Intimations of Mortality - 20
Intimations of Mortality - 20
Being a series of random but loosely connected musings on my life, the world I have lived in and what the future - what's left of it - may hold.
As I mentioned briefly last time, Tony and I did have a modest social life. We were invited to boutique openings, new range launches, small local fashion shows. Sometimes even comped tickets for touring band gigs, with backstage access and post-gig party invitations.
Luckily, I was still under the illusion that I was in love with Tony. And, yes, I know being in love is itself an illusory state of mind. Whatever else it meant, it made it easy for me to turn down the additional layer of invitations, not extended to Tony, to join some sweaty musical face in his dressing room or bedroom for "afters".
I look back now, think, "I could have been famous!" And I could have been drugged up, washed out and dead at twenty two. I think I've been famous enough.
Not that I didn't indulge a little later, when I was a little wiser, a little tougher and a lot more determinedly single.
But, back then, Tony was all I wanted.
Almost.
Our relationship wasn't exactly transactional but we both represented something to the other, a pathway to advance our dreams. Tony was established professionally in the fashion field. He won commissions for national mags and the press, doing promo work for certain design houses. I was his model. Using me was cheaper than having to hire a more established name. And I was new, a fresh face (and body).
So, symbiotic? Parasitic? It was, for the time being, mutually advantageous. But it could be only a matter of time before the fine balance of advantage tipped too far in one direction or the other.
Our first crisis - well, mine to be honest, and far from my first - came just after my eighteenth birthday. I was, by law, an adult. As was every other eighteen year old in the realm. But it would have been hard to tell. Nothing happened as the second hand swept past midnight. I turned into neither rat nor fairy. I woke early on that Tuesday morning with no hint of sudden maturity. No Damascene revelation that I was on the wrong road, that it was time to put aside my childish dreams. Society had a place for me, one worthy of my status and qualifications. Stacking shelves in my local Tesco, trying to ignore the assistant manager's hand up my skirt while he helped me replenish the higher displays. Fucked, pregnant, married without ceremony. On the list for a damp, noisy Council cave in a brutal tower block.
My dreams may have been childish, but they still appealed to me.
I don't know who started it. Honestly, I don't. It was me or it was my father. Maybe something my mother said triggered one or the other of us. A nice modern word that, "trigger" - we would probably have said something like "set us off" - but trigger is what it was. Or wasn't.
Anyway, it was a couple of days after my birthday. I was up early, as was my habit, getting ready to go to work. My father was doing the same, my mother fussing around him as usual, as if he could not survive the day without this extra layer of anxiety she loved to slather all over him, basting him in her worries.
In our separate desires to escape my father and I made repeated attempts to simultaneously occupy the same part of the kitchen. Between two people with a good relationship, it would have been comic. For us, it was a series of sparks, each brighter, each closer to the powder. Bang!
He was shouting at me or I was shouting at him. We were both shouting at the world. Just for the sake of shouting. Harsh truths were exchanged, at unnecessary volume. At one stage, I noticed my older sister's head appear around the kitchen door and quickly disappear again. My mother tried to intervene and was told to mind her own effing business.
Finally, my father grabbed me by the arm. I could tell he was angry beyond control. His fingers dug into my bicep.
"I'll deal with you when I get home tonight!" He almost spat in my face.
And to his departing bulk, I spat back.
"You can fucking well try!"
Being a series of random but loosely connected musings on my life, the world I have lived in and what the future - what's left of it - may hold.
As I mentioned briefly last time, Tony and I did have a modest social life. We were invited to boutique openings, new range launches, small local fashion shows. Sometimes even comped tickets for touring band gigs, with backstage access and post-gig party invitations.
Luckily, I was still under the illusion that I was in love with Tony. And, yes, I know being in love is itself an illusory state of mind. Whatever else it meant, it made it easy for me to turn down the additional layer of invitations, not extended to Tony, to join some sweaty musical face in his dressing room or bedroom for "afters".
I look back now, think, "I could have been famous!" And I could have been drugged up, washed out and dead at twenty two. I think I've been famous enough.
Not that I didn't indulge a little later, when I was a little wiser, a little tougher and a lot more determinedly single.
But, back then, Tony was all I wanted.
Almost.
Our relationship wasn't exactly transactional but we both represented something to the other, a pathway to advance our dreams. Tony was established professionally in the fashion field. He won commissions for national mags and the press, doing promo work for certain design houses. I was his model. Using me was cheaper than having to hire a more established name. And I was new, a fresh face (and body).
So, symbiotic? Parasitic? It was, for the time being, mutually advantageous. But it could be only a matter of time before the fine balance of advantage tipped too far in one direction or the other.
Our first crisis - well, mine to be honest, and far from my first - came just after my eighteenth birthday. I was, by law, an adult. As was every other eighteen year old in the realm. But it would have been hard to tell. Nothing happened as the second hand swept past midnight. I turned into neither rat nor fairy. I woke early on that Tuesday morning with no hint of sudden maturity. No Damascene revelation that I was on the wrong road, that it was time to put aside my childish dreams. Society had a place for me, one worthy of my status and qualifications. Stacking shelves in my local Tesco, trying to ignore the assistant manager's hand up my skirt while he helped me replenish the higher displays. Fucked, pregnant, married without ceremony. On the list for a damp, noisy Council cave in a brutal tower block.
My dreams may have been childish, but they still appealed to me.
I don't know who started it. Honestly, I don't. It was me or it was my father. Maybe something my mother said triggered one or the other of us. A nice modern word that, "trigger" - we would probably have said something like "set us off" - but trigger is what it was. Or wasn't.
Anyway, it was a couple of days after my birthday. I was up early, as was my habit, getting ready to go to work. My father was doing the same, my mother fussing around him as usual, as if he could not survive the day without this extra layer of anxiety she loved to slather all over him, basting him in her worries.
In our separate desires to escape my father and I made repeated attempts to simultaneously occupy the same part of the kitchen. Between two people with a good relationship, it would have been comic. For us, it was a series of sparks, each brighter, each closer to the powder. Bang!
He was shouting at me or I was shouting at him. We were both shouting at the world. Just for the sake of shouting. Harsh truths were exchanged, at unnecessary volume. At one stage, I noticed my older sister's head appear around the kitchen door and quickly disappear again. My mother tried to intervene and was told to mind her own effing business.
Finally, my father grabbed me by the arm. I could tell he was angry beyond control. His fingers dug into my bicep.
"I'll deal with you when I get home tonight!" He almost spat in my face.
And to his departing bulk, I spat back.
"You can fucking well try!"
61-69, F
