Arrival
"What are you doing, coming into my house dressed like that? You know the rules. Get upstairs now and get changed."
I disappear up the stairs. I can still hear her grumbling to my dad in the kitchen as I go.
"... into my home dressed like a tart. I have told her I won't stand for it. Makes up a laughing stock of the str..."
Closing the door behind me, I flop onto my bed and gaze up at the Laura Ashley lightshade.
I don't know why she's always like this. I mean, I am wearing exactly the same as what I would be wearing when I was staying at mum's; my ripped tights, black hot pants, black mesh shirt, with a black tank top over the top and a pair of fish net gloves.
With a sigh, I flip back onto my feet and begin to undress. I'm careful to avoid my reflection, choosing instead to focus on the neatly folded towels waiting for me at the foot of the bed. Well... they had been neatly folded until I came along and rolled around on them.
What to wear? What to wear?
The Sunday best? … No.
The floral blouse that is three times too big?
Ooh, how about the t-shirt I have had since I was sixteen? A reminder that I will never grow any taller than my 5'7.
What's on the front of it again? Besides faded paint stains from an Easter break holiday club. Let's see. It's … … … Oh, I like this one a lot. It is Edvard Munch's The Scream... except the person who is screaming is the gingerbread man from Shrek, under the watchful, hungry gaze of the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.
Let's go for the Munch. Unless something else catches my … … … Oh, now we're talking. I forgot I had this.
I remove my Margot Robbie "In Squad we trust" shirt from the very back of the drawer and unfurl it with a flourish. I immediately get a pang of gender envy as I stare at the perfect goddess that is DC Comics Barbie, aka Harley Quinn from DCEU. She has a baseball bat over one shoulder. Her dirty blonde hair is in pigtails, with the tips dyed red and blue, and she is blowing a large bubble with some bubble gum. She is wearing a pair of short denim shorts and ripped fishnets. She looks stunning. I dare to look down at my lower half - and hate the off-colour flesh tone of my silicon that is peaking out from above the waistband of my pants.
With a deep breath, I throw on the shirt, change into a pair of purple and black trousers with pentacle zips and bound back downstairs. But not before leaving my new thigh-high boots neatly tucked by the radiator.
My dad is in the kitchen making dinner. He is listening to Five Live on the radio. Francesca is in the sitting room. She is reading something on her tablet. She looks up as I enter.
"Better. You know I don't like you wearing stuff like that. It's not appropriate. You look like you should be out on a street corner somewhere."
Okay, so we are going to start by making moral judgements and shaming sex work, are we? Whatever happened to hello?
"Your hair's getting longer, too. Quite scruffy looking. You should get it cut."
"I already did." I show her my undercut. She looks at it for a long moment.
"Right."
… … …
"Can I put something on the telly?"
"You've only been in for 5 minutes."
20... I have been in the house for 20 minutes. Though it feels longer. Much. Much longer.
"And take off those ridiculous goggles."
"I … I can't."
"Why not?"
"It's Puck who's fronting. Puck needs them. Faer photosensitive."
"Faer? … … … For goodness' sake. Fine, keep the goggles on. I am not having this conversation with you. … Acting like a spoilt brat. I won't keep pandering to this. I really won't."
She mutters the last bit under her breath in an audible whisper that could, to quote Patricia Routledge, "Blow the froth off a Horlix from three tables away."
I don't rise to her bait. I just sit down on the loveseat and put Netflix on.
I settled for Batman: The Animated Series in the end. Season One, Joker's Favour. The first appearance of Harley Quinn, voiced by the late great Arleen Sorkin. Scarlett quotes along to some of her dialogue in a terrible Brooklyn accent.
"If you are going to do that, go into the other room and watch it. I'm trying to read here."
"Sorry..."
"And stop with that annoying voice, you're not American."
"Sorry."
I try to adjust my voice. It takes a moment for it to regain my "usual" pitch and tone.
"I'm just going to grab a drink. Do you want one?"
"No... thank you."
I get up and go to the kitchen.
My dad's kitchen is huge. Like HUGE. It is bigger than my bedroom at my mum's. It's all high tech and new. With a Fridge Freezer. An ice dispenser. Built-in dishwasher. A kitchen island and breakfast bar. And the floor is laminated. It's so posh.
I tread carefully, treating the polished wood as though it were lava.
I am being stupid. I know, I am. I mean... I am wearing socks for fuck sake. But I am already in Francesca's bad books as it is. I don't want to do anything else that might piss her off.
"You're wearing odd socks. And they're inside out and back to front. How old are you again?"
"It doesn't matter... Do you want a hand with dinner?"
"No. I'm doing veggie lasagne. Unless your … … … personalities have decided they have started eating meat again."
"We're pretty much all veggie. Except for Ursa, Anna and Puck."
