Page 31 of Alice Carver Manifests Her Perfect Life
To stop being so unkind.
Date: Saturday 31 DecemberTime: 11.35am
My thoughts and reflections:
I was just about to message Aunty Margaret when she messaged me to say that she’s giving me £100 via Mum and Dad (she knows they’re coming to London to see Astrid and Aziz who have clearly given up on the idea of proper fun plans for NYE, in the way that married people do), and could I use it to buy a nice bunch of flowers and some welcome groceries, etc., for the new tenants? She said that if the tenants are happy with the flat, perhaps we could look at some dates in the summer and see if there’s a weekend available for me to spend a weekend at their other flat in Majorca, ‘as a little thank you’.
Ooh!
So I think, on reflection it’s probably better not to mention to Aunty Margaret what the Rodentinators man said. It’ll only upset her and I’ve always wanted to go to their holiday apartment in Majorca – it’s gorgeous – but she’s very precious about it. I’m thinking that what Icoulddo is use that £100 and buy some cleaning products and clean the flat myself tomorrow, and still have plenty left over for flowers, etc., and hopefully enough for a couple of drinks out with Drunk Stephen in Stratford tonight. How hard can it be to disinfect a flat? Bleach doesn’t cost much. And I’m sure the tenantswill be fine. After all, if they have such a serious dust allergy, they’re used to playing roulette with life as it is. Plus Aunty Margaret only ever leaves Scotland to go to Majorca, so it’s not like she’ll be personally checking the flat.
Also, Astrid’s just sent me a message inviting me along to an early supper tonight because she’s found out Arrie and Roger are in London, too, visiting Roger’s parents, which is perfect, as Astrid has a last-minute announcement she’d like to make to the whole family together. Bet she’s pregnant. She’s done two announcement suppers before – one when she got engaged to Aziz and one when she was made partner. So we’ll all have to celebrate yet another win for Astrid. Whilst I am without partner, home or future. Fabulous.
On the plus side, at least Astrid has acknowledged thatIam the fun sister, with NYE engagements that don’t involve hanging out with retired parents: she said supper will be done by nine so it shouldn’t interfere with whatever ‘overpriced partying’ I have planned. Also, I love their house, it’s a free supper (that will be yummy if Aziz has cooked), there will be wine that hasn’t been chosen simply because it’s on offer, and once I tell Dad about what’s been going on, he’ll hopefully give me some cash.
My intention is:
To eat really well at Astrid’s, to maybe borrow a couple of bottles of wine as a thank you to Drunk Stephen for letting me stay, and to resist being drawn into competitive or comparative (or combative) family dynamics.
Date: Sunday 1 JanuaryTime: 5.28am
My thoughts and reflections:
Happy new year.
Happy fucking new fucking year. To me.
So, here I am, on the unpleasantly bouncy Ikea recliner in the sitting room of Drunk Stephen’s flat because Drunk Stephen’s flatmate came back early from Scotland due to a family crisis and kicked me out of his bedroom. I don’t know what the family crisis is – maybe his mother’s discovered his passion for painting weird little figurines. I do know that he’s made it very clear that I can’t sleep here for another night. He left all my stuff in the sitting room (apart from a couple of pairs of pants) with a rude note:need you out by tomorrow morning and all underwear removed from my bedroom floor. Not that I am sleeping. I am trying to ignore the muffled voices and giggles and occasional silences from Drunk Stephen and New Steven (the unbelievably hot guy Drunk Stephen met about six hours ago) who are also still very much not sleeping by the sounds of it, and trying to ignore the gnawing feeling of rising nausea that could be hunger or bitterness or trauma from the Dave-thing (I feel like I’ve still got the smell of pasties and paint thinners in my nostrils). More on this later, if I can bear to. Or it couldbe pancreatitis. And trying not to think about what a totally and utterly shit night this has been.
And so it is that on the first day of the new year I am awake but not having sex, not having fun, and anticipating the day ahead which holds… more not having sex, definitely not having fun, and a whole lot of hazardous deep cleaning. And for afters? I have nowhere to stay tonight, I’m back in the office the day after tomorrow to face potential redundancy, my whole family thinks I’m useless, and I made some pretty unwise decisions tonight. Including texting Monty. Just now. But then I deleted it.
All in all, I wouldn’t say this has been a happy new year whatsofuckingever.
I began to manifest a better life over a week ago and whilst I didn’t expect to see a steep upward trajectory immediately, I certainly didn’t expect a steady deterioration. I may only have secured a C in maths GCSE but even I can tell the direction of a line and this line is going down. Down. Down. Down.
Honestly, I’m at the point where I may have to reconsider Monty. Maybe I’ll message him again…
How has tonight ended up being so spectacularly awful?
Well. Let me break it down.
SUPPER (Saturday 31 December, 7pm)
Supper at Astrid and Aziz’sstartedwell, once I’d made the trek over to Chiswick. Arrie and Roger had left the twins with his parents and so were unusually light and sort of carpe diem in that sightly desperate free-pass way of trying to prove they were still fun. They’re not. But they are less un-fun without the twins. Arrie doesn’t do so much sudden shouting, and occasionally doesn’t stare at Roger with contempt. And Roger was already pissed when he arrived, which I thought was a good call, and continued drinking in a committed fashion.
Aziz wasn’t there yet – he’d been doing something at the university – but Astrid managed to be hospitable enough and made sure everyone had glasses and wine and nuts, although she’s not exactly relaxing company.
Mum and Dad were also on decent form – another one of Mum’s friends had broken a hip and Mum still hasn’t broken anything which gives her a sense of superiority. And Dad has printed some flyers for his men’s support group which he’s planning to run in the new year, and the anticipation of showing these to Aziz was keeping him in his element. He was so cheerful he even gave me an extra £100 cash along with the £100 from Aunty Margaret and promised not to tell anyone. So, I’d be having more than a couple of drinks out with Drunk Stephen tonight after all!
Astrid and Aziz’s house is spacious and calm and cool and has honey-coloured wooden floors throughout the three storeys, and white cast-iron fireplaces, and a massive modern kitchen extension at the back overlooking green lawns – you almost feel like you’re not in London. Arguably, living in Chiswick, you’re not. They have Daylesford soap in the bathrooms and an absence of clutter. And after the horrors of the rats and the frightful little models in Drunk Stephen’s flatmate’s room, it felt like stepping into another world.
So, as we all sat around the huge white table on our Philippe Starck chairs (apart from Astrid who was finding it hard to sit still), the candlelight reflecting in the vast roof light, and Roger keeping everyone’s glasses fully topped, it all felt quite pleasant and I remembered why I like being with my family.
Until Astrid starting grating courgette and when I casually checked whether she was helping prep for Aziz to cook, she said she’d made the whole meal herself. Everyone exchanged surreptitious, slightly panicked looks, mentally calculating whether they’d eaten enough calories earlier to sustain them. Thank goodness I’d had a Mars bar on the way over. In a rare moment of solidarity, Roger passed Arrie the nuts. Aziz came back and then things got offbeat. Firstly, he clearly wasn’t expecting the rest of us to be there. Then, rather than joining us at the table he asked Astrid if he could have a quick word with her.
But Astrid just pinged her wine glass and said she had an announcement to make and as most of us were here she was going to get on with it. Obviously she’s always rude but normally Aziz seems unbothered by it. Today he looked the closest to pissed off I’ve ever seen. And for a second I wentinto a complete panic because Aziz did not have the face of someone who was about to become a father, and if they weren’t announcing that, whatwerethey announcing? I love Astrid but I also love Aziz and I don’t even want to contemplate a life where they’re not together.
Then Astrid said that she’d been doing some hard thinking and that she was stepping down as partner from the law firm.
