Wedding Night

She starts off all brave and positive. She refuses to admit anything is wrong. She goes days, maybe weeks, without cracking, a smile lodged on her face, and people who don’t know her say, “Wow, Lottie coped with the breakup really well.”
    Until the delayed reaction happens. Which it does, every time. In the form of some impulsive, outrageous, total fuckwit gesture which makes her feel euphoric for about five minutes. Each time, it’s something different. A tattoo on herankle; an extreme haircut; an overpriced flat in Borough that she then had to sell at a loss. Membership of a cult. An “intimate” piercing which went septic. That was the worst.
    No, I take it back, the cult was the worst. They got six hundred pounds of her money and she was still talking about “enlightenment.” Evil, preying bastards. I think they circle London, sniffing out the newly dumped.
    It’s only after the euphoric period that Lottie finally, properly cracks. And
then
it’s into the weeping and the days off work and “Fliss, why didn’t you stop me?” And “Fliss, I hate this tattoo!” And “Fliss, how can I go to my GP? I’m so embarrassed! What will I dooooo?”
    I privately call these post-breakup fuckwit actions her Unfortunate Choices, which is a phrase our mother used a lot while she was alive. It covered anything from a dodgy pair of shoes worn by a dinner-party guest to my father’s eventual decision to shack up with a South African beauty queen. “Unfortunate choice,” she would murmur, with that glacial stare, and we children would shiver, thanking our lucky stars it wasn’t
us
who had made Unfortunate Choices.
    I don’t often miss my mother. But sometimes I wish there was another family member I could call on to help pick up the pieces of Lottie’s life. My dad doesn’t count. First of all, he lives in Johannesburg. And, second, if it’s not a horse, or offering him a glass of whiskey, he’s not interested in it.
    Now, listening to Lottie babble on about sabbatical programs, my heart is sinking. I can sense another Unfortunate Choice looming. It’s out there somewhere. I feel as though I’m scanning the horizon, my hand shading my eyes, wondering where the shark will surface and grab her foot.
    I wish she would just curse and rant and throw things.Then I could relax; the madness would be out of her system. When I broke up with Daniel, I swore obscenely for two solid weeks. It wasn’t pretty. But at least I didn’t join a cult.
    “Lottie …” I rub my head. “You know I’m off on holiday tomorrow for two weeks?”
    “Oh yes.”
    “You’ll be OK?”
    “Of course I’ll be
OK
.” Her scathing tone returns. “I’m going to have a pizza and a nice bottle of wine tonight. I’ve been meaning to do that for ages, actually.”
    “Well, have a good one. Just don’t drown the pain.”
    That’s another of our mother’s sayings. I have a sudden memory of her in her pencil-slim white trouser suit and green glittery eye shadow. “Drowning the pain, darlings.” She’d be sitting at the bar in that house we had in Hong Kong, cradling a martini while Lottie and I watched, in our matching pink dressing gowns flown out from England.
    After she’d gone out, we would intone the phrase to each other like some kind of religion. I thought it was a general toast like “Down the hatch,” and shocked a school friend many years later, at a family lunch, by raising my glass and saying, “Well, drown the pain, everyone.”
    Now we use it as a shorthand for “getting totally trashed in an embarrassing manner.”
    “I will
not
be drowning the pain, thank you,” retorts Lottie, sounding offended. “And, anyway, you should talk, Fliss.”
    I may have drunk a few too many vodkas after Daniel and I split up, and I may have made a long speech to an audience of curry-house diners. It’s a fair point.
    “Yes, well.” I sigh. “Talk soon.”
    I put the phone down, close my eyes, and give my brain about ten seconds to reboot and focus. I have to forget Lottie’s love life. I have to concentrate on the awards ceremony. I have to finish my speech. Now. Go.
    I open my eyes and swiftly type a list of people to thank. It goes on for ten lines, but better safe than sorry. I email it to Ian, headlined
Speech! Urgent!
and leap up from my desk.
    “Fliss!” As I leave my office, Celia pounces on me. She’s one of our most prolific freelancers and has the trademark crow’s feet of the professional spa reviewer.