personal statement. Duh. I know it’s got to be done don’t I? That’s why I already finished like half of it already at school you dunce Mother. But if I let her see it, she’ll just pick all holes in it and make me do it again, so why would I bother showing her?

Wish she could see what she looks like when she’s in a major strop, she’s hilarious. Her eyes bulge and her neck goes all red and she keeps slapping her head and the language is massive. She looks like an angry baboon. She’s so over dramatic, she works herself into a psycho screaming fit. When she is swearing she doesn’t even swear properly, and she always thinks of the worst possible thing that could ever happen. Today she banged on my door and said:

‘Dora! Open this door immediately! I have been talking through it now for forty-five minutes! If you don’t shitting wake up and realize that your cacking future is slipping away with every cocking second that you don’t get that personal statement finished, you should expect to spend your fecking useless life walking around in Oxford Street, with those massive boards on you telling everyone where the endless arseing golf sale is. Yes, that is your future!’

This apparently is my only option!

And she doesn’t even know how to write the bloody statement anyway. The last time she had to write something like this was when SHE went to uni, which was in the last bloody century for God’s sake, over seventy years ago or something. She probably just wrote ‘I, Maureen’ … something … Don’t know what her name was before she married Dad … ‘I Maureen Boring-Hair, do intend to attend this university of great learning so that I may learn all I need to know about being a crap shrink so I can tell everyone how to live, and boss them all about and convince them I’m cleverer than them, and charge them a bloody fortune and they can never tell me I’m wrong because it’s not even a scientifically proven method, and there’s no way of checking up on me whether I know how to like, even do this job properly atall. My hobbies are: talking, shouting, screaming, bossing, knowing best and getting really fat. I do hope this application finds a positive response because I really do want to boss people about for my job, and if I don’t get in, I’ll like, stomp about and shitting shout at everyone so please take me. I promise to be as fake as possible whenever I can, so my patients will always think I am a like calm and clever person who knows more about everything than they do.’

Yeah Mum, you’re a lot of help, I really want your advice – not.

And she cracked off on a big one all about my Facebook site for bloody ages. She’s got no idea what it is, or how it works, but she says I have put porno pictures of myself on there and apparently I send and receive messages with ‘inappropriate language’. What would she know? She hasn’t read them. And, actually those are the pictures me and Lottie took of each other and that is, like, a proper expensive bra thank you. Like, from Juicy Miss or something? So we’re not sluts like she’s making out.

She says any old perv could start talking to me on it but duh, hello old woman, you have to like invite people on to your page and like, why would I invite a perv? You div Mother, you honestly bloody embarrass me with your IT ignorance. Even her secretary at work has to type up her bloody patient notes stuff because she is so old and broken that she is too scared or something to learn how to like use a computer. Wake up you bloody doormouse! Everybody in the entire world has got a computer – except you. Even people in like mountain caves in Borneo or something? I learned how to use one when I was like, a baby for chrissakes!! If a baby can do it, can’t a trained child psychologist use one?!

Dad says he is going to get her some stone and a chisel for her to write her next book on. I mean, who uses a pencil and paper to write a book? Even bloody Shakespeare must have had a better method than that. If the woman who writes Twilight had to do it with like a bloody pencil, it would take her like six years or something to write the first chapter, and I would like die of waiting. Get a life Mother, please! Wake up and smell the tea.

Anyway, I did do a bit more work on my personal statement, just to keep Mum quiet. I think it’s really good now. After I finished it, I read it again as if I was like not me, but like I was one of the examiner people type of thing, and I think I sound like a truthful, honest person who is interesting and like, full of charm or something. I have lied a bit about some stuff, like saying I am Head Girl and that I am an accomplished public speaker and that I have ten A stars at GCSE when I only have one and that’s for Art. Like they’re going to check!! Actually, I’m really pleased with it and if I was like choosing who to take at Manchester Metropolitan uni to study Food Technology I would def choose me. Def.

Oh my actual God, I’m going to uni this year! I can’t believe it, freedom at last! Go uni – go uni! I’m still deciding about a gap year or not but prob not because Mum has said that if I take one now, I have to like get a job and earn towards my travelling before I’m allowed to go off? What is she talking about? What does she think learning to be a snowboard instructor is? Just fun or something? No, the reason you learn that skill, cretin of all cretinous mothers, is so that you can teach kids and like earn money for it you damn fool, that’s the whole point!! And in the evenings I would be like cooking dinners for skiers and their families in the chalets. That’s what Lottie’s sister did, so I know how it works.

