Off the Rails

A Story by Fredfredfred

This is a bit of an autobiography, although some details have been changed

Dad gave me a wink, like we were pals or something. I never thought of my dad that way, like a friend. He was the man who always told me not to smoke, not to drink, to stay away from boys and to be home on time. Of course I defied his every instruction, let him down at every given opportunity. But things must be different now, we must be friends! I must be a grown up. I bloody well should be at the ridiculously grown up age of thirty, though I have never felt like one, I don’t suppose I ever will.

This wink came about during a visit to Canada where he has now emigrated to. I was there with my husband (I know, as if I got married!) and even more shockingly; with my two-year-old son! I am a wife and mother and I still feel and act like an eighteen-year-old girl, well that what I think anyway, that’s what I like to think. Dad had taken us out for the day and my little cherub of a son was playing up big time! Kicking, screaming, the lot! I was in full mum mode barking orders at him then flipping to nice-mum when that didn’t work, from the outside I imagine it would have looked like some sort of good-cop bad-cop routine played out by one schizophrenic maniac, it probably would make for good entertainment if you like those new-age one-woman theatre performances where she basically has a total breakdown on-stage. That wasn’t what my dad was winking at, no, I can’t imagine he’d approve of that kind of behaviour (neither mine nor my son’s). The wink came after my final attempt of shutting my boy the hell up; I walked away. Something I’d never done. I walked into the nearest ‘après ski’ establishment and ordered a glass of wine, on my own. I left Dad and Fred to deal with my offspring. They followed me. I wonder how long they watched me sat sobbing into my wine on my own before one of them dared approach me, I wonder if they drew straws to decide who would deal with me whilst the other sorted Oliver out. I imagine it was my Dad who drew the short straw as it was him who eventually took the stool next to mine and put an awkward, yet loving, hand on my shoulder. Poor Dad, he never handled emotions too well and neither did I! It could have been an opportunity for a really good heart to heart but no I decided to tell a knock knock joke instead. Me; Knock knock, Dad; who’s there, me ‘Aneedap’ Dad ‘Aneedap who’. You’re laughing aren’t you! If so we can be friends. And instead of having the big heart to heart that I’m sure most therapists would say we desperately were in need of; we laughed and laughed until I felt strong enough to face my husband again and my son, who I love, more than my own life. And as I picked my red-faced angel up, abandoning my wine which I hadn’t touched, dad winked at me, the way you see father Christmas winking on the adverts. So that’s it, we must be best mates now right?

“There you go, making up lies again.”. That’s what they told me. I was aged 16 and at a house party, I went to lots of those, got blind drunk on alcopops and over-shared with anyone who’d listen. My friends seemed to have such normal lives, boring but easy. Mine in comparison was outrageous, they felt sorry for me, I always thought because my life and my family were so dramatic but tonight I learnt that wasn’t the case. They didn’t believe me, they thought I was a compulsive liar. This one particular night my elder brother was at the party and I was nothing but an embarrassment to him. Slurring out our darkest secrets to anyone and everyone, of course he was happy to confirm their suspicions that is was nothing but the vivid imagination of a warped minded little girl, I wish it was. Greg and I dealt with it in different ways, I think that is one of the biggest differences in those from Venus and those from Mars, we like to share they like to lock it away in a box, bury it in the sand, imagine it decomposes and eventually becomes so diluted by the good and the normal that it ceases to exist. That was what made Greg hate me so much, I was his constant reminder of the reality of our lives, I refused to just let him be a man and bury his head. So when I was being my usual train wreck of a human spilling my guts about what had came to light earlier that day, my girlfriends took the opportunity to air their long-held belief that I am a compulsive liar, Greg joined in. I will tell you what I told them: Earlier that evening I was having a drink of wine with my mum, I know I was sixteen and I’m sure most mothers wouldn’t condone under-age drinking but in comparison to other moments of her’s this was feeling like quite a lovely mother-daughter moment, we were like best friends, I think we had dirty dancing on the telly, it was nice. But the conversation took a particularly ugly turn that night. My mother and I were talking about her wilder days. It surprised me to learn that she could possibly get any wilder than she was. She told me that in her teens she and her husband at the time (my dad) had wife-swapped with my dad’s brother (my uncle) and his wife, as we got into the conversation her tone changed. She stopped sounding like a giggly girl at a sleepover sharing with her mates how many ‘bases’ she had gone to with the boy next door. My mother has two faces, she is two people, when she changes you can literally see her becoming a different person, she starts to look evil and her tone becomes aggressive. Experience told me she was not safe to be around but something made me need to hear the end of this story. Thankfully she didn’t go into the gory details of it. “And then nine months later you were born” was how it ended, it was said in a hateful voice, she wanted this to hurt me. A psychic once told me that my mother wants to love me, but she can’t, she was never taught how to love by her own parents, that is what I now put it down to.

A confused, drunk, hormonal teenage girl, I told my dis-believing friends what mother had told me, in the presence of my furious brother (un-be-known to me, he was behind me). I felt my head jerk back so hard it gave me whip-lash. Someone had hold of my hair. I didn’t know at the time it was Greg.