"… … … Right. Well... dinner will be forty minutes."
"… … … How was work?"
"Yeah, it's been good. You?"
"Yeah. It's going really well. Still recording the show. Still going into Crew. Still doing the admin stuff..."
"Still volunteering?"
"Y...yeah."
"And are you looking for any proper jobs?"
"I … … … I am."
"Because you can't keep volunteering all your life. How is that going to sustain you?"
"I know, it's just …"
"You don't want to turn out like your Aunt Lydia, do you?"
"I am trying to find work. It's just with my health at the moment it's a little diffi—"
"I don't want to hear excuses, Isla. This is important. It's your future. And you are wasting it."
"I don't feel like I am."
"I am not going to argue with you. You need to knuckle down. Because you can't keep sitting on your arse all day doing nothing."
"… … …"
Good chat, Dad. Good chat.
And you wonder why I don't visit more often.
I check my phone. Only two days, five hours and thirty-four minutes till I go. I can do this. I can do this. I can … … …
"What's all that crap on your face. You look like you've been punched."
I can't do it.
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Dinner
Dinner is delicious. It's veggie lasagne. It's vibrant and colourful, and the fresh tomato and basil explode on my tongue.
"I see you haven't slowed down. You absolutely wolfed that. I don't know how you can actually taste anything eating it that quickly."
I take a sip of Coke. I'm careful not to crunch my ice. Not to suck my lime. All the things Kitty and Talon are so desperate to do.
"How's your mum?"
"She's alright..." I begin to tell him.
Like he doesn't already know. He talks to her every now and then. When she decides to take his calls. Theirs is not the friendliest of relationships, and had it not been for me and my brother, they would probably have cut each other off once and for all following the divorce.
I mean, you know it's bad when your mum has him referred to as Voldemort in her phone.
"And your friends? How is James?"
"Jericho? They're fine."
"They're?"
"Yeah, Jericho's non-binary. We … err... think. Not entirely sure. They know they're not Cis, though that's the main thin—"
"Ugh, I really do hate that word," Francesca says, clattering down her knife and fork.
"… … …"
"… … …"
"… … …"
"Some weather we've been having. We're going for a picnic tomorrow on the beach. All three of us. I take it you have no plans?"
He knows I don't. I am a train ride away from any of my friends, and the small town that they live in has very little for me to do at short notice. Not unless I decided to take up golf.
"No plans."
"Good. It is too good weather to be sitting inside on your phone all day."
"… … … Can I leave the table?"
"You may. Are you going to stay and watch something with us?"
"Erm … … … Alright."
The last time we watched something together, the three of us, "as a family," was Deadpool vs Wolverine. And all I can remember is my Dad calling Talon a fuckwit after he zoned out from all the violence and then zoned back in and asked what we had just been watching. Mum tried to justify this.
Oh, he was just surprised. He's never seen you switch before. He doesn't know how to take it.
… … … Right. So that's the excuse for calling the traumatised 8-year-old a fuckwit, is it? We'll remember that when we start our own family. I am writing down all these little pearls of wisdom... of how not to raise my children.
"Did you say you saw Wonka?"
"In the cinema... yeah." Scarlett is the one to respond. Cause she does. They said the buzzword. Wonka... aka Timothée Chalamet. One of the many, many many many attractive people that make her heart go boom. "And …"
I can see them sharing looks. Scarlett's accent is slipping through. That Valley-Girlesque drawl she dons. The way her voice goes up at the end of every sentence. The occasional Americanisation of words.
We trail off.
"… … …"
"… … …"
"… … …"
"We'll watch something else then. If you've seen it."
"Oh... okay."
We didn't watch a film in the end.
We just watch Taskmaster. Not the latest series. One from a few years ago.
Dad and Francesca keep referring to Mae Martin as she. No one else does. Not the contestants. Not the host. Not Mae Martin themself. Just Dad and Francesca.
Each time they say "she", is like a dagger.
It's not like they are alien to those who are non-binary. Most of us are non-binary ... or else, like we said earlier, when referring to James, not Cis. But they refuse to use that language. They are quick to say they can understand the trans stuff, no problem... but non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid, intersex? That is apparently too much of a step for them.
At the end of the first episode, Kitty gives a dramatic yawn and totters off upstairs. She trips over her hurried goodnight and stims loudly.
HAAA!
"Stop doing that."
"HAAA! S...s...sorry. HAA!"
I hang my head and escape to my room.
Once Talon is safely under the covers, foetal, with his knees tucked tight into his chest and his thumb in his mouth, he begins to cry. Rocking back and forth, he cries, as Shadow at the Door does their rendition of The Picture of Dorian Grey. It is a show that is too adult for Talon. But not for me.
Not for me.
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