Oh my days, it’s going to be so great because there are like so many fit guys out there? Yea, though I walk into the valley of hot guys, let me always carry my camera with me so I can like upload tons of pics of me getting lashed on to Facebook so Lottie will die of jealousy. YAY! And maybe Sam Tyler might even visit my page and take a look at what he’s missing, the idiot. Yeh Sam, here’s me with loads of fit ski instructors, really like missing you – not!

Mum says that for def uni selection people are going on to Facebook sites to see what people are really like. Oh God Mum – you are one delusional mama, like I would invite them on as friends!

EIGHT

Mo

Dora is hell-bent on destroying her life. Her university application form is beyond awful. I tried, gently, to offer my help but of course she is rejecting all aid and encouragement presently. She has started the statement with a misguided attempt at a lonely hearts classified section-type joke which goes something like ‘Pretty blonde girl, 17, with GSOH and own scooter seeks buzzin’ uni with top class food tech department and fit boys for learning, fun and maybe more …’ Dear Lord.

She then follows this with the old chestnut, the dreaded definition, so it goes:

‘I ask What is a university? My trusty dictionary tells me it is a “high level educational institution in which students study for degrees and academic research is done”. Well, that’s handy then, because that’s exactly what I’m looking for – except for the research bit – I won’t be doing any of that atall. So hi Manchester Metropolitan University!, I’m Dora and it looks like we’re a match! …’ Oh God.

She then goes on to actively lie about many things including the bogus tally of her GCSEs and when I suggested she might elaborate on the sentence ‘I like badminton’ (she doesn’t) she begrudgingly wrote ‘I like badminton a lot’. She has sent it off now, so there is nothing I can do except scream internally. And I am screaming.

There was further annoyance when I returned to work today after the holiday period to find that George has agreed to take on two junior psychs to shadow us as part of some buddy scheme instigated by the Royal College. He mentioned this possibility to me before Christmas but at that stage, it was only supposed to be one, who would work with both of us alternately. That in itself was enough of an inconvenience – I always feel strangely self-conscious when there is an auditor of any kind. I find it hard to be natural when scrutinized; I’m distracted by their continual questions and judgements.

Fascinating that George has suddenly decided to take on two. Double fascinating that the one he has ascribed to himself is called Veronica and has unfeasibly huge tits and a constant pout and has already learned that George is putty in the presence of giggling girly flattery. How irritating that both of them would be so stupendously predictable and inappropriate. I do hope they both actually do some worthwhile work with the clients alongside their revolting public foreplay.

Oddly, it is Veronica that I find most disappointing. George is just behaving like the reactive Pavlov’s dog with many cocks that he is. Has always been. It’s a given with him, mandatory, if there’s a pretty girl and she shows any interest at all in him, he is helpless. Ring the bell, the dog salivates. He’s not even choosy, really anyone will do, and they do do. Often.

I will never forget his arse-wrenchingly awful opening gambit to our previous receptionist on her first day at work:

‘What the hell is the point of a heavenly creature like you wasting your lovely bum sitting on an office chair behind reception, when you could be using it to sit on my lap being adored, eh? Eh?’

He thought it was ironic and flirty. It wasn’t. He thought it was funny. It wasn’t. What was funny though, were the rivulets of muddy-coloured Grecian 2000 hair dye running down the side of his overexcited sweaty face.

Veronica obviously believes she is the one who can finally fulfil George’s aching chasm of emptiness left by his wife’s neglect. His surprisingly saucy wife Jess, who he clearly adores and who he leans on and remains with. There’s no neglect that I can see, quite the opposite it seems. Safe in the confines of her evident love, he has grown a kind of mighty hubris, a confidence which allows him to play-act his bachelor stallion fantasy. All acting and all harmless ultimately. Slightly pathetic yes, and nothing new, but he’s only made of the same emotionally porous bricks and mortar as almost every other chap.

I’m not sure quite where this relationship leaves Veronica and George when it comes to the work? Perhaps engorged George enjoys feeling swollen with confidence and thus displays himself as an exemplary specimen of a clever psychiatrist in order to show off? He peacocks himself with both his stocky physicality and his muscular mind. He is clever and he’s in charge. A winning combination. His power is the aphrodisiac for himself and the women, I suspect. Admittedly, he is never less than marvellous at work. Never. I have learned so much from him. Got to give him that.

