I am running down the rain-soaked streets, destroying the bottoms of my Juicy tracksuit (why is it they never drag on the pavement when it’s not raining heavily?). I am late, although thankfully, for the first Sunday in weeks, not hungover. The doormen swing open the heavy doors, and I stumble into the Wolseley and stand at the entrance, dripping wet and trying to catch my breath. From the middle of the room, Evil Bitch Sister No 1 (EBS 1) is glaring disapprovingly at my umbrella (captioned heavily with the words “Groovy Chick”) and looking as though she wants to kill me. We are here to celebrate my mother’s birthday.
“D!” trills my mother. “How lovely of you to finally join us!” The false jollity is a transparent dig at my timekeeping. "Let me look at you – I was beginning to forget what you look like, hahaha." (Note: I recently conducted an experiment to prove that, contrary to her perception, she is the one who never calls me, and if I neglect to call her for a couple of weeks, we will not be in touch at all. It has clearly backfired on me now.)
“You’re looking so much healthier,” she continues. “You were looking very gaunt earlier this year, and I was desperately worried. Now you look more… robust [ie you’re getting fat again] and you’ve got your colour back” [ie sunburned from runs in Regent’s Park]. I knew it! My thighs are ballooning!
EBS 1 smirks triumphantly behind her carrot juice, but says nothing: she is in a rare good mood at the moment, having successfully managed to manipulate and extort money out of my mother to buy a flat in West Hampstead.
I bury my head in the overpriced menu, wondering how – in a macrobiotic-friendly restaurant – I am still unable to find anything suitable to eat. I am already hot with irritation, and I remove my Juicy jacket to reveal a Little Miss Naughty T-Shirt. EBS 1 and EBS 2 squirm with embarrassment. “You look ridiculous,” hisses EBS 1. “You’re far too old to get away with that top,” says EBS 2. My mother looks despairingly at me. “Oh! You have some white hairs!” she exclaims, patting her immaculate blonde bob, as several people on surrounding tables look over to examine the growing visible signs of my aging process.
My mother is one of those irritating people who has never smoked and doesn’t drink, rarely exercises, has a largely stress-free lifestyle, still enjoys biscuits late at night, but has never had cellulite, and with the right make-up, can still pass for 47. She is 62. Unfortunately, I take after my father, who smoked 40 cigarettes a day, was an outrageous workaholic, lived on about 3 hours sleep a night and constantly over-committed himself to different causes. He was once mistaken for a pensioner by a pharmacist when he was still in his 40s.
“Now listen, D,” she continues, and I can tell from her tone that she is on a mission. The object of her last mission broke my heart, and she has been warned repeatedly to abandon her matchmaking attempts.
“I spoke to Auntie D last week, and she couldn’t believe that you live round the corner from her and still haven’t been round to them for dinner! She’d like you to come next Friday night. There’ll be lots of nice young people there!” EBS 2 makes funny faces at me in between bites of pain au chocolat. We all know what “nice young people” means, and she is grateful to have escaped from my mother’s latest matchmaking mission.
The mere mention of Auntie D is enough to induce a panic attack in me. Pushing 80, the woman is a walking warning against surgical intervention. The skin on her face is so tightly stretched, it is a wonder she can still talk; in fact she has such a prohibitive lisp, it is hard to understand a word she says, although her voice is certainly loud enough. Her yellow bouffant hair is more visible than the sun on a clear, bright day, her inch-thick make-up is so exaggerated that I would not be surprised if she were outed as a transvestite, and her intoxicating perfume poses more threat to the environment than any inland carbon footprinted aeroplane journey. My memories of family get-togethers are tainted not only with her presence, but with her insistence on informing me and everyone else present that I was very fat and needed to lose weight. Apparently now I am thin enough to merit a place at her dinner table, where I will inevitably be presented to a panel of (in)eligible Jewish bachelors.
This time, I don’t have the energy to fight my mum on this one. My dating website experiences as well as my mum’s attempts to marry me off make me think of what Jacqueline Rose wrote in the introduction to her brilliant book, States of Fantasy. I often think of this: she referred to the postmodern identity crisis; belonging “everywhere and nowhere at the same time”. This is how I feel. I know on paper I’m a “nice Jewish girl” (as long as I have edited certain details on that paper, hahaha!), but the suburban sell-out dream that will be waiting for me at Auntie D’s Friday night dinner table will just not do it for me.
It’s a funny place to be. I have just fought my way through the most difficult 6 months of my life, and have come through intact: a little bruised and still cynical, but stronger, self-confidence intact, still optimistic and still curious and excited about life, grateful for the many relationships in my life and all the opportunities I am fortunate to have. I have learned an enormous amount about myself over the last 6 months. I am looking forward to starting my new job on Tuesday. Everything is falling into place. I belong everywhere…
…and yet I also belong nowhere.
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