Free The Bricks That Built the Houses by Kate Tempest Page B

Paula was; drunk, loud, and usually outrageously flirtatious with bewildered men. Becky was sitting in the front room watching the telly. Paula was leaning in the doorway.
    Paula had suffered a crushing blow that morning. For the past three months she had been desperately trying to find contact details for her old workmates and commissioning editors, and had at last tracked down the mobile number of Katarina Raphael, once a photojournalist like her, but now the picture editor at British
Vogue
. Paula had counted Katarina as a friend some fifteen years before, but they hadn’t spoken in over a decade, although Paula had been watching Katarina’s progress from afar. Katarina’s recent well-publicised promotion had fuelled Paula’s latest attempt at stirring the ashes of her career. But Katarina had not remembered Paula. She had not remembered Paula’s name, Paula’s voice or Paula’s photographs. She had told her that she was sorry, but Paula must have dialled the wrong number.
    ‘I don’t want to go ice skating.’ Becky wouldn’t look up from the TV; she was watching an American high-school sitcom.
    ‘You used to love it.’ Paula held on to the wall, watched her daughter staring at the screen.
    ‘I’m happy just sitting here, Mum. I’m tired.’
    ‘You just want to watch TV all day?’
    ‘Yeah.’ Becky shrugged. Annoyed at the interruption.
    ‘We hardly see each other any more, Rebecca.’ Paula walked over and stood in front of the TV. ‘Let’s go out.’ Her words baggy from drink. ‘Let’s go look at the photos in the Portrait Gallery.’
    Becky looked up at her mum, spoke firmly, her voice tired. ‘I don’t want to.’
    Paula started pacing backwards and forwards in front of the TV. Shaking her head. Breathing heavily. She gritted her teeth behind her pursed lips.
    ‘Can you let me just watch this, Mum? I like this programme.’ Becky weaved from side to side, trying to see round her mum. Paula saw what Becky was doing and stood firmly in front of the screen, trying to catch her daughter’s eye. Becky looked down at the carpet. ‘It’s only on once a week.’
    ‘NO!’ Paula shouted. She turned the TV off, and stood victoriously in front of it with her hands on her hips. She stared at Becky, eyes burning, but Becky didn’t look up. Becky sat very still on the sofa and tried to count the individual strands that made up the carpet.
    Paula walked towards her and leaned down into her face. ‘Are you not even going to look at me, Becky?’ she asked, her voice calm, but her movements jagged.
    ‘Mum,’ Becky moaned. ‘Muuuum, please.’ She turned her head away.
    Paula raised an extended finger. Spoke at a dramatic volume. ‘I gave my life up for you,’ she began.
    Becky rolled her eyes and sat back into the sofa, huffing in exaggerated boredom. ‘Heard it all before,’ she sang, covering her face with a cushion.
    ‘Your Dad and you. I could have had a life of my own. But I gave everything up, and look where it’s got me . . . You don’t even talk to me any more. And
him
?’ Her dressing gown billowed as she thrust her hands about, her underwear visible, the curtains open.
    Becky heard him referred to and tears came to her eyes. She breathed them back without her mother seeing, and shrivelled inside to think of the neighbours. She watched Paula’s face contort and squash and puff.
    ‘Your precious fucking father.’ Paula’s hair was sticking out madly from her head; it was always wild before she tamed it with products and special brushes and rollers. Her skin was stretched and thin at the edges of her face, blue lines appearing beneath the surface.
    Becky looked at her mother and saw a monster. She cowered down into the sofa, hoping she’d never end up looking like that. Paula stood, one hand on her hip, the otherholding her head. Her dressing gown was open, her boob was hanging out of her night slip. Becky’s stomach pushed itself out of her belly button and sprinted for the