But Veronica. Poor Veronica, who is just the next one in a never-ending, ever-willing queue. And what about her betrayal of another woman, Jess, who has done her no harm? Oh I don’t know, am I just a judgemental, jealous fool? I grew up in a time when the fight to be recognized for one’s intellect and personality ALONGSIDE, not instead of, one’s fabulous tits was being fought. And it’s still not entirely won, so I feel horribly let down by women prepared to present themselves as purely vessels for men’s lust. God knows, being on the receiving end of a bit of lust IS gorgeous and I’ve certainly craved and luckily received my share of that, but that alone is a pretty miserable prospect.

Who am I to judge? Well, I’ll tell you who – it is my job to persistently question why people define themselves in the way they do and why they relate to others in the way they do. Consequently, I cannot help but observe the behaviour of George and Veronica as a slice of social anthropology. However it may depress me, I still find it fascinating. On top of which, both of these particular people are of course prescribing techniques and asking others to monitor their own behaviours daily. That is their job. Do they ever self-analyse? I doubt it. They are interested mainly in each other’s pants. And on we go …

I have yet to meet my intern. I’m told his name is Noel. He has apparently been abroad for Christmas and returns next week. Well, he will have to hit the ground running because the appointment book is fit to burst, always the case after the enforced jollity of family Christmases.

Talking of appointments, I must speak to George about Lisa. She is a poppet and an excellent receptionist, but I sense by just how often she now quotes her survivalist training techniques to me that her mind is elsewhere, and I fear we may lose her soon to one of the jungles, deserts or islands she has been so studiously preparing herself for. This morning she furnished me, from behind her desk, in the presence of a full waiting room, with all I might need to know when Preparing the Kill in the Wild. I now know too many details about Bleeding, Skinning, Gutting and Jointing.

‘What’s vital, Mo, is never to waste blood – it is rich in vitamins and minerals including salt that could be missing otherwise from a survivor’s diet. Fact: When cannibals drank their enemies’ blood apparently their eyesight got much better. Deal with it.’

It follows, then, that I might be able to save on my next Specsavers bill by drinking copious amounts of Lisa’s blood, maybe. Just a thought. Meantime we ought to be keeping our inferior pre-blood-drinking eyes open for a new receptionist, perhaps?

NINE

Oscar

I must find a suitable tailor. I must. I am not well pleased with the pathetically paltry style offerings of Pangbourne nor indeed of Wokingham and God forbid I should be forced to descend into the ultimate cultural abyss: Reading, a large town, the capital of Hell. If one should be searching for any vestige of dandy, these harbours of evil won’t suffice. The purveyors of supposed fashion in these infernal places are so very colourless and lack any individuality. All is repetition, all is uniform, all is bland. I consider the ugliness they are willing to peddle a kind of malady. A sickness of utterly rotten bad taste. A malaise of pandemic proportions, which seems to be spreading like wildfire across our green and pleasant land.

Last week, I attempted to purchase a simple cravat. I might as well have attempted to procure the soul of the Dalai Lama, it was so impossible. The store is a well-known gentlemen’s outfitters. One may have presumed my intended purchase wasn’t so rare a request, but the imps of Satan employed therein displayed their intolerable bad manners with repeated giggling and whispered insults. Well, hardly whispered. They were too unclever to manage even that. Rarely have I encountered creatures with such a complete absence of intelligence and such monumental incompetence. Veritable scoundrels and bounders.

I refuse to behave as though my predilection for jaunty neckwear is some kind of shameful dark secret. I simply will not allow the intellectually lost to dictate my personal aesthetics. The value of dress in relation to good taste is obvious to me. Just as obvious as the notion that the widespread infection known as the ‘hoodie’ has undoubtedly destroyed acres of taste in our currently crippled culture of couture. I shan’t tarry around that subject too long, for fear of drowning in gallons of my own bile. Suffice to say that I bade my adieus and departed Burton’s without a backward glance. They will not EVER profit from my not inconsiderable pool of pocket money. Since Christmas I have in excess of forty honourable English pounds. My exodus signified the end of what might have been a rewarding relationship for both of us, but Je ne staunchly regrette rien.

My search for a prince among tailors and gentlemen’s outfitters continues apace. I tentatively suggested to the Pater that he might accompany me presently, on an excursion to London in search of the very same. The thrust and parry of our repartee was certainly invigorating. The Pater insists that he would clearly be travelling not as my companion, merely as my chauffeur. Of course, he is right. Although a thoroughly decent chap, he and I are hardly kindred spirits. Truth be told; I often ponder whether I can possibly be blood-related to him, since we have so little in common.

Admittedly, there are some irrefutable genetic similarities. I have his nose, his eyes, his jaw and his stature. I also have his flaxen hair colour, his eye colour and his exact same hands. My gait, however, is my own entirely. Papa is a gross lolloper. I prefer to propel myself with a tad more grace.

I’m reliably informed that my physical presence is variously ‘interesting’, ‘imposing’ and ‘big’. Initially I took offence at the latter, but I was so very young at the time it was uttered, I was a mere fourteen years then, whereas I am much more resilient now that I am sixteen years and a full two months. A lifetime of fortitude has befallen me since then. I now accept ‘big’ as an undeniable compliment. I am, indeed, big. I fancy I carry off my bigness with a certain élan, with the aplomb of someone easily twenty years my elder. Someone like Stephen Fry or Dale Winton, perhaps? Both of which fine chaps obviously benefit from the skills of some master of great style, and that, dear diary, is who I must find. A tailor of repute, a cloth-meister of renown. To London, Pater, and don’t spare the horses!

TEN

Dora

I am thinking that going to Manchester Metropolitan to do Food Tech might be a like, giant mistake? I know all the uni experience stuff would be like really great and everything but would I just be wasting my time completely if it’s not what I really want to do? It would take me away from what I really want to do for three years for God’s sake, and I might never get the chance again, and after all, if you are going to really make it as a singer you’ve got to start really young.

I’m already wasting time. By my age Adele had been singing in public for like three years or something, really building up her profile. My profile is like, minus a thousand or something? Ask anyone, they’ve never heard of me. Which is totally like Mum’s fault because I clearly asked her to book me a session in a recording studio or something as my birthday present last year. All the bloody usual excuses came out – ‘You need to have a song ready’ ‘What musicians are you going to use?’ ‘Are you aware it costs two thousand pounds young lady’ – all that sort of prime crap, the usual stuff she says to stop me having a singing career.

I mean, like excuse me, but who was the one who won the house singing competition in Year 9? Who got accepted for choir? Who was asked to be one of the backing singers behind Judith Taylor in the school band, Girls For Hire? Was it you, fatso Mother? Or was it me, the one with the really ‘distinctive’ and ‘unusual’ voice as Mr Solomons said, and he’s only the Head of Music actually, so he should know.

It’s not like this is some kind of pie dream I’m having – I’ve like really seriously thought about it, and I know with all my heart that I am destined one day to live my dream, and be as famous as like Cheryl Cole or something? Oh my actual God, I’m not thirteen or something, I will be eighteen in August so I know myself. Who I am, what I am and what I can possibly be. If only my cocking parents weren’t bloody stopping me by like, ruining all my dreams by pissing all over them every time I suggest it.

Lottie says I can, really, sing, better than anyone on American Idol and like loads better than bloody Susan Boyle. Who is she?! I know it sounds like totally random but I’ve had an idea and I really really think I’m going to do it and that is, to go up for X Factor. They have auditions in London, I could easily catch the train. Hope they’re on a Saturday because they’re being like so strict at school now about absence and stuff. Just because of exams or something.

I will have to choose a song but I think I already know it will be ‘Beautiful’ by Christina Aguilera because I know the words and because I can like so relate to it. They always say you should really feel a song and with that one, I so like, do. Because in that song it says, ‘Now and then I get insecure from all the pain, so ashamed,’ and that’s exactly how I’ve felt since Sam dumped me.

Lottie’s the only one who knows how bad I really feel. All the others think I don’t really care because that’s what I say but … why did he dump me? Am I ugly? Well, I know I am, but not as bad as some people. Have I got like zero personality or something? I know plenty of other girls are like way more interesting than me, and funnier and prettier and everything. Is it because I wear glasses? I’m going to get the laser thing done but not yet because my eyeballs have to fully grow first or something, Mum says.

The awful thing is I think he was right to dump me because to be honest, he can do better than me. Still, least I had him for six weeks. That’s my longest boyfriend yet. Maybe I’ll find someone more my level next. Maybe I shouldn’t aim so high then the boy will stay with me a bit longer in future because he will be grateful too. I need someone who likes someone like me. Someone who is, like Christina says ‘Full of beautiful mistakes’.

THE BEGINNING

Dawn French

A TINY BIT MARVELLOUS

MICHAEL JOSEPH

Contents

ONE

Dora (17 yrs)

TWO

Mo (49 yrs)

THREE

Oscar (16 yrs)

FOUR

Mo

FIVE

Dora

SIX

Oscar

SEVEN

Dora

EIGHT

Mo

NINE

Oscar

TEN

